Manny Balestrero should have never walked into that life insurance office. But on January 14, 1953, he did, looking to borrow $325 from his wife’s policy in order to pay for some critical dental work she needed. The next night, as he unlocked the door of his modest stucco home…

While educational achievement has improved over the last 30 years, there hasn’t been much change in the number of American adults who are functionally illiterate — For more than 40 years of his life, James Hall couldn’t decipher a restaurant menu by himself unless it had photos. He couldn’t navigate a bus schedule, choosing either to memorize the rhythms of its arrivals, or if he was somewhere unfamiliar, asking another person at the stop. …

The village of Min Gyi erupted with the staccato blast of rifle fire early on the morning of August 30, 2017, startling everyone awake. The gloom of the pre-dawn light hid hundreds of soldiers from the Myanmar army, dubbed the “Tatmadaw.” They’d planned all night for a morning of mayhem…

King James’ educational advisor on making his I Believe School in Akron a reality — An eight-year-old LeBron James sometimes didn’t attend school because there was no one who could give him a ride. He sometimes skipped class outright, instead playing video games by himself at the ramshackle one-bedroom home in Akron, Ohio, owned by a friend of his mom, who would disappear during the…

Women in the military are 250 percent more likely to commit suicide than civilian women — Stephanie Shannon was just 20 years old when she landed in Saudi Arabia in a tan camouflage uniform still crisp around the edges. She’d enlisted in the Army in November 1989, motivated by the opportunity for a career and seduced by the promise of learning disciplined bravery. Just nine months…

By several accounts, 2018 was the Summer of Sleaze, headlined by Justin Bieber and his arsenal of garish aloha shirts (or, as mainlanders know it, the “Hawaiian” shirt) that made him look like your best friend’s semi-flaky South Beach cocaine dealer, circa 1982. Bieber’s fondness for a particularly, er, loud…

Linda Conley encountered her first sexual harassment training assignment in 1997, as lead script writer and researcher for Kantola Training Services. The company had acquired a smaller firm that had its own video series on harassment in the workplace, and it was Conley’s task to review it for redistribution by…

They’re not a single bloc. Nor the staunch conservatives they’ve been made out to be — When Matt began working for a major U.S. bank in his mid-20s, he never expected he’d have a front-row seat to the implosion of the financial industry in 2008, the result of corrosion from toxic investments backed by the credit of vulnerable Americans. …

The Supreme Court says sports gambling is now legal. As such, legit sportsbooks are starting to dominate as a new season of football kicks off. Where, though, does that leave the black-market bookmaker? — John was a fresh-faced twentysomething bookie, not long out of college, when the cops kicked in the door of his uncle’s gambling den, located deep within the seventh floor of a Manhattan walk-up. The officers rushed in with their guns drawn, and John stiffened into a panicked rigor mortis. He…