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At 7pm on May 7, 1824, Ludwig van Beethoven, then 53 years old, took to the stage at Vienna's magnificent Theater am Kärntnertor to help conduct the world premiere of his Ninth Symphony, the last he would ever complete.That performance, which marks its 200th anniversary on Tuesday, was unforgettable in many ways. But it was marred by an incident at the start of the second movement that revealed to the audience of around 1,800 just how deaf the revered composer had become.Ted Albrecht, professor emeritus of musicology at Kent State University in Ohio and author of a recent book on the Ninth Symphony, described the scene.The movement began with loud kettledrums and the crowd applauded wildly.But Beethoven was oblivious to the applause and his music. He stood with his back to the audien...

International airline passengers arriving at Heathrow Airport near London faced long queues at immigration checkpoints for several hours on Tuesday evening after the British Border Force reported a nationwide computer outage, officials said.“Border Force is currently experiencing a nationwide issue which is impacting passengers transiting across the border,” Heathrow, the country's largest airport, said on social media at 9.15pmJust before 2am on Wednesday, Heathrow announced that the problem had been resolvedbut it is not clear whether this also happened at the other affected airports.Manchester Airport, Gatwick Airport near London, Belfast International Airport in Northern Ireland and several other airports had reported being hit by Tuesday evening, although the overall number of aff...

Reddit reported a quarterly loss of more than $500 million in its first earnings report as a public company on Tuesday, largely due to stock compensation expenses incurred during its initial public offering in March.But the social media company also reported solid revenue and user growth, underscoring the potential of its digital advertising business as people flock to the site. Last month, Google, Meta and Snap also reported increased ad sales and double-digit revenue growth.Reddit's revenue was $243 million in the first quarter, up 48% from $163.7 million a year earlier and higher than Wall Street estimates of $214 million, according to data compiled by FactSet. Net loss was $575.1 million, compared to a loss of $60.9 million a year earlier. Stock-based compensation expense totale...

Israeli officials said on Tuesday that major gaps remain with Hamas over the latest ceasefire proposal in Gaza, as delegations from both sides arrived in Cairo to resume talks.Hamas said on Monday it had accepted the terms of the ceasefire proposed by Arab mediators, and U.S. officials said they had made minor drafting changes from the proposal that Israel and the United States had recently presented to the group.But Israeli officials have disputed this characterization, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying on Tuesday that his war cabinet unanimously believed that the proposal accepted by Hamas was “very far from Israel's fundamental demands.”The text of the revised proposal was circulating in Israeli media on Tuesday and was confirmed as authentic by a senior Hamas official. ...

On Wednesday, Kendric Cromer, a 12-year-old boy from a Washington suburb, became the first person in the world with sickle cell disease to start a commercially approved gene therapy that could cure the disease.For the approximately 20,000 people with sickle cell disease in the United States who qualify for treatment, the start of Kendric's months-long medical journey may offer hope. But it also signals the difficulties patients face when trying a pair of new treatments for sickle cell disease.For a lucky few, like Kendric, treatment could make the life they longed for possible. As a solemn and shy teenager, he had learned that ordinary activities – riding a bicycle, going out on a cold day, playing football – could cause episodes of excruciating pain.“Sickle cell anemia always steals...

An American soldier detained in Russia last week will remain in prison until at least July while authorities investigate theft charges against him, Russian media reported Tuesday, citing local court officials.The soldier was arrested on Thursday in the eastern Russian port city of Vladivostok, a local court spokesman told Russian business daily Kommersant. His detention came to light on Monday, when the US departments of State and Defense said he was being held.A U.S. military officer identified him as Staff Sgt. Gordon Black, 34, an Army sergeant about to return home to Texas after being stationed in South Korea.A Vladivostok court said in a news release Tuesday that an American citizen identified only by the letter B had been arrested on charges of robbing a woman, causing her "consider...

As experts warn that AI-generated images, audio and video could influence the fall elections, OpenAI is releasing a tool designed to detect content created by its popular image generator, DALL-E. But the prominent AI start-up recognizes that this tool is only a small part of what will be needed to combat so-called deepfakes in the months and years to come.On Tuesday, OpenAI said it would share its new deepfake detector with a small group of disinformation researchers so they could test the tool in real-world situations and help identify ways it could be improved.“It's about sparking new research,” said Sandhini Agarwal, an OpenAI researcher who focuses on security and politics. “It's really needed.”OpenAI said its new detector could correctly identify 98.8% of images created by D...

After the Israeli army issued the evacuation order, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak reiterated that he was "deeply concerned" about an invasion, while Saudi Arabia's Foreign Ministry warned Israel against advancing what he called a “bloody and systematic” campaign to storm all of Gaza and displace its residents.In Rafah, some Palestinians quickly dismantled their tents in the pouring rain and began to leave. Others wondered whether it was safe to leave. Gazans and aid groups said the Israeli military had shelled areas it had previously designated as safe for civilians.Nidal Kuhail, 29, a former Gaza City resident, said he was overcome with anxiety and divided about what to do. The tent he was taking refuge in was not in the area of ​​Rafah covered by the Israeli evacuation order....

When Kris Hallenga was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer – the most advanced form – at 23, questions swirled in her head: “Why didn't anyone tell me to check my breasts? Why didn't I know I could get breast cancer at 23?If she hadn't known she might have breast cancer so young, there was a very good chance others would be equally misinformed, she said in a 2021 interview with The Guardian. She spent the next 15 years educating young people about early detection through her nonprofit, CoppaFeel, and in a 2021 memoir, “Glittering a Turd.”On Monday, CoppaFeel announced that Ms. Hallenga had died at the age of 38. A spokesperson for the organization said that she had died at her home in Cornwall, England, and that the cause was breast cancer.“Survival has never been enough,” ...

Laurent Cantet, an eminent director who made insightful films about the thorny aspects of French life and society, died on April 25 in Paris. He was 63 years old.His writer and editor, Robin Campillo, said he died of cancer in hospital.Cantet's best-known film was “Entre les Murs” (“The Class”), which won the Palme d'Or, the top prize of the Cannes Film Festival, in 2008 and was nominated for an Oscar as best film in foreign language. “The Class” was something new in French cinema: an extended snapshot of the interior of a school classroom in a working-class neighborhood of Paris, using a real-life former teacher and real-life schoolchildren and walking a provocative line between documentary and fiction. .This ambiguity infuses the film with a rare tension, as a hapless language...