Author: News Room

European passenger rail travel continues to expand, with a flurry of new routes opening and competition heating up on key routes, including on the rail line that runs below the English Channel. Plans to streamline the booking process across Europe could also make rail travel easier and more efficient.The European Commission is encouraging the push. At his confirmation hearing in November, Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the new European commissioner for sustainable transport and tourism, said that connecting European cities by high-speed rail is “a top priority.” He also vowed to present draft regulation for a single digital booking and ticketing system for…

Companies that just one year ago celebrated Black History Month and stocked Pride products on their shelves are in a new phase — what some lawyers refer to as “rainbow-hushing,” meaning dropping or quietly rebranding their diversity, equity and inclusion programs.They are retreating, or clamming up, as they brace for lawsuits encouraged by President Trump’s war against D.E.I. Employers are walking a narrow path: They are trying to keep enough of their diversity efforts in place to remain protected from future discrimination lawsuits, while also avoiding Mr. Trump’s ire, federal investigations and lawsuits from anti-D.E.I. conservatives.Some corporate initiatives that fall…

Last month, the Golden Globes drew 10.1 million viewers. No, wait, maybe 9.3 million.The very same night, “Sunday Night Football” attracted 28.5 million people. Scratch that, perhaps it was 25.8 million.The “Yellowstone” finale? Possibly 11 million — or 8 million?Ratings have long been the currency of the TV business, helping to determine how much media companies can charge for commercials. But the $60 billion that advertisers spend on television each year largely depends on a shared leap of faith that the numbers are as good as gold.That faith, though, is resting on shaky ground.People now watch so many programs at…

To many Chinese, DeepSeek’s success is a victory for China’s education system, proof that it equals that of the United States or has even surpassed it.The core team of developers and scientists behind DeepSeek, the Chinese start-up that has jolted the A.I. world, all attended university in China, according to the company’s founder. That’s a contrast with many Chinese tech companies, which have often sought talent educated abroad.As Chinese commenters online basked in Americans’ shocked reactions, some pointed to the high number of science Ph.D.s that China produces annually. “DeepSeek’s success proves that our education is awesome,” read one blog…

President Trump on Sunday said that he would impose a 25 percent tariff on all foreign steel and aluminum imports into the United States as of Monday and would soon announce reciprocal tariffs on America’s trading partners.Speaking from Air Force One en route to the Super Bowl, the president said his metal tariffs would apply to “everybody,” including Canada and Mexico, America’s allies and its largest trading partners.“Any steel coming into the United States is going to have a 25 percent tariff,” Mr. Trump said. “Aluminum, too.”Mr. Trump’s decision to tax foreign metals and impose reciprocal tariffs comes in the…

The day before Linda Wetzel closed on her retirement home in Southport, N.C., in 2012 — a cozy place where she could open the windows at night and catch an ocean breeze — the bank making the loan surprised her with a fee she hadn’t expected. Ms. Wetzel scoured her mortgage paperwork and couldn’t find the charge disclosed anywhere.Ms. Wetzel made the payment and then filed an online complaint with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bank quickly opened an investigation, and a month later, it sent her a $5,600 check.“My first thought was ‘thank you.’ I was in tears,”…

More than 40 lawsuits filed in recent days by state attorneys general, unions and nonprofits seek to erect a bulwark in the federal courts against President Trump’s blitzkrieg of executive actions that have upended much of the federal government and challenged the Constitution’s system of checks and balances.Unlike the opening of Mr. Trump’s first term in 2017, little significant resistance to his second term has arisen in the streets, the halls of Congress or within his own Republican Party. For now at least, lawyers say, the judicial branch may be it.“The courts really are the front line,” said Skye Perryman,…

Newspapers across the country owned by the news media company Lee Enterprises were unable to print, had problems with their websites and published smaller issues after a cyberattack last week, the company said.In a statement emailed on Sunday, Lee Enterprises said that the company was facing disruptions to its daily operations because of a “cybersecurity event,” and that it had notified law enforcement.Lee Enterprises is the parent company of more than 70 daily newspapers, such as The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and nearly 350 weekly and specialty publications in 25 states, including Alabama, New York and Oregon. The company did not…

About two million baked goods, including some doughnuts and coffee rolls sold at Dunkin’, were recalled over concerns of potential contamination with the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes, federal safety regulators said.The manufacturer FGF Brands, which distributes baked goods in the United States and Canada, issued the voluntary recall because of the “potential for contamination with Listeria monocytogenes,” according to a report released on Wednesday by the Food and Drug Administration.The recalled products include a mix of chocolate, raspberry and Bavarian doughnuts; French crullers; éclairs; and coffee rolls. Some of the goods were sold at Dunkin’, and were produced before Dec. 13,…

The curious trade came a little past 9 p.m. on Jan. 17 — a $1,096,109 bet less than two minutes after the soon-to-be president of the United States posted on his social media account that his family had issued a cryptocurrency called $Trump.In those first minutes, a crypto wallet with a unique identification code beginning 6QSc2Cx secured a giant load of these new tokens — 5,971,750 of them — at the opening sale price of just 18 cents each, starting a surge in the $Trump price that would soon reach $75 per token.This early trader, whose identity is not known,…