On the TechCrunch founder’s venture capital fund, and a new breed of startup investor.

As Twitter-loving VC investors have become brand names themselves (Fred Wilson, Marc Andreessen, Chris Sacca), what one might call the auteur theory of venture capitalism has emerged—the idea that startup companies bear the unique creative signature of those who invested in them. To study a venture capitalist’s portfolio is to study his oeuvre.

Critics call it “the radio of pimps and vagina-sellers.” But a popular new call-in show is helping a generation of Afghans navigate a battlefield full of strife and confusion and fear: modern love.

Exploring the depths of the abalone black market.

How the Jesuit Church refused to stop pedophile priest:

"He truly is the Hannibal Lecter of the clerical world. He did more psychological and physical damage to children than anyone else. And what makes it worse is that the Jesuits knew about it, and did nothing."

The lavish display and heavy drinking concealed the deadly serious North Caucasus politics of land, ethnicity, clan, and alliance.

In a cable brought to light by Wikileaks, the Ambassador to Russia describes a raucous three-day Dagestani wedding attended by Chechnya’s president Ramzan Kadyrov.

The few who got to view Jerry Lewis’s notorious The Day the Clown the Cried, set at Auschwitz, piece together memories of their surreal personal screenings.

A young reporter heads to Colombia to report on the conflict between FARC and the paramilitaries. He meets a girl on the bus. After they begin a relationship, she reveals that that she is part of a death squad.

In an elaborate FBI sting to expose corruption, four agents pose as futures traders in Chicago. The plan works–if you don’t count the hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars the agents lost in the process.

The writer and his girlfriend move to the Dominican Republic, joining the rapidly expanding community of expats who claim to have found paradise. They promptly get robbed at gunpoint. To cope, he investigates the country.

How a group of hippie surfers and a former Spanish teacher built the largest weed-smuggling empire on the West Coast.

The war between Major League Baseball and Alex Rodriguez, “fought with six-figure payoffs in the tanning salons and strip malls of South Florida.”

It comes from the soil of the desert Southwest. Inhaled, it can cause incurable, even fatal illness. And, thanks to global warming, valley fever is spreading fast.

The story of “the biggest retail hack in U.S. history.”

The business of sound.

An annual re-enactment drags America’s history of racist violence into the light.

ProDoula wants to revolutionize the touchy-feely doula profession — and make millions of dollars along the way.

A son’s memory of the father he lost at 13, excerpted from The Magical Stranger.

On the dangerous glut of visitors looking to conquer Mt. Everest, where there is sometimes a two-hour wait to climb the Hillary Step.

“Violence, being instrumental by nature, is rational to the extent that it is effective in reaching the end which must justify it.”

A New York gossip reporter makes her way in the wilds of European bureaucracy.

Pennsylvania is on the verge of saying yes.

The final days of the last Navy SEAL to die in Afghanistan.

The story of the 2010 NCAA championship game between Duke and Butler, and what would have been greatest shot in college basketball history.

The story of a college town and the most devastating tornado in Alabama history.

The selfie may have ended any hope of resurrecting New York’s nightlife.