An autopsy of the San Jose Mercury News.

A history of the fowl.

How smallpox went from eradicated disease to the ideal weapon of bioterrorists.

On the underground doctors unleashing the healing powers of hallucinogens.

On the new art of interrogation.

The billionaire founder of Renaissance Technologies turns to science.

How Fortnite became the Instagram of gaming.

The secret lives of Facebook moderators in America.

An oral history of the war in Afghanistan.

Inside the campaign of Joe Biden, “the least formidable front-runner ever.”

He came home from Vietnam, wrote the novel that became Full Metal Jacket, was nominated for an Oscar and riding high. Then he got thrown in jail for stockpiling stolen library books, started drinking, cut off his friends and fled to a remote Greek island. He never made it back.

A conversation with the comedian.

JW: You’ve talked about how you’ve had to explain moral lessons to your daughters, but do it in an inarticulate, catchy way. It’s almost as though you’re writing material for them. What’s the place of morality and ethics in your comedy? I think those are questions people live with all the time, and I think there’s a lazy not answering of them now, everyone sheepishly goes, “Oh, I’m just not doing it, I’m not doing the right thing.” There are people that really live by doing the right thing, but I don’t know what that is, I’m really curious about that. I’m really curious about what people think they’re doing when they’re doing something evil, casually.

How fight coach Greg Jackson, once dubbed “the Philosopher King of MMA,” does his job.

Phil Locke made millions charging working people 400% interest. Then he had a change of heart.

Pvt. Felix Hall died in the only known murder of its kind on a U.S. military base.

“The whole thing has a sort of Taylor Swift-meets-jihad feel.”

The making and near unmaking of Paul Thomas Anderson’s breakout film.

A Black Lives Matter confrontation pitted neighbor against neighbor—and displayed the raw power of a social media flash mob.

An interview with “one of the most influential data gurus” in electoral politics.

Before ending up in Rikers, Jeremy Wilson — if that’s his real name — had portrayed himself as a Scottish-born DJ, a Cambridge-trained thespian, a Special Forces officer, a professor at MIT, an Apple executive, a soldier seeking asylum in Canada to escape anti-Semitic attacks in the United States, and an Irish mobster. Among others.

“If I’m writing a thing based on something that happened, it often starts to become fun for me when I see there’s an opportunity to make myself look even more of a jerk than I am in real life.”

The murder of a rapper amid the rise of Greece’s fascist party.

A single pill could take the sting out of our memories of trauma.

On the morality of procreation and the origins of birth control.