Blog

In a sandy clearing near Israel's border with Gaza, soldiers, civilians and tourists wandered silently through a dense thicket of poles. Posted on the posts were portraits of the hundreds of people who came there to dance late into the night last October and never returned home.As Israelis celebrated Memorial Day, the country's annual commemoration of fallen soldiers and victims of terrorist attacks, many were drawn to the site of the Tribe of Nova music festival, a rave dedicated to peace and love that was cut short around dawn on October 7 by a barrage of rockets from Gaza, signaling the start of the Hamas-led cross-border assault.In the horror that followed, at least 360 festivalgoers were killed – nearly a third of the approximately 1,200 people killed that day in southern Isr...

The four adult children agreed.Their father, William Curry, a retired electrical engineer and business executive, was sinking deeper into dementia. They had found a memory care facility about a mile from their parents' home in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, where they thought Mr. Curry would do better.But their mother, Melissa, who was 83 when her family began urging her to make this change in 2016, remained determined to continue caring for her 81-year-old husband at home, despite the growing impact on his health. When her children raised the issue of moving, “she didn't want to discuss it,” said her daughter, Shannon Curry, 56. She cried sometimes."Yet even Melissa Curry's memory was slipping. She forgot to give her husband's medications or she got her doses wrong. The f...

Three men have been charged with assisting Hong Kong's secret service, London's Metropolitan Police said on Monday, following an investigation in which arrests and searches were carried out across England.The three people charged under the UK National Security Act have been identified as Chi Leung (Peter) Wai, 38, of Staines-upon-Thames, Matthew Trickett, 37, of Maidenhead, and Chung Biu Yuen, 63, of Hackney , East London.“The foreign intelligence service to which the above allegations relate is that of Hong Kong,” police said in a statement.All three men appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday. As court proceedings are now active, Britain's reporting restrictions apply, preventing speculation about the case.Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police's cou...

Federal officials will provide up to $120 million in grants to Polar Semiconductor to help the company expand its chip manufacturing plant in Minnesota, the Biden administration announced Monday, the latest in a series of awards intended to strengthen the US supply of semiconductors.Commerce Department officials said the grant would help Polar upgrade technology and double production capacity at its facility in Bloomington, Minnesota, within two years. The company makes chips critical to automobiles, defense systems and power grids, federal officials said.“We're making taxpayer money go as far as possible by crowding in private and state investment to create jobs, protect our supply chains and strengthen manufacturing in Minnesota,” said Laurie Locascio, Under Secretary of Commerce fo...

As the Israeli military ramped up pressure on what it calls Hamas' last stronghold in Gaza, Sunday's fighting elsewhere in the Palestinian enclave led to warnings that the militants could remain a force for a long time to come.Close-quarters fighting between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops raged in parts of northern Gaza over the weekend, both sides said Sunday, even as the world's attention was largely focused on the southern city of Rafah, where Israel stepped up military operations last week.It has become a familiar scenario in the Gaza Strip over the course of the seven-month war: After pitched battles, Israel declares an area free of Hamas, then returns after the militants have rebuilt their forces.On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he was concerned tha...

Half a century ago, one of the hottest questions in science was whether humans could teach animals to talk. Scientists have tried using sign language to converse with monkeys and have trained parrots to use ever-growing English vocabularies.The work quickly attracted media attention and controversy. The research lacked rigor, critics argued, and what appeared to be animal communication could simply have been wishful thinking, with researchers unconsciously causing their animals to respond in certain ways..In the late 1970s and early 1980s the search fell out of favor. “The whole camp is completely disintegrated,” said Irene Pepperberg, a comparative cognition researcher at Boston University who has become known for her work with an African gray parrot named Alex.Today, technological adv...

Spain's ruling Socialist Party emerged Sunday as the winner of regional elections in Catalonia, which had been widely seen as a litmus test for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's polarizing amnesty measure for separatists.The socialists are celebrating what they see as a landmark victory, even though they have not won enough seats to govern on their own. They will most likely face weeks of haggling and perhaps a repeat election if no deal is reached. But for the first time in more than a decade, they may be able to form a regional government led by an anti-independence party.Addressing supporters on Sunday evening at the Socialist headquarters in Barcelona, ​​the party's leader, Salvador Illa, said: “For the first time in 45 years, we have won the elections in Catalonia, both in ...

Last month in Chicago, a United Airlines flight to London was ready to depart, but was still waiting for 13 connecting passengers from Costa Rica. The airline predicted they would miss their flight within seven minutes. Under normal circumstances, everyone would be rushing to rebook.But thanks to a new AI-powered tool called ConnectionSaver, the jet was able to wait for them – even their checked bags – and still arrive in London on time. The system also sent text messages to late-arriving passengers and people on the waiting plane to explain what was happening.The AI ​​may still not be able to find space for your carry-on, but it could help put an end to the 40-gate rush — sprinting to catch your connecting flight before the door closes — as well as other common ones travel headaches.It&...

The United States has not ruled out withholding further military support for Israel's campaign against Hamas should Israel undertake a major attack on Rafah, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Sunday.“If Israel launches this major military operation in Rafah, then there are certain systems that we will not support and provide for that operation,” Blinken said on CBS' “Face the Nation.” He didn't elaborate.Last week, the White House imposed a delay in the delivery of 3,500 bombs over fears of potential harm to civilians in Rafah, where many Gazans have sought refuge since fighting began seven months ago. Blinken said these are the only weapons the U.S. has retained “at this time.”Two days after the State Department sent a report to Congress raising “substantial quest...

Richard “Rick” Slayman, who made history at age 62 as the first person to receive a kidney from a genetically modified pig, died about two months after the procedure.Massachusetts General Hospital, where Mr. Slayman underwent surgery, said in a statement Saturday that its transplant team was “deeply saddened” by his death. The hospital said it had “no indication that it was the result of his recent transplant.”Mr. Slayman, who was black, had end-stage renal disease, a condition that affects more than 800,000 people in the United States, according to the federal government, with disproportionately higher rates among blacks.There are too few kidneys available for donation. Nearly 90,000 people are on the national waiting list for a kidney.Mr. Slayman, a supervisor for the state Department ...