SAN FRANCISCO — Snapchat, the ephemeral messaging app, introduced its first parental controls on Tuesday, as social media platforms face increasing scrutiny for exposing young users to potentially harmful content.

Snap, Snapchat’s parent company, said in a blog post that its new tools would let parents see whom their teenagers were friends with on the app and whom they had communicated with in the previous seven days. Parents will also be able to report accounts that their children are friends with if they violate Snapchat’s policies. Parents will not be able to see their children’s conversations on the app.

To gain access to the controls, people have to create Snapchat accounts and be friends with their children, who have to agree to the controls. The company said it would introduce additional features later, including one that lets parents see whom their children recently became friends with. Teenagers will also be able to notify their parents if they report...

Oksana Dudyk scanned a small selection of ornamental plants lining the shelves of her new florist shop, recently opened in this city on Ukraine’s western frontier. Her eye landed on the perfect bloom for a new customer: fuchsia-colored primroses, vivid and lush, ideal for brightening an austere corner.

It was late afternoon, and the flowers were only her 10th sale of the day. But that was nothing short of a miracle for Ms. Dudyk, who started the shop with her last savings after fleeing her now-decimated hometown, Mariupol, under a hail of Russian rockets. Her husband, who enlisted in the Ukrainian Army after the invasion, was captured by Russian forces in May and has not been heard from since.

“These flowers help me to get by,” said Ms. Dudyk, 55. A former construction engineer who before the war helped design and build schools, she said she had never imagined that she would one day sell flowers to survive. “They bring me joy, and they help customers, too, by...

Inflation cooled notably in July as gas prices and airfares fell, a welcome reprieve for consumers and a positive development for economic policymakers in Washington — though not yet a conclusive sign that price increases have turned a corner.

The Consumer Price Index climbed 8.5 percent in the year through July, a slower pace than economists had expected and considerably less than the 9.1 percent increase in the year through June. After food and fuel costs are stripped out to better understand underlying cost pressures, prices climbed 5.9 percent, matching the previous reading.

The marked deceleration in overall inflation — on a monthly basis, prices barely moved — is another sign of economic improvement that could boost President Biden at a time when rapid price increases have been burdening consumers and eroding voter confidence. The new data came on the heels of an unexpectedly strong jobs report last week that underscored the economy’s momentum.

Many default settings buried deep inside our technology make us share superfluous amounts of data with tech companies. In my last column, I went over how to shut those off.

But not all default settings do sneaky things with our information. There are also some that need to be activated or disabled to make our devices more enjoyable to use.

Newer iPhones, for one, come with a fancy camera that can shoot extremely clear videos in ultrahigh “4K” resolution — but most people probably aren’t using their cameras to their full potential because, by default, the phone is set to shoot videos at a lower resolution.

SAN FRANCISCO — The young kings of Silicon Valley are dismounting their unicorns.

They’re writing sentimental blog posts that outline their legacies. They’re expressing hope for their companies’ prospects. They’re quitting their jobs leading the start-ups they founded.

In recent weeks, Ben Silbermann, a co-founder of the digital pinboard service Pinterest, resigned as chief executive; Joe Gebbia, a co-founder of the home rental company Airbnb, announced his departure from the company’s leadership; and Apoorva Mehta, the founder of the grocery delivery app Instacart, said he would end his run as executive chairman when the company went public, as soon as this year.

The resignations signify the end of an era at these companies, which are among the most valuable and well-known to emerge from Silicon Valley in the past decade, and of the era they represent. In recent years, investors have dumped increasingly large sums of money into a group of highly valued...

Elon Musk, the chief executive of the electric vehicle maker Tesla, has sold about $7 billion worth of the company’s stock, a move he said on Twitter was an effort to raise cash in case he was forced to complete his $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter.

The sale of 7.92 million Tesla shares started Friday, Mr. Musk revealed on Tuesday in securities filings, a reversal from his previous statements that he would not sell additional shares to finance the Twitter deal.

Mr. Musk signed the deal in April to acquire the social media company only to announce months later his intent to pull out, citing concerns about its accounting of fake users. His hesitancy coincided with a deep plunge in shares of technology companies, including Tesla, the primary source of his wealth.

LOS ANGELES — Bucking a streaming slowdown that has recently bedeviled Hollywood, Disney+ added 14.4 million subscribers in the most recent quarter, about 45 percent more than Wall Street had expected and lifting Disney’s portfolio of streaming services to 221 million subscribers worldwide, edging ahead of Netflix for the first time.

As expected, however, Disney acknowledged on Wednesday that its quest to attract 230 million to 260 million subscribers with Disney+ alone by 2024 would be hampered by the loss of streaming rights to popular cricket matches in India. The company’s new subscriber guidance is 215 million to 245 million by 2024, with India almost entirely accounting for the decrease. Disney reaffirmed its promise that Disney+ will be profitable by that year.

Disney released the figures on Wednesday as part of a blockbuster quarterly earnings report. The company also announced price increases for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, as well as details of a new version...

Oksana Dudyk scanned a small selection of ornamental plants lining the shelves of her new florist shop, recently opened in this city on Ukraine’s western frontier. Her eye landed on the perfect bloom for a new customer: fuchsia-colored primroses, vivid and lush, ideal for brightening an austere corner.

It was late afternoon, and the flowers were only her 10th sale of the day. But that was nothing short of a miracle for Ms. Dudyk, who started the shop with her last savings after fleeing her now-decimated hometown Mariupol under a hail of Russian rockets. Her husband, who enlisted in the Ukrainian army after the invasion, was captured by Russian forces in May and has not been heard from since.

“These flowers help me to get by,” said Ms. Dudyk, 55. A former construction engineer who before the war helped design and build schools, she said that she never imagined that she would one day sell flowers to survive. “They bring me joy, and they help customers too, by creating...

SAN FRANCISCO — Snapchat, the ephemeral messaging app, introduced its first parental controls on Tuesday, as social media platforms face increasing scrutiny for exposing young users to potentially harmful content.

Snap, Snapchat’s parent company, said in a blog post that its new tools would let parents see whom their teenagers were friends with on the app and whom they had communicated with in the previous seven days. Parents will also be able to report accounts that their children are friends with if they violate Snapchat’s policies. Parents will not be able to see their children’s conversations on the app.

To gain access to the controls, people have to create Snapchat accounts and be friends with their children, who have to agree to the controls. The company said it would introduce additional features later, including one that lets parents see whom their children recently became friends with. Teenagers will also be able to notify their parents if they report...

SAN FRANCISCO — The young kings of Silicon Valley are dismounting their unicorns.

They’re writing sentimental blog posts that outline their legacies. They’re expressing hope for their companies’ prospects. They’re quitting their jobs leading the start-ups they founded.

In recent weeks, Ben Silbermann, a co-founder of the digital pinboard service Pinterest, resigned as chief executive; Joe Gebbia, a co-founder of the home rental company Airbnb, announced his departure from the company’s leadership; and Apoorva Mehta, the founder of the grocery delivery app Instacart, said he would end his run as executive chairman when the company went public, as soon as this year.

The resignations signify the end of an era at these companies, which are among the most valuable and well-known to emerge from Silicon Valley in the past decade, and of the era they represent. In recent years, investors have dumped increasingly large sums of money into a group of highly valued...

Inflation cooled notably in July as gas prices and airfares fell, a welcome reprieve for consumers and a positive development for economic policymakers in Washington — though not yet a conclusive sign that price increases have turned a corner.

The Consumer Price Index climbed 8.5 percent in the year through July, a slower pace than economists had expected and considerably less than the 9.1 percent increase in the year through June. After food and fuel costs are stripped out to better understand underlying cost pressures, prices climbed 5.9 percent, matching the previous reading.

The marked deceleration in overall inflation — on a monthly basis, prices barely moved — is another sign of economic improvement that could boost President Biden at a time when rapid price increases have been burdening consumers and eroding voter confidence. The new data came on the heels of an unexpectedly strong jobs report last week that underscored the economy’s momentum.

Elon Musk, the chief executive of the electric vehicle maker Tesla, has sold about $7 billion worth of the company’s stock, a move he said on Twitter was an effort to raise cash in case he was forced to complete his $44 billion deal to acquire Twitter.

The sale of 7.92 million Tesla shares started Friday, Mr. Musk revealed on Tuesday in securities filings, a reversal from his previous statements that he would not sell additional shares to finance the Twitter deal.

Mr. Musk signed the deal in April to acquire the social media company only to announce months later his intent to pull out, citing concerns about its accounting of fake users. His hesitancy coincided with a deep plunge in shares of technology companies, including Tesla, the primary source of his wealth.

Many default settings buried deep inside our technology make us share superfluous amounts of data with tech companies. In my last column, I went over how to shut those off.

But not all default settings do sneaky things with our information. There are also some that need to be activated or disabled to make our devices more enjoyable to use.

Newer iPhones, for one, come with a fancy camera that can shoot extremely clear videos in ultrahigh “4K” resolution — but most people probably aren’t using their cameras to their full potential because, by default, the phone is set to shoot videos at a lower resolution.

LOS ANGELES — Bucking a streaming slowdown that has recently bedeviled Hollywood, Disney+ added 14.4 million subscribers in the most recent quarter, about 45 percent more than Wall Street had expected and lifting Disney’s portfolio of streaming services to 221 million subscribers worldwide, edging ahead of Netflix for the first time.

As expected, however, Disney acknowledged on Wednesday that its quest to attract 230 million to 260 million subscribers with Disney+ alone by 2024 would be hampered by the loss of streaming rights to popular cricket matches in India. The company’s new subscriber guidance is 215 million to 245 million by 2024, with India almost entirely accounting for the decrease. Disney reaffirmed its promise that Disney+ will be profitable by that year.

Disney released the figures on Wednesday as part of a blockbuster quarterly earnings report. The company also announced price increases for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN+, as well as details of a new version...

??The United States has authorized $280 billion in taxpayer money to subsidize rich computer chip companies and invest in technology research for the sake of keeping America strong and innovative.

President Biden on Tuesday signed the law, officially known as the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, calling it “an investment in America itself.”

If this law does what its many backers in government and private industry hope, the U.S. will have more control over the future of essential computer chips and have a hedge if China grows more hostile toward Taiwan, a U.S. ally. The law also aims to keep America on the cutting edge of technology by putting more government support into research.

Higher-income households built up savings and wealth during the early stages of the pandemic as they stayed at home and their stocks, houses and other assets rose in value, The New York Times’s Jeanna Smialek and Ben Casselman report. Between those stockpiles and solid wage growth, many have been able to keep spending even as costs climb.

But data and anecdotes suggest that lower-income households, despite the resilient job market, are struggling more profoundly with inflation.

That divergence poses a challenge for the Federal Reserve, which is hoping that higher interest rates will slow consumer spending and ease pressure on prices across the economy. Already, there are signs that poorer families are cutting back. If richer families don’t pull back as much — if they keep going on vacations, dining out and buying new cars and second homes — many prices could keep rising. The Fed might need to raise interest rates even more to bring inflation under control, and that...

Airline ticket prices fell sharply in July after peaking in recent months, fueled by high costs, high demand and a limited number of flights.

Fares fell 7.8 percent in July compared to June, helping to ease overall inflation. Aviation experts said they expect prices to continue to drop into the fall as jet fuel prices and demand ease.

Fares peaked in May when many travelers began confirming summer travel plans. After more than two years of exercising caution, many people took longer trips this summer, which is typically the busiest season for air travel. At the same time, many airlines cut the number of flights on their summer schedules to reduce the risk of mass delays and cancellations because of weather and staffing problems especially around holidays and other peak travel days. Fares were also driven up by high labor and fuel costs.

Inflation cooled in July as gas prices and airfares fell, a welcome reprieve for consumers and economic policymakers but not yet a conclusive sign that price increases are turning a corner.

The Consumer Price Index climbed 8.5 percent in the year through July, compared with 9.1 percent the prior month, a bigger slowdown than economists had projected. After stripping out food and fuel costs to get a sense of underlying price pressures, prices climbed by 5.9 percent through July, matching the previous reading.

Inflation cooled in July as gas prices and airfares fell, a welcome reprieve for consumers and economic policymakers but not yet a conclusive sign that price increases are turning a corner.

The Consumer Price Index climbed 8.5 percent in the year through July, compared with 9.1 percent the prior month, a bigger slowdown than economists had projected. After stripping out food and fuel costs to get a sense of underlying price pressures, prices climbed by 5.9 percent through July, matching the previous reading.

Inflation cooled in July as gas prices and airfares fell, a welcome reprieve for consumers and economic policymakers but not yet a conclusive sign that price increases are turning a corner.

The Consumer Price Index climbed 8.5 percent in the year through July, compared with 9.1 percent the prior month, a bigger slowdown than economists had projected. After stripping out food and fuel costs to get a sense of underlying price pressures, prices climbed by 5.9 percent through July, matching the previous reading.

Inflation cooled in July as gas prices and airfares fell, a welcome reprieve for consumers and economic policymakers but not yet a conclusive sign that price increases are turning a corner.

The Consumer Price Index climbed 8.5 percent in the year through July, compared with 9.1 percent the prior month, a bigger slowdown than economists had projected. After stripping out food and fuel costs to get a sense of underlying price pressures, prices climbed by 5.9 percent through July, matching the previous reading.

Elon Musk, the chief executive of the electric vehicle maker Tesla, has sold about $7 billion worth of the company’s stock, a move he said on Twitter was an effort to raise cash in case he is forced to complete his $44 billion deal to acquire the social media company.

The sale of 7.92 million Tesla shares were made starting on Aug. 5, he revealed Tuesday in securities filings, a reversal from his previous statements that he would not sell additional shares to finance the Twitter deal.

Mr. Musk signed the deal in April to acquire the social media company only to announce months later his intent to pull out, citing concerns about its accounting of fake users. His hesitancy coincided with a deep plunge in shares of technology companies, including Tesla, the primary source of his wealth.

Gasoline prices in the United States have fallen for 57 consecutive days since reaching a high of more than $5 a gallon in June.

The national average price of gas was $4.01 on Wednesday, according to AAA. That’s higher than it was a year ago but still well below the record of nearly $5.02 in mid-June (not adjusted for inflation). Energy costs feed into broad measures of inflation, so the drop is also good news for policymakers who have made limiting the fuel price increases a priority.

The drop reflects a number of factors: Weaker demand because high costs have kept some drivers off the roads; a decline in global oil prices in recent months; and a handful of states suspending taxes on gasoline. The decline has been welcomed by the Biden administration, which for months has been orchestrating a campaign to lower gas prices and criticizing energy companies for profiting at the expense of American consumers.