NEWS ANALYSIS

Scientists trying to understand what role sex plays Four scientists: Professors Andrew L. Webb, Brayden G. Schindell,   Jason Kindrachuk, and    Jia B. Kangbai have noted one area in the spread of the Ebola hemorrhagic fever that requires further study. It is the Ebola virus’ persistence in the reproductive systems of …

Paris, France | AFP |  Designers of machine translation tools still mostly rely on dictionaries to make a foreign language understandable. But now there is a new way: numbers. Facebook researchers say rendering words into figures and exploiting mathematical similarities between languages is a promising avenue — even if a universal …

Vatican City, Holy See | AFP | Pope Francis creates five new saints on Sunday, including Britain’s Cardinal John Henry Newman — one of the Catholic Church’s most renowned converts — and a nun dubbed the “Mother Teresa of Brazil”. Heads of state from across the world are expected at the …

Washington, United States | AFP |  Joe Biden faces scrutiny over Ukraine, Elizabeth Warren is surging and Bernie Sanders had a heart attack, but recent developments in the Democratic presidential battle are getting minimal attention, swamped by Washington’s impeachment obsession. Most Democratic candidates are pounding the pavement in early voting states …

San Francisco, United States | AFP |  On October 29, 1969, professor Leonard Kleinrock and a team at the University of California at Los Angeles got a computer to “talk” to a machine in what is now known as Silicon Valley. The event gave birth to a network that later became …

Tunis, Tunisia | AFP |  Almost a month since the launch of Tunisia’s presidential vote and whittled down from more than 20 candidates, conservative law professor Kais Saied and media magnate Nabil Karoui face off Sunday before the country’s electorate of seven million. The two political newcomers swept aside establishment candidates …

Lake Charles, United States | AFP |  As impeachment pressure mounted on Donald Trump, the president left Washington for the second day in a row Friday to rally hardcore supporters in a bid to turn the scandal into fuel for his 2020 reelection. Framing himself as the victim of a plot …

KAHUZI-BIEGA NATIONAL PARK, DR Congo | AFP | Aged almost 17 years, Bonane is an eastern lowland gorilla, a survivor in a critically endangered species reduced to about 250 members in DR Congo’s Kahuzi-Biega National Park. For an hour each day, the gorilla and his dozen-strong family host a handful of …

Paris, France | AFP |  Belgium became the first team to qualify for the 2020 European Championship finals as Romelu Lukaku scored twice in a 9-0 thrashing of San Marino in Brussels on Thursday, while the Netherlands needed a late comeback to beat Northern Ireland. Lukaku took his record Belgium international …

Kampala, Uganda | LOUIS JADWONG & AFP | Kenyan ace Eliud Kipchoge looks set to become the first man to run Marathon’s 42.195 kilometres in under two hours today October 12, 2019 in Vienna. “This is about history,” he said at the pre-race press conference on Friday. “It’s about leaving a …