The macabre, ultra-violent plays put on at the Grand Guignol defined an era in Paris, attracting foreign tourists, aristocrats, and celebrities. Goering and Patton saw plays there in the same year. But the carnage of WWII ultimately undermined the shock of Guignol’s brutality, and audiences disappeared.

On the set of Afghanistan’s first soap opera and at home with its cast.

The world’s population is rapidly getting older. How China and other countries stocked with young workers are taking advantage.

How a London con man turned a struggling painter into a master forger, sold more than 200 fakes, and exposed the art industry as its own worst enemy.

A rare co-mingling between Hasidic Jews and their Crown Heights neighbors within Brooklyn’s ‘Basil Pizza & Wine Bar.’

Notes from the California recount.

A one fire, one goat, many cooks experiment.

If the fittest survive, why are so many people still depressed? An evolutionary theory on the benefits of painful rumination.

Ten years ago, a pair of legendary TV executives decided it was time to change the formula for football broadcasting. One bet on Dennis Miller. The other bankrolled Vince McMahon and the XFL.

A new strain of educational thought (and practice) involves embracing the technology of the moment - which means bringing video games into the classroom.

Movies about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have failed to connect with viewers, but video games on the topic have broken sales records.

A profile of Viktor Bout, believed to be the largest arms trafficker in the world. A Russian who bought his first cargo planes at age 25, Bout has been in the news recently after being arrested in Thailand.

Long before he lied about taking steroids and was indicted for perjury, Clemens was just a good ol’ boy from Texas with a world-class workout regimen.

Tabloid newspapers were caught hacking into the voicemails of Prince William and Prince Harry. One reporter was arrested - but an investigation shows the eavesdropping was far more elaborate and widespread.

Thirty years ago, few people had ever heard of ADD. ‘Early onset depression’ might become a common diagnosis long before 2040.

The number one item confiscated by U.S. customs for four years in a row: fake shoes. As brands continue to crack down, counterfeiters continue to up their game.

A psychological theory emerges to explain why young Americans are taking a while to grow up.

A new Egyptian TV channel called 4Shbab—“for youth” in Arabic—aims to get young people interested in Islam through music videos and reality shows.

There is someone whose job it is to try to extract royalty money from anyone who plays music in a place of business. Most people do not react well to this request.

A reporter heads to Nauru, a tiny island nation in the Pacific, to track down the hub of a worldwide money-laundering operation—a shack filled with computers, air-conditioners, and little else.

When members of China’s massive bulletin-board forums perceive wrongdoing, they form a “human flesh search engine” and seek out real world vigilante justice.

The Appleseed Project is ostensibly a traveling marksmanship school - but what else is it teaching?

Kids are identifying as gay at younger ages, sometimes only 10 or 11. Their communities and parents are scrambling to adapt.

When one of the best young chemists in the world took his own life, Harvard was forced to reconsider the relationship between PhD students and their (often Nobel Prize-winning) advisers.

John Friend, who founded a new school of yoga, says the practice should be about both exercise and spirituality. Oh, and making money.