The immersive mise en scène of a 2010 Hollister flagship store, redolent of California beach towns that don’t exist, “lazy, hygienic sexuality,” and weed.

On loving and hating and living in Manhattan.

A trip to India for total silence.

Sex in the Olympic Village.

A season with the New England Patriots’ 37-year-old quarterback.

The Estonia was carrying 989 passengers when it sank in 30-foot seas on its way across the Baltic in September 1994. More than 850 lost their lives. The ones who survived acted quickly and remained calm.

The arson case that may have led Texas to execute an innocent man.

After decades among the hidden homeless, Dominic Van Allen dug himself a bunker beneath a public park. But his life would get even more precarious.

On theme parks in America.

Randy Quaid and his wife Evi have fled to Canada and are living in their car. They are seeking asylum from the menace of the “Hollywood Star Whackers.”

For months, Emile Weaver denied her pregnancy. A gruesome discovery forced her to confront the truth.

I sometimes miss believing, and look toward the days when I was satisfied by testimony—by the feeling that there were encounters everywhere, all seeming to attest to some great mystery.

An essay on insomnia.

Uncovering evidence of unequal treatment by real estate agents.

How to tell a genderqueer story.

The author’s then-six-year-old ended up with the original artwork for one of the cards in Magic’s Alpha series—but he’s not selling, so don’t even ask.

How he made big and early bets on new technologies—and won.

The long, loving search for Betsy, bovine escape artist.

On surfer girls in Maui; the story that led to the film Blue Crush.

The country was captivated by the Balloon Boy. But what really happened?

The extraordinary “rescue” of a fallen California firefighter.

In the days after 9/11, a photo of an unknown man falling from the South Tower appeared in publications across the globe. This is the story of that photograph, and of the search to find the man pictured in it.

An argument for trying.

Two ships, a supercharged hurricane, and one Coast Guard helicopter.

Can tearing down I-81 fix the sins of the past?