Author: NY TIMES

The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday voted to restore regulations that expand government oversight of broadband providers and aim to protect consumer access to the internet, a move that will reignite a long-running battle over the open internet.Known as net neutrality, the regulations were first put in place nearly a decade ago under the Obama administration and are aimed at preventing internet service providers like Verizon or Comcast from blocking or degrading the delivery of services from competitors like Netflix and YouTube. The rules were repealed under former President Donald J. Trump, and have proven a contentious partisan issue over…

The bird flu outbreak in American dairy cattle may have begun in January, or even as early as December, a new analysis of genetic data suggests.The Department of Agriculture announced in late March that dairy cattle in Texas and Kansas had tested positive for the virus, called H5N1. It has since reported cases in dozens of herds in eight states.On Tuesday, federal health officials said they had discovered fragments of H5N1 in milk samples obtained at various sites across the nation. The fragments pose no threat to consumers, the officials said.It is unclear exactly how the cows became infected, but…

Anthony Roth Costanzo, the celebrated American countertenor who is one of opera’s biggest stars, will lead Opera Philadelphia as its next general director and president, the company announced on Thursday.Costanzo, 41, whose tenure starts in June, will be a rare figure in the classical music industry: an artist in his prime who is also working as an administrator. He said he would continue to perform widely even as he works to reshape Opera Philadelphia, which has struggled to recover from the disruption of the pandemic.“I’m really interested in how I can have the most impact,” Costanzo said in an interview.…

The Biden administration has repeatedly urged Israel to hold off on a major military assault on Rafah, including in a virtual meeting last week. During that meeting, U.S. officials evaluated options for the attack presented by Israel, but were not convinced that those plans met President Biden’s insistence that any operation be calibrated to minimize civilian casualties, according to a White House statement.At a news conference in Washington on Tuesday, David Satterfield, the U.S. special envoy for humanitarian issues in Gaza, reiterated the Biden administration’s concerns about Israel’s plans to invade Rafah.“We could not support a Rafah ground operation without…

The Pentagon will withdraw dozens of Special Operations forces from Chad in the next few days, the second major blow in a week to American security and counterterrorism policy in a volatile swath of West and Central Africa, U.S. officials said on Thursday.The decision to pull out about 75 Army Special Forces personnel working in Ndjamena, Chad’s capital, comes days after the Biden administration said it would withdraw more than 1,000 U.S. military personnel from Niger in the coming months.The Pentagon is being forced to draw down troops in response to the African governments’ demands to renegotiate the rules and…

Alex Meruelo is as defiant as ever.Whether it was meeting with Arizona Coyotes staff last Thursday, doing an interview with a local radio station later that afternoon, or sitting next to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman at a hotel in Phoenix the next day, it’s been 2019 since Merullo, who is the owner of the Coyotes, reacted to being forced by the league to sell the team by insisting that he did not lose the team at all.Of course, the Arizona Coyotes are moving to Salt Lake City. Sure, players and hockey operations staff are already meeting with the new owners…

By any standard, Scooter, 22, is a world traveler. After spending his early years in Weston, Conn., he moved to Syracuse, N.Y., for college before settling in New York City. He has also traveled to Hawaii, Dubai, Ecuador, South Africa and Australia.Nearly two years ago, he ventured to the Maldives, Singapore and South Korea, accompanying a couple on their honeymoon. He even slept in their bed.Scooter is not a person. He is the beloved stuffed animal — a brown, 16-inch-long Beanie Babies dog — of my friend Jaclyn Roth, an entertainment journalist in New York.“It’s nice knowing something safe is…

Southwest Airlines is ceasing operations at four airports, and reducing flights from others, in an effort to cut costs as its growth plans were also curtailed by fewer than expected plane deliveries from Boeing.The airline, which flies only Boeing 737 planes, said on Thursday that delays from the embattled aircraft manufacturer contributed to its struggles. Southwest reported a loss of $231 million for the first quarter, worse than analysts expected, sending its share price down 10 percent in early trading.To cut costs, Southwest said it would cease operations at four airports from early August: Bellingham International Airport in Washington State,…

A factory in Moses Lake, Wash., that shut down in 2019 will soon resume shipping a critical ingredient used in most solar panels that for years has been made almost exclusively in China.The revival of the factory, which is owned by REC Silicon, could help achieve a longstanding goal of many American lawmakers and energy executives to re-establish a complete domestic supply chain for solar panels and reduce the world’s reliance on plants in China and Southeast Asia.REC Silicon reopened the factory, which makes polysilicon, the building block for the large majority of solar panels, in November in partnership with…

A severely ill 54-year-old woman earlier this month became the second person to receive a kidney transplanted from a genetically modified pig, surgeons at NYU Langone Health in New York announced on Wednesday.The patient, who had both heart failure and kidney failure, was given the organ on April 12, just eight days after receiving a mechanical heart pump. Surgical teams at NYU Langone carried out the two procedures over the course of nine days.The kidney recipient, Lisa Pisano, a native of New Jersey, was at risk of dying without the heart pump, a medical device used in patients who need…