He stole over $1 million in chips – then checked himself into casino’s hotel to live like a king.

How a Madrid workshop is perfecting the art of copying imperiled art, from Egyptian tombs to Renaissance paintings.

After thousands of birds vanished overnight from a Florida refuge, conspiracy theories bloomed.

The writer recalls collaborating on an abandoned musical with David Bowie featuring aliens, (fake) lost Bob Dylan songs, and a mariachi band.

A dispatch from the Philippine capital, where “no one will be safe until many, many more have died.”

A father and his 9-year-old daughter watch Harvard play Yale in football.

Fast cars and bad decisions in a race through Southern Europe known as the “Gumball 3000.”

How A+E’s CEO is navigating the new TV environment with hit shows like “Duck Dynasty.”

What a secret audio tape revealed about the murder of mycologist and magic mushroom pioneer Steven Pollock.

On a parent’s relationship with unused embryos.

Confessions of a serial husband.

An animal's corpse disrupts a humdrum workday in this early story by Eleanor Catton, the winner of this year's Man Booker Prize.

The gospel according to nine-year-olds; a missionary group that won the right to evangelize in schools and how children process their message.

An interview with a Mexican-born American attorney who defended and eventually smuggled for the cartels in the ’90s.

On director Steve McQueen and his film 12 Years a Slave.

What happened when 21-year-old Taiwan Smart became the target of both police and a reality TV show.

After eight women are murdered in Louisiana, what was initially thought to be the work of a serial killer becomes something much more troubling.

How a disgraced principal-turned real estate mogul helped cause the global financial crisis.

The author gets a crash course in health care pricing after having his urethra fixed.

The author goes in search of his father’s days as a member of an elite club of sport parachutists.

A profile of computational biologist Eric Schadt, the guy who’s figuring out what comes next after the Human Genome Project.

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

How the tapping of Angola’s natural resources has kept the country a killing field, and made it one of the world’s most glaringly inefficient kleptocracies.

A review/interview/profile:

Let's settle on the bald facts: Eminem has secured his place in the rap pantheon.

A profile of Steve Carell, whose last appearance as Michael Scott in The Office airs tonight.