Author: NY TIMES

The expression “to give someone their flowers” means to praise a person and show them care.Beyoncé has taken that literally.The pop superstar recently sent elaborate all-white floral arrangements, along with personalized notes — some handwritten — to artists she admires, or who she says have inspired her work, including Jack White, SZA and K. Michelle.As the artists have shared photos of the bouquets on social media, Beyoncé’s fans have shared their excitement and expressed their jealousy as they parsed the list of recipients for clues about what her next musical project might be.Beyoncé has been known to send surprise, and…

When Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen traveled to Beijing last summer, her mission was to re-establish a dialogue between the world’s largest economies and stabilize a relationship that appeared to have reached rock bottom.The United States and China created formal economic working groups to keep the conversation going. Months later, Ms. Yellen met with her Chinese counterparts in San Francisco and Morocco. And the Treasury secretary’s consumption of a dish made with psychedelic “magic” mushrooms at a Yunnan-style restaurant in Beijing sparked something of a culinary craze in China, where Ms. Yellen is popular for being an acclaimed economist.But despite…

The internet, as anyone who works deep in its trenches will tell you, is not a smooth, well-oiled machine.It’s a messy patchwork that has been assembled over decades, and is held together with the digital equivalent of Scotch tape and bubble gum. Much of it relies on open-source software that is thanklessly maintained by a small army of volunteer programmers who fix the bugs, patch the holes and ensure the whole rickety contraption, which is responsible for trillions of dollars in global G.D.P., keeps chugging along.Last week, one of those programmers may have saved the internet from huge trouble.His name…

The first patient to receive a kidney transplanted from a genetically modified pig has fared so well that he was discharged from the hospital on Wednesday, just two weeks after the groundbreaking surgery.The transplant and its encouraging outcome represent a remarkable moment in medicine, scientists say, possibly heralding an era of cross-species organ transplantation.Two previous organ transplants from genetically modified pigs failed. Both patients received hearts, and both died a few weeks later. In one patient, there were signs that the immune system had rejected the organ, a constant risk.But the kidney transplanted into Richard Slayman, 62, is producing urine,…

Art of Craft is a series about craftspeople whose work rises to the level of art.When Ayoung An was 8, her parents bought her a violin. She slept with the instrument on the pillow next to her every night.Two years later, a shop selling musical instruments opened in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, her hometown, and An became a fixture there, pelting the owner with questions. “I think I bothered him a lot,” An, now 32, said.As a teenager, she decided she would become a violin maker. Eventually, a journey with twists and turns took her to Cremona in northern Italy —…

In a tense phone call on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III upbraided his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, over Israel’s deadly attack on a humanitarian food convoy in Gaza earlier this week.“Secretary Austin expressed his outrage at the Israeli strike on a World Central Kitchen humanitarian aid convoy that killed seven aid workers, including an American citizen,” Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said in a statement Wednesday night, describing the phone call.“Secretary Austin stressed the need to immediately take concrete steps to protect aid workers and Palestinian civilians in Gaza after repeated coordination failures with foreign…

About 5 p.m. on Monday, Israeli warplanes streaked across the Syrian border, striking an embassy building in Damascus and killing a cadre of senior Iranian military commanders with the kind of pinpoint accuracy that has earned Israel’s military fear and respect across the Middle East.Several hours later, the same Israeli military rained missiles on an aid convoy on a coastal road in the Gaza Strip, a botched operation that left seven foreign aid workers dead and Israel’s reputation in tatters. Its leaders were forced to admit to a string of lethal mistakes and misjudgments.How one of the world’s best-equipped, best-trained…

L.S.U. may have lost to Iowa in the Elite Eight round of the N.C.A.A. women’s basketball tournament, but even two days afterward their star forward Angel Reese was still making headlines — this time in Vogue.On Wednesday, Ms. Reese, 21, decided to use the glossy to announce she was forgoing her last year of college to enter the W.N.B.A. draft, taking place later this month. That choice, complete with Ms. Reese posing glamorously for a shoot involving clothes from Valentino, Diesel, Wales Bonner and Christian Louboutin, is simply the latest expression of the blossoming love affair between fashion and sports,…

Cathy Connor loves the Boston Marathon. She loves the camaraderie. She loves the mystique of the event, which dates to 1897 as the world’s oldest annual marathon. She loves the idea that she gets to run the same rolling course that has been conquered by greats like Kathrine Switzer, Meb Keflezighi and Des Linden.Ms. Connor, 58, loves the Boston Marathon so much that she has raced in it nine times. But there is one thing that she, and many of her fellow runners, do not love: the redesigned medal, which will be bestowed upon the 30,000 athletes who finish the…

When I temporarily switched from an iPhone to an Android phone last week, I was bracing for a world of hurt. I’ve owned only Apple phones ever since buying the first-generation iPhone in 2007. And, like many, I’ve bought other Apple products that pair nicely, including AirPods, an Apple Watch and an iPad.That type of loyalty is the basis of an antitrust case against Apple brought by the Justice Department, which has accused the company of using monopolistic control over the iPhone to harm competitors and deter customers from switching to other phones. To test that theory, I decided to…