‘‘That’s something I don’t think I could ever do,’’ she said. ‘‘Send my only girl to another random country to live with people she’d just met. It had to be God that paralyzed Monica Fenty’s emotions so that she’d say, ‘Yes, go.’ To this day, I don’t know how that happened. But thank God it did.’’

“I faced death and all that shit. It’s my responsibility to come back and come back strong. It’s going to take more than a Walmart truck to take that gift away. I can’t wait to make you all laugh. Especially you, Mike. And I already did that today. So all is good.”

John Demjanjuk has had a huge year. Twenty years after being sentenced to die, he finally climbed to the pinnacle of the Wiesenthal Center's list of Nazi war criminals this April, shortly after the Germans filed the arrest warrant that allowed the OSI to put him on the jet to Munich.

Whoever wants to enchant America’s conservative base as well as independents looking for a steady hand amid economic upheaval must try to grasp what has carried Cain this far — what not only shields him from spectacular attempts at self-immolation but also, with each incident, seems to make him stronger. Why, with this candidate, do the laws of physics seem not to apply?

How to kick heroin in 24 hours.

To be mentally ill in Ghana.

On learning to jog.

A work trip to Turkmenistan.

Imagine a community of great possibilities and prosperity built by Black people for Black people. Places to work. Places to live. Places to learn and shop and play. Places to worship. Now imagine it being ravaged by flames.

“If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long.”

Irving Kahn is about to celebrate his 106th birthday. He still goes to work every day. Scientists are studying him and several hundred other Ashkenazim to find out what keeps them going. And going. And going.

“That learning to cook could lead an American woman to success of any kind would have seemed utterly implausible in 1949; that it is so thoroughly plausible 60 years later owes everything to Julia Child’s legacy.”

The subject of a child research experiment tries to get to the bottom of what happened to her.

In 1995, the Chicago Reader profiled a little-known professor (and lawyer and philanthropist and author) who had decided to run for office to get back to his true passion: community organizing.

For many immigrants coming through Arizona, it’s not enough to pay a coyote to shepherd you across the border. You also need to pay the ransom demanded by your kidnapper after you arrive.

His wife murdered his mother, tried to do the same to him, and was prepared to orphan their 8-month-old child. The attempt left him blind. Then he defended her in court.

A visit to Tokyo’s first co-sleeping cafe, where one can pay a set fee to sleep next to a woman in 20 minute increments, though spooning, being patted on the head, and a change of pajamas are extra.

“Political argument has been having a terrible century. Instead of arguing, everyone from next-door neighbors to members of Congress has got used to doing the I.R.L. equivalent of posting to the comments section: serially fulminating.”

Over the past 15 years, three people have attempted to restore the humor brand to its former glory. What happened instead was direct-to-video movies, lawsuits, crippling debt, and two prison sentences.

The Nxivm initiation was supposed to open up a secret sisterhood. After giving up compromising photographs to the recruiter “master,” each woman was expecting a tattoo. Instead they received 2-inch brands that seemed to suggest the initials of the cults founder, Keith Raniere.

With key U.S.D.A. programs—from food stamps to meat inspection, to grants and loans for rural development, to school lunches—under siege, the agency’s greatest problem is that even the people it helps most don’t know what it does.

The largest crowdfunding site in the world puts up a mirror to who we are and what matters most to us. Try not to look away.

I cannot burden my family with worry, because to be a burden worse than not being family at all. Like everyone else, I came to the ballpark to get away from something.

“You have to ask for food. You have to ask to go use the bathroom. … [Kelly] is a master at mind control. … He is a puppet master.”

“Twenty-five years ago, I used to live in fear of Trevor Latham kicking my ass nearly every day. I grew up to be a writer. He grew up to run one of the toughest biker gangs in America. And then I tracked him down.”