Most of the time, a good deed just gets to be a good deed. Someone’s stuck, you have the means to help, you pull them out, everyone goes home a little muddy and a lot grateful, and the story gets told at dinner for maybe a year. The rescuer gets the credit. That’s how it’s...

Every year carries its share of loss. But 2026 has already brought an unusually heavy procession of farewells – musicians who shaped entire cultural eras, actors whose faces felt like permanent fixtures of childhood, and cultural figures who helped define what American life looks and sounds like. Some of these deaths came as a slow...