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      Can Shoplifting Be Justified? This Artist Wants You to Decide.

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      Dries Verhoeven has constructed a replica grocery store for his latest provocative performance.Between two aisles of a grocery store, a woman is having a destructive meltdown. She opens a jar of applesauce, spits in it and returns it to the shelf. She squirts a tube of mayonnaise onto the floor, then smears tomato sauce from a container on her chest.Climbing the shelves, she recites a soliloquy on the joys of shoplifting. “Why call it stealing?” she says, with surprising calm. “I call it a love affair.”All of this takes place within a giant glass box on the stage of the International Theater Amsterdam as part of the six-hour performance installation “Everything Must Go,” by the Dutch artist Dries Verhoeven. Through Thursday, spectators can enter and exit the theater during the performance to peek into the box or can watch the performer unravel on TV monitors displaying CCTV footage.It is the latest disquieting offering from Verhoeven, 49, who combines elements of theater and visual art to create performances that are engineered to leave the audience trembling.“I’m quite a nervous person, and I like this feeling of nervousness, because it means there’s something at stake,” he said, while the glass box was being assembled at the theater earlier this week. “When we’re nervous, we are activated.”The installation takes place over six hours …Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times… and features disquieting elements to unsettle the audience.Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York TimesWe 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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      Chris Brown Released on $6 Million Bail by London Court

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      The R&B singer was charged last week with grievous bodily harm over a 2023 incident in England. His release from custody means he can proceed with a world tour.Chris Brown, the R&B singer, has been freed from custody by a London judge as he awaits a court case over accusations of an assault in a nightclub.Mr. Brown, 36, was arrested last week at a hotel in Manchester, England, and charged with grievous bodily harm.The singer is accused of attacking a music producer with a tequila bottle at Tape London, a nightclub in the Mayfair district, on Feb. 19, 2023.Lawyers representing Mr. Brown applied for him to be bailed at a hearing at Southwark Crown Court in South London on Wednesday, and London’s Metropolitan Police said the application had been granted.The judge’s decision means that Mr. Brown will be able to perform on an international tour that is scheduled to begin in Amsterdam on June 8. He is then set to visit European countries including Germany, Britain, Ireland, France and Portugal before traveling to the United States.The BBC reported that the judge, Tony Baumgartner, imposed a series of conditions on Mr. Brown, including that he must surrender his passport when not on tour and stay away from Tape London.Mr. Brown’s representatives agreed to pay into the court a security fee of five million pounds ($6.7 million), which can be forfeited if any of the conditions are breached.He has not yet been asked to enter a plea in the case, and British law bans the reporting of any details that could prejudice a jury at a future trial.Omololu Akinlolu, 38, an American rapper who performs under the name HoodyBaby, was charged with grievous bodily harm two days after Mr. Brown, in relation to the same incident.Mr. Brown and Mr. Akinlolu are scheduled to appear at a hearing at Southwark Crown Court on June 20. More

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      E.U. Offers Emergency Funding for Radio Free Europe After Trump Cuts

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      The European Union said it would provide short-term financing for Radio Free Europe, but the amount falls short of what the news outlet says it needs to stay afloat.The European Union said Tuesday that it was stepping in to provide emergency funding to Radio Free Europe, though the promised amount fell far short of what the news organization said it needed to stay afloat after the Trump administration froze federal support.Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, announced that the bloc would provide 5.5 million euros ($6.2 million) to support Radio Free Europe, which provides independent reporting in countries with limited press freedoms.“In a time of growing, unfiltered content, independent journalism is more important than ever,” Ms. Kallas said. But she added that the funding would be for the short term and that the European Union could not make up the news outlet’s entire shortfall.Since taking office in January, President Trump has ordered the dismantling of Radio Free Europe’s parent organization, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which provides the broadcaster with $12 million in congressional funding each month. A U.S. District Court judge initially paused Mr. Trump’s termination of the congressional grants, but this month a federal appeals court ruled that the Trump administration could continue to withhold the funds.Stephen Capus, the president of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, said on Tuesday that he was grateful for the emergency E.U. funding to keep the operation running “for a short while longer.” He said that the news organization was continuing to fight in court for the release of congressionally appropriated funds.“RFE/RL’s survival remains at risk as long as those funds are withheld,” he said in a statement.The news organization on Tuesday filed an emergency petition in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking its May funding. Radio Free Europe said last week that it had received its April funding from Congress, though it came six weeks later than scheduled, forcing the news organization to reduce programming and staff.Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which has been funded by Congress since it began broadcasting during the Cold War, reports on human rights and corruption in several countries run by authoritarian governments. In the 1980s, it reported on the aftermath of the Chernobyl nuclear accident, details of which the Soviet authorities had obscured.Today, it broadcasts in 23 countries, including Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as nations in Central Asia and the Caucasus. More

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      Tom Hanks Will Perform His Play ‘This World of Tomorrow’ Off Broadway

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      “This World of Tomorrow,” based on the actor’s 2017 short story collection, is scheduled to begin performances in October at the Shed.Tom Hanks, the acclaimed film actor, has written a new play about love, longing and time-travel, and is planning to star in an Off Broadway production of it this fall.The play, “This World of Tomorrow,” will be staged in a 550-seat theater at the Shed, a performing arts venue on Manhattan’s Far West Side that has been helping Hanks develop the work over the last year. The play is scheduled to run for just eight weeks, from Oct. 30 to Dec. 21.“This World of Tomorrow” is about a scientist from the future who travels back in time — to the 1939 World’s Fair in Queens — searching for love. It is based on elements of Hanks’s “Uncommon Type,” a collection of short stories published in 2017.Hanks, who will play the scientist, will lead a cast of 10 to 12 performers, some of whom will take on multiple roles. A two-time Oscar winner (for “Philadelphia” and “Forrest Gump”), Hanks has one Broadway credit, “Lucky Guy,” a 2013 newsroom drama for which he received Tony Award nomination.Hanks wrote the new play with James Glossman, a playwright and director with whom he has collaborated on other projects, including “Safe Home,” which had a production in 2022 at Shadowland Stages in Ellenville, N.Y. (It was also based on “Uncommon Type” stories.) The director of the new play will be Kenny Leon, who won a Tony Award in 2014 for “A Raisin in the Sun.”Alex Poots, the artistic director of the Shed, said Hanks’s team approached him last year when they were looking for a place to develop the show. Poots leapt at the opportunity, he said, thinking “he’s one of the most beloved and trusted storytellers of our time.” Poots called the play “a classic love story,” but also noted that, because parts of it take place in 1939, “there is reference to the rise in authoritarianism.”“This World of Tomorrow” is one of three upcoming theater pieces to be staged at the Shed. It will present, in collaboration with Los Angeles’s Geffen Playhouse, a revival of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play “The Brothers Size,” starring André Holland, from Aug. 30 to Sept. 28. And from June 17 to Oct. 19 it will present “Viola’s Room,” an immersive audio production narrated by Helena Bonham Carter. It was created by Punchdrunk, the company behind “Sleep No More.” More

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      O’Connor Wins Democratic Primary for Pittsburgh Mayor, Defeating Incumbent

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      The outcome is the latest in a string of losses in deep-blue cities that has raised questions about the power of progressive officeholders.Corey O’Connor, the son of a popular former mayor, won the Democratic primary for Pittsburgh mayor on Tuesday night, according to The Associated Press, signaling voters’ dissatisfaction with the city under its current progressive leader, Ed Gainey.Mr. Gainey’s defeat is the latest in a string of losses in deep-blue cities, most notably in San Francisco and Oakland, that have raised the volume on questions about progressive officeholders, as their wing of Democratic Party seeks to wrest control from centrist leaders who have struggled to counter President Trump.Mr. O’Connor, the Allegheny County controller, will face Tony Moreno, the winner of the Republican primary, in the general election in November. But Pittsburgh has not had a Republican mayor since one was appointed in 1932, so winning the Democratic primary has become tantamount to winning the mayoral election.“Your voices and your call for accountable leadership have been heard in this Democratic primary,” Mr. O’Connor said as he greeted a jubilant group of supporters at a victory party on Tuesday night. He added that he was humbled by the opportunity and would work to deliver on what he called a promise of progress.Mr. Gainey’s loss halted the momentum that progressives had enjoyed in this Democratic stronghold of a perpetual swing state.In recent years, Representative Summer Lee, a progressive who represents much of Pittsburgh in Congress, and Sara Innamorato, the Allegheny County executive who started her political career as a socialist candidate, vaulted into elected office. Riding the progressive wave with them was Mr. Gainey, a former state legislator who was elected mayor in 2021 with the backing of the powerful Service Employees International Union.Mr. Gainey, the city’s first Black mayor, made affordable housing — and affordable living — the primary plank of his platform. But his gains in lifting the working class and poor were incremental, and his administration was plagued by persistent missteps.Questions about the constant turnover in police leadership, accusations of fudged budget numbers and complaints about basic services like filling the city’s ubiquitous potholes overshadowed promising economic data and a decrease in crime.Mr. O’Connor — whose father Bob was elected mayor in 2006 and died later that year from cancer — had positioned himself as a pragmatic candidate who would get the city working again while it tried to rebuild a tax base devastated by the pandemic downturn in commercial real estate.In his campaign, Mr. O’Connor, 40, pledged a more conciliatory approach toward powerful institutions like universities and health care companies and real estate developers. He had enjoyed a 3-to-1 fund-raising advantage over Mr. Gainey in recent months. Mr. Gainey, by contrast, regularly chastised leaders of some of those organizations for not contributing more to address the city’s inequalities.A peacemaking approach might well be required now, after a sharp-elbowed campaign between two candidates with few policy differences that split allegiances among city and county political leaders. More

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      Official Pushed to Rewrite Intelligence So It Could Not Be ‘Used Against’ Trump

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      An assessment contradicted a presidential proclamation. A political appointee demanded a redo, then pushed for changes to the new analysis, too.New emails document how a top aide to Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, ordered analysts to edit an assessment with the hope of insulating President Trump and Ms. Gabbard from being attacked for the administration’s claim that Venezuela’s government controls a criminal gang.“We need to do some rewriting” and more analytic work “so this document is not used against the DNI or POTUS,” Joe Kent, the chief of staff to Ms. Gabbard, wrote in an email to a group of intelligence officials on April 3, using shorthand for Ms. Gabbard’s position and for the president of the United States.The New York Times reported last week that Mr. Kent had pushed analysts to redo their assessment, dated Feb. 26, of the relationship between Venezuela’s government and the gang, Tren de Aragua, after it came to light that the assessment contradicted a subsequent claim by Mr. Trump. The disclosure of the precise language of Mr. Kent’s emails has added to the emerging picture of a politicized intervention.The final memo, which is dated April 7 and has since become public, still contradicts a key claim that Mr. Trump made to justify sending people accused of being members of the gang to a notorious Salvadoran prison without due process.Emails on the topic from Mr. Kent, who is also Mr. Trump’s pending nominee to lead the National Counterterrorism Center, have circulated within the intelligence community and were described by people briefed on them. Mr. Kent’s interventions have raised internal alarms about politicizing intelligence analysis.Defenders of Mr. Kent have disputed that his attempted intervention was part of a pressure campaign, arguing he was trying to show more of what the intelligence community knew about the gang.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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      NYT Crossword Answers for May 21, 2025

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      Ilana Levene and Scott Hogan are here to make friends.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesWEDNESDAY PUZZLE — During a recent cleaning-out of my inbox, I noticed that I tend to address groups of friends via email almost exclusively as “pals.” I wonder now whether that seems unusual to those reading. Should I be rotating in words like “gang,” “team” or “folks”? What other options are out there, really?Today’s crossword, constructed by Ilana Levene and Scott Hogan, has a few creative ideas. This is the first collaboration between Ms. Levene and Mr. Hogan for the New York Times Crossword, as well as Ms. Levene’s debut. Constructing a puzzle with another person is no small undertaking, so I certainly hope they became pals — or friends, or buddies, or chums — in the process.Today’s ThemeIn her constructor notes, Ms. Levene says that this theme makes her laugh to think about. That makes two of us — it’s goofy, but I’m grinning.Each of today’s themed entries is a common term or name, with a witty alternative interpretation suggested by the clue. [“Smile for the photo, dude!”] is CHEESE, DOG (17A). I would have preferred “dawg” for elegance, but I’ll accept this spelling for the pun. [“Work on your enunciation, bro!”] can be expressed as DELIVERY, MAN (24A). My favorite is at 33A: [“That is messed up, girl!”] means TWISTED, SISTER.The pattern, in case you missed it, involves terms of address: dog, man, sister, buster and honey. Also, I couldn’t have told you what a cheese dog was without my colleague’s assistance. But after looking at a picture of one, I wish I’d stayed in the dark. 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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      Senate Democrats Grill Defiant Rubio on Trump Policies

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      There was shouting and gavel banging as Marco Rubio and his former Senate Democratic colleagues clashed over U.S. foreign aid.A defiant Secretary of State Marco Rubio clashed in sometimes personal terms with his former Senate Democratic colleagues on Tuesday, calling their criticism evidence of his success.At a hearing on the State Department budget, several Democrats on the Foreign Relations Committee said that they were deeply disappointed in Mr. Rubio and regretted voting for his confirmation.The contentious scene reflected Democratic fury over President Trump’s policies, such as the evisceration of U.S. foreign aid programs, which they said benefited rivals like China. Mr. Rubio, they argued, had betrayed his principles while serving Mr. Trump.“I have to tell you, directly and personally, that I regret voting for you for secretary of state,” Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, told Mr. Rubio after castigating him for approving huge cuts to aid programs promoting human rights, public health, food assistance and democracy.“First of all, your regret for voting for me confirms I’m doing a good job,” Mr. Rubio retorted, launching into an unapologetic response that produced shouting and gavel banging as Mr. Van Hollen called portions of Mr. Rubio’s answer “flippant” and “pathetic.”In January, the Senate confirmed Mr. Rubio, who served on the Foreign Relations Committee before joining Mr. Trump’s cabinet, by a 99-to-0 vote. Many Democrats said he had promised to be a responsible steward of the State Department. And they privately hoped Mr. Rubio would check Mr. Trump’s disruptive impulses.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