Author: NY TIMES

As he played a chainsaw-wielding Elon Musk on “Saturday Night Live” in March, the veteran Canadian comedian Mike Myers was not intending to make a personal political statement. But when he stood onstage for the closing credits of the show, he said, “I got angrier and angrier.”He thought about Mr. Musk’s remark that Canada is “not a real country,” and about how President Trump had called the former Canadian prime minister “Governor Trudeau” and rudely referred to Canada as “the 51st state.” He thought about tariffs, and about graffiti he’d seen in Winnipeg: “There’s no greater pain than being betrayed…

The life and legacy of Pope Francis — a pontiff who defied easy definition and led the Roman Catholic Church through a dozen years of different phases and contradictions — are not easy to fit into a single homily.But that was the task for Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, on Saturday.“He was a pope among the people, with an open heart toward everyone,” Cardinal Re said beside Francis’ coffin from the steps of St. Peter’s Square. “He was also a pope attentive to the signs of the times and what the Holy Spirit was…

Virginia Giuffre, a former victim of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking ring who said she was “passed around like a platter of fruit” as a teenager to rich and powerful predators, including Prince Andrew of Britain, died on Friday at her farm in Western Australia. She was 41.Ms. Giuffre died by suicide, according to a statement by the family. Ms. Giuffre (pronounced JIFF-ree) wrote in an Instagram post in March that she was days away from dying of renal failure after being injured in an automobile crash with a school bus that she said was traveling at nearly 70 m.p.h.In 2019, Mr.…

In late 2023, Israel was aiming to assassinate Ibrahim Biari, a top Hamas commander in the northern Gaza Strip who had helped plan the Oct. 7 massacres. But Israeli intelligence could not find Mr. Biari, who they believed was hidden in the network of tunnels underneath Gaza.So Israeli officers turned to a new military technology infused with artificial intelligence, three Israeli and American officials briefed on the events said. The technology was developed a decade earlier but had not been used in battle. Finding Mr. Biari provided new incentive to improve the tool, so engineers in Israel’s Unit 8200, the…

David Paton, an idealistic and innovative ophthalmologist who started Project Orbis, converting a United Airlines jet into a flying hospital that took surgeons to developing countries to operate on patients and educate local doctors, died on April 3 at his home in Reno, Nev. He was 94.His death was confirmed by his son, Townley.The son of a prominent New York eye surgeon whose patients included the Shah of Iran and the financier J. Pierpont Morgan’s horse, Dr. Paton (pronounced PAY-ton) was teaching at the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins University in the early 1970s when he became discouraged by…

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel offered condolences Thursday on the passing of Pope Francis, more than three days after the death of the Roman Catholic world’s leader.The delay in issuing a statement highlighted apparent tensions in the relationship between Israeli officials and the pope, who pointedly criticized Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza and repeatedly called for a cease-fire.“The State of Israel expresses its deepest condolences to the Catholic Church and the Catholic community worldwide at the passing of Pope Francis,” the office of the Israeli prime minister said in a post on X. “May he rest in…

Think of English folk music and maybe thoughts come to mind of villagers lamenting lost loves or sailors bellowing tales of adventure at sea.But when the rising British folk band Shovel Dance Collective performs, its members want their listeners to think of more contemporary concerns.At the band’s shows, the singer Mataio Austin Dean sometimes introduces “The Merry Golden Tree,” a song about a badly treated cabin boy, as a tale of “being shafted by your boss” — a scenario many office workers might relate to.The group also performs “I Wish There Was No Prisons” and “A Hundred Stretches Hence”: probable…

Nine days earlier, Gayle King had been pilloried online as a Marie Antoinette like figure for asking critics of her 11-minute spaceflight “have you been?” and suggesting they can’t have a conversation about it until they have. But on Thursday evening, she walked the red carpet at the Time 100 Gala, her head held high and her green dress shimmering.“I can’t complain,” Ms. King said at 7:30 p.m., standing on the 16th floor of the building that was previously known as the Time Warner Center, but is now called the Deutsche Bank Center. “My life is wonderful.”To her left was…

Pope Francis understood optics. When his body was moved from the Vatican guesthouse where he lived and died to the Basilica of St. Peter’s on Wednesday, his vision of a simpler papacy had one of its most tangible visual moments.It was unlike when Pope John Paul II died in 2005, and the procession that accompanied his body to the basilica began in the opulently decorated Sala Clementina. That procession was chronicled on live TV, and as with previous popes, it moved down majestic marble staircases, and through the vaulted loggias and frescoed halls of the Apostolic Palace, reflecting centuries’ worth…

Officials in the United States are urging Japan and South Korea to make a formal commitment within the next few weeks to a $44 billion natural gas project in Alaska.The effort, known as Alaska L.N.G., is a centerpiece of President Trump’s energy agenda, and aims to ship gas from northern Alaska in a liquefied form to nations in Asia. Its feasibility hinges on securing backing from the region, home to some of the world’s largest purchasers of liquefied natural gas.A group created by Mr. Trump that is advising him on domestic energy production, the National Energy Dominance Council, is seeking…