Los Angeles County, already in the throes of a devastating surge in coronavirus cases after Thanksgiving travel and gatherings, is being hit with a spike from Christmas festivities. The weekly average of new cases per day in the county, the largest in the United States, is at its highest yet, 16,193. That is about 12…
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The United States reported at least 291,300 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, a single-day record but one that is inflated because of delays in reporting over the holidays. Nineteen states reported no data on Friday, which was a public holiday for New Year’s Day. The remaining states reported a total of more than 147,000 new…
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Plenty of numbers can quantify the way the pandemic and the resulting recession have battered the United States: At least 7.8 million people have fallen into poverty, the biggest plunge in six decades; 85 million Americans say they have had trouble paying basic household expenses, including food and rent. But those numbers do not capture…
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NEW DELHI — India said on Sunday that it had approved two coronavirus vaccines, one made by AstraZeneca and Oxford University and the other developed in India, for emergency use, a major step toward halting the spread of the coronavirus in one of the world’s hardest-hit countries. The approvals were announced at a news conference…
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Maybe you learned you enjoyed driving to the beach more than flying with your toddlers for a vacation. Maybe ordering out a few more nights a week was a lifesaver after a busy day. Maybe you want to keep contributing to a charity you came across. “Heading into 2021, we can use this information to…
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If it feels as if you’ve already explored every last nook and cranny of your cramped lockdown life know this: Right under your nose, there’s a hidden world operating entirely out of view. That world is geocaching, a no-contact game of hide-and-seek between hundreds of thousands of strangers. Players hide caches — waterproof containers, usually…
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As the holiday season retreats and the long slog of the winter months looms, you can fight the mood or embrace it. Here’s a playlist of cold-weather podcasts, some fiction, some nonfiction, all well-told and produced, and all set in the snow. For musical-theater nerds: Audio dramas — podcast-industry lingo for fictional podcasts — can…
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“The absence of give-and-take is awesome,” the Times magazine declared. In the world of lifestyle magazines, in which journalistic standards can be lax, Ms. Rense held to certain principles, refusing, for example, to send editors armed with accessories to act as stylists at photo shoots, as was standard industry practice. “We report,” she wrote in…
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Megan Peters, Helena, Mont. “I love to swim at my local Y.M.C.A. Getting into the pool always felt like utter bliss, and I would wonder, “Why don’t I do this everyday?” I dream about gliding, swirling, splashing and plunging in the water again.” Sharene Voelkel, San Jose, Calif. “I cannot wait to go to the…
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BANGKOK — My grandmother in Tokyo kept a pail under her sink. It was filled with what resembled wet sand. But from its pungent depths came what I considered to be the most miraculous of treats — a pickled carrot or daikon or, one of my favorites, a bud of a ginger-like plant called myoga.…
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