Economy

A $9,000 designer sweater made out of the ultrarare fur of a South American animal called a vicuña is not exactly a typical area of focus for a member of the U.S. Congress.But when Representative Robert Garcia, a first-term California Democrat and the first Peruvian-born person to serve in the House, saw reports that the luxury design house Loro Piana was not fairly compensating Indigenous workers in Peru who source the rare wool in some of its priciest knit clothing, he decided to use his position to make some noise.“As the first Peruvian American member of Congress and co-chair of…

They’re in makeup, dental floss and menstrual products. They’re in nonstick pans and takeout food wrappers. Same with rain jackets and firefighting equipment, as well as pesticides and artificial turf on sports fields.They’re PFAS: a class of man-made chemicals called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances. They are also called “forever chemicals” because the bonds in their chemical compounds are so strong they don’t break down for hundreds to thousands of years, if at all.They’re also in our water.A new study of more than 45,000 water samples around the world found that about 31 percent of groundwater samples tested that weren’t near…

The celebration was almost as glorious as the goal itself. The fuzz of chest hair, the twirling shirt, the body swerve to evade the Manchester United fans who had run on the pitch in their euphoria.On Sunday, it is 25 years since Patrick Vieira, a genuine great of Arsenal’s midfield, played a wayward pass amid the high drama of an FA Cup semi-final between the leading two English sides of the time.Ryan Giggs took the ball and then he was off and running, picking up speed from inside his own half, slaloming past opponents, one by one.Vieira tried to get…

Executives at Bayer Leverkusen, the longstanding but habitually middleweight German soccer team, have been fielding the messages since at least February. Some were delivered in person, a quiet blessing after yet another victory. Others came via WhatsApp, unsolicited and unexpected notes from peers and acquaintances and, to their occasional surprise, traditional foes.Soccer, after all, is fiercely tribal. Rivals do not easily offer one another encouragement or congratulations. But as the German league season gathered pace, plenty wanted to laud Leverkusen’s impending achievement: It was, with each victory, getting closer and closer to being crowned national champion for the first time.And,…

Bennett Braun, a Chicago psychiatrist whose diagnoses of repressed memories involving horrific abuse by devil worshipers helped to fuel what became known as the “satanic panic” of the 1980s and ’90s, died on March 20 in Lauderhill, Fla., north of Miami. He was 83.Jane Braun, one of his ex-wives, said the death, in a hospital, was from complications of a fall. Dr. Braun lived in Butte, Mont., but had been in Lauderhill on vacation.Dr. Braun gained renown in the early 1980s as an expert in two of the most popular and controversial areas of psychiatric treatment: repressed memories and multiple…

COLUMBUS, Ohio — At his postgame news conference following Ohio State’s 30-24 loss to Michigan last November, Buckeyes coach Ryan Day looked defeated and despondent. He surely realized at that moment that despite winning 88 percent of his games as a head coach, he and his program would now be defined by their unthinkable three-year losing streak to the Wolverines.Four-plus months later, sitting in his office at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center, the 45-year-old Day is smiling, giddy and seemingly at ease. He exudes the confidence of a coach who knows how loaded his roster is, after getting back nearly…

Al concluir una relación laboral, la liquidación se vuelve un proceso esencial. Para efectuar el cálculo, es fundamental establecer los pagos y conceptos que corresponden a los trabajadores, tomando en consideración los salarios acumulados, los beneficios no utilizados, así como las compensaciones en caso de despido.Resulta imprescindible adquirir conocimientos acerca de las diversas formas de indemnización y las posibles implicaciones fiscales, entre otros conceptos, por lo tanto, contar con compañías especializadas como Panama Outsourcing se convierte en algo fundamental para obtener un cálculo preciso.Si estás interesado en conocer las responsabilidades de los empleadores y los diferentes tipos de indemnización, así…

Art of Craft is a series about craftspeople whose work rises to the level of art.On a summer day in 2018, Blanka Amezkua arrived in San Salvador Huixcolotla. The southeastern Mexican town is best known as the birthplace of papel picado — intricately cut, colorful tissue-paper banners popular at Mexican festivities — and Amezkua had come hoping to learn the centuries-old techniques for crafting it. She flagged down a cab and asked the driver if he happened to know anyone who made the delicate paper flags. The man took her to his brother Don Rene Mendoza, who, by sheer chance,…

Yuxin Sun, a psychologist in Seattle, sees a lot of clients at her group practice who insist they aren’t perfectionists. “‘Oh, I’m not perfect. I’m far from perfect,’” they tell her.But perfectionism isn’t about being the best at any given pursuit, Dr. Sun said, “it’s the feeling of never arriving to that place, never feeling good enough, never feeling adequate.” And that can make for a harsh internal voice that belittles and chastises us.Perfectionism is so pervasive that there’s a test to measure it: the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale. When researchers looked at how college students have responded to the scale’s…

An important thing to remember about Andre Villas-Boas is that he had ridiculously good hair.You don’t spend a record-shattering €15 million (£12.9; $16.3m) fee to sign a rookie manager away from Porto unless you’re pretty sure you know what you’re getting, and one thing Chelsea knew for certain, back in the heady days of 2011, was that the man with a swirling, fox-red side-parting looked impossibly cool getting tossed in the air during trophy celebrations. Villas-Boas at Porto in 2010 (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images)Hair like that had sexy new ideas — a philosophy, perhaps. It had the sort of…