Wind-whipped wildfire blew through communities of every socioeconomic status and stripe, merging, psychically if not physically, into a kind of mega-catastrophe.

The people, places and objects that held our collective attention in this election year.

Three neighboring South Asian restaurants with string light-filled windows survived for decades. Only one remains as Sixth Street’s “Curry Row” moniker fades.

The spy unit that arrested a Wall Street Journal reporter is leading the biggest campaign of internal repression since the Stalin era.