living

When a payment app goes ding, we expect it’s somebody giving us money—or wanting money from us. It also could be someone we don’t want to hear from.Alexuis Baremore was asleep in her High Point, N.C., apartment early on Jan. 27 when Cash App’s coin-dropping alert woke her up. The 28-year-old slid her arm under her pillows to feel around for her phone, held it to her face…and then rolled her eyes. Her ex-boyfriend, whom she had blocked months earlier on social media and in her phone’s contact list, sent her $1 with just…

Complaints about air travel have nearly quadrupled compared with prepandemic levels after waves of cancellations, delays and lost baggage disrupted the travel plans of millions of fliers.Travelers lodged 60,732 complaints from January 2022 to November, according to a new report by U.S. Pirg Education Fund, a public interest research group which examined U.S. Department of Transportation data. The complaints targeted U.S. and foreign airlines, third-party booking sites, travel agents and others.  While the number of…

March 29, 2023 5:30 am ET The owners of New York private members club Fasano Fifth Avenue opened in spring 2021 with 12 fully furnished luxury rental residences on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, aiming to meet a demand for bookings of 30 to 60 days.  The new business didn’t turn out as planned. Some guests checked in for a stay of a month or two but ended up staying for a year to 18 months and more. “The…

Danielle Thomas dashed off one last Facebook post from Las Vegas on the way to check out of her hotel last week. It wasn’t like her others.Instead of nightclubs and a desert ATV tour, she featured a pile of Doritos, Cheetos, orange juice, coffee creamer and water bottles stashed next to a vending machine on the 16th floor at the Horseshoe Las Vegas hotel. They were leftovers from a Walmart delivery to her room at the start of her trip. The 38-year-old financial account representative from…

SUNGLASSES HAVE always played two roles: to shield your eyes from damaging UV rays, and to make you look cool. Just what constitutes “cool” has fluctuated with the decades—remember our early-2000s obsession with bedazzled frames? But few designs have more questionable associations than flip-up, clip-on shades, despite their ability to cleverly block or let in sunlight via a hinge attachment. While aviator sunglasses evoke Tom Cruise in “Top Gun” and understated black frames conjure…

Apple Inc. AAPL -0.76% has introduced its buy now, pay later service in the U.S., marking the tech company’s latest foray into financial services.  The new program, called Apple Pay Later, allows consumers to split purchases into four payments spread over six weeks with no interest and no fees. People using the iPhone’s Wallet app can borrow anywhere from $50 to $1,000 using Apple Pay Later.  The service can be used to…

Fans of the Child’s Play movies will want to seek out new documentary Living With Chucky—an affectionate portrait of the cult-beloved horror franchise that features interviews with most of its major players, including creator Don Mancini. The movie itself is a bit uneven, but the love it has for its source material comes through loud and clear.Living With Chucky is the feature debut for writer-director Kyra Elise Gardner, who has a personal connection: her father is veteran special effects artist Tony Gardner, whose many…

Beyoncé and Adidas AG have decided to end their fashion partnership, according to people familiar with the matter, splitting up after years of lackluster sales for her Ivy Park line of apparel. The partnership will end after the company releases Ivy Park collections of merchandise that are already planned for this year, the people said. The Hollywood Reporter earlier reported that the two sides were breaking up.…

Concert season is in full swing, with Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and other artists dominating calendars in the coming months. But a new villain is hurting the experience for many: superfans seeking five minutes of social-media fame.Homemade signs, screaming teenagers and bouncing beach balls aren’t new to concerts. What has changed is that, largely thanks to TikTok, any moment of a concert can go viral. More fans are trying to force that moment to happen with wild shenanigans, annoying noises or demands on artists to play…

WHETHER FOR work or play, traveling shifts your day to day. This is the point, of course—to put you in proximity to different people and places, perhaps even to abundant sunlight and frozen beverages. But these changes can have costs beyond your plane ticket. Many struggle to get sufficient sleep and enough exercise when home, nevermind remembering to apply moisturizer. When you don’t have access to your own bed, gym and products, true wellness can be even harder to achieve. Fitness professionals, who run half marathons…