Author: NY TIMES

“The Devil’s Bath” looks and sounds like your average horror movie — there are perturbing scenes of bodily mutilation, menacingly quiet long shots of stark Austrian woodlands and a young woman, Agnes (Anja Plaschg), who spirals into madness.Yet the cleverness of this psychodrama, by the Austrian directing duo Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala (“The Lodge”), is that it employs the tropes and tools of folk horror without any of that genre’s supernatural flourishes. The film is grounded in a harrowing historical reality, about the terrifying lengths to which women will go to liberate themselves from destructive domestic conditions. Franz and…

For nearly two years, Gong Junli has been waiting. Since his 8-year-old daughter, Xinyue, was stabbed multiple times and her body left in a grove of poplar trees in northwestern China, he has imagined her killer finally being brought to justice.But justice is complicated when the accused is also a child.The boy who the police say killed Xinyue was 13 years old at the time. As his trial opens on Wednesday, it will try to answer a question gripping Chinese society: How should China deal with young children accused of heinous crimes?Countries around the world have long struggled to balance…

Before the Olympics even begin, there is always heartbreak. And June may be the hardest month of all.Caitlin Clark, the ascendant star of women’s basketball, just found out that she won’t be going to Paris. So did Bill May, whose hopes of becoming the first man to compete at the Olympics in the sport of artistic swimming were dashed by the U.S. selection committee.Over the next few weeks, hundreds more athletes — swimmers and sprinters, divers and tumblers, many of whom have spent years training with the singular goal of representing Team U.S.A. on the planet’s grandest sports stage —…

A Southwest Airlines plane descended prematurely on Wednesday over Oklahoma City, startling residents miles from the airport, before regaining altitude and then landing safely.After beginning a descent from 39,000 feet, the Boeing 737-800, flight No. 4069 from Las Vegas to Oklahoma City, was still nine miles short of the airport when it reached an altitude of about 525 feet, according to a report by The Associated Press that cited Flightradar24 data. The plane then ascended again to about 3,000 feet before landing successfully at its planned destination, Will Rogers World Airport, at 12:16 a.m. local time.An automated warning was triggered…

The remarkable June Squibb plays a vengeful scam victim in this ludicrous action-movie spoof. Source link

North Korea said for the first time on Thursday that it had tested technology for launching several nuclear warheads with a single missile, days after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia visited the North and raised the prospect of expanded military and technical cooperation.The test on Wednesday was “aimed at securing the MIRV capability,” the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported. MIRV stands for “multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle,” a missile payload containing several warheads, each of which can be sent to a different target. The report said the test had involved part of a MIRV system, not a…

On a recent afternoon, the designer Dries Van Noten sat in the sprawling old warehouse that houses his Antwerp headquarters, with its bare concrete walls, vintage oak cupboards and views over the city’s harbor. He was altering a jacket for his coming men’s wear show: a nip here, a seam moved there. Then, Mr. Van Noten said, a member of his team pointed out that it was the last piece of the men’s collection this season.As Mr. Van Noten recounted later, “I said, ‘That’s not the last piece of the men’s collection: It’s the last piece of my career.’”In March,…

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Some writers aim to develop one area of expertise over the course of their careers. Anna Holmes has done the opposite, following her curiosity wherever it leads: politics, relationships, sex, women and gender issues, race, culture and children’s books.“Let’s put it this way: I don’t have a beat,” Ms. Holmes said.With a new assignment, though, she may be close to getting one.Ms. Holmes is the incoming writer of Work Friend, a column published by the Sunday Business section of The New…

Deng Yuwen, a prominent Chinese writer who now lives in exile in the suburbs of Philadelphia, has regularly criticized China and its authoritarian leader, Xi Jinping. China’s reaction of late has been severe, with crude and ominously personal attacks online.A covert propaganda network linked to the country’s security services has barraged not just Mr. Deng but also his teenage daughter with sexually suggestive and threatening posts on popular social media platforms, according to researchers at both Clemson University and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.The content, posted by users with fake identities, has appeared in replies to Mr. Deng’s posts…

Roger Federer retired from tennis at 41 having achieved everything there was to conquer: 20 Grand Slam titles and a reputation so sterling that his home country of Switzerland minted his face on a coin. (He was even once voted the second most admired person in the world after Nelson Mandela.) “Federer: Twelve Final Days,” a polite documentary by Asif Kapadia and Joe Sabia, follows the living legend throughout September 2022, from his goodbye announcement to his last professional match. The camera stays at a respectful distance as Federer exits private planes and cars and navigates news conferences where, as…