Comment on Watch: The Wrap: 4/15/14

A World War II Navy veteran was being mourned Thursday following his death while en route to France to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, a trip friends said he’d talked excitedly about making. Robert “Al” Persichitti of Fairport, New York fell ill during a stop in Germany last week and died in a hospital, his longtime priest and friend, the Rev.

Washington — The horse transformed human history – and now scientists have a clearer idea of when humans began to transform the horse. Around 4,200 years ago, one particular lineage of horse quickly became dominant across Eurasia, suggesting that’s when humans started to spread domesticated horses around the world, according to research published Thursday in the journal Nature. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] There was something special about this horse: It had a genetic mutation that changed the shape of its back, likely making it easier to ride. “In the past, you had many different lineages of horses,” said Pablo Librado, an evolutionary biologist at the Spanish National Research Council in Barcelona and co-author of the new study.

As Russia’s war grinds on, the Biden Administration is now taking on bigger risks to support Ukraine. The latest example is a White House decision to allow Ukrainian forces to use U. S.-provided weapons to strike targets inside Russia. We may also soon see NATO personnel on the ground in Ukraine to train fighters. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Six months ago, Western leaders weren’t ready to discuss either of these changes—at least not publicly.

The confluence of multiplying political, economic, and social crises has made the military acronym VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity) feel like a perfect description of the third decade of the third millennium. The acronym was used at the Army War College in the late 1980s to describe a world that was more unpredictable than the bipolar one of the Cold War-era, but it has come to feel increasingly resonant today, as one emergency cascades into another, amplifying the perils of an ever more interconnected globe. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] On top of the looming disaster of climate change, there are escalating threats to democracy at home and abroad, high-stakes wars in Ukraine and Gaza, surging populist anger at governments and institutions, and a tidal wave of fake news and disinformation that will rise to tsunami levels with the expanding use of AI.

All eyes are on Rafah. And Papua. And Sudan. And the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Weeks after an AI-generated image of the Gazan city became a widely shared symbol of protest against Israel’s military campaign that has left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and over a million displaced, versions of the viral slogan have been recast to raise awareness of other causes around the world. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Perhaps most prominently, images and online posts promoting “All Eyes on Papua” have been shared and seen by millions on social media.

TOKYO — Called “Tokyo Futari Story,” the city hall’s new initiative is just that: An effort to create couples, “futari,” in a country where it is increasingly common to be “hitori,” or alone. While a site offering counsel and general information for potential lovebirds is online, a dating app is also in development.