Author: NY TIMES

The U.S. economy has been an enigma over the past few years. The job market is booming, and consumers are still spending, which is usually a sign of optimism. But if you ask Americans, many will tell you that they feel bad about the economy and are unhappy about President Biden’s economic record.Call it the vibecession. Call it a mystery. Blame TikTok, media headlines or the long shadow of the pandemic. The gloom prevails. The University of Michigan consumer confidence index, which looked a little bit sunnier this year after a substantial slowdown in inflation over 2023, has again soured.…

“The Great Lillian Hall” is not afraid to embrace its classicism; had it been made in the 1940s, it would have starred Bette Davis. Like many of the best golden-age melodramas, this HBO film fully commits to both unabashed emotion and a complicated female lead, a role filled by Jessica Lange with a finely tuned mix of showmanship and nuance.Lange’s Lillian Hall is a theater grande dame playing the charismatic matriarch in a Broadway revival of Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard.” She is on shaky ground, suffering from memory lapses that affect the rehearsals, but she stubbornly, proudly soldiers on. Even…

While excavating an ancient Greek palace in eastern Libya in the 1930s, an archaeologist dug up a large earthen storage jar, looked inside and spotted something unexpected — a 2,200-year-old sculpture of a bearded man carved from basalt, a dark volcanic stone.The two-foot-tall antiquity, most likely chiseled during ancient Egypt’s Ptolemaic Dynasty, was a rare find. Known as a striding male figure, it is one of only 33 statues like it known to exist, Egyptologists say.But it wasn’t long before thieves got ahold of the bearded figure and took it on an illicit odyssey that brought it, in 1991, to…

Spain’s Parliament approved a landmark law on Thursday that grants amnesty to Catalan separatists involved in the illegal October 2017 independence referendum, a reprieve that could apply to hundreds of people, including Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan leader who has been living in self-imposed exile for seven years.The measure had met with resistance from opposition parties in recent months, and led to widespread anger and huge demonstrations in cities around Spain, with opponents denouncing it as a ploy by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to remain in power. Mr. Sánchez brokered the amnesty deal with the Catalan separatist party Together for…

[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]A mediados de marzo, Reebok organizó su cumbre anual de la marca para unos 500 socios comerciales en el Artists for Humanity EpiCenter, un espacio para eventos de Boston donde Todd Krinsky, el director ejecutivo de la empresa, reveló un secreto.Krinsky le dijo a su audiencia que Shaquille O’Neal, el nuevo presidente de la división de baloncesto de Reebok, la cual pronto iba a resucitar, había querido asistir. Pero, en vez de ir en persona, había enviado un mensaje de video pregrabado.Y ahí, en una gran pantalla, apareció la inconfundible presencia de O’Neal, con…

More than a million borrowers who were defrauded by for-profit schools have had billions of dollars in federal student loans eliminated through a government aid program. But people with private loans have generally been excluded from any relief — until recently.Navient, a large owner of private student loan debt, has created, but not publicized, a program that allows borrowers to apply to have their loans forgiven. Some who succeeded have jubilantly shared their stories in chat groups and other forums.“I cried, a lot,” said Danielle Maynard, who recently received notice from Navient that nearly $40,000 in private loans she owed…

In a brassy set piece from the 1952 classic “Singin’ in the Rain,” its star, Gene Kelly, impersonates a newbie hoofer seeking fame on the Great White Way. “Gotta dance!” he exclaims to anyone he meets. In “Young Woman and the Sea,” Trudy Ederle is fond of singing the 1921 hit “Ain’t We Got Fun.” First loudly, with a ukulele, to convince her early-20th-century immigrant dad to spring for swimming lessons; later, softly, to herself as she prepares to become the first woman to swim across the English Channel. It’s her way of proclaiming “Gotta swim!”The real-life Gertrude Ederle was…

Palestinians inspecting some of the damage a day after an Israeli strike near a camp for displaced people in Rafah on Sunday set off a fire that killed at least 45 people.Credit…Eyad Baba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSeeking to harness the outrage over an Israeli strike on Sunday that set fire to an encampment and killed at least 45 displaced Palestinians, including children, many diplomats at the United Nations Security Council are backing a new resolution this week that would demand an immediate cease-fire and a halt to Israel’s military operations in the city of Rafah.But they will have to overcome…

Calvin Klein, a brand that recently made waves with an ad campaign featuring the actor Jeremy Allen White in nothing but his underwear, is getting a little more buttoned up. On Thursday, it announced it would restart its high-end Collection business under a new creative director, Veronica Leoni, along with a return to the runway — and, perhaps, to its former position as a tentpole of New York Fashion Week.Ms. Leoni will be the first named designer Calvin Klein has had in five years and the first woman to lead the house. She is one of the few women to…

Trump and Musk’s growing courtship For much of President Biden’s time in the White House, his relations with Elon Musk have been tense. They may be about to plunge to a new low after Biden’s re-election campaign hit out at reports that Donald Trump could make Musk an adviser if the Republican were to win in November.The president’s campaign sees mileage in targeting Trump’s ties to moguls. “Despite what Donald Trump thinks, America is not for sale to billionaires, oil and gas executives, or even Elon Musk,” James Singer, a spokesman for the campaign, told DealBook, in its first comments…