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At least two prison officers were killed Tuesday in northern France after armed assailants ambushed a convoy at a toll booth and freed an inmate, French authorities said.Éric Dupond-Moretti, French Minister of Justice, he said on social media platform X that three other prison officers were seriously injured in the episode, which occurred near Incarville, a town in the Eure area north-west of Paris.President Emmanuel Macron said the attack was a “shock for all of us”.“The nation stands alongside the families, the injured and their colleagues,” he said said about X.Gérald Darmanin, French Interior Minister, said about X that “hundreds” of police officers had been deployed to arrest the escaped prisoner and the attackers who had freed them.“Everything possible is being done to find these cri...

While Apple and Google turn their voice assistants into chatbots, OpenAI is turning its chatbot into a voice assistant.The San Francisco artificial intelligence start-up on Monday unveiled a new version of its ChatGPT chatbot that can receive and respond to voice commands, images and videos.The company said the new app, based on an artificial intelligence system called GPT-4o, handles audio, images and video significantly faster than previous versions of the technology. The app will be available starting Monday, free of charge, for both smartphones and desktop computers.“We are looking at the future of interaction between us and machines,” said Mira Murati, the company's chief technology officer.The new app is part of a larger effort to combine conversational chatbots like ChatGPT wit...

Israelis gathered across the country on Monday for the first day of national mourning since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks, with protesters disrupting several ceremonies as they called on government ministers to do more to secure the hostages' release .Israel's Memorial Day is normally one of the darkest on the country's calendar, a date when Israelis put aside their differences to mourn fellow citizens killed in war or terrorist attacks. But Monday's protests underlined how wartime feelings of unity have given way to deep disputes over the war in the Gaza Strip, the fate of hostages taken on October 7 and domestic politics.Critics lambasted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he attended a memorial on Jerusalem's Mount Herzl, the site of Israel's national cemete...

After 30 years as one of England’s top pediatricians, Dr. Hilary Cass was hoping to begin her retirement by learning to play the saxophone.Instead, she took on a project that would throw her into an international fire: reviewing England’s treatment guidelines for the rapidly rising number of children with gender distress, known as dysphoria.At the time, in 2020, England’s sole youth gender clinic was in disarray. The waiting list had swelled, leaving many young patients waiting years for an appointment. Staff members who said they felt pressure to approve children for puberty-blocking drugs had filed whistle-blower complaints that had spilled into public view. And a former patient had sued the clinic, claiming that she had transitioned as a teenager “after a series of superficial conversat...

President Biden on Monday ordered a company with Chinese origins to shut down and sell the Wyoming cryptocurrency mine built a mile from an Air Force base that controls nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles.The cryptomining facility, which runs high-powered computers in a data center near F.E. Warren Base in Cheyenne, "presents a risk to the national security of the United States," the president said in an executive order, because its equipment they could be used for surveillance and espionage.The New York Times reported last October that Microsoft, which operates a nearby data center supporting the Pentagon, had reported the China-linked cryptocurrency mine to the Federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, warning that it could allow the Chinese to “pursue f...

The United States has not ruled out withholding further military support for Israel's campaign against Hamas should Israel undertake a major attack on Rafah, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Sunday.“If Israel launches this major military operation in Rafah, then there are certain systems that we will not support and provide for that operation,” Blinken said on CBS' “Face the Nation.” He didn't elaborate.Last week, the White House imposed a delay in the delivery of 3,500 bombs over fears of potential harm to civilians in Rafah, where many Gazans have sought refuge since fighting began seven months ago. Blinken said these are the only weapons the U.S. has retained “at this time.”Two days after the State Department sent a report to Congress raising “substantial quest...

The four adult children agreed.Their father, William Curry, a retired electrical engineer and business executive, was sinking deeper into dementia. They had found a memory care facility about a mile from their parents' home in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, where they thought Mr. Curry would do better.But their mother, Melissa, who was 83 when her family began urging her to make this change in 2016, remained determined to continue caring for her 81-year-old husband at home, despite the growing impact on his health. When her children raised the issue of moving, “she didn't want to discuss it,” said her daughter, Shannon Curry, 56. She cried sometimes."Yet even Melissa Curry's memory was slipping. She forgot to give her husband's medications or she got her doses wrong. The f...

Ukraine's military is facing a "critical" situation in the country's northeast due to troop shortages as it tries to repel a Russian offensive that has been advancing for several days, a top Ukrainian general said Monday.Russian troops crossed the border last week to open a new line of attack near Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city after Kiev, capturing at least nine settlements and villages and forcing thousands of civilians to flee.“The situation is at the limit,” General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency, said in a video call from a bunker in Kharkiv. "Every hour this situation becomes critical."His bleak assessment echoes that of other Ukrainian officials in recent days that the country's military prospects are dimming. In addition...

Federal officials will provide up to $120 million in grants to Polar Semiconductor to help the company expand its chip manufacturing plant in Minnesota, the Biden administration announced Monday, the latest in a series of awards intended to strengthen the US supply of semiconductors.Commerce Department officials said the grant would help Polar upgrade technology and double production capacity at its facility in Bloomington, Minnesota, within two years. The company makes chips critical to automobiles, defense systems and power grids, federal officials said.“We're making taxpayer money go as far as possible by crowding in private and state investment to create jobs, protect our supply chains and strengthen manufacturing in Minnesota,” said Laurie Locascio, Under Secretary of Commerce fo...

With Israel's most sacrosanct day of remembrance as a backdrop, peace activists in Israel broadcast their annual joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony on Sunday evening, with parallel events in London, New York and Los Angeles.The ceremony, organized by Combatants for Peace and Parents Circle – Families Forum, two peacebuilding organizations, is unusual in that it seeks to recognize not only Israeli pain, but also the toll of Palestinian suffering over the decades. This year's event was particularly poignant given that it was the first since the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7 and comes amid the devastation caused by the war in Gaza.This year the ceremony, which has been held annually since 2006, was pre-recorded to avoid the possibility of disruption by p...