On this sun-drenched morning there appeared to be fewer people gathered in Hostages Square than on previous release days. Naama Moses, a volunteer selling merchandise to support the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents relatives of the captives, ascribed this to the pain that many felt when they saw the three men who were … Read more
Before she waded into the water to take a holy dip among the teeming throngs at the world’s largest religious gathering, Draupadi Devi reached into her blouse and handed her husband a small pouch to safeguard. Inside was a slip of paper with his phone number scrawled on it, so she would have it if … Read more
Around 10:30 p.m. on a Friday in late January, David Fernando, a pharmacist, was working behind a counter at a drugstore in São Paulo when a man walked up to him and flashed a gun. “He asked for money from the register and medications from the refrigerator,” Mr. Fernando said. These days, pharmacists in São … Read more
Six months after the opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny died in a Russian prison above the Arctic Circle, Konstantin A. Kotov woke up to find his Moscow apartment under siege. After breaking down the door, Russian officers set about confiscating everything to do with Mr. Navalny, down to a campaign button from the activist’s 2018 … Read more
A few years ago, the translator Jeremy Tiang was browsing in a bookstore in Singapore when he came across an unusual book of stories. Written in Chinese under a pen name, the book, “Delicious Hunger,” drew on the author Hai Fan’s 13 years fighting in the jungles of Malaysia and southern Thailand as a guerrilla … Read more
The senior American diplomat slipped quietly into Belarus, a police state run by a strongman reviled for decades in the West, traveling by car across the border for meetings with President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko and the head of his KGB security apparatus. It was Mr. Lukashenko’s first meeting with a senior State Department official in … Read more
On Thursday morning, a 24-year-old Afghan refugee drove into a union demonstration in central Munich, injuring nearly 40 people. The police say they are investigating whether the driver, who confessed to a deliberate attack, acted alone. The attack happened just 10 days before federal elections that have been focused on migration, and the crash could … Read more
Paddling through choppy waters under cloudy skies, Adrián Simancas and his father were packrafting only a few yards from each other when something huge lunged, mouth open, from the waves below. A humpback whale appeared to gulp Mr. Simancas down, then rolled over into the waters of Chilean Patagonia. Moments later, Mr. Simancas bobbed back … Read more
President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an excerpt from an NBC interview published Friday night that Ukraine had a low chance of surviving Russia’s assault without U.S. support. In the excerpt from “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker,” Mr. Zelensky said: “Probably it will be very, very, very difficult. And of course, in all the difficult … Read more
Note: Map shows the area with a shake intensity of 4 or greater, which U.S.G.S. defines as “light,” though the earthquake may be felt outside the areas shown. The New York Times A strong, 6.0-magnitude earthquake struck in Ethiopia on Friday, according to the United States Geological Survey. The temblor happened at 11:28 p.m. East … Read more