Author: NY TIMES

Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, was sued Tuesday by a former employee who accused him of discrimination and creating a hostile work environment by calling Adolf Hitler “great,” disparaging Jews and saying that “gay people are not true Christians.”The lawsuit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by Trevor Phillips, who says he was hired in November 2022, around the time a series of antisemitic remarks publicly made by Ye lost the artist his major-label record deal and put his businesses in jeopardy.Phillips was initially hired to oversee “projects related to growing cotton” and other plants in…

As the clock struck noon on Thursday, the doors to dozens of polling stations across Kuwait opened and voters rushed in to elect one of the Middle East’s most robust parliaments.Candidates set up makeshift headquarters in tents, and coffee shops pledged discounts to voters. Swarms of people waited to cast their ballots — even though it was the fourth time in four years that they had been called upon to choose a new Parliament.“Parliament members convey the voice of the people,” a voter, Asraa Al Ghareb, 31, said, adding that she hoped the new Parliament would bring “actual and radical…

A May 1985 report in the journal Nature was alarming. High above Antarctica, a massive hole had opened in the ozone shield that protects life on earth from the sun’s ultraviolet rays.The finding confirmed what scientists had warned of since the 1970s: Atmospheric ozone was being broken down by the wide use of chlorofluorocarbons, chemicals known as CFCs, which were found in aerosol sprays, refrigeration and air conditioning.Just over two years later, dozens of nations meeting in Montreal signed an agreement to significantly reduce CFCs, which the Environmental Protection Agency estimated would prevent 27 million deaths from skin cancers.“This is…

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions.anna martinFrom “The New York Times,” I’m Anna Martin. This is “Modern Love.” And our guest today is Maya Hawke. You might know her as Robin Buckley, a wisecracking but open hearted teen on the paranormal TV series “Stranger Things.”maya hawkeI should stop talking. I have said everything I need to say. But then I guess I get nervous, and the words, they just, they…

Kate Shindle, who has served as president of Actors’ Equity Association for nine years, is stepping down after a tenure dominated by the coronavirus pandemic that for a time idled all of the labor union’s members.Shindle, 47, said she expected to remain active in the labor movement, but that she was eager to resume working as an actor. The Equity presidency, leading a union that represents more than 51,000 theater actors and stage managers nationwide, is an unpaid, volunteer position. Because of the time required to manage the crises facing the union’s members, Shindle has worked so little as an…

If you’re 50 or older and reading this article, chances are you are wearing a pair of inexpensive reading glasses to correct your presbyopia, or farsightedness, the age-related decline in vision that makes it progressively more difficult to see fine print and tiny objects.Eventually, everyone gets the condition.But for nearly a billion people in the developing world, reading glasses are a luxury that many cannot afford. According to the World Health Organization, the lack of access to corrective eyewear inhibits learning among young students, increases the likelihood of traffic accidents and forces millions of middle-age factory workers and farmers to…

The country singer Rissi Palmer could not understand why Alice Randall was emailing her.By fall 2020, when Palmer received the message, Randall was a Nashville institution, not only the first Black woman to write a chart-topping country hit but also a novelist whose books undermined entrenched racial hierarchies. Palmer herself was no slouch: “Country Girl,” her 2007 anthem of rural camaraderie, had been the first song by a Black woman to infiltrate country’s charts in two decades. She had just started “Color Me Country,” a podcast exploring the genre’s nonwhite roots and branches.But 11 years earlier, Palmer had fled Nashville,…

Israel’s military said Thursday it was canceling leave for combat units, calling up more reservists and blocking GPS signals.The Israeli military did not explicitly cite the reason behind the moves. Israeli newspapers said they came amid fears of an increased threat from Iran. President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran has vowed to punish Israel for killing top Iranian commanders this week in an airstrike in Syria. The attack was one of the deadliest in a decades-long shadow war between the two enemies, and American officials have voiced concerns that it could prompt retaliatory strikes against Israel or its ally, the United…

The 12-year-old boy who opened fire at his school in Finland on Tuesday, killing a schoolmate and injuring two others, has offered an explanation for the shooting: He was bullied.The police said the motive emerged during interviews with the student, who had transferred to his school, north of Helsinki, at the beginning of the calendar year. After the shooting, the police said, the boy also threatened students heading to another school.The boy, who cannot be criminally charged because of his age, was placed in the custody of social welfare authorities, the police said.“This incident is deeply upsetting,” Finland’s education minister,…

My husband is an experienced Realtor. Like many, he has stories of friends who choose not to use him in their real estate transactions. Their excuse is usually that they don’t want to mix business with friendship. (This suggests to me that they don’t believe the friendship is strong enough to weather the experience or that my husband isn’t professional enough to provide top-notch service.) He has lost friends who promised to use him and then didn’t — and others who didn’t even give him a chance to make his case. They have caused him personal and financial pain. One…