The Gabrielle Giffords shooting, from the vantage point of three central figures: Daniel Hernandez helped save the congresswoman’s life; Patricia Maisch stopped the shooter from reloading; Bill Badger tackled him.

The former first lady’s new memoir recounts her family’s trajectory from the Jim Crow South to Chicago’s South Side and her own improbable journey from there to the White House.

From the proto-bleep to meta-bleep: how the US government protects us from the profane.

Can casting away from established society to inhabit sea-based colonies save us from the problems of modern life—or are we bound to repeat our mistakes?

What happens when trying to escape poverty means separating from your family at 13?

The former Van Halen front man has actually made more money from booze and food than from music.

He rose from poverty to fame as a marathon champion at only 23. But was his fall from a balcony outside of Nairobi murder, accident, or suicide?

A review of Treme, the new HBO show about post-Katrina New Orleans from David Simon, creator of The Wire. “The series virtually prohibits you from loving it,” Franklin writes, “while asking you to value it.”

What Egypt learned from the students who overthrew Milosevic. “The Serbs are not the usual highly paid consultants in suits from wealthy countries; they look more like, well, cocky students. They bring a cowboy swagger. They radiate success. Everyone they teach wants to do what the Serbs did.”

In staying, I was not only denying myself the chance at true happiness, but I was keeping him from having it, too. It was that realization—that I was preventing my husband from having the life he deserved—that ultimately outweighed the fears I had about leaving.

An examination of Brazil’s immense tannery industry shows how hides from illegally deforested ranches can easily reach the global marketplace. In the United States, much of the demand for Brazilian leather comes from automakers.

From Norwegian waters to European plates.

Marital advice columns from the past.

How a Soviet swimming champion saved passengers from a sinking trolleybus.

How to photograph Los Angeles from a helicopter.

What we can learn from a secret comic strip.

The truth and consequences of reporting from a war zone.

Adapted from a new biography of Jane Fonda.

A profile from his days living as a mountain monk in Southern California.

A profile from Cooper’s early days an an anchor.

Scenes from a Bowery flophouse.

A dispatch from the frozen, drunken wasteland of Eastern Siberia.

How a young state rep from Missouri, seemingly guaranteed political greatness, ended up behind bars.

First-person accounts from the 2004 siege of a Russian school in Beslan by Chechen terrorists.