Author: NY TIMES

Last summer, Lincoln Center bid farewell to the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, a fixture of the city’s cultural scene since 1973, saying it was time to reimagine the ensemble for a modern and more inclusive age.On Monday, the center offered a preview of its plans. While the ensemble will remain the same in size and membership, it now has a new name, a new music director and a program aimed at drawing more diverse audiences to classical music.The Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, as the ensemble is now called, will convene in July for its first season under the rising…

American warplanes destroyed or severely damaged most of the Iranian and militia targets they struck in Syria and Iraq on Friday, according to the Pentagon, the first major salvos in what President Biden and his aides have said will be a sustained campaign.Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said on Monday that “more than 80” of some 85 targets in Syria and Iraq were destroyed or rendered inoperable. The targets, he said, included command hubs; intelligence centers; depots for rockets, missiles and attack drones; as well as logistics and ammunition bunkers.It was the first military assessment of…

American warplanes destroyed or severely damaged most of the Iranian and militia targets they struck in Syria and Iraq on Friday, according to the Pentagon, the first major salvos in what President Biden and his aides have said will be a sustained campaign.Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said on Monday that “more than 80” of some 85 targets in Syria and Iraq were destroyed or rendered inoperable. The targets, he said, included command hubs; intelligence centers; depots for rockets, missiles and attack drones; as well as logistics and ammunition bunkers.It was the first military assessment of…

LIV Golf got an opportunity on Sunday.The final round of the PGA Tour was postponed due to adverse weather conditions at Pebble Beach, allowing the first event of the LIV 2024 season to be played. This was Jon Rahm’s first tournament as a LIV golfer, as Rahm competed for the championship in Mayakoba, Mexico. Even though LIV spent a lot of money to get off the ground and fill out its 54-player roster, sometimes luck still gives you the best chance.So how does this 3-year-old product perform? I have some ideas.Legion before meRahm didn’t win on Sunday — he went…

Some of the banking industry’s most powerful trade groups sued the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Monday, claiming that the regulators overstepped their authority in updating a law meant to reverse the effects of redlining.In October, the regulators imposed new frameworks for assessing whether banks are abiding by the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act, which requires banks to do business in neighborhoods made up largely of racial minorities or low-income households that they typically shunned.The lawsuit said the rule was “a complicated and burdensome regime” and might “ultimately result…

Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who now has a show on the social network X, has been spotted in Moscow in recent days, leading to speculation in Russia and the United States that he is about to achieve his long-stated goal of interviewing President Vladimir V. Putin.If so, Mr. Carlson would be the first American media figure to land a formal interview with the Russian leader since he invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago.Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, has indicated that Mr. Putin was denying requests from Western new outlets because their countries had been “stupefied” by anti-Russian…

When at the end of show, Swift’s “Midnights” was named album of the year — her fourth time winning the top prize, a record — she brought Lana Del Rey onstage and, in essence, urged the Grammys to recalibrate its relationship to Del Rey’s work: “I think she’s a legacy artist, a legend and in her prime right now.” (Del Rey also works frequently with Jack Antonoff, Swift’s primary producer.)But perhaps no Grammy winner or performer moved more blithely through the night than Miley Cyrus, pop’s most chameleonic star. When she performed “Flowers,” she razzed the seemingly sleepy audience: “Why…

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken began a diplomatic push in the Middle East on Monday for a deal that would pause the war in the Gaza Strip and release the hostages there, even as a drone struck a military base used by American troops and allied forces in eastern Syria.Mr. Blinken, making his fifth trip to the region since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, met in Riyadh with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, in the first stop on a trip that will also include meetings in Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the West Bank.Speaking with the crown…

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain took an unaccustomed victory lap on Monday, visiting Belfast to celebrate the restoration of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government. His ministers struck a deal last week that brought the North’s disaffected unionists back into the territory’s assembly.For Mr. Sunak, who is embattled on so many other fronts, it was a rare unalloyed success — significant not just because it ended two years of political stalemate in Northern Ireland, but also because, some analysts believe, it could shore up a United Kingdom that has seemed in danger of spinning apart since Brexit.With the revival of self-government…

Award shows are in their rebound era.The Grammy Awards notched 16.9 million viewers on Sunday night, a 34 percent increase from last year’s ceremony, according to Nielsen and CBS, which aired the show. It was the most-watched Grammy Awards since the 2020 ceremony, shortly before the pandemic — and up significantly from 2021, when only 8.8 million people watched.Sunday night’s telecast, hosted by Trevor Noah, had plenty of star power, with Taylor Swift, Jay-Z, Miley Cyrus, Billie Eilish and Beyoncé all making appearances. Tracy Chapman and Joni Mitchell dazzled critics with rare television performances.The Grammys’ performance is part of a…