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The math performance of U.S. teenagers has sharply declined since 2018, with scores lower than 20 years ago, and with American students continuing to trail global competitors, according to the results of a key international exam released on Tuesday.In the first comparable global results since the coronavirus pandemic, 15-year-olds in the United States scored below students in similar industrialized democracies like the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany, and well behind students in the highest-performing countries such as Singapore, South Korea and Estonia — continuing an underperformance in math that predated the pandemic.The bleak math results were offset by a stronger performance in reading and science, where the United States scored above average internationally.About 66 percent of ...

From the first days after the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, Israel has accused Hamas terrorists of committing widespread sexual violence.The Israeli authorities say they are investigating reports of sexual assault and have compiled considerable evidence — from witnesses, emergency medical workers and crime scene photographs — that they took place.But they say it has been extremely difficult to collect the evidence because most of the victims are dead.Many activists say that too little credence has been given to what they believe was a pattern of widespread rape during the attacks by Hamas.The activists have complained that some news outlets questioned the veracity of the allegations and that international organizations like the United Nations were too slow to speak up about the issue.Jewish wo...

When there’s a global crisis, wealthy countries tend to find money. In the United States, that was the case for the coronavirus pandemic. And for military aid to allies like Ukraine.But the global climate crisis? It’s complicated.On Saturday, Vice President Kamala Harris visited the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, and promised $3 billion for the Green Climate Fund, which benefits poorer nations. But Biden administration officials already are acknowledging it will be a struggle to persuade Congress to approve the money.Then, on Sunday, John Kerry, President Biden’s climate envoy, announced at the talks a new carbon credit initiative in which more than a dozen major companies including Walmart, Pepsi and McDonalds will help developing countries pivot away...

The bodies of 11 hikers were found on the slopes of Mount Marapi on the Indonesian island of Sumatra after a volcanic eruption sent ash plumes cascading down the mountain on Sunday, the local search and rescue agency said on Monday.Dozens of climbers were on the active volcano in West Sumatra Province when it began spewing a column of ash nearly 3,000 meters, about 10,000 feet, high, according to Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency. Volcanic ash rained on nearby towns, and residents were advised not to leave their homes, the agency said.The local search and rescue team based in the city of Padang said that 12 climbers were still missing. Efforts to find them have been stalled by periodic volcanic activity, the team leader, Abdul Malik, said in a statement. As of Monday morning,...

Monday marked the 250th day that Evan Gershkovich, an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal, has been in custody in Moscow on an espionage charge that he, his newspaper and the U.S. government have vehemently denied, and a lawyer who has worked on similar cases said that Mr. Gershkovich’s time in detention will likely last much longer.The lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, who has worked on a number of high-profile treason and espionage cases in Russia, said that they usually take years to complete.“It usually takes up to 1.5 years for the preliminary investigation to complete its tedious examination before such cases get transferred to a court for hearing,” said Mr. Pavlov, who had to flee Russia after a criminal case was opened against him.The hearing, which will likely take place in the centr...

Israel expands operations across GazaIsrael widened its military campaign against Hamas in southern Gaza yesterday, with armored vehicles rolling closer to its main city and strikes pummeling urban areas.Israel has signaled for days that it is preparing a ground invasion of the south, where it says Hamas fighters and commanders are hiding. The Israeli military said that its ground troops and air force “continued to operate across the Gaza Strip,” but did not offer details about the location of its operations. Here’s the latest.Israel again told civilians to leave parts of Khan Younis, the area’s largest city, and head farther south including to Rafah, on the Egyptian border. Aid agencies, however, warned that the shelters in the south were already overcrowded. “The level of human sufferi...

The White House warned congressional leaders on Monday that the United States would run out of money to send weapons to Ukraine by year’s end, severely jeopardizing Kyiv’s ability to defend itself against a Russian invasion if lawmakers fail to approve emergency military aid soon.The urgent warning from President Biden’s top budget official, delivered in a blunt letter, was the administration’s latest bid to pressure the Republicans resisting another infusion of aid to Ukraine to drop their opposition.It came at a critical time in the war, as Ukraine struggles to push back Russian troops in a counteroffensive that has largely stalled. President Vladimir V. Putin has continued to send a steady stream of his forces into the conflict, willing to endure high casualties amid signs of flagging r...

Law enforcement agencies in Spain and Italy have arrested 11 people who ran a “food fraud operation” that produced more than 260,000 liters, or roughly 68,000 gallons, of olive oil that was sold as high-quality but in reality was “unfit for consumption,” officials said on Monday.Officers from the Spanish Civil Guard and the Italian Carabinieri raided several locations last month in both countries, including sites in the Italian regions of Sicily and Tuscany, and uncovered barrels of oil that contained lampante oil, the lowest grade of olive oil, considered to be of terrible quality because of its high level of acidity and its unpleasant flavor and smell.Officers also seized 91,000 euros, or roughly $98,000, and billing documents that belonged to the 11 people arrested, officials said.The S...

Conditions in the city are grim, with little access to running water or sanitation. People are sleeping in the open, and aid workers have largely stopped distributing water and flour because of the intensity of the fighting and Israeli bombardments, U.N. officials have said.More than 20,000 people have taken refuge at a training center in the city that is designed to shelter one-tenth of that number, according to the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.Gazans are being pushed into an area that covers less than one-third of the enclave, according to the United Nations.“The level of human suffering is intolerable,” the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, who visited Gaza on Monday, said in a statement. She added: “It i...