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When Emperor Naruhito of Japan visits Kew Gardens on Thursday as part of a state visit to Britain, the ties between its island nation and the famous London landmark will be on full display.Scattered throughout the botanical garden's 330 acres are constant reminders of that long-standing relationship. In a large greenhouse, bronze sculptures of bonsai trees, some nearly as tall as the room, pay homage to the Japanese horticultural art form. Just a few steps away is the Japanese Gateway, an intricately carved cypress replica of a Kyoto temple. Nearby, neatly raked gravel in waves and swirls surrounded by Japanese plant species evokes a traditional tea garden.Dignitaries and heads of state from many countries regularly stop at Kew Gardens on official tours, joining the crowds that num...

The Supreme Court handed the Biden administration a major practical victory Wednesday, rejecting a Republican challenge that sought to block the government from reaching out to social media platforms to combat what it said was misinformation.The court ruled that the states and users who had challenged those interactions had not suffered the kind of direct harm that gave them the right to sue.The decision, by a vote of 6 to 3, left for another day fundamental questions about what limits the First Amendment places on the government's power to influence technology companies that are the primary gatekeepers of information in the Internet age .The case arose from a flurry of communications from administration officials urging the platforms to remove posts on topics such as the coronavirus v...

Tuesday's ruling by Israel's Supreme Court ending a decades-long exemption for ultra-Orthodox Jews from the country's military service could herald a seismic shift in the country's trajectory, with social, political and security implications.The ruling will likely further test Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's fragile governing coalition, which depends on the support of two ultra-Orthodox parties that support the exemption, even as Israel is at war in Gaza.The issue of the ultra-Orthodox exemption has long polarized a country where most Jewish 18-year-olds, both men and women, are conscripted for years of compulsory service. Mainstream Israelis have long chafed at the lack of equality.More recently, the months-long war in Gaza and looming conflicts on other fronts ha...

Last week, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, chairman of the Senate Health Committee, called on a government watchdog to investigate why insurance companies continue to charge women for birth control, a move that brought access to contraceptives back into the spotlight.In a letter to the Government Accountability Office, the senator noted that insurance companies are charging Americans for contraceptives that, under federal law, should be free — and that they are also denying appeals from consumers seeking to have their contraceptives covered. Some experts estimate that such practices could affect access to birth control for millions of women.Since 2012, the Affordable Care Act has required that private insurance plans cover the “full range” of Food and Drug Administration-approved contr...

In his nearly 15 months in Moscow's infamous Lefortovo prison, Evan Gershkovich explored Russian literary classics like "War and Peace" and played chess slowly by mail with his father in the United States. He tries to stay fit during the hour of exercise he is allowed each day.Friends who correspond with him describe Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, as positive, strong and rarely discouraged, despite facing the official wrath of President Vladimir V. Putin's Russia. “He may have ups and downs like everyone else, but he remains confident in himself, in his rightness,” said Maria Borzunova, a Russian journalist and friend of Mr. Gershkovich. Mr. Gershkovich went on trial Wednesday, facing up to 20 years in prison on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. St...

The task was clear: test how well the AI ​​could plan a trip to Norway, a place I had never been. So I didn't do any of my usual obsessive online research and instead asked three AI planners to create a four-day itinerary. None of them, alas, mentioned saunas or salmon.Two assistants, however, were eager to learn more about me to adapt their initially generic recommendations, which they had given out in a matter of seconds. Vacay, a personalized travel planning tool, presented me with a list of questions, while Mindtrip, a new AI-powered travel assistant, invited me to take a quiz. (ChatGPT, the third assistant, didn't ask anything.)The questions from Vacay and Mindtrip were similar: Are you traveling alone? What is your budget? Do you prefer hotels or Airbnb? Would you rath...

The election of Iran's next president will take place a year early, on June 28, following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month. The vote will lead the Islamic republic to new leadership amid internal discontent, voter apathy and regional turbulence.While the country's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has the final say on all state matters, the Iranian president sets domestic policy and has some influence on foreign policy.Why are these elections important?The elections offer Iran's leadership a chance to demonstrate that it can handle a disaster such as the unexpected death of a president without destabilizing the country, even as it grapples with domestic protests and tensions with the United States and Israel.The elections also allow the leaders...

Federal health officials have warned that the risk of contracting dengue in the United States has increased this year, a worrying sign as global cases of the mosquito-borne disease have reached record numbers.In the first half of this year, countries in the Americas reported twice as many cases as in all of 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in an advisory to health professionals on Thursday.The region has recorded nearly 10 million virus cases so far in 2024, most of which originated from outbreaks in South American countries such as Brazil and Argentina.While local transmission of the virus in the continental United States has been limited, Puerto Rico, classified as having “frequent or continuous” risk, declared a public health emergency in March and reported near...

Two of America's most decorated Olympic swimmers asked Congress on Tuesday to hold the global anti-doping agency accountable for failing to adequately police allegations of cheating by elite Chinese athletes.In testimony before a House subcommittee, Michael Phelps, a 23-time Olympic gold medalist, and Allison Schmitt, a four-time Olympic gold medalist, urged Congress to push for reforms to the World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA. They said uncertainty over whether Chinese swimmers used banned substances is deeply unfair to competitors taking part in the Summer Games next month in Paris.The hearing came two months after The New York Times reported that Chinese anti-doping authorities and WADA had refused to discipline 23 elite Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned drug in ear...

Cruise, General Motors' driverless car subsidiary, said Tuesday that a video game industry veteran will become its new CEO, eight months after its previous CEO resigned following a series of safety issues with its its vehicles.The appointment of Marc Whitten, who most recently served as an executive at video game technology company Unity, follows a tumultuous year for Cruise, who in October was ordered by California regulators to take his fleet of vehicles off the road after a series of road accidents. The worst incident occurred on October 2, when a pedestrian was dragged under a Cruise car on a San Francisco street.Cruise has since laid off a quarter of its workforce and laid off nine executives.Mr. Whitten, who will take over on July 16, was also a founding engineer of Xbox and chi...