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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...

World leaders, who had urged Israel and Iran to ease tensions, once again implored both countries to avoid any further action that could spark a wider war in the Middle East as Israel battles Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. , both allies of Iran.“A significant escalation is in no one's interests,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whose military took part in defending Israel from Iran's missile and drone attack last weekend, told reporters on Friday. “What we want to see is for calm to prevail throughout the region.”Last Saturday, there was an airstrike on a base used by an Iranian-backed armed group, Harakat al Nujaba, in Iraq's Babylon province, according to an arm of Iraq's security forces, the Popular Mobilization Forces. A hospital said at least three peop...

When it came to housing, Susan Apel and Keith Irwin thought they had cleverly planned for their future lives. They bought a four-bedroom house on five acres in Lebanon, N.H., 24 years ago, and "we made sure we paid off the mortgage before we retired," said Ms. Apel, 71.That way, the home equity they had built up — they estimate their home is now worth about $700,000 — would allow them to sell and downsize to smaller, more manageable neighborhoods when they needed to.That moment has arrived. Ms. Apel, a retired law professor, has difficulty climbing stairs. Mr. Irwin, 71, previously an account manager for a local company, is tired of yard work and snow shoveling, and finding workers to do those jobs instead has become difficult.“We're seeing the writing on the wall,” Ms. Apel said. ...

Twenty-three top Chinese swimmers tested positive for the same powerful banned substance seven months before the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021 but were allowed to escape public scrutiny and continue to compete after top Chinese officials secretly cleared them of doping and the global authority charged with policing drugs in sports chose not to intervene.Several of the athletes who tested positive — including nearly half of the swimming team that China sent to the Tokyo Games — went on to win medals, including three golds. Many still compete for China and several, including the two-time gold medalist Zhang Yufei, are expected to contend for medals again at this year’s Summer Games in Paris.China acknowledged the positive tests in a report by its antidoping regulator, saying the swimmers had i...

Another start-up founder will go to prison for overstating his company's performance in the eyes of investors.Manish Lachwani, who last year pleaded guilty to three counts of defrauding investors in his software start-up, HeadSpin, was sentenced Friday to a year and a half in prison. He will also pay a fine of $1 million.Prosecutors said Mr. Lachwani, 48, deceived investors by inflating HeadSpin's revenue by nearly fourfold, making false claims about his customers and creating false invoices to cover it all up. His misrepresentations allowed him to raise $117 million in funding from major investment firms, valuing his start-up at $1.1 billion.When HeadSpin board members discovered the behavior in 2020, they pushed Mr. Lachwani to resign and cut the company's valuation by two-...

For more than a decade, Israel has attempted, time and time again, bombing and missile campaigns that would knock out Iran's nuclear production capacity, much of it based around the city of Isfahan and the nuclear enrichment complex of Natanz, 75 miles north.That's not what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet chose to do before dawn Friday, and in interviews, analysts and nuclear experts said the decision was significant.So was the silence that followed. Israel has said almost nothing about the limited attack, which appears to have caused little damage in Iran. U.S. officials noted that the Iranian decision to downplay the Isfahan explosions — and suggestions by Iranian officials that Israel may not have been responsible — was a clear effort by the Islamic Revolut...

Some context: Experts say bad situations can often be reversed with treatment.Both the mental health and drug addiction crises are rocking the country, and the effects of parents' drug use and mental illness can quickly spill over to their children. Public health experts say substance use disorders can incapacitate a previously diligent parent and lead to Child Protective Services involvement.In 2021 alone, more than seven million children were referred to authorities over concerns of maltreatment, and more than 200,000 were removed from their homes, according to a federal report. But research shows that when parents seek treatment for psychiatric and substance use disorders, they are much less likely to experience family separation.The numbers: what the researchers discovered.To cal...

Climate promises are difficult to keep. Scotland is the most recent, perhaps the most surprising, example.Scotland, an early industrial powerhouse and coal giant, was also an early adopter of an ambitious, legally binding government target to slow climate change. It had promised to reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases by 75% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.This week, Net Zero minister Mairi McAllan said the target was now “out of reach”. He said Scotland, which operates semi-autonomously from Britain, would scrap its annual emissions reduction targets and instead review them every five years.This is in stark contrast to the Scottish Government's optimism in 2021, when diplomats from around the world gathered in Glasgow for international UN climate talks. At the time...

Tesla has agreed to recall nearly 4,000 of its Cybertruck pickups to fix an accelerator pedal that can get stuck, increasing the risk of crashes, a federal safety agency said Friday.The defect could cause unintended acceleration of the vehicle, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in a warning posted on its website. Tesla began selling the Cybertruck, its first pickup truck, in November after many delays.The recall represents yet another setback for Tesla, the largest electric vehicle maker in the United States. The company has been losing market share to emerging rivals and this month reported that its sales in the first three months of the year fell compared to the same period a year earlier – the first time this has happened since the start of pandemic.Tesla's r...