Author: NY TIMES

Toby Keith first drew recognition beyond country music as the artist behind the divisive post-9/11 rallying cry “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).” But the singer-songwriter, who died Monday at the age of 62 after a battle with stomach cancer, appeared to view himself as a unifying force. “As far extreme as I seem,” he said in 2003, “I’m probably catching the average Joe in the middle better than anybody.”Keith topped the country chart 20 times with a catalog of sturdily built anthems including those that romanticized the cowboy’s life and traded on the big-tent appeal…

Israel has called securing the freedom of the hostages abducted to Gaza a key goal in its war against Hamas, so many in the country were shocked on Tuesday when it emerged that at least a fifth of the captives were already dead.The news was likely to worsen a furor in Israel, where a debate over the government’s course of action in Gaza regarding the hostages has become divisive.Israeli intelligence officers have concluded that at least 30 of the remaining 136 hostages captured by Hamas and its allies on Oct. 7 have died since the start of the war, according…

The wealthy pros of Ivory Coast’s national soccer team were resting in their luxury hotel last week, preparing for a match in Africa’s biggest tournament, when Yaya Camara sprinted onto a dusty lot and began fizzing one pass after another to his friends.Over and over, he corralled the game’s underinflated ball and then sent it away again with his favorite soccer shoes: worn plastic sandals long derided as the sneaker of the poor, but which he and his friends wear as a badge of honor.Shiny soccer cleats like his idols’? No thanks, said Mr. Camara, a lean 18-year-old midfielder, as…

In the depths of the pandemic, as global supply chains buckled and the cost of shipping a container to China soared nearly twentyfold, Marco Villarreal spied an opportunity.In 2021, Mr. Villarreal resigned as Caterpillar’s director general in Mexico and began nurturing ties with companies looking to shift manufacturing from China to Mexico. He found a client in Hisun, a Chinese producer of all-terrain vehicles, which hired Mr. Villarreal to establish a $152 million manufacturing site in Saltillo, an industrial hub in northern Mexico.Mr. Villarreal said foreign companies, particularly those seeking to sell within North America, saw Mexico as a viable…

About 17 years ago, Steve Jobs took the stage at a San Francisco convention center and said he was introducing three products: an iPod, a phone and an internet browser.“These are not three separate devices,” he said. “This is one device, and we are calling it iPhone.”At $500, the first iPhone was relatively expensive, but I was eager to dump my mediocre Motorola flip phone and splurge. There were flaws — including sluggish cellular internet speeds. But the iPhone delivered on its promises.Over the last week, I’ve had a very different experience with a new first-generation product from Apple: the…

Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Dr. Joshua Myers, scholar“Alabama”I could see the grief fill the eyes of the poet Askia Muhammad Touré: “It was like, oh, they are killing our babies?” Moments after recounting what it was to be Black and alive in the days after the Sept. 15, 1963, killings of four children at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., he was the first person to fully capture for me the meaning of John Coltrane’s “Alabama.” Composed as an offering of solidarity in the wake of Black collective grief, these are melodic lines atop a pulsating rhythm, imploring…

The singing contest’s glitzy lights and glittering dresses were supposed to be a respite after another depressing, hostage-filled news day on Israeli TV.Yet a somber mood hung over the finale of “Rising Star,” the show that selects Israel’s representative for the Eurovision Song Contest, as it pitted four young pop singers against one another on Tuesday night.This year’s winner, Eden Golan, 20, dedicated her performance of “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” by Aerosmith to the more than 100 Israeli hostages still held in Gaza. “We won’t truly be OK until everyone returns home,” she said.As the victor, Golan…

Just days after a major showdown between the European Union and Hungary over aid to Ukraine, the European Commission on Wednesday announced it was opening a new disciplinary procedure against the Hungarian government over a recently passed piece of legislation that focuses on activities by foreigners deemed subversive.The move comes on top of several other open disciplinary procedures against Hungary that the European Commission, the E.U. executive branch, has been pursuing against the government of the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban.Mr. Orban has long denounced the battles with Brussels, which he says pits a “woke globalist Goliath” against Hungary’s “David.”…

Whether you want to stroll along a beach or cuddle beside a fire, these getaways prove that romantic accommodations come in many forms, including a new luxury resort in Mexico, an estate in the English countryside, just-opened cabins for stargazing in the Catskills, a farmhouse in California wine country, and hotels with February discounts on the coast of Maine. No matter where you go, you’ll find Valentine’s Day dinner menus and activities for two, like couples’ massages and private yoga sessions — though many rooms at these properties are so plush, you just might decide to ditch your plans and…

In July Michael Puglia drove home with what seemed like the coolest vehicle he’d ever own — a Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck.It was big enough to haul around his children and all their hockey gear. He’d never have to gas it up, and the ride was exhilarating. “It’s unbelievably fast and responsive,” said Mr. Puglia, a pediatric anesthesiologist in Ann Arbor, Mich. “The technology is amazing.”But as cooler weather arrived, the truck’s range — or how far it could travel before needing to be plugged in — dropped significantly. Once, after Mr. Puglia had driven 35 miles to…