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

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. In the same year, Americans received 225 billion spam messages, a 157% increase from the previous year, according to a report from Robokiller, a company that sells a spam-blocking app.While digitally savvy and c...

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 month following the announcement of an outbreak of avian influenza on dairy farms, federal authorities have repeatedly reassured the public that the surge in infections has no impact on the nation's food or milk supply and involves few risks for the population.Yet the outbreak among cows may be more serious than initially thought. In an obscure online update this week, the Department of Agriculture said there is now evidence that the virus is spreading among cows and from cows to poultry.North Carolina officials have detected avian flu infections in a herd of cattle without symptoms, the New York Times has learned — information the USDA has not shared publicly. The finding suggests that infections may be more widespread than previously thought.It's unclear whether there ar...

Its towering chimneys once emitted clouds of steam. In the gigantic engine rooms, turbines turned 24 hours a day. Furnaces burned trainloads of coal.In Soviet times, the Kurakhove heat and power plant gave rise to the surrounding city in eastern Ukraine, driving the local economy and supporting the community with wages and heating for homes.“Our plant is the heart of our city,” said Halyna Liubchenko, a retiree whose husband worked his entire career in the nearby coal mines that powered the plant.That heart now barely beats, partly destroyed by artillery. The plant is among the last still operational in Ukraine's Donbass region, once the center of the country's heavy industry and now the focal point of Russian ground offensives that are devastating towns and cities along the fron...

Apple said it pulled Meta-owned WhatsApp and Threads apps from its app store in China on Friday on government orders, potentially escalating the technology war between the United States and China.The iPhone maker said China's internet regulator, the Cyberspace Administration, has ordered the removal of WhatsApp and Threads from its app store due to national security concerns. Apple said it complied with the rules because “we are obligated to follow the laws of the countries in which we operate, even when we disagree.”A Meta spokesperson referred requests for comment to Apple. The Wall Street Journal previously reported Apple's removal of the apps.A person briefed on the situation said the Chinese government found content on WhatsApp and Threads about China's president, Xi Jin...

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...

The House was moving toward passing a $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan on Saturday, as President Mike Johnson put his job on the line to advance long-stalled legislation, despite the extremists in his own party.Lawmakers were expected to vote separately Saturday afternoon on aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as well as another bill that includes a measure that could result in a nationwide ban on TikTok and new sanctions on Iran. The fourth bill was intended to sweeten the deal for the conservatives.Johnson structured the measures, which will be merged into one after each party approves, to capture different coalitions of support without allowing opposition to any one element to sink the entire deal. Each of the aid bills for the three nations is expected to...