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.

How young actors are navigating the new world of opportunities on our ever-shrinking screens.

Alex Vardakostas has been on a decade-long quest to build a robot that can prepare the perfect cheeseburger. It could also put his family out of work.

On Wall Street, being Black often means being alone, held back, deprived of the best opportunities.

Thomas Quick confessed to more than 30 murders. But the man also known as Sture Bergwall may not have committed any of them.

On the life and death of Avonte Oquendo, a 14-year-old autistic boy who disappeared in October after walking out of his New York City school.

Previously: Robert Kolker on the Longform Podcast.

In bleak farmlands of East Anglia, the first wave of Eastern European migrants learned exploitation and extortion from their own experiences with day labor. Then they began to prey on fellow immigrants, luring in them into debt and then forcing them to commit crimes to pay it off.

The archive of Mexican architect Luis Barragán has been hidden away for decades. Then an artist decided to make a performance of getting it back.

T La Rock was one of the pioneers of hip-hop. But after an attack put him in a nursing home, he had to fight to recover his identity, starting with the fact that he’d ever been a rapper at all.

How the children of African immigrants came to control the destiny of teams in France and Belgium and what it says about European identity.

A profile of Tiny Lister, the silver screen’s half-blind villain.

The paper reports on a battle of its own.

The story of a device that delivers electric shocks to students at a school for special needs.

Grizzly Bear and the surprisingly crappy economics of indie rock stardom.

A two-part series on how and why Arianna Huffington lost control of The Huffington Post.

A dispatch from the Philippine capital, where “no one will be safe until many, many more have died.”

What happened when 21-year-old Taiwan Smart became the target of both police and a reality TV show.

An unlikely bipartisan alliance attempts to get Yes into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

After eight women are murdered in Louisiana, what was initially thought to be the work of a serial killer becomes something much more troubling.