Author: Press Room

U.S. intelligence chiefs are scheduled to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, a day after it emerged that senior Trump administration officials had shared classified war plans in an encrypted group chat that also included a journalist, in an extraordinary breach of American national security.Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence; John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director; and Kash Patel, the head of the F.B.I., were scheduled to give lawmakers their first public “Worldwide Threat Assessment” of President Trump’s second term, but the hearing was likely to be overshadowed by sharp questioning from Democrats over the security breach.The White…

Lindsey Vonn proved she never lost her skiing prowess.The Olympic gold-medalist Alpine skier returned to the podium over the weekend, finishing in second place in a World Cup super-G race on Sunday. The result came six years after she first retired from the sport and 11 months after undergoing a partial knee replacement. Second-place finisher Lindsey Vonn reacts during a medal ceremony for the women’s super-G at the World Cup Finals on Sunday, March 23, 2025 in Sun Valley, Idaho. (AP Photo/John Locher)The 40-year-old star became the oldest female Alpine ski racer to finish on the podium.”It was f—ing hard,”…

Frank Bisignano, the Wall Street veteran being considered to lead the Social Security Administration, will go before the Senate on Tuesday morning, where lawmakers will demand answers about his plans for an agency recently thrown into tumult.The plans being laid by the Trump administration for the typically staid agency — long viewed as a third rail of government — have prompted widespread outcry given its crucial work: It delivers billions of dollars in retirement, survivor and disability payments to 73 million people each month. The agency typically evolves slowly, aware that missteps could potentially cut off cash to people who…

Fifteen years ago, recently-graduated Arianne Gagnon-Allard was in crisis. The sudden death of a close friend rocked her friend group, and then she had to adjust to life outside of high school. She was struggling.That’s when she picked up the phone and called CHIMO helpline. She said the conversation she had next would save her. Get daily National news Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. “First of all, she just listened. And I didn’t feel judged, and I didn’t feel like my problems in that moment were not…

Wildfires have spread across South Korea’s southeastern region, forcing the evacuation of local prisons and causing residents to flee their homes.Acting President Han Duck-soo vowed to deploy firefighting helicopters and ground personnel to put out the fires as quickly as possible.The city of Andong, with a population of 150,000 people, issued an alert to its residents to move to safe areas, according to a city official and a public text alert.The city is home to the 14th to 15th century Hahoe Folk Village, a UNESCO World Heritage site.The official said the blaze was about 10km from Hahoe.Authorities designated the affected…

Max Levchin, co-founder of PayPal and AffirmDavid Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesFintech lender Affirm said Tuesday that it’s reached an agreement with JPMorgan Chase to offer its buy now, pay later loan services to merchants on the bank’s payments network.U.S. merchants who use JPMorgan to handle payments can soon add Affirm to their checkout pages, according to a release. Consumers will have access to loans ranging from 30 days to 60 months, according to Affirm.The deal follows a similar announcement from rival Klarna last month, in which the Swedish fintech said it would be available to JPMorgan’s merchants.…

TOKYO: A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder and was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.4 million in compensation, an official said on Tuesday (Mar 25). The payout represents ¥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked…

A rediscovered painting of an African prince by Gustav Klimt that captured visitors’ attention at the TEFAF Maastricht fair in the Netherlands is under negotiation for sale, the Vienna-based gallery offering the work said as the event closed on Thursday evening.The early, almost photorealistic head-and-shoulders portrait of Prince William Nii Nortey Dowuona, shown against a floral background, had been on display at the booth of Wienerroither and Kohlbacher, priced at 15 million euros, or about $16.4 million.“We are in active negotiations with a major museum,” said Lui Wienerroither, the gallery’s co-founder, though he declined to name the institution. Unlike at…

It is also crucial to discuss sustainability efforts with creative teams early, even before they sign their contracts to take on a production. To help them reuse materials, Fuchs has worked to create a database of props, costumes and more that the Dutch National Opera keeps in storage.The Green Deal also provides artists with a pyramid-shaped diagram of building materials. At the top is the worst sustainability offender: aluminum. (One suggested replacement is steel, which is less harmfully extracted and can also be recycled.) Near the bottom is wood, a renewable resource, and even better is something generic from another…

In her first briefing as White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt said she was “committed to telling the truth from this podium every single day.” Moments later she announced that the new administration had blocked a $50 million contract for condoms in Gaza.“That is a preposterous waste of taxpayer money,” she said.It was also a preposterous claim, improbable on its face and quickly debunked. There were millions in federal grants awarded to prevent sexually transmitted diseases in Gaza, but in the province in Mozambique, not the Palestinian territory.The condoms claim went viral anyway, seeping into the political discourse that President…