By: Benjamin Wallace-Wells, Helen Shaw, Paige Williams, David Remnick, Lauren Collins, Max Norman, Jeannie Suk Gersen, John Cassidy, Ian Crouch, Richard Brody
From the daily newsletter: David Remnick on a surreal year. Plus: a cancer-causing virus hiding in millions of Americans; learning from the failures of the Arab Spring; and the afterimage of Arlene Croce.