A profile of the Mexican newsweekly, a lone voice in reporting on the narcos.

The story behind the story that ended Dan Rather’s career.

On the Daily Mail’s dominance of England.

A profile of Rebekah Brooks, who started as a secretary at News of the World and became CEO of News International by 41, developing an incredibly close relationship with Rupert Murdoch along the way.

The history of Pitchfork and its prescient take on the relationship between culture and consumption.

On the mysterious disappearance of a beloved coding legend (and his code) with stops along the way for a short history of programming languages, an ethnography of code-based communities, and an inquiry into what it means to “die young without artifact.”

An exposé of Internet Marketers.

The story of a bizarre—and bizarrely effective—smear campaign.

In a dark echo of Rear Window, a wheelchair-bound hacker seizes control of hundreds of webcams, most of them aimed at young women’s beds.

Why the future feels frozen in time, as framed by Marshall McLuhan (“We look at the present through a rear-view mirror. We march backwards into the future.”) and William Gibson (“The future is already here; it is just unevenly distributed.”)

Searching for Dave Chappelle ten years after he left his show.

A few days in the life of Miley Cyrus.

An ode to Saunders.

A visit to Star Axis, a desert art installation that connects you to the cosmos.

On photographer Garry Winogrand and the unedited archive of more than half a million exposures he left behind.

The Supreme Court justice on the Devil, among other topics.

Pope Francis introduces himself.

The interview that kicked off the season of Kanye.

How at least one person still makes lots of money off books.

The writer re-emerges after more than a decade.

A long vacation to the Siberian wilderness.

How the corpses of Hitler’s victims haunt modern science.

When New Yorkers lived knee-deep in trash.

How the Hollywood publicity racket evolved.

What people have eaten when they’ll never eat again.

A profile of Jordan at 50.

The girlfriend who wasn’t and everyone who bought it.

Bobby Riggs, the mob and “The Battle of the Sexes.”

The life and sudden death of NASCAR’s Dick Trickle.

How sports channels extort cable subscribers.

A series of mysterious, dangerous interactions in a bathhouse.

A series of linked fantasies, veering from the whimsical to the grave.

The appearance of a “mole man” reflects the past and realities of a hardscrabble town.

A party game drives a woman to reflect upon a history of manipulation.

Greek heroes and gods roam suburban America.

From 1976 to 1986, one of the most violent serial criminals in American history terrorized communities throughout California. He was little known, never caught, and might still be out there. The author, along with several others, can’t stop working on the case.

William Sparkman Jr., a census worker, was found hanging from a tree in rural Kentucky. He was naked, hands bound, with the letters “FED” written across his chest. Inside the investigation into how—and why—he died.

After a botched bank robbery in 1990, Sture Bergwall, aka Thomas Quick, confessed to a string of brutal crimes. He admitted to stabbings, stranglings, incest and cannibalism. He was convicted of eight murders in all, and after the final trial he went silent for nearly a decade. But a few years ago, Bergwall came forward again—there was one more secret he had to tell.

How a killer and his teenage accomplice used listings for “the job of a lifetime” to lure their victims, all down-and-out single men, to the backwoods of Ohio.

The haunted past of Amy Bishop, a University of Alabama neurobiologist who shot six colleagues during a staff meeting.