Author: NY TIMES

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Standing in front of every seat at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Sunday was a similar story. One of the most larger-than-life figures in modern sports, Caitlin Clark, is once again capturing the attention of stars and fans alike.In her final regular season game in the state she calls home, Clark scored 35 points, surpassing Pete “Pistol” Maravich’s career scoring total and becoming the highest-scoring player in Division I basketball history, regardless of Is it a man or a woman.Clark’s moment was common to all in attendance, from the fans wearing her T-shirts to the celebrities who added…

Over a century ago, J.P. Morgan built a majestic library for his opulent mansion in Midtown Manhattan. After his death, his son, the financier Jack Morgan, opened it to the public in 1924, and it eventually became the Morgan Library & Museum. Last night, crowds of art patrons and well-heeled bibliophiles gathered in that grand library to attend the Morgan’s centennial celebration.Beneath stained glass windows and murals of Dante and Socrates, guests wearing tuxedos sipped martinis while a violinist performed classical covers of pop songs by Keane and Taylor Swift. Servers wended through the crowd, carrying hors d’oeuvres trays of…

Starbucks franchise operators across the Middle East and Southeast Asia are losing significant business amid boycotts linked to the Israel-Hamas war, and at least one has started laying off employees.Alshaya Group, a Kuwait-based franchise operator that owns the rights to operate Starbucks in the Middle East, confirmed on Tuesday that it planned to cut 2,000 jobs across the region “as a result of the continually challenging trading conditions over the last six months.”Since the Israel-Hamas war began, Starbucks has been forced to deflect perceptions that the company has supported and even funded the Israeli government and the Israeli military. It…

Shafiqah Hudson was looking for a job in early June of 2014, toggling between Twitter and email, when she noticed an odd hashtag that was surging on the social media platform: #EndFathersDay.The posters claimed to be Black feminists, but they had laughable handles like @NayNayCan’tStop and @CisHate and @LatrineWatts; they declared they wanted to abolish Father’s Day because it was a symbol of patriarchy and oppression, among other inanities.They didn’t seem like real people, Ms. Hudson thought, but parodies of Black women, spouting ridiculous propositions. As Ms. Hudson told Forbes magazine in 2018, “Anybody with half the sense God gave…

An urgent care chain in Ohio may be forced to stop paying rent and other bills to cover salaries. In Florida, a cancer center is racing to find money for chemotherapy drugs to avoid delaying critical treatments for its patients. And in Pennsylvania, a primary care doctor is slashing expenses and pooling all of her cash — including her personal bank stash — in the hopes of staying afloat for the next two months.These are just a few examples of the severe cash squeeze facing medical care providers — from large hospital networks to the smallest of clinics — in…

Two acts received top billing at MadSoul, a music and arts festival in Florida, on Saturday. The first was Muna, an indie-pop group that opened for Taylor Swift at some Eras Tour stops. The second: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York.She and several elected Democrats shared a stage with musicians like Phoebe Bridgers during the daylong event at Loch Haven Park in Orlando. Other politicians included Representatives Greg Casar of Texas and Maxwell Frost of Florida, the first Gen-Z member of Congress.Mr. Frost, a percussionist, is also the founder of the MadSoul Festival, which he started in 2018 when…

Finally, it appeared, things were back to normal.As nearly 3,000 delegates filed into Beijing’s Great Hall of the People on Tuesday for the opening of China’s annual legislative meeting, none wore face masks. Officials pressed together to shake hands and pose for photos. Around them, reporters and diplomats from around the world milled about the cavernous lobby, many invited back for the first time since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic four years earlier.It was one of China’s highest-profile political stages, and the message being sent was clear: The country’s prolonged isolation was over, and it was once more open…

There is one model who walked in more fashion shows than any other in 2023.Yilan Hua is from China. She stands 5-foot-11, with a sweep of shoulder-length jet black hair, full lips and pointed nose and appeared on a staggering 89 runways last year, according to the fashion search engine Tagwalk, outpacing her nearest rivals, América González of Venezuela and Victoria Fawole of Nigeria. She was cast in the shows of some of the biggest names in the industry, including Chanel, Fendi, Michael Kors, Stella McCartney and Christian Dior. She was photographed on the red carpet at the Cannes Film…

China’s real growth agenda China announced an official growth target of about 5 percent on Tuesday that’s already looking hard to pull off. The world’s second-biggest economy is facing headwinds, from a consumer slowdown to weak investor confidence and a trade war with the West.But the growth target only tells part of the story of how Beijing is rethinking economic policy.Left out of the pronouncements: a stimulus package. Investors watch the annual gathering of the National People’s Congress, the country’s rubber-stamp parliament, and a parallel meeting of China’s top policy body, for clues on the government’s priorities. Spending is set…

Tesla was forced to halt production at its assembly plant outside Berlin early Tuesday after someone set fire to a nearby high-voltage pylon, causing a blaze that cut off electricity to the factory and surrounding region, the police said.The Brandenburg police said they responded to the fire at a high-voltage power mast in a field near Tesla’s plant. The building was not damaged by the fire, but it caused the power to be cut at the plant and across the wider region, home to some 60,000 people.Tesla did not respond to requests for comment, but a spokeswoman for the U.S.…