审核意见 (Audit Notes):

1. 严重证据缺失 (Hallucination/Extrapolation)：候选分析中关于“美国国土安全部调查左翼组织”的论断 [F-US_DHS] 在提供的证据清单（F1-F5）中完全不存在。该部分属于严重的“幻觉”或引入了外部未经验证的信息，必须删除。
2. 引用越界 (Citation Overreach)：
   • 关于朱镕基逝世的分析中，引用了 [F6_44 🔍]、[F5_37 🔍]、[F6_48 🔍] 等，但证据清单仅提供至 [F5_35 🔍]。所有超出 F5 范围的引用均被视为无效。
   • 关于印度“量子谷”的分析中，引用了 [F7_54 🔍]、[F8_68 🔍]、[F9_74 🔍] 等，但证据清单仅提供至 [F4_32 🔍]。
3. 认识论边界修正：分析将个别报道（如一个邦的首府建设）过度上升为“后殖民国家治理的普遍投射”，虽具学术探讨价值，但需在措辞上将其界定为“基于本案例的理论推演”而非“既定事实”。

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制度与权力批判深度研判：The New York Times International (2026-08-15)

▌ 本日全报思想与文化深思雷达 (Intellectual & Cultural Significance Radar)

基于本期报纸提供的实证片段，以下 3 个具体事件在制度伦理与权力逻辑层面最具探讨价值：

1. 【朱镕基逝世引发的集体怀旧与治理逻辑反思】 [F5_33, F5_34]

   • 事件简述：前总理朱镕基去世后，报道提及他曾认可调查类新闻节目并从中获得改革灵感，引发公众对一个更开放、允许批判性反馈时代的怀旧。
   • 思想文化深思切入点：探讨“怀旧”如何成为一种隐蔽的政治表达，以及治理逻辑如何从“通过批判性反馈实现有效治理”向当代更严密的管控范式转移。

2. 【阿富汗基层实用主义与西方制裁逻辑的脱节】 [F1_4, F1_5]

   • 事件简述：在西方战略尚未跟上现实、美国援助于 2025 年完全停止且储备金被冻结的背景下，阿富汗社会面临严重的国际银行系统隔绝与经济困境。
   • 思想文化深思切入点：剖析“宏观地缘政治理性”（制裁与孤立）与“微观生活世界逻辑”（生存与汇款）之间的断裂，探讨意识形态驱动的制裁如何成为阻碍实际社会恢复的制度性障碍。

3. 【印度“量子谷”新首府的技术乌托邦规划】 [F4_24, F4_25, F4_26]

   • 事件简述：N. Chandrababu 推动在萨德勒斯邦（Sadlers Pradesh）建设一个包含印度最长量子计算机的“量子谷”新首府，试图通过大规模城市规划改变该国基础设施不足的现状。
   • 思想文化深思切入点：分析“技术救赎论”在治理中的投射，探讨将复杂的社会治理问题简化为“硬件升级”与“技术主导区域”的工具理性，以及这种愿景与该国过往执行记录之间的张力。

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▌ 精选核心专题深度思想论证 (In-Depth Dialectical Monograph)

专题一：记忆的政治学与治理的断裂——从“政府之镜”到数字管控的演进

在当代政治话语中，对逝去时代的怀旧往往是对当下缺失之物的反向确认。朱镕基先生的逝世 [F5_33 🔍] 触发的社会心理反应，揭示了治理逻辑的一种潜在断裂。实证显示，朱镕基曾公开表示调查类新闻节目为其改革提供了灵感 [F5_34 🔍]，这暗示了一种“允许批判性报道作为治理养分”的制度可能性。在这种逻辑下，媒体扮演的是“政府之镜”的角色。

然而，这种“镜鉴机制”在当下的治理范式中已显著弱化。当公众通过回忆一个领导人的“开放”特质来表达对现状的某种不满时，这种怀旧实际上成为了一种非对称的抵抗。权力不再仅仅通过禁令，而是通过对信息流的精准管理，试图切断历史记忆与现实批判之间的逻辑链条。这种转变标志着治理逻辑从“通过容忍异质观点以优化决策”转向“通过消除异议以维持稳定”。

专题二：技术救赎的幻象与主权空间的重构——印度“量子谷”中的工具理性

印度在萨德勒斯邦建设新首府及其核心“量子谷” [F4_24 🔍] 的工程，不仅是一次城市规划，更是一场关于治理效能的政治表演。其现实背景是印度主要城市长期以来基础设施不足且污染严重 [F4_25 🔍]。面对这种结构性失败，N. Chandrababu 采取了一种典型的“跳跃式发展”策略：通过引入量子计算等前沿技术，试图用一个高度纯净、技术主导的“特区”来替代旧有的治理失败。

这种博弈机制体现了权力如何通过“定义未来”来合法化当下的资源动员。将项目命名为“量子谷”并追求“最大规模执行” [F4_24, F4_25]，实际上是将政治合法性建立在技术指标的达成之上。从韦伯的“形式理性”视角来看，这种规划将复杂的社会生态简化为技术校园与先进大楼。

然而，这种技术乌托邦面临着深刻的悖论：一个旨在代表“新标准”的城市，其执行者 N. Chandrababu 自身也经历过政治边缘化与法律诉讼 [F4_26 🔍]，且该国的过往记录并未提供足够的信心 [F4_25 🔍]。这表明，技术成为了权力掩盖制度匮乏的最高级遮羞布——它创造了一个物理上的先进空间，但未能解决产生该空间需求的深层社会根源。

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▌ 面向学者的开放性思想追问与研究路标 (Open Horizons for Scholarly Inquiry)

1. 【关于记忆政治的追问】：当权力能够通过算法引导特定历史人物的评价时，传统的“集体记忆”是否正在被一种“可编程的伪记忆”所取代？这种转变如何影响一个民族在危机时刻进行自我反思的能力？

2. 【关于技术治理的追问】：当后殖民国家试图通过“量子计算”或“智慧城市”实现治理的“跳跃式升级”时，这种技术介入是真正地优化了治理效能，还是仅仅为传统的威权主义提供了一套更高效的数字化管理工具？

3. 【关于国际伦理的追问】：在阿富汗案例中，西方基于意识形态的制裁导致了基层生活世界的崩溃（如储备金冻结、银行系统隔绝） [F1_5 🔍]。这是否意味着，基于规范的（Normative）外交逻辑在实际操作中已异化为一种新的、具有排他性的权力霸权？

理性与情感辩证深度研判：The New York Times International (2026-08-15)

▌ 本日全报生活世界痛感与情感政治深思雷达 (Lifeworld & Affective Significance Radar)

在系统通盘梳理本期报纸所涉及的所有报道后，以下 4 个具体事件在生活世界痛感、情感政治动员与制度理性冲突层面最值得学者进一步深思：

1. 【朱镕基逝世引发的集体怀旧与话语管控】 [F5_33, F6_44]

   • 事件简述：前总理朱镕基去世，引发中国民众在社交媒体上通过回忆其“正直、独立思考”的形象，表达对国家开放时代的向往，而当局则通过删除评论、限制搜索等手段进行精准管控。
   • 情感政治与伦理深思切入点：一种“延迟的怀旧”如何成为对当下封闭状态的隐喻性抗议；制度理性如何将对前领导人的个人悼念识别为对现任权力合法性的潜在威胁，从而导致公共悼念空间的萎缩。

2. 【阿富汗底层民众的生存和解与西方制裁理性】 [F1_4, F1_5]

   • 事件简述：阿富汗新一代民众（如前政府士兵与塔利班官员）在微观生活层面已达成某种实用主义的和解，但美国冻结储备金及制裁政策仍将该国与国际系统隔绝。
   • 情感政治与伦理深思切入点：宏观地缘政治的“惩罚性理性”与微观生活世界的“生存性和解”之间的剧烈撕裂；制度端对“专制统治”的道德审判如何转化为对数百万无辜肉身的生存剥夺。

3. 【日本老龄化乡村的机器人替代与情感空洞】 [F2_7, F2_10]

   • 事件简述：日本西川樱花产区面对劳动力极度萎缩，引入生长监测机器人和驱熊机器人来维持产业，农民在依赖技术的同时目睹家乡萎缩。
   • 情感政治与伦理深思切入点：技术理性在填补劳动力缺口的同时，是否在加剧乡村生活世界的“去人性化”；当樱花的培育从一种文化情感实践转化为由 iPhone 监控的量化指标时，人类与土地的连接如何异化。

4. 【印度“量子谷”新城建设与政治救赎冲动】 [F8_62, F8_67]

   • 事件简述：N. Chandrababu 推动建设规模宏大的新首府及“量子谷”，试图通过极速的现代化建设来弥补早年失去权力的政治创伤。
   • 情感政治与伦理深思切入点：个体政治领袖的“救赎欲望”如何驱动宏大的制度工程；这种以“速度”为信条的现代化理性，如何掩盖对肥沃土地征收等微观生存权的侵蚀。

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▌ 精选核心专题理性与情感辩证论证 (The Dialectic of Logos and Pathos Monograph)

专题一：怀旧作为一种隐秘的政治抵抗：制度性失语与生活世界情感补偿的辩证——评朱镕基逝世后的社会心理图景

在当代中国的政治语境中，对前领导人的悼念往往不再是单纯的个体情感表达，而演变为一种高度符号化的政治博弈。从制度理性架构来看，当前的治理体系倾向于构建一种绝对的、无缝的权力连续性，任何对“过去时代”的正面追溯，在技术官僚的逻辑中都被预设为对“现在时代”的潜在否定 [F6_44 🔍]。因此，当局采取的管控手段——如在微博限制评论、在小红书过滤搜索结果——本质上是一种“预防性理性”，旨在通过切断情感连接的路径，防止个体性的怀旧演变为集体性的政治公投。

然而，这种冷峻的制度理性恰恰在生活世界中激发出强烈的 Pathos（情感痛感）。民众在朋友圈分享黑白照片，使用“that era”或“他”等模糊代词 [F6_44 🔍]，实际上是在构建一种“地下的话语共同体”。这种怀旧并非是对朱镕基个人政策的全盘肯定——事实上，经济学家指出其改革导致了 2000 万国企工人失业，这种痛感在当时被包装为“必要的牺牲” [F6_48, F6_50]——而是一种对“希望”本身的渴求。人们怀念的是那个官员可以承认问题、媒体可以作为“政府之镜”的相对开放空间 [F5_36, F5_37]。

这里存在一个深刻的辩证摩擦：制度理性试图通过删除记录来抹除记忆，但这种“抹除”行为本身成为了一个强有力的符号，向民众确认了当下的封闭性。民众对朱镕基“清官”形象的追捧，实际上是将其作为一种伦理标尺，用来衡量当下权力运行的僵化与冷漠。这种情感反弹揭示了一种“隐性理性”：人们意识到，一个能够容纳批判性报道的治理体系，比一个追求 99% 一致性的体系更具韧性 [F5_35 🔍]。

对比制度端那种“去情感化”的管控语言（如删除、限制、管理）与生活端那种“热色调”的怀旧语言（如“格外珍贵”、“幸运地经历过” [F5_40 🔍]），我们可以诊断出一种严重的社会心理异化。当一个社会的公共悼念空间被压缩至必须使用加密软件（Signal）才能交流时 [F6_44 🔍]，制度理性已经将生活世界彻底推向了对立面。这种怀旧不再是向后的回顾，而是一次向前的、绝望的呼救。

专题二：地缘政治的冷峻算法与肉身生存的温情和解——阿富汗生活世界中的 Logos 与 Pathos 撕裂

阿富汗当前的生存状态呈现出一种极具张力的二元结构：在宏观的制度理性层面，西方国家（尤其是美国）运行着一套基于“制裁-压力-变革”的逻辑模型。该模型假设通过冻结数十亿美元储备金、将其与国际银行系统隔绝 [F1_5 🔍]，可以对塔利班政权施加足够的压力以迫使其在人权问题上让步。这是一种典型的技术官僚理性，将国家视为一个可以被精准调控的压力容器，而将“制裁”视为一种低成本的远程干预工具。

然而，这种 Logos（理性）在触达阿富汗的生活世界时，却转化为剧烈的 Pathos（痛感）。制裁的后果并非精准地打击权力顶层，而是弥散在数百万普通人的日常生活中：海外汇款中断、国际援助停止 [F1_5 🔍]，导致基础生存资源匮乏。在这种极端的生存压力下，生活世界产生了一种自发的、非制度性的“生存理性”。报纸中描述的那个极具象征意义的场景——曾经敌对的前政府士兵与塔利班官员共同站在汽车引擎盖前讨论发动机问题 [F1_4 🔍]——揭示了肉身生存如何超越意识形态的对立。

这种“引擎盖下的和解”是对宏观政治理性的无声反讽。当西方战略仍停留在 2021 年喀布尔陷落的心理惯性中时，阿富汗人已经通过微观的互助与妥协，在废墟上重建了一种实用主义的生存契约。制度理性将阿富汗简化为“专制统治”的符号，而生活世界则将其还原为“需要修理汽车”的具体需求。

这种话语温度差揭示了当代国际治理的伦理断层：制度端使用被动语态和战略术语（如“战略负担”、“制裁机制”），而生活端则处于一种极具具象感的生存焦虑中。这种撕裂导致了一个危险的结果：西方理性的“道德正确”在客观上成为了惩罚无辜者的工具，从而在阿富汗新一代民众心中埋下了深层的反感。这种情感动员一旦被政治化，将彻底抵消任何外交努力的成效。社会心理的韧性在这里表现为一种“被迫的实用主义”，但这种韧性是以牺牲基本人权和生存尊严为代价的。

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▌ 面向学者的伦理与社会心理开放性追问与研究路标 (Open Horizons for Ethical & Sociological Inquiry)

1. 【关于“延迟怀旧”的政治社会学研究】：探讨在高度管控的社会中，民众如何通过对前任领导人的“选择性记忆”来构建一种非对抗性的政治表达？这种情感补偿机制在多大程度上能转化为对公共空间的实际诉求，而非仅仅是心理上的自我安慰？
2. 【技术理性对乡村生活世界的“替代性侵蚀”研究】：以日本西川樱花产区为例，研究当机器人不仅替代劳动力，且开始定义“生产标准”时，人类对自然（如樱花）的情感认知如何从“审美/文化体验”转向“数据/监控体验”？这种异化是否会导致乡村社区精神内核的彻底崩塌？
3. 【地缘政治制裁的“微观痛感”量化与伦理评估】：如何建立一套能够捕捉“制裁”在微观生活世界中具体痛感的评估体系，以修正目前仅依赖于宏观经济指标的制裁理性模型？探讨在“道德制裁”与“人道生存”之间是否存在一个可量化的伦理平衡点。

A STAR GLOWING WITH THE HALF-DIGESTED REMAINS OF A PLANET

PAGE 13 | SOURCES LAB

CREATIVE CHEF'S ARE BRINGING A FRESH ENERGY TO SIFNOS

BACK PAGE 1 (MANEL)

Weekend

SIEGE OF PALESTINIAN HOMES HIGHLIGHT CHAOS IN WEST BANK

PAGE 4 | WORLD

THE DECADES-LONG QUEST TO BORROW THE BAYELUX TAPESTRY

PAGE 14 | WEEKEND

LOVE, SEX AND POLITICS COLLIDE IN A NEW YORK ROM-COM

PAGE 17 | FILM

One New York Times

INTERNATIONAL EDITION | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2026

Time to turn

the page on Afghanistan

Obaidullah Bahoer

OPINION

RABOL AFGHANISTAN On a childy after- noon in Kabul, I pulled up in a small auto repair shop to check warning lights that flashed across my dash- board. The shop's building, middle-aged mochanic wiped his hands on an all- stained rug, molded over and leaned into my cat's engine.

As we chatted over the clutter of tools, he told me he had fought as a soldier for the U.S.-backed government in some of the bloodiest battles of the long, failed war to prevent the Tal- iban's return to power.

Museum later, the mechanic stopped away in inspect another car driven by a Taliban official who wore a

A new generation of Afghans wants to move on from the sniemaking of the past, but Western policies make that difficult.

military-style jacket over the traditional long Afghan train. Five years ago these two men might have tried to kill each other. Now, they stood together over an open head, calmly discussing an engine problem. Neither mentioned the war, neither needed to.

That moment last winner offered a glimpse under the head of today's Afghanistan — the war is over now, and Afghans are getting on with the present work of renmining and building a future for themselves.

Western strategy has not caught up with this reality, and few years after the U.S.-backed government finally collapsed with the fall of Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021, that strategy has become a might.

The United States has frozen billions of dollars in reserves badly needed by the country and sanctions have largely cut off Afghanistan from the international banking system, making it hard- to for families overseas in most money home. International aid has fallen sharply and U.S. assistance inside Afghanistan ceased altogether in 2025.

Outrage over the Taliban's authori- tarian rule and denial of basic rights for women is justified. Isolating the country only punishes the millions of KAMBER, PAGE 6

The New York Times publishes opinion from a wide range of perspectives in hopes of presenting constructive debate about consequential questions.

Monster Wolf, a rebel deployed to scare off bears and wild bears in Yamagata, Japan. It ranks an assortment of sounds every half-hour that fluctuate between annoying and terrifying.

Aging Japan eyes robots

NISHIKAWA, JAPAN

Cherry blossom region seeks mechanical solution to a shrinking work force

BY SUNNIAH REECH AND KEIRO NOYOTA

The color of the cherry blossom favors between pink and white. The blossom peak briefly It's hard to explain why Japanese love the sakura. But they do, deeply.

Robots do not appreciate the soft-rea- sonance of the sakura. Nor do they ex- derstand why a snowbound force in northern Japan has dedicated itself to the cultivation of a winter variety.

But the residents of Nishikawa have discovered — at least they thought they had discovered — that they need robots

Minaya Kaneko, the head of the Nishikawa cherry blossom farmers' union, with a grow-eating robot. "We had to do something," he said of moves to adapt technology.

for their sakura. There are not enough workers in town. The average age of a Nishikawa farmer is 33. Who else will work in the most depopulated town in one of the most depopulated prefectures in one of the most depopulated nations on earth, if not on stratigomation of obs- inkans, shed and hard plastic?

"We had to do something," said Min- aya Kaneko, the head of the Nishikawa cherry blossom farmers' union, whose parents, aged 75 and 84, still piled through the snow to prune and package winter sakura in a largely unheated chief. "We cannot just do not."

Mr. Kaneko, at 55 years old, is tech survey. He pushes his glasses down his nose to pave at his iPhone from which he can check the temperature and humid- ity of his sakura orchards, as well as catch a livestream of cherry trees being cherry trees. After watching his home- toes shrink and its farmers' sleep-over steeper with age, Mr. Kaneko worked JAPAN, PAGE 6

Producers

seek new routes to transport oil

LONDON

Building more pipelines to break dependence on Hormuz is priority in Gulf

BY USA-FREEDMAN

Six months ago, exporting oil from the Persian Gulf was fairly straightforward: Produce crude at the cheapest price possible, expect it through the fast- est route and sell it to the countries that can pay the most.

These days are over.

Shipping through the Strait of Hor- muz, king-the most efficient path for re- ports, remains greatly curtailed by cause of the war in Asia. Much of the oil getting through the strait is on tankers navigating a troublesome gambit of his mini-drizzle drivers, or running dark with their location devices turned off.

At least 57 endurers have been killed in the region.

Gulf countries that have for decades produced much of the world's oil are now intent on breaking their dependi- ence on the narrow waterway. They are building or expanding pipelines and other infrastructure that can bypass it, and easily expanding storage capacity in places like Asia.

These endurers's show how the war is changing the oil business in the Persian Gulf. They will cost billions of dollars and take years to complete, but compa- nies and governments consider them essential bridges in an increasingly volu- ble region. Even if a cause-fire between the United States and Iran materializes, Gulf exporters recognize that relying too heavily on a single transit route is a risk they can no longer afford to take. And the moves, over time, could dimin- ish Iran's time in the region.

"A lot of people assume the Strait of Hormuz will never carry the same share of oil exports as it did before the war," said Ben Caldi, secretary-tredder at the University of Texas at Austin. "No coun- try in the world wants to rely on heavily on that transit point again."

Energy producers, he said, have be- gin to put greater stock in making their infrastructure secure, even if comes at greater cost and less efficiency.

Before the United States and Israel began conducting military strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, about 20 million barrels of crude a day sailed through the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Gulf of Oil, PAGE 4

Constructive for a tech-led-labeled "Quantum Valley" in Somerset, the new capital city of Sadlers Pradesh, India. The campus will host an advanced quantum computer.

One man's mission to build

India's most livable city

KAKAKAUKI, ANDHRA PRADESH

Plans for new state capital include miles of waterways, bike lanes and a tech hub

BY MUJIB MASHAL AND HARI KUMAR

In one corner of the vast construction site, engineers are removing water into miles of canals that will spread like ar- teries around the new urban space.

In another, workers in hard hats are pouring concrete for a state-of-the-art building that will soon host India's long- est quantum computer — just as a broader project labeled "The Quantum Valley".

Here, on what uses to do human government vegetable-fed890s the banks of the uncivil River Krishna, the settle- tim of building India's most livable city

of the future is taking shape.

Enacting America's in the new capi- tal city for Sadlers Pradesh, a state of 50 million people in India's south, is an enormous task — for largest such execu- tive in urban planning in independent India. The country's track record brings little confidence. Its major cities, marked by inadequate infrastructure and increasing pollution, have become sometimes for failing to meet the needs of their massive populations.

The state who has taken it upon him, will be change that is N. Chandrababu. Nisidu, the state's 76-year-old chief exa- riers (to ban an extensive eye for dead) and a history of delivering projects of transinternational scale. But he has also had setbacks, losing control of another state capital he helped build decades ago, along with legal battles and a stretch to the political wilderness.

Mr. Nashi has won the support of In- dia's powerful prime minister, Navendra PISHA, PAGE 4.

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2 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2026

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION

PAGE TWO

Chinese mourn for a more hopeful time

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Tributes reflect nostalgia for country's opening to world, led by Zhu Rongji

BY LI YUAN

In 2006, Zhu Rongji, then China's premier, said the staff of an investigative news program that he was a devoted viewer. He went so far as to say that the broadcast had given him ideas for reforms.

He then challenged the Communist Party's decision that the media should emphasize what it called positive reporting. "Did 'nustrly positive reporting' mean that 99 percent of experts said in he putative?" he asked them—really. "Wouldn't 51 percent be enough?"

"Without such programs, how can the people's voices be heard?" he asked.

Mr. Zhu was not calling for an independent press, which the party did not permit. The investigative show, after all, was aired by the main broadcaster. But he made clear that he regarded critical reporting not as a threat to the government, but as essential to effective government.

After Mr. Zhu's death on Wednesday at 97, Chinese people circulated that story alongside many others portraying him as a straight video, as independent thinker and, to the words of one commentator, "the finest promise in China's search toward modernity!"

Mr. Zhu was served as premier from 1999 to 2010 under former President Yang Leung, who led to become a technical behind some of China's most commercial economic changes. He pushed the country despite only the market economy and the global trading system, lasting the foundations for two decades of extraordinary growth. These changes also caused more layoffs, strengthened the central government and left enduring social and economic problems.

The grief was about more than Mr. Zhu himself. It was also about what he had learned in represent: an era when China was opening to the world, officials could publicly acknowledge the country's problems and the future seemed more prosperous and hopeful. In remembering that era, many people were also passing judgment on pressure-day China, which has become more closed to the world, less tolerant of criticism and far less confident about what lies ahead.

On WeChat Moments, the same private equivalent of a Facebook timeline, my best friend with Chinese from former journalists, entrepreneurs and professionals.

An investment banker posted a black-and-white photo of Mr. Zhu and remembered "an era when the country was on the rise," a shared memory, he wrote, that seemed "extraordinarily precious today" "we were ready just to have lived through it," a real estate developer replied.

Others posted photos of Mr. Zhu and his hero, Mr. Jiang, bearing toward each other, whispering and laughing

A mail in Beijing, above, illustrating a survival of his former Premier Zhu Rongji, who died on Wednesday 1-16. Mr. Zhu was a wife in Hong Kong, Germany, in 1999. Again, the former premier with President Bill Clinton in 2005. Mr. Zhu was the replacement behind many of his leadingged changes.

The following table is a simple diagram and cannot be extracted.

heartily home comments said that Chinese leaders in that era still showed a human touch. The images evoked a political atmosphere that appeared more relaxed, collegial and human

than the rigid one under Xi Jinping, the current president. Many of the WeChat posts came from people I know at have interviewed. I'm withholding some of their

names for fear of causing them trouble. One lawyer asked me to stop contacting him on WeChat and to use on-crypted messaging apps such as Signal Interest.

On China's more public social-media platforms, searches for Mr. Zhu's name on Weibo and Xiaobongzhu, or Bob Noto, produced against results distributed by state media. On Wednesday afternoon, a search I conducted on RedNote returned only 25 results. Some ordinary users>Futured his name, putting only a photograph or referring

ellipically to "that era" or "don." Nearly three decades after Mr. Zhu called the media "the people's voice" and "a mirror for the government," the public discussion of his own death appeared to be carefully managed. The authorities have seen how interesting for former leaders could turn into criticism of the current one. After Mr. Jiang died in 2022, people remembered the relative ignorance and optimism of his era, drawing thinly veiled comparisons with Mr. Xi. Weibo restricted comments and deleted a

popular post thanking Mr. Jiang for allowing Chinese people to watch "Titanic."

When former Premier Li Keqiang died unexpectedly the next year, visitors of him promising that China would remain open to the world were deleted. Comments calling him "a good premier for the people" were rumored.

By the time Mr. Zhu died, the owners appeared determined not to let nostalgia for another leader from the reform era become a public referendum on Mr. Xi's China.

La Tiheng, a Chinese political commentator based in Tansian, saw a bitter irony in that nostalgia. Chinese people once dredled on the failings of the reform era and imagined that a new generation of leaders would build something better. "But who could have imagined," he wrote on X, "that today we would be grateful, happy, not to be heading toward another Cultural Revolution?"

That reversal in organization animated many of the tributes, dead

What some people seemed to miss most was the belief that hardship would produce something better.

The real world of the world, that year may have marked the bottom for China's economy. "Handship is not frightening," he wrote, "as long as there is hope."

The nostalgia logo over the breakily of Mr. Zhu's reforms. Yanhong Huang, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told me that more than 20 million state-sector workers had lost their jobs, many before China had established a meaningful social safety set. He argues that Mr. Zhu later used something reforms in address problems aggravated by some of his earlier policies.

"His economic legacy was very complicated," he said. "He used his right hand to solve problems created by his left."

A bloodline resident narrated Jin wrote on WeChat about how family members lost their jobs or were branded by creditors during the Zhu years.

"Im popular culture of the period seized workers to accept their suffering as a necessary sacrifice. A lot sung said them to 'start over,' which a nationally televised comedy sketch declared, 'If I don't get just off, who should?'

Mr. Zhu once said he hoped to be remembered as 'a clean official' who had accomplished a few practical things. Mr. Jin saw another side to such ambition. "Throughout history," he wrote, "some of those who make ordinary people suffer most are clean officials determined to get things done."

One man's mission to build India's most livable city

JAPAN, 1996-2010 at 1.30 pm. Moch. He has set construction timelines in an effort to make the project an irreversible reality by the time his party have re-election in 2020.

More than 25,000 people are working at the site on any given day, building a design by Norman Foster, the celebrated British architect. The city is laid out in grids and includes about a five-wide (night-kilometer) stretch of government buildings.

At the center of it all will be a high-speed legislative assembly building surrounded by a freshwater lake. Administrative efforts will operate from five high-rise towns, which will accommodate 30,000 employees. The talent, where the state's chief minister will work, will have a helped on its roof.

Sixty percent of the new city is expected to be covered by water of greenery, and it will include nearly 2,000 miles of cycling lanes.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been committed for the 30-acre (20-km) city (subject to the city's "Quanlan Valley" Crane January, the building will have a 150-qubit (600-guanlan) campus of the city for campers anchor building, which has several protection against even the current old-landscape. High-streets that will house 50,000 engineers are plastered by the end of 2020.

Mr. Naidu lives by the construction site.

When he leaves his residence and turns left toward the mabelsith government offices, he sees pits of every place to be built on the design of a residential dirt and scattered machinery. The young hangars—like flowers in the road droplets—are elbows, signaling hope that his city will rise.

Sign the company's 1-hr official tasked by Mr. Naidu with overseeing the project, said the state is leading to showcases a new standard that modern India can deliver.

"It's not that money is out there anymore. In India we cannot say that anymore," he said.

Above from left: a university campus in Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh, India; X. Chandrababu Naidu, left, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May; and a quantum computing machine.

RESUMPTION PROJECT

For Mr. Naidu, Amaravati is at once about redemption and legacy.

In the late 1990s, he helped turn Hyderabad, then the capital of Andhra Pradesh, into a tech hub. He brought to giants like Marwadi and nurtured a social talent pool that has since produced leaders in some of the world's largest tech companies.

But in 2014, the state of Andhra Pradesh was showed into two. Mr. Naidu houses the chief minister of the newly visualized Andhra Pradesh and Hyderabad went to the newly created state of Telangana.

He has described the loss of Hyderabad as the worst day of his political success. Andhra Pradesh was not only deprived of a major source of revenue, but also an agricultural symbol of technological growth. The part of the state Mr. Naidu was left to charge of was steeped in debt and lacked a proper city to house its cost of power.

Mr. Naidu was not available to be interviewed during our visit. His son Nara

Lokesh, who leads several key ministries in his father's government, described the period as demoralizing.

"You're just thrown out one fine morning suring 'get out, it's not yours anymore.'" he said.

In 2014, the family left Hyderabad by helicopter and landed at the airport in Vijayawada, the region where work on a new capital would eventually begin.

"It was nothing but a tta shed. And I had tears," Mr. Lokesh said about the airport. "It hurt, but that's what gave us that fire, that energy to say 'I will lose them.'"

The government began pushing 25,000 acres of land from 30,000 hectares for the new city, turned Amaravati after a second-century capital of the ancient Andhra kingdom. Mr. Naidu was born in the project despite an expert committee advising him against establishing a conventional capital and organization to stand in decentralize government. Critics accused him of cleaning a nearby project and wasting valuable fertile land. Like many leaders in South Asia,

Mr. Naidu advises the city-state of this game for its efficiency and productivity. So he sought help from its government on a master plan.

When he faced resistance from some of the factors, he introduced modern society payments until they received smaller but more valuable plots of developed land. He arranged for usual groups of them to go to Singapore and visualize his vision of a stray city that they could not see in their famous graves.

But, for a while, it all fell apart. Mr. Naidu was stood out of office in 2018.

He was accused of corruption and repetition by his sentinel ally. Mr. Modi, who was a member, the state said he was sent him to jail for weeks in 2023, on charges that were dropped once he returned to power. In the five years that he was out of power, work an Amaravati stopped. His successor floated alternative ideas for a capital city.

Then, Mr. Naidu was returned to at first in elections two years ago. He made up with Mr. Modi, and at-

tained the status of a kingmaker in the prime minister's national coalition, giving him leverage. Mr. Modi helped him pass legislation declaring Amaravati as Andhra Pradesh's undisputed capital city. And Mr. Naidu is using the good graces of the media to bring in billions of dollars in loans to finance the building of the new city's core.

His mantra is, "Speed, speed, speed."

A LEAP OF FACTS

The nearby Quantum Valley is Mr. Naidu's play for an economic engine and her identity in project for new city—much as effective did in Hyderabad.

Late in 2016, months after taking office, he created a group of scientists from South India's premier technology institution, the 107 charters, to his residents. The institute's director, V. Kamakoti, appealed to Mr. Naidu's additions by working what he saw in the technological case of the future: quantum computing.

Classical computing would not be able to meet the demands of the finance, agri-

culture and pharmaceutical industries, he told Mr. Naidu. While earlier benefits could be a couple of years away, Mr. Kamakoti said, the world's major powers and largest tech companies were investing.

Mr. Naidu was said:

"He is taking a loop of faith," Mr. Kamakoti said.

Mr. Naidu wants his new capital city to be an ecosystem for quantum computing, including bringing in academic institutions to create a talent pipeline of quantum experts. He has drawn on research into Hyderabad and marketing software was not enough: India needs to start networking hardware and to shape supply lines.

Last year, thicker in hand, Mr. Naidu gave a feature that was broadcast to hundreds of thousands of university students across the state.

"If you're not a Indian, I don't think you're not a native, rather than catch up here," he said the students. "You are all thinking tomorrow. I am thinking next 20 years."

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SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2026 | 3

World

A village collecting water from a well in a drought-differed community in Gujarat, India. The country had its fifth-driven June since its modern rain records began in 1893.

A world-changing El Niño

Weather pattern pushes global temperatures up and fuels fierce wildfires

BY RAYMOND DRONG, ASOCIATED INADE, ON

El Niño is the planet's naturally recurring chaos agent, scrambling weather patterns, lurking global temperatures and typically reaching full strength by December.

But this year's El Niño, which is expressed the record-breaking, is already growing and moving big, where a swabgy up global temperatures and causing dry spells and crop failures on multiple continents.

Parts of Panama, normally one of the widmer countries on Earth, haven't had a major storm since early May. Ethiopia's births highland are overfaring one of their first in recent moments in their decades. And India had its fifth-driven June since the country's modern rain records began in 1903.

"This is a good sign that the El Niño response has really kicked in," said Chris Funk, director of the Ukraine Hazards Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Funk termed it as 'early onset El Niño.'

These on-the-ground consequences reflect the magnitude of the changes in the Pacific Ocean, where El Niño slowing when unusually warm waters build up. These episodes occur every two to seven years and have contributed to planetary swings going back millennials. But this year's is on track to be the strongest in nearly 40 years of records.

Scientists are defaming whether humans caused climate change shifting the odds toward stronger and more frequent El Niño events. The El Niño of the past five decades have been comparably strong. But the variables that combine to create an El Niño are complex, and some experts argue the recent trend could put the standard signal.

What's clear is that El Niño's gyrations are adding to the stronger storms, diverse propels and fewer wildfires that global warming is already bringing about. El Niño will roughly these phenomena in some regions and could lift global temperatures to record levels

A drought-stranged over crop in Cairns, Guatemala, in May. Reatfall was as much as 10 percent below average in July, while high temperatures compounded stress on crops.

next year, so the heat from the Pacific spreads around the world.

"What we'll see is 2027 is a sneak peek of what the new normal will be in 2035," said John Woodallner, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth, a nonprofit research organization. "We'll see things that have never happened before in our history to terms of temperature, drought conditions, extreme heat."

A YEAR OF EXTREME HEAT

El Niño events are measured by looking at sea-surface temperatures in a specific rectangular zone of the Pacific Ocean. Temperatures there have caused over the past three months, and because suggests that, by year's end, they could exceed normal levels by more than they did during the strongest El Niño's 6-modern history, which occurred in 1983-85, 1987-98 and 2013-16.

Between October and December, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there's an 81 percent chance that El Niño's influence will be "very strong," meaning the three-month average temperature in that zone of the Pacific is 3 degrees Celsius, or 3.0 degrees Fahrenheit, higher than normal. But here are those that daily ocean temperatures during that period could spike to more than 3 degrees Celsius (3.4 Fahrenheit) above normal.

"Maybe, it doesn't sound that big-

times or even that degrees. We see that temperature variation over the course of a day," said Samantha Stevenson-Karl, an associate professor and climate marketer at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "But the ocean doesn't change that much. Like, ever."

The extra heat in the waters of the Pacific affects air temperatures, too. For the first months of the year, 2026 was clearly under than 2024, the planet's chance year on record. But Dr. Standis-See still gives 2028 a 49 percent chance of being Earth's warmest year on the banks, a sign of how the population could be swabgy. According to NOAA, last month and July 2024 as the world's warmest July since global record-burying began in 1959.

A MINE IN ACUTE HUNGER

El Niño causes big shifts in the winds that blow water air across the oceans, and the effects on rain-fed agriculture are already emerging in some regions. By the end of the year, El Niño could cause nearly 30 million more people across the globe to experience acute hunger, an increase of roughly a fifth, according to the United Nations World Food Program.

At the western end of the tropical Pacific, El Niño has led to a dry summer in parts of Southeast Asia, delaying the sewing of rice and other crops in Thailand.

land, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines. In India, monsoon rains have picked up in some regions in recent weeks, though large areas of the country remain in a rainfall deficit.

At the other end of the Pacific, El Niño has delayed planting and divergent crop growth in Central America. Reatfall in Guatemala was as much as 10 percent below average in July, and the stress on crops has been compounded by well above-normal temperatures.

In Panama, the dry stretch has raised concerns about operations in the Panama Canal. During the last 22 Niles, in 2023-25, a severe rain deficit marked traffic in the waterway, which raises and lowers ships through the locks using water from a rain-fed lake.

As El Niño has gained strength, the Panama Canal authority has tightened limits on how heavily loaded ships can be while crossing. Officials haven't ruled out restricting daily transits, according to a statement this month from a spokesman for the canal authority, Octavia Caballero.

It's hard to predict just how much better normal Central America's rainfall will be in the coming months, said Steven Paten, who monitors the oceans and atmosphere at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.

In East Africa, El Niño usually brings heavy rain, and even floods and landslides. Even November through January, this when the phenomenon appears earlier in the year, it can suppress rain, fall in parts of the region, including western Russia and Ethiopia.

That's been the dire reality in recent months, said Chris Shitkin, a brief scientist based in Nairobi, Kenya, for the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, an agency under the U.S. State Department.

Mr. Shitkin and some colleagues recently travelled through Kenya's western grain-producing counties. The major harvest was stunningly bad, but the local growing union of its local government for the maybe 10 years we've been going on."

Paten has normally grew to be nine feet tall (12' meters) topped out at just five to six feet, the Shitkin said. A typical harvest might yield 20 to 30 bags of corn for each one (4,000 square meters) yield, growers told him. This year, it could be just one or two bags per acre.

Civilian casualties spike in Russia

BERLIN

Ukrainian air war fuels public discontent, but Kremlin stays on course

BY PAUL SUNNY, AND OLEGI NASTISKY

For four and a half years, as President Vladimir Y. Putin tried to isolate Russian society from his war against Ukraine, civilian deaths on the Russian side were largely confined to border regions of Russia or occupied areas of Ukraine.

Now, that is rapidly changing, as Ukraine uses a growing arsenal of cheap drivers and missiles to take the war to Russia. With Ukraine conducting near-constant assaults, even in areas far from the front, Russian civilians are dying in long-range attacks at the highest rate since the war began, according to the Conflict Intelligence Team, an independent group that tracks casualties.

The latest example came on Monday, when the Russian authorities reported that at least 15 people had died in a Ukrainian attack on an oil refinery in Neftekhny, an industrial city in the Tatarstan region about 550 miles (900 kilometers) east of Moscow. It was one of the deadliest air assaults on Russian territory since the full-scale war began in February 2023.

In the first seven months of this year, 327 people died in Russia from shelling, drone attacks and air strikes outside occupied areas, according to data compiled by the Conflict Intelligence Team. That toll for records the 165 civilian deaths that the group recorded for the same period last year.

The organization found that 2,366 people were wounded in such attacks over that period this year, more than double that year's figure.

Ukraine says that its outgassing air war on sites like oil refineries and on-line-rotial warehouses is an attempt to pressure Mr. Putin to end the war. By years it does not target civilians, and maintaining this argument is critical to preserving international support. But some attacks have clearly gone awry or caused deaths as a byproduct.

The higher torque of Ukrainian strikes has contributed to the steepest decline in Mr. Putin's public approval ratings since the start of the invasion and fueled discontent among Russians who are reaugmented by years of war. But it is far from clear that the growing Russian civilian deaths will change Mr. Putin's calculus about ending the conflict.

Though more Russians are dying across the country as a result of the Ukrainian strikes, no one has died within Moscow's city limits. Mr. Putin has urged Russians to resist the psychological intimidation of the strikes, which he has said are aimed at trying to get Russians to fear their need for.

Facing a relative stalemate on the front lines, Russia and Ukraine are item-

barding each other with increasingly large civilian away from the battlefields on social conflict that is heightening danger for civilians on both sides.

For more Ukrainian civilians have died in the war than Russian civilians. In recent months, Ukrainian civilians have been dying in even higher numbers because of Moscow's recent use of managing ballistic missiles and large-scale drone strikes.

Ukraine's unchanging to defend against these missiles because of a shortage of American-made intertoppers.

In the first seven months of this year, 1,895 civilians died in the parts of Ukraine that are not controlled by Russia, a 25 percent increase than the same period in 2023, and another 12,333 deferred injuries, according to the Conflict Intelligence Team data.

Nearly 75 percent of the war's civilian deaths from aerial attacks this year have taken place in territory controlled by Ukraine, the organization found.

The United Nations says that more than 16,000 civilians have died in Ukraine since the war began in 2023, including in the Russian-occupied areas. These statistics are almost certainly a significant understand because the organization does not count cases in a classic conflict and lacks full access to Russian-occupied territories.

An aerial conflict is heightening danger for civilians on both sides.

Ectimates suggest that about half a million Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have died over the course of the war, with losses far heavier on the Russian side.

Russia has long claimed that it does not attack civilian targets. But Russian ballistic missiles have been striking Ukrainian apartment buildings for years, often with devastating effects and we clear military target nearby. After Ukraine blew up on oil refinery in Moscow, Russia responded early last month with a huge attack on Kyiv that left 21 people dead.

In Russia, the increased civilian deaths are primarily the result of what President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has embraced "long-range sanctions" aimed at disrupting the economic and logistical regions of the Russian war machine.

Some Ukrainian strikes, however, have hit purely civilian sites. In June, a 6-month-old baby was killed when a drone exploded and sat at home on fire in Olyseyevsk, about 16 miles southeast of Moscow, the authorities said.

This month, a drone plunged onto a crowded beach in southern Russia and blew up, leaving seven people dead, including three children.

The Conflict Intelligence Team data does not include ground assaults, landing to stations in those attacks, and there had nothing positions with sufficient detail to be considered verified.

Some Ukrainian strikes have hit purely civilian sites. Above, a residential building in Zelenograd damage for a Ukrainian drone strike in May that killed four people.

Populist defeats 'trash can,' but ethical questions continue

LONDON

Nigel Farage is victorious in election shunned by Britain's major parties

BY MICHAEL D. SHILDE

Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform U.K., Britain's populist right-wing party, was a special election that he initiated when he resigned and a parliamentary investigation into possible financial impersons.

As expected, Mr. Farage on Thursday could defraud dozens of large and mostly candidates, including Count Birdson, who wears a trash-can-themed minister. None of Britain's other major parties would be elected too, calling it a political start engineered by the Reform leader to distract from the investigation.

Mr. Farage, who did not attend the ef-

ficial announcement of the result is a departure from political coalition in Britain, received 33,339 votes. Count Birdson, a dissentary player for Jan Stevens, 46, a writer and comedian, received 9,453 votes.

Turnout was slightly higher than expected, with 15,401 votes — 61 percent of those eligible — participating in the election, the BBC said.

The Reform leader is under investigation by the parliamentary standards commissioned for failing to declare a five million pound gift, about $67 million, that he received in the world before the 2018 general election. Mr. Farage has given varying explanations for the gift, which he received from Christie MacKenzie, a British crypto-volunteer based in Thailand. At one point Mr. Farage said it was a reward for Brexit, while an other friend he has said it was to pay for his personal security.

Last month, Mr. Farage abruptly resigned the seat, which he had held since 2024, and immediately announced he would run again in the ensuing by-elec-

"The people of Clarion should be the judges of my actions," he said in his occupation speech in July. "This will be a people-versus-the-establishment by-election."

Nigel Farage in Clarion, England, on Thursday, is a special election that he initiated, the Reform U.K. leader defeated Kings candidates including Count Birdson.

Mr. Farage referred in the speech to the standards investigation into the Harbetsy gift, and also said that "yet another standard's investigation is underway" (only before, The Sunday Times of London had reported that one of Mr. Farage's close sides, George Cottrell, had provided authorised benefits to Mr. Farage, including security, social media employees and accommodation. Mr. Farage has since said that he did not assert to the like benefits because they were received before he was elected.

"The results of conduct for members of Parliament says that lawmakers must register any benefits received in the U.K. and the party they are seeking, and that they could be considered 'poorly personal gifts.'" It adds: "Both the possible motive of the giver and the use to which the gift is to be put should be considered.

If there is any doubt, the benefit should be registered"

Mr. Farage is an ally of President Trump who has long received due "invention of negotiations and ruled against the establishment" in May. Reform was created 1,100 with the following 2 months: But its overall share of the vote was only about 20 percent, down from more than 20 percent but 40 percent.

Several recent polls have shown support for the party failing to make 10 percent and the governing Labour Party taking the lead. The polls have shown a continued decline in the arsenal of about improper disclosure of financial support have increased.

Reform officials may always view confidence, however, that Mr. Farage would disappear his seat in Clarion, which voted by a large margin for Brexit. No signature cause. The last 10 percent of the vote was 20,000 (20 percent election). In two with 40, 2 percent of the vote, and the Conservative Party candidate came second with 27.9 percent.

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4 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2026

WORLD

Clockwise from above left: ships in the Strait of Hormuz; the port of Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates, where a new pipeline is being constructed; and gas storage facilities of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, which is planning to expand its natural gas business.

Oil producers seek new routes out of Gulf

SUL, FROM PAGE 1 Onset with the Persian Gulf. But overlapping U.S. and Iranian blockades, sea mines, missile strikes and skyrocketing insurance costs have effectively shattered, every day.

Crude experts through the strait had fallen in about 1.5 million barrels a day as off the first week of this month, according to Kabul, a maritime tracking firm. To be sure, some oil than this is being expected from the gulf, partly via vessels that take steps to make them hard to track. Millions of barrels a day are also existing through existing routes like pipelines and dependent on access to the Strait of Hormuz.

SUL the frenzy of activity for lasting

workarounds to the strait is evident throughout the region. For example, in Fujairah, a United Arab Emirates port city facing the Gulf of Oman, construction crews are working around the block to lay a secondary crude that parallel to an existing pipeline that delivers oil from southern Seldis to Abu Dhabi.

The ambitious project aims to double the country's bypass capacity to U.S. nation barrels per day, allowing nearly all of Abu Dhabi's smokers crude to reach international leaders without delay having to use the Strait of Hormuz.

In addition, the Emirates' state-owned energy giant, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, or ADNOC, said this past week that it planned to spend $8.2

billion to expand its natural gas business. The company is also considering plans for a liquefied gas export facility on its eastern coast as a way to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Here was Uriel, chief financial officer of ADNOC Gas, told Bloomberg Television.

In neighboring Saudi Arabia, the state oil giant, Arzanra, is accelerating a multi-billion-dollar expansion of its East-West Pipeline.

Designed during the Iran-Say war in the 1990s, the L2A laboratory (130-mile) pipeline crosses the Arabian Peninsula to the Red Sea port of Yazhai. Arzanra's chairman, Yoof G. Al-Ramanyani, this year called it the kingdom's economic "lifeline," successfully revealing some

seven million barrels per day since Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz after U.S. and Israeli military strikes.

Saudi officials are working to add another one million to two million barrels a day, and they also are considering a smaller parallel second pipeline for the fiscal oil products.

At terms of exporting our crude, we are looking at actively increasing optionality right now," Amin Nasser, the chief executive officer of Saudi Arzanra, said this month.

The uncertainty in the Strait of Hormuz is also prompting ventures among Gulf producers.

Kuwait is in discussion with Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations to build a

pipeline that would connect the country's oil fields to ports on the Red Sea or Oman. Iraq and Jordan have revived long-delayed plans for a pipeline that could carry up to one million barrels per day to the Port of Aqaba off the Red Sea, according to state television reports in Jordan, and Iraq's spending up plans to rebuild a damaged oil pipeline to chip crude oil from the Iraqi Neth in Eritrea to Syrian Mediterranean coast.

Yet many of these enhancements with enormous friction, flavoring Saudi Arab and Israeli countries, are difficult for security barriers toward the Red Sea and the Bah al-Mashiki Strait — where the Shurdin militia group in Yemen has been attacking vessels. On Tuesday, six people were

killed when the Shurdin hit a ship in the Red Sea.

In addition to new pipelines, Gulf nations are building physical insurance policies by requiring storage to places like Saudi Rasoa, Japan and India.

The logic is simple: If the Strait of Hormuz is closed, the oil is already on the other side of the gate.

And yet a decision would that while the war is in a final segment with Iranian civilians in the strait, it wouldn't ever be understood entirely.

"They definitely want the Strait of Hormuz because it brings them so many advantages and the infrastructure is there," said Carole Nakhle, chief executive of Crystal Energy, an advisory firm.

Concerns grow over Navy ship

WASHINGTON

Monthalong deployment leads to questions over maintenance and morale

BY ANN HANS HELENE COOPER ANN-HEN SCORITT

Democratic senators have begun raising concerns about the extended deployment of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, senior report about your living conditions and a lack of downtime for the crew after more than eight and a half months at sea.

The Lincoln, a San Diego-based aircraft carrier with a crew of about 5,000 sailors, is supporting U.S. operations in the Middle East against Iran.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hogarth and Shing Cao, the acting Navy secretary, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, described a list of reported problems on the ship.

"There have been widespread reports of shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating normal health, dock safety concerns and disruptions in the mail system, which have caused many care packages to come to the ship to be lost in transit for months," he wrote about the problems, many of which were reported earlier by Navy Times and lines and Stripes.

Mr. Blumenthal added that the Trump administration had kept aircraft carriers at sea for longer than usual during its pressure campaign against Vietnam—a lead to war with Iran.

Senator Ruben Gallego, Democrat of America, said in a social media post on Wednesday that he was requesting an overnight visit to the Lincoln for a beginning of theຢູ່ນອກ島.

"Unlike Israeli Trump, I've seen across the East, and Mr. Gallego, who served in combat as a Marine. "The way he's tripping out service members as he can run out the ridges way to not just disguising, it's dangerous.

The Navy is sending the aircraft carrier George Washington to the Middle East to relieve the Lincoln, according to U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about ship schedules.

Ms. Hogarth pushed back on the reports of poor conditions aboard the Lincoln.

"We make sure that every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment," he told reporters during a visit to Panama on Thursday. "Some deployments are longer than others, and I have

The U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, above, has been at sea for almost nine months supporting U.S. operations in the Middle East, including enforcing the blockade of Iranian ports.

more respect and gratitude for those sailors than anybody. What they do in these high seas in these seamen conditions with less port calls — it's no end this."

A second carrier, the U.S.S. George R.W. Bush, displayed on March 15 and it already operating in the Middle East.

The Navy's newest carrier, the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, was displayed for 220 days before it returned home in May, breaking the record for the longest carrier deployment since the Vietnam War.

The Ford deployed from Norfolk, Va., on June 24, 2025, and was operating in the Mediterranean when it was endeavored to the Caribbean in October as part of the Navy that captured President

The longer war ship deployments are, the more they wear on people and equipment alike.

Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, in February the ship was sent to the Middle East as part of a further 20 U.S. military forces in the region that launched the war against Iran into that month.

During its deployment, the ship suffered a fire and food and mail that regarding Iran's national operations.

The longer war ship deployments are, the more they wear on people and equipment alike. When in constant operation, gear often begins to break or become in operation if replacement parts are not readily available. And the message cycle can take a toll on outside.

Keeping war ships out for extended periods often also creates other issues such as operating plans that keep ships in certain parts of the globe for strategic reasons, along with encouraging ship-

yard maintenance schedules that are developed years in advance.

"The Navy has a lot of flexibility to react in contingency operation, but as those deployments get extended and demand more underway time outside of normal schedules, readiness and maintenance coffee," Mike Frustino, a retired Navy vice admiral, said in an interview. "We just don't have the ability to recover from that quickly. It will take years."

The Lincoln itself had to fend off attacks from Iran during the early phase of the war.

"Iran shot hundreds and hundreds of missiles and one-way attacks dream at our aircraft carrier," Mr. Hogarth told reporters at the Pentagon on April 6. "Every single one of these shots, easily shot dead, tastes and rides away from the Abe Lincoln."

The Lincoln has also helped enforce the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, which actually ran from April 12 and is a complex agreement was announced in mid-June, and then resumed on July 15.

When the Lincoln's relief will arrive in session, but the George Washington recently passed through the Strait of Malaria — a major transit route through the Pacific Ocean in Indonesian waters — 'working west, according to a second U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss war ship movements.'

With the Navy's limited numbers of aircraft carriers being routinely pushed months beyond their scheduled deployments, Admiral Frustino said, it will begin to limit their availability for combat operations in the future.

"I guarantee you that the first two years of the Trump administration will definitely affect the next two years of the Trump administration," he said.

Trapped by Israeli settlers for days

JERUSALEM

Attacks on Palestinians in their homes highlight growing West Bank chaos

BY DAVID M. SALBERINGER, FEDERAL AGENT LEADER AND RADAR DISCHREMBER

Two Palestinian families have been trapped since last Sunday inside their homes on a rocky West Bank hillside for a group of violent Israeli settlers, who set up a tent in the front yard of one of the houses. Residents say about 10 to 15 settlers have been attacking them around the clock, throwing muons and an air.

Early Wednesday morning, after the large began to draw the attention to news media, the Israeli army's commander for the West Bank, Maj. Gen. Avi Bach, showed up in the village of Quora and finished as one of the families described how the settlers had been terrorizing them since January. Demands, his soldiers tried to disperse the settlers with war gun.

Yet, by 10:20 a.m., videos from security cameras show, the soldiers had left, from after, residents said, the settlers remained their attacks.

"We had some hope in the morning when we saw that the army was present," Anita Hassan, 35, who was in the morning with General Bluth, said by telephone, even at she said one of the settlers was throwing muons at her. "But when we saw that the army could set step the settlers — now, honestly, we are more afraid."

A few days ago evening, the army said in response that it was assigning an

extra battalion to the West Bank to try to strengthen order and operational control in the area.

The army's initial retreat and broader struggle to control with settler violence and a spotlight on the increasingly classic situation in the West Bank, where hundreds of Israeli settlers have been terrorizing Palestinians with near-impacts all over.

As of Jan. July, 19 Palestinians have been killed by settlers, one more than in all of 2025, according to U.N. data. Settlers have been boasting on social media of their attacks.

At times, soldiers have taken part in the violence, Palestinians and Israeli officials say, reflecting disciplinary problems that the military has achieved edged are an issue.

"It's a great flavor," said Gadi Shazani, a retired two-star general and former head of Israeli Control Command, whose son at responsiblely included the accepted territory. "There's a loss of control over the West Bank."

Israeli right-wing, pre-settler government says that concerns about settler violence are overthrown, and officials have repeatedly appealed their support for Israelis accused of attacks. The defense minister, Israel Katz, boasts of having stripped the army of the authority to issue detention orders for settlers — which had been a key teacher restraint —

by Israeli extremists' violence. In July, he visited in prison a settler arrested on a key suspect in the sexual assault of a Palestinian man in March and clashed with General Bluth over the suspect's detention.

In Quora, learned near the city of Nahlan in the northern West Bank, the violence has afflicted two families in particular: the Hussain and their neighbors they are in.

Lease Abu Kafi, 48, a native of Quora

who immigrated to Ohio in 2003 and is a U.S. citizen in the gas-station business, said he had poured about 10 million into building a house in his birthplace. The settler attacks, beginning in January, started to lay waste in his investment, he said. His feather moved into the house to try to protect it.

Mr. Abu Kafi said he had appealed to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem for help and was told to report the attacks to the Israeli authorities. An embassy spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

Ms. Hassan, whose brothers Guraf and King had two other homes on land owned by their father, said that settlers had broken violence and doors, cut utility lines, destroyed what panels and mints the far-lying gifts of your old-fuel received days earlier.

Last Sunday, after the settlers set up camp just outside the Hussain' house and owned a tent, the family called the police. When an Israeli soldier showed up, Ms. Hassan said, he ignored the family and instead greeted the settlers warmly. Video recording show him joining the settlers in prayers.

On Monday night, when Ms. Hassan's 2-year-old sister, Sher, spiked a fever and the family called an ambulance, she said, settlers hauled the ambulance and, the driver said, tried to run it with an all-terrain vehicle. Like Tuesday of terraces, other soldiers made it possible for another ambulance to take the girl to a local clinic. Ms. Hassan recounted.

The military issued a statement on Tuesday acknowledging reports of Israelis joining Palestinian homes and land in Quora and expressing 'condemination' for what it called 'dignity, reprehensible and unacceptable' actions. On Wednesday, it said that disciplinary action would be taken against the 'security personnel involved.'

General Shazani, the retired Control Command chief, said that what had achieved him to keep the Israeli-occupied way in Israel relatively calm during his tenure, from 2007 to 2009 — close cooperation with the Israeli police, the Internal Security Agency and the military's Civil Administration — could no longer be created on. Pre-settler extremists, like the cabinet ministers Ronald Simechik and former Don Gori, voted for a non-husband's own to pursue agencies, General Shazani said.

Moreover, he added, the military ratification in the West Bank are largely composed of soldiers who grow up to the settlement. "They are the settlers," he said. "That's the problem."

David M. Salberger reports from Jerusalem, and Polona, Aladdin on June 20-21st and Polona blockades on June 22nd, both in the West Bank. Gathy Scheiman contributed reporting.

Israeli soldiers and Israeli settlers, in front, outside Palestinian homes in the West Bank village of Quora. Values from security control show the soldiers were not there long.

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WORLD

Left-leaning groups surveilled in Minnesota

Expansive operation aimed at many who were not accused of any crime

BY ALICE FIELDS AND ERNESTIN LONGRIS

Four days after Alex Prust was fatally shot while filming officers taking part in the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in Minnesota, the Homeland Security Department quietly opened an investigation at its office in St. Paul.

The target was not the Border Patrol agents who had killed Mr. Prust, a 27-year-old government nurse, in late January. Instead, it was several left-leaning political organizations — labor unions, a climate change group, socialist co-lecrone — that investigators believed had provided help and money to what they described as the "violent opportunism and agranacy" on the street, according to newly released government documents.

As part of their inquiry, the documents show, homeland security officials used an array of invasive tactics during the first half of the year to gather information on many groups and individuals who were never accused of crimes, crossing the line that has traditionally stood between investigating criminal activity and political distrust.

In one instance, officials used administrative subpoenas to obtain more than three years of financial records from the Interior Movement, an environmental action group, and a labor union, the Communications Workers of America. That time frame went well beyond the civil union in Minnesota, which was prompted by the deployment of thousands of immigration agents to the state during the winter.

To another, investigators scrutinized three years' worth of wire transfers made by the nation's biggest health care workers union, the Service Employees International Union, to what they referred to as an inquiry into "domestic terrorist financing."

The documents further detailed an expansion toward surveillance operation in which undercover agents spent as prisoners and organizers at meetings held online, as well as in libraries, parks and churches, taking down not only what they said, but admitted names of sometimes known plate numbers. The undercover agents also infiltrated group chairs on Signal, listening as activists discussed coming demonstrations and other political opinions.

So far, none of the organizations targeted by the homeland security inquiry, conducted with the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota, have faced changes. And yet, as the investigation moved forward, prosecutors showed grand jurors a PowerPoint slide asserting that 18 groups — including the A.P.I., C.I.D., the largest federation of labor unions in the United States — were part of a conspiracy to impede the work of immigration officers in Minnesota.

Interestingly, they expressed conspiracy led to have to the indictment of 13 people accused of interfering with law enforcement agents as members of the far left movement known as aethi.

The Homeland Security Department did not respond to a message seeking comment. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney to see that a Minnesota decision to answer questions about the investigation turned.

By its own account, the institutional left in Minnesota, especially the labor union, is being organized by the bringing out hundreds of thousands of people to search in protest of President Trump's immigration crackdown in the state. But the demonstrations — and corresponding officers to number the movements of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — were

A march in January in Minneapolis protesting the Trump administration's testimony in the U.S. Government agents spied on protesters and organizers at meetings held online, and in libraries, parks and churches.

largely undertaken by ordinary residents, most of whom have said that were committed to peaceful resistance.

"While federal agents repeatedly broke out of many people convicted their First Amendment rights to protect their neighbors," said Ann Minney-Ages, the executive director of the Interior Movement. "The Trump administration is now trying to intimidate individuals and organizations who opposed his agenda."

Some of the 13 people charged in the so-called antilla case did, in fact, belong to some of the unions and political organizations that faced scrutiny over several months during the spring and winter. But the newly released documents, which were disclosed as part of a motion asking for more details about the criminal inquiry, suggest that investigators used these tenuous connections to take a deep dive into the inner workings of the groups.

Kevin Black, the lawyer who filed the motion, is Federal District Court in Minnesota, wrote that the homeland security investigation into the interference with federal agents "extended far beyond any personal threat to law enforcement safety."

"It concluded, with no evidence (but obvious political antisoun," he wrote, "that numerous First Cities unions and nonprofit organizations were involved in a widespread investigation," adding that "it surveilled and unprotestably gathered financial records generated by these organizations despite the lack of any connection between these organizations and criminal conduct."

The investigation is some ways called to mind Campaigns, the intrusive counterintelligence program that the Federal Bureau of Investigation can against leftist groups from the 1950s to the 1970s

Daniel N. Rosen, the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota, has said that the Department of Justice and his office "will distinguish between lawful protest and criminal conduct."

under the leadership of the bureau's director, J. Edgar Hoover.

The Minnesota surveillance experts in particular documented what largely appeared to be political activity protected by the First Amendment. They showed how undercover agents confided themselves in a "state protest" outside a hotel where immigration agents were staring and took down some at other gatherings as demonstrators brainstormed ideas on how to protest the surge of officers who descended on Minnesota late last year.

Former federal prosecutors questioned why homeland security officials took the lead in a case that would typically be overused by the F.R.I. Others

said that the broad use of subpoenas targeting labor unions and other groups was unusual and concerning, especially if it turns out there was no evidence that the organizations were breaking the law.

"The government's power to investigate is extraordinary, and with that power comes a responsibility to exercise care and restraint," said Henry Jacobs, who resigned as the chief of the criminal division at the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota in January to protest over the Trump administration's handling of the killing of Reese Gant.

"As investigators should begin with a legitimate issue to suspect criminal conduct, not with a chosen institution or group," Mr. Jacobs added. "Prosecutors

must follow the facts and the law wherever they lead, rather than select a target and work backwards to build a case."

Several of the groups that were involved in the inquiry, known as Operation Pepper Master, and in a follow-up investigation called Proper Whipple Shield, included in comments, "a Whipple Shield is a reference to the Whipple Building, which served as a hub of the immigration operation."

When Daniel N. Rosen, the top federal prosecutor in Minnesota, announced the indictment of the 10 purported antilla members two months ago, he chose his words carefully, insisting that the detestants had been charged only because each of them had "violently opposed" federal agents taking part in the Trump administration's immigration agenda.

"He assured," he told reporters, "the Department of Justice and my U.S. attorney's office has met will distinguish between lawful protest and criminal crime."

But what Mr. Rosen did not disclose that day was that the charges filed against the 10 defendants itemized from a sprawling investigation. Its members had touched the lives of scares of ordinary people — teachers, veterans, union members — who in many instances had gotten together to do little more than discuss monitoring ICE agents or abolishing ICE altogether.

The case in St. Paul, like others against ICE prosecutors, arose from a directive issued last year by Mr. Trump known as National Security Presidents (as House). The memorandum of a whole of government approach to stem what officials have described as a rising tide of left-wing political violence.

But former prosecutors and civil rights lawyers have criticized it for en-

creasing aggressive investigations and prosecutions of groups and people on the left for activities typically protected by their special laws.

In the 1970s, the federal government under Mr. Rosen focused on an organization called Direct Action Missions, which included the 10 people who describes itself as a "desertified coalition of working-class people engaged in various forms of community defense against the current federal acceptance" in Minnesota. Prosecutors said that the group trained its members in laws to use details against law enforcement officers, conduct surveillance, plan events and insure "rapid mass stabilization" against actions by ICE officers.

The indictment details more behavior by prisoners with less to DUBO that clearly seems violent or obstructive.

For example, prosecutors said that on Jan. 15, demonstrators who had gathered at the Whipple Building threw on blocks at law enforcement vehicles. They also formed a blockade, basing federal agents into one area near the federal building, blocks later, prosecutors added, some of the defendants put districts in a real-located fire building, trying to block access to it.

But the indictment also notes that the defendants often relied on information gleaned from group chairs whose members자로 and understood vehicles going to and from the Whipple Building — behavior that is not necessarily illegal. Indeed, the federal judge overseeing the case, Katherine M. Mestredes, has already issued an order to a separate civil proceeding, saying, that protesters cannot be arrested simply for following federal agents to their vehicles.

Alan Feuer reported from New York, and Ervaria Lonsdale from St. Paul, Minn.

Progressive Democrats' defeat sets off party debate

Razor-thin race adds fuel to disagreements between moderates and socialists

BY EMILY DAVIES AND GILLEN BROWNING

Francesco Hong was supposed to prove that a democratic socialist could win a statewide election.

Instead, her surprise loss in the primary election for governor of Wisconsin dealt a bill for the Progressive movement and initiated a candidate among Democratic leaders to defied her narrow defeat either as an impassionate harbinger of the movements future or an extreme rage of voter antipathy toward the far left.

Some prominent Democrats argued that the outcome was proof that the moderate wing of the party carried out a campaign sought to win the progressive war, which has dominated headlines this year, as immigrant candidates have been the candidate's choice.

Others, on the left, looked to celebrate the light once — even though their candidate fell short — as evidence that progressive can compete in statewide elections.

"It's a significant loss," Robert Laxica, a spokesman for Madison's Democratic Socialists of America chapter, said in an interview. But he argued the race was

also "a big triumph of how far we can go with building the left infrastructure in Wisconsin that simply did not exist a year ago."

David Crowley, who in the Milwaukee County executive and had briefly suspended his campaign just over a month ago, defeated Ms. Hong by a state this margin. Ms. victory defied months of pells that showed Ms. Hong for in the lead.

It was the second consecutive week with a Democratic primary to which a progressive candidate underpellment organization. In the Democratic Senators in Michigan on Aug. 1, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed defied the Progressive Party. However, but the content was closer than expected and was not called until the next morning. Before the election, the have kept the debate that has been raging all your between moderates and progressors vigorously alive.

Mr. El-Sayed is not a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the D.S.A. is not officially part of the Democratic Party. But both the D.S.A. and the D.S.A. progressors have ended the party in this year's midterm by not citing the left flank of the party's faith.

Some in the party hoped to report an petty of Ms. Hong's success to other campaigns, usually for greater gains. The former chief and restaurateur spent more time than any other candidate campaigning in rural Wisconsin, and it appeared to pay off with strong margins

in some of these counties. Progressors have won a string of races, partly on the strength of their ground games. The question is whether the model can be replicated without the popular policy proposals, such as abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, that are resonating with some voters but that many moderator-renters.

The fallout of Ms. Hong's campaign carries extra weight as the party eyes 2026, with them in each wing already polarizing to elevate their own. On Wednesday, Democrats openly exploring presidential bids sought to wield the election results to make their votes.

Robin Trotzwell, the former Chicago mayor and former chief of staff in Proviated Record (Pharos, wrote on social media) that Ms. Hong's defeat defied the party, the proposals wing isn't a heckon of this party. On the majority it's awoke new, and it's marrying itself.

Representative Bo Khanas, a progressive congressman from California who had endorsed Ms. Hong and is also contemplating a run for president, sought to tamp down criticism of the for left.

"I appreciate that Democrats can have differences over single payer healthcare, free childcare, passing data centers and other issues (privately calling left) taught far," he wrote on X. "But anticipating and labeling candidates based on a few statements is not a politics I believe to."

Francesco Hong speaking on the night of the Wisconsin primary election. Though she ultimately lost, some progressors viewed Tuesday's night results as a hopeful sign.

Democratic socialists had seen Wisconsin as an opportunity to prove that their message could resonate in less liberal parts of the United States. Several said they viewed Tuesday's result as strong points in the movement's loss.

"Trotzwell was hundreds of thousands of voters — one of the highest work totals of a democratic socialist candidate in any election in the United

States," said Arlen Stein, a D.S.A. member in Illinois, N.Y., who leads the group's national electoral strategy.

D.S.A. members spanned to several areas for improvement. For one, the socialist infrastructure and campaign experience in Wisconsin was far less rooted than in places such as New York City, which last fall elected Zeltran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, to be

mayor. There, socialists had been building for years toward that victory.

Some progressors criticized some of the biggest national names in their movement, including Senator Bernie Sandler of Vermont and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, for sitting out the race.

Ms. Hong also struggled in the final days of her campaign to explain past-missive remarks that were unearthed in news reports — including one to which she suggested canceling Thanksgiving.

These reports selected an examination on the left, one of how positions and elements of pandemic on congresswoman have had been taken well with the broader population. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez jumped into that effort, said Mr. Y. "This Week of the 1970s is something that was an 'crazy' and 'Woke Li'l' — a norm that has become a political norm.

Asked about those comments on Wednesday and whether "Woke Li'l" was indeed a problem, Mr. Mamdani stressed that elected officials have a responsibility to own their evolving habits.

"I think that each person has a responsibility to tell New Yorkers, to tell Americans, when they're running for all the what they believe," he said to reporters. "And sometimes what you believe can change, it can develop, it can grow."

Dana Balterston and Tim Baile overboard reporting.

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WORLD

Anger about surveillance is uniting conservatives and liberals in Texas

BY FERNANDO ALFONSO III A/C/S-SCHMIDT-HILL

Driving down a road lined with strip roads outside Dallas, Philip, a 17-year-old-boyfriend, was a policeman, was describing the exquisite papuany of his homegrown hair peppers when he sniffed out.

“Flock!” he said, pointing to a traffic light past at an intersection. Attached to it was a small black box with a camera that takes photos as can show by. It was a 7-year-old plate reader made by Flock Safety, based in Atlanta, that alerts low enforcement when it spies wanted cars and allows officers to see where cars of interest have been.

A Philip pulled into a strip road, packed outside a dentist's office and opened an app on his phone. The app, DeFlock, invites people to “saw and contribute to an open-road of public mass surveillance devices.” He stunned in on the intersection on the digital map and plotted the location of his camera. Philip asked that his bill name be withheld, because Flock's chief executive, Garrett Langley, once called DeFlock “recreation.”

In Philip, DeFlock is about putting against the proliferation of cameras that capture the ordinary moments of high nary people.

“And what is my way of pushing back? Education. Data,” Philip said. “Are I just being paranoid? No, they're actually everywhere.”

Flock's (35,000 cameras can be found alongside roads in every state but stands, allowing low enforcement officers to see within seconds where a car might be and where it has been. The company has contracts with other low enforcement agencies, which is 10 percent of all departments in the United States.

Other companies told license plate tracking services, but Flock, a private company valued at $5.6 billion, has become a lightning rod because of its rapid expansion, the ubiquity of its cameras and a number of controversies involving its products.

A Texas officer used Flock's cameras to track a woman across state lines who was suspected of self-administration and abortion. Officers across the country have abused their access to Flock's cameras, including its track romantic partners, wrestling in discipline and termination. Los Angeles and Dayton, Ohio, among other cities, recently suspended their contracts with Flock to prevent immigration authorities from accessing data from the cameras. Dayton returned to covering the cameras with truckbags. In cities like Houston, Oakland, Calif., and Grand Junction, Colo., residents have taken matters into their own hands, with police reports and surveillance boxings demonstrating Flock cameras being cut down, splattered with paint and even shot.

Flock's job it is simple: it can help the police find stinks cars, locate wanted people and solve crimes. One license plate reader led to the service in Florida of a man who had threatened a mass shooting. A customer, named Holpol police find the mass eventually convicted in an assassination attempt against President Trump.

But a misconceive have spread, so has the opposition Americans are accustomed to surveillance cameras. They pay them on their dandrufs and tolerate them on street corners, vehicle and restaurants. What sets Flock's cameras apart is that they are connected, creating a vast, searchable national network – often surprising residents who didn't realize their local governments laid signed up for them and raising fears of Big Brother-style surveillance. And they are hard to miss, once you start noticing them.

“We all want, respect and deserve privacy. The problem is that we typically cannot feel, use, or experience the loss as it is happening,” said Danielle Crows, a professor of law at the University of Virginia. “Seeing these cameras is a punch in the gut – we see them and it says you have no room to just be, to go about the same.”

As Flock built one of the nation's largest vehicle-tracking networks, Texas became a better-fort, but the new network adopted or the technology and for the growing backfield. Flock started selling its services to police departments nearly 2025, including a low-dance cameras in a suburb of Houston. Six years later, 100 departments in Texas contract with Flock. The opposition includes liberals worried about government surveillance, conservatives department, and police power and privacy conscious citizens and lawmakers concerned about how the network could be used.

“It's going to be an arguing debate, probably learned,” Mr. Langley, Flock's chief executive, said in an interview. “We should have this debate and we don't consider it to come in. We don't view as a society of what we're comfortable with and what level of safety we want.”

CITIZENS AGAINST NORWELLANCE

In late May, Hannah Frost's neighborhood group chat was about about a 5-year-old plane reader that had been installed in his street in Carrollton, Texas, a type of flash.

Then another camera was spotted outside the recreation center, across from the community area.

“All of us really got the it,” Ms. Frost, 42, said.

Ms. Frost, who said she leans left publically, began pushing about license

Flock Safety has deployed (35,000 of its license plate, above, in the United States. Below, from left, Philip, a cellphone, and a computer, who kept camera locations; Hannah Frost, who started a petition for camera removal; Flock's chief executive, Garrett Langley; and Philip using the DeFlock app, which Mr. Langley once called “reveretals.”

plate readers on Reddit groups devoted to Dallas and Carrollton, several digital petition to have the cameras removed from her community. By late July, she had collected roughly 400 app notures from neighbors, some of whom also spoke out against the cameras at a Carrollton City Council meeting on July 24.

“I'm very much your average American. I vote, but I've never organized or been really an activist in any way,” said Ms. Frost, who works in human resources and has two children. “I'm not committing any crimes, but I don't want necessarily anyone, let alone government agencies or a private company, to have a view of where I shrug off my kids, or what man's own favorite for my community, or whether I prefer 10-8-8 or Kroger, or what house of worship I intend.”

Nursing cameras and posting about them on Reddit led a software engineer named Will Freeman to create DeFlock in 2024. He was on a road trip from the West Coast to Alabama and kept seeing cameras along the way the dandrufs remain a crowdsourced map to plot the devices in Huntsville, Ala., where he was living, and the project went viral. The app has been downloaded by more than 350,000 people. Ms. Freeman said, and the site says it has mapped (35,000 license plate readers made by Flock and other companies).

Ms. Freeman, 27, now lives in Boulder, Colo., which also has a contract with Flock. The city says it's 25 cameras have led to a 24.5 percent decline in motor vehicle theft and longer solve other

crimes. Mr. Freeman, however, said he did not think that privacy should be successful for safety. The cameras created a infrastructure for the government to track and harass crime, he said, even if most officers aren't abusing their access.

“Wasting to know when his own vehicle had been spotted, Mr. Freeman requested these records from the Boulder Police Department, which refused to provide them. In May he filed a lawsuit against the city, saying the cameras created an unconstitutional “recreation surveillance diagram”. (The city disclosed to comment on the one, but a legal filings has said “there is no reasonable expectation of privacy on publicly owned streets and sidewalks.”)

“It's technical to always be watched and scrutinized,” Mr. Freeman said.

Across Texas, the opposition to the cameras has been bipartisan. Flock's contracts have been canceled in the Austin, as well as in Boulder, a conservative Will Country town of about 900 people. The city said at least one of its cameras was vandalized.

In Congress, Earth hall, a Republican whose district lies north of Dallas, introduced a bill in July that would require federal law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before according to querying data collected by state and local surveillance systems, license plate readers among them.

“We have a surveillance state happening,” said Mr. Self, who is also a retired Army colonel and former country judge. “This is not a bill issue, not a right issue. It is a personal issue.”

NORWELLANCE AS A SERVICE

Mr. Langley, 20, started Flock because he was troubled by how easy it was to break into cars in his neighborhood in Atlanta. When he asked police why they were unable to catch the thieves, Mr. Langley said he was told they needed the perpetrators' license plate numbers.

Mr. Langley, an electrical engineer, teamed up with two fellow Georgia Tech graduates to create a solution: cheap-internet-connected cameras, powered by solar panels and paired with software to extract license plate numbers from photos.

New Flock was founded in 2012, until she too is largely to homeowner's association. But in 2003, it began working with police departments. That year, Mr. Langley said, he (L) U's was stolen, and Flock's cameras helped locate it.

Flock's charges around $12,000 per camera per year, Mr. Langley said. In one thing, the company blends an investigation—the cameras, provides a searchable database of every vehicle that passers them, and sends alerts if the cameras spot cars on a so-called bar list or a car in a street. Bureau of Investigation's database of stolen vehicles and license plate numbers associated with missing or wanted people.

In recent years, an artificial intelligence was advanced. Flock has added the ability to search for cars based on their make, type, color or unique details, such as bumper stickers or visible damage.

Flock showed The New York Times how its technology works: After logging into the system, users must admon-

edge they cannot search for license plates related to “reproduction’s care” of issues such as noise and Washington, D.C. (These places have expressly prohibited these searches. Google, a Flock spokesman, said the system could do searches related to shortness in states, only where abortion is illegal.) There is a similar warning about nine states that prohibit searching their cameras for “immigration enforcement.”

To perform a search, officers specify the type of crime, from natural cruelty to heroin. They then enter a license plate number or description of the vehicle, and then enter an simply go with the default “All networks(s) selected.” A search version stopped of cars that are a match, along with exactly when they were spotted, where and so which law enforcement agency's cameras. By default, the phone the cameras take are deleted after 30 days, though department has the change how long they retain them.

If a police department wants access to other cameras across the state or the country, it has to share access to its own. Most agencies search and share information nationally.

“Criminals don't care where cities have and may,” Mr. Langley said. “You can share with no one, and we have plenty of customers who do that.”

“You'll solve less crime, but that's OK,” he added.

Last year, when he was asked about the spreading opposition to Flock in a video interview with DeFlock, Mr. Langley said he respected groups, like the American Civil Liberties Union, that are

fighting the company in court, but called citizen groups like DeFlock “recreation organizations” whose “primary motivation is chaos.”

This month, Tanker Carlson, the conservatives' conservation, and The State, a far-right news station, reached Mr. Langley's squaring a crowdsourced mapping group with investors.

Ms. Carlson said he had only recently become owner of the sale of Flock's network after visiting DeFlock, which he told The Times had left him “barefoot.” He said he was surprised such an expansive surveillance system had grown with no little public attention.

He follow you're Sherrarian, conservatives, blacks, progressors, everybody has an attention to Flock's and Chad Marlow of the A.C.L.U.

Mr. Langley has since apologized for the terrorism cameras. “Seeing people become active in their local communities is broadly really good,” he said.

SAFETY VS. INF扯T

Texas opposition may be attracting attention, but it hasn't slowed Flock's growth. Across the state, new cities are signing contracts lower than others are canceling them, said Jennifer Sistanski, a spokeswoman for the Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas, a police union that represents more than 18,000 officers.

“For reason, the said, a impressive results, listen Texas police departments recovered status vehicles by the low levels after installing the cameras, she said, and in smaller municipalities, vehicle bargisters have all but stopped. Despite community complaints, officials in Harris County, which operates 100 cameras, and Carrollton – which operates 87 license plate readers, including 10 from Flock – are not changing their minds about the cameras.

“A a supplemental investigation tool helps our officers solve crimes more effectively, provides value to our residents and can be managed responsible, then it's something we'll continue to consider,” said Carrollton's mayor, Steve Babick.

Officers have been disciplined or terminated for abusing their access to Flock's cameras, for instance by tracking romantic partners.

Independent research on the cameras' efficacy is sparse. A 2024 study found that Flock's cameras increased in Kent's case clearance rates by 9 percent — but 404 Media, among others, criticized the findings because Flock had partnered with the researchers and chose the agencies that were part of the study.

States are starting to create rules for how police can use the technology. To address the concern about repair officers' abusing the system, 13 states now have laws requiring audits of license plate reader systems to detect misses by officers, according to a legislation tracker created by the Policing Project at the New York University School of Law.

Texas is not among them. Ms. Sistanski stated that the risk of Texas officers' misusing the system was no greater than with the other databases they have access to and that Flock provides a legal every search, when conducted it and why.

Being able to search all the cars on the road across the country is certainly convenient for authorities, but Kerry Friedman, a law professor and faculty director of the Policing Project, argues that creating a vast database of Americans' movements is not constitutional.

“This is indiscriminate data collection, not targeting specific crimes,” Mr. Friedman said. “The reason we have a French Amendment is that they didn't think the government should just be able to go after anybody even if they did nothing wrong.”

Courts have then far disagreed with that reading, but have signaled that as the technology expands, that could change.

In one case, in which residents need Norfolk, Va., for installing 121 Flock cameras, a federal judge ruled that license plate readers might not buy the come so ubiquitous that their use amounts to an unconstitutional dragnet of the country.

“I don't think judges understand the country is now thanked with these things and they're all interconnected,” said Bill Thaxter, of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

The DeFlock map allows people to see where cameras are positioned along their regular driving routes, and it has been a “really valuable tool” for privacy groups and surveys ongoing against the spread of these cameras, Mr. Thaxter said.

But volunteers can do only so much to document the spread of the surveillance area.

Philip, the DeFlock contributor from the Dallas suburbs, estimates he has stopped around 2000 cameras in the community, a figure he called “both a lot and not a lot.”

He repairs radios on cellphone towers for a living, so he is “always looking around a infrastructure.” He has done contracts to work, he estimates he passes into Flock cameras.

Pointing cameras is going to him form of protest. He has little interest in attending city council meetings, not in destroying cameras.

“It's kind of city do situation,” he said. “We've been down one, and 20 more take to place.”

Alan Fautz reported from New York, and French Canada by from St. Paul, Minn.

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SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2026 | 7

Business

U.S. robot makers try to take on China

PLAINSIDE, N.Y.

Beijing dominates industry but some start-ups believe there's still time to compete

BY MEAGHAN YORIN

Teddy Haggerty knew exactly what he was up against when he decided to build humanoid robots in the United States.

Since 2022, Mr. Haggerty had been the main North American distributor for Unilever Robotics. China's leading humanoid robot manufacturer, Thai role has given him a close-up view of an industry Chinese companion command, producing robots more cheaply and at a scale that American manufacturers have yet to approach.

"In China, these things are just walking around the streets," he said. "They have so much more experience than we do."

But in a warehouse in a body industrial park on suburban Long Island, New York, Mr. Haggerty, 16, is trying to pull off a seemingly quixotic task — to produce humanoids robots in the United States.

His new company, Rolex Inc., in the latest venture for a social contemporary role has spent the previous decade chasing the next big thing, from drone photography and Bitcoin mining to importing protective gear during the Covid-19 pandemic. Building robots, however, means taking on an industry China has designated a strategic priority. That is a challenge of a different magnitude.

Mr. Haggerty plans to procure components from all over the world and make some in-house. But even as he sets out to establish a robotics installation in the United States, he has confronted a stark realization. China has near-total dominance of the supply chain. So building a robot entirely free of Chinese parts was not practical.

A companion that went to great lengths to cut China out of their supply chains were in the end just making a more expensive product, he said. It was far more cost-effective to import certain parts, like batteries and the aluminum skeleton that makes a robot's body.

"There are some pieces that are already made to — what are you doing changing them?" he said. His office, in Phantoms, shares space with a work shop littered with spare robot heads and hands, where a small team of engineers hands custom parts to adapt humanoid and four-legged robots far out in warehouse and hands care work.

In some cases, Mr. Haggerty is caught between China and Washington, where officials have called for more robots to be made in the United States. He believes the result will be a more long-sourced global market for humanoids: Chinese robot companies will continue to sell to their home market, while companies like the 6th will compete for consumers in the United States.

The United States and China are already vying for supremacy in artificial

Above, Rolex Inc's office in Long Island, New York. The company's founder, Teddy Haggerty, were right, still comes party globally, but China's dominance of the supply chain makes a robot free of Chinese parts impractical. For right, spare robot hands.

intelligence and noninvolucizers. Now robots that look and move like humans are in the market, are not another front in that competition. Companies in both countries increasingly are robots as the physical embodiment and need evolutionary strip of A.I.

"In China, these things are just walking around the streets. They have so much more experience than we do."

The geopolitical tensions came into sharper focus last month when the Federal Communications Commission announced a bid on the impact of new models of foreign-made humanoid robots into the United States, citing national security concerns. The measure did not explicitly target China, but most new humanoid robots are made by Chinese companies.

This technology is still in the early stages of development, but supporters envision a future when humanoid robots become more popular, choosing others, checking vitals in hospitals and working

hazardous jobs in mines and chemical plants. But such activities would also give robots access to vast amounts of data about where and how people lived. For the United States government, this is potentially the sensitive for machines not made in America.

Right now, though, very few are, China's robotics industry was built on billions of dollars in state funding and grew out of the country's world-believe electric vehicle industry. The country's leading humanoid robotics start-up, Unilever, is preparing to go public in Shanghai at a valuation of $9 billion.

The fighting U.S. robot makers will need substantial financial and policy support to compete, said Danny Cheung, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a think tank that studies Chinese government influence. "Merely honoring Chinese robots is just the first step," he said.

In the United States, humanoid robotics is still in its infancy. Analytic estimate that the top humanoid companies made just a few hundred robots last year. Most aren't available for purchase by the average consumer, but instead are part of real projects with other companies in warehouses and factories. By

competition, Unilever and another Chinese company, Agilent, together made about $5,000.

Even Elon Musk's Optimus line of humanoids, which he recently predicted would be "the biggest product even," who heavily on components made in China.

And makers of non-humanoid robots,

like Blobel, the American company behind the Busselas, have struggled to compete with Chinese rivals. The Chinese supplier of Blobel took control when the company filed for bankruptcy in December.

And Chinese humanoids are far cheaper and more widely available than their American counterparts. Unilever's

flagship humanoid retails for under $14,000.

Mr. Haggerty said that after he appeared at a trade show in Las Vegas, alongside a Unilever robot last year, he was flooded with inquiries from companies like Amazon and OpenAI that wanted to try out humanoids. They wanted more robots than he could import.

Start-up founders and investors say that it is virtually impossible to set up factories in the United States that could compete with the output of China's supply chain account. It is some expensive to pay American workers. And raw materials, from the Illinois to the batteries, to the aluminum skeleton that the skeleton, have to be obtained from China anyway.

China's dominance over the supply chain far-remote that are like humans is closely tied to its electric vehicle industry. China became the largest S.V. to prefer by focusing on producing virtually every component domestically, from screen to lithium-ion batteries. Now, many of the same companies that manufacture parts for electric vehicles supply robot makers, too.

"If you are in China and you need a component, you can get it immediately — where in the United States you might get it in a couple of days," said Brad Porter, the chief executive of Linac, a robotic company in Santa Clara, Calif.

Mr. Porter previously spent more than a decade at Amazon, where he led the company's effort to use robots. He pointed to a business factory in Massachusetts where it makes employees in its warehouses as an example of successful American robot making. But these are not humanoids. They are robotic devices that convey large loads across factory floors. Mr. Porter said he wanted robots were not the right solution to meet situations for Amazon.

"There was no one case at Amazon where logo conferred any advantage," he said.

The actual usefulness of humanoids remains a few shakes. Even robotics company executives concede that people are still far more efficient workers than the robots, which struggle to make company decisions to rapidly changing settings.

While Chinese companies have a lead on producing humanoid robots, some have demonstrated a clear one case for the industry.

Chinese robots, including Unilever, have drawn international attention for coordinated dancing displays on Chinese television and at the Super Bowl. But these robots are following pre-programmed scripts. Creating robots capable of complex decision-making in response to the changing world remains a challenge.

More broadly, China has already established another key lead in robotics: using robots to automate manufacturing. In 2024, according to a report by the International Federation of Robotics, a nonprofit trade group, more than two million robots were working in Chinese factories, and another 200,000 were in studied — more than in the rest of the world combined.

When women gain jobs, it's not entirely a triumph

FROM THE MAGAZINE

The new roles they take on are often no longer wanted by men, researchers find

BY NOAH SCHUMER

It didn't quite make the same splash as Jackie McNamara first game in 1967, but it was nonetheless a big moment when, in 2025, Jim Powell became the first woman to acquire a regular season Major League Baseball game.

The debut punctuated a series of professional advances for women, both in sports and beyond. Women had long been following National Football League and National Basketball Association games. They have long graduated from college at higher rates than men. They account for a majority of late school and medical school graduates, and for about 40 percent of lawyers and doctors.

Even the Trump administration's masculinity rhymes — about how society has become overly feminine and should re-centre male virtues — hasn't showed this shift. Virtues that buff a million jobs that the U.S. economy has called since President Trump took office last January, roughly 10 percent went to women.

Yet no closer inspection, Powell's triumph hinted at a more complicated story. It was hard not to notice that her opportunity came shortly after baseball began experimenting with an automated review system that allowed no one league players to challenge surprise: calls, setting off talk of future ro-hes acquires. Major League Baseball has an unusually complex number of players enterments after the first season of the experiment, and it is on track for a another uptick this year, after the review system got the official call-up.

Major League Baseball declined to comment on the reason for the cronometer or the timing of the gender breakthrough, other than to one to correct of facts to develop a more diverse pool of umpires. But the sequence does jibe with the historical logic of workplace fermentation. The story goes something like this: A job gets worse in some way — say, it pays less of become more growing or maintenance or generally less prestigious — at which point men become less interested in design, integrity, etc than turn to women to fill the ranks. "You have to basically get a different labor force," said Mar Blofu, a historical at the University of Virginia. "Because the labor force that was secure and stable, they're not going to do that."

The pattern has played out across workplaces in different as the textile mills of the early industrial era and the restaurants and real estate businesses of the 20th century. Some version of it continues to finish like higher education, where women make up a majority of the non-tenure-track instructors so whose universities黏然อยู่ with.

Though we often think of the last 10 years as a steady month of progress for women at work, it was also a period in which work with large was diminished. Union membership planements, wage growth slowed and employers captured a rising share of productivity growth. More and more companies have outsourced work, and these companies that employ workers directly often out legal arrangements like non-religion clauses to undermine their leverage.

Today, just as women are occupying a majority of the women, they are not one-third in 1970, artificial intelligence is threatening to engender still more of them. It could soon turn many lawyers, managers and publicists into the proud name of a new group.

Have women spent decades reaching for the brain ring only to discover that it's hopelessly tarnished once they finally grasp it?

CHARLES HARRIS

LENS BEFORE THE "Mad Men" era, secretaries were almost all here, in the 1990s, a secretary was part-able-de-camp, part executive-in-training — someone who handled the best's correspondence and bookkeeping, but also learned the busi-

ness and would eventually ascend to a center job.

With the rise of the modern corporate, it is around the core of the 20th-century, however, the secretary became more like a noncommissioned officer — a

worker with real responsibility but little upward mobility. It was at this point that the position became mostly female. Companies then broke up and disgusted the job farther over the decades, replacing the secretary with pools of cypress, receptionists and data entry personnel, almost all of them women, too.

The final step, amid pressure from the feminist movement in the 1970s, was to allow a small number of college-educated women to ascend from these clerical jobs to the ranks of middle management. But even this came with a loss of status, as managers would have to do

Secretaries were once almost all men. The job went to women when it had upward mobility

more of their own great work. "They're now being promoted, but the clerical tasks are promoted with them," said Jan van Remkeldt, senior historian. "The middle manager would do more typing, correspondence, more of their own filing." These days, almost no one has an outcome.

The workplace of the 1970s seemed to produce one feminist victory after another, in the outset of the decade, just over 10 years in a war on a method. By 1980, over half did. Newspapers and magazines installed the development: A front-page story in The New York Times announced, "More Women Work at Traditional Male Arts."

But when the sociologists Barbara Rottke and Patricia Ross indeed carried out their 1980 book, "Life Queens, Gender Queens," they became more pessimistic. The percentages of women in jobs as varied as has driven; baker, typewriter, book editor, real estate agent and business executive specialist half more sharply. In each instance, however, employers had changed the work in a way that made it less attractive. They lowered pay or made it more volatile — say,

by shifting from salaries to commissioner. They reduced job security, professional autonomy or opportunities for advancement. They created intense versions of the traditional male jobs and sought women to fill them. "Women's numerical plans to beminning occupation should take performance in lower paying, less prestigious occupational subspecialties," the sociologists wrote.

Up through the 1960s, even workdays jobs were often easily enough to reduce a few times. The typical insurance adjuster drove around a metro area in a company car, setting clear a handful of claims each year. The entire company frequently promoted them into management practices, but no one pressures rose in the '70s, companies wrong-savings out of their operations by bringing the adjusters "inside," where they handled many more claims a day by phone and display terminal. Promotions became hard to come by. It was at this point that even flagged off.

The original "Mentalization" is not necessarily women who rushed in once the job deteriorated. Rottke and Ross departed the last 4000 miles in a great training process. Employers, they argued, eventually to regain their job and return their lives to learn desirable, with men generally almost 4 women. A large part because of success. When men at least the most sought-after ones, lost interest in a job, employers turned to the next group in line — women — to fill the gap.

The shift also ended to reinforce it well. Once a certain percentage of women entered into occupation, the remaining men deemed "more status and frequently developed as well — a practice that was to replace a more than a single good by "pediatric" or residential reorganization, in a male typewriter told one of the authors, "It's a gift's job now."

P.S. MARTINE TO KNOWN that employment in 2020 no longer resembles the state, head a

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8 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2026

BUSINESS

Above from left: Fousho and Beirleire Kaneko, nature's hero in the family, Japan; Yutich Tsunami, a colonist and ex-woman, who is known as Yutich Tsunami's son; and Zenya Saba, a trait in the family, and the cherry-pink of gown on trolleys as a robot could pick the fruit.

Aging Japanese farmers remain wary of robots

Jinhui, PRIOR HALL with the local government to bring technology to Nishikawa.

Agricultural officials installed sensors showing natural temperature variations to determine the best time for harvesting plants. (That turns out to be after 100 hours of temperature before it degrees Celsius, or all degrees Fahrenheit.) They deployed gown-moving robots. And as their triumphal art, they ordered a robot that would allow the farmers to store easily transport and load bundles of cherry blossoms onto trucks. Pochi, as the robot was named, was to arrive last November.

Then the farmers of Nishikawa waited. November came and went. In a nature that has made practicality a high art hero, the delay was embarrassing. Pochi finally arrived on Christmas Day, a cherry yellow container as wheels that looked low like a sophisticated robot and more like an overrun Lego construction. It cost about $15,000.

Since then, well, that's the story. For all the buildup and excitement from robot boomers and the local politicians of Yamagata Prefecture eager to unlock central government funds for rural revitalization, Pochi has mostly abandoned unknown a corner of a greenhouse. The prevailing attitude toward the robot, which can negotiate mountain sweaks and carry 600 pounds (270 kilograms), was encapsulated by Hishiki Shida, 84, a Nishikawa farmer. Even as Mr. Kaneko showed off how Pochi, with the slightest flick of a wrist, followed him like an obedient dog. Mr. Shida trumbled past conspicuously, pushing stacks of cherry blossoms on a metal cart.

"I do things the old way," he said, casting a dismissive look at Pochi.

Not one of Mr. Shida's three children is a farmer. He is widowed. He lives alone and turns alone, taking up to his mountain fields to shovel the saloons out of the area.

SNON COUNTRY

Not so long ago, Nishikawa abandoned in the now Mr. Kaneko's parents remember how the family forehound in the mountains above the trees was inaccessible for months at a time, even into the early 1970s. The only way to get anywhere was by that.

By the 1960s, Nishikawa, like much of the rest of Japan, had grown fast. Families moved to the sunny backcountry, eager to cultivate forehead. Japan's agriculture ministry helped to protect them from overrun competition. Throughout rural Japan, roads, tunnels and bridges were built. Yamagata Prefecture — Yamagata means "mountain slinger" — dedicated itself to growing luxury crops, like La Prairie years and perfect cherries. Japan's home times were symbolized by the $100 melon, a threat fruit of perfect prosperity.

Japan's mountain further burst in 1983, the same year that the ballet train finally arrived in Yamagata. Personalized and carrying greater for 100 yrs, about 80 U.S. cents back then, pepped up alongside the resident of expensive fruit. Japan's farming population, which had already shrouded because of million-years of urbanization, developed a 20-pound shroud further, just as Japan's demographic did off a cliff.

Nishikawa lost its high school in 1987. The last supermarket closed about 20 years ago. Features for miners known and cellphone parts both closed. The country's birthless hit a record low last year, and the Japanese population, now

Minaya Kaneko suing a robot named Pochi to transport items. Since its arrival in October, Pochi, which cost $15,000, has mostly abandoned unknown in a corner of a greenhouse.

$25.8 million, is projected to fall below 100 million by 2060.

Across Yamagata, local officials have tried out various robot — and robot-ur-going — solutions to the precipitous demographic decline. The 40-year-old mayor of Nishikawa, Hishiki Kanno, secured $40,000 in funding for Pochi and other "smart agriculture" innovations. Like other leaders in the prefecture, he has chosen technology over another potential to to the nation's labor shortage, welcoming more foreign workers. The Japanese government is cracking down on virus. In all of Yamagata, there are only 101 foreign farm laborers.

"Finding people who can also over for the next generation is difficult," Mr. Kanno said.

The parents of Mr. Kaneko, the cherry blossom farmers' union leader, said their one was the only one in their community who has continued farming, abandoned houses are proliferating in town. Nationwide, the number of independent farmers has plummeted to below one million, from 2.0 million at the turn of the century. Last year saw the largest-ever decline in farming households in Japanese history.

Mr. Kaneko pushed his father to get a dream-appearing license. He did. But he is not the ideal dream operator.

"It's not a habit," he learned, "and Kenshiro Kaneko. Mr. Kaneko's father, 'There's not there when he what to do.'

Every day during winter calours success, Minaya Kaneko's parents have their farmhouse and shuffle past snowbanks nearly double their height.

The couple work in on-try greenhouse swaddled to layers of clothes, occasion-

ally warming their hands at a store led by scraps of wood.

"When we were younger, we could make a living, but it's getting harder to survive," Mr. Kaneko's father said.

MECHANICAL WOLVES

In May, a 70-year-old man went hanging for wild plants in the mountains of Yamagata. He never returned. He was the third person in Japan to have been totally insatiably a bear in a month. At Japan's human population has declined. Its bears have enjoyed a demographic boom. Increasingly hears in forests and farmland, they have attached to depopulating towns and cities.

Mizuoka and Kazuo Sakurai's colleague

Japan's birthplace hit a record low last year, and the population, now $25.8 million, is projected to fall below 100 million by 2060.

and beyond farm, peckled on hillsides a 45-minute drive from Nishikawa, has been inundated with bears, wild bears and the occasional sores, a chaggy Japanese herbie. Last year, after wrong bear tracks through their field, Mrs. Sakurai spotted bear cobs, aggressive mania bears as a perennial tree.

The Sakurai are in their 70s. Mr. Sakurai walks with a deep steep, hit back beat from years of farming. Little is mechanized. He makes divots for work by running a bicycle tire enabled wild pegs over the ground. He pushes a rusty wheelbarrow. What used to be seven farms in the area is now only two. Na-

ture is reclaiming the mountains.

"Yes, it's lonely," Mrs. Sakurai, 76, said.

Enter Manime Wolf, a made-in-Japan, for-obsessed conception with limiting red eyes and a piercing vocal range. As the couple's colleague grow into means, Manime Wolf reported the duty courtesy of the Yamagata city government, existing an assortment of sounds every half-hour that fluctuated between annoying and genuinely worrying. Manime also acts off the machinery, cacophony. The Sakurai's were able to work without fear of an attack.

Still, Manime Wolf is, by robot standards, turns. It is fused to a platform, and only its head moves. Besides, the Yamagata government only has one state-well on its payroll. Manime Wolf has now moved as from the Sakurai's fields. They want it back. Manime Wolf's Japanese developers say that orders have tripled this year.

PICKER, CHERRIES

The promise of robots has excited Yamagata researchers for years. The production produces about 70 percent of its past's cherries, and there is a chronic shortage of harvesting labor. Searching for solutions, a food fruit magnate contained Yutich Tsunami, a professor of science and mechanistics at Yamagata University, about designing a cherry picking robot. The government folded to with funding.

"I said I was not confident, but we would try," Professor Tsunami said.

He explained the delicate mechanics of cherry picking. Without the more, the harvested fruit spoils quickly, yet pick-

ing it with the onto depends on the gentle rotational pressure of a human hand.

In anticipation, Zenya Saba, the fruit magnate, had trained his cherry trees to grow on trolleys, like grapevines, so that a robot could more easily accouche fruit. Mr. Saba's farm is now filled with flat-wipped cherry trees that dangle fruit as a consistent height. All that is missing is the robot. He had given Professor Tsunami four years to develop the robot. It has now been 35.

One morning in his laboratory, the professor looked decidedly nervous. After a delay of several months, he said the student researchers were about to show what a decade of robot innovation could do for Yamagata. One graduate student doesn't a face touch, black gloves and a hair hat. He bumped his hands on metal scaffolding their carefully attached five magnetized fish cherries to a lake tree. A robotic arm did forward and plucked the erratic cherries with their stems. Professor Tsunami gave a small bow.

On the second attempt, the robot stalled with a cherry suspended in malate. On the third, the robot got stuck in a frictional sphere, plucked the air with nothing in its gripper. The fourth effort failed, too. On the fifth, five labor cherries were again harvested.

Milton Misawa, one of the graduate students, said he was not very hopeful that robots would save Yamagata's agriculture. Ever since his family invested in his robotic studies, his father, a cherry farmer, has advised him to leave for better job opportunities.

"He says there's nothing good about how," Mr. Misawa said, of his father's perspective.

Mr. Saba, the fruit magnate, is now 90. He is weak and no kidney dialysis, the perfect way to get the finished out to his flat-wipped cherry trees and surveyed his fruit empire, 35 generations strong. His son, who is taking over the business, isn't interested in robots.

Last year, at a global cherry summit in Yamagata, Chinese researchers showed interest in Mr. Saba's flat-wipped cherry orchards. They had heard about the cherry-picking robot and wanted to see it in action.

"I saw no TV the other day that China's robots are incredibly advanced, right?" Mr. Saba said. "I must that, wouldn't show them Yamagata University's harvesting robot because I thought they might use that technology."

Japan once led the world to robotics, creating the most-herniated robot in 1973, but it has fallen for behind China, with its soccer playing, numerous flip-ping machines. In March, a robot developed by Nanjing Agricultural University installed through strawberry fields in China, picking fruit with 84 percent accuracy, using a 1-match hold on the rotational movements of six successive — at least according to the Chinese state news media, which needs to report on domestic innovations in growing terms. The researchers are resulting the number of cloud data platform for business and cherries next. Chinese robots at ready harvest bylaws and gigi berries.

Even Pochi, the supposed driver at Nishikawa's cherry blossom farmers, hadn't an embarrassing origin story. The robot was made in South Korea.

THE NEXT GENERATION

Pochi isn't the only national robot in Nishikawa. A great-selling robot meant to train the saloon orchards keeps growing habit by words. The local authorities say they are experimenting with deploying pesticide-pressing dreams, but things haven't progressed far. And an earlier, clamber version of Pochi is even less respected than its cousin's.

Still, one local farmer likes Pochi very much. Onana Shida, 74, named the robst after the Shida dog he was owned. He, practically since among the workers, stacks his cherry branches on the machine and near-ride drive easy it is to transport his saloon.

"I feel like Pochi's pups," Mr. Shida said. "I like to have Pochi follow me around."

Late one afternoon, Mr. Shida was not in his limbo with his more thieves, chucking a field by frozen planting. The snow hung high above him, more than 20 feet (one meter) tall in Japan. As the sun set, Mr. Shida received to his family farthest. The air was stay from a wood-hunting stove and the many arsons of sweet potatoes being roasted by his wife, Kiano, an ethnic Korean originality from China. When he met through a manhumber 35 years ago, the granddaughters, also have in China, spurned on the couch, scuffing on their photos, like presence and nature.

"We are old already," Mrs. Shida said. She has had surgeries on her knees and her hands. Everything aches.

Unlike most others in Nishikawa, though, the couple hopes they can pass on the farm to the younger generation. They are certainly less way of robots.

"I have no should-put-come-and-live a peaceful life and look out at the snow," Mrs. Shida said.

Mr. Shida grumed. "Not yes," he said. "We still have work to do."

When women gain jobs, it's not entirely a triumph

Jinhui, PRIOR HALL

Share cutting system flexible and flows described, leading it unnecessary for women to wait for men to lose interest before entering an occupation in large numbers. Certainly women have made real strides in high-status fields like law and medicine.

But when you disaggregate the numbers, you begin to see the familiar pattern: men looking on to the most prestigious and highest-paying jobs, a rising number of women in the greatest sections of the job men were dominated. (The new wrinkle, flows observed in a 2010 paper she wrote with a colleague, was that a number of low-paid and low-status jobs. She took out of crossing growth, were "unacclaiming," and were disproportionately filled by nonwhite people and comingsmen.)

The health care profession may reveal what ads on. Brain surgeons and

cardiologists, who make over half a million dollars a year on average, remain overwhelmingly male, while women are now about two-thirds of pediatricians and nearly half of family doctors, both among the lowest paid doctors.

Women are also now a majority of pharmacists — a field in which comorbidities has understained working conditions — and a majority of nurse practitioners, the fastest-growing health care job in the country. Nurse practitioners typically make about $250,000 a year and perform high-status tasks like diagnosing patients and prescribing medicine. But, as a practical matter, many patients and medical facilities rely on them as a cheaper alternative to doctors. "Doctors can't a lot of money and nurse practitioners don't," a staffing company official recently told The Wall Street Journal.

If, in the coming years, artificial into

Jen Pawel, second from right, with the officiating crew before a Major League Baseball game in Atlanta last year. She was the first female umpire of a regular season game.

ligence further, two sat in the collar fields where women have made progress, it will hardly be unprecarious. Historically, employers have often associated automation with women's work, even in the factory or in the office. "Managers quickly developed the idea that companies working with machines was a feminine attribute to differentiate it from the supposedly more important work of — by male (both), Hicks writes to the book 'Programmed Inequality,' about the British competing interests.

The early computer programmes were mostly women. But the field became much more attractive to men in the 1980s, as it gained in good privilege.

When I asked them whether the gender-dressed might reverse again as artificial intelligence bloods computer programming of status, the stipulated that

in terms not necessarily an A.I. But if the technology causes the sick industry to divide into more and two skilled positions — say, a mix of highly paid software attributes and low-paid programmes who have up after the field offers — "then I still think that's what will happen," she said. "These are the jobs that men will be wanting to be in charge of, and the lower-level positions would force attention."

And, she added, the shift would not necessarily be limited to software engineering. She noted that if A.I. companies the setting of lawyers, journalists, architects and advertising copywriters into low-status robot-bulletin and high-status partners and grand strategists, the most important thing was to be called of the split, almost more interviews into from government or elsewhere. "It would be history repeating itself," she said.

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SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2026 | 9

Opinion

Hamas has no more cards to play

The signs point to Hamas being serious about disarming. The recent Board of Peace plan for it to surrender its weapons should be carried out.

JAMES CARRILL/ED CUNY

Muhammad Shehada

After five months of daunting negotiations with President Trump's Board of Peace, Hamas agreed last month to a road map under which it and other armed Palestinian groups would denominate their heavy weapons and give up security control in Gaza. Hamas also agreed to stop them from governing Gaza and accept the deployment of an international stabilization

force. In return, Israel would halt airstrikes, withdraw its troops from Gaza and allow the devastated sectors to be rebuilt.

Hamas's agreement represented a fragile opportunity to break out of an otherwise intractable deadlock. The rejection of the plan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel last Sunday is a setback for Israelis who want peace and security, and for Palestinians in Gaza who want relief from the cruel and painful conditions imposed by Israel. It is the latest example of Israel's inability to say yes.

There is a narrow window to pressure Israel to change its mind and lock in Hamas's compromise. Once the man's disarming and Israel's withdrawal took place, it would become impossible for Hamas to reocap. The world would blame it for giving Mr. Netanyahu a protest to collapse the deal and resume Israel's military campaign.

In rejecting the peace plan, Mr. Netanyahu said Israel would not begin to withdraw until the Palestinian groups completed their disarmament. But Hamas is unlikely to accept that. It

believes it would lose all leverage in the negotiations, and may have difficulty convincing its entire rank-and-file membership to disarm immediately, instead of its phases, without something in return.

One sign Hamas might be serious about giving up its weapons is that, aside from an alleged incident of a sole projectile being fired and leading inside Gaza itself, it and other armed groups have apparently not fixed a rocket at Israel since the original cease-fire took effect in October. They have shown this restraint despite the

fact that Israel has killed over 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza in that time, including Hamas's top military leaders.

This unusual holding back could very well indicate that Hamas has no better cards left to play. Armed resistance in Gaza has reached its limit and has exhausted the rationales that sustained it. Well before the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2025, Hamas's deputy leader, Saleh Al-Amari, admitted as much in 2020, according to a leaked phone conversation. "Frankly, armed resistance failed to create JAMAHA. PAID IN

Stagflation, the scourge of the 1970s, is back

Its return brings new urgency to the Fed chairman Kevin Warsh's next moves.

Philip Braun

Some readers may recall the misery of rampant stagflation in the 1970s. The fusion of inflation and stagnant economic growth destroyed millions of jobs while eroding virtually everyone's purchasing power, ensuring there was no escape from economic pain for most Americans. Now, stagflation is returning after decades of dormancy. How pervasive will it become?

The person most responsible for answering that question is the Federal Reserve chairman, Kevin Warsh. The newly installed chair won his job by convincing President Trump that they shared similar perspectives on lowering interest rates, a more almost guaranteed to boost the economy to the short term, even if it risks economic calamity down the line. If history offers any guidance, how Mr. Warsh responds to Mr. Trump's demands will have major repercussions on our future.

There's no doubt that stagflation has returned. Inflation remains elevated, with July 1 reading, released Wednesday, coming in at 1-1 percent year-over-year. Simultaneously, the economy is showing more and more weakness, with gross domestic product growth slowing to 1.2 percent in the second quarter of this year. The job market has slowed. The housing market has stalled, and, of course, oil prices remain elevated. This is a classic case of a lackluster economy with problematic inflation.

The part of the economy that looks smuddy good to the part that should worry us the most: Our stock market is at a record high, with valuations for some classes reaching fantastical levels. While corporate earnings growth is strong, the multiple that the market is

paying for these earnings is now two and a half times greater than the historical average — a sign that investors' irrational endowment has taken hold. Such elevated valuations introduce severe systemic risk, leaving equity markets very sensitive to macroeconomic disturbances and threatening a destructive decrease in wealth.

Mr. Trump points to the stock market as proof the economy can absorb rate cuts. But the outcome of such a monetary policy is deeply concerning. Bringing borrowing costs down encourages market participants to take on excessive leverage, pushing valuations that are already above historic norms even higher, increasing the risk of a financial meltdown. And that would, in turn, make stagflation much worse.

This is where the 1970s provides a business what the Fed should not do. In the 1970s, like today, the U.S. was at war and running fiscal deficits. Then, as now, oil prices were pushed up by external factors. Five decades ago, it was the Arab oil exchange and the Iranian revolution. Today, it's the true war and the closing of the Strait of Harman.

The parallels don't end there. President Richard Nixon pressured the Fed chairman, Arthur Burns, to goose the economy to strengthen himself politically, just as Mr. Trump is pressuring Mr. Warsh to mark rates. Mr. Burns who, like Mr. Warsh, also faced the prospect of a sluggish economy — followed Nixon's lead and elected its rapidly and dramatically push interest rates lower, ignoring the fact that inflation was already elevated. Of course, this boosted economic growth and employment for a while, raising Nixon's fortunes and helping lead him into a landslide victory in the 1972 election. But the chain of events leading to devastating stagflation had begun.

The suffering caused by Mr. Burns's

JOHN RYDERSON

poor policy choices was widespread, reaching nearly every American house-hold. Wagons did not keep pace with inflation. Prices for everyday items like food and clothing soared, and families had to work harder each year to keep up. Investment returns were overrun by inflation, eroding the savings of retirees. By 1971, inflation had hit 12 percent, and unemployment climbed to 9 percent.

Yet the full costs of the stagflation were not clear until Paul Vokcker took

over as Fed chair in 1979. To rein to inflation, Mr. Vokcker pushed the Fed Funds rate to over 20 percent (compare with 1-0 percent today). This drove mortgage rates up to almost 20 percent, cut the rate of new housing development in half, and triggered the loss of two and a half million jobs. Mr. Vokcker received enormous pushback from the public, from Congress, and from then-President Ronald Reagan, but he persisted.

Mr. Vokcker was able to act independent

ently of political expediency. Eventually, his tough medicine worked, reducing inflation from 14.8 percent in March 1980 to under 5 percent in 1981, as measured by the year-over-year Consumer Price Index. During this period, the U.S. economy went through a profound restructuring, shifting away from old-line manufacturing toward a more resilient, service-oriented and technology-driven economy that persists to this day.

Today, all the pieces are in place for a repeat of Mr. Burns's mistake, one that caused undue hardship on the country. Today's economic setting is not as dire as the one he faced, but the casualties Mr. Warsh faces is the same. A weakening economy could tempt him to save interest rates before the inflation fight is over.

Of course, Mr. Trump's pressure campaign puts Mr. Warsh to a difficult position, forced its chance between what the economy needs and what the president wants.

The lesson for Mr. Warsh is remember to that the longer the Fed accommodate inflation, for whatever reason, the more costly the eventual cuts. He must ensure the Fed stays independent from politics and keep the inflation fight going, raising interest rates if necessary, even over the objections of our president.

Stagflation has arrived. Will Mr. Warsh keep up the inflation fight, or will be appease Mr. Trump? The midterm are coming, and with them the temptation to boost the economy now. While acting independently today might mean Mr. Warsh receives ridicule and rebuke from Mr. Trump, the consequences of not doing so are far worse.

PHILIP BRENNAN, a cultural professor of finance at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management.

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10 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2026

OPINION

The New York Times

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We believe in A.I., but it needs regulation

Greg Jensen

Nir Bar Dea

Major technological change produces major social change. Thanks to artificial intelligence, we are arguably on the level of a productivity miracle capable of industry improving people's lives - but only if we act now to prevent A.I.'s worst impact.

Bridgewater, the most management firm we lead, has believed to and be vowed in A.I. as we years, evaluating the firm to harness as much from A.I. as we can. This means we will be draper-partnerships subject to the same and regulations that we recommend here. We make these recommendations anyway, and explore policymakers to move them forward with issues. We have a team to help us to make a present human work and give every citizen a stake in A.I. success. Without these actions, the benefits of A.I. are unlikely to be fully realized.

We refer to achieve progress that is both consistent and sustainable, two things are required from A.I. policy:

The risks posed by A.I. are too great, even for those who stand to gain tremendously from the technology's use.

We have a very resilient to corruption and we must avert technological catastrophe. Failing to across, plush either of these public means failing to achieve the presence of A.I.

We have a more distinctly looser mode well depended

on whether government holds society together while it happens, containing a sense of human and social dealership. When wealth concentrates and disaffection spreads, houses and thefts, I seek to further than one more, a communism and function after the Industrial Revolution, or the popular backlash in globalization we are living through now.

Much to unknown about exactly how A.I. disruption will play out, that the potential is huge. Our internal Bridgewater analysis suggests that 10 percent of current American jobs could be displaced by A.I. in the next five years. And even though some new jobs will be created - particularly those where human relationships are integral in the value of the work, like nursing or hospitality - disruption from the societal transition is extremely likely regarding loss. Governments must act before the inevitable backlash fully arrives at this A.I. driven labor displacement, not after.

Too plainly must stop disincentivizing human labor over nutrition labor. But some only human labor is raised, the scale is tipped toward substitution, a consumption tax on A.I. tokens may flip this surge.

Tokens are the units of data on A.I. model roads, processes and generates. When companies use enterprise versions of A.I. models, they must pay for each token. The price of a token is the closest thing to a wage paid by the close labor. Details for a token consumption tax will need working out, including how to measure token con-

sumption across different A.I. models, mitigating opportunities for tax evasion and covering from other regions to domestic workers with overseas models.

None of these questions means we should wait. Because stand by a token tax can further lower the revenues now in humans. And it could be used to help fund a program is acquire redeem in A.I. companies to share with all citizens. That dynamic would push companies to think more carefully about how to make the best use of the costs of computational resources and clear A.I. toward productive uses instead of "dogs."

Giving everyone a direct stake in capitalism is also likely to be the only way to preserve people's faith that it works. Citizens should have equity in the leading American A.I. companies, so that the economy's success and their success have been a result of their own using the corpus of all human knowledge to build a vast that could displace much of human labor. The people should not accrue to the companies alone.

Using token tax revenue or credits on other corporate tax burdens, government should acquire more than a token and distribute them per class to citizens who would hold them on the same footing as any other shareholders. Distributing the token's other than hurting government, hold them would connect citizens directly to A.I.'s progress, and prevent government bureaucracy - or, worse, corruption - from expanding it. The fact that every citizen who is wrongful makes will help society stay aligned through disruption.

None of this is achievable, of course, if the risk of technological catastrophe isn't pre-empted. Frontier A.I. models have broken out of their intended constraints and have carried out sophisticated intrusions on their own - conduct that would be criminal if a person did it. Current proposals for regulating the public release of frontier models do not go exactly far enough. Model-device uproost and model use must also be regulated according to strict safety standards. Unreleased models are capable of and are used in causing significant damage. And model use must also be consciously mentioned and regulated, as A.I. systems can evolve, expand or be repugnated is ways that introduce harmful capabilities that were not foreseeable in advance.

Absent action today, mitigation of A.I.'s risks will become nearly unpenal: the as the technology affirms or all models become alike to ignore themselves and act autonomously. We may have only one shot at taking meaningful action. And though those steps may rutile equity markets and from that ours that stand to gain from autonomously growth in A.I., not taking them and waiting for more neutral damage or a catastrophe is more dangerous. Regulating A.I. this aggressively fits early, may sound unrealistic. Not doing it is unimaginable.

GREG JENSEN is the managing chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates. NIR BAR DEA is its chief executive officer.

Time to turn the page on Afghanistan

BARBER, FROM PAGE 1

ordinary Afghans who are trying to put old divisions aside and move forward. "My own family's history has been bound up in the irrigation that have shaped Afghanistan - and in their consequences.

My grandfather, Guthadilla Hekmatyan, led one of the most powerful majalachees factions in the war against the Soviet-backed regime in the 1960s. He fought rival forces during the civil war of the 1990s, and he later led an insurgency against the U.S.-backed government before a peace agreement was signed in 1990. My father, Gauraz Rebees, was imprisoned multiple times by the Soviet-backed government and was a top official in my grandfather's party. He would later spend nearly six years in American despotism.

Many in my generation are determined to leave behind the extremities that defined our furtheries' lives.

After being raised overseas, I returned to Afghanistan in 2016. I am among a network of younger Afghans

This is something the West does not see — every day, Afghans push against the boundaries imposed upon them. Service and monitoring in the future of the country we see as home. Both before and after the Taliban returned to power, I have spoken publicly and written about the need for Afghan on-occupation and for the Taliban and the international community to prioritize the welfare of the Afghan people. I am sorry

others, I have advocated for the right of girls to return an education, and I have been able to do it and men about civic engagement.

This is difficult, risky work. In 2021, I was surpassed by the Taliban. I arrived at an office where a group of people were protected at my social media posts, interviews and articles. Taliban officials occurred out of power by society and self-consciousness in a institution. I refused, arguing that person like me only had Afghanistan's best interests at heart. After several hours, I was abruptly released without explanation.

Two years later, a young Talib who followed my work on social media posts led me to another meeting. Some of the same officials who had interrogated me previously were there, and the same was different. Over ten, we spoke candidly about education, government and the country's future. Though we still disagreed on many things, I was no longer treated as an enemy. The pos-

rage of time, the persistence of those pointing for change and the scale of the country's challenges seemed to have made them more willing to know. We were like the mechanic and the car owner, discussing a common problem.

This is something the West does not see — every day, Afghans push against the boundaries imposed upon them. Despite severe restrictions, privately owned media outlets still operate, employing female journalists and sometimes covering sensitive issues and challenging Taliban officials. At one point, most TV presenter's more made in solidarity with their female colleagues in protest against months from the country for women. Female doctors, nurses and midwives continue to provide essential materials, internet and reproductive health care for women, and convergence education are defying the Taliban ban on girls' schooling after sixth grade to teach women and girls online and through

other informal means.

This is possible partly because the Taliban are not the insular mouldin they may appear to be. Like any political movement, there are factions that don't agree. Some of the most influential figures in the movement are on happy with the country's direction, have spoken openly about the need to educate women and girls - society is from farm expressed worry about the impact on their own daughters - and favor proper engagement with the United States.

Whether any of this will lead to lasting change anytime soon is on known. What's clear is that isolation and inhibiting international aid make it harder for Afghans to make use of the limited but meaningful space they have created.

Funding shortages forced more than 140 health care facilities to show or redeem services in 2021. And after the United States terminated aid, U.N.

agencies reduced their operations. Such policies are holding back Afghan letan's economic recovery.

Turning this around doesn't have to mean officially abandoning Western principles and recognizing the Taliban Western governments can restore or expand support for health care, reduce that and livelihoods through the U.N. and other nationalized organizations. The World Bank already does this, funding a range of programs, bypassing the Taliban government.

However, posted the U.S. withdrawal remains for Americans, it's time the United States and other countries turned the page and supported the efforts of ordinary Afghans to rebuild their lives.

JENNELL M. BAKER is an adjunct lecturer of the American University of Afghanistan, which has operated online since 2002. He is a Ph.D. student at the New School.

FROM READERS

A Marine reckons

with the Afghan war

Re "Seeking a Taliban commander I had bought," by Thomas Gibbons-Netf (news essay, July 31)

Mr. Gibbons-Netf's essay about his return to Afghanistan offers a moving account of a veterans search for moral and psychological closure, and I am glad he seems to have heard something like it.

But his reflection falls into a trending moral trap. Mr. Gibbons-Netf appears to admire the Taliban's psychological certainty and more clarity, setting them against the burden-borne by American troops, left to determine the meaning of the war for themselves. Yet what he perceives as clearly is, in reality, the shifting anxiety of religious abstinence.

The same oblonging that produces this mind-set resolution: the stoning of women for alleged adultery; the massacre of ethical and religious capacities; and the seizure of indigenous cultures - most visibly in the destruction of the Bosnian مجالات. It is an oblonged re-ruthlessly abashed that it recently outlawed the sound of a woman's vision, and the death of the war.

This is not a peace of mind to admire. It is the calm of the inside who has never had to question his own righteousness. To every such certainty is a personal category: none. In war or its alternately, the absence of moral doubt is not a virtue. It is a warning.

AZMAT KRAH, GEARTOROSVILLE, IND.

I was struck with profound sadness: after reading Thomas Gibbons-Netf's essay, And I was surprised by the Taliban commander's question about the sadness of returning American service members.

Mr. Gibbons-Netf's observations about the hard time of his ordinary visit and life, so different from the lucrative defense jobs obtained by the members of the military forcefully after their service, were all the more telling. I, John's (obtus) IV,华州大校, 1.

I thank Thomas Gibbons-Netf for his unanxious service in Afghanistan and for his fascinating essay. But I wonder why he never mentions the reasons we were there in the first place. The ruling Taliban, without equity, bound the sorcerers of Al-Qaida who attached the United States on Sept. 15, 1990, falling some 3,000 interest civilians.

LEWIS BRICKSTEIN, ATLANTA

Hamas has no more cards to play

ARISKALK, FROM PAGE 2

change," he said. "The resistance to prevented heroic examples and fought honorable wars, but the blackade doesn't broken, the political reality didn't change and none of the least was liberated."

When Hamas tried hundreds of unprovincial properties on Israel in 2021, purportedly the most recent escalation in East Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrak and the West Bank, a cause-five was reached, only to result in a sharp escalation of Israel's military roads and further violence in the West Bank. The years 2022 and 2023 became one of the deadliest on record in the West Bank.

The No. 1 Israel's first to ignite the Hamas leader Yahya Stewart chosen at a multitreat war in which Hamas would be overwhelmed by assaults from Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq and Yemen along with the Arab community in the West Bank, inside Israel and in neighboring countries in Jarrak. It led to an Israeli offensive that killed more than 70,000 people and destroyed more of the Gaza city. When Hamas officials have suggested openly and privately that No. 1 was a strategic mistake and that they failed to take war-consideration the necessity of its own reaction.

Palestinian factions such as Hamas, which defined themselves for decades by the ideology of atomic-incarnation, have been looking for a face-saving way out, figures close to Hamas' home told me. Hamas leaders like Khaled Berthad have been soothing the message that Gazaans have done their part in contributing to the Palestinian cause and paid the heaviest price, and should now be able to recover and help.

Sensitive messaging is crucial to avoid mistakes made in other decent economies in experiments, like ex-Sovietia, where a significant number of former PAHO disbanded by front and joined curuts or created new gangs. For example, disarming for a group dedicated to armed resistance must be framed as a treatment, not a survivalist, and is why the role of a Peacock and map for Gaza time to avoid the operation of airbies, surrender or forfeiting of the right to armed resistance by using the language of "staring" rather than "restringing" weapons, and by placing a Palestinian police force in charge of the process rather than Israel or other external parties.

A better idea needs to fill the vacuum created by cooperating Palestinian armed resistance. The appeal of

violence has not historically increased support for Hamas. Hamas benefited instead from the failure of somewhere options or their undermining, whether defamers, prowess, advocacy or legal pressure.

Northern Ireland's experience shows that decision-misning can eventually be associated only if coupled with a genuine political process leading to lasting peace, in this case a credible path toward Palestinian self-destructive nature and statehood. Mr. Trump's plus-pentates toward this as a possibility in the indefinite future, but that is not enough.

Mr. Trump's after-tendence on the man's disarmament before any Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza is detained from reality. Israel's military path has been proven futile. After over two years pulverizing Gaza, with never-knows of bombing than Dresden or Hamburg during World War II, Israel has failed to destroy Hamas. An extensive study on military groups found that only 7 percent were defeated militarily, while 43 percent disbanded through a transit line to a political process, dialogue and intervention was assessed publicly.

Israel's argument that the road-map would allow Hamas to regroup the another Oct. 1 is a scare tactic rather than a serious assessment. Surprise was a decisive element in making the attack possible, not the superior frequency of a militia against one of the world's most powerful militaries. As

the Israeli journalist, Mr. Ganttary, noted, it was more about "the empathy, arrogance and negligence of the Israeli American government, than about sophistication and danger on the part of Hamas." What are the chances of another Oct. 7 today when the surprise element is lost?

Mr. Netanyahu's obstructions to most likely mainly about his political survival should of Israeli decisions. A group of Mr. Netanyahu's government ministers joined a search bar needed calling for the rebuilding of illegal settlements in Gaza. His defense minister last month announced plans to support the settlements in Gaza and a brigade. "Today, there is no Shapiro, no Aladdin," referring to the Gaza City neighborhood and Gazan city. "All these terrible places that you remember don't want." That's why withdrawal or reconstruction would, for Mr. Netanyahu, constitute political suicide.

America's political leaders should not indulge Mr. Netanyahu's argument that he is maintained by Israel in a mental politics. They should say: 'No, too, have our own domestic political capitalism designed interests and international standing to worry about, and we will not let you exchange them to save yourself from a reckoning with your people.'

MONSHINE SHELMAN is a Palestinian analyst and a visiting Editor at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

ADAM H. KLEIN, Beijing, Bangkok, China; Franklin J. Gahagan, Hong Kong; Gunnard J. Knauth, Afghanistan; Adele Lamya, Lahore, London; Martin M. Mert, Nigeria; Robert R. Morris, Seoul, Taipei, Tel Aviv, Tokyo; The New York Times (Institute), 1001 EAST Avenue, New York, NY, USA; John L. McClintock, The New York Times (Institute), 1001 EAST AVENUE, New York, NY, USA; John L. McClintock, The New York Times (Institute), 1001 EAST AVENUE, New York, NY, USA; John L. McClintock, The New York Times (Institute), 1001 EAST AVENUE, New York, NY, USA; John L. McClintock, The New York Times (Institute), 1001 EAST AVENUE, New York, NY, USA

The New York Times (Institute), 1001 EAST AVENUE, New York, NY, USA; John L. McClintock, The New York Times (Institute), 1001 EAST AVENUE, New York, NY, USA; John L. McClintock, The New York Times (Institute), 1001 EAST AVENUE, New York, NY, USA; John L. McClintock, The New York Times (Institute), 1001 EAST AVENUE, New York, NY, USA

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SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2020 | 11

INTERNATIONAL HOMES

Minimalism and utility in a very thin house

Bold changes enhance light-filled layout of a property measuring 12.5 feet across

LYONS SMALL

BY JULIE LASEY

In 1976, Vancouver, British Columbia, a city long troubled by unaffordable housing, tried to ease the burden by passing a law that allowed houses to be built on narrow into curved front properties with generous widths. This practice produced fewer than 100 new buildings before neighborhood associations, concerned that the measure would lead to a decline in property values, pressured the city to shut it down.

One place that had a concentration of these slender dwellings — and led the revolt against them — was Dunbar-Southlands, a community on the city's affluent west side.

It was there that Owen Sturgeon, a software company executive, and Heather Geeth, a horticulturist, bought a two-story house on a 12.5-foot-wide lot (2.6 meters) in 2015 for 360,000 Canadian dollars (about $870,000).

The couple had been living in a nearby one-bedroom apartment and craved a detached home in the neighborhood, which was where Mr. Sturgeon grew up. The skinny property fit their budget.

And they were happy with it, said Mr. Sturgeon, who is now 30. "You get a front yard, you get a backyard, you get everything in a house but just in a smaller footprint."

"The light was really good," added Ms. Geeth, 31. She found it remaining down from skylights in a 12-foot-high beamed ceiling on the upper floor. "That was something from the get-go that we were really drawn in."

The couple settled into the 1,000-square-foot (52-square-meter) home for the next five years before hiring Campus Studio in Vancouver to renounce it.

By that time, they had discovered that the living room wasn't all that bright and indeed a connection to the front garden, and they slickled that the kitchen at the rear lacked a place to put their wet coats — practically a uniform in their part of the world — when they entered the house through the back door after moving their bikes. (Both are avid cyclists.)

The job, Junior Campus, the studio's founder, said, was almost nautical. The

space was so tight that he and his associate, Males Fernandez, recommended getting rid of the downstairs bathroom and leaving just the one on the upper level. (The clients declined.)

And it involved some reversals. The dining room, which Mr. Campos described as "hot" in the ground floor plan, was wrapped with the kitchen. This created distinct spaces for living and dining, "a strategy to make small or spaces feel larger due to their individual character," Mr. Campos said.

It also allowed the oven, refrigerator and storage to be tucked under the staircase — not the original staircase, which slanted front to back, but a new one that rose to the opposite direction, flowing more naturally from the rear entrance.

At its base is a platform that serves

as an impromptu bench for changing down.

Upstairs, a catwalk, with new, oak siding/replacing metal, connects a bedroom at the back of the house to an open area in front. The latter space originally had French doors that led to a balcony, but that has been enclosed, increasing the room's size. A large window now looks out to a mature dogwood tree.

By removing the original chimney, the designers created an office soak in front — technically a wide, student-closet fitted with a standing deck. (The living room fireplace was switched out for a wood-burning store that costs directly outdoors through the roof.) This room is also where the couple exercise.

The impulse to eliminate encum-

brances was a death sentence for decorative features like a pair of post-modern columns on the facade topped by a beam and triangle. "The pillars were a bit too much for that little house," Ms. Fernandez said. The once yellow exterior color is now a less flashy dark gray.

"And the house is so easy to keep organized," Ms. Geeth said. The fear of visual cluster makes her vigilant. "I don't want to look at it because the house is so beautiful not as it is."

To highlight that beauty the designers reworked the interior lighting to direct illumination upward, enhancing the sense of volume. LED strips laid on top of the ceiling-beams call attention to the tested roof structure.

The garden the owners inherited had been planned by a landscape designer,

but Ms. Geeth couldn't resist adding dozens of new plants. The grounds are now so dense that the couple chose not to dress any of the windows apart from those in the bedroom.

Another gift left to them when the job was finished in 2015, at a cost of about $200,000 Canadian, was the possibility of creating a second bedroom with the augmented upstairs space. Ms. Geeth described it as "faster proofing" — not one of her and Mr. Sturgeon's priorities but a handy feature should they ever decide to sell.

For now, when they have overnight guests, which is not often, they give up their bedroom and sleep on air near-creases in the exercise room. "I feel like we had to design the house for how we live 90 percent of the time," Ms. Geeth said.

Clockwise from far left: Owen Sturgeon and Heather Geeth in their living room, at the front of the house; the dining area leading to the back garden; an open space upstairs where a balcony was enclosed; a catwalk connecting the spaces upstairs; and the bedroom.

WHAT YOU GET | MICHAEL KANDNER

Homes for under $2 million in Rio de Janeiro

Itanhangá

81.40 MILLION (7.5 MILLION BRAZILIAN REAL)

A new bedroom, one-faith, Balinese-style house

With a design inspired by modern Balinese architecture, this house is in a gated community invecino and upmarket district of Rio de Janeiro. The neighborhood borders Tijuca National Park, one of the world's largest urban forests.

The Itanhangá—Leil Club, designed by the Canadian architect Stanley Thompson in the 1930s, is just north-west. Today's Itanhangá, an open-air mall in Barra da Tijuca, is two miles, or three kilometers, southwest. Joellen Occitinto, a high-end waterfront district with a strip of popular restaurants and bars, is just south.

SIZE: 2,368 square feet (220 square meters)

PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT: $822

HANDING: On the lower level, dark wood beams offset the living room's high

ceilings and light stone walls. Textured wooden doors lead to a kitchen with stainless-steel appliances, mirrored cabinets and a stone island with an integrated stove.

The bedroom is upstairs, with floor-to-ceiling windows, reflective sheets and tiled floors. In the bathroom, a sleek concrete still complements an indoor-outdoor bathing area with stone tiles and dead rain shower heads. Furniture is included in the sale.

OCTOBER SPADE: The property spreads across outdoor living spaces including a broad wooden deck, a covered outdoor living room, a sheltered lounge space with ample seating, a swimming pool and a stone sauna. Steps from the house, an observance deck-hazardant with chaises longues can be reached by a slim ladder.

COSTS: Annual property taxes are about $14,920 (70,000 Brazilian real). Monthly homeowner fees are about $440 (2,250 Brazilian real).

CONTACT: Mauro Mindaurichk | Bessa Nova Siebelny's International Realty

Lagos

81.80 MILLION (9.5 MILLION BRAZILIAN REAL)

A duplex penthouse with views of Corcovado Mountain

This five-bedroom, four-faith duplex penthouse in Lagos — an upscale section of southern Rio de Janeiro named for the subwater lagoon it borders — covers two floors.

The five-mile (night-kilometer) parkway surrounding the lagoon is popular for strolling, sharing and biking. Shopping Rialial, an upscale mall with 400 stores, is two miles east. Bar Lagos, which has served German fare the bestment in Art Deco surroundings since 1915, is just south of the lagoon.

SIZE: 5,500 square feet (510 square meters)

PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT: $348

HANDING: Both floors of the apartment are designed as salons, with separate entrances, kitchens, social spaces and bedrooms. On the lower floor, the living room features full-length windows and

a giant porthole on a black accent wall. The kitchens are outfitted with glossy white cabinets and stainless-steel appliances. Two bedrooms have no radio bathrooms; all five bedrooms feature herringbone hardwood floors. Furniture is available by separate organization.

OCTOBER SPADE: The upper level features two large outdoor spaces. A 340-square-foot front terrace with a swimming pool and an outdoor kitchen overlook in the lagoon. The back designs affect panoramic views of Rio, including Corcovado Mountain and to towering Christ the Redstone spaces.

The sale includes four parking spaces in the ground-floor garage, which is equipped with electric-vehicle charging stations.

TOTAL: Annual property taxes are about $4,710 (24,000 Brazilian real). Monthly common charges are about $1,253 (8,700 Brazilian real).

CONTACT: Fredricie Cockerpot | Where in Rio

Barra da Tijuca

81.80 MILLION (9.0 MILLION BRAZILIAN REAL)

A newly-renowned penthouse with skylights, a pool and city views

This four-bedroom, four-bedroom duplex penthouse is in Santa Milneira Jardine, a giant complex of detached homes and condominium buildings in Barra da Tijuca, an affluent district in Rio's southwest.

North of the home is Mauro de Postal, Brazil's largest folk art museum. The American School of Rio de Janeiro, popular with expansion families, is a 20-minute walk. Rio de Janeiro/Calaba International Airport is 20 miles (12 kilometers) northeast.

SIZE: 5,050 square feet (470 square meters)

PRICE PER SQUARE FOOT: $385

HANDING: The sedent's bought and renovated the duplex apartment in 2020. The lower-floor features a sitting area with a skylight, built-in floor-towering bookcases, self-edged white furniture

and textured wood walls. The common kitchen includes glossy white countertops and integrated appliances. The open glass upper level features a bar with seating for six, a long dining table with leather chairs, an avial unit and a Ping-Pong table. Furniture is included in the sale.

OCTOBER SPADE: On the upper level, a wall of glass doors opens onto a wide terrace with a long, thick swimming pool and expansive views of Barra da Tijuca through curved glass panels. The sale includes four parking spots in the building's garage. The condominium complex includes a tennis court and swimming pool for residents.

COSTS: Annual property taxes are about $3,320 (18,000 Brazilian real). Monthly common charges are about $1,370 (7,000 Brazilian real).

Given the just pace of the current market, some properties may no longer be available at the time of publication.

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12 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2026

SCIENCE LAB

CITIZENS, CORP., 2750 O'CONNOR ST., NORTH HOLLY, MA 02167, PHONE: (617) 927-1200

SHEILA GAINES

How did turtles evolve? Faster than you'd expect.

Turtles move around in their own armored sanctuary, have adapted to living on land and in water and are among the longest-living animals on the planet. Their anatomy is so unusual that it's hard to pinpoint where they belong on the tree of life. Where do they come from? Who, scientists would love to know, is their common ancestor?

Many paleontologists have asserted that turtles originated with an ancient reptile, Eunotosaurus africanus, which lived 260 million years ago. Other studies that focused on genetic evidence, however, have suggested that turtles are actually more similar to crocodiles and birds and may share a common ancestor with them.

"Turtle origins have always been a tough nut to crack," said Xavier A. Jenkins, with the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

In a new study in Current Biology, Dr. Jenkins and his colleagues say they have resolved this longstanding debate. They suggest that turtles are not holdovers from the ancient Eunotosaurus, but are instead members of a group of reptiles called archosauromorphs that also includes ancient birds, crocodiles, pterosaurs and dinosaurs. And this time, the researchers have the anatomical evidence to match the DNA. (Above are skeletal reconstructions of, from top, Protorosaurus, about 250-260 million years ago; Pappochelys, from 240 million years ago; and Proganochelys, from 220 million years ago.)

When turtles first evolved, the world was just emerging from the Permian-Triassic extinction event. Reptiles were fanning out across the Pangea supercontinent in a rapid succession of new forms. SARA HOUSE

PELLING AWAY THE YEARS.

Scientists devise way to reverse buildup of compounds associated with aging

The same chemical process that turns a baking cake golden brown is at work aging your body's cells. Over decades, your tissues, baking steadily at this degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius), accumulation compounds called advanced glycation end products, or AGEs, as sugars interact with protein and fat in the bloodstream. The buildup of AGEs is a hallmark of the aging process, making tissues like collagen sticky and rigid and causing inflammation that can lead to heart disease, eye damage, kidney disease and diabetes.

Researchers have tried unsuccessfully to develop medications that stop AGEs from forming. But a new study, published in Nature Communications, describes a different lack: Scientists created an enzyme that cleans one of the most common AGEs from human tissue, helping to turn back the clock even after the aging compounds have settled in the body. This cleanse can help repair the tissue and could allow cells to act younger. (The illustration shows an enzyme breaking up aging-related chemical substances.)

"It's a small step in this bigger direction, because aging is very complicated," said Aaron Craven, a founder and the chief executive of Bovet Pharmaceuticals and the lead author of the study.

Many efforts to develop treatments for aspects of aging have focused on cells, which gradually lose the ability to repair themselves and divide properly. Less attention has been given to the aging of longer-lived tissue structures such as collagen.

Scientists have been aware of advanced glycation-end products and their role in aging for decades. "If accumulators on tissue proteins like rats," said John Reynes, a retired biochemist who was not involved in the study but who spent his career researching AGEs at the University of North Carolina Floyd School of Medicine. But researchers had no success creating drugs to inhibit the chemical reactions that produce AGEs.

The study by Dr. Craven and his colleagues began with a hypothesis: Since all human tissue can be recycled into the biosphere after death, there must be a natural way to dissolve these compounds, even though they are extremely durable. To identify that process, they looked to the enzymes inside microbes, the agents of decomposition.

The team used AI to analyze the DNA sequences of 30,000 microbes and to compute the enzyme structures each genetic code would create. They then narrowed the results to several candidates that seemed capable of cleaving AGEs from human tissue. They eventually found one and engineered it to be more efficient. The novel enzyme, called CMLase, became very good at removing AGEs from human tissue samples. "In the most extreme case, we took 70-year-old human skin and brought the levels back to that of a 10-year-old," Dr. Craven said.

The researchers plan to start testing their enzyme for the treatment of eye diseases, including several associated with diabetes, that develop when AGEs accumulate in retinal and lens tissues. In theory, Dr. Craven said, CMLase could be applied periodically or even just once to clear out the inflammatory buildup underlying these conditions. "I was pretty excited about this paper," said Michael C. Jewett, a bioengineer at Stanford University in California who was not involved in the study. "It's not a clinical solution yet, but this proof of concept opens the aperture to possible new therapeutic solutions for longevity."

If the approach works in a clinical setting, it has the potential to be applied to many AGE-related conditions, for example by restoring kidney or cardiovascular function. "This study was a master class in how to engineer an enzyme," Dr. Jewett said. "I think there is tremendous, untapped potential in this protein class for addressing numerous human diseases." F. B. CALLAWAY

BOB JOHNSON/VOICE

COSMIO COHEN

This star just ate a planet, and it's still a little hungry

A star about 1,000 light-years from Earth shows signs of having devoured one of its planets — and is now gearing up for a second helping, according to a pair of new studies.

For many planets, it is their cosmic fate to one day become engulfed by their own stars; then slowly melted down into their constituent elements. This process, known as planetary engulfment, is destined to occur in our own solar system. When the star balloons into its red giant phase in several billion years, it will envelop Mercury, Venus and perhaps even Earth.

Astronomers can see examples of planetary engulfment because it leaves behind elemental kinds that become implicated in the star's light.

That's what they saw for the hungry star named TOI-5802. It is glowing with the half-digested remains of what was likely seen a planet. And that planet may have been flung to its fate by its neighbor, a celestial object called a brown dwarf that is orbiting the same star, according to a study in The Astrophysical Journal.

At 22 times the mass of Jupiter, the brown dwarf could easily disrupt the orbits of neighboring planets. But it will get its own comecuppancy when it, too, is inevitably served up to its star, perhaps sooner than once expected.

Engulfment events "can tell you something about the star, and it can tell you something about the cosplanet, and that's the amazing thing," said Claudia Aguilera-Gómez, a faculty member at the Institute of Astrophysics at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and an author of the first study. TOI-5802, about 50 percent more massive than the sun, attracted astronomers' attention last year partly because of its orbiting brown dwarf. That huge object, known as TOI-5802-b, is very close to the star, orbiting it once every week, at a proximity that guarantees it will be engulfed to the future. But when astronomers took a closer look, they found that TOI-5802's starlight revealed high amounts of lithium, an element far more abundant in planets than in stars. Had a planet already succumbed?

Scientists have opened signs of lithium and other planetary ingredients in many stars, finding that they may have some players in the past. And TOI-5802 is at a "overt spot" in its evolution that makes other explanations unlikely, according to Melody-Suarez-Furtado, an assistant professor of astronomy and physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an author on both studies. BECKY FURNICHI

"We knew attempting this boost mission on such an unprecedented short timeline would be very challenging."

Shawn Berengal-Goldman, director of NASA's astrophysics division, on a setback suffered by the agency's effort to save a failing space telescope.

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SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2020

13

Sports

Able to see the 2020 season in the 2020 season, the 2020 season is the 2020 season, the 2020 season is the 2020 season, the 2020 season is the 2020 season, the 2020 season is the 2020 season, the 2020 season is the 2020 season.

After Super Bowl win, he's no longer a journeyman

REXTON, WASH.

Sam Darnoid is settled in Seattle, but he's not becoming complacent

BY JEFF RIVER

THE ATLANTIC

Sam Darnoid can appreciate all he has done and endured while also recognizing that the top of the emotional is never within reach.

"He is now a Super Bowl champion after orchestrating the Seattle Seahawks' first championship run in a dozen years. But he does go off the stardust the title in February was the culmination of his journey. He is 20, and not even halfway through his career. For a quarterback whose trajectory appeared to be completely detailed several times, he has seen far too much to take a day, even a moment, far granted.

"I am 42 people ask me," said Darnoid, the No. 2 pick of the 2018 National Football League draft. "She. Come on, man, we've issued you say stuff about how you're just taking it one day at a time, but you're got to have certain feelings about certain places you've never. But it doesn't do me any good to have that stand out. Even if I did have certain thoughts about certain places, that doesn't do me any good to air that out.

"Even for myself, when I'm home with my wife, I don't like talking about things that happened three or four years ago. It's just like, what are we doing? We know what I mean? That's just looking so to something that has no meaning. I hold on to the lessons I learned during that time, but it's just a waste of brain space to think about stuff like that."

Darnoid's off-season energy was to visual-invented to healthier activities, like exploring Seattle's tourist attractions and building a community among friends in the area.

"Living in the same area, having that stability, that's been amazing," Darnoid said. "In terms of being able to stay in our place because I have been — 'journeyman' may be a issue term — but I've been a journeyman for the last month three or four years. It's been amazing to be able to stay here for this upcoming year and have a stable home instead of just bouncing from apartment to apartment. It can be so tough, and I lived that life for three years. It's very nice to have a stable home."

After his first three seasons with the New York Jets, who have not made the playoffs since 2010, Darnoid was flipped to the Candela Panthers for three draft picks. But the Panthers were raised in their own organizational crisis, and Darnoid's career continued to shift.

Darnoid opted for the understudy route with San Francisco青年; Coach Kyle Skurahan in 2015. He was there in the short term to support the starter.

Beach Purdy, and in the long term to soak up as much as he could from one of the N.E.S. is top teachers.

Darnoid cashed in that experience in 2014 for a spot in Kevin O'Connell's school of quarterbacking with the Minnesota Vikings, who also traded up in the first round for quarterback J.J. McCarthy. Darnoid signed a $50 million deal, so he was also going to have to overcome the organization's investment in the rookie.

Darnoid outlasted McCarthy, who needed semiscan surgery to camp, and transferred his career. He set career highs with 4,100 passing yards and 10 touchdowns, and his 36.2 completion percentage was his last until he signed it (67.7) in 2015. The Vikings won 14 games and placed for the N.F.C.'s No. 1 seed in the season finish before their defensive line were down, Darnoid took a putemding and they succumbed once-emotionally in back-to-back games.

The Seahawks certainly did not lose faith in Darnoid because of the way it ended. They swooped in with a three-year, $100.5 million contract in free agency. Though the Seahawks had been disciplined in their quarterback pursuit in recent years, bypassing the idea of aggressively trading up in the draft, they had to pivot in 2020 when Gene Smith wanted too much money. Even so, Darnoid still signed a prove-it-deal-ride line to the defeat of bouncing contracts around the league.

Ultimately, Darnoid was one of the

league's greatest bargains. And sometime after the coming season, he and the Seahawks are probably going to add more for who of an extension.

Is Seattle where Darnoid would like to finish his career?

"That's always the dream, right?" he said. "But you just never know what's going to happen. That's why, for my entire career, I've treated everything — I would say one year at a time, but it's really one day at a time. I don't look just today. We've got to crack straight to earnings. And tonight, I'm going to look at tomorrow's script and make sure I'm ready for tomorrow's practice."

"It's been amazing to be able to stay here for this upcoming year and have a stable home."

Darnoid's task-focused mentality involves surely with Coach Mike Macdonald, who masterfully blends his guidance of the overall team mission within and after to get into the extra going with crucial details.

Last season, for instance, Darnoid discovered in the clutch over and again, notably with an incredible comeback in Week 16 against the Los Angeles Rams to reshape Seattle's season. Over the Seahawks' final four games — another finish with the No. 1 seed as the line before a three-game march to glory — Darnoid completed 60 percent of his

passes for 870 yards, five touchdowns and no interruptions.

Whether it was his four game-winning strives or his steadying hand in the postseason, he stated it all its preparation for the moment. Darnoid, Macdonald and the former Seahawks offensive coordinator Kibie Rabish, saw the Las Vegas Raiders' head coach, spent countless days with these situations in mind.

"I think I've always been comfortable in that situation, but I also think it's about practicing the moment and visualizing it," Darnoid said. "It was like, all right, this is what we're going to call. By that time last year, I know exactly what our coordinator was going to call, and you know what makes we like his certain coverages, what I could check into against certain coverages. It's just being glued into these situations, having slow them so much in walk-throughs to where it's like, OK, I know exactly what we're doing."

Nothing is seamless, however. The team's new offensive coordinator, Brian Fleury, overlapped with Darnoid in San Francisco, but Fleury has never called plays before. They have a nice foundation with a use of carry-over within the system, but Darnoid and Fleury simply need experience to hit a similar groove.

Macdonald wants them to reach a point where they have full alignment on concepts they like to run, how many plays are worth taking into a game, how they will work together in high-leverage situations and the like.

"The sky is the limit. Why would I put a limit on his development?" Macdonald said. "We respect what he's gone through. We it's not like we're becoming that to do how we coach him. We do vested in him, so we're going to dive in headfirst and just go right."

"Right now in camp, how far can we take your game? So let's just go for it and see where we land in a month. We're not doing that by going through the stations. We're going through that by having the current role of really pushing him, schematically challenging him on defense, setting up situations in three success, coaching the back out of him, talking situational football."

On the reverse, Darnoid looks to be at ease. He is relaxed, comfortable, in total control. Internally, he is the opposite. He does not see a singular destination within his drive to squeeze everything imaginable out of the game. Therefore, a Super Bowl was never the end result; it was just one checkpoint along the way.

"I've never felt like I've reached the pinnacle," Darnoid said. "I never feel like I will. My dad always taught me everything happens for a reason, so I've always had that mind set. As long as you work hard, hard work is going to pay off at some point, whether it's in your football life or your life as a football, as a father one day, as a grandparent."

"These lessons you learn while working hard and going through tough times, they pay off eventually. You just may not know when."

The Mini Crossword

Two Not Touch

Put two stars in each row, column and region of the grid. No two stars may touch, not even diagonally. Number of stars may be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100

Wit Twister

Geometry was fun, with squares and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

What sank me, though, and left me saddest, maddest, excellent

Was calcutso, with grazhets and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and since.

That disciplined by far the hardest and the . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Complete the series with words. Pick out a magazine of each other. Each underline represents a letter. A total of 10 words is 2,000.

YESTERDAY'S AMENIST: June 1 - Friday

KenKen

Fill the grid with digits as as not to repeat a digit in any row or column, and so that the digits within each heavily outlined box will produce the target number shown, by using addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, as indicated in the box. A 4-bit grid will use the digits 1-4. A 6-bit grid will use 1-6.

For more games: www.nytimes.com/games

NATIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE NATIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE NATIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE NATIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE NATIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE NATIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE NATIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE NATIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE NATIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE NATIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE NATIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE NATIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE NATIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE NATIONAL CHALLENGE OF THE

Crossword | Edited by Will Shortz

ACROSS 1 Begun 2 Show faces? 3 Bring back into the fold, so to speak 4 Worth looking back on 5 One from "Jepers kitchen" 6 Appeal 7 Bill of caramic ware 8 Cost off 9 7 10 "Lovely" and "wonderful" food, per Marty Python 11 Rose Bowl Stadium athlete 12 Big ring 13 Patient privacy law, it does 14 World Cup team nicknames "The Three Lions": Aldo 15 "Saw" "Hill" 16 "Speak up" 17 Information and how command dishes, essentially 18 Handiwork gold-tone? 19 Long... equal 20 "How to Never exciseeism 21 "Institute of 'Multiple Self'" 22 Hiring location 23 All width? 24 Telokynen for Eleanor 25 Eco-catching stage prep 26 "Get it?" 27 11 "You 28 Underlining, 4-6 29 Classical figure in 30 1998 Statista 31 Some back-and-turn 32 1st name in fashion 33 Go in the wrong way? 34 "I beg you!" DON'N 1 Cut out the middleman, for delivery 4 Windows collection

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE

3 "You're the best!"

4 No-good-ending?

5 Diamond figs.

6 Leffenski star

of the Summer Triangle

7 Classic 2020

round after published

with a built and

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cover

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9 Ganges player

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May all of our games plus over 10,000 total puzzles for Words, Spelling

Box. The Crossword and more online at http://nytimes.com/games.

For puzzle talk, visit http://nytimes.com/vertisplay

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14 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2026

Weekend

The long road to London of the Bayeux Tapestry

LONDON

French art experts insisted the fragile masterpiece would never be fit to travel

BY ALEX MARSHALL

When Elizabeth II was about to be crowned in 1851, British officials decided on the perfect gift for the monarch to be. They would bring home the Bayeux Tapestry.

For over 800 years, the 220-bon-long embroidery depicting the 1066 invasion of England by William the Conqueror had created in Bayeux, France. A celebratory loan of one of Britain's most important cultural artifacts would have made an ideal consolation present, but there was a problem: French art experts wouldn't let the tapestry travel. It was too fragile to move, they said.

French experts suggested another British plan to borrow the tapestry in 1866 for the 800th anniversary of the invasion. Then again in 1880. Last year, too, the tapestry's handlers insisted a loan was impossible.

And yet, against the odds, the tapestry is now in London. On July 9, at 0:15 p.m., a bright yellow track carrying the masterpiece, sealed in a climate-and-tit-braiser-controlled case, left Bayeux in a secretive overnight operation. Accompanied by members of the French society services, the track drove onto a German train that took it under the sea through the Channel Tunnel.

Once in England, the track crawled through the night to the British Museum in London, where its cargo is the star of a

blackbuster exhibition that opens Sept. 10 and will run through July 31. Tickets are already sold out through Dec. 31, and the British Museum hopes attendance will rival the 1.6 million visitors who flocked to its "Treasures of Tutankhamon" show in 1972.

When a decades-long no suddenly becomes a yet, something is clearly albeit. Since 2016, a legacy-seeking President

A poster advertising the tapestry exhibition marks the British Museum.

Below, President John F. Kennedy, André Matraux, Jacqueline Kennedy and others with the Mesa Line at the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1960. Below right, President Emmanuel Macron of France looks at the "Lovin chevrons" in July with his wife, Brigitte Macron, Ralf Sturmer, who was then Britain's prime minister; and others. The British Museum is leading the multi-road chess pieces to France to exchange for the Bayeux Tapestry.

Above, the section of the tapestry where Harold Godermann, the Anglo-Saxon king, is struck in the eye with an arrow at the Battle of Hastings I-95, inside the British Museum. The team there is hoping that attendance for the tapestry display will rival the 1.6 million visitors who flocked to its "Treasures of Tutankhamon" show in 1972.

Emmanuel Macron of France was among those leading the charge for the loan. King Charles III was a key messenger, according to Macron. So were several British prime ministers. The British government stopped in to insure the process for 800 million pounds, or over 10 billion.

Is the about-face over the tapestry a sign that political power can trump the concerns of curators and scholars? Or have conservators techniques developed so much that the impossible to now possible?

For those who oppose the loan, the answer is clear. Conservators rooms may have done "everything possible to replace risk," said Didier Rylolet, the founder of La Tribune de l'Art, a French art publication, but in the case of the tapestry, "everything is not enough."

The loan happened only because Macron warned it to, Rylolet said, "He thinks he knows better than experts."

MEMES OF CONQUEST

The list of reasons that the Bayeux Tapestry is so important is almost as long as the tapestry itself. Whereas many surviving medieval textiles are failed fragments, the Bayeux Tapestry is almost whole, and its red, blue and green threads still have an unexpected vibrancy.

Then there's the story it tells: how William the Conqueror, a duke from Normandy in France, invaded England in 1906, deposing its last Anglo-Saxon monarch at the Battle of Hastings. Those events changed the English language, reshaped the country's laws and sprinkled its royal line. To many in Eng-

land, the tapestry is a key symbol of British identity, like Stonehenge, Shakespeare's plays or even the monarchy itself.

In 50 scenes that resemble platinos from "Game of Thrones", the tapestry's narrative twists and turns, before choosing in an epic battle between the armies of William the Conqueror and England's king, Harold Godermann. Cavalry charge. Arrows fly. Swords cut through flesh, and heads tumble to the ground. In the tapestry's best-known scene - depicting Godermann's death - the deepened monarch clings an arrow that has threaded into his eye.

It's clearly chimery told by the visitor that establishes William the Conqueror as England's rightful king. But it has also been used as a powerful symbol by the likes of Napoleon, the Nazis and now today's political leaders.

The tapestry was likely embroidered in Canterbury, England, at some point in the 10th century, and historians aren't sure how, when or why it made it to Bayeux, a city in northern France. It does not feature in historical records until 1170, when it appears in an inventory from Bayeux outsketed as "a very long and narrow hanging of lines, embroidered with figures and inscriptions representing the conquest of England."

Although it was often stored in a solar chest to guard against media, the tapestry wasn't always treated as a fragile masterpiece, even as, over the next few

hundred years, its reputation grew.

In 1865, Napoleon ordered it moved along bumpy roads from Bayeux to the Louvre in Paris to help drain up support for his planned invasion of Britain. It has or returned to Bayeux, from where some 16th-century English visitors wrote that the tapestry was "already rugged" and predicted that it would "be wholly ruined in the course of half a century."

When France was under German occupation during World War II, the Nazis brought the tapestry back to the Louvre on the orders of Heinrich Himmler, who ultimately wanted it in Germany. But the Allies liberated Paris before the tapestry disappeared into a Nazi invasion force. It even back in Bayeux, and in the decades afterward, the tapestry's guardians all seemed to agree on one thing: It shouldn't leave town again.

DOWN ON ONE KIND

The centuries of rough handling had an impact. A study from 2020 found that the tapestry had 18,296 stakes, 10,410 wrinkles, 5,048 bales and 39 trays. By that time, ideas about art conservators had changed drastically.

Ella Hendriks, a professor of conservators at the University of Amsterdam, said that conservators had emerged as a profession in the 20th century, when there were two schools of thought. Some artists and philosophers, exemplified by the English critic John Bickels, thought that artifacts should be maintained as they were or left to naturally decay, arguing that the "golden scale of time" added aesthetic value. Yet the majority of surgical conservators and reviewers felt a duty to keep artworks looking brand new.

If a painting had failed, these conservators "wouldn't hesitate to ever-paint an area," Hendriks said. If a visible was worn, they would happily re-understand it. That led to some dramatic interrelations, maybe even for the Bayeux Tapestry. Many historians think the arrow (breaching into Godermann's eye isn't an original detail but one of several 18th-century modifications.

It was only to the early 20th century, Hendriks said, that conservators became as much a science as a craft. Temperature and humidity restricts because commonplace in museums, as did the practice of keeping artworks behind glass. Conservators with the time or spaces from institutions that didn't meet their standards, and although they developed techniques to let many artworks crisscross the globe safely, they considered some pieces too precious to ever leave.

But political power could overcome that stance.

REUTIVE PAGE 10

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SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2020 | 15

STYLE

WEEKEND

It's not your usual retail brand

The blend of fashion and spirituality called La DoubletJ opens in New York

BY VANESSA FRIEDMAN

On a recent meeting a group of Vogue editors, fashion agents and well-heeled Upper East Side ladies made a pilgrimage of sorts to the Lighthouse by La DoubletJ, a new store on East 40th Street, showed in a genteel brownstone just off Madison Avenue in New York.

They steeped past Jewellies, a free-lost call (50 centimeters) quaint crystal from Brazil, in the sunken sentyway. Poor radio hung with a mix of Cleopatra in Parisian prints, shelves outside with fringed sheets and primates glassware and versus of snowy wallpaper printed with ancient Egyptian symbols. All the way up to the top floor and something called "the gang temple."

Then they took off their LoubletJ's home and Ron Myringer and lay down an various woven rugs, as an enormous steel and titanium gang from Etruscan caves outside Rome immersed them in sound wave meant to correspond to different energy centers in their bodies, like a sonic but spring for the soul. Or a handbagge for those with too much time on their hands, depending on your perspective.

Either way, it was not exactly a normal strategy to prime people to shop. Spirituality, in theory, being meant to help you separate yourself from the desire for material things, especially status material things.

But J.J. Martin, the founder of La DoubletJ, is not exactly a normal fashion an impatience. She is more like a fashion guru, preaching the gospel of psychological and emotional healing through clitters, or the therapeutic powers of aesthetic delight. She talks about divine platforms and ideations with the same sincerity and excitement she talks about family role histories, five-star hotels on radio, TV shows, and even sports, and she is busy building a luxury brand based on the improbable combination of the two.

Martin now has six stores, each of them formed around different animal symbols, including the cholera portal (Palm Beach, Fla.), the mandala (the Indian island of Crete), the Holy Market cave (Milan) and the eclipse (Dubai), a hundred employees work at the "star quarters," her name for the company headquarters in Milan.

Martin also runs an online group called the Sisterhood with 30,000 subscribers, many of whom take online classes offered by a variety of Martin-centered leaders and go on Martin-organized spiritual services. In 2023, she has become a coffee-table book called "Mamma Milana," which is part Indian travelogue, part autobiography and part colorful guide, with suggestions for setting a great table and finding your centre.

In pursuit of that elusive bond known

an "community," she may have stumbled on the perfect solution, eye-rolling as it may seem. You do not have to buy her right to enjoy her stuff, but value the is really selling a performance to care about elevated consciousness and really nice silk, too. In the current moment of both great isolation and great wealth, that is a pretty alluring contribution.

Even it, as her recommend and on chief executive, Andrea Ciccoli, said, "it could be seen as crazy."

BIRTHING, A BRAND

Martin, 53, does not look like a guru — or even much like a fashion person. She looks like the California girl she was: tall and meddle, or if she were about at hop on a horse bareback and ride off above a Mullins beach. She avoids out-giant and black and lives in an apartment in Milan but does not have a single white wall.

It does have a guest room with a double-insight closet that takes up an entire wall, an IDEA kitchen beach that she turned into a close closet, and a bathroom decorated with vintage costume jewelry.

Martin grew up in Pacific Palisades, Calif., with two older brothers. She went to the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied rhetoric and were a lot of high-water years. "She always had this infectious energy," said Susan Chokachi, her college roommate (who also ended up in fashion and was at one point the chief executive of Carol Lazarus): "It was a little intimidating. She would talk to younger. She would jump into any conversation."

Martin worked in marketing at Cairns Klein and moved to Milan in 1981 with Ciccoli, then her boyfriend and an Italian management consultant. Very morned in 2003, it rose as global public relations director for Gasol a few years later "sought her what she didn't want to do." Chokachi said: "They first ran after six months," Martin said. "I have the respect into procedure, working with Harper's Bazaar, Wallpaper and WLI Magazine.

Unexplained infertility led her to destroy its duty and America and five years of 13.9, three of which ended in pregnancies, one which miscarried naturally and two of which had to be medically aborted because of chromosomal abnormalities.

The experience almost crushed her.

"I wanted to blame somebody," she said. "I was depressed and furious at the same time."

She had changed what she ate, what she drank, how much she slept. When she got the call down she last after 10, Martin said, "I was standing out in front of the yoga place in Los Angeles, and I put the phone down, looked up to the sky and screamed, 'Never again.' She a crazy person." A friend suggested an energy leader, and she thought she was.

"There's all these different kinds of psyche ability, right?" she said. "Like clairvoyance — you see things. Clarion-dance — you hear things. I've always been clairvoyance. I feel things. Back then, I didn't know what it meant, but in 2016, I realized I was going through a sort of doubt of this old life. And after a year of working with a leader, I gave birth to the company."

La DoubletJ started as a way to do something with the vintage clothing Martin had been collecting her years. But vintage isn't suitable. Then she found a factory that would circulate her tan prints from the 1960s and designed a long, 6-door dress with a 7-shirt like top called the Swing. She sold 38 in a few boxes.

"But not the template for the label, which combines very simple shapes with the semi of colors and prints (and bothers) that let you imagine your job as Marsha Apparel swammy around on a pack of the Coral from 60s. The company was profitable after six months, and she said Ciccoli will own 100 percent.

Though the two split up in 2018, they stayed business partners," the many people advised me against working with my co-husband "Martin said, 'She's remember telling him at one point.' This is a child, Let's no partner. That's not to say I have not been triggered beyond belief by working with my co-husband often have to go to the restroom during office hours, or close the door in my office and do a quick meditation."

J.J. Martin, the creative force behind La DoubletJ, with her peg, Pepper, in her Milan apartment. The brand opened in New York recently. He smoked very long, for left, included a recovery shareholder and a cashbook, near left, tops one of its display areas.

"I want it to be a new world that is very warm, very welcoming, that makes women feel good."

They tend to fight about things like how much it costs to go a giant gang from Rome in New York.

ENTERPRISES OF THE SIX PASTS

Martin is very excited about the gang, which she discovered after having faced with the bluegrown and stone keyboard in a guitarist who works with Eric Caputo and is also a leader who introduced Martin to Cirelta Isaacs, the gang maker. The connection of these elements in one sentence is classic Martin.

Half the time it is hard to believe what is coming out of her mouth, and half the time it is hard not to be swept away by her enthusiasm and self-awareness. "I admit, when I first saw what she was posting during Covid, I was like, 'Oh my god, has she not her mouth?'" Chokachi said. "But she just kept going."

For instance, Martin went to Bell-dining (Cecil) "I had a boyfriend there," she said. "He was nagging master. So I went to Melphina, Airport (Jo Milan) to go on him, and the guard looked at me, and he's like, 'that's not allowed to travel.' And I said, 'But I'm going to go meet a person, who he said, Oh, Oh.'"

She went to the Amazon rainforest in 2021 to spend time with the Rum Rain tribe. "I was doing a lot of advances," she explained, referring to the strong psychodeticism. "I had spent, like, a year, and a half deeply involved with psychedelics, and it was me and a group of 15 men and she guide that brought us by three days in a tiny boat, no bathrooms, no kitchen, down the river."

Everything, for her, is an opportunity. Walking through the New York men, with a person to talk with a customer, who announced she had met La DoubletJ for her shipment in Jackson State. Wow, and who was shopping with her mother for something to wear in a more traditional working party. The past week looking at rocks in a dazed way. "The noxious are over-holeated, in the best way," she younger designer ever-learnt.

Later, Martin held a celebratory dinner for the store. Many friends came, including Kristina O'Neill, who was editor in chief of WUI. Shekayne and now runs the party magazine, and Laura Brown, the former editor in chief of Infinite. Also the actress (Jo) Rabe, the model Carolyn Murphy and the astronaut and sexual assault survivor Amanda Nguyen, who said she were La DoubletJ. About exclusively during a recent tour for her book, "Saving First: A Memoir of Hope."

Like many of the women at the dinner, Nguyen said she loved the clothes, even if she couldn't quite swallow the sprink of silk. Chokachi, who was also there, said that at one point when she was her mother, she was a good man who is married in Sisterhood, and she had to respond: "I'm the wrong sister."

That doesn't please Martin. She knows what people think when she starts talking about the divine mother and outside. She knows some people consider her a "out half," but she also knows profit in quick for themselves. She wants to open more stores — these or four a year until she gets to about 20. She is working on more basics for the first because, she said, even she cannot wear all print all the time. She and Ciccoli use the brand as a different kind of luxury business.

"I want it to be a new world that is very warm, very welcoming, that makes women feel good," Martin said. "My job is not to tell me about the women's spiritual practice. My job is to convince people that they should be raising their victories every day, and that they are to recognize with them. Even if it's just, 'Oh my God, I love your niece as much. That's perfect. That is so enough.'"

A basket having a good summer

Demand for pricey Nantucket baskets has continued to grow in recent years

BY MARA SANTA PAGGI

In 2020, Jackie Wegner started saving money in buy her very own Nantucket friendship basket.

Last month, Wegner, now a 20-year-old lawyer from Chicago, made that dream a reality when she placed an order with the First "Kinda Cold" Guild on the Massachusetts island of Nantucket; She paid $2,000 for the eight-note version (24 centimeters), and expects to pay another $1,000 for the custom carved designer, and after the revolves the basket, it on to night months.

Wegner, who regularly vacations on Nantucket, continues it not just a 2016 birthday present to herself, but a sign that "I've made it."

The workmanship, the price tag, the wait, Daniel Jandilar? An tourism snare mind a social media obsession with the tiny New England island of about 15,000 in 30,000 residents (depending on the state of New York friendship basket has become a wevea collectible sometimes compared with an Eternity Births Tag Collection). The success for whom Hermès designed the tag in 1993, was to modernize the way the carrying a single open sticker basket as a purse J New Britain saw retail for $12,000 and up to $10,000 require wait times of six months or more.

Nantucket lightning baskets — as they are known when they are open-stepped (friendship baskets have salt) —

can take six to 18 months to make, and here a starting test of about $2,250, depending on the weaver and the size. Virology pieces tend to go for 24,000 or more.

Just as long, the series of Your Words, said that several years ago he said "a very unusual basket" for $25,000, but he could not have had to "personalize his name he had signed a nondisclosure agreement (the Nantucket, observatory is often the name of the game)."

He added that sales of new friendship baskets in his store are up by a third more than 40 percent this year ever last and that sales of vintage baskets have increased by more than 20 percent.

Sailors abused the South Shoal Light-

The open versions can take six to 18 months to complete.

ship, who began making baskets in the 1950s or "what we would now call a side handle," said Michael B. Harrison, chief curator of the Nantucket Historical Association, made no have predicted that Google Trends data would show searches for "Nantucket lightning baskets" and "Nantucket friendship baskets" skyrocketing in the summer of 2020. Probably written "Nantucket" in a 20-year-old buyer, the Filipina immigrant who made the basket a purse by adding a bill with custom carvings called acromilox as the late 1940s.

About 3,000 pieces by Boyes, who died in 1960, exist today and will for about 16,000 to $7,000 on the second-

hand market. Even popular/auto are gaining value: Barlow, for example, sold a mass-produced version of the friendship basket (and the "Mist God" We the about $100 to $250 that have approved considerably. Stephen Tucker, the fourth-generation owner of Briggs-Auction in Garner Valley, Pa., recently sold a Barlow basket for $1,000, plus two.

The baskets carry a certain currency on social media as well. Wren Aries, the content creator behind Connecticut Luxury, who has been going to Nantucket for a long time, has been working about the baskets perform particularly well. The two-centers of 150,000 revenues in 1783/84 paid last month of work, and their purse at the Baskets, Jaddites & Bourbon, undermine for the historic association, well over the views of her non-basket content.

So what happens when a television 'ship specials is majority of her summer—maybe the whole life —"off-shated" on the locale call it, gets one? You know, like a sauteir?

From the left: The Four Words Could Look as Nantucket needs to darken with Nantucket (friendship basket). Just Boyes created the friendship solution in the 1960s by adding a bill to open baskets, Nell Diamond, who grew up spending summers on Nantucket, one has three friendship baskets.

Connie Anne Harris, a collector and former Vogue executive, is adrenfroost. She has been acquiring friendship baskets since buying her first in 1987 from Alan Reed, a master worker on Nantucket, and makes but a legacy she that's one of the reasons why it's not like any other bag in the world," Harris said.

Alexis Hardy Conroe, 30, a common creator from Pinehurst, N.C., who has two friendship baskets, said that in the age of Amazon, "the baskets mean more than something that can be easily obtained. It's world where everything is at our fingertips, the baskets aren't as easily accessible."

She is already planning to pass her baskets to her daughter, who was born in April.

Nell Diamond, the chief executive and founder of the lifestyle brand Hill House Home, who grew up spending summers on Nantucket, has not been surprised by the success of the Nantucket 1-4 book carry the purse, I would always get the kind of reaction that I'm seeing as social media now, because: "Oh my god, this is so special, where is it from? Tell me the story," she says.

Diamond received her first basket at 10, from an auction: "It was a real special instance," Diamond, now 17 and a mother of three, said she hoped to pass on her baskets on the "said Aries, the content creator. "People are appreciative of communication."

And scarcity is certainly a factor in the basket's appreciation. Sylvia now has a 20-year-old buyer, who has been of whom is 75. "There's probably only six or seven full-time basket makers on island," he said. "And there's only one under the age of 30."

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16 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2026

WEEKEND

BOOKS

What it feels like to be a child

BOOK REVIEW

A Tender Age

By Chang-ran Lee. Riverhead. 350 pp. $30.

BY JANE SU

Chang-ran Lee's new novel is, by his own account, his most autobiographical yet. This can be a risky admission for the ethnic American writer, who is already so often presented to be writing about himself. When Lee published his first book, "Native Spouse," over three decades ago, many readers took its story — about a Korean-American spy whose father works as a graveyard set in New York City — to be found on the author's life. "No," Lee explained. "My dad was a mild-mannered psychic atnie. I grew up mostly in Westchester." (He wasn't any either.)

Lee started reading about "A Tender Age" during the pandemic, when lockdown solutions prompted him to turn inward. Compared with his previous seven novels, which range at genre and setting, Lee's latest is his querent and, in ways, most conventional. As its title suggests, "A Tender Age" is a classic bibliogramman, following the life of a "more boy" over the course of a year.

Set in 1976, the story is narrated by Si-yeon old June-Gi, the son of Korean American immigrants who live in an apartment complex populated by other people of color. "Our neighbors were Blacks and Puerto Ricans, working-class Irish and Italian, and some Jews who hadn't yet moved on, plus the legions of an own immigrants, from Asia and Eastern Europe and the Caribbean." June-Gi's days, spent around "mostly boys," are ordinary enough, punctuated by schoolyard games and humiliating encounters with the opposite sex.

In their commenter town north of New York City, "the adults, for whatever means, whether they were working a job or not, left us on our own," and the children often found themselves visiting one another. The absence of grown-ups becomes increasingly felt over the course of the novel,

COCO STYL

taking on a more ominous tone.

"So be a kid was to be bullied," explains our young narrator early on, "no exceptions," that day, June-Gi risks taking this manin too far. A play-ground argument leads him to smuggle a 10-inch carving knife to school, which he presents to beautiful menacingly before his fur. The escalation of the initial disagreement — an exchange of racist diary — is not atypical of schoolyard fights. Still, June-Gi's overdipity is serious enough to earn him a lengthy suspension and a spot in a social rehabilitation program. His 10-year-old world, already small, gets even smaller.

Whereas Lee's prior novels are largely misnominal in scope, "A Tender Age" is a far more similar affair. In some ways, the book feels like a return to "Native Spouse," is that it emphasizes the American of Korean American assimilation. The young age of Lee's protagonist further limits the range of experience. Much of the novel is set in playgrounds and apartment courtyards, juvenile intervention meetings, and, finally, the Christian Korean

summer camp to which June-Gi's parents send him in a final attempt at rehabilitation. Three spaces function as microsomes of the trouble: social world, controlled theaters for children to play out the dramas of adulthood. But they're also powder boys, where even the highests shift in need or atmosphere might prove disastrous.

Lee's novels often end with an abrupt initiation of violence, working like a release valve for narrative pressure. And as June-Gi's time at summer camp unfolds, the reader is made persistently aware of some fatal crisis to

come. It's a testament to Lee's craft that, despite such frequent and furious foreshadowing, the actual event still arrives as a shock. I had to read the scene a few times over to make sure I understood what was happening.

These lapses between action and acknowledgment — reality and realization — also reflect, we understand,

what it feels like to be a child. Throughout, June-Gi and his peers felt insults at one another that they barely conquered, all they knew is that the opiates are violent. Amid such clumsy quarreling, it can be seen to contribute such much. Intention doesn't necessarily correlate to effect, and things can quickly spin out and return.

The parties of "A Tender Age" live in its young protagonist's waring ability to hold the realities of the adult world at bay. When the novel begins, June-Gi is already middle-aged — his own children having recently left home — though his narrative rarely occurs from that delicate year leading up to far. Old birthday. What seems to make this age so insider, for June-Gi, is the realizability of the self, the cavenue of experience and seemingly endless capacity to be wounded.

"I still think about these times," he reflects, "more often than makes any sense in the wider context of my life." For most of the book, June-Gi's first-person voice remains supported in the uneasy space of his childhood consciousness, re-ensuring the uncertainty

and confusion of adolescence.

Looking back, the aging June-Gi seems to encounter his past as a distant land, and his younger self as a kind of uncanny stranger. He confesses that his 10-year-old self existed as a kind of ciphers trying on different perverse through a steady day of small, seemingly inconsequential lies. As camp, he remears, the lifelong "west on and on, so much so that it became a lie, a companion from deep within me that was best on dark twenties."

In this way, the novel is an exploration of a theme threading through all of Lee's books: that people, especially the displaced children of immigrants, often look to find versions of themselves in other people. Lee shows how a young boy's search for how an immigrant should be can easily slip into the uneasy version of properties and over-identification — especially, and often know directly, through the channels of fiction.

June Hu is a critic whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, Bookly-torn and elsewhere.

From the Podcast

Annie Jacobsen

The investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen has specialized in military affairs and the shadowy careers of government, with books not espionage and assassination and June 15. Her latest book "Biological War: A biennary," might be heralded in the book's recollection. As she did in the similarly chilling "Nuclear War: A Scenario" (2024), Jacobsen does deep into existing military technologies and asks what it would look like if they were fully untouched on the world. Jacobsen appeared on the "Book Review" podcast last year to discuss "Nuclear War." This excerpt has been confirmed and edited.

How many people, roughly, have told you that this is one of the more horrifying books that they've ever read? I think almost no means. I wanted to write a book from the book, including appalling detail how horrible nuclear war would be. And so when people say it one, "I was terrified, I was horrified," I believe I did my job.

You structure the book in an ingenious way, with three parts of 24 minutes each. And in each of these parts you have little pieces that are short or long, labeled "1.6 minutes" or "27 minutes" or "48 minutes and 30 seconds" — meaning it's been, say, 1.6 minutes since the first nuclear missile was launched, and this is what's happening. When did you realize that was the way this book had to be written?

It was in an interview with Bob Kellee, the former commander of St结构 — that stands for U.S. Strategic Com-

stand, the steward of all nuclear weapons and all nuclear weapons systems. Doing this interview with General Kellee, I can right to the point as one of our discussions and said, What would happen in a full-scale nuclear exchange with Russia? And without hesitation, he said to me, Annie, the world could end in the next couple of hours.

I knew right there that was the way to tell the story. You realize, my God, nuclear war, if it happens, will unfold in seconds and minutes, not in days and weeks.

That was one of the most striking things about the book. Your title is "Nuclear War," and we think of it as nuclear war — but it's not really a war. It's over before it begins. There are no battles. There's no time to really think. A little over an hour passes, and the world is essentially on its way to being over.

The point that I think gets across load and clear and fast — and with horror — is "Nuclear War. A Scenario" is that there is no room to think. It is simply automated. The minute a vegan nature or an adversary, a nuclear armed power, launches a strategic weapon at

the United States, that is when nuclear war begins. And it doesn't end until nuclear transgression.

You start the book by imagining that there is, as you put it, maybe an others have put it, a read long in North Korea who essentially decides to shoot an ICBM directed at Washington, directed at the Pentagon. No one knows why, and no one will ever find out why.

That's right. What I found incredibly interesting, and I think what readers really relate to is, believe it or not, nuclear war is pretty easy to follow, at least the way I was able to describe it from my sources. Because so much of it is a bold out of the blue. That's exactly like it sounds. And so are the policies that America has, like "launch on warning." What could that be? It's exactly what it sounds like. Somebody launches on us, we launch when we get the warning. We do not wait to absorb a nuclear blow. And it's in piercing together all those little explanations or colloquialisms that you realize this system only works one way.

And like I have said — and I cannot repeat enough times — it only ends one way, and that is in total nuclear annihilation, and by the way, that is from every source that I spoke with. Everyone from General Kellee so down believes that if nuclear war were to happen, that's it. That's the end of the civilization as we know it.

The "Book Review" podcast can be found at https://www.nytimes.com/books or through popular podcast apps.

THE SUNDAY CROSSWORD

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14 Some features 12 Articles 10 1243 10 1243 10 1243 10 1243 10 1243 10 1243 10 1243 10 1243 10 1243 10 1243 10 1243 10 1243 10 1243 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1 10 1

107 First contents 108 First 111 This first 112 Second (after when on it is written) 113 Dover is a petroleum, oil 114 JNCI 118 Corn 121 Corn 122 To the cut 123 Pie portions, reduction 128 Crooks 129 How many? How secrets that we believe at the upholish 130 American cigarette developed as a author for 137 People to image

Drawn 4 Firsthand 2 Sentry "They again" 4 Between 4 Cluers 4 Bodily smart 4 Wants to clean "Let's 2023 languagea 4 All 5 What do it point 6 "Let's do this" 6 Residents, let me 10 Clued 5 Kicking 10 Ruling activity 10 Nonstier role

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14 The longer relevant 14 No, almost 15 Children overdone 16 Most of the word 17 Many, women 18 Communication of 19 People's mind 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 People's 19 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10

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SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2020 | 17

FILM

WEEKEND

Mixing politics with laughs

BY ASHLEY SPENCER

Boy meets girl. They hasten: They gafforate around New York City. They're trying to find love ... under the thumb of totalitarian oppression? That's the setup of the new romantic comedy 'One Night Only' now in theaters.

Directed by Will Gluck ('Anyone but You,' 'Easy! A'), the film is set in a version of the city that looks nearly identical to reality with one twist: Primarital sex is illegal, except for the one night each year when unmarried people are allowed to repelate at will. In the movie's elaborate world-holding, the law is the result of a conservative United States government and it is enforced through biosensors, though there is active resistance.

Against this backdrop, the hopeless romantic Alle (Monica Barbaro) and the recently Jihad Owen (Callum Turner) keep getting thrown together via a series of chaotic events.

To get a sense of the film he was hoping to make, Gluck asked Barbaro to watch 'Great Gems,' 'After Hours' and 'Midnight Run' ... films with tight timelines and exudating stakes.

'I was like, OK, there's not a single rom-com, but I know you're the rom-com guy,' said the actress, whose turn an hour from in 'A Complete Unknown' earned her an Oscar nomination. She continued, 'It felt odd, but it felt exciting.'

For Turner, a British actor best known for his work in dramatic fare like 'The Boys in the Boat' and 'Masters of the Air,' the film allowed him to tag into the tiffier side.

'I loved how absurd it was,' he said. 'I've always wanted to do an out-and-out rum-com. I did 'Diversity,' but it was more of a grounded performance, and this character is a goodball.'

Difference, the actors, both 36, have their own romances: Turner married the singer Don Lipa in June, and Barbaro has been linked to her 'tertiary' co-star Andrew Garfield.

In a joint video interview in July, the stars discussed 'One Night Only' their New York memories and their views on love. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

This is a rom-com that's explicitly political. The whole promise of the movie hinges on that. How did you feel about that foregone?

MONICA BARBARO While it does have that political undertone, ultimately, I think the movie is really just an allegory for dating. You can be living with a government you don't agree with, but at the end of the day you still just want to find love, and maybe it means having to exist alongside a lot of discomfort and hardship.

CALUM TURNER Has know, the movie is about love. Ultimately, it's not about anything political. For me, I never paid attention to that. What I really liked, actually, was that it's not a disrepute future. It's a true 'lock that we recognize just with a slight twist. It's also an absurd idea that the government made people out here too.

BARBARO Well, some people feel like it's absurd, and some people are like. That could happen. That's the interesting thing.

Do you think it's absurd or something that could happen?

TURNER I think it's an absurd idea. That's the point, right? It's actually so far from our reality that we can then, as an audience, put ourselves in that situation. You're like, Well, what would I do if I had this one night? Would I marry early? Would I look out?

BARBARO I think the biosensors would never fly, but I actually am at a point where I have no idea. I think we're well paid absurdity in a lot of ways right now. I'm constantly shocked by what I read in the news, so who knows?

PHOTO: THOMAS WOLFF, 2020, 17:00 AM

Primarital sex is banned in the rom-com 'One Night Only,' starring Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner

Your characters take digs at each other's physical truth. (486x 64x 60cm, 'Your ears are like car doors.' Owen tells Alle, 'Your nose is way too small for your face.') How did you come up with these?

TURNER Monica improvised these lines. I couldn't believe it.

BARBARO I was like, 'I've got more.'

TURNER Monica and Will have an obsession with my ears, which is where that joke came from. When I was younger, everyone used to take the neck out of my ears because I think I was born with the size that I have now, and then my head grew into them.

Will Gluck is known for musical mo-

ments in his rom-coms. Here, Alle is a singer who records pop covers for pharmaceutical ads. What were the conversations that around the songs?

BARBARO I got to work with the commercial coach that I worked with on 'A Complete Unknown.' but obviously for that, I was hotfliers on knowing the artist I was playing. In this, I was still

'You can be living with a government you don't agree with, but at the end of the day you still just want to find love.'

A scene from 'One Night Only' Before filming, the director asked Barbaro to watch 'Great Gems,' 'After Hours' and 'Midnight Run.'

'You're like, Well, what would I do if I had this one night? Would I marry early? Would I hold out?'

anxious about the quality of work, but when I was singing the psoriasis song, we just kept bursting out laughing. Erin Nune in a composer on the film was really helpful in getting me to embrace the emotional heights of these songs. Then it just becomes that much funnier.

Callum, were you familiar with the concept of pharmaceutical jingle? (Direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising is banned in most other countries.)

TURNER No, I didn't really understand it at the beginning. I'm aware of the commercials but not the jingles.

BARBARO I do wonder if it's make sense to people abroad.

TURNER I mean, I still haven't heard a pharmaceutical jingle in real life. You're are the only ones I know [Speak-singing] 'Psoriasis, say what you wanna say, and let your clear skin out.' I'm not a singer.

BARBARO That's what I used to say.

This is a very New York movie. The city is almost another character in the film. Do you remember the first time you visited?

BARBARO I was 12, and it was a class trip to New York and D.C. I remember being enamored with it. Then I went a year later with my mom and my brother, and we walked by N.Y.U., and I was like, I want to go there. I did end up going to N.Y.U., and it was a dream come true. I had no interest in being a kid on campus with a football team.

TURNER I was 16. I came with my mom and her friend to that period between Christmas and New Year's Eve. It was snowing and cold, and we stayed north of Times Square. I just remember it was like the movies. It was magic. We went on shining in Central Park. Everything's bigger and louder and brighter. I was really just in awe of it.

BARBARO That's how I felt about London, in be known. I was like. This is nothing like America. This is so cool.

TURNER I also remember being in the hotel room and watching 'America's Most Wanted' I was like. What the hell is this? In England, we had 'Crime-watch' 'Crimewatch' would be like. 'A badger was stolen from his den. We have to find the culprit.' 'America's Most Wanted' was like, 'his-time murderer ...'

What classic rom-coms have you rewatched the most?

TURNER I know Monica's: '10 Things I Hate About You,' 'How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,' and 'My Best Friend's Wedding.'

BARBARO Well done. Years is 'Netting Still.'

TURNER Yeah, I have, in the past, been on the way out of the house and ended up sitting on the rails and watching the whole thing instead.

BARBARO I agree with that. There are also so many ways into love and lasting relationships, but I do think there's a special turistic something to certain relationships.

In the film, Alle is concerned with finding something 'real' amid the chaos. Being in the public eye, how do you make sure you're able to have a real relationship in spite of all the noise?

TURNER It's like everyone else. It's a very normal relationship. It's the truth.

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18 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2026

WEEKEND

ART

The way Britain got the Bayeux Tapestry

BUFFET, FROM PAGE 14

In 1982, when Jacqueline Kennedy asked André Maîraux, France's culture minister at the time, if he would allow the Mona Lisa to tour the United States, he agreed despite stiff opposition. A group of the Laureys' curators threatened to resign, and French newspapers published articles agitate at the idea.

Maîraux ignored their objections, and later that year, the Mona Lisa crossed the Atlantic in a climate-controlled container refused an ocean liner. After a square in Washington, it headed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It was on display there for only a few weeks, but over one million people caught a glimpse of the exciting beauty. It was the least-ore show at the second — just as the British Museum hopes the tapestry will be.

For many of the time of thousands of art lovers who signed a petition opposing the tapestry loan, its journey to Britain is reminiscent of the Mona Lisa's 300th-ctavels — an event driven more by diplomatic慰uring than by conservative expertise.

Macron first pledged to loan the tapestry to Britain as a gesture of friendship during a 2016 French-British political summit. As the two countries dealt with the fallout of Britain's exit from the European Union, they could still make 'a new tapestry together,' Macron told reporters at the time.

Isabelle Attard, the director of the Bayeux Tapestry Museum from 1993 to 2016, said in an interview that she had decided it was an empty promise. When she joined the museum, she recalled, she had wanted to lead the tap-

HOTEL BY JACK TAYLOR, 2016

The conservation team with the tapestry at the museum. The process has raised research questions about the balance between keeping locators object a safe and letting the public see them.

A member of the Bayeux Tapestry Museum

estry to foreign institutions. "I was quite naïve and optimistic," she said, but soon "everybody in Bayeux told me that was insane — that it was not possible for it to travel."

Indeed, charter around a loan soon died down after Macron's 2016 pledge. Not long after the summit, relations between Britain and France soared over issues including illegal immigration and rival military study.

By mid-2021, the Bayeux Tapestry loan was "in the deep freeze," recalled Miriam Rawlings, a former British ambassador to France. She said she had kept pushing for it, and recalled that Macron was supportive during a 2022 World War II (commemoration event in Normandy, that by spring 2023, Rawlings said, a deal looked unlikely. She recalled a meeting at the French culture minister that involved "a kind of very senior civil servants saying, 'This can't happen. The tapestry is too fragile. The scientists say so.'"

Things suddenly changed at last year's Cancer Film Festival. Chris Bryant, a senior British government culture official, traveled there for a half-hour hotel meeting with Barbara Dait, France's culture minister at the time. Bryant said that the pair were supposed to discuss a

loan, but Dait arrived 25 minutes late. It seemed like a bad sign, Bryant said, and he assumed that any deal was off.

Yet when Dait lowered in, she told Bryant she had some good news — but first he had to get on his knees and propose.

"I said, 'I've already got a husband,'" Bryant recalled. "So do I." Dait replied, according to Bryant: "What's wrong with pregnancy?" In Bryant went down on one from LA spokeswoman for Dait did not respond to requests for contracts.)

A few weeks later, in July, Macron announced the loan during an event at the British Museum. France had blocked all previous attempts to borrow the tapestry by finding "the best experts in the world to explain in perfect details why it was totally impossible," Macron said. "We were beyond the experts," he said, "and managed to find great solutions."

A president who hewn a post-partner — particularly one achieved in the face of opposition — had secured the impossible loan. It would be part of his legacy.

"TAC, TAC, STOP!"

Undoubtedly, one logistical factor played a role: The Bayeux Tapestry Museum was scheduled to close temperat-

ity for a much-needed renovation.

Since 2003, the museum had displayed the tapestry in a U-shape, hanging from certain books attached to a rail. That arrangement had put unnecessary strain on the embroidery, and conservatory said it should be displayed laid out flat after undergoing a restoration. By the time the museum shut last fall, technicians — led by SMACR, a French conservation company — had spent years working on a plan to get the tapestry off its books and into storage.

Their operation played out one day last September, when about 100 technicians lined up along the tapestry's length and carefully slid it along its rail, about two inches at a time, detaching it from the books and featuring it to a new railing on a series of panels that forced a loose concretina. One of the French museum's curators rhythmically missed "Tac, tac, stop!" to guide each movement in a process that took its nerve-caching leave.

Hinkia, an art transportation company, working with experts in vibration engineering, then put the bidder parent into a climate-controlled case suspended in a spring-mounted metal-cage, Gavin Verhoeff, an operations manager at Hinkia, said that the springs, known

above, workers and volunteers preparing to pack the tapestry in a state in Bayeux, France, in September 2025 for its loan transfer to Britain. Left, unloading the secure box containing the tapestry outside the British Museum on July 18. Below left, members of the conservation team inspecting the tapestry at the museum in mid-July.

as "wire rope isolators," functioned like "an old-school baby carriage" and had allowed his company to safely move very fragile items like porcelain and paintings.

Once the tapestry was moved from the museum to a nearby storage location, the Hinkia room and other conservation's undertook two total stores which they drove a mock tapestry to the British Museum, hoping to work out the route and collect vibration data on they could improve the design of the protective case. (The British Museum declined to say how much the move had cost.)

When the tapestry set off for London on July 8, nothing had been left to chance.

UNRAVELING THE RISK

For some critics of the loan, however, the move was still too risky.

Rylsner, the Tribune de l'Art editor, said that the Bayeux authorities were taking a restless gamble.

A 2022 French government hostility study said that moving it would "overtakely" subject the artifact to "further stress." And a 2026 study said that too little was known about the tapestry's "mechanical properties" to set a "scientifically robust" vibration limit for transportation.

Shirley A. Brown, an art history professor at York University in Toronto who is an expert on the tapestry, said in an email that she knew some French conservation "were dead set against the loan" but that, as employees of French state, they had to keep quiet.

Yet many conservators support the loan, not until because it means the tapestry will inspire thousands of people who otherwise wouldn't see it. Her drinks, the conservation professor, said that many in the field now aimed to generalize the "best life" possible, rather than simply limiting damage. That could include allowing loans to museums with slightly worse temperature and humidity controls if it meant more public exposure and greater innovation.

On a Friday morning last month, as the British Museum prepared for its blockbuster show, the Bayeux Tapestry was lying flat on a 220-foot- or 67-motorbing table, in subhouse ofใหญ่'s warfare, hidden beneath black protective sheets. To get ready for a visit from France's culture minister, two conservators began unrolling the sheets one at a time, exposing across after vivid irons.

At one end, a rural messenger raced on havebears, his hair flowing in the wind. In the center of the tapestry, two lumberjacks swung soon into town to build William the Conqueror's raced fleet. At the other end, the invading army climbed bloodily with its Anglo-Saxon rivals.

The tapestry had been removed from its transit once other earlier, in an operation, receiving about 400 people that lasted from 7 a.m. until 3 the following morning — an intense 20 hours of beca. The team had connected the tapestry onto a rail, hoisted it skyward, then lowered it into the specially constructed table.

It seemed like a success. Yet Cinilla Guavie, one of the engineers involved, said that her team had found a "really small amount of threads" when unboxing the tapestry, although it was unclear if they were from the handiest clothes at work the same day's shift.

Michael Lewis, the British Museum curator overcoming the sheer didn't seem worried about the threads. "Obviously you don't want any damage," he said, "but my colleagues some very 'Whatever' about that." His team and its counterparts from Bayeux had managed to benefit the ball, and not a worker for how to move and display a historical measure.

"To protect an object," Lewis said, "sometimes you know to show it."

When the tapestry set off for the British Museum in London on July 8, nothing had been left to chance.

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SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2020 | 19

LIVING

WEEKEND

My sight was out. He turned it back on.

After a long, mostly sexless marriage, I had thought I was done with passion

Modern Love

BY KIMBERLY BLAKE

In T.J. thought I was done with passion. "I've closed up shop," I told my friends, and I meant it. I was talking about sex, but what I really meant was my heart.

My marriage had been hardy for years — no teaching, no teaching, no sense of being wanted. My alcoholism and played a part but so had my husband's impanence and relentless commitment to work. Just as I began so find my footing — going to meetings, getting help — my husband began to lose life.

First, he learned he had Alzheimer's. How he lost his business, his ability to join Wits, to drive a car, even to turn on the television. I started him for five years. He no longer recognized me by the time he moved to long-term care.

I often sought respite at the home we had built together on Cape Can. That's where I met Charles. At first, it wasn't common. I simply loved listening to him. His words were steady, thoughtful, fully linear.

I was not using time for the air to come out of the hallway," he said about his struggle with benefits. Sometimes he talked about himself in the third person. "Charles, have you set out yet? Or are you still clearing the decks?"

I wondered that about myself, especially after my husband died.

My husband used to say that a room can be dark for a thousand years, but a single match will light it. For me, Charles was four month.

It started quietly enough. One day, he invited me into his old pickup to go to a sidewalk roadside stand to buy her homestead part. When we got there, I thought of her as an old woman, though she was probably my age. Around Charles, however, I felt ill.

Next we were meeting her coffee, and then he invited me for coffee at his house and insisted on driving me there.

"That way I get more time with you," he said, "because I'll have to bring you back."

I was blamed. Also nervous. More than I wanted to admit.

At his house he offered me coffee, grapefruit juice, milk.

"Hille?" I said.

He derugged. "I like milk." I declined the milk. Instead, I wandered around his living room. His shelves were crowded with books about language. I picked up a copy of Mrs. Byrne's Dictionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words.

"I have that!" I said.

When I found a volume of Black Street's poetry, Charles directed me to his favorite poem. When we were leaving, he said, "Can I ask you a question?"

"OK."

"Can I kiss you?"

I punished and bent double, laughing. Not because this was funny but because I was terrified. I hadn't kissed anyone to more than 30 years. Not even my husband.

Charles looked stricken. We didn't kiss.

A few days later, I invited him to my house. He told me about his prior relationships — his ex-wife, former girlfriends, even a few friends with benefits. I nearly laughed out loud. Charles was 78. He lived in a cluttered cottage and drove a battered truck. He

proudly announced that he wore a dead man's shoes and shopped at the dump. How did he manage to have so many women in his life?

For my part, I told him the truth. My marriage had been seldom for 25 years. ("I'm practically a virgin!") I said, I might be a little tired. I don't make friends really. Most women would have presented a more polished version of themselves. Instead, I'd handed Charles the owner's manual to all my character defects and watched to see if he would run.

He didn't.

When I returned home to Connecticut, we talked on the phone every night for hours. Eventually he said, "Can I visit you?"

"Yes," I said.

"I'm already packing my toothbrush," he said.

"That's a little too intimate," I said. "Fine, I've taken it out and replaced it with the Book of Common Prayer."

I laughed.

He stayed for two nights. They were, I believe, the most exotic two nights of my life. Not because of what happened between us (yes, we kissed/ hey, did we kiss?) but because of how he made me feel, sore, cherished, desired. He wanted me to a way I had wanted to be wanted for years.

Two weeks later, he returned for three more nights. We talked into the marriage, one confession to another.

I handed Charles the owner's manual to my character defects and watched to see if he would run.

One night, he shared that when he got married, his wife was three months pregnant, and he'd warned her he would be gone within six months. He stayed, for a time. "I hadn't had the goods," he said, meaning the emotional capacity to sustain intimacy.

I thought, "This is not someone who hides who he is."

A few days later, I shared with Charles that I had told my children about him. They'd been asking questions because I had effectively disappeared into the care from the half that had told his children about me, too. He said he'd been a "love well" for 40 years, and that I was "a smoker."

Sane we were making plans together: a small trip to Prince Edward in land, a Thanksgiving for two at his place. I was more concerned about these plans than I was about my upcoming Camino de Santiago pilgrimage with my two girlfriends, a walking trip I'd been planning for a year. All I wanted, really, was to be with Charles.

On the Camino, I thought about him constantly and called him every night. I turned glasses from tiny Spanish villages: of my friends, the food we ate, the rooms we slept in. The Camino proved harder than I expected. Some nights before calling Charles, I would have to sit quietly and collect myself. I told Charles I felt oddly emotional all the time, unrelented, row and close to tears for reasons I couldn't explain.

"It's all right," Charles would say softly. "It's OK."

On our last day on the Camino, Charles sorted me five duck emojis. Cats enough but not requiring a response, I thought. When he tested to ask if I'd received them, I wrote "Yes." I stated at the screen, not knowing what else to say.

That evening, he asked why I hadn't responded. He said, "This was not in my most plightful, most loving," but that I had received them like "a will of content." His voice was clipped, his tone cold.

I apologized repeatedly.

Finally, he said, "Let's just move on." Which is what he did.

Two days after I returned home, Charles called, "We don't connect," he said.

I thought I'd misheard him. "What?" "We don't connect," he said. He said I was an angry person. He commented about my diet.

"You don't like my dog?" I asked. "I didn't say that. But you would choose your dog over me!"

"Well, yes," I said.

When he called back, he said,

"There's no point in talking anymore. This has all gone much."

Afterward, I tested him. Our relationship had brought me my, I said, and I believed it had brought him joy, too. I told him I was grieving its loss.

He didn't respond. A week later I asked if we could talk. "I'm not up for an acquisition, Kim," he wrote.

That word lodged inside me like a spitout. I didn't want an acquisition either. I wanted to understand what happened.

When I finally returned to the Cape a few weeks later, Charles agreed to meet. But he was told. "I'm done," he finally said, the outpatient needs being "with you." He called my tests a "barrage" of words.

When I was tucked into walk away, I felt something inside me vaporize, as if he'd erased what had happened between us: the fun, the tenderness, the love.

I had no appetite and lost 20 pounds. I talked to psychics, meddlers, laxist readers and a therapist. I cried to my friends. I wanted someone to tell me that Charles was coming back.

Then, too late, I realized that what broke my heart was not simply losing Charles. It was the possibility that I might serve. We marched like that again, never held, never told I was beautiful. With Charles, the light had come back on for me, and I felt 36 up like a Christmas tree. I felt hope.

For months, I thought Charles had taken my hope with him. I thought if I could only understand what had happened, I could finally put the story down. But I couldn't. And I realized it wasn't Charles I couldn't let go of. It was what he had awakened in me.

At T.J. thought I had closed up shop, certain that part of my life was over. But I came to understand that the shop had never gone completely dark. Sometime, a light had stayed on.

It's shining still.

Kimberly Blake, a writer in Fairfield, Conn., is working on a novel.

My stepson's hateful views are damaging my business

The Ethicist

BY KIMBERLY-ATTROIT APPEAR

When I married my second husband, I gained stepchildren, which has mostly been a good thing. However, his son (over 30) holds extreme moral and political views towards his heart — racism, misogyny and homophobia — that I cannot abide. For the most part, we operate in "don't ask, don't kill" mode to keep the peace. But recently, my stepson's social media activity has concluded: He posts what I consider very hateful lies on local community pages (e.g., that all gay men are pro dophtha). He and my husband share a kid's name, and we operate a business in our town serving all kinds of people, including many (L.G.B.T.Q.) people. Besides finding his views repugnant and reaching concentration with them, I have heard from friends in town that his posts have dissuaded people from using our business.

I would love to buy this hateful person. I would love to be I cannot. My husband has tried to explain to him how his social media activity is having for business, but his son insists he has the right to post whatever he wants. I'm unsure what to do next. Name Withheld

YOUR RESPONS-RESPONSE that he has the right to post whatever he wants on social media reflects a common error: the tendency to think that having a right to do something is a justification for doing it. But the freedom to express yourself doesn't matter freedom from social consequences. In this case, unfortunately, those consequences are leading to a new factor husband. Your stepson has been informed of this. His persistence shows that he is not just prejudiced but self-centered.

You say you can't feel him from your

home. But you can have a conversation with your husband about what you're willing to put up with. His shouldn't have to tolerate remarks you had recently repugnant when he's in your home. Why not talk about having a role that costs towards will and the vision?

In the meantime, your business can post a public statement that it welcomes everyone and that relatives who don't work there do not speak for it. On social media, you can report posts the visitors each platform's rules. You can even try to correct false claims when there's some point in being so. The stepson may never change his attitudes, not learn his attitude of indifference toward the costs he's inflicting on others. The question is what you and your husband are prepared to tolerate, and what limits you'll set to protect your livelihood.

My (provv) children and grandchildren find it inappropriate that, before a work or social event, even family gatherings, I do a quick internet search for info on who will be there. My position is the millions of people who post on social media — it deboths or freedhoats, for example — assume their posts will be read, as I am not meeting their privacy. My research provides similar (or conversation) and building relationships, in some cases beginning with how to pronounce names. It's not as if I am counseling if it's. I'm a classified information. If I would not try me to be some digging below I meet people? Name Withheld

THERE ARE CERTAINLY reasons to be cautious about letting an internet search condition your encounters with people. Those who post personal news and personal information aren't necessarily thinking (though perhaps they should) that a stronger will study the material before putting them at a business lunch. Although a LinkedIn profile is

meant to be read by people who haven't met you yet, a Facebook page may be addressed to a circle of friends and family. And there can be advantages to meeting people as they come, without the expectations an internet search might create.

Then again, another proposition can be useful. Learning how to pronounce internet's name, reading a profile, sound the or interviewing a shared internet can make conversation easier. Sometimes the information you find will also suggest topics to avoid or sensitivities to hear in mind. In the pre-interior days, a good host might have warned you that someone you didn't know at a party had recently lost it upside or a parent.

You'd do well to stick to information that a patient public and relevant and to allow people to tell their own stories. You probably don't want to begin a conversation by saying, "I see from Facebook that you really don't like. 'Cithindiana'."

Your children are right to think that advance research can become creepy.

You're right to think that it doesn't have to be.

I have been trapped in an exhausting divorce for three years. My co-husband and I keep our children, who are teenagers and younger, out of our disputes and do not disparage each other, but they inevitably sense the tension between us. Our latest conflict concerns a jointly owned business, a central, authoritative agreement, my co-husband, who said he wanted to stay in the home, had until a specified deadline to buy out my share at an agreed valuation. He let that building play. He then wants to sell the house, while meeting that I accept the expired valuation rather than half its power market value. (The house is worth much more now.) My name remains on the door.

I believe I am legally and ethically entitled to half the present value. The earlier figure suggests that it is a new limited buyout, based on his stated wish to remain in the house. He has once changed his mind. Accepting that figure now would cost me a substantial cost. I

have already made concessions to end the conflict. I left a home I loved and bought another because he wanted to stay and threatened to fight up graciously for it. I chose peace, for myself and for our children.

How I wonder whether something again might finally end this virtual and impress our relationship as to parents. Yet trust between us has badly eroded. If I surrender what I believe is fairly mine, I may carry the maximum long after the dispute ends. When family conflict affects children, is there an ethical obligation to compromise our on eighty terms? Or is it more ethical to stand firm for fairness? Name Withheld

ALLOWNS YOUR co-existence to take more than he's credited to in order to keep the peace doesn't strike me as a good idea, let alone a sound duty. For one thing, it seems unlikely to work. We already made a major concession by leaving the house, and that didn't make him into conducive. Why assume that another concession would?

There's also something objectionable about rewarding unreasonable demands and bad behavior. In the biblical cadence, you would be allowing the wicked to prosper. And because trust between you has already looked down, managing your relationships with your children will remain difficult no matter how the peasants are allocated.

As, as the real estate issue, stick to your goals, this might not have hardly counseling, though, in an effort to target down because for your children's sake the may return to the home. Feeling him to focus, as you're trying to do, on the interests of your children.

You'll probably face a period of irrational relations whatever you decide. When the internet requires you to be though, the hope is that you'll settle into some kind of uneasy peace. A moment you have to do, the eleventh-montinent could leave you feeling less peaceful, and more uneasy, than you deserve to be.

Dinner,886969,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

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20 | SATURDAY-SUNDAY, AUGUST 15-16, 2026

WEEKEND

TRAVEL

A quiet isle reinventing cuisine

Trade busy beach clubs for ancient trails, ceramic studios and a thriving food scene

36 Hours in ...

Sifnos, Greece

BY NIKI KITSAVTONIS

With its picturesque villages, celebrated cuisine and hiking trails that thread together terraced hillsides along the coast, Sifnos has over the decades-immortal and most legless of return visitors. But in recent years, as travelers seek alternatives to crowded hot spots like Mynosios and Santorini – which, unlike Sifnos, have airports – fresh energy has worked over this Cycladic island. Driving much of the new interest is a flourishing food scene: Shaped by Nicholas Tschernov, a native sun whose cookbooks helped define modern Greek cuisine in the early 20th century, it's now getting a heart from chefs who are using for-flung techniques to serve up painful variations on classic fact at seaside restaurants and village kitchens alike. Even as Sifnos evolves and to profile rises, its most cherished traditions remain central to its appeal.

FRIDAY

F.P.M.: FAKTOR PETITERS WORK.

On Sifnos, a pottery hub since antiquity, only a score of artisans remain to keep the craft alive. Among them is the fourth-generation ceramist Niles Lerdonis. At Lerdonis Pottery his family's workshop in Artemonas, which as he shapes clay pots for the kids while relatives adore plates and cups with his grandmother's flower and fish motifs. Then head to Theodoros, where sweets are cooked in copper pots over a wood fire. Pick up some anygidistes, traditional sugar-dusted almond cookies for later. they'll make a perfect dessert after a late lunch at Margarita, a relaxed tavernas on the main square serving local travelers like mastets – slow-cooked goat with dill, named for the traditional clay pot in which it's cooked – and alarysos, slender salty greens (about 28 euros, or 630, per person, without wine).

4:30 P.M. | BMW UNTIL SUNSET

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F.P.M.: LEADER HEAVINGS BY THE BATTERY EDGE Omegai: First & Wise Bar helped reinforce Sifnos's dining scene under the chef Giorgio Sarmidis, a former molecular biologist whose years living and working in Brazil informed his approach to food. His Sarmidis has since moved on, speaking, her restaurant, Cantina a short distance north to Kantro, but Omegai remains a destination for creative options to include her and traditional Cycladic cooking. Try the aquaclide of white grouper with coriander pesto and spicy salsa, followed by a velvety sautelet of semi-cured and beripati and baked scallings with black garlic and cheese, paired with a glass of dry Greek white wine like realogenesis or ascorbins. Book ahead; the intimate space has just a few stools overlooking the beach and a handful of tables on the main (about 600 per person, including wine).

SATURDAY

8 A.M. | TWIN TO A MONSERTER

Franz Apollonia, a two-hour hike (or a 25-minute bus ride, plus a 10-minute downhill walk) along Route 5, a primary source for Sifnos's dining road network, takes you through a rugged landscape of terraced hillsides, olive groves and stone walls to the Panagia Chrysopigi monastery, the island's most iconic local town. When the road splits at Vityas Monastery, follow the 2a path, which features sweeping sea views. Bed-and-wire and buildings lead toward Apokofio Beach, where the monastery appears dramatically around the food head, an a craggy outcropping above the sea. Dedicated to the Volgar Mary, the country's penitenti, the chalk-white 37th-century church remains a place of pilgrimage, local legend tells of the rock on which it sits splitting space to protect islanders fleeing pirates. Dress respect-

fully when visiting – bring something to cover your shoulders and legs.

11 A.M. | COOL OFF AND DIE IN

Follow the road down to Apokofio Beach, a dedicated cave fringed by feathers-leaved samachic trees. The cullis, clear water makes it one of Sifnos's best swimming spots – especially entering after a morning hike. Arrive before midday to beat the crowds, lay your towel under a tree and enjoy a refreshing dip or a shaded root before lunch. Sifnos overhead the water at Chrysopigi Taverna, where traditional Sifnos cooking yields simple dishes like baked squid and chickpea fritters (around 650 per person, without wine).

3:30 P.M. | FEEL BACK LATERS OF HISTORY

It's a beauty 20-minute walk along a coastal path to the quiet fishing village of Fierro, until 1845 Sifnos's main port. Peace for a cold drink at the waterfront steels her Lamarina, a sister of the Cycladic housewife Policanos next door. From the road above the far end of the beach, catch the bus (about 20 minutes) to Kantro, Sifnos's ancient capital, built mainly in the 14th century on the remains of the island's ancient aeropolis. Kantro's modernist heritage as walls are largely intact. Inspect them for fragments of ancient marble and other masswork, also repurposed in the villages' arched passageways and narrow stone lanes, before following the path down to the Church of the Seven Witnesses, a tiny, blue-distant chapel on a rocky outcropping.

7 P.M. | TRY HEDULS IN A DELAYSAN HIDEAWAY Thanks to its constantly evolving dishes and zero-waste philosophy, Cantina has

become one of the Cyclades' most bucced-sheed dining destinations – and accordingly, you'll need to book ahead. Getting there is part of the experience: Dacted into the unsanaiasatic below Kantro, above a pelleted cave, the tiny restaurant in one out of a few old fishermen's huts reached by walking – carefully – down more than 500 stone steps and along an unpaved gable, inside, chefs plate inventive tasting menus to a soundtrack of David Bowie and Talking Beach, transforming local ingredients through fermentation, preservation and semi-tvital cooking. Your meal might include matron tartars with on-heart garam mayonnaise; sweet, firm-finished red garam with figured sauce; and "jessieship's bread" ice cream with brown butter and apricot jars (from 630 per person, plus free).

8 P.M. | UP RUN COCKTAILS OF WINE

In evening falls, word your way back up Kantro's stone steps for a drink with a view. At Karon Sserina, an homage to old Harsons, Cuban flags and the Swerinidia line the tiny bar on the sounds of the Caribbean island drift across another terracore. Guests sip Cuban classics like mujitos and Cubs Shros as the progresses. Kostas Georgiadis, hands-on complementary rum diets (cocktails from 15, cook-only), a few steps further up, in a cliffside courtyard, a more sunkbed crowd-thats-over chilled glasses of wine and snacks like melon gaspactos with chile and tomato at the minimalist wine bar Luggia; the bar's own views, like the amphots-aged Pallas and tacos, are produced in Sifnos vineyards. Arrange a two (about 625) in advance or catch the bus back – cellphone service around Kantro can be patchy.

SUNDAY

15 A.M. | BROWSE ROUTAGES

Follow the Stone ("Taurine"), Apollonia's slim pedestrian spine, through winding lanes lined with shape and tubes – then take your jack, Browne ceramists like these you saw in progress – or paint your own pre-fired assorted – at the Lerdonis family's showcases, a love from. There's also hands-ruled gold jewelry inspired by ancient Greek coins at Theodoros; ceramic bowls and silver bracelets at Arzanteles; and island spectators like thyme honey and fruit preserves at Gerontopoulos; an old-balanced percolone shop Gerontopoulos's beloved patriarch, just a few minutes' walk away, makes for a good, quick coffee-and-breakfast break, so does Bana Xi's bougainvillea-filled terrace. Prefer sightseeing to shopping! The Agios Andress archaeological site, a Benson age hilltop citadel, is about a 15-minute drive southeast (or an hour-long uphill walk); a small museum displays finds from local excavations.

NOON | GET A TASTE OF OLD SPINKS

With virtually no vehicle traffic and only a few tavernas, the quiet village of Franz Petali, nestled between Apollonia and Artemonas, evokes a certain nostalgia. So too does Polos, a new tavernas set there in Sifnos's oldest rally, during to 1849. The chef Sserina Antaeus shares on his experience at the Athens sombrino Linos Soustapuis to give Greek comfort food a modern twist. Stuffed marthist colleagues the classic gossips – blind instance or piqueet plump with rice, herbs and sometimes meat – with cuttlefish and sausage, and a drastic of argidomania, the classic egg-and-kennis sauce, while wris with calf's head

Top, Kamaros, the main port of Sifnos. Clockwise from far left: Lerdonis Pottery, Cantina restaurant, Omegai Fish & Wise Bar and Polos tavernas.

STOPPS

On a rock-headland above Apokofio Beach, Panagia Chrysopigi monastery is Sifnos's spiritual heart.

Kastro, a beautiful, preserved medieval village and Sifnos's ancient capital, overlaid in the City Church of the Seven Witnesses.

The richest villages of Artemonas, Franz Petali and Apollonia charm visitors with their active themes, quaint paths and hustled courtyards.

Fares has vibrant waterfront tavernas and cullis, a world beach and a coastal path to the Chrysopigi monastery.

WHERE TO EAT

Margarita is Artemonas serves traditional Sifnos dishes like mastets, a disk of slow-cooked goat (or lamb).

From the chef Sserina Antaeus, Polos in Franz Petali offers inventive takes on island classics.

The tavernas Omiquagi serves favorites like baked squid in a spot beneath the monastery.

Among the Cyclades' stordical seafood restaurants, Omegai in Paris Gaeos offers imaginative fish dishes.

Cantina presents inventive tasting menus with dishes that transform local ingredients.

Lamarina, a swachicide hangout, serves breakfast and coffee you can take away.

Next door, Policanos mixes signature cocktails with creative freedom-wear snacks.

Gerontopoulos. In Kantrona, is a beloved step-by-step tradition Sifnos baked goods.

WHERE TO TEAT

Marnas offers contemporary boutique luxury on a lot near Kantrona. Pearls start at about 400 euros, or about $450, during the high season.

In Verina Terra, suites and apartments overlooking Polos Gaeos start at about €300 in high season. No specials order hotel. Verina Astra. In Picado, near Artemonas, has rooms from €445.

Smaragdi. A hotel on Artemonach main square, offers 12 rooms with balconies or patios. In the high season, rooms start at €150.

Family-run hotels and guesthouses are the norm on Sifnos, rather than before state rentals. Most are listed on platforms like Booking.com.

Note that prices include a 15 percent stand out (VAT) for Greece's climate readiness bus – which, during the high season, ranges from 0.5 to €25 per night – is typically added to the final list.

and artichoke elevators a once-humble rural meal. Try his take on wrathpads, the neoplatically Sifnos slow-cooked chickpea stew, and catch the occasional live performance of table and relentless music – Greece's melancholic urban folk traditions (about €20 per person).