Jordan Fletcher

A modern grocery store whose shelves are packed with everything from pasta to wine fills a spot in central Havana once occupied by a drab state-owned flower shop, its ceilings and walls repaired and repainted.A former state glass company in a Havana suburb now houses a showroom for a private business selling Cuban-made furniture.And at the Cuban capital’s port, forklifts carefully unload American eggs from a refrigerated container. The eggs are bound for an online private supermarket that, much like Amazon Fresh, provides home delivery.These ventures are part of an explosion of thousands of private businesses that have opened in…

Every family has its archetypes, so here’s mine: My dad and my brother and I are all miserable. None of us are quick to experience joy, and all for different reasons — my dad is irritable, my brother is anxious and I’m bitter. The three of us combined could make one moderately unwell person. Instead, we are planets that orbit a sun more optimistic than we could ever be, and we hope that some of that shine rubs off on us periodically.My mother believes in a positive ethos: that things invariably will improve, that everyone is trying their best, that…

Welcome to the Monday Tennis Briefing, where The Athletic will explain the story behind the stories from the last week on court.This week, the coveted Masters 1000 in Madrid ran its first week and the stories on court were matched by the drama off it, as the Grand Slams and tennis tours continue their beauty pageant for the future of the sport.If you’d like more tennis coverage, please click here.Can ‘assurances’ on player safety in Saudi Arabia ever be enough?Daria Kasatkina, the highest ranked openly gay player in women’s tennis, was asked Sunday how she felt about the WTA opting to…

In Bogota, Colombia, Babynova fertility clinic enables female couples from Hamilton (New Zealand) to start their family with the ROPA method. This unique assisted reproduction technique, known as "Reception of Oocytes from Partner" (ROPA), enables both women to actively participate in the conception and gestation of their child. By sharing genetic material, they create a special bond with their baby. What does the ROPA method consist of? The ROPA method involves a process of in vitro fertilization (IVF) with unique features tailored for female couples. The steps are outlined below: Ovarian stimulation and egg retrieval: one woman in the couple…

President Biden and the president of Mexico on Monday vowed combined action to prevent illegal immigration as Mr. Biden remains under intense political pressure from all sides to address the impact of surging border crossings ahead of the presidential election this year.In a joint statement, Mr. Biden and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said they had ordered their national security aides to “work together to immediately implement concrete measures to significantly reduce irregular border crossings while protecting human rights.”The statement, which followed a phone call between the two leaders on Sunday, did not specify any actions under consideration. A senior…

As diabetes and weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy took off in the last few years, many people turned away from established diet and nutrition products.Now, two retailers that specialize in nutritional supplements — GNC and the Vitamin Shoppe — are trying new approaches to win over people who are taking those drugs or who are interested in them.GNC is dedicating a wall of supplements in its more than 2,300 stores to products that it believes will appeal to people on Ozempic, which contains the compound semaglutide, and other drugs that are known as GLP-1 medicines. The chain is also…

PHOENIX — Fresh off, arguably, the most important performance of his young career, Anthony Edwards sat in front of the world with a white tank top and an all-black Atlanta Braves fitted cap that sat loose, hovering just above his crisp hairline — making him look more like an extra in Outkast’s “Player’s Ball” video than the future face of the NBA.Edwards is who he is. Silly. Lovable. Intelligent. Country. He wears it all, loudly and proudly. He’s also a competitor. A trash-talker. He wears all of those things just as loud, just as proud.You add all of that up…

Rogelio Villarreal knew nothing about the French jeweler Cartier, he said, when an ad popped up on his Instagram feed last December. He clicked on it, perusing the pages of bling and other luxury items, including handbags, watches and necklaces, each listed for thousands of dollars.Then Mr. Villareal, who lives in Mexico, noticed a pair of earrings: slender studded 18-carat rose-gold cuffs lined with diamonds, priced at just 237 Mexican pesos, or about $13.“I was amazed to see how much the necklaces cost and so on and I said: ‘Someday,’ until I saw the earrings,” Mr. Villarreal, 27, wrote on…

Federal regulators on Friday said that they had not yet discovered live bird flu virus in the first batch of retail milk samples they tested, a reassuring indication that the milk on store shelves remains safe despite an outbreak of the virus among dairy cows.In an online update, the Food and Drug Administration said an initial set of tests looking for live virus, not just genetic fragments, suggested that the pasteurization process was effectively neutralizing the pathogen.“These results reaffirm our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the F.D.A. wrote in the update, adding that the testing efforts were…

ST. PAUL, Minn. — For years, Luke Kunin watched as his girlfriend, then fiancée, then wife, Sophia, supported his career.She was a shoulder to lean on when things got tough in Minnesota. Moved to Nashville when he was traded there. Was a constant during the toughest season of his pro career — last year with the San Jose Sharks, when he tore his ACL.So Kunin can’t wait to walk into Xcel Energy Center — the arena where he began his NHL career as a Minnesota Wild rookie seven years ago — on Saturday with the shoe on the other foot.…