Author: NY TIMES

Eric Schmieman worked for 15 years on the modern engineering equivalent of the Great Pyramid — building a giant protective shield for a damaged reactor at Chernobyl that would protect the world from further fallout from the worst ever nuclear disaster.The steel shell, slid into place over Reactor No. 4 on railroad tracks in 2016, is the world’s largest movable structure. It is as tall as a football field and weighs almost 40,000 tons. More than 45 countries and organizations spent almost $1.7 billion building it.“We did a lot of safety analysis, considering a lot of bad things that could…

On average, about one goal per 30 corners. However, success rates tend to rise dramatically when goalkeepers and their entire defense stand outside their six-yard box.It was an extraordinary scene in the UEFA quarterfinals in Dortmund on Sunday. Germany’s Jamal Musiala turned the ball into an empty net against an Italian team, behaving like they thought the game would stop putting the report into the place where everything went wrong in the first half.Joshua Kimmich had other ideas, as well as a combination of his excellent agile thinking and Musiala’s goal hanging – combined with a ball boy who was…

Increased federal spending in recent years has helped to improve U.S. ports, roads, parks, public transit and levees, according to a report released on Tuesday by the American Society of Civil Engineers.But that progress could stagnate if those investments, some of which were put on hold after President Trump took office in January, aren’t sustained.Overall, the group gave the nation’s infrastructure a C grade, a mediocre rating but the best the country has received since the group’s first report card in 1998. Most infrastructure, including aviation, waterways and schools, earned a C or D grade; ports and rail did better.…

For just over two years, technology leaders at the forefront of developing artificial intelligence had made an unusual request of lawmakers. They wanted Washington to regulate them.The tech executives warned lawmakers that generative A.I., which can produce text and images that mimic human creations, had the potential to disrupt national security and elections, and could eventually eliminate millions of jobs.A.I. could go “quite wrong,” Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, testified in Congress in May 2023. “We want to work with the government to prevent that from happening.”But since President Trump’s election, tech leaders and their companies have changed…

President Trump has selected Susan Monarez, the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to lead the agency permanently.The president withdrew his first nominee, Dr. Dave Weldon, just hours before his confirmation hearing. If confirmed by the Senate, Dr. Monarez, an infectious-disease researcher, will be the first nonphysician to lead the agency in more than 50 years.“Americans have lost confidence in the C.D.C. due to political bias and disastrous mismanagement,” the president wrote on Truth Social, adding that Dr. Monarez would work with the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to address the chronic disease epidemic and…

Marty Callner, a pioneering director of comedy specials who set the template for the genre at HBO in the 1970s before going on to make music videos infused with humor during the early heyday of MTV, died on March 17 at his home in Malibu, Calif. He was 78.His son Jazz Callner said the cause was not yet known.Over a half-century, Mr. Callner worked with some of the biggest names in popular culture, including Jerry Seinfeld, Madonna, Robin Williams, George Carlin, the Rolling Stones and Chris Rock.Mr. Callner, who preferred to stay in the background but was far from shy,…

As the Israeli military has expanded its offensive in the Gaza Strip, taking control of more territory in parts of the south and north and issuing new evacuation orders, many people who had only recently returned to their homes have been forcibly displaced once again.Israel’s drive into the southern city of Rafah pushed thousands of families from the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood, near the border with Egypt, to flee on foot on Sunday before Israeli troops completely encircled the area by the afternoon.For many, the new round of mass displacement brought back painful memories of the earlier days of the war…

She has been electrocuted, hatcheted, murdered by a doll with her soul trapped inside it. She has also notched up an epic kill count of her own, decapitating one victim with a nail file, eviscerating another and melting one unfortunate’s face off with boiling water. And that was before she joined “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”“At least in the ‘Chucky’ movies you get stabbed in the front,” Jennifer Tilly says coolly, shooting a knowing look at this reporter as she lands the rimshot.We are in a booth of the Margaux restaurant at the Marlton Hotel in Greenwich Village. It…

Journalists from Radio Martí, the U.S. federally-funded news outlet aimed at communist Cuba, were in the middle of interviewing a Cuban activist in Miami on a recent Saturday when bleak looks suddenly came over their faces.The 40-year-old news agency, designed to send uncensored news in Spanish into Cuba, had just been ordered closed by the Trump administration, the crew learned in an email. The profile of the activist — Ramón Saúl Sánchez, known for leading protest flotillas to Cuba — was scrapped.“They were very confused,” Mr. Sánchez said. “They said, ‘We think we’ve been terminated. We need to leave.’”President Trump…

Work Friend reconsiders a past response. Plus, the best way to correct people who get your name wrong.