Author: NY TIMES

More than three months after OpenAI’s board of directors briefly ousted Sam Altman, the chief executive of the high-profile artificial intelligence company, questions remain about exactly what led the board to make such a dramatic move.A report from an outside law firm, which is expected in the coming days, could shed more light on the board’s decision as well as the chaotic five days before Mr. Altman returned to the company.But as anticipation for the report grows, previously unreported details are emerging about the role that Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, played in the ouster of Mr. Altman.Ms. Murati…

The chairmen of five key Senate committees on Thursday warned the chief executives of major convenience stores and wholesalers to stop sales of illicit flavored vaping products that they called “widespread violations of federal law.”The senators voiced their concerns in letters to the companies, amplifying the frustration among some lawmakers in Congress over the continued availability of e-cigarettes in vivid colors and candy flavors that attract young people who could become addicted to nicotine. The unchecked sales, they wrote, “pose a tremendous public health threat.”“F.D.A. and the industry must do more to address the youth vaping epidemic and remove unauthorized…

Steve Lawrence, the mellow baritone nightclub, television and recording star who with his wife and partner, the soprano Eydie Gorme, kept pop standards in vogue long past their prime and took America on musical walks down memory lane for a half-century, died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 88.The cause was complications of Alzheimer’s disease, said Susan DuBow, a spokeswoman for the family. He had been diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer’s in 2019.Billed as “Steve and Eydie” at Carnegie Hall concerts, on television and at glitzy hotels in Las Vegas, the remarkably durable couple remained steadfast to…

South Africa has asked the United Nations’ highest court to issue emergency orders for Israel to stop what it called the “genocidal starvation” of the Palestinian people, citing U.N. warnings that Gaza was at risk of imminent famine.The request on Wednesday to the International Court of Justice in The Hague was part of a case that South Africa filed in December charging Israel with genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has strenuously denied the genocide allegation, and on Thursday its foreign ministry called on the court to reject South Africa’s latest request.“South Africa continues to act as the legal arm…

A woman from Sri Lanka and her four children were stabbed to death in a home in Ottawa by a student who is also from Sri Lanka, the police said on Thursday. Another man living in the home was also killed, and the children’s father was hospitalized with injuries.Investigators charged Febrio De-Zoysa, 19, a student who also lived in the home, with six counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder. He was arrested shortly after the police received two emergency calls around 11 p.m. Wednesday requesting they come to the home, which is in a residential neighborhood,…

We are honored to name Caitlin Clark CompetitorPlayer of the Year will surprise absolutely no one.Any media or organization not naming her National Team Player of the Year would be committing a basketball version of heresy. Young children, grandparents and generations know of Clark’s record-setting seasons and her penchant for shots that sometimes looked like they were launched from the moon.Caitlin Clark’s myth continues to grow, and her legend will become even more legendary if she leads Iowa to a national championship game again. Her stunning shooting captivated casual viewers, who became not only Iowa diehards, but women’s college basketball…

Imagine someone messages you at a quarter to 1 on a Saturday night after not answering your last message two days ago. How are you responding?And if someone triple texts you in the middle of a busy workday and calls you out for your slow reply: What then?When it comes to the early stages of dating, there are different schools of thought when it comes to how quickly two people should respond to one another. And plenty can get lost in translation, especially when everyone has different styles of communicating. Without much to go off about the other person, a…

Into the depleted field of journalism in America, a handful of websites have appeared in recent weeks with names suggesting a focus on news close to home: D.C. Weekly, the New York News Daily, the Chicago Chronicle and a newer sister publication, the Miami Chronicle.In fact, they are not local news organizations at all. They are Russian creations, researchers and government officials say, meant to mimic actual news organizations to push Kremlin propaganda by interspersing it among an at-times odd mix of stories about crime, politics and culture.While Russia has long sought ways to influence public discourse in the United…

Leelee Ray and her husband, Austin, have been trying to have a baby for six years, through insemination procedures, two egg retrievals, four embryo transfers, an ectopic pregnancy that could have been deadly and eight miscarriages.With four frozen embryos remaining in storage at a fertility clinic, the Rays, who live in Huntsville, Ala., decided to change course. In February, they turned to an agency in Colorado, where laws about gestational carriers are more forgiving than in Alabama, to find a woman to carry their baby.It all came to a halt just days later, when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that…

There’s nostalgic art. Then there’s art that seems like somebody thawed it after 30 frozen years. “Glitter & Doom” doesn’t yearn for some older time. It’s pure time-warp: a gay musical-love-dramedy that could’ve screened all summer at the old Philadelphia art house where I used to work, plunked amid the queer independent-filmmaking bonanza that helped make the early-to-mid-1990s seem like every gay thing was possible. The movie’s got an earnest, amateurish case of the feel-good gosh-gollies that would have made sense playing down the hall from movies as different (although not that different) as “Go Fish” and “Wigstock,” “Zero Patience”…