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U.N. Unveils Blacklist to Fight North Korea Sanctions-Busting

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U.N. Unveils Blacklist to Fight North Korea Sanctions-Busting Photo The Friendship Bridge connecting North Korea, background, and China. The North is accused of using false paperwork to evade sanctions on its coal exports. Credit Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times SEOUL, South Korea — The United Nations Security Council has announced new measures against North Korea, blacklisting 27 ships, 21 shipping companies and one individual accused of helping the North evade previous sanctions.
The move increases pressure on the North ahead of planned summit meetings between its leader, Kim Jong-un, and the presidents of South Korea and the United States.
The oil tankers and cargo ships on the list, announced on Friday, were banned from ports worldwide, and the shipping companies will face an asset freeze. Most of those named had also been blacklisted by the United States Treasury last month.
In response to North Korea’s rapid acceleration of its nuclear and missile programs, the Security Council..

After Driving Streaming Music’s Rise, Spotify Aims to Cash In

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Supported by Media After Driving Streaming Music’s Rise, Spotify Aims to Cash In Photo Daniel Ek, a co-founder and the chief executive of Spotify, at an investor presentation in March. The Swedish company’s shares will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. Credit Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Spotify Back in Spotify’s early days, when the company was just a dozen people in a small office in Stockholm, Daniel Ek, a co-founder, liked to compare it to Apple and Google.
It was 2008, and the traditional music industry was collapsing. Yet as Spotify introduced its streaming service in a handful of European countries, it clung to what must have seemed an impossible ambition: challenging the titans of Silicon Valley to become the world’s leading outlet for online music, with a hybrid free-and-paid model that made record companies nervous.
After a decade, the start-up from Sweden has proved itself a worthy adversary, with 157 million users around the world, 71 million..

Bobbi Brown Is Ready to Slay the Wellness Industry. Nicely.

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Bobbi Brown Is Ready to Slay the Wellness Industry. Nicely. When you’ve done the makeup of basically everyone in the world except the queen of England, what else could be next?
MONTCLAIR, N.J. — On a strangely warm morning in late winter, the cosmetics tycoon Bobbi Brown was in her new headquarters here: a former auto body shop left with pipes exposed and concrete floor unfinished. On a bookshelf was a case that used to belong to Frank Sinatra’s makeup man; a sign reading, “I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss”; and a photo of Ms. Brown dancing onstage with the rap star Flo Rida, “with my 14-year-old son watching in amazement or horror,” she said. “Please don’t find it on YouTube.”
Against one wall was an inspiration board with pictures of the many, many fashion models whose faces Ms. Brown has daubed. “I’m a crazy visual person — words are hard for me,” she said. “I can’t make a business plan, but I could visually explain what I want to do, which is good if you can read my brain and in order ..

In Balkans Tour, Russia’s Night Wolves, a Bike Gang, Are More Bark Than Bite

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In Balkans Tour, Russia’s Night Wolves, a Bike Gang, Are More Bark Than Bite Photo Members of the Night Wolves motorcycle gang visiting a monastery in Serbia. The gang’s tour, funded with a grant from the Kremlin, was billed as a “pilgrimage” meant to showcase the shared Orthodox faith of Russia and the region. Credit Laura Boushnak for The New York Times BANJA LUKA, Bosnia and Herzegovina — The Night Wolves, a Russian motorcycle gang known as “Putin’s Angels” and widely feared as agents of meddling and mayhem beyond Russia’s borders, provoked more bemusement and giggles than awe on their latest outing, a nine-day tour of the Balkans designed to show that Russia still had some fervent friends left in Europe.
Instead of roaring into town amid throbbing engines and clouds of smoke, the tattooed, potbellied bikers arrived by car and minivan in Banja Luka, the capital of Republika Srpska, a would-be state born in bloodshed during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.
Anxious about the cold weather..

Tiger Woods Is Back. Will Sponsors Buy In?

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Supported by Business Day Tiger Woods Is Back. Will Sponsors Buy In? In the past few weeks, Tiger Woods has made a seemingly improbable comeback on the golf course. But can his image rebound the same way off it?
That is the question that brands and advertisers are posing as Mr. Woods returns to the Masters on Thursday for the first time since 2015, while playing his best golf in years. The past month has brought swelling television ratings and overcrowded, rowdy galleries for Mr. Woods’s PGA Tour appearances. When he finished in a second-place tie at the Valspar Championship in early March — at one point sinking a 44-foot birdie putt that had the crowd screaming — the television ratings for the final round were the highest for a non-major tournament since 2013. For a time, the streaming service of PGA Tour Live crashed because of “unprecedented traffic.”
All this is evoking memories of the unprecedented fan interest that made Mr. Woods one of the most recognized — and influential ..