Pope Francis on Sunday criticized people who traveled abroad during the pandemic “to escape the lockdown,” saying they were ignoring those who were suffering. In his weekly noontime Sunday address, Francis said, “I read in the papers something that quite saddened me: In a country — I don’t remember which — to…
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Brian Urquhart, Troubleshooter for the U.N., Dies at 101
In a postwar era rife with revolutions, regional disputes and Cold War conflicts, darkened by fears of an East-West nuclear conflagration, Mr. Urquhart deployed and often led his lightly armed peacekeepers into war zones in the Middle East, Congo, southern Africa, Kashmir, Cyprus and other places. They sometimes failed to defuse explosive…
Tim Severin, Seafarer Who Replicated Explorers’ Journeys, Dies at 80
Tim Severin, a British adventurer who for 40 years meticulously replicated the journeys of real and mythic explorers like St. Brendan the Navigator, Sinbad the Sailor and Marco Polo, died on Dec. 18 at his home in West Cork, Ireland. He was 80. His daughter, Ida Ashley, said the cause was cancer.…
Coast Guard Suspends Search for Missing Boat With 20 Aboard
MIAMI — The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search on Friday for an overdue boat that was headed to Florida from the Bahamas with 20 people aboard, after the authorities said they had exhausted their efforts to find it. The boat, a blue-and-white 29-foot Mako Cuddy Cabin, departed from Bimini, the Bahamas,…
Conjuring Up the World Through the Sense of Taste
BANGKOK — My grandmother in Tokyo kept a pail under her sink. It was filled with what resembled wet sand. But from its pungent depths came what I considered to be the most miraculous of treats — a pickled carrot or daikon or, one of my favorites, a bud of a ginger-like…
The Philippines bars U.S. travelers after Florida becomes the third state to find the new virus variant.
The Philippines expanded its temporary ban on entry for some foreign travelers on Friday to include people coming from the United States, acting after Florida became the third U.S. state to identify an infection with the new, highly contagious variant of the coronavirus that was first identified in Britain. The Florida Department…
What to Know as Troubled Afghan Peace Talks Enter a New Phase
KABUL, Afghanistan — After four decades of grinding combat in Afghanistan, peace negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban have raised at least a possibility that the long cycle of violence might someday end. But that milestone is a long way off. The most recent round of discussions, which began in…
Happy New Year
Want to get The Morning by email? Here’s the sign-up. Good morning and happy new year. If you made any resolutions for 2021, we have tips on how to keep them. Last night, mostly in muted celebrations, people around the world said goodbye to a difficult year and rang in 2021. We…
Gibraltar Gets Its Own Last-Minute Brexit Deal on Borders
MADRID — The recent Brexit trade deal generated relief in Britain and the European Union, but some issues were left on the negotiating table — including what to do about Gibraltar, the British territory at the southern tip of Spain whose sovereignty has long been disputed by Madrid. On Thursday, the Spanish…
More than 500 vaccine doses were left out to spoil on purpose by a hospital employee.
An employee at a Wisconsin hospital intentionally removed more than 500 doses of coronavirus vaccine from refrigeration last week, rendering them useless, the hospital system said Wednesday night. The employee’s motive is unclear. The hospital, the Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, Wis., notified the local police department, which is investigating the incident,…
A German Town Warily Considers a Future Without a Deep U.S. Presence
VILSECK, Germany — There is a bar here called “Cheers,” and there are Halloween parties, decorated houses and trick-or-treating in October and turkeys at Thanksgiving. The mayor’s childhood memories include Hershey’s bars, jars of peanut butter and Wrigley’s gum. For seven decades, the rituals and rhythms of American life have interwoven with…
Norway Landslide Injures 10 and Leaves 15 Missing
A landslide in a village about 30 miles northeast of Oslo injured at least 10 people and left 15 missing on Wednesday, according to the local news media. At least six people in the village of Ask were hospitalized and up to 200 were evacuated, the mayor said, according to Verdens Gang,…
England moves closer to full lockdown with millions more placed under the country’s tightest restrictions.
On the same day that Britain’s regulators gave emergency approval to the coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, millions more people in England were told they will be placed under the country’s tightest regulations starting Thursday. Three quarters of the country’s population will live under England’s toughest virus…
How Argentina Bucked Tradition in Latin America and Legalized Abortion
Latin America has long been hostile terrain for abortion rights advocates, even in recent decades as legal abortion became accessible in most of Europe, North America and other parts of the world. But a grassroots feminist movement claimed a victory in Argentina on Wednesday when the Senate legalized abortion in a surprisingly…
Croatia Hit by Strong Earthquake
At least one person was killed and a town in central Croatia was left in ruins after a powerful 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey and local officials. The full extent of casualties was not known. There were reports that the quake, which hit just after noon…
U.K. Virus Surge Surpasses Spring Peak as Lockdown Choices Loom
LONDON — About half of England is under the nation’s strictest lockdown measures, and people have been ordered to stay at home, but the coronavirus is still spreading at an alarming rate. Hospitals are treating more patients than at any time during the pandemic, the number of new infections has set a…
New Data Triples Russia’s Covid-19 Death Toll
MOSCOW — After months of questions over the true scale of the coronavirus pandemic in Russia and the efficacy of a Russian-developed vaccine, the state statistical agency in Moscow has announced new figures indicating that the death toll from Covid-19 is more than three times as high as officially reported. From the…
Loujain al-Halthloul, Saudi Rights Activist, Gets Prison Sentence
Women in Saudi Arabia have been allowed to drive since the kingdom lifted the ban in June 2018, one of the historic social reforms inaugurated over the last few years by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman. Under the crown prince, the kingdom has encouraged women to…
The Most-Read Stories of 2020
Want to get The Morning by email? Here’s the sign-up. Good morning. We’re looking back on the stories that drew the most readers this year. What were the most-read stories in The New York Times this year? You may not be surprised to learn that two topics — the election and the…
Revisiting the Unseen Corners of the World
At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, with travel restrictions in place worldwide, we launched a new series to help transport you, virtually, to some of our planet’s most beautiful and intriguing places. This week, after 40 installments, we look back at some of the highlights — from hat-making workshops in Ecuador and…