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Feb 10

Figure skating in the U.S. is now plainly an Asian American sport.

For the second consecutive Winter Games, four of the six figure skaters representing the U.S. in the singles events are Asian American: Karen Chen, Nathan Chen, Alysa Liu and Vincent Zhou. nyti.ms/3HIBZHn

Asians make up around 7% of the U.S. population but have become vividly overrepresented in ice rinks and competitions at every level, from coast to coast.

Gradually, they have transformed a sport that, until the 1990s, was almost uniformly white. nyti.ms/3HIBZHn

Skaters have infused competitions with music that draws from their Asian heritage, expressing their roots while navigating the perils of hate on social media and a climate of anxiety about anti-Asian violence. nyti.ms/3HIBZHn

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Feb 8

For some extreme Olympic sports — halfpipe, slopestyle, big air — there is no limit to the imagination. They can fly as high as they want. Winning means doing tricks that no one else can do. Or wants to do.

They live in fear of the next new trick. nyti.ms/34jYcNK

Just keeping up gets harder every Olympic cycle. The tricks get higher, bigger, twistier — more dangerous. Performances that won medals at past Olympics might not even qualify this time. Time weeds out those who do not evolve, who cannot keep up. nyti.ms/34jYcNK

Shaun White, 35, is heading to his fifth Olympics. He has to be doing tricks much more difficult and dangerous than he performed when he won gold medals in 2006, 2010 and 2018. It is a cruel trick of reverse-aging — getting better while getting older. nyti.ms/34jYcNK

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Feb 7

A letter alleging an Islamist plot to take over schools in Birmingham, England, started a national panic. The letter was fake, but the fallout for Muslims in Britain was real. Our new podcast from Serial investigates “The Trojan Horse Affair.” nyti.ms/3GwCzqs

@BriHReed

To get to the bottom of the Trojan horse affair, @BriHReed and @HamzaMSyed go into "Sherlock Holmes mode" to investigate who wrote the letter that started a panic over a fake plot to infiltrate Birmingham’s schools. Listen to Part 2 of the Serial podcast. nyti.ms/334nrmv

@HamzaMSyed

“Mate, I’m pissed.” An interview with the Birmingham city councilor who first received the Trojan horse letter outlining an alleged Islamist threat unsettles @HamzaMSyed in Part 3 of a new Serial podcast. “It was eye-opening,” he says. nyti.ms/3LluKYj

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Feb 5

During the Summer Olympics, conditions are mostly controlled. The courts are the same size. The temperature is consistent. The lighting is dependable.

But for many Winter Olympians, the stadium is a mountain, the ceiling is the sky. nyti.ms/3rpFzR4

Winter Olympians expect the unexpected. They train in wind and bitter cold, on ice and slush. But they never know what they will encounter on competition day. Four years of preparation can be undone by the fickle unpredictability of Mother Nature.

Among the fears for winter athletes is a sky that looks just like snow and ice. “If the light is flat, it’s easy to lose yourself because you look at the snow and you look up in the air, and it looks similar,” said Anna Gasser, an Austrian snowboarder.

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Feb 4

A record spike in coronavirus cases in the U.S. wasn’t enough to derail the job market recovery at the beginning of the year.

The economy added 467,000 jobs in January. Here's what else we learned from the jobs report. nyti.ms/3Hsavpi

Despite the growth in employment, there are still nearly three million fewer jobs now than before the pandemic. If you take population growth into account, an expert said, the shortfall is 4.5 million. nyti.ms/3Hsavpi

One of the sectors where employment is higher than it was before the pandemic is business services, with 511,000 more jobs than in February 2020.

In January, leisure and hospitality led the job growth. nyti.ms/3Hsavpi

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Feb 4

Roughly 2.5 million weddings are expected to happen in the U.S. this year — the most since 1984 — and yet it’s never been more difficult to plan one. Here’s what to expect. nyti.ms/3B0JQ0h

What drove the 1984 surge in weddings? We asked the experts, who say a mix of economic and cultural events led people to the altar. nyti.ms/3AWclfQ

About half of the weddings originally set for 2020 were postponed to 2021 or beyond, according to some estimates. Some couples who spent years rescheduling ceremonies are now determined to forge ahead with their plans. nyti.ms/3glR9Xd

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