Elections

Near dawn one year ago, the militant group Hamas began an assault from Gaza into Israel.It signaled the start of a series of events that have shaken the Middle East. Here are some key moments:Hamas attacks IsraelOn Oct. 7, armed paragliders took off from Gaza. Militants used drones to destroy Israeli surveillance stations and began to fire thousands of rockets. Commandos in trucks and on motorbikes sped into southern Israel.Rockets are fired from Gaza City toward Israel on Oct. 7.Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn an hourslong assault, Hamas and other Gaza-based groups killed up to 1,200 civilians and security personnel across the border in Israel, committed atrocities, and took more than 250 people back to Gaza as hostages.In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel declared war on Hamas. Israel sealed Gaza’s border and started a campaign of airstrikes, a bombardment that would be one of the most intense in 21st-century warfare and kill tens of thousands of Gazans over the months to come.Iran allies join the fightHezbollah, a Lebanese militant group supported by Iran, began firing missiles and drones at Israeli positions on Oct. 8 in support of Hamas. Israel responded with its own airstrikes, with both sides initially calibrating tit-for-tat attacks to avoid escalation. The fighting would force about 150,000 people on both sides of the border to flee their homes.Others in Iran’s network of armed groups, which it calls the “axis of resistance,” would soon join the fight against Israel and its allies. The Houthis of Yemen disrupted global shipping by attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea in support of Hamas, and launched a drone strike on Tel Aviv, killing one person.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

Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about books that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions, video games and more. This week’s challenge is focused on popular books that had less than successful adaptations into Broadway musicals.Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the books and their movie adaptations.4 of 5“The Red Shoes,” Hans Christian Andersen’s 1845 dark fairy tale about enchanted footwear, has inspired film, theater and ballet productions — as well as a Kate Bush album, a South Korean horror movie and other adaptations. In 2006, a jukebox musical that blended the story with the songs of Earth, Wind & Fire opened and closed on Broadway in just a few months. What was the name of the musical? More

Not having much insight into what may happen next in the case of a fraud orchestrated by Robert Allen Stanford, many of the victims sold the rights to any future payout.It’s been 15 years since Thomas Swingle first learned that about $1 million of his family’s savings had gone up in smoke, after the financier Robert Allen Stanford was exposed for having sold billions in fraudulent certificates of deposit to investors around the world.The memory of those days is still painful.“It was literally a life-changing event,” Mr. Swingle, 72, said of the $7 billion scheme that unraveled in early 2009. “It is like someone hit you in the chest with a sledgehammer.”Now, victims of Mr. Stanford’s company, Stanford Financial, are on the verge of recouping some of their losses, but Mr. Swingle and his wife, Cindy Finch, have to contend with another decision they made: In 2021, they agreed to sell their claim to any future settlement to an investment fund for around $60,000.That means they won’t get a penny of the funds that are about to be disbursed. Instead, it’ll all go to the claim buyer.It’s a decision fraud victims have to agonize over in the wake of a big financial scam: Large investors offer them cash in exchange for the rights to any future payment. Many small investors who don’t have much insight into what might happen next may feel they don’t have a choice but to settle for a quick lump sum, rather than wait for a future payment that may never come.When Mr. Swingle and Ms. Finch sold their claim, he said, it appeared Stanford’s defrauded customers were unlikely to get anything back at all. Had the couple held on to the rights, they might be able to claim as much as $350,000.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

Israel appeared to label much of northern Gaza as an evacuation zone and in Lebanon, Israeli airstrikes targeted Hezbollah strongholds, as the region also braced for Israel to hit back at Iran.Israel intensified its fight on two fronts Sunday, stepping up operations against Hamas in Gaza and carrying out more airstrikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, as the region braced for Israel to hit back at Iran for its barrage of ballistic missiles last week.The expected strike’s potential to ignite an all-out war between Israel and Iran cast a pall over the eve of the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, which led to the upending of the Middle East and exposed the limits of American influence in the region.The Israeli military appeared to label the vast majority of northern Gaza as an evacuation zone in what it said was preparation for “a new phase” in the war, after launching a major raid targeting Hamas in the area.In Lebanon, Israeli airstrikes targeted Hezbollah strongholds in southern Beirut, shortly after warning residents there to flee. Israel also said over the weekend that it had killed two Hamas officials in Lebanon.In Israel, two surface-to-surface missiles fired from Lebanon set off sirens in towns up to 50 miles south of the Lebanese border. The missiles were intercepted by Israel’s air defenses, its military said. In the southern Israeli city of Be’er Sheva, a member of the Israeli border police was killed and five other people were taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds in an attack in the city’s central bus station, according to the police and Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency service.As fighting has escalated and Israel issued restrictions on public gatherings, organizers have scaled back events to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 assault.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

Once called “probably the funniest and most malicious” of the postmodernists, his books reflected a career-long interest in reimagining folk stories, fairy tales and political myths.Robert Coover, who along with Donald Barthelme, John Barth and others occupied the vanguard of postmodern American fiction in the 1960s and 1970s, and who went on to a long and prolific career writing and teaching, died on Saturday in Warwick, England. He was 92.His death, in a care home, was confirmed on Sunday by his daughter Sara Caldwell to The Associated Press. Ms. Caldwell, an author and filmmaker, did not give a cause but said his health had been declining recently.Mr. Coover’s first novel, “The Origin of the Brunists,” published in 1966 and fairly traditional in its telling, was about a religious cult built around the lone survivor of a mining accident in the Midwest.In The New York Times Book Review, Webster Schott wrote of its author: “If he can somehow control his Hollywood giganticism and focus his vision of life, he may become heir to Dreiser or Lewis.”If it wasn’t obvious then that Mr. Coover had no interest in inheriting the kingdom of social realism from Theodore Dreiser or Sinclair Lewis, his 1969 story collection “Pricksongs and Descants” made it abundantly clear. Those stories firmly established his career-long interest in remixing fairy tales, exploding myths and placing only the most transparent window in front of fiction’s inner machinery.“The Babysitter,” a widely anthologized story from that collection, rifled through the many possible scenarios of one night after a young woman arrives at a house to take care of three children. The brief, fractured episodes range from the banal to the violent and the lascivious, including the fantasies of the babysitter’s boyfriend and of the children’s father. (More than 25 years later the story was, improbably, adapted into a movie with the same title starring Alicia Silverstone.)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

Las número más recientes del Times/Siena muestran a Harris por delante en Míchigan y Wisconsin, y con una ventaja razonable en el Segundo Distrito de NebraskaKamala Harris en Wayne, Michigan, en agosto. Lidera Michigan por un punto en nuestro último sondeo.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesSigue aquí las actualizaciones en directo de las elecciones de 2024.El viernes concluimos nuestra oleada de encuestas posdebate del New York Times y el Siena College en los estados en disputa, junto con un vistazo especial a Ohio y su carrera hacia el Senado.Kamala Harris estuvo a la cabeza entre los votantes probables por un punto porcentual en Michigan, dos puntos en Wisconsin y nueve puntos en el Segundo Distrito Congresional de Nebraska. Donald Trump lideró en Ohio por seis puntos entre los votantes probables, 50 por ciento a 44 por ciento (en 2020 ganó el estado por ocho puntos).Cuando se añaden al panorama las otras encuestas recientes del Times/Siena, la conclusión es clara: se trata de unas elecciones extremadamente reñidas.Imaginemos, por un momento, que las últimas encuestas del Times/Siena en cada estado clave acertaran. No lo harán, por supuesto, pero este es el resultado que se obtendría en el Colegio Electoral:Harris 270, Trump 268.En términos de conteo electoral, sería la elección presidencial moderna más reñida de Estados Unidos.Si se promedian las seis encuestas que hicimos en los principales estados en disputa (nos saltamos Nevada en nuestra ronda más reciente), Trump va a la delantera por una media de solo 0,6 puntos.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

Evacuations and storm preparations began on Sunday night as forecasters projected that Hurricane Milton would slam into Florida’s west coast on Wednesday as a major hurricane packing life-threatening winds and storm surge.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said in a news conference Sunday evening that a “flurry” of evacuation orders would be issued over the next 24 hours.He encouraged residents on the southwest part of the west coast to leave ahead of the mandatory orders.“Do not make inferences that somehow you’re going to be in the clear,” he said. “The entire peninsula, the entire west coast, has the potential to have major, major impact because of the storm surge.”Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall in the Tampa Bay area as a Category 3 hurricane on Wednesday.Forecasters predict heavy rain could bring flash flooding and life-threatening storm surges. Milton could also pack winds of more than 100 miles per hour if the hurricane strengthens to a category 3 or higher.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

On This Week’s Episode:Chen Almog-Goldstein was kidnapped along with her three youngest children on October 7, 2023. She tells the story of life as a hostage in Gaza.Chen Almog-Goldstein and her daughter Agam visiting their damaged house in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, where they were taken hostage by Hamas.Avishag Shaar-YashuvNew York Times Audio is home to the “This American Life” archive. Download the app — available to Times news subscribers on iOS — and sign up for our weekly newsletter. More