Investments and Business

One year ago on Friday, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich received a chilling phone call from the managing editor of The Wall Street Journal. Their son, Evan, a foreign correspondent for The Journal who was on a reporting assignment in Russia, had missed his daily security check-in.“We were hoping this was some kind of error, that everything is going to be fine,” the older Mr. Gershkovich recalled. But the stunning reality became clear: The Russian authorities had detained Evan and accused him of spying for the American government, making him the first American reporter to be held on espionage charges…

Some members of the royal family, particularly the princes and princesses of its younger generation, are easy to slot into that victim role. They are wealthy, famous and photogenic, and their roles in public life make them beloved to many.Catherine, particularly, was a ready-made focus for a conspiracy narrative, not only because she is glamorous and widely liked in Britain (helped by favorable coverage in the tabloid press), but also because she has been more private about her life than many other royals. “Kate’s signature has been her composure, her discretion,” Arianne Chernock, a historian at Boston University who studies…

The Biden administration announced on Thursday that it had finalized a new regulation that curbs the use of short-term health insurance plans that do not comply with the Affordable Care Act, reversing a move by the Trump administration to give consumers more access to cheaper but skimpier plans.Under the new rule, the short-term plans will be able to last for only 90 days, with an option for a one-month extension.In 2018, the Trump administration issued a rule allowing the plans to last for just under a year, with the option of renewing them for a total duration of up to…

More than 40 members of Ukraine’s national-team party were spread around the centre circle of Wroclaw’s Tarczynski Arena.Players, coaches and backroom staff locked their gaze on the 30,000 spectators sporting blue and yellow as they revved up their version of the Viking thunderclap. Iceland, the architects of that celebration during the 2016 European Championship, could only listen in despair having lost this Euro 2024 play-off final to a late strike from Chelsea forward Mykhailo Mudryk.Strangers embraced. Families posed for photographs draped in Ukraine flags. Others video-called, possibly home to war-torn Ukraine, sharing the moment with others unable to experience first-hand…

For nearly three decades, Australia seemed to have a sort of get-out-of-jail card that allowed it to glide through the dot-com bust and the global financial crisis without a recession, while its citizens mostly enjoyed high wages, affordable housing and golden prospects.When a recession did arrive, in 2020, it was because of the Covid-19 pandemic.But four years later, Australia has been unable to shake off some of the headwinds, including a high cost of living — the price of bread has risen 24 percent since 2021 — a choppy labor market and rising inequality. While these and similar issues are…

First, it was María Corina Machado, a popular former legislator. Then, it was supposed to be Corina Yoris, a little-known philosophy professor. Now, an opposition coalition has put forward a former diplomat, Edmundo González, as their third candidate to run against President Nicolás Maduro in elections scheduled in July.That is, at least for now.The coalition of opposing political parties, the Democratic Unity Roundtable, has been hoping for months to unite behind a single candidate who could make a viable challenger to Mr. Maduro.But as the rapidly shifting lineup of potential candidates makes clear, the Maduro government has been putting up…

Killer whales are some of the most cosmopolitan creatures on the planet, swimming through every one of the world’s oceans. They patrol the frigid waters near both poles and periodically pop up in the tropics, in locations from western Africa to Hawaii.Although their habitats and habits vary widely, all killer whales are considered part of a single, global species: Orcinus orca. (Despite their common name, killer whales are actually part of a family of marine mammals known as oceanic dolphins.)Now, scientists have drawn upon decades of research to suggest that two killer whale populations often observed off the Pacific Coast…

For the second-straight NCAA Tournament, the Stanford Cardinal faced a fourth-quarter deficit on their home court in the second round, staring down the possibility of a stunning upset.As the Pac-12 player of the year Cameron Brink spent most of the night in foul trouble against No. 7 Iowa State, the No. 2 Cardinal turned to their other twin tower to carry them home. After being limited to five scoreless minutes off the bench in the 2023 loss to Ole Miss, Kiki Iriafen scored 41 points, tied for ninth all-time in a single NCAA Tournament game, and added 16 rebounds and…

As a Tunisian human rights activist in the 2000s, Amira Yahyaoui staged protests and blogged about government corruption. In interviews, she described being beaten by the police. When she was 18, she said, she was kidnapped from the street, dropped off at the Algerian border and placed in exile for several years.Ms. Yahyaoui’s compelling background helped her stand out among entrepreneurs when she moved in 2018 to San Francisco, where she founded a student aid start-up called Mos. The app hit the top of Apple’s App Store and Ms. Yahyaoui raised $56 million from high-profile investors, including Sequoia Capital, John…

Ukrainians have reacted with a mixture of concern and mockery to the narrative pushed by the Kremlin and Russian state media that Ukraine was behind the terrorist attack Friday on a Moscow concert hall, a claim made despite the Islamic State’s claim of responsibility.For some Ukrainians — officials and citizens alike — the accusations were typical of a Kremlin playbook, blaming Ukraine to justify Moscow’s violence against their country. That includes the false claim that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia used to begin the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, stating that the country was run by neo-Nazi leaders and that…