Author: NY TIMES

The Biden administration has been racing this spring to finalize a slew of major environmental regulations, including rules to combat climate change, a first-ever ban on asbestos and new limits on toxic chemicals in tap water.Many of the rules had been in the works since President Biden’s first day in office, when he ordered federal agencies to reinstate or strengthen more than 100 environmental regulations that President Donald J. Trump had weakened or removed. The president has pledged to cut the emissions that are driving climate change roughly in half by 2030. That’s something that scientists say all industrialized nations…

Before Beyoncé dropped her highly anticipated “Cowboy Carter” album, or Tanner Adell, a country music singer-songwriter who also appears on Beyoncé’s album, proudly proclaimed herself a “buckle bunny,” the disco-cowboy-and-glam-western aesthetics were already making their way to bridal fashion.Pinterest predicted that western influences would be one of the biggest trends for weddings in 2024, and searches on the platform for “cowgirl wedding dress with boots” doubled in March over March 2023.Cowboy boots have become a favored accessory. Brides are pairing them with relaxed-silhouetted gowns and dresses “that align with the effortless elegance of western fashion,” Maisie-Kate Keane, a bridal stylist…

Shareholders of Norfolk Southern, the beleaguered freight railroad, on Thursday voted down an attempt by an activist investment firm to remove the company’s chief executive and take control of its board.But the activist, Ancora, a Cleveland firm, managed to secure a foothold at the company, after shareholders voted to place three of its directors onto Norfolk Southern’s 13-member board. Ancora had hoped to take control of the company’s leadership to cut costs aimed at increasing Norfolk Southern’s profits and stock price.The result is a partial victory for Norfolk Southern’s executives, who had to defend themselves against criticisms of the company’s…

It’s not immediately apparent how courtly intrigue figures in “A Prince,” Pierre Creton’s spellbinding French pastoral drama, though sex, death and domination hang palpably in the film’s crisp, Normandy air.Creton, a veteran director working at the margins of France’s film industry, looks to the divine powers and chivalric codes that fuel swords-and-shields epics like “Game of Thrones,” but whittles these elements down to a mysterious essence. A subtly medieval score — distinguished by the thrum of a mandolin and composed by Jozef van Wissem — draws out a surreal dimension. Eventually, the film shifts into explicitly sexual and mythological terrain…

When Israel ordered Al Jazeera on Sunday to shut down operations there, the network had a reporter covering a government meeting in West Jerusalem, another in an East Jerusalem hotel room, a third in northern Israel to cover clashes on the border with Lebanon and a fourth in Tel Aviv.But the cameras stopped rolling when Walid al-Omari, the network’s bureau chief in Ramallah, in the West Bank, ordered all of them to go home. Israeli authorities descended on a room used by Al Jazeera in the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem, confiscating broadcast equipment. Israeli television and internet providers cut…

The ballistic missiles rolled through Red Square, the fighter jets zipped overhead and rows of foreign dignitaries impassively looked on. Russia’s annual commemoration of the end of World War II presented a traditional ceremony on Thursday cherished by millions of Russians, a reflection of President Vladimir V. Putin’s broader attempts to project normalcy while resigning the population to a prolonged, distant war.At last year’s Victory Day celebration, as Russia struggled on the battlefield, Mr. Putin said the country was engaged in a “real war” for survival, and accused Western elites of seeking the “disintegration and annihilation of Russia.” On Thursday…

“What’s the right thing to do as a gardener?” he asked. “Fertilize and irrigate? Well, that’s actually helping the weeds more than the meadow, and it’s counterproductive. There are a lot of things you do in traditional garden design, and particularly in turf culture, that in this realm is counterproductive.” (Overwatering is a prime example.)By necessity, landscaping approaches tend to shift as one gets into the drier regions. Still, the mention of native, low-water landscaping, or xeriscaping, conjures images of dusty plots with a few cactuses and scraggly shrubs interspersed with rocks.According to Christine Ten Eyck, a landscape architect in…

After a long stretch of high inflation, the Bank of England finally has its 2 percent inflation target firmly within its sights.The central bank said on Thursday that inflation is expected to reach the target in two years, and then go even lower, as policymakers inched toward cutting interest rates.The majority of the bank’s nine-person rate-setting committee voted this week to hold rates at 5.25 percent, the highest since early 2018 and where they have been for nine months. But two members voted to cut rates, compared with just one at the previous meeting in March. And Andrew Bailey, the…

The voice of Michael McDonald has been compared to velvet, silk and sandpaper, melted chocolate and last year, by a besotted 11-year-old girl, an angel. He has harmonized with the best in the business. But his latest duet might cause even the most Botoxed foreheads of Hollywood to furrow.“How you like us so far?” joked Paul Reiser, the actor and comedian, from one corner of a squishy sofa in McDonald’s Santa Barbara, Calif., aerie on a recent Tuesday morning. He was there to talk about the singer’s memoir, which they wrote together and will be published by Dey Street Books…

Tens of thousands of people have fled since an Israeli call this week to evacuate part of the southern Gazan city of Rafah, the United Nations said on Thursday, as Israeli airstrikes intensify and fears grow that an incursion by Israeli ground forces to take over a border crossing could lead to a full-scale invasion.The mass flight from the east of the city, a major hub for people displaced from their homes along Gaza’s border with Egypt, is just the latest time that people have been forced to flee since Israel launched a war to dismantle Hamas, the armed group…