Author: NY TIMES

A new problem is bedeviling humanitarian aid convoys attempting to deliver relief to hungry Gazans: attacks by organized crowds seeking not the flour and medicine that trucks are carrying, but cigarettes smuggled inside the shipments.In tightly blockaded Gaza, cigarettes have become increasingly scarce, now generally selling for $25 to $30 apiece. U.N. and Israeli officials say the coordinated attacks by groups seeking to sell smuggled cigarettes for profit pose a formidable obstacle to bringing desperately needed aid to southern Gaza.The Israeli authorities closely scan everything that goes in and out of Gaza through Israeli-administered checkpoints. But the cigarettes have managed…

Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, indicated on Tuesday that recent inflation data had given the central bank more confidence that price increases were returning to normal, and that continued progress along these lines would help to pave the way toward a central bank rate cut.“The Committee has stated that we do not expect it will be appropriate to reduce the target range for the federal funds rate until we have gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent,” Mr. Powell said.He added that data earlier this year failed to provide such confidence, but…

But he remains a curiously modest interpreter. He doesn’t achieve the architectural discipline that colleagues who similarly try to get out of the way of the music can impose, nor does he draw out sufficient clarity or detailing of consequence along the way.Friday’s “Eroica” Symphony was typical: solid but unremarkable. Sunday’s Strauss, the 78th Boston Symphony concert for which Nelsons has programmed works by this composer, sorely lacked character, above all in the suite from “Der Rosenkavalier.” Rarely can Octavian and the Marschallin have romped so cautiously, or Baron Ochs appeared so even keeled.Nelsons really does thrive when he has…

As NATO leaders gather in Washington starting Tuesday, they will celebrate the strength of their alliance on its 75th anniversary while confronting deep uncertainty about its future.In recent years, Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has given NATO, founded after World War II to defend Europe from the Soviet Union, a renewed sense of purpose. But the alliance also faces grave threats, including from right-wing skeptics who are gaining power in nations such as Germany and France.And the potential return to the White House of Donald J. Trump, who has derided NATO and even mused about withdrawing the United States from the…

Federal Reserve officials use government data to help determine when to raise or lower interest rates. Congress and the White House use it to decide when to extend jobless benefits or send out stimulus payments. Investors place billions of dollars worth of bets that are tied to monthly reports on job growth, inflation and retail sales.But a new study says the integrity of that data is in increasing jeopardy.The report, issued on Tuesday by the American Statistical Association, concludes that government statistics are reliable right now. But that could soon change, the study warns, citing factors including shrinking budgets, falling…

When Chelsia Potts took her 10-year-old daughter to a psychologist to be tested for autism spectrum disorder, she decided almost as an afterthought to be tested herself. The result came as a surprise. Like her daughter, Ms. Potts was diagnosed with autism.Ms. Potts, 35, thought she might have had anxiety or some other issue. A first-generation college student, she had earned a doctor of education degree and risen through academia to become a high-level administrator at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. But after her visit to the psychologist, she had to figure out how her diagnosis would affect her work…

The pictures are haunting: black-and-white prints of a snow-covered barracks and paintings bordered by wire fences and skeletal trees, grim depictions of a World War II camp in France where Jews were interned before being transported to concentration camps.The artist, Jacques Gotko, created one picture using a background of crushed eggshells glued to a wooden board; for others he used a piece of old tire as a printing block. Those were just some of the few materials available to him at the camp where he was held before being transported to Drancy, another camp in France, then Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Poland,…

A former official accused of imprisoning and enslaving 656 people on his estate in Indonesia under the guise of drug rehabilitation has been acquitted on charges of human trafficking, adding to concerns about the corruption that flourishes at the regional level in the country.A three-judge panel on Monday found the former official, Terbit Rencana Perangin-angin, not guilty, a blow to those who had sought justice and compensation for imprisonment, abuse and forced labor.“We are quite sad because in Indonesia, which has been an independent country for decades, there is still the practice of modern slavery, and this occurred in the…

To hear animal rights activists tell it, those at SeaQuest are not. The for-profit company is not accredited by any zoo organization. It has at times run afoul of the U.S.D.A., which governs only some of the fauna on display. Last summer, the four-year-old SeaQuest in Trumbull, Conn., closed after several U.S.D.A. citations, including one when a child was bitten by a sugar glider. (The facility was written up for insufficient supervision.) Another in Colorado closed this year after numerous state and federal citations.The company has drawn near-constant protests from former employees and groups like PETA, which filed complaints over…

The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday sharply criticized pharmacy benefit managers, saying in a scathing 71-page report that “these powerful middlemen may be profiting by inflating drug costs and squeezing Main Street pharmacies.”The regulator’s study signals a significant ramping up of its scrutiny of benefit managers under the agency’s chair, Lina Khan. It represents a remarkable turnabout for an agency that has long taken a hands-off approach to policing these companies.The F.T.C. has so far stopped short of bringing a lawsuit or other enforcement action against a benefit manager. But the industry fears that the report could lead to a…