lifestyle

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I was at a social event, and a dance teacher I have taken a few classes with was also attending as a guest. She came over to say hi to the woman sitting next to me, and gave her a big hug. As the teacher turned away from her friend, her head and body were pointed towards me, less than 4 feet away. I said, “Hi, Delia.” She looked through me and walked away. I know for a fact that the teacher knows my name and face. I believe this is called a cut. I have done it to someone myself, once in my life. Now, I…

The startups and investors that have sent hopes soaring for “flying cars” could be in for a rough landing, in more ways than one.Hundreds of companies, new ones and legacy aviation players alike, are working on such vehicles—also called air taxis or eVTOLs (short for electric vertical take off and landing). Five such startups have gone public in the past 12 months. They are trying to shape a near future in which taking a flying cab is an economically viable alternative to taking a terrestrial one. The biggest stumbling…

Some of the economy’s most in-demand employees are about to find out how much power they have over where and how they work. After months of return-to-work starts and stops, many tech companies, including Alphabet Inc.’s GOOG 2.96% Google, Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. MSFT 2.26% , are telling remote workers it’s finally time to come back for good, or at least show up part of the week. Employees who fled the Bay Area…

If the sun is setting on Facebook, then TikTok is dancing in the moonlight. How long can its short-form video hold consumers’ fickle attention? Just a few years ago, China-based ByteDance’s TikTok was an app for kids, with videos of anthropomorphic pets or freakishly talented children dancing. Now it seems like everyone is using it, no matter their age. Its growth has come at the expense of its competition, such that just about every social-media company is now pouring money into copycat…

WeWork Inc.’s first-quarter loss narrowed sharply as gross desk sales reached prepandemic levels with the gradual return of employees in the U.S. to in-person work. The shared-office company said Thursday its top line rose 28% from a year ago, with 166,000 desks sold, the highest level since the first quarter of 2020. Revenue was higher than WeWork’s forecast for the period and the company raised the low end of its revenue outlook for the year. The results are the latest…

The pandemic has turned a lot of things upside down. That includes the week. For years, Mondays sort of haunted the weekend, a looming day when the fun would be over and it was time to get serious again. But as employers start asking their work-from-home people to come in part of the time, a different day is taking center stage: It’s Wednesday. At lunchtime on a recent Wednesday in Midtown Manhattan—a place that still bears plenty of pandemic vacancy—most tables were full at Oceana, Del Frisco’s, Boucherie,…

Southwest Airlines Co. LUV -2.89% plans to offer faster Wi-Fi, bigger overhead bins and in-seat power ports for the first time, as airlines compete to attract customers returning to travel.Airline executives said they hope the $2 billion of upgrades would be particularly attractive to business travelers, as Southwest makes a play to gain a bigger share of the corporate travel market. Southwest, which allows travelers up to two checked bags at no cost, had stuck with the…

Toyota Motor Corp. projected a 21% drop in net profit for the current fiscal year despite higher revenue, blaming higher material costs. Toyota shares fell following the announcement Wednesday. The shares closed down 4.4% in Tokyo trading Wednesday. The Japanese car maker said its net profit in the January-March quarter, the final quarter of the previous fiscal year, fell 31% compared with a year earlier to the equivalent of $4.1 billion, although revenue was up 5.5%.…

As countries across Asia reopen to international travelers, Japan — one of the continent's most popular destinations — remains firmly closed.That may soon change. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced Thursday at a news conference in London that Japan will ease border controls in June.Locals often celebrate the easing of pandemic-related border restrictions, but some in Japan say they are fine keeping the measures in place.Even before the pandemic, many locals preferred to travel within the country, with domestic tourism…

Americans itching to travel this summer after navigating Covid-19 for the past two years face a new disruption to plans: the rising cost of travel.Inflation rose to 8.5% in March compared with the same month a year earlier, according to the Labor Department’s consumer-price index—the highest rate in four decades. Gas prices are up about 50% from a year ago. Hotel costs jumped nearly 30%, and airline fares rose 24%, while vehicle-rental costs jumped nearly 14%. April figures set to be released on Wednesday aren’t expected…