Author: NY TIMES

He joined the Italian Communist Party at the start of the so-called Years of Lead, a period of political violence and social upheaval in Italy. He justified that decision because the party’s denunciation of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 allowed him to square doctrine with democracy. He was escorted from one of his own recitals for protesting the U.S. bombing of Hanoi, and he befriended the composer Luigi Nono, with whom he collaborated on works like “Como una ola de fuerza y luz,” dedicated to the memory of the Chilean activist Luciano Cruz.Convinced that music was a right…

António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, reiterated his call on Saturday for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza, using a visit to a border crossing in Egypt to slam the “nonstop nightmare” Palestinians faced in the territory.“I want Palestinians in Gaza to know: You are not alone,” Mr. Guterres said. “People around the world are outraged about the horrors we are all witnessing in real time. I carry the voices of the vast majority of the world: We have seen enough. We have heard enough.”Mr. Guterres spoke to reporters from the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Gaza, one of…

Laurent de Brunhoff, the French artist who nurtured his father’s creation, a beloved, very Gallic and very civilized elephant named Babar, for nearly seven decades — sending him, among other places, into a haunted castle, to New York City and into outer space — died on Friday at his home in Key West, Fla. He was 98.The cause was complications of a stroke, said his wife, Phyllis Rose.Babar was born one night in 1930 in a leafy Paris suburb. Laurent, then 5, and his brother, Mathieu, 4, were having trouble sleeping. Their mother, Cécile de Brunhoff, a pianist and music…

Have you ever been told you have the gift of gab? Did your school report cards suggest you pipe down in class? Perhaps you’ve been called a chatterbox on an occasion or two?If you answered yes to one or more of those questions, you might be a yapper.Terms like yapper, yap and yapping have become popular on TikTok in recent weeks. To yap, in modern parlance, is simply to talk … a lot, often about something of little importance.“In the internet context, I would say somebody that’s a yapper is somebody that talks too much or is an over-sharer,” said…

A recent shooting on an A train in Brooklyn left some subway riders feeling unsettled, and questioning how they might respond if such a violent clash took place on their train car, bus or other mode of public transportation.Experts say that public transportation is not uniquely dangerous, and even in New York City, the perception of crime on the subway has eclipsed what the actual data reveals.Still, it can be helpful to know what public safety experts believe to be the best ways to protect yourself while using transit.Here’s what to know.Be alert for dangerous situations.Tracy Walder, who has worked…

Relative to the 496 billion Canadian dollars the federal government spent last year, the amounts are small. But this week’s revelations surrounding millions of dollars in potentially fraudulent billings by subcontractors, along with the continuing ArriveCAN app scandal, show what a big mess developing software can be for the government.Even after an extensive investigation, Karen Hogan, the auditor general, said she could not determine exactly what it had cost to create ArriveCAN, which was rushed out in 2020 to collect contact and health information from international travelers during the Covid-19 pandemic and to coordinate quarantine measures. Ms. Hogan’s best guess…

Last year, Tracy McCubbin — who has been a professional declutterer for two decades and lives by the motto “don’t put it down, put it away” — married a man she described as “very messy.”Both acknowledged the “cosmic joke” of their unlikely pairing. Ms. McCubbin put blue painter’s tape on every drawer and cupboard in the kitchen when the pair first moved in together, offering a map to what goes where. But she has also learned to practice what she preaches to her clients, staying cool and calm about messes that don’t affect her day-to-day functioning. Like his night stand,…

As he entered a suite at the Carlyle hotel in Manhattan, Pete Townshend mentioned that an afternoon meeting had been canceled. “So,” he added, “we have lots of time to talk.”Townshend is one of rock’s great singers, songwriters and guitarists, and he’s also among music’s pre-eminent talkers. Since the Who first took the stage 60 years ago, he has considered interviews to be an adjunct to his music, a parallel way for him to clarify or interrogate the ideas he pours into songs.In 1969, the Who released “Tommy,” a rock opera written mostly by Townshend, although the bassist John Entwistle…

A curly-haired young man shakes as he bends over the mound of smashed concrete that used to be his friend’s home. He clutches his rain-spotted iPhone in his trembling hands, but there is no answer. “Please God, Ahmed,” he sobs in a video posted on social media. “Please God.”A father crawls over a mountain of gray concrete shards, his right ear pressed to the dust. “I can’t hear you, love,” he tells his absent children in a different video shared on Instagram and verified by The New York Times. He scrabbles over a few yards to try again. “Salma! Said!”…

March 22, 2024, 8:08 p.m. ETMarch 22, 2024, 8:08 p.m. ETA Taliban fighter stands guard at the site of the 2021 suicide bombing at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed scores of people including 13 U.S. troops. ISIS-K was responsible for that blast.Credit…Wakil Kohsar/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe group that claimed credit for the deadly terrorist attack in Moscow on Friday is the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan called Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K.ISIS-K was founded in 2015 by disaffected members of the Pakistani Taliban, who then embraced a more violent version of Islam. The group saw its…