AFTER A LIFETIME OF ABUSING DRUGS, Horace Bush decided at age 62 that getting clean had become a matter of life or death. So Mr. Bush, a homeless man who still tucked in his T-shirts and ironed his jeans, moved to a flophouse in Brooklyn that was supposed to help people like him, cramming into a bedroom the size of a parking space with three other men. read more

PROSECUTORS HAVE FILED CRIMINAL CHARGES against a notorious landlord of cramped flophouses in Brooklyn, taking what housing advocates described as unusually forceful action against an operator of so-called three-quarter homes.

The landlord, Yury Baumblit, was the subject of an investigation in The New York Times on three-quarter housing — seen as somewhere between regulated halfway houses and actual homes — in May. read more

EVER SINCE THEY WERE CHILDREN,Aukejshia Boyce-Gaskins made sure to look out for her younger half brother, Birshon Daley.

Their mother, addicted to crack cocaine, dumped them with their great-grandmother when Ms. Boyce-Gaskins was 10 and her brother was 2. Ms. Boyce-Gaskins helped raise Mr. Daley in a small town in Georgia, even taking him in after she graduated from high school. Eventually, she sent him to live with his father in Brooklyn. But then came his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. His father died. Almost three years ago, he disappeared. read more

SOME CUSTOMERS POUR BEER INTO CLEAR McCafé plastic cups and drink it right in the open. A man called Shamrock swills straight vodka from a Dasani water bottle at a table near the entrance.

The other day, a man headed straight for the bathroom, pausing only to open his backpack and grab a bag of heroin, known as “dog food.” Another day, a couple shared a McDonald’s vanilla shake at a side table and swallowed “sticks,” the anti-anxiety prescription drug Xanax, and “pins,” the anti-anxiety pill Klonopin. On a recent Wednesday, an ambulance showed up to carry away a regular who had been stabbed in an adjacent doorway, leaving blood all over the sidewalk. read more

THOUSANDS OF MEN BLOCKED THE ROAD, surrounding the S.U.V. of the chief justice of Pakistan, a national hero for standing up to military rule. As a correspondent for The Chicago Tribune, I knew I couldn’t just watch from behind a car window. I had to get out there.

So, wearing a black headscarf and a loose, long-sleeved red tunic over jeans, I waded through the crowd and started taking notes: on the men throwing rose petals, on the men shouting that they would die for the chief justice, on the men sacrificing a goat. read more

FOR A BRIEF, GIDDY MOMENT, Sean Noble–a little-known former aide to an Arizona congressman—became one of the most important people in American politics.

Plucked from obscurity by libertarian billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, Noble was tasked with distributing a torrent of political money raised by the Koch network, a complex web of nonprofits nicknamed the Kochtopus, into conservative causes in the 2010 and 2012 elections. read more

MATT BROOKS DESCRIBES THE MISSION OF THE REPUBLICAN Jewish Coalition as educating the Jewish community about critical domestic and foreign policy issues.

But the well-dressed crowd that gathered in May for a luncheon on the 24th floor of a New York law firm easily could have figured that the group had a different purpose: Helping Mitt Romney win the presidency.

Brooks, the group's executive director, showed the 100 or so attendees two coalition-funded ads taking aim at President Barack Obama. Then Brooks made a pitch for a $6.5 million plan to help Romney in battleground states, reminding guests that their donations would not be publicly disclosed by the tax-exempt group. read more

VALLIAMMAI WATCHES AS THE GOLD WEDDING NECKLACE is tied around her daughter's neck, as the silver rings are slipped on her toes. She cries because her husband is not there.

She wears a pink sari with rose trim, one of the only saris she rescued from the tsunami. A fake gold necklace has left a bumpy rash on her neck. It is all she could afford, a poor replacement for her own wedding necklace, which she pawned for $12 to buy food. "I don't have anybody," Valliammai says on this day in March. "There is nobody to help me. I'm all alone." read more

VALLIAMMAI SITS CROSS-LEGGED ON THE HOSPITAL FLOOR,her forehead wrinkled in worry. Her pregnant daughter is curled up on a nearby bed, but that is not what bothers Valliammai.

She worries whether anything is going wrong back home. Because at the tsunami shelter, another daughter is ready to give birth, swollen and uncomfortable. Heavy November rains continue to fall. And children and grandchildren need to be fed. "I have to get back," says Valliammai, who uses one name like many in South India. "I don't know if they can manage." read more