The Mexican-born, Ridgewood, Queens-based sculptor Raul De Lara is aware of the irony of his choice of medium: wood. The most rooted of materials is a contrast to the precarity of his upbringing — he came to Texas at 12 with his parents, and remains here under DACA.

A meticulous carver who often uses traditional American and Mexican techniques, De Lara, 33, reimagines banal household items — snow shovels, chairs and spades, as well the Monstera deliciosa plant, a south Mexican native that has become an American houseplant cliché — as commentaries on labor and immigration.

His series “Tired Tools” evokes the exhaustion of invisible workers: A broom slouches against a wall; a pitchfork’s shaft hangs on a hook like a discarded garment. For “Soft Chair” (2022), a live-edge slab of Siberian elm is fashioned into what appears to be a cushy upholstered seat; “The Wait” (2021) and “The Wait (Again)” (2022) are round-backed rockers covered with spikes mimicking cactus spines. (In 2023, Hermès commissioned a version of the chairs shaped like a child’s rocking horse, outfitting it with one of its lavish saddles for the window of its Aspen, Colo., store.)

The artist, who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and has an M.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University, likes to source wood from places in his past: Texas; Chicago; Provincetown, Mass., where he had a fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center; and Mexico. Like Martin Puryear and Wendell Castle, whom he counts among his influences, De Lara — whose second solo museum exhibition opens on Sept. 12 at the Contemporary Austin — works with kiln-dried lumber (he prefers oak, walnut and ash) but also sometimes employs green wood, whose internal mysteries reveal themselves only during carving. “With wood,” he says, “you can see the passing of time on its skin. No other material shows you time.” — Petala Ironcloud

For nonalcoholic wine and spirits makers, creating complex flavors has always been the primary challenge. “You’re trying to mimic that alcoholic bite,” says Jens Christophersen, 45, the Brooklyn-based founder of Less Than 0.5%, a nonalcoholic beverage consulting firm and importer. Often, vintners start by removing alcohol from high-proof drinks using vacuum distillation or enzymes and then add water or grape juice to rebalance the taste — a complicated process with mixed results. Now, however, a growing number of makers are employing a different strategy, turning instead to the green, woodsy, often bracing notes of wild ingredients to give their products an edge. The Norwegian company Villbrygg, for example, uses mostly foraged plants in blends like Eng — the name is Norwegian for “meadow” — which includes vanilla-scented meadowsweet leaves and flowers, as well as tannic, black tea-like fireweed blossoms and foliage. Including multiple parts of a single plant delivers “different layers of flavor, which creates structure,” says the co-owner Vanessa Krogh, 34. The Minneapolis-based label Dry Wit takes a similar approach with its Pippi blend, steeping white pine needles and branches in water and then blending the infusion with verjus, rice vinegar and salt. “The needles are bright and citrusy, and the sap [from the twigs] adds depth and nuance,” says Peder Schweigert, 42, one of the brand’s co-founders. The Copenhagen-based label Muri also uses evergreens, foraging Douglas fir shoots from woodlands around the city for its Sherbet Daydream. Its top-selling blend, Passing Clouds, features dried woodruff, a ground cover herb that “provides a slightly marzipany flavor,” according to the founder Murray Paterson, 45. “I really believe that the future of non-alc isn’t copying or making de-alcoholized versions of existing drinks,” he says. “We’ve got to create something new.” — Ella Riley-Adams

Mosaic, an early form of decorative art, emerged around the eighth century B.C. in Anatolia in the form of floors set with smooth multicolored stones. Several hundred years later, the Romans realized that mosaics could run up walls in delicate bursts of color made from tiny pieces of glass called tesserae (the term is Latin for “cubes” or “dice”). But it was the Byzantines who perfected the use of gold and silver leaf in mosaics starting in the fourth century A.D., adorning almost everything with brilliant mirrored shards. Buccellati, the century-old Milan-based jeweler known for scoring and etching precious metals in a tulle-like web, celebrates the craft in this latest incarnation of its Eternelle ring. In 18-karat yellow and white gold, set with 10 carré-cut rubies, 20 faceted tsavorites and more than 200 round brilliant diamonds, it’s a luminescent homage to the wild embellishment of Byzantine style. Buccellati Mosaico Eternelle ring, price on request, buccellati.com. — Nancy Hass

Photo assistant: Pietro Dipace

A Grand Yet Intimate Hotel in Milan

One of the grandest new hotels in Milan, the nine-story Maison Senato, designed by the architect Massimiliano Locatelli, offers just a handful of rooms. Opened earlier this month in a postwar building at the northern edge of Milan’s fashion boutique-heavy Quadrilatero della Moda, it comprises five 1,800-square-foot, two-bedroom full-floor apartments and a two-story, 3,600-square-foot penthouse with a rooftop terrace and a plunge pool. The furnishings are by notable Italian designers: Gabriella Crespi’s bamboo armchairs, Gae Aulenti’s balloon-shaped lamps and several pieces from Locatelli’s own line, including solid cast-aluminum dining chairs, feather-stuffed sofas and wool rugs dyed in soft washes of color meant to evoke 17th-century watercolor paintings. A subterranean floor holds a spa and gym, and just off the lobby is a guests-only cafe, as well as a spacious patio concealed from the neighbors by trellises covered in English ivy and jasmine. “The idea was to create the feeling that you’re stepping into a space that’s been here for a long time,” says Locatelli, 58, “like a local Milanese has opened their own space to you.” From about $4,200 a night; maisonsenato.com. — Laura May Todd

Casey McCafferty’s life has followed a picaresque trajectory, so it’s unsurprising that the 35-year-old’s furniture and objects are wildly imaginative. Despite developing an early interest in sculpture — he started out making peculiar car speaker enclosures out of fiberglass — the Staten Island native studied finance in college. In his mid-20s, having grown tired of the banker’s life, he quit to do custom woodworking for architects in Los Angeles, experimenting on the side with the anthropomorphic pieces that are now his signature. These days, he works and lives in Fair Lawn, N.J., letting his subconscious guide him as he carves. On this chest, abstract facial features and geometric shapes seem to dreamily emerge from the undulating cherry surface. “I let it take me places,” he says of the piece. “For me, that’s always been the best way to go about things.” Gaeta Cabinet Low, $24,000, casey-mccafferty.com. — Nancy Hass

Photo assistant: Timothy Mulcare. Set designer’s assistant: Checka Lapierre

Belted Bags on the Runway

Four private astronauts ended a mission in a SpaceX vehicle on Friday by splashing down in waters near Oceanside, Calif.

It was the first time the company had brought people back to Earth in the Pacific Ocean, after six years of its Dragon capsule splashing down off Florida in the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico.

The Fram2 mission had circled the Earth for four days in a north-south orbit. The journey was the first time people have been able to look down directly at the North and South Poles from orbit.

SpaceX moved its operations to the Pacific to eliminate the problem of Dragon debris falling in random parts of Earth. The Pacific is the biggest pool of water on the planet, and the weather along the West Coast of the United States tends to be pretty nice, too, which provides more days favorable for the return of astronauts.

The first SpaceX astronaut mission, a test flight in May 2020 with Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken of NASA aboard, launched to the International Space Station. Just over two months later, they returned to Earth, splashing down in the Gulf waters off Pensacola, Fla. This was the first flight using SpaceX’s upgraded Dragon 2 capsule design.

Fourteen other astronaut missions followed — nine flights financed by NASA, five private ones — as well as 10 cargo missions for NASA taking equipment and supplies to the International Space Station. All splashed down safely off Florida.

However, pieces of the spacecraft’s trunk — the cylindrical segment below the capsule that is jettisoned before re-entry — were coming down in unexpected places: a sheep field in Australia; a farm in Saskatchewan, Canada; and a hiking trail in North Carolina.

No one was hurt, and no property damage occurred. Hoping for continued good luck, however, would not be considered adequate protection from a continuing rain of space debris.

SpaceX said it had anticipated that the spacecraft’s trunk would completely burn up in the heat of re-entry. Because that turned out not to be the case, SpaceX last year announced changes that it planned to make for the Dragon landings.

First, the trunk would be jettisoned later in the return journey, after the spacecraft had fired its thrusters to drop out of orbit. That enables aiming of the debris, and the Pacific Ocean provides a large, unpopulated expanse of water where the debris will not pose a danger to people.

Before these changes, the Dragon trunk remained in orbit for weeks to months with no way to predict where it would re-enter.

For NASA, it will also help scheduling of its missions because of calmer weather in the Pacific.

In October, the return of a Dragon capsule with four astronauts from the space station was delayed for two weeks, first by Hurricane Milton, which swept over Florida, and then by continuing stormy conditions and choppy seas.

SpaceX had moved the Dragon landings in Florida in part to meet NASA requirements for faster processing of science experiments coming back from space. It will also take SpaceX longer to transport the capsules back to Florida for preparations for its next flight.

The last East Coast landing occurred last month with the return of a NASA mission from the space station that brought back two NASA astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. Their stay in orbit was stretched to an unplanned nine months because of problems with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they had taken to orbit. The flight ended with a whimsical moment as a pod of dolphins investigated the spacecraft and the boats that had traveled to recover it.

For the Fram2 mission this week, Chun Wang, an investor who made his fortune in blockchain and cryptocurrency mining, paid an undisclosed amount. He selected three people to accompany him: Jannicke Mikkelsen, a Norwegian filmmaker; Rabea Rogge, a robotics researcher from Germany; and Eric Philips, an Australian explorer who specializes in expeditions to the polar regions.

Mr. Wang named the mission after the Fram, a Norwegian ship that explored the Arctic in the 19th century.

He provided a series of updates from orbit, 270 miles above the Earth’s surface, including the queasy beginning.

“Space motion sickness hit all of us — we felt nauseous and ended up vomiting a couple of times,” he wrote on X. “It felt different from motion sickness in a car or at sea. You could still read on your iPad without making it worse. But even a small sip of water could upset your stomach and trigger vomiting.”

He said that the motion sickness was gone by the second morning.

Astronaut splashdowns in the Pacific were common in an earlier era of spaceflight, with most of NASA’s Apollo missions landing there.

Landings in the Pacific are also a return to the past for SpaceX. Twenty missions using an earlier version of the company’s Dragon capsule to carry cargo to the space station from 2012 to 2020 all splashed down there.

No word on whether the West Coast dolphins will be just as curious.

The police confiscated a kite on Saturday after it was flown near airplanes landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport, according to the airport police, and after a witness said he saw it make contact with a landing plane.

United Airlines said that it “was aware of reports” that a kite had been in the path of Flight 654 from Houston.

“The aircraft landed safely, customers deplaned normally and upon inspection there was no damage to the aircraft,” United said.

Officers with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority Police Department received reports on Saturday of a kite flying at Gravelly Point, a park just north of an airport runway, Emily McGee, a spokeswoman for the department, said on Sunday.

Gravelly Point is a part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway and is overseen by the National Park Service. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.

Kite flying is barred at the park because of the low-flying aircraft in the area. Officers “briefly confiscated” a kite on Saturday, Ms. McGee said.

“That kite was returned to its owner shortly later, and no charges were filed,” Ms. McGee said.

It was not immediately known how high the kite was flying or what kind of kite was confiscated. The Federal Aviation Administration said on Sunday that it did not have a report about the kite.

Jamie Larounis, a travel industry analyst, said in an interview on Sunday that he had reported the kite to the airport police after seeing it make contact with the plane on Saturday while he was walking home from the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington.

He stopped to sit at Gravelly Park for 10 to 15 minutes. He described the park as a “plane spotter’s paradise,” where he sometimes sees people with air traffic control radios watching planes just before they land at the airport.

On Saturday, people were picnicking, cycling and flying about 10 to 15 kites, he said.

Most of the kites were flying relatively low, he said, but at one point he spotted a green, “run-of-the-mill kid’s kite” flying higher and higher. He said it looked as if two adults and a child were controlling it.

An incoming plane “was at the right height to come in contact with that kite,” he said, and he watched as the kite reached a side of the plane, between its fuselage and the engine.

The kite came down, tangled in itself, he said.

He disputed the description by the police of the kite being “briefly confiscated,” and said it remained in a police car while the family drove away from the park without it.

Mr. Larounis called the airport police to report what happened because he was concerned that the kite might have caused damage to the plane that had gone unnoticed.

He said he was also particularly sensitive to aviation safety after an American Airlines flight collided with an Army helicopter near the airport in January, killing 67 people aboard both aircraft. The F.A.A. has since closed the helicopter route involved in the crash.

Another concerning episode happened at Reagan National Airport on Friday, when four U.S. Air Force jets came close to a Delta Air Lines plane that was taking off. The F.A.A. is investigating.

Weeks after being rattled by thousands of mostly small-scale earthquakes, the island of Santorini, the jewel in the crown of Greece’s tourism sector, is determined to return to business as usual — even as the quake phenomenon remain a mystery.

The tourism-dependent island, which had been enjoying a strong comeback after the coronavirus pandemic, is counting on it.

The first two cruise ships of the season arrived on the last two Sundays of March, and more than 40 are due this month, kicking off a year in which the union of cruise ship owners has predicted a 10 percent increase in cruise visitors over last year.

But hoteliers are still expecting a slower year, with bookings down about 30 percent compared with 2024.

“Things have woken up over the past couple of weeks,” said Alexis Yannoulatos, who runs the Blue Dolphins hotel and the Grand View on Santorini’s caldera, the rim of an ancient volcano that gave the island its unique shape, multicolored beaches and rock formations. But he said that April was likely to be a “miserable” month for tourism revenues.

Mr. Yannoulatos, who hosted visitors from South Korea at the height of the quake crisis in mid-February, said that occupancy at his hotels was 30 percent for April, with reservations for May and the summer months expected to rise to about 50 percent.

Maria Manousoudaki, who owns the cliff-side Alti Suites in the island’s southwest, said that bookings were “coming in dribs and drabs” for the next couple of months, but that she would be opening half full this week, with visitors from Britain, France and Israel and the United States.

The island, which has a population of 15,500 and typically hosts more than three million visitors annually, had previously worried about over-tourism, and even this week, the authorities launching Santorini’s tourism campaign insisted on the importance of “sustainable” tourism. As of June 1, cruise ship visitors must pay a charge of 20 euros, about $21.50, a measure approved last year to reduce the strain of excessive crowds on the island.

But a few weeks ago, thousands of earthquakes rattled the island, sometimes every few minutes, sending most residents fleeing. The authorities closed schools and deployed emergency services to the region, and experts scrambled to interpret the tremors, which peaked with a 5.3-magnitude temblor on Feb. 10.

As the quakes eased in late February and early March, residents returned, schools reopened and hoteliers resumed renovations in preparation for Easter and summer visitors. Now, most tremors are less than magnitude 3, basically imperceptible, and life on the island is returning to normal.

Yet the quake phenomenon remains unexplained.

“We still haven’t come to a conclusion about the causes,” Athanassios Ganas, the research director at the National Observatory of Athens’ geodynamics institute, said this week.

Some cliff-side areas that are prone to landslides will remain off limits until May 15 as earthquake experts seek ways to minimize risk, Mayor Nikos Zorzos told reporters at the launch of the island’s tourism campaign at the Acropolis Museum in Athens on Tuesday.

“There’ll be a bit of numbness at the beginning, but the season has opened — we’re ready,” he insisted.

Greece’s tourism minister, Olga Kefalogianni, told the event that Santorini was “returning to normality” and that it “remains a safe and hospitable destination,” adding that the safety of residents and visitors “is our absolute priority.”

The quake crisis has also affected the island’s seasonal work force, with the tremors adding to longstanding concerns by workers over the long hours required at summer resorts and a lack of year-round benefits like health insurance, said Giorgos Diamantopoulos, the general secretary of Santorini’s association of traders and business professionals.

Recruitment has already begun for the 25,000 seasonal workers whom the island’s tourism sector relies on, he said, adding that hires so far have been from Albania, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and the Philippines. Labor ministry statistics showed that just over 2,600 workers were hired in March.

In the meantime, scientists are trying to understand the recent earthquakes.

Researchers are using seismic monitors and remote-controlled underwater vehicles to study the tremors and the area’s volcanoes — though they stress that no major eruption is expected, the last one having occurred 3,500 years ago.

And on Monday evening, foreign scientists joined their Greek counterparts by video link for a discussion in Athens to analyze the tremors and mild volcanic activity with the help of artificial intelligence. They agreed on one thing: The earthquake sequence was unprecedented and remarkable.

As for the prospects for a strong quake occurring, Mr. Ganas said the data suggested that it was unlikely, even as the region has the potential for a temblor of up to a magnitude of 7.1.

The island’s hoteliers are bracing for both geological and financial turmoil, although Ms. Manousoudaki said she was more worried about monetary losses than a possible large earthquake, given the resilience of Santorini’s buildings.

“It’s true that many buildings on the caldera are basically clinging to the cliffs,” she said. “But they’re built to withstand earthquakes,” she added. “I feel safer here than I would in Athens.”

Update April 3, 2025: This article has been updated to reflect new information about Miller Gardner’s death.

What can travelers do to prevent and treat food-borne illnesses — not just during off-the-beaten-path adventures, but in and around resorts?

A lawsuit filed in January in Toronto in connection with the food poisoning-related deaths in 2023 of 8-year-old Stephen Gougeon and his mother, April, alleges, among other things, that the Dominican Republic resort where they stayed did not take sufficient care in food handling. (The recent death of 14-year-old Miller Gardner, the son of the former New York Yankees outfielder Brett Gardner, while on vacation in Costa Rica has now been linked to carbon monoxide poisoning, which shares some of the same symptoms as food poisoning.)

In general, gastrointestinal illnesses among tourists — travelers’ diarrhea and food poisoning — is especially likely to occur in countries where the water supply is unsafe. But there are also many cases of food poisoning, and hundreds of deaths, in the United States every year, and these infections can occur anywhere there are lapses in how food is handled. Raw or undercooked meat, fish and shellfish can be contaminated, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s list of high-risk foods includes raw eggs and unpasteurized milk.

Travel presents additional concerns. “People may be in places where the tap water is not necessarily safe, and they don’t have control over how food is prepared or handled,” said Dr. Adam Ratner, director of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone in New York. “When you’re home, you have some control, and you have U.S. and local health department standards. It can be harder to assess safety somewhere else.”

Parents should be especially vigilant. Babies and young children are vulnerable to dehydration, which is generally the most dangerous aspect of gastrointestinal illnesses; other groups at high risk include pregnant women, older people and anyone who is immunocompromised. But even younger adults and adolescents may not realize how serious the symptoms of food poisoning can be, and when it is important to get medical help.

Here’s what you need to know to be prepared when traveling, and what to do if you suspect that you or your travel companions have food poisoning.

What is food poisoning?

Food poisoning means you’ve eaten something that is contaminated, most often with bacteria and the toxins they produce, but sometimes with a virus or a protozoan parasite. It can happen because the food wasn’t thoroughly cooked, or because it became contaminated after being cooked. In other words, the problem can arise at any point while food is being prepared, handled and served.

When members of a group who ate together get sick at the same time, that’s usually evidence of food poisoning. The typical symptoms are diarrhea and vomiting, sometimes accompanied by fever, chills and abdominal pain. With some contaminants, especially certain bacterial toxins, people get sick within a couple of hours, while with others it can take 24 hours or so.

The biggest danger is fluid loss and dehydration. However, some bacterial toxins can do other kinds of damage to the body, and there are some bacteria that can actually produce a general infection, or sepsis, especially salmonella.

What foods should you avoid on vacation?

Stay with food that has been thoroughly cooked and served hot. Avoid raw shellfish, which may have come from contaminated water, and raw or undercooked meat. Especially in countries where the water supply isn’t safe, avoid precut fruits and salads, which may have been washed in that water. The C.D.C. also warns against foods like salsas and ceviches, which contain raw ingredients.

Basically, food is safest when it’s thoroughly cooked and served hot. That means buffets can be problematic, with food often standing for long periods. If you do eat at a buffet, the hot food should be truly hot, and if there is cold food, it should be truly refrigerated; nothing should be approaching room temperature.

If food has been cooked and then allowed to sit around — as is often the case with street food — stay away.

Be suspicious of ice — boiling kills potential pathogens, but freezing does not. If the ice is made from contaminated water, it isn’t safe. If you have concerns, stick to bottled drinks from the refrigerator.

Any shots you should get before you travel?

Everyone should be immunized against hepatitis A, a virus that is a common cause of gastrointestinal illness in many parts of the world. Children are routinely immunized against hepatitis A in infancy now, but check that adolescents have had the vaccine — and adults should get it if they haven’t had it.

What should you take with you?

You can travel with packets of oral rehydration solution — basically a combination of sugar, salt and potassium that can be mixed with clean water and drunk to replenish fluids and electrolytes.

Some doctors will prescribe antibiotics to carry with you. The idea is to take the antibiotics if you develop diarrhea, hoping to shorten the course of the disease. However, having the antibiotics — or even taking them — should not make you cavalier about symptoms; you still need to get medical attention if you’re seriously ill.

For parents, it’s worth talking with your child’s pediatrician about how to be in touch from abroad if you have concerns, and you should look into insurance coverage while traveling. You might also want to research in advance how to find medical help in your destination — whether that means knowing the location of the nearest hospital or the emergency phone number. It may be helpful to refer to the International Society of Travel Medicine’s global clinic directory.

What should you do if you develop symptoms?

Above all, stay hydrated. Drink sports drinks; sip clean water, broth or tea; and use your oral rehydration solution.

Take the illness seriously. If there are repeated episodes of vomiting and diarrhea, if you truly can’t keep anything down, and particularly if things are getting worse, don’t wait to seek medical attention. You should be especially concerned if fever, chills, bloody diarrhea or severe abdominal pain develop.

With a younger child, dehydration can happen quickly — over a matter of hours — and it can be difficult to get a sick young child to drink. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises contacting a doctor promptly if a child is not drinking.

Most likely, especially at a resort, you will find yourself going through your hotel to find medical help. The most important advice is that if you are concerned you need to be willing to insist on medical attention, and if necessary, go to a local clinic or hospital. “Don’t take no for an answer,” Dr. Ratner said.