Author: NY TIMES

Now that the Senate has approved a nearly $61 billion aid package to Ukraine, and with President Biden poised to sign it, desperately needed American weapons could be arriving on the battlefield within days.The weapons package — which has been delayed over political wrangling by House Republicans since last fall — is “a lifeline” for Kyiv’s military, said Yehor Cherniev, the deputy chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament’s national security committee.But it will not include everything that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has asked for as his military struggles to hold firm after two years of war against invading Russian forces.Here…

A utilitarian walk-in shower works just as well as something nicer, so why spend the time and effort — and the money — to upgrade it?“It boils down to the idea of comfort at home,” said Paloma Contreras, an interior designer in Houston. Your shower, she explained, is “a space where you’re setting the stage for the day. If you’re aesthetically attuned to your environment, it impacts your state of mind.”If you’re renovating, you don’t have to resort to generic materials and fixtures, or whatever your contractor suggests. The goal, Ms. Contreras said, is to “surround yourself with a space…

On the outskirts of Chongqing, western China’s largest city, sits a huge symbol of the country’s glut of car factories. It’s a complex of gray buildings, nearly a square mile in size. The thousands of employees who used to work there have moved on. Its crimson loading docks are closed.The facility, a former assembly plant and engine factory, had been a joint venture of a Chinese company and Hyundai, the South Korean giant. The complex opened in 2017 with robots and other equipment to make gasoline-powered cars. Hyundai sold the campus late last year for a fraction of the $1.1…

A bill that would force a sale of TikTok by its Chinese owner, ByteDance — or ban it outright — was passed by the Senate on Tuesday and is expected to be signed quickly into law by President Biden.Now the process is likely to get even more complicated.Congress passed the measure citing national security concerns because of TikTok’s Chinese ties. Both lawmakers and security experts have said there are risks that the Chinese government could lean on ByteDance for access to sensitive data belonging to its 170 million U.S. users or to spread propaganda.The proposed law would allow TikTok to…

Soon after Alex was born at 25 weeks, with multiple catastrophic disorders, Mary Jane’s husband, unable to cope, fled their marriage. Still, she hopes he “finds some peace, I really do.”She also thinks kindly of her boss, who means to accommodate her but pretty much fails to. “It’s daily moral agony for her,” Mary Jane marvels. “It’s really something to behold.”Mary Jane’s own moral agony is likewise something to behold. She feels guilty about putting the super of her Queens building, where she shares a junior one-bedroom with Alex, in a difficult position by removing the window guards. “It’s just…

A deputy minister of defense in Russia has been detained on charges of taking a “large scale” bribe, the country’s top law enforcement investigators announced on Tuesday.The brief announcement from the Investigative Committee divulged few details about what had led to Timur Ivanov, the deputy minister, being taken into custody. But the legal statute that he is accused of violating is for taking a bribe “on a particularly large scale,” more than one million rubles, or more than $10,000.The Ministry of Defense did not comment on the investigation.Mr. Ivanov, a deputy defense minister since 2016, had long been in charge…

Group ChatMy high school friends restart a group text. Basic holiday wishes turn to cheering on professional accomplishments and then to art, music and book recommendations. We send memes, pictures, Spotify links. Most of us have not seen one another in nearly two decades, yet we remember the smell of each other’s childhood homes, how NPR was always playing. There is a sturdiness here, not just in our friendships enduring, but in the reminder that we existed before all this — the babies, the career ambitions, the illnesses. And that, so far, we’ve survived it all. — Kathleen DonahoeEverything TogetherWalking…

The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday said employers could no longer, in most cases, stop their employees from going to work for rival companies.The sweeping action could help create jobs, raise wages and increase competition among businesses, the agency said. But the action is all but certain to be challenged in court by businesses that say they need to protect trade secrets and confidential information.The move bars contracts known as noncompetes, which prevent workers from leaving for a competitor for a certain amount of time, in most circumstances. Noncompetes cover about 30 million U.S. workers, the trade commission said, in…

Federal regulators on Tuesday said that samples of pasteurized milk from around the country had tested positive for inactive remnants of the bird flu virus that has been infecting dairy cows.The viral fragments do not pose a threat to consumers, officials said. “To date, we have seen nothing that would change our assessment that the commercial milk supply is safe,” the Food and Drug Administration said in a statement.Over the last month, a bird flu virus known as H5N1 has been detected in more than 30 dairy herds in eight states. The virus is also known to have infected one…

▶ Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube3. Cher: “Just Like Jesse James”Here’s another legend who had never been nominated before this year, as a solo artist or as a part of Sonny & Cher. The big question now is whether Cher — who is justifiably salty about how long it took for her to be recognized — will show up to the ceremony. As she said on Kelly Clarkson’s show just a few months ago, “I wouldn’t be in it now if they gave me a million dollars. I’m never going to change my mind. They can just go…