For a few weeks a few years ago, Jeremy Lin was on top of the basketball world. Now he’s riding the bench, being taunted by Kobe Bryant, and trying to figure out what the hell happened.

Darren Sharper was once an NFL star. He was also a serial rapist, one who law enforcement failed to stop.

Most people think they’d be thrilled to have their memoir snapped up for a movie. The author had a different, more troubled experience.

An oral history of Industrial Lights & Magic, which gave birth to Star Wars and countless films, as well as playing a hand in the creation of Photoshop and Pixar.

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

A review of Treme, the new HBO show about post-Katrina New Orleans from David Simon, creator of The Wire. “The series virtually prohibits you from loving it,” Franklin writes, “while asking you to value it.”

Jung’s ‘Red Book’, a secret journal of dreams and drawings, has been in a Swiss vault for the better part of a century. The burden of its care has fallen on his descendants, who have reluctantly allowed it to be published.

Foursquare and Gowalla are in a VC-funded race to become the dominant location-based social network. But their founders say both companies have a larger purpose.

Seventeen years after taking the iconic “Afghan Girl” photograph for National Geographic, Steve McCurry went back to find her.

For nearly a decade, Laura Albert lived a double life as troubled teen turned cult writer J.T. Leroy, writing books, chatting constantly with celebrities, and convincing another woman to appear as J.T. Leroy in public.

A former prostitute and pregnant at 14, Lillie was a foster child looking for a home. A nurse and already a mother of 5, Amy wanted to help. Then Lillie and her newborn moved in.

Our debt, conscious or unconscious, to what has come before, and what it can tell us about copyright, the public domain, and the complicated relationship between creators and consumers.

A trip to interview former South Vietnamese premiere Ky on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the reunification of Vietnam ends with government surveillance, partying, and confusion.

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, on the eve of the release of The Social Network, believed to be a deeply unflattering portrait of him and the genesis of his company.

A Wikipedia-style dissection of the case that inspired The Fugitive. The accused, Dr. Sam Sheppard, claimed to have struggled with an intruder before being knocked out and dumped on a beach, his wife’s left corpse in their house.

Many experts believe it’s inevitable that in the coming decades, humans will figure out how to live considerably longer lives. It might not be a good thing.

Russia has ended its death penalty, leaving in its place five prison “colonies” to house its most hardened criminals, nicknamed “The White Swan”, “The Black Dolphin”, “The Vologda Coin”, “The Village of Harps”. Inside “The Black Eagle.”

How did a Kentucky entrepreneur, a Louisiana politician, and the vice president of Nigeria end up in one of the biggest scandals to hit America’s black elite in decades?

The director of Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours on his aversion to America, the advantages of small budgets, and the challenges of directing the opening ceremony for the London Olympics.

Memories of the expat revolutionary scene in 1980s Nicaragua. An excerpt from Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War.

What Egypt learned from the students who overthrew Milosevic. “The Serbs are not the usual highly paid consultants in suits from wealthy countries; they look more like, well, cocky students. They bring a cowboy swagger. They radiate success. Everyone they teach wants to do what the Serbs did.”

Roy Petersen was blind in one eye, had two replaced hips, and was twice divorced. His job was to solve a gold mine robbery case in the Peruvian Andes. He would need some help.

“They cruise the city in chauffeured cars, blasting rap, selling pot to classmates. How some of New York’s richest kids joined forces with some of its poorest.”

Jay Miscovich spent his life wanting to hunt for treasure. In 2010, after just a few months of trying, he found half a billion dollars worth of emeralds at the bottom of the Atlantic. A few years later he killed himself.

On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman entered the University of Texas at Austin’s Main Building. Armed with a number of rifles, he proceeded to kill 14 people and wound 32. Among them was a pregnant Claire Wilson.