Author: NY TIMES

Iran has released the crew of a container ship with links to Israel that it had detained last month, but is continuing to hold the vessel, the country’s foreign minister has said, according to Iranian media.Iranian forces seized the Portuguese-flagged ship, the MSC Aries, as tensions between Iran and Israel were rising. Israel and the United States have condemned the seizure, with the U.S. National Security Council calling on Iran to release the vessel and its crew immediately.The Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, said that the crew had been released “with a humane approach” and that “it is possible…

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey recently met with Hamas officials in Istanbul.Credit…Adem Altan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTurkey said late Thursday that it had halted all trade with Israel until “uninterrupted and adequate humanitarian aid is allowed into Gaza,” signaling further deterioration in relations between the two countries.Turkey’s Trade Ministry said in a statement that exports and imports “for all products” would pause. On Friday, the trade minister, Omer Bolat, said that the suspension would remain in place until Israel’s bombardment of Gaza stops.“Until a permanent cease-fire is established and uninterrupted humanitarian aid is allowed into Gaza, suspension of trade…

One weekend in 2021, Gemma Warren was doing what she did every weekend: sitting over coffee in her home in Tulum, Mexico, combing through the real estate listings for cabins in the Catskill Mountains of New York.She and her husband, Nick Warren, who are English, had discovered the Catskills several years earlier, while living in Brooklyn and working for public relations and marketing companies headquartered in London. They fell for the region’s scented forests, sunny meadows, icy streams and not terribly threatening bears (unless provoked). They wanted to buy a weekend house, but found nothing to fit their budget.So six…

Updated May 3, 2024, 7:01 a.m. ETMay 3, 2024, 7:01 a.m. ETIt’s been a hot spring for the American labor market, and while the summer forecast is milder, it’s not clear when the cool-down will begin.The last three months have seen an upswing in job creation, bending what had been a bumpy but definite downtrend since the post-pandemic resurgence. In the April report from the Labor Department, coming Friday morning, economists expect to see an additional 240,000 jobs, which would be slightly less than the first-quarter average but more than the pace over the second half of last year.Does that mean…

On Tuesday, Google’s employees gathered for an all-hands meeting named T.G.I.F. These companywide meetings are rarely held on Fridays these days, but the name has stuck.Executives shared highlights from a recent earnings report and cloud-computing conference, and warned workers against taking disruptive actions in the wake of internal protests against a cloud-computing contract with Israel.But no one in the meeting, two employees said, broached a topic that could have a dramatic impact on Google: its landmark antitrust trial with the Justice Department, where arguments are finally coming to an end this week.For eight months, while tech policy experts have tried…

Even leading experts in vaccine science have run up against disbelief and ambivalence.Dr. Gregory Poland, 68, editor in chief of the journal Vaccine, said that a loud whooshing sound in his ears had accompanied every moment since his first shot, but that his entreaties to colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to explore the phenomenon, tinnitus, had led nowhere.He received polite responses to his many emails, but “I just don’t get any sense of movement,” he said.“If they have done studies, those studies should be published,” Dr. Poland added. In despair that he might “never hear silence…

Magnus Bormark, a longtime rock guitarist in Norway, said his band had gotten used to releasing music with little publicity. So nothing prepared him for the onslaught of attention since the band, Gåte, was selected to represent Norway at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest.The phones have not stopped ringing, Bormark said — not just with calls from reporters from mainstream media outlets, but also from the independent bloggers, YouTubers and podcast hosts who provide Eurovision superfans with nonstop coverage of Eurovision gossip, backstage drama and news about the contest.Casual Eurovision observers may tune in once a year to watch the…

Mr. Biden implied that his critics were simply being opportunistic. “In moments like this, there are always those who rush in to score political points,” he said. “But this isn’t a moment for politics. It’s a moment for clarity. So let me be clear: Peaceful protest in America. Violent protest is not protected. Peaceful protest is.”In calming some in his party, though, Mr. Biden took heat from others on the political left. In their view, he employed none of the nuance that he expressed in 2020 when otherwise peaceful protests after the police killing of George Floyd got out of…

Few famous Britons, it seems, can resist the chance to be painted by Jonathan Yeo. David Attenborough, the 97-year-old broadcasting legend, is among those who have recently climbed the spiral stairs to his snug studio, hidden at the end of a lane in West London, to pose for Mr. Yeo, one of Britain’s most recognized portrait artists.Yet when it came to painting his latest portrait, of King Charles III, the artist had to go to the subject.Mr. Yeo rented a truck to transport his 7.5-by-5.5-foot canvas to the king’s London residence, Clarence House. There, he erected a platform so he…

A somber gathering of artists and illustrators took place at a gallery in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan on a recent Friday evening. They were there for a Wright auction preview of the drawings and personal belongings of Jason Polan, the celebrated New York street artist who died of cancer at 37 in 2020.The auction, “I Want to Know All of You: The Art & Collection of Jason Polan,” is part of a new initiative to preserve his legacy, but as the night carried on, Mr. Polan’s friends seemed content just to be in the presence of objects that let…