On lucha libre’s exóticos, “wrestlers who dress in drag and kiss their rivals, never quite revealing whether the joke is on their opponents, themselves or conservative Mexican society at large.”

Seventeen-year-old Israel Arenas Durán disappeared after being arrested near his home in Nuevo León. He is one of more than 25,000 who have gone missing in Mexico since 2006.

“‘When I heard the facts,” says Matt Kull, one of DiPaolo’s former climbing partners, “I thought, That’s what Dave is capable of.’”

Why ISIS is winning the social media war.

In a nondescript office park in suburban Florida, a company you’ve never heard of is making a product that few people have ever seen. And it has $1.4 billion in funding.

50onRed is a fixture in Philly’s startup world. But there’s something the leadership didn’t talk about, even with some of its own staff. They make malware.

They are the most celebrated in the U.S. military. But hidden behind the heroic narratives is a darker, more troubling story of “revenge ops,” unjustified killings, mutilations, and other atrocities.

Did a handsome young Green Beret doctor kill his pregnant wife and two daughters? Or, as he claims, did a group of candle-carrying hippies carry out a vicious home invasion while chanting “Acid is groovy, kill the pigs”? A mystery that spanned three decades.

“Does your life have a plot? It has characters. There is a narrative. There’s a lot of story, a lot of character. But plot? Eh, no.”

The author on why he belives in God (“It makes things better”), the perils of writing high (“Annie Wilkes is cocaine, she was my number-one fan”) and what he thinks of other writers (“Hemingway sucks, basically”).

The Academy of Art University in San Francisco is very profitable for the family who runs it. But not so much for the students who attend in hopes of becoming artists.

The dangerous corporate ethos of former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship, who is on trial after an explosion at one of his mines killed 29.

Corey Arthur made headlines after being arrested and convicted in connection with the 1997 murder of his high school teacher. But the story is much more complicated than that.

Prison rape is an epidemic; but the bulk of abuses are not by prisoners themselves, but by guards and other prison workers.

A young black gentrifier gets lumped in with both groups, often depending on what she’s wearing and where she’s drinking. She is always aware of that fact.

Sasha Shulgin, a former DOW chemist who now lives a quiet life as a pensioner outside the Bay Area, is responsible for the discovery of the majority of psychedelic compounds currently known.

Embedded with an Afghan warlord:

This is a local insurgency, often with local causes: a corrupt district governor, predatory police, or abuses by the local militias, the arbakis.

A profile of Arnold Schwarzenegger written during his first year in office as Governor of California:

"You know, the thing I love about Mexican women is how furry their pussies are."

A profile of the up-and-coming comedian just after the cancellation of his VH1 talk show, Late World with Zach. His sentiment at the time: “Hollywood is just such a fucking idiot machine.”

On a decade-long war:

Hackers from many countries have been exfiltrating—that is, stealing—intellectual property from American corporations and the U.S. government on a massive scale, and Chinese hackers are among the main culprits.

In Cleveland, TX, nineteen men and boys gang raped an eleven-year-old girl in an abandoned trailer. This is the story of the victim and her community.

A mine fire in May killed 301 men, making it the worst industrial disaster in Turkish history. This is the story of two men who lived through it.

Ann Casey pulled herself out of poverty by becoming one of the most revered wrestlers in America. Then she was shot by a drug-running truck driver. This is the story of her comeback.

In March 1971, John and Bonnie Raines broke into an FBI office, stealing documents that revealed that the government was spying on its own citizens. Today, they’re hailed as heroes. Is this what the future holds for Edward Snowden?