Author: News Room

Meta on Tuesday announced a set of changes to its content moderation practices that would effectively put an end to its longstanding fact-checking program, a policy instituted to curtail the spread of misinformation across its social media apps.The reversal of the years-old policy is a stark sign of how the company is repositioning itself for the Trump era. Instead of using news organizations and other third-party groups, Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads, will rely on users to add notes or corrections to posts that may contain false or misleading information.Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, said in a video…

Taiwan is investigating whether a ship linked to China is responsible for damaging one of the undersea cables that connects Taiwan to the internet, the latest reminder of how vulnerable Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is to damage from China.The incident comes as anxiety in Europe has risen over apparent acts of sabotage, including ones aimed at such undersea communication cables. Two fiber-optic cables under the Baltic Sea were severed in November, prompting officials from Sweden, Finland and Lithuania to halt a Chinese-flagged commercial ship in the area for weeks over its possible involvement.In Taiwan, communications were quickly rerouted after the damage…

The Pentagon on Monday labeled Tencent, the Chinese social media and gaming giant, as a Chinese military business operating in the United States, the latest action in an escalating series of retaliatory moves between the world’s two superpowers.Tencent’s shares in the United States plunged by nearly 10 percent after the decision by the Defense Department, which also targeted Chinese battery, drone and shipping companies.The Defense Department updates annually a list of what it designates as “Chinese military companies,” entities it has identified as having both military and commercial technology. There are now 134 companies on the list, which was posted…

Journalists at The Athletic, a sports news website owned by The New York Times, intend to unionize, they said on Monday.A group of about 200 editorial workers in the United States have asked The Times to recognize them as part of the Times Guild, which represents nearly 1,500 members including reporters, editors and other editorial workers at the newspaper.The Times bought The Athletic in early 2022 for $550 million. In July 2023, the newspaper said it would disband its sports section and rely on coverage from The Athletic.“The work we do is union work, and we believe we should be…

A federal regulator sued a mortgage finance firm owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate on Monday, claiming it made loans to buyers of manufactured homes that it knew they could not afford.The civil suit, filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Tennessee by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said Vanderbilt Mortgage and Finance ignored “clear and obvious” signs that borrowers would not be able to repay the loans.The consumer bureau said Vanderbilt overlooked that some borrowers were already falling behind on debt obligations when the loans were issued.“Vanderbilt knowingly traps people in risky loans in order to…

Michael Barr will step down from his role as the Federal Reserve’s vice chair for supervision by Feb. 28, or sooner if President-elect Donald J. Trump appoints a successor, the Fed said on Monday.Mr. Barr will continue to serve on the central bank’s Board of Governors. “The Board does not intend to take up any major rulemakings until a vice chair for supervision successor is confirmed,” the central bank said.As vice chair for supervision, Mr. Barr oversaw an attempt to rewrite financial rules that would have increased the amount of easy-access money that banks must have at the ready, potentially…

Hollywood hoisted a white flag in the culture war on Sunday.That summation of the 82nd Golden Globe Awards will undoubtedly aggravate some people in the movie capital. Us? Conceding the moral high ground to President-elect Donald J. Trump and his supporters? Never.They could point — fairly — to the movies that won prizes on Sunday. “Emilia Perez,” honored with four Globes, is a Spanish-language musical about trans identity. “The Brutalist,” which received three, is an epic about immigrant struggles. “Conclave,” the winner of best screenplay, is about the selection of a Mexican, intersex pope. “Wicked,” which was given a newish…

A tale of two Bezos businesses Jeff Bezos surprised many when he spoke of his hopes for President-elect Donald Trump’s return to power at the DealBook Summit last month. The duo’s reset took a new twist with Amazon’s announcement that it would release a documentary on Melania Trump shot by an outcast filmmaker, and more tumult at The Washington Post.But Bezos, like other business leaders, has been moving closer to the president-elect, and the decisions are inevitably being analyzed in that context.Amazon called it a “behind the scenes” look at Trump — but she will have a big say. The…

U.S. Steel and Japan’s Nippon Steel sued the United States government on Monday in a last-ditch attempt to revive their attempted merger after President Biden blocked it last week on the basis that the transaction posed a threat to national security.The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Washington, accused Mr. Biden and other senior administration officials of corrupting the review process for political gain and of harming steel workers and the American steel industry by blocking the deal under false national security pretenses.Mr. Biden moved to block the merger after a government panel charged with reviewing foreign investments failed…

Can Paxlovid treat long Covid? A new report suggests it might help some patients, but which patients might benefit remains unclear.The report, published Monday in the journal Communications Medicine, describes the cases of 13 long Covid patients who took extended courses of the antiviral drug. Results were decidedly mixed: Nine patients reported some improvement, but only five said it lasted. Four reported no improvement at all.Perhaps more than anything, the report underscores that nearly five years after the pandemic began, there is still little known about what can help the millions of people with long Covid. While some people improve…