There are two roles to play in the new world of on-demand everything: royalty or servant.

How mitigation specialists are changing the application of the death penalty:

In Texas, the most prominent mitigation strategist is a lawyer named Danalynn Recer, the executive director of the Gulf Region Advocacy Center. Based in Houston, GRACE has represented defendants in death-penalty cases since 2002. “The idea was to improve the way capital trials were done in Texas, to start an office that would bring the best practices from other places and put them to work here,” Recer said recently. “This is not some unknowable thing. This is not curing cancer. We know how to do this. It is possible to persuade a jury to value someone’s life.”

A tech neophyte looks for answers in Silicon Valley, “the last place in America where people are this optimistic.”

The strange life of Boston Corbett, the soldier who killed John Wilkes Booth in 1865.

Traveling the highway that could make Brazil an economic powerhouse — at the expense of the Amazon.

How the government enabled the one percent to capitalize on the housing crisis.

A patriotic parade, a bloody brawl, and the origins of U.S. law enforcement’s war on the political left.

The next frontier of search is… everything. Voice recognition, image recognition, and why Google’s data set is one of the most valuable scientific tools of our age.

For the past 16 months, he had worked as a mole, posing as a militant jihadist in the Islamic State while passing critical information to a secret branch of Iraq’s national intelligence agency. His record was stunning: He had foiled 30 planned vehicle-bomb attacks and 18 suicide bombers, according to Abu Ali al-Basri, the agency’s director. Captain Sudani also gave the agency a direct line to some of the Islamic State’s senior commanders in Mosul.

“I decided that if he would not tell us his story, then I would.”

A profile of the director, written from the set of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

From Hong Kong to Bangkok to the Golden Triangle, the author searches for something everyone says no longer exists: an opium den.

The story that certified Gehry as a genius and the Guggenheim Bilbao as the building of the late 20th century.

A story of gambling addiction, in seven parts.

Jason Matthews worked at the CIA for more than 30 years. Then he started writing spy novels.

Twenty-five years after her career-making album, Liz Phair is still writing songs first and foremost for herself.

He covered car accidents for a years as a journalist. Then he was in two himself.

Randy Quaid and his wife Evi have fled to Canada and are living in their car. They are seeking asylum from the menace of the “Hollywood Star Whackers.”

Fast food used to be a transitional, temporary work. In Creston, Iowa, it has become a career.

When it comes to representing pharmaceutical companies, a doctor’s medical record is far less important than his or her ability to sell.

Dave Goodhouse can’t really make a living anymore. But he can’t get out either.

How a hacker shamed and humiliated high school girls in a small New Hampshire town, and how they helped take him down.

The long legal saga of Kerry Max Cook, who for almost 40 years fought to clear his name after being convicted of murder.