Author: NY TIMES

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…

My brother, in his 50s, was a successful professional for many years. He was laid off from his job four years ago and has been unable to find regular employment since then. He has now depleted his savings. He says it’s challenging to find work in his field as an older person, so I suggested taking a lower-paying job — in any field — to support himself, but he doesn’t appear to be looking for work. And ever since we moved our father to an assisted living facility, my brother has been living in his house. Keeping the house is…

The World Bank’s internal watchdog on Thursday criticized the organization’s handling and oversight of its investment in a chain of Kenyan schools that were subject to an internal investigation after allegations that students were abused.The investigation, which started in 2020, has consumed World Bank officials and shareholders in recent months and led to scrutiny of its investment arm, the International Finance Corporation, which invested in the educational project a decade ago.Countries that make up the board of the I.F.C. have been debating how to compensate victims of the abuse. While the scandal predates the tenure of Ajay Banga, the World…

By the time “The Animal Kingdom” opens, the enigmatic disease troubling the world has been circulating for years. It’s unclear where and how it started, much less why or just how far it has spread. Is a virus or bacteria to blame, or is it something in the air, the water, our genes? If we’ve learned anything from our recent pandemic it is that sometimes the most urgent questions aren’t immediately answerable. The big freaky unknown here is why people have begun mutating into beguiling, sometimes terrifying part-human, part-animal creatures.The furred and the hoofed, the feathered and the chaotically tentacled…

A ship hauling more than 200 tons of food for the Gaza Strip left Cyprus on Tuesday morning, in the first test of a maritime corridor designed to bring aid to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who the United Nations says are on the brink of starvation.The ship, named Open Arms, for the Spanish aid group that provided it, was the first vessel authorized to deliver aid to Gaza since 2005, according to Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive arm, which has supported the effort and describes it as a “pilot project” that could clear…

A federal bank that finances projects overseas voted Thursday to put $500 million toward an oil and gas project in Bahrain, a transaction that critics said was out of step with President Biden’s climate commitments.Just days before the vote, six lawmakers had urged the bank, the Export-Import Bank of the United States or ExIm, not to move ahead with the financing, given the project’s negative effects on the climate. “We cannot afford to have ExIm undermine domestic and international climate progress,” lawmakers led by Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, said in a letter to the bank’s board of directors…

Sydell L. Miller, a self-made beauty mogul who went from the stay-at-home wife of a Cleveland salon owner to a Palm Beach mansion so immense that it was said to take an hour to walk through all of its rooms, died on Feb. 25 at her home in Cleveland. She was 86.Her daughter Stacie Halpern confirmed the death. Ms. Miller had various health issues, including serious heart problems dating to the early 1990s; Ms. Halpern said that a combination of factors had recently caused her mother’s health to decline.Ms. Miller and her husband, Arnold Miller, created two dominant brands: Ardell,…

TikTok is one of the most popular and largest social media apps around the globe — with great brand recognition and loyal users.It may also be one of the hardest to sell.That’s the conundrum facing TikTok as Washington lawmakers push a bill that would force the app’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to sell it or face having it banned in the United States. The bill passed the House on Wednesday but could face an uphill climb in the Senate.Rumors are already swirling on Wall Street about who could be interested in buying TikTok. The rumblings grew louder on Thursday after…