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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...

Morrie Markoff, a supercentenarian blogger and scrap metal sculptor believed to be the oldest man in the United States and whose brain was donated for research into so-called super-aging, died June 3 at his home in downtown Los Angeles. Angeles. He was 110 years old.He had two strokes in recent weeks, his daughter, Judith Markoff Hansen, said, confirming his death.People who live to 110 years or older are considered supercentenarians, and the Gerontology Research Group, in Los Angeles, lists more than 150 of them worldwide.Mr. Markoff, born in New York on January 11, 1914, six months before the start of World War I, joined the club this year and was considered the oldest living man in the United States after his death, in January of Francis. Zouein, aged 113, in California.As of April, ...

During a meeting with priests in Rome on Tuesday, Pope Francis repeated an anti-gay slur, the same offensive term he was accused of using two weeks ago. The Vatican, in summarizing the meeting, said only that the pontiff had warned against allowing gay men into Roman Catholic seminaries.The Vatican did not respond to reports from two of Italy's most important news agencies, ANSA and Adnkronos, that he had again used the word "faggot", an offensive Italian slang term referring to gay men. The reports cited anonymous sources who they said were present at the meeting.The New York Times could not independently verify the pope's use of the term. A Vatican spokeswoman declined to comment late Tuesday.The context in which Francis is said to have used the insult remained unclear. The I...

Elon Musk on Tuesday dropped his lawsuit against OpenAI, the maker of the online chatbot ChatGPT, a day before a state judge in San Francisco was expected to consider whether it should be dismissed.The lawsuit, filed in February, accused the artificial intelligence start-up and two of its founders, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, of violating OpenAI's founding agreement by prioritizing commercial interests over the public good.A multibillion-dollar partnership that OpenAI signed with Microsoft, Musk's lawsuit argued, represented an abandonment of the company's commitment to carefully develop artificial intelligence and make the technology available to the public.Musk had argued that the founding contract stipulated that the organization should instead focus on building artificial...

Hezbollah said Tuesday that Israeli forces killed one of its commanders in an attack in southern Lebanon, fueling concerns about the conflict escalating on another Israeli front.The commander, Taleb Abdallah, also known as Abu Taleb, was among the highest-ranking Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon to have been killed by Israel since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7 sparked war in the Gaza Strip. Gaza and inflamed tensions throughout the territory. The northern border of Israel.Abdallah's role in Hezbollah was not immediately clear. But the group has not referred to a dead fighter as “commander” since January, when Wissam Hassan al-Tawil, a commander of the group's Radwan unit, was killed in an attack. In a clear indication of Abdallah's seniority, Hezbollah published a...

The Biden administration on Tuesday proposed removing medical debt from the credit reports of more than 15 million Americans, making it easier for them to qualify for auto, home and small business loans.The proposed rule, which will go through a public comment period, would not take effect immediately. It would ban health care providers from sharing medical debt with loan providers and prohibit those providers from considering medical information when it comes to making loans.Vice President Kamala Harris said the move would improve “the financial health and well-being of millions of Americans.”“One of the most significant consequences of carrying medical debt is the damage it does to a person's credit score,” Ms. Harris said. “Medical debt makes it harder for millions of Americans to...

Investors made clear on Tuesday the depth of their concerns over President Emmanuel Macron's gamble to call a new election in France, driving up the nation's borrowing costs, pushing down stock prices and prompting ratings agency Moody's to warn that it could downgrade French sovereign debt as a risk. increase in political instability.Macron's dissolution of Parliament's lower house on Sunday, after his party was beaten by Marine Le Pen's far-right party in European Parliament elections, has sparked concerns that the government could reach a stalemate . The turmoil has focused attention on France's fragile finances and the prospect of a legislative deadlock that could undermine the government's ability to deal with it.“This decision will not alleviate the ...

Mistral, a French artificial intelligence start-up, said Tuesday that it has raised 600 million euros, or about $640 million, from investors, a sign of strong interest in a company considered Europe's most promising rival to OpenAI and other Silicon Valley AI systems. developers.According to a person familiar with the investment, Mistral is now worth 5.8 billion euros, a staggering sum for a company founded just a year ago by former students of Meta and Google. The company's valuation has more or less tripled since December, when it raised 385 million euros.Investors in the latest round include venture capital firms General Catalyst, Andreessen Horowitz and Lightspeed Venture Partners, as well as Nvidia, Samsung, Salesforce, Cisco, IBM and BNP Paribas.Since OpenAI released ChatGP...

In the occupied West Bank, Palestinians live in the shadow of the ongoing war in Gaza. For them, this has meant increased raids and arrests, tightened security restrictions, settler violence, and economic turmoil. We spent time with two Palestinians whose lives and livelihoods have been reshaped by war and who fear that some of these changes may be long-lasting. 29-year-old taxi driver and tour guide Laith Al-Muti now waits all day here at one of the Israeli-controlled checkpoints in Bethlehem. But these days, almost no visitors come. Thirteen miles away, in the Tel Rumeida area of ​​Hebron, Wijdan Ziadeh's life is also at a standstill. Home to an Israeli settlement, Palestinians in the area say their movements, restricted before the war, have become even more restricted since Oc...