Author: NY TIMES

Justin Peck was around 17 when he first heard the Sufjan Stevens album “Illinois,” an epic paean to the state, nearly two dozen tracks brimming with orchestral indie rock, dense, lyrical wistfulness and sometimes obscure local history. This listening experience came long before Peck wanted to make dances, before he was even a professional dancer.But “Illinois” urged him to move. “It was an instantaneous, illuminating thing that I felt like it was so danceable,” said Peck, now the resident choreographer and artistic adviser at New York City Ballet. “And it is so rare to find someone who can conjure that,…

Why does this election matter?Iran is holding parliamentary elections on March 1, the first general vote since an uprising, led by women and girls, swept across the country in 2022, calling for an end to the Islamic Republic’s rule. The government violently crushed the protests, but demands for change endure and many Iranians view boycotting the vote as an act of protest.Election turnout is expected to be low, especially in the capital, Tehran, and other major cities, according to the government’s own polls cited in Iranian media. The election is important because voter turnout is viewed by both supporters and…

When the Bosnian sheep farmer fled his home in a disintegrating Yugoslavia in 1992, trekking with his family for 40 days to escape the start of a war that would pit neighbor against neighbor, the village he left behind had more than 400 people, two shops and a school.More than half the villagers were fellow Muslims, the rest Serbs, but nobody, he said, paid much attention to that until extremist politicians started screaming for blood.After more than a decade away from his home in eastern Bosnia, the farmer, Fikret Puhalo, 61, returned to his village, Socice. By then it had…

When Daniel Jones started the Modern Love column in 2004, he opened the call for submissions and hoped the idea would catch on. Twenty years later, over a thousand Modern Love essays have been published in The New York Times, and the column is a trove of real-life love stories.Dan has put so much of himself into editing the column over the years, but as he tells our host, Anna Martin, the column has influenced him, too. Today, Dan shares three Modern Love essays that have changed the way he thinks about love and relationships in his own life.Also, Anna…

China passed revisions to an already stringent state secrets law, broadening the scope of the type of information that would be considered a national security risk in the world’s second-largest economy.The changes elevate the risks for foreign businesses operating in the country. Over the last year, China has targeted consultants and business executives in espionage cases as part of a push to limit the spread of information sought by investors and foreign companies.The amendments to the state secrets law, which were passed by China’s top legislative body on Tuesday and go into effect in May, include a new legal concept…

“Becoming King,” a documentary on Paramount+, traces the actor David Oyelowo’s journey to playing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Ava DuVernay’s 2014 drama “Selma.”Directed by Jessica Oyelowo (the actor’s wife), it’s a lackluster, dutiful affair that plays more like a hagiographic appreciation of David Oyelowo than a tribute to the making of “Selma.” In part, the documentary seems like a reaction to Oyelowo’s Oscars snub the following year in the best actor category, though it does a lousy job at making its case.The first part of the film digs into Oyelowo’s origins: first, as a child who…

The spending showdown that has brought the government to the brink of a partial shutdown this week is being fueled by Republicans in Congress, who, after failing in their efforts to slash federal funding, are still insisting on right-wing policy dictates.House Republicans loaded up their spending bills with hundreds of partisan policy mandates, a vast majority of which had no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate or being signed by President Biden.They include measures to target various pieces of Mr. Biden’s agenda, such as one to restrict access to abortion medication and another to restrict the Department of Veterans Affairs…

Standing on the grand staircase of Lynda and Stewart Resnick’s opulent Beverly Hills mansion at a party last fall — where Diane Keaton, Bob Iger and Brian Grazer were among the luminaries making small talk over crudités and Sazerac cocktails — the author Walter Isaacson took a moment to thank his hosts.Not only were the Resnicks giving the party to celebrate his new biography of Elon Musk, they had also been major supporters of his former professional home, the Aspen Institute, donating $36 million to the think tank over the years.Isaacson was not the only one in the room with…

Everything went out the window. I couldn’t remember the notes to the song. I was so terrified and nervous that I actually walked out. I said, “I’m sorry, but this is not the best of me. I would hate for you all to think this is how I am as an artist.” As soon as that happened, I cried my little eyeballs out, I was just devastated, but I went straight into singing and dance lessons so that when I came into my next audition, I would be ready. And then my next Broadway audition was with that same casting…

Russia warned against NATO troops in UkraineRussia warned yesterday that a ground intervention in Ukraine by any NATO country would lead to a direct clash between the Western military alliance and Russian forces. The response came a day after France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, made a provocative comment about the possibility of allied countries sending in troops.The Kremlin called the open discussion of NATO ground troops in Ukraine “a very important new element” and warned that “this is, of course, not in the interest of these countries.”European countries rushed to distance themselves from Macron’s comment, and the NATO chief said the…