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    Jamie Oliver Pulls Children’s Book Amid Criticism of Insensitivity

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    The celebrity chef’s second children’s book, “Billy and the Epic Escape,” faced accusations that it stereotyped First Nations people in Australia.The British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has halted sales of his children’s book around the world and issued an apology in response to accusations that the book stereotyped Australian Indigenous culture.The book, “Billy and the Epic Escape,” released in March by Penguin Random House UK, features aFirst Nations character named Ruby, who has mystical powers and is abducted from her home in Central Australia. Among the criticisms of the book was that its descriptions of the girl’s powers appeared to liken the First Nations’ complex spiritual beliefs to “magic” and failed to differentiate between their many languages and traditions. In one example, critics said, Ruby uses First Nations words that would not be realistic based on where her character was brought up. The book is a sequel to Mr. Oliver’s debut children’s book, “Billy and the Giant Adventure,” which was published in 2023. “Billy and the Epic Escape” follows the same group of children on a fantasy adventure during summer vacation.Calls to pull the book from shelves were led by the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Corporation, an educational group that works on behalf of First Nations communities in Australia. In a statement released this month, the group called Mr. Oliver’s depictions “irresponsible and damaging, reflecting a profound lack of understanding and respect.”The book’s depiction of Ruby’s abduction from her home in Australia — in a chapter titled “To Steal a Child” — was particularly insensitive, the group said. The country continues to reckon with the history of the so-called Stolen Generations, which refers to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who were forcibly taken from their families in the 20th century and placed in government-run assimilation programs.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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      The Australian Ballet’s ‘Oscar,’ Ventures Into New Romantic Territory

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      The Australian Ballet’s premiere of “Oscar,” based on the life of Oscar Wilde, explores the love relationship between two men.Boy loves girl. Prince enchanted by princess. Or swan queen, sylph, fairy, doll, peasant girl or courtesan.The central narrative elements of the full-length story ballets familiar to audiences mostly share a single element: The central romantic relationship is between male and female characters. Since many of these ballets (“Giselle,” “Swan Lake,” “The Sleeping Beauty”) date from the 19th century, that’s not surprising. But well into the 21st century, ballet — unlike opera, film or theater — has been slow to take up the challenges of telling other kinds of tales.That changed last month, with the Australian Ballet’s premiere of “Oscar,” about the life of Oscar Wilde. Choreographed by Christopher Wheeldon and set to a score by Joby Talbot, it is the first full-length narrative ballet that makes a gay hero and his love for another man its central subject.In a video call, Wheeldon pointed out that Matthew Bourne’s “Swan Lake — which featured an unhappy, repressed prince falling in love with a fiercely alluring male swan — was a groundbreaking forerunner, although not a classical ballet. But since then, he said, almost no narrative dance work has put a gay romance at its heart. David Bintley’s 1995 “Edward II” depicted something of the king’s relationship with Piers Gaveston, the Earl of Cornwall, but even the Yuri Possokhov-Kirill Serebrennikov “Nureyev” at the Bolshoi almost entirely skirted the issue of the dancer’s sexuality.It was time for something more. “I wanted us to be a company that tells stories that resonate, to be bold in our storytelling,” said David Hallberg, the artistic director of the Australian ballet. “Oscar Wilde wrote these beautiful tales, but was persecuted in a way that is still true for many people today.”Wheeldon, a major choreographer, clearly likes a narrative challenge. He has created the full-length “Alice in Wonderland,” “The Winter’s Tale” and “Like Water for Chocolate” for the Royal Ballet, and directed and choreographed (and won Tony Awards for) two Broadway shows, “An American in Paris” and “MJ: The Musical.”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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      Black Caviar, Champion Racehorse, Dies

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      She won every race she ran, and her fame went beyond the insular world of horseracing.She transcended racing to become a household name in Australia and revived, for a time, a sport in decline. At the height of her career, she graced the cover of Vogue, met Queen Elizabeth II and had her own line of shampoo and conditioner.Black Caviar, the Australian racehorse whose unbeaten streak of 25 victories from 2009 to 2013 made her a cultural icon, died on Saturday, one day before her 18th birthday.Her death was confirmed by the Victoria Racing Club in a statement. Australian news media reported that her trainer, Peter Moody, said Black Caviar was euthanized after giving birth to a foal because she was suffering from laminitis, a painful disease that affects the hooves of horses. Mr. Moody could not immediately be reached for confirmation.Between 2009 and 2013, Black Caviar won 25 races from 25 starts, earning more than $5.3 million (about 8 million Australian dollars) in prize money. From 2010 to 2013, she was ranked the world’s best sprinter racehorse by the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities. Some media outlets described her as “the world’s most popular racehorse.”“Very rarely do we get a hose that transcends the sport,” Matt Hill, an Australian race caller, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Sunday, “but everybody, even if they didn’t follow horseracing, knew who Black Caviar was.”At times, Black Caviar’s fame transcended her equine nature. In 2012, she was named “sportswoman of the year” by one newspaper, controversially beating out a human Olympic hurdling champion, Sally Pearson. That same year, Black Caviar became the first animal to be featured on the cover of Vogue Australia.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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      Fossils Show Giant Predatory Sea Scorpions Were Distance Swimmers

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      Specimens of what appear to be the largest eurypterid species found in Australia could shed light on the sudden extinction of the massive arthropods.Most modern scorpions would fit in the palm of your hand. But in the oceans of the Paleozoic era more than 400 million years ago, animals known popularly as sea scorpions were apex predators that could grow larger than people in size.“They were effectively functioning as sharks,” said Russell Bicknell, a paleobiologist at the American Museum of Natural History.New research by Dr. Bicknell and colleagues, published Saturday in the journal Gondwana Research and relying on Australian fossils, reveals that the biggest sea scorpions were capable of crossing oceans, a finding that is “absolutely pushing the limits of what we know arthropods could do,” he said.What are commonly known as sea scorpions were a diverse group of arthropods called eurypterids. They came in many shapes and sizes but are perhaps best known for their largest representatives, which could grow to more than nine feet long. With huge claws, a beefy exoskeleton and a strong set of legs for swimming, the larger sea scorpions most likely ruled the seas.However fearsome these arthropods must have been to Paleozoic prey, they went extinct without much of a bang. The fossil record of eurypterids peaked in the Silurian period, which started about 444 million years ago, and they then abruptly died out after the early Devonian period ended about 393 million years ago.That sudden turn of fate has left scientists bewildered.“They appear, they start doing really well, they get very big, and then they go extinct,” said James Lamsdell, a paleobiologist at West Virginia University who was not involved in the study. “For a while they were so dominant, and then they just burned out.”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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      He Made a Game About a Joyous Journey. He Also Got a Bit Lost.

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      Anthony Tan was 16 when his idea for a video game about a deer caught the industry’s eye. Nine years later, he’s still working on it.Anthony Tan’s hands shook as he took his seat in a dark Los Angeles theater. The neon green lights sporadically illuminated the 7,000 faces around him.Tan, a solo video game developer, was just 20 years old. Yet a trailer for his game, Way to the Woods, was about to share screen time with dozens of other coming Xbox titles, including those from mega-franchises like Gears of War and Halo. Unlike those games, created by teams of hundreds with eight- or nine-figure budgets, Tan had built his alone in his spare time, buoyed by grant funding.By the time he sat down in the theater at Microsoft’s annual hype-building event, in June 2019, Tan had watched his trailer more than 100 times. He knew every note, every camera pan. As the lights dimmed and the screen faded to black, he was too nervous to look. Everyone else watched his game’s stars — a deer and a fawn — appear onscreen, pushing a railway handcar across a golden plain.Even before the event was over, Tan’s phone blew up with Twitter messages from strangers. Millions of people had been watching the livestream online. Some praised the game’s art style, which Tan said was inspired by the Studio Ghibli movies “Princess Mononoke” and “Spirited Away”; others were intrigued by its unusual main characters.Tan was now shaking from adrenaline, not nerves.“It was absolutely exhilarating,” he said.Tan’s game about animals navigating an abandoned world had struck a chord. The final seconds of his stylish, mysterious trailer made a promise, or as close to one as the world of video game development allows: “Coming 2020 … for real this time.”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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      Julian Assange Pleads Guilty to Espionage, Securing His Freedom

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      The WikiLeaks founder, who entered the plea in a U.S. courtroom in Saipan in the Western Pacific, now plans to fly home to Australia.Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a felony charge of violating the U.S. Espionage Act, securing his freedom under a plea deal that saw its final act play out in a remote U.S. courtroom in Saipan in the Western Pacific.He appeared in court wearing a black suit with his lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, and Kevin Rudd, the Australian ambassador to the United States. He stood briefly and offered his plea more than a decade after he obtained and published classified secret military and diplomatic documents in 2010, moving a twisted case involving several countries and U.S. presidents closer to its conclusion. It was all part of an agreement allowing him to return to his native country, Australia, after spending more than five years in British custody — most of it fighting extradition to the United States.His family and lawyers documented his journey from London to Bangkok and on to Saipan, capital of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth, posting photos and videos online from a chartered jet. His defense team said that in the negotiations over his plea deal, Mr. Assange had refused to appear in a court on the U.S. mainland, and that he had not been allowed to fly commercial.His wife, Stella, posted an urgent fund-raising appeal on the social media platform X, seeking help in covering the $520,000 cost of the flight, which she said would have to be repaid to the Australian government. She also wrote on X that watching a video of Mr. Assange entering the courtroom made her think of “how overloaded his senses must be, walking through the press scrum after years of sensory deprivation and the four walls of his high-security Belmarsh prison cell.”In court, Mr. Assange responded carefully to questions from U.S. District Judge Ramona Manglona, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama. He defended his actions, describing himself as a journalist seeking information from sources, a task he said he saw as legal and constitutionally protected. 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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      Archie Moore, Australian Artist, Wins Top Prize at Venice Biennale

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      Moore, an Indigenous Australian artist, won the Golden Lion for “kith and kin,” which draws on what he says is 65,000 years of family history.Archie Moore, an Indigenous Australian artist who has created an installation including a monumental family tree, won the top prize at the Venice Biennale on Saturday.Moore, 54, took the Golden Lion, the prize for the best national participation at the Biennale, the world’s oldest and most high-profile international art exhibition. He beat out artists representing 85 other countries to become the first Australian winner.For his installation, “kith and kin,” Moore has drawn a family tree in chalk on the walls and ceiling of the Australia Pavilion. The web of names encompasses 3,484 people and Moore says it stretches back 65,000 years, although he has smudged some details so that they are hard to read. In the center of the room is a huge table covered with stacks of government documents relating to the deaths of Indigenous Australians in police custody.Julia Bryan-Wilson, the chair of this year’s Biennale jury and a professor of contemporary art at Columbia University, said during the prize announcement that Moore’s installation was “a mournful archive” that “stands out for its strong aesthetic, its lyricism and its invocation of shared loss for occluded pasts.”Before Saturday’s ceremony, which was streamed online, Moore’s pavilion had already been a critical hit. Julia Halperin, writing in The New York Times, said that the installation was one no Biennale visitor should miss. Moore’s hand-drawn family tree was so dense at points it was impossible to make out the names. “The implication is clear: expand the aperture wide enough and we are all related,” Halperin said. “It’s a concept that could feel trite if it weren’t rendered with such poetry, rigor and specificity.”A detail of Moore’s family tree in the pavilion.Matteo de Mayda 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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      In Australia, a Validation of Sorts for Brittany Higgins

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      More than three years after Brittany Higgins went public with her claim of rape, her case reached a conclusion of sorts.When a young former government employee said on national television in 2021 that she had been sexually assaulted in Australia’s Parliament two years earlier, it shocked the nation and unleashed a wave of anger aimed at the country’s insular, male-dominated political establishment.The employee, Brittany Higgins accused her colleague Bruce Lehrmann of raping her when she was inebriated, and said that she felt pressure from the government at the time not to report the assault. She became a figurehead for a reckoning on women’s rights that ultimately contributed to the electoral ousting of Australia’s conservative national government. But for years, there was no legal conclusion to the case.On Monday, it was finally — somewhat — settled, in a roundabout way.Mr. Lehrmann lost a civil defamation suit that he had filed against the television station that first broadcast Ms. Higgins’ account, with the judge ruling that based on the available evidence, it was more likely than not that Mr. Lehrmann had raped her.The proceedings did not take place in a criminal court, and the offense did not have to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Instead, the standard of proof was a balance of probabilities — a legal term meaning whether something is more likely than not to have occurred.Still, for many, this was a long-awaited validation for Ms. Higgins.“Something resembling justice has been done,” said Sarah Maddison, a political science professor at the University of Melbourne.Justice Michael Lee of the Australian Federal Court in Sydney determined on Monday that it was more likely than not that Ms. Higgins had been inebriated, unaware of her surroundings, and lying still “like a log” while Mr. Lehrmann assaulted her. The judge found that Mr. Lehrmann had been “hellbent” on having sex with her, disregarding whether she had the capacity to consent.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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      Witnesses to Sydney Mall Stabbing Describe Harrowing Scenes

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      Witnesses to the stabbings at a mall in a Sydney, Australia, on Saturday described a scene of terror as shoppers fled from the knife-wielding man or huddled in stores as panic spread through the shopping center.Some shoppers hid inside as alarms blared. Others ran out, screaming as they passed by bodies on the floor.When Gavin Lockhart, 37, saw people running as he sat inside a coffee shop at the mall, there was a moment of confusion. “Is it a celebrity?” he first thought. “Is it because of a gunman?”Then he fled when he heard, “He’s got a knife! He’s got a knife!”He followed the coffee shop’s owner, Michael Dunkley, 57, who also brought his wife, who was cooking, and two baristas into a staffroom where they could lock the door. Mr. Dunkley said afterward that just one thought was in his mind when the screaming began: “I have to get my wife and staff to safety.”Mr. Dunkley left the room to try to chase down the attacker, whom he described as a thin man with a beard and short hair, wearing dark green pants and a green jersey.Then, Mr. Dunkley recounted, he saw a police officer attempt to stop the assailant. When the officer told the man to put his knife down, he lunged toward her with his weapon, the cafe owner 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