The story was told by Sports Illustrated, CBS News, and countless others: linbeacker Manti Te’o, Heisman trophy candidate and the face of Notre Dame football, was playing brilliantly despite the tragic loss of his girlfriend to leukemia early in the season. The reporters missed one key element of Te’o’s story, however: the girl hadn’t died. She couldn’t have. She didn’t exist.

The man behind the Body Worlds exhibit faces his own death.

On living in Syria as an Alawite loyalist.

Embedded with the “hotshots” trying to battle forest fires.

Nine innings with Mr. Baseball.

The plot to turn Texas blue.

An essay on the wounded woman.

A young woman with a rare condition navigates El Paso.

Thoughts on necks.

Life on a weed farm in Humboldt County.

A flamboyant player, a charismatic coach, and a sex predator.

On the world’s biggest polluter.

An essay on the pitcher, friendship and death.

Juries trust DNA. But should they?

What Gregg Popovich, 5-time NBA champion coach, looks for in players.

The surprising bond between damaged birds and traumatized veterans.

How one man terrorized a small Illinois town.

Tom Wolfe on the development of ”New Journalism,” an unconventional reporting style which he helped to pioneer.

I had the feeling, rightly or wrongly, that I was doing things no one had ever done before in journalism. I used to try to imagine the feeling readers must have had upon finding all this carrying on and cutting up in a Sunday supplement. I liked that idea. I had no sense of being a part of any normal journalistic or literary environment.

“Traffic was never the problem. Everything else was.”

Ten years after the Indian Ocean tsunami, an Indonesian family is reunited.

Living on your parents’ farm while pregnant changes your relationship to time.

A mystery embedded deep within the Amazon.

There’s still a gold rush on in the Andes.

On the stupid things people say to the elderly.

On playing chess and waiting to get arrested.