Sarah Todd

The thought of eating fish freaked me out as a kid. It smelled weird. It came from the ocean, which to a kid from Ohio seemed unknowable and therefore an inherently suspicious background—sort of like being from New Jersey, or outer space. And the fish I saw on ice at the grocery store always seemed to be staring at me, which was rude. Once in a while I might have a crispy fish finger at the school cafeteria; otherwise, I gave fish a pass.

Pipo-kun is very cute. He’s fuzzy and orange and sort of a mouse. He has antennae that keep him alert to the goings-on of his metropolis, big eyes that help him spot trouble, and oversized ears that make him attuned to cries for help. Since 1987, he has served as the kindly mascot of the Toyko Metropolitan Police Department.

Sexual harassment holds women back. Not only is it a tool used to degrade, demoralize, and push out individual women in the workplace, but industries that tolerate sexual harassment treat women as inherently less valuable than their male counterparts. As a result, those men are often given better opportunities and higher-profile platforms as their female counterparts are left behind. So it comes as a relief that in the aftermath of ousters of serial harassers like Charlie Rose and Kevin Spacey, women are finally getting the chance to take the lead.

It’s Amazon’s world—we just live in it.

What does it mean to be a badass? It’s an interesting question. To some people, it means the ability to look credibly tough while wearing a leather jacket. As someone who does not possess this talent, I have deep respect for Fonzie and all other people with this skill set.

This story is part of our guide to five gift-giving philosophies to help you find the perfect gift.

For most of my adult life, I assumed that I didn’t have time for hobbies.

It is often hard to get what you want in life. The world is full of people who will tell you no. But with the power of persuasive writing on your side, it’s sometimes possible to get a joyful “yes.”

Balancing mental illness with your career can be hard. Pete Davidson just made it a little easier.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina breached the levees and flood walls meant to protect New Orleans, Louisiana—with horrific results. In the following decade, the US Army Corps of Engineers spent $14.5 billion strengthening the city’s protection against hurricanes with flood gates, pumping stations, and barriers.

Even under the best of circumstances, writing is a difficult task. It requires a great deal of concentration, as well as plenty of time for daydreaming, experimenting, and chasing potential dead ends. So when the British novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature today, found himself stalled on a book, he and his wife developed a plan. He would set aside four weeks to devote himself exclusively to writing. And his wife, Lorna? She would take care of everything else.

The TV Land sitcom Younger is a great show to watch when you’re in need of some light-hearted distraction. But as I recently discovered, it can also prompt a useful bit of soul-searching.

No one would accuse Taylor Swift of lacking a competitive spirit. The pop star famously went after Katy Perry for allegedly hiring away her backup dancers, and her longstanding feud with Kanye West often seems to be, at its heart, about who’s the bigger superstar. But this week, Swift took a new approach to dealing with a musical rival, sending flowers the rapper Cardi B, whose debut single “Bodak Yellow (Money Moves)” has knocked Swift out of the top spot on Billboard’s Hot 100.

Donald Trump is a man who finds beauty in many unexpected places. As The Washington Post noted back in July, he used the word “beautiful” 35 times over the course of just 30 days.

Some chefs spend their lives chasing a Michelin star. Sébastien Bras has three—and he would very much like to give them back.

You may have noticed that everything is terrible these days. Floods. Earthquakes. Nazis. Terrorist attacks. Maybe nuclear war. A vending machine app that disrespects bodega owners. But there is one nice part about the world being on fire: Now is the time to do whatever we want.

When you are a woman with a job, you often get contradictory advice. Negotiate for your salary—but not too aggressively, since women get penalized when they ask for more. Don’t apologize, use upspeak, or qualify your statements—but avoid being too outwardly dominant (pdf), lest you trigger a gender-biased backlash. Don’t have long, flowing hair (too feminine) or wear plain dark suits (too masculine). Call out sexism and other workplace injustices, but always be graceful and cautious.

Boba tea is a beverage that people drink sometimes, and the New York Times is on it. The paper of record was widely criticized today (August 16) for publishing an article that framed bubble tea—a beverage created in Taiwan 30 years ago that is popular throughout Asia, as well as the coastal US—as an exotic trend baffling the American mainstream. The print headline reads: “The Blobs In Your Tea? They’re Supposed to Be There.”

One person was killed and at least 19 people were injured on Saturday when a car plowed through a crowd protesting the white nationalist rally “Unite the Right” in Charlottesville, Virginia. But Donald Trump had little to say—or tweet—about it. In a telling indication of his political loyalties, the US president instead delivered a short and vague statement about the day’s violence.

In the US, women are expected to feel bad for men who hurt and disrespect them.

When I think about good manners, I go straight to my favorite scene in the 2001 Anne Hathaway movie The Princess Diaries. When Hathaway accidentally takes a huge bite of a cold palate-cleanser at a formal dinner, she gets instant brain freeze. Her two kindly dinner companions—eager to save her from any sense of embarrassment—follow suit, shoveling frozen green stuff into their mouths and wincing in pain.

A couple months ago, I discovered that all of my coworkers are secretly obsessed with doing planks. They weren’t actively trying to hide this information from me, of course. They were simply spending several minutes a day getting down on the ground in a sort of push-up position, clasping their hands in front of their heads, working out their abdominal muscles like good citizens, and then never mentioning it again.

Salvador Dali may be dead, but his mustache is in fine form. Spanish authorities confirmed that the surrealist painter’s slender, gravity-defying facial hair was in good condition after exhuming his remains on Thursday (July 20), in the hopes of resolving a paternity suit.

Whether you’re hosting friends this weekend or laying low, there’s no time like the present to get in on frosé—the most Instagram-friendly drink of the summer.