Güncel

European Union regulators on Thursday opened an investigation into American tech giant Meta over the potentially addictive effects Instagram and Facebook have on children, an action with far-reaching implications because it cuts to the core of how they are designed the company's products.Meta products could "exploit the weaknesses and inexperience of minors" to create behavioral addictions that threaten their mental well-being, the European Commission, the executive branch of the 27-member bloc, said in a statement. EU regulators could eventually fine Meta up to 6% of its global revenue, which last year amounted to $135 billion, as well as impose other product changes.The investigations are part of a growing effort by governments around the world to rein in services like Instagram and...

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken warned on Wednesday that recent successes in providing desperately needed humanitarian aid to the people of the Gaza Strip risk being undone by fighting in southern Gaza.The border crossing in the southern city of Rafah has been closed since Israel began what it describes as a limited military operation against Hamas fighters in the city, on the border with Egypt. The United Nations said on Wednesday that 600,000 people had fled Rafah since Israel's ground assault began there.“Just as Israel was taking important and badly needed steps to improve the delivery of humanitarian assistance,” Blinken told reporters in Kiev, Ukraine, “we saw a negative impact on the fact that we have this active, very active conflict in the Rafah area".Josep Borrell Fonte...

The Biden administration, under intense pressure from House lawmakers, moved on Wednesday to ban funding from a prominent virus-hunting nonprofit group whose work with Chinese scientists had put it at the center of theories that Covid would have leaked from a laboratory.The decision, announced in a letter from the Department of Health and Human Services, came on the heels of a fiery congressional hearing this month in which lawmakers attacked the group's president for allegedly misrepresenting its work with virologists in Wuhan, China, where the pandemic began. Republicans went further, demanding that Peter Daszak, the president of the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, be criminally investigated.For EcoHealth, which relied on federal funding to study the threat of wild animal viruses, the...

Robert Fico, 59, played a key role in Slovak politics in the years after it gained independence in 1993 and served as prime minister longer than any other leader.The country gained independence after the so-called Velvet Revolution, a series of popular, nonviolent protests in 1989 against the Communist Party in what was then still Czechoslovakia.Fico, who had been a member of the Communist Party while in power, founded the Smer party in the late 1990s and began the first of his three terms as prime minister in 2006, serving for four years before moving into opposition after his coalition. missed an election. Slovakia is a landlocked country of approximately 5 million people.The Smer party, which initially started on the political left but has increasingly embraced right-wing views on imm...

When it comes to choosing a commencement speaker, colleges and universities take different approaches. Some reach out locally, selecting well-known people in the area. Others take the high road, opting for a former or current politician. Actors or comedians are often asked to speak.But in a world where artificial intelligence is everywhere, a New York university opted for a robot that uses artificial intelligence to talk to graduates over the weekend.For its spring commencement on Saturday, D'Youville University, a private institution in Buffalo, asked an AI robot named Sophia to address a crowd of more than 2,000 students, faculty and their families in a bold decision that sparked mixed reactions.Dr. Lorrie Clemo, president of D'Youville University, said in an interview Wednesd...

Sameh Shoukry, Egypt's foreign minister, immediately objected, saying the crossing was still closed because of Israel's control over it and because its military operations were endangering truck drivers and aid workers. In a statement from Egypt's Foreign Ministry, Shoukry rejected what he described as "the policy of distorting facts."Israeli officials rarely publicly criticize Egypt, with which Israel maintains a decades-old peace treaty and sensitive security cooperation.Defying international pressure, Israel launched a limited invasion of Rafah on May 6, seizing areas to the east. Even if the trucks were allowed to pass through the Rafah crossing, it is unclear whether they could safely cross into eastern Rafah, where Israeli forces are fighting Hamas militants.Israel rece...

STDs are on the rise across the United States. More than 3,700 cases of congenital syphilis have been reported in 2022, about 11 times the number recorded ten years ago.Syphilis during pregnancy can lead to miscarriages and stillbirths, and children who survive may become blind or deaf or have severe developmental delays. But timely testing and treatment can prevent most of these outcomes.Sexually transmitted infections disproportionately affect communities of color. Socioeconomic status and education level can also influence prenatal care.I cover infectious diseases at the Times. I would love to hear firsthand from women who have had syphilis during pregnancy. Were you offered testing during pregnancy? If you tested positive were you treated? How has syphilis affected your child...

Royal portraits, as a rule, tend to be quite serious and predictable affairs. Full of symbolism, sure, but generally symbolism of the traditional, establishment kind: symbols of status, of office, of pageantry and lineage.This is why Jonathan Yeo's new official portrait of King Charles III, the first since the king's coronation, has sparked so much controversy.The portrait, a large canvas (7.5 feet by 5.5 feet), shows the king standing in his Welsh Guards uniform, his hands on the hilt of his sword, a half-smile on his face, with a butterfly it hovers just above his right shoulder. His whole body is immersed in a crimson sea, so his face seems to be floating.Although the butterfly was ostensibly the key element of the semiology – intended, Yeo told the BBC, to represent Charles&#...

For the past 10 months, Chelsea Prudencio, a student at Baruch College in Manhattan, has been taking a crash course in artificial intelligence through a new program for young, low-income, Latina and Black women majoring in computer science.As part of the program, called Break Through Tech AI, Ms. Prudencio completed an intensive course developed by Cornell Tech faculty with input from technology executives. She embarked on an artificial intelligence student project for Pfizer to create heart disease prediction models. She and she were mentored by a Citigroup cybersecurity executive on how to ace technical job interviews.These are the types of important learning and career opportunities that can help computer science majors find jobs in rapidly evolving fields like artificial intelligence...

With Israeli troops returning to clear Hamas for the second or third time from parts of northern Gaza, and also fighting further south in Rafah, the Israeli government has found itself facing more vocal discontent from a important constituency: its own military leaders.Current and former senior military officials have begun to argue more openly that because the government has failed to present a plan for what follows the fighting in Gaza, Israeli troops are forced – in the eighth month of the war – to fight again for areas of the territory where Hamas fighters have reappeared.Two Israeli officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid professional repercussions, said some generals and members of the war cabinet are particularly frustrated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for ...