Author: NY TIMES

Russian forces continued to press a grinding advance on Saturday into northeastern Ukraine, moving closer to a village about 10 miles from the outer ring of Kharkiv and raising fears that the city, Ukraine’s second largest, could soon be within range of Russian artillery.The Ukrainian Army said on Saturday that Russian troops had tried to break through its defenses near the village of Lyptsi, which lies directly north of Kharkiv. It said the attacks had been repelled, but maps of the battlefield compiled by independent groups analyzing publicly available video of the fighting showed that Russian troops had almost reached…

Ten years and one month after Buzunesh Deba became the legitimate winner of the 2014 Boston Marathon, she finally received the bonus she never received, but it didn’t come from Boston Sports association.Instead, it came from a stranger.When Deba crossed the finish line on Boylston Street in 2014, she didn’t receive international acclaim, a golden wreath or a $100,000 prize ($75,000 for winning, $25,000 for breaking the track record). Instead, those honors and victories belong to Rita Jeptoo, who crossed the finish line first that year but had her victory stripped by the BAA in 2016 due to a failed…

At Barclays Center on Saturday, during the first half of a game between the New York Liberty and the Indiana Fever, a man on the floor level held up a sign that instructed the crowd to “get loud.” There was no need for the prompt.Some of the raucous crowd was there to watch Caitlin Clark — the Fever’s wunderkind rookie — play her first professional game in New York City, some were Liberty fans, and more than a few seemed to be there to cheer for both sides.There were celebrities sitting courtside, like Billie Jean King, Jason Sudeikis, Megan Rapinoe…

Laurence D. Fink built BlackRock into the world’s largest asset manager with a steely grip, a thick skin and a cleareyed vision of what the company could become.Today, it’s a caretaker of $10.5 trillion of investor money and a provider of sophisticated trading technology, and Mr. Fink has been an informal financial adviser to many governments, including the United States. Along the way, he has withstood criticism from lawmakers on both sides — and even the independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — about BlackRock’s policies and politics.He has also earned the adulation of its shareholders.But Mr. Fink’s age…

A judge in New Mexico will rule next week on whether to dismiss the involuntary manslaughter indictment against Alec Baldwin in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on the “Rust” film set, after she closely questioned the lead prosecutor on Friday about her handling of grand jury proceedings.Lawyers for Mr. Baldwin — who was rehearsing with an old-fashioned revolver on the set in 2021 when it fired a live bullet, killing the cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins — had lodged numerous objections to how the case has been handled, calling the prosecution “an abuse of an innocent person whose rights have been…

Benny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel’s war cabinet, presented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an ultimatum on Saturday, saying he would leave the government if it did not soon develop a plan for the future of the war in Gaza.While Mr. Gantz’s departure would not topple the country’s emergency wartime government, the move would further strain a fragile coalition that has provided Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right government with a boost of international legitimacy, and it would make the prime minister even more reliant on his hard-line partners.“If you choose the path of zealots, dragging the country into the abyss, we…

President Salome Zourabichvili of Georgia said on Saturday that she had vetoed a bill on foreign influence that has sparked protests and plunged the nation into a political crisis, threatening to derail its pro-European aspirations in favor of closer ties with Russia.Georgia’s Parliament, which passed the draft law in three readings, is widely expected to override the veto. The ruling Georgian Dream party, which introduced the proposed legislation, can turn it into law as early as May 28, when the Parliament will be in session again.Mrs. Zourabichvili called her veto “symbolic,” but it still represented another step in the political…

RALEIGH, N.C. — In his own unique, playful way, Evgeny Kuznetsov promised the New York Rangers if they had to return to North Carolina for an increasingly unspeakable first game. Game 6 of the second-round series, they will go to hell.Oh, but it’s not hell. Even the night’s theme was “Causing Hell.” Not even when AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” sounded before the puck hit the floor. Even as Carolina’s notoriously rowdy fans reached new heights, the Hurricanes took a two-goal lead heading into the third period at PNC Arena. this is nothing.No, a potential Game 7 is going to be hell…

Mera Caulfield was watching television a couple of months ago when the screen suddenly erupted with characters doing their best evil laughs. Ms. Caulfield turned to her two roommates, Alixandra Matos and Megan Mandrachio.“I was like, ‘That’s literally us,’ ” Ms. Caulfield said.Their apartment in Queens was soon filled with a cacophony of evil laughs. By her own admission, Ms. Caulfield, 25, who subsidizes her nascent career in comedy by waitressing and being a nanny, was disappointed in her performance. (“I don’t have a good one,” she said, sounding distraught.) But she also knew what she needed to do.“We need…

No matter who wins the White House and control of Congress this autumn, one aspect of trade policy is likely to endure: Washington’s tough-on-China protectionist stance. But several trade experts predict that the America-first model of slapping tariffs on adversaries — as President Biden did this week — will backfire.Critics of tariffs and export restrictions say they not only will potentially exacerbate inflation and drag down economic growth, but are also likely to fail for a simpler reason: Chinese companies may see their businesses slowed down by the restrictions, but have found ways to beat them.As Alex Durante, an economist…