Chains, knives, fists, and, of course, those crude and unreliable homemade affairs called zip guns were the staples in the more vicious gang wars in the 1940s and 1950s. Today there is scarcely a gang in the Bronx that cannot muster a factory-made piece for every member—at the very least, a .22-caliber pistol, but quite often heavier stuff: .32s, .38s, and .45s, shotguns, rifles, and—I have seen them myself—even machine guns, grenades, and gelignite, an explosive. One gang, the Royal Javelins, has acquired some walkie-talkie radios.

Part one of a planned nine-part serialized biography of Harrison Gray Otis, the “inventor of modern Los Angeles.”

Future installments will include Otis’s interlude as “emperor of the Pribilofs,” his military atrocities in the Philippines, his bitter legal battles with the Theosophists, the Otis-Chandler empire in the Mexicali Valley, the Times bombing in 1910, the notorious discovery of fellatio in Long Beach, and Otis’s quixotic plan for world government.

The story of a naïve fisherman, a boat headed for Spain and 1.5 tons of cocaine.

How a group of serial entrepreneurs with an already impressive string of hits changed the way the world talks.

The Granite Mountain Hotshots, an outfit of professional wildland firefighters, had 20 members. On June 30, 19 of them lost their lives.

The rise and fall of Colorado’s newly-legal cash crop.

A profile of driver A.J. Foyt on the eve of what was supposed to be his final Indy 500.

Part one of W.T. Snead’s Victorian-era investigation into child prostitution.

On the group of friends who came to rule the bizarre, decreasingly lucrative world of Internet porn.

What happened to the group of bright college students who fell under the sway of a classmate’s father?

A consideration of Chris Ware.

A profile of Maggie Gallagher, founder of National Organization for Marriage.

“For the first few days after the surgery, it was difficult to separate out my newly implanted sense from the bits of pain and sensation created by the trauma of having the magnet jammed in my finger.”

A minute by minute account of the officers and first responders on the scene of the San Bernadino shooting and the subsequent firefight between police and and the Farooks.

How one of the world’s foremost Beatles collectors died homeless on the streets of Little Rock.

What it takes to defect from the military state of one of the world’s youngest countries.

On the U.S. government’s pursuit of a legendary hacker.

In the wake of Rumours, the band endures a series of break-ups.

On the life and legacy of one of soccer’s legends, who died Wednesday.

Eco-tourism in the Himalayas.

The valley is everything you'd want and more. An icy milky river thunders over rocks and below steep wooded slopes are lush fields where people are working the land, oblivious to the Gore-Tex procession. Oblivious but not unaffected: the houses are smart, the prayer wheels freshly painted, just about everyone has a mobile phone, it seems, and is on it, and there are very few places you can't get a signal around here. This is not really the place to come if you're looking for peace and quiet.

What led to the death of a 5-year-old boy, “the Everychild in the state system.”

A cultural history of Bitcoin and what happened when the nascent virtual currency began to be covered by the mainstream media.

The untold story of how anger became the dominant emotion in our politics and personal lives—and what we can do about it.

The Brooklyn Nets were built to be an unbeatable superteam of eccentric basketball superstars. Will they dominate the N.B.A. playoffs?