In the small coastal country, an exploding industry has led to big economic promises, and a steep environmental price.

A conversation with Prince.

The rise of the “wildly lucrative” herbal incense business, and the downfall of one company.

The strange saga of Sarah Phillips, who went from message board commenter to ESPN gambling columnist and hid her identity from editors, scamming many of the people she met along the way.

In 1959, a social psychologist in Michigan brought together three institutionalized patients for an experiment:

[W]hat would happen, he wondered, if he made three men meet and live closely side by side over a period of time, each of whom believed himself to be the one and only Jesus Christ?

When the people of Flint, Michigan, complained that their tap water smelled bad and made children sick, it took officials 18 months to accept there was a problem.

“Four mornings a week Murray Kempton, the Huckleberry Finn of American journalism, climbs onto his bicycle and pedals out into the world in search of what may be there. For more than thirty years he has been finding things other writers have not even thought to look for, and he has done so with a compelling humanity that is rare not just in his profession but in the human race as well. I have followed him as he made his regular rounds, and I have eaten at his table, and I am not all that certain that he is not the greatest man I have ever met.”

An oral history of the day oil prices went below zero for the first time in trading history.

How John Kiriakou, a public opponent of US torture policy, became the first CIA officer convicted of leaking classified information to the press.

A murder case in Mississippi catches the eye of amateur sleuths on Facebook, who proceed to harass everyone involved in the case.

Long considered a punchline, vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves.

An Alabama woman took the equivalent of one Valium during her pregnancy. A few weeks after she gave birth, she became one of more than 1,800 new and expecting mothers arrested under the state’s chemical endangerment law.

Why are we still involved?

American anti-trafficking groups often make impossible-to-verify claims. Now, they’re doing it in the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Paramedics pick up the pieces on the Texas-Mexico border.

On the rodeo.

Not all that long ago, as the editor in chief of Gawker.com, Daulerio was among the most influential and feared figures in media. Now the forty-two-year-old is unemployed, his bank has frozen his life savings of $1,500, and a $1,200-per-month one-bedroom is all he can afford. He's renting here, he says, to be near the counselors and support network he has come to rely on lately.

On May 12, 2014, Nicole Holder told Charlotte police that she had been assaulted by Greg Hardy. He was arrested, charged, and convicted. Then the case was dismissed on appeal. After a season out of the league, Hardy is playing for the Dallas Cowboys. Owner Jerry Jones has called him a “real leader.”

This is the story, and the photos, of what happened that night.

The uneasy dance of the architecture critic, the big-name architect, the towering new building, and the city beneath it.

Tales of mayhem on the set of The Canyons.

The post-election life of the woman who would have been president.

On former CIA agent John T. Downey, who spent more than 20 years in China as the longest held American captive of war.

A profile of Jon Stewart, who’s now run The Daily Show for more than a decade.

A profile of the New York Times White House correspondent.

You’re not supposed to just vanish at Vortex Spring. Dive too deep and you might not make it back to the surface, but a search party will eventually find your body. Nobody has found Ben McDaniel yet.