A pilgrimage to J.D. Salinger’s New Hampshire home:

The silence surrounding this place is not just any silence. It is the work of a lifetime. It is the work of renunciation and determination and expensive litigation. It is a silence of self-exile, cunning, and contemplation. In its own powerful, invisible way, the silence is in itself an eloquent work of art. It is the Great Wall of Silence J.D. Salinger has built around himself.

How cable sports channels extort hundreds of dollars per year out of every cable subscriber for programming that less than 10% regularly watch.

Joe Arridy had an IQ of 46. In 1939, he was executed for a crime he neither understood nor committed.

For years, a mysterious figure has been stealing books before their release. Is it espionage? Revenge? Or a complete waste of time?

The story of a sheriff’s deputy in Minnesota who took his own life.

"If anything happens to me," Ruettimann said, "give this to the reporter." After Ruettimann's death, Hereaux took the file down off his desk. Inside was a thick stack of loose-leaf documents, a manila folder stuffed with letters, and a catalog-size clasp envelope labeled "Reports." Written in black permanent marker in the margin of the envelope was the reporter's name: mine.

In 1980, a bankrupt gambler came up with a plan to get his money back. He built an incredibly complex bomb, one that was impossible to defuse and that only he knew how to move, and snuck it into a Lake Tahoe casino with an extortion note demanding $3 million. Part of the plan worked. Part of it did not.

On the shootings, and the response, in Baton Rouge, Falcon Heights, and Dallas this summer.

How the Syrian president stays in power.

A filmmaker goes to court to fight the television commercial break.

A weekend with the only person on Earth who can survive five venomous snakebites in 48 hours.

“And the Holocaust trumps art every time.”

A refugee survives the Rwandan genocide and finds a future in Atlanta.

The Tacoma Refugee Choir founder didn’t anticipate its impact on her—or her city.

John Ackerman has spent millions procuring a majority of the known caves in Minnesota, which add up to dozens of miles of underground passageways and likely make him the largest cave owner in the U.S. He collects and charts them in the name of preservation, but his controversial methods have created many opponents.

How Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and his Airbus A320 landed safely in the Hudson.

A travelogue through the contradiction-rich and predominantly Muslim Southern Thailand.

He wants you to know one thing: He’s not even angry.

Thea Hunter was a promising, brilliant scholar. And then she got trapped in academia’s permanent underclass.

To understand the state’s urban-rural divide, start by looking at Yamhill County’s proposed walking trail.

Since she first started working in the hospitality industry two decades ago, Vida Afram has cleaned nearly 60,000 hotel rooms.

Scientist George Price discovered an equation for altruism. First he let go of his possessions. Then he took his own life.

The author visits Franklin County, Mississippi, where, according to census data, there are zero same-sex couples.