Author: NY TIMES

West Wilson never thought he’d be spending the summer in a house in the Hamptons, let alone as part of a reality television show. The unemployed former football player from Missouri was about to run out of money following a three-week boys’ trip when he got a call that would change his life.“My severance ended that weekend,” Mr. Wilson, 27, recalled. “I came home and it was like the most depressing Monday of all time.”Mr. Wilson decided to check his voice mail to see if there was something — anything — in there to cheer him up. To his shock,…

“Now,” Mr. O’Neal said, “it’s bloggers, emcees, athletes, designers.”At the N.B.A.’s All-Star weekend in February, as Mr. O’Neal and Mr. Iverson made the rounds wearing Reebok varsity jackets that were personalized with their respective titles, Reebok released an N.B.A.-themed collaboration with Victor Solomon, the Los Angeles artist. (The jackets were Mr. O’Neal’s idea.)Star players, though, are still an invaluable piece of the puzzle, and Reebok made an immediate, and somewhat surprising, first splash back in October by partnering with Angel Reese, one of the most popular young players in the women’s game. A former all-American at L.S.U., Ms. Reese recently…

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Molly Mirhashem is used to running around in circles — literally.Six days a week, Ms. Mirhashem runs near her home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Much of her weekly mileage takes place on the same, roughly 3.5-mile loop of a nearby park. Her training will come in handy: This weekend, she is running the Buffalo Marathon in upstate New York. It will be her ninth time gutting out 26.2 miles since she first caught the marathon bug in 2017.Ms. Mirhashem, an editor…

Ming Wang, the real-life physician whose biography is the basis for this fictional feature, is a Nashville-based ophthalmologist whose degree in laser physics has presumably been a boon in his work restoring sight to visually impaired patients, many of whom are children.As is the custom with inspirational medical movies, however, the new film “Sight,” directed by Andrew Hyatt, leans hard into uplift — it provides only the narrative-necessary minimum of the science. Wang’s achievement in developing innovative technology is central to one of the stories here, yes. But the dominating narrative is one of personal growth.Weaving several decades’ worth of…

For generations, residents of Collyweston — a village in central England snuggled up against the River Welland — passed down stories of a grand Tudor palace, of royal processions through the valley below, of the mother of a king who had called it home.Over hundreds of years, the stories persisted, even as memory of the palace’s whereabouts faded. But the lore suddenly came to life when a handful of amateur historians unearthed portions of the long-lost palace, buried under a few feet of soil. Historians from the University of York have verified their findings.“We are a small village with a…

He and his brother, Robert, teamed up to write the songs for “Mary Poppins” and other Disney classics. They also gave the world “It’s a Small World (After All).” Source link

Diplomats are aiming to restart negotiations for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas at some point in the next week, according to three officials briefed on the process, rekindling hopes of an end to the fighting in Gaza even as Israel presses ahead with its campaign there.According to the officials, preliminary discussions were held this weekend in Paris between David Barnea, the director of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad; William J. Burns, the director of the C.I.A.; and the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, one of the lead mediators between Israel and Hamas. The officials…

Russia bombed a hardware superstore in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Saturday afternoon, killing at least six people and injuring at least 40 others, Ukrainian officials said. The attack was the latest in a sustained bombing campaign against the city that has made life increasingly difficult and dangerous for civilians.Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, said that 16 people were still missing, suggesting that the death toll could rise. He added that another airstrike on Saturday, in the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, injured at least 14 people.“For the entire day, Kharkiv has…

Zack Norman, who made his mark as an actor in films like “Romancing the Stone” and “Cadillac Man” and with appearances on television shows like “The A-Team” and “The Nanny” — and who, as a producer, also became known for a star-crossed movie that became a running punchline on the show “Mystery Science Theater 3000” — died on April 28 in Burbank, Calif. He was 83.The cause of his death, at a hospital, was bilateral pneumonia related to the coronavirus, his daughter Lori Zuker Briller said.While best known for scene-stealing appearances as a supporting player, Mr. Norman was always more…

Haiti’s bleak humanitarian situation is once again in the spotlight after gangs on Thursday attacked an Oklahoma-based missionary group working in the capital, Port-au-Prince, killing two Americans and the Haitian director of the organization, Missions in Haiti.The attack left many asking why American missionaries are still working in Haiti considering the immense violence that has paralyzed the country and the grip gangs have over most of Port-au-Prince. Thursday’s incident follows the 2021 kidnapping of 17 missionaries who were working in Haiti with Christian Aid Ministries. A Haitian gang kidnapped 16 Americans and a Canadian in that attack; weeks later, 12…