Author: NY TIMES

Meta on Wednesday reported a 27 percent increase in revenue and profit that more than doubled in the first quarter, as the company said it planned to spend billions of dollars more than expected on infrastructure to support its artificial intelligence efforts.Revenue for the company, which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, was $36.5 billion in the first quarter, up from $28.6 billion a year ago and slightly above Wall Street estimates of $36.1 billion, according to data compiled by FactSet. Profit was $12.4 billion, up from $5.7 billion a year earlier.“It’s been a good start to the year,” said…

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the sale of an antibiotic for the treatment of urinary tract infections in women, giving U.S. health providers a powerful new tool to combat a common infection that is increasingly unresponsive to the existing suite of antimicrobial drugs.The drug, pivmecillinam, has been used in Europe for more than 40 years, where it is often a first-line therapy for women with uncomplicated U.T.I.’s, meaning the infection is confined to the bladder and has not reached the kidneys. The drug will be marketed in the U.S. as Pivya and will be made available by…

On Tuesday night, the Metropolitan Opera continued to play a bit of catch-up with the American composer John Adams.As a Minimalist of striking imagination and moral probity, Adams has developed a distinct musical style and point of view that have earned him a firm place in the pantheon of American art music over the past 40 years or so. His operas, though, didn’t make it to the Met stage until 2008, when “Doctor Atomic” had its East Coast premiere. “Nixon in China” followed in 2011 and “The Death of Klinghoffer” in 2014, decades after they were written. These are Adams’s…

When Maryam Arafat, her husband and their three young children fled their home in Gaza City under Israeli bombardment, it was the dead of winter. Forced to shelter in a ramshackle tent in Deir al Balah, the family shivered during the bitterly cold nights, as there was no fuel to heat up and not enough clothes to stay warm.Since then, the weather has turned hot and humid in the coastal Gaza Strip, and that same tent has become unbearable and suffocating.“The tent feels like it’s on fire,” Ms. Arafat, 23, said. “It’s so hot you can’t bear it, especially with…

As the largest and deadliest war in Europe since the end of World War II stretches into its third year, the scale of the devastation wrought by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues to mount. The front line is a place of ghastly violence where hundreds of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded, according to conservative Western estimates. The list of Ukrainian cities and towns largely razed to the ground by Russian bombs and artillery grows with each passing month.Russian forces have moved forward in small increments, suffering a staggering number of casualties to take…

For Bernie Williams, grabbing the bat was easy. On all occasions during his New York Yankees career, whether it was spring training or the postseason, whether he faced flamethrowers or knuckleballers, he would produce the same trustworthy 34 1/2-inch, 33 oz. Rawlings model.However, music is different.”The guitar was chosen for performance,” Williams said. “It’s about the sound you want to create, it’s about the music you want to play. You need the right instrument for the right performance, and that changes over time.As the former outfielder prepares to make his second major league debut — this time in the Arts…

In the run-up to Meta’s first-quarter earnings report this week, a video image of Mark Zuckerberg suddenly started going viral.Not because of the artificial intelligence assistant he was touting or because of the expected ad revenue growth, but because of the silver chain he was wearing around his neck.“Mark Zuckerberg made an announcement about something Meta is doing with A.I., but I could not listen to or retain a second of it because when I look at the Reel of him talking, all I see is necklace,” Amy Odell wrote in her Substack, Back Row.Later, a doctored version of the…

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…