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The evacuation order issued this week by the Israeli military concerns about a third of the Gaza Strip, at a time when the local population is increasingly ill-equipped to manage repeated forced displacements, after nearly nine months of war that have left tens of thousands dead and wounded and put the territory at risk of famine.The order, which the United Nations estimates affects about 250,000 people, is the largest since October, when about a million residents of the northern Gaza Strip were ordered to leave their homes, the organization said Tuesday."It's an endless cycle of death and displacement," Louise Wateridge, a spokeswoman for the main U.N. agency that helps Palestinians, UNRWA, said in voice messages from central Gaza on Wednesday. "People here are expressing that they ar...

V. Craig Jordan, a pharmacologist whose discovery that a failed contraceptive, tamoxifen, could block the growth of breast cancer cells opened a new class of drugs and helped save the lives of millions of women, died June 9 at his home in Houston. He was 76.Balkees Abderrahman, a researcher who worked closely with Dr. Jordan and cared for him for several years, said the cause was kidney cancer.Dr. Jordan was known as a meticulous, even obsessive, researcher, a quality demonstrated in his work on tamoxifen. The drug was first synthesized in 1962, although it was discarded because it failed not only to prevent conception but, in some cases, to promote it.But Dr. Jordan, then a doctoral student at the University of Leeds in Britain, saw something no one else had. It had long been known that e...

One recent evening, when Tim Bushe decided to trim some hedges, he attracted more attention than usual for a routine garden job.Walkers slowed to take photos and ask questions. Neighbors stepped over piles of cut leaves to thank him. A driver honked his horn and gave a thumbs-up.Mr. Bushe is used to attention. It happens every time he gives his two giant, furry elephants a haircut. They are just one in a series of hedges on residential streets that Mr. Bushe has transformed from overgrown plants into whimsical creations. His hedge menagerie includes two cats, a squirrel, a hippopotamus, and a fish. There's even, experimentally, a naked woman lying down. He hopes a giant rabbit will join them this summer.Its hedges have delighted residents for years and baffled others who have stumbled ...

In May, CoreWeave, a provider of cloud computing services for AI companies, raised $1.1 billion, followed by $7.5 billion in debt, at a valuation of $19 billion. Scale AI, a data provider for AI companies, raised $1 billion, at a valuation of $13.8 billion. And xAI, founded by Elon Musk, raised $6 billion, at a valuation of $24 billion.These funding rounds have increased the overall deal volume in the industry, both in terms of dollar amount and number of deals, said Kyle Stanford, research analyst at PitchBook."It's not declining anymore," he said. "The bottom has already fallen out."The activity has prompted some venture capitalists to change their messaging. Last year, IVP investor Tom Loverro predicted a “mass extinction event” for startups and urged them to cut costs. Last week, h...

Firas Maksad, senior researcher at the Middle East Institute, wrote on X that there was still time for key players to find a diplomatic solution. Mr. Hochstein’s trip, he said, would likely take place Wednesday. “The window for diplomacy is closing but it’s not closed,” he said.Mr. Blinken, speaking Monday at the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, said he did not believe the key players in the border conflict — Israel, Hezbollah and Iran — actually wanted to go to war, but that is where the “momentum” in the fighting could lead. U.S. officials fear such a conflict could force the United States to intervene on Israel’s behalf.“Nobody really wants a war,” Mr. Blinken said. He said Iran, a determined enemy of Israel, “wants to make sure that Hezbollah is not destro...

Life as a Florida carpenter ant can be brutal. These half-inch ants are territorial and have violent clashes with ants from rival colonies in the Southeast.Fighting can leave ants with leg injuries. But as scientists recently discovered, these ants have developed an effective treatment for the wounds: amputation.In the journal Current Biology on Tuesday, researchers reported that ants bite off injured limbs of their nestmates to prevent infection. Although other ant species are known to heal the wounds of their victims, typically by licking them clean, this is the first time an ant species is known to use amputation to heal a wound.The ants in the study performed amputations only on some leg injuries, suggesting that they are methodical in their surgical practices. Aside from humans, no ot...

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...