Author: NY TIMES

These days, the song brings in about $1,200 per month, enough to pay his rent, Casey told me, with what sounded like a Lebowskian shrug. “I have other songs that I want to put up,” he said. “But I kind of don’t want to sell out.”I asked if he knew about the Toilet Bowl Cleaners, and he said he’d heard a few of their songs. “I’m not making this up,” he said. “There’s this other guy, I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, the Odd Man Who Sings About Poop, Puke and Pee. His idea was to customize every…

In the years before war and hunger upended daily life in Yemen, Mohammed Abdullah Yousef used to sit down after a long day of fasting during Ramadan to a rich spread of food. His family would dine on meat, falafel, beans, savory fried pastries and occasionally store-bought crème caramel.This year, the Islamic holy month looks different for Mr. Yousef, 52, a social studies teacher in the coastal city of Al Mukalla. He, his wife and their five children break their fast with bread, soup and vegetables. Earning the equivalent of $66 a month, he frets that his salary sometimes slips…

The men who killed Maksim Kuzminov wanted to send a message. This was obvious to investigators in Spain even before they discovered who he was. Not only did the killers shoot him six times in a parking garage in southern Spain, they ran over his body with their car.They also left an important clue to their identity, according to investigators: shell casings from 9-millimeter Makarov rounds, a standard ammunition of the former Communist bloc.“It was a clear message,” said a senior official from Guardia Civil, the Spanish police force overseeing the investigation into the killing. “I will find you, I…

Simultaneously historic and perhaps a big nothing, the shot was snapped on Thursday in New York City when President Biden and former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton gathered, before a Democratic fund-raiser, for the taping of “SmartLess,” a podcast hosted by the comedians Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett.With his beard and rumpled corduroy pants, Mr. Bateman was clearly the odd man out in a group of radiantly healthy alphas dressed in crisp blazers or suits. As one social media quipster put it, Mr. Bateman, the “Arrested Development” star who is soon to appear in a limited series…

Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, said on Friday that resilient economic growth is giving the central bank the flexibility to be patient before cutting interest rates.Fed officials raised interest rates sharply from early 2022 to mid-2023, and they have left them at about 5.3 percent since last July. That relatively high level essentially taps the brakes on the economy, in part by making it expensive to borrow to buy a house or start a business. The goal is to keep rates high enough, for long enough, to wrestle inflation back under control.But price increases have cooled…

But Mr. Tan’s passion, as it is for a growing number of tech industry leaders, is San Francisco politics. He is one of a cadre of love-them-or-hate-them tech executives and investors with lots of opinions about the city and endless piles of cash to, as they say in the tech industry, move fast and break things. (Their critics would say it’s more like they’re trying to buy City Hall.)To some of San Francisco’s political establishment, Mr. Tan, 43, has become the most annoying in a parade of wealthy tech executives. He has created a bombastic online persona while spending about…

A troubled heart pump that has now been linked to 49 deaths and dozens of injuries worldwide will be allowed to remain in use, despite the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to issue an alert about the risk that it could puncture a wall of the heart.The tiny Impella pumps, about the width of a candy cane, are threaded through blood vessels to take over the work of the heart in patients who are undergoing complex procedures or have life-threatening conditions.The F.D.A. said the manufacturer of the device, Abiomed, should have notified the agency more than two years ago, when…

A new Beyoncé release isn’t just an album — it’s a sprawling collective effort where the supporting cast and behind the scenes crew can reveal a lot about the scope of the star’s vision. For “Cowboy Carter,” in addition to household names like Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Miley Cyrus and Post Malone (and a brief cameo from her daughter Rumi), she’s looped in a slew of collaborators new and old. Here’s a guide to some of the most significant figures you’ll see in the credits.Rhiannon GiddensRihannon Giddens plays on the “Cowboy Carter” single “Texas Hold ’Em,” but beyond the banjo…

Israel and Gaza. Yemen and the Red Sea. Lebanon, Iraq, Pakistan and Syria.At flashpoints in conflicts spanning 1,800 miles and involving a hodgepodge of unpredictable armed actors and interests, there has been a common thread: Iran. Tehran has left its imprint with its behind-the-scenes backing of combatants around the region.On Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group that tracks the war in Syria, said that an Israeli strike killed at least 36 soldiers and hit multiple targets, including a weapons depot belonging to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militia that also has a presence in Syria. Israel did…

Although the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on Monday that demands an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, it remains to be seen whether ​i​t ​w​ill have a concrete effect on the war or prove merely to be a political statement.The measure, Resolution 2728, followed three previous attempts that ​t​he United States ​had blocked. It passed by 14 votes, after the United States abstained from voting and did not employ its veto.The resolution also calls for the unconditional release of all hostages and the end to barriers to humanitarian aid.Israel’s government condemned the vote, and early indications are…