Marine Le Pen, Hamas, Greece: Your Tuesday Briefing

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/02/briefing/marine-le-pen-hamas-greece.html

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Good morning.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Across France, large May Day rallies reflected deep ideological divisions ahead of Sunday’s presidential election.

Organized labor has traditionally opposed Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front, but major unions oppose the job market overhauls that Emmanuel Macron, the centrist who leads in polls, wants to expand if elected.

Both candidates condemned violent clashes in Paris. Mr. Macron paid tribute to a Moroccan man who was killed in 1995 on the fringes of a National Front rally. And some noted that Ms. Le Pen appeared to have copied parts of her speech on Monday from a former rival.

Our Interpreter columnists explore how France’s midcentury Algerian War led to a crisis of identity that is still playing out in the vote.

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• Here’s how International Workers’ Day unfolded around the world. On the sidelines of a parade in St. Petersburg, the Russian police detained about 20 gay rights protesters, above. In Hungary, thousands rallied against Viktor Orban, the euroskeptic prime minister.

More than 70 people were detained in Istanbul, where some tried to defy restrictions on gathering at the symbolic Taksim Square.

And in the U.S., thousands protested against Mr. Trump and for workers’ and immigrants’ rights, despite his effort to rebrand May 1 “Loyalty Day.”

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• President Trump’s re-election campaign debuted a triumphant TV ad celebrating his first 100 days as a success. (We fact-checked the ad.)

But Mr. Trump had a bit of media trouble. He cut an interview short after a reporter questioned his unsubstantiated claims that his campaign was wiretapped. Separately, he also questioned whether the American Civil War was necessary.

Mr. Trump also said he would be “honored” to meet with North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, “under the right circumstances.” The comment illustrates Mr. Trump’s confidence in his own deal-making abilities, our White House correspondent writes.

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• Hamas is trying to present a more moderate public face.

The militant group says that it is open to a Palestinian state along 1967 lines and that it wants closer ties with Egypt.

Analysts see it as a move to counter Hamas’ political rival, the Palestinian Authority, whose leader, Mahmoud Abbas, will meet President Trump tomorrow.

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• The chemical weapons attack in Syria last month was not the only recent suspected use of a nerve agent by Syrian government forces.

On three other occasions, government attacks left scores of people sickened with similar symptoms, like foaming at the mouth, shaking and paralysis, according to a new Human Rights Watch report.

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• Greece reached a deal with its creditors on bailout-mandated overhauls that include pension cuts and tax increases. “The way has now been paved for debt relief talks,” said Euclid Tsakalotos, above, the finance minister.

• Tech giants and start-ups are turning to algorithms to spot misinformation online faster than traditional fact-checkers can. With several crucial elections in Europe ahead this year, voters stand to benefit.

• Our transportation reporter, trying to find out why New York City’s subway is such a mess, traveled to London to see how it works there.

• Here’s a snapshot of global markets.

• “Brexit” talks: Discussions last week between Theresa May, the British prime minister, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the head of the European Commission, ended in discord, some news reports suggested. [The New York Times]

• President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is expected to rejoin the governing Justice and Development Party today, ahead of a party convention on May 21 to make him chairman. [Hurriyet]

• In Cairo, militants killed three police officers and injured five others. [Reuters]

• Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, announced the creation of an assembly to rewrite the country’s Constitution, a move the opposition rejected as an attempt to avoid elections. [The New York Times]

• In South Africa, Jacob Zuma, the increasingly unpopular president, made a hasty exit from a May Day rally that turned rowdy after he showed up. [Mail & Guardian]

• In a first, SpaceX delivered a U.S. spy satellite into space. [Space.com]

• Running for an hour, no matter how healthy or unhealthy you are, could add up to seven hours to your life.

• Cool down all you like after exercising; you’ll probably still feel sore.

• Recipe of the day: For a busy night, fast tandoori chicken will get the job done right.

• Apparently, cats do like people. Given a choice among human affection, toys and food in a recent study, the felines sometimes chose people.

• “I will dedicate my tongue and taste buds to Sino-Danish friendship.” Chinese internet users offered to help Denmark eat its way through a surging population of invasive Pacific oysters.

• Finally, we introduce Open Thread, a weekly fashion newsletter. Today, it’s focused on the Met Gala in New York, which honors Rei Kawakubo, the founder of the Japanese brand Comme des Garçons.

America’s culinary champions gathered in Chicago for the annual James Beard Awards, the country’s gastronomic Oscars.

Since 1991, the event has highlighted the crème de la crème of the American food industry.

Long before the concept of celebrity chefs, James Beard, above, was hailed as a “kitchen wizard” and the “dean of the American cookery.”

Born in Portland, Ore., he dropped out of college and studied voice and theater in Europe. But back in the U.S., acting didn’t pay the bills, so he turned to catering and teaching clients how to cook and serve dinners “in an international manner.”

By 1955, he founded a cooking school in New York with a basic course of six lessons: crepes and sauces, soufflés, omelets, bread making, oven cookery and preparing a complete dinner party.

More than 20 cookbooks, a pioneering TV show and a stream of formative critiques followed, paving the way for chefs like Julia Child and Marcella Hazan. He died in 1985.

He professed an “incurable addiction to fine caviar” and was equally enamored of buttered new potatoes (though he eventually gave up the butter for health reasons).

“The secret of good cooking,” Mr. Beard said, “is, first, having a love of it.”

Remy Tumin contributed reporting.

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