Aurelia Butler

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    Muhammad Sinwar, a Top Military Leader of Hamas, Is Dead, Israel Says

    He was the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the former Hamas leader killed by Israel last year. Hamas did not immediately respond to the claim of his death.The Israeli military announced on Saturday night that it had killed Muhammad Sinwar, one of Hamas’s top military commanders in Gaza, during airstrikes this month that targeted the vicinity of a hospital in southern Gaza.Hamas did not immediately respond to the claim of Mr. Sinwar’s death. During the war in Gaza, the Palestinian armed group has largely not confirmed the killing of its commanders in the moment, only announcing their demise weeks or even months later, if at all.Mr. Sinwar’s death would leave the hierarchy of Hamas’s leadership in Gaza unclear. Another senior Hamas militant, Izz al-Din al-Haddad, is believed to command the group’s remaining fighters in northern Gaza. Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, threatened Mr. Haddad on Saturday night as well as Khalil al-Hayya, one of Hamas’s leaders in exile, saying they would share a similar fate to Mr. Sinwar.“You are next in line,” Mr. Katz said in a statement, addressing the two militant leaders by name.But Mr. Sinwar’s death may not immediately change Hamas’s strategy or operations, analysts said. Since the war began more than a year and a half ago, Israel has targeted and killed a number of Hamas’s top leaders, only to see the group continue its guerrilla war against Israel in Gaza.This month, Israeli aircraft struck an underground compound near the European Hospital, close to the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where Mr. Sinwar had recently been present, according to the Israeli military. At the time, Israeli officials said privately that they had been targeting Mr. Sinwar, but they did not mention him in their announcement of the strikes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Alaska Man Survives Being Pinned Face Down by a 700-Pound Boulder

    Rescuers found Kell Morris with hypothermia, wavering in and out of consciousness, face first in a creek as his wife held his head out of the water.Kell Morris does not remember exactly how he started tumbling or how he ended up on his stomach, but he remembers when a 700-pound boulder hit his back — the jolt of pain it caused as it pinned him down, and how instantly he knew he was in trouble.Mr. Morris, 61, said it was a “beautiful, beautiful day” on May 24 in Seward, Alaska, where he lives with his wife, Joanna Roop.Wanting to avoid the Memorial Day weekend crowds that clog up popular trails, the pair decided to hike near a remote glacier more than 120 miles south of Anchorage. It was a route they had taken before, and it was one they knew would be empty.They had been looking for a spot to cross a creek when the earth holding a group of boulders gave way and began sliding down. Mr. Morris, who had been standing there, started sliding, too. He said he tried to almost surf the sliding gravel but lost his footing and tumbled down.“The next thing I know, I’m face down in the creek and you can still hear these rocks,” he said, describing the clattering of falling rocks as “kind of a scraping and hitting at the same time, but it’s much, much deeper.”Ms. Roop, 61, who was several yards away looking for a good spot to cross the creek, also heard that distinctive sound.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What We Know About the Conflict Over a Trans Athlete in a California Track Meet

    The final day of the high school championships is Saturday, and the athlete was the top performer in three preliminary events, adding to the national debate about fairness and inclusion.A transgender girl in California qualified for this week’s state high school track and field meet, and her inclusion in the two-day event has angered people who do not believe that trans girls should compete in girls’ events. They believe that trans girls hold a physical advantage and say that allowing them to take part is unfair.Her participation has fueled a political debate that has reached the White House: President Trump has threatened to pull federal funding from the state if it lets the trans girl, AB Hernandez, compete at the meet. Civil rights advocates have denounced the threat as bullying behavior.Now the eyes of the president, the governor, conservative activists and transgender rights groups will be on the meet, which began Friday in Clovis, near Fresno. It’s arguably the most competitive high school track and field meet in the nation.Here’s what to know:What events is the trans girl competing in?Hernandez qualified for the meet in three events: the high jump, the long jump and the triple jump. On Friday, she finished as the top qualifier in all three events and advanced to Saturday’s finals. There, medals typically go to the top nine athletes. She is one of the favorites in the long jump and the triple jump.What is the gist of the debate?People who are against trans girls’ competing in girls’ events believe that those athletes hold unfair advantages over other competitors. Athletes who were born male, they say, have a physiological edge — including muscle mass and bone length — that they retain even after their transition. They think that physical edge makes it harder for all girls to have an equal chance at making teams, qualifying for meets and winning.In California, trans girls have had the right to compete in girls’ events since 2013, when a law was passed that said students could participate in school sports in the category that matched their gender identity.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Gay-Themed Forum Is Canceled in Malaysia

    The public criticism from the government and online attacks that prompted its organizers to back down are the latest examples of the increasing influence of religious conservatism.A planned forum on L.G.B.T.Q.-related themes in Malaysia was indefinitely postponed after online attacks by the public and harsh criticism by a government official. It’s the latest instance of how the government of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has taken a harder line in an effort to shore up support among the country’s Muslim majority.Malaysia’s Parliament now includes the conservative Islamist party, Parti Islam SeMalaysia, which is the largest party in the lower house. Its growing influence has increased pressure on the government to adopt more conservative positions, with the party accusing Mr. Anwar’s administration of failing to safeguard Islamic values.In the past, Mr. Anwar has expressed a degree of tolerance toward the L.G.B.T.Q. community.“Muslims and non-Muslims alike, there is a consensus — they do not accept this,” he said in a 2023 interview with CNN, referring to public displays of affection by gay people. “But do we then go and harass them? That is a different subject. I do not approve of any attempt to harass.”The workshop, titled “Pride Care: Queer Stories & Sexual Health Awareness” and organized by the youth wing of a small opposition party, was to take place next month. Efforts to publicize the event on social media quickly went viral, prompting hateful comments and death threats by the public. Many posts tagged the Royal Malaysian Police, urging them to investigate the event.The government of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has taken a harder line against homosexuality in an effort to shore up its support among the country’s Muslim majority.Mohd Rasfan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOn Wednesday, Mohd Na’im Mokhtar, the government’s religious affairs minister, described the planned gathering as a promotion of “deviant culture.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Early Sketches Point to Reimagined Pages

    Throughout his career, Louis Silverstein transformed the look of The New York Times. He joined the promotion department in 1952, eventually became the paper’s art director and retired from full-time work in 1985 as an assistant managing editor, the first person in the art department to have ascended to such a position.In 1967, Mr. Silverstein made the first alteration to the typeface used in body text in a quarter century, as reported in a Times Insider article in 2020 and his obituary. In 1976, he redesigned the crowded, eight-column front page, establishing a six-column format. In the mid- to late 1970s, he shaped sections like Weekend and Science Times.Mr. Silverstein modernized the newspaper “through his use of demonstrative headlines, emphasis on visuals and bold accents,” wrote Steven Heller, a former Times art director, in an email recently. His approach, Mr. Heller wrote, “enabled veteran readers to feel more comfortable with otherwise startling shifts in design.”After Mr. Silverstein’s death in 2011 at 92, his daughter, Anne Silverstein, offered some of her father’s belongings to the Morgue, The Times’s archival library. Included in her donation were several of her father’s hand-drawn, full-size mock-ups of Times pages.The cover of the Business and Finance section from June 13, 1965. Mr. Silverstein redrew the page, experimenting with different ways it could have looked.The New York TimesA sketch of an alternative design of the page, in which he reorganized articles in a modular way and introduced more space.Alessandra Montalto/The New York TimesThese drawings were creative experiments that informed innovation.In one, Mr. Silverstein redesigned the cover of the Business and Finance section from June 13, 1965. He strengthened a sense of hierarchy in part by reorganizing articles in a modular fashion, according to Andrew Sondern, a deputy director of news design at The Times, and he anchored the placement of standing features, like The Week in Finance. By loosening and restructuring the layout, he created an airier page and a more relaxed reading experience.In a recasting of another Business and Finance page, this one from 1970, Mr. Silverstein stretched the image of a semi truck across the top of the page, emphasizing imagery that directly connected with the text.A Business and Finance page from 1970.The New York TimesThis drawing emphasized the role visuals could have played on the page.Alessandra Montalto/The New York TimesThese were just some of the design hallmarks that Mr. Silverstein would introduce over the years in The Times’s real pages, Mr. Sondern said. Together, he added, the changes made the pages feel more contemporary and easier to read.“The reapproaching of the page and the philosophical changes — modular design, readable columns, art that has impact and meaning — are all things you can really see,” Mr. Sondern said.That airier sensibility was evident in the 1976 redesign, in which Mr. Silverstein reconfigured the front page.“He was very conscious about keeping the appearance of The New York Times, keeping the style, tone, tenor, if you will, of the paper,” said Anne Silverstein, adding: “This was not about giving them something new. This was improved.” More

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    Israel Bars Arab Foreign Ministers From High-Level West Bank Visit

    The trip had been planned for Sunday ahead of a June conference, backed by France and Saudi Arabia, to urge the creation of a Palestinian state.The Israeli government has barred foreign ministers from a number of Arab states, including Jordan and Saudi Arabia, from visiting the Israeli-occupied West Bank to meet with Palestinian leaders, the Jordanian government said on Saturday.A Jordanian foreign ministry statement said the delegation had planned to meet in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Sunday with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the territory. A visit by such high-ranking Arab officials to the West Bank would have been very unusual.The Israeli government refused to comment.Among those slated to attend was Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi foreign minister. He would have been the first Saudi foreign minister to visit the West Bank in recent memory, according to Palestinian officials. Officials from Bahrain and Egypt had also been expected.The visiting officials had planned to confer with Mr. Abbas ahead of a June conference led by France and Saudi Arabia, expected to take place in New York, to discuss the creation of an independent Palestinian state. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is strongly opposed to the idea.But Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza has already prompted a few European countries — including Spain, Norway and Ireland — to formally recognize a state of Palestine in the hopes of jump-starting the long-dormant Middle East peace process. Since the war began almost 20 months ago, Israel has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians in Gaza, a second Palestinian territory, according to local health officials who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.The war began after Hamas led the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed, mostly civilians, and about 250 people were taken hostage, according to Israel.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    What Diddy’s Defenders Ignore

    Earlier this month, when I searched on TikTok for Casandra (Cassie) Ventura’s testimony in the federal sex trafficking trial against Sean Combs, one of the first autocomplete suggestions was “cassie is a liar diddy.”Ventura is not on trial. She is considered to be the government’s star witness in the racketeering conspiracy case against Combs. There are many other high-profile witnesses who testified to Combs’s violence, including the rapper Kid Cudi, who briefly dated Ventura, and Dawn Richard, who is a former member of the group Danity Kane. The entire world saw hotel surveillance video depicting Combs physically assaulting Ventura that was obtained by CNN, and Combs paid Ventura an eight-figure settlement after she sued him for sex trafficking and sexual assault in 2023.Ventura would seem to be a trustworthy witness to her own experience. Yet social media commentators have been trying to undermine public support for her and, by extension, cast doubt on the question of Combs’s culpability. These influencers tend to present some of Ventura’s comments to Combs out of the larger context of his alleged abuse, preying on a public that is poorly informed about sexual assault and domestic violence.During cross-examination, Combs’s lawyers had Ventura read text messages where she seemed to be responding enthusiastically to some sexual encounters that Combs planned. But Ventura testified that she felt coerced into this behavior, and it would make sense that she was trying to placate him; for example, she said that Combs threatened to release videos he recorded of their sex acts if she refused his demands.Combs’s defenders do not seem to care about this context. For example, on X, Andrew Tate, the manosophere influencer who has over 10 million followers and whose tagline is “I think women are dumb,” called Ventura a gendered slur, went after her husband and claimed, “No victims. Only volunteers.” (British prosecutors authorized 10 charges, including rape and human trafficking, against Tate this week, adding to his international legal troubles.)The basic line from most of the anti-Cassie content is that maybe she was beaten up — they have to concede that because of the hotel video — but she’s lying about the rest of it, because she’s a vindictive, bitter, money-grubbing ex trying to bring a successful man down.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    A Gala Celebrates the Met’s Reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing

    Round tables covered in white cloths surrounded the Temple of Dendur. Women wore fascinators, Nigerian geles and Hawaiian lei po’o, while men wore Yoruba agbadas, Hawaiian kāʻei and the occasional tuxedo, all in sartorial attempts to honor the lineage that brought them to the event.Curators, artists and archaeologists gathered for dinner at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to celebrate the culmination of four years of work — and the legacy of a historied American family — on Friday night. They were toasting the reopening of the Michael C. Rockefeller Wing and its collection of work from Africa, the ancient Americas and Oceania.Attendees got a chance to explore the wing’s 1,726 objects from Africa, the ancient Americas and Oceania.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York TimesOver lobster, foie gras, wine and champagne, friends of the Met and members of the Rockefeller family mingled among the 1,726 objects in the new gallery, which cost $70 million to complete and has 40,000 square feet dedicated to the arts of those regions.The wing went through four years of work before its reopening.Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times“It is a coming together of a very global community,” said Max Hollein, the chief executive and director of the Met. “And in this time, it’s so much about respecting cultural heritage in many different ways but also making sure that there’s a deep understanding, a deeper appreciation.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More