Author: NY TIMES

The Supreme Court in Britain ruled on Wednesday that trans women do not fall within the legal definition of women under the country’s equality legislation.The deputy president of the court, Lord Hodge, said: “The unanimous decision of this court is that the terms ‘woman’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological women and biological sex.”However, he added: “We counsel against reading this judgment as a triumph of one or more groups in our society at the expense of another, it is not.” He said the ruling “does not cause disadvantage to trans people” because they have protections…

As the Bahrain Grand Prix unfolded, George Russell ranked second, and his broadcast slowly conveyed the news that different systems were failing. Team principal Toto Wolff simply said: “The car was injured.”Wolff said the Mercedes driver suffered a sudden line brake failure and it took some time to find the settings to reset the system. He lost his GP and went through problems with the onboard lowering system (DRS), which led to his racing workers having to tell him on the radio when he could use the system.Wolf added that people were worried that the British would “lose the whole…

Share prices of big technology companies declined in Asia on Wednesday, dragging broader markets lower, after Nvidia, the American chip giant, revealed that the U.S. government would restrict sales of some of its chips to China.They are the first major limits that President Trump’s administration has put on semiconductor sales abroad. Nvidia dominates the market for chips used in building artificial intelligence systems and will now require a license sell A.I. chips to China. It raises the possibility that the company’s sales to China will evaporate in the coming months, bringing an end to a business that has contracted as…

Nvidia said on Tuesday that the U.S. government had blocked the sale of some of its artificial intelligence chips to China without a license and would begin requiring a license for future sales.The restrictions are the first major limits that President Trump’s administration has put on semiconductor sales abroad. It raises the possibility that Nvidia’s sales to China will evaporate in the coming months, bringing an end to a business that has contracted as the United States has curbed chip exports to its geopolitical rival.Nvidia has fought hard to maintain sales to China in the face of rising U.S. government…

President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday outlining a series of actions intended to lower drug prices, including helping states import drugs from Canada.The policies were more modest than proposals to reduce drug prices that Mr. Trump offered in his first term.And one of his new directives could increase drug prices. It calls for the Trump administration to work with Congress to change a 2022 law in a way that could defang a negotiation program meant to reduce Medicare’s spending on commonly used or costly drugs.Such a change has the potential to increase costs for the government, because it…

An Israeli strike killed a security guard and wounded 10 patients at a field hospital in southern Gaza on Tuesday, according to the director of the medical facility.The deadly attack on the grounds of the Kuwait Specialty Field Hospital in Khan Younis came two days after an Israeli strike hit one of the enclave’s last functioning medical centers: the Ahli Arab Hospital compound in Gaza City. The strikes highlighted the precarious state of Gaza’s health care sector, which has been decimated by the war.Israel’s military — which has said the strike on Ahli Arab hospital targeted a Hamas command center,…

Figuring out “Anyway” required about seven weeks of intense studio time, spread over 18 months, along with months of practicing and fund-raising on my part. Such was the complexity of the work that a technician told me it posed one of the more intricate challenges that he had seen in his many years at IRCAM. For all its pyrotechnics, though, the work has arresting moments of stunning weightlessness as detuned strings at the top of the harp interact with overtones from lower metal strings to proffer slow undulations. The subtle accompanying electronics constitute a duet with the harp, playing with…

Cocooned in fuzzy, tonal attire, Simonne Dom exuded a cozy sophistication as we crossed paths in the Marylebone section of London on a Saturday in March. Her soft garments in shades of beige embodied the two-word description she gave for her style: “casual chic.”Ms. Dom, 70, who lives in Belgium, was visiting London with friends for her birthday, an occasion she had planned to celebrate by doing a lot of shopping. When we met, she and her friends had just finished lunch at Carlotta, an Italian restaurant, and were walking to the department store Liberty to browse its selection of…

Auvers-sur-Oise, a village near Paris famed as an artist’s paradise, is also where Vincent Van Gogh spent his final days and it has long drawn tourists to walk in the tortured painter’s last footsteps. But ever since art experts identified his final work before he took his life, there has been strife in the town. Van Gogh’s final painting was disputed for decades, because he didn’t date his works. But in 2020 experts concluded that gnarled tree roots protruding from a hillside in Auvers, as depicted in his “Tree Roots,” was made on the day he died. This finding may…

Augusta, Ga. – Rory McIlroy’s 7-foot hawk putt slides under the Cup in the upper left corner of the 15 stand in Augusta National. At that moment of the day, silent Masters Championship customers were not familiar with the thousands while groaning. However, repeated listening and participation are not easy.A green jacket stands up on a crazy plastic bleach seat.”I can’t do more,” the gentleman said, “He lining up the steep stairs, his sons leaning behind, fumbling about coats that only selected groups can sport on the property.Before it actually happened, McIlroy chased a professional grand slam, and the end…