Author: NY TIMES

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…

After watching “I Saw the TV Glow,” the new film from the director Jane Schoenbrun, I felt a sensation I hadn’t felt in a while: I need this soundtrack.The genre-defying movie is a surreal story about two high schoolers in the 1990s who become obsessed with a “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”-like show called “The Pink Opaque.” It’s a rich film that draws on horror, ’90s television and Schoenbrun’s experience coming out as transgender. But it also boasts some incredible tunes, like a hypnotic cover of Broken Social Scene’s “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl” by the artist yeule and performances…

When pro-Palestinian student protesters took over Hamilton Hall at Columbia University last month and renamed it “Hind’s Hall,” the banner they unfurled contained images of a cartoon character created over 50 years ago that symbolizes the resilience of Palestinians.On either side of the text were two images of a barefoot boy with tattered clothes and spiky hair, his back turned to us.The character is called Handala (variously transliterated as Hanzala or Handzala), a name derived from a native plant that is deep-rooted, persistent and bears bitter fruit, and has become a potent symbol of the Palestinian struggle. The image was…

Two years into President Biden’s term, his aides began negotiating with Saudi leaders to have the kingdom establish diplomatic relations with Israel. But when the Israel-Hamas war began last October, the talks withered.American and Saudi officials have tried to revive prospects for a deal by demanding more from Israel — a cease-fire in Gaza and irreversible steps toward the founding of a Palestinian nation. Now those officials say they are close to a final agreement on the main elements of what the Saudis want from the deal: a U.S.-Saudi mutual defense pact and cooperation on a civilian nuclear program in…

We graduated and got our first jobs. Two years to the day after my injury, a college friend, Jonny, fell down a flight of stairs after a night out in New York City and died. At 23, from a traumatic brain injury. When I heard the news, I thought of his mother. Then I thought of my mother, knowing that could have been me, and stopped feeling sorry for myself.Over time, my leg healed, and my back mostly healed. Every few months, my back locks up and I can hardly move. When that happens, I take a week off and…