Author: NY TIMES

The tenure of Chad Smith, the innovative arts leader who last year left the Los Angeles Philharmonic to run the comparatively old-fashioned Boston Symphony Orchestra, is beginning to take shape.In an announcement on Thursday, the Boston Symphony said that Andris Nelsons, its music director, would move to a rolling, evergreen contract rather than one with a fixed expiration date, and that he would take on a new, educational role as the head of conducting at Tanglewood.Additionally, the orchestra appointed Carlos Simon to a newly created post of composer chair; and announced that it would establish the Boston Symphony Orchestra Humanities…

Several countries said over the weekend that they would suspend funding for the United Nations agency that provides food, water and other essential services for Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip.The announcements came after Israel accused a dozen employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, of participating in the Oct. 7 attacks led by Hamas. The United Nations said on Friday that it had fired the accused workers and was investigating.Here are the countries that have said their funding of the agency would be affected in some way, ranked according to the amount they have pledged.The…

Israel’s accusations against 12 employees of the United Nations aid agency for Palestinians, the main aid operation in Gaza, are the latest episode of a decades-long friction between Israel and the group.The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, known as UNRWA, is one of the oldest U.N. agencies, founded in 1949 to care for Palestinian Arabs who had fled or been forced from their homes during the wars surrounding the creation of the state of Israel in the late 1940s. When a separate U.N. agency was later founded for refugees of other conflicts, UNRWA remained independent.To Palestinians and their supporters,…

They were in a hurry, this group of young tennis stars, with no interest in waiting for their turn to take over the sport or respecting their elders. On a warm Sunday night at Rod Laver Arena, 22-year-old rising star Jannik Sinner from Italy became the latest member of the “next generation” to win a Grand Slam title. He rallied from two sets down to beat Daniil Medvedev 3-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 in one of the game’s ultimate showdowns. Won the Australian Open for the first time. In the process, he became the second player under the age of…

It’s not every day that Francis Ford Coppola deigns to weigh in on a TikTok trend.But he made an exception for the so-called mob wife aesthetic — a louche amalgamation of fur coats, leather and leopard prints that are being presented on the platform as a kind of mafiosa cosplay.In a recent Instagram post, Mr. Coppola, the director of “The Godfather,” compared the style to that of Connie Corleone, a character from the film portrayed by his sister, Talia Shire: “a sultry, delightful Italian princess.”Hundreds of videos on the app show young women with no apparent marital relationship to organized…

Ring, a home security camera company owned by Amazon, said that it would stop letting police departments request users’ footage in its app amid longstanding concerns from privacy advocates about the company’s relationship with law enforcement.Eric Kuhn, the general manager of subscriptions and software for the Ring app Neighbors, announced on Wednesday that the company was shutting down a feature that allowed the police to request and receive videos from users of the app, a social platform similar to Nextdoor and Citizen where people can share alerts about crime near their home.Mr. Kuhn did not say why Ring was eliminating…

The Federal Trade Commission opened an inquiry on Thursday into the multibillion-dollar investments by Microsoft, Amazon and Google in the artificial intelligence start-ups OpenAI and Anthropic, broadening the regulator’s efforts to corral the power the tech giants can have over A.I.These deals have allowed the big companies to form deep ties with their smaller rivals while dodging most government scrutiny. Microsoft has invested billions of dollars in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, while Amazon and Google have each committed billions of dollars to Anthropic, another leading A.I. start-up.Regulators have typically focused on bringing antitrust lawsuits against deals where the tech…

The work is a guaranteed success. After it is over, audience members leap out of their seats for a standing ovation.Such has been the response to “Rhapsody in Blue” ever since its premiere 100 years ago, on Feb. 12, 1924. George Gershwin had been asked by the conductor Paul Whiteman to supply a “jazz concerto” for the event An Experiment in Modern Music at Aeolian Hall in Manhattan, and the landscape of American music hasn’t been the same since.Thanks to the centennial, you’re likely to come across a lot of “Rhapsody” performances this year — not that the anniversary makes…

The State Department notified Congress on Friday that it had approved a $23 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets and related equipment to Turkey after the country’s leader signed documents to allow Sweden’s long-delayed entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, department officials and the Pentagon said.Although Congress could move to formally block the sale, four senior lawmakers told the State Department on Friday evening that they would not object, after their aides reviewed the documents signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, U.S. officials said.Congressional officials had demanded to see the documents before signaling their approval of the…

Two masked attackers shot and killed one person during a church service on Sunday in Istanbul, Turkish officials said. The motive was not immediately clear.The attack took place around 11:40 a.m. at the Santa Maria church, an Italian Catholic church in the Sariyer district of Istanbul, the interior minister, Ali Yerlikaya, wrote on the social media platform X. Mr. Yerlikaya gave only the victim’s initials, C.T., and said that an investigation into the shooting was underway and that the authorities were looking for the assailants.“Such provocations will never be allowed in our country,” Akif Cagatay Kilic, a top adviser to…