Vanity Fair

House of War

After Ramush Haradinaj led Kosovo’s bloody fight for independence from Serbia, becoming provisional prime minister, he was tried for war crimes by the U.N. tribunal in The Hague. In a clash of 21st-century justice and 15th-century laws, Haradinaj came out the winner.

Rules of Engagement

On November 19, 2005, in Haditha, during Kilo Company's third tour of duty in Iraq, a land mine planted by insurgents exploded beneath a Humvee, killing a 20-year-old Marine. What happened next—the slaughter of 24 Iraqi men, women, and children—was not entirely an aberration. These actions were rooted in the very conduct of the war.

Nightmare in Neverland

While Michael Jackson was whisked away to detox treatment, the star's lawyers fought a desperate battle to protect him from facing the sexual-abuse charges brought by his 13-year-old accuser. MAUREEN ORTH untangles the whole painful story to provide the definitive account of Jackson's fall, and in it finds a late-20th-century parable of manipulation, corrupted fantasy, and lost innocence

East Side Alien

Frederick von Mierers told his elite followers—among them top models and yuppies—that he was from the star Arcturus, here to neutralize "the dark forces." They bought his pitch—and the gems he said would make them New Age lords and duchesses.