Author: NY TIMES

Imagine, with a summertime wedding or party in mind, you want to buy a new piece of fine jewelry, the category that includes items made of precious metal and glittering with gems.Even if you’re shopping from your favorite chair at home, finding the right piece isn’t always easy. A recent Google search for a diamond solitaire necklace, for example, generated 21.7 million results.And even when you find a style you like, how can you be sure it was made well and would be good value for the money?Earlier this month, The New York Times gathered a group of jewelry professionals…

The numbers are in: 51.3 million Americans tuned in live to watch Thursday night’s televised debate between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump.The prime-time bout, organized by CNN and simulcast on more than a dozen networks, was easily the most-viewed moment of the 2024 presidential campaign, the sort of mass civic gathering that is increasingly rare in a choose-your-own-news era of media. And the figure released on Friday by Nielsen, which mostly measures traditional TV sets, did not include the likely millions more who watched on digital news sites and social media platforms.The size of the TV audience…

The Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to limit the broad regulatory authority of federal agencies could lead to the elimination or weakening of thousands of rules on the environment, health care, worker protection, food and drug safety, telecommunications, the financial sector and more.The decision is a major victory in a decades-long campaign by conservative activists to shrink the power of the federal government, limiting the reach and authority of what those activists call “the administrative state.”The court’s opinion could make it easier for opponents of federal regulations to challenge them in court, prompting a rush of new litigation, while also…

On the night of June 29, 1974, after a performance with a touring Bolshoi Ballet troupe in downtown Toronto, Mikhail Baryshnikov made his way out a stage door, past a throng of fans and began to run.Baryshnikov, then 26 and already one of ballet’s brightest stars, had made the momentous decision to defect from the Soviet Union and build a career in the West. On that rainy night, he had to evade K.G.B. agents — and audience members seeking autographs — as he rushed to meet a group of Canadian and American friends waiting in a car a few blocks…

Forward Alex Morgan is missing from the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team’s major tournament roster for the first time in 16 years.On Wednesday, coach Emma Hayes left Morgan out of the 18-player squad for this summer’s Paris Olympics. In her absence, the U.S. team, which last won at the 2012 London Olympics, will be without a previous gold medalist.”Of course it was a tough decision, especially given Alex’s history and record with this team,” Hayes said, “but I felt like I wanted to go in a different direction and chose something else. players.Morgan’s absence can be viewed in several ways.…

High jewelry houses traditionally have used Couture Week as a time to present their latest creations to some of the wealthiest customers in the world. This week, however, Van Cleef & Arpels took the opposite tack, traveling back in time instead.For four days, the Place Vendôme jeweler transformed the salons of the 18th-century Hôtel de Mercy-Argenteau, its jewelry school’s newly refurbished annex, into a showcase for some 70 pieces from its own collection. (The house’s patrimony department, which began reacquiring some special creations in the 1970s, now holds more than 2,700 pieces.) The glittering showcase was viewable by couture clients…

Last fall, senior partners at Kaplan Hecker & Fink, a New York law firm known for championing liberal causes, made a fateful decision: They were going to sideline their hard-charging and crusading founder, Roberta A. Kaplan.The reign of one of the country’s most prominent lawyers was coming to an end.Ms. Kaplan was already famous when she founded her law firm in 2017, having won a landmark Supreme Court case that paved the way for marriage equality for gay Americans. The firm soon gained national prominence because of her leadership in the #MeToo movement, and more recently for high-profile victories against…

The Biden administration said this week that it opposed gender-affirming surgery for minors, the most explicit statement to date on the subject from a president who has been a staunch supporter of transgender rights.The White House announcement was sent to The New York Times on Wednesday in response to an article reporting that staff in the office of Adm. Rachel Levine, an assistant secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, had urged an influential international transgender health organization to remove age minimums for surgery from its treatment guidelines for minors.The draft guidelines would have lowered the age minimums…

President Vladimir V. Putin declared on Friday that Russia would produce new intermediate-range nuclear-capable missiles and then decide whether to deploy them within range of NATO nations in Europe and American allies in Asia.Mr. Putin’s threat was vaguely worded: He said nothing about timetables for deploying the weapons, and by blaming the United States for bringing similar missiles into training exercises in Europe and Asia, he seemed to be signaling he was open to negotiations.But his timing was critical, because he made the announcement just as major elections were about to begin in Britain and France, and days ahead of…

To the political strategy that might in the future be called “transparent efforts to change the narrative and repair the damage done to Joe Biden in the first presidential debate,” add the dress that Jill Biden wore to accompany her husband to his next-day rally in Raleigh, N.C.As President Biden attempted to address some of the concerns about his age and energy on Friday, his wife, a political spouse who often seems to choose clothes that recede into the background, took her place by his side in a navy blue crepe dress plastered with one word over and over again:…