A controversial effort divides students by race in order to combat racism.

In 1986, two lovebirds busted out of a coed prison in a hijacked helicopter. They’ve been trying to escape ever since.

“Will you show me all of the man-in-the-street, sympathetic, mayoral candidates? The last time I met one of them on the subway was a long time ago. Let’s not get too carried away.”

The notorious Somali paramilitary warlord who goes by the nom de guerre Indha Adde, or White Eyes, walks alongside trenches on the outskirts of Mogadishu’s Bakara Market once occupied by fighters from the Shabab, the Islamic militant group that has pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda. In one of the trenches, the foot of a corpse pokes out from a makeshift grave consisting of some sand dumped loosely over the body. One of Indha Adde’s militiamen says the body is that of a foreigner who fought alongside the Shabab. “We bury their dead, and we also capture them alive,” says Indha Adde in a low, raspy voice. “We take care of them if they are Somali, but if we capture a foreigner we execute them so that others will see we have no mercy.”

An examination of Brazil’s immense tannery industry shows how hides from illegally deforested ranches can easily reach the global marketplace. In the United States, much of the demand for Brazilian leather comes from automakers.

In the midst of a tribal burial, Jim Thorpe’s third wife burst in to remove his body, setting in motion a decades-long battle over the Native American athlete’s final resting place.

The story of three friends from Texas and the obstacles they face trying to get a college degree in an age of economic inequality.

The murder of an Iranian band in Brooklyn by one of their own.

Previously: Nancy Jo Sales on the Longform Podcast.

The unmaking of a legend.

On the moral behavior of animals.

On the new science of collective behavior.

Seized passports, debtor’s prison, and slave labor prop up a Disneyland in the desert now in decline.

In rural North Dakota, a small county and an insular religious sect are caught in a stand-off over a decaying piece of America’s atomic history.

One Marine battalion has had four members kill themselves in just the last year. The soldiers have jury-rigged a system of Facebook notifications and Google spreadsheets to try to stop it.

Fred Steese served more than 20 years in prison for the murder of a Vegas circus performer even though evidence proved he didn’t do it. When the truth came to light, he was offered a confounding deal: he could go free, but only if he agreed to remain a convicted killer.

The role of money plays a two-sided role in Borges’ artistic life. On one side of the coin’s face, Borges was blessed with the most privileged, ideal life for a burgeoning literary genius. Educated in Europe, raised by his father to become a serious writer, Borges devoted his entire life to literature. He did not take a full-time job for nearly 40 years. But on the coin’s reverse side, we see that young Georgie Borges did not actually write his great fictions until after his family lost their money.

“After college, as my friends left Michigan for better opportunities, I was determined to help fix this broken, chaotic city by building my own home in the middle of it. I was 23 years old.”

Edward Luttwak is a military strategist, a classical scholar, a cattle rancher, and an adviser to presidents, prime ministers, and the Dalai Lama.

How black market mining is destroying the Peruvian rain forest and enslaving child workers.

The 72-year-old is still making movies that shock.

Three boys falsely accused of murder, and what the twenty-year saga says about all of us.

How she has controlled the GOP and gun law in Florida.

In 1976, a school bus carrying 26 children and their driver disappeared from a small California town, capturing the world’s attention.

Nearly 50 years ago, a penniless monk arrived in Manhattan, where he began to build an unrivaled community of followers—and a reputation for sexual abuse.

Bennington College in the 1980s was a hothouse of sex, drugs, and future literary stars—among them, Donna Tartt, Bret Easton Ellis, and Jonathan Lethem. Return to a campus and an era like no other.