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Tony Probst's passion for the Titanic is unshakable.Since the mid-1990s, he has amassed hundreds of artifacts dating back to the ship's maiden voyage in 1912, including a plaque on a lifeboat, porcelain, sheet music and a number of personal documents.“I believe I am the only person on planet Earth who has all the necessary documents for an individual to board the Titanic,” Mr. Probst, 64, said proudly this week.His collection is sometimes displayed in the audio and video store he runs with his children in California's Bay Area, but he has also visited notable spaces, including the National Geographic Museum in Washington; the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley, California; and the Titanic museums in Branson, Missouri, and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.Mr. ...

I don't need help scheduling more things to do; I have to do less. Often these services suggest users spend money on that problem (which isn't very helpful if one of your problems is that you don't have enough money). Apps transform parents from workers into consumers, translating our to-do lists into shopping lists. Someone is still doing our joy-stealing tasks, and it could be a call center employee or one of the many other invisible workers who make AI systems appear to work automatically.The boundary between the human and the artificial is labile; Yohana emphasizes that she employs “real humans (not AI chatbots) who can do the hard work,” although according to Forbes these humans use generative AI to assist They with our tasks. When these services call themselves “wor...

The main UN coordinator for humanitarian aid in Gaza said Israel had taken steps to improve the delivery of humanitarian aid to the enclave, but warned that much more needed to be done to meet the huge need in the area.Israel has announced efforts to increase the flow of aid to Gaza, including by opening an additional border crossing and accepting shipments at a nearby port. But the United Nations has warned with growing urgency that a famine is imminent and that deliveries are still below the level needed to stop the spread of hunger.Aid coordinator Sigrid Kaag said in a Security Council briefing on Wednesday that while Israel has made efforts to increase the entry and distribution of aid, “further definitive and urgent steps are needed to set the course for a sustained flow of aid." hu...

Federal regulators discovered fragments of the avian influenza virus in about 20 percent of retail milk samples analyzed in a nationally representative study, the Food and Drug Administration said in an online update Thursday.Samples from parts of the country known to have dairy farms infected with the virus were more likely to test positive, the agency said. Regulators have said there is no evidence that this milk poses a danger to consumers or that live virus is present in the milk on store shelves, an assessment that public health experts agree with.But finding traces of the virus in such a high percentage of samples from across the country is the strongest sign yet that the avian flu outbreak in dairy cows is larger than the official count of 33 infected herds in eight states.“That su...

A wave of political unrest hit Spain on Thursday as Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez publicly considered resigning from his post after a judge agreed to investigate his wife over allegations that he and other officials denounced as a campaign politically driven defamation.The judge's decision to take over the case - which was brought by a self-styled anti-corruption group based on online news reports of alleged influence peddling - prompted Mr Sánchez supporters will unite behind him and prosecutors will move quickly Thursday to try to get the case dismissed.Mr. Sánchez, whose political survival skills have amazed both his supporters and detractors for years, wrote in a public letter on Wednesday that the allegations against his wife, Begoña Gómez, were false and amounted to harassment. ...

Microsoft gave further signs on Thursday that its heavy investments in artificial intelligence were starting to pay off, reporting a 17% increase in revenue and a 20% increase in profits for the first three months of the year.Revenue was $61.9 billion, up from $52.9 billion a year earlier. Profit reached $21.9 billion, up from $18.3 billion. The results exceeded Wall Street's expectations.A year after Microsoft began pushing to put artificial intelligence into everything it does, the company said sales of its flagship cloud computing product, Azure, grew 31%. That included seven percentage points from its generative artificial intelligence services, which primarily sell access to technology developed by its partner OpenAI.In recent quarters, Microsoft's AI push has helped it gai...

A dissident rapper has been sentenced to death in Iran for releasing music in support of anti-government demonstrations that have rocked the country in 2022, his lawyer said, in a case that drew global condemnation.Rapper, Toomaj Salehi, 33, has been one of the most prominent voices among those arrested in nationwide protests against Iran's religious rulers following the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, while in police custody. Human rights organizations have called for Mr Salehi's release, saying he has been tortured in prison and warning that he could be executed.Amir Raesian, Mr. Salehi's lawyer, told the reformist Iranian newspaper Shargh in an article published on Wednesday that a court in the central city of Isfahan sentenced Mr. Salehi to death and that his client plans to app...

Antidepressants are among the most prescribed medications in the United States. This is due, in part, to the fact that the number of people diagnosed with depression and anxiety is rising and prescriptions have increased sharply in some age groups during the pandemic.Despite the prevalence of these drugs, some patients have "significant misconceptions" about how the drugs work, said Dr. Andrew J. Gerber, a psychiatrist and president and medical director of Silver Hill Hospital in New Canaan, Connecticut.About 80% of antidepressants are prescribed by primary care physicians who have not had extensive training in the management of mental illnesses.Dr. Paul Nestadt, an associate professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, said patients tell him, "'You know, doctor, I'...

The Moulin Rouge's bright red windmill has been a ubiquitous sign atop the famous cabaret venue for more than a century.But on Thursday, Parisians woke up to an alarming sight: the windmill's blades bent and fell to the ground after breaking loose and falling overnight.Footage circulated in local media on Thursday showed the blades tangled on the ground in front of the building. Three letters from the illuminated “Moulin Rouge” sign also appear to have fallen.Firefighters were called to the scene after 2 a.m., a Paris fire brigade spokeswoman said, and examined the structure to make sure nothing else threatened to fall. With the area secured and with no injuries, firefighters quickly left. The workers were clean up debris Thursday morning.A Moulin Rouge spokeswoman said via text...

The idea triggered a full-scale revolt on the Google campus.Six years ago, the Silicon Valley giant signed a small, $9 million contract to put the skills of a few of its most innovative developers to the task of building an artificial intelligence tool that would help the military detect potential targets on the battlefield using drone footage.Engineers and other Google employees argued that the company should have nothing to do with Project Maven, even if it was designed to help the military discern between civilians and militants.The uproar forced the company to back out, but Project Maven didn’t die — it just moved to other contractors. Now, it has grown into an ambitious experiment being tested on the front lines in Ukraine, forming a key component of the U.S. military’s effort to funn...