Steven Malanga

In June 2012, the New England Federal Credit Union in Williston, Vermont, received a vaguely worded letter from a company called Automated Transactions, warning the firm that it might be using teller-machine technology that infringed on Automated’s patents.

When Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act in 1994, legislators mandated that the attorney general begin studying and reporting on excessive use of force by police.

California-based comedian Adam Carolla begins his offbeat, off-color, and highly popular podcasts by declaring, “Get it on. Got to get it on. No choice but to get it on.” Now he’s putting his money (and yours, too, if you’re willing to donate to the cause) where his mouth is by “getting it on” with a so-called patent troll—a company that holds patents but makes no products—in a legal battle that could affect the future of podcasting.

In August 1971, when New York Giants owner Wellington Mara and New Jersey governor William Cahill introduced designs for a new football stadium to be located in what was then called the Hackensack Meadowlands, Jersey residents could only dream about a time when the Super Bowl might come to their state. It’s taken more than 40 years, but this week the National Football League’s annual championship extravaganza—the country’s biggest sports attraction—finally rolls into town. But Garden State residents who have paid attention to the saga of the Meadowlands Sports Complex these last four decades know that the arrival of the big game is hardly cause for celebration.

New York City journalists have witnessed one of the slowest transitions to new leadership in recent memory.