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.”

“Some of the best lines — and I’ve been lucky to hear really nutso lines over the years — are not in response to any kind of question. It’s in response to, ‘I don’t know.’”

Helg Sgarbi had perfected the art of seducing, swindling, and blackmailing ultra-rich women across Europe. Fleecing a billionaire BMW heiress should have been the crowning achievement of his career.

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

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.

On Erzsébet Báthory, the first—and still most prolific—female serial killer.

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.

Lauren spent six years of her childhood locked in a closet, starved and tortured by her birth mother and stepfather. Miraculously, she survived; that’s when her long road to recovery began.

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.

Alan Young has been running the same scam for years: posing as a member of The Temptations and smooth-talking his way into luxury hotel rooms and prostitutes. Despite his clear charm, he admits he has “no skills other than being a con man.”

Behind the scenes of Conan vs. Leno. An excerpt from The War for Late Night.

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.

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.

How junk arson science convicted a mother of killing her own daughters.

On living with the internet.

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.

"Look, people's lives are people's lives, and some of them can't cope or be as organized as some of us might like. But it's only in the area of sex that we get involved in the ethics of promoting risk-taking, the idea that we should withhold information or devices because we don't want people to need them. Would you make the same argument about cholesterol drugs? Saying, If we give people a drug that will reduce cholesterol, they won't be as likely to exercise and eat properly like they really should?"