Sixty years ago, a sharecropper’s son invented a technology to identify faces. Then the record of his role all but vanished. Who was Woody Bledsoe, and who was he working for?

Outdated textbooks, not enough teachers, no ventilation — for millions of kids like Harvey Ellington, the public-education system has failed them their whole lives.

The Atlanta Braves-New York Mets game from Sept. 21, 2001, remains a historic moment of grief, mourning, and hope after 9/11.

An interview with an ex-CIA agent who is a world expert on the history of car bombing.

What do you do when you hear that Mike Tyson is opening a weed resort in the middle of the California desert? You go investigate.

As U.S. troops departed, Baghdad in ruins.

Winner of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. While on assignment for the New York Times, Anthony Shadid died today in Syria.

On those rare instances when I would think about having a child, I assumed her life would be less complicated than my own. The stubborn optimism of the immigrant dictates that while your own life often shows just how quickly things can get catastrophically worse, American progress remains immutable.

Margaret Keane’s husband stole credit for her iconic paintings, basking in fame and fortune that should have been hers for years. Then she told a reporter the truth.

“When I was a child, Dad told me that he chose to become a cop because a cop was the most respected man on the block. When I took a seat at the grown folks table, he told me that he wanted control.”

On September 14, 2001, Lyle Stevik checked into the Lake Quinault Inn. Three days later, the motel’s housekeeper found him dead. But “Lyle Stevik,” it turns out, was an alias.

An enormous entitlement in the tax code props up home prices—and overwhelmingly benefits the wealthy and the upper middle class.

He was a convicted felon who found a niche in Seattle’s construction boom. As the region’s fortunes rose and fell—and rose again—so did his. Then a fatal boating accident came for Michael Powers’s fairy-tale ending.

When a gossip rag went after the CEO, he retaliated with the brutal, brilliant efficiency he used to build his business empire.

On office chairs.

In the 1950s and '60s, the distinctions between rank found blunt expression in chair design, naming and price point; Knoll, for example, produced "Executive," "Advanced Management," and "Basic Operational" chairs in the late 1970s. Recall the archetypal scenes where the boss, back to the door, protected by an exaggerated, double-spine headrest, slowly swivels around to meet the eyes of his waiting subordinate, impotent in a stationary four-legger.

Meet Mel Bernstein. He goes by the name Dragonman, and he’s one of the largest independent purveyors of firearms in the western United States, and the self-proclaimed most armed man in America. At Dragonland—his home, shop, shooting range, and military museum outside Colorado Springs—no gun sells quicker than the weapon used in the most recent mass shooting. Amidst a new gun conversation, it’s business as usual. But even here, it turns out there’s a price to pay.

Groupon disasters, the behaviors of the consumer swarm, and how the “1% and the 90% [are] collaborating to prey on the 9% in the middle.”

Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico’s “monkey island.” The surviving primates could help scientists learn about the psychological response to traumatizing events.

The grocer started communicating with Chinese counterparts in January and was running tabletop simulations a few weeks later. (But nothing prepared it for the rush on toilet paper.)

Federal recognition provides tribes with critical healthcare and education. What happens to the tribal nations that the U.S. refuses to recognize?

After a member of the Church of Wells abruptly left the group (which may or may not be a cult), many held out hope. A week later she went back, and the church’s elders are eager to explain why.

Previously: Sinners in the Hands

Is a well-received work of William Faulkner scholarship a hoax?

Is the anonymous, reclusive inventor of Bitcoin this 64-year-old man in Los Angeles?

Sissel Tolaas is a star in the world of smells. Her methods are not always subtle.

COBOL is a coding language older than Weird Al Yankovic. The people who know how to use it are often just as old. It underpins the entire financial system. And it can’t be removed. How a computer language controls the financial life of the world.