Author: NY TIMES

Last November and December, veteran stock market watchers forecast that 2023 would be a year to forget. They saw high inflation, a looming global recession and rising interest rates as sapping households’ buying power and denting corporate profits. For investors, they penciled in paltry gains and one of the worst performances for the S&P 500 in the past 15 years.But the market pros got the story only partly right. While interest rates did climb to a near two-decade peak, the S&P 500 has surprisingly soared to a near record high. Fueled partly by a rally in the so-called Magnificent Seven…

The Tesla technicians who walked off their jobs in Sweden say they still support the mission of the American company and its headline-grabbing chief executive. But they also want Tesla to accept the Swedish way of doing business.They call it the Swedish Model, a way of life that has defined the country’s economy for decades. At its heart is cooperation between employers and employees to ensure that both sides benefit from a company’s profit.Instead, four technicians who walked off their jobs on Oct. 27 said, they have been subjected to what they described as a “typical U.S. model”: six-day workweeks,…

Dry January sounds like a simple proposition: No alcohol. For 31 days. And some enthusiasts jump in without much planning — perhaps even hungover after a rowdy New Year’s Eve.There is no data suggesting that those folks won’t be able to abstain from drinking, said Dr. David Wolinsky, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences with Johns Hopkins Medicine, who specializes in addiction. But starting the month with a few strategies in your back pocket — and with a clear sense of your goals — may help you get the most out of the challenge.“Most of the benefits of…

Willie Ruff, who fashioned an unlikely career in jazz as a French horn player and toured the world as a musical missionary in the acclaimed Mitchell-Ruff Duo while maintaining a parallel career at the Yale School of Music, died on Sunday at his home in Killen, Ala. He was 92.His death was confirmed by his niece Jennifer Green.Mr. Ruff, who was also a bassist, played both bass and French horn in the duo he formed with the pianist Dwike Mitchell in 1955, which lasted until Mr. Mitchell’s death in 2013. They opened for many jazz luminaries, including Duke Ellington, Miles…

Maybe 40 yards in front of him, he recalled, a white van pulled up and its doors flew open.He said he then saw five men, wearing civilian clothes, all carrying knives and one carrying a hammer, dragging a woman across the ground. She was young, naked and screaming.“They all gather around her,” Mr. Cohen said. “She’s standing up. They start raping her. I saw the men standing in a half circle around her. One penetrates her. She screams. I still remember her voice, screams without words.”“Then one of them raises a knife,” he said, “and they just slaughtered her.”Shoam Gueta,…

A political activist in Hong Kong previously imprisoned under its sweeping national security law said he had fled to Britain and would apply for asylum there, becoming the second high-profile dissident this month to announce going into exile from the territory.The activist, Tony Chung, revealed on Thursday that he had arrived in Britain, and, in several social media posts, said that he had decided to leave Hong Kong after enduring oppressive restrictions, pressure to act as informant and severe stress after his release from prison in June.Mr. Chung, 22, was sentenced to three years and seven months in prison in…

BEREA, Ohio — No one feels sorry for Joe Flacco. He won the Super Bowl MVP and earned more than $175 million in his career. He won in life. but…Flacco’s 16 years in the NFL stuck with me as I watched the final chapter of his incredible resurgence. He was always good, always consistent in his prime, but never elite. He never received an MVP vote, but Carson Wentz, Derek Carr and Tony Romo did. He never even went to a Pro Bowl. He had been invited once but was not invited because his wife was about to give birth…

The twin red brick townhouses at 20-22 Bank Street, between Waverly Place and West Fourth Street, are being sold together (as a D.I.Y. mansion) for $37.5 million. Combined, the houses are nearly 40 feet wide with around 7,600 square feet of interior space that includes eight bedrooms, eight full bathrooms and two powder rooms. Outdoor space totals roughly 2,000 square feet. Both structures, built around 1845, retain many original architectural details like their numerous wood-burning fireplaces and ironwork.Mr. Rudin, who has won critical acclaim for films like “The Social Network” and “No Country for Old Men,” and Broadway shows including…

Before creating a step stool or ladder, savers should also consider whether they have the time to manage certificates at different banks with different maturities, Ms. Costa said. Unless you are moving a large sum of cash, she said, the effort may not be worth the extra yield.For many people, Ms. Costa said, choosing a high-yield savings account may be the best approach — even if it means getting a somewhat lower return on your savings. The online bank Marcus, the consumer arm of Goldman Sachs, is offering 4.5 percent on a savings account, for example, and Ally Bank, another…

Apple resumed sales of its newest smartwatches on Thursday, a day after a federal appeals court temporarily reversed an earlier ban on their import and sale in the United States.But the watches’ fate will ultimately depend on how a continuing legal fight plays out in federal court over the next few weeks.The company paused sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Watch Ultra 2 in its flagship stores on Dec. 21 and at retail locations on Christmas Eve. The pause was the result of a patent case that Apple lost in October.The ruling in that case became final on…