Author: KnowledgeHippo

The United States government has placed immigrant detainees in solitary confinement more than 14,000 times in the past five years, and the average length is nearly twice the 15-day limit that the United Nations has said may constitute torture, according to a new analysis by the federal files from researchers at Harvard and the nonprofit group Physicians for Human Rights;The report, based on government records from 2018 to 2023 and interviews with several dozen former detainees, noted cases of extreme physical, verbal and sexual abuse of immigrants held in solitary confinement. The New York Times reviewed the original records cited…

After two fatal crashes involving its best-selling 737 Max 8 planes five years ago, Boeing spent billions of dollars to make its products safer and repair its reputation. Now, the company is again facing a wave of uncertainty and costs after a painful incident involving a different 737 jet.Just four weeks ago, a hole opened up in a 737 Max 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight shortly after takeoff when what appears to have been a poorly connected panel tore. The Alaskan pilots made an emergency landing as terrified passengers feared the worst.The incident prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to…

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken launched a diplomatic push in the Middle East on Monday for a deal that would end the war in the Gaza Strip and free hostages there, even as a drone struck a military base used by U.S. troops and the allied forces in eastern Syria.Mr Blinken, making his fifth trip to the region since the October 7 attack on Israel, met in Riyadh with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the first stop of a trip that will also include meetings in Egypt, Qatar . Israel and the West Bank.Speaking to the crown…

Spelman College, the women’s school in Atlanta, announced Thursday that it has received a $100 million donation, which its officials called the largest gift ever to a historically black college.The gift comes from Ronda E. Stryker, trustee of Spelman, and her husband, William D. Johnston, chairman of the Greenleaf Trust wealth management company. Ms. Stryker serves as a director of Stryker Corporation, a medical device company founded by her grandfather.In a statement, Spelman College said $75 million of the gift was earmarked for scholarships and that the rest of the money would go toward improving student housing and developing an…

A federal official said Monday that members of the Dartmouth men’s basketball team were university employees, clearing the way for the team to receive a vote that could make it the nation’s first unionized college sports program.In a statement, the National Labor Relations Board’s Boston regional director, Laura Sacks, said that because Dartmouth had “the right to control the work” of the group and because the group did that work “in exchange for compensation,” as equipment and play. tickets, the players were employees under the National Labor Relations Act.The date for the unionization election has not yet been set, and…

Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News anchor who now has a show on the social network X, has been seen in Moscow in recent days, prompting speculation in Russia and the United States that he is about to achieve his long-held goal of interview. President Vladimir V. Putin.If so, Mr. Carlson would be the first American media figure to give an official interview with the Russian leader since he invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago.Mr Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, has said Mr Putin is refusing Western requests for new exits because their countries have been “stunned” by anti-Russian propaganda. But…

Car rental company Hertz will sell about a third of its electric fleet after they lost value faster than expected, the company announced on Thursday. The drop in value is a blow to the company’s efforts to replace gasoline-powered vehicles with cars that produce zero emissions.Electric vehicles owned by the company were also more likely to be involved in collisions, Hertz said, and proved costly to repair. The company said it plans to buy more gas-powered vehicles to replace the 20,000 battery-powered cars it sells.”Some of these electric vehicles have become uneconomical for us,” Stephen Scherr, Hertz’s chief executive, said…

The new sleep studies looked at federal data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and the American Time Use Survey between 2013 and 2019. The researchers used these dated surveys of about 190,000 blacks and about 1,846,000 whites who were randomly called by telephone and they asked, among other things, how much sleep they got.Then, using statistical data from the Mapping Police Violence database, the researchers identified whether a police killing of an unarmed black person had occurred in a survey respondent’s state within the previous three months. If they found one, they compared the respondent’s sleep duration with…

Snow and freezing rain in China disrupted travel on Monday and had already caused hundreds of rail and flight cancellations as millions traveled across the country ahead of the start of the Lunar New Year holiday this weekend.For many years, the heavy travel into and out of China before the holiday, known as the Spring Festival in Chinese, caused the world’s largest annual migration.During the coronavirus pandemic, the fear of quarantines and other rules prevented many from traveling. Last year, authorities abruptly lifted those rules weeks before the Lunar New Year after facing widespread protests, but many would-be travelers stayed…

A damaged building in Rafah, Gaza on Sunday.Credit…Haitham Imad/EPA, via ShutterstockIsrael was waiting Monday for Hamas officials to respond to a proposal to end fighting in the Gaza Strip and release the remaining hostages there, as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken returned to the region seeking to rally support for such a deal.A Hamas-linked Al-Aqsa television network said Sunday that Hamas was still holding consultations on the proposal, a week after it was made. The group’s leaders had previously pointed out that substantial gaps remained between the two sides, even as representatives from the United States, Egypt and Qatar…