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Muttur Devi, a lower caste woman who works on a farm in the impoverished state of Bihar, adopted Christianity two years ago. Still, each morning, she affixes a bindi, a small circular sticker, to her forehead, and paints a vermilion stripe on her scalp. These are visible Hindu marks that she says help disguise her departure from Hinduism.

“If I take this off,” she said, touching her bindi, “the whole village will harass me.”

One cold night this past winter, Pastor Patil drove to a secret prayer session in an unmarked farmhouse. He quickly stepped inside. On a dusty carpet …

“They had a good time making fun of us,” said Mr. Pellegrino, adding that if the party had acted the same in a local trattoria, “they would have gotten a kick” in the behind.

Informed of the accusation of rudeness, Ms. DeRuiter was appalled. “The attempts by the chefs of Bros’ to blame their clientele for the quality of the service received,” she wrote in an email, “is the antithesis of what makes a good restaurant.”

Misunderstood masterpiece or lousy meal, a richly deserved excoriation or hatchet job, what is clear is that Mr. Pellegrino had unexpectedly emerged as the …

(CNN) — Road trips offer much of what the Covid-19 pandemic has stripped from us: adventure, freedom and spontaneity. Ever-changing global travel restrictions continue to impinge on our ability to explore the world freely.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t taste a bit of that road trip freedom while you wait for that next escape. The Drive & Listen web app offers quick getaways without the travel restrictions.

It may even inspire you to …

Whatever Mr. Putin’s intentions, American officials say they are rallying European allies for coordinated sanctions that would snap into place as soon as military action began. It is not clear, however, that the threat of such penalties would impress Mr. Putin, who has noted that Russia has lived with Western sanctions for years.

American and European officials are also continuing to monitor cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns that they say may be preparing the battlefield for any action. The senior administration official noted that such action has “often been done in advance these of sorts of incursions in the past.” The …

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Less than a month ago, the omicron variant, first detected in South Africa, was labeled a “variant of concern.” Since then, the world has braced for another wave of coronavirus, as Covid-19 is spiking across Europe and, now, the United States.

A lot of these countries — particularly the United Kingdom and the United States — are pushing aggressive booster campaigns in response. Three shots, rather than two, is becoming the refrain of many public health experts.

Yet the rest of the world is still woefully under-vaccinated. Not just booster shots, but first doses. Close to 60 percent of the …

(CNN) — The notion of what the world would look like if humans were to vanish has been explored extensively by scientists, as well as many post-apocalyptic movies.

The 38-year-old has spent years photographing abandoned places around the world …

The literary landscape has never been richer or more reflective of our present moment.

Compassionate depictions of the ongoing refugee crisis won Zanzibar-British novelist Abdulrazak Gurnah the 2021 Nobel Prize for Literature, while American writer Jason Mott took home the National Book Award for his novel on the racism, police brutality and the Black experience in the United States.

To help readers navigate the inexhaustible list of books published this year, we’ve asked influential tastemakers — including writers, actors, photographers and creative directors — to share their favorite reads of 2021.

Whether hard-hitting ruminations on …