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Early one evening in December, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad fled his country as rebel forces advanced on Damascus. In France, three days later, one of the country's most watched TV news channels turned to a cartoonist for expert opinion on the news.“Did you think this could happen so quickly?” A news anchor for the channel, BFMTV, asked the cartoonist, Riad Sattouf, whose smiling face appeared on a giant video wall.Over the past decade, Mr. Sattouf, 46, has become one of France's biggest literary stars, thanks in large part to his masterpiece, "The Arab of the Future," a series of graphic memoirs. Over six volumes, the series tells the story of Mr. Sattouf's childhood, which was painstakingly divided between the Middle East and France and the disintegration of the marriage between his F...

A new study suggests a possible alternative to the abortion pill Mifepristone, a drug that continues to be a target of lawsuits and legislation by abortion opponents.But the potential substitute could further complicate the politics of reproductive health because it is also the key ingredient in a morning-after contraceptive pill.The new study, published Thursday in the journal Nejm Evidence, involved a drug called Ulipristal acetate, the active ingredient in the prescription contraceptive Ella, one of two types of morning pills approved in the United States. (The other, the one-step BB plan, which does not require a prescription, contains a different drug and does not work to terminate a pregnancy, according to scientific evidence.)In the study, 133 women who were up to nine weeks pregnan...

On the evening of January 18, a 32-year-old Greek man came to police with an unusual object he said he found in a plastic bag among garbage bins near the northern city of Thessaloniki.It was a headless, armless statue depicting a female form in a flowing, draped dress.Police announced on Wednesday that the statue is believed to date from the Hellenistic period, after the death of Alexander the Great, from around 323 BC to 31 BC.The find sparked an investigation among Greece's crime, traffic, antiquities and heritage protection units into its origins and how it might have ended up in the bin.The discovery of ancient artifacts in surprising places is not uncommon in a country as rich in history and archeology as Greece. Relics are often unearthed during construction projects, such as those i...

If you're looking for a new reason to be nervous about AI, try this: Some of the world's smartest humans are struggling to create tests that AI systems can't pass.For years, AI systems have been measured by giving new models a series of standardized benchmark tests. Many of these tests consisted of challenging SAT-caliber problems in areas such as math, science, and logic. Comparing model scores over time served as a rough measure of AI progress.But AI systems eventually became too good at these tests, so new, more difficult tests were created, often with the kinds of questions graduate students might encounter on exams.These tests are also not in good condition. New models from companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic have scored high on many doctoral-level challenges, limiting the us...

In the days after a ceasefire agreement took effect in the Gaza Strip, Israel turned its attention to a Palestinian town about 75 miles northeast of the enclave, a town with a long history of resistance and militant activity.On Wednesday, as some of its troops withdrew from Gaza, the Israeli army said it was carrying out an operation in Jenin, a city in the northern part of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The city has been a hotbed of militancy and the target of raids by Israeli security forces for decades.Since the war in Gaza began, Hamas has become increasingly popular and established its presence in the West Bank. Iran – which supports Hamas and other militant groups in the region – has flooded the territory with weapons. And the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West B...

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump's pick for health secretary, maintains his financial stake in major litigation against Merck over a widely used vaccine given to young people, according to ethics filings made public Wednesday and court documents. This conflict of interest could raise questions for lawmakers as Mr. Kennedy aims to run agencies that regulate the drugmaker.The ethics documents say Mr. Kennedy will continue to collect fees for cases in which he referred clients to Wisner Baum, a law firm that sued Merck over Gardasil, a vaccine that protects against the human papillomavirus, or HPV, and is given to adolescents to prevent cervical and other cancers later in life.The deal has earned Kennedy, one of the nation's fiercest vaccine critics, more than $2.5 million in recent yea...

Prince Harry's lawyer announced on Wednesday that he had reached a settlement with Rupert Murdoch's News Group Newspapers over allegations of illegal intelligence gathering - an abrupt end to a case that Harry had launched as a last chance to hold years-old tabloids to account of predatory behavior. .The News Group newspapers offered Harry a "full and unequivocal apology" for hacking into his mobile phone and intruding into his personal life, and acknowledged the "unlawful" conduct of private investigators hired by one of the tabloids, The Sun It was the first time News Group had admitted wrongdoing involving that newspaper.The company also apologized for its journalists' past intrusions into the private life of Harry's mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, who died in a car crash in Paris in ...

President Trump on Tuesday granted clemency to Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road drug market and a cult hero in the cryptocurrency and libertarian world.In doing so, Trump fulfilled a promise he made several times during the campaign, soliciting political contributions from the cryptocurrency industry, which spent more than $100 million to influence the outcome of the election. A Bitcoin pioneer, Mr. Ulbricht, 40, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2015, after being found guilty of charges that included distributing narcotics over the Internet.“I just called Ross William Ulbright's mother to let her know,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, misspelling Mr. Ulbricht's name and referring to federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New Yo...

Israeli Army Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi announced Tuesday that he would resign in early March, citing in part the failure of the army under his command to protect Israelis from Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023.The heavy toll from the attacks – 1,200 dead in Israel and another 250 taken hostage in Gaza – had long come with expectations in Israel that at least some of the country's leaders would eventually step down. Only a few officials have done so, and General Halevi is the highest-ranking military leader to resign so far.“My responsibility for the terrible failure accompanies me every day, every hour and every will for the rest of my life,” he said in a letter to Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, and Israel Katz, the Israeli defense minister, announcing the h...

President Trump moved quickly to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization on Monday, a move that public health experts say will undermine the nation's position as a global health leader and make it harder to fight the next pandemic.In an executive order issued about eight hours after he was sworn in, Trump cited a number of reasons for the withdrawal, including the WHO's "mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic" and "failure to urgently adopt reforms necessary." .” He said the agency demands “unfairly burdensome payments” from the United States and complained that China pays less.The move was not unexpected. Trump has been railing against the WHO since 2020, when he attacked the agency for its approach to the coronavirus pandemic and threatened to withhold U.S. funding....