A father took his 10-year-old fishing. She fell in the water and drowned. It was a tragic accident—then he was charged with murder.

Newt Gingrich turned partisan battles into bloodsport and now he’s reveling in his achievements.

On the revolutionaries, highly-paid negotiators, former spies, foreign businessmen and their families, who all played roles in the massive Colombian kidnap and ransom industry during its 1990s heyday.

The angel saving jumpers on an infamous bridge in China.

Mike Postle was on an epic winning streak at a California casino. Veronica Brill thought he had to be playing dirty. Let the chips fall where they may.

There’s no way to confirm that a crop was grown organically. Randy Constant exploited our trust in the labels—and made a fortune.

Afternoons with Altman and Allen.

For a year or two during the mid-1970s, living in New York, I was a moviegoer. I was in my early 20s then, working off and on, driving a cab, setting up the stage at rock shows, writing occasional pieces for The Village Voice. But there were also long empty spells. I tried to write some fiction and couldn’t, tried to read and could—but only for so long. I ended up going to the movies.

Privacy, memory, data and advertising—how the modern web has become a Ponzi scheme and how we might be able to fix it.

Adriaan Vlok, a former apartheid leader, seeks redemption.

Fat doesn’t make us fat. So why has science led us to believe otherwise?

Texas’ modern day cattle rustlers and the twenty-seven lawmen who track them.

“I grew up idolizing my brother. Then he killed a man.”

The Southern Baptist church, which has its origins in a split over slavery, at an election-year crossroads.

Humans play. So do animals. Perhaps that’s why we’re all here.

A 16-year-old journalist goes on tour with a band on top. The article that inspired Almost Famous.

The Civil War started 150 years ago today. A primer on how and why.

How slot machines snuck into the mall, along with money laundering, bribery, shootouts, and billions in profits.

The author was living in a friend’s basement after a bad breakup, unable to eat. Then he had lunch with Jacques Pépin.

Inside one woman’s often conflicted world.

A man in a small town in India builds local power by owning the only computer in his village.

Mamoru Samuragochi’s story turned out to be too good to be true.

One man’s quest to witness the “Bison Cull” in Yellowstone National Park.

Lessons learned about white-collar crime from an economist turned bagel salesman whose business relied entirely on the honor system.

How the author became tangled up with an international con man who may or may not have murdered several people.