Putin condemns the Wagner revolt as a failure

Speaking publicly for the first time in two days, a visibly angry President Vladimir Putin denounced as “blackmail” a weekend rebellion by the Wagner mercenary group but suggested leniency for the fighters who took part.

“They wanted Russians to fight each other,” Putin said in a televised address. “They rubbed their hands, dreaming of taking revenge for their failures at the front and during the so-called counteroffensive. But they miscalculated,” he said, thanking the Russian military.

The group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed in an audio message earlier that he had no intention of ousting Putin with his march on Moscow. He said that he was only protesting a new law that would require his fighters to sign contracts with the government by July 1, effectively halting Wagner’s operations in Ukraine.

Prigozhin’s location was unknown, and it was unclear whether he would face criminal charges. Although the revolt was halted, it showed that Putin’s hold over the elite coalition that keeps him in power is under stress, with unpredictable consequences.

A.I. moves into the doctor’s office and the classroom

ChatGPT-style artificial intelligence is coming to health care, and the vision of how it could advance medical care is inspiring. But for now, the best use of A.I. is to ease the burden of record-keeping, billing and other tasks that take doctors hours a day and contribute to burnout.

Many schools scrambled this year to block or limit the use of chatbots in classrooms, but Newark Public Schools is taking a different approach. Teachers are testing an A.I.-assisted tutoring bot developed by Khan Academy, whose online lessons are used by hundreds of districts. The preliminary report card reads: “could use improvement.”

A glimpse of life without abortion access

The tiny U.S. territory of Guam in the western Pacific Ocean is thousands of miles from the nearest state and has no resident doctors who perform abortions. Court decisions could cut access to pills, the only legal option left. Forces on both sides of the abortion debate say that the island of 154,000 people is on track to become the purest example of what life would be like under a near-total abortion ban.

More top news

How to tank a book before it’s published

The website Goodreads, a cross between a social media platform and a review site like Yelp, has been a boon for publishers hoping to generate excitement for books. But those same features can be weaponized by review bombing, in which a flood of negative comments and one-star reviews that can derail a book’s publication long before its release. Sometimes, the reviewers haven’t even read the work.

“It may look like a bunch of one-star reviews on Goodreads, but these are broader campaigns of harassment,” said Cecilia Rabess, author of “Everything’s Fine,” above. “People were very keen not just to attack the work, but to attack me as well.”

A Cuban boxer takes his first pro steps

Andy Cruz is one of the most accomplished fighters ever to emerge from Cuba’s celebrated boxing program. Along with his Olympic gold medal, he has three amateur world titles and has twice won at the Pan American Games.

After falling out with Cuba’s boxing federation, Cruz made it to Philadelphia, where he’s learning to box like a pro. He will make his professional debut on July 15 in a 10-round bout against Juan Carlos Burgos, a hardened veteran with a 35-7-3 record.

Dinner table topics

Binge (on shows and food) in comfort

For better or worse, eating in front of the TV is an American tradition. It got a huge boost in the 1950s from a company called Swanson, makers of the infamous TV dinners on divided aluminum trays.