But despite all that has been promised, almost nothing has been built back in Haiti, better or otherwise. Within Port-au-Prince, some 3 million people languish in permanent misery, subject to myriad experiments at "fixing" a nation that, to those who are attempting it, stubbornly refuses to be fixed. Mountains of rubble remain in the streets, hundreds of thousands of people continue to live in weather-beaten tents, and cholera, a disease that hadn't been seen in Haiti for 60 years, has swept over the land, infecting more than a quarter million people.

How a brilliant self-made software programmer from South Africa single-handedly built an online startup that became one of the largest individual contributors to America’s burgeoning painkiller epidemic. In his world, everything was for sale. Pure methamphetamine manufactured in North Korea. Yachts built to outrun coast guards. Police protection and judges’ favor. Crates of military-grade weapons. Private jets full of gold. Missile-guidance systems. Unbreakable encryption. African militias. Explosives. Kidnapping. Torture. Murder. It's a world that lurks just outside of our everyday perception, in the dark corners of the internet we never visit, the quiet ports where ships slip in by night, the back room of the clinic down the street.

For online advertisers, probably most of it. An investigation.

For years, Mark Zuckerberg has faced criticism that Facebook is bad for democracy. A cache of leaked audio reveals the story of how much ultimately comes down to his judgment—and the forces freezing him in place.

A woman is accused of lying about being raped. Years later and several states away, the story changed.

Iran’s sex-obsessed old guard reacts to a state where “the majority of the population is young.… Young people by nature are horny. Because they are horny, they like to watch satellite channels where there are films or programs they can jerk off to.… We have to do something about satellite television to keep society free from this horny jerk-off situation.”

EEE kills almost half of its victims, and cases are on the rise.

Faced with fragility and uncertainty, gig workers around the world are connecting across borders to challenge platforms’ power and policies.

On a small section of land wedged between Egypt and Sudan called Bir Tawil and the American who tried to claim it for himself.

Philanthropist and private equity mogul David Rubenstein is lauded for his patriotic donations, including half the cost of repairing the Washington Monument. He also helped save a controversial tax break billionaires love.

The American students hopped across the border for a night of partying in Matamoros. One didn’t return and was found later in a shack with 14 other corpses.

At the age of 20, Christopher Knight parked his car on a remote trail in Maine and walked away. He had no plan. He had no tools. And he survived alone for 27 years.

An oral history of the day oil prices went below zero for the first time in trading history.

The story of a device that delivers electric shocks to students at a school for special needs.

How a group of men with nicknames like “Emperor” and “Spear Carrier” tipped the balance in South Sudan’s fight for independence.

Satoshi Nakamoto was the mysterious creator of Bitcoin. Facing bankruptcy and jail, Craig Wright fled Australia knowing that he would soon be outed as Satoshi by multiple publications. Backed by a business group that hoped to sell his patents, Wright was due to show the proof that he possessed the original keys for Bitcoin, but did he?

The U.S. is one of only two countries that don’t guarantee paid maternity leave. As a result, women across the country are rushing back to work after C-sections and losing their positions in order to take care of newborns.

On Princess Diana of Wales.

A profile of the postwar Bronx Bombers.

Uncovered letters reveal ties between the literary magazine and the CIA’s Congress for Cultural Freedom.

After a murder in the California wilderness, the search for the killer raises complicated questions about mental illness.

A profile of Rupert Murdoch from 1995, as he fought monopoly charges in the U.S. and U.K. and prepared to expand his empire into China.

Murdoch is a pirate; he will cunningly circumvent rules, and sometimes principles, to get his way, as his recent adventures in China demonstrate.