Author: NY TIMES

“Purple Rain,” Prince’s breakout rise-of-a-rock-star film, is being adapted into a stage musical featuring some of the pop musician’s best-loved songs.Orin Wolf, the producer who previously shepherded the Tony-winning adaptation of “The Band’s Visit” to the stage, and who is currently backing the theatrical adaptation of another music industry movie, “Buena Vista Social Club,” announced on Monday that he is developing the musical, based on the 1984 film.The stage adaptation will feature a book by the playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant winner whose family drama, “Appropriate,” is now running on Broadway. The director is Lileana Blain-Cruz, whose…

As Israel prepares this week to face accusations at the International Court of Justice that it has committed genocide in the Gaza war, it has appointed one of the country’s most prominent jurists as the ad hoc judge to sit on the bench on its behalf.The choice of Aharon Barak, a retired Israeli Supreme Court president who fled Nazi-occupied Lithuania as a boy, was immediately praised by many Israelis after it was announced on Sunday — and greeted with surprise and even criticism by others.While Mr. Barak, 87, is an internationally respected legal authority, he has also been at the…

The mayor of London on Sunday announced that a planned strike that would have ground the city’s underground Tube system to a halt this week had been suspended.“Londoners and visitors to our city will no longer face several days of disruption,” the mayor, Sadiq Khan, announced on social media late Sunday afternoon. “This shows what can be achieved by engaging with trade unions and transport staff rather than working against them.”The planned walkouts were to be so widespread that the authorities had warned people to travel on the London Underground only if their journeys were “essential,” and the strike would…

Coach Bill Belichick’s final game against the New England Patriots may go down in history — in a way he doesn’t want to remember.The Patriots lost 17-3 to the Jets on Sunday at Gillette Stadium, ending New York’s 15-game losing streak to New England. The Patriots had 119 yards of offense, their fewest in the Belichick era. The team’s last low score was 149 points against the Miami Dolphins on October 7, 2001.Rumors abound that Belichick and the Patriots could part ways at the end of the season — as they have for much of the fall. Answers about the…

During his wedding ceremony at a picturesque resort in the Southern California desert, Gerry Turner made his way down an aisle lined with roses.Then he turned around and walked back.The crowd murmured. Cold feet? No, the redo was for the cameras broadcasting the wedding on ABC. “For real this time!” Mr. Turner mouthed to guests when he walked by again a few moments later.If both versions had aired, viewers might not have minded: Mr. Turner has just about nominated himself as the face of second chances. On Thursday night, the 72-year-old widower and star of “The Golden Bachelor,” ABC’s dating…

The Internal Revenue Service is rolling out a free option for filing federal tax returns this year to some residents of a dozen states.Last month, the agency published details of its plan to test an in-house filing system, in which taxpayers submit their federal tax returns directly to the agency online at no cost. Residents of 12 states are eligible to participate if they meet certain criteria.“This is a critical step forward for this innovative effort that will test the feasibility of providing taxpayers a new option to file their returns for free directly with the I.R.S.,” Danny Werfel, the…

Dear Tripped Up,One day last July, I was dropping off a rental car at Budget’s location at Boston Logan International Airport when I misplaced my iPhone. As best as I can recall, I left it in the car while I went to throw away some trash, but neither my wife nor I nor the employee who was helping us could find it. After my flight home, I began tracking the phone using Apple’s Find My application, and after a trip through western Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the phone began traveling back and forth from an apartment building in Lynn, Mass.,…

A founding member of the experimental 1990s rock band Mr. Bungle, Theobald Lengyel, was arrested on Tuesday and charged with murder, after the police in Capitola, Calif., found human remains that they believed were his girlfriend’s in a wooded area of a regional park.Mr. Lengyel’s girlfriend, Alice Kamakaokalani Herrmann, 61, who was known as Alyx, was last seen in Santa Cruz, Calif., on Dec. 3, according to the El Cerrito Police Department. After not hearing from her for more than a week, her family reported her missing on Dec. 12, the police said.Ms. Herrmann had lived in Capitola, a small…

“The Radwan force is dedicated to duplicating what happened on Oct. 7 in the south of Israel in the north,” Tamir Hayman, a retired general who led Israeli military intelligence until 2021, said in an interview. “For that exact reason, it’s unacceptable for Israel to allow its fighters to remain in the border area.”Last spring, the Radwan force took part in a rare example of public military exercises by Hezbollah, displaying an expansive military arsenal and simulating an infiltration into Israeli territory. Slick propaganda videos produced by Hezbollah have showcased the group’s small unit tactics and live-fire drills, interspersed with…

Investigators have identified several questions as they try to get to the bottom of what caused a part of a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane to be blown out in midflight on Friday. Their work is expected to carry on for weeks.The questions include whether Alaska Airlines, which operated the flight from Portland, Ore., appropriately handled pressurization warnings aboard the plane, including two in the two days before the blowout. The investigation, led by the National Transportation Safety Board, is also focusing on the installation and inspection of the piece of the plane that was ripped out — a plug…