The Dail‪y‬ The New York Times

It all started when Sigrid E. Johnson was 62. She got a call from an old friend, asking her to participate in a study about DNA ancestry tests and ethnic identity. She agreed.

Ms. Johnson thought she knew what the outcome would be. When she was 16, her mother told her that she had been adopted as an infant. Her biological mother was an Italian woman from South Philadelphia, and her father was a Black man.

The results, however, told a different story.

Today on The Sunday Read, what the growth in DNA testing, with its surprises and imperfections, means for people’s sense of identity.

Odessa is a four-part audio documentary series about one West Texas high school reopening during the pandemic — and the teachers, students and nurses affected in the process.
For the past six months, The New York Times has documented students’ return to class at Odessa High School from afar through Google hangouts, audio diaries, phone calls and FaceTime tours. And as the country continues to debate how best to reopen schools, Odessa is the story of what happened in a school district that was among those that went first.

Five years ago, Judge Merrick B. Garland became a high-profile casualty of Washington’s political dysfunction. President Barack Obama selected him to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, but Senate Republicans blocked his nomination. In the process, Mr. Garland became known for the job he didn’t get.

Now, after being nominated by the Biden administration to become the next attorney general, Mr. Garland is finding professional qualifications under scrutiny once again. In light of the attack on the Capitol, we explore how his career leading investigations into domestic terrorism prepared him for his Senate confirmation hearing.

When the pandemic was bearing down on New York last March, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration issued a directive that allowed Covid-19 patients to be discharged into nursing homes in a bid to free up hospital beds for the sickest patients. It was a decision that had the potential to cost thousands of lives.
Today, in the second part of our look at New York nursing homes, we explore the effects of the decisions made by the Cuomo administration and the crisis now facing his leadership.

When New York was the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, Gov. Andrew Cuomo emerged as a singular, strong leader. Now his leadership is embattled, particularly over the extent of deaths in nursing homes during the peak.
Today, in the first of two parts on what went wrong in New York's nursing homes, we look at the crisis through the eyes of a woman, Lorry Sullivan, who lost her mother in a New York nursing home.

The conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh died last week. He was 70.
For decades, he broadcast mistrust and grievance into the homes of millions. Mr. Limbaugh helped create an entire ecosystem of right-wing media and changed the course of American conservatism.
Today, we look back on Rush Limbaugh’s career and how he came to have an outsize influence on Republican politics.