Author: NY TIMES

Loren Brey, a poultry grower in Minnesota, walked onto the farm where his egg-laying turkeys nest in November to discover a handful of hens, dead from the highly pathogenic avian flu.Within a week, he lost nearly half of his entire flock.So when Mr. Brey’s turkeys began producing eggs again in the spring, he gave a seemingly unconventional prevention method a go: lasers installed atop his barns, firing beams of green light to fend off wild ducks, owls and other possible carriers of the deadly virus.As migratory birds fly north for the spring, poultry farmers and backyard keepers across the country…

Just last year, Brad Herman, a longtime behind-the-scenes aide to celebrities, drew praise from the family of Cindy Birdsong, an ailing former member of the Supremes. He was credited with helping to rescue her from what they described as a friend’s undue influence over her care and finances.But now, Mr. Herman has been named in a petition brought by Ms. Birdsong’s son, who is accusing him in court papers of financial elder abuse and misappropriation of her money.The son, Charles Hewlett, who has been appointed the conservator of his mother’s affairs, is seeking damages and the return of what his…

Rough seas were a fitting symbol for this week’s meeting of Group of 7 foreign ministers on the Italian island of Capri. Coast Guard ships that ferried V.I.P.s across the Gulf of Naples to the island on Wednesday swayed precariously, leaving the passengers reaching for their motion-sickness medicine — and, in some cases, their sick bags.Though no ministers from this elite international coalition, including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, were known to have lost their lunch, the global problems they confronted were enough to make even a seasoned diplomat queasy: the risk of war between Iran and Israel, the…

Private members’ bills, particularly those from members of the Bloc Québécois, rarely make their way through the parliamentary process. But after passing the House of Commons with strong support from members of all parties, a bill from Yves Perron, who speaks for the Bloc on farming, handily passed a second vote in the unelected Senate on Tuesday.And perhaps even more surprising, it deals with a contentious issue: Canada’s supply management system, which controls production and sets minimum prices for dairy and poultry products as well as eggs.Many free-market economists and politicians cast supply management as a legalized price cartel that…

A quarterback who transitioned to wide receiver midway through college? Anquan Boulding knows a thing or two about this move.The former San Francisco 49er started out as a quarterback at Florida State, moved to wide receiver, and eventually played both quarterbacks in his college swan song, the 2003 Sugar Bowl, in which He scored a touchdown in the second quarter and then threw a third down.When he finally took a spot, he became such a consistent runner and reliable target that he ranks ninth on the NFL’s all-time receiving list.That’s why Boldin, 43, worked with a young receiver, Rice’s Luke…

It’s not easy to find serenity when memories come flooding in. Source link

Many more people are jumping from one streaming subscription to another, a behavior that could have big implications for the entertainment industry. Source link

When it came to housing, Susan Apel and Keith Irwin thought they had planned adroitly for later life. They bought a four-bedroom house on two acres in Lebanon, N.H., 24 years ago, and “we made sure to pay off the mortgage before we retired,” said Ms. Apel, 71.That way, the home equity they had built up — they estimate their house is now worth about $700,000 — would allow them to sell and downsize into smaller, more manageable quarters when they needed them.That time has arrived. Ms. Apel, a retired law professor, is having trouble climbing stairs. Mr. Irwin, 71,…

That song, though, is one of the album’s best — a thunderous collaboration with the pop sorceress Florence Welch, who blows in like a gust of fresh air and allows Swift to harness a more theatrical and dynamic aesthetic. “Guilty as Sin?,” another lovely entry, is the rare Antonoff production that frames Swift’s voice not in rigid electronics but in a ’90s soft-rock atmosphere. On these tracks in particular, crisp Swiftian images emerge: an imagined lover’s “messy top-lip kiss,” 30-something friends who “all smell like weed or little babies.”It would not be a Swift album without an overheated and disproportionately…

Israeli warplanes fired missiles on Iran during a retaliatory strike early Friday morning, one Western official and two Iranian officials said, suggesting that the attack included more advanced firepower than initial reports indicated.It was not immediately clear the types of missiles used, from where they were fired, whether any were intercepted by Iran’s defenses or where they landed.The Western official and the Iranian officials requested anonymity to discuss classified information.Previously, Iranian officials said Friday’s attack on a military base in central Iran was conducted by small aerial drones, most likely launched from inside Iranian territory. A separate group of small…