Author: NY TIMES

Investors made clear on Tuesday the depth of their concerns over President Emmanuel Macron’s gamble to call for new elections in France, driving up the nation’s borrowing costs, pushing down stock prices and prompting the Moody’s ratings agency to warn it may downgrade French sovereign debt as risks of political instability rise.Mr. Macron’s dissolution of the lower house of Parliament on Sunday after his party was battered by Marine Le Pen’s far-right party in European Parliament elections has ignited concerns that the government could grind to a stalemate. The turmoil has focused attention on France’s fragile finances, and the prospect…

The Sharp Edge of a Shell“How will I know?” I asked my father before he died. “Talk to me like we are now and listen,” he said. Months passed. I was scared to talk to him. What if I didn’t hear him? On Father’s Day, running barefoot on the beach, I called out, “Dad?” The sharp edge of a shell sliced my foot. My father’s father was a podiatrist. My father was a poet who wrote endlessly about feet. He believed, “The soul is rooted in the foot.” Seven stitches, a beautiful scar. I feel hollow with loss, but my…

When it comes to gender equality, the architectural profession is a laggard, to say the least. It wasn’t until the 21st century that the Pritzker Architecture Prize — the profession’s highest accolade — was first awarded to a woman: Zaha Hadid, who won it in 2004.Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, co-founders of the Dublin firm Grafton Architects, are among only five women who have collected the award since.In awarding them the 2020 prize, the Pritzker jury described Farrell and McNamara as “pioneers in a field that has traditionally been and still is a male-dominated profession,” and cited their consistent regard…

A singer who joined the storied Motown group the Four Tops in 2018 sued a Michigan hospital on Monday, accusing its staff of placing him in restraints and ordering a psychological evaluation because they did not believe he was part of the band.The singer, Alexander Morris, who is Black, filed a lawsuit accusing Ascension Macomb-Oakland Hospital of racial discrimination and two employees of negligence for an incident in April 2023, when he was taken there by ambulance with chest pain and difficulty breathing.When Mr. Morris, 53, told hospital staff that he was a member of the Four Tops — which…

Six candidates, including the speaker of Parliament, have been approved to run in the Iranian election this month to succeed President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month. The vote comes at a moment when the country faces acute domestic and international challenges, state media said on Sunday.The speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, and five other men were approved by the Guardian Council, a 12-person body that vets candidates, for the balloting on June 28, according to the state news agency IRNA, which cited Mohsen Eslami, spokesman for the country’s election headquarters.Mr. Ghalibaf, a retired pilot…

In April, I hiked more than 50 miles through the Amazon rainforest to visit the remote villages of the Marubo people. The 2,000-member tribe had recently received high-speed internet, and I wanted to understand how it had affected their lives.During a weeklong visit, I saw how they used the internet to communicate between villages, chat with faraway loved ones and call for help in emergencies. Many Marubo also told me they were deeply concerned that the connection with the outside world would upend their culture, which they had preserved for generations by living deep in the forest. Some elders complained…

Some families take their textiles very seriously.On a recent morning, Fabian Berglund, one of the co-founders of the Swedish rug and textile company Nordic Knots, carefully arranged a rack of miniature rugs so that each was angled at a perfect 45-degree angle. Liza Berglund Laserow — Mr. Berglund’s wife and another co-founder, along with Mr. Berglund’s brother, Felix — was adjusting curtain samples, explaining why the green she had chosen had a touch of yellow in it, which cast a golden hue. “A green light is very, very unflattering,” she said.Mr. Berglund, 42, said he prefers to think of a…

A jury in South Florida has ruled that Chiquita Brands is liable for eight killings carried out by a right-wing paramilitary group that the company helped finance in a fertile banana-growing region of Colombia during the country’s decades-long internal conflict.The jury on Monday ordered the multinational banana producer to pay $38.3 million to 16 family members of farmers and other civilians who were killed in separate episodes by the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia — a right-wing paramilitary group that Chiquita bankrolled from 1997 to 2004.The company has faced hundreds of similar suits in U.S. courts filed by the families…

I’m Richard Linklater, director and co-writer of ‘Hit Man.’ So in this scene, Glen Powell, who’s playing Gary Johnson, the undercover hit man, is under threat from Jasper, played by Austin Amelio, the New Orleans police officer who he works with undercover, who’s totally on to him. Gary has been dating Madison, whose husband has turned up dead. We know Gary didn’t do it and the audience knows she did it. But the police force doesn’t know. But Jasper sure has a hunch what happened, and he’s kind of created this entrapment scene where Gary goes in and records their…

The U.N. Security Council on Monday endorsed a cease-fire plan for the Gaza Strip that is backed by the United States, adding weight to an international effort to end the eight-month war. Neither Israel nor Hamas has publicly accepted the plan, but Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Tuesday held talks in the region to press for its adoption.Here’s a look at how the cease-fire would work, and at some of the areas of dispute between the warring parties.What is in the plan?The plan would unfold in three phases.Under phase one, there would be a six-week cease-fire and the…