Author: NY TIMES

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is to meet with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in Beijing on Friday, in an attempt to hold together a fractious relationship despite disputes over the economy, national security and geopolitical frictions in East Asia, the Middle East and Ukraine.Both China and the United States have said they were hoping for progress on a few smaller, pragmatic fronts, including improving communications between their militaries and easing travel between the two countries.But they remain at a standstill on fundamental strategic issues, including trade policies and territorial conflicts in the South China Sea and over Taiwan. Both…

An apartment building in Paris is overrun by murderous arachnids and unsubtle allegory in this fleet and efficient debut feature. Source link

Guatemalan authorities searched the offices of Save the Children, the international charity said on Thursday, in an inquiry into claims of child abuse that was widely viewed as a political attack in a country with a history of targeting nonprofit groups and human rights organizations.Guatemala’s Public Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that it had searched the headquarters of an organization as “part of an ongoing transnational investigation” into potential abuses against Guatemalan children. The ministry did not name the organization.Save the Children, which has operated in Guatemala since 1976, said its office had been searched. It denied the…

In June 2018, Billy Jacobson met a guy on the dating app Grindr whom he recognized from the internet.At the time, he’d been watching a lot of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” and had come across a video of Evan Ross Katz, then a senior style editor at the media company Mic, interviewing the contestants Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova.“As Belinda Carlisle once sang, ‘Heaven Is a Place on Earth,’ and I am joined today by not one but two slices of heaven,” Mr. Katz quipped, introducing his blond-wigged guests, who immediately complimented his own hair, then dyed a bluish gray.When Mr.…

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken cheered on the sidelines at a basketball game in Shanghai on Wednesday night, and spent Thursday chatting with students at New York University’s Shanghai campus and meeting American business owners. It all went to emphasize the kind of economic, educational and cultural ties that the United States is pointedly holding up as beneficial for both countries.But hanging over those pleasantries during his visit to China this week are several steps the U.S. is taking to sever economic ties in areas where the Biden administration says they threaten American interests. And those will be the…

“Nowhere Special” is an unusual, and unusually understated, parental tear-jerker in which a father prepares for the loss of his young son. The son isn’t going anywhere. But the father, a single dad, is dying, of an unspecified disease, and he’s at first eager, then later a little desperate, to get his boy placed with the right adoptive family.The picture was written and directed by Uberto Pasolini, the Italian-born filmmaker who was the producer of the 1997 crowd-pleaser “The Full Monty.” Although he shares a surname with the acclaimed director Pier Paolo Pasolini, Uberto is in fact a nephew of…

Ukrainian forces will be able to use a newly delivered, coveted long-range missile system to more effectively target Russian forces in occupied Crimea, senior Pentagon officials said on Thursday.After months of requests, Ukraine received a longer-range version of the Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMS, which can travel 190 miles. Before the delivery this month, the United States had supplied Ukraine with a version of the system that has a 100-mile range and is armed with wide-spreading cluster munitions.Much of the long-delayed weapons deliveries would need to initially focus on shoring up Ukraine’s defenses, U.S. national security officials said.…

From the moment Marc Julius Reyes laid eyes on Elaiza Joyce Ramos, he was smitten. “Elaiza was the only girl at school that caught my interest on Day 1,” Mr. Reyes said.But this love-at-first-sight tale, which began on June 13, 2011, with two high school sophomores at a school in Quezon City, Philippines, didn’t truly begin until January 2013.“We became seatmates as assigned by our teacher,” Ms. Ramos said. “For almost all classroom activities we were partners.”The two had messaged regularly about assignments. But several weeks later, there was a shift and their messages became more personal.“Marc is the mysterious…

Almost two years after a report warned that children were swallowing batteries at an alarming rate, Energizer is releasing a new battery designed to alert parents if their child has swallowed one.The new coin lithium battery features more secure packaging, a nontoxic bitter coating to discourage swallowing and “color alert technology” that activates a blue dye when the battery comes into contact with moisture, like saliva, so parents and caregivers know that medical attention could be required.The new battery was announced in a video last week by Energizer and Trista Hamsmith, whose 18-month-old daughter died after swallowing a button battery…

Two framed documents from a long career at Boeing hang side by side in Merle Meyers’s home: A certificate from 2022 that thanks him for three decades of service. And a letter he received months later reprimanding him for his performance.The documents reflect his conflicting emotions about the company. Mr. Meyers, who worked as a Boeing quality manager until last year, holds deep affection for the aircraft manufacturer, where both he and his mother worked. But he is also saddened and frustrated by what he described as a yearslong shift by Boeing executives to emphasize speed over quality.“I love the…