9 Feature Stories You Can't Miss This Week: The Pigeon King, North Korea, And Nick Kroll

This week for BuzzFeed News, Anne Helen Petersen takes a hike with comedian Nick Kroll. Read that and these other great stories from BuzzFeed News and around the web.

1. Nick Kroll's Walk in the Park — BuzzFeed News

Photograph by Ramona Rosales for BuzzFeed News

Comics work their whole careers to land their own successful, acclaimed, eponymous Comedy Central sketch show. But after three seasons, and with his show at its creative and commercial peak, Nick Kroll is leaving it all behind for destinations unknown — because he can. Read it at BuzzFeed News.

2. The Demolition of Workers' Comp — ProPublica / NPR

Photograph by Patrick T. Fallon for ProPublica

A hard-hitting investigation by Michael Grabell and Howard Berkes on how states across the country have slashed workers' comp benefits, leaving those injured on the job with less time off and little choice in their treatments. The burden of the remaining costs of workplace accidents now sit squarely on the shoulders of American taxpayers. Read it at ProPublica or NPR.

3. This is What It’s Like to Go to Prison for Trolling — BuzzFeed News

Photograph by Ceri Oakes / SWNS for BuzzFeed News

In January 2014, two people were found guilty of sending death and rape threats to the feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez in the most high-profile online abuse case Britain has ever seen. Patrick Smith found out why they did it – and what happened next. Read it at BuzzFeed News.

4. The Plot to Free North Korea With Smuggled Episodes of Friends — Wired

Joe Pugliese for Wired

Despite North Korea's ban of the internet, millions of its residents now have PCs, tablets, and portable video players. Andy Greenberg asks: Could the slew of the West's most ubiquitous movies and shows — Titanic, The Hunger Games, Desperate Housewives — being smuggled in by dissident groups be the country's ticket to a revolution? Read it at Wired.

5. The Pigeon King and the Ponzi Scheme That Shook Canada — The New York Times Magazine

Illustrations by Kristian Hammerstad for The New York Times Magazine

A stranger-than-fiction story by Jon Mooallem about Arlan Galbraith, the Canadian man who built — and burned — a lucrative, illegal business around the world's most banal bird. "To actually understand who the Pigeon King was — skilled con man or hapless businessman or hapless con man or all three — it may help to put common sense aside." Read it at The New York Times Magazine.

6. How Does It Feel to be a Cop Who Shot Someone? — BuzzFeed News

Jackie Person

Officer Jackie Person was the only patrolwoman in the police department of her small hometown in Massachusetts when she killed a man in 2004. Though everyone agreed she was justified in using deadly force, Nicolás Medina Mora discovers that she would never be the same. Read it at BuzzFeed News.

7. The Man in the Van — ESPN The Magazine

Photographs by Nathaniel Wood for ESPN The Magazine

Eli Saslow unravels the motivation behind the unlikely lifestyle of Daniel Norris, one of Canadian baseball's star prospects. "The Van Man has a consistent 92-mile-an-hour fastball, a $2 million signing bonus, a deal with Nike and a growing fan club, yet he has decided the best way to prepare for the grind of a 162-game season is to live here, in the back of a 1978 Westfalia camper he purchased for $10,000." Read it at ESPN The Magazine.

8. Fireworks and Brimstone: The Personal God of Katy Perry — BuzzFeed News

Jenny Chang for BuzzFeed News

Laura Turner explores how the pop megastar’s Pentecostalism means God plays an intimate role in every decision she makes. "Her God is deeply interested in the details of her personal life, from her Super Bowl performance to her relationships to her cup size." Read it at BuzzFeed News.

9. Freedom of Expression Is a Joke in the World’s Largest Democracy, and Here’s Why — BuzzFeed News

Justine Zwiebel / Via buzzfeed.com

Rega Jha examines how recent events in India – including the ban of a controversial BBC documentary "India's Daughter" – reveal the shortcomings of the nation's government. "It would take a country harboring colossal insecurity and a truly angst-ridden identity crisis for its government, when faced with any truths but the one they have chosen to embrace, to resort to the most middle-school of retorts: No, you shut up." Read it at BuzzFeed News.

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