Author: NY TIMES

Richard M. Cohen, an outspoken and award-winning television news producer whose career was eventually derailed by the ravages of multiple sclerosis, which he wrote about in a best-selling memoir, died on Dec. 24 in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., a village in Westchester County. He was 76.His wife, the former “Today” show host Meredith Vieira, said his death, in a hospital, was caused by acute respiratory failure.Mr. Cohen spent more than 20 years in the news business, working with luminaries like Ted Koppel at ABC and Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather at CBS. But he tackled a different subject when he wrote…

Nicole Montanez called four hotels on Tuesday before finding a room where she could safely evacuate with her son and her 4-year-old Havanese, Diego. The dog coughed throughout the 75-minute car ride from Pacific Palisades to Marina del Rey, where the family was taking shelter from the wildfires searing through Los Angeles.“I’ve got to give him a bath,” Ms. Montanez, 42, said of Diego. “He smells like smoke, too.”The wildfires that have killed five people and forced tens of thousands to evacuate since Tuesday morning have also created chaos for the dogs, cats and other animals that consider Los Angeles…

Funny place, the music business — it devours the young and ignores the old. Or at least that’s how it may appear. Aside from a handful of entrenched executives and a circuit of legacy acts, employment opportunities in the industry for those of AARP age might seem slim. But there’s a fascinating exception: Many of the industry’s most respected and consistently employed roadies, instrument techs and live sound people are well into their 60s and even 70s.They’re the sound checkers who puff and count into microphones; the runners in black who bring guitars out between songs; the daredevils who climb…

Lebanon’s fractured Parliament overcame more than two years of gridlock on Thursday to choose a new president, a critical step toward bringing stability to a country attempting to recover from economic catastrophe and a devastating war.Lawmakers elected Gen. Joseph Aoun, the commander of the Lebanese military, by an overwhelming majority in the second round of voting, after he failed to achieve the necessary majority in the initial vote. It marked a breakthrough toward forming a government with a mandate to lead the country after stalemate under weak caretaker rule.The vote was seen as a crucial milestone for Lebanon, which has…

President-elect Donald J. Trump on Tuesday refused to rule out using military force to retake the Panama Canal, which was returned by the U.S. to that country’s control decades ago.Last month, Mr. Trump falsely accused Panama of allowing Chinese soldiers to control the vital shipping route, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and of overcharging American ships.He has also claimed Panama charges U.S. vessels “exorbitant prices,” and warned that if they are not reduced after he takes office next month, he will demand that the United States be granted control of the canal “in full, quickly and without question.”While…

President-elect Donald J. Trump has threatened tariffs on many countries for many different reasons.On Monday, he found a new purpose for his favorite economic tool. Mr. Trump said he would “tariff Denmark at a very high level” if it refused to allow Greenland — a North American island that is an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark — to become part of the United States.“They should give it up, because we need it for national security,” Mr. Trump said of Greenland. Denmark, which has a smaller population than New York City, is not a huge trading partner for the…

Russia fined TikTok for not removing prohibited content. The results of a presidential election in Romania were thrown out over concerns the app had been used to spread foreign influence. Albania banned TikTok for a year following the stabbing death of a teenager by another one after the two quarreled online.“Either TikTok protects the children of Albania, or Albania will protect its children from TikTok,” the prime minister, Edi Rama, said on X.That was all in just the last month.This week in the United States, where about 150 million people use the app, TikTok and its Chinese parent company, ByteDance,…

Water fluoridation is widely seen as one of the great public health achievements of the 20th century, credited with substantially reducing tooth decay. But there has been growing controversy among scientists about whether fluoride may be linked to lower I.Q. scores in children.A comprehensive federal analysis of scores of previous studies, published this week in JAMA Pediatrics, has added to those concerns. It found a significant inverse relationship between exposure levels and cognitive function in children.Higher fluoride exposures were linked to lower I.Q. scores, concluded researchers working for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.None of the studies included in…

Pippa Garner, a conceptual art provocateur whose radically modified consumer goods — like a midriff-baring men’s “Half Suit” and a ’59 Chevy with its chassis reversed — offered witty commentary on gender, body modification, American car culture and the boundaries of fine art, died on Dec. 30 in Los Angeles. She was 82.Her death, at a convalescent hospital, was confirmed by Christopher Schwartz of Stars Gallery, in Los Angeles, which represented her. She had a number of health problems, most notably chronic lymphocytic leukemia, he said.Though Ms. Garner’s drawings, sculptures and inventions typically had a satirical bite, they were driven…

Peter Yarrow, whose caring and righteous vocals for the trio Peter, Paul and Mary helped establish them as one of the most popular folk acts of the 1960s, died on Tuesday at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. He was 86.His death was confirmed by Ken Sunshine, his publicist. Mr. Sunshine said the cause was bladder cancer, which Mr. Yarrow had been battling for the past four years.On many of the trio’s recordings they split the vocal parts equally, braiding Mr. Yarrow’s precise tenor around Noel Paul Stookey’s gentle baritone and Mary Travers’s warm contralto. But Mr.…