Author: NY TIMES

Truong My Lan, a Vietnamese real estate tycoon, was sentenced to death on Thursday for her role in a financial fraud case, in a major display of the ruling Communist Party’s resolve to crack down on corruption.A court in Ho Chi Minh City sentenced Ms. Lan, who was arrested in 2022 and faced charges of bribing government officials, violating banking regulations and embezzling more than $12 billion from one of Vietnam’s largest banks.The trial for Ms. Lan, who was the chairwoman of the real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Group, was part of the government’s campaign against corruption. The leader…

Before filming started on “Scoop,” a Netflix feature about Prince Andrew’s notoriously misjudged 2019 interview on the BBC, the actor Rufus Sewell, who stars as the disgraced royal, turned up on set to shoot a few photographs that would appear in the background. Loaded with makeup and prosthetics, including false teeth and a feathery wig, Sewell felt leaden and self-conscious, he said, fearful that his impersonation would slip into parody.Then, he recalled, he sat down opposite an elderly man working as an extra. Had they worked together before, the man asked Sewell; he looked vaguely familiar. “No,” Sewell told him,…

The response by Israel and other nations to Iran’s aerial attack kept the majority of its drones and missiles from landing in Israel, ensuring they caused only light damage and a handful of injuries, Israeli officials said.An unexpected — and for some, unwelcome — actor played a role in Israel’s defense: Jordan, the Arab kingdom next door.Jordan fought four wars with Israel between 1948 and 1973 before signing a peace treaty in 1994. Its population is heavily made up of Palestinians, and their descendants, who were barred from returning to their homes by Israel after the 1948 war that followed…

To enter a secret session of Germany’s Parliament, lawmakers must lock their phones and leave them outside. Inside, they are not even allowed to take notes. Yet to many politicians, these precautions against espionage now feel like something of a farce.Because seated alongside them in those classified meetings are members of the Alternative for Germany, the far-right party known by its German abbreviation, AfD.In the past few months alone, a leading AfD politician was accused of taking money from pro-Kremlin strategists. One of the party’s parliamentary aides was exposed as having links to a Russian intelligence operative. And some of…

Decorative gems have adorned watches for centuries. But, beyond diamonds and the classic trinity of rubies, emeralds and sapphires, a colorless variety of quartz called rock crystal actually is the stone used most often in horology.Yet, “as a material, not a lot of people know about it,” said Tom Heap, deputy director and head of watch sales at Sotheby’s London. “But I think with the way we’re seeing watch brands operate nowadays, you’re seeing a return to low production and almost a kind of historical watchmaking. It’s like a painter looking back at the old masters.”Van Cleef & Arpels and…

The views are spectacular in this corner of eastern Nepal, between the world’s highest mountains and the tea estates of India’s Darjeeling district, where rare orchids grow and red pandas play on the lush hillsides.But life can be tough. Wild animals destroyed the corn and potato crops of Pasang Sherpa, a farmer born near Mount Everest. He gave up on those plants a dozen years ago and resorted to raising one that seemed to have little value: argeli, an evergreen, yellow-flowering shrub found wild in the Himalayas. Farmers grew it for fencing or firewood.Mr. Sherpa had no idea that bark…

It takes about an hour for “In Flames” to reveal itself as proper genre horror, but trepidation lurks from the start. In Karachi, Pakistan, the 20-something Mariam (Ramesha Nawal) lives with her widowed mother, Fariha (Bakhtawar Mazhar), and her younger brother, Bilal (Jibran Khan), who’s mostly glued to his video games. The family has been financially dependent on Fariha’s father-in-law, but as the film opens, he has just died — and Fariha’s brother-in-law, Uncle Nasir (Adnan Shah Tipu), is suddenly very interested in the relatives he had been neglecting.Fariha teaches at an elementary school, and Mariam is studying for exams…

Late Saturday, Iran began firing hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel, including weapons that experts say are more sophisticated than anything Israel had encountered until now in six months of fighting with Hamas and its allies in the region.Previously, Israel had faced aerial attacks from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whose rocket arsenal includes short-range (12 to 25 miles) and somewhat inaccurate 122-milimeter rockets of the Grad family, as well as Syrian-made M-302 rockets with a range of about 100 miles. Hamas also has Fajr-5 rockets from Iran and a similar, locally made version of the Fajr-5, both with a…

This article is part of our Design special report previewing Milan Design Week.In this city of 1.35 million, a particular ritual happens in the weeks leading up to the Salone del Mobile. Ads start popping up on Facebook and Instagram offering private rooms and entire apartments for a few hundred euros a night. Then, just before the doors open at the Fiera Milano — the exhibition center on the outskirts of Milan — residents pack up and move out of their homes, making way for the more than 300,000 fairgoers who descend on the city each April.“We were fascinated by…

Until last year, the Watches and Wonders Geneva watch fair was closed to the public.Brands, retailers, media and some V.V.I.P. s were granted entry, but regular watch buyers? Would-be watch enthusiasts? It seemed like Switzerland’s reputation for behind-closed-doors dealings was dictating watch show policy, too.But that all changed last year when a new organizing committee decided to sell tickets to the public for the event’s weekend days, an arrangement that was extended to three days this year.Today is the last of those — and the show’s final day — but it may not be the quietest. Even at 70 Swiss…