Author: NY TIMES

TORONTO – Thomas can’t remember what he said or heard at a meeting last month.That’s because just minutes before, Sportsnet anchor Ivanka Osmark told him he’d won $500,000.A few days ago, Thomas, who asked to use a pseudonym to protect his privacy, purchased a Jays Care 50/50 raffle ticket on a whim after receiving a marketing email in his inbox. Then he forgot all about it.”When you play these games,” he said, “you don’t really expect to win.”On May 13, while he was working in IT, the phone rang and he almost rejected the call from a private number. “I’m…

When Helen Zhou began looking for an apartment to buy in London, she already liked the thought of living small.“I’m into the idea of minimal living, and a strict follower of Marie Kondo,” said Ms. Zhou, 33, a software engineer. She was also concerned about the environment and knew that living in a small space was one way to reduce her carbon footprint.As it happened, those desires dovetailed nicely with her budget. “I wanted a flat that was quite central,” she said, with south-facing windows for light. “What I could afford was just a small studio.”In November 2020, she closed…

Remo Saraceni, a sculptor, toy inventor and technological fantasist best known for creating the Walking Piano that Tom Hanks and Robert Loggia danced on in a beloved scene of the hit 1988 movie “Big,” died on June 3 in Swarthmore, Pa. He was 89.The cause was heart failure, said Benjamin Medaugh, his assistant and caretaker. Mr. Saraceni died at Mr. Medaugh’s home, where he had been living in recent years.Mr. Saraceni’s specialty was “interactive electronics,” he told New York magazine in 1976. His other inventions included a clock that could reply aloud when you asked it the time, a stethoscope…

Tesla shareholders decisively backed proposals to affirm Elon Musk’s multibillion-dollar pay package, according to details of the vote released on Friday.Passage of the proposals was announced at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting on Thursday, without the underlying totals. In the end, about 72 percent of voting shares backed the pay package, excluding stock owned by Mr. Musk and his brother, Kimbal.For months, many Tesla investors have worried about how engaged Elon Musk would be in running the electric car company, after a judge in Delaware voided his pay package.The compensation plan requires Mr. Musk to hold on to the shares for…

Pleasr, also known as PleasrDAO, has also portrayed “Once Upon a Time in Shaolin” as a kind of precursor of NFTs, recapturing the value of artistic scarcity in a digital age. The group, a “decentralized autonomous organization,” has been on the frontier of digital art, acquiring items like an NFT related to the image of a dog that inspired the “doge” meme of the 2010s.“It’s always our intention,” Camilla McFarland, a member of the collective, said in a group interview on Thursday, “to take these original works of art and figure out a way, in honoring the original vision of…

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel called Hamas’s response to the latest peace proposal for Gaza “negative.” Hamas insisted it was dealing with it “positively.”Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, speaking in Qatar, said Hamas had demanded changes, some of which were “workable” and some not. A Hamas official told an Arabic television channel that the group had not raised any new ideas, and that Mr. Blinken saw things through an Israeli lens and “speaks Hebrew.”The Biden administration has pledged to keep working with the Qatari and Egyptian mediators to bridge the gaps. But after days of intensive diplomacy in…

The tables were filling up at Urban Tandoor, a British curry house wholesome enough for a family meal and elegant enough for a low-key first date. Painted flowers twist up its entrance and lights adorn the colorful walls inside, a homage to Bristol’s artistic reputation. The local haunt in southwest England promises an array of crowd-pleasers, from jalfrezi to moilee.But it wasn’t only the food that had brought diners to Urban Tandoor on a recent evening.“Their TikToks,” said Jake Smith, 22, who was celebrating his birthday. “I think they’re hilarious.”Staff members at this local institution have charmed an audience online…

PINEHURST, N.C. — This place might trick you. It’s all so charming and whimsical that Mayberry becomes a golf mecca in the North Carolina sand dunes.You stroll through the village along brick walkways, passing two-storey brick buildings filled with cute shops and quaint pubs. More than one million people travel to Disney World each year for an idyllic golf-themed vacation.It might fool you into thinking you’ve stumbled upon a golf oasis. Make you forget that this place is huge, a resort, a complex with luxury hotels and villas and 10 courses designed by famous golf architects. Yes, it probably started…

“This is a video for anyone that’s coming to Paris Olympics 2024,” a woman says in a clip posted to TikTok. She pauses briefly, and then continues: “Don’t come. Cancel everything.”The video, which was uploaded in November, now has more than 700,000 views.The creator, Miranda Starcevic, is a 31-year-old French American who lives in Paris. She usually records herself speaking French, but thought a message about the Olympics would reach more people if it were in English.And Ms. Starcevic wanted her viewers to know that from her perspective, of French citizens who “are kind of middle class,” as she put…

The Federal Reserve has disappointed investors this year, but no matter. The markets have adjusted.Even without any interest rate cuts so far in 2024 — and with the likelihood of just one meager rate reduction by the end of the year — the stock market has been purring along. That’s quite an achievement, given the expectation in January that the Fed would trim rates six or seven times in 2024 — and that interest rates throughout the economy would be much lower by now.Buoyant as the stock market may seem, when you look closely, it’s apparent that the S&P 500’s…