Walmart Offers Store Managers Company Stock to Make Them Feel Like ‘Owners’
Business

Walmart Offers Store Managers Company Stock to Make Them Feel Like ‘Owners’

Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, is raising salaries and benefits for store managers as it looks for ways to retain them.Walmart said on Monday that managers of its U.S. stores would be eligible for grants of up to $20,000 in company stock every year. The stock will vest over a three-year period, with a percentage vested each quarter.Earlier this month, Walmart said it would increase the average salary for store managers to $128,000 from $117,000. The big-box retailer also said bonuses for store managers could reach up to 200 percent of base salary, with a store’s profitability becoming a bigger factor in the calculation.Store managers are crucial in driving sales and profitability within their stores and keeping morale high in a dynamic business. The managers are also seen ...
Amazon Scraps Deal to Buy Roomba Maker iRobot Amid Scrutiny
Technology

Amazon Scraps Deal to Buy Roomba Maker iRobot Amid Scrutiny

Amazon said on Monday that it was abandoning plans to buy iRobot, the maker of the self-driving Roomba vacuum, after regulators raised concerns the deal would hurt competition.The announcement is a rare admission of defeat by Amazon, which has in recent years acquired an eclectic mix of companies such as Whole Foods and MGM Studios, and is a sign of how the world’s largest tech companies are being forced to adjust their business practices, products and policies as a result of stiffening regulatory scrutiny globally, particularly in the European Union.In November, E.U. antitrust regulators warned Amazon that they might try to block the deal because it could restrict competition in the market for robot vacuum cleaners. Officials at the Federal Trade Commission met last week with Amazon’s law...
Thompson: LeBron James vs. Stephen Curry is still the NBA’s best theater
Sports

Thompson: LeBron James vs. Stephen Curry is still the NBA’s best theater

SAN FRANCISCO — The frustration seethed in Stephen Curry. Until it boiled to the surface. Until he let out a roar. Until he ripped his jersey from the collar to the 30.He’d scored 46 points on 35 shots, getting the benefit of just three free throws in his 43 minutes. He hit the game-tying layup at the end of regulation. Inside the final minute of the first overtime, he forced a turnover and then hit a massive corner 3, setting up the game-tying 3 from Klay Thompson that kept the Warriors alive. Then in the second overtime, Curry’s final points of the night came on a 26-footer from the top with 4.7 seconds remaining, putting the Warriors up a point.He left his follow-through in the air as he backpedaled. Too spent for a more elaborate celebration. The NBA’s leader in clutch points delivered...
The Man in Room 117
Health

The Man in Room 117

Sam and Olga had concluded that only involuntary treatment could break the cycle for Andrey — something open-ended, combining long-term injectable medications with intensive therapy and counseling.They are part of a much larger ideological shift taking place, as communities grope for ways to manage ballooning homeless populations. California, one of the first states to turn away from involuntary treatment, has passed new laws expanding it. New York has made a billion-dollar investment in residential housing, psychiatric beds and wraparound services.Sam had staked his hopes on Washington’s new involuntary treatment law, and found it maddening that this fall, when Andrey was released, the new system was not yet active. His frustration was often directed toward civil rights advocates who oppo...
Venezuela Court Bars Opposition Leader From Running for President
World

Venezuela Court Bars Opposition Leader From Running for President

Venezuela’s highest court ruled on Friday that a top opposition leader cannot run for president, dealing a crippling blow to prospects for credible elections that the government had agreed to hold this year in exchange for the lifting of crippling U.S. economic sanctions.The court’s decision bars the opposition figure, María Corina Machado, from taking part in an election for 15 years, upholding the Venezuelan government’s decision to exclude Ms. Machado over what it claimed were financial irregularities that occurred when she was a national legislator.The move comes after Ms. Machado overwhelmingly won an opposition primary election for president that was held in October without official government support and in which more than 2.4 million Venezuelans voted. Analysts say Ms. Machado pose...
The Quiet Luxury of South Korea’s Postpartum Care Centers
Business

The Quiet Luxury of South Korea’s Postpartum Care Centers

Four mothers sat quietly in the nursing room around midnight, breastfeeding their newborn babies. As one mother nodded off, her eyelids heavy after giving birth less than two weeks earlier, a nurse came in and whisked her baby away. The exhausted new mom returned to her private room to sleep.Sleep is just one of the luxuries provided by South Korea’s postpartum care centers.The country may have the world’s lowest birthrate, but it is also home to perhaps some of its best postpartum care. At centers like St. Park, a small, boutique postpartum center, or joriwon, in Seoul, new moms are pampered for a few weeks after giving birth and treated to hotel-like accommodations.Fresh meals are delivered three times a day, and there are facials, massages and child-care classes. Nurses watch over the b...
23andMe Breach Targeted Jewish and Chinese Customers, Lawsuit Says
Technology

23andMe Breach Targeted Jewish and Chinese Customers, Lawsuit Says

The genetic testing company 23andMe is being accused in a class-action lawsuit of failing to protect the privacy of customers whose personal information was exposed last year in a data breach that affected nearly seven million profiles.The lawsuit, which was filed on Friday in federal court in San Francisco, also accused the company of failing to notify customers with Chinese and Ashkenazi Jewish heritage that they appeared to have been specifically targeted, or that their personal genetic information had been compiled into “specially curated lists” that were shared and sold on the dark web.The suit was filed after 23andMe submitted a notification to the California Attorney General’s Office that showed the company was hacked over the course of five months, from late April 2023 through Sept...
Mike Macdonald lets the Ravens defense do his talking
Sports

Mike Macdonald lets the Ravens defense do his talking

If Mike Macdonald’s ascent to one of the NFL’s hottest coordinators and a legitimate head-coaching candidate feels meteoric, that’s probably because he has never embraced the art of self-promotion.The 36-year-old second-year Baltimore Ravens defensive boss has consented to side media interviews in recent weeks largely because he wants to tout the chemistry and cohesion of his staff, not because he wants any more attention. He likes to call himself a “steward” of head coach John Harbaugh’s vision and will point you in the direction of two dozen others who deserve praise for the Ravens’ success.But it’s impossible to ignore Macdonald’s impact on the AFC’s top seed, which faces the Kansas City Chiefs in Sunday’s conference championship game at M&T Bank Stadium.GO DEEPERIt's only right Rav...
Pet Dragons Linked to Salmonella Cases That Sickened Dozens of Children
Health

Pet Dragons Linked to Salmonella Cases That Sickened Dozens of Children

“I have college students that will come to class with their bearded dragon on their shoulder, which is probably not the most hygienic thing,” said Brian Todd, a conservationist at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in reptiles and amphibians and was not involved with the study. “After you’ve handled one, you need to wash your hands, especially before preparing food or picking up your child.”Bearded dragons aren’t the only source of reptilian-borne outbreaks. Last year, more than two dozen people in 11 states were sickened by salmonella linked to small turtles. That outbreak led to the hospitalization of nine people and prompted a warning from the C.D.C. against allowing children under 5 to have turtles as pets.(The sale of turtles less than four inches has been banned sin...
ICJ Orders Israel to Prevent Genocide in Gaza: Live Updates
World

ICJ Orders Israel to Prevent Genocide in Gaza: Live Updates

The World Court’s initial response on Friday to charges of genocide against Israel had deep historical resonance for both Israelis and Palestinians, even if it lacked immediate practical consequences.The International Court of Justice did not order a halt to fighting in the Gaza Strip and made no attempt to rule on the merits of the case, a process that will take months — if not years — to complete.But the court did order Israel to comply with the Genocide Convention, send more aid to Gaza, and inform the court of its efforts to do so — interim measures that felt like a rebuke to Israelis and a moral victory to Palestinians.For many Israelis, the fact that a state founded in the aftermath of one genocide had been accused of another was “one hell of a symbol,” said Alon Pinkas, an Israeli p...