How MSG became “perhaps the most infamously misunderstood and maligned three letters in the history of food.”

On Westmont College, a “feeder school” to the upper ranks of the Christian conservative movement.

“Turns out your laptop—or camera or gaming system or gold necklace—may have a smidgen of Congo’s pain somewhere in it.”

Filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón and his four years of production on Gravity.

They advertise murder for hire but work for the government. Inside the world of America’s fake hit men.

The war between Major League Baseball and Alex Rodriguez, “fought with six-figure payoffs in the tanning salons and strip malls of South Florida.”

“Americans find it hard to believe that foreigners are unalterably foreign, for they have seen generations of immigrants who became Americans.”

A bungled operation in Honduras and the enduring ineffectiveness of America’s war on drugs.

It comes from the soil of the desert Southwest. Inhaled, it can cause incurable, even fatal illness. And, thanks to global warming, valley fever is spreading fast.

After nine months of striking out, Chris McKinlay decided to change his online dating strategy. It worked.

Trying to understand the appeal of Eve Online.

A profile of former club kid Michael Alig, who is approaching release after serving 17 years in jail for murder.

An investigation into the practice of putting teenagers in solitary confinement.

There are 45,000 service members missing in action from WWII and other wars who experts say are recoverable. Last year, the U.S. brought home 60 of them.

The story of “the biggest retail hack in U.S. history.”

Three Americans are held hostage in Iran for two years, much of it spent in solitary confinement.

She believed she had survived the worst time of her life. But there was more to come.

Summiting one of the world’s toughest peaks gave Julian Torres something an IED blast in Afghanistan had taken away.

Riding through Detroit with the author of The Turner House.

What went wrong when a group of canyoneers was caught by a flash flood in Zion National Park.

Behind a Muslim community in northern Wyoming — and 20 percent of all Muslims in the state — lies one very enterprising man.

Across the world, millions of displaced Syrians have been met with hesitation and hostility. Not in Canada.

A profile of comedian Leslie Jones, who made Saturday Night Live after 25 years as a road comic.

The state attorney, who prosecuted Marissa Alexander and failed to convict George Zimmerman, has put hundreds of children behind bars.