How order collapsed in an American city.

A profile.

On Taylor Swift’s passive-aggressive lyrics, the life of the writer, and the pain of middle school.

With The Apprentice, Trump rose to a level of popularity with minorities that the GOP could only dream of. Then he torched it all to prepare for a hard-right run at the presidency.

Richard Carr, a retired psychologist who had long dreamed of sailing around the world, was in the middle of the Pacific when he started sending frantic messages that said pirates were boarding his boat. Two thousand miles away in Los Angeles, his family woke up to a nightmare: he might be dying alone, and there was almost nothing they could do about it.

Unpacking a false confession 20 years later.

The Srebrenica massacre, almost 20 years later.

Following a lobster from sea to table.

A bullfighter’s comeback after a brutal goring.

On the troubled, legendary Deschutes River fly-fishing guide.

A move to Los Angeles and a foray into the bourgeoisie.

How Craig Venter’s bugs might save the world.

What happens when top universities focus on careers rather than minds.

A sociobiologist on how we evolved into artists.

On a movement divided.

Nicky Louie and the Ghost Shadows.

The Vice President’s days in Indiana.

A physicist remembers working on the Manhattan Project.

She stumbled into communist circles, and it nearly derailed her career.

The Maryland man who houses antique feminine hygiene products.

On the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, women express themselves through fierce short poems.

How pop-up tax preparers make billions off the poor.

On Dooce.com founder Heather Armstrong.

How one company helps landlords exploit a loophole in New York’s tenant laws.