Aurelia Butler

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    The Best True Crime to Stream: Scams, Schemes and Costly Lies

    Four picks across television, film and podcast that depict the art of the con.There are so many true crime offerings dedicated to scams, frauds and con artists that it can be overwhelming. Many of these stories are astonishing and worthy of attention, whether the deceptions are financial, medical, romantic or otherwise. Often most surprising is how relatively painless it seems to lay such traps, and how many people, regardless of personal circumstances, take the bait.Here are four picks across television, film and podcast that stand out, all of which underscore what can unfold when a hunger for money, power or prestige is put above all else.Documentary Film“Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal”With college acceptance season upon us, it seems appropriate to revisit one of the most outrageous education scandals in recent years: a $25 million bribery scheme that prompted a federal investigation called Operation Varsity Blues. The mastermind behind it was William Singer, a basketball coach turned college admissions counselor who ran a criminal enterprise that opened a fraudulent path for wealthy people to have their children accepted by elite universities under the guise that they had earned entry based on academic and extracurricular excellence. Test scores were doctored, for example, and athletic credentials were fabricated in ludicrous ways.Dozens of powerful people were accused and arrested, most famously the actresses Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, who both served time in prison.In this 2021 film, the director Chris Smith puts a fresh spin on re-enactments, long the life blood of true crime television and films, by recreating full scenes and pulling dialogue directly from wiretaps. Matthew Modine (“Stranger Things,” “Oppenheimer”), who plays Singer, and other actors bring it all to life.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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    Casey Benjamin, Free-Spirited Saxophonist, Dies at 45

    A musical voyager who wouldn’t be limited by genre, style or even instrument, he brought exuberance to the Robert Glasper Experiment and other groups.Casey Benjamin, who brought colorfully expansive saxophone flourishes to the Grammy-winning Robert Glasper Experiment and added rich layers of texture to recordings by Solange, A Tribe Called Quest and many others, died on March 30 in Maryland. He was 45.The cause was pulmonary thromboembolism, his brother, Kevin Benjamin, said. He did not say where in Maryland Mr. Benjamin died.Known for his willingness to experiment, his exuberant stage persona and his trademark swirl of locs, often streaked with teal or red, Mr. Benjamin was a founding member of the pianist Robert Glasper’s combo, which, the critic Nate Chinen wrote in The New York Times in 2012, “specializes in deep, immersive grooves, nourished as much by hip-hop and R&B as any known species of jazz.”“Black Radio,” the band’s fourth album on the venerable Blue Note label, featured guest appearances by the neo-soul singer Erykah Badu, the rappers Lupe Fiasco and Yasiin Bey (formerly Mos Def) and others. It won the 2012 Grammy Award for best R&B album and rose to No. 15 on the Billboard album chart. Mr. Benjamin shared another Grammy with the band in 2015 when “Jesus Children,” a Stevie Wonder cover, won for best traditional R&B performance.Whether collaborating with Mr. Glasper or the critically acclaimed vibraphonist Stefon Harris in the band Blackout, Mr. Benjamin showed off his distinctive voice on his primary instrument, alto saxophone. In an obituary, the jazz bible DownBeat wrote that he “possessed a fluid, round sound on the alto saxophone and a unique sense of phrasing.”But he never let himself be limited by genre, style or even instrument; he created a rainbow of sounds using not only reeds and woodwinds but also a vocal synthesizer manipulated with a keytar (a keyboard instrument worn with a strap around the neck), along with other synthesizers and effects pedals.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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    Albert Heath, Jazz Drum Virtuoso, Is Dead at 88

    He accompanied stars like John Coltrane and worked frequently with his brothers. “I’ve always thought I was a master,” he once said. Few disagreed.Albert Heath, a virtuoso jazz drummer who collaborated with luminaries like John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Nina Simone and Herbie Hancock; performed and recorded with his older brothers, Percy and Jimmy; and for a few years played alongside Percy in one of the great jazz ensembles, the Modern Jazz Quartet, died on Wednesday in Santa Fe, N.M. He was 88.The cause of his death, it a hospital, was leukemia, his stepson Curt Flood Jr. said.Mr. Heath, who was known as Tootie, was primarily a bebop and hard bop drummer but was adept in a range of styles. In 2020, the National Endowment for the Arts named him a Jazz Master, an honor that his brothers had received earlier.He accepted the news with a mixture of humility and self-confidence.“I am honored that they acknowledged me,” he told The Santa Fe New Mexican, “but it doesn’t mean anything because I’ve always thought I was a master.”From left, Albert, Jimmy and Percy Heath in an undated photo. They began working together as the Heath Brothers in 1975.Alan NahigianMr. Heath’s career had its origins with his family in Philadelphia, where his father played clarinet in an Elks marching band, his mother sang in a church choir and his brother Jimmy, a saxophonist, brought members of his big band — including his fellow saxophonist John Coltrane — to the Heaths’ house.“They’d have section rehearsals in our parents’ house because it wasn’t big enough to have the whole band in there, 18 pieces or so,” Mr. Heath said in an interview with the website All About Jazz in 2015. “So the trumpets would come one day, the reeds the next. The drummers and the bassists would be there a third day.”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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    To Live Long and Prosper, Do What George Takei Does

    For the “Star Trek” actor and author of the new children’s book “My Lost Freedom,” it’s all about green tea and antioxidants. “I drink it every day, all day. I am an addict,” he says.When George Takei talks about his childhood, he speaks of both anguish and beauty.The actor best known as Sulu from “Star Trek” was only 5 when he and his family — like thousands of Japanese American citizens during World War II — were relocated from their Los Angeles home to a string of incarceration camps.Takei captured some of his family’s wartime experiences — in a horse stall in Arcadia, Calif., a camp in Rohwer, Ark., another one in Northern California — in his picture book, “My Lost Freedom,” due out April 16. “This is an American story that Americans need to know about,” he said in a video call.The book continues his mission to shed light on a dark chapter in U.S. history. It follows his 1994 autobiography “To the Stars,” his 2019 graphic memoir “They Called Us Enemy” and the 2015 musical production “Allegiance,” which was inspired by his life.Takei, 86, discussed meeting dignitaries with his husband, Brad, as well as the keepsakes he treasures and his one healthy addiction. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1Seeing Your Work in LightsI got a phone call that the marquee for “Allegiance” was going up at 8 a.m. Our apartment was so close to Longacre Theater, in Manhattan, we ran down there to see the letters being put there. It was thrilling — a life landmark experience! I wished both my parents could be there.2Big BandAt Rohwer, my father arranged to borrow a record player from the camp administration every couple of months, and after dinner, the tables were dragged away, the benches were put off to the side, and the teenagers got to have a dance. My bedtime music was the music from the mess hall. I still get a lump in my throat when I hear big band music from the 1940s.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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    ‘Zone of Interest’ Oscars Speech Is Defended by Jewish Film Artists

    Remarks about Israel that the director Jonathan Glazer made as he accepted an Oscar for “The Zone of Interest” drew a letter of support after facing criticism last month.More than 150 Jewish actors, filmmakers and other artists signed an open letter that was published on Friday in defense of remarks about Jewishness and the war in Gaza that the director Jonathan Glazer made in his Oscars acceptance speech for “The Zone of Interest,” his film about the Holocaust.Glazer’s speech has become one of the most hotly debated in Oscars history, drawing an open letter of strong denunciation from other Jewish film professionals last month and now one of support.“Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,” Glazer, who is Jewish, said at the Academy Awards on March 10. “Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”The new letter expresses support for Glazer. “In his speech, Glazer asked how we can resist the dehumanization that has led to mass atrocities throughout history,” it says. “For such a statement to be taken as an affront only underscores its urgency.”Its signatories included the actors Joaquin Phoenix, Hari Nef and Debra Winger; the directors Joel Coen, Nicole Holofcener and Boots Riley; the playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard; and the artist Nan Goldin, according to Variety, which reported the existence of the letter on Friday. Its signatories were confirmed by Sarah Sophie Flicker, an artist and cultural organizer who helped organize the letter.“We stand with all those calling for a permanent cease-fire, including the safe return of all hostages and the immediate delivery of aid into Gaza, and an end to Israel’s ongoing bombardment of and siege on Gaza,” the letter says.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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    Margaret Tynes, Soprano Who Soared in Verdi and Strauss, Dies at 104

    Because there were few opportunities for Black singers in the U.S., she became a powerhouse in Europe, performing in operas like “Tosca” and “Carmen.”Margaret Tynes, an American soprano who was acclaimed in Europe but neglected in the United States at a time when Black singers were newly breaking into the operatic world, died on March 7 in Silver Spring, Md. She was 104.The death was confirmed by her nephew Richard Roberts, who said Ms. Tynes died in a nursing home.In the 1960s and ’70s Ms. Tynes, with her incendiary, full-throated voice, in roles like Aida and Salomé, sang at opera houses in Vienna, Prague and Budapest, earning high praise on the continent — “an exceptional voice, intense in every coloring, vibrant and dramatic,” Milan’s Corriere della Sera newspaper wrote — even while U.S. critics were cooler. The Süddeutsche Zeitung of Munich wrote of her performance in Benjamin Britten’s “The War Requiem” that “What Britten expects of a woman’s voice can only be achieved by a singer of Margaret Tynes’s caliber.”But she did not make her Metropolitan Opera debut until 1974, when she was 55, in a run of three performances as the title role in Janacek’s “Jenufa” that began and ended her career there.Ms. Tynes, right, in 1957 with Joya Sherrill and Duke Ellington when they recorded “A Drum Is a Woman,” for which Ms. Tynes gained a measure of American fame.Everette CollectionMs. Tynes grew up in the segregated South and gained a measure of American fame in the 1950s, recording “A Drum Is a Woman” with Duke Ellington, singing heartfelt renditions of “Negro Spirituals” on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and appearing with Harry Belafonte in the musical “Sing, Man, Sing.” She also sang at the funeral of the musician W.C. Handy and toured the U.S.S.R. with Mr. Sullivan’s show in 1958.Her breakthrough in opera, the genre that defined her career, came in Europe in 1961, when she sang Salomé in Luchino Visconti’s production at the Spoleto Festival in Italy. Time magazine described her as “moving about the stage with catlike grace, her rich, ringing voice zooming with ease through the high, precarious lines,” and as a “girl with veins of fire.”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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    Why Is Cardi B Fighting With Raymonte?

    The rapper exchanged heated remarks with the social media personality Raymonte Cole after he suggested that her skin color was the reason brands consider her “marketable.”The rapper Cardi B found herself embroiled in a sharp back-and-forth with a social media personality this week after he brought up her social class, upbringing and skin color. A quarrel soon erupted over colorism and questions of who gets to profit over which public affect.Of course, Cardi B isn’t one to shrink from a fight, and it wasn’t even the first spat this year to involve a high-profile rapper. But the argument is notable for the difficult issues it broached having to do with colorism — the way prejudice can vary based on someone’s skin color, and how it can lead to stereotypes and differential policing of behavior.Here’s what we know about the charged exchange.What happened?In a TikTok video posted on Wednesday, the social media personality Raymonte Cole lamented being labeled too “ghetto” to be marketable while someone like Cardi B is still able to claim social status and brand deals.“What bothers me as a Black person, you guys say that I’m ghetto,” Mr. Cole said in the video, which he has since removed from his TikTok account. But Cardi B, he said, “is very, very ghetto. She’s way ghettoer than me.”The rapper fired back on X on Wednesday afternoon. “It’s crazy because when I became famous people said I’m ghetto,” she wrote.“To this day no matter what I accomplished I still get called a stripper all because I’m from the ghetto,” she continued. “People misinterpret me because apparently I’m LOUD AND GHETTO.”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 Solar Eclipse Soundtrack

    Songs from TV on the Radio, Brian Eno, Julianna Barwick and others than could well accompany the celestial event on Monday.TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe.Chad Batka for The New York TimesDear listeners,As you have probably heard, on Monday most people in the United States will be able to witness a solar eclipse that will plunge an ordinary afternoon into otherworldly darkness. Such events require planning. Where are you going to watch the eclipse? Who are you going to watch it with? And, most crucially for Amplifier purposes, what will you listen to during it?Today’s playlist aims to get you in the mood for this rare cosmic event. It features atmospheric ambient music from Brian Eno and Julianna Barwick as well as ethereal jazz from Alice Coltrane and Amaro Freitas. I also included a few songs that refer to moons and darkness, from Cat Stevens and Will Oldham, a.k.a. Bonnie “Prince” Billy, though I stopped just short of adding Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” because I have at least some restraint.As far as solar eclipses go, this one is relatively long: Along the totality line, the moon will block out the sun for about four minutes and 28 seconds. A few songs on this playlist run for approximately that duration, so if you press play on, say, Eno’s “An Ending (Ascent)” as soon as the eclipse begins, it can soundtrack the entire experience. If you want to take in the moment in reverent silence, though, I fully support that; this playlist will be here when the eclipse is over, if you want to extend the astronomical vibe. And if you want to spend your eclipse listening to “Total Eclipse of the Heart”? Well, that’s your decision, not mine.I do love the feeling of human interconnectedness that occurs during an eclipse, though. There’s something powerful about knowing that millions of people in all sorts of locations will be stopping what they’re doing and perhaps reflecting on the fact that, for all our differences, we’re all living under the same sky. Who knows? Maybe some of us will even be listening to the same music.I’m being followed by a moonshadow,LindsayListen along while you read.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