Author: News Room

This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.From the time Beulah Henry was a child in the late 19th century, she dreamed of ways to make life easier. That impulse would eventually drive her to secure dozens of patents and would earn her a nickname: Lady Edison.When she died in the early 1970s, she held far more patents than any other woman, according to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and in 2006 she was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for…

Policy uncertainty and tariff whiplash are making consumers less confident about the economic outlook and more worried about inflation, new data from the University of Michigan showed on Friday, the latest evidence that Americans are bracing for pain in President Trump’s second term.A new survey released on Friday showed consumer sentiment plummeting 11 percent in March as Americans of all ages, income groups and political affiliations turned even more downbeat about the trajectory for the economy. Consumer confidence has fallen for the third consecutive month, not only about personal finances, but also the job market and stock markets. Since December,…

A private equity investor who is one of Elon Musk’s closest confidants has taken a new role in the Social Security Administration, a development that could be politically combustible given the program’s popularity with voters and Mr. Musk’s apparent intent to make major changes at the agency.The investor, Antonio Gracias, who has served on the boards of Mr. Musk’s businesses Tesla and SpaceX, has started a job at the administration as part of the Musk-led cost-cutting effort known as the Department of Government Efficiency, according to documents seen by The New York Times and two people informed about his appointment.Of…

Herman Graf, a major and intrepid figure in independent publishing who sold copies of Henry Miller’s novel “Tropic of Cancer” to bookstores after it was embroiled in a legal fight over whether it was obscene, died on Feb. 27 at his home in Flushing, Queens. He was 91.His nephew Paul Lichter said the cause was Parkinson’s disease.Among Mr. Graf’s many other accomplishments in publishing, he helped turn John Kennedy Toole’s satirical novel, “A Confederacy of Dunces,” into a best seller long after the author’s death.A raconteur with a booming voice, Mr. Graf was a bibliophile who loved the works of…

Tariff threats. Growing uncertainty about the economy. And a push for much lower oil prices.For all of their bravado about U.S. energy dominance and enthusiasm for deregulation, American energy executives are beginning to worry about President Trump’s agenda.Their concerns crept into conversations in hotel meeting rooms and over private meals this week in Houston, where industry magnates gathered for their most important annual conference.Surely, some hoped, the president would cut oil and gas companies a break on tariffs. Surely, the administration was not serious about pushing oil prices down another 25 percent. Surely, the turmoil of the last two months…

Investors watching the S&P 500’s plunge this week are processing a mix of signals. Will the threat of tariffs push the economy into a recession or is this simply a retrenchment from the highly valued technology companies that some analysts and investors argued were due for a pullback?There is a different stock index that is flashing a clearer warning sign.The Russell 2000 includes smaller companies that are more sensitive to the whims of the economy. These companies tend to run thinner profit margins that can be more easily eroded in a downturn, and they have fewer levers to pull than…

The impact of the tariffs would vary by car model, since some rely more on imported parts than others. But rather than vastly increasing the price of specific vehicles, the industry is likely to spread increases across all types — “like peanut butter” — to smooth out the price increases, said Tyson Jominy, vice president of data and analytics at the market research firm J.D. Power. Mr. Anderson said manufacturers would “almost certainly cut back” on models that became significantly more expensive.What if I want to buy a car this year?Much remains uncertain, including whether the delayed tariffs will actually…

The Trump family is said to be in talks to invest in Binance. The discussions revolve around the family taking a stake in the U.S. arm of the crypto exchange, which had pleaded guilty to violating anti-money-laundering laws and whose founder, Changpeng Zhao, served time in prison, according to The Wall Street Journal. (It’s unclear whether a deal would require pardoning Zhao.) The talks further underscore the ties between the Trump family and the crypto industry, which spent millions to back Trump, a connection that critics have said represents a conflict of interest.Goldman’s chief wants more clarity, tooGoldman Sachs’s annual…

By working with Russia to hold talks with Iran, China is conveying a contrast with the United States in its approach to resolving the nuclear issue, said Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University in Shanghai. Beijing wants to show that “while the United States irresponsibly pulls out of the Iran Nuclear Agreement, China will also hold fast to this international commitment and assume the responsibility of leadership,” Mr. Shen said.The message is also one of solidarity with Iran. “Even though the United States exerts extreme pressure, as long as Iran does not give up on its…

The Chinese government has strongly criticized a planned deal by a Hong Kong conglomerate to sell ports in Panama and elsewhere to an investment group led by an American asset manager, warning that the deal would deprive China of needed influence over key shipping routes.The criticism marks an abrupt shift in Chinese policy toward Panama and the control of seaports around the world. When President Trump raised concerns soon after taking office that China had too much power in the Panama Canal, his comments were initially ridiculed by Beijing.But Ta Kung Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper owned by the Chinese…