Author: NY TIMES

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…

In the faith-based drama “Unsung Hero,” an Australian concert promoter trying to earn a living makes a last-ditch move to Nashville with his wife and six children. Based on an actual family of musicians, it mostly plays as a treacly tribute to the parents of Joel and Luke Smallbone — a.k.a. the Christian pop duo For King & Country — and their sister, the singer Rebecca St. James.Viewer beware: Between the uplift and the cringe, this movie may cause whiplash. Joel Smallbone plays his own father, David, who faces financial and reputational ruin after booking a big concert and failing…

The U.N.’s top coordinator for humanitarian aid for Gaza has said that Israel has taken steps to improve the delivery of relief supplies to the enclave but warned that much more must be done to meet the vast need there.Israel has announced efforts to increase the flow of aid into Gaza, including by opening an additional border crossing and by accepting shipments at a nearby port. But the United Nations has warned with increasing urgency that a famine is looming and that deliveries still fall short of the level needed to stop the spread of starvation.The aid coordinator, Sigrid Kaag,…

When the French tire maker Michelin closed its factories during the coronavirus pandemic, Florent Menegaux, the company’s chief executive, took stock of the closures’ impact on employees worldwide. Thousands of workers in Asia, Europe and the United States at the lower end of the company’s pay scales could barely get by, an independent review showed. Michelin vowed to do better.Last week, the 134-year-old company, which has 132,000 workers at 131 factories in 26 countries, announced that it would guarantee all of its employees a “decent wage” wherever they were in the world, part of a broader social plan intended to…