The Gangster Prince of Liberia
How the illegitimate son of Liberian ex-President (and accused cannibal) Charles Taylor went from being a small time Florida hoodlum to one of Africa’s most notorious killers.
How the illegitimate son of Liberian ex-President (and accused cannibal) Charles Taylor went from being a small time Florida hoodlum to one of Africa’s most notorious killers.
Adam Higginbotham Details Nov 2007 25min Permalink
For most people who participate in clinical trials, being a guinea pig is just a way to make a quick buck. For others, it’s a career.
Josh McHugh Wired Apr 2007 10min Permalink
This isn’t truck-on-truck violence. It’s the taxpaying owners of brick-and-mortar restaurants—along with a host of other powerful District players—who are waging the attack.
Tim Carman Washington City Paper Sep 2010 25min Permalink
Or, the perils of promoting a middle schooler’s basketball skills. An excerpt from Play Their Hearts Out.
George Dohrmann Sports Illustrated Sep 2010 Permalink
Behind the scenes with Kenny Powers, on set filming the 2nd run of Eastbound & Down, probably the only American TV series that would set an entire season in Mexico.
Hunter Stephenson Vice Oct 2010 40min Permalink
The relative prosperity of the Putin-era has thrown Russian bride-introduction tours for a loop, as a group of American bachelors learn in a series of Meet and Greets.
Peter Savodnik GQ Apr 2008 15min Permalink
A profile of Sorkin, who wrote The Social Network. “I don’t feel like a nerd,” he says, “but I think I understand them.”
Lynn Hirschberg W Oct 2010 15min Permalink
Michael Lewis goes undercover at Columbia.
Michael Lewis The New Republic Apr 1993 10min Permalink
Not long ago, Rand Paul, opthalmologist and son of Ron, would have been written off as a wacky extremist. Thanks to his Dad and the Tea Partiers, he’s poised to become the most radical member of the U.S Senate.
Jason Zengerle GQ Oct 2010 20min Permalink
Notes from the Friars Club roast of Don King.
Jeff MacGregor Sports Illustrated Feb 2006 30min Permalink
An 1992 interview with Martin Scorsese. On Goodfellas, “I figured to do it as if it was one long trailer, where you just propel the action and you get an exhilaration, a rush of the lifestyle.”
Anthony DeCurtis, Martin Scorsese This Recording Jan 1992 25min Permalink
An oral history of Goodfellas.
On the golden anniversary of her first trip to study chimps, an ode to Jane Goodall.
David Quammen National Geographic Oct 2010 15min Permalink
In Torreón, north of Mexico City, cartel gunmen are freed from a prison, commit a massacre at a wedding that includes the band, and then return to custody.
Rory Carroll The Guardian Sep 2010 10min Permalink
In the last decade, newsrooms across the country have adopted a “do more with less” strategy. It’s a kamikaze mission.
Dean Starkman Columbia Journalism Review Sep 2010 15min Permalink
At three NYC comedy theater/schools, students and students-turned-instructors (a “benign pyramid scheme”) pursue the elusive simulacrum of human interaction that is longform improvisation.
Adam M. Bright The Point Sep 2010 Permalink
Google’s founders and CEO as they moved from the search business into… everything.
Ken Auletta New Yorker Jan 2008 25min Permalink
Raffaello Follieri was young, handsome. He was Italian. He was dating Anne Hathaway, hobnobbing with Bill Clinton, and using contacts at the Vatican to launch a lucrative business in the States. Then he was in jail.
Michael Shnayerson Vanity Fair Oct 2008 40min Permalink
Ten years ago, a pair of legendary TV executives decided it was time to change the formula for football broadcasting. One bet on Dennis Miller. The other bankrolled Vince McMahon and the XFL.
Julian Rubinstein New York Times Magazine Sep 2000 15min Permalink
A 2006 profile of Mark Zuckerberg as Facebook opened from a college-only site to a public social network.
John Cassidy New Yorker May 2006 30min Permalink
The writer (Aaron Sorkin), director (David Fincher), and actors (Jesse Eisenberg & Justin Timberlake) of The Social Network on dramatizing the real story of a 20 year old into “the Citizen Kane of John Hughes movies.”
Mark Harris New York Sep 2010 25min Permalink
Russian serial killer Alexander Pichushkin was so prolific that even he doesn’t know how many he killed.
Peter Savodnik GQ May 2009 Permalink
Throughout the ’50s and ’60s, media outlets including the New York Times and CBS News provided the CIA with information and cover for agents. Then everyone decided to pretend it had never happened.
Carl Bernstein Rolling Stone Oct 1977 55min Permalink
India’s greatest terror threat may not be militants slipping across the Pakistani border, but rather the homegrown Maoist rebels who control the villages of the interior.
Jason Motlagh The Virginia Quarterly Review Jun 2008 40min Permalink
An investigation of Scientology.
Richard Behar Time May 1991 Permalink