Author: NY TIMES

“I have become the thing I hated, the grasping succubus of a lover,” sulks Duncan Wedderburn, the charming rake played by Mark Ruffalo in a scene set in a belle epoque Lisbon restaurant midway through Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Poor Things,” which is nominated for 11 awards at Sunday’s EE British Academy Film Awards, known as the BAFTAs.Bella Baxter, the film’s heroine played by Emma Stone, doesn’t seem to hear him. She is captivated by the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of the orchestra serenading the dinner guests. As if possessed, she follows the beat to the dance floor, where she lets loose with a…

Thousands of antigovernment protesters on Saturday filled a central Tel Aviv thoroughfare, the same street where demonstrations riled the nation before the start of the Israel-Hamas war, in the largest show of anger toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in months.In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas-led attacks on Oct. 7, in which some 1,200 people were killed, according to Israeli officials, the nation was in shock and the antigovernment protests were put on pause. The protesters said at the time that they felt a need to be unified as a nation, and many demonstrators were called up to the military…

Aleksei A. Navalny portrayed himself as invincible, consistently using his hallmark humor to suggest that President Vladimir V. Putin couldn’t break him, no matter how dire his conditions became in prison.But behind the brave face, the reality was plain to see. Since his incarceration in early 2021, Mr. Navalny, Russia’s most formidable opposition figure, and his staff regularly suggested his conditions were so grim that he was being put to death in slow motion.Now his aides believe their fears have come true.The cause of Mr. Navalny’s death in prison at 47 has not been established — in fact his family…

The separation of church and state is a foundational principle of the United States, but as Dan Partland’s ominous documentary “God & Country” argues, a daunting portion of the country’s Christian voters may not hold this truth to be self-evident.Partland, who directed the 2020 documentary “#Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump,” draws upon Katherine Stewart’s book “The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism” for his new film.“God & Country” describes the growing threat to democracy posed by voters who subscribe to the belief that the United States is above all a Christian nation and that this should…

Ukraine is engaged in a desperate fight to hold back the Russian onslaught.Russian forces captured the longtime Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka before dawn on Saturday, Moscow’s first major battlefield gain since it took Bakhmut last May.But across the entire 600-mile long front, Ukraine is short on ammunition without renewed American military assistance, and it is struggling to replenish its own depleted forces after two years of brutal fighting.Russia’s assault has split into five major lines of attack, spanning towns and cities across much of the front in eastern and southern Ukraine. Here is the status of Russia’s offensive in five…

Conventional wisdom dictates that retiring with debt — especially a debt as large and significant as a mortgage — is financially dicey at best and potentially ruinous at worst.That’s not how Brian Lindmeier sees it. “It just doesn’t make any sense at all to pay off the house,” he said.Mr. Lindmeier, 80, a retired purchasing and inventory manager, and his wife, Cindy, who retired from the local public school system, refinanced their home in Orange, Calif., at the end of 2020. They rolled over their balance into a new 30-year loan and slashed their interest rate in half to a…

Randy Sparks, a creative impresario whose musical ensemble, the New Christy Minstrels, helped to jump-start the folk revival of the early 1960s and launched the careers of performers like John Denver, Steve Martin and Kenny Rogers, died on Sunday at an assisted-living facility in San Diego. He was 90.His son Kevin confirmed the death. Mr. Sparks had been living on his 168-acre ranch in Jenny Lind, Calif., northeast of San Francisco, until a few days before his death.Before Beatlemania and the British invasion revolutionized American popular music, folk music dominated the airwaves — and perhaps no group was more ubiquitous…

Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from the eastern frontline city of Avdiivka, Ukraine’s top general, Oleksandr Syrsky, said on Saturday, allowing Moscow to score its biggest battlefield victory in months and dealing a blow to Ukraine’s stretched and outgunned forces as the two-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches.General Syrsky said he had ordered the retreat “in order to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of servicemen.” Avdiivka — once a city of 30,000 people before being reduced to ruins — sat in a pocket surrounded by Russian troops to the north, east and south. In recent months, they…

It is a miserable year to be applying for financial aid.Millions of families probably won’t get a final price tag for college until at least April, because of a series of Education Department delays in rolling out the new FAFSA financial aid form. Students with parents who do not have a Social Security number still can’t complete the online form.But if you’re applying for aid and have grandparents who want to help, you may be in luck.Under the old rules, the FAFSA, or Free Application for Federal Student Aid, asked about “untaxed income” and “money received, or paid on your…

From a U.S. military installation in the Sulu Sea — where, a title card tells the viewer, “We are in a war … we just don’t know it” — soldiers board a chopper to execute a “sterilized op” (contemporary lingo for “secret mission”). The soldiers are played by a couple of Hemsworth brothers; a onetime Face of Reebok, Ricky Whittle; and a pumped-up Milo Ventimiglia. Their backup is a couple of drone pilots half a world away, providing lethal firepower from the comfort of Las Vegas.“Land of Bad,” directed by William Eubank from a script he wrote with David Frigerio,…