At the Border, a Blending of Politics and Religion

For the most part on Tuesday, primary voters in seven states from New Jersey to California showed the limits of the ideological edges of both parties. A liberal district attorney, Chesa Boudin, was recalled in the most progressive of cities, San Francisco, but conservative candidates carrying the banner of former…

President Biden traveled on Thursday to North Carolina, a possible swing state in the fall election, to promote his efforts to replace toxic lead pipes as part of his administration’s program to expand and upgrade the nation’s network of roads, airports and other critical infrastructure. During a stop in Wilmington,…

A wave of gruesome killings of women across several African countries in recent weeks has prompted outrage and indignation, triggered a wave of protests and precipitated calls for governments to take decisive action against gender-based violence. Kenyans were shocked when 31 women were killed in January after they were beaten,…

Mexico’s Congress is usually meant to be a venue for solemn presentations on budgets and other serious legislation. But this week, lawmakers heard testimony from a self-proclaimed U.F.O. researcher who brought with him some unusual objects: two mummified specimens that he claimed were the bodies of extraterrestrial beings. Really. The…

Poking up through the snow drifts on the Finnish-Russian border lies a symbol of Moscow’s biggest provocation yet toward NATO’s newest member: a sprawling heap of broken bicycles. The battered bikes are sold for hundreds of dollars on the Russian side to asylum seekers from as far away as Syria…

One of the best birthday gifts I’ve ever received was a stack of four or five books, all published the year I was born. I hadn’t read John le Carré’s “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” but now I felt a connection to it; we’d both come into being at roughly the…