Author: NY TIMES

Discord, the social chat and messaging start-up beloved by gamers, told employees on Thursday that it would cut 17 percent of its staff, adding to the string of recent jobs reductions by tech firms.Roughly 170 jobs will be affected by the layoffs, according to an internal memo sent by Jason Citron, Discord’s founder and chief executive, which was seen by The New York Times.“We have to face some hard truths,” Mr. Citron wrote. “We are increasingly clear on the need to sharpen our focus and improve the way we work together to bring more agility to our organization.”Discord confirmed the…

What the research showsA research team analyzed records of nearly a million women in Sweden’s national medical registries from 2001 through 2017, comparing 86,551 women who had perinatal depression with 865,510 women who did not. The groups were matched by age and year they gave birth.In two studies, the team found that depression that begins in pregnancy or soon after can have troubling implications for as long as 18 years.One study, published on Tuesday in JAMA Network Open, found that women with perinatal depression had three times the risk of suicidal behavior, defined as attempted or completed suicide. Risks were…

Red Paden, who as the self-proclaimed “king of the juke joint runners” spent four decades as the owner of Red’s, an unassuming music spot in downtown Clarksdale, Miss., and one of the last places in the United States to offer authentic Delta blues in its natural setting, died on Dec. 30 in Jackson, Miss. He was 67.His son, Orlando, said the death, in a hospital, was from complications of heart surgery.Juke joints, once commonplace across the Deep South, were the loam out of which blues music grew — a vast network of shacks, old shops and converted homes where traveling…

The United States-led airstrikes on Thursday and Friday against sites in Yemen controlled by the Houthi militia damaged or destroyed about 90 percent of the targets struck, but the group retained about three-quarters of its ability to fire missiles and drones at ships transiting the Red Sea, two U.S. officials said on Saturday.The damage estimates are the first detailed assessments of the strikes by American and British attack planes and warships against nearly 30 locations in Yemen, and they reveal the serious challenges facing the Biden administration and its allies as they seek to deter the Iran-backed Houthis from retaliating,…

Surveying his territory, Tony Aujla is pleased. His business, after all, is all about location, and he has a prime one. Like a general surveying a battlefield, he points to his right: a short walk that way is Aston train station. Over to the left is Villa Park, with its grand, brick-lined facade, home of the city’s Premier League soccer team, Aston Villa.On game days, hundreds of fans disembark trains at the former every few minutes and scurry — or, in some cases, amble — in the general direction of the latter. That is what makes Mr. Aujla’s patch so…

When fans first glimpsed outfits in the new adaptation of “Mean Girls,” they were not shy with feedback on the film’s pink miniskirts and mesh bustiers.On social media, some said the costumes looked cheap, as if they had come from fast-fashion retailers. Others said they did not lean heavily enough on the Y2K style of the original “Mean Girls,” released in 2004. And one online commentator said the costumes seemed like an A.I. image generator’s clumsy response to the prompt: “What do trendy teenagers wear today?”The wardrobes for the film, which was released on Jan. 12, were not created by…

“I produced a steady flow of stories that played on the front page,” he wrote in his 2012 memoir, “Write Hard, Die Free,” whose title borrowed from the Hells Angels motto “Ride hard, die free.” “Every day was Christmas.”After winning the 1976 Pulitzer with the reporters Bob Porterfield and Jim Babb, Mr. Weaver left the foundering Daily News to launch a statewide investigative weekly, The Alaska Advocate, which targeted oil and gas exploration companies and the conservative Anchorage Times, the state’s largest paper. The Advocate folded within a few years, but The Daily News survived, thanks to a financial infusion…

More than $4 billion of a newly approved investment product tied to Bitcoin changed hands in the first day of trading on Thursday, as cryptocurrency enthusiasts celebrated a watershed moment for the industry.Eleven of the products, known as exchange-traded funds, or E.T.F.s, started trading on popular platforms such as the Nasdaq a day after federal regulators authorized them, creating a simpler way for investors to bet on the cryptocurrency markets. Major financial firms, including asset managers like BlackRock and Fidelity, are offering the E.T.F.s.The early volume was impressive, analysts said, comparing favorably with other E.T.F. debuts. But it may take…

The number of people facing possible starvation in the Gaza Strip in the coming weeks is the largest share of a population at risk of famine identified anywhere since a United Nations-affiliated panel created the current global food-insecurity assessment 20 years ago.After Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Israel responded with air and ground assaults and a sealing of the territory, which have left the 2.2 million people who live there deprived of sufficient food, water and supplies. The U.N. has concluded that without significant intervention, Gaza could reach the level of famine as soon as early February.Limited…

Elton John is downsizing — and the superstar’s former penthouse residence in Atlanta has been emptied for a series of auctions at Christie’s starting on Feb. 21. The items are expected to bring in an estimated $10 million.Want the Yamaha conservatory grand piano where the Rocketman plunked the keys of his Broadway shows “Billy Elliot” and “Aida”? It will cost roughly triple what similar models sell for online, with a high estimate of $50,000.How about Julian Schnabel’s portrait of the superstar dressed in a gown and ruffled collar? The auction house is seeking $300,000.And the most expensive object, a 2017…