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The Biden administration on Tuesday pledged $504 million for a dozen projects across the country in an effort to transform previously overlooked communities into tech powerhouses.The grants will fund “technology hubs” that aim to boost production of critical technologies in regions including western Montana, central Indiana, southern Florida and upstate New York. The hubs are designed to accelerate the growth of advanced industries in the U.S., such as biomanufacturing, clean energy, artificial intelligence and personalized medicine.The program reflects a federal effort to expand U.S. funding for science and technology beyond Silicon Valley and some coastal regions, an initiative that Biden administration officials say will help revitalize areas that have traditionally received less govern...

Israel on Tuesday issued a new round of evacuation orders for a large swathe of the southern Gaza Strip, forcing thousands of Palestinians to flee once again in search of relative safety.In recent weeks, Israeli officials have spoken of a shift to more targeted and limited attacks, but the ongoing exodus in the city of Khan Younis made it clear Tuesday that a return to normal life for Gazans is not near.Gazans who had already been forced to flee again and again were on the move again, hauling piles of goods in cars, trucks and donkey carts. Hospital patients were pushed in wheelchairs along with others fleeing on foot.“How much longer can we continue to hear: go and come back, go and come back?” asked Gaza woman Suzan Abu Daqqa, 59, after fleeing her home southeast of Khan Younis.The evacu...

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday approved a new drug for Alzheimer’s disease, the latest in a new class of treatments that has been greeted with hope, disappointment and skepticism.The drug, donanemab, which will be sold under the brand name Kisunla, has been shown in studies to modestly slow the rate of cognitive decline in the early stages of the disease. It also had significant safety risks, including swelling and bleeding in the brain.Kisunla, made by Eli Lilly, is similar to another drug, Leqembi, that was approved last year. Both are intravenous infusions that target a protein implicated in Alzheimer’s, and both can slow the development of dementia by several months. Both also carry similar safety concerns. Leqembi, made by Eisai and Biogen, is given every two weeks; Kisun...

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of the few European leaders who maintains cordial relations with Moscow and has called on Ukraine to surrender to Russia's demands for an end to the bloodshed, arrived in Kiev on Tuesday for his first wartime visit to the country.Mr. Orban’s spokesman said he would discuss “the possibilities of achieving peace” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But in an initial statement after the two men met in Kiev, Mr. Zelensky made no explicit reference to that. He said they had discussed “trade, cross-border cooperation, infrastructure and energy” — along with the “humanitarian sphere.”A vocal critic of the provision of military and financial assistance to Ukraine who revels in his role as an odd man out in both the European Union and NATO, Mr...

In a field on the outskirts of Kyiv, the founders of Vyriy, a Ukrainian drone company, were recently at work on a weapon of the future.To demonstrate it, Oleksii Babenko, 25, Vyriy’s chief executive, hopped on his motorcycle and rode down a dirt path. Behind him, a drone followed, as a colleague tracked the movements from a briefcase-size computer.Until recently, a human would have piloted the quadcopter. No longer. Instead, after the drone locked onto its target — Mr. Babenko — it flew itself, guided by software that used the machine’s camera to track him.The motorcycle’s growling engine was no match for the silent drone as it stalked Mr. Babenko. “Push, push more. Pedal to the medal, man,” his colleagues called out over a walkie-talkie as the drone swooped toward him. “You’re screwed, sc...

Israeli generals want to initiate a ceasefire in Gaza, even though that would keep Hamas in power for the time being, widening the rift between the military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has opposed a truce that would allow Hamas to survive the war.According to interviews with six current and former security officials, the generals believe a truce would be the best way to free the approximately 120 Israelis still held, dead and alive, in Gaza.Ill-equipped to fight further after Israel’s longest war in decades, the generals also believe their forces need time to recover should a ground war break out against Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that has been engaged in a low-level clash with Israel since October, several officials said.A truce with Hamas could also make it easier to ...

These early studies “highlighted both the potential we could learn from dogs and that we needed larger sample sizes to do it really well,” said Elinor Karlsson, a geneticist at UMass Chan Medical School and the Broad Institute. And so researchers began creating large citizen science projects, seeking DNA samples and data from dogs across the United States.Pet owners have risen to the challenge. The Golden Retriever Lifetime Study, which began recruiting in 2012, has followed more than 3,000 dogs in an attempt to identify genetic and environmental risk factors for cancer, which is particularly common in the breed. Since 2019, the Dog Aging Project, a long-term study of health and longevity, has enrolled approximately 50,000 dogs.Dr. Karlsson’s personal project, Darwin’s Dogs, numbers 44,000...

American defense officials raised the security alert level at military bases in Europe over the weekend in response to vague threats from the Kremlin about Ukraine using long-range weapons on Russian soil, U.S. and Western officials said.Officials said no specific information had been gathered about possible Russian attacks on U.S. bases. Any such attack by Russia, overt or covert, would represent a significant escalation of its war in Ukraine.Russia has stepped up sabotage in Europe, hoping to disrupt the flow of material to Ukraine. So far, no U.S. bases have been targeted in those attacks, but U.S. officials have said raising the alert level would help ensure service members remain vigilant.Throughout the war, U.S. officials have assessed that President Vladimir V. Putin is reluctant to...

The Supreme Court eluded a final resolution Monday in a pair of cases challenging state laws designed to limit social media companies’ power to moderate content. The ruling dashed an effort by Republicans who had pushed the legislation as a remedy for what they say is a bias against conservatives.It was the latest case in which the Supreme Court considered, and then sidestepped, a major decision on the parameters of expression on social media platforms.State laws differ on the specifics. Florida’s bars platforms from permanently banning candidates for political office in the state, while Texas’s bars platforms from removing any content based on a user’s views.The justices unanimously agreed to remand the cases to the lower courts for review. Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the majority, n...

The alleys are in permanent semi-darkness, covered with black nylon tarps to hide Palestinian fighters from Israeli drones flying overhead. Green Hamas flags and “martyrs” memorial banners hang from buildings, many of them badly damaged in Israeli raids and airstrikes in an effort to quell growing militancy in the territory, fueled by the war in Gaza.This is not Gaza or a traditional Hamas stronghold. It is a refugee camp in Tulkarem, a city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank where the relatively moderate Palestinian faction Fatah has long held sway.I recently met a local commander of these young militants, Muhammad Jaber, 25, in one of those dusty, broken-down alleys. One of Israel’s most wanted men, he and other fighters like him say they switched allegiances from the relatively moderate ...