How dangerous is the media company that Steve Bannon called “the platform for the alt-right”?

On disposing of a dead sea lion, and the pitfalls of memory.

Iran’s sex-obsessed old guard reacts to a state where “the majority of the population is young.… Young people by nature are horny. Because they are horny, they like to watch satellite channels where there are films or programs they can jerk off to.… We have to do something about satellite television to keep society free from this horny jerk-off situation.”

The author on why he belives in God (“It makes things better”), the perils of writing high (“Annie Wilkes is cocaine, she was my number-one fan”) and what he thinks of other writers (“Hemingway sucks, basically”).

The story of mediatakeout.com, a gossip site with a monthly audience of 16 million and a loose relationship with the truth.

400,000 Wiki-leaked reports that confirm the minute-by-minute misadventures of a “military at war with its own inner demons” in the unforgiving terrain of Iraq.

A technical, thrilling account of how Pinboard, a tiny bookmarking service, dealt with the fire hose of new users after news leaked that Yahoo would discontinue Pinboard’s massive rival, Delicious.

The story of one man’s descent into lies and illegal activity – and why it could so easily happen to any of us.

Visiting the site of the Chernobyl meltdown.

Blockbusters in the age of “corporate irony.”

The behind-the-scenes publishing saga of Joseph Heller’s 1961 novel.

On Jeff Bezos, Amazon, and the genesis of the Kindle.

The rewards and pitfalls of selling haunted objects.

Looking for the ghosts of the Allman Brothers Band in Macon.

The art of the voiceover.

Exploring the darkest corridors of the Internet.

An autopsy of the San Jose Mercury News.

A history of the fowl.

How smallpox went from eradicated disease to the ideal weapon of bioterrorists.

On the underground doctors unleashing the healing powers of hallucinogens.

On the new art of interrogation.

The billionaire founder of Renaissance Technologies turns to science.

How Fortnite became the Instagram of gaming.

The secret lives of Facebook moderators in America.