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Swedish grandparents are entitled to paid parental leave this week, after the country enacted a pioneering new law aimed at extending childcare benefits beyond the borders of the child's family of origin.Under the change, which came into effect on Monday, parents can now transfer part of their parental leave days to other caregivers, cementing Sweden's reputation as a global leader in progressive parental leave policies.According to the Swedish Government's Social Security Agency, the law allows single parents to transfer up to 90 days of paid leave to other caregivers and a parental couple to transfer up to 45 days.The law was approved by the Riksdag, Sweden's 349-seat parliament, last December.Leo Gullbring, 65, a freelance copywriter from Lund, Sweden, who is expecting h...

The Biden administration on Tuesday pledged $504 million for a dozen projects across the country in an effort to transform previously overlooked communities into tech powerhouses.The grants will fund “technology hubs” that aim to boost production of critical technologies in regions including western Montana, central Indiana, southern Florida and upstate New York. The hubs are designed to accelerate the growth of advanced industries in the U.S., such as biomanufacturing, clean energy, artificial intelligence and personalized medicine.The program reflects a federal effort to expand U.S. funding for science and technology beyond Silicon Valley and some coastal regions, an initiative that Biden administration officials say will help revitalize areas that have traditionally received less govern...

Israel on Tuesday issued a new round of evacuation orders for a large swathe of the southern Gaza Strip, forcing thousands of Palestinians to flee once again in search of relative safety.In recent weeks, Israeli officials have spoken of a shift to more targeted and limited attacks, but the ongoing exodus in the city of Khan Younis made it clear Tuesday that a return to normal life for Gazans is not near.Gazans who had already been forced to flee again and again were on the move again, hauling piles of goods in cars, trucks and donkey carts. Hospital patients were pushed in wheelchairs along with others fleeing on foot.“How much longer can we continue to hear: go and come back, go and come back?” asked Gaza woman Suzan Abu Daqqa, 59, after fleeing her home southeast of Khan Younis.The evacu...

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved a new drug for Alzheimer’s disease, the latest in a new class of treatments that has been greeted with hope, disappointment and skepticism.The drug, donanemab, which will be sold under the brand name Kisunla, has been shown in studies to modestly slow the rate of cognitive decline in the early stages of the disease. It also had significant safety risks, including swelling and bleeding in the brain.Kisunla, made by Eli Lilly, is similar to another drug, Leqembi, that was approved last year. Both are intravenous infusions that target a protein implicated in Alzheimer’s, and both can slow the development of dementia by several months. Both also carry similar safety concerns. Leqembi, made by Eisai and Biogen, is given every two weeks; Kisun...

Keir Starmer, leader of the British Labour Party, nodded sympathetically as a young mother recalled, in heartbreaking terms, watching CCTV footage of the fatal stabbing of her 21-year-old son, whose heart had been pierced by a single bullet.“Thank you for this,” a grim Mr Starmer told the woman and other relatives of knife victims as they stood around a wooden table last week discussing how to tackle violent crime. “It’s really, really powerful.”It wasn’t the most edifying campaign event for a candidate, the week before an election his opposition party is widely expected to win. But it was entirely in keeping with the character of Mr Starmer, a 61-year-old former human rights lawyer who still acts more like a prosecutor than a politician pursuing a case.Sincere, intense, practical and not ...

In a field on the outskirts of Kyiv, the founders of Vyriy, a Ukrainian drone company, were recently at work on a weapon of the future.To demonstrate it, Oleksii Babenko, 25, Vyriy’s chief executive, hopped on his motorcycle and rode down a dirt path. Behind him, a drone followed, as a colleague tracked the movements from a briefcase-size computer.Until recently, a human would have piloted the quadcopter. No longer. Instead, after the drone locked onto its target — Mr. Babenko — it flew itself, guided by software that used the machine’s camera to track him.The motorcycle’s growling engine was no match for the silent drone as it stalked Mr. Babenko. “Push, push more. Pedal to the medal, man,” his colleagues called out over a walkie-talkie as the drone swooped toward him. “You’re screwed, sc...

Israel on Monday released the head of the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital after more than seven months in detention, Palestinian health officials said, a decision that prompted immediate protests in Israel, although no charges were made public against him.Mohammad Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, was arrested in late November while taking part in an attempt to evacuate patients from the hospital, which was under siege by the Israeli army at the time. The army said he was detained for questioning about Hamas operations at the hospital.The reaction to Dr. Abu Salmiya’s release has underscored divergent views of the war both inside and outside Israel. Human rights groups have said his continued detention without charge was a sign of Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinian p...

These early studies “highlighted both the potential we could learn from dogs and that we needed larger sample sizes to do it really well,” said Elinor Karlsson, a geneticist at UMass Chan Medical School and the Broad Institute. And so researchers began creating large citizen science projects, seeking DNA samples and data from dogs across the United States.Pet owners have risen to the challenge. The Golden Retriever Lifetime Study, which began recruiting in 2012, has followed more than 3,000 dogs in an attempt to identify genetic and environmental risk factors for cancer, which is particularly common in the breed. Since 2019, the Dog Aging Project, a long-term study of health and longevity, has enrolled approximately 50,000 dogs.Dr. Karlsson’s personal project, Darwin’s Dogs, numbers 44,000...

American defense officials raised the security alert level at military bases in Europe over the weekend in response to vague threats from the Kremlin about Ukraine using long-range weapons on Russian soil, U.S. and Western officials said.Officials said no specific information had been gathered about possible Russian attacks on U.S. bases. Any such attack by Russia, overt or covert, would represent a significant escalation of its war in Ukraine.Russia has stepped up sabotage in Europe, hoping to disrupt the flow of material to Ukraine. So far, no U.S. bases have been targeted in those attacks, but U.S. officials have said raising the alert level would help ensure service members remain vigilant.Throughout the war, U.S. officials have assessed that President Vladimir V. Putin is reluctant to...

The Supreme Court eluded a final resolution Monday in a pair of cases challenging state laws designed to limit social media companies’ power to moderate content. The ruling dashed an effort by Republicans who had pushed the legislation as a remedy for what they say is a bias against conservatives.It was the latest case in which the Supreme Court considered, and then sidestepped, a major decision on the parameters of expression on social media platforms.State laws differ on the specifics. Florida’s bars platforms from permanently banning candidates for political office in the state, while Texas’s bars platforms from removing any content based on a user’s views.The justices unanimously agreed to remand the cases to the lower courts for review. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the majority, n...