Due to global warming, this island nation may cease to exist in 20 years.

How our efforts to illuminate the nighttime are dangerous to Earth’s biodiversity.

To save William Buttars’s life, his parents had to risk it.

What it means to stay true to the Steve Jobs brand.

Why all soccer fans should root for Holland to lose to Spain.

Strangers want their past relationships witnessed, and other strangers come to Zagreb to witness them.

The last thing child-welfare supervisor Chereece Bell wanted to see was what happened to 4-year-old Marchella Pierce. The last thing she expected was to go to jail for it.

She wanted to escape her marriage. He wanted to escape his life sentence.

How a police organization transitioned from a social club to an obstacle to reform.

To his friends and family, Ross Ulbricht was a compassionate, warm soul known for random acts of kindness. To the F.B.I., he was Dread Pirate Roberts, the mastermind behind the Silk Road who was willing to order hits to protect his black market operation.

What did $3M paid to a US consulting firm get Qaddafi? A glowing profile in The New Republic, written by a Harvard professor, who travelled to Tripoli to interview him. On the consulting company’s dime. Which he failed to disclose.

An ode to aging.

On a convict too young to vote but old enough to be strapped to a chair.

From our guide to the death penalty at Slate.

Billionaire Marcelo Claure wants to help David Beckham bring professional soccer to South Florida. He just doesn't want to talk about it.

As divided families argued over whether to stay or go, Jones saw part of his congregation slipping away. Al Simon, father of three, wanted to take his children back to America. "No! No! No!" screamed his wife. Someone whispered to her: "Don't worry, we're going to take care of everything." Indeed, as reporters learned later from survivors, Jones had a plan to plant one or more fake defectors among the departing group, in order to attack them. He told some of his people that the Congressman's plane "will fall out of the sky."

Dinner with the novelist, the book critic and “Myshkin, a 14-year-old female dachshund who is deaf but decidedly not mute.”

Sallie Belling was an inspirational figure in her community for having overcome a childhood of abuse, drugs, and prostitution — a childhood her sister Rachel says is pure fiction.

“Professional boxing is the only major American sport whose primary, and often murderous, energies are not coyly deflected by such artifacts as balls and pucks.”

“Why do people laugh when tickled? Why can’t you tickle yourself? Why are certain parts of the body more ticklish than others? Why do some people enjoy tickling and others not? And what is tickling, after all?”

“If I were a bitch, I’d be in love with Biff Truesdale. Biff is perfect. He’s friendly, good-looking, rich, famous, and in excellent physical condition. He almost never drools.”

In 1916, a pair of 29-year-old women, bored with their lives in Upstate New York, took teaching jobs in a remote area of the Rocky Mountains. This is the story of what they found.

Louis C.K. has a deal unlike anyone else’s on TV: his network, FX, has no approval rights and offers no notes. He is also the show’s lone writer, editor, director, and star. A profile.