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      Israel Strikes Military Targets in Syria

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      The Israeli military hit weapons depots and air defenses, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Israel has said it aims to keep military equipment out of the hands of extremists after rebels seized power a week ago.Israel struck multiple Syrian weapons depots and air defenses overnight and into Sunday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in what appeared to be the latest in a series of airstrikes that Israel has said are aimed at keeping military hardware and infrastructure out of the hands of extremists after rebels seized power a week ago.In all, Israel struck its neighbor 75 times in attacks that began Saturday night near the Syrian capital, Damascus, and the cities of Hama and Homs, said the Observatory, a Britain-based monitoring organization that has long tracked the conflict in Syria.Israel has struck Syria more than 450 times since the collapse of the al-Assad regime a week ago, according to the Observatory, destroying Syria’s navy and dozens of ammunition depots, air bases and other military equipment.Israel’s military has also seized and occupied an expanse of territory in Syria over the de facto border between the two countries, giving no timeline for its departure apart from saying that it would stay until its security demands are met.There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military about its latest strikes in Syria.Neither the previous Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad nor the new authorities in Damascus have attacked Israel, and Arab countries and France have called on Israel to withdraw and respect Syria’s sovereignty.Israeli officials, however, say that the raids are necessary to secure the border and to keep Syria’s weaponry from falling into the hands of extremists while the country remains unstable.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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      The Trouble Began Where #MeToo Became #ChurchToo

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      When did we know that the #MeToo moment was truly over?At its most compelling, #MeToo tried to change a culture that both concealed and enabled the illegal abuse of women and imposed hypocritical double standards, holding women to one standard of behavior while celebrating and elevating unscrupulous men.But events in 2024 have told us loudly and clearly that the moment has passed.Perhaps it was when reports emerged that Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump’s choice to be the next secretary of defense, had paid an accuser to settle a sexual assault claim. He denies wrongdoing, but his defense — that he had consensual sex with a married woman — was still dreadful. His philandering and mistreatment of women have been so egregious that his mother called him an “abuser of women,” in an email to him (she has since disavowed her statement) — and yet somehow his chances of being confirmed by the Senate appear to be increasing.Perhaps it was when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who is married to the actress Cheryl Hines, allegedly had an improper “personal relationship” via smartphone with Olivia Nuzzi, a political reporter who is much younger, and she lost her job while he was picked to run the Department of Health and Human Services.But I think it happened earlier, when a jury found Donald Trump responsible for sexual abuse, and he was ultimately re-elected to the presidency. After years of rightfully arguing that combating sexual assault and sexual abuse can’t override due process, many conservatives not only disregarded the jury verdict, they actually reveled in how little his voters cared about the scandal, or just dismissed it as another instance of “lawfare” against Trump.I distinctly remember the mood on the right when the #MeToo movement got going. There was a sense of schadenfreude. The morally bankrupt, sexualized culture of Hollywood and the liberal media had finally been exposed. For all their talk about feminism and respecting women, many famous liberals proved to be dangerous hypocrites — or much, much worse.Yes, there was leakage into right-wing media. Roger Ailes was pushed out at Fox News in 2016, and Bill O’Reilly suffered the same fate after my Times colleagues Emily Steel and Michael Schmidt reported that O’Reilly or Fox had paid $13 million to settle claims of sexual misconduct made by five different women against him.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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      Devin Nunes, Pugnacious Trump Loyalist, to Lead Espionage Advisory Board

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      As chair of the House Intelligence Committee, he attacked the Russia inquiry and Donald J. Trump’s first impeachment. Now, Mr. Nunes runs Mr. Trump’s social media company.President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Saturday that he would appoint Devin Nunes, a former member of Congress who had used his role as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to try to delegitimize the Trump-Russia investigation, to head an independent advisory board on espionage policy.The organization — the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board — dates back to the early Cold War and consists of private citizens with top-level security clearances who are supposed to help the White House analyze spy agency effectiveness and planning. Its members do not need Senate confirmation, so presidents can pick whomever they want for it.In a statement, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Nunes — who is currently the chief executive of the Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the Truth Social platform — for his counterinvestigation into the Trump-Russia inquiry in 2017-18, when Mr. Nunes led the House Intelligence Committee as a Republican congressman from California.“While continuing his leadership of Trump Media & Technology Group, Devin will draw on his experience as former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, and his key role in exposing the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, to provide me with independent assessments of the effectiveness and propriety of the U.S. Intelligence Community’s activities,” Mr. Trump wrote in his announcement.Some members of the advisory board also serve on a presidential Intelligence Oversight Board, which was created in the 1970s after a congressional investigation into abuses by national security agencies and which tries to ferret out illegal spying activities. That group typically includes the larger board’s chair, so it is likely that Mr. Nunes will participate in it as well.The work products of the two boards are usually kept secret. A rare exception came in 2023, when the Biden administration publicly released a report in which the two panels urged Congress to extend an expiring law that authorizes a warrantless surveillance program, but also called for new limits on the F.B.I.’s ability to use information gathered under the program.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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      ABC to Pay $15 Million to Settle a Defamation Suit Brought by Trump

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      The outcome of the lawsuit marks an unusual victory for President-elect Donald J. Trump in his ongoing legal campaign against national news organizations.ABC News is set to pay $15 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Donald J. Trump.The agreement was a significant concession by a major news organization and a rare victory for a media-bashing politician whose previous litigation efforts against news outlets have often ended in defeat.Under the terms of a settlement revealed on Saturday, ABC News will donate the $15 million to Mr. Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum. The network and its star anchor, George Stephanopoulos, also published a statement saying they “regret” remarks made about Mr. Trump during a televised interview in March.ABC News, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, will pay Mr. Trump an additional $1 million for his legal fees.The outcome is an unusual win for Mr. Trump, who has frequently sued news organizations for defamation and frequently lost, including in litigation against CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post.Several experts in media law said they believed that ABC News could have continued to fight, given the high threshold required by the courts for a public figure like Mr. Trump to prove defamation. A plaintiff must not only show that a news outlet published false information, but that it did so knowing that the information was false or with substantial doubts about its accuracy.“Major news organizations have often been very leery of settlements in defamation suits brought by public officials and public figures, both because they fear the dangerous pattern of doing so and because they have the full weight of the First Amendment on their side,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a professor of law at the University of Utah.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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      Trump Says He Supports an End to Daylight Savings Time

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      President-elect Donald J. Trump said on social media that the time change is “inconvenient” and that the Republican Party would try to put an end to it.President-elect Donald J. Trump called daylight saving time “inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation” in a social media post on Friday and said the Republican Party would try to “eliminate” it, in the latest effort to end the twice-yearly time change.Most states change their time by one hour — in March, when clocks spring forward, and in November, when clocks fall back.Over the years, many elected officials, including Mr. Trump, have expressed support for ending the changes.“Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is OK with me!” Mr. Trump posted on social media in March 2019.He reiterated his support to end the time switches on Friday, posting on X, “The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t!”On social media, there was support for Mr. Trump’s post.Many people called the time changes antiquated. Some noted that daylight saving time would most likely not be eliminated, as his post suggested, but rather would be made permanent, and the time changes would be eliminated.Ending the clock change would require the approval of Congress. There have been many bipartisan efforts to pass such a bill, but all have failed. In 2022, the Senate unanimously passed a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, but it died in the House. An effort to pass a similar bill in 2023 also failed.The idea behind daylight saving time is to move an hour of sunlight from the early morning to the evening, so that people can make more use of daylight.William Willet, an English builder, is credited with popularizing daylight saving time in the early 1900s, when he urged British lawmakers to shift the clocks to benefit the economy. Parliament rejected the proposal in 1909, but then embraced it a few years later under the pressures of World War I.Other countries followed suit in an effort to cut energy costs, including the United States starting in March 1918. But there is no consensus on whether daylight saving time actually does reduce energy use.Small-business owners say that when it stays light after work, people are more likely to go out and spend money. But many Americans consider the time switch a nuisance.Parents say it throws off bedtimes for their children. And no one likes losing an hour of sleep when clocks move forward in March.In 2020, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine called for an end to daylight saving time, saying that the change disrupts the body’s natural clock and can cause health issues. More

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      Strong Storm in San Francisco Brings a Tornado Warning

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      Less than two weeks after a tsunami warning, residents were jolted awake before 6 a.m. to consider a new potential disaster scenario.Powerful storms swept through parts of Northern California on Saturday, knocking down trees, causing widespread power outages and prompting weather officials to issue what they said was the first-ever tornado warning for San Francisco.The warning blared from cellphones around 5:45 a.m., jolting residents across the city from their sleep and into the sudden realization that many had long prepared themselves for what to do in the case of a sudden earthquake, but not a tornado.And it came less than two weeks after a similar alert echoed across the Bay Area warning of a different kind of disaster scenario: an impending tsunami that forecasters worried could strike along a vast stretch of the Northern California coast.That warning had been spurred by an earthquake in the Pacific Ocean and briefly caused a panic as people sought to get to higher ground. The warning was canceled a little more than an hour after it was issued.The tornado warning on Saturday, which was in effect for about 30 minutes, was urgent: “Take shelter now in a basement or an interior room,” it read in part.“That is the first time that we’ve issued a tornado warning for San Francisco,” said Crystal Oudit, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in the Bay Area. She said the service had done so after seeing conditions that tend to favor tornadoes as the storm approached the city.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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      After Weeks of Drone Sightings, New Jersey Remains on Edge

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      In the Garden State, where the rash of sightings started a month ago, residents are looking to the skies, wondering why they still don’t have definitive answers from officials.The day after Thanksgiving, Susan and Lorelai Woodruff saw approximately 10 brightly lit objects banking and turning quickly in the night sky above their home in Elsinboro, in southern New Jersey.Every night since, they say, the objects have been back, emitting a strange, humming whir and flashing red, green and white.“I think it’s like an invasion,” said Lorelai Woodruff, 52. “I feel like our privacy is kind of invaded.”A month after reports of mysterious flying objects began spreading across the state, investigations by federal, state and local agencies into what they are and where they are coming from are ongoing. Many residents, like the Woodruffs, believe the objects are drones and have been left frustrated and perplexed at the lack of answers from authorities.Emily Ferguson, 49, said a rash of sightings near her home in Mendham, in northern New Jersey, had been the talk of the town, and that her three children had started asking questions about them that she could not answer.“The kids are all asking, ‘What’s going on?’ and ‘Why do we have to close all of our blinds?’ which is something we never do,” Ms. Ferguson said.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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      Isak Andic, Founder of Mango Fashion Chain, Dies at 71

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      Mr. Andic got his start by selling T-shirts in Barcelona in the mid-1980s. He died in a fall during a hike.Isak Andic, who built the fashion brand Mango from a Spanish storefront into a global giant with more than 2,000 stores on five continents, died in a fall while hiking near Barcelona on Saturday. He was 71.The death was announced by Toni Ruiz, the chief executive of Mango. The cause was confirmed by Glòria Torrent Caldas, a spokeswoman for the company.Mr. Andic, bespectacled and seen as relatively reclusive, started Mango in the mid-1980s by selling T-shirts in Barcelona. Over four decades, Mango grew into one of Spain’s leading international retailers, known for its creative, eclectic and ever-changing selection of affordable women’s wear.Mr. Andic, who held the title of nonexecutive chairman at Mango, had a net worth of roughly $4.5 billion at the time of his death, according to Forbes magazine.Mr. Ruiz said in a statement that Mr. Andic had dedicated his life to Mango, displaying “strategic vision” and “inspiring leadership.”“His legacy reflects the achievements of a business project marked by success and also by his human quality,” Mr. Ruiz said in the statement.Mango expanded beyond Spain in 1992 and opened its first U.S. location, in Los Angeles, in 2006. By 2008, it had launched a menswear line and opened an 8,000-square-foot store in the SoHo section of Manhattan. In 2011, it held its first fashion show outside Spain.Mango’s success, in part based on a nimble approach that involved frequently replacing its merchandise, led to its growth in more than 100 markets. Over the years, it has received some scrutiny for safety lapses along its supply chain.This year, Mango expanded its footprint in the United States, opening locations for the first time in Pennsylvania and in Washington, D.C., according to the company’s website. The company, which competes with fast fashion chains such as the Swedish-based H&M and the Spanish-based Zara, plans to have 40 American stores at year’s end, up from 10 in 2022.Mr. Andic’s death prompted tributes from Spanish leaders, including the country’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, who issued a statement praising Mr. Andic’s business acumen and offering condolences to his family.Isak Andic Ermay was born in 1953 in Istanbul. As a teenager, he moved with his family to Barcelona, and he worked in the wholesale and retail sectors before opening Mango.A full list of Mr. Andic’s survivors was not immediately available. But Jonathan Andic, his son, is an executive board member at Mango.Mr. Ruiz said in his statement that Mr. Andic’s death “leaves a huge void, but we are all, in some way, his legacy and the testimony of his achievements.“In these extremely difficult times,” Mr. Ruiz added, “we share the family’s pain as if it were our own.” More