Author: NY TIMES

Could Ichiro Suzuki become just the second player ever to be unanimously inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum? Can Billy Wagner get the five votes he missed last year heading into his final year of eligibility? Will CC Sabathia reach Cooperstown on his first try?All three scenarios will arise before the Hall of Fame voting results are announced on Jan. 21.Voting was conducted by the Baseball Writers Association of America’s nearly 400 voting-eligible members; as of Tuesday afternoon, all 151 votes recorded on Ryan Thibodaux’s Baseball Hall of Fame tracker had the box next to Suzuki’s…

Negotiators from Israel and Hamas have agreed to a cease-fire in Gaza after more than 15 months of devastating war, officials said Wednesday.The Qatari prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, whose country helped mediate the talks, said the deal would achieve the release of hostages and prisoners, and a return to “sustainable calm.” Under the deal, the cease-fire would begin on Sunday, Jan. 19, he said, adding that both sides were still working on resolving some of the logistical matters.Follow our live coverage here.What’s in the agreement?The cease-fire’s first phase, which would last six weeks, would see Israeli forces…

Before Marie Kondo captured the world’s attention with her exhortations to rid ourselves of items that did not “spark joy,” there was another Japanese guru of decluttering.Her name is Hideko Yamashita. And while Ms. Yamashita, 70, has never reached Ms. Kondo’s level of Netflix-induced fame, she is widely credited in Japan with spearheading the modern movement of decluttering our homes — or, as it has come to be called overseas, “kondo-ing.”The two women, born three decades apart in Tokyo, both preach the idea that households amass too much stuff. Letting go of unnecessary items and creating minimalist, tidier spaces, they…

TikTok sought to assure its U.S. employees on Tuesday that they will still have jobs next week even if the Supreme Court upholds a law that would see the video app banned in the United States on Sunday.The message is a shift in tone from TikTok, which has otherwise said it is confident it will emerge victorious from its legal challenge to the law. It also shows the company is not planning to leave the United States in the near term, even if it is banned.TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, is fighting a law from last year that…

Howard Buten, a college dropout from Detroit, juggled three extraordinary lives.In one, he was a tender, clumsy and wordless red-nosed clown named Buffo. He sold out theaters around the world. Critics compared him to Charlie Chaplin and Harpo Marx.In another, he volunteered as an aide with autistic children, went back to school to earn a doctorate in psychology, helped pioneer a therapy for autism and opened a treatment center.He squeezed in a third life as a novelist. “Burt,” written in the voice of a disturbed 8-year-old boy, flopped in the United States but implausibly achieved “Catcher in the Rye” status…

The very messy game of designer musical chairs that roiled the fashion world at the end of 2024 is continuing into 2025.On Wednesday, Proenza Schouler, a New York brand that was once considered the future of fashion in the city, announced that its designers, Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, would be stepping down from the company, which they founded back in 2002. They will remain on the board and will continue to be minority shareholders. A search is underway for their replacements.No reason was given for the decision, other than that the time simply felt “right,” and no statement was…

A few years ago, during the Ojai Music Festival in California, the pianist Vikingur Olafsson was having a couple of beers with the composer John Adams when he said, “John, you know that you are going to write me a piano concerto, don’t you?”Adams paused for several seconds, took a sip and responded, “I guess you’re right.”“And that,” Olafsson said in an interview, “was that.” With a casual comment, one of today’s most intelligently expressive pianists brokered a deal with one of the world’s great composers. The resulting half-hour concerto, “After the Fall,” premieres on Thursday at the San Francisco…

In Israel, some hard-line members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have also voiced opposition to the deal. But on Wednesday, Gideon Saar, the Israeli foreign minister, said he believed that a majority would sign off on an agreement if it came to a cabinet vote. Months of shuttle diplomacy have failed to end the war in Gaza, which began after Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 that killed 1,200 people and saw 250 taken hostage. Around 105 captives were later released in a weeklong cease-fire in November 2023 in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners.…

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The look on Ziggy Wilf’s face said it all. It was as if the Minnesota Vikings owner and chairman had just watched a horror movie with a sad ending. He walked out of the locker room and stood for a few seconds, staring blankly at the crowd in front of him. His son Jonathan directed him down a long corridor. Then he slowly moved into another offseason.How did it all end so suddenly? How did a 14-win Vikings team go from potential No. 1 seed to losing in the wild-card round so quickly? Wilf’s mind was filled…

Ukraine’s national electricity operator introduced emergency power cuts on Wednesday after the country came under what the energy minister called a “massive” missile attack.Air-raid sirens wailed at around 5:45 a.m. in the capital, Kyiv, as most of the country was put on alert for missile launches. As people huddled in shelters into a third hour and the air force warned of incoming cruise missiles, the energy minister, Herman Galushchenko, announced emergency steps.“Due to the massive attack, the transmission system operator is applying preventive restriction measures,” Mr. Galushchenko, wrote in a statement on Facebook.Emergency power shutdowns were applied in six regions…