The rise and fall of “Rock Around the Clock” singer Bill Haley.

The call to the sheriff's office came on Nov. 18, 2010, just before noon. The townhouse, deputies learned, had belonged to a woman named Kathryn Norris, and the 1987 silver Chevy Nova was registered to her, too. She had used a normal amount of electricity in July 2009 and much less in August and none after that. She had paid her mortgage in August and then stopped. Her head was on the floor and her feet were on the seat. The corpse, deputies wrote in their report, was wearing a dress.

The disappearance of Natalee Holloway and the clash of cultures that followed.

In Chicago at the 130th National Funeral Directors Conference.

An investigation into Erin Brockovich and the lawsuits that made her famous.

The story of the Huffington Post.

On the moral failure of über-wealthy do-gooders.

The fifty-year battle over where we store our nuclear remains.

The 1900 death of Fritz and the battle to define his legacy.

The work of California Task Force Two, the “Seal Team Six of disaster aid.”

Growing up Afghan in the era of the Afghanistan War.

A black British father on his 12 years in the U.S.

The man who gets all the superhero scoops in Hollywood.

The future of India’s “good minority,” the Parsis.

The stories of four women whose children joined the Islamic State.

The technological future of the struggling porn industry.

“We take the bus when we can’t afford to do anything but disappear.”

A narrative of the Michael Brown shooting.

The love story behind the battle over gay marriage in Texas.

The flawed science that helped convict a Tennessee man of murder.

A dispatch from the frozen, drunken wasteland of Eastern Siberia.

The case of the disappearing Pappy Van Winkle bourbon.

On the failing institution of the teaching hospital.

The role of black dolls in American culture.

On the Event Horizon telescope, the largest ever built.