Author: NY TIMES

Inflation cooled less than expected in January and showed worrying staying power after volatile food and fuel costs were stripped out — a reminder that bringing price increases under control remains a fraught, bumpy process.The overall Consumer Price Index was up 3.1 percent from a year earlier, which was down from 3.4 percent in December but more than the 2.9 percent that economists had forecast. That figure is down from the latest peak of 9.1 percent in the summer of 2022.But after stripping out food and fuel, which bounce around in price from month to month, “core” prices held roughly…

Upgrades to aging utility equipment and efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions have combined to drive up electricity costs across the country, with the national average increasing from one year to the next.As a New York Times business reporter, I have been looking into the impact of the rising costs of electricity on consumer bills. With my colleague Madeleine Ngo, I recently examined how higher rates have strained the budgets of low-income consumers — many of whom cannot afford clean energy technologies like solar panels and electric vehicles.We are planning more stories about the rising cost of energy and how…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering loosening its recommendations regarding how long people should isolate after testing positive for the coronavirus, another reflection of changing attitudes and norms as the pandemic recedes.Under the proposed guidelines, Americans would no longer be advised to isolate for five days before returning to work or school. Instead, they might return to their routines if they have been fever free for at least 24 hours without medication, the same standard applied to the influenza and respiratory syncytial viruses.The proposal would align the C.D.C.’s advice with revised isolation recommendations in Oregon and California.…

After he moved back home to the Bay Area in 2021, weighing a move to Los Angeles amid the pandemic, the filmmaker Sean Wang would often spend time with his two grandmothers. Yi Yan Fuei, his 96-year-old Nǎi Nai (paternal grandmother), and Chang Li Hua, his 86-year-old Wài Pó (maternal grandmother), live in the same house together, and Wang quickly began to observe two versions of them. There they were, enmeshed in the quiet rhythms of their daily lives — folding laundry, peeling fruit, napping in their shared bed. Then, Wang, 29, would intrude, coaxing out their playful sides: receiving…

In Mo i Rana, a small Norwegian industrial town on the cusp of the Arctic Circle, a cavernous gray factory sits empty and unfinished in the snowy twilight — a monument to unfulfilled economic hope.The electric battery company Freyr was partway through constructing this hulking facility when the Biden administration’s sweeping climate bill passed in 2022. Perhaps the most significant climate legislation in history, the Inflation Reduction Act promised an estimated $369 billion in tax breaks and grants for clean energy technology over the next decade. Its incentives for battery production within the United States were so generous that they…

While Feb. 13 is not a federal holiday, a deeply meaningful celebration rooted in the Black community exists: Black Love Day. The first Black Love Day was established on Feb. 13, 1993, when Ayo Handy-Kendi, a spiritual community organizer, felt compelled by a higher power to bring her community together, she said in an interview with The New York Times. The first sign came on New Year’s Eve in 1992 after she saw Spike Lee’s film “Malcolm X,” which follows the life of the civil rights leader of the same name, portrayed by Denzel Washington. On the bus ride home,…

Inflation cooled less than expected in January and showed worrying staying power after stripping out volatile food and fuel costs — a reminder that bringing price increases under control remains a bumpy process.The overall Consumer Price Index was up 3.1 percent from a year earlier, which was down from 3.4 percent in December but more than the 2.9 percent that economists had forecast. That figure is down from the latest peak of 9.1 percent in the summer of 2022.But after stripping out food and fuel, which bounce around in price from month to month, “core” prices held roughly steady on…

Segarra’s most conceptually ambitious album to date is “The Navigator,” a kind of character-driven folk-rock opera — in the vein of Anaïs Mitchell’s “Hadestown” — about Puerto Rican culture and the American immigrant experience. (Working with the actor and director C. Julian Jimenéz, they presented parts of a stage adaptation in progress last year at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan.) The most wrenching song on the album was “Pa’lante,” a piano ballad that somehow blended punk’s political fury with Sondheimian songcraft. (Cook called it “one of the greatest songs I’d ever heard.”) “Lately, I don’t understand what I am,” Segarra sings.…

Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia, fired missiles into northern Israel on Tuesday that injured at least two people, emergency officials said, amid a fresh diplomatic push to end months of clashes along the border.Hezbollah said that it had launched two separate attacks into Israel — one aimed at Israeli soldiers and the other at a police building in the northern town of Kiryat Shmona.A 15-year-old boy and a 47-year-old woman were seriously wounded in Kiryat Shmona, according to Magen David Adom, Israel’s nonprofit emergency medical service. They had gotten out of the car they were traveling in when an anti-tank missile…

It was near the start of one of Brazil’s most famous Carnival celebrations, in the northern seaside city of Olinda, and the town plaza was jammed with thousands of revelers. They were all awaiting their idol.Just before 9 p.m., the doors to a dance hall swung open, a brass band pushed into the crowd and the star everyone had been waiting for stepped out: a 12-foot puppet of John Travolta.Confetti sprayed, the band began playing a catchy tune and the crowd sang along: “John Travolta is really cool. Throwing a great party. And in Olinda, the best carnival.” (It rhymes…