The Climate reporter Hiroko Tabuchi is interested in all the things we take for granted about our environment.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.On March 11, 2011, a 9-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Honshu, Japan, setting off a catastrophic chain of events: The quake caused a tsunami, which in turn caused the Fukushima disaster, one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. In total, about 19,000 people died.The day after the tsunami hit, Hiroko Tabuchi, then a reporter for the Business desk of The New York Times, pleaded with her editor. “I remember crying on the phone with her, saying ‘Please let me go to the tsunami zone,’” Ms. Tabuchi said in an interview.Instead, her editor suggested she stay in Tokyo, sensing that there might be a bigger story to cover: the nuclear fallout from the power plant in Fukushima. Covering the disaster became a turning point in Ms. Tabuchi’s career. “It was my introduction to writing about climate, with the disaster so entwined with environmental pollution and climate change,” she said.In 2014, Ms. Tabuchi joined The Times’s Climate desk, focusing her coverage on policy. She took on a new, messier beat this summer: pollution. In recent months, she has written about “forever chemicals” on American farmlands and the uproar surrounding plastic packaging at Costco.In a phone conversation from her home in Manhattan, Ms. Tabuchi, who grew up in Kobe, Japan, discussed her accidental path to The Times and the challenges of deciphering climate science. These are edited excerpts.Did you always want to be a reporter?I never wanted to be a journalist. I studied international relations in college, and my dream was to work for the United Nations or UNICEF. After college, I ended up working for this Japanese governmental agency, the Japan External Trade Organization. It was a tough adjustment. I wasn’t used to traditional office culture in Japan. The stories about its work culture are true: If you’re a first-year female in an office, you serve everyone tea.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

How do I repair my marriage? How can I strengthen my friendships? Catherine Pearson, a writer on the Well desk, helps readers find answers to these questions and more.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.For Catherine Pearson, no topic is taboo. As a reporter on the Well desk of The New York Times, she has written about sexual libido differences in relationships, the male loneliness epidemic and postpartum depression.Every now and then, something really hits home.“I had a lot of friends who were razzing me, like, ‘You’re the person writing a 5-Day Friendship Challenge?’” Ms. Pearson said in an interview. “I’m pretty introverted, but I am making more of an effort now.”Ms. Pearson joined The Times in the spring of 2022 from The Huffington Post, where she spent 11 years writing about gender and health. Her coverage for Well focuses on families, romantic relationships and friendships, with an emphasis on forging better connections.”It’s everything that matters to people,” she said of her beat. “I try to be mindful of not giving the same advice you read over and over, like, ‘Put yourself out there.”In an interview from her home in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, Ms. Pearson discussed the challenges of finding sources and one piece of advice that has stuck with her. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.Where did your journalism career begin?My first writing job was at a boating magazine, of all places. I was fresh out of college and needed to make money. It ended up being an interesting place to learn the ins and outs of journalism, partly because I had absolutely no idea what I was writing about. I had to learn very technical boating vocabulary. At the time, the outlet was also getting decimated by layoffs. So I ended up doing things that a 22-year-old had no business doing, like helping ship a magazine to the printer and signing off on final proofs of issues.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

For Paula Span, a columnist for The Times’s Health section, the subject of aging doesn’t age.For about 15 years, Paula Span has dedicated much of her journalism career to covering one subject: aging, and the challenges that come with it.Ms. Span writes The New Old Age, a twice-monthly column for the Health section at The New York Times about issues affecting older Americans. Among the topics she has recently explored are the costs of growing older, the rise of robotic pets as companions and the hazards of misinformation on social media.Ms. Span took over the column in 2009, when it was just a blog. Before The Times, she wrote for The Washington Post’s Style desk and magazine, where in 2002, she reported an article about residents at an assisted-living facility in Bethesda, Md.“At the time, people didn’t really know much about assisted living,” Ms. Span said. “It got me interested in spending time with older people and writing about these issues.” Four years later, she began writing her first book, “When the Time Comes,” about the struggles of families with aging parents.In a phone interview from her home in Brooklyn, Ms. Span, 74, discussed how the column’s audience has changed over the years and why she reads every reader comment on her articles. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.What makes for a good column of yours?Something that’s a national trend or a development that’s rooted in fact, science and research and affects people. There is no shortage of such topics when you’re talking about a group as large as elder Americans. There’s something like 60 million people over 65 in the United States. It’s a very heterogeneous group. There are many things that this group is concerned about, like living arrangements; Medicare and other insurance and policy issues; health; end-of-life connections. It’s a big canvas, which makes it enjoyable and continually interesting. When I took the column on, I thought I’d run out of material in a few years. Of course, 15 years later, there’s still so much to talk about.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Molly Mirhashem, an editor on the Well desk, wants to motivate readers of all ages and experience levels.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Molly Mirhashem is used to running around in circles — literally.Six days a week, Ms. Mirhashem runs near her home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Much of her weekly mileage takes place on the same, roughly 3.5-mile loop of a nearby park. Her training will come in handy: This weekend, she is running the Buffalo Marathon in upstate New York. It will be her ninth time gutting out 26.2 miles since she first caught the marathon bug in 2017.Ms. Mirhashem, an editor on the Well desk covering fitness, came to The New York Times last month from Outside Magazine, where she spent eight years assigning and editing health and wellness articles, among other responsibilities.One of her goals at The Times is to reach readers who are dabbling in fitness, but want a little extra guidance.“There are beginners, who we often speak to, and then there are experts looking for the tiniest, marginal gain in their marathon time,” she said in a recent interview. “I think there is room to serve those readers in the middle ground.”Here, Ms. Mirhashem shares what motivates her to hit the ground running — in her new job, that is — and the biggest challenges of the fitness beat. These are edited excerpts.Were you always interested in fitness?I am a lifelong runner. I started running in youth track and field, and stuck with it through high school. I ran track and cross-country in college, and then tried marathons after that.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Lisa Friedman, who covers climate change, discussed the fight to regulate toxic chemicals found in nearly half of America’s tap water.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Cookware. Dental floss. Shampoo.Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, can be found in those items and hundreds of other household products. Nicknamed “forever chemicals” because they do not fully degrade, PFAS are resistant to heat, oil, grease and water. (One of the first uses of PFAS chemicals was as a nonstick agent in Teflon cookware in the 1940s.) But exposure to PFAS has been linked to cancer, liver damage and birth defects, among other health issues.Worse, the chemicals have made their way into our showers, sinks and drinking glasses — a 2023 study detected PFAS in nearly half of the nation’s tap water. But there’s some good news: For the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency is regulating PFAS. This month, the E.P.A. announced that it would require municipal water systems to remove six forever chemicals from tap water.Lisa Friedman, a reporter on the Climate desk at The New York Times, wrote about the new rules. In a recent conversation, Ms. Friedman discussed the whirlwind month in climate news, what could stall the implementation of the regulations and how her beat has evolved over 15 years. This interview has been edited and condensed.How significant is this moment?This is a really big deal. The E.P.A. has finalized rules that will require some PFAS chemicals to be reduced to near-zero levels in our drinking water. But PFAS chemicals are hard to eliminate, and doing so will involve an expensive process. It will be a pretty big headache for water utility companies.Last week, President Biden’s administration blocked a proposed industrial road in Alaska and announced plans to expand two national monuments in California. Is there a reason so much climate policy change is happening right now in the United States?The regulations on PFAS in tap water were first proposed last year, but there’s an obscure law called the Congressional Review Act, which gives Congress at least 60 legislative days to overturn new rules issued by federal agencies. If Republicans take control of the Senate and Donald Trump wins the presidency, the rules could be easily overturned.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Have your out-of-network insurance bills skyrocketed? Chris Hamby, an investigative reporter for The Times, may have an explanation.Navigating the health care system in the United States can often feel like being lost in a maze. What kind of doctor should I see? Who takes my insurance? What even is a co-pay, anyway?For that reason, Chris Hamby, an investigative reporter, has devoted much of his five-year career at The New York Times to guiding readers through such dizzying questions. His latest article, which was published online this month, explored the complex subject of insurance bills.Last year, Mr. Hamby began investigating MultiPlan, a data firm that works with several major health insurance companies, including UnitedHealthcare, Cigna and Aetna. After a patient sees an out-of-network medical provider, the insurer often uses MultiPlan to recommend how much to reimburse the provider.Mr. Hamby’s investigation revealed that MultiPlan and the insurers are incentivized to reduce payments to providers; in doing so, they score larger fees, which are paid by the patient’s employer. Many patients are forced to foot the rest of the bill. (MultiPlan said in a statement to The Times that it uses “well-recognized and widely accepted solutions” to promote “affordability, efficiency and fairness” by recommending a “reimbursement that is fair and that providers are willing to accept in lieu of billing plan members for the balance.”)In an interview, Mr. Hamby shared his experience poring over more than 50,000 pages of documents and interviewing more than 100 people. This conversation has been edited.Where did your investigation begin?We were broadly looking at issues in health insurance last year. MultiPlan kept coming up in my conversations with physician groups, doctors and patients. At first, it was unclear what exactly MultiPlan did. There were some lawsuits regarding its work with UnitedHealthcare, but it was difficult to understand the company’s role in the industry. We eventually accumulated more information about MultiPlan’s relationship with big insurance companies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.