Author: NY TIMES

Winners and losers, orgies of gratitude, generous lashings of false humility — these are the things we expect from the Oscars. Beyond that, there are truly no certainties but one. There will be tuxedos.Durable, serviceable, flexible, the tuxedo is a time-tested form of combat gear for night owls, the epitome of uniform dressing and yet, for some reason, a form of suit that gives people the willies. It’s prom drag, they think. Or that ill-fitting rental sack with a stale Mentos in the pocket. Lately, though, the perception of how to wear evening clothes is changing, never more obviously so…

If the economy is slowing down, nobody told the labor market.Employers added 275,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported Friday, in another month that exceeded expectations.It was the third straight month of gains above 200,000, and the 38th consecutive month of growth — fresh evidence that after surging back from the pandemic shutdowns, America’s jobs engine still has plenty of steam.“We’ve been expecting a slowdown in the labor market, a more material loosening in conditions, but we’re just not seeing that,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief economist at High Frequency Economics.The previous two months, December and January, were revised down…

The United States should commit $1.6 billion to building an “extremely large telescope” that would vault American astronomy into a new era, according to the National Science Board, which advises the National Science Foundation.In a statement on Feb. 27, the board gave the foundation until May to decide how to choose between two competing proposals for the telescope. The announcement came as a relief to American astronomers, who have been fretting about losing ground to their European colleagues in the quest to examine the heavens with bigger and better telescopes.But which of the two telescopes will be built — and…

One of the few treatments the Food and Drug Administration has approved for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has failed a large clinical trial, and its manufacturer said Friday that it was considering whether to withdraw it from the market.The medication, called Relyvrio, was approved less than two years ago, despite questions about its effectiveness in treating the severe neurological disorder. At the time, the F.D.A.’s reviewers had concluded there was not yet sufficient evidence that the medication could help patients live longer or slow the rate at which they lose functions like muscle control, speaking or breathing without assistance.But the agency…

“Eternal Sunshine” is Grande’s most sustained collaboration with pop’s own Wizard of Oz, the Swedish hitmaker Max Martin, with whom she wrote or produced 11 of its 13 tracks. (Ilya Salmanzadeh, a longtime collaborator of both Grande and Martin, also helped write and produce much of the album.) Unsurprisingly, this is one of Grande’s most meticulously crafted and texturally consistent releases — it sounds as expensive as the gleaming treasures she sang about on “7 Rings” — though it lacks the whispered asides, rough edges and irreverent humor that made those last two albums so fun. Still, “Eternal Sunshine” is…

The first sea shipment of humanitarian relief to Gaza — food aid from the World Central Kitchen aid agency — could depart the Mediterranean nation of Cyprus within days, European Union officials said.Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Union’s executive body, described the shipment as a “pilot project” for a maritime aid corridor to Gaza, but offered few details of how it would take place or where in the territory it would be delivered. The renowned Spanish chef José Andrés, founder of the World Central Kitchen, posted images on social media Friday showing pallets being loaded onto a…

Two years ago, just six days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Biden opened his State of the Union address by vowing to stop Vladimir V. Putin in his tracks. The response in the House chamber was a series of standing ovations.On Thursday night Mr. Biden again opened his address by repeating his warning that, if not stopped, Mr. Putin would not halt his territorial ambitions at Ukraine’s borders. But the political environment was completely different.With many Republicans vowing not to vote for more aid and Ukrainians running short of ammunition and losing ground, Mr. Biden challenged them to…

Let’s start with an important qualifier: Carlos Alcaraz will probably do well.He is 20 years old this year. He has won two Grand Slam titles, but neither on clay, probably his best surface and certainly the surface he is most familiar with. At 19, he became the youngest person to reach the top spot.Even his top competitors, including contemporaries such as Jannik Sinner, expected Alcaraz to be the greatest player of his era. He will win many tournaments, many of them Grand Slams. It’s just that he hasn’t won a match since defeating Djokovic in five sets in the Wimbledon…

In early February Arturo Payamps, the general manager of a City Fresh Market grocery store in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, received a message on WhatsApp from a friend. It included a link to a TikTok video showing the outside of the store with a sign for Erewhon, the trendy organic grocer in Los Angeles, in the place where a City Fresh sign was mounted after the market opened in the early 2000s.“Have you tried the Bushwick Erewhon yet?” read the caption of the TikTok post.Mr. Payamps, 42, said in an interview on Tuesday that he “was in shock” after…

After the speech, the deluge — of punditry, that is.The instant hot takes about President Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday split mostly along partisan lines on cable news, with Mr. Biden’s on-air sympathizers praising his forceful delivery, while his usual critics suggested that he came across at times as overly agitated and rancorous.Here’s a sampling of commentary from CNN, Fox News and MSNBC:CNNDana Bash, chief political correspondent: “They wanted him to be a fighter, and, boy, a fight did he deliver.”John King, chief national correspondent: “He came out punching and came out swinging right from the beginning.”Alyssa…