Author: NY TIMES

If anyone could make a baby pink suit look intimidating, it was Barbara Walters. The TV news anchor coolly lobbed questions at the Libyan dictator Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in a 1989 interview while sheathed shoulder to knee in pastel Chanel and pearls.Back then Ms. Walters, who died in 2022 at the age of 93, reigned among the most celebrated, highly paid and formidable journalists in broadcast news. A trailblazer, she made history as the first female co-host of the “Today” show — and then made history again when she became the first female anchor of the ABC evening news. Later…

Artforum named Tina Rivers Ryan its next top editor on Thursday, selecting the curator to lead the prestigious magazine after a tumultuous year.“For decades, the editors at Artforum have ensured that this historic magazine has remained a trusted and indispensable resource for conversations about contemporary art and its role in the broader culture,” Ryan, who specialized in digital art as a curator at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, said in a statement.Five months ago, the magazine fired David Velasco, its editor in chief, after he signed and published a letter calling for Palestinian liberation shortly after the Israel-Hamas war began.…

Russia is ratcheting up its internet censorship ahead of elections this weekend that are all but assured to give President Vladimir V. Putin another six years in power, further shrinking one of the last remaining spaces for political activism, independent information and free speech.The Russian authorities have intensified a crackdown against digital tools used to get around internet blocks, throttled access to WhatsApp and other communications apps in specific areas during protests, and expanded a program to cut off websites and online services, according to civil society groups, researchers and companies that have been affected.Russia, they said, is turning to…

Red carpet photographs are able to convey indelible moments of celebrity magnetism and spectacular glamour. But no step-and-repeat can bottle the crackling anticipation, the eruption of victory, the sting of loss or the quiet exchange between individuals amid a sea of superstars like these candid shots from the audience at Sunday night’s Oscars ceremony.Inside the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, our photographer captured moments viewers may not have caught otherwise. These images offer a peek at the year’s most celebrated actors and filmmakers interacting with one other, and not the camera, as we usually see them. Whether that be Florence…

The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This week’s issue is written by Julia Bergin, a reporter based in the Northern Territory.No amount of gentle coaxing, regimented training, rehabilitation or punishment could ever prompt cats to ignore their killer instincts. Like their feral counterparts, even the most domesticated felines threaten any potential prey they find.In Australia, where feral cat populations are managed with substantial amounts of federal money, time and resources, the management of domestic animals — specifically, pet cats — falls to state and local governments.But there is…

Benjamin Ryan Cohen can easily recall how he met Lexi Brooke Tobin because it was on his 31st birthday, June 18, 2021.Ms. Tobin was in Montauk, N.Y., for the bachelorette party of her older sister, Perri Tobin Schwartz. Mr. Cohen, then living in Delray Beach, Fla., was sharing a house with friends in nearby East Hampton for the month. One of his housemates, Jeremy Franco, a childhood friend of Ms. Tobin, thought it would be fun to celebrate Mr. Cohen’s birthday by crashing the party.As it turned out, “my sister had known Ben for years,” through Mr. Franco, Ms. Tobin…

Ira M. Millstein, a venerable lawyer who crusaded for greater independence by corporate boards of directors, invoked his bipartisan bona fides in helping to shepherd Ruth Bader Ginsburg onto the federal bench, and vigilantly helped New York City evade bankruptcy in the mid-1970s, died on Wednesday at his home in Mamaroneck, N.Y. He was 97.His death was confirmed by his daughter, Elizabeth Millstein Tremain.Mr. Millstein trained as an engineer at Columbia before switching to law and was respected for his meticulousness and tact. He became the senior partner at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, a New York-based law firm, where he…

Time can have a curious ebb and flow in “The Shadowless Tower,” a ruminative Chinese drama in which the past intrudes on — and at times overwhelms — the present. For its middle-age protagonist, time can seem to drift, much as he does. On occasion, it almost stops dead, partly because he seems stuck in limbo. A poet turned filmmaker, a husband turned divorcé, a son turned orphan, our hero is caught between who he once was and who he has become.It seems fitting then that the first time you see Gu Wentong (Xin Baiqing) it’s at a cemetery, a…

Guernica, a small but prestigious online literary magazine, was thrown into turmoil in recent days after publishing — and then retracting — a personal essay about coexistence and war in the Middle East by an Israeli writer, leading to multiple resignations by its volunteer staff members, who said that they objected to its publication.In an essay titled “From the Edges of a Broken World,” Joanna Chen, a translator of Hebrew and Arabic poetry and prose, had written about her experiences trying to bridge the divide with Palestinians, including by volunteering to drive Palestinian children from the West Bank to receive…

With its army short of ammunition and troops to break the deadlock on the battlefield, Ukraine has increasingly taken the fight behind Russian lines, attacking warships, railways and airfields in an attempt to diminish Moscow’s military operations.Most recently, that campaign has focused on oil infrastructure, hitting refineries deep in Russian territory and driving home the country’s vulnerability to such attacks.On Tuesday and Wednesday, Ukrainian drones hit four Russian refineries, officials on both sides said, adding to a series of recent attacks that have set fire to depots, fuel tanks and other oil infrastructure across Russia. Since the beginning of the…