Author: NY TIMES

The Crooked House, a pub in England’s West Midlands that was demolished last year after a suspicious fire, could soon be rising from the rubble after its owners were ordered to restore the pub to its former lopsided glory.The tavern, known as “Britain’s wonkiest pub” for its slanting walls and floors, was sold to a private developer in July 2023. Around two weeks later, the pub caught fire in a suspected arson attack and the developers who had bought it brought in the bulldozers. Locals were outraged. With the support of local politicians, they launched a public campaign to see…

About four years ago, the D.J.s Malinder Tooray, Omar Ahmed and Bianca Maieli hosted a night of music and dancing in Los Angeles.They were living in the city and loved attending dance parties that played rhythmic genres from around the world, like Afrobeats, reggaeton, and Brazilian baile funk, but they wanted to hear more sounds from Asia, including the Indian music of their formative years.Their show, “No Nazar,” attracted a wide following and filled in what many saw as a gap in the music and nightlife scene.“Nazar” is an Arabic word borrowed by many languages and cultures. It invokes the…

America’s two largest energy companies, Exxon Mobil and Chevron, are jousting over a prized new source of oil in the waters off Guyana, in Latin America.The conflict is creating doubts over Chevron’s bid to acquire Hess Corp. for $53 billion, announced in October. Chevron this week warned of the possibility that “the merger would not close” because of the dispute.At the heart of the deal is Hess’s investment in Guyana, where an Exxon-led group has discovered a massive 11 billion barrels of oil and gas in an area known as the Stabroek block. With just 800,000 people, Guyana, long one…

Since Sam Bankman-Fried was convicted of fraud last year, he has hired a new lawyer known for courtroom showmanship. A group of sympathetic law professors has pushed for a reappraisal of his actions. And his parents have turned for help to former employees of FTX, the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange he founded.From a federal detention center in Brooklyn, Mr. Bankman-Fried, 31, has continued to fight his case behind the scenes, as he argues for a lenient sentence and prepares to appeal his conviction. On Tuesday, his lawyers are scheduled to file a legal memo in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan,…

The conductor Jaap van Zweden does not leave his position as the New York Philharmonic’s music director until later this summer.But his post-New York plans are already taking shape. In January, van Zweden officially began a five-year term as the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra’s music director. And on Tuesday, he announced another new job: He will become music director of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, a French radio orchestra in Paris, for a five-year term starting in 2026.Van Zweden, 63, succeeds Mikko Franck, who will step down next year after a decade on the podium. Van Zweden will take over…

Israel is holding local elections on Tuesday, the first time that voters have gone to the polls since the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7 and the war in Gaza reshaped Israeli society and put security at the top of the national agenda.People across the country will pick municipal and regional officials, responsible for issues like education, garbage disposal and park cleaning, in a vote delayed from Oct. 31 because of the war. Results are not expected for a few days because absentee ballots need to be tallied.While the election will not be a referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu —…

The tainted applesauce might have gone unnoticed for even longer had it not been for a family in North Carolina.Early last summer, Nicole Peterson and Thomas Duong were alarmed by their young children’s blood-lead levels in a routine screening. Within weeks, the levels had doubled.Ms. Peterson said the couple worked with the local health department as they tried to determine what could be hurting their children. We “weren’t sleeping and we’re not eating — like this is driving us crazy,” said Ms. Peterson. She and her husband are suing Dollar Tree, where they bought the applesauce, and WanaBana, a U.S.…

Cherri Gervais got her first gray hairs as a teenager.“It’s genetic,” she said.Her hair color, a striking shade of silver, is the first thing people on TikTok noticed when she asked them to tell her how old she looked in a recent video.The guesses ranged wildly. Many were correct, or close enough, Ms. Gervais said. (She turned 34 this month.) Other suggested she was in her 60s or 70s.Ms. Gervais, who lives in Kansas and works for a part-time beauty company, said she had decided to post her video after coming upon similar TikToks.“I saw someone Gen Z do it…

In the Levi’s store on Market Street in San Francisco, the denim maker’s newly extended collection is on full display. Its mannequins are dressed head to toe in its trademark denim. Black denim overalls are paired with a light-blue long-sleeve denim blouse, complemented by a denim cap. Another dons a denim cross-body bag. A wall of blue jean jackets gives shoppers the option to feel like a hippie, rancher or rock star — depending on which they choose.“It isn’t just walls and walls of jeans,” Michelle Gass said as she scanned the store this month, days after becoming the chief…

After Sandra Hüller learned that two movies she stars in — “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest” — had been selected for the competition at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, she was a little apprehensive about what it might mean for her anonymity. The German actress has always had a prickly relationship with fame: Aside from her role in the bittersweet 2016 feature “Toni Erdmann,” she has mainly kept a low profile, working in German theater.But what happened next outstripped even her boldest expectations. “Anatomy of a Fall,” a French drama in which Hüller plays a woman…