Author: NY TIMES

Firefighters battled wildfires on the outskirts of Jerusalem for a second consecutive day, hoping to extinguish some of the worst blazes in the country in recent years before an expected uptick in winds later on Thursday.The authorities reopened the main highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and allowed evacuees to return to their homes in Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank after the fires interrupted celebrations to mark Independence Day.But firefighters were racing to take full control of the blazes before winds were forecast to pick up, said Tal Volvovitch, a spokeswoman for Israel’s fire and rescue service.“We’re doing everything…

When Bill Belichick, one of the country’s most famous football coaches, appeared on “CBS Sunday Morning” over the weekend to promote his new book, “The Art of Winning: Lessons From My Life in Football,” he touched on a number of topics, including his apparent disdain for inspirational halftime speeches.Football, Mr. Belichick said in his interview with Tony Dokoupil of CBS, is really about strategy: What is his opponent doing? How does his team need to adjust?“Identifying a problem,” he went on, “figuring a solution and then executing that plan to make it work.”Jordon Hudson, Mr. Belichick’s 24-year-old girlfriend, tried to…

It was well after 2 a.m., but an aide to Vice President JD Vance was trying to roust a senior Ukrainian official out of his bed in a Munich hotel. He wanted a face-to-face meeting to close a deal letting the United States extract valuable minerals in Ukraine, a priority of the new president, Donald J. Trump.It had to be done that night, the aide said, before Mr. Vance was scheduled to meet the next day with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at a trans-Atlantic security conference. The Ukrainian protested that it was late and refused to leave his room,…

The growing list of major economies warning of weaker growth because of U.S. tariffs has a new member.The Bank of Japan said on Thursday that it expects the Japanese economy to grow 0.5 percent in the fiscal year that started on April 1. That is a sharp downgrade from the 1.1 percent the central bank had forecast in January.Explaining the change, the Bank of Japan cited “trade and other policies” leading to a slowdown in overseas economies and a decline in domestic corporate profits. The outlook was released alongside an announcement that the central bank would keep interest rates unchanged…

A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Apple must loosen its grip on its App Store and stop collecting a commission on some app sales, capping a five-year antitrust case brought by Epic Games that aimed to change the power that Apple wields over a large slice of the digital economy.The judge, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, rebuked Apple for thwarting a previous ruling in the lawsuit and said the company needed to be stopped from further disobeying the court. She criticized Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, and accused other executives at…

Consciousness may be a mystery, but that doesn’t mean that neuroscientists don’t have any explanations for it. Far from it.“In the field of consciousness, there are already so many theories that we don’t need more theories,” said Oscar Ferrante, a neuroscientist at the University of Birmingham.If you’re looking for a theory to explain how our brains give rise to subjective, inner experiences, you can check out Adaptive Resonance Theory. Or consider Dynamic Core Theory. Don’t forget First Order Representational Theory, not to mention semantic pointer competition theory. The list goes on: A 2021 survey identified 29 different theories of consciousness.Dr.…

A bombshell lawsuit, and a mogul in handcuffsFists pounding on a Los Angeles apartment door broke the silence early one morning in September 2016.Bryana Bongolan, who was visiting her friend, the singer Casandra Ventura, who goes by the stage name Cassie, later said in court papers that she recognized the unhinged voice of Ms. Ventura’s boyfriend, Sean Combs.Ms. Ventura, who occupied the fashionable 17th-floor apartment, remained in her bedroom. But Ms. Bongolan said she quickly told a third friend to lock herself in the bathroom.According to the account Ms. Bongolan, an artist and designer, gave in an ongoing lawsuit she…

Britain’s military said it had carried out a joint operation with U.S. forces against the Houthi militia in Yemen for the first time since President Trump re-entered the White House and stepped up attacks on the Iran-backed group.There was no immediate comment from the American military about the operation, which the British Defense Ministry said early Wednesday was carried out overnight “to degrade Houthi capabilities and prevent further attacks against U.K. and international shipping.”The joint operation came after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of the unclassified Signal messaging app to post sensitive details about a U.S. mission in Yemen raised…

My girlfriend and I have been together for seven years. We were both married with children when we met, had an affair and left our marriages to be together. We are very much in love, but she hides me from her family and friends. I have never met her children (13 and 10), and I’ve been asked to leave her house hurriedly when they are coming over. I haven’t met many of her friends, either. I’ve told her how much this hurts me. It’s our biggest source of conflict. But she says she prefers it this way. We have a…

“Bonjour, Macron!”At Le Prem’s, a small bar in western France that sells lottery tickets and tobacco, this greeting has become a running joke since President Emmanuel Macron dropped by unannounced the other day and bought a round of coffee for everyone, save the customers who opted for a bracing midmorning sauvignon blanc.“He did not come to scratch!” said Christophe Jacques, the cheerful bar owner, alluding to the betting games he offers on scratch cards, where winning numbers are revealed by scratching off an opaque covering. “He came to chat.”Chat the president did, for more than an hour, about health care…