In early December, Nicolò Villa, a jeweler from Milan, was in Manhattan for a trunk show when he spotted a pre-owned Rolex Lady-Datejust with a blue-green opal dial in a shop on West 47th Street. At 26 millimeters in diameter, the watch’s two-tone case was only slightly larger than a 25-cent piece. Mr. Villa bought…
When your mind hates running even more than your body does, you have to strategize.
A brutish granite ridge soared above us in the moonlight. The snow that should not have been there in July seemed to go on forever. We were already short of breath, and weirdly, there were almost no other hikers. Even though I had trained for this, I felt stupidly out of my depth. We were…
Insurance companies have long blamed private-equity-owned hospitals and physician groups for exorbitant billing that drives up health care costs. But a tool backed by private equity is helping insurers make billions of dollars and shift costs to patients. The tool, Data iSight, is the premier offering of a cost-containment firm called MultiPlan that has attracted…
Good morning. It’s skinned-knuckle season, the time of the year that’s all about stuck bolts and crushed washers and hydraulic fluid and bottom paint, sacrificial zincs and ceramic wax — old boats coaxed back to health so they can run us to the fishing grounds, so we can cast flies to bass. I skinned my…
Some refer to it simply as “the Geneva show.” Others default to an older iteration of the watch fair, calling it S.I.H.H. (Salon International de la Haute Horlogerie). But everyone, from first-time invitee to seasoned collector, seems to agree on one thing: Preparing for a week of debuts, appointments and conversations — otherwise known as…
Many of the world’s most inventive, expensive and best-known watches are made in factories in Switzerland, where the view that watchmakers see when they raise their eyes from their workbenches is likely to be cows grazing on the slopes of snow-capped mountains. It’s the Vallée de Joux, home to factories or offices for Audemars Piguet,…
As the Israeli military campaign to destroy Hamas pummeled his neighborhood in northern Gaza, reducing buildings to rubble and forcing residents to flee, the Palestinian laborer realized that he was running out of food. The shops had closed, the markets had emptied and fighting prevented supplies from reaching them. So he and his remaining neighbors…
Large health insurers are working with a little-known data company to boost their profits, often at the expense of patients and doctors, a New York Times investigation found. A private-equity-backed firm called MultiPlan has helped drive down payments to medical providers and drive up patients’ bills, while earning billions of dollars in fees for itself…
Weeks after undergoing heart surgery, Gail Lawson found herself back in an operating room. Her incision wasn’t healing, and an infection was spreading. At a hospital in Ridgewood, N.J., Dr. Sidney Rabinowitz performed a complex, hourslong procedure to repair tissue and close the wound. While recuperating, Ms. Lawson phoned the doctor’s office in a panic.…