Author: NY TIMES

The U.S. economic recovery from the pandemic has been stronger and more durable than many experts had expected, and a rebound in immigration is a big reason.A resumption in visa processing in 2021 and 2022 jump-started employment, allowing foreign-born workers to fill some holes in the labor force that persisted across industries and locations after the pandemic shutdowns. Immigrants also address a longer-term need: replenishing the work force, a key to meeting labor demands as birthrates decline and older people retire.Net migration in the year that ended July 1, 2023, reached the highest level since 2017. The foreign-born now make…

West Texas, from the oil rigs of the Permian Basin to the wind turbines twirling above the High Plains, has long been a magnet for companies seeking fortunes in energy.Now, those arid ranch lands are offering a new moneymaking opportunity: data centers.Lancium, an energy and data center management firm setting up shop in Fort Stockton and Abilene, is one of many companies around the country betting that building data centers close to generating sites will allow them to tap into underused clean power.“It’s a land grab,” said Lancium’s president, Ali Fenn.In the past, companies built data centers close to internet…

Why It Matters: Vaccines often arrive too late to stamp out outbreaks.Public health response to outbreaks often relies heavily on vaccines and treatments, but that underestimates the importance of other measures, said Miguel Paredes, lead author of the new study and an epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle.Although the Food and Drug Administration approved a vaccine for mpox in 2019, getting enough doses produced and into arms proved challenging for many months after the outbreak began. Vaccines for new pathogens are likely to take even longer.The new analysis suggests an alternative. Alerting high-risk communities allowed individuals to…

In Noora Niasari’s deeply felt drama “Shayda,” an Iranian mother finds sanctuary in culture and community while seeking liberation from an abusive marriage. The film unfolds during Nowruz, a regenerative Persian holiday set on the spring equinox. But in Australia, where Shayda (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) and her young daughter Mona (Selina Zahednia) are temporarily residing in a women’s shelter, Nowruz falls in autumn. Like a deciduous tree, Shayda can only access renewal by shedding the life she once knew.In her first narrative feature, Niasari, who based the story in part on her own experiences, demonstrates an astounding control of pacing…

The death toll in Gaza passed a somber milestone on Thursday as the local health ministry reported that more than 30,000 people had been killed in the war since Oct. 7.The number of deaths since Israel launched its military offensive against Hamas in Gaza had already surpassed the tolls of any previous Arab conflict with Israel when it rose above 20,000 in December. Many experts say the official toll is very likely an undercount, given the difficulty of accurately tallying deaths amid unrelenting fighting, communications disruptions, a collapsing medical system and people still believed to be under rubble.Still, the reported…

VideoLittle aid has been able to reach northern Gaza due to security risks and Israeli restrictions.CreditCredit…Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAt least a quarter of Gaza’s population is “one step away from famine,” a U.N. humanitarian aid official has warned, as aid groups say that people are so hungry they are resorting to eating leaves, donkey feed and food scraps.One in six children under 2 years old in northern Gaza, where the United Nations says it has not been able to deliver any aid since early this month because of security risks and Israeli restrictions, is suffering from acute malnutrition, the…

Video dinner parties, spa days, stuffed animals, favorite hoodies and cozy, colorful fleece blankets. Cole Brauer’s Instagram feed hardly feels like the work of someone racing a 40-foot sailboat around the world in the Global Solo Challenge. But Ms. Brauer, 29, is not an average ocean racer.In 2022, Ms. Brauer had tried out for another competition, the Ocean Race, which is considered the pinnacle of professional ocean racing. Sailors in that race are highly trained, wear matching foul weather gear and have corporate sponsors. And most of them are men. Ms. Brauer, who had sailed thousands of miles on high…

The Biden administration announced on Thursday that it was proposing new regulations for how airlines must treat passengers in wheelchairs, an effort aimed at improving air travel for people with disabilities.Under the proposed rule, damaging or delaying the return of a wheelchair would be an automatic violation of an existing federal law that bars airlines from discriminating against people with disabilities. The Transportation Department said that change would make it easier for the agency to penalize airlines for mishandling wheelchairs.The proposed regulations would also require more robust training for workers who physically assist disabled passengers or handle their wheelchairs.“There are…

What is the meaning of a cat’s meow that grows louder and louder? Or your pet’s sudden flip from softly purring as you stroke its back to biting your hand?It turns out these misunderstood moments with your cat may be more common than not. A new study by French researchers, published last month in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science, found that people were significantly worse at reading the cues of an unhappy cat (nearly one third got it wrong) than those of a contented cat (closer to 10 percent).The study also suggested that a cat’s meows and other vocalizations…

Sadpony was visiting Raisen over Christmas when they created the foundation of what would become the new album’s corrosively arresting lead single, “Bye Bye.” The pair had just been making beats intended for Playboi Carti, an iconoclastic rapper known for his music’s rough edges and in-your-face attitude. When they finished this beat — which begins with a loop that sounds like a car’s seatbelt alarm and eventually ignites into a conflagration of synthesized chaos — Raisen said he told his brother, “I think this might be a little too wild for Playboi. But it could be cool for Kim.”It was.…