Conspiracy theories, utopian fantasies, and cult involvement surrounding the international standard of musical tuning.

Stuck between the Taliban and the U.S. Military, Afghanistan’s farmers risk their lives both when they grow, and when they refuse to grow, fields of poppies.

One part rapist, one part con-man; the story of the seemingly unconvictable Hy Doan.

The story of dog-scent lineup innovator Keith Pikett and the not-so-scientific science behind forensics.

The author gets a security guard job at this aging textile factory. Part of the City by City project.

After the United States demanded the extradition of a drug lord, a bloodletting ensued.

A town ruined by the chemical C8, an ingredient in the making of Teflon.

The photographs that Caesar, a Syrian military photographer, smuggled out of Assad’s death dungeons.

College is when we first get drunk. Euripides’ The Bacchae can help us learn how to do it right.

It’s the “City of the Big Automobile,” raw and beautiful at once.

From Stefani Joanne Germanotta to Lady Gaga: the self-invented, manufactured, accidental, totally on-purpose creation of the world’s biggest pop star.

The diary of a Scranton, PA National Guardsmen tasked with guarding the highest profile prisoner in U.S history: a surprisingly amiable Saddam Hussein.

The story of Nate Fleming—walk-on point guard at Oklahoma State, fan favorite, golden child—and the 2001 plane crash that took his life.

From the Greeks to George Lucas, 2,200 years of failure.

On the man who has turned the grunt work of packing into a social media phenomenon.

How two high school wrestling teammates ended up on opposites side of the law during Miami’s cocaine wars.

Mapping the global spread of antigay ideology.

Flashbacks from the life of Aaron Hernandez from the person who knew him best, his older brother Jonathan.

How a 20-year-old from the land of fake news tricked Martina Navratilova, Serena Williams, and the BBC.

How the disappearing bayou town of Jean Lafitte, Louisiana is trying to delay its inevitable end.

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

A love letter and the jacked up emotions of reality TV.

A secret network of women is working outside the law and the medical establishment to provide safe, cheap home abortions.

A comprehensive history of the case against the Menendez brothers, built primarily on secret audio recording made by their self-promoting therapist.

How one man’s imagined discovery of a sex-trafficking camp in the Sonoran Desert gained life online — and in the real world.