HOUSTON — It was Chris Shepherd’s day. Officially, it was Chris Shepherd Southern Smoke Day, as proclaimed by Sylvester Turner, the mayor of Houston, at a presentation inside Mr. Shepherd’s Texas-style gastro pub, the Hay Merchant. On this sweltering October afternoon, Mr. Shepherd had just presided over Southern Smoke, a charity food festival that doubles…
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Clambering down into the half-buried ruins of San Juan Paringuricutiro, past stone archways subsumed in lava less than 80 years ago, I glanced up over jagged spires of black basalt to the ash cone of Paricutín, one of the world’s youngest volcano, hovering like a specter on the horizon. I’d seen views like this one…
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I didn’t even notice the balloons at first. With our laser focus on coronavirus, on our protocols and procedures, our carts of isolation gowns and our fears about mask shortages, it is easy to see only pandemic these days. But as we stood outside the cancer patient’s room on our rounds one recent morning, I…
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Mayor Bill de Blasio wasn’t the only New Yorker who squeezed in an 11th-hour workout before gyms shut down in New York and elsewhere, along with movie theaters and nightclubs, at 8 p.m. on Monday. Was it irresponsible to still be going? Many would make that argument, but the floor at the Chelsea-Flatiron location of…
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First the schools closed, then the babysitter canceled. Jaime Fitch, 40, a manager at the University of Washington School of Medicine, woke up on Monday to learn that her children’s caretaker — and her family’s best source of backup child care — had some symptoms of Covid-19, but not enough to get tested. Her mother-in-law,…
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SYDNEY, Australia — The actors Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have been released from an Australian hospital and will remain in self-isolation after being treated for Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, their son said in a video statement on Monday. “They’re still self-quarantined obviously, but they’re feeling a lot better so that’s a…
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NEW DELHI — Over the weekend in Lucknow, one of India’s bigger cities, young people packed into pubs. Despite the Indian government scrambling to lock things down, few on the bar scene were taking the coronavirus very seriously. “I am not scared. I eat, party, sleep,’’ said Akshay Gupta, an accountant who was bar hopping…
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ImageAn empty kindergarten classroom in Dinslaken, Germany, on Monday. As school officials in the U.S. and worldwide wrestle with the difficult question of whether to shut schools to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, more and more are closing.Credit…Lars Baron/Getty Images Even as we take significant steps to distance ourselves from one another to “flatten…
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Sweeping new federal recommendations announced on Monday for Americans to sharply limit their activities appeared to draw on a dire scientific report warning that, without action by the government and individuals to slow the spread of coronavirus and suppress new cases, 2.2 million people in the United States could die. To curb the epidemic, there…
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March 17, 2020 ImageCredit…Photo Illustration by The New York Times The surgical face mask has become a symbol of our times. If there is a symbol of the current confusion and fear, the misinformation and anxiety, generated by the spread of the new coronavirus, it is the surgical face mask. When history looks back on…
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