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Climate change is driving an increase in flash droughts, or intense, rapid-onset periods of dryness, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science. Researchers, led by Xing Yuan of China’s Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, analyzed just over six decades of soil moisture data ranging from 1951 to 2014. When restricting the data to droughts of at least 20 days, they found a broad trend toward flash droughts occurring more quickly and frequently.

The Marian shrine of Knock and St. Muredach’s Cathedral in County Mayo will both host U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday during his ongoing visit to Ireland. Announcing Biden’s visit to Knock, rector of the shrine Fr. Richard Gibbons noted that sacraments will be suspended in the parish 24 hours before the president’s arrival. No sacraments have been available in St. Muredach’s Cathedral this week as preparations are made for the U.S. leader’s speech on a road in front of the west Ireland church. “We are delighted to welcome President Joe Biden to Knock Shrine. This is a huge honour...

An array of progressive campaign groups is teaming up with the Latino Victory Fund to set up a candidate training camp ahead of the 2024 election. The two-day “Path to Victory” program will take place in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin, and it will teach prospective candidates the basics of how to run a successful political campaign. The training will include a cybersecurity component implemented by Google and Defending Digital Campaigns, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization focused on digital security in political campaigns. “The Path to Victory program is an exciting opportunity to meet candidates where they are and build a...

INTELLIGENT AI robots are coming - and they will have the ability to perform religious ceremonies and could even turn against humans, experts have warned. As AI becomes more prominent in our day to day lives, it wasn’t going to be long before the worlds of religion and tech merged. The thought of robot Gods and ChatGPT sermons terrifies some people - and rightly so, according to experts. Wesley Wildman, Professor of Philosophy, Theology, and Ethics, and of Computing and Data Sciences at Boston University, told The Sun that he believes AI will soon be able to perform religious duties...

President Biden’s Justice Department is recommending no jail time for an abortion activist who scrawled “F–k Catholics” on a church’s walls, assaulted a church employee and defaced several religious statues in reaction to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade last summer, according to a report. Nota, a transgender man, was charged with a hate crime and assault for vandalizing the church and tossing rocks at and spray-painting an employee of the church, according to the Bellevue Reporter. “The graffiti painted on church walls and artifacts was anti-Catholic,” the Bellevue Police Department said ​at the time on Twitter​​​​. “​[A] hate...

According to Bibb County Coroner Leon Jones, Baba Agbaje was playing at the intramural fields when he collapsed and went into cardiac arrest.MACON, Ga. — A 21-year-old Mercer University student-athlete is dead after collapsing during a pick-up soccer game Monday night. According to Bibb County Coroner Leon Jones, Abdul Rasheed Babatunde Agbaje was playing at the intramural fields when he collapsed and went into cardiac arrest. He was taken to Atrium Health Navicent, the Medical Center where he was pronounced dead at 7:48 p.m. Agbaje was from Peachtree City. His family has been notified. An autopsy will be performed. Mercer...

@Sen_JoeManchin WATCH: In my lifetime, I have never seen the United States of America in a more just war. Our purpose is to defend freedom and fight for democracy, and that's why we’re supporting Ukraine every step of the way as they defend their country & their way of life.

Explanation: Stars of the globular cluster NGC 2419 are packed into this Hubble Space Telescope field of view toward the mostly stealthy constellation Lynx. The two brighter spiky stars near the edge of the frame are within our own galaxy. NGC 2419 itself is remote though, some 300,000 light-years away. In comparison, the Milky Way's satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, is only about 160,000 light-years distant. Roughly similar to other large globular star clusters like Omega Centauri, NGC 2419 is intrinsically bright, but appears faint because it is so far away. Its extreme distance makes it difficult to study...

Joe Rogan’s rabid fan base soured on the Spotify star after he took a sip of Bud Light during his podcast and said the controversy surrounding Dylan Mulvaney’s partnership was much ado about nothing. “Wonder how much Bud paid him for that,” one Twitter user commented. Another Twitter user accused Rogan of “sitting on the fence” while he “plays it safe.” “Because cultural degradation matters but Joe has never cared about that,” another Twitter user wrote.

London-born crime author Anne Perry, who was jailed as a teenager for murdering her friend’s mother, has died at the age of 84, her agent has confirmed. The writer – who was known for her Pitt and Monk detective novel series, alongside her dark past that was turned into the Oscar-nominated Peter Jackson film Heavenly Creatures – died on Monday (10 April) in Los Angeles, where she had been living. A statement from Ki Agency said: “Anne was a loyal and loving friend, and her writing was driven by her fierce commitment to raising awareness around social injustice. “Many readers...

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., suggested that calls for longtime Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to resign were sexist, noting that she has "never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate in that way," appearing to be a dig at Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who has been absent for a couple of months due to clinical depression. "It’s interesting to me. I don’t know what political agendas are at work that are going after Sen. Feinstein in that way. I’ve never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate in that...

MIT neuroscientists have discovered a method to reverse neurodegeneration and other Alzheimer’s disease symptoms by blocking an overactive enzyme, CDK5, in patients’ brains. Treating mice with a peptide inhibitor, they observed significant reductions in neurodegeneration, DNA damage, and improved cognitive abilities. The peptide has the potential to be used as a treatment for Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia with CDK5 overactivation, without interfering with essential, structurally similar enzymes. The peptide blocks a hyperactive brain enzyme that contributes to the neurodegeneration seen in Alzheimer’s and other diseases. MIT neuroscientists have found a way to reverse neurodegeneration and other symptoms of...

As its Black Sea fleet flagship, the Moskva, reached the depths of the seabed in mid-April 2022, Russia insisted Ukraine had nothing to do with the sinking of the 510-crew guided missile cruiser. Russian state media provided various explanations for the sinking of the prominent flagship—none of which included a deliberate Ukrainian strike. Russia's Defense Ministry said a "fire" followed by a "munitions blast" had inflicted "serious damage" on the cruiser, prompting a crew evacuation. "The explosions of ammunition have been stopped," the ministry then said, according to state media, which claimed the ship was still afloat and being taken...

Jack Teixeira, 21, was arrested in Massachusetts on ThursdayFBI agents arrested Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Douglas Teixeira at a home in North Dighton, Massachusetts, on Thursday in relation to a trove of classified documents that have been leaked online in recent months. Attorney General Merrick Garland said that Teixeira, 21, is being investigated for the "alleged unauthorized removal, retention, and transmission of classified national defense information." A large police presence could be seen at the home in North Dighton, which is about 35 miles south of Boston.

The search for New York City’s first-ever “rat czar” has come to an end. Kathleen Corradi has been hired as the city’s director of rodent mitigation, Mayor Eric Adams announced Wednesday. Corradi will coordinate city agencies such as the Departments of Health and Mental Hygiene, Parks and Recreation, and Sanitation and find “innovative ways to cut off rats’ food sources” and use “new technologies to detect and exterminate rat populations,” Adams’ office said in a news release Wednesday. She will earn a salary of $155,000 a year, he said at a news conference with reporters. The city also announced the...

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said former President Donald Trump is “a live direct threat to the death of corruption, dishonesty, and extremism” of the Left. While appearing on Life, Liberty, & Levin, Gingrich said the allegations facing former President Donald Trump have “no parallel” because Trump is the “first person to have the courage and the willpower to take on the entire corrupt, extremist establishment. And they're fighting in the fight of their life.” “Trump is to the domestic corrupt establishment what Ronald Reagan was to the Soviet empire,” Gingrich said. "The truth is the indictment in...

On March 18, the New York Times published a bombshell story . In the article, Peter Baker, the New York Times's chief White House correspondent, detailed how Ben Barnes, a Republican political operative, undertook a secret trip in fall 1980 with his political mentor, former Texas Gov. John Connally, to the Middle East. They met with the region’s leaders in an attempt to contact the Iranian government, which was holding over 50 Americans hostage. The message that Connally wanted to convey to Iran was simple — that Iran should delay releasing the hostages until after the presidential election. Keeping the...

The depth of the infighting inside the Russian government appears broader and deeper than previously understood, judging from a newly discovered cache of classified intelligence documents that has been leaked online.The additional documents, which did not surface in a 53-page set that came to wide public attention online last week, paint a picture of the Russian government feuding over the count of the dead and wounded in the Ukraine war, with the domestic intelligence agency accusing the military of obscuring the scale of casualties that Russia has suffered.The new batch, which contains 27 pages, reinforces how deeply American spy agencies...

Australian rocker Nick Cave said his modern mode of “f–king with people” consists of going to church and being a conservative. The singer-songwriter told UnHerd podcast host Freddie Sayers last week that he has always differed from his punk rock peers because he was more interested in infuriating the public than bucking “against the establishment.” “I was never that. I was much more concerned with irritating my peers … and my audience, and by what I mean by irritating is, is to sort of ignite their imaginations, and get them thinking about things and challenge them about things and this...

Once the 2022 playoffs arrived, the Tony Romo critics reached a fever pitch. His on-air partner, Jim Nantz, recently pushed back. “I think there was a little bit of a misinformation attempt there to portray him in a not-so-favorable light,” Nantz said on the SI Media with Jimmy Traina podcast. “It was very disappointing. It really got, to me, more steam after the AFC Championship game, which was our last game. And for the life of me, I didn’t understand it. . . . Where was all this outcry during the season? It’s not like we were invisible.” He’s right....