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      Calling ‘Survivor’ Contestants From Tim Walz’s Motorcade

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      Covering an election year can be stressful. But instead of binge-watching “Survivor” to decompress, two reporters wrote about the politics — or, lack thereof — on the show instead.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.When I first heard that Jon Lovett, the prominent political podcast host and former speechwriter for Barack Obama, would be a contestant on the new season of “Survivor,” I pleaded with my editor to write about it.(To answer your question, yes, “that show” is still on.)Covering politics during a tense election year in a closely divided country is often deadly serious, and rife with animosity. This seemed like an opportunity to write something lighter.To my surprise, my editor was game.I have vague memories of watching “Survivor” as a kid with my parents in the early 2000s, somewhere around the tail end of the show’s initial run of popularity. I rediscovered it when I started high school in 2012 — season 25 was airing — and was hooked. I began watching religiously, first on my own, and now with a group of friends on Wednesday nights, when the episodes air on CBS.It’s a remarkable run for a series with a relatively simple premise: A group of strangers are marooned on a remote tropical island and must work together to build shelter, forage for food and endure the elements, all while forming alliances and voting someone off the show each week. Though “Survivor” has, on occasion, injected new twists to keep seasons feeling fresh, something about the original format has stuck with viewers like me.For all the various real-life societal issues that have played out on the “Survivor” beach — racial tensions, discussions over gender and sexuality, generational divides — the announcement about Mr. Lovett, one of the hosts of the liberal podcast “Pod Save America,” made me realize that partisan politics had never been prominently featured on the show.I knew my colleague on the Politics desk, Alexandra Berzon, was also a “Survivor” fan, and would be eager to collaborate. At a Wisconsin bar one night in July, after a long day covering the Republican National Convention, Ali and I huddled in a corner, geeking out over “Survivor” factoids while our colleagues swapped political gossip.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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      Netflix Adds Disclaimer to Indian Show After Anger Over Hijacker Names

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      The series, based on a 1999 plane hijacking, prompted backlash on social media. Critics claimed it wrongly portrayed the Islamist hijackers as Hindus.Netflix expanded a disclaimer for Indian audiences with a fictional series inspired by the 1999 hijacking of a plane by Islamist militants, after social media users and a high-ranking member of India’s ruling party accused it of portraying the hijackers as Hindus.“IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack,” released last week, became the latest production by a Western streaming giant to find itself in the cross hairs of India’s Hindu nationalist movement, which has been accused of building up an increasingly intolerant atmosphere in the country.The series shows five Islamist militants hijacking an Indian Airlines flight from Nepal to India, and their interactions with the plane’s crew and passengers. In the show, the hijackers refer to themselves by code names, including “Shankar,” a common name for Hindu men.That prompted anger among many social media users, with some accusing the producers of playing down the Muslim identity of the hijackers. A national official of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, Amit Malviya, said the series’ use of the hijackers’ aliases “legitimized their criminal intent.”“Decades later, people will think Hindus hijacked IC-814,” Mr. Malviya, who oversees information technology and social media for the B.J.P., wrote on X on Monday.India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting summoned a Netflix executive to discuss the government’s grievances about the show, according to local media reports.“For the benefit of audiences unfamiliar with the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814, the opening disclaimer in India has been updated to include the real and code names of the hijackers,” Netflix said in a statement on Tuesday.During the actual hijacking of the flight, over eight days, the militants forced the pilots to fly the plane to a number of locations, including Dubai, and then Kandahar, Afghanistan, which was ruled by the Taliban at the time. The plane’s passengers were freed after India released three Pakistanis who had been held under terrorism charges.The Indian government said at the time that the five hijackers were from Pakistan and used code names, including “Shankar,” in front of the passengers and crew to conceal their identities.Before the show’s release on Aug. 29, its director, Anubhav Sinha, told Scroll, an Indian news site, that his goal was to present the event “exactly in the manner in which it happened.”The updated disclaimer on Netflix now says the series “does not make any claims of authenticity or historical correctness” of the events featured in it. It also lists the hijackers’ real names: Ibrahim Athar, Shahid Akhtar Sayed, Sunny Ahmed Qazi, Mistri Zahoor Ibrahim and Shakir.This is not the first time major streaming platforms have faced pressure from Hindu nationalists in India.Netflix in January removed a film after Hindu nationalists said it mocked Hinduism. The makers of a 2021 Amazon series cut some scenes after critics accused them of disrespecting Hindu gods. More

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      Silvio Santos, Provocative Brazilian Television Host, Dies at 93

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      He was best known for the long-running variety show “Programa Silvio Santos,” on which he charmed his audiences with gimmicks and showcased a range of performers.Silvio Santos, a Brazilian media mogul and television personality who built one of the country’s biggest entertainment empires, died on Saturday in São Paulo. He was 93.His death, in a hospital, was caused by bronchopneumonia related to a case of H1N1 flu this month, according to a statement by SBT, the television channel he owned.Mr. Santos spent more than six decades in front of the camera. He created and hosted several popular variety shows, including Brazil’s homegrown version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” His best-known show, “Programa Silvio Santos,” has been on the air since 1963. (His daughter Patrícia became the host in 2021, although he continued to appear occasionally.)Every Sunday night, viewers watched Mr. Santos shimmy with dancers, hand out prizes to a mostly female audience, and showcase a range of performers, including circus acrobats, drag queens and hypnotists.“It wasn’t Sunday without Silvio Santos on the television screen,” said Geraldo Alckmin, Brazil’s vice president, who knew Mr. Santos personally. “He would become part of every Brazilian family in this fun, relaxed way.”A natural showman, Mr. Santos came to be known for his 100-kilowatt smile and his playful interaction with audiences. Dressed sharply in a custom-made suit, he would walk onstage to the tune of a catchy jingle, posing a question to the audience: “Who wants money?” In one of his signature gimmicks, he fashioned paper planes out of cash and launched them into a cheering crowd.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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      in Music

      Review: ‘The Righteous’ Brings Stirring Prayer to Santa Fe Opera

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      Gregory Spears and Tracy K. Smith’s new work about an ambitious minister’s rise in the 1980s is that rarity in contemporary music: an original story.We’ve had “The Shining” and “Cold Mountain,” “The Hours” and “Dead Man Walking,” and works based on the lives of Steve Jobs, Malcolm X and Frida Kahlo. “Lincoln in the Bardo” and “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” are coming soon.Opera audiences, traditionalists even before the pandemic, have ventured back warier than ever about buying tickets for anything other than the standards. So as companies try to present contemporary pieces alongside “Aida” and “La Bohème,” they bank on familiar titles and subjects.Many classic operas were adaptations; “Bohème,” for example, was inspired by a collection of stories. But lately the results have tended to feel less like great art than like bending over backward to coax a cautious public. Something special comes from being truly original: It’s no coincidence that perhaps the best opera of our time, Kaija Saariaho’s “Innocence” (2021), was that rarity, a brand-new story.So is “The Righteous,” commissioned by Santa Fe Opera from the composer Gregory Spears and the poet Tracy K. Smith. Spears and Smith also created from scratch their first full-length collaboration, “Castor and Patience” (2022). They deserve great credit for this. These days it’s remarkable to sit at a premiere and be able to think, with admiration, “Here are imaginations at work” instead of “I’d rather be watching the movie.”Taking place over a few weeks, “Castor and Patience” was an intimate family drama — though one with larger societal implications. While a family is also at the center of “The Righteous,” which opened on July 13, the new opera is in every way a more sprawling piece, stretching from 1979 through the early 1990s, with a large cast and chorus and booming climaxes to match its impassioned lyricism.At its core is a man’s progress from youthful idealism to profound moral compromise. The main character, David, is a talented, devoted preacher who’s grown up close to a wealthy, well-connected oil family in the American Southwest. He marries the family’s daughter and, as his scrappy ministry grows in size and influence, he’s tempted more and more by the prospect of political power. As he climbs, he leaves betrayals both personal and ideological in his wake.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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      in Movies

      Why Levan Akin Won’t Show His New Movie ‘Crossing’ in Georgia

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      The director Levan Akin is worried that his latest film, “Crossing,” will inflame tensions around L.G.B.T. visibility in the post-Soviet nation.When Levan Akin’s movie “And Then We Danced,” a romance between men in a Georgian folk-dance troupe, premiered at Cannes in 2019, it became a festival hit and later an Oscars submission. But when it screened in Georgia later that year, the movie’s combination of traditional Georgian culture and gay love sparked violent protests from conservative groups.Akin’s latest film, “Crossing,” which opens in U.S. theaters Friday, also deals with L.G.B.T. themes, though the filmmaker said recently that he had hoped its reception in Georgia would be smoother. Its plot, about a woman who travels from Georgia to Turkey to search for her estranged trans niece, seemed unlikely be perceived as an attack Georgian culture in the same way, he said.But this spring, when Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, erupted in weeks of protests against a law on foreign influence that critics said would hamper Georgia’s chances of joining the European Union, Akin decided against releasing the movie there in such a polarized climate.“There is such political turmoil,” Akin said, “and we don’t want the film to be used as fodder in the debate. I don’t want that to repeat.”In “Crossing,” Lia (Mzia Arabuli), a retired and unmarried history teacher, travels to Istanbul from the city of Batumi, on Georgia’s Black Sea coast, searching for her niece Tekla, who has fled after her family rejected her. Lia is assisted in scouring the city’s narrow streets and packed rooming houses by Evrim (Deniz Dumanli), a trans rights activist and lawyer. They form an unlikely bond — but finding Tekla proves difficult.Lucas Kankava as Achi, and Mzia Arabuli at Lia in “Crossing.”via MUBIWe 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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      Saudi Arabia Sentences Producer to 13 Years in Prison Over Netflix Show

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      In a video plea for help, Abdulaziz Almuzaini — a dual Saudi-American citizen — described how the authorities had accused him of promoting extremism through a cartoon franchise.From the outside, the past few years looked like the peak of Abdulaziz Almuzaini’s career.As the head of an animation studio in Saudi Arabia, he signed a five-year deal with Netflix in 2020. A sardonic cartoon franchise that he helped create, “Masameer,” likened to a Saudi version of “South Park,” was soon streaming to audiences around the world. And as the conservative Islamic kingdom loosened up, Mr. Almuzaini was being publicly celebrated — as recently as a few months ago — as one of the homegrown talents shaping its nascent entertainment industry.Behind the scenes, though, he was on trial in an opaque national security court, as Saudi prosecutors — who accused him of promoting extremism through the cartoon series and social media posts — sought to ensure that he would spend the rest of his life in prison or under a travel ban.Mr. Almuzaini, a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen and father of three, recently described his plight in a video pleading for the Saudi leadership to intervene, saying that he was awaiting a final ruling from the kingdom’s Supreme Court.“I might bear the consequences of what happens after this, and I’m ready,” he said in the 18-minute video, which he said he was filming at his home in the Saudi capital.The video was published on his social media accounts late last month and deleted the same day. In it, Mr. Almuzaini, sporting a black beard graying around the edges, spoke in front of a wall covered with colorful sticky notes.A screen shot from a video posted on Mr. Almuzaini’s social media accounts late last month that was later deleted.via XWe 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 Movies

      Trump Biopic ‘The Apprentice’ Nears Distribution Deal

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      “The Apprentice,” a dramatized origin story about Donald J. Trump, has faced fierce criticism from the former president and his allies.Hollywood executives love to characterize themselves as fearless. The truth is that they spend most of their time trying to minimize risk.It’s why theaters are clogged with vacuous sequels. It’s why so many Hollywood power players hide behind P.R. people. And it’s why all of the big movie studios and streaming services — and, in fact, most indie film companies — declined to distribute “The Apprentice,” a dramatized origin story about Donald J. Trump that the former president has called “malicious defamation” and showered with cease-and-desist letters.But the movie business still has at least one wildcatter: Tom Ortenberg.Mr. Ortenberg, 63, and his Briarcliff Entertainment are pushing to complete a deal to acquire “The Apprentice” for wide release in theaters in the United States in September or early October — close enough to the presidential election to bask in its heat, but far enough away to avoid final-stretch media overload. Briarcliff’s pursuit of the $16 million film was confirmed by five people involved with the sale process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private negotiation.“Tom’s got more courage than most people in Hollywood combined,” said Stephen Galloway, the dean of Chapman University’s film school. “His interest in this kind of movie involves business, of course. He sees money to be made by leveraging millions of dollars in free publicity. But part of it is wanting to do his bit. He’s liberal and cares about social issues.”Hurdles remain, the people cautioned. “Apprentice” producers cobbled together the money to make the movie from various sources. One was Kinematics, an upstart film company backed by Dan Snyder, the former Washington Commanders owner — and a Trump supporter. Kinematics, which invested about $5 million, would need to sign off on the Briarcliff deal and has balked, calling the offer subpar, according to the five people involved in the sale process. The Kinematics snag was reported earlier by a Puck newsletter.So producers have put together a package to buy out Kinematics at a premium. The sides are now haggling over terms, including the timing of payment.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 Long, Strange Road to Alec Baldwin’s Manslaughter Trial

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      On the afternoon of Oct. 21, 2021, Mary Carmack-Altwies, the district attorney for New Mexico’s First Judicial District, was driving along a lonely stretch of the mountain highway connecting Santa Fe and Taos when her cell service abruptly returned and her phone started pinging — message after message. She pulled over to the side of the road and began scrolling: Alec Baldwin had accidentally shot two people on a movie set in her jurisdiction. Carmack-Altwies had planned to spend the next couple of days alone in the mountains before celebrating her 43rd birthday with her wife, a retired investigator for the state, and their two children. Clearly that was not going to happen.Listen to this article, read by Pete SimonelliThe shooting occurred at 1:46 p.m. that day at the Bonanza Creek Ranch, a family-owned Old West movie set about 20 miles southeast of Santa Fe that had been rented out by “Rust,” an independent film that Baldwin was both starring in and producing. The bullet he inadvertently fired passed through the upper body of the film’s cinematographer, Halyna Hutchins, and lodged near the spine of Joel Souza, the director. Souza was taken by ambulance to a hospital in Santa Fe; Hutchins was airlifted to a trauma center in Albuquerque and died a short time later.Carmack-Altwies was nearing the end of her first year in office. She had been an assistant district attorney specializing in violent crimes when her boss made a bid for Congress. She ran to succeed him — her first foray into electoral politics — and won easily, inheriting a jurisdiction that covers three counties: Los Alamos, Rio Arriba and Santa Fe. She’s a Democrat in a Democratic district, though the label connotes something very different in New Mexico, a rural hunting state whose voters tend to place a high value on the Second Amendment, than it does in, say, New York or California. Carmack-Altwies turned around and went back to her office in Santa Fe, where she spent most of the night on the phone with the local police, trying to make sure that the movie set, now a potential crime scene, was properly secured. In the days that followed, reporters from all over the world descended on Santa Fe. Carmack-Altwies held her first news conference about the incident six days later outside the Sheriff’s Department. She was asked if she intended to prosecute anyone. “I do not make rash decisions, and I do not rush to judgment,” she said. “All options are on the table at this point.”Bonanza Creek Ranch, the movie set where Alec Baldwin fatally shot the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins with a prop gun in October 2021, leading to his indictment on charges of involuntary manslaughter.Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal, via ZUMA/AlamyWe 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