Author: NY TIMES

The next time you’re on a plane, if the person next to you doesn’t seem to own anything that isn’t bright red, it might be Celia Paerels. Kindle case, sweater, sunglasses, headphones, charging cord, everything in shocking scarlet: It’s how she avoids leaving anything behind in the seat or the seat pocket.“Everybody clues into red,” said Ms. Paerels, 62, of Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y. “If you see a cardinal, you’ll know it’s a cardinal. You don’t notice a sparrow.”Ms. Paerels is one of more than 180 New York Times readers who responded to our invitation in September to share their favorite travel…

The Chinese spies wanted more. In meetings during the pandemic with Chinese technology contractors, they complained that surveillance cameras tracking foreign diplomats, military officers and intelligence operatives in Beijing’s embassy district fell short of their needs.The spies asked for an artificial intelligence program that would create instant dossiers on every person of interest in the area and analyze their behavior patterns. They proposed feeding the A.I. program information from databases and scores of cameras that would include car license plates, cellphone data, contacts and more.The A.I.-generated profiles would allow the Chinese spies to select targets and pinpoint their networks and…

“The music stays as beautiful as it is,” said Andreas Staier, an eminent interpreter of early keyboard music who has a rare blood disease. Source link

Israeli news outlets had previously quoted survivors of the massacre saying that an Israeli tank had fired on a house where Hamas fighters were holding hostages during the lengthy battle to retake Be’eri. In an article published on Friday by The New York Times, the Israeli commander who led the fight detailed how he had authorized tank fire to end what was already an hourslong standoff — “even at the cost of civilian casualties.”Those remarks have been picked up by the Israeli news media and prompted some public debate about the conduct of the commander, Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram. Only…

A court in Siberia on Friday sentenced an ally of the jailed Russian opposition leader Aleksei A. Navalny to nine years in a penal colony for running an “extremist organization,” according to her legal team. The sentence signals the Kremlin’s willingness to continue cracking down on members of Mr. Navalny’s political group years after it was banned in Russia.In 2020, the defendant, Ksenia V. Fadeyeva, won a seat in the municipal parliament in the Siberian city of Tomsk, a position she occupied while she was also the coordinator of Mr. Navalny’s political office in the region.Mr. Navalny, the only politician…

While some tried and true wedding traditions may have lost their luster, wedding professionals are taking note of modern iterations that honor and elevate classic trends.“Couples are looking to put their own spin on traditions and refresh them,” said Heather Balliet, an owner of Amorology Weddings, a wedding planning and event company in San Diego. “They want to update and personalize them while holding onto remnants.”Here are a few old-school wedding traditions that have undergone inventive upgrades for the modern age. From cozy, family dining to floating cakes, industry experts share examples of how events have evolved as couples seek…

Like most of the those working in the coconut groves that fill out the northern lip of the Philippine island of Mindanao, Diego G. Limbaro has never imagined another life. His father pulled himself up the skinny tree trunks of the surrounding plantations, wielding a machete to detach coconuts. So did his father’s father.Such multigenerational experiences are typical throughout the Misamis Oriental province. Harvesting coconuts — separating the meat from the husk, and processing the bounty into oil and juice — is one of the very few ways to earn sustenance.People labor six days a week in the tropical swelter,…

This was the year — ask your stockbroker, or the disgraced management of Sports Illustrated — that artificial intelligence went from a dreamy projection to an ambient menace and perpetual sales pitch. Does it feel like the future to you, or has A.I. already taken on the staleness and scamminess of the now-worthless nonfungible token?Artists have been deploying A.I. technologies for a while, after all: Ed Atkins, Martine Syms, Ian Cheng and Agnieszka Kurant have made use of neural networks and large language models for years, and orchestras were playing A.I.-produced Bach variations back in the 1990s. I suppose there…

Until shortly before my trip I wasn’t sure I’d be allowed into Villa Verdi: The house has been closed to the public for more than a year, ever since Verdi’s heirs, who lived on its upper floors even as tourists roamed the ground floor, moved to sell it . The Italian government is working to buy it, but it has been a long, complicated process. My visit was facilitated by Paolo Maier, the head of communications of the Teatro Regio in nearby Parma, where I attended an inventively modern production of (fittingly) “Il Trovatore,” as part of its annual Festival…

The Israeli government had determined that the loosely organized civilian guard, known as Kitat Konnenut, would serve as the first line of defense in the towns and villages near the border. But the guardsmen had different standards of training depending on who was in charge. For years, they warned that some of their units were poorly trained and underequipped, according to two Israeli military officials with direct knowledge of the volunteer teams.Additionally, the Israeli military reservists were not prepared to quickly mobilize and deploy. Some described heading south on their own initiative.Davidi Ben Zion, 38, a major in the reserves,…