Author: NY TIMES

Why is this election important?The outcome of Venezuela’s presidential election, which will take place on July 28, will be consequential for the future of the country’s democracy, as well as for the more than seven million Venezuelans who have abandoned the country and have contributed to a migrant surge in the United States.For the past 25 years Venezuela’s government has been controlled by Chavismo, the socialist movement that began with the democratic election of Hugo Chávez in 1998 and has since grown more authoritarian. When Mr. Chávez died in 2013 his protégé Nicolás Maduro narrowly won the presidency.Venezuela’s economy imploded…

UNCASVILLE, Conn. — As the clock ticked down before Caitlin Clark’s first WNBA game, she couldn’t stop. Waiting for the opening jumper, she paces along the free throw line. She pulled up her shorts and fixed her ponytail. She waved her arms, trying to free herself from the restraints.The referee then threw out the orange and white WNBA basketball, but the referee deemed a second throw was necessary. Unlike the official throw-in, Clark may not want to completely redo her debut. Still, at some point she’ll surely look to bounce back from a mixed individual performance and ultimately a disappointing…

Harrison Butker of the Kansas City Chiefs is one of the best place-kickers in the N.F.L. That is enough to make him somewhat famous in the football world, but players of his position aren’t typically known by more casual observers — unless they do something especially great or terrible on the field.Last weekend, with the N.F.L. solidly in its off-season, Mr. Butker found himself at the center of a great deal of vitriol on social media, and it had nothing to do with his job.On Saturday, Mr. Butker delivered a 20-minute commencement address to the graduates of Benedictine College, a…

The Supreme Court rejected a challenge on Thursday to the way the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is funded, one that could have hobbled the bureau and advanced a central goal of the conservative legal movement: limiting the power of independent agencies.The vote was 7 to 2, with Justice Clarence Thomas writing the majority opinion.Had the bureau lost, the court’s ruling might have cast doubt on every regulation and enforcement action it had taken in its 13 years of existence, including ones concerning mortgages, credit cards, consumer loans and banking.The central question in the case was whether the way Congress chose…

Engineers and scientists have an enduring fascination with spider silk. Similar to typical worm silk that makes for comfy bedsheets, but much tougher, the material has inspired the invention of lighter and more breathable body armor and materials that could make airplane components stronger without adding weight. Researchers are even using examples drawn from spider webs to design sensitive microphones that can one day be used to treat hearing loss and deafness and to improve other listening devices.Spiders use their webs like enormous external eardrums. A team of scientists from Binghamton University and Cornell University reported in 2022 that webs…

The big “IF” — as in “imaginary friend” — in John Krasinski’s treacly kids dramedy is a grizzly-sized purple goon who goes by the name Blue. The boy who conjured him was colorblind, he explains. Blue (voiced by Steve Carell) is one of dozens of dreamed-up creatures in Brooklyn who long for their now-grown BFFs to remember they exist.At the Memory Lane Retirement Community underneath Coney Island, there’s also a pink alligator (Maya Rudolph), a superhero dog (Sam Rockwell), a worn teddy (Louis Gossett Jr.), a retro cartoon butterfly (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), a robot (Jon Stewart), an astronaut (George Clooney), a…

Calls are growing in Slovakia for political parties to suspend campaigning for the European Union elections, just three weeks away, in the wake of the assassination attempt on the prime minister in the sharply polarized country.The president-elect of Slovakia, Peter Pellegrini, and others say the step is necessary to avoid further inflammatory political discourse, which has escalated further since the shooting that left Prime Minister Robert Fico badly wounded. At least one party, the opposition Progress Slovakia party, said it would immediately suspend its campaign, to help “end the spiral of attacks and blame.”The local news media reported that another…

Catching is a family tradition, so when Red Sox backstop Reese McGuire was 8 or 9 years old, he recalls spending Christmas in the backyard testing out his new catching gear. As he crouched on the grass, baseball rolling off his forearm, his grandfather told him, “It takes a tough kid to be a catcher. You’ve got to enjoy the bruises.””I think we were all a little crazy to get back out there,” said Diamondbacks catcher Tucker Barnhart, who has spent the past 11 seasons hunkering down behind home plate as a target.Catching a ball is not for the faint…

For four days in early May, Indigenous fashion designers, models and artisans from across North America came to Santa Fe, N.M., for Native Fashion Week.The event, new this year, included runway shows, panel discussions, pop-up shops and, of course, parties. It was put on by the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, the longtime organizer of the Indian Market, a popular showcase of Indigenous-made goods in Santa Fe.The style outside and inside the city’s Community Convention Center, where much of Native Fashion Week took place, reflected the diversity of its participants — a group with a growing presence in the American…

Inflation euphoria goes global Stocks in Asia and parts of Europe rose on Thursday as investors bet that new data showing inflation easing would finally persuade central bankers to lower interest rates from multidecade highs. The rally has pushed stock indexes on both sides of the Atlantic into record territory.Another test comes on Thursday when Walmart, a bellwether for U.S. consumer sentiment, reports quarterly results.The market moves follow Wednesday’s Consumer Price Index report, which came in better than expected. The data showed that so-called core inflation, which strips out volatile food and fuel costs, rose by 3.6 percent on an…