Vice President Kamala Harris was integral in negotiating the release of three U.S. citizens and one American green card holder, including Paul Whelan and Evan Gershkovich, according to national security adviser Jake Sullivan. President Joe Biden and Harris have made the return of wrongly detained Americans abroad “an absolute priority” of their administration, Sullivan told reporters on Thursday during a White House briefing. “Vice President Harris actually had an opportunity to engage with [...

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was imprisoned in Russia for over 16 months, made a bold proposal before his release in a prisoner swap on Thursday, asking whether he could interview Russian President Vladimir Putin after being freed. Gershkovich made the request while filling out a mandated official request for presidential clemency that was addressed to Putin before his release, the Wall Street Journal reported. "The last line submitted a proposal of his own: After his...

The number of people who trust doctors dropped steeply during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study says. Worse, those who lost their faith in medicine are less likely to get vaccinated against COVID or the flu, researchers found. "Trust in physicians and hospitals can be critical for public health, and restoring the trust that was lost during the pandemic will need to target multiple possible contributors to mistrust," lead researcher Dr. Roy Perlis, director of the Center...

The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics have been promoted as the most eco-friendly Games ever. However, experts are raising concerns about the effectiveness of these sustainability commitments, calling them “greenwashing.” Paris organizers have set a goal to halve the carbon emissions of this year’s Games compared to previous Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and London. To achieve this, they are investing over $16 million in carbon credits to offset the emissions generated...

Meta AI was initially programmed to not answer questions about the assassination attempt against Trump, the company said. AI chatbots often struggle with real-time updates on breaking news. When we tested ChatGPT and Claude AI on Wednesday, they also had issues accurately responding to prompts about the incident.

In every relationship we'll ever have, there's going to be a final conversation. Before the digital age, these interactions were usually face-to-face or over the telephone and could only be recorded in our memories. But now, just about every relationship leaves a paper trail of text messages, social media interactions, and voice messages. Sometimes the final communication is a heated breakup, and other times, it's a casual interaction shortly before a person's death.Now, there's a blog that collects these haunting final messages. The Last Message Received contains submissions of the last messages people received from ex-friends or ex-significant others as well as from deceased friends and relatives. Here are some of the blog's most haunting posts."My good friend's dad died around Thanksgiving. Two weeks later he drank himself to death.""This is the last text I got from my mom before she died of Stage IV brain cancer at the age of 53. It left her completely paralyzed on the left side of her body, hence the typos in the texts. What she was saying was, 'You're missing music therapy.' Almost as good as Good Friday church giggles.' A few years prior to this, we went to the Good Friday service at our church. The choir was absolutely horrendous and couldn't sing whatsoever. She and I sat there, in the most serious, somber church service of all, laughing hysterically, unable to stop for the life of us. She sent me this text while she was in hospice and I was at school.""This happened a few months back. He was my best friend and my boyfriend of 7 years. He stuck with me when I fell pregnant at 16 after I was raped. He became an actual dad to my son. He was my everything. A few months before this message, things started to change, we drifted apart and he was telling my 5 year old son to lie to me about his whereabouts. One night he beat me, I ended up in hospital for a few days. He begged for forgiveness, I stayed. It happened again a few days later, he was at work when I text him. I took my son and left. This is the last text I received from him. I heard last week that he's just been sent to prison for crimes involving violence and drugs. I hope he gets the help he needs.""My dad died 6 weeks later flying the plane in this picture.""The last text he sent me. The next day I got a call from his daughter that he was still very much with his wife and I wasn't the only one he was cheating on her with.""She had sent me a message earlier asking me not to contact her anymore. I woke up to one last message. We'd dated for 3.5 years and when I came out as trans, the relationship fell apart. I still think about and miss her every day.""I sent this to my grandpa on thanksgiving. Two days later he unexpectedly had a heart attack and passed. He was my favorite person in the world and nothing has been the same since. I refuse to delete this message.""I would have fallen in love with her if distance and timing hadn't gotten in the way. I'm ignoring her because I need to let her move on."This article originally appeared on 05.25.19

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