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James Arthur Ray, an Oprah-backed motivational speaker who spent two years in prison for manslaughter after the deaths of three people in a sweat lodge in 2009, the culmination of a three-day spiritual program he led in the Arizona desert , died January 11, 2009. 3 in Henderson, Nevada. He was 67 years old.His brother Jon Ray announced his death on social media. He did not say where in Henderson Mr. Ray died or cite a cause, but said the death was unexpected.Ray was struggling to succeed as a motivational speaker when he appeared in “The Secret,” a 2006 documentary made by Australian television producer Rhonda Byrne. The “secret,” espoused by Ray and others, was the idea that positive thinking can literally make the world change in your favor.Things began to move quickly for Mr. Ray. He ap...

Mauro Morandi, whose 32-year stay on an uninhabited Mediterranean island led him to be known as Italy's Robinson Crusoe, died Jan. 3 in Modena, Italy. He was 85 years old.The cause was a brain hemorrhage, said Antonio Rinaldis, who wrote a book with Morandi in 2023 about his life on the island.Unlike Daniel Defoe's hero, who was shipwrecked and fervently hoped to be rescued, Morandi chose his life of solitude.He said he fell in love at first sight with Budelli, a pristine, undeveloped island off the northern tip of Sardinia. He arrived in 1989, a bit by chance, he said in interviews. He left – against his will – in 2021, writing on social media that he was tired of “fighting against those who want to send me away”.Morandi's singular choice to live in solitude has given rise to at least two...

Mark Zuckerberg kept the circle of people who knew his thoughts small.Last month, Zuckerberg, Meta's chief executive, reached out to some of its top political, communications executives and others to discuss the company's approach to online discourse. He had decided to make sweeping changes after visiting President-elect Donald J. Trump at Mar-a-Lago over Thanksgiving. Now he needed his employees to turn these changes into policy.Over the next few weeks, Zuckerberg and his select team discussed how to do this in Zoom meetings, conference calls and late-night group chats. Some subordinates slipped away from family dinners and holiday gatherings for work, while Mr. Zuckerberg took stock between trips to his homes in the San Francisco Bay Area and on the island of Kauai.By New Year's Day, Mr....

Israeli fighter jets bombed ports and a power plant in Houthi-controlled Yemeni territory on Friday, the Israeli military said, in the latest attempt to force the Iran-backed militant group to stop firing at Israel and commercial ships in the Red Sea.Israel has stepped up its attacks against the Houthis in recent weeks in response to repeated attacks by the Yemeni militia, which has fired at Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.The United States and Britain have also repeatedly struck Yemen in an effort to protect international waterways from Houthi attacks. But it was far from clear whether Israel and its allies would succeed in forcing the Houthis to end their attacks through a bombing campaign.The Israeli air force bombed the Hezyaz power plant near Sana - the Houthi-controlled capit...

Richard M. Cohen, an outspoken, award-winning television news producer whose career was ultimately derailed by the ravages of multiple sclerosis, which he wrote about in a best-selling memoir, died Dec. 24 in Sleepy Hollow, New York, a village in Westchester county. He was 76 years old.His wife, former "Today" host Meredith Vieira, said his death, at a hospital, was caused by acute respiratory failure.Cohen spent more than 20 years in the news business, working with luminaries such as Ted Koppel at ABC and Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather at CBS. But he took on a different topic when he wrote a memoir — and articles for HuffPost, The New York Times and other media — about managing MS, a degenerative disease of the central nervous system.Mr. Cohen was diagnosed with MS in 1973, when he was 25...

The founder of the website used by Dominique Pelicot to invite dozens of men to rape his wife after drugging her was indicted Thursday in France on myriad charges, including some linked to that case.If found guilty, he faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to 7.5 million euros, or about $7.7 million.The site's founder, Isaac Steidl, 44, was released from prison Thursday. The investigating judge's office said he was placed under "judicial control", had to pay bail of 100,000 euros and was barred from leaving France.The website he created in 2003, called coco.fr, became famous in France during the trial of Mr Pelicot and 50 other men, who were all found guilty last month, mainly of raping his now ex-wife of Mr. Pelicot, Gisèle, while she was heavily sedated.One of the charges again...

The next big battle over offshoring is taking place in Washington, and this time it involves artificial intelligence.The Biden administration, in its final weeks in office, is rushing to issue new regulations to try to ensure that the United States and its close allies have control over the development of artificial intelligence in the years to come.The rules have triggered an intense battle between tech companies and the government, as well as administration officials.The regulations, which could be issued as early as Friday, would dictate where American-made chips critical to artificial intelligence could be shipped. Such rules would then help determine where data centers that create AI would be built, with a preference for the United States and its allies.The rules would allow most Euro...

Lebanon's fractured parliament broke through more than two years of stalemate on Thursday to choose a new president, a key step toward stability for a country trying to recover from economic catastrophe and a devastating war.Lawmakers elected General Joseph Aoun, commander of the Lebanese army, with an overwhelming majority in the second round of voting, after he failed to reach the necessary majority in the initial vote. It marked a turning point towards forming a government with a mandate to lead the country after more than two years of stalemate under a weak caretaker government.The vote was seen as a crucial milestone for Lebanon, which has suffered a series of disasters in recent years, including an economic collapse and a war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah t...

Water fluoridation is widely regarded as one of the great public health successes of the 20th century, credited with substantially reducing tooth decay. But there has been growing controversy among scientists over whether fluoride may be linked to lower IQ scores in children.A comprehensive federal analysis of results from previous studies, published this week in JAMA Pediatrics, added to these concerns. He found a significant inverse relationship between exposure levels and cognitive function in children.Higher fluoride exposures were linked to lower IQ scores, researchers working for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences concluded.None of the studies included in the analysis were conducted in the United States, where recommended levels of fluoridation in drinking water ...

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and his French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot, spoke in Paris on Wednesday about the challenges already posed to U.S. alliances by Donald J. Trump's imminent return to the White House, and said they believe that a The American conquest of Greenland was an impossible idea.But they also said their nations will try to continue working together despite potential political turbulence in the coming years, including war in Ukraine and conflicts in the Middle East.In recent days, European leaders have focused on what many see as incendiary statements from Trump and his allies. The president-elect has said he would like to make Greenland part of the United States. The autonomous territory is controlled by NATO ally Denmark. And one senior adviser, billionaire ent...