The Chain of Office of the Dutch city of Leiden is a broad and colorful ceremonial necklace that, draped around the shoulders of Mayor Henri Lenferink, lends a magisterial air to official proceedings in this ancient university town. But whatever gravitas it provided Lenferink as he welcomed a group of researchers to his city, he was quick to undercut it. “I am just a humble historian,” he told the 300 members of the Society for Interdisciplinary Placebo Studies who had gathered in Leiden’s ornate municipal concert hall, “so I don’t know anything about your topic.”

Told here in full for the first time, this is the horrifying story of the first murder on the Appalachian Trail, the kidnapping that followed, and how one woman learned to survive.

On the new triangle trade, and the surprising connection between modern slavery and ecological disaster.

I was 11 when my father destroyed the condominium where he was living. Searching for hidden transistors or other devices that might be beaming voices into his skull, he took a hammer to the walls, shoved his fists into the holes, and pulled off chunks of plaster. He shut off the power generator and cut the electrical wires in the walls. He put his ear to the floor. He ripped up the carpet. He called 9-1-1.

Chad Walde believed in his work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Then he got a rare brain cancer linked to radiation, and the government denied it had any responsibility.

On August 5, 2013, Dutch scientist Mark Post presented to the world the first lab-grown burger ever created. The event took place in London, the burger was cooked by chef Richard McGeown, and only Hanni Ruetzler and Josh Schonwald – two food critics – could taste it. Hanni Ruetzler said that it tasted like meat, “just not as juicy.”

Quick, think of a college athlete. Chances are the person who comes to mind is a football or basketball player at a powerhouse Division I school like Louisiana State University or the University of Kentucky. Maybe the player resembles, say, Joel Embiid, who turned a chiseled, 7-foot frame into a full-ride scholarship at the University of Kansas before ascending to NBA stardom.

Anita Earls has been the North Carolina GOP’s chief antagonist in the courtroom. Now she’s running for a seat on the state Supreme Court as a GOP threat to pack the court looms.

Clicking ‘Like’ is something most of us do without thinking. It’s a form of social currency that gives us a momentary jolt and revs up our dopamine centers. Yet who knew all our ‘Likes’ could predict our personality and be turned into a tool of political persuasion against us?

The 33 special agents assigned to the Investigative Services Branch handle the most complex crimes committed on NPS land. When a day hike in Rocky Mountain National Park ended in a grisly death, ISB veteran Beth Shott hit the trail, where she began unraveling a harrowing case.

Cradling an AK-47 and sucking a lollipop, the former American Green Beret bumped along in the back of an armored SUV as it wound through the darkened streets of Aden. Two other commandos on the mission were former Navy SEALs. As elite US special operations fighters, they had years of specialized training by the US military to protect America. But now they were working for a different master: a private US company that had been hired by the United Arab Emirates, a tiny desert monarchy on the Persian Gulf.

For nearly 15 years, Honduran immigrant Clemente Javier Aguirre-Jarquin has sat behind bars for the brutal murders of his next-door neighbors, Cheryl Williams and her mother Carol Bareis — killings he says he did not commit. The case against Aguirre-Jarquin appears straightforward: His clothes were soaked with the victims’ blood, his bloody shoe prints were found throughout the scene, he had previously been in their home without permission and he admitted to stuffing his bloody clothes in a plastic bag and trying to hide them. The knife used to kill the victims was the same kind used at the restaurant where Aguirre-Jarquin worked.

An acclaimed American charity said it was saving some of the world’s most vulnerable girls from sexual exploitation. But from the very beginning, girls were being raped.

I will tell you up front (at the risk of making you close the tab, but honesty and humility are in part the subject matter here): This may be the least sexy movie-star profile you will ever read. Because you know that thing where you meet a movie star and right off you bond over taking your high-school-aged kids on college tours? No, I don’t know that thing, either.

Venezuelan consumer prices rose 488,865 percent in the 12 months ending in September, a member of the opposition-run congress reported on Monday, as the OPEC nation’s hyperinflation continues to accelerate amid a broader economic collapse. Daily inflation is now 4 percent, according to opposition legislator Angel Alvarado, with monthly inflation rising to 233 percent in September from 223 percent in August. In an effort to stabilize prices, President Nicolas Maduro in August cut five zeros off the ailing bolivar currency, boosted the minimum wage by 3,000 percent, and pegged salaries to an elusive state-backed cryptocurrency.

The southern resident killer whales that feed and frolic in the Salish Sea have lost three members this year and about 20 per cent of their number in the past decade.

Investors all over the world fell for the schemes of the man who called himself Khalid bin al-Saud. But the truth turned out to be more incredible than the lie.

The president has long sold himself as a self-made billionaire, but a Times investigation found that he received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges in the 1990s.

The Canadian sprinter lost his gold medal 30 years ago this week after a positive test at the lab in Seoul. The Star dug up the results which are filled with bizarre notations. “If I had seen this in Seoul, I would have kept my medal.” “If I had seen this in Seoul, I would have kept my medal,” Johnson says while reading pages from the September 1988 lab report containing his drug-testing results. “If you can’t see the evidence, how can others condemn somebody?”

Beliefs can be hard to change, even if they are scientifically wrong. But those on the fence about an idea can be swayed after hearing facts related to the misinformation, according to a study led by Princeton University. After conducting an experimental study, the researchers found that listening to a speaker repeating a belief does, in fact, increase the believability of the statement, especially if the person somewhat believes it already. But for those who haven’t committed to particular beliefs, hearing correct information can override the myths.