How digital detectives unraveled the mystery of Olympic Destroyer—and why the next big attack will be even harder to crack.

The article that spawned a school of thought; an elegy for the age of the megahit and a primer for the niche-based future.

Fifty years ago, 180,000 whales vanished from the ocean. The mystery is not who killed them, but why.

The Branch Davidians today, 20 years after the deadly standoff.

A Southland Tales fanboy goes down the rabbit hole with the movie’s director.

On the conspiracy-theorist occupiers at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge and how they’re fighting against their own best interests.

Five years after his death, friends, family, and the athletes he covered reflect on the legendary ‘SportsCenter’ anchor and ESPN icon.

“We can conclude at least two things with certainty about the tenants of One Hyde Park: they are extremely wealthy, and most of them don’t want you to know who they are and how they got their money.”

Peter Zumthor, who recently won the Pritzker Prize after a career of few buildings and mostly modest-in-size projects, on the “architecture of actually making things”

A profile of Martha Nussbaum, whose ideas illuminate the often ignored elements of human life—aging, inequality, and emotion.

“And while maybe you don’t care if Justin Bieber ever does make his way back to a kind of normalcy, perhaps you can admit there is at least something admirable, in the abstract, about someone finding a way to survive, and even to become kind, when all they’ve been taught since a young age, by millions of adoring people, is that there is no need for them to be kind at all. And if that doesn’t move you, then maybe you can at least find sociological interest in the process that Bieber is about to recount here, which is how you turn into someone you don’t want to be, and what you do about it once you decide you want to be someone else. Someone better, even.”

A visit to Glenn Greenwald’s house in Rio.

Why one man made it his mission to kill 60 known sex offenders.

A murder involving the late actor leaves unanswered questions.

An investigation into America’s Greek system.

The U.N.’s role in creating an epidemic in Haiti.

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.

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

Life on a weed farm in Humboldt County.

The surprising bond between damaged birds and traumatized veterans.

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

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

A mystery embedded deep within the Amazon.

What it means to stay true to the Steve Jobs brand.