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      Everything Millennial Is Cool Again

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      JNCO Jeans, big hair, “Sex and the City” and recession pop: Peak Millennial is back and the era’s trends are taking on a new life.They trolled us for being old when we hit our 30s, old-fashioned for remembering a time before email and for being “cringe” as we kept wearing our skinny jeans and ankle socks.Oh, how the tables have turned.Gen Z and younger generations are picking up where we, their (slightly) older counterparts, left off in the 2000s.The Gen Z girlies are watching “Sex and the City” and living their best Carrie Bradshaw lifestyles. Those Facebook albums of blurry photos of a night out? They’re back, repackaged as an Instagram “photo dump.” Ditto for big hair and wired headphones.“I do like seeing how a younger generation interprets an older trend when it comes back around,” said Erin Miller, 35, a TikTok creator and self-proclaimed 1990s and 2000s historian. She wasn’t surprised that many trends loved by millennials were making a comeback. “Does it remind me of my age? Yes.”But that’s not to say everything is the same. Millennials (typically those born from the early 1980s to the late ’90s) had infomercials and mail-order. Gen Z and Alpha have TikTok makeup tutorials and fast fashion. Bradshaw’s cosmopolitan has been exchanged for an Aperol spritz.Members of generations Z and Alpha are putting their own mark on once-ubiquitous phenomena, and according to Ms. Miller, they’re the winners: “I think they are doing it better.”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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      Jimmy Buffett’s Widow Sues in Battle Over $275 Million Estate

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      Jane Buffett wants a court to replace her co-trustee, claiming that he mistreated her and neglected to provide key financial information.A vicious legal battle has erupted over Jimmy Buffett’s $275 million estate, with his widow and his accountant filing lawsuits this week seeking to remove each other as co-trustees of a trust containing the “Margaritaville” singer’s sprawling holdings.The widow, Jane Buffett, is angry with the way her husband’s estate has been managed since his death nearly two years ago and has filed a petition seeking to oust her co-trustee, the accountant Richard Mozenter. She complains that the marital trust set up by the singer — who built a musical empire off his laid-back, beach-bum persona and infectious, often self-deprecating country-rock and calypso-inflected songs — is producing far too little income.Mrs. Buffett asked a judge in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday to appoint an independent third party to replace Mr. Mozenter. Her petition accused Mr. Mozenter of failing to provide her with basic information about the trust’s assets and finances, keeping her “in the dark with regard to the state of her own finances.” The complaint also said that Mr. Mozenter had “belittled, disrespected and condescended to Mrs. Buffett.”“As a result, the majority of Mrs. Buffett’s net worth is controlled by someone she does not trust, and to whom the trust for her benefit must pay enormous fees — more than $1.7 million in 2024 to him and his firm — no matter how badly he treats her,” the petition said.Mr. Mozenter filed his own lawsuit in Palm Beach County, Fla., this week, asking the court to remove Ms. Buffett as co-trustee. His suit said that he was a “trusted financial adviser” to Mr. Buffett for more than 30 years and that he was also the singer’s business manager.He claimed that during their partnership, Mr. Buffett expressed concerns about his wife’s ability to manage and control his assets after his death. The singer was careful to set up the trust “in a manner that precluded Jane from having actual control” over it, the lawsuit said. “Other than serving as a noncontrolling trustee, Jane has no ability to manage the trust,” the filing said. “This fact has made Jane very angry.”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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      At Combs Trial, ‘Jane,’ an Ex-Girlfriend, to Testify About Sex Abuse

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      Prosecutors say the woman, who will take the stand under a pseudonym, endured coerced sex marathons called “freak-offs.” The defense contends they were consensual.A second woman who prosecutors say was sex trafficked by Sean Combs is set to take the stand on Thursday at his federal trial in what is expected to be several days of testimony about drug-fueled sex marathons with male prostitutes known as “freak-offs.”A judge has allowed the woman to testify anonymously, and she is being referred to in court by the pseudonym “Jane.” She is the most significant witness since Casandra Ventura, Mr. Combs’s on-and-off girlfriend of 11 years, whose allegations of physical and sexual abuse gave rise to the criminal case.Prosecutors have said that Jane’s relationship with Mr. Combs mirrored the one he had with Ms. Ventura in many ways. Like Ms. Ventura, they have said, Jane was coerced into freak-offs through violence, financial control and threats related to videos of the sexual encounters, which they said Mr. Combs directed step by step.Unlike Ms. Ventura, who is a singer known as Cassie and a public celebrity, Jane’s identity has not been revealed.The government has described Jane as a single mother who started spending time with Mr. Combs in 2020 and quickly fell in love with the music mogul, agreeing to participate in an initial freak-off to please him.“Jane thought the first freak-off was a one-time, wild night,” Emily Johnson, one of the prosecutors, said at the start of the case. “Jane was wrong.”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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      Morten Harket, a-ha’s Lead Singer, Has Parkinson’s Disease

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      Harket, best known for his band’s infectious 1985 synth-pop hit “Take on Me,” revealed his illness in an interview on a-ha’s website.Morten Harket, the lead singer of the Norwegian synth-pop band a-ha, best known for its 1985 hit single “Take on Me,” said Wednesday that he had Parkinson’s disease.Harket, 65, revealed his illness in an interview with Jan Omdahl, a-ha’s biographer, on the band’s website. Harket did not say when he received the diagnosis.“I’ve got no problem accepting the diagnosis,” he said. “With time I’ve taken to heart my 94-year-old father’s attitude to the way the organism gradually surrenders: ‘I use whatever works.’”His announcement comes days after the 40th anniversary of the release of a-ha’s first album, “Hunting High and Low,” on June 1, 1985. The first single from the album, “Take on Me,” became a global hit that year, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States on the basis of the song’s infectious synthesizer hook and innovative video that mixed animation with live action.In the interview, Harket said he took medicine to manage his symptoms. Last June, he traveled to the United States, where surgeons at the Mayo Clinic implanted, inside the left side of his brain, electrodes that receive electrical impulses from a small pacemaker-like device in his upper chest. He underwent the same procedure in December for the right side of his brain.The treatment, known as deep brain simulation, is an established treatment for Parkinson’s. Omdahl writes that the treatment has helped keep Harket’s symptoms in check.Still, problems with his voice “are one of many grounds for uncertainty about my creative future,” he said. The dopamine supplements that he takes affect his voice, but his underlying symptoms become more pronounced if he doesn’t take them, he said.Parkinson’s is a progressive and incurable disease that affects the central nervous system and causes tremors, muscle stiffness, impaired balance and other symptoms. More than 10 million people worldwide are estimated to be living with Parkinson’s, according to the Parkinson’s Foundation.Harket, who has released six solo albums, said he has worked on songs in recent years.A-ha formed in Oslo in 1982. Harket and his two bandmates, Paul Waaktaar-Savoy and Magne Furuholmen, spent their early days playing in London before they eventually landed a contract with Warner Bros.Though a-ha is largely known as a one-hit wonder in the United States for “Take On Me,” its second single, “The Sun Always Shines on TV,” cracked the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1985. The band went on to sell millions of copies of its albums worldwide, and has performed before audiences in 38 countries. Its most recent studio album, “True North,” was issued in 2022. More

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      Alf Clausen, Who Gave ‘The Simpsons’ Its Musical Identity, Dies at 84

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      He created the music for hundreds of episodes over 27 seasons, spanning jazz, rock, blues and musicals. He won two Emmys and was nominated for 28 more.Alf Clausen, a composer and arranger whose songs, interludes and closing credits for hundreds of episodes of “The Simpsons” were so central to the animated sitcom’s success that its creator, Matt Groening, often called him the show’s “secret weapon,” died on Thursday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 84.His daughter, Kaarin Clausen, said the cause was progressive supranuclear palsy, a brain disorder similar to Parkinson’s disease.Mr. Clausen worked on every episode of “The Simpsons” across 27 seasons, from 1990 to 2017.He did not compose the show’s memorable opening theme — that was Danny Elfman — but he was responsible for everything else, including classic musical numbers like “Who Needs the Kwik-E Mart,” “We Do (The Stonecutters’ Song),” “We Put the Spring in Springfield” and “You’re Checking In.”Mr. Clausen won Emmys for the last two songs, in 1997 and 1998. He was nominated for 19 more awards for “The Simpsons,” and was nominated nine other times for earlier work.When Mr. Groening first approached Mr. Clausen to work on the show, he demurred. He wanted to work on dramas; cartoons and comedy did not interest him.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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      Sean Combs, Defendant: Gestures to His Family, Sticky Notes to His Lawyers

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      With no cameras in the courtroom, few have glimpsed the music mogul as he helps direct his defense, facing charges that could put him in prison for the rest of his life.He shakes his head and fidgets in his seat during testimony, passes notes to his lawyers and blows kisses to his mother in the courtroom gallery. Sometimes Sean Combs pulls out chairs for the women on his legal team.His federal trial has drawn worldwide attention, with minute-by-minute coverage from the press and social media influencers who broadcast live updates from the street outside U.S. District Court in Lower Manhattan.But since federal courts bar cameras, Mr. Combs’s demeanor during the most critical eight weeks of his life — Does he smile? Does he seem mad, nervous, sad? — has been largely outside public view, captured only by the sketches of courtroom artists.For weeks now, Mr. Combs, who is facing sex-trafficking and racketeering conspiracy charges that could put him in prison for the rest of his life, has been an attentive and largely easygoing presence in the courtroom. His expressions of disagreement with witnesses have been subdued, showing no inkling of the volcanic, violent temper often described in testimony.When George Kaplan, a former assistant, described the pace of working for Mr. Combs as “almost like drinking from a fire hose,” the mogul nodded in approval. When another assistant, using the pseudonym Mia, said she would be punished if she did not do “everything that he told me to do,” he just scoffed and shook his head.It is an understated posture for a man whose profile as a chart-topping producer, rapper, reality-TV star and gossip-page fixture was larger than life, giving rise to the multitude of nicknames — Puff Daddy, Diddy and Love — by which he has been known.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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      Woman Expected to Testify That Sean Combs Held Her Over a Balcony

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      Bryana Bongolan, a friend of the mogul’s former girlfriend Casandra Ventura, is set to give her account of being dangled from a 17th-floor balcony.A woman is expected to take the stand at Sean Combs’s federal trial on Wednesday to give her account of the music mogul dangling her over a 17th-floor apartment balcony.Bryana Bongolan, a friend of Casandra Ventura, Mr. Combs’s former girlfriend, filed a lawsuit against Mr. Combs last year. In her complaint, Ms. Bongolan said she had been staying in Ms. Ventura’s Los Angeles apartment when, early one morning in 2016, Mr. Combs stormed in, yelled at Ms. Bongolan and held her over the balcony railing — “with only Combs’ grip keeping her from falling to her death” — before he pulled her back and slammed her onto a patio table.Her full account has been anticipated for months. The indictment that charges Mr. Combs with sex trafficking and racketeering conspiracy made brief mention of what appears to be Ms. Bongolan’s account, saying that “on one occasion, Combs dangled a female victim over an apartment balcony.” Her story was also referenced in Ms. Ventura’s bombshell civil suit in November 2023, which led to the government’s investigation and Mr. Combs’s arrest.The racketeering charge against Mr. Combs involves accusations that the mogul engaged an inner circle of bodyguards and high-ranking employees to help him commit a series of crimes over two decades.Mr. Combs has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His lawyers have said that he and his employees were involved in legitimate business operations, not a criminal conspiracy, and that the sex at issue in the government’s case was entirely consensual.Prosecutors, nearing the halfway point of what they expect to be an eight-week trial, said they will soon call “Jane,” the second woman — after Ms. Ventura — who the government says was a victim of sex trafficking by Mr. Combs.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