World

Palo Alto built San Francisco Bay’s first horizontal levee to reuse treated wastewater; the 500-foot living slope restores marsh habitat and tests defenses against sea-level rise

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Palo Alto’s 500-foot living levee reuses treated wastewater to restore marsh habitat and fight seas (Image Credit: City of Palo Alto) A shoreline defence can be more than a wall. In Palo Alto, California, engineers have built a broad, gently sloping landscape designed to protect the coast while functioning like a living ecosystem. The project … Read more

In 1995, just 51 rare snakes survived on one tiny Caribbean island; 21 years later their population topped 1,100 | World News

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In 1995, the Antiguan racer was perilously close to disappearing from the wild. Just 51 of these rare Caribbean snakes were estimated to survive, all confined to tiny Great Bird Island off the coast of Antigua. The species had little room to recover. Yet what followed became an extraordinary conservation turnaround. Over the next 21 … Read more

Since 2000, Marc Benioff and his wife bought more than 600 acres in Hawaii worth nearly $100 million; they later donated 440 acres for affordable housing, starting with 43 homes

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Benioff had been buying property in Hawaii for years, but his focus changed after the pandemic began (Bloomberg photo) Since 2000, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and his wife, Lynne Benioff, have bought more than 600 acres of land in Hawaii worth nearly $100 million. Much of the land is in and around Waimea, a rural … Read more

Former CIA official David Rush, found with 303 gold bars worth over $40 million, reaches plea agreement in principle as prosecutors cite classified-material litigation

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Federal prosecutors and attorneys for former Central Intelligence Agency official David Rush have reached a plea agreement in principle, stopping proceedings before a grand jury indictment in a case involving $40 million in stolen gold bars and classified operations. A joint court filing submitted to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of … Read more

Meet Henry Xie: The 17-year-old Portland student whose method made smaller AI models more empathetic in at least 90% of tests

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A 17-year-old student from Portland, Oregon, has developed a two-step training method that helps small artificial intelligence models copy the empathetic communication style of much larger systems. The method achieved higher empathy ratings in at least 90 per cent of comparison tests. Henry Xie, a senior at Westview High School in Portland, created the computer … Read more

‘Intolerance and racism’: US senator slams Texas Republican nominee over post targeting Asian students

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US senator slams Republican nominee’s ‘racist’ post. US Senator John Cornyn has publicly rebuked his fellow Republican Bo French over a social media post targeting students of color celebrating at a University of Texas football game, accusing the GOP nominee for Texas railroad commissioner of promoting “intolerance and racism”.The morning after the Texas Longhorns pulled … Read more

In 2016, NSW began fencing feral cats and foxes out of three reserves; 10 years later, 13 locally extinct species had returned, some after 100+ years, and were breeding again

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Thirteen native animal species that had become locally extinct in New South Wales have returned and started breeding again across three major conservation reserves. The recovery comes a decade after state authorities built large predator-proof fences to keep out feral cats and foxes. The results come from a 10-year conservation partnership involving the NSW National … Read more