U.S.

The Long Goodbye

For five months, I was my parents' death panel. And where the costly chaos of Medicare failed, a team of salaried doctors and nurses offered a better way

Bring Our Son Home

The parents of America's only missing soldier in Afghanistan almost got him back from the Taliban. What went wrong?

Colossal: LIFE at the Birth of the Pentagon

LIFE.com presents a series photos -- most of which never ran in LIFE magazine -- of the iconic, colossal Pentagon under construction more than seven decades ago.

Richard and Mildred Loving: Reluctant Civil Rights Heroes

Richard and Mildred Loving never asked to be heroes of the Civil Rights movement. But when the state of Virginia deemed their interracial marriage illegal, the couple fought back. And won.

LIFE and Civil Rights: Segregation in 1956 South Carolina

LIFE.com presents rare color photographs by Margaret Bourke-White, shedding light on an era that, for better and for worse, helped define America in the middle part of the 20th century.

A Brief History of Special Guests at the State of the Union Address

Named for Lenny Skutnik, the savior of a drowning jetliner passenger whose aircraft crashed into the Potomac River in 1982, these (mostly) heroic folks have been mainstays of the annual State of the Union address...

Being Father Christmas: LIFE Goes to Santa Claus School

A visit to the world's oldest school for would-be Santas, and photos of men learning to be all the Santa they can be

Beyond 9/11

Dirty Work: The Creeping Rollback of Child-Labor Laws

The government has not had a lot of ideas for what to do about the nation’s anemic job market, but there are troubling signs that one old idea is starting to re-emerge: child labor. In...

The Secret to Donald Trump's Hair

There may be only one Donald Trump, as his potential presidential bid has proved once again, but his hairstyle doesn’t have to be unique. In fact, if you ever dreamed of sporting the Donald’s trademark...

Photos of Les Paul's Life in Music

Friday the 13th

Face it, you’re screwed. Today is Friday the 13th — the unluckiest day on the calendar — so try not to crash your car, fall down a flight of stairs, set yourself on fire or...

Health: Why I Would Vote No On Pot

Maybe it’s because I was born a couple of months after Woodstock and wasn’t around when marijuana was as common as iPods are today, but I’m constantly amazed that after all these years–and all the...

Billy Graham, Pastor In Chief

A new book reveals what Graham learned — and what he regretted — in his 50-year ministry to U.S. Presidents

The Case For Dividing Iraq

This article first ran in the Oct. 30, 2006 issue of TIME