Author: NY TIMES

The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday added three Chinese companies to a list of firms whose products can no longer be exported to the United States, as part of what it described as an escalating crackdown on companies that aid in forced labor programs in Xinjiang.The companies include a seafood processor, Shandong Meijia Group, that an investigation by the Outlaw Ocean Project identified as a business employing laborers brought to eastern China from Xinjiang — a far-western region of China where the government has detained and surveilled large numbers of minorities, including Uyghurs.Another firm, Xinjiang Shenhuo Coal and Electricity,…

I’m Richard Linklater, director and co-writer of ‘Hit Man.’ So in this scene, Glen Powell, who’s playing Gary Johnson, the undercover hit man, is under threat from Jasper, played by Austin Amelio, the New Orleans police officer who he works with undercover, who’s totally on to him. Gary has been dating Madison, whose husband has turned up dead. We know Gary didn’t do it and the audience knows she did it. But the police force doesn’t know. But Jasper sure has a hunch what happened, and he’s kind of created this entrapment scene where Gary goes in and records their…

Nearly 30 asylum seekers are stuck in the United Nations-controlled buffer zone between the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus and the internationally recognized south amid a crackdown by the Cypriot authorities on undocumented migration following a steep uptick in Syrians arriving from Lebanon.The groups — 13 people from Syria and 14 from the Middle East, Africa and Asia — are in different locations in the buffer zone, which extends about 112 miles across Cyprus, a Mediterranean nation that is a member of the European Union, and bisects the capital, Nicosia. They arrived into the area, known as the Green Zone, on…

Top NewsA day after the United Nations Security Council endorsed a U.S.-backed cease-fire proposal for Gaza, the world is waiting for Hamas’s leader to respond, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Tuesday.Putting the onus directly on Hamas’s top official in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, Mr. Blinken, speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, asked whether the group would act in the best interests of the Palestinian people by accepting the deal. At least, he said, it would pause the fighting and allow more humanitarian aid to flow into Gaza.Alternatively, he said, Hamas could be “looking after one guy,” Mr. Sinwar,…

Natale Adgnot didn’t always see the appeal of owning a cabin in the woods.For years, her husband, Sebastien Adgnot, browsed listings for rustic homes in upstate New York and New Jersey from the couple’s apartment in Brooklyn. “But my wife told me, ‘There’s no way I’m going to spend my weekends in a lake house somewhere,’” said Mr. Adgnot, 45, who works in internet technology and is an avid fly fisherman.“I really am such a city person,” said Ms. Adgnot, 49, an artist. The idea of buying a house in the country was a nonstarter because she loved the energy…

A.I., the Apple wayAfter months of anticipation, Apple finally introduced its plan to infuse its products with artificial intelligence: Meet Apple Intelligence, which weaves the technology into core features of iPhones, iPads and Macs.But while the tech giant announced a slew of new features, the announcement reflected a very Apple-like cautious approach to A.I. Yes, the company will add OpenAI’s ChatGPT to Siri — but it’s leaving the door open for adding other chatbots.It all suggests that Apple is hedging its bets (or is simply behind its rivals), while slowly ramping up what A.I. will do for users.OpenAI got its…

When I first got my hands on an Apple Vision Pro early this year, it felt like magic.I loved the $3,500 “spatial computing” headset, even though I couldn’t really figure out what it was for. For weeks, I took it everywhere, enduring judgmental glares (or were they jealous stares?) from colleagues at the office, strangers at coffee shops and fellow passengers on airplanes. I even used the Vision Pro in the back seat of a self-driving Waymo car, which I believe qualifies me for some kind of “Mr. San Francisco” award.But novelty fades, and today I barely use the Vision…

“The subject forever hangs outside of time — it’s the lover and the beloved,” Santana said in a phone interview from Las Vegas, where he has a long-running residency at House of Blues. “Love is something we need a lot on the radio. Everywhere you turn, there’s more Exorcist movies, more Satan, more Lucifer.”The bioengineered song was written by a onetime acid jazz musician named Itaal Shur, but Santana didn’t like the lyrics, so Thomas “got a little high,” he said, and wrote new words and melodies. Then he and Shur reworked it, layering hook upon hook. Thomas has always…

The Israeli military said Tuesday that four Israeli soldiers had been killed and several more wounded after militants blew up a building where the troops were operating in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.Some of the soldiers were in critical condition after the attack on Monday, the military said. Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, said that five soldiers had been hospitalized, and that two were in intensive care.The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, said in a statement that it had booby-trapped the building where the soldiers were operating. “Our fighters were able to blow up a house rigged with explosives where…

“I have analysis paralysis,” said my friend Maite, an Argentine who lives in Madrid. Maite is a world traveler but has always been stymied when it comes to Greece. “There are too many islands. How do you decide?”There are more than 6,000 Greek islands, so it was a fair question — and one that many potential visitors probably ask themselves. Since I had plans to go to Greece, it was also one I wanted an answer to myself.I started with a process of elimination: Rule out anything with an airport (too crowded) or uninhabited (too empty). Then add ferry access…