First Run News

BELVIDERE, N.J.

Two hundred years after her death, Jane Austen commands a cultural empire — fan fiction, adaptations, merchandise — with her six novels at the center.

It was early in our courtship that I realized the guy I was dating, with whom I now cohabit, wasn’t laughing at my jokes. Well actually, he may have been laughing at my jokes, and in fact I thought he was laughing at my jokes, because he consistently responded with boisterous HAHAHAs to my humorous text messages. It was flattering. Except when I made a joke that clearly wasn’t that funny — perhaps only worthy of a single ha — and suddenly it dawned on me that his typical HAHAHA reply (that’s three HAs, no spaces, all caps) was formulaic.

WIMBLEDON, England — Roger Federer is back in the second week at Wimbledon, and he has his usual companions. The rest of the Big Four — Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal — are right there with him. The good old days seem as fresh as ever. “I think one of those four men will hold up the trophy again,” said Boris Becker, a three-time Wimbledon champion who coached Djokovic in 2015 and 2016. Federer, 35, is the senior club member by almost five years.

There are three versions of how Tabaruk, a mother of six, died this spring during a journey through treacherous snow-covered mountains in Afghanistan. She and her family had been expelled from their village in Ghor Province because her teenage daughter, Mah Yamsar, was said to have brought dishonor by becoming pregnant out of wedlock. The police in Ghor say Tabaruk fell off her horse and died. Members of the provincial council and human rights activists say she was pushe

Over the past six years, rooftop solar panel installations have seen explosive growth — as much as 900 percent by one estimate. That growth has come to a shuddering stop this year, with a projected decline in new installations of 2 percent, according to projections from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. A number of factors are driving the reversal, from saturation in markets like California to financial woes at several top solar panel makers. But the decline has also coincided with a concerted and well-funded lobbying campaign by traditional utilities, which have been working in state capitals acr

Do you like to go to parties? Of course you do, who doesn’t. Hosting one, on the other hand, is a whole other matter. But whether it’s an all-night house party or just a few friends, some snacks and music, we’re here to help. • Enjoy the weather! It’s beautiful outside, so take advantage. Organize a picnic, complete with these essential tips.

OLATHE, Kan. — Sunayana Dumala tried once again to enter the worship room she and her husband, Srinivas Kuchibhotla, had created in their home for daily prayers. Mr. Kuchibhotla had built an intricate wooden shrine by hand two years ago, a small sacred edifice where they would kneel each morning. Months after his death, it became a place where she would honor him. On a Wednesday night in February, a man with a semiautomatic pistol and a distorted notion of American pride turned ordinary people into shooting victims and survivors — and he turned Ms. Dumala into a widow. Mr.

Members of Congress returning home for the July 4 recess last week were met with rallies, sit-ins and Independence Day demonstrators, as activists on the left intensified their push to defeat Republican legislation to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. The groups on the right that once fueled the party’s anti-Obamacare fervor might as well have been on vacation. “Not too many are focused on health care currently,” said Levi Russell, a spokesman for

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Three years ago, a black-clad cleric named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi ascended a mosque pulpit in the Iraqi city of Mosul and addressed the world as leader of a new terrorist state. The announcement of the so-called caliphate was a high point for the extremist fighters of the Islamic State.