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 Occasions established that the assaults in opposition to 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 common, António Guterres, and the company U.N. Ladies didn’t acknowledge the various accusations till weeks after the assaults.
Occasions reporters recognized at the very least seven places the place Israeli girls and ladies 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 girl’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 immediately of their vaginas. A witness advised my colleagues that one Hamas terrorist raped one girl whereas one other lower off her breast.
Reporting: My colleagues used video footage, images, GPS information from cell phones and interviews with greater than 150 folks, 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 motion alongside the border.
U.S. braces for extra migrants
U.S. officers are struggling to cope with the chaos on the border with Mexico as 1000’s of migrants arrive day-after-day. The spike may have repercussions for the Biden administration, which fears that it may injury the Democrats’ electoral probabilities.
The arrivals have as soon as once more hit document ranges and are testing the capability of regulation enforcement on either side of the border to include the explosion of unlawful crossings. An knowledgeable 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 aren’t geared up to take care of this,” a border patrol officer mentioned. “It’s a humanitarian catastrophe.”
Migrants: Some are fleeing struggle in Sudan. Others, cartels in Mexico. Most are fleeing relentless violence, desperation and poverty.
A Occasions investigation: Audits that search for points together with migrant kids within the office have grown into an $80 billion international business. However they’ve persistently missed youngster labor, together with on the U.S. suppliers for Oreo, Gerber and McDonald’s.
China’s spiraling property disaster
Citic Belief, one in all China’s greatest finance corporations, mentioned in 2020 that its new fund was as secure as they arrive — as a result of it might spend money on actual property. Then the developer defaulted and the tasks stalled.
My colleagues have reconstructed its unraveling, which affords 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 trusted 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 fulfill their “cheap financing wants.”
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Across the World
Museums all over the world are grappling with how one can appeal to new audiences. The tiny Crab Museum in England has discovered success with a humorousness, bringing in guests with irreverent, healthful dioramas that train 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 true menace A.I. poses to artwork
A pretend Drake/Weeknd mash-up just isn’t a menace to our species’ tradition, writes our critic Jason Farago. It’s a warning: We are able to’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, at the very least 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. Reasonably 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.”
Learn his full essay right here.
