On working in a war zone to pay the bills.

A conversation on the “bedeviling sorts of indeterminacies one encounters the deeper one drills.”

The next generation of America’s most controversial (and likely most despised) church.

A profile of Beck on the eve of his new album and nearly 20 years after the release of “Loser.”

Dan Akroyd, John Belushi, cocaine, and the making of The Blues Brothers.

Thirty-one years ago, Joy Hunley’s daughter was adopted. At least that’s what the paperwork says.

The 22-year-old rapper on escaping North Long Beach and his desire to be a “regular” guy.

Joanne the Scammer has celebrity fans and a massive YouTube following. Branden Miller barely leaves his Daytona Beach apartment.

On the journey of 24-year-old Jose Fernandez, the Cuban defector turned Major League all-star, who died Sunday.

A long stroll through a Staten Island cemetery leads to the story of the 19th-century free-black oystermen who settled Sandy Ground.

On the shootings, and the response, in Baton Rouge, Falcon Heights, and Dallas this summer.

Forty years after the dirty wars and Pinochet’s coup, photographer David Burnett journeys back to Chile to visit the subject of his most famous image.

The gospel according to nine-year-olds; a missionary group that won the right to evangelize in schools and how children process their message.

The conspiracy theories surrounding the 1931 death of Hitler’s niece and object of affection.

An interview with a Mexican-born American attorney who defended and eventually smuggled for the cartels in the ’90s.

In 1902, a poet attempts to stage the world’s first “perfume concert.”

A profile of Avishek Sengupta, who drowned at the Walk the Plank obstacle during an endurance race last year.

Did the Obama Administration ignore evidence that someone other than Assad could be behind the sarin attacks?

How the Syrian president stays in power.

The author gets a crash course in health care pricing after having his urethra fixed.

A filmmaker goes to court to fight the television commercial break.

A profile of computational biologist Eric Schadt, the guy who’s figuring out what comes next after the Human Genome Project.

On the producer Timbaland, then best known for collaborations with Missy Elliott, Aaliyah, and Ginuwine.

21,000 words on the watchers and watched.