Author: NY TIMES

Never one to waste a spare moment, Matt Fitzgerald clambered into the second row of his Mazda CX-90 on a recent weekday morning and cracked open his MacBook so that he could work on another book.Mr. Fitzgerald, 52, is many things — writer, public speaker, coach — but mostly he is prolific. He has written or co-written 34 books, most of them about running, endurance sports and nutrition. He writes early. He writes often. He writes a lot.“Sometimes I do feel like I’m doing B-plus work on a dozen things versus A-plus work on three or four,” he said. “But…

Melinda Wilson, who helped rescue her future husband, Brian Wilson, the chief musical architect and visionary of the Beach Boys, from a decades-long psychological spiral when they began dating in the 1980s, died on Tuesday at their home in Beverly Hills, Calif. She was 77.Mr. Wilson confirmed the death on Instagram. No cause was given.“Melinda was more than my wife,” Mr. Wilson wrote. “She was my savior. She gave me the emotional security I needed to have a career. She encouraged me to make the music that was closest to my heart. She was my anchor.”An anchor was exactly what…

The Chicago City Council voted on Wednesday to approve a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas, making it the largest city in the United States to do so.Mayor Brandon Johnson broke a 23-to-23 tie to ensure passage of the resolution.Before the council discussion, residents and activists spoke passionately about their support of a cease-fire, cheering and clapping for their peers. Mr. Johnson at one point cleared the council chamber to lower the volume of dissent while Debra Silverstein, the council’s only Jewish member, spoke in opposition to the resolution.Similar debates have played out…

In a surprise move, an Iran-linked militia in Iraq that U.S. officials say may have been responsible for a lethal drone attack on a U.S. base in Jordan over the weekend announced on Tuesday that it was suspending military operations in Iraq under pressure from the Iraqi government and from Iran.The announcement came shortly after President Biden said that he had decided how to respond to the attack in Jordan on Sunday that left three U.S. soldiers dead, though he did not say what that response would be. His comment raised fears in Iraq about a possibly retaliatory U.S. attack…

Bob Lutz walked out of his workplace around noon last Thursday and headed home before his daily radio show. He looks across 17th Street in Wichita, Kan., from the offices of 42 League, the nonprofit baseball league he founded in 2013. On a rainy day, he gazed at the Jackie Robinson statue that the league erected in 2021. The statue is a symbol of hope and resilience. However, Lutz couldn’t see the bronze statue of the man who broke baseball’s color barrier.For a moment, Lutz wondered whether this place was shrouded in fog. He blinked. Watched it again. He became…

There is a certain irony to the fact that of all the shows that took place during couture last week, the one designed to be the most off-line — the one conceived as an in-person experience rather than as a simple catwalk — is the one that ended up going the most viral.The one that no one seems to be able to stop talking about — not the fashion world, nor its millions of followers.I am speaking of the Maison Margiela Artisanal show by John Galliano. It has sent the watching hordes into ecstasies of praise and adoration, and inspired…

Hours before Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, was set to testify on Wednesday about child safety online, lawmakers released internal documents showing how his company had rejected calls to bulk up on resources to combat the problem.In 90 pages of internal emails from fall 2021, top officials at Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, debated the addition of dozens of engineers and other employees to focus on children’s well-being and safety. One proposal to Mr. Zuckerberg for 45 new staff members was declined.The documents, which are being released in full for the first time, were cited in a…

Hours before Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, was set to testify on Wednesday about child safety online, lawmakers released internal documents showing how his company had rejected calls to bulk up on resources to combat the problem.In 90 pages of internal emails from fall 2021, top officials at Meta, which owns Instagram and Facebook, debated the addition of dozens of engineers and other employees to focus on children’s well-being and safety. One proposal to Mr. Zuckerberg for 45 new staff members was declined.The documents, which are being released in full for the first time, were cited in a…

Vertex Pharmaceuticals of Boston announced Tuesday that it had developed an experimental drug that relieves moderate to severe pain, blocking pain signals before they can get to the brain. It works only on peripheral nerves — those outside the brain and the spinal cord — making it unlike opioids. Vertex says its new drug is expected to avoid opioids’ potential to lead to addiction.The company reported that it had completed two randomized studies, the first in 1,118 people who had abdominoplasties and the other in 1,073 people who had bunion surgery. The two procedures are commonly used in studies of…

Chita Rivera, who died on Tuesday at the age of 91, was known for her extraordinary artistry. Yet, it is hard to comprehend the full scope of her talent because, like so many Broadway performers of her generation, much of her best work was not captured on-screen. Her Anita in the landmark 1957 Broadway production of “West Side Story”? Rita Moreno took it on in the Hollywood adaptation. Rose in the hit “Bye Bye Birdie,” from 1960? That role went to Janet Leigh in the movie. Only in 1969 did Rivera make her feature-film debut, in “Sweet Charity,” almost two…