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All it took for the biscuit to take shape was a baker looking for a diversion, his tried-and-true croissant recipe and a few biscuits for inspiration. It took TikTok to make it viral.Stéphane Louvard created the cookie almost a year and a half ago when he came up with the idea of ​​putting cookie dough into a croissant and then baking it again. But demand for his cookies has exploded in recent months after TikTok videos showcased his creations. On one day in February, Mr. Louvard sold 2,300 pastries at his bakery in a bustling Paris neighborhood.“The whole planet is talking about us. Someone told me he even came from Madrid just to get a cookie — it's crazy,” Mr. Louvard said as he prepared a pan of croissants, ready to be cut in half and filled with chocolate chip cookie dough.The...

Doctorow noted that just as the Internet has made routine tasks less burdensome, it has also made scams much easier to pull off. Imagine an old-fashioned boiler room where fast-talking scammers make hundreds of phone calls in an attempt to cheat strangers out of their savings, he said. Now fast forward to 2024, when scammers will be able to send millions of phishing messages and emails with the help of bots.“If you can automate some parts of it,” Doctorow said, “you can cast a much wider net.”SMS scams netted Americans $300 million in 2022, the Federal Trade Commission reported. That same year, according to a report from Robokiller, a company that sells a spam-blocking app, Americans received 225 billion spam messages, a 157% increase from the previous year.While digitally savvy and cau...

An Israeli airstrike against Iran on Friday damaged an air defense system, according to Western and Iranian officials, and appeared calculated to convey the message that Israel could bypass Iran's defense systems undetected and cripple them.The attack damaged a defensive battery near Natanz, a city in central Iran that officials say is critical to the country's nuclear weapons program.Although the Israeli attack was a retaliation for last week's Iranian air barrage, it used a fraction of the firepower deployed by Tehran. That attack, intercepted by Israel and its allies, caused minimal damage.Friday's strike was the latest in a series of attacks between the two countries this month that have heightened fears of a broader regional conflict. The relatively limited scope of ...

In the age of Ozempic, “fat activist” Virginia Sole-Smith inspires and infuriates her followers.

Few British politicians have as deep American ties as those of David Lammy, who is set to become Britain's foreign secretary if the opposition Labor Party wins the next election, as polls suggest.The son of Guyanese immigrants who grew up poor in working-class London, he spent summers with relatives in Brooklyn and Queens, working at Con Edison, before earning a master's degree at Harvard Law School and befriending Barack Obama, for whom he worked at Chicago. during his first presidential campaign.Yet now, on the verge of becoming Britain's chief diplomat, Lammy finds himself facing an uncertain, even potentially hostile, American political landscape. President Biden and Democrats, with whom Lammy has cultivated a deep network of contacts, are struggling to keep a resurgent D...

Netflix added 9.3 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2024, it announced Thursday, beating analysts' expectations and cementing its status as the entertainment industry's dominant streaming company.It also generated net income of $2.3 billion and its revenue was $9.3 billion, 15% higher than the same period last year. Netflix today has almost 270 million subscribers worldwide.The streaming giant said its quarter was buoyed by audience interest in series such as “Griselda,” “3 Body Problem” and “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”Its advertising business, which is now a year old and offers subscribers a lower-priced option, grew 65% compared to last quarter. The company said that in markets where the ad tier was available, 40% of new signups chose that option. A crackdown on pas...

The House voted resoundingly on Saturday to approve $95 billion in foreign aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as President Mike Johnson put his work on the line to advance the long-stalled relief package, rallying support from the Republicans and traditional Democrats.In four consecutive votes, an overwhelming bipartisan coalition of lawmakers approved new rounds of funding for the three U.S. allies, as well as another bill intended to sweeten the deal for conservatives that could lead to a nationwide TikTok ban .The scene in the House reflected both the broad support in Congress for continuing to help the Ukrainian military repel Russia and the extraordinary political risk Johnson took to challenge the anti-interventionist wing of his party that had sought to thwart the 'operation. ...

Martin J. Wygod, a Wall Street wizard who went from post-racing hobby horses to owning and breeding championship thoroughbreds when he made millions investing in online companies that sold pharmaceuticals by mail and pruned medical records, died on the 12th April in San Diego. He was 84 years old.His daughter, Emily Bushnell, said he died in hospital from complications of a lung disease.Raised near two horse tracks in suburban New York and mentored by a software pioneer, investor and gambler, Wygod is said to have been the youngest managing partner of a New York Stock Exchange brokerage firm in years '60. He became a millionaire before he was 30 and in 1993 sold Medco Containment Services to Merck for $6 billion, having transformed it into the nation's largest prescription drug c...

American arms shipments could start flowing to Ukraine again soon after House approval of a long-stalled aid package, U.S. officials say, with goods from the Pentagon's stockpile in Germany quickly shipped via rail to Ukrainian border.The measure would provide the Ukrainian war effort with about $60 billion. A sizable sum is set aside to replenish U.S. defense stockpiles, and billions more would be used to buy U.S. defense systems, which Ukrainian officials say are badly needed.The Senate was expected to pass the legislation, and President Biden said he would sign it into law.For months, Ukrainian military officials have complained that political paralysis in the U.S. Congress had created serious ammunition shortages in the war against Russia. Ukrainian troops on the front lines have...

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email [email protected] with any questions.kevin rooseI’m Kevin Roose, a tech columnist at “The New York Times.”casey newtonI’m Casey Newton from “Platformer.”kevin rooseAnd this is “Hard Fork.”casey newtonThis week, it’s the music show. The mega mix of “Hard Fork” songs that you’ve been asking for has arrived. Plus, we’ll go behind the scenes and talk to some of the composers that make the music for this show.[MUSIC PLAYING]kevin rooseHello, Casey.casey newtonHi, Kevin.kevin rooseWe’re going to do something weird today.casey newtonI’m excited about it.kevin rooseSo excited about...