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Some $300 billion in Russian assets, frozen in the West after the invasion of Ukraine, are racking up profits and interest earnings by the day. Now, Europe and the United States are considering how to use these gains to help the Ukrainian military as it wages a grueling battle against Russian forces.For months, there was debate about whether it was legal or even wise to confiscate the frozen assets altogether. While the United States and Britain favor the confiscations, significant objections have come from countries such as France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan and Saudi Arabia, as well as officials such as Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank.They argue that confiscation would set a bad precedent, a violation of sovereignty, and could lead to legal challenges, financ...

While Apple and Google turn their voice assistants into chatbots, OpenAI is turning its chatbot into a voice assistant.The San Francisco artificial intelligence start-up on Monday unveiled a new version of its ChatGPT chatbot that can receive and respond to voice commands, images and videos.The company said the new app, based on an artificial intelligence system called GPT-4o, handles audio, images and video significantly faster than previous versions of the technology. The app will be available starting Monday, free of charge, for both smartphones and desktop computers.“We are looking at the future of interaction between us and machines,” said Mira Murati, the company's chief technology officer.The new app is part of a larger effort to combine conversational chatbots like ChatGPT wit...

The United Nations said one staff member was killed Monday when one of its convoys came under fire in Rafah. It is the first time an international UN staff member has been killed in Gaza since the conflict began last October.The convoy, which the UN said was clearly marked with the organisation's emblem, was headed to Gaza's European Hospital in Khan Younis to assess the aid and security situation when it came under fire, according to Farhan Haq, United Nations spokesperson. .Another staff member was injured in the attack, the United Nations said.The nationality of the killed worker, a man, was not immediately disclosed. Jordan's Foreign Ministry confirmed in a statement that the injured staff member, a woman, was Jordanian and said the incident was "the result of the expans...

After 30 years as one of England’s top pediatricians, Dr. Hilary Cass was hoping to begin her retirement by learning to play the saxophone.Instead, she took on a project that would throw her into an international fire: reviewing England’s treatment guidelines for the rapidly rising number of children with gender distress, known as dysphoria.At the time, in 2020, England’s sole youth gender clinic was in disarray. The waiting list had swelled, leaving many young patients waiting years for an appointment. Staff members who said they felt pressure to approve children for puberty-blocking drugs had filed whistle-blower complaints that had spilled into public view. And a former patient had sued the clinic, claiming that she had transitioned as a teenager “after a series of superficial conversat...

Ukraine's military is facing a "critical" situation in the country's northeast due to troop shortages as it tries to repel a Russian offensive that has been advancing for several days, a top Ukrainian general said Monday.Russian troops crossed the border last week to open a new line of attack near Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city after Kiev, capturing at least nine settlements and villages and forcing thousands of civilians to flee.“The situation is at the limit,” General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency, said in a video call from a bunker in Kharkiv. "Every hour this situation becomes critical."His bleak assessment echoes that of other Ukrainian officials in recent days that the country's military prospects are dimming. In addition...

Le stime stanno ancora superando la soglia dei 20 milioni di dollari e le tele portano ancora le firme di artisti affidabili come Warhol, Basquiat e Picasso. Ma c’è un’ombra che incombe sulla stagione delle aste primaverili che inizierà lunedì.Giovedì un attacco informatico a Christie's ha bloccato il sito web dell'azienda e, domenica mattina, Christie's non ne aveva ancora ripreso il controllo. Domenica sera, nella sua prima dichiarazione pubblica dopo l'attacco informatico, Guillaume Cerutti, amministratore delegato di Christie's, ha confermato che otto aste si svolgeranno come previsto, con offerte di persona e per telefono (la vendita di orologi rari è stata rinviata al 14 maggio). . È stato creato un sito web segnaposto che consente l'accesso ai cataloghi di...

In a sandy clearing near Israel's border with Gaza, soldiers, civilians and tourists wandered silently through a dense thicket of poles. Posted on the posts were portraits of the hundreds of people who came there to dance late into the night last October and never returned home.As Israelis celebrated Memorial Day, the country's annual commemoration of fallen soldiers and victims of terrorist attacks, many were drawn to the site of the Tribe of Nova music festival, a rave dedicated to peace and love that was cut short around dawn on October 7 by a barrage of rockets from Gaza, signaling the start of the Hamas-led cross-border assault.In the horror that followed, at least 360 festivalgoers were killed – nearly a third of the approximately 1,200 people killed that day in southern Isr...

The four adult children agreed.Their father, William Curry, a retired electrical engineer and business executive, was sinking deeper into dementia. They had found a memory care facility about a mile from their parents' home in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, where they thought Mr. Curry would do better.But their mother, Melissa, who was 83 when her family began urging her to make this change in 2016, remained determined to continue caring for her 81-year-old husband at home, despite the growing impact on his health. When her children raised the issue of moving, “she didn't want to discuss it,” said her daughter, Shannon Curry, 56. She cried sometimes."Yet even Melissa Curry's memory was slipping. She forgot to give her husband's medications or she got her doses wrong. The f...

Three men have been charged with assisting Hong Kong's secret service, London's Metropolitan Police said on Monday, following an investigation in which arrests and searches were carried out across England.The three people charged under the UK National Security Act have been identified as Chi Leung (Peter) Wai, 38, of Staines-upon-Thames, Matthew Trickett, 37, of Maidenhead, and Chung Biu Yuen, 63, of Hackney , East London.“The foreign intelligence service to which the above allegations relate is that of Hong Kong,” police said in a statement.All three men were due to appear at Westminster Magistrates Court on Monday. As court proceedings are now active, Britain's reporting restrictions apply, preventing speculation about the case.Dominic Murphy, head of the Metropolitan Police...

Federal officials will provide up to $120 million in grants to Polar Semiconductor to help the company expand its chip manufacturing plant in Minnesota, the Biden administration announced Monday, the latest in a series of awards intended to strengthen the US supply of semiconductors.Commerce Department officials said the grant would help Polar upgrade technology and double production capacity at its facility in Bloomington, Minnesota, within two years. The company makes chips critical to automobiles, defense systems and power grids, federal officials said.“We're making taxpayer money go as far as possible by crowding in private and state investment to create jobs, protect our supply chains and strengthen manufacturing in Minnesota,” said Laurie Locascio, Under Secretary of Commerce fo...