Hi scdfirefox1, what happens when you try to access https://www.nytimes.com/ ? Do you get a specific error message, or blank page? More details would be really helpful in making further suggestions.

I will also suggest "the usual" but depending on the situation, this might not be relevant:

If a site is generally known to work in Firefox, these are general suggestions to try when it stops working normally:

Cache and Cookies: When you have a problem with one particular site, a good "first thing to try" is clearing your Firefox cache and deleting your saved cookies for the site.

(1) Clear Firefox's Cache

See: How to clear the Firefox cache

If you have a large hard drive, this might take a few minutes. If you do not see the number going down on the page, you can reload it using Ctrl+r to check progress.

(2) Remove the site's cookies (save any pending work first). While viewing a page on the site, try either:

• right-click (on Mac Ctrl+click) a blank area of the page and choose View Page Info > Security > "View Cookies"
• (menu bar) Tools > Page Info > Security > "View Cookies"
• click the padlock or "i" icon in the address bar, then the ">" button, then More Information, and finally the "View Cookies" button

In the dialog that opens, the current site should be pre-filled in the search box at the top of the dialog so you can remove that site's cookies individually.

Then try reloading the page. Does that help?

Testing in Firefox's Safe Mode: In Safe Mode, Firefox temporarily deactivates extensions, hardware acceleration, and some other advanced features to help you assess whether these are causing the problem.

If Firefox is not running: Hold down the Shift key when starting Firefox. (On Mac, hold down the option/alt key instead of the Shift key.)

If Firefox is running: You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help button > Restart with Add-ons Disabled
• (menu bar) Help menu > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

and OK the restart.

Both scenarios: A small dialog should appear. Click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Refresh).

Any improvement?

thank you. as you requested, below is the message that comes up, which is ridiculous given that it is the New York Times: Secure Connection Failed

An error occurred during a connection to www.nytimes.com. You have received an invalid certificate. Please contact the server administrator or email correspondent and give them the following information: Your certificate contains the same serial number as another certificate issued by the certificate authority. Please get a new certificate containing a unique serial number. Error code: SEC_ERROR_REUSED_ISSUER_AND_SERIAL

   'The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because the authenticity of the received data could not be verified.'
   Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.

I the past couple of months, other users have posted this unusual error code. In some cases, closes Firefox once or twice and starting it again resolved the issue. Some were Kaspersky users, another used Adfender.

Do you use either of those programs?

If the certificate with a duplicate number has been stored by Firefox, you can clear the saved certificates, but that could create a temporary incompatibility with some security software (see the issues discussed in this article: How to troubleshoot security error codes on secure websites).