11 MOSCOW — The tally of new coronavirus infections in the Russian capital rose more than 1,000 from the previous day as Moscow heads into a week in which many businesses will be closed under a mayoral order. The national coronavirus taskforce said Sunday that 7,704 new infection cases were recorded, continuing a steep spike that has alarmed city officials. At the beginning of June, Moscow was recording about 2900 new cases a day. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin on Saturday ordered businesses that do not operate on weekends to remain “non-working” through the end of this week and closed food courts and children's play areas. He also ordered restaurants and bars to be limited to takeout service from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Nationwide, 14,723 new infections were reported Sunday, about 1200 more than a day earlier. Overall, Russia has reported about 5.2 million infections and 126,000 deaths. ___ MORE ON … [Read more...]

Yes, housing prices are up, and yes, there is a shortage of home listings. It’s simple supply and demand — anyone looking to buy a home in the U.S. will tell you it’s been a tough year. But as the pandemic has begun to recede, there’s been some improvement, according to a report on the April 2021 housing market by Realtor.com : The number of newly listed homes increased by about 33 percent over last April, and by 43 percent in large metropolitan areas. That’s still not nearly enough to meet demand, in part because homes have been selling so quickly. In April, a U.S. home typically sat on the market for 43 days before being bought, whereas a year ago it took about 63 days, and in the three years before that it took about 61 days. As a result, the total inventory of listings in April was still down 53 percent year over year, helping to raise the median list price of U.S. homes to a record $375,000, according to Realtor.com. Of course, not every city or region has seen similar buyer … [Read more...]

A record 32 million American adults were living with their parents or grandparents in April, according to the Current Population Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau, an increase of 9.7 percent over a year ago. The data, analyzed by Zillow researchers , showed that 2.7 million adults moved back home in March and April, and that about 2.2 million of them were aged 18 to 25 — also known as Generation Z. The trend began well before the pandemic for what has been called the “boomerang generation,” and these returning adult children and their parents have been known to clash as they face the challenges of navigating their new adult relationships . Landlords, however, have a problem that family meetings can’t solve: lost rent. Gen Zers who returned to their childhood bedrooms in March and April represent lost rental revenue of $726 million a month, the survey shows. While that figure is only 1.4 percent of the total U.S. rental market, losses affect some landlords and areas … [Read more...]

11 CARBIS BAY, England — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson says Britain wants further investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, but that at the moment the country doesn’t believe it came from a lab. Speaking at the end of the Group of Seven summit in southwest England, Johnson says that while it doesn’t look as if this particular disease came from a lab, the world needs to “keep an open mind.” Though the notion was once dismissed by most public health experts and government officials, the hypothesis that COVID-19 leaked accidentally from a Chinese lab is now under a new U.S. investigation ordered by President Joe Biden. The G-7 leaders endorsed calls for a “timely, transparent, expert-led, and science-based” further investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. Many scientists still believe the virus most likely jumped from animals to humans. ___ MORE ON THE PANDEMIC: … [Read more...]

WASHINGTON - Some may be familiar with mythical sea monsters. For example, Scotland’s infamous Loch Ness Monster “Nessie,” and Giganto -- fictional beasts of comic book fame. But millions of years ago, real-life sea monsters lived and thrived in what we now call the South Atlantic Ocean. South Atlantic Ocean basin As the continents of South America and Africa separated millions of years ago, scientists say a fantastic array of ferocious predators and other lifeforms colonized the newly formed body of water off the coast of Angola. That diverse collection of marine reptiles included mosasaurs (aquatic lizards), plesiosaurs (which exhibited broad flat bodies, large paddlelike limbs, and typically a long flexible neck and small head), and the more familiar giant sea turtles. But a catastrophic asteroid that hit earth 66 million years ago wiped most of them out, according to scientists. Ancient fossils ?Today, thanks to a project called Projecto PaleoAngola among … [Read more...]

To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android . In the 10 years since Chris Torres created Nyan Cat , an animated flying cat with a Pop-Tart body leaving a rainbow trail, the meme has been viewed and shared across the web hundreds of millions of times. On Thursday, he put a one-of-a-kind version of it up for sale on Foundation , a website for buying and selling digital goods. In the final hour of the auction, there was a bidding war. Nyan Cat was sold to a user identified only by a cryptocurrency wallet number. The price? Roughly $580,000. Mr. Torres was left breathless. “I feel like I’ve opened the floodgates,” he said in an interview on Friday. The sale was a new high point in a fast-growing market for ownership rights to digital art, ephemera and media called NFTs , or “ nonfungible tokens .” The buyers are usually not acquiring copyrights, trademarks or even the sole ownership of whatever it is … [Read more...]