Author: NY TIMES

The British Museum on Thursday named Nicholas Cullinan, an art historian who currently leads the National Portrait Gallery in London, as its new director, ending an unsettled period in which the august institution lacked a permanent leader.He will immediately face a host of challenges, including the fallout from an embarrassing scandal in which the museum says a former curator stole over 1,800 items from its storerooms, then sold many of the artifacts on eBay.Cullinan will also be expected to lead an extensive fund-raising drive to pay for a major refurbishment. And he will have to deal with increasing demands for…

When friends visit Aliza Haskal’s apartment in Syracuse, N.Y., she offers them gripping entertainment: a live feed from a camera six feet below the surface of a cloudy river in the Netherlands.As soon as a fish glides by, Ms. Haskal hurries to press the website’s sole button. It is a doorbell — specifically, a doorbell for fish.The button helps alert a worker in the Dutch city of Utrecht to crank open a dam, allowing the fish to wriggle toward shallower water where it can spawn.“It’s Utrecht’s hottest sex club, accessible via fish doorbell,” said Ms. Haskal, a 24-year-old graduate student…

In a sign of easing tensions between Australia and China, China said Thursday it will lift the tariffs it placed on Australian wine more than three years ago.The tariffs, which were first imposed in 2020 amid a nasty diplomatic spat between Australia and China, had all but vaporized the country’s biggest overseas market, worth 1.2 billion Australian dollars or around $800 million at its peak. Australian winemakers faced desperate hardship and were stuck with a surfeit of big-bodied red wines.The decision to lift the tariffs was announced by China’s Ministry of Commerce.In a statement, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said…

Even though the legal battle between Sandy Hook families and the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been thoroughly covered, it is still hard to watch him in the documentary “The Truth vs. Alex Jones” without experiencing a wave of nausea.Directed by Dan Reed (“Leaving Neverland”), the film methodically lays out the horrors that families in Newton, Conn., faced on Dec. 14, 2012, when a gunman killed 20 first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary. Parents of the victims share memories from that morning before their children left for school. Daniel Jewiss, the lead investigator, walks viewers through how…

A day before the U.S. embassy in Moscow put out a rare public alert this month about a possible extremist attack at a Russian concert venue, the local C.I.A. station delivered a private warning to Russian officials that included at least one additional detail: The plot in question involved an offshoot of the Islamic State known as ISIS-K.American intelligence had been tracking the group closely and believed the threat credible. Within days, however, President Vladimir V. Putin was disparaging the warnings, calling them “outright blackmail” and attempts to “intimidate and destabilize our society.”Three days after he spoke, gunmen stormed Crocus…

PITTSBURGH — DJ Burns Jr. is at it again. The toothy gregarious giant at North Carolina State was swarmed by reporters near his locker the day before a game against Oakland in the second round of the NCAA tournament. He marveled at how incredible the stage he had just stepped onto was. “That’s the beauty of March Madness,” he said. “If there’s something interesting, they’re going to find it this time of year.” In other words, it’s a time when previously undiscovered stars and compelling storylines are introduced to a national audience. So what was it about Burns that made…

Rebecca Hall stood in front of an easel, her face contemplative. She moved a paintbrush gently on a palette, then applied the paint to the canvas. This was in her studio, a converted barn next door to where Ms. Hall lives in upstate New York with her husband, the actor Morgan Spector, and their 5-year-old daughter, Ida.When she’s not acting, Ms. Hall paints as a way of channeling her creativity. Her father, Sir Peter Hall — who founded the Royal Shakespeare Company — once warned her about dividing her talents. “He said that it’s very hard to do more than…

When Elon Musk first set up Tesla’s factory in China, he appeared to have the upper hand.He gained access to top leaders and secured policy changes that benefited Tesla. He also got workers accustomed to long hours and fewer protections, after clashing with U.S. regulators over labor conditions at his California plant. The Shanghai factory helped make Tesla the most valuable car company in the world and Mr. Musk ultrarich.But Tesla is now struggling. Mr. Musk helped create his competition, Chinese E.V. makers that are taking market share and becoming a security concern for the United States and Europe.Tesla benefited…

Martin Scorsese has agreed to spearhead a documentary series about Christian saints for Fox Nation, the subscription streaming service run by Fox News Media.“Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints,” which begins airing in November, will be hosted, narrated and executive produced by Scorsese, the decorated director of classic films like “Taxi Driver” and “The Wolf of Wall Street.” Fox Nation is set to formally announce the series on Wednesday.Since its debut in 2018 as a companion service to Fox News, Fox Nation has expanded into entertainment and general-interest programming as it aspires to become a kind of Netflix for conservative audiences.…

A White House spokeswoman said on Wednesday that the Israeli government had agreed to try to reschedule a visit by a group of officials whose trip to Washington to discuss a possible assault on a key southern city in Gaza was scrapped over the U.S. decision not to veto a U.N. resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.President Biden had asked Israel to send a delegation to Washington to discuss alternatives to a ground offensive in Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than a million people have sought refuge. But Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called off the delegation’s trip…