On the mountain lions of Los Angeles.

On the life and death of Elliott Smith.

On the politics of North Carolina.

The story of a professional assassin.

On feminism and the limitations of outrage online.

The story of Chyna’s final days.

The story of suck.com.

Skiing in the shadow of Mount Everest.

On the intersection of technology and revolt.

New York’s Pastor Parker and his growing string of Liberty Churches, each of which will “adopt the culture of its neighborhood.”

The fall of billionaire Henry Nicholas, co-founder and CEO of microchip-maker Broadcom, who lost his job and his marriage amidst allegations of drug use, cooking the books, and building a secret party lair beneath the house he shared with family.

Five Vietnamese-American journalists were killed on American soil between 1981 and 1990. The prime suspects? Members of the National United Front for the Liberation of Vietnam, a group of former military commanders from South Vietnam.

The shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later culture of the 101st Airborne Division, an execution of captured Iraqi prisoners, and how far up the chain of command responsibility lies.

In the 1980s some of the world’s most powerful institutions were taken in by stories, begun in Victoria B.C., of a global Satanic underground abducting and abusing thousands of children.

The memories of rock stars’ ex-lovers.

The meaning of the Eurovision Song Contest.

The fate of a star 16-year-old pitcher in Japan.

A conversation with the former head of the NSA.

On the importance of the jingle business.

The death of a runner and the “ongoing culture war between fitness enthusiasts and automobiles.”

A bridge, a preventable leap, and the politics of barriers for “suicide hotspots.”

On witnessing the transformation of George W. Bush over 25 years.

The lives of six people who survived the atomic bomb.

A moment of racism at Harvard leads the writer to consider Huckleberry Finn.