Audrey Elrod thought she had found the man of her dreams. Today she is in a West Virginia prison. She’s broke. And the court has ordered her to pay more than $400,000 to victims of the same man who conned her.

“The tragedy of digital media isn’t that it’s run by ruthless, profiteering guys in ill-fitting suits; it’s that the people posing as the experts know less about how to make money than their employees, to whom they won’t listen.”

Inside a transport service for “problem” children:

In his first year of business, [Rick Strawn] escorted eight teens to behavior modification schools. Since then, his company has transported more than 700 kids between the ages of 8 and 17.

An abridged history of violence in "America's first suburb."

Note: Elon Green is a contributing editor to Longform.

How the U.S. government used a serial con who was caught running a mail-order steroid pharmacy in Mexico to prove that Google was knowingly placing ads for illegal drugs.

In Torreón, north of Mexico City, cartel gunmen are freed from a prison, commit a massacre at a wedding that includes the band, and then return to custody.

It started with a vague tip-off: a tug boat approaching the UK could be transporting cocaine. What followed was a race against the clock to find £500m in narcotics

How the children of African immigrants came to control the destiny of teams in France and Belgium and what it says about European identity.

These women want the right to compete in big-wave contests—and get paid as much as men do.

Upon returning to my hometown, though, some twenty-odd years after that bus ride, I kept seeing signs that perhaps, even in rural Appalachia, the times had changed.

Joseph James DeAngelo Jr., known as the Golden State Killer, is alleged to have murdered 13 people in California during the 1970s and 1980s. He also raped 50 women. He’ll stand trial for the murders only.

For years, Mark Zuckerberg has faced criticism that Facebook is bad for democracy. A cache of leaked audio reveals the story of how much ultimately comes down to his judgment—and the forces freezing him in place.

The economic devastation wrought by the coronavirus has led to enormous food insecurity across America—even in its richest cities.

Jai Alai once packed Florida’s frontons with gamblers and glamor. Today, America is down to a single top-level pro who plays under the name Tevin in honor of Tevin Campbell.

Shai Agassi had nearly $1 billion in funding and a dream to replace gas guzzlers with electric cars. All he was missing was a plan.

“Kelsey’s gender identity is ‘non-binary.’ Or, ‘agender.’ It’s what Kelsey feels comfortable with, even though the world keeps insisting, in a million little ways, that Kelsey has to choose.”

On Luddites, “bands of men, organized, masked, anonymous, whose object was to destroy machinery used mostly in the textile industry,” and their literary spawn.

Nancy and Frank Howard were happily married for three decades. Then he fell in love with another woman, embezzled $30 million, and hired a parade of inept hit men to kill his wife.

“We need a new language for talking about poverty. ‘Nobody who works should be poor,’ we say. That’s not good enough. Nobody in America should be poor, period.”

In 2007, NBA ref Tim Donaghy pleaded guilty to betting on games he officiated. But it was never proved that he fixed them—until now.

An oral history of the day oil prices went below zero for the first time in trading history.

Lauren spent six years of her childhood locked in a closet, starved and tortured by her birth mother and stepfather. Miraculously, she survived; that’s when her long road to recovery began.

They were cousins who grow up in Raqqa amidst parties, beaches, even bikinis. They married ISIS fighters to protect their families, then became morality policers.

A charming assistant funeral home director named Bernie Tiede murders a wealthy widow, keeps her in a freezer for months, finally gets caught, and still has the town's sympathy as his case goes to trial. The story that became Richard Linklater's Bernie.

Residents have lived near more than 100 massive petroleum storage tanks for decades, never really knowing if they’re breathing in dangerous chemicals. Now they’re fighting to find out.