With Deutsche Bank’s help, an oligarch’s buying spree trails ruin across the US heartland.

The F.B.I. tried to recruit an Iranian scientist as an informant. When he balked, the payback was brutal.

The Western student of international politics knows to nod approvingly when Lee’s name is mentioned. Frustrated by the sludge of partisan politics in his own country, he sees in Lee’s legacy a kind of exotic escape. If asked, he remarks sagely: Singapore is proof of what enlightened authoritarianism can achieve.

In the pandemic, “caremongering” has become a new term for an old—and joyous—practice

Gearing up for the fight against a new climate enemy.

Immigrant struggles in America forged a bond that became even tighter after my mother’s A.L.S. diagnosis. Then, as COVID-19 threatened, Chinese nationalists began calling us traitors to our country.

Filipino teachers, hired to fill historic shortages in the South and elsewhere, fight their exploitation by opportunistic recruiters.

Obinwanne Okeke was supposed to be a rags-to-riches Nigerian success story, was even featured on the cover of Forbes. Then the feds followed the money.

Every year eleven million people attend Magh Mela, a Hindu festival on the banks of the Ganges. The temporary infrastructure to support them includes hospitals and power stations, plus a massive surveillance apparatus.

Decades ago, a marketing stunt promised Philippine soda drinkers a chance at a million pesos. But an error at a bottling plant led to 600,000 winners—and to lawsuits, rioting, and even deaths.

Brutality and resistance on the front lines of Hong Kong’s battle for democracy.

The refugee and author survived, stateless, for seven years. What’s next?

A trip into the Arctic.

An eccentric Dutchman began living in a giant underground facility built by the German military—and ran a server farm beloved by cybercriminals.

For the first time, data scientists have modeled how climate refugees might move across international borders. This is what they found.

A trans activist from El Salvador who has helped countless trans migrant women fight for asylum in the U.S. finds asylum for herself.

Many young South Koreans were beginning to live in isolation years before the rest of the world joined them.

On Beirut’s broken sewage system.

Banned in Russia and cut by Condé Nast from the GQ website, this story (presented in full) details the intrigue behind the Moscow apartment bombings, blamed on Chechens, that allowed Putin to rapidly ascend to power.

Here’s what’s become of them.

A profile of Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive.

When a spring breaker goes missing, a seasoned investigator uncovers devil worship and a sinister cult at the heart of the drug trade.

Life and death aboard the Zaandam cruise ship as it was denied a port by country after country.

The supply chains of the cocaine industry did not falter even during a worldwide shutdown.

An oral history of the day oil prices went below zero for the first time in trading history.