As climbing makes its Olympics debut at #Tokyo2020, the Czech athlete Adam Ondra enters the Games as the sport’s biggest star. He is the rare climber who can be considered the world’s most accomplished in both outdoor and competition climbing. nyti.ms/3lo8Wki
Ondra is the reigning world champion in lead climbing and the only one to win the world championship in lead and bouldering in the same year. Alex Honnold, who was featured in the documentary "Free Solo," called him "the best climber in the world." nyti.ms/3lo8Wk
Ondra has won three of the past four world championships in lead climbing.
We used motion-capture technology to explore two classic moves Ondra might have to use to navigate the Olympic lead wall: a drop knee and a ninja kick. nyti.ms/3lo8Wki
A contentious decision by Olympic organizers may make it difficult for the world’s best climber to win a medal. In Tokyo, equal weight will be given to speed climbing, a fringe event that is by far Ondra's weakest. nyti.ms/3lo8Wki
Athletes have criticized the decision to include speed climbing because speed specialists rarely competed in bouldering and lead before the Games, just as Ondra never bothered with speed. Now speed climbing will count a full third toward the gold medal. nyti.ms/3lo8Wki
Ondra has tried to shave whatever fractions of a second he can from his speed time. But he knows he has to do very well in lead climbing and bouldering if he wants to win a medal.
We deconstructed his climbing technique in videos and graphics. nyti.ms/3lo8Wki
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The reactions from Republicans in Congress to Donald Trump’s documents indictment have ranged from the rare acknowledgments that he may have committed a crime to more extreme statements like comparing the U.S. to a dictatorship under Joe Biden. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
Of the 271 Republicans in the House and Senate, more than half have issued statements or commented on social media about the indictment.
A small number have made statements about the indictment that did not immediately dismiss the investigation. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
At least 100 Republicans, from across the party’s ideological spectrum, have questioned the circumstances around the indictment, the timing of its release or a perceived unfairness in how the law has been applied. nytimes.com/interactive/20…
America’s fragmented electric grid, which was largely built to accommodate coal and gas plants, is becoming a major obstacle to efforts to fight climate change. nyti.ms/3p7DWJg
We often talk about the grid like a single, cohesive machine. But, in reality, there are three grids in the U.S — one in the West, one in the East and one in Texas — that only connect at a few points and share little power between them. nyti.ms/3p7DWJg
Those grids are further divided into a patchwork of operators with competing interests — a fractured system that makes it hard to build the long-distance power lines needed to transport wind and solar nationwide. nyti.ms/3p7DWJg
The relentless noisiness of daily life is more than annoying — it can have lasting effects on the body. Noise is an under-recognized health threat that increases the risk of hypertension, stroke and heart attacks. nyti.ms/3MYGtO1
The New York Times measured noise exposure in rural Mississippi, New York City, and suburban California and New Jersey, and consulted more than 30 scientists to examine how noise could take years off your life. nyti.ms/3MYGtO1
When unpleasant noise enters your body through your ears, it is relayed to the stress detection center in your brain, which triggers a cascade of reactions. Your nervous, endocrine and cardiovascular systems are among the areas negatively affected. nyti.ms/3MYGtO1
Trillions of dollars in family wealth are set to be passed down in the next few years — and the transfer will largely reinforce U.S. inequality. nyti.ms/3W312gr
Total family wealth in the U.S. has tripled since 1989, reaching $140 trillion in 2022.
Of the $84 trillion projected to be passed down from older Americans to millennial and Gen X heirs through 2045, $16 trillion will be transferred in the next decade. nyti.ms/3W312gr
The top 10% of households will be giving and receiving a majority of the wealth. The top 1% — with about as much wealth as the bottom 90%, — will dictate the broadest share of the money flow. The bottom 50% will account for 8% of transfers. nyti.ms/3W312gr
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s longtime incumbent leader, will head to a presidential election runoff for the first time in his career after falling short of the 50% needed to win in national elections on Sunday. nyti.ms/3M0eQ6G
Erdogan still had the most votes, including more than the opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, as of Monday. But the provinces that contain Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey’s two largest cities, voted for Kilicdaroglu after both voted for Erdogan in 2018. nyti.ms/3M0eQ6G
Erdogan appears to have the edge as he heads into the runoff. Even so, almost every part of the country shifted against him compared with the presidential election in 2018, according to preliminary results from a state news organization. nyti.ms/3M0eQ6G
A group of conservative operatives used robocalls to raise millions of dollars using pro-police and pro-veteran messages. But a New York Times analysis shows that nearly all the money went to pay the callers and themselves. nyti.ms/42SaxkL
Since 2014, a group of nonprofits has pulled in $89 million from donors who were pitched on building political support for police officers, veterans and firefighters. But just 1% of the money was used to that end according to our findings. nyti.ms/3Ibq2w9
About 90% of the money the groups raised was simply sent back to their fund-raising contractors, to feed a self-consuming loop where donations were spent to find more donors. The contractors had no significant operations other than fund-raising. nyti.ms/3Ibq2w9