Bill Donahue is a writer living in Portland, Oregon.

Kateri Tekakwitha was a seventeenth-century Mohawk Indian and a Roman Catholic ascetic who slept on a bed of thorns. On December 19, 2011, Pope Benedict XVI credited her with causing a miracle. She will soon be named a saint. But what exactly does that mean? How does someone become a saint? And why is a con artist Italian friar who faked his stigmata wounds already a saint?
Edited by Laura Hohnhold.

Searching for the ghost of Russian novelist Mikhail Lermontov (1814-41) in the Caucasus Mountains of Georgia. Edited by David Rowell.

A journey through a Russian client state on the Black Sea. Edited by Christopher Cox.

Mongolia strikes it rich on gold and coal. Edited by David Rowell.

The Elwha was dammed a hundred years ago. The river’s salmon runs all but ceased. Then late in 2011, the feds began tearing down the river’s two dams, to the delight of the Lower Elwha Klallam Indians, who have fished the river for centuries. Edited by David Rowell.  

When a few stalks of rogue, genetically modified wheat sprouted on an Oregon farm, dire secrecy ensued. The US Department of Agriculture would not disclose the whereabouts of the wheat, which had never been approved for human consumption. Monsanto, which engineered the seeds, was likewise keeping mum. So I began searching. Edited by Brad Weiners.