“We need a new language for talking about poverty. ‘Nobody who works should be poor,’ we say. That’s not good enough. Nobody in America should be poor, period.”

In 1978, an eighth grader killed his teacher. After 20 months in a psychiatric facility, he was freed. His classmates still wonder: What really happened?

Nearly a decade ago, Marie Calloway’s debut book, what purpose did i serve in your life, thrilled and repulsed readers. Then she vanished from public life. I tried to find her.

On Swedish game designer Markus Persson and his singular creation, Minecraft, which has sold over twenty million copies and earned Persson over a hundred million dollars last year.

Teo Brank found a lucrative side hustle arranging escorts for sex parties. But when his business soured, he turned to extortion.

While serving in WWII, Jerome Motto received regular correspondence from a woman he barely knew. These letters led to groundbreaking research on how to reach people at risk.

Eric Coomer had an election-security job at Dominion Voting Systems. He also had posted anti-Trump messages on Facebook. What happened next ruined his life.

Fossils have become a hot new asset class. Paleontologists aren’t thrilled, but for Clayton Phipps and his peers, it’s a living.

“I am not a tech journalist. I have never done this before. I don’t know what’s going on. Like most journalists everywhere, I am hungover.”

He was an 18 year old Marine bound for Iraq. She was a high school senior in West Virginia. They grew intimate over IM. His dad also started contacting her.  No one was who they claimed to be and it led to a murder.

After an 11-year-old Navajo girl was kidnapped, her family and friends sprang into action to find her. Why did it take so long for law enforcement to join them?

George von Bothmer reported a violent home invasion by two men wielding guns and shouting death threats. Things only got weirder from there.

He was a Harvard Law professor who taught a class on judgment, which made him an unlikely target for an elaborate paternity scheme that nearly cost him his house and family.

Border Patrol agent Matthew Bowen had been investigated for years before he used his 4,000-pound truck to assault a fleeing migrant.

Carrying babies for foreign couples was once touted as a win-win for everyone involved. Indian women, however, were often left with little to show for their efforts.

My dad was a riddle to me, even more so after he disappeared. For a long time, who he was—and by extension who I was—seemed to be a puzzle I would never solve.

Shirley Jackson wrote 17 books while raising four children — and she couldn’t have had a successful career without them.

In 1984, Jacqui met Bob Lambert at an animal-rights protest. They fell in love, had a son. Then Bob disappeared. It would take 25 years for Jacqui to learn that he had been working undercover.

When computer science legend Jim Gray disappeared, his friends and colleagues – including Bill Gates and Larry Ellison – used every technological tool at their disposal to try to find him.

Decades ago, a marketing stunt promised Philippine soda drinkers a chance at a million pesos. But an error at a bottling plant led to 600,000 winners—and to lawsuits, rioting, and even deaths.

“‘If there’s anything I can do to make your trip more enjoyable, let me know.” He walked away, then he strode back to Cree 15 seconds later and whispered, making eye contact, “Anything.’”

“Southwark’s petty thugs must have thought all their birthdays had come at once: a well-dressed toff stumbling round their borough in no state to defend himself, and with an alcoholic street whore as his only companion.”

Reconstructing a mysterious 1892 London murder.

A post-mortem.

President Lincoln worked very hard all his life. After he died, his corpse kept a gruelling travel schedule, too.