Author: NY TIMES

Mammograms can miss tumors in women with dense breast tissue. So for these patients, doctors often include a second scan — ultrasound, for example, or an M.R.I. — which are more likely to turn up cancers at early stages. But some older patients are running into an unexpected twist. Though many women see the extra scan as a routine form of prevention, Medicare won’t pay for it, and some patients are left to pick up a hefty tab. Joellen Sommer, 66, who lives in Manhattan, went for her annual breast cancer screening in March. But the clinic’s staff said that…

Fans of Taylor Swift often study up for a new album, revisiting the singer’s older works to prepare to analyze lyrics and song titles for secret messages and meanings.“The Tortured Poets Department” is getting much the same treatment, and perhaps no group of listeners was better prepared than the students at Harvard University currently studying Ms. Swift’s works in an English class devoted entirely to the artist. The undergraduate course, “Taylor Swift and Her World,” is taught by Stephanie Burt, who has her students comparing Ms. Swift’s songs to works by poets and writers including Willa Cather, Samuel Taylor Coleridge…

The relatively limited scope of Israel’s overnight strikes on Iran, and a subdued response from Iranian officials, may have lowered the chances of an immediate escalation in fighting between the two countries, analysts said on Friday. While Israel is still fighting wars on two fronts, against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the likelihood of a third front has ebbed, at least for now.For days, there have been fears that a forceful Israeli response to Iran’s attack on southern Israel last weekend could prompt an even more aggressive riposte from Iran, potentially turning a tit-for-tat confrontation into a wider…

Climate promises are hard to keep. Scotland is the latest, perhaps most surprising example.Scotland, an early industrial power and coal-burning behemoth, was also an early adopter of an ambitious and legally binding government target to slow down climate change. It had promised to pare back its emissions of planet-heating greenhouse gases by 75 percent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.This week, its Net Zero minister, Màiri McAllan, said that goal was now “out of reach.” She said Scotland, which operates semi-autonomously from Britain, would scrap its annual targets for cutting emissions and instead review targets every five years.That is a…

This is one of the most unexpected social media posts of the Premier League season.This photo from Burnley shows a visitor to the club’s training ground smiling in front of a sign that reads: “It’s a way of life.”However, this is no ordinary guest: He is eight-time Olympic gold medalist, world record holder in the men’s 100m and 200m, and one of the most famous athletes on the planet, Usain Bolt.The Jamaican has been involved in the world of football since retiring in 2017, but his visit to the struggling Premier League side was not to discuss becoming their new…

When Taylor Swift released “The Tortured Poets Department,” on Friday at midnight, her fan base quickly got to work decoding the album, looking for layers of meaning and insight into Ms. Swift’s life. Of course, that includes the pop singer’s romantic history.Like many of her past works, the songs on this album — which features over a dozen additional tracks as part of an extended album called “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology” — are laden with names and references, many of which appear to be to real people from Ms. Swift’s universe and the literary canon. At least two…

Stocks are on course for their longest losing streak of the year, as geopolitical turmoil rattles Wall Street and investors slash their bets on the Federal Reserve cutting interest rates any time soon.The S&P 500, one of the most widely followed stock indexes in the world, recorded a fifth consecutive decline on Thursday. Stocks fell another 0.2 percent early on Friday; a sixth straight day of losses would be the worst run since October 2022.The slide has dragged the S&P 500 down by more than 2 percent for the week, setting it up for a fourth straight weekly decline. By…

Some Context: Experts say bad situations can often be reversed with treatment.Both mental health and drug addiction crises have been roiling the country, and the effects of parental drug use and mental illness can quickly trickle down to their children. Public health experts say substance use disorders can incapacitate a previously diligent parent and lead to the involvement of child protective services.In 2021 alone, more than seven million children were referred to authorities over worries of maltreatment, according to a federal report, and more than 200,000 were removed from their homes. But research shows that when parents seek treatment for…

“Wreath” looks, and sounds, much simpler than it is. The players pluck or bow a two-note, upward phrase that continuously changes in its harmony and volume; each measure is different, transforming like the broken chords of Bach’s famous Prelude in C and settling into a meditative flow.Once that happens, it can be easy to lose your sense of time. And that is baked into the score: “Wreath” runs “15-25 minutes” because neither its rhythms nor note durations are to be played as they appear. Adès writes “sempre molto rubato” in the first measure, a direction to maintain a constantly fluid…

For decades, Israel and Iran have fought a shadow war across the Middle East, trading attacks by land, sea, air and in cyberspace. A recent round of strikes — mainly an aerial barrage by Iran against Israel last weekend — has brought the conflict more clearly into the open and raised fears of a broader war.A retaliatory Israeli strike on an Iranian air base on Friday, however, appeared limited in scope, and analysts said it suggested an effort to pull back from the dangerous cycle and potentially move the war back into the shadows.Here is a recent history of the…