Jordan Fletcher

By the Numbers: A rising fatality rate.The illness is caused by infection with a bacterium called Neisseria meningitidis. Last year, 422 cases of invasive meningococcal disease were reported in the United States, the highest number since 2014, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.But as of Monday, 143 cases have been reported to the C.D.C. so far this year, 62 more than the number of cases reported last year during the same period.The illness is extremely dangerous. Even with appropriate treatment, 10 to 15 percent of patients who develop meningococcal disease will die. Many recent cases were caused…

OAKLAND — The quarterback wasn’t there. No mention of his name across two hours. Maybe there was no need.The mere prospect of a pairing had already served its purpose — driving news cycles, stirring speculation, drumming up intrigue around a longshot bid for the White House by an outsider intent on defying political norms. But Aaron Rodgers running for Vice President of the United States?This not only defied political norms, it strained credulity.It was all but impossible to envision Rodgers balancing the rigors of his day job as quarterback of the New York Jets with a high-stakes political campaign, particularly…

A singer known for her mastery of standards, she found stardom in Canada on TV and in nightclubs. But she was virtually unknown in the United States. More information

The phone awakened Doug Nordman at 3 a.m. A surgeon was calling from a hospital in Grand Junction, Colo., where Mr. Nordman’s father had arrived at the emergency room, incoherent and in pain, and then lost consciousness.At first, the staff had thought he was suffering a heart attack, but a CT scan found that part of his small intestine had been perforated. A surgical team repaired the hole, saving his life, but the surgeon had some questions.“Was your father an alcoholic?” he asked. The doctors had found Dean Nordman malnourished, his peritoneal cavity “awash with alcohol.”The younger Mr. Nordman, a…

A U.S. District judge in Florida sentenced a convicted sex offender to 220 years in federal prison for producing, receiving and possessing child sex abuse material, and for hacking the jumbotron in the Jacksonville Jaguars’ stadium after the team did not renew his contract upon learning that he was a registered sex offender.U.S. District Judge Brian J. Davis sentenced Samuel Arthur Thompson, 53, for the offenses Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida said in a release. A federal jury convicted Thompson in November 2023 of the offenses, as well as of producing child sex abuse…

Some members of the royal family, particularly the princes and princesses of its younger generation, are easy to slot into that victim role. They are wealthy, famous and photogenic, and their roles in public life make them beloved to many.Catherine, particularly, was a ready-made focus for a conspiracy narrative, not only because she is glamorous and widely liked in Britain (helped by favorable coverage in the tabloid press), but also because she has been more private about her life than many other royals. “Kate’s signature has been her composure, her discretion,” Arianne Chernock, a historian at Boston University who studies…

The Biden administration announced on Thursday that it had finalized a new regulation that curbs the use of short-term health insurance plans that do not comply with the Affordable Care Act, reversing a move by the Trump administration to give consumers more access to cheaper but skimpier plans.Under the new rule, the short-term plans will be able to last for only 90 days, with an option for a one-month extension.In 2018, the Trump administration issued a rule allowing the plans to last for just under a year, with the option of renewing them for a total duration of up to…

More than 40 members of Ukraine’s national-team party were spread around the centre circle of Wroclaw’s Tarczynski Arena.Players, coaches and backroom staff locked their gaze on the 30,000 spectators sporting blue and yellow as they revved up their version of the Viking thunderclap. Iceland, the architects of that celebration during the 2016 European Championship, could only listen in despair having lost this Euro 2024 play-off final to a late strike from Chelsea forward Mykhailo Mudryk.Strangers embraced. Families posed for photographs draped in Ukraine flags. Others video-called, possibly home to war-torn Ukraine, sharing the moment with others unable to experience first-hand…

First, it was María Corina Machado, a popular former legislator. Then, it was supposed to be Corina Yoris, a little-known philosophy professor. Now, an opposition coalition has put forward a former diplomat, Edmundo González, as their third candidate to run against President Nicolás Maduro in elections scheduled in July.That is, at least for now.The coalition of opposing political parties, the Democratic Unity Roundtable, has been hoping for months to unite behind a single candidate who could make a viable challenger to Mr. Maduro.But as the rapidly shifting lineup of potential candidates makes clear, the Maduro government has been putting up…

Killer whales are some of the most cosmopolitan creatures on the planet, swimming through every one of the world’s oceans. They patrol the frigid waters near both poles and periodically pop up in the tropics, in locations from western Africa to Hawaii.Although their habitats and habits vary widely, all killer whales are considered part of a single, global species: Orcinus orca. (Despite their common name, killer whales are actually part of a family of marine mammals known as oceanic dolphins.)Now, scientists have drawn upon decades of research to suggest that two killer whale populations often observed off the Pacific Coast…