Author: NY TIMES

The United States and Europe are coalescing around a plan to use interest earned on frozen Russian central bank assets to provide Ukraine with a loan to be used for military and economic assistance, potentially providing the country with a multibillion-dollar lifeline as Russia’s war effort intensifies.Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in an interview on Sunday that several options for using $300 billion in immobilized Russian assets remained on the table. But she said the most promising idea was for Group of 7 nations to issue a loan to Ukraine that would be backed by profits and interest income…

The best in show competition, essentially a doggie beauty pageant, is the culmination of a multiday canine extravaganza here at Westminster. But it follows the possibly more fun portion of the program, the agility competition.Some 150 dogs competed in this year’s contest, navigating a series of jumps and other obstacles with the help of their handlers’ verbal and physical commands. The winner, with a blink-and-you’d-miss-it time of 28.76 seconds, was an All-American dog named Nimble.Nimble was the first All-American dog — the dog show word for mutt — to take the top spot in the 11 years that agility has…

A majority of Disneyland cast members who perform as characters such as Mickey and Minnie Mouse and dance in parades at the amusement park, in California, voted to unionize with the Actors’ Equity Association on Saturday, the union said.The Actors’ Equity Association, the national labor union that represents more than 51,000 professional actors and stage managers, said it had exceeded the threshold it needed in a vote overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, winning a 79 percent majority with 953 yes votes and 258 no votes, according to a statement.Among the key issues that brought workers together to fight…

“Coma,” a pandemic-themed horror movie by the director Bertrand Bonello, takes its title from one of its two cloistered characters living in France during the coronavirus lockdown. Patricia Coma (Julia Faure) is a social media influencer whose channel is made up of surreal how-to videos, philosophical monologues and weather reports (though it doesn’t matter, “you can’t go out, anyway,” she explains).Watching Patricia is an unnamed teenage girl (Louise Labèque), moody and introspective as she spends her days in confinement glued to the screen.Don’t be misled by the more conventional pandemic scenes, like the teenager’s video chats with friends — “Coma”…

More than 60 years after Edward Dwight was chosen to be the first Black astronaut, only to see his place in the history of space exploration taken and deferred by the specter of racism and politics, he went to space on Sunday morning.After landing, at the end of a flight that lasted 9 minutes and 53 seconds, Mr. Dwight stood on the steps outside the door of the crew capsule, raised his arms in the air and said, “Long time coming.”Minutes later, standing outside the capsule, he said that the flight had been “life-changing.” He admitted that he had been…

Her creations are part of the permanent collections at the Smithsonian in Washington, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. There is at least a five-year waiting list for her butterfly brooches. She has been honored by the French Order of Arts and Letters, with the country’s minister of culture in 2021 describing her work as “at the crossroads between goldsmith, sculpture and architecture.”She is the Taiwanese jeweler Cindy Chao, 50, whose range of jeweled pins, bangles, earrings and necklaces is known for its fusion of Eastern and Western design sensibilities. Despite…

More than two weeks after a deadline passed for federal loan borrowers seeking debt relief, the Education Department has extended the offer, giving millions of borrowers a fresh shot at aid.The department said on Wednesday that borrowers would now have until June 30 to consolidate commercially held education debt under the Federal Family Education Loan Program — loans originally from private lenders — or Perkins loans into new direct loans, which are held by the Education Department. That consolidation is a required step for borrowers to receive relief through an expansive, but temporary, government waiver program intended to wipe out…

Thirteen years have passed since Danny Chen, an Army private from New York, killed himself while serving in Afghanistan after experiencing brutal hazing and racist taunts from fellow soldiers. “An American Soldier,” the opera based on his story, has been seen in Washington, D.C., and St. Louis.But when the work had its run in Missouri, in 2018, Huang Ruo, its composer, and David Henry Hwang, its librettist, promised Private Chen’s family that they would try to bring it home to the city where he was born and raised. This week, they succeeded, as “An American Soldier” was produced at the…

U.S.WorldBusinessArtsLifestyleOpinionAudioGamesCookingWirecutterThe AthleticMay 19, 2024Updated 9:12 a.m. ETBenny Gantz, a centrist member of Israel’s war cabinet, presented Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with an ultimatum on Saturday, saying he would leave the government if it did not soon develop a plan for the future of the war in Gaza. While Mr. Gantz’s departure would not topple the country’s emergency wartime government, it would further strain a fragile coalition that has provided Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right government with a boost of international legitimacy, and it would make the prime minister even more reliant on his hard-line partners. Read the full story here.Al-Aqsa Hospital in…

More than a quarter century has passed since the United States called Slovakia a “black hole in the center of Europe” — an island of autocratic malaise surrounded by spry new democracies. The insult, leveled in 1997 by Secretary of State Madeline Albright against a country that has since joined NATO and the European Union, still stings.But some in the Central European nation, appalled by an attempt last week to assassinate their prime minister, Robert Fico, and the frenzy of political finger-pointing that ensued, including warnings of civil war, are wondering whether Ms. Albright was on to something.“We are back…