In 1974, John Patterson was abducted by the People’s Liberation Army of Mexico—a group no one had heard of before. The kidnappers wanted $500,000, and insisted that Patterson’s wife deliver the ransom.

A profile of the novelist, who is surprised to be alive.

How a Madrid workshop is perfecting the art of copying imperiled art, from Egyptian tombs to Renaissance paintings.

Happy 59th! Or is it 58th? Cracking the mystery of Don Mattingly’s birthday.

Moe Tucker narrates her time drumming in the Velvet Underground.

On goalies, and in particular, really good Finnish ones.

Can artistry trump athleticism in figure skating?

A Bad Boy coaches in the WNBA.

How a childhood of anger led the founder of 8chan to create one of the darkest corners of the internet.

He had the gear, the charm, the trail stories. He found his marks in outdoorsy women.

He was the poster boy for the movement to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Now Dan Choi is sleeping on a couch, smoking too much weed, watching TED talks and wondering what he’ll do with the rest of his life.

"The functionality, the quantity, the aesthetics of your bathrooms is critical. It seems unremarkable to most people, but, trust me, you invite 70,000 people to your house and you get the bathrooms wrong—you've got a huge problem."

Searching for answers 40 years after a Brooklyn man threw acid in the face of his 4-year-old neighbor.

A profile of the deadliest sniper in American history, who was murdered last month by a fellow soldier.

On H.H. Holmes “an old hand at corpse manipulation and insurance fraud,” who built a house of death in 1890s Chicago.

Rabbi Barry Freundel said he would help dozens of women convert to Judaism. In the process, he secretly videotaped them naked.

The story of Martin McNally, who hijacked a plane in 1972. Among other crimes.

Women who kill their newborns usually claim to have been in denial about their pregnancies. Can you carry a child to term without realizing it?

The chef, who died last year, was one of San Francisco’s culinary stars in the 1990s. She created a space for the city’s queer women to thrive in the kitchen.

Two decades later, a traffic stop on a country road is still teaching police officers about deadly force – and the cost of hesitation. Part 1 of “The Trigger and the Choice,” a 3-part series.

Will Vinton created the California Raisins, coined the term “claymation” and had a firm making $28 million a year in the late 1990s. By 2002, he was out of a job, replaced by a failed rapper who had gone by the name “Chilly Tee” and also happened to be the son of Nike co-founder Phil Knight.

In 1913, a ship carrying 31 explorers got stuck in the Arctic ice, hundreds of miles from civilization. The leader left to carry on the expedition. Others stuck with the boat. Help wouldn’t come for a year.

Central Park wasn’t always so bucolic.

Gangs of toughs—teenagers and the macho middle-aged, usually drunk, occasionally including a couple of off-duty cops—roam the Ramble at night, engaging in an old American pastime: fag bashing. You don't have to be gay. You don't have to be exposing yourself. You don't have to be doing anything except walking through the tangled darkness to be abused, shoved, threatened at knifepoint, kicked, and beaten.