Author: NY TIMES

Two Chinas inhabit the American imagination: One is a technology and manufacturing superpower poised to lead the world. The other is an economy that’s on the verge of collapse.Each reflects a real aspect of China.One China — let’s call it hopeful China — is defined by companies like the A.I. start-up DeepSeek, the electric vehicle giant BYD and the tech powerhouse Huawei. All are innovation leaders.Jensen Huang, the chief executive of the Silicon Valley chip giant Nvidia, said China was “not behind” the United States in artificial intelligence development. Quite a few pundits have declared that China would dominate the…

The Federal Railroad Administration, the nation’s railroad agency, has brought in the Boring Company, the tunneling firm founded by Elon Musk, to see if it could help with a multibillion-dollar Amtrak project, according to three people familiar with the discussions.Federal Railroad Administration officials have talked with employees at the Boring Company about assessing the costs and progress of the Frederick Douglass Tunnel program, a new tunnel along a busy Amtrak stretch connecting Baltimore to Washington and Virginia. Amtrak initially expected the development to cost $6 billion, but now estimates it could cost as much as $8.5 billion.As part of the…

President Trump on Monday signed an executive order asking drugmakers to voluntarily reduce the prices of key medicines in the United States.But the order cites no obvious legal authority to mandate lower prices. The order said the administration would consider taking regulatory actions or importing drugs from other countries in the future if drugmakers do not comply.It was something of a win for the pharmaceutical industry, which had been bracing for a policy that would be much more damaging to its interests.Last week, Mr. Trump hyped a coming announcement that was “as big as it gets.” And on Sunday evening,…

At trial, Sean Combs will be represented by a large and varied defense team — one that has grown even larger and more varied in recent days.Since early in the government’s investigation, Mr. Combs has retained Marc Agnifilo and Teny Geragos of the firm Agnifilo Intrater.Mr. Agnifilo is a longtime criminal defense attorney who has represented high-profile figures like the former pharma executive Martin Shkreli; Keith Raniere, the leader of the Nxivm sex cult; and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, who in 2011 was accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid in New York.…

Edan Alexander, 21, is the last living American citizen held by Hamas in Gaza. On Sunday, the Palestinian militant group said it would free him, just days before President Trump is set to travel to the Middle East.Who is Edan Alexander?Mr. Alexander is an American Israeli dual citizen who grew up in Tenafly, N.J.In 2022, during his senior year of high school, he joined Garin Tzabar, which prepares young people from around the world to join the Israel Defense Forces. He moved to Israel to serve in the military after he graduated and was assigned to the infantry.Mr. Alexander was…

When I met the writer Amy Larocca at a cafe in the Boerum Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn on a recent afternoon, I could not help but notice: She had the glow. Or seemed to.The glow, as Ms. Larocca explains in her new book, “How to Be Well: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic, One Dubious Cure at a Time,” is what happens when you purify yourself “from the inside out.” When you never miss a day of your skin care routine, regularly drain your lymphatic fluids and take your collagen supplements. But to truly glow, you must also practice mindfulness, self-care and,…

The Rev. Gosbert Rwezahura opened Mass on Sunday morning by saying what everyone in the pews was thinking. “Habemus papam!” he exclaimed at Christ Our Savior Parish in South Holland, Ill. Beaming, he added, “He is one of our own!”It was the first Sunday in American history with an American pope seated on the throne of St. Peter in Rome. At parishes across the country, Catholics filed into the pews with a sense of wonder, hope and pride over Pope Leo XIV.At Christ Our Savior, the pride was personal: Today’s parish was formed from others in the area around the…

Deal or no deal? That’s what financial markets and businesses are waiting to learn.A weekend of productive trade talks in Geneva between the United States and China resulted in a “deal,” said Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative and one of the main negotiators for the Trump administration. His Chinese counterpart expressed optimism, but with a less emphatic take.He Lifeng, China’s vice premier for economic policy, who led the talks for the Chinese, said the discussions had been constructive and that an “important consensus” had been reached. Without providing details, he said the two sides had agreed to establish…

Walking into the crowded hotel conference room, Andrew Batey looked like any other tech guy attending ETHDenver, an annual cryptocurrency conference. A venture capital investor based in Florida, Mr. Batey wore a black sweatshirt emblazoned with the logos of more than a dozen crypto companies, with names like LunarCrush and bitSmiley. He had arrived in town with some expensive footwear — a pair of Off-White Air Jordans, the type of sneaker, he said, that people usually don’t take out of the box.Mr. Batey, however, was at the conference not to network with fellow crypto enthusiasts but to fight one of…

President Trump will sign an executive order on Monday aimed at lowering some drug prices in the United States by aligning them with what other wealthy countries pay, he said on Truth Social on Sunday evening.The proposal he described, which alone cannot shift federal policy, is what he calls a “most favored nation” pricing model. Mr. Trump did not provide details about which type of insurance the plan would apply to or how many drugs it would target, but he indicated that the United States should pay the lowest price among its peer countries.“Our Country will finally be treated fairly,…