Ann Dowd Sails Around New York Harbor

The actress Ann Dowd stood straight-backed at the helm, hands gripping the wheel, eyes fixed on the green-gray-blue river spread before her like a rumpled blanket. The Statue of Liberty beckoned just beyond. “Everyone looks awesome behind the wheel of a sailboat,” Jonathan Horvath, the captain, said. “But some people look more awesome than others.”…

War and Strife Have Come to Prosecco Country

VALDOBBIADENE, ITALY — Small pickup trucks carrying mounds of green grapes wound through Prosecco Road. Workers harvesting in the terraced vineyards squinted in the sun. Tipsy tourists stopped in for tastings. Couples clinked glasses in the town’s quaint Prosecco bars. But behind the effervescent front, producers of Italy’s wildly popular sparkling white wine in the…

TikTok’s Oddly Satisfying Pool-Cleaning Videos

Some TikTok creators have become successful on the video platform by dancing, singing or performing everyday tasks. Miles Laflin has amassed 11 million followers by cleaning pools. Better known by his moniker, @thep00lguy, Mr. Laflin, a swimming pool engineer from Britain, posts short videos to his channel that take viewers through the often laborious process…

The Parisians Are Over FOGO

PARIS — On a recent sunny afternoon, a cluster of young women in short dresses and high boots crowded into a special elevator at Cheval Blanc, a new hotel in the La Samaritaine complex along the Seine, and were whisked up to the restaurant Le Tout-Paris. Reinvented as a Pop-inspired contemporary brasserie offering classics like…

Overcoming Their Busy Schedules

A year into his relationship with Abigail Pesta, Joel Oestreich, a political science professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia, moved to Africa. Ms. Pesta, 52, a Philadelphia-based journalist and author, had mixed feelings about his departure. “It was sad to see him go,” she said, but she also wanted him to enjoy the experience —…