Author: NY TIMES

An official in charge of diversity, equity and inclusion at Columbia University’s Irving Medical Center was accused this week of plagiarizing large sections of his doctoral dissertation, according to an anonymous complaint filed with the university.The 55-page complaint accused the official, Alade McKen, of copying material in his 2021 dissertation at Iowa State University from more than two dozen other scholars and from Wikipedia, which is written and edited by volunteers from the general public.The complaint was published online Thursday by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news website that led a campaign last year against the former president of…

IN HIS EARLY 20s, long before he became a leading man, Josh Brolin took a writing class taught by the American Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. One of the assignments was to create an evocative phrase by combining two words. A fellow student came up with “Tylenol Christ”; Brolin, an enthusiastic storyteller, had trouble being that succinct. The experience has been on the actor’s mind recently as he finishes his forthcoming memoir, a mix of stories, anecdotes and poems scheduled to come out this fall. In a recently completed essay, he describes chasing a flock of sheep with two of his…

President Biden said on Thursday that while he was still learning details of the shooting that killed or wounded hundreds in northern Gaza, he thought the deaths could jeopardize efforts to reach a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas.Asked whether the shooting would complicate negotiations, Mr. Biden said, “I know it will.”After saying earlier this week that he hoped a cease-fire deal could be reached by next Monday, the president signaled that was unlikely, though he was trying to remain optimistic.“Probably not by Monday, but I’m hopeful,” he told reporters before traveling to Brownsville, Texas, to make a rare visit…

At least 43 people were killed and dozens were injured when a fire ripped through a shopping mall late Thursday night in Dhaka, the Bangladeshi capital, officials said.“So far, we know that 43 have died,” Dr. Samanta Lal Sen, the health minister, told reporters outside a hospital where some of the injured were being treated. “The condition of those who are wounded is not good,” he added.At least 75 people were injured, fire officials said. Some were being treated at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Mr. Sen said.The fire erupted at about 9:51 p.m. on the mall’s second floor, which…

Dave Pasch said that during his 30-year career as a renowned ESPN play-by-play man, he was on the microphone for two college basketball games that ended in storms on the court. One of those occurred earlier this month when unranked LSU defeated unranked LSU as game time expired at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. University of Kentucky. Pash recalled a conversation he and analyst Jay Williams had with the LSU athletic department staff before a game this week.”We asked, if they beat Kentucky, are they going to hit the court?” Pash said. “He said, ‘No, we’re…

In Unhitched, couples tell the stories of their relationships, from romance to vows to divorce to life afterward.Marissa and Mike Mitchell, of Newburgh, Ind., met in seventh grade and became sweethearts. They parted before high school, but reconnected in their late 20s and married. Ms. Mitchell was deployed by the Army to Iraq within weeks of their wedding. They said the stress caused by the distance and her subsequent re-entry 16 months later was one challenge to the relationship. The 11-year marriage eventually ended when Ms. Mitchell, after much soul-searching, came to understand that her attraction is to women.Dates of…

New York Community Bank, the lender teetering under mounting real-estate-related losses, shared several pieces of fresh bad news on Thursday: Its fourth-quarter losses were $2.4 billion worse than it had earlier stated; its chief executive and an allied board member are out; and the bank has identified what it called “material weaknesses in internal controls.”The all-at-once disclosures, released in securities filings late Thursday, were an uneasy reminder of the price the bank is paying for a breakneck expansion strategy that included acquiring an ailing rival less than one year ago. They sent the bank’s already pressured shares into another nosedive,…

The Securities and Exchange Commission began an inquiry into OpenAI soon after the company’s board of directors unexpectedly removed Sam Altman, its chief executive, at the end of last year, three people familiar with the inquiry said.The regulator has sent official requests to OpenAI, the developer of the ChatGPT online chatbot, seeking information about the situation. It is unclear whether the S.E.C. is investigating Mr. Altman’s behavior, the board’s decision to oust him or both.Even as OpenAI has tried to turn the page on the dismissal of Mr. Altman, who was soon reinstated, the controversy continues to hound the company.…

Vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus may have caused a few cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological condition, federal health officials said on Thursday.The numbers were small, on the order of two cases per 100,000 vaccinated people or fewer, and much more data is needed to pin down the risk, the officials said. In May 2023, the Food and Drug Administration approved two vaccines against R.S.V.: Abrysvo, by Pfizer, and Arexvy, by GSK.In June, rather than recommend the shots to all older adults, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that adults aged 60 or older might opt to…

Lewis, who announced last year that he had Parkinson’s disease, played himself as David’s friend on the show (as he was in real life). He and Essman, the comedian and actress behind the invective-spewing Susie Greene, the wife of David’s manager, provoked very different reactions from fans, he recalled.“When I’ve been with her in public, they want her to yell things back at them,” he said. “For me, it’s like, ‘You’re going to be all right, Richard.’”He dialed me directly, rather than having a publicist connect us, as is more common, and seemed happy to stay on the phone and…