Author: NY TIMES

The Israeli government had determined that the loosely organized civilian guard, known as Kitat Konnenut, would serve as the first line of defense in the towns and villages near the border. But the guardsmen had different standards of training depending on who was in charge. For years, they warned that some of their units were poorly trained and underequipped, according to two Israeli military officials with direct knowledge of the volunteer teams.Additionally, the Israeli military reservists were not prepared to quickly mobilize and deploy. Some described heading south on their own initiative.Davidi Ben Zion, 38, a major in the reserves,…

To most of this bakery’s millions of devotees, the idea that its “Steak Bake” could be “lifted” lies somewhere between folly and heresy. It brings diced beef, gravy and crisp puff pastry together in perfect harmony. It cannot be improved, or ameliorated, or heightened. It has already attained its highest form.Its popularity attests to that. The bakery, Greggs, a family chain founded in 1939 to deliver door-to-door baked goods to mining communities around Newcastle, England, sells hundreds of thousands of them every week, mostly to customers who walk into one of their more than 2,300 branches around Britain and take…

Russell Wilson’s journey with the Denver Broncos may be over.The Broncos will bench the quarterback for the final two games and start Jarrett Stidham, multiple league sources confirmed Wednesday. Denver (7-8) hosts the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday and travels to the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 18. According to team sources, Wilson will serve as the No. 2 quarterback.Wilson is expected to March cutsEvery CompetitorIt’s Diana Russini. Just two years ago, the Broncos traded two first-round picks, two second-round picks, three players and more to Seattle for four points from the Seahawks’ nine-time Pro Bowler guard.deeperBroncos’ trade for Russell…

[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]They did the 11-mile Pine Creek hike together, featuring steep switchbacks in the snow in the final ascent; the descent sometimes required sitting and sliding down. Although it was the hardest hike she had ever done, she didn’t complain.By August, it was clear Ms. Hitchcock wasn’t leaving Bozeman, and in October, when her Seattle lease was up, Mr. Brown asked if she wanted to move in with him. She thought it was too early.Mr. Brown, 34, is a contract recruiter with the Los Angeles office of Nova Talent, working remotely. He has…

Rodino Sawan stepped into the wire harness and dug his toes into the muddy track that threads the sweltering plantation. He pushed forward, straining against the cargo trailing behind him: 25 bunches of freshly harvested bananas strung from hooks attached to an assembly line.Six days a week, Mr. Sawan, 55, a father of five, tows batches of fruit that weigh 1,500 pounds to a nearby processing plant, often as planes buzz overhead, misting down pesticides. He returns home with aches in his back and daily wages of 380 Philippine pesos, or about $6.80.One day last year, the plantation bosses fired…

Last spring, when Karim Lakhani began testing how ChatGPT affected the work of elite business consultants, he thought they’d be delighted by the tool. In a preliminary study of two dozen workers, the language bot had helped them finish two hours’ worth of tasks in 20 minutes.“I assumed they, like me, would think, ‘Great! I can do so much more!” said Dr. Lakhani, a professor at the Harvard Business School.Instead, the consultants had feelings of unease. They appreciated that they had done better work in less time. But ChatGPT’s quick work threatened their sense of themselves as high-skilled workers, and…

This monumental collection — 534 well-chosen songs with an encyclopedic book — covers more than half a century of blues recorded in Memphis, with performers both well-known (B.B. King, Furry Lewis, Memphis Minnie, Elvis Presley, Ike and Tina Turner) and barely remembered. There were some constants through the decades: songs about loving, cheating, drinking, hard work and hard times. But the set also chronicles a genre solidifying and defining itself, as the variety of the 1920s and 1930s — with jug bands, string bands, jazz combos, barrelhouse piano, kazoos and clarinets — narrows into guitar-centered 12-bar shuffles and boogies, all…

As Israel wages a war in Gaza aimed at dismantling Hamas’s military capacity, the armed group and its affiliates have continued to fire rockets at Israel nearly every day, aiming deep inside its borders and striking some of the country’s biggest cities.Since Hamas led a terrorist attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, Hamas and other armed groups have fired about 12,000 rockets from Gaza into Israel, a quarter of them on Oct. 7, the Israeli government has said.Most rockets fired from Gaza were shot down by Israeli air defenses before they were able to make impact. But the ongoing…

Reluctance in France and Britain kept the commitment to political unity, an aspirational United States of Europe, weak. Still, three countries — Austria, Finland and Sweden — joined the union during Mr. Delors’s presidency. (Norway joined the European Economic Area but not the European Union.)Mr. Delors married Marie Lephaille in 1948. She died in 2020. Their son, Jean-Paul, died of leukemia in 1982. Their daughter, Ms. Aubry, is a prominent Socialist politician and the longtime mayor of Lille, a city in northern France. In addition to her, Mr. Delors’s survivors include a granddaughter.Toward the end of his tenure, Mr. Delors…

Editor’s note: This article is part of our “Origin Stories” series, which focuses on athletes’ backstories and topics related to the Summer Olympics.SARASOTA, Fla. — Summer McIntosh even caught the attention of Billie Jean King.On the night of the women’s 400-meter freestyle final at the Toyota U.S. Open in Greensboro, North Carolina, Canadian swimming prodigy McIntosh stepped onto the starting block. Next to her is American swimming legend Katie Ledecky.This is the first meeting between McIntosh and Ledecky since the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, a clash between two generations of swimmers. Ledecky, 26, is considered the greatest female swimmer of…