Long Reads

One DC store, 16 surveillance cameras, and two murders in seven months

Brenda thought she and Ricky would be together forever, until he left her. Kendra thought she and Ricky would be together forever. Then Brenda took matters into her own hands. Inside the case of jealousy, spying, and murder that shook Uptown Dallas.

It's not too early to examine which future presidential candidates had the best 2019 — and what to watch from them next.

Nicole Walker contemplates the nature of migration and realizes there are two places you can never escape: the planet and your own head.

From the "KonMari method" to Apple's barely-there design philosophy, we are forever being urged to declutter and simplify our lives. But does minimalism really make us any happier?

There's a pretty little part of South West London where dead people fall from the sky. It's a perfectly charming area. The bodies don't fall on it all the time, of course, only more frequently than one might have obvious reason to suspect.

G4S subsidiary ArmorGroup hired Afghan warlords who battled with U.S. Marines. It ended with one of the worst civilian casualty disasters of the war.

The city is home to a land rush of "collab houses," where the content creators are getting younger and younger.

Bernie Sanders is gambling that the strategy that won him a mayor's race in Burlington, Vermont, and broke the back of the local establishment, can be scaled nationwide.

In 2020, this is what to expect in the world of consumer tech: the best stuff is going to get more powerful and more premium.

have read the many memories of his being kind, moral, or in love with the game. The easy praise is good today. But it misses the manner in which he was truly remarkable.

In the dead of winter, a group of students set out on a trek into the Ural Mountains. Their frozen bodies — with inexplicable injuries — were discovered in locations that compounded the puzzle of how they died. The Dyatlov Pass mystery spawned dozens of conspiracy theories, which have endured for 60 years.

Even a galaxy teeming with star-hopping alien civilizations should still harbor isolated, unvisited worlds — and Earth might be among them.

Port Arthur, Texas, is surrounded by refineries that residents say are poisoning them.

When my family and I were still in danger, I emailed these words to a friend back home in America: "We're safe, but trapped by fires on three sides. The ocean will be our escape if necessary."

In a wide-ranging interview, the director talks about his own mortality, the treatment of women in his movies, and moviemaking in the Netflix age.

The vice president had spent most of his career trying to lift the restraints on presidential authority. After 9/11, he did just that.

Drug companies are courting jails and judges through sophisticated marketing efforts.

Andy Jurtschenko told his children that he didn't want to be a burden on them. But after he suffered brain damage during a heart transplant, his medical team deflected their request for a DNR.

The 27 works, moments and objects that define the best — and worst — of the past decade.

Female graduates of the largest majority-Mormon university earn on average $800 a year. What gives?

My fantasy was to escape from the corporate grind. After a taste of freedom and months of hare-brained schemes, I begged to be captured again.

For migrants who speak Mayan languages, a grassroots group of interpreters is often their only hope for receiving asylum.

Sheriffs regularly release sick and injured inmates to avoid paying their hospital bills. But some defendants charged with violent offenses like murder have been let out and gone on to commit new crimes.

I wanted to be prepared for the worst nature could throw at me. But the real threat turned out to be human.

Is cancel culture a mob mentality, or a long overdue way of speaking truth to power?

A look back at the military operations on New Year's Eve of 1999 that were undertaken to prevent a Y2K technological catastrophe and how the events connected the US and Russian governments.

As best we can tell, the hauntings began after Andy's traumatic brain injury.

It began almost playfully, like tiny hiccups in her mind. Then the illness amplified.

In an age of historic disparity, Abigail Disney and the Patriotic Millionaires take on income inequality.

Marine commanders did not act on dozens of pleas for additional manpower, machinery and time. When a training exercise ended in death, leadership blamed the very men they had neglected.

Asylum seekers face competing miseries: violence at home, and a punitive detention system with a shard of hope for relief abroad.

Twenty years after "Galaxy Quest" hit theaters, director Dean Parisot and stars Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver and Justin Long look back at capturing lightning in a bottle, and reveal the apology Jeffrey Katzenberg issued over the film's bungled marketing campaign.

From poisoned monks and nuclear bombs to the "transfermium wars," mapping the atomic world hasn't been easy.

Once upon a time, we all thought the world was going to end on January 1, 2000. Two decades after the panic of the century, it's time to finally hear from the people who spent years — and billions of dollars — making sure it didn't.

The late Silas Warner is barely remembered in gaming, but he did something extraordinary when he made "Castle Wolfenstein," one of the most influential games ever.

The walk-on-turned-lightning rod is more than just a figure in a controversial movie. He's equal parts Walter Mitty and Forrest Gump.

After her husband's infidelity, Christine Kalafus re-architected her marriage. Now she needs to let her son in on the plans.

Politico asked 22 top historians to write the paragraph that will describe the past decade, 100 years from now.

Louisiana still hasn't finished investigating 540 oil spills after Hurricane Katrina. The state is likely leaving millions of dollars in remediation fines on the table — money that environmental groups say they need as storms get stronger.

James Harris Jackson killed Timothy Caughman as "practice" for a mass attack on black men in Times Square.

Wendy McClure recounts how an old audio tape of holiday music becomes a record of family history, unspoken rituals and grief.

Paroled from prison, Kelly Savage entered a world that could feel as restrictive as the one she left.

Amazon ignored or dismissed safety concerns about its delivery network to prioritize speed and explosive growth, according to new documents and interviews with insiders.

What happens when a sports team dies? At a small English soccer club, a community rallied around the power of its memory.

The end of 2019 is nigh, which means it's time for us to take stock of this year's crop of games. And it's been quite a year.

Incarcerated people who are dying can apply for "compassionate release" in some states — but very few of them get it. This is the story of one who did.

The long-dominant ideology brought us forever wars, the Great Recession and extreme inequality. Good riddance.

Keith Gessen writes about the drama of disciplining a toddler, sharing parenting advice from Nancy Samalin's "Love and Anger," Louise Bates Ames and Frances Ilg's "Your Three-Year-Old: Friend of Enemy."

A non-comprehensive list of the year's best personal essays — on everything from mental health to relationships, identity, creativity, family and all that makes us human.

The Chinese Crested Tern was written off as extinct decades ago. Since its rediscovery in 2000, scientists have been working to ensure that Asia's rarest seabird keeps a firm foothold in reality.

Christopher Allen reported in some of the most dangerous parts of the world. Who was looking out for him?

Everlane has branded itself as committed to sustainability and "radical transparency." But remote employees have something to say about that.

On a woman who murdered her partner after years of abuse, and a new law on sentencing for crimes committed by victims of domestic violence.

The 2010s were the decade of Google filling up its product graveyard, Apple stubbornly denying obvious missteps, and Microsoft writing off billions of dollars. It was the decade of crowdfunding fails on Kickstarter, Indiegogo and elsewhere. And many, many more.

Daniel Kaye, also known as Spdrman, found regular jobs tough but corporate espionage easy. He's about to get out of prison.

I tried to have the Bordentown Township Police Department investigated for a culture of racism, negligence and corruption after my dad's death.

Kyoto Animation was a beloved cornerstone of Japan's booming $2 billion anime industry when a deranged arsonist attempted to burn it all down, resulting in the country's worst act of mass murder since World War II.

Carrie Lam insists she, not Beijing, was the prime mover behind the extradition bill that ignited Hong Kong. The truth is far more complicated.

When the USS John S. McCain crashed in the Pacific, the Navy blamed the destroyer's crew for the loss of 10 sailors. The truth is the Navy's flawed technology set the McCain up for disaster.