times arts and culture

Every few years a movie musical makes money, and the entertainment press wonders if this heralds the return of a genre that hasn't really gone away. Last time out it was Chicago. There are a bunch of new ones on the way, like a hip-hop remake of Bye Bye Birdie and, at long last, a film version of Mel Brooks's stage classic The Producers.

Why yes, Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital is an adaptation of Lars von Trier's The Kingdom. King says it's the best thing he's done.

The hot thing in London: Soul food.
What's wrong with the best foreign film Oscar.
A nice profile of Chris Weitz and his new play.
Salvatore Giuliano, a 1961 political docudrama that can barely see its subject.
Remember Starsky and Hutch?
Kelefa Sanneh's Playlist praises Mindy Smith.
A cool exhibit of ice and snow sculpture in Finland.
New York's Skyscraper Museum.
Loretta Lux's eerie, lightly photoshopped pictures of children.

times news

Lebanon resumes executions after a five-year moratorium.

The two men who were shot each received a "mercy" round to the head. Mr. Mansour dangled for 45 minutes, Father Nasr said. "It was very disturbing," he said.

Despite what he saw, Father Nasr, like many Lebanese and their leaders, is torn about the death penalty. He said he feared some crimes were so heinous, especially those carried out for religious reasons, that the threat of death might be the only deterrent.

And in Japan, the former leader of Aum Shinrikyo was sentenced to death.

Married teenagers in Africa are more likely to contract H.I.V. than unmarried, sexually active ones. UN officials point out that abstinence-centered AIDS prevention programs fail to take into account philandering husbands.

The Bush administration opened the Tongass National Forest to logging, but a worldwide timber glut may make the move moot.

An editorial piece on electronic voting and conspiracy theories pretty much gets it right: Even if elections are being conducted fairly, the lack of a paper trail means there's no way to prove it.

Gay marriage as tourist attraction.
Peaceful Palestinian protests.
Low-income Harvard students will get in free.
Fighting for evolution with the Internet's help.