Author: NY TIMES

Three years ago, Sean Ono Lennon was asked to develop a music video for the 50th anniversary of “Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” the 1971 protest song by his parents, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, which has become a rare type of perennial — a warmhearted Christmas tune that doubles as an antiwar challenge, telling ordinary citizens that peace can be achieved “if you want it.”But Lennon, 48, was not interested in making a simple video. That “felt unnecessary” for such a well-known track, he said in a recent interview. What intrigued him more was the possibility of expanding the…

Look closely at this tiny, idyllic island: Victorian-era fortifications dot the windswept coastline. A concrete anti-tank wall disrupts a quiet beach. Overgrown greenery covers bunkers and tunnels.This is Alderney, where the 2,100 people who call the island home do not lock their cars. Where the streets are quiet and the pubs (nine of them) are lively, and the roads don’t have traffic lights. And where reminders of World War II hide behind most corners.This fiercely independent island in the English Channel, roughly 10 miles from France, is at the center of a debate about how to remember Nazi atrocities and…

Lamy, a German pen manufacturer, made a recent splash when it quietly rereleased Dark Lilac, a much-celebrated color of ink. A lush purple with a golden sheen, Dark Lilac, despite its popularity, had been produced only once before — as a limited edition in 2016.Its reappearance a couple of weeks ago was so unexpected that the fountain pen community, which makes up a small but passionate corner of the office supplies market, was agog.There was just one problem: It was not the same color.“There is drama in the fountain pen community,” Aidan Bernal, a 23-year-old fountain pen enthusiast, said at…

President Biden and his economic team, concerned that elevated mortgage rates and housing costs are hurting Americans and hindering his re-election bid, are searching for new ways to make housing more available and affordable.Mr. Biden’s forthcoming budget request will call on Congress to pass a raft of initiatives to build more affordable housing and help certain Americans afford to purchase a home. The president is also expected to address housing affordability for both homeowners and renters in his State of the Union address next week, according to people familiar with the speech planning.On Thursday, administration officials announced a handful of…

Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of March’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)New to Amazon Prime Video‘Road House’Starts streaming: March 21The original 1989 “Road House” is one of those movies that became a pop culture classic through brute force. The story of a nightclub bouncer fighting small-town corruption is by no means high art; but it’s a solidly crafted, entertaining pulp melodrama, which won fans thanks…

When a member of one of India’s wealthiest families gets married, big-name guests and showstopping pomp and circumstance are nothing unusual. But it’s not every day that the invitees include royalty, business titans, Bollywood luminaries and Rihanna, for three days of a pre-wedding spectacular, months ahead of the actual ceremony.The lavish festivities getting underway on Friday for Anant Ambani, whose father heads Reliance Industries, have seized public attention in India despite — or perhaps because of — how they underscore gaping inequality in a country that has enjoyed economic growth yet where millions still live in profound poverty.Mr. Ambani, 28,…

Andrew McCaskill slid into Marcus Dwayne Johnson’s Instagram direct messages in September 2019 with a flirty note, telling him that he looked really cute in a suit he was modeling. The message he finally got back six weeks later wasn’t quite as playful.“I’m thinking he’s going to be like, ‘Hey, Big Papa,’” Mr. McCaskill said with a laugh.Instead, “Marcus was like, ‘Hi Drew, I see you’ve recently made a career transition, and I have a current career scenario I’m navigating,’” he said.Though the corporate speak they settled into just after wasn’t exactly a love language, Mr. McCaskill, then an independent…

Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, for breaching a contract by prioritizing profit and commercial interests in developing artificial intelligence over the public good.Mr. Musk, who helped create OpenAI with Mr. Altman and others in 2015, said the company’s multibillion-dollar partnership with Microsoft represented an abandonment of its founding pledge to carefully develop A.I. and make the technology publicly available.“OpenAI has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company, Microsoft,” said the lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in Superior Court in San Francisco.The lawsuit is the latest chapter…

This week sees the release of “Dune: Part Two,” the second installment in Denis Villeneuve’s eye-popping adaptation of the 1965 Frank Herbert novel. “Dune” was also adapted in 1984, by David Lynch, who hated his version (or the cut that made it to theaters, anyhow) so much that he disavowed it.Perhaps you’ve seen the Lynch version, which I find kind of charming in its flawed state. (Nobody should be that sweaty on the planet Arrakis.) But if you’re heading to “Dune: Part Two” this weekend, you owe it to yourself to be acquainted with another “Dune” adaptation that doesn’t technically…

The number of aid trucks entering Gaza dropped significantly in February, data shows, even as humanitarian leaders warned of famine and demanded that Israel and others increase aid to civilians trapped in the enclave. The deaths of dozens of people amid a rush for food aid on Thursday underlined the degree of desperation in the territory.​​An average of 96 trucks a day entered Gaza through Feb. 27, a 30 percent drop from the January average and the lowest monthly average since before a cease-fire in late November, according to data from UNRWA, the U.N. aid agency for Gaza.“It has been…