Spending time with the residents of K6G, the only gay wing in the entire American penal system.

A holiday tradition in the Netherlands involving blackface has sparked a debate about race, the legacy of slavery, and the vestiges of colonialism.

Noah Lennox—better known as Panda Bear—has lived in Lisbon for a decade. How has the Portuguese capital shaped his life and work?

The water’s nearly gone in the San Joaquin Valley, and an old farmer sees the writing on the wall.

People have been having fun with nitrous oxide—often in the name of science—since its discovery more than 240 years ago.

The history of a powerful and violent secret society in the islands of southern Chile.

A women’s shelter in Afghanistan protects its inhabitants from their own families.

Being friends with Susan Sontag was thrilling, but also “shot through in the end with mutual irritation.”

In the deep ocean, a swimming sea-worm called a “green bomber” can throw sacs of light when attacked.

In the fantasy and superhero realm, the most chilling and compelling villain of the year was surely Magneto, who in X-Men: First Class is more of a proto-villain, a victim of human cruelty with a grudge against the nonmutants of the world rooted in bitter and inarguable experience. Magneto is all the more fascinating by virtue of being played by Michael Fassbender, the hawkishly handsome Irish-German actor whose on-screen identity crises dominated no fewer than four movies in 2011. Magneto, more than the others, also evokes a curious kind of self-reproach, because his well-founded vendetta is, after all, directed against us.

How an increase in the earth’s temperature could wipe out a continent.

A report from the oil boom in North Dakota, where unemployment is 3.4 percent and McDonald’s gives out $300 signing bonuses.

A story of endurance in the face of unimaginably brutal conditions.

The night when Terry Thompson let his zoo-worthy collection of big animals, including lions and a bear, into the wilds of Zanesville, Ohio before shooting himself in the head.

What happened after Joan Lefkow’s husband and mother were murdered in her home.

The French influence in Africa is on the wane, and the Chinese are coming.

Participating in the Dakar Rally.

How the former Bush advisor is “reengineering the practice of partisan money management in hopes of drumming Barack Obama out of the White House.”

A survey of sex on a Saturday night in New York City.

A profile of “not just the toughest but the most corrupt and abusive sheriff in America.”

In 1916, a down-on-its-luck traveling circus hung its star elephant.

The importance of the sports metaphor in the American consciousness and why Lewis Lapham didn’t join the C.I.A.

Alex Haley interviews the Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s number two - Malcolm X - in a Harlem restaurant.