Kenny Baker, the actor who portrayed the robot R2-D2 in six 'Star Wars' films, died Saturday after a long illness. He was 81.

The 19th-century visionary often found herself stuck between two cultures. By Rosalyn Eves.

“The injuries of slavery and its aftermath are palpable across these villages and farm communities, and the region’s relationship with Tubman’s legacy, and that of the Underground Railroad is, to the outsider, surprisingly fraught.” By Katie Ryder. (July 14, 2016)

All of a sudden The Purge: Election Year became a stand-in for America’s violent, cynical, stupid cinema—the exact opposite of everything Kiarostami stood for and everything he achieved over four and a half decades of filmmaking in Iran and elsewhere. By A. S. Hamrah.

Oddball singer-songwriter Robyn Hitchcock is a man who knows how to mark milestones. Back in 2003, he staged a concert at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in honor of his own 50th birthday, and in so doing, created a time release milestone of sorts for his friend, actor Alan Rickman. By Ayun Halliday.

Bernhardt Wichmann III, a Korean War veteran, possessed little except a big heart, and he spread kindness up and down his street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. By N. R. Kleinfield. (July 29, 2016)

Julie Anderson

Hunter S. Thompson's scathing obituary of Nixon, originally published in Rolling Stone on June 16, 1994.

In 1975 prime minister Gough Whitlam, who has died this week, dared to try to assert his country’s autonomy. The CIA and MI6 made sure he paid the price. By John Pilger. (October 23, 2014)

He was also a war hero and a ballroom dancer — Bald Eagle’s life is hard to fit in a headline. He parachuted into Normandy, acted in Westerns and starred in his first feature film at the age of 95. By Camila Domonoske.

The reality of Frances Farmer’s life is much sadder than the legends surrounding it. By Elisabeth Sherman.

Author whose memoir of Vietnam was deemed by many to be one of the best accounts of life in wartime ever written, has died in New York. By Sian Cain. (June 24, 2016)

What I know now about Ted, whose photographs documented the 1960s, and about J. Edgar Hoover’s attempts to label him a Soviet spy. By Shirley Streshinsky. (June 6, 2016)

A writer remembers his father. By David Means.

When Zappa shows up in a suit and tie debating Robert Novak on Crossfire, the effect is less the ’60s freak who became a normal adult than an uncompromising individual voice channeled into a different format. By Paul Grimstad.

On centenary of first world war battle, poignant services were attended by political leaders and victims’ descendants. By Esther Addley and Helen Pidd.

Father Berrigan, whose funeral will be held on Friday in New York, opposed war, bigotry and abortion with a distinctly Catholic voice. By Jim Dwyer. (May 5, 2016)

His name was never household familiar. Yet his complex, mind-opening analysis of art and life remains as timely as ever—probably more so. By Thomas Chatterton Williams. (May 16, 2016)

She deciphered a German message that led to one of Britain’s greatest naval victories, the sinking of the battleship Bismarck. By Matt Schudel.

Readers, friends, colleagues and former patients gathered for a celebration of his life and work at an event for the World Science Festival. By Erica Goode.