The New York Times

‘If Bobbie Talks, I’m Finished’: How Les Moonves Tried to Silence an Accuser

A trove of text messages details a plan by Mr. Moonves and a faded Hollywood manager to bury a sexual assault allegation. Instead, the scheme helped sink the CBS chief, and may cost him $120 million.

‘The Way to Survive It Was to Make A’s’

They were the first black boys to integrate the South’s elite prep schools. They drove themselves to excel in an unfamiliar environment. But at what cost?

‘We Are Orphans Here’

Life and death in East Jerusalem’s Palestinian refugee camp.

11 Years After Trying to Kill Each Other, a Marine and a Talib Meet Again

A Times reporter who once served in the Marines returned to the site of a major battle in Afghanistan to see what’s changed since the Taliban took over — and to meet a commander he once fought.

A Depression Switch?

David Dobbs article on treating severe depression by planting electrodes in brain and sending steady stream of low voltage from pacemaker in chest; procedure, called deep brain stimulation, or DBS, has been used on Parkinson's patients to calm hyperactive globus pallidus and thus control tremors; researchers, led by Dr Helen Mayberg of Kingston Psychiatric Hospital in Kingston, Ontario, believed applying DBS to part of brain called Area 25 could control depression; 8 of 12 patients who underwent DBS felt their depressions lifted significantly with minimal side effects; Mayberg believes that trial has already confirmed validity of emerging 'network' model of mood disorders, new way of looking at psychiatric conditions that is not restricted by neurochemical model of mood that has dominated over last quarter century or so; Deanna Cole-Benjamin, one of patients with successful outcomes, tells her story; photos (L)

A Falcon in the City

Watching a wild falcon hunt pigeons in an industrial ruin ushers you into a silent world.

A Family Secret No More

One fateful decision 100 years ago created parallel lives. How does a family broken by the bizarre rules of racism heal itself after three generations apart?

A Family’s Daring Escape From North Korea ‘to Live and Stand Tall’

Their resolve for freedom hardened during the pandemic, when they lived through a crippling food shortage and were forced to witness frequent public executions.

A Generation in Japan Faces a Lonely Death

In postwar Japan, a single-minded focus on rapid economic growth helped erode family ties. Now, a generation of elderly Japanese is dying alone.

A Hidden Treasure of Rare Snake Specimens

In the foothills of the Ecuadorean Amazon, a 101-year-old farmer and a young scientist turned an amateur collection into a scientific survey of one of the most diverse snake habitats on Earth.

A Killer's Only Confidant: The Man Who Caught Susan Smith

The case of a lifetime is closed for Howard Wells. The reporters and the well-wishers have begun to drift away, leaving the Union County Sheriff at peace. He will try to do a little fishing when the police radio is quiet, or just sit with his wife, Wanda, and talk of anything but the murderer Susan Smith.

A Linguistic Big Bang

A Lonely Quest for Facts on Genetically Modified Crops

When a bill to ban genetically engineered crops on the island of Hawaii was introduced, doubts nagged at Greggor Ilagan, a councilman, about what the risks were, if any, of the crops.

A Mighty Fortress

A Muslim Leader in Brooklyn, Reconciling 2 Worlds

First of three articles in series An Imam in America; profile of Egyptian Sheik Reda Shata, who became leader of Muslim congregation in Brooklyn one year after Sept 11 terrorist attacks; finding ways to reconcile Muslim tradition with American life has worn him down and opened his mind; few of America's imams recruited from abroad are prepared to lead community on margins of American life; his collapse before his congregation one day has led to citywide training program for imams, blending Islam and psychology; photos (L)

A Physicist Solves the City

What makes a city grow and thrive? What causes it to stagnate and fall? Geoffrey West thinks the tools of physics can give us the answers.

A Prescription for More Black Doctors

How does tiny Xavier University in New Orleans manage to send more African-American students to medical school than any other college in the country?

A Secret History of Psychosis

Cohen Miles-Rath heard voices telling him to kill his father. After they passed, he spent years retracing the path of his delusions.

A.I. Is Mastering Language. Should We Trust What It Says?

OpenAI’s GPT-3 and other neural nets can now write original prose with mind-boggling fluency — a development that could have profound implications for the future.

A.I. Is Poised to Rewrite History. Literally. (Published 2025)

The technology’s ability to read and summarize text is already making it a useful tool for scholarship. How will it change the stories we tell about the past?