Author: NY TIMES

Debates can get, well, ugly in Congress, but rarely do they descend to the level of physical taunts. Yet that is exactly what happened on Thursday during a meeting of the House Oversight Committee.During a discussion about whether Attorney General Merrick B. Garland should be held in contempt of Congress, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, told Representative Jasmine Crockett, a Democrat from Texas, “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading.”Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York whose own signature red lipstick has become something of an online lightning rod, then leaped to…

When President Donald J. Trump left office, some of Wall Street’s biggest names, who had taken to him during his first term in the White House, swore they were moving on from him for good. They were fatigued by his leadership style, disappointed by some of his policies and shocked by the U.S. Capitol riot. Some of them even savaged him publicly.Their stated distaste didn’t last. With Mr. Trump leading in the polls, big financiers on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are edging into his corner, according to interviews with more than a dozen people who sought anonymity…

As it is in the United States, TikTok is popular in Taiwan, used by a quarter of the island’s 23 million residents.People post videos of themselves shopping for trendy clothes, dressing up as video game characters and playing pranks on their roommates. Influencers share their choreographed dances and debate whether the sticky rice dumplings are better in Taiwan’s north or south.Taiwanese users of TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese internet giant ByteDance, are also served the kind of pro-China content that the U.S. Congress cited as a reason it passed a law that could result in a ban of…

‘13 Bombs’Stream it on Netflix.The espionage action-thriller “13 Bombs” acutely blends quick back-stabbing with big explosions. In the film, interest rates and economic inequality are running rampant in Jakarta, Indonesia. To even the odds, a Robin Hood-type group, led by a mysterious figure code-named Arok (Rio Dewanto), has planted 13 bombs across the city that will explode if thee group isn’t paid a ransom in crypto cash. As a result, two unwitting crypto traders named Oscar (Chicco Kurniawan) and William (Ardhito Pramono) are picked up by Karin (Putri Ayudya), a steely counterintelligence agent who is worried about a mole in…

Smoke rises following an airstrike in Gaza, as seen from southern Israel, on Friday.Credit…Tsafrir Abayov/Associated PressLawyers representing Israel on Friday defended the military operation in Rafah as “limited and localized,” arguing at the United Nations’ top court that the judges should not seek to restrict Israel’s actions in Gaza.At a hearing at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Israel responded to a South African petition for the court to order an immediate halt to its ground assault in Rafah.Israeli forces have advanced into the outskirts of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, over the past week and a half, ordering…

When Alexandra Vasilia Voyatzakis first saw Pontus Mikael Henriksson on the dating app Bumble in the summer of 2018, she did not swipe right, but not because he wasn’t her type. (He definitely was.)“I distinctly remember seeing his face,” said Ms. Voyatzakis, noting that she had found him attractive. But she was also worried. She had an unfortunate dating history when it came to dating handsome men, which her friends often referred to as “model-y types,” she said. Those relationships always failed.But when she saw Mr. Henriksson appear in her search again in early January 2019, she decided to give…

The research firm Morningstar evaluated 10 H.S.A. plans in October using criteria like fees, interest on savings and investment choices. (The firm looked only at accounts available directly to individuals, rather than those offered through employers, so details may vary.) Fidelity Investments was the only provider rated “high” overall for both spending and investing. Its H.S.A. offered an interest rate on savings well above 2 percent, while its competitors paid less than 1 percent.“That’s a big shortcoming,” said Greg Carlson, senior manager research analyst at Morningstar.Here are some questions and answers about health accounts:How can I best avoid having money…

As a reporter who covers sex and intimacy, I spend a lot of time listening to experts extol the virtues of open, honest communication. To have good sex — and to keep having good sex over time — couples must be willing to talk about it, they say.But some people would rather leave their relationships than have those conversations, said Jeffrey Chernin, a marriage and family therapist and the author of “Achieving Intimacy: How to Have a Loving Relationship That Lasts” — especially if things in the bedroom aren’t going particularly well.“One of the things I often say to couples…

Eilish’s 2019 debut album, “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?,” mapped gothic nightmares, adolescent obsessions and lingering traumas along with an occasional giggle. Her second, “Happier Than Ever” in 2021, reacted directly to the attention, shock, exploitation, stalking, exhaustion and newfound power that success brought her.“Skinny” is a hushed update on Eilish’s superstardom. “Am I acting my age now?/Am I already on the way out?,” she sings, along with thoughts on her body shape, finding nontoxic love, her sense of isolation and a resigned reaction to social media: “The internet is hungry for the meanest kind of…

Israel said on Thursday that it would send more troops to Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, which has become the focal point in the war between Israel and Hamas.The announcement signaled that Israel intends to press deeper into Rafah despite international concerns about the threat to civilians from a full-scale invasion of the city, where more than a million displaced people had been sheltering.“Hundreds of targets have already been attacked,” Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, said after meeting with commanders in the Rafah area. “This operation will continue.”For the past week Israel has described its offensive as a limited…