Author: NY TIMES

The Food and Drug Administration has allowed Florida to import millions of dollars worth of medications from Canada at far lower prices than in the United States, overriding fierce decades-long objections from the pharmaceutical industry.The approval, issued in a letter to Florida Friday, is a major policy shift for the United States, and supporters hope it will be a significant step forward in the long and largely unsuccessful effort to rein in drug prices. Individuals in the United States are allowed to buy directly from Canadian pharmacies, but states have long wanted to be able to purchase medicines in bulk…

In 1977, the year after releasing his debut album, he shot to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with the lachrymose ballad “Don’t Give Up on Us.” Many years later, Owen Wilson, as Hutch, parodied the song in none-too-loving fashion in a 2004 feature-film comedy version of the show, which also starred Ben Stiller as Starsky and Snoop Dogg as Huggy Bear.Mr. Soul, who often said that music was his priority over acting, released five albums in his career and notched four Top 10 hits in Britain in the 1970s, including “Don’t Give Up on Us,” which climbed to…

For years Iran justified its military presence in Iraq and Syria, to its own people and the world, as a strategy for keeping terrorist groups at bay. Iranian officials frequently boasted that fighting terrorists directly or through proxy militias in the region meant they didn’t have to fight them at home.That sense of security was shattered on Wednesday, with the deadliest terrorist attack since the 1979 founding of the Islamic Republic — two suicide explosions in the city of Kerman that killed 88 people, including 30 children, and injured more than 200. The Islamic State, a mortal enemy of Iran,…

As Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken returned to the Middle East on Friday in an effort to ease escalating tensions, Israel’s defense minister floated a postwar plan for the Gaza Strip that exposed divisions in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wartime government.The proposal by the defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who is a moderate member of Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, was widely seen as a trial balloon, but it showed the pressure Israel was facing as Washington and others press for a shift to a less intense phase of the war.Further complicating diplomatic efforts in the region, Hassan Nasrallah, the…

Wayne Rooney was shocked when he was told after just 15 games that his tenure as Birmingham City manager was coming to an end.The former England forward has given the impression that he has joined a long-term project after signing a three-and-a-half-year deal. Rooney has enjoyed open dialogue with the club’s top brass – including chief executive Gary Cook and director of football Craig Gardner – and there is no sign their confidence in him is waning.Birmingham have won just two of Rooney’s 15 games in charge, but even after New Year’s Day defeat to Leeds United he remained optimistic…

Although they attended the same high school in Rochester Hills, Mich., Julia Marie Gerard and Adam Edward Romund never crossed paths until their senior year. They were placed in the same personal finance class and became fast friends. The two began spending more time together outside of class, attempting to prepare for their A.P. calculus exam.“What was supposed to be studying at the library was not studying at all,” Mr. Romund, 23, said. “It was basically a date. We did zero studying and just talked about random stuff.”Their mutual crushes prompted Mr. Romund to ask Ms. Gerard to the prom…

Attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea by the Houthi rebels in Yemen have left oil tanker operators facing an unwelcome calculation: accept the risks of steaming through the danger zone, or lose business.The risks of conflict in the area may even be increasing, with a coalition of 12 nations led by the United States warning Wednesday that it would “hold malign actors accountable for unlawful seizures and attacks.”Despite the attacks and the risk of more, some oil companies insist that the ships they charter take this route rather than an excursion around Africa, which could require an extra…

As Covid rises again, killing about 1,500 Americans each week, medical researchers are trying to understand why so few people are taking Paxlovid, a medicine that is stunningly effective in preventing severe illness and death from the disease.A study of a million high-risk people with Covid found that only about 15 percent who were eligible for the drug took it. If instead half of the eligible patients in the United States had gotten Paxlovid during the time period of the research, 48,000 deaths could have been prevented, the authors of the study, conducted by the National Institutes of Health, concluded.It’s…

A mighty monster stomps across the skyline, scaled and unstoppable, leaving destruction in his wake. Bridges, skyscrapers, electrical towers: Nothing can withstand his might. Every step produces a shock wave, every breath a firestorm. He swats away missiles and artillery shells like so many gnats. Civilians race before him through the streets, necks craned upward in terror. Godzilla was hardly the first movie monster, but he is undeniably the king. Across almost 40 feature films, the aquatic kaiju has gone from inscrutable menace to heroic savior and back again. Even the casual movie viewer can picture the formula: rubber-suited men…

The Islamic State claimed responsibility on Thursday for the bombing attack that killed 84 people in Kerman, Iran, a day before, during a memorial procession for Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, according to a post on the extremist group’s official Telegram account.The extremist group called the attack a “dual martyrdom operation,” and described how two militants approached a ceremony at the tomb of General Suleimani and detonated explosive belts strapped to their bodies “near the grave of the hypocrite leader.”The general, a widely revered and feared Iranian military officer who was the architect of an Iranian-led and -funded alliance of Shiite…