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Over the past decade, RIP Medical Debt has grown from a small nonprofit group that received less than $3,000 in donations to a multimillion-dollar force in healthcare philanthropy.He did so with a unique and simple strategy to address the enormous sums Americans owe hospitals: purchasing old bills that would otherwise be sold to collection agencies and writing off the debt.Since 2014, RIP Medical Debt estimates it has eliminated more than $11 billion in debt with the help of major donations from philanthropists and even city governments. In January, New York Mayor Eric Adams announced plans to donate $18 million to the organization.But a study released Monday by a group of economists calls into question the assumptions of this high-profile charity. After tracking 213,000 people in debt a...

Israel's account of the attack on the World Central Kitchen convoy raises important legal questions, even if the attack was the result of a series of mistakes, experts say.The Israeli army announced on Friday that its preliminary investigation had revealed a series of errors that led to the deaths of seven aid workers. He took responsibility for the failure, saying there was “no excuse” and citing “misidentification, errors in decision making and an attack against standard operating procedures.”But the description of events that emerged raises broader questions about the military's ability to identify civilians and its procedures for protecting them, legal experts told the New York Times — including new concerns about whether Israel complied with international law in its conduct o...

Online data has long been a valuable commodity. For years, Meta and Google have used data to target their online advertising. Netflix and Spotify have used it to recommend more movies and music. Political candidates have turned to data to understand which groups of voters to target.Over the last 18 months it has become increasingly clear that digital data is also crucial for the development of artificial intelligence. Here's what to know.The more data, the better.The success of AI depends on data. This is because AI models become more accurate and more human-like with more data.In the same way that a student learns by reading more books, essays, and other information, large language models – the systems that underpin chatbots – also become more accurate and more powerful if they a...

Nicaragua, a longtime supporter of the Palestinian cause, is expanding its legal battle over the Gaza conflict at the International Court of Justice by bringing a case against Germany, a major arms supplier to Israel.Nicaragua claims in its statement that “Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide” in Gaza and is violating the Genocide Convention by providing Israel with military and financial aid. He calls for emergency measures ordering Berlin to suspend its wartime support for Israel.In hearings opening on Monday at the Hague court, Nicaragua is also expected to argue that Germany allows serious violations of the Geneva Conventions by Israel, in particular the obligation to protect civilians during armed conflicts.The case brought by Nicaragua raises new questions about the re...

A new article in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the oldest and most respected publications for medical research, criticizes the journal for paying only “superficial and idiosyncratic attention” to the atrocities perpetrated in the name of medical science by the Nazis.The magazine was "an exception in its sporadic coverage of the rise of Nazi Germany," wrote the article's authors, Allan Brandt and Joelle Abi-Rached, both medical historians at Harvard. Often, the paper simply ignored the Nazis' medical depredations, such as the horrific experiments conducted on twins at Auschwitz, which were largely based on Adolf Hitler's spurious "racial science."By contrast, two other major scientific journals – Science and Journal of the American Medical Association – covered th...

In the spring of 585 BC in the eastern Mediterranean, the moon came out of nowhere to hide the face of the sun, turning day into night.Back then, solar eclipses were shrouded in frightening uncertainty. But a Greek philosopher is said to have predicted the disappearance of the sun. His name was Thales. He lived on the Anatolian coast - now in Turkey but then the cradle of the first Greek civilization - and was said to have acquired his unusual power by abandoning the gods.The eclipse had an immediate worldly impact. The kingdoms of the Medes and Lydians had fought a brutal war for years. But the eclipse was interpreted as a very bad omen and the armies quickly laid down their weapons. The terms of the peace included the marriage of the daughter of the king of Lydia to the son of the ...

The Maryland Legislature this weekend passed two sweeping privacy bills that aim to limit how powerful tech platforms can collect and use the personal data of consumers and young people, despite strong objections from industry trade groups they represent giants like Amazon, Google and Meta.One bill, the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act, would impose far-reaching restrictions on how companies can collect and use consumers' personal data in the state. The other, the Maryland Kids Code, would prohibit some social media, video game and other online platforms from tracking children under 18 and using manipulative techniques – such as autoplaying videos or bombarding children with notifications – to keep young people glued online.“We are making a statement to the tech industry and to Maryla...

The Israeli army said it withdrew a division of ground troops from southern Gaza on Sunday, raising questions about its plans as the war reached six months.In recent months, Israel has significantly reduced the number of its troops on the ground in Gaza. Only a fraction of the soldiers who deployed to the territory at the start of the war remain.The army said the 98th Division had left Khan Younis in southern Gaza to "recover and prepare for future operations". Israeli media reported that the 98th's withdrawal meant there were no Israeli troops actively maneuvering in southern Gaza.It is unclear what the latest withdrawal of forces means for the timing of an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, where more than a million people have sought refuge.Israeli De...

Patti Sietz-Honig, a video editor at Fox 5 in New York, filed a complaint in 2022. The cost of seeing a specialist for chronic back pain had skyrocketed, and she faced about $60,000 in bills.Ms. Sietz-Honig pressed for updates on her complaint and submitted articles critical of MultiPlan from Capitol Forum, a site focused on antitrust and regulatory news. Last March, the agency sent her an email informing her that her employer and her insurer, Aetna, had agreed to a “temporary exception” and made additional payments.“Unfortunately,” the agency writes, the law “does not prohibit the use of third-party vendors” to calculate payments.Meanwhile, her longtime pain specialist began requiring advance payment. To save money, Ms. Sietz-Honig spaced out her appointments.“I've been in a lot of ...

Margaret Tynes, an American soprano acclaimed in Europe but overlooked in the United States at a time when black singers were just breaking into the world of opera, died March 7 in Silver Spring, Maryland, at age 104.Her nephew Richard Roberts said she died in a nursing home.In the 1960s and 1970s Ms. Tynes's incendiary, full voice was heard in roles such as Aida and Salomé in the opera houses of Vienna, Prague and Budapest, earning her high praise on the continent - "an exceptional, intense voice in every colour, vibrant and dramatic,” wrote Milan's Corriere della Sera, although American critics were colder. Munich's Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote of her performance in Benjamin Britten's “The War Requiem” that “what Britten expected from a woman's voice can only be achieved...