First Run News

Gregg Allman, a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, the incendiary group that inspired and gave shape to both the Southern rock and jam-band movements, died on Saturday at his home in Savannah, Ga. He was 69. His publicist, Ken Weinstein, said the cause was complications of liver cancer. The band’s lead singer and keyboardist, Mr.

The French Open, the second Grand Slam tennis tournament of the year, begins on Sunday in Paris. Roger Federer decided to skip it to rest for Wimbledon. A pregnant Serena Williams will also be absent. Maria Sharapova was not invited. Who will seize the opportunity? Here are a few suggestions. The indefatigable Thiem, of Austria, heads to Paris with confidence after a fantastic clay-court season.

Kristina Mladenovic might have been a German tennis star if her father, Dragan, an Olympic gold medalist in team handball for Yugoslavia, had decided to make a move to the German Handball Bundesliga, the top European league, in 1992. Instead, Dragan chose to leave Serbia to play in the city of Dunkirk in northern France and ended up staying for 12 seasons with his growing family, which added Kristina in 1993. “It’s true that this could all have turned out very differently,” Kristina Mladenovic said in a recent interview.

BAGHDAD — The highway from Baghdad to Amman, Jordan, cuts through the insurgent badlands of the western Iraqi desert, and these days any truck driver risks confrontation with roving bands of gunmen. In the future, though, the United States envisions the road as something like the New Jersey Turnpike, with service stations, rest areas, cafes and tollbooths. As part of an American effort to promote economic development in Iraq and secure influence in the country after the fight against the Islamic State subsides, the American government has helped broker a deal between Iraq and Olive Group, a pr

AMSTERDAM — It was 1937, Vienna, when a Jewish couple named Heinrich and Anna Maria Graf bought a vibrant 18th-century oil painting of Venice’s Grand Canal with the Punta Della Dogana in the background. The work held pride of place in their living room, the highlight of their small but treasured art collection. One year later, Germany annexed Austria, and the Grafs and their twin 6-year-old daughters, Erika and Eva, were forced to flee the country.

It’s Memorial Day weekend, and we know why you’re here: the food. So we’ll forgive you if you skip straight down to What to Cook to start getting ready. But if you’re in the mood for something else this weekend, we’ve got some great podcasts that are great for a long weekend, tons of movies and TV shows to stream, and plenty of book recommendations if you’d like to spend the next few days reading instead of chowing down. Have a lovely long weekend! What do you want to see in these weekend roundups?