Author: NY TIMES

Take a moment to imagine a small gray rock sitting in the palm of your hand. It’s silent, smooth and otherwise unremarkable.Are you bored yet? If so, that’s kind of the point.Most people will eventually lose interest in a dull piece of granite. So there’s a theory percolating online that if you adopt the qualities of a stone, becoming impassive and bland, then you will repel the argumentative, antagonistic people in your life who are itching for conflict.It’s called the “gray rock” method, and over the last decade it has spread on social media, including among TikTok influencers, who have…

‘Robot Dreams’A dog and his robot friend explore 1980s New York in this wordless cartoon written and directed by Pablo Berger and adapted from the graphic novel of the same name.From our review:It’s marvelous how the film is able to sketch so much soul from such simple lines. The characters are drawn bluntly, just as they are in the book. Yet Berger, directing his first animated feature (but not his first silent film), already boasts the creativity of a master. He frames images from inside a grimy microwave, or looking up from the bottom of a candy bowl as it’s…

“Given how the Trump administration failed to pay enough attention to building partnerships with like-minded states in Asia,” said Aries A. Arugay, the chair of the political science department at the University of the Philippines Diliman, “a second Trump presidency will endanger the momentum achieved by the revitalized United States-Philippine relations.”But Bilahari Kausikan, a former top diplomat from Singapore, cautioned against equating American values with Asian ones.“We structure our relationship with the U.S. much more on the basis of common interests rather than common values,” he said. “And the people who are very upset over the prospect of Trump, whether…

Ms. Tullock is an actress and writer from Louisville, Ky., best known for her roles in “Severance” and “Perry Mason.” She has a bachelor’s degree in theater and creative writing from Millikin University.In March 2023, the couple proposed to each other spontaneously at the restaurant Joseph Leonard in the West Village. After introducing Ms. Tullock to her neighbors earlier that day as her “girlfriend,” something about that term didn’t feel right to Ms. Ronn. “I felt that ‘girlfriend’ didn’t necessarily hold the gravity of what she meant to me,” she said. Over dinner, the couple discussed that.“I want to call…

Economic growth slowed more sharply early this year than initially estimated, as consumers eased up on spending amid rising prices and high interest rates.U.S. gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, grew at a 1.3 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. That was down from 3.4 percent in the final quarter of 2023 and below the 1.6 percent growth rate reported last month in the government’s preliminary first-quarter estimate.The data released on Thursday reflects more complete data than the initial estimate, released just a month after the quarter ended. The…

The yearning to reverse death is baked into human nature, a longing to defeat evil, to set things right, to conquer mortality. In “Handling the Undead,” that desire is the fruit of great love. Who hasn’t, upon losing someone, wished desperately for just one more chance to see them, hold them, tell them how much they mean?“Handling the Undead” has an earnest and simple premise that sounds like enough for a whole thriller: One day, out of nowhere, with little explanation, the dead are reanimated en masse. The film is unconcerned with the global ramifications of this phenomenon; instead, its…

For hundreds of years, Norwegians thought they knew who or what had been interred in an enormous barrow on the island of Leka, which is just off the country’s northern coast, facing the Atlantic Ocean. The grassy hillock is named for King Herlaug, a ninth-century Viking monarch who, if the Norse folklore is to be believed, had himself and 11 companions buried alive rather than face certain defeat by a rival ruler.The story of the mass suicide has been regarded as potentially factual since the late 1700s, when three tunnels were bored into the burial mound, revealing nails, animal bones,…

It strikes me now how strange it was that I went around wearing an engagement ring from a dead man. But it was hard for me to accept that Steve was gone. In the final weeks of his life, he was in so much pain that he could bear only light kisses, so in bed each night we held hands like shy teenagers. With my hand clutching his as we fell asleep, I had half-convinced myself that when his soul slipped away, I would be carried along with him. After he died, I was momentarily surprised to find myself still…

Mumbai, India’s financial capital, has seen a lot of new faces over the past year. The heads of global banks have been trooping through, visiting its stock exchanges, buying property and hiring new staff.A postpandemic boom has pushed the value of India’s stock market to about $5 trillion, putting it neck and neck with Hong Kong’s. India’s economy is among the fastest growing in the world. Wall Street can’t ignore India anymore.The point of entry is Mumbai, a port city of 26 million people, counting its suburbs. Mumbai has been given a makeover: Suspension bridges span its seaways, as well…

Decades after Philip K. Dick asked if androids dreamed of electric sheep, we have an answer. This android — one of two nameless leads in the Oscar-nominated charmer “Robot Dreams” — envisions a small, lonely dog in his third-floor walk-up, microwaving a depressing dinner for one. Set in 1980s Manhattan, Pablo Berger’s all-ages, wordless wonder of a cartoon kicks into gear when the mutt assembles a self-aware, spaghetti-limbed robot companion ordered from an infomercial. You might be thinking that sentient artificial intelligence didn’t exist 40 years ago, and you’d be right. But dogs don’t rent apartments, either.This fanciful vision of…