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      Jillian Sackler, Philanthropist Who Defended Husband’s Legacy, Dies at 84

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      Though the Sackler name was tarnished over Purdue Pharma’s role in the opioid crisis, Arthur Sackler’s should not be, she insisted; a company founder, he died well before the trouble began.Jillian Sackler, an arts philanthropist who struggled to preserve the reputation of her husband, Arthur, by distinguishing him from his two younger Sackler brothers and their descendants, whose aggressive marketing and false advertising on behalf of their pharmaceutical company, Purdue Pharma, triggered the opioid epidemic, died on May 20 in Manhattan. She was 84.Her death, in a hospital, was from esophageal cancer, said Miguel Benavides, her health proxy.Dr. Arthur Sackler, a psychiatrist and researcher who became a pioneer in medical marketing, bought Purdue Frederick, originally based in New York City, in the 1950s and gave each of his brothers a one-third share. They incorporated the company as Purdue Pharma in 1991. (Its headquarters are now in Stamford, Conn.)Dr. Sackler died in 1987 — nine years before the opioid OxyContin was marketed by the company as a powerful painkiller. Shortly after his death, his estate sold his share of the company to his billionaire brothers, Raymond and Mortimer, for $22.4 million.The company’s misleading advertising claim that OxyContin was nonaddictive prompted doctors to overprescribe it beginning in the 1990s. The proliferation of the medication ruined countless lives of people who became dependent on it.Ms. Sackler in 2012. She spent decades defending her husband, who died nine years before the opioid crisis.Fairchild Archive/Penske Media, via Getty ImagesIn 2021, the company proposed a bankruptcy settlement in which members of the Sackler family agreed to pay $4.2 billion over nine years to resolve civil claims related to the opioid crisis. In return, they sought immunity from future lawsuits.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 Has Options to Punish Musk Even if His Federal Contracts Continue

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      The president could tighten federal oversight of the tech titan’s businesses, even if heavy reliance by the Pentagon and NASA on them makes terminating Mr. Musk’s contracts less feasible.After the relationship between President Trump and Elon Musk exploded into warfare Thursday, Mr. Trump suggested that he might eliminate the tech titan’s federal contracts.“The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it,” Mr. Trump posted on his social media platform.That’s not as easy as Mr. Trump implies. The Pentagon and NASA remain intensely reliant on SpaceX, Mr. Musk’s rocket launch and space-based communications company, to get to orbit and move government data across the world.But there are options available to the president that could make Mr. Musk’s relationship with the federal government much more difficult than it has been so far in Mr. Trump’s second administration.Mr. Trump’s most accessible weapon to punish Mr. Musk is the ability to instruct federal regulators to intensify oversight of his business operations, reversing a slowdown in regulatory actions that benefited Mr. Musk’s businesses after Mr. Trump was elected.“In an administration that has defined itself by reducing regulation and oversight, it would not be difficult to selectively ramp up oversight again,” said Steven L. Schooner, a former White House contracts lawyer who is now a professor at George Washington University.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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      Coal and Gas Plants Kept Open Under Trump’s Energy Emergency

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      The grid operators that draw power from the plants said they never asked for them to remain open, and consumers may have to absorb extra costs.A 63-year-old coal-fired power plant was scheduled to permanently close its doors in Michigan on June 1. So was an oil- and gas-powered plant that was built in the 1960s in Pennsylvania.But at the last minute, the Trump administration ordered both to stay open. The orders came as it pursues a far-reaching plan to boost fossil fuels, including coal, by declaring a national “energy emergency.”The grid operators in Michigan and Pennsylvania said they hadn’t asked for the orders and hadn’t planned on using the plants this summer.The costs to keep the plants open, which could total tens of millions of dollars, are expected to fall on consumers. Experts have said there’s little evidence of a national energy emergency, and 15 states have sued to challenge President Trump’s declaration, which was issued the day he took office.The emergency orders, which came last month, surprised the companies that operate the plants, and they are now scrambling to delay some workers’ retirements and reverse nearly complete plans to shutter their facilities. In Michigan, the plant operator raced to buy enough coal to power operations.The episode marks a highly unusual use of the Energy Department’s emergency powers under the Federal Power Act. In the past, the department has typically issued emergency orders at the request of regional grid operators to stabilize the power supply during extreme weather events and blackouts. More

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      ‘The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives’ Keeps Pushing Back TV’s Fourth Wall

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      Reality TV had long advised casts to pretend the cameras (and producers) weren’t there. But for the Mormon influencers of MomTok, the business of being on camera is central to the plot.The women of MomTok, the 20- and 30-something Mormon influencers who make up the cast of Hulu’s “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” built their livelihood on upsetting codes of conduct.The series’s first season was birthed in the wake of a “soft swinging” scandal involving some of its couples. A few of the cast members drink alcohol. Some abstain in keeping with the Church’s doctrine, but interpret its teachings on ketamine use more loosely.In the show’s second season, which finished airing this month, the group routinely flouted what, in eras past, had been a cardinal rule of reality TV: Don’t break the fourth wall.“It’s not a shock that I was a fan favorite,” Demi Engemann pointedly told her MomTok peers in Episode 6. The group had just learned she tried to persuade producers to kick off her co-star Jessi Ngatikaura to secure a higher contract for this season. “I feel like I’m an asset, I should fight for more.”That prompted Taylor Frankie Paul, the unofficial founder of MomTok, to push back about her own negotiations over the very show on which they were appearing.“I’m the that one that’s actually struggling because I’m open to the [expletive] world,” she said. “If anyone deserves to be paid more it’s me and I’ve never even asked for that.”

      @secretlivesonhulu The girls are fightinggg 🫣 #TheSecretLivesOfMormonWives ♬ original sound – secretlivesonhulu 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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      David Beckham to Be Knighted by King Charles III

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      The British news media reported that the on-field golden boy and international celebrity will receive the honor from King Charles III.It was perhaps the biggest moment of David Beckham’s decorated soccer career. England needed to score against Greece in 2001 to qualify for the World Cup, and he stood over a free kick with little time left.He duly bent the ball into the net, setting off paroxysms of joy throughout England. The announcer Gary Bloom spoke for the nation when he shouted, “Give that man a knighthood!”It took 24 years, but now he’s getting one.How do you get a knighthood?In the modern age, knighthoods are conferred by the British royal family upon citizens who have achieved great success in their fields and served their country in one way or another.“Recipients range from actors to scientists, and from school head teachers to industrialists,” the royal family’s website says. It might now add “impossibly handsome and famous ex-football stars.” Those conferred with a knighthood get the title “sir.”Let’s hear the credentials of Beckham, er, Sir David.Mr. Beckham, 50, was a brilliant soccer player, most memorably for Manchester United and England’s national team. His famous right foot had the uncanny ability to curl balls through the air and into the net, inspiring the title of the 2002 film “Bend it Like Beckham.”His post-football career has included co-ownership of Inter Miami, the Major League Soccer team. He has been a UNICEF ambassador, and his charisma helped London secure hosting duties for the 2012 Summer Olympics.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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      13 Off Broadway Shows to See in June

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      Reed Birney and Lisa Emery in a two-hander, Taylor Mac in a Molière riff and Jay Ellis in a romantic drama — here’s what’s on New York stages this month.In the crowded June theater calendar, Pride fare figures prominently, but there’s a lot more out there, too. Here are some of the notable productions this month across New York City.‘Not Not Jane’s’Mara Nelson-Greenberg, whose absurdist workplace comedy “Do You Feel Anger?” was an Off Broadway wow several seasons back, fills the middle spot in this year’s Clubbed Thumb Summerworks festival with this new play in which a young woman gets funding to start a community center, but with an asterisk: It’s at her mom’s house. The reliably fascinating Susannah Perkins is part of the cast in Joan Sergay’s production. (Through June 13, Wild Project)‘Blood, Sweat, and Queers’The early life of the Czech athlete Zdenek Koubek, a women’s track and field star of the 1930s who transitioned later that same decade, is the subject of this contemporary Czech play by Tomas Dianiska, translated by Edward Einhorn and Katarina Vizina, and starring Hennessy Winkler as Zdenek. Part of the Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival, it is directed by Einhorn, the festival’s artistic director. (Through June 15, Bohemian National Hall)‘Lunar Eclipse’Reed Birney plays George to Lisa Emery’s Em in this Thornton Wilder-inflected new play by the Pulitzer Prize winner Donald Margulies (“Dinner With Friends”), about a long-married couple moon-gazing in a field on their Kentucky farm. Keeping each other company through the summer night, they talk over fear and regret, mortality and memory, love and encroaching decline. Kate Whoriskey directs for Second Stage. (Through June 22, Pershing Square Signature Center)‘Prosperous Fools’Arching an eyebrow at philanthropy and its insincerities, Taylor Mac’s latter-day riff on Molière’s comedy-ballet “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme” is set at a gala for a nonprofit dance company. With Mac leading a cast that also includes Sierra Boggess and Jason O’Connell, the Tony Award winner Darko Tresnjak (“A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder”) directs the world premiere for Theater for a New Audience — the final production in the 46-year tenure of Jeffrey Horowitz, its founding artistic director. (Through June 29, Polonsky Shakespeare Center)‘The Wash’From left, Bianca Laverne Jones, Margaret Odette, Kerry Warren and Alicia Pilgrim in “The Wash” at WP Theater.Hollis KingWe 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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      Interpol Arrests 20 Over Network That Distributed Child Sex Abuse Material

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      The international sweep included arrests in 12 countries across Europe and the Americas. The agency said there were also dozens of other suspects.Twenty people in Europe, the United States and South America have been arrested as part of an investigation into an international network that produced and distributed child sexual abuse material, Interpol said on Friday. The policing organization said the network was also thought to extend to Asia and the Pacific region.The arrests, which took place in 12 countries, were the result of a cross-border inquiry in which investigators tracked the illegal material online to people who viewed or downloaded it, according to Interpol.The sweep made public by Interpol on Friday included arrests in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Italy, Paraguay, Portugal, Spain and the United States. It also led investigators to 68 other suspects in 28 countries, including the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania, according to Interpol and the Spanish police.The investigation began last year in Spain, where officers from the national police force’s specialized cyberpatrols came across suspicious instant messaging groups, the Spanish police said in a statement on Friday. The police said the online groups had been set up exclusively to distribute images of child sexual exploitation.As the authorities in Spain became aware that the network behind the online messaging forums was international, they began to work with the Interpol, where investigators broadened the operation to South America, Interpol said.In the arrests announced on Friday, the police in Spain said they had detained seven people in five provinces, and seized cellphones, computers and storage devices. Investigators found that in some cases, those suspected of viewing or downloading the illegal images worked with children.In Seville in southern Spain, the police arrested a schoolteacher whom they accused of being in possession of exploitative images and belonging to several chat groups through which the illegal material was distributed.In Barcelona Province, the police arrested a health worker who treated children; the police said that he was suspected of paying minors in Eastern Europe for sexually explicit images.The police said that one man who was arrested in the town of El Masnou in Barcelona Province had downloaded a messaging app to watch the illegal material and later deleted the app to hide his activities from his family.In Latin America, officers arrested a teacher in Panama and 12 other people in countries across the region, Interpol said. More

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      Online Dating Is Out, IRL Is In

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      As Gen Z and Millennial daters flee the apps and look for love in the wild, many have no idea where to start.Maxine Williams’s company, We Met IRL, hosts mixers and speed-dating events for young singles looking to find love without using the dating apps they’ve practically been raised on. Finding a partner offline feels like a “fantasy” that exists only in movies to many of her peers, Ms. Williams, 29, said.“People are wanting a meet-cute,” she added, though the first minutes of the dating events are hardly the stuff of great rom-coms. Attendees come hungry for in-person connection, Ms. Williams noted, but many are surprised by how awkward they feel.“It’s rough,” she stressed. “Like, guys on one side, girls on the other side. It’s very much middle-school vibes.”There’s plenty of evidence that singles are looking for love offline, the way people dated until the last few decades. Dating app burnout has become rampant, and platforms are struggling to attract and retain users, particularly younger ones. Match Group and Bumble have lost more than $40 billion in market value since 2021. Dating apps are in trouble, the headlines tell us; actually, they’re dead. Mindless swiping is out, and “intentional dating” with a plan and a clear goal is in.The problem? Finding love in person has never been easy. And it can be particularly tricky for daters who are accustomed to having an endless stream of potential romantic prospects right at their fingertips.“They’re sort of trapped between these two worlds,” said Melissa Divaris Thompson, a marriage and family therapist in New York City. “The online space doesn’t feel great, and meeting somebody out in the world feels very vulnerable.”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