Investments and Business

For decades, Munch’s Make Believe Band at Chuck E. Cheese has performed for countless birthdays, end-of-season Little League parties and other celebrations. There’s been Chuck E. Cheese and Helen Henny on vocals, Mr. Munch on keys, Jasper T. Jowls on guitar, and Pasqually on drums.The band of robot puppets has been a mainstay at the colorful pizzeria-arcade chain where children run amok and play games for prizes in between bites of pizza slices.Their final curtain call is coming soon.By the end of 2024, the animatronic performances — endearing and nostalgia-inducing, if perhaps slightly creepy to their audiences — will be…

The stakes could hardly be higher.This July, for the first time in more than a decade, Venezuelans will vote in a presidential election with an opposition candidate who has a fighting — if slim and improbable — chance at winning.Amid an economic and democratic crisis that has led more than seven million Venezuelans to abandon the country — considered among the world’s largest displacements — Nicolás Maduro, the country’s authoritarian president, has done something few thought he would: allowed an opposition candidate with widespread support to appear on the ballot.Though largely unknown, the challenger is leading in several polls, underscoring…

Nancy Neveloff Dubler, a medical ethicist who pioneered using mediation at hospital bedsides to navigate the complex dynamics among headstrong doctors, anguished family members and patients in their last days, died on April 14 at her home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She was 82.The cause was heart and lung disease, her family said.A Harvard-educated lawyer who won her college student presidency by campaigning to dissolve the student government, Ms. Dubler was a revolutionary figure in health care who sought, in her words, to “level the playing field” and “amplify nonmedical voices” in knotty medical situations, especially when…

Drive north out of London for a couple of hours, head east just past the city of Leicester, bump along some of England’s finest country roads as they wind between gloriously green fields, and you eventually reach the small village of Ashby Folville, population: 174.At the centre of it sits The Carington Arms: “Probably the prettiest pub in Leicestershire,” according to its website.Set in lusciously green open space next to the village cricket field and presenting a charming exterior combining whitewashed stone walls with glossy black beams, from a distance, this is a village pub perfectly positioned to take full…

Investors do not expect the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates again, and officials have made it clear that they see further increases as unlikely. But one important takeaway from recent Fed commentary is that unlikely and inconceivable are not the same thing.After the central bank held rates steady at 5.3 percent last week, the Fed’s chair, Jerome H. Powell, delivered a news conference where what he didn’t say mattered.Asked whether officials might raise interest rates again, he said he thought they probably would not — but he also avoided fully ruling out the possibility. And when asked, twice, whether…

President Biden’s warning over halting weapons supplies has tightened the bind that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel faces, as he is increasingly caught between international calls for a cease-fire and right-wing Israeli demands to proceed with a wide-scale invasion of Rafah, in southern Gaza.Mr. Netanyahu, who has insisted over American objections that invading Rafah is necessary, now finds the U.S.-Israel relationship at a moment of crisis that could affect how he conducts the next phase of the war against Hamas.On Thursday, the Israeli leader, alluding to Mr. Biden’s remarks, said in a statement: “If we need to stand alone,…

Even as it has become increasingly clear that the bird flu outbreak on the nation’s dairy farms began months earlier — and is probably much more widespread — than previously thought, federal authorities have emphasized that the virus poses little risk to humans.Yet there is a group of people who are at high risk for infection: the estimated 100,000 men and women who work on those farms. There has been no widespread testing to see how many may be infected. None have been vaccinated against bird flu.That leaves the workers and their families vulnerable to a poorly tracked pathogen. And…

The napkin upon which Lionel Messi’s first Barcelona agreement was informally written has gone on sale at auction.Bonhams — a privately owned, London-based international auction house — are running the auction until May 17, with a starting price of £220,000 ($274.55k), on behalf of Argentine player agent Horacio Gaggioli.The agreement was reached on December 14, 2000, with Barcelona director Carles Rexach desperate for the club to sign Messi, then aged 13.Messi had impressed during his two-week trial with Barcelona in September 2000, but the club was initially reluctant to sign such a young, non-European player.Rexach became concerned that the Catalan…

A Hong Kong court on Wednesday granted a government request to ban a popular pro-democracy anthem, raising further concerns about free speech in the city.The decision, which overturned an initial ruling, could give the government power to force Google and other tech companies to restrict online access to the song in Hong Kong. The decision threatens to deepen anxiety about the city’s status as an international gateway to China, away from its censorship controls.At issue in the case is “Glory to Hong Kong,” which emerged in 2019 as an unofficial anthem for democracy protests and a flashpoint for the authorities,…

The government of Canada on Tuesday walked back part of a program allowing people in British Columbia to possess small amounts of drugs, including heroin and cocaine, without fear of criminal charges. At the request of the province and after a public backlash, people in British Columbia are no longer permitted to use drugs in public places.Under the changes, which went into effect immediately, adults will still be allowed to possess small amounts of drugs. But they will now have to use them in legal residences, at safe injection sites and at other harm-reduction centers established by the health authorities.The…