IN THE EARLY MONTHS OF THE COVID-19 vaccine rollout, breakthrough infections among the inoculated were so rare that individual cases sometimes made the news. Now, as Omicron tears through the U.S., that era is clearly over. Avoiding COVID-19 forever

THERE ARE TWO VERSIONS OF A BMW factory in the medieval town of Regensburg, Germany. One is a physical plant that cranks out hundreds of thousands of cars a year. The other is a virtual 3-D replica, accessed by screen or VR headset, in which every su

In the predawn hours of Dec. 14, residents of a quiet street in Tamarac, Fla., were woken up by the flashing lights of police vans. As officers deployed around a modest house, one man videoed a SWAT team arresting his neighbor, Mason Courson, bringin

Typically, much of the climate-change discussion refers to it as a “threat.” But the reality is, for many on earth, the crisis is already here. Many small-island developing states have already suffered climate-related losses of livelihood, security a

You play a detective investigating the murder of a pop star (Dave Franco) at his high school reunion afterparty. It’s a whodunit but also a comedy. Was there a lot of improv? Yeah, they let me add icing on the cake. Like, I brought these cute little

The Suicide Squad director James Gunn spins off a series around John Cena’s character, who straddles the hero-villain divide. (Jan. 13 on HBO Max) Friday Night Lights and Parenthood producer Jason Katims brings a new drama to Amazon, centered on thre

I KNOW “THE REVEREND AND the rock star” sounds like the start of a joke, not the description of a friendship. Improbable as it was, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died on Dec. 26, and I did have a friendship, and it’s been one of the blessings of my li

In a sport that, more than any other in the U.S., doubles as religion, no other figure has shaped American football more completely than John Madden, who died on Dec. 28, at 85. “He was football,” said NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, in a statement t

EILEEN GU GOT INTO EXTREME SPORTS because of an overprotective mother. The older Gu hated seeing her daughter plunge down California’s Tahoe ski slopes in a furious blur, so she enrolled the 8-year-old in free-skiing school, not knowing exactly what

IN MY FIRST WEEKS AS A U.S. CITIZEN, I’VE EXPERIENCED the full richness and contradictions of what it means to be an American. I changed my last name to Freedom, and then made the most of that newfound freedom by continuing to advocate for the oppres

JEAN CHEN HO Bonded by their shared experience of coming of age in Los Angeles in immigrant families, Fiona and Jane find their friendship challenged over the years by distance, romantic relationships and betrayal. (Jan. 4) XOCHITL GONZALEZ Prieto is

ON A CONFERENCE-ROOM WHITEBOARD IN the heart of Silicon Valley, Jacob DeWitte sketches his startup’s first product. In red marker, it looks like a beer can in a Koozie, stuck with a crazy straw. In real life, it will be about the size of a hot tub an

IN THE ONE-ROOM SHACK where Harry Reid was raised, the closest thing to religion was an FDR quotation on the wall: WE CAN. WE WILL. WE MUST. Those six words sum up as well as anything the creed that took Reid, who later converted to Mormonism, from t

ON THE STEPS OF CITY HALL, MAYOR David Anderson hollered a guttural “Wahhh!!!” and shot his arms into the sky in celebration, looking like an inflatable air dancer blowing in the wind. “Four! Hundred! Million! Dollars!” he shouted to city residents g

IF VIRUSES KNOW NO BORDERS, THEY have an equal disdain for human holidays. On Thanksgiving 2021, Dr. Rochelle Walensky shut off her phone for about 45 minutes and placed the turkey on the dining table to enjoy the holiday meal with her husband and th

YAHYA ABDUL-MATEEN II ON VILLAINS VS. SUPERHEROES TIFFANY HADDISH DESCRIBES THE ETHICAL BOUNDARIES OF COMEDY DELIA EPHRON ON SURVIVING CANCER AND FALLING IN LOVE IN HER 70S ■

■

BELL HOOKS WAS A RADICAL FEMINIST, SCHOLAR AND author who spent the ’90s publishing about a book a year. Like a lot of young Black women, I thought of myself as part of her army. Daughters of her thought, ready to integrate her text into our public a

DON’T YOU HATE IT,” SAYS JON THE ROBOT, gesturing with tiny articulated arms at an expectant crowd, “when you’re trying to solve inverse kinematics equations to pick up a cup and then you get ‘Error 453, no solution found’?” The crowd laughs. “Don’t

Norway is not the most likely place to start a transportation revolution, but electric vehicles (EV) are suddenly the new normal here. Almost 65% of new passenger cars sold in Norway in 2021 were electric; in addition, 22% were plug-in hybrids. It to

COOL IS THE WORD USED MOST OFTEN TO describe her: the Coca-Colas and the cigarettes each morning, the leotard and the typewriter, the scotch and the shawl. California. Writing for movies to make a living, “making notes for the director,” her short, t

Halle Berry stars in disaster-film auteur Roland Emmerich’s latest, in which a NASA exec, an astronaut and a conspiracy theorist travel to space to stop the moon from crashing into Earth. (Feb. 4) Jennifer Lopez plays a pop star who’s publicly humili

CAT POWER Singer-songwriter Chan Marshall has long excelled at reinventing other people’s songs. Her new record includes tracks by Frank Ocean, Iggy Pop and Billie Holiday. (Jan. 14) THE WEEKND What comes after After Hours? The Dawn, obviously. The m

A DOMESTIC FOCUS for both the U.S. and Chinese governments lowers the odds of a big international conflict in 2022, but it leaves less potential leadership and coordination to respond to emerging crises. That’s bad news in a year that will be dominat

EVER SINCE VACCINES BECAME WIDELY AVAILABLE TO adults in the U.S., the conversation in HR departments and C-suites has centered on the same topic: How and when are we going to go back to the office? I’ve spent the past 21 months talking to companies,

Shonda Rhimes and I are deep into a conversation about what makes a healthy work environment when she has to stop me from saying something ridiculous. I’ve been waxing indignant about the professional world’s unfair assumption that employees with kid

CHEF MASSIMO BOTTURA DIDN’T BRING HIS chef’s jacket to the photo shoot. Which is just as well, considering that simple chef’s whites could never convey what this exuberant bon vivant has become since opening the doors of his three-Michelin-starred, t