Author: NY TIMES

One afternoon in August 2020, while staying at her parents’ house in the Hudson Valley, Jean Garnett, an editor at Little, Brown & Company, prepared to meet remotely with the author Chantal V. Johnson, whose novel “Post-traumatic” she wanted to acquire for publication.She had to find a private place to take the call, not because she needed quiet, but because her identical twin sister Callie Garnett — the editorial director at Bloomsbury, a competing imprint — was also staying at the house and would be taking her own call with Ms. Johnson a few hours later.Jean ended up working in…

The Biden administration announced plans to crack down on banks and financial services firms that are helping Russia evade strict sanctions on access to military technology and equipment that are aiding its war against Ukraine.The move, announced on Friday, comes after attempts by the United States to curb Russia’s access to supplies that it needs to build more missiles and other weapons have proved to be unsuccessful.The United States and Europe have imposed strict sanctions on Russia over the past two years. But an illicit network of traders and smugglers, working with the assistance of shadowy financial firms, has been…

The many creative people who died this year built their wisdom over lives generously long or much too short, through times of peace and periods of conflict. Their ideas, perspectives and humanity helped shape our own: in language spoken, written or left unsaid; in notes hit, lines delivered, boundaries pushed. Here is a tribute to just some of them, in their voices.“I never considered giving up on my dreams. You could say I had an invincible optimism.”— Tina Turner, musician, born 1939 (Read the obituary.)“Hang on to your fantasies, whatever they are and however dimly you may hear them, because…

The Biden administration has been holding talks with Israel, Lebanon and intermediaries for Hezbollah aimed at reducing current tensions on the Israeli-Lebanese border and restoring calm there longer-term by moving Hezbollah forces away from the frontier, according to Lebanese and Israeli officials, and other participants in the talks.The diplomatic effort is being led by Amos Hochstein, a senior White House adviser who oversaw talks last year that resulted in a historic agreement between Israel and Lebanon that resolved long-running maritime border disputes between the countries. Hezbollah, the most powerful political and military force in Lebanon, backed the agreement after initially…

How many ways are there to leave this universe?Perhaps the best known exit entails the death of a star. In 1939 the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his student Hartland Snyder, of the University of California, Berkeley, predicted that when a sufficiently massive star runs out of thermonuclear fuel, it collapses inward and keeps collapsing forever, shrink-wrapping space, time and light around itself in what today is called a black hole.But it turns out that a dead star might not be needed to make a black hole. Instead, at least in the early universe, giant clouds of primordial gas may…

Aun así, mientras me cortejaba, me hizo la tarta de crema de banana más deliciosa de mi vida, con una capa de ganache de chocolate entre la corteza de galleta y el relleno de banano. Este hombre tocó una banana por mí, repetidamente, y eso significó mucho para mí.Jason también fue el primer hombre con el que salí cuya presencia no me hizo sentir avergonzada por mi cuerpo. Ambos habíamos interiorizado la vergüenza a la gordura, pero cuando estábamos solos, era como si nos anuláramos mutuamente. Pedíamos alitas y papas fritas con chile y queso, y veíamos dos películas en…

It was dark when Daiki Funamizu pulled his truck into the market in Osaka, ending a 15-hour haul down Japan’s main island. He rubbed his sore back and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Then he began several more hours of work to unload 500 boxes of red apples.Mr. Funamizu, 35, said he used to like driving. But now, with drivers getting stretched thinner as Japan’s population shrinks and workers desert the industry, “I must say I hate it,” he said.Japan’s trucking industry is a crucial cog in one of the world’s largest economies, and it is the lifeblood of…

10. Astrud Gilberto: “Berimbau”The 83-year-old Brazilian bossa nova singer Astrud Gilberto, who died on June 5, was best known as the serenely stylish vocalist who sang Stan Getz’s “The Girl From Ipanema.” But her discography is full of other treasures, like her lovely 1966 album of songs arranged by Gil Evans, “Look to the Rainbow,” on which this elegant, atmospheric track named for a one-stringed Brazilian instrument appears. (Listen on YouTube)11. The Band: “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”Robbie Robertson’s music had an almost eerie way of fusing the past and the present, creating compositions that sound at once…

“Our forces continue to intensify ground operations in northern and southern Gaza,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israeli military, said on Thursday night.Israel says it has achieved operational control in some areas in the north, but the grinding progress is leading some prominent Israeli military analysts and political commentators to point to a widening gap between the reality on the ground and the rhetoric of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who pledged on Wednesday that the war “will continue until Hamas is eliminated — until victory.”As the Gazan death toll has soared and civilians have been pushed…

Fishing in Serbia’s troubled waters after a contested general election, Russia on Monday accused the West of orchestrating anti-government street protests in Belgrade, the Serbian capital, that flared into violence on Sunday evening.Claims of a Western plot by Russia’s ambassador to Serbia, Alexander Botsan-Harchenko, were the latest efforts by Moscow to thwart a so far mostly fruitless diplomatic campaign by the United States and Europe to lure Serbia out of Russia’s orbit and break traditionally strong ties between the two Slavic and Orthodox Christian nations.Previously peaceful street protests in Belgrade over what the opposition says was a rigged general election…