Profiles of people with genius-level IQs.

Ashlyn Blocker, 13, has a “congenital insensitivity to pain.”

An oral history of Siskel and Ebert.

An early profile of Justin Beiber.

A profile of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, prime minister of Turkey.

A personal history of class in America.

A tour of our greatest conspiracy theories.

A former teacher on what students lose when elementary schools skimp on science.

How violent threats made online go unchecked.

What we can learn from a secret comic strip.

A story of boom and bust.

How Minnesota became a hotbed of toy invention.

An investigation into serial killings in a small North Carolina city.

A profile of Rupert Murdoch, written before his empire began to crumble.

As divided families argued over whether to stay or go, Jones saw part of his congregation slipping away. Al Simon, father of three, wanted to take his children back to America. "No! No! No!" screamed his wife. Someone whispered to her: "Don't worry, we're going to take care of everything." Indeed, as reporters learned later from survivors, Jones had a plan to plant one or more fake defectors among the departing group, in order to attack them. He told some of his people that the Congressman's plane "will fall out of the sky."

Adapted from a new biography of Jane Fonda.

A profile of Elizabeth Warren.

A trip to Hawaii to cover a marathon.

Creating an identity that’s no longer tied to the past.

Monsters occasionally assume a completely unexpected appearance. All of a sudden, Adolf Hitler is standing onstage wearing an Adidas tracksuit and flip-flops, and his name isn't Hitler; it's Oliver Polak. And the monster isn't really Adolf Hitler, either; it's the audience's laughter. It starts with a sputter, like something trying to break free from its restraints. But then it bursts out as if suddenly liberated.

How a drug store conquered New York.

A profile of Taylor Wilson, who achieved nuclear fusion at age 14.

Few men have acquired so scandalous a reputation as did Basil Zaharoff, alias Count Zacharoff, alias Prince Zacharias Basileus Zacharoff, known to his intimates as “Zedzed.” Born in Anatolia, then part of the Ottoman Empire, perhaps in 1849, Zaharoff was a brothel tout, bigamist and arsonist, a benefactor of great universities and an intimate of royalty who reached his peak of infamy as an international arms dealer -- a “merchant of death,” as his many enemies preferred it.