By THE STAR STAFF Education Secretary Eliezer Ramos Parés gave assurances on Wednesday that the island’s public schools are ready for the start of the January school semester, after maintenance, cleaning and interagency coordination work was completed during the holiday break. “The schools will be ready, they are ready,” Ramos Parés told reporters. “Tomorrow our teachers are already scheduled to arrive and they have the systemic agenda that includes professional development.”

By THE STAR STAFF A preliminary hearing has been scheduled for next Tuesday, Jan. 13 in the case against Christian Serrano Rosario, who allegedly stabbed his five-year-old son to death inside their home in the El Tamarindo neighborhood of Caguas on Jan. 5 and reportedly claimed that “the devil” made him do it. “The devil was inside me,” Serrano Rosario said Tuesday as he was escorted from the Caguas police headquarters following his arrest. “It was the devil,” he repeated to

Fans watching an N.B.A. game at COSM in Inglewood, Calif., could hear the squeaking of sneakers and see the rim shaking after a dunk, on Wednesday, Nov. 19, 2025. COSM, a company once focused on planetarium displays, is immersing sports fans with giant screens and desirable angles. (Jamie Lee Taete/The New York Times) By EMMANUEL MORGAN The television monitors, Skee-Ball machine and in-house DJ can make Cosm feel like any other sports bar when you first walk inside. But above

Many shots seem to have “off-target” benefits, such as lowering the risk of dementia, studies have found. (Jackson Gibbs/The New York Times) By PAULA SPAN Let’s be clear. The primary reason to be vaccinated against shingles is that two shots provide 90% protection against a painful, blistering disease that a third of Americans will suffer in their lifetimes, one that can cause lingering nerve pain and other nasty long-term consequences. The most important reason for older adu

A wary red-footed tortoise in Casanare, Colombia, June 26, 2024. Long dismissed as unintelligent, reptiles are emerging as cognitively and emotionally complex animals — a new study involving tortoises suggests that they also possess mood states. (Federico Rios/The New York Times) By BRANDON KEIM Should you meet a turtle basking on a log in the sun, you might reasonably conclude that the turtle is in a good mood. Granted, there has been little scientific evidence that reptiles

Containers at the Seagirt Marine Terminal at the Port of Baltimore in Maryland on June 30, 2025. Goods often take weeks to reach U.S. ports, meaning the actual tariffs that companies paid rose more slowly than what the president announced throughout the year. (Alyssa Schukar/The New York Times) By ANA SWANSON President Donald Trump raised the taxes that the United States charges on imports last year to levels not seen in a century. Prices of goods have increased as a result,

Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, in Kyiv, on Feb. 15, 2024. The Ukrainian leader is reshuffling his cabinet as a corruption scandal reshapes the political landscape at a pivotal point in peace negotiations. (Brendan Hoffman/The New York Times) By CONSTANT MÉHEUT For several weeks, with peace talks at a critical moment, Ukraine faced a power vacuum. It had no energy minister amid rolling blackouts caused by Russian strikes. No justice ministe