By the staff of The Morning |
Good morning. Today we're looking back on the stories you read, shared and spent the most time with. |
 | | Wordle is a love story. |
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The year began with a love story. Josh Wardle's partner was a fan of word puzzles, so he created a guessing game for the two of them and called it "Wordle," a play on his last name. On Jan. 3, a Times article by Daniel Victor brought Wardle's creation to the wider world. You probably know the rest. |
The story about the origins of Wordle, and the bot that helped us master the game, are two of The Times's most-read articles of 2022. As we have in years past, The Morning has put together a collection of the year's most popular stories. Some of them were impossible to miss — royal funerals, wars, shootings. But others might surprise you. There are celebrity profiles, engaging mysteries, as well as stories about the body and the mind. |
We used a few criteria to capture the breadth of what you were reading. In the most-read section, we omitted later entries that repeated a story line, as well as features like election results pages. The deep engagement list includes some of the articles with which readers spent the most time this year. |
And we introduce a new section this year: the most gift-shared. These were the stories that readers unlocked the most this year (subscribers can share 10 links a month outside of the paywall), and the list captures an important but often overlooked part of the news — not the stories that you need to read, but those that you want others to read. |
Ivana Trump, ex-wife of Donald Trump and businesswoman, dies at 73. (July 14) |
 | | Ana Belén Pintado as a young girl.Lydia Metral for The New York Times. Source photograph from Ana Belén Pintado. |
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Some blue states have banned state-funded travel to states with laws that discriminate against L.G.B.T.Q. people. But when it comes to research, such bans can be harmful, Aaron Carroll says. |
Enjoy the complete Times experience today. |
The New York Times All Access subscription brings you full digital access to news and analysis, plus Cooking, Games, Wirecutter and The Athletic. Subscribe today at this special rate. |
 | | New York City.Karsten Moran for The New York Times |
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Metropolitan diary: The local column with a global audience. |
Lives Lived: When Kathy Whitworth joined the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour in the 1950s, it was a blip on the national sports scene. She became the first woman's pro golfer to earn $1 million and the record-holder for U.S. tournament wins. Whitworth died at 83. |
| SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC |
 | | A video of Tariq took off online when he shared his love of corn.OK McCausland for The New York Times |
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The biggest little stories |
The stories at the top of today's newsletter happened, for the most part, in the real world. But we also spend much of our lives online, where strange or silly things can, at least briefly, feel as momentous as news out of Washington. |
 | | Julia Gartland for The New York Times |
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Crackling around the edges with pudding-soft centers: Start the week with French toast. |
"Ghost Music," An Yu's second novel, follows a piano teacher who struggles to connect to her husband and mother-in-law over meals of mysterious mushrooms. |
The pangrams from yesterday's Spelling Bee were conducted, counted, unconnected and uncounted. Here is today's puzzle. |
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. |
P.S. The Times's Matt Richtel discussed his reporting about the teen mental health crisis on NPR's "Fresh Air." |
Matthew Cullen, Lauren Hard, Lauren Jackson, Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti and Ashley Wu contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. |
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