Author: NY TIMES

With the death of President Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, becomes acting president. Mr. Mokhber is a conservative political operative with a long history of involvement in large business conglomerates closely tied to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.In a statement on Monday, Mr. Khamenei said that Mr. Mokhber must work with the heads of the legislature and judiciary to hold elections for a new president within 50 days.Vice presidents in Iran are typically low profile, operating more as players within the government than as public figures.“Iran’s vice presidents have traditionally not been contenders to succeed their…

When she first heard that Ukraine was under attack by an invading army, Halyna Semibratska, now 101 years old, was confused.“It’s not the Germans who have attacked us?” Ms. Semibratska asked. No, her daughter, Iryna Malyk, 72, replied. This time it was their neighbor, Russia.It came as a shock.Ms. Semibratska is one of a small group of elderly Ukrainians who have lived through not one but multiple invasions.As children and teenagers, they saw their land and people ravaged in World War II. German troops and tanks swept through in 1941, seizing Ukraine from the Soviet Union, already seen by many…

France and Germany’s recent agreement to develop a new multibillion-dollar battlefield tank together was immediately hailed by the German defense minister, Boris Pistorius, as a “breakthrough” achievement.“It is a historic moment,” he said.His gushing was understandable. For seven years, political infighting, industrial rivalry and neglect had pooled like molasses around the project to build a next-generation tank, known as the Main Combat Ground System.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine more than two years ago jolted Europe out of complacency about military spending. After defense budgets were cut in the decades that followed the Soviet Union’s collapse, the war has reignited Europe’s efforts…

As anticipation for the premiere of “Megalopolis,” Francis Ford Coppola’s first film in more than a decade, built to a fever pitch at Cannes, the director faced accusations Tuesday that he tried to kiss extras during a nightclub sequence.A report in The Guardian detailing the film’s chaotic production said that according to anonymous sources, Coppola pulled women to sit on his lap, and tried to kiss scantily clad extras.In response, a representative for Coppola referred to a statement from the executive producer Darren Demetre, published by The Hollywood Reporter, in which he said, “I was never aware of any complaints…

The woman declares, in Mandarin inflected with a slight accent, that Chinese men should marry “us Russian women.” In other videos on the Chinese short video platform Douyin, she describes how much she loves Chinese food, and hawks salt and soap from her country. “Russian people don’t trick Chinese people,” she promises.But her lip movements don’t quite match the audio of the videos, which were posted recently to an account using the name “Ladina.” That is because it is footage of Shadé Zahrai, an Australian career strategist with more than 1.7 million TikTok followers, that has been modified using artificial…

MSNBC placed a big bet on becoming comfort TV for liberals. Then it doubled down.Time slots on the cable network once devoted to news programming are now occupied by Trump-bashing opinion hosts. The channel has become a landing spot for high-profile alumni of President Biden’s administration like Jen Psaki, who went from hosting White House press briefings to hosting her own show. On Super Tuesday, when producers aired a portion of a live speech by former President Donald J. Trump, Rachel Maddow chastised her bosses on the air.The moves have been a hit with viewers. MSNBC has leapfrogged past its…

Dystopia has rarely looked as grim and felt as exhilarating as it has in George Miller’s “Mad Max” cycle. For decades, Miller has been wowing viewers with hallucinatory images of a ravaged, violent world that looks enough like ours to generate shivers of recognition. Yet however familiar his alternative universe can seem — feel — his filmmaking creates such a strong contact high that it’s always been easy to simply bliss out on the sheer spectacle of it all. Apocalypse? Cool!The thing is, it has started to feel less cool just because in the years since the original “Mad Max”…

On Saturday, revelers across Spain and Portugal ventured into the temperate springtime evening, hoping for a memorable night. None were expecting a visitor from outer space exploding above their heads.At 11:46 p.m. in Portugal, a fireball streaked across the sky, leaving a smoldering trail of incandescent graffiti in its wake. Footage shared on social media shows jaws dropping as the dark night briefly turns into day, blazing in shades of snowy white, otherworldly green and arctic blue.Rocky asteroids cause sky-high streaks as they self-destruct in Earth’s atmosphere with some frequency. But over the weekend, the projectile was plunging toward Earth…

Bruce Nordstrom, who along with three other members of the Nordstrom family transformed a small chain of Pacific Northwest shoe stores into an international fashion retail giant with more than 150 locations worldwide, died on Saturday at his home in Seattle. He was 90.His death was confirmed by a company spokeswoman.As a grandson of John W. Nordstrom, the company’s Swedish immigrant founder, Mr. Nordstrom was part of the third generation of the family to run the company jointly, sharing power and making decisions by consensus, an unusual but successful Nordstrom tradition that continues to this day.He shared leadership with his…

“Babes” is, obviously, about pregnancy, which gives plenty of opportunity for body humor involving fluids and openings and other matters. But it’s just as much about friendship, and about the struggle to maintain connections when life circumstances change. It’s also about how frustrating young parenthood can be, even if you have the ability to pay for help and don’t worry about the roof over your head. In sum, you can almost hear the movie saying, adult life is a land of contrasts, and you’d better just hang on for the bumpy ride.All of which is funny. Pregnancy is still relatively…