Author: NY TIMES

When David Ben-Gurion, one of Israel’s founding fathers, was warned in 1955 that his plan to seize the Gaza Strip from Egypt would provoke a backlash in the United Nations, he famously derided the U.N., playing off its Hebrew acronym, as “Um-Shmum.”The phrase came to symbolize Israel’s willingness to defy international organizations when it believes its core interests are at stake.Nearly 70 years later, Israel faces another wave of condemnation in the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and from dozens of countries over its military operation in Gaza, which has killed an estimated 29,000 Palestinians, many of them…

The process was six months old and already starting to wear on Jim Ratcliffe, the British billionaire, the first time he brought out the Champagne to toast his purchase of Manchester United. But even that celebration, at the Monaco Grand Prix in May, proved premature.There was no deal. Not yet.Doing one was never going to be easy. Mostly, that was because any potential sale for United offered a tantalizing marriage of money, power and history: Mr. Ratcliffe, the wealthy chairman of INEOS, the petrochemicals giant, had supported Manchester United since he was boy. United, the most decorated club in English…

Caitlin Clark’s excellence, from her signature 3-point shot to her unique skills as a “lead” passer, has captivated basketball fans from Maine to California. One question that often comes up is how her game will be taken to the next level. WNBA legend Sue Bird, who will appear in a wide-ranging 60-minute interview on “The Sports Media Podcast” on Thursday, said Clark can become a WNBA All-Star in his first year.”I think if she reaches her potential, yeah, that’s realistic,” Bird said. “That’s not an attack on anyone in the WNBA, by the way. It’s going to be difficult, but…

Ricky Valero walked into a mostly empty showing of “Madame Web” with a bucket of popcorn and an open mind.He had some idea of what he was getting into. The movie, which stars Dakota Johnson as a clairvoyant character from the Spider-Man comics, has been gleefully panned in the week since its release.The reviews were lousy, with critics calling the movie “a genuine Chernobyl-level disaster” that is “full of bad dialogue delivered badly.” The box office numbers were somehow worse, landing “Madame Web” among the lowest ticket sales ever for a superhero movie.The movie has been jeered on social media,…

Federal Reserve officials welcomed a recent inflation slowdown at their last meeting in late January but were intent on proceeding carefully as they tiptoe toward rate cuts, according to minutes from that gathering, which were released on Wednesday.Central bankers raised interest rates sharply from March 2022 to July 2023, pushing them to 5.3 percent from a starting point near zero. Those moves were meant to cool consumer and business demand, which officials hoped would weigh down rapid inflation.Now, inflation is slowing meaningfully. Consumer prices climbed 3.1 percent in the year through January, down sharply from their recent peak of 9.1…

Hydeia Broadbent, who was born with H.I.V. and as a child became a leading voice in raising awareness about the virus and AIDS, died on Tuesday at her home in Las Vegas. She was 39.Her father, Loren Broadbent, confirmed the death. No cause was given.Ms. Broadbent was 6 years old when she began sharing her struggle with H.I.V. on television programs, aiming to educate the public amid an epidemic that produced panic and stigma around AIDS, according to her website.In 1992, when she was 7, Ms. Broadbent was interviewed opposite Magic Johnson, the basketball star who after his own H.I.V.…

Contemporary works will be front and center in the coming season, the Metropolitan Opera announced on Wednesday, with four company premieres among its six new productions.The 2024-25 season will open in September with “Grounded,” about the toll of drone warfare, by Jeanine Tesori and George Brant, and will also feature the modern works “Moby-Dick,” by Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer; “Ainadamar,” by Osvaldo Golijov and David Henry Hwang and “Antony and Cleopatra,” by John Adams. It will be the fifth opera by Adams that the Met has presented, putting him in the same category as Tchaikovsky and Bellini.There will also…

Syrian state media reported on Wednesday that an airstrike on a residential building in Damascus had killed two people, and said that Israel was responsible for the attack.The Israeli military declined to comment on the strike, which the Syrian government’s official SANA news agency said hit a building in the Kafr Sousa neighborhood just after 9:30 a.m. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria, said that a third person had been killed by shrapnel from the attack, which also damaged surrounding buildings.A strike last February in the same neighborhood killed at least five people.…

Visiting American lawmakers sought to assure Taiwan on Thursday that the United States would stand by it in the face of pressure from China, while warning that uncertainty over proposed new military aid for Ukraine could weaken U.S. efforts to deter Beijing from moving aggressively against the island democracy.“America stands with Taiwan, and you can draw upon a deep reservoir of friendship and support from the United States Congress,” Representative Mike Gallagher, the Wisconsin Republican leading the bipartisan House delegation, told Taiwan’s president-elect, Lai Ching-te, who takes office in May.The lawmakers also met with Taiwan’s current president, Tsai Ing-wen. Journalists…

A year ago at the NFL Scouting Combine, Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Poles announced that his team was open for business — the No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft was available.”We need a lot, and (the No. 1 pick) gives us more opportunities to bring in more players,” Poland said at the time. “It’s a good situation for our club.”The combine then became an information-gathering mission for the Poles and Bruins. They need to do their due diligence on the quarterback class, which includes interviews with Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud and Anthony Richardson.But Pole also needed to make…