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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...

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-...