Will the pope’s blessing “help bridge this tension that so many gay Americans have felt in recent decades — greater acceptance in society, but condemnation or disrespect in our own families?” @patrickhealynyt asks. Read:

The punctuation in Blood Meridian versus the punctuation in Absalom, Absalom!

AP38 Winner GILLIAN LAUB @gigilaub #photoeditor Jessie Wender @jmwender #publication The New York Times @nytimes Annie Leibovitz the Un-Fashion Photographer. November 2021. #ap38 #photographer #photooftheday #americanphotography38 #photography #fotografia #annieleibovitz

“Loneliness — like depression, with which it can be associated — can chip away at your self-esteem and erode your sense of who you are. That’s what happened to me,” writes Vivek H. Murthy (@Surgeon_General) on America’s epidemic of loneliness.

I haven't tweeted in 8 years but I'm so excited to work with the next generation of investigative reporters. Apply for the new Local Investigations Fellowship, which I'm leading for @nytimes.

“For decades Indigenous activists have been sounding the alarm on climate change,” writes @isvettverde. “But their warnings have too often been ignored.”

“Most grown-ups believe that school is only for learning back-to-back,” a student at Fremont High School in Oakland, Calif., says. “They don’t understand that school is where we grow and learn to express ourselves.”

As part of a special project, @nytopinion is trying to build a picture of how a diagnosis of mental illness can affect someone’s sense of identity. If you were diagnosed recently and are willing to share some of your experience, email us at opinion-surveys@nytimes.com.

N.Y.C. pay phones have been the backdrop to myriad events: orphaned infants, acts of extortion, stolen zoo animals, wallets lost and found. As some of the last ones are dismantled, here’s a look back on the pay phone’s heyday. By @annhchen and @erinreiss.

5 Minutes That Will Make You Love the Organ

The NYT is looking for photo editors with news experience to work on an as-needed basis to help cover vacations and busy times. Please send CVs/resumes to deputy photo editor Beth Flynn photoediting [at] nytimes [dot] com. You can work remotely, but you must be in the US.

Celebrities, artists, musicians and actors at home, outdoors and in lockdown: Our photographers share the stories behind the photos that defined the arts in 2020.

It was a year like no other: 1.5 million people around the world died during a pandemic, racial unrest gripped the world, and democracy itself came under unprecedented assault. This is 2020 in pictures.

With this one lost weekend as our lens, we look at the toll the shutdown is taking: on New York City, on cultural organizations, and on the people who make their lives, and earn their livelihoods, in the performing arts.

Running this puts Black @nytimes staffers in danger.

https://t.co/2oiFMzGjJ0

I Spent a Year in Space, and I Have Tips on Isolation to Share

✨Some beauty for these recently dark days ✨ https://t.co/KwHwRKQK7E