As mass detentions and surveillance dominate the lives of China’s Uyghurs and Kazakhs, a woman struggles to free herself.

A profile of Ken Robinson, who earned minor fame and more than a few enemies for the controversial way he “bought” his house:

The week after Robinson moved into the tan-sided home with a faux stone entrance and maroon shutters, he was soaring, an Internet hero a few levels shy of Steven Slater, the JetBlue flight attendant who last summer cracked a beer and left work on a plane's emergency slide. For $16, Robinson had filed paperwork with Denton County staking his claim to the abandoned home through an obscure Texas law called adverse possession. Ever since, curious visitors, beginner real estate investors and people who want an ultra-cheap home to fulfill their version of the American Dream have been knocking on his door for advice and a handshake.

It had seemed simple in the beginning. Now everything was so complicated, he wasn’t sure what the truth was. He had to admit that he might have gotten involved with the wrong people—that he might have become part of a scam within a scam.

“Electorates turned with special venom against parties offering what was in effect a milder version of the economic consensus: free-market capitalism with a softer edge. It’s as if the voters are saying to those parties: what actually are you for?”

A visually impaired traveler journeys through the wilds of Zimbabwe and discovers a side of the safari experience that very few know.

Interviews, documents and jailhouse recordings reveal a clearer picture of the life and death of the 26-year-old emergency room technician.

As the New York head of a celebrity-favorite megachurch, Carl Lentz achieved stardom. But when a cheating scandal blew up the pastor’s life, congregants were left to question their relationship with a church that cultivated its own kind of fame.

A lifetime of brutal injuries and misfortune robbed the world-renowned pianist João Carlos Martins of the ability to play his instrument. And then along came an eccentric designer and his bionic gloves.

“It is a beautiful hand: strong, with long, slender fingers and smooth skin, its nails ridgeless and pink. If you didn’t know Jonathan Koch—if you first met him, say, on the courts at the Calabasas Tennis & Swim Club—you might not suspect that his hand previously belonged to someone else.”

In a remote corner of Romania, neighbors kill each other over tiny strips of land.

How a disgruntled group of University of Miami football fans got the head coach fired by flying insulting airplane banners high over Sun Life Stadium.

A blow by blow account of the seizure of a French cruise ship by Somali pirates.

A trip to a lobster festival leads to an examination of the culinary and ethical dimensions of cooking a live, possibly sentient, creature.

The ragtag group of fighters from America and Europe who joined the fight against extremists in Syria don’t seem to know what they are doing.

The daily life and dwindling hopes of a 12-year-old Syrian refugee.

On a small section of land wedged between Egypt and Sudan called Bir Tawil and the American who tried to claim it for himself.

At a playground in North Wales, kids are mostly left alone to experiment with fire, jump from great heights and play in a creek. It’s designed to teach the value of taking risks, a lesson many American children have stopped learning.

An interview with Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone writer Vanessa Grigoriadis on the finer points of celebrity profiling.

A group of Gambian exiles scattered around America plotted to storm the Presidential palace and overthrow a brutal dictator. Their budget? $221,000.

Two Paths for the Future of Text: Steven Berlin Johnson’s lecture on “commonplace” books in which great 17th and 18th century thinkers compiled their browsing, and what it means for journalism today.

He called himself “TheNoseDoctor” and performed sinus surgeries, many of them unnecessary, at a maniacal clip. When the whole thing fell apart, he left behind his yacht and family, and disappeared into the Alps.

On America’s deep and persistent fear of the black penis.

The American students hopped across the border for a night of partying in Matamoros. One didn’t return and was found later in a shack with 14 other corpses.

At the age of 20, Christopher Knight parked his car on a remote trail in Maine and walked away. He had no plan. He had no tools. And he survived alone for 27 years.