The men and the women of the transactional-love economy. “A thing you should know is that there are very few people to root for in this story.”

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.

The ragtag group of fighters from America and Europe who joined the fight against extremists in Syria don’t seem to know what they are doing.

“I was one of the few guys rooting for the comet to hit the Earth. Statistically, more people that deserved to go would go.”

The daily life and dwindling hopes of a 12-year-old Syrian refugee.

It’s highly unlikely that a gigantic space rock will crash through our atmosphere and destroy civilization as we know it. But it’s not impossible either. Which is why a small but growing community of scientists and astronomers are scrambling to spot and destroy dangerous asteroids long before they hit us.

The whole thing began over a puddle in the driveway. Eight years later, Peter Nygard and his neighbor Louis Bacon, who own houses next to each other in paradise, have spent tens of millions in a constantly escalating legal war. Neither man spends much time on the island anymore.

“If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long.”

A small-town coffeeshop owner led a double life as a blogger and podcaster on the topic of “pickup artistry.” Then his identity, and his intimate writings about his experiences with 46 local women, was made public.

“It looks as though someone has slapped three pounds of wet clay onto his face, where it clings, burying the boy inside. But Sam, the boy behind the mask, peers out from the right eye. It is clear, perfectly formed and a deep, penetrating brown.”

On a small section of land wedged between Egypt and Sudan called Bir Tawil and the American who tried to claim it for himself.

Philanthropist and private equity mogul David Rubenstein is lauded for his patriotic donations, including half the cost of repairing the Washington Monument. He also helped save a controversial tax break billionaires love.

“She taught me the tricks of trimming. She taught me to smile when my back ached. She taught me some Bengali words. Sab bhalo. It is all okay.”

Traveling with a sex tourist to the Uzbek city of Tashkent. Excerpted from the forthcoming book If It’s Monday It Must Be Madurai.

The Giant Pacific Octopus is, in the words of a Seattle conservationist, a “glamour animal.” It is also tasty. Therein lies the conflict.

“Before I put down my phone, I took a picture of my son. I worried that if I didn’t I would never believe he had existed.”

John Aldridge fell overboard in the middle of the night, 40 miles from shore, and the Coast Guard was looking in the wrong place. How did he survive?

The FBI couldn’t find Ryan Eugene Mullen. Neither could a trio of private investigators. Only Michelle Gomez knew where to look.

“After college, as my friends left Michigan for better opportunities, I was determined to help fix this broken, chaotic city by building my own home in the middle of it. I was 23 years old.”

With up to four million World War II soldiers considered missing in action on the Eastern front, a group of Russian volunteers vows to unearth, identify and properly bury their remains.

At a playground in North Wales, kids are mostly left alone to experiment with fire, jump from great heights and play in a creek. It’s designed to teach the value of taking risks, a lesson many American children have stopped learning.

The perilous routes through which information—video footage, secret documents, radio broadcasts—flow in and out of North Korea through its porous borders with China.

Depending on who you ask, Mohammed Jawad was either 12 or 17 when he was detained. Nobody disputes that he spent seven years at Guantánamo before he was exonerated. The story of a boy who grew up as a detainee.

With fewer and fewer students having the income necessary to pay back loans (except through the use of more consumer debt), a massive default looks closer to inevitable.

On the emerging student loan bubble.

In 1935, a nine-year-old living in Switzerland became the King of Thailand. He would return to his homeland a decade later, and within six months he would be found shot to death in his bed. Though three servants were executed for the crime, a mystery endures.