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On Tuesday, an Israeli strike targeted and killed Taleb Abdallah, one of Hezbollah's senior commanders, prompting the group to step up its attacks on Israel in retaliation. It fired more than 200 rockets at Israel on Wednesday, according to the Israeli military, but damage was minimal.The Israeli military said on Thursday that its fighter jets struck "Hezbollah military facilities" in Lebanese border villages overnight.Israeli officials have threatened stronger action against Hezbollah, and pressure to do so – from the political right and displaced civilians – is growing. But so far both sides have stopped well short of an actual war.The United States, France and other mediators, warning of the danger of regional war, have sought to push forward a diplomatic deal between Israel and H...

Many firearm owners in the United States do not safely store their weapons, even when the weapon is loaded and there are children in the home, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The report, which was based on 2021 and 2022 data from eight states, found that many gun owners kept their guns unlocked and loaded in their homes despite rising rates of gun suicide and gun deaths. firearms among children. Gun storage practices varied across the eight states: Alaska, California, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Oklahoma.Of those surveyed in Ohio who had both children and a loaded gun in the home, about a quarter said the gun was kept open; it was the smallest percentage among the seven states with available data for tha...

The United States and other major Western economies have agreed on a plan to issue a loan of about $50 billion to Ukraine that would be repaid from interest and profits on nearly $300 billion in frozen Russian assets held in the West.The promise of much-needed financial support for weapons and to begin rebuilding damaged infrastructure comes as Ukraine has been forced to sell some state assets and the momentum of the war on its soil has shifted in favor of its enemy, Russia , whose forces launched a full-scale invasion in 2022.President Biden agreed that the United States would underwrite the entire loan, but American officials said they expected allies, including members of the European Union, to provide some of the upfront funds.The loan would ultimately be repaid through interest and pr...

For a year now, two philosophy professors have been addressing prominent authors and public intellectuals with an unusual, perhaps heretical, proposal. They asked these thinkers if, for a nice fee, they wouldn't mind turning into AI chatbots.John Kaag, one of the academics, is a professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He is known for writing books, such as "Hiking With Nietzsche" and "American Philosophy: A Love Story," that blend philosophy and memoir.Clancy Martin, Mr. Kaag's partner in the venture, is a professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and the author of 10 books, including "How Not to Kill Yourself," an unflinching memoir about his mental health problems and 10 suicide attempts. .The two became friends 14 years ago, when Mr. Kaag was struck ...

Palestinian residents and media reported a night of heavy shelling in the Rafah area of ​​southern Gaza on Thursday, while the Israeli army said its forces continued to operate "in face-to-face clashes" with militants of Hamas there.Saeed Lulu, a 37-year-old taking refuge in the nearby Al-Mawasi area - parts of which Israel has designated a "humanitarian zone" for people fleeing Rafah - said he heard strikes between midnight and 6 a.m. . he said he was not aware of any casualties. The attacks appeared to have targeted Al-Mawasi's southwestern border, he said.“We are very worried,” Mr. Lulu said. "This is supposed to be a safe area and we have nowhere else to go if they attack here," he added.The location of the strikes could not be independently verified.Wafa, the Palestinian Author...

Akira Endo, a Japanese biochemist whose mushroom research helped lay the foundation for widely prescribed drugs that lower a type of cholesterol that contributes to heart disease, died June 5 at age 90.Chiba Kazuhiro, president of the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, where Dr. Endo was professor emeritus, confirmed the death in a statement. The statement does not provide a cause or say where he died.Cholesterol, produced mainly in the liver, performs important functions in the body. It is also a major contributor to coronary heart disease, a leading cause of death in the United States, Japan and many other countries.In the early 1970s, Dr. Endo grew mushrooms in an attempt to find a natural substance that could block a crucial enzyme that is part of the production of chole...

A month into Russia's push across the border into northern Ukraine, Western weapons and Ukrainian reinforcements have largely blocked the attack. But they arrived too late to save one city, Vovchansk, where the town hall, a cultural center, countless apartment buildings and several riverside hotels are now in ruins.A small town divided by the Vovcha River, Vovchansk was once a regional tourist attraction, a pleasant base from which to explore the nearby chalk hills. But it is also three miles from the Russian border, and when Russia began a cross-border offensive on May 10, it became the defensive position of Ukrainian forces.The front line still runs through Vovchansk, about 70% of which remains under Ukrainian control. And a month of fierce fighting and relentless bombing by Russi...

The dispute over Elon Musk's pay package and the vote on whether to move Tesla's headquarters to Texas were in focus ahead of the company's shareholder meeting on Thursday, but not for Nordic investors.Tesla's major shareholders in Sweden, Denmark and Norway instead expect the meeting to bring the issue of workers' rights to the forefront at the automaker.Behind the campaign is the Tesla mechanics strike in Sweden. Now in its sixth month, the dispute has attracted unions across the region who have banded together in blocs aimed at bringing the US automaker to the negotiating table to reach a collective agreement with its Swedish workers.Many of the Nordics' largest shareholders are urging others to support a proposal that would require Tesla to respect workers'...

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Wednesday he will continue to urgently push for a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, despite a counterproposal from Hamas that he said includes unacceptable demands.After more than eight months of war in Gaza, the proposed ceasefire agreement follows an outline made public last month by President Biden and has the approval of the United Nations Security Council. But Israel and Hamas still seem far from reaching an agreement.“In the days ahead, we will push with urgency,” Blinken said, “to try to get this deal done.”Speaking at a news conference in Doha, Qatar, alongside Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who serves as both prime minister and minister of foreign affairs of Qatar, Blinken said “there was a deal on the t...

Space changes you, even on short trips off-planet.Four people who spent three days off Earth in September 2021 experienced physical and mental changes that included modest declines in cognitive tests, immune system stress and genetic changes within their cells, scientists report in a package of published papers Tuesday in the journal Nature and several other related journals.Almost everything that changed in the astronauts returned to normal after the crash on Earth. None of the changes appeared to constitute a warning to future space travelers. But the findings also highlighted how little medical researchers know.Christopher Mason, a professor of genomics, physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City and one of the leaders of the research, called the collection o...