Author: NY TIMES

This is what happens if you stay put, and keep digging holes: An effort that begins innocently enough — planting a garden at home — may grow on you. And it could morph into an arboretum.Hortus Arboretum & Botanical Gardens, a 21-acre expanse in Stone Ridge, N.Y., with about 11 acres under cultivation, got its start as Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano’s much smaller backyard. It has been 25 years since the couple, both visual artists, moved from San Francisco to Ulster County, where they now count more than 240 genera in their plant collection.And it all began, as most…

Target is the latest retailer to put generative artificial intelligence tools in the hands of its workers, with the goal of improving the in-store experience for employees and shoppers.On Thursday, the retailer said it had built a chatbot, called Store Companion, that would appear as an app on a store worker’s hand-held device. The chatbot can provide guidance on tasks like rebooting a cash register or enrolling a customer in the retailer’s loyalty program. The idea is to give workers “confidence to serve our guests,” Brett Craig, Target’s chief information officer, said in an interview.Target is testing the device in…

Doctors and physical therapists have long incorporated aerobic exercise into treatment programs for lower back pain. Movement can simultaneously ease lower back pain and also strengthen the muscles that support your back. Still, many people with back pain can be hesitant to exercise.A new study, published on Wednesday in The Lancet, offers more evidence on the power of movement. The study found that a regular walking routine can be very effective for preventing the recurrence of back pain. The study focused on adults with a history of low back pain; those who walked regularly went nearly twice as long without…

The star rapper Travis Scott was arrested early Thursday in Miami Beach, Fla., after causing a disturbance on a yacht docked at a marina, according to a police report. He was later released on bond after paying a total of $650 on both charges, local news reported.Mr. Scott, 33, whose real name is Jacques Bermon Webster II, was arrested at 1:44 a.m. on charges of trespassing and disorderly intoxication after the police were called to the marina and told that “people were fighting on the vessel,” according to the report.Once there, officers found Mr. Scott yelling at passengers on the…

The only way for almost all people in Gaza to escape the horrors of the war between Israel and Hamas is by leaving through neighboring Egypt.And that is usually a complicated and expensive ordeal, involving the payment of thousands of dollars to an Egyptian company that can get Palestinians on an approved travel list to cross the border.Confronting the company’s stiff fees, as well as the widespread hunger in Gaza where there is no end in sight to Israel’s military campaign, many Palestinians have resorted to trying to raise money with desperate appeals on digital platforms like GoFundMe.Dr. Salim Ghayyda,…

The armed forces’ chief spokesman went public with frustration over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s failure to advance a plan for governing postwar Gaza. Source link

One of my favorite assignments as a sports media writer was in 2013, when I rode the C train in New York City with Charles Barkley. The TNT NBA analyst had never ridden the New York City subway before, and some clever Turner Sports publicist came up with the idea of ​​having Barkley take the train from Manhattan to Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. “Barkley to Barclay!”The New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets were both struggling at the time, and as we sat in a crowded subway car with New Yorkers excited to see the NBA Hall of Famer, Barkley heard a…

Giving yourself a good manicure isn’t just a question of clipping and filing your nails; for starters, the rest of your hands need love, too. With the right tools and gentle care, you can get salon-like results at home (which might also mean saving some money). Here’s what the experts recommend for nails that look healthy and polished, even if they’re not painted.1. Create a clean baseFirst, wipe off any old polish. The Los Angeles-based nail artist Betina Goldstein suggests Karma Organics’ oil-based removers; acetone, the key ingredient in many other products, can dry out nails. And if you find…

The Bank of England held interest rates on Thursday at their highest level since 2008 even as inflation in Britain slowed to 2 percent in May, an important milestone.Policymakers kept rates at 5.25 percent, where they have been for 10 months. The officials said that high rates were working and cooling the labor market, reducing price pressures, but they added that monetary policy would need to stay restrictive until they were sure the risk of inflation overshooting their target had dissipated.“It’s good news that inflation has returned to our 2 percent target,” Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of…

Snap. Crack. Pop. These sounds, once used to sell a popular breakfast cereal, are now enticing people to visit the doctor thanks to a wave of chiropractic videos sweeping social media.The most popular videos follow a familiar template: A patient enters with a debilitating condition. A chiropractor maneuvers the patient’s limbs and joints in horrifying ways, producing a series of snaps and crunches. And the patient is relieved of years of pain — all within a matter of minutes.For viewers, the clips can be both cringeworthy and satisfying A.S.M.R. (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) content. For the chiropractors, they are valuable…