As they neared the turn of the millennium, and steeled themselves for the Y2K bug, Americans faced a critical question: Whom would they crown the teen queen of pop? In 1999 there were four candidates. Britney Spears was an early front-runner, riding the breakout success of “… Baby One More Time.” Christina Aguilera, her fellow…
Throughout much of human history, people didn’t celebrate their birthdays. Many people didn’t even know when their birthday was. “Historically, only emperors and saints — you know, the big ones — celebrated birthdays,” said William J. Doherty, a professor of family social science at the University of Minnesota. In America, wealthier parents in the early…
PARIS — Forget Avenue Montaigne. The Les Halles neighborhood — the area in the First Arrondissement once nicknamed “the Belly of Paris” for its sprawling food market — is about to become a magnet for French fashion. In April, La Samaritaine, once one of the oldest department stores in the city, is to reopen as…
With ever-increasing attention paid to the dangers of sugar, it is easy to believe that consuming any amount, and any type, of this substance, damages your health. Experts say sugar promotes weight gain and increases the likelihood of type 2 diabetes. Sugar consumption leads to high blood pressure and heart disease. But the fact is,…
The first words Alexandra Hagan said to Raphael Haro when he tried to introduce himself were, “Sorry, I’m on a call, I’m busy.” At the time, in June 2017, both were at a vacation home in the Hamptons shared by mutual friends. Though Mr. Haro was successful in getting Ms. Hagan’s phone number that weekend,…
The Times’s 52 places to go in 2020 spans the globe, from Washington, D.C., to Mount Kenya to Sabah, Malaysia. Maybe you’re already buying your plane tickets, or maybe you can’t get away anytime soon — but either way, we recommend the books below, which will help you explore on the ground or from your…
Many times in many countries, political leaders have tried to censor health officials and play down the risks of infection just as epidemics approached. This strategy has almost never worked, historians and former health officials said. And ultimately, if there are more deaths than leaders blithely predict, it destroys the reputations of the…
Investors, fearing that the spread of the coronavirus is tipping the global economy into a recession, handed the stock market its largest weekly loss since the 2008 financial crisis on Friday amid worries that one of the longest economic expansions in history may be coming to an end. With the virus now detected…
Here’s what you need to know: New case in California raises prospect of local, person-to-person spread. A second person in Northern California has been infected with the coronavirus without having any known risk factors, such as travel to China or exposure to somebody known to be infected. The findings hints that the coronavirus may already…
For weeks, public health experts have been watching to see whether factory shutdowns and shipping problems in China caused by the coronavirus epidemic will cause drug shortages in the United States. Late Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration issued a statement noting that one drug is now in short supply because of problems related to…