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    Mistrial in Murder Case Against Michigan Officer Who Shot Motorist

    The jury deadlocked in the trial of Christopher Schurr, who testified that he feared for his life when he fatally shot Patrick Lyoya during a traffic stop in Grand Rapids, Mich., in 2022.A Michigan jury said it was deadlocked on Thursday in a murder case against a police officer who fatally shot a motorist during a traffic stop.Judge Christina Mims of the Kent County Circuit Court declared a mistrial after jurors, who had been deliberating for four days, said they were unable to reach a verdict.The defendant, Christopher Schurr, formerly a police officer in Grand Rapids, Mich., took the stand during the trial and said that he feared for his life when he opened fire at the driver, Patrick Lyoya, after Mr. Lyoya grabbed his stun gun.“I believe if I didn’t do what I did when I did it, I wouldn’t be here today,” Mr. Schurr told the jury, in his first public remarks about the shooting.Mr. Lyoya’s death in 2022 set off protests and heightened racial tensions in Michigan, during a national debate over police misconduct and racism that followed the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.Mr. Schurr, 36, is white. Mr. Lyoya, 26, was Black.Mr. Lyoya’s killing received extensive media coverage, in large part because it was captured on video from several angles, including by Mr. Schurr’s body camera, a bystander’s cellphone and a nearby doorbell security system.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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    Appraisal Trade Group Accused of Covering Up Sexual Harassment and Test Flaws

    The Appraisal Institute faces concerns that one of its leaders has a history of harassing women and that it did not disclose that some certification exams were incorrectly scored. The organization that influences how much houses and commercial buildings are worth in the United States privately paid one woman $412,000 to settle a sexual harassment claim and fielded similar complaints from at least seven other women that have swirled within the group over the last decade, The New York Times has found.All the harassment accusations inside the Appraisal Institute are against one man — Craig Steinley, 64, a former president and the current vice president of the trade group, who denied the allegations.The Appraisal Institute, which produces the certification materials and fills the state boards that regulate the estimated 70,000 real estate appraisers working in all 50 states, did not respond directly to questions about the allegations. A spokesman said the group has policies that prohibit harassment, retaliation and discrimination. But The Times interviewed 12 women who said they have had uncomfortable interactions with Mr. Steinley, a South Dakota-based appraiser described by his colleagues as charismatic with a flirtatious manner. The women, several of whom asked for anonymity for fear of retaliation, said Mr. Steinley’s behavior often turned physical — an unwanted touch on the leg, a hug that lasted too long. Three women said Mr. Steinley groped their buttocks, according to interviews and a review of a letter sent from one woman’s lawyers to the Appraisal Institute.All the accusations inside the Appraisal Institute are against one man — Craig Steinley, 64, a former president and the current vice president of the trade group. He denies the allegations.via Craig SteinleyOne of the accusations was made public on Thursday, when Cindy Chance, the group’s former chief executive, sued the Chicago-based group for wrongful termination in Illinois state court. Ms. Chance, 59, who was fired last year, said Mr. Steinley groped her buttocks without her consent, made lewd comments about her body and referred to her as his “girlfriend,” according to her lawsuit. 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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    Would You Buy Your Diamond Engagement Ring at Walmart?

    The popularity of synthetic stones has sent the market for natural diamonds crashing. With consumers confused about how to tell the difference, how can a market leader like De Beers regain its sparkle?Do you care where a diamond comes from?Historically, consumers didn’t have a choice. Natural diamonds were formed billions of years ago, deep beneath the earth’s surface, and were then thrust hundreds of kilometers to its crust by volcanic eruptions before eventually being extracted from mines in South Africa, Russia and elsewhere. Companies like De Beers convinced the world that a diamond is forever, made the stones synonymous with engagement rings and encouraged people to spend at least three months’ salary on a rock when they wed.But in recent years, the natural diamond industry has been upended by laboratory-grown diamonds, which are virtually identical in chemical composition to their natural counterparts (at least to the naked eye). They can be grown in almost any size or color and cost anywhere from a 20th to a quarter of the price of natural stones. As shoppers look for ever bigger and blingier sparkles, synthetic diamonds have become increasingly popular — especially in the United States, the world’s largest market for diamond jewelry.Last year, according to a survey of U.S. consumers by the online wedding platform the Knot, more than half of respondents said their engagement rings featured a lab-grown diamond as a center stone, up from 46 percent in 2023 and 12 percent in 2019. Walmart, which started stocking lab-grown diamond jewelry in 2022, said sales in that category were up 175 percent last year compared to 2023.“Imagine if Hermès introduced an AI technology that could produce a perfect Birkin bag using the same materials in the same atelier, but in a fraction of the time,” Jessica Sailer Van Lith, founder of the lab-grown line La Pietra, said in a gushing Vogue article called “Shhh… I Sort of Regret Not Buying a Lab-Grown Engagement Ring in February. “Would you want one?”A Rocky QuestionWith a raft of buzzy lab-grown diamond brands like Blue Nile, Grown Brilliance and Dorsey and with establishment names like Jennifer Fisher and Pandora pivoting to stones that are made, not mined, are the likes of De Beers — the world’s biggest diamond miner, whose very existence depends on the popularity of natural stones — facing an existential threat?You wouldn’t think so to look at Al Cook, the jovial chief executive of De Beers, as he sat in the company’s London headquarters last week. After a boom in spending during and immediately after the pandemic, the natural diamond market has had a difficult few years. Alongside the acceptance of lab-grown diamonds, fewer marriages, plunging demand in China, Russian sanctions and a volatile global economy all played a part.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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    In Israel’s Demolition Path, West Bank Residents Pack Up Their Lives

    When Israel informed the Palestinian Authority that it planned to demolish dozens of buildings in crowded parts of a border city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, the notification set off a panic.Hundreds of Palestinians in the border city, Tulkarm, learned that they would likely not be returning to their homes at the end of a sweeping Israeli offensive in the northern West Bank.“They’re causing a disaster,” said Nihad al-Shawish, the head of the services committee in the Nur Shams camp in Tulkarm.Since January, the Israeli military has conducted a large-scale military operation in three camps in the northern West Bank, displacing tens of thousands of people and causing widespread destruction. Israeli officials, who say the purpose of the campaign is to target militants and their weapons, have said the military should be prepared to remain in the camps for a year.The military has said the latest demolition of homes in Tulkarm was meant to make the city’s two camps, Tulkarm and Nur Shams, more accessible to Israeli forces and to prevent militants from regrouping there.Many Palestinians believe Israel is seeking to transform the camps, which have housed refugees and their descendants, into neighborhoods like the rest of Tulkarm.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 Paris Restaurant With Live Jazz and Soaring Ceilings

    Plus: a new oceanside hotel in Mexico, murta berries and more recommendations from T Magazine.Welcome to the T List, a newsletter from the editors of T Magazine. Each week, we share things we’re eating, wearing, listening to or coveting now. Sign up here to find us in your inbox every Wednesday, along with monthly travel and beauty guides, and the latest stories from our print issues. And you can always reach us at tmagazine@nytimes.com.Stay HereA New Rosewood Hotel on Mexico’s Pacific CoastThe Premiere Beachfront Studio Suite, which overlooks the Pacific Ocean, at Rosewood Mandarina on Mexico’s Riviera Nayarit. Courtesy of Rosewood MandarinaThe expansion of Riviera Nayarit — a roughly 200-mile stretch along Mexico’s Pacific coast, about an hour drive north of Puerto Vallarta — continues this week with the opening of Rosewood Mandarina. The 134-room hotel occupies a verdant, densely forested 53 acres interspersed with farmland, and has views of both the Sierra Madre Occidental Mountain Range and the ocean. The environment was central to the interior design, says Caroline Meersseman, a principal at the New York-based studio Bando x Seidel Meersseman. “Ninety-five percent of the rooms face the ocean,” she says. “We used as many windows and mirrors as possible to bring the exterior inside.” Aside from the natural beauty, Meersseman and her team found inspiration in the region’s Indigenous Huichol and Cora cultures. Mexican contemporary artists were commissioned to create the decorative pieces and furniture found in every guest room, such as the sculptural ceramic lights by Salvador Nuñez that resembles the native peyote cactus, each one painted to reference Huichol art and craft; and a series of abstract murals based on traditional Huichol fairy tales by the Guadalajara painter Maryan Vare. The hotel’s primary restaurant, La Cocina, will be another nod to the region, with seafood (ceviche with jackfruit, lobster tacos, spiced prawns) caught from the Pacific, a few steps away. Rosewood Mandarina opens May 8; from $1,000 a night; rosewood.com.In SeasonThe Crunchy Red Berry That’s a Celebration of Autumn in ChileLeft: at Boragó, a restaurant in Santiago, Chile, the chef Rodolfo Guzmán serves an autumnal dessert of fresh murta berries, Patagonian rhubarb and sheep’s milk ice cream. Right: at Crocadon, an organic farm and restaurant in Cornwall, England, rows of 12-year-old murta bushes thrive.Left: courtesy of Boragó. Right: courtesy of Crocadon Autumn in Chile signals the arrival of murta season, when ancient wild berries — known variously as murtilla, Chilean guava or strawberry myrtle — flood the country’s southern landscapes. Fragrant and floral, with a texture somewhere between a crisp blueberry and firm apple, murta has long been treasured across Chile for both its distinct flavor and nutritional value. At Amaia in Maipú, a suburb of Santiago, the chef Iván Zambra, a champion of Indigenous Chilean foodways, favors murta berries for their crunchy texture and natural acidity. From March through May, Zambra showcases fresh red murta in vibrant herb salads and a tartare. To preserve the season’s bounty, he steeps the berries to make syrups and jams, capturing their essence for year-round dishes like murta panna cotta with yogurt semifreddo and lawen, a traditional herbal infusion intended to soothe colds and ease stress. At Boragó in Santiago’s Vitacura neighborhood, the chef Rodolfo Guzmán sources murta — including a rare white variety he serves fresh as a condiment or predessert — through an expansive network of southern foragers. He resists preserving the berries whenever possible. “When you preserve them, you lose the soul,” he says. Though his team occasionally ferment or dehydrate murta to layer flavor into broths, they most often present the fruit at its aromatic peak. This season, Guzmán is debuting a dessert that pairs murta with tangy Patagonian rhubarb and rich sheep’s milk ice cream. “It’s about honoring the momentum of the land,” he says. Murta has found its way into gardens and farms in Italy, New Zealand and parts of Britain (at Crocadon, an organic farm and restaurant in Cornwall, the chef Dan Cox serves strawberry myrtle with sorrel sorbet, anise hyssop oil and fresh sorrel leaves), but Guzmán notes that the Chilean variety retains a unique flavor. “You want to grab that personality and allow it to accent all the other ingredients,” he says. “When it’s fresh, it’s just pure magic.”Gift ThisEmbroidered Bed and Table Linens Created in Collaboration With Laila GoharLeft: a Laila Gohar x Vis-a-Vis place mat and napkin, photographed at Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Conn. Right: a top sheet made using the point de noeud embroidery technique.Pia RiverolaThe New York-based artist Laila Gohar and Véronique Taittinger, the owner and artistic director of the bespoke linen company Vis-a-Vis Paris, are launching their first collaboration, a 13-piece collection of hand-embroidered bed and table linens that draw on traditional techniques. A pleated duvet cover took nearly 500 hours to complete, while the intricate point de noeud style of embroidery on the collection’s top sheet was once used by 15th-century French nuns. Gohar’s penchant for whimsy emerges in the form of a scalloped tablecloth embroidered to look as if a handful of multicolored beans had been scattered onto its Belgian linen surface. For those worried about the practicality of using such delicate pieces on a regular basis, Taittinger says that upkeep is surprisingly simple: “Avoid the dryer, but they can be machine washed. The more you use them, the better they get.” From $55, modaoperandi.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

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    Lessons From World War II to Avoid World War III

    Thursday is the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. As leaders of countries that suffered greatly during and after the war, we attach great importance to this date. We remember our fallen parents, grandparents and other relatives who defended our freedom from two tyrannies of the last century. We remember all those who were killed, including at least six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust by Nazis and their collaborators. We remember the millions of victims of Soviet repressions that continued unabated on the other side of the Iron Curtain at a time when Europe was reuniting and rebuilding itself after the war.The meaning of commemoration is to draw necessary lessons and to prevent mistakes from happening again. The lessons from World War II — we have five of them to share — are critical for understanding how to restore and maintain long-lasting and just peace and security in Europe today, when they are again at risk.Just like the great wars in the past, Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine starting on Feb. 24, 2022, divided the 21st century into before and after. Despite overwhelming odds, Ukraine has managed to repel the attack and liberate more than half of the newly occupied territory. But even after more than 950,000 Russian soldiers killed and wounded in action, Russia has not abandoned its aggressive plans.President Vladimir Putin of Russia hopes to use the current geopolitical moment to his advantage and extract concessions from Ukraine and its partners. Moscow increasingly engages other rogue regimes like Iran and North Korea in the war, threatening the security of not only the European continent but also the Indo-Pacific and the Middle East.Learning from the past is critical today, as Ukraine, the European Union and the United States work to achieve peace. Russia’s war of aggression has shattered the post-World War II security architecture and the international system based on the United Nations Charter and the Helsinki Accords. Its conclusion will form the foundation for a new architecture. We offer the lessons from World War II that must be taken into account if we want to create an enduring peace in Ukraine, rather than a pause before the next potentially disastrous global conflict.Appeasing the aggressor leads to more aggression, not peace. Concessions on unlawful territorial claims are a disastrous mistake. The partition of Czechoslovakia in 1938 only fueled Nazi Germany’s appetite and resulted in a global war. Learning from this lesson, Ukraine will never accept the legitimization of Russia’s occupation and annexation of any part of Ukraine’s territory. Respect for territorial integrity is a fundamental principle of international law. There will be no sustainable peace and security at the cost of Ukraine’s people, independence, sovereignty or territorial integrity.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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    Trump Administration to Announce Trade Deal With Britain

    A deal would be a positive sign for both governments, which have eyed an agreement since President Trump’s first term.President Trump is expected to announce on Thursday that the United States will strike a trade agreement with Britain, according to three people familiar with the plans.Mr. Trump teased a new trade agreement in a social media post on Wednesday night, though he did not specify which nation was part of the deal.“Big News Conference tomorrow morning at 10:00 A.M., The Oval Office, concerning a MAJOR TRADE DEAL WITH REPRESENTATIVES OF A BIG, AND HIGHLY RESPECTED, COUNTRY. THE FIRST OF MANY!!!” he wrote.A spokesman for the White House declined to comment beyond Mr. Trump’s post. A spokesman for the British Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.The agreement would be the first deal announced since Mr. Trump imposed stiff tariffs on dozens of America’s trading partners. He later paused those temporarily in order to allow other nations to reach agreements with the United States.A deal between the United States and Britain could be a significant win for both countries, which have long sought closer economic cooperation.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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    Man Is Charged With Federal Hate Crimes in Assaults on Jewish Protesters

    Tarek Bazrouk, 20, on three occasions kicked and punched Jewish protesters who were wearing religious attire or carrying Israeli flags at demonstrations in Manhattan, prosecutors said.A New York man has been charged with federal hate crimes in three assaults on Jewish protesters at demonstrations over the war in Gaza, according to an indictment released on Wednesday.The man, Tarek Bazrouk, 20, was arrested at three separate protests in Manhattan over roughly nine months after he kicked and punched Jewish protesters who were wearing religious attire or carrying Israeli flags, federal prosecutors said.“Despite being arrested after each incident, Bazrouk allegedly remained undeterred and quickly returned to using violence to target Jews in New York City,” Jay Clayton, the interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a news release on Wednesday.Mr. Clayton said his office was “dedicated to seeking justice for victims of hate crimes and will aggressively prosecute those who spread bigotry and discrimination through violence.”Mr. Bazrouk was charged with three hate crime counts, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. It was not immediately clear whether he had a lawyer.According to prosecutors, Mr. Bazrouk was arrested in April 2024 at a protest outside the New York Stock Exchange after he “lunged” at a group of pro-Israel demonstrators and then, as he was being taken to a police vehicle, kicked one protester in the stomach.He was arrested again in December at a protest in Upper Manhattan after punching a Jewish student who was draped in an Israeli flag and stealing another flag from the student’s brother, prosecutors said. Mr. Bazrouk was arrested a third time in January, prosecutors said, after he punched a protester wearing an Israeli flag at a demonstration near First Avenue and East 18th Street in Manhattan.In the release, Christopher G. Raia, the assistant director in charge of the F.B.I.’s New York field office, accused Mr. Bazrouk of “demonstrating a pattern of supporting antisemitic terrorist organizations.” A search of his cellphone after his arrest revealed pro-Hamas propaganda and text messages in which he identified himself as a “Jew hater,” prosecutors said. The two-page indictment does not address those allegations.The charges come at a time when the Trump administration has taken an aggressive posture toward pro-Palestinian demonstrations, accusing them of antisemitism and seeking to deport some protesters.Mahmoud Khalil and Mohsen Mahdawi, who were both active in protests at Columbia University, were detained by immigration authorities earlier this year, as was a Tufts graduate student, Rumeysa Ozturk, who had criticized Israel in an opinion essay for a student newspaper. Mr. Mahdawi was released last week; Mr. Khalil and Ms. Ozturk remain in federal detention in Louisiana.Protests in New York City over the war in Gaza, once a near-daily occurrence, have become less frequent. Dozens of people were taken into police custody on Wednesday evening after pro-Palestinian demonstrators occupied part of Columbia’s main library for several hours in an effort to rekindle the movement that swept the campus last spring. More