The author boards the Costa Atlantica for several days of line dancing, burlesque and buffets as part of the cruise industry’s new foray into China.

By the 1990s, the timeline of most superhero comics dipped back nearly 30 years, and beloved characters were saddled with impenetrable backstories and middle-age. Ultimate Marvel made Spider Man, X-Men, and the rest teens in the present day, rejuvenating the industry and setting the stage for Marvel’s string of hit films.

On the closing of New York’s Fulton Fish Market.

It smells of truck exhaust and fish guts. Of glistening skipjacks and smoldering cigarettes; fluke, salmon and Joe Tuna's cigar. Of Canada, Florida, and the squid-ink East River. Of funny fish-talk riffs that end with profanities spat onto the mucky pavement, there to mix with coffee spills, beer blessings, and the flowing melt of sea-scented ice. This fragrance of fish and man pinpoints one place in the New York vastness: a small stretch of South Street where peddlers have sung the song of the catch since at least 1831, while all around them, change. They were hawking fish here when an ale house called McSorley's opened up; when a presidential aspirant named Lincoln spoke at Cooper Union; when the building of a bridge to Brooklyn ruined their upriver view.

An essay on a pregnancy attempted:

When I tell people what we are doing, they want to hear about the room where you produce. I tell them that there is a lot of paperwork. That they take your picture and look at your license. Then they walk you back to the room. You are handed a list of instructions and some stickers and a plastic cup. The cup has a forest-green lid. In the room is a VCR. I like to write down the names of the videos so I can share them with my wife and friends: Ass Angels #4, Original Black Queens of Porn (Afro-Centrix #113), and Chock Full of Asians. The latter features a woman with enlarged breasts so swollen they look luminous, like the sense apparatus of a recently discovered deep-sea fish.

How volunteer firefighters responded to a lethal West, Texas explosion.

How New York City built its own CIA.

A visit to Glenn Greenwald’s house in Rio.

How our memories become contaminated by inaccuracies.

Why one man made it his mission to kill 60 known sex offenders.

Bernie Kerik and Jack Abramoff on “Club Fed.”

A murder involving the late actor leaves unanswered questions.

An investigation into America’s Greek system.

A journalist on the troll who tried to destroy her.

On Hillary Clinton’s policy team.

Tracking a rumored gerbil infestation through China’s bureaucracy.

The U.N.’s role in creating an epidemic in Haiti.

On the casting process for New York’s cult leader-like spin instructors.

The story was told by Sports Illustrated, CBS News, and countless others: linbeacker Manti Te’o, Heisman trophy candidate and the face of Notre Dame football, was playing brilliantly despite the tragic loss of his girlfriend to leukemia early in the season. The reporters missed one key element of Te’o’s story, however: the girl hadn’t died. She couldn’t have. She didn’t exist.

The man behind the Body Worlds exhibit faces his own death.

On living in Syria as an Alawite loyalist.

Embedded with the “hotshots” trying to battle forest fires.

Nine innings with Mr. Baseball.

The plot to turn Texas blue.

An essay on the wounded woman.

A young woman with a rare condition navigates El Paso.