The railroad foreman’s brain was pierced by a tamping iron. He lived to tell the tale.

How a bipolar diagnosis follows you from the top to the bottom of professional basketball.

How the Gingrich-era brain drain crippled the government and led to last year’s shutdown.

A 2011 profile of LeBron James, originally meant to run in Port, that was killed by Nike.

On Singapore’s attempt to create a more harmonious society using mass surveillance and data analysis.

“What transpired in the streets appeared to be a kind of municipal version of shock and awe.”

On the anger that led to the Watts Riots of 1965, the mistakes made during those six days in August, and how little changed afterward.

Established media companies used to sue YouTube. Now they’re betting on it.

Elon Musk’s dreams of colonizing Mars.

On the seminal songwriter, who died four years ago today, in his final days before succumbing to dipsomania.

The story of John Laroche, which led to Orleans’ The Orchid Thief, and tangentially, the film Adaptation.

How a group of farmers came to believe that their relatives were returning from the grave.

A torrid phone sex affair begins with a random call in a motel and ends a year later with a face-to-face meeting.

Each year, thousands of people pay to play eighteen holes of golf at Angola, “the largest maximum-security prison in the country.”

Trevell Coleman wasn’t sure whether he’d killed a man. But after 17 years, he needed to find out.

The story of a rookie clinging to his dream, as told by his uncle.

Baseball legend Lenny Dykstra’s on-field brilliance and private-life disasters, from drunk driving to failed investment and publishing ventures.

The activists, politicians, and social trends that led to 2012’s gay marriage victories.

From pinball prohibition in 1940s NYC to Dave & Buster’s, the rise and fall of the American arcade.

A trip to CES, “what a World’s Fair might look like if brands were more important than countries.”

In search of the former boxing champ, who refuses to believe he has HIV.

The White House’s unprecedented crackdown on reporters.

A Hells Angel informant’s path from destruction to redemption and back, and a family’s trouble with witness protection.