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      16 Are Hospitalized After Smoke Fills an Upper Manhattan Subway Station

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      Investigators believe the smoke was caused by a moving train striking an object on the tracks, officials said.Sixteen people were hospitalized on Tuesday after a subway train hit an object on the tracks at an Upper Manhattan station, causing a fire that filled the station with smoke, according to fire and transit officials.A total of 18 people sustained what fire officials described as minor injuries. Two declined medical attention, officials said. The conditions of those who were hospitalized were not immediately clear Tuesday night.The episode occurred shortly before 1 p.m. at the 191st Street station at St. Nicholas Avenue in the Fort George neighborhood, officials said. The fire was brought under control within an hour, they said.Service was temporarily suspended on the No. 1 line between 145th and Dyckman Streets as a result of the fire, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.By Tuesday evening, workers had replaced a rail damaged by the fire, and trains were running in both directions with delays, officials said.The 191st Street station is 173 feet, or roughly 17 stories, below St. Nicholas Avenue, making it the deepest station in New York City’s subway system. Riders enter and exit via either elevators to St. Nicholas or a 1,000-foot-long tunnel that runs to Broadway. More

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      DOGE Cuts 9/11 Survivors’ Fund, and Republicans Join Democrats in Rebuke

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      After 20 percent of the World Trade Center Health Program staff was terminated last week, Democratic lawmakers were outraged. On Wednesday, Republican lawmakers joined them.In a rare pushback against President Donald J. Trump, a coalition of congressional Republicans from the New York area rebuked the president for cuts to a federal program that administers aid to emergency workers and others suffering from toxins related to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.In a letter to Mr. Trump, seven Republicans urged Mr. Trump “as a native New Yorker who lived in New York City as it recovered from the 9/11 terrorist attacks” to reverse the cuts to the World Trade Center Health Program and rehire staff members who were fired several days ago.They echoed the immediate outcry from Democratic lawmakers and advocates when the cuts were made beginning late last week, as part of Elon Musk’s so-called department of government efficiency, or DOGE, which is cutting spending and eliminating jobs across a wide swath of federal agencies. On Monday, New York’s Democratic senators, Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, issued a letter demanding the cuts be restored.The initial reaction from Republicans was more muted, but by Wednesday, as it became clearer that the blowback to the firings was widespread, the Republican resistance grew more vocal, especially from districts in and around New York City, where the memory of 9/11 still resonates powerfully.“This staff reduction will only make it more difficult for the program to supervise its contracts and to care for its members who are comprised of the brave men and women who ran towards danger and helped in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” the congressional members wrote in the letter.It was largely written by Representative Andrew R. Garbarino, a Republican from Long Island, and co-signed by five other Republican congressional colleagues from New York and Representative Chris Smith from New Jersey. The other congressional co-signers were Nick LaLota, Mike Lawler, Claudia Tenney, Nicole Malliotakis and Nick Langworthy, all supporters of Mr. Trump.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

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      Fiery Pileup in Wyoming Highway Tunnel Kills at Least 2

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      The crash caused a fire that raged for hours, and the tunnel remained closed on Friday evening.A multivehicle crash in a highway tunnel in southwestern Wyoming on Friday killed at least two people, injured several others and caused a fire that raged for hours as officials rushed to evacuate the passage, the authorities said.The crash occurred at 11:37 a.m. under a snow-dusted hill in Green River, Wyo., according to the State Transportation Department. By 5 p.m., the tunnel, which leads traffic west on Interstate 80, had been evacuated and the scene had “been contained,” the department said in a statement.It was not clear what had caused the crash or how many vehicles were involved, but one of them — a semi truck transporting transformers — had leaked oil, feeding the fire, said State Senator John Kolb, who represents the area.Mr. Kolb said Friday evening that more than 10 people were receiving treatment for injuries, and that three area fire departments were still working to extinguish the blaze.It was unclear when the tunnel might reopen.“They’ve got really all hands on deck trying to control the situation,” Mr. Kolb said in an interview, adding that there was a “high likelihood of damage” to the tunnel.The Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County in Rock Springs, Wyo., issued a statement on Friday afternoon urging people to “refrain from visiting the hospital” unless they were experiencing emergencies, citing the “mass casualty incident” at the tunnel. But the hospital said Friday evening that it had resumed regular operations.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

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      At Least 4 Killed in Suspected Gas Explosion at Taiwan Shopping Mall

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      The deadly blast occurred in a food court. The island’s president ordered an investigation into the cause.Windows and walls were blown out by the blast at the building in Taichung, the island’s second-largest city.Yufu Liao/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAt least four people were killed and 30 others injured in a suspected gas explosion in the food court of a Taiwan shopping mall on Thursday morning, according to Taiwan’s state-owned news outlet.The explosion occurred in the city of Taichung, about 100 miles southwest of Taipei, Taiwan’s capital, local officials said. The fire department received a report at 11:33 a.m. about a possible gas explosion on the 12th floor of the mall and dispatched 136 personnel, the department said in a statement. Search and rescue teams stayed on site until about 5 p.m., the news outlet, the Central News Agency, reported.Two of the people who died in the blast, and five of those injured, were tourists from Macau, the Macau Government Tourism Office said in a statement.Clearing debris after the explosion.Ritchie B Tongo/EPA, via ShutterstockIt is unclear what caused the blast, the fire department said. Video shared online by the Taiwanese station TVBS News shows an explosion in the middle floors of the building that sent debris and dust into the street. The station also aired clips from inside the building, showing shoppers reacting to a convulsion nearby and scrambling to evacuate the building.President Lai Ching-te of Taiwan, writing on his Facebook page, called for a prompt investigation into the cause of the accident. He said that the health ministry was coordinating medical resources to provide care to the injured.The explosion comes less than two months after nine people died in Taichung in a large fire at a food-processing plant that was under construction. An initial investigation by the city’s fire bureau in December found that the blaze was caused by welding sparks that ignited on paint and rapidly spread through insulation materials in the building, the Taipei Times reported.Claire Fu More

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      Trading Hope for Reality Helps Me Parent Through the Climate Crisis

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      When I gave birth to my first child, in 2019, it seemed like everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong. He came out white and limp, his head dangling off to the side. People swarmed into the hospital room, trying to suction his lungs so he could breathe. Hours later, my husband and I stood in the NICU, looking down at this newborn baby, hooked up to wires and tubes.We had spent months talking about how to protect him from various harmful influences, and here we were, an hour out of the gate, dealing with a situation we hadn’t even considered. Had his brain been deprived of oxygen for too long? Would there be lifelong damage?That night in the hospital, I learned the first lesson of parenting: You are not in control of what is going to happen, nor can you predict it. This applies to your child’s personality, many of his choices and to some extent his health. It also applies to the growing threat of climate change.The climate crisis is bad and getting worse. Here in Oregon, we’ve endured several severe heat waves and wildfires in recent years. As the impacts compound, it’s clear a lot of people around the world — many of them children — are going to suffer and die.Globally, one in three children is exposed to deadly heat waves, and even more to unclean water. A study estimated wildfire smoke to be 10 times as harmful to children’s developing lungs as typical pollution. Researchers also concluded that nearly every child in the world is at risk from at least one climate-intensified hazard: extreme heat, severe storms and floods, wildfires, food insecurity and insect-borne diseases.If you are someone like me who has children and lies awake terrified for their future, you should not let hopelessness about climate change paralyze you. In fact, I would argue that right now the bravest thing to do — even braver than hoping — is to stop hoping.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

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      Harlem House Where Billie Holiday Lived Is Damaged in Fire

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      The jazz legend lived in the five-story building on West 139th Street as a teenager with her mother.A four-alarm fire on Wednesday evening severely damaged a building in Harlem where the jazz legend Billie Holiday once lived.The Fire Department said it received the call at about 9 p.m. and extinguished the fire, which spread through all five floors of the building, shortly before 1 a.m. on Thursday morning. No civilians were injured, though four firefighters sustained minor injuries. The cause of the fire is under investigation.“Due to the structural stability of this building, as it was vacant for many years and the amount of fire, we had to pull our members out of the building and go to an exterior fire attack,” Kevin Woods, the Fire Department’s chief of operations, said in a news conference.A portrait of Billie Holiday at Carnegie Hall in 1946.Heritage Images, via Getty ImagesThe building is owned by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which is responsible for maintaining the quality and affordability of housing, among other duties.“Even before the fire, HPD had been actively working with our partners to plan the complete rehabilitation of this building through our preservation programs, relocating tenants to safer housing as part of that process,” Natasha Kersey, a spokeswoman for the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, said in an emailed statement to The Times.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

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      Explosion at Fuel Depot Near Florence Kills at Least Two

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      Officials said it would take time to determine the cause of the explosion. At least nine people were injured in the blast.At least two people were killed and another nine injured Monday in an explosion at a fuel depot on the outskirts of Florence, according to city officials and the company that ran the facility. The cause of the explosion had not yet been determined, the company said.The death toll could rise, as three workers at the depot in the town of Calenzano remained unaccounted for, the officials said. The explosion occurred around 10:20 a.m. Television images showed a huge plume of black smoke rising from the site.ENI, the Italian energy company that owns the depot, said in a statement that the explosion had been confined to a loading area and a resulting fire had not spread to nearby tanks.Italy’s minister for civil protection, Nello Musumeci, said on social media that rescue workers were deployed immediately after the explosion. Local hospitals were put on high alert.Teams of firefighters arrived from Florence and surrounding towns, as well as units from nearby airports, and they managed to put out the fire “quickly, given the situation,” said Luca Cari, a spokesman for Italy’s firefighters.Italy’s national civil protection agency issued an SMS text alert to residents within about three miles of the site, advising them to remain indoors and stay clear of the facility.Officials in Calenzano urged citizens to close their windows and limit outdoor activities. Two days of mourning were announced for Monday and Tuesday. All municipal events were canceled for both days.The mayor of Florence, Sara Funaro, described the situation as “very, very bad,” and said in a statement that the city would offer psychological assistance to the families of the victims.“In these moments,” she said, “we must think of the families who are the first to be affected; we have to be close to them.”Luca Tescaroli, the chief prosecutor of the nearby city of Prato, said in a statement that his office would open a case to determine the causes of the explosion and whether anyone should be held accountable, Italian media reported. More

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      Notre-Dame Holds First Public Mass in Years: ‘Fire Has Not Conquered Stone’

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      Sunday was the first opportunity for worshipers to return to the cathedral, beloved by the faithful and secular alike, since the 2019 fire that devastated it.Many Parisians can tell you exactly what they were doing when they heard that Notre-Dame was burning five years ago.Many of them instinctively rushed toward the building, and lined the Seine River to watch in horror as flames devoured the ancient lead roof, sending the 19th-century wooden spire tumbling down, punching holes through the vaults and burning the pews below.Some dropped to their knees and prayed, but the cathedral is not just a sanctuary for the faithful. Nor — its millions of visitors a year notwithstanding — is it just a tourist attraction. Notre-Dame, as the crowds of stricken Parisians testified to on that April 2019 day, is the heart of their city, part of the essential fabric of its identity, and a part of them.Notre-Dame is, however, first and foremost a church, and on Sunday evening, worshipers returned there as its first regular Mass was celebrated below the soaring stone arches — the old ones indistinguishable from the new.Seats for the Mass were in great demand.Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times“Five years after its destruction, here it stands again, ready to welcome the prayers of the faithful, to welcome the heart, the cry of the heart of all those who come here from all over the world,” Msgr.Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, rector of the cathedral, declared in his opening remarks. “Fire has not conquered stone, despair has not conquered life.”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