A New York Times/Siena College poll found that President Biden is on stronger footing than he was a year ago — but he is neck-and-neck in a possible rematch against Donald Trump.
The economic strength has helped to maintain popular support for Vladimir Putin’s war, but some have warned the state-led spending is threatening the country’s financial stability.
A Desperate Push to Save Florida’s Coral: Get It Out of the Sea
Teams dedicated to ocean restoration are urgently moving samples to tanks on land as a marine heat wave devastates entire reefs.
The Country That Bombs Its Own People
Visual evidence, data and interviews show that the Myanmar military’s campaign of terror, which began after a coup sparked widespread resistance, is getting worse.
The twice-indicted former president leads across nearly every category and region, as primary voters wave off concerns about his escalating legal jeopardy.
After a Times report, the bureau canceled its contract with a government contractor that used the tool on its behalf. But questions remain.
Amid the Counterattack’s Deadly Slog, a Glimmer of Success for Ukraine
Recapturing the village of Staromaiorske was such welcome news for the country that President Volodymyr Zelensky announced it himself. But formidable Russian defenses have stymied progress elsewhere.
Heat Is Costing the U.S. Economy Billions in Lost Productivity
From meatpackers to home health aides, workers are struggling in sweltering temperatures and productivity is taking a hit.
They served in Congress and on the N.R.A.’s board at the same time. Over decades, a small group of legislators led by a prominent Democrat pushed the gun lobby to help transform the law, the courts and views on the Second Amendment.
How extreme temperatures and dwindling water are pushing the Fertile Crescent toward the brink.
U.S. Hunts Chinese Malware That Could Disrupt American Military Operations
American intelligence officials believe the malware could give China the power to disrupt or slow American deployments or resupply operations, including during a Chinese move against Taiwan.
New York City Had a Migrant Crisis. It Hired a Covid Expert to Help.
DocGo, a medical services company, received a $432 million no-bid contract to move hundreds of asylum seekers outside the city. Many say they have been threatened, mistreated and lied to.
The accusation that former President Donald J. Trump wanted security camera footage deleted at Mar-a-Lago added to a pattern of concerns about his attempts to stymie prosecutors.
The city has long grappled with street homelessness and a shortage of housing. Now fentanyl has turned a perennial problem into a deadly crisis and a challenge to the city’s progressive identity.
Wall St. Pessimists Are Getting Used to Being Wrong
The S&P 500 is up more than 19 percent this year, but some still warn that the future may not be as rosy as that implies.
On this week’s cover, we feature biographies of composers Arnold Schoenberg and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart that emphasize the extent to which each was a singular genius attuned to his culture and times; our reviews are by Anthony Tommasini (formerly The Times’s chief classical music critic) and the composer John Adams.
In Patrick Mackie’s “Mozart in Motion,” the socially observant composer embraces modernity.
Musicians tend to be wary of ascribing specific meanings to music or making too much of a piece’s extra-musical associations. In one of his Norton Lectures at Harvard in 1973, turning to Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Symphony, Leonard Bernstein asked the audience to forget all about “birds and brooks and rustic pleasures” and instead concentrate on “pure” music. He then demonstrated how every phrase of the entire first movement is derived from little motifs of notes and rhythms in the first four bars of the score.
John Adams reviews “Schoenberg: Why He Matters,” in which Harvey Sachs explores the artistic, academic and spiritual life of a 20th-century cultural giant.
In 1955 Henry Pleasants, a critic of both popular and classical music, issued a cranky screed of a book, “The Agony of Modern Music,” which opened with the implacable verdict that “serious music is a dead art.” Pleasants’s thesis was that the traditional forms of classical music — opera, oratorio, orchestral and chamber music, all constructions of a bygone era — no longer related to the experience of our modern lives. Composers had lost touch with the currents of popular taste, and popular music,
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE (July 30, 2023) – In this week’s cover story, David Quammen reports on the ongoing mystery of Covid’s origin, what we do know — and why it matters. Plus, a profile of a poet who was kidnapped from his Black father by his white grandparents and a look at a group of English activists’ fight for the right to access public lands.
We still don’t know how the pandemic started. Here’s what we do know — and why it matters.
By David Quammen
Where did it come from? More than three years into the pandemic and untold millions of people dead, that question about the Covid-19 coronavirus remains controversial and fraught, with facts sparkling amid a tangle of analyses and hypotheticals like Christmas lights strung on a dark, thorny tree. One school of thought holds that the virus, known to science as SARS-CoV-2, spilled into humans from a nonhuman animal, probably in the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, a messy emporium in Wuhan, China, brimming with fish, meats and wildlife on sale as food. Another school argues that the virus was laboratory-engineered to infect humans and cause them harm — a bioweapon — and was possibly devised in a “shadow project” sponsored by the People’s Liberation Army of China.
A group of English activists want to legally enshrine the “right to roam” — and spread the idea that nature is a common good.
By Brooke Jarvis
The signs on the gateat the entrance to the path and along the edge of the reservoir were clear. “No swimming,” they warned, white letters on a red background.
On a chill mid-April day in northwest England, with low, gray clouds and rain in the forecast, the signs hardly seemed necessary. But then people began arriving, by the dozens and then the hundreds. Some walked only from nearby Hayfield, while others came by train or bus or foot from many hours away. In a long, trailing line, they tramped up the hill beside the dam and around the shore of the reservoir, slipping in mud and jumping over puddles. Above them rose a long, curving hill of open moorland, its heather still winter brown. When they came to a gap between a stone wall and a metal fence, they squeezed through it, one by one, slipping under strings of barbed wire toward the water below.
The office of the special counsel accused the former president of seeking to delete security camera footage at Mar-a-Lago. The manager of the property, Carlos De Oliveira, was also named as a new defendant.
The department will examine allegations of pervasive problems with excessive force and unlawful stops of Black residents that were amplified by the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols.
Study of Elite College Admissions Data Suggests Being Very Rich Is Its Own Qualification
Elite colleges have long been filled with the children of the richest families: At Ivy League schools, one in six students has parents in the top 1 percent.
Amid Shared Pain Over Synagogue Massacre, Divisions on Death Penalty
Since the 2018 attack that left 11 people dead, Jews in Pittsburgh have weighed whether the government should seek the execution of the killer.
Federal Reserve officials lifted borrowing costs by a quarter-point after pausing in June. Rates could rise more, but the central bank is not ready to commit.
Judge Maryellen Noreika sent the two sides back to try to work out modifications that would address her legal and constitutional concerns and salvage the basic contours of the agreement.
Gov. Abbott’s Policing of Texas Border Pushes Limits of State Power
The governor brought in razor wire, floating barriers and state troopers to deter unauthorized migration. The federal government mounted its first legal pushback this week.
Giuliani Concedes He Made False Statements About Georgia Election Workers
Rudolph W. Giuliani said he still had “legal defenses” in a case brought by two election workers who said he had defamed them as he asserted that the 2020 election was marred by fraud.
President Biden’s decisions on when to speak out forcefully for democracy can prove tricky.
Warming Could Push the Atlantic Past a ‘Tipping Point’ This Century
The system of ocean currents that regulates the climate for a swath of the planet could collapse sooner than expected, a new analysis found.
How War Destroyed a ‘Long and Happy Marriage’
The conflict in Ukraine has split apart millions of families. The story of Andrii Shapovalov and Tetiana Shapovalova reveals how a couple’s bond can become a casualty.
Complaining of an unaccountable judiciary, the far-right governing coalition, despite months of mass protests, voted to strip the court’s power to override “unreasonable” government actions.
The Israeli prime minister has pushed through the first part of his judicial overhaul, but in doing so has deepened a rift in Israeli society and propelled the country into an uncertain new era.
What the Collapse of Spain’s Far Right Means Going Forward
About the only thing clear from Spain’s muddled election results was that Spaniards were turning away from the political
Seeking Full Honors, Some Ukrainian Families Wait to Bury Their Dead
Thousands of families have buried soldiers in cemeteries across Ukraine in “Alleys of Heroes.” But some have held off, awaiting a version of Arlington National Cemetery.
News, Views and Reviews For The Intellectually Curious
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