Your Monday Briefing

Long-simmering points come to a head in France

Last week, a teenage boy was killed in a deadly site visitors cease exterior Paris, prompting days of violent protests. Days later, France’s high administrative courtroom upheld a ban on non secular symbols that has prevented a French citizen who wears a hijab from taking part in soccer. The circumstances are totally different, however every touches upon deep-seated problems with identification and inclusion within the nation.

Nahel Merzouk, the capturing sufferer, was a French citizen of Algerian and Moroccan heritage. Many minority residents dwelling within the nation’s poorer suburbs consider that the police would by no means have shot a younger white man dwelling in an prosperous neighborhood of Paris, even when he had a historical past of minor site visitors violations.

And Mama Diakité, the Muslim soccer participant, stated she felt betrayed by the ruling in a rustic that payments itself as a defender of rights. “I don’t feel safe because they don’t accept who I am,” she stated. In France, merely speaking about race is deeply taboo, stated Julien Talpin, a sociologist. “It’s kind of a strange position that the best way to solve the problem is to not talk about it,” he stated, “but that’s basically the dominant consensus in French society.”

Government response: An official in President Emmanuel Macron’s workplace final week rejected outright the thought that there have been two Frances of various situations and coverings and dismissed the notion of institutional bias inside the French police pressure. But latest research have made clear simply how prevalent racial discrimination is in France, significantly among the many police.

Grueling fight forward in Ukraine’s counteroffensive

Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive, now nicely into its fourth week, is transferring at a slower tempo than anticipated as Russian troops have dug in, fiercely contesting each mile of the drive into Russian-occupied territory.

Last month, within the battle for the village of Neskuchne, about 70 Ukrainian troops confronted off towards roughly 150 Russian troopers, in addition to a contingent of Russian inmates-turned-soldiers. It was a far cry from the big, NATO-trained brigades geared up with Western tanks and armored troop transports that navy analysts had anticipated.

In the times after Neskuchne’s “liberation,” which was introduced on June 10, Ukrainian forces have managed to retake a number of villages farther south. But since an early string of victories, Ukraine’s offensive has been gradual. Ukrainian forces have been mired by staunch Russian defenses, mounting casualties and area after area of land mines.

The newest: The frontline is now roughly 5 miles from Neskuchne. The distant thud of artillery is a near-constant soundtrack, combined with the bark of outgoing rounds from firing positions across the village.

Related: China is more likely to prolong extra help to Russia after a short-lived mutiny, as China’s high chief, Xi Jinping, wants Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, in energy to assist uphold the nations’ shared pursuits.

Greece’s deadly inaction at sea

More than 600 individuals died final month when a migrant boat, the Adriana, sank within the Mediterranean. A Times investigation drawing on satellite tv for pc imagery, radio alerts, sealed courtroom paperwork and greater than 20 interviews with survivors and officers discovered that lots of of these deaths may have been prevented.

Survivors stated that passengers had known as for assist and that some had tried to leap aboard a tanker that had stopped to present out ingesting water. These accounts are at odds with assertions by the Greek authorities, who’ve stated that the migrants didn’t wish to be rescued. As passengers panicked and the ship sank, the Greek authorities handled the state of affairs like a legislation enforcement operation, not a rescue.

The Greek authorities have repeatedly stated that the Adriana was crusing to Italy — contradicting the proof that exhibits definitively that the vessel was drifting in a loop for its final six and a half hours.

A category system: The passengers collectively paid as a lot as $3.5 million to be smuggled to Italy. Survivors stated Pakistanis have been on the backside of the ship; ladies and kids have been within the center; and Syrians, Palestinians and Egyptians have been on the high. Out of 350 passengers from Pakistan searching for a greater life, solely 12 survived. The ladies and younger youngsters went down with the ship.

Context: The E.U. authorities typically postpone rescues out of concern that serving to will embolden smugglers to ship extra individuals on ever-flimsier ships. As European politics have swung to the suitable, every new arriving ship is a possible political flashpoint.

Five voyagers climbed into the Titan submersible in giddy anticipation of becoming a member of the choose few who’ve seen the wreck of the Titanic up shut. But inside hours, their textual content messages stopped coming.

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From ‘Fleabag’ to ‘Tomb Raider’

Phoebe Waller-Bridge has gone from idiosyncratic, comparatively small-scale work like “Fleabag” and “Killing Eve” to big-action initiatives like James Bond, the brand new “Indiana Jones” film and a present primarily based on the Tomb Raider online game. David Marchese, reporting for The Times, requested her why.

“With Bond there is something dangerous, transgressive and incendiary about that character, and it’s the same with Indy,” Waller-Bridge stated. “We accept them now as the biggest franchises, but in the kernel of these characters is something naughty and dangerous. They were the rascals of their time, and I feel like Villanelle and Fleabag are rascals.”

She added: “So it was less like, ‘I want to go do this big movie,’ and more, ‘I want to play in the sand pit with these rascals.’”