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.

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 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.

A profile of Christopher Soghoian whose “productions follow a similar pattern, a series of orchestrated events that lead to the public shaming of a large entity—Google, Facebook, the federal government—over transgressions that the 30-year-old technologist sees as unacceptable violations of privacy.”

“I mean, writers are horribly envious and so nobody likes stars, we always feel like it’s a zero-sum game and whatever stardom somebody else has is being taken directly from us, so we hate the stars. But we also need them. Because the possibility of some level of stardom is what will continue to attract new writers to the game. If you’re a linguistically talented 22-year-old, there’s a list of things you can be: you can work in Hollywood, you can be a blogger, etc. And if being a novelist equates to some quaint thing like being a Morris dancer, who’s going to choose this?”

On the theft of 6 million pounds of maple syrup from Canada’s strategic reserve and the group of free market renegades who are fighting “The Maple Wars.”

Eagleman, a neuroscientist, describes how groundbreaking advances in the science of brain have changed our understanding of volition in criminal acts, and may erode the underpinnings of our justice system.

The story of the most popular music video of all time, including memories of a then-25-year-old Michael Jackson on and off the set. Director John Landis: “I dealt with Michael as I would have a really gifted child.”

Mykal Riley’s last-second three-pointer kept thousands of fans out of the path of a tornado. Just as remarkable? That Riley was there to take the shot in the first place.

A profile of Francis Collins, a fervent Christian, former head of the Human Genome Project and Obama’s appointee to head N.I.H., now at the center of the stem cell research debate.

In 1993 a black teenager in London was randomly stabbed to death by a gang of white youths. Twenty years later, they would be at the center of the trial of the decade.

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.

Paleram Chauhan, a 52-year-old Indian farmer, was shot dead during the summer of 2013. The reason: his opposition to a gang of criminals stealing his village’s sand to sell on the black market.

The motley gang of L.A. teens that cat-burgled celebrities, sometimes repeatedly, in search of designer clothes, jewelry, and something to do. The story that became The Bling Ring.

All you need is a blueprint, a polymer, a printer, and a knowledge of government regulations.

Where does Strawberry-Kiwi Snapple come from? Givaudan is part of a tiny, secretive industry that produces new flavors.

For years, a mysterious figure has been stealing books before their release. Is it espionage? Revenge? Or a complete waste of time?

Twenty years ago, Ramaphosa was by Mandela’s side as apartheid ended and in line to become deputy president. He didn’t get the job. Now one of the richest men in Africa, he’s finally getting the chance.

On the urge to live in a house you can't afford, the "acceptable lust" of American life.

He’s spent decades dodging the law. He’s escaped from jail twice by helicopter. He’s given millions to the poor. The story of how Vassilis Paleokostas, Greece’s most wanted man, became a folk hero.

In 1943, a young research scientist found a cure for TB. It should have been the proudest moment of Albert Schatz’s life, but ever since he has watched, helpless, as his mentor got all the credit.

A profile of the policy wonk who shone the light and turned the tide on overseas tax havens.

Passengers get a free ride. Drivers get a passport to the HOV lane. Nobody pays, nobody talks. On “slugging,” the DIY commuter system in D.C. that’s being used by 10,000 people a day and taking thousands of cars off the road.