In the 1980s, The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), an organization co-founded by Tipper Gore and the wives of several other Washington power brokers, launched a political campaign against pop music, hoping to put warning labels on records that promoted Sex, Violence, Drug and Alcohol Use.

It was 2011 when Rue Mapp was followed by a white woman in an Oakland, California, park, while out on a national campaign to get local families connected with nature. The woman had spotted the group en route to the park and decided to follow them. When they got off the bus, she followed them all the way through the park, and when they began to play in the dirt, she started to harass them. She claimed they were bringing “invasive species” into the park.

Since the pandemic began, pollution levels have dropped, animals are returning to areas they had previously abandoned and more people have taken to travelling on foot and by bicycle. Although short-lived, we have already seen some of the effects changing our behaviour can have on our own lives and on the natural world.

Broadband companies like Charter and Comcast vowed to help low-income people during the pandemic. But taking them up on the offer hasn’t always been easy.

In 2016, I was coming back to my apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, after a long afternoon of playing basketball with old friends. I was about to head upstairs, but I saw a missed call that I figured I’d return outside rather than annoy my roommates through the thin walls. A few minutes later, I looked up and saw that two NYPD officers had cornered me. They wanted to see my ID, which I didn’t have.

Seattle residents will have more space to exercise and bike on as the city plans to permanently close 20 miles of streets to most vehicular traffic, the mayor announced Thursday. The Stay Healthy Streets initiative started in April to temporarily provide more space for residents to get out of the house and exercise while maintaining social distancing during the pandemic. Seattle Mayor Jenny A. Durkan said Thursday that the closures will be permanent.

Until six weeks ago many hung on to the vague idea that people’s relationship with work divided them along binary lines: into winners and precarious losers; “aspirational” types and those who were dependent on the state; and those who had either adjusted to globalisation or were the casualties of it. But if any of this was ever true, the coronavirus crisis has surely consigned most of it to history. Insecurity is now at the heart of tens of millions of lives. Put another way, the “precariat” has suddenly expanded to denote a potentially universal condition.

In the 1946 film, It's a Wonderful Life, family man George Bailey is struggling, and feels there is no way out of his problems. After finding out he owes large sums of money, George contemplates ending his life. With the help of his guardian angel Clarence, he’s given a chance to see what the world would be like if he had never been born.

We found that a lack of critical skills about the online environment matched up with lower levels of education and employment.

Life has changed a lot in the past few days, weeks, or months, depending where you live. As efforts to contain the novel coronavirus ramp up, it’s likely going to change even more. But we’re already sick of being at home all the time, we miss our friends and families, everything’s been canceled, the economy is tanking, and we feel anxious and scared about what’s ahead.

A record 3.28 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week as the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the country. The Labor Department's report Thursday was one of the first official indicators of how many people have suddenly been forced out of work nationally.

I'm sure in today's COVID-19 lockdown, despite all of the technologies we have to occupy us, computers, television, cellphones, many of us are feeling profound isolation, loneliness and boredom. But this big slowdown gives me time every day to play with my grandchildren who are isolated with me, to read and to think about what has mattered most in my life, what has given me the greatest joy and satisfaction, and where I hope the world might go after I'm gone.

Remember the Darwin Awards story about the poor guy who threw a lit stick of dynamite only to have his Labrador retriever go fetch it? Whether he’s mythical or not, I’ve always felt that we were too hard on him. Did he really do anything all that stupid? Throwing the dynamite seems smarter than holding onto it. Let anyone who hasn’t done something stupid step forward.

As we confront the reality of COVID-19, the idea of living self-sufficiently in the woods, far from crowds and grocery stores, doesn't sound so bad. Lynx Vilden has been doing just that for decades, while teaching others how to live primitively, too.

While running today, I noticed something. All of our retail shops are closed. But the construction industry, development of our infrastructure is full steam ahead. Then I thought, in a couple of years, when we look back, what will it all mean? The Coronavirus, social distancing, and non-essential business closures… And I think I’ve put my finger on the pulse.

Within a week, many world leaders went from downplaying the seriousness of coronavirus to declaring a state of emergency. Even the most efficacious of nations seem to be simultaneously confused and exasperated, with delayed responses revealing incompetence and inefficiency the world over.

A shirt that shrinks two sizes after a single wash, jeans that rip too quickly or bikini bottoms that are baggy after just one holiday. The quality of clothes is declining. Even high-end brands sometimes seem like they don’t last much more than one season. The reason? Fashion has to be fast.

Since the coronavirus struck our shores, my focus has been on keeping Americans safe and ensuring working people don’t get left behind. Their struggles today are greater than ever. Too many have suffered job losses, shrinking income, isolation, and health issues — all while caring for children and other loved ones.

Forced to shutter Prune, I’ve been revisiting my original dreams for it — and wondering if there will still be a place for it in the New York of the future.

Brian Kogelmann on living better by living more apart