The actress, 50, who has Stage 4 cancer, said she posted the photos to help raise awareness about breast cancer prevention.One picture shows the actress Shannen Doherty completely bald, a bloody cotton ball in her nose as she stares straight at the camera, looking almost confrontational.Another is more playful — Ms. Doherty, 50, is in bed wearing Cookie Monster pajamas and a Cookie Monster eye mask. She confesses to how exhausted she is, how the chemotherapy she has had to undergo for Stage 4 breast cancer has left her plagued by bloody noses.“Is it all pretty? NO but it’s truthful and my hope in sharing is that we all become more educated, more familiar with what cancer looks like,” Ms. Doherty wrote on Instagram this week.The images are unsettling to any member of Generation X who remembers her as Brenda Walsh, the feisty, polarizing teenager she played for four years on the hit 1990s show “Beverly Hills, 90210,” which brought her international fame and infamy.Ms. Doherty said she was posting the images as part of Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the hopes that they will jar people into getting mammograms and regular breast exams and help people cut through “the fear and face whatever might be in front of you.”The unvarnished photos align with the frank nature of an actress who never seemed interested in being universally liked and are likely to resonate with a public that is reconsidering how female celebrities were treated in the 1990s and early 2000s, said Kearston Wesner, an associate professor of media studies at Quinnipiac University who teaches celebrity culture.“The photos aren’t touched up,” Professor Wesner said. “They’re not presented in any way than the reality she’s going through. There is some feeling that when she is communicating with you, she is coming from an authentic place.”Ms. Doherty said she learned she had breast cancer in 2015. Since then, she said she has had a mastectomy, as well as radiation and chemotherapy treatment.The photos, which have been viewed about 280,000 times, have elicited comments of sympathy, admiration and praise on her Instagram account, which has more than 1.8 million followers.“Love you Shan,” wrote Ian Ziering, one of her former co-stars on “Beverly Hills, 90210.”“You are a force, Sister!” wrote Kelly Hu, an actress.Ms. Doherty did not often get such adulation when she was younger.In the early 1990s, Ms. Doherty, who was only 19 when she started acting on “90210,” was eviscerated by the press and many in the public who criticized her for smoking in clubs, her tumultuous love life and reports that she was difficult on set.Her character was an outspoken, headstrong and temperamental teenager who had sex with her boyfriend, fought with her friends and rebelled against her father.Brenda Walsh was “relatable in an uncomfortable way,” said Kat Spada, a host of “The Blaze,” a podcast devoted to discussing “90210.”In hindsight, the backlash from fans against the character of Brenda Walsh, and by extension Ms. Doherty, may have been a result of seeing themselves in both women, said Lizzie Leader, the other host of the podcast.“We always ask guests about their ‘90210’ journey and we ask which character they most relate to or identify with,” Ms. Leader said. “Everyone is almost always a Brenda.”But back when the show was airing, some fans became so consumed with vitriol for the character that they began calling for Ms. Doherty to be fired.They formed an “I Hate Brenda” club. MTV News dedicated a three-plus-minute segment to the sentiment, quoting people who mocked her looks and her decision to attend the Republican National Convention in 1992. One clip in the MTV segment showed a group of partygoers hitting a “Brenda piñata.”She left “Beverly Hills, 90210” in 1994, then went on to appear in the 1995 movie “Mallrats” and several television movies and shows. In 2019, she appeared in a brief reboot of the original “90210” called “BH90210.”In an interview with The New York Times in 2008, Ms. Doherty said that the bad publicity around her was often based on exaggerations or “completely false” stories.“I really could care less about it anymore,” she said in the interview. “I have nothing to apologize for. Whatever I did was my growing-up process that I needed to go through, that anybody my age goes through. And however other people may have reacted to that is their issue.”If you were a fan of Ms. Doherty, the headlines hurt, said Professor Wesner, 45, who watched Ms. Doherty grow from a child actor in “Little House on the Prairie” into roles like Heather Duke in the 1988 movie “Heathers,” and Brenda Walsh.“She meant a lot to me,” said Professor Wesner. “I myself was an outspoken girl and I’ve gotten slammed for it, too. For me, seeing someone who was also outspoken and also a ‘difficult woman’ was satisfying.”The coverage of Ms. Doherty was reflective of a time “when publications would attack, would fat shame, would ugly shame, would anorexia shame,” said Stephen Galloway, the dean of the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts at Chapman University in Orange, Calif., and a former executive editor of The Hollywood Reporter. “There was no line between taste and vulgarity. It was anything goes.”And it severely damaged Ms. Doherty’s career, he said.Her decision to document the effects of cancer is “a great step toward redemption and meaningfulness” that could help people, said Mr. Galloway, who said he learned about a week ago that he was in the early stages of cancer.He said Ms. Doherty’s openness had made him feel more comfortable talking about his own diagnosis.“I looked at her and I thought, ‘what courage,’” Mr. Galloway said.

Prosecutors said at least 150 people showed up, astounding rangers and overwhelming visitors who struggled to steer clear of the hikers, many of whom were not wearing masks or social distancing.The organizer of a Grand Canyon adventure described it as a chance to trek along the South Rim, “one of the greatest hikes in the planet.”By September, at least 100 people from 12 different states had signed up on Facebook for the one-day hike. The organizer, Joseph Don Mount, said on Facebook he hoped more people would sign up for the hike.“If you want to keep inviting friends, I am determined to make this work for as many who want to go,” Mr. Mount said, according to federal court documents.A tipster sent the Facebook post to officials at the Grand Canyon National Park, where hikes had been limited to no more than 11 people per group in response to the pandemic.When a park official contacted Mr. Mount, he denied that he was planning a large-scale trip.Yet, he continued to advertise the hike and to organize cabin stays and shuttle rides for dozens of people, according to court documents. By Oct. 24, the day of the hike, more than 150 people had paid $95 to register for the trip, the documents show.That morning, at least 150 people showed up the North Kaibab Trail, astounding rangers and overwhelming other visitors who struggled to steer clear of the hikers, many of whom were not wearing masks or social distancing, according to the documents.On Tuesday, Mr. Mount was charged in the U.S. District Court in Arizona with five separate counts, including giving a false report, interfering with a government employee or agent acting in an official duty, soliciting business in a federal park without a permit, and violating restrictions for group sizes for park visits and restrictions related to Covid-19.Mr. Mount did not immediately return messages seeking comment. It was unclear from federal court records whether he had a lawyer.In an interview with The Daily Beast, Mr. Mount said he had arranged the trip because “with Covid and everything, people were just itching to get out.”“I didn’t do it for profit,” he said.Timothy Hopp, a U.S. park ranger, said in an affidavit that Mr. Mount collected $15,185 from participants for the hiking event.Mr. Mount planned to use the money to pay for two buses, three passenger vans, hotel lodging and about $2,900 for the drivers’ tips, meals, fuel, car pool drivers and other expenses, according to the affidavit.Mr. Mount “knowingly profited from leading this commercially organized” event, Mr. Hopp said. “J. Mount admitted he would be receiving a net profit of $65.11 and it would be enough to buy a new pair of hiking poles.”Mr. Hopp said he contacted Mr. Mount in October after receiving the tip, and Mr. Mount told him at the time that he was taking a “small group of close rugby associates and family friends.”Mr. Hopp said he repeatedly told Mr. Mount that the limit for group tours of the rim were 11 people and that groups could not be split up to circumvent the size limit because of the pandemic.Mr. Mount’s planned hike exceeded the limit set even during normal times, when up to 30 people are allowed in a group, Mr. Hopp said.After the conversation, Mr. Mount told hikers that he was backing down as trip leader but said the transportation plans remained in place and cabins and hotels were still booked.“Remember — there is nothing stopping you from hiking the Grand Canyon on this day,” he wrote, according to court documents. “However, there is now a target on my back and this is the best way I know to still hike” and “not be tied to any of you.”He told the hikers he would be in his own group and advised them to travel in groups of no more than 11 people.“Ranger Hopp — this is my plausible deniability,” Mr. Mount wrote on Facebook. “I am no longer leading a group through Grand Canyon on 10/24.”At 5 a.m. that day, a caravan of cars arrived at the trailhead. A ranger on the trail saw at least 150 people walk through the area between 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m.The ranger, Cody Allinson, said that in seven months of work he had never seen “so many individuals traveling in the same direction in such a condensed period of time and space,” according to the affidavit.When park rangers approached them, many hikers were evasive.“It was obvious they had been coached not to identify with their fellow participants,” one ranger said, according to court documents.Hikers who were not with the group later complained to the park service about the sheer number of people they encountered on the trail.“There was no social distancing, nobody was wearing masks,” one of the visitors complained, according to court documents. “The group size was way out of control,”The day after the hike, some of the participants praised Mr. Mount on Facebook and suggested everyone send him a “bonus for all the extra hard work he did planning a weekend of memories.”It was not clear from the affidavit whether Mr. Mount received the bonus.

Robin Harper, an administrative assistant at a preschool in Martha’s Vineyard, grew up showering every day. “It’s what you did,” she said.But when the pandemic forced her indoors and away from the public, she started showering once a week. The new practice felt environmentally virtuous, practical and freeing — and it has stuck.“Don’t get me wrong — I like showers,” said Ms. Harper, 43, who has returned to work. “But it’s one thing off my plate. I’m a mom, I work full-time, and it’s one less thing I have to do.”The pandemic has upended the use of zippered pants and changed many people’s eating and drinking habits. And there are now indications that it has caused some Americans to become more spartan when it comes to ablutions.Parents say that their teenage children are forgoing daily showers. After the British news media reported on a YouGov survey showing that 17 percent of people in Britain had abandoned daily showers during the pandemic, many on Twitter said they had done the same.Heather Whaley, 49, a writer in Redding, Conn., said that her shower use had dropped 20 percent in the past year. After the pandemic forced her into lockdown, she said, she began considering why she was showering every day.“Do I need to? Do I want to?” she said. “The act of taking a shower became less a matter of function and more of a matter of doing something for myself that I enjoyed.”(An earlier version of this item misspelled the name of the town.)

Robin Harper, an administrative assistant at a preschool in Martha’s Vineyard, grew up showering every day.“It’s what you did,” she said. But when the coronavirus pandemic forced her indoors and away from the general public, she started showering once a week.The new practice felt environmentally virtuous, practical and freeing. And it has stuck.“Don’t get me wrong,” said Ms. Harper, 43, who has returned to work. “I like showers. But it’s one thing off my plate. I’m a mom. I work full-time, and it’s one less thing I have to do.”Robin Harper outside her home on Martha’s Vineyard. She said she began taking showers once a week during the pandemic.Elizabeth Cecil for The New York TimesThe pandemic upended the use of zippered pants and changed people’s eating and drinking habits. There are now indications that it has caused some Americans to become more spartan when it comes to ablutions.Parents have complained that their teenage children are forgoing daily showers. After the British media reported on a YouGov survey that showed 17 percent of Britons had abandoned daily showers during the pandemic, many people on Twitter said they had done the same.Heather Whaley, a writer in Reading, Conn., said her shower use had fallen by 20 percent in the past year.After the pandemic forced her into lockdown, Ms. Whaley, 49, said she began thinking about why she was showering every day.“Do I need to? Do I want to?” she said. “The act of taking a shower became less a matter of function and more of a matter of doing something for myself that I enjoyed.”Ms. Harper, who still uses deodorant and does a daily wash of “the parts that need to be done” at the sink, said she was confident she was not offending anyone. Her 22-year-old daughter, who is fastidious about bathing and showers twice a day, has not made any comments regarding her new hygiene habit. Nor have the children at her school.“The kids will tell you if you don’t smell good,” Ms. Harper said, “3-, 4- and 5-year-old children will tell you the truth.”Plumbing and upward mobility changed everythingDaily showers are a fairly new phenomenon, said Donnachadh McCarthy, an environmentalist and writer in London who grew up taking weekly baths.“We had a bath once a week and we washed under at the sink the rest of the week — under our armpits and our privates — and that was it,” Mr. McCarthy, 61, said.As he grew older, he showered every day. But after a visit to the Amazon jungle in 1992 revealed the ravages of overdevelopment, Mr. McCarthy said he began reconsidering how his daily habits were affecting the environment and his own body.“It’s not really good to be washing with soap every day,” said Mr. McCarthy, who showers once a week.Doctors and health experts have said that daily showers are unnecessary, and even counterproductive. Washing with soap every day can strip the skin of its natural oils and leave it feeling dry, though doctors still recommend frequent hand-washing.The American obsession with cleaning began around the turn of the 20th century, when people began moving into cities after the Industrial Revolution, said Dr. James Hamblin, a lecturer at Yale University and the author of “Clean: The New Science of Skin and the Beauty of Doing Less.”Cities were dirtier so residents felt they had to wash more frequently, Dr. Hamblin said, and soap manufacturing became more common. Indoor plumbing also began to improve, giving the middle class more access to running water.To set themselves apart from the masses, wealthy people began investing in fancier soaps and shampoos and started bathing more frequently, he said.“It became a sort of arms race,” Dr. Hamblin said. “It was a signifier of wealth if you looked like you could bathe every day.”Bathing less = better skin and a cleaner planetKelly Mieloch, 42, said that since the pandemic began she had showered only “every couple of days.”What is the point of daily showers, she said, when she rarely leaves the house except to run errands like taking her 6-year-old daughter to school?“They’re not smelling me — they don’t know what’s happening,” Ms. Mieloch said. “Most of the time, I’m not even wearing a bra.”What’s more, she said her decision to stop daily showers had helped her appearance.“I just feel like my hair is better, my skin is better and my face is not so dry,” said Ms. Mieloch, a mortgage loan closer in Asheville, N.C.Andrea Armstrong, an assistant professor of environmental science and studies at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., said she was encouraged as more people rethink the daily shower.An eight-minute shower uses up to 17 gallons of water, according to the Water Research Fund. Running water for even five minutes uses as much energy as running a 60-watt light bulb for 14 hours, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And frequent washing means going through more plastic bottles and using more soap, which is often made with petroleum.Nina Arthur, who owns Nina’s Hair Care in Flint, Mich., shampooing a client’s hair. Allison Farrand for The New York TimesThe individual choice to stop showering or bathing daily is a critical one to make at a time when environmentalists are calling on countries to take more action against climate change, Mr. McCarthy, the environmentalist, said.“There is nothing like soaking in a deep warm bath,” he said. “There is pleasure there that I absolutely accept and understand. But I keep those pleasures as treat.”Still, Professor Armstrong said, it would take a huge number of people changing their bathing habits to make a difference in carbon emissions. To make a real impact, local and federal governments have to invest in infrastructure that makes showering and water use in general less harmful for the environment.“It pains me to think of fracking every time I take a shower and use my hot water heater in the home,” Professor Armstrong said. “I’m in Pennsylvania. There is not much of a choice.”Social mores versus scienceDespite the compelling science, it is difficult to imagine Americans as a whole embracing infrequent showers and baths, said Lori Brown, a professor of sociology at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C.“We’ve been told so much about not smelling and buying products,” she said. “You’re dealing with culture. You’re not dealing with biology. You can tell people all day that this is not doing any good for them, and there are still going to be people who say: ‘I don’t care. I’m going to take a shower.’”Nina Arthur, who owns Nina’s Hair Care in Flint, Mich., said she had many clients who were going through menopause and were so uncomfortable that they felt they needed to shower twice a day.Ms. Arthur outside her salon, Nina’s Hair Care, in Flint, Mich. She said she had clients who were going through menopause and were showering twice a day. Allison Farrand for The New York Times“I’ve had women who are having hot flashes in my chair,” she said.One client was sweating so much, she asked Ms. Arthur to come up with a hairstyle that could withstand constant perspiration.The pandemic has not swayed the bathing habits of such clients, Ms. Arthur said.“When you have menopause, the smells are really different,” she said. “They’re not your normal smelling smells. I don’t think there is any woman who would want that smell on them.”Ms. Arthur, 52, said she understood the environmental argument for showering less, but it would not move her to change her bathing habits.“Nope,” she said. “I’m not that woman.”Susan Beachy contributed research.

Jonathan Frostick, a program manager at an investment bank, was still in the hospital when wrote a LinkedIn post vowing to step away from work and spend more time with his family. Thousands responded.

Bobby Wayne, a retired reverend, called the state seeking help getting the vaccine. He said he was told there was no evidence the vaccine was effective.Bobby Wayne, a retired reverend with prostate cancer and leukemia, had spent a week calling health agencies around his county in Mississippi, trying to find out where to get the Covid-19 vaccine.But when Mr. Wayne, 64, called the state’s hotline on Monday, he said an operator, whose job was to help residents schedule vaccine appointments, gave him unnerving and incorrect information.“This is the way she put it to me: They had no documentation that the vaccine was effective,” Mr. Wayne said. “And then she asked me did I still want to take it.”When he told her “yes,” he said the operator replied that there were no appointments available and that he should call again the next morning.Bobby Wayne said he was anxious to get the vaccine and baffled when a state hotline operator told him there was no proof it would work. Elizabeth WayneThe confusion was the result of “miscommunication” over a misleading script that the hotline operators had been given, according to the State Department of Health.The script referred to pregnant women, women who were lactating and people with compromised immune systems.It asked: “Do you still want to be vaccinated with an understanding there are currently no available data on the safety or effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines, including Moderna Covid-19 vaccine, in pregnant people, lactating people, or immunocompromised people?”Most experts agree that the risks to pregnant women from Covid-19 are far greater than any theoretical harm from the vaccines. Doctors have said they believe that the vaccines are safe for people with autoimmune conditions.Liz Sharlot, a spokeswoman for Mississippi’s State Department of Health, said that the wording in the script could be confusing “when read out of context.”“We are replacing this confusing and misleading language,” she said in a statementHowever, Ms. Sharlot said the operators were never told that there was no documented proof that the Moderna vaccine or any other vaccine authorized for use by the Food and Drug Administration worked.“Just the opposite is true,” she said. “Both Moderna and Pfizer have high efficacy rates.”Ms. Sharlot added, “I think the gentleman misunderstood.”Mr. Wayne said he understood perfectly.“I’m not confused at all,” he said. “I may be 64 years old and handicapped, but my brain is still functioning and my ears are, too.”Mr. Wayne said it was unsettling to think people calling for information about getting vaccinated could be discouraged by the very people who are meant to help them get a shot.“I wouldn’t want anybody else going through that,” he said.Mississippi has administered at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine to 22 percent of its population, according to a New York Times database, putting it among the states that have had a slower rollout. Just over 12 percent of state residents have been fully vaccinated.Mr. Wayne’s daughter, Elizabeth Wayne, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, complained on Twitter about her father’s conversation with the state hotline operator and called it a “violence.”“It’s dangerous,” Dr. Wayne said. “There is a therapy available. There is a way to treat something, and you’re making it difficult for them to have access to that treatment so it’s increasing the likelihood they may become sick.”The Mississippi Free Press reported the story after Dr. Wayne wrote about her father’s experience on Twitter.Dr. Thomas E. Dobbs III, the state health officer, responded to her post on Twitter, sharing a link to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that showed the Moderna vaccine was 94.1 percent effective at preventing Covid-19 and that “no safety concerns were identified.”Dr. Wayne said she was pleased that the health department appeared to take her concerns, and her father’s, seriously.“I think it was a really good example of the State Health Department trying to reach out because they actually want to restore faith” in the vaccine, she said.Mr. Wayne said he got his shot on Wednesday morning.“I feel a whole lot better,” he said.