A false confession to bad cops put a man in prison for rape and murder. But even conclusive DNA evidence hasn’t gotten him out.

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.

A profile of the D.O.C., the rapper’s rapper, who ghostwrote for Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg.

For decades, dozens of men with intellectual disabilities lived in an old schoolhouse and did gruesome work in a turkey plant for subminimum wage. No one noticed.

The veteran music publicist and radio host is also the indefatigable voice behind the most viral prompt questions on Twitter.

The quiet life of Brigette Höss, 80, whose father ran Auschwitz.

Many long-haulers feel that science is failing them. Neglecting them could make the pandemic even worse.

A profile of the comedian who’s “not so funny anymore”:

Jon Stewart has made a career of avoiding "Whooo" humor. He has flattered the prejudices of his audience, but he has always been funny, and he has always made them laugh. At the Juan Williams taping, however, at least half of Stewart's jokes elicited the sound of Whooo! instead of the sound of laughter. He's been able to concentrate his comedy into a kind of shorthand — a pause, or a raised eyebrow, is often all that is necessary now — but a stranger not cued to laugh could be forgiven for not laughing, indeed for thinking that what was going on in front of him was not comedy at all but rather high-toned journalism with a sense of humor. Which might be how Jon Stewart wants it by now.

On A Star Is Born and the celebrity industrial complex.

A generation that has seen inestimable violence comes of age in Juarez.

The aforementioned “twist” is that while dinner is free for the black residents of the neighborhood, the prices for white visitors are listed on a pledge form at their seats: $100 for one piece of chicken; $1,000 for four pieces. For a whole bird, with sides, you must donate the deed to a property in North Nashville.

Mitch McConnell’s refusal to rein in the President is looking riskier than ever.

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

The little-understood history of the whales and how barnacles may be the key to understanding how giant mammals evolved underwater.

The absurd scale of McDonald’s’ economics suggests a company more like a commodity trader than a chain of restaurants.

At this volume, and with the impermanence of the sandwich, it only makes sense for McDonald’s to treat the sandwich as a sort of arbitrage strategy: at both ends of the product pipeline, you have a good being traded at such large volume that we might as well forget that one end of the pipeline is hogs and corn and the other end is a sandwich. McDonald’s likely doesn’t think in these terms, and neither should you.

How the case of a poisoned college student in China, cold for 18 years, has suddenly turned into “what may be the largest amateur online manhunt in history.”

What is it like when a city abandons a neighborhood and the police vanish? Business owners describe a harrowing experience of calling for help and being left all alone.

The U.S. Department of Justice investigates the Blackwater founder’s new firm.

The life of Antonio Zambrano-Montes, shot dead by the police in Washington state.

A visit with Ai Weiwei, Laura Poitras, and Jacob Appelbaum, three people who live in justifiable paranoia of government surveillance.

On Abbey Road studios, the Beatles, and modern record production.

Thirty-four years after the Bhopal gas leak, the abandoned waste pits are spreading poison and still destroying lives.

On the “queer roots” of Disco, House, and beyond.

In the wake of a vicious murder, the state of Oregon wrestles with what went wrong in its mental health system.

In the normal universe, "to be" is annihilated by "not to be." But for reasons that are still a mystery to even the deepest math of physics, a bit of matter in a billion or so is not obliterated, it has no antimatter partner. It becomes a drop of experience.