Author: NY TIMES

Faced with declining foreign investment at home, China has sought to soften its image in the United States and Europe and make nice with some of its neighbors. One Communist Party official has played an unusually prominent role in the shift in tone.In New York, he told an audience of scholars and businesspeople that China did not seek to rewrite the United States-led global order. In Paris, he said that China’s modernization would benefit Europe and the world. In Beijing, he told the ambassador of India, a regional rival, that China hoped relations would “return to a healthy and stable”…

Jenny Cavnar continues to climb the broadcast ranks, this time making history in her new job as the Oakland Athletics’ play-by-play announcer.The A’s announced the hiring of Cavnaar on Tuesday, making her the first female primary play-by-play voice in Major League Baseball history.”Joining the broadcast team of the Oakland Athletics and their rich baseball history is a dream come true,” Cavnar said in a statement. “As the daughter of a baseball coach, I grew up loving the sport. , and the stories, history and relationships it offers.”Cavnar will work alongside NBC Sports California color commentator Dallas Braden, who welcomed her…

In 1977, he became managing editor of The Presbyterian Journal, a struggling publication in Asheville founded in 1942 by L. Nelson Bell (the Rev. Billy Graham’s father-in-law). Mr. Belz later proposed that the organization start a children’s magazine much like the Weekly Reader he had devoured growing up before moving on to Time magazine.It did, and the magazine, It’s God’s World, was a hit.When some parents suggested an adult version, Mr. Belz gave it a try with World. The magazine didn’t catch on as fast as the children’s magazine, but it eventually did, and the organization’s board discontinued The Presbyterian…

How common is it?In the United States, there are an average of seven human cases per year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 80 percent of those cases are the bubonic form of the disease.The disease is most common in rural, Western areas, especially in parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon. In those places, the bacteria can circulate in prairie dogs, ground squirrels, chipmunks, wood rats, and other animals.Globally, 1,000 to 2,000 cases are reported each year, according to the C.D.C.How do cats get the plague?Cats can be infected when they…

The only real bummer about “Madame Web,” the latest installment in the Spider-Man chronicles, isn’t that it’s bad, but that it never achieves memorably terrible status. The story is absurd, the dialogue snort-out-loud risible, the fights uninspired. Even so, there are glimmers of wit and competency. And then there’s its star, Dakota Johnson, who has a fascinating, seemingly natural ability to appear wholly detached from the nonsense swirling around her. Most actors at least try to sell the shoddy goods; Johnson serenely floats above it all.A misterioso clairvoyant, Madame Web is a secondary Spider-Man character who met the web-weaver in…

“We call on everyone, especially the Hamas movement, to quickly complete the deal so that we can protect our people and remove all obstacles,” Mr. Abbas said in a statement reported by Wafa, the authority’s official news agency. Mr. Abbas leads Fatah, a political party that is a rival of Hamas.With food, water and medicine in desperately short supply in Gaza, the Biden administration on Wednesday called on Israel to stop blocking flour shipments to UNRWA, the main U.N. aid agency for Palestinians in Gaza.Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said on Tuesday that he had issued a directive not…

A Paris appeals court upheld on Wednesday the 2021 conviction of former President Nicolas Sarkozy for illegally financing an election campaign but cut his sentence from one year to six months with a further six months suspended.Mr. Sarkozy’s lawyer, Vincent Desry, immediately said that Mr. Sarkozy would appeal to France’s highest court. “Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy is fully innocent,” he said. “He has taken note of this decision and decided to appeal to the Court of Cassation.”The appeal could take years to be resolved, ensuring that Mr. Sarkozy remains free for the foreseeable future. Whether he will ever serve time in…

The physical altercation that resulted in Tottenham Hotspur and South Korea captain Son Heung-min dislocating his finger has been brewing for weeks.South Korea’s performance at the Asian Cup in Qatar has been very jarring over the past month or so, with divisions everywhere. Opinions are mixed among head coach Jurgen Klinsmann, who is said to believe the team lacks team spirit, with disagreements among big-name players such as Son Heung-min, Wolves’ Hwang Hee-chan and Paris Saints. – Teutonic’s Lee Kang-in and Bayern Munich’s defender Kim Min-jae, as well as inexperienced players.It is understood that 31-year-old captain Son Heung-min believes some…

In the almost five decades that Bernhard Lederer has been working with timepieces — making and maintaining clocks and watches with complications such as chronographs and tourbillons — one component has been his obsession: the escapement.It is the part of a mechanical timepiece that regulates the gears so the watch runs and keeps time accurately. It essentially sets the pace of the entire mechanism.“I don’t see myself as a complication watchmaker,” Mr. Lederer said in a phone interview from his office in St.-Blaise, Switzerland, a small town on Lake Neuchâtel. “The words complicate and complication are so close. I love…

Angela Chao, the chief executive of a shipping company and part of a family prominent in American politics and business deals with China, died in a car crash on Sunday, in Texas. She was 50.Her family confirmed her death. Details about the accident were not immediately available.Ms. Chao had since 2018 been the chair and chief executive of the Chao family’s Foremost Group, which operates a global fleet of bulk carrier ships. The vessels are used to transport commodities like iron ore and soybeans.She was a sister of Elaine Chao, who served as secretary of transportation under former President Donald…