On Chuck Lorre, creator of the #1 (Two and a Half Men) and #2 comedy on American television, former cruise ship guitarist, composer of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme song, and recently antagonist of Charlie Sheen.

Driving cross-country in a chemical tanker.

Manny Ramirez is a deeply frustrating employee, the kind whose talents are so prodigious that he gets away with skipping meetings, falling asleep on the job, and fraternizing with the competition.

How a herbalist who used to swim naked with Allen Ginsberg became one of conservative talk radio’s most vicious—and listened to—hosts.

How Lalit Modi built a billion-dollar cricket empire—only to be exiled from his sport and homeland.

Did A.Q. Khan sell nuclear secrets on the black market? The fame had unbalanced him. He was subjected to a degree of public acclaim rarely seen in the West—an extreme close to idol worship, which made him hungry for more. Money seems never to have been his obsession, but it did play a role.

The unlikely ascent of A.Q. Khan, the scientist who gave Pakistan the Bomb, and his suspicious fall from grace.

The story of Dean Corll and his accomplices, who killed over 20 teenage boys in the Heights neighborhood of Houston in the early 1970s, and the families searching for their missing sons.

In the 1880’s, a shabbily dressed man popped up in numerous America cities, calling upon local scientists, showing letters of introduction claiming he was a noted geologist or paleontologist, discussing both fields at a staggeringly accomplished level, and then making off with valuable books or cash loans.

On January 27th in Lahore, an American named Raymond A. Davis stopped his Honda Civic and shot two Pakistani men, then made a failed attempt to flee. Beyond those basic facts, little is agreed upon, and the murders have ignited a diplomatic crisis, which only intensified with the revelation that Davis was a CIA subcontractor.

An undercover report on Afghanistan’s drug-smuggling border police that is now heavily used for intelligence training.

A first-person account of the author’s time spent volunteering with a group of Burmese activists in Thailand, who turn out to be not Korean but in fact Karen, members of Burma’s persecuted ethnic minority. In the course of her time there, they show her videos of their risky forays across the border, and she shows them MySpace.

The perilous routes through which information—video footage, secret documents, radio broadcasts—flow in and out of North Korea through its porous borders with China.

Memories of the author’s teenage years, when his father pulled up stakes on a comfortable life in Baltimore to reinvent himself as the head of a S&L bank in Los Angeles.

The definitive story of a ubiquitous software. PowerPoint’s origins, its evolution, and its mind-boggling impact on corporate culture.

The challenges facing the historians of the internet.

She was last seen leaving a pickup bar, her body was found the next morning in the dirt beside a football field. He was ten. Thirty-six years later, the author investigates his mother’s murder.

The American medical establishment has gone to extraordinary lengths—some of which read like conspiracy theory—to discredit the notion (and its most visible promoter, Dr. Atkins) that carbohydrates, not fat, are the cause of obesity. It looks like they were wrong.

“The entire system set up to monitor and regulate Wall Street is fucked up. Just ask the people who tried to do the right thing.”

On 30 years of Long Island politics.

The story of three months spent training reporters in Saudi Arabia, where the press is far from free. “I suspected that behind the closed gates of Saudi society there was a social revolution in the making. With some guidance, I thought, these journalists could help inspire change.”

Brooklyn, Illinois has one of the most dense clusters of strip clubs and rubdown parlors in the entire country, drawing patrons from nearby St. Louis and its suburbs. Inside the clubs with the dancers, a strip club scholar, the mayor, and the regulars whose dollars keep the depressed local economy afloat.

During his 35 years as a member of the Church of Scientology, Oscar-winning writer and director Paul Haggis went “all the way to the top.” The story of why he left, and what happened once he did.

On Sam Cooke, theme parties, and the importance of McDonald’s-related jingles when street performing.

The Bohemian Grove is an exclusive, all-male club made up of Presidents, ambassadors, and other world leaders, with a 33 year waiting list for membership. Their booze-soaked annual retreat outside of San Francisco had never been infiltrated—until this story.