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For those who can afford them, the large villas of Whitmore Heath offer countryside tranquility within easy reach of urban centers such as Stoke-on-Trent and Stafford, an hour's drive north of Birmingham, the largest city in the English midlands.Yet on Heath Road, where some house prices have topped £1 million (about $1.3 million), padlocked gates and signs warn intruders of CCTV security monitoring. Outside one house there is a dumpster full of rubbish while the roof of another is covered in a film of moss. Peering through the large windows of a family home, not a single piece of furniture can be seen inside.This scene of abandonment is an aftermath of a multibillion-pound rail project that has lasted three decades and six prime ministers: a case study in the problems Britain faces ...

The Internet, as anyone who works in the trenches can tell you, is not a smooth, well-oiled machine.It's a messy patchwork that's been pieced together over decades and is held together by the digital equivalent of duct tape and chewing gum. Much of it relies on open source software thanklessly maintained by a small army of volunteer programmers who fix bugs, patch holes, and ensure that the entire rickety contraption, responsible for trillions of dollars in global GDP, continues to function. .Last week, one of these programmers may have saved the Internet from huge problems.His name is Andrés Freund. He is a 38-year-old software engineer who lives in San Francisco and works at Microsoft. His work involves developing open source database software known as PostgreSQL, the details ...

Lalzawmi Frankcom's text message was short and sweet: a response with a heart emoji at 10:38 pm on Sunday to her friend Josh Phelps, who had sent photos of their humanitarian work together on a reservation in South Dakota.On Monday Ms Frankcom, an Australian known as Zomi, had a big day ahead of her. She and her colleagues at the World Central Kitchen in Gaza were waiting for a ship to arrive at their newly built dock so they could unload hundreds of tons of badly needed humanitarian aid.The team left Rafah in southern Gaza at around 8am local time on Monday and headed north towards Deir al Balah. “They were so excited, like they were going to a wedding,” said Shadi Abu Taha, whose brother, Saif, was among them.But the journey ended disastrously.Israeli strikes hit their convoy that ...

As lawmakers in a nearby hearing room debated last month whether to support her legislation to expand Medicaid, Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas challenged the state's Republican House speaker to hold a vote.“If he thinks he can kill him, bring him,” Ms. Kelly, a soft-spoken moderate Democrat, said in an interview in her vast office at the state Capitol in Topeka.The next morning, in his office outside the House, Speaker Dan Hawkins showed no sign of relenting. He described the expansion of Medicaid as "almost like the biggest Ponzi scheme ever devised." The same day, a House committee voted against passing Ms. Kelly's bill, derailing the proposal, at least for now.The standoff between Ms. Kelly and Mr. Hawkins represented a clash in a fierce political battle playing out in several sta...

Israel bombed a building that was part of the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus on Monday, killing seven people, including Gen. Mohamad Reza Zahedi, who oversaw Iran's covert military operations in Syria and Lebanon, and two other senior generals.For centuries, diplomatic posts have been afforded special protections. Diplomats gain immunity from prosecution in the host country, and embassy buildings are often seen as a sanctuary for their nation's citizens: the host country's police cannot enter them without permission from diplomatic staff, and they often become sanctuaries for wartime expatriates.So attacks on diplomatic offices carry particular weight, both in the law and in the popular imagination. But in this case, experts say, Israel can probably argue that its actio...

When I temporarily switched from an iPhone to an Android phone last week, I was preparing myself for a world of pain. I've only owned Apple phones since I bought the first-generation iPhone in 2007. And, like many, I've purchased other Apple products that go well together, including AirPods, an Apple Watch, and an iPad.That kind of loyalty is the basis of an antitrust case against Apple brought by the Justice Department, which accused the company of using monopoly control over the iPhone to harm competitors and dissuade customers from switching to other phones. To test this theory, I decided to briefly part with my iPhone.I was initially surprised by how easy it was to transfer my iPhone data to an Android smartphone made by Google. By simply installing an app created by Google ...

Lalzawmi Frankcom, 43, known as Zomi, was the Australian worker killed on Monday. She began volunteering for World Central Kitchen in 2018 and was hired the following year, according to her former partner, Josh Phelps.Their last exchange of messages occurred on Sunday, shortly before she and the humanitarian convoy departed central Gaza. She sent her some photos of their time together delivering food on a reservation in South Dakota. She responded with a heart emoji.The next day, he found out she had been killed.“Wherever she needed to go, she was willing to go,” he said. "She was following her dreams of making a life around the world."Damian Sobol of Poland has been described as “the Michael Jordan of humanitarian work” by a former colleague, Noah Sims, a chef from North Georgia who h...

La forma altamente letale di influenza aviaria che circola in tutto il mondo dal 2021 ha ucciso decine di milioni di uccelli, costretto gli allevatori di pollame negli Stati Uniti a macellare interi branchi e provocato un breve ma allarmante aumento del prezzo delle uova.Più recentemente, ha infettato mucche da latte in diversi stati e almeno una persona in Texas che ha avuto uno stretto contatto con gli animali, hanno detto i funzionari questa settimana.L’epidemia, a quanto pare, si sta rivelando particolarmente costosa per i contribuenti americani.L’anno scorso, il Dipartimento dell’Agricoltura ha pagato ai produttori di pollame più di mezzo miliardo di dollari per i tacchini, i polli e le galline ovaiole che erano stati costretti a uccidere dopo che il ceppo influenzale H5N1 era stato r...

President Biden spoke with Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, on Tuesday morning in a call that aimed to address a range of combative and cooperative issues as the United States grapples with wars and other global crises, U.S. and Chinese officials said .According to a White House summary of the call, topics raised by Biden included combating narcotics production, conflict in the Middle East, North Korea's nuclear program and China's support for Russia during the war in Ukraine.Biden intended the speech to be a "check-in" rather than a discussion with concrete outcomes, said a senior administration official, who spoke to a small group of reporters Monday evening on condition of anonymity, as is customary for such people. Washington briefing. But it was a crucial signal during a cruc...

michael barbaroFrom The New York Times. I’m Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.For millions of Americans, the past four years have been a national trauma. Today: As Joe Biden prepares to take the oath of office and become the 46th president of the United States, some of his supporters are filled with hope, some with concern, but all with relief. It’s Wednesday, January 20.brian keaneThere he is.michael barbaroHey, Brian.brian keaneHey, Michael. How’s it going? It’s been a long year, huh?michael barbaroHas it ever.brian keaneBoy, oh, boy.michael barbaroWell, Brian, I’m sure you remember the last time that we talked.brian keaneYeah.michael barbaroAnd let me refresh your — let me refresh our listeners’ memory. Because you surely remember it. It was right before Super Tuesday in the middle of ...