Santa Claus was nursing a beer at an uptown dive bar. The neighborhood was gentrifying, and management seemed eager to accommodate—there was scented soap in the bathroom and twenty-two-dollar lobster rolls. But the place couldn’t outrun the regulars. They drank tumblers of Irish whiskey filled to
In 1838, 29-year-old Illinois state representative Abraham Lincoln went on a pseudo blind date set up by a friend. The date wasn’t entirely blind — Lincoln had seen the sister some years before, and said she seemed to be “intelligent and agreeable.” But things quickly went from great
A fusion energy start-up claims to have solved the millennia-old challenge of how to turn other metals into gold. Chrysopoeia, commonly known as alchemy, has been pursued by civilisations as far back as ancient Egypt. Now San Francisco-based Marathon Fusion, a start-up focused on using nuclear
In the late 1990s, when most people just about had an email address and the smartphone with even one G, never mind five of them, was just a twinkle in a mad inventor’s eye, the internet was still regarded by many as the preserve of the nerd. Most of
The Pacific Northwest is known for five things: lumber, aircraft, tech, coffee, and crime. What might account for the abrupt rise and equally abrupt fall, between the nineteen-sixties and the turn of the century, of the “golden age” of serial killing? And why were so many of these brutes
In 2015, David Hole was prospecting in Maryborough Regional Park near Melbourne, Australia. Armed with a metal detector, he discovered something out of the ordinary – a very heavy, reddish rock resting in some yellow clay. He took it home and tried everything to open it, sure that there was a
Two men from North Texas have been charged over violent plans that included an armed coup on the Haitian island of Gonave, according to the Justice Department. Gavin Weisenburg, 21 years old of Allen, and Tanner Thomas, 20 years old of Argyle, along with other co-conspirators planned to murder
If you share a recipe for or photo of fried rice in China on November 25th, you may get a visit from the authorities. To understand why, you have to go back 75 years. North Korea, backed by the Soviet Union and China, launched a surprise invasion into South Korea,
After the 1913 death of Horace Vose, the traditional provider of the White House Thanksgiving turkey, numerous farmers sent animals to the president for Thanksgiving dinner. In 1926, a Mississippi supporter sent a racoon. Coolidge, who had never eaten raccoon and had no appetite to try it, kept the racoon
If you were one of the millions of children who grew up reading Goodnight Moon before bed, chances are its iconic green bedroom is permanently seared into your memory. Now, for the next four months, you have the opportunity to sleep in the Goodnight Moon room IRL. The Goodnight Moon
Brinlee Luster brushed off the exhaustion and stomach cramps as stress. She was finishing college, planning a wedding, and racing toward graduation. At first, the changes were easy to dismiss. A cold that wouldn't clear up. An unsettled, uncomfortable feeling in her gut that could be anxiety. Feeling
Olga Tsvyk got a job doing eyelash extensions, a skill she had picked up back home in Ukraine. In March 2016, a 40-something recent Russian immigrant named Viktoria Nasyrova walked into her salon. Nasyrova told Tsvyk that she was a masseuse and that she lived with her boyfriend in