Author: NY TIMES

The Ukrainian Navy patrol boat zipped across the Black Sea, its double-barreled, 25-millimeter machine gun locked on the horizon. The enemy, Russia, was nowhere in sight, yet ever-present. In the command room, Captain Mykhailo and his crew scanned screens showing color-coded zones marking Russian mine-laden waters and red arrows tracking drones prowling the area.The crew’s mission was to defend the waters off Odesa, Ukraine’s largest Black Sea port city, and keep them safe for commercial traffic. It has been grueling work — clearing Russian mines by day, shooting down drones by night — but after more than a year of…

The Golden State Warriors’ regular season will end Sunday afternoon at Chase Center, one of Draymond Green’s favorite games. Fight against the LA Clippers. It could have a playoff impact, so the green will undoubtedly be intense.But it wasn’t his showdown with Ivica Zubac, it wasn’t the bruises center he had to face. Or Kawhi Leonard. Or James Harden. No, Green loves the showdown because head coach Ty Lue.”When I played against his team, I felt it was a game with me and him,” Green said.It’s a 35-year-old green window here, still doing well on defense and worth the year’s…

China’s leaders have sent a clear message about the effects of the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs: Things will be painful, but it is nothing that the country cannot handle.A commentary on Sunday in the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, said Beijing had prepared for a trade war with the United States and that China could potentially come out stronger as a result.“The abuse of tariffs by the United States will have an impact on China, but ‘the sky will not fall,’” it said. “China is a super economy. We are strong and resilient in the face of the U.S.…

Dear readers, I have a confession: I am suffering from an ailment that the younger ones call “brain rot,” the inability to think deeply after too much scrolling on my phone. These days, it’s tough to even finish a book.Plenty of people have this problem. So many, it has birthed a category of minimalist tech products striving to rid us of distractions, from the Ai Pin, the now defunct artificially intelligent lapel pin that took notes, to phones with only basic features.The latest example, the $600 Light Phone III, from a Brooklyn start-up, is a stripped-down phone that does barely…

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, attended the funeral on Sunday of an 8-year-old girl who died of measles amid an outbreak that has burned through the region and called into question his ability to handle a public-health crisis.The child’s death, in a hospital in Lubbock, Texas, early Thursday morning, is the second confirmed fatality from measles in a decade in the United States.The girl died of “measles pulmonary failure,” according to records obtained by The New York Times. The hospital, part of UMC Health System, confirmed the death later on Sunday, adding that the girl was unvaccinated…

Federal prosecutors have amended the indictment against Sean Combs, who is scheduled to stand trial next month, to include a second major sex-trafficking charge, according to a grand jury indictment unsealed on Friday.The new charge relates to a woman described by prosecutors as “Victim-2.” They allege that she is one of three female victims whom Mr. Combs coerced into sex.Before, Mr. Combs had been charged only with sex trafficking “Victim-2” under a less serious charge that makes it illegal to transport a person “with intent that such individual engage in prostitution.” The new indictment adds a second count of a…

More than 100 chemical weapons sites are suspected to remain in Syria, left behind after the fall of the longtime president, Bashar al-Assad, according to the leading international organization that tracks these weapons.That number is the first estimate of its kind as the group, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, seeks to enter Syria to assess what remains of Mr. al-Assad’s notorious military program. The figure is far higher than any that Mr. al-Assad has ever acknowledged.The sites are suspected to have been involved in the research, manufacturing and storage of chemical weapons. Mr. al-Assad used weapons like…

Etsy has been flooded with hats and candles asking the question: “Has Anyone Seen My Lorazepam?” Social media is rife with videos of people enunciating “lorazepam” in a faux Southern drawl. Lorazepam even made a cameo on a recent episode of “Saturday Night Live,” when the actress Chloe Fineman raucously shouted the word during a sketch.As anyone even loosely familiar with Season 3 of “The White Lotus” may know, this sudden tsunami of references to a prescription medication used to treat anxiety is not a sign of mass desperation. Rather, it’s a manifestation of an unceasing fan obsession with Victoria…

President Trump’s self-proclaimed “liberation day,” in which he announced across-the-board tariffs on the United States’ trading partners, carries an echo of another moment when an advanced Western economy threw up walls around itself.Like Brexit, Britain’s fateful vote nearly nine years ago to leave the European Union, Mr. Trump’s tariffs struck a hammer blow at the established order. He is pulling the United States out of the global economy much as Britain withdrew from a continentwide trading bloc, in what its backers viewed as a comparable act of liberation.The shock of Mr. Trump’s move is reverberating even more widely, given the…

NEW YORK – The New York Yankees’ Bats are the story of the team’s team’s franchise record against the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday. Then there is a discussion about the actual bats used by some players in the 20-9 victory.The unique shape of wood is the result of two years of research and experiments that were transformed into overseeing the former Massachusetts Institute of Physicists.The central problem?”Where do you want to play?” Aaron Leanhardt said in a phone interview Sunday morning. “Where are you going to contact?”Leanhardt, 48, started his job when he became a member of the Yankees minor…