Author: News Room

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.For months, Selam Gebrekidan, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, would stare at a maze of handwritten diagrams, drawings and charts on a wall inside her Hong Kong apartment. She was trying to piece together how exactly one of the world’s biggest money laundering networks operates.“I needed a visual aid as I was breaking it down into steps,” she explained. Her effort was put to good use: This month, Ms. Gebrekidan and Joy Dong, a reporter-researcher who covers China…

President Trump’s tariffs could drive up prices. His efforts to reduce the federal work force could increase unemployment. But ask economists which of the administration’s policies they are most concerned about and many point to cuts to federal support for scientific research.The Trump administration in recent weeks has canceled or frozen billions of dollars in federal grants made to researchers through the National Institutes of Health, and has moved to sharply curtail funding for academic medical centers and other institutions. It has also, through the initiative called the Department of Government Efficiency, tried to fire hundreds of workers at the…

President Trump has said that his aim in imposing tariffs is to force companies to move production back to the United States. If manufacturers make their goods in America, he argues, they won’t have to pay the tariffs.But the latest revenue projections proffered by his administration call into question what Mr. Trump wants to achieve with the tariffs he is imposing on both allies and adversaries.Peter Navarro, a senior trade adviser to Mr. Trump, told Fox News on Sunday that the sweeping tariffs the president was imposing would raise about $6 trillion over the next decade, with those revenues going…

Two of President Trump’s sons announced on Monday that they were investing in a new Bitcoin mining venture, an expansion of the family’s business interests in the crypto industry.Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. said they would join forces with the Bitcoin mining company Hut 8 to create a firm called American Bitcoin. Bitcoin mining is a lucrative branch of the crypto industry, in which large companies run energy-guzzling machines that help process Bitcoin transactions.“From the start, we’ve backed our conviction in Bitcoin, personally and through our businesses,” Donald Trump Jr. said in a statement. “But simply buying Bitcoin is…

President Trump’s sweeping tariffs are expected to raise the cost of cars, electronics, metals, lumber, pharmaceuticals and other products that American consumers and businesses buy from overseas.But Mr. Trump and his advisers are betting that it can sell an inflation-weary public on a provocative idea: Cheap stuff is not the American dream.“I couldn’t care less if they raise prices, because people are going to start buying American-made cars,” Mr. Trump said on NBC’s Meet the Press show on Sunday in response to fears of foreign car prices spiking.The notion that there is more to life than low-cost imports is an…

“The capital need is in the trillions, not billions,” Ms. Anadu said.“It’s no secret that there’s a big market opportunity,” said Bennett Goodman, the executive chairman and a co-founder of Hunter Point Capital, an investment firm that backed Vistria in 2022. “What’s hard is being able to put together a scalable platform where you have sufficient capital to be relevant.”Vistria’s fund-raising comes as some investing focused on social issues has fallen out of favor. But the size of the fund — and the broad buy-in from investors at so-called family offices, investment banks and insurance companies — indicate that investors…

Army food has been vexing and perplexing the soldiers who have to eat it for about as long as there’s been an Army. An age-old marching song describes a biscuit that “rolled off the table and killed a friend of mine.” Troops in World War II immortalized a much-reviled beef dish with the nickname S.O.S., an acronym that still can’t be translated in this newspaper.And at lunchtime on a recent Wednesday, a mess hall at Fort Jackson in South Carolina was serving up tacos filled with nondescript meat that glistened with grease. The brussels sprouts had the green boiled out…

Over the last 12 months, Google’s efforts to use artificial intelligence to accelerate drug design have achieved breakthroughs in mimicking human biology and won its top scientists the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.Now Isomorphic Labs, the division within the software giant meant to develop and commercialize the technology, is taking another big step: raising money from an outside investor.Isomorphic plans to announce on Monday that it has raised $600 million, led by Thrive Capital, the venture capital firm that has bet big on A.I. companies including OpenAI. GV, Google’s venture capital arm, and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, also invested.The announcement underscores…

Paul Marchant, the chief executive of Primark, has resigned “with immediate effect” from his role leading the discount clothing retailer after an allegation about his behavior, the company announced Monday.Mr. Marchant, who joined Primark in 2009, left after the company hired lawyers to investigate “an allegation made by an individual about his behavior towards her in a social environment,” Associated British Foods, Primark’s parent company, said in a statement.It said that he cooperated with the inquiry, “acknowledged his error of judgment and accepts that his actions fell below the standards expected by the company.” Mr. Marchant apologized to the individual,…

The question posed to Wen Han, founder of the electric truck maker Windrose Technology, was a simple one: Is it accurate to call the firm a Chinese company?After some rambling, Mr. Han settled on an answer: “I would describe it as Chinese origin.”There’s a reason it felt like a trick question: Windrose’s investors include an Australian property group, U.S. venture capital financiers and Chinese state-owned funds. It is now based in Belgium. But at its heart, Windrose packs China’s significant advantages in making electric vehicles.Mr. Han wants to use that edge to sell long-haul trucks globally. He is intent on…