Author: NY TIMES

They came from all over the world to this remote stretch of Colombia’s Caribbean coast. Two hailed from India. Two traveled from Switzerland. One from the Netherlands. Another from Seattle. They all wanted to be taught by Beto Gomez, a professional kite surfer, in the spot where he first learned the sport.La Guajira Peninsula is ideal for kite surfing. In Cabo de la Vela, Mr. Gomez’s hometown, with nearly 1,000 residents and desert terrain, the windy season lasts nine months and the waves are flat.So for five days this year, amateur kite surfers — drawn by Mr. Gomez’s social media…

“I was playing it cool,” she said, but was taken aback.A few days later, while she was in the Poconos with her brother and his friends, he texted asking if she wanted to continue seeing him.“If not, then that’s OK,” he added when there was a pause. “I’ve enjoyed getting to know you.”She called him as soon as she saw that message, and cleared the air. The delays were “due to bad cell service,” she said.They began dating seriously, and after Christmas she visited him in Denver, where she worked remotely for about a month and a half.In January 2022,…

SHOP TALK/ō-pən-wä-shĭng/An accusation against some A.I. companies that they are using the “open source” label too loosely.By Sarah KesslerShop Talk explores the idioms of the business world: the insider jargon, the newly coined terms, the unfortunate or overused phrases.There’s a big debate in the tech world over whether artificial intelligence models should be “open source.” Elon Musk, who helped found OpenAI in 2015, sued the startup and its chief executive, Sam Altman, on claims that the company had diverged from its mission of openness. The Biden administration is investigating the risks and benefits of open source models.Proponents of open source…

In the new family comedy “IF,” Ryan Reynolds plays a frazzled matchmaker who, with help from a young girl (Cailey Fleming), unites humans with imaginary friends.John Krasinski, who wrote and directed the film, said the idea took shape as he watched his daughters’ lights dim during the pandemic.“They were playing fewer and fewer imaginary games and I could see they were letting the fears of the real world in and I thought, this is the definition of growing up,” he explained in an email.He said he decided to make the movie, now in theaters, to show his kids that the…

Israeli government lawyers on Friday defended the military operation in Rafah as “limited and localized,” arguing at the United Nations’ top court that the judges should not seek to restrict Israel’s actions in Gaza.At a hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Israel responded to a South African petition for the court to order an immediate halt to its ground assault in Rafah.Israeli forces have advanced into the outskirts of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, over the past week and a half, ordering mass evacuations and intensifying their bombardment ahead of a long-anticipated invasion of the city. More…

Questions were swirling in Slovakia on Friday, as shock over the attempted assassination of Prime Minister Robert Fico began to give way to trepidation over what comes next for the deeply polarized country.The authorities have kept details about the attack, the assailant and even who is leading the country while the prime minister is hospitalized to a minimum. Officials say they will provide more information soon but that the situation is sensitive.They have not named the suspect — whom Slovakia’s interior minister described as a “lone wolf” radicalized after last month’s presidential election — nor said when he will appear…

Lyndon Cormack loves his waterfront house in North Vancouver, Canada, which sits at the bottom of an old forestry road beneath towering cedar and Douglas fir trees.“It feels like you’re in the middle of nowhere,” he said of the home he shares with his girlfriend, Tori Quarles, 34, and two teenage daughters, “even though it’s only 25 minutes from downtown Vancouver.”But after living there for a decade, a couple of things bothered him.“It lacked a cool spot for guests,” said Mr. Cormack, 47, a founder of the backpack and luggage manufacturer Herschel Supply Company. “And I always wanted a home…

The racetrack known as Old Hilltop has long been a safe space for the trainer Bob Baffert. Eight times he has come to Baltimore with a horse fast enough to leave with the blanket of black-eyed Susans that are draped over the withers of the Preakness Stakes winner.The green stakes barn with white trim is a friendly bunker for Baffert. It houses all the horses competing in the second leg of the Triple Crown and is the daylight-to-dusk hub for those who care for them. There are familiar faces, like Baffert’s mentor and friend D. Wayne Lukas, 88, who wears…

Listen to and follow ‘Hard Fork’Apple | Spotify | Amazon | YouTubeThis week, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o, its newest A.I. model. It has an uncannily emotive voice that everybody is talking about. Then, we break down the biggest announcements from Google IO, including the launch of A.I. overviews, a major change to search that threatens the way the entire web functions. And finally, Kevin and Casey discuss the weirdest headlines from the week in another round of HatGPT.Additional Reading:Credits“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton and produced by Whitney Jones and Rachel Cohn. The show is edited by…

When a patient with a severe traumatic brain injury is comatose, in intensive care, unresponsive and hooked up to a ventilator, but not brain-dead, when is the time to withdraw life support? A small study on the fates of people in such situations suggests that doctors and patients’ families may make better decisions if they wait even a few days longer than usual.Often, a doctor sits down with family members within 72 hours of the patient’s admission to intensive care to discuss the patient’s prognosis, and whether they want to keep their loved one alive, or to remove life support.Experts…