The Baby in the Plastic Bag
A man is walking by a graveyard in Oslo and hears a wail. It is a newborn baby, abandoned with only a plastic bag for protection, and close to death. This is the remarkable story of what happened next.
Dispatches from the Rap Wars
A sociologist spent 18 months living with gangs in Chicago fighting bitterly violent local turf wars, and simultaneously trying to make it big with rap tracks and on social media.
Where are we now?
The LRB dedicates a vast spread to responses to the UK’s EU referendum result. Contributors look at the issue from all sorts of angles – the greatest value perhaps lies in the interplay between the viewpoints when placed alongside each other.
The Perfect Man
Billy Mitchell is really, really good at Pac-Man – his high score is 3,333,360 – a perfect game. The unusual way his mind works is gently unpicked in this profile.
The Impossible Job: Inside Facebook’s Struggle to Moderate Two Billion People
A look at one of the toughest jobs in the business – content moderation at Facebook. It is area where the company has been forced to ramp up their team due to a string of crises and bad publicity. The piece does well at providing a sense of the scale, difficulty and sheer oddness of the task – which, for example, now involves the company having a specific policy on things like what variety of photos of anuses photoshopped onto celebrities should be acceptable.
The Fast and Furious Michael Avenatti
A profile of Stormy DanielsÕ lawyer, who is leading the charge in her lawsuit against Donald Trump on three fronts_Ñ_in the court room, on social media and on the talk shows. As his client puts it_Ñ_Òevery time I watch him work, I think, This is what it must have been like to see the Sistine Chapel being painted. But instead of paint, Michael uses the tears of his enemies.Ó http://bit.ly/nyt-avenatti
How Tom Wolfe Became Tom Wolfe
The celebrated writer Tom Wolfe died on Monday. Michael Lewis’s 2015 profile went deep into his biography and his writing to tell his story.
The Afterlife of Pablo Escobar
The controversial and bloody legacy of the world’s most famous drug trafficker remains a profitable business for many, including some members of his family and former associates.
Making China Great Again
A piece suggesting that China is stepping into the vacuum created by America’s lack of international leadership.