Author: NY TIMES

President Biden on Wednesday called for major increases to some tariffs on steel and aluminum products from China, speaking to members of a national steelworkers union in Pittsburgh as he vies with former President Donald J. Trump for votes in Northern industrial states.“These are strategic and targeted actions that are going to protect American workers and ensure fair competition,” Mr. Biden told a crowd of about 100 union members at the United Steelworkers, which endorsed him last month. “Meanwhile, my predecessor and the MAGA Republicans want across-the-board tariffs on all imports, from all countries, that could badly hurt American consumers.”The…

Atlas, the humanoid robot that dazzled followers for more than a decade with its outdoor running, awkward dancing and acrobatic back flips, has powered down. In other words, it is retiring.On Wednesday, Boston Dynamics, the company that created it, announced the arrival of the next generation of humanoid robots — a fully electric robot (also named Atlas) for real-world commercial and industrial applications.For anyone worried about what would happen to the hydraulic bipedal machine (a robot home? the junkyard? a window display?) that was created for research purposes, the company had an answer. A spokesman, Nikolas Noel, said that retirement…

In March 1912, the famous violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe visited the home of his fellow musician Raoul Pugno in Paris. At the piano, Pugno played and sang through “La Ville Morte,” an opera he was writing with Nadia Boulanger, a mentee-turned-collaborator 35 years his junior.“Of this very private performance,” Ysaÿe wrote to Boulanger later that month, “I keep the most profound and happiest impression.” The opera, he told her, was “so beautiful, so sound, so poignant.”“La Ville Morte” was the most ambitious project of Boulanger’s young composing career. And once it took shape, with a piano-vocal score completed that…

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain on Monday combined a strong condemnation of Iran’s weekend attack on Israel with a call for restraint from “all sides,” adding that he was working with allies to lower tensions in the region.Speaking to the British Parliament, Mr. Sunak described Iran’s assault as a “reckless and dangerous escalation,” confirmed that British planes had destroyed an undisclosed number of Iranian drones, and said that — faced with such threats — “Israel has our full support.”But in a finely calibrated set of comments to lawmakers, Mr. Sunak also said that “all sides must show restraint.” He…

Iranian journalists in London have experienced death threats, intimidation and online abuse. One broadcaster working for BBC Persian, the Persian language branch of the BBC World Service, which has its headquarters in London, had her car broken into, and her conversations with family members were tapped.And last month, Pouria Zeraati, a newscaster with Iran International, a Persian-language opposition TV channel that operates from Britain, was stabbed in the leg outside his London apartment.The three suspected perpetrators of that attack traveled to Heathrow Airport and left the country within hours, according to the Metropolitan Police Service, which is responsible for policing…

After a tough regular season loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, the New Orleans Pelicans looked for redemption in their first game of the NBA Play-In Tournament on Tuesday. Instead of redemption, the Pelicans suffered a high-intensity game and ultimately lost 110-106 after star Zion Williamson scored 40 points and went out early.With the win, the Lakers will face the defending champion Nuggets in Denver in the first round of the playoffs on Saturday. The Pelicans will face the Sacramento Kings, who defeated the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday, in Friday’s elimination round.James scored a team-high 23 points while also…

As a boy in Tennessee, Jared Barnes learned from his great-grandfather to place his lanky tomato seedlings on their sides when he was transplanting them, so they could root in all along their stems.It was one of many gifts of horticultural knowledge that he derived from their time together. But besides getting young Jared off to a strong start in the garden, like those fledgling plants, they taught him something else: We gardeners will always have questions, with each new plant or task or problem, and we need reliable sources we can turn to — someone to ask, who will…

For the past 40 years, the Sundance Film Festival, the influential annual gathering focused on independent film, has been indelibly linked with the snowy mountain town of Park City, Utah. That may change.The Sundance Institute, the nonprofit organization that runs the festival, announced Wednesday that with its 13-year contract with the city set to expire in 2026, it will begin a review process to determine whether it should move. It will now start seeking information from other U.S. cities interested in hosting the festival, which traditionally takes place in January. Beginning in May, the institute will request proposals from cities…

Facing criticism that it is overly beholden to Elon Musk, Tesla’s board of directors said on Wednesday that it would essentially give him everything he wanted, including the biggest pay package in corporate history.If setbacks in court and the car market have induced any soul searching among Tesla’s board, there was no sign of it in the latest announcement. If anything, the board doubled down on backing Mr. Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, risking riling up activist investors and more litigation.The board’s decision to ask shareholders to endorse a compensation plan for Mr. Musk that is worth about $47 billion came…

Last spring, Tia Washington, 52, a mother of three in Dublin, Calif., received a stern warning from her doctor: If she didn’t quickly gain control of her high blood pressure, she was likely to end up in the emergency room.He wrote a prescription for blood pressure medication and urged her to see a health coach, too. Ms. Washington reluctantly agreed.“I didn’t want to die,” she said.To her surprise, the health coach wanted to talk about more than vital signs. Ms. Washington found herself opening up about how she disliked doctors (and medications). How she tended to address the needs of…