Author: NY TIMES

A helicopter carrying Iran’s president crashedA helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran crashed in a remote part of the country yesterday, according to state media. The helicopter — which was also carrying the foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian — has not yet been found.Here’s the latest.It was not immediately known what caused the crash. State news reported that an enormous operation involving at least 20 search-and-rescue teams was underway, but that inclement weather was hampering the effort.A delegation of ministers traveled with him in a convoy of three helicopters, state media reported, adding that the other two had reached…

Ming Lampson was sitting in her Notting Hill studio in West London, peering at the Nigerian aquamarines, sapphires from Madagascar, fire opals and other gems sprinkled across sheets of white paper on her desk. “I am trying to honor the stone, thinking, ‘How do I make a home for the gem in the most unique and interesting way possible that still just makes it something I want to wear?’” she said during a recent video call.Ms. Lampson, 49, was born in Sydney, Australia, and grew up in England. She learned goldsmithing the old-fashioned way, arriving in the Indian gem center…

There’s a three-letter abbreviation that economists have started pronouncing with the energy of a four-letter word: “O.E.R.”It stands for owner’s equivalent rent, and it has been used to measure American housing inflation since the 1980s. As its name suggests, it uses a combination of surveys and market data to estimate how much it would cost homeowners to rent the house they live in.But three years into America’s price pop, it has become almost cliché for economists to hate on the housing measure. Detractors blast if for being so slow-moving that it does not reflect up-to-date conditions in the economy. Critics…

MILLER ORIGINALLY PLANNED to make “Fury Road” in Broken Hill, Australia, where he had shot the second “Mad Max” film, “The Road Warrior.” When a freak superstorm turned the red, flat earth there into a flower garden, the production decamped to Namibia, but years later on “Furiosa,” the filmmakers vowed to shoot in Australia, come rain or come shine.“Furiosa” began filming in spring 2022, and once again, the typically arid region was beset by record storms and flooding. “If we need to stop making films, we could become water diviners,” said the film’s action designer, Guy Norris.The new reality required…

Even before the announcement on Sunday of the crash of a helicopter believed to be carrying Iran’s president, relations between Tehran and the United States had come perilously close to open conflict. What unfolds in the next few days — whether President Ebrahim Raisi and other leaders survive, and what Iran declares was the cause of the crash — could well determine whether the two countries are able to grope their way out of several simultaneous crises.Over the long term, the struggle that matters most is the one that centers on Iran’s nuclear program. The program had largely been contained…

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…