The Best Albums of 2016

Clockwise from top left: Beyoncé; David Bowie; Anohni; Mary Halvorson; Andrew Cyrille; Chance the Rapper. Credit Clockwise from top left: Andrew Harnik/Associated Press; Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images; Ryan Pfluger for The New York Times; Jacob Blickenstaff for The New York Times; Laurel Golio for The New York Times; Michael Zorn/Invision, via Associated Press

The music critics of The New York Times share their picks for the best pop and jazz albums of the year.

Jon Pareles

1. BEYONCÉ “Lemonade” (Parkwood/Columbia) As a set of songs, “Lemonade” plunges into one troubled marriage: a cycle of distrust, betrayal, fury, loyalty and wary reconciliation. It moves sure-footedly through styles from the rooted to the futuristic; it touches down in gospel, blues, soul and country with all the programming expertise of the 21st century. And it presents Beyoncé the singer in guises from ethereal grace to raw ferocity and pain. Then, as a multimedia work, “Lemonade” goes even further: Its video album, directed by Beyoncé and Kahlil Joseph with crucial interludes of poetry by Warsan Shire, magnifies the personal to the archetypal, situating Beyoncé among generations of African-American women in a long, unselfish, unfinished struggle. (Read the review | Listen to the Popcast)

THE BEST IN CULTURE 2016

Highlights from the year in Movies,Television, Theater, Pop Albums,Pop Songs, Performances,Classical Music, Dance, Art and Podcasts as chosen by the critics of The New York Times.

2. DAVID BOWIE “Blackstar” (ISO/Columbia) Bowie made his final album not a summation but a final metamorphosis. He assembled a studio band of forward-looking jazz musicians to play songs full of tense ambiguities: harmonic, structural, verbal. The album confronts mortality with a last burst of probing, passionate invention. (Read the review | Listen to the Popcast)

Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds Earn More Than Their Parents

As wages stagnate in the middle class, it becomes hard to reverse this trend

A study released Thursday reported that barely half of American 30-year-olds—51%— earned more than their parents did. That’s an enormous decline from the 1970s, when 92% of American 30-year-olds earned more than their parents. PHOTO: H. RICK BAMMAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Barely half of 30-year-olds earn more than their parents did at a similar age, a research team found, an enormous decline from the early 1970s when the incomes of nearly all offspring outpaced their parents. Even rapid economic growth won’t do much to reverse the trend.

Economists and sociologists from Stanford, Harvard and the University of California set out to measure the strength of what they define as the American Dream, and found the dream was fading. They identified the income of 30-year-olds starting in 1970, using tax and census data, and compared it with the earnings of their parents when they were about the same age.

Donald Trump Taps WWE Co-Founder Linda McMahon to Lead Small Business Administration

Linda McMahon, former chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., speaks to the media in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2016.

Albin Lohr-Jones—Bloomberg via Getty Images

The SBA offers support to small businesses throughout the U.S.

Donald Trump picked Linda McMahon, a pro wrestling magnate and former candidate for Senate, to lead the Small Business Administration, transition officials said on Wednesday.

“Linda has a tremendous background and is widely recognized as one of the country’s top female executives advising businesses around the globe,” Trump said, according to a report from Reuters.

Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and YouTube will share terror content info

The move comes after concern that the companies weren’t taking down terrorist content fast enough

A municipal display panel provides contact information for victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015. Credit: Peter Sayer

Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and Google’s YouTube have agreed to share with one another identifying digital information of violent terror content that they find on their platforms.

When they remove “violent terrorist imagery or terrorist recruitment videos or images” from their platforms, the companies will include in a shared industry database the hashes, or unique digital fingerprints, of the content.

Other participants can use the shared hashes to help identify matching content on their hosted consumer platforms, review against their respective policies and definitions, and remove the content when appropriate, according to a statement by the companies on Monday.

“There is no place for content that promotes terrorism on our hosted consumer services. When alerted, we take swift action against this kind of content in accordance with our respective policies,” the companies said.

Two juveniles charged with arson in Tennessee wildfires

Two juveniles have been arrested and charged with arson in connection with deadly Tennessee wildfires that broke out last in and around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, state officials said on Wednesday.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokesman Josh DeVine declined to release details about the juveniles because of their ages and the ongoing investigation.

Fourteen people died in the fires, which have damaged and destroyed more than 1,750 structures, local and federal authorities said in a statement.

It was the highest death toll from wildfires in the United States since 2013, when 19 firefighters died near Prescott, Arizona.

"Our promise is that we will do our very best to help bring closure to those who have lost so much," Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Mark Gwyn said in a statement.

The largest of the blazes, the so-called Chimney Tops 2, broke out on Nov. 23 in a remote rugged area dubbed Chimney Tops in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, authorities said.