2024 - Page 172 of 173

03 Jan

73 Reported Killed in Iran in Blasts Near Qassim Suleimani’s Tomb

Howard L. PettersonNews

A pair of explosions in Iran on Wednesday in the cemetery where Iran’s former top military general, Qassim Suleimani, is buried killed 73 people and wounded 171, according to Iranian officials, heightening tensions in the region even further a day after a drone strike killed several Hamas officials in a suburb of Beirut, Lebanon.Iranian officials told state media that a pair of bombs placed in bags along the route of the cemetery had exploded as a procession of people was on its way to the cemetery to commemorate the four-year anniversary of Mr. Suleimani’s assassination by the United States. The…

03 Jan

Britain’s Economy Is ‘Not Working.’ Here Are 2 Key Reasons.

Howard L. PettersonNews

In the countryside of Cambridgeshire, a British semiconductor start-up was ready to expand beyond its lab and open a manufacturing base. But the company’s ambitions came with unexpected costs to bring enough electricity to the new site. The potential bill? One million pounds.The company, Paragraf, makes chips using graphene, an ultrathin carbon. Its devices can be used to check for defects in electric vehicle batteries to prevent fires, or work in quantum computers. After acquiring the site in 2023, Paragraf made plans to ramp up its weekly manufacturing capabilities from tens of thousands of devices to millions.But the cost of…

03 Jan

A 9-Month Cruise Is TikTok’s Favorite New ‘Reality Show’

Howard L. PettersonNews

In the last few months, Beth Fletcher, a 39-year-old photographer in Derbyshire, England, built a small following on TikTok by recapping and analyzing the British reality show “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!” When the latest season ended in early December, Ms. Fletcher was at a loss for content because, she said, “we don’t have another good reality TV show on until summer.”Then the TikTok algorithm delivered: a video of Brooklyn Schwetje, a graduate student and influencer, sharing a day in her life on the Ultimate World Cruise, a nine-month-long, round-the-world voyage with Royal Caribbean. Ms. Fletcher…

03 Jan

Six teams, one draft and loads of Ikea furniture: How the PWHL was made in six months

Howard L. PettersonNews

TORONTO — The line began at the gates of Mattamy Athletic Centre and stretched a full city block. Women’s hockey fans, after decades of waiting for a best-on-best league, were happy to wait a little longer for the doors to open for the first-ever Professional Women’s Hockey League game.The line was dotted with reminders of the past. There was a Natalie Spooner Toronto Furies jersey from her time in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. Several Toronto Six jerseys representing the Premier Hockey Federation and some from the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association exhibition stops. The people wearing those jerseys from…

03 Jan

More Women Who Are Not Pregnant Are Ordering Abortion Pills Just in Case

Howard L. PettersonHealth

Behind the NumbersData from September 2021 through April 2023 showed 48,404 advance provision requests and 147,112 requests from women seeking to terminate existing pregnancies. (Women in both categories completed telehealth consultations and Aid Access evaluated their medical information before prescribing pills.)Advance provision requesters were more likely than those already pregnant to be 30 or older, white and childless, and to live in urban neighborhoods with lower poverty rates than the national average. That might be partly because Aid Access offers free or reduced-price services to pregnant patients who need financial assistance, while advance provision requesters were expected to pay the…

03 Jan

Ana Ofelia Murguía, Mexican Actress and Voice in ‘Coco,’ Dies at 90

Howard L. PettersonNews

Ana Ofelia Murguía, one of Mexico’s most acclaimed actresses, whose voice acting as Mama Coco in the animated movie “Coco” brought her international recognition, died on Sunday. She was 90.Her death was confirmed by Mexico’s National Institute of Fine Arts and its National Theater Company, which did not say where she died.The National Theater Company described Ms. Murguía on social media as “one of Mexico’s greatest actresses.” In a statement, Lucina Jiménez López, the director of the National Institute of Fine Arts, described her career as one that “marked an entire era.” In the 2017 film “Coco,” made by Disney’s…

03 Jan

Will America’s Good News on Inflation Last?

Howard L. PettersonNews

Prices climbed rapidly in 2021 and 2022, straining American household budgets and chipping away at President Biden’s approval rating. But inflation cooled in late 2023, a spurt of progress that happened more quickly than economists had expected and that stoked hopes of a gentle economic landing.Now, the question is whether the good news can persist into 2024.As forecasters try to guess what will happen next, many are looking closely at where the recent slowdown has come from. The details suggest that a combination of weaker goods prices — things like apparel and used cars — and moderating costs for services…

03 Jan

Asian American Officials Cite Unfair Scrutiny and Lost Jobs in China Spy Tensions

Howard L. PettersonNews

When Thomas Wong set foot in the United States Embassy in Beijing this summer for a new diplomatic posting, it was vindication after years of battling the State Department over a perceived intelligence threat — himself.Diplomatic Security officers had informed him when he joined the foreign service more than a decade ago that they were banning him from working in China. In a letter, he said, they wrongly cited the vague potential for undue “foreign preference” and suggested he could be vulnerable to “foreign influence.”Mr. Wong had become a U.S. diplomat thinking that China was where he could have the…

03 Jan

D.E.I. and Donor Pressures Weigh on Harvard

Howard L. PettersonNews

What Harvard’s drama says about D.E.I. The resignation yesterday of Claudine Gay, Harvard’s first Black president and the second woman to lead the university, was tied to a mounting crisis over plagiarism allegations. But she had also been under fire for months over what critics said was an insufficient response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.Her departure, weeks after Liz Magill stepped down as the University of Pennsylvania’s president, casts a spotlight on the increasingly rocky landscape for the policies known as D.E.I. — diversity, equity and inclusion — and spurs questions about the power of donors over…

03 Jan

Valencia’s Nou Mestalla ‘ghost ground’: After 15-year delay, will it finally be built?

Howard L. PettersonNews

The cheers rang long and loud around Valencia’s Mestalla Stadium as fans celebrated Hugo Guillamon’s late equaliser against Barcelona in their final home match before La Liga’s Christmas break.Four kilometres away, on the other side of Valencia’s old city centre, all was quiet around the site of the Nou Mestalla — where the club’s half-built new home has sat untouched for the past 15 years.Through all that time, one of La Liga’s most storied clubs has found itself stuck in this bizarre situation — unable to raise the money to finish a modern new ground, unable to sell its historic…