Author: NY TIMES

In a public library, styling a bookshelf is easy: Just fill it with books. At home, a bookcase needs to do a lot more than hold books.So how do the pros do it?Start by thinking of your shelves as a kind of three-dimensional wallpaper that adds visual interest to a room. The things you choose to display should express your personality.“It’s like a little cabinet of curiosities,” said Jeremiah Brent, an interior designer and the newest cast member of Netflix’s “Queer Eye.” Your bookshelves, he added, offer “an opportunity for people to look in and see where you’ve been and…

Volkswagen employees in Tennessee who are hoping to join the United Automobile Workers asked a federal agency on Monday to hold an election, a key step toward the union’s longtime goal of organizing nonunion factories across the South.The union said Volkswagen workers had filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board asking for a unionization vote after a “supermajority” of the 4,000 eligible workers at the plant had signed cards supporting the U.A.W.It did not specify how many workers had signed cards, but it previously advised workers to get the support of more than 70 percent of hourly workers…

Apple is in discussions with Google about using the search giant’s generative artificial intelligence model called Gemini for its next iPhone, as the company races to embrace a technology that has upended the tech industry.The talks are preliminary and the exact scope of a potential deal hasn’t been defined, three people with knowledge of the discussions said. Apple has also held discussions with other A.I. companies, one of these people said, as it looks to tap into the power of a large language model capable of analyzing vast amounts of data and generating text on its own.Tim Cook, Apple’s chief…

“He was kind of like my self-discovery composer,” Tetelman said. When he began learning Puccini roles, he said, he felt that “this is the music I want to build my voice with, this is the music I want to discover my voice with.“I think Puccini gives you a lot of opportunity to fail,” he added, “to reinvent and to change who you are, because Puccini is verismo,” referring to the earthy and emotional late-Romantic style that Puccini wrote in. “It’s never the same from one performance to the next.”When we spoke, Tetelman had just returned from Palermo, Sicily, where he…

In the library of James Madison High School in Brooklyn on Sunday afternoon, Senator Chuck Schumer took stock of the splash he made a few days before. In a speech on the Senate floor, he had branded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel a major impediment to peace in the Middle East and called for elections to replace him when the war winds down.It was here, he recalled, inside this hulking red brick school deep in south Brooklyn, where at 16 he was glued to his transistor radio to hear breaking news of the Arab-Israeli War of 1967. It was…

Thomas P. Stafford, an astronaut who pioneered cooperation in space when he commanded the American capsule that linked up with a Soviet spaceship in July 1975, died on Monday in Satellite Beach, Fla. He was 93.His death, in a retirement home, was confirmed by his wife, Linda. She said he had recently been diagnosed with liver cancer.General Stafford flew four times in space and orbited within nine miles of the moon’s surface on the mission that preceded the moon walks of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in July 1969, fulfilling President John F. Kennedy’s quest to best the Soviet Union…

There is always a sign.I first noticed something special was happening last spring when I couldn’t walk half a block in Dallas without encountering a large group of Iowa or South Carolina fans. And my male friends in the family, who for the first time planned their weekend around the women’s NCAA tournament instead of the men’s game. All the sports talk radio channels are talking about Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. My Spider-Man senses tingled.I felt in my bones that the sport was about to experience a breakthrough moment, even though I couldn’t have imagined that nearly 10 million…

Kemo Sabe is certainly not the only western-themed store in Aspen, Colo., but it may be the best known, thanks to the influencer Alix Earle.While vacationing in Aspen last month, Ms. Earle did some shopping for personalized hats at Kemo Sabe with a few friends. Soon after she stepped outside, she was accosted by a local who seemed skeptical of her new look.“So we all just made hats at Kemo Sabe, because we’re trying to get into the Aspen western spirit,” Ms. Earle said in a TikTok video recorded moments after her shopping excursion. “And this girl comes up to…

The government of Saudi Arabia plans to create a fund of about $40 billion to invest in artificial intelligence, according to three people briefed on the plans — the latest sign of the gold rush toward a technology that has already begun reshaping how people live and work.In recent weeks, representatives of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund have discussed a potential partnership with Andreessen Horowitz, one of Silicon Valley’s top venture capital firms, and other financiers, said the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly. They cautioned that the plans could still change.The planned tech fund would make Saudi…

President Biden will issue a multibillion-dollar award to Intel on Wednesday to expand its chip production in the United States, people familiar with the decision said, as the president champions his economic policies during a tour of the Southwest.The announcement in Phoenix, Ariz., is a major award from Mr. Biden’s $39 billion CHIPS and Science Act, which is aimed at building up the U.S. semiconductor industry and reducing reliance on technology made in East Asia.Mr. Biden has made expanding the production of the chips, which are used in all types of technologies, a central focus of both efforts to compete…