Author: NY TIMES

It is famed for a love of singing and a passion for rugby. It has a distinctive Celtic language and is the birthplace of the poet Dylan Thomas. But few would claim that Wales, a nation of three million people outnumbered by sheep, is well known for whiskey, or whisky, as it is known in Wales.Yet the country has played its part in distilling history — a Welshman is considered one of the founding fathers of bourbon — and a recent revival of whisky production has prompted new rules governing which liquor can call itself Welsh.That was how the problems…

Un lunes reciente, Karissa Bodnar, de 34 años y fundadora y directora ejecutiva de Thrive, una empresa de cosméticos, llegó a una fiesta de lanzamiento para su última línea de productos. El lugar: una oficina en un quinto piso iluminada con luces fluorescentes en el centro de Manhattan. La parafernalia: quesos, crudités, cerveza y vino. El entretenimiento: una bocina con conexión Bluetooth que reproducía hip-hop de los años 2000 (Flo Rida, Lil Jon).En las siguientes tres horas, llegarían decenas de maquilladores, editores de publicaciones de belleza e influentes de redes sociales acostumbrados a fiestas en destinos lejanos como Tokio y…

Mindy Neira, a financial planner in Westwood, N.J., recommended that if you were having trouble managing card debt, take stock of your spending. “The first step is to look — without judgment — at where your money is going,” she said, including housing, food, entertainment, travel and loan payments.Then set a target for each category. (Ms. Neira said she preferred setting targets to making a strict budget, to account for monthly variations.) Ask: “Can I shift things around? Can I spend an extra $25 a month to pay down the debt?” Realize that if you took years to build your…

Amazon is laying off hundreds of employees at its studio division as well as its subsidiary Twitch to reduce costs, the latest in a wave of new job cuts hitting the tech industry.Twitch, a video streaming platform, will cut just over 500 roles, or 35 percent of its work force, according to a blog post on the company’s website. Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios will eliminate hundreds of jobs, said an email sent to staff on Wednesday.Since late 2022, Amazon has laid off 27,000 workers, as the company has slashed costs in an effort to recover from overexpansion during…

Multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease that affects 2.9 million people, presents a biological puzzle.Many researchers suspect that the disease is triggered by a virus, known as Epstein-Barr, which causes the immune system to attack the nerves and can leave patients struggling to walk or talk. But the virus can’t be the whole story, since nearly everyone is infected with it at some point in life.A new study found a possible solution to this paradox in the skeletal remains of a lost tribe of nomads who herded cattle across the steppes of western Asia 5,000 years ago. It turns out that…

Kali Uchis basks in pleasure on her fourth studio album, “Orquídeas.” Make that pleasures: carnal, material, romantic, sonic, competitive and, if necessary, vengeful, all with a girlish nonchalance. The album begins with loops of laughter and ethereal oohs and ahs; it ends with Uchis thanking listeners with a “mwah” kiss. It’s an album of breezy confidence and sly ingenuity, easily moving among futuristic electronics, 1990s nostalgia and Latin roots.“Orquídeas” are orchids: the national flower of Colombia, where Uchis’s parents were born. Uchis — Karly-Marina Loaiza — was born and grew up in Virginia, but she made long visits to Colombia…

Iran and allied militias in the Middle East, along with at least one U.S. ally, condemned the American-led airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen on Friday and warned that they risked causing a broader conflict in the region.The strikes came after a series of Houthi attacks against ships in the Red Sea. The Houthis have said they are targeting Israeli ships and vessels headed to Israel in an effort to support Palestinians in Gaza, who have been under relentless Israeli bombardment for nearly 100 days, although some Houthi targets have had no clear connection to Israel.Israel’s military offensive in Gaza…

For three years, President Biden has been just fine with the private nature of his media-shy, introverted defense secretary, Lloyd J. Austin III.But in failing to inform the president that he required surgery for prostate cancer, and that he later had to return to the hospital suffering from severe complications, Mr. Austin, 70, has not only attracted more attention to himself than at any point in his long career. He has also drawn scrutiny and criticism to Mr. Biden’s national security team during a period when it is managing multiple crises around the world.Asked about Mr. Austin on Friday, Mr.…

Shortly after a British advertising watchdog group ruled that Calvin Klein posters showing the singer FKA twigs with part of her breast exposed “presented her as a stereotypical sexual object” and could not be shown in Britain, the singer denounced “double standards” on Instagram, an apparent reference to a new Calvin Klein campaign featuring the actor Jeremy Allen White.The Advertising Standards Authority, an industry group created to self-regulate advertising in Britain, issued its decision to ban the ad on Wednesday, nine months after it received two complaints about the poster campaign, which also featured the model and actress Kendall Jenner.The…

The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear a case brought by Starbucks challenging a federal judge’s order to reinstate seven employees who were fired at a store in Memphis amid a union campaign there.Starbucks argued that the criteria for such intervention by judges in labor cases, which can also include measures like reopening shuttered stores, vary across regions of the country because federal appeals courts may adhere to different standards.A regional director for the National Labor Relations Board, the company’s opponent in the case, argued that the apparent differences in criteria among appeals courts were semantic rather than substantive,…