A profile of Jill Abramson from her first weeks as executive editor of The New York Times.

A holiday tradition in the Netherlands involving blackface has sparked a debate about race, the legacy of slavery, and the vestiges of colonialism.

The rise and murderous fall of the Harkey family, the scions of a pecan dynasty.

David Simon and Richard Price, two of the greatest crime storytellers of our time, talk about their craft.

After decades of failed revitalization strategies, a town of 10,000 tries another.

The dissolution of Brooklyn softcore skin-mag Jacques and the marriage of the couple that created it.

A story of endurance in the face of unimaginably brutal conditions.

The night when Terry Thompson let his zoo-worthy collection of big animals, including lions and a bear, into the wilds of Zanesville, Ohio before shooting himself in the head.

A group of Long Island misfits with aspirations towards Satanic worship disappeared into the woods to take mescaline. One of them never came back.

On the enduring political influence and entrenched racism of the Greek system at the University of Alabama.

On the escape of hundreds of insurgents from Kandahar’s Sarposa Prison through a tunnel dug from the outside, and an unlikely suspect: the jail’s former warden.

A profile of life in Owsley County, one of the poorest in the country.

The story of a deadly collision on the D.C. Metro, told from surviving passengers’ point of view.

Pitching a no-hitter in the middle of a multi-day acid bender was only one of Dock Ellis’ many amazing exploits.

On public radio and the emerging genre of shows inspired by This American Life.

How an aging trio of Irish ‘travelers’ criss-crossed America in a mobile home conning Home Depot out of over $1 million.

In the feral communities of Russia’s Far East, tiger poaching is among the few lucrative pursuits. This is the story of a tiger who fought back.

On Huck Finn, the book Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word, and the evolution of language and race in America.

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.

Inside Friends of Abe, one of Hollywood’s most influential (and most discreet) political organizations.

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

On the obsession with the sexual and social habits of American teenage girls.

Chipotle once fed the equivalent of the population of Philadelphia every day. Then the E. coli outbreak happened.

The bloody reign of Rodrigo Duterte, who was elected President of the Phillipines in May.