Author: NY TIMES

It was a classic Australian love story, set in a Sydney pub: Girl meets boy. Girl marries boy. Girl lives happily ever after.But when Mary Donaldson, then a 28-year-old from Tasmania working in real estate, met “Fred” — also known as Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark — at the Slip Inn in September 2000, she was suddenly plunged into an entirely different fairy tale.“The first time that we met or shook hands, I did not know he was the crown prince of Denmark,” Mary said in a 2003 interview. “It was perhaps half an hour or so later that someone…

The financial news network Cheddar placed at least some of its employees on unpaid leave on Tuesday, the latest development for the start-up that bills itself as a destination for younger viewers.The news network put the affected workers on furlough, effective immediately, and barred employees from further work, according to an email sent to the employees.“We would like to have given you more notice of this action, but the decision was necessitated by unforeseen internal and external factors that required rapid adjustments in our business strategy,” said the email, which was seen by The New York Times.Altice USA, the cable…

Florida’s surgeon general on Wednesday called for a halt to the use of Covid vaccines, citing widely debunked concerns that contaminants in the vaccine can permanently integrate into human DNA.“These vaccines are not appropriate for use in human beings,” Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the state’s surgeon general and highest-ranking health official, said in a statement released by the Florida Department of Health.Federal health officials and other experts have repeatedly sought to counter Dr. Ladapo’s erroneous comments about the vaccines, noting that careful review of the scientific evidence has found no basis for his declarations.The Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday…

Few artists had a more unexpected 2023 than Jelly Roll, the face-tattooed former Southern rapper turned country singer who became one of the year’s most promising new crossover pop stars.His album “Whitsitt Chapel,” which debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard all-genre chart in June, is a collection of pop-rock anthems with flourishes of country, and it spawned a pair of hits — the introspective “Need a Favor,” and the new version of his viral breakout “Save Me,” featuring Lainey Wilson. He is nominated for two 2024 Grammys at next month’s ceremony: best new artist, and best country group/duo performance.At…

He had spent his entire career attending to the horrors of terrorism and war, and now Chris George, 70, believed it was his responsibility to act again. He sat at his desk inside Connecticut’s largest refugee resettlement agency, trying to write a public statement about the violence in Israel and Gaza that had resurfaced traumas among his staff, and in his own personal history.“We believe that all human life is precious and should be protected,” he wrote in mid-October. He read over the sentence, and it sounded obvious and weak. He set the draft aside for a few days and…

Like most Britons, many Danes have known only one queen throughout their lifetime — one who was extremely popular, and known for her sense of responsibility, propriety and commitment to her duties.On Sunday, the Danish queen, Margrethe, said she would step down this month. That paves for the way for her son Prince Frederik, 55, to ascend to the throne.Like King Charles III of Britain, who became king after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, Frederik is part of a younger generation of royals who have had their lives relentlessly documented in the media and who have embraced…

NEW ORLEANS — With a little more than 24 hours until the Sugar Bowl, sixth-year Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. held a player-only meeting as their moment neared.He walked to the front of the room with Charger Edefuan Ulofoshio on two surgically repaired knees and delivered a message. There are still five hours until New Year. Bourbon Street is just steps away. Families flocked to towns. Much to Washington’s chagrin, Texas fans also filled the Huskies’ team hotel.This is their time to lock in and focus. They needed to block out distractions, even though midnight fireworks downtown made it difficult…

In the countryside of Cambridgeshire, a British semiconductor start-up was ready to expand beyond its lab and open a manufacturing base. But the company’s ambitions came with unexpected costs to bring enough electricity to the new site. The potential bill? One million pounds.The company, Paragraf, makes chips using graphene, an ultrathin carbon. Its devices can be used to check for defects in electric vehicle batteries to prevent fires, or work in quantum computers. After acquiring the site in 2023, Paragraf made plans to ramp up its weekly manufacturing capabilities from tens of thousands of devices to millions.But the cost of…

Given how much Taylor Swift dominated music and pop culture in 2023, it’s only appropriate that the year’s album chart ended with Swift on top.“1989 (Taylor’s Version),” the star’s remake of her pop crossover hit from 2014, led the Billboard 200 for the last two weeks of the year, notching the album’s fourth and fifth times at the top and helping Swift break yet another record.With the latest chart, Swift has now earned a total of 68 times at No. 1, over 13 of her LPs, which surpasses Elvis Presley for the most appearances in the top slot for a…

“Of all the possible reactions Hamas may take, the most disconcerting is with regard to the hostages,” wrote the columnist, Nahum Barnea. “The argument that the assassination will soften Sinwar’s position is just a story we tell ourselves,” he wrote, referring to Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza. Instead, he wrote, the killing is more likely to “delay, or even torpedo, the negotiations” for the hostages’ release.Mr. Netanyahu met with representatives of hostage families on Tuesday evening, around the same time that Mr. al-Arouri was killed, and told them that efforts to free their relatives were continuing. “The contacts are…