In the summer of 1982, three Waco teenagers were savagely murdered for no apparent reason. Four men were ultimately charged with the crime. One was executed, two others were given life sentences, and a fourth was sent to death row only to be released after six years. They all may have been innocent.

Under the cover of curing addicts, they beat and brainwashed their charges in basements across California. When a cult deprogrammer crossed them, he found a rattlesnake in his mailbox.

Dandenis Muñoz Mosquera, a.k.a. “La Quica,” was one of Pablo Escobar’s top killers. Now he’s in a maximum security prison in Colorado. Here’s the thing: for all his crimes, La Quica may not have committed the one that put him away.

Before I learned about beauty, I delighted in my body. I sensed a deep well at my center, a kind of umbilical cord that linked me to a roiling infinity of knowledge and pathos that underlay the trivia of our daily lives.

How moonlight drives life in the ocean.

A small town in Nebraska promised a warm welcome to a family of Katrina evacuees. It didn’t last.

A profile of cognitive scientist Douglas Hofstadter, who has spent the last 30 years trying to replicate the human mind.

Ripping out the guts of an “utterly preposterous document”: the Starr Report on the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

On the elegance and utility of the rice cooker.

A profile of Rafael Pérez, an infamously corrupt LAPD officer and the inspiration behind the Vic Mackey character on The Shield.

“Poor white Americans’ current crisis shouldn’t have caught the rest of the country as off guard as it has.”

In 1912, 300 miles deep on a trek into the uncharted Antarctic wilderness, Douglas Mawson lost most of his crew and supplies. The story of how he got back.

A profile of personal finance guru Dave Ramsey, who built his biblically inspired get-out-of-debt empire on the premise “it’s within your power to not take part in recessions and the economic troubles facing American families.”

Mexico City has one of the most ambitious and sophisticated video surveillance systems in the world. But it hasn’t stopped crime.

How the Kremlin built one of the most powerful information weapons of the 21st century — and why it may be impossible to stop.

The death of a submissive man-pup and the scrotal silicone injection that killed him.

On the chaotic letters of journalist and Dr. Strangelove screenwriter Terry Southern.

How Bert Schneider, a well-heeled Hollywood producer with a coke problem and a soft spot for radical politics, smuggled Huey Newton, the leader of the Black Panthers who was awaiting trial on a murder charge, into Cuba in 1974.

After nearly a year in Afghanistan—during which almost half of their unit was killed or injured—paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne have one more mission before they go home.

Bill Ackman’s hedge fund planned to make a fortune while doing good by exposing Herbalife as a scheme that preyed upon and lied to the poor. How one of the highest profile stock shorts in market history went awry.

Another inmate was unable to complete his application, and assented to voluntary departure, in which an immigrant agrees to leave the country at his or her own expense. “You’ll be on your way back to Mexico today,” said the judge.

Todd Marinovich was engineered from birth to be the greatest quarterback of all time. He ended up doing heroin in the locker room. A 2010 National Magazine Award winner, reprinted on Longform.

The story of Robert Quinones:

Fifteen months of carnage in Iraq had left the 29-year-old debilitated by post-traumatic stress disorder. But despite his doctor’s urgent recommendation, the Army failed to send him to a Warrior Transition Unit for help. The best the Department of Veterans Affairs could offer was 10-minute therapy sessions — via videoconference. So, early on Labor Day morning last year, after topping off a night of drinking with a handful of sleeping pills, Quinones barged into Fort Stewart’s hospital, forced his way to the third-floor psychiatric ward and held three soldiers hostage, demanding better mental health treatment.

A Thanksgiving story about the limits of human empathy.

Transporting an instrument after a death in the family.