Elections

Troubling information about the past of the man who killed Sarah Everard in 2021, a case that shook Britain, should have prevented him from joining the force, a long-awaited report said.An inquiry published Thursday into the murder of a young woman three years ago by a London police officer — a case that rattled Britain and set off a broader reckoning in the country about violence against women — has found that the police force missed signs of a troubling past that should have prevented him from being hired.The woman, Sarah Everard, 33, was abducted, raped and murdered in March 2021 by Wayne Couzens, a member of London’s Metropolitan Police Service. Mr. Couzens was later sentenced to life in prison for the killing.Ms. Everard’s murder cast a spotlight on how bad behavior and violence against women had been allowed to thrive within the country’s police ranks, prompting soul-searching and demands to improve the processes of hiring and overseeing officers.“It is time for all those in policing to do everything they can to improve standards of recruitment, vetting and investigation,” Elish Angiolini, a lawyer who led the inquiry, said at a news conference. “Wayne Couzens was never fit to be a police officer. Police leaders need to be sure there isn’t another Couzens operating in plain sight.”The inquiry found that Mr. Couzens’ initial vetting when he applied to join the Metropolitan Police Service in 2018 had been deeply flawed, missing available information, including on troubling incidents when he served in another police force in Kent, in southeast England. The information was overlooked when Mr. Couzens applied to work in London in 2018 and again when he applied for a specialized firearms role the next year, the inquiry found.Earlier reports included a concerning use of pornography, an indecent exposure allegation that was never acted upon by the authorities and an incident, which the inquiry did not detail, in which he was reported missing from his home.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

Yaya Dillo, who was expected to run in national elections in May, was killed alongside many others in a gun battle in the capital, the national prosecutor said.The main opposition leader in the central African nation of Chad was killed on Wednesday in a shootout at his party headquarters in the capital, the country’s prosecutor has announced.Yaya Dillo, who had been expected to run for president in an election planned for May, was among dozens of people killed and injured in an exchange of gunfire with security forces in Ndjamena, the capital. Heavy gunfire was heard in Ndjamena on Wednesday, and the internet was cut off.A landlocked, desert country surrounded by neighbors battling insurgencies, plagued by coups or at war, Chad has long been seen as a linchpin for stability and is an important U.S. ally in the region, despite its political travails.After its longtime president Idriss Déby was killed on the battlefield in 2021, his son took power in what analysts agree was a coup d’état. But Western nations did not condemn the move to the same extent that they did coups in neighboring Niger and Sudan.The death of Mr. Dillo — a former rebel who was the cousin of the country’s president, as well as his most vocal critic — leaves a void in Chad’s political opposition less than three months before national elections are set to be held.Chadian officials said previously that there had been an attack on the country’s National Security Agency, and accused Mr. Dillo’s party, the Socialist Party Without Borders, of being behind it — which Mr. Dillo denied.In a news conference broadcast on national television on Thursday, Oumar Mahamat Kedelaye, the national prosecutor, accused Mr. Dillo of heading a band of armed men that had launched an attack on the intelligence agency.“This well-armed group in 11 vehicles attacked the National Security Agency, and this attack led to dozens of people wounded, and deaths, among them Yaya Dillo,” Mr. Kedelaye said. More

For the second year in a row, the Greater Lake Tahoe area is expected to begin March buried in deep, powdery, windswept snow.A rare warning for “life-threatening blizzard conditions” is in effect for the mountains of the Sierra, including Lake Tahoe, for a storm that could bring a three feet of snow or more from Thursday through Sunday, according to forecasters.Blizzard warnings are reserved for the worst snow storms with whiteout conditions that could last hours or, in this case, days, with the weather likely making travel in the region treacherous. The National Weather Service in Reno, Nev., has only issued eight blizzard warnings since 2002. The last warning in the Tahoe area was almost exactly a year ago: Feb. 27, 2023.During last year’s storm, two feet of snow fell in less than 24 hours, which, combined with earlier snows, made it challenging to distinguish houses from snow banks. Winds up to 50 miles per hour combined with the light snow made it difficult to see things only feet away.

Forecast for severe winter weather for Thursday More

Plus: an installation in an Indian palace, a farm shop in upstate New York — and more recommendations from T Magazine.Visit ThisSeven Decades of Toshiko Takaezu Ceramics, Together at the Noguchi MuseumLeft: Toshiko Takaezu with closed forms, 1989. Right: Takaezu​’​s “Closed Form​” (2004​).Left: Toshiko Takaezu papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution © Family of Toshiko Takaezu​. Photo: Charlotte Raymond. Right: Private collection, ​courtesy of the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum © Family of Toshiko Takaezu. Photo: Nicholas Knight.The Hawaii-born artist Toshiko Takaezu was known for her ceramic works that redefined the genre with their “closed forms,” as she called them — sealed vessels whose hidden interior spaces were meant to activate the imagination. Next month, Takaezu’s life and work will be the focus of a major retrospective at the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, Queens. “Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within” will present over 150 pieces from private and public collections around the country, co-curated by the art historian Glenn Adamson, the museum curator Kate Wiener and the composer and sound artist Leilehua Lanzilotti. (A 368-page monograph, published in collaboration with Yale University Press, will accompany the exhibition.) Visitors will be able to see a collection that spans seven decades of Takaezu’s career, from her early student work in Hawaii in the 1940s to immersive, monumental ceramic forms she produced in the late 1990s to early 2000s. “Takaezu was also a weaver and painter, and often constructed multimedia installations where her ceramics, textiles and paintings operated together,” says Wiener. To play off this idea, the curators organized the show chronologically, incorporating each of these media into various sections, inspired by Takaezu’s own installations. Sound will also play a role. In her ceramic pieces, Takaezu would often place a dried fragment of clay within her closed form vessels, creating a musical rattle. For this exhibit, Lanzilotti (a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in music) has developed a series of videos offering insight into the sonic elements of Takaezu’s work — and visitors can hear those rattles firsthand via an interactive display. From March 20 to July 28; noguchi.org.Browse HereA Chef-Owned Farm Shop Opens in Hudson, N.Y.Located on Warren Street in Hudson, Farm Shoppe carries its own lines of granola and condiments, as well as antique tableware.Courtesy of the Farm ShoppeIn 2015, the chef and cookbook author Emma Hearst and her husband, the chef and farmer John Barker, moved from Manhattan to upstate New York, intent on cultivating the restaurant-quality produce they found difficult to source locally. They founded Forts Ferry Farm, a 100-acre spread in Latham, N.Y., along with Barker’s brother, the artist and photographer Jamie Barker. The farm now grows more than 250 varieties of vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers, that go into the prepared foods, honey and condiments that are sold at the Troy Waterfront Farmers Market and online. The next phase in the farm’s development is a physical store, Farm Shoppe, a 50-minute drive south in bustling Hudson. The whimsical space, which opened in early February, has sea foam green walls and handmade wooden treillage. Its shelves are stocked with seasonal produce and flowers, the farm’s popular hot pepper sauces and a tightly edited collection of antique table goods including terrines, serving platters and ceramic pitchers. Later this summer, look out for open-air shopping in the store’s soon-to-be-completed backyard. fortsferryfarm.com.Wander HereIn Jaipur, a Reflective Installation Within the Walls of a Historic Pleasure Palace“Superposition,” an installation by the artist Alicja Kwade, takes over the central courtyard of the Sculpture Park at Madhavendra Palace in Jaipur, India.Courtesy of Alicja Kwade, Saat Saath Foundation and Nature Morte, India. Photo: Jeetin SharmaFrom the jungles of Brazil (Inhotim) to the ranch lands of Montana (Tippet Rise Art Center) and historic estates in France (Château La Coste), art parks are popping up in unexpected places all over the world. In Jaipur, India, the Sculpture Park at the Madhavendra Palace, which opened in 2017, debuted its fourth exhibition at the end of January. Peter Nagy, an American who has run the contemporary gallery Nature Morte in New Delhi for more than two decades, curated the show, bringing together a dozen artists to exhibit their work throughout the apartments of the palace, which itself is set within the 18th-century Nahargarh Fort. In the open air courtyard, the Berlin-based artist Alicja Kwade has installed “Superposition,” an arrangement of polished stone spheres, bronze chairs and mirrors. Nagy says Kwade was intrigued by the architecture of the palace, which was completed in 1892 as a pleasure retreat for the Maharajah Sawai Madho Singh II. There is a complex of identical apartments, each meant for one of his multiple wives; wandering through them is like encountering “a maze of architectural doppelgängers,” says Nagy, noting Kwade’s oft-visited themes of reflection and illusion. The Fourth Edition of the Sculpture Park is on view through Dec. 1, instagram.com/thesculptureparkjaipur.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

This week’s properties are in Rockville Centre, N.Y., and Tarrytown, N.Y.Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International RealtyDaniel Gale Sotheby’s International RealtyDaniel Gale Sotheby’s International RealtyDaniel Gale Sotheby’s International RealtyDaniel Gale Sotheby’s International RealtyDaniel Gale Sotheby’s International RealtyDaniel Gale Sotheby’s International RealtyDaniel Gale Sotheby’s International RealtyDaniel Gale Sotheby’s International RealtyNassau | 16 Fonda Road, Rockville Centre, N.Y.Four-Bedroom Tudor$899,000A four-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath, 1,776-square-foot house from 1932 with an entry foyer, a formal living room with a wood-burning fireplace, a formal dining room, a screened-in porch, an eat-in kitchen, an office, a main-floor washer/dryer, an attic, a finished basement and an attached two-car garage, on 0.13 acres. Sheilah Hassenbeim, Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty, 516-603-3099; danielgale.comCostsTaxes: $19,335 a yearProsFans of vintage houses may enjoy the original stucco walls, doors and wood beams on the main level. The property is on a dead-end street.ConsThe kitchen and bathrooms need to be refurbished. The backyard is partially fenced. There is no central air-conditioning.James CooperJames CooperJames CooperJames CooperJames CooperJames CooperJames CooperJames CooperJames CooperJames CooperWestchester | 26 Orchard Drive, Tarrytown, N.Y.Three-Bedroom Townhouse$2.195 millionA three-bedroom, three-bath, 2,130-square-foot townhouse built in 2014, with a bright formal entryway, high ceilings, crown molding, a first-level full bathroom, an open floor plan with two-story windows, and a kitchen with island seating, a pantry and an eight-burner Wulff stove; a second-floor office space; an en suite primary bedroom with two walk-in closets, a soaking tub and a marble shower; a third-floor family room with an oversized balcony; an attached one-car garage, and a stone patio, in a townhouse community near the Hudson River. Karen Stroub, 914-646-8070, and Elvira Aloia, 914-420-7476, Corcoran Legends Realty, corcoran.comCostsTaxes: $17,871 a yearCommon charges: $582 a monthProsThere’s a private park for residents. It is less than a 10-minute walk from the Hudson River Walk and the Tarrytown train station.ConsThere is a washer and dryer on the first level, however there is no dedicated laundry room. There is no full bath on the third floor.Given the fast pace of the current market, some properties may no longer be available at the time of publication.For weekly email updates on residential real estate news, sign up here. More

West Texas, from the oil rigs of the Permian Basin to the wind turbines twirling above the High Plains, has long been a magnet for companies seeking fortunes in energy.Now, those arid ranch lands are offering a new moneymaking opportunity: data centers.Lancium, an energy and data center management firm setting up shop in Fort Stockton and Abilene, is one of many companies around the country betting that building data centers close to generating sites will allow them to tap into underused clean power.“It’s a land grab,” said Lancium’s president, Ali Fenn.In the past, companies built data centers close to internet users, to better meet consumer requests, like streaming a show on Netflix or playing a video game hosted in the cloud. But the growth of artificial intelligence requires huge data centers to train the evolving large-language models, making proximity to users less necessary.But as more of these sites start to pop up across the United States, there are new questions on whether they can meet the demand while still operating sustainably. The carbon footprint from the construction of the centers and the racks of expensive computer equipment is substantial in itself, and their power needs have grown considerably.Just a decade ago, data centers drew 10 megawatts of power, but 100 megawatts is common today. The Uptime Institute, an industry advisory group, has identified 10 supersize cloud computing campuses across North America with an average size of 621 megawatts.This growth in electricity demand comes as manufacturing in the United States is the highest in the past half-century, and the power grid is becoming increasingly strained.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

Esha Datta’s second New York Times Crossword is a nice illustration of the genre.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — When solvers open a crossword, whether it’s in print or on a mobile device, they expect to see a blank grid and a list of written clues. They generally don’t expect to see pictures where their words should be, but here we are.After the initial shock wears off, the questions begin: Why are there pictures in my crossword puzzle? (Because.) Who drew them? (Daniel Savage, an illustrator in Los Angeles.) Are the puzzle editors doing this because I once complained about the Thursday themes? (Probably.)Despite the unusual clue list, this puzzle by Esha Datta is not hard to solve. The nontheme clues are fair and contain some clever wordplay, but the picture clues still need to be worked out, so there’s some challenge. I think that this crossword would be an excellent first Thursday puzzle for a solver to tackle.This is Ms. Datta’s second in The Times. Her 2023 debut was the result of her completion of the 10-week Diverse Crossword Constructor Fellowship, which pairs constructors from underrepresented groups with New York Times puzzle editors.By the way, please make sure your device is updated to the latest version of the New York Times Games app, or print out the puzzle to see it in full. There is a note at the top that says: “This puzzle is intended to have picture clues. If you are solving on an app that hasn’t been updated, you might see a description of the missing image file instead of the intended clue. If you aren’t able to update your app, you can solve online or in print to get the full solving experience.”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 comedian, who died on Wednesday, said he coined the ubiquitous phrase. An episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” about a “nanny from hell” recounted his efforts to get credit for it.Go ahead and call Richard Lewis the comedian from hell. You’d be paying him a compliment.The stand-up comedian, who died on Tuesday, was known for his dark clothes, dark sense of humor and a recurring role as a, yes, even darker version himself on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” He was a fixture in the comedy world for over half a century. But his most indelible legacy could be one simple phrase, spoken so often that its origin might never be questioned.“The (insert hated thing here) from hell.”It’s a phrase that seemingly has been around since time immemorial. The flight from hell, the day from hell, the lunch from hell. We’ve all been there, and we all know what it means, but where did it come from?According to Richard Lewis and the “Yale Book of Quotations,” it came from him.Posting on X, known then as Twitter, Mr. Lewis asked, “Where was my Nobel Peace prize?” and linked to a 2006 UPI article about his appearance in the “Yale Book of Quotations.”In a 2008 interview with Interview Magazine, Mr. Lewis said that “the truth of the matter is that whatever gift I have as a comedian, most of it was in the phrase ‘from hell.’”“I’m credited with popularizing that phrase because I felt victimized by everything,” he said.Mr. Lewis elaborated in a 2014 interview with the Nashville Scene.“I totally popularized the phrase in the late ’70s,” he said. “If you go on YouTube, you can see on Letterman, David would cut me off, and go, ‘You mean it was the bar mitzvah from hell?’ ‘That’s right!’ And I stopped saying it. I felt self-conscious. I was getting applause for it. I guess subconsciously I thought I was a victim of everything.”Bartlett’s “Familiar Quotations” did not give him credit for the phrase, which became a story line in the episode “The Nanny,” during season three of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”The episode, which aired in 2002, weaves in Lewis’s attempts to get into Bartlett’s.“It was a real solid for Larry to do that for me,” he said. “That really immortalized it in some respects.” More