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While protests over the war in Gaza were taking place just blocks away, last week's Met Gala was largely devoid of political statements on the red carpet. That the organizers of fashion's most powerful annual show (one for which this year tickets cost $75,000) managed to achieve this goal proved surprising to many observers. Less than two weeks later, however, a rapidly growing online protest movement is taking shape. At least it is on TikTok, the social media platform sponsoring the Met event.Blockout 2024, also known as Operation Blockout or Celebrity Block Party, targets high-profile figures who participants believe are not using their profiles and platforms to speak out about the Israel-Hamas war and broader humanitarian crises. Here's what's happened so far, what s...

Lawyers representing Israel defended the military operation in Rafah on Friday as “limited and localized,” arguing before the United Nations Supreme Court that judges should not seek to limit Israel's actions in Gaza.During a hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Israel responded to a South African petition for the court to order an immediate halt to the ground assault in Rafah.Israeli forces have advanced into the outskirts of Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, over the past week and a half, ordering mass evacuations and stepping up shelling ahead of a long-anticipated invasion of the city. According to the United Nations, more than 630,000 people have fled the area, many of them already displaced from other parts of Gaza.The hearings are part of South Africa&...

As a journalist covering sex and intimacy, I spend a lot of time listening to experts extol the virtues of open and honest communication. To have good sex – and to continue having it over time – couples need to be willing to talk about it, they say.But some people would rather abandon their relationships than have those conversations, said Jeffrey Chernin, a marriage and family therapist and author of "Achieving Intimacy: How to Have a Loving Relationship That Lasts" — especially if things in the bedroom bed are not good. particularly well.“One of the things I often say to couples who are having problems is, 'I wish there was another way to get through this,'” she said. “But the only way I know to have a better sex life, or get your sex life back, is to talk about it.”Dr. Cherni...

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico underwent further surgery, officials said Friday, as questions continued to swirl about the assassination attempt that landed him in hospital.Authorities have kept details about the attack, the attacker and who leads the country to a minimum while the prime minister remains hospitalized, even as shock from the shooting has begun to give way to trepidation about what will happen next for the most deeply polarized country.On Friday afternoon, Slovakia's deputy prime minister, Robert Kalinak, said the government was moving forward, telling a news conference that "all our work and tasks have been done." He also offered an update on Mr. Fico, who he said underwent a nearly two-hour surgery but was conscious.“I see some progress,” he told reporters outside ...

Listen and follow 'Hard Fork'Apple | Spotify | Amazon | YoutubeThis week, OpenAI unveiled GPT-4o, its new artificial intelligence model. He has an amazingly emotional voice that everyone talks about. So, let's break down Google IO's biggest announcements, including the launch of AI Panoramas, a major shift in search that threatens the way the entire web works. And finally, Kevin and Casey discuss the week's weirdest headlines in another round of HatGPT.Additional reading:Credits“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose AND Casey Newton and produced by Whitney Jones AND Rachel Cohn. The show is edited by Poyant only. Engineering by Isaac Jones and original music by Dan Powell, Elisheba Ittoop AND Rowan Niemisto. Fact checking by Caitlin Love.Special thanks to Paula S...

The Arab League called on Thursday for the deployment of a United Nations peacekeeping force in the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank. until a two-state solution can be negotiated, in a statement that also called on the United Nations Security Council to set a time limit for that political process.The idea of ​​sending UN peacekeepers to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been mentioned occasionally by diplomats. But the Arab League appears to be the first time the group has officially made such a request in a written document, according to Farhan Haq, United Nations spokesman.UN peacekeepers are unlikely to be deployed to Gaza and the West Bank in the near future because sending UN peacekeepers to any conflict first requires authorization from the Council. UN forces, which...

The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday approved an innovative new treatment for patients with a form of lung cancer. It should only be used by patients who have exhausted all other options for treating small cell lung cancer and who have a life expectancy of four to five months.The drug tarlatamab, or Imdelltra, produced by the Amgen company, tripled the life expectancy of patients, guaranteeing them an average survival of 14 months after taking the drug. Forty percent of those who received the drug responded.After decades without real progress in treatments for small cell lung cancer, tarlatamab offers the first real hope, said Dr. Anish Thomas, a lung cancer specialist at the federal National Cancer Institute who was not involved in the study.“I feel like it's a light after a...

For the government that accused him, he was a “lone wolf,” an out-of-control individual who represented nothing but himself when he fired at least four bullets into Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico.Wednesday's attack, however, highlighted a much larger collective malfunction in Slovakia. In this central European country, society and political culture are so bitterly divided that the violence attributed to a man who authorities say acted alone has become yet another club with which each side can beat the other.“There is a level of polarization that has never existed before in this country,” said Daniel Milo, a former government official responsible for monitoring disinformation who now works for a technology company. "I've never seen anything like it," he added.The Covid-...

Last summer, on their way to a doctor's appointment near their home in Manhattan, Paul Skye Lehrman and Linnea Sage listened to a podcast about the rise of artificial intelligence and the threat it poses to the livelihoods of writers, actors, and other entertainment professionals.The topic was especially important for young newlyweds. They made a living as voice actors, and artificial intelligence technologies began to generate voices that sounded real.But the podcast took an unexpected turn. To highlight the threat posed by artificial intelligence, the host conducted a long interview with a talking chatbot named Poe. He looked just like Mr. Lehrman.“He was interviewing my voice about the dangers of artificial intelligence and the damage it could have on the entertainment industry,”...

Israeli tank fire has killed five Israeli soldiers in Gaza, a military spokesman said on Thursday, in the latest incident with self-inflicted casualties since Israel launched a ground invasion of the enclave in October.Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli army spokesman, said at a news conference that the men were killed by tank fire on Wednesday as they were fighting in a densely populated area of ​​the territory.“There was a friendly fire incident: five soldiers were killed,” he said, adding: “The incident is under review.”The Jerusalem Post reported that the men had been killed in Gaza City, in the territory's north, and that seven soldiers were also wounded when two tanks opened fire. The Israeli army later named the five, who belonged to the Parachute Brigade, on its web...