Author: NY TIMES

The death of Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, Aleksei A. Navalny, at a remote Arctic prison on Friday ended one of the most audacious political careers of modern times and left wartime Russia without its most charismatic antiwar voice.Mr. Navalny, whose death was reported by Russian authorities, stood as the most outspoken critic of President Vladimir V. Putin for more than a decade, harnessing broad opposition to the Russian leader more successfully than any other foe of the Kremlin. After surviving a poisoning widely seen as the Kremlin’s doing in 2020 and recovering in Germany, Mr. Navalny returned to Russia…

When Ann Maddox agreed to become the personal assistant for a Bravo reality TV star in December 2020, she thought she would be organizing closets and running errands while building out her acting résumé. Three years later, that gig has evolved into her being the primary mediator between a couple at the heart of one of reality television’s most explosive breakups.Until just a few weeks ago, Ms. Maddox, 42, worked as the personal assistant for Tom Sandoval, one of the stars of “Vanderpump Rules,” who broke the internet last year when the news emerged that he had cheated on his…

The pandemic created an economic crisis unlike any recession on record. So perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that the aftermath, too, has played out in a way that almost no economists expected.When unemployment soared in the first weeks of the pandemic, many feared a repeat of the long, slow rebound from the Great Recession: years of joblessness that left many workers permanently scarred. Instead, the recovery in the labor market has been, by many measures, the strongest on record.In early 2021, some economists foresaw a surge in inflation. Others were skeptical: Similar predictions in recent years — in some cases…

These days, it’s common for a true crime story to go viral, but that interest often gathers momentum only after an investigation, documentary, podcast or online conversation brings to light a previously unfamiliar saga. For this streaming list, I wanted to look instead at stories that were, to some degree, viral already, and where that buzz was essential to the yarn itself — altering or shaping the unusual events. Here are four memorable offerings.Documentary filmCaleb McGillvary, known as Kai, may have been among the first so-called milkshake ducks, a term for a noncelebrity who delights the internet, only to fall…

Ukraine ordered the complete withdrawal from the ruined city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine before dawn on Saturday, surrendering a city that had been a military stronghold for the better part of a decade, in the face of withering Russian bombardment and relentless assault.“Based on the operational situation around Avdiivka, in order to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of servicemen, I decided to withdraw our units from the city and move to defense on more favorable lines,” Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top military commander, said in a statement issued overnight. The fall of Avdiivka, a city that…

Falling in love with Ms. Upadhyaya replaced that inclination with the desire for something more long-lasting. In January 2020, she was accepted into a six-month writing fellowship program in Las Vegas, and she invited Ms. Upadhyaya to come with her. For Ms. Upadhyaya, whose freelance career gave her the flexibility to travel, the decision was easy.“We were excited to live together, and happy,” Ms. Upadhyaya said. Two months later, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, “we ended up being stuck there together,” she said. Neither minded.When Ms. Arnett eventually brought Ms. Upadhyaya to the famed 7-Eleven store, her “everyday…

Shell, Europe’s largest energy company, forecast on Wednesday that global demand for liquefied natural gas, which has been a lifeline for Europe after Russia cut off pipeline gas supplies, will surge by around 50 percent over the next 15 years.The main source of growth is expected to be in China, which will switch from coal to gas in industry to cut emissions, Shell said.The fuel, which is chilled to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit and transported on specialized ships, has become a significant moneymaker for Shell as part of a unit that earned $7 billion last year. But it has also…

In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.To tell the sweeping story of the Osage murders of the 1920s in “Killers of the Flower Moon” (nominated for 10 Oscars, including best picture), the director Martin Scorsese opted mostly not to sweep the camera along with the narrative.“Dealing with the landscape and the period, I tended to have more stable images,”…

This was not the speech she expected to give, at least not on this day. Yulia Navalnaya had come to a gathering of world leaders in Munich to press them to remember her imprisoned husband and her troubled country.And then just as the conference opened on Friday morning came word from Russian state media that her husband, the crusading, defiant dissident Aleksei A. Navalny, was dead in one of President Vladimir V. Putin’s prisons.By her own admission, her first thought was to fly away, to join her grown children to mourn in private a man who had already survived a…

In Caitlin Clark’s three-plus seasons at Iowa State, she regularly charged forward and surpassed anything in front of her. Often, this means getting blown over by a defender on the way to the rim for a layup. At times, she’ll drive off screens and away from opponents to create space for a catch-and-shoot three. Since the start of the season, Clark has been aiming to match former Washington star Kelsey Plumb’s NCAA women’s basketball scoring record of 3,527 points. “(She’s) ready to knock it down,” Hawkeyes coach Lisa Bluder told the Big Ten Network last week. “It’s not a burden…