Author: NY TIMES

A lengthy report by the Department of Justice on President Biden’s handling of classified documents contained some astonishing assessments of his well-being and mental health.Mr. Biden, 81, was an “elderly man with a poor memory” and “diminished faculties” who “did not remember when he was vice president,” the special counsel Robert K. Hur said.In conversations recorded in 2017, Mr. Biden was “often painfully slow” and “struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries.” So impaired was Mr. Biden that a jury was unlikely to convict him, Mr. Hur said.Republicans were quick to…

Hear nine standout songs by members of the Grammy-winning trio: Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus. Source link

Moody’s on Friday became the first major rating agency to downgrade Israel’s creditworthiness, citing the prolonged war with Hamas and the toll it is taking on the country’s finances.Moody’s, one of three major rating agencies alongside S&P Global Ratings and Fitch, lowered Israel’s rating from A1 to A2. Credit ratings range from a low of D or C (for S&P and Moody’s scales) to AAA or Aaa for the most pristine borrowers. A rating of A2 is still a high rating, but Moody’s also noted that the outlook for the country was negative, dented by the social, political and economic…

John Bruton, a former Irish prime minister who led an alliance known as the Rainbow Coalition and played a central role with Britain in an effort to secure peace in Northern Ireland after decades of strife, died on Tuesday in Dublin. He was 76.His family said his death, in a hospital, followed a long illness; they did not specify the cause. Mr. Bruton had also served as the European Union’s ambassador in Washington.Feted in death across the political spectrum in Britain and Ireland, Mr. Bruton had a long career in the center-right Fine Gael party. He was his country’s prime…

Hundreds gathered in a Greenwich Village church to pay their respects to the transgender activist Cecilia Gentili, who died this week at 52. Source link

It’s official: Peak TV has peaked.Last year, 516 scripted television series aired or streamed in the United States, a 14 percent decline from 2022, the FX cable network said on Friday. That was only the second drop in at least 15 years, and the biggest, according to FX’s research.The total is the most definitive evidence of a slowdown that executives have been predicting for at least a year. Television’s rise — in both the number of shows and the quality of programming — brought it to the forefront of American culture over the last decade.But orders for shows by the…

An academic journal publisher this week retracted two studies that were cited by a federal judge in Texas last year when he ruled that the abortion pill mifepristone should be taken off the market.Most of the authors of the studies are doctors and researchers affiliated with anti-abortion groups, and their reports suggested that medication abortion causes dangerous complications, contradicting the widespread evidence that abortion pills are safe.The lawsuit in which the studies were cited will be heard by the Supreme Court in March. The high court’s ruling could have major implications for access to medication abortion, which is now the…

Sony has agreed to acquire half of Michael Jackson’s catalog from the star’s estate, in what is likely the richest transaction ever for a single musician’s work, according to two people briefed on the agreement.The deal, which has been gossiped about in the music industry for months, is said to involve Sony purchasing a 50 percent stake in Jackson’s recorded music and songwriting catalogs. That includes not only the estate’s share of megahits like “Beat It” and “Bad,” but also the music publishing assets that are part of Jackson’s Mijac catalog, among them songs written by Sly Stone and tracks…

President Biden sharply escalated his criticism of Israel’s approach to the war against Hamas on Thursday, calling military operations in Gaza “over the top” and saying that the suffering of innocent people has “got to stop.”Mr. Biden, who has strongly supported Israel’s right to retaliate for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas that killed an estimated 1,200 people, exhibited growing impatience with the scale and duration of Israel’s response during a nighttime meeting with reporters at the White House.“I’m of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in Gaza, in the Gaza Strip, has been…

Robert Badinter, a French lawyer and former justice minister who led the fight to abolish the death penalty in France and became one of the country’s most respected intellectual figures, died early Friday. He was 95.His death was confirmed by Aude Napoli, his spokeswoman. She did not say where he died.“He is a touchstone for many generations,” President Emmanuel Macron told reporters on a visit to Bordeaux on Friday, hailing Mr. Badinter as a “sage” and a “conscience” for France.“The nation owes him a lot,” Mr. Macron said, adding that the government would organize a national tribute.Mr. Badinter spent decades…