Astronomers are expecting a “new star” to appear in the night sky anytime between now and September, and it promises to be a once-in-a-lifetime celestial sight, according to NASA.

The expected brightening event, known as a nova, will occur in the Milky Way’s Corona Borealis, or Northern Crown constellation, which is located between the Boötes and Hercules constellations.

While a supernova is the explosive death of a massive star, a nova refers to the sudden, brief explosion from a collapsed star known as a white dwarf.

T Coronae Borealis, otherwise known as the “Blaze Star,” is a binary system in the Corona Borealis that includes a dead white dwarf star and an aging red giant star. Red giants form when stars have exhausted their supply of hydrogen for nuclear fusion and begin to die. In about 5 billion or 6 billion years, our sun will become a red giant, puffing up and expanding as it releases layers of material and likely evaporating the solar system’s inner planets, although Earth’s fate remains unclear, according to NASA.

Every 79 years or so, T Coronae Borealis experiences an explosive event.

The stars in the orbiting pair are close enough to each other that they interact violently. The red giant becomes increasingly unstable over time as it heats up, casting off its outer layers that land as matter on the white dwarf star.

The exchange of matter causes the atmosphere of the white dwarf to gradually heat until it experiences a “runaway thermonuclear reaction,” resulting in a nova as seen in the animation below, according to the space agency.

Keeping an eye on the changing sky

T Coronae Borealis last experienced an explosive outburst in 1946, and astronomers are keeping a watchful eye on the star system once more.

“Most novae happen unexpectedly, without warning,” said William J. Cooke, NASA Meteoroid Environments Office lead, in an email. “However, T Coronae Borealis is one of 10 recurring novae in the galaxy. We know from the last eruption back in 1946 that the star will get dimmer for just over a year before rapidly increasing in brightness. T Coronae Borealis began to dim in March of last year, so some researchers are expecting it to go nova between now and September. But the uncertainty as to when this will happen is several months — can’t do better than that with what we know now.”

The star system, located 3,000 light-years from Earth and typically too dim to be seen with the naked eye, is expected to reach a level of brightness similar to that of Polaris, or the North Star.

Once the nova peaks in brightness, it will be as if a new star has appeared — one that’s visible for a few days without any equipment and a little over a week with binoculars before it dims and disappears from sight for another 80 years or so.

The nova will appear in a small arc between the Boötes and Hercules constellations, and will be visible from the Northern Hemisphere.

Astronomers will observe the nova using the Hubble Space Telescope and study the celestial event through X-ray and ultraviolet light using the space-based Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory.

“Studying recurring novae like T Coronae Borealis help us understand the mass transfer between the stars in these systems and provide insights into the thermonuclear runaway that occurs on the surface of the white dwarf when the star goes nova,” Cooke said.

The NASAUniverse account on X, formerly known as Twitter, will provide updates about the outburst and its appearance.

Cooke recalled that the last nova he witnessed — Nova Cygni in 1975 — had a similar brightness to what is expected from T Coronae Borealis. Nova Cygni is not expected to experience another explosion again.

“I was a teenage astronomy geek about to start college and was outside on the night of August 29,” Cooke said. “Glancing at the sky, I noticed that the constellation of Cygnus was messed up; there was a star that shouldn’t be there. After enduring some comments from friends who thought I was crazy, I got them to look and we realized that we were looking at a nova! It was a very memorable experience and reinforced my choice of astronomy as a career. I used to joke that a star had to explode in order to get me to suffer through undergraduate physics.”

Bolsonaro’s closest aide, Lieutenant-Colonel Mauro Cid, and 15 others were also indicted for allegedly participating in the same scheme.

Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Fabio Wajngarten, called the indictment “absurd.”

“The whole world knows (Bolsonaro’s) personal opinion on the subject of vaccination,” he wrote on X. “While serving as president, he was completely exempt from presenting any type of certificate on his trips.”

Last May, Brazilian Police carried out a search and seizure in Bolsonaro’s home in Brasilia in connection with the suspected falsified vaccination data.

At the time, Bolsonaro told reporters he had not been vaccinated against Covid-19 and that his vaccination card had not been tampered with.

Brazil’s Prosecutor’s Office will now have to determine if they move forward with the indictment.

Bolsonaro was widely criticized at home and abroad for downplaying the severity of the virus during the pandemic, including discouraging people from getting vaccinated, despite Brazil battling a severe coronavirus outbreak.

In 2021, he publicly flouted a UN requirement that required foreign delegations to be vaccinated before entering its headquarters in New York. Multiple members of his delegation later tested positive for the virus.

The indictment comes as Bolsonaro faces mounting legal challenges, including an investigation into an alleged attempted coup plot to keep him in power after he lost the 2022 presidential election. Several former ministers who served in Bolsonaro’s government are also being investigated and some of his aides have been arrested.

After Bolsonaro lost the election by a narrow margin to leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his supporters rioted and broke into government buildings in Brasilia on January 8, 2023. Bolsonaro has denied inciting the violent attacks in the capital.

Last year, Bolsonaro was barred from running for political office until 2030 by the country’s highest electoral court for abusing his power and misusing public media during the 2022 election campaign.

Astronomers are expecting a “new star” to appear in the night sky anytime between now and September, and it promises to be a once-in-a-lifetime celestial sight, according to NASA.

The expected brightening event, known as a nova, will occur in the Milky Way’s Corona Borealis, or Northern Crown constellation, which is located between the Boötes and Hercules constellations.

While a supernova is the explosive death of a massive star, a nova refers to the sudden, brief explosion from a collapsed star known as a white dwarf.

T Coronae Borealis, otherwise known as the “Blaze Star,” is a binary system in the Corona Borealis that includes a dead white dwarf star and an aging red giant star. Red giants form when stars have exhausted their supply of hydrogen for nuclear fusion and begin to die. In about 5 billion or 6 billion years, our sun will become a red giant, puffing up and expanding as it releases layers of material and likely evaporating the solar system’s inner planets, although Earth’s fate remains unclear, according to NASA.

Every 79 years or so, T Coronae Borealis experiences an explosive event.

The stars in the orbiting pair are close enough to each other that they interact violently. The red giant becomes increasingly unstable over time as it heats up, casting off its outer layers that land as matter on the white dwarf star.

The exchange of matter causes the atmosphere of the white dwarf to gradually heat until it experiences a “runaway thermonuclear reaction,” resulting in a nova as seen in the animation below, according to the space agency.

Keeping an eye on the changing sky

T Coronae Borealis last experienced an explosive outburst in 1946, and astronomers are keeping a watchful eye on the star system once more.

“Most novae happen unexpectedly, without warning,” said William J. Cooke, NASA Meteoroid Environments Office lead, in an email. “However, T Coronae Borealis is one of 10 recurring novae in the galaxy. We know from the last eruption back in 1946 that the star will get dimmer for just over a year before rapidly increasing in brightness. T Coronae Borealis began to dim in March of last year, so some researchers are expecting it to go nova between now and September. But the uncertainty as to when this will happen is several months — can’t do better than that with what we know now.”

The star system, located 3,000 light-years from Earth and typically too dim to be seen with the naked eye, is expected to reach a level of brightness similar to that of Polaris, or the North Star.

Once the nova peaks in brightness, it will be as if a new star has appeared — one that’s visible for a few days without any equipment and a little over a week with binoculars before it dims and disappears from sight for another 80 years or so.

The nova will appear in a small arc between the Boötes and Hercules constellations, and will be visible from the Northern Hemisphere.

Astronomers will observe the nova using the Hubble Space Telescope and study the celestial event through X-ray and ultraviolet light using the space-based Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory.

“Studying recurring novae like T Coronae Borealis help us understand the mass transfer between the stars in these systems and provide insights into the thermonuclear runaway that occurs on the surface of the white dwarf when the star goes nova,” Cooke said.

The NASAUniverse account on X, formerly known as Twitter, will provide updates about the outburst and its appearance.

Cooke recalled that the last nova he witnessed — Nova Cygni in 1975 — had a similar brightness to what is expected from T Coronae Borealis. Nova Cygni is not expected to experience another explosion again.

“I was a teenage astronomy geek about to start college and was outside on the night of August 29,” Cooke said. “Glancing at the sky, I noticed that the constellation of Cygnus was messed up; there was a star that shouldn’t be there. After enduring some comments from friends who thought I was crazy, I got them to look and we realized that we were looking at a nova! It was a very memorable experience and reinforced my choice of astronomy as a career. I used to joke that a star had to explode in order to get me to suffer through undergraduate physics.”

A petite woman calmly exits her home, escorted by a group of large men in green fatigues, dwarfed by their sheer size and number. They look fierce: green balaclavas cover most of their face, hiding their identity, but their Russian flag patches reveal their allegiance.

The woman is Lutfiye Zudiyeva, a Crimean Tatar, and she shared video of the moment on her social media accounts.

“They came to my house to carry out a search,” she said in an interview from the occupied Ukrainian peninsula, looking as resolute as she did in the video. “I had been preparing for it for years.”

Her composure and foresight come from experience – this was her third arrest since 2019. On this occasion, she was held for an hour and accused of “abuse of mass media freedom,” she said, over posts she made on social media.

“When you cover politically motivated criminal cases or when you write about torture, you can’t help but get on the radar of the special services or the police,” she explained.

Zudiyeva is a human rights activist and also one of the many Ukrainians who have suffered under Russia’s now decade-long illegal occupation of Crimea, a period marked by the imposition of Moscow’s laws and institutions, the oppression and repression of any opposition, as well as serious human rights violations, according to the United Nations.

“There are arrests, searches, torture and repression,” Zudiyeva said. “As soon as you try to publicly express your disagreement… or you somehow get involved, you become a target. It’s inevitable.”

Arrests like hers, as well as large mass raids, especially, but not exclusively, in areas predominantly inhabited by Crimean Tatar communities, have been common since 2014.

The Tatars, a Muslim minority of Turkic origin, are widely considered to be Crimea’s indigenous population. They were also persecuted while the peninsula, and Ukraine, were part of the Soviet Union, with long-time dictator Joseph Stalin forcibly deporting them from Crimea in 1944.

It was only in the late 1980s and then into the 1990s, as Ukraine achieved independence, that Crimean Tatars were allowed to return. Tatars were among those who opposed Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and rights groups noted Russian authorities’ persecution of the minority group in the aftermath.

But what was already common has become more frequent and more invasive since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“The situation is only getting worse,” said human rights lawyer Emil Kurbedinov, himself a Crimean Tatar.  “The cases of kidnapping, detention of people without trial in prisons, have increased, especially after 2022.”

Kurbedinov has lived in Crimea since 2008 and says he has also faced harassment by Russian authorities since 2014. He has been arrested on several occasions, most recently, in February, for the same alleged offense as Zudiyeva – who’s one of his clients.

He said Russian authorities act under the guise of the “fighting terrorism,” frequently claiming Ukraine is directing and controlling networks of dissent inside the peninsula. He believes it is just pure opportunism.

“They get people when it suits them and they add charges that would make clear to society that these are terrorists,” he explained.  “Under the auspices of the fight against terrorism, they can arrest at one time a religious figure, a civic journalist, people who discussed something disloyal to the authorities, some other discontented people.”

‘Little green men’

Russia’s occupation of Crimea began in 2014, shortly after the events of the Maidan Revolution in Ukraine. Confusion and concern riled up pro-Russia sentiment in the region – which had been a part of the Russian republic within the Soviet Union until 1954, housed its Black Sea Fleet in the port of Sevastopol and already leaned more towards Moscow than other parts of Ukraine – leading to protests and clashes.

While politicians in Kyiv were trying to hold the country together following then President Viktor Yanukovich’s sudden departure on February 22, following months of political uncertainty and protests, Moscow set its sights on Crimea.

Russian soldiers in uniform without identifying insignia — at the time referred to as “little green men” — started popping up outside government buildings and military bases, though Moscow denied any involvement.

Amid the confusion, many Ukrainian troops simply barricaded themselves in their bases, as the green men lined the perimeter. Russian helicopters were spotted entering Ukrainian airspace. Two top commanders of Ukraine’s navy defected.

While there were some pro-Russia pockets in cities like Sevastopol who favored annexation by Moscow, that sentiment was generally not considered to be widespread. A slim majority in Crimea also voted in favor of Ukraine’s independence in a 1991 referendum. In the 2010 regional elections, the party of then-leader Yanukovich – who never argued for Russian annexation of Crimea or any part of Ukraine – won with nearly 50% of the vote. Research also indicates that before 2014, most residents believed annexation by Moscow was either illegal or pointless.

Weeks after the appearance of the little green men, a sham referendum, illegal under international law and unrecognized by a large majority of the international community, showed 95.5% of people in the peninsula wanted to secede from Ukraine and to join Russia.

“We are going home. Crimea is in Russia,” Russian-installed Crimean Prime Minister Sergey Aksyonov told crowds gathered in Simferopol, while votes were still being counted. A decade later he is still in charge, as the head of the so-called Russian Republic of Crimea.

The replacement of Ukrainian institutions and repression of dissent started quickly after the vote.

“From the first months we faced a huge number of human rights violations. There were hundreds of administrative cases, kidnappings, and so on and so forth,” Kurbedinov said. “We realized that we were in a completely different reality.”

That new reality is one Russia is trying to make permanent and irreversible, according to the UN.

“We have seen a systematic effort essentially to erase Ukrainian identity to erase and suppress all things Ukrainian. It also involves suppression of Tatar national identity,” said Krzysztof Janowski, from the UN’s Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. “We know, for example, of at least 100 forced disappearances among people who oppose the new regime and oppose the occupation,” he added.

The UN says Moscow expropriated at least 730 plots of land belonging to Ukrainian and Tatar citizens, which it then gave to Russian servicemen, or ex-servicemen involved in the so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine. It has also made it almost impossible to live in Crimea without a Russian passport.

“Without a Russian passport, you cannot have any access to any of the social services: healthcare, pensions, and so on. So, people are often presented with an offer they cannot refuse,” Janowski said. “They cannot get access, they cannot essentially survive. Accepting a Russian passport is a way of surviving this horrible situation.”

The major concern now is that Crimea is a template for the other four Ukrainian regions now fully or partially occupied by Russia.

A spokesperson for Russia’s interior ministry, Irina Volk, has claimed 90% of residents of those four regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – now have Russian passports. Less than a week after Ukrainian forces withdrew from the eastern town of Avdiivka, the first residents there had applied for Russian passports, Volk said.

Propaganda effort

When it comes to Crimea, Russia has tried to hide its oppression under a veil of public investment, and patriotism.

Ahead of the 10-year-anniversary of the annexation, billboards and posters have popped up all over the peninsula celebrating how Moscow’s investment has made life there better. Some show Crimea covered in the Russian flag, others feature Russian President Vladimir Putin and read: “The West doesn’t need Russia. We need Russia.”

That narrative is not a novelty, as Russian state broadcasters and local pro-Russian media reports often highlight the construction of new roads and other public infrastructure, like sports centers and even mosques in some cases.

The Kerch Bridge, connecting Crimea to the Russian mainland and inaugurated in 2018, is a major source of pride for Moscow and the focus of a large part of its propaganda. Its significance from a symbolic and strategic standpoint also explains why Ukraine has targeted it several times during the war.

“This is how we live,” says Kurbedinov. “Today you drive along nice roads, arrive home, tomorrow you simply disappear.”

Zudiyeva, like others in her community, didn’t set out to be a human rights activist. She wanted to work in education and even opened a children’s center before Moscow took over the peninsula.

But then came the Russian soldiers, along with the Kremlin’s surveillance and oppression.

“We began to read news about people going missing, we began to read news about some of them being tortured,” she said. “I realized that I would not be able to abstract from this and live my life as if nothing was happening.”

For a while, she combined her children’s center with her newfound activism, but Moscow came knocking at her door.

“It was difficult to explain to the parents, who brought and trusted us with their children, why their teacher was being harassed and the children’s center was being searched,” she said.

She closed the center down and focused on her activism; in 2020, she became a journalist as well.

“I dream of writing a text (that will change the course of events) or hope that my work will bring such results that would stop the repressions in Crimea,” she said. “I do it consciously, and I think I overcame my fear back in 2014.”

The prime minister’s remarks come amid rising criticism of Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip, launched in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attacks that left around 1,200 people killed and another 250 taken hostage. Israel says its operation is meant to only target Hamas fighters and not Palestinian civilians.

Israel’s campaign has killed more than 31,000 people in Gaza, more than 70% of whom are women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry, causing widescale destruction, mass displacement and a looming famine.

The United Nations, European Union and Israel’s closest ally, the United States, have all criticized its policies, calling on Netanyahu to allow more aid into the besieged enclave.

Netanyahu says Israel’s policy is to allow as much aid ‘as needed’

The Israeli leader’s claim contradicts statements he made previously, in which he boasted about permitting “minimal humanitarian aid” to enter Gaza.

“We provide minimal humanitarian aid,” Netanyahu said at a press conference in January. “If we want to achieve our war goals, we give the minimal aid.”

Netanyahu’s war policies have also hindered aid.

Less than two days after Israel began its military operation in Gaza, it placed the strip under what Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called a “complete siege,” halting supplies of electricity, food, water and fuel to the enclave. When aid finally began entering Gaza, it was only a trickle through a process that aid workers and the UN say is long, complicated and arduous.

Aid workers and government officials say a pattern has emerged of Israeli obstruction, where Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), the agency that controls access to Gaza, has imposed arbitrary and contradictory criteria on relief entering the territory. “It’s deliberately opaque, deliberately ambiguous,” one relief worker said of the aid delivery process.

Trucks carrying aid must pass through three layers of inspection before they can enter the enclave, Martin Griffiths, the UN under-secretary-general, has said. Long linesfor inspection have led to bottlenecks at the Rafah crossing, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said, with the list of rejected items – or “dual-use” equipment – only growing.

Despite calls on Israel to open more crossings into Gaza, aid is restricted to only two land crossings – the Rafah crossing with Egypt, and the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel.

Israel however has a total of six crossings into Gaza, some of which haven’t been operational for over a decade. Egyptian foreign minister Sameh Shoukry last week  called for Israel to open them.

For months, lines of trucks bound for Gaza have been backed up along the highway leading from the Egyptian town of Arish, a major logistical hub for aid, to the Rafah crossing. In a satellite image from late last month a line of trucks could be seen stretching out for 4 miles from the crossing.

Even when relief does enter, Israeli bombardment, damage to roads from airstrikes, communications blackouts and mass displacement impede distribution within the enclave.

Israel has also been working to dismantle the main aid agency that has handled aid distribution in Gaza for decade, the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), accusing some of its staff of being involved in Hamas’ October 7 attack.

Netanyahu lauds ‘alternative supply routes’

Netanyahu said that Israel has created “alternative routes” to deliver aid, including through airdrops, shipments by sea, and “land routes.”

Only two land crossings have been used to deliver aid to Gaza – the Rafah crossing with Egypt, and the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel. But volumes are insufficient compared to the scale of suffering.

Israel has however tested a pilot program to deliver desperately needed aid to northern Gaza through another border gate, but only six trucks had crossed it as of last Wednesday.

And while Israel has indeed allowed airdropped and maritime relief, aid groups say it’s nowhere close to enough to alleviate a looming famine, and warn that it could undermine land-based deliveries.

Only one ship has so far delivered aid to Gaza, carrying the equivalent of one meal each for a quarter of the enclave’s more than 2 million people. With 200 tons of aid on board, the ship delivered the equivalent of about 10 trucks’ worth of relief.

More shipments are expected, but the process is slow and complicated, especially as there are no functioning ports left in Gaza to efficiently receive the aid.

In a joint statement released by Amnesty International, 25 non-governmental organizations last week called on governments to prioritize land-based aid deliveries, saying “states cannot hide behind airdrops and efforts to open a maritime corridor to create the illusion that they are doing enough to support the needs in Gaza.”

The NGOs also warned against “the potential devastating consequences of creating dangerous precedents” that risk the degradation of land-based humanitarian access, as well as prolonging hostilities.

Netanyahu says Israel is allowing more trucks in

“The problem is not the number of trucks going in, although we’re increasing it on a daily basis,” Netanyahu said.

Aid groups and the UN have said that the main problem hampering humanitarian aid in Gaza is the small number of trucks entering the enclave due to Israeli restrictions.

An average of 95 aid trucks per day entered Gaza between October 10 and February 1, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, down from 500 trucks a day before the war through the Rafah crossing alone.

Netanyahu says Israel is increasing the number of trucks each day. While March saw an uptick in the number of trucks crossing, the UN has suggested that the volume of aid has been fluctuating.

The first 15 days of March saw an average of 165 aid trucks per day cross into Gaza, UNRWA reported Sunday. The figure is higher than the average 95 trucks per day, but it remains well below the 500 needed per day.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini last month said that the volume of aid into Gaza halved between January and February.

Netanyahu claims Hamas is looting trucks

The UN and other aid groups have reported some of their aid trucks had been looted, but haven’t ascribed any blame for it. Looting has been attributed to extreme levels of hunger and the breakdown of social order.

When the World Food Programme (WFP) halted aid delivery in northern Gaza, it cited safety concerns, saying there is “complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order.”

And when it tried to deliver a 14-truck food convoy this month, it was turned back by the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) after a three-hour wait at the Wadi Gaza checkpoint, WFP said.

“After being turned away the trucks were rerouted and later stopped by a large crowd of desperate people who looted the food, taking around 200 tons from the trucks,” the agency said.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has said that his government is willing to engage with protesters after hundreds of Cubans partook in rare public protests at the weekend to decry worsening conditions on the island.

Demonstrators took to the streets in at least four cities on Sunday to complain about hours-long power cuts and increasing food scarcity. There were also calls for political freedoms, with chants of “Patria y Vida,” which means fatherland and life in Spanish, a reference to the popular anti-government anthem.

Hundreds of people protested in Santiago de Cuba, known as the birthplace of Fidel Castro’s revolution, while the local secretary of the country’s Communist Party tried to address the crowd from a rooftop.

Diaz-Canel said in a statement Monday that his government was ready “to attend to the complaints of our people, listen, dialogue, explain the many efforts that are being carried out to improve the situation.”

Cuba is in an economic crisis as surging inflation has massively devalued the Cuban peso, with many state salaries now worth less than the cost of a carton of eggs. The government in March raised the price of fuel by more than 500%, further devastating Cubans’ pocketbooks.

The island has seen frequent power cuts and shortages of food, fuel, and medicine since the Covid-19 pandemic, prompting Cubans to flee to the United States in record numbers.

Diaz-Canel also blamed “terrorists” in Miami’s Cuban exile community for stirring up protestors online and US sanctions for Cuba’s increasingly bleak economy.

US diplomats said Sunday they were monitoring the protests and called on the Cuban government to listen to the demonstrators. “We urge the Cuban government to respect the human rights of the protestors and address the legitimate needs of the Cuban people,” the US embassy in Havana posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The spontaneous protests seemed to dissipate overnight as demonstrators reported a heavy police presence and some arrests. The Cuban government, which typically does not allow organized dissent, did not say how many protesters had been arrested.

After island-wide demonstrations in the summer of 2021, more than 1,000 Cubans were put on trial and convicted of rising up against the communist-run government, according to human rights groups.

As wind energy expands in the United States, concerns have grown about the potential for tall turbines to be a drag on property values.

But a new nationwide study that analyzed data from 300 million home sales and 60,000 wind turbines finds turbines’ impact on home values is much lower than previously thought – about a 1% drop on average for a home with at least one wind turbine within six miles.

The study’s authors find the most impact on home prices happens if a home is less than five miles from a turbine; the further a home is from a turbine, the less of a value hit it takes.

Even for homes close to a turbine, the study finds the negative impact to property value “diminishes and eventually disappears” within a decade.

To measure the impact, scientists set out with a very simple question, said Max Auffhammer, a study co-author and professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Getting the answer required building a massive mapping database of the distance between US homes and wind turbines, accounting for changes in topography and other factors.

“We calculated whether you can see the turbine – or whether there is a mountain in the way, for example – and if so, how the house value changes compared to other houses in the same area where residents cannot see the wind turbine,” Wei Guo, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the Italian Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici, said in a statement.

The study also explored just how big wind turbines appear to the human eye. They found that, on average, a wind turbine five miles away appeared roughly the same size as an aspirin tablet held with an outstretched arm. If the same turbine were one mile away, it would appear the size of a golf ball.

Auffhammer said one of the study’s most interesting findings was most of the dips in housing value were driven by early wind turbine installations in the US at the end of the 1990s. Closer to 2020, “we don’t really find an effect,” Auffhammer added.

The number of people who live very short distances from a turbine is also very small – the study recorded fewer than 250,000 housing transactions within a mile of a wind turbine.

Much of the growth in wind turbines in the US has been on farmland in the Midwest, Great Plains states and Texas. In many cases, farmers lease their land out to utility companies and are paid for that space.

Auffhammer said he is hopeful the data can help farmers and homeowners make a calculated decision on whether lease payments are enough to help balance out a potential loss of value on their homes.

The study’s researchers said that recovery in value over time could suggest homeowners and prospective buyers are simply getting more comfortable with wind turbines, and the machines are starting to blend into the surrounding landscape in the same way electrical infrastructure does.

“The way I think about it is, the first piece of electric transmission infrastructure people probably were yelling, ‘what is this ugly tower with wires? It’s ruining the landscape,’ because you’re not used to it,” Auffhammer said. “Now when I drive down the highway, I don’t even notice transmission infrastructure anymore. I just got used to it. I think something similar here is happening to windmills.”

The Israeli military launched an operation on Monday against Gaza’s largest hospital facility, Al-Shifa, where thousands of people are sheltering.

The IDF ordered residents and displaced persons near the sprawling medical complex in northern Gaza to withdraw to what it called a “humanitarian zone” further south. However, those warnings came after the hospital had already come under siege, according to one witness.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza said about 30,000 people were inside Al-Shifa seeking refuge and that those attempting to leave were being targeted by snipers and fire from helicopters. Hamas accused Israel of striking targets “without regard” to the patients or medical staff inside – a claim echoed by people at the complex.

Targeting hospitals in wartime is prohibited under international law, but those standards change if enemy combatants are using the facility to attack an enemy.

The IDF said it would “act in accordance with international law” and had instructed troops on the importance of “operating cautiously, as well as on the measures to be taken to avoid harm to the patients, civilians, medical staff, and medical equipment.”

Videos aired by Al Jazeera showed massive plumes of smoke from airstrikes in the vicinity of the hospital, with nearby streets covered in the dust and debris from bombed out buildings. In one video, people could be seen frantically going through the rubble to dig out the seeming lifeless body of one young victim. Another showed families running in terror after a deafening missile strike.

Abdelhadi, the man sheltering at Al-Shifa, said the operation began “suddenly” at 2:38 a.m. local time.

Abdelhadi said that Israeli military vehicles and bulldozers were “demolishing and excavating” inside the hospital grounds and Israeli forces used loudspeakers to order people to stay inside and moved toward the corridors. Those moving between hallways risked being hit, he said.

“The screams of women and children have not stopped. With every artillery shell that’s fired, there’s more screaming,” he said.

Shelling was still ongoing as of Monday afternoon, according to Abdelhadi.

A doctor on the scene, Abdullah Mohammed, said on Monday afternoon that the Al-Shifa surgical building, which is crowded with young people, was on fire after being hit four times by Israeli missile strikes.

“Everyone inside this building has undergone major operations and cannot move from the place,” Mohammed wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is “terribly worried” about the situation there, according to Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus who said in a post on X on Monday that “hospitals should never be battlegrounds.”

Al-Shifa briefly became the epicenter of the conflict earlier on in the war between Israel and Hamas. Israel accused Hamas of operating what it called a command center in tunnels beneath the hospital complex, a charge the group denied. In November, Israel carried out what it called a “precise and targeted” operation in the complex, but the facility’s main building was heavily damaged and effectively ceased to function, with doctors working by candlelight and wrapping premature babies in foil to keep them alive. Dozens of patients died due to a lack of electricity, according a report released in November.

Palestinians have said the fighting around Al-Shifa demonstrates Israel’s wanton disregard for civilian life in Gaza, while Israel points to it as an example of Hamas’ use of civilians as human shields.

During the first round of fighting at Al-Shifa in November, Israel urged Gaza’s northern residents to head south to seek refuge.

Those that remained now face a dire humanitarian crisis in which people in Gaza are starving to death due to the war and a lack of aid. Israeli officials have repeatedly said that issues in delivering aid were not down to Israel blocking trucks’ access to Gaza.

“The speed at which this man-made hunger and malnutrition crisis has ripped through Gaza is terrifying,” said the executive director of the World Food Program, Cindy McCain.

A report compiled by several governments and aid organizations released on Monday found that a famine in northern Gaza is “imminent.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the findings showed that Gaza now has “the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded… anywhere, anytime.”

“This is an entirely manmade disaster — and the report makes clear that it can be halted,” Guterres told reporters.

But life is little better for Gazans who did flee south. The majority of them – about 1.4 million people – are now crammed into a sprawling tent city packed against the Egyptian border in Rafah, the only nominally safe space left in the embattled enclave, and fears there are mounting of an impending offensive.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Friday that he had approved plans for a ground incursion into Rafah, despite widespread international opposition.

United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths warned last month that such an offensive could lead to “a slaughter.” Israel intends to move displaced Palestinians from Rafah to “humanitarian enclaves” in Gaza before any assault, IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters Wednesday.

Niger’s military government announced that it has ended an accord with the US that allowed military personnel and civilian staff from the Department of Defense to operate in Niger – days after holding high-level talks with US diplomatic and military officials this week.

“The government of Niger, taking into account the aspirations and interests of its people, decides with full responsibility to denounce with immediate effect the agreement relating to the status of military personnel of the United States and civilian employees of the American Department of Defense in the territory of the Republic of Niger,” Niger military spokesman Colonel Major Amadou Abdramane said in a statement on national television announcing the change.

Abdramane added that the agreement between the two countries – signed in 2012, was imposed on Niger and had been in violation of the “constitutional and democratic rules” of the West African nation’s sovereignty.

“This agreement is not only profoundly unfair in its substance but it also does not meet the aspirations and interests of the Nigerien people,” he said.

Niger was once a key regional partner for the US, but relations have deteriorated since the military junta claimed power in July 2023 in what the US formally designated as a coup.

Since then, the US has withdrawn many of its 1,100 troops who were stationed in Niger.

Senior Pentagon officials believe that keeping a presence in Niger is vital to efforts to tackle terrorism in the region. In October, the Pentagon said it was still assessing how the change would impact approximately 1,000 US forces stationed in the country.

In a letter sent to Congress in December 2023, President Joe Biden noted that approximately 648 US military personnel remain deployed to Niger.

‘Condescending attitude’

The announcement comes after a senior US delegation’s three-day visit to Niger this week.

Abdramane said that the US delegation was received out of “courtesy” and “did not respect diplomatic practices” by not providing information regarding the date of its arrival, the composition of the delegation and the purpose of the visit.

During meetings, Nigerien and American officials discussed the military transition in Niger and military cooperation between the two countries, Abdramane said.

“The government of Niger regrets the desire of the American delegation to deny the Nigerien people the right to choose their partners and the types of partnerships capable of helping them truly fight against terrorists,” Abdramane said.

Abdramane said Niger “forcefully denounces the condescending attitude” of the US.

“This attitude is likely to undermine the quality of our centuries-old relations and undermine the trust between our two governments,” he said.

He also rejected what he said were allegations of a secret deal made between Niger, Russia, and Iran.

Authorities in western India have launched an investigation after far-right Hindus allegedly attacked foreign university students offering prayers during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, as religious tensions simmer ahead of a crucial general election.

Two people were detained following clashes at the Gujarat University that broke out Saturday after students from countries including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Tajikistan began praying on the campus grounds, Ahmedabad police said Sunday.

“Around 20-25 people came and asked them why they were offering namaz (prayers) here and should instead read it in the Masjid (mosque),” Ahmedabad police commissioner GS Malik told reporters.

“An argument broke out between them, stones were pelted, and their rooms were vandalized by the people from outside.”

At least two foreign students were injured, according to India’s Ministry of External Affairs.

“State government is taking strict action against the perpetrators,” spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal posted on social platform X.

The incident is the latest in a string of communal clashes to make headlines in the democracy of 1.4 billion, which has become increasingly polarized along religious lines under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government.

Viral video, purportedly of the incident, shows men throwing stones at the students’ hostel and damaging vehicles. In another clip, men can be heard chanting “Jai Shree Ram (Hail Lord Ram),” a Hindu slogan that has in recent years become a clarion call against Muslims. Another video appears to show a student slapping a man wearing a saffron scarf, a color associated with Hinduism.

Speaking to regional channel News Capital Gujarat, an Afghan student said about 15 people were praying for Ramadan.

“Three people came chanting ‘Jai Shree Ram,’ he said. “After a while, they came back with at least 200-250 people, pelted stones… They broke our bikes, laptops, phones… We are not safe. We request the university to shift us to a safe place.”

Another student told Gujarat First News that the university had given them permission to pray on campus.

Gujarat University vice chancellor Neerja A. Gupta confirmed clashes broke out between two groups after which some foreign students were injured.

“An investigation is underway,” she told reporters. “Some videos have gone viral and the police is trying to investigate the trigger points.”

Analysts have repeatedly raised alarm against rising intolerance in the world’s largest democracy and fear that inter-religious tensions will increase as Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pushes its populist yet divisive policies in the lead up to a nationwide election next month.

In January, communal tensions rose in western Maharashtra state, with three reported altercations between Hindus and Muslims, according to local police.

In a separate incident in central Madhya Pradesh state, a group of right-wing Hindus was seen placing saffron-colored flags on top of a Christian church.

Both incidents took place one week after Modi inaugurated the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir, a controversial Hindu temple built on the ruins of a 16th century mosque that was destroyed by hardline Hindus some 30 years ago, setting off a wave of deadly sectarian violence not seen in India since its bloody 1947 partition.

Prominent Muslim lawmaker Asaduddin Owaisi criticized Saturday’s violence in Gujarat, calling out Modi and top officials within his government.

“What a shame. When your devotion & religious slogans only come out when Muslims peacefully practice their religion,” he wrote on X. “When you become unexplainably angry at the mere sight of Muslims. What is this, if not mass radicalisation?”