A small town upstate, a Queens ambulance veteran, and a murder

An investigation into how “Mr. Putin, a student of martial arts, had turned two institutions at the core of American democracy — political campaigns and independent media — to his own ends.”

Fidel Castro, the fiery apostle of revolution who brought the Cold War to the Western Hemisphere in 1959 and then defied the United States for nearly half a century as Cuba’s maximum leader, bedeviling 11 American presidents and briefly pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war, died on Friday. He was 90.

In the last year alone, over 150,000 people have risked their lives to leave.

An interview with the elusive Frank Ocean.

An Ironman consists of a 2.4-mile swim, then a 112-mile bike ride and then a marathon. The Quintuple Anvil Triathlon is five Ironmans in a row.

Maurice Lerner missed his shot at the majors and landed in the Rhode Island mafia.

“He kissed me directly on the lips. I thought, ‘Oh my God, gross.’”

Why the war in Syria can only get worse.

As jobs and food disappear, formerly middle class Venezuelans are descending on gaping illegal mining pits, some as deep as fifteen stories, searching for gold but often finding armed gangs and malaria.

The Piano Man of Yarmouk fled the ruins of Damascus to a life of criss-crossing Germany playing songs about his old neighborhood to huge crowds. Because of refugee law, he is paid nothing.

Across the world, millions of displaced Syrians have been met with hesitation and hostility. Not in Canada.

Who was Omar Mateen?

Three days, 64 people shot, six of them dead: Memorial Day weekend in Chicago.

A retired fighter worries that he has all the symptoms of CTE.

Over a million people are buried in a potter’s field on Hart Island. Here are some of their stories.

One woman’s hunt for possibility after an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

Two men entered the ring for their first professional boxing match. Only one survived.

Modern methods allow the Islamic State to keep up its systematic rape of captives under medieval codes.

Before ending up in Rikers, Jeremy Wilson — if that’s his real name — had portrayed himself as a Scottish-born DJ, a Cambridge-trained thespian, a Special Forces officer, a professor at MIT, an Apple executive, a soldier seeking asylum in Canada to escape anti-Semitic attacks in the United States, and an Irish mobster. Among others.

The women would walk 10 miles from the village to the meat packing plants. Their pay supported drunk husbands and hungry children. When they were told to stop, they broke with tradition and went to the law.

An account of the 60 minutes after a heavyweight fight at Madison Square Garden that left one boxer with permanent brain damage.

The final days of the last Navy SEAL to die in Afghanistan.

The ‘repo men’ of the high seas.

Since the Syrian rebel leader Hassan Aboud joined ISIS, taking with him fighters and weapons, he has been behind a sprawling mix of battlefield action and crime.