Author: NY TIMES

American households struggled to cover some day-to-day expenses in 2023, including rent, and many remained glum about inflation even as price increases slowed.That’s one of several takeaways from a new Federal Reserve report on the financial well-being of American households. The report suggested that American households remained in similar financial shape to 2022 — but its details also provided a split screen view of the U.S. economy.On the one hand, households feel good about their job and wage growth prospects and are saving for retirement, evidence that the benefits of very low unemployment and rapid hiring are tangible. And about…

“The feeling that Craig Wright has is that he has never been enough,” Mr. van Pelt said.Even after Dr. Wright failed to produce the evidence, he retained a band of loyal online followers. He didn’t have access to Satoshi’s private keys, he claimed in court, because he had smashed a hard drive containing them; he described it as an impulsive decision, partly related to his autism.Mr. Ayre stood by him, and in 2018, he and Dr. Wright launched Bitcoin Satoshi Vision, which trades at about $70 per coin, a tiny fraction of Bitcoin’s price. Dr. Wright oversaw its development from…

With weed these days, it’s a Willy Wonka world: chocolate bars, lollipops, exotic-flavored gummies — to say nothing of joints, vapes, drinks and the rest. Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have now legalized the sale of marijuana for recreational use, prompting innovation, lowering prices and making the drug — more potent than ever — more widely available. The Biden administration this week recommended easing the federal regulations on cannabis.What does all of this mean for adolescents?Studies have demonstrated that marijuana use can harm the developing brain. Some new strains have been linked to psychosis. Many health experts have…

Taylor Swift stays at No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart for a fourth time, easily holding off a new release by the Atlanta rapper Gunna. But next week she may face a challenge from Billie Eilish — and its result could come down to fans’ appetites for buying multiple “versions” of the stars’ albums.“The Tortured Poets Department,” Swift’s latest studio album, holds atop the Billboard 200 with the equivalent of 260,000 sales in the United States, including 282 million streams and 41,000 copies sold as a complete package, according to Luminate, a data tracking service. Since its record-breaking opening last…

In a video statement that he issued in Hebrew for his domestic audience on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu said that the “absurd and mendacious warrant” sought by Mr. Khan in The Hague was “directed not only against the prime minister of Israel and the defense minister but against the entire state of Israel. It is directed against the I.D.F. soldiers, who are fighting with supreme heroism against the vile Hamas murderers.”He said that Mr. Khan’s actions would not stop Israel from waging its “just war” against Hamas until it was won.For Mr. Netanyahu, the I.C.C. is “the best opponent he could…

The world’s highest court dealing with the oceans said on Tuesday that excessive greenhouse gases were pollutants that can cause irreversible harm to the marine environment. The groundbreaking advisory opinion was unanimous, and experts say it could lead to more wide-ranging claims for damages against polluting nations.The opinion by the court, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, is not binding, but it said that, legally, nations must take all necessary measures to reduce, control and prevent marine pollution caused by human-made greenhouse gas emissions.The stance taken by the tribunal, which is sometimes called the Oceans Court, is…

No, this wasn’t Caitlin Clark’s dreamy introduction to the professional ranks. Of course, this isn’t the hungover basketball hijinks that some of her legion are hoping for at some point this weekend.But rooks can’t jump over things.Her first two games could be disappointing, especially Thursday’s epic home opener against the Indiana Fever. This moment was enough to bring history to the venue. Sports’ newest luminaries made a splash at Gambridge Arena, rivaling the series between the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers.Then the New York Liberty shut down the party and Breanna Stewart shattered any illusions that a rookie could…

On a drizzly Saturday afternoon, hundreds of mahjong enthusiasts gathered in Downtown Brooklyn to play the 19th-century Chinese game of strategy and luck.As attendees entered the Korean food hall Hana House, they spread out over some two dozen tables. Upbeat electronic music from a live D.J. played throughout the space.The afternoon marked the second birthday of Green Tile Social Club, a New York-based mahjong community that was hosting its first tournament. Four Asian American alumni from the University of Texas at Austin — Ernest Chan, Grace Liu, Joanne Xu and Sarah Teng — started playing together about two years ago,…

One hundred seventy-five cookie jars that belonged to Andy Warhol. The bat that Babe Ruth carried in his last appearance at Yankee Stadium. A piano plinked by Dooley Wilson, as Sam, in “Casablanca.” The Duchess of Windsor’s jewelry.David N. Redden, an innovative auctioneer and a dapper presence at the podium, sold them all in a 42-year career at Sotheby’s. He also sold the Magna Carta, James Naismith’s original rules of basketball, a 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence found behind a $4 flea-market painting, and the world’s most expensive book, stamp and coin.Mr. Redden, who specialized in rare manuscripts,…

One of the weirder, more unnerving things about today’s leading artificial intelligence systems is that nobody — not even the people who build them — really knows how the systems work.That’s because large language models, the type of A.I. systems that power ChatGPT and other popular chatbots, are not programmed line by line by human engineers, as conventional computer programs are.Instead, these systems essentially learn on their own, by ingesting massive amounts of data and identifying patterns and relationships in language, then using that knowledge to predict the next words in a sequence.One consequence of building A.I. systems this way…