Author: NY TIMES

The Fed’s shadow over the E.C.B. Thursday is a big day for the European Central Bank. It is widely expected to lower interest rates by a quarter percentage point, its first cut since 2019 — and outpace the Fed in lowering borrowing costs. Investors will watch to see how that would influence monetary policy beyond Brussels, as well as its effect on global trade, stock markets and the dollar.The big questions on our mind: Will Christine Lagarde, the central bank’s president, signal further cuts at its July and September meetings? And how far can the E.C.B. go if the Fed…

Nile Rodgers’s very first professional recording session, in the late 1970s, got off to a bumpy start. He wasn’t the only guitarist booked to work with Luther, a group fronted by Luther Vandross, but Rodgers was the youngest, making him an easy target when Paul Riser, the Motown veteran arranging the session, noted something he didn’t like.“He heard some things that were not correct on the chart,” Rodgers said, and “assumed it was me.” After an expletive-peppered exchange, Vandross stepped in and smoothed out the discord. From then on, Rodgers and Vandross were good friends and collaborators. (Rodgers said Vandross…

Amanda Knox, an American who was convicted and then exonerated of murdering her housemate while they were studying in Italy, on Wednesday lost another trial in an Italian court against slander charges related to the 2007 killing.Ms. Knox was convicted by a court in Florence on charges that she had slandered a man who ran a bar where she worked by unjustly accusing him of killing her housemate, the 21-year-old Meredith Kercher, in 2007. Ms. Knox was sentenced by the court to three years in prison, time she has already served.Ms. Knox was initially found guilty of slandering the man,…

Juliet has been to many weddings, and she’s a pro. While the happy couple are exchanging vows, she comes out of a dark box and hops onto the gloved arm of Duncan Blake, her handler. With a 270-degree turn of her head, she takes in her surroundings.A squeaky sound suddenly jolts her into motion. Whoosh — off she flies down the aisle, two rings in a little pouch tied around her skinny ankles. Gasps come from the humans sitting below her stretched wings. Seconds later, she lands on another outstretched arm, often belonging to the best man, other times to…

Wandering alone along the southern fringes of Saudi Arabia’s mountainous Asir Province, some eight miles from the Yemeni border, in a nondescript town with a prominent sculpture of a rifle balanced on an ornately painted plinth, I met a man, Nawab Khan, who was building a palace out of mud.Actually, he was rebuilding the structure, restoring it. And when I came across him, he hadn’t yet begun his work for the day; he was seated on the side of the road beneath its red-and-white windows — cross-legged, on a rug, leaning over a pot of tea and a bowl of…

Israel organized and paid for an influence campaign last year targeting U.S. lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messaging, as it aimed to foster support for its actions in the war with Gaza, according to officials involved in the effort and documents related to the operation.The covert campaign was commissioned by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, a government body that connects Jews around the world with the State of Israel, four Israeli officials said. The ministry allocated about $2 million to the operation and hired Stoic, a political marketing firm in Tel Aviv, to carry it out, according to…

MTV was still in its infancy in 1983, and it was fortuitous that Lauper’s debut album, “She’s So Unusual,” came out just as the network was ascending. She saw her public image as a visual art form. Her makeup artist was a painter, and her stylist was a vintage buyer.“People sometimes get the wrong idea that it was very thrown together,” Laura Wills, the founder of the vintage shop Screaming Mimi’s, said of the singer’s style. “People just didn’t look like that.” In the early ’80s, Lauper worked for Wills, often bartering her labor for clothes. When her career took…

The U.S. Embassy in Lebanon was targeted with gunfire early on Wednesday, and an attacker was wounded before being arrested, the country’s army said.The embassy said that no staff had been harmed in the attack and that Lebanese security forces and the embassy’s security team had responded to “small-arms fire” near the entrance of the fortified compound, which overlooks the Lebanese capital, Beirut.The embassy added in its statement that the episode was under investigation. The Lebanese army said that in response it had deployed troops around the embassy. Security forces blocked the road leading to the embassy, the country’s state…

Europe’s share of the global economy is shrinking, and fears are deepening that the continent can no longer keep up with the United States and China.“We are too small,” said Enrico Letta, a former Italian prime minister who recently delivered a report on the future of the single market to the European Union.“We are not very ambitious,” Nicolai Tangen, head of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, told The Financial Times. “Americans just work harder.”“European businesses need to regain self-confidence,” Europe’s association of chambers of commerce declared.The list of reasons for what has been called the “competitiveness crisis” goes…

The Food and Drug Administration is weighing whether to approve the use of MDMA, also known as Ecstasy, for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. An independent advisory panel of experts reviewed studies on June 4, and decided against endorsing the treatment.Lykos Therapeutics submitted evidence from clinical trials in an effort to obtain agency approval to sell the drug legally to treat people with a combination of MDMA and talk therapy.Millions of Americans suffer from PTSD, including military veterans who are at high risk of suicide. No new treatment for PTSD has been approved in more than 20 years.What is MDMA?Methylenedioxymethamphetamine…