The Democratic Republic of the Congo has some of the largest deposits on Earth. Its President wants to sell them—and win a war.

Last year, for my birthday, my wife gave me a copy of “ I Remember ,” an unusual memoir by the artist Joe Brainard. It’s a tidy little book, less than two hundred pages long, made entirely from short, ...

As I.R.S. employees toil through tax season, their agency is being dismantled by the government it powers.