Author: NY TIMES

The nonbinary director, D.W. Waterson, wanted to make the kind of film they wished they had seen growing up in a hockey-obsessed household in Canada. Which may explain why an earnest teen spirit seems to be alive and somersaulting in “Backspot,” a cheer squad tale offering plenty of life lessons.A queer protagonist with pom-poms is not a cinematic first. (Remember the comedy “But I’m a Cheerleader”?) The double full twist with “Backspot” is that the writer, Joanne Sarazen, and Waterson (who edited and scored the film), don’t center the coming-of-age drama in coming-out trauma.From the get-go, Riley (Devery Jacobs of…

In recent days, Ukraine has conducted a series of drone attacks inside Russia, including one of the longest-range strikes of the war, that target radar stations used, at least partly, as early nuclear warning systems by Moscow.On Monday, Ukraine struck a radar station near the border with Kazakhstan that was more than 1,100 miles away, a Ukrainian intelligence official said. Ukrainian experts said the facility was used to detect missile threats from Asia.On Tuesday morning, the governor of the Krasnodar region of Russia reported that a Ukrainian drone was downed in the sky over the town of Armavir, which is…

More than a million borrowers who were defrauded by for-profit schools have had billions of dollars in federal student loans eliminated through a government aid program. But people with private loans have generally been excluded from any relief — until recently.Navient, a large owner of private student loan debt, has created, but not publicized, a program that allows borrowers to apply to have their loans forgiven. Some who succeeded have jubilantly shared their stories in chat groups and other forums.“I cried, a lot,” said Danielle Maynard, who recently received notice from Navient that nearly $40,000 in private loans she owed…

The documentary “Jim Henson Idea Man,” from Ron Howard, explains how the puppeteer was inspired by felt, feathers and the lifelong pursuit of creativity. Source link

South Africans were on edge Thursday as votes trickled in from a tight national election, with early returns showing poor results for the African National Congress, the party that has governed the country for three decades.While official results are not expected before the weekend, projections show that the party, known as the A.N.C., is likely to draw under 50 percent of the vote, down from 57.5 percent in the last election five years ago.That would mean the A.N.C. — for the first time — would need to form a coalition with one or more rival parties in order to stay…

At 5:06 p.m. on Thursday, shortly after NBC News broke in with a special report, Savannah Guthrie and Lester Holt told viewers that a verdict in the first criminal trial against an American president was imminent. After weeks of dramatic testimony that, with no cameras in the courtroom, made little impact on TV, the tension spilled onto the airwaves all at once.“Oh, here we go,” Ms. Guthrie said abruptly, as the off-camera voice of Laura Jarrett, NBC’s senior legal correspondent, could be heard in the background. “Guys! We need to go,” Ms. Jarrett said. “We need to go.”“Go,” Ms. Guthrie…

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.When you walk into the “Popcast (Deluxe)” recording studio on the second floor of the New York Times office in Manhattan, the first thing you notice is two colorful chairs in the center of the room with black microphones perched on the seat backs.“We were thinking ‘elevated basement,’” said Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic for The New York Times and a host of the show, a weekly culture review on YouTube. “It’s a little ‘Wayne’s World.’”Mr. Caramanica and his co-host,…

Top Ukrainian military officials have warned that Russia is building up troops near northeastern Ukraine, raising fears that a new offensive push could be imminent in a region that has become a pressure point on strained Ukrainian forces.Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s commander in chief, said on Thursday that Moscow was redeploying troops toward Vovchansk and Lyptsi, two villages near the city of Kharkiv that Russian forces have been trying to capture for more than two weeks. Other officials have also said that Russia has massed troops further north, across from the Ukrainian region of Sumy, in preparation for a possible…

Former President Donald J. Trump can proceed with a lawsuit against Mary L. Trump, his estranged niece, over her role as a source for a New York Times investigation into Mr. Trump’s finances, a New York State appeals court said on Thursday.The ruling, from the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court, was a victory for Mr. Trump, though it did not address the substance of his claim: that his niece should be held liable for breaching a confidentiality agreement when she provided financial documents to a team of Times journalists.Those documents became the basis of a series of news…

The presence of Mr. Ruddy at the news conference so enraged Charles Bluhdorn, the combustible chairman of Gulf & Western, Paramount’s parent, that he fired him. But when Mr. Bluhdorn told Francis Ford Coppola, the director, and Robert Evans, the studio’s vice president of production, to find another producer, Mr. Coppola intervened.“Al Ruddy’s the only guy who can keep this movie going!” he told Mr. Bluhdorn.“The Godfather” won three Oscars, including Mr. Ruddy’s for best picture; for best actor, for Marlon Brando’s portrayal of Don Vito Corleone; and for best adapted screenplay, by Mr. Coppola and Mr. Puzo. The film…