An unlikely friendship bloomed in Oxford, Mississippi between a 30-year-old drug dealer and a college-bound teen after a chance meeting at a hotel pool. Then the dealer began to suspect that his friend was one of the 30 or so confidential informants that Metro Narcotics recruits from around the college town each year.
One prison’s efforts to rehabilitate captured members of Boko Haram.
An essay on “how we ignore the long-term effects of violence on children, adults and our communities.”
A former prostitute turned arctivist and her taxi-driver husband go undercover in Iraq’s brothels.
The photographs that Caesar, a Syrian military photographer, smuggled out of Assad’s death dungeons.
An oral history of Gucci Mane’s many rises and falls.
Dolphins may have the capacity for mourning, and elephants sometimes bury their dead.
The life of a high-wire impresario.
The most successful songwriter of the last twenty years is a forty-four year old Swede, Max Martin.
Dr. Joel Dreyer was a respected psychiatrist. Then he took a sudden turn to a life of drug dealing. Medicine might be able to explain why.
A band's tour problems range from bedbugs to internal strife.
Ed Houben, a self described “ugly man,” has sex with multiple women each week, sometimes two in one day. The women, often accompanied by their husbands, are trying to get pregnant.
The producer of Big Star’s Third and piano player on ‘Wild Horses’ recounts a life of music in Memphis.
The adventures and controversies of the avant-garde poet Kenneth Goldsmith, who believes plagiarism is an art form.
The ragtag group of fighters from America and Europe who joined the fight against extremists in Syria don’t seem to know what they are doing.
A map of the Queen of Cookbooks’ rise to power.
Jessica Hopper is editor-in-chief of the Pitchfork Review and the author of The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic.
“I have an agenda. You can’t read my writing and not know that I have a staunch fucking agenda at all times.”
Thanks to MailChimp, Blue Apron, and Fracture for sponsoring this week's episode.
Tracking the slayings that shocked Sweden.
Controversy following a climbing disaster that killed eight.
A profile of Business Insider CEO and editor-in-chief Henry Blodget.
The Maryland man who houses antique feminine hygiene products.
Inside the paranoid world of Nike headquarters, where people are worried that Adidas might finally be capable of taking over the sneaker industry.
The police told Lara McLeod to report her rape. Then they arrested her for lying.
The murder of Tayshana “Chicken” Murphy in the Harlem projects.
Hanging out with the Atomic Bombshells in Provincetown, Massachusetts.
