Richard Carlson, who won a Peabody Award for his investigative television reports about an automobile company’s brazen fraud — during which he also outed the company’s founder as a transgender woman — and who later ran Voice of America during the last years of the Cold War, died on March 24 at his home in … Read more
Federal worker unions have sought over the past two months to lead the resistance to President Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency, filing lawsuits, organizing protests and signing up new members by the thousands. This week, Mr. Trump struck back with a potentially crippling blow. In a sweeping executive order denouncing the unions as … Read more
In the United States, the affordability of eggs has prompted a national discussion — underscoring anxieties about the economy and the government’s role in addressing them. In Japan, there’s an equivalent: rice. Over the past year, Japan has grappled with a more than 200,000-ton shortage of its staple grain. Rice prices have skyrocketed, and supermarkets … Read more
In 33 years, Marga Aguilar never missed a rent payment on her apartment in a Modernist-style building in the heart of Barcelona. The owner of the building had always treated her and the other tenants as if they were family, and kept rents reasonable. But when the owner died recently, Ms. Aguilar, 62, got a … Read more
The American conservative movement has long worked to put the nuclear family at the center of cultural and economic life. Lately, it has added a twist. It wants to make those families bigger. As fertility rates have declined, a “pronatalist” cluster on the right wing has been making the argument that public policy should encourage … Read more
Here’s another thing getting cut in Washington: comedy. The White House Correspondents’ Association said on Saturday that it canceled a planned performance by Amber Ruffin, the actress and talk-show host, at its annual black-tie dinner on April 26. A monologue by a featured comedian is usually the highlight of the journalists’ soiree. Memorable performances by … Read more
Ziggy Duchnowski spent Saturday morning car shopping along Northern Boulevard in Queens with two goals in mind. He wanted to find a new small car for his wife, and he hoped to strike a deal before the new tariffs that President Trump is imposing on imported cars and trucks affect prices. “The word on the … Read more
Gai Gherardi, a Los Angeles optician who with a partner attracted a celebrity clientele by pioneering the notion that eyeglass frames did not have to be dull but rather could be fashion statements of individuality, died on March 16 at her home in Hollywood. She was 78. Her sister, Heather Gherardi, said the cause was … Read more
For months, French businesses have been bracing for the fallout of trade wars and tariff threats from the United States as the effects of President Trump’s “America First” policies ripple out. But this past week, the French corporate world was roiled by another type of Trump missive. In a terse three-paragraph letter sent by the … Read more
In the past few months, some of the largest banks and asset managers in the United States have quit net zero networks, the climate groups that encourage their members to set ambitious carbon reduction targets and collaborate internationally on sustainability efforts. But the week after Donald J. Trump won re-election in November, NYCERS, a pension … Read more