A Houston man allegedly tries to hire several hit men to kill his wife. Each fails miserably. It becomes the talk of the town.

On the surprising radicalism of library music – “music that has been composed and recorded for commercial purposes.”

The story of Brownie Wise, the woman who made Tupperware a household name.

An interview with Clay Shirky on “why no medium has ever survived the indifference of 25-year-olds.”

An excerpt from a new biography explores the trio of tragedies that struck Dahl’s family just as his career was taking off.

Anxiety, weight, general well-being—how the first nine months determine the rest of your life.

The untold story of Napoleon Hill, who practically invented the self-help scam through his 1937 book Think and Grow Rich.

On the life at sea of Henk De Velde, who has circumnavigated the globe six times.

Inside the Tacoma Northwest Detention Center, “an opaque system that literally disappears people” accused of immigrating illegally.

A visit to the set of Lost Highway, minus an actual interview with the director.

The secret diary of Nina Simone.

On the author of How the Irish Became White.

On the divisive narrative of “outside agitators” and how labor history can help guide the protest movement.

Lawyer Richard Luthmann was a Roger Stone-worshipping member of the Staten Island political scene. Then the fake Facebook posts began.

An engineering team races to create a next-generation computer.

The first installment of The Soul of a New Machine.

When Conan O’Brien left NBC, he agreed to stay off TV for months and stay quiet about the network and its executives. The agreement contained no mention of social media, however. On the origins of a digital renaissance.

The American medical establishment has gone to extraordinary lengths—some of which read like conspiracy theory—to discredit the notion (and its most visible promoter, Dr. Atkins) that carbohydrates, not fat, are the cause of obesity. It looks like they were wrong.

A profile of Travis Kalanick, who resigned from the ride the ride-hailing company he built after leading it to the brink of implosion.

The story of a young man from rural Ghana who bought a pair of secret camera glasses and got himself smuggled across the Sahara, to film crime and exploitation along the way.

Tyson on his childhood in Brooklyn and the man who changed his life. An excerpt from his upcoming memoir, Undisputed Truth.

Ed Houben, a self described “ugly man,” has sex with multiple women each week, sometimes two in one day. The women, often accompanied by their husbands, are trying to get pregnant.

An early 1995 peek at what happens when secretive groups meet the Internet: a Scientology Usenet group, populated by believers and critics, stirs conflict that results in raids.

Davon Mayer was a smalltime dealer in west Baltimore who made an illicit deal with local police. Then they turned on him.

Studios want to hire kids with genuine depth, but the system in place to protect child actors isn’t equipped if their lives go perilously downhill.

At least one in three Alaska villages has no local law enforcement. Sexual abuse runs rampant, public safety resources are scarce, and Gov. Mike Dunleavy wants to cut the budget.