Pope Benedict XVI’s post-retirement presence in the Vatican has set the stage for a conflict that threatens to split the Catholic Church into two.

The birthing of a conspiracy theory that the record holder for oldest person, Jeanne Calment, was actually her daughter Yvonne, who had “stolen her deceased mother’s identity to avoid paying inheritance taxes,”

Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico’s “monkey island.” The surviving primates could help scientists learn about the psychological response to traumatizing events.

How legends of the American music industry made millions off the work of Solomon Linda, a Zulu tribesman who wrote “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and died a pauper.

An oil tanker was ordered to save more than 100 migrants floating in the middle of the Mediterranean. Europe didn’t want them. They couldn’t go back to Libya. How would they survive?

Maria Ressa, editor of a popular news site in the Philippines, has incurred President Duterte and his supporters’ wrath by investigating his extrajudicial killing campaign.

How history forgot Felipe and Vivián Espinosa, two of the American West’s most brutal killers—and the complicated story behind their murderous rampage.

Brenda thought she and Ricky would be together forever, until he left her. Kendra thought she and Ricky would be together forever. Then Brenda took matters into her own hands. Inside the case of jealousy, spying, and murder that shook Uptown Dallas.

The curious tale of a man called Christian, the Catholic church, David Schwimmer’s wife, a secret hotel and an Airbnb scam running riot on the streets of London

The grocer started communicating with Chinese counterparts in January and was running tabletop simulations a few weeks later. (But nothing prepared it for the rush on toilet paper.)

Health-care workers have been on the job throughout the pandemic. What can they teach us about the safest way to lift a lockdown?

Since 1932, the tiny town of Rugby, North Dakota, has claimed to be the geographical center of North America. But as with most things, the truth depends on who’s telling it.

The famous subreddit started as a forum for one man to ask about his workplace behavior. Seven years later, it’s become a platform where millions of people discuss good, bad, and everything in between.

In November 2019, James Le Mesurier, the British co-founder of the Syrian rescue group, fell to his death in Istanbul. What led an internationally celebrated humanitarian to take his own life?

A humble Scotsman saw something strange in the water—and daringly set out to catch it—only to have lecherous out-of-towners steal his fame and upend his quest.

Carried away by love—for risk and for each other—two of the world’s best freedivers went to the limits of their sport. Only one came back.

How a member of a breakaway Mormon sect teamed up with a Lambo-driving, hard-partying tycoon to bilk the government for hundreds of millions of dollars.

When COVID-19 surged through a North Dakota community, a battle with the pandemic became a battle among its residents.

Federal recognition provides tribes with critical healthcare and education. What happens to the tribal nations that the U.S. refuses to recognize?

Mehran Karimi Nasseri was without a country, a family or a home. Then he landed at Terminal One at Charles de Gaulle Airport. The article that inspired The Terminal.

Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman were friends. Until they weren’t.

A hundred and fifty years ago, slightly more, a strange notion: the dead could be counted. In the Civil War, in the lush fields of the South, Americans first, as a culture, began to imagine death in numbers. Rosters of soldiers, as well as lists of war casualties, were not common practice in the mid-nineteenth century. Many officials feared responsibility for the dead by numbering or naming them, and military leaders felt an accurate count might embolden their enemies.

When Elizabeth Abel returned to the Bay Area home she had rented to a fellow professor on SabbaticalHomes.com, he refused to leave or pay the back rent he owed. She moved in across the street and enlisted her famous academic colleagues to help her get back the house she had raised her children in.