Author: NY TIMES

France is entering an era of belt-tightening, as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, economic slowdowns in Germany and China and record-high interest rates take a bigger-than-expected toll on growth.The French will find themselves faced with cuts of 10 billion euros ($10.8 billion) in government spending, on items including environmental subsidies and education, the government announced Thursday, on top of €16 billion in cuts announced a few months ago. The finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, on Monday revised the forecast for economic growth this year to 1 percent, down from 1.4 percent at the end of last year.“Lower growth means…

Instagram does not allow children under 13 to have accounts, but parents are allowed to run them — and many do so for daughters who aspire to be social media influencers.What often starts as a parent’s effort to jump-start a child’s modeling career, or win favors from clothing brands, can quickly descend into a dark underworld dominated by adult men, many of whom openly admit on other platforms to being sexually attracted to children, an investigation by The New York Times found.Thousands of so-called mom-run accounts examined by The Times offer disturbing insights into how social media is reshaping childhood,…

The tagline of Tyler Perry’s new movie is “everyone’s guilty of something,” but the responsibility for this willfully steamy, decidedly silly thriller is all his. Source link

Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, is traveling to Ukraine on Friday for a visit meant to show American solidarity with a democratic ally under attack by Russia and increase the pressure on Republicans to drop their opposition to additional U.S. aid.The trip, Mr. Schumer’s first official one to Ukraine, comes at a critical time, as a foreign assistance package that includes more than $60 billion in military aid for Kyiv is stalled on Capitol Hill amid Republican resistance.It amounts to something of a victory lap for Mr. Schumer, the New York Democrat who managed to maneuver the aid bill…

Last Thanksgiving I was seated at the head of the dining room table with my family gathered around, enjoying our traditional feast: turkey, potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy and a mashed-yams-with-mini-marshmallows concoction we affectionately call “glop.”My sons, 18 and 20, piled their plates high. My mother worked her way through smaller portions and a glass of wine. And I held the hand of my love, who was seated next to me with tears in her eyes as she looked across the table at a woman, her contemporary, who was eating with the help of a caregiver.That woman is my wife, Bridget,…

Executives at Vice Media are planning to lay off several hundred of its more than 900 employees over the next week, eliminating staff from its digital publishing division, according to a company memo sent to staff on Thursday from Bruce Dixon, the chief executive.The cuts will be the latest in a series of severe cutbacks that the company has endured in recent years, winnowing the globe-spanning digital colossus to a husk of its former self. Over the past half-decade, Vice has had near annual layoffs and mounting losses, and has filed for bankruptcy, making it the poster child for the…

The ominous messages began arriving in Elissa’s inbox early last year.“You sell pics of your underage daughter to pedophiles,” read one. “You’re such a naughty sick mom, you’re just as sick as us pedophiles,” read another. “I will make your life hell for you and your daughter.”Elissa has been running her daughter’s Instagram account since 2020, when the girl was 11 and too young to have her own. Photos show a bright, bubbly girl modeling evening dresses, high-end workout gear and dance leotards. She has more than 100,000 followers, some so enthusiastic about her posts that they pay $9.99 a…

The title of Ethan Coen’s leaden romp “Drive-Away Dolls” summons up the vulgar excesses of old-school exploitation cinema, with its horrors and pleasures, carnage and flesh. If only! The promising setup involves two friends — the inapt duo of Margaret Qualley as Jamie and Geraldine Viswanathan as Marian — who, during a 1999 road trip from Philadelphia to Florida, come into possession of a briefcase wanted by some bad, violent men. There will be blood, yup, if not enough to obscure the inert staging, D.O.A. jokes and overblown performances.This is the most recent movie that Ethan Coen has made without…

An escalation of the war in Gaza could lead to the deaths of 85,000 Palestinians from injuries and disease over the next six months, in the worst of three situations that prominent epidemiologists have modeled in an effort to understand the potential future death toll of the conflict.These fatalities would be in addition to the more than 29,000 deaths in Gaza that local authorities have attributed to the conflict since it began in October. The estimate represents “excess deaths,” above what would have been expected had there been no war.In a second scenario, assuming no change in the current level…

Ewen MacIntosh, a British actor and comedian acclaimed for his dry portrayal of Keith Bishop, a lackluster accountant, on the British sitcom “The Office,” died on Monday in the English town of Darlington. He was 50.His management company, Just Right Management, did not cite cause but said that he had suffered from “ill health” for the past two years, and that he had received support from a residential care home before he died.Mr. MacIntosh was seen in several comedy films and television series, including the sketch show “Little Britain.” But it was on the mockumentary series “The Office” that he…