Author: NY TIMES

At Azara Ballet, dancers aren’t expected to make eye contact with the directors and choreographers. If company members need an impromptu break from the harsh stage lights during rehearsal, they take one. They also receive clear directions about hair and makeup well in advance of performances.The priority at Azara is dancers’ health. Founded in 2022 by the dancers Kate Flowers and Martin Roosaare, who are both autistic (and are a married couple), the company, which is based in Sarasota and Bradenton, Fla., is a haven for neurodivergent performers. (The company is made up of 10 dancers, not all of whom…

Oliviero Toscani, an Italian photographer who used images of an AIDS patient and death row inmates to break the boundaries of fashion imagery as the creative mastermind of Benetton’s advertising campaigns, died on Monday. He was 82.His death was announced by his family on Instagram. They did not say where he died or cite a cause of death, but in August Mr. Toscani told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that he had been diagnosed with amyloidosis, a rare and incurable condition in which there is a buildup of protein.His shock-and-awe campaigns in the 1980s and ’90s helped turn Benetton…

Lambrini Girls, ‘Company Culture’All things patriarchal, capitalistic and obtuse are targets for Lambrini Girls, the gleefully obstreperous English punk duo Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira. “Company Culture,” a blast at workplace harassment from their debut album, “Who Let the Dogs Out,” revs up instrumentally for nearly a full minute — clattery drums, buzz-bombing bass, dissonant guitar — before Lunny lets loose a brutally sarcastic tirade: “Human resources say I’m asking for it,” she barks. PARELESSpellling, ‘Portrait of My Heart’Chrystia Cabral, a California songwriter who records as Spellling, proclaims “I don’t belong here!” with mounting vehemence in “Portrait of My Heart,”…

High-level cease-fire talks appeared to be gaining momentum on Monday as Arab and American mediators pressed for an agreement to halt the fighting in Gaza and release hostages held by Hamas before President-elect Donald J. Trump assumes office on Jan. 20.It was still unclear whether the parties had reached resolution on central disputes that have proved insurmountable in previous rounds of negotiations, but officials briefed on the talks have expressed cautious optimism in recent days about the possibility of concluding a deal.For months, repeated rounds of talks have seen hopes rise only to be dashed days later, with both Israel…

HOUSTON — Justin Herbert sat motionless in a chair in front of his locker, hands on his knees and a blank stare on his face. It doesn’t look like it, but he’s listening.Defensive lineman Morgan Fox sat on the floor to Herbert’s right. Fox was talking in a low voice to the Los Angeles Chargers quarterback.”I just told him I was proud of him,” Fox said. “I don’t want to start a war with anybody. He’s probably the best quarterback I’ve ever played with. He’s great. He’s extremely talented. Just tell him to keep his head up.About a minute later,…

Italy’s justice minister has requested the revocation of the arrest of an Iranian man sought by the United States for allegedly providing material used in an attack that killed three American soldiers, the Italian government announced on Sunday.Mohammad Abedini Najafabadi, 38, was arrested last month in Milan and the U.S. Justice Department had asked for his extradition. He was charged with illegally providing material used in a drone attack by an Iranian-backed militia on an American military base in Jordan.On Sunday evening, IRNA, Iran’s state news agency, reported that Mr. Abedini had reached Tehran. Despite repeated requests for confirmation, Italy…

The Social Security Administration receives billions in free money each year from an unexpected source: undocumented immigrants.This group paid an estimated $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes in 2022, according to a recent analysis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning tax research group. Since unauthorized workers cannot collect retirement and other Social Security benefits without a change to their immigration status, the billions they pour into the program effectively act as a subsidy for American beneficiaries.President-elect Donald J. Trump has vowed to carry out the nation’s largest mass deportation program to date, and restrict legal pathways…

The monthslong fight by legislators to ban the social media app TikTok in the United States came to a head on Friday when the Supreme Court heard arguments to decide the app’s fate for its 170 million American users.While the justices across the ideological spectrum asked tough questions of both sides, the overall tone and thrust appeared to suggest greater skepticism toward the arguments by lawyers for TikTok and its users that the First Amendment barred Congress from enacting the law.If TikTok, owned by the Chinese company ByteDance, does get banned on Jan. 19, here is what users can expect…

To overcome that, one main project funded by HEAL is focused on studying the nervous systems of people with chronic pain more directly, in part by recovering malfunctioning dorsal root ganglia and trigeminal nerves from patients undergoing surgery for chronic pain, as well as from cadaveric donors. Those samples are then cultured and examined using a bevy of new technologies — things like proteomics, spatial transcriptomics and metabolomics — to see how they differ from normal tissue. The goal, Gereau explained, is to identify what changes happen at a cellular level when pain becomes chronic, and to create an atlas…

It’s hard to pinpoint when things began to change around here but you might start with the arrival of Yolanda Hadid in 2017.Ms. Hadid, a onetime regular on “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” bought a farm just outside New Hope, Pa., to be closer to her daughters, the models Gigi and Bella Hadid, who were then living in New York City.The 32-acre property, with its stone farmhouse, horse barn and formal garden, became a family retreat, and the Hadids’ social media feeds filled with pastoral images: Gigi in a two-piece bathing suit, posing with a bowl of newly picked…