Author: NY TIMES

Lori and George Schappell, conjoined twins whose skulls were partly fused but who managed to lead independent lives, died on April 7 in Philadelphia. They were 62.Their death, at a hospital, was announced by a funeral home, which did not cite a cause.Dr. Christopher Moir, a professor of surgery at the Mayo Clinic, who has been on teams that separated six sets of conjoined twins — although none of them were joined at the head — said that when one of the Schappells died, the other would have almost certainly followed quickly.“Conjoined twins share circulation, he said, “so unless you…

Bob Heil’s career as a groundbreaking sound engineer who brought thunder and rich sonic coloring to tours by rock titans like the Grateful Dead and the Who began behind a pipe organ in a 1920s movie palace.Mr. Heil, who helped usher rock into its arena-shaking era by designing elaborate sound systems that allowed rock juggernauts of the late 1960s and ’70s to play at volcanic volumes, first learned to appreciate the full spectrum of musical tones as a teenager, when he took a job playing the massive Wurlitzer pipe organ at the opulent Fox Theater in St. Louis.“We had to…

Israel has not provided evidence to support its allegations that many employees of the main U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees are members of terrorist organizations, according to an independent review commissioned by the United Nations that was released on Monday.The review was announced in January, before Israel circulated claims that significant numbers of employees of the agency, known as UNRWA, were members of terrorist groups.But by the time investigators started working on the review in early February, it had taken on additional significance: Israel had accused about a dozen employees of the agency, which employs about 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza,…

Israel’s military operations in Gaza have weakened Hamas. Most Hamas battalions have been degraded and are scattered. Thousands of its members have been killed, and at least one senior military leader has been eliminated.Yet Israel has not achieved its primary goals of the war: freeing hostages and fully destroying Hamas.The war and the tactics of the Israel Defense Forces have come at a great cost. Vast numbers of Palestinian civilians have been killed in the Israeli campaign; hunger is widespread in Gaza; and deaths around relief efforts have generated condemnation.Six months into the conflict, the question of what Israel has…

On Saturday, the day after the jury was impaneled for former President Donald J. Trump’s hush-money trial in New York, Melania Trump finally returned to the presidential campaign trail. The occasion: the Log Cabin Republicans’ fund-raiser at Mar-a-Lago, at which Mrs. Trump was the guest of honor and addressed the room.Yes, she’s officially back. And as ambiguously as ever.While Mrs. Trump’s words on unity and equality may have been directed to the audience in the ballroom, the outfit she chose for the occasion — a covered up black Michael Kors pantsuit with a leather belt wrapped tightly twice around her…

Advisors for Everton, one of the oldest teams in English soccer and a founding member of the Premier League, have begun searching for an alternative buyer for the financially stricken club, according to people familiar with the decision who requested anonymity to discuss private talks.Everton announced in September that it had signed an agreement to sell the club to an American investment firm, 777 Partners. But seven months later, the Premier League has still not granted more than conditional approval of the deal amid questions about 777’s financials.At the same time, the club continues to struggle on and off the…

A new flood of child sexual abuse material created by artificial intelligence is threatening to overwhelm the authorities already held back by antiquated technology and laws, according to a new report released Monday by Stanford University’s Internet Observatory.Over the past year, new A.I. technologies have made it easier for criminals to create explicit images of children. Now, Stanford researchers are cautioning that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, a nonprofit that acts as a central coordinating agency and receives a majority of its funding from the federal government, doesn’t have the resources to fight the rising threat.The organization’s…

About a week into rehearsals for the Off Broadway premiere of David Adjmi’s latest play, “Stereophonic,” Will Butler sent an email to the cast. Butler, a former member of Arcade Fire, had a new band, Will Butler + Sister Squares, and a new self-titled album. A club in Brooklyn would soon host the record release party. Butler, the composer of “Stereophonic,” had a proposition: The actors should open for him.Sarah Pidgeon, a cast member, remembered reading the message last August during a rehearsal break. “I immediately said no,” she recalled. “Because what if it’s a failure?”She had taken piano lessons…

The Israeli authorities said they had arrested two men in Jerusalem on Monday after a vehicle was used to ram into pedestrians, injuring at least three people, in what the police called a terrorist attack.Video of the episode broadcast on Israel’s Channel 12 shows a car speeding around a sharp corner and ramming into a group of people, who went flying over the top of the vehicle. Pictures shared on social media by the police show a white sedan that had crashed into another car on a small street.After hitting the pedestrians, the vehicle appears to crash into a parked…

On Wednesday, an auction house in Europe will put a painting by Gustav Klimt up for sale, with a preauction estimate of at least 30 million euros (about $32 million).Whoever buys it will obtain a painting by an artist whose major works rarely come up for sale, but also a portrait whose subject, provenance and current ownership are either unknown, not public or the subject of debate.The auctioneer selling the painting is not an international heavyweight like Sotheby’s or Christie’s, but im Kinsky, a local house in Vienna whose biggest sale until now was in 2010: $6.1 million, for a…