Author: NY TIMES

Keir Starmer and the Labour Party may have won Britain’s general election, but another politician was also looking happy on Friday.Nigel Farage, Britain’s veteran political disrupter and Brexit campaigner, saw his new anti-immigration Reform U.K. party secure five seats in Parliament and it could have been more. Reform won more than four million votes nationwide — around 14 percent — making it Britain’s third most successful party by that measure.It was the latest successful result in Europe by populist, right-wing parties, and it instantly drew comparisons to the National Rally, which is seeking to become France’s biggest party in that…

When voters in Tokyo cast their ballot for governor of the world’s largest city on Sunday, they will be spoiled for choice.Fifty-six candidates are contending for the office, a record. One who styles himself “the Joker” has proposed legalizing marijuana and says polygamy can address the nation’s declining birthrate. Another is a pro wrestler who hides his face on camera and vows to use artificial intelligence to complete governmental tasks. There’s a 96-year-old inventor who says he will deploy gas-fueled cars that do not emit carbon, and a 31-year-old entrepreneur who took off her shirt during a campaign video and…

Voters in France will cast ballots on Sunday in the final round of snap legislative elections. The results could force President Emmanuel Macron to govern alongside far-right opponents or usher in chronic political instability weeks before the Paris Summer Olympics.Mr. Macron called the elections for the 577-seat National Assembly, France’s lower and more prominent house of Parliament, last month in a risky gamble that appeared to have largely backfired after the first round of voting last week.Most polls close at 6 p.m. local time on Sunday, or as late as 8 p.m. in larger cities. Nationwide seat projections by polling…

When Costco tried to cut down on its plastics use earlier this year, putting its popular rotisserie chicken in a thin bag instead of a bulkier clam shell, some chicken lovers were displeased.The bags were leaky, they said, and risked making a greasy mess. Their edges were prone to splitting open. “Chicken juice spilled all over the trunk of our car!” one person complained on Reddit.It was another chapter in the packaging wars.There is broad agreement that the world needs to use less plastic. Plastic waste is filling the world’s landfills and clogging rivers and streams. Recycling hasn’t kept up;…

A strike by the staff of the nation’s largest teachers’ union has prompted President Biden to cancel a speech on Sunday in Philadelphia, where he was scheduled to address thousands of delegates to the union’s annual convention.The staff union of the National Education Association began its strike on Friday, citing management’s revocation of holiday overtime pay for the Fourth of July holiday and its refusal to provide information on $50 million in outsourced work that may have previously been done by N.E.A. staff. The strike has shut down the last three days of the four-day convention, as delegates declined to…

Britain’s voters handed the Labour Party a landslide election victory this week, but one laden with asterisks.Prime Minister Keir Starmer took office on Friday with a commanding majority in the British Parliament, yet in terms of the total number of ballots cast, his party won only a third of the vote, less than what it got in 2017 when it lost to the Conservatives. Labour made inroads across Britain, yet its wins were often eclipsed by the Tory losses, including that of Liz Truss, the unpopular former prime minister who was evicted from her seat.The thundering mutiny of the voters…

Almost one year after the authorities raided The Marion County Record, a Kansas weekly newspaper, a former reporter has reached a $235,000 settlement as part of a lawsuit she filed over the search, which set off a national discussion about press freedoms.The settlement, dated June 25, brought an end to a lawsuit filed by the former reporter, Deb Gruver, against Gideon Cody, who resigned as the Marion city police chief in October in the face of mounting pressure.Ms. Gruver’s lawsuit claimed that Mr. Cody had caused injury to her hand while forcibly obtaining her personal cellphone during the raid. Body-camera…

The victory of reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian in Iran’s presidential runoff signals a shift from the government of Ebrahim Raisi, a conservative Shiite Muslim cleric and the preceding president who was killed in a helicopter crash in May.Mr. Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old cardiac surgeon who served as a lawmaker in previous reformist governments and as health minister, beat the hard-line conservative candidate Saeed Jalili in Friday’s runoff, the government announced on Saturday.Here are the most important takeaways from the election.A stark choice spurred higher voter turnoutThe runoff presented a political choice stark enough to galvanize Iranians who had boycotted the first…

Hamas has softened its position in its latest Gaza cease-fire proposal but is sticking to a key demand that has been a major hurdle to a deal, according to two senior officials from countries involved in the negotiations.That has dampened prospects for an imminent agreement, even as U.S. and Israeli officials have expressed optimism now that the talks are moving forward after weeks of deadlock.Hamas presented a counterproposal on Wednesday. The two officials said that Hamas wanted international assurances that, once an initial truce kicks in, both sides will keep negotiating until they reach a final deal to end the…

A court in Romania’s capital ruled on Friday that the social media influencer Andrew Tate may leave Romania, but he must remain in the European Union while awaiting trial in Bucharest for human trafficking and rape charges, according to one of his lawyers.Mr. Tate and his brother, Tristan Tate, have been battling charges brought by Romanian prosecutors in a June 2022 indictment, which accused them and two Romanian women of forming an organized criminal group and trafficking women across Romania, Britain and the United States.Mr. Tate, 37, a British American former kickboxer, has gained a large online following by marketing…