The Met Gala was last night \u2014 shouts to the Carter family of Jay-Z, Beyonc\u00e9 and Blue Ivy for a late and feathery arrival. \u201cI cannot properly convey the decibel level in this tent \u2014 there are limits to the English language,\u201d our Callie Holtermann reported from the red carpet when they arrived. To start today, we\u2019re going to hear from Stella Bugbee, our Styles editor, about some of the best looks from fashion\u2019s biggest night.<\/p>\n
NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM<\/p>\n
April showers bring May galas!<\/p>\n
Yes, it\u2019s that time of year again where we gather to watch the spectacle of the Costume Institute\u2019s annual party \u2014 a parade of opulence and sartorial invention displayed on some of the world\u2019s most famous people.<\/p>\n
And this year\u2019s Met Gala was one for the ages! For starters, Beyonc\u00e9 came. She hasn\u2019t appeared at a Met Gala in a decade, and this year she hosted it. The big surprise was not her jeweled exoskeleton by Olivier Rousteing \u2014 after her absence, it would have been enough for her to show up in a potato sack \u2014 but that she was accompanied by her daughter. Minors do not typically attend, so it was exciting (even a little transgressive?) to see Blue Ivy Carter\u2019s entrance. <\/p>\n
For another, Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and his wife, Lauren S\u00e1nchez Bezos, provided the main source of funding for the exhibition and the party itself. The activist group Everyone Hates Elon called for a boycott, and posters appeared in New York City saying that the gala was \u201cbrought to you by worker exploitation.\u201d Mayor Zohran Mamdani skipped the ball to celebrate New York City garment workers<\/a>.<\/p>\n Yet the show went on. The dress code for the evening was \u201cFashion Is Art,\u201d a theme that matches with the spring show, \u201cCostume Art,\u201d which makes the case that fashion connects every other gallery in the museum. Very meta<\/a>! Paintings, sculptures, artifacts and photographs from across the museum have been paired with garments that relate to those works in an exhibition that will delight fashion and art nerds equally.<\/p>\n Individual tickets are a whopping $100,000 \u2014 $25,000 more than last year. The event has already broken last year\u2019s $31 million record haul, bringing in a reported $42 million this year.<\/p>\n Here are some of the most notable looks<\/a>:<\/p>\n Eileen Gu<\/p>\n A dress for making wonder? This one, by Iris van Herpen, was constructed of 15,000 glass balls. A tiny spout hid a machine that spewed bubbles, surrounding Gu in an ethereal cloud.<\/p>\n For a star who truly understands the impact of fashion, there was more fabric on the top of her head than on the rest of her body. Even her feet were bare!<\/p>\n Connor Storrie<\/p>\n Yves Saint Laurent was an official sponsor of this year\u2019s gala. Storrie\u2019s high-necked shirt with his exposed shoulders stood out among the many stars who wore the brand on the cobblestone carpet \u2014 a supremely confident display of androgynous formal wear. <\/p>\n Naomi Osaka<\/p>\n Osaka\u2019s Robert Wun dress mimics stigmata \u2014 the little red feathers reference spurts of blood. It\u2019s a radical statement, but blink and you might miss it. (There\u2019s a similar piece in the exhibit, if you happen to make it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)<\/p>\n I love a woman who commits to the bit, and nobody on earth goes harder on a costume than Klum. She was, perhaps, the celebrity who took the \u201cFashion Is Art\u201d theme most to heart, dressing as a marble statue.<\/p>\n Sign up to receive The Fashions<\/a>, our newsletter on high and low styles. Back to you, Sam.<\/p>\n THE YEAR\u2019S BEST JOURNALISM<\/p>\n The first Monday in May is often a special day at The New York Times. That\u2019s when Columbia University announces the Pulitzer Prizes \u2014 basically, the Oscars of journalism. I\u2019ve attended the accompanying newsroom celebration for almost 25 years, and it never gets old. It\u2019s a moving couple hours of applause, reflection, thanks-giving and joy. Winning journalists bring their family members \u2014 long-suffering spouses, parents, children \u2014 and editors beam while they describe the way the winning work came together. Nobody in this profession does that work for prizes, of course, but recognition is pretty cool. (The Times has taken home 148 Pulitzers since 1918.)<\/p>\n The Times and The Athletic, its sister sports publication, won four Pulitzer Prizes yesterday. (We\u2019ve taken down the paywall for the links in this section, and the articles are all free to read.)<\/p>\n Our staff won the investigative award for articles that examined the huge cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence deals<\/a> that Trump family members and allies have landed with foreign interests, while swaying U.S. national security policies.<\/p>\n And Pablo Torre, a podcaster, won for reporting on a secret sponsorship deal<\/a> with an environmental start-up that let the L.A. Clippers circumvent the N.B.A. salary cap so that they could pay Kawhi Leonard, the team\u2019s star forward. The show, \u201cPablo Torre Finds Out,\u201d appears through The Athletic.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t just us, of course. The prize for public service, considered the most prestigious of the Pulitzers, went to The Washington Post for covering the purge of government workers and the closure of government agencies<\/a> last year. (Times reporters were also finalists for their coverage of immigration, U.S. humanitarian aid, child sex trafficking in Los Angeles, medical treatment for transgender children and drone warfare in Ukraine.) <\/p>\n I also loved this series from The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica<\/a> about how car-towing companies were overcharging residents. It won for local reporting. Please subscribe to your local news outlets. Their work, covering communities and holding local leaders to account, is endangered.<\/p>\n And it really is about the work, even on Pulitzer day. I\u2019ll never forget the awards in 2013. I was the national editor, watching the speeches in the newsroom while sitting next to Kit Seelye, then the Boston bureau chief. Phones started chirping as news of the Boston Marathon bombings broke. John Eligon, one of our reporters, had just run the race. He grabbed a notebook and started reporting as Kit high-tailed it for the train. The next year, our photographer Josh Haner won a Pulitzer for his images<\/a> documenting the painful, long-term recovery of one of the victims in the attack.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a list of all this year\u2019s winners<\/a>, including those for fiction, nonfiction, poetry and music.<\/p>\n THE LATEST NEWS<\/p>\n Politics<\/p>\n Alaska: As global competition for the Arctic heats up, the U.S. military is preparing its soldiers to fight in the freezing cold<\/a>.<\/p>\n India: The Hindu nationalist party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi took control of West Bengal, an opposition stronghold, for the first time<\/a>. <\/p>\n Venezuela: Trump promised transparency in the country\u2019s economy after the removal of Nicol\u00e1s Maduro. But the country\u2019s oil industry remains a black hole<\/a>.<\/p>\n OPINIONS<\/p>\n The Republican Party is in trouble if \u201cnormie\u201d members \u2014 neither MAGA die-hards nor Never Trumpers \u2014 sit out the midterms<\/a>, Kristen Soltis Anderson writes.<\/p>\n Here are columns by Thomas Edsall on how Trump feels about losing<\/a> and Michelle Goldberg on \u201cThe Devil Wears Prada 2<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n TODAY\u2019S NUMBER5,651<\/p>\n \u2014 That is how many Yankees games the radio play-by-play announcer John Sterling called over a more than 30-year career that ended in 2024. The \u201cVoice of the Yankees\u201d died yesterday. He was 87<\/a>.<\/p>\n SPORTS<\/p>\n M.L.B.: The Padres closer Mason Miller went 35 games without giving up a run. Jayson Stark says it\u2019s a dominant pitching streak unlike any other in M.L.B. history, and he has the stats to back it up<\/a>.<\/p>\n Snooker: The World Championship of snooker, a cue-ball sport similar to billiards, has been drawing lots of headlines<\/a>.<\/p>\n RECIPE OF THE DAY<\/p>\n I always keep a bag of frozen potstickers in the freezer, because there are some weeknights when I\u2019m starving and the last thing I want to do is cook something complicated. So: dumplings and greens<\/a>. Saut\u00e9 the frozen wontons in a little oil until they\u2019re well browned on one side. Fish them out of the pan, and then saut\u00e9 some kale with ginger and garlic. Put the dumplings on top of the greens, splash the pan with water, rice wine or a mixture of both, then cover the pan to heat everything through. Serve with soy sauce, black vinegar, chopped cilantro, sesame seeds and chile crisp. Dinner in 20 minutes!<\/p>\n Seventeen years after her first novel, \u201cThe Help,\u201d became a controversial megahit, Kathryn Stockett is back with a second, \u201cThe Calamity Club.\u201d It\u2019s about three Mississippi women navigating poverty and misogyny during the Great Depression. Elisabeth Egan profiled the author<\/a>. \u201cI wrote this thing for so long,\u201d Stockett told her. \u201cI felt like everything I touched was failing.\u201d And Lauren Christensen reviewed the book<\/a>: \u201cpure, hell-raising entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n More on cultureTHE MORNING RECOMMENDS<\/p>\n Look at Romare Bearden\u2019s \u201cCityscape,\u201d a huge mural that hangs in Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. Really look at it \u2014 for 10 minutes<\/a>, if you can. See what you discover.<\/p>\n