Author: NY TIMES

Last May, Samir Bhavnani, a 47-year-old tech executive from San Diego, was planning a trip to Palm Springs, Calif., where he planned to propose to his girlfriend. He found the perfect spot on Vrbo: It offered a “spa in a grotto,” a slide and a swim-up bar and had plenty of five-star reviews.He decided to book two nights, at $595 a night. But somehow, the total came to about $2,300.“And $595 plus $595 doesn’t equal $2,300,” Mr. Bhavnani said. “Taxes, host fees and service fees basically doubled the price. I asked the owner what the fee breakout was, and they…

When the U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, announced on Monday that he was planning to push for a mental health warning label on social media platforms, he was met with cheers from many parents and teachers, who described a long, lonely struggle to wrench children away from a habit that was hurting them.He got a cooler reaction, however, from some scientists who study the relationship between social media and mental health. In interviews, several researchers said the blanket warning Dr. Murthy has proposed — “social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents” — stretches and oversimplifies…

In the spring of 2020 as the pandemic cut a terrifying path across the globe, touring bands packed up and went home, unsure how they’d survive. At the same time, Matt Shultz, the frontman of Cage the Elephant — the rare arena-scale rock act to emerge within the past two decades — was facing a different crisis in his own head.After releasing five hard-edged yet hook-filled albums with Cage the Elephant since 2008, Shultz, a frontman known for stripping down to underwear and fishnet tights and walking the length of venues atop his audience’s outstretched hands, was not himself.Suffering an…

As the war has raged in Gaza, another battle has unfurled in parallel along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon — a risky game of tit-for-tat that has intensified in recent weeks, with a far stronger foe.In a measure of the danger of a full-scale war erupting, President Biden dispatched one of his senior aides, Amos Hochstein, to Israel on Monday and to Lebanon on Tuesday to press for a diplomatic solution.Unlike Hamas, the Palestinian militia fighting Israel in Gaza, Hezbollah has troops who are battle-hardened combatants, and the group possesses long-range, precision-guided missiles that can strike targets deep inside Israel.Despite…

Overshadowed by the fighting in Ukraine and Gaza, Sudan’s brutal civil war has been spreading for months across the western Darfur region, where atrocities were seared into international consciousness 20 years ago.Now global attention is starting to focus on the siege of a city in Darfur, where chaotic violence has stoked fears of another ethnic slaughter, and even genocide.Here is what we know.A Risk of Ethnic SlaughterThe battle for the city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, may have made the war too big to ignore. The U.N. Security Council, in a near-unanimous vote, has demanded an end…

Si tú o alguien a quien quieres habla casi exclusivamente con referencias de internet — “tiene energía de novio golden retriever” o “enséñamelo, Rachel” (“Show it to me, Rachel”)—, puedes estar sufriendo una afección conocida como “brainrot”. Es decir, “cerebro podrido” en español.El término se refiere sobre todo a los contenidos de internet de poco valor y a los efectos que provoca pasar demasiado tiempo consumiéndolos. Ejemplo: “He estado viendo tantos videos en TikTok que ya sufro de ‘brainrot’”.El debate en internet sobre el “brainrot” se ha extendido tanto que algunos usuarios de las redes sociales han empezado a crear…

Investor support for Toyota Motor’s longtime leader, Akio Toyoda, sank to its lowest level since he took the helm as shareholders challenged the extent of control he exerts over the company.According to a filing released on Wednesday, 71.9 percent of shareholders supported renominating Mr. Toyoda as chairman of Toyota’s board. That met the threshold required for re-election, but it was the lowest level of support for him since at least 2010, after Mr. Toyoda’s first full year as chief executive.Ahead of Toyota’s shareholder meeting on Tuesday, The New York Times reported that several big investors planned to vote against Mr.…

Angela Bofill, a New York-bred singer whose sultry alto propelled a string of R&B hits in the late 1970s and early ’80s before strokes derailed her career in the 2000s, died on Thursday in Vallejo, Calif. She was 70.Her death, at the home of her daughter, Shauna Bofill Vincent, was announced in a social media post by her manager, Rich Engel. He did not specify a cause.With a silky blend of Latin, jazz, adult-contemporary and soul, Ms. Bofill is best remembered for jazzy love songs like “This Time I’ll Be Sweeter” and funk-inflected pop numbers like “Something About You.” Armed…

The $230 million temporary pier that the U.S. military built on short notice to rush humanitarian aid to Gaza has largely failed in its mission, aid organizations say, and will probably end operations weeks earlier than originally expected.In the month since it was attached to the shoreline, the pier has been in service only about 10 days. The rest of the time, it was being repaired after rough seas broke it apart, detached to avoid further damage or paused because of security concerns.The pier was never meant to be more than a stopgap measure while the Biden administration pushed Israel…

“Our economy has truly turned a corner,” Rishi Sunak, Britain’s prime minister, said last week as he introduced his party’s election manifesto, buoyed by recent data showing that Britain’s economy had exited from a recession more strongly than expected in the beginning of the year and that inflation had slowed substantially.Justifying the optimism, data released on Wednesday showed that consumer prices rose 2 percent in May from a year earlier, touching the Bank of England’s target for the first time since 2021. That was also way down from 11.1 percent in October 2022, when Mr. Sunak started his premiership.Many economists…