Author: NY TIMES

“I think we have about five more years where we can get away with this,” she said, laughing.She said it was important to her that her children, who are 3 and 4, had the countdown experience. “To me, it’s about starting the new year right,” she said. “Especially the 4-year-old, she knows what is happening. Her last day of school, she told her teachers, ‘See you next year.’ She gets the concept of one year ending and the next one starting, and that it is special.”Ever since Kate Sullivan became the kids leader at the Westchester location of Life Time,…

For deal makers, 2024 is a year to look forward to, if only because 2023 wasn’t necessarily one to celebrate.Despite some notable transactions, the year presented challenges to the bankers and lawyers who advise corporate clients on big takeovers and initial public offerings.Global M.&A. fell to a 10-year low. About 53,529 deals worth a combined $2.9 trillion were announced, down 17 percent annually by volume, according to data from L.S.E.G.The busiest sectors included energy — led by Exxon Mobil’s takeover of Pioneer Natural Resources and Chevron’s acquisition of Hess — and health care, which was topped by Pfizer’s roughly $43…

Michael D. Cohen, the onetime fixer for former President Donald J. Trump, said in court papers unsealed on Friday that he had mistakenly given his lawyer bogus legal citations generated by the artificial intelligence program Google Bard.The fictitious citations were used by Mr. Cohen’s lawyer in a motion submitted to a federal judge, Jesse M. Furman. Mr. Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations and served time in prison, had asked the judge for an early end to the court’s supervision of his case now that he is out of prison and has complied with the conditions…

As a health reporter who’s been following nutrition news for decades, I’ve seen a lot of trends that made a splash — and then sank. Remember olestra, the Paleo diet and celery juice?Watch enough food fads come and go, and you realize that the most valuable nutrition guidance is built on decades of research, in which scientists have looked at a question from multiple perspectives and arrived at something like a consensus.Here are 10 science-backed pearls to carry you into the new year.1. The Mediterranean diet really is that good for you.Decades of research support the Mediterranean diet — which…

“Now and Then” arrived as part of the latest Beatles reissues: new, expanded, remixed versions of the anthologies known as the Red and Blue albums, “The Beatles/1962-1966” and “The Beatles/1966-1970” (now also designated “The 2023 Edition”). They are the continuation of the Beatles’ longtime efforts to wring every possible product out of their catalog: concept compilations (“Love Songs,” No. 1 hits on “1”), expanded — and illuminating — reissues that include unreleased session tapes, a “naked” mix of “Let It Be,” a megamix for Cirque du Soleil (“Love”).The Red and Blue albums, originally released in 1973, were many young listeners’…

A teenager jailed in Egypt, determined to bear witness to the abuses he suffered during years of detention. A proponent of peace in Colombia, shadowed by death threats. A father in India, fighting his own patriarchal impulses to give his two daughters a better life.With reports from six continents and 34 countries, the Saturday Profile in 2023 revealed people making a difference, mostly under the radar. Every week, our correspondents often sought out not the famous nor the powerful, but the unheralded with stories worth hearing.A Muslim cleric in Ukraine, now a medic on the front lines of the war.…

When Samir Hassan and his surviving family members fled their home in the town of Mughraqa in the central Gaza Strip weeks ago, they did so under intense Israeli airstrikes, which killed a number of family members, including an uncle, and severely injured his brother.They settled in a tent in the nearby Nuseirat area, where tens of thousands of Palestinians forced by Israel’s air and ground offensive had also fled and were finding what shelter they could in overcrowded schools, ramshackle tents or even out in the streets.Now Mr. Hassan’s family has been warned they must move again.The Israeli military…

This time of year, we’re amazed at the many creative ways baseball players find to appear on the popular annual Weird But True Injury Rankings.So we’d like to thank this year’s baseball players for… cooking breakfast… playing the piano… and doing their best to get in and out of hotel bathrooms safely. But you know what’s particularly amazing? None of these surprises top the list!Really? True. The strangest yet most real injury of 2023 is here.First Prize: Eye Confession!We always award annual injury bonus points to players who manage to get injured despite already being injured. Hats off to Rays…

Pavol Roskovensky eagerly gave Claire Anderson-Wheeler the inside scoop on the Temple of Dendur, pointing out centuries-old graffiti, like “Leonardo 1820,” on its gate and walls as they strolled through the Metropolitan Museum of Art after-hours. She also got an intimate look at her favorite Monet, Bonnard and Van Gogh paintings in the Impressionist collection.Occasionally, a security guard or a museum employee walked by, or they heard the whir of a vacuum cleaner. But otherwise, Ms. Anderson-Wheeler said, “It was so calm.”Her visit that evening, in March 2022, was the first of at least a dozen she made at the…

This summer, when Hong Kong’s stock market rout seemed to have no end in sight, the city’s financial chief, Paul Chan, jumped into action, creating a task force to inject confidence into a market that was being pummeled by global investors wary of China.Hong Kong cut taxes on trading, and Mr. Chan went on a roadshow to Europe and the United States, promising measures to “let investors feel optimistic about the outlook.” Investors were anything but sanguine, however, and the city’s stock exchange is among the world’s worst-performing stock markets this year.The Hang Seng Index finished Friday, its last trading…