On the Miss America pageant.

On the discovery of a billion dollars worth of artwork looted by Nazis in the cramped apartment of a Munich recluse.

The story of Robert Quinones:

Fifteen months of carnage in Iraq had left the 29-year-old debilitated by post-traumatic stress disorder. But despite his doctor’s urgent recommendation, the Army failed to send him to a Warrior Transition Unit for help. The best the Department of Veterans Affairs could offer was 10-minute therapy sessions — via videoconference. So, early on Labor Day morning last year, after topping off a night of drinking with a handful of sleeping pills, Quinones barged into Fort Stewart’s hospital, forced his way to the third-floor psychiatric ward and held three soldiers hostage, demanding better mental health treatment.

Life for women in the trucking industry.

How Bert Schneider, a well-heeled Hollywood producer with a coke problem and a soft spot for radical politics, smuggled Huey Newton, the leader of the Black Panthers who was awaiting trial on a murder charge, into Cuba in 1974.

Alan Young has been running the same scam for years: posing as a member of The Temptations and smooth-talking his way into luxury hotel rooms and prostitutes. Despite his clear charm, he admits he has “no skills other than being a con man.”

Behind the scenes of Conan vs. Leno. An excerpt from The War for Late Night.

Dandenis Muñoz Mosquera, a.k.a. “La Quica,” was one of Pablo Escobar’s top killers. Now he’s in a maximum security prison in Colorado. Here’s the thing: for all his crimes, La Quica may not have committed the one that put him away.

The Arctic permafrost is thawing, revealing millions of buried mammoth skeletons. But the rush for mammoth ivory could put elephants in danger all over again

Brazilian businessman Zero Freitas has amassed the world’s largest collection of records, the majority of which have never been digitized.

The appearance of an ultra-rare Boba Fett with the missile rocks the insular world of Star Wars toy collectors.

"Look, people's lives are people's lives, and some of them can't cope or be as organized as some of us might like. But it's only in the area of sex that we get involved in the ethics of promoting risk-taking, the idea that we should withhold information or devices because we don't want people to need them. Would you make the same argument about cholesterol drugs? Saying, If we give people a drug that will reduce cholesterol, they won't be as likely to exercise and eat properly like they really should?"

A profile of cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter, who has spent the last 30 years trying to replicate the human mind.

On the legal history of LSD in America and a researcher who never gave up on the drug’s promise.

Ripping out the guts of an “utterly preposterous document”: the Starr Report on the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Slumdog Millionaire, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and the arrival of “New India” in the American imagination.

On the elegance and utility of the rice cooker.

A profile of Rafael Pérez, an infamously corrupt LAPD officer and the inspiration behind the Vic Mackey character on The Shield.

“Poor white Americans’ current crisis shouldn’t have caught the rest of the country as off guard as it has.”

How the “biggest grow op willing to publish its address” could make Canada an international pioneer in the legalization and commercialization of weed.

The director of The Exorcist visits the Vatican’s 91-year-old in-house exorcist in Rome.

The Department of Energy is in chaos and it is putting the world at risk.

The organization’s leadership is focused on external threats, but the real crisis is of its own making.

The W.N.B.A. is putting on some of the best pro basketball in America.