Author: Reporter

Suicides in the U.S. military increased in 2023, continuing a long-term trend that the Pentagon has struggled to abate, senior defense officials said. The increase is a bit of a setback after the deaths dipped slightly the previous year. Officials said both the number of suicides and the rate per 100,000 active-duty service members went up, but that the rise was not statistically significant. The number also went up among members of the Reserves, while it decreased a bit for the National Guard. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has declared the issue a priority, and top leaders in the Defense...

The decline in U.S. drug overdose deaths appears to have continued this year, giving experts hope the nation is seeing sustained improvement in the persistent epidemic. There were about 97,000 overdose deaths in the 12-month period that ended June 30, according to provisional Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released in November. That is down 14% from the estimated 113,000 for the previous 12-month period. “This is a pretty stunning and rapid reversal of drug overdose mortality numbers,” said Brandon Marshall, a Brown University researcher who studies overdose trends. Overdose death rates began steadily climbing in the 1990s...

Building the current crop of artificial intelligence chatbots has relied on specialized computer chips pioneered by Nvidia, which dominates the market and made itself the poster child of the AI boom. But the same qualities that make those graphics processor chips, or GPUs, so effective at creating powerful AI systems from scratch make them less efficient at putting AI products to work. That has opened up the AI chip industry to rivals who think they can compete with Nvidia in selling so-called AI inference chips that are more attuned to the day-to-day running of AI tools and designed to...

Comcast is spinning off into a new company many of the cable television networks that were once at the entertainment giant’s heart as consumers increasingly swap out their cable TV subscriptions for streaming platforms. Those one-time stars for Comcast’s NBCUniversal cable television networks include USA, Oxygen, E!, SYFY and Golf Channel, as well as CNBC and MSNBC. Movie ticketing platform Fandango and the Rotten Tomatoes movie rating site will also become part of the new company. Streaming service Peacock will remain with Comcast, as will Bravo, which provides significant content for the Peacock streaming service, and other assets like...