Author: NY TIMES

A single dose of doxycycline, a widely used antibiotic, taken after sex halved the incidence of chlamydia and early syphilis among gay and bisexual men and transgender women in San Francisco, city health officials announced on Monday. The findings offered a glimmer of hope amid a rising tide of sexually transmitted infections nationwide.The strategy is called doxy-PEP, shorthand for doxycycline post-exposure prophylaxis. In San Francisco, gay and bisexual men and transgender women who had a history of S.T.I.s or multiple sex partners were given a supply of the antibiotic and asked to take two 100-milligram pills within 72 hours of…

“My name is Greta Gerwig, and I am the co-writer and director of ‘Barbie.’” “(SINGING) I’m just Ken. Anywhere else, I’d be a ten.” “The thing that I can say most about this sequence is that this was the thing that I most knew what I wanted it to be, and no one else knew what I wanted it to be. Every time I look at this, it’s just the ridiculousness of how we did it, which is they’re obviously arriving on these pedalos on a beach that has no water. It’s a solid mass with these waves that are…

Mr. Gantz, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces who visited Washington last year, was scheduled to meet separately with Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, his office said in a statement, as well as with members of Congress and pro-Israeli lobbyists.U.S. officials told reporters over the weekend that negotiations were continuing and that Israel had “more or less accepted” a framework for the hostage deal, but also that Hamas had not yet accepted it. Hamas has rejected the proposal to release the more than 100 Israeli hostages because it does not include a permanent cease-fire and…

A United Nations report released on Monday found signs that sexual violence was committed in multiple locations during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel and said that some hostages being held in the Gaza Strip had also been subjected to rape and sexual torture.From late January to early February, the United Nations deployed a team of experts to Israel and the West Bank led by Pramila Patten, the secretary-general’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict.In their report, the experts said they had found “reasonable grounds” to believe that sexual violence occurred during the Hamas-led incursion into Israel, including…

What’s a nice Jewish viscountess to do when she has a title but no money, a party invitation but no clothes and a pair of scissors but no sewing skills?Invent the poodle skirt, of course.That, quite by accident, is what Juli Lynne Charlot did in late 1947, in the process creating a totem of midcentury material culture as evocative as the saddle shoe, the Hula-Hoop and the pink plastic lawn flamingo.Ms. Charlot, a New York native who died at her home in Tepoztlán, Mexico, on Sunday at 101, had been a Hollywood singer before her marriage in the mid-1940s to…

In a top-floor atrium in downtown San Francisco on Thursday evening, tech workers from Google, Slack, X and Mozilla mingled next to a pair of cardboard cutouts of Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya.Dustin Moskovitz, a Facebook founder, chatted as others sipped from cannily named cocktails like the Fremen Mirage (gin, coconut Campari, sweet vermouth) and the Arrakis Palms (vanilla pear purée, gin, Fever-Tree tonic). Tim O’Reilly, a tech industry veteran, dropped by. Alex Stamos, the former head of security at Facebook, was also spotted.“Do you think they’ll let me take home one of the freaky sandworm popcorn buckets?” someone in the…

Four former Twitter executives sued Elon Musk on Monday, accusing the billionaire of withholding severance payments worth $128 million after he fired them from the company during his 2022 takeover.When Mr. Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, he fired Parag Agrawal, its chief executive; Ned Segal, its chief financial officer; Vijaya Gadde, its head of legal and policy; and Sean Edgett, its general counsel. Mr. Musk later renamed the company X.The executives had clauses in their contracts stipulating that they could receive severance if Twitter was no longer a public company — so when Mr. Musk took the company private…

Why It MattersThe medication, called Opill, which was approved for over-the-counter sale by the Food and Drug Administration last year, will be the most effective birth control method available without a prescription, research shows — more effective than condoms, spermicides and other nonprescription methods.Reproductive health experts said that its availability could be especially useful for teenagers, young women, and others who have difficulty dealing with the time, costs or logistical hurdles involved in visiting a doctor to obtain a prescription.Some experts said they thought it might be a particularly good option for teenagers, who might otherwise rely on condoms.Lupe M.…

The nine-woman K-pop group Twice leads the Billboard album chart for the first time this week with its latest mini-LP, thanks to collectible CD and vinyl sales, while Morgan Wallen marks a full year of blockbuster streaming numbers.Twice’s “With You-th,” a six-song EP, opens at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with the equivalent of 95,000 sales in the United States. The vast majority of its consumption — 90,000 copies — was through purchases of physical copies, which included 14 collectible variations on CD and three vinyl LP versions, according to the tracking service Luminate.“With You-th” also garnered 6.3…

Only a trickle of aid managed on Monday to reach the desperately hungry people of the northern Gaza Strip, where the United Nations has warned that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians face a growing threat of famine after nearly five months of fighting and blockade.Fifteen trucks were dispatched overnight to northern Gaza as part of a relief effort involving Palestinian businessmen, according to COGAT, the Israeli military body that regulates aid to the Palestinians. But at least five of those were looted along the way, according to an Israeli official who was not authorized to comment publicly, and so spoke…