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No missiles, no rifles, no bombs. Ukrainian drones are carrying a type of cargo unprecedented in war: elderly people

May 29, 2026 by usatoday24

During the Soviet blockade of Berlin in 1948, an American pilot began to throw chocolates tied to small cloth parachutes on children watching the planes from Tempelhof airport. That improvised initiative ended up becoming the famous “Operation Little Vittles“, one of the most unexpected images of the Cold War: military aircraft used to carry hope instead of weapons. Decades later, Ukraine is finding equally unusual uses for its war machines. Lifesaving robots. For years, unmanned vehicles were associated with a very specific idea: transporting weapons, ammunition or explosives where the risk for soldiers was too high. The war in Ukraine is expanding that definition with an image that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago. In some of the most dangerous sectors of the front, the same ground drones that are part of the war machinery are being used to evacuate elderly people trapped between bombings, mines and artillery fire. In a conflict marked by the automation of combat, one of the most unexpected loads carried by these vehicles are not projectiles or supplies, but old people who no longer have a safe way to leave their homes. Rescue through no man’s land. The last known operation took place near Limánin the Donetsk region. While carrying out a logistics mission, a ground drone unit from the Kraken group was approached by a woman who asked for help to leave the area along with three other people, one of them injured by shrapnel. After coordinating the procedure for days, the operators sent a Zmiy Logistic vehiclea kind of remote-controlled four-wheeled buggy capable of transporting up to about 500 kilos of cargo. The drone traveled about 16 kilometers to the agreed point, rpicked up the four evacuees and began the return journey to a river crossing where Ukrainian soldiers completed the rescue and took the wounded to a hospital. The impossible life in the gray zone. These rescues They show a less visible reality of war. Despite years of fighting, there are still civilians living in the so-called “gray zone”, a strip of land disputed between both armies that can reach between 16 and 20 kilometers wide. There are practically no public services, shops, schools or hospitals left there. Power outages are common and bombings are part of the daily routine. However, many older people continue to resist in those places because they don’t want to leave the houses where they have lived all their lives, because they care for sick relatives or because they hope that the war will end before being forced to leave permanently. Iron soldiers on a new mission. It is not an isolated case. They remembered in Insider that in early April, another 77-year-old Ukrainian woman was evacuated from the same area using a ground drone operated by the 60th Mechanized Brigade. The images They went around the world because the soldiers approached her with a blanket on which a message as simple as it was revealing could be read: “Grandma, get on.” The scene summarizes the extent to which these systems are evolving. Originally designed to transport supplies, plant explosives or even assemble remote weaponry, the so-called “iron soldiers” are beginning to take on rescue tasks that previously would have required exposing soldiers or volunteers to extreme danger. Total automation. Behind these stories there is a much deeper transformation. Ukraine and Russia are accelerating the incorporation of unmanned ground vehicles to carry out missions that They are too risky for people. Some carry ammunition, some carry medical supplies, and some incorporate remote-controlled weapons. The Ukrainian goal is especially ambitious: Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, has announced the purchase of 25,000 ground drones during the first half of 2026 and aspires for all frontline logistics to one day depend on these systems. During the first quarter of the year alone, unmanned vehicles performed more than 21,500 missions. Unexpected consequences. The usual image of military innovation may be associated with increasingly destructive systems, but the Ukrainian experience is showing an unexpected consequence of that technological revolution. The same robots that were born to keep soldiers away from danger are being used to remove vulnerable civilians from some of the most dangerous places in Europe. As militaries race to automate combat, ground-based drones are proving military technology can play a role, too completely different: become the ultimate escape vehicle for those trapped in the ruins of an endless war. Image | ArmyInform In Xataka | Storks have become the best anti-drone weapon of war. And Russia and Ukraine are taking note In Xataka | Ukraine has been terrorizing Russian soldiers with its heavy drones for years. Now they are literally giving it back.

In 1962, someone donated shares in a company to the elderly in his town. The company was Nokia and today they live like millionaires

May 9, 2026 by usatoday24

There are stories that seem taken from a Hollywood script. That of Onni Nurmi, a young Finnish entrepreneur, has a name, surname, date and even a street named after him. The story of our protagonist It has all the elements for a script worthy of an Oscar: a man who was born in misery, fell into debt with his neighbors, crossed the Atlantic to settle his outstanding accounts and returned to his country. Decades after he died, he has become the greatest benefactor of his people. All this, for having donated to the nursing home in his town the shares of a rubber company that did not attract anyone’s attention. A Nurmi always pays his debts Onni Nurmi was born in 1885 in Savijoki, a small town within the municipality of Pukkila, in Finland, a town of just under 1,700 inhabitants. Nurmi grew up in a humble home marked by the hardships of being raised by a single mother who worked in the fields and ran a small canning store in the town. When she died unexpectedly at age 49, Onni was only 13 years old and had no future in Pukkila, so he moved to Helsinki. In 1912, he returned to Pukkila and resumed the family business by opening a store. However, his business did not work out. The following year, indebted to dozens of neighborstook a ship to America and spent 15 years working as a game warden in Minnesota. When he returned in 1928, he went door to door paying off every outstanding debt owed to Pukkila residents, some of them incurred a decade earlier. He didn’t do it because no one demanded it. Onni was simply that type of person. Onni Nurmi. Source: Kylä Savijoki Helsinki’s most unlikely investor With his debts paid off, Onni moved back to Helsinki, where he worked as a property manager and led an orderly, quiet life. He never married or had children. At some point he discovered investments in the stock market and, without financial training and with the only help of his intuition, he decided to buy shares of a small company that manufactured paper, rubber, rubber tires and boots which had its headquarters in the city that gave it its name: Nokia. In 1959 he wrote his will and decided to leave all the shares of that company that manufactured wellies to the municipality of Pukkila, with two conditions: They should never be sold and his donation was to be used solely for the well-being of the town’s elders. Onni Nurmi died in 1962 at the age of 77. The 780 shares he donated to the town where he had lived most of his life were then worth about $30,000, the equivalent of about $320,000 today. His gesture was undoubtedly generous, but not extraordinary…yet. The Buffett Effect: Let Time Do Its Work The clause preventing the sale of the shares seemed a problem at first. If the town had been able to cash in on the stock portfolio at any time, it would have obtained funds to improve the nursing home. However, the will was blunt on that point: shares had to be keptand they could only use dividends that these actions will generate over time. However, what seemed like a limitation to local authorities eventually became the best investment decision anyone in Pukkila could have made. The will was forcing them to apply a technique that for more than six decades has become a millionaire to Warren Buffett: leave let time do its work. Throughout the 80s and 90s, Nokia left rubber boots behind to become the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world, position he held between 1998 and 2012. The original 780 shares that Nurmi had donated multiplied by a thousand due to its growth in the stock market and the overwhelming sales domain of their phones. At the height of the technology boom, Pukkila’s portfolio was valued at around 90 million dollarsmaking their Pukkila retirees the most prosperous in Finland, at least on paper. What do we do with so much money? The prosperity of the actions opened a new debate among the residents of Pukkila. They were sitting on a fortune and doing nothing to profit from it. In 1997, the city council proposed selling part of the shares to diversify the portfolio and reduce the risk of a hypothetical fall of Nokia. Not everyone agreed. A section of the town argued that selling the shares was against Nurmi’s will. Another sector even proposed that the benefits be used so that residents would not pay municipal taxes for 12 years. Given the disagreement, the debate reached the courts and lasted for several years. Ironically, the “Buffett effect” came into play again, and the judicial paralysis was the best possible news for the people’s coffers: while the issue of the sale of shares was being settled in court, Nokia shares did not stop increase its value. The courts finally approved an agreement by which the municipality could sell a part of the portfolio and diversify its funds, always respecting the original will of the will to support the town’s elders. as main beneficiaries of those actions. With that money the Onni Wellness Centeropened in 2008. The building stands on Onnintie Street (which in Finnish literally means Happiness Street) and includes sheltered housing, spaces for people with memory disorders, a health center, pharmacy, swimming pool, gym, library, cafeteria and a Japanese garden. All this in a municipality of less than 2,000 inhabitants. Onni Nurmi never imagined the magnitude of his donation decades after his death, but in some ways, he more than repaid the patience his neighbors had in waiting decades to pay off their debt. In Xataka | Giving money away wasn’t enough: Warren Buffett turned Christmas into an investing masterclass for his family Image | Unsplash (Pawel Czerwinski, Joe Zlomek, MW), Kylä Savijoki.

148 elderly for every 100 young people

January 26, 2026 by usatoday24

Spain may move in record numbers of population, but that does not mean that its demographic engine is oiled. On the contrary. If the census grows it is thanks to immigration. The latest INE studies show that every time fewer babies are bornexactly the opposite of what happens with life expectancy (continuously increasing) and deaths (stagnating). With these data on the table, the latest red light that has been lit in the national demographics is less surprising: the aging index has risen so much that it already marks a historical fact. This is not good news for the country’s labor market. What has happened? That Spain is increasingly a country of elderly people. It is no surprise, but that does not mean that the data that just published Adecco Foundation is striking. In its report ‘Aging and occupational ageism’ it reveals that in 2025 the “aging index” climbed to 148%. What does that mean? That in Spain there are now 148 people over 64 years of age for every 100 under 16. Just a year ago that same index was 14.23% and if we go to the end of the 90s it was at 99.8%, which means that almost the same proportion of elderly people resided in our country as those under 16 years of age. Is it important information? It is certainly illustrative. Both for its most obvious reading (148 people over 64 years of age for every 100 young people), and for the trend it suggests. Between 2024 and 2025, the index grew 5.7 percentage points, the largest increase since Adecco studied the phenomenon. As if that were not indicative in itself, the 2025 result shows that the country is still deep in the aging curve that it has been tracing for years. Between 2003 and 2009 (coinciding with a period of intense migratory flow, prior to the financial crisis) the proportion of children and adolescents over the elderly seemed to recover, but this trend soon stopped and has not been corrected. Is this a surprise? No. The Adecco study is new, but it is based on previous data from the INE that already suggested the same idea. In November the statistical institute published a balance on ‘Natural Population Movement’ in which three major trends were made clear. The first, the decline in the birth rate. In 2024, 318,005 births were registered in Spain, 1% less than in 2023 and far from the 427,595 recorded by the INE in 2024. On the contrary, life expectancy has continued to grow since the pandemic to stand at 84.01 years. If we add to the above that the number of deaths has also remained stable, the conclusion is clear and connects with Adecco’s calculations: fewer young people, more old people, greater imbalance, tipping the balance in favor of the latter. If at the beginning of the century there were practically the same number of people of retirement age as there were young people under 16, today it is much easier to meet the former on the street than the latter. Does it happen throughout the country? No. Not at least with the same intensity. Adecco has dedicated itself to calculating the aging index of each autonomous community and its results demonstrate the profound differences that exist at the territorial level. The oldest region is Asturias, with an indicator of 265.3%. That is, there are 265 people over 64 for every 100 under 16. Galicia (231.6) and Castilla y León (230.7) follow in the ranking. At the opposite pole are Melilla (60.4), Ceuta (74.5) and Murcia, which debuts in the ‘red zone’ with an index of 102.7%. And what does it matter? With the index Adecco does not want to cover only a statistical curiosity. Its objective is to launch a warning that directly affects the economy and the productive capacity of Spain: the pool of young population, who is about to join the labor market or will do so in the short or medium term, is increasingly lower compared to the sector of the population about to retire or who is already collecting their pension. And that is a problem. “Spain faces a structural paradox: while the population ages and the workforce becomes older, the labor market continues to underutilize professionals over 45 years of age and perpetuate the barriers that limit their employability,” warns Adecco Foundationwhich recalls that long-term unemployment affects 34% of the unemployed in Spain, a percentage that skyrockets to 48.5% if we talk about those over 45 years of age. To do? The organization is clear: rethink deep-rooted ideas. “The aging rate does not stop growing and this demographic reality places our country before a structural challenge that does not allow further delays,” reflect Francisco Mesonero, general director of the Adecco Foundation. “In this context, occupational ageism is revealed to be an obsolete phenomenon and a profound contradiction. Spain cannot afford to do without millions of older professionals.” There are those who warn in any case that Adecco’s calculations must be handled with some caution for a simple reason: it is based on two very large, different population groups and in which diverse realities are mixed. “We have a new old age that is neither short nor homogeneous and it must be conjugated in the plural because we cannot put a 64-year-old and an 85-year-old in the same bag, just as a 15-year-old cannot be equated with a 35-year-old,” commented recently in The Vanguard Dolores Puga, demographer and CSIC researcher. Images | Mark Timberlake (Unsplash) and Adecco Foundation In Xataka | After years of Japanization, in Spain there is already a generation on the verge of an uncertain scenario: old age without children

Why communities already vaccinate the entire population (and not just the elderly)

December 3, 2025 by usatoday24

Every winter, history repeats itself in our country. Along with the drop in temperatures, the flu makes an appearance in our environmentcausing many people to start sniffling, coughing or having a fever. In general, in order to prevent the worst of this virus during the previous months, we are committed to carrying out vaccination campaigns for a part of the population, while the ‘unlucky’ rely on paracetamol and some slightly bad days. The epidemic. For a few days now, Spain has been officially in a flu epidemic due to the increase in cases in much of Spainwhich has led some communities to activate the recommendation to wear a mask in some locations. Everything to avoid, above all, continuing to spread the virus and not infect those most vulnerable people who can easily end up admitted to a hospital, putting strain on the health system. The problem this year is in the ‘variant K‘ of this virus for which we were not fully prepared with the vaccines available and neither were our immune systems. But luckily the weapons we have have a predictable effect to minimize their effects on the body. Vaccination system. Currently vaccination officially recommended to a specific population. One of these groups are the smallest in the house, because they are a group of people who act as vectors. This means that it can become infected, have a very long incubation and then barely show any symptoms. The problem is that they will be able to infect everyone around them, such as their parents or even elderly people such as grandparents, which is a serious problem, since they will manifest the disease aggressively. In this way, the strategy is to block this vector with the vaccination of children under six years of age, although not without being free of bioethical problems. On the other hand, there is vaccination for the elderly, health personnel or immunocompromisedwhere infection by this virus can lead to a very delicate state of health. Vaccination for all. Vaccinating a small part of the population is the strategy on the table right now, but more and more voices are pointing to the need to carry out mass vaccinations. As happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this way, the Spanish Association of Vaccinology (AEV) and the Vaccine Advisory Committee of the AEP defend this strategy due to the pure statistics that exist in our country. They point out that as long as vaccination coverage is not massive, the virus always finds “gaps” to circulate. If we only vaccinate grandparents, the virus circulates freely between children (the major transmitters) and young adults, mutating and staying strong until, inevitably, it jumps back to the vulnerable. The keys. As we have said before, the AEP has been insisting in universal childhood vaccination (from 6 to 59 months). Not only to protect the child, but because children are very efficient vectors, and they conclude that if the virus is stopped in daycares and schools, you indirectly protect the entire community. But there are more and more voices that point to the need for Those under 17 years of age should also fall within the technical criteria to receive this vaccine. But not only these, since international organizations such as the ECDC and the WHO have indicated that expand coverage to “broad segments of the population” (including cohabitants and active workers) is the only real way to contain the epidemic wave. The more vaccinated people there are at the beginning of the wave, the fewer “highways” the virus has to move. It is already being done. From public administrations we already see how vaccination is being recommended before the maximum peak of this epidemic arrives, which is expected just at Christmas, since that is when people can gather the most in a closed space. In this way, the Minister of Health herself, Mónica García, point for “the entire population to be vaccinated” without reference to the criteria established in the technical plans. And it is something that the autonomous communities are doing, opening the door to anyone who wants to be vaccinated by eliminating restrictions. Catalonia, for example, since December 1 It has been opened so that anyone who wants to be immunized can do so. For their part, Galicia and Castilla y León have implemented mass vaccination campaigns without prior appointment (“open doors”) during the weekends, making it easier for anyone passing by to receive the jab. yesThey have joined the strategy of “accelerating immunization” by eliminating the bureaucratic barriers of prior appointment. The underlying message of these policies is clear: if you have the arm and the will, we want you vaccinated now. The sooner the better. The experts in this case are quite clear because the vaccine does not ‘work’ at the time of inoculation. You have to wait a few weeks to generate optimal protection against the virus to reduce symptoms in the event that you contract the disease. Images | Mufid Majnun In Xataka | Bacteria have an ‘escape plan’ to survive the viruses that kill them, and it is key to defeating superbugs

An Italian man did not want to be left without his elderly deceased mother’s pension. So he started dressing up as her.

November 26, 2025 by usatoday24

To the civil registry official the alerts they jumped him quickly. The person in front of me claimed to be an 85-year-old woman, but if you looked closely you detected certain details that didn’t fit. His voice, for example. It was too serious and from time to time it seemed to go down several tones. Lugo had the skin on her neck and hands, thick, smooth, very different from what one would expect to see on an almost nonagenarian woman. More than an old woman, he looked like a man in disguise. The civil registry official was quickly alerted. So much so that he ended up notifying the police. And in doing so he uncovered a delusional scam that has cost Italy tens of thousands of euros and now has the country fascinated. A lot of money, few scruples. That the imagination is sharpened when there are bills involved is nothing new. Just as it is not true that there are unscrupulous people willing to do all kinds of nonsense to pocket money that does not belong to them. Last year we told you the story of a Brazilian woman who appeared at a bank in Rio de Janeiro accompanied by the corpse of a man (supposedly “Uncle Paco”) to withdraw 3,000 euros in her name. That case went around the world, but it is not much more bizarre than another that just aired in Italy. As happened in Brazil, there is a corpse and an attempted scam involved, although in this case the staging has been somewhat different. The reason? The alleged criminal did not take the dead man with him, but instead disguised himself as him to impersonate him before the city council. The problem is that the alleged scammer was a 56-year-old man and the person his mother wanted to impersonate was a woman in her 90s. Click on the image to go to the tweet. Who are you? The case has told it in detail the diary Corriere della Sera. A few days ago, an employee of the civil registry in the town of Borgo Virgilia, in Mantua (Italy) found that a neighbor wanted to renew her expired ID. So far nothing out of the ordinary. The woman showed up by appointment and her papers were in order, but upon seeing her the official became suspicious. The woman walked at a slow pace, wearing a skirt, jewelry, painted nails, and an exquisite layer of makeup that apparently tried to hide her wrinkles. In theory he was 85 years old. Or at least that’s what his license said. Her neck, however, was robust, her wrinkles were strange, and her hands had little to do with those of a frail, almost nonagenarian old woman. Not only that. Although she spoke like an older woman, from time to time her tone seemed to drift into deeper registers, registers more typical of an adult man, between 50 and 60 years old. “Isolated from the rest of the world”. The mayor of Borgo Virgilia, Francesco Aporti, explains that this accumulation of details made the employee suspicious, who ended up alerting her bosses and the police. The first alert was raised when reviewing the security cameras and verifying that the supposed octogenarian had arrived at the wheel of a car, something strange considering that it did not appear that she had a driving license. A more exhaustive search also revealed that the elderly woman had not been to the doctor or visited specialists for some time. Neither her nor her son. “It was as if they were isolated from the rest of the world,” says Aporti. There were signed documents and deeds of sale, but either they had been handled directly by his son as attorney-in-fact or they showed a signature that did not seem completely authentic. And the cake was revealed. With all these indications, the authorities decided to set a trap for him. They called the old woman’s house to inform her that she had to return to the registry to complete her paperwork. They were not able to speak with her, but they did speak with her son, a 58-year-old man who assured them that he would notify his mother. Shortly after, the woman went to the town hall, wearing makeup, a skirt and jewelry. On that occasion, however, she did not meet the official who issues ID cards, but rather a police officer who accompanied her to the police station. There the cake was revealed: during the interrogation, the supposed old woman recognized that he was actually her son, an almost 60-year-old nurse who was impersonating her. A corpse in the closet. The next question is obvious: Why? To find out, the agents inspected the house where the old woman supposedly lived, where they found her mummified body in a closet. The woman in question was called Graziella Dall’Oglio and everything indicates that died in 2022 at 82 years old. Instead of notifying the death, the only child decided to keep it a secret, keep his mother’s body at home and continue collecting the pension religiously. According to precise CorriereThanks to that income and the properties his family had, he managed to pocket around 53,000 euros a year. “There were no known relatives. The woman’s husband, a doctor, had died, and the 58-year-old man was her only son. He worked as a nurse, but was unemployed. The last time the old woman was seen at City Hall was ten years ago, when she came to renew her old identity document,” explains the mayor of the town, who confirms that the police are investigating to clarify two points. First, confirm that the body they found in the closet is indeed Graziella’s. Second, that he died of natural causes. A strange case? Strange yes. Uncommon, not so much. Although in this case the protagonist’s lack of scruples and daring stands out. it’s not the first time that the Italian press talks about people who hide the death of a … Read more

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