Author: NY TIMES

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…

Under Elon Musk’s leadership, Tesla popularized electric vehicles and became the most valuable auto company in the world. Mr. Musk became a billionaire many times over while generating huge profits for investors.Even so, Tesla’s shareholders may decide this week that Mr. Musk has been paid too much.In a vote whose results will be announced on Thursday, the investors could strike down a compensation package — paid in stock options and currently worth $45 billion — that makes up a substantial portion of Mr. Musk’s wealth.With it, he is the probably richest person in the world, worth well over $200 billion.…

Space changes you, even during short trips off the planet.Four people who spent three days off Earth in September 2021 experienced physical and mental changes that included modest declines in cognitive tests, stressed immune systems and genetic changes within their cells, scientists report in a package of papers published on Tuesday in the journal Nature and several other related journals.Almost all of what changed in the astronauts returned to normal after they splashed down on Earth. None of the alterations appeared to pose a showstopping caution for future space travelers. But the results also highlighted how little medical researchers know.Christopher…

Françoise Hardy, an introspective pop singer who became a hero to French youth in the 1960s with her moody ballads, died on Tuesday. She was 80.Her death, from cancer, was announced by her son, Thomas Dutronc, in a post on Instagram, saying simply, “Mom is gone.”With songs like her breakthrough 1962 hit, “Tous les garçons et les filles” (“All the Boys and Girls”), and, later, “Dans le monde entier” (“All Over the World”); her longilineal look, prized by star fashion designers; and her understated personality, she incarnated a 1960s cool still treasured by the French.“How can we stay goodbye to…

Saudi Arabia has already launched a hostile takeover of professional golf. It has invested billions of dollars in world soccer. Now it wants to own professional boxing, too.An ambitious and expensive Saudi plan that would reshape the economics, structure and future of boxing is in the final stages of approval, according to two people with direct knowledge of the plan.Saudi Arabia’s giant sovereign wealth vehicle, the Public Investment Fund, would finance the project. The fund is holding final negotiations about dispersing the initial investment — said to be as much as $2 billion — that the plan would require, according…

The Biden administration announced a series of new financial sanctions Wednesday aimed at interrupting the fast-growing technological links between China and Russia that American officials believe are behind a broad effort to rebuild and modernize Russia’s military during its war with Ukraine.The actions were announced just as President Biden was leaving the country for a meeting in Italy of the Group of 7 industrialized economies, where a renewed effort to degrade the Russian economy will be at the top of his agenda.The effort has grown far more complicated in the past six or eight months after China, which previously had…

My wife is the second of four children who were raised in a frugal, middle-class household. To supplement her wardrobe, she babysat as a girl to earn money to buy clothes. She also sewed many of her outfits. Out of the blue — 50 years later — her younger sister confessed that she and their mother had often conspired to take my wife’s clothing, without her permission, for the younger girl to wear. This disclosure unearthed memories in my wife of finding her things out of place. The statement came without an apology and created great heartache. The question, “Why…

Why Redstone backed outFor months, Skydance Media’s effort to merge with Paramount — the studio behind “Mission: Impossible” and “Top Gun” — was the most-discussed M.&A. matter on Wall Street and in Hollywood. Now it has fallen apart.What happened? The simple answer: Shari Redstone, who controls Paramount through the holding company National Amusements, just didn’t want to sell, according to DealBook’s Lauren Hirsch, who covered the talks with The Times’s Ben Mullin.A deal was very close. Advisers for Paramount and Skydance had reached agreements on economic terms for a transaction and on other issues.But the talks soured toward the end,…

The serious trouble started on Christmas Eve, upstate with family. The Puerto Rican side does not alternate talking and listening — each is done in spirited unison. I was speaking too loudly over other stories and my own glass of wine, fighting a head cold and getting gravelly. My boyfriend, Benjamin, caught my eye across the room, touched his hand to his throat and made his face into a question mark, What’s wrong with your voice? But we’d brought a homemade cake — he baked, I decorated — that people were freaking out about, and I didn’t want to leave…