Author: NY TIMES

When Iranian-backed militias repeatedly targeted U.S. troops in Syria and Iraq this fall, the Biden administration struck back with force. Action was needed, officials said, to deter the groups from turning Israel’s conflict with Hamas into a wider war.But the United States has not yet retaliated against one Iranian-backed group: the Houthis of Yemen.In the past month alone, the Houthis have launched more than 100 attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea, crippling traffic there.So why has the United States taken a different approach with the Houthis? The reasons are many.What does the Gaza conflict have to do with…

It is an Indian film without song and dance. The lovers don’t share a word, their main interaction a fleeting moment of eye contact in the monsoon rain. There are no car chases and no action stunts. The men are vulnerable. They cry.And yet when “Kaathal — The Core,” a film in the Malayalam language about a closeted middle-aged politician, was released last month, it became a commercial success as well as a critical one. Cinemas in the southern state of Kerala, home to the Malayalam film industry and about 35 million people, sold out. That one of South India’s…