Year: 2023

Red Sea Shipping Halt Is Latest Risk to Global Economy
25
Dec
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By William Lee
Business

Red Sea Shipping Halt Is Latest Risk to Global Economy

The attacks on crucial shipping traffic in the Red Sea straits by a determined band of militants in Yemen — a spillover from the Israeli-Hamas war in Gaza — are injecting a new dose of instability into a world economy already struggling with mounting geopolitical tensions.The risk of escalating conflict in the Middle East is the latest in a string of unpredictable crises, including the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, that have landed like swipes of a bear claw on the global economy, smacking it off course and leaving scars.As if that weren’t enough, more volatility lies ahead…
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The Best of Canada in 2023
23
Dec
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By William Lee
New miscellaneous

The Best of Canada in 2023

Read: The 10 Best Books of 2023Best TV ShowsNathan Fielder, the Canadian actor known for his deadpan delivery, is back with a dark comedy called “The Curse.” Here’s a trailer. It’s streaming on Paramount+ Canada. (Mr. Fielder was an executive producer on “How To With John Wilson,” another show that critics say is worth your time.)Read: Best TV Shows of 2023Best Movies“Past Lives,” the debut film by the South Korean-Canadian director Celine Song, is “an examination of destiny, chance, love and the invisible thread that binds one soul to the next,” writes Alissa Wilkinson, a movie critic at The Times.…
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Bristol Myers to Acquire the Drugmaker Karuna for Billion
23
Dec
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By William Lee
Health

Bristol Myers to Acquire the Drugmaker Karuna for $14 Billion

Bristol Myers Squibb, the global pharmaceutical giant, said on Friday that it would acquire Karuna Therapeutics, which makes drugs to treat schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s, in an all-cash deal valued at $14 billion as it looks to strengthen its pipeline of neuroscience drugs.Bristol Myers said in a statement that it would pay $330 per share in cash, a premium of roughly 53 percent to Karuna’s share price on Thursday.An increasing prevalence of schizophrenia, driven in part by an aging population, has led to a push to make more drugs to treat it. The market for such therapies is estimated to grow…
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No Hit League? The ‘lost art’ of body checking in the NHL
23
Dec
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By William Lee
Sports

No Hit League? The ‘lost art’ of body checking in the NHL

Seventeen years and more than 1,200 games ago, Andrew Cogliano remembers how difficult it was to traverse the state of California.The Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks and San Jose Sharks were three of the biggest, heaviest teams in the league. If you had to play all three in succession? Well, good luck. Not only were those teams willing to play a punishing brand of hockey, but they were all highly skilled and generally successful, too.After a few years in Edmonton where he broke into the league, Cogliano was dealt to the Ducks as a free agent in the summer of…
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Substack Says It Will Not Ban Nazis or Extremist Speech
23
Dec
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By William Lee
Technology

Substack Says It Will Not Ban Nazis or Extremist Speech

Under pressure from critics who say Substack is profiting from newsletters that promote hate speech and racism, the company’s founders said Thursday that they would not ban Nazi symbols and extremist rhetoric from the platform.“I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either — we wish no one held those views,” Hamish McKenzie, a co-founder of Substack, said in a statement. “But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away — in fact, it makes it worse.”The response came…
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Wall Street Forecasts Won’t Tell You Where the Stock Market Is Heading in 2024
23
Dec
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By William Lee
Business

Wall Street Forecasts Won’t Tell You Where the Stock Market Is Heading in 2024

Wall Street strategists are issuing forecasts for the performance of the stock market in 2024.Pay them no mind.The predictions are usually wrong, and when they’re right it’s only by accident.Consider their prophecies for 2023. At the end of 2022, strategists predicted that the S&P 500 would end 2023 at 4,078, a gain of 6.2 percent from where it started, according to data from Bloomberg.At the moment, the market is above 4,700, a gain of more than 22 percent. These forecasts were so deeply off the mark undoubtedly because 2022 was a truly terrible year for stocks — and also one…
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