Author: NY TIMES

For several months, Rafael Nadal has been trying to temper expectations for his comeback, telling the world he has little idea if he’ll ever return to championship form or anything close to it.On Sunday, Nadal showed the world why he’s so cautious. Nadal, 37, knows how fragile he is, announcing his withdrawal from the Australian Open on his social media channels after suffering a minor muscle tear during a conditioning match in Brisbane.”Hello everyone, during the last match in Brisbane I had a small muscle problem that, as you know, worried me,” Nadal wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “When I…

Helen Mirren declared herself to be “in love with them,” and Gabrielle Union said that “they might be the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn in my life.” Julia Roberts, Viola Davis and Drew Barrymore have worn them to Hollywood premieres. Queen Camilla owns 13 pairs and wears them at almost all of her public engagements.Sole Bliss, which began in 2017 making shoes for style-conscious women afflicted by bunions and other foot conditions, is not a brand that conspicuously screams red carpet glamour. But in recent years the small British label has attracted a fan base among celebrities and…

U.S. Steel is an iconic example of the lost manufacturing muscle that President Biden says his economic policies will bring back to the United States.But last month, the storied-but-diminished company announced plans to be acquired by a Japanese competitor. That development has put Mr. Biden in an awkward bind as he tries to balance attempts to revitalize the nation’s industrial sector with his efforts to rebuild international alliances.Mr. Biden’s administration has expressed some discomfort with the deal and is reviewing the proposed $14.1 billion takeover bid by Japan’s Nippon Steel. The company is offering a hefty premium for U.S. Steel,…

The first NASA-financed commercial mission to send a robotic spacecraft to the surface of the moon will most likely not be able to make it there.The lunar lander, named Peregrine and built by Astrobotic Technology of Pittsburgh, encountered problems shortly after it lifted off early Monday morning from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The launch of the rocket, a brand-new design named Vulcan, was flawless, successfully sending Peregrine on its journey.But a failure in the lander’s propulsion system depleted its propellant and most likely ended the mission’s original lunar ambitions.“The team is working to try and stabilize the loss, but given the…

11. Doris Troy: “What’cha Gonna Do About It”Doris Troy was part of the original lineup of the greatest ensemble I had never heard of, the Sweet Inspirations, whose members included Cissy Houston (Whitney’s mother) and her nieces Dee Dee and Dionne Warwick. There’s something about the staccato piano combined with Troy’s elongated “I love you”s that reassures me that love isn’t fireworks — it’s the world they illuminate as they ascend and break up the darkness. — John Semlitsch, Austin (Listen on YouTube)12. Nina Simone: “Blues for Mama (Live at the Newport Jazz Festival)”This year has been a lot. War,…

Antony J. Blinken, the U.S. secretary of state, said on Monday that the leader of Saudi Arabia told him that establishing diplomatic recognition between the kingdom and Israel was still possible, but it required an end to the war in Gaza and practical steps toward a Palestinian state.“There’s a clear interest here in pursuing that,” Mr. Blinken said after meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia. “There’s a clear interest in the region in pursuing that.”Mr. Blinken’s remarks were the strongest public statement yet that normalization of ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel…

Franz Beckenbauer, a towering figure in soccer who led West Germany to World Cup championships as a player in 1974 and as coach in 1990, earning a reputation as one of the greatest players in the sport’s history, died on Sunday. He was 78.He died at his home, his family confirmed in a statement, but did not specify where he lived or state the cause of death. His relatives had been quoted in German media reports for months saying that Beckenbauer, who had heart surgery in 2016, had been in failing health.A cerebral player whose technical skills and tactical awareness…

The NCAA said Thursday it has reached an eight-year deal worth $115 million per year with ESPN to broadcast 40 college sports championships each year, including what many in the college athletics world hope will lead to a larger edition of Division I women’s basketball. championship. Given the recent wave of popularity, the returns are high.The $920 million deal ends years of speculation and debate over how the NCAA capitalizes on the massive fan base of women’s sports, including basketball. Powerful teams like South Carolina and UConn, as well as star players like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Sabrina Ionescu,…

Celebrities streamed onto the lush red carpet to pose in front of the floral backdrop for the Golden Globes on Sunday night as the awards ceremony made a return to television (it wasn’t broadcast in 2022, and was moved to a Tuesday evening last year). With both the Writer’s Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes halting movie and television promotion for months last year, the industry seemed ready to celebrate its achievements and ask the vital questions: Will the box office bonanza “Barbie” rule the awards season? What will Timothee wear? Will Taylor Swift, whose film “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” was…

Typewriters vanished, and then cassette tapes and encyclopedias did, too. But paper checks are one piece of our analog past that persists.American consumers and businesses wrote 11.2 billion checks in 2021, far fewer than the 42 billion written at the start of the century. Despite the rapid decline, check fraud is exploding — costing financial institutions billions and throwing many check writers’ finances into disarray.After my colleague Ron Lieber and I wrote about rising check fraud, worried readers wrote to us with questions: Is there a safer way to write checks when we must? What about digital payments — aren’t…