They were cousins who grow up in Raqqa amidst parties, beaches, even bikinis. They married ISIS fighters to protect their families, then became morality policers.

They were the New York crew that once pulled off the Lufthansa heist, one of the biggest thefts in American history and the basis for Goodfellas. Nearly 40 years later, most are dead. The survivors are old, broke, and snitching.

And the task of unraveling his life.

One Marine battalion has had four members kill themselves in just the last year. The soldiers have jury-rigged a system of Facebook notifications and Google spreadsheets to try to stop it.

Kim Suozzi, who died at 23, chose to have her brain preserved for future revival. It’s not as far-fetched a prospect as you’d think.

The life of Phyllis Frye, a pioneer in the fight for transgender rights.

Amazon, America’s most valuable retailer, is “conducting a little-known experiment in how far it can push white-collar workers, redrawing the boundaries of what is acceptable.”

The system of organized sexual slavery at the heart of ISIS.

Working on the high seas is always dangerous, but the Dona Liberta has a particularly bad reputation.

An isolated 23-year-old Sunday school teacher living with her grandparents makes a new group of friends online who mail her chocolates and cash.

The truncated, violent lives of Richard Matt and David Sweat before their prison escape.

On the Event Horizon telescope, the largest ever built.

Inside the abusive “three-quarter house” industry that serves addicts.

On two gay men in Pennsylvania who tried, and failed, to build a commune of their own.

Arthur Mondella took over his family’s maraschino cherry business reluctantly. But once he had it, he started a second enterprise. Behind an unmarked roll-down gate, behind some of his prized luxury cars, behind a pair of closet doors, behind a set of button-controlled shelves, behind a fake wall and down a ladder in a hole in the floor, Mondella built a 2,500-square-foot marijuana factory. When the police finally found it, he shot himself.

What happend to Serafim Todorov after the 1996 Olympic featherweight semifinals.

Detroit is trying to end the longstanding practice of “scrapping,” which is the only way some of its residents can earn a living.

A women’s shelter in Afghanistan protects its inhabitants from their own families.

A patient arrives in a therapist’s office complaining of writer’s block. He’s not in search of the talking cure, though.

“Easy care” sheep, crushed piglets, and starving calves. These are the products of a remote research center where scientists are trying to re-engineer the farm animal to fit the needs of the 21st-century meat industry.

Chérif and Saïd Kouachi’s path to the Paris attack at Charlie Hebdo.

How ESPN anchor Stuart Scott battled cancer.

Laurie Sperring’s Staten Island nightmare.

Those who survived tell the story of twenty three ISIS hostages’ shared months of brutal captivity before some were ransomed and some executed.