Author: NY TIMES

The country’s liberal and conservative media outlets seemed to agree on one thing this week: Michael D. Cohen, the government’s star witness in its case against former President Donald J. Trump, was worth belittling.But they made that argument in far different ways.Conservative outlets painted Mr. Cohen, a former lawyer for Mr. Trump, as a traitor to the conservative cause. Liberal outlets focused on Mr. Cohen’s testimony about how he would do anything to impress Mr. Trump.But there was also one bigger difference about their coverage of Mr. Cohen’s testimony. Most of the liberal news outlets gave prominent coverage to what…

Last summer, as they drove to a doctor’s appointment near their home in Manhattan, Paul Skye Lehrman and Linnea Sage listened to a podcast about the rise of artificial intelligence and the threat it posed to the livelihoods of writers, actors and other entertainment professionals.The topic was particularly important to the young married couple. They made their living as voice actors, and A.I. technologies were beginning to generate voices that sounded like the real thing.But the podcast had an unexpected twist. To underline the threat from A.I., the host conducted a lengthy interview with a talking chatbot named Poe. It…

With Pride events scheduled worldwide over the coming weeks, U.S. officials are bracing for a return of mpox, the infectious disease formerly called monkeypox that struck tens of thousands of gay and bisexual men worldwide in 2022. A combination of behavioral changes and vaccination quelled that outbreak, but a majority of those at risk have not yet been immunized.On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned of a deadlier version of mpox that is ravaging the Democratic Republic of Congo and urged people at risk to be vaccinated as soon as possible. No cases of that subtype have…

The album was assembled gradually over the last 10 years, while Gibbons occasionally resurfaced with other projects: composing film scores, performing Henryk Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, collaborating with Kendrick Lamar on “Mother I Sober.”Produced by Gibbons and James Ford (of Simian Mobile Disco), “Lives Outgrown” relies on hand-played instruments, but it often juxtaposes them in surreal ways. Ford alone plays a huge assortment — guitars, dulcimer, keyboards, woodwinds, brasses, even musical saw — while the drummer Lee Harris (from Talk Talk), who shares some songwriting credits, uses all sorts…

Israeli forces appear to be pushing closer to the center of the city of Rafah, according to satellite imagery, which shows military vehicles and widespread destruction of neighborhoods more than two and a half miles into Gaza from the Israeli border, as well as Palestinians fleeing the city even outside of areas the Israeli military has said to evacuate.Israeli troops are still on the eastern side of the city in southern Gaza, according to the imagery, captured on Wednesday by the commercial satellite company Planet Labs. But they have continued to move toward central Rafah in recent days, passing the…

A man accused of sexually assaulting a Pennsylvania college student in 2013 and then, years later, sending her a message that said “So I raped you” has been arrested in France, the authorities said.The man, Ian Thomas Cleary of Saratoga, Calif., had been sought since 2021, when a warrant for his arrest was issued charging him with sexual assault. Mr. Cleary, 31, was detained last month in Metz, France, according to the prosecutor’s office at the Metz Appeals Court.The prosecutor’s office said that Mr. Cleary had been arrested in connection with a case involving the possession of stolen goods. It…

Many designers working in the high jewelry sector take pride in crafting metallic settings that seem to disappear, allowing the color, fire and vivacity of extraordinary gemstones to shine through.Luxury houses like Van Cleef & Arpels and Cartier, among others, have patented their techniques for creating what is known as invisible settings. Skilled designers, including the India-based Viren Bhagat, can craft platinum settings so thin that the gemstones they hold appear to float on the skin.But others are now reimagining the place of metal by incorporating it into their pieces as a standout, aesthetic element. This fresh approach opens new…

On Thursday, “Young Sheldon,” the successful CBS spinoff of “The Big Bang Theory,” will air its final episode, concluding a seven-year run.“Young Sheldon” never quite captured the same spot in the zeitgeist as its predecessor. But the series does have an unusual distinction: The overall run of the show mirrors the story of the television business over the last seven years. Here’s how.A ‘Peak TV’ BeginningOn the one hand, “Young Sheldon” had the ingredients for a surefire hit. “The Big Bang Theory” was a big success, and could help bring a strong lead-in audience. The new show had the CBS…

Richard Strauss’s criteria for the ideal interpreter of his opera “Salome” have haunted the piece for the better part of a century: a “16-year-old princess with the voice of Isolde.”As oxymorons go, it’s the operatic equivalent to Noam Chomsky’s famous syntactic puzzle “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” Clear, simple, impossible. And yet here is the 37-year-old Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen, in the middle of her role debut as Salome in Paris, launching her voice like a rocket that opens into a parachute in the cavern of the Opéra Bastille.With a teenager’s sly mockery of her parents and a blooming sexual…

The U.S. military anchored a temporary pier on Gaza’s coast on Thursday, creating a point of entry for humanitarian aid for the enclave, where the flow of supplies through land borders has largely come to a halt since Israel began its incursion into Rafah last week.The aid will be loaded onto trucks that will begin moving ashore “in the coming days,” the U.S. Central Command said in a statement Thursday morning. U.S. officials had said last week that the floating pier and causeway had been completed, but that weather conditions had delayed their installation.Israel has long opposed a seaport for…