Monsanto said on Wednesday that it was abandoning its $47 billion takeover bid for the Swiss agricultural chemical manufacturer Syngentaafter the company rebuffed a newly sweetened offer.
In a statement, Monsanto said it had offered a new proposal worth 470 Swiss francs (about $500) a share, having raised the amount of cash it was putting on the table and increasing the reverse breakup fee. It said it was walking away because there was no "basis for constructive engagement from Syngenta."

In ancient times, they were thought to be prophetic. Honey gathering is depicted in cave paintings that date back to the Paleolithic Age. The ancient Egyptians floated bees on rafts down the Nile to get them from one crop to another. While honeybees are not native to North America, they were deemed important enough to be packed up by the Pilgrims, and crossed the Atlantic around 1622 (according to Thomas Jefferson, the Native Americans referred to them as "white man's flies"). Today, bees are responsible for one out of every three bites of food you eat and are an agricultural commodity that's been valued at $15 billion annually in the U.S. alone. They are a major workforce with a dogged work ethic — bees from one hive can collect pollen from up to 100,000 flowering plants in a single day, pollinating many of them in the process. Americans wouldn't necessarily starve without them, but our diets would be a lot more bland and a lot less nutritious.

President Obama announced on Sunday that Mount McKinley was being renamed Denali, using his executive power to restore an Alaska Native name with deep cultural significance to the tallest mountain in North America.
Denali's name has long been regarded as an example of cultural imperialism in which a Native American name with historical roots was replaced by an American one having little to do with the place.
The peak, at more than 20,000 feet, plays a central role in the creation story of the Koyukon Athabascans, a group that has lived in Alaska for thousands of years. Denali, meaning "the high one" or "the great one."

Half a millennium after Columbus arrived, we have an opportunity — really one last chance — to avoid repeating the catastrophes endured by so many native peoples in the Americas. This is no longer the 19th century: We have more than enough information. We understand pathogens and can immunize those who might contact isolated peoples. We can acknowledge that some people don't want to join the global economy. And we can protect them until they are ready to enter the modern mainstream, while extracting the resources that we need. We don't have to commit another genocide.

Outdoor air pollution contributes to the deaths of an estimated 1.6 million people in China every year, or about 4,400 people a day, according to a newly released scientific paper.
The authors are members of Berkeley Earth, a research organization based in Berkeley, Calif., that uses statistical techniques to analyze environmental issues. The paper has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed scientific journal PLOS One, according to the organization.

Among 190 countries, only 44 legislatures have met the 30 percent goal, according to an analysis by the Inter-Parliamentary Union. They include Rwanda (nearly 64 percent of members of its lower house of Parliament are women) and Bolivia (53 percent).
There has been some progress since world leaders agreed on the 30 percent target in 1995 at the landmark Beijing women's conference. At that time, only 11 percent of the world's lawmakers were women, and that figure has doubled to 22 percent in 2015, according to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
Among its 193 member states, only 10 heads of state are women.

Whether the next secretary general will be a he or a she has become an increasingly potent subject of conversation, both inside and outside the corridors of the United Nations. Three dozen countries, led by Colombia, are promoting the idea that it is a woman's turn to lead the organization. Women's groups have put out lists of candidates. Prominent world leaders — including members of the group Ms. Robinson belongs to, the Elders, composed of former heads of state — have called for countries to nominate women.

Hảng Thị Váng là cô học trò người Mông đầu tiên của thôn Cư Dhắt, xã Cư Đrăm, huyện Krông Bông, tỉnh Đắk Lắk chuẩn bị bước vào ĐH. Kỳ thi THPT quốc gia vừa qua Váng đạt 21,5 điểm (khối C).
Cô học trò nghị lực cho biết sẽ đăng ký vào ngành công tác xã hội Trường ĐH Quy Nhơn.
"Phụ nữ Mông nơi mình ở thường sinh rất nhiều con nhưng chăm sóc lại không tốt, lấy chồng rồi thì coi mình đã già, không cần làm đẹp nữa... Mình muốn học ngành công tác xã hội để làm tuyên truyền ở hội phụ nữ, trung tâm y tế cộng đồng nhằm vận động người dân, nhất là phụ nữ, phải thay đổi nhận thức, bỏ lối sống lạc hậu" - Váng giải thích về lựa chọn của mình.

The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution. Interviews with 21 women and girls who recently escaped the Islamic State, as well as an examination of the group's official communications, illuminate how the practice has been enshrined in the group's core tenets.
A total of 5,270 Yazidis were abducted last year, and at least 3,144 are still being held, according to community leaders. To handle them, the Islamic State has developed a detailed bureaucracy of sex slavery, including sales contracts notarized by the ISIS-run Islamic courts. And the practice has become an established recruiting tool to lure men from deeply conservative Muslim societies, where casual sex is taboo and dating is forbidden.

Islamic State's revival of slavery, extreme though it is, finds disquieting echoes across the Arab world