For decades, the vote-by-mail business was a sleepy industry that stayed out of the spotlight. Then came 2020.

"Los Angeles is a weird, complicated town for him. It's where all the record labels are, for one thing. And Chancelor Bennett, as he was born, is unsigned. Won't sign. It's maybe the most interesting, improbable music-industry story going right now—a young, obviously gifted rapper, universally hailed as the heir to Kanye and leader of a new generation of Internet-savvy kids who think of Jay Z as a failed tech entrepreneur, now on his fourth year of refusing to sign with a label."

Profiles of Vietnam veterans several years after returning home.

On the “unfair significance” of Jeremy Lin.

A personal history of “America’s most misunderstood religion.”

On dirty laundry and the meaning of freedom.

A profile of the designer, who died on February 19, 2019.

The story of Theranos.

On the parallel sadness of Thom Gunn and Elizabeth Bishop.

The case of the murdered real-estate legend and her enraged assistant.

A Marine veteran of the Iraq War on battle and faith.

Clarence Thomas, then-chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, profiled by Juan Williams:

He agrees with Reagan's characterization of the civil-rights leaders as old men fomenting discontent to justify their own "rather good positions." "The issue is economics—not who likes you." Thomas has told me. "And when you have the economics, people do have a way of changing their attitudes toward you. I don't see how the civil-rights people today can claim Malcolm X as one of their own. Where does he say black people should go begging the Labor Department for jobs? He was hell on integrationists. Where does he say you should sacrifice your institutions to be next to white people?"

The odyssey of Kim Jong-il’s personal chef.

High school debate and the demise of public speech.

The life and last days of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.

A few days in the life of Miley Cyrus.

An essay on gynobibliophobia and the critical reception of women writers.

Rise of the wonk.

The false promise and double standard of integration in the Obama era.

The defining, minute-by-minute account of the 2008 attacks in Mumbai.

The rise of Modi and the Hindu far right.

Karen Holloman opened the door of her uncle's apartment with his best friend, Larry Young, a step behind. As they edged inside, she looked to her left and saw the end of her uncle's bed and his motionless feet. "He's been in here asleep all along," Holloman muttered, for a moment annoyed at the worry he had caused by not answering his phone. Her anger froze as she entered his room: The Rev. Marvin Moore lay dead in his bed, a bullet hole through the back of his head, a pool of blood gathered beneath his limp arm.

For hundreds of years, there were rumors of a shipwrecked treasure on the Oregon coast. But no one found anything, until Cameron La Follette began digging.