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    Marc Jacobs’s Latest Fall Collection Is Delightful Delusion

    The designer’s fall collection, inspired by “personal transformation,” was wholly cartoonish.There is a scene in the new documentary “I Am: Celine Dion” in which Ms. Dion describes her dedication to designer heels.“When a girl loves her shoes, she always makes them fit,” the singer said, spreading her fingers to demonstrate how she has contorted her toes to accommodate shoes ranging from size 6 to 10. Asked for her size while shopping, she said, she would respond to sales associates: “What size do you have? I’ll make them work. I’ll make them fit.”It is a feeling well-known to women who relish playing dress-up: determination so great it pushes up against delusion.That was certainly the feeling at Marc Jacobs’s runway show Monday night, held at the New York Public Library. Fashion is determined to be a joyful medium, even or especially when the world seems joyless. And Mr. Jacobs was determined to dress his models like surreal dolls of 20th-century American iconography.A heavy white Marilyn Monroe dress opened the show. Its bodice was oversize, with pointy bra cups and a skirt sculpted in permanent half flight. Marilyn walked in white sandals made to appear about an inch too large in every direction, like a girl insistent on wearing heels from her mother’s closet. (“I walk the shoe, the shoe don’t walk me,” as Ms. Dion would say.)The proportions were a continuation of Mr. Jacobs’s February runway show: big and cartoonish, like a joke we’re all supposed to be in on. Models seemed to be tensing to keep their thick clothes in place, though of course they fit just as Mr. Jacobs intended. Necklines were lifted by invisible fingers off the shoulders of Peter Pan-collar jackets, preppy V-neck sweaters, voluminous floral cocktail dresses. Saccharine bikinis — one in white pointelle, pinned with a photorealistic daisy brooch, and the other in yellow polka dots — swung and jutted off the body.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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    Mikhail Baryshnikov on Leaving Everything Behind

    Fifty years ago, Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union. He discusses that day, the war in Ukraine and the challenges facing Russian artists today.On the night of June 29, 1974, after a performance with a touring Bolshoi Ballet troupe in downtown Toronto, Mikhail Baryshnikov made his way out a stage door, past a throng of fans and began to run.Baryshnikov, then 26 and already one of ballet’s brightest stars, had made the momentous decision to defect from the Soviet Union and build a career in the West. On that rainy night, he had to evade K.G.B. agents — and audience members seeking autographs — as he rushed to meet a group of Canadian and American friends waiting in a car a few blocks away.“That car took me to the free world,” Baryshnikov, 76, recalled in a recent interview. “It was the start of a new life.”His cloak-and-dagger escape helped to make him a cultural celebrity. “Soviet Dancer in Canada Defects on Bolshoi Tour,” The New York Times declared on its front page.But the focus on his decision to leave the Soviet Union has sometimes made Baryshnikov uneasy. He said he does not like how the term “defector” sounds in English, conjuring an image of a traitor who has committed high treason.“I’m not a defector — I’m a selector,” he said. “That was my choice. I selected this life.”Baryshnikov was born in the Soviet city of Riga, now part of Latvia, and moved to Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, in 1964, when he was 16, to study with the renowned teacher Alexander Pushkin. When he was 19, he joined the Kirov Ballet, now known as the Mariinsky, and quickly became a star on the Russian ballet scene.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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    New Jersey Transit Service Disrupted for Third Time in Less Than a Week

    Rush-hour commuters at Penn Station faced a shutdown of close to an hour, followed by extensive delays, after Amtrak investigated a report of a problem with overhead wires.New Jersey Transit service was disrupted once again on Monday evening, with travel suspended in and out of Pennsylvania Station for nearly an hour because of a report of a problem with Amtrak overhead wires in one of the Hudson River tunnels.Service was suspended at 6:37 p.m. and resumed shortly before 7:30 p.m., but trains were still subject to delays of up to 60 minutes, a New Jersey Transit spokesman said.It was at least the fifth disruption for New Jersey commuters in the last two months, and the third in less than a week. Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains share the portion of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor between New York City and Trenton, N.J., so issues with Amtrak tracks or wires immediately affect New Jersey Transit service.Trains were held in place for about 25 minutes, or in some cases pulled back to Penn Station, according to a New Jersey Transit customer service representative.An Amtrak spokesman said service had been suspended as a precautionary measure after a report of trouble with the overhead wires that provide the electricity that powers trains moving in and out of Penn Station. The inspection turned up no problems, he said, so service resumed after about half an hour.During the shutdown, trains were diverted to Hoboken, N.J., and New Jersey Transit rail tickets were accepted for rides by private bus companies and PATH trains in Newark, Hoboken, N.J., and Midtown Manhattan.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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    N.Y.C. Board Set to Approve Rent Increases for 1 Million Apartments

    The LatestA New York City panel is expected to approve rent increases for almost one million stabilized apartments on Monday evening. The carefully watched annual vote will highlight the city’s affordability crisis, a core struggle in New York and other cities across the nation.The nine-person panel, the Rent Guidelines Board, already voted in April to support an increase that could fall between 2 and 4.5 percent for one-year leases. It also voted to support two-year lease increases of between 4 and 6.5 percent. Those numbers are similar to what the board approved the past two years.The vote on Monday will set the final numbers, and landlords could start raising rents in October if the panel votes in favor of increases.About two million people live in rent-stabilized homes in New York City.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesDeep Divisions: The votes over rent increases have drawn protests.Rent-stabilized apartments house roughly a quarter of the city’s population. In a city where rents on the open market have skyrocketed and available apartments are scarce, stabilized units are treasured finds. The median monthly rent was about $1,500 for a stabilized unit in 2023, compared with $2,000 for an unregulated apartment, according to a recent city survey. But tenants and their advocates have called on the city to freeze or reduce rents for stabilized units in recent years, as many New Yorkers struggle with the high cost of living. Landlords, for their part, have asked for increases to help cover the high costs of property taxes, insurance, mortgages and maintenance.The Rent Guidelines Board examines the factors affecting both constituencies when deciding whether to allow rent increases. The board consists of two members representing tenant interests, two representing the interests of owners and five representing the general public. All members are appointed by the mayor. The vote on Monday is set to be the third consecutive year of increases.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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    Overlooked No More: Lorenza Böttner, Transgender Artist Who Found Beauty in Disability

    Böttner, whose specialty was self-portraiture, celebrated her armless body in paintings she created with her mouth and feet while dancing in public.This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.It was the weekend of the gay pride parade in New York City in 1984 when Denise Katz heard her doorbell ring. Surprised, she opened her door and was greeted by Lorenza Böttner, a transgender artist, who was wearing a wedding gown that she had customized to fit her armless body.“I’m here for the party!” Böttner said in her hybrid German-Chilean accent. Though Böttner had buzzed the wrong apartment, Katz invited her in anyway. “From that moment on, we didn’t part,” she said.That Katz worked in an art supply store and Böttner was a prolific artist was pure coincidence.Böttner in 1983. After she lost her arms in a childhood accident, her mother encouraged her to create art with her mouth and her feet.via Leslie-Lohman Museum of ArtThroughout her lifetime, Böttner created a multidisciplinary body of work with her feet and mouth that included painting, drawing, photography, dance and performance art. She made hundreds of paintings in Europe and America, dancing in public across large canvases while creating impressionistic brushstrokes with her footprints. In New York, she performed in front of St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, and Katz, who would become her roommate, provided her with large pieces of paper and other supplies.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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    Bánh by Lauren Offers Pandan Coffee Cakes, Fried Sesame Balls and More

    Veerays will serve tandoori food, Son del North has Northern Mexico-style burritos and more restaurant news.OpeningBánh by LaurenThe pastry chef Lauren Tran has put down roots in an airy corner bakery and cafe in the shadow of the Manhattan Bridge. She had baked at Gramercy Tavern until the pandemic, then began selling bánh (a general term in Vietnamese for cake) from home and at pop-ups. Now she’s turning out multilayered chiffon cakes, macarons, pandan coffee cakes, fried sesame rice balls filled with coconut and mung beans, and savory Chinese sausage, Cheddar and chive scones, many distinctively but subtly conveying Southeast Asian flavors, inspired by her Vietnamese heritage. A sleek quartz counter, an open kitchen and marble-topped tables define the space. Sidewalk seats are coming. (Opens Saturday)42 Market Street (Madison Street), Two Bridges, 646-360-3325, banhbylauren.com. VeeraysIn 2020, the chef Hemant Mathur opened Veeray da Dhaba, an East Village restaurant modeled after a Punjabi truck stop. Now his chef de cuisine, Binder Saini, and their partner Sonny Solomon have this fancier Indian restaurant offering tandoori food, often with game meats and contemporary interpretations. Highlights include curried tandoori pheasant, duck vindaloo with coconut rice, and slow-cooked bone-in goat with whole spices. The dining room has a plush, vintage look. (Monday)213 East 45th Street, 646-429-8398, veerays.com. Son del NorthHere, the Tijuana native Annisha Garcia offers the style of burritos that are typical of Northern Mexico. Made in Sonora, the flour tortillas are stuffed with choices of carne asada, cheese and beans, shrimp and more in a quick-serve setting. (Thursday)177 Orchard Street (Stanton Street), sondelnorth.com. Conwell Coffee HallStevan KeaneA financial district office tower built in 1929 for Conwell Life and Trust became residential decades ago. Now this cafe and cocktail bar, open to the public, has been installed in its restored marble-paved lobby with lavish Art Deco features, including a dynamic industrial-style mural by Eric Diehl, a contemporary artist. Coffees and breakfast items like croissants are followed by soups, salads and assorted toasts for lunch. Cocktails and bar snacks are served until 9 p.m. The chefs devising food and drinks are Jonah Reider and Pascal le Seach.6 Hanover Street (Beaver Street), 646-412-5956, conwellcoffeehall.com. Perle Wine BarIntimate elegance defines this adjunct to Marian’s, a new American restaurant by the chef Christian Rowan, who was at Eleven Madison Park, Bouley and Nomad. European and New World wines by the glass and bottle are listed to pair with seafood-focused items like raw bar selections, crudos and toasts. There’s a marble bar and outdoor seating.22 Greenwich Avenue (West 10th Street), 646-370-3371 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 Electric Car Batteries Might Aid the Grid (and Win Over Drivers)

    Automakers are exploring energy storage as a way to help utilities and save customers money, turning an expensive component into an industry asset.Electric cars are more expensive than gasoline models largely because batteries cost so much. But new technology could turn those pricey devices into an asset, giving owners benefits like reduced utility bills, lower lease payments or free parking.Ford Motor, General Motors, BMW and other automakers are exploring how electric-car batteries could be used to store excess renewable energy to help utilities deal with fluctuations in supply and demand for power. Automakers would make money by serving as intermediaries between car owners and power suppliers.Millions of cars could be thought of as a huge energy system that, for the first time, will be connected to another enormous energy system, the electrical grid, said Matthias Preindl, an associate professor of power electronic systems at Columbia University.“We’re just at the starting point,” Dr. Preindl said. “They will interact more in the future, and they can potentially support one another — or stress one another.”A large flat screen on the wall of the Munich offices of the Mobility House, a firm whose investors include Mercedes-Benz and Renault, illustrates one way that carmakers could profit while helping to stabilize the grid.The graphs and numbers on the screen provide a real-time picture of a European energy market where investors and utilities buy and sell electricity. The price changes from minute to minute as supply and demand surge or ebb.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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    For Trump, a Deflating Blow, and Then a Bounce Back

    A day after Donald J. Trump left the courthouse shellshocked, he emerged on his home turf revitalized and railing against his rivals.The Donald J. Trump who emerged from a drab courtroom in Lower Manhattan yesterday afternoon did so glumly, shuffling into the hallway to speak for less than two minutes. He seemed, like much of the nation, to be still absorbing the gut punch of his conviction on 34 felony charges.That was Desultory Donald.Nineteen hours later, it was a different Donald J. Trump who held forth for 33 minutes from a lectern in the lobby of the tower that bears his name. He’d slept on it, and things turned out not to be all bad, he seemed to suggest. “Let me give you the good news,” he said, picking up a piece of paper to read out the campaign’s boffo fund-raising numbers since the verdict came down ($39 million in 10 hours, he said).“Does anybody read The Daily Mail?” he asked at one point. It had apparently published a new poll that “has Trump up six points in the last 12 hours,” he chirped. “Who thought this could happen?”Americans were still processing the jolting news of Mr. Trump’s conviction on Friday. But Mr. Trump himself, a candidate of unusual personality and sometimes impenetrable psyche, seemed to be willing himself forward, moving from downcast to defiant within a day.It helped that he was back in his marble bunker, surrounded by creature comforts. Eric and Lara Trump, his son and daughter-in-law, stood behind a red velvet rope with dozens of supporters (many of whom work in the building). Employees at the Gucci store in the building’s lobby pressed their faces against the glass pane, agog at the spectacle. Secret Service agents pushed their fingers into their earpieces. New York City police officers milled around in their caps and starched white shirts. A doorman in a three-piece suit and a bow tie watched with interest. A forest of cameras and lighting rigs pointed toward Mr. Trump.Outside, a “Trump or Death 2024” flag, roughly the size of a Honda Civic, billowed in front of the Prada store across the avenue.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