LONDON (AP) — It's apparently not enough for Britons to endure almost 120,000 COVID-19 deaths and face a new variant of the virus that scientists say is more contagious and more deadly. Not enough...
PHOENIX (AP) — As I read about the 35th anniversary of the 1986 Challenger shuttle disaster this week, I was transported back to Fifth Street Middle School in Bangor, Maine.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The line stretched nearly a block long. Nobody was grumbling about the wait.
Those gathered at a senior wellness center in Washington, D.C., viewed it as a matter of life...
WASHINGTON (AP) — As I chug up Capitol Hill near the end of my morning run, I pass the same bustle I’ve seen every four years at this time since we first moved to Washington in 1996.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — It’s 2014, and you’re relaxing with your best friend in a pastel-hued Florida condo the day after Thanksgiving. She’s checking Facebook and you’re on your iPad, playing...
NEW YORK (AP) — It rolled off the car carrier near my home in Brooklyn and less than 20 minutes later it was mine: a 2015 Mazda CX-5 in a deep blue.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — No man is an island, the poem says. But amid pandemic quarantine, when my dad started having episodes of feeling faint, he seemed so isolated.
PHOENIX (AP) — I'm not alone in confessing that I have always enjoyed those Bob Ross instructional painting programs that ran on PBS for many years. Perhaps it was his soothing voice as a tree...
PHOENIX (AP) — For what feels like the first time in my life I’m craving change, longing for something different. But the start of each month aches like I’m repeatedly waking up and reliving the...
SEATTLE (AP) — This year started with so much promise.
I spent two weeks in January competing in biathlon races in Seefeld, Austria, during the Winter World Masters Games 2020, winning...
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — “Get back in the car!” the masked people shouted at me. “Get back in!”
It was near midnight. My taxi just pulled into the parking lot where I was greeted by three...
HONOLULU (AP) — I remember setting out for a late afternoon run and the overpowering perfume of plumerias from the tree outside my house. That’s the moment I knew something was up.
PHOENIX (AP) — When my birthday rolled around in June, I had to face the fact that, thanks to COVID-19, I would not be having cake with anyone. Yet I went ahead and made the cake I really wanted —...
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Working from home. Unwilling to go anywhere. Getting tired of the pine trees outside my spare bedroom window.
I am wasting away in Coronaville. What keeps me going is...
BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. (AP) — People said we were crazy. We said we’d be careful.
Maybe so, my doctor-uncle warned, but it would only take one moment of carelessness to get infected — one time...
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The plan was to elope in April in New York City, where my fiancee, Julie Trolle, lived.
When the coronavirus hit, I canceled my flight from El Paso, where I was...
LONDON (AP) — My friend Greg died.
I am not alone in losing a friend to COVID-19. Some 46,000 people in this country have died, as have thousands more around the world. But none of them sat...
LONDON (AP) — I moved to London in 1997. I was 31. So, measuring by my London years, I’m only 24.
Over the course of my London life I’ve accumulated at least 12,000 commuting hours — 500...
BURKE, Va. (AP) — On a recent car ride, my sons, Billy and Jimmy, were discussing an interactive “Minecraft” show on Netflix that allowed them to choose the direction of the story. I said it...
NEW YORK (AP) — Outside, the soundtrack of sirens wailed, each another death blow to the city that had nurtured my development as a musician for so long. But from inside my life on lockdown, an...
NEW YORK (AP) — In journalism, when we’re trying to explain a complicated story, we often start with raw data. How many? How much? How long? How far?
PHOENIX (AP) — It was the day after April Fool’s when I stared at a tiny window on a pregnancy test and watched a very clear plus sign quickly appear. I sprinted from my side of the house to my...
JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — I moved to Saudi Arabia from Egypt last year, eager to photograph a national awakening that was once unimaginable in a country so beholden to ultraconservative...
NEW YORK (AP) — The last few weeks I spent in New York City, the soundtrack of my days went like this: police helicopters circling, firecrackers startling, uniform chants for justice rising into...
DETROIT (AP) — Birds. Generators. Golf carts.
At the opening round of the Rocket Mortgage Classic on Thursday, those were the sounds I heard when the eerie silence was broken.
WARWICK, R.I. (AP) — A child's swing twists forlornly in the breeze beneath the behemoth maple tree that shades our home. It's become a symbol of our sad coronavirus exile.
LONDON (AP) — What have I learned about pandemic soccer — I mean football, of course — since its return in England?
You watch soulless matches with no fans out of ingrained habit — and the...
DORMONT, Pa. (AP) — “The Goonies” wouldn’t have been my first choice, but options were limited.
It had been 96 days since I had been to a movie theater. That might not be extraordinary for...
LONDON (AP) — “Across the pond …”
The arch phrase describing the Atlantic Ocean has long been an inside joke for those who regularly hopscotched over its untamed expanse. It implied that an...
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — This is for you out there who’ve found it hard to cope with coping. You who dutifully tried meditation, yoga, baking, knitting, plant-rearing and general self-care even before...
PALMYRA, N.J. (AP) — All I wanted was to be home. To sleep in my bed, cook in my kitchen and greet my husband after work.
I cried a lot. I gained 10 pounds. I even started to get dry, itchy...
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The day his boss looked over at the TV screen and gave a forlorn nod at the plunging red lines of the stock market, my husband could feel the layoff coming.
PHOENIX (AP) — Working from home is a blissful reprieve from the many sounds of the office. The gum-smacking, the open-mouth chewing, the drink-slurping, the hand-sneezers that haunt my...
NEW YORK (AP) — This is not the plan I cooked up.
Only a few seconds after the hamburger patties started to sizzle on my new iron skillet, the smoke detector began to chirp. I...
CLEVELAND (AP) — Loss and its many guises have been constants during the pandemic. Loss of loved ones. Economic loss. Loss of contact with family and friends.
SAO PAULO (AP) — The certificate arrived on the floor of an otherwise empty elevator. My 1-year-old stumbled to the doorway of our Sao Paulo apartment and watched as I picked up the document. She...
ATLANTA (AP) — For someone who grew up on the sandy beaches and the urban jungle that is coastal South Florida, camping — real camping, as I imagined it — was the stuff you’d see in movies:...
WORTHINGTON, Ohio (AP) — My mother taught me that the best place in the world is on the inside of a chord. If you've ever been there, you'll know what she meant. It's a bear hug of awe and wonder,...
NEW YORK (AP) — Since mid-March, when my NYC friends and I began sheltering at home, my piano has been a big source of comfort. I pound out the keys to Broadway tunes ("On My Own" from “Les...
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — After 60-plus days, I threw in the towel. Mr. Rich had to go.
Mr. Rich is a hamster who most recently served as the classroom pet in my 9-year-old’s science...
SEATTLE (AP) — My 8-month-old baby has now spent 32% of his life under quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Time blurs enough during infancy for both babies without long-term memory...
LONDON (AP) — I cannot draw. I am unable to sketch anything past the outlines of a simple flower or a house no one would want to live in. For my verbally delayed autistic 6-year-old son though,...
STOCKHOLM (AP) — Early April.
A buzz of my phone. “Free for a walk?” asks a friend. Another notification. “Coffee on Wednesday?” “Come for drinks!”
PHOENIX (AP) — The speech therapist held up a book of animals. Our 4-year-old looked curiously at her across the Zoom call screen.
“Beig! Beig!” Pablo suddenly shouted, pointing at a...
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Judas trees must be blooming these days out at the Gulghendi Hills, their purple flowers bursting gloriously all over the green slopes. They hold a festival there...
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Embarrassing to admit but oddly comforting: My ex-husband’s husband and I share a slight crush on our state epidemiologist.