Devastated

Probably most of us who are in relationships want to spend Valentine’s Day together. It may not be anything fancy or a big planned celebration; just spending quality time with each other or sharing a meal is more than enough. So understandably, it’s upsetting to hear that your significant other has plans to spend what was supposed to be your day with their friends.One Reddit user shared her story online sharing her sadness after her boyfriend canceled on their Valentine’s Day to hang out with the boys, as one of them…

A new kind of death is coming to Antarctica, scientists fear. The harsh environment is full of everyday heartbreak: predation, starvation, chicks that are lost at sea when their icy shoreline melts away. Now a novel pathogen threatens to rip through colonies of marine mammals and birds, potentially including penguins. If the very worst happens, it could make ghosts of entire species—and scientists can’t do much more than wait.A deadly strain of H5N1 avian influenza has been blazing through poultry farms and flocks of wild…

Being a parent can be one of the most important roles in a person’s life. After all, this little being relies on you for nearly everything, and you have to bring them up to be a good person. So, it’s natural to bond with a child. But what do you do when you learn that you have been deceived into forming this bond? For example, through a falsified test. This is exactly the question that was asked by today’s OP — the man who was tricked into raising someone else’s child for 11 years.More info: Reddit How do you react when…

Almost 96 percent of Southern elephant seal pups across Argentina born in 2023 have met a tragic end as a highly contagious strain of avian influenza continues to wreak havoc on wildlife.The scale of mortality sparks concerns that the H5N1 strain is now capable of mammal-to-mammal infection."The sight of elephant seals found dead or dying along the breeding beaches can only be described as apocalyptic," says Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) health director Chris Walzer.The three beaches where the species breeds were…

A strong overnight earthquake rattled a mountainous region of northwestern China, authorities said Tuesday, destroying homes, leaving residents out in a below-freezing winter night and killing 127 people in the nation's deadliest quake in nine years.The magnitude 6.2 earthquake struck just before midnight on Monday, injuring more than 700 people, damaging roads and knocking out power and communication lines in Gansu and Qinghai provinces, officials and Chinese media reports said.WATCH | Aftermath of the earthquake: See…

On a warm, blustery December afternoon outside the De Laurentis olive oil-producing co-op in the white hilltop town of Ostuni, Puglia, Luigi D'Amico holds out his palm, revealing an olive picked earlier in the day.Instead of resembling the plump, gleaming green and black fruit overflowing in bins around him, this one is half-consumed, dry and shrunken."That's what the olive fly does," he explained. "It lays its larvae, which then devours the olive."D'Amico lists off other pests and fungi — olive leprosy, peacock's eye…

Minnie Driver knows how she looked when cameras focused on her during Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Oscars acceptance speech in 1998. And, yes, she was upset.The moment was revisited when an Instagram video gained popularity in recent weeks — a clip that showed her ex-partner and Affleck’s excited ramblings when they won the original screenplay Academy Award for “Good Will Hunting.”In the clip, cameras shift from the loquacious boys to Driver, who appears to give a steely look when she was shouted out in the speech.…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeMinnie Driver has revealed why she looked “devastated” while watching Matt Damon and Ben Affleck pick up the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Good Will Hunting in 1998.Footage of Affleck and Damon’s acceptance speech from that year’s Academy Awards was recently posted by the popular Movie Shmood Instagram account, leading one user to comment: “Minnie looks so sad.”Driver replied…

The Israel-Hamas war has caused enormous damage to Gaza’s hospitals and health facilities. Attacks on hospitals are generally considered to be against international humanitarian law. Israel has contended that Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital and Indonesian Hospital—both targeted by Israeli forces—were being used as Hamas hideouts. Hamas and the hospitals’ staff have denied these claims.Northan Hurtado, head of the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical unit based in New York City, spoke with Scientific…

The bombs turning Gaza to rubble have been paused. Residents of the besieged coastal strip are taking an extended moment’s reprieve while Israel and Hamas agree to two more days of exchanging Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages. For Israelis still reeling from the deadliest attack and mass abduction in their country’s history, the extension is seen as a chance to reunite more families who were torn apart in Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre. Meanwhile, in Gaza, Palestinians in one of the world’s most densely populated…