Hamas weaponized sexual violence
Israeli officers say that in all places Hamas terrorists struck on Oct. 7 — a rave, navy bases alongside the Gaza border and kibbutz after kibbutz — they brutalized girls.
A two-month investigation by The Times established that the assaults towards girls weren’t remoted occasions, however a part of a broader sample of gender-based violence. For months, Israeli activists have been outraged that the U.N. secretary basic, António Guterres, and the company U.N. Ladies didn’t acknowledge the numerous accusations till weeks after the assaults.
Instances reporters recognized a minimum of seven places the place Israeli girls and women seem to have been sexually assaulted or mutilated. Most of the accounts reported by my colleagues are troublesome to bear, and the visible proof is disturbing to see.
One {photograph} confirmed a lady’s corpse with dozens of nails pushed into her thighs and groin. A video supplied by the Israeli navy confirmed two lifeless Israeli troopers who appeared to have been shot instantly of their vaginas. A witness instructed my colleagues that one Hamas terrorist raped one girl whereas one other reduce off her breast.
Reporting: My colleagues used video footage, pictures, GPS information from cellphones and interviews with greater than 150 individuals, together with witnesses, medical personnel, troopers and rape counselors to piece collectively the proof.
Judicial reform: Israel’s Supreme Court docket is predicted to rule on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s divisive plan to overhaul Israel’s courts in mid-January.
A northern entrance? With Hezbollah’s rockets streaming into Israel from Lebanon, Israeli officers have threatened action along the border.
U.S. braces for extra migrants
U.S. officers are struggling to contend with the chaos at the border with Mexico as hundreds of migrants arrive every single day. The spike may have repercussions for the Biden administration, which fears that it may injury the Democrats’ electoral possibilities.
The arrivals have as soon as once more hit report ranges and are testing the capability of regulation enforcement on each side of the border to include the explosion of unlawful crossings. An skilled mentioned that this month had extra migrants per day than any earlier common: Final week, the variety of apprehensions reached greater than 10,000 a day.
“We’re not geared up to cope with this,” a border patrol officer mentioned. “It’s a humanitarian catastrophe.”
Migrants: Some are fleeing conflict in Sudan. Others, cartels in Mexico. Most are fleeing relentless violence, desperation and poverty.
A Instances investigation: Audits that search for points together with migrant youngsters within the office have grown into an $80 billion world trade. However they have consistently missed child labor, together with on the U.S. suppliers for Oreo, Gerber and McDonald’s.
China’s spiraling property disaster
Citic Belief, one in every of China’s greatest finance corporations, mentioned in 2020 that its new fund was as protected as they arrive — as a result of it will spend money on actual property. Then the developer defaulted and the projects stalled.
My colleagues have reconstructed its unraveling, which provides a window into the broader issues of China’s property sector. What began as a housing stoop is now a full-blown disaster. The budgets of native governments, which relied on actual property income, have been destabilized. And the shock to China’s monetary system has drained its capital markets.
What’s subsequent: China’s central authorities lastly signaled its willingness to step in, pledging this month to “actively and prudently resolve actual property dangers” and assist corporations to satisfy their “cheap financing wants.”
THE LATEST NEWS
Across the World
Museums around the globe are grappling with methods to entice new audiences. The tiny Crab Museum in England has discovered success with a humorousness, bringing in guests with irreverent, healthful dioramas that educate guests about local weather change and capitalism.
Lives lived: Jiang Ping was a foundational Chinese language authorized scholar whose experiences with political persecution formed his relentless advocacy for particular person rights. He died at 92.
The actual menace A.I. poses to artwork
A pretend Drake/Weeknd mash-up will not be a menace to our species’ tradition, writes our critic Jason Farago. It’s a warning: We will’t let our imaginations shrink to machine measurement.
Take the expansion of text-to-image turbines, which have provoked fears that A.I. is coming for visible artwork, too.
However these pictures, a minimum of to Jason, really feel extra like a online game than true human expression. The compositions are extremely symmetrical. The figures have the waxed-fruit pores and skin and deeply set eyes of online game characters. It’s not a direct menace; A.I. can not innovate and can’t move itself off as human.
The cultural menace, he argues, is deeper. Relatively than worrying about whether or not bots can do what people do, we must always increase our expectations of what people can do.
“It’s not within the type of some tacky HAL-meets-Robocop fantasy of out-of-control software program and killer lasers,” he says. “The menace is that we shrink ourselves to the size of our machines’ restricted capabilities; the menace is the sanding down of human thought and life to suit into ever extra standardized information units.”
