Dr. Alex Arroyo, a director of pediatric medicine in Brooklyn, gets to live out his “Star Wars” dreams, practice jujitsu and make a big mess while cooking for his family.“Hey, buddy, how are you doing?” a man wearing a Boba Fett costume said as he leaned over the bed of a young boy in a hospital gown.It was a Sunday afternoon in the emergency room at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, where Dr. Alex Arroyo, the hospital’s director of pediatric emergency medicine, often dons one of more than 20 costumes when he visits patients. His favorite is Boba Fett, the famed bounty hunter from the “Star Wars” films.“I love what I do, but it’s sure hot in there!” said Dr. Arroyo, 48, who has worked at the hospital since 2006. He started wearing costumes in 2021.A die-hard “Star Wars” fan who grew up watching the original trilogy with his parents, Dr. Arroyo has passed that love on to his two youngest children, Grayson, 8, and Karra, 6. For New York Comic Con each year, the whole family dresses up, including his wife, Dr. Sharon Yellin, 44, a fellow pediatric emergency medicine physician who works at NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. One year they went as the family from “Encanto.”“I was the big, strong sister with the donkey,” Dr. Arroyo said, referring to the character Luisa.Dr. Arroyo, who also has a 21-year-old son, Colin, from a previous marriage, was born in the Borough Park neighborhood of South Brooklyn — at Maimonides, in fact. Now he lives less than a mile from the house where he grew up, in a four-bedroom, three-story 1920s brownstone. He uses one of the spare bedrooms as his office and rents out the third floor.“It’s a frightening place to be inside of because I’m also an active-duty comic collector,” he said of his office. “It’s filled wall to wall with toys. It’s my sanctuary away from the world.”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.

Amanda Montei, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, spoke to more than 30 married people for whom sex is not essential.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.When Amanda Montei began reporting an article last year about married couples who had little to no sex, she didn’t know how forthcoming people would be about their sex lives.But to her surprise, many of the couples were willing — grateful, even — to talk about it.“It was almost like a pressure valve was released,” Ms. Montei said of her conversations with more than 30 married people who are among the 50 percent of American adults having sex once a month or less. “Most couples I talked with said speaking to me felt like a relief because they were able to talk openly about their sexual lives without judgment.”The article, which was published this month in the Modern Love issue of The New York Times Magazine, is based on phone and video conversations with couples in seven states, as well as Canada, Britain and Italy, and took Ms. Montei five months to report.“My main takeaway was that there are so many factors that influence a person’s desire,” she said. “It’s a really complicated negotiation with the self and the body and our current cultural moment.”In a phone conversation from her home in the San Francisco Bay Area, Ms. Montei discussed how she helped sources feel comfortable sharing intimate details of their private lives and what questions she hopes to tackle next in her reporting. These are edited excerpts.How did you come up with the idea for this article?I published a book last fall about motherhood and sexuality and received lots of notes from readers who connected with it and saw themselves represented in it, and who found that motherhood impacted the way they viewed their bodies, sexual lives and relationships. Writing and publishing the book made me more curious about women’s sexual lives, especially how desires can change with age and parenthood; what marriage has tended to demand of women; and how people in long-term heterosexual relationships navigate those changes today.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.

In her first major role in a feature film, she wasn’t fazed by things that might unnerve others, but she had to show filmmakers how to work with deafness.The assistant director was concerned.They were about to do something very loud (no spoilers!) on the outdoor set of Marvel’s “Eternals,” and this foolish woman didn’t want earplugs.“Are you sure?” he asked.Well, if I’m wrong, this is definitely going to be a first, thought Lauren Ridloff, an actress who has been deaf since birth. She plays Makkari, the first deaf superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in “Eternals,” which is due in theaters on Nov. 5.“I really did feel like a superhero at that moment,” she said. “Everyone else was like ‘Wow, that was loud!’”This is the first major role in a feature film for Ridloff, who’s become known for playing Connie, a survivor, in “The Walking Dead.” (She’s shooting the final season now.) In “Eternals,” from the Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao, she is the supersonically speedy scout on a team of 10 immortal guardians of humanity that also includes Kumail Nanjiani and Angelina Jolie.In the comics, Ridloff’s character is a hulking, hearing white man. She’s not exactly sure what made the “Eternals” casting director Sarah Finn look at her and say, “Yes, Makkari!” but she’s of course glad it happened.Ridloff plays Makkari, the resident speedster on a team of immortals.Sophie Mutevelian/Marvel Studios“It means my two boys, who are also deaf, will grow up in a world where there are superheroes who are deaf,” said Ridloff, whose children are 7 and 9. “It means they’ll be able to dream a bit more wildly.”In a video call in August from her home in Atlanta (“I’m hoping my boys don’t run behind me!,” she said), conducted with the assistance of an American Sign Language interpreter, Ridloff discussed how she got the role without auditioning, how venting to Jolie at a holiday party led to a solution for an irritating obstacle to deaf actors on set, and how Hollywood can be more inclusive for deaf individuals, both onscreen and behind the scenes. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.How did you land this role?I brought my son to an audition — I can’t tell you what for! — and the casting director saw me and wanted to cast me for something else. Then a few months later the casting director reached out to my manager and said, “We want to consider Lauren for a Marvel film, and I can’t tell you what it is.” I was like, ‘Wait, this is Marvel, seriously?” My first thought was maybe it would be “Black Panther.” Then I got the call that the director of the movie wanted to meet with me, so I dropped everything and came to L.A. Chloé Zhao and [executive producer] Nate Moore broke everything down and asked if I was interested, and my immediate answer was yes.In the comics, Makkari is a hulking, hearing white dude. Were they specifically looking for a nonwhite, deaf, female actor?To be honest, I don’t know much about how they made that decision. But I love that they decided to make Makkari everything he’s not in the comic books — he’s a huge guy, let’s find someone tiny. He’s blond, let’s find someone who has Black hair. He’s a man, let’s go with a woman. He’s hearing, and now the character’s deaf.What did you have to educate people about as far as working with deaf actors?When people learn they’ll be working with deaf actors, they think “She needs an interpreter,” but they often don’t realize they need to think in terms of resources and support, too.As Hollywood’s understanding of representation grows, Ridloff said, “we need to have deaf writers and creative talent involved in the process of planning film projects from the beginning.”Amy Harrity for The New York TimesWhat were some of the logistical challenges on set?In some scenes, I had to face a wall. As a deaf person, how do you cue me? At one point, I was sharing my frustration with Angie — Angelina Jolie — at a holiday party after a day of shooting. And she immediately made a suggestion — why don’t we use a laser pen that special effects can easily erase? It was an “Aha, wow” moment. Whenever I’m looking at a wall, the interpreters would use a laser pen to make a circle on the wall — “rolling, rolling, rolling” — and once it went away that meant, “Action!”Were you comfortable asking for what you needed?I got to set believing that I had to show how easy I am to work with as a deaf person. I was concerned about seeming too fragile. But after working with others, I realized everyone has their own unique set of challenges, and that I need to think about what I need to deliver as an actor, and don’t apologize for it.What should Hollywood do to be more inclusive of deaf actors?Hollywood is finally figuring out why it’s so important to have representation, and now it’s more about how. That’s the part that’s more tricky. We need to have deaf writers and creative talent involved in the process of planning film projects from the beginning. When you have deaf experts within and on the stage, from the crew to makeup artists, it feels like that naturally leads to more authentic representation onscreen.What about for deaf audiences?Hollywood needs to take the lead on subtitling ads, trailers and those cute little interviews with clips that celebrities do promoting their movies. Another thing I’d like to see improve is the specifics of audio description. It’s not enough to see “music is playing” in a scene — what kind of music is it? Happy? Scary?Are most movie theaters accessible to people who are deaf?No! We’re an afterthought in movie theaters, and that needs to change. You have to use a special closed-captioning device to watch subtitling in a theater, and it’s a headache, because most of the time the devices don’t work. Then you have to go back to the front desk and find somebody to help, and by the time they figure it out that it’s not working — that it’s not going to be subtitled at all — the movie’s halfway done. Then you get, “Well, how about I give you a free ticket for the next movie?” And I’m like, “Are you kidding me?” That doesn’t fix the problem.Do you feel pressure to pave the way for future deaf actors?I’m not going to lie, I do feel the pressure and stress sometimes, and that can be a burden. I have to remember that it’s not my job to inspire others, or to be a model — but what I do have is the ability to create those connections.What do you hope people take away from this film?Growing up, I didn’t dream about becoming an actor. I didn’t see myself on the screen. As a little girl, I thought I was one of only a few deaf people walking on this Earth. Now, as an adult, I’m aware there are at least 466 million deaf people and hard-of-hearing people out there. I’m not the only one. And that’s what it means to have a deaf superhero — a lot more people will see a lot more possibility.

When readers need information immediately, teams of journalists collaborate to tell a single unfolding story.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.When the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan began accelerating with stunning speed, The New York Times quickly shifted into live coverage mode: Reporters and editors posted developments as they happened on the collapse of Kandahar, the disintegration of the Afghan military, the global response to the U.S. government’s actions and more, all packaged together.The live coverage format, which allows journalists to share the news as they learn it, has become a familiar one at The Times for reporting big events. So far this year, the newsroom has published more than 800 live stories, each consisting of a series of dispatches and updates that together can amount to thousands of words. On a typical day, The Times publishes four live packages — on the coronavirus, politics, business news and extreme weather — but there have been days with as many as eight.In the middle of it all is the Live team, a unit of about a dozen reporters and editors that was formed at the beginning of the year to collaborate with desks across the newsroom in creating and executing breaking news coverage.The Times has outgrown its role as a New York-centric print newspaper, Marc Lacey, an assistant managing editor who leads the Live team, said. It is now a global digital news organization that also produces podcasts, videos and newsletters along with a newspaper — the investment in the Live team is just the latest step in its continuous evolution, he added.“I want people all over the world to think about us when a big story breaks,” he said. “Whether it’s in Times Square or Tiananmen Square or somewhere in between.”Front-page news events — wildfires, the earthquake in Haiti, the resignation of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo — are obvious candidates for live coverage. But The Times has offered live coverage of the Grammy Awards, the National Spelling Bee, the Olympics, even Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey.“Anything people want to know information about immediately is a good fit,” Traci Carl, one of two deputy editors on the Live team, said.Live stories are anchored by beat reporters who are experts on their subject matter, and the Live team works as a group of consultants to other departments. Its journalists will offer ideas, troubleshoot problems, assist in reporting and editing, and at times create or manage a live story. “We act as a support system for desks,” Ms. Carl said. “We help them get a team in place and advise on the best approaches, but we don’t want to run their coverage.”While The Times’s Express desk, another unit of reporters and editors, initially responds to many breaking news stories, the Live team, working with other departments, focuses on setting up live coverage. Express reporters are frequently critical in contributing to live coverage as other desks like International and National dispatch correspondents to the scene.The Times mainly uses two types of live formats. A fast-moving blog, in which the latest information appears at the top, allows for short comments by reporters interspersed with concise reported items, a format used for the Derek Chauvin trial and the Emmy Awards. Briefings, which have an index of their entries at the top, “are more of a synthesis of a big story, a little higher altitude,” Mr. Lacey said.“A blog is like a fire hose of news,” Melissa Hoppert, a deputy editor for the Live team, said. “A briefing is a curated experience with takeaways at the top: Here’s what you need to know if you read only one thing on the subject all day.”The Times has experimented with live blogs for about a decade, and it turned to live coverage to report on momentous events like the terrorist attacks in Paris in 2015. The Times published its first daily coronavirus briefing on Jan. 23, 2020, and has not stopped since, making it the organization’s longest running 24-hour live briefing.The reader demand for live coverage, especially the coronavirus briefing, which recently surpassed 900 million page views, led The Times to create the Live team.Producing the daily live briefings requires collaboration among dozens of editors, reporters and researchers around the world: The coronavirus briefing, for instance, is a 24-hour relay involving multiple time zones and three hubs in Seoul, South Korea; London; and New York.The editors overseeing the briefings stay in constant contact through video conferences as well as email, multiple encrypted apps, internal chat groups and Google Docs.“It’s intense,” Ms. Hoppert said of working a briefing shift during a fast-breaking news event. “You’re essentially figuring out what’s going on at the same time readers are.”

The writer behind The Veggie talks about the meatless trend and what she envisions for the newsletter.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Tejal Rao, The New York Times’s California restaurant critic, enlisted a fridge full of ’70s-era vegetable Muppets this month to help announce her new vegetarian newsletter on Twitter — and her followers couldn’t get enough of the googly-eyed cabbage, corn, carrot and coconut chilling on the shelves.That’s the inviting spirit Ms. Rao hopes to bring to her newsletter, The Veggie, which debuted last week and comes out every Thursday. It’s part of The Times’s effort to serve readers who want to eat more vegetables.In a conversation, Ms. Rao discussed her ambitions for the newsletter, revealed some rejected titles and divulged the one vegetable she can’t stand.You’re an omnivore — when did you start eating vegetarian foods?I’ve been eating vegetarian food my whole life. Both of my parents cooked at home a lot and it was probably vegetarian at least a few times a week — a Gujarati-style dal with rice and a vegetable or two, or something more French or Italian-leaning, built around dried lentils and starches, and seasonal vegetables. Meat and seafood were a part of the week but weren’t necessary at every meal and weren’t always at the center of the meal.How did your diet change during the pandemic?When the supply chain broke down, I bought way, way less meat and fish. I signed up to get a farm box delivery every other week and cooked mostly vegetables, and that really reoriented me as a cook.Vegetarian recipe views on NYT Cooking increased nearly 50 percent over the past year. Did the idea for this newsletter predate the pandemic, or did it grow out of the uptick in interest in vegetarian content?My editors have been talking about publishing more and more vegetarian recipes for years, and the newsletter is something I’ve wanted The Times to do for a long time, but that data is still useful because it points to an immediate appetite for the work.Is the newsletter geared toward longtime vegetarians, or toward people who may not be vegetarian but who want to incorporate more veggies into their diets?It’s for anyone with an interest. But I have to admit, I especially love the idea of persuading people who think they’re not at all interested in vegetarian food that they are, that it’s delicious, that it’s approachable, that it’s very much for them.Was it always called The Veggie?One of the rejected names was Totally Herbaceous, which didn’t get far because it’s too long and very silly and no one liked it. We all immediately liked The Veggie — it just felt warm, friendly and inviting. And that idea came from Owen Dodd, an engineer who worked on The Veggie in its earliest days. A lot of the rejected names didn’t feel right because they connoted diet culture in some small, insidious way, and I absolutely didn’t want to do that — The Veggie isn’t about abstaining, it’s about feasting.Is there still a social stigma around being vegetarian?I think it depends on where you are, who you spend time with and what you have access to, but to me that feels so misguided, and so boring.It seems like The Times is including more vegetarian recipes in its coverage these days. Is that the case?We’re publishing fewer meat recipes than we used to, and the number of vegetarian recipes will only continue to increase.You’re based on the West Coast. How does California’s vegetarian scene compare to New York City’s?There’s a really vibrant vegetarian and vegan scene here, from baking to cheesemaking to fast food. I’ve reported on it a little bit — I wrote a piece about vegan taquerias last year. But what’s really exciting is that it’s not happening just here.Confession time: Is there a vegetable you really don’t like?Raw bell peppers, something about the aroma and the wateriness is a little repulsive to me. I love them cooked, though! Just not raw.Oh, no! They’re my favorite vegetable!Why?They explode with crunchy, juicy goodness. The orange and yellow ones are the best.Hmm, no. [Laughs]To sign up to receive The Veggie, click here.

The foundations are adding $5 million to the Disability Futures program, which will continue through 2025 with two more classes of 20 fellows each.The Disability Futures initiative, a fellowship established by the Ford and Andrew W. Mellon Foundations last fall to support disabled artists, is expanding. The foundations announced on Friday that they will commit an additional $5 million to support the initiative through 2025, which will include support for two more cohorts of 20 fellows.The fellowship, which was created by and for disabled individuals, was conceived as an 18-month initiative. It provided 20 disabled artists, filmmakers and journalists, selected from across the United States, with unrestricted $50,000 grants administered by the arts funding group United States Artists.But Margaret Morton, the director of creativity and free expression at the Ford Foundation, said it was clear from the beginning that it couldn’t just be a one-off venture.Projects undertaken by members of the first cohort will be showcased at the first Disability Futures virtual festival, on Monday and Tuesday, with programming from some of the country’s leading disabled artists, writers, thinkers and designers. It is free and open to the public.Among the highlights: A session on disability portraiture with the filmmakers Jim LeBrecht and Rodney Evans, the painter Riva Lehrer and the journalist Alice Wong; a conversation exploring the connections between climate justice and disability justice led by Patty Berne; and a virtual dance party hosted by the garment maker Sky Cubacub, with music by DJ Who Girl (Kevin Gotkin). Evening runway performances from models wearing items from Cubacub’s Rebirth Garments and a meditation experience with the initiative Black Power Naps, featuring Navild Acosta and Fannie Sosa, are also on tap.“It’s been really profound for me to see how much the fellows chosen in the first cohort were interested in elevating others in the community,” Emil J. Kang, the program director for arts and culture at the Mellon Foundation, said in an interview on Thursday.The next class of fellows will be announced in 2022. They are chosen by peer advisers who are themselves disabled artists.But the feedback from the first class, Morton said, was frank: Do even better in the selection process.“One of the fellows challenged us,” she said, about there being only one Native American fellow. “And we appreciated that and were challenged to get it right and make sure we have a deeper pool.”The grants offer flexible compensation options. The money can be distributed in a lump sum, in payments or even be deferred, depending on what works best for the artist.The fellowship “has made an incredible difference in my life and career,” the writer and photographer Jen Deerinwater said in an email. “It’s allowed me more financial freedom, without the risk of losing my disability and health care services, to pursue more artistic pursuits such as music.”The pandemic has made foundation leaders “deeply aware” of the challenges disabled professionals face, Morton said. About one in four adults in the United States has a disability, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.“We gained a deeper impression and perspective about what it’s like to navigate through the world,” she said.The program’s overarching goal is to help the artists make connections, Morton said.“Our biggest dream is visibility,” she said. For audiences to see the artists and for funders to see that “they should start investing in disabled practitioners.”