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JOHANNESBURG — The death toll from several days of punishing rain that drenched the city of Durban and the surrounding areas near South Africa’s east coast rose to more than 250 on Wednesday as the nation’s president visited the area to take stock of the devastation. Although the rain in…

When the groundbreaking pianist Chick Corea died unexpectedly, at 79, in February 2021, he left a legacy of experimentation, preserving and expanding the jazz tradition. Over more than a half-century, he deftly navigated the music’s continually shifting boundaries. Corea started his career playing with the Afro-Cuban percussionist Willie Bobo and…

In a first for the tech giant, Google filed a consumer protection lawsuit to shield the vulnerable and unsuspecting from what it called a “nefarious” scheme: the sale of adorable, but imaginary, puppies. The lawsuit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., claims that Nche Noel Ntse,…

SERENADE A Balanchine Story By Toni Bentley Toni Bentley’s sixth book, “Serenade,” is a tribute not only to the Georgian American choreographer George Balanchine’s timeless, titular ballet, but also to the art form. Bentley, who danced under Balanchine’s direction at the New York City Ballet for a decade in the…

Teachers in Sunset Park on Tuesday said classes went on as usual, but were preparing themselves for difficult conversations the next day.Credit…Hilary Swift for The New York Times For Shahana Ghosh, a first-grade teacher at P.S. 24 in Sunset Park, just two blocks from the subway station where Tuesday’s shooting…

Investigators are piecing together what happened after a shooting spree Tuesday morning on a subway train in Brooklyn, in which at least 23 people were injured. The gunman remains at large. Here’s what we know so far. What happened? Shortly before 8:30 a.m., a man in a construction vest and…

Jeff Smith, a partner with the influential consulting firm McKinsey & Company, accepted a highly sensitive assignment in December 2017. The opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma, beleaguered and in financial trouble, wanted to revamp its business, and an executive there sought out Dr. Smith. Over the following weeks, he traveled to…

The overall cost of gas, food and other everyday items is increasing at its fastest rate in more than 40 years. And experts cannot say with confidence whether price increases will speed up or slow down in the coming months. The accelerating price rate — in other words, inflation —…

MANILA — They bopped along to the beat of a martial law anthem updated into a pop tune. They cheered when an A-list celebrity proclaimed that the spirit of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the former dictator, was alive. And when Mr. Marcos’s son and namesake held up the peace sign made…

And about that data: Everyone wishes they were stronger. While some regard the research out of Israel as sufficient to back a second booster, Dr. Borio sees methodological shortcomings that limit its usefulness in shaping public policy decisions. “Understandably, these sorts of population-wide observational studies aren’t randomized, they’re not taking…