Author: NY TIMES

Listeners are tuning out. Sponsorship revenue has dipped. A diversity push has generated internal turmoil. Can America’s public radio network turn things around? Source link

Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the giant cryptocurrency exchange Binance, should go to prison for three years after breaking the law “on an unprecedented scale” and pleading guilty to a money laundering violation, federal prosecutors wrote in a court filing on Wednesday.Defense lawyers countered in their own memo that Mr. Zhao, 47, should receive no prison time and face a sentence of probation, arguing that he had accepted responsibility for his crime and showed a commitment to philanthropy.A federal judge in Seattle, Richard A. Jones, is set to evaluate those dueling recommendations at a sentencing hearing for Mr. Zhao on…

School meals will soon contain less salt and sugar, but can still include chocolate milk, under new nutrition guidelines released by the Biden administration.The Agriculture Department announced on Wednesday that it had finalized the regulation it had first proposed in February 2023, having weakened several provisions after feedback from food companies, school nutrition professionals and over 136,000 public comments.“All of this is designed to ensure that students have quality meals and that we meet parents’ expectation that their children are receiving healthy and nutritious meals at school,” Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary, said in a call with reporters on Tuesday.The…

RZA, the leader of the groundbreaking hip-hop collective Wu-Tang Clan, is a producer, rapper, writer, director, film scorer and actor. He is also a promoter of a meatless lifestyle.The 54-year-old creator gave up red meat in the mid-1990s, followed by chicken, fish, and eventually dairy and eggs. He has since worked with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, started a vegan clothing line and appeared in a surreal video series with other Wu-Tang members to promote White Castle’s meatless Impossible Sliders.In a recent interview, RZA, whose real name is Robert Fitzgerald Diggs, talked about why he went vegan, cultural…

Germany said on Wednesday that it would resume funding for the main U.N. agency aiding Palestinians in Gaza, known as UNRWA, after an independent review found that Israel had not provided evidence of an allegation that led many donor nations to withdraw support for the agency.The announcement was likely to cause further strain in Germany’s longstanding close ties with Israel, which have deteriorated because of differences over the war in Gaza.Germany, which gave more than $200 million to UNRWA in 2023, is the agency’s second largest donor after the United States, which has also withdrawn its funding and has yet…

Hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied during a Passover Seder event near the home of Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, on Tuesday evening.Credit…Adam Gray for The New York TimesAs Senator Chuck Schumer of New York prepared for a final vote to pass an aid package that would provide $26 billion to Israel and billions more to Ukraine and Taiwan, approximately 200 protesters were arrested, according to the police, after blocking traffic in his Brooklyn neighborhood on the second night of Passover to call for an end to the United States’ military support of Israel.Though Mr. Schumer, the Democratic majority leader,…

Dan Capuano’s funeral was standing room only at Cassia Santa Rita High School on Chicago’s Southwest Side. Hundreds of firefighters from Chicago and across the country participate in the event. Members of the St. Jude Knights Youth Hockey Club were also in attendance wearing their jerseys.Capuano’s sons, Andrew and Nick, play for the Knights, a Northern Illinois Hockey League program that feeds many of Chicago’s strong Catholic schools. Nick’s team won the 2012-13 Squirt A state championship.Dan was killed in the line of duty while fighting a warehouse fire on the South Side on December 14, 2015, after dedicating much…

Ever since my wife was a girl, she was close to her stepfather, a lovely man who has now passed away. She always said he was her one and only father, and she had no interest in knowing who her biological father was. Recently, though, she hinted to me that she would like to know her biological father’s identity. But time is running out: We are in our 60s and her mother is approaching 90. Her mother is a forceful woman, and she has always been frank that it was her intention to become a single mother. She never mentioned…

Sky-high mortgage rates and other elevated borrowing costs are pinching American consumers ahead of the 2024 election, threatening President Biden’s chances at a second term.Yet so far, Mr. Biden has not called on the Federal Reserve, which has raised interest rates to their highest levels in more than two decades, to slash those costs.The White House has repeatedly cited the Fed’s independence as the reason that Mr. Biden will not push the Fed to cut interest rates. But some Democrats are now urging the president to jettison that approach. That is because the central bank, which was expected to cut…

In the last few days, you may have noticed something new inside Meta’s apps, including Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp: an artificially intelligent chatbot.Within those apps, you can chat with Meta AI and type in questions and requests like “What’s the weather this week in New York?” or “Write a poem about two dogs living in San Francisco.” The assistant will come up with responses immediately, such as “The corgi was short, with a butt so wide, the lab was tall, with a tongue that would glide.” You can also instruct Meta AI to produce pictures — like an illustration of…