Author: NY TIMES

These days, it’s common for a true crime story to go viral, but that interest often gathers momentum only after an investigation, documentary, podcast or online conversation brings to light a previously unfamiliar saga. For this streaming list, I wanted to look instead at stories that were, to some degree, viral already, and where that buzz was essential to the yarn itself — altering or shaping the unusual events. Here are four memorable offerings.Documentary filmCaleb McGillvary, known as Kai, may have been among the first so-called milkshake ducks, a term for a noncelebrity who delights the internet, only to fall…

Ukraine ordered the complete withdrawal from the ruined city of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine before dawn on Saturday, surrendering a city that had been a military stronghold for the better part of a decade, in the face of withering Russian bombardment and relentless assault.“Based on the operational situation around Avdiivka, in order to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of servicemen, I decided to withdraw our units from the city and move to defense on more favorable lines,” Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, Ukraine’s top military commander, said in a statement issued overnight. The fall of Avdiivka, a city that…

Falling in love with Ms. Upadhyaya replaced that inclination with the desire for something more long-lasting. In January 2020, she was accepted into a six-month writing fellowship program in Las Vegas, and she invited Ms. Upadhyaya to come with her. For Ms. Upadhyaya, whose freelance career gave her the flexibility to travel, the decision was easy.“We were excited to live together, and happy,” Ms. Upadhyaya said. Two months later, at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, “we ended up being stuck there together,” she said. Neither minded.When Ms. Arnett eventually brought Ms. Upadhyaya to the famed 7-Eleven store, her “everyday…

Shell, Europe’s largest energy company, forecast on Wednesday that global demand for liquefied natural gas, which has been a lifeline for Europe after Russia cut off pipeline gas supplies, will surge by around 50 percent over the next 15 years.The main source of growth is expected to be in China, which will switch from coal to gas in industry to cut emissions, Shell said.The fuel, which is chilled to minus 260 degrees Fahrenheit and transported on specialized ships, has become a significant moneymaker for Shell as part of a unit that earned $7 billion last year. But it has also…

In “Anatomy of a Scene,” we ask directors to reveal the secrets that go into making key scenes in their movies. See new episodes in the series on Fridays. You can also watch our collection of more than 150 videos on YouTube and subscribe to our YouTube channel.To tell the sweeping story of the Osage murders of the 1920s in “Killers of the Flower Moon” (nominated for 10 Oscars, including best picture), the director Martin Scorsese opted mostly not to sweep the camera along with the narrative.“Dealing with the landscape and the period, I tended to have more stable images,”…

This was not the speech she expected to give, at least not on this day. Yulia Navalnaya had come to a gathering of world leaders in Munich to press them to remember her imprisoned husband and her troubled country.And then just as the conference opened on Friday morning came word from Russian state media that her husband, the crusading, defiant dissident Aleksei A. Navalny, was dead in one of President Vladimir V. Putin’s prisons.By her own admission, her first thought was to fly away, to join her grown children to mourn in private a man who had already survived a…

In Caitlin Clark’s three-plus seasons at Iowa State, she regularly charged forward and surpassed anything in front of her. Often, this means getting blown over by a defender on the way to the rim for a layup. At times, she’ll drive off screens and away from opponents to create space for a catch-and-shoot three. Since the start of the season, Clark has been aiming to match former Washington star Kelsey Plumb’s NCAA women’s basketball scoring record of 3,527 points. “(She’s) ready to knock it down,” Hawkeyes coach Lisa Bluder told the Big Ten Network last week. “It’s not a burden…

It was the furthest thing from a “generic” first date, Mr. Miller said. They felt comfortable being themselves around each other, skipping over the basic small talk. “It was just a real deep conversation,” he said.They planned for a second date, but there was one complication: Ms. Rafson had a tight schedule the next week and was free only on Saturday evening — and that was the night of two N.F.L. playoff games. Mr. Miller, who described himself as a “pretty big football fan,” had a momentary internal debate before realizing the answer was clear: “I would rather see her…

San Francisco Ballet has a vibrant new artistic director: the celebrated Spanish dancer Tamara Rojo. And the company has had a relatively strong recovery from the pandemic, with ticket sales recently approaching pre-Covid levels.Now San Francisco Ballet has received a groundbreaking gift: It announced on Thursday that it had secured a $60 million contribution from an anonymous donor, the largest in the company’s 91-year history and one of the biggest ever to an American dance company.“It was, for me, an enormous surprise,” Rojo, who joined the company in 2022, said in an interview. “The impact is immeasurable.”The vast majority of…

I’m Martin Scorsese, and I was the director and co-writer and co-producer of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon.’ By this point in the story, it’s become pretty evident that the people who’ve been perpetrating the disappearances and murders of the Osage Native Americans in order to gain their headrights, their oil money, are being investigated. And they’ve narrowed it down to whom they thought the weakest link would be. The one they know they could probably get the information from or break is Ernest Burkhart. And he’s played by Leo DiCaprio. “Well, here we go.” Since the characters are all…