Fashion News

I went to pick up my child from a school activity. (The kids are masked and grouped in small pods.) While waiting, my friend approached my car. She was obviously tipsy; even my younger child noticed how oddly she spoke and acted. I know she has a history of problem drinking. She’s also going through a contentious divorce and custody dispute. I didn’t say anything to her about driving with her child in the car, which I now regret. (She can be loud and aggressive.) I worry about her, her kids and how her drinking may jeopardize her custody battle.

Long before the name Matthew Specktor was inscribed on Samantha Culp’s heart, it could be found beneath a short, sweet note inscribed on a page of Mr. Specktor’s book, “American Dream Machine,” which she bought at a benefit at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles in June 2013.

“With warmest wishes,” Mr. Specktor, 54, wrote, “and thanks, hope you enjoy.”

Ms. Culp, 38, a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and producer, recalled suffering from jet lag that day as she had flown home two days earlier from Shanghai, where she spent a decade living and working as a journalist, art curator

Welcome. A group of friends and I used to gather for brunch every year on New Year’s Day, and at the end of the meal, we’d each write a resolution on a slip of paper and put it in a hat. Then everyone drew from the hat, each receiving a random resolution, an assignment for the year from someone else at the table.

The resolution might be practical, something the person writing it hoped to do themselves: “Fold your clothes every night when you take them off,” “Sign up for voice lessons.” Or it might be something ridiculous: One year

It’s been well over two years since TikTok arrived in the United States in August 2018, offering a rejoinder to anyone who thought social media had lost its way. The app had everything: social commentary, comedy, crafting, memes, challenges, makeup tutorials and, of course, dances. Even those who weren’t totally sold on it couldn’t avoid the videos, which proliferated across platforms like Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.

By April 2020, TikTok had been downloaded more than 2 billion times; in the fall, it had an estimated 850 million monthly active users.

Despite its growth in size and scope, the uninitiated still

Each day, our editors collect the most interesting, striking or delightful facts to appear in articles throughout the paper. Here are 74 from the past year that were the most revealing.

Dec. 30, 2020

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January

1. Japan’s legal system has a 99 percent conviction rate.
Carlos Ghosn, at Home but Waiting for the Next Move

2. Fishing remains the United States’ second most dangerous profession, after logging.
Overtaken by Frigid Seas, Hours From Help, There Was Little Chance of Survival

3. McSorley’s Old Ale House, established in 1854 in the East Village,