Author: NY TIMES

HOUSTON — Trust issues may be dividing a small group of members of the Toronto Raptors organization. Accusations were flying. A neutral court may be needed.”I knew I was going to be the first one she screwed over,” Raptors center Jakob Poeltl said late last week.”All my trust was gone,” he added. “I went on record in the media saying the game was rigged.””Who, I think, is the loser on this team,” Raptors physical therapist Amanda Joaquim said.”The ego is out of control. People who complain – holy. Rules are rules. What do I do? I just have to enforce…

On a phone call in October, Carly Mark raised the idea for the first time: She needed to leave New York.There comes a moment in every creative New Yorker’s life when this may happen — when the city that once seemed as if it pulsed just for you now seems as if it is pushing you out, like an organ transplant gone wrong.But there was more: Ms. Mark said she could no longer sell clothes.This was and wasn’t surprising. A few weeks earlier, in September, Ms. Mark held a runway show for her five-year-old fashion brand, Puppets and Puppets. The…

Even on a chilly Monday evening, the wait at Cho Dang Gol was more than an hour.Crowds of 20-somethings spilled out of the homey restaurant in Manhattan’s Koreatown, where steam billowed from stone bowls of soondubu jigae in a dining room ornamented with paper lanterns and musical instruments. Some hopeful customers peeked inside, anxious to see if a table had opened up.A few blocks away, diners at Hojokban — a sleeker, more modern restaurant that opened last fall — eagerly snapped photographs of a plate of fried-rice wearing an empty Shin Ramyun noodle cup like a hat. The dish had…

Mojo Nixon, the rabble-rousing psychobilly musician and radio host who shot to fame with his satirical 1987 hit “Elvis Is Everywhere,” died on Wednesday aboard a country music cruise that he was co-hosting. He was 66.His death was confirmed by Matt Eskey, the director of a 2020 documentary film about Mr. Nixon. He said that Mr. Nixon had a “cardiac event” while he was asleep as the Outlaw Country Cruise was docked in San Juan, Puerto Rico.A statement posted by the film’s official Facebook page said that Mr. Nixon had died “after a blazing show, a raging night, closing the…

Pakistanis have labeled it a “selection” — not an election. Human rights monitors have condemned it as neither free nor fair.As voters headed to the polls on Thursday, the influence of Pakistan’s powerful military and the turbulent state of its politics were on full display. Few doubted which party would come out on top, a reflection of the generals’ ultimate hold on Pakistan’s troubled democracy.But the military is facing new challenges to its authority from a discontented public, making this an especially fraught moment in the nation’s history.The tension was underlined on Thursday as Pakistan’s Interior Ministry announced that it…

LAS VEGAS — The thought has been swirling in Brett Veach’s head all week, and the what-if lingers after a season-ending loss that has the Kansas City general manager grappling with a reality he’s not used to. .”You see it every year,” Veach said, “where a team starts off well and doesn’t make the playoffs.”Five weeks ago, that fear was real.that could be usVicky remembers thinking.Of course, it’s easy for Veach to admit it now, standing on the field at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas six nights before the Chiefs’ fourth Super Bowl appearance in five years. But the general…

Twisted and charred aluminum mixed with shards of glass still lines the floor of the industrial warehouse where Victoria Martocci once operated her scuba diving business. After a wildfire tore through West Maui, all that remained of her 36-foot boat, the Extended Horizons II, were a pair of engines.That was six months ago, but Ms. Martocci and her husband, Erik Stein, who are weighing whether to rebuild the business, which he started in 1983, said the same questions filled their thoughts. “What will this island look like?” Ms. Martocci asked. “Will things ever be close to being the same?”In early…

Dear listeners,I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but this year’s Grammys were … really good?The performances were almost uniformly excellent. Tracy Chapman, radiating joy and in fine voice, sang “Fast Car” publicly for the first time in ages, alongside a visibly reverent Luke Combs. (I wrote more about that moment here.) A regal Joni Mitchell sang “Both Sides Now” and made everybody cry. Billie Eilish and her collaborator brother, Finneas, absolutely nailed their performance of “What Was I Made For?” and showed everyone watching why their subsequent win in the song of the year category was so deserved.The wins…

When Bologna became the first major Italian city to impose a speed limit of 30 kilometers, or 20 miles, an hour, Luca Mazzoli, a local taxi driver, posted a sign in his cab warning passengers of the change.He had to, he said grumpily the other day, “to explain why I am driving so slowly.”Since the limit became enforceable in mid-January, it has taken longer for Mr. Mazzoli to get from Point A to Point B, he claimed, meaning that he has picked up fewer passengers and has found himself stuck in traffic more often.“A city has to move,” he said.Critics…

Bianca Smith made headlines in January 2021 when she was hired as the first Black female coach in professional baseball history. Media outlets including CNN, the BBC and People Magazine have covered the story of the new Boston Red Sox minor league coach.Smith quietly left the Red Sox after two years — leaving behind a multi-year contract because she said she didn’t feel challenged.”They wanted to send me back to rookie ball, but I didn’t want to be there, so I decided to take a chance,” Smith said in a phone interview. Competitor. “Everyone I know who stays at a…