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    Get Creative

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    A new Times project wants us to nurture our creative side. Last May, my father-in-law showed up at my house with a child-size drum set in his trunk. That might make some parents shudder, but I was thrilled. I was a drummer when I was younger, with a set just like this one, and now my 7-year-old son could follow in my footsteps.I’ve learned two things in the year since. First, you can’t force your kids to like the things you like; my son has probably played those drums for 15 minutes total. More important, though, I learned that I wasn’t a former drummer. I’m still a drummer. Even though I hadn’t engaged that part of my brain in years, my trips downstairs to do laundry now usually include a few minutes bashing on that little drum set. I’m not making beautiful music — just ask my neighbors — but I’m having a great time. Every little session leaves me feeling energized.That spark of creativity is something my colleagues at Well, The Times’s personal health and wellness section, think everyone could use more of. Starting tomorrow, they’ve got a five-day challenge that aims to help readers nurture their creative side. I spoke with Elizabeth Passarella, the writer behind the project, to learn more.After years away from the drums, I’ve been shocked by how good it feels to make music. Why is that?What you feel is what many of us feel when we do something creative: giddy and inspired. Whether you do something more traditionally creative, like draw or play music, or riff on a recipe because you were out of an ingredient, it gives you a little boost. And there is plenty of research that links creativity to happiness and better moods.Some people reading this are gifted painters and musicians, I’m sure. But others would probably say that they don’t have much artistic talent. What would you say to them?You are all creative in some way. There’s a definition of creativity that researchers use: generating something novel that is also useful. That could be the score to a movie. It could also be, as one expert told me, a brilliant solution to keeping your dog out of a certain area of your house. Or making up a weird game to play with your toddler.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Fringe Movement

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      We explain the ideology behind a recent attack.The attack on a Palm Springs, Calif., fertility clinic last week surfaced some unsettling ideas. Guy Edward Bartkus, the 25-year-old suspect, had posted an audio clip explaining why he wanted to blow up a place that makes babies. “I would be considered a pro-mortalist,” he said before detonating his Ford Fusion, killing himself and injuring four others. “Let’s make the death thing happen sooner rather than later in life.”Investigators called it “terrorism” and “nihilistic ideation.” Trump administration officials called it “anti-pro-life.”Bartkus was indeed espousing an extreme ideology. But it belongs to a larger intellectual movement, still fringe for now, that is slowly gaining adherents. My colleagues Jill Cowan, Aric Toler, Jesus Jiménez and I have spent the past week reporting on what experts call “anti-natalism.” Hundreds of thousands follow accounts and podcasts about it. It holds that procreation is immoral because the inevitability of death and suffering outweighs the odds of happiness. Today’s newsletter explains.The ideaThe calculus is ancient — to be or not to be?A South African philosopher’s 2006 treatise, “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence,” popularized the idea in its modern form. “You’re stuck between having been born, which was a harm, but also not being able to end the harm by taking your own life, because that is another kind of harm,” the author, David Benatar, told us.This perspective draws partly on utilitarianism, a discipline of philosophy that asks how to achieve the most good for the greatest number. But even there, anti-natalism is seen as marginal. Besides Benatar, “I don’t know any other philosophers who share it,” said Peter Singer, an influential utilitarian.Online, however, anxieties including climate change and artificial intelligence have given it traction — as has the yearning for connection, even among people with antisocial tendencies. Scores of anti-natalist discussion boards, influencers and podcasts now debate whether all creatures should stop reproducing, or just humans.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Free Press, Free People

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      An interview with the publisher of The Times.Every day, this newsletter brings you the best of New York Times journalism — scoops, investigations, reports from inside war zones or natural disasters, interviews with powerful people and quirky characters, stories that help explain our messy, complicated, frustrating and occasionally delightful world. Sometimes we take for granted what makes that possible.The freedom to ask tough questions. To go where news is happening. To tell the truth even when it makes people mad.Last week, our publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, gave an important speech at the University of Notre Dame about how these freedoms of the press underpin our freedoms as people — how journalism helps hold up democracy. You can — and should! — read the whole thing here, but I also asked the big boss a few questions about it. We usually think of threats to journalists and state control of the media as the scourge of authoritarian societies. How can this be happening here, home of the vaunted First Amendment?There are two very different types of journalistic repression. The more dangerous and dramatic occurs in places like China and Russia, where journalists have their work overtly censored, or are even jailed or killed over it.But there is a subtler, more insidious, playbook for going after journalists in democracies. Selectively using investigatory or regulatory powers to punish journalists and news organizations, for example. Filing frivolous lawsuits against them. Targeting their owners’ unrelated business interests.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Siblings Shape Us

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      While parents work hard to mold their offspring, those offspring just as often mold each other. Happy Mother’s Day. The cover story in today’s Times Magazine begins with an idea: While parents work hard to mold their offspring, those offspring just as often mold each other. Susan Dominus, who has written many moving pieces about children and families, looks at a growing field of research to see how kids’ personalities “spill over” onto their siblings. It’s not always the way you’d think.As the father of three boys (and as a sibling myself), I was rapt. You should read the story. In today’s newsletter, I ask Susan a few questions about her findings.What got you interested in this story?My older brother was extremely influential in my own life. When I was 14, and he was home on a break from college, he talked me into starting a school newspaper. He somehow knew before I did (and definitely before my parents did) what kind of work I would love doing. When I started interviewing people about the way their families influenced their lives, I was struck by how often siblings played a pivotal role in their careers — in making an introduction, giving a key piece of advice, setting the bar high.You tell the story of several high-achieving families. But the phenomenon isn’t necessarily strongest among the privileged, is it?Not at all. If anything, research suggests that what’s known as the “sibling spillover effect” (a measure of how much siblings influence each other, especially academically) is more powerful in disadvantaged families. In those families, the bond can be more influential — the siblings spend a lot of time together, either because their parents are so busy working, or because the family doesn’t have the resources to spend on tons of extracurriculars.My kids have wildly different personalities. Tell me what the research shows about birth-order psychology — the idea that your place among siblings shapes you?We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Believing’ and Belonging

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      We look at how people are searching for belonging.Last week, Dwight from “The Office” called me to talk about God.Almost. It was the actor who played Dwight, Rainn Wilson. He’d read my essay that launched “Believing,” a project on how people find meaning in their lives — in religion, spirituality or anywhere. He’d written a best-selling book on the topic, one that was so self-aware and funny I actually laughed out loud. He just wanted to connect.That seems to be a theme.Since I published “Believing,” I’ve heard from thousands of Morning readers. Everyone has a story to share about belief, no matter how they come at the topic. My inbox is now a microcosm of the internet: MAGA bros, professors, wellness influencers, theologians, climate activists, pop psychologists, grandmothers and a source who sent me an unpublished letter from Pope Francis. I heard from people across America and around the world, including Brazil, New Zealand and Saudi Arabia. In the messages, a clear trend emerged that unites this very disparate group: People crave meaningful connection.In “Believing,” I explained that religion offers people three B’s: beliefs about the world, behaviors to follow and belonging in a community or culture. Readers seized on the last one. They said they wanted to belong — in rich, profound and sustained ways.It makes sense. A major, global study recently released by Harvard and Baylor universities affirmed what so much other data has shown: People flourish — they live happier, healthier and better lives — if they have strong social connections. It also found that religions, for all their reputational baggage, can provide people with robust communities.The power of belongingIn “Believing,” I shared that I once belonged to a strong community — that I was raised Mormon in Arkansas but that I have since left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was vulnerable and weird and hard for me to talk about. Still, it seemed to be a catalyst for connection.Soon, my inbox was filled with personal stories.“She began with a personal testament of her own loss of faith, so forgive me if I too bare my soul,” Richard Dawkins, the famous advocate for atheism, replied in a letter to my article.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Art Stars Are Made

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      We explain how a few big players wield enormous influence in the art world.Museums provide the first draft of art history. They decide which artists get to share wall space with masters like Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Picasso.Choosing which artists to exhibit requires museums to consider ultrasubjective questions about, say, the artistic merit of a painting or the historical relevance of a sculpture. The task has traditionally fallen to curators, who maintain their scholarly independence and grapple with the complexities of mounting shows.But in recent years, museums have increasingly turned to another source for logistical and, at times, financial support for their shows: major commercial art galleries.The scale of these partnerships was largely unexamined until now. This morning, The Times published an analysis by my colleague Julia Halperin and me of more than 350 solo exhibitions by contemporary artists in New York’s biggest art museums over the last six years.We found that nearly a quarter of those exhibitions featured artists who were represented by just 11 major galleries. These were no ordinary mom-and-pop dealerships but “mega-galleries,” as professionals call them — an elite slice of the art world that accounts for a sizable chunk of the $57.5 billion art market.In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain how the increasingly close relationship between museums and commercial galleries is shaping whose work is shown to the public.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Pope’s Funeral

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      We are live from the Vatican.VATICAN CITY — A patchwork of clergy in red, white, purple and black vestments. World leaders including President Trump seated on the stairs of St. Peter’s Basilica for an outdoor ceremony. A simple cypress casket. Haunting chants and some 200,000 faithful embraced by Bernini’s colonnade.In a solemn and majestic funeral that ended moments ago, the Roman Catholic Church laid to rest Pope Francis, the first South American pope, whose humble style and pastoral vision both reinvigorated and divided the institution that he led for a dozen years. He was 88.It’s warm and clear here in Rome. A group of refugees and homeless people, like those Francis advocated for around the world, joined presidents, prime ministers and the church’s cardinals — one of whom will be the next pope — to bid the Holy Father farewell.During the funeral.Eric Lee/The New York Times“He was a Pope among the people, with an open heart towards everyone,” Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re said in the homily. “The guiding thread of his mission was also the conviction that the church is a home for all, a home with its doors always open.”He spoke in Italian. Texts were also read in English, Spanish, French, Arabic and Portuguese.Before the service, priests from Myanmar talked about how Francis had energized their small church when he visited and elevated their bishop to a cardinal. Pilgrims from Ecuador said he had made them feel seen. Conservative clerics from the Czech Republic said they still weren’t sure what to make of him.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      America Wants a God

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      Today, we’re introducing “Believing,” a yearlong exploration from The Times on how we experience religion and spirituality now.Americans believe.Most people are wary of the government, the future and even each other, but they still believe in astonishing possibilities. Almost all Americans — 92 percent of adults — say they have a spiritual belief, in a god, human souls or spirits, an afterlife or something “beyond the natural world,” as we reported earlier this year.The country seems to be acknowledging this widespread spiritual hunger. America’s secularization is on pause, people have stopped leaving churches, and religion is taking a more prominent role in public life — in the White House, Silicon Valley, Hollywood and even at Harvard. It’s a major, generational shift. But what does this actually look like in people’s lives?I have spent the past year reporting “Believing,” a new project for The Times. This project is personal to me. I was raised a devout Mormon in Arkansas. I’ve left the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I understand how wrestling with belief can define a life. I hoped to capture what that journey looked like for others, too — both inside and outside of religion. I interviewed hundreds of people, visited dozens of houses of worship and asked Times readers for their stories. More than 4,000 responded.In my reporting, I found that there are many reasons for this shift in American life. Researchers say the pandemic and the country’s limited social safety nets have inclined people to stick with (or even turn to) religion for support. But there is another reason, too: Many Americans are dissatisfied with the alternatives to religion. They feel an existential malaise, and they’re looking for help. People want stronger communities, more meaningful rituals and spaces to express their spirituality. They’re also longing to have richer, more nuanced conversations about belief.Unsatisfying alternativesIris LegendreOver the past few decades, around 40 million Americans left churches, and the number of people who say they have no religion grew to about 30 percent of the country.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Are Easter Baskets Getting Out of Hand?

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      Social media feeds are awash in images of lavish baskets overflowing with expensive gifts. Some parents are giving their children bikes. Others are pushing back.“Is it even Easter if you don’t get a new bike?”So asks Judy Newton, a mother of three in Philadelphia, in a recent video on TikTok.In the weeks before Easter this Sunday, social media feeds have been full of videos of parents filling baskets with more than just the usual marshmallow Peeps. Instead, they are packing blankets, stuffed animals, shoes and knickknacks into large wicker baskets, tote bags or plastic buckets. And, yes, they are also giving bikes.“When you see some people post their videos on social media, it looks like Christmas morning,” Ms. Newton said. “Now these kids are getting that for Easter.”Baskets have, of course, long been associated with Easter. But in the age of influencer-driven consumption, Easter has been joined by Halloween (“boo baskets”), Christmas (“brr baskets”), Valentine’s Day and virtually every other holiday (“Leprechaun baskets” for St. Patrick’s Day) as social media encourages people to celebrate by spending lavishly.The Easter Bunny can hardly keep up.

      @kendra.crabtree Easter basket for girls!!! 🫶🏼💕 #easter #easterbasket #easterbasketideas #easter2025 #resurection #jesusisthereason #girlmom #fostermom #girls #spoiled ♬ original sound – KENDRA CRABTREE “Every holiday now, we make baskets,” said Talia Stenson, a mother and social media content creator in Sacramento. “And I think as the years have gone on, people just go above and beyond with these baskets, and now they’re almost a little too overboard.”

      @haileyjoor #easterbasket #easter2025 #boymom #basket #toddlermom #sahm ♬ original sound – mw🎧🧡 We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More