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2025-06-14 12:49


Plus, advice for staying centered when the world feels chaotic.
The Morning
June 14, 2025

Good morning. Here’s the news you need to start your day:

We have more on these stories below. But first, Melissa Kirsch writes about staying centered when the world feels chaotic.

An illustration shows a frog attempting to meditate while surrounded by flies.
María Jesús Contreras

Breathing room

Last week, a friend read my tarot cards. It was a lark — neither of us had much experience with the occult, but it seemed a diverting enough way to spend an evening, to engage with the messiness of our lives in a way that might offer some clarity. We drew the cards, then used the book that came with the tarot deck to interpret them. I made a note of one passage that seemed to invite further consideration: “Practice being present in the here and now. It’s all we have, and it’s a lot.”

I read this two ways. On the one hand, the present moment contains a rich bounty of content. No need to trouble yourself with the past or the future, there’s abundance right here. On the other hand, I hear that understated response we often give these days when asked how we’re handling a particularly stressful moment: “It’s a lot.” In modern parlance, “It’s a lot” says a lot without saying anything specific. It encapsulates a general feeling of being overwhelmed without getting into all the reasons why.

I noticed people saying “It’s a lot” early in the Covid pandemic, a slightly deadpan assertion that captured the experience of feeling swamped by a deluge of information. There’s been an uptick in “It’s a lot” in my conversations and group chats and self-reflection recently. The quantity of news we’re trying to process, and the pace at which that news seems to break, seems to require constant vigilance just to keep up. Refresh, refresh, what’s happening, what’s new. Or there are those who avoid the news altogether — it’s not just a lot, it’s too much, and they’re opting out.

There has to be a middle ground, a balanced way to keep up without losing perspective, and without burying our heads in the sand. My own tactics are not that different from what the tarot advised: “Practice being present in the here and now.” What that looks like for me is deliberately feeling my feet on the firm ground, reminding myself that I’m here, in my living room or on this street or in this park. My brain may be spinning, trying to make sense of everything happening everywhere, but I’m right here on this patch of grass. I have agency. I can decide, for a minute or an hour, an afternoon or a weekend, to really try to observe what’s happening around me, to take one deep breath of this delectable spring air. There is a lot going on in the world, but there’s also a lot going on in my world that I don’t want to miss.

A wise friend advised me when I was worrying recently to “move the horizon closer.” I love this. My eyes are always cast on some distant point in the future. Moving the horizon closer means to keep my thoughts and fantasies and fears contained to this plane, this moment, without spinning out into the atmosphere. The here and now is all we have, and it’s a lot, for everyone. You don’t have to consult an oracle to know this. But the reminder is useful: Where are you right now? What is happening in that space, in that moment? How can you inhabit it fully? How can you move the horizon closer?

THE LATEST NEWS

Iran-Israel Conflict

Streaks of yellow light illuminate the night sky over a city and large body of water.
Projectiles over Israel on Friday night. Saher Alghorra for The New York Times

D.C. Parade

Other Big Stories

THE WEEK IN CULTURE

Broadway

Two men in formal wear exult behind a woman who is hunched in celebration.
From left, Marcus Choi, Helen J Shen and Dez Duron celebrating a big night for “Maybe Happy Ending.” Jutharat Pinyodoonyachet for The New York Times

“Maybe Happy Ending,” a musical about love, isolation and robots in near-future South Korea, was the big winner at the Tonys. But the show’s success was far from assured when it began previews, as our theater reporter, Michael Paulson, explains:

Broadway is dominated by big-brand shows — well-known titles, well-known music, well-known stars. So “Maybe Happy Ending” faced an uphill climb from the get-go. Then supply chain problems forced a monthlong postponement. Fund-raising was hard, and ticket sales were low. Things were so grim that I prepared an article about the show’s closing, to be published if it shut down.

Instead, the show turned its fortunes around. Michael’s new article examines how that happened.

Film and TV

  • Celine Song’s “Materialists,” starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans, is a seductive, smartly refreshed addition to the rom-com canon, our critic writes.
  • In an interview with The Times, Song makes the case for rom-coms: “Why is it that we no longer talk about it as a serious genre about things that actually affect us and our society and our life?”
  • A live-action remake of “How to Train Your Dragon” is out this week. Our critic called it entertaining, if somewhat mechanical. Read our review.

Music

A grid of three photos. In the top image, young women sport bald caps and suits. Another shows dancing women with headgear, and a person in a dog mask.
Ayesha Kazim for The New York Times
  • There was a commotion during Sean “Diddy” Combs’s trial yesterday when Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, entered the court building.

Save up to 75% on Games. Our best offer won’t last.

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CULTURE CALENDAR

? “28 Years Later” (Friday): Life moves pretty fast. And sometimes zombies do, too. “28 Days Later,” a bleak, slick undead flick directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland, came out in 2002. A sequel, “28 Weeks Later,” arrived in 2007. If “28 Years Later” has jumped the temporal gun, well, as many have learned to their peril, it’s hard to keep a zombie infected with rage virus down. Boyle and Garland reunite for the threequel, which picks up long after the events of the first films, as a group of survivors defend their small island community against the infected. That should go well. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes star.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

A plate full of pasta with cheese and dried tomatoes.
Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.

Orzotto alla Carbonara

Father’s Day is tomorrow. How about cooking dinner for dear old Dad? If he’s a spaghetti carbonara lover with a sense of adventure, try Eric Kim’s orzotto alla carbonara. For an easy skillet meal, Eric swaps out the spaghetti for orzo, which he deftly cooks in chicken broth until it takes on the glossy look and creamy texture of risotto. Bits of porky guanciale (or you can use bacon), pecorino cheese and black pepper season the dish, adding brawny, salty, spicy notes. Then right at the end, he mixes in a couple of eggs to add silkiness and heft to a dish that feels both special and comforting.

REAL ESTATE

A grid of four photos. In the top left, a woman in a patterned dress poses with her arm around her daughter, both grinning. The other images show two-storry brick apartment buildings.
Katie Fahrland and her daughter Zoe in Montreal. Renaud Philippe for The New York Times

The Hunt: After years of false starts, a Connecticut native over the overcame the red tape and moved to Montreal with her daughter. Which home did she choose? Play our game.

What you get for $365,000: A bungalow in Elgin, Texas; a 1920 Craftsman house in Oklahoma City; or a 1958 cottage in Lancaster, Pa.

LIVING

On a London street, two young children run smiling past a cafe. A bike with red tires sits in the foregound.
The corner of Kingsland Road and Middleton Road. Jeremie Souteyrat for The New York Times

Spend 36 hours in East London: Highlights include a museum of the home, a trendy listening bar and (perhaps) the best chicken wings in the city.

Not fine wine, fine water: Bottled waters from small, pristine sources are attracting a lot of buzz.

Look of the week: Clothes fit for a Wonderland tea party.

ADVICE FROM WIRECUTTER

The art of a great souvenir

I have a distinct memory of visiting Istanbul with my family when I was 15: We spent an afternoon at the Grand Bazaar with the express purpose of buying gifts for friends back home. The task bored teenage-me, but I now know that done right, a souvenir is neither an obligation nor a flex; it’s a way to share the privilege of travel long after you’ve come home. A rule of thumb to score a great (not cheesy) souvenir: Look for a unique version of an everyday item that would be hard to come by at home. For instance, a couple of years ago, I returned from Japan with loads of fragrant tea from a city famous for its tea shops. I’ve since relied on this stash when in need of a last-minute gift that still feels special. — Brittney Ho

For more travel advice, sign up for Wirecutter’s daily newsletter, where next week we’ll be diving into our best tips for weekend trips.

GAME OF THE WEEK

A scene from a hockey game, featuring one player in red and two in white going for a puck.
Aleksander Barkov of the Panthers battling Ryan Nugent-Hopkins of the Oilers.  Lynne Sladky/Associated Press

Florida Panthers vs. Edmonton Oilers, Stanley Cup Finals: This series is tied, 2-2, after Edmonton mounted a thrilling comeback in Game 4, coming back from a 3-0 deficit to win in overtime. The Cup is now within reach for the Oilers — and for all of Canada, which has not won an N.H.L. title in more than 30 years.

We reached out to Ian Austen, an Ontario native who covers Canada for The Times, and asked: What would a Stanley Cup mean for Edmonton?

“When I was in Rogers Place last year during a Stanley Cup finals game, the crowd was so loud that it seemed like all of Canada had squeezed into the arena,” Ian said. “Trump’s calls for Canada’s annexation have further boosted the nation’s hopes for the Stanley Cup’s return. And Edmonton, a city whose residents often feel overlooked and misunderstood, is Canada’s current center of gravity.”

Game 5 is tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern, on TNT and TruTV (and streaming on Max)

NOW TIME TO PLAY

Here is today’s Spelling Bee. Yesterday’s pangram was applicant.

Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week’s headlines.

And here are today’s Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands.

Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa

Correction: The caption for a grid of photos of military parades in yesterday’s newsletter misstated the order of the photos, transposing China and North Korea.

Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Reach our team at themorning@nytimes.com.

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Editor: Adam B. Kushner

News Editor: Tom Wright-Piersanti

Associate Editor: Lauren Jackson

News Staff: Evan Gorelick, Desiree Ibekwe, Brent Lewis, German Lopez, Ashley Wu

News Assistant: Lyna Bentahar

Saturday Writer: Melissa Kirsch

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