Sossy Dombourian

Lebanon: On February 23, 2026 the Department of State ordered the departure from Lebanon of non-emergency U.S. government personnel and family members of government personnel due to the security situation in Beirut. The Travel Advisory for Lebanon remains at Level 4 – Do Not Travel. Read the full Travel Advisory at travel.state.gov/content/travel…

Il neige à #Paris ! Sur la Sorbonne et sur la Madeleine... Et oui cela arrive... 📷 @damien_leblanc 📹 @Cand75 paris-visites-guidees.com #meteo

A man noticed a kid driving through his driveway for fun every day and instead of getting angry, he did this for the kid.. 😊

"Today, we join virtually every other news organization in declining to agree to the Pentagon’s new requirements, which would restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues. The policy is without precedent and threatens core journalistic protections. We will continue to cover the U.S. military as each of our organizations has done for many decades, upholding the principles of a free and independent press.” - Joint statement from ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox News Media, NBC News

The #PickettFire burning in Napa County is now 5,862 acres and 11% contained. New evacuation orders and warnings have been issued. Currently, 190 people are under evacuation orders, and 360 people are under evacuation warnings. Please see Genasys Protect to find out which zones are impacted: protect.genasys.com/search For more information about the Pickett Fire, visit: fire.ca.gov/incidents/2025…

This CCTV captures the moment a major earthquake struck as doctors performed a surgery on a cancer patient in Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula. Click here for more ➡️ trib.al/H7UH3zr

🇦🇲 Armenian Grandmaster Levon Aronian Defeats World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen 2–0 in Las Vegas Blitz Tiebreaks ➖➖➖ Armenian Grandmaster Levon Aronian delivered a commanding performance by defeating World No. 1 Magnus Carlsen in a two-game blitz tiebreak match at the Freestyle Chess Grand Slam, held at the five-star Wynn Resort in Las Vegas. The 2–0 victory advanced Aronian to the quarterfinals and kept him in contention for the tournament’s $200,000 first-place prize. Carlsen, now relegated to the lower bracket, is eligible only for a third-place finish at best. This result marks a pivotal moment in Aronian’s long-standing rivalry with Carlsen and reaffirms his place among the elite of modern chess. The match unfolded during the group stage of a dramatic tournament that featured a 10+10 blitz round-robin format with 16 elite players. The total prize pool stands at $750,000, with $200,000 awarded to the winner, $140,000 for second place, and $100,000 for third. While the event has also featured standout performances, controversial moments, and intense qualification battles, Aronian’s clean sweep of Carlsen remains one of the most defining moments of the competition so far.

nytimes.com/2025/04/25/opi… via @NYTOpinion

the size of a full grown adult male moose

The @AP says the White House told them that if they didn't "align its editorial standards" with Trump's executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America, it would be barred from accessing an event

Even LeBron James couldn’t help but comment on the Khatchikian brothers’ historic performance, asking to see footage of their record-breaking game on SportsCenter’s post. In Armenian Mesrobian School’s commanding 119-25 win over Waverly, Nick Khatchikian scored an incredible 102 points in just 22 minutes, breaking the all-time California high school scoring record. This achievement ties for the 16th highest single-game total in U.S. high school basketball history and makes Nick the first Californian to score 100+ points since 2003. He accomplished this on an impressive 48/60 shooting, with 79 points by halftime. Meanwhile, Dylan Khatchikian tied the national record with 35 assists, added 13 steals, and completed a triple-double with 15 rebounds—all without scoring. The Khatchikian brothers’ extraordinary performances have cemented their place in basketball history.

Extreme fire danger will continue thru Wed. PDS Red Flag Warnings are for the extreme of the extreme fire weather scenarios. In other words, this setup is about as bad as it gets. Stay aware of your surroundings. Be prepared to evacuate. Avoid anything that can spark a fire.#cawx

🇦🇲 Pastor Hovhannes Halladjian Walks Through A Burned Down Sahag-Mesrob Armenian School in Altadena Our thoughts and prayers remain with the students, families, staff, alumni, and the Sahag-Mesrob Armenian School community during this time of immense loss. 🔔Stay tuned for updates on efforts and programs to support the Sahag-Mesrob community as they begin the journey to rebuild together.

Sometimes life comes full circle. Last week, I had the honor and privilege of visiting The @WhiteHouse to receive the National Medal of Technology and Innovation (NMTI) on behalf of @moderna_tx, alongside Hamilton Bennett, who led Moderna's COVID vaccine development team. The NMTI is the nation’s highest honor for technological achievement, bestowed by the President of the United States and administered by the US Patent and Trademark Office @uspto. It brought to mind the company’s formative days in Flagship labs and our foundational patents that enabled a uniquely programmable medicines platform. I also thought about my friend and longtime collaborator Bob Langer of MIT, himself a National Medal of Science recipient, and the very first meeting he and I had that led Flagship Pioneering to create and build Moderna starting in 2010 with Bob as a co-founder. Our bold proposition was that #mRNA could be harnessed to instruct the body to make any protein it needed, inside the patient’s body. Nearly 15 years later, with lots of ups, downs, highs, lows and detours along the way, Moderna persevered and pioneered, paving the way to not only tame a global pandemic, protecting billions of lives and saving millions more, but also to creating a whole new class of powerful medicines providing protection against a range of infectious diseases and working with partners to develop other medicines that may drastically reduce mortality in certain cancers. I truly believe Moderna’s positive impact on human health is in its earliest stages. Also full circle: to be joined alongside other scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology where I received my PhD and now serve as a trustee on the executive committee (see the proud photo of MIT’s medalists below). A final full circle moment: Friday’s ceremony was held in the Indian Treaty Room, a ceremonial room in the Eisenhower Executive Office building on the White House grounds. I was told that when vaccines first became available to government employees in early 2021, this very same room was where White House employees lined up to receive their lifesaving mRNA vaccines. It reminded me of the circle of scientific innovation, from idea to hypothesis to experiment to conclusion to execution, and on to the next idea. The promise of scientific progress remains the most powerful path forward for our people and our planet, and it was deeply meaningful to be among so many heroes and heroines pushing its boundaries and expanding its frontiers each day. @FlagshipPioneer @NSF @WHOSTP @NSTMF #STEM #STEMed #nms #nmti #nationalmedaloftechnologyandinnovation #nationalmedalofscience #STEMexcellence #STEMaward #POTUS #medalofscience #medaloftechandinnovation

nytimes.com/2025/01/03/opi… via @NYTOpinion

This morning, around 2:20 AM, a new #Kilauea eruption began within Kaluapele (the summit caldera). It was caught on camera by #HVO's B2cam. Images taken by the webcam were compiled into this timelapse video that shows lava fountains feeding lava flows across the caldera floor.

I Was a Health Insurance Executive. What I Saw Made Me Quit. nytimes.com/2024/12/18/opi…

Tips for being a dementia caretaker.

K9 teams are assisting in the search at Sednaya Prison, focusing on hidden doors or undiscovered basements that might hold detainees beyond those released yesterday. #WhiteHelmets #Saydnaya

⛪️🇫🇷 Les sapeurs-pompiers intervenus le soir de l’incendie de la cathédrale Notre-Dame sont longuement applaudis dans l’enceinte de l’édifice. (KTO) #NotreDameDeParis