Year: 2024

In El Salvador’s presidential contest on Sunday, there is no real competition: Nayib Bukele, the millennial president who reshaped the country with a crackdown on gangs and civil liberties, is expected to win re-election in a landslide.Legal scholars say Mr. Bukele, 42, is violating a constitutional ban by seeking a second consecutive term, but most Salvadorans don’t seem to care.Surveys show that voters overwhelmingly support Mr. Bukele’s candidacy and will likely cement his party’s supermajority in the legislature on Sunday, extending the leader’s unimpeded control over every lever of government for years.“They want to show that they can do this,…

After yet another disappointing, early-season loss, Jalen Brunson stood at his locker, ready to speak with the media in Milwaukee.As the point guard turned around, straight-faced as usual following the Knicks’ fourth defeat in six games, he donned a homemade T-shirt, all black and with white lettering on it, that appeared as if it were straight off the Vistaprint presses.Across Brunson’s chest read a familiar idiom: The magic is in the work.“This is a Sandra Brunson production,” Brunson said, referencing his mother, who stamped the family’s longtime motto onto the crewneck. Of course, “The magic is in the work” is…

I was scrolling through Instagram recently when I found a new page slipped into my feed through a suggested post: @tinyhouseperfect. It seemed designed to poke at my frustrated longings for a space of my own. I want to own a house; I cannot currently buy a house. But what if the house were very small? Very small, and also perfect?Soon I was navigating the reading nooks and chef’s kitchens of an elfin cottage, a gothic coastal A-frame, a cozy “loch house” in the Scottish Highlands. I had projected my future self to the Scottish seaside, wondering how much the…

Gary, Ind., was once a symbol of American innovation. The home of U.S. Steel’s largest mill, Gary churned out the product that built America’s bridges, tunnels and skyscrapers. The city reaped the rewards, with a prosperous downtown and vibrant neighborhoods.Gary’s smokestacks are still prominent along Lake Michigan’s sandy shore, starkly juxtaposed between the eroding dunes and Chicago’s towering silhouette to the northwest. But now they represent a city looking for a fresh start.More than 10,000 buildings sit abandoned, and the population of 180,000 in the 1960s has dropped by more than half. Poverty, crime and an ignoble moniker — “Scary…

Iran projects its military power through dozens of armed groups across the Middle East, but how much does it control their actions?That question has taken on new urgency as the United States considers its next steps after an attack by an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia on an American base in northwest Jordan. The attack on Sunday killed three soldiers and injured dozens of others.Iranian-backed groups have varying histories and relationships with Tehran, but all share Iran’s desire for the U.S. military to leave the region, and for Israel’s power to be reduced. Iranian rhetoric, echoed by its allied groups, often goes…

OTTAWA — Nearly 6,000 miles away from her hometown in Hokkaido, Japan, Akane Shiga was being asked about the weather.Mike Hirshfeld, general manager of Ottawa’s PWHL team, was sitting with Shiga and coach Carla MacLeod in the team office at TD Place Arena, speaking to the 22-year-old forward and Japanese national team member through her interpreter.“She’s looking at me like, ‘What is he talking about?’” Hirshfeld said about the playful preamble to an important bit of news ahead of the PWHL’s final roster deadline.Because what Hirshfeld really wanted to know was how Shiga felt about spending the winter in Ottawa,…

With its streamlined curves and glow-in-the-dark sound system, the silver Lamborghini Huracán Performante was the stuff of teenage fantasy: $350,000 of aerodynamic metals and lightweight upholstery, packed into a taut and powerful body. Ben Armstrong loved it dearly.When he started shopping for a Lamborghini, Mr. Armstrong, a cryptocurrency evangelist with more than one million YouTube subscribers, worried that he’d have to spend months searching. “I think I have to go to Italy to get the Lambo I want,” he texted a business partner. “I don’t want to compromise.” But fate smiled on him. In the fall of 2021, a car…

Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the largest U.S. energy companies, on Friday reported sizable profits for the final quarter of last year, showing that the oil and gas industry remained robust at a time of doubts because of climate change concerns.The companies’ earnings were down from the bonanza year of 2022, when a surge in prices pushed up profits, but were otherwise the strongest in recent history.Exxon earned $7.6 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023, a 40 percent fall from a year earlier. For all of 2023, the company reported $36 billion in earnings, compared with $55.7 billion in 2022.…