It seemed like an easy crime to stop: protected Indonesian rainforest, cut for coffee farms. But a globalized economy can undermine even the best-laid plans.

Fifty years ago, The Last Picture Show changed the way the world saw small-town Texas and, in turn, the way the small town saw itself

Church-loving surf instructor Matthew Taylor Coleman fell into online conspiracy theories, then allegedly admitted to killing his kids to save the world. How did no one see it coming?

In the “smart nation,” robot dogs enforce social distancing and an app can claim to neutralize racism. The reality is very different.

How America is trying to fight terrorism in Africa without doing any of the actual fighting.

In 1981, Mauritania became the last country on Earth to abolish slavery. The law had little effect; at least 140,000 people are still enslaved today. Their best hope for freedom is an abolitoinist named Biram Dah Abeid.

On the meeting of shaggy-haired American ping pong ace Glenn Cowan and Chinese master Zhuang Zedong (who died this week), and how their fleeting friendship thawed relations between the twon nations during the U.S. team’s historic 1971 tour of China.

Chasing the embers of hedonism in Morocco and Tunisia, as Salafi mobs and new regimes wash over the brothels, beaches, and nightclubs of what used to be the Arab world’s most liberal cities.

A history of how Tuareg separatists, jihadists seeking a “desert caliphate,” cigarette smugglers, and narcotraffickers have turned Northern Mali into “the globe’s most significant terrorist threat.”

On the legal and practical details of the drone strikes that killed New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awlaki and later, accidentally, his sixteen-year-old Colorado-born son.

In February, Jerusalem’s FC Beitar, the only soccer team in the Israeli Premier League to have never signed an Arab player, signed two Chechnyan Muslims, sparking national controversy and pitting the organization against their ultras fan club La Familia.

“Joe’s hand began to tingle, and he called the group together. The toxins would leave his system in 48 hours, he said. He’d be conscious the whole time.”

Convicted and facing jail time plus a crippling fine in Sweden, the founders of the torrent site The Pirate’s Bay have scattered across the world towards new lives: fatherhood in Laos, a junkie’s life in Phnom Penh, and start-up work in Berlin.

A California martial arts instructor’s secret past.

Previously: Finding Oscar

A species of jellyfish that can transform itself back to a polyp at any time appears to debunk the most fundamental law of the natural world — you are born, and then you die.

Part 1 of “The Mastermind,” a serialized investigation of Paul Le Roux, who went from brilliant programmer to vicious cartel boss to highly protected U.S. government asset.

Most of the men were in their 60s and 70s, with heart conditions, diabetes, and replacement hips. They made off with millions in cash and jewels, only to give themselves up by not understanding how technology works.

Immigrant nannies leave their own children behind to care for others’.

Welcome to Wakaliwood, where a resourceful producer in the slums of Kampala makes action movies like Who Killed Captain Alex? Uganda’s First Action Movie for about $200 apiece.

They were florists working in Amsterdam’s largest flower market. They were also members of one of the most powerful arms of the Italian mafia. An investigation into how organized crime has gone global.

Their entire lives, Alex and Tim Foley thought their mom and dad were typical, boring American parents. Then the FBI showed up.

What happened to the Afghan timber worker after a 2005 battle was made into a book and feature film.

The Libyan Investment Authority was brand new, staffed by people who barely understood finance and had billions to invest. Goldman Sachs saw a whale. Now the Libyans want their money back.

“Those who were born in the U.S.S.R. and those born after its collapse do not share a common experience,” wrote Svetlana Alexievich, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 2015. “It’s like they’re from different planets.”