Author: NY TIMES

From the start, his interests veered far from the professional middle-class ideal. In his teens he read Rimbaud’s verse and the famous jazz hipster Mezz Mezzrow’s memoir. He listened to Bessie Smith, Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin; dressed in North African shawls; and once famously exclaimed at the family dinner table, head in hands, “I’ll never work!”Though fiercely intelligent, he was booted from one high school and dropped out of another, then started picking up part-time jobs. (During a stint as an ambulance driver at Charles de Gaulle Airport, he pushed the wheelchairs of Jean-Paul Sartre and Charles Mingus.) When…

Still fighting Israel’s outside enemies on multiple fronts, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu woke up on Monday to a new political battlefield at home.The departure this weekend of Benny Gantz and his centrist National Unity party from Israel’s emergency wartime government is unlikely to immediately sever Mr. Netanyahu’s grip on power. The prime minister’s governing coalition still commands a narrow majority of 64 seats in the 120-seat Parliament.But Mr. Gantz’s move means that Mr. Netanyahu is now totally dependent on his far right and ultra-Orthodox coalition partners as he prosecutes the war in Gaza in the face of mounting international opprobrium,…

“The voice has become bigger,” Mr. Fortunato said. Previous campaigns to have the plaque removed have failed. Shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, about 12,000 people signed an online petition to have it taken down, but were rebuffed. Part of the problem is that it is not clear even to some local officials who is responsible for making that decision, although the basilica’s rector, Giovanni Distante, said the piazza where the plaque is mounted “falls under the direct responsibility” of the city government.Bari’s mayor, Antonio Decaro, did not respond to multiple requests for comment. In 2022, he defended the plaque, saying,…

Kiley DeMarco recently attended Safety Night at her children’s public elementary school on Long Island. As she walked around different booths learning about how to protect her children from accidentally taking a cannabis gummy, about a local violence-prevention program, about how police officers would respond to an emergency on campus, one station caught her eye: A parent was asking other parents to take a pledge not to give their children smartphones until the end of eighth grade.Ms. DeMarco has two children, one in kindergarten and one in first grade. But like many parents, she has already read books and research…

A landslide in the Teton mountains destroyed part of a highway that links Idaho to Jackson, Wyo., forcing the authorities to close the road indefinitely on Saturday just as the area was entering its summer tourism season.No one was injured when a section of the Teton Pass “catastrophically failed,” the Wyoming Department of Transportation said in a statement on Saturday. The highway west of Jackson had been closed to traffic before the road gave way, and crews were working to build a detour around a section where a crack had appeared in the surface days earlier.The department said it expected…

You know you have a credit score. Did you know that you might also have a driver score?The score reflects the safety of your driving habits — how often you slam on the brakes, speed, look at your phone or drive late at night.While you can see your credit score, you will have a harder time finding out what your driving score is. But auto insurance companies can get it — and that could affect the rate you pay.For the last two decades, auto insurers have been trying to get people to enroll in programs, commonly called usage-based insurance plans,…

In the 1999 rom-com “Notting Hill,” the sheepish bookseller played by Hugh Grant goes to a hotel expecting a date with the megawatt star played by Julia Roberts. He is surprised to find he has arrived at a press junket and looks adorably flustered as he’s shuffled from room to room, pretending to be a reporter from Horse & Hound to interview the stars of her space movie.The sequence is a handy introduction to this strange custom of film publicity: actors sitting in sterile suites for a parade of brief interviews. But these days that almost seems quaint. The press…

Israelis briefly breathed a collective sigh of relief on Saturday, when the military announced it had rescued four hostages who were held in Gaza for eight months after being captured in the Oct. 7 attack led by Hamas.The four hostages had been taken at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7 and were rescued in an operation in the town of Nuseirat in central Gaza early Saturday. The mission left scores of Palestinians, including women and children, dead. News of the rescue raised renewed questions about the fate of those who remain in captivity and a proposed cease-fire deal.How many…

The Israeli operation to rescue four hostages in the town of Nuseirat in central Gaza on Saturday unleashed a heavy aerial bombardment and ground operations that killed more than 200 people, according to two hospital officials in the area.Residents there said it was the heaviest onslaught they could recall during the eight-month-old war. One hospital official said Israel struck a busy market, and video footage from the immediate aftermath of the attack showed bloodied bodies on the ground in what appeared to be a market that was struck.Other video footage showed people running for cover as a powerful airstrike exploded…

“If the price goes up, the portions ideally should go up as well,” Mr. Francis said.Motivated by other TikTok videos, Mr. Francis decided to join in on what he called “the peaceful protest.” On May 18, he walked into his Chipotle, filming, and asked for a bowl to go. When he believed the worker did not give him enough beans, Mr. Francis said, “Appreciate you, bro,” left the bowl behind and walked out without paying. The video, which is captioned “couldn’t let him disrespect me with the protein,” has received more than 114,000 likes. (The popularity of videos like Mr.…