Author: NY TIMES

Six months ago, Ignacy Czwartos won the opportunity of a lifetime.A politically conservative painter whose work contains religious, historical and military images, Czwartos was an outsider in the contemporary art scene in Poland. But that didn’t stop the government there, at the time led by the populist Law and Justice Party, from choosing him to represent the country at the Venice Biennale.“Of course, I was happy,” Czwartos, 57, recalled recently.But just weeks after he got the news, Czwartos’s opportunity vanished.After liberal, centrist and moderately conservative political parties formed a new government in Poland, they quickly dropped Czwartos as the country’s…

At the architect Philip Johnson’s former estate in New Canaan, Conn., there has long been a Glass House and a Brick House. Now there’s also a Paper House.The Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Shigeru Ban’s Paper Log House, to be exact.An exhibition of this simple, low-cost structure — designed in 1995 to house victims of the Great Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe, Japan — opens this week and runs through Dec. 15, as part of activities marking the 75th anniversary of the Glass House, which Johnson completed in 1949. (The Brick House, also completed in 1949, is scheduled to reopen following restoration…

Something wasn’t quite right about the chicken soup.The team at Manischewitz had gathered in the test kitchen at the company’s headquarters in Bayonne, N.J., last year to taste the latest version of one of their new offerings. But it wasn’t hitting the notes they were aiming for.“We were tasting it against our grandparents’ and saying, ‘No, that’s not it; it’s just not like our Friday night chicken soup,’” said Shani Seidman, the chief marketing officer for Kayco, which owns Manischewitz.More vegetables. More chicken. A little salt.“A lot of times you think of improvement and innovation as extra or modern,” Ms.…

A vampire flick with a familiar bite.‘Abigail’A group of bumbling criminals kidnap a young girl and hold her for ransom, but the titular 12-year-old ballerina turns out to have more than just tulle up her sleeve.From our review:A cheerfully obvious splatterthon, the new horror movie “Abigail” follows a simple, time-tested recipe that calls for a minimal amount of ingredients. Total time: 109 minutes. Take a mysterious child, one suave fixer and six logic-challenged criminals. Place them in an extra-large pot with a few rats, creaking floorboards and ominous shadows. Stir. Simmer and continue stirring, letting the stew come to a…

Isfahan is one of Iran’s most famous and historic cities, known for its beautiful turquoise and purple tiled mosques, picturesque arched bridges and Grand Bazaar. The area also hosts a number of Iranian military sites.In the early 17th century, Shah Abbas I, known as Abbas the Great, of the Safavid Dynasty, set to work creating a showpiece in Isfahan. He built the country’s most famous mosques, including the stunning Imam Mosque, capped by onion-shaped domes, and the Ali Qapu Palace. Shah Abbas and his son also built bridges to arch over the Zayanderud River, whose waters filled the fountains outside…

April 18, 2024, 4:49 p.m. ETApril 18, 2024, 4:49 p.m. ETA rally in Jerusalem this month calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas.Credit…Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesNegotiations for a cease-fire and the release of Israeli hostages have stalled because Hamas rejected the latest proposal put forth by Israel, Qatar and Egypt, the C.I.A. director said Thursday, putting the blame for a lack of progress in talks squarely on the group that led the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.Earlier this month, William J. Burns, C.I.A. director and lead American negotiator, traveled to Cairo and pushed what he…

Call it instinct, or a second sight: Graydon Carter claims he knows a reader when he sees one. While scanning the streets of Manhattan’s West Village this week, Mr. Carter said pointedly, “In this part of the city, you’ll have many more readers than nonreaders.”That may be why he chose a stretch of Hudson Street in the Village as the site of a new retail venture, Air Mail Newsstand, which is an extension of the digital newsletter, Air Mail, he started in 2019 with Alessandra Stanley.The shop arrived in Manhattan after Air Mail opened others in London and Milan. Its…

The Daily Beast has long been an outlier in the digital empire of the billionaire Barry Diller. As sites like Match.com and Expedia made millions over the years, Mr. Diller’s digital tabloid lost money, publishing scoop after scoop but struggling to turn a profit.Now, Mr. Diller is making a major push to change that, and he’s brought in Ben Sherwood, the former president of Disney ABC Television Group, and Joanna Coles, the former chief content officer of Hearst Magazines, to help.Mr. Sherwood and Ms. Coles will be granted an equity stake equivalent to roughly half of The Daily Beast, with…

Taylor Swift was already the most ubiquitous pop star in the galaxy, her presence dominating the music charts, the concert calendar, the Super Bowl, the Grammys.Then it came time for her to promote a new album.In the days leading up to the release of “The Tortured Poets Department” on Friday, Swift became all but inescapable, online and seemingly everywhere else. Her lyrics were the basis for an Apple Music word game. A Spotify-sponsored, Swift-branded “library installation,” in muted pink and gray, popped up in a shopping complex in Los Angeles. In Chicago, a QR code painted on a brick wall…

House Republicans took a critical step late Thursday night toward bringing up the long-stalled foreign aid bill for Ukraine and Israel, after being forced to rely on Democratic votes to move a plan to consider it out of a key committee and onto the floor.The 9-to-3 vote in the critical Rules Committee was an early step in the convoluted process the House is expected to go through over the next couple of days to approve the $95 billion aid package. It reflected the extent of far-right anger over Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to push through the legislation over the opposition…