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    When Nobu Masuhisa Changed Sushi in America Forever

    “I am so glad I didn’t give up on my life and kept going,” says the chef, who’s the subject of a new documentary about his remarkable career.Nobu sits along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu, with ocean waves lapping under its outdoor deck. It is an interlude of tranquillity along a road that is a maze of construction crews, police cars, fire trucks and the charred frames of beachfront homes — evidence of the wildfires that raced through here earlier this year.But at 11:45 a.m. on a recent Saturday, the crowd stretched 200-feet deep waiting for Nobu to open for lunch. By 12:30, every table was filled. It was a testament to the endurance and appeal of a restaurant that encapsulates — in food, celebrity and style — a global phenomenon that began 38 years ago, and 20 miles away, when the chef Nobu Matsuhisa opened a modest sushi restaurant in Beverly Hills.At 76, Matsuhisa today sits atop a restaurant and hotel empire that stretches almost entirely around the globe. He is the chef who, as much as anyone, transformed the sushi scene in New York and, to a lesser extent, Los Angeles. He was one of the first chefs, along with Wolfgang Puck, to have soared beyond the boundaries of his first restaurant to become a celebrity in his own right. And he is now the subject of a new documentary, “Nobu,” tracing the arc of his life, from growing up in a small town outside Tokyo to becoming a magnate with homes in Japan and Bel-Air.“I am step by step,” Matsuhisa told me. “When I opened my first restaurant in 1987, I never thought about growing. Always I had the passions — always my base was cooking. And now I have so many, we have so many restaurants around the world.”“There are a handful of people who have changed the way the world eats,” the critic Ruth Reichl says in the documentary. “Nobu is certainly there in that pantheon.”AGC InternationalAs Matt Tyrnauer, the filmmaker who spent two years making the documentary, said over plates of sushi at the Nobu in Malibu: “He’s gone from one modest restaurant on La Cienega to becoming a global luxury brand centered on food and hospitality. There are not a lot of people that have pulled that off.”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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    Amie Donald Has the Moves as the Killer Robot in ‘M3gan 2.0’

    The sunny 15-year-old dancer-turned-actress is about as far as you can get from the role she’s best known for: a deadly A.I. doll.Onscreen, Amie Donald is best known for her role as the killer robot M3gan in the sci-fi horror franchise.But, in real life, Donald, 15, spends a majority of her days in the idyllic, sun-soaked setting of lushly forested New Zealand, where kiwi roam and she’s apt to take a bush walk outside her parents’ home in Papakura, a suburb in South Auckland.“I really enjoy all the nature here,” she said on a video call from the house on a recent morning. Her long red hair fell in beachy waves as sunlight danced on her white sweater. Framed photos of her and her parents and older brother filled the walls behind her.Donald is about the furthest you could get from the cutthroat killer robot returning in the new sequel, “M3gan 2.0.” For one thing, she smiles far too much. Other people, she said, would describe her as “very caring.” She wasn’t a fan of horror films until landing “M3gan” — though she’s since started watching them with her father, and now counts “It” and “The Purge” among her favorites. “I love them so much,” she said.M3gan, the robot that becomes frighteningly protective of a young girl named Cady, was Donald’s first role in a film, following her TV debut as Maya Monkey, an acrobatic girl with simian features, in Netflix’s postapocalyptic series “Sweet Tooth.”Amie Donald embodies the killer doll in the original and “M3gan 2.0,” although a synthetic mask covers her face.Geoffrey Short/Universal PicturesWe 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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    Live Updates: Sean Combs Committed ‘Crime After Crime,’ Prosecutor Tells Jurors

    A federal prosecutor summed up the government’s case against the music mogul Sean Combs on Thursday, weaving strands of evidence from his seven-week trial on sex-trafficking and racketeering charges to portray him as the head of a criminal enterprise who “used power, violence and fear to get what he wanted.”The prosecutor, Christy Slavik, focused much of her closing argument on the methods Mr. Combs used to coerce two women he dated — Casandra Ventura (the singer Cassie) and a woman who testified under the pseudonym “Jane” — to have sex with hired men while he watched in drug-fueled sessions known as “freak-offs,” “hotel nights” or “wild king nights.”Here are four takeaways from the prosecution’s closing argument:The prosecution said proving that women were coerced into one ‘freak-off’ was enough for a sex trafficking conviction.A key point of contention has been whether Mr. Combs coerced the two women at the heart of the case into having sex with hired men, or if they were willing participants. In cross-examinations during the trial, the defense highlighted text messages in which the women expressed enthusiasm or excitement for the sessions.Ms. Slavik clarified for jurors that the government is not arguing that all of the sex nights with male escorts constitute sex trafficking. She said the women had initially been willing to engage to please Mr. Combs, but later became unwilling participants who complied either because they feared he would hurt them physically or cut them off financially.Christy Slavik, one of the prosecutors, delivered the government’s closing argument in Mr. Combs’s federal trial.Ted Shaffrey/Associated Press“If there is one time — one single freak-off that jurors find were the product of force, threats of force, fraud or coercion, Mr. Combs should be found guilty of sex trafficking,” Ms. Slavik said.To underscore her point, she laid out several examples for each woman.Those included a time in June 2024, Ms. Slavik said, that Jane and Mr. Combs physically fought before he directed her to have sex with an escort. Jane testified that she repeatedly said “I don’t want to,” but Mr. Combs — his face close to hers — asked “is this coercion?”Ms. Slavik also pointed to Mr. Combs’s 2016 assault on Ms. Ventura at a Los Angeles hotel that was captured on surveillance video. “He was using force to cause Cassie to continue engaging in a freak-off,” Ms. Slavik said.The prosecution laid out its theory of how Mr. Combs’s employees operated as a criminal enterprise.Much of Ms. Slavik’s summation in the morning was devoted to arguing that Mr. Combs did not merely lead a typical celebrity entourage but instead ran an enterprise responsible for years of crimes.To convict Mr. Combs on the racketeering charge, jurors need to find that he knowingly joined an unlawful conspiracy, and that Mr. Combs agreed that he or a co-conspirator would commit at least two criminal acts on that list to further the enterprise.Ms. Slavik said an loyal inner circle of Mr. Combs’s employees carried out various crimes over more than a decade, most of them aimed at facilitating the freak-offs or covering them up. Those crimes, she said, include drug distribution, kidnapping, arson, bribery, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution and even forced labor.She identified several employees as being part of the criminal enterprise, none of whom have been charged with a crime or testified. They included Kristina Khorram, Mr. Combs’s former chief of staff, often referred to as “K.K.,” and a group of security officers known as D-Roc, Faheem Muhammad, Uncle Paulie and Roger Bonds.Examples of drug distribution alone, Ms. Slavik argued, were sufficient evidence to convict Mr. Combs of the racketeering charge because she said the trial testimony had established that he directed his employees to transport drugs several times for use in the sex sessions.The evidence also showed instances of kidnapping by the group, Ms. Slavik told jurors. Ms. Ventura, for instance, was taken to a hotel to heal after a beating by Mr. Combs and spent more than a week there, watched over by members of Mr. Combs’s staff to ensure she did not leave.Ms. Slavik also said Ms. Khorram and D-Roc were involved in bribing a hotel security officer to obtain incriminating security camera footage that showed Mr. Combs assaulting Ms. Ventura.Mr. Combs tampered with two witnesses after settling a lawsuit, the prosecution said.For the first time, the jurors heard details of allegations that Mr. Combs had committed witness tampering and obstruction, one of the eight potential crimes that are part of his racketeering charge. Ms. Slavik provided two allegations connected with women who had testified under pseudonyms during the trial.The prosecutor said that after Ms. Ventura filed her bombshell lawsuit that precipitated the criminal investigation, Jane was stunned by its similarities to her experience.Shortly after Mr. Combs settled the lawsuit with Ms. Ventura, Ms. Slavik said, he called Jane twice in an effort to feed a “false narrative” that Jane was a willing participant in the sex marathons with male escorts in hotel rooms.The jury heard recordings of the calls, in which Mr. Combs described the nights as “kinky” encounters “that I thought we both enjoyed.” In the second call, he told her, “I really need your friendship right now,” and assured her that if she “needed” him too, she “ain’t got worry about nothing else.” Around that same time, he texted an employee to ensure that Jane’s rent was being paid.Ms. Slavik said Mr. Combs also tampered with “Mia,” one of his former assistants. Mia testified that after Ms. Ventura’s lawsuit, a bodyguard known as D-Roc called her and began to discuss Ms. Ventura’s relationship with Mr. Combs, saying something to the effect of “they would just like fight like a normal couple.”Mia said D-Roc “sounded nervous” and said Mr. Combs missed her. Mr. Combs tried calling her, but she did not pick up, Mia said. Later, as Mr. Combs’s legal troubles were deepening, D-Roc texted her, “let me know how I can send you something.” She declined.Mr. Combs brought a book to court.Mr. Combs entered the courtroom wearing a baby-blue sweater and a smile, waving to family and friends who filled two rows near the front of the courtroom. The beginning of closing arguments drew perhaps the largest crowd yet to the courthouse over the trial’s seven weeks, and administrators were forced to open four courtrooms to handle those interested in watching the proceedings on closed circuit television.As Ms. Slavik spoke for nearly five hours, presenting Mr. Combs as a violent, abusive man who was used to getting his way and deployed aides to help him secure it, he was an attentive defendant, shaking his head at one point, and often passing notes to his lawyers.He did not have time to focus much attention on a book he had brought into the courtroom with him: “The Happiness Advantage,” by Shawn Anchor, described as “an engaging, deeply researched guide to flourishing in a world of increasing stress and negativity.” More

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    Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Trial: Takeaways From Prosecution’s Closing Argument

    After seven weeks of testimony, the government detailed to jurors why it says the mogul is guilty of sex trafficking and racketeering.A federal prosecutor summed up the government’s case against the music mogul Sean Combs on Thursday, weaving strands of evidence from his seven-week trial on sex-trafficking and racketeering charges to portray him as the head of a criminal enterprise who “used power, violence and fear to get what he wanted.”The prosecutor, Christy Slavik, focused much of her closing argument on the methods Mr. Combs used to coerce two women he dated — Casandra Ventura (the singer Cassie) and a woman who testified under the pseudonym “Jane” — to have sex with hired men while he watched in drug-fueled sessions known as “freak-offs,” “hotel nights” or “wild king nights.”Here are four takeaways from the prosecution’s closing argument:The prosecution said proving that women were coerced into one ‘freak-off’ was enough for a sex trafficking conviction.A key point of contention has been whether Mr. Combs coerced the two women at the heart of the case into having sex with hired men, or if they were willing participants. In cross-examinations during the trial, the defense highlighted text messages in which the women expressed enthusiasm or excitement for the sessions.Ms. Slavik clarified for jurors that the government is not arguing that all of the sex nights with male escorts constitute sex trafficking. She said the women had initially been willing to engage to please Mr. Combs, but later became unwilling participants who complied either because they feared he would hurt them physically or cut them off financially.Christy Slavik, one of the prosecutors, delivered the government’s closing argument in Mr. Combs’s federal trial.Ted Shaffrey/Associated Press“If there is one time — one single freak-off that jurors find were the product of force, threats of force, fraud or coercion, Mr. Combs should be found guilty of sex trafficking,” Ms. Slavik 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

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    ‘The Forest of Metal Objects’ Premieres at the Met Cloisters

    It was the hottest day of the year, and young musicians from the University of Michigan were staying cool in a 12th-century Benedictine cloister that, reconstructed indoors, let in the summer sun while a chill blew in from vents around their ankles.But they wouldn’t be inside for long. Those players, from the University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble, were rehearsing “The Forest of Metal Objects,” which premieres on Friday and is designed to travel through the Met Cloisters, the hilltop museum of medieval art and architecture, with the performance ending outside in the lush garden of the Cuxa Cloister.Before they went outdoors, though, the piece’s composer, Michael Gordon, had notes about how the percussionists were handling makeshift instruments constructed of small chains and jingle bells. “The first time you shake them, let’s make it playful,” he said. “But maybe the second time is about discovery, and then as we slow it down it becomes more serious.”Players rehearsing “The Forest of Metal Objects” at the Met Cloisters in Upper Manhattan. The site-specific composition from Michael Gordon premieres on Friday.Clark Hodgin for The New York TimesThe players were also receiving direction from Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar, founders of Big Dance Theater, who had choreographed each movement within the cloister, such as picking up the chains and processing to the next room, with some of them standing on steps to form a corridor for the audience.Lazar didn’t know how many steps he could fill with performers without getting too close to the centuries-old sculptures at the top. “Does this work?” he asked a member of the museum’s curatorial staff who was observing. He was told to leave a couple of steps’ worth of space between the musicians and the art, and he happily obliged.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