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      The Ballet Kids of ‘Midsummer’ Bring Magic to the Bugs

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      There is Oberon, the King of the Fairies, and his beautiful Queen, Titania. Puck, a sprite, works his magic with the occasional unforced error, as mortals and immortals find themselves in a similar predicament: wanting to love. And wanting to be loved. But for all the sparkle of the mythological adults in George Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” it’s the kids — 24, plus Titania’s page — that rule this fantastical realm.Enter the Bugs.These young dancers from the School of American Ballet are the heart of New York City Ballet’s production. Technically, they play Fairies and Butterflies, but at City Ballet and its training ground, S.A.B., they are known informally as Bugs. (Perhaps less dignified as far as outdoor creatures go, but cuter.)Madison ArdietThese Bugs are small, exuberant bodies that, at times, scurry across the forest stage, gleaming in the moonlit night. They’re a coalition, a small but mighty squad of fleet-footed girls, ages roughly 10 to 12 — “a wholly unsentimental deployment,” wrote Lincoln Kirstein, who founded the school and company with Balanchine.Balanchine based his ballet more on Felix Mendelssohn’s overture and incidental music for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” to which he added additional pieces, than on the Shakespeare comedy. Mendelssohn’s sweeping music also thrills the Bugs no end.It puts the gas in their engines, the quiver in their antennas, the flap in their delicate wings.“You’re not walking down the street anymore,” said Naomi Uetani, 11, with a smile she couldn’t suppress. “I’m in a magical place. I understand ‘Nutcracker’ — yeah, you’re in the candy land, but this is different. The feeling.”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

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      How to Make Homemade Pasta Like an Italian

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      TL;DR: It’s not necessarily the pasta water. It’s the marriage of starch, cheese and water, Eric Kim writes.This spoonable pasta is a dance of sorts between two pots: one with fresh green beans and orecchiette, the other with sausage ragù.David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.By More

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      Elon Musk ‘Disappointed’ With Major Trump Policy Bill

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      Elon Musk also said the Republican bill, which passed the House last week, would undermine the work of his DOGE group.Elon Musk criticized the far-reaching Republican bill intended to enact President Trump’s domestic policy agenda, saying it would undermine the administration’s own efforts to shrink federal spending.“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it,” Mr. Musk said in an excerpt from an interview with CBS’s “Sunday Morning” that was released late Tuesday.Mr. Musk added that the bill, which is headed to the Senate after squeaking through the House last week, would undermine the work of the Department of Government Efficiency, the White House effort to shrink the federal government that Mr. Trump tapped him to lead.Mr. Trump has urged swift passage of the bill — officially called the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act — which would slash taxes, providing the biggest savings to the wealthy, and steer more money to the military and immigration enforcement. As written, the legislation would cut health, nutrition, education and clean energy programs to cover part of the cost.But Mr. Musk said he was not sold on a bill that has emerged as the president’s top legislative priority. “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful,” Mr. Musk said. “But I don’t know if it can be both.”A combination of Mr. Trump’s lobbying and compromises struck by Speaker Mike Johnson managed to get the bill through the House, but it faces significant hurdles in the Senate. Republicans hold a only a slim margin in the chamber, and two fiscal conservatives have said they want significant changes on the grounds that the bill lacks concrete measures to reduce the national deficit.Mr. Musk — who spent more than $250 million to help Mr. Trump’s campaign — joined the White House as a “special government employee” to lead the DOGE effort, which Mr. Trump hailed as one of his biggest accomplishments. The effort, which set the lofty goal of slashing $1 trillion from the federal budget but has fallen far short of that goal, has led to clashes with cabinet secretaries and complaints from some lawmakers.Mr. Musk’s support for Mr. Trump has also caused sales to plummet at Tesla, his electric car company, and last week the billionaire said he would spend less time in Washington and more time running his companies. More

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      Japan Welcomes a New Sumo Champ. Surprise: He’s Japanese.

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      Onosato Daiki became the first Japanese man in eight years to be named a yokozuna, or grand champion, the highest title in the sport.Sumo is Japan’s national sport, steeped in hundreds of years of history and tradition. But Japanese wrestlers no longer dominate sumo.So there was a sigh of relief in local sumo circles when Onosato Daiki of Japan was named on Wednesday as yokozuna, or grand champion, the highest title in the sport. He is the first Japanese yokozuna in eight years and only the second in 27 years, at least temporarily breaking Mongolian dominance of the elite levels of the sport.Yokozuna are selected by a council of elders after great achievement in the ring. There have been 75 since the 1600s, although the process was only formalized in the early 20th century. Once named a yokozuna, a wrestler can never be demoted.Traditionally, winning two consecutive top-division tournaments is enough to earn the yokozuna title; Onosato, as he is known, earned such titles in March in Osaka and on Sunday in Tokyo. He achieved the title after just 13 top-level tournaments, the quickest ascension since the current system came into effect in the 1950s.“This is a very much unknown territory for me,” Onosato said at a news conference, as translated by Japan Today. “I want to maintain my style, be Onosato, and I will work hard to become a unique and unparalleled yokozuna.”There is currently one other yokozuna, Hoshoryu, a Mongolian who earned that title in January in Tokyo. In the May tournament where Onosato won his second consecutive top-division title, Hoshoryu was second, with a 12-3 record to Onosato’s 14-1.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

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      Turkey Cracks Down on Fliers Who Stand Up Too Soon, Threatening Fines

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      As of this month, passengers who stand before planes fully stop may be fined by the Turkish government.Most airline passengers know the rules: Stay seated at the end of the flight until the aircraft comes to a complete stop and the “fasten seatbelt” sign is off. Still, time and time again, passengers stand up anyway, in a rush to stretch their legs or collect their luggage.To address this, Turkey can now fine passengers who unbuckle their seatbelts, leave their seats before the plane has stopped taxiing or access overhead compartments before they are authorized to do so, according to new rules issued by the Turkish Directorate General of Civil Aviation this month.“Passengers who do not comply with the rules will be reported to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation through a disruptive passenger report, and an administrative fine will be imposed,” the Turkish government said in an announcement. It did not say how much passengers might be fined.Turkish Airlines did not respond to a request for comment about how many times this rule had been enforced since its implementation in early May.In addition to potentially rankling others on the plane, safety issues can arise when passengers leave their seats prematurely. Passengers can fall if the plane makes a sudden stop, and luggage can fall from overhead bins if they are opened while the aircraft is still moving. Aisles also need to remain clear for emergency evacuations.According to a report by the International Air Transport Association, a global airline trade group, failure to comply with instructions from flight attendants was the most frequent type of unruly passenger behavior in 2023. Flight attendants have also dealt with violence against themselves and other passengers, harassment, verbal abuse, smoking and forms of riotous behavior. These incidents can cause safety and security issues as well as significant operational disruption and costs for airlines, the report said.In the United States, failing to follow crew instructions or engaging in disruptive or violent behavior can also lead to fines. The Federal Aviation Administration can propose fines of up to $37,000 per violation and possible jail time. More serious cases are referred to the F.B.I.Unruly passenger behavior surged in the United States during the pandemic, stemming largely from passengers’ refusal to wear masks. A 2021 national survey conducted by the Association of Flight Attendants union revealed that nearly all flight attendants had dealt with unruly passengers that year, and one in five had been attacked.That year, the F.A.A. started pursuing legal action instead of just issuing warning letters to passengers who assault, threaten, intimidate or interfere with airline crew members. Last year, the agency reported just over 2,000 incidents, about the same number as in 2023, and a sharp fall from 2021, when nearly 6,000 incidents were reported. More

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      Farewell to the New Look. Or Ghosts of Dior Past

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      Assessing Maria Grazia Chiuri’s likely final collection — and how she changed Dior.The fog drifted in over the manicured lawns of the Villa Albani Torlonia in Rome just as the Dior cruise show began, lending what was already a somewhat surreal moment an extra-otherworldly air.All the female guests wore white, even Natalie Portman and Rosamund Pike; the men, black. As they entered the verdant inner courtyard of the private manse, with its collection of Greco-Roman antiquities, they walked past dancers posed like moving statuary. When the first models appeared, to the strains of a live orchestra, light rain began to fall.Along with the mist, it made the clothes, almost all ivory and often so light as to be practically transparent, seem ghostly (even for someone like me, watching through the computer screen): an ethereal stew of references in lace, silk and velvet — with the occasional tailcoat — to different periods in history and imagination.In a video call before the show, the designer, Maria Grazia Chiuri, said she had been after what she called “beautiful confusion,” the phrase Ennio Flaiano originally suggested as a title for Fellini’s “8½.” It was an apt description, not just of the collection itself, which seemed made for phantoms slipping from one era into the next, but also of the question mark surrounding her own situation.Ms. Chiuri had nominally brought Dior back to her home city to celebrate the romantic spirits that formed her (and helped shape fashion), from La Cinecittà to the director Pier Paolo Pasolini and Mimì Pecci-Blunt, an early 20th-century patroness of the arts who built a private theater Ms. Chuiri recently restored. But she also brought herself and her audience full circle, back to the place she began.Maria Grazia Chiuri called her show a “beautiful confusion.’Guglielmo Mangiapane/ReutersWe 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

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      Lea Michele Returns to Broadway in ‘Chess’

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      The “Glee” star will join Aaron Tveit and Nicholas Christopher next fall in a Broadway revival of an Abba-adjacent Cold War musical.The 1980s musical “Chess,” about a love triangle set in the geopolitically charged world of top-level chess tournaments at the height of the Cold War, will be revived on Broadway for the first time this fall, with Lea Michele playing one of the three starring roles.Michele was last on Broadway in 2023 in “Funny Girl,” whose fortunes she revived after stepping in as a replacement when the initial lead wasn’t working out. Best known for portraying an ambitious musical theater actress on the television series “Glee,” Michele will star in “Chess” alongside Aaron Tveit (a Tony winner for “Moulin Rouge! The Musical”) and Nicholas Christopher (a “Hamilton” alumnus who recently thrilled critics in an Encores! production of “Jelly’s Last Jam”).The show is the brainchild and passion project of Tim Rice, the Tony-winning lyricist of “Evita” and “Aida.” Rice collaborated with Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus of Abba on the music and lyrics.The revival was announced Wednesday, but the announcement did not include specific dates or the exact theater — only that it would be staged in the fall at a theater operated by the Shubert Organization. The lead producers will be Tom Hulce, Robert Ahrens and the Shubert Organization.“Chess,” set primarily in Bangkok and Budapest, tells a fictional story about two grandmasters, one American (Tveit) and one Soviet (Christopher), facing off at a chess tournament, joined by a woman (Michele) whom both of them, at various points, love.The musical, first staged in London in 1986 and then heavily revised for a Broadway production in 1988, has an ardent fan base, but the Broadway production was a flop, and the show has been reworked for subsequent stagings around the world.This fall’s production features another new book, by the screenwriter Danny Strong. The show will be directed by Michael Mayer, who directed Michele both in her breakout Broadway role, in “Spring Awakening,” and in “Funny Girl.”Mayer and Strong, working with Rice, have been rethinking “Chess” for some time — they collaborated on a 2018 concert presentation of the musical at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington. More

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      Trump Administration Halts Interviews for Student and Exchange Visas

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      Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a cable ordering a pause as the department expands its review of applicants’ social media accounts.The State Department is temporarily halting interviews abroad with foreign citizens applying for student and exchange visas as it expands scrutiny of applicants’ social media posts.The order was issued by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a cable dated Tuesday that went out to U.S. embassies and consulates. A State Department official confirmed on Tuesday that Mr. Rubio had given the order to pause new interview appointments until further guidance.“We use all available information in our visa screening and vetting,” the State Department said in a statement, without specifying what could flag an applicant for rejection under a new social media policy. The statement noted that visa applicants have been asked to provide social media account information on forms since 2019.The secretary of state’s order comes as President Trump is trying to coerce Harvard University and other institutions to restrict what can be said on campuses, with a particular focus on anti-Israel speech.Mr. Trump this month said the U.S. government would no longer grant Harvard the right to enroll international students. On Friday, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking Mr. Trump from moving forward with the action against Harvard and foreign students.Many universities in the United States rely on foreign students to pay full tuition. Those students are responsible for a substantial portion of the annual revenues of many American universities. On some campuses, foreign students make up the majority of researchers in certain disciplines, mainly in the sciences.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