Monday, January 01, 2007
BRATZ With their spunky attitude and streetwise style, the cat-eyed dolls had their best year ever, tallying $2.5 billion-plus in sales and relegating Barbie to the uncool girls' table
ARGENTINE WINE Don't cry for Argentina. The popularity of its wine is soaring. Varieties like Malbec (grown in the Mendoza region) are winning over U.S. oenophiles with their bold flavors
DISNEY Smile, Mickey. The High School Musical album got to No. 1, Hannah Montana became tweens' top TV show, and the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel triumphed at cinemas
TINY CARS Sales of fuel-efficient models like the Honda Fit, Toyota Yaris and Nissan Versa rose more than 40% over '05, in step (for a while) with gas prices
CELL PHONES Turns out they don't cause cancer after all, according to a new Danish study
MOVIE PENGUINS March of the Penguins won an Oscar, and Mumble, the star of the huge hit Happy Feet, won our hearts
2006 was a bad year for ...
CELEB MARRIAGES Jessica and Nick, Whitney and Bobby, Reese and Ryan, Pam and Kid Rock ... Thanks for the memories
CHECKED LUGGAGE Bans on carrying liquids led flyers to check--and airlines to lose--more bags than ever. Nearly twice as many bags were lost in October 2006 as in October 2002
MAILBOXES Like phone booths before them, public mailboxes are on their way out. With fewer people mailing letters and bills, 10% of the boxes were removed because of lack of use
FRESH PRODUCE Another order of onion rings, please. E. coli outbreaks sickened hundreds of Americans who ate spinach, lettuce and tomatoes contaminated by the bacteria
HURRICANE WATCHERS Exhausted after a busy '05, storm chasers got to rest up in a season that saw no Atlantic hurricanes hitting the U.S. But 2007 is expected to be another record setter
TRANS FATS Shunned by Wendy's in June, the bad fat is also on its way out at Denny's, Loews and New York City eateries
From the Dec. 25, 2006 issue of TIME magazine
2:12 AM
