Author: NY TIMES

When Lauren and Jackson England tied the knot with a safari wedding in Ranthambore, India, in January, they wanted the dress code to reflect the surroundings. The mood they communicated to their guests was “classic heritage Ralph Lauren.”“I am an aesthetic person, and we had a clear vision for the hero image we wanted to create on the safari Jeep,” Mr. England, 37, said, referring to their primary wedding portrait. (He and Ms. England are founders of a content and production company in Sydney, Australia.) “It was important to me that guests followed our color palette.”In the end, “our creative…

Gary Friedman hates meetings. A 66-year-old with apparently limitless energy and a perpetual tan, Mr. Friedman is the chief executive of RH, one of the country’s largest high-end furniture sellers, and he never holds meetings. Instead, he convenes “adventures.”To the untrained eye, these look and sound a lot like meetings. But there is a difference. Adventures can last 10 hours, or more.That’s a typical stretch for Mr. Friedman’s adventures with his architecture and design team, a group of about 20 executives overseeing one of the priciest expansions in the history of American retail. The company is doubling the number of…

During the Latin pop star J Balvin’s set at Coachella in April, a surprise guest star suddenly appeared onstage: Will Smith, wearing a familiar black suit and sunglasses, launched into the title song of “Men in Black,” his 1997 Hollywood blockbuster.It was the beginning of a frenetic spring for Smith as he carefully re-enters the public eye to promote “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” his first wide-release movie since he slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars in 2022, a move that threatened to derail his career.Smith has been back walking red carpets, bantering on “The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon”…

Four hostages abducted from the Nova music festival and held by militants in Gaza for the last eight months were rescued by Israeli forces on Saturday.Since the Hamas-led terrorist attack on Oct. 7, Israel has only freed a small number of hostages through military force. Saturday’s rescues occurred in Nuseirat in central Gaza, where health officials reported that dozens of Palestinians had been killed.Here is what we know about the four hostages who were brought back to Israel.Noa ArgamaniNoa Argamani, 26, was taken hostage in the Oct. 7 attack alongside her boyfriend, Avinatan Or. Viral footage showed Ms. Argamani being…

In 2011, Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, News Corporation, faced a grave threat in Britain. Reporters at one of his tabloid newspapers were exposed for hacking the phones of celebrities, private citizens and, in one case, a murdered child for information.Other misdeeds soon emerged, including the revelation that for years, tabloid reporters had paid for information from police officers and government officials.Desperate to stop the scandal and appease prosecutors in Britain and abroad, News Corp chose Will Lewis, a former editor of The Daily Telegraph, to clean up the mess.He did just that. In his telling, he cooperated with the authorities,…

“Rodent Men”: What are they? Tiny men? Men who eat garbage? Some kind of furry science experiment gone wrong?According to the tabloids, they’re actually the most physically desirable thing a man can be at this particularly disorienting moment in American history. Exemplified by the faces of actors like “The Bear”’s Jeremy Allen White and “Challengers” leads Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor; as well as the 1975 band member Matty Healy and Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker, hot “Rodent Men” are a loose category that seems mostly to refer to men who look a bit like mice or rats. Several Styles staffers…

When an airline sells you a service, you should be able to receive a refund if it doesn’t deliver. But when is it not worth your time to even bother asking for one?I asked this question last week when I had serious trouble connecting to Wi-Fi during an American Airlines flight. The carrier charged $17 for the privilege. I figured that the nuisance of getting the money back would cost more than $17 of time and aggravation.Turns out I was wrong, according to over 100 readers who set me straight after I asked for advice in our weekly Your Money…

‘Godzilla Minus One’Stream it on Netflix.Despite a surprisingly successful box-office run at the end of 2023, this evocative, often poignant take on one of the most famous screen creatures of all time was abruptly pulled from theaters. Then the film remained AWOL from streaming for months, until it popped up last week with no advance fanfare — a bit like Godzilla himself emerging from out of nowhere, actually. Takashi Yamazaki’s movie is set a couple of years after World War II, as a traumatized Japan slowly rebuilds and tries to overcome the physical and mental devastation caused by the atomic…

Set to a peppy electronic soundtrack, a recent video clip showed what the Hezbollah militia said was a missile-firing drone, a new weapon in its arsenal as it ratchets up its strikes on Israel.Flaunting a new weapon is the type of muscle flexing that Hassan Nasrallah, the organization’s elusive leader, crows about. “What protects you is your strength, your courage, your fists, your weapons, your missiles and your presence in the field,” he said in an address earlier this year.Hezbollah’s attacks, which started last October in solidarity with Hamas in the Gaza war, have gradually intensified as the group uses…

In front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, the street has been blanketed in artificial turf, and a set of gigantic goal posts has been erected. On the waterfront in Hamburg, two dozen shipping containers have been painted in the colors of the competing nations. Part of Leipzig’s zoo has been handed over for a program of cultural events, though presumably not the bit with the tigers.Across Germany, the flags are being draped, the marketing plans are being finalized and anything bearing the logo of something other than one of UEFA’s official sponsors is being unceremoniously hidden from view. After…