Author: NY TIMES

The president of the small West African country of Sierra Leone signed a law on Tuesday that banned marriage for children age 18 and younger and would impose steep fines on adult spouses. The move was a victory for activists who had long fought to eradicate the widespread practice.The new legislation goes further than many other similar laws in Africa, experts said, by penalizing people who enable the marriage — like the parents, the officiant and even the wedding guests — in addition to the husband.There were about 800,000 girls under the age of 18 who were married in Sierra…

Nestor Lorenzo often had a clever way of summarizing things. The eloquent Colombian coach said it again when asked about the enigmatic James Rodriguez ahead of Tuesday’s crucial clash with Brazil.”Now he’s running less but thinking more. That’s good for him. He’s in a good environment and that’s why he plays.After just three games at the 2024 Copa America, the 32-year-old Rodriguez has already created 11 chances for his teammates – more than any other player in the tournament – and provided three assists. He would have had a fourth had it not been for a ruthless line-out by the…

Last week, Nolen Royalty unleashed upon the world a website with a million empty check boxes.Mr. Royalty, 32, a game developer in Brooklyn, created the site in a fit of inspiration and shared it on X last Wednesday with low expectations. “Basically anyone I described it to chuckled, at most,” he said.Rows of unchecked squares sat tantalizingly against a pale gray background, an unexplored Minesweeper field. A visitor to the page checked one box. Then another. Each time a person checked a box, it was instantly filled in on everybody else’s screens, like a kind of collaborative grocery list accessible…

In a move that would further consolidate the luxury retail market, the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue has agreed to acquire Neiman Marcus in a $2.65 billion deal, creating the ultimate high-end department store behemoth, two people close to the negotiations said on Wednesday.The deal, which had been rumored since Neiman Marcus filed for bankruptcy protection during the pandemic, comes just over four years after Saks bought the license for the Barney’s name following the bankruptcy of that group. It also follows a wave of luxury e-tail failures, including that of FarFetch and Matches.com. Saks is owned by HBC,…

A federal judge on Wednesday backed an initial legal challenge to the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on noncompete agreements, which is scheduled to take effect in September.Judge Ada Brown granted an injunction requested by several plaintiffs, saying the ban cannot be enforced against them pending a final ruling.But while the ruling is preliminary, she said that the F.T.C. lacked “substantive rule-making authority” with respect to unfair methods of competition and that the plaintiffs were “likely to succeed on the merits” of their challenge.Judge Brown, of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, said she expected to issue a…

His family moved to Cedarhurst, N.Y., on Long Island, when he was a child. As a student at Lawrence High School, he was a soccer and basketball standout. He also fostered a growing love of rap music, taping shows by influential New York disc jockeys like DJ Red Alert.“I realized that hip-hop culture could move the world,” he told Forbes, “because it was moving me.”Soon after graduating from Albany State University in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in business, he followed Mr. Cohen, who had recently taken a job at SBK Records, the label founded by the industry heavyweight Charles…

Israeli forces killed a senior Hezbollah commander on Wednesday in a drone strike in southern Lebanon, prompting the Lebanese militia to retaliate with a heavy rocket barrage across the border.The flare-up came as Western diplomats worked to avoid a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah, a danger that appears to have grown in recent weeks. Cross-border exchanges of fire have intensified, and Israeli officials have publicly spoken of shifting their military focus from Hamas in the Gaza Strip to Hezbollah, a far more advanced and potent threat.Amos Hochstein, a senior White House adviser who has become the de facto U.S.…

Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have identified an Israeli air base as a key source of GPS attacks that have disrupted civilian airline navigation in the Middle East.The attacks, known as spoofing, send out manipulated GPS signals that make airplane instruments misread their location.The researchers, Todd Humphreys and Zach Clements, said they are “highly confident” that the spoofing attacks originated from Ein Shemer Airfield in northern Israel. The Israeli military declined to comment on Tuesday.The researchers used data that was emitted by the spoofer and picked up by satellites in low-Earth orbit to determine its location. They…

For a moment, Cristiano Ronaldo looked like he was about to cry. And then all of a sudden, no, he’s gone over the edge. The floodgates have opened and he is now wailing. In front of a packed crowd in Frankfurt and a massive global television audience, arguably the most famous athlete on earth broke down in tears.And there’s still a game to win and a place in the Euro 2024 quarter-finals to secure.It’s amazing to witness. The Portugal captain endured another frustrating night, still chasing his first goal of the World Cup, and now had the chance to break…

Right before they filmed the loogie heard around the world, Tim Dickerson and DeArius Marlow were getting ready to go home.They were on the corner of Broadway and 3rd Avenue in the downtown area of Nashville, and as it crept past midnight, the pair, who shoot person-on-the-street interviews at nightlife hot spots around the country, thought they had enough footage for a good video.Then, two women approached them from across the street, asking to be interviewed.At that moment, a viral star was born.That star, of course, is Hailey Welch, better known online as “Hawk Tuah Girl.” “Hawk tuah” is an…