Years from now, we will look back in horror at the counterproductive ways we addressed the obesity epidemic and the barbaric ways we treated fat people—long after we knew there was a better path.

Data is the lifeblood of a functioning government. Over the past four years, the Trump administration has destroyed, disappeared, or distorted vast swaths of the information the state needs to protect the vulnerable, safeguard our health, and alert us to emerging crises.

Gaming the lottery seemed as good a retirement plan as any.

Everything I had going against me he had going for him. Us young Black dudes who were slanging were hated, hunted and haunted for our role in the drug war. He was praised and honored and rewarded with overtime.

Some risky but practical proposals to harness a superpower that has clearly lost control.

“The gun debate would change in an instant if Americans witnessed the horrors that trauma surgeons confront everyday.”

An attempt to understand why, after 50 years of decline, more and more young women are suddenly embracing religious life.

An interview with F. Lee Bailey about his 60 years of celebrity trials.

Just a few years ago, universities had a chance to make a quality education affordable for everyone. Here’s the little-known and absolutely infuriating history of what they did instead.

They work in hotel rooms, Airbnbs and secondhand RVs just over the state line, so that women can give birth on their own terms.

The rise of Mike Pence’s chief of staff Nick Ayers and what it reveals about post-Citizens United politics.

While serving in WWII, Jerome Motto received regular correspondence from a woman he barely knew. These letters led to groundbreaking research on how to reach people at risk.

Brock Turner’s twisted legacy—and a Stanford professor’s relentless pursuit of justice.

A dispatch from Cape Town, where surprising things can happen when it feels like the world is about to end.

Inside the world of dark tourism, where for just $2,500 you too could be responsible for a geopolitical calamity.

A conversation with former government employees who left their posts after Trump’s election.

A Republican primary postmortem with the brains behind Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio’s respective campaigns.

Park Service and Forest Service employees face sexual harassment and assault in America’s wild places.

The difficult business of spending money well.

A trip to Papua New Guinea, “an island caught between the ancient world and 2015.”

America’s devastating treatment of schizophrenia.

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

The Runaways, their manager Kim Fowley, and the rape of the band’s bassist, long kept a secret.

On Amaris Tyynismaa, the 14-year-old star runner who has Tourette’s.