Author: NY TIMES

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken left open the possibility on Friday that President Biden could allow Ukraine to use U.S.-made weapons to strike at a broader array of targets inside Russia, going beyond attacks he has approved on launch sites the Russians are using for their current assault on the Kharkiv area.“Going forward, we’ll continue to do what we’ve been doing, which is: As necessary, adapt and adjust,” Mr. Blinken said at a news conference in Prague at the end of a two-day meeting of top diplomats from member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.Mr. Blinken was responding…

No one knows exactly when Europe’s largest grandstand earned its now-famous name, although it’s certain it happened later than most people imagine.In 2018, German writer and author Uli Hesse described the yellow wall at Borussia Dortmund’s Westfalenstadion as something that Bayern Munich, the country’s most successful and powerful club, does not have: “A huge The terrace looks like a return to the golden age of football.”The architectural behemoth can accommodate 24,454 spectators for Bundesliga matches, more than twice the number of spectators in Celtic’s fabled “Jungle” in the 1960s and just shy of Anfield’s maximum capacity during Liverpool’s golden era…

When an opinion article published in the British weekly The Spectator last week questioned the desirability of Penelope Featherington, a character in the Netflix series “Bridgerton” played by the Irish actress Nicola Coughlan, it touched off a firestorm of objection. People rushed to criticize the claim that her pairing with Colin Bridgerton, the chiseled and handsome leading man played by Luke Newton, would never happen in real life because her character isn’t thin.After the show’s third season debuted on Netflix this month, fans were offended by what they saw as body shaming in the piece, which bluntly stated that Ms.…

Long before people develop dementia, they often begin falling behind on mortgage payments, credit card bills and other financial obligations, new research shows.A team of economists and medical experts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Georgetown University combined Medicare records with data from Equifax, the credit bureau, to study how people’s borrowing behavior changed in the years before and after a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s or a similar disorder.What they found was striking: Credit scores among people who later develop dementia begin falling sharply long before their disease is formally identified. A year before diagnosis, these people were…

Several major networks cut away from former President Donald J. Trump on Friday during an appearance that had been promoted as a news conference at Trump Tower devolved into a rambling and misleading speech.It was the latest example of television journalists having to weigh the news value of a major political moment — in this case, the criminal conviction of a former president — against the challenges of reporting on a candidate who regularly speaks in falsehoods.Mr. Trump’s unfiltered remarks were carried live by cable news channels and NBC, which broke into its usual daytime programming to cover his appearance.…

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday raised concerns about the health effects of MDMA as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, citing flaws in a company’s studies that could pose major obstacles to approval of a treatment anticipated to help people struggling with the condition.The agency said that bias had seeped into the studies because participants and therapists were readily able to figure out who got MDMA versus a placebo. It also flagged “significant increases” in blood pressure and pulse rates that could “trigger cardiovascular events.”The staff analysis was conducted for an independent advisory panel that will meet Tuesday…

Doug Ingle, the lead singer and organist of Iron Butterfly, the band that turned a purportedly misheard lyric into “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” the 17-minute magnum opus that propelled acid rock into the outer reaches of excess in the late 1960s, died on May 24. He was 78.His death was confirmed in a social media post by his son Doug Ingle Jr The post did not say where he died or specify a cause.Mr. Ingle was the last surviving member of the classic lineup of Iron Butterfly, the pioneering hard rock act he helped found in 1966. The band released its first three…

The Israeli military said on Friday that its forces had advanced into central Rafah, pushing even deeper into the southern Gaza city despite an international backlash and pressure from allies to scale back the latest offensive.Israeli commandoes backed by tanks and artillery were operating in central Rafah, the Israeli military said in a statement, without specifying precise locations. On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it had established “operational control” over the border zone with Egypt, an eight-mile-long strip known as the Philadelphi Corridor on the outskirts of Rafah.Commercially available satellite imagery taken by Planet Labs on Thursday also showed that…

LANCASTER, Pa. — Standing on the edge of the 9th green at Lancaster Country Club, shortly after making her last putt of the day, Nellie Korda opened her purple scorecard holder and lowered her Head, sighing deeply, her chest could be seen expanding.Her shoulders rose. Then they sank. The tall, fat man who shot 80 in the first round of the U.S. Women’s Open stared back at her, and seeing her seven bogeys early in the round in 10 shots might send shivers down her spine again.The world No. 1 didn’t look like herself on Thursday. She has won six…

Besides, ludicrous or not, the whole month had been kind of a stressful nightmare for my daughter, the whole week had been extra tough, the whole day was super taxing, and she hadn’t even made it to: (1) the pictures at our house with her boyfriend giving her the corsage I had fetched; (2) the pictures at his house with his parents; (3) the pictures at the park with 20 or 30 of their closest friends; (4) the dinner with 12 friends at a restaurant in town; (5) the actual prom; (6) the post-prom pre-party, where you change out of…