In the era of cord-cutting and mobile viewing, ESPN is at the crossroads.

San Francisco’s forgotten serial killer.

Is the genetically engineered chestnut tree an act of ecological restoration or a threat to wild forests?

The case against a notorious cat burglar, who is accused of stealing more than $12 million worth of the South’s finest sterling silver.

The prosecutor in the case of hacker turned F.B.I. informant (but still hacker) Albert Gonzales and his organization Shadowcrew : “The sheer extent of the human victimization caused by Gonzalez and his organization is unparalleled.”

Ricky Rodriguez was born in the role of the messiah. His father was David Berg, the leader of the polygamous/incestuous cult The Children of God, which published a book documenting his early life:

In 1982 a shop in Spain printed several thousand copies of a book that was then distributed to group members around the world. Bound in faux leather, illustrated with hundreds of photographs, the 762-page tome meticulously chronicled Ricky's young life and was intended as a child-rearing manual for families. Its title, The Story of Davidito, was stamped in gold. With its combination of earnest prose and unabashed child pornography, it is perhaps the most disturbing book ever published in the name of religion.

Eventually, he left the cult and found work as an electrician. But revenge called him back.

To this day, no one (outside of the movie's own crew) knows how the Muppets rode bicycles in The Great Muppet Caper, the classic Henson movie from 1981. In that scene, Kermit stands up on one frog-leg on the seat of his bicycle to impress Miss Piggy, and then the whole gang joins them on their bikes, doing circles and figure eights, singing “Couldn’t We Ride?” It's a wonderful piece of filmmaking, and still a complete delight to watch because the effect relied on the ingenuity and bravado of the puppeteers and crew, not CGI wizardry. Contrast the joy and ebullience of this scene to the elegant chiaroscuro slickness of the post-Henson Muppet Christmas Carol in which we see old fogies Statler and Waldorf, as the Marley brothers, floating in mid air. No viewer is impressed; no one really thinks about it at all. And that's because when a then 29-year-old Brian Henson directed that film, he threw the rules out the window. Statler and Waldorf “float” because Goelz and Nelson, the men working the old guys, were standing behind them during filming and then were removed in post production. It’s an elegant fix—a cutting of the Gordian knot—but it is a complete break with an aesthetic 35 years in the making.

The American yam is not the food it says it is. How that came to be is a story of robbery, reinvention, and identity.

On William H. McMasters, who ten days after being hired as Charles Ponzi’s publicist wrote a scathing exposé in The Boston Post that revealed the biggest fraud, at the time, in American history.

The Lyme-disease infection rate is growing. So is the battle over how to treat it.

Prenatal testing is changing who gets born and who doesn’t. This is just the beginning.

Is creativity in our genes? A self-made scholar’s search for the answer.

Irina Pavolva is trying to steer the Brooklyn Nets through a rough patch. Will she make it?

The work of Doctors Without Borders is in jeopardy.

“Football as we know it is done, because the lawyers are here.”

“The first thing I always notice… is that I’m not alone.”

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.”)

The city of New York is suing a Long Island woman for making NYPD T-shirts. But is it really about money or controlling the brand?

The Wing is a private members’ space for women that claims to be an ‘accelerator’ for feminist revolution in the US – and now it’s coming to the UK. But how progressive is it really?

After a member of the Church of Wells abruptly left the group (which may or may not be a cult), many held out hope. A week later she went back, and the church’s elders are eager to explain why.

Previously: Sinners in the Hands

The name Shecky can vacillate from noun to verb to adjective. The opinion of every comedian during that gilded age of show business, whether they were Republican Bob Hope or hipster Lenny Bruce, is that Shecky Greene was the wildest of them all. The craziest of them all. Most importantly - the funniest of them all.

A dispatch from Vermont, which is in the midst of what the governor calls a “full-blown heroin crisis.”

A Little League season in Camden, New Jersey, where the murder rate is 17 times the national average.

How the ski town of the super-rich is responding to global warming.