Elections

Errollyn Wallen, a Belize-born artist who has been named master of music by King Charles, discusses music as an escape, confronting racism and living by the sea.The call from Buckingham Palace came on a summer morning, when Errollyn Wallen, wearing a pink onesie with pom-pom trim, had just finished a breakfast of toast and marmalade at her seaside home in Scotland.A private secretary for the British royal family had phoned with momentous news: King Charles III wanted Wallen to serve as Master of the King’s Music, an honorary position roughly equivalent to that of poet laureate.Wallen, a composer and a pianist who was born in Belize, a former British colony, has spent her career challenging conventions in classical music.“I was astonished,” Wallen, 66, said in a recent Zoom interview. “I paused for a few moments, then cheerfully accepted.”Wallen, whose appointment was announced in August, is the first Black woman to serve in the role, which was created during the reign of King Charles I in the 17th century. While there are no fixed duties, Wallen is part of the royal household and will likely be called upon to compose pieces for special occasions, including weddings, jubilees and coronations. She is expected to hold the post for 10 years.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

If you’re new to lifting, navigating the weight room can feel like a bigger challenge than the workout itself. But it’s worth overcoming that initial intimidation; a regular strength training regimen can positively impact mental health, improve longevity and make it easier to accomplish daily tasks. That’s even more important as you age, when loss of muscle strength can put you at greater risk of falling.By focusing your workout on a combination of machines and free weights, you can create a simple and well-rounded program that can be easily progressed as your strength improves.A good rule of thumb for a comprehensive workout is to include one exercise that hits each of the fundamental movement patterns. In other words: “Push something, pull something, do something for your legs, do something for your core,” said Kelvin Gary, a New York City-based personal trainer and gym owner.While it may be tempting to design your workouts around aesthetic goals like bigger biceps, Mr. Gary recommends focusing instead on movements that improve overall strength by incorporating multiple joints and muscle groups. “Train movements, not muscles,” he said. OverviewTime: 25 minutesIntensity: MediumWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

A gun, a bottle of Jack Daniels, a splatter, a million beads. With these details, the California artist Liza Lou tells you stories. And just a minuscule bead, she explains, is like an underlined word: it can focus your attention, and slow you down.“Beads highlight what is ordinary and make you look at it,” said Lou, known for her life-size beaded sculptural installations, including “Kitchen” (1991-96), in the collection of the Whitney Museum, and “Back Yard,” acquired in 2002 by the Fondation Cartier. She was speaking recently in front of “Trailer,” another massive construction, originally made 25 years ago and filled with tens of millions of Czech glass beads. It just arrived at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.Lou, 55, has reached a turning point in her career, as she transitions from the objects that put her on the map — the Museum of Modern Art recently acquired a beaded teacup and saucer — into more abstract work, all created with her favorite material, which she called “tiny messengers of pigment, dot size expressions of joy.”Carmen Hermo, a curator who worked on the “Trailer” installation, said, “There is a tenderness to the attention that Liza pays” to every detail and bead placement. The meticulousness of works like “Trailer,” she added, “just kind of messes with your mind. There’s something so everyday but also very uncanny about it.”The artist inside “Trailer” when it was first exhibited at Deitch Projects, New York, in 2002. Furnishings are covered with beads, from walls and floors to a typewriter and bottle of Jack Daniels. Mick HaggertyThe artist’s beaded “Trailer” at the Brooklyn Museum, in which Lou asks whose labor is valued, and how. It rewards close observation, from its décor to its smokes and weapons.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Lifting at your local gym can be intimidating. Here’s how to get started.The first time I approached the weight room at my local gym, over a decade ago, I froze with fear in the doorway. The maze of complicated-looking equipment — and the crowd of people who already knew what they were doing — were immediately intimidating.After mustering the confidence to ask one of the in-house trainers for a tour, I learned that most weight rooms consist of two main sections: the free weights (dumbbells, kettlebells, barbells) and the machines. You can build a well-rounded routine using one section or a combination of the two.Even one strength session a week can have a positive impact on your health. “Overall the biggest benefit comes from doing nothing to doing something,” said Lauren Colenso-Semple, a muscle physiologist. Strength training has been shown to reduce the risk of all-cause mortality, decrease symptoms of depression and minimize fall risks, among other benefits.Using both machines and free weights can also make it easier to perform daily tasks, by improving your joint mobility and range of motion. “Being a stronger and more muscular person makes you a more functional person,” Dr. Colenso-Semple said.Weight MachinesWeight machines are a great introduction to strength training because they are relatively safe and easier to master than free weights, said Kelvin Gary, a New York City-based personal trainer and gym owner. And, according to several recent studies, machines are just as good as free weights for improving muscle mass and strength.George Etheredge for The New York TimesGeorge Etheredge for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

SARATOGA, Calif. — A silver Winnebago pulled up to a self storage warehouse on the outskirts of a Silicon Valley suburb and three renegade climate entrepreneurs piled out, all mohawks, mustaches and camouflage shorts.Working swiftly, the men unlocked a storage unit crammed with drones and canisters of pressurized gas. Using a dolly, they wheeled out four tanks containing sulfur dioxide and helium, and stacked them on the floor of the camper van. Then, almost as quickly as they arrived, they were on the road, headed for the golden hills near the Pacific Ocean.With their jury-rigged equipment and the confidence that comes with having raised more than $1 million in venture capital, they were executing a plan to release pollutants into the sky, all in the name of combating global warming.“We’re stealth,” said Luke Iseman, one of the co-founders of Make Sunsets, delighting in their anonymity as he rode in the back. “This looks like just another R.V.”Make Sunsets is one of the most unusual start-ups in a region brimming with wild ideas. Iseman, 41, and his co-founder, Andrew Song, 38, claim that by releasing sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, they can reflect some of the sun’s energy back into space, thereby cooling the planet.It’s a gutsy undertaking, yet it has at least a partial grounding in science. For 50 years, climate scientists have suggested that releasing aerosols into the stratosphere could act as a buffer and reduce the heat from the sun. Volcanic eruptions have temporarily cooled the planet this way in the past, but no one has attempted to intentionally replicate the effect at scale.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

A top medical device regulator’s work overlapped at times with his wife’s legal representation of clients with business before the agency.Two members of Congress have asked an inspector general to investigate whether the top federal regulator for medical devices like pacemakers and artificial hips acted ethically in work that overlapped with that of his wife, a leading lawyer for device companies.The lawmakers cited an investigation by The New York Times that examined the intersection of the work of the regulator, Dr. Jeffrey Shuren of the Food and Drug Administration, and his wife, Allison Shuren, a co-chair of the drug and medical device practice at the prominent Washington office of Arnold & Porter.The two House Democrats who wrote a letter seeking an inquiry are Representatives Anna Eshoo, of California and ranking member of the health subcommittee, and Rosa DeLauro, of Connecticut and ranking member of the appropriations committee.The Times found several instances in which the couple’s work overlapped and could have posed conflicts of interest requiring Mr. Shuren’s recusal. The F.D.A. acknowledged ethics violations, saying that Dr. Shuren should have stepped aside or sought approval to be involved in two matters to “avoid any potential appearance of bias.”“In circumstances such as these,” the congresswomen’s letter to the inspector general, Christi Grimm, said, “the only way to get to the truth and be fair both to the public and Dr. Shuren is through an independent review of the matter to determine whether this is simply an appearance of impropriety or actual inappropriate and unethical conduct.”A spokeswoman for the inspector general’s office of the Health and Human Services Department said that the letter was received Tuesday and that “we are reviewing it for appropriate action.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Earlier this month, a detective knocked on Shavon Harvey’s door, in suburban Ohio, to ask about her son. The son had sent a Snapchat message from her phone to his friends, saying there would be shootings at several schools nearby.She rushed to the police station, where her son was already in custody, but the police did not release him. He was charged with inducing panic, a second-degree felony, and officials kept him in detention for 10 nights.He is 10.Ms. Harvey’s son is far from the only child arrested this month after similar behavior. And he’s not even the youngest.In the three weeks since two teachers and two students were killed at Apalachee High School in the deadliest school shooting in Georgia’s history, more than 700 children and teenagers, including at least one fourth grader, have been arrested and accused of making violent threats against schools in at least 45 states, according to a New York Times review of news reports, law enforcement statements and court records. Almost 10 percent were 12 or younger.Shavon Harvey said her son had told his fifth-grade friends on Snapchat that there would be a shooting in his district. The police held him in custody for over a week.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesThe arrests come as the police and schools confront an onslaught of threats of violence, gunfire and bombings. The reports have terrified students and their parents, caused attendance to plunge and forced the temporary closure of dozens of campuses. Some schools have canceled homecoming parades, middle school dances and Friday night football games.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The authorities in Spain said they had arrested five people who posed as the famous American actor online and swindled two women out of more than $350,000.The Spanish authorities have announced the arrests of five people accused of swindling two women out of over $350,000 by posing as Brad Pitt online.The arrests — three made last November and two in July — were announced in a statement released on Monday by Spain’s Interior Ministry, detailing a complex scheme that it attributed to a “criminal organization.”The statement said the accused had contacted the women through an online fan page dedicated to Mr. Pitt and posed as the Oscar-winning American actor. The authorities said the accused had gone on to exchange instant messages and emails with their victims, who thought they were corresponding directly with Mr. Pitt.Those behind the plot “managed to make these women believe they had become so close to the well-known American actor that they believed they had a romantic relationship with him,” the statement said. Then, according to the authorities, the Pitt posers asked for money.One woman, who lives near Bilbao in the north of Spain, sent 150,000 euros (about $168,000) in a series of money transfers. The other, in Granada, sent €175,000.About €85,000 has been recovered as part of the investigation, the statement said. The suspects, whose names have not been released, face charges including fraud and money laundering, according to the Spanish police.Matthew Hiltzik, a publicist for Mr. Pitt, said on Wednesday that he had not been aware of the case, and noted that his client does not have any authorized social media accounts.“It’s awful that scammers take advantage of fans’ strong connection with celebrities,” Mr. Hiltzik wrote in a WhatsApp message. “But this is an important reminder to not respond to unsolicited online outreach, especially from actors who have no social media presence.”Online frauds and cybercrimes represent a growing threat. In the European Union, millions of people were attacked and exploited online in 2023, according to the Internet Organized Crime Threat Assessment, a report from the bloc’s law enforcement agency.Jürgen Stock, the secretary general of Interpol, said in March, “We are facing an epidemic in the growth of financial fraud.” More