The Department of Energy is in chaos and it is putting the world at risk.

The organization’s leadership is focused on external threats, but the real crisis is of its own making.

Here’s what’s become of them.

The most dreadful men to live with are those who thus alternate between angel and devil.

Not long before she died, Anne Isabella Noel Byron gave a wide-ranging interview to the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Most notoriously, she accused her husband, Lord Byron, of carrying on a “secret adulterous intrigue” with his half-sister.

The Atlantic lost 15,000 subscribers in the months following publication of this article.

On Patti Smith.

It was easy for lazy journalists to caricature her as a stringbean who looked like Keith Richards, emitted Dylanish word salads, and dropped names—a high-concept tribute act of some sort, very wet behind the ears. But then her first album, Horses, came out in November 1975, and silenced most of the scoffers.

A profile of 23-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio (and his rowdy crew).

A midwife, a rash of stillbirths and miscarriages, and a town whose economy depends on fracking.

High school dropouts are descending on San Francisco with nothing more than a backpacks full of clothes and ideas.

A profile of a woman who spends her days evangelizing Donald Trump on TV.

Millions of Americans have taken antidepressants for many years. What happens when it’s time to stop?

What is the defining achievement of Barack Obama?

From the proto-bleep to meta-bleep: how the US government protects us from the profane.

For 60 years, American drivers unknowingly poisoned themselves by pumping leaded gasoline into their tanks. Clair Patterson—a scientist who helped build the atomic bomb and discovered the true age of the Earth—took on a billion-dollar industry to save humanity from itself.

How history forgot Felipe and Vivián Espinosa, two of the American West’s most brutal killers—and the complicated story behind their murderous rampage.

In November 2019, James Le Mesurier, the British co-founder of the Syrian rescue group, fell to his death in Istanbul. What led an internationally celebrated humanitarian to take his own life?

A humble Scotsman saw something strange in the water—and daringly set out to catch it—only to have lecherous out-of-towners steal his fame and upend his quest.

Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman were friends. Until they weren’t.

A war criminal’s life on the run.

With Osama dead, U.S. intelligence is zeroing in on the remaining most dangerous terrorists alive, and one man is at the top of the list. Of the eighteen terror attacks attempted in the United States over the past two years, Anwar al-Awlaki’s fingerprints are on eight of them. The moderate turned radical is eloquent, he is popular— and he’s American.

'He collapsed on Granville Road, within 100 meters of the house he was renting for $20,000 a month. Police and medics were called to the scene, but within 30 minutes, Perepilichny was pronounced dead. Police told the press the death was “unexplained.” A 44-year-old man of average build and above-average wealth had simply fallen down and died in the leafy suburb he’d recently begun calling home.'

The role of money plays a two-sided role in Borges’ artistic life. On one side of the coin’s face, Borges was blessed with the most privileged, ideal life for a burgeoning literary genius. Educated in Europe, raised by his father to become a serious writer, Borges devoted his entire life to literature. He did not take a full-time job for nearly 40 years. But on the coin’s reverse side, we see that young Georgie Borges did not actually write his great fictions until after his family lost their money.

The W.N.B.A. is putting on some of the best pro basketball in America.

Cases of COVID-19 are rising fast. Vaccine uptake has plateaued. The pandemic will be over one day—but the way there is different now.

After thousands of birds vanished overnight from a Florida refuge, conspiracy theories bloomed.