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Nijole Sadunaite, a fearless but forgiving Roman Catholic nun and anti-Soviet Lithuanian nationalist inspired by Pope John Paul II and publicly acclaimed by President Ronald Reagan, died March 31 in Vilnius. She was 85 years old.Her death was confirmed by Sister Gerarda Elena Suliauskaite, winner of the Freedom Prize of the Republic of Lithuania, also awarded to Sister Sadunaite in 2018 for her defense of democracy and human rights. She was the first woman to receive the award.In 1975, Sister Sadunaite (pronounced sah-DOO-nay-teh) was arrested by KGB agents who raided an apartment where she was writing an underground newspaper, The Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania, which documented abuses against Christians in the Baltic. state.“I had written six pages when I got caught, so...

One recent afternoon, I held a bagel in front of me and said, “Look and tell me if this is healthy.”A monotone voice replied that the bagel was unhealthy because it was high in carbohydrates, which could contribute to weight gain.I wasn't talking to a techie obsessed with the ketogenic diet. It was the Ai Pin, a tiny $700 computer equipped with a virtual assistant that pulls data from OpenAI (the research company behind the ChatGPT chatbot), Google, Microsoft and others to answer questions and perform tasks.Shaped like a pin that could be a "Star Trek" throwback, it attaches to your clothes with magnets and is supposed to offload tasks you'd normally do with a smartphone, such as taking notes, searching the Web and taking photos. Instead of a screen, the pin shines a green laser ...

A senior Hamas official said Wednesday that Hamas did not have 40 living hostages in Gaza who met the criteria for an exchange under the proposed ceasefire deal with Israel being negotiated.A senior Israeli official said Israel had been conveyed Hamas's claim, and the senior Hamas official said the group had informed mediators facilitating the negotiations. The Israeli and Hamas officials requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the negotiations.The statement raised fears that more hostages may have died than previously believed and came as talks between Hamas and Israel stalled over disagreements over the continuation of the ceasefire, the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza and other issues.International negotiators have proposed an initial six-week ceasefire duri...

Overall, the health needs of women in Bangladesh take a backseat to those of men. “In our male-dominated society, when a man has a problem, he requires immediate attention, but women can wait,” she said.But the effects of declining vision can be especially pronounced for women, who are often responsible for earning extra income for their families on top of childcare and household chores, Ms. Mahjabeen said. “When it takes longer to sew and clean, or you can't get all the kernels out of the rice, domestic violence occurs in some families,” she said.VisionSpring distributes more than two million pairs of glasses per year across South Asia and Africa, up from 300,000 in 2018.The PLOS One study builds on previous research involving tea pickers in India who found a significant increase in...

Trevor Griffiths, a prolific and avowedly Marxist writer for stage and screen, best known for his play “Comedians,” which ran in London and on Broadway, died March 29 at his home in Yorkshire, England. He was 88 years old.His agent, Nicki Stoddart, said the cause was heart failure.An important figure on the English left, Griffiths bridged the political with the personal and expressed this affinity across a wide range of topics, whether related to British party politics or comparable upheavals abroad.Its maximum visibility occurred during the decade from 1975 onwards. That period included the premiere of “Comedians” in Nottingham, England, in 1975, as well as its premiere in New York in 1976 – it was his only play on Broadway – and his lone foray into Hollywood, as Warren's collaborat...

After the birth of her second child, Chelsea Becker took a one-year unpaid leave from her full-time job as a flight attendant. After watching a video on TikTok, she found a side business: training artificial intelligence models for a website called Data Annotation Tech.For a few hours each day, Ms. Becker, 33, who lives in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, sat at her laptop and interacted with an AI-powered chatbot. For every hour of work she was paid between 20 and 40 dollars. From December to March she earned over $10,000.The boom in artificial intelligence technology has put a more sophisticated spin on a type of work that doesn't require you to leave home. The growth of large language models like the technology behind OpenAI's ChatGPT has fueled the need for trainers like Ms. Be...

As Eid al-Fitr approached, Amani Abu Awda's four children began asking her for new clothes and toys – festive items that Muslims routinely buy to celebrate the holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.But Ms. Abu Awda, a mother of four from northern Gaza, is now displaced with her family in a tent in the southern city of Rafah, far from any sense of celebration and the home that once hosted large family gatherings.“Oh God, I couldn't get him anything because of the high prices,” she said on Saturday, days before most Muslims around the world celebrated Eid al-Fitr. “I had to go look for some used clothing. On normal days, we would never buy things like this. But I couldn't even find any used clothes.”Eid al-Fitr – the three-day celebration that begins Wednesda...

Arizona's 160-year-old abortion ban, upheld Tuesday by the state's highest court, is part of a wave of anti-abortion laws spurred by some historic twists that might seem surprising.For decades after the United States became a nation, abortion was legal until movement of the fetus was felt, usually until the second trimester. The movement, known as acceleration, was the threshold because, in an era before pregnancy tests or ultrasounds, it was the clearest sign that a woman was pregnant.Before then, “women could try to get an abortion without having to worry that it was illegal,” said Johanna Schoen, a history professor at Rutgers University. After expediting, abortion providers could be charged with a misdemeanor.“I don't think it's been particularly stigmatized,” Dr. Sch...

A landmark bill intended to overhaul migration policy across the European Union cleared its final hurdle on Wednesday after being approved by the European Parliament. The bill, which took much of the last decade to negotiate, aims to make it easier for member states to deport rejected asylum seekers and to limit the entry of migrants into the bloc. It would also give governments greater control over their borders, while strengthening the EU's role in managing migration, treating it as a European issue, which no member state needs to tackle alone. European officials and politicians were intent on approving the legislation before the European elections in early June.This is a developing story.

Beeper, the app that brought iPhone messaging features to Android smartphones, has been acquired by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, to support the development of a single service for sending and receiving chats from WhatsApp, Signal, LinkedIn and others.The deal, worth about $125 million, was announced Tuesday. This comes as regulators in Europe and the United States pressure the biggest tech companies to open up their messaging services to third parties. Regulators believe this will make it easier for people to communicate with friends and family and switch messaging providers.Automattic is betting that the changing regulatory environment will make people more interested in finding a unified messaging system like Beeper, said Toni Schneider, interim CEO of Automattic.Beepe...