A caller poses as a policeman and convinces McDonald’s managers to strip-search a female employee. It’s not the first time.

On the group of friends who came to rule the bizarre, decreasingly lucrative world of Internet porn.

A look at what it takes to protect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when he’s in New York City.

How J.C. Penney gamed Google and became the top result for searches on everything from “area rugs” to “skinny jeans.”

On two gay men in Pennsylvania who tried, and failed, to build a commune of their own.

Searching for the line between courage and humility on an expedition to Cirque of the Unclimbables, a remote ring of perfect rock-climbing mountains in Canada.

What it’s like to write about a candidate who hates you.

“Nearly half of Americans would have trouble finding $400 to pay for an emergency. I’m one of them.”

An ancient document suggests that Jesus had a wife. But an investigation into its origins leads to … Florida.

The story of the meeting that led to the creation of ISIS, as explained by someone still on the inside.

We like to believe that the blame for wrongful convictions falls on individuals: the racist prosecutor, the crooked cop. It doesn’t always work that way.

Carrie Goldberg is a pioneer in the field of sexual privacy, using the law to defend victims of hacking, leaking, and other online assaults.

A young Brazilian couple from “an impoverished northeastern city that’s been described as ground zero of the Zika epidemic” struggle to care for their daughter.

The little-understood history of the whales and how barnacles may be the key to understanding how giant mammals evolved underwater.

Two bodies wash up in Northern Europe, wearing identical wetsuits. The search for their identities leads authorities to a camp in Calais.

“Irrational behavior has always been man’s reaction to the presence of sharks.”

The article that inspired Jaws.

To date, more than 500 people have been killed by police in America. This is the story of one, Charly Keunang.

On Keith Richards’ autobiography.

There’s some very sensible advice on how to take drugs, too.

Alberto Nisman accused Iran and Argentina of colluding to bury a terrorist attack. Did it get him killed?

The men who are trying to find out if wireless carjacking is possible.

What happens to the people who film famous incidents of police violence.

It was the failed dream of the heir to the Frank-o-Matic sausage-link machinery fortune.

If you’re falsely claiming to have once been a Navy SEAL, Don Shipley will expose you. And then he’ll put the video on YouTube.

No contemporary artist has used natural history to tell the kind of stories that painter Walton Ford tells.