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The federal government is required to “expeditiously” house migrant children who enter the United States illegally, rather than allowing them to remain in unsafe outdoor sites along the border, a Federal District Court judge ruled Wednesday evening.The decision, issued by Judge Dolly M. Gee of the U.S. District Court of Central California, mostly sided with lawyers representing children in a class action lawsuit. She determined that the minors at the sites were in the legal custody of the Department of Homeland Security and therefore entitled to certain rights and protections, such as a safe and sanitary environment, even if they had not yet been formally processed.The court order, which takes effect immediately, is expected to impact thousands of children and potentially many more. It w...

For half a century, the Sernesi family lived in a historic villa overlooking Florence, where Renaissance artist Michelangelo grew up and later owned it. The property included several buildings, an orchard and a drawing of a muscular male nude etched into the wall of a former kitchen. Tradition has it that the work was designed by a young Michelangelo, although scholars aren't so sure.Last year the Sernesi family sold the villa. Now they want to sell the mural drawing, which was removed from its original location in 1979 so it could undergo much-needed restoration. Etched with charcoal or black chalk on plaster and measuring about 40 by 50 inches, art historians have identified the figure - which is well built, but somewhat wizened - as a "merman," a sea god, or a "satyr, "Part man,...

The Internet, as anyone who works in the trenches can tell you, is not a smooth, well-oiled machine.It's a messy patchwork that's been pieced together over decades and is held together by the digital equivalent of duct tape and chewing gum. Much of it relies on open source software thanklessly maintained by a small army of volunteer programmers who fix bugs, patch holes, and ensure that the entire rickety contraption, responsible for trillions of dollars in global GDP, continues to function. .Last week, one of these programmers may have saved the Internet from huge problems.His name is Andrés Freund. He is a 38-year-old software engineer who lives in San Francisco and works at Microsoft. His work involves developing open source database software known as PostgreSQL, the details ...

In a tense phone call Wednesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III rebuked his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, for Israel's deadly attack on a humanitarian food convoy in Gaza earlier this week.“Secretary Austin expressed his outrage over the Israeli attack on a World Central Kitchen relief convoy that killed seven aid workers, including an American citizen,” Maj. Gen. said in a statement Wednesday evening. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, describing the phone call.“Secretary Austin stressed the need to immediately take concrete measures to protect aid workers and Palestinian civilians in Gaza after repeated failures to coordinate with foreign aid groups,” General Ryder said.While Austin's comments echoed President Biden's forceful language – “outraged and he...

The first patient to receive a kidney transplant from a genetically modified pig recovered so well that he was released from hospital on Wednesday, just two weeks after the groundbreaking surgery.The transplant and its encouraging results represent a remarkable moment in medicine, scientists say, perhaps heralding an era of cross-species organ transplants.Two previous organ transplants from genetically modified pigs have failed. Both patients received hearts and both died a few weeks later. In one patient there were signs that the immune system had rejected the organ, a constant risk.But the kidney transplanted to Richard Slayman, 62, produces urine, removes waste products from the blood, balances body fluids and performs other key functions, according to his doctors at Massachusetts Gen...

For those who can afford them, the large villas of Whitmore Heath offer countryside tranquility within easy reach of urban centers such as Stoke-on-Trent and Stafford, an hour's drive north of Birmingham, the largest city in the English midlands.Yet on Heath Road, where some house prices have topped £1 million (about $1.3 million), padlocked gates and signs warn intruders of CCTV security monitoring. Outside one house there is a dumpster full of rubbish while the roof of another is covered in a film of moss. Peering through the large windows of a family home, not a single piece of furniture can be seen inside.This scene of abandonment is an aftermath of a multibillion-pound rail project that has lasted three decades and six prime ministers: a case study in the problems Britain faces ...

NASA will rent some cool wheels to go around the moon.Space agency officials announced Wednesday that they have hired three companies to come up with preliminary designs of vehicles that will take NASA astronauts to the moon's south polar region in the next few years. After the astronauts return to Earth, these vehicles would be able to navigate autonomously as robotic explorers, similar to NASA's Mars rovers.The autonomous driving capability would also allow the vehicle to take on the astronaut's next mission in a different location.“Where it goes, there are no roads,” Jacob Bleacher, NASA's chief exploration scientist, said at a news conference Wednesday. “Its mobility will radically change our view of the Moon.”This is Houston-based Intuitive Machines, which successful...

Lalzawmi Frankcom's text message was short and sweet: a response with a heart emoji at 10:38 pm on Sunday to her friend Josh Phelps, who had sent photos of their humanitarian work together on a reservation in South Dakota.On Monday Ms Frankcom, an Australian known as Zomi, had a big day ahead of her. She and her colleagues at the World Central Kitchen in Gaza were waiting for a ship to arrive at their newly built dock so they could unload hundreds of tons of badly needed humanitarian aid.The team left Rafah in southern Gaza at around 8am local time on Monday and headed north towards Deir al Balah. “They were so excited, like they were going to a wedding,” said Shadi Abu Taha, whose brother, Saif, was among them.But the journey ended disastrously.Israeli strikes hit their convoy that ...

As lawmakers in a nearby hearing room debated last month whether to support her legislation to expand Medicaid, Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas challenged the state's Republican House speaker to hold a vote.“If he thinks he can kill him, bring him,” Ms. Kelly, a soft-spoken moderate Democrat, said in an interview in her vast office at the state Capitol in Topeka.The next morning, in his office outside the House, Speaker Dan Hawkins showed no sign of relenting. He described the expansion of Medicaid as "almost like the biggest Ponzi scheme ever devised." The same day, a House committee voted against passing Ms. Kelly's bill, derailing the proposal, at least for now.The standoff between Ms. Kelly and Mr. Hawkins represented a clash in a fierce political battle playing out in several sta...

Israel bombed a building that was part of the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus on Monday, killing seven people, including Gen. Mohamad Reza Zahedi, who oversaw Iran's covert military operations in Syria and Lebanon, and two other senior generals.For centuries, diplomatic posts have been afforded special protections. Diplomats gain immunity from prosecution in the host country, and embassy buildings are often seen as a sanctuary for their nation's citizens: the host country's police cannot enter them without permission from diplomatic staff, and they often become sanctuaries for wartime expatriates.So attacks on diplomatic offices carry particular weight, both in the law and in the popular imagination. But in this case, experts say, Israel can probably argue that its actio...