The Great Read

She was the ‘big sister’ he hoped to impress. He seemed inexperienced to her. Now, they’re the faces of a political movement — and New York is its test case.

By Matt Flegenheimer

In “The Smashing Machine,” the actor gives a new kind of performance, one that required him to face his fears.

By Sam Anderson and Jack Davison

In 2023, Chance Comanche was playing some of the best basketball of his life. His teammates thought he was on his way to the N.B.A. Instead, he was accused of murder.

By David Gardner

The caller ID said “Chase Bank,” and the man on the line said I might be a victim of fraud. His supervisor would explain.

By Michael Wilson

After three decades in California, Narciso Barranco was arrested by agents while weeding outside an IHOP, stirring outrage and a fight to stop his deportation.

By Miriam Jordan

Some residents of the Pierre claim that Howard Lutnick, who owns the penthouse, was part of a plot to sell off this symbol of Manhattan glamour and wealth.

By Michael Rothfeld, Maureen Farrell and Jodi Kantor

As Cat Stevens, he helped define the singer-songwriter. After converting to Islam, he became a lightning rod. His new memoir explores it all.

By Grayson Haver Currin

Robert Munsch wrote “The Paper Bag Princess,” “Love You Forever” and other classics by performing them over and over for kids. But his stories are slipping away.

By Katie Engelhart

The estate of the best-selling author, which has intellectual property rights to “ER,” and the creators of the new hit TV show are waging a legal battle over whether it’s a stealth reboot.

By Nicholas Kulish

Maine’s Board of Pesticides Control says two summer residents poisoned a neighbor’s trees so the couple, both Martha Stewart associates, could have a harbor view. They deny it.

By Elizabeth Williamson and Sophie Park

At a school with a basketball-themed curriculum, students were “dreaming big.” But could they find a buyer?

By Troy Closson

Damar Hamlin’s heart stopped beating after a tackle on “Monday Night Football” in 2023. He wants to be known for more than that.

By David Waldstein

In a new memoir and documentary, the actor known for “Two and a Half Men,” “Platoon” and a debauched life that nearly killed him puts it all out there.

By Dina Gachman

Ross Ulbricht, who created the Silk Road dark web marketplace and was serving a life sentence for drug distribution, has embarked on a strange and unexpected comeback after President Trump pardoned him in January.

By Ryan Mac and David Yaffe-Bellany

After years of training (clowning, Butoh and more), the longtime friends take on Samuel Beckett’s towering drama on Broadway.

By Melena Ryzik and Dana Scruggs

In his autobiographical novel, Sam Sussman grows up wondering if his affinity for the great singer-songwriter goes beyond a striking resemblance.

By David Segal and Daniel Weiss

Ahn Hak-sop was captured during the Korean War by the South and imprisoned for more than 40 years. Now 95, he wants to return to the North to die.

By Choe Sang-Hun

After making millions in a job he came to hate, Jonathan Kleisner joined the Fire Department as a rookie paramedic at the age of 41. Now he’s determined to be the best rescue medic anywhere.

By Christopher Maag and Sean Jackson

As the sun sets on another summer, John Hersh is wrapping up his 10th year of rooftop serenades.

By Elisabeth Egan

After she lost her son to an overdose, Serena Fallon went on a quest to hold someone accountable for his death.

By Michael Corkery and Dave Sanders

A 2012 documentary asked if Jacqueline Siegel was a benefactor or victim of American greed. A new musical starring Kristin Chenoweth raises doubts.

By Zachary Small

Tucked among exclusive real estate, a family’s 18-foot-wide strip of land is not just an oceanside parking spot. It’s their legacy.

By Steven Kurutz and Vincent Alban

The former college swimmer has used her race against Lia Thomas, a trans athlete, to propel her career as an influential, and unsparing, activist.

By Ruth Graham

On the town with the A-Gays of Washington, who have never been happier to be out, proud and Republican.

By Shawn McCreesh

America’s toughest trainer was a proud Hollywood liberal. Now, she’s become a defining voice of the MAHA era.

By Molly Langmuir

Calabasas residents thought it would be easy to keep wildfire ash from being trucked to their local landfill. They were wrong.

By Nathaniel Rich

The diaristic pop-soul singer is self-loathing, self-aggrandizing, irreverent, evasive and in-your-face. At 24, she’s finally arrived. But the ride is just beginning.

By Joe Coscarelli

Fifteen years after a combat photographer lost his legs to a land mine, he returned to the place in Afghanistan where it happened.

By Joao Silva

Romantasy is propping up the fiction market. Thanks to a generation that grew up reading about a boy wizard.

By Alexandra Alter

The shanty boat was bound for New Orleans, but the destination mattered less than the challenges, chance encounters and lessons learned along the way.

By Rick Rojas and Annie Flanagan

Medicaid pays for most of the in-home care that lets disabled Americans live independently. Will coming cuts put that care in jeopardy?

By Marcela Valdes

As their magic act hits 50 years, they’re bigger than ever. They say their secret is not to socialize. But misdirection is also their love language.

By Jason Zinoman and Roger Kisby

Melinda Farina, known as the Beauty Broker, sends Hollywood actresses and everyday women to doctors around the globe. In her world, the knives are always out.

By Jacob Bernstein

Thunder Ranch is one of the best-known shooting schools in American gun culture, offering firearms as a way to change your life when all else fails.

By Thomas Gibbons-Neff

When it comes to mass-participation events, would-be record setters are finding it harder than ever to draw a crowd. But it’s still fun to try.

By Lauren Larson

Robert Longo was a little nervous about opening a big show in Denmark this year.

By Carl Swanson and D’Angelo Lovell Williams

On Instagram, the artist Joseph Awuah-Darko asked the world to invite him to dinner before he ended his life. More than 150 meals later, he is still going.

By David Segal and Ciril Jazbec

The daytime TV fixture seems to have taken a rightward turn. But don’t call it politics.

By Matt Flegenheimer

Over 21 days of talking with ChatGPT, an otherwise perfectly sane man became convinced that he was a real-life superhero. We analyzed the conversation.

By Kashmir Hill and Dylan Freedman

These retired women in Texas have been through infertility, illness, layoffs, addiction and disappointing marriages. Now they are trying to create a utopia just for themselves.

By Lisa Miller and Shelby Tauber

When his wife died, the paleontologist Barry James poured his grief into the reconstruction of a triceratops skeleton that they had started together.

By Zachary Small and Caroline Gutman

Very few people know what it’s like to recover, physically and emotionally, from a shark bite. But some of the ones who do are ready to help.

By Victoria Kim

“Odd Lots” goes deep on lentils in Saskatchewan, the global tractor supply and trucking markets. Is it the skeleton key to understanding this strange economic moment?

By Benjamin Wallace and Hiroko Masuike

Tatiana Andia knew Colombia would permit her a medically assisted death. She took her country with her on the journey to dying.

By Stephanie Nolen and Federico Rios Escobar

Mitchell Jackson was fired from a high-profile journalism job at 25. Now he represents some of the most divisive figures in America, including the right-wing podcaster Candace Owens.

By Alex Vadukul

Trisomy 18 is normally fatal within weeks of birth. But some parents are getting more time — with surgeries, luck and an incredible amount of effort.

By Sheri Fink and Stephanie Sinclair

For “Chief of War,” the actor went from playing fictional superheroes to a real one in this epic passion project set in Hawaii.

By Alexis Soloski and Magdalena Wosinska

In the summer of 1985, NASA, the Reagan White House and seven talented astronauts were wrangled into an orbital battle over soft-drink supremacy.

By Joseph Dragovich

Over its several decades, the show’s setting has always been both realistic and idealistic. And it has evolved, much like the New York City streets that inspired it.

By Anna Kodé and Winnie Au

Glenn Valley Foods tried to verify every hire through a federal system. After a raid, the company is wondering how it can keep going.

By Eli Saslow and Erin Schaff

Kai Lee Mykels often said her goal was to make straight men uneasy, but that was a gag. Her creator had a bigger goal in mind.

By Mike Wilson and Rachel Woolf

Therapists are cautious about sharing personal information. When they fall ill or die unexpectedly, the shock can be shattering.

By Ellen Barry

The rickety, beloved Delacorte Theater, built in 1962, leaked and was popular with raccoons. Now it’s a modern facility and still charmingly wild.

By Michael Kimmelman

A historian went down an 18-year rabbit hole in search of obsolete machines. But there was one he thought he’d never find.

By Veronique Greenwood

Women are so fed up with dating men that the phenomenon even has a name: heterofatalism. So what do we do with our desire?

By Jean Garnett

Chatbots can get scary if you suspend your disbelief. But MJ Cocking didn’t — and wound up in a relationship that was strangely, helpfully real.

By Erika Hayasaki

After a valuable de Kooning was discovered behind a bedroom door, a true crime fan wondered: Is that all the thieves stole?

By Michaela Towfighi

A Texas high school has won more championships in mock tiny home construction than any other school in the country. Could a team of rookies defend the title?

By Ronda Kaysen and David Walter Banks

His son and daughter-in-law brought love to his home and represented the family’s hope for a better life.

By Pragati K.B., Mujib Mashal and Atul Loke

Michael Maggart, a high school friend of Anderson’s, has no training or aspirations to be an actor. The director keeps casting him anyway.

By Sopan Deb