Author: NY TIMES

Both the far-right National Rally party in France and its competing left-wing New Popular Front coalition are promising to save the country from financial ruin.But French executives gave a chilly reception Thursday to competing economic platforms from the rival parties, warning that both could endanger the French economy and distance France from the European Union.With less than two weeks before pivotal legislative elections, members of MEDEF, the main employers association in France, held an “audition” for candidates from the main political parties that are vying to seize power from President Emmanuel Macron, whose government has been severely weakened after his…

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TikTok, the popular video app facing a new law that could lead it to being banned in the United States, released details Thursday about numerous confidential meetings with top federal officials as it tried to address concerns about the company’s Chinese ownership.The details of those interactions, TikTok said in a court filing, show that the federal government “ceased substantive engagement” with the company on its efforts in September 2022.The company said the details support its argument, first made in its lawsuit to block the law in May, that the law is effectively a ban because U.S. officials have been aware…

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Kendrick Lamar’s sold-out homecoming at the Kia Forum, an arena just outside Los Angeles, promised pyrotechnics with its name alone: “The Pop Out: Ken & Friends.”The “Pop Out” ensured drama — it’s from a line in Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” his recent No. 1 song, and a scathing salvo in his war of words with Drake.The “& Friends” guaranteed surprise appearances from high-profile names: ultimately Dr. Dre, YG, Tyler, the Creator, Roddy Rich, Schoolboy Q and Steve Lacy, among many others. The whole thing would go down on Juneteenth, the annual celebration of Black emancipation in America, after a battle…

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Since the attacks of Oct. 7, every legal expert I have asked has shared one conclusion: Hamas’s attacks on civilians that day, including killing, torture, and hostage-taking, were war crimes. And because many hostages are still being held, that crime remains ongoing.Tom Dannenbaum, a Tufts University professor, told me just days after the attack that there was “no question” Hamas’s attack had involved multiple war crimes. “Those are not close calls,” he said.Since then, evidence has continued to mount. Last month, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced that he was seeking warrants for the arrest of three Hamas…

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The alleged rape last weekend of a 12-year-old Jewish girl by boys who hurled antisemitic abuse at her has ignited simmering tensions in France over attitudes toward the largest Jewish community in Western Europe.President Emmanuel Macron, a centrist whose decision to call snap elections this month shocked even his closest allies, responded by denouncing the “scourge of antisemitism” in French schools. The prime minister, Gabriel Attal, urged politicians to “refuse the banalization” of hatred toward Jews, a thinly veiled attack on Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the ardently pro-Palestinian leader of the left who on June 2 called antisemitism in France “residual.”There were…

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If Paige Bueckers’s past four years of college basketball have taught us the most important lesson, it’s this, she explained: “You never know what’s going to happen from day to day. You never know in life.” What will it bring you.There was a time when Bueckers didn’t necessarily think so, when she thought her plan would come to fruition. Just like she did when she arrived in Storrs, Connecticut, in the fall of 2020. A child like she had always imagined. Still, there’s a sense of anticipation and progress as she thinks about the four seasons ahead of her: four…

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Barbara Gladstone, an art dealer whose eye for spotting talent and knack for nurturing it helped her to build one of the largest and most influential contemporary art galleries in New York, died on Sunday in Paris. She was 89.Her gallery said her death, in a hospital, was caused by an ischemic event, whose symptoms are similar to those of a stroke. Ms. Gladstone, who was on a working trip to Paris, lived in Manhattan.Ms. Gladstone represented more than 70 artists and estates, including Americans like Robert Rauschenberg, Keith Haring and Elizabeth Murray; the provocative video and installation artist Matthew…

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Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs. After six months of listening, here’s what they have on repeat. (Note: It’s not a ranking, it’s a playlist.) Listen on Spotify and Apple Music.Sabrina Carpenter, ‘Espresso’Atop a mid-tempo beat that recalls the muffled retro-funk of Doja Cat’s smash “Say So,” Sabrina Carpenter plays the unbothered temptress with winking humor: “Say you can’t sleep, baby I know, that’s that me, espresso.” Make it a double — you’ve surely heard this one everywhere. LINDSAY ZOLADZTyla, ‘Safer’Following her worldwide 2023 hit “Water,” Tyla pulls…

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After days of intensified clashes between Hezbollah and Israel, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese militia, warned on Wednesday that “there will be no place safe from our missiles and our drones” if all-out war breaks out. He also threatened Cyprus if it allows Israel to use its airports and bases in a full-scale conflict.“The enemy knows very well that we have prepared ourselves for the most difficult days, and the enemy knows what it will face,” Mr. Nasrallah said. “If war is imposed, the resistance will fight without constraints, rules or limits.”President Nikos Christodoulides of Cyprus responded to…

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