Author: NY TIMES

At a memorial service this week outside the concert hall where Islamist extremists are suspected of carrying out a deadly terrorist attack, one of Russia’s most popular pro-Kremlin rappers warned “right-wing and far-right groups” that they must not “incite ethnic hatred.”At a televised meeting about the attack, Russia’s top prosecutor, Igor Krasnov, pledged that his service was paying “special attention” to preventing “interethnic and interfaith conflicts.”And when President Vladimir V. Putin made his first comments on the tragedy last weekend, he said he would not allow anyone to “sow the poisonous seeds of hatred, panic and discord in our multiethnic…

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Jon Scheyer knows better than most the pressure that comes with wearing a Duke uniform. The highs feel higher and the lights are brighter than most.”When things don’t go your way, you feel worse than you really are,” said the Duke coach and former star guard. “When you lose in the ACC tournament and we lose our last regular season game, it feels like the end of the world — even though that’s what all these guys come back to do and come back for this moment. right here.”Just a week ago, the Blue Devils were still…

The audience for podcasts continue to grow, with 42 percent of Americans 12 and older reporting last year that they had listened to one in the previous month, according to a report by Edison Research. Making money isn’t simple, in part because the market is so saturated that there isn’t enough advertising revenue to go around, said Ethan Cramer-Flood, a principal forecasting writer at Insider Intelligence, a market research firm.PodCo, which was founded last year, expects to turn a profit by the second quarter of 2024, Romano said. The company plans to introduce 10 new podcasts this year, starting with…

When is a hotel more than a place to sleep? When it’s in a building with a storied past, allowing guests to go back in time to the Gilded Age or Edwardian era as easily as they go to the gym or spa.Nowadays you can check into a 17th-century former soap factory on the French Riviera, or part of the Old War Office in London, or a Renaissance-palazzo-style building that was once a bank in New York. Here are five new hotels in historic spaces where you can experience the past and present, delighting in the architecture of vanished days…

Within minutes of walking through an Israeli military checkpoint along Gaza’s central highway on Nov. 19, the Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha was asked to step out of the crowd. He put down his 3-year-old son, whom he was carrying, and sat in front of a military jeep.Half an hour later, Mr. Abu Toha heard his name called. Then he was blindfolded and led away for interrogation.“I had no idea what was happening or how they could suddenly know my full legal name,” said the 31-year-old, who added that he had no ties to the militant group Hamas and had…

Killer whales are some of the most cosmopolitan creatures on the planet, swimming through every one of the world’s oceans. They patrol the frigid waters near both poles and periodically pop up in the tropics, in locations from western Africa to Hawaii.Although their habitats and habits vary widely, all killer whales are considered part of a single, global species: Orcinus orca. (Despite their common name, killer whales are actually part of a family of marine mammals known as oceanic dolphins.)Now, scientists have drawn upon decades of research to suggest that two killer whale populations often observed off the Pacific Coast…

A lawyer for Sean Combs, the hip-hop mogul whose homes were raided by federal agents on Monday, called the searches “a gross overuse of military-level force” and criticized them as “nothing more than a witch hunt based on meritless accusations made in civil lawsuits.”“There is no excuse for the excessive show of force and hostility exhibited by authorities or the way his children and employees were treated,” the lawyer, Aaron Dyer, said in a statement on Tuesday. “Mr. Combs was never detained but spoke to and cooperated with authorities. Despite media speculation, neither Mr. Combs nor any of his family…

Relations between President Biden and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel appear to have sunk to a new low, with both men pressed hard by domestic politics and looming elections.Mr. Biden is facing outrage from global allies and his own supporters about the toll of civilian deaths in the war against Hamas and Israel’s restrictions on allowing food and medicine into Gaza amid critical shortages. On Monday, Mr. Biden allowed the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, as the U.S. ambassador abstained rather than vetoing the measure, as the United States had done…

A court in Moscow on Tuesday extended the pretrial detention of an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal by three months, nearly a year to the day after he was detained on accusations of espionage. The United States government has said the charge is politically motivated and unfounded.The reporter, Evan Gershkovich, 32, was ordered to stay in prison until at least June 30, according to a statement by the news service of the Moscow court system. It was the fifth time that Mr. Gershkovich’s detention had been extended since his arrest in March of last year during a reporting…

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Houston senior backup Ryan Elvin stepped to the free throw line with 17 seconds left in overtime to take a three-second lead and advance to the Sweet 16.Irvin played a total of 60 minutes all season, almost all in garbage time. But a second later, head coach Kelvin Sampson was forced to send him to the scorer’s table when a fourth Cougar player, All-American point guard and Big 12 Player of the Year Jamal Shedd – Fouled and left the game. Houston swapped the last man off the bench for its star player, and suddenly, he was…