Author: NY TIMES

Trump’s TikTok U-turn TikTok users have continued to flood the social media platform — and lawmakers’ inboxes — with pleas to halt a bill that would force its Chinese owners to divest or face a ban in the U.S.That effort to keep TikTok online has now attracted some unlikely backers, including Donald Trump.A recap: Last week, a powerful House committee voted 50-0 to remove TikTok from U.S. app stores by Sept. 30 unless its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, sold its stake. A large contingent of Republicans and moderate Democrats see the app as a national security risk.President Biden said on…

When the singer and songwriter Adrianne Lenker was 21, she was involved in a bike accident that knocked out one of her incisors. For a while, she walked around with a fake, gold-colored cap in her mouth. But after she was able to invest in a porcelain tooth, Lenker realized she actually didn’t want to forget about the injury.“After all that time with just a gap, it kind of felt strange to not see the scar,” she said in a recent interview.Today, Lenker’s grin twinkles with a permanent gold replacement. And over the past several years, she has earned a…

Ramadan, the holiest month of the Muslim calendar, starts on Monday in some countries but on Tuesday in others. How is that possible?The exact timings depend on when local Islamic authorities around the world declare the sighting of the new moon, the astronomical event that marks the start of the observance.Here’s why there’s so much variation from place to place.The basicsIslamic countries, and Muslims around the world, use the traditional Hijri calendar to mark religious events. Each month of that calendar begins with the sighting of the early crescent moon, and the holy month of Ramadan begins at the start…

Catherine, the Princess of Wales, apologized on Monday for doctoring a photo of her with her three children, which was recalled by several news agencies on Sunday after they determined the image had been manipulated.The decision to recall the photo reignited a storm of speculation about Catherine, who has not been seen in public since she had abdominal surgery nearly two months ago. In her statement, the 42-year-old princess chalked up the alteration to a photographer’s innocent desire to retouch the image.“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing,” Catherine wrote in a post on social media. “I…

At the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday, the red carpet showed not only its true color but also its reputation as a vehicle for elegant, over-the-top and even political fashion.Though there were bright moments — Cynthia Erivo’s dress was a “Wicked” shade of green, Taylor Zakhar Perez wore powder blue Prada — many of the gowns and tuxedos that graced the carpet were black. Some stars’ ensembles harked back to attire they wore at prior Oscars ceremonies. Marlee Matlin said that her shimmering lilac Rodarte gown nodded to the dress she wore when she won the best actress award in…

President Biden on Monday will propose a budget packed with tax increases on corporations and high earners, new spending on social programs, and a wide range of efforts to combat high consumer costs like housing and college tuition.The new spending and tax increases included in the fiscal 2025 budget stand almost no chance of becoming law this year, given that Republicans control the House and roundly oppose Mr. Biden’s fiscal agenda. Last week, House Republicans passed a budget proposal outlining their priorities, which are far afield from what Democrats have called for.Instead, the document will serve as a draft of…

Kenn Dahl says he has always been a careful driver. The owner of a software company near Seattle, he drives a leased Chevrolet Bolt. He’s never been responsible for an accident.So Mr. Dahl, 65, was surprised in 2022 when the cost of his car insurance jumped by 21 percent. Quotes from other insurance companies were also high. One insurance agent told him his LexisNexis report was a factor.LexisNexis is a New York-based global data broker with a “Risk Solutions” division that caters to the auto insurance industry and has traditionally kept tabs on car accidents and tickets. Upon Mr. Dahl’s…

The death certificate for Ryan Bagwell, a 19-year-old from Mission, Texas, states that he died from a fentanyl overdose.His mother, Sandra Bagwell, says that is wrong.On an April night in 2022, he swallowed one pill from a bottle of Percocet, a prescription painkiller that he and a friend bought earlier that day at a Mexican pharmacy just over the border. The next morning, his mother found him dead in his bedroom.A federal law enforcement lab found that none of the pills from the bottle tested positive for Percocet. But they all tested positive for lethal quantities of fentanyl.“Ryan was poisoned,”…

Lily Gladstone, whose powerful performance in “Killers of the Flower Moon” fueled a rapid ascent to Hollywood stardom, ended a career-defining awards season run at the Oscars, where she was the first Native American person to be nominated for a competitive acting Academy Award.Gladstone played a wealthy Osage woman whose family becomes a target of a murderous plot by white men to steal their oil rights. The actress quickly drew accolades following the premiere of Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour historical epic at the Cannes Film Festival last May.“You are the soul of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’” said the actress Jennifer…

A day after President Biden asserted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “hurting Israel more than helping Israel,” Mr. Netanyahu dismissed that contention as “wrong,” escalating the leaders’ increasingly public dispute.Mr. Netanyahu, in an interview with Politico that was to be aired on Sunday night, challenged Mr. Biden’s assessment of Israel’s military strategy in the Gaza Strip, saying that his policies represented the “overwhelming majority” of Israelis.“I don’t know exactly what the president meant, but if he meant by that that I’m pursuing private policies against the majority, the wish of the majority of Israelis, and that this is hurting…