On This Week’s Episode:People impulsively toss words out into the world — in a medical journal, on their deathbed, in the middle of a race — to ignite and burn over decades.This is a rerun of an episode that first aired in February 2019.Toronto Star, via Getty ImagesNew York Times Audio is home to the “This American Life” archive. Download the app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. More
Jeffrey Lease and Jeff Chen take their chances in a first-time collaboration for The New York Times.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesMONDAY PUZZLE — As Kenny Rogers once said, “Every gambler knows that the secret to survivin’ is knowin’ what to throw away and knowing what to keep.” I’ve never been much of a gambler, but I knew enough not to throw away today’s crossword, constructed by Jeffrey Lease and Jeff Chen. It’s a keeper.This is the constructors’ first puzzle collaboration for The New York Times. That’s a calculated risk: There’s always a chance that constructing styles and senses of humor won’t jell. In this case, I’d say the risk paid off big time. Will I bet on your enjoyment? Yes, so long as the only thing at stake is my ego.Today’s ThemeWhatever the [Big payout potential] is at 53-Across, it doubles as a hint to both the words in the shaded squares and the clue numbers on which they begin.You’ll notice as you solve that certain letters appear repeatedly in the shaded squares (in bold here, for reference). The witty [Court summons?] at 19-Across is an invitation to play on a court: TENNIS, ANYONE? At 27-Across, [Having a benevolent goal in mind] is being WELL-INTENTIONED. And the [Instruments for John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins] at 45-Across are TENOR SAXOPHONES. Do those TENs and ONEs remind you of anything?That payout potential is going to be TEN-TO-ONE ODDS. Not only do these betting odds feature in the shaded squares of each themed entry, they also appear in only odd-numbered clues: 19A, 27A, 45A and 53A.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
The Trump administration committed a “grievous error” that “shocks the conscience” by inadvertently deporting a Salvadoran migrant to a notorious prison last month and then declaring there was little it could do to bring him back, a federal judge in Maryland said on Sunday.The strongly worded order by the judge, Paula Xinis, served two purposes: It offered a more detailed explanation of a brief ruling she issued on Friday, demanding that the White House bring the migrant, Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, back to the United States by the end of Monday. And it rejected a request by the Justice Department to pause the order as a federal appeals court considered its validity.Over 22 pages, Judge Xinis took Trump officials to task for deporting Mr. Abrego Garcia to El Salvador on March 15 in violation of a previous court order that allowed him to stay in the United States. Administration officials then argued that neither they nor she as the judge overseeing the case had any power to retrieve him from the prison.“As defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador — let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere,” Judge Xinis wrote. “Having confessed grievous error, the defendants now argue that this court lacks the power to hear this case, and they lack the power to order Abrego Garcia’s return.”Moreover, Judge Xinis questioned the administration’s underlying claims that Mr. Abrego Garcia, 29, was a member of a violent transnational street gang, MS-13, which officials recently designated as a terrorist organization. The judge described those claims as being based on “a singular unsubstantiated allegation.”“The ‘evidence’ against Abrego Garcia consisted of nothing more than his Chicago Bulls hat and hoodie,” she wrote, “and a vague, uncorroborated allegation from a confidential informant claiming he belonged to MS-13’s ‘Western’ clique in New York — a place he has never lived.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
While Russian missile and drone bombardments have been unrelenting over more than three years of war, they have intensified in recent weeks amid U.S.-led peace talks.Russia bombarded Ukraine with ballistic missiles and drones on Sunday that killed one person and wounded at least seven others, the latest in a series of deadly attacks that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has said makes clear Moscow has little real interest in cease-fire negotiations.While Russian drone and missile attacks have been unrelenting throughout more than three years of war, they have intensified in recent weeks amid ongoing peace talks led by the Trump administration.The Ukrainian authorities said the barrage on Sunday killed one man, damaged buildings and started fires in three neighborhoods of Kyiv, the capital. Damage and injuries were also reported elsewhere in Ukraine, as the country declared a day of mourning for a deadly strike on Friday in the city of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine.A missile strike on a residential neighborhood there killed 19 people, including nine children, and wounded 74 others. It damaged the courtyard of an apartment block, and emergency medical workers found some of the wounded in a playground, videos released by Ukraine’s emergency services showed. Russia’s ministry of defense said the missile hit a gathering of Ukrainian and foreign military personnel.A makeshift memorial at the site of Friday’s deadly strike in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky.Violeta Santos Moura/ReutersThough he has expressed support for the Trump administration’s efforts to secure a cease-fire, Mr. Zelensky was critical of the tepid U.S. response to the attack on Kryvyi Rih, his hometown.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
The heaviest rains so far this weekend have hit Arkansas, Missouri and Kentucky. More rain is expected on Sunday, but the risk of flooding will be less severe.The huge storm system that has caused widespread damage across the central United States is bringing more heavy rain and high winds on Sunday, continuing its dayslong stretch of soaking communities from Texas to Ohio as it begins to move east.The heaviest rains over the weekend so far have fallen in Arkansas, Missouri and Kentucky, and rising water levels and flooding have prompted water rescues, road closures and evacuation orders. The storm has killed at least 16 people, including a 5-year-old boy in Arkansas, a 9-year-old boy in Kentucky and a firefighter in Missouri, since it began on Wednesday.
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Search for a place to see the observed precipitation.
Source: National Weather Service
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Values are in inches of water or the equivalent amount of melted snow and ice.
By Bea Malsky and Martín González Gómez
The threat of storms and rainfall will shift eastward but diminish on Sunday, which will be a welcome reprieve for residents in the South and the Midwest. In some areas — including northern Arkansas and southern Missouri — rivers are expected to crest on Sunday, and possibly as late as Wednesday, but the risk of dangerous flooding will not be as high as it was on Friday and Saturday.While the worst of the rain is over in northern Kentucky, parts of the region are still expected to receive up to five inches of rain before the long stretch of bad weather finally clears, according to the National Weather Service. “Moderate to major” flooding was forecast on many of the region’s rivers.“Given the fact that everything is so saturated, everything is just running right off the ground and into area creeks and streams,” said Nate McGinnis, a meteorologist with the agency in Wilmington, Ohio.
Forecast risk of severe storms for Sunday
We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
A nonprofit bought the landmark Metro Theater after receiving financial support from Gov. Kathy Hochul, the State Senate and Steven Spielberg’s foundation.A landmark Art Deco movie theater that closed 20 years ago on Manhattan’s Upper West Side was sold to a nonprofit after it received $3.5 million in discretionary grants from Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York.The nonprofit, the Upper West Side Cinema Center, used those funds and $500,000 in grants from the State Senate to complete its $6.9 million purchase of the Metro Theater on Friday. It plans to revitalize the building, on Broadway near West 99th Street, with a five-screen theater, a lobby lounge and a public cafe.Additional fund-raising of $15 million to $25 million is required to construct a new interior, replace the marquee and clean graffiti from the facade, the nonprofit says.“The Upper West Side community deserves another world-class venue for cinema and art, and that’s why I was proud to step in,” Hochul said in a news release.Assemblyman Micah Lasher, a Democrat who took office in January, grew up going to the Metro Theater and fondly remembers seeing “Ali” and “Mr. Holland’s Opus” there with his family.“Its loss for the last 20 years has been not just an eyesore, but a deeply felt scar for the neighborhood,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
Cheeseheads and cheesecakes join the punchlines and headlines, and an enthusiastic audience gets a mild scolding for slipping past the censors. Temporarily.It’s not as reliable a metric as, say, the Dow Jones industrial average, but one sign that the U.S. economy is in an unusual place is when “Saturday Night Live” needs someone from its cast to play the secretary of commerce.In the opening sketch of this weekend’s broadcast (hosted by Jack Black and featuring the musical guests Elton John and Brandi Carlile) the brief part of Howard Lutnick went to Andrew Dismukes. But center stage was given to James Austin Johnson in his recurring role as President Trump — this time, recreating the speech from the Rose Garden where Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on Wednesday. (An introductory “S.N.L.” voice-over declared that, “like everything else so far in his presidency, it was a total home run.”)In his version of the speech, Johnson called “tariff” his favorite word (because it was “short for tariff-ic idea”) and said that tariffs would be the backbone of his “incredible plan” for the economy.Johnson added, “It’s actually even better than a plan because it’s a series of random numbers. Like the numbers on the computer screen in ‘Severance.’ You have no idea what the hell they mean.”He vowed he would MAWA — Make America Wealthy Again — although before that, there could be another phase, Johnson said. “We’re going to do MAGDA. Make America Great Depression Again. You know what? It’ll be gr — it’ll be better than great. It’ll be a fantastic, unbelievable Depression, the likes of which you’ve never seen before.”He added that this Depression would “be so great, we’ll be the ones eating the cats and the dogs.”Presented by Dismukes with a large cardboard placard that turned out to be a page from a Cheesecake Factory menu, Johnson then was handed another board detailing his tariff system.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
Readers respond to an article about staying mentally sharp in retirement.To the Editor:Re “Staying Sharp After Retiring Is Its Own Job” (front page, March 28):It’s not surprising to me that research has found that retirement can lead to an increase in depression and cognitive decline. When I retired from teaching, emptying my office and sorting through 50 years of class notes felt more like grieving than celebrating, even as people backslapped me with “Congratulations on your retirement!”This newspaper’s daily obituaries of accomplished people convinces me how much work matters in our lives; so many profile the extraordinarily long lives of people who worked with passion well into old age.While retirement has its blessings, like not worrying about trivial work-related problems that keep you up at night, something tells me that if you love what you do, it’s not a bad idea to stick with it.Cathy BernardNew YorkTo the Editor:Entering my eighth year of retirement, having left work at the relatively young age of 60, I can state that it’s challenging to stay sharp mentally, but easily done if so desired.First off, a number of my fellow retiree travelers, exhausted mentally from challenging work roles, often seek purposely to retreat. For them, constant golf, tennis and the like are just fine.But the bulk of retired folks I know pretty much follow advice that I received before retirement, which was to set one’s retirement life into three phases — the “go go,” “go slow” and “no go” years — and act accordingly.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
