Author: NY TIMES

Even as it has become increasingly clear that the bird flu outbreak on the nation’s dairy farms began months earlier — and is probably much more widespread — than previously thought, federal authorities have emphasized that the virus poses little risk to humans.Yet there is a group of people who are at high risk for infection: the estimated 100,000 men and women who work on those farms. There has been no widespread testing to see how many may be infected. None have been vaccinated against bird flu.That leaves the workers and their families vulnerable to a poorly tracked pathogen. And…

The next movie in the “Lord of the Rings” franchise will focus on Gollum, one of the series’s most recognizable characters, Warner Bros. Pictures announced on Thursday.Andy Serkis, who played the miniature creature in the original film trilogy, will direct and star in “Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum,” which is scheduled for 2026, the studio said in a news release.Another “Lord of the Rings” movie will follow “The Hunt for Gollum,” Warner Bros. said. The original trilogy’s director, Peter Jackson, and screenwriters, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, will act as producers on both films. A separate animated…

Mr. Kirby also tried to assuage concerns that the United States was breaking with its closest ally in the Middle East.“The argument that somehow we’re walking away from Israel fly in the face of the facts,” Mr. Kirby said Thursday, citing Mr. Biden’s visit to Israel within the days of the Oct. 7 attack, providing money and military expertise for its war, and putting American fighter pilots in the sky to shoot down Iranian drones.He said the United States believes that Israel has “put an enormous amount of pressure on Hamas, and that there are better ways to go after…

There is a certain irony to the fact that the most consequential role Stormy Daniels, the adult entertainer at the heart of the Trump criminal trial, may ever play is taking place off screen. There are no cameras allowed in the courtroom where she is a crucial witness, as she tells her story of her sexual encounter with Mr. Trump and the hush-money payments and the nondisclosure agreement his fixer arranged to keep her silent.That means that on Tuesday, the first day of her testimony, the watching world could catch only glimpses of her as she left State Supreme Court…

A federal jury in Manhattan on Thursday convicted a financial executive on securities fraud charges arising from a multimillion-dollar insider trading scheme that involved the merger of former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company with a publicly traded shell company.Federal prosecutors had charged Bruce Garelick with five counts of securities fraud and conspiracy. The authorities claimed Mr. Garelick leaked confidential information to his boss and at least one other person that Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, was getting close to announcing a merger in October 2021 with Digital World Acquisition Corporation, the shell…

Dr. Herbert Pardes, a psychiatrist and a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health who brought order to the merger of two major medical centers that became New York-Presbyterian Hospital and ran it for 11 years, died on April 30 at his home in Manhattan. He was 89.His son Steve said the cause was aortic stenosis.Dr. Pardes (pronounced par-diss) was named president and chief executive of the hospital in late 1999, nearly two years after the merger of New York Hospital and Presbyterian Hospital. The previous decade, he had been the dean of the faculty of medicine at…

If you asked a child to draw a car, the result would probably be something that looked like the Chevrolet Malibu.For decades, this dependable midsize vehicle was a stalwart of the American road. Because that kind of thing is no longer in demand, it came as no surprise when General Motors announced on Wednesday that it would discontinue the model as it shifts its focus to sport utility vehicles and electric cars.The Malibu never had the back-alley glamour of the Chevrolet Camaro or the brute force of the Chevrolet Impala. It was the ultimate normcore-mobile, made for a time when…

President Biden’s warning over halting weapons supplies has tightened the bind that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel faces, as he is increasingly caught between international calls for a cease-fire and right-wing Israeli demands to proceed with a wide-scale invasion of Rafah, in southern Gaza.Mr. Netanyahu, who has insisted over American objections that invading Rafah is necessary, now finds the U.S.-Israel relationship at a moment of crisis that could affect how he conducts the next phase of the war against Hamas.On Thursday, the Israeli leader, alluding to Mr. Biden’s remarks, said in a statement: “If we need to stand alone,…

President Xi Jinping of China on Thursday found another safe zone in a continent increasingly wary of his country, meeting in Budapest with the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, the European Union’s perennial odd-man-out as a vocal supporter of warm relations with both China and Russia.As happened at his previous stop in Serbia, Mr. Xi received a rapturous welcome and was spared from protesters, with his motorcade from the airport on Wednesday evening taking a roundabout route into the Hungarian capital, avoiding Tibetan protesters.Police banned a protest planned for Thursday in the center of Budapest and a large Tibetan flag…

This article is part of our Design special section about water as a source of creativity.Years of abnormally low rainfall, higher-than-normal temperatures and aging infrastructure have led to a dangerously low water supply for Mexico City. The issue isn’t a new one for the Mexican capital — in 2014, it was ranked as the third most water-stressed of more than 150 of the planet’s largest cities. Now, the metropolis faces a water crisis so severe that local authorities recently began imposing rations.For Javier Sánchez, a low-slung earthen house just west of Mexico City, designed by his architectural firm JSa, reflects…