People sit on beds after evacuation from the frontline at a center for displaced people in Pavlohrad, Ukraine, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)Maloletka)2025-02-02T08:54:35Z KYIV, Ukraine (AP) Competing claims emerged over a deadly attack on a boarding school in Sudzha, a city in Russias Kursk region that has been under Ukrainian control for five months, with Ukraine and Russia accusing each other of carrying out the strike.The General Staff of Ukraines Armed Forces said Saturday night that four people were killed and a further four seriously wounded in the strike, with 84 people rescued by Ukrainian servicemen from the rubble of the building. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Moscow had bombed the boarding school where civilians were sheltering and preparing to evacuate.The General Staff said those in need of additional medical assistance were evacuated to medical facilities in Ukraine.The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed in the early hours of Sunday that it was Ukrainian forces that had launched a missile strike on the school, saying that the missiles were launched from Ukraines Sumy region. Meanwhile, the death toll from a Russian missile strike on an apartment block in the Ukrainian city of Poltava on Saturday rose to 12, including two children, Ukraines State Emergency Service said Sunday. Seventeen people were injured in the attack on the five-story building, it said. Moscow sent 55 drones into Ukraine overnight into Sunday, Ukrainian officials said. According to Ukraines Air Force, 40 drones were destroyed during the overnight attacks. A further 13 drones were lost, likely having been electronically jammed. Two people were wounded in a drone attack in the Kharkiv region, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said Sunday.In Russia, the Defense Ministry said that five Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight in five regions of western Russia: three over the Kursk region, and one each over the Belgorod and Bryansk regions.A man was killed in a drone strike in the Belgorod region, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

A medical worker disinfects a tent used for suspected Ebola victims inside the Ebola isolation center of Madudu Health Center III, in the village of Madudu, in the Mubende district of Uganda Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Hajarah Nalwadda, File)2025-02-02T11:00:57Z KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) Ugandan officials are preparing to deploy a trial vaccine as part of efforts to stem an outbreak of Ebola in the capital, Kampala, a top health official said Sunday.A range of scientists are developing research protocols relating to the planned deployment of more than 2,000 doses of a candidate vaccine against the Sudan strain of Ebola, said Pontiano Kaleebu, executive director of Uganda Virus Research Institute.Protocol is being accelerated to get all the necessary regulatory approvals, he said. This vaccine is not yet licensed.The World Health Organization said in a statement that its support to Ugandas response to the outbreak includes access to 2,160 doses of trial vaccine.Research teams have been deployed to the field to work along with the surveillance teams as approvals are awaited, the WHO statement said. The candidate vaccine as well as candidate treatments are being made available through clinical trial protocols to further test for efficacy and safety, it said.The vaccine maker wasnt immediately known. There are no approved vaccines for the Sudan strain of Ebola that killed a nurse employed at Kampalas main referral hospital. The man died on Wednesday and authorities declared an outbreak the next day. Officials are still investigating the source of the outbreak, and there has been no other confirmed case. Uganda has had access to candidate vaccine doses since the end of an Ebola outbreak in September 2022 that killed at least 55 people. Ugandan officials ran out of time to begin a vaccine study when that outbreak, in central Uganda, was declared over about four months later, Kaleebu said. A trial vaccine known as rVSV-ZEBOV, used to vaccinate 3,000 people at risk of infection during an outbreak of the Zaire strain of Ebola in eastern Congo between 2018 and 2020, proved effective in containing the spread of the disease there. Uganda has had multiple Ebola outbreaks, including one in 2000 that killed hundreds. The 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,000 people, the diseases largest death toll.Tracing contacts is also key to stemming the spread of Ebola, which manifests as a viral hemorrhagic fever.At least 44 contacts of the victim in the current outbreak have been identified, including 30 health workers and patients, according to Ugandas Ministry of Health.Confirmation of Ebola in Uganda is the latest in a series of outbreaks of viral hemorrhagic fevers in the east African region. Tanzania declared an outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg disease earlier this month, while in December Rwanda announced that its own outbreak of Marburg was over. The ongoing Marburg outbreak in northern Tanzanias Kagera region has killed at least two people, according to local health authorities.Kampalas outbreak could prove difficult to respond to, because the city has a highly mobile population of about 4 million. The nurse who died had sought treatment at a hospital just outside Kampala and later traveled to Mbale, in the countrys east, where he was admitted to a public hospital. Health authorities said the man also sought the services of a traditional healer. Ebola is spread by contact with bodily fluids of an infected person or contaminated materials. Symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, muscle pain and at times internal and external bleeding.Scientists dont know the natural reservoir of Ebola, but they suspect the first person infected in an outbreak acquired the virus through contact with an infected animal or eating its raw meat.Ebola was discovered in 1976 in two simultaneous outbreaks in South Sudan and Congo, where it occurred in a village near the Ebola River, after which the disease is named.

Cadets at the Basic and Advanced Flying School for Negro Air Corps Cadets are shown, Jan. 23, 1942, lined up for review with Major James A. Ellison, who is returning the salute of Mac Ross of Dayton, Ohio, as he inspects the cadets. (AP Photo/U.S. Army Signal Corps)2025-02-02T13:34:20Z TUSKEGEE, Ala. (AP) The tails of the Alabama Air National Guards F-35 Lightnings are painted red, like those of the Guards F-16s before them. Its an homage to the famed Alabama-based unit of the Tuskegee Airmen, who flew red-tailed P-51 Mustangs during World War II.The squadron, which trained in the state, was the nations first to be comprised of Black military pilots, shattering racial barriers and racist beliefs about the capabilities of Black pilots. Their success in combat paved the way for the desegregation of the U.S. military, a story that is interwoven in state and U.S. history. Yet for a moment after President Donald Trump took office, that history was almost scrubbed by the Air Force.The service removed training videos of the Tuskegee Airmen along with ones showing the World War II contributions of the Womens Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, at its basic training base in San Antonio, where airmen have passed through for generations. Although the move was swiftly rescinded after a bipartisan outcry, the fact that it happened even momentarily is evidence of the confusion resulting from the avalanche of executive orders and other actions from Trump since he began his second term in the White House. The administration has been forced to walk back some actions that have caused widespread chaos, such as a memorandum freezing federal grants and loans. The specific one that led to the Air Force decision also was met with with a mix of alarm and confusion over its meaning. The order calls for an end to diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the federal government, including with any contractors or organizations that receive any federal money. In addition to the Air Forces action, the Army pulled its sexual assault regulations off websites before restoring them. A notice from the Defense Intelligence Agency said it was pausing until further notice special observances that included Black History Month, Womens History Month, Holocaust Days of Remembrance, Womens Equality Day and National American Indian Heritage Month. There were reports that employees at the CIA were notified there would be no Black History Month acknowledgements. A CIA spokesman said in a statement that the the agency was complying with the order and OPM Implementing Guidance, referring to the Office of Personnel Management. The Office of Diversity and Inclusion has been dissolved, along with component DEI programs, the CIA statement said.The wide sweep of reactions to Trumps DEI order alarmed those who have fought for inclusion and recognition for decades and who fear that more than efforts to diversify the federal workforce are at stake. In some cases, the actions taken to comply with the directive risk whitewashing parts of the nations history and culture.Adia Harvey Wingfield, a professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, said a 2023 Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions was clear on restricting opportunities to specific groups. But she said its a far cry from that to not including information about groups that are basic parts of history like the Tuskegee Airmen. She said many places are unclear about exactly where the legal landscape stands, but very aware about the political landscape and wanting to make sure that they are not doing things that will attract attention, negative press or negative responses from the Trump administration.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said some agencies may have gone too far in reacting to the DEI executive order.As far as I know, this White House certainly still intends to celebrate, and we will continue to celebrate American history and the contributions that all Americans, regardless of race, religion, or creed, have made to our great country, she said during a media briefing. Yet confusion continued. On Friday, Trump issued a proclamation recognizing Black History Month, while on the same day the Defense Department issued a news release proclaiming Identity Months Dead at DOD. The Air Forces initial action was one of the most publicized when it took down DEI courses that included videos about the Tuskegee Airmen and the WASPs. In later announcing the reversal, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin said in a statement that the initial removal was because the service, like other agencies, had to move swiftly to comply with Trumps executive order with no equivocation, no slow-rolling, no foot-dragging.Speaking Friday on Fox & Friends, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Tuskegee Airmen were an example of courageous merit and that cutting their video was something I like to call malicious implementation.An outfit like the Tuskegee Airmen, we will salute and we will elevate, Hegseth said. And we want every service member to understand what they did. Thats very different than the DEI programs. Amy McGrath, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel who was the first woman to fly an F-18 fighter plane in combat, said the move by the Air Force was understandable because military leaders are trying to avoid missteps with the new administration.Theyre afraid that if they do basic leadership, which is embracing everyone no matter what race, no matter what religion, no matter what gender, thats going to be labeled as woke or Marxist, said McGrath, who was the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Kentucky in 2020 against Republican incumbent Mitch McConnell.Including the historical achievements of the Tuskegee Airmen or WASPs never should have been in question, said McGrath, a Naval Academy graduate, adding that she venerated the WASPs.They provided an extraordinary service to our country because there were not enough pilots, men or women, to do the jobs that we needed done, she said, noting that the women did not receive veterans benefits.Lisa Taylor, executive director of the National WASP WWII Museum in Sweetwater, Texas, said she was incredulous when she heard the content might be removed from the training base.The stories are historical and also uplifting and inspiring for all men and women who have found themselves wondering if they were good enough socially, mentally and technologically, she said. They are the anecdotes that might provide someone with the final push to take the next step in becoming who she or he longs to be.She said she was relieved when the training material was restored.All around Tuskegee, the accomplishments of the Black fighter squadron are celebrated amid the states complex history.The National Park Service has a museum at the site where the airmen trained that tells of the pilots combat success and their struggles in a segregated nation. Tuskegees town square has a historic marker that describes the airmen as part of the citys rich history.The decision to remove the videos was met with disbelief from some of the descendants of those who were part of the squadronI was angry, said Alysyn Harvey-Greene. Her 101-year-old father, retired Air Force Lt. Col. James Harvey III, was one of the original Tuskegee Airmen. Its been very disturbing. We fought for so long to get this history out.Harvey finished his pilot training as the war in Europe was winding down, but flew combat missions in Korea. In 1949, he and other Tuskegee Airmen won the Air Forces inaugural Fighter Gunnery Top Gun Meet where the best Air Force pilot teams competed but were not recognized as the winner for 73 years.For so long, we were not able to tell the story, Harvey-Greene said.Janet Harrison, a retired state worker who lives in Tuskegee and was at the town square on a recent day, said she wishes more were taught about Black history, especially the contributions during World War II. She described her spirit being lifted when the training center in Texas reversed its decision and restored the videos.But the weariness was palpable as she spoke about her initial thoughts when hearing they had been removed: When is this going to stop?-Fields reported from Washington.___Associated Press writers Tara Copp and Aamer Madhani, in Washington, Jocelyn Gecker, in San Francisco, and Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan, contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)2025-02-02T12:54:51Z WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trumps second week in office seemed to deliver a daily dose of shock therapy for the country.There were chaotic reminders of his first term. The White House found itself backtracking on its directive to freeze federal spending on grants and loans. And the Republican president indulged unsupported accusations after a deadly plane crash near Washington. Trump also escalated his moves against the institutions that he was elected to lead. His administration ousted prosecutors who worked on Capitol riot cases and laid the groundwork for purging FBI agents. Elon Musk, Trumps billionaire ally, began efforts to dramatically downsize the federal workforce.Some takeaways from week No. 2: New administration, old problemsTrump and his team had impressed even some of their critics with a steady stream of executive orders in their first week. The administration seemed better organized and more effective than the last time Trump was president.But in his second week, Trumps White House stumbled over itself with a confusing memo that was intended to freeze federal funding, causing disruptions and leading to lawsuits. A judge temporarily blocked the directive, and the memo was quickly rescinded. Then, Trump responded to the deadliest American aviation disaster in decades by baselessly blaming diversity initiatives, demonstrating his willingness to shoehorn tragedy into his personal political crusades.The cascade of controversy and outrage recalled some of the more infamous moments of Trumps first term, such as the chaos of his initial travel ban on people from Muslim countries and his freewheeling briefings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump tries remaking WashingtonThroughout the 2024 campaign, Trump made it clear that he would not settle for making small tweaks in Washington. He wanted dramatic change, particularly in institutions such as the Justice Department that he felt had wronged him over the years. Once he was back in office, the first step was pardoning nearly everyone charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. In the past week his administration went even further. Prosecutors were pushed out, and top FBI officials were ordered to retire or be fired. A senior Justice Department official who previously worked on Trumps legal defense team asked for the names of every FBI agent who worked on Jan. 6 cases. Other shakeups were reported across the nations capital. A top Treasury official quit and federal websites were scrubbed of gender ideology. There appeared to be few, if any, limits to how far Trump and his allies would go to remake Washington.When in doubt, blame DEIAs Trump deals with various challenges facing the country, he has repeatedly pointed to efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in society, or DEI, as the root cause of a multitude of problems.One of Trumps earliest moves upon retaking the Oval Office was to issue orders to undo the federal governments DEI efforts. Trump and his supporters suggested such initiatives are discriminatory and lead to incompetence.His administration is so intent on eradicating it from government that it is requiring federal workers to report any surreptitious DEI programs that continue. But he hasnt stopped there. While investigators were just getting started on investigating the cause of a midair collision near Reagan National Airport between an Army helicopter and a jetliner, Trump began speculating that federal diversity and inclusion efforts were somehow to blame. The president could not back up those claims when repeatedly pressed on it by reporters in the White House briefing room. When asked why he thought diversity had something to do with the crash, he said, Because I have common sense. OK?A day earlier, Trump reprimanded Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell over inflation and again pointed to DEI, saying on his social media network that if the Fed had spent less time on DEI and other liberal issues, inflation would never have been a problem. Trump had his first big flopPunctuating the week was the Trump administrations first big policy setback: the abrupt freeze, and then unfreezing, of federal grant funds amid a public revolt. Communities across the nation depend on federal grants and loans to run a vast array of programs and services, from housing and veterans services to community health care centers. The sudden spending pause announced in an Office of Management and Budget memo sent shockwaves coast to coast.Every corner of the country is feeling the wrath of Donald Trumps cruel plan, said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York at a news conference at the Capitol.The memo was rescinded, although the underlying Trump executive orders to clamp down on spending that does not align with his policies on climate, DEI and more do remain. The White House about-face showed the limits of the administrations broader effort to reduce the size and scope of government.Rolling back government in the abstract is one thing. But cutting programs that deliver services to veterans, parents, children, older adults and others is a totally different political equation. A fork in the road for federal workersTrump campaigned on dismantling the deep state, and the federal workforce got a large dose this past week of just how disruptive that effort will be.The new administration had already imposed a federal hiring freeze. Then, millions of federal employees got a fork in the road email shortly after business hours ended on Monday offering them eight months of paid leave if they agreed to resign. Those who quit were promised they would be paid through Sept. 30. They would not necessarily be required to work and could seek new employment in the meantime. But there were broad concerns about the legality of the offer and whether Trump was trying to create a toxic work environment.Employees have to decide whether to take the deal by Thursday. Those who opt to stay will be required to work from the office full time and face enhanced standards of suitability and conduct. The email also warned that future downsizing of the governmental workforce was likely.Thats on top of the administration ordering federal officials overseeing DEI efforts to be placed on leave.Asked Friday if he was worried too many experienced federal workers would leave, Trump replied, Everybodys replaceable. Well get good people to replace them if it turns out to be more. ... But wed love to have them leave.Is America stuck in a trade war?Trump once famously posted on social media that trade wars are good, and easy to win a claim that hes now putting to the test against Canada and Mexico after imposing tariffs that within hours led to retaliatory measures by those two countries.Trump said the tariffs are about stopping the illicit smuggling of fentanyl, as well as preventing illegal immigration on the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada. The president on Saturday put 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, with a lesser 10% rate on Canadian oil, natural gas and electricity. China faces a 10% tariff.Those moves almost immediately angered Mexico and Canada, Americas two largest trading partners who had previously negotiated a deal with Trump during his first term. Both levied retaliatory tariffs. Hockey fans at the Ottawa Senators game in Canada booed the U.S. national anthem. The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, encouraged his citizens to buy Canadian.They are up against a U.S. president who really loves tariffs. He is already promising more import taxes on computer chips, steel, copper, pharmaceutical drugs and the European Union. His administration has yet to explain why these taxes will not worsen the inflation he was elected to fix. The Budget Lab at Yale University estimates Trumps tariffs would cost the average American household $1,000 to $1,200 in annual purchasing power. ___Price reported from New York. Associated Press writer Josh Boak in Palm Beach, Florida, and AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report. MICHELLE L. PRICE Price is a national political reporter for The Associated Press. She is based in New York. twitter mailto CHRIS MEGERIAN Megerian covers the White House for The Associated Press. He previously wrote about the Russia investigation, climate change, law enforcement and politics in California and New Jersey. twitter mailto WILL WEISSERT Weissert covers national politics and the White House for The Associated Press. He is based in Washington. twitter mailto

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses media members after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order to impose stiff tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada and China, in Ottawa, Canada, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)2025-02-02T16:04:16Z TORONTO (AP) Canadas prime minister and Mexicos president ordered retaliatory tariffs on goods from the U.S., following through with their threats after U.S. Donald Trump sparked a trade war by imposing sweeping tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China.Canada had been proactively saying for months that it would respond to any tariffs on Washingtons North American allies, while Mexico followed a more cautious approach. But in the end both nations did what they had anticipated: retaliate. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum spoke by phone Saturday after Trumps administration imposed sweeping tariffs 25% on goods from Canada and Mexico, and 10% on imports from China although there is still no indication the two countries are coordinating responses or will do concerted actions in coming days. Unlike Mexico, whose president only announced it will impose retaliatory tariffs without mentioning any rate nor products, Trudeau announced Canada will respond with 25% tariffs against $155 billion worth of American goods, including alcohol, furniture and orange juice, and he even suggested Canadians should not buy U.S. products or vacation in the U.S. Canada and Mexico ordered the tariffs late Saturday despite Trumps further threat to increase the duties charged if retaliatory levies are placed on American goods. We dont want to be here. We didnt ask for this. But we will not back down, Trudeau said late Saturday. Were certainly not looking to escalate but we will stand up for Canada.At the local level, some authorities in provinces like Ontario, British Columbia and Nova Scotia will remove American liquor brands from government store shelves. Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Sunday every year, the Liquor Control Board of Ontario sells nearly $1 billion worth of American wine, beer, spirts and seltzers. Not anymore, Ford said in a statement. Starting Tuesday, were removing American products from LCBO shelves. As the only wholesaler of alcohol in the province, LCBO will also remove American products from its catalogue so other Ontario-based restaurants and retailers cant order or restock U.S. products.And besides the official responses, people are already thinking on their own ways to face Trumps decision, and one of the initial reactions has been to share in social media lists with alternatives to American products.Trudeau, in fact, addressed Americans directly, saying they the tariffs will have real consequences for you. Careful Trudeau. The Texas economy is larger than Canadas. And were not afraid to use it. Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott posted on X after Trudeau spoke. Canadians are feeling an undeniable sense of betrayal from their one-time closest allies and friends. Trudeau reminded Americans that Canadian troops fought alongside them in Afghanistan and helped respond to myriad crises from wildfires in California to Hurricane Katrina.Canadian hockey fans booed the American national anthem at two National Hockey League games on Saturday night. In Mexico, the official public approach to Trumps tariff threat has been different , limiting public statements to saying the government was prepared for whatever was coming and that it would ensure the country was respected.Recalling how in 2019 Mexico was ultimately able to avoid Trumps tariff threat by adding immigration control to the responsibilities of its newly formed National Guard, Mexico was hoping to dodge the tariffs again or at least find a way to get them lifted quickly.But the accusation of criminal alliances with Sheinbaums administration pushed her to punch back. She called on the U.S. to clean up its own problems with drugs and guns and keep its nose out of Mexico. Trump said he was imposing the tariffs to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs across both the southern and nothern U.S. borders. Beyond the tariffs, academics and diplomats in Mexico harshly criticized the retaliation clause Trump included that threatened to raise tariff levels even higher if the targets hit back. Martha Brcena, former Mexico ambassador to the U.S. during Trumps first term, said its very delicate because there has never been such a harsh official statement by the United States government against the Mexican government.It indicates not only a lack of trust, but the consideration of the Mexican government as a national security threat to the United States with all of its implications, Brcena said.The tariff announcement already stirred anxiety in some corners of Mexico.Thor Salayandia, leader of a business collective in Ciudad Juarez along Mexicos northern border, said the tariffs are going to cause more havoc along the border because 60% of the formal employment is in the assembly plants.That factories that are able to go are going to go, he said. Gabriela Siller, director of economic analysis at the Mexican financial group Banco Base, said that the tariffs could trigger an economic crisis in Mexico, resulting in a blow for key industries, rising unemployment and price hikes.In the short term, Sheinbaums government would likely have to apply a countercyclical fiscal policy in Mexico so that there would not be a crash and take on mounting debt, Siller said.In the long term, the government would need to seek out new trade agreements, but over-dependence on trade ties with the U.S. will make it hard for Mexico to quickly diversify exports, she said.After Trump won the election in November, Canadian leaders openly said Mexico was the problem on trade and the border, not Canada. And some have continued to say so.I can assure you what President Trump underestimates -- the resilience of the Canadian people, the strength of the Canadian people. No matter what political stripe, we come from Canada, were united, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said. I can tell the American people, Canada is not the problem. The problem is the Mexican border and China. Thats where the problem is.The trade war comes as Canada is entering an election cycle. Trudeaus Liberal Party will announce a new leader on March 9 and a spring election is expected. The tariffs imposed by the United States today are a clear violation of our trade agreements and require the most serious trade and economic responses in our history, said Mark Carney, considered the frontrunner to replace Trudeau. Canada will not bow down to a bully. ____Verza contributed from Mexico City. AP writers Megan Janetsky and Fabiola Snchez also contributed from Mexico City.

President Donald Trump in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)2025-02-02T15:59:51Z PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) President Donald Trump said Sunday that Americans could feel some pain from the emerging trade war triggered by his tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China, and claimed that Canada would cease to exist without its trade surplus with the United States.The trade penalties that Trump signed Saturday at his Florida resort caused a mix of panic, anger and uncertainty, and threatened to rupture a decades-old partnership on trade in North America while further straining relations with China. But by following through on a campaign pledge, Trump may have simultaneously broken his promise to voters in last years election that his administration could quickly reduce inflation.WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!), Trump said in a social media post. BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID. His administration has not said how high that price could be or what improvements would need to be seen in stopping illegal immigration and the smuggling of fentanyl to merit the removal of the tariffs that Trump imposed under the legal justification of an economic emergency. The tariffs are set to launch Tuesday. In his Truth Social post, Trump took particular aim at Canada, which responded with retaliatory measures. Trump is placing a 25% tariff on Canadian goods, with a 10% tax on oil, natural gas and electricity. Canada is imposing 25% tariffs on more than $155 billion on U.S. products, including alcohol and fruit. Trump railed against Canadas trade surplus with the United States: We dont need anything they have. We have unlimited Energy, should make our own Cars, and have more Lumber than we can ever use.Despite Trumps claim that the U.S does not need Canada, one-quarter of the oil that the America consumes per day is from its ally to the north. Trump contended that without that surplus, Canada ceases to exist as a viable Country. Harsh but true! Therefore, Canada should become our Cherished 51st State. Much lower taxes, and far better military protection for the people of Canada AND NO TARIFFS!Canadas ambassador to Washington has said the U.S. had a $75 billion trade deficit with Canada last year, but noted that one-third of what Canada sells into the U.S. is energy exports and that there is a deficit when oil prices are high. About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada.Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is encouraging Canadians to buy more Canadian goods, and says Trumps moves will only cause pain across North America. More than 75% of Canadas exports go to the U.S. It is going to have real consequences for people, for workers on both sides of our border, Trudeau said Saturday night. We dont want to be here. We didnt ask for this but we will not back down in standing up both for Canadians and for the incredible successful relationship between Canada and the United States.Mexicos president, Claudia Sheinbaum, also announced new tariffs and suggested the U.S. should do more within its own borders to address drug addiction. The Chinese government said it would take steps to defend its economic interests and intends to file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization.For Trump, the open question is whether inflation could be a political pressure point that would cause him to back down. As a candidate, Trump repeatedly hammered Democrats over the inflation under President Joe Biden that resulted from supply chain issues during the coronavirus pandemic, the Biden administrations own spending to spur the recovery and Russias invasion of Ukraine.Trump said his previous four years as president had low inflation, so the public should expect the same if he came back to the White House. But he also said specifically that higher inflation would stagger the U.S. as a nation, a position from which he now appears to be retreating with the tariffs.Inflation is a disaster, he said at a Philadelphia campaign rally. Its a country-buster. Its a total country-buster. Outside analyses make clear that Trumps tariffs would hurt the voters that he intended to help, meaning that he might ultimately need to find a resolution.An analysis by the Budget Lab at Yale shows, if the tariffs were to continue, an average U.S. household would lose roughly $1,245 in income this year, in what would be the overall equivalent of a more than $1.4 trillion tax increase over the next 10 years.Goldman Sachs, in a Sunday analyst note, stressed that the tariffs go into effect on Tuesday, which means theyre likely to proceed though a last-minute compromise cannot be completely ruled out. The investment bank concluded that because of the possible economic damage and possible conditions for removal that we think it is more likely that the tariffs will be temporary but the outlook is unclear.___Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report. JOSH BOAK Boak covers the White House and economic policy for The Associated Press. He joined the AP in 2013. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

USAID humanitarian aid destined for Venezuela is displayed for the media at a warehouse next to the Tienditas International Bridge on the outskirts of Cucuta, Colombia, Feb. 19, 2019. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)2025-02-02T17:31:31Z WASHINGTON (AP) The Trump administration has placed two top security chiefs at the U.S. Agency for International Development on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Elon Musks government-inspection teams, a current and a former U.S. official told The Associated Press on Sunday.Members of Musks Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, eventually did gain access Saturday to the aid agencys classified information, which includes intelligence reports, the former official said.Musks DOGE crew lacked high-enough security clearance to access that information, so the two USAID security officials John Vorhees and deputy Brian McGill were legally obligated to deny access.The current and former U.S. officials had knowledge of the incident and spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share the information. It comes a day after DOGE carried out a similar operation at the Treasury Department, gaining access to sensitive information including the Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems.Musk formed DOGE in cooperation with the new Trump administration with the stated goal of finding ways to fire federal workers, cut programs and slash federal regulations.___AP Diplomatic Writer Matthew Lee in Panama City contributed to this report. ELLEN KNICKMEYER Knickmeyer covers foreign policy and national security for the Associated Press. She is based in Washington, D.C. twitter

Republican State Sen. Nicole Akins Boyd of Oxford, stares at a projected slide bearing fiscal budget numbers during a Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, meeting of the Mississippi Joint Legislative Budget Committee, while other members review their personal copies of the proposed fiscal year 2026 Budget Recommendation, in Jackson, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)2025-02-02T05:12:38Z JACKSON, Miss. (AP) Women represent half of the U.S. population but its still rare for them to have leading roles in setting taxes or budgets in some states.Take Mississippi, for example. Only one woman currently serves on the 14-member Joint Legislative Budget Committee. The elite group makes the first recommendations on how much money the state should spend on schools, prisons, Medicaid and other programs, giving these lawmakers substantial influence over their colleagues and over the lives of people who use government services.Second-term Sen. Nicole Akins Boyd was appointed to the committee by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, a fellow Republican who said he did not consider whether to choose a balance of men and women.I dont look at it so much like, We need a woman here, or something like that, Hosemann said. I look at the abilities and there are plenty of people that have great abilities, male and female. Nicole Boyd, I believe, is outstanding. Just over 2,400 women are serving in state legislatures across the U.S., or about 33% of the total, according to the Center for American Women and Politics, at Rutgers University. Almost 1,600 are Democrats, just over 800 are Republicans and the others are nonpartisan or independent. Last year, when 31% of state lawmakers nationwide were women, they held about 30% of the seats on committees overseeing taxes, revenues and other financial matters, according to a review by The Associated Press. But participation varies widely by state, and by session. In Utah, women held only 5% of those seats in 2024. This year, they hold 28%. In Nevada, 62% of finance-related seats were held by women when the Legislature last met in 2023.Jean Sinzdak, associate director of The Center for American Women and Politics, notes that people who serve in legislatures for a long time tend to receive the most desired committee assignments.Anything budget- and appropriations-related is always one at the top, Sinzdak said. And so part of the challenge of getting more women is that women havent been serving as long and in the numbers needed. Women add to the conversationMississippi has the third-lowest percentage of women in its legislature, at 15%, according to the center. The only states behind it are South Carolina, with 13%, and West Virginia, with 11%. All together, women hold just over 11% of seats on Mississippis five money committees: Joint Legislative Budget, House and Senate Appropriations, House Ways and Means and Senate Finance.Mississippi has never had a woman as governor or House speaker. Only two women have been elected lieutenant governor, decades ago. All of those roles are crucial to setting taxes and budgets.Look, I want to see more women there because I think we add to the conversation, Boyd said. We work together differently, and I think those are all good things for the Legislature.For example, women in the Mississippi Legislature banded together in 2023 to secure money for evidence testing in rape cases when a backlog at the state crime lab was delaying trials.Our male colleagues supported us just as strongly, Boyd said. Money committees arent the only way to serveIn West Virginia, Republican Delegate Kathie Hess Crouse said she believes women generally get the committee assignments they ask for. The low number of women on tax and budget committees is not only due to the fact that few serve in the legislature, but also because female lawmakers sometimes prioritize other committees, she said.Thats the case for Hess Crouse, who chaired the House Committee on Workforce Development and served on other committees focusing on energy, manufacturing and government organization last year. She said legislative leadership has conversations with all the GOP lawmakers before the session starts and asks what their interests are. She always has received her top picks; it just so happens finance is not one of them.Do I like money? Yes, Crouse said. I do my home budget. I dont necessarily like it, but I do it. I file my own taxes normally. I work on those things, but its not my main interest area. So do I want to serve on finance? No, I have interests elsewhere. Women are taking the lead in some statesThe balance is different in Nevada, which in 2019 became the first state where a majority of legislators were women.That is reflected on key committees. Women have most of the seats on the Assemblys Revenue and Ways and Means committees. And they hold seven of eight seats on the Senates finance committee, including the entire Democratic delegation on the committee.The chair, Sen. Marilyn Dondero Loop, said there could be areas, such as breast cancer funding, where female lawmakers might be more likely to put taxpayer money because of their personal connections to the issue. But she said she doesnt approach her work thinking about gender.Whenever I vote and my other colleagues vote, Dondero Loop said, we do it solely as being a Nevadan and making things better. Elizabeth Steiner served as co-chair of the Oregon Legislatures Ways and Means Committee, which handles money matters and has members from the House and Senate, before being elected state treasurer last year. She said its important for womens personal and professional life experiences to be brought into state decision-making. If you dont include 50% of the population, the perspective of 50% of the population in your decision-making, then youre really disadvantaging everybody: men and women, and certainly children, said Steiner, a Democrat. Other states also have women in prominent roles. In Alaska, a Republican woman was one of three co-chairs of the House Finance Committee last year. Connecticut has two Democratic women leading the Appropriations Committee and another co-chairing the Finance Committee. Vermont had two Democratic women in charge of the Appropriations committees for 2023-24.South Carolina has never had a woman chair a money committee. Three served on the 25-person House Ways and Means Committee in 2024. A Republican woman was rising in the 23-member Senate Finance Committee, but she took a stand against a total abortion ban and lost her primary along with the only two other Republican women in the South Carolina Senate.___Associated Press reporters contributing to this report include Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut; Leah Willingham in Charleston, West Virginia; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City; Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey; and Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon.___The Associated Press women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

National flags representing the United States, Canada, and Mexico fly in the breeze in New Orleans where leaders of the North American Free Trade Agreement met on April 21, 2008. (AP Photo/Judi Bottoni, File)2025-02-02T17:28:56Z PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) With a trio of executive orders, President Donald Trump has almost instantly thrown the world economy and his own goal of cutting inflation into turmoil.His tariffs against Canada and Mexico in order to stop illegal immigration and the illicit fentanyl trade led to retaliatory taxes by both countries on U.S. imports. He placed an additional 10% tariff on imports from China with the stated goal of stopping the production of fentanyl.But on a deeper level, Trump suddenly hit the U.S. economy with tax increases that, if sustained, could total more than $1 trillion in 10 years. He did so without congressional approval and by his own acknowledgement at the perilous chance of some pain in the form of higher inflation, job losses and worse growth.Heres an explanation of what Trumps executive orders say and how they work: What is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act?This is the 1977 law that helped enable Trump to declare an economic emergency in the executive orders and implement his tariffs. There are more than three dozen active emergencies, including measures taken to respond to the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, human rights violations in Venezuela, nuclear weapon development in North Korea and multiple actions taken by China and Russia.The law enables a president to freeze and block transactions in response to unusual and extraordinary threats outside the United States. What are the tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China?The tariffs would start at the beginning of Tuesday.There would be an additional 25% tariff on imports from Canada, with a lower 10% charge on the oil, natural gas, electricity and other energy products. Energy products were taxed at a lower level to prevent U.S. consumers and businesses from paying higher prices for gasoline and utilities. Mexican imports would face an additional 25% tax. China would face an additional 10% tariff.While Trump has said that foreigners pay these taxes, the tariffs would be paid by the individuals and companies bringing in the goods which means this would be a domestic tax increase. Why were the tariffs imposed?Trumps orders say the tariffs are a consequence of illegal immigration and drug smuggling. Not everyone will agree with his reasoning, as U.S. government reports show that unauthorized border crossings from Mexico have fallen over the past year and seizures of fentanyl along the northern border are relatively low.But Trumps order on Mexico says that drug traffickers and the countrys government have an intolerable alliance that endangers the national security of the United States, and we must eradicate the influence of these dangerous cartels. His order on Canada says that Mexican cartels are operating in that country and claims despite the modest amount of fentanyl intercepted that it would be enough to kill 9.5 million Americans. The order on China says that countrys government provides a safe haven for criminal organizations to launder the revenues from the production, shipment, and sale of illicit synthetic opioids.Those are the stated legal reasons, but Trump has expressed a deep admiration to tariffs in general, claiming that they would make the United States wealthier even though they are tax hikes that can be passed along to consumers and businesses in the form of higher prices. Could the tariffs be increased?Yes. The orders are very clear that the U.S. president can respond to retaliatory actions which are already planned as Canada and Mexico have their own counter-tariffs ready for U.S. products. Should they take action, Trump may increase or expand in scope the duties imposed under this order. Whats key here is that the tariffs wouldnt increase automatically. It would still be the U.S. presidents choice.Whats this de minimus language mean?This is an important clause in the orders. When people import goods worth less than $800, like say a dress bought online from a European retailer, they dont pay customs and duties on their purchase. This is legally known as the de minimus treatment, which suggests that the cost of whats being imported is too low to merit a tariff. That exclusion would no longer apply to products imported from Canada, Mexico and China. Can Congress stop the tariffs?It would require a new law that Trump would have to sign, which seems unlikely based on his statements. Still, Congress will have some oversight responsibilities as the order requires the Homeland Security Department in consultation with other agencies to submit recurring and final reports to the Congress on the national emergency.How can the tariffs be lifted?The administration has not set any benchmarks for the other countries to meet, though a senior official suggested that declines in fentanyl-related deaths would be an option. What the order suggests is that the choice would ultimately be at Trumps discretion.It orders Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to consult with her counterparts at the State and Justice departments, as well as White House officials. This specifically refers to the post at Homeland Security, rather than Noem specifically. But she would be able to inform the U.S. president of whether adequate steps have been taken to address the emergencies. It would then be up to the president to determine whether to remove the tariffs. JOSH BOAK Boak covers the White House and economic policy for The Associated Press. He joined the AP in 2013. twitter mailto

Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants secure the area as Red Cross representatives wait for the handover of Thai and Israeli hostages in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday Jan. 30, 2025.(AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)2025-02-02T17:55:42Z LONDON (AP) Arbel Yehoud is achingly close to freedom, but her face is a study of shadow and terror. She is dwarfed by dozens of masked Hamas fighters and beyond them, a heaving mob of chanting men who surround her and fill the frame. In the next, Yehoud looks up at her captors, pleading. But video suggests theyre on the edge themselves, barely able to hold back the people impeding Yehouds dash to safety under the terms of a ceasefire deal. Cut to photos of her friends and family in Israel, watching the handover live hands over their mouths, breathless. Yehoud makes it into waiting vehicles, and then to Israel. Cue the governments images of her joyous reunion with her parents. The visuals out of Israel and Gaza during recent hostage-for-prisoner swaps were part of a choreographed battle of optics waged in parallel to the 16-month ground war between Israel and Hamas. Each side uses the light and shadow of images to make themselves look virtuous and strong and each other monstrous and weak. Its propaganda. But some images also tell the truth: The chaos during Yehouds release in Gaza on Thursday, for example, reflected the fragility of the ceasefire deal that took effect Jan. 19. All of this was filmed and intentionally shared, said Danielle Gilbert, an expert on hostage-taking at Northwestern University. Social scientists talk about the idea of a collapse of compassion. Audience pay more attention and are willing to take more of a risk to recover, or help, individual victims.Throughout history, both sides of hostage standoffs and POW releases have tried to capitalize on the plight of those in captivity by focusing on details of the names, faces, families and conditions of captivity. Even in war, branding is a potent force. Proof of life, or lack of it, injects urgency into negotiationsSince at least the kidnapping of Charles Lindberghs baby son in 1932, images of hostages have been pivotal elements of negotiations because they carry an intense emotional charge. We cant, for example, unsee images of bound and blindfolded Americans taken captive in Iran in 1979. Or the photo of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl holding up a newspaper, a sign of life, before his Islamic militant captors killed him in 2002. Or the image of a masked Arab commando, captured in black-and-white in 1972, on the balcony of the Munich Olympic Village building. Inside, a Palestinian group called Black September killed 11 Israeli team members. The Israel-Hamas media duel, waged heavily on social media, exploded the moment thousands of Hamas fighters defeated Israels borders on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people and dragging about 250 back to Gaza. Cameras anchored to the militants themselves, as well as phones hoisted by the Israelis under attack, captured the killing-and-hostage-taking spree in such detail that some viewers reported a type of trauma called vicarious or secondary trauma just from seeing them. Billions of American dollars and other aid have been influenced at least in part by public opinion, which has fluctuated over the course of the conflict. Anti-Israel protests raged around the world, antisemitism surged and disinformation about the conflict proliferated. The International Criminal Court last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his former defense minister and Hamas late military chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity in connection with the Gaza war. The embattled Israeli leader has vowed to fight the allegations. Israel has used images to argue that it was Hamas that waged crimes against humanity. Within a month of the attacks, the army compiled a film of the grisliest moments of the Hamas attack called Bearing Witness in English and The Film of Horrors in Hebrew. The Israeli government invited select journalists, diplomats and Hollywood executives to watch it at screenings in several countries. In Tel Aviv, a briefing on the film came as Israel cut off vital supplies to the Gaza Strip and pounded the territory with airstrikes. The film has provided a justification of sorts for Israels fierce tactics. Spectacles of strength, chaos and smiles Since the ceasefire began, Hamas has turned each round of hostage releases into a spectacle with large crowds, flags and smiling, waving hostages on stages. For the militants, its a chance to show off their survival as a fighting force and ongoing control of Gaza after 15 months of heavy fighting. At least 47,000 people have been killed by Israels bombardment of the enclave, according to local health officials, and nearly all of Gazas population has been displaced. The destruction has quieted under the ceasefire, but people in Gaza have little to return to after the airstrikes reduced much of the territory to rubble. The images of hostages being led through the crowds Thursday raised the question of whether Hamas is really in control. Netanyahu condemned the shocking scenes and called on international mediators to ensure the safety of hostages in future releases a commitment he said he later received.Saturdays hostage release proceeded smoothly, providing strong evidence that Hamas remains firmly in charge, and images of the handovers told more of the story.Hamas let three Israeli hostages go while on camera with certificates reading, release order. Ahead of the third release, seven masked men stood on a stage decorated with pictures of dead Hamas leaders and the sign Zionism will not win.Across the border, Israeli TV stations have filmed the emotional reunions, in which family and friends watching their loved ones releases on live television, shifting from tense quiet to excited cheers and, often, tears. There he is! shouted the wife of Keith Siegel, watching a TV screen as he was released. The government follows up with photos and videos of the traumatized ex-captives reuniting with their families in person, smiles hugs and tears on Israeli TV for hours in a recurring loop. Those scenes are only the start of long and difficult roads toward recovery for the hostages and the families. But the exuberant moments serve a purpose in a country where one stated goal of the war is to bring the hostages home, and where Israelis are bitterly divided over the slow pace of their return. Many hostage families have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war for his own political survival.In this conflict, the absence of images also tells a story. Yarden Bibas, 35, was one of the three hostages released with full choreography on Saturday. But theres been no word on the fate of his family. Their abduction, filmed by Hamas, has become a symbol of the brutality of the siege. In it, Shiri Bibas tearfully clutches her two red-haired sons Ariel, then 3, and Kfir, 9 months as Hamas fighters surround her. In November 2023, Hamas released a video of the boys father, Yarden, weeping on camera as he is told his family is dead. Israel has not confirmed their condition. On Saturday, Israel aired footage of Yarden in Israel, appearing weary with his eyes closed, stepping into the arms of his waiting family.___Associated Press writer Josef Federman contributed from Jerusalem. LAURIE KELLMAN Kellman has covered U.S. politics and foreign affairs for the Associated Press, including 23 years reporting from Washington and three from Jerusalem. She is based in London. twitter facebook mailto

A plane takes off from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport as Roberto Marquez of Dallas places flowers at a memorial of crosses he erected for the 67 victims of a midair collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines jet, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)2025-02-02T15:40:01Z ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) Families of victims of the deadliest U.S. air disaster in a nearly in 25 years visited the crash site Sunday just outside Washington, D.C.Dozens of people walked along the banks of the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport, close to where an American Airlines jet and an Army Black Hawk helicopter collided Wednesday, killing all 67 aboard.They arrived in buses with a police escort, memorializing loved ones as federal investigators work to piece together the events that led to the crash and recovery crews were set to pull more wreckage from the chilly water.Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Sunday said he wanted to leave federal aviation investigators space to conduct their inquiry.But he posed a range of questions about the crash while appearing on morning TV news programs.What was happening inside the towers? Were they understaffed? The position of the Black Hawk, the elevation of the Black Hawk, were the pilots of the Black Hawk wearing night vision goggles? Duffy asked on CNN. The American Airlines flight, with 64 people on board was preparing to land from Wichita, Kansas. The Army Black Hawk helicopter was on a training mission and had three soldiers on board. Both aircraft plunged to the Potomac River after colliding. The planes passengers included figure skaters returning from the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita, Kansas, and a group of hunters returning from a guided trip. Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin OHara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland; and Cpt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, were killed in the helicopter.The National Transportation Safety Board said Saturday that preliminary data showed conflicting readings about the altitudes of the airliner and the Army helicopter.Investigators also said that about a second before impact, the jets flight recorder showed a change in its pitch. But they did not say whether that change in angle meant that pilots were trying to perform an evasive maneuver to avoid the crash. Data from the jets flight recorder showed its altitude as 325 feet (99 meters), plus or minus 25 feet (7.6 meters), when the crash happened Wednesday night, NTSB officials told reporters. Data in the control tower, though, showed the Black Hawk at 200 feet (61 meters), the maximum allowed altitude for helicopters in the area.The discrepancy has yet to be explained.Investigators said they hoped to reconcile the difference with data from the helicopters black box, which is taking more time to retrieve because it became waterlogged after the Black Hawk plunged into the Potomac. They also said they plan to refine the tower data, which can be less reliable.Thats what our job is, to figure that out, NTSB member Todd Inman said.This is a complex investigation, investigator in charge Brice Banning said. There are a lot of pieces here. Our team is working hard to gather this data.Banning said the jets cockpit voice recorder captured sound moments before the crash. The crew had a verbal reaction, Banning said, and the flight data recorder showed the airplane beginning to increase its pitch. Sounds of impact were audible about one second later, followed by the end of the recording. Full NTSB investigations typically take at least a year, though investigators hope to have a preliminary report within 30 days.Inman said he spent hours meeting with victims families since the crash. The families are struggling, Inman said.Some wanted to give us hugs. Some are just mad and angry, Inman said. They are just all hurt. And they still want answers, and we want to give them answers.The remains of 42 people had been pulled from the river as of Saturday afternoon, including 38 that have been positively identified, officials said. They expect to recover all of the remains, though the planes fuselage will probably have to be pulled from the water to get the rest. More than 300 responders were taking part in the recovery effort at a given time, officials said. Two Navy salvage barges were also deployed to lift heavy wreckage. On Fox News Sunday, Duffy said the Federal Aviation Administration was looking into staffing in the Reagan Airport control tower.Investigators said there were five controllers on duty at the time of the crash: a local controller, ground controller, assistant controller, a supervisor and supervisor in training.According to an FAA report obtained by The Associated Press, one controller was responsible for helicopter and plane traffic. Those duties are often divided between two people but the airport typically combines them at 9:30 p.m., once traffic slows down. On Wednesday, the tower supervisor combined them earlier, which the report called not normal.Staffing shortages for air traffic control has been a major problem for years and years, Duffy said, promising that President Donald Trumps administration would address shortages with bright, smart, brilliant people in towers controlling airspace. With the nation already grieving, an air ambulance crashed in Philadelphia on Friday, killing all six people on board, including a child returning home to Mexico from treatment, and at least one person on the ground.Also Friday, the FAA heavily restricted helicopter traffic around Reagan National, hours after Trump claimed on social media that the Army helicopter had been flying higher than allowed.It was far above the 200-foot limit. Thats not really too complicated to understand, is it??? Trump wrote on Truth Social.Wednesdays crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a jet slammed into a residential neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, just after takeoff from Kennedy Airport. The crash killed all 260 people on board and five people on the ground.Experts regularly highlight that plane travel is overwhelmingly safe, but the crowded airspace around Reagan National can challenge even the most experienced pilots.

Panama's President Jose Mulino, left, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrive for a meeting at the presidential palace in Panama City, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)2025-02-02T14:35:54Z PANAMA CITY (AP) U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Panamas president Sunday on the opening stop of his first foreign trip as Americas top diplomat as President Donald Trump increased pressure on Washingtons neighbors and allies, including a demand for the Panama Canal to be returned to the United States. A day after Trump announced he was imposing major tariffs on Canada and Mexico, prompting retaliation from those countries, Rubio was taking perhaps a less confrontational and more diplomatic approach cordially greeting Panamas foreign minister, although neither he nor President Jos Ral Mulino spoke publicly at their meeting.Rubio then planned to tour an energy facility and later the canal, the object of Trumps intense interest.Mulino has said there will be no negotiation with the U.S. over ownership of the canal, and some Panamanians have staged protests over Trumps plans. On Sunday, about 200 people marched in Panama City, carrying Panamanian flags and shouting Marco Rubio out of Panama, Long live national sovereignty and One territory, one flag while the meeting was going on. Some burned a banner with images of Trump and Rubio after being stopped short of the presidential palace by riot police. Mulino said he hoped Rubios visit would focus on shared interests such as migration and combating drug trafficking.Rubio will be pressing Trumps top focus curbing illegal immigration but has also said he will be bringing the message that the U.S. wants to reclaim control over the Panama Canal despite intense resistance from regional leaders to combat Chinas growing influence in the hemisphere. In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on Friday, Rubio said mass migration, drugs and hostile policies pursued by Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela have wreaked havoc, and port facilities at the either end of the canal are run by a China-based company, leaving the waterway vulnerable to pressure from the Beijing government. Were going to address that topic, Rubio said a day earlier. The presidents been pretty clear he wants to administer the canal again. Obviously, the Panamanians are not big fans of that idea. That message has been brought very clear.The American-built canal was turned over to the Panamanians in 1999 and they object strongly to Trumps demand to hand it back.Despite Mulinos rejection of any negotiation over ownership, some believe Panama may be open to a compromise under which canal operations on both sides are taken away from the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Ports company, which was given a 25-year no-bid extension to run them. An audit into the suitability of that extension is already under way and could lead to a rebidding process.What is unclear is whether Trump would accept the transfer of the concession to an American or European company as meeting his demands, which appear to cover more than just operations.Rubios trip, which will also take him to El Salvador, Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, comes amid a freeze in U.S. foreign assistance. The State Department said Sunday that Rubio had approved waivers for certain critical programs in countries he is visiting but details of those were not immediately available.___Associated Press writer Juan Zamorano contributed to this report. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Grammy Awards are displayed at the Grammy Museum Experience at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. on Oct. 10, 2017. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)2025-02-02T12:00:31Z LOS ANGELES (AP) The 67th annual Grammy Awards are set to recognize some of the most talented performers and biggest hits in pop music on Sunday, with different ways to watch the festivities.Beyonc enters as the leading nominee for her acclaimed album, Cowboy Carter.Here is what you need to know about the awards show, including how to watch or stream live and see the stars arrive on the red carpet.What time do the Grammys start?The Grammys are really two awards shows in one, spanning much of Sunday.The premiere ceremony begins at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time, 12:30 p.m. Pacific time, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles and will pack dozens of awards and performances into a livestreamed show. The Grammys telecast, which typically feature less than 10 awards but loads of performances, begins at 8 p.m. EST and will be shown on CBS for free over the air with an antenna. Grammy Awards are displayed at the Grammy Museum Experience at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. on Oct. 10, 2017. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File) Grammy Awards are displayed at the Grammy Museum Experience at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. on Oct. 10, 2017. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More How do I stream the shows? The Grammys can be streamed live on Paramount+ if the account also subscribes to Showtime.The show also will be available through live TV streaming services with CBS in their lineup, including Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV and FuboTV.Paramount+ subscribers will be able to stream the awards show the day after the ceremony.The premiere ceremony, hosted by songwriter Justin Tranter, can be streamed at the Recording Academys YouTube channel and on live.GRAMMY.com. How can I watch the red carpet?The Associated Press will stream a four-hour red carpet show with interviews and fashion footage. It will be streamed on YouTube and APNews.com beginning at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, 12:30 p.m. Pacific.E! will air a live red carpet show, Live From E!: Grammys, beginning at 6 p.m. Eastern. Who is nominated?Beyonc, the most decorated artist in Grammys history, leads all nominees this year with 11. Beyonce appears at a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in Houston, on Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File) Beyonce appears at a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in Houston, on Oct. 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Post Malone, Billie Eilish, Kendrick Lamar and Charli XCX follow with seven nominations each. First-time nominees Sabrina Carpenter and Chappell Roan boast six nominations each.Taylor Swift, who will not perform but will present an award, also is nominated for six awards. Who are the performers?Eilish, Roan, Carpenter, Charli XCX, Benson Boone, Doechii, RAYE, Shakira and Teddy Swims are scheduled to perform Sunday.A tribute to the late, legendary producer Quincy Jones will be led by Will Smith, Stevie Wonder and Janelle Mone.___For more coverage of this years Grammy Awards, visit apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards.

Dr. Lee Gross examines patient Annie Geisel at the Epiphany Health Direct Primary Care Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, in Port Charlotte, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)2025-02-02T14:00:06Z Andrea Meneses stumbled on a direct primary care clinic because of a crisis.Her grandmother, visiting Wisconsin from Bolivia, did not have insurance but needed to see a doctor fast. One of the grandchildren accidentally put her insulin in the freezer instead of the refrigerator.Meneses reached out to friends in a panic, and one recommended Dr. Wendy Molaska, who runs a direct primary care clinic in nearby Madison. Patients at these clinics pay a fee of roughly $50 to $100 month and get easier, direct access to their doctor as often as they want for no extra cost.Direct primary care is an increasingly popular health care option, and experts say it may become more common under health policy changes that President Donald Trumps administration is expected to pursue. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trumps nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, mentioned direct primary care during his recent confirmation hearings. This is the most optimistic Ive ever been about it, said Gayle Brekke, a health services researcher based in Kansas City, Missouri, who has been studying direct primary care for more than a decade. Were at a threshold where it really could take off.Some doctors and patients say they love how much simpler it is to get routine medical care and how some services can be cheaper. But public health experts caution not to think of direct primary care as a replacement for insurance, because the monthly fee covers nothing beyond visits. Affordable and quick careDirect primary patients say its helped them save a significant amount of money on health care, particularly those who dont have health insurance and would otherwise pay out of pocket. Molaska didnt have insulin in her office, so she referred the prescription to a community pharmacy she works with, and the pharmacist helped Meneses secure it at a discount.Brekke said direct primary care doctors also work with labs and imaging centers to order tests and X-rays for patients at discounted prices. In most states, these doctors can dispense medications in their practices with little to no markup; if not, the doctors, like Molaska, often have relationships with local pharmacists and can help patients get medications at more affordable rates. Molaska charges between $70 and $85 for individuals and caps her monthly fee at $200 for families. In central Wisconsin, she sees patients who speak Spanish and English and has a bilingual staff. Molaska has a 125-person waiting list.After seeing how well the model worked for her grandmothers needs, everyone in Meneses family are now patients of Molaska. Her kids medications are cheaper, Meneses said, and they dont have to wait three months for an appointment.In turn, direct primary care physicians say they can spend more time with patients, and it reduces burnout because they dont have to deal with insurance companies.I wish more people knew about it, Meneses said. Im an accountant, and my clients are mostly Hispanic. Most of them dont qualify for any kind of help and cannot afford health care, so I send them to Dr. Molaska. Sometimes they ask me, Are you sure this isnt a scam? Its not for everyoneCritics believe direct primary care is a solution for a limited group of people: the relatively healthy ones, those who cant afford insurance and dont qualify for Medicaid or Medicare, and folks who live in areas where community health centers are too busy for new patients.Health researchers also warn of overstating direct primary cares affordability.Having worked in safety-net health systems for most of my career, I have found that many patients struggle to pay for bus fare or $5 copayments, said Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, a primary care doctor and researcher at Hunter College in New York.While direct primary care is better than nothing, said Dr. Kevin Schulman at Stanfords Clinical Excellence Research Center, its hugely limited. Direct primary care is not health insurance, so nothing aside from what the doctor can do in office is covered.Dr. James Vanderloo says for that reason, direct primary care is best suited for catching people who fall through the cracks. Vanderloo practices a few miles north of Jackson, Mississippi one of the poorest states in the U.S. and a place where lawmakers havent expanded Medicaid. So, no matter the income, an able-bodied Mississippi resident who doesnt have kids doesnt qualify for the federal insurance program for low-income people, and high-deductible insurance plans on the federal marketplace for one person run hundreds of dollars.Mississippi also ranks at or near the top for high rates of diabetes and high blood pressure, the types of chronic conditions that Vanderloo helps manage with frequent testing and medications.I cant help if you need your appendix taken out, but if you have diabetes, I can get you a $10 or less A1C test, he said of the test that measures blood sugar and is used to manage and diagnose diabetes. You do need some sort of help for heavy lifting, but its better than nothing.But if hypertension results in stroke symptoms, one of Vanderloos patients would have to go an emergency room. Insurances bad repFlorida-based provider Dr. Lee Gross started his direct primary care practice in 2010, putting it among the first wave of direct primary care clinics across the country. He was exasperated with back-and-forth calls with insurance companies and wanted a way to help his patients without a middleman. Annie Geisel has been going to Gross practice in North Port on Floridas Gulf Coast since 1998 before Gross transitioned it to a direct primary care clinic. After the switch, Geisel marveled at how fast she was able to see Gross, as well as the lack of co-pay, while her friends complained that insurance companies were delaying their care. I think its time that doctors start calling the shots about patient care rather than insurance conglomerates, said Geisel, referring to insurance companies process to authorize care for patients. Mounting disillusionment with traditional health insurance as evidenced by the wave of public criticism lobbied at the industry after the assassination of UnitedHealthcares CEO could make direct primary care an increasingly appealing model.Project 2025, the Heritage Foundations conservative policy blueprint put forth ahead of the second Trump administration calls direct primary care out as a solution. Roger Severino, an attorney and former director of the Office of Civil Rights in the first Trump administration, wrote the model is improving patient access, driving higher quality and lower cost, and strengthening the doctor-patient relationship. Schulman said that mention could impact Trumps efforts to change access, something his administration attempted in 2019 but was never finalized under former President Joe Biden. Direct primary care also may become more relevant if Trump and the Republican-controlled House and Senate follow through on potential cuts to Medicaid that could make it harder for people to qualify for the program.I see direct primary care as a sort of lifeboat for the system for the cracks in the system, Gross said. And were continuing to grow and fill these gaps all across the country.___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. DEVNA BOSE Bose is a public health reporter for The Associated Press, based in Jackson, Mississippi. She covers hospitals, rural health access and disparities, public health funding and other topics that broadly intersect with the health of communities. twitter mailto

This image provided by the U.S. Army shows Cpt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, N.C. (U.S. Army via AP)2025-02-02T22:14:20Z WASHINGTON (AP) A U.S. Army captain who died in Wednesdays midair collision of a Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines jet was brilliant and fearless and meticulous in everything she did, friends and fellow soldiers said.Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach was identified by the Army Saturday as one of three soldiers killed in the crash near Reagan National Airport just outside Washington, D.C. In all, 67 people died, including the jets 60 passengers and 4 crew members.Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, had served as an Army aviation officer since July 2019, earning an Army commendation medal and an achievement medal after graduating from the University of North Carolina as a distinguished military graduate in the top 20% of ROTC cadets nationwide, her family said.Last month, she escorted fashion designer Ralph Lauren at the White House when he was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. USA Today White House correspondent Davis Winkie trained with Lobach in the University of North Carolina ROTC program. They were in the same training platoon at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in 2018, and were friends ever since. Rebecca was brilliant and fearless, a talented pilot and a PT stud, Winkie wrote in a social media post, using an abbreviation for physical training.In a statement released by the Army, Lobachs family said she had more than 450 hours of flight time and earned certification as a pilot-in-command after extensive testing by the most senior and experienced pilots in her battalion. The Army released the names of the two other Black Hawk soldiers on Friday, but withheld Lobachs name until Saturday at the request of her family. Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin OHara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia, was the crew chief. Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland, was a pilot.Lobach was a patriot, she loved her country, her close friend, Sam Brown, told WNCN-TV. Lexi Freas credited Lobachs mentorship for inspiring her to become an aviation officer in the District of Columbia National Guard.Not only did she care about being a leader and being the best officer she could, but also about being the best pilot she could, Freas told the Raleigh, North Carolina, station.Another friend, Sabrina Bell, said Lobach was meticulous in everything she did, she never did anything half-heartedly, she never did anything impulsively.Lobachs family noted that she served as a certified sexual harassment/assault response and prevention victim advocate and hoped to become a physician when she got out of the Army.We are devastated by the loss of our beloved Rebecca. She was a bright star in all our lives. She was kind, generous, brilliant, funny, ambitious and strong. No one dreamed bigger or worked harder to achieve her goals, the statement said.We request that you please respect our privacy as we grieve this devastating loss, Lobachs family added.After the crash, President Donald Trump blamed the helicopter for flying at too high an altitude, saying: You had a pilot problem from the standpoint of the helicopter. I mean, because it was visual, it was very clear night. The remarks, combined with Trumps rant about diversity initiatives in the air traffic controller ranks, only added to social media speculation, misinformation and vitriol about the makeup of the Black Hawk crew. No evidence has emerged that diversity rules factored into the collision.Former military recruiter Bilal Kordab told WRAL-TV that Lobach was kind, intelligent and put so much pressure on herself to be the best of the best and go the extra mile.Before transferring to the University of North Carolina, Lobach played Division III college basketball at the University of The South.Winkie said he and Lobach were both latecomers to the ROTC program and quickly bonded over being the new kids on the block.One day, while at Fort Knox learning about different Army officer career paths, Winkie said he and Lobach happened upon a small helicopter called a MH-6 Little Bird. Winkie, who is 6-foot-6 (2 meters) tall, said Lobach listed at 5-foot-7 (1.7 meters) in her college basketball days smiled mischievously at him and asked: Think we can both fit?Ill be damned if we didnt somehow stuff ourselves into that cockpit, Winkie wrote in a tribute to Lobach on X, formerly known as Twitter. My neck hurt, and I dont think we wouldve been able to fly it very well, but we were both beaming in the selfie she took.Winkie wrote that soon after Wednesdays crash he texted Lobach, asking: you good? He said he didnt realize until the next day that the message hadnt gone through.___Sisak reported from New York. MICHAEL R. SISAK Sisak is an Associated Press reporter covering law enforcement and courts in New York City, including former President Donald Trumps criminal and civil cases and problems plaguing the federal prison system. twitter mailto LOLITA C. BALDOR Baldor has covered the Pentagon and national security issues for The Associated Press since 2005. She has reported from all over the world including warzones in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. twitter mailto

Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent signs an autograph for Louis Carrons, 12, of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., during Los Angeles Dodgers baseball spring training in Vero Beach, Fla., March 1, 2006. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)2025-02-02T19:47:20Z NEW YORK (AP) Fay Vincent, who became an unexpected baseball commissioner in 1989 following the death of A. Bartlett Giamatti and then was forced out three years later by owners intent on a labor confrontation with players, has died. He was 86.Vincent had undergone radiation and chemotherapy for bladder cancer and developed complications that included bleeding, said his wife, Christina. He asked that treatment be stopped and died Saturday at a hospital in Vero Beach, Florida.Mr. Vincent served the game during a time of many challenges, and he remained proud of his association with our national pastime throughout his life, current commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement.A lawyer who became a movie studio executive at the behest of a college friend, Vincent had been retired for three decades and lived in New Canaan, Connecticut, and Vero Beach. During his three-year tenure as commissioner, Vincent had a string of what he called three-cigar days, angering owners by becoming the first management official to admit the collusion among teams against free agents following the 1985, 86 and 87 seasons. He suspended the Yankees George Steinbrenner, divided expansion fees among both leagues, attempted to force National League realignment and negotiated a settlement that ended a 1990 spring training lockout. I had the conviction that being commissioner was a public trust. I tried to do what I thought was best for the game and the public who cared so much about it, Vincent said in a 2023 interview with The Associated Press. I had mixed results. Sometimes Im pleased with what I did. The tragedy of baseball is the single biggest thing I left undone was to build a decent relationship between the owners and the players. I thought somebody would take over after me and get that done. If I died tomorrow, that would be the big regret, is that the players and the owners still have to make some commitment to each other to be partners and to build the game. Born May 29, 1938, Vincent was a securities lawyer when he was hired in 1978 as president and chief executive officer of Columbia Pictures Industries Inc. by Herbert Allen Jr., who had known him their time as undergraduates at Williams College. Vincent remained a corporate executive for a decade, then had been with a law firm for only a few months when he was asked to become deputy commissioner by Giamatti, a friend since they met during a party at Princeton in the 1970s.Giamatti, the former Yale president, was NL president from June 1986 until succeeding Peter Ueberroth as commissioner in April 1989. Giamatti tasked Vincent with supervising the gambling investigation of career hits leader Pete Rose, and Vincent hired lawyer John M. Dowd to lead a probe that led to Rose agreeing to a lifetime ban that August.Giamatti died of a heart attack that Sept. 1, and Vincent was elected commissioner by owners 12 days later and given a 4 1/2-year term.Vincents first World Series in charge was interrupted by the Loma Prieta earthquake, which struck a half-hour before Game 3 was to start at San Franciscos Candlestick Park. Vincent was praised for a 10-day delay before the series resumed. It is becoming very clear to us in Major League Baseball that our concerns, our issue, is a rather modest one, he said then.His first full season as commissioner began after a 32-day spring training lockout. The deal he reached angered owners seeking greater management gains, a group led by Bud Selig of the Milwaukee Brewers and Jerry Reinsdorf of the Chicago White Sox.In July 1990, Vincent signed an agreement with George Steinbrenner under which the New York Yankees principal owner resigned as managing general partner because of his dealings with a $40,000 payment to a gambler, Howard Spira, to find embarrassing information about outfielder Dave Winfield. Vincent later reinstated Steinbrenner as of 1993.The following June, Vincent ruled the American League was to receive $42 million of the $190 million in expansion fees due for the National League adding Colorado and Miami in 1993. He also ordered both leagues to supply players equally for the expansion draft and that any future expansion money be divided equally among all clubs. In July 1992 he ordered NL realignment for the following year, moving the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals to the West Division in 1993, and the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds to the East. The Cubs obtained an injunction in federal court, and the plan was dropped after Vincents departure.By mid-August, Selig and Reinsdorf gained enough support to cause AL president Bobby Brown and NL head Bill White to call a special meeting aimed at ousting Vincent. Owners approved a resolution of no confidence in an 18-9 vote on Sept. 3. After a weekend of thought at his home on Cape Cod, Vincent quit four days later, on Labor Day. The commissioner has to look out for the fans, and the owners dont want to hear me speak that idea, Vincent said.Selig was installed as chairman of the executive council, a new position that made him in effect acting commissioner. He led owners through a 7 1/2-month strike in 1994-95, was voted commissioner in 1998 and remained on the job until retiring in 2015.A longtime Anglophile, Vincent wanted to decompress and rented the Mill House in the Berkshire village of Sutton Courtenay for the first six months of 1993. Living in the home of former British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, Vincent frequently entertained visitors during his sabbatical.Francis Thomas Vincent Jr. was born May 29, 1938, at Waterbury, Connecticut. His father, Francis, was a football and baseball star at Yale in the 1930s and became a college football official. His mother, the former Alice Lynch, was a housewife.Vincent was a tackle and center at Williams until he broke his back during his freshman year, falling four floors from an icy ledge outside his dormitory after his roommates locked him out as a prank. His left leg was partially paralyzed and he walked with a cane. Vincent, a Roman Catholic, gave up thoughts of Jesuit training because of the injury. Still, he managed to finish school on time and graduate Phi Beta Kappa.Ive been lucky in a lot of ways mostly I survived that terrible accident and being paralyzed for so long, Vincent said in 2023. I cant have any regrets.He went to Yale Law School, started as an associate at Whitman & Ransom in New York in 1963 and stayed there for five years.In 1968, he moved to Caplin & Drysdale Chartered in Washington and practiced securities law there for almost 10 years, becoming a partner. In March 1978 he quit the firm to become associate director of the Securities and Exchange Commissions Division of Corporate Finance. His stay there was rather brief.Allen, who was two years behind Vincent at Williams, decided that summer to fire Alan J. Hirschfield, Columbia Pictures Industries CEO. For more than a year, the company had been in turmoil after David Begelman, president of the movie studio, was discovered to have forged checks.Vincent replaced Hirschfield on July 13 and ran the company so well that Allen & Co. sold it to Coca-Cola Co. in 1982 for $692 million. Vincent was promoted from president to chairman and was named executive vice president of Coca-Colas new Entertainment Business Sector.He went to Hollywood only about six times a year and let his production heads Frank Price, Guy McIlwaine and David Puttnam make the artistic decisions. While Vincent ran the company, Columbia released Ghostbusters, The Big Chill, Gandhi and Tootsie.Still, he remained devoted to baseball.He talked about baseball every day, Allen said. A couple of times I went with him to Mets opening day.On Sept. 1, 1987, Coca-Cola bought Tri-Star Pictures and Tri-Stars Victor A. Kaufman replaced Vincent, who was reassigned to oversee equity investments in Coca-Cola Bottlings properties. Vincent quit in 1988 and went to Caplin & Drysdales New York office as a partner. Before he settled in, Giamatti asked him to join baseball.Id always been a baseball fan, Vincent said then. Ive followed baseball as long as I can remember.In one of his lasting acts as commissioner, he chaired an eight-member committee for statistical accuracy, which removed the asterisk that had been next to Roger Maris entry as the season home run leader and deleted 50 no-hitters. The group defined a no-hitter as games of nine innings or more that ended with no hits.He recorded interviews with Hall of Fame members and Negro Leagues players for an oral history project that led to three books: The Only Game in Town (2006), We Would Have Played for Nothing (2009) and Its Whats Inside the Lines That Counts (2010). In 2024, he made a $2 million gift to Yale to endow the Yale baseball coachs position in the name of his father.Vincent married the former Valerie McMahon in 1965 and they had a daughter Anne and twin sons William, and Edward. They divorced in 1994 and he married Christina Watkins in 1998.___AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB

A protester holds the flags of Canada and the United States outside on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)2025-02-02T19:20:39Z ATLANTA (AP) President Donald Trump has taken executive action to impose new tariffs on imports from Canada, China and Mexico.The move fulfills campaign promises but also sparked retaliatory moves that could signal an extended trade war with key trading partners and, in the case of Mexico and Canada, the closest U.S. neighbors and allies.Unlike during the 2024 campaign, when Trump billed his economic agenda as a sure-fire way to reduce the cost of living for Americans, the president now is acknowledging what many economists have long forecasted: that the levies could yield higher prices and lower supplies across the market.Here are some things to know about Trumps actions, the counters from U.S. trading partners and what it means for American consumers: The moves affect the three largest U.S. trading partnersTrump declared an economic emergency to place duties of 10% on all imports from China and 25% on imports from Mexico and Canada. Energy imported from Canada, including oil, natural gas and electricity, would be taxed at 10%. The tariffs on the United States three largest trading partners will go into effect on Tuesday.The tariffs reach across the U.S. market. To name a few: oil and lumber from Canada; produce, clothing, liquor and auto parts from Mexico; plastics, textiles and computer chips from China.Trumps order contained no mechanism for granting exceptions to U.S. importers.Underscoring the potential effects, Canada provides more than 4.3 million barrels of oil a day to the United States. The U.S. tends to consume about 20 million barrels a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It has been producing domestically about 13.2 million barrels daily. Trump says these levies are about immigration and drugs downplaying economicsThe president talked often as a candidate and for decades before he entered politics about U.S. trade deficits. He blasted international trade deals and bemoaned the steady flow of manufacturing jobs out of the U.S. to other countries. But he has framed his latest actions as leverage on immigration and drugs. Trump is blaming the three U.S. partners for not doing enough to stop the flow of fentanyl into U.S. markets. He blames Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Canada for an inflow of migrants across U.S. borders.It is my duty as president to ensure the safety of all, Trump said on social media. Canada, China and Mexico have respondedTrumps order included a promise to escalate the tariffs if U.S. trading partners answered with their own. That threat did not prevent a swift response.Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum immediately ordered retaliatory tariffs and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he would put matching 25% tariffs on up to $155 billion in U.S. imports.Trudeau urged Canadians to choose Canadian products when shopping, effectively urging a boycott of U.S. goods. Locally, multiple premiers of Canadian provinces said they would be removing American alcohol brands from government store shelves altogether.As of Sunday afternoon, China had not imposed new tariffs on U.S. goods. But its Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the Beijing government will take necessary countermeasures to defend its legitimate rights and interests. The Ministry of Commerce said it would file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization for the wrongful practices of the U.S. Consumers will see the effects, even if businesses pay the actual tariffsEnd-line consumers dont pay tariffs directly. Its usually whatever company a foreign-based exporter or U.S-based importer is transporting goods across the border. But that adds to the overall cost of getting goods to their final retail stop, and each player in that process is certain to increase their prices as a result.Gregory Daco, chief economist at the tax and consulting firm EY, calculates the tariffs would increase inflation, which was running at a 2.9% annual rate in December, by 0.4 percentage points this year. Daco projects the U.S. economy, which grew 2.8% last year, would fall by 1.5% this year and 2.1% in 2026.The Budget Lab at Yale University estimates Trumps tariffs would cost the average American household $1,000 to $1,200 in annual purchasing power.The effects reach even to companies and products billed as made in the U.S.A. Because sometimes that label means only that a product is assembled or otherwise finished in a U.S. facility but still includes raw materials, parts or packaging from elsewhere.And as Trump himself said often during the campaign, energy costs which become transportation costs in the supply chain also drive consumer pricing. Given Canadas share of the U.S. energy supply, gas prices could increase, especially in the Midwest, where so much Canadian crude oil is refined. Trump has changed his tune on the consequences for consumersCandidate Trump made sweeping, fantastical promises about the U.S. economy.For example, he promised to lower grocery prices immediately and cut utility bills in half within a year of taking office. He repeatedly hammered the Biden administration as a failure because of inflation and invited the votes of Americans frustrated over a higher cost-of-living. Vice President JD Vance, in a Fox News interview ahead of the tariff announcement, maintained that Trumps policies would mean more take-home pay for U.S. workers.Trump is now backing off such claims.Will there be some pain? Yes, maybe (and maybe not), Trump wrote Sunday morning on social media. But we will make America great again, and it will all be worth the price that must be paid.___Associated Press writers Josh Boak in Palm Beach, Florida, and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed. BILL BARROW Bill Barrow covers U.S. politics. He is based in Atlanta. twitter mailto

Newly installed security barriers are seen on Bourbon Street next to a memorial for victims of the Jan. 1 car attack ahead of the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)2025-02-02T05:43:45Z NEW ORLEANS (AP) After a New Years Day attack struck at the heart of the French Quarter, officials in New Orleans say they are confident in the security plans they have in place for the Super Bowl.Upwards of 125,000 visitors are expected to converge on the Big Easy beginning Feb. 5 for parties, concerts and revelry featuring artists including Post Malone and Diplo and capped off by the Feb. 9 clash between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles at the Caesars Superdome stadium to crown this seasons NFL champion.Following the truck-ramming attack early on Jan. 1 that killed 14 people and injured dozens more along Bourbon Street, one of the citys most famous thoroughfares, alleged security lapses triggered multiple lawsuits and investigations. But the city, the NFL and law enforcement officials insist that after more than a year of preparations they are ready to play host.Were going above and beyond what weve seen in the past when weve hosted previously, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said at a news conference. We know were safer than weve ever been before. What will the security presence look like?Thousands of state, federal and local law enforcement officers will be on the ground during the Super Bowl, NFL Chief Security Officer Cathy Lanier said. But she and city officials remained tight-lipped about details.Drones will be prohibited around the Superdome and downtown New Orleans throughout the week of the game and there will be flight restrictions up to 18,000 feet (5,486 meters), according to the Federal Aviation Administration. A Louisiana State Police car positions on Bourbon Street ahead of the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) A Louisiana State Police car positions on Bourbon Street ahead of the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Armed federal air marshals will be stationed around the citys transportation hubs scanning for suspicious people or activities and guarding against drones, said Noel Curtin, supervisory air marshal in charge with the Transportation Security Administration.Super Bowl events will sprawl across neighborhoods far beyond the stadium, said Homeland Security Investigations New Orleans Special Agent in Charge Eric DeLaune, who is leading federal coordination of Super Bowl security. Federal agencies from the FBI to the Secret Service are bringing in rooftop snipers and BearCat armored SWAT vehicles around the stadium and across the citys historic French Quarter and downtown, DeLaune said. No one will be allowed inside the cordoned-off area surrounding the Superdome without credentials, and the city already has begun shutting down and limiting traffic on roads near the stadium, where the perimeter will include blast barriers requiring trucks to pass through giant X-ray machines typically used at border crossings, DeLaune said.Dozens of technicians and more than 100 bomb-sniffing dogs are engaging in a days-long effort to scour the 400,000 square feet (37,161 square meters) of the Superdome and each of its more than 70,000 seats prior to game day, DeLaune said. People visit a memorial for victims of the Jan. 1 car attack where newly installed security barriers have since been put in place on Bourbon Street ahead of the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) People visit a memorial for victims of the Jan. 1 car attack where newly installed security barriers have since been put in place on Bourbon Street ahead of the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Theyre going to go from top to bottom on that building to make sure its clear and its safe. They open every door, check under every seat, DeLaune said.Much of the security infrastructure will carry over to the Mardi Gras season, which has been upgraded to Homeland Securitys highest risk rating to receive more manpower and resources. With the sheer amount of law enforcement on every street corner and security measures in place, New Orleans will be the safest place to be anywhere in the country, said Phillip Constantin, an adviser with the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. How the New Years Day attack has changed security plansMultiple lawsuits have claimed city authorities were aware of Bourbon Streets vulnerabilities to the kind of truck-ramming attack that the Islamic State group-inspired Shamsud-Din Jabbar carried out. He drove his F-150 around a police car parked as a makeshift barricade and plowed into pedestrians before he crashed and was killed by police. Newly installed security barriers are seen on Bourbon Street next to a memorial for victims of the Jan. 1 car attack ahead of the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Newly installed security barriers are seen on Bourbon Street next to a memorial for victims of the Jan. 1 car attack ahead of the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More The bollard system of steel columns installed to block vehicle traffic, which was being replaced at the entrance to Bourbon Street at the time of the attack, remains on track for completion before the Super Bowl, officials said.Authorities say they have brought in more types of physical barriers to protect entry points resulting from concerns that the new bollard system was not strong enough to block vehicle attacks. The NFL and federal and city agencies have put a fresh set of eyes on their plans post-Jan. 1, DeLaune said, noting the New Orleans Police Department hired former New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton and his team from high-profile security firm Teneo.No specific or credible threats have surfaced targeting the Super Bowl, NFL security chief Lanier said Wednesday. Newly installed security barriers are seen on Bourbon Street next to a memorial for victims of the Jan. 1 car attack ahead of the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Newly installed security barriers are seen on Bourbon Street next to a memorial for victims of the Jan. 1 car attack ahead of the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry announced the creation of an enhanced security zone along Bourbon Street to bookend Super Bowl weekend and said he would deploy 350 national guardsmen.After authorities found Jabbar had planted ice chests containing undetonated improvised explosive devices around the French Quarter, Landry declared a ban on coolers and ice chests in these areas and ordered mandatory searches of bags for anyone entering Bourbon Street zone during the Super Bowl weekend. But in accordance with state law, firearms including permitless concealed carry guns will be allowed on Bourbon Street, Louisiana State Police Sgt. Katharine Stegall said, noting they remained banned from bars. Landry also ordered the removal of multiple homeless encampments near the stadium and funneled dozens of unhoused people into a temporary warehouse shelter.AI and mobile apps will play a security roleThe Superdomes owner, ASM Global, has contracted New York-based artificial intelligence firm Dataminr to monitor potential and emerging threats in real time. The company will draw from over 1 million sources of public data across 150 languages, from social media to dark web forums to traffic cameras, Dataminr Chief Security Officer Robert Crowley said.Dataminr uses generative AI to produce memos alerting Superdome officials of trending patterns, such as an influx of posts showing swelling crowds or other public disturbances as they unfold.Its stitching together all these little pieces of the puzzle to get a holistic, comprehensive view of what has just happened, Crowley said. The faster you know what is occurring, the quicker you can take better action.Visitors also can report suspicious activities and receive security updates with the citys NOLA Ready Public Safety App.___Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Brook on X: @jack_brook96. JACK BROOK Brook covers Louisiana government, infrastructure and environmental issues from New Orleans. He is a Report for America corps member. twitter mailto

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, left, speaks with Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz as they have a walk in the garden of the Chequers, in Aylesbury, England, Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. (Ben Stansall/Pool Photo via AP)2025-02-02T15:24:59Z LONDON (AP) British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Sunday that he would seek a strong trade relationship with the U.S. after President Donald Trump suggested he would slap Europe with tariffs after he hit Americas biggest trading partners Canada, Mexico and China with import taxes.Starmer spoke to reporters while hosting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at his country estate on the eve of a mission to improve relations with the European Union.In the discussions that I have had with President Trump, that is what we have centered on, a strong trading relationship, he said. So it is very early days.Canada and Mexico ordered retaliatory tariffs in response to Trumps announcement that the U.S. on Tuesday will stick a 25% levy on imports from Canada and Mexico and 10% on goods from China. Trump said he absolutely plans to impose tariffs on the EU. The U.K. left the EU in 2020, following a referendum in 2016. Trump, who supported the Leave side in the Brexit vote, has not yet said whether he plans to target the U.K with tariffs. The tit-for-tat tariffs have triggered fears of a global trade war. Tariff increases really right across the world can have a really damaging impact on global growth and trade, so I dont think its what anybody wants to see, British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the BBC.Starmer is heading to Belgium to meet with EU chiefs Monday, where the U.K. leader is aiming for a relationship reset. While ruling out rejoining the EU. trade bloc five years after Brexit, Starmer said he wants to forge a closer relationship on defense, energy and trade.I think that is certainly in the U.K.s best interest, I do believe its in the E.U.s best interest, and already I hope that in the last seven months theres been a manifest difference in approach, tone and relationship, he said. Starmer hosted Scholz at Chequers, the prime ministers country residence in Buckinghamshire 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of London, where the two leaders discussed Ukraine and the Middle East, according to a Starmer spokesperson. The prime minister spoke of their common approach to key issues and challenges, including their shared commitment to Kyiv as the war with Russia enters its fourth year this month.The two agreed that Russias invasion had emphasized the need to beef up and coordinate defense production across Ukraine, according to a readout of the meeting from a Starmer spokesperson. The U.K. and Germany signed a defense pact in October, described by officials as the first of its kind between two NATO member countries, to boost European security amid rising Russian aggression. The British governments strategic defense review later this year will include lessons learned in Ukraine and the need to outmaneuver Russian President Vladimir Putins hostile acts across the continent, Starmer said.Starmer thanked Scholz for visiting in the middle of a difficult re-election campaign. Scholzs center-left Social Democrats are lagging in the polls behind the center-right Christian Democratic Union and the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, with three weeks to go before the Feb. 23 vote. When I started as prime minister seven months ago now, I was determined to strengthen the relationship between our two countries already very good, but I thought it could be stronger on a number of fronts, said Starmer, leader of the center-left Labour Party. And thanks to your leadership, I think weve made real progress.Scholz said the visit that included a walk around the grounds of the estate and a lunch was a good sign of the very good relations between our two countries, and indeed between the two of us.

Palestinians chase humanitarian aid trucks that arrived through the Kerem Shalom crossing from Egypt into the Gaza Strip, in Rafah, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)2025-02-03T05:05:03Z JERUSALEM (AP) Two weeks after the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel took effect, aid is flooding into the Gaza Strip, bringing relief to a territory suffering from hunger, mass displacement and devastation following 15 months of war.But Palestinians and aid workers say its still an uphill battle to ensure the assistance reaches everyone. And looming large is the possibility that fighting will resume if the ceasefire breaks down after the six-week first phase.As part of the ceasefire agreement, Israel said it would allow 600 aid trucks into Gaza each day, a major increase. Israel estimates that at least 4,200 trucks have entered each week since the ceasefire took hold.Humanitarian groups say aid distribution is complicated by destroyed or damaged roads, Israeli inspections and the threat of unexploded bombs.On Saturday, Samir Abu Holi, 68, watched over a food-distribution point in Jabaliya, an area in northern Gaza razed to the ground during multiple Israeli offensives, the most recent of which cut off nearly all aid for over a month. I have more than 10 children. All of them need milk and food. Before the ceasefire, we used to provide food with difficulty, he said. Today there is a little relief.Heres a closer look at the aid situation. A surge of aidThe main U.N. food agency, the World Food Program, said it dispersed more food to Palestinians in Gaza during the first four days of the ceasefire than it did, on average, during any month of the war. Over 32,000 metric tons of aid have entered Gaza since the ceasefire, the agency said last week.Aid is now entering through two crossings in the north and one in the south. Aid agencies said they are opening bakeries and handing out high-energy biscuits, and Hamas police have returned to the streets to help restore order.Before the ceasefire, aid organizations said delivery was complicated by armed gangs looting the trucks, attacks on aid workers, arduous Israeli inspections and difficulties coordinating with COGAT, the Israeli military body charged with facilitating aid. Israel blamed the U.N. and humanitarian organizations for failing to deliver aid once it reached Gaza. Theres now the political will to make everything else work, said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli organization dedicated to protecting Palestinians right to move freely within Gaza.COGAT is fast-tracking responses to coordination requests. Its allowing two crossings instead of one to operate in the north. The ceasefire is allowing Hamas forces to operate freely to stop looting and the lack of hostilities allow aid agencies to move freely and safely, Hary said. Food prices are still a challengeNadine Jomaa, a young woman in Bureij in central Gaza, said the aid is not freely available, and she needs to buy goods in the market, where they are resold for inflated prices. Though prices are coming down, flour and cooking gas still cost roughly triple the amount they did before the war, according to the World Food Program.Her family is eating only cheap canned goods. We need more food, water, household items for the kitchen and bathroom and womens items, she said.Although humanitarian officials have long said the best way to prevent extortion is to flood Gaza with aid, Palestinians in the north say that, so far, the influx appears to have only boosted shadowy middlemen. Residents complain that there are not nearly enough tents entering Gaza while non-essential items such as chocolate, nuts and soda are suddenly ubiquitous.Ahmed Qamar, 34, who returned to live in the ruins of his former home in Jabaliya, said his area has seen just a few dozen aid trucks.Hundreds of families here are sleeping in the open and in the cold, he said. We need electricity and shelter, and meanwhile markets are flooded with chocolate and cigarettes.Though aid workers say the Israeli inspection process has accelerated, getting certain types of aid into Gaza is still challenging. Some items are deemed dual-use, barring them from Gaza because of concerns they could be diverted by militants for military purposes. Some hospitals and desalination plants still have fuel shortages. And Hamas on Sunday accused Israeli officials of obstructing the delivery of medical supplies and reconstruction machinery.According to a list circulated to humanitarian groups by COGAT and shared with The Associated Press, desalination and water-collection devices, storage units, tools, tent kits, ovens, water-resistant clothing and equipment for shelter construction teams all require pre-approval before entering Gaza. Large tents, sleeping bags, portable toilets, heating pads and vaccines are cleared to enter the strip without Israeli approval.While aid is getting in in higher numbers, we also know that those restrictions on essential items are persisting, said Sophie Driscoll, head of communications for the International Rescue Committee in the Palestinian territories. COGAT acknowledged keeping certain items on the dual-use list but said it is still permitting them into Gaza after screening. The agency said tents are not considered dual-use, and Israel has allowed tens of thousands into Gaza in recent weeks without restriction. It also said Israel has extended the hours crossings are open and allowed road repairs inside Gaza.Regarding the distribution of aid inside Gaza, Israel does not control the situation inside, COGAT said.Destroyed roads, unexploded ordnanceRoads have been heavily damaged by the war, and unexploded bombs litter the landscape. The U.N. estimates that 5% to 10% of all ammunition dropped in Gaza has failed to detonate, making the territory potentially perilous for civilians and aid workers.UNMAS, the U.N. agency handling unexploded ordnance, said that since the ceasefire took hold, humanitarian convoys and civilians have reported finding large aircraft bombs, mortars and rifle grenades.As they return home, many Palestinians are living in areas where the water network has been destroyed. That makes dehydration and the spread of disease due to poor sanitary conditions and limited medical care a threat.Speaking from southern Gaza, Jonathan Crickx, chief of communications at UNICEF, recalled being on a road where thousands and thousands of children and families were walking. I was seeing them with nothing, he said, only the clothes theyre wearing on their back. JULIA FRANKEL Frankel is an Associated Press reporter in Jerusalem. twitter mailto

A man sits outside the closed Isizinda Sempilo clinic in the Johannesburg township of Soweto Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Alfonso Nqunjana)2025-02-03T04:13:32Z JOHANNESBURG (AP) Four days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order freezing almost all U.S. foreign aid, an email landed in Claris Madhukus inbox in rural Zimbabwe. Stop all activities immediately, it said.The message confirmed Madhukus fears that Trumps return to office might affect his organizations efforts to save African girls from child marriages.Many Africans had known that Trumps America First outlook meant their continent was likely to be last among his priorities. But they hadnt expected the abrupt halt to foreign aid from the worlds largest donor that stops money flowing for wide-ranging projects like disease response, girls education and free school lunches.Even after global outrage prompted some exemptions to Trumps order, sub-Saharan Africa could suffer more than any other region as most global aid pauses 90 days for a spending review. The U.S. gave the region more than $6.5 billion in humanitarian assistance last year. For Madhuku and countless others, the damage has been done. His Platform For Youth and Community Development is one of hundreds of small non-governmental organizations in Africa that receive assistance from the U.S. government and ultimately from the American people to do good work. Without U.S. aid, Madhukus group cant give around 100 volunteers allowances for food and public transport as they do outreach seeking to keep girls in school and out of early marriages.We had to stop everything, no warning, no time to adjust, Madhuku said. I appreciate that Trump might have some justification in trying to account for American taxpayers money ... but it has caused disaster here. The worlds most successful foreign aid programFor many in Africa, thoughts immediately turned to arguably the worlds most successful foreign aid program, the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR.Over two decades, the program with bipartisan support has been credited with saving more than 25 million lives, the vast majority in Africa, the continent it was designed to help most.The world is baffled, the health minister of South Africa, the country with the most people living with HIV, said after the U.S. freeze on aid.The minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, said the U.S. funds nearly 20% of South Africas $2.3 billion annual HIV/AIDS program through PEPFAR, and now the biggest response to a single disease in history is under threat. More than 8 million in South Africa live with HIV, and authorities say PEPFAR helps provide life-saving antiretroviral treatment to 5.5 million people every day. HIV patients are turned awayU.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced that programs offering life-saving assistance including medicine, medical services, food and shelter would be exempted from the aid freeze, though what qualifies is not immediately clear.The United Nations AIDS program said many organizations receiving PEPFAR funding had closed due to the aid pause and there was lack of clarity and great uncertainty about the future. More than 20 million people globally receive HIV treatment with PEPFAR support, UNAIDS said.In South Africas largest city, Johannesburg, and elsewhere, PEPFAR-funded facilities were still shut days after the exemptions were announced and HIV patients were referred to government hospitals and clinics.In Johannesburgs largest township, Soweto, two workers at the PEPFAR-funded HIVSA center turned patients away. And a notice at the renowned Wits RHI Key Populations Clinic, which serves adults and children living with HIV, read: We apologize for the inconvenience this causes.Delays could be dangerousExperts said the effects on HIV programs remain unclear but the consequences could be swift, even dangerous.We need to know a lot more before we can say people wont die directly because of the pause to funding, said Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington, noting that while the waiver should cover HIV drugs, HIV diagnostic tests are also critical to ensure treatment gets to those who need it.Kenny said even short interruptions to antiretroviral treatment which stops the virus replicating in the body are risky. HIV viral loads rebound in about three weeks if you go off antiretrovirals, he said.Overall, even senior officials in the aid community are not sure which U.S.-funded programs are allowed to at least briefly continue operations.The Trump administration has warned contractors and staffers with USAID the agency responsible for dispersing Americas foreign aid they could be disciplined if they speak to anyone outside the agency without top-level approval, and aid groups fear they may permanently lose funds if they speak publicly. Stopping aid in war zonesA humanitarian official told The Associated Press that at least 1.2 million people in Congo could lose life-saving support because of the aid freeze. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said almost half of their organizations funding is from USAID.Overall, more than $100 million for the organizations humanitarian programs in more than 30 countries worldwide has been halted, according to the official.The block on aid came during a major escalation in fighting in eastern Congo, where millions of people were already displaced and where outbreaks of the mpox virus were declared a global health emergency last year.In civil-war-torn Sudan, which is grappling with cholera, malaria, and measles, the aid freeze means 600,000 people will be at grave risk of catching and spreading those diseases, the official said.Even with the exemption for life-saving services, the official said their organization had been told they should not resume any USAID-funded activities until they received notification that the waiver applies to them.___Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa, Mutsaka reported from Harare, Zimbabwe, and Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press writers Maria Cheng in London, Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington and Jacob Zimba in Lusaka, Zambia, contributed to this story.___The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. MOGOMOTSI MAGOME Magome is an Associated Press reporter based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He covers a range of topics including general news, politics, and enterprise stories from across the Southern Africa region. mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

People stroll through the marketplace in the al-Hol detention camp in northeastern Syria's Hassakeh province, where tens of thousands of mostly women and children linked to the Islamic State group have been living for years, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)2025-02-03T05:25:58Z AL-HOL, Syria (AP) Ahmad Abdullah Hammoud was lucky to have some food stored to feed his family after a U.S.-funded organization abruptly suspended its aid activities at the sprawling tent camp in northeastern Syria where they have been forced to stay for nearly six years.His family is among 37,000 people, mostly women and children, with alleged ties to the Islamic State group at the bleak, trash-strewn al-Hol camp, where the Trump administrations unprecedented freeze on foreign aid caused chaos and uncertainty and worsened the dire humanitarian conditions.When the freeze was announced shortly after Trump took office, U.S.-funded aid programs worldwide began shutting down operations, including the organization that runs many operations at al-Hol, which works under the supervision of the U.S.-led coalition formed to fight IS.The U.S.-based Blumont briefly suspended operations, according to the camps director. It had been providing essentials such as bread, water, kerosene and cooking gas. Blumont didnt reply to questions. We were troubled when Blumont suspended its activities, said Hammoud, who denies links with IS and had been sheltering in an IS-controlled area after being displaced during Syrias civil war. Believe me, we did not find food. Even bread only came at 2 p.m, said another camp resident, Dirar al-Ali.Camp director Jihan Hanan told The Associated Press that other aid agencies, including the World Health Organization, had ceased some operations. It is a disgraceful decision, Hanan said of the Trump administrations action, adding that some residents argued they should be allowed to leave if food cannot be provided.She said Blumont distributes 5,000 bags of bread daily at a cost of about $4,000, something that local authorities in the Kurdish-run enclave cannot afford. Uncertain times aheadHanan said Blumont received a two-week waiver from the Trump administration and resumed work on Jan. 28. It is not clear what will happen once the waiver ends.Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces that control northeastern Syria, said he has raised the aid freeze issue with officials from the U.S.-led coalition.We are on the verge of finding an alternative to this decision, Abdi said, adding that an exemption might be issued for northeastern Syria.The U.S. freeze comes as IS tries to take advantage of the vacuum created by the fall of Assads government in early December to insurgents. Another cut in food supplies could lead to riots by camp residents that IS, which has sleeper cells there, could exploit.Hanan said the camp had received information from the U.S.-led coalition against IS, the Iraqi government and the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led SDF, that IS was preparing to attack the camp after Assads fall. Security was increased and the situation is under control, she said.The SDF runs 28 detention facilities in northeastern Syria holding some 9,000 IS members. Security at al-Hol camp and the detention facilities are not expected to be affected by the U.S. aid freeze, according to Hanan and an official at the largest detention facility in the northeastern city of Hassakeh, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations. The main part of al-Hol houses some 16,000 Iraqis and 15,000 Syrians. In a separate, heavily guarded section known as the Annex are another 6,300 people from 42 countries, the vast majority of them wives, widows and children who are considered the most die-hard IS supporters.The camp has no paved roads and piles of trash. Teenagers and children with almost nothing to do spend their time playing soccer or wandering around.Children in the Annex threw stones at visiting AP journalists and shouted You are a Satan and The Islamic State is lasting. Sustenance is from GodA Chinese woman in the Annex, who identified herself as Asmaa Ahmad and said she came from the western region of Xinjiang, described her husband as an Islamic State martyr killed in 2019 in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz, where IS lost the last sliver of land it once controlled.Ahmad, who is in the camp with her four children, said she does not want to go back to China, fearing persecution. Asked about the temporary loss of U.S. aid, she replied: Sustenance is from God.She said she is waiting for IS members to rescue her family one day.Al-Hol is the most dangerous place in the world, camp director Hanan asserted, adding that countries should repatriate their citizens to prevent children being fed the extremist ideology. This place is not suitable for children, she said.The U.S. military has been pushing for years for countries who have citizens at al-Hol and the smaller, separate Roj Camp to repatriate them.Without international repatriation, rehabilitation and reintegration efforts, these camps risk creating the next generation of ISIS, Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla, head of U.S. Central Command, said during a visit to al-Hol in mid-January. Hanan said that since the fall of Assad, many Syrians in the camp have expressed a desire to return to their homes in areas held by the countrys new rulers. She said camp authorities decided that any Syrian who wants to leave can go.Even if the camp population drops, there will be a disaster if U.S. aid is suspended again, she added.

This aerial view on Sunday, Jan. 19, 2025, shows the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant in the Philippines, which has never produced a single watt of energy. (AP Photo/Anton L. Delgado)2025-02-03T03:22:02Z JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) Southeast Asias only nuclear power plant, completed four decades ago in Bataan, about 40 miles from the Philippine capital Manila, was built in the 1970s but left idle due to safety concerns and corruption. It has never produced a single watt of energy.Now the Philippines and other countries in fast-growing Southeast Asia are looking to develop nuclear energy in their quest for cleaner and more reliable energy. Nuclear energy is viewed by its proponents as a climate solution since reactors dont emit the plant-warming greenhouses gases released by burning coal, gas or oil. Advances in technology have helped reduce the risks from radiation, making nuclear plants safer, cheaper to build and smaller.We see multiple signs of a new era in nuclear power across the world, said Faith Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, adding that it expects 2025 to be a historical high for nuclear-generated electricity because of new plants, new national plans and interest in smaller nuclear reactors. Nuclear energy has been used for decades in wealthier nations like the U.S., France and Japan. It produces about 10% of all electricity generated worldwide, with 413 gigawatts of capacity operating in 32 countries, according to the IEA. That is more than Africans entire generating capacity. The IEA says construction of new nuclear power plants needs to accelerate significantly in this decade to meet global targets for ending emissions of greenhouse gases. Southeast Asia will account for a fourth of global energy demand growth between now and 2035, and fossil fuels account for most of the regions energy capacity. Many countries in the region are showing interest in building nuclear power plants which typically produce one gigawatt of power per plant to help clear their smoggy skies and boost capacity. Indonesia plans 20 nuclear power plants. A Korean company is assessing restarting the mothballed Philippine plant. Vietnam has revived nuclear plans, and Malaysias future plans include nuclear energy. Singapore signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with the U.S. last year, and Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar have shown interest in nuclear power. But nuclear power plants are expensive, take years to build and require a long time to become profitable. Vietnam suspended a nuclear project in 2016 after costs soared to $18 billion, but on Jan. 14, it signed a deal with Russia on atomic energy cooperation.International financing for nuclear energy is becoming more available, said Henry Preston, a United Kingdom-based communications manager for the World Nuclear Association, noting that 14 major financial institutions endorsed a goal for tripling global nuclear energy capacity by 2050 at the latest Climate Week NYC. Financing sources are still limited, though. The World Bank does not fund any nuclear energy development projects. We hear the call from some stakeholders to explore nuclear power to decarbonize energy and improve energy supply reliability, a World Bank spokesperson said in a recent written response to questions from The Associated Press. We continue to have conversations with our board, management, and external stakeholders to understand the facts. Any reconsideration of our position is ultimately a decision for our member countries. Developing robust nuclear energy policies and regulations, now lacking in many countries, could catalyze more funding by reassuring investors, Preston said.Technological advances are making nuclear power more affordable, experts say.Small modular reactors, which advocates say can generate up to roughly one-third the amount of power of a traditional reactor, can be built faster and at lower costs than large power reactors, scaling to fit the needs of a particular location. Advocates say they are safer due to simpler designs, lower core power, and more coolant, giving operators more time to respond in case of accidents.Critics question how inexpensive the technology might be since smaller reactors have not been widely commercially deployed, said Putra Adhiguna of the Jakarta-based think tank Energy Shift Institute. The small modular reactors already operating are run by state-owned entities that arent transparent about performance or costs. The cost of the first such reactor that was to be commercially deployed in the U.S. inflated by about half before it was cancelled, he said. The Idaho-based project had a target of delivering 40 years of electricity at $55 per megawatt-hour, but project costs climbed to $89 per MWh, according to a report by The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.Nuclear disasters dimmed earlier enthusiasm for nuclear power in Southeast Asia. Ukraines 1986 Chernobyl disaster was a factor behind the decision to shelve the project in the Philippines. Meltdowns in 2011 at the Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, following a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami also raised worries, leading Thailand to halt its nuclear power plans. In 2018, Malaysias then prime minister Mahathir Mohamad cited such disasters when deciding against using nuclear energy. Some other challenges remain. Markets for nuclear technologies remain concentrated in a few countries Russia controls roughly 40% of the worlds supply of enriched uranium and this is a risk factor for the future, said an IEA report. It added that safely disposing of spent fuel and other radioactive waste is essential to gain public acceptance of nuclear power.For countries like Vietnam, a lack of trained engineers and scientists is also a big obstacle. It estimates that it will need around 2,400 trained personnel to revive its nuclear program. This is not just about the program but about building a nuclear power ecosystem and technology for the future, the state-run VN Express cited Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien as saying.___Ghosal reported from Hanoi, Vietnam.___The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. VICTORIA MILKO Milko is an Associated Press multimedia reporter covering the nexus of the energy transition, climate change and human rights across Asia-Pacific. twitter mailto ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL Ghosal covers the intersection of business and climate change in southeast Asia for The Associated Press. He is based out of Hanoi in Vietnam. twitter mailto

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), speaks to journalists during a press conference at the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on April 6, 2023. (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP, File)2025-02-03T06:00:06Z GENEVA (AP) The World Health Organization chief asked global leaders to lean on Washington to reverse President Donald Trumps decision to withdraw from the U.N. health agency, insisting in a closed-door meeting with diplomats last week that the U.S. will miss out on critical information about global disease outbreaks. But countries also pressed WHO at a key budget meeting last Wednesday about how it might cope with the exit of its biggest donor, according to internal meeting materials obtained by The Associated Press. A German envoy, Bjorn Kummel, warned: The roof is on fire, and we need to stop the fire as soon as possible.For 2024-2025, the U.S. is WHOs biggest donor by far, putting in an estimated $988 million, roughly 14% of WHOs $6.9 billion budget. A budget document presented at the meeting showed WHOs health emergencies program has a heavy reliance on American cash. Readiness functions in WHOs Europe office were more than 80% reliant on the $154 million the U.S. contributes. The document said U.S. funding provides the backbone of many of WHOs large-scale emergency operations, covering up to 40%. It said responses in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan were at risk, in addition to hundreds of millions of dollars lost by polio-eradication and HIV programs. The U.S. also covers 95% of WHOs tuberculosis work in Europe and more than 60% of TB efforts in Africa, the Western Pacific and at the agency headquarters in Geneva, the document said. At a separate private meeting on the impact of the U.S. exit last Wednesday, WHO finance director George Kyriacou said if the agency spends at its current rate, the organization would be very much in a hand-to-mouth type situation when it comes to our cash flows in the first half of 2026. He added the current rate of spending is something were not going to do, according to a recording obtained by the AP. Since Trumps executive order, WHO has attempted to withdraw funds from the U.S. for past expenses, Kyriacou said, but most of those have not been accepted. The U.S. also has yet to settle its owed contributions to WHO for 2024, pushing the agency into a deficit, he added. WHOs leader wants to bring back the USLast week, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were instructed to stop working with WHO immediately. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the attendees at the budget meeting that the agency is still providing U.S. scientists with some data though it isnt known what data.We continue to give them information because they need it, Tedros said, urging member countries to contact U.S officials. We would appreciate it if you continue to push and reach out to them to reconsider.Among other health crises, WHO is currently working to stop outbreaks of Marburg virus in Tanzania, Ebola in Uganda and mpox in Congo. Tedros rebutted Trumps three stated reasons for leaving the agency in the executive order signed on Jan. 20 Trumps first day back in office. In the order, the president said WHO mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic that began in China, failed to adopt needed reforms and that U.S. membership required unfairly onerous payments. Tedros said WHO alerted the world in January 2020 about the potential dangers of the coronavirus and has made dozens of reforms since including efforts to expand its donor base.Tedros also said he believed the U.S. departure was not about the money but more about the void in outbreak details and other critical health information that the United States would face in the future. Bringing the U.S. back will be very important, he told meeting attendees. And on that, I think all of you can play a role.Kummel, a senior advisor on global health in Germanys health ministry, described the U.S. exit as the most extensive crisis WHO has been facing in the past decades. He also asked: What concrete functions of WHO will collapse if the funding of the U.S. is not existent anymore?Officials from countries including Bangladesh and France asked what specific plans WHO had to deal with the loss of U.S. funding and wondered which health programs would be cut as a result. The AP obtained a document shared among some WHO senior managers that laid out several options, including a proposal that each major department or office might be slashed in half by the end of the year.WHO declined to comment on whether Tedros had privately asked countries to lobby on the agencys behalf. Experts say US benefits from WHOSome experts said that while the departure of the U.S. was a major crisis, it might also serve as an opportunity to reshape global public health.Less than 1% of the U.S. health budget goes to WHO, said Matthew Kavanagh, director of Georgetown Universitys Center for Global Health Policy and Politics. In exchange, the U.S. gets a wide variety of benefits to Americans that matter quite a bit, he said. That includes intelligence about disease epidemics globally and virus samples for vaccines. Kavanagh also said the WHO is massively underfunded, describing the contributions from rich countries as peanuts. WHO emergencies chief Dr. Michael Ryan said at the meeting on the impact of the U.S. withdrawal last week that losing the U.S. was terrible, but member states had tremendous capacity to fill in those gaps. Ryan told WHO member countries: The U.S. is leaving a community of nations. Its essentially breaking up with you.Kavanagh doubted the U.S. would be able to match WHOs ability to gather details about emerging health threats globally, and said its exit from the agency will absolutely lead to worse health outcomes for Americans.How much worse remains to be seen, Kavanagh said.___Cheng reported from Toronto. ___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. JAMEY KEATEN Keaten is the chief Associated Press reporter in Geneva. He previously was posted in Paris and has reported from Afghanistan, the Middle East, North Africa and across Europe. twitter

Ukrainian servicemen of 148th artillery brigade fire by a M777 howitzer towards Russian positions at the frontline on Velyka Novosilka direction, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Jan. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)2025-02-03T07:55:45Z POKROVSK REGION, Ukraine (AP) A dire shortage of infantry troops and supply routes coming under Russian drone attacks are conspiring against Ukrainian forces in Pokrovsk, where decisive battles in the nearly three-year war are playing out and time is running short. Ukrainian troops are losing ground around the crucial supply hub, which lies at the confluence of multiple highways leading to key cities in the eastern Donetsk region as well as an important railway station.Moscow is set on capturing as much territory as possible as the Trump administration is pushing for negotiations to end the war and recently froze foreign aid to Ukraine, a move that has shocked Ukrainian officials already apprehensive about the intentions of the new U.S. president, their most important ally. Military aid has not stopped, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said. Ukrainian soldiers in Pokrovsk said that Russian forces switched tactics in recent weeks, attacking their flanks instead of going head-on to form a pincer movement around the city. With Russians in control of dominant heights, Ukrainian supply routes are now within their range. Heavy fog in recent days prevented Ukrainian soldiers from effectively using surveillance drones, allowing Russians to consolidate and take more territory. Meanwhile, Ukrainian commanders say they do not have enough reserves to sustain defense lines and that new infantry units are failing to execute operations. Many pin hopes on Mykhailo Drapatyi, a respected commander recently appointed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as ground forces chief, to shift the dynamic and counterattack. The war is won by logistics. If there is no logistics, there is no infantry, because there is no way to supply it, said the deputy commander of the Da Vinci Wolves battalion, known by the call sign Afer. (Russians) have learned this and are doing it quite well. Poor weather at the worst time A combination of factors led Kyiv to effectively lose the settlement of Velyka Novosilka this past week, their most significant gain since seizing the city of Kurakhove in the Donetsk region in January. Scattered groups of Ukrainian soldiers are still present in Velyka Novosilkas southern sector, Ukrainian commanders said, prompting criticism from some military experts who questioned why the higher command did not order a full withdrawal.The road-junction village is 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the neighboring Dnipropetrovsk region, where authorities have begun digging fortifications for the first time since Russias full-scale invasion in February 2022, anticipating further Russian advances.Russia amassed a large number of infantry around Velyka Novosilka, soldiers there said. As heavy fog set in in recent days, Ukrainian drones barely worked to conduct surveillance, one commander near Pokrovsk told The Associated Press. Long-range and medium-range surveillance was impossible, he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely about sensitive military matters. Because of this, the enemy was amassing forces taking up positions, digging in. They were very good at it, he said.It was at that fateful moment that Russian forces launched a massive attack: Up to 10 columns of armoured vehicles, each with up to 10 units, moved out from various directions.Ukrainian logistics in peril Key logistics routes along asphalted roads and highways are under direct threat from Russian drones as a result of Moscows recent gains, further straining Ukrainian troops.Russian forces now occupy key dominant heights around the Pokrovsk region, which allows them to use drones up to 30 kilometers (18 miles) deep into Ukrainian front lines.The Pokrovsk-Pavlohrad-Dnipro highway is already under the control of Russian drones, said the commander at Pokrovsks flanks. Russian forces are less than 4 kilometers ( 2 1/2 miles) away and are affecting Ukrainian traffic, he said. Now the road is only 10% of its former capacity, he said. Another paved highway, the Myrnohrad-Kostyantynivka road, is also under Russian fire, he said. This also means that in poor weather, military vehicles, including armored personnel carriers, tanks and pickup trucks, have to trudge through the open fields to deliver fuel, food and ammunition, as well as evacuate the wounded.In a first-aid station near Pokrovsk, a paramedic with the call sign Marik said evacuating wounded soldiers once took hours, now it takes days.Everything is visible (by enemy drones) and it is very difficult, he said. New recruits are unprepared Ukrainian soldiers in Pokrovsk said shortages of fighting troops are catastrophic and challenges are compounded by newly created infantry units that are poorly trained and inexperienced, putting more pressure on battle-hardened brigades having to step in to stabilize the front line.Afer, the deputy commander, complained that new recruits are constantly extending the front line because they leave their positions, they do not hold them, they do not control them, they do not monitor them. We do almost all the work for them. Because of this, having initially a 2-kilometer area of responsibility, you end up with 8-9 kilometers per battalion, which is a lot and we dont have enough resources, Afer said. Drones are especially hard to come by for his battalion, he said, adding they only have half of what they need. Its not because they have lower quality infantry, but because they are completely unprepared for modern warfare, he said of the new recruits. His battalion has almost no reserves, forcing infantry units to hold front-line positions for weeks at a time. For every one of his soldiers, Russians have 20, he said, emphasizing how outnumbered they are. Back at the first-aid station, a wounded soldier with the call sign Fish was recovering from a leg wound sustained after he tried to evacuate a fallen comrade. He had moved him from a dugout to load him into a vehicle when the Russian mortar shell exploded nearby. We are fighting back as much as we can, as best as we can, he said.Kullab reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. Associated Press journalist Volodymyr Yurchuk contributed to this report. ___Follow APs coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine SAMYA KULLAB Kullab is an Associated Press reporter covering Ukraine since June 2023. Before that, she covered Iraq and the wider Middle East from her base in Baghdad since joining the AP in 2019. twitter instagram mailto

Traditional Russian wooden dolls called Matryoshka depicting China's President Xi Jinping, left, and U.S. President Donald Trump are on sale at a souvenir shop in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)2025-02-03T07:38:27Z TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) U.S. President Donald Trumps trade war with Canada, Mexico and China is ramping up over the production and importation of the opiate fentanyl, along with trade surpluses and illegal border crossings by migrants from across the globe. Here is what Beijing says about it:What has been Chinas reaction so far? China has reiterated its threat to take necessary countermeasures to defend its legitimate rights and interests following Trumps decision to impose 10% tariffs on China for allegedly doing too little to stem the production of precursor chemicals for fentanyl. The Foreign Ministry statement issued Sunday did not mention any specific retaliatory measures, but said China calls on the United States to correct its wrongdoings, maintain the hard-won positive dynamics in the counternarcotics cooperation, and promote a steady, sound and sustainable development of China-U.S. relationship. China says the U.S. action violates World Trade Organization rules and has vowed to bring a case before the body that governs global commerce.The Ministry of Public Security on Sunday made near identical charges and the Commerce Ministry also issued a closely worded statement. Who does China say is to blame?Trump accuses China of allowing the production of fentanyl, which is then made into tablets in Mexico and smuggled into and distributed throughout the U.S., which records some 70,000 overdose deaths from the drug annually. China says the U.S. must hold itself to account instead of threatening other countries with arbitrary tariff hikes, the Foreign Ministry said. The United States needs to view and solve its own fentanyl issue in an objective and rational way ... (China is) one of the worlds toughest countries on counternarcotics both in terms of policy and its implementation.Experts say China executes an unknown number of people each year for smuggling drugs, but domestic drug use is relatively low.The Ministry of Public Security statement said the U.S. has not reported any fentanyl precursor seizures originating in China since Beijing began to take legal action. What other issues may be having an impact on the dispute?Chinas enormous trade deficit with the U.S., which reached nearly $1 trillion last year, has been a constant target of Trumps complaints. Tariffs would make Chinese goods more expensive for U.S. consumers, who will ultimately have to pay a significant part of the cost of importing everything from toys to clothing.Chinas vital export market could be impacted if U.S. consumers decide to buy American. The Chinese domestic economy has failed to respond to a range of government-backed stimuli, while foreign infrastructure projects and other major government initiatives that add to the countrys already high public debt threaten more economic stagnation. That is already starting to derail Chinese President Xi Jinpings push to overtake the U.S. in key economic and political indicators, threatening his ultimate ambition to conquer the island republic of Taiwan and assert Chinese primacy in the Indo-Pacific region. Stopping illegal immigration has also been one of Trumps core political messages, and was named in tariff actions against U.S. neighbors Mexico and Canada. Illegal arrivals from China are considered a fraction of such numbers, but Trump has put virtually every country on notice that he will hold them accountable for their nationals who enter the U.S. outside the law.

Medics treat a man wounded during fighting between Congolese government troops and M23 rebel forces in Goma's Kyeshero hospital Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)2025-02-03T06:32:29Z GOMA, Congo (AP) Hundreds of wounded people have poured into overcrowded hospitals in Goma, a major city in eastern Congo, as fighting rages on between government forces and the Rwanda-backed rebels who seized the city of around 2 million people.They will get infected before we can treat them all, said Florence Douet, an operating room nurse at Bethesda Hospital, as she attended to patients with varying degrees of injuries. Since the start of the M23 rebels offensive on Goma on Jan. 26, more than 700 people have been killed and nearly 3,000 have been wounded in the city and its vicinity, officials say. Bethesda Hospital alone said it receives more than 100 new patients each day, overstretching its capacity of 250 beds.Bethesda is one of several hospitals in Goma that The Associated Press visited that has inadequate personnel and supplies. The city hosts many of the close to 6.5 million people displaced by the conflict, which is one of the worlds largest humanitarian crises. As more people arrived at the hospitals with gunshot or shrapnel wounds, many were forced to share beds while others lay on the floor, writhing in pain as they waited for medical attention. This is the first time Im experiencing this, said Patrick Bagamuhunda, who was wounded in the fighting. This war has caused a lot of damage, but at least we are still breathing.The M23 rebels are backed by some 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, far more than in 2012, when they first captured Goma before withdrawing under international pressure. They are the most potent of the more than 100 armed groups vying for control in Congos mineral-rich east, which holds vast deposits critical to much of the worlds technology. Unlike in 2012, the rebels say they now plan to march to Congos capital, Kinshasa, 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) away, describing the country as a failed state under President Flix Tshisekedi. The fighting in Congo has connections with a decadeslong ethnic conflict. M23 says it is defending ethnic Tutsis in Congo. Rwanda has claimed the Tutsis are being persecuted by Hutus and former militias responsible for the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and others in Rwanda. Many Hutus fled to Congo after the genocide and founded the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) militia group. Rwanda said the group is fully integrated into the Congolese military, which denies the charges.Hospitals are running out of suppliesMedical workers at Kyeshero Hospital in Goma say they are treating an increasing number of patients with bullet wounds.We removed 48 bullets yesterday, Johnny Kasangati, a surgeonl, said Friday as he examined a patient under a tent.Kyeshero is also severely overcrowded, hitting more than 200% of its capacity on some days, according to Joseph Amadomon Sagara, a project coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, which runs the hospital.In the past, hospitals in Goma could transport wounded patients by boat to South Kivus main Bukavu city, 180 kilometers (111 miles) to the south, but transport across Lake Kivu was suspended during the rebellion and roads have been mostly cut. The fighting in and around Goma has also disrupted supply chains, leading to shortages in medical supplies that aid groups rely on. Some of it previously entered the city through its international airport, which is now under rebel control.Goma was cut off from the world. It was a total blackout, said Virginie Napolitano, Gomas emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders.The aid groups stockpiles, along with those of other groups, have been looted. Were getting by with what we had in the cabinets, but I dont know for how long, Napolitano said.How many have died in the conflict?Congos government has confirmed 773 deaths and 2,880 injured persons at morgues and hospitals. The toll could be higher, it said, citing fears of finding mass graves and more bodies.The Maternit de la Charit Hospital in Goma was among those struggling to find space for the dead.We had 66 bodies here. Fifty-six were transferred to the provincial hospital, where the morgue has more space than ours, said Jules Kafitiye, the hospitals medical director.We need to avoid decomposition due to disease, he added, pointing to a tent where bodies were being stored. Fears of disease spread as morgues overflowScores of bodies lay on streets and in hospitals in Goma after the citys capture, raising fears of disease outbreaks in the region, which is also facing mpox and cholera outbreaks.The U.N. health body warned last week that repeated mass displacement in Congo has created ideal conditions for the spread of endemic diseases in displacement camps and surrounding communities, including cholera, which saw more than 22,000 infections last year, and measles, which affected close to 12,000 people. The region also battles with chronic child malnutrition. Theres a fear for the disease to be spreading widely in communities, said Dr. Boureima Hama Sambo, the World Health Organizations representative in Congo. But at this point, we cannot say because we have not been able to get there. ___Associated Press journalist Justin Kabumba contributed to this report.___The Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Doechii, center, performs a medley during the 67th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)2025-02-03T09:01:00Z All eyes at the Grammy Awards were on whether the most-nominated artist in the history of the telecast would finally walk away with the coveted album of the year trophy. She did. We finally saw it happen, host Trevor Noah said, almost in relief.Beyonc winning for Cowboy Carter capped a night that turned into a tribute to a suffering Los Angeles, with city firefighters chosen to reveal the winner of the last award and speeches offering words of encouragement for communities devastated. The Grammys almost veered into a telethon; $7 million was pledged from viewers of the show.It was also a telecast where the best new artist nominees like Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter were given plenty of time to show why theres a deep well of talent coming up. And there was a shock return for The Weeknd, who had been boycotting the Grammys.Here are some of the nights notable moments: Kicking it off with some local boys Beyonc and Lady Gaga were right there, as were Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, but the honor of opening the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles was given to two local brothers deeply affected by the wildfires: Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith of the band Dawes.They lost one brothers home along with their childhood home, instruments and much else. Theyve advocated for victims, raised money and were included in the FireAid benefit concert on Thursday.They truly epitomize the unique spirit that we are seeing in LA right now, host Trevor Noah said. What better way to start the Grammy Awards? Dawes then played Randy Newmans I Love L.A. surrounded by an all-star backing band: John Legend, Brad Paisley, Sheryl Crow, Brittany Howard and St. Vincent.Look at these firefighters, aint nothin like em nowhere, Taylor Goldsmith sang, altering the line: Look at these women/There aint nothing like em nowhere. All hail the Swamp PrincessDoechii won the Grammy for best rap album, only the third woman to win in that category. And, with her mother by her side, she had a strong message for young Black girls.I know that theres some Black girl out there, so many Black women out there, that are watching me right now, and I want to tell you: You can do it. Anything is possible. Anything is possible, she said.Dont allow anybody to project any stereotypes on you, to tell you that you cant be here, that youre too dark, or that youre not smart enough, or that youre too dramatic, or youre too loud. You are exactly who you need to be to be right where you are, and I am a testimony right now. Good night!The win caps an astounding few years for the 26-year-old Floridian who mixes R&B, hip-hop, jazz, boundary-pushing sounds and samples, and adds theatricality. She playfully calls herself the swamp princess.Her 2024 mixtape, Alligator Bites Never Heal went to No. 33 on the Billboard 200, No. 9 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop chart and No. 8 on the Top Rap Album chart.Her Grammy performance of Catfish and Denial Is a River was electric, with the singer-songwriter backed by over a dozen dancers in matching Thom Browne suits and she eventually stripped down to a white two-piece set. Chappell Roan advocates from the stageChappell Roan was crowned best new artist and then used her speech to demand change in the music business.I told myself that if I ever won a Grammy and got to stand up here before the most powerful people in music, I would demand that labels in the industry profiting millions of dollars off of artists would offer a livable wage and health care, especially to developing artists, she said.Roan began her music career in 2015 when she signed with Atlantic Records, releasing several singles including Pink Pony Club. In 2020, the label dropped her. She moved back to her hometown to work as a barista before releasing her debut full-length album.It was devastating to feel so committed to my art and feel so betrayed by the system and dehumanized, Roan said in her speech. Record labels need to treat their artists as valuable employees with a livable wage and health insurance and protection.Earlier, Roan performed a rocking version of her Pink Pony Club, joined by a posse of dancing clown cowboys as she sang from atop a giant pink horse. Lady Gaga and Alicia Keys get politicalLady Gaga, accepting the trophy for best pop duo or group alongside Bruno Mars for their chart-topping collab, Die with a Smile, gave a shout-out to the trans community, targets of President Donald Trump.Trans people are not invisible. Trans people deserve love. The queer community deserves to be lifted up. Music is love, Lady Gaga said.Not long after, Alicia Keys, being honored with The Dr. Dre Global Impact Award, also backed diversity and inclusion programs, another Trump target.This is not the time to shut down the diversity of voices, said Keys. Weve seen on this stage talented, hardworking people from different backgrounds with different points of view, and it changes the game. DEI is not a threat, its a gift. The Weeknd returns to the GrammysThe Grammy Awards had a powerful way to prove that theyve changed. They got a surprise endorsement by The Weeknd, who was last on the Grammy stage in 2017.The pop superstar in 2020 slammed the Grammys, calling them corrupt after he landed zero nominations despite a megahit album. You owe me, my fans and the industry transparency, he wrote on social media. Grammys CEO Harvey Mason jr., who started in his post in 2020, on Sunday said he understood the criticism and listed all the things the Academy has done to fix it.We have completely re-made our membership, adding more than 3,000 women voting members. The Grammy electorate is now younger, nearly 40% people of color, and 66% of our members are new since we started our transformation, he said. Over the past few years, we have listened, weve acted and weve changed.Mason then introduced The Weeknd, who performed two tunes from his just-released album Hurry Up Tomorrow Cry For Me and Timeless with special guest Playboi Carti. He wore a long druids robe and the stage was smoky.Will Smith returns to the award stageWill Smith, hosting a tribute to the late Quincy Jones, marked his first appearance at a major awards show since since he slapped Chris Rock onstage at the Oscars in 2022.In his 91 years, Q touched countless lives, but I have to say, he changed mine forever. You probably wouldnt even know who Will Smith was if it wasnt for Quincy Jones, Smith said.Smith has been banned from film academy ceremonies for 10 years but the Grammys are a different beast. He made no mention of the infamous Slap.Smith has previously nabbed Grammy wins in the short form music video (Will 2K), best rap solo performance (Getting Jiggy Wit It, Men in Black), and best rap performance by a duo or group (Summertime as the Fresh Prince with DJ Jazzy Jeff).___For more coverage of the 2025 Grammys, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards MARK KENNEDY Kennedy is a theater, TV, music, food and obit writer and editor for The Associated Press, as well as a critic for theater, movies and music. He is based in New York City. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Ruins of a settlement, including a former Catholic monastery, lie on the rocky promontory of Skaros on the Greek island of Santorini, on June 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)2025-02-03T06:42:46Z SANTORINI, Greece (AP) Schools were closed and emergency crews deployed on the volcanic Greek island of Santorini on Monday after a spike in seismic activity raised concerns about a potentially powerful earthquake.Precautions were also ordered on several nearby Aegean Sea islands all popular summer vacation destinations after more than 200 undersea earthquakes were recorded in the area over the past three days.These measures are precautionary, and authorities will remain vigilant, Civil Protection Minister Vasilis Kikilias said late Sunday following an emergency government meeting in Athens. We urge citizens to strictly adhere to safety recommendations to minimize risk.While Greek experts say the quakes, measuring up to magnitude 4.8, are not linked to Santorinis volcano, they acknowledge that the pattern of seismic activity is cause for concern. The frequency of the quakes, which continued throughout Sunday night and into Monday, has worried residents.I have never felt anything like this and with such frequency an earthquake every 10 or 20 minutes. Everyone is anxious even if some of us hide it not to cause panic, but everyone is worried, said local resident Michalis Gerontakis, who is also the director of the Santorini Philharmonic Orchestra. We came out yesterday and performed. Despite the earthquakes, the Philharmonic performed for a religious occasion, Gerontakis said. When you are playing, you cannot feel the quakes but there were earthquakes when we were at the church. No one can knows what will happen. People can say whatever they like, but that has no value. You cannot contend with nature. Government officials met with scientists throughout the weekend and on Monday to assess the situation, while schools were also ordered shut on the nearby islands of Amorgos, Anafi and Ios.On Santorini, residents and visitors were advised to avoid large indoor gatherings and areas where rock slides could occur, while hotels were instructed to drain swimming pools to reduce potential building damage from an earthquake. Fire Service rescuers who arrived on the island on Sunday set up yellow tents as a staging area inside a basketball court next to the islands main hospital. We arrived last night, a 26-member team of rescuers and one rescue dog, said fire brigadier Ioannis Billias.Quakes continued rattling the island through the night and on Monday morning, many over magnitude 4.0, and Billias said many residents, including entire families, spent the night in their cars.Crescent-shaped Santorini is a premier tourism destination with daily arrivals via commercial flights, ferries, and cruise ships. The island draws more than 3 million visitors annually to its whitewashed villages, built along dramatic cliffs formed by a massive volcanic eruption more than 3,500 years ago.Prominent Greek seismologist Gerasimos Papadopoulos cautioned that the current earthquake sequence displayed on live seismic maps as a growing cluster of dots between the islands of Santorini, Ios, Amorgos, and Anafi could indicate a larger impending event. All scenarios remain open, Papadopoulos wrote in an online post. The number of tremors has increased, magnitudes have risen, and epicenters have shifted northeast. While these are tectonic quakes, not volcanic, the risk level has escalated.In Santorinis main town of Fira, local authorities designated gathering points for residents in preparation for a potential evacuation, though Mayor Nikos Zorzos emphasized the preventive nature of the measures.We are obliged to make preparations. But being prepared for something does not mean it will happen, he said during a weekend briefing. Sometimes, the way the situation is reported, those reports may contain exaggerations... so people should stay calm. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

This is a locator map for Syria with its capital, Damascus. (AP Photo)2025-02-03T07:31:34Z DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) At least 15 people were killed and dozens wounded Monday when a car bomb exploded on the outskirts of a northern Syrian city, local civil defense and a war monitor reported.The car on the outskirts of the city of Manbij detonated next to a vehicle carrying agricultural workers, killing 14 women and one man, the local Syrian civil defense reported. Another 15 women were wounded, some of them in critical condition. However, Britain-based war monitor The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 18 women were killed as well as one man.It was the seventh car bomb explosion in Manbij in just over a month, said Munir Mustafa, the deputy director of civil defense, known as The White Helmets. He warned that the ongoing attacks in Aleppo province near Syrias second city will halt Syrias progress to bring about post-war security and economic recovery. The continued attacks on Syrian civilian areas and targeting civilians while they are trying to recover from the effects of the war of the defunct Assad regime that lasted for about 14 years threatens their lives, deepens their humanitarian tragedy, undermines educational and agricultural activities and livelihoods, and worsens the humanitarian situation in Syria, Mustafa said. Manbij in northeastern Aleppo province continues to witness violence even after the downfall of President Bashar Assad in December, where Turkish-backed factions known as the Syrian National Army continue to clash with the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. A car bombing in Manbij on Saturday killed four civilians and wounded nine, SANA reported, citing civil defense officials.___Chehayeb reported from Beirut. KAREEM CHEHAYEB Chehayeb is an Associated Press reporter in Beirut. twitter instagram mailto

USAID humanitarian aid destined for Venezuela is displayed for the media at a warehouse next to the Tienditas International Bridge on the outskirts of Cucuta, Colombia, Feb. 19, 2019. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)2025-02-03T11:29:28Z WASHINGTON (AP) Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development were instructed to stay out of the agencys Washington headquarters on Monday, according to a notice distributed to them, after billionaire Elon Musk announced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to shut the agency.USAID staffers said they also tracked more than 600 employees who reported being locked out of the agencys computer systems overnight. Those still in the system received emails saying that at the direction of Agency leadership the headquarters building will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, Feb. 3.The developments come after Musk, whos leading an extraordinary civilian review of the federal government with the Republican presidents agreement, said early Monday that he had spoken with Trump about the six-decade U.S. aid and development agency and he agreed we should shut it down. It became apparent that its not an apple with a worm it in, Musk said in a live session on X Spaces early Monday. What we have is just a ball of worms. Youve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. Its beyond repair. Were shutting it down, he said.Musk, Trump and some Republican lawmakers have targeted the U.S. aid and development agency, which oversees humanitarian, development and security programs in some 120 countries, in increasingly strident terms, accusing it of promoting liberal causes. Over the weekend, the Trump administration placed two top security chiefs at USAID on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musks government-inspection teams, a current and a former U.S. official told The Associated Press on Sunday.Musks Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, earlier carried out a similar operation at the Treasury Department, gaining access to sensitive information including the Social Security and Medicare customer payment systems. The Washington Post reported that a senior Treasury official had resigned over Musks team accessing sensitive information. Democratic lawmakers have protested the moves, saying Trump lacks constitutional authority to shut down USAID without congressional approval and decrying Musks accessing sensitive government-held information through his Trump-sanctioned inspections of federal government agencies and programs.USAID, whose website vanished Saturday without explanation, has been one of the federal agencies most targeted by the Trump administration in an escalating crackdown on the federal government and many of its programs.Its been run by a bunch of radical lunatics. And were getting them out, Trump said to reporters about USAID on Sunday night. Musks and Trumps comments came with Secretary of State Marco Rubio out of the country, in Central America, on his first trip abroad in office. Rubio has not spoken publicly about any plans to shut down USAID.The Trump administration and Rubio have imposed an unprecedented freeze on foreign assistance that has shut down much of USAIDs aid programs worldwide compelling thousands of layoffs by aid organizations and ordered furloughs and leaves that have gutted the agencys leadership and staff in Washington.. Peter Marocco, a returning political appointee from Trumps first term, was a leader in enforcing the shutdown. USAID staffers say they believe that agency outsiders with visitors badges asking questions of employees inside the Washington headquarters are members of Musks DOGE team.Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a post on Sunday that Trump was allowing Musk to access peoples personal information and shut down government funding. We must do everything in our power to push back and protect people from harm, the Massachusetts senator said, without giving details. ELLEN KNICKMEYER Knickmeyer covers foreign policy and national security for the Associated Press. She is based in Washington, D.C. twitter FATIMA HUSSEIN Hussein reports on the U.S. Treasury Department for The Associated Press. She covers tax policy, sanctions and any issue that relates to money. twitter mailto

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters next to Air Force One after arriving back at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)2025-02-03T11:53:12Z WASHINGTON (AP) A planned Trump administration freeze on federal funding is heading back to a Washington courtroom on Monday.A judge is expected to consider extending her temporary block on President Donald Trumps plan to halt federal grants and loans, which originally targeted a wide range of funding totaling potentially trillions of dollars. U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan in Washington blocked the funding freeze minutes before it was scheduled to take effect, but her short stay lasts only until Monday afternoon, unless she decides to extend it.A second judge in Rhode Island issued a temporary order on Friday blocking Trumps Republican administration from halting federal funding in a separate lawsuit filed by nearly two dozen Democratic states. The Trump administration memo targeting across-the-board funding was quickly rescinded, but the White House press secretary has said that a funding freeze is still planned in line with Trumps blitz of executive orders. The president wants to increase fossil fuel production, remove protections for transgender people and end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The Washington lawsuit was filed by nonprofit groups that stand to lose federal funding. The groups say Trumps plan is illegal and its ideological bent violates their freedom of speech.The Trump administration argues the groups havent shown theyll be harmed by the plan, which could be a brief pause in line with federal law. The administration had said it wouldnt affect payments to individuals like Medicare, Social Security or Medicaid. LINDSAY WHITEHURST Whitehurst covers the Supreme Court, legal affairs and criminal justice for The Associated Press in Washington, D.C. Past stops include Salt Lake City, New Mexico and Indiana. twitter mailto

2025-02-03T13:33:53Z TORONTO (AP) The leader of Canadas most populous province of Ontario said Monday hes ripping up a contract with Elon Musks Starlink internet services in response to U.S. President Donald Trumps sweeping tariffs on Canada. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who said he is also banning American companies from provincial contracts, signed a $100-million Canadian (US$68 million) with Musks company in November to deliver high-speed internet to remote residents in rural and northern Ontario.Well be ripping up the provinces contract with Starlink. Ontario wont do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy, Ford said in a post on X. Ford said starting Tuesday and until U.S. tariffs are removed, Ontario will ban American companies from provincial contracts.Canada didnt start this fight with the U.S., but you better believe were ready to win it, said Ford, who called an election for his province last week.

The sun rises above a wreckage site in the Potomac River across from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)2025-02-03T13:27:33Z ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) Crews were on the scene on the Potomac River on Monday to retrieve the submerged wreckage of an airliner and an Army helicopter that collided midair in the deadliest U.S. air disaster since 2001.Authorities have recovered and identified 55 of the 67 people killed in the crash and Washington, D.C., Fire and EMS Chief John Donnelly has said they are confident all will be found. Crews were expected to begin the work of lifting the wreckage on Monday and at daybreak they could be seen aboard a vessel with a crane. More than 300 responders were taking part in the recovery effort at a given time, officials said. Two Navy barges were also deployed to lift heavy wreckage. Divers and salvage workers are adhering to strict protocols and will stop moving debris if a body is found, Col. Francis B. Pera of the Army Corps of Engineers said Sunday. The dignified recovery of remains takes precedence over all else, he said. Portions of the two aircraft that collided over the river Wednesday night near Reagan Washington National Airport an American Airlines jet with 64 people aboard and an Army Black Hawk helicopter with 3 aboard will be loaded onto flatbed trucks and taken to a hangar for investigation. The crash occurred when the jet, en route from Wichita, Kansas, was about to land. The Black Hawk was on a training mission. There were no survivors. On Sunday, family members were taken in buses with a police escort to the Potomac River bank near where the two aircraft came to rest after colliding.The planes passengers included figure skaters returning from the 2025 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Wichita and a group of hunters returning from a guided trip. Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Austin OHara, 28, of Lilburn, Georgia; Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Loyd Eaves, 39, of Great Mills, Maryland; and Capt. Rebecca M. Lobach, of Durham, North Carolina, were in the helicopter. Federal investigators were working to piece together the events that led to the collision. Full investigations typically take a year or more. Investigators hope to have a preliminary report within 30 days.Wednesdays crash was the deadliest in the U.S. since Nov. 12, 2001, when a jet slammed into a New York City neighborhood just after takeoff, killing all 260 people on board and five on the ground.Experts stress that plane travel is overwhelmingly safe, but the crowded airspace around Reagan Airport can challenge even experienced pilots. ___Christopher Weber in Los Angeles contributed reporting. MICHAEL R. SISAK Sisak is an Associated Press reporter covering law enforcement and courts in New York City, including former President Donald Trumps criminal and civil cases and problems plaguing the federal prison system. twitter mailto

This article was primarily reported using public records requests. We are making it available to all readers as a public service. FOIA reporting can be expensive, please consider subscribing to 404 Media to support this work. Or send us a one time donation via our tip jar here.The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), whose tagline is Win the Fight, has paid more than a hundred thousand dollars to a company that is providing generative AI services to other parts of the Department of Defense. But the AFRL refused to say what exactly the point of the research was, and provided page after page of entirely blacked out, redacted documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from 404 Media related to the contract.The news shows that while AI continues to proliferate across essentially every industry and increasingly government departments, some parts of the military can be tight-lipped about its intentions around generative AI, even when the models used are sometimes the same as what everyone else has access to or are open source, and when the work is unclassified. 404 Media previously reported that the Air Force tested a surveillance-focused AI chatbot.Ask Sage: Generative AI Acquisition Accelerator, a December 2023 procurement record reads, with no additional information on the intended use case. The Air Force paid $109,490 to Ask Sage, the record says.Ask Sage is a company focused on providing generative AI to the government. In September the company announced that the Army was implementing Ask Sages tools. In October it achieved IL5 authorization, a DoD term for the necessary steps to protect unclassified information to a certain standard.Image: A screenshot of Ask Sage.404 Media made an account on the Ask Sage website. After logging in, the site presents a list of the models available through Ask Sage. Essentially, they include every major model made by well-known AI companies and open source ones. Open AIs GPT-4o and DALL-E-3; Anthropics Claude 3.5; and Googles Gemini are all included.The company also recently added the Chinese-developed DeepSeek R1, but includes a disclaimer. WARNING. DO NOT USE THIS MODEL WITH SENSITIVE DATA. THIS MODEL IS BIASED, WITH TIES TO THE CCP [Chinese Communist Party], it reads. Ask Sage is a way for government employees to access and use AI models in a more secure way. But only some of the models in the tool are listed by Ask Sage as being compliant" with or capable of handling sensitive data.Do you know anything else about government use of AI? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at +44 20 8133 5190. Otherwise, send me an email at joseph@404media.co.In an associated Ask Sage Discord, apparent customers ask the company for support or make other comments. Thanks for all the hard work and great enhancements that make our work lives so much easier, one message posted this month reads. The username matches that of someone who lists their job as AI Implementation, Information WarfareAir Combat Command, on LinkedIn.Image: A screenshot of one of the redactions.But the Air Force declined to provide any real specifics on what it paid Ask Sage for. 404 Media requested all procurement records related to the Ask Sage contract. Instead, the Air Force provided a 19 page presentation which seemingly would have explained the purpose of the test, while redacting 18 of the pages. The only available page said Ask Sage, Inc. will explore the utilization of Ask Sage by acquisition Airmen with the DAF for Innovative Defense-Related Dual Purpose Technologies relating to the mission of exploring LLMs for DAF use while exploring anticipated benefits, clearly define needed solution adaptations, and define clear milestones and acceptance criteria for Phase II efforts.Nicolas Chaillan, founder of Ask Sage and former chief software officer for the Air Force and Space Force told 404 Media in an email that This was a research contract for feasibility.This did not include any license of the product or any use of the product. He added the only deliverable was a report and the work was not classified.The AFRL did not respond to a request for comment.

Traders work on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig), File)2025-02-03T03:38:46Z Worries about President Donald Trumps tariffs are hurting U.S. stocks Monday as financial markets worldwide drop on concerns about a potential trade war.The S&P 500 was down 1.4% in early trading following similar losses for stock markets across Asia and Europe. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 435 points, or 1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.8% lower.Everything from bitcoin to the Mexican peso fell, not just the stocks of U.S. companies expected to be the first to feel pain from Trumps tariffs on goods imported from Canada, Mexico and China. On Wall Street, some of the sharpest losses hit Big Tech and other companies that could be hit hardest by higher interest rates.The fear is that Trumps tariffs will push up prices for groceries, electronics and all kinds of other bills for U.S. households, putting upward pressure on a U.S. inflation rate thats largely been slowing since its peak three summers ago. Stubbornly high or accelerating inflation could keep the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates, which it began doing in September to give the U.S. economy a boost. To be sure, U.S. stock prices remain close to their all-time high, which was set less than two weeks ago. And Mondays losses werent as bad as some other recent drops, such as one in December when the Fed hinted fewer rate cuts may arrive in 2025 than expected. But much of Wall Street had been hoping Trumps talk of tariffs through the presidential campaign was just that, talk, and an opening point for negotiations with U.S. trading partners. Now that Trump has followed through, the fear is about how much retaliation will occur in what could be an escalating trade war that damages economies worldwide, including the United States. The uncertainty at this stage is tremendous - not only of how these eventual negotiations will play out, but worries about how this is only the tip of the iceberg and more tariffs are on the horizon, said Yung-Yu Ma, chief investment officer at BMO Wealth Management. Traders on Wall Street are already paring expectations for how many cuts to interest rates the Federal Reserve may deliver this year, if any. Lower interest rates can encourage U.S. employers to hire more workers, while also goosing prices for investment, but the downside is they can give inflation more fuel.Living in the Midwest, I might feel the trade war soonest and most, said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management, because of how much crude oil flows over the northern U.S. border to make gasoline. Our refiners cant easily switch away from Canadian crude.Crude oil prices rose, suggesting inflationary pressure may already be starting. A barrel of benchmark U.S. crude rose 1.3% to $73.45. Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose 0.8% to $76.29. Trump himself warned Americans they may feel some pain from the tariffs, which he said would be worth the price to make America great again. He also said Sunday night that import taxes will definitely happen with the European Union and possibly with the United Kingdom as well. Among all the uncertainties upsetting Wall Street was the basic question of how Trump would decide whether and when Canada, China and Mexico are doing enough to lift the tariffs.Its hard to map out how long this could last, Jacobsen said.Wall Street famously hates uncertainty, and prices fell nearly across the board. Nearly 90% of all the stocks in the S&P 500 dropped.Constellation Brands, the company that sells Modelo and Corona beers and also sells alcohol in Canada, fell 5.6%. Automakers, which import heavily from Mexico, also sank. General Motors dropped 5%. Instead of stocks and crypto, investors moved instead into U.S. government bonds, which are seen as some of the safest possible investments. The resulting rally in their prices drove longer-term Treasury yields down.The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.50% from 4.55% late Friday.Its a reprieve, at least temporarily, from a rise in longer-term Treasury yields that has shaken Wall Street in recent months. Yields have climbed in part on expectations for just such tariffs from Trump, and the possible result of higher interest rates they could entail. Short-term Treasury yields rose Monday as expectations waned for cuts to rates from the Fed. The yield on the two-year Treasury rose to 4.24% from 4.21% Higher yields put pressure on all kinds of investments, but theyre particularly burdensome on stocks seen as the most expensive.That puts the spotlight on companies like Nvidia and other winners of the artificial-intelligence boom. Nvidia fell 5.3% and was the heaviest single weight on the S&P 500.Theyd already come under pressure last week, after a Chinese upstart said it had developed a large language model that could perform as well as big U.S. rivals, but without having to use the most expensive, top-flight chips. That raised doubt about whether all the investment Wall Street had assumed would occur for chips, large data centers and electricity would really have to occur. Such assumptions had driven stocks like Nvidia, Constellation Energy and others to record after record.The tariffs took center stage in a week where other events would typically take center stage, including a report on Friday showing how many workers U.S. employers hired last month.In stock markets abroad, indexes fell 1.5% in London, 1.7% in Paris and 1.8% in Frankfurt. In Asia, South Koreas Kospi sank 2.5%, and Japans Nikkei 225 fell 2.7%.___AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Yuri Kageyama contributed. YURI KAGEYAMA Kageyama covers Japan news for The Associated Press. Her topics include social issues, the environment, businesses, entertainment and technology. twitter instagram facebook mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

New Orleans Saints and Pelicans owner Gayle Benson, left, talks with Saints President Dennis Lauscha, right, next to VP Greg Bensel, center, in the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Los Angeles Clippers in New Orleans, Sunday, March 14, 2021. (AP Photo/Matthew Hinton, File)2025-02-03T11:46:52Z NEW ORLEANS (AP) As New Orleans church leaders braced for the fallout from publishing a list of predatory Catholic priests, they turned to an unlikely ally: the front office of the citys NFL franchise.What followed was a months-long, crisis-communications blitz orchestrated by the New Orleans Saints president and other top team officials, according to hundreds of internal emails obtained by The Associated Press. The records, which the Saints and church had long sought to keep out of public view, reveal team executives played a more extensive role than previously known in a public relations campaign to mitigate fallout from the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The emails shed new light on the Saints foray into a fraught topic far from the gridiron, a behind-the-scenes effort driven by the teams devoutly Catholic owner who has long enjoyed a close relationship with the citys embattled archbishop. They also showed how various New Orleans institutions from a sitting federal judge to the local media rallied around church leaders at a critical moment. Among the key moments, as revealed in the Saints own emails: Saints executives were so involved in the churchs damage control that a team spokesman briefed his boss on a 2018 call with the citys top prosecutor hours before the church released a list of clergymen accused of abuse. The call, the spokesman said, allowed us to take certain people off the list. Team officials were among the first people outside the church to view that list, a carefully curated, yet undercounted roster of suspected pedophiles. The disclosure of those names invited civil claims against the church and drew attention from federal and state law enforcement. The teams president, Dennis Lauscha, drafted more than a dozen questions that Archbishop Gregory Aymond should be prepared to answer as he faced reporters. The Saints senior vice president of communications, Greg Bensel, provided fly-on-the-wall updates to Lauscha about local media interviews, suggesting church and team leaders were all on the same team. He is doing well, Bensel wrote as the archbishop told reporters the church was committed to addressing the crisis. That is our message, Bensel added, that we will not stop here today. The emails obtained by AP sharply undercut assurances the Saints gave fans about the public relations guidance five years ago when they asserted they had provided only minimal assistance to the church. The team went to court to keep its internal emails secret.This is disgusting, said state Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans. As a New Orleans resident, taxpayer and Catholic, it doesnt make any sense to me why the Saints would go to these lengths to protect grown men who raped children. All of them should have been just as horrified at the allegations.The Saints told AP last week that the partnership is a thing of the past. The emails cover a yearlong period ending in July 2019, when they were subpoenaed by attorneys for victims of a priest later charged with raping an 8-year-old boy. In a lengthy statement, the team criticized the media for using leaked emails for the purpose of misconstruing a well-intended effort.No member of the Saints organization condones or wants to cover up the abuse that occurred in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, the team said. That abuse occurred is a terrible fact.The teams response did little to quell the anger of survivors of clergy sexual abuse. We felt betrayed by the organization, said Kevin Bourgeois, a former Saints season ticket holder who was abused by a priest in the 1980s. It forces me to question what other secrets are being withheld. Im angry, hurt and re-traumatized again. Emails reveal extent of helpAfter the AP first reported on the alliance in early 2020, Saints owner Gayle Benson denied that anyone associated with our organizations made recommendations or had input on the list of pedophile priests.The Saints reiterated that denial in its statement Saturday, saying no Saints employees had any responsibility for adding or removing any names from that list. The team said that no employees offered any input, suggestions or opinions as to who should be included or omitted from the list.Leon Cannizzaro, the district attorney at the time, last week denied any role in shaping the credibly accused clergy list, echoing statements he made in 2020. He told AP he absolutely had no involvement in removing any names from any list. Cannizzaro said he did not know why the Saints spokesman would have reported he had been on a call related to the list. The emails, sent from Saints accounts, dont specify which clergymen were removed from the list or why. They raise fresh questions, however, about the Saints role in a scandal that has taken on much larger legal and financial stakes since the team waded into it, potentially in violation of the NFLs policy against conduct detrimental to the league. A coalescing of New Orleans institutions The outsized role of Saints executives could draw new attention from NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who is scheduled to address reporters Monday as New Orleans prepares to host its 11th Super Bowl. Messages requesting comment were sent to the NFL. Taken together, the emails portray a coalescing of several New Orleans institutions. U.S. District Court Judge Jay Zainey, who was copied by the Saints on the public relations efforts, cheered Bensel on from his personal email account, thanking the teams spokesman for the wonderful advice. A newspaper editor similarly thanked Bensel for getting involved. You have hit all the points, Zainey, a fellow Catholic, wrote in another email to Bensel, praising a lengthy note the Saints spokesman sent to local newspaper editors. By his example and leadership, Archbishop Aymond, our shepherd, will continue to lead our Church in the right direction helping us to learn and to rebuild from the mistakes of the past.Zainey later struck down a Louisiana law, vigorously opposed by the church, that would have allowed victims to bring civil claims irrespective of how long ago the alleged sex abuse took place. He declined to comment. A watershed moment for the Catholic ChurchThe list marked a watershed in heavily Catholic New Orleans a long-awaited mea culpa to parishioners intended to usher in healing and local accountability. It came at a time when church leaders were seeking to retain public trust and financial support as they reckoned with generations of abuse and mounting litigation that eventually drove the Archdiocese of New Orleans into bankruptcy.That litigation, filed in 2020, involves more than 600 people who say they were abused by clergy. The case has produced a trove of still-secret church records said to document years of abuse claims and a pattern of church leaders transferring clergy without reporting their crimes to law enforcement.While it has since expanded, the list of accused priests was missing a number of clergy when it was originally released, an earlier AP investigation found. The AP identified 20 clergymen who had been accused in lawsuits or charged by law enforcement with child sexual abuse who were inexplicably omitted from the New Orleans list including two who were charged and convicted of crimes. Still, the list has served as a roadmap for both the FBI and Louisiana State Police, which launched sweeping investigations into New Orleans church leaders shielding of predatory priests.Last spring, state police carried out a wide-ranging search warrant at the Archdiocese of New Orleans, seizing records that include communications with the Vatican. Since the Saints began assisting the archdiocese, at least seven current and former members of the local clergy have been charged with crimes ranging from rape to possession of child pornography.Public relations campaignThe extent of the abuse remained largely unknown in 2018, a year the Saints won nine consecutive games on the way to an NFC Championship appearance. As the church prepped for a media onslaught, Bensel carried out an aggressive public relations campaign in which he called in favors, prepared talking points and leaned on long-time media contacts to support the church through a soon-to-be-messy time. Far from freelancing, Bensel had the Saints backing and blessing through what he called a Galileo moment, suggesting Aymond would be a trailblazer in releasing a credibly accused clergy list at a critical time for the church. In emails to editorial boards, he warned against casting a critical eye on the archbishop is neither beneficial nor right. He urged the citys newspapers to work with the church, reminding them the Saints and New Orleans Pelicans the citys NBA team, also owned by Benson had been successful thanks, in part, to their support. We did this because we had buy-in from YOU, Bensel wrote to the editors of The Times-Picayune and New Orleans Advocate, supporting our mission to be the best, to make New Orleans and everything within her bounds the best.We are sitting on that opportunity now with the Archdiocese of New Orleans, he added. We need to tell the story of how this Archbishop is leading us out of this mess. Close relationship between Saints and the Catholic ChurchBenson and Aymond, the archbishop, have been confidants for years. It was the archbishop who introduced Benson to her late husband, Tom Benson, who died in 2018, leaving his widow in control of New Orleans NFL and NBA franchises. The Bensons foundation has given tens of millions of dollars to the archdiocese and other Catholic causes. Along the way, Aymond has flown on the owners private jet and become almost a part of the team, frequently celebrating pregame Masses. When the clergy abuse allegations came to a head, Bensel, the Saints spokesman, worked his contacts in the local media to help shape the story. He had friendly email exchanges with a Times-Picayune columnist who praised the archbishop for releasing the clergy list. He also asked the newspapers leadership to keep their communications confidential, not for publication nor to share with others.His emails revealed that The Advocate after Aymond privately complained to the publisher removed a notice from one online article that had called for clergy abuse victims to reach out.Kevin Hall, president and publisher of Georges Media, which owns the newspaper, said the publication welcomes engagement from community leaders but that outreach does not dilute our journalistic standards or keep us from pursuing the truth. No one gets preferential treatment in our coverage of the news, he said in a statement. Over the past six years, we have consistently published in-depth stories highlighting the ongoing serious issues surrounding the archdiocese sex abuse crisis, as well as investigative reports on this matter by WWL-TV and by The Associated Press. It was The Advocates reporting that prompted Bensel to help the church, the emails show. He first offered to chat crisis communications with church leaders after the newspaper exposed a scandal involving a disgraced deacon, George Brignac, who remained a lay minister even after the archdiocese settled claims he raped an 8-year-old altar boy.We have been through enough at Saints to be a help or sounding board, Bensel wrote, but I dont want to overstep! JIM MUSTIAN Mustian is an Associated Press investigative reporter for breaking news. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters next to Air Force One after arriving back at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)2025-02-03T14:58:16Z WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. President Donald Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday that their planned tariffs were on hold for a month to give time for further negotiations, and Mexico said it planned to deploy 10,000 members of its national guard to address drug trafficking.The two leaders announced the move after what Trump described on social media as a very friendly conversation, and he said he looked forward to the upcoming talks.Trump said the talks would be headed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick and high-level representatives of Mexico.I look forward to participating in those negotiations, with President Sheinbaum, as we attempt to achieve a deal between our two Countries, the president said.As a condition ahead of the talks, Sheinbaum laid out changes in border policies, and Trump confirmed Mexicos deployment of troops. Mexico will reinforce the northern border with 10,000 members of the National Guard immediately, to stop drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States, in particular fentanyl, Sheinbaum posted on X. The United States commits to work to stop the trafficking of high-powered weapons to Mexico. The pause added to the drama as Trumps tariffs against Canada and China were still slated to go into effect Tuesday. Uncertainty remains about the durability of any deals and whether the tariffs are a harbinger of a broader trade war as Trump has promised more import taxes to come. Trump posted on social media that he spoke Monday morning with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and would speak with him again at 3 p.m. Both Canada and Mexico had plans to levy their own tariffs in response to U.S. actions, but Mexico is holding off for the moment.Trump used his social media post to repeat his complaints that Canada has been uncooperative, despite decades of friendship and partnerships that range from World War II to the response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Canada doesnt even allow U.S. Banks to open or do business there, Trump posted. Whats that all about? Many such things, but its also a DRUG WAR, and hundreds of thousands of people have died in the U.S. from drugs pouring through the Borders of Mexico and Canada. AP AUDIO: Trump and Trudeau speak and plan to do so again before tariffs start on Tuesday AP correspondent Ed Donahue reports President Trump admits Americans will be impacted by tariffs. Financial markets, businesses and consumers are trying to prepare for the possibility of the new tariffs. Stock markets opened with a modest selloff, suggesting some hope that the import taxes that could push up inflation and disrupt global trade and growth would be short-lived.But the outlook reflected a deep uncertainty about a Republican president who has talked with adoration about tariffs, even saying the U.S. government made a mistake in 1913 by switching to income taxes as its primary revenue source.Trump said Sunday the tariffs would lift if Canada and Mexico did more to crack down on illegal immigration and fentanyl smuggling, though there are no clear benchmarks. Trump also said the U.S. can no longer run a trade imbalance with its two largest trade partners. Mexico is facing a 25% tariff, while Canada would be charged 25% on its imports to the United States and 10% on its energy products. China is facing a 10% additional tariff due to its role in the making and selling of fentanyl, the Trump White House said.Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said Monday that it was misleading to characterize the showdown as a trade war despite the planned retaliations and risk of escalation.Read the executive order where President Trump was absolutely, 100% clear that this is not a trade war, Hassett said. This is a drug war.But even if the orders are focused on illegal drugs, Trumps own remarks have often been more about his perceived sense that foreign countries are ripping off the United States by running trade surpluses. On Sunday, Trump said that tariffs would be coming soon on countries in the European Union. He has discussed tariffs as both a diplomatic tool on national security issues, a way to raise revenues and a vehicle for renegotiating existing trade pacts. Multiple economists outside the administration have warned that the tariffs would push up prices and hamper growth, with Trump himself saying there would be some short term pain after having campaigned last year on the promise that he could tame inflation.Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at the consultancy RSM, said the United States was unlikely to fall into a recession this year, but the tariffs would hurt growth and push up the cost of government borrowing, which would potentially keep the interest rates charged on mortgages and auto loans elevated.If there is no resolution, the impact on the U.S. economy will be significant, he said. Growth will slow notably from the 2.9% average over the past three years as inflation and interest rates rise. The yield on the 10-year Treasury, currently around 4.5%, could climb to a range between 4.75% and 5%.__Sherman reported from Mexico City. JOSH BOAK Boak covers the White House and economic policy for The Associated Press. He joined the AP in 2013. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, left, claps as Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk prepares to depart after speaking at a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, on Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)2025-02-03T13:22:55Z NEW YORK (AP) For Elon Musk fans, its the half a trillion-dollar bet.That is how much the stock market value of Tesla has rocketed since the presidential election, a vertiginous climb uninterrupted in recent days despite a disappointing financial report that would have sunk the stock of nearly any other company.Investors are wagering that President Donald Trump will help Musks company more than hurt it with his plans to take an axe to reams of Washington regulations and wield tariffs to get his way with key trading partners.Less regulation? Fantastic. Trade war? No biggie.Its going to be a golden age for Tesla and Musk, said Wedbush Securities financial analyst Dan Ives, adding after an investor conference call Wednesday, This is the bullish Ive ever heard Musk.Investing in Tesla has long been a gamble. Odds were against Musk creating a successful electric car company, never mind growing it to become the worlds most valuable automaker and in the process making himself the worlds richest man. But this latest bet seems particularly risky. Musk says the true value of company lays in a future of Tesla robots, thousands of them possibly by the end of the year, and in unsupervised, driverless vehicles. He promised in Teslas investor conference call to start offering such robotaxis in June in Austin, Texas, and across the country by the end of next year. Speeding all that along will be Trump, or so the story goes, who has given Musk an office in the White House and made him the head of the new Department of Government Efficiency tasked with shrinking the size of the government. Trumps new transportation secretary, who can have a big impact on Tesla, is mostly sticking to the script. Sean Duffy has promised to cut excessive regulation on automakers as well as to come up with a single set of federal rules on self-driving technology to replace a patchwork of state-by-state ones that Musk has blasted for holding back development. Perhaps more importantly, Trump has softened his stance toward China, a big market for Tesla, hitting the country with an additional 10% tariffs starting Saturday, and not the 60% he threatened on the campaign trail. Still, Trumps decision to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico, as well as China, sent the stock down more than 5% in early trading Monday, in line with other automakers. Chief Financial Officer Vaibhav Taneja said last week the company should feel an impact to its business because it sources parts from around the globe. Trump has also vowed to do other things that will hurt Musks business.Trump said he wants to eliminate a $7,500 federal tax rebate designed to get people to buy electric vehicles. He also plans to lower emission standards, a potential blow to Teslas business of selling regulatory credits to car makers that pollute more and fall short of the requirements. Tesla sold $692 million of these credits i n the last three months of 2024, a 60% jump from a year ago, revenue that nearly all flows straight to Teslas bottom line. Its also unclear whether the Trump administration will hold off on investigations into Tesla, in particular a technology the company calls Full Self-Driving, a misnomer because the vehicles could require human intervention at any moment. In October, the transportation departments auto safety regulator, the National Traffic Highway Safety Administration, launched the latest of several probes into the technology after getting reports of crashes in low-visibility conditions, including one that killed a pedestrian.Transportation Secretary Duffy promised senators at a hearing earlier this month that he would let the Tesla investigations follow the facts specifically vowing to buck any political pressure to go easy on the self-described first buddy of the president. Musk will need all the regulatory relief and other goodies from Trump that he can get.In early January, Tesla said sales dropped in 2024, a first in more than a dozen years, as rivals such as BMW, Volkswagen and Chinas BYD come out with competitive EVs and steal market share. Then on Wednesday, Tesla reported revenue, profits and other key measures of financial health for the last quarter of 2024 all fell short of what analysts had expected. The stock climbed higher anyway. Things that would hurt other automakers, marvels Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein, dont seem to impact Tesla.Besides the business, Tesla shareholders must always keep one eye on the CEO himself. Lately, thats meant weighing Musks foray into politics.In Europe, a major market for his cars, Musk has endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany and called British Prime Minister Keir Starmer an evil tyrant who is running a tyrannical police state.On Inauguration Day in the U.S., Musk made a straight-arm gesture during a speech that many interpreted as Nazi salute. He scoffed at the criticism, but the backlash was fierce nonetheless. In Germany, an image of Musk making the salute was projected onto his massive Tesla factory outside Berlin in protest. In Italy, a communist youth group hung an effigy of Musk upside down in the same square in Milan where the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was strung upside down, too. How many of these Tesla buyers agree with Musk? said Felipe Munoz, a senior analyst at auto researcher Jato Dynamics. I dont see the point of alienating potential customers.Musk also risks turning off regulators in Europe, who he hopes will soon approve the use of Full Self-Driving there.If investors start losing faith in Musk, its a long way down.The run-up in Tesla stock alone since the election amounts to more than the annual economic output of 160 countries. Teslas total market value has grown to about $1.3 trillion, more than the worth of General Motors, BMW, Ford, Ferrari, Porsche and a dozen other top car makers combined.Musk thinks that, if anything, the stock should be higher. I see a path for Tesla being the most valuable company in the world by far, not even close, he said Wednesday, before doubling down on that statement. There is a path where Tesla is worth more than the next five companies combined.That would mean surpassing the likes of Microsoft, Apple and Nvidia. Tesla is currently the seventh-most valuable company in the S&P 500.Wedbushs Ives, the golden age analyst, agrees the stock can only go up from here.The bet for the ages that Musk made was on Trump, he said. Musk is going to have massive impact on deregulation in the beltway and that is worth a trillion dollars. BERNARD CONDON Condon is an Associated Press investigative reporter covering breaking news. He has written about the Maui fire, the Afghanistan withdrawal, gun laws, Chinese loans in Africa and Trumps business. twitter facebook mailto

Anthropic, the company that made one of the most popular AI writing assistants in the world, requires job applicants to agree that they wont use an AI assistant to help write their application.While we encourage people to use AI systems during their role to help them work faster and more effectively, please do not use AI assistants during the application process, the applications say. We want to understand your personal interest in Anthropic without mediation through an AI system, and we also want to evaluate your non-AI-assisted communication skills. Please indicate 'Yes' if you have read and agree.Anthropic released Claude, an AI assistant thats especially good at conversational writing, in 2023.This question is in almost all of Anthropics nearly 150 currently-listed roles, but is not in some technical roles, like mobile product designer. Its included in everything from software engineer roles to finance, communications, and sales jobs at the company.The field was spotted by Simon Willison, an open source developer. The question shows Anthropic trying to get around a problem its helping create: people relying so heavily on AI assistants that they struggle to form opinions of their own. Its also a moot question, as Anthropic and its competitors have created AI models so indistinguishable from human speech as to be nearly undetectable.These AI models are also replacing the kinds of roles Anthropic is hiring for, leaving people in communications and coding fields searching for employment.Last month, after Chinese AI company DeepSeek released a model so good it threw U.S. AI companies into a tailspin, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said that the race to make more, better, and faster AI models is existentially important.And last year, Anthropics data scraper, which it uses to feed its AI assistant models the kind of human-produced work the company requires applicants to demonstrate, systematically ignored instructions to not scrape websites and hit some sites millions of times a day.Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)2025-02-03T17:33:33Z WASHINGTON (AP) Dozens of senior officials put on leave. Thousands of contractors laid off. A freeze put on billions of dollars in humanitarian assistance to other countries.Over the last two weeks, President Donald Trumps administration has made significant changes to the U.S. agency charged with delivering humanitarian assistance overseas that has left aid organizations agonizing over whether they can continue with programs such as nutritional assistance for malnourished infants and children.Then-President John F. Kennedy established the U.S. Agency for International Development, known as USAID, during the Cold War. In the decades since, Republicans and Democrats have fought over the agency and its funding. Heres a look at USAID, its history and the changes made since Trump took office. What is USAID?Kennedy created USAID at the height of the United States Cold War struggle with the Soviet Union. He wanted a more efficient way to counter Soviet influence abroad through foreign assistance and saw the State Department as frustratingly bureaucratic at doing that. Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act and Kennedy set up USAID as an independent agency in 1961.USAID has outlived the Soviet Union, which fell in 1991. Today, supporters of USAID argue that U.S. assistance in countries counters Russian and Chinese influence. China has its own belt and road foreign aid program worldwide operating in many countries that the U.S. also wants as partners. Critics say the programs are wasteful and promote a liberal agenda. Whats going on with USAID?On his first day in office Jan. 20, Trump implemented a 90-day freeze on foreign assistance. Four days later, Peter Marocco a returning political appointee from Trumps first term drafted a tougher than expected interpretation of that order, a move that shut down thousands of programs around the world and forced furloughs and layoffs. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has since moved to keep more kinds of strictly life-saving emergency programs going during the freeze. But confusion over what programs are exempted from the Trump administrations stop-work orders and fear of losing U.S. aid permanently is still freezing aid and development work globally.Dozens of senior officials have been put on leave, thousands of contractors laid off, and employees were told Monday not to enter its Washington headquarters. And USAIDs website and its account on the X platform have been taken down.Its part of a Trump administration crackdown thats hitting across the federal government and its programs. But USAID and foreign aid are among those hit the hardest.Rubio said the administrations aim was a program-by-program review of which projects make America safer, stronger or more prosperous.The decision to shut down U.S.-funded programs during the 90-day review meant the U.S. was getting a lot more cooperation from recipients of humanitarian, development and security assistance, Rubio said. What do critics of USAID say?Republicans typically push to give the State Department which provides overall foreign policy guidance to USAID more control of its policy and funds. Democrats typically promote USAID autonomy and authority.Funding for United Nations agencies, including peacekeeping, human rights and refugee agencies, have been traditional targets for Republican administrations to cut. The first Trump administration moved to reduce foreign aid spending, suspending payments to various U.N. agencies, including the U.N. Population Fund and funding to the Palestinian Authority.In Trumps first term, the U.S. pulled out of the U.N. Human Rights Council and its financial obligations to that body. The U.S. is also barred from funding the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, under a bill signed by then-President Joe Biden last March.Why is Elon Musk going after USAID?Musks Department of Government Efficiency, known as DOGE, has launched a sweeping effort empowered by Trump to fire government workers and cut trillions in government spending. USAID is one of his prime targets. Musk alleges USAID funding been used to launch deadly programs and called it a criminal organization. What is being affected by the USAID freeze?Sub-Saharan Africa could suffer more than any other region during the aid pause. The U.S. gave the region more than $6.5 billion in humanitarian assistance last year. HIV patients in Africa arriving at clinics funded by an acclaimed U.S. program that helped rein in the global AIDS epidemic of the 1980s found locked doors. There are also already ramifications in Latin America. In Mexico, a busy shelter for migrants in southern Mexico has been left without a doctor. A program to provide mental health support for LGBTQ+ youth fleeing Venezuela was disbanded. In Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Guatemala, so-called Safe Mobility Offices where migrants can apply to enter the U.S. legally have shuttered.The aid community is struggling to get the full picturehow many thousands of programs have shut down and how many thousands of workers were furloughed and laid off under the freeze? How much does the U.S. spend on foreign aid? In all, the U.S. spent about roughly $40 billion in foreign aid in the 2023 fiscal year, according to a report published last month by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. The U.S. is the largest provider of humanitarian assistance globally, although some other countries spend a bigger share of their budget on it. Foreign assistance overall amounts to less than 1% of the U.S. budget.Could Trump dissolve USAID on his own?Democrats say presidents lack the constitutional authority to eliminate USAID. But its not clear what would stop him from trying.A mini-version of that legal battle played out in Trumps first term, when he tried to cut the budget for foreign operations by a third.When Congress refused, the Trump administration used freezes and other tactics to cut the flow of funds already appropriated by Congress for the foreign programs. The General Accounting Office later ruled that violated a law known as the Impoundment Control Act. Its a law we may be hearing more of.Live by executive order, die by executive order, Musk said on X Saturday in reference to USAID.___Kinnard reported from Houston. Knickmeyer can be reached at https://x.com/EllenKnickmeyer and Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP. ELLEN KNICKMEYER Knickmeyer covers foreign policy and national security for The Associated Press. She is based in Washington, D.C. twitter MEG KINNARD Kinnard covers national politics for The Associated Press. She lives in South Carolina. twitter instagram mailto

Maka Indigenous people march to protest for the recovery of ancestral lands in Asuncion, Paraguay, Feb. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Jorge Saenz, File)2025-02-03T13:03:04Z ASUNCIN, Paraguay (AP) Many Mak traditions have slowly faded. Yet a few elders among these Paraguayan Indigenous people recall how their songs imitated birds. Men used to say that, as they sang, they travelled to Iguazu Falls or to the mountains, said Gustavo Torres, a Mak teacher based near Paraguays capital, Asuncin. Their songs imitated nature.Next to him smiled Elodia Servn, who only speaks the Mak language but had Torres help as a translator. Her skin is covered in wrinkles and she has forgotten her age, but a memory sticks: A long time ago, when she was healthy and strong, she loved dancing in Fray Bartolom de las Casas, a territory her people are now fighting to get back. The land in dispute is an 828-acre (335 hectare) terrain that the Mak claim ownership over. Paraguays government has rejected most of their arguments, designating part of it to build a bridge connecting two cities across the Paraguay River. Fray Bartolom, as the Mak call it, was offered to them through a decree issued in 1944 by strongman Higinio Mornigo, then Paraguays president. It was meant as a present, the Mak have said, to acknowledge their courage and the role they played during the Chaco War against Bolivia in the 1930s. That place is sacred for us, said Mak leader Mateo Martnez, 65. It was a gift we thanked God for because it was given through people that loved us. His ancestors, Martnez said, guided soldiers through the mountains and quenched their hunger and thirst during the war.Only the Indigenous people knew where to find water, he said. If a Paraguayan soldier had gotten lost there alone, he would have died.Aside from the decree, details of the gift were never put on paper. The ownership titles were issued in the 2000s, and once they were, less than half of the promised acres were granted to the Mak.Officials have said that a piece of land was indeed given to the community by Mornigo, but its size was never determined nor were its coordinates precise. Both sides meet on a regular basis to discuss a potential new agreement, though no consensus has been reached yet. We are open to talking, Martnez said. But the government wont listen to us or tries to deceive us.The Mak are one of the 19 Indigenous communities of Paraguay. In the South American country of 6.8 million, more than 140,000 are Indigenous people. The latest census from 2022 estimates that around 2,600 Mak are distributed in both urban and rural areas.Mariano Roque Alonso, where Servn and 1,600 other Mak live, is located across the Paraguay River, not too far from Fray Bartolom. Floods forced them to relocate in the 1980s, and they havent been able to move back since.Younger generations have learned Spanish, but their native language remains predominant. A few steps from the Baptist church most of the community attends, the prayers painted on a wall are in Mak.Our elders had other beliefs, Martnez said. They used to believe in the forces of nature. They prayed to the Venus star. To the moon for good health and crops. Among their most treasured traditions, the Mak still make a feast when a young woman transitions from puberty to adulthood. Men drink chicha, made of fermented corn, or fight as part of the celebrations. Women like Servn sing.Our songs come from our ancestors, she said. I now want to bequeath them to younger generations. To my daughters and granddaughters.Many like her who sell bags and other embroidered products make a living from craftsmanship. Patricio Colman, 63, produces necklaces, bracelets, arrows and bows. He, too, grew up in Fray Bartolom and recalls his peoples long-gone traditions. When hunters were still alive, they gathered to go hunting and stayed up to three months in the mountains, Colman said. But no one does that anymore.Back in the day, he said, the Mak had various leaders. One for hunting, one for fishing, one for youth and one for dancing. Now Martnez is the only one left.Even then, when officials used to visit, the distribution of the territory was unclear, Colman said. There had always been a threat of invasion. The Mak not only weep for the loss of the land itself, but the distance keeping them from their loved ones buried in Fray Bartolom. Among them is Juan Belaieff, a Russian soldier and cartographer who mapped the region during the Chaco War. According to Martnez, then-elders thought of him as a white deity who served as a link between the community and God. They loved him deeply, and he was venerated by our grandparents, the leader said.Non-Mak people might find it hard to spot their cemetery. With no tombstones or crosses on-site, officials have doubted their claims.We are a different culture, though, Martnez said. When a Mak perishes, we dont use a cross. The community does dig graves for loved ones who have recently died. Relatives cover the bodies with a cloak and the persons belongings, but no other rituals are performed and graves are not marked.Relatives feel the absence so profoundly that we dont do any ceremonies or console each other, Martnez said. Its a moment of respect.The Mak now bury their people in Quemkuket, about 11 miles (18 kilometers) from their current settlement, but they hope to eventually get their ancestors remains back in one place. The Mak are warriors, courageous warriors, Martnez said. We have been fighting for this for five or six years and have no intention of ever giving up.____Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. MARA TERESA HERNNDEZ Hernndez is a reporter on the APs Global Religion team. She is based in Mexico City and covers Latin America. twitter mailto

Border patrol agents use a drug sniffing dog to check vehicles at California's Pine Valley checkpoint, on the main route from Arizona to San Diego, Dec. 14, 2017 (AP Photo/Elliot Spagat, File)2025-02-03T18:38:37Z President Donald Trumps plan to impose tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada and China is partly aimed at combating the illicit flow of fentanyl into the U.S., where the opioid is blamed for some 70,000 overdose deaths annually. Mexico agreed Monday to send 10,000 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border as part of a deal with Trump to pause the tariffs for a month and hold off levying its own. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters next to Air Force One after arriving back at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) President Donald Trump speaks to reporters next to Air Force One after arriving back at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Neither Canada nor China has signaled major changes to tackle the flow of fentanyl into the U.S., and each has said it would retaliate for any U.S. tariffs.What role do Mexico, Canada and China play in fentanyl reaching the U.S.? And how much can their governments do? California Highway Patrol commercial vehicle inspector Ruben Montanez inspects the undercarriage of a truck entering the U.S. from Mexico at the CHPs Otay Mesa Inspection Station Thursday, Sept. 6, 2007, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy) California Highway Patrol commercial vehicle inspector Ruben Montanez inspects the undercarriage of a truck entering the U.S. from Mexico at the CHPs Otay Mesa Inspection Station Thursday, Sept. 6, 2007, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Where does fentanyl come from? The ingredients in fentanyl are largely produced by companies in China and used by pharmaceutical companies to make legal painkillers. But a portion of those chemicals is purchased by the Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels in Mexico. Cartels make the synthetic opioid in labs and then smuggle it into the U.S., largely at official land crossings in California and Arizona. The small amounts of fentanyl in any shipment the drug is 50 times more potent than heroin and its lack of odor, make detection and seizures extremely challenging. Fentanyl is also made in Canada and smuggled into the U.S., but to a much lesser extent. U.S. customs agents seized 43 pounds (19.5 kilograms) of fentanyl at the Canadian border during the last fiscal year, compared with 21,100 pounds (9,570 kilograms) at the Mexican border. Seizures of fentanyl jumped by as much as tenfold under President Joe Biden, an increase that may reflect improved detection. Small vials of fentanyl are shown in the inpatient pharmacy at the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City, June 1, 2018. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File) Small vials of fentanyl are shown in the inpatient pharmacy at the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City, June 1, 2018. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More What changed after Trump threatened tariffs? Mexico announced in December the seizure of more than a ton of fentanyl pills in what it described as the largest bust of synthetic opioids in the countrys history. The haul was striking because fentanyl seizures in Mexico had fallen dramatically in the first half of 2024.Under President Claudia Sheinbaum, who took office in October, Mexicos security forces appear to be far more aggressive than they were under her predecessor. Former President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador denied that fentanyl was even produced in Mexico, contradicting officials in his own administration.To pause the tit-for-tat tariffs, Mexico agreed to immediately deploy 10,000 National Guard troops to the border to battle drug-trafficking, while the U.S. committed to do more to stop the trafficking of guns into Mexico, said Trump and Sheinbaum on social media.Facing tariff threats, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has highlighted his countrys recent $1.3 billion investment in border enforcement, including chemical detection tools at entry ports and a new unit focused on the oversight of precursor chemicals.Once Trump ordered the tariffs, Trudeau rebuked the move.We, too, are devastated by the scourge that is fentanyl, Trudeau said at a press conference Sunday. As neighbors, we must work collaboratively to fix this. Unfortunately, the actions taken today by the White House split us apart instead of bringing us together.China defended its efforts to combat fentanyl in what has been years of touch-and-go cooperation with the U.S. China doesnt have the same fentanyl crisis among its own population, and doesnt view it as a priority, said Zongyuan Zoe Liu, a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses media members after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order to impose stiff tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada and China, in Ottawa, Canada, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP) Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses media members after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order to impose stiff tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada and China, in Ottawa, Canada, Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More How much can Mexico, Canada and China do? Combating the production and movement of illicit fentanyl is particularly challenging. Unlike heroin and cocaine, which are produced from plants, fentanyl is made with ingredients used for legal pharmaceutical drugs, and can be made in cheap labs that can be erected relatively quickly. And despite the dangers, demand in the U.S. for the highly addictive drug remains strong.Even if Mexico, Canada and these other countries snap their fingers and did away with the drug trade, as long as we have that demand, there will be another country that will satisfy that demand, said Mike Vigil, the former chief of international operations at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.Vigil said trade frictions could impede the fight. If we dont work together and share information, the only ones who are going to benefit from that are drug cartels, he said. ___Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. JESSE BEDAYN Bedayn is a statehouse reporter for The Associated Press based in Denver. He is a Report for America corps member. mailto

Code updates to a government database that helps track whether a federal program to get children ready for school at age five is actually working show software engineers are purging it of references to "forbidden words" related to DEI.The updates, shown in Github commits, are to a database for the Department of Health and Human Services Head Start program. They show a project called Remove-DEI, which reveal some of the back-and-forth that is happening behind the scenes to align federal agencies with Donald Trumps executive orders that forbid almost anything having to do with race or gender within federal agencies. The Github pages show software engineers discussing amongst themselves how to best remove all instances of forbidden words from a specific database, and the code updates they used to do it. The changes also show that, while thousands of government datasets are disappearing from the internet, even ones that remain are having parts of their utility deprecated or broken in a way that may not be visible to those outside the government.The Office of Head Start is a government agency that spends roughly $12 billion per year to get families and children between birth and age five ready to succeed in schools, with a special focus on providing and administering grants to groups that provide assistance for Americas most vulnerable young children. Head Start centers were briefly impacted by Trumps spending freeze, leading centers to worry about making payroll.Are you a federal worker or contractor? Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at +1 202 505 1702. Otherwise, send me an email at jason@404media.co.The changes show that the U.S. government or people working on its behalf are not just manually deleting references to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) but are also writing and tweaking code to remove references to DEI in a more blunt-force way. The HHS change is emblematic of hundreds that 404 Media has reviewed in recent days. At HHS, a recent GitHub commit details a project called Remove-DEI which removes the ability to search or filter in this HeadStart for information on how well programs that target families affected by systemic discrimination/bias/exclusion are actually working.The changeswhich are among at least hundreds across the federal governmentcome to a database operated by the HHS Office of Head Starts Training and Technical Assistance Centers.This specific database is behind a government login wall, but allows government employees to search for information about grants and programs that had a focus on Equity and had a target population of Children/Families affected by systematic discrimination/bias/exclusion.Code in the database was tweaked to remove the ability to search or filter according to these terms. A description of the change explained on Github reads Review the option for equity: Removal of the equity topic from the topic drop down, removal of the equity topic from all filters, Removal of the DEIA standard goal, Families affected by systemic discrimination/bias/exclusion removes as a target population.The coder also explains that they tweaked how topics are filtered in the database as a way of making sure that when we mark a topic as deleted, it is removed from all the relevant places.The coder asked their colleagues to confirm equity has been removed from the places above. I ask also that you scan the website for other places where we need to remove the forbidden words. The code was written by employees at a company called Ad Hoc LLC, a government contractor that works with HHS on the database. Ad Hoc is being paid $7.2 million to manage the database, according to federal records.Ad Hoc was created in the aftermath of the HealthCare.gov launch debacle, and describes itself as a digital services company that helps the federal government better serve people. Ad Hoc declined to comment. HHS told 404 Media that it is not allowed to comment: "HHS has issued a pause on mass communications and public appearances that are not directly related to emergencies or critical to preserving health. This is a short pause to allow the new team to set up a process for review and prioritization. There are exceptions for announcements that HHS divisions believe are mission critical, but they will be made on a case-by-case basis.Archivists Work to Identify and Save the Thousands of Datasets Disappearing From Data.govMore than 2,000 datasets have disappeared from data.gov since Trump was inaugurated. But analyzing exactly what happened and where it went is going to take some time.404 MediaJason KoeblerThe tweak is one of hundreds that have been revealed across government via Githubs commit tracking, which shows version changes to code, websites, and other projects managed on the site. It also gives insight into how the hundreds of websites and datasets being deleted are actually being purged. WIRED reported earlier Monday that the federal government is now using scripts to forcibly remove gender pronouns from federal employee email signatures.

The Republican Senator from Missouri Josh Hawley has introduced a new bill that would make it illegal to import or export artificial intelligence products to and from China, meaning someone who knowingly downloads a Chinese developed AI model like the now immensely popular DeepSeek could face up to 20 years in jail, a million dollar fine, or both, should such a law pass.Kevin Bankston, a senior advisor on AI governance at the Center for Democracy & Technology, told 404 Media it is a broad attack on the very idea of scientific dialogue and technology exchange with China around AI, with potentially ruinous penalties for AI researchers and users alike and deeply troubling implications for the future of online speech and freedom of scientific inquiry.Hawley introduced the legislation, titled the Decoupling Americas Artificial Intelligence Capabilities from China Act, on Wednesday of last year.Every dollar and gig of data that flows into Chinese AI are dollars and data that will ultimately be used against the United States, Senator Hawley said in a statement. America cannot afford to empower our greatest adversary at the expense of our own strength. Ensuring American economic superiority means cutting China off from American ingenuity and halting the subsidization of CCP innovation.Hawleys statement explicitly says that he introduced the legislation because of the release of DeepSeek, an advanced AI model thats competitive with its American counterparts, and which its developers claimed was made for a fraction of the cost and without access to as many and as advanced of chips, though these claims are unverified. Hawleys statement called DeepSeek a data-harvesting, low-cost AI model that sparked international concern and sent American technology stocks plummeting.Hawleys statement says the goal of the bill is to prohibit the import from or export to China of artificial intelligence technology, prohibit American companies from conducting AI research in China or in cooperation with Chinese companies, and Prohibit U.S. companies from investing money in Chinese AI development.Hawleys bill and its aims were covered credulously on Fox News, but even if you think the bills goals are worth pursuing the actual language of the bill is broad and dystopian. Unlike legislators who fearmongered about TikTok and wanted to ban it, Hawleys bill would criminalize the activity of average users, millions of whom downloaded DeepSeek recently, making it one of the most popular apps on the Apple App store.Specifically, the bill prohibits the importation into the United States of artificial intelligence or generative artificial intelligence technology or intellectual proprietary developed or produced in the Peoples Republic of China. Those who violate this Shall be subject to the criminal penalties set forth in subsection (b) of section 1760 of the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 (50 U. S.C, 4819).That law states that A person who willfully commits, willfully attempts to commit, or willfully conspires to commit, or aids and abets in the commission of, an unlawful act described in subsection (a) (1) shall be fined not more than $1,000,000; and (2) in the case of the individual, shall be imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both.the Center for Democracy & Technologys Bankston told me that hes skeptical that there would be strong criminal cases against someone who unintentionally downloaded an app like DeepSeek because the legislation specifies a persons conduct must be willful for the imposition of criminal penalties, the bill is still worrisomely broad.It appears that it *could* apply to someone who downloaded DeepSeek knowing that it was from China, and yes, the criminal penalty for that under this proposal would be up to one million dollars or 20 years in prison (and also potentially civil penalties as well, which may require less proof of state of mind and may potentially even reach a mere accidental importer of a Chinese model), Bankston said.The bill, which also prohibits the transfer of research, could create an unworkable environment for computer scientists who make their research public, and regularly read AI papers published by Chinese researchers.Beyond just impacting people downloading models from China, the bill's penalties for the import to or export from China of AI technology and intellectual property could also potentially extend to anyone who publishes AI models or research papers on the open internet knowing they will be downloaded by people in China, Bankston said. Researchers are also threatened by the second half of the bill, which would directly outlaw American collaboration with researchers at basically any Chinese university or companywith a fine of up to 100 million dollars for any company that violates the prohibition, amongst other penalties.On its face, the bill seems mostly like hawkish posturing from Hawley, and the language of the bill seems unworkable given the current state of computer science, the AI industry, and the culture of researchers sharing their work. However, there is bipartisan support for legislation that targets China wherever it appears able to topple American dominance. Banning TikTok also seemed like a ludicrous notion at first given its popularity among Americans, and while the app is still live, a bill banning it did pass both the house and the Senate and was signed by the president.Hawleys office did not respond to a request for comment.

A sign is placed in front of the American whiskey section at a B.C. liquor store after top selling American made products have been removed from shelves in Vancouver, B.C., Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. (Ethan Cairns/The Canadian Press via AP)2025-02-03T20:57:16Z TORONTO (AP) As Canadians absorb U.S. President Donald Trumps trade war and his threats to make Canada the 51st state, one thing has become abundantly clear: One of the worlds most durable and amicable alliances born of geography, heritage and centuries of common interests is broken. Canadians are feeling an undeniable sense of betrayal after Trump declared a trade war against Americas northern neighbor and longtime ally. Trump keeps threatening Canadas sovereignty and and vowing to put sweeping 25% tariffs on Canadian products, though Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday afternoon the tariffs will be postponed by at least 30 days after he promised more cooperation on the border.In Canada, discussion and disapproval are everywhere. Canadian hockey fans have even been booing the American national anthem at recent National Hockey League games. Addressing the nation this past weekend, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau channeled the betrayal that many Canadians are feeling, reminding Americans that Canadian troops fought alongside them in Afghanistan and helped respond to myriad crises from wildfires in California to Hurricane Katrina. We were always there standing with you, grieving with you, the American people, he said. The Canadian jitters, some worry, could go beyond the moment. The damage is going to be long-lasting, said Robert Bothwell, a professor of Canadian history and international relations at the University of Toronto. The Americans wont be trusted anymore. The 51st state stuff is just contemptuous. It treats Canada like we dont even exist. How, they ask, is Canada the problem? The ties between the two countries are without parallel. Nearly $3.6 billion Canadian (US$2.5 billion) worth of goods and services cross the border each day. Canada is the top export destination for 36 U.S. states and 77% of Canadas exports go to the United States. Each day, about 400,000 people cross the worlds longest international border. There is close cooperation on defense, border security and law enforcement, and a vast overlap in culture, traditions and pastimes.He wants to come after us? said Doug Ford, the leader of Canadas most populous province of Ontario. He has said that it feels like being stabbed in the heart by a family member. Says Ford: Ive yet to hear one American citizen say Canada is the problem.Some Canadians are circulating lists of Canadian products they can buy instead of American items and others are canceling vacation plans to the United States. The U.S. Travel Association said the tariffs on Canada could impact Canadian visitation to and spending in the United States, noting that Canada is the top source of international visitors to the United States, with 20.4 million visits last year. What he is doing now is unprecedented and highly damaging for the relationship. ... He is eroding Canadians trust towards the U.S. in ways that will make it hard to repair the relationship, said Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal. He says many Canadians feel betrayed by Trumps threats and attitude, especially because the two countries have long enjoyed strong economic, cultural and geographic ties. Its certainly one of the worst moments in Canada-U.S. relations since the creation of Canada in 1867, Beland said. His talk about making Canada the 51st state is a direct attack against the countrys sovereignty. Even if we exclude that threat, he shows no respect for Canadas sovereignty and institutions.Canadian officials said they are applying 25% retaliatory tariffs to American imports including beverages, cosmetics and paper products. A second phase will be even more punishing.Trudeau did hold out hope that Trump wouldnt punish Canada. Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum put their planned tariffs on hold Monday for a month to give time for further negotiations, and Mexico said it planned to deploy 10,000 members of its national guard to address drug trafficking.Trudeau noted that the United States and Canada have built the most successful economic, military and security partnership the world has ever seen a relationship that, he says, has been the envy of the world.As President John F. Kennedy said many years ago, geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends, economics has made us partners and necessity has made us allies, he said. The closer the allies, the bumpier the ride? Trump also plans to put a 10% tariff on Canadian energy. Underscoring the potential effects, Canada provides more than 4.3 million barrels of oil a day to the United States. The U.S. tends to consume about 20 million barrels a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It has been producing domestically about 13.2 million barrels. Yet Trump keeps saying the United States doesnt need Canada for anything and said again Monday that hed like to see Canada become the 51st state. And his vice president dismisses Canada, too. Spare me the sob story about how Canada is our best friend. I love Canada and have many Canadian friends. But is the government meeting their NATO target for military spending? Are they stopping the flow of drugs into our country?, U.S. Vice President JD Vance posted on X.Canada announced a billion-dollar plan to secure the border even though far fewer migrants and less drugs enter the U.S. through Canada than Mexico. Their argument on why we have tariffs doesnt hold, Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, said. Canadians are galvanized to do the right thing and to suffer a little bit of pain to make sure we make the right steps for the future.As with most intimate relationships, there have been rough spots before. Limited trade wars over lumber, pulp and paper, and other products have flared on and off for decades. In the early 1960s, there was a bitter rift because of personal enmity between President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, who balked at U.S. pressure to be more aggressive in Cold War maneuverings.Later the Vietnam War caused some divisions, as Canadians including Justin Trudeaus father, then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau welcomed American draft evaders who crossed the border. And some Canadians, notably the Ontario intelligentsia, tend to regard Americans as more crass and gun-happy than people north of the border.Trump himself attacked Canadas trade and prime minister during his first term. But nothing like now. Trump posted that Canada would cease to exist as a viable country if there werent a massive subsidy from the U.S. Canada should become our Cherished 51st State, Trump posted on social media. Retorted respected Globe and Mail reporter Steve Chase: Asking Canada to submit to annexation is the conduct of a hostile foreign power.The booing continued at an NBA game in Toronto where the Raptors played the Los Angeles Clippers. One fan at the Raptors game chose to sit during the anthem while wearing a Canada hat. Joseph Chua, who works as an importer, said he expects to feel the tariffs pretty directly.Ive always stood during both anthems. Ive taken my hat off to show respect to the American national anthem, he said. But today were feeling a little bitter about things.

Elon Musk arrives on stage to speak at an indoor Presidential Inauguration parade event in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)2025-02-03T17:36:30Z Follow live updates on President Donald Trumps return to Washington WASHINGTON (AP) Elon Musk is working for President Donald Trump as a special government employee, according to a White House official, solidifying his controversial role in the administration but sidestepping some disclosure rules that are typical of federal workers. The official, speaking Monday on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters, said that Musk has a government email address and office space in the White House complex. Musk, the worlds richest man, has been granted broad latitude by Trump to reduce the size of the federal government. On Monday morning, the headquarters of the U.S. Agency for International Development was abruptly shut down. Musks team, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, also has received access to sensitive payment systems at the U.S. Treasury Department. Democrats fear that Musk is consolidating power within the federal government, acting without accountability and potentially against the law. Special government employees are usually appointed to their position for up to 130 days. Its unclear how standard rules on ethics agreements and financial disclosures will apply to Musk, who has billions of dollars in federal contracts with SpaceX, his rocket company. Musk does not receive a paycheck for his work, the White House official said. Under federal guidelines, its unlikely that he will need to file a public financial disclosure report. The official did not provide additional details apart from saying that Musk is following the law. Trump signaled his approval of Musks work on Sunday evening after returning to Washington from his weekend in Florida.I think Elon is doing a good job. Hes a big cost-cutter, the Republican president said. Sometimes we wont agree with it and well not go where he wants to go. But I think hes doing a great job. CHRIS MEGERIAN Megerian covers the White House for The Associated Press. He previously wrote about the Russia investigation, climate change, law enforcement and politics in California and New Jersey. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen addresses a media conference at the end of an EU summit in Brussels, Monday, Feb. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Omar Havana)2025-02-03T08:10:24Z BRUSSELS (AP) After three years spent trying to deter Russia from destroying Ukraine, European Union leaders grappled on Monday with how to respond to a major ally who appears determined to start a trade war or even seize part of their territory.It would be a cruel paradox if, during the time of this direct Russian threat and Chinese expansion, the EU and the United States might end up in a conflict among allies, said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose country currently holds the EUs rotating presidency.Since taking office last month, U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to impose tariffs on EU imports and refused to rule out military force to take control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of NATO ally Denmark.Trump has also mystified Europeans by showing little sign of how he intends to end the war in Ukraine within six months as promised, let alone in a day, as he boasted while campaigning last year. We have to do everything to avoid this totally unnecessary and stupid tariff war or trade war, the Polish prime minister told reporters in Brussels, where EU leaders met for talks on boosting and improving military spending and ramping up Europes defense industry. Tusk said Trumps threats amount to a serious test of European unity, and in a very strange context, because its the first time where we have such a problem among allies. French President Emmanuel Macron said the EU is a power that stands its ground and that if hit with tariffs, the 27-nation bloc would have to make itself respected. He said Trumps threats are pushing Europeans to be more united, more active in addressing their collective security challenges.Trump slapped tariffs on European steel and aluminum during his first term, and EU leaders have already been in contact with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau since Canada imposed retaliatory duties on U.S. goods in response to a 25% tariff levied by Trump. The U.S. president later on Monday agreed to a 30-day pause on his tariff threat as Americas two largest trading partners took steps to appease his concerns about border security and drug trafficking. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen underlined that ties between the bloc and the United States are part of our most consequential relationship. It is fundamental to promoting peace, security and prosperity.But she warned that there are clearly new challenges and growing uncertainty and the EU stands ready to defend itself. When targeted unfairly or arbitrarily, the European Union will respond firmly, von der Leyen told reporters after the meeting.Meanwhile, Denmarks prime minister again insisted on Monday that Greenland isnt for sale and called for a robust response from the EU should U.S. Trump press ahead with his threat to take control of the island.I will never support the idea of fighting allies. But of course, if the U.S. puts tough terms on Europe, we need a collective and robust response, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters. Last month, Trump left open the possibility that the American military might be used to secure Greenland, as well as the Panama Canal. We need Greenland for national security purposes, he said.Frederiksen said she has great support from her EU partners on the fact that everybody has to respect the sovereignty of all national states in the world, and that Greenland is today a part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Its part of our territory and its not for sale.European Council President Antonio Costa, noting that the EU has stood beside Ukraine in defense of its borders, said of Greenland: Of course, we will stand also for these principles, all the more so if the territorial integrity of a member state of the European Union is questioned.Frederiksen acknowledged U.S. concerns about security in the Arctic Region, where Russia and China have been increasingly active.I totally agree with the Americans that the High North, that the Arctic region is becoming more and more important when we are talking about defense and security and deterrence, Frederiksen said, adding that the U.S. and Denmark could have stronger footprints in Greenland, in security terms. They are already there and they can have more possibilities, she said, underlining that Denmark itself can also scale up its security presence. If this is about securing our part of the world, we can find a way forward, Frederiksen said.Last week, her government announced a roughly 14.6 billion kroner (nearly $2 billion) agreement with parties including the governments of Greenland and the Faeroe Islands to improve capabilities for surveillance and maintaining sovereignty in the region.It would include three new Arctic naval vessels, two additional long-range surveillance drones and satellite capacity, the Danish Defense Ministry said.

Google logos are shown when searched on Google in New York, Sept. 11, 2023. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)2025-02-03T22:50:04Z SAN FRANCISCO (AP) Google went to appeals court Monday in an attempt to convince a three-judge panel to overturn a jurys verdict declaring its app store for Android smartphones as an illegal monopoly and block the penalties imposed by a federal judge to stop the misbehavior. Video game maker Epic Games, which brought the case alleging Googles Play Store has been abusing its stranglehold over the Android app market, countered with arguments outlining why both the verdict and punishment should be affirmed to foster more innovation and lower prices.In a nearly hour-long presentation in San Franciscos Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Google lawyer Jessica Ellsworth explained why the company believes the judge overseeing a month-long trial in 2023 improperly allowed the market in its case to be defined differently than it had in a similar antitrust trial revolving around Apples antitrust trial in 2021. Ellsworth also asserted the trial shouldnt have been decided by a jury in the first place because Google exercised its consent to that process and demanded the case be decided by a judge instead, as had the trial by Apple. Epic, the maker of the popular Fortnite video game, filed separate antitrust cases against Apple and Google on the same day in August 2020 and culminated in dramatically different outcomes. Unlike the jury in Googles trial in San Francisco, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers largely sided with Apple in an 185-decision that defined the Play Store and Apples iPhone app store as part of a broader competitive market. Ellsworth told the appeals court that U.S. District Judge James Donato improperly allowed Epic to turn the Google trial into a do-over that excluded the Apple app store as a rival in the market definition that led to the jurys verdict in its case.You cant just lose an issue that was fully litigated the first time (in the Apple case) and then pretend it didnt happen, Ellsworth said. She said the competition that Google and Apple engage in while making the two operating systems that power virtually all of the worlds smartphones sufficiently disciplines their actions in the app market. But the appeals judges indicated they believed the market definitions could differ in the separate app store cases because Apple bundles all its software and the iPhone together creating what has become known as a walled garden while Google licenses the Android software that includes its Play Store a wide variety of smartphone makers.There are clearly some factual differences between the Android world and Apple world, Judge Danielle J. Forrest told Ellsworth.Judge Gabriel Sanchez also sounded skeptical about Googles claims about being lumped with an improper market definition in its trial.Even if Google vigorously competes with Apple (in smartphone operating systems), that doesnt mean it cant create a different ecosystem where its a monopolist, Sanchez interjected during Ellsworths presentation. Epic attorney Gary Bornstein painted Googles arguments as a desperate and unfounded effort to preserve the system that boosts Googles profits with price-gouging commissions ranging from 15% to 30% on in-app purchases flowing from software downloaded through the Play Store. The penalties that Donato imposed in October and subsequently postponed while Google pursues its appeal would impose a series of sweeping changes that include making the Play Stores entire library of 2 million apps available to potential competitors a move expected to result in lower commission rates. The appeals court hasnt set a timeline for issuing a ruling in the Play Store case, but it typically takes several months before a decision is reached. Google is also currently facing other potential penalties that could include being forced to sell its Chrome web browser after a judge in another antitrust trial ruled its ubiquitous search engine is an illegal monopoly, too.In Mondays two-hour hearing Bornstein contended that Google never tried to define the Android app market during the trial the way it presented it during its appeal and reminded the three-judge panel that the bar should be set high before reversing a jurys verdict and the ensuing punishment ordered by a lower court judge. The benefit of the doubt does not go to the wrongdoer, Bornstein said.The judges seemed more troubled by Donatos decision to stick with a jury trial after the case changed shortly before the Epic trial when Google settled lawsuits brought by attorneys general across the U.S. and another prominent app developer, Match Group. An agreement for a jury trial had been reached when the attorneys general and Match cases were going to be combined with Epics, but Google wanted to revert to having a judge decide the outcome after settling some of the claims only to be rebuffed by Donato. At one point during Bornsteins presentation, Forrest openly mused about the possibility of declaring the verdict as a decision rendered by the equivalent of an advisory jury and sending the case back to Donato for a more lengthy ruling.That is an approach favored by Ellsworth, who pointed out that the judges ruling in the Apple app store case spanned nearly 200 pages while the jury in the Google trial were asked eight questions and they offered 14 words defining a relevant market.But Bornstein urged the appeals court to resort to giving Donato a homework assignment that would give Google more time to profit from its illegal conduct. MICHAEL LIEDTKE Liedtke has been covering technology and wide range of other business topics for The Associated Press since the turn of the century. twitter mailto