Author: NY TIMES

365 DipsOn a Cape Cod beach last January, I braced for my daily cold water plunge. “Can I join you?” asked a stranger. I hesitated. But her red hair and wide smile reminded me of my younger self. “Sure,” I said. Ashley is 29. I’m 47. For seven minutes in frigid water, we shared our stories: her chronic illness and career change; my failed marriage and struggles raising a child with cancer. Every day since our first encounter, we’ve met to immerse ourselves in the ocean. We bond in a daily baptism. I now can’t imagine braving water, or life,…

Chinese regulators on Tuesday appeared to backpedal from a plan to reduce how much money people spend on online video games, after the proposal had tanked video gaming companies’ stocks and raised doubts about the government’s commitment to reviving China’s slowing economy.The draft rules disappeared from the website of the National Press and Publication Administration, the agency overseeing the proposal, after previously being posted there for public comment. Instead, the page displayed an error.The agency, which issues licenses to game publishers and regulates the industry, did not issue any notice of retraction. An employee who answered the phone said she…

Dear listeners,When Billy Joel was working on what would become his breakout 1977 album, “The Stranger,” he played the opening chords of the title track for his producer Phil Ramone, whistling a melody that he imagined another instrument would play in the final recording. “I whistle the whole thing and I finish,” he wrote in 2013, “I look at him and I say, ‘So what instrument should that be?’” Ramone responded, “You just did it.” The rest is music history.On Monday, Joel announced he’ll be releasing his first new pop single in nearly two decades next week. Fortuitous timing! While…

Cold, almost naked and surrounded by Israeli soldiers with M16 assault rifles, Ayman Lubbad knelt among dozens of Palestinian men and boys who had just been forced from their homes in northern Gaza.It was early December and photographs and videos taken at the time showed him and other detainees in the street, wearing only underwear and lined up in rows, surrounded by Israeli forces. In one video, a soldier yelled at them over a megaphone: “We’re occupying all of Gaza. Is that what you wanted? You want Hamas with you? Don’t tell me you’re not Hamas.”The detainees, some barefoot with…

A car plowed into a barrier set up by protesting French farmers early on Tuesday, killing one woman and injuring her husband and daughter, as France faced growing rural fury at perceived overregulation and increased diesel fuel prices.The new government headed by Gabriel Attal, the 34-year-old prime minister, faced its first crisis with barricades spreading across highways throughout the southwest of the country. The protests mirrored similar demonstrations in Germany, driven by a sense of marginalization among farmers that the extreme right has been quick to exploit.“This is the France of the forgotten,” Jordan Bardella, the president of the anti-immigrant…

DETROIT — Detroit Lions players have an often-shared experience. A rite of passage indeed. You’re told you won’t win anything. This team has a reputation for failure. Players know this very well and hear it often.”‘Gee, you guys are no good. You can’t do anything. Everybody on this team, I’m sure somebody told them that,” wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown said Sunday night. “‘You’re on the Lions. You can’t do anything.”In layman’s terms, just leave it to St. Brown—he has more receipts during tax season than your accountant. This is his experience. Three years ago, he joined a roster that…

It is possible that the most dazzling couture show in Paris this week is not actually taking place on a runway at all, but in an entirely different sort of setting. Possible that said couture show is not an invitation-only affair with gold ballroom chairs and the latest celebrity du jour, but rather one open to the public. And certain that it is less about nostalgia for a past when couture was defined by the whispering of silk satin ball gowns, and more about a dream of the future.The show in question? “Iris Van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses,” a one-woman…

In early January in San Antonio, dozens of Ph.D. economists packed into a small windowless room in the recesses of a Grand Hyatt to hear brand-new research on the hottest topic of their annual conference: how climate change is affecting everything.The papers in this session focused on the impact of natural disasters on mortgage risk, railway safety and even payday loans. Some attendees had to stand in the back, as the seats had already been filled. It wasn’t an anomaly.Nearly every block of time at the Allied Social Science Associations conference — a gathering of dozens of economics-adjacent academic organizations…

Aissam Dam, an 11-year-old boy, grew up in a world of profound silence. He was born deaf and had never heard anything. While living in a poor community in Morocco, he expressed himself with a sign language he invented and had no schooling.Last year, after moving to Spain, his family took him to a hearing specialist, who made a surprising suggestion: Aissam might be eligible for a clinical trial using gene therapy.On Oct. 4, Aissam was treated at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, becoming the first person to get gene therapy in the United States for congenital deafness. The goal…

Frank Farian, the German record producer who was best known as the mastermind of Milli Vanilli, the duo that scaled the charts in 1989 but fell from grace when it was revealed that they didn’t do any of the singing on their records, died on Tuesday at his home in Miami. He was 82.His death was announced by Philip Kallrath of Allendorf Media, a spokesman for Mr. Farian’s family.Milli Vanilli’s first American album, “Girl You Know It’s True,” was released in 1989. It sold several million copies worldwide and won the duo, Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan, a Grammy Award…