Author: News Polite

The derelict rail bridge stretches across a busy north London street, green foliage peeking out of the gaps between the beams overhead, where bright blue paint flakes from rusting steel.

Farther east, the railway’s grand Victorian-era arches span a small slice of park wedged between two streets, where tents belonging to homeless people, a discarded mattress and broken bottles are scattered about.

While the elevated train line and some of the areas it cuts through may look neglected now, if all goes according to plan, it will become the site of the Camden High Line, a planned public park that aims to turn this disused stretch of the city into a thriving green space.

“They’re all unloved bits of Camden,” said Simon Pitkeathley, the chief executive of Camden Town Unlimited, the business improvement district behind the initiative, of the areas that will one day provide the ground-level entrances to the High Line.

Strolling along the route of the planned park, which will sit some 25 feet above the streets, allows for a different view of London. Up here, the air feels fresher and the bustle below fades away as the view stretches over a patch of north London peppered with homes and office buildings.

The backers of the Camden High Line project, which carries an estimated price tag of 35 million pounds, or about $44.5 million, hope it will one day become a vibrant draw for both tourists and locals, bringing much-needed foot traffic to the area, much as its New York namesake has in the Chelsea neighborhood.

Rather than any attempt to disguise the inspiration, the London high line will have intentional echoes of the hugely successful one in New York.

It, too, harnesses a railway that has sat empty for decades, around 30 years in the case of the Camden line.

During a recent walking tour of the planned route, Mr. Pitkeathley pointed to a brick archway that will eventually have a sleek staircase rising through it, bringing visitors to the elevated park. Design drawings show Londoners strolling leafy walkways, past wildflower gardens and viewing platforms where they can admire the streetscapes.

The Camden High Line’s planned width varies greatly along its route, expanding more than 65 feet in some areas that used to be full station platforms, while shrinking to under 10 feet in other sections.

The project’s design team was headed by James Corner Field Operations, the lead architecture firm for the New York High Line, working with other designers as well as London-based social enterprises that helped consult residents on their vision for the park.

So while the links to the original High Line are clear — and hopes for the same success are front of mind — the design is adapted to serve the neighborhood where it sits, Mr. Pitkeathley said.

There are a number of differences, first among them an active train line running directly beside where the park will one day unfold.

Much of the surrounding area it passes through is publicly owned land filled with affordable housing, so both affluent and lower-income Londoners will benefit from proximity to the new green space, Mr. Pitkeathley said.

But it will still be some time before Londoners and visitors can enjoy the park.

Planning permission was given in January 2023 for the first section, running from Camden Gardens east to Royal College Street.

Construction will not begin until late 2025, with the first section of the High Line expected to open in early 2027, he added. Two additional sections are still years away.

Fund-raising is still underway, and Mr. Pitkeathley declined to say how much was left to raise.

But when the entire project is completed, it will wend its way for three-quarters of a mile east from Camden Town, already a popular destination, to King’s Cross, a transport hub and the site of another urban regeneration project.

The plan for the Camden High Line has already been applauded by lawmakers and conservation groups, including Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London; Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition Labour Party; and the National Trust. But it is the opinions of those living locally that have been the focus of the planning team.

Lyn Walls, 57, lives in the Maiden Lane Estate, a residential complex with a mix of public and private housing, adjacent to where the easternmost section of the new park will eventually stand. For now, the only walkway that connects her home to the area directly to the west is a graffiti-riddled, badly lighted path.

The Camden High Line will eventually offer a walkable link to the neighborhoods to her west, she said. For now, Ms. Walls usually “takes the long way around” when walking there, she said, because of a secluded passageway that currently links the two areas.

“Going that way just isn’t appealing — it needs more lighting and just more people using it,” she said. The High Line, she added, “will make such a difference.”

On a recent winter afternoon, she was walking her dog with her two grandchildren and her daughter-in-law in an enclosed basketball court on the grounds of the complex. While there is a handful of green space dotting the area, Ms. Walls said the addition of the High Line would add much-needed park space.

At a cafe at the western end of the High Line’s route, Kiran Duggal, 25, and Barnaby Fishwick, 20, sipped coffee in the sun of a mild winter afternoon.

The friends, who work in a pub nearby, both said they were excited about the possibility of more green space and better walking routes.

“That will make life so much easier,” said Ms. Duggal, who lamented the lack of a good walkable route connecting the eastern and western parts of this area of London.

“Around north London, there are just so many dead sites,” Mr. Fishwick said, adding that he was eager for to see the new park come to life. “I do just love a good stroll.”

The United Nations’ highest court said on Friday that Israel must take action to prevent acts of genocide by its forces in the Gaza Strip, adding to the international pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reduce death and destruction in the battered Palestinian enclave.

But the court did not rule on whether Israel was committing genocide, and it did not call on Israel to stop its military campaign to crush Hamas, as South Africa, which brought the case, had requested.

While the ruling had elements that each side could embrace, the court allowed the case charging Israel with genocide to proceed, which will likely keep the country under international scrutiny for years to come.

“The court is acutely aware of the extent of the human tragedy that is unfolding in the region, and is deeply concerned about the continuing loss of life and human suffering,” Joan E. Donoghue, the president of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, said as she announced the interim ruling. The decision also ordered the delivery of more humanitarian aid to Palestinians, and called for the release of hostages held by armed groups in Gaza.

The South Africans who argued the case this month have equated the oppression they faced under apartheid with the plight of Palestinians.

The genocide accusation is acutely sensitive for Israel, which was founded in 1948 in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Many Israelis argue that it is Hamas that should face charges of genocide after its attack on Oct. 7, when about 1,200 people were killed in Israel and about 240 were taken captive, according to Israeli officials.

“The very notion that Israel is perpetrating genocide is not only false, it is outrageous, and the court’s willingness to discuss it is a mark of shame that will last for generations,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement on Friday.

For many Palestinians, the court decision was a rare moment of reckoning for Israel, whose campaign has been defended by the United States and other close allies. More than 25,000 people in Gaza have been killed since Israel’s offensive began, nearly 2 million have been displaced, and half of the population is at risk of starvation, according to the territory’s health officials and the United Nations.

“States now have clear legal obligations to stop Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people in Gaza and to make sure that they are not complicit,” said Riad Malki, the foreign minister of the Palestinian Authority, which partly administers the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to Britain, said the decision should force the United States and its allies to rein in Israel’s military. “For 75 years, Israel has been getting away with murder,” Mr. Zomlot said in an interview. “But it is not going to get away with genocide.”

But some Palestinians expressed extreme disappointment that the court had not ordered Israel to stop its military offensive. “You failed Palestinians again,” Hind Khoudary, a journalist in Gaza, wrote on social media.

The U.S. State Department said the decision was “consistent with our view that Israel has the right to take action to ensure the terrorist attacks of Oct. 7 cannot be repeated, in accordance with international law.”

The Biden administration has staunchly backed Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas, while urging that it do more to protect civilians.

“We continue to believe that allegations of genocide are unfounded,” the State Department said in a statement, “and note the court did not make a finding about genocide or call for a cease-fire in its ruling and that it called for the unconditional, immediate release of all hostages being held by Hamas.”

Although the ruling is considered legally binding, the court has no means of enforcing it, but ordered Israel to report back on its progress in one month. The court, established by the founding charter of the United Nations in 1945, was created to settle disputes between member states.

Also known as the World Court, it typically has a panel of 15 judges who are elected by the General Assembly and Security Council. In this case, Israel and South Africa each appointed an additional judge to sit on the bench on their behalf.

In a packed courtroom earlier this month, lawyers for South Africa argued that Israel had meant to “create conditions of death” in Gaza and urged the judges to immediately suspend Israel’s military campaign.

Israel argued that it has taken steps to protect civilians by warning them to evacuate northern Gaza before it invaded and restarting deliveries of food and fuel into the enclave.

Israel said that Hamas was to blame for putting Gazans at risk, asserting that the group hides its fighters and weapons in tunnels, schools and hospitals. Israel also said that statements by its government ministers, which South Africa had cited as evidence of genocidal intent, were either taken out of context or made by officials without executive power over the military.

In its 29-page interim ruling, the court said that Israel must “take all measures within its power” to prevent violations of the Genocide Convention adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948.

In particular, it said Israel must not take certain actions with the intent to destroy, wholly or partly, Palestinians as a group, including killing them; causing them “serious bodily or mental harm”; deliberately inflicting on them “conditions of life” calculated to bring about their “physical destruction in whole or in part”; or imposing measures to prevent births.

The court said Israel must also prevent and punish “direct and public incitement to commit genocide,” and allow more urgently needed aid into Gaza.

Mr. Netanyahu noted that the court had not ordered Israel to end its military offensive, which he has said would continue until Hamas is dismantled and the remaining hostages, numbering more than 100, are freed.

“Like any state, Israel has the basic right of self-defense,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “The court justly rejected the disgraceful demand to nullify that right.”

Raz Nizri, a former Israeli deputy attorney general, said Israel was already taking most of the actions the court ordered, such as ensuring the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and punishing statements that could incite genocide.

“And there was no injunction to stop the fighting,” he said. “It’s extremely important that no such order was given.”

But some Palestinians said the ruling could increase pressure on Israel to curtail its military offensive.

“It is impossible to implement the I.C.J. decisions without immediate and permanent cease-fire,” said Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian opposition politician based in Ramallah, in the West Bank. He and others said the ruling was a rare example of Israel being held to account on the world stage after long being protected from scrutiny at the United Nations by the United States and other powerful allies.

“The problem for the past 112 days is that Israel has been operating with complete impunity,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian Canadian lawyer and former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization. “This now is a departure from that impunity, because now there is a court saying there is a plausible risk of imminent genocide.”

South Africa also welcomed the ruling, with members of the country’s governing party, the African National Congress, chanting “Free! Free! Palestine!” in Johannesburg, as the decision was announced.

The ruling was “a decisive victory for the international rule of law and a significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestinian people,” South Africa said in a statement.

Reporting was contributed by Edward Wong, John Eligon and Isabel Kershner.

When Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire owner of The Los Angeles Times, hired Kevin Merida to be the newspaper’s top editor nearly three years ago, he hailed the journalist as someone who would maintain the publication’s high standards and journalistic integrity.

By this winter, the professional warmth between the two men had chilled. Their relationship was strained in part by an incident in December when Dr. Soon-Shiong tried to dissuade Mr. Merida from pursuing a story about a wealthy California doctor and his dog, three people with knowledge of the interactions said. The doctor was an acquaintance of Dr. Soon-Shiong’s, the people said.

The previously unreported incident occurred as The Los Angeles Times, the largest news organization on the West Coast, struggled to reverse years of losses amid a difficult market for newspapers. Mr. Merida resigned this month. Shortly afterward, the company laid off roughly 115 journalists, or about 20 percent of its newsroom.

It is not unheard-of for the owner of a publication to be consulted on sensitive reporting, particularly if it could jeopardize the newspaper legally or financially. But it is unusual for an owner or a publisher to pressure editors to stop reporting on a story well before publication, especially in cases that do not put government secrets or human lives at risk.

In a statement on Friday, Dr. Soon-Shiong disputed the characterization of how he had acted, calling it “factually incorrect.” The Los Angeles Times said in a statement that Dr. Soon-Shiong, who bought the newspaper in 2018, had made a request for “truthful, factual reporting” on the story.

In a note to staff this month, Mr. Merida said he had decided to step down after “considerable soul-searching about my career at this stage.” Dr. Soon-Shiong said at the time that it had been “mutually agreed” that Mr. Merida would leave.

Dr. Soon-Shiong’s confrontation with Mr. Merida over the unfinished article stemmed from work that a business reporter was doing on Dr. Gary Michelson, a California surgeon who made his fortune with medical patents, the three people with knowledge of the situation said.

The reporter was looking into dueling lawsuits that involved Dr. Michelson and accusations that his dog had bitten a woman at a Los Angeles park. In a suit filed by Dr. Michelson in May, he said the woman had tried to extort him. The woman filed a personal injury lawsuit against Dr. Michelson.

Dr. Michelson, who lives in Los Angeles, and Dr. Soon-Shiong belong to a small and rarefied group of medical professionals who have become billionaires through their innovations and investments. Dr. Soon-Shiong made his fortune in biotechnology. Both are philanthropists.

A spokesman for Dr. Michelson did not return a request for comment.

By last month, before the reporting on Dr. Michelson had reached fruition, Dr. Soon-Shiong had become aware of the story and contacted Mr. Merida to register his displeasure, the people said. Dr. Soon-Shiong told Mr. Merida that he did not believe the paper should pursue the article.

Mr. Merida relayed Dr. Soon-Shiong’s concerns to editors including Scott Kraft, a senior editor, and Jeff Bercovici, the business editor, the people said. The editors agreed to keep Mr. Merida posted on the article, which the newspaper continued working on. Mr. Bercovici was laid off this month.

At one point, Dr. Soon-Shiong asked to see a draft of the article, which Mr. Merida regarded as inappropriate, the people said. Dr. Soon-Shiong also told Mr. Merida on a call that he would fire journalists if he learned they were concealing the completed article from him, the people said.

A Los Angeles Times spokeswoman said in a statement that Dr. Soon-Shiong didn’t want the newspaper to be used as a “source of exploitation” in the dispute between Dr. Michelson and the woman who had sued him.

“Dr. Soon-Shiong had urged that the facts be gleaned from both sides,” she said. “This request for truthful, factual reporting was made by Dr. Soon-Shiong, irrespective of who was involved in this ‘dog bite’ story. He simply urged the editors to ensure that an investigation was done before any story was published.”

The incident weighed on Mr. Merida, two of the people said. The editor had already found himself at odds with the Soon-Shiong family on issues including the newspaper’s budget. Mr. Merida was prepared to potentially resign if the article on Dr. Michelson was ready and Dr. Soon-Shiong blocked its publication, the two people said.

The newspaper has not recently published any article on Dr. Michelson.

Laurence Darmiento, the reporter working on the article, said he had continued to cover the story. He said he was aware the story was sensitive, like all articles on wealthy Los Angeles residents, adding that his editors had never told him to stop working on it.

“Beyond that, I didn’t have any firsthand knowledge of what was going on behind the scenes,” Mr. Darmiento said. “Just this past week, despite all the turmoil at The Times, I was doing some reporting on it.”

Vince McMahon, the longtime chairman and former chief executive officer of World Wrestling Entertainment, resigned from his positions with W.W.E. and its parent company, the TKO Group, on Friday, one day after a former employee accused him of sexual assault and trafficking in a federal lawsuit.

W.W.E. employees were informed of the changes in an email sent by Nick Kahn, the president of W.W.E. “He will no longer have a role with TKO Group Holdings or W.W.E.,” Mr. Kahn wrote in the email, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Connecticut, accused Mr. McMahon of trafficking the employee, Janel Grant, as well as physically and emotionally abusing her. The graphic complaint, which also named John Laurinatis, a W.W.E. executive, and the company itself as defendants, says Mr. McMahon and Mr. Laurinatis once took turns raping her, among numerous other allegations.

Mr. McMahon eventually pressured Ms. Grant to sign a nondisclosure agreement in exchange for $3 million, according to the complaint, but paid her only $1 million.

In a statement released after his resignations, Mr. McMahon called Ms. Grant’s lawsuit a “vindictive distortion of the truth” and said he looked forward to clearing his name. But he decided to resign “out of respect” for TKO, W.W.E., their employees and wrestlers.

The lawsuit is far from the first time Mr. McMahon has been accused of sexual misconduct. In 2022, a special committee of W.W.E.’s board conducted an investigation into Mr. McMahon’s conduct, and found that over 16 years he had spent $14.6 million in payments to women who had accused him of sexual misconduct. A further company investigation found he had made an additional $5 million in payments to two different women.

Mr. McMahon temporarily resigned from W.W.E. during the investigation. But he remained the company’s largest shareholder, and in 2023 he returned to chair its board and initiate a sale process that resulted in sports and entertainment conglomerate Endeavor purchasing it. Endeavor then combined W.W.E. and another one of its holdings, the mixed martial arts promotional company Ultimate Fighting Championships, into a new public company, TKO Group.

Nikki Haley criticized Donald J. Trump on Friday, saying, “America can do better than Donald Trump and Joe Biden,” after a Manhattan jury had ordered the former president to pay $83.3 million for defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll.

It was the latest iteration of Ms. Haley’s new attack line against Mr. Trump, portraying another Trump presidency as just as bad for the country as another four years of President Biden. Ms. Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, began making similar statements after Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida dropped out of the race on Sunday, leaving her as the last serious threat to Mr. Trump’s candidacy.

“Donald Trump wants to be the presumptive Republican nominee and we’re talking about $83 million in damages,” Ms. Haley wrote on social media, adding that Mr. Trump’s legal troubles continued to be a distraction. “We’re not talking about fixing the border. We’re not talking about tackling inflation.”

Ms. Haley is preparing for what may be the final stand of her presidential campaign, facing off against Mr. Trump next month in a critical primary in her home state of South Carolina. Ms. Haley has largely avoided commenting on Mr. Trump’s legal cases, but the former president leads her by wide margins in polls, and she appears to be turning up the heat in an effort to catch him.

Mr. Trump lashed out on social media soon after the verdict, attacking the civil trial as a “Biden Directed Witch Hunt” despite the fact that Ms. Carroll sued Mr. Trump in 2019, before he had left office and while Mr. Biden was just one of many Democratic presidential candidates.

The verdict was an extraordinary moment for a front-runner in a presidential nominating contest. A jury penalized Mr. Trump $83.3 million for defamation just three days after he had won a second nominating contest — in New Hampshire, by 11 percentage points. Mr. Trump also faces 91 felony counts in four separate criminal cases.

“Absolutely ridiculous,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, of the verdict, adding, “Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!”

Surrogates for Mr. Trump’s campaign also criticized the verdict. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia wrote on social media that Mr. Trump “was denied a fair trial in NY where judges are now political” activists. Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, who is seen by many to be in the running to be Mr. Trump’s vice president, said the trial was an effort by Democrats to weaponize the justice system and “bankrupt” Mr. Trump.

Ms. Carroll accused Mr. Trump in 2019 of raping her in a department store dressing room decades earlier. Last May, a different Manhattan jury awarded her $5 million after finding Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing her and for defaming her in a social media post.

Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, a national co-chair of Mr. Biden’s re-election campaign, said in an interview on CNN that the verdict “tells you something about” Mr. Trump’s character, adding that “this is someone who thinks that presidents should have immunity to allow them to do whatever they want.”

The State Department notified Congress on Friday that it had approved a $23 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets and related equipment to Turkey after the country’s leader signed documents to allow Sweden’s long-delayed entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, department officials and the Pentagon said.

Although Congress could move to formally block the sale, four senior lawmakers told the State Department on Friday evening that they would not object, after their aides reviewed the documents signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, U.S. officials said.

Congressional officials had demanded to see the documents before signaling their approval of the sale, so the State Department asked Turkey to fly the documents to New York on Friday. The department had someone pick up the documents in New York and bring them to Washington by Friday evening to show the lawmakers.

The department’s subsequent formal notification to Congress means the sale will almost certainly occur, satisfying Mr. Erdogan’s main condition for supporting Sweden’s accession to NATO and potentially helping bring to a close an episode that has strained relations between the United States and Turkey.

Turkey was, along with Hungary, one of two NATO members withholding approval of Sweden’s entry into the alliance. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken had undertaken intense diplomacy since last year, including meeting with Mr. Erdogan in Istanbul this month, to try to change the Turkish leader’s mind.

Mr. Blinken discussed the issue with Mr. Erdogan in a visit to Turkey in February 2023, and said three times that Turkey would not get the F-16s if it refused to approve Sweden’s accession, a U.S. official said.

The drawn-out process with Turkey has also delayed the sale of F-35 jets to Greece, which became linked to the F-16s in diplomatic talks because Turkey and Greece are longtime rivals, despite both being members of NATO. The State Department also formally told Congress on Friday night it was going ahead with that sale.

Both Sweden and Finland asked to join NATO after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and almost all of the alliance’s members quickly agreed. Finland joined the alliance in April, but Sweden’s application languished. While Hungary did not raise specific objections, Turkish officials blamed Sweden for harboring Kurds who Turkish officials said were terrorists.

The Turkish Parliament voted on Tuesday to allow Sweden to join NATO, and Mr. Erdogan signed that measure into law on Thursday.

In exchange, the White House made a fresh endorsement of the F-16 sale in a letter sent on Wednesday to the top Democratic and Republican lawmakers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which have oversight of arms transfers by the State Department to other nations.

The White House urged the four lawmakers to give their approval, despite their longstanding reservations about some of Turkey’s foreign policies and military actions, including its growing airstrikes in northeastern Syria against Kurdish fighters who are partners of the U.S. military in its campaign against the Islamic State.

On Friday night, Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York, the top Democrat on the House committee, said Mr. Erdogan’s signing of the protocols for Sweden’s accession was “welcome, if overdue, news for the alliance and the broad bilateral relationship.”

The State Department gave the two congressional committees informal notification of the F-16 sale more than a year ago, starting the review process by lawmakers.

Besides asking the department to address concerns over Turkish strikes on the Kurds, lawmakers had also wanted to see assurances from Turkey that it would de-escalate any tensions with the Greek military in the Aegean Sea.

Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, praised Turkey’s approval in a statement on Friday evening but expressed concern about some of the country’s policies.

“While Turkey plays a critical role in the region as a NATO ally, there is an urgent need for improvement on its human rights record, including the unjust imprisonment of journalists and civil society leaders, better cooperation on holding Russia accountable for its invasion of Ukraine and on lowering the temperature in its rhetoric about the Middle East,” Mr. Cardin said.

He also criticized Hungary’s “intransigence” on Sweden. Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary promised on Wednesday to get his legislature to approve Sweden’s accession, but gave no timeline for a vote. Mr. Cardin said Mr. Orban had “shown himself to be the least reliable member of NATO.”

So far, unlike Mr. Erdogan, Mr. Orban has not asked for a specific quid pro quo, the U.S. official said. But the Biden administration is watching for signs it might need to engage in intense diplomacy with Mr. Orban, too.