Author: NY TIMES

Russian investigators said on Thursday that they had detained a French national in Moscow on suspicion of collecting intelligence about activities of the Russian military, adding to a list of foreign citizens held in the country since the invasion of Ukraine.The Russian state news agency TASS identified the detained individual, citing its sources in law enforcement, as Laurent Vinatier. The agency said Mr. Vinatier was employed as a consultant at the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Swiss-based nonprofit.On its website, the center states that its mission is to “prevent and resolve armed conflicts around the world through mediation and discreet…

Blazing a PathTrading poodle skirts and blouses for trucker hats and flannels, decades before the term “gender nonconforming” entered the mainstream, Aunt Barbara stopped trying to fit into her Missouri farm town. I innocently called her “Uncle Barbara” as a toddler. She always laughed. For all of her standing out, for the acceptance that she demanded and received, Barb’s inner life is unknowable. Long gone from cancer, she left me two important gifts: a record of her courageous clothing preferences — deeply provocative in her time — captured in family photos, and a blazed path for her family to accept…

Tariffs aimed at protecting America’s solar industry from foreign competition snapped back into place on Thursday, ending a two-year pause that President Biden approved as part of his effort to jump-start solar adoption in the U.S.The tariffs, which will apply to certain solar products made by Chinese companies in Southeast Asia, kicked in at a moment of growing global concern about a surge of cheap Chinese solar products that are undercutting U.S. and European manufacturers.The Biden administration has been trying to build up America’s solar industry by offering tax credits, and companies have announced more than 30 new U.S. manufacturing…

If you haven’t yet seen the new and already-infamous Apple ad — the one in which a giant mechanical compactor violently crushes a bunch of musical instruments, books, sculptures, art supplies and toys, turning them into an iPad Pro — then Apple’s executives are probably happy. They’ve seen the headlines: “Apple iPad Ad Is Bad”; “Why the Stink of That Bad, Bad iPad Ad Won’t Go Away”; “Apple’s New iPad Ad Is a Neat Metaphor for the End of the World.” They’ve seen the mocking posts on social media. They’re aware that Hugh Grant has weighed in. (“The destruction of…

After writing their verses, the Lisdoonvarna kids traveled to Cork to meet up with the Kabin Crew and film a music video to accompany the song, both groups dressing in colorful clothing and accessories. When they gathered in the morning, Heidi said, they were encouraged to decorate themselves with face paint and glow sticks.Heidi wore a green bucket hat for the video, while Treasure performed with a pair of sunglasses that were perched atop her head before slowly sliding down to the bridge of her nose. “Grooving through my town, people be like ‘who are they?’. Moving to my music,…

One by one, Greek soldiers, bellies full from a breakfast of red wine and dry bread, armed and clad themselves in a bulky, buglike suit of armor as they prepared for battle.They aimed their spears at wooden targets, and their chariot was connected to a treadmill motor, but for 11 hours, these elite soldiers from the Hellenic Armed Forces pretended to fight as if it was the 15th century B.C.They had been recruited for a study to determine if the Dendra panoply, a suit of armor from 3,500 years ago considered to be one of the oldest known from the…

The European Central Bank lowered interest rates on Thursday for the first time in nearly five years, signaling the end of its aggressive policy to stamp out a surge in inflation.As inflation returned within sight of the bank’s 2 percent target, officials cut their three key interest rates, which apply across all 20 countries that use the euro. The benchmark deposit rate was lowered to 3.75 percent from 4 percent, the highest in the bank’s 26-year history and where the rate had been set since September.“The inflation outlook has improved markedly,” policymakers said in a statement on Thursday. “It is…

Starship, the gargantuan rocket under development by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, launched on Thursday morning to make a fourth attempt to get to space and back.The previous three flights of the vehicle all ended in explosions, but each got farther than the last. Such progress is regarded as success in SpaceX’s break-it-then-fix-it approach to engineering and has been celebrated by some of the company’s fans. Those include Bill Nelson, the administrator of NASA, whose agency is depending on Starship to land astronauts on the moon.Here’s what you need to know about today’s ongoing launch attempt.The Starship lifted off and the flight…

The perceptive dramedy “I Used to Be Funny” features a mic-drop performance by Rachel Sennott as a rising stand-up comedian derailed by a vague, internet-viral crime. What happened to Sam (Sennott) is no laughing matter. But she and her fellow comics crack oblique jokes about it, anyway. Making her first feature, the writer-director Ally Pankiw lets most zingers land. Comedy is just how these strivers communicate — it’s how they break awkwardness, bond, fight, forgive and heal.Pankiw warms up the audience with Sam’s roommates Paige and Philip (Sabrina Jalees and Caleb Hearon, both terrific) poking fun at a 14-year-old runaway,…

An Israeli airstrike early Thursday hit a United Nations school complex in central Gaza that had become a shelter for thousands of displaced Palestinians, killing dozens of people. Israel’s military said the attack had targeted Hamas operatives but Palestinian officials said it had killed civilians. The strike was the latest in a deadly surge in fighting in central Gaza, where Israeli forces have announced an offensive against what they describe as a renewed insurgency by Hamas militants. The bodies of more than 40 people killed in the attack were brought to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza city of…