After Duke Tran escaped from slavery, but before he became a millionaire, he was a Wells Fargo employee. He worked at the bank’s debt-collections center near Portland, Ore., talking on the phone to customers who owed Wells Fargo money. It wasn’t glamorous, but the job enabled him to afford a two-story suburban house with mustard-colored aluminum siding. After more than three decades in the United States, Mr. Tran felt that he was the living embodiment of the American dream.

“The world isn’t short of water, it’s just in the wrong place, and too salty," says Charlie Paton – so he's spent the past 24 years building the technology to prove it

The California Coastal Act for decades has scaled back mega-hotels, protected wetlands and, above all, declared that access to the beach was a fundamental right guaranteed to everyone. But that very principle could be dismantled in the latest chapter of an all-out legal battle that began as a local dispute over a locked gate.

“Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it,” Jonathan Swift once wrote. It was hyperbole three centuries ago. But it is a factual description of social media, according to an ambitious and first-of-its-kind study published Thursday in Science. The massive new study analyzes every major contested news story in English across the span of Twitter’s existence—some 126,000 stories, tweeted by 3 million users, over more than 10 years—and finds that the truth simply cannot compete with hoax and rumor.

These uniquely versatile bugs are decimating crops and infiltrating houses all across the country. Will we ever be able to get rid of them?

Marcus Hutchins single-handedly stopped one of the most dangerous cyberattacks ever. Then the FBI arrested him.

One scheming, sinister man. A dozen unsuspecting victims. The ultimate Craigslist nightmare.

For several decades, the UK sent children across the world to new lives where many were abused.

Winning millions of dollars seemed as good a retirement plan as any.

Thirty years ago, an acclaimed series of documentaries introduced the world to an isolated tribe in Papua New Guinea. What happened when the cameras left?

The long read: Algeria’s ‘lost generation’ has been shaped by years of conflict, unemployment and state repression. Sheep fighting offers an arena where young men can escape the constant supervision of the state

There is an increasing interest in the icy moons of the Solar System due to their potential habitability and as targets for future exploratory missions, which include astrobiological goals. Several studies have reported new results describing the details of these moons’ geological settings; however, there is still a lack of information regarding the deep subsurface environment of the moons. The purpose of this article is to evaluate the microbial habitability of Europa constrained by terrestrial analogue environments and sustained by...

An amateur geographer travels to an undocumented island off the coast of Haiti after stumbling upon it on Google Earth.

When I finally puked on the fourth night, I felt an odd sense of pride. Inside the loud, stuffy ceremony room, people were laughing, crying, chanting, gyrating, and, yes, vomiting, around me. When my time finally comes, I think: Just aim for the bucket and keep your ass above your head like the shaman told you. I try to wipe my face but can’t grab the tissue paper because it melts every time I reach for it

An ardent meat-lover never forgets her first taste of Chipotle's Sofritas. In 2014, the fast-casual chain added its first new menu item: organic shredded tofu that's braised and marinated with chipotle chiles, roasted poblanos, and a sizzling spice blend.

The long read: Every baffled new parent goes searching for answers in baby manuals. But what they really offer is the reassuring fantasy that life’s most difficult questions have one right answer

Here in the United States, it was about 3 a.m. I had no idea what time it was in Sweden where my friend lived. He didn't care, either. He was drunk and sad and needed a shoulder to cry on, even though that shoulder was across the world. He wanted to die. I didn't want him to die. So, for three hours, I talked to him until he passed out and I could hear him snoring on our voice chat call.

It's early in the morning on October 4, 2016, and in a few seconds, Rick Osterloh will present Google’s latest gadget portfolio to the world. He’s not even six months into his new job, creating and running the company’s ambitious new hardware division. In April, CEO Sundar Pichai had tasked Osterloh with turning the software giant into a gadget maker that can compete with Apple. Osterloh has barely had enough time to sample all the snacks in the mini-kitchen, much less conceive of and ship a bunch of products.

We’re learning more about what they endure as they fly thousands of miles—and how humans and climate change are making it tougher for them.

Tesla wants to change the world by selling eco-friendly electric vehicles to the masses. But some of the workers laboring to build that dream have been hurt along the way. Terrill Johnson was installing car trunks at Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California, when he heard the sound that would define his next few years, if not the rest of his life. “It was a big, loud pop,” he said. In one movement, Johnson had blown out his elbow and his shoulder. “Once the pop came, the pain came.”