The history of – and recent controversy over – the diagnosis.

On the battle between Shaquille O’Neal and his former IT guy, who’s in control of much of O’Neal’s archived (and often damning) correspondence.

Citizens of Shishmaref, Alaska are watching their beaches disappear and their homes fall into the sea. Is it too late to relocate?

The disappointing tenure of Uruguay’s great lefty hope.

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

Coastal erosion is leading more than a few Britons to watch their homes crumble into the sea.

“Quebec is the Saudi Arabia of maple syrup,” and it has the authoritarian regulatory regime to prove it.

On the Final Exit Network, a controversial right-to-die organization, and the death of their client John Celmer.

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.

A profile of thriller writer Harlan Coben and what it takes to succeed as a novelist even when the literary establishment doesn’t acknowledge your existence.

A profile Hunter Moore,  the founder of the controversial revenge-porn site Is Anyone Up.

How Indians with the surname Patel came to own 1/3 of the motels in America.

The fatal allure of the Golden Gate Bridge and why it doesn’t have a barrier to thwart potential leapers.

The story of a deadly collision on the D.C. Metro, told from surviving passengers’ point of view.

The story of two Canadian artificial intelligence visionaries who became bitter rivals and then both committed suicide in the same month.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, oil magnate and once the richest man in Russia, delivers a speech from prison, where he has lived since 2003.

On the evolution of Nigeria’s booming film industry, which produces 50 full-length features a week.

A caller poses as a policeman and convinces McDonald’s managers to strip-search a female employee. It’s not the first time.

“By the time we got to Woodstock 99 …” In a grim finale, the nineties get their Altamont.

On existing as a girl in the boy’s club that is the world.

More than 15% of Detroit’s adults have asthma, and 82% of black students go to schools in the most polluted parts of the city.

A former Ohio National Guardsman recalls being dunked on by LeBron James as a teenager — and how the James helped get him through the Iraq War.

Jacqueline Kennedy, William Manchester, and the battle over the authorized account of J.F.K.’s assassination.

Since 9/11, the United States has spent $1 trillion on national security. An investigation into whether it has worked.

On the obsession with the sexual and social habits of American teenage girls.