Author: NY TIMES

“Inside Out 2” delivers a fresh crop of emotions for Riley, the film’s 13-year-old protagonist, who begins the story at the cusp of puberty. Anxiety, Embarrassment, Envy and Ennui join the core emotions from the original film: Joy, Anger, Fear, Disgust and Sadness.The most consequential of the new arrivals is Anxiety, whose well-meaning but chaotic influence pushes Riley and the other emotions to the edge of mental and social catastrophe. Voiced by Maya Hawke and bursting with discomfiting character details — unruly hair, bulging eyes, a grand-piano grin — Anxiety emerges as the hit sequel’s breakout star and unstable center…

Taliban officials attended a rare, United Nations-led conference of global envoys to Afghanistan on Sunday, the first such meeting Taliban representatives have agreed to engage in, after organizers said Afghan women would be excluded from the talks.The two-day conference in Doha, Qatar, is the third of its kind. It is part of a United Nations-led effort, known as the “Doha process,” started in May 2023. It is meant to develop a unified approach for international engagement with Afghanistan. Envoys from around 25 countries and regional organizations, including the European Union, the United States, Russia and China, are attending. Taliban officials…

A Russian missile attack on a small town in southeastern Ukraine and the fiery inferno that followed killed at least seven civilians, including three children, the country’s authorities said as they surveyed on Sunday the deadly toll of two days of fierce Russian assaults.Yuriy Borzenko, chief doctor of Zaporizhzhia Regional Children’s Hospital, said in a phone interview that, aside from those killed, dozens of others, including a pregnant woman and five 14-year-old girls, were being treated for wounds after the attack on the southeastern town, Vilniansk, which took place on Saturday.The girls were out for a walk together in the…

Last year, during the hottest summer ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere, Dan Medley installed hundreds of new air-conditioners in apartments in Manhattan and Brooklyn.These were not the unglamorous window units familiar to Mr. Medley, 35, a handyman in Manhattan. His wealthier clients seemed to be upgrading to ACs that looked as if they had gotten plastic surgery: their harsh edges softened, their faces sculpted and smoothed.On Park Avenue, he installed an air-conditioner from July, a start-up that sells gracefully rounded window units with pastel covers. He scoured Home Depots for six curvy Midea ACs for a single client on…

He finds a grim humor in Madoff’s widow, Ruth, whose level of complicity remains undetermined. Behar interviews the lawyer who is trying, so far futilely, to return to her the canopied marital bed — “shorter than a queen” — and quotes the hard-boiled F.B.I. agent who chides her for smoking. “Ruth, that’s gonna kill you,” he says. “If only,” she replies.“No wonder Bernie doesn’t mind prison,” the agent says later. “She won’t shut the [bleep] up.”Perhaps most provocatively, Behar takes chapter-long issue with the characterization of Madoff’s wiped-out clients as “victims,” preferring the term “losers.” After all, he writes, “these…

Engineers in Japan are trying to get robots to imitate that particularly human expression — the smile.They have created a face mask from human skin cells and attached it to robots with a novel technique that conceals the binding and is flexible enough to turn down into a grimace or up into a squishy smile.The effect is something between Hannibal Lecter’s terrifying mask and the Claymation figure Gumby.But scientists say the prototypes pave the way for more sophisticated robots, with an outward layer both elastic and durable enough to protect the machine while making it appear more human.Beyond expressiveness, the…

In 2021, Marlene Brüggen, a concert planner in Germany, was listening to an episode of the podcast “Herrengedeck” and heard about a pop music festival with gender parity woven into its programming. The next day, she looked at her own festival’s planning chart, with some 200 concerts. Women were seriously underrepresented.“We hadn’t paid attention to that at all,” Brüggen said in an interview. “It was as if the bandages had been taken off my eyes.”That year, Brüggen applied for a job as director of artistic planning with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Her job interview included questions about the music she…

Thousands of anti-government protesters gathered on Saturday outside the Israeli Defense Ministry in Tel Aviv, renewing calls for the resignation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a cease-fire in Gaza that would allow the return of hostages taken during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7.One protester held up a sign that called Mr. Netanyahu “the enemy of Israel,” while others covered themselves in fake blood and bandages and lay in the street. Relatives and family members of hostages have held weekly street demonstrations since October to pressure the government to bring their loved ones home. Some hostages were released as…

France is heading to the polls on Sunday for the first round of snap legislative elections that President Emmanuel Macron unexpectedly called this month, a gamble that has thrust the country into deep uncertainty over its future.Voters are choosing their 577 representatives in the National Assembly, the country’s lower and more prominent house of Parliament, which will determine the future of Mr. Macron’s second term.A new majority of lawmakers opposed to Mr. Macron would force him to appoint a political opponent as prime minister, radically shifting France’s domestic policy and muddling its foreign policy. If no clear majority emerges, the…

A Supreme Court justice’s political flag shined a light on a longstanding shore tradition of flying flags — so many flags — to celebrate colleges, sports teams and more.By Jen A. MillerPhotographs by Michelle GustafsonReporting from Avalon, N.J.June 30, 2024The monthly teatime event at the Avalon Historical Center is a casual affair. There’s no agenda or talking points for the handful of regulars who dress up for the occasion, and anyone in a bathing suit and flip-flops can wander in and sit down to fresh scones and hot tea.At the group’s June meeting, I showed up to ask about something…