Author: NY TIMES

The mother lived for 42 years in a three-story house overlooking a former gas chamber and a gallows at Auschwitz, sometimes losing sleep at the thought of what had happened on the other side of her garden wall.But the house in Oswiecim, southern Poland, once the home of the death camp’s wartime commandant, Rudolf Höss, was “a great place to raise children,” said Grazyna Jurczak, 62, a widow who raised two sons there.The home, the subject of the Oscar-winning movie “The Zone of Interest,” had “safety, silence, a beautiful garden,” easy access to a river across the road and, in…

To get its citizens to have more children and stop its population from shrinking, China has tried it all, even declaring having babies an act of patriotism. And yet, for the third year in a row, its population got smaller.Not even a surprise uptick in the number of babies born, a first in seven years, could reverse the course of an aging and declining population.China is staring down a longer term baby bust that is rippling through the economy. Hospitals are shutting their obstetrics units, and companies that sold baby formula are idling factories. Thousands of kindergartens have closed and…

The Spanish government this week announced a major overhaul to a program in which police rely on an algorithm to identify potential repeat victims of domestic violence, after officials faced questions about the system’s effectiveness.The program, VioGén, requires police officers to ask a victim a series of questions. Answers are entered into a software program that produces a score — from no risk to extreme risk — intended to flag the women who are most vulnerable to repeat abuse. The score helps determine what police protection and other services a woman can receive.A New York Times investigation last year found…

UnitedHealth Group reported on Thursday that it earned less than expected this past quarter, citing higher medical costs and pressure on its insurance division at a time when the company is still reeling from the shocking murder of a top executive last month.Revenues for UnitedHealth Group amounted to $100.8 billion for the fourth quarter, below what analysts had predicted but still 6.8 percent higher than in the same quarter the year before. The company’s full-year revenue for 2024 rose to $400.3 billion. For UnitedHealthcare, the insurance division, full-year revenue increased to $298.2 billion, up 6 percent from 2023.The results were…

In Topanga Canyon on Saturday morning, suspended midair from an electricity line, hung the smoldering top of a utility pole. The pole itself had burned away. Its remaining crosspieces resembled a crucifix on fire. By the time Bob Melet videotaped this eerie scene, firefighters had managed to halt the advance of flaring patches that elsewhere had been whipped into infernos.Barely 100 yards from the front door of Mr. Melet’s store, Melet Mercantile — a destination for fashion and interior designers who for decades have tracked Mr. Melet’s idiosyncratic tastes — lay the fire line at Camp Wildwood, a disused summer…

One morning, when she was about 7 years old, Neko Case stood on her front porch, closed her eyes and wished with all her might to see a horse.It was a tall order. She and her parents lived in the coastal city of Bellingham, Wash., and none of their neighbors were equestrians. But, as the musician recalls in her new memoir, “The Harder I Fight the More I Love You,” the young Case “clench-focused as hard as I could,” and when she opened her eyes something incredible had happened: Two gorgeous horses, ridden by two girls, came clomping directly toward…

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has delivered devastating blows to Hamas: It has killed top Hamas leaders and thousands of militants, pummeled the militant group’s tunnel network and undermined its ability to threaten Israel with rocket fire.When Hamas launched its Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel, it had hoped to ignite a regional war that would draw in its allies and lead to Israel’s destruction. Instead, it has been left to fight Israel almost entirely alone. Its allies have been decimated in Lebanon, toppled in Syria and weakened in Iran. The Houthis in Yemen have only managed to inflict occasional…

Could Ichiro Suzuki become just the second player ever to be unanimously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum? Can Billy Wagner get the five votes he missed last year heading into his final year of eligibility? Will CC Sabathia reach Cooperstown on his first try?All three scenarios will arise before the Hall of Fame voting results are announced on Jan. 21.Voting was conducted by the Baseball Writers Association of America’s nearly 400 voting-eligible members; as of Tuesday afternoon, all 151 votes recorded on Ryan Thibodaux’s Baseball Hall of Fame tracker had the box next to Suzuki’s…

Negotiators from Israel and Hamas have agreed to a cease-fire in Gaza after more than 15 months of devastating war, officials said Wednesday.The Qatari prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, whose country helped mediate the talks, said the deal would achieve the release of hostages and prisoners, and a return to “sustainable calm.” Under the deal, the cease-fire would begin on Sunday, Jan. 19, he said, adding that both sides were still working on resolving some of the logistical matters.Follow our live coverage here.What’s in the agreement?The cease-fire’s first phase, which would last six weeks, would see Israeli forces…

Before Marie Kondo captured the world’s attention with her exhortations to rid ourselves of items that did not “spark joy,” there was another Japanese guru of decluttering.Her name is Hideko Yamashita. And while Ms. Yamashita, 70, has never reached Ms. Kondo’s level of Netflix-induced fame, she is widely credited in Japan with spearheading the modern movement of decluttering our homes — or, as it has come to be called overseas, “kondo-ing.”The two women, born three decades apart in Tokyo, both preach the idea that households amass too much stuff. Letting go of unnecessary items and creating minimalist, tidier spaces, they…