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    Arctic Air Could Bring Dangerous Temperatures to Parts of the U.S.

    And a winter storm could dump up to a foot of snow from the Central Plains to the East Coast.A powerful surge of arctic air from Canada will descend on the Central and Eastern United States this week, delivering record-breaking cold and dangerously low wind chills, forecasters said.A disruptive winter storm is also forecast to bring snow and ice from the Central Plains to the East Coast.The National Weather Service warned that this “widespread extreme cold threat” would send temperatures plunging 30 degrees below average near the Canadian border for the next couple of mornings. Numerous daily temperature records were likely to be broken, with below-zero high temperatures from Montana and the Dakotas to the upper Midwest and sections of the Central Plains. Freezing conditions may reach even the Gulf Coast by Thursday morning.Extreme cold warnings and cold-weather advisories were issued for areas across the northern Plains and upper Midwest down to central Texas, potentially affecting millions of people. More

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    They’ve Been Waiting Years to Go Public. They’re Still Waiting.

    Some tech companies are delaying or pulling their listing plans as the Trump administration’s tariff announcements and other changes cause market volatility and uncertainty.Turo, a car rental start-up in San Francisco, has been trying to go public since 2021. But a volatile stock market in early 2022 delayed its listing. Since then, the company has waited for the right moment.Last week, Turo pulled its listing entirely. “Now is not the right time,” Andre Haddad, the company’s chief executive, said in a statement.For months, investors have eagerly anticipated a wave of initial public offerings, spurred by President Trump’s new administration. Since his election victory in November, which ended a tumultuous campaign season, Corporate America and Wall Street have heralded the start of a pro-business, anti-regulation period. The stock market soared ahead of an expected bonanza of deal making.But the administration’s tariff announcements and rapid-fire regulatory changes have created uncertainty and volatility. Worsening inflation has set off market jitters. And the emergence of the Chinese artificial intelligence app DeepSeek last month caused investors to question their optimistic bets on U.S. tech, leading to a drastic sell-off among A.I.-related stocks.All that has affected initial public offerings. “The calendar just went from fully booked to being wide open in a span of like three weeks,” said Phil Haslett, a founder of EquityZen, a site that helps private companies and their employees sell their stock.So far this year, the pace of public offerings is ahead of last year’s, with companies raising $6.6 billion from listings, up 14 percent compared with this time last year, according to Renaissance Capital, which manages I.P.O.-focused exchange traded funds.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    USAID Climate Programs Fighting Extremism and Unrest Are Closing Down

    Numerous programs aimed at averting violence, instability and extremism worsened by global warming are ensnared in the effort to dismantle the main American aid agency, U.S.A.I.D.One such project helped communities manage water stations in Niger, a hotbed of Islamist extremist groups where conflicts over scarce water are common. Another helped repair water-treatment plants in the strategic port city of Basra, Iraq, where dry taps had caused violent anti-government protests. The aid group’s oldest program, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, ran a forecasting system that allowed aid workers in places like war-torn South Sudan to prepare for catastrophic floods last year.The fate of these programs remains uncertain. The Trump administration has essentially sought to shutter the agency. A federal court has issued a temporary restraining order. On the ground, much of the work has stopped.“They were buying down future risk,” said Erin Sikorsky, director of the Center for Climate and Security and a former U.S. intelligence official. “Invest little today so we don’t have to spend a lot in the future when things metastasize.”The German government this week released a report calling climate change “the greatest security threat of our day and age,” echoing a U.S. intelligence report from 2021, which described climate hazards as “threat multipliers.”Some U.S.A.I.D. funding supported mediation programs to prevent local clashes over land or water. For instance, as the rains become erratic in the Sahel, clashes between farmers and cattle herders become more frequent.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Street Style Look of the Week: Travel Outfits

    The word “timeless” came to mind when I glimpsed Gilang Al Ghifari Lukman, left, and Medina Janneta El-Rahman at a ferry landing in Istanbul while I was in the city on vacation last November. Though it has been months since we met, I thought of them as I prepared to go to Europe for fashion shows this month.They are the type of stylish people I always hope to bump into when I’m traveling — the kind who give me a chance to break out my vintage Rolleiflex film camera, a model that was used by noted fashion photographers like Richard Avedon and Bert Stern and that I do not get to use enough on the street these days.Mr. Lukman, 27, and Ms. Rahman, 25, live in Birmingham, England, and were vacationing in Istanbul. They told me that they always liked to dress smartly. Both grew up in Indonesia, and Mr. Lukman said his style was influenced by how people there dressed and by the elegant fashions of Britain’s Edwardian era.His handsome satchel was made of goat leather, he said, and sentimental to him: “It was purchased with my first-ever salary from a dishwashing part-time job while studying in Kyoto.”

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    Elon Musk Zeroes In on the I.R.S.

    The tech mogul’s cost-cutting initiative is seeking sensitive taxpayer data, drawing concerns about privacy, potential political retribution and more.Elon Musk, President Trump’s chief cost-cutter, has his sights now on the I.R.S., and Americans’ tax records.Eric Lee/The New York TimesThe fire hose of Elon Musk news continues: We’ve got more on the controversy over the access to sensitive I.R.S. data that Musk’s cost-cutting team is seeking and the resignation of a senior official at the Social Security Administration over a similar issue.And in case you missed it, there were two revealing long reads about the Murdoch family’s internal battles: one in The Times Magazine based on more than 3,000 pages of secret court transcripts, and another in The Atlantic that included intimate details directly from James Murdoch. Finally, here’s a great watch from over the weekend: Adam Sandler’s tribute on “Saturday Night Live” to Lorne Michaels, whom we profiled last year, during the show’s 50th anniversary special. Who gets access?Elon Musk’s cost-cutting team is continuing to burrow deeper into the federal bureaucracy in search of what the tech mogul says are trillions in potential cost cuts.But the organization’s latest accomplishments, including the potential gaining of access to sensitive I.R.S. and Social Security Administration data, have raised yet more concerns about how much power Musk is amassing — and what the consequences could be.The latest: The I.R.S. is preparing to give Gavin Kliger, a young software engineer working with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, access to sensitive taxpayer information as a senior adviser to the I.R.S.’s acting commissioner. The I.R.S. is still working out the terms of his assignment, but as of Sunday evening, he hadn’t yet gained access to the data.Separately, the top official of the Social Security Administration, Michelle King, resigned after Musk’s team sought access to an internal database that contains personal information about Americans.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Nike Bets Big on Kim Kardashian

    The Skims founder will enter into a rare business deal with the sports apparel company.More than 40 years ago, Michael Jordan helped Nike become the name in basketball sneakers. Today it’s betting that Kim Kardashian can help it do the same for women’s shapewear.On Tuesday, Nike is announcing the creation of NikeSkims, a new brand in partnership with Skims, the shapewear Goliath co-founded by Ms. Kardashian. NikeSkims marks the first time that Nike has joined with an existing, outside company to introduce a new brand.“It’s this great clash of performance product — athlete tested, athlete inspired — with Skims’s incredible attention to the female form of the body and inclusivity,” said Heidi O’Neill, the president of consumer, product and brand at Nike.The brand, she said, will “serve women so they can feel strong and sexy.”The two companies have been working on NikeSkims since October 2023. Skims, which has conquered the shapewear market with its curve-accentuating leggings, bodysuits and tops, first reached out to Nike about working together.The initial crop of products will hit Skims and Nike websites and select stores in the United States in spring 2025. NikeSkims will roll out globally next year.If Skims’s shapewear is designed for everyday wear, NikeSkims will be targeted toward hourlong HIIT classes and sweaty treadmill sessions. It will utilize existing training-tested textiles, like Dri-Fit, as well as “innovations that are built more uniquely for Skims,” according to Ms. O’Neill. She did not share specifics on pricing, but a pair of Nike’s high-waist Dri-Fit leggings sells for $60, just a smidgen more than Skims’s $56 cotton leggings.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    NYT Crossword Answers for Feb. 18, 2025

    Erik Agard extends his regards.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTUESDAY PUZZLE — You may come across the odd entry in the New York Times Crossword (or any crossword, for that matter) that doesn’t seem to be a real word. That’s valid! While we don’t need to argue over whether specific words do or don’t “exist” — in certain scholarly arguments, none of them do — it’s reasonable to wonder why some words appear in the crossword but not in the dictionary.With that said, I hope you’ll understand why Erik Agard decided to include 66-Across in today’s crossword. I think you’ll understand why the word had to be used … even if it is a bit of a stretch.Today’s ThemeThere’s no revealer in this theme, but it does feel as though each themed entry builds on the previous one as you move down the grid. Four identical clues at 17-, 36-, 44- and 66-Across read: [“Seriously?!”]. The answers are distinct, albeit tonally similar, but one of them stands out.I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU (17A) leads to WHO DOES THAT? (36A) and THE AUDACITY! (44A). Then it’s just WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW (66A).The joke dawned on me when I noticed that I had some kind of grid-spanning entry that ended in -OOW. What kind of expression of disbelief was this? I filled the row with O’s, half-joking at the notion. Only once several Down entries crossed the O’s successfully did I realize what was going on. “Ooooooooooohhhh,” you might say.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Prison Boss Elevated by Hochul Was Accused of Rape by 2 Former Inmates

    The attacks occurred years earlier when Bennie Thorpe worked at a state women’s prison, his accusers said. Now he runs a prison where an inmate was fatally beaten by guards.After guards at the Marcy Correctional Facility in central New York beat a handcuffed prisoner to death late last year, Gov. Kathy Hochul promised immediate reforms to turn the troubled prison around.One of her first directives was to install a new leader, Bennie Thorpe, who had recently run another correctional facility and had experience with security operations and rehabilitation programs. Mr. Thorpe, she said, had “expertise and a fresh perspective on what must be done.”He also had a record of being accused of rape and sexual assault by inmates at one of his former workplaces, records and interviews show.In lawsuits filed in 2023, two women who had been incarcerated at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in Westchester County accused Mr. Thorpe of sexual abuse when he was a captain there.One said he summoned her to an office, groped her breasts and raped her in December 2018.Another said he raped her three times in the spring of 2019 in a room near the prison’s medical unit.Neither of the allegations has been previously reported. Both lawsuits are still pending in the New York State Court of Claims.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More