An essay on working at Sotheby’s.

Art pricing is not absolute magic; there are certain rules, which to an outsider can sound parodic. Paintings with red in them usually sell for more than paintings without red in them. Warhol’s women are worth more, on average, than Warhol’s men. The reason for this is a rhetorical question, asked in a smooth continental accent: “Who would want the face of some man on their wall?”

There are myriad arguments for and against eating roadkill. Can they all be true at the same time?

For 18 months, Coatesville, Penn., was besieged with an improbable number of arsons.  But who started the fires – and why?

A walkout mostly failed to secure more funding for schools, but it has spawned a movement of politically engaged Okies.

A profile of Edna Buchanan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for the Miami Herald during its heyday.

Two 16-year-olds form a suicide pact, driving a Pontiac off a cliff. One of the boys survives:

To many of the people in Fillmore who considered the incident a cause for civic mourning and self-scrutiny, the idea of trying Joe for murdering his best friend seemed outlandish. To a prosecutor, however, the indictment had its own logic. The Ventura County district attorney, Michael Bradbury, was an aggressive law-and-order man, and he had a potentially strong case. With Joe's repeated announcements of his plan to drive off the cliff, the crucial element of premeditation was undeniably present.

Growth has slowed to a trickle in parts of Manchuria—but some young people are finding new careers online.

A Native American family’s fight for housing security in the city and on the reservation.

When juveniles are found guilty of sexual misconduct, the sex-offender registry can be a life sentence.

How a Japanese company took over the American living room.

Inside Zappos as it transitions to something called a “Teal organization” that involves no managers and what amounts scouting merit badges and something called “People Points.”

The Bachelor’s host, Chris Harrison, is now a divorced bachelor himself. It turns out coaching single men is a lot easier than being one.

When a car careened onto a baseball field in Sanford, Maine, during a Babe Ruth game in 2018, it set in motion a true-crime mystery 50 years in the making.

A reporter watches as a Hindu nationalist government uses tech from the companies he covers to destroy a secular democracy.

In 2003, a man robbed a bank with a bomb around his neck. It exploded shortly thereafter, taking his life and leaving authorities to try to figure out who had put it there.

A profile of Ken Robinson, who earned minor fame and more than a few enemies for the controversial way he “bought” his house:

The week after Robinson moved into the tan-sided home with a faux stone entrance and maroon shutters, he was soaring, an Internet hero a few levels shy of Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who last summer cracked a beer and left work on a plane's emergency slide. For $16, Robinson had filed paperwork with Denton County staking his claim to the abandoned home through an obscure Texas law called adverse possession. Ever since, curious visitors, beginner real estate investors and people who want an ultra-cheap home to fulfill their version of the American Dream have been knocking on his door for advice and a handshake.

For mountaineers, it’s not enough just to get to the top—it’s how you get there that matters.

How the media company failed to create “a safe and inclusive workplace” for women.

Riots in Athens, the shadowy Vatopaidi monastery, and a quarter million dollars in debt for every citizen. Welcome to Greece.

Two Paths for the Future of Text: Steven Berlin Johnson’s lecture on “commonplace” books in which great 17th and 18th century thinkers compiled their browsing, and what it means for journalism today.

Fourteen other tornadoes hit Georgia on April 27 and 28. This was not the record — that would be twenty, during Tropical Storm Alberto in 1994. But it was one of the worst twenty-four-hour periods in the history of the state. Tornadoes hit Trenton, Cherokee Valley, south of LaGrange, and Covington; killed seven people in a neighborhood in Catoosa County, swept through Ringgold, and killed two more — a disabled man and his caregiver — in a double-wide trailer on the far end of Spalding County. Those tornadoes got all the attention. The Vaughn tornado didn’t even warrant an article in a major newspaper. No one talked about Vaughn. The only way for a person to really find out about it was to drive past.

It’s not just the virus that stands in the way, it’s bureaucratic logistics, and the frightening look of those hazmat suits.

Why are we still involved?