Author: NY TIMES

Joe Camp, a pioneering filmmaker who created a groundbreaking franchise with his “Benji” movies, which brought a lovable live-action dog to the masses and became a smash success, died on Friday at his home in Bell Buckle, Tenn. He was 84.His son the director Brandon Camp announced the death in a statement. He said his father died “following a long illness” but provided no other details.Joe Camp began thinking about directing when he was as young as 8 years old, but he would first encounter decades of rejections. While attending the University of Mississippi, he tried to transfer to U.C.L.A.’s…

Iran and the United States held secret, indirect talks in Oman in January, addressing the escalating threat posed to Red Sea shipping by the Houthis in Yemen, as well as the attacks on American bases by Iran-backed militias in Iraq, according to Iranian and U.S. officials familiar with the discussions.The secret talks were held on Jan. 10 in Muscat, the capital of Oman, with Omani officials shuffling messages back and forth between delegations of Iranians and Americans sitting in separate rooms. The delegations were led by Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator, and Brett McGurk,…

The police officers asked the man what he meant when he said that involving an Australian government minister in a charity event could benefit “us Chinese.” Was he talking about mainland China and the Chinese Communist Party, or the local Australian Chinese community? Depending on the answer, he faced up to 10 years in prison.“You are understanding the Chinese is China. We always say, ‘I’m Chinese,’ that not mean, ‘I’m mainland China,’” said the man, Di Sanh “Sunny” Duong, who was brought in for questioning.The officer pressed on, according to a tape played for a jury. Was Mr. Duong effectively…

TEMPE, Ariz. — Every morning for the past six years, no matter how early Angels players and staff arrived at Diablo Stadium in Tempe, they would see a swarm of Japanese media standing around the Tempe Butte A hill overlooking the team’s spring training facility. This is not a casual sunrise hike. Each shot zooms in, awaiting the arrival of two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani.While spring training means early mornings for players, coaches and reporters, the group assigned specifically to Ohtani makes others think twice before complaining about their alarm clocks. Ohtani Watch begins at 5 a.m. while most of the…

On Feb. 17, the Adler Planetarium in Chicago unveiled a new sky show called “Niyah and the Multiverse,” a blend of theoretical cosmology, Black culture and imagination. And as with many things Afrofuturistic, Ytasha Womack’s fingerprints are all over it.Ms. Womack, who writes both about the genre and from within it, has curated Afrofuturism events across the country — including Carnegie Hall’s citywide festival — and her work is currently featured in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. Afrofuturism is perhaps most popularly on display in the “Black Panther” films, which immerse viewers in an alternate…

On more than one occasion Mr. Peltz, who is Jewish, has encountered what he considered at least a whiff of antisemitism. He recalled that his arrival in London in the 1980s was greeted with a tabloid profile headlined “The Wild and Rocking World of Nelson Peltz.” The first sentence, he said, called him a “Jewish boy from Brooklyn,” and the British business establishment closed ranks against him.Mr. Peltz, long a fierce critic of antisemitism, said he stepped down from his role as chairman of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in December because after 40 years in the position, it was time…

But the Library of Congress is the keeper of American memory. Its immense collection contains more than 178 million books, manuscripts, recordings, maps, photographs and moving images — including a two-minute trace of “The Callahans and the Murphys.”Would I like to see it?So deeper I fell, until finally bottoming out in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, on the outskirts of Culpeper, Va.Here, in the late 1960s, the federal government built an underground facility into the side of Mount Pony, about 75 miles southwest of Washington, as a secure storehouse for billions of dollars in cash in the event…

One of the witnesses, Mohammad Hamoudeh, a photographer in Gaza City, said that he did not see any Israeli forces or the weapons that fired on the crowd. But he said that heavy Israeli fire from a distance appeared to be responsible for the casualties.“The cannons and tank shells are what targeted the civilians,” he said.“I escaped by a miracle; we saw death with our eyes,” he said. Referring to the earlier convoy disaster, he said: “It was almost the same scenario as the Nabulsi incident. There were many martyrs. The scene was horrifying.”Even after the bloodshed, people collected what…

Gathered in a Ukrainian farmhouse, soldiers checked their kits: rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, spare batteries for radios, red and white flashlights, all that would be needed for a stealthy and daring night assault across the border into Russia.The soldiers are Russians who have turned against the government of their country’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, and are now fighting for the Ukrainian side by making incursions back into Russia.Their goal has been to break through a first line of Russian defenses, hoping to open a path for another unit to drive deeper into Russia with tanks and armored personnel carriers.“We…

In September 2022, 27-year-old Jac Collinsworth debuted in the prestigious role of play-by-play voice for NBC’s Notre Dame football games, succeeding Mike Collins, one of the most acclaimed broadcasters in sports. · Mike Tirico.Earning such a position suggested he was a sports broadcasting prodigy, but from his first game — Marshall’s win over Notre Dame — Collinsworth didn’t sound worthy of the role on the national stage. He lacked precision and rhythm and was always saying “uh-huh,” a bad habit that usually takes years of practice to break.The focus on Collinsworth only increased last year, especially after a lackluster performance…