Author: NY TIMES

The fighting had become increasingly ferocious last month at the Zenith air-defense base a mile south of Avdiivka, where for years a company of Ukrainian soldiers had defended the southern approaches to the city.Russian troops had moved up on their flanks and were pounding them from all sides with tank, artillery and mortar fire, smashing their defenses and wounding men.“Every day we tried to repel enemy attacks,” said Senior Soldier Viktor Biliak, a 26-year-old with the 110th Mechanized Brigade, who had spent 620 days defending the base. “All the fortifications were being destroyed and there was no possibility to build…

One month, four cities, hundreds of shows. After all that, Nicolas Ghesquière of Louis Vuitton brought the curtain down on the fall season with a no-holds-barred 10th anniversary show — in front of 4,000 celebrities, guests and brand employees — that not only celebrated his decade at the house but the whole absurd, delightful enterprise known as fashion.Imagine an enormous, bombastic set in the Louvre courtyard called the Cour Carrée, with a glowing orb created by the French artist Philippe Parreno at its center, sending out beams of light like an alien starship. Well, sometimes this industry and what it…

Tempo by Hilton is offering rooms divided into three zones, including “an enveloping sleep environment” with a Sealy Accelerate temperature-controlled mattress and sound-absorbing acoustics; lights that dim at sunset; and, in some rooms, Peloton bikes, for people who consider exercise their Ambien.At the Conrad Bali, guests can book a private 60-minute SWAY session in the spa (starting at 1,500,000 rupiahs, or about $95), which entails lying in a swinging, aerial, swaddled hammock that looks a lot like an actual cocoon. The rocking is meant to mimic floating on a cloud or being in the womb.At the Beaumont in London, travelers…

To a growing number of youths, a wallet stuffed with cash and cards is as unfashionable as the millennial tuck, no-show socks and skinny jeans. To the cool kids, carrying only a smartphone is the way. Iykyk — that’s “if you know, you know,” for those who don’t know.I, Brian Chen, a graying 39-year-old tech columnist, am not one of those in the know. It’s unfathomable to me to part with my wallet, which holds crucial items like my driver’s license. So in an effort to be hip again, I recruited my 23-year-old colleague Yiwen Lu to ask the young…

Listen on YouTube◆ ◆ ◆Giovanni Russonello, Times jazz critic“Trayra Boia” by CodonaYou can tell Don Cherry wasn’t wedded to any one instrument, from the way he played the trumpet. OK, that sounds like faint praise, or arch — but it’s not. Sound came out of his horn in splatters and whistles, with a blend of playfulness and deep spirit that made it clear that the vessel he used mattered little. By the late 1960s, Cherry was playing flutes, keyboards, percussion instruments — anything he could get his hands or his lungs on. In 1978 he formed Codona with Collin Walcott…

A top member of Israel’s war cabinet was to meet with the British foreign secretary, David Cameron, on Wednesday, as Israel’s allies, including the United States, express strong concerns over the humanitarian situation in Gaza and stress the need for a pause in fighting.Benny Gantz, a former army chief and a top political rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s, is visiting London a day after holding closed-door meetings in Washington with a host of officials and political leaders including Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III. On his trip to Washington, Mr. Gantz…

Panama’s electoral tribunal disqualified former President Ricardo Martinelli from running in the May presidential election in light of a 10-year sentence he received for money laundering.The body, which oversees the country’s electoral process, reached the decision on Monday night after 10 hours of debate. In a statement, it said his disqualification was the result of his having been sentenced to more than five years in prison for an intentional crime.Panama’s Supreme Court last month denied Mr. Martinelli’s appeal of the money laundering conviction in a case in which prosecutors said funds were obtained from government contractors for the 2010 purchase…

Then, just hours before another show, when Mr. Yamamoto requested a “wearable,” Ms. Harui said she grabbed a handful of the conical forms she uses as ring displays and strung them together into an arm piece. Her boss approved. “He likes it when creative people do their own thing,” she said.There’s a similarly spur-of-the-moment feel to the collection’s artfully tangled necklaces, like one in a jumble of leather and brass, offered on the Yohji Yamamoto website. And amid the blackened silver chains and wedges of smoky quartz or garnets set on rings and ear cuffs are discreet variations on Ms.…

Mysterious damage to vital communications cables under the Red Sea has raised concerns about whether the conflict in the Middle East is now beginning to threaten the global internet.Just as the waters off Yemen hold crucial shipping lanes, they are also a critical location for undersea cables that carry email and other digital traffic between Asia and the West. Around a dozen cables run through the area, and more are planned.These bundles of glass fibers, about as thick as a garden hose, “are extremely important,” said Tim Stronge, vice president for research at TeleGeography, which analyzes the telecommunications market. “Over…

Bitcoin hit a record high of more than $69,000 on Tuesday, capping a remarkable comeback for the volatile cryptocurrency after its value plunged in 2022 amid a market meltdown.Bitcoin’s price has risen more than 300 percent since November 2022, a resurgence that few predicted when the price dropped below $20,000 that year. Its previous record was just under $68,790 in November 2021, as crypto markets boomed and amateur investors poured savings into experimental digital coins.The cryptocurrency was “pronounced dead for the 150th time,” said Cory Klippsten, the chief executive of Swan, a financial services firm focused on Bitcoin. “And Bitcoin…