Critic’s Notebook ASAP Rocky performing at Santos Party House in Manhattan. Credit... Chad Batka for The New York Times What are the hallmarks of great rapping in 2013? Lyrical imagination and complexity, sure — those are always on the list. But they’re increasingly sharing space with things like…

On the set of "The Canyons" in Los Angeles last summer: Amanda Brooks, Lindsay Lohan and Paul Schrader. Credit... Jeff Minton for The New York Times Lindsay Lohan moves through the Chateau Marmont as if she owns the place, but in a debtor-prison kind of way. She’ll soon owe the hotel $46,000. Heads…

Think you have a pretty good idea of what's coming next in tech? Then you probably haven't talked to a teen recently. Via snapchat.com Josh Miller is the co-founder of Branch . This post originally appeared on Medium , and is reprinted here with the author's permission. A few months ago, my…

Notre Dame's Manti Te'o, the stories said, played this season under a terrible burden. A Mormon linebacker who led his Catholic school's football program back to glory, Te'o was whipsawed between personal tragedies along the way. In the span of six hours in September, as Sports Illustrated told it,…

Series: The Drone War This post has been updated. It was originally published Jan. 11, 2013. Jan. 11, 2013: This post has been corrected. You might have heard about the “kill list.” You’ve certainly heard about drones. But the details of the U.S. campaign against militants in Pakistan, Yemen, and…

A System Divided DISPARITY A fourth-grade gifted class taught by Angelo Monserrate at Public School 163. Credit... Dave Sanders for The New York Times IT is just a metal door with three windows, the kind meant to keep the clamor of an elementary school hallway from piercing a classroom’s quiet.…

Fifteen years after the release of the movie that made them stars, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck—along with the rest of the cast and crew—reflect in their own words on how a long-shot film by two unknowns became one of Hollywood's biggest success stories. By · 1/2/2013, 10:00 a.m. Print Keep your…

Kiana Humble, who is autistic, and her caretaker, Renee Wellington, taking mass transit to school in Brooklyn on Friday. Credit... Kirsten Luce for The New York Times At 7:30 a.m. on Friday, Kiana Humble tried to nudge her caretaker across the street toward the bus stop near her home in…

WASHINGTON — After years of complaints by passengers and members of Congress, the Transportation Security Administration said Friday that it would begin removing the controversial full-body scanners that produce revealing images of airline travelers beginning this summer. The agency said it canceled…

Maya Tolstoy, an associate professor at Columbia, could be considered middle class in Manhattan. She and her son are able to afford the city in part because their building is owned by the university. Credit... Piotr Redlinski for The New York Times DRIVE through almost any neighborhood around the…

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The treatment may sound appalling, but it works. Transplanting feces from a healthy person into the gut of one who is sick can quickly cure severe intestinal infections caused by a dangerous type of bacteria that antibiotics often cannot control. A new study finds that such transplants cured 15 of…

Talk So if you’re running for president in 2016, you probably have to start laying the groundwork now, right? Can you imagine we’re even talking about this? It’s mind-numbing that within 24 hours, people want to start talking about 2016. I read that Ann Romney did not take the loss well. Obviously,…

A dry section of the Morse Reservoir in Cicero, Ind., in July. The numbers are in: 2012, the year of a surreal March heat wave, a severe drought in the Corn Belt and a huge storm that caused broad devastation in the Middle Atlantic States, turns out to have been the hottest year ever recorded in the…

Justice Sonia Sotomayor visiting the Bronx housing project where she grew up. Credit... Todd Heisler/The New York Times WASHINGTON — Justice Sonia Sotomayor is a proud daughter of New York City, and her adjustment to life in the nation’s capital has been rocky. Do not get her started, for instance,…

STOCKTON, Calif. — Matthew R. Davies graduated from college with a master’s degree in business and a taste for enterprise, working in real estate, restaurants and mobile home parks before seizing on what he saw as uncharted territory with a vast potential for profits — medical marijuana. He brought…

Credit Illustration by Tom Bachtell The New Year’s Day vote in Congress that brought a temporary truce to the fiscal wars showed the Republicans to be far more divided than the Democrats, and the division broke along regional lines. House Republicans from the Far West and from the Northeast favored…

Bee-Shyuan Chang goes shopping with Rita Ora at Opening Ceremony, where the singer reveals her style evolution and inspirations. NEW year, new girl. If fashion muses bloom in the dead of winter, as ateliers begin to hum with sewing machines preparing for the Fall 2013 collections, the singer Rita…

It is not your imagination — more people you know are sick this winter, even people who have had flu shots. The country is in the grip of three emerging flu or flulike epidemics: an early start to the annual flu season with an unusually aggressive virus, a surge in a new type of norovirus, and the…

The New York City medical examiner’s office is undertaking an unusual review of more than 800 rape cases in which critical DNA evidence may have been mishandled or overlooked by a lab technician, resulting in incorrect reports being given to criminal investigators. Supervisors have so far found 26…

Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s CEO, testifying last summer before the House Financial Services Committee about his bank’s sudden $6 billion loss. Jacqueline Martin/AP The financial crisis had many causes—too much borrowing, foolish investments, misguided regulation—but at its core, the panic resulted from…

Illustration: Jeffrey Smith Editor’s note: This story is adapted from The Terror Factory , Trevor Aaronson’s new book documenting how the Federal Bureau of Investigation has built a vast network of informants to infiltrate Muslim communities and, in some cases, cultivate phony terrorist plots. The…

T hese are the nights that Jerry Stackhouse still cherishes. A loud and rambunctious arena. Teams trading buckets. A basket as big as the ocean. Maybe these nights are fewer and further between, but that’s fine with him. He can see the finish line now. It’s not just that Stackhouse chipped in 14…

Seoul Journal Tourists at a plywood stage honoring the rapper Psy in the Gangnam district of Seoul recently. Credit... Jean Chung for The New York Times SEOUL, South Korea — As monuments go, this one seems puny and tasteless next to the designer glass skyscrapers and upscale fashion boutiques of the…

The big story in the markets this year was not about stocks. Americans sold off their stock mutual funds, the most popular way to invest in American companies, at the fastest clip since 2008, the year the financial crisis began. That occurred despite the fact that the stock market itself rose…

Lyrically, a lot of the songs on True deal with heartbreak and obsession in a very vulnerable way. It feels reminiscent of female vocalists in the Motown era, this idea of, ‘If he doesn't love me back, I'm just going to die.’ Solange: It’s true, and a big part of that is definitely an extension of…

1 / 5 The veterinary assistants Quinton Rancati, left, and Koos Pronkclears, right, and a team of workers struggled with a groggy rhinoceros after it was darted before being dehorned to prevent poaching. Credit... Joao Silva/The New York Times 1 / 5 The veterinary assistants Quinton Rancati, left,…

The fiscal cliff bill’s impact would be far-reaching for American taxpayers, and particularly painful for very high-income households, according to a new analysis. About 77% of American households would see a tax increase compared to their 2012 tax levels, according to the analysis by the Tax Policy…

The high-stakes negotiations were laced with distrust and miscommunication. | AP Photos House Speaker John Boehner couldn’t hold back when he spotted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the White House lobby last Friday. It was only a few days before the nation would go over the fiscal cliff , no…

Energy drinks are the fastest-growing part of the beverage industry, with sales in the United States reaching more than $10 billion in 2012 — more than Americans spent on iced tea or sports beverages like Gatorade. Their rising popularity represents a generational shift in what people drink, and…

Anton Watson, center, with other children, parents and teachers at a Chicago peace vigil held amid a rising number of killings. CHICAGO — This city’s 471st homicide of 2012 happened in the middle of the day, in the middle of a crowd, on the steps of the church where the victim of homicide 463 was…

MOUNT OLIVE, W.Va. — Convicted of robbing and raping an 83-year-old woman, Joseph A. Buffey at 19 was no one’s idea of a choirboy. A marijuana smoker and high school dropout, he was out thieving on the night in question 11 years ago and broke into the Salvation Army near the woman’s home to steal…

And now I'm going to tell you exactly how to get onto The Price Is Right . On Aug. 24, I booked a flight to San Diego, ostensibly to visit my sister. Non-ostensibly, the purpose was to drive 100 miles north to L.A. to win a fabulous array of cash and prizes from Drew Carey. When you're home from…

CDs Know That Ears Have Eyes DEC. 26, 2012 MOST of us think we know where fine art roosts: museums, galleries, studios, maybe the stray subway car. But one of the more unexpected places to find striking, thought-provoking art, year in and year out, is on the album covers of ECM Records . The covers…

Barack Obama is the first president in more than five decades to win at least 51 percent of the national popular vote twice, according to a revised vote count in New York eight weeks after the Nov. 6 election. State election officials submitted a final tally on Dec. 31 that added about 400,000…

Reddit Superstar blogger Nate Silver took questions on Reddit Tuesday . One user asked him whether he found sports or politics "more frustrating to analyze." Politics, Silver replied: " Between the pundits and the partisans, you're dealing with a lot of very delusional people ." Another Redditor…

Lure of Green Cards Brings Big Investments for Remote Resort in Vermont DEC. 30, 2012 JAY, Vt. — At this remote outpost by the Canadian border, Bill Stenger is overseeing what he says is the biggest economic development project that Vermont has ever seen. He is expanding the Jay Peak ski resort ,…

Huge Child-Support Debt Doesn’t Ensure Time in Jail DEC. 30, 2012 At first Lisa Sand wanted to see her ex-husband in prison. He had skipped out on making child support payments, missing court dates in Nassau County Family Court before leaving New York and eventually fleeing the country altogether. A…

Published: December 28, 2012 2012: THE YEAR IN PICTURES The Year in Pictures TEXT BY COLUM McCANN Christos Pathiakis/Getty Images Whitney Dangerfield, Rodrigo Honeywell, Jon Huang, Meaghan Looram, John Niedermeyer and Jeffrey Henson Scales/The New York Times An earlier version of this slideshow…