Author: NY TIMES

Reddit on Wednesday priced its shares at $34 for its initial public offering, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The pricing was at the high end of expectations, in a sign of investor demand for growing tech companies.The San Francisco-based social media company had estimated that its shares would be priced at $31 to $34. The $34 price put Reddit’s value at $6.4 billion, below the $10 billion valuation it fetched in a private fund-raising round in 2021. The company raised $748 million in the offering, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.Its shares will…

A young woman visited New York Eye & Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai Hospital shortly after the eclipse of Aug. 21, 2017. She told Dr. Avnish Deobhakta, an ophthalmologist, that she had a black area in her vision, and then drew a crescent shape for him on a piece of paper.When Dr. Deobhakta examined her eyes, he was astonished. He saw a burn on her retina that was exactly the same shape. It was “almost like a branding,” he said.She had looked at the sun during the eclipse without any protection. The burn was an image of the sun’s outer…

From the first seconds of Vampire Weekend’s new album, “Only God Was Above Us,” it’s clear that something has changed. “Ice Cream Piano” starts with hiss, buzz, feedback and a hovering, distorted guitar note — the opposite of the clean pop tones that have been the band’s hallmark. It’s the beginning of an album full of startling changes and wild sonic upheavals, all packed into 10 songs.The new album, like all of Vampire Weekend’s work, is meticulous, self-conscious and awash in musical and verbal allusions — sometimes direct, sometimes cryptic. But it’s also a broad pendulum swing from its 2019…

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, the first stop of a Mideast trip amid efforts to broker a deal between Israel and Hamas for a pause in Israel’s offensive in Gaza, the release of Israeli hostages and a flow of more humanitarian aid into the Palestinian territory.The visit to the city of Jeddah comes as the Biden administration hopes it can convince Saudi Arabia to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, a long-term objective that the United States considers important to stabilizing the broader Middle East.The State Department said that Mr. Blinken would be in…

The Blue Lagoon resort in the south of Iceland is a scenic network of steaming azure pools surrounded by dark rocks, where tourists dip in the geothermal water, have spa treatments and enjoy what the resort advertises as “a universe of radiant well-being.”But last week, a stream of radiant lava burst from a crater a few miles from the resort, forcing it to evacuate hundreds of guests, in yet another eruption of a volcano system in the Reykjanes Peninsula that had been dormant for 800 years.The outbursts began in 2021, and the eruptions and earthquakes in the peninsula have destroyed…

Superiority Burger, the popular East Village restaurant, has dropped its managing partner, Ashwin Deshmukh, following a New York Times story about a network of people who have accused Mr. Deshmukh of stealing from them over the years.In a letter to investors on Tuesday, Brooks Headley, the chef at Superiority Burger, and Sheryl Heefner, the general manager, said they had parted ways with Mr. Deshmukh and announced that they would conduct an internal review of the business’s records.Superiority Burger has been sued three times this year: twice by an investor, June Kwan, who asserted that she had not been paid back…

A Texas man was arrested in Salt Lake City on Sunday after he boarded a Delta Air Lines flight without a ticket by using a photo he had taken of another passenger’s boarding pass while they were not looking, according to court documents.The man, Wicliff Yves Fleurizard, 26, faces one felony count of stowaways on vessels or aircraft, according to a complaint filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in Utah. He was being held at the Salt Lake County Metro Jail, according to the Salt Lake City Police Department.After boarding a Delta flight bound for Austin, Texas, on Sunday,…

This month, many of the 80 million owners of Roku devices, including streaming sticks, set-top boxes and internet-connected TVs running the company’s streaming software, turned on their Rokus to see a block of text. I, the owner of a cheap Roku TV in my bedroom, was among those who got stuck with the screen.The message gave updated terms of service that made it harder for customers to take legal action against the company. Unless they agreed, users were blocked from access to the Roku menu and apps, essentially bricking their devices. The only way to opt out was to mail…

Scientists in a prominent cancer lab at Columbia University have now had four studies retracted and a stern note added to a fifth accusing it of “severe abuse of the scientific publishing system,” the latest fallout from research misconduct allegations recently leveled against several leading cancer scientists.A scientific sleuth in Britain last year uncovered discrepancies in data published by the Columbia lab, including the reuse of photos and other images across different papers. The New York Times reported last month that a medical journal in 2022 had quietly taken down a stomach cancer study by the researchers after an internal…

One spring morning in 1970, the model Pattie Boyd was having breakfast at her ramshackle mansion in the English countryside when she received a letter marked “Urgent.”Inside the envelope was a short, lovesick note. “Dearest L,” the letter began, adding later, “It seems like an eternity since I last saw or spoke to you!” As Boyd read on, the note took on a desperate tone: “If there is still a feeling in your heart for me … you must let me know!”“Don’t telephone,” the emotional scribe added. “Send a letter … that is much safer.”The author signed off with a…