Author: NY TIMES

The eurozone economy stagnated late last year as a lingering energy crisis sparked a loss of competitiveness in some European industries, and consumers reined in spending to grapple with high living costs, Europe’s statistics agency reported Tuesday.But economists believe the worst may be over, as the European Central Bank continues its campaign to wring out inflation without plunging the eurozone economy into a deep downturn.Economic output in the 20 countries that use the euro currency grew at zero percent in the last three months of 2023 versus the previous quarter, after contracting in the third quarter, narrowly avoiding a recession.…

Last year, Mark Zuckerberg declared 2023 to be a “year of efficiency.” His company, Meta, soon laid off a third of its employees. Amazon, Google and Microsoft also cut tens of thousands of workers.Their worlds did not stop. Not only that, the companies were rewarded. Their stock prices soared. Some divisions were more productive. And the companies — including X, formerly known as Twitter, which has chopped nearly 80 percent of its staff since late 2022 — continued operating.Other chief executives took notice. And a month into 2024, tech companies have entered a new phase of cost cutting.After last year’s…

Why It Matters: Penguins are already under pressure.The familiar black-and-white birds are facing numerous threats, including climate change, pollution and commercial fishing. Three Antarctic penguin species — emperor penguins, southern rockhopper penguins and macaroni penguins — are listed as vulnerable or near threatened.Before H5N1 arrived in the Antarctic region last fall, highly pathogenic bird flu viruses had never been documented in the area before. That means that the penguins are likely to have little existing immunity. And because they breed in large, crowded colonies, once one penguin is infected, the virus could spread rapidly, causing mass mortalities. (As the virus…

What comes to mind when you hear the word “K-pop”? Is it the global boy band phenomenon BTS, wearing studded jackets and dancing in perfect sync? Or the girl group Blackpink, performing at Coachella in trendy fashions and perfectly curled hair?How about an “independent music collective” of casually dressed people, crowded around a mixing board in a one-room studio, across the street from a Seoul restaurant specializing in fried chicken?“Give me some more bass,” said Omega Sapien, a vocalist with electric-green hair and grills, swaying his hips and grunting to the beat. The studio was cluttered with art, vinyl records,…

Leaders of the largest United Nations agency in Gaza warned on Monday that it may soon run out of money as new allegations emerged about Hamas’s influence on the organization.As U.N. officials fretted over the future of UNRWA, the main aid agency for Palestinians, Israeli officials debated whether it made sense to publicly air accusations that a group of the agency’s workers were involved in the Oct. 7 terror attack. Some Israeli military leaders believed it was a mistake to unleash a furor, according to three Israeli officials involved in the discussions, because the agency’s collapse would leave a huge…

Biden weighs a response to Iran. Source link

Taylor Swift has logged a lot of miles on her record-breaking Eras Tour around the world, and she may soon add more than 5,500 miles to her one-way trip.Presumably the pop star will travel from the stage in Tokyo on February 10 to Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas to watch boyfriend Travis Kelce and the Kansas City Chiefs play the next day Super Bowl game.Kansas City will make its fourth Super Bowl appearance in five years as the Chiefs defeat the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship Game on Sunday. The Chiefs will take on the San Francisco 49ers on…

Jeffrey Dugas, who cuts hair at Obsidian Barbers in New Brunswick, Canada, has received a very specific request from clients in the past few weeks: They want the same style as Travis Kelce.“They usually come in with a picture of him,” Mr. Dugas said. “I’m like, ‘Yeah, I know who that is.’”It’s not the first time Dr. Dugas has been asked to replicate the hairstyles of celebrities. “When Bryce Hall was popular on TikTok and had that long, curly fringe in the front, all the kids were getting it,” he said, referring to the social media personality with almost 25…

Neuralink, a company working to develop computer interfaces that can be implanted in human brains, placed its first device in a patient on Sunday, said its founder, Elon Musk.Mr. Musk, the billionaire chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, said on Monday that the company’s first product was called Telepathy and would allow a human to control a phone or computer “just by thinking.”“Initial users will be those who have lost the use of their limbs,” Mr. Musk wrote in a series of posts on X, his social media platform. “Imagine if Stephen Hawking could communicate faster than a speed typist…

Canada is postponing a plan to offer people suffering from mental illnesses the option of a medically assisted death, two cabinet ministers said on Monday.The announcement by Mark Holland, the health minister, and Arif Virani, the justice minister, came after a special parliamentary committee looking into the plan concluded that there are not enough doctors, particularly psychiatrists, in the country to assess patients with mental illnesses who want to end their lives and to help them do so.“The system needs to be ready, and we need to get it right,” Mr. Holland told reporters. “It’s clear from the conversations we’ve…