Author: NY TIMES

“There are tales of chivalry, where the heroic knight saves the damsel in distress,” a young woman’s voice intones as “Damsel” begins. “This is not one of them.”Oh, well, thank goodness, I thought, sarcastically and, perhaps, a bit uncharitably. Somewhere in my head I heard Miranda Priestly: Strong female lead? Groundbreaking.I like a scrappy heroine as much as anyone, but leading with that foot — we’re not like the other girls, we’re the cool girls — is starting to feel stale. “Damsel” isn’t bad, but it feels a bit gnawed upon. Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (“28 Weeks Later”) from…

On the front line just outside Bakhmut, Ukraine, a 32-year-old commander of a Ukrainian artillery platoon rocked to and fro in the passenger seat of a beat-up Lada, as another soldier navigated the car through a thick forest, sometimes mowing down young trees. When they reached their destination, a small village less than two miles from Russian lines, all that was left were destroyed houses, their shattered roofs visible in the moonlight.The commander, a female soldier who uses the call sign Witch, is a former lawyer who, along with two of her brothers and her mother, joined the military the…

The cardboard cup of mashed potatoes Gustavo Chagas Lopes handed Luke John Robinson III on Oct. 11, 2021, was not meant to be an aphrodisiac. But for Mr. Robinson, something in the way Mr. Lopes, then the manager of the Brooklyn restaurant Sally Roots, had passed them off was spellbinding.“Gustavo is just so striking,” Mr. Robinson said. “He’s such a beautiful, beautiful man that when he reached across the bar to give me my order, I struggled to say, ‘My name is Luke and I’m here for a pickup.’”That struggle was compounded by the reason he had ordered the grown-up…

The European Central Bank on Thursday held interest rates steady for a fourth consecutive meeting, even as policymakers noted the progress that has been made in their battle against high inflation.The deposit rate remained at 4 percent, the highest in the central bank’s two-and-a-half decade history. Officials are weighing how soon they can bring interest rates down but said they needed to see more proof of slowing price growth. For now, strong wage growth was keeping domestic price pressures high, the bank said.Because of the improvement so far in slowing headline inflation, “we are more confident,” Christine Lagarde, the president…

Past and present trauma fuse in Jeff Wadlow’s “Imaginary,” the latest in the Blumhouse catalog of reliably creepy horror movies whose fans typically expect well-executed jump scares, fun plot twists and the occasional rubbery monster. What they probably don’t expect is the sophisticated allegory that “Imaginary” appears to be flirting with — and comes close to pulling off — before losing its nerve.Or maybe it’s my imagination gone supernova alongside that of little Alice (a delightful Pyper Braun) and her stepmother, Jessica (DeWanda Wise), a writer and illustrator of children’s books. After Jessica’s father is settled in a care facility,…

Even with growth faltering in China, Xi Jinping appears imperiously assured that he possesses the right road map to surpass Western rivals.China’s economy has lurched into a slower gear. Its population is shrinking and aging. Its rival, the United States, has built up a lead in artificial intelligence. Mr. Xi’s pronouncement several years ago that the “East is rising and West is declining” — that his country was on the way up while American power shrank — now seems premature, if not outright hubristic.The problems have brought growing talk abroad that China could peak before it fully arrives as a…

Por supuesto, hay amigos, aún vivos, a los que puedo dar más. Pero muchos de ellos están lejos. Además, sé que en parte soy culpable de mi situación. Los últimos años me han vuelto precavido, y quizá incluso un poco frío. Paso demasiado tiempo solo. Me he aislado del mundo. Asustado, he rechazado nuevas oportunidades de amor. Como muchos, durante la pandemia aprendí una peligrosa lección sobre cómo sobrevivir aislado. Puede que nuestros corazones, al intentar protegerse, se hayan hecho más pequeños. Sé que esto es cierto en mi caso. Y sé que me está matando.Al instructor de meditación le…

William Whitworth, who wrote revealing profiles in The New Yorker giving voice to his idiomatic subjects and polished the prose of some of the nation’s celebrated writers as its associate editor before transplanting that magazine’s painstaking standards to The Atlantic, where he was editor in chief for 20 years, died on Friday in Conway, Ark., near Little Rock. He was 87.His daughter, Katherine Whitworth Stewart, announced the death. She said he was being treated after several falls and operations in a hospital.As a young college graduate, Mr. Whitworth forsook a promising career as a jazz trumpeter to do a different…

‘Apollo 10 ½: A Space Age Childhood’Watch it on Netflix.Stan (Milo Coy), a Texas fourth grader, is rounding the bases while playing kickball at recess one day when two NASA agents pull him off the playground to tell him they’re sending him to the moon. This being 1969, in a world before Apollo 11 took flight, Stan’s new mission is an extremely big deal. The agents, played by Glen Powell and Zachary Levi, tell Stan they were impressed by his science papers and by the fact that he won a Presidential Physical Fitness Award “three years running.” They need a…

For more than eight decades, Ireland’s Constitution has included language enshrining the role of women in the home, which equality advocates have long seen as a relic of a patriarchal past. On Friday, the Irish public will vote on proposals to change that language and to broaden the definition of what constitutes a family.The voting coincides with International Women’s Day and could be another milestone in a transformative few decades during which Ireland has reshaped its Constitution in ways that reflect the country’s more secular and liberal modern identity.If passed, the amendments would provide the latest updates to the Constitution,…