Creative ruin

Israel-Hamas War: One Year On, Netanyahu’s Government Holds Together Amid Divisions

1Jan

By Alphonse ElrickNo Comments

World

Israel-Hamas War: One Year On, Netanyahu’s Government Holds Together Amid Divisions

A clash between Iranian-backed Houthi fighters who were attacking a commercial freighter and U.S. Navy helicopters responding to the ship’s distress call ended on Sunday morning with the killing of all the crew members on three Houthi boats, the Pentagon said, a sharp escalation of violence at a moment when the White House is considering direct strikes on Iran’s proxies in the Middle East.It appeared to be the first time that American and allied forces patrolling the Red Sea, a critical waterway for oil and other shipments, have engaged in a deadly firefight with the Houthis since their attacks on ships began in October, following the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas. President Biden has said he wants to avoid direct military attacks on the Houthis in Yemen, to avoid escalating...

Asian American Officials Cite Unfair Scrutiny and Lost Jobs in China Spy Tensions

31Dec

By Alphonse ElrickNo Comments

Technology

Asian American Officials Cite Unfair Scrutiny and Lost Jobs in China Spy Tensions

When Thomas Wong set foot in the United States Embassy in Beijing this summer for a new diplomatic posting, it was vindication after years of battling the State Department over a perceived intelligence threat — himself.Diplomatic Security officers had informed him when he joined the foreign service more than a decade ago that they were banning him from working in China. In a letter, he said, they wrongly cited the vague potential for undue “foreign preference” and suggested he could be vulnerable to “foreign influence.”Mr. Wong had become a U.S. diplomat thinking that China was where he could have the greatest impact. He had grown up in a Chinese-speaking household and studied in the country. And as a graduate of West Point who had done an Army tour in the Balkans, he thought he had experi...

Under Argentina’s New President, Fuel Is Up 60%, and Diaper Prices Have Doubled

30Dec

By Alphonse ElrickNo Comments

Business

Under Argentina’s New President, Fuel Is Up 60%, and Diaper Prices Have Doubled

Over the past two weeks, the owner of a hip wine bar in Buenos Aires saw the price of beef soar 73 percent, while the zucchini he puts in salads rose 140 percent. An Uber driver paid 60 percent more to fill her tank. And a father said he spent twice as much on diapers for his toddler than he did last month.In Argentina, a country synonymous with galloping inflation, people are used to paying more for just about everything. But under the country’s new president, life is quickly becoming even more painful.When Javier Milei was elected president on Nov. 19, the country was already suffering under the world’s third-highest rate of inflation, with prices up 160 percent from a year before.But since Mr. Milei took office on Dec. 10 and quickly devalued the Argentine currency, prices have soared a...

30Dec

By Alphonse ElrickNo Comments

Sports

The football stadiums that never were

Peter Storrie can remember visiting the London studio of Herzog & de Meuron, the renowned Swiss architects, and being shown a striking vision of Portsmouth’s future.“It was something else,” he tells The Athletic. “They put it up on the screen for us and it certainly had the wow factor.”This was 2007 and the ambitious plans were for a new 36,000-capacity stadium on the city’s docks. Storrie, then chief executive, had accepted that Portsmouth would need to leave Fratton Park, the club’s home since 1899, and a proposed relocation could hardly have been more impressive.Located in between the Spinnaker Tower and the historic naval base, a £600million waterfront project that would include apartments and restaurants promised a transformational impact.“This will be the most spectacular stadium...

Ohio Governor Blocks Bill Banning Transition Care for Minors

30Dec

By Alphonse ElrickNo Comments

Health

Ohio Governor Blocks Bill Banning Transition Care for Minors

BackgroundLawmakers passed the measure earlier in December. Those in favor of the bill argued that parents are pressured by doctors to sign off on transition care treatments for their children. The bill’s sponsor, Representative Gary Click, said parents are “being manipulated by the physicians.’’In addition to banning transition care for minors, the bill says medical professionals who provide the care could lose their licenses and be sued. It also prohibits transgender girls and women from playing on high school and college sports teams that correspond with their gender identity.On Friday, Mr. DeWine said that if the bill were to become law, “Ohio would be saying that the state, that the government, knows better what is medically best for a child than the two people who love that child the...

30Dec

By Alphonse ElrickNo Comments

World

The Year in People: Our 12 Favorite Saturday Profiles of 2023

A teenager jailed in Egypt, determined to bear witness to the abuses he suffered during years of detention. A proponent of peace in Colombia, shadowed by death threats. A father in India, fighting his own patriarchal impulses to give his two daughters a better life.With reports from six continents and 34 countries, the Saturday Profile in 2023 revealed people making a difference, mostly under the radar. Every week, our correspondents often sought out not the famous nor the powerful, but the unheralded with stories worth hearing.A Muslim cleric in Ukraine, now a medic on the front lines of the war. An anticorruption whistle-blower in Bangkok, with (he’d be the first to admit) a disreputable past. A scientist and hair salon owner in Paris, dedicated to styling curly hair.Some of our subjects...

Need a Home for 80,000 Puzzles? Try an Italian Castle.

30Dec

By Alphonse ElrickNo Comments

Technology

Need a Home for 80,000 Puzzles? Try an Italian Castle.

Meet the Millers, George and Roxanne, proprietors of the world’s largest collection of mechanical puzzles: physical objects that a puzzler holds and manipulates while seeking a solution. In total, the Miller collection — an accumulation of collections, and collections of collections — amounts to more than 80,000 puzzles. It comprises some five thousand Rubik’s Cubes, including a 2-by-2-by-2 rendering of Darth Vader’s head. And there are more than 7,000 wooden burr puzzles, such as the interlocking, polyhedral creations by Stewart Coffin, a Massachusetts puzzle maker; they evoke a hybrid of a pine cone and a snowflake and are Mr. Miller’s favorites. Mrs. Miller is fond of their 140 brass, bronze and gold puzzle sculptures by the Spanish artist Miguel Berrocal; Goliath, a male torso in 79 pi...

Inside the News Industry’s Uneasy Negotiations With OpenAI

29Dec

By Alphonse ElrickNo Comments

Business

Inside the News Industry’s Uneasy Negotiations With OpenAI

For months, some of the biggest players in the U.S. media industry have been in confidential talks with OpenAI on a tricky issue: the price and terms of licensing their content to the artificial intelligence company.The curtain on those negotiations was pulled back this week when The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement, alleging that the companies used its content without permission to build artificial intelligence products.The Times said that before suing, it had been talking with the companies for months about a deal. And it was not alone. Other news organizations — including Gannett, the largest U.S. newspaper company; News Corp, the owner of The Wall Street Journal; and IAC, the digital colossus behind The Daily Beast and the magazine publisher Dotdash M...

NFL’s best touchdown celebrations of 2023: A favorite from all 32 teams

29Dec

By Alphonse ElrickNo Comments

Sports

NFL’s best touchdown celebrations of 2023: A favorite from all 32 teams

Scoring touchdowns during each offensive possession is the unspoken goal for every NFL team. For decades, celebrations have been the norm in accompanying touchdowns. It goes back all the way to the 1960s with Homer Jones and his touchdown spike.Touchdown celebrations have become a choreographed production for some teams. Think back to the 1980s when Washington’s “Fun Bunch” made enemies after its group of players participated in a jumping high-five after a score. And think recently when the Seattle Seahawks did their best New Edition and *NSYNC impersonations, or when the Minnesota Vikings decided to play a game of Duck, Duck, Goose in the end zone.GO DEEPERThe NFL's most memorable TD celebrations: Deion Sanders' high-step, the Ickey Shuffle, moreThe 2023 NFL season has had its share of me...

10 Nutrition Tips for a Healthy New Year

28Dec

By Alphonse ElrickNo Comments

Health

10 Nutrition Tips for a Healthy New Year

As a health reporter who’s been following nutrition news for decades, I’ve seen a lot of trends that made a splash — and then sank. Remember olestra, the Paleo diet and celery juice?Watch enough food fads come and go, and you realize that the most valuable nutrition guidance is built on decades of research, in which scientists have looked at a question from multiple perspectives and arrived at something like a consensus.Here are 10 science-backed pearls to carry you into the new year.1. The Mediterranean diet really is that good for you.Decades of research support the Mediterranean diet — which is centered on fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, olive oil, nuts, herbs and spices — as one of the healthiest ways you can eat. Its heart-health benefits are numerous, and it has been li...