A model apartment is opening this week at the Baccarat Hotel and Residences, a 50-story tower under development on West 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue, across from the Museum of Modern Art. Singapore-based Pontiac Land Group is joining with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Hines to construct a 72-story condo tower on the same block. Farther east, China Vanke Co., China’s biggest publicly traded developer, is working with Aby Rosen’s RFR Holding LLC on a 61-story building on Lexington Avenue.

Dozens of women in Iran are flouting state-imposed dress rules with online, often anonymous photographs showing them dropping their headscarf for a moment.  In only 10 days, a Facebook page titled “Stealthy Freedoms of Women in Iran” has received more than 100 such photos and 146,000 expressions of support.  The page’s organizers say they want to fuel debate on the government-mandated hijab head-covering, which is often enforced by local militias with beatings or detention for women suspected of following loose Western ways.

Millions in South and Southeast Asia rely on these three wheelers -- known variously as rickshaws, tuk tuks or tricycles -- as an affordable mode of transportation.  But while beloved by many, the vehicles are also blamed for bottleneck congestion and pollution, spewing carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and particle matters that become trapped inside the lungs.  As concerns over air pollution and fuel dependence grow, several Asian companies are vying to become the Tesla of motorbikes to bring zero-emission, light electric vehicles to the masses.

Boeing Co. (BA) will sell 50 737 aircraft worth at least $3.8 billion to a low-cost carrier being set up by Juneyao Airlines Co., as a loosening of Chinese government controls on low-cost travel stokes demand expectations.  Economic growth is helping make air travel affordable to more Chinese, increasing demand for planes from carriers such asAir China Ltd. (1055) and China Southern Airlines Co.  

As the last of the thirty-seven participating countries weighed in (Israel, the Netherlands, Iceland, Slovenia), a dark-horse winner emerged: Conchita Wurst. A glamorous drag queen, the Austrian candidate was decked out in a long, glittering dress and sported a full beard.  “It’s a firm and clear rebuke against Putin’s anti-L.G.B.T. legislation and people who support it,” William Lee Adams, the editor-in-chief of WiwiBloggs.com, the Internet’s most-read Eurovision Web site, said. 

BP plans to invest $1.5 billion this year to increase its production of natural gas in Egypt, hit by an energy crisis following three years of political turmoil, the state news agency MENA said on Sunday.

Witnesses to the fatal shootings last month of two Yemenis by American government officials said they saw a Western-looking man pull a gun from his belt and shoot both Yemenis dead during what appeared to be a kidnapping attempt at a barber shop.  Yemen has seen increasing numbers of attacks and kidnapping attempts on Westerners in the country, which isbattling a strengthening, Yemen-based branch of al Qaeda.

The opening ceremony of the Giro d'Italia cycle race has taken place in Belfast.  The Giro d'Italia is one of cycling's most famous events and TV coverage is watched every year in 165 countries.