Author: NY TIMES

A senior Pakistani official confessed on Saturday to helping manipulate results in the country’s elections — a startling claim strengthening a sense that the vote was among the least credible in Pakistan’s history, and deepening the turmoil that has seized the country ever since people went to the polls this month.The official, Liaquat Ali Chatha, is a top administrative official in Punjab Province overseeing Rawalpindi, a garrison city where the military has its headquarters, and three adjacent districts. He said he would resign from his position and turn himself in to the police.“We converted losers into winners, reversing margins of…

Last fall, Tiffanie Simmons, a second-generation autoworker, endured a six-week strike at the Ford Motor factory just west of Detroit where she builds Bronco S.U.V.s. That yielded a pay raise of 25 percent over the next four years, easing the pain of reductions that she and other union workers swallowed more than a decade ago.But as Ms. Simmons, 38, contemplates prospects for the American auto industry in the state that invented it, she worries about a new force: the shift toward electric vehicles. She is dismayed that the transition has been championed by President Biden, whose pro-labor credentials are at…

As the leaders of the West gathered in Munich over the past three days, President Vladimir V. Putin had a message for them: Nothing they’ve done so far — sanctions, condemnation, attempted containment — would alter his intentions to disrupt the current world order.Russia made its first major gain in Ukraine in nearly a year, taking the ruined city of Avdiivka, at huge human cost to both sides, the bodies littered along the roads a warning, perhaps, of a new course in the two-year-old war. Aleksei A. Navalny’s suspicious death in a remote Arctic prison made ever clearer that Mr.…

EC Comics, which specialized in tales of horror, crime and suspense, and was shut down in the “moral panic” of the 1950s, is making a comeback.Oni Press will publish two new anthology series under the EC Comics banner. The first, Epitaphs From the Abyss, coming in July, will be horror focused; Cruel Universe, the second, arrives in August and will tell science fiction stories.Hunter Gorinson, the president and publisher of Oni Press, said the new stories will interpret the world of today, much as EC Comics explored the American psyche of the 1950s. The cover designs will feel familiar to…

The Pentagon is investigating the cause of a crash of an American military surveillance drone off the coast of Yemen on Monday morning, two U.S. officials said.The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, confirmed that the drone, an MQ-9 Reaper, fell out of the sky. Iranian-backed Houthi militants said on Monday that they had downed the drone near the port city of Al Hudaydah, in western Yemen.“Yemeni air defenses were able to shoot down an American plane (MQ-9) with a suitable missile while it was carrying out hostile missions against our country on behalf of…

Some actors come to embody a national cinema through an alchemical combination of demeanor and film choices. You might say that Clint Eastwood is the quintessential American icon, for example, or that Hugh Grant is the embodiment of a certain kind of Britishness.When it comes to France, one of the country’s archetypal stars is Juliette Binoche, whose understated elegance and cryptic smile have graced art-house and popular movies alike since her domestic breakthrough playing an ingénue actress in “Rendez-Vous” (1985), followed by worldwide fame a decade later with the romantic drama “The English Patient” (1996), for which she earned an…

“Who do I call if I want to call Europe?”The answer to the famous question — attributed to Henry Kissinger, but probably apocryphal — has been easier to answer over the past four years than ever before: You call Ursula von der Leyen.President of the European Commission since 2019, Ms. von der Leyen has emerged as the face of Europe’s response to major crises, and on Monday she announced that she would seek a second five-year term.“I ran in 2019 because I firmly believe in Europe. Europe is home to me,” Ms. von der Leyen said on Monday in Berlin…

Readers can now follow NASCAR, Formula 1 and other motorsports content individually. Customize your feed here.DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — NASCAR Hall of Famer Jeff Gordon won the Daytona 500 twice in his first seven seasons and did it again six years later in 2005. Of course, he believes, there are more victories to come.Gordon never won NASCAR’s biggest race again.”You get into this depression of, ‘Man, what did I do differently?'” Gordon said.Oddly enough, the answer is nothing.That’s the nature of NASCAR’s crown jewel event, which represents a unique contrast in the world of top sports: It’s NASCAR’s Super Bowl…

Of all the merch hawked by the former president and current presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and related entities over the past few months — the gold (chocolate) bars, the wines, the superhero NFTs — is any of it more Trumpian than the $399 Never Surrender sneakers unveiled over the weekend at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia? They are like a road map to Mr. Trump’s value system and electoral strategy in sartorial form.Gilded hightops as shiny as the chandeliers at Mar-a-Lago, they have an American flag wrapping the ankle like the forest of flags that spring up behind Mr. Trump…

A year and a half ago, the career of Ye — the rapper, producer and controversy generator formerly known as Kanye West — seemed all but dead. After a series of antisemitic remarks in late 2022, Ye lost his major-label record deal and booking agent, along with lucrative fashion partnerships with Adidas, Balenciaga and other brands.But he was never quite abandoned by many of his fans. And now Ye has the 11th No. 1 album of his career with “Vultures 1,” a joint LP with the singer Ty Dolla Sign that Ye released on his own, after previewing it this…