Author: NY TIMES

When Flau’jae Johnson helped lead the Louisiana State University women’s basketball team to a national championship last April, in her first season on the squad, she ascended to the top of the sport. The win, the school’s first title, also vaulted her as a hip-hop artist, lifting a career that has found her teaming up with rap royalty.At least twice in the past year, Johnson staged rap performances within 24 hours of a game or a practice, in one instance opening for the chart-topping rapper and singer Rod Wave in Atlanta after traveling from Louisiana on a day off from…

When she took the stage to perform at Carnegie Hall in front of 107 Korean War veterans, the singer Kim Insoon was thinking of her father, an American soldier stationed in South Korea during the postwar decades whom she had never met or even seen.“You are my fathers,” she told the soldiers in the audience before singing “Father,” one of her Korean-language hits.“To me, the United States has always been my father’s country,” Ms. Kim said in a recent interview, recalling that 2010 performance. “It was also the first place where I wanted to show how successful I had become…

It’s time to put to bed rumors that King Charles III has died, speculation that has surely been fueled by his recent cancer diagnosis and by the fumbled communications about Catherine, Princess of Wales, as she recovers from a surgery in January. According to Buckingham Palace, the king is alive — and seemingly healthy enough to host a fashion show.On Saturday, an exhibition of garments made as part of a collaboration between Charles and the designers Vin Cara and Omi Ong, who go by Vin + Omi, opens at Sandringham Estate, the royal family’s private property in Norfolk County, England.The…

A sweeping effort by state regulators to find out why homeowners insurance is so expensive and hard for customers to secure is already facing challenges, as some crucial states say they may opt out of the call for data.The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, an umbrella group representing state insurance regulators, said on March 8 that state agencies were asking insurers for detailed data on how they were treating their customers, including information about the kinds of coverage they offer in various ZIP codes, the recent history of claims payouts in those areas, the size of deductibles for insurance customers…

Julie Robinson Belafonte, a dancer, actress and, with the singer Harry Belafonte, one half of an interracial power couple who used their high profiles to aid the civil rights movement and the cause of integration in the United States, died on March 9 in Los Angeles. She was 95.Her death, at an assisted living facility in the Studio City neighborhood, was announced by her family. She had resided there for the last year and nine months after living for decades in Manhattan.Ms. Belafonte, who was white and the second wife of Mr. Belafonte, the Black Caribbean-American entertainer and activist, had…

Oleksii Yukov spends many of his nights dodging drones, navigating minefields and hoping not to be targeted by Russian artillery as he races to collect the remains of fallen soldiers from the battlefield.In just three shattered tree lines around the ruined village of Klishchiivka outside Bakhmut, where Ukrainian and Russian forces have fought seesaw battles for well over a year, he collected 300 bodies. They were almost all Russian, he said, left behind in maelstrom of violence where the struggle to stay alive often outweighs concern for the dead.Mr. Yusov has been collecting bodies from the bloody fields and battered…

When college basketball players ride team buses to the NCAA tournament, many put on their headphones, listen to songs and soak up the atmosphere. Coaches also sometimes take a moment after poring over last-minute scouting reports to listen to the melody coming through their headphones.These soundtracks may also have a subconscious purpose. Music can calm our nerves or cheer us up. Certain songs can provide a certain level of confidence. A sentimental song might remind us of our grander goals. “Music is shorthand for emotion,” Leo Tolstoy once wrote.So with March Madness upon us, Competitor Wonder what these tournament stars…

Teodora Maria Bun and Menchilou Deo Antopina began watching “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” like clockwork, together each week after they met in Singapore.For extra oomph, and sometimes with friends, they usually downed shots — including a mystery shot once mixed with durian, the notoriously pungent fruit — each time a drag queen on the reality competition show performed an amazing feat like a cartwheel, split or death drop.“It’s part of our relationship,” said Ms. Antopina, 32, who goes by Mench.She “super liked” Ms. Bun, 30, who goes by Maria, her very first time on Tinder one Sunday evening in July 2020.Ms.…

Artificial intelligence’s integration into everyday life has stirred up doubts and unsettling questions for many about humanity’s path forward. But in Anguilla, a tiny Caribbean island to the east of Puerto Rico, the A.I. boom has made the country a fortune.The British territory collects a fee from every registration for internet addresses that end in “.ai,” which happens to be the domain name assigned to the island, like “.fr” for France and “.jp” for Japan. With companies wanting internet addresses that communicate they are at the forefront of the A.I. boom — like Elon Musk’s X.ai website for his artificial…

When it comes to the artificial intelligence that powers chatbots like ChatGPT, China lags behind the United States. But when it comes to producing the scientists behind a new generation of humanoid technologies, China is pulling ahead.New research shows that China has by some metrics eclipsed the United States as the biggest producer of A.I. talent, with the country generating almost half the world’s top A.I. researchers. By contrast, about 18 percent come from U.S. undergraduate institutions, according to the study, from MacroPolo, a think tank run by the Paulson Institute, which promotes constructive ties between the United States and…