The story of the landmark musical’s improbable success.

A physiological theory of mental illness.

A week in the world of the Miss America Pageant.

The Pope’s vision for addressing climate change.

The family accused of funding the Pakistani Taliban.

The story of the family who couldn’t stop adopting.

Pakistani fishing communities struggle inside the nets of bonded labor.

Can a cowboy become the greatest polo player of all time?

Over the last several weeks, dozens of lawmakers, strategists and advocates described the closed-door meetings and tactical decisions that led to approval of same-sex marriage in New York, about two years after it was rejected by the Legislature. This account is based on those interviews, most of which were granted on the condition of anonymity to describe conversations that were intended to be confidential.

For the purposes of this essay, I’ll call it ‘ambient privacy’—the understanding that there is value in having our everyday interactions with one another remain outside the reach of monitoring, and that the small details of our daily lives should pass by unremembered. What we do at home, work, church, school, or in our leisure time does not belong in a permanent record. Not every conversation needs to be a deposition.

On the experimental favela police force UPP (aka “The Big Skull”) and their efforts to clean Rio’s largest slum in advance of the World Cup and Olympics.

A profile of David Yerushalmi, the little-known Hasidic Jew from Brooklyn leading the campaign casting Islamic law as the greatest threat to American freedom since the cold war.

Twenty-five years ago, the tragedy at the World of Primates building broke the city’s heart and raised a loaded question: What, exactly, do we owe the animals in our care?

A look at the Mexican drug wars from the point of view of a narco’s mistress in Juárez.

On the history of Earth Day and the failure of the modern environmental movement.

Our entire way of life depends upon the “cold chain,” the network of artificially refrigerated spaces that have reshaped the modern world.

Learning of a plot against the life of the newly elected Lincoln, Alan Pinkerton decamps to Baltimore and infiltrates the conspiracy.

On the overstated effect of the Santa Ana winds on human behavior and the understated impact of climate change on LA’s seasons.

On the frontlines of extinction in the Gulf of California, where the vaquita faces its final days.

On the segregation of Slovakia’s Gypsies.

The downfall of Hugo Schwyzer, feminist.

An oral history of “Page Six.”

A chance encounter with a movie star on an airplane.

John Dirr’s son Eli didn’t really have cancer. In fact, neither Eli nor John Dirr ever existed.

A decade-long Internet hoax unravels.

In 1970, he was plucked from Saigon to attend West Point. He got his degree and went home to fight, but instead spent six years in a reeducation camp. Then, somehow, he ended up teaching high school in D.C.