First Run News

Taxi or Uber? It is not even a question for Samantha Forrest, 22, a single mother who sees so few taxis that she does not consider them an option. There is only Uber when she is late for her cashier’s job, lugging groceries home, or going to the doctor with her young son. Ms. Forrest lives in the Soundview neighborhood in the Bronx, a working-class enclave that is one of the fastest-growing bastions of Uber riders in New York City. Uber pickups in the area surged to an average of 6,132 a week in August, from 1,189 the year before. “Uber is everywhere,” Ms. Forrest said.

Because of the stories that have come out over the last week concerning the complaints about the movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, including two deeply reported New York Times investigative stories and an 8,000-word report from

The police in London and New York said Thursday that they were looking into complaints involving the disgraced film producer Harvey Weinstein, the latest turn in a scandal that has consumed Hollywood over allegations of sexual abuse and harassment. The new reports are preliminary, but the fact that the police are reviewing them points to the breadth of the legal challenges that Mr. Weinstein could face.

It’s gadget season in the tech world. Think of it like New York Fashion Week, untucked white-man edition. Every fall, the world’s largest technology companies put on elaborate press events to show off their latest wonders. This year’s gatherings have been particularly glitzy. Ten years after the debut of the iPhone, Apple invited reporters to the office park it’s been building for the past six years — the monumental spaceship building that Steve Jobs unveiled in his last public address.

SAN FRANCISCO — Google unveiled an initiative on Thursday to help train Americans for jobs in technology and committed to donating $1 billion over the next five years to nonprofits in education and professional training. The new program, Grow With Google, will create an online destination for job seekers to get training and professional certificates and for businesses to improve their web services.

SAN FRANCISCO — At the start of this decade, the Arab Spring blossomed with the help of social media. That is the sort of story the tech industry loves to tell about itself: It is bringing freedom, enlightenment and a better future for all mankind. Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, proclaimed that this was exactly why his social network existed.

WASHINGTON — The House, dismissing concern for the rising cost, approved a $36.5 billion aid package on Thursday that would provide hurricane and wildfire relief funding while bailing out the financially troubled National Flood Insurance Program. The aid package would also help Puerto Rico’s financially beleaguered government avoid running out of cash in the wake of Hurricane Maria.