On Sunday, May 18th, in Tampico, Mexico, residents woke to a gruesome but common scene. Two dismembered bodies stuffed in black plastic bags were thrown from a truck onto a sidewalk near the river. A note left behind with the bags claimed the victims had been killed by “rats.” The story went unreported by news outlets. Traditional news media in …

Last month, the Moldovan parliament approved a law that would disallow citizens from using their Soviet passports to vote, officially recognizing that the Soviet Union, in fact, no longer exists. It is estimated, though, that in a population of 3.5 million, as many as 300,000 Moldovans still use these documents as their primary form of identification—and in the case of …

Photo: Police patrol the streets of Woolwich Wendesday night. source: @dazburn A brutal attack in London on Wednesday afternoon is sending far-right English activists marching into the streets. Buses and cars full of angry English Defence League members are heading to Woolwich in southeast London tonight, according to their official Facebook and Twitter accounts, to protest the beheading of a …

A leak in the Lebanese government has turned into a pickup tool for some men eager to try anything to counter their crippling loneliness. Over the past two years, Lebanese women have reported being harassed by men who have obtained their personal information–addresses, phone numbers, age, marital status, and more–from their car’s license plate numbers. Government databases belonging to the Interior and …

As thousands of Iranian-backed Hezbollah fighters join the battle in Syria alongside President Bashar Al-Assad’s forces, there has been a spike in chatter among Syrian rebel groups wanting to target Iran for its support of the regime. Vocativ analysts monitoring the region say there have been increasing mentions by the Syrian opposition across social media about retaliating against Iran for …

On May 9, during a night out drinking beer, Vladislav Tornovoi revealed to a pair of longtime friends that he was gay. The 23-year-old’s dead body was found naked the next morning in the courtyard of an apartment complex in the southern Russian city of Volgograd. His skull had been crushed with a piece of broken pavement. His genitals were mutilated, his …

New York Internet Week is upon us, and not a moment too soon: The Tumblr boys are now far too rich to be tech darlings and we need a replacement! So a bright-eyed gaggle of youthful start-ups have pulled on their long-pants, scoured the couch lining for subway fare in from Greenpoint, and are ready to seize the opportunity to …

Syrian rebels under siege in a strategic city on the Lebanese border are increasingly turning to social media to wage psychological warfare, according to Vocativ analysts monitoring the region. The town of Al Qusayr has become ground zero in the war between rebel fighters on the one side and the joint forces of President Bashar Al Assad and the Lebanese militant …

In addition to playing host to next year’s Winter Olympics, the sleepy seaside Russian resort town of Sochi has another notable characteristic: Its precarious position beside Chechnya and the equally restive Dagestan, two of the region’s most active terrorist hubs. At just several hours’ drive away from these unstable, insurgent-heavy areas, Sochi is faced with the complex matter of providing …

The summer solstice approacheth. And with the coming of this major holiday for Satan worshippers, Vocativ used its technology to mine the deep web and track down which American cities are potential hotbeds of Satanic activities. So, is your town in the belly of the beast?