From the Greeks to George Lucas, 2,200 years of failure.

Emmanuel “Toto” Constant, the founder of a barbaric Haitian paramilitary group, vanished from Port-au-Prince and resurfaced as a real estate agent in Queens.

In an upscale Denver condo, twice-a-month they convened from Thursday to Sunday with 95 percent-pure Shabu.

A dispatch from a Russian town under siege by hungry bears.

How a 27-year-old went from PR underling to gatekeeper.

Tracing the path of one of the world’s most in-demand minerals from deadly mines in Congo to your phone.

“These, I now know, are the details of how my mother died..:”

A tour of a nonprofit that collects, warehouses, and donates perfectly good stuff hospitals throw away, from anesthesia machines to unopened surgical tools.

Kurdish revolutionaries helped the U.S. expel the Islamic State from its capital city. Will we soon abandon them?

How Andrew Anglin went from being an antiracist vegan to the alt-right’s most vicious troll.

A report from the Philippines, “the test lab for fake news.”

How a 20-year-old from the land of fake news tricked Martina Navratilova, Serena Williams, and the BBC.

A dispatch from Cape Town, where surprising things can happen when it feels like the world is about to end.

Even soldiers who fight wars from a safe distance have found themselves traumatized.

How a meteorite hunter’s obsession took him from the mountains of Colorado, to the Bundy Ranch, and eventually landed him in jail.

Why did it take so long for the systems that are supposed to police problem doctors to stop him from operating?

A report from Antartica, where the ecosystem is changing so fast scientists have no idea what will come next.

Charlie Santore sees Los Angeles from the inside, by breaking into safes whose owners can no longer unlock them.

How a cat litter scientist from Iowa ended up in an NBA star’s inner circle.

How the VFX industry plateaued —and where it might go from here.

What one writer learned about power, real and imagined, from Trump’s “senior adviser” and son-in-law.

A journey to explore the rising authoritarianism in Hungary and its weirdest fringe: the people who believe they’ve descended from Attila the Hun.

Uber and Lyft take a lot more from drivers than they say.

Mexico is now importing lots of its baseball talent from America.

How a Sacramento Kings executive stole more than $13 million from the team—and almost got away with it.