Author: NY TIMES

President Biden said on Thursday that he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel were headed toward a “come-to-Jesus meeting” over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, according to an audio clip of the president’s remarks posted on social media on Friday.Mr. Biden’s comment highlights the rising tensions between him and Mr. Netanyahu in recent weeks, as the civilian death toll in Gaza has risen inexorably and Mr. Biden has come under political pressure at home and abroad to do more to compel Israel to agree to a cease-fire.In recent days, Mr. Biden had expressed hope that at least a six-week…

Now and then during an election cycle, a Republican pundit becomes something of a hero to Democrats.Peggy Noonan, a conservative Wall Street Journal columnist and former speechwriter for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, filled that role in the months leading up the 2008 election, after she had pilloried the second Bush administration over its invasion of Iraq and criticized Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee.Nicolle Wallace and Steve Schmidt, veterans of John McCain’s failed 2008 presidential campaign, reached pundit primacy on MSNBC excoriating the tea party activists then in ascendance.A rising star of the current season…

For years, the Yimbytown conference was an ideologically safe space where liberal young professionals could talk to other liberal young professionals about the particular problems of cities with a lot of liberal young professionals: not enough bike lanes and transit, too many restrictive zoning laws.The event began in 2016 in Boulder, Colo., and has ever since revolved around a coalition of left and center Democrats who want to make America’s neighborhoods less exclusive and its housing more dense. (YIMBY, a pro-housing movement that is increasingly an identity, stands for “Yes in my backyard.”)But the vibes and crowd were surprisingly different…

As BMW car bodies glided down an assembly line in Munich recently, showered by sparks from robotic welders, it was hard to tell which vehicles would be powered by batteries, fuel-burning engines or both. In the view of many analysts, that is not a good thing.The German automaker’s electric vehicles are made on the same assembly line as gasoline cars and look similar from the outside. That approach, using the same basic body for electric, hybrid, gasoline and diesel cars, has been viewed as an awkward and inefficient compromise some established carmakers have deployed as they struggle to compete with…

You can’t forgive the Academy for passing up “Brokeback Mountain” or omitting Amy Adams in “Arrival,” among other oversights that still sting. Source link

Olive trees are common in Northern Lebanon, but in the village of Bshaaleh, a handful look downright ancient. Their branches grow in wildly unpredictable directions, and the trees’ gray, gnarled trunks are shot through with holes and crevasses large enough to hide a sleeping child. Many people believe these sentinel trees are thousands of years old. They are known as “Noah trees” because of some people’s belief that the trees are the source of the olive branch carried by the dove back to Noah’s ark.Scientists have now established a more certain age for several of the trees of Bshaaleh (also…

Pep Guardiola would, in an unguarded moment, probably concede that he has a slight tendency toward hyperbole. With eyes wide and voice breathless, he will sing the praises of some hopelessly overmatched opponent his Manchester City team has just beaten by 6-1, his players’ jerseys untainted by sweat. “Guys,” he will say, “guys, they are so good. So, so good.”Where this reflex comes from is a matter of interpretation. The likeliest explanation is that it is just who Guardiola is: passionate and intense and deeply enthusiastic, still, about his sport. There might be just a dash of noblesse oblige in…

One of the game’s top orthopedic surgeons has sounded the alarm over pitching injuries, pointing to the emergence of sweepers and changes in strength as big contributors to the spike in pitching injuries.Texas Rangers team physician Dr. Keith Meester said teams are exacerbating the problem by emphasizing pitchers’ performance rather than their availability.”Unfortunately, these managers live more in the present than take a longer-term, broader view,” Mester said. “There’s a way to solve this problem. What if a guy’s WHIP (base and hits per inning pitched) doesn’t reach 0.8? What if his WHIP is 1.1 but he can hit 162?”Meister,…

This article is part of our Design special section about innovative surfaces in architecture, interiors and products.What’s new in wallpaper, tile and upholstery? Nothing and everything.Tribute continues to be paid to the past — from Victorian nests of excess to disciplined Scandinavian lines and palettes. Our eyes continue to be dazzled by optical tricks, such as trompe l’oeil patterns that collapse dimensions. Couture still refuses to remain in the closet: If pearls complete the little black dress, think of what they could do for your living room walls. And more than ever, concerns about sustainability and health drive the development…

For the past two decades, Liz Birenbaum’s 88-year-old mother, Marge, has received her Social Security check on the second Wednesday of each month. It’s her sole source of income, which pays for her room at a long-term care center, where she landed last October after having a stroke.When the deposit didn’t arrive in January, they logged into Marge’s Social Security account, where they found some startling clues: the last four digits of a bank account number that didn’t match her own, at a bank they didn’t recognize.“Someone had gotten in,” said Ms. Birenbaum, of Chappaqua, N.Y. “Then I hit a…