Author: NY TIMES

Jesse Jane, a onetime Hooters waitress and beauty pageant contestant who went on to star in the highest-budget series in pornographic film history, was found dead on Wednesday at a home in Oklahoma. She was 43.The cause was believed to be a drug overdose, said Lt. Francisco Franco of the Moore Police Department in Moore, Okla. He said that officers responded on Wednesday morning for a welfare check at a house where Ms. Jane and her boyfriend, Brett Hasenmueller, had been staying. They were both found dead, Lieutenant Franco said, adding that the deaths remained under investigation.Ms. Jane, with her…

A ruling on Friday by the International Court of Justice on charges of genocide against Israel had deep historical resonance for both Israelis and Palestinians. But it lacked immediate practical consequences.The World Court did not order a halt to fighting in the Gaza Strip and made no attempt to rule on the merits of the case brought by South Africa, a process that will take months — if not years — to complete.But the court did order Israel to comply with the Genocide Convention, to send more aid to Gaza and to inform the court of its efforts to do…

Two protesters from an environmental group hurled pumpkin-colored soup on the Mona Lisa at the Louvre museum in Paris on Sunday, splashing the bulletproof glass that protects the most famous painting in the world, but not apparently damaging the work itself.As the customary crowd around the 16th-century painting by Leonardo da Vinci gasped in shock, the protesters, two young women, followed up their attack by passing under a barrier and standing on either side of the artwork, hands raised in an apparent salute.“What is more important? Art or the right to have a healthy and sustainable food system?” the activists…

LJ Rader tries to be online as much as possible during big sporting events, but he missed the first half of last Sunday’s N.F.L. playoff game between the Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs because of a dinner engagement. After he left the restaurant, Mr. Rader checked his phone and saw an unusual request: The N.F.L. had tagged him on X, formerly known as Twitter, hoping he would deliver one of his signature creations.“I would’ve been so mad if I was still eating and had missed this,” Mr. Rader said.On social media, Mr. Rader is the wizard behind Art…

The crash diets have crashed, the brand-new budgets won’t budge and your Peloton is now the world’s most expensive laundry rack. But even if every one of your New Year’s resolutions is toast, there’s still one start-of-the-year chore you would be wise to handle: your retirement review.This is a perfect time to take stock of where your retirement is heading — whether you’re still on the job or have stopped working and are now collecting Social Security — financial planners say. It gives you a full year of investment returns and personal spending to review, as well as a momentarily…

Much of 20th-century classical music owes a deep thanks to jazz. And while on paper, the Philadelphia Orchestra’s concert at Carnegie Hall on Tuesday night was organized for a festival at the hall, Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice, the subtext was American jazz.All three of the composers on the program (Stravinsky, Weill and Gershwin) loved and, to one extent or another, made references to the style in their music. Although Stravinsky was based in Europe when he premiered “Petrushka” in 1911, he was already a U.S. citizen when he revised this piece in 1947, and had…

Today the United Nations’ highest court, the International Court of Justice, issued its first, preliminary decision in the genocide case South Africa brought against Israel.South Africa won its application for “provisional measures,” roughly equivalent to a temporary injunction, ordering Israel to take proactive steps to ensure genocide doesn’t occur in the future, while the broader case is pending.But the court declined to order the immediate cease-fire that South Africa requested. Instead, it ordered Israel to prevent its forces from committing or inciting genocidal acts, and to enable humanitarian assistance and basic services in Gaza. It also said it was “gravely…

One is accused of kidnapping a woman. Another is said to have handed out ammunition. A third was described as taking part in the massacre at a kibbutz where 97 people died. And all were said to be employees of the United Nations aid agency that schools, shelters and feeds hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.The accusations are contained in a dossier provided to the United States government that details Israel’s claims against a dozen employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency who, it says, played a role in the Hamas attacks against Israel on…

One night in November, a procession of young artists, critics and curators climbed the creaky stairs of a building in Chinatown in Lower Manhattan to attend an opening at a buzzy little gallery, Ulrik. The show, “Bettina: New York 1965–86,” was made up of rarely seen photographs and sculptures by an enigmatic artist who lived for five decades at the fabled Chelsea Hotel, where she created her works in a cluttered fifth-floor apartment until her death in 2021.Writers for Artforum and Frieze pushed through the crowd to get glimpses of the black-and-white street photography. Students from Pratt Institute drank cans…

Over his 54 years as a financial analyst, Richard X. Bove perfected the art of grabbing attention.Through thousands of newspaper interviews, cable news appearances and radio segments, Mr. Bove turned what can be a dull, by-the-numbers career into a more showy one. Weighing in on the economy and the inner workings of Wall Street, he often bucked conventional wisdom and made enemies along the way. By his own recollection, he never turned down a media request; American Banker once called him “the country’s most quotable bank analyst.”Last week, a few hours after completing a spot on Bloomberg television, the 83-year-old…