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Nationalists are on the rise and are expected to make big gains when voters in 27 nations vote for the European Parliament starting this week. But the prospect of success is already raising questions among far-right parties about how far is too far.This question has become urgent as far-right popular parties, especially in Italy and France, seek to make themselves more appealing to the mainstream, dividing those who have sanitized and gained acceptability from those who are still considered taboo.Today, the far right is a movement marked by rifts and shifting alliances.Last year, Marine Le Pen, the French nationalist, appeared to disparage Italy's far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, who has sought to become a reliable partner for traditional conservatives since coming to power. ...

Listen and follow 'Hard Fork'Apple | Spotify | Amazon | YoutubeThis week, Google found itself in more turmoil, this time over its new AI Overview feature and a series of leaked internal documents. Then Josh Batson, a researcher at AI startup Anthropic, joins us to explain how an experiment that made chatbot Claude obsess over the Golden Gate Bridge represents a major breakthrough in understanding how large language models work. Finally, we take a look at recent developments in AI security, after Casey's early access to OpenAI's new souped-up voice assistant was revoked for security reasons.Guests:Additional reading:Credits“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose AND Casey Newton and produced by Whitney Jones AND Rachel Cohn.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...

David Levy, a Moroccan-born Israeli who rose from ditch-digger to Israel's political heights, often embodying the resentment of Jews of North African and Middle Eastern descent who felt mistreated by European-rooted elites, died Sunday in a Jerusalem hospital . . He was 86 years old.The cause was not disclosed, but he had recently been treated for heart and kidney problems. His death was announced by the Israeli government.Levy served as Israel's foreign minister three times in the 1990s and deputy prime minister even more often over the course of two decades.As prestigious as those positions were, neither offered him the opportunity to shine fully. The position of deputy was largely ceremonial. And on vital foreign policy issues, such as negotiations with the Palestinians and...

“Navigator,” the man who had ordered the children to be removed from the church, repeatedly visited the foster home. He would later be identified as Igor Kastyukevich, a member of the Russian parliament from Putin's political party, United Russia.Anna Kuznetsova, deputy speaker of the Russian parliament and Ms. Lvova-Belova's predecessor as commissioner for children's rights, traveled from Moscow to deliver baby products on behalf of the party. “#WeDon'tAbandonOurOwn,” she wrote on Telegram, using a pro-war hashtag to suggest the children belonged to Russia.In interviews with the Times, Russian officials echoed this view, saying the Kherson children were Russian.In May, Putin fulfilled his promise to Ms. Lvova-Belova by issuing a presidential decree easing citizenship req...

Several major networks broke away from former President Donald J. Trump on Friday during an appearance that was promoted as a news conference at Trump Tower that was turned into a rambling and misleading speech.It was the latest example of television journalists having to weigh the journalistic value of a major political moment — in this case, the criminal conviction of a former president — against the challenge of reporting on a candidate who regularly tells falsehoods.Trump's unfiltered remarks were broadcast live by cable news channels and by NBC, which interrupted its usual daytime programming to cover his appearance. In the minutes before he began speaking, MSNBC, CNN and Fox News aired advance camera footage of an empty lectern.Mr. Trump began by speaking in his usual discursive...

Protesters in Tel Aviv and around the world on Saturday called on Israeli leaders to accept the latest road map for a ceasefire and the return of hostages to Gaza, a day after President Biden said it was time for the war would end.The Forum on Hostages and Missing Families in Israel said it was launching “an emergency operation” to pressure members of the government to accept the declaration outlined by President Biden on Friday. The plan should begin with an immediate and temporary ceasefire and aim for the return of all hostages, a permanent end to the war and the reconstruction of Gaza.“The Forum calls for the return of all hostages, some for rehabilitation and others for burial, and not to miss the opportunity that has arisen to bring them home,” the group said in a statement on socia...

Competing strains on U.S. global power emerged at a security conference Sunday, where China accused the United States of stoking tensions around Taiwan and in the South China Sea, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sought greater support for his country in difficulty.These scenes played out at the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual security forum in Singapore that has long been a barometer of the highs and lows of U.S.-China relations.This year, US Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Chinese Defense Minister Admiral Dong Jun held talks, something the two countries' top defense officials have not always done in this meeting. But Admiral Dong made clear that China remains antagonistic to U.S. influence and alliance-building across Asia, particularly American support for Taiwan...

When Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced last year that his company would release an artificial intelligence system, Jeffrey Emanuel had reservations.Mr. Emanuel, a part-time hacker and full-time AI enthusiast, had tinkered with "closed" AI models, including those from OpenAI, meaning the systems' underlying code was not accessible or editable. When Zuckerberg introduced Meta's artificial intelligence system by invitation to only a handful of academics, Emanuel was worried that the technology would remain limited to only a small circle of people.But in a release last summer of an updated AI system, Zuckerberg made the code “open source” so it could be freely copied, modified and reused by anyone.Mr. Emanuel, the founder of blockchain start-up Pastel Network, has been sold. He said...

A day after President Biden called on Israel and Hamas to reach a truce, declaring it was "time for this war to end," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday reiterated that Israel will not agree to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza as long as Hamas still retains governmental and military power.In his statement, Netanyahu did not explicitly endorse or reject the proposed ceasefire plan that Biden laid out in an unusually detailed speech on Friday. Two Israeli officials confirmed that Biden's proposal corresponded to an Israeli ceasefire proposal that had been given the green light by Israel's war cabinet. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations.But the timing of Netanyahu's remarks, which came first thing the next morning, appeared to...

PTSD diagnoses among college students more than doubled between 2017 and 2022, rising most sharply as the coronavirus pandemic shuttered campuses and upended students' lives, according to new research released Thursday. young adults.According to the findings, the prevalence of PTSD rose to 7.5% from 3.4% during that period. Researchers analyzed responses from more than 390,000 participants in the Healthy Minds Study, an annual web-based survey.“The magnitude of this increase is truly shocking,” said Yusen Zhai, the study's lead author, who directs the community counseling clinic at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His clinic had seen multiple young people struggle following traumatic events. So he expected an increase, but not that big.Dr. Zhai, an assistant professor in...