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Benjamin Bolger has been to Harvard and Stanford and Yale. He has been to Columbia and Dartmouth and Oxford, and Cambridge, Brandeis and Brown. Over all, Bolger has 14 advanced degrees, plus an associate’s and a bachelor’s. “I believe that people are like trees,” he said. “I hope I am a sequoia. I want to grow for as long as possible and reach toward the highest level of the sky.”

Artificial intelligence tools can create lifelike faces and realistic photographs — and they are getting better all the time. Can you tell the difference between what’s real and what’s fake? Take our quiz. https://nyti.ms/3zm5pMg

A reader asked Work Friend: "I work in a high school where two teachers receive a stipend for supervising the entrance at the beginning of the day. Both teachers sit behind a table facing the entrance, by which all teachers and students must pass, but they never say hello to the students or staff. If I say hello they sometimes respond, but other times nothing. I have stopped saying 'good morning' but find it terribly uncomfortable to walk past in silence. Other times of day these same teachers try to engage in conversation, but I harbor resentment from the morning. Shouldn’t greeters say hello?"

We asked 43 highly sociable people for tips on how to be a stellar guest and a gracious host. Read this before you say yes to the next invitation.

California lawmakers reached a deal to close a state deficit estimated at $47 billion, paving the way for a nearly $300 billion budget next year.

Pharmacy benefit managers — like CVS Caremark, Optum Rx and Express Scripts — act as middlemen overseeing prescriptions for more than 200 million Americans. They’re meant to reduce drug costs. But instead, they steer patients toward pricier drugs, charge steep markups on otherwise inexpensive medicines and extract billions in hidden fees, a New York Times investigation found.

The New York Times just announced the event details for Climate Forward, our flagship climate summit dedicated to the exchange of climate solutions and ideas. This one-day event, held at The Times Center in NYC on Wednesday, Sep. 25, will feature leaders from global corporations, renowned climate communicators, policymakers, and expert journalists from The New York Times.

A reader asked Work Friend: "I was laid off toward the beginning of the pandemic. Shortly afterward, an old boss offered me a position I had held the year prior. The salary was $13,000 less than I had been making, but I was told we could re-evaluate in six to 12 months as they couldn’t offer more based on the uncertainty at the time. I have now been back at the job for nearly a year and am miserable. There’s little room for growth, and I’m being tasked with responsibilities I both dislike and am not good at. In a recent meeting, I told my boss that I would like to start the conversation about upping my salary, and was told that would not be possible to discuss until fall as budgets were already finalized and approved — and that I would have to work on justifications for a raise in 2022. I want out of this job, but I agreed to stay for a while when I accepted it. At that time, nobody was hiring and I felt lucky, but now I feel depressed and anxious. I feel financially undervalued and like I could be miserable somewhere else making a lot more money. Am I a jerk for looking for a new job so soon?"

Hamas does not know how many of the roughly 120 remaining hostages taken from Israel on Oct. 7 are still alive, a spokesman for the militant group said in an interview that aired Thursday.