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For a year now, two philosophy professors have been addressing prominent authors and public intellectuals with an unusual, perhaps heretical, proposal. They asked these thinkers if, for a nice fee, they wouldn't mind turning into AI chatbots.John Kaag, one of the academics, is a professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. He is known for writing books, such as "Hiking With Nietzsche" and "American Philosophy: A Love Story," that blend philosophy and memoir.Clancy Martin, Mr. Kaag's partner in the venture, is a professor at the University of Missouri at Kansas City and the author of 10 books, including "How Not to Kill Yourself," an unflinching memoir about his mental health problems and 10 suicide attempts. .The two became friends 14 years ago, when Mr. Kaag was struck ...

Palestinian residents and media reported a night of heavy shelling in the Rafah area of ​​southern Gaza on Thursday, while the Israeli army said its forces continued to operate "in face-to-face clashes" with militants of Hamas there.Saeed Lulu, a 37-year-old taking refuge in the nearby Al-Mawasi area - parts of which Israel has designated a "humanitarian zone" for people fleeing Rafah - said he heard strikes between midnight and 6 a.m. . he said he was not aware of any casualties. The attacks appeared to have targeted Al-Mawasi's southwestern border, he said.“We are very worried,” Mr. Lulu said. "This is supposed to be a safe area and we have nowhere else to go if they attack here," he added.The location of the strikes could not be independently verified.Wafa, the Palestinian Author...

Akira Endo, a Japanese biochemist whose mushroom research helped lay the foundation for widely prescribed drugs that lower a type of cholesterol that contributes to heart disease, died June 5 at age 90.Chiba Kazuhiro, president of the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, where Dr. Endo was professor emeritus, confirmed the death in a statement. The statement does not provide a cause or say where he died.Cholesterol, produced mainly in the liver, performs important functions in the body. It is also a major contributor to coronary heart disease, a leading cause of death in the United States, Japan and many other countries.In the early 1970s, Dr. Endo grew mushrooms in an attempt to find a natural substance that could block a crucial enzyme that is part of the production of chole...

A month into Russia's push across the border into northern Ukraine, Western weapons and Ukrainian reinforcements have largely blocked the attack. But they arrived too late to save one city, Vovchansk, where the town hall, a cultural center, countless apartment buildings and several riverside hotels are now in ruins.A small town divided by the Vovcha River, Vovchansk was once a regional tourist attraction, a pleasant base from which to explore the nearby chalk hills. But it is also three miles from the Russian border, and when Russia began a cross-border offensive on May 10, it became the defensive position of Ukrainian forces.The front line still runs through Vovchansk, about 70% of which remains under Ukrainian control. And a month of fierce fighting and relentless bombing by Russi...

The dispute over Elon Musk's pay package and the vote on whether to move Tesla's headquarters to Texas were in focus ahead of the company's shareholder meeting on Thursday, but not for Nordic investors.Tesla's major shareholders in Sweden, Denmark and Norway instead expect the meeting to bring the issue of workers' rights to the forefront at the automaker.Behind the campaign is the Tesla mechanics strike in Sweden. Now in its sixth month, the dispute has attracted unions across the region who have banded together in blocs aimed at bringing the US automaker to the negotiating table to reach a collective agreement with its Swedish workers.Many of the Nordics' largest shareholders are urging others to support a proposal that would require Tesla to respect workers'...

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Wednesday he will continue to urgently push for a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, despite a counterproposal from Hamas that he said includes unacceptable demands.After more than eight months of war in Gaza, the proposed ceasefire agreement follows an outline made public last month by President Biden and has the approval of the United Nations Security Council. But Israel and Hamas still seem far from reaching an agreement.“In the days ahead, we will push with urgency,” Blinken said, “to try to get this deal done.”Speaking at a news conference in Doha, Qatar, alongside Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who serves as both prime minister and minister of foreign affairs of Qatar, Blinken said “there was a deal on the t...

Space changes you, even on short trips off-planet.Four people who spent three days off Earth in September 2021 experienced physical and mental changes that included modest declines in cognitive tests, immune system stress and genetic changes within their cells, scientists report in a package of published papers Tuesday in the journal Nature and several other related journals.Almost everything that changed in the astronauts returned to normal after the crash on Earth. None of the changes appeared to constitute a warning to future space travelers. But the findings also highlighted how little medical researchers know.Christopher Mason, a professor of genomics, physiology and biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City and one of the leaders of the research, called the collection o...

Saudi Arabia has already launched a hostile takeover of professional golf. He has invested billions of dollars in world football. Now he wants to own professional boxing too.An ambitious and expensive Saudi plan that would reshape the economy, structure and future of boxing is in the final stages of approval, according to two people with direct knowledge of the plan.Saudi Arabia's giant sovereign vehicle, the Public Investment Fund, would finance the project. The fund is holding final negotiations on the distribution of the initial investment – ​​said to amount to $2 billion – that the plan would require, according to the two people involved in the planning. Both people declined to be identified because the project does not have final approval.The Public Investment Fund, known as P...

What's a five-letter word for an activity that media and technology companies are increasingly relying on to acquire subscribers and keep them coming back?GAMANDSApple released a series of word-focused puzzles to its subscription news service last fall. LinkedIn, owned by Microsoft, launched a series of word games this spring. News sites including Morning Brew, The Washington Post, Vox Media and The Boston Globe have added new puzzles beyond the crossword and have hired staff to work on the games. The publication you're reading has also invested in a collection of puzzles.It's not all fun and games, exactly. For media companies, games are a way to attract new customers as their sites face declining traffic from Google, X and Meta, which have pulled back from emphasizing new...

As sirens sounded in northern Israel on Wednesday, Israeli Army Radio reported that around 150 rockets had been fired from Lebanon in an apparent response to the Israeli attack. Hezbollah has claimed attacks on a number of military bases, including Mount Meron, an area that hosts a military radar station about five miles south of the border. Hezbollah also claimed to have struck an arms factory belonging to Plasan, a company that makes armored vehicles used by the Israeli army.The army said in a statement that several rockets were intercepted, but that several hit the ground and started fires, which firefighters were working to put out. He said he responded Wednesday by striking a series of launch sites across the border. Lebanon's state news agency reported heavy Israeli airstrike...