Author: NY TIMES

When President Biden announced his plan to provide student debt relief for 43 million borrowers nearly two years ago, there was a piece to his program that attracted less attention: a new student loan repayment program that would cut monthly payments in half for millions.The repayment program, called SAVE, was meant to become a permanent fixture of the federal student loan system, offering a more affordable path to repayment, particularly for lower-income borrowers. But two groups of Republican-led states have filed separate lawsuits to block the SAVE program — including many of the states that challenged Mr. Biden’s $400 billion…

Halfway through “Omen,” a trippy ensemble drama set in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tshala (Eliane Umuhire) tries to reason with Alice (Lucie Debay), the white fiancé of her big brother Koffi (Marc Zinga). Alice, who lives with Koffi in Belgium, is justifiably overwhelmed: Her future in-laws refuse to acknowledge her existence, and, after Koffi accidentally bleeds from his nose onto an infant relative, he is nailed into a wooden mask as punishment.“We’re in a different space-time continuum,” Tshala explains.The director, Bajoli (a multidisciplinary artist and rapper whose name means “sorcerer” in Swahili), runs with this…

The disappearance and death of an Israeli teenager, whose body was found on Saturday in the West Bank, spurred deadly rioting by Israeli settlers in Palestinian villages, ratcheting up tensions even further in the occupied territory.Settlers unleashed a wave of mob violence in a Palestinian village near Ramallah on Friday and carried out mob assaults in at least two villages on Saturday, after the Israeli authorities announced that the teenager, Binyamin Achimair, had been found dead.The Israeli police said Binyamin, 14, had left a farming settlement in the West Bank to herd sheep on Friday morning but never returned. Israeli…

June 6 will be the 80th anniversary of D-Day, when Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, the beginning of action that ultimately led to the end of World War II.The event still looms large in military history — and with watch enthusiasts, who snap up the vintage timepieces that companies such as Longines, Omega and Bulova were authorized to produce for troops at the time.Now, watch designers from Britain to Australia are planning new watches for the landmark anniversary because, “it’s a very competitive marketplace,” said Don Cochrane, chairman of Vertex Watches.The company has created the Vertex M36,…

Send questions about the office, money, careers and work-life balance to workfriend@nytimes.com. Include your name and location, or a request to remain anonymous. Letters may be edited.You ProblemsI work in a wonderful environment where everyone cares about everyone … a little too much. Sometimes, it gets in the way of our organizational success and personal development. I am the youngest in the organization by a decade. My colleagues (mostly) treat me with respect, but they keep projecting their insecurities. Most colleagues are worried I’m going to burn out, which is fair, but I have the energy and capacity they don’t…

How many gory details about groceries can any moviegoer digest? The 2009 documentary “Food, Inc.” drew on the muckraking of Michael Pollan (“The Omnivore’s Dilemma”) and Eric Schlosser (“Fast Food Nation”) to reveal major problems with industrialized food production. The system, it argued, may keep supermarkets well-stocked, but most people have scant insight into how that food is made — and what it does to our health.“Food, Inc. 2,” directed by Robert Kenner and Melissa Robledo, doesn’t merely regurgitate those ideas, although it begins by describing how the last few years have shown the risks of letting a small number…

For months, Western governments have provided military support for Israel while fending off accusations that their weapons were being used to commit war crimes in Gaza. But as a global outcry over the growing death toll in Gaza mounts, maintaining that balance is becoming increasingly difficult, as was clear on a single day this past week.On Tuesday, in a United Nations court, Germany found itself having to defend against accusations that it was complicit in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza by exporting weapons to Israel.A few hours later, in Washington, a top Democrat and Biden administration ally, Representative Gregory W.…

Sebastien Blanc-Tailleur, a Parisian pâtissier, has always had a passion for confections. “I’ve been obsessed by pastry since I was a little boy,” he said. Since opening his eponymous business in 2015, Mr. Blanc-Tailleur has discretely become one of the most prestigious creators of wedding and special-occasion cakes in France.“Pastry making is my own sweet form of madness,” he said with a grin. “But it comes from my family. My parents are collectors who love rare antiques, fine paintings, art and drawings, so I perpetuate the family tradition through the medium of pastry.”In addition to making cakes and pastry, Mr.…

The path to a “soft landing” doesn’t seem as smooth as it did four months ago. But the expectations of a year ago have been surpassed.April 13, 2024The economic news of the past two weeks has been enough to leave even seasoned observers feeling whipsawed. The unemployment rate fell. Inflation rose. The stock market plunged, then rebounded, then dropped again.Take a step back, however, and the picture comes into sharper focus.Compared with the outlook in December, when the economy seemed to be on a glide path to a surprisingly smooth “soft landing,” the recent news has been disappointing. Inflation has…

“I like the zombies,” George A. Romero said in 1977, in one of the many conversations with various publications collected in the book “George A. Romero: Interviews.” “You have to be sympathetic with the creatures because they ain’t doin’ nothin’. They’re like sharks: They can’t help behaving the way they do.” Romero had good reason to like the zombies — they gave him a career, and a legacy. He memorably dramatized the exploits of the undead in the 1968 chiller “Night of the Living Dead,” the first of six films in his “dead” cycle (which continued through his final film,…