Author: NY TIMES

High above the clouds on Earth’s highest peak, climbers are making the arduous trek up Mount Everest.The narrow window of the spring summit season, which usually lasts from April to May, is the best time to climb. The weather is clearer and less windy but that is no guarantee of safety: At least five people have died and three others have gone missing since the beginning of this climbing season, officials said.The conditions have led to bottlenecks as unnerving videos have circulated of long lines of climbers waiting precariously on a precipice.The popularity of the climb has prompted concerns in…

The immediate takeaway from the landmark $2.8 billion settlement that the N.C.A.A. and the major athletic conferences accepted on Thursday was that it cut straight at the heart of the organization’s cherished model of amateurism: Schools can now pay their athletes directly.But another bedrock principle remains intact, and maintaining it is likely to be a priority for the N.C.A.A.: that players who are paid by the universities are not employed by them, and therefore do not have the right to collectively bargain.Congress must “establish that our athletes are not employees, but students seeking college degrees,” John I. Jenkins, the president…

The long-running medical show wraps up its 20th season. HBO airs a new documentary series about a renaissance fair in Texas. Source link

The Israeli military was pressing ahead with its operation in Rafah on Saturday, according to three Israeli officials, a day after the world’s top court appeared to order Israel to “immediately” cease its military campaign in the southern Gaza city amid a growing international outcry over the offensive.The officials did not say exactly where in the city its forces were striking and fighting. One official said the military continued to advance slowly, but cautioned that it was too early to conclude how Israel would ultimately respond to the court order because it takes time for a military ground operation to…

A far-right group in the European Union’s Parliament announced on Thursday that it had ousted the Alternative for Germany party from its coalition, dealing a severe blow to a key alliance just two weeks before E.U. parliamentary elections.In a statement on its official X account, the Identity and Democracy Group wrote that it had decided to exclude Alternative for Germany, or AfD, because of comments made by Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s lead candidate in the upcoming elections.In an interview last week, Mr. Krah appeared to minimize the crimes carried out by the SS, the Nazi paramilitary force that killed millions…

Starter episode: “Aviation Bill”This year marks the 10th anniversary of a haunting aviation mystery. On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 took off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and disappeared from air control radar 35 minutes later, vanishing somewhere over the Indian Ocean. Exhaustive searches turned up only scattered pieces of debris, which offered no answers about what happened to the flight. In this meticulous investigative podcast, Jeff Wise, a journalist and aviation expert, breaks down every detail of the story alongside his co-host, Andy Tarnoff. Over more than 25 episodes, the pair leaves no stone unturned as they explore…

Well, what you did was, you threw out some of the company’s longstanding core principles, chief among them, not having advertisers. You introduced an ad-supported subscription tier. Did that feel like a real turn, betraying the identity of the company? It really wasn’t that we were “core principles” against advertising, it’s just that no advertising was our counterposition to television, the way that no late fees was our counterposition to video stores in our DVD days. What don’t people like about TV? Watching the ads and waiting a week for the next episode. We realized though, in this world of…

President Biden on Monday condemned the decision by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor to seek arrest warrants for two top Israeli officials — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — when he requested warrants for the leaders of Hamas, saying in a White House statement that “whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas.”Mr. Biden’s decision to stand firmly behind Mr. Netanyahu was echoed by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, who called the move by the prosecutor, Karim Khan, “shameful” in a statement that said the United…

Canada Post ended the week with more grim financial news, announcing an operating loss of 221 million Canadian dollars for the first three months of the year. That came on top of an announcement at the beginning of the month that it had lost 748 million dollars last year.The government-owned postal service has now accumulated more than 3 billion dollars in losses since 2018, and it offered a bleak look ahead in the 2023 annual report it released this month.“We forecast larger and increasingly unsustainable losses in future years,” it wrote, adding that without borrowing another 1 billion dollars and…

Send questions about the office, money, careers and work-life balance to workfriend@nytimes.com. Include your name and location, or a request to remain anonymous. Letters may be edited.Make the Dog Days OverI share my office with another co-worker and her large, stinky dog. I eat lunch at my desk and have to deal with the dog staring while I eat and sticking its head in my garbage can looking for leftovers. I listen to it obnoxiously drink water and eat. The dog is also scared of men. If strangers come to visit the office, it barks loudly and lunges! Mostly everyone…