On the mysterious disappearance of a beloved coding legend (and his code) with stops along the way for a short history of programming languages, an ethnography of code-based communities, and an inquiry into what it means to “die young without artifact.”

Three killings, three young accused killers, and the two homicide detectives that link them.

A near future with racial voting restrictions and questionnaires.

The American medical experiment in Guatemala that left hundreds with STDs.

A mysterious cache of documents could prove that a man serving a life sentence for homicide was framed by corrupt Alabama authorities—if the documents, and the man, can be believed.

After two people are found dead in Yellowstone National Park, a team of investigators tracks down the unlikely culprit: a grizzly bear.

Colossal corruption. Political chaos. The worst recession in its history. How a once-booming nation fell.

How a sexual assault case in Idaho involving refugee children morphed into an anti-refugee frenzy.

The story behind Tony Kushner’s examination of AIDS and homosexuality.

Trump’s key adviser is a lobbyist known for reinventing tyrants.

What it’s like to write about a candidate who hates you.

The unexpected history of a name.

How a detachment of U.S. Army soldiers smoked out the original Ku Klux Klan.

Melissa Cook is carrying triplets for a man she has never met, conceived with an egg that isn't hers. He only wants two of them, but won't let her keep the third. So she is suing, in the hopes that the court will arrive at a new meaning of parenthood.

“There are critics who see their job as to be on the side of the artist, or in a state of imaginative sympathy or alliance with the artist. I think it's important for a critic to be populist in the sense that we’re on the side of the public. I think one of the reasons is, frankly, capitalism. Whether you’re talking about restaurants or you’re talking about movies, you’re talking about large-scale commercial enterprises that are trying to sell themselves and market themselves and publicize themselves. A critic is, in a way, offering consumer advice.”

The humans behind the algorithm.

On the false narratives of anorexia.

What it was like to be a rank-and-file Sony employee after the hack.

He created the template for contemporary hit-making, made Ace of Base the biggest group in the world, and mentored the most successful songwriter since the Beatles. Why have you never heard of Denniz Pop? Excerpted from The Song Machine: Inside the Hit Factory.

We think of the character as lithe and slim as the actors who’ve played him. But Shakespeare might not have intended him to be that way.

The tale of the first conviction overturned on faulty arson science.

To reduce recidivism, a program brings criminals face to face with their victims. The results aren’t always what you’d expect.

A trip to the writers’ room of The Onion spinoff, which started as a BuzzFeed parody but has morphed into something else: “the institutional voice of the Internet.”

The 1826 kidnapping – and murder – that begat America’s obsession with Masons.

An essay on its history and future during a time when “gayness, we are told, is over.”