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      Iran’s Onerous Hijab Law for Women Is Now a Campaign Issue

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      In a sign that a women-led movement has gained ground, all of the men running for president have distanced themselves from the harsh tactics used to enforce mandatory hijab.Iranian officials insisted for decades that the law requiring women to cover their hair and dress modestly was sacrosanct and not even worth discussion. They dismissed the struggle by women who challenged the law as a symptom of Western meddling. Now, as Iran holds a presidential election this week, the issue of mandatory hijab, as the hair covering is known, has become a hot campaign topic. And all six of the men running, five of them conservative, have sought to distance themselves from the methods of enforcing the law, which include violence, arrests and monetary fines.“Elections aside, politics aside, under no circumstances should we treat Iranian women with such cruelty,” Mustafa Pourmohammadi, a conservative presidential candidate and cleric with senior roles in intelligence, said in a round-table discussion on state television last week. He has also said that government officials should be punished over the hijab law because it was their duty to educate women about why they should wear hijab, not violently enforce it.The hijab has long been a symbol of religious identity but has also been a political tool in Iran. And women have resisted the law, in different ways, ever since it went into effect after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.It is unlikely that the law will be annulled, and it remains unclear whether a new president can soften enforcement. Different administrations have adopted looser or stricter approaches to hijab. Ebrahim Raisi, the president whose death in a helicopter crash in May prompted emergency elections, had imposed some of the harshest crackdowns on women.Still, some women’s rights activists and analysts in Iran say forcing the issue to the table during elections is in itself an accomplishment. It shows that the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement of civil disobedience, which began nearly two years ago, has become too big to ignore.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

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      Donald Trump Said He Proposed a ‘Migrant League of Fighters’ to U.F.C. Chief Dana White

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      Former President Donald J. Trump said in an address to an evangelical group that he had suggested starting a sports league for migrants to fight one another.Appearing at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s conference in Washington on Saturday, Mr. Trump described migrants with the dehumanizing terms he often uses to refer to them, saying they were “tough,” “come from prisons” and are “nasty, mean.”Mr. Trump then said that he had suggested to Dana White, an ally of the former president’s who is the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, “Why don’t you set up a migrant league of fighters?”He continued, referring to the U.F.C.: “And then you have the champion of your league — these are the greatest fighters in the world — fight the champion of the migrants? I think the migrant guy might win! That’s how tough they are.”Mr. Trump said that Mr. White “didn’t like the idea too much.” But, he added, “It’s not the worst idea I’ve ever had. These are tough people.”Mr. White, asked about Mr. Trump’s comment at a U.F.C. event on Saturday, confirmed that the former president had made the proposal, but said, “It was a joke, it was a joke. I saw everybody going crazy online. But yeah, he did say it.”The Biden campaign denounced Mr. Trump’s comments, attacking what it called “a rambling, confused tirade,” at what it said was intended to be “a conference for Christian values.”“Trump’s incoherent, unhinged tirade showed voters in his own words that he is a threat to our freedoms and is too dangerous to be let anywhere near the White House again,” Sarafina Chitika, a spokeswoman for the Biden campaign, said in a statement.Mr. Trump has made immigration a central part of his platform in the 2024 presidential election, as it was in his two previous campaigns. He has pledged to carry out sweeping raids and to use military funds to erect camps to hold undocumented detainees. He has also escalated his rhetoric against migrants, at times using language that invokes the racial hatred of Hitler by describing migrants as “poisoning the blood of our country.”“Fantasies about cage matches are a distraction from the very real plans Trump and his team are making to deport millions of people who have lived here for decades and the resulting inflation, joblessness and economic devastation,” said Doug G. Rivlin, a spokesman for America’s Voice, an immigrant-rights advocacy group that has been tracking the escalation of Republican rhetoric on the issue. “Republican politicians are going to find that hard to defend while campaigning this year.”Jazmine Ulloa More

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      After Hajj Deaths, Egypt Suspends 16 Companies

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      The action against 16 tour companies came as governments look into whether many travelers were not properly registered to make the journey into the desert.After hundreds of pilgrims died in the scorching desert heat during the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, the Egyptian government announced on Saturday that it had suspended the licenses of 16 tour companies that had facilitated travel for some pilgrims to Saudi Arabia.At least 450 people have died during this year’s pilgrimage, in which travelers endured maximum temperatures that ranged from 108 degrees to 120 degrees Fahrenheit (42 to 49 degrees Celsius). But the actual number of fatalities is expected to climb as governments get more accurate tallies of the deaths. (Egypt, for one, has officially acknowledged only 31 deaths.)In announcing the suspension of the 16 travel companies, the Egyptian government said the businesses failed to offer the pilgrims important services like medical care. It said the companies did not provide the pilgrims with “appropriate accommodation,” which caused them to suffer from “exhaustion due to the high temperatures.”Reuters reported that some travel agencies may not have officially registered for the pilgrimage, to get around the high costs of package tours. And, Reuters said, companies were being blamed for letting pilgrims travel to Saudi Arabia on personal visas, rather than hajj visas, which provide access to medical care and the holy sites.Mahmoud Qassem, a member of Egypt’s Parliament, said the travel companies “left the pilgrims stranded and turned off their mobile phones” so they could not hear the travelers’ calls for help.There were also complaints that pilgrims were not given access to enough cooling stations or water amid the intense heat.The number of unregistered visitors — in addition to the intense desert heat — could have left Saudi Arabia unprepared for dealing with such a large influx of people.Tunisia’s government has said that the death toll of pilgrims from that country was expected to rise from the 49 reported on Friday, as the number of people traveling on tourist visas became more clear.The hajj has been the site of several tragedies, including a stampede in 2015 that killed more than 2,200 people. In recent years, with rising temperatures, many pilgrims have also succumbed to heat stress.The Saudi government has said that during this year’s hajj, more than 1.8 million Muslims traveled to Mecca, 1.6 million of them from outside Saudi Arabia.Hager Al-Hakeem contributed reporting from Luxor, Egypt. More

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      Iran’s 2024 Presidential Election: What to Know

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      Iran will hold a special election later this month to replace former President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.Iran’s election for its next president will take place a year early, on June 28, after President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash last month. The vote will usher the Islamic republic into new leadership amid domestic discontent, voter apathy and regional turmoil.While the country’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has the final say on all state matters, the Iranian president sets domestic policy and has some influence over foreign policy.Watching a presidential debate on a screen this month in Tehran.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesWhy is this election important?The election gives the Iranian leadership the chance to show it can handle a disaster like the unexpected death of a president without destabilizing the country, even as it grapples with internal protests and tension with the United States and Israel.The election also allows the leadership to remind people that while Iran is a theocracy, it also holds elections for government positions such as president, members of Parliament and councils.That said, who is allowed to run for president is carefully controlled. And if, as expected, one of the more conservative candidates, close to the clerical leadership, wins, the government will most likely claim it as a victory for its brand of politics — despite the sharp constraints placed on the competition.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

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      Bloomberg Backs Biden With $20 Million Donation

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      Michael R. Bloomberg, who is the former mayor of New York City and a Democratic megadonor, has donated nearly $20 million to support President Biden’s re-election campaign, a Bloomberg representative said.Mr. Bloomberg gave $19 million to Future Forward, the main Democratic super PAC supporting Mr. Biden, and $929,600 to the Biden Victory Fund, a joint fund-raising committee between Mr. Biden and the Democratic National Committee, said Howard Wolfson, the Education program lead at Bloomberg Philanthropies.Mr. Bloomberg’s donation was first reported by The Washington Post.“I stood with Joe Biden in 2020, and I am proud to do so again,” Mr. Bloomberg said in a statement.Mr. Bloomberg, who spent $1 billion of his own money on his failed presidential campaign in 2020, ultimately backed Mr. Biden in the Democratic primary that year and was a significant financial supporter of his campaign. He spent tens of millions of dollars through his political action committee on television ads supporting Mr. Biden and vowed to spend heavily in Florida, which then-President Donald J. Trump ultimately won by about three percentage points.Mr. Bloomberg’s $19 million donation to Future Forward is significant, but pales in comparison to the super PAC’s spending ambitions for the election. The group has reserved a $250 million ad campaign in seven battleground states, starting in August and running through Election Day. More

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      Clearing a Final Hurdle, Dutch Leader Is Poised to Become NATO Chief

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      Mark Rutte, the Netherlands’ prime minister, is expected to be elected as the head of the military alliance after Romania’s candidate dropped out.Mark Rutte, the departing prime minister of the Netherlands who has guided more than $3 billion in Dutch military support to Ukraine since 2022, on Thursday clinched the last assurance he needed to become NATO’s next secretary general.On Thursday, President Klaus Iohannis of Romania dropped his bid to lead NATO, making it all but certain that Mr. Rutte, 57, would be formally elected to a four-year term at the helm of the Atlantic alliance.That could take place as soon as next week, ahead of a high-level NATO summit in Washington in July. The Netherlands is a founding member, and Mr. Rutte would be the fourth Dutch official to become the organization’s top diplomat.Even if that happens, he would not immediately assume responsibility for the 32-nation alliance. Mr. Rutte, who has been the leader of the Netherlands since 2010, remains prime minister in the country’s transitional government, and a diplomat who requested anonymity in line with protocol, said the current NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, was for now expected to stay until his term ends in October.Mr. Rutte has increasingly echoed a main NATO message that supporting Ukraine in its defensive war against Russia is vital for preserving democracy and national sovereignty across the alliance.“This war is not simply about defending the freedom of the Ukrainian people; it is also about protecting the freedom and security of the Netherlands,” Mr. Rutte is quoted as saying at the top of his government’s website. “So we will not abandon those most in need.”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

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      Ecuador Hit by Nationwide Blackout

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      The public works minister said the power outage had been caused by the failure of a key transmission line. Within hours, power had begun to be restored to the nation of 18 million.Ecuador was plunged into a nationwide blackout on Wednesday afternoon, and the country’s public works minister blamed the emergency on the failure of a key transmission line.The minister, Roberto Luque, said in a statement on X that he had received a report from the national electricity operator, CENACE, about “a failure in the transmission line that caused a cascade disconnection, so there is no energy service nationwide.”He said the authorities were working to resolve the outage “as quickly as possible.” Within hours, power had begun to return to some parts of Quito, the capital.The South American country of 18 million people has been struggling with an energy crisis for several years. Failing infrastructure, a lack of maintenance and a dependence on imported energy have all contributed to rolling blackouts — though none have been as widespread as this one.Around 3:15 p.m. Wednesday, the majority of Ecuadoreans found themselves without power.Most of the country’s energy comes from neighboring Colombia, a nation that has struggled to generate enough power for its own domestic consumption.A $2.25 billion Chinese-built hydroelectric power plant, the Coca Codo Sinclair Dam, was supposed to help solve Ecuador’s problem. Located on the Coca River in the province of Napo, 62 miles east of Quito, it is the largest energy project in Ecuador.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

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      What Happens When You Knock on 8,000 Doors

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      Milagros PicoIn 2018, the district judge for our area of south-central Montana was retiring and encouraged my husband, Ray, to run to fill his seat. Ray, a lawyer with 30 years of experience in civil and criminal practice, was new to politics. He expected to be the underdog. While all judicial races in the state are nonpartisan, we were not members of the dominant Republican Party. And we had lived in Montana for only 20 years, long enough to know we would still be considered newcomers.I told Ray: “They just need to get to know you. Then they’ll love you.”The district covers three rural counties, too big to gather all those voters together at a campaign event, so wooing them with Ray’s barbecued brisket was out. We would, we decided, go to them.Over six months, we knocked on the doors of over 8,000 registered voters from across the political spectrum. We didn’t know what to expect, but we certainly didn’t anticipate how eager people were to share very personal stories — not just eager, but, it seemed, compelled.There’s an immediate intimacy in having a conversation on someone’s doorstep. It is, after all, a threshold between public and private, but who would have thought that political canvassing would be so conducive to such unvarnished honesty? Perhaps because of the fracturing of our communities, we encountered an almost universal need to be witnessed and validated, to trust.Listening will not, alone, alleviate suffering — It has to be accompanied by, as a start, better access to public services. Neither is listening a magic cure for our political divisions. But I believe that any system in which some people feel they don’t matter is doomed to fail. I have no idea what it will take to heal our divisions, but I believe it will have something to do with sharing stories.Instead of talking about ourselves, we focused on the people we met. We would take note of some detail around the house, most often their gardens or their dogs — there were always dogs, big dogs and little dogs, an abundance of old and cherished dogs.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