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The Biden administration on Monday issued sweeping rules regulating how artificial intelligence chips and models can be shared with foreign countries, in an effort to create a global framework that will guide the spread of artificial intelligence around the world for years to come.With the power of artificial intelligence growing rapidly, the Biden administration has said the rules are needed to keep a transformative technology under the control of the United States and its allies, and out of the hands of adversaries who could use it to enhance its armies, carry out cyberattack operations, and otherwise threaten the United States.Tech companies have protested the new rules, saying they threaten their sales and the future prospects of the American tech industry.The rules place various limit...

High-level ceasefire talks appeared to gain momentum Monday, as Arab and American mediators pressed for a deal to halt fighting in Gaza and release hostages held by Hamas before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes over. assignment on January 20th.It is not yet clear whether the sides have reached a resolution on all the central disputes that proved insurmountable in previous rounds of negotiations, but officials have expressed optimism that a deal is possible.President Biden suggested on Monday that a deal between Israel and Hamas was imminent. “We are on the brink of a proposal that I detailed months ago about the war between Israel and Hamas finally coming to fruition,” he said in a foreign policy speech.Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, said there was "a real possibilit...

At Azara Ballet, dancers are not expected to maintain eye contact with directors and choreographers. If company members need an impromptu break from the bright stage lights during rehearsals, they take one. They also receive clear guidance on hair and makeup well in advance of the performances.The priority at Azara is the health of the dancers. Founded in 2022 by dancers Kate Flowers and Martin Roosaare, who are both autistic (and are a married couple), the company, which is based in Sarasota and Bradenton, Florida, is a haven for neurodivergent artists. (The company is made up of 10 dancers, not all of whom are neurodivergent.)“When I dance,” Flowers said, “as long as it's in a good environment and a safe space, expression through nonverbal movement is something that helps me a lot.”Azara...

Oliviero Toscani, an Italian photographer who used images of an AIDS patient and death row inmates to break the boundaries of fashion imagery as the creative mastermind of Benetton's advertising campaigns, died on Monday. He was 82 years old.His death was announced by his family on Instagram. They did not say where he died or cite the cause of death, but in August Mr. Toscani told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that he had been diagnosed with amyloidosis, a rare and incurable condition in which a buildup of proteins occurs.His shocking campaigns in the 1980s and 1990s helped transform Benetton from a small Italian brand into a global fashion powerhouse, with provocative ads that blurred the lines between marketing and activism, high art and consumer industry.In one ad, an AIDS p...

The months-long fight by lawmakers to ban the social media app TikTok in the United States came to a head Friday when the Supreme Court heard arguments to decide the app's fate for its 170 million American users.While judges across the ideological spectrum asked tough questions of both sides, the overall tone and thrust seemed to suggest greater skepticism toward arguments from lawyers for TikTok and its users that the First Amendment barred Congress from enacting the law.If TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is banned on January 19, here's what they can expect to happen:Will TikTok still be available for download on app stores?No. The law passed by Congress last year would make it illegal for the app stores of companies like Apple and Google to distribute or publish updates on Ti...

As Western diplomats explore the possibility of establishing ties with the rebels who have seized power in Syria, a religious minority has led its own diplomatic push to ensure protection for its members as the country rebuilds.A representative of the group, the Druze, recently traveled to Washington to meet with lawmakers, members of the Biden and Trump administrations and diplomats to plead their case.“We are very worried about the future,” Sheikh Muwafaq Tarif said in an interview in Washington, where he urged US officials to prioritize the protection of Syria's 1.2 million Druze as part of their engagement with the new government of village.In December, after a long civil war, a coalition of Syrian rebels overthrew President Bashar al-Assad and established an interim government. The re...

To overcome this problem, one of the major projects funded by HEAL focuses on studying the nervous systems of people with chronic pain more directly, in part by recovering malfunctioning dorsal root ganglia and trigeminal nerves from patients undergoing surgery for chronic pain, as well as from cadaver donors. . These samples are then cultured and examined using a range of new technologies – things like proteomics, spatial transcriptomics and metabolomics – to see how they differ from normal tissue. The goal, Gereau explained, is to identify what changes occur at the cellular level when pain becomes chronic and to create an atlas of those mechanisms and variations. Understanding this, he added, would eventually open the door to precision medicine, in which drugs could be designed to specif...

Struggling to raise funds to restore his cathedral's ancient organ, a priest from St.-Flour, a small town in the heart of France, found a creative solution. He transformed one of the bell towers into a curing laboratory where farmers could hang their hams to dry.For nearly two years, after being blessed by a local bishop, the pork legs swayed peacefully in the dry air of the cathedral's north tower, bringing in much-needed funds and delighting charcuterie lovers. Then an inspector from the body that supervises the French architectural heritage intervened.After noting a grease stain on the floor of the bell tower, among other infractions, the inspector ordered the removal of the hams. They posed a fire hazard, cathedral officials said in a December 2023 report. When the cathedral refused to...

Paulette Lifton woke up Tuesday morning on her 67th birthday in a panic as smoke billowed in the distance from her home in the Granada Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles. The first person he called was his sister Annette."What's going on?" Mrs. Lifton asked.“You need to download the Watch Duty app,” his sister replied.Ms. Lifton did just that, tracking the fire's spread through map and app updates while packing her car with her most prized possessions: her favorite sequin jacket; her dogs, King Charles spaniels, Elle and Sansa; and the two Emmys she won as a television and film sound editor.For Ms. Lifton and thousands of other Los Angeles residents, Watch Duty has become a lifeline in monitoring the multiple fires burning across the city. In a country of nearly 10 million people, word of t...

On Saturday, in his first official visit to Syria to meet the new government, the Lebanese prime minister asked the two countries for a way to allow the masses of Syrian refugees in Lebanon to return home.Prime Minister Najib Mikati met Saturday afternoon in the Syrian capital Damascus with Ahmad al-Shara, the leader of the new Syrian government, according to the Lebanese prime minister's office. Al-Shara leads Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamic group that spearheaded the flash offensive that toppled the decades-long rule of Bashar al-Assad, the former Syrian president, last month.At a news conference in Damascus, Mikati said both countries should quickly resolve the issue of the more than one million refugees Lebanon has welcomed following the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011. While s...