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When Surgeon General Vivek Murthy went on a nationwide college tour last fall, he started hearing the same kinds of questions over and over again: How can we connect with each other when no one is talking anymore?In an era when participation in community organizations, clubs and religious groups has declined and more social interaction occurs online rather than in person, some young people report levels of loneliness that, in decades past, were typically associated with older adults.It's one of the many reasons why loneliness has become a problem at both the beginning and end of our lives. In a study published Tuesday in the journal Psychological Science, researchers found that loneliness follows a U-shaped curve: Starting in young adulthood, self-reported loneliness tends to decline ...

People in Britain were amazed by the unusual and spectacular display of the Northern Lights on Friday evening, the result of a strong solar storm that was brewing and expected to continue over the next few days.The Northern Lights, also known as the Northern Lights, usually don't reach that far south. They are seen more often at higher latitudes, closer to the North Pole. People in other European countries, including Denmark and Germany, have also reported seeing the lights.Viewers marveled at the sight, posting their surprise, delight and sometimes shock on social media. As one user wrote: “Aurora Borealis? This time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Located entirely in Edinburgh?”Another viewer wrote: "It's really gorgeous though."The Northern Ligh...

Utility regulators in California on Thursday changed how most residents will pay for energy by adding a new flat monthly fee and lowering the rates applicable to energy consumption. Officials said the change would reduce the monthly bills of millions of residents and support the use of electric vehicles and appliances that run on electricity, rather than fossil fuels.The California Public Utilities Commission's decision will apply to rates charged by investor-owned utilities, which provide power to about 70% of the state. Starting next year, most customers of these companies will be required to pay a monthly fee of $24.15. Low-income customers will pay $6 to $12 a month.Regulators said revenue from the flat rate would be matched by a roughly 20% reduction in rates, assessed by the n...

Turkey has suspended trade with Israel. The world's highest court is considering whether Israeli leaders committed genocide. Protests have overtaken cities and campuses around the world. Ireland and Spain say they will recognize Palestine as a state by the end of the month.Even the United States – long Israel's closest ally and benefactor – is threatening, for the first time since the war began, to withhold some weapons shipments.Seven months after much of the world pledged its support to Israel following a Hamas-led terrorist attack, the country finds itself increasingly isolated. With a war that has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians and left Gaza on the brink of famine, all the international goodwill Israel built up on October 7 has been all but lost.The most worrying thin...

Nancy Neveloff Dubler, a medical ethicist who pioneered the use of hospital bedside mediation to navigate the complex dynamics between stubborn doctors, anguished family members, and patients in their final days, died April 14 at her home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She was 82 years old.The cause was heart and lung disease, his family said.A Harvard-educated lawyer who won the presidency as an undergraduate by campaigning to disband student government, Ms. Dubler was a revolutionary figure in health care who sought, in her words, to "level the playing field" and “amplify non-medical voices” in complex medical situations, especially when deciding next steps for the sickest patients.In 1978, Dubler founded the Bioethics Consultation Service at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx...

On Thursday, Palestinian flags waved in the breeze above two neat rows of orange and green tents at Cambridge University, where students read, talked and played chess in a small encampment protesting the Gaza war.There were no police officers in sight and there wasn't much to do if they showed up, unless they felt like joining a health club or a kite-making workshop.Pro-Palestinian encampments have spread to 15 universities across Britain in recent days, but there are still few signs of the violent clashes that have rocked American campuses.This is partly because university authorities are taking a more permissive approach, citing the importance of protecting free speech, even if the government is not entirely keen regarding the protests. This may also reflect the less polarized deba...

Early last year Apple's top software executives decided that Siri, the company's virtual assistant, needed a brain transplant.The decision came after executives Craig Federighi and John Giannandrea spent weeks testing OpenAI's new chatbot, ChatGPT. The product's use of generative artificial intelligence, which can write poetry, create computer code and answer complex questions, made Siri seem antiquated, said two people familiar with the company's work, and who didn't they were allowed to speak publicly.Introduced in 2011 as the original virtual assistant of every iPhone, Siri was limited to individual requests for years and was never able to follow a conversation. Questions are often misunderstood. ChatGPT, on the other hand, knew that if someone asked the weath...

The main United Nations agency helping Palestinians, known as UNRWA, said Thursday it would temporarily close its headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem for the safety of its staff after parts of the compound were set on fire following weeks of attacks.“This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the UNRWA headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem,” said the agency's leader, Philippe Lazzarini, on social media. The fire caused extensive damage to the complex's outdoor areas, Lazzarini said, but there were no injuries to workers from UNRWA or other United Nations agencies. He added that some workers "had to put out the fire themselves as it took some time for the Israeli fire extinguishers and police to arrive."On Friday, Israeli police said in a statement tha...

Several large-scale human-caused changes to the planet, including climate change, biodiversity loss and the spread of invasive species, are making infectious diseases more dangerous to people, animals and plants, according to a new study. .Scientists have already documented these effects in more targeted studies that have focused on specific diseases and ecosystems. For example, they found that a warmer climate could help the expansion of malaria in Africa, and that a decline in wildlife diversity could increase cases of Lyme disease in North America.But the new research, a meta-analysis of nearly 1,000 previous studies, suggests that these patterns are relatively consistent across the globe and across the tree of life.“It's a big step forward in science,” said Colin Carlson, a biolog...

These new security features and other improvements at an ammunition depot in central Belarus reveal that Russia is building facilities there that could house nuclear warheads. If Russia moves weapons there, it would be the first time it has stored them outside the country since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.Russia already has nuclear warheads on its territory near Ukraine and NATO countries, but by placing some in Belarus, the Kremlin appears to be trying to heighten its nuclear threat and strengthen its nuclear deterrent.Russian President Vladimir V. Putin referenced such a site early last year, saying that Russia would soon complete construction of a “special repository for tactical nuclear weapons” in Belarus.The New York Times analyzed satellite images and photos and spoke to n...