Flint residents mold their lives around a perpetual water crisis and endless unanswerable questions.

There is no script for losing a spouse in your 30s.

“What follows is my attempt, based on a few increasingly hostile exchanges and a close reading of his terrible book, not only to examine why Mariotti is currently jobless but to explain why, in a sane world, he should forever remain that way. I present this as a cautionary tale for other sportswriters, both young and old.”

Tracking a rumored gerbil infestation through China’s bureaucracy.

On Bruce Springsteen’s song, and growing up in a factory town.

A strange, ongoing property battle among the richest of Texans.

A profile of Montana Senator Jon Tester.

How a team of 40 engineers helped reelect Barack Obama.

How a woman who couldn’t stop sleeping woke up.

A master troll on trial in New Jersey.

How a burgeoning tech workforce swallowed San Francisco.

Confessions of a Sweet Valley High ghostwriter.

Diary of a veteran gadfly.

An investigation into a scholarly hoax.

The sole survivor of a 1966 shipwreck tells his tale.

“I love my mother a not-normal amount.”

Adventures in the cosmetics department of a Neiman Marcus in Dallas.

An investigation into widespread criminal fraud at a generic drug company.

Wandering a Detroit reduced to “crackhouses and churches” with “outlaw biker Jesus” Pastor Steve.

The story of a tobacco industry whistleblower.

A profile of the greatest checkers player of all time.

A profile of Stevie Nicks.

How one driver can break a bottleneck.

How a corporate network engineer became one of Aleppo’s most prolific weapons manufacturers.

After a botched bank robbery in 1990, Sture Bergwall, aka Thomas Quick, confessed to a string of brutal crimes. He admitted to stabbings, stranglings, incest and cannibalism. He was convicted of eight murders in all, and after the final trial he went silent for nearly a decade. But a few years ago, Bergwall came forward again—there was one more secret he had to tell.