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Dozens of people have died amid scorching temperatures during the annual hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, official Middle Eastern and African media reported.With temperatures forecast to reach 113 degrees Fahrenheit, or 45 degrees Celsius, on Tuesday, Saudi officials issued warnings to pilgrims urging them to stay hydrated, minimize outdoor activities and carry umbrellas to block direct sunlight.While Saudi Arabia reported no deaths, reports from a number of countries whose worshipers went to the hajj suggest the heat proved deadly.On Sunday, Jordan's official news agency said 14 pilgrims had died due to exposure to extreme sun and heat. The agency said on Wednesday that burial permits had been issued for 41 Jordanian pilgrims in Mecca, but provided no detail...

When five men died on June 18, 2023, in the implosion of the submarine Titan during a dive to the Titanic's resting place, Paul-Henri Nargeolet's knowledge was also lost. It was the Nargeolet's 38th dive on the sunken liner. Known as Mr. Titanic, he helped recover thousands of artifacts that have been displayed in museums and at events around the world.A year later, the company he worked for as director of underwater research is preparing a July expedition that will employ a pair of robots instead of people aboard submersibles to search for more treasure to recover in the future.Jessica Sanders, president of the RMS Titanic which is organizing the expedition, said: "There is an art to artefact recovery and a human element that technology can never replace - and it shouldn'...

As the war raged in Gaza, another battle unfolded in parallel along Israel's northern border with Lebanon – a risky game of tit-for-tat that has intensified in recent weeks, with a much stronger enemy.Sensing the danger of a full-scale war breaking out, President Biden sent one of his most senior aides, Amos Hochstein, to Israel on Monday and Lebanon on Tuesday to push for a diplomatic solution.Unlike Hamas, the Palestinian militia fighting Israel in Gaza, Hezbollah has troops who are battle-hardened fighters and has long-range, precision-guided missiles that can hit targets inside Israel.Despite clear efforts on both sides to prevent the cycle of attacks and counterattacks from escalating into a full-blown war beyond the one raging in Gaza, civilians in Israel and Lebanon have been ki...

As far as public health authorities know, the avian flu outbreak in dairy cattle has so far spread to just three farm workers in the United States. All had mostly mild symptoms.But that doesn't guarantee that the virus, called H5N1, will remain benign if it begins to spread between people. Accumulated evidence from the animal world and data from other parts of the globe, in fact, suggest the opposite.Some dairy cows never recovered from the H5N1 virus and died or were slaughtered from it. The infected terns appeared disoriented and unable to fly. The baby elephant seals had difficulty breathing and developed tremors after contracting the virus. Infected cats went blind and walked in circles; two-thirds of them died.“I definitely don't think there's room for complacency he...

Rep. Tom Cole, a veteran Oklahoma Republican and chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, fended off a primary challenge from a well-financed right-wing businessman on Tuesday, putting him on track to win a 12th term.Mr. Cole, first elected to Congress in 2002, has long been a fixture of Oklahoma politics and an influential legislative voice behind the scenes in Congress. The Associated Press called the race less than an hour after the polls closed, with Cole leading by an overwhelming margin.Mr. Cole rose to the helm of the influential Appropriations Committee in April, taking a coveted position on Capitol Hill that put him in charge of allocating federal spending. The committee's top members can direct federal dollars not only within the government, but also into their ow...

Move over, Microsoft and Apple. The stock market has a new king.On Tuesday, Nvidia leapfrogged two of the tech industry's most storied names to become the world's most valuable public company, according to data from S&P Global. Its rise has been fueled by the boom in generative artificial intelligence and growing demand for the company's chips – known as graphics processing units, or GPUs – that have made it possible to create artificial intelligence systems.Nvidia's rise is among the fastest in the history of the market. Just two years ago, the company's market valuation was just over $400 billion. Now, in the span of a year, it has gone from $1 trillion to more than $3 trillion.Nvidia's stock price rose 3.6% on Tuesday, bringing its value to $3.34 trillion. B...

Israel said the daily partial suspension of its military activity in part of southern Gaza, which began this week, aims to make it safer for aid groups to deliver aid to the territory. Here's a look at how the pause works and whether aid workers believe it can ease the suffering of civilians that the United Nations says is bordering on famine:What did the ad say?The army said Sunday it had suspended operations during daylight hours in parts of southern Gaza, responding to claims by aid groups that active fighting often prevented them from distributing food. The policy applies to a seven-mile-long strip of southeast Gaza surrounding a major road stretch. It does not include coastal areas from which Palestinians have fled since Israel began its invasion of the southern Gaza city of Ra...

Lesa Walton had suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for years. “It was terrible,” said Ms. Walton, 57, who lives in Wenatchee, Wash. “I kept getting sicker and sicker.”She also had high blood pressure and was obese. Doctors told her to go on a diet and exercise, which she did, to no avail.Then she found a doctor who prescribed Wegovy, one of the new obesity drugs. Not only has she lost more than 50 pounds, she said; Her arthritis resolved and she no longer needed pills to lower her blood pressure.Her new doctor, Dr. Stefie Deeds, an internist and obesity medicine specialist in private practice in Seattle, said Ms. Walton exemplifies a growing movement in obesity medicine.Proponents call it “obesity first.” The idea is to treat obesity with drugs approved for that use. As obesity come...

Russian President Vladimir V. Putin will travel to North Korea on Tuesday for the first time in 24 years after vowing to take ties with Pyongyang to new heights and jointly fight what he called the United States' "global neocolonial dictatorship" .The war against Ukraine brought Putin closer to the North's leader, Kim Jong-un, who gained new status in the Kremlin by opening his vast ammunition depots in Moscow.Nine months ago, after Kim arrived by armored train in the Russian Far East, the two men met at a Russian cosmodrome and toasted their "sacred struggle" against the West. The North Korean leader, between visits to sensitive Russian missile and fighter aircraft facilities, invited Putin to pay a reciprocal visit.Now the Russian president has accepted the offer. And the deepe...

After years of organizing Amazon workers and pressuring the company to bargain wages and working conditions, two major unions are teaming up to challenge the online retailer.The partnership was made permanent by voting that concluded Monday after members of the Amazon Labor Union, the only union formally representing Amazon warehouse workers in the United States, voted overwhelmingly to affiliate with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters , which has 1.3 million members. The vote was overseen by Amazon's union.The ALU scored a surprise victory in a Staten Island warehouse election in 2022. But it has yet to begin bargaining with Amazon, which continues to dispute the election results. Leaders of both unions said the affiliation agreement would put them in a better position to ch...