Lack of Plan for Governing Gaza Formed Backdrop to Deadly Convoy Chaos
World

Lack of Plan for Governing Gaza Formed Backdrop to Deadly Convoy Chaos

Israel’s reluctance to fill the current leadership vacuum in northern Gaza formed the backdrop to the chaos that led to the deaths on Thursday of dozens of Palestinians on the Gazan coast, analysts and aid workers have said.More than 100 were killed and 700 injured, Gazan health officials said, after thousands of hungry civilians rushed at a convoy of aid trucks, leading to a stampede and prompting Israeli soldiers to fire at the crowd.The immediate causes of the chaos were extreme hunger and desperation: The United Nations has warned of a looming famine in northern Gaza, where the incident occurred. Civilian attempts to ambush aid trucks, Israeli restrictions on convoys and the poor condition of roads damaged in the war have made it extremely difficult for food to reach the roughly 300,00...
Why ‘Fetal Personhood’ Is Roiling the Right
Health

Why ‘Fetal Personhood’ Is Roiling the Right

As I.V.F. grew in popularity, so did the concerns of its opponents. Standard practice involves creating multiple embryos, which are screened for genetic abnormalities, and the ones that appear healthiest can be transferred. Extra embryos are often frozen; by one count, there are a million and a half frozen embryos in the United States. After a designated time period, they may be donated to science or destroyed, just as the Catholic Church feared.The anti-abortion movement won a partial victory for protecting life at conception in 2001, when President George W. Bush banned the use of federal funds for embryonic stem cell research, but President Barack Obama reversed the policy eight years later.Starting in the late 2000s, voters rejected ballot initiatives to enshrine fetal personhood in at...
Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaving NBC for Amazon Prime, Warner Bros. Discovery: Sources
Sports

Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaving NBC for Amazon Prime, Warner Bros. Discovery: Sources

The biggest name in NASCAR is on the move.Dale Earnhardt Jr. is leaving NBC and heading to racing newcomers Amazon Prime Video and Warner Bros. Discovery Sports, sources briefed on his decision told The Athletic.Earnhardt is expected to take this season off and then resume his broadcasting career in 2025 when WBD Sports and Amazon begin their coverage.The move figures to give WBD Sports and Amazon instant credibility when they start their series. Each will have five races a season. WBD Sports’ races will be broadcast on TNT, streamed on Max and have a Bleacher Report component. NASCAR complements WBD Sports’ robust NBA, NCAA Tournament, MLB and NHL programming schedule.GO DEEPERNASCAR's new media deal, explained: Why Amazon, who gets what races and moreAmazon Prime Video’s subscription ser...
The Paradox at the Heart of Elon Musk’s OpenAI Lawsuit
Technology

The Paradox at the Heart of Elon Musk’s OpenAI Lawsuit

It would be easy to dismiss Elon Musk’s lawsuit against OpenAI as a case of sour grapes.Mr. Musk sued OpenAI this week, accusing the company of breaching the terms of its founding agreement and violating its founding principles. In his telling, OpenAI was established as a nonprofit that would build powerful A.I. systems for the good of humanity and give its research away freely to the public. But Mr. Musk argues that OpenAI broke that promise by starting a for-profit subsidiary that took on billions of dollars in investments from Microsoft.An OpenAI spokeswoman declined to comment on the suit. In a memo sent to employees on Friday, Jason Kwon, the company’s chief strategy officer, denied Mr. Musk’s claims and said, “We believe the claims in this suit may stem from Elon’s regrets about not ...
Big Labor Gamble: Push to Unionize Every U.S. Auto Plant
Business

Big Labor Gamble: Push to Unionize Every U.S. Auto Plant

When Shawn Fain, the United Automobile Workers president, unveiled the deal that ended six weeks of strikes at Ford Motor in the fall, he framed it as part of a longer campaign. Next, he declared, would be the task of organizing nonunion plants across the country.“One of our biggest goals coming out of this historic contract victory is to organize like we’ve never organized before,” he said at the time. “When we return to the bargaining table in 2028, it won’t just be with the Big Three. It will be the Big Five or Big Six.”Four months later, the first test of that strategy has come into focus, and it features a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn.According to the union, more than half of over 4,000 eligible workers have signed cards indicating support for a union. Workers say they have d...
Robert M. Young, Filmmaker Who Indulged His Wanderlust, Dies at 99
World

Robert M. Young, Filmmaker Who Indulged His Wanderlust, Dies at 99

Robert M. Young, an eclectic director whose documentary subjects included civil rights lunch counter sit-ins and sharks, and whose feature films included one about a Mexican American farmer who kills a Texas lawman and one about a woman who takes revenge on her attacker, died on Feb. 6 in Los Angeles. He was 99.The death, in a hospital, was confirmed by his son Andrew.In an interview with the Directors Guild of America in 2005, Mr. Young recalled what attracted him to filmmaking.“I wanted to be in life,” he said. “I wanted to be having adventures, I wanted to be living in the world.”He more than fulfilled that ambition.In the 1950s, he created educational films with two partners, most notably “Secrets of the Reef” (1956), an underwater documentary made at Marineland Studios in Florida and ...
Alcohol-Related Deaths Surge to Nearly 500 a Day, CDC Says
Health

Alcohol-Related Deaths Surge to Nearly 500 a Day, CDC Says

The study found that deaths linked to alcohol in the United States increased in five years by 40,000. The toll is stark: About 178,000 people died in 2021 from excessive drinking, compared with 138,000 in 2016. During that period, the deaths rose by 27 percent among men and 35 percent among women.Dr. Siegel attributed the surge possibly to people’s high stress levels during the pandemic alongside increased home-delivery services offered by the beverage industry. “Anytime you make something easier to acquire, you see an increase in use in response,” he said.What’s missing: The data are limited.Researchers concluded that their estimates of alcohol-related deaths were very conservative, because the data only included active drinkers. In addition, deaths from several diseases, including tuberc...
The business of Sarah Nurse: She’s one of the faces of hockey, but her sights are set on more
Sports

The business of Sarah Nurse: She’s one of the faces of hockey, but her sights are set on more

TORONTO — Sarah Nurse was driving home from a recent PWHL Toronto practice when she got a bit of sage advice.It wasn’t from a podcast or a friend on the phone. The advice came courtesy of a billboard on the side of the road in Canada’s most populous city, featuring her own face with the Adidas slogan “You got this.”“I was like, yeah, I do,” Nurse said with a laugh.The billboard she drove past is one of many across the country, including a massive advertisement at Yonge-Dundas Square — Toronto’s closest approximation to Times Square in New York City — that pairs Nurse with Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes and World Cup champion Lionel Messi.Nurse, 29, has had major partnerships in the past. In 2020, Tim Hortons and Mattel collaborated to make a Barbie doll in her likeness. In 2022, she was fe...
SEC Is Investigating OpenAI Over Its Board’s Actions
Technology

SEC Is Investigating OpenAI Over Its Board’s Actions

The Securities and Exchange Commission began an inquiry into OpenAI soon after the company’s board of directors unexpectedly removed Sam Altman, its chief executive, at the end of last year, three people familiar with the inquiry said.The regulator has sent official requests to OpenAI, the developer of the ChatGPT online chatbot, seeking information about the situation. It is unclear whether the S.E.C. is investigating Mr. Altman’s behavior, the board’s decision to oust him or both.Even as OpenAI has tried to turn the page on the dismissal of Mr. Altman, who was soon reinstated, the controversy continues to hound the company. In addition to the S.E.C. inquiry, the San Francisco artificial intelligence company has hired a law firm to conduct its own investigation into Mr. Altman’s behavior ...
New York Community Bank Reports $2.4 Billion More in Losses as C.E.O. Resigns
Business

New York Community Bank Reports $2.4 Billion More in Losses as C.E.O. Resigns

New York Community Bank, the lender teetering under mounting real-estate-related losses, shared several pieces of fresh bad news on Thursday: Its fourth-quarter losses were $2.4 billion worse than it had earlier stated; its chief executive and an allied board member are out; and the bank has identified what it called “material weaknesses in internal controls.”The all-at-once disclosures, released in securities filings late Thursday, were an uneasy reminder of the price the bank is paying for a breakneck expansion strategy that included acquiring an ailing rival less than one year ago. They sent the bank’s already pressured shares into another nosedive, down more than 20 percent in after-hours trading. The stock had already fallen 54 percent this year.The ugly developments were the last thi...