Author: NY TIMES

Before the war and during the Occupation, Arletty and Chanel were part of an extraordinary social set from across the arts and political spectrum. Right-wing and antisemitic views dominated the politics of this group. The French journalist Boulos Ristelhueber reported in 1940 that Chanel had gone into “into a long tirade against the Jews” during a dinner. Unlike some in her circle, however, Chanel didn’t embrace Nazi ideology. Above all, she was an opportunist.Still, given Chanel’s involvement with the Nazis, it’s hard to believe two curious documents that surfaced recently “attesting” to her participation in the French Resistance. The documents,…

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A year ago, the government and America’s largest banks joined forces in a rare moment of comity.They were forced into action after Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on March 10, 2023, quickly followed by two other lenders, First Republic and Signature Bank. Faced with the threat of a billowing crisis that could threaten the banking industry — the worst one since 2008 — rivals and regulators put together a huge bailout fund. Eventually all three ailing banks were declared insolvent by the government and sold off.The biggest banks emerged from the period even larger, after picking up accounts from their smaller…

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Watching Kristen Stewart is always an adventure. A performer who makes good movies better and dreary movies tolerable, she has a restlessness that has made her one of the more interesting attractions in American film. She has a gift for making a character’s inner life transparently readable, and while she can be subtle and withholding, it is her fascinatingly unquiet presence that draws you in, an itchy intensity that can keep her (and you) on edge. Pauline Kael wrote that Jane Fonda’s “motor runs a little fast” — so does Stewart’s.In her latest vehicle, “Love Lies Bleeding,” a neo-noir in…

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When Wafaa al-Kurd was nearly due to give birth, she said, she weighed less than she did before becoming pregnant and was surviving on rice and artificial juice.She gave birth to a girl weighing nearly six pounds, named Tayma, just over two weeks ago, she said. Since then, her husband has spent his days scouring markets in northern Gaza, where the family lives, trying to find enough food for his wife to breastfeed and keep Tayma alive.Nearly 60,000 pregnant women in Gaza are suffering from malnutrition, dehydration and lack of proper health care, according to the Gaza health ministry. In…

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The United States has a history of using its military to get food, water and other humanitarian relief to civilians during wars or natural disasters. The walls of the Pentagon are decorated with photographs of such operations in Haiti, Liberia, Indonesia and countless other countries.But it is rare for the United States to try to provide such services for people who are being bombed with tacit U.S. support.President Biden’s decision to order the U.S. military to build a floating pier off the Gaza Strip that would allow aid to be delivered by sea puts American service members in a new…

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This year’s fashion weeks have been going on for almost two months now. (You would be forgiven for not noticing, given the current news cycle.) They started in January with the men’s wear shows, which were followed by the couture shows, which were followed by fashion weeks in New York, London, Milan and Paris.Paris hosts the biggest and glitziest of these events, and Styles covered the major moments. But as the week — and season — draws to a close, we recall others that turned our heads, made us smile or that kept us talking long after we saw them.Runway…

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Among the great many things there are to figure out at Wonder is how to describe to customers what it is. The business doesn’t fit neatly into an existing food service category. “Delivery company” implies just an app and courier network, like Uber Eats or Grubhub, but Wonder makes all its own food in its own kitchens, too. “Ghost kitchen” and “virtual restaurant” describe brands that exist only as a menu on an app, with no street-level commercial presence; Wonder has slickly designed locations where customers can order, pick up, and, at least in theory, dine in at a handful…

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“American Fiction”“Anatomy of a Fall”“Barbie”“The Holdovers”“Killers of the Flower Moon”“Maestro”✓“Oppenheimer”“Past Lives”“Poor Things”“The Zone of Interest”Let’s be real: The best picture race is locked up for “Oppenheimer.” Christopher Nolan gave Oscar voters an IMAX-sized helping of their favorite genre — the great-man-of-history biopic — and after the movie made nearly a billion dollars worldwide, its path to the top Oscar was clear.Still, why not add some stakes to the situation? See whether you can sabotage the people in your Oscar pool by convincing them that a dark-horse candidate can topple Nolan’s mighty contender.Suggest, for example, that “The Holdovers” may mirror the…

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Only a few years ago, plenty of citizens of the United Arab Emirates were willing to speak warmly about their country’s budding ties with Israel.Israel had just established relations with the Emirates through a U.S.-brokered deal. Business groups sprung up to funnel cross-country investment. Two women, Emirati and Israeli, posed for a photograph holding hands atop a skyscraper in Dubai. American, Emirati and Israeli officials predicted that their deal, called the Abraham Accords, would spread peace across the Middle East.But now, as Israel’s monthslong bombardment of Gaza fuels anger around the region, Emirati fans of the deal are increasingly hard…

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When António Costa, a prime minister well liked by European leaders, handily won a third term in 2022, many Portuguese prepared for a lasting, stable government given his Socialist Party’s strong majority in Parliament.But by late last year, Mr. Costa had resigned, his government embroiled in a corruption investigation involving lithium exploration concessions.On Sunday, Portugal faces a new election. It has raised the prospect that the Socialist Party could lose power for the first time in more than eight years, as well as the possibility of an unstable minority government.One of the most significant changes in the election campaign has…

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