Author: NY TIMES

“I’m so ready for this,” said the actress Bernadette Peters on Saturday afternoon as she stood on the red carpet outside the August Wilson Theater on 52nd Street, which had been styled to look like a Berlin nightclub in the 1930s.“It’s sort of like a Happening,” she added.Ms. Peters had turned up for a performance of one of the hottest — and some of the most expensive — tickets on Broadway this season: A revival of “Cabaret,” the 1966 John Kander and Fred Ebb musical, which celebrated its opening night with twin galas on Saturday and Sunday. The production, which…

Phyllis Pressman, the matriarch of the family that founded Barneys New York, the discount men’s wear store turned luxury emporium — and the creator of Chelsea Passage, the store’s home goods bazaar, a pivot point in its evolution from a suit merchant to an elite lifestyle behemoth — died on Tuesday in Palm Beach, Fla. She was 95.Her death, in a hospice facility, was announced by her son Gene Pressman.Barneys was always a family affair. It was named for Barney Pressman, who in 1923 pawned his wife’s ring, at her encouragement, for $500 to buy the lease of a small…

Generative A.I. technologies can write poetry and computer programs or create images of teddy bears and videos of cartoon characters that look like something from a Hollywood movie.Now, new A.I. technology is generating blueprints for microscopic biological mechanisms that can edit your DNA, pointing to a future when scientists can battle illness and diseases with even greater precision and speed than they can today.Described in a research paper published on Monday by a Berkeley, Calif., startup called Profluent, the technology is based on the same methods that drive ChatGPT, the online chatbot that launched the A.I. boom after its release…

When Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan Opera’s general manager, asked the director Lileana Blain-Cruz what she wanted to stage, she didn’t need any time to think about her answer: “El Niño.”A couple of years ago, she had already been hired to direct Missy Mazzoli’s “Lincoln in the Bardo,” an adaptation of the George Saunders novel that will premiere in the 2026-27 season, but Gelb was curious about what else she might be interested in.Long a fan of John Adams and his collaborations with the director-librettist Peter Sellars, Blain-Cruz particularly loved their 2000 oratorio “El Niño,” a blending of the Nativity story…

Many Israelis were in a somber mood on Monday as they prepared to usher in Passover, the Jewish festival of freedom, saying they would mark the holiday rather than celebrate it, with more than 130 hostages remaining in Gaza.The number of hostages believed to be alive is unclear, and with negotiations with Hamas captors at an impasse, there is little prospect of their imminent release.The holiday is to start after sundown on Monday with the traditional Seder meal. By tradition, this is a joyful gathering of family and friends who follow a ritual order of blessings over symbolic foods as…

Taiwan was shaken by a series of earthquakes on Monday and early Tuesday, the strongest with a magnitude of 6.3, partially toppling two buildings and keeping frightened residents up overnight. The tremors were aftershocks from the magnitude 7.4 quake that killed 17 people three weeks ago, the authorities said.The tremors began just after 5 p.m. on Monday local time with a 5.5 magnitude quake in Hualien County on Taiwan’s east coast, according to Wu Chien-fu, the director of the Taiwanese Central Weather Administration’s Seismological Center. It was followed by a series of smaller tremors some minutes later in the same…

Welcome to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where Competitor will explain the story behind what happened in court last week.The European Clay Court Tour officially kicks off this week on the ATP and WTA tours, with tournaments taking place in France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and Romania. Four of the best women’s players faced off in Stuttgart, Barcelona saw Nadal’s return and we saw a zero-gravity serve.If you’d like more tennis coverage, click here.Will the WTA and ATP Tours exchange their data?Over the past year, there has been some discussion about the formation of a “Big Four” in women’s tennis. It was…

Still, there may be some surprises. Last year, Jared Leto came dressed as Mr. Lagerfeld’s cat, Choupette, in full kitty glory. (After weeks of speculation, the look’s inspiration ultimately did not attend.) Given that Loewe is one of the sponsors of the evening and exhibit, you can expect a lot of Jonathan Anderson creations. He did once make a coat that sprouted real grass. That would look terrific as a formal sheath, don’t you think?Who are the hosts?Joining Ms. Wintour as the 2024 gala’s co-chairs are Jennifer Lopez, Zendaya, Chris Hemsworth and Bad Bunny, while the honorary chairs are Mr.…

The Federal Trade Commission on Monday sued to block Tapestry’s $8.5 billion acquisition of Capri, a blockbuster fashion tie-up that would bring together Coach, Kate Spade, Michael Kors and Versace.The lawsuit is a rare move by the agency to block a fashion deal, given that the industry does not suffer from a lack of competition. In her nearly three years as chair of the F.T.C., Lina Khan has put a priority on taking on the power of big business in suits across industries. The agency has moved to block the supermarket merger between Kroger and Albertsons, Meta’s acquisition of the…

Two years ago, Nina Jankowicz briefly led an agency at the Department of Homeland Security created to fight disinformation — the establishment of which provoked a political and legal battle over the government’s role in policing lies and other harmful content online that continues to reverberate.Now she has re-entered the fray with a new nonprofit organization intended to fight what she and others have described as a coordinated campaign by conservatives and others to undermine researchers, like her, who study the sources of disinformation.Already a lightning rod for critics of her work on the subject, Ms. Jankowicz inaugurated the organization…