A profile of Christine Quinn, odds-on favorite to be the next mayor of New York City.

Reverse engineering the details of a murder that took place in St. Louis on Christmas Night in 1895 from over a century of popular song.

The legacy of a secret Cold War program that tested chemical weapons on thousands of American soldiers.

Eighty percent of North American teenagers are in the care of an orthodontist. On our obsession with perfect teeth.

He had the mind of a scholar, but he always insisted he didn’t want to be one.

Typee, the most popular book Melville published in his lifetime, was his memoir of Polynesia. Most of it was probably made up.

A Holocaust detective story: could a lampshade pulled from the ruins of Katrina really be Buchenwald artifact made of human remains?

The fever-dream life and death of Chinese poet Gu Cheng.

How a burst blood vessel transformed the mind of a deliberate, controlled chiropractor into that of an utterly unfiltered, massively prolific artist.

Wags Lending and the brave new world of of financing in “niches where we’re dealing with emotional borrowers.”

Despite what dementia has stolen from the cerebral creator of Deadwood, it has given his work a new sense of urgency.

The story of an aviator-adventurer draws a journalist into a reflection on his own family’s history of flight.

The author of The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge, and the World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese, interviewed by his editor, Andy Ward, about storytelling, literary heroes, and why the book took him 10 years to write.

Once the pirates were in control of the Lynn Rival, they ransacked it, flinging open cupboards, eating all of the Chandlers’ cookies and stealing their money, watches, rings, electronics, their satellite phone and clothes. There were now 10 men; two more pirates had scampered onboard to join the others. After showering and draining the Chandlers’ entire supply of fresh water, they started trying on outfits. A broad-shouldered buccaneer named Buggas, who appeared to be the boss, was especially fond of their waterproof trousers, parading up and down the deck wearing them, while some of the other pirates strutted around in Rachel’s brightly colored pants and blouses.

A profile of Zack Snyder, director of Watchmen, Dawn of the Dead, and the upcoming Superman series.

In Arkansas, a small cottage industry of lawyers arranges adoptions of the babies of Marshall Islands immigrants. But are parents only giving up their children based on a cultural misunderstanding?

Once pigeonholed as “the hottest blonde ever,” the star of Birds of Prey has become one of Hollywood’s most promising producers.

What exactly is going on politically in Thailand?

Doping is a problem for equine sports, too.

Joe Arpaio is tough on prisoners and undocumented immigrants. What about crime?

One day Nejdra Nance realized the woman she had called Mom for 23 years may have been at the center of one of the most harrowing kidnappings in decades—hers.

On the American Legislative Exchange Council, a D.C. nonprofit with a library of more than 800 pieces of fill-in-the-blank legislation ready for state legislatures across the country.

Adam Wheeler lied on his college application. Lawrence Summers facilitated the destruction of the global economy.

Only one of these Harvard men was given jail time.

Not long ago, Rand Paul, opthalmologist and son of Ron, would have been written off as a wacky extremist. Thanks to his Dad and the Tea Partiers, he’s poised to become the most radical member of the U.S Senate.

In the aftermath of a mysterious murder, exploring a part of the story that has received little attention: the young man who lost his life.