Author: NY TIMES

▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube3. The Pretenders: “Message of Love”From 1981, “Pretenders II” — which I gladly added to my haul — is the final Pretenders album featuring the band’s original lineup; the guitarist James Honeyman-Scott and the bassist Pete Farndon would both die of drug-related causes within the next two years. Given those tragedies on the horizon, “Pretenders II” is a lasting document of the original group’s particular chemistry and spirit, which comes through on this wry single that finds the whole band moving together with the lurching rhythm of an old train.▶ Listen on Spotify,…

The iron rock’s journey from the depths of space ended with a thud in a dense pine forest, about an hour north of Stockholm, around 10 on a November night four years ago.Unusually, its trajectory was caught on several cameras in the region used to track meteoroids. That led to a weekslong hunt and an even longer court battle over an unusual question: Who owns an unearthly object that falls to Earth?The legal case took another turn on Thursday, when an appeals court ruled in favor of the landowner, overturning a decision that had sided with the two men who…

This month, Airbnb announced that, starting April 30, the company would ban the use of surveillance cameras in its rentals. The news was welcomed by those concerned about privacy.“Cameras are both creepy and a threat,” said Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, which has campaigned for a ban on cameras in Airbnbs since 2022. “People are terrified about having their intimate moments photographed without their consent and having owners able to monitor their activities within a rental.”For many travelers, Airbnb’s new policy has prompted some fundamental questions: What were the cameras doing there in…

Former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company on Friday completed a long-awaited merger with a cash-rich shell company, raising Mr. Trump’s wealth by billions and potentially providing him a fresh source of cash to pay his mounting legal bills.In approving the merger, shareholders of Digital World Acquisition Corporation will become shareholders of Trump Media & Technology Group, which will trade on the stock market under the stock symbol DJT. The deal will pump more than $300 million into Trump Media, which has all but exhausted its available cash and will allow Truth Social, the company’s flagship digital media platform,…

Rat droppings from New York City. Poop from dog parks in Wisconsin. Human waste from a Missouri hospital. These are some of the materials that are readying us for the next chapter of the coronavirus saga.More than four years into the pandemic, the virus has loosened its hold on most people’s bodies and minds. But a new variant better able to dodge our immune defenses may yet appear, derailing a hard-won return to normalcy.Scientists around the country are watching for the first signs.“We’re not in the acute phases of a pandemic anymore, and I think it’s understandable and probably a…

Halfway through a recent Zoom interview with Radu Jude, the acclaimed Romanian director of “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World,” he offered a glimpse into his creative process. He pulled out one of the books he’s reading, an illustrated tome about commedia dell’arte. Then he shared his screen to reveal a collection of texts and images — Van Gogh still lifes, Giacometti sculptures, Japanese haikus — saved in folders on his computer. Jude stopped scrolling at a picture he took of a sign posted on an apartment building entrance.“It says ‘Please have oral sex so…

Before the United States presented a resolution at the United Nations Security Council on Friday calling for an “immediate and sustained cease-fire” in Gaza, it had vetoed three previous ones demanding a halt to the fighting. The United States has long used its veto power as a permanent Security Council member to block measures that Israel, its close ally, opposes. But the Biden administration has become increasingly vocal in criticizing Israel’s approach to the war against Hamas, and the resolution offered on Friday reflected that, using the strongest language the United States has supported at the U.N. in an effort…

As the Biden administration increasingly clashes with Israeli leaders over the war in Gaza, a question that often arises is whether U.S. officials will try to exercise some form of harder leverage as Israel ignores their pleas.They could do so, critics say, to try to get Israel to let more humanitarian aid into Gaza as it teeters on the brink of famine, to scale back its military campaign or to refrain from invading the Gaza Strip city of Rafah, where many civilians have fled.Since the Hamas terrorist attacks on Oct. 7, in which about 1,200 Israelis were killed and about…

Let’s clear up a few things.Heidi Agan is not Catherine, Princess of Wales. She has never met Catherine, formerly known as Kate Middleton. She has never been contacted by Kensington Palace, nor is she secretly working with the royal family as part of a cover-up devised to hide the princess from public view.Ms. Agan is, however, a slender 43-year-old British brunette whose visage bears a resemblance to Catherine’s.She’s turned looking like one of the most famous women in the world into a job, performing at parties and events as a look-alike for hire. Recently, Ms. Agan has found herself at…

Ronna McDaniel, who stepped down as chairwoman of the Republican National Committee this month, is joining NBC News as an on-air contributor, the network said on Friday.The hire adds a reliably conservative voice to NBC’s stable of political analysts. Ms. McDaniel is also expected to provide commentary on MSNBC, NBC’s left-leaning cable cousin and a network that former President Donald J. Trump and his allies often accuse of being an arm of the Democratic Party.“It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” Carrie Budoff Brown, who oversees NBC News political coverage, wrote…