Author: NY TIMES

Veterans of the pivotal battle of World War II are disappearing. Europe, facing new conflict, recalls what their comrades died for.By Roger CohenPhotographs by Laetitia VanconRoger Cohen and Laetitia Vancon reported from Normandy and the United States.June 6, 2024They were ordinary. The young men from afar who clambered ashore on June 6, 1944, into a hail of Nazi gunfire from the Normandy bluffs did not think of themselves as heroes.No, said Gen. Darryl A. Williams, the commanding general of United States Army Europe and Africa, the allied soldiers “in this great battle were ordinary,” youths who “rose to this challenge…

In February, the United States did something that it had not done in many years — the country sent more electricity to Canada than it received from its northern neighbor. Then, in March, U.S. electricity exports to Canada climbed even more, reaching their highest level since at least 2010.The increasing flow of power north is part of a worrying trend for North America: Demand for energy is growing robustly everywhere, but the supply of power — in Canada’s case from giant hydroelectric dams — and the ability to get the energy to where it’s needed are increasingly under strain.Many energy…

Early in the animated film “Boys Go to Jupiter,” premiering at this year’s Tribeca Festival, an indie electronic beat kicks in. Like a music video rendered on Kid Pix, the sequence that follows finds the mulleted Rozebud (voiced by the singer Miya Folick) tending to neon citrus trees while crooning a melody as catchy as it is ethereal. The film, from the artist Julian Glander, belongs to a subset of Tribeca movies that use music in startling and adventurous ways. Their soundscapes conjure vision and feeling, as well as that ineffable thing sometimes called vibe.Running from Wednesday through June 16,…

In India, a powerful leader wins another term but sees his party’s majority vanish. In South Africa, the governing party is humbled by voters for the first time since the end of apartheid. In Britain, a populist insurgent barges into an election that is shaping up to be a crushing defeat for the long-ruling Conservatives.If there is a common thread halfway through this global year of elections, it is a desire by voters to send a strong signal to the powers that be — if not quite a wholesale housecleaning, then a defiant shake-up of the status quo.Even in Mexico,…

Maureen Dowd: Anne Hathaway was conceived in a wrap dress.Diane von Furstenberg: Her mother told me that.You once went to a party at Brigitte Bardot’s house in Saint-Tropez.I did. It was pirate-themed.You and Barry gave Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez their engagement party. You think they should be married in outer space.I never said that.Just as Lauren Sanchez is the model for the figurehead of Jeff Bezos’ yacht, you are the model for the figurehead of Barry’s yacht.Well, what happened is that when Barry was building the boat, he wanted a figurehead, and I asked my friend, the sculptor, Anh…

For much of the past decade, China’s efforts to curb speculation on real estate grew broader and more extensive.Shanghai declared that anyone who got a divorce would be subject to restrictions on apartment buying for three years, to counter couples who were splitting up just so they could buy second homes as investments. In Chengdu, in western China, only local residents who paid social welfare taxes and drew a winning ticket in a lottery could buy a new place. In the city of Tangshan, in the country’s northeast, anyone buying a home had to hold the property for at least…

The news was featured on MSN.com: “Prominent Irish broadcaster faces trial over alleged sexual misconduct.” At the top of the story was a photo of Dave Fanning.But Mr. Fanning, an Irish D.J. and talk-show host famed for his discovery of the rock band U2, was not the broadcaster in question.“You wouldn’t believe the amount of people who got in touch,” said Mr. Fanning, who called the error “outrageous.”The falsehood, visible for hours on the default homepage for anyone in Ireland who used Microsoft Edge as a browser, was the result of an artificial intelligence snafu.A fly-by-night journalism outlet called BNN…

The Russian mezzo-soprano Aigul Akhmetshina only just turned 28. Yet she already has a couple of operatic records under her belt: She’s the youngest artist ever to have sung “Carmen” at the Metropolitan Opera and at the Royal Opera House in London.Her trajectory began about 2,700 miles east of London.Akhmetshina was born in the village of Kirgiz-Miyaki in the Republic of Bashkortostan region of western Russia, closer to Kazakhstan than Moscow. She is one of three children of a single mother who worked in the passport office at the police station, whose own mother was a police officer in Soviet…

The men sat in rows, handcuffed and blindfolded, unable to see the Israeli soldiers who stood watch over them from the other side of a mesh fence.They were barred from talking more loudly than a murmur, and forbidden to stand or sleep except when authorized.A few knelt in prayer. One was being inspected by a paramedic. Another was briefly allowed to remove his handcuffs to wash himself. The hundreds of other Gazan detainees sat in silence. They were all cut off from the outside world, prevented for weeks from contacting lawyers or relatives.This was the scene one afternoon in late…

NORMANDY — President Biden will observe the 80th anniversary of D-Day on the beaches of Normandy on Thursday by asserting that the allied effort to stand up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a direct extension of the battle for freedom that raged across Europe during World War II.Mr. Biden, 81, who was a toddler when Americans stormed the beaches here in 1944, will almost certainly be the last U.S. president to speak at a Normandy remembrance who was alive at the time Allied forces began to push Adolf Hitler out of Europe.Now, eight decades later, Mr. Biden is leading…