A Year Both Brutal and Bright: 13 Favorite Dispatches From 2024

January 5

With major conflicts raging in multiple regions of the world, it is no surprise that many of 2024’s best dispatches — articles focused on a sense of place and people’s lives — were filed from battle zones. Our correspondents showed both the toll of the violence and how everyday citizens are responding to it — from the streets of Kyiv to the hills above Beirut to the jungles of Myanmar.

War’s devastation and deprivation was hardly the only dark theme explored in dispatches this year. Natural disasters, too, demanded up-close coverage, and our reporters, surmounting daunting obstacles, arrived on scene soon after the destruction to document rescue and recovery efforts, from the muddy streets of the flooded Spanish town of Paiporta to the East African island of Mayotte, where a cyclone leveled whole neighborhoods.

And as hard as it could be to look, acts of sheer depravity were exposed as well, whether in Syria’s notorious prisons or the town in France where 50 men and her husband raped Gisèle Pelicot.

Sometimes, the darkness was a lingering memory, whether from a massacre decades ago in My Lai, Vietnam, or from a 17th-century genocide on an island in Indonesia, with the slaughter driven by a lust for nutmeg.

Here are 13 favorite dispatches from 2024, in shades from light to dark.

It’s neither fable nor fairy tale: Thirteen years ago, a stork landed on a fisherman’s boat in Turkey looking for food. The bird has come back every year since, enchanting a nation.

— By Ben Hubbard and Safak Timur; photographs by Ivor Prickett

In Azerbaijan, site of the COP29 climate talks and a petrostate, people aren’t only proud of their oil. They swear by its health benefits and visit resorts to soak in it.

— By Anton Troianovski; photographs and video by Emile Ducke

Pluckley is said to count at least 12 spirits among its 1,000 residents, and ghost hunters arrive in droves to a place where even nonbelievers concede they’ve had eerie encounters.

— By Stephen Castle; photographs by Andrew Testa

Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, once the fulcrum of Gaza’s health system and now an emblem of its destruction, stood in ruins, as if a tsunami had surged through it followed by a tornado.

— By Patrick Kingsley; photographs by Avishag Shaar-Yashuv

Introduced to the island 120 years ago, moose are involved in hundreds of collisions each year. But the huge animal is an accepted part of life here. “I suspect that they got squatters’ rights,” one resident said.

— By Ian Austen; photographs by Ian Willms

It was near the start of one of Brazil’s most famous Carnival celebrations, in the northern seaside city of Olinda, and the town plaza was jammed with thousands of revelers. They were all awaiting their idol: John Travolta, or at least a replica of him.

— By Jack Nicas; photographs by Dado Galdieri

When the director and crew of the Oscar-nominated “Io Capitano” toured Senegal with their acclaimed movie, audiences responded by sharing their own ordeals.

— By Elian Peltier; photographs by Annika Hammerschlag

As the traveling brass band ended its annual holiday concert, the gray-haired listeners seated in the old church gazed dotingly at the rarest resource in this Italian hill town: the few young children clapping to the music.

— By Jason Horowitz; photographs by Gianni Cipriano

Four mothers sat quietly in the nursing room around midnight, breastfeeding their newborn babies. As one mother nodded off, her eyelids heavy, a nurse came in and whisked her baby away. The exhausted new mom returned to her private room to sleep — with a good night’s rest just one of the luxuries provided by South Korea’s postpartum care centers.

— By Lauretta Charlton; photographs by Jean Chung

Yukihiro Shimura always arrives first. He quietly puts on his baseball uniform. He rakes the dirt field meditatively. He picks up the coconut husks and dog feces. And, finally, when he finishes, he bows to Rio de Janeiro’s only baseball field.

— By Jack Nicas; photographs by Dado Galdieri

An epidemic of auto thefts in Canada’s largest city has left many residents exasperated, with some getting creative about deterrence efforts, such as installing bollards in home driveways.

— By Vjosa Isai; photographs by photographs by Ian Willms

Kenya has strict rules about displaying the flag. But some people have been wearing and waving them, and draping them on coffins, as a symbol of resistance.

— By Abdi Latif Dahir; photographs by Brian Otieno

The Louvre can give rise to many feelings in visitors, including a mix of irritation (the crowds) and wonder (the art). But the chance to dance disco moves in the world’s most-famous museum allows for an entirely new emotion: pure, unadulterated joy.

— By Catherine Porter; photographs and video by Dmitry Kostyukov

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