On the elegance and utility of the rice cooker.

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.

For a daily short story recommendation from our editors, check out Longform Fiction or follow @longformfiction on Twitter.

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.

“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 death of a submissive man-pup and the scrotal silicone injection that killed him.

He came home from Vietnam, wrote the novel that became Full Metal Jacket, was nominated for an Oscar and riding high. Then he got thrown in jail for stockpiling stolen library books, started drinking, cut off his friends and fled to a remote Greek island. He never made it back.

He pauses and glances around him. Just about everyone in the place is aware of him now. When he continues, the voice is still under control, but the eyes have become lasers. “I know that some of the press is out to get me. It’s ’cause I’m more intelligent than they are, I handle myself well, I’m wealthy and I’m black—and there ain’t nothin’ they can do about it.” He flashes his joyless smile

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.

The Cleveland police are still adamant that they did nothing wrong in the killing of 12-year-old Tamir Rice.

A Thanksgiving story about the limits of human empathy.