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    In Crisis With Iran, U.S. Military Officials Focus on Strait of Hormuz

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    Pentagon officials are trying to prepare for all of the ways Iran could retaliate, as President Trump hints at what he might do.Iran retains the naval assets and other capabilities it would need to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, a move that could pin any U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf, American military officials say.In meetings at the White House, senior military officials have raised the need to prepare for that possibility, after Iranian officials threatened to mine the strait if the United States joined Israel’s attacks on the country.Pentagon officials are considering all of the ways Iran could retaliate, as President Trump cryptically hints at what he might do, saying on Wednesday that he had not made a final decision.In several days of attacks, Israel has targeted Iranian military sites and state-sponsored entities, as well as high-ranking generals. It has taken out many of Iran’s ballistic missiles, though Iran still has hundreds of them, U.S. defense officials said.But Israel has steered clear of Iranian naval assets. So while Iran’s ability to respond has been severely damaged, it has robust a navy and maintains operatives across the region, where the United States has more than 40,000 troops. Iran also has an array of mines that its navy could lay in the Strait of Hormuz.The narrow 90-mile waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the open ocean is a key shipping route. A quarter of the world’s oil passes through it, so mining the choke-point would cause gas prices to soar.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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      In Appalachia, a Father Got Black Lung. Then His Son Did, Too.

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      Denver Brock and his son Aundra used to spend early mornings hunting rabbits in the wooded highlands of Harlan County, Ky. But they don’t get out there much these days. They both get too breathless trying to follow the baying hounds.Instead, they tend a large garden alongside Denver Brock’s home. Even that can prove difficult, requiring them to work slowly and take frequent breaks.“You get so dizzy,” Denver Brock said, “you can’t hardly stand up.”The Brocks followed a long family tradition when they became Appalachian coal miners. For it, they both now have coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, a debilitating disease characterized by masses and scarred tissue in the chest, and better known by its colloquial name: black lung.Mr. Brock, 73, wasn’t all that surprised when he was diagnosed in his mid-60s. In coal mining communities, black lung has long been considered an “old man’s disease,” one to be almost expected after enough years underground.But his son was diagnosed much younger, at just 41. Like his father, he has progressive massive fibrosis, the most severe form of the disease. And today, at 48, he’s even sicker.When he followed his father into mining, he thought he was entering a safer industry than the one prior generations had worked in. By the 1990s, safety standards and miner protections had nearly consigned the disease to history.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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      Trump’s Trade and Tax Policies Start to Stall U.S. Battery Boom

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      Battery companies are slowing construction or reconsidering big investments in the United States because of tariffs on China and the proposed rollback of tax credits.Battery manufacturing began to take off in the United States in recent years after Congress and the Biden administration offered the industry generous incentives.But that boom now appears to be stalling as the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers try to restrict China’s access to the American market.From South Carolina to Washington State, companies are slowing construction or reconsidering big investments in factories for producing rechargeable batteries and the ingredients needed to make them.A big reason for that is higher trade barriers between the United States and China are fracturing relationships between suppliers and customers in the two countries. At the same time, Republicans are seeking to block battery makers with ties to China, as well as those that rely on any Chinese technology or materials, from taking advantage of federal tax credits. The industry is also dealing with a softening market for electric vehicles, which Republicans and Mr. Trump have targeted. The China-related restrictions — included in the version of Mr. Trump’s domestic policy bill passed by the House — would be very difficult for many companies to operate under. China is the world’s top battery manufacturer and makes nearly all of certain components.The Trump policy bill highlights a difficult dilemma. The United States wants to create a homegrown battery industry and greatly reduce its dependence on China — and many Republican lawmakers want to end it altogether. But China is already so dominant in this industry that it will be incredibly hard for the United States to become a meaningful player without working with Chinese companies.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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      Sebastião Salgado: A Life in Pictures

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      From the small town in the Brazilian countryside where he was born, Sebastião Salgado, the renowned photojournalist who died on Friday at 81, traveled the world many times over, documenting the plight of workers and chasing the grandeur, diversity and, ultimately, fragility of nature.In photographs — most often in richly contrasting black and white — Mr. Salgado brought viewers to famine-stricken refugee camps in Ethiopia, to a hive of toiling gold miners in Brazil, to firefighters battling burning oil fields in Kuwait, and to chinstrap penguins sliding down ice slopes in the Sandwich Islands.Mr. Salgado had a gift for bringing together, often in a single frame, the immediacy of individual human suffering and the enormity of the dire realities that he documented. His photographs, frequently displayed in museums and galleries, often show a figure standing against the horizon. Cloud-filled skies are reflected on the surface of a river in the Amazon rainforest. Rays of heavenly light pour down onto mountain landscapes in the tundra, signaling to the viewer that this place is divine.This is the world Mr. Salgado left us: beautiful, fragile, sacred. Here is a selection of his work.Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images, via Contact Press Images/Peter Fetterman GalleryRefugees in the Korem camp in Ethiopia, 1984.Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images, via Contact Press Images/Peter Fetterman GalleryThe Rwandan refugee camp in Benako, Tanzania, in 1994. Right, children inside the Kimumba camp in Goma, Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images, via Contact Press Images/Peter Fetterman GalleryWorkers in a gold mine in the northern Brazilian state of Pará in 1986. Some of Mr. Salgado’s most famous images were of workers climbing from the bottom of the mine to the dumping ground at the top while carrying 30 kilos of soil on slick ladders.Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images, via Contact Press Images/Peter Fetterman GalleryChurchgate Station in Mumbai, India, in 1995. Mr. Salgado published “Migrations” in 2000, a series documenting the mass migration of people forced to leave their homes by war or economic hardship.Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images, via Contact Press Images/Peter Fetterman GalleryChemical sprays protect this firefighter against the flames from a burning oil well in Kuwait in April 1991. Mr. Saldado’s photo essay “The Kuwaiti Inferno” was published in The New York Times Magazine in June 1991.Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images, via Contact Press Images/Peter Fetterman GalleryMembers of the Safety Boss Company of Canada worked to plug damaged oil wells, an effort to repair damage done by Iraqi troops.Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images, via Contact Press Images/Peter Fetterman GalleryMr. Salgado had been traveling for his epic ecological work “Genesis,” a series about the effects of human activities on the environment.Photographs by Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images, via Contact Press Images/Peter Fetterman GalleryMr. Salgado spent years traveling across the Amazon, capturing arresting images of vast rivers and rainforests while documenting the impact of development on natural landscapes and Indigenous communities.Photographs by Sebastião Salgado/Amazonas Images, via Contact Press Images/Peter Fetterman GalleryMembers of the Yanomami tribe from the community of Maturacá in 2014, looking out to the mountain vegetation on the flanks of Pico da Neblina, or Mist Peak. The Yanomami believe their most important spirits inhabit these mountains, which were long occupied by hundreds of gold diggers, until 1992, when the Brazilian Army expelled all of them. The tribe keeps watch over the region for potential intruders. A shaman, chanting and dancing, prepared the expedition up to the peak. More

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      Ukraine and U.S. Sign Agreement in Lead-Up to Full Minerals Deal

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      The signed memorandum of understanding was thin on details, and the White House did not comment. But President Trump has said he expects to sign a minerals deal with Kyiv soon.Ukraine and the United States signed a memorandum of understanding late on Thursday as a “step toward a joint economic partnership agreement,” according to Ukraine’s economy minister, bringing both sides closer to a minerals deal that has gone through multiple, contentious rounds of negotiations.The agreement was thin on details. While it referred to the creation of a fund that would invest in reconstruction in Ukraine — which has been devastated by the war Russia has waged since a full-scale invasion in 2022 — it did not specify the source of such revenue.There was no immediate comment from the White House. But the Ukrainian minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, who is also deputy prime minister, announced the agreement in a post on Facebook, after signing it on a video call with the U.S. Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, who was in Washington. Ms. Svyrydenko said the agreement would “benefit both our peoples.”Mr. Bessent, in his own comments on Thursday afternoon, did not mention he had signed the memorandum but said he expected a full deal next week.Yulia Svyrydenko, the Ukrainian economy minister, announced the signing of a memorandum of agreement with the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent.Angelo Carconi/EPA, via ShutterstockEarlier drafts of a minerals deal had swiveled between what critics called a brazen extortion of Ukraine by the Trump administration and versions that included points sought by Ukraine, such as references to U.S. support for post-settlement security guarantees.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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      Gold Mine Collapse in Mali Kills at Least 43

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      The accident took place in an open-pit area people had gone into in search of gold. Informal mining is a common and dangerous practice in much of West Africa.At least 43 people, mostly women, were killed after an informal gold mine collapsed in western Mali on Saturday, the head of an industry union said.The accident took place near the town of Kéniéba in Mali’s gold-rich Kayes region, Taoule Camara, the secretary general of the national union of gold counters and refineries, told Reuters. The women had climbed down into open-pit areas left by industrial miners to look for scraps of gold when the earth collapsed around them, he said.A mines ministry representative confirmed the accident had taken place between the towns of Kenieba and Dabia, but declined to give further details, as ministry teams at the scene had not yet shared their report.Informal mining, also known as artisanal mining, is a common activity across much of West Africa and has become more lucrative in recent years because of a growing demand for metals and rising prices. Deadly accidents are frequent, as such miners often use unregulated methods and work in unsafe conditions.Thirteen artisanal miners, including women and three children, died in southwest Mali in late January, after a tunnel in which they were digging for gold flooded. More

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      Ukraine Rejects U.S. Demand for Half of Its Mineral Resources

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      President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly faulted the American offer, which is tied to continued aid, because it did not include security guarantees.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, during a closed-door meeting on Wednesday, rejected an offer by the Trump administration to relinquish half of the country’s mineral resources in exchange for U.S. support, according to five people briefed on the proposal or with direct knowledge of the talks.The unusual deal would have granted the United States a 50 percent interest in all of Ukraine’s mineral resources, including graphite, lithium and uranium, as compensation for past and future support in Kyiv’s war effort against Russian invaders, according to two European officials. A Ukrainian official and an energy expert briefed on the proposal said that the Trump administration also sought Ukrainian energy resources.Negotiations are continuing, according to another Ukrainian official, who, like the others, spoke on the condition of anonymity given the sensitivity of the talks. But the expansiveness of the proposal, and the tense negotiations around it, demonstrate the widening chasm between Kyiv and Washington over both continued U.S. support and a potential end to the war.The request for half of Ukraine’s minerals was made on Wednesday, when the U.S. Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, met with Mr. Zelensky in Kyiv, the first visit by a Trump administration official to Ukraine. The Treasury Department declined to comment about any negotiation.After seeing the proposal, the Ukrainians decided to review the details and provide a counterproposal when Mr. Zelensky visited the Munich Security Conference on Friday and met with Vice President JD Vance, according to the official.It is not clear if a counterproposal was presented.Mr. Zelensky, speaking to reporters in Munich on Saturday, acknowledged he had rejected a proposal from the Trump administration. He did not specify what the terms of the deal were, other than to say that it had not included security guarantees from Washington.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 an Iranian Mine Kills Dozens, State Media Says

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      A methane leak set off the explosion, the country’s official media said, and a rescue effort was underway for those believed to be trapped in the mine.A methane explosion at a coal mine in eastern Iran killed dozens of miners, and the death toll was expected to rise, Iranian state media said on Sunday.The miners died of suffocation from the rapid release of methane and carbon monoxide, according to a report by Iran’s state news agency, IRNA. IRNA, which said earlier Sunday that 51 miners had been killed, later put the figure at 34. Other state media had estimates of the number of people killed that ranged from 30 to 51.At the time of the explosion on Saturday, in the eastern Iranian city of Tabas, there were 69 workers in the mine, IRNA said.Many may still be trapped, according to Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.It was not possible to independently verify details of the incident.Officials say they are trying to work quickly to rescue the workers trapped in the mine, which is operated by the Madanjo Company, according to the Fars news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran ordered an investigation into the explosion, IRNA reported. Mohammad-Ali Akhondi, a crisis management official, urged caution about the rescue efforts, IRNA reported.“The reality is that it is a difficult task to rescue the injured,” he said, according to IRNA. The report said rescuers would need to go about 2,300 feet diagonally and 820 feet vertically underground to reach the trapped workers.Industrial accidents are common in Iran, and many construction and mining sites operate with outdated and inadequate materials.In 2017, dozens of miners were killed and many were hurt after an explosion at a coal mine near the northern Iranian town of Azadshahr, in the Golestan Province. More

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      Biden Bans Chinese Bitcoin Mine Near U.S. Nuclear Missile Base

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      An investigation identified national security risks posed by a crypto facility in Wyoming. It is near an Air Force base and a data center doing work for the Pentagon.President Biden on Monday ordered a company with Chinese origins to shut down and sell the Wyoming cryptocurrency mine it built a mile from an Air Force base that controls nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles.The cryptomining facility, which operates high-powered computers in a data center near the F.E. Warren base in Cheyenne, “presents a national security risk to the United States,” the president said in an executive order, because its equipment could be used for surveillance and espionage.The New York Times reported last October that Microsoft, which operates a nearby data center supporting the Pentagon, had flagged the Chinese-connected cryptocurrency mine to the federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, warning that it could enable the Chinese to “pursue full-spectrum intelligence collection operations.” An investigation by the committee identified risks to national security, according to the president’s order.The order did not detail those risks. But Microsoft’s report to the federal committee, obtained last year by The Times, said, “We suggest the possibility that the computing power of an industrial-level cryptomining operation, along with the presence of an unidentified number of Chinese nationals in direct proximity to Microsoft’s Data Center and one of three strategic-missile bases in the U.S., provides significant threat vectors.”Now, the mine must immediately cease operations, and the owners must remove all their equipment within 90 days and sell or transfer the property within 120 days, according to the order, which cites the risks of the facility’s “foreign-sourced” mining equipment. A vast majority of the machinery powering cryptomining operations across the United States is manufactured by Chinese companies.Cryptomining operations are housed in large warehouses or shipping containers packed with specialized computers that typically run around the clock, performing trillions of calculations per second, hunting for a sequence of numbers that will reward them with new cryptocurrency. The most common is Bitcoin, currently worth more than $60,000 apiece. Crypto mines consume an enormous amount of electricity: At full capacity, the one in Cheyenne would draw as much power as 55,000 homes.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