A profile of Rafael Pérez, an infamously corrupt LAPD officer and the inspiration behind the Vic Mackey character on The Shield.

“Poor white Americans’ current crisis shouldn’t have caught the rest of the country as off guard as it has.”

How the “biggest grow op willing to publish its address” could make Canada an international pioneer in the legalization and commercialization of weed.

The director of The Exorcist visits the Vatican’s 91-year-old in-house exorcist in Rome.

In many countries, journalists are being targeted because of the role they play in ensuring a free and informed society.

How a town of 29,000 on the Hudson River came to be “one of the most dangerous four-mile stretches in the northeastern United States.”

How the Kremlin built one of the most powerful information weapons of the 21st century — and why it may be impossible to stop.

An actor, fresh from prison, attempts to reconnect with his son in 1950s California.

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A Q&A:

My mother was called to school frequently because I was yelling out things in class, quips in class, and because I would hand in compositions that they thought were in poor taste, or too sexual. Many, many times she was called to school.

The British and Irish have coined some fabulous terms to describe nature and landscrape. “Doofers” is the Scots’ term for horse-shit; “clinkerbell” means icicle in Hampshire.

“Most cities spread like inkblots; a few, such as Manhattan, grew in linear increments. Paris expanded in concentric rings, approximately shown by the spiral numeration of its arrondissements.”

On the chaotic letters of journalist and Dr. Strangelove screenwriter Terry Southern.

On the late singer Judee Sill, the virtual cemetery site Find a Grave, and memorials in the age of the Twitter RIP.

On the labor conditions behind branches of NYU, the Louvre, and the Guggenheim in Abu Dhabi.

The catfishing of Chris Andersen.

The construction of a modern American myth.

The angry last days of Ty Cobb.

A short history of leisure.

The changing face of Appalachia.

The many lives of imposter Frédéric Bourdin.

Contemplating Gaudi’s unfinished masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia church, as the controversial finishing work is completed.

On the Calorie Restriction movement, the scientifically-supported belief that the key to a very long life is to eat as little as possible.

Housing insecurity in the nation’s richest cities is far worse than government statistics claim. Just ask the Goodmans.

While much of the Levin report describes past history, the Goldman section describes an ongoing? crime — a powerful, well-connected firm, with the ear of the president and the Treasury, that appears to have conquered the entire regulatory structure and stands now on the precipice of officially getting away with one of the biggest financial crimes in history.