All posts tagged: AP Top News

Father of killed aid worker urges tougher US stance on Israel in Gaza

Father of killed aid worker urges tougher US stance on Israel in Gaza

Published by skeptic

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — When America’s top diplomat called with condolences over the killing of John Flickinger’s son in the Israeli airstrikes on a World Central Kitchen aid convoy in Gaza, Flickinger knew what he wanted to say. The grieving father told Secretary of State Antony Blinken the killings by Israel in the Hamas-run territory must end, and that the United States needs to use its power and leverage over its closest Mideast ally to make that happen. Flickinger’s 33-year-old son, Jacob Flickinger, a dual U.S. and Canadian citizen, was among the seven humanitarian workers killed in the April 1 drone strikes. “If the United States threatened to suspend aid to Israel, maybe my son would be alive today,” John Flickinger told The Associated Press in describing his 30-minute conversation Saturday with Blinken. Flickinger said Blinken did not pledge any new policy actions but said the Biden administration had sent a strong message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the relationship between the United States and Israel may change if the Israeli …

2 women who say abortion restrictions put them in medical peril feel compelled to campaign for Biden

2 women who say abortion restrictions put them in medical peril feel compelled to campaign for Biden

Published by skeptic

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Texas woman who went into premature labor, developed sepsis and nearly died and a Louisiana woman who said restrictive abortion laws prevented her from getting medical help for a miscarriage are now campaigning for President Joe Biden as the Democrat highlights how women’s health is being affected by the overturning of federal abortion protections. Amanda Zurawski and Kaitlyn Joshua will travel to North Carolina and Wisconsin over the next two weeks to meet with doctors, local officials and voters. The Biden campaign sees their stories as potent firsthand accounts of the growing medical peril for many women as abortion restrictions pushed by Republicans complicate health care. “The abortion topic is a very heavy topic, and I understand that, said Joshua, 31, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. ”But I also understand and believe that the Biden and Harris administration is the only administration that could do anything remotely close to addressing the abortion bans … and then also doing a deeper dive into research and understanding women’s health in general.” Biden and Democrats …

Extreme drought in southern Africa leaves millions hungry

Extreme drought in southern Africa leaves millions hungry

Published by skeptic

MANGWE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Delicately and with intense concentration, Zanyiwe Ncube poured her small share of precious golden cooking oil into a plastic bottle at a food aid distribution site deep in rural Zimbabwe. “I don’t want to lose a single drop,” she said. Her relief at the handout — paid for by the United States government as her southern African country deals with a severe drought — was tempered when aid workers gently broke the news that this would be their last visit. USAID and the United Nations’ World Food Programme aim to help some of the 2.7 million people in rural Zimbabwe threatened with hunger because of the drought that has enveloped large parts of southern Africa since late last year. (March 31) (AP Video/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi and Kenneth Jali) Ncube and her 7-month-old son she carried on her back were among 2,000 people who received rations of cooking oil, sorghum, peas and other supplies in the Mangwe district in southwestern Zimbabwe. The food distribution is part of a program funded by American aid …

California: New minimum wage for fast food workers to start Monday

California: New minimum wage for fast food workers to start Monday

Published by skeptic

LIVERMORE, Calif. (AP) — Most fast food workers in California will be paid at least $20 an hour beginning Monday when a new law is scheduled to kick in giving more financial security to an historically low-paying profession while threatening to raise prices in a state already known for its high cost of living. Democrats in the state Legislature passed the law last year in part as an acknowledgement that many of the more than 500,000 people who work in fast food restaurants are not teenagers earning some spending money, but adults working to support their families. That includes immigrants like Ingrid Vilorio, who said she started working at a McDonald’s shortly after arriving in the United States in 2019. Fast food was her full-time job until last year. Now, she works about eight hours per week at a Jack in the Box while working other jobs. “The $20 raise is great. I wish this would have come sooner,” Vilorio said through a translator. “Because I would not have been looking for so many other …

2024 election: Fake AI images of Trump create cause for concern

2024 election: Fake AI images of Trump create cause for concern

Published by José

WASHINGTON (AP) — At first glance, images circulating online showing former President Donald Trump surrounded by groups of Black people smiling and laughing seem nothing out of the ordinary, but a look closer is telling. Odd lighting and too-perfect details provide clues to the fact they were all generated using artificial intelligence. The photos, which have not been linked to the Trump campaign, emerged as Trump seeks to win over Black voters who polls show remain loyal to President Joe Biden. The fabricated images, highlighted in a recent BBC investigation, provide further evidence to support warnings that the use of AI-generated imagery will only increase as the November general election approaches. Experts said they highlight the danger that any group — Latinos, women, older male voters — could be targeted with lifelike images meant to mislead and confuse as well as demonstrate the need for regulation around the technology. In a report published this week, researchers at the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate used several popular AI programs to show how easy it is …

What killed Flaco the owl? New York zoologists run tests

What killed Flaco the owl? New York zoologists run tests

Published by skeptic

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s celebrity owl Flaco died from a traumatic impact, zoologists confirmed a day after he reportedly flew into a building, with further testing planned to determine if the Eurasian eagle-owl may have been sick. What happened in Flaco’s final hours is top of mind for his fans across the city, who cheered him on as he defied the odds by fending for himself despite a life in captivity. Police are still seeking to arrest whoever let him out of his enclosure at the Central Park Zoo a year ago. Flaco had been in good physical shape, the necropsy found, succeeding in catching prey even though he had no experience hunting because he came to the zoo as a fledgling 13 years earlier. According to the necropsy report released Saturday, the owl weighed 1.89 kilograms (4.1 pounds), just 2% less than when he was last measured at the zoo. Flaco was found dead Friday on a sidewalk after apparently hitting a building on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “The main impact …

Michigan primary 2024: Nikki Haley stays in race despite Trump’s South Carolina win

Michigan primary 2024: Nikki Haley stays in race despite Trump’s South Carolina win

Published by skeptic

TROY, Mich. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley says it’s not “the end of our story” despite Donald Trump’s easy primary victory in South Carolina, her home state where the onetime governor had long suggested her competitiveness with the former president would show. Defying calls from South Carolina Republicans to exit the race, Haley traveled Sunday to Michigan, which holds its primary on Tuesday, speaking to a hotel ballroom packed with hundreds of supporters. In the less than 24 hours following her Saturday night loss to Trump, Haley’s campaign said that she had raised $1 million “from grassroots supporters alone,” a bump they argued “demonstrates Haley’s staying power and her appeal to broad swaths of the American public.” But with Sunday also came the end of support for Haley’s campaign from Americans for Prosperity, the political arm of the powerful Koch network. In a memo first reported by Politico and obtained by The Associated Press, AFP Action senior adviser Emily Seidel wrote that, while the group “stands firm behind our endorsement” of Haley, it …

31,000 Ukrainian troops killed since start of Russian invasion

31,000 Ukrainian troops killed since start of Russian invasion

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed in action in the two years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion. Zelenskyy said that the number was far lower than estimates given by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s government. “31,000 Ukrainian military personnel have been killed in this war. Not 300,000, not 150,000, not whatever Putin and his deceitful circle have been lying about. But nevertheless, each of these losses is a great sacrifice for us”, Zelenskyy said at the “Ukraine. Year 2024” forum in Kyiv. The Ukrainian leader said that he wouldn’t disclose the number of troops that were wounded or missing. He also said that “tens of thousands of civilians” had been killed in occupied areas of Ukraine, but said that no exact figures would be available until the war was over. “We don’t know how many of our civilians they killed. We don’t,” he said. It’s the first time that Kyiv has confirmed the number of its losses since the start of Russia’s full-scale war …

Tax-free status of movie, music and games traded online is on table as WTO nations meet in Abu Dhabi

Tax-free status of movie, music and games traded online is on table as WTO nations meet in Abu Dhabi

Published by skeptic

GENEVA (AP) — Since late last century and the early days of the web, providers of digital media like Netflix and Spotify have had a free pass when it comes to international taxes on films, video games and music that are shipped across borders through the internet. But now, a global consensus on the issue may be starting to crack. As the World Trade Organization opens its latest biannual meeting of government ministers Monday, its longtime moratorium on duties on e-commerce products — which has been renewed almost automatically since 1998 — is coming under pressure as never before. This week in Abu Dhabi, the WTO’s 164 member countries will take up a number of key issues: Subsidies that encourage overfishing. Reforms to make agricultural markets fairer and more eco-friendly. And efforts to revive the Geneva-based trade body’s system of resolving disputes among countries. All of those are tall orders, but the moratorium on e-commerce duties is perhaps the matter most in play. It centers on “electronic transmissions” — music, movies, video games and the …

Portugal election 2024: Corruption scandals cast a shadow over ballot

Portugal election 2024: Corruption scandals cast a shadow over ballot

Published by skeptic

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — The official two-week campaign period before Portugal’s early general election began on Sunday, with the country’s two moderate mainstream parties once again expected to collect the most votes but with the expected rise of a populist party potentially adding momentum to Europe’s drift to the right. The center-left Socialist Party and center-right Social Democratic Party have alternated in power for decades. But they are unsure of how much support they might need from smaller rival parties for the parliamentary votes needed to form a government after the March 10 vote. Corruption scandals have cast a shadow over the ballot. They have also fed public disenchantment with the country’s political class as Portugal prepares to celebrate 50 years of democracy, following the Carnation Revolution that toppled a rightist dictatorship on April 25, 1974. The election is being held after a Socialist government collapsed last November following a corruption investigation. That case brought a police search of Prime Minister António Costa’s official residence and the arrest of his chief of staff. Costa hasn’t …