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Women’s World Cup Scores and Updates

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Aoba Fujino, right, helped Japan make its case as one of the top teams in this field.Credit…Lars Baron/Getty Images

Two games. Seven goals scored. None allowed.

Japan has arrived at the World Cup with its foot on the gas and emerged with two easy wins. Four days after opening with a 5-0 thrashing of Zambia, Japan dispatched Costa Rica, 2-0, with goals three minutes apart midway through the first half.

Hikaru Naomoto and Aoba Fujino did the honors on Wednesday, becoming the fifth and sixth players to score for Japan in its first two games. But it has been the manner in which Japan has won — with an abundance of speed and technical ability and a defense that has surrendered only two shots on target through two games — that raise an intriguing question:

Might be time to start including Japan, a World Cup champion only a decade ago, in the conversation about which team might win this year’s tournament? Japan’s coach, Futoshi Ikeda, raised the prospect after his team’s opening win. Its second will not change his opinion.

“We have these players who have grown up seeing Japan become world champions,” Ikeda told reporters after the Zambia game. “We would like to take up the challenge again to be champions.”

It has been more than a decade since Japan won the 2011 World Cup, beating the United States. But its fortunes faded after that: Routed by the United States in the 2015 final, Japan was eliminated in the round of 16 four years ago.

Few experts had included them on the growing list of title contenders in this year’s expanded tournament. Now Japan (along with Spain) is one of the first teams through to the knockouts: Spain’s 5-0 victory against Zambia on Wednesday sent both Japan and Spain on to the round of 16.

Their meeting to close the group stage on Monday might offer a good guide of which team can truly take aim at the title.

Adriana Leon raising her arms after scoring what would be the winning goal for Canada in its game against Ireland.
Adriana Leon of Canada scored her country’s winning goal against Ireland in the second half of the game.Credit…Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters

Ireland had notions of a first World Cup win on Wednesday, but it was ultimately Canada that came out on top, 2-1, ending Ireland’s hopes of advancing further in the tournament.

After being held scoreless in a draw with Nigeria to start the World Cup, Canada was able to finally get points on the board with an own goal late in the first half and a second-half strike from Adriana Leon.

The own goal in the 49th minute, which tied the game and gave Canada a needed boost, capped a frenetic first half in which it seemed everything had gone Ireland’s way as rain poured down in Perth, Australia.

Canada entered this World Cup as the reigning gold medalist from the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. But the Canadians have only advanced past the round of 16 in the World Cup once, and have been hoping this time for a deeper run. Those plans got off to a rocky start against Nigeria and looked to be even more in doubt early against Ireland.

Ireland’s first-ever World Cup goal came in style. The Irish captain, Katie McCabe, stepped up for a corner kick in the fourth minute and let fly a curving, left-footed shot that found the upper left corner of the goal, just over the outstretched hands of Canadian goaltender Kailen Sheridan.

Scoring directly from a corner kick is rare — a feat known colloquially in the sport as an Olimpico. Megan Rapinoe, the U.S. star, has scored two such goals, both during the Olympics themselves.

The second half was all Canada, which dominated possession of the ball.

Canada, with the win, put itself back in prime position to reach the round of 16, though Australia’s game against Nigeria on Thursday will make clear what each of those teams need out of their third game. Ireland, with two losses, will not advance.

Alba Redondo, left, of Spain scores her team’s fifth goal during their Group C match against Zambia in Auckland, New Zealand on Wednesday.
Credit…Buda Mendes/Getty Images

Spain and Japan seem to to be trying to one-up another from afar. Soon, they’ll get a direct showdown to see who emerges from their group with the more favorable path in the knockout stages (Spain, with one more goal than Japan, has a slight advantage in that it would finish first in the case of a draw).

Soon after Japan beat Costa Rica, Spain pounced on Zambia, relentlessly attacking a team that was down to its third-string goalkeeper and clearly overwhelmed defensively.

Of course, some shots were just unstoppable no matter what, like a laser shot from the right foot of Teresa Abelleira that caught a tight corner of the goal.

Alexia Putellas, the reigning world player of the year, returned to start in this game after coming in as a substitute in Spain’s first match, an important step for Spain as it tries to ramp up her play.

Many fans have been looking ahead to the showdown between Spain and Japan, which is scheduled for Monday. That will likely be a contest to determine who wins Group C, though both teams are threats to make even deeper runs.

Japan’s five goals were the headline from its opening win against Zambia, and it followed that up by overwhelming Costa Rica on Wednesday, 2-0.

Rose Lavelle jumping for a ball against Danielle van de Donk of the Netherlands during the World Cup final in 2019.
Rose Lavelle of the United States is playing it cool before her team’s big showdown with the Netherlands.Credit…Maja Hitij/Getty Images

Rose Lavelle is certainly aware that Wednesday’s match against the Netherlands at the Women’s World Cup is a big deal.

The game is a rematch of the 2019 World Cup final, won by the United States, and of a meeting between the teams in the quarterfinals of the Tokyo Olympics, also won by the United States. Its result most likely will determine which team will finish first in the Group E, and thus which one will get an easier path in the knockout stages.

For all those reasons, for all that history, for all the stars on both teams, the game is, by definition, a big deal. But Lavelle runs on one setting: chill. So at a news conference on Tuesday in Wellington, Lavelle offered brief answers about her status (“I’m ready”), her health (“good”) and her maturation into a starring role on the U.S. team (“I’m just … me”).

She gave no indication that she considered the big game a bigger deal than any other. She predicted, in fact, that it would be “fun.”

About the only revelations in 30 minutes of questions and answers alongside Coach Vlatko Andonovski was that Lavelle might be in for a more prominent role against the Netherlands — her presence at the pregame news conference alone suggested she might be in for a start — and that Lavelle considers quite a few things to be “fun.”

Among them:

  • The U.S. team’s win over the Netherlands in the 2019 World Cup final.

  • Her memory of that game.

  • Thursday’s rematch against the Dutch.

  • Watching World Cups.

  • Playing in World Cups.

  • Scoring a goal in the World Cup final.

Yes, Lavelle said that scoring the clinching goal for the United States in the World Cup final was fun, one of nine times she used the word in her news conference. And in her defense, that goal in 2019 looked like a lot fun: a full-speed straight through the Dutch defense, a cutback to split two defenders, a low shot rocketed into the corner of the goal with her left foot, a celebration of a lifetime goal achieved.

The goal remains one of the touchstone moments of Lavelle’s career. But asked if it had changed her life, or her, in any way, she seemed to shrug.

“I always say I think I would have expected a moment like that to feel like I’m different, or change me,” she said. “But I don’t really feel like it did. It was a goal and it was fun, but, I don’t know, I feel like I’m still just, me.”

One of the most highly anticipated matchups of this World Cup comes with huge stakes, since it most likely will determine which of these teams has an easier path out of Group E. But it comes off unsatisfying performances by both the United States (in a 3-0 win over Vietnam) and the Netherlands (1-0 against Portugal) in their opening games.

“We weren’t always clicking on the field,” the United States co-captain Alex Morgan said this week.

The Americans figure to have a tougher task against the Dutch. The Netherlands beat its first opponent, Portugal, by only a single goal, but did not allow a shot on target until the 82nd minute. And therein lies the problem facing the United States: that sturdiness, discipline and organization will be tough to break down.

Their game is scheduled for Thursday afternoon in New Zealand, or 9 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday.

Mathilde Harviken and Ingrid Syrstad Engen of Norway slap hands after a scoreless draw with Switzerland.
Norway’s first job in its third game? Win.Credit…Buda Mendes/Getty Images

Norway is in about the worst position it could have imagined going into its third game of the Women’s World Cup: It has a loss and a draw; its best player, the 2018 Ballon d’Or winner Ada Hegerberg, did not play on Tuesday because of discomfort she felt during warm-ups; and one of its most respected midfielders, Caroline Graham Hansen, tore into her coach after the game for dropping her from the lineup.

“People talk all the time about ‘standing together as a team’ and ‘standing together as a nation,’” Graham Hansen told the Norwegian broadcaster Viaplay after the game. “It is not true that you should get anything for free in this life. But I thought I had earned a certain amount of respect.”

Still, because of a strange set of results in its group, in which every team but the Norwegians has a win, Norway is very much in play to go from last in the Group A standings to the round of 16 if it can beat the Philippines on Sunday.

The scenarios for advancing at the World Cup can often be convoluted, but we’re here to help. The Upshot has again produced a team-by-team look at who would move on given the possible outcomes for each game, accounting for the complex system of tiebreakers that comes into play each tournament.

The charts show, for example, that Norway — which entered the tournament as the top team in its group based on the FIFA rankings — could use a bit of help from Switzerland. And, conversely, the math shows that Switzerland probably might want Norway to win, too, to give the Swiss some chances to advance even with a loss. New Zealand and the Philippines each can advance with a win, but also with a draw, depending on how things play out.

These scenarios will be updated as each group wraps up its second set of games, giving you an immediate look at what each team will need in its final group-stage game to advance to the knockout rounds.

Travel Tips and How-Tos for Your Next Solo or Group Adventure

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Flight delays and cancellations are unfortunate inevitabilities, especially in summer, when more people are flying and severe weather tends to occur more frequently.

How can you get your trip back on track when things go frustratingly wrong? Start by reading the fine print before booking, understanding what’s owed to you and being proactive at the airport in asking for what you want. Here’s how to do it.

Download your airline’s app, which often shows an aircraft’s location and also posts timely updates on a flight’s status or gate changes. Updates may appear here before anywhere else.

The day of your flight, you can also scan FlightAware, a flight-tracking service accessible by app and website, to get a sense of delays and cancellations across major airports. Keep an eye on the weather, too.

It can help to know what airlines your carrier partners with, in case you need to be rebooked on another airline. In addition to partnerships like code shares, when an airline operates a flight on behalf of another, or alliances, most airlines also have relationships known as interline agreements that allow them to transfer passengers to flights on other carriers.

This information isn’t always readily available online; experts suggest calling an airline’s customer service for more guidance.

Be aware that if you have a ticket with a low-cost airline, like Frontier Airlines, Southwest Airlines or Spirit Airlines, you are most likely out of luck: They generally do not rebook on any other carrier.

The Transportation Department’s airline cancellation and delay dashboard is a helpful resource that spells out what 10 of the larger domestic airlines offer passengers. But this dashboard is not your only tool. Customer-service plans for specific airlines (located on their websites, and with links from the D.O.T. dashboard) have further detail about passenger entitlements.

For example, if your United Airlines flight is canceled because of reasons within the carrier’s control, such as understaffing, and you are rerouted to a flight that departs the next day, you are entitled to a voucher for food, a nearby partner hotel and transportation. If a room is not available at the airline’s hotel, and you must find another accommodation, United will reimburse you for “reasonable hotel costs.” There’s nothing on the United customer-service site indicating that food receipts or taxi receipts will be reimbursed.

If a delay or cancellation is the airline’s fault, most major carriers can also rebook you on another airline. A few have this ability regardless of what led to the disruption.

In most instances, American Airlines will rebook you on another airline if there are no American flights until the next day. Delta Air Lines also commits to organizing flights on alternative airlines if necessary, though it is not clear under what circumstances it will do this.

In the United States, if your flight is canceled, for whatever reason, all airlines must either rebook you on another flight or give you a prompt refund, even if you have a nonrefundable ticket, according to the Transportation Department.

When a delay or cancellation is caused by the airline, passengers — in most cases — are entitled to a handful of services after wait times have exceeded three hours. Major carriers will provide meals or meal vouchers. And if travelers are forced to stay overnight, most airlines will cover the costs of a hotel stay and associated transport.

But getting what you’re entitled to can be a challenge when hundreds of passengers are lined up and waits for a customer service rep on the phone can stretch to hours. That’s where being strategic can make a difference.

Mary Cropper, a travel specialist at Audley Travel, advised against asking for help at the gate, where many other passengers will be, too. Instead, seek out an airline’s service desk. Airport lounges, some of which are accessible by day pass, may also be a swifter avenue to assistance, she said.

When you do reach the customer service rep, be prepared with the specific request for the outcome you want, whether it’s being rebooked on a certain flight or a flight on a partner airline, or departing from a different airport from the one you might be stranded in. Don’t just ask what your options are.

“If an alternate flight arrangement does not get you where you need to be or when you need to be there, ask for something better,” said James Ferrara, the founder of InteleTravel, a global travel adviser network. And mention if you’re a frequent flier or have an inflexible commitment like a wedding or a work conference, he added.

Experts said passengers can also take matters into their own hands, whether that’s booking a hotel or a new flight, and submitting receipts later for reimbursement with an airline’s customer relations team. However, there is some risk that an airline won’t foot the bill, said Bobby Laurie, a travel expert and former flight attendant.

“You also have to be 100 percent sure you are in the right and are owed the reimbursement,” he said. “Armed with information, you make the best advocate for yourself. But you really, really, have to read the fine print.”

In the European Union, flight cancellations or long delays may give passengers the right to either a refund or a replacement flight. There may also be compensation of up to 600 euros, around $660, based on factors such as how long you waited, how much notice you were given about a schedule change, the flight’s distance, and the cause of the delay or cancellation.

The rule covers all passengers, regardless of nationality, and outbound flights from and within the European Union, including on U.S. carriers. On flights into E.U. countries, it applies only to E.U. carriers.

AirHelp, a Berlin-based flight compensation company, has a comprehensive guide outlining passenger rights in many countries.

Any compensation or help offered by the airlines hinges on whether the reason for the cancellation lies within a carrier’s control, such as staffing or maintenance issues. Air traffic control woes and the weather are not. Weather is the leading cause of delays this year to date, and “creeping delays” are the bane of every air traveler.

It may feel unfair, but “if your flight is canceled because of a thunderstorm,” said Scott Keyes, the founder of Going.com, a website that sends alerts for travel deals, “don’t expect the airline to cover your meals or accommodations.”

Ocean Currents in the Atlantic Could Slow by Century’s End, Research Shows

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The last time there was a major slowdown in the mighty network of ocean currents that shapes the climate around the North Atlantic, it seems to have plunged Europe into a deep cold for over a millennium.

That was roughly 12,800 years ago, when not many people were around to experience it. But in recent decades, human-driven warming could be causing the currents to slow once more, and scientists have been working to determine whether and when they might undergo another great weakening, which would have ripple effects for weather patterns across a swath of the globe.

A pair of researchers in Denmark this week put forth a bold answer: A sharp weakening of the currents, or even a shutdown, could be upon us by century’s end.

It was a surprise even to the researchers that their analysis showed a potential collapse coming so soon, one of them, Susanne Ditlevsen, a professor of statistics at the University of Copenhagen, said in an interview. Climate scientists generally agree that the Atlantic circulation will decline this century, but there’s no consensus on whether it will stall out before 2100.

Which is why it was also a surprise, Dr. Ditlevsen said, that she and her co-author were able to pin down the timing of a collapse at all. Scientists are bound to continue studying and debating the issue, but Dr. Ditlevsen said the new findings were reason enough not to regard a shutdown as an abstract, far-off concern. “It’s now,” she said.

The new research, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, adds to a growing body of scientific work that describes how humankind’s continued emissions of heat-trapping gases could set off climate “tipping points,” or rapid and hard-to-reverse changes in the environment.

Abrupt thawing of the Arctic permafrost. Loss of the Amazon rain forest. Collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets. Once the world warms past a certain point, these and other events could be set into swift motion, scientists warn, though the exact thresholds at which this would occur are still highly uncertain.

In the Atlantic, researchers have been searching for harbingers of tipping-point-like change in a tangle of ocean currents that goes by an unlovely name: the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC (pronounced “AY-mock”).

These currents carry warm waters from the tropics through the Gulf Stream, past the southeastern United States, before bending toward northern Europe. When this water releases its heat into the air farther north, it becomes colder and denser, causing it to sink to the deep ocean and move back toward the Equator. This sinking effect, or “overturning,” allows the currents to transfer enormous amounts of heat around the planet, making them hugely influential for the climate around the Atlantic and beyond.

As humans warm the atmosphere, however, the melting of the Greenland ice sheet is adding large amounts of fresh water to the North Atlantic, which could be disrupting the balance of heat and salinity that keeps the overturning moving. A patch of the Atlantic south of Greenland has cooled conspicuously in recent years, creating a “cold blob” that some scientists see as a sign that the system is slowing.

Were the circulation to tip into a much weaker state, the effects on the climate would be far-reaching, though scientists are still examining their potential magnitude. Much of the Northern Hemisphere could cool. The coastlines of North America and Europe could see faster sea-level rise. Northern Europe could experience stormier winters, while the Sahel in Africa and the monsoon regions of Asia would most likely get less rain.

Evidence from ice and sediment cores indicates that the Atlantic circulation underwent abrupt stops and starts in the deep past. But scientists’ most advanced computer models of the global climate have produced a wide range of predictions for how the currents might behave in the coming decades, in part because the mix of factors that shape them is so complex.

Dr. Ditlevsen’s new analysis focused on a simple metric, based on sea-surface temperatures, that is similar to ones other scientists have used as proxies for the strength of the Atlantic circulation. She conducted the analysis with Peter Ditlevsen, her brother, who is a climate scientist at the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute. They used data on their proxy measure from 1870 to 2020 to calculate statistical indicators that presage changes in the overturning.

“Not only do we see an increase in these indicators,” Peter Ditlevsen said, “but we see an increase which is consistent with this approaching a tipping point.”

They then used the mathematical properties of a tipping-point-like system to extrapolate from these trends. That led them to predict that the Atlantic circulation could collapse around midcentury, though it could potentially occur as soon as 2025 and as late as 2095.

Their analysis included no specific assumptions about how much greenhouse-gas emissions will rise in this century. It assumed only that the forces bringing about an AMOC collapse would continue at an unchanging pace — essentially, that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations would keep rising as they have since the Industrial Revolution.

In interviews, several researchers who study the overturning applauded the new analysis for using a novel approach to predict when we might cross a tipping point, particularly given how hard it has been to do so using computer models of the global climate. But they voiced reservations about some of its methods, and said more work was still needed to nail down the timing with greater certainty.

Susan Lozier, a physical oceanographer at Georgia Tech, said sea-surface temperatures in the North Atlantic near Greenland weren’t necessarily influenced by changes in the overturning alone, making them a questionable proxy for inferring those changes. She pointed to a study published last year showing that much of the cold blob’s development could be explained by shifts in wind and atmospheric patterns.

Scientists are now using sensors slung across the Atlantic to directly measure the overturning. Dr. Lozier is involved in one of these measurement efforts. The aim is to better understand what’s driving the changes beneath the waves, and to improve projections of future changes.

But the projects began collecting data in 2004 at the earliest, which isn’t enough time to draw firm long-term conclusions. “It is extremely difficult to look at a short record for the ocean overturning and say what it is going to do over 30, 40 or 50 years,” Dr. Lozier said.

Levke Caesar, a postdoctoral researcher studying the overturning at the University of Bremen in Germany, expressed concerns about the older temperature records that Dr. Ditlevsen and Dr. Ditlevsen used to compute their proxy. These records, from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, might not be reliable enough to be used for fine-toothed statistical analysis without careful adjustments, she said.

Still, the new study sent an urgent message about the need to keep collecting data on the changing ocean currents, Dr. Caesar said. “There is something happening, and it’s likely out of the ordinary,” she said. “Something that wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for us humans.”

Scientists’ uncertainty about the timing of an AMOC collapse shouldn’t be taken as an excuse for not reducing greenhouse-gas emissions to try to avoid it, said Hali Kilbourne, an associate research professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science.

“It is very plausible that we’ve fallen off a cliff already and don’t know it,” Dr. Kilbourne said. “I fear, honestly, that by the time any of this is settled science, it’s way too late to act.”

Aaron Hernandez’s brother Dennis arrested for allegedly planning shootings at UConn, Brown

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D.J. Hernandez, brother of Former New England Patriots football player Aaron Hernandez, looks back during his brother's murder trial, Friday, Jan. 30, 2015, in Fall River, Mass. Aaron Hernandez is charged with killing semiprofessional football player Odin Lloyd, 27, in June 2013. (AP Photo/The Boston Herald, Ted Fitzgerald, Pool)
Dennis, D.J., Hernandez, brother of Former New England Patriots football player Aaron Hernandez, has been arrested for threats of gun violence. (AP Photo/The Boston Herald, Ted Fitzgerald, Pool)

Dennis John Hernandez, the older brother of late New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez, is being held in a Connecticut jail on a $250,000 bail after he allegedly planned and threatened to carry out two school shootings at UConn and Brown University.

The 37-year-old was arrested July 19 and charged with threatening and breach of peace, according to a Bristol Police Department arrest log.

According to the incident report, as cited by the Associated Press, two women told police they were concerned about Hernandez and his recent “very erratic behavior,” adding he was “extremely sick and that his mental health is continuing to deteriorate.”

A woman told police she had been dating Hernandez and loaned him her car so he could make a July 7 court date for a separate case. According to the report, Hernandez instead went to UConn and Brown and entered “a number of classrooms and buildings at UConn.”

Hernandez has had multiple legal issues in recent months, according to TMZ Sports, some of them stemming from a May incident in which he threw a brick at ESPN’s headquarters.

He was a two-time team captain for the Huskies football team, where he played quarterback and wide receiver from 2004-08. He also has a connection to Brown, working as the university’s quarterbacks coach for the 2011 season.

Police noted they had previously spoken to another woman who said Hernandez had gone to “map the schools out,” and claimed to have “a bullet for everyone.”

He also made threatening social media posts, according to the report. “Will I kill? Absolutely,” one post said. “I’ve warned my enemies so pay up front.”

The police’s findings led them to deem Hernandez “gravely disabled and a danger to society” and dispatch officers to his home. Surrounded, Hernandez spoke with police on the phone. According to the report, he claimed to be armed, telling officers “if we approached him, he would kill us all.”

The report claims Hernandez left the house and walked around the back to approach police, yelling “shoot me” with his hands outstretched. He disregarded commands and was subsequently tased, according to the report.

While Hernandez was being evaluated at the hospital, he allegedly said he was planning to “was planning to still kill [redacted] along with anyone who profited off of his brother Aaron.” The police report, as cited by USA Today, says he mentioned ESPN, but no specific people.

After he was booked at the Bristol Police Department, police were presented with a screenshot of a previously unreported threat Hernandez sent a family member, according to the report.

“UConn program is going to pay unless I have a package deal and I get my estate and every single thing I have worked for,” Hernandez allegedly wrote. He also issued a warning, according to the report, to stay “away from there because when I go I’m taking down everything And don’t give a [redacted] who gets caught in the cross fire.”

His brother, Aaron Hernandez, was convicted of murder in 2015 and died by suicide in custody two years later, two days after he was acquitted of a 2012 double homicide. He was posthumously diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in 2017.

Bronny James, Son of LeBron James, Is Stable After Cardiac Arrest

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His recruitment, though, largely played out as “don’t call us, we’ll call you” — and he eventually took visits not to basketball powers like Duke and Kentucky. Instead, he toured places where he might play more readily: Oregon, whose benefactor is Nike founder Phil Knight, the shoe company that has a strong relationship with the elder James; Ohio State, the school LeBron said he would have attended if he had been required to go to college before going to the N.B.A.; and his close-to-home school, U.S.C.

The Trojans will also have D.J. Rodman, a transfer from Washington State, whose father, Dennis, was a pop culture sensation in the ’90s. But it is more than a team of scions of basketball stars.

U.S.C. should be quite good after adding one of the top freshmen in the country, Isaiah Collier, a point guard from Marietta, Ga. He will team with Boogie Ellis, the Pac-12’s second-leading returning scorer; center Joshua Morgan, who led the conference in blocks last season; and forward Kobe Johnson, who is the conference’s leading returner in steals.

Iwuchukwu, a 7-foot-1 center, is also considered an N.B.A. prospect.

After this season, Bronny James would be eligible for the N.B.A. draft. LeBron James has often said he would like to play on an N.B.A. team with his son, and has even hinted that he wants to play with his younger son, Bryce, 16, who attends Campbell Hall School in Los Angeles.

LeBron James, 38, led the Lakers to the Western Conference finals last season, which was his 20th season in the N.B.A. In February he became the N.B.A.’s all-time leading scorer, passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who had held the title for nearly 39 years.

Gina Kolata, Livia Albeck-Ripka, Adam Zagoria and Jesus Jimenez contributed reporting.

The Ongoing Mystery of Covid’s Origin

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On Jan. 11, 2020, in Shanghai, just 11 days after first reports of the outbreak in Wuhan circulated globally, a team of scientists led by Yong-Zhen Zhang of Fudan University released a draft genome sequence of the novel virus through a website called Virological.org. The genome was provided by Edward C. Holmes, a British Australian evolutionary biologist based in Sydney and a colleague of Zhang’s on the genome-assembly project. Holmes is famous among virologists for his work on the evolution of RNA viruses (including coronaviruses), his pristinely bald head and his mordant candor. Everyone in the field knows him as Eddie. The posting went up at 1:05 a.m. Scotland time, at which point the curator of the site there in Edinburgh, a professor of molecular evolution named Andrew Rambaut, was alert and ready to speed things along. He and Holmes composed a brief introductory note to the genome: “Please feel free to download, share, use and analyze this data,” it said. They knew that “data” is plural, but they were in a hurry.

Immediately, Holmes and a small group of colleagues set to analyzing the genome for clues about the virus’s evolutionary history. They drew on a background of known coronaviruses and their own understanding of how such viruses take shape in the wild (as reflected in Holmes’s 2009 book, “The Evolution and Emergence of RNA Viruses”). They knew that coronavirus evolution can occur rapidly, driven by frequent mutation (single-letter changes in a roughly 30,000-letter genome), by recombination (one virus swapping genome sections with another virus, when both simultaneously replicate in a single cell) and by Darwinian natural selection’s acting on those random changes. Holmes traded thoughts with Rambaut in Edinburgh, a friend of three decades, and with two other colleagues: Kristian Andersen at Scripps Research in La Jolla, Calif.; and Robert Garry at the Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans. Ian Lipkin, of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, joined the huddle later. These five would form a sort of long-distance study group, aimed toward publishing a paper on SARS-CoV-2’s genome and its likely origin.

Holmes, Andersen and their colleagues recognized the virus’s similarity to bat viruses but, with more study, saw a pair of “notable features” that gave them pause. Those features, two short blips of genome, constituted a very small percentage of the whole, but with potentially high significance for the virus’s ability to grab and infect human cells. They were technical-sounding elements, familiar to virologists, that are now part of the Covid-origin vernacular: a furin cleavage site (FCS), as well as an unexpected receptor-binding domain (RBD). All viruses have RBDs, which help them attach to cells; an FCS is a feature that helps certain viruses get inside. The original SARS virus, which terrified scientists worldwide but caused only about 800 deaths, didn’t resemble the new coronavirus in either respect. How had SARS-CoV-2 come to take this form?

Andersen and Holmes were genuinely concerned, at first, that it might have been engineered. Were those two features deliberate add-ons, inserted into some coronavirus backbone by genetic manipulation, intentionally making the virus more transmissible and pathogenic among humans? It had to be considered. Holmes called Jeremy Farrar, a disease expert who was then director of the Wellcome Trust, a foundation in London that supports health research. Farrar saw the point and quickly arranged a conference call among an international group of scientists to discuss the genome’s puzzling aspects and the possible scenarios of its origin. The group included Robert Garry at Tulane and a dozen other people, most of them distinguished European or British scientists with relevant expertise, like Rambaut in Edinburgh, Marion Koopmans in the Netherlands and Christian Drosten in Germany. Also on the call were Anthony Fauci, then head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Francis Collins, then director of the National Institutes of Health and therefore Fauci’s boss. This is the famous Feb. 1 call on which — if you believe some critical voices — Fauci and Collins persuaded the others to suppress any notion that the virus might have been engineered.

“The narrative going around was that Fauci told us, Change our mind, yada, yada, yada, yada. We were paid off,” Holmes said to me. “It’s complete [expletive].”

Activ Retreats Expands Marketplace with the Addition of New Wellness, Kitesurfing, SUP, Pilates, Dance, Diving, and Snowga Retreats

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Now with over 400 different retreats available through their marketplace,
Activ Retreats has become a growing hub for wellness and adventure holidays.

Los Gatos, California, July 24, 2023, Activ Retreats is expanding into new areas in the wellness and adventure holidays sector. This expansion is a testament to the increasing demand they are seeing in the health and wellness segment for new types of retreats and active adventures. Activ Retreats is a global adventure and wellness travel company with an eye on serving active travelers looking to marry their passion for travel, sports, and wellness into one ideal holiday.

Their new offerings complement the company’s existing array of holidays which include running, cycling, hiking, fitness, horse riding, surfing rafting, martial arts and rock-climbing retreats and getaways. According to an Accenture Study, Wellness travel is here to stay and 39% of high-income consumers say they already have a luxury trip or wellness retreat booked in 2023.

The number of people taking wellness trips is only likely to increase in the coming years. Activ Retreats is determined to help the industry evolve and grow, with an expanded set of offerings that appeal to a whole new set of active travelers.

Active travelers seek out Activ Retreats for:

  • Yoga Retreats
  • Hiking Retreats
  • Surfing, Kitesurfing & SUP Retreats
  • Running Retreats
  • Pilates & Fitness Retreats
  • Cycling Retreats
  • Rock Climbing Retreats
  • Equestrian Retreats
  • Swimming Retreats
  • Diving Retreats
  • Rafting Retreats
  • Martial Arts Retreats
  • and more…

During a recent interview, Activ’s founder, Sarah Morey, made these comments, “Wellness travel is starting to evolve. It started with yoga. But it has turned into something more. It’s about being able to infuse yoga and wellness with other passions like martial arts, diving, or SUP. I see this as the path forward for wellness travel and we are excited to make these types of trips more accessible to more people across the globe.”

Customer Testimonials always tell the story, here is what Sarah K. of Toronto, Ontario had to say, “I absolutely love this site. It brings together all these amazing active adventures and retreats that would normally take me hours to find. I was looking for a cycling trip for a group of friends. The site makes finding and booking incredibly easy. I’ll definitely be back for more.”

About Activ Retreats:

Activ Retreats was founded by a couple of moms and avid travelers. Together they have had the opportunity to venture to 50+ countries and live in ten. They have hiked in Ecuador, surfed in San Diego and skied in Hokkaido, Japan. They have been diving in Mexico, cycled through Vietnam and been running through the Cairns of Scotland. They can’t imagine a better way to see the world.

They created Activ Retreats to allow others to marry their passion for sustainable travel & adventure with health and wellness. They believe that travel should leave one feeling refreshed and revitalized. It should nurture one’s body, mind, and soul. And it should allow the traveler to gain a newfound appreciation for this planet. Activ retreats does all of this. Their retreats allow travelers to immerse themselves in the local culture and cuisine, enjoy the company of great people and expert guides, fuel their passion for outdoor adventure and see the world in a whole new way.

For complete information, visit: https://activretreats.com/

Media Contact:

Activ Retreats
Attn: Media Relations
Los Gatos, CA
408-361-8006
info@activretreats.com

The Wind, the Water, the Islands: Exploring Stockholm’s Archipelago

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The moment the motor turned off, I was hooked.

It was 20 minutes into my first Swedish sailing trip on a blazingly sunny morning in late June. I’d set sail with two friends from their summer house on Kilholmen, a wooded islet in the central archipelago, about an hour by bus (then a five-minute boat ride) from Stockholm. After motoring through a narrow waterway, past smooth, rounded cliffs backed by pine forests and the occasional red timbered cottage, we entered a wide-open bay, steered the bow into the wind and raised the sails. When the puttering motor was cut, it was suddenly quiet, just the wind in my face and the sparkling archipelago all around.

The sheer magnitude of Stockholm’s archipelago is astounding. Shaped like a fan spreading out from the capital into the Baltic Sea, this watery region spans over 650 square miles — more than twice the area of New York City’s five boroughs — with somewhere between 24,000 and 30,000 islands and islets.

“The innermost islands are quite big and populated,” said Jeppe Wikström, a photographer and book publisher who has lived and worked in the archipelago for decades. “The farther out you go, the smaller the islands get, the lower they get. And in the outermost archipelago, there are only low slabs of rock.”

In Swedish, there’s a specific term for each archipelago landmass, from the large islands covered with pine trees and stately 19th-century summer houses to tiny islets with nothing but a few shrubs and lichen.

“I could probably give you 30 different words for an island and most of us would know what the island looks like because of that name,” Mr. Wikström said. “Skär, kobbe, haru, ö — it’s like the Inuits and snow.”

For Swedes, the archipelago is a quintessential summer destination that has often served as the backdrop for movies and television shows, from Ingmar Bergman’s film “Summer with Monika” to Astrid Lindgren’s children’s series “Vi på Saltkråkan” (“Seacrow Island”). But few foreign visitors find their way to these idyllic isles.

“It’s a cliché, the hidden gem, but those are 24,000 hidden gems,” Mr. Wikström said. “It’s jewelry stores of hidden gems.”

Many of those natural treasures are accessible by ferry, bus or car. But the vast majority can be reached only by motorboat or sailboat, which one can rent with or without a skipper.

For me, the decision whether to travel by engine or sail was easy.

“This is probably the most extraordinary place for sailing in the world,” Mr. Wikström said. “The variety of the landscape, the right to public access, the lack of strong winds and tidal currents makes it wonderful.”

It’s also an eco-conscious choice, relying solely on the wind for power.

“You are one with nature when you go sailing,” said Patrik Salén, the commodore of the Royal Swedish Yacht Club, a 193-year-old organization based in the archipelago. “It’s the wind, it’s the water and it’s your boat.”

Or it’s your friend’s boat.

My friendship with Viola Gad, a journalist for Sveriges Radio, began several years ago at a creative co-working space in Stockholm. In June, she and her husband, Henke Evrell, invited me aboard their sailboat: a 33-foot Smaragd, a lithe Swedish racing boat designed in 1973 and constructed in Sweden through the mid-1990s. The boat has been aptly described as “built for energetic sailors.” Their rambunctious 2-year-old, John, was also along for the adventure.

The goal for our first day on the water was to push as far out into the archipelago as possible, sailing upwind in the direction of Biskopsön, a nature reserve in the outer islands. Zigzagging back and forth across a wide bay, Henke was in constant motion, adjusting a pulley, letting out a rope, tightening a sail and consulting the sea chart to ensure the route was clear of underwater rocks — an ever-present danger in the archipelago. A seasoned sailor with years of racing experience, he confidently steered Bird — the same name Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law’s character) christened his boat in the movie “The Talented Mr. Ripley” — to overtake larger sailboats with ease.

Meanwhile, with John sleeping in the bow, Viola peeled tiny Baltic shrimp for a snack piled on Swedish crispbread with mayonnaise and dollops of salty roe. Passing a modern glass-walled mansion on its own tiny island, we traded guesses as to which start-up founder was the likely owner.

It was late afternoon when we finally moored in a natural harbor on the islet of Tistronskär, where Viola leaped onto a barren cliff to pull in the boat, which was then tied to metal hooks hammered into cracks in the rock face. Once ashore, the whole sweaty crew decided to take a dip in the refreshingly chilly sea, wading through sea grass and slippery moss-covered stones to reach the cool, clear depths beyond.

Dinner was a bit of a fiasco — I broke a bottle of pinot noir on the rocks, someone else smashed a glass, John rolled a head of lettuce into the water — but afterward, sitting on the smooth, sun-warmed cliff we watched a chestnut-colored mink dive into the sea as an Arctic tern gracefully circled overhead. The nearest island was wooded, with a small house and a dock visible through the pines, but in the distance, the horizon was interrupted only by low humps of rock.

“See, the sea and sky blurred,” Henke said after the sun set at 10 p.m., dusk erasing any distinction between the two.

I’d long thought of sailing as something only other people did — wealthy people, to be honest — but in Sweden, that’s not necessarily the case. Allemansrätten, the Swedish right to public access, means that everyone has the right to roam — and moor — on any land or island, no matter who owns it.

“It’s very egalitarian,” Henke said. “Anyone can come to an island like this if you have a boat. And you don’t have to have a big boat. It’s even better if you have a small boat because the smaller the boat you have, the better access you have.”

“It’s like you have this island for the night, and it’s just yours,” Viola added.

That said, not everyone has a friend with whom to sail or the means (or desire) to rent a boat to experience the archipelago. But alternatives exist.

“If you’re not an experienced sailor, I would recommend starting on one of those wonderful archipelago ferries,” Jeppe Wikström told me earlier. “And it’s possible to do even if you’re in a wheelchair, so it makes the archipelago really accessible.”

Before sailing, I’d only explored the archipelago by ferry, taking day trips to the Artipelag art museum, or to a beach on the island of Grinda to escape my sweltering Stockholm apartment.

But a daytrip to the archipelago is like dipping only a toe into the sea.

My first overnight visit was to the island of Svartsö in the northern archipelago. I’d long known about a seasonal restaurant there, Svartsö Krog, because the owners also run one of my favorite restaurants, Matateljen, in the suburbs of Stockholm. These days, the property also has a glamping operation, Svartsö Logi, with five canvas tents clustered on a wooded hillside beside the water. Reserving a tent usually requires advance planning; this year, the entire season sold out the same day bookings opened in February. But cancellations are announced on Instagram and that’s how I snagged one the first time I went two summers ago (this year it costs 5,200 Swedish kronor, or about $500, which includes dinner for two at Svartsö Krog and a morning breakfast basket).

On that trip, my husband, Dave, and I packed a bag and biked to the quay in front of the Grand Hotel in Stockholm where the Waxholmsbolaget ferries depart for the archipelago. The crowded ferry thinned out after Vaxholm, a popular destination for day trips with its colorful town center and 16th-century fortress. As we approached Svartsö, the islands we cruised past became smaller, with fewer cottages, occasionally just a solitary cabin on its own islet surrounded by a few knobby pine trees.

On the island, we spent an entire day biking along gravel roads, picking wild blueberries in a mossy forest, plunging into a tranquil lake and enjoying a leisurely dinner on the deck at Svartsö Krog. Then we crawled into a cozy tent with a comfy bed and sheepskin rugs, and fell asleep to the sound of water gently lapping against boats docked at the nearby pier.

Glamping, like sailing, is an appealing compromise for those who long to be near nature without forfeiting a bed. But there are myriad lodging options for a longer stay in the archipelago, from bare-bones camping sites and rental cabins to hostels and full-service hotels.

Many of the properties belong to Skärgårdsstiftelsen, the Archipelago Foundation, a non-profit organization that owns some 42 square miles of land — about 12 percent of the land in the archipelago — as well as 2,000 properties, ranging from hotels, restaurants and hostels to farms, lighthouses, cottages and saunas. The foundation was created in the 1950s to preserve public access to land and water for future generations.

“People understood that all the land in the archipelago would eventually be bought to build summer houses out there,” said Ulrika Palmblad-Wennergren, the head of communications for Skärgårdsstiftelsen, which also maintains recreational areas for outdoor activities, from hiking and swimming to snorkeling, sailing, and more.

With so many islands, so many things to do and see, the hard part is often deciding. And on a sailboat, we could go anywhere.

“It’s like the feeling of getting on the highway,” said Viola, as we sipped tea at twilight, discussing where we might sail the next morning. “Your sails are up and the opportunities are endless.”

When it was time to start heading back to Stockholm with Viola and Henke, we let the wind dictate our course and wound up stopping for lunch and ice cream on Kymmendö, a small island that served as inspiration for the novel “Hemsöborna,” by the celebrated Swedish author August Strindberg. Then we set sail for home.

This time, with the wind at our back, Henke unfurled a royal-blue spinnaker, a lightweight three-cornered sail perfect for the present wind conditions. While Viola and John napped below, he instructed me where to steer and nimbly hoisted the spinnaker and adjusted the ropes and when the wind caught the sail — what a thrill! — it filled like a giant parachute flying through the archipelago.

Just as I had been awed by the passing nature while standing on the stern of a ferry chugging slowly toward Svartsö, I was again enraptured by the ever-changing scene: a sea gull sitting on an islet that was nothing more than a small rock, a narrow bay framed by sloping cliffs, a rocky peninsula covered with tiny yellow flowers, a small red cottage on an island all its own.

“It’s not just where you’re going, it’s the journey there,” Henke said.

It’s also the journey back, I thought, as we made our way through this stunning archipelago.

For sailboat rentals and skippered excursions, the Archipelago Foundation has a list of operators on its website. You can expect to spend from around 1,500 kronor (about $145) per day for a small four-person sailboat to about 10,000 kronor for a skippered yacht that can accommodate eight people.

Waxholmsbolaget ferries depart from Strömkajen in central Stockholm. (Fares range from 57 to 173 kronor one-way, depending on the destination.) There are also departures from locations outside the city center that can be reached by car or public transportation.

Cinderellabåtarna (Cinderella boats) are often faster, but more expensive, from 165 to 210 kronor one-way. These ferries depart from Strandvägen in central Stockholm.

When deciding where to go by ferry, Jeppe Wikström recommends Sandhamn with its charming town center and sandy beaches, Bullerö for beautiful nature walks and the lighthouse on Landsort, the archipelago’s southern tip. Ulrika Palmblad-Wennergren suggests Nåttarö and Utö, larger islands with loads of activities. When sailing, Viola Gad and Henke Evrell prefer the remote islands of the outer archipelago, from Stora Nassa in the north to Huvudskär and Borgen in the south.

On Svartsö, hope for a cancellation at Svartsö Logi, or stay elsewhere and stop by for lunch at Svartsö Krog, which is open daily through mid-August and on weekends through the end of September. (Lunch for two, about 1,200 kronor, not including drinks.)

Open daily through mid-August, Båtshaket is the archipelago outpost of the Stockholm restaurateurs Jim & Jacob, where house-smoked seafood and fresh grilled fish are served on a wooden deck beside the sea (lunch for two, about 600 kronor). It’s located on Ålö, an islet near Utö, a large island in the southern archipelago that’s home to Utö Bakgård, one of the best bakeries in the archipelago (open daily through mid-August, then reduced hours; lunch for two, about 300 kronor).

The Archipelago Foundation’s website is a good place to find cottages and cabins to rent, guest harbors to moor for the night, as well as hotels, hostels, camping sites, restaurants, shops and activities.


Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2023.

Barbie Movie Gives Left and Right Another Battlefront

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Last week, Representative Matt Gaetz and his wife, Ginger, arrived at a Washington reception for “Barbie” in matching pink, grinning in photos along the “pink carpet,” mingling among guests sipping pink cocktails, admiring a life-size pink toy box.

They left with political ammunition.

“The Barbie I grew up with was a representation of limitless possibilities, embracing diverse careers and feminine empowerment,” Mrs. Gaetz wrote on Twitter. “The 2023 Barbie movie, unfortunately, neglects to address any notion of faith or family, and tries to normalize the idea that men and women can’t collaborate positively (yuck).”

When another account scolded Mr. Gaetz, the hard-right and perpetually stunt-seeking Florida congressman, for attending the event at all — citing the casting of a trans actor as a doctor Barbie — Mr. Gaetz replied with a culture-warring double feature.

“If you let the trans stop you from seeing Margo Robbie,” he said, leaving the “T” off the first name of the film’s star, “the terrorists win.”

The non-terroristic winners were many after the film’s estimated $155 million debut: Ms. Robbie and Greta Gerwig, the film’s director, finding an eager audience for their pink-hued feminist opus; the Warner Bros. marketing team, whose ubiquitous campaigns plainly paid off; the film industry itself, riding “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” to its most culturally dominant weekend in years.

But few outcomes were as nominally inexplicable (and probably inevitable) as the film’s instant utility to political actors and opportunists of all kinds. For a modern take on what was long a politically fraught emblem of toxic body image and reductive social norms, no choice was too small, no turn too ideology-affirming or apparently nefarious, for a bipartisan coalition of commentators and elected officials to see value in its dissection.

“I have, like, pages and pages of notes,” Ben Shapiro, the popular conservative commentator, said in a lengthy video review, which began with him setting a doll aflame and did not grow more charitable. (He said his producers “dragged” him to the theater.)

“I took a tequila shot every time Barbie said patriarchy … only just woke up,” wrote Elon Musk. (Mr. Shapiro, diligently but less colorfully, said he had counted the word “more than 10 times.”)

“Here are 4 ways Barbie embraces California values,” the office of Gavin Newsom, the state’s Democratic governor, wrote in a thread hailing Barbie as a champion of climate activism, “hitting the roads in her electric vehicle,” and of destigmatizing mental health care.

If there was a time in the culture when a giant summer film event was something of an American unifier — a moment to share over-buttered popcorn through big-budget shoot-’em-ups and sagas of insatiable sharks — that time is not 2023.

And, as ever, the political class’s performative investment in “Barbie” — the outrage and the embrace — can seem mostly like a winking bit.

What to make of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Democrat of Michigan, posting a Barbie meant to resemble herself beside the Instagram caption, “Come on Barbie, let’s go govern”?

What does it mean, exactly, when Senator Raphael Warnock, Democrat of Georgia, says of himself, “This Ken is pushing to end maternal mortality”?

Certainly, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, has summoned practiced gravity in accusing “Barbie” of working to appease the Chinese. (Some Republicans have fixated on a scene that features a crudely drawn map that supposedly depicts the so-called nine-dash line, which indicates Chinese ownership of oceanic territory that is disputed under international law. Vietnam has banned showings of the movie in the country over that image.)

“Obviously, the little girls that are going to see Barbie, none of them are going to have any idea what those dashes mean,” Mr. Cruz told Fox News. “This is really designed for the eyes of the Chinese censors, and they’re trying to kiss up to the Chinese Communist Party because they want to make money selling the movie.”

The response on the right is not a one-off. For a generation of conservative personalities, weaned on Andrew Breitbart’s much-cited observation that “politics is downstream of culture,” Hollywood and other ostensibly liberal bastions are to be confronted head-on, lest their leanings ensnare young voters without a fight.

Recent years have provided ample evidence, some on the right say, for a “go woke, go broke” view that progressivism is bad business. Last year’s apolitically patriotic “Top Gun: Maverick” was a smashing success, as was this year’s kid-friendly “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” By contrast, critics on the right contended that Disney’s remake of “The Little Mermaid,” with its title character portrayed by the Black actress Halle Bailey, failed to match its producers’ hopes. (Of course, there is no way to trace exactly what determines any movie’s success or failure, and many observers adhere to the screenwriter William Goldman’s axiom: “Nobody knows anything.”)

“Barbie” cannot be said to have gone broke. But its purported politics, conservatives have argued, did damage it by making it less entertaining — “a lecture,” in the words of The Federalist’s Rich Cromwell, “that self-identifies as a movie.”

Kyle Smith, a reviewer at The Wall Street Journal, complained that the film “contains more swipes at ‘the patriarchy’ than a year’s worth of Ms. magazine.”

The film seems at times (gentle spoiler alert) to be engaging with “the patriarchy” ironically, infusing it with knowing Southern California vapidity, décor that seems inspired by hair metal and a heavy emphasis on weight lifting and “brewskis.”

When it comes time (less gentle spoiler alert) to reclaim Barbie Land, the Barbies distract the Kens by indulging their tendency for exaggerated gestures of malehood like playing acoustic guitar and insisting on showing a date “The Godfather” while talking over it.

Mr. Shapiro has sounded unconvinced that the movie is broadly in on its own jokes.

“The actual argument the movie is making is that if women enjoy men, it’s because they have been brainwashed by the patriarchy,” he said in his review.

He called the film, with a straight face, two hours he will rue wasting as he sits on his deathbed.

“The things I do,” he said, “for my audience.”

Anjali Huynh contributed reporting.

These 8 habits could add up to 24 years to your life, study says

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Want to live up to an additional 24 years? Just add eight healthy lifestyle choices to your life at age 40 and that could happen, according to a new unpublished study analyzing data on US veterans.

Starting at age 50 instead? No problem, you could prolong your life by up to 21 years, the study found. Age 60? You’ll still gain nearly 18 years if you adopt all eight healthy habits.

“There’s a 20-year period in which you can make these changes, whether you do it gradually or all at once,“ said lead study author Xuan-Mai Nguyen, a health science specialist for the Million Veteran Program at the VA Boston Healthcare System.

“We also did an analysis to see if we eliminated people with type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, stroke, cancer and the like, does it change the outcome? And it really didn’t,” she said. “So, if you start off with chronic diseases, making changes does still help.”

What are these magical healthy habits? Nothing you haven’t heard before: Exercise, eat a healthy diet, reduce stress, sleep well and foster positive social relationships. On the flip side, don’t smoke, don’t drink too much and don’t become addicted to opioids.

“The earlier the better, but even if you only make a small change in your 40s, 50s or 60s, it still is beneficial,” Nguyen said. “This is not out of reach — this is actually something attainable for the general population.”

Lifestyle habits build on each other

The study, presented Monday at Nutrition 2023, the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, looked at the lifestyle behaviors of nearly 720,000 military veterans between the ages of 40 and 99. All were part of the Million Veteran Program, a longitudinal study designed to investigate the health and wellness of US veterans.

Adding just one healthy behavior to a man’s life at age 40 provided an additional 4.5 years of life, Nguyen said. Adding a second led to seven more years, while adopting three habits prolonged life for men by 8.6 years. As the number of additional lifestyle changes climbed so did the benefits for men, adding up to nearly a quarter century of extra life.

Women saw huge leaps in life span as well, Nguyen said, although the numbers added up differently than for men. Adopting just one healthy behavior added 3.5 years to a woman’s life, while two added eight years, three 12.6 years and embracing all the healthy habits extended a woman’s life by 22.6 years.

“Doing all eight had a synergistic effect, sort of an added boost to extend your life, but any small change made a difference,” Nguyen said.

After adjusting for age, body mass index, sex, race and ethnicity, marital status, education level and family income level, the study found “an 87% relative reduction in all-cause mortality for those who adopted all eight lifestyle factors compared to those who adopted none,” Nguyen said.

“An important strength of this analysis was that the population was highly diverse by race, ethnicity, and SES (socioeconomic status),” said senior study author and leading nutrition researcher Dr. Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

The study could only show an association, not a direct cause and effect, and because it focused on veterans, the findings may not translate to all Americans. However, veterans in the study “were retired and not on active duty or attending military training,” Nguyen said. “Still, the numbers might not necessarily translate directly to a general population one-on-one.”

Ranking the lifestyle choices

The study was able to rank the eight lifestyle behaviors to see which provided the biggest boost in longevity.

No. 1: First on the list was exercise, which many experts say is one of the most important behaviors anyone can do to improve their health. Adding that one healthy behavior produced a 46% decrease in the risk of death from any cause when compared with those who did not exercise, Nguyen said.

“We looked at whether they did light, moderate or vigorous activity compared to not doing anything and just sitting on the couch,” Nguyen said. “People who lived longer did 7.5 metabolic equivalent hours of exercise a week. Just to give you a baseline — if you can walk up a flight of stairs without losing your breath, that’s four minutes of the 7.5.”

That finding echoes results from other studies that show you don’t have to do extreme sports to get the health benefits of exercise, although more vigorous activities that cause you to lose your breath are best.

Read: Sign up for CNN’s Fitness, But Better newsletter series. Our seven-part guide will help you ease into a healthy routine, backed by experts.

No. 2: Not becoming addicted to opioids was the second most important contributor to a longer life, reducing the risk of early death by 38%, the study found. That’s a significant issue today, with the opioid crisis in the US a national “public health emergency,” an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services reported.

No. 3: Never using tobacco reduced risk of death by 29%, the study found. If a person was a former smoker, that didn’t count: “We did that to make it as strict as we could,” Nguyen said. However, stopping smoking at any point in life confers major health benefits, experts say.

No. 4: Managing stress was next, reducing early death by 22%, the study found. Stress is rampant in the US today, with devastating consequences for health, experts say. And there are ways to revamp your outlook and turn bad stress into good stress.

Read: Sign up for CNN’s Stress, But Less newsletter. Our six-part mindfulness guide will inform and inspire you to reduce stress while learning how to harness it.

No. 5: Eating a plant-based diet would raise your chances of living a longer life by 21%, the study found. But that doesn’t mean you have to be a vegetarian or vegan, Nguyen said. Following a healthy plant-based plan such as the Mediterranean diet full of whole grains and leafy green vegetables was key.

Read: Sign up for CNN’s Eat, But Better: Mediterranean Style. Our eight-part guide shows you a delicious expert-backed eating lifestyle that will boost your health for life.

No. 6: Avoiding binge drinking — which is having more than four alcoholic beverages a day — was another healthy lifestyle habit, reducing the risk of death by 19%, Nguyen said. Binge drinking is on the rise in the US, and it’s not just college students. Even moderate drinkers are at risk, studies say.

In addition, other studies have found that any amount of drinking may be unhealthy, except perhaps, for heart attacks and stroke, and even that finding has been challenged. One study found than even one drink may trigger an irregular heart rhythm called atrial fibrillation.

No. 7: Getting a good night’s sleep — defined as at least seven to nine hours a night with no insomnia — reduced early death from any cause by 18%, Nguyen said. Dozens of studies have linked poor sleep to all sorts of poor health outcomes, including premature mortality.

Read: Sign up for CNN’s Sleep, But Better newsletter series. Our seven-part guide has helpful hints to achieve better sleep.

No. 8: Being surrounded by positive social relationships helped longevity by 5%, the study found. However, loneliness and isolation, especially among older adults, is becoming more widespread and worrisome, experts say.

“Five percent may seem small, but that’s still a decrease in terms of all-cause mortality,” Nguyen said. “Every little bit helps, whether you pick physical activity or make sure you’re surrounded by positive social support.”

A recent study found people who experienced social isolation had a 32% higher risk of dying early from any cause compared with those who weren’t socially isolated. Participants who reported feeling lonely were 14% more likely to die early than those who did not.

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