A variant first discovered in California in December is more contagious than earlier forms of the coronavirus, two new studies have shown, fueling concerns that emerging mutants like this one could hamper the sharp decline in cases over all in the state and perhaps elsewhere. In one of the new studies, researchers found that the…
GREENSBORO, N.C. — The beige-and-brown General Electric refrigerator, circa 1982, whirs in a dark corner of Doris and Anthony Vincent’s basement. Mrs. Vincent, a 70-year-old churchgoer and longtime community volunteer, can date its purchase with precision. In her home here, appliances mark milestones. And that nearly 40-year-old model — one of three refrigerators she owns…
When Lesley Friedsam took a three-week boating excursion to Antarctica in 2003, it was planned months in advance. Peter Damisch bought a ticket for the same trip just days before it started. They met accidentally a week into the journey when both left the group tour to go to Grytviken, South Georgia Island, to see…
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan, whose citizens have largely brushed aside the coronavirus pandemic as exaggerated or an outright hoax, is now preparing to distribute its first batch of vaccines. A half-million doses of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, produced by an Indian manufacturer, were delivered to the capital, Kabul, by India on Feb. 7. But the arrival…
Mark Lewis was desperate to find monkeys. Millions of human lives, all over the world, were at stake. Mr. Lewis, the chief executive of Bioqual, was responsible for providing lab monkeys to pharmaceutical companies like Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, which needed the animals to develop their Covid-19 vaccines. But as the coronavirus swept across…
Courtesy of the designer. Style Points is a weekly column about how fashion intersects with the wider world. You might not expect an haute couture presentation to begin with a closeup of the designer himself, his face and body daubed with Day-Glo paint, wielding an aerosol can. But Charles de Vilmorin, the 24-year-old French phenom…
Imagine teleporting into one of your favorite movie universes, and you’ll have some idea of how KiKi Layne feels right now. “It hasn’t fully hit me,” the 29-year-old actress says of playing opposite Eddie Murphy in Coming 2 America, the sequel to his 1988 comedy. Her eyes widen behind her glasses. “Like, ‘Yo, this is…
When Nicolai Bezsonoff and Constanza Collarte decided to move to Miami in 2010, it wasn’t just to establish a new home in a new place — it was to build a life together after years of long-distance romance. Although both had previously lived in Miami, New York and London, they didn’t meet until attending a…
On a gravel shoulder just wide enough for our Citroën, I pulled off the road and let my 3-year-old daughter out. I urged her to climb with me through the low brush of western Provence to see the results of an epidemic that had struck the region nearly 200 years ago. A sign soon greeted…
A few years ago, routine lab tests showed that Susan Glickman Weinberg, then a 65-year-old clinical social worker in Los Angeles, had a hemoglobin A1C reading of 5.8 percent, barely above normal. “This is considered prediabetes,” her internist told her. A1C measures how much sugar has been circulating in the bloodstream over time. If her…