Elections

For years, Harry and his wife, Meghan, have considered California home. This week, he updated his residency in a corporate filing.The document filed on Wednesday at Britain’s corporate registrar, Companies House, was just a few lines long. But its purpose was to formally update the country of residency for one “Prince Henry Charles Albert David Duke of Sussex” — otherwise known as Prince Harry.For years, Harry and his American wife, Meghan, have considered California home. The document updated the residency of the British royal to the United States for official paperwork for his business Travalyst Limited, a nonprofit sustainable travel initiative.The paperwork was just a bureaucratic formality. But it underscores just how far Harry, 39, has come from his days as a central member of the royal family in the country of his birth, to a very different life with his wife and children in California. It also comes at a time of turmoil for the House of Windsor.Harry and Meghan moved to Montecito, Calif., after stepping back from royal duties in 2020, amid a rift with the royal family.Prince Harry said in February that he had considered becoming a U.S. citizen, telling ABC’s “Good Morning America,” “It’s a thought that has crossed my mind but it’s not a high priority for me right now.”But there had been little in the way of official confirmation of Harry’s residency status until this week. The filing indicates the change of residency dates to June 29, 2023, the day that Buckingham Palace confirmed the couple had vacated Frogmore Cottage, their British home. Queen Elizabeth II had offered the home to the couple when they were married in 2018.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

The judge in former President Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial ordered reporters to not disclose employment information about potential jurors after he excused a woman who said she was worried about her identity becoming known.The woman, who had been seated on the jury on Tuesday, told the judge that her friends and colleagues had warned her that she had been identified as a juror in the high-profile case. Although the judge has kept prospective jurors’ names private, some have disclosed their employers and other identifying information in court.She also said that she did not believe she could be impartial.The judge, Juan M. Merchan, promptly dismissed her.Moments later, Justice Merchan ordered the press to not report the answer to two queries on a lengthy questionnaire for prospective jurors: “Who is your current employer?” and “Who was your prior employer?”The judge conceded that the information about employers was necessary for lawyers to know. But he directed that those two answers be redacted from the transcript.Justice Merchan also said that he was concerned about news outlets publishing physical descriptions of prospective or seated jurors, asking reporters to “simply apply common sense.”“It serves no purpose,” Justice Merchan said about publishing physical descriptions, adding that he was directing the press to “refrain from writing about anything you observe with your eyes.”With the loss of the female juror on Thursday morning, six seated jurors remain.In early March, Justice Merchan issued an order prohibiting publicly disclosing the names of jurors, while allowing legal teams and the defendant to know their identities.But before the trial, Mr. Trump’s lawyers requested that potential jurors not be told that the jury would be anonymous unless he or she expressed concerns. Justice Merchan told the parties that he’d “make every effort to not unnecessarily alert the jurors” to this secrecy, merely telling jurors that they would be identified in court by a number.On Thursday, Justice Merchan seemed frustrated by news reports that included identifying characteristics of potential jurors that had been aired in open court. He said: “There’s a reason why this is an anonymous jury, and we’ve taken the measures we have taken.”“It kind of defeats the purpose of that when so much information is put out there,” he said.He added that “the press can write about anything the attorney and the courts discuss and anything you observe us do.”But he also said he had the legal authority to prevent reporters from relaying employer information on prospective jurors. He added that “if you can’t stick to that, we’re going to have to see if there is anything else we can do to keep the jurors safe.” More

A grieving mother finds a new beginning on two wheels.My first bike was lavender and had Big Bird on it, a sight to behold under the Christmas tree. I rode that thing until the training wheels practically fell off — gliding around our back alley, cutting through baseball fields and, much to my mom’s horror, thudding down our basement stairs one afternoon.Luckily, that incident didn’t scare me off bikes, and I continued to ride into my teenage years. But a driver’s license meant I abandoned my bike. The wheels stopped rotating, the bell stopped ringing and my helmet stayed clipped in a dim corner of our basement.My mom died following a grueling battle with multiple sclerosis when I was barely 18. For years afterward, I distracted myself with college-aged escapism: moving away, making new friends, sneaking into bars, taking road trips and ultimately earning a degree.I would head home for breaks and holidays, driving around in my mom’s old Hyundai Excel hatchback. Every winding turn reminded me that, while I was moving through life and becoming an adult, part of me was still stuck in place. Only during these drives would I allow myself to feel the weight of losing her. I thought grieving was something you did alone.***I returned to biking when a lot of people did, at the beginning of the pandemic. I bought a beach cruiser on Craigslist and spent my evenings whizzing along the Baltimore waterfront amid a sea of dog walkers and other pedestrians trying to figure out what was going on in the world.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

The Homeland Movement came third in parliamentary elections, setting itself up as a possible partner for the ruling conservatives, who failed to achieve a majority.A far-right party emerged on Thursday as a potential kingmaker in Croatia after the governing conservatives finished first in a bitterly contested parliamentary election but fell short of winning enough seats to form a new government.The outcome of Wednesday’s vote signaled a new era of messy political uncertainty in the Balkan nation, which has been dominated by one party, the Croatian Democratic Union, or HDZ, since 1991 when it declared independence from Yugoslavia.The HDZ, led by the incumbent Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, won 61 seats in the 151-member legislature, according to the near-final official tally. That was more than all its rivals, including Rivers of Justice, a left-leaning coalition formed by President Zoran Milanovic, which won 42 seats to finish second. The far-right Homeland Movement finished third with 13 seats.Speaking early Thursday in Zagreb, the Croatian capital, Mr. Plenkovic said his party had “convincingly won” but acknowledged that he would need help from rival groups to form a government and secure a third term as prime minister.He later said in a post on Facebook that talks had already started with potential allies that he did not name. “Everything is going well,” he said, and predicted that a government would be formed “soon.”Tihomir Cipek, a political science professor at the University of Zagreb, said the result reflected a general trend in Europe, particularly among new members of the European Union, which Croatia joined in 2013. “The political center starts losing voters to parties on the far right and far left that are a reaction to Europeanization,” he 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

Plus: a Pennsylvania wellness retreat, whimsical wallpaper and more recommendations from T Magazine.Covet ThisA New Wallpaper Collection Inspired by Field FrolickingLeft: Block Shop sells its textiles as well as a selection of books, dishes and jewelry at its shop in Atwater Village, Los Angeles. Right: Block Shop’s Peony wallpaper in Onyx.From left: Laure Joliet for Block Shop; Ye Rin Mok for Block ShopHopie Stockman Hill and Grier Stockman grew up in an old farmhouse in a sylvan pocket of New Jersey. They played in wheat fields, craggy apple orchards and dense forests; built birdhouses and painted murals. The sisters’ childhood, spent merging art with nature, inspired their latest wallpaper collection from Block Shop, their textile, art and design studio, which combines a breezy California aesthetic with Indian printing and weaving techniques. The seven new patterns, which are printed on paper, fiber and grass cloth, include a peony motif that’s a homage to the blooms their mother grew, while also referencing the Austrian Wiener Werkstätte designer Dagobert Peche. “We envisioned an Anne Bancroft-esque grande dame with a sky-high collection of art books, listening to ‘Madama Butterfly’ while harvesting her beets,” says Stockman Hill, the CEO and creative director of the studio. “These are the wallpapers you find in her home.” The Block Shop store, which opened in Los Angeles’s Atwater Village neighborhood this past December, further extends the sisters’ canvas with a harmonious blend of color and texture. A bronze snail door handle greets you on the way in, while the shelves are brimming with Apuglian splatterware dishes, rare books on décor and semi-fine jewelry, as well as the brand’s signature textiles. From $75 per yard, blockshoptextiles.com.Stay HereA Guesthouse in Rome From the Founders of Chez DedeLeft: one of the two bedrooms at Superattico Monserrato, a new short-term rental apartment in Rome owned by the founders of the shop Chez Dede. Right: the living room of the apartment, where a Venini chandelier hangs over a ’60s table from Belgium and Cesca chairs from the ’70s.Daria ReinaThe Rome boutique Chez Dede, founded in 2011 by the design duo Daria Reina and Andrea Ferolla, is filled with antiques and artworks, as well as silk-screened tote bags and limited-edition collaborations: wicker lamps created with Atelier Vime and enameled brass jewelry inspired by playing cards with the Italian jewelry designer Allegra Riva. When the penthouse apartment in the same building as the store came up for rent in 2019, the couple and their team decided to create a suite that would further bring visitors into their world. After they got city permits in early 2023, it took them about a year to renovate the two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment, now named Superattico Monserrato. They put in sliding doors, updated the kitchen with steel counters and glossy black walls and added dozens of theatrical Chez Dede touches: 17th-century carved wooden columns, a wall-size 18th-century tapestry, drawings by the 93-year-old Rome-based artist Isabella Ducrot and bed linens from their own collection. Early this year, Reina and Ferolla began renting the flat to a select few. “It’s really about sharing our lifestyle and our taste,” Reina says — and about imparting their tips for Rome: The Chez Dede team has a space at the front of the apartment, so at any point guests can stick their heads in and ask for favorite vintage shops and cafes. Superattico Monserrato also hosts occasional events: Up next is a trunk show with the designer Sara Beltran of jewelry brand Dezso, on May 9. Email [email protected] to book; about $1,900 a night, minimum three nights.Eat HereA Parisian Restaurant With a Tasting Menu Served in the Vegetable GardenChalet des Îles, a longstanding building on an island in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne park, has been renovated and reopened as a new restaurant and bar.© Julien de GasquetFor the past 167 years, Parisians have escaped urban life by taking a short boat ride to Chalet des Îles, a wooden structure on a small island in Bois de Boulogne park. In 1857, Empress Eugénie de Montijo transported a cabin from Switzerland to Paris and set it on the tree-filled island in Lac Inférieur as a draw for city dwellers who needed a dose of nature. Destroyed by fire in 1920, the structure was rebuilt with less-charming concrete. Now, the famous chalet and its restaurant have been completely redesigned by the French architect Nicolas Laisné and will reopen this month. The use of hand-carved, honey-colored timber scales in the cladding on the main facade recalls the original Swiss building. The main dining room and its covered balcony open onto lakeside views, while the bar extends onto a ground-level terrace. A custom white-and-green carpet in the main restaurant reflects the colors of the lake outside, and raw-edge wooden tables nod to the forest. Visitors have the option of dining privately in the chalet’s vegetable garden: The reservation-only experience, titled Les Tables du Potager, features a five-course, plant-focused tasting menu by chef Pierre Chomet. Meals in the dining room feature dishes like asparagus with mimosa eggs and Iberian ham, and shrimp tartare in a pad Thai broth, inspired by Chomet’s six years cooking in Bangkok. The restaurant also plans to serve a brunch buffet on Sundays. Chalet des Îles opens April 24, chalet-des-iles.com.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

Qatar’s prime minister has said that his government is reviewing its role as a key mediator between Israel and Hamas after criticism by U.S. and Israeli officials, who have urged it to exert more pressure on the Palestinian armed group to reach a deal.“We have seen insults against our mediation, and its exploitation for the sake of narrow political interests,” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, the Qatari premier, said at a news conference this week. “This has caused Qatar to comprehensively review that role.”In late March, a flurry of shuttle diplomacy involving Israel, Hamas and mediators including the United States had raised hopes for a new cease-fire deal in the war in Gaza. But those efforts appear to have reached a dead end for now, according to Israeli and Hamas officials.It was not immediately clear that the Qatari prime minister’s comments would mean any change in the country’s role. Qatari mediators have remained in contact with Israeli representatives and have not changed their approach in recent days, said an Israeli official familiar with the talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive deliberations.Qatar, a small Persian Gulf nation, has carved out an influential position as a mediator that can shuttle between Western countries and armed groups like Hamas and the Taliban. It hosts much of Hamas’s political leadership and has helped broker cease-fires during previous escalations in Gaza, including last November.Since the war broke out in October, Qatari mediators, alongside officials from Egypt and the United States, have sought to broker a deal for a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of hostages held there. Over 100 hostages were released in a weeklong truce that began in late November.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

The two men, dual citizens of both countries, were accused of being part of a plot to undermine aid to Ukraine by trying to blow up military infrastructure.Two men have been arrested in Germany over suspicions that they spied for Russia and were part of a plot to sabotage aid to Ukraine by trying to blow up military infrastructure on German soil, the authorities announced on Thursday.The two men, both dual citizens of Russia and Germany, were arrested on Wednesday in Bayreuth, a city about 120 miles north of Munich, German federal prosecutors said. The arrests came as worries grow in Germany about the reach of Russian intelligence and disruption operations.One of the men had been in contact with Russian intelligence services and had considered a U.S. military base in Germany as one of several potential targets, according to federal prosecutors based in Karlsruhe, in southwestern Germany, who oversaw the arrests.The two men have not been formally charged. But the federal prosecutors said that the pair were suspected of working for a foreign intelligence service and, in one man’s case, of illegally taking pictures of military infrastructure and of planning explosive attacks and arson.In a statement on Thursday, Nancy Faeser, Germany’s interior minister, condemned a “particularly serious case of suspected agent activity” tied to the “criminal regime” of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, relations between Moscow and Berlin have soured. Last year, Germany closed down four Russian consulates after Moscow limited the number of German diplomatic staff allowed to stay in Russia.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

Almost 50 years after it debuted, this classic Black take on “The Wizard of Oz” tries to update its original formula.Let me start with a confession: I’ve never liked “The Wizard of Oz.” But give me a retelling with, say, a Black Dorothy and Black Oz, and I’m immediately clicking my heels.When “The Wiz” debuted on Broadway in 1975, it was a colorful exclamation of Blackness on the stage. That’s to say a Black score, by Charlie Smalls, including gospel and R&B; a Black cast; and Black audiences at the forefront.Then three years later the beloved Motown film adaptation, starring Diana Ross, Michael Jackson and Richard Pryor, pulled a Black Dorothy from her home, not in Kansas but in Harlem, and the New York City boroughs were cleverly transmogrified into the stylish, futuristic Oz.Now “The Wiz” returns to Broadway in a revival directed by Schele Williams and an updated book by Amber Ruffin, with the aim of creating a take “through the Blackest of Black lenses.” This new production, which opened at the Marquis Theater on Tuesday, showcases creative visuals and some standout performances, but stops short of bringing modern Blackness to Broadway.Here, Dorothy (Nichelle Lewis, in her Broadway debut) is a city girl who’s moved to Kansas to live with her Aunt Em (Melody A. Betts, who later doubles as the deliciously brass-throated witch Evillene). But Dorothy doesn’t feel at home and is being bullied by her classmates. A sudden meteorological anomaly flies Dorothy to Oz, where she seeks the counsel of the great and powerful Wiz (Wayne Brady) on how to get back home. Along the way she’s joined by a scarecrow (Avery Wilson) in need of a brain, a tinman (Phillip Johnson Richardson) wanting a heart and a lion (Kyle Ramar Freeman) desperate for some courage. (Sorry dog-lovers, there’s no Toto.)There’s plenty of gold to be found along this yellow brick road. Deborah Cox’s Glinda, the good witch, in a shimmering gold gown, looks like a jewel and sounds like one, too, with her crystalline voice switching from jazzy scatting to a sparkling falsetto in “He’s the Wiz” and later offering a triumphant performance of “Believe in Yourself.”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