OpenAI is taking its ChatGPT chatbot to the next level, adding a feature to automate tasks like planning vacations, filling out forms, making restaurant reservations and ordering groceries. The tool, announced on Thursday, is called Operator. OpenAI describes it as “an agent that can go to the web to perform tasks for you” and added that it’s trained to interact ...

A marble statue of a woman, believed to be more than 2,000 years old, was found abandoned in a garbage bag near the Greek city of Thessaloniki, police said Wednesday. A resident discovered the 80-centimeter (31-inch) headless statue beside a trash bin in Neoi Epivates, outside Greece’s second-largest city. The man turned it over to local authorities, who contacted archaeologists ...

A 28-year-old man from Afghanistan has been arrested following a knife attack in a park in the German city of Aschaffenburg on Wednesday in which two people were killed, including a toddler, police said. The suspect was detained at the scene in Schoental park, an English-style garden in the Bavarian city, where the attack occurred at around 11:45 a.m. local ...

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement has released the crew of a cargo ship more than a year after its fighters hijacked the vessel in the Red Sea, as part of its campaign of attacks in support of Hamas in its war against Israel. The Galaxy Leader’s 25-strong crew – comprising 17 Filipinos, three Ukrainians, two Bulgarians, two Mexicans and a Romanian ...

More than 32,000 people have fled to towns in northeast Colombia as they attempt to escape a sharp rise in fighting between militant factions, according to the country’s ombudsman. Iris Marín said the violence escalated last week in the Catatumbo region, displacing tens of thousands of people. Hundreds more remain confined to their homes and are unable to evacuate due ...

At least 12 train passengers were killed in western India Wednesday after being struck by another train on an adjacent track after they jumped from their coaches in panic to escape a rumored fire incident, the Press Trust of India reported. At least six other people were injured, the news agency cited police officer Dattatraya Karale as saying. The accident ...

China’s navy has commissioned a new-generation frigate as competition rises with the US and other regional powers, saying the ship will “play a vital role in enhancing the overall combat effectiveness” of its forces. China already has the world’s largest navy in terms of number of hulls, although its technology is sometimes seen as lagging. Its largest competitor, the US, ...

Record ocean heat has taken a devastating toll on one of the world’s greatest natural wonders, with coral bleaching on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef reaching “catastrophic” levels, a new study has found. More than 50% of affected corals monitored near an island in the reef’s south were killed last year during the most “severe and widespread bleaching” to ever hit ...

South Sudanese authorities have suspended access to social media platforms for a minimum of 30 days after videos depicting the alleged killings of South Sudanese nationals in Sudan’s El Gezira state triggered riots and deadly revenge attacks. The block was to be implemented at midnight on Wednesday, Napoleon Adok, director general of the National Communications Authority, wrote in a letter ...

The British navy said Wednesday that it is ramping up measures to protect its waters from secret Russian operations after identifying a Russian spy vessel in UK waters for the second time in weeks. The Russian spy ship, called Yantar, sailed through the English Channel this week, according to the Ministry of Defence (MoD). As it sailed through the Channel, ...