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As the Israeli military ramped up pressure on what it calls Hamas' last stronghold in Gaza, Sunday's fighting elsewhere in the Palestinian enclave led to warnings that the militants could remain a force for a long time to come.Close-quarters fighting between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops raged in parts of northern Gaza over the weekend, both sides said Sunday, even as the world's attention was largely focused on the southern city of Rafah, where Israel stepped up military operations last week.It has become a familiar scenario in the Gaza Strip over the course of the seven-month war: After pitched battles, Israel declares an area free of Hamas, then returns after the militants have rebuilt their forces.On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he was concerned tha...

Richard “Rick” Slayman, who made history at age 62 as the first person to receive a kidney from a genetically modified pig, died about two months after the procedure.Massachusetts General Hospital, where Mr. Slayman underwent surgery, said in a statement Saturday that its transplant team was “deeply saddened” by his death. The hospital said it had “no indication that it was the result of his recent transplant.”Mr. Slayman, who was black, had end-stage renal disease, a condition that affects more than 800,000 people in the United States, according to the federal government, with disproportionately higher rates among blacks.There are too few kidneys available for donation. Nearly 90,000 people are on the national waiting list for a kidney.Mr. Slayman, a supervisor for the state Department ...

Russian forces continued their advance through northeastern Ukraine on Sunday, seizing a number of small settlements along the border and forcing Ukrainian troops to retreat from some positions, according to the Russian and Ukrainian armies, as well as aid workers.Russia's Defense Ministry said Sunday that its troops had captured four more settlements — all but one located directly north of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city — as they pressed forward with a new offensive launched Friday. Aid workers confirmed that Russian troops had advanced deeper into Ukrainian territory and were now threatening several small towns on the outskirts of Kharkiv.A Ukrainian military unit fighting in the area said Russian forces were pushing hard from the Russian-Ukrainian border towards Kharkiv...

Minutes after it became clear that Javier Milei had been elected president of South America’s second-largest nation in November, Elon Musk posted on X: “Prosperity is ahead for Argentina.”Since then, Mr. Musk has continued to use X, the social network he owns, to boost Mr. Milei. The billionaire has shared videos of the Argentine president attacking “social justice” with his 182 million followers. One doctored image, which implied that watching a speech by Mr. Milei was better than having sex, is among Mr. Musk’s most viewed posts ever.Mr. Musk has helped turn the pugnacious libertarian into one of the new faces of the modern right. But offline, he has used the relationship to press for benefits to his other businesses, the electric carmaker Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX.“Elon Musk c...

After Hamas attacked Israel in October, triggering the Gaza war, Israeli leaders described the group's most senior official in the territory, Yahya Sinwar, as a "dead man walking." Viewing him as the architect of the raid, Israel described Sinwar's assassination as one of the main objectives of its devastating counterattack.Seven months later, Sinwar's survival is emblematic of the failure of Israel's war, which devastated much of Gaza but left Hamas's top leadership largely intact and failed to free most of the prisoners taken during the October attack.Even as Israeli officials sought to kill him, they were forced to negotiate with him, albeit indirectly, to free the remaining hostages. According to officials from Hamas, Israel and the United States, Sinwar emerged n...

The Biden administration said Friday it will compensate dairy farmers for cooperating in its efforts to limit the spread of the avian flu virus, as part of a series of expansive measures aimed at containing the outbreak.The payment system represents one of the most aggressive actions taken yet by agriculture officials as they raced to keep pace with the spread of the virus among dairy cows. Farm owners are reluctant to allow state and federal officials access to cows and workers exposed to or infected with the virus and fear the financial consequences of infected herds and contaminated milk.Under the so-called compensation program, farms would receive up to $28,000 to protect workers and cover the costs of treating and testing sick cows. Producers may also receive payments for lost milk ...

Two months before the start of the Olympics in Paris, the global agency tasked with policing doping in sport faces a growing crisis as it fends off accusations that it helped hide the positive tests of elite Chinese swimmers who later competed and won. medals - at the last Summer Games.The allegations are particularly galling for the World Anti-Doping Agency, which has long presented itself as the gold standard in the global clean sports movement, because they raise the specter that the agency – and by extension the entire system set up to try to maintain clean the Olympics: you can't trust them.Athletes openly question whether WADA can be trusted to carry out its main job of ensuring a level playing field in Paris, where some of China's own swimmers are favorites to win more meda...

Days before the expected sale of $840 million worth of artwork at an auction that included paintings by Warhol and Basquiat, the auction house experienced what it described as a "technological security issue" that took his website offline.Some collectors and art consultants noticed the problem Thursday evening. The next morning, the website redirected visitors to a temporary page outside of its web domain. “We apologize that our website is currently offline,” she said. “We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and apologize for any inconvenience.”Edward Lewine, a spokesman for Christie's, said a security issue affected some of the company's systems, including the website.“We are taking all necessary steps to manage this matter, with the engagement of a team of add...

Around 300,000 Palestinians in southern and northern Gaza are forced to flee once again. says the United Nations, while Israel issued new and expanded evacuation orders on Saturday. But many don't know where to find safe refuge in a war-torn place.The expanded evacuation orders apply to the city of Rafah, at Gaza's southern tip, where more than a million Gazans have gathered after fleeing Israeli shelling elsewhere over the past seven months. They have compounded fears that the Israeli military is poised to proceed with an invasion of Rafah that Israeli leaders have long promised, a prospect that international aid groups and many countries have condemned.Around 150,000 people have already fled Rafah in the last six days. according to UNRWA, the United Nations agency that helps th...

When Surgeon General Vivek Murthy went on a nationwide college tour last fall, he started hearing the same kinds of questions over and over again: How can we connect with each other when no one is talking anymore?In an era when participation in community organizations, clubs and religious groups has declined and more social interaction occurs online rather than in person, some young people report levels of loneliness that, in decades past, were typically associated with older adults.It's one of the many reasons why loneliness has become a problem at both the beginning and end of our lives. In a study published Tuesday in the journal Psychological Science, researchers found that loneliness follows a U-shaped curve: Starting in young adulthood, self-reported loneliness tends to decline ...