50onRed is a fixture in Philly’s startup world. But there’s something the leadership didn’t talk about, even with some of its own staff. They make malware.

In the face of death threats, a forensic anthropologist has spent two decades exhuming the victims of a “dirty” civil war. Now his work might help bring justice for their murders.

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.

The origin story of the C.I.A.’s covert drone war, which began with the 2004 killing of a Pashtun militant, the result of a secret deal for access to Pakistani airspace.

When Germany legalized prostitution just over a decade ago, politicians hoped that it would create better conditions and more autonomy for sex workers. It hasn’t worked out that way.

Somaly Mam’s harrowing story of her own flight from sexual servitude and the stories of hundreds of girls she rescued from Cambodian brothels brought her fame and helped raise millions for her non-profit. Does it matter if none or few of the stories are true?

How divisions between Nigeria’s Muslim North and Christian South resulted in the birth of terror’s most ruthless movement.

Inside the dark, lucrative world of consumer debt collection.

In 1984, Jacqui met Bob Lambert at an animal-rights protest. They fell in love, had a son. Then Bob disappeared. It would take 25 years for Jacqui to learn that he had been working undercover.

The aging action star’s second wind abroad: political maneuvering, many guns and, most importantly, a market for his B movies.

Tony Ma will bet you as much as $600,000 to train your student for college acceptance. If the student gets into their top choice school, Ma takes the cash. Rejected? He gets nothing.

How an Italian businessman facing fraud charges and a Brazilian politician turned a billion dollar project to build the high speed Rio-São Paulo rail line into a farce.

Struggling with depression and thoughts of suicide, Army officer Lawrence Franks went AWOL. Five years later, he reappeared as Christopher Flaherty, a member of the French Foreign Legion who served three tours in Africa. Then he was court-martialed.

How a Guatemalan cook ended up the master of okonomiyaki.

How a tattooed video store clerk with a history of drinking and drug use ended up at an Islamic self-help class leading to the birth of ISIS.

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.

The idea was to shoot a Neiman Marcus fur catalog in the Andes mountains, not get stranded on them.

American demand for drugs gave birth to the cartel war that is paralyzing Mexico, but American guns purchased legally across the Southwest and smuggled over the border have made it staggeringly lethal.

A profile of the up-and-coming comedian just after the cancellation of his VH1 talk show, Late World with Zach. His sentiment at the time: “Hollywood is just such a fucking idiot machine.”

Around the world, governments and corporations are in a race for code that can protect, spy, and destroy—hacks some secretive startups are more than happy to sell.

On a decade-long war:

Hackers from many countries have been exfiltrating—that is, stealing—intellectual property from American corporations and the U.S. government on a massive scale, and Chinese hackers are among the main culprits.

Inside the dynastic war between the heirs to rulership of the largest Hasidic sect in the world. The prize – all of Hasidic Williamsburg – may prove to be ungovernable.

You know this one: German guy heads into tribal jungle deep upriver, sends the company crazy reports full of radical ideas—and then goes totally rogue. Only this time it's not ivory he's after. It's a secret lost for centuries: the finest cacao on earth.

Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, denies that he was ever in the IRA. The murder of Jean McConville threatened to expose him as a liar.

When Putin suggested to Obama that the White House and the Kremlin speak through an intermediary, he named who he thought was the obvious candidate: his friend Steven Seagal.