Crow River Media

If a monkey types randomly at a keyboard for long enough, it will eventually write the complete works of Shakespeare. This thought experiment has long been used to express how an infinite amount of time makes something that is incredibly unlikely -- but still technically possible -- become probable.

The eurozone's annual inflation rate rebounded more than expected in October due to rising food costs, official data showed on Thursday, but remains in line with the European Central Bank's two-percent target. Year-on-year consumer price increases in the 20-country single currency area reached 2.0 percent in October, rising from 1.7 percent in September, the EU's official data agency said.

The African Union's health watchdog on Thursday warned that mpox outbreak was still not under control and appealed for resources to avoid a "more severe" pandemic than Covid-19. More than 1,100 people have died of mpox in Africa, where some 48,000 cases have been recorded since January, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

OpenAI on Thursday beefed up its ChatGPT generative AI chatbot with search engine capabilities, as the startup takes on Google's decades-long dominance of web search. The upgrade enables users to receive "fast, timely answers" with links to relevant web sources –- information that previously required using a traditional search engine, the company said. The significant upgrade to ChatGPT enables the AI chatbot to provide real-time information from across the web.

Donald Trump found himself at the center of a firestorm Thursday over sexist comments he made at a campaign rally -- the latest in a string of lewd and contemptuous comments about women from the former president and his surrogates. "I want to protect the women of our country... whether the women like it or not," Trump said Wednesday, drawing condemnation from women across the political spectrum led by his White House rival Kamala Harris.

European officials pointed Thursday to devastating flooding in Spain as a reminder of the self-harming effects of humans' destruction of nature, urging delegates at a deadlocked UN biodiversity conference in Colombia to "act." European Commission envoy Florika Fink-Hooijer said the "catastrophe" in Spain's Valencia region earlier this week highlighted the link between biodiversity loss and human-caused climate change.

Divers plunged into the river while high-mountain police hot-footed through the rubble in a rush to find five residents of the hamlet of Letur missing after Spain's apocalyptic floods. Since the floods ravaged the southeastern Spanish village on Tuesday evening, the Castilla-La Mancha region's rescuers have been working round the clock to locate them, locked in a race against time.

Spain mourned at least 158 deaths on Thursday and authorities told people in flood-stricken regions to stay at home as rescuers raced to find survivors in the rare disaster. An exceptionally powerful Mediterranean storm from Tuesday unleashed heavy rains and torrents of mud-filled water that swept away people and wrecked homes, with the eastern Valencia region hit hardest. The body coordinating rescue work in the Valencia region announced 155 bodies had been recovered there by Thursday afternoon.

The United States said Thursday that up to 8,000 North Korean troops have reached Russia's border region with Ukraine ready for combat, after Pyongyang's firing of a long-range missile ramped up tensions days before the US election. Seeking advantage in his grinding invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin has brought in troops from North Korea, the first time Russia has invited foreign forces on its soil in more than a century.