In their own voices, a tale of a bizarre beginning to the Republican presidential race. By Dan Balz, Philip Rucker, Robert Costa and Matea Gold. (Jan. 3)

Oh, and it happened in my 7-year-old sister's bunk bed. By Ijeoma Oluo.

Some say Phil Taylor is Britain’s greatest living sportsman. At 54, he has nothing left to prove, but will not quit. Does he need the game more than it needs him? By Ed Caesar.

“For an amusement park opened in the late ‘40s, Lakeview had it all: a dance hall, a Ferris wheel, a terrifying, rickety roller coaster, a classic ‘Pretzel’ funhouse ride, a bingo hall for adults where a win would get you a pack of cigarettes, and a true penny arcade complete with chickens pecking out songs on pianos and scantily-clad women removing articles of clothing for coins...” By Megan Shepherd.

Amarillo doctor Mike Dixon fell so madly in love with Richelle Shetina that he left his wife and children to be with her. But then she left him, for another doctor—and his efforts to win her back led to a shocking crime. By Skip Hollandsworth. (May ’15)

The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is a lawless no-man's-land where violence and suffering rage, and no one has it harder than the region's 21 million Pashtun women. Their mode of rebellion? Short-verse poems called landays. By Eliza Griswold. (Apr. ’14)

A beautiful young mother, a dark family secret, and a new suspect in a 45-year-old mystery. By Michael J. Mooney.

Fifteen years of pain and suffering outside the rule of law — why can’t we close the prison at Guantanamo Bay? By Janet Reitman.

Thousands of boats are stolen each year, and some are recovered using alcohol, prostitutes, witch doctors and other forms of guile. By Ian Urbina.

Sandy Jenkins was a shy, daydreaming accountant at the Collin Street Bakery, the world’s most famous fruitcake company. He was tired of feeling invisible, So he started stealing—and got a little carried away. By Katy Vine.

In 2008 a street race disaster became one of the deadliest crashes in the Washington area in a quarter-century. Is living with the carnage punishment enough? By Michael Graff. (June 4)

The Ex-Strippers Who Stole From (Mostly) Rich Men and Gave to, Well, Themselves. By Jessica Pressler.

It’s 2015, and more than 20 million people are still held in some form of slavery all over the world. Traveling deep into the Amazon, William Langewiesche discovers why an unspeakable degradation is proving so hard to combat—and finds a man of God who has dedicated his life to the fight.

When you’re driving a bus full of tourists through the Australian outback, a packet of chewing gum may be your only hope. By Robert Skinner.

In 2007, the Pinellas County [Florida] School Board abandoned integration. They justified the vote with bold promises. They never delivered.

Millionaire Forrest Fenn launched a thousand trips when he announced in 2010 that he had filled a chest with gold, rubies, and diamonds, and hidden it somewhere north of Santa Fe. By: Peter Frick-Wright. (Aug. 11)

The mayor’s son drew on his cigarette, thought back sixty years, paused, and made a chopping motion on his lower thigh—fifteen inches, give or take, from his groin to just above his knee. “The women said, ‘He has a machete.’” The mayor’s son is in his seventies now, but he was a teenager back then, during the years of Havana’s original sin... By Mitch Moxley.

Peter Nygard is a hard-partying retail tycoon, whose estate is fit for a Mayan emperor. Louis Bacon is a buttoned-up hedge-fund king, whose passion is conservation. Both are locked in an eight-year legal war with each other that has turned each man’s paradise into hell. By Eric Konigsberg.

An 18-year-old said she was attacked at knifepoint. Then she said she made it up. That’s where our story begins. By T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong.

The share of Americans with broadband at home has plateaued: It now stands at 67%, down slightly from 70% in 2013. At the same time, more Americans rely only on their smartphones for online access.