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Thomas Kennerly Wolfe Junior enters his sitting room, dressed as Tom Wolfe. It’s mid-September in New York City and hot out. Wolfe, who is 81 years old and lean as a racing greyhound, is wearing a chalk-white linen suit and a cerulean-blue shirt, a white pocket handkerchief with navy trim, leather spectator spat boots in…
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How Brother Colm O’Connell became the guru of Kenyan running
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God wants to say a few words. General Ratko Mladic — known by many during the war as “the Butcher of Bosnia”, but who preferred his self-appointed nickname, “God” — is anxious to address the court. This is most irregular. At pre-trial hearings, such as the one now under way in Court 3 of the…
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The murder of a black teenager by a gang of white youths in 1993 was the case that sickened a nation, exposed the racism at the heart of a British institution and shaped the future of the legal system. But it took nearly 20 years and a tiny speck of forensic evidence to bring the…
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When the first call came, Anshul Gupta was dead to the world. It was 7.50am on Tuesday 2 February, 2010. Normally, Gupta would have been showered and suited by this time. He was, and is, a wealthy man with a senior position in a multinational coal-mining firm, and he did not ascend India’s corporate ladder…
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Power is not a sports car, or a thousand dollar suit, or a first-class plane ticket. It’s not a supermodel on your arm, or a 1996 Dom Perignon in your fridge. That’s just money. No, power is walking into a London hotel room at the age of 64, as Steven Spielberg has just done, wearing…
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Sammy Wanjiru lived as he ran: fast. In a country overflowing with talent, he was one of the finest athletes Kenya ever produced – a man who broke world records as a teenager, a serial marathon winner, and an Olympic gold medallist. But it was not just his results that made him special. Kenya has…
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Freedom means something different to Aung San Suu Kyi than it might to you or me. Imagine you had been placed under house arrest for 15 of the last 21 years – would you consider yourself free? How about if, since being released in November last year, you had been placed under constant surveillance, and…
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On a bright spring morning, Joseph “Chubs” Lee is working his trainer hard. He pummels his coach’s outstretched palms. Bang. Right hook. Bang, bang. Right hook, left hook. Then four straight punches. Bang bang, bang bang. When his fists reach their target, the reports reverberate around the room. Joseph’s session finishes with one more shot.…
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There are two things Alain Robert has never desired: safety or permission. For the past 17 years, the 48-year-old Frenchman known as the Human Spider has scaled most of the world’s tallest skyscrapers — without ropes, usually illegally, and with scant regard for consequence. The reasons he does so are numerous and complex, but there…
