Author: NY TIMES

If you or someone you love speaks almost exclusively in internet references — “It’s giving golden retriever boyfriend energy” or “Show it to me Rachel” — they may be suffering from a condition known as “brainrot.”The term refers primarily to low-value internet content and the effects caused by spending too much time consuming it. Example: “I’ve been watching so many TikToks, I have brainrot.”Online discussion of brainrot has recently grown so widespread that some social media users have begun creating parodies of people who seem to embody the condition.Several videos by the TikTok user Heidi Becker show her facing the…

The markets and Fed diverge again The bull market rally is continuing to run on Thursday. The S&P 500 is poised to set yet another record, as investors see inflation in retreat — even if Fed policymakers don’t quite see it that way.The gulf between investors and the central bank is widening again. After Wednesday’s tepid Consumer Price Index report, the odds in the futures market have risen for two interest rate cuts this year, a prospect that has triggered a stocks-and-bonds buying spree.Not so fast? The Fed’s “dot plot” projection released Wednesday sees just one cut this year, down…

The Tesla shareholder vote over Elon Musk’s pay is in some ways a referendum on the performance of the company and its chief executive.Late on Wednesday, Mr. Musk claimed victory in a social media post, saying that votes in favor of his pay package were leading by “wide margins,” giving Tesla’s stock a boost. But even before the official results are announced on Thursday, Tesla’s flagging stock price shows that investors have plenty of doubts about Mr. Musk and the electric carmaker’s outlook.Tesla’s shares are down nearly 30 percent this year, even as the broader stock market is up 14…

Akira Endo, a Japanese biochemist whose research on fungi helped to lay the groundwork for widely prescribed drugs that lower a type of cholesterol that contributes to heart disease, died on June 5. He was 90.Chiba Kazuhiro, the president of Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, where Dr. Endo was a professor emeritus, confirmed the death in a statement. The statement did not give a cause or say where he died.Cholesterol, mostly made in the liver, has important functions in the body. It is also a major contributor to coronary artery disease, a leading cause of death in the United…

Morality takes a hike in Claudio Monteverdi’s final opera, “L’Incoronazione di Poppea.” Bold in its satire and explicit in its sensuality, even more than 350 years after its creation, the work gives its ruthless lovers, Nero and Poppea, everything they desire.A decadent exploration of Nero’s Rome, “Poppea” might seem to share little with “The Comet,” a W.E.B. Du Bois short story from 1920. Using tropes of sci-fi catastrophe, Du Bois, the famous Black sociologist, asks what it would take for a racially equitable civilization to emerge. But, like Monteverdi’s opera, it has an amoral, ice-cold finish: After the merest possibility…

A commission at the United Nations published a report on Wednesday detailing acts of violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, accusing both sides of war crimes and arguing that the immense loss of life in the Gaza Strip amounted to a crime against humanity.The report consisted of two parallel investigations, one focused on the Oct. 7 attack on Israel led by the armed Palestinian group Hamas, and the other on Israel’s military response. It is one of the most detailed examinations thus far of the conflict and provides legal analysis that is likely to be used in future…

Two weeks after President Biden reversed himself and approved firing American weapons into Russian territory, he and his closest allies are preparing a different kind of assault, using the proceeds from Russia’s own financial assets to aid the reconstruction of Ukraine.For two years, the world’s largest Western economies have debated how to deal with $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, which the Kremlin left in Western financial institutions after the Ukraine invasion began in 2022.Now, after long debates about whether the West could legally turn those assets over to the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the allies seem…

Sometime late last year, there was a real sense that Daniel Ricciardo was lining up for Sergio Pérez’s Formula 1 seat at Red Bull in 2025.Ricciardo made it clear when he returned to the track mid-season with AlphaTauri (now RB) that a return to Red Bull Racing (the seat he vacated in 2018) was his ultimate goal. Speculation about this happening grew as Perez struggled in the second half of the season.However, Ricciardo has done little to prove his point at the start of 2024. Points earned and only 14th place in the driver’s standings. Meanwhile, Perez’s performance was enough…

Hang out anywhere there are people — Amtrak, Burger King, the I.C.U. — and it can feel as if there’s no escape from their noise. A Mets game, the Beyoncé discography, FaceTime conversations about nothing: Thanks to the unfettered use of speakerphones, other people’s business is now yours too, loudly.To be fair, not using headphones may have nothing to do with disrespect. Many smartphones don’t have traditional headphone jacks. Bluetooth headphones can be pricey. Sometimes you just forgot to bring earbuds and it’s your mom’s birthday.But on Reddit recently, the second most popular answer to the question “What do you…

Federal Reserve officials are expected to leave interest rates unchanged on Wednesday, but investors and economists will be carefully watching for any hints about when policymakers could begin cutting borrowing costs.Central bankers have held rates at 5.3 percent since July after a rapid series of increases starting in early 2022. Policymakers came into 2024 expecting to lower rates several times, but inflation has proved surprisingly stubborn, delaying those reductions.At the conclusion of their two-day meeting on Wednesday, Fed officials will release economic projections for the first time since March, updating how many rate cuts they expect this year. Policymakers could…