Ryan and Noor are best friends. In Lebanon, they are an unlikely match. Ryan belongs to a religious sect called the Druze, and Noor is a Sunni Muslim. With the way things are in this country, kids from different religious groups do not normally hang out, let alone become inseparable friends.

Karen and her family once lived a happy life in Aleppo, Syria. But when the civil war arrived in their city, they fled to Lebanon in the middle of the night with little more than a few suitcases, and their two-week stay has now lasted two years.

Photographer Rania Matar went back to her hometown of Beirut to work on a project about teenagers. Then, on every corner, she stumbled into young Syrian refugees. They became subjects of her new series called "Invisible Children."

On college campuses in Turkey, masked, stick-wielding students have clashed with leftist activists over banners criticizing ISIS and Turkey's seeming indifference to the fight that's raging in nearby Syria. Many say the conflicts are reminiscent of the country's violent past.

Ahmad, like many Lebanese kids, wants to be a basketball star when he grows up. For now, he's getting to train towards his unlikely goal thanks to a Lebanese NGO that believes such dreams are important for disadvantaged children.

European authorities announced on Friday that Silk Road 2.0 and more than 400 so-called "dark" websites had been shut down in a raid. It was a rare big victory for law enforcement agencies trying to stop the flow of illegal trade on the "dark web."

Facebook said this week that governments are upping their demands for user data, renewing the focus on Internet privacy. But in the UK, the intelligence community's position is clear: The Internet is a breeding ground of crime and terror, and privacy should take a backseat.

Abubaker Deghayes, a British property manager, is mourning the death of a second son who has died fighting in Syria with the extremist group Jabhat al-Nusra. Deghayes says Western governments must do more to reach out to youth who are tempted to enlist in jihadi groups.

Laura Kasinof never expected to become a war correspondent, but her calm life in Yemen gave her a front-row seat to protests and violence as the Arab Spring reached the country. Now Kasinof has written a book about her experiences and shares her fears about Yemen's future.

Four years since they began, the verdict seems clear: The Arab uprisings failed. But one online activist — who’s been deported, jailed and is now seeking asylum in the West — says not so fast. He refuses to give up on the original promise of the Arab Spring.