Author: NY TIMES

Sue Johnson, a British-born Canadian clinical psychologist and best-selling author who developed a novel method of couples therapy based on emotional attachment, challenging what had been the dominant behavioral approach — the idea that behaviors are learned and thus can be changed — died on April 23 in Victoria, British Columbia. She was 76.Her death, in a hospital, was caused by a rare form of melanoma, said her husband, John Douglas.When divorce rates rose in the 1970s, couples therapy blossomed. Drawing from traditional psychotherapy practices, therapists focused mostly on helping distressed couples communicate more effectively, delve into their upbringings and…

“And I don’t think much past that,” he said, “because I’m not going to waste a day where I feel good.”Even so, a rash of recent activities conspicuously included reunions with formative associates. After the interview at his home, London raced to Park Slope to play with the improvising conductor Walter Thompson. The day before, he’d been in Houston, performing with Itzhak Perlman in a revival of the violinist’s celebrated Jewish-music odyssey, “In the Fiddler’s House.” That engagement reunited London not only with Perlman, but with the Klezmer Conservatory Band, whose founder, Hankus Netsky, had initiated him decades earlier into…

Fluctuating disease rates, innovative treatments and talk of “moonshots” in the White House may make cancer seem like a modern scourge. But a new discovery highlights how humans dealt with the illness and hunted for cures as far back as the time of the ancient Egyptians.Scientists led by Edgard Camarós, a paleopathologist at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain were studying an approximately 4,600-year-old Egyptian skull when they found signs of brain cancer and its treatment.“There was an uncomfortable silence in the room, because we knew what we had just discovered,” Dr. Camarós said.Using a microscope, he and…

When Valentina’s small town in Russia came under heavy bombardment in March by Ukrainian forces, her daughter Alla, who lives a short distance across the border near Kharkiv, would text her mother to make sure she was all right.Now that Kharkiv and its surrounding region are under heavy attack by Russia, it’s Valentina who is checking with her daughter to make sure that everything is fine. The regular check-ins have continued as fighting intensified across the new front Russia opened this month.“So she’s calling me asking, ‘Mom, how is it there? It’s so loud here. I think there’s something heading…

EUGENE, Ore. — With about 700 meters left in the Bowerman Mile, British middle-distance star Josh Kerr turned the tables in one of the most riveting races in track and field. Because a message needs to be sent. Because Kerr has heard enough from Norwegian superstar Jakob Ingebritsen to declare himself unbeatable. Because beef brings something extra from competitors.So Cole took action early.”I think it scared the coaching staff because they specifically told me not to do it,” Kerr said later. “I said, ‘If I feel like it’s time, I’m going to go.'” … I don’t really listen to other…

One overcast Sunday morning, Benjamin Talley Smith, an apple-cheeked 45-year-old with a thing for a Canadian tuxedo, was at the Rose Bowl flea market in Los Angeles shopping for jeans.He was wearing jeans — a beat-up pair of Levi’s and an equally worn Levi’s jeans jacket — and rooting through piles of jeans. He wasn’t looking for collectible jeans, the classics that can fetch thousands, but rather interesting jeans: jeans with an unusual fade or some weird D.I.Y. patchwork or a striking paint splatter.“Every jean is different,” he said with the air of an oenophile assessing a new bouquet. He…

A large oil industry deal advanced on Tuesday after shareholders of Hess approved a proposed sale of the company to Chevron for $53 billion.Control over one of the most prized oil assets, off the shores of Guyana, is at stake in the deal, which still faces significant hurdles.Hess is a junior partner in a lucrative Exxon Mobil-led drilling project in the South American country. Exxon is contesting Chevron’s acquisition of Hess by arguing that Hess can’t sell itself without allowing Exxon to buy its stake in the Guyana project. Chevron and Hess have said Exxon’s interpretation of the terms of…

As artificial intelligence programs shake up the office, potentially making millions of jobs obsolete, one group of perpetually stressed workers seems especially vulnerable.These employees analyze new markets and discern trends, both tasks a computer could do more efficiently. They spend much of their time communicating with colleagues, a laborious activity that is being automated with voice and image generators. Sometimes they must make difficult decisions — and who is better at being dispassionate than a machine?Finally, these jobs are very well paid, which means the cost savings of eliminating them is considerable.The chief executive is increasingly imperiled by A.I., just…

House Republicans on Tuesday accused officials at the National Institutes of Health of orchestrating “a conspiracy at the highest levels” of the agency to hide public records related to the origins of the Covid pandemic. And the lawmakers promised to expand an investigation that has turned up emails in which senior health officials talked openly about trying to evade federal records laws.The latest accusations — coming days before a House panel publicly questions Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a former top N.I.H. official — represent one front of an intensifying push by lawmakers to link American research groups and the country’s…

A decade ago, the Wu-Tang Clan issued a sole copy of a CD-only album, secured it in an engraved nickel and silver box, locked it away in a vault and said it could not be heard by the public until 2103.The move was seen as a protest against the devaluation of music in the streaming era. But a year later, the album, “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin,” got caught up in the very capitalistic endeavors that Wu-Tang had tried to avoid, when it was purchased by Martin Shkreli, the disgraced pharmaceutical speculator who was convicted of fraud in 2017.He…