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      Catherine’s Cancer Disclosure Shows Her Lessons From Previous Media Ordeals

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      “They know they can’t control the online world,” one expert on the royal family said about the recent spate of revelations about the health of Catherine and King Charles III.For more than two months, Catherine, Princess of Wales, had lost control of her story to a spiral of wild, baseless online rumors. On Friday evening, with a stark two-minute, 13-second video, she set out to reclaim it.To do so, the princess had to deliver the wrenching news that she was battling a life-threatening cancer, the kind of deeply personal disclosure that she and her husband, Prince William, have long resisted.Catherine, 42, made the decision to record the video herself, two people familiar with the planning process said on Saturday. Earlier, she had decided to post an apology for digitally altering a photograph of herself with her three children, which set off a new round of conspiracy theories after it was released on Mother’s Day in Britain.“This was pitch perfect from her perspective,” said Peter Hunt, a former royal correspondent at the BBC. “The fact that it was a video was a rebuke to all those questions about her whereabouts.”In opting to go public this way, Catherine has etched a place for herself in the annals of the British royal family and among the women of the House of Windsor. The video, in its frankness and barely concealed emotion, recalled Queen Elizabeth II’s televised message days after the car crash that killed Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997.Catherine seemed to be modeling herself on Elizabeth, whose video was intended to douse another media firestorm, over whether she and the royal family had not displayed appropriate grief after Diana’s death. It also set her apart from Diana, who was ultimately a victim of the media currents that swirled around her.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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      Princess Kate’s Cancer Diagnosis Plunges Royal Family Into Uncertainty

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      First King Charles and now Catherine, Princess of Wales, are facing grave health concerns, stretching an already slimmed-down monarchy.In a video statement, Catherine, Princess of Wales, said that she had been diagnosed with cancer and started chemotherapy.BBC StudiosCatherine, Princess of Wales, has been diagnosed with cancer and has begun chemotherapy, she announced on Friday, putting a grim coda on months of rumors about her condition and plunging Britain’s royal family into deep uncertainty as two of its most senior figures grapple with grave health concerns.Her diagnosis follows that of King Charles III, who announced his own cancer diagnosis and treatment in early February. Like the king, Catherine, 42, did not specify what type of cancer she had, nor what her prognosis was.Speaking in a prerecorded video released on Friday evening, Catherine said, “It has been an incredibly tough couple of months for our entire family” as she described having major abdominal surgery in January and then learning through subsequent tests that she had a form of cancer.Looking fatigued but determined to express hope about her recovery, Catherine said she and her husband, Prince William, were helping their three children, George, Charlotte, and Louis, cope with having a sick mother.“This of course came as a huge shock,” Catherine said, “and William and I have been doing everything we can to process and manage this privately for the sake of our young family. As you can imagine, this has taken time.”“We hope that you will understand that, as a family, we now need some time, space and privacy while I complete my treatment,” said Catherine, who wore a simple striped sweater and sat on a bench, against a backdrop of early spring flowers, in the video, which was recorded by BBC Studios on Wednesday.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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      From Russia, Elaborate Tales of Fake Journalists

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      As the Ukraine war grinds on, the Kremlin has created increasingly complex fabrications online to discredit Ukraine’s leader and undercut aid. Some have a Hollywood-style plot twist.A young man calling himself Mohamed al-Alawi appeared in a YouTube video in August. He described himself as an investigative journalist in Egypt with a big scoop: The mother-in-law of Ukraine’s president had purchased a villa near Angelina Jolie’s in El Gouna, a resort town on the Red Sea.The story, it turned out, was not true. Ukraine denied it, and the owner of the villa refuted it. Also disconnected from reality: Alawi’s claim to being a journalist.Still, his story caromed through social media and news outlets from Egypt to Nigeria and ultimately to Russia — which, according to researchers, is where the story all began.The story seemed to fade, but not for long. Four months later, two new videos appeared on YouTube. They said Mohamed al-Alawi had been beaten to death in Hurghada, a town about 20 miles south of El Gouna. The suspected killers, according to the videos: Ukraine’s secret service agents.These claims were no more factual than the first, but they gave new life to the old lie. Another round of posts and news reports ultimately reached millions of internet users around the world, elevating the narrative so much that it was even echoed by members of the U.S. Congress while debating continued military assistance to Ukraine.Ever since its forces invaded two years ago, Russia has unleashed a torrent of disinformation to try to discredit Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, and undermine the country’s support in the West.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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      First Official Photo of Princess Catherine Since Surgery Is Released by Royal Palace

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      Amid rampant rumors on social media about the condition of the princess, Kensington Palace issued the picture to mark Mother’s Day in Britain but provided no details on her condition.Nearly two months after undergoing abdominal surgery, Catherine, the princess of Wales, appeared in an official photograph, released on Sunday by Kensington Palace to mark Mother’s Day in Britain.Catherine, who posed with her three children, George, Charlotte and Louis, has not been seen in public since before she entered the hospital on Jan. 16, provoking a swirl of increasingly far-fetched rumors on social media about her condition.The image of a smiling Catherine, surrounded by her family, will most likely quiet what had become an extraordinary distraction for the British royal family, which is also dealing with a cancer diagnosis for King Charles III. But it did not completely dispel the questions about the 42-year-old princess.Kensington Palace, where Catherine and her husband, Prince William, have their offices, did not release any new details on her condition or convalescence. It said the photograph was taken by William this past week in Windsor, where the family lives in Adelaide Cottage, on the grounds of Windsor Castle.In a post on social media accompanying the photograph, Catherine said, “Thank you for your kind wishes and continued support over the last two months. Wishing everyone a Happy Mother’s Day.”Last week, a grainy paparazzi shot of Catherine, riding in a car driven by her mother, was posted on the American celebrity gossip site TMZ. British newspapers and broadcasters reported widely on the photograph, but did not publish it, honoring the palace’s appeal that she be allowed to recuperate in private.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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      Ex-FBI Informant, Accused of Biden Lies, Said He Had Russian Contacts

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      Federal prosecutors portrayed the former informant, Alexander Smirnov, 43, as a serial liar incapable of telling the truth about even the most basic details of his own life.A former F.B.I. informant accused of making false bribery claims about President Biden and his son Hunter — which were widely publicized by Republicans — claimed to have been fed information by Russian intelligence, according to a court filing on Tuesday.In the memo, prosecutors portrayed the former informant, Alexander Smirnov, 43, as a serial liar incapable of telling the truth about even the most basic details of his own life. But Mr. Smirnov told federal investigators that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter Biden.Those disclosures, including Mr. Smirnov’s unverifiable claim that he met with Russian intelligence officials as recently as three months ago, made him a flight risk and endangered national security, Justice Department officials said. Mr. Smirnov had been held in custody in Las Vegas, where he has lived since 2022, since his arrest last week.He was released from custody on Tuesday on a personal recognizance bond after a detention hearing, said his lawyers, David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld.Prosecutors did not specify which story Russian intelligence is said to have been fed to Mr. Smirnov, an Israeli citizen. But they suggested they could not believe anything he said. And they had many tales to choose from.The memo describes Mr. Smirnov as a human hall of mirrors: He fed the F.B.I. bogus information about the Bidens and misled prosecutors about his wealth, estimated at $6 million, while telling them he worked in the security business, even though the government could find no proof that was true.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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      No, Wind Farms Aren’t ‘Driving Whales Crazy’

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      Donald Trump has attacked the President Biden’s climate and energy policies with gusto, but many of his criticisms are simply untrue.As the South Carolina Republican primary approaches, former President Donald J. Trump, the front-runner, is increasingly hammering President Biden with inaccurate statements on energy issues.Mr. Trump — who has called climate change a “hoax,” “nonexistent” and “created by the Chinese” — rolled back more than 100 climate and environmental protections during his administration, while promoting the development of fossil fuels. He has claimed, falsely, that windmills cause cancer, that energy efficient buildings have no windows and that solar rooftops leave older people without air-conditioning in the summer.This month, Mr. Trump has repeated many of his false claims, sometimes with new twists. Here is a closer look at three of Mr. Trump’s recent climate and energy assertions.WHAT WAS SAID:“I will end Joe Biden’s war on American energy, cancel his ban on exporting American natural gas, beautiful, clean natural gas.”— Donald J. Trump at an event in North Charleston, S.C. on Feb. 14This is false. In January, President Biden announced that he would temporarily pause approvals for permits for new liquefied natural gas export terminals until the Department of Energy conducts a study on the economic, security and climate implications of increased exports. This is not a ban; the United States continues to export more natural gas than any other nation. Even with the pause in approving new terminals, the country is still on track to nearly double its export capacity by 2027 because of projects already permitted and under construction.Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk testified to Congress that the review would take “months,” not years, to complete.WHAT WAS SAID:“We are a nation whose leaders are demanding all electric cars, despite the fact that they don’t go far. They cost too much, and whose batteries are produced in China with materials only available in China when an unlimited amount of gasoline is available inexpensively in the United States, but not available in China.”— Donald J. Trump at an event in Conway, S.C., on Feb. 10This is misleading. There’s a lot here. But let’s start with this: No administration can mandate how many cars sold in the United States must be all-electric.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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      Meta Calls for Industry Effort to Label A.I.-Generated Content

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      The social network wants to promote standardized labels to help detect artificially created photo, video and audio material across its platforms.Last month at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Meta, called a nascent effort to detect artificially generated content “the most urgent task” facing the tech industry today.On Tuesday, Mr. Clegg proposed a solution. Meta said it would promote technological standards that companies across the industry could use to recognize markers in photo, video and audio material that would signal that the content was generated using artificial intelligence.The standards could allow social media companies to quickly identify content generated with A.I. that has been posted to their platforms and allow them to add a label to that material. If adopted widely, the standards could help identify A.I.-generated content from companies like Google, OpenAI and Microsoft, Adobe, Midjourney and others that offer tools that allow people to quickly and easily create artificial posts.“While this is not a perfect answer, we did not want to let perfect be the enemy of the good,” Mr. Clegg said in an interview.He added that he hoped this effort would be a rallying cry for companies across the industry to adopt standards for detecting and signaling that content was artificial so that it would be simpler for all of them to recognize it.As the United States enters a presidential election year, industry watchers believe that A.I. tools will be widely used to post fake content to misinform voters. Over the past year, people have used A.I to create and spread fake videos of President Biden making false or inflammatory statements. The attorney general’s office in New Hampshire is also investigating a series of robocalls that appeared to employ an A.I.-generated voice of Mr. Biden that urged people not to vote in a recent primary.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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      ‘The Connector,’ a Show That Asks: Should News Feel True or Be True?

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      A new musical from Jason Robert Brown, Daisy Prince and Jonathan Marc Sherman explores the diverging trajectories of two young writers in the late 1990s.The director Daisy Prince had a flash of inspiration for a new show nearly 20 years ago: She wanted to explore the fallout from a string of partially or entirely fabricated news articles (by writers like Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair). The show would be set at a New York City magazine with a storied history — a publication much like The New Yorker. Also, it would be a musical.“I had become somewhat fixated on all these falsified news stories — these larger questions about fact, truth and story,” said Prince, who directed Jason Robert Brown’s “The Last Five Years” and “Songs for a New World.”She jotted the thought down in her great big notebook of ideas. But by the time she finally returned to it, around 2010, she was certain she had missed out.“I thought by the time we were going to be able to tell this story, it would no longer be relevant,” she said.But then the Trump presidency arrived, along with his strategy of labeling unfavorable coverage as fake news — and the premise only became more timely. Now the show, titled “The Connector,” conceived and directed by Prince with music and lyrics by Brown and a book by Jonathan Marc Sherman, is premiering Off Broadway at MCC Theater, where it is set to open Feb. 6.Ben Levi Ross, left, as Ethan Dobson and Hannah Cruz as Robin Martinez in the musical.Sara Krulwich/The New York TimesWe 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?  More