The number one item confiscated by U.S. customs for four years in a row: fake shoes. As brands continue to crack down, counterfeiters continue to up their game.

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.

New technology has historically been a friend to the porn industry, first VHS, then online DVD sales. But free streaming sites like YouPorn have sent the establishment into a tailspin, and due to anonymous domain registration, they don’t even know who their competition is. Will the internet kill porn?

How the Taliban reestablished itself as both a “quasi government” and a military force, and what that success means for the Pentagon’s plan to pass responsibility to Afghan forces by 2014.

A profile of the man who ran Jeb Bush’s $118 million super-PAC as he cleans out his office. Had Murphy been legally allowed to talk to the candidate during the election, here’s what he would have said: “What the fuck were we thinking?”

The Federal Trade Commission has brought more than 60 cases related to data security against businesses. Only one has refused to settle.

In 2001, Maksym Igor Popov defected to work as an informant in the U.S. But a decade later, he was back to scamming the FBI.

“I never knew my father, a decorated World War II pilot who died before I was born. But a trek at age 67 to the site where his airplane crashed brought me closer to him than I’d ever dared hope.”

In 1977, Johanna van Haarlem finally tracked down the son, Erwin, she had abandoned as a baby 33 years earlier. She immediately travelled to London to meet him. It was the perfect cover.

Fred Steese served more than 20 years in prison for the murder of a Vegas circus performer even though evidence proved he didn’t do it. When the truth came to light, he was offered a confounding deal: he could go free, but only if he agreed to remain a convicted killer.

A rash of building fires in San Francisco has many speculating that the fault lies with landlords hoping to oust their poor tenants. One anonymous landlord describes his failed plan to do exactly that.

She keeps watch over one of the largest databases of missing persons in the country. For Meaghan Good, the disappeared are still out here, you just have to know where to look.

When your job is to constantly share your life, even your worst moments are an opportunity to please your audience.

Pinned down in deep snow and running out of food, veteran thru-hiker Stephen “Otter” Olshansky scraped his way to a campground latrine, holed up inside, and prayed for help to arrive.

“It’s not like there’s a textbook or some guidebook that teaches you how to behave or how to react when your husband becomes an exile.”

"The functionality, the quantity, the aesthetics of your bathrooms is critical. It seems unremarkable to most people, but, trust me, you invite 70,000 people to your house and you get the bathrooms wrong—you've got a huge problem."

Alex French and Maximillian Potter chased the story of a Hollywood pedophile ring only to have Esquire cancel it without explanation. It eventually landed at The Atlantic.

Local communities are taking the world’s largest polluters to court. And they’re using the legal strategy that got tobacco companies to pay up.

How Trumpism operates on the knowledge that some people can get away with anything, and how it offers a false promise to extend that privilege to white kids everywhere

After Stephanie Montgomery says she was raped at the strip club where she worked, she went to the manager and the police. Nothing happened. That’s when she decided to tell her story as big as she could.

The writer on his father’s religious devotion to personal style. Among the maxims: “the turtleneck is the most flattering thing a man can wear”; “there is nothing like a fresh burn”; and “always wear white to the face.”

Ankle bracelets are promoted as a humane alternative to jail. But private companies charge defendants hundreds of dollars a month to wear the surveillance devices. If people can’t pay, they may end up behind bars.

In 1971, an unlikely activist sued to overturn Iowa’s ban on married women and mothers playing school sports. She just wanted to play.

“I found it both freeing and disturbing to spend time on a platform that didn’t ask me to pretend that I was on the Internet for a good reason.”

Police departments have become more attentive to officers’ use of excessive force on the job, but that concern rarely extends to the home.