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    NBA Agrees to Massive Rights Deals With Disney, Comcast and Amazon

    The agreements, set to begin after next season, could potentially pay the league about $76 billion over 11 years.The National Basketball Association’s Board of Governors has approved a set of agreements for the rights to show the league’s games, Commissioner Adam Silver said on Tuesday, moving one step closer to completing deals that would reshape how the sport is watched over the next decade.Mr. Silver declined to discuss any financial details or even the companies involved, though there have been reports for months that Disney, Comcast and Amazon were close to deals with the league. TNT, which is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, has shown N.B.A. games since the 1980s, but its prominent on-air personalities like Charles Barkley talked during the playoffs about how they worried that the network would lose the rights after next season, the last covered by the current nine-year TV deal.The companies are expected to pay the N.B.A. a total of about $76 billion over 11 years. On average, ESPN would pay the N.B.A. about $2.6 billion annually, NBC around $2.5 billion and Amazon roughly $1.8 billion, according to three people familiar with the agreements, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the financial details.The Board of Governors voted to approve the deals at its yearly meeting in Las Vegas. The N.B.A. must now present the deals to Warner Bros. Discovery, and once that happens, the company will have five days to match one of them to remain in the mix.“We did approve this stage of those media proposals, but as you all know there are other rights that need to be worked through with existing partners,” Mr. Silver said.Warner Bros. Discovery was expected to try to match Amazon’s offer, according to two people familiar with the company’s thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the negotiations.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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    James B. Sikking, Actor Best Known for ‘Hill Street Blues,’ Dies at 90

    His natural rectitude landed him roles on hundreds of TV dramas and comedies, including the beloved “Car Pool Lane” episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”James B. Sikking, an actor who specialized in comically and threateningly stern men, died on Saturday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 90.The cause was complications of dementia, a spokeswoman, Cynthia Snyder, said in a statement.Mr. Sikking combined a soldier’s leanness and square jaw with a gentleman’s horn-rimmed spectacles and neatly combed hair. As a Federal Bureau of Investigation director involved in high-level power players in the 1993 movie “The Pelican Brief,” he looked the part.“I have that professional, intelligent look in my eye that hires me as doctors, lawyers, professional people,” he told The New York Times in 1988.Among hundreds of roles on television, Mr. Sikking was best known for playing Lt. Howard Hunter on the police drama “Hill Street Blues” (1981-87). The show won 26 Emmys, a record for a drama until “The West Wing,” which ran from 1999 to 2006, reached the same total. The show “paved the way for today’s golden era of TV drama,” The Los Angeles Times wrote in 2014, a claim that many other commentators have made as well.Mr. Sikking’s character, who appeared in every episode, was a pipe-smoking disciplinarian and weapons expert who, when alone at home, might whisper lovingly to a puppy.He based the character’s persona and even dress on a drill instructor he had during a stint in the Army. “He was so ‘army’ that it was maddening,” Mr. Sikking told the entertainment and lifestyle publication Parade in 2014. “And he had just gotten his second lieutenant bars and he worked our butts off and he was totally unbending.”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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    ‘UnPrisoned’ Depicts the Burden of Incarceration With a Light Touch

    Delroy Lindo and Kerry Washington discuss their series, which finds humor and struggle in a father and daughter repairing their relationship after a long prison term.“UnPrisoned” on Hulu is the rare show to focus on the aftermath of incarceration and its ongoing effects on families rather than on imprisonment itself.Created by Tracy McMillan and loosely based on her 2011 memoir, “I Love You and I’m Leaving You Anyway,” the series stars Delroy Lindo and Kerry Washington as Edwin and Paige, a father and daughter trying to repair their relationship when Edwin comes back into Paige’s life after serving 17 years in prison.The first season explored the emotional injury that Edwin’s long absence inflicted upon Paige, an avid Instagrammer, therapist and single mother who struggles with a string of unhealthy romantic partners. Season 2, premiering Wednesday, delves deeper into how the issues of abandonment, anxiety and mistrust have been passed down through three generations, and it depicts the hard work it takes for the family to break the trauma cycle and begin to heal.Though the show spotlights a serious societal problem — mass incarceration — it does so with a light touch, finding humor as well as difficulty in the challenges of re-entry. Such nuance is what drew both Lindo and Washington to this story about, as Lindo put it, “the problems of families that have been decimated by the penal system and their trying to reconnect.”“Shining light on that process and on one individual who has been imprisoned for as long as my character was, while also doing it somewhat comedically, was genuinely very, very interesting to me,” he said.Washington helped develop “UnPrisoned” through her production company, Simpson Street. She said Lindo was her only choice for Edwin because she needed someone who could handle the comedy while also being able to convey the complexity and charisma of McMillan’s father, who inspired the character.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 Returns to RNC With a Different Look, but Some Things Were Familiar

    The first night of the Republican National Convention sought to strike a new note. But some of the lyrics were familiar.Donald J. Trump, a former reality-TV star, has always been conscious of his set dressing as a presidential candidate. At the 2016 Republican National Convention, he made a pro-wrestling-style walk-on in front of blinding lights. In 2020, he used the White House itself as the backdrop for his acceptance speech.But on the first night of the 2024 convention, Mr. Trump — in a way that he could not have anticipated before Saturday — was his own biggest prop.Just as the major networks’ prime-time coverage began, Mr. Trump entered the V.I.P. box in Milwaukee with a large white bandage on his injured right ear, the result of a close call on Saturday with a would-be assassin’s bullet at a rally in Pennsylvania. A reminder of mortality, a badge of survival — it was a blank rectangle on which the crowd could read what it wished, and that made it the most potent placard in the hall.Mr. Trump’s rallies and appearances have always been about firing up big feelings: rage, fear, grievance, defiance. This, as Mr. Trump walked out to the sounds of Lee Greenwood performing “God Bless the U.S.A.,” was something a little different.The mood of the moment was emotional and warm. Much of the night felt like a merger of political rally and gospel service, full of exhortations for divine protection, not simply for the country but also for the party’s returning leader.And Mr. Trump, who has said in interviews that he does not cry, looked as close to misty as I can remember in decades of seeing him onscreen.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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    What to Expect From Wednesday’s Emmy Nominations

    The top nominees are announced at 11:30 a.m. ET. “Shogun” and “The Bear” are poised to have a big day.Just six months after a strike-delayed ceremony, the Emmys are back.Nominations for television’s most prestigious award show will be unveiled on Wednesday morning. “Shogun,” the lush period drama, and “The Bear,” the anxiety-inducing comedy, are poised to have a big day. Netflix’s “Baby Reindeer” is expected to stand out among limited series.There is a considerable cloud hanging over Emmy nomination day this year. Last year’s double strikes, along with several years of cost cutting, have put the industry in the throes of a contraction. The Peak TV era is now firmly in the rearview mirror. To wit, the number of shows submitted for Emmy consideration this year plummeted.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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    With a Killer Onstage and a Body Part in the Back, the Show Went On

    Fourteen years ago in Orange County, Calif., Daniel Wozniak killed two people: Sam Herr, a 26-year-old Army veteran and neighbor, and Julie Kibuishi, a 23-year-old student and Herr’s close friend. Wozniak was convicted of the murders, received a death sentence and is serving time on death row, though California has a moratorium on executions.Those circumstances alone would be enough to adapt the case into a play in our true-crime-loving era. But additional details about the heinous murders shoot a cold dose of evil through that old theater maxim “The show must go on.”Wozniak performed twice in a community theater production of the musical “Nine” as Guido, the ladies-man lead, in the hours after the separate shootings of Kibuishi and Herr, whom he also dismembered and whose savings he wanted. Investigators found Herr’s torso inside the theater where Wozniak and his fiancée, Rachel Buffett, had performed in the show. Buffett was later convicted of lying to the police about the murders.What kind of person would gamely act between gruesome acts? That’s the question Ryan Spahn set out to explore in his darkly comic new play, “Inspired by True Events,” running through Aug. 4 at Theater 154 in the West Village, in an Out of the Box Theatrics production.Directed by Knud Adams, the show takes place inside a community theater’s intimate green room, where Mary (Dana Scurlock), a mama bear stage manager, helps the actors Colin (Jack DiFalco), Eileen (Mallory Portnoy) and Robert (Lou Liberatore) prepare for the play-within-the-play. The audience of 35 (seated on chairs inside the theater’s green room) watches the humdrum thrum of a dressing room: Mary makes coffee, Colin showers, Eileen puts on her wig, Robert steams his costume. That is until Robert finds a duffel bag that reeks of Colin’s gym clothes — and it’s no spoiler to say that what’s in the bag are not Colin’s gym clothes.Dana Scurlock, left, and Jack DiFalco in the Out of the Box Theatrics production.Thomas BrunotWe 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 Somber Late Night After the Attack on Donald Trump

    Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers offered sober reflections about democracy. So did Anthony Anderson, though he found some humor in the reaction to the shooting.Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous night’s highlights that lets you sleep — and lets us get paid to watch comedy. Here are the 50 best movies on Netflix right now.Not FunnyLate night was more subdued than usual on Monday, two days after a gunman tried to kill Donald Trump at a rally.“The Daily Show” canceled its plans to cover the Republican National Convention from Milwaukee, skipping its Monday show. Jimmy Fallon avoided the topic altogether on “The Tonight Show,” while Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers addressed it with solemnity at the top of “The Late Show” and “Late Night.”Colbert expressed “horror at what was unfolding, relief that Donald Trump had lived, and, frankly, grief for my beautiful country.”“So as we’ve done many times in the past when some tragic event has shocked the nation, I’m starting the show tonight talking at the desk. Though I could just as easily start the show moaning on the floor, because how many times do we need to learn the lesson that violence has no role in our politics? That the entire objective of a democracy is to fight out our differences with, as the saying goes, ballot not a bullet?” — STEPHEN COLBERTSeth Meyers said it was “worth saying that there is no autopilot for democracy.”“Every generation before us has had to do the difficult work of safeguarding this cherished enterprise, and now we’re called upon to do the same.” — SETH MEYERSAnthony Anderson, guest-hosting “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” said he hoped that “we can all take a step back from the hatred and vitriol in our politics.” He was the only host who attempted a few jokes around the incident.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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    Dr. Ruth’s Tips for a Happy Life

    Ruth Westheimer loved to give advice — and often strayed from her area of expertise as she tried, in her words, “to make the world a better place.”Ruth Westheimer spent a lot of time talking about sex. She did so with her own brand of frankness and good cheer on her pioneering radio show, “Sexually Speaking,” and on her daytime TV program, “The Dr. Ruth Show,” as well as in her column for Playgirl magazine, in her many books and in countless interviews and public appearances across more than four decades. It’s possible that Dr. Ruth, who died last week at 96, talked publicly about sex more than anyone else. Ever.But since her specialty touched on so many other aspects of the human experience, she also gave plenty of general life advice. Some of those lessons were pulled from her own difficult experience as a German Jewish refugee who lost her parents during the Holocaust. Or from her unhappy early relationships, though she found lasting love with her third husband, Manfred Westheimer, an engineer, after two brief marriages.In a 2012 interview with The Guardian, she spoke of the importance of turning a terrible experience into something positive. “I was left with a feeling that because I was not killed by the Nazis — because I survived — I had an obligation to make a dent in the world. What I didn’t know was that that dent would end up being me talking about sex from morning to night.”To describe her sense of purpose, she often used the phrase tikkun olam — Hebrew for “repairing the world” or, as she put it in a speech, “making the world a better place.” “I knew I had to do something for tikkun olam,” she said in a 2014 interview with Hadassah Magazine. “You can take horrible experiences you will never forget, but you can use the experiences to live a productive life.”In a 1984 interview with The New York Times, she noted the importance of humor in teaching. “If a professor leaves his students laughing,” she said, “they will walk away remembering what they have learned.”Dr. Ruth made her first appearance on The Tonight Show in 1982, when “Sexually Speaking” was catching on. When the host, Johnny Carson, said that many people are bashful talking about sex, Dr. Ruth offered a lesson in how to approach delicate subjects: “If you do it in good taste — and if you do it properly, then it can be — everything can be talked about. Everything.”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