By SAMY MAGDY

CAIRO (AP) — In an extravaganza of pharaonic imagery with a drone light show depicting ancient gods and pyramids in the sky, Egypt on Saturday inaugurated its long-delayed Grand Egyptian Museum, a megaproject aiming to give the country’s millennia-old heritage a rich, modern display.

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Two decades in the making, the museum located near the Giza Pyramids and the Sphinx is the centerpiece of the government’s bid to boost Egypt’s tourism industry and bring cash into the troubled economy.

At the elaborate grand opening ceremony, attended by a number of European and Arab royals and other presidents and prime ministers, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi sought to give the event an international scale.

He called on attendees to “make this museum a platform for dialogue, a destination for knowledge, a forum for humanity, and a beacon for all who love life and believe in the value of humankind.”

A bid to join the ranks of the world’s top museums

The museum, known as GEM, is one of several megaprojects championed by el-Sissi since he took office in 2014, embarking on massive investments in infrastructure with the aim of reviving an economy weakened by decades of stagnation and battered by the unrest that followed the 2011 Arab Spring uprising.

Egypt’s pharaonic history has long made it a tourist magnet. But it has also long struggled to organize and display the sheer huge amount of artifacts — everything from tiny pieces of jewelry and colorful tomb murals to towering statues of pharaohs and animal-headed gods, with more as discoveries are constantly being made across the country.

Visitors pose for a group photo under Hatshepsut statue, at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Egypt, Friday, May 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

Touted as the world’s biggest museum dedicated to a single ancient civilization, the new building, in contemporary style is a stark contrast. Its large, open halls give space for some 50,000 artifacts on display, along with virtual reality exhibits. It displays the entire collection of treasures from the tomb of the famed King Tutankhamun for the first time since its discovery in 1922.

The museum replaces the Egyptian Museum, housed in building more than a century old in downtown Cairo that — while elegant in its Neo-Classical style — had become antiquated and was often compared to a warehouse, overpacked with artifacts with little explanation.

Construction on the $1 billion project began in 2005 under then-President Hosni Mubarak. But work was interrupted by turmoil surrounding the 2011 uprising that brought down the Egyptian strongman. Further delays ensued, and a planned grand opening over the summer had to be put off after the 12-day-long war between Israel and Iran erupted in June.

GEM is expected to attract 5 million visitors annually, said Egypt’s tourism and antiquities minister, Sherif Fathy. That would put it in the realm of the most popular museums in the world. In 2024, by comparison, Paris’s Louvre brought in 8.7 million, the British Museum 6.5 million and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York 5.7 million.

Police vehicles stand alert as they guard ahead of the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Egypt, Saturday, Nov. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

An elaborate opening ceremony

Saturday night’s grand opening stoked the pharaoh-mania.

As an orchestra played fanfares, lines of actors dressed in ancient Egyptian garb arrayed around the museum, the pyramids and the Sphinx. Hundreds of drones created a light show in the sky, depicting well-known Egyptian gods like Isis and Osiris and the pyramids.

El-Sissi posed with delegates from more than 70 countries, including members of the royal families from Belgium, Spain, Denmark, Jordan, Gulf Arab nations and Japan, and a number of European and regional presidents and prime ministers. It was a throwback to the grand opening of another megaproject in Egypt, the 1869 inauguration of the Suez Canal, when Egypt’s rulers gathered a host of European royal families.

Ramses the Great and King Tut

The museum boasts a towering, triangular glass façade imitating the nearby pyramids, with 258,000 square feet of permanent exhibition space.

Tourists pose at the Grand staircase at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Egypt, Friday, May 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

It opens to a granite colossus of Ramses the Great, one of ancient Egypt’s most powerful pharaohs who reigned for around 60 years, from 1279-1213 B.C., and is credited with expanding ancient Egypt’s reach as far as modern Syria to the east and present-day Sudan to the south. The statue greets visitors once they step inside the museum’s angular atrium.

The museum’s 12 main galleries, which opened last year, exhibit antiquities spanning from prehistoric times to the Roman era, organized by eras and by themes.

Two halls that will be opened for the first time after Saturday are dedicated to the 5,000 artifacts from the collection of King Tutankhamun — a boy pharaoh who ruled from 1361-1352 B.C. The tomb was discovered by British archaeologist Howard Carter in 1922 in the southern city of Luxor. The old Egyptian Museum did not have enough room to display the whole collection.

The collection includes the boy pharaoh’s three funeral beds and six chariots, his golden throne, his gold-covered sarcophagus and his burial mask, made of gold, quartzite, lapis lazuli and colored glass.

Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s most renowned archaeologist and former minister of antiquities, said the Tutankhamun collection is the museum’s masterpiece.

A tourist takes a selfie in front of Akhenaten statue during his visit to the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Egypt, Friday, May 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

“Why this museum is so important, and everyone is waiting for the opening?” he told The Associated Press. “Because of Tutankhamun.”

Boost to tourism and economy

Officials hope the museum will draw more tourists who will stay for longer periods and provide the foreign currency needed to shore up Egypt’s battered economy.

The government has also revamped the area around the museum and the nearby pyramids and the Sphinx. New highways were built, and a metro station is being constructed nearby. An airport, Sphinx International Airport, has also opened west of Cairo — 40 minutes from the museum.

The tourism sector has suffered during years of political turmoil and violence following the 2011 uprising. In recent years, the sector has started to recover after the coronavirus pandemic and amid Russia’s war on Ukraine — both countries are major sources of tourists visiting Egypt.

Tourists view the site of the great Pyramids from the rest zone of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, Egypt, Friday, May 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

A record number of about 15.7 million tourists visited Egypt in 2024, contributing about 8% of the country’s GDP, according to official figures. Fathy, the tourism minister, said about 18 million tourists are expected this year, with authorities hoping for 30 million visitors annually by 2032.

This will translate into more jobs and pump foreign currency into the economy, said Walid el-Batouty, a tour guide.

“It will be boost the economy of Egypt tremendously not just the hotels and the museum itself,” he said. Whenever a tourist rides a cab or even just buys a bottle of water, “that is pumping money” into Egypt’s coffers, he added.

Associated Press journalist Ahmed Hatem in Cairo contributed to this report.

By DAMIAN J. TROISE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks fell in morning trading on Wall Street Tuesday, pulled down by losses in the same big tech companies that have been the main drivers of the market’s rally so far this year.

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The S&P 500 fell 0.5%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 83 points, or 0.2%, as of 10:42 a.m. Eastern time. The Nasdaq composite sank 0.8%.

The majority of stocks within the S&P 500 fell and the biggest weights were technology companies.

Palantir Technologies, which had more than doubled so far this year, fell 6.4% despite reporting results that beat analysts’ forecasts.

Nvidia also reversed course, falling 2.3%, while Microsoft fell 0.4%. Their huge values give them outsize influence over the market’s broader direction.

Wall Street remains focused on corporate earnings. Roughly three out of every four companies within the S&P 500 have reported their latest results, which have been mostly better than analysts expected.

Animal health care company Zoetis plunged 13.7% after cutting its sales forecast for the year. Norwegian Cruise Line slid 11% after giving Wall Street a mixed earnings report and forecast.

Uber slumped 6.5% despite reporting financial results that beat analysts’ expectations.

Several big companies will report their latest financial results later this week, including McDonald’s, Expedia Group and Qualcomm.

The latest round of corporate profit reports and forecasts have taken on more significance for Wall Street amid the U.S. government shutdown. Investors and economists are trying to gauge the health and direction of the U.S. economy without the latest economic updates on inflation and employment.

The lack of timely economic data has also left the Federal Reserve without many of the resources it needs to make decisions on interest rate policy. That has added more doubts to whether the central bank will continue cutting its benchmark interest rate amid stubborn inflation and a weakening job market.

The central bank cut its benchmark interest rate in October for the second time this year. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has cautioned that further rate cuts aren’t guaranteed. Other Fed members have since also expressed concerns about more rate cuts with inflation remaining stubbornly above the central bank’s target of 2%.

Wall Street is forecasting a 71% chance of a rate cut at the Fed’s next meeting in December, according to CME FedWatch. That’s down from a 90.5% a week ago, just before the last Fed meeting.

Outside of earnings, Tesla fell 2.4% after Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, one of the electric car maker’s biggest investors, said Tuesday that it will vote against a proposed compensation package that could pay CEO Elon Musk as much as $1 trillion over a decade.

There will be more than a dozen company proposals up for a vote Thursday during Tesla’s annual meeting, but none have generated more division than Musk’s potentially massive pay package.

European markets were lower and Asian markets fell overnight.

Treasury yields edged lower in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.08% from 4.10% late Monday.

Four measures on the ballot this Election Day would change how New York City permits new affordable housing. City Limits will be tracking the results as votes roll in Tuesday night.

A voter in The Bronx submits his ballot during the June primary. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

This is a developing story and will be updated Tuesday as voting results roll in. Check back soon.

At the polls this Election Day, New Yorkers are weighing four ballot measures that would change how the city permits new affordable housing. The proposals have drawn significant attention from candidates, officials, advocates, and voters, who are split on how they will affect development.

Some say the changes will help speed up construction of new homes and ease the city’s housing shortage. They point to areas of the city that have produced the least housing, often because local councilmembers are opposed.

Others, like the City Council members themselves, say it’s a power grab that would erode the Council’s authority over land use issues, giving more power to the mayor. 

They argue that City Council review helps legislators secure important benefits for their districts in development deals, like more affordable housing. Opponents also say some “affordable” housing, which is restricted by household income, is not actually accessible to the lowest income New Yorkers.

“These misleading ballot proposals permanently change the City’s constitution to weaken democracy, lasting beyond the next mayor when we inevitably have a mayor who is bad on housing, equity, and justice for communities,” City Council Speaker Benjamin Fang-Estrada said in a statement Tuesday. “This would leave our city without the checks and balances of democracy to protect New Yorkers and ensure outcomes that prioritize them, not simply profits.”

Tuesday morning, Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani said that he voted for the housing-related ballot measures, after his opponents criticized him for not taking a position in the second mayoral debate.

“We urgently need more housing to be built across the five boroughs, and we also need to ensure that housing is high quality,” he told City & State Tuesday. 

“I also understand that there are councilmembers in opposition to these measures, and their opposition is driven by commitment to their communities and a deep concern about investment in those communities and I share the commitment to that investment,” he added. “I look forward to working with them and delivering.”

His opponents in the race for mayor are split. Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo—running on an Independent line—supports them, and Republican Curtis Sliwa does not.

Here’s what the proposals would do:

Proposal 2 would take decision-making power from the City Council and give it to city boards mostly appointed by the mayor, shortening the review timeline for 100 percent affordable housing projects, as well as projects with at least 25 percent affordable housing in the 12 community districts that have built the least affordable housing in recent years.

Proposal 3 would create expedited review for residential developments that add no more than 30 percent more housing than current zoning rules allow. It moves approval power for those projects from the City Council to the City Planning Commission.

Proposal 4 creates an appeals board of the mayor, borough president, and City Council speaker that could vote to overrule Council decisions that reject or reduce affordable housing in development proposals.

Proposal 5 replaces paper maps in borough president’s offices with a consolidated digital city map.

Some polls before the election suggested support for the measures. A poll commissioned by the Partnership for New York City found at least two in three New Yorkers supported each of ballot Proposals 2 through 4. And a poll from the Yes for Affordable Housing campaign (a PAC supporting the measures) and Zenith Research found similar levels of support, with the strongest support among Mamdani voters.

A study from the New York Housing Conference released last week found that the bottom 10 Council districts produced fewer than 300 units of new affordable housing over the past 11 and a half years. The top 10 of the 59 Council districts, meanwhile, produced over half of the city’s new affordable housing.

Supporters say it points to how some councilmembers use their local veto power (a practice known as “member deference”) to block new development, further fueling the city’s overall housing crisis.

“We are deeply proud and honored to equip City government—and our communities—with the necessary and long-overdue tools we need to deliver on New York’s solemn promise of opportunity for all,” said Amit Singh Bagga, campaign director for YES on Affordable Housing, who is optimistic the measures will pass, particularly with Mamdani’s support.

Housing was a top issue for voters that City Limits spoke with at the polls.

Lydia and Adrian G, two early voters in Crown Heights, told City Limits they voted for the measures. “I heard reasonable people who want more affordable housing say, vote for them,” said Lydia.

The process to build housing is hard to understand, and voters like Ryan Walden, who also voted in Crown Heights, said, “it’s hard to know how those will work out in practice. I do think it’s important to make it easier to build more housing… but I’m hopeful that sort of streamlines things.”

The City Council and supporters of the amendments have both been waging public campaigns over the measures.

Mailers offer competing views on the housing-related ballot
proposals. (Jeanmarie Evelly/City Limits)

The Council controversially used public funds to distribute mailers that called the ballot proposals “misleading” and tied them to the unpopular Mayor Eric Adams. Adams, who is not running for re-election, convened the Charter Commission that came up with the measures, but the Commission says it is independent.

Those messages didn’t always get through to voters.

“Because some of those [proposals] I hadn’t even known were going to be on there, so I just went with my guts rather than research-based,” said Aboubacar Barry, 25, of Morrisania.

Ben, a 45 year old Morrisania resident who works cleaning subway trains, said that he voted no.

“They’re trying to lead you to vote yes for everything. Luckily, I know a bit about what they’re asking so I’m not coerced to just always say yes, yes, yes,” said Ben, who voted for Republican Curtis Sliwa.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

Additional reporting by Keke Grant-Floyd. To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Patrick@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post Live Updates: New Yorkers Weigh In On Housing Ballot Measures appeared first on City Limits.

Often my fridge is home to roast chicken, sometimes roasted in house, sometimes store-bought. That cold and cooked bird is a great source of protein for a wide variety of dishes, including the Greek chicken soup, Avogolemono. The irresistible protein-rich soup shows off short-grain rice and lemon juice, as well as eggs that are tempered with hot broth or stock.

The soup is treasured for its creamy texture and tangy flavor. Serve it as a main course accompanied by a vegetable-rich green salad.

If you make this soup in advance, cool it and refrigerate. Then to reheat, warm very gently over low heat in lieu of simmering or boiling, which can cause the soup to become stringy.

Lemon Chicken Soup with Rice (Avogolemono)

Yield: 4 servings

INGREDIENTS

6 cup chicken stock or broth

1/3 cup Arborio rice or other short-grain rice

3 large eggs

1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (from about 2 lemons)

Coarse sea salt

Freshly ground black pepper

3/4 cup small shreds roast chicken

Optional garnish: coarsely chopped dill, fennel fronds, chives, pesticide-free society garlic blossoms, or parsley

DIRECTIONS

1. Bring stock or broth to a boil in a 5-quart saucepan; stir in rice and cook, covered, at a gentle simmer, for about 15 minutes until the rice is tender. Remove from the heat and cover to keep warm.

2. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs, then beat in the lemon juice a little at a time, whisking constantly to combine. Still whisking the egg mixture, slowly add about 1/4 cup stock or broth, whisking vigorously to combine. Repeat twice, then add the egg mixture to the pan with stock or broth, whisking to combine.

3. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in the chicken, ladle the soup into bowls and garnish with dill, fennel fronds or parsley, if you like.

Source: “A Bird in the Oven and Then Some” by Mindy Fox (Kyle, $24.95)

Award-winning food writer Cathy Thomas has written three cookbooks, including “50 Best Plants on the Planet.” Follow her at CathyThomasCooks.com.

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