Author: NY TIMES

Given how much Taylor Swift dominated music and pop culture in 2023, it’s only appropriate that the year’s album chart ended with Swift on top.“1989 (Taylor’s Version),” the star’s remake of her pop crossover hit from 2014, led the Billboard 200 for the last two weeks of the year, notching the album’s fourth and fifth times at the top and helping Swift break yet another record.With the latest chart, Swift has now earned a total of 68 times at No. 1, over 13 of her LPs, which surpasses Elvis Presley for the most appearances in the top slot for a…

“Of all the possible reactions Hamas may take, the most disconcerting is with regard to the hostages,” wrote the columnist, Nahum Barnea. “The argument that the assassination will soften Sinwar’s position is just a story we tell ourselves,” he wrote, referring to Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza. Instead, he wrote, the killing is more likely to “delay, or even torpedo, the negotiations” for the hostages’ release.Mr. Netanyahu met with representatives of hostage families on Tuesday evening, around the same time that Mr. al-Arouri was killed, and told them that efforts to free their relatives were continuing. “The contacts are…

As smoke filled the cabin of Japan Airlines Flight 516 after its fiery landing in Tokyo on Tuesday, the sound of a child’s voice rose above the din of confusion onboard. “Please, let us off quickly!” the child pleaded, using a polite form of Japanese despite the fear washing over the passengers as flight attendants began shouting instructions.In the minutes that followed, even as the flames that would eventually engulf the JAL plane flickered outside the windows, order held. The attendants evacuated all 367 passengers through the three exit doors deemed safest, sending them down the emergency slides one by…

US Innovative Technology Fund: James Geurts, former assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, also acquisitions executive at Special Operations Command (2021); Hugh Wyman Howard III, retired rear admiral, former commanding officer of Naval Special Warfare Command (2022); Ryan McCarthy, former secretary of the Army (2021); Richard Spencer, former secretary of the Navy (2019). Sally Donnelly, former aide (2018) to former Defense Secretary James N. Mattis, serves as adviser to Thomas Tull, the founder of Innovative Technology Fund. Defense-related investments: Gecko Robotics (automated maintenance assessments), Saronic Technologies (autonomous naval vessels), Primer (A.I. software), Capella Space (satellites), Shield…

As Mikaela Shiffrin plans the next phase of her record-setting career as a skier, she is looking, as she always has, to the example of another female megastar who has experienced kindred highs and lows and highs in her career: Taylor Swift.The American skier Shiffrin is the most successful, and precocious, Alpine racer in history, having smashed the mark for World Cup victories, by women and men, while still in her prime skiing years. The American singer-songwriter Swift is the world’s biggest pop star, smashing music industry records one after another.When Shiffrin made her debut on the World Cup circuit,…

American, Israeli and Lebanese officials insist that few parties want Israel’s war in Gaza to become a wider conflict that engulfs the Middle East.But the assassination of a top leader of Hamas in Lebanon on Tuesday, and the deaths of scores of people in mysterious twin explosions in Iran on Wednesday, threatened to bring the Middle East — and the United States — closer to the brink of a regional war, which the Biden administration has tried to stave off since Hamas’s deadly attacks against Israel on Oct. 7.Just hours after the bombs went off in Iran, the United States…

Charles Darwin was 22 years old when he first peeled a banana. “Maukish & sweet with little flavor,” he noted in his journal from Santiago, the main island in the Cape Verde archipelago off the coast of West Africa. He preferred oranges and tamarinds, feasting at every opportunity on tropical fruit after three awful weeks at sea.Darwin was so seasick at the start of his five-year voyage aboard the HMS Beagle that the captain expected him to jump ship back to England as soon as they touched land. But he found his feet on the island he called St. Jago,…

PASADENA, Calif. — Kris Jenkins has heard everything about the big, bad Southeastern Conference. In fact, he had heard too much.”We’re not big enough,” Michigan State’s star defensive lineman said, his voice rising Monday night in a postgame locker room strewn with rose petals. “We’re not strong enough. We’re not fast enough. We can’t keep up with the SEC.”The story gave him motivation. It helped energize players throughout Michigan, especially those who were on the field or sidelines when the Wolverines lost to Georgia in the program’s first College Football Playoff appearance two years ago.”So, you know, bet,” Jenkins said.…

The designer Holly Waddington had wide latitude in envisioning the costumes for “Poor Things,” Yorgos Lanthimos’s mad comedy starring Emma Stone.“The only brief really was that he didn’t want it to be overtly like a period drama” — the script is set in the 1880s — “and he didn’t want it to be overtly like a science fiction film,” Waddington said. In the movie (a Golden Lion winner at the Venice Film Festival and now an Oscar contender), Stone is a scientist’s creation who evolves from a childlike naïf to a sexually and politically liberated woman.The Greek-born director Lanthimos, known…

The Walt Disney Company said on Wednesday that it had gained the backing of ValueAct Capital, a prominent activist hedge fund, as it faces a board challenge from the billionaire financier Nelson Peltz.The news underscores how many activist investors are buying into Disney’s stock as the media giant faces numerous business challenges, including a stagnant stock price; concerns about its strategies for streaming, television networks and movie productions; and questions about its succession planning.Beyond Mr. Peltz, who is seeking two board seats, and ValueAct, other hedge funds pursuing change at Disney include Blackwells Capital, a hedge fund that announced on…