Author: NY TIMES

Iranian officials insisted for decades that the law requiring women to cover their hair and dress modestly was sacrosanct and not even worth discussion. They dismissed the struggle by women who challenged the law as a symptom of Western meddling.Now, as Iran holds a presidential election this week, the issue of mandatory hijab, as the hair covering is known, has become a hot campaign topic. And all six of the men running, five of them conservative, have sought to distance themselves from the methods of enforcing the law, which include violence, arrests and monetary fines.“Elections aside, politics aside, under no…

Foreign law enforcement officers began arriving in Haiti on Tuesday, more than year and a half after the prime minister there issued a plea to other countries for help to stop the rampant gang violence that has upended the Caribbean nation.Dozens of armed men in military fatigues filed out of a Kenya Airways plane at Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince.The officers are part of a deployment of officers from eight nations who will fan out across the capital to try wrest control of the city from dozens of armed groups that have attacked police stations, freed…

EUGENE, Ore. — In case you were wondering, Quincy Wilson didn’t take advantage of the benefits of vibranium. However, his purple suit, inspired by the movie Black Panther, hints at some Wakanda abilities, especially after another jaw-dropping performance.”No, it’s just me in there,” Wilson said, smiling that classic Cheshire smile.His extraordinary abilities may not be attributed to a powerful fictional metal from Africa in the Marvel Universe. But there’s clearly something special about the 16-year-old from Maryland.That was evident in Sunday’s men’s 400m semifinals. Bliss High School phenom Wilson stole the show with impressive results for his age. He ran…

My First InklingWhen I was 7, my grandmother told me she saw Halley’s comet in 1910. As a young woman in rural Tennessee, she was amazed. She explained it would return in 1986, when she’d be in heaven and I’d be a grown man. That was my first inkling, lovingly and mysteriously rendered, that all things change — and people we love pass away, though the stars appear to stay the same. In Seattle, 1986, I watched the comet scar the darkness, my grandmother’s memory burning bright within me. By the time Halley returns in 2061, I will have joined…

Volkswagen, the German automaker, said on Tuesday that it would invest up to $5 billion in Rivian, a maker of electric trucks that has struggled to turn a profit, and that the companies would cooperate on software for electric vehicles.Volkswagen said it would initially invest $1 billion in a new joint venture, and over time increase that to as much as $5 billion. The infusion represents a big vote of confidence in Rivian, which loses tens of thousands of dollars on each vehicle it sells.The deal provides cash to Rivian, which has struggled to ramp up manufacturing of its electric…

Cruise, the driverless car subsidiary of General Motors, said on Tuesday that a veteran of the video game industry will become its new chief executive officer, eight months after its previous C.E.O. resigned following a string of safety issues with its vehicles.The appointment of Marc Whitten, who was most recently an executive for the video game technology company Unity, follows a tumultuous year for Cruise, which was ordered by California regulators in October to pull its fleet of vehicles off the road after a series of traffic mishaps. The worst incident was on Oct. 2, when a pedestrian was dragged…

This article contains spoilers.Celine Dion welcomed the cameras. For the new documentary “I Am: Celine Dion” (streaming on Amazon Prime Video), the singer set no restrictions on what to film.What follows is a painfully intimate portrait of a pop star’s body fighting itself. Dion announced in 2022 that she had stiff person syndrome, an autoimmune neurological condition that causes progressive stiffness and severe muscle spasms. During a session with her physical therapist that was being filmed for the documentary, Dion has a seizure. The camera continued to roll throughout the medical crisis.In an interview via video call on Monday, the…

Israel’s prime minister says the war in the Gaza Strip will soon enter a new phase.“The intense stage of the war with Hamas is about to end,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a television interview on Sunday. “This does not mean that the war is about to end, but the war in its intense phase is about to end.”But whatever relief those comments may bring after more than half a year of horrific bloodshed, Mr. Netanyahu quickly made two things clear: A cease-fire in Gaza is not at hand. And the next fight might be in Lebanon, with the…

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III spoke by phone on Tuesday with Russia’s new defense minister, Andrei Belousov, the Pentagon said, in a rare conversation between the Biden administration and Moscow.This was the first phone call between the two men since Mr. Belousov, an economist, replaced Sergei K. Shoigu, Russia’s long-running defense minister, in a Kremlin shake-up in May.Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said that Mr. Austin “emphasized the importance of maintaining lines of communication amid Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.”Mr. Austin initiated Tuesday’s call and “believes that keeping lines of communication open are important,” General…

The debate surrounding the U.S. men’s national team heading into Sunday’s Copa America group-stage opener is about the balance between performance and results.Everyone agreed: in a tournament, results are what matter.Hopefully the performance will be consistent with that and there will be positives in both areas against Bolivia. The U.S. dominated possession and created many chances. They limited Bolivia to little real goal threat. They got the most important result: a 2-0 win.deeperChristian Pulisic starts smiling – here’s whyThe United States will now head into the midfield match of the group stage against Panama, knowing that a win will guarantee…