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    Plane Crashes Into Street in Brazil, Killing 2

    Six people on the ground were also injured by the plane, part of which struck a bus on the road when it crashed.A small plane crashed into a road in São Paulo, Brazil, around 7:20 a.m. local time Friday, killing both people on board and injuring several people on the ground, according to the city’s fire department.Six people sustained minor injuries and were not in serious condition. One of them was a motorcyclist who was passing by. The other five were passengers on a bus that was struck by a part of the plane, according to Capt. Ronaldo Melo, a spokesman for São Paulo’s fire department.Firefighters arrived on the scene just before 7:30 a.m., finding the plane and the bus on fire, Captain Melo said. “The fire was very aggressive,” he added. The bus passengers had all escaped the vehicle before the fire started, he said.Five passengers on a bus were injured in the crash on Friday, which killed both occupants of the small aircraft.Nelson Almeida/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesVideos on social media showed the remnants of the plane in flames, as well as a large, black plume of smoke rising into the air.It’s unclear what caused the incident, but the plane appeared to have crashed shortly after taking off. It struck the Avenida Marques de São Vicente, a major road in the Barra Funda neighborhood, about four miles from the Campo de Marte Airport, where the plane took off.The plane was on its way to Porto Alegre, nearly 700 miles south of São Paulo.About three hours after the crash, the fire department had left the scene, Captain Melo said. More

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    12 Die at Georgian Ski Resort From Suspected Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

    The police say the bodies were found dead in a room above an Indian restaurant not long after a generator had been plugged in nearby.Twelve people were found dead of suspected carbon monoxide poisoning in Gudauri, a ski area in the Caucasus Mountains in Georgia, the country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs said.The people were found on Friday in a resting area above an Indian restaurant, where all of the victims were employed. Officials reported no evidence of violence, but found a power generator nearby. The device had been plugged in the previous day and left inside, probably after the restaurant lost power, the police said.One of the 12 who died was a Georgian national, and the other 11 were from other countries, the police said. The deaths are being investigated as negligent homicides, officials said in a statement.Gudauri, near the Russian border, is the largest and highest resort in the country, making it a popular destination for skiing and paragliding.Power generators are supposed to be run only outdoors because of the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning. In the United States, portable generators are some of the deadliest household products, in large part because of their carbon monoxide emissions and the tendency to run them indoors. More

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    Don’t Cut an Agency So Vital to Our Health

    More from our inbox:Needed: More Maternity WardsRacial Inequities in the Overdose CrisisVet the Presidential CandidatesTech Tycoons in ChargeA building on the N.I.H. campus in Bethesda, Md. The agency comprises 27 institutes and has a budget of $48 billion.Hailey Sadler for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Long Government’s ‘Crown Jewel,’ Health Institute Is Becoming a Target” (news article, Dec. 3):Your article describes the National Institutes of Health as a “crown jewel” of the federal government based on its track record of success in driving medical and health research and innovation. The article also captures the longstanding bipartisan support for the agency and its work.When asked in a national survey we commissioned this year, Americans of all political persuasions expressed their support for federally funded research:Eighty-eight percent of Americans agree that basic scientific research is necessary and should be supported by the federal government.Some 62 percent would be willing to pay $1 per week more in taxes to support additional medical and health research.And 89 percent say it is important that the U.S. is a global leader in research to improve health.Continuing to treat the N.I.H. as a top national priority is a strategy that will spur new treatments and cures for the health threats facing our population. It will also drive U.S. business and job growth across the life science, technology, manufacturing and service sectors that in the end will keep us globally competitive.Mary WoolleyNew YorkThe writer is the president and C.E.O. of Research!America.To the Editor:The suggestion to cut infectious disease funding displays dangerous historical amnesia. Just as the 1918-20 flu pandemic killed millions of people globally, Covid-19’s emergence in 2020 demonstrated how quickly a novel pathogen can upend society. While vaccines helped curb Covid-19’s impact, we face an equally urgent crisis: antibiotic resistance.Currently, drug-resistant bacteria infect over two million Americans annually, causing more than 20,000 deaths. Without sustained funding and research, projections show antimicrobial resistance could cause 10 million annual deaths globally by 2050.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Explosion at Fuel Depot Near Florence Kills at Least Two

    Officials said it would take time to determine the cause of the explosion. At least nine people were injured in the blast.At least two people were killed and another nine injured Monday in an explosion at a fuel depot on the outskirts of Florence, according to city officials and the company that ran the facility. The cause of the explosion had not yet been determined, the company said.The death toll could rise, as three workers at the depot in the town of Calenzano remained unaccounted for, the officials said. The explosion occurred around 10:20 a.m. Television images showed a huge plume of black smoke rising from the site.ENI, the Italian energy company that owns the depot, said in a statement that the explosion had been confined to a loading area and a resulting fire had not spread to nearby tanks.Italy’s minister for civil protection, Nello Musumeci, said on social media that rescue workers were deployed immediately after the explosion. Local hospitals were put on high alert.Teams of firefighters arrived from Florence and surrounding towns, as well as units from nearby airports, and they managed to put out the fire “quickly, given the situation,” said Luca Cari, a spokesman for Italy’s firefighters.Italy’s national civil protection agency issued an SMS text alert to residents within about three miles of the site, advising them to remain indoors and stay clear of the facility.Officials in Calenzano urged citizens to close their windows and limit outdoor activities. Two days of mourning were announced for Monday and Tuesday. All municipal events were canceled for both days.The mayor of Florence, Sara Funaro, described the situation as “very, very bad,” and said in a statement that the city would offer psychological assistance to the families of the victims.“In these moments,” she said, “we must think of the families who are the first to be affected; we have to be close to them.”Luca Tescaroli, the chief prosecutor of the nearby city of Prato, said in a statement that his office would open a case to determine the causes of the explosion and whether anyone should be held accountable, Italian media reported. More

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    Clashes at Soccer Match Kill Dozens in Guinea

    It was unclear on Sunday how many people were killed, but at least one estimate neared 100 people.Dozens of people were killed on Sunday in clashes during a soccer match in Guinea, according to media reports.The violence occurred during a game between the Labe and Nzerekore soccer teams in the city of Nzerekore, the second-largest city in the West African nation.It was unclear on Sunday how many people were killed. Agence France-Presse, citing local hospital sources, said there were “dozens dead,” with one doctor estimating the death toll was closer to “around 100” people.Prime Minister Bah Oury of Guinea condemned the violence in a statement on X on Sunday.“The government deplores the incidents that marred the football match between the Labe and Nzerekore teams this afternoon in Nzerekore,” Mr. Oury said.The government called for calm “so that hospital services are not hindered in providing first aid to the injured,” Mr. Oury said.More information will be released when it becomes available, Mr. Oury said.It’s unclear exactly what led to the violence. Agence France-Presse spoke to a witness who said the clashes erupted after a disputed call by a referee that led to fans invading the field.One doctor at the local hospital told Agence France-Presse that the facility and morgue were filling up with bodies.The game was part of a tournament honoring Col. Mamady Doumbouya, Guinea’s military leader, who seized power in 2021.Nzerekore, which has a population of about 200,000 people, is about 555 miles southeast of the capital.This is a developing story. More

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    Israel Accuses World Central Kitchen Worker of Role in Oct. 7 Attack

    The Israeli military said it killed the worker in a strike in Gaza on Saturday. “To the best of our knowledge, no WCK team members are affiliated with Hamas,” a spokeswoman for the aid group said.Israel on Saturday said it had killed a World Central Kitchen worker it accused of taking part in the Hamas-led attack that started the war in Gaza last year, in the second Israeli strike to kill workers affiliated with the aid group.A spokeswoman for World Central Kitchen, a U.S.-based relief group, said on Saturday that three of its contractors had been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a vehicle. In a statement, the aid group said that it “had no knowledge that any individual in the vehicle had alleged ties” to the Hamas-led attack. “To the best of our knowledge, no WCK team members are affiliated with Hamas,” the spokeswoman, Linda Roth, said in an email. The Israeli military declined to comment on the two other workers World Central Kitchen reported were killed.The aid group said it was pausing operations in Gaza, where a dire humanitarian crisis is unfolding for some two million people. The organization took a similar action in April, after seven of its workers were killed in an Israeli airstrike.The Israeli military said on Saturday that the person it targeted in the latest strike had taken part in the Oct. 7 attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz, an Israeli village near the Gaza border where dozens of people were abducted. He had been monitored by Israeli “intelligence for a while and was struck following credible information regarding his real-time location,” the military said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Lebanese Residents of Baalbek Return to a Bombed-Out City

    Tens of thousands of people who had fled the city of Baalbek returned to bombed-out restaurants, flattened apartment buildings and many of the dead still buried under the rubble.Hammers clanged against brick and metal as the residents of Baalbek set to work repairing their homes, desperate to restart their lives again.A day after a cease-fire ended Lebanon’s deadliest war in decades, tens of thousands of people who fled the violence had already returned on Thursday to the hard-hit city in the country’s east.Teenage girls snapped selfies in front of the ancient Roman temples. Excited young men on motorcycles performed doughnuts in the street, their back tires spinning up dust and shards of glass.But after weeks of pounding Israeli airstrikes, the scars were not easy to ignore: bombed-out restaurants, flattened apartment buildings, trees snapped like twigs. And many of the dead were still buried under the rubble, residents said.“I’m an old woman. I’m not affiliated with anyone. What did I do to deserve this?” said Taflah Amar, 79, as she swept debris from the front of her house, one of the few still standing on her street.“I’ve been crying all day,” she said.“What did I do to deserve this?” said Taflah Ammar, 79, at her home in Baalbek.Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Syrian Rebel Groups Launch Largest Offensive in Years

    Scores of people were killed after forces opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad overtook a Syrian military base, a monitoring group reported.Syrian opposition forces have launched an offensive in western Aleppo district that has killed at least 89 people and overtaken a Syrian military base, a monitoring group based in Britain reported on Wednesday.The attacks are the most notable escalation in the Syrian conflict in years, expert say. Fighters from various rebel factions, including a group linked to Al Qaeda called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, had advanced by Wednesday to within about six miles of Aleppo and taken over weapons and vehicles previously held by forces loyal to the government of President Bashar al-Assad, according to the monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.Opposition factions announced on the Telegram messaging app that they had taken Base 46, the largest Syrian government base in the area, as well as tanks, and had captured members of the pro-government forces on Wednesday. They also announced that they had taken over a number of villages in the countryside west of Aleppo district.“In the matter of about 10 hours, a wide spectrum of armed opposition groups have managed to get to within about four or five kilometers now of Aleppo city, which is of gigantic significance,” Charles Lister, the director of Middle East Institute’s Syria and counterterrorism programs, said on Wednesday.The Syrian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The attacks are believed to be the first major effort since 2020 by the rebel groups to take territory, when Turkey, which sided with the opposition forces, and Russia, which is Syria’s ally, brokered a cease-fire to halt fighting in the Idlib region.The recent escalation is part of increasing volatility in the region, experts say.“Pro-regime militias have been upping their attacks in the area, trying to deter the rebels because Israel has been weakening the Syrian regime’s allies like Hezbollah and Iran,” said Natasha Hall, a senior fellow with the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.The success of the offensive thus far shows the vulnerability of the Syrian government and the growing prowess of the various opposition factions, experts say.“Years ago, an offense of this size would have been pushed back by the regime,” Mr. Lister said. But opposition forces like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which traces its origins from the Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, have invested heavily in resources and training for night operations. “That basically levels the playing field,” he added.Dr. Mustafa Aledou, a pharmacist and program manager for MedGlobal, a Chicago-based nonprofit, lives in Idlib city and said he was less than 20 miles from the attacks.His family woke early in the morning to the sound of bombing, he said.“We can hear the explosions,” he said. “We can hear the attacks in the battle in the frontline between the fighting forces.”The local authorities announced the closure of schools and large markets because of the fighting.Milana Mazaeva More