Author: NY TIMES

A brand-new rocket lifted off early Monday morning from Cape Canaveral, Fla., sending a robotic spacecraft toward the surface of the moon.The launch of the vehicle, the Vulcan rocket, was flawless. The spacecraft it carried, built by Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, separated 50 minutes into the flight, and its systems powered on successfully.However, a few hours later, Astrobotic reported on the social media service X that the spacecraft, known as Peregrine, was having trouble keeping its solar panels pointed at the sun to generate power.The company then said the likely cause of the problem was a malfunction of Peregrine’s propulsion…

A week ago, holiday titles dominated Billboard’s album chart, occupying half the top 10. But now that streaming playlists are no longer overindexing on roasting chestnuts, things have gone back to normal. Which means, of course, that Taylor Swift is (still) on top.Swift’s “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” her latest rerecording, holds at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, the sixth time the album has landed at the top since its release 10 weeks ago. In a slow week for music sales, though, the new “1989” held its perch with the equivalent of a modest 64,000 sales in the United States,…

Israel said its military is starting to shift from a large-scale ground and air campaign in the Gaza Strip to a more targeted phase in its war against Hamas, and Israeli officials have privately told their American counterparts that they hoped the transition would be completed by the end of January, U.S. officials said. Israel’s disclosure came as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken was expected in Israel to press officials there to curtail their campaign in Gaza and to prevent the war from spreading across the region, particularly in the aftermath of an Israeli strike last week that killed…

Hezbollah said on Monday that one of its commanders had been killed in a strike in southern Lebanon, adding to concerns that Israel’s fight against Hamas in Gaza could erupt into a wider regional war.The killing of the commander, identified by Hezbollah as Wissam Hassan al-Tawil, came as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited troops near the border with Lebanon and vowed that Israel “will do everything to restore security to the north,” according to his office.Hezbollah, based in Lebanon, and Israel have traded increasingly intense and deadly cross-border fire since the Israel-Hamas war began three months ago, eliciting Israeli…

The NBA announced Saturday that Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green has returned to play following a 12-game suspension. Green has been in counseling for several weeks and has held progress meetings with the league and the Warriors.”During the suspension that began on December 14 and resulted in him missing 12 games, Green completed a number of steps that demonstrated his commitment to bringing his conduct into compliance with the standards expected of an NBA player,” executive vice president and head coach Joe Biden said in a statement. Joe Dumars said. The NBA Basketball Operations Department said in a statement.”He…

When is it appropriate (is it ever appropriate?) to wear a fully matching sweatsuit, top and bottom? When I see people wearing a paired sweatshirt and sweatpants, I sometimes think “cringe.” And sometimes I can’t help but want to wear it, too. Which side of me is right? — Pepper, New YorkKarl Lagerfeld, the Chanel designer whose talent for dramatic pronouncements was equaled only by his talent for dreaming up extraordinary clothes, once declared sweatpants “a sign of defeat.”That pronouncement would suggest that the full sweatpants-and-sweatshirt look otherwise known as the sweatsuit, that shapeless pairing once synonymous with older gym…

Boeing’s share price fell sharply on Monday, in the first trading session after part of the fuselage of one of its 737 Max 9 jets blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight on Friday night.Boeing’s stock slipped nearly 7 percent and Spirit AeroSystems, which made the door plug that was torn from the plane, fell about 8 percent, recovering from a far steeper decline in early trading.The Alaska Airlines flight departing from Portland, Ore., lost the mid-cabin door plug midair, exposing passengers to howling winds and forcing an emergency landing. None of the 171 passengers and six crew members aboard…

TikTok has quietly restricted one of its few tools to help measure the popularity of trends on the video app, after the tool’s results were used by researchers and lawmakers to scrutinize content on the site related to geopolitics and the Israel-Hamas war.The tool, called the Creative Center, is meant to help advertisers track popular hashtags on the site. The Creative Center is available to anyone and can produce figures about the number of videos tied to a certain hashtag and information about the audience that saw those videos.The company’s critics had harnessed the tool to argue that TikTok, which…

June Jackson Christmas, a psychiatrist who broke barriers as a Black woman by heading New York City’s Department of Mental Health and Retardation Services under three mayors, died on Sunday in the Bronx. She was 99.Her daughter, Rachel Christmas Derrick, said she died in a hospital of heart failure.As a city commissioner, as chief of rehabilitation services at Harlem Hospital Center, and in her role overseeing the transition of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare to a Democratic administration for President-elect Jimmy Carter, Dr. Christmas ardently advanced her professional agenda.Her priorities included improving mental health services for older…

Norby Walters, a booking agent for some of the country’s top disco, R&B, funk and hip-hop artists whose aggressive leap in the 1980s into signing college athletes to secret contracts before they turned pro led to legal problems, died on Dec. 10 in Burbank, Calif. He was 91.His son Gary confirmed the death, at an assisted living facility.Mr. Walters found his footing in show business through his ownership of restaurants, pizzerias, mambo joints and nightclubs, including the Norby Walters Supper Club on the East Side of Manhattan, near the Copacabana, which he opened in 1966.He walked away from the club…