Here's a pretty good article from the Times about the Poincaré conjecture, which is (apparently) the first of the "million-dollar problems" to be solved. It always fun to read high-level math described for a non-mathematical audience. The author does a good job describing topological spaces and contractible loops, but it gets hairy when he tries to explain Ricci flow and singularities. Not that I have any idea what Ricci flow really is.