Author: NY TIMES

What is the happiest dog you can imagine? Is it beaming with joy on a celestial plane or frolicking in a field of psychedelic flora?If those images are hard to conjure, have no fear, or perhaps a healthy dose of it: Artificial intelligence can vivify even the most absurd scenarios in vibrant color, and on social media, some are seeing how far it can be pushed.Though A.I.-generated images can often unsettle with their uncanny realism — think the pope in a Balenciaga puffer jacket — many are finding joy in a new form of low-stakes image tinkering. This fall, ChatGPT…

Holland CotterThe Met Looks to Right a Historic WrongEarly in 1969, the Metropolitan Museum sparked an uproar with an exhibition called “Harlem on My Mind: Cultural Capital of Black America, 1900-1968.” Although conceived as the museum’s first big-ticket acknowledgment of African American creativity, it included no visual art beyond documentary photomurals. Black artists, many working in Harlem just blocks north of the museum, angrily picketed the show, denouncing it as evidence of art world racism writ large.As a student visiting New York in 1969 I saw, and was baffled by, that show, so I’m eager to see a new one…

A drone strike in Baghdad on Thursday killed a senior figure in an Iran-linked militant group that is part of Iraq’s security apparatus and two others, drawing sharp criticism from the Iraqi government as well as allied groups.In an angry statement, an Iraqi government spokesman blamed the United States for the attack, calling it a “flagrant violation of the sovereignty and security of Iraq” and “no different from a terrorist act.”The United States did not immediately acknowledge responsibility for the strike, but a Pentagon official confirmed the U.S. strike, saying that the United States continued to act to protect its…

A dozen nations, including the United States, warned the Houthi militia in Yemen on Wednesday of unspecified consequences if it continued to attack shipping in the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest commercial routes.“The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways,” the United States and allies said in a joint statement released by the White House. “We remain committed to the international rules-based order and are determined to hold malign actors accountable for unlawful seizures and attacks.”The statement did…

What happened to fun? In the clinical white of the gallery, art can be forbidding, aggrieved, elite, academic. Shouldn’t it also, sometimes, be joyous?The collaborators behind Luna Luna thought so. This was the amusement park staged in Hamburg, Germany, in 1987, where nearly 30 professional artists including Basquiat, Hockney and Dalí designed the rides. About 250,000 people attended that summer — families, children, students, hipsters seeking reprieve. But shoestring funding and a thwarted tour let the production sit, disassembled and forgotten in storage, for 35 years.Now, at a staggering cost nearing nine figures, about half the attractions have been restored,…

And on X, Elon Musk argued that the basis of D.E.I. was “literally the definition of racism.”Others are pushing back. The billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban challenged Musk in a series of posts on X, defending the three principles of D.E.I. as good for business:On diversity, “Good businesses look where others don’t, to find the employees that will put your business in the best possible position to succeed.”On equity, “Put your employees in a position to succeed. Recognize their differences and play to their strengths where ever possible.”And on inclusion, “Great companies create environments that reduce unnecessary stress of their employees.”Meanwhile,…

The documentarian Brigitte Berman has made two spectacular pictures about American jazz pioneers. The first, “Bix: ‘Ain’t None of Them Play Like Him Yet’” (1981), chronicled the life of the brilliant and tragically short-lived cornetist and composer Bix Beiderbecke. It screened in a restoration at Film Forum a couple of years back. Now, her follow-up to that movie, “Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got” (1985), is similarly restored and booked at Film Forum.Shaw, the clarinetist and bandleader, was a devotee of Beiderbecke, and is interviewed in Berman’s Beiderbecke film. When Shaw walked away from music for a first time,…

Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy Hamas leader who the group said was assassinated in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, was accused of masterminding attacks on Israel and had helped usher in a closer relationship between Hamas and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia in Lebanon.The chief of Hamas’s West Bank operations, Mr. al-Arouri was killed in an explosion that also killed two leaders of its armed wing, Hamas said, blaming a “Zionist raid.”In recent years, Mr. al-Arouri spent much of his time in Beirut, where he served as a sort of Hamas ambassador to Hezbollah, according to regional security officials. He was…

When the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant last year for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, a Moscow court launched a surprise counterattack: It ordered the arrest of a 70-year-old retired judge in Lithuania.The judge, Kornelija Maceviciene, was not connected in any way to the case against Mr. Putin in The Hague or to investigations into Russian war crimes in Ukraine.Her “crime,” as the Moscow court sees it, was handing down “unjust” guilty verdicts against former Soviet officers, nearly all Russians, for their role in a brutal crackdown against pro-independence protesters who had gathered at a television tower…

Fi Cotter Craig, a television producer in Britain, was scrolling through Instagram one day when she was struck by a photo. “I saw my friend wearing a jacket that I actually thought I would kill her for,” Ms. Cotter Craig said. “Rather than kill her, I rang her up and said, ‘Where did you get that jacket?’”Chloe Shattock, who lives in Amsterdam and works in marketing for Nike, envied her husband’s new blue chore coat and poached it for herself. “The color was so iconic and beautiful,” Ms. Shattock said. “Every time you wear it, it gets a little softer…