Supreme Court declines to hear appeal from singer R. Kelly , convicted of child sex crimes.

Grammy Award -winning R&B singer, born Robert Sylvester Kelly , was found guilty in 2022 of three charges of producing child sexual abuse images.

His lawyers argued that a shorter statute of limitations on child sex crime prosecutions should have applied to offenses dating back to the 1990s .

Some 20,000 sheep have died so far this year on the Italian island of Sardinia , home to nearly half Italy 's flock.

Bluetongue causes swollen heads, high fevers, mouth ulcers, difficulty swallowing and breathing, and can turn an infected animal's tongue blue.

It is transmitted between animals by biting midges, but sheep are the most severely affected, according to the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) Infected and pregnant ewes abort or their lambs are born deformed and survivors lose their wool.

MIT researchers have developed a chip-based "tractor beam" that could someday help biologists and clinicians study DNA, classify cells, and investigate the mechanisms of disease.

The device uses a beam of light emitted by a silicon-photonics chip to manipulate particles millimeters away from the chip surface.

The light can penetrate the glass cover slips that protect samples used in biological experiments, enabling cells to remain in a sterile environment.

The team hopes to refine the system to enable an adjustable focal height for the beam of light.

They also want to apply the device to different biological systems and use multiple trap sites at the same time to manipulate biological particles in more complex ways.

"Having these systems widely available will allow us to study fundamental problems in single-cell biophysics in ways previously only available to a few labs given the high cost and complexity of the instrumentation.

NASA plans to send humans on a scientific round trip to Mars potentially as early as 2035 .

The trip will take about six to seven months each way and will cover up to 250 million miles ( 402 million kilometers ) each way.

The astronauts may spend as many as 500 days on the planet’s surface before returning to Earth .

There are lots of mysteries to investigate on the red planet, including why Mars looks the way it does today .

Since the Moon is a mere 240,000 miles ( 386,000 km ) from Earth , it will act as a training ground for the future human exploration of Mars . While a Mars mission is still many years out, the Artemis program will help NASA develop the capabilities it needs to explore the red planet..

Six of the ten longest high-speed railway (HSR) lines in the world are located in China .

The remaining four are in Spain , Japan , Russia and the UK .

China 's Beijing -Guangzhou High-Speed Line is currently the world's longest line with a total length of 2,298km .

Beijing -Harbin high-speed line, or Jingha HSR, is China 's fourth longest line in the world.

Madrid -Barcelona-French Border High-Speed Line is Spain 's fifth longest line, with a total of 804km .

Tohoku Shinkansen line is Japan 's sixth longest, with an operating speed of 320kmph .

Moscow -St Petersburg high-Speed line is Russia 's seventh longest line with 650km .

The West Coast Main Line in the UK is currently the eighth longest high-speed line in the world.

The Xiangtang-Putian line in China is the ninth longest high speed railway line.

It stretches from Nanchang , the capital city of Jiangxi province , to Putian and Fuzhou in Fujian province .

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's office releases doctored photos of his new cabinet after online mockery of their unkempt attire.

Eagle -eyed social media users had spotted the editing over the untidy suits of the country’s top officials.

Government spokesperson: "It did go through minor edits.. not just for this photo you inquired about".

At least 370 people were killed by Hamas militants at Nova music festival in Gaza on October 7 .

President Isaac Herzog began the day with a moment of silence at Kibbutz Reim at 6:29 am , the time the attack began.

In Tel Aviv , relatives of hostages and their supporters will hold a rally calling for a ceasefire.

Protests were also held against the wars the unprecedented attack sparked in Gaza and Lebanon .

In Washington , a man set himself on fire as more than 1,000 people demonstrated outside the White House .

Cats make a variety of sounds to communicate with the people and animals around them.

Chattering noise doesn't appear to be communicating to us or to other animals.

Cats' independence makes them difficult to study in the lab, so there are no current studies directly investigating this behavior.

One hypothesis is that it's a frustration behavior.

Paved cellar found on Danish island of Falster dates to the Middle Neolithic period about 5,000 years ago .

It upends previous understanding of both construction know-how and social sophistication from the era.

The discovery could redefine the social fabric of the Stone Age.

If fortified, the cellar was a key gathering place where people could exchange goods.

The Nobel Prize was created by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel in 1895 .

Nobel Prize is also given for achievements in physics, chemistry, literature and peace.

Nobel prizes are presented to laureates on Dec. 10 , the anniversary of Nobel 's death.

Notable Nobel laureates include Albert Einstein , Niels Bohr and Marie Curie .