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The European Union has agreed to a new round of economic sanctions against Russian individuals and companies, the Belgian government said on Thursday. In particular, they include measures aimed at squeezing Russia's profits from the sale of liquefied natural gas to EU members.Most EU countries stopped importing natural gas arriving by pipeline from Russia soon after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But the bloc had refrained from launching formal sanctions against the imports of Russian gas, leading many EU countries to purchase LNG from Russia, which arrives by ship.The latest action includes measures against imports of Russian LNG passing through EU ports to other countries, known as transshipments, said a senior EU diplomat familiar with the deal who spoke on co...

After days of intense clashes between Hezbollah and Israel, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese militia, warned on Wednesday that "there will be no place safe from our missiles and our drones" if an all-out war breaks out. He also threatened Cyprus if it allowed Israel to use its airports and bases in a full-scale conflict.“The enemy knows very well that we have prepared for the most difficult days, and he knows what he will face,” Nasrallah said. “If war is imposed, the resistance will fight without constraints, rules or limits.”President Nikos Christodoulides of Cyprus responded to the threat by saying his country was “absolutely not involved in any way,” according to comments posted on social media.In his first public statements amid the recent outbreak of violence along the...

Hurried. Crack. Pop. These sounds, once used to sell a popular breakfast cereal, are now enticing people to visit the doctor thanks to a wave of chiropractic videos sweeping social media.The most popular videos follow a familiar pattern: A patient comes in with a debilitating condition. A chiropractor maneuvers a patient's limbs and joints in terrifying ways, producing a series of pops and creaks. And the patient is freed from years of pain, all in a matter of minutes.For viewers, the clips can be noteworthy and satisfying ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) content. For chiropractors, they are a valuable marketing tool that helps build business.But not everyone in the chiropractic industry is thrilled with video. Some doctors say they are misleading and potentially lead...

When President Vladimir V. Putin travels abroad — as he did this week to North Korea and Vietnam to strengthen alliances and cultivate security ties amid Russia's war in Ukraine — he usually flies on Ilyushin-series jets Il-96 dated to Soviet design.With his latest trip coming shortly after plane crashes that killed two other world leaders, President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran and Vice President Saulos Chilima of Malawi, a Kremlin spokesperson found it necessary recently to reassure the Russian public that Putin's planes were “very reliable. "Although Russian airlines have abandoned Ilyushin models in favor of new Western models – neither of the country's two major airlines, Aeroflot and Rossiya, currently list any Ilyushin planes in their commercial passenger fleet – Putin appears...

Ilya Sutskever, OpenAI's co-founder and chief scientist who joined other board members in November to oust Sam Altman, the company's high-profile CEO, has helped found a new artificial intelligence company.The new start-up is called Safe Superintelligence. The aim is to produce superintelligence – a machine smarter than humans – safely, according to company spokeswoman Lulu Cheng Meservey. Dr. Sutskever, who said he regretted moving against Mr. Altman, declined to comment. The news was previously reported by Bloomberg. Dr Sutskever, 38, left OpenAI last month and announced at the time that he would start a new project but gave no details. Ms. Meservey declined to name who is funding the company or how much she has raised. She said that while it builds safe superintelligence, th...

The extreme anarchy that has gripped the Gaza Strip is making it too dangerous and difficult to distribute desperately needed aid in the south, aid groups and others say, despite a daily lull in fighting that Israel is seeing along a key road in that area .Days after the pause began, more than 1,000 trucks loaded with supplies remained stranded in Gaza near the Kerem Shalom border crossing with Israel, with thousands of tons of food, medicine and other goods just miles away from Palestinians who had need, aid groups and Israeli officials say. .The threat of looting and attacks by armed gangs have forced humanitarian groups to stop providing assistance in southern Gaza. Trucks traveling on supply routes were riddled with bullet holes. Businessmen sending commercial goods to the territory...

In July 2016, a heat wave hit Boston, with daytime temperatures averaging 92 degrees for five consecutive days. Some local college students staying in town for the summer got lucky and lived in dorms with central air conditioning. Other students not so much: They were stuck in older dorms without air conditioningJose Guillermo Cedeño Laurent, a Harvard researcher at the time, decided to take advantage of this natural experiment to see how heat, and especially night heat, affected the cognitive performance of young adults. He asked 44 students to take math and self-monitoring tests five days before the temperature rose, every day during the heat wave and two days after.“Many of us think we are immune to heat,” said Dr. Cedeño, now an assistant professor of environmental and occupational ...

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'...