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25 Years of N.Y.C. Dining
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Aurelia Butler
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Smokey Robinson Accused of Sexual Assault by Former Housekeepers
The four women said the Motown legend abused them multiple times while they worked cleaning his home. His wife, they said, created a hostile work environment.Four women who worked as housekeepers for Smokey Robinson have accused the renowned Motown singer of sexual assault, claiming in a new lawsuit that he abused them dozens of times over many years while his wife turned a blind eye and berated them.The suit, filed in Los Angeles on Tuesday, identifies the women only as Jane Does 1 through 4. They each accuse Mr. Robinson, 85, of raping them repeatedly while they were employed cleaning his homes in Los Angeles; Ventura County, Calif.; and Las Vegas.All the while, the suit said, Mr. Robinson’s wife, Frances Robinson, failed to prevent her husband from assaulting the women despite knowing about his sexual misconduct.Three of the women feared reporting Mr. Robinson to the authorities because of their immigration status, according to the lawsuit, which also accuses the Robinsons of false imprisonment, creating a hostile work environment and failure to pay minimum wage.Mr. Robinson’s representatives did not immediately return requests for comment.“Our four clients have a common thread,” John Harris, a lawyer for the women, said at a news conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday. “They’re Hispanic women who were employed as housekeepers by the Robinsons, earning below minimum wage.”“As low-wage workers in vulnerable positions, they lacked the resources and options necessary to protect themselves from sexual assaults throughout their tenure as employees for the Robinsons,” Mr. Harris added.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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Florida Wildlife Officers Kill 3 Black Bears After Deadly Attack
The state’s wildlife agency will test the bears’ DNA to determine if any of them had attacked and killed an 89-year-old man.Wildlife officers in Florida have killed three black bears in the southwestern part of the state, less than 24 hours after a man was killed by a bear in the same area, officials said on Tuesday.It was not immediately clear whether any of the three bears were involved in the attack on Monday morning, in which Robert Markel, 89, was killed in a wooded, unincorporated part of Collier County.The bears’ remains were being sent to Gainesville, Fla., for DNA testing, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, to determine if there was a connection to what the agency described as an extremely rare attack.The attack on Mr. Markel was the first time a bear had killed a human in Florida’s history, Mike Orlando, the bear management program coordinator for the commission, said during a news conference on Tuesday.The commission is overseeing the investigation into the deadly encounter, which drew a heavy presence of wildlife officers to Jerome, Fla., just north of Everglades City, Fla. Mr. Markel’s dog was also killed the same morning by a bear, though it was not clear whether they were attacked by the same one.Mr. Markel’s daughter called 911 after she saw the attack on his dog and could not find her father, the local television station WPLG reported.Wildlife officers set up traps and cameras in the area where the attacks occurred, officials said during the news conference.Florida is home to more than 4,000 black bears, according to the wildlife commission. It has tracked them from the Panhandle and Ocala National Forest in the state’s midsection, to Big Cypress National Preserve in South Florida, which was near where the attack on Monday occurred.Wildlife officials on Tuesday reminded people of what they should do if they encounter a bear, which can come into contact with humans and pets while prowling for food.“Stand your ground,” Mr. Orlando said. “Make yourself look large. Talk to the bear in a calm fashion. Do not run. Do not play dead.”In a worst-case scenario, he said, people should take action.“Even if a bear is touching you,” he said, “you need to fight back.” More
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Jeffrey Seller Produced ‘Hamilton.’ Now, in ‘Theater Kid,’ He’s Telling His Story.
In “Theater Kid,” Jeffrey Seller reflects on his Broadway career.The Broadway producer Jeffrey Seller is, by any measure, enormously successful. He’s produced (always in collaboration with others) about 10 shows that have, collectively, grossed $4.74 billion, approximately one-third of which was profit for producers, investors and others.You’ve probably heard of several of those shows. His first big hit was “Rent.” His most recent: “Hamilton.” In between were “Avenue Q” and “In the Heights,” but also plenty of others that didn’t flourish.For a long time, Seller, now 60 and the winner of four best-musical Tony Awards, had complicated feelings about how he fit in. He was adopted as an infant and grew up in a downwardly mobile and fractious family in a Detroit suburb.Seller accepting the Tony Award for “Hamilton,” which won best musical in 2016.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesTheater was where he found pleasure, and meaning — a way out, and a way up. Now he’s written a memoir, “Theater Kid,” that is being published on May 6. It is a combination coming-of-age and rags-to-riches story that is unsparing in its description of his colorfully challenged-and-challenging father, unabashed in its description of his sexual awakening, and packed with behind-the-scenes detail, especially about the birth of “Rent.”In an interview at his office in the theater district, Seller spoke about his life, his career and his book. These are edited excerpts from the interview.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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‘Ragtime’ Is Returning to Broadway
A revival of the sweeping musical will open at Lincoln Center Theater in October, starring Joshua Henry, Caissie Levy and Brandon Uranowitz.“Ragtime,” an epic musical that explores early 20th-century American aspirations through three fictional families whose lives intersect with historical figures and events, is returning to Broadway.The musical, based on a 1975 E.L. Doctorow novel and set mostly in New Rochelle and other locations in and around New York, first opened on Broadway in 1998, won Tony Awards for best score and best book, and ran for two years. There was a short-lived revival in 2009.This new production will be staged at Lincoln Center Theater, which is one of four nonprofit organizations that operate Broadway houses. It will be the first production during the tenure of Lear deBessonet, who is taking over as the nonprofit’s new artistic director; deBessonet will direct the production.This revival, scheduled to begin previews Sept. 26 and to open Oct. 16 at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, began its life with a 12-day run last fall in a New York City Center gala presentation, also directed by deBessonet. The new production is scheduled to run for just 14 weeks.The Broadway production, like the City Center production, will star Joshua Henry as Coalhouse Walker Jr., an African American pianist; Caissie Levy as Mother, the matriarch of an affluent white family; and Brandon Uranowitz as Tateh, a Jewish immigrant. The intersection of those individuals and their communities, with each other and with the history of the United States, drives a complex plot of intertwined narratives that touch on North Pole exploration, early filmmaking, the labor movement, Houdini’s escapades, and, of course, ragtime music.The musical is among the best-known and most acclaimed works from the longtime collaborators Lynn Ahrens, who wrote the lyrics, and Stephen Flaherty, who wrote the music. The book is by Terrence McNally, an acclaimed playwright who died in 2020 at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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A Longevity Expert’s 5 Tips for Aging Well
In his new book, “Super Agers,” the cardiologist Dr. Eric Topol argues that we now have the tools to age better than our predecessors.About two decades ago, a California research team observed a striking phenomenon: While a majority of older adults have at least two chronic diseases, some people reach their 80s without major illness.The researchers suspected the key to healthier aging was genetic. But after sequencing the genomes of 1,400 of these aging outliers — a cohort they called the “Wellderly” — they found almost no difference between their biological makeup and that of their peers. They were, however, more physically active, more social and typically better educated than the general public.That genes don’t necessarily determine healthy aging is “liberating,” and suggests that “we can pretty much all do better” to delay disease, said Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and the founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, which ran the Wellderly study.Dr. Topol is a prominent molecular scientist who has published 1,300 research articles, has written multiple books and has several hundred thousand followers across social media and his newsletter. His newest book, “Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity,” out on Tuesday, delves into the rapidly evolving science of aging.In the book, Dr. Topol writes that tools like biological age tests and increasingly sophisticated health risk prediction could eventually paint a clearer picture of how we’re aging.With these tools and new scientific insight into how lifestyle drives the biological breakdown that comes with age, he writes, we can now do more than ever to delay that process. While we’re all more likely to get diseases like Alzheimer’s, cancer and diabetes as we get older, these illnesses can develop over the course of decades — which gives us a “long runway” to try to counter them, Dr. Topol said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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A Haven for Civilians in Sudan Is Attacked for a Third Day
Drone strikes hit a fuel depot, airport and a hotel in Port Sudan, bringing violence to a city that had so far been spared in the devastating civil war.Thick columns of smoke could be seen Tuesday in Port Sudan, the eastern Sudanese city where the Sudanese paramilitary group known as Rapid Support Forces was accused of attacking a fuel depot with drones.Associated PressLarge plumes of black smoke billowed over Sudan’s de facto wartime capital on Tuesday, as attacks on a city that had become a haven for civilians fleeing civil war stretched into a third day.The Sudanese paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces has launched a series of drone attacks on the military-controlled Red Sea city of Port Sudan, targeting key civilian facilities, including the airport and a hospital.On Tuesday, drones hit a fuel depot near the port and the airport, according to multiple eyewitnesses, rattling the city and leaving its streets nearly deserted. Khalid Ali Aleisir, Sudan’s minister of information and the official government spokesman, accused the group, known as the R.S.F., of carrying out a “criminal and terrorist attack” in a post on social media.“I assure our steadfast Sudanese people that the civil defense forces and all security agencies are performing their duties to the fullest, and that the will of the Sudanese people will remain unbreakable,” Mr. Aleisir said in another post that showed him standing in front of a giant plume of smoke.The drones also hit the upmarket Marina Hotel, where diplomats were believed to be staying, witnesses said. The hotel is close to government buildings.No casualties were reported, and the R.S.F. has not taken responsibility for the attacks.On Sunday, the paramilitary group attacked Port Sudan for the first time since the start of the war in 2023, ratcheting up tensions in a conflict that has already killed an estimated 150,000 people and displaced nearly 13 million.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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Melissa Toogood Named New Director of Juilliard’s Dance Division
A member of Merce Cunningham’s final company, Toogood brings to the job years of experience as a dancer and educator.The Juilliard School has named Melissa Toogood as dean and director of its dance division, the school announced on Tuesday. Toogood, a Bessie Award-winning dancer who was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in its final years, succeeds Alicia Graf Mack, who is to become the artistic director of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Toogood, who is Australian and lives in Sydney, will begin on July 1.“I’ve had many types of experiences and worked with many kinds of dancers and companies, Toogood, 43, said in a phone interview. “I’ve always been reaching for new knowledge.”Damian Woetzel, president of the Juilliard School, called her “one of the extraordinary artists of our time” and said: “I’ve watched her stage, I’ve watched her teach, I’ve watched her develop dancers at all levels, but really focusing on the younger dancers. And I have seen her develop her own leadership in that way that is inspiring.”Toogood, who started teaching at the Cunningham school at the choreographer’s request, continued to dance in New York after Cunningham’s company performed for the last time in 2011. “I had a really intense freelance career, which is challenging and uncertain, and I hope to prepare young people for all of those outcomes,” she said. “Because I can speak to it personally.”Toogood stages Cunningham dances and has performed with companies and choreographers including Kyle Abraham, Michelle Dorrance, Jamar Roberts and Pam Tanowitz, with whom she has had an 18-year collaboration.At Juilliard, she hopes to broaden her students’ understanding of the roles of art and artists. “I really think of art as an act of service, whether to an idea or a community or a work,” she said. “If a choreographer just makes you walk across the back of the room, they wouldn’t put that in a piece if it wasn’t important. I want them to leave as comprehensive thinkers and understanding that there are no small parts and that kind of connection to each other and the work and every role you play, whether it’s seemingly important to you at that time or not, is important.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
