The long read: In 2019, the body of a man fell from a passenger plane into a garden in south London. Who was he?

A man calling himself Grandmaster Jay has raised a disciplined, heavily armed militia. It has yet to fire a shot at its enemies, but it’s prepared for war.

Danny Stewart was rushing to meet his boyfriend for dinner when he ran past something lying on the floor of a New York subway station. Soon he would treasure it more than anything else in the world.

In the ’80s, the spy agency investigated the "Gateway Experience" technique to alter consciousness and ultimately escape spacetime. Here is everything you need to know.

Consider a simple thought experiment. Imagine that by the end of this century, everyone in the world will use energy at the same rate per person that a typical American does today: a steady stream of 9.5 kilowatts (kW), averaged over the year. That’s roughly the power consumed by 18 electric-stove burners running nonstop on high, all day, every day.

FROM 3,500 FEET, the clear August afternoon offered an exceptional view of New York’s Catskill Mountains. The light breeze over Greene County had been ideal for an afternoon flight, and one private pilot operating a small sailplane over East Windham had decided to take full advantage of it.

“I don’t know you’ve seen this thing yet, but it’s light enough, and it’s got Velcro mounting, so if you have a sunny window somewhere in the house, you can just open the window, reach out, and—after you turn it on—just stick it out there, and it’ll be solar-charged and run autonomously.”

The popular daytime TV show seems to exploit the vulnerable people coming on the program for help.

One day a number of years ago, I was deep into a game of draughts on holiday with my daughter, then almost four, in the small library of a beachfront town. Her eye drifted to a nearby table, where a black-and-white board bristled with far more interesting figures (many a future chess master has been innocently drawn in by “horses” and “castles”).

The long read: The troubled times we live in, and the rise of social media, have created an age of endless conflict. Rather than fearing or avoiding disagreement, we need to learn to do it well

In her new novel Fake Accounts, Lauren Oyler paints a bleak portrait of a social media–addled world saturated with loneliness and alienation. It’s incredibly accurate. But there must be a way out of the nightmarish social landscape she depicts.

We live on a wild planet, a wobbly, erupting, ocean-sloshed orb that careens around a giant thermonuclear explosion in the void. Big rocks whiz by overhead, and here on the Earth’s surface, whole continents crash together, rip apart, and occasionally turn inside out, killing nearly everything. Our planet is fickle.

The name of Nance Legins-Costley could resonate amid the likes of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and other abolitionist figures. But her story is hardly known. Not in Illinois, where – despite anti-slavery laws – she was born into bondage. Not in the city of Pekin, where – despite anti-Black attitudes – she became a beloved community figure. And certainly not in Peoria, where – despite her impressive life – she is buried in ignominy.

It’s past 10 a.m. on a Tuesday morning and Zarifa Ghafari is running late for work. Six days a week, she commutes from her home in Kabul to Maidan Shar, the embattled capital of Wardak province, where she serves as the youngest female mayor in the country. Her office is just 30 miles southwest of the Afghan capital. But getting there requires a drive down National Highway 1, a massive U.S.-built showpiece once hailed as “the most visible sign” of America’s commitment to...

Solar power is up to 50% cheaper than thought, according to new analysis from the International Energy Agency. 

A day after Joe Biden's inauguration, the headline in Axios read: “Trust in media hits a new low.” Felix Salmon wrote that “for the first time ever, fewer than half of all Americans have trust in traditional media.” The Edelman survey showed overall faith in the press dropping to 46%.

Tech oracle Jaron Lanier warned us all about the evils of social media. Too few of us listened. Now, in the most chaotic of moments, his fears—and his bighearted solutions—are more urgent than ever.

Deciphering the most beloved, most reviled children’s-book author in history.

The long read: The wolf is considered a threat to our way of farming, but our fear may be misplaced. Perhaps predators are needed to bring nature back into balance

Prenatal testing is changing who gets born and who doesn’t. This is just the beginning. Every few weeks or so, Grete Fält-Hansen gets a call from a stranger asking a question for the first time: What is it like to raise a child with Down syndrome?