The joys—and absurdities—of finding oneself abandoned in a desolate landscape.

Daisy Coleman, new to town and a cheerleader, was 14. Matthew Barnett, a 17-year-old football player and the grandson of a longtime politician, was 17. The evidence pointed overwhelmingly toward rape. There was even a video. Yet the charges were dropped. Then the people of Maryville, Missouri, set about running the Colemans out of town.

A letter to his unborn son about the wonders of being an only child.

Duke Nukem 3D made its creators filthy rich. Trying to complete its sequel nearly destroyed them.

College is when we first get drunk. Euripides’ The Bacchae can help us learn how to do it right.

What happend to Serafim Todorov after the 1996 Olympic featherweight semifinals.

From the Greeks to George Lucas, 2,200 years of failure.

The story of Jennifer Frey, a sportswriting prodigy who drank herself to death.

What does it take to save a 300-pound loggerhead with a horrible injury? Inside the yearlong journey of recovery.

Inside a Danish homicide investigation.

A statewide movement wants to remove populist Mike Dunleavy from office.

Visas for farmworkers have surged under Trump. But the program has subjected some workers to horrific abuse.

The F.B.I. tried to recruit an Iranian scientist as an informant. When he balked, the payback was brutal.

A profile of the Daily Show host.

Long considered a punchline, vegan cheese has quietly but steadily infiltrated mainstream supermarket shelves.

In 1999, “original superagent” Leigh Steinberg represented 86 NFL athletes. His life today:

At age 63, Steinberg -- for years hailed as the real-life Maguire -- now finds himself a bankrupt, recovering alcoholic, plotting a comeback from the bottom. And before 10 p.m. tonight, as mandated by the California Bar Association, he must show that his urine is clean.

Nearly 20 years ago in a remote California town, a 16-year-old named Karen Mitchell disappeared. The case went cold, but last month local law enforcement started looking at it again after the arrest of a former resident: Robert Durst.

“Last August, I found myself wrung out and miserable over the state of the United States—the vitriol of the presidential election, the deep chasms of reality where we all seemed to find ourselves. I wanted to get the hell away, but not just away. I wanted out. I wanted nothing that resembled where I was coming from. I wanted everything new.”

The dark side of startup life in Silicon Valley.

An extended version of this story is available as an ebook.</em></p>

Rich students complete their college degrees; working-class students usually don’t. How one school is trying to intervene.

A journey on the Sunset Limited, which ferries people from Louisiana to California.

Learning of a plot against the life of the newly elected Lincoln, Alan Pinkerton decamps to Baltimore and infiltrates the conspiracy.

“She scrolls, she waits. For that little notification box to appear.”

How a series of lies and an incompetent lawyer led to a Florida woman’s wrongful conviction.