Science and Technology

A man involved in a brazen plot to manipulate the stock price of a New Jersey deli’s parent company pleaded guilty to securities fraud on Wednesday.James T. Patten, 64, of North Carolina, admitted to orchestrating a series of misleading trades in an apparent bid to enrich himself and two co-defendants in U.S. District Court in Camden, N.J.Mr. Patten faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $5 million for securities fraud. He also pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and…

Ozempic ManiaWeight loss drugs made their way to the online set this year, with some influencers casting stigma aside and unabashedly proclaiming their Ozempic use.Djerf Dupe DramaMatilda Djerf, a popular Swedish influencer and a founder of the fashion brand Djerf Avenue, irked fans when her team started reporting TikTok videos that mentioned places to purchase dupes — inexpensive copies — of her pricey designs.Rocky Hockey RomanceDrama rippled through a niche literary community — fans of hockey romance novels — when Felicia Wennberg, the wife of the N.H.L. player Alex Wennberg, said that certain book lovers had become “predatory and exploiting”…

Higher for (not much) longer The “everything rally” has gone global, sending stocks and bonds soaring in Asia and Europe and lifting U.S. stock futures, after investors got their clearest signal yet that the Fed would begin cutting interest rates soon. Hopes are growing, too, on Thursday that other central banks will follow suit.The Fed delivered an unexpectedly dovish forecast on Wednesday, penciling in three rate cuts next year. Those moves are projected to lower the Fed’s prime lending rate to 4.6 percent, a notable drop from the central bank’s last estimate in September.The revision sent the Dow Jones industrial…