He charged men tens of thousands to master seduction. Multiple women say he assaulted them.

Plus: Ashley Flowers' Crime Junkie empire in turmoil, a society hooked on stimulants, and the private equity landlords blamed for two tenant deaths.

A stranger killed Katie Lesslie's children. She forgave him before she knew why.

Plus: an Idaho sect's needless deaths, a 9/11 survivor's tour, and why birds never built cities.

Someone impersonated her online for a decade. It was her husband.

Plus: a banned coach still working with teenage girls, Jill Lepore on the warnings we ignored, and what hunger costs women.

He fled a bank robbery on an inner tube. The Michael Jordan card got him caught.

Plus: a husband forgiving the unforgivable, Trump Jr.'s $160 million marketplace collapse, and the tick that can make you allergic to meat.

2013 Substation Sniper Attack Revealed a US Power Grid Weakness

Plus: the $20 hack that disables the light warning you Meta Glasses are recording, a scientist's rise to pinball world champion, and LA teens turning after-prom parties into six-figure businesses.

She thought she was sick. Her husband was drugging her.

Plus: a Border Patrol agent who shot a migrant in the forehead, a spy satellite NASA turned into a dark energy telescope, and the AI chatbot used to generate thousands of explicit images of a child.

DEA Leak Sparked the Zetas Massacre in Allende, Mexico

Plus: the case for killing deer to beat tick season, Vermont scientists infecting elms to save them, and what earthworms sound like eating.

The compound looked like a call center. Workers who tried to leave were electrocuted.

Plus: Montreal's bus-pulling giant, gun violence destroying families, and a trans CIA officer who briefed Pence.

He was in line to run the Seahawks. Then came the crossbow killing.

Plus: a golf-club manager's $14.7M Reflecting Pool disaster, a bomb plot in Poland that may have been Ukrainian, and a $533M artillery factory that made nothing.

He Spent $1.4 Million on a Live-Shopping App

Plus: Mexico's narco-slavery camps, the silence where the aliens should be, and why you're left-handed.

The Impossible Case of Lilly and Jack

Plus: torture testimony from inside a Russian prison, the sons who spent months digging through Ground Zero rubble, and what QVC taught two roommates about friendship.

How Police Misused Flock Cameras to Stalk Women

Plus: a family evicted during a Las Vegas heat wave, the tangled history of psychedelic toads, and the diehards keeping Esperanto alive.

Louisiana Denies $480,000 to Man Wrongly Jailed 42 Years

Plus: a Cambridge star's unraveling memoir, lead still in Omaha's cleaned-up yards, and Japan's unloved farm robots.

SFPD Stalls as Mickey Gerold Sues His Accusers

Plus: Roy Cohn's rules for Donald Trump, al-Qaeda 25 years after 9/11, and the billion-dollar ice industry.

He thought he was flying to London for a job. It was for his kidney.

Plus: the millions of American kids secretly running their parents' health care, the Vatican's biggest schism in a century, and why teens are chasing brain rot on purpose.

LBR Picks: The Best of July 2026

The five stories that resonated most with LBR readers this month

Family Annihilation: America's Growing Crime Trend

Plus: a $1.8M phone scam, the modern dating slump, and a 1954 windshield panic explained.

He built a German utopia in the Chilean Andes. Pinochet's secret police used it to torture and kill.

Plus: a pastor's AI twin counsels strangers, Britain's isolated youth, and what cave art reveals about us.

Sonia Exelby's Death: Inside a Paid-For Murder Plot

Plus: why kids can't quit Roblox, the hunt for a master counterfeiter, and a cabin build gone wrong.

Guards watched his cell burn. Then they held the ambulance 28 minutes.

Plus: Meta's secret $50 billion Louisiana deal, Myanmar's rare earth mines, and a baseball diamond behind barbed wire.

He drowned three children. His foster sister still keeps his watch.

Plus: the family a wrongful conviction left behind, a driver jailed 550 days over boxes he never opened, and a Hill Country ride on folding bikes.

Virginia Giuffre's Brother Continues Her Fight for Justice

Plus: an Idaho teen lost to anti-trans laws, a Texan's fatal stand in Ukraine, and the chemist who forced food safety into law.

Isabel Miranda de Wallace Kidnapping Case Unravels

Romance Scam Victim Lost $90,000 to a Fake Soldier

Plus: Texas schools arresting 10-year-olds, Chinese immigrants trafficked onto New Mexico weed farms, and $340,000 to wire empty Alaska homes.

Fat Leonard's Great Escape

Plus: a London data center heist, darts' fiercest women, and life inside an ICE tent camp.