Business

March’s Hot Inflation Report is a Political Blow to Biden
Business

March’s Hot Inflation Report is a Political Blow to Biden

Related media - Linked media The unexpected re-acceleration in price growth across the economy is at least a temporary setback for President Biden, who has been banking on cooling inflation to lift his re-election prospects. Mr. Biden and his aides have publicly cheered the retreat of annual inflation rates over the last year, after watching the fastest price growth in 40 years dent the president’s approval ratings earlier in his tenure. They have been anxious for inflation to fall even further, in order give relief to consumers and to potentially spur the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates — a move that would help to drive down borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans and other consumer credit. Mr. Biden has been particularly focused on home buyers, including young voters who are k...
Ohtani’s Former Interpreter Is Said to Be Negotiating a Guilty Plea
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Ohtani’s Former Interpreter Is Said to Be Negotiating a Guilty Plea

Associated media - Linked media A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment. Matthew Hiltzik, a spokesman for Ohtani, referred to the player’s detailed explanation he gave to the media two weeks ago, when Ohtani said Mizuhara had stolen from him and he promised to cooperate fully with the federal and Major League Baseball investigations. “I never bet on baseball or any other sports or never have asked somebody to do that on my behalf,” Ohtani said. “And I have never went through a bookmaker to bet on sports. Up until a couple days ago, I didn’t know this was happening.” The allegations about the theft surfaced when the Dodgers were in Seoul to open the season with games against the San Diego Padres. Interest in the team has been intense since it signed Ohtani to a 10...
Richard Leibner, Agent for Top Broadcast Journalists, Dies at 85
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Richard Leibner, Agent for Top Broadcast Journalists, Dies at 85

Connected media - Associated media A trained accountant, Mr. Leibner was described in a 1989 profile by Ben Yagoda in The New York Times Magazine as an idiosyncratic character with a “remarkable emotional range.” “He can be plaintive, cajoling, jocular, terse, profane, sentimental, jovial, respectful, dismissive, analytical or expansive: The one constant is the strain of his native Brooklyn in his voice,” Mr. Yagoda wrote. He was also known for telling incredibly dirty jokes. Andrew Heyward, a former president of CBS News, said in a phone interview: “It would have been easy to dismiss him as a Damon Runyonesque showman, but when it came to actual negotiations, he’d come in, sit on the couch with a legal pad and pen, and we’d go through the details together. He was scrupulously detailed...
Roberto Cavalli, Designer Who Celebrated Excess, Dies at 83
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Roberto Cavalli, Designer Who Celebrated Excess, Dies at 83

Linked media - Linked media Roberto Cavalli, the Italian-born fashion designer who celebrated glamour and excess, sending models down the runway and actresses onto red carpets wearing leopard-print dresses, bejeweled distressed jeans, satin corsets and other unapologetically flashy clothes, has died. He was 83. His company announced the death on Instagram but provided no details. Mr. Cavalli’s signature style — “molto sexy, molto animal print and molto, molto Italiano,” as the British newspaper The Independent once described it — remained essentially unchanged throughout his long career. But he skillfully reinvented his clothes for different eras, enjoying several renaissances and building a global lifestyle brand in the process. In the 1970s, Mr. Cavalli designed jackets, jeans and mi...
Audemars Piguet’s New C.E.O. Wasn’t an Obvious Choice
Business

Audemars Piguet’s New C.E.O. Wasn’t an Obvious Choice

Connected media - Connected media Innovation — especially in the form of ambitious building projects — has been a running theme at the brand for the past few years. In 2020 in Le Brassus, it opened a museum, the Musée Atelier Audemars Piguet, designed by the Danish architect Bjarke Ingels. A year later, it completed a manufacturing site in Le Locle, another village about a 90-minute drive northeast of Le Brassus. A former Renaud & Papi workshop, the Manufacture des Saignoles now specializes in the brand’s most complicated timepieces. In 2022, the brand opened a luxury hotel, Hôtel des Horlogers, also designed by Mr. Ingels, in a space adjacent to the museum and factory in Le Brassus. And in late 2023, it began construction of a new industrial building in Meyrin, on the outskirts of...
Hamas Is Open to a Cease-Fire Deal with Israel but Ready to Keep Fighting: Live Updates
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Hamas Is Open to a Cease-Fire Deal with Israel but Ready to Keep Fighting: Live Updates

Related media - Connected media Abraham and Adra, an Israeli and Palestinian filmmaking team, had just won the festival’s award for best documentary for “No Other Land,” a movie about Palestinian resistance to Israeli campaigns in the occupied territories. It was “very hard,” Adra said, to celebrate the award “when there are tens of thousands of my people being slaughtered and massacred by Israel in Gaza.” He called upon German lawmakers to “stop sending weapons to Israel,” before Abraham called for a cease-fire and an end to Israel’s occupation. The audience, which included the culture minister of Germany, Claudia Roth, applauded loudly, and there were whistles and cheers in the hall. In the days since, Abraham and Adra’s speeches have become the latest flashpoint in a long-running deb...
Divisions Among Finance Ministers Flare Over Seizing Russian Assets
Business

Divisions Among Finance Ministers Flare Over Seizing Russian Assets

Linked media - Connected media “While we should act together and in a considered way, I believe there is a strong international law, economic, and moral case for moving forward,” Ms. Yellen said. But Mr. LeMaire, who spoke just a few hours ahead of a private meeting with Ms. Yellen, pushed back on that assertion. “We don’t have the legal basis to seize the Russian assets and we should never act if we don’t obey by the international law and by the rule of law,” Mr. Le Maire said, according to a recording of his remarks. Western officials have been considering several options for how they can use the approximately $300 billion Russian central bank assets, most of which is held in the European Union, to provide economic and military support for Ukraine. That includes the European Commissi...
USWNT’s loss to Mexico was a jarring reminder that the team’s mystique is gone
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USWNT’s loss to Mexico was a jarring reminder that the team’s mystique is gone

Associated media - Linked media For those who weren’t following along during the 2011 World Cup qualifying cycle — in which the U.S. lost to Mexico in the CONCACAF semifinals before Alex Morgan finally sent the U.S. through in a playoff series against Italy — matches against Mexico might have felt like a rivalry in name only. The U.S. women’s national team had not lost to Mexico since that moment in 2010, and hadn’t lost to any CONCACAF opponent at home since 2000. Monday night threw that narrative out the window. The USWNT was outplayed in a 2-0 loss in front of a boisterous crowd in Carson, Ca., and while it didn’t match the low of that 0-0 draw against Portugal in the World Cup group stage last summer, the team’s final group stage match of this Gold Cup was (hopefully) a he...
Vision Pro Goggles Are Not Safe While Driving a Tesla, U.S. Says
Business

Vision Pro Goggles Are Not Safe While Driving a Tesla, U.S. Says

Linked media - Associated media Is this the future? A world in which people can’t step away from the digital realm long enough to focus solely on everyday tasks such as socializing or exercising? Eric Decker, a YouTube and TikTok creator who goes by the name Airrack, posted a video poking fun at an “average day for an Apple Vision Pro owner,” showing him wearing the headset while lifting weights at the gym, getting his hair cut, going through airport security, walking down a street and even showering. (The Vision Pro is not waterproof.) “I truly feel most of these videos are skits,” Mr. Lentini said. “You can just tell.” Still, skit or not, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Tuesday that distracted driving is no joke. In 2021, more than 3,500 people in the Unite...