Author: NY TIMES

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…

Harrison Butker, de los Kansas City Chiefs, es uno de los mejores pateadores de la NFL. Eso es suficiente para que sea famoso en el mundo del fútbol americano, pero los jugadores de su posición no suelen ser conocidos por los observadores más ocasionales, a menos que hagan algo especialmente genial o terrible en el campo.El pasado fin de semana, con la NFL en plena temporada baja, Butker se encontró en el centro de un gran número de fuertes críticas en las redes sociales, y no tenía nada que ver con su trabajo.El sábado, Butker pronunció un discurso de 20…

Automatic refunds for significant flight disruptions, fee-free family seating and accessibility improvements.Those are among the benefits for travelers in the bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration for five more years, which Congress passed on Wednesday. After months of back and forth, and several short-term extensions, it will now head to President Biden’s desk to be signed into law.The F.A.A. oversees all plane traffic in the United States, and the bill, which Mr. Biden has signaled he will sign, grants $105 billion to the agency and $738 million to the National Transportation Safety Board. In addition to strengthening passenger protections,…

Two days after CNN published video footage showing him striking, kicking and dragging his former girlfriend, Sean Combs posted a video on social media on Sunday calling his behavior “inexcusable.”The footage that surfaced on Friday showed Mr. Combs, the hip-hop mogul known as Puff Daddy and Diddy, kicking and dragging his former girlfriend, Casandra Ventura, known as Cassie, in 2016.Last year Ms. Ventura filed and then quickly settled a lawsuit against Mr. Combs accusing him of years of physical and sexual abuse. The footage shown Friday, which appeared to come from security cameras, was consistent with some of the allegations…

Ebrahim Raisi, 63, a hard-line religious cleric, was elected president of Iran in 2021. In his tenure as president, he has overseen a strategy to expand his country’s regional influence — backing militant proxies across the Middle East, expediting the country’s nuclear program and bringing the country to the brink of war with Israel.But in the same period, Iran experienced its largest antigovernment protests in decades and a severe economic downturn driven by international sanctions and high unemployment.Mr. Raisi has been seen as the likely successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme leader, the highest political and religious position in…

In more than two years of war against Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has found that the technocrats he assembled to manage the Russian economy have turned out to be his most reliable foot soldiers.The Russian leader has now tapped one of them, Andrei R. Belousov, who has no military experience, to become his next defense minister.Mr. Belousov, 65, a fan of Rembrandt who is fond of quoting Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Carl Jung, has for years stood apart from the other technocrats, many of whom have provided excellent economic guidance, even as they privately have seen Mr. Putin’s…