Elections

Fue una jornada de sorpresas en el país europeo, con un inesperado triunfo de la izquierda, una extrema derecha muy por debajo de los pronósticos y la incógnita de quién será el próximo primer ministro.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]De manera inesperada, los partidos de izquierda franceses se impusieron en las elecciones legislativas celebradas el domingo en todo el país, con lo que el partido nacionalista y antiinmigración Agrupación Nacional no obtuvo la mayoría en la cámara baja del Parlamento.Ningún partido, sin embargo, parecía con posibilidades de conseguir la mayoría absoluta, lo que deja a uno de los países más grandes de Europa encaminado a un marasmo político o a la inestabilidad.Los resultados, recopilados por The New York Times a partir de datos del Ministerio del Interior, confirman las proyecciones anteriores, según las cuales ningún partido o bloque obtendría la mayoría.Aquí presentamos cinco conclusiones de las elecciones.Gran sorpresa número 1Se produjeron dos grandes sorpresas en las elecciones anticipadas al Parlamento francés, ninguna de ellas prevista por expertos, encuestadoras o analistas.La mayor fue el triunfo de la izquierda: su coalición obtuvo 178 escaños y se convirtió en el principal bloque político del país. Fue la victoria más sorprendente de la izquierda francesa desde que François Mitterrand la sacó de la marginalidad de la posguerra, y ganó la presidencia como socialista en 1981.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The famished road warriors drove down the cold mountain highway and across the bridge into the town. The September sun was setting and it was time to stop, as Benny’s increasing night blindness made him leery about driving late and his eyes still stung from a thousand acres of grass pollen. The ancient rental car was also wheezing like a mean spirit was trapped inside the engine.Aleksandar pulled out the notebook with his mother’s list of local tips. “Let’s try the Blue Flower Hotel — there’s a basement jazz lounge called Underworld there and maybe we can pick up a gig and dinner.”Benny parked the car and grabbed his saxophone. “I know this is your homeland, but at least I’m a native speaker in the universal language of music.”The famished road warriors drove down the cold mountain highway and across the bridge into the town. The September sun was setting and it was time to stop, as Benny’s increasing night blindness made him leery about driving late and his eyes still stung from a thousand acres of grass pollen. The ancient rental car was also wheezing like a mean spirit was trapped inside the engine.Aleksandar pulled out the notebook with his mother’s list of local tips. “Let’s try the Blue Flower Hotel — there’s a basement jazz lounge called Underworld there and maybe we can pick up a gig and dinner.”Benny parked the car and grabbed his saxophone. “I know this is your homeland, but at least I’m a native speaker in the universal language of music.”The famished road warriors drove down the cold mountain highway and across the bridge into the town. The September sun was setting and it was time to stop, as Benny’s increasing night blindness made him leery about driving late and his eyes still stung from a thousand acres of grass pollen. The ancient rental car was also wheezing like a mean spirit was trapped inside the engine.Aleksandar pulled out the notebook with his mother’s list of local tips. “Let’s try the Blue Flower Hotel — there’s a basement jazz lounge called Underworld there and maybe we can pick up a gig and dinner.”Benny parked the car and grabbed his saxophone. “I know this is your homeland, but at least I’m a native speaker in the universal language of music.” More

The junior member of the court’s six-justice conservative supermajority often questioned its approach and wrote important dissents joined by liberal justices.Justice Amy Coney Barrett, 52, is the youngest member of the Supreme Court and the junior member of its conservative supermajority. Last week, she completed what was only her third full term.Yet she has already emerged as a distinctive force on the court, issuing opinions that her admirers say are characterized by intellectual seriousness, independence, caution and a welcome measure of common sense.In the term that ended last week, she delivered a series of concurring opinions questioning and honing the majority’s methods and conclusions.She wrote notable dissents, joined by liberal justices, from decisions limiting the tools prosecutors can use in cases against members of the Jan. 6 mob and blocking a Biden administration plan to combat air pollution. And she voted with the court’s three-member liberal wing in March, saying the majority had ruled too broadly in restoring former President Donald J. Trump to the Colorado ballot.The bottom line: Justice Barrett was the Republican appointee most likely to vote for a liberal result in the last term.That does not make her a liberal, said Irv Gornstein, the executive director of Georgetown University’s Supreme Court Institute.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Nemat Shafik, the university president, called the sentiments in the text messages “unacceptable and deeply upsetting.”Three Columbia University administrators have been removed from their posts after sending text messages that “disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes” during a forum about Jewish issues in May, according to a letter sent by Columbia officials to the university community on Monday.The administrators are still employed by the university but have been placed on indefinite leave and will not return to their previous jobs.Nemat Shafik, the Columbia president, described the sentiments in the text messages as “unacceptable and deeply upsetting, conveying a lack of seriousness about the concerns and the experiences of members of our Jewish community.” She said the messages were “antithetical to our university’s values and the standards.”The announcement came about a month after a conservative website published photos that showed some of the text messages sent by the administrators.And it followed weeks of unrest at Columbia over the war in Gaza as the university emerged as the center of a nationwide protest movement. Pro-Palestinian demonstrations led Dr. Shafik to order the arrest of students on trespassing charges this spring. In late April, protesters occupied a campus building, leading to more arrests. In May, citing security concerns, the university canceled its main commencement ceremony.The three Columbia administrators involved in the text message exchanges are Cristen Kromm, formerly the dean of undergraduate student life; Matthew Patashnick, formerly the associate dean for student and family support; and Susan Chang-Kim, formerly the vice dean and chief administrative officer. They did not immediately respond to requests for comment.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

No party secured an absolute majority in legislative elections on Sunday, leaving France headed for gridlock or political instability.Support for left-wing parties surged unexpectedly in nationwide legislative elections on Sunday, pushing the nationalist, anti-immigration National Rally into third place.The electoral map showed enduring divisions — with Paris and its suburbs voting for the left and center, and the regions in the far north and south along the Mediterranean voting for the far right.The country’s political outlook appeared more muddled than before, with three large political blocs, each with a vastly different vision and plan for the country. More

The Biden administration is trying to get foreign companies to invest in chip-making in the United States and more countries to set up factories to do final assembly and packaging.If the Biden administration had its way, far more electronic chips would be made in factories in, say, Texas or Arizona.They would then be shipped to partner countries, like Costa Rica or Vietnam or Kenya, for final assembly and sent out into the world to run everything from refrigerators to supercomputers.Those places may not be the first that come to mind when people think of semiconductors. But administration officials are trying to transform the world’s chip supply chain and are negotiating intensely to do so.The core elements of the plan include getting foreign companies to invest in chip-making in the United States and finding other countries to set up factories to finish the work. Officials and researchers in Washington call it part of the new “chip diplomacy.”The Biden administration argues that producing more of the tiny brains of electronic devices in the United States will help make the country more prosperous and secure. President Biden boasted about his efforts in his interview on Friday with ABC News, during which he said he had gotten South Korea to invest billions of dollars in chip-making in the United States.But a key part of the strategy is unfolding outside America’s borders, where the administration is trying to work with partners to ensure that investments in the United States are more durable.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Both “Fearless” and “1989” spent 11 weeks atop the Billboard 200, but the 11-week reign of “The Tortured Poets Department” has been uninterrupted.Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” has notched its 11th straight week at No. 1, holding off all challengers once again.“Tortured Poets” now ties Swift’s career total for the most weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart. Both “Fearless” (2008) and “1989” (2014) reached the peak 11 times. But unlike those, which bobbed in and out of the top slot, the reign of “Tortured Poets” has so far been consecutive and uninterrupted. It started at No. 1 — way back in April — with record-breaking numbers, and has never left that position, beating out releases from Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, the Atlanta rapper Gunna and the K-pop group Ateez.According to Billboard, the last LP by a woman to spend at least 11 weeks in a row at No. 1 was Whitney Houston’s soundtrack to “The Bodyguard,” which posted 13 consecutive toppers (out of 20 total) in 1992 and 1993. Last year, Morgan Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time” had 12 straight weeks at No. 1, and eventually crowned the chart 19 times.Last week, “Tortured Poets” had the equivalent of 114,000 sales in the United States, nearly flat from the week before. That includes 102 million streams and 35,000 sales as a complete package, according to the tracking service Luminate.Throughout its run, the weekly sales of “Tortured Poets” have benefited from strategic drops of new “versions” of the album, offered with bonus tracks and for limited times. But Swift’s streaming numbers have remained strong, at least in aggregate, with the 31-track album never falling below 100 million weekly clicks.Also this week, Megan Thee Stallion’s “Megan” opens at No. 3 with the equivalent of 74,000 sales, and Wallen’s “One Thing at a Time,” now in its 71st week on the chart, is No. 2. Eilish’s “Hit Me Hard and Soft” holds in fourth place, while Chappell Roan’s “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess” rises to No. 5, a new peak nearly 10 months after its release. More

At the Baroque guesthouse she runs in Portugal, Rebecca Illing hosted old friends for a meal suffused with nostalgia.As a child, Rebecca Illing would spend vacations with her parents and brother, Alex, at Paço da Glória, a gothic mansion turned guesthouse in Portugal’s lush Minho region. A 40-minute drive north of Porto, then the family’s hometown, the property is surrounded by dense cork oak woodland, and Illing loved getting lost on its grounds and exploring its winding corridors. Parts of the house date to the 14th century, and it grew haphazardly from there: An imposing dark gray stone facade topped with medieval-style merlons was added in the 1700s; later, the English peer Lord Peter Pitt Millward reimagined the home in the style of a Baroque palace. In the 1970s, it became a guesthouse under the stewardship of another Briton, Colin Clark, the filmmaker and author of the 2020 memoir “My Week with Marilyn.”For the past 21 years, the 10-acre estate — with its bright green lawns and grand granite swimming pool — has been owned by Illing’s family. (Her mother, who met Illing’s father in Porto, had always dreamed of buying the place.) And since 2022, following renovations of the nine guest rooms and the installation of a yoga deck and indoor pool, the property has been run exclusively by Illing herself as a guesthouse of a different sort: one that is, to use her phrase, “grief literate.”A view of the garden beyond the archway that connects the home and its adjacent chapel.Matilde ViegasThe group, including Illing (center), gathered on the lawn for drinks.Matilde ViegasThe walls of the main hall are lined with busts of celebrated Frenchmen, statues reportedly put in place by the British aristocrat Lord Peter Pitt Millward, who bought the property at auction in 1932.Matilde ViegasWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More