Actress Michelle Trachtenberg poses for a portrait during the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, on Jan. 19, 2009. (AP Photo/Mark Mainz, File)2025-02-26T18:21:17Z NEW YORK (AP) Michelle Trachtenberg, a former child star who appeared in the 1996 Harriet the Spy hit movie and went on to co-star in two buzzy millennial-era TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gossip Girl has died. She was 39.Police responded to a 911 call shortly after 8 a.m. at luxury residential tower in midtown where officers observed a 39-year-old female unconscious and unresponsive, according to an NYPD statement.Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene. No foul play was suspected and the New York Medical Examiner is investigating the cause of death, police said.Representatives for Trachtenberg did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Her death was first reported by the New York Post.Trachtenberg was 8 when she began played Nona Mecklenberg on Nickelodeons The Adventures of Pete & Pete Nona from 1994 to 1996 and then starred in the title role in the film adaptations of Harriet the Spy and Inspector Gadget, opposite Matthew Broderick. Michelle comes off as genuine because she really is a genuine kid. Everyone can identify with her, said Debby Beece, president of Nickelodeon Movies in 1996.In 2000 Trachtenberg joined the cast of Buffy, playing Dawn Summers, the younger sister of the title character played by Sarah Michelle Gellar between 2000 and 2003. Trachtenberg thanked Gellar for speaking out against Joss Whedon in 2021, following abuse allegations made against the Buffy showrunner. I am brave enough now as a 35-year-old woman to repost this, she wrote on social media, and alluded to his not appropriate behavior she experienced as a teenage actor. In 2001, she received a Daytime Emmy nomination for hosting Discoverys Truth or Scare. Trachtenberg went on to recurring roles on Six Feet Under, Weeds and Gossip Girl, where she played the gangs scheming nemesis, Georgina Sparks. He other credits included Ice Princess in 2005 playing a math prodigy and aspiring figure skater and the 2004 teen sex comedy EuroTrip. For Killing Kennedy, the 2013 film in which she played the wife of Lee Harvey Oswald, around 80% of Trachtenbergs dialogue was in Russian. She had learned the language from her mother growing up.___Associated Press Writer Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report. 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

Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer delivers a statement on Defence spending at Downing Street in London, Tuesday, Feb, 25, 2025. (Leon Neal/Pool photo via AP)2025-02-26T15:03:13Z LONDON (AP) U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer was flying to Washington on Wednesday after announcing a big increase in the British defense budget, an investment that he hopes will help persuade U.S. President Donald Trump to maintain support for Ukraine as Washington pushes to end the war.Though Starmer is touting the trans-Atlantic special relationship that has endured since World War II, he faces an uncertain reception. Trump has upended decades of U.S. foreign policy during his first weeks in office.Ukraine and its European allies are scrambling to respond after the Trump administration engaged directly with Moscow on ending the war in Ukraine. Starmers visit to the White House on Thursday is part of European efforts following a trip to Washington by French President Emmanuel Macron earlier this week to ensure Kyiv gets a voice in negotiations, and that the U.S. still backs Europe in dealing with an aggressive Russia on its doorstep. Starmer confirmed he will host a meeting of international leaders in the U.K. on Sunday, focused on Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to attend. European countries are striving to bolster their collective defense as Trump transforms American foreign policy. Trump has long questioned the value of NATO and complained that the U.S. provides security to European countries that dont pull their weight. Starmer announced Tuesday that the U.K. government will hike military spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product by 2027, years earlier than expected, and will aim to hit 3% by 2035. He called it the biggest sustained increase in defense spending since the end of the Cold War.The U.K.'s defense secretary, John Healey, said that President Trump, over the last two weeks, has been very direct in his challenge to European allies.Hes reinforced the imperative and the importance of Britain making this commitment and helping other European countries to step up in a similar way, Healey told the BBC. Starmers trip comes after Washington and Kyiv struck an economic deal that would give the U.S. access to a share of Ukraines lucrative rare earth mineral deposits. Kyiv hopes that signing the agreement will ensure the continued flow of U.S. military support that Ukraine urgently needs. Trump told reporters Wednesday ahead of the first meeting of his Cabinet that Zelenskyy is also due to visit the White House on Friday to sign a very big agreement.Starmer has offered to send British troops to Ukraine as part of a force to safeguard a ceasefire under a plan being championed by the U.K. and France, but says an American backstop will be needed to ensure a lasting peace. Trump hasnt committed to providing security guarantees for Ukraine, saying Monday after meeting Macron at the White House that Europe is going to make sure nothing happens. Michael Clarke, visiting professor of war studies at Kings College London, said that Starmer would try and be a Trump whisperer, while persuading the president to see some realities of European security. Starmer, a stolid, center-left lawyer who is Trumps polar opposite in outlook and temperament, has worked hard to charm the president. He flew to New York in September for dinner at Trump Tower. He has appointed Peter Mandelson as U.K. ambassador in Washington. Mandelson is a former Labour Party Cabinet minister nicknamed the Prince of Darkness, because of his mastery of political intrigue.Mandelson and Starmer also are hoping to spare the U.K. the sweeping tariffs Trump has vowed to impose on the European Union and other trading partners. The U.S. is Britains largest single trading partner, with a roughly equal balance of imports and exports something that may help it avoid Trump-imposed taxes on goods. JILL LAWLESS Lawless is an Associated Press reporter covering U.K. politics and more. She is based in London. twitter mailto

Secretary of State Marco Rubio stands with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, not shown, at the State Department, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein).2025-02-26T19:28:59Z WASHINGTON (AP) A planned meeting between European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Secretary of State Marco Rubio was abruptly canceled Wednesday due to scheduling issues, coming as political tensions have increased between Europe and the United States.Officials from both sides blamed scheduling challenges for preventing the pair, who last met at the Munich Security Conference in Germany last month, from meeting in Washington. However, European officials said they were caught off guard, and, notably, Kallas had previewed her planned talks with Rubio just two days earlier.In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has thrown the partnership between the U.S. and Europe into turmoil by pledging to charge higher taxes on imports from Europe that he says will match tariffs faced by American products. EU officials have traveled to Washington trying to head off a trade war. Top Trump administration officials also have warned Europe that it must start taking responsibility for its own security, including Ukraine, and sidelined the Europeans from their initial talks with Russia on ending the war. In a remarkable shift, the U.S. split with its European allies by refusing to blame Russia for its invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations this week and joined Moscow in voting against a Europe-backed Ukrainian resolution. In a bid to mend relations, French President Emmanuel Macron was in Washington on Monday for a White House meeting with Trump seeking support. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose country is no longer a member of the EU but often aligns itself with the continental bloc on foreign policy, is due to visit Thursday. Kallas herself had said Monday that she would be holding talks with Rubio on the issues that are of interest to both of us, which for the EU are chiefly Russias war on Ukraine and transatlantic relations. It is clear that the statements coming from the United States make us all worried, she told reporters after chairing a meeting of EU foreign ministers.Kallas said she hoped the EU-U.S. relationship can continue to function. So far, we do not have any indication that it would not. Of course it is going to change, that is very clear. But we should not throw something out the window that has worked well so far, she said.In a terse text message, her office referred all questions about why the meeting was canceled at short notice to the State Department.A senior U.S. official said the planned meeting, which had never appeared on Rubios public schedule, had been pulled down due to an unavoidable scheduling conflict. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.Rubio attended Trumps Cabinet meeting at the White House, which began late Wednesday morning.The cancellation came less than a week after the State Departments policy planning office sent an internal memo instructing officials who deal with Europe to highlight two specific issues in interactions with European counterparts. The Feb. 21 memo, seen by The Associated Press, also mentioned tentative plans for an upcoming Rubio meeting with Kallas. The two issues of concern identified in the memo were Freedom of Speech and Free Opposition and Migration.On the former, the memo said Rubio and other U.S. diplomats should emphasize in their discussions with European officials the importance that the Trump administration attaches to free speech. It noted that Vice President JD Vance had said in a speech at the Munich Security Conference this month that the West should unite around free speech, halt censorship, reject suppressing opposition, jailing people for tweets and memes, etc.The United States cannot continue supporting a continent that drifts in an authoritarian direction, the memo said. Its bad for Europe and bad for us.On migration, the memo said U.S. officials, including Rubio, should refer to Europes de facto open borders policy as a disaster that must end. Trump has made cracking down on illegal immigration and carrying out mass deportations a signature priority. The United States is changing course on migration policy under Trump, it said. Its well past time for Europe to do the same. We want you to remain civilization partners and to do that, you must get this under control.It was not clear if the blunt language in the memo contributed to the cancellation of the Rubio-Kallas meeting.Although her meeting with Rubio was pulled down, Kallas was due to meet with U.S. senators and members of Congress to discuss the war in Ukraine and EU-U.S. ties during her two-day trip to Washington and to take part in a talk about those issues at the Hudson Institute research organization.___Cook reported from Brussels. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Secretary of State Marco Rubio stands with Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, not shown, at the State Department, Monday, Feb. 10, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein).2025-02-26T19:26:56Z KINSHASA, Congo (AP) Unidentified illnesses in northwestern Congo have killed more than 50 people over the past five weeks, nearly half of them within hours after they felt sick.The outbreaks in two distant villages in Congos Equateur province began on Jan. 21 and include 419 cases and 53 deaths. Health officials still do not know the cause, or whether the cases in the two villages, which are separated by more than 120 miles (190 kilometers), are related. Its also unclear how the diseases are spreading, including whether they are spreading between people. The first victims in one of the villages were children who ate a bat and died within 48 hours, the Africa office of the World Health Organization said this week. More infections were found in the other village, where at least some of the patients have malaria. Outbreaks in two remote villagesIllnesses have been clustered in two remote villages in different health zones of Equateur province, which is 400 miles (640 kilometers) from Kinshasa.The first outbreak began in the village of Boloko after three children ate a bat and died within 48 hours. More than two weeks later a second and larger outbreak was recorded in the village of Bomate, where more than 400 people have been sickened. According to WHOs Africa office, no links have been established between the cases in the two villages. Dr. Serge Ngalebato, medical director of Bikoro Hospital, a regional monitoring center, and one of the government experts deployed to respond to the outbreak, says the situations in the two villages are somewhat different. The first one with a lot of deaths, that we continue to investigate because its an unusual situation, (and) in the second episode that were dealing with, we see a lot of the cases of malaria, said Dr. Ngalebato.The WHO Africa office said the quick progression from sickness to death in Boloko is a key concern, along with the high number of deaths in Bomate. What are the symptoms?Congos Ministry of Health said about 80% of the patients share similar symptoms including fever, chills, body aches and diarrhea.While these symptoms can be caused by many common infections, health officials initially feared the symptoms and the quick deaths of some of the victims could also be a sign of a hemorrhagic fever such as Ebola, which was also linked to an infected animal. However, Ebola and similar diseases including Marburg have been ruled out after more than a dozen samples were collected and tested in the capital of Kinshasa. The WHO said it is investigating a number of possible causes, including malaria, viral hemorrhagic fever, food or water poisoning, typhoid fever and meningitis.What is being done in response?Congos government says experts have been sent to the villages since Feb. 14, mainly to help investigate the cases and slow the spread.Ngalebato said patients have been responding to treatments that target the different symptoms.The remote location of the villages has hindered access to patients while the weak health care infrastructure has made it difficult to carry out surveillance and manage patients. Such challenges are common in disease outbreaks in Congo. In December, an unknown illness killed dozens. In the latest outbreaks, several victims died even before experts could even reach them, Ngalebato said.There needs to be an urgent action to accelerate laboratory investigations, improve case management and isolation capacities, and strengthen surveillance and risk communication, the WHO Africa office has said.The U.S. has been the largest bilateral donor to Congos health sector and has supported the training of hundreds of field epidemiologists to help detect and control diseases across the vast country. The outbreaks were detected as the Trump administration put a freeze on foreign aid during a 90-day review. Is there a link to Congos forests?There have long been concerns about diseases jumping from animals to humans in places where people regularly eat wild animals. The number of such outbreaks in Africa has surged by more than 60% in the last decade, the WHO said in 2022.Experts say this might be what is happening in Congo, which is home to about 60% of the forests in the Congo Basin, home to the largest expanse of tropical forest on earth.All these viruses are viruses that have reservoirs in the forest. And so, as long as we have these forests, we will always have a few epidemics with viruses which will mutate, said Gabriel Nsakala, a professor of public health at Congos National Pedagogical University, who previously worked at the Congolese health ministry on Ebola and coronavirus response programs.___For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse___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.

A sign is shown with egg cartons for sale at a grocery store Friday, Feb. 14, 2025 in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)2025-02-26T18:36:38Z WASHINGTON (AP) The Agriculture Department predicts the current record prices for eggs could soar more than 40% in 2025, as the Trump administration offered the first new details Wednesday about its plan to battle bird flu and ease the cost of eggs.With an emphasis on tightening up biosecurity on farms, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the USDA will invest another $1 billion on top of the roughly $2 billion it has already spent battling bird flu since the outbreak began in 2022. Officials had hinted at the plan earlier this month.Its not clear how much more farmers can do to keep the virus out.Egg and poultry farmers have already been working to protect their birds ever since the 2015 bird flu outbreak by taking measures like requiring workers to change clothes and shower before entering barns, using separate sets of tools and sanitizing any vehicles that enter farms. The challenge is that the virus is spread easily by wild birds as they migrate past farms. And the main reason egg prices have soared to hit a record average of $4.95 per dozen this month is that more than 166 million birds have been slaughtered to limit the spread of the virus after cases are found with most of those being egg-laying chickens. Last month was the worst yet for egg farmers with nearly 19 million egg-laying chickens slaughtered. Egg prices will get much worse this yearThe USDA now predicts that egg prices will increase at least 41% this year on top of the already record prices. Just last month, the increase was predicted to be 20%.And the average prices conceal just how bad the situation is, with consumers paying more than a dollar an egg in some places. The situation is hurting consumers and has prompted restaurants like Dennys and Waffle House to add surcharges on egg dishes.The high egg prices, which have more than doubled since before the outbreak began, cost consumers at least $1.4 billion last year, according to an estimate done by agricultural economists at the University of Arkansas.Egg prices also normally increase every spring heading into Easter when demand is high. When will the Trump plan bring down prices?Rollins acknowledged that it will take some time before consumers see an effect at the checkout counter. After all, it takes infected farms months to dispose of the carcasses, sanitize their farms and raise new birds. But she expressed optimism that this will help prices.Its going to take a while to get through, I think in the next month or two, but hopefully by summer, Rollins said.Will DOGE layoffs affect the bird flu fight?Rollins said she believes USDA will have the staff it needs to respond to bird flu even after all the cuts to the federal workforce at the direction of Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency.Will we have the resources needed to address the plan I just laid out? We are convinced that we will, she said, as we realign and and evaluate where USDA has been spending money, where our employees are spending their time. Wheres the money going?The plan calls for $500 million investment to help farmers bolster biosecurity measures, $400 million in additional aid for farmers whose flocks have been impacted by avian flu, $100 million to research and potentially develop vaccines and therapeutics for U.S. chicken flocks and explore rolling back what the administration sees as restrictive animal welfare rules in some states.Its not clear what the additional aid would be for because USDA already pays farmers for any birds they must slaughter due to the virus, and roughly $1.2 billion has gone to those payments.The administration is also in talks to import about 70 million to 100 million eggs from other countries in the coming months, Rollins said. But there were 7.57 billion table eggs produced last month, so those imports dont appear likely to make a significant difference in the market.Trump administration officials have suggested that vaccines might help reduce the number of birds that have to be slaughtered when there is an outbreak. However, no vaccines have been approved and the industry has said the current prototypes arent practical because they require individual shots to each bird. Plus, vaccinated birds could jeopardize exports.The National Turkey Federation said the plan Rollins outlined should help stabilize the market, but the trade group encouraged the USDA to pay attention to all egg and poultry farmers not just egg producers. ___Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. Aamer Madhani contributed from Washington. JOSH FUNK Funk is an Associated Press reporter who covers all the major freight railroads including Union Pacific, BNSF, Norfolk Southern, CSX, Canadian National and CPKC. Funk also covers Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway and has been attending Buffetts Woodstock for Capitalists annual meeting every spring in Omaha, Nebraska, for 19 years. twitter mailto JOSH BOAK Boak covers the White House and economic policy for The Associated Press. He joined the AP in 2013. twitter mailto

President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)2025-02-26T18:16:51Z WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he plans to start selling a gold card visa with a potential pathway to U.S. citizenship for $5 million, seeking to have that new initiative replace a 35-year-old visa program for investors.I happen to think itll sell like crazy. Its a market, Trump said. But well know very soon.During the first meeting of his second-term Cabinet, Trump suggested that the new revenue generated from the program could be used to pay off the countrys debt.If we sell a million, thats $5 trillion dollars, he said. Of the demand from the business community to participate, he said I think we will sell a lot because I think theres really a thirst. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters during the same meeting that Trumps initiative would replace the EB-5 program, which offers U.S. visas to investors who spent about $1 million on a company that employs at least 10 people. Lutnick said that program has been around for many years for investment in projects but it was poorly overseen, poorly executed.The new program could mark a dramatic shift in U.S. immigration policy but isnt unprecedented elsewhere. Countries in Europe and elsewhere offer what have become known as golden visas that allow participants to pay in order to secure immigration status in desirable places. Congress, meanwhile, determines qualifications U.S. for citizenship, but the president said gold cards would not require congressional approval. Trump said of future possible recipients of the gold visa program: Theyll be wealthy and theyll be successful and theyll be spending a lot of money and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people, and we think its going to be extremely successful. Henley & Partners, an advisory firm, says more than 100 countries around the world offer golden visas to wealthy individuals and investors. That list includes the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Malta, Australia, Canada and Italy. Companies can buy gold cards and, in exchange, get those visas to hire new employees, Trump said. Despite similar programs already occurring outside the U.S., he insisted, No other country can do this because people dont want to go to other countries. They want to come here. Everybody wants to come here, especially since Nov. 5, he said of his Election Day victory last fall.Lutnick suggested that the gold card which would actually work, at least to start, more like a green card, or permanent legal residency would raise the price of admission for investors and do away with fraud and nonsense that he said characterize the EB-5 program. A pathway to citizenship as part of the new program also would set it apart from the EB-5 program. Trump said vetting people who might be eligible for the gold card will go through a process that is still being worked out.Pressed on if there would be restrictions on people from China or Iran not being allowed to participate, Trump suggested it will likely not be restricted to much in terms of countries, but maybe in terms of individuals. About 8,000 people obtained investor visas in the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, 2022, according to the Homeland Security Departments most recent Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. The Congressional Research Service reported in 2021 that EB-5 visas pose risks of fraud, including verification that funds were obtained legally.Trump made no mention of the requirements for job creation. And, while the number of EB-5 visas is capped, the Republican president mused that the federal government could sell 10 million gold cards to reduce the deficit. He said it could be great, maybe it will be fantastic.Its somewhat like a green card, but at a higher level of sophistication, the president said. Its a road to citizenship for people and essentially people of wealth or people of great talent, where people of wealth pay for those people of talent to get in, meaning companies will pay for people to get in and to have long, long term status in the country. WILL WEISSERT Weissert covers national politics and the White House for The Associated Press. He is based in Washington. twitter mailto

A boat on the Potomac River, cruises past emergency response vehicles seen staging at Joint Base Anacostia Bolling, in the early morning hour, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025 in Washington, as seen from across the river near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)2025-02-09T15:10:11Z All the recent aviation disasters and close calls have people worried about the safety of flying.The midair collision that killed 67 near Washington D.C. last month was the worst disaster. But there was also the plane that crashed and flipped over upon landing in Toronto, the fiery plane crash in Philadelphia and a plane crash in Alaska that killed 10, as well as two small planes that collided in Arizona. Those all came before the scary moment this week in Chicago when a Southwest Airlines plane had to abort its landing to avoid crashing into another plane crossing the runway. A plane landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport also had to perform a go-around maneuver Tuesday to avoid getting too close to another aircraft departing from the same runway. Thats not to mention the time earlier this month when a Japan Airlines plane clipped a parked Delta plane while it was taxiing at the Seattle airport, or the security concerns that arose after stowaways were found dead inside the wheel wells of two planes and aboard two other flights. In addition, a United Airlines plane caught fire during takeoff at the Houston airport and a passenger opened an emergency exit door on a plane while it was taxiing for takeoff in Boston.So of course people are wondering whether their flight is safe? What happened in the worst cases?The Jan. 29 collision between an American Airlines passenger jet and an Army helicopter killed everyone aboard both aircraft. It was the deadliest plane crash 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. After that, there hadnt been a deadly crash of any kind involving a U.S. airliner since February 2009.Earlier this month, 21 people were injured Feb. 17 when a Delta flight flipped and landed on its roof at Torontos Pearson Airport. Everyone survived that crash.Crashes are more common involving smaller planes, like the single-engine Cessna that crashed in Alaska on Feb. 6, or the two small planes that collided in Arizona on Feb. 19. Ten people including the pilot were killed in the Alaska crash, and two died in the Arizona one.A medical transportation plane crashed in Philadelphia on Jan. 31, killing the six people onboard and another person on the ground. That Learjet generated a massive fireball when it smashed into the ground in a neighborhood not long after taking off from a small airport nearby.How worried should I be?Fatal crashes attract extraordinary attention partly because they are rare. The track record of U.S. airlines is remarkably safe, as demonstrated by the long stretch between fatal crashes.But deadly crashes have happened more recently elsewhere around the world, including one in South Korea that killed all 179 people aboard in December. There were also two fatal crashes involving Boeings troubled 737 Max jetliner in 2018 and 2019. And last January, a door plug blew off a 737 Max while it was in flight, raising more questions about the plane. Federal officials have been raising concerns about an overtaxed and understaffed air traffic control system for years, especially after a series of close calls between planes at U.S. airports. Among the reasons they have cited for staffing shortages are uncompetitive pay, long shifts, intensive training and mandatory retirements. President Donald Trump added to those concerns when he blamed the midair collision over Washington D.C. on the obsolete air traffic control system that airports rely on and promised to replace it.Even with all that, officials have tried to reassure travelers that flying is the safest mode of transportation. And statistics back that up. The National Safety Council estimates that Americans have a 1-in-93 chance of dying in a motor vehicle crash, while deaths on airplanes are too rare to calculate the odds. Figures from the U.S. Department of Transportation tell a similar story. What is being done?The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating these recent crashes and close calls to determine what caused them and look for ways to prevent recurrences.There have already been troubling revelations about the midair collision, but it will take more than a year to get the full report on what happened.The NTSB always recommends steps that could be taken to prevent crashes from happening again, but the agency has a long list of hundreds of previous recommendations that have been ignored by other government agencies and the industries it investigates.Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said the public is right to say that crashes like the recent ones are unacceptable. That is why he plans to make sure safety is paramount as he leads the agency that regulates all modes of transportation.I feel really good about where were at and where were going and the plans we have in place to make sure we even make the system safer and more efficient than it is today, Duffy said in a Fox News interview. JOSH FUNK Funk is an Associated Press reporter who covers all the major freight railroads including Union Pacific, BNSF, Norfolk Southern, CSX, Canadian National and CPKC. Funk also covers Warren Buffetts Berkshire Hathaway and has been attending Buffetts Woodstock for Capitalists annual meeting every spring in Omaha, Nebraska, for 19 years. twitter mailto

Richard Rogers and his wife Laurie stand outside the James F. Battin Federal Courthouse, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Billings, Mont. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)2025-02-26T05:03:56Z BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) A Montana man was sentenced to four years of probation on Wednesday for threatening to assault former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy after becoming upset with the government for not shooting down a Chinese spy balloon that floated over the defendants home city.Richard Rogers, 45, of Billings, was convicted by a federal jury last year on charges of threatening a member of Congress and making harassing phone calls to the FBI and congressional staff. He routinely made vulgar and obscene comments and berated officials during the calls. The former telephone customer service representative delivered the assault threat to a McCarthy staffer during a series of more than 100 calls to the Republican speakers office in just 75 minutes on Feb. 3, 2023, prosecutors said. That was one day after the Pentagon acknowledged it was tracking the spy balloon, which was later shot down off the Atlantic Coast. The threat against McCarthy carried a maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $250,000 fine.Rogers testified at trial that his outraged calls to the FBI and McCarthys office were a form of civil disobedience. One of his lawyers said during the trial that Rogers just wanted to be heard. Prosecutors had asked the court to send a strong deterrent message that threats against public officials are not protected by the First Amendment. They had requested a sentence of two years in prison. Rogers conduct in this case contributes to a rising and concerning myth that the First Amendment somehow gives a person complete immunity from all consequences as long as their speech or conduct is framed as political protest, prosecutors wrote in a court filing.Defense attorney Daniel Ball had asked for Rogers to be spared prison and sentenced to supervised release. Ball referenced the violent actions of supporters of President Donald Trump in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and noted that many of them received prison sentences shorter than two years. Trump pardoned the perpetrators after he started his second term. The actions of some of these individuals may have been violent and egregious. Yet, they were pardoned, Ball wrote in a court filing last week. Richards conduct, as determined by the jury, occurred in Montana. There was no imminent risk to any person. There was no imminent threat.Rogers has said that he supports Trump and he was in Washington during the 2021 attack on the Capitol but did not take part.Threats against public officials in the U.S. have risen sharply in recent years, including against members of Congress, their spouses, election workers and local officials. Rogers case was among more than 8,000 threats to lawmakers investigated by the U.S. Capitol Police in 2023.A 30-year-old Billings man was sentenced last year to 2 1/2 years in federal prison after leaving voicemail messages threatening to kill former Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester and his family. Another Montana man was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in 2023 for threats against Tester.

Russell Vought, President Donald Trump's choice for Director of the Office of Management and Budget, appears before the Senate Budget Committee during a hearing to examine his nomination, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, file)2025-02-26T21:42:16Z ATLANTA (AP) The Trump administrations demand that federal agencies plan to radically downsize is driven by a key figure in the conservative movement who has long planned this move. In President Donald Trumps first term, Russell Vought was a largely behind-the-scenes player who eventually became director of the influential but underappreciated Office of Management and Budget. He is back in that job in Trumps second term after being the principal author of Project 2025, the conservative governing blueprint that Trump insisted during the 2024 campaign was not part of his agenda. The memo Vought co-signed Wednesday is the clearest assertion of his power and the latest seminal writing for a man who argues the federal bureaucracy is an existential threat to the country itself and that it should dramatically downsize. An OMB spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Here is the context of the Wednesday memo and Voughts previous work: To Vought, the federal bureaucracy is itself a constitutional crisisIn Wednesdays memo, Vought framed the federal government as costly, inefficient, and deeply in debt and declared that it is not producing results for the American public. Instead, tax dollars are being siphoned off to fund unproductive and unnecessary programs.He used similar language in passages of Project 2025 and in a 104-page budget plan proposed by his think tank, the Center for Renewing America, in 2022.The overall situation is constitutionally dire, unsustainably expensive, and in urgent need of repair. Nothing less than the survival of self-governance in America is at stake, he wrote in Project 2025.That tracks with what Vought said before Trump again nominated him to the role in November.In a post-election appearance with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson, Vought was even more explicit: The left has innovated over 100 years to create this administrative state that is totally unaccountable to the president. Vought made clear he would leverage a second chance at OMBIn Project 2025, Vought wrote that OMB is a Presidents air-traffic control system and that the Director must view his job as the best, most comprehensive approximation of the Presidents mind.OMB, he wrote, should be involved in all aspects of the White House policy process, becoming powerful enough to override implementing agencies bureaucracies.He told Carlson that OMB is the nerve center of the federal budget and that it has the ability to turn off the spending that is going on at the agencies and control all of government execution.Presidents, he said, use OMB to tame the bureaucracy, the administrative state.Speaking with Carlson, Vought described the approach as radical constitutionalism.In his Project 2025 writing, Vought says the OMB director should present a fiscal goal to the President early in the budget development process without specifying a date. Vought has praised DOGE and pushed back at Trump criticsAsked after the election about the presidents proposal to empower billionaire Trump aide Elon Musk and, at the time, former presidential GOP candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, with sweeping power over the federal government, Vought was on board. I think theyre bringing an exhilarating rush ... of creativity, outside the box thinking, comfortability with risk and leverage, he told Carlson. Ramaswamy left DOGE by Inauguration Day.As for concerns over constitutional separation of powers, meaning those who believe Trumps White House seeks to takeover spending decisions that rest with Congress, Vought said, separation of powers is meant to have strong, opinionated conviction and leadership that go as fast as they can and hard as they can in their direction.The memo goes into more detail than previous Vought writingVoughts latest memo requires agencies to submit an initial overhaul plan by mid-March. This so-called Phase I deadline was introduced by Trump.So-called Phase II plans are due by April 14. Among other details, they must include a future-state organizational chart and documentation of all reductions, including (full-time) positions, term and temporary positions, reemployed annuitants, real estate footprint, and contracts. Vought invokes religious imagery and texts with his agendaThe latest OMB memo does not venture into religious texts or assertions. But Vought is an outspoken conservative Christian and invokes his faith as part of his governing philosophy.The Center for Renewing Americas 2022 budget outline begins by quoting the Old Testament, specifically the eighth chapter of the first book of Samuel, to set up a critique of the federal governments size and scope:He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to the officers and to his servants He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day, you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves. BILL BARROW Bill Barrow covers U.S. politics. He is based in Atlanta. twitter mailto

Ilmenite, a key element used to produce titanium, is collected in the country's leading titanium mining company in the central region of Kirovohrad, Ukraine, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)2025-02-26T20:56:42Z DETROIT (AP) The United States will have access to Ukraines critical mineral wealth, including key ingredients for the clean energy transition, under a deal the two countries are expected to sign later this week. President Donald Trump, who has pushed for the agreement, has long been critical of a transition to green energies, which include wind and solar power, along with electrification of transportation and appliances, all things that require the various minerals the U.S. will have access to in this deal. So if Trump is against this trend, why go after these minerals? Wind turbines at the Buckeye Wind Energy are diffused by heat vapors as the are silhouetted against the rising sun, Sept. 30, 2024, near Hays, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File) Wind turbines at the Buckeye Wind Energy are diffused by heat vapors as the are silhouetted against the rising sun, Sept. 30, 2024, near Hays, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More The quick answer could be theyre used in a lot of other things, too. Heres a closer look: Ukraines mineral wealthCountries vary in which minerals they deem strategically critical. The U.S. Department of the Interior has designated 50, and Ukraine has more than 20 of those. Deposits of titanium, which is in high demand, are spread across the country. Titanium is used for making aircraft wings and other aerospace manufacturing, for marine uses, chemical processing and medical devices. Ukraine has lithium, key to several current battery technologies, and it has uranium, used for nuclear power, medical equipment and weapons. The country also has graphite and manganese, both used in batteries for electric vehicles. A worker controls extraction of ilmenite, a key element used to produce titanium, in an open pit mine in the central region of Kirovohrad, Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File) A worker controls extraction of ilmenite, a key element used to produce titanium, in an open pit mine in the central region of Kirovohrad, Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Still, the data on Ukraines geology is incomplete, according to Tom Moerenhout, adjunct associate professor at Columbia Universitys School of International and Public Affairs. The maps date back to when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, which dissolved in 1991. So its not clear how easy or profitable it will be to get the desired materials out of the ground. Its one thing to have a deal that talks about how might we manage their extraction and their revenue, Moerenhout said of the agreement. Its another thing entirely to actually have extractive projects, to actually have mining operations going on, and that is something that the deal does not guarantee.Some of the mineral riches lie in parts of the country currently occupied by Russia. Ukraines rare earth metalsRare earths are a subset of critical minerals; there are 17 of them, and not one is a common word. For example, ytterbium and promethium are rare earths. Rare earths are important for many kinds of technology and electronics, including medical care, military, aerospace as well as clean energy uses.Ytterbium is used in infrared lasers, chemical reactions, rechargeable batteries and fiber optics. Lanthanum is used in batteries, specialty glass for eyeglasses and and camera lenses and in petroleum refining. A single piece of military equipment can require hundreds of pounds of a rare earth.Contrary to their name, rare earths are not necessarily rare. However, they do often occur in low concentrations, making processing complicated. Its mainly China that excels at this processing currently. FILE- Miners extract ilmenite, a key element used to produce titanium, at an open pit mine in the central region of Kirovohrad, Ukraine, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File) FILE- Miners extract ilmenite, a key element used to produce titanium, at an open pit mine in the central region of Kirovohrad, Ukraine, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Geopolitical reasons for interest in Ukraines supplyThe Trump administration has steered clear of clean energy policy in favor of its energy dominance agenda, focused on oil and gas. As promised during his campaign, the presidents early executive orders slashed support for climate- and clean-energy related technologies, funding and programs.Electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar photovoltaic panels and other clean energy technology require the rare earths for components such as magnets and batteries; broadly, renewable energy and decarbonization are placing high demand on minerals across the globe.But clearly, the uses of the minerals Ukraine has go far beyond the energy transition. And Ukraine has tried hard to interest the new administration in its mineral wealth.Also, China controls much of the worlds supply of these materials. Opening access to Ukraines supply could reduce U.S. dependence elsewhere.To the credit of the first Trump administration, they have always put critical minerals as a very important policy priority because they knew they were so heavily reliant on China, Moerenhout said. That priority for the Trump administration doesnt change at all because they are less, lets say, less aggressive about clean energy deployment targets in the future. ___Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate solutions reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at [emailprotected].___Read more of APs climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment___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. ALEXA ST. JOHN St. John is a climate solutions reporter for The Associated Press, based in Detroit. She covers the ways people and communities create viable and scalable solutions to the planets warming. twitter mailto

In this undated image released by Intuitive Machines, Intuitive Machines newest lunar lander is displayed. (Intuitive Machines via AP)2025-02-27T00:18:03Z CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) A private company launched another lunar lander Wednesday, aiming to get closer to the moons south pole this time with a drone that will hop into a jet-black crater that never sees the sun.Intuitive Machines lander, named Athena, caught a lift with SpaceX from NASAs Kennedy Space Center. Its taking a fast track to the moon with a landing on March 6 while hoping to avoid the fate of its predecessor, which tipped over at touchdown. Never before have so many spacecraft angled for the moons surface all at once. Last month, U.S. and Japanese companies shared a rocket and separately launched landers toward Earths sidekick. Texas-based Firefly Aerospace should get there first this weekend after a big head start. The two U.S. landers are carrying tens of millions of dollars worth of experiments for NASA as it prepares to return astronauts to the moon. Its an amazing time. Theres so much energy, NASAs science mission chief Nicky Fox told The Associated Press a few hours ahead of the launch.This isnt Intuitive Machines first lunar rodeo. Last year, the Texas company made the first U.S. touchdown on the moon in more than 50 years. But an instrument that gauges distance did not work and the lander came down too hard and broke a leg, tipping onto its side. Intuitive Machines said it has fixed the issue and dozens of others. A sideways landing like last time would prevent the drone and a pair of rovers from moving out. NASAs drill also needs an upright landing to pierce beneath the lunar surface to gather soil samples for analysis. Certainly, we will be better this time than we were last time. But you never know what could happen, said Trent Martin, senior vice president of space systems. Its an extraordinarily elite club. Only five countries have pulled off a lunar landing over the decades: Russia, the U.S., China, India and Japan. The moon is littered with wreckage from many past failures. The 15-foot (4.7-meter) Athena will target a landing 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the lunar south pole. Just a quarter-mile (400 meters) away is a permanently shadowed crater the ultimate destination for the drone named Grace. Named after the late computer programming pioneer Grace Hopper, the 3-foot (1-meter) drone will make three increasingly higher and longer test hops across the lunar surface using hydrazine fueled-thrusters for flight and cameras and lasers for navigation.If those excursions go well, it will hop into the nearby pitch-black crater, an estimated 65 feet (20 meters) deep. Science instruments from Hungary and Germany will take measurements at the bottom while hunting for frozen water.It will be the first up-close peek inside one of the many shadowed craters dotting both the north and south poles. Scientists suspect these craters are packed with tons of ice. If so, this ice could be transformed by future explorers into water to drink, air to breathe and even rocket fuel. NASA is paying $62 million to Intuitive Machines to get its drill and other experiments to the moon. The company, in turn, sold space on the lander to others. It also opened up the Falcon rocket to ride-sharing. Tagalongs included NASAs Lunar Trailblazer satellite, which will fly separately to the moon over the next several months before entering lunar orbit to map the distribution of water below. Also catching a ride was a private spacecraft that will chase after an asteroid for a flyby, a precursor to asteroid mining.___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. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel speaks during a press conference at the NFL football scouting combine in Indianapolis, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)2025-02-26T16:50:01Z INDIANAPOLIS (AP) The Miami Dolphins are the top-ranked team, followed by the Minnesota Vikings, for the second consecutive season in the NFL Players Association report card.The Atlanta Falcons, Las Vegas Raiders and Los Angeles Chargers rounded out the top five in the third annual NLPA report card released Wednesday at the NFL scouting combine.The Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Jets, Cleveland Browns, New England Patriots and Arizona Cardinals were the bottom five.JC Tretter, the NFLPAs chief strategy officer, said 1,695 players responded to the survey, an average of 52 players per team and 77% of the unions membership. The report cards were compiled between Aug. 26 and Nov. 20.NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell pointed out the purpose of the report cards is not to be a shame campaign but how do we improve working conditions for our guys. Tretter said most teams improved in a positive direction.The Washington Commanders made a huge jump, going from 32nd twice to No. 11.That really shows the point of the project, Tretter said, highlighting owner Josh Harris efforts to improve staffing and culture. Commanders coach Dan Quinn was ranked No. 1 by players.The Falcons leaped from 25th to third and the Chargers went from 30th to fifth.The Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles fell to 22nd from fourth last year.Owners were graded on two new categories this time around. Previously, players were asked to rate how willing owners were to invest in the teams facilities. Stephen Ross (Dolphins), Zygi Wilf (Vikings), Arthur Blank (Falcons), Greg Prenner (Broncos) and Dean Spanos (Chargers) finished 1-5 in that category.Robert Kraft (Patriots), David Tepper (Panthers), Art Rooney II (Steelers), Michael Bidwell (Cardinals) and Woody Johnson (Jets) were the bottom five.Players were asked to also rate how the owners contributed to positive team culture and to rate their commitment to building a competitive team. Ross, Blank, Wilf, Harris and Prenner were the top five in both categories. Bidwell, Jimmy Haslam (Browns), Kraft, Tepper and Johnson were the bottom five for team culture. Mike Brown (Bengals), Haslam, Kraft, Johnson and Tepper were the bottom five for competitive building.Only Johnson got an overall F rating for ownership.Falcons coach Raheem Morris finished second behind Quinn in coach rankings and AP Coach of the Year Kevin OConnell of the Vikings was third. Kansas Citys Andy Reid and Detroits Dan Campbell were fourth and fifth. Miamis Mike McDaniels also received an A-plus.The lowest-graded coaches received a C. They were Kevin Stefanski, a two-time Coach of the Year with the Browns, Doug Pederson (Jaguars) and Matt Eberflus (Bears). Pederson and Eberflus were fired.___AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl ROB MAADDI Maaddi is senior NFL writer for The Associated Press. Hes covered the league for 24 years, including the first two decades as the Eagles beat writer. mailto

The seal is seen at the Department of Veterans Affairs building in Washington, June 21, 2013. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)2025-02-26T23:44:10Z WASHINGTON (AP) The Department of Veterans Affairs has temporarily suspended billions of dollars in planned contract cuts following concerns that the move would hurt critical veterans health services, lawmakers and veterans service organizations said Wednesday. The pause affects hundreds of VA contracts that Secretary Doug Collins a day earlier described as simply consulting deals, whose cancellation would save $2 billion as the Trump administration works to slash costs across the federal government. No more paying consultants to do things like make Power Point slides and write meeting minutes! Collins posted to X Tuesday, in a post that was then lauded by Elon Musk, President Donald Trumps cost-cutting chief at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. The Associated Press has obtained the full list of 875 affected contracts, which shows the cuts would affect everything from cancer care to the ability to assess toxic exposure. The list underscores how the Trump administrations approach to broad spending reductions has immediate and potentially unintended consequences, generating significant concern not just among Democrats but also Republican lawmakers. The VA said in a statement to the AP that its review of the contracts is ongoing and not final. We will not be eliminating any benefits or services to Veterans or VA beneficiaries, and there will be no negative impact to VA health care, benefits or beneficiaries. We are always going to take care of Veterans at VA. Period, VA press secretary Pete Kasperowicz said in a statement. One contract that was on the chopping block supports assessing veterans disability ratings. Those evaluations are one of the most important steps needed for a veteran to qualify to have their medical care covered and receive financial compensation if they were wounded due to their military service. An inaccurate rating can have a long-term impact on their access to care and financial support. Another contract is intended to identify and integrate data between the Pentagon, VA and other agencies to support the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act of 2022, a bill passed in 2022 to increase veterans access to care. Some of the other contracts marked for cancellation also directly affect veterans care.At a joint House and Senate hearing Wednesday with veterans services organizations, Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal submitted a partial list of the affected contracts his office had received and submitted it for the congressional record.If carried out, these cuts will harm veterans and taxpayers for years to come, Blumenthal said in a statement. In an internal VA email sent Tuesday and seen by the AP, a VA contracting official said DOGE targeted contracts broadly categorized as consulting but they included ones that if terminated would halt chemotherapy and imaging services. Contracts to calibrate radiation detection equipment, to support cancer care and veterans cemetery management, among others were also targeted. Another would directly affect the ability to assess toxic exposure because it supports more than 24,000 research requests to look through the National Archives and Records Administration and other government sources to validate service and toxic exposure events. Former VA Secretary David Shulkin, who served in the Trump administration in his first term, said that while the agency has gotten larger and there are likely savings to be found, the VA grew, in part, to meet the large expansion of veterans enrolling to get care under the PACT Act. More than 740,000 veterans signed up for coverage after the law passed, according to a September 2024 VA press release.I do think slowing down and pausing to see what the consequences are, even if they are unintended consequences, is important to do, Shulkin told The Associated Press.Veterans service organizations called for immediate transparency on what contracts were affected.With funding suddenly stripped from contractors processing claims, conducting medical screenings and expanding outreach, there are growing concerns veterans will face delays, denials and disruptions in accessing critical services, said Rosie Torres, executive director of Burn Pits 360. The group advocates for veterans who face life-altering respiratory illnesses and cancers due to toxic exposure to dangerous air particle matter generated from massive trash-burning fires at overseas bases.The Washington Post was first to report on the cancellations.___Johnson reported from Washington state. TARA COPP Copp covers the Pentagon and national security for the Associated Press. She has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, throughout the Middle East, Europe and Asia. twitter mailto CARLA K. JOHNSON Johnson covers research in cancer, addiction and more for The Associated Press. She is a member of APs Health and Science team. twitter mailto

Russell Vought, President Donald Trump's choice for Director of the Office of Management and Budget, appears before the Senate Budget Committee during a hearing to examine his nomination, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, file)2025-02-26T22:10:28Z The Mennonite population being affected by a measles outbreak in West Texas is part of a larger, loosely affiliated group of churches worldwide with varied beliefs and leadership structures and with sometimes strained or distant relations with health officials and other public authorities. Who are the Mennonites?Mennonites are part of the wider Anabaptist family of churches, which emerged in 1525 as the radical wing of the Protestant Reformation in Central Europe. Other Anabaptist branches today include the Amish, Brethren and Hutterites. Anabaptists believed that a true biblical church had to follow such principles as non-violence, unconditional forgiveness, adult baptism, church discipline, and a refusal to bear arms or swear oaths. Early Anabaptists suffered persecution and martyrdom under Catholic and Protestant rulers in Europe, a history that still influences some groups today in their suspicion of governmental authorities, including public health officials.Mennonites, named for an early leader, Menno Simons, vary widely in practice today.Some Mennonites have largely assimilated into mainstream culture and dress, with a focus on working for peace and social justice in the larger society. Other Mennonites maintain traditions similar to the Amish, with tight-knit, separatist communities marked by such things as limited technology, nonviolence, male leadership and traditional dress, including womens head coverings. Still others are somewhere on a continuum between such practices. There are more than 2 million baptized believers in 86 countries in Anabaptist-related churches, according to the Mennonite World Conference What are Old Colony Mennonites in Texas? The outbreak has particularly affected Gaines county and some adjacent areas.While its not immediately clear which Mennonite community has been affected, the Gaines County area includes a community with a distinctive history.Many other North American Amish and Mennonites trace their roots to immigration directly from Western Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, said Steven Nolt, professor of history and Anabaptist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. In contrast, the Seminole area includes a community of Old Colony Mennonites, which has a much more circuitous history of migration, Nolt said.Old Colony Mennonites migrated first to the Russian Empire, then to Canada, then to Mexico, fleeing government pressures to assimilate, according to Nolt. As economic conditions deteriorated in Mexico, some moved to such areas as Gaines County and other communities in Texas and nearby states in the 1980s and 1990s. All along, they have preserved their Low German dialect and other cultural distinctions.Gaines County is also home to one of the highest rates of school-aged children in Texas who have opted out of at least one required vaccine, with nearly 14% skipping a required dose last school year. What are Mennonite views on vaccines?Historically and theologically, there has not been any religious teaching against immunization in Mennonite circles, Nolt said via email. Theres no religious prohibition, no body of religious writing on it at all. That said, more culturally conservative Mennonite (and Amish) groups have tended to be under-immunized or partially-immunized.Partly, he said, thats because they dont engage as regularly with health care systems as more assimilated groups do. Many traditional Anabaptist groups did accept vaccinations that were promoted in the mid-20th century, such as for tetanus and smallpox, but they have been more skeptical in recent years of newly introduced vaccines, Nolt said.But Old Colony groups who arrived in the late 20th century also missed the whole mid-century immunization push, as they werent in the U.S. at that time.___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.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is pictured Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)2025-02-26T23:27:52Z WASHINGTON (AP) The Trump administration said Wednesday it is eliminating more than 90% of the U.S. Agency for International Developments foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall U.S. assistance around the world, putting numbers on its plans to eliminate the majority of U.S. development and humanitarian help abroad. The cuts detailed by the administration would leave few surviving USAID projects for advocates to try to save in what are ongoing court battles with the administration. The Trump administration outlined its plans in both an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press and filings in one of those federal lawsuits Wednesday. The Supreme Court intervened in that case late Wednesday and temporarily blocked a court order requiring the administration to release billions of dollars in foreign aid by midnight. Wednesdays disclosures also give an idea of the scale of the administrations retreat from U.S. aid and development assistance overseas, and from decades of U.S. policy that foreign aid helps U.S. interests by stabilizing other countries and economies and building alliances. The memo said officials were clearing significant waste stemming from decades of institutional drift. More changes are planned in how USAID and the State Department deliver foreign assistance, it said. President Donald Trump and ally Elon Musk have hit foreign aid harder and faster than almost any other target in their push to cut the size of the federal government. Both men say USAID projects advance a liberal agenda and are a waste of money. Trump on Jan. 20 ordered what he said would be a 90-day program-by-program review of which foreign assistance programs deserved to continue, and cut off all foreign assistance funds almost overnight.The funding freeze has stopped thousands of U.S.-funded programs abroad, and the administration and Musks Department of Government Efficiency teams have pulled the majority of USAID staff off the job through forced leave and firings. In the federal court filings Wednesday, nonprofits owed money on contracts with USAID describe both Trump political appointees and members of Musks teams terminating USAIDs contracts around the world at breakneck speed, without time for any meaningful review, they say.There are MANY more terminations coming, so please gear up!'' a USAID official wrote staff Monday, in an email quoted by lawyers for the nonprofits in the filings.The nonprofits, among thousands of contractors, owed billions of dollars in payment since the freeze began, called the en masse contract terminations a maneuver to get around complying with the order to lift the funding freeze temporarily.So did a Democratic lawmaker.The administration is brazenly attempting to blow through Congress and the courts by announcing the completion of their sham review of foreign aid and the immediate termination of thousands of aid programs all over the world, said Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The State Department said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had reviewed the terminations.In all, the Trump administration said it will eliminate 5,800 of 6,200 multiyear USAID contract awards, for a cut of $54 billion. Another 4,100 of 9,100 State Department grants were being eliminated, for a cut of $4.4 billion.The State Department memo, which was first reported by the Washington Free Beacon, described the administration as spurred by a federal court order that gave officials until the end of the day Wednesday to lift the Trump administrations monthlong block on foreign aid funding.In response, State and USAID moved rapidly, targeting USAID and State Department foreign aid programs in vast numbers for contract terminations, the memo said.Trump administration officials after repeated warnings from the federal judge in the case also said Wednesday they were finally beginning to send out their first or any payments after more than a month with no known spending. Officials were processing a few million dollars of back payments, officials said, owed to U.S. and international organizations and companies. But U.S. District Judge Amir H. Alis order to unfreeze billions of dollars by midnight Wednesday will remain on hold until the Supreme Court has a chance to weigh in more fully, according to the brief order signed by Chief Justice John Roberts. Ali had ordered the federal government to comply with his decision temporarily blocking a freeze on foreign aid, ruling in a lawsuit filed by nonprofit groups and businesses. An appellate panel refused the administrations request to intervene before the high court weighed in.The plaintiffs have until noon Friday to respond, Roberts said.The administration has filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in one other case so far, arguing that a lower court was wrong to reinstate the head of a federal watchdog agency after Trump fired him.-Gary Fields and Mark Sherman contributed from Washington and Rebecca Boone from Boise, Idaho.___ ELLEN KNICKMEYER Knickmeyer covers foreign policy and national security for The Associated Press. She is based in Washington, D.C. twitter RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

President Donald Trump listens during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2025, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listen. (Pool via AP)2025-02-27T01:02:02Z WASHINGTON (AP) Building lethality in the military may be the buzzword for the new Trump administration, but busywork and paperwork have become the reality at the Pentagon, as service members and civilian workers are facing a broad mandate to purge all of the departments social media sites and untangle confusing personnel reduction moves.On Wednesday, the departments top public affairs official signed and sent out a new memo requiring all the military services to spend countless hours poring over years of website postings, photos, news articles and videos to remove any mentions that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.If they cant do that by March 5, they have been ordered to temporarily remove from public display all content published during the Biden administrations four years in office, according to a copy of the memo obtained by The Associated Press. The new directive comes as the military services also are scrambling to identify probationary workers the administration has targeted for firing under its campaign to slash the government workforce. They are also trying to figure out how many civilian workers have agreed to leave under the government-wide buyouts and whether they have been approved. Among the firings were a dozen senior military leaders late last week, including Gen. CQ Brown Jr., who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the chief of naval operations; Gen. Jim Slife, vice chief of the Air Force; and the judge advocates general for the services. Top leaders had been targeted as part of the campaign to rid the military of so-called woke leaders, but the firing of the JAGs didnt seem to fall into that category. The latest social media directive hits just days after the department issued a separate memo to the services reminding forces to remain apolitical and focused on the non-partisan execution of their duties. Given the intense focus on recent changes within the department, maintaining the public trust is more important than ever, said the memo, signed Feb. 19, by Darin Selnick, who is temporarily working as the undersecretary for personnel.The move to purge content on diversity is part of Trumps broader executive order ending the federal governments diversity, equity and inclusion programs. But confusion has swirled among federal agencies, since Trump himself marked Black History Month at the White House with a reception that featured golf legend Tiger Woods.U.S. officials said this week that military leaders were initially told they would have just days to scour their websites going back decades for stories on gains in the military by women and minorities or stories celebrating cultural heritage. When the leaders said they didnt have the manpower to meet the deadline, they got the option to simply wipe away all posts from the last four years.Employees would then go through all that content to determine what must be publicly removed and archived and what can be reposted. But officials said that given the expanse of the task, many may just remove all content from the last four years and start over with new sites essentially erasing the Biden tenure from the departments online history. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to relay internal discussions. Signed by Sean Parnell, the departments new chief spokesman, the memo provides a bit more detail on the DEI purge that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered. But it also has left the services and department sections scrambling to find workers to devote substantial time to the detail-intensive task.Officials said they are concerned that the directive has added yet another distraction as they try to focus on meeting Trumps broader mandate to increase lethality. They worry there is little time to strip years of old military web pages of all DEI content and to do so means pulling staff from other more critical warfighting and security tasks.It also isnt entirely clear what makes a story, post, photo or video DEI-related. According to the memo, it includes content that promotes programs or materials about critical race theory, gender ideology and special treatment for individuals based up gender, race or ethnicity. It also refers to any content that is counter to merit-based or color-blind policies which could include news items that focus on a service member or employees race or gender.And despite Trumps celebration of Black History Month, it also calls for the elimination of all content that promotes so-called cultural awareness months that Hegseth decried in an earlier memo titled Identity Months dead at DOD.In that Jan. 31 memo, he said that efforts to divide the force to put one group ahead of another erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution. He has also argued that efforts to broader diversity took emphasis away from warfighting. As a result, he said the department and the services cant use official resources to host celebrations or event related to Black History Month, Womens History Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Pride Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month, National Disability Employment Awareness Month and National American Indian Heritage Month. Instead, he said units and offices are encouraged to celebrate the valor and success of military heroes of all races, genders, and backgrounds as we restore our warrior culture and ethos.The new edict raises questions about how workers will determine what to pull down. And it triggers fears that there could be another overreaction as workers remove all photos or videos of women and minorities to ensure they dont miss something.Such overreach caused problems early on following Trumps initial order to purge DEI from social media the Air Force quickly took down new recruit training courses that included videos of the Tuskegee Airmen.That mistake drew the White Houses ire and left the service open to criticism that it was engaging in malicious compliance. The Air Force quickly reversed the removal of the videos. 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 TARA COPP Copp covers the Pentagon and national security for the Associated Press. She has reported from Afghanistan, Iraq, throughout the Middle East, Europe and Asia. twitter mailto

A U.S. soldier who recently pleaded guilty to hacking AT&T and Verizon communicated with an email address that he believed belonged to a foreign countrys military intelligence service and attempted to sell the service stolen data, according to newly filed court records reviewed by 404 Media. The court document also says that the soldier searched for U.S. military personnel defecting to Russia.The court filing in the case of Cameron John Wagenius, who used the handles kiberphant0m and cyb3rph4nt0m, discusses Wagenius unlawful posting and transferring of confidential phone records, including records belonging to high-ranking public officials. 404 Media previously revealed how hackers linked to the AT&T breach mined it for records associated with members of the Trump family, such as Melania and Ivanka Trump, Kamala Harris, and Marco Rubios wife. The court document does not say what specific data Wagenius tried to sell to the foreign intelligence service, or who that data belonged to.The news further stresses the catastrophic nature of the AT&T breach and its national security implications, which saw hackers make off with nearly all of AT&Ts customers calls and text metadata records across a several month period. The news also signifies how some participants in the Com, a nebulous community of mostly English speaking hackers, fraudsters, and violent criminals that coalesce on Telegram and Discord, and which Wagenius was associated with, are crossing paths with powerful international entities. 404 Media previously reported SIM swappers in the Com have worked with an Eastern European ransomware gang.Do you know anything else about this breach? 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.As discussed in the governments sealed filing, the government has uncovered evidence suggesting that the charged conduct was only a small part of Wagenius malicious activity, the court record, filed on Wednesday, reads. For more than two weeks in November 2024, Wagenius communicated with an email address he believed belonged to Country-1s military intelligence service in an attempt to sell stolen information. Days after he apparently finished communicating with Country-1s military intelligence service, Wagenius Googled, can hacking be treason, the document continues.That section does not name the specific country. But a further section says that Wagenius searched for U.S. military personnel defecting to Russia. It then says He also searched for information about defecting to Country-1, the country to which he attempted to sell stolen information in November, suggesting that Country-1 is Russia.A footnote in the document says that the U.S. government has not verified whether the email address actually belongs to Country-1s military intelligence service. What is significant, however, is that Wagenius believed that it did, the document says.AT&T did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The CHS oil refinery is silhouetted against the setting sun Sept. 28, 2024, in McPherson, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)2025-02-26T17:36:47Z President Donald Trump began dismantling his predecessors climate change and renewable energy policies on his first day in office, declaring a national energy emergency to speed up fossil fuel development a policy he has summed up as drill, baby, drill.The declaration calls on the federal government to make it easier for companies to build oil and gas projects, in part by weakening environmental reviews, with the goal of lowering prices and selling to international markets. Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign town hall at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center & Fairgrounds, Oct. 14, 2024, in Oaks, Pa., as moderator South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem listens. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign town hall at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center & Fairgrounds, Oct. 14, 2024, in Oaks, Pa., as moderator South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem listens. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Democrats say thats a sham. They point out that the U.S. is producing more oil and natural gas than any other country and the Biden administrations Inflation Reduction Act boosted renewable energy at a critical time, creating jobs and addressing the climate change threat 2024 was Earths hottest year on record amid the hottest 10-year stretch on record. It would also set a horrible precedent, that a president of either party can invent a sham emergency and then grab away from Congress powers that Congress has in the Constitution, said Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia.Kaine spoke Wednesday in support of a Senate resolution from Democrats to terminate Trumps declaration that later failed on a party-line 52-47 vote. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has already made the U.S. an even friendlier environment for fossil fuels. Congress is helping, too, with the House voting to repeal a Biden administration-era methane fee on oil and gas producers. In addition, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency has urged the White House to reconsider a finding that greenhouse gases endanger the public, a fundamental Obama-era document that underpins the agencys power to regulate planet-warming emissions, according to four people who were briefed on the matter but spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the recommendation is not public.Here are some ways the Trump administration has moved to advance fossil fuels: Lifting a pause on LNG exports A flare burns at Venture Global LNG in Cameron, La., April 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine, File) A flare burns at Venture Global LNG in Cameron, La., April 21, 2022. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More The Biden administration last year paused evaluations of new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals. That pleased environmentalists concerned that a big surge in exports would contribute to planet-warming emissions. The pause didnt stop projects already under construction, but it delayed consideration of new projects.Trump reversed that pause.On Tuesday, oil and gas giant Shell said global LNG demand is forecast to rise by around 60% by 2040.The United States is expected to play a major role in meeting that demand, with its export capacity expected to double before 2030, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.I think investors have become much more comfortable that they can move towards final investment decisions without the concerns that they had over the last four years about potential roadblocks, said Christopher Treanor, an energy and environmental attorney at the law firm Akin.Drilling expansion An oil pumping unit works in the foreground while wind turbines at the Buckeye Wind Energy wind farm rise in the distance Sept. 30, 2024, near Hays, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File) An oil pumping unit works in the foreground while wind turbines at the Buckeye Wind Energy wind farm rise in the distance Sept. 30, 2024, near Hays, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Trump has opened more land for oil and gas lease sales, shifting away from Bidens efforts to protect environmentally sensitive areas like Alaskas National Wildlife Refuge and to prevent large swaths of ocean from being available for offshore drilling, including major areas off coasts in the Pacific, Atlantic and parts of Alaska. Environmental groups are suing to stop Trumps moves.Expanding the area available for companies to lease and drill doesnt necessarily mean that more oil and gas will be produced. When leases were made available in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge, for example, only smaller companies bid and there were no buyers for a second lease sale.Army Corps appears ready to help projects sidestep the Clean Water ActThe Army Corps of Engineers marked hundreds of Clean Water Act permits for fast-tracking, citing Trumps order on energy, then removed that notation in its database. The agency said it needed to review active permit applications before publishing which ones will be fast-tracked.They dont seem to be backing off, said Tom Pelton, spokesman with the Environmental Integrity Project. They are just going to refine the list. Many of the permit applications that had been listed for expediting are for fossil fuel projects, but some others have nothing to do with energy, including a housing subdivision proposed by Chevron in southern California, according to the Environmental Integrity Project. David Bookbinder, the organizations director of law and policy, said the Trump administration is using the pretext of a national energy emergency to ask a federal agency to circumvent environmental protections to justify building more fossil fuel power plants. Bookbinder said theres no shortage of energy. Slashing the federal workforce The Jeffrey Energy Center coal-fired power plant operates near Emmett, Kan., Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File) The Jeffrey Energy Center coal-fired power plant operates near Emmett, Kan., Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Pat Parenteau, professor emeritus at Vermont Law & Graduate School, said Trumps policy changes arent nearly as important as the deep cuts to the federal government that eliminate vital expertise. At a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, for example, Trump said the head of the EPA should axe roughly two-thirds of its employees. I think they are going to accomplish what no other administration has been able to do in terms of crippling the institutional capacity of the federal government to protect public health, to conserve national resources to save endangered species, he said. That is where we are going to see long-term, permanent damage.Trumps energy emergency calls, for example, for undermining Endangered Species Act protections to ensure fast energy development, even assembling a rarely used committee the so-called God Squad that could have authority to dismiss significant threats to species. That move was coupled with recent deep cuts to the Fish & Wildlife Service, which administers the law.Parenteau said some species are likely to go extinct.Executive orders take aim at renewablesTrump also targeted wind energy with an order to temporarily halt offshore wind lease sales in federal waters and pause federal approvals, permits and loans for projects both onshore and offshore. In another order, he listed domestic energy resources that could help ensure a reliable, diversified and affordable supply of energy. Solar, wind and battery storage were omitted, though solar is the fastest-growing source of electricity generation in the United States. Trump has vowed to end tax credits for renewables as well, which would push up prices. Substantially slowing renewables could leave the U.S. wedded to coal and gas for far longer as coal plants are extended and new gas plants are built, said David Shepheard, partner and energy expert at the global consultant Baringa. Shepheard said the U.S. is facing unprecedented growth in electricity demand largely to meet needs from data centers and artificial intelligence, and increasingly the deck is stacked against renewables to meet it. A Baringa analysis found Trumps policies will drive up emissions and put the agreed-upon international climate threshold further out of reach.___This story has been updated to correct the status of action on efforts to repeal methane fee; only House has so far voted to repeal.___Associated Press writers Matthew Daly and Patrick Whittle contributed reporting.___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. MICHAEL PHILLIS Phillis is an Associated Press reporter covering the environment with a focus on water. He is based in St. Louis. mailto JENNIFER McDERMOTT McDermott is a reporter on the Associated Press Climate and Environment team. She focuses on the transition to clean energy. twitter mailto

Three children play where the border wall separating Mexico and the United States meets the Pacific Ocean, Friday, Feb. 21, 2025, in Tijuana, Mexico. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)2025-02-26T18:41:08Z Immigration officials say anyone living in the U.S. illegally will soon have to register with the federal government, and those who dont could face fines, imprisonment or both.The registry will be mandatory for everyone 14 and older who doesnt have legal status, according to a Tuesday statement from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security. Each person must register and provide their fingerprints and address, the statement says, and parents and guardians of anyone under age 14 must ensure they are registered. Here are some details about the registry the latest in a string of Trump administration moves tied to campaign promises to crack down on illegal immigration and deport millions living in the country illegally: What is behind the registry?Federal immigration law has long required that people living illegally in the U.S. register with the government. Those laws can be traced back to the Alien Registration Act of 1940, which came amid heightened growing fears of immigrants and political subversives in the early days of World War II. The current requirements stem from the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.A system set up after 9/11, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, required all noncitizen males age 16 or older from 25 countries - all but one of them majority Arab or Muslim - to register with the U.S. government. The program led to no terrorism convictions but pulled more than 13,000 people into deportation proceedings. It was suspended in 2011 and dissolved in 2016. Across the decades, though, scholars say the registration requirement has rarely been enforced. Officials say that now will change. The Trump administration will enforce all our immigration laws we will not pick and choose which laws we will enforce, Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. We must know who is in our country for the safety and security of our homeland and all Americans. What is the goal of the announcement? In part, Tuesdays Homeland Security statement was purely bureaucratic, a way to announce that the law is again being enforced and how people should register. Officials said theyd soon announce a form and process for aliens to complete the registration requirement. On its website, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service directs people to create an online account and says additional information on registering will be available in the coming days.No alien will have an excuse for failure to comply with this law, the statement said.The USCIS website indicated that people who register would be given some form of identity card, which anyone over age 18 must carry and keep in their possession at all times.The announcement of the registry allows the Trump administration to flex its political muscle on the key issue of immigration. Its also a signal to people living in the U.S. illegally. If you leave now, you may have the opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and live the American dream, McLaughlins statement said. What will be the effect of the registry? Like much about the registry, thats unclear for now. But legal scholars say the practical consequences may not matter, as people already living below the legal radar are unlikely to register, which would make them far easier to deport. But even if it doesnt actually accomplish much in terms of deporting more people, it sends a signal to the American people that Were cracking down on immigrants, and it will also heighten the fear immigrants already have about whats going on, said Stephen Yale-Loehr, a longtime immigration law scholar and retired Cornell Law School professor.Advocates blasted the announcement. Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, said in a statement that it harkens back to shameful episodes in U.S. history of government-sanctions discrimination against immigrants and people of color.___Associated Press writer Rebecca Santana contributed reporting.

In this image taken off a video released by the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense, a member of Taiwan Navy reacts on the intercom to Chinese war ships conducting drills about 40 nautical miles (74km) off the coast of western Taiwan's Kaohsiung and Pingtung cities on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (Taiwan Ministry of National Defense via AP)2025-02-27T04:10:09Z TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) Taiwan on Thursday condemned Chinas military exercises after Beijing designated an area to conduct shooting drills off the self-governed islands southwest coast.China considers the island a renegade province to be taken by force if necessary and in recent years has increased military activity around Taiwans waters and airspace.China is the biggest troublemaker for regional peace and stability, and the sole and greatest threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the Indo-Pacific region, Taiwans Foreign Ministry said in its statement.Taiwans Defense Ministry said in a 24-hour period it detected 45 aircraft, 14 navy vessels and one ship from the Chinese military operating around Taiwan, of which 34 had crossed into its waters and airspace.Taiwan said that it responded accordingly without elaborating. This comes after Taiwan said four Chinese coast guard boats entered into its waters near Kinmen island earlier this week, and that Taiwan dispatched its own boats to drive them away.Xinhua, Chinas state-run news agency, reported that senior Chinese official Wang Huning during an annual meeting about Taiwan had called for China to take the initiative in cross-strait relations and push toward the reunification of the motherland.Taiwan this week also said it caught a Chinese-owned vessel severing an undersea cable and detained the ship. Beijing has accused Taiwan of exaggerating the situation before facts have been clarified in an attempt at political manipulation.

Elon Musk speaks during a Cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (Pool via AP)2025-02-26T21:05:22Z WASHINGTON (AP) Elon Musk took a star turn at the first Cabinet meeting of President Donald Trumps new term, holding forth in a black Make America Great Again campaign hat on Wednesday about his role as humble tech support for the federal government and laying out dire stakes if his cost-cutting efforts fail.If we dont do this, America will go bankrupt, Musk told department heads assembled around a large wooden table in the Cabinet Room.Trump, not one to easily share the spotlight, seemed happy to turn the top of the hour-plus meeting over to Musk for a little summary of what the Department of Government Efficiency has been up to, saying that Musks team had found evidence of horrible things afoot in the government.Hes sacrificing a lot, Trump said of Musk, referencing the time the worlds richest man is taking away from his many business ventures. Hes also getting hit. Musk, for his part, said his lightning-fast efforts to right-size the government had drawn death threats and he jokingly knocked his fist on his wooden head as he said he hoped to find $1 trillion to trim from the federal budget, an effort that has caused extensive disruption among federal workers and those who rely on their services. Musk defended his weekend attempt to require government workers to justify their prior weeks work under penalty of termination a move that drew pushback from many in the room on national security and privacy grounds as merely a pulse check to ensure that those working for the government have a pulse and two neurons, adding that this is not a high bar for workers to meet. Speculating that some workers are either dead or fictional, Musk added that the goal was to see that workers are real, alive and can write an email.Asked if members of the Cabinet were happy with Musk, the DOGE guru started to answer the question. But Trump interjected and said he might want to let Cabinet members answer. Then Trump joked that if anyone disagreed, he might throw them out. That drew applause from Cabinet members.Trump then turned things back to Musk, who said the president had put together, I think, the best Cabinet ever.And I dont give false praise, he added.Musk did volunteer that his efforts to slash government spending would make mistakes.He cited as an example that, while hustling to dramatically shrink the U.S. Agency for International Development, One of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola prevention. Musk insisted that there was no interruption in services before the funding was restored. But a USAID official said Wednesday that no funds for the agencys Ebola response had been released under President Donald Trumps Jan. 20 funding freeze for foreign aid, including for efforts to combat the spread of the deadly virus.After about 15 minutes of focus on Musk and DOGE, Trump shifted the spotlight of the Cabinet meeting back to his own accomplishments in his first weeks in office.The Cabinet sat mostly silently for more than an hour, as Trump opened the floor to questions from an invited group of reporters.Asked if he expected his Cabinet to follow his directives without exception, Trump initially scoffed at the question before answering, of course, no exceptions.___AP Writer Ellen Knickmeyer contributed to this report. ZEKE MILLER Miller leads coverage of the president and the presidency for The Associated Press. He is based in Washington. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Law enforcement respond to the scene of a shooting at UPMC Memorial Hospital in York, Pa. on Saturday, Feb. 22, 2025. (Sean Simmers/The Patriot-News via AP)2025-02-27T01:47:33Z HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) A nurse who survived an armed mans attack on an intensive care unit in a Pennsylvania hospital said in a Facebook post on Wednesday that she was held against him as a shield at gunpoint, arms zip-tied behind her back, as they walked through a doorway and encountered a phalanx of responding police officers. Nurse Tosha Trostle wrote that she had begged the attacker to let her go and that he pushed the gun against her neck and spine. When they encountered police, she prayed as she heard gunshots and smelled smoke, then heard bullet casings hitting the floor, she wrote.I eventually fell into the floor under the weight of the shooters body. The officers told me to run. I struggled to get out from under him, Trostle wrote. I remember his limp cold hand against my face as I pushed away with my feet.She fell twice trying to get to her feet before an officer guided her into another room. Phone and Facebook messages were left for Trostle on Wednesday. A nurse from the hospital who didnt want to be identified by name because they werent authorized to discuss the events confirmed the posting was from Trostles Facebook account. Authorities say Diogenes Archangel-Ortiz, 49, brought a gun and zip ties to UPMC Memorial Hospital in York on Saturday morning and was holding hostages when responding officers fatally shot him. West York Patrolman Andrew Duarte, 30, was shot and killed. Two other officers and three hospital employees were wounded, authorities said. Trostle recounted that she had been drawing blood when she heard a commotion and went into a hallway.After all I thought I was responding to a staff assist, patient fall, one in a dozen possible occurrences; not an active shooter. When I rounded the corner of the back hall I was met in the distance by the shooter holding my coworker, Jess, at gunpoint, she wrote. Her colleague, Jessica Breighner, was forced to zip-tie her. I saw the fear in her eyes, fear does not sound like enough really though, Trostle wrote. The attackers shoes became etched into Trostles mind as she lay at his feet, thinking the gun might have jammed and then hearing him reload, she added.So many things happened I cannot recount step by step, she wrote, but how I remember those red sneakers. Jason Huff, Breighners partner of more than 20 years, also described the incident in a separate Facebook post on Wednesday that said the attacker had pulled the trigger three times with the gun against Breighners head, but it was apparently out of ammunition.Thats when she knew it was time to take her shot, Huff wrote. She broke her zip ties while he reloaded and ran -- thank God.Huff told The Associated Press she hopes to talk publicly about it later, with the others who survived the attack.Huff wrote on Facebook that before fleeing, Breighner had to listen to this criminal call and warn someone to clean out the apartment and get the jewelry because hes not coming home and was ready to die.York County District Attorney Tim Barker said Saturday that Archangel-Ortiz appeared to have had recent contact with the intensive care unit for a medical purpose involving another person but declined to elaborate. Asked about the nurses accounts, a UPMC spokesperson said the health system prioritizes safety and privacy but referred questions to law enforcement.Trostle said the attacker hauled me off the floor pushing me into the adjacent wall, where Breighners photo was among pictures of the groups leadership on the wall.Pushing the gun into my neck and spine. I begged to go home to my children. He petted my head and promised I would that I was doing everything right, Trostle wrote.She said he directed her to take him to the floor where the most people were. As they went through a doorway, they encountered what she called a wall of armed officers aimed at us.After the shooting, she was led down a stairway. In the days since, the memory has haunted Trostle and her family, she said.My physical injuries do not even compare fractionally to what injuries are unseen, Trostle wrote. I live with immense sadness and guilt of all who responded, their mental and physical injuries. Especially, brave Officer Andrew Duarte that gave his life to bring us home.Duartes funeral service is scheduled for Friday in York. MARK SCOLFORO Scolforo is an Associated Press reporter in the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg. twitter mailto

A street sign with names of U.S. government agencies housed at the Ronald Reagan Building, including the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID headquarters in Washington, is pictured with one building occupant taped, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)2025-02-27T05:07:31Z WASHINGTON (AP) Thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development workers who have been fired or placed on leave as part of the Trump administrations dismantling of the agency are being given a brief window Thursday and Friday to clear out their workspaces.USAID placed 4,080 staffers who work across the globe on leave Monday. That was joined by a reduction in force that will affect another 1,600 employees, a State Department spokesman said in an emailed response to questions.USAID has been one of the biggest targets so far of a broad campaign by President Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency, a project of Elon Musk, to slash the size of the federal government. The actions at USAID leave only a fraction of its employees on the job.Trump and Musk have moved swiftly to shutter the foreign aid agency, calling its programs out of line with the presidents agenda and asserting without evidence that its work is wasteful. In addition to its scope, their effort is extraordinary because it has not involved Congress, which authorized the agency and has provided its funding. A report from the Congressional Research Service earlier this month said congressional authorization is required to abolish, move, or consolidate USAID, but the Republican majorities in the House and Senate have made no pushback against the administrations actions. Theres virtually nothing left to fund, anyway: The administration now says it is eliminating more than 90% of USAIDs foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in U.S. assistance around the world. Its unclear how many of the more than 5,600 USAID employees who have been fired or placed on leave work at the agencys headquarters building in Washington. A notice on the agencys website said staff at other locations will have the chance to collect their personal belongings at a later date. The notice laid out instructions for when specific groups of employees should arrive to be screened by security and escorted to their former workspaces. Those being let go must turn in all USAID-issued assets. Workers on administrative leave were told to retain their USAID-issued materials, including diplomatic passports, until such time that they are separated from the agency. Many USAID workers saw the administrations terms for retrieving their belongings as insulting. In the notice, the employees were instructed not to bring weapons, including firearms, spear guns and hand grenades. Each worker is being given just 15 minutes at their former workstation.The administrations efforts to slash the federal government are embroiled in various lawsuits, but court challenges to temporarily halt the shutdown of USAID have been unsuccessful.However, a federal judge on Tuesday gave the Trump administration a deadline of this week to release billions of dollars in U.S. foreign aid, saying it had given no sign of complying with his nearly two-week-old court order to ease the funding freeze. Late Wednesday, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked that order, with Chief Justice John Roberts saying it will remain on hold until the high court has a chance to weigh in more fully. That court action resulted from a lawsuit filed by nonprofit organizations over the cutoff of foreign assistance through USAID and the State Department. Trump froze the money through an executive order on his first day in office that targeted what he portrayed as wasteful programs that do not correspond to his foreign policy goals.Virginia Democratic Rep. Gerald Connolly said in a statement that the attack on USAID employees was unwarranted and unprecedented. Connolly, whose district includes a sizable federal workforce, called the aid agency workers part of the worlds premier development and foreign assistance agency who save millions of lives every year. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

People from China, Vietnam, Ethiopia believed to have been trafficked and trapped into working in online scam centers after they were rescued in Myawaddy district in eastern Myanmar, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Thanaphon Wuttison)2025-02-26T13:54:39Z MAE SOT, Thailand (AP) A new crackdown on online scam centers has led to over 7,000 people from around the world being held in a Myanmar border town awaiting repatriation, and those helping them say the unprecedented number is straining the resources of Thailand just across the border and leading to delays.The crackdown coordinated among Thailand, Myanmar and China follows Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatras visit to Beijing this month, where she told Chinese leader Xi Jinping that Thailand would act against the scam networks that have drawn in hundreds of thousands of people.They are often lured under false pretenses to work in scam centers in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, where they financially exploit people around the world through false romances, bogus investment pitches and illegal gambling schemes.Many find themselves trapped in virtual slavery. Officials from Thailand, Myanmar and China are expected to meet next week to address the logistics of the crackdown as fears grow about a possible humanitarian crisis. They aim to establish guidelines for repatriations to avoid confusion, Thai Defense Ministry spokesperson Thanathip Sawangsang told The Associated Press. As part of Thailands crackdown, it also has cut off electricity, internet and gas supplies to several areas in Myanmar hosting scam centers along the border, citing national security. Amy Miller, who is Southeast Asia director of aid group Acts of Mercy International and is based in Thailands Mae Sot on the Myanmar border, told the AP she has never seen such a large-scale release of potential victims of human trafficking.She believes Thai authorities are doing their best, but the task is overwhelming.The ability to get them over to Thailand and process them and house them and feed them would be impossible for most governments, she said. It does require the embassies and the home governments of these citizens to take responsibility for their citizens. It really does require a kind of a global response. Thailands deputy prime minister, Phumtham Wechayachai, on Tuesday acknowledged concerns and said relevant agencies were working on the situation as fast as they could to coordinate repatriations.Im also worried that if we dont hurry up the process, it would become a problem if they cant handle it and let them loose, Phumtham told reporters in Bangkok, referring to Myanmar authorities.Logistical issues include verifying identities, which has complicated and slowed down countries repatriation efforts, according to a diplomatic source with direct knowledge of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media on the issue.Over half of the 7,000 waiting are Chinese, with the rest from a mix of countries.More than 600 Chinese were repatriated over four days last week. Due to the large number, Thailand is allowing Beijing to handle most processing on their return to China. China chartered 16 flights.Earlier this month, about 260 people from 20 countries, ranging from Ethiopia to Brazil to the Philippines, crossed from Myanmar into Thai custody as part of the crackdown. Over 100 remain in Thailand awaiting repatriation, Thai officials said. Many were trafficked to Myanmar through Mae Sot, now a center of mass repatriation efforts.On the road to Mae Sot, checkpoints displayed signs in Thai, English and Chinese warning Thais and foreigners of the risk of being trafficked to work along the Myanmar border. Soldiers on Wednesday checked vehicles and asked for identification.___Corrects name of organization to Acts of Mercy International, not Act of Mercy International. HUIZHONG WU Wu covers Chinese culture, society, and politics for The Associated Press, as well as the countrys growing overseas influence from Bangkok. She was previously based in Taiwan and China. twitter

Freed Palestinian prisoners react as they arrive in the Gaza Strip after being released from an Israeli prison following a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel in Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)2025-02-27T07:02:11Z KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) Hamas said Thursday it was ready to negotiate the the next phase of the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, after a swap in which it handed over the remains of four hostages in exchange for the release of more than 600 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.It was the final such exchange the two sides agreed to as part of a truce thats set to end this weekend. Negotiations over a second phase, in which Hamas would release dozens of remaining hostages in exchange for more prisoners and a lasting ceasefire, have not yet begun.An Israeli group representing families of hostages held by Hamas said the remains of all four hostages returned early Thursday have been identified. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum identified them as Ohad Yahalomi, Itzhak Elgarat, Shlomo Mantzur and Tsachi Idan.Mantzur, 85, was killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack and his body was taken into Gaza. The other three were abducted alive and the circumstances surrounding their deaths were not known. Hamas said in a statement that the only way for Israel to secure the release of the remaining hostages was through negotiations and adhering to the agreement. It warned that any attempt to pull back from the truce will only lead to more suffering for the captives and their families.Hamas confirmed that over 600 prisoners had been released overnight. Most were detainees returned to Gaza, where they had been rounded up after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war and held without charge on security suspicions. A joyful return for released prisoners Some of the released prisoners fell to their knees in gratitude after disembarking from buses in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. In the West Bank town of Beitunia, dozens of prisoners were welcomed by crowds of relatives and well-wishers.The released prisoners, some of whom had been serving life sentences over deadly attacks against Israelis, wore shirts issued by the Israeli prison service bearing a message in Arabic about pursuing ones enemies. Some of the prisoners threw the shirts on the ground or set them on fire.Israel delayed the release of the prisoners on Saturday over Hamas practice of parading hostages before crowds and cameras during their release. Israel, along with the Red Cross and U.N. officials, have called the ceremonies humiliating for the hostages.Hamas released the four bodies to the Red Cross in Gaza overnight without a public ceremony.The prisoners released Thursday included 445 men, 21 teenagers and one woman, according to lists shared by Palestinian officials that did not specify their ages. Only around 50 Palestinians were released into the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem in this round, while dozens sentenced to life over deadly attacks against Israelis were exiled. Last handover in ceasefires first phaseThe latest handover was the final one planned under the ceasefires first phase, during which Hamas returned 33 hostages, including eight bodies, in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.The family of Idan said Wednesday they had been told he is dead and his body was among those to be returned to Israel.Idan was taken from Kibbutz Nahal Oz. His eldest daughter, Maayan, was killed as militants shot through the door of the familys safe room. Hamas militants broadcast themselves on Facebook holding the family hostage in their home as two younger children pleaded to be let go. The truce is in peril The ceasefires six-week first phase expires this weekend. U.S. President Donald Trumps Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, has said he wants the sides to move into negotiations on the second phase. Those talks were supposed to begin the first week of February.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to return all the hostages and destroy the military and governing capabilities of Hamas, which remains in control of Gaza. The Trump administration has endorsed both goals. But its unclear how Israel would destroy Hamas without resuming the war, and Hamas is unlikely to release the remaining hostages its main bargaining chips without a lasting ceasefire. The ceasefire, brokered by the United States, Egypt and Qatar, ended 15 months of war that erupted after Hamas 2023 attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people. About 250 people were taken hostage. If the identities of the four bodies are confirmed, then 59 captives will remain in Gaza, 32 of whom are believed to be dead. Nearly 150 have been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals, while dozens of bodies have been recovered by Israeli forces and eight captives have been rescued alive.Israels military offensive has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health officials, who dont differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths but say over half the dead have been women and children.The fighting displaced an estimated 90% of Gazas population and decimated the territorys infrastructure and health system.___Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip.___Follow APs war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

A TV screen at Seoul Railway Station in South Korea, on Oct. 21, 2024, shows an image of soldiers believed to be from North Korea standing in line to receive supplies from Russia. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)2025-02-27T05:34:38Z SEOUL, South Korea (AP) South Koreas spy agency said Wednesday that North Korea appears to have sent additional troops to Russia, after its soldiers deployed on the Russian-Ukraine fronts suffered heavy casualties.The National Intelligence Service said in a brief statement it was trying to determine exactly how many more troops North Korea has deployed to Russia.The NIS also assessed that North Korean troops were redeployed at fronts in Russias Kursk region in the first week of February, following a reported temporary withdrawal from the area. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an address on Feb. 7, confirmed a new Ukrainian offensive in Kursk and said North Korean troops were fighting alongside Russian forces there.North Korea has been supplying a vast amount of conventional weapons to Russia, and last fall it sent about 10,000-12,000 troops to Russia as well, according to U.S., South Korean and Ukraine intelligence officials. North Korean soldiers are highly disciplined and well trained, but observers say theyve become easy targets for drone and artillery attacks on Russian-Ukraine battlefields due to their lack of combat experience and unfamiliarity with the terrain. In January, the NIS said about 300 North Korean soldiers had died and another 2,700 had been injured. Zelenskyy earlier put the number of killed or wounded North Koreans at 4,000, though U.S. estimates were lower at around 1,200. Earlier Wednesday, South Koreas JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, citing unidentified sources, reported that an additional 1,000-3,000 North Korean soldiers were deployed to Kursk between January and February. South Korea, the U.S. and their partners worry that Russia could reward North Korea by transferring high-tech weapons technologies that can sharply enhance its nuclear weapons program. North Korea is expected to receive economic and other assistance from Russia as well. During talks in Saudi Arabia last week, Russia and the U.S. agreed to start working toward ending the war and improving their diplomatic and economic ties. Ukrainian officials werent present at the talks. That marked an extraordinary shift in U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump and a clear departure from U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia over its war in Ukraine.Observers say North Korean leader Kim Jong Un could send more troops to Russia to win further Russian assistance before the war ends. HYUNG-JIN KIM Hyung-jin is an Associated Press reporter in Seoul, South Korea. He reports on security, political and other general news on the Korean Peninsula. twitter mailto

Amsatou Vepouyoum, president of Nouadhibou's Organization for the Support of Migrants and refugees, sits in her office, Mauritania, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Khaled Moulay)2025-02-27T05:42:58Z NOUADHIBOU, Mauritania (AP) Eager students from throughout west Africa raise their hands as teachers guide them through math and classical Arabic. Then they race outdoors to meet their parents, who clean houses, drive informal taxis or gut sardines in Chinese factories.Outside, government billboards urge these families and others to fight migrant smuggling, showing overcrowded boats navigating the Atlantics thrashing waves. Inside, posters warn the ocean can be deadly.Such messaging is hard to escape in Nouadhibou, Mauritanias second largest city and a launch point on an increasingly popular migrant route toward Europe. As authorities strengthen security measures on long-established routes, migrants are resorting to longer, more perilous ones. From Mauritania, they risk hundreds of miles of sea and howling winds to reach Spains Canary Islands. The route puts new strain on this port city of 177,000 people at the edge of the Sahara. Outdated infrastructure and unpaved roads have not kept pace as European and Chinese investment pours into the fishing industry, and as migrants and their children arrive from as far away as Syria and Pakistan. The school for children of migrants and refugees, set up in 2018 as an early response to the growing need, is the kind of program envisioned as part of the 210 million euro ($219 million) accord the European Union and Mauritania brokered last year. The deal one of several that Europe has signed with neighboring states to deter migration funds border patrol, development aid and programs supporting refugees, asylum-seekers and host communities.Its a response to rising alarm and anti-migration politics in Europe. Nearly 47,000 migrants arrived on boats in the Canaries last year, a record fueled by departures from Mauritania, even as flows from other departure points declined, according to the EU border agency Frontex. Almost 6,000 were unaccompanied children under 18. Tracking deaths at sea is difficult, but the Spanish nonprofit Walking Borders says at least 6,800 people died or went missing while attempting the crossing last year. Conditions are so harsh that boats drifting off course can end up in Brazil or the Caribbean.Though many praise initiatives that fulfill migrants and refugees overlooked needs, few believe they will be effective in discouraging departures for Europe even the head of the group that runs the Nouadhibou school.We cant stop migration, said Amsatou Vepouyoum, president of the Organization for the Support of Migrants and Refugees, the citys leading migrant aid group. But through raising awareness, we want to improve the conditions under which people leave.Preparing for an uncertain future The organization years ago surveyed the migrant population and found that education was one of the biggest barriers to integration in Mauritania.Bill Van Esveld, a childrens rights researcher at Human Rights Watch, said thats true around the world. Many countries that migrants and refugees pass through erect bureaucratic hurdles to school access, he said.Without literacy or numeracy, how can you advocate for yourself as someone who has human rights in todays world? Van Esveld said.Mauritanias Education Ministry in a January directive affirmed that refugee children have the right to attend public school. But that hasnt applied for many migrants who dont qualify as refugees and face difficulty enrolling because they lack birth certificates, residency papers or school records.The school for Nouadhibous migrant and refugee children ages 5 to 12 runs parallel to Mauritanias school system and teaches a similar curriculum as well as Arabic, aiming to integrate children into public classrooms by sixth grade.Families often dont plan to stay in Mauritania, but parents still describe the school as a lifeline for kids futures, wherever they will be.Sometimes lifes circumstances leave you somewhere, so you adapt, and what ends up happening leads you to stay, Vepouyoum said. Weak oversight and worried parentsFrom Europes perspective, funneling aid toward such initiatives is part of a larger effort to persuade people not to migrate. Some experts say it also demonstrates a disconnect between political goals and on-the-ground realities.The European Union always announces these big sums, but its very difficult to figure out how the money is actually spent, said Ulf Laessing, the Sahel program director at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a German think tank.Both the school and the Organization for the Support of Migrants and Refugees have had their work highlighted by the EU and member states, along with United Nations agencies. None have said how much money they have spent on the school or on other programs aimed at migrants in Mauritania.The school said it also charges students based on what families can afford so it can pay rent on its two-story cinderblock building and utilities, Vepouyoum said. But four parents, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they worried about their children getting kicked out, said the baseline monthly fee of 600 Mauritanian Ouguiya ($15) per child was too much.If you cant pay, theyll kick you out, a father of two students from Mali said.He said many parents want to give children opportunities they lacked in their home countries. He has heard from other parents that enrolling in school is easier in the Canary Islands, but limited access to education is also a problem there.The school in Nouadhibou says it has educated over 500 students. It has not tracked the number who continue on toward Europe.Pressures to move onTimes are changing in Nouadhibou. Community leaders and business owners worry that increasing competition for jobs has fueled suspicion toward foreign-born communities.That includes workers from neighboring Senegal and Mali who settled in the city years ago. Aid groups say outreach is easier among long-term migrants because newcomers worry about drawing attention to themselves sometimes because theyre looking for smugglers to help them move on, said Kader Konate, a community leader from Mali.Many migrants say they just need help.We are doing this because we feel have no other choice, Boureima Maiga said.The 29-year-old graduate with a teaching degree fled Mali as extremist violence escalated. On many days, he waits at the Nouadhibou port alongside hundreds of other migrants, hoping for work in fish factory cold rooms.But without residency or work visas, they are often turned away, or have pay withheld an abuse they fear would bring retaliation if reported.Maiga feels trapped in a country where deep racial divisions between Arab and Black Africans make integration nearly impossible, with discrimination by employers widespread. He is unsure where to go next.Just let me work. I can do a lot of jobs, he said. Everyone knows how to do something.Meanwhile, every day, he picks up his nieces at a Catholic school, hoping it will give them a life beyond such worries.___For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse___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. SAM METZ Metz covers Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and points beyond for The Associated Press. mailto

Actor Gene Hackman with wife Betsy Arakawa in June 1993. (AP Photo, File)2025-02-27T09:04:08Z SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman, his wife and their dog were found dead in their New Mexico home Wednesday, authorities said.Foul play was not suspected, but authorities did not release circumstances of their deaths and said an investigation was ongoing.Santa Fe County Sheriffs deputies found Hackman, his wife Betsy Arakawa and a dog dead when they preformed a welfare check at the home around 1:45 p.m., spokesperson Denise Avila said.Hackman, 95, was a five-time Oscar nominee who starred in dozens of films and one of the industrys most respected and honored performers. His two Oscar wins, for The French Connection and Unforgiven, were spaced out 21 years apart. News of his death comes just four days before this years Academy Awards ceremony.The couples home is in a gated community just outside of Santa Fe, New Mexicos capital city. Hackman moved in the 1980s to the area, where he was often seen around town and served as a board member of the Georgia OKeeffe Museum in the 1990s, according to the local paper, The New Mexican. Hackman played a variety of roles, appearing in action movies, thrillers and even had a comedic part in Young Frankenstein.Aside from appearances at awards shows, he was rarely seen in the Hollywood social circuit and retired in his mid-70s.An email sent to his publicist was not immediately returned early Thursday.

FILE- Police officers escort Andrew Tate, center, handcuffed to his brother Tristan Tate, to the Court of Appeal in Bucharest, Romania, Monday, Feb. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Andreea Alexandru, File)2025-02-27T08:37:46Z BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) Influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, who are charged with human trafficking in Romania, have left for the U.S. after a travel ban on them was lifted, an official said Thursday.The brothers are also charged with forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women.It is not clear under what conditions the Tates who are keen supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump and boast millions of online followers were allowed to leave Romania. An official at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said the decision was at the discretion of prosecutors.Romanias anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, said in a statement Thursday that prosecutors approved a request to modify the obligation preventing the defendants from leaving Romania, but that judicial control measures remained in place. The agency did not say who had made the request. These include the requirement to appear before judicial authorities whenever summoned, the statement read. The defendants have been warned that deliberately violating these obligations may result in judicial control being replaced with a stricter deprivation of liberty measure. Andrew Tate, 38, and Tristan Tate, 36 who are dual U.S.-British citizens were arrested near Romanias capital in late 2022 along with two Romanian women. Romanian prosecutors formally indicted all four last year. In April, the Bucharest Tribunal ruled that a trial could start but did not set a date. All four deny all of the allegations. The Tates departure came after Romanias Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu said this month that a U.S. official under the current Trump administration had expressed interest in the brothers legal case in Romania at the Munich Security Conference. The minister insisted it didnt amount to pressure. In December a court in Bucharest ruled that the case against the Tates and the two Romanian women could not go to trial because of multiple legal and procedural irregularities on the part of the prosecutors.That decision by the Bucharest Court of Appeal was a huge setback for DIICOT, but it did not mean the defendants could walk free. The case has not been closed, and there is also a separate legal case against the brothers in Romania.

Elon Musk, left, and President Donald Trump, right, are seen through the windows as Marine One lands on the South Lawn of the White House, Feb. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)2025-02-26T15:05:52Z NEW YORK (AP) Shortly after becoming Wireds global editorial director in 2023, Katie Drummond acted on an early-morning idea. With a presidential election coming, the tech-focused news outlet needed a team to report on technologys intersection with politics.She couldnt have predicted how much the decision would pay off.Wired has attracted broad attention for its aggressive coverage of the Trump administration, particularly Elon Musks efforts at reducing federal employment. It has identified and traced the backgrounds of Musks young team and how they are burrowing their way into government operations.I think we were very well positioned to jump on that coverage, Drummond said.Wired has written about a 25-year-old engineer, Marko Elez, and his access to the sprawling Treasury Department systems that make government payments. Its stories about 19-year-old Edward Coristine, nicknamed Big Balls, included one about how hes on staff at a federal cybersecurity agency. In a hard-hitting piece this week, Brian Barrett outlined a weeks worth of mistakes by the young government efficiency team, including being forced to hire back employees belatedly deemed critical and claiming $8 billion in savings on a project when it was actually $8 million. Barrett wrote: Elon Musk is the undisputed champion of making money for Elon Musk. As effectively the CEO of the United States of America? Very bad. Embarrassing, honestly. The outlets coverage has paid off with new subscribersWired gained 62,500 new subscribers in the United States during the first two weeks of February alone. Last year it reported a total of 19.5 million subscribers, either digital or for the monthly printed magazine, or both. Its eight global editions reach 57 million total.When Wired set up a Zoom call for subscribers to talk with its journalists about their stories earlier this month, more than 1,000 people signed up, Drummond said.This is what adversarial journalism looks like, media critic Parker Molloy wrote on her blog, The Present Age. Instead of just transcribing what powerful people say, Wireds reporters dig into what theyre actually doing. They tracked down documents, spoke with sources inside agencies, and pieced together how Musks takeover is actually working in practice.Drummond stressed that Wired isnt part of any resistance. Its just reporting. This is all newsworthy, highly-consequential information, she said. This is not information that is being disseminated in a transparent way.Upon its launch as a magazine in 1993, Wired was an instant success as a chronicler of Silicon Valley, its people and its products. It was acquired by Conde Nast in 1998. Drummonds media career began as a Wired intern in 2009, and she returned home after being senior vice president of global news and entertainment at Vice Media.In hiring three reporters and two editors for a new politics team, Drummond said the bet that we made was that this sort of Venn diagram between business and politics would become increasingly vital for a publication like Wired to cover. At the time, there were worries about how technology would help flood the 2024 campaign with disinformation, and Drummond wanted to own that story.That didnt turn out to be as much of an issue as anticipated. Instead, Wired wrote about the rise in non-traditional media influencers and the increased coziness between the Trump campaign and Silicon Valley executives. In that context, one reporter was told to concentrate on Musk as a beat.Even though we had not anticipated that Elon Musk would become the story, we were ready to cover it, just because of our background in (covering) him as a business leader and personality, she said.With Trump in office and Musk assigned to make bold changes in the federal bureaucracy, finding out about the team he was putting to work became top priority. It was in Wireds wheelhouse. A prominent Trump supporter suggests Wired is doxxing workersNot everyone was happy. Remember when Wired was focused on cutting-edge technology and how young college dropout founders could change the world? conservative influencer Charlie Kirk wrote on X, including a screenshot of a Wired story. Not anymore. Now, theyre doxxing DOGE employees and whining that they are too young and inexperienced to reform Americas government.Kirks reference to doxxing the malicious publication of personal information that can be used to harass someone is a stretch in this case, said Jennifer Grygiel, a Syracuse University communications professor with an expertise in social media.Theyre working for the government now, Grygiel said, so I dont see how that is doxxing.However, in a since-removed social media post, a Virginia college professor publicized the names of some of the workers, urging, Doxx them. Musk replied to that message, writing, you have committed a crime, according to The New York Times. Asked about the criticism, Drummond said that our coverage speaks for itself. It is rigorously reported and fact-checked.Initially, she said she was surprised that it took other news organizations some time to concentrate on the type of stories that Wired was writing, although the flood of news during the first month of the Trump administration has been hard to keep up with. She said she was excited to see others eventually jump in.What Im most proud of is that we blazed a trail and set the sights of other news organizations on this specific topic, Drummond said.And, she said, we dont plan on stopping. We are very committed to continuing to cover Musk and the Trump administration and the changes that are happening inside the federal government.___David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social DAVID BAUDER Bauder is the APs national media writer, covering the intersection of news, politics and entertainment. He is based in New York. twitter mailto

In this 1993 file photo, actor Gene Hackman is seen. (AP Photo/File)2025-02-27T10:09:15Z LOS ANGELES (AP) Gene Hackman, the prolific Oscar-winning actor whose studied portraits ranged from reluctant heroes to conniving villains and made him one of the industrys most respected and honored performers, has been found dead along with his wife at their home. He was 95.Hackman was a frequent and versatile presence on screen from the 1960s until his retirement. His dozens of films included the Academy Award favorites The French Connection and Unforgiven, a breakout performance in Bonnie and Clyde, a classic bit of farce in Young Frankenstein, a turn as the comic book villain Lex Luthor in Superman and the title character in Wes Andersons 2001 The Royal Tenenbaums.He seemed capable of any kind of role whether an uptight buffoon in Birdcage, a college coach finding redemption in the sentimental favorite Hoosiers or a secretive surveillance expert in Francis Ford Coppolas Watergate-era release The Conversation. Although self-effacing and unfashionable, Hackman held special status within Hollywood heir to Spencer Tracy as an every man, actors actor, curmudgeon and reluctant celebrity. He embodied the ethos of doing his job, doing it very well, and letting others worry about his image. Beyond the obligatory appearances at awards ceremonies, he was rarely seen on the social circuit and made no secret of his disdain for the business side of show business. Actors tend to be shy people, he told Film Comment in 1988. There is perhaps a component of hostility in that shyness, and to reach a point where you dont deal with others in a hostile or angry way, you choose this medium for yourself ... Then you can express yourself and get this wonderful feedback. He was an early retiree essentially done, by choice, with movies by his mid-70s and a late bloomer. Hackman was 35 when cast for Bonnie and Clyde and past 40 when he won his first Oscar, as the rules-bending New York City detective Jimmy Popeye Doyle in the 1971 thriller about tracking down Manhattan drug smugglers, The French Connection. Jackie Gleason, Steve McQueen and Peter Boyle were among the actors considered for Doyle. Hackman was a minor star at the time, seemingly without the flamboyant personality that the role demanded. The actor himself feared that he was miscast. A couple of weeks of nighttime patrols of Harlem in police cars helped reassure him.One of the first scenes of The French Connection required Hackman to slap around a suspect. The actor realized he had failed to achieve the intensity that the scene required, and asked director William Friedkin for another chance. The scene was filmed at the end of the shooting, by which time Hackman had immersed himself in the loose-cannon character of Popeye Doyle. Friedkin would recall needing 37 takes to get the scene right.I had to arouse an anger in Gene that was lying dormant, I felt, within him that he was sort of ashamed of and didnt really want to revisit, Friedkin told the Los Angeles Review of Books in 2012. The most famous sequence was dangerously realistic: A car chase in which Det. Doyle speeds under elevated subway tracks, his brown Pontiac (driven by a stuntman) screeching into areas that the filmmakers had not received permits for. When Doyle crashes into a white Ford, it wasnt a stuntman driving the other car, but a New York City resident who didnt know a movie was being made.Hackman also resisted the role which brought him his second Oscar. When Clint Eastwood first offered him Little Bill Daggett, the corrupt town boss in Unforgiven, Hackman turned it down. But he realized that Eastwood was planning to make a different kind of Western, a critique, not a celebration of violence. The film won him the Academy Award as best supporting actor of 1992.To his credit, and my joy, he talked me into it, Hackman said of Eastwood during an interview with the American Film Institute.Hackman played super-villain Lex Luthor opposite Christopher Reeve in director Richard Donners 1978 Superman, a film that established the prototype for the modern superhero movie. He also starred in two sequels. Eugene Allen Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, and grew up in Danville, Illinois, where his father worked as a pressman for the Commercial-News. His parents fought repeatedly, and his father often used his fists on Gene to take out his rage. The boy found refuge in movie houses, identifying with such screen rebels as Errol Flynn and James Cagney as his role models.When Gene was 13, his father waved goodbye and drove off, never to return. The abandonment was a lasting injury to Gene. His mother had become an alcoholic and was constantly at odds with her mother, with whom the shattered family lived (Gene had a younger brother, actor Richard Hackman). At 16, he suddenly got the itch to get out. Lying about his age, he enlisted in the U.S. Marines. In his early 30s, before his film career took off, his mother died in a fire started by her own cigarette. Dysfunctional families have sired a lot of pretty good actors, he observed ironically during a 2001 interview with The New York Times.His brawling and resistance to authority led to his being demoted from corporal three times. His taste of show business came when he conquered his mic fright and became disc jockey and news announcer on his units radio station.With a high school degree he earned during his time as a Marine, Hackman enrolled in journalism at the University of Illinois. He dropped out after six months to study radio announcing in New York. After working at stations in Florida and his hometown of Danville, he returned to New York to study painting at the Art Students League. Hackman switched again to enter an acting course at the Pasadena Playhouse.Back in New York, he found work as a doorman and truck driver among other jobs waiting for a break as an actor, sweating it out with such fellow hopefuls as Robert Duvall and Dustin Hoffman. Summer work at a theater on Long Island led to roles off-Broadway. Hackman began attracting attention from Broadway producers, and he received good notices in such plays as Any Wednesday, with Sandy Dennis, and Poor Richard, with Alan Bates.During a tryout in New Haven for another play, Hackman was seen by film director Robert Rossen, who hired him for a brief role in Lilith, which starred Warren Beatty and Jean Seberg. He played small roles in other films, including Hawaii, and leads in television dramas of the early 1960s such as The Defenders and Naked City.When Beatty began work on Bonnie and Clyde, which he produced and starred in, he remembered Hackman and cast him as bank robber Clyde Barrows outgoing brother. Pauline Kael in the New Yorker called Hackmans work a beautifully controlled performance, the best in the film, and he was nominated for an Academy Award as supporting actor.Hackman nearly appeared in another immortal film of 1967, The Graduate. He was supposed to play the cuckolded husband of Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), but director Mike Nichols decided he was too young and replaced him with Murray Hamilton. Two years later, he was considered for what became one of televisions most famous roles, patriarch Mike Brady of The Brady Bunch. Producer Sherwood Schwartz wanted Hackman to audition, but network executives thought he was too obscure. (The part went to Robert Reed).Hackmans first starring film role came in 1970 with I Never Sang for My Father, as a man struggling to deal with a failed relationship with his dying father, Melvyn Douglas. Because of Hackmans distress over his own father, he resisted connecting to the role.In his 2001 Times interview, he recalled: Douglas told me, `Gene, youll never get what you want with the way youre acting. And he didnt mean acting; he meant I was not behaving myself. He taught me not to use my reservations as an excuse for not doing the job. Even though he had the central part, Hackman was Oscar-nominated as supporting actor and Douglas as lead. The following year he won the Oscar as best actor for The French Connection.Through the years, Hackman kept working, in pictures good and bad. For a time he seemed to be in a contest with Michael Caine for the worlds busiest Oscar winner. In 2001 alone, he appeared in The Mexican, Heartbreakers, Heist, The Royal Tenenbaums and Behind Enemy Lines. But by 2004, he was openly talking about retirement, telling Larry King he had no projects lined up. His only credit in recent years was narrating a Smithsonian Channel documentary, The Unknown Flag Raiser of Iwo Jima.In 1956, Hackman married Fay Maltese, a bank teller he had met at a YMCA dance in New York. They had a son, Christopher, and two daughters, Elizabeth and Leslie, but divorced in the mid-1980s. In 1991 he married Betsy Arakawa, a classical pianist.When not on film locations, Hackman enjoyed painting, stunt flying, stock car racing and deep sea diving. In his latter years, he wrote novels and lived on his ranch in Sante Fe, New Mexico, on a hilltop looking out on the Colorado Rockies, a view he preferred to his films that popped up on television.Ill watch maybe five minutes of it, he once told Time magazine, and Ill get this icky feeling, and I turn the channel.___AP National Writer Hillel Italie in New York and Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton in Los Angeles contributed to this report. Bob Thomas, a longtime Associated Press journalist who died in 2014, compiled biographical material for this obituary.

Israeli soldiers take up positions next to the Philadelphi Corridor along the border with Egypt, in the Gaza Strip, Sept. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa, File)2025-02-27T11:39:44Z Israels refusal to withdraw from a narrow strip of desert on the Gaza side of the border with Egypt, as called for in the ceasefire with Hamas, could further threaten the fragile truce.An Israeli official said Thursday that Israeli forces would remain in the so-called Philadelphi corridor to prevent weapons smuggling. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.Under the ceasefire agreement reached last month, Israel was to begin withdrawing on Saturday and complete the pullout within eight days. Its refusal to do so would likely be seen by Hamas and key mediator Egypt as a breach of the agreement. There was no immediate comment from either.Saturday is also the final day of the first phase of the ceasefire. Negotiations have yet to begin on the second and more difficult phase, in which Hamas is to release dozens of remaining hostages in exchange for a lasting truce. The war could resume if an agreement is not reached.Heres a look at the Philadelphi corridor and why it las long been a source of tension. What is the Philadelphi corridor and why does Israel want it?The Philadelphi corridor is an empty strip only 100 meters (yards) wide in some places that runs the 14-kilometer (8.6-mile) length of Gazas border with Egypt. It includes the Rafah crossing, which was Gazas only outlet to the outside world not controlled by Israel until the Israeli army captured the entire corridor last May.At a September news conference, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas had been using tunnels under the border to import arms and was trying to rebuild the military machine it unleashed on Israel in its Oct. 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war.However, Israeli media reported in September that the tunnels had not been used for years. Israels Haaretz news outlet, citing military officials, said Israeli troops had found nine tunnels running under the Philadelphi corridor, all sealed from the Egyptian side since Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi came to power in 2013 and launched a campaign to destroy tunnels. It said the army believes most weapons in Gaza were produced locally, using some materials smuggled through the Rafah crossing and the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing, which is controlled by Israel. that the tunnels had not been used for years. Israels Haaretz news outlet, citing military officials, said Israeli troops had found nine tunnels running under the Philadelphi corridor, all sealed from the Egyptian side since Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi came to power in 2013 and launched a campaign to destroy tunnels.It said the army believes most weapons in Gaza were produced locally, some using materials smuggled through the Rafah crossing and the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing, which is controlled by Israel.On Thursday. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had seen unblocked tunnels between Gaza and Egypt during a recent visit to the corridor, without providing evidence. Egypt has denied the Israeli allegations, saying it destroyed hundreds of tunnels on its side of the border years ago and set up a military buffer zone that prevents smuggling. How does the corridor figure into the ceasefire?In January, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire and the phased release of hostages, pausing 15 months of war.Under the first phase, Hamas has freed 25 living Israeli hostages and returned the bodies of eight more, in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Israeli forces have pulled back from most areas and there has been a surge in humanitarian aid.In the second phase, Hamas was to release the rest of the living hostages in exchange for more prisoners, a full Israeli withdrawal and a lasting ceasefire. The third phase would see the exchange of remains and the start of Gazas daunting reconstruction.Negotiations over the second phase were supposed to begin in early February, but so far only limited preparatory talks have been held.Netanyahu says he remains committed to bringing back all the hostages and destroying the military and governing capabilities of Hamas. Those aims are likely incompatible, however, as Hamas still rules Gaza and has ordered its fighters to kill hostages if their rescue appears imminent.The Trump administration has fully endorsed Israels war goals, but Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff says he hopes to reach the second phase of the ceasefire. He is expected to visit the region in the coming days. What would a lasting Israeli presence mean?Hamas is adamantly opposed to any lasting Israeli presence inside Gaza, which would be widely seen as a military occupation.Israel captured Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for their own state. It withdrew soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005 but continued to control the territorys airspace, its coastline and all of its border crossings except Rafah.An Israeli decision to stay in the corridor could also further strain relations with Egypt, an American ally that has served as a key mediator with Hamas. Egypt has warned that it could undermine its nearly half century-old peace treaty with Israel, a cornerstone of American influence in the region.The United States has not taken a position on control of the corridor, and U.S. President Donald Trump has not said how it might figure into his proposal for Gazas roughly 2 million Palestinians to be relocated to other countries so the U.S. can redevelop the territory as a tourist destination. ___Associated Press writers Samy Magdy in Cairo and Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed.___Follow APs war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (Pool via AP)2025-02-27T10:55:12Z BRUSSELS (AP) The European Unions executive branch said Thursday that the 27-nation bloc wasnt out to undermine the United States, as U.S. President Donald Trump put it, but instead was the worlds largest free market that has created an economic windfall for American companies working on and with the continent. The bloc also added it would vigorously fight a wholesale tariff of 25% on all EU products headed for the U.S., as Trump has threatened in the latest round of vitriolic comments aimed at an age-old ally and economic partner. Thursdays EU pushback came after Trump told reporters that the European Union was formed in order to screw the United States. Thats the purpose of it, and theyve done a good job of it, adding it would stop immediately under his presidency. He said that the tariffs would be on cars and all other things. The moment the tariffs would be announced, the EU has said it would trigger tough countermeasures, on iconic U.S. industries like bourbon, jeans and motorcycles.The EU will react firmly and immediately against unjustified barriers to free and fair trade, European Commission trade spokesman Olof Gill said in a statement. We will also protect our consumers and businesses at every turn. They expect no less from us. Trump said in comments late Wednesday that the United States stood ready.We are the pot of gold. Were the one that everybody wants. And they can retaliate. But it cannot be a successful retaliation, because we just go cold turkey. We dont buy any more. And if that happens, we win. Gill also countered Trumps caustic comments on the inception of the EU and its development as an economic powerhouse. The European Union is the worlds largest free market. And it has been a boon for the United States, he said, adding that the EU has facilitated trade, reduced costs for U.S. exporters, and harmonized standards and regulations, which makes it easier for U.S. exporters. The EU estimates that the trade volume between both sides stands at about $1.5 trillion, representing around 30% of global trade. Trump has complained about a trade deficit, but while the bloc has a substantial export surplus in goods, the EU says that is partly offset by the U.S. surplus in the trade of services.The EU says that trade in goods reached 851 billion euros ($878 billion) in 2023, with a trade surplus of 156 billion euros ($161 billion) for the EU. Trade in services was worth 688 billion euros ($710 billion) with a trade deficit of 104 billion euros ($107 billion) for the EU. The figures are so big that it remained essential to avoid a trade war, the EU has said. We should work together to preserve these opportunities for our people and businesses. Not against each other, Gill said. Europe stands for dialogue, openness and reciprocity. Were ready to partner if you play by the rules.

2025-02-27T11:46:33Z BUKAVU, Congo (AP) Dozens of people were reportedly injured Thursday after two explosions hit a meeting of M23 rebel group leaders and residents in the captured city of Bukavu in eastern Congo.Video and photos shared on social media on Thursday showed a crowd fleeing the meeting in Bukavu in panic and bloodied bodies on the ground. Leaders of the M23 rebel group were meeting residents when the explosions occurred in the central part of Bukavu. Among the rebel leaders present was Corneille Nangaa, leader of the Congo River Alliance (AFC), which includes the M23.The leaders, including Nangaa, were leaving the podium when two blasts rocked the scene, according to a journalist present at the meeting. Rwandan-backed M23 rebels have swept through the region seizing key cities and killing some 3,000 people. In a lightning three-week offensive, the M23 took control of eastern Congos main city Goma and seized the second largest city, Bukavu. The rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to U.N. experts, and at times have vowed to march as far as Congos capital, Kinshasa, over 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) away. Rwanda has accused Congo of enlisting ethnic Hutu fighters responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda of minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus. M23 says its fighting to protect Tutsis and Congolese of Rwandan origin from discrimination and wants to transform Congo from a failed state to a modern one. Analysts have called those pretexts for Rwandas involvement. MONIKA PRONCZUK Pronczuk covers 22 countries across Central and West Africa for The Associated Press. She is based in Dakar, Senegal. twitter mailto

A view of an ilmenite open pit mine in a canyon in the central region of Kirovohrad, Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)2025-02-27T10:36:14Z PARIS (AP) France is also seeking access to Ukraine s deposits of critical minerals, with negotiations already underway for months, the French defense minister said Thursday, indicating that the United States isnt the only player.Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected Friday at the White House to sign a minerals deal with the United States. President Donald Trump made the announcement Wednesday.But France, too, is in discussions with Ukraine aiming, like the United States, to diversify its supplies of vital minerals, French Defense Minister Sbastien Lecornu told broadcaster France Info. He didnt specify exactly which minerals France is seeking. Ukraine has been offering to supply the U.S. with rare earth elements that are critical for various technologies, including lithium for batteries and uranium for nuclear power, medical equipment and weapons. Lecornu said: We are speaking about this issue for our own French needs. I have defense industries that will need access to a certain number of raw materials in the years to come. He said French President Emmanuel Macron mandated him to begin the discussions and that he has been dealing directly with his Ukrainian counterpart as part of efforts to increase the number of source countries for rare minerals. We have to diversify that. Emmanuel Macron has asked that I also start discussions with the Ukrainians .... I have been doing so since October, the minister said. He said France could possibly purchase minerals from Ukraine and isnt seeking access to them as a way to recoup the billions of euros (dollars) worth of military and other aid that Paris has supplied to strengthen Ukrainian defenses against Russias invasion. Trump has framed the emerging deal as a chance for Kyiv to repay aid already sent under Democratic President Joe Biden.We are not looking for payback, Lecornu said. But our defense sector will need a certain number of raw materials that are absolutely crucial in our own weapons systems ... for the next 30 or 40 years.He indicated that the discussions are in a preliminary stage, saying: Its the beginning of the story.

FILE -A sign is seen outside of Seminole Hospital District offering measles testing, Feb. 21, 2025, in Seminole, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez), File)2025-02-27T08:15:10Z BANGKOK (AP) The U.S. registered its first death from measles since 2015 this week, as a child who wasnt vaccinated died in a measles outbreak in rural West Texas.Normally, most U.S. cases are brought into the country by people who have traveled overseas. So far, Texas state officials have reported 124 cases. New Mexico has reported nine.Experts point to declining measles vaccination rates worldwide since the COVID-19 pandemic. In the United States, most states now are below the 95% vaccination threshold for kindergartners the level needed to protect communities against measles outbreaks.Britain reported 2,911 confirmed measles cases in 2024, the highest number of cases recorded annually, since 2012. Measles cases in the United States last year were nearly double the total for all of 2023, raising concerns about the preventable, once-common childhood virus. Health officials confirmed measles cases in at least 18 states in 2024, including in New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago. Measles anywhere is a threat everywhere, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control say on their website. Heres a brief look at the global measles situation. Are measles outbreaks common outside the U.S?According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 10.3 million people were infected with measles in 2023 and 107,500 died. Most were unvaccinated people or children younger than five. Cases were most common in parts of Africa, the Middle East and Asia where incomes are low and health services insufficient.In places where measles have largely been eradicated, cases have been spread by travelers from other countries.While measles-related deaths declined slightly in 2023, the number of outbreaks increased. Major outbreaks took place in 57 countries in 2023, including India and Indonesia, Russia, Yemen and Iraq. The largest number of cases in 2023 was 311,500 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. What is the impact of vaccinations?The worldwide rate of childhood vaccinations has fallen in recent years, to 83% in 2023 from 86% in 2019, partly due to disruptions in immunization and health care due to the pandemic. The WHO estimates that vaccination helped to prevent more than 60 million deaths worldwide between 2000 and 2023, as efforts to get the shots to more people ramped up. In 2000, 800,062 people are estimated to have died of measles. Before the vaccine was introduced in 1963, major epidemics caused about 2.6 million deaths a year.Measles is so highly infectious that 95% immunity is required to prevent epidemics, the WHO says. Put another way, it infects about 9 of 10 people exposed if they lack immunity.What international efforts are underway to prevent epidemics?The WHO and others are backing an effort called Immunization Agenda 2021-2030, to push for elimination of measles.Independent experts declared the Americas free of endemic measles in 2016 but that status was lost in 2018 due to measles outbreaks in Brazil and Venezuela. Reduced vaccination rates are undermining efforts to fully eradicate the disease, experts say. Global health organizations and other groups have increased their efforts to speed up immunization programs and close the gaps in prevention.

Pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Hector Granados poses for a photo outside his private practice in El Paso, Texas, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton)2025-02-27T06:04:12Z EL PASO, Texas (AP) On the Texas border, Dr. Hector Granados treats children with diabetes at his El Paso clinics and makes hospital rounds under the shadow of accusations that have thrown his career into jeopardy: providing care to transgender youth.In whats believed to be a U.S. first, Texas is suing Granados and two other physicians over claims that they violated the states ban on gender-affirming care for minors, calling the doctors scofflaws in lawsuits filed last fall that threaten to impose steep fines and revoke their medical licenses. He denies the accusations, and all three doctors have asked courts to dismiss the cases. The cases are a pivotal test of intensifying Republican efforts to prevent such treatments, including President Donald Trumps executive order that would bar federal support for gender-affirming care for youth under 19. Some hospitals have already begun unwinding services for pediatric patients. But, so far, only Texas is demonstrating what punishing doctors looks like when bans are allegedly broken. Granados, in an interview with The Associated Press, said he was meticulous in halting transgender care before Texas ban took effect in 2023. He denied that he continued prescribing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to transitioning patients and said he was initially unclear which patients, who are not named in the lawsuit, he is accused of wrongfully treating. The other accused doctors both in Dallas are under temporary court orders not to see patients and only practice medicine in research and academic settings. Looking at the patients was hard because they were kind of disappointed of what was going on, Granados said of ending their care. But it was something that needed to be followed because its the law.The lawsuits are believed to be the first time a state has brought enforcement under laws that ban or restrict gender-affirming care for minors, which Republicans have enacted in 27 states, including this month in Kansas over the Democratic governors veto. Although those accused of violating bans face criminal charges in some states, they do not in Texas. Nationwide, doctors and hospital executives are reevaluating transgender health programs that carry a widening risk of litigation and losing federal funding. For transgender Americans, the climate has narrowed options for care and deepened fears.Trump has launched a broad charge against transgender rights quickly in his second term, signing executive orders that include barring schools from using federal education dollars to support students who are socially transitioning. Supporters say restrictions protect vulnerable children from what they see as a radical ideology about gender and making irreversible medical decisions.The Texas lawsuits were brought by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has previously gone beyond the states borders to launch investigations into gender-affirming treatment. Emiliana Edwards, right, former patient of pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Hector Granados chats with her mother Lorena Edwards, left, and Amber Perez, executive director of the Borderland Rainbow Center, in El Paso, Texas, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton) Emiliana Edwards, right, former patient of pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Hector Granados chats with her mother Lorena Edwards, left, and Amber Perez, executive director of the Borderland Rainbow Center, in El Paso, Texas, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More His office did not respond to requests for an interview. At a court hearing Wednesday involving the Dallas doctors, an attorney in Paxtons office declined to comment and referred questions to the agencys press office.I will enforce the law to the fullest extent to prevent any doctor from providing these dangerous drugs to kids, Paxton said in a statement this month. A practice in El PasoGranados is one of two pediatric endocrinologists in El Paso, a desert city of about 700,000 where mountains rise in the distance. Granados, 48, is from Ciudad Juarez, the neighboring Mexican city that sprawls out south of El Paso. He said that after attending medical school in Mexico he completed additional training in New York and Connecticut but he wanted to return to what he said is an underserved region.He opened a gender clinic at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso before starting his own practice in 2019. Before the ban, Granados said, treating transgender youth was just an extension of his practice that also treats youth with diabetes, growth problems and early puberty. He said he accepted transgender patients only if they had first received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria from a mental health provider.It was not different from doing everything else that a pediatric endocrinologist does, he said. It was just taking care of children who required that specific therapy. Emiliana Edwards, 18, former patient of pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Hector Granados speaks during an interview in El Paso, Texas, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton) Emiliana Edwards, 18, former patient of pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Hector Granados speaks during an interview in El Paso, Texas, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Lorena Edwards, mother of Emiliana Edwards, a former patient of pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Hector Granados, speaks during an interview in El Paso, Texas, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton) Lorena Edwards, mother of Emiliana Edwards, a former patient of pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Hector Granados, speaks during an interview in El Paso, Texas, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Emiliana Edwards was among them. Now 18, she called Granados an amazing caregiver who carefully explained her gender-affirming treatment. But at her first appointment after Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the ban in 2023, Edwards said the room felt different, like there were wires everywhere.It felt like we couldnt talk about anything really, even the most simple stuff, she said.Her mother, Lorena Edwards, said Granados put a cold stop to her daughters care. It was just: I dont provide that care anymore. And it was done, she said. Bringing cases to courtAt the heart of Texas lawsuits against Granados, Dr. May Lau and Dr. M. Brett Cooper are allegations of prescribing treatment to transition their patients sex after the ban took effect. In one instance, the state accuses Granados of prescribing testosterone to a 16-year-old, alleging that although the doctors records identify the patient as male, the teenagers sex assigned at birth is female. Granados and Lau are also accused of having instructed patients to wait until after the ban was in place to fill prescriptions.Granados does not dispute that he has continued prescribing puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy. He said those treatments are not for gender transition but for children with endocrine disorders, which occur when hormone levels are too high or too low.He said he prescribes testosterone for many reasons, including for patients whose testicles dont work or had to be removed because of cancer. Others have brain tumors, or surgery or radiation to the brain, that impact puberty. Patients with early onset puberty also need puberty blockers, he said.Attorneys for Lau said she has always complied with the law and the claims have no merit. Attorneys for Cooper did not respond to requests for comment.This is really part of a bigger pattern of extremism within the state that even other states have shied away from replicating, said Sarah Warbelow, vice president of legal for the Human Rights Campaign.Transgender adults and youth make up less than 1% of the U.S. population, according to estimates by the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ+ research center at the UCLA School of Law. Going elsewhere for careGranados trial has been set for late October; trial dates have not yet been set yet for Lau and Cooper. While the cases are pending, Lau and Cooper agreed to practice medicine only in research and academic settings and not see patients. Neither Lau or Cooper attended the Wednesday hearing in their cases by a judge who is set to decide where their trials will be held.Under Texas ban, the state medical board is instructed to revoke the licenses of doctors who are found to have violated the law.Lorena Edwards said she watched her daughter thrive during her transition then descend into melancholy as laws targeting transgender rights gained steam. Emiliana Edwards has switched to receiving treatment in neighboring New Mexico where gender-affirming care is legal but she said attacks on the transgender community have taken a toll on her mental health. Were normal people, too, and were just trying to live, she said.

In this file photo dated Wednesday, March 21, 2018, a youth holds a flag with the image of Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, in Istanbul, Turkey. (AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, File)2025-02-27T08:37:06Z ISTANBUL (AP) Imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan called on his militant group on Thursday to lay down its arms and dissolve as part of a new bid to end a four-decade long conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.In a message from his prison on an island off Istanbul on Thursday, Ocalan said the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, should hold a congress and decide to disband.Convene your congress and make a decision. All groups must lay their arms and the PKK must dissolve itself, Ocalan said, according to a message that was relayed by pro-Kurdish party politicians who visited Ocalan earlier in the day.Ocalans momentous announcement is part of a new effort for peace between the group and the Turkish state, that was initiated in October by President Recep Tayyip Erdogans coalition partner, Devlet Bahceli. The far-right politician suggested Ocalan could be granted parole if his group renounces violence and disbands. Ocalan, 75, has been imprisoned on the island of Imrali, off Istanbul, since 1999 after being convicted of treason. Despite his incarceration, he continues to wield significant influence over the PKK. The groups leadership is widely expected to heed any call Ocalan makes, although some factions within the group could resist, analysts say. The peace effort comes at a time when Erdogan may need support from the DEM party in parliament to enact a new constitution that could allow him to stay in power. The Turkish Constitution doesnt allow Erdogan, who has been in power since 2003 as prime minister and later as president, to run for office again unless an early election is called something that would also require the support of the pro-Kurdish party.The DEM party has long pressed for greater democracy in Turkey and rights for the countrys Kurdish population, and also to improve conditions for the imprisoned Ocalan. Founded by Ocalan in 1978, the PKK has led an insurgency in Turkeys southeast since 1984. The group is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies. Previous peace efforts with the PKK have ended with failure the most recent in 2015.Even amid the latest peace efforts, Erdogans government has widened a crackdown on the opposition, arresting journalists and politicians. Several elected Kurdish mayors have been ousted from office and replaced with state-appointed officials.Thursdays meeting was the third time DEM party officials have met with Ocalan as part of the peace efforts. The officials have also met with Selahattin Demirtas, an imprisoned former pro-Kurdish party leader, and traveled to Iraq for talks with Kurdish leaders there.

President Donald Trump holds his first Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (Pool via AP)2025-02-27T14:10:22Z WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump says he plans to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico starting next Tuesday, in addition to doubling the 10% universal tariff charged on imports from China.Posting on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump said that illicit drugs such as fentanyl are being smuggled into the United States at unacceptable levels and that import taxes would force other countries to crackdown on the trafficking.We cannot allow this scourge to continue to harm the USA, and therefore, until it stops, or is seriously limited, the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled, the Republican president wrote. China will likewise be charged an additional 10% Tariff on that date.The prospect of escalating tariffs has already thrown the global economy into turmoil with consumers expressing fears about inflation worsening and the auto sector possibly suffering if Americas two largest trading partners in Canada and Mexico are slapped with taxes.The prospect of higher prices and slower growth could create political blowback for Trump. JOSH BOAK Boak covers the White House and economic policy for The Associated Press. He joined the AP in 2013. twitter mailto

This combination of photos shows Gayle King, from left, Lauren Sanchez and Katy Perry. (AP Photo)2025-02-27T15:27:03Z CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) Katy Perry and Gayle King are headed to space with Jeff Bezos fiancee Lauren Sanchez and three other women.Bezos rocket company Blue Origin announced the all-female celebrity crew on Thursday. Sanchez, a helicopter pilot and former TV journalist, picked the crew who will join her on a 10-minute spaceflight from West Texas, the company said. They will blast off sometime this spring aboard a New Shepard rocket. No launch date was given. Blue Origin has flown tourists on short hops to space since 2021. Some passengers have gotten free rides, while others have paid a hefty sum to experience weightlessness. It was not immediately known whos footing the bill for this upcoming flight. Sanchez invited singer Perry and TV journalist King, as well as a former NASA rocket scientist who now heads an engineering firm Aisha Bowe, research scientist Amanda Nguyen and movie producer Kerianne Flynn.This will be Blue Origins 11th human spaceflight. Bezos climbed aboard with his brother for the inaugural flight. ___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.

Andrew Tate waves as he exits the Bucharest Tribunal with his brother Tristan, in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda, File)2025-02-27T13:00:29Z FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) A travel ban was lifted on influencer brothers Andrew and Tristan Tate, who are both charged with human trafficking in Romania, and they are headed to the United States, officials said Thursday.The brothers are avid supporters of President Donald Trump and have millions of online followers. it wasnt clear under what conditions the Tates were allowed to leave Romania, or where in the United States they were headed. Here are some things to know about the Tate Brothers:Who are the Tate Brothers?Andrew Tate, 38, and Tristan Tate, 36 are dual U.S.-British citizens. Andrew Tate is a former professional kickboxer and self-described misogynist who has amassed more than 10 million followers on X. He also runs an online academy where he says he teaches young men how to get rich and attract women. Tristan Tate is also a former kickboxer.The Tates are avid supporters of President Donald Trump. What are they charged with in Romania?The Tate brothers and two Romanian women were arrested in Bucharest in late 2022. The Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism alleged the four defendants formed a criminal group in 2021 in order to commit the crime of human trafficking in Romania as well as the United States and Britain.They were initially formally indicted last year. In April, the Bucharest Tribunal ruled that a trial could start but didnt set a date. In December, a court in Bucharest ruled that the case against the Tates and the two Romanian women couldnt go to trial because of multiple legal and procedural irregularities on the part of the prosecutors. The case hasnt been closed, and there is also a separate legal case against the brothers in Romania.Andrew Tate has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors in Romania have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him. But they were charged with forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women, among other charges. What led to the travel ban being lifted?DIICOT, Romanias anti-organized crime agency, said in a statement Thursday that prosecutors approved a request to modify the obligation preventing the defendants from leaving Romania, but that judicial control measures remained in place. The agency didnt say who had made the request.The control measures include the requirement to appear before judicial authorities whenever summoned, the statement read. The agency said the Tates were warned that deliberately violating these obligations may result in judicial control being replaced with a stricter deprivation of liberty measure.Their departure came after Foreign Minister Emil Hurezeanu said this month that a U.S. official in the current Trump administration had expressed interest in the brothers legal case in Romania at the Munich Security Conference. The minister insisted it didnt amount to pressure. What about Tate brothers defamation case in Florida?A hearing was set Thursday in West Palm Beach, Florida, in a defamation lawsuit brought by the Tate brothers against a woman who accused them of imprisoning her in Romania. The hearing in Palm Beach County Circuit Court concerns a motion by the woman, identified as Jane Doe, seeking an indefinite delay in the lawsuit so that proceedings in Romania can continue. The Tates lawyers say there is no reason to delay the defamation case. The Romanian process is expected to take several more years, their lawyer said in a court filing.The Tate brothers filed the defamation lawsuit in July 2023._____Anderson reported from St. Petersburg, Florida.

Content warning: this article contains graphic descriptions of violence against people and animals.An error in Instagram Reels caused its algorithm to show some users video after video of horrific violence, animal abuse, murders, dead bodies, and other gore, Meta told 404 Media. The company said we apologize for the mistake.Sometime in the last few days, this error caused peoples Reels algorithms to suddenly change. A 404 Media reader who has a biking-related Instagram account reached out to me and said that his feed, which is typically dogs and bikes, had become videos of people getting killed: I had never seen someone being eaten by a shark, followed by someone getting killed by a car crash, followed by someone getting shot, he told 404 Media.To test this, the person let me login to his Instagram account, and I scrolled Reels for about 15 minutes. There were a couple videos about dogs and a couple videos about bikes, but the vast majority of videos were hidden behind a sensitive content warning. I will describe videos I saw when I clicked through the warnings, many of which had thousands of likes and hundreds of comments:An elephant repeatedly stepping on and flattening a manA man attacking a pig with a wrenchA close-up video of someone who had just been shot in the headA woman crying while laying on top of a loved one who had just been shot to deathA man on a motorcycle stopping next to a pedestrian and shooting them in the head with a pistolA pile of dead bodies in what looked to be a war-type situationA small plane crash in front of a crowd of peopleA group of people beating a crocodile to deathA few videos by an account called PeopleDeadDailyA man being lit on fireA man shooting a cashier at point blank rangeMost, but not all, of these videos were behind a sensitive content warning label, which wont play the video unless you click a button that says see reel. In this persons feed, I also saw video after video of people getting jumped, attacked, into fistfights, and being hit by cars, which were not behind sensitive content warning labels. A close-up video of a person falling out of a tower of terror-style amusement park ride, and patrons screaming, was also not behind a warning label. 0:00 /0:10 1 When this user reached out to me and told me he was seeing almost exclusively gore videos on his Reels algorithm, I wondered if it would be worth writing a story at all, because all of us at 404 Media regularly see incredibly disturbing content on Instagram. Was this any different than a normal day on Instagram, or had he just ended up on the death algorithm as Sam and Emanuel both called it and have both ended up on? Even the person who initially told me about this had this thought: Ive been telling people about this and hearing, Oh its cuz u liked something, maybe someone u followed changed their profile, he said. I feel like Im in the Twilight Zone. I feel like nobody Ive talked to today understands how disturbing what is being pushed is.Then I looked at the comments of many of these videos and it became clear that the issue was widespread. Here are comments I saw on the gore videos:What happened today? My feed is full of shoot, killing, thriller clips, fighting, killing human/animals, murder, and torture. Feed got f**ckedTodays algorithm showed me around 70 murders, 100+ accidents, and around 115 violence videos, is anyone on Instagram noticing it?Bro todays feed is not for beginnersPor que me sale Gore en mi ap de racismo? (Why am I getting gore on my racism app?)Yo wtf is ig becomingWhat is Instagram on today?Algorithm is insane todayWhy the fuck I have so many like this today???This isnt a normal day, some DARKWEB shit going on here.Not Instagram more like instagore.Nearly every recent post on the Instagram subreddit, meanwhile, is about gore. Post titles include Instagram is now 100% gore, Guys I cant literally sleep, Meta cant get away with this, This recent situation has finally helped me make the decision to delete Instagram, Whats happening with Instagram? Violent reels everywhere for the last 24 hours!, cant believe my feed full of cute cat videos got replaced with this shit, a video of someone scrolling through a dozen straight sensitive content label videos, a post referring to children being traumatized while scrolling, various conspiracies about why this may have happened, and more.I feel like I lost some humanity today when I exposed myself to seeing so many of those types of videos, Gore, deaths and what broke me the most was animal cruelty, one post read. Excuse me if I sound a bit exaggerated but death, pain and human suffering is something that makes me sick, I always imagine What would happen if I or my family were there? i can't sleep when my mind replays those videos.In an email, a Meta spokesperson told 404 Media We have fixed an error that caused some users to see content in their Instagram Reels feed that should not have been recommended. We apologize for the mistake. They said that the problem does not have anything to do with Metas recent announcement that it would loosen some content moderation rules.To prove that this was actually happening, I sent Meta six links to graphic reels. These included two videos of people getting shot in the face, a video of a dead body with no context or obvious news value, a person getting lit on fire, the account called PeopleDeadDaily, and the tower of terror video. None of these videos have been deleted.One of the many problems preventing people from actually holding Meta to account for any of this is that everyones feed is so incredibly personalized. Like I said, because we report on the darker corners of the internet, my Instagram feed is full of horrific things on a daily basis, which is probably not everyones experience.When we talk about things like content moderation, the vast majority of the job is deleting videos of terrorism, murder, horrific violence, and things like this, not censoring specific viewpoints, which is part of why the job itself is so traumatizing. Meta has signaled that it intends to do less content moderation overall. And so the future of Instagram, for us all, may be one where you login to see what your friends are up to and instead have videos of people getting murdered shoved algorithmically into your feed.

On Tuesday, Chinese tech giant Alibaba released a new open AI video generation model called Wan 2.1 and shared the software on Github, allowing anyone with the technical know-how and hardware to use and modify freely. It took about 24 hours for the model to be adopted by the AI porn hobbyist community, which has already shared dozens of short AI porn videos using Alibabas software. Elsewhere, in a community thats dedicated to producing and sharing nonconsensual AI-generated intimate media of real people, users are already salivating over how advanced the model is.This is the double-edged sword of releasing open AI models that users can modify, which on one hand democratizes the use of powerful AI tools, but on the other is often used by early adopters to create nonconsensual content. Big News from @alibaba_cloud! Meet WanX - our next-gen AI model redefining video generation ! Presenting mind-blowing demos from WanX 2.1 Even more exciting:WanX 2.1 will be OPEN-SOURCE !Coming soon #AIart #OpenSource pic.twitter.com/R1laOyJYAL Wan (@Alibaba_Wan) February 20, 2025Hunyuan just came out when? December? one user said Wednesday on Telegram channel dedicated to sharing nonconsensual AI-generated porn, referring to another open AI video generator developed by Tencent thats popular in that community. Now we get a better Text2Video Model [that] can handle more complicated motions c: This one just came out YESTERDAY and the first Lora which got made for this is a Titfuck .That user also shared a short video made with Wan 2.1 that was originally posted to Civitai, a site for sharing modified AI models that multiple 404 Media stories have shown is widely used by people who create nonconsensual content. By my count, however, this model, Better Titfuck (WAN and HunYuan), is not the first Wan 2.1 model on Civitai thats been modified to produce pornography. That dubious honor more likely goes to Wan-AI / Wan2.1 Video Model, which was shared a few hours earlier.According to statistics shared by Civitais model pages, each of these models has already been downloaded hundreds of times. Civitai model pages also allow people to share videos they created with the AI models, and both pages feature dozens of pornographic videos. Civitai allows users to share AI models that have been modified to produce the likeness of real people and models that have been modified to produce pornography, but does not allow users to share media or models of nonconsensual pornography. However, as 404 Medias previous stories have shown, theres nothing preventing Civitai users from downloading the models and using them to produce nonconsensual content off-site.Alibaba did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Phoenix Mercury's Natasha Cloud dribbles during the first half of a WNBA basketball game against the Indiana Fever in Indianapolis, on Friday, Aug. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings, File)2025-02-27T11:00:06Z For WNBA veteran Natasha Cloud, speaking up about social justice is just as important as winning basketball games. Cloud has had a successful nine-year pro career that includes a WNBA championship and being the career-assists leader for her former Washington Mystics. She has also used her platform for social justice advocacy from sitting out the 2020 WNBA season to focus on community reform efforts, to joining protests after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. If winning is all I do with my career, then I have failed, said Cloud, who now plays for the Connecticut Sun. Who would I be to not utilize practice time and camera time and all these things to create change within the communities that mean the most to me? Cloud believes its more imperative than ever for athletes across American professional sports to speak out against racial discrimination in the face of President Donald Trumps sweeping orders to end government diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and as corporations and major institutions face pressure to roll back DEI policies aimed at creating opportunities for minority groups.The systems of power are working as they always were intended to work, Cloud said. And its time to break down a system that has only been about white men. Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali is escorted from the Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station in Houston, on April 28, 1967, by Lt. Col. J. Edwin McKee, commandant of the station, after Ali refused Army induction. Ali says he was a conscientious objector who would not serve in the army of a country that treated members of his race as second-class citizens. (AP Photo/File) Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali is escorted from the Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station in Houston, on April 28, 1967, by Lt. Col. J. Edwin McKee, commandant of the station, after Ali refused Army induction. Ali says he was a conscientious objector who would not serve in the army of a country that treated members of his race as second-class citizens. (AP Photo/File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Athletes have long used sports as a forum for civil rights activism, but todays sports figures have a unique position of influence, with more money and celebrity status than ever, and social media to get their message to millions.With that also comes the potential for backlash and retaliation. Speaking out could cost their reputations, their connections, their careers, experts say.Its a danger Black athletes have always faced, whether boxing great Muhammad Ali risking his freedom to take an anti-war stance in the 1960s, or more recently, NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick putting his job on the line to denounce police brutality in Black communities. Black athletes who speak out for political or social change have often paid a price for their actions.One of the most definitive characteristics of pursuit of social justice, particularly by athletes today, is the idea of sacrifice, said Len Elmore, a former NBA player and now a senior lecturer in sports management at Columbia University. They have to be willing to sacrifice because the broad society for a period of time as it did to those past heroes is going to penalize you. Former baseball star Jackie Robinson holds a sign as he joins a picket line in Cleveland in 1960, to protest discrimination against Blacks at southern lunch counters. (AP Photo/File) Former baseball star Jackie Robinson holds a sign as he joins a picket line in Cleveland in 1960, to protest discrimination against Blacks at southern lunch counters. (AP Photo/File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Olympic sprint star Wilma Rudolph tries unsuccessfully to be served at a restaurant in her hometown of Clarksville, Tenn., along with 300 others, on May 30, 1963. With her are, from left: Dr. F.D. Coleman, Dr. Paul Dumas and the Rev. Carl Liggin, chairman of the local Christian Leadership Council. (AP Photo/File) Olympic sprint star Wilma Rudolph tries unsuccessfully to be served at a restaurant in her hometown of Clarksville, Tenn., along with 300 others, on May 30, 1963. With her are, from left: Dr. F.D. Coleman, Dr. Paul Dumas and the Rev. Carl Liggin, chairman of the local Christian Leadership Council. (AP Photo/File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Boston Celtics star Bill Russell talks with reporters about the boycott of Boston public schools by African Americans, in Boston, on June 18, 1963. Russell spoke to some of the estimated 3,000 children who stayed away from regular classes but attended special sessions called by Black leaders. Children were asked by their parents to stay away from regular classes in protest against what they said was actual if not legal segregation. (AP Photo/Frank Curtin, File) Boston Celtics star Bill Russell talks with reporters about the boycott of Boston public schools by African Americans, in Boston, on June 18, 1963. Russell spoke to some of the estimated 3,000 children who stayed away from regular classes but attended special sessions called by Black leaders. Children were asked by their parents to stay away from regular classes in protest against what they said was actual if not legal segregation. (AP Photo/Frank Curtin, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More A fight for human dignityWith his attempt to abolish diversity and inclusion programs, Trump has sought to ban transgender athletes from girls and womens sports and has directed schools and universities to eliminate diversity initiatives or risk losing federal money. That includes no longer teaching material dealing with race and sexuality part of his effort to end wokeness in schools.Companies including Target, Google, Walmart and McDonalds have scaled back or set aside diversity initiatives endorsed by much of corporate America during a 2020 nationwide reckoning on race to help root out systemic barriers that have hindered the advancement of marginalized groups. On a basic level, its just a fight for human dignity and human rights, said Joseph N. Cooper, a professor of Counseling, School Psychology and Sport at the University of Massachusetts Boston. FILE- In this combination of 2020 photos, Naomi Osaka, of Japan, wears face masks bearing the names of Black victims of police violence and racial profiling, during the U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, Seth Wenig, File) FILE- In this combination of 2020 photos, Naomi Osaka, of Japan, wears face masks bearing the names of Black victims of police violence and racial profiling, during the U.S. Open tennis tournament in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, Seth Wenig, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More While he doesnt believe the weight of social justice reform should solely fall on the shoulders of Black athletes, Cooper said its important for sports stars to leverage their visibility to champion causes theyre passionate about.Cloud, who used her social media to call for WNBA arenas to serve as polling places for the 2020 presidential election and helped with voter registration, believes the NBA and WNBA where African American players are in the majority should stand with the communities their players come from, as many feel the social and economic progress of Black Americans is in jeopardy.I understand the business aspect and I understand the human aspect, Cloud said. Too often this country has put the human aspect aside, and put profit and money over people. A Black Lives Matter sign is displayed on the court as Los Angeles Lakers LeBron James prepares to face the Denver Nuggets in an NBA basketball game in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., on Aug. 10, 2020. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool, File) A Black Lives Matter sign is displayed on the court as Los Angeles Lakers LeBron James prepares to face the Denver Nuggets in an NBA basketball game in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., on Aug. 10, 2020. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, Pool, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Both the NBA and WNBA featured the Black Lives Matter rallying cry on the courts in 2020 and partnered with players to find outlets for tangible social justice action. This included creating the NBA Foundation to spur economic growth in the Black community, with an initial contribution of $300 million over the next decade. Often individual players have taken the first bold steps in mixing sports and politics.During Trumps first administration, the NBAs LeBron James and Stephen Curry were among athletes who declined visits to the White House normally given to championship-winning teams. Curry and his wife Ayesha endorsed Joe Biden for president during the 2020 Democratic National Convention. James headlined the More Than A Vote Campaign, formed soon after police shot and killed Floyd and Breonna Taylor, to target systemic voter suppression and encourage Black people to vote.Im not saying that their activism and decision to not go to the White House was a primary or even a major factor in the outcome of the 2020 election, Cooper said. But no doubt, those athletes and athletes who have similar profiles as them leveraging their platform to promote freedom, human rights ... its extremely powerful. Displayed on a screen, Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry speaks during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File) Displayed on a screen, Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry speaks during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More It takes a special type of personJaylen Brown of the NBAs Boston Celtics has more than 4.7 million followers across Instagram and X and for years has used his social media accounts to draw attention to social justice causes and boost small businesses.Brown marched with protesters in Minneapolis in the days after video was released of Floyds May 2020 death. He created a foundation that partners with social justice organizations to create opportunities for youth in traditionally underserved communities. I use my platform to try to bring light to a lot of different things and situations to get people to think differently, Brown said. But also to provide solutions. Boston Celtics Jaylen Brown sits for a television interview during the NBA basketball teams media day, Monday, Oct. 2, 2023, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File) Boston Celtics Jaylen Brown sits for a television interview during the NBA basketball teams media day, Monday, Oct. 2, 2023, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Elmore, who played in the American Basketball Association from 1974-1976 and with the NBA from 1976-1984 after the two leagues merged, said its not incumbent on any athlete to pursue social justice just because they have a platform. But, you know, it wasnt incumbent upon Ali, he said. It wasnt incumbent upon Colin Kaepernick. They did it because they recognized the righteousness of their actions. They recognized the need.Kaepernick, who led the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2012, sacrificed his career. He has not played in the NFL since kneeling during the national anthem during the 2016 season, and became one of the most polarizing figures in modern sports. Fans urged boycotts of companies aligned with him. Trump denounced his actions and said he and any player who knelt during the anthem should be fired by the NFL. I think thats not lost on athletes today who are making an awful lot of money, gain a great deal of celebrity and adulation, Elmore said. Who really wants to lose that? Who wants to put that in jeopardy?It takes a special type of person a special group of people to be able to do that, he added. Or it takes a desperation. And the question is, are we at that desperate moment? San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) and San Francisco 49ers outside linebacker Eli Harold (58) kneel during the playing of the national anthem before the first half of an NFL football game between the Atlanta Falcons and the San Francisco 49ers, Sunday, Dec. 18, 2016, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File) San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) and San Francisco 49ers outside linebacker Eli Harold (58) kneel during the playing of the national anthem before the first half of an NFL football game between the Atlanta Falcons and the San Francisco 49ers, Sunday, Dec. 18, 2016, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More ___AP Sports Writers Cliff Brunt and Tim Reynolds contributed to this report.___AP Sports: https://apnews.com/sports ALANIS THAMES Thames is an Associated Press sports writer based in Miami. She previously covered sports for the New York Times.

A woman grieves at a memorial for those killed and abducted during the Oct. 7, 2023, cross-border attack by Hamas militants, near the kibbutz Reim, southern Israel, May 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa, File)2025-02-27T17:03:28Z TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) An investigation by the Israeli military has determined that Hamas was able to carry out the deadliest attack in Israeli history on Oct. 7, 2023, because the much more powerful Israeli army misjudged the militant groups intentions and underestimated its capabilities.The findings, released Thursday, could pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to launch a widely demanded broader inquiry to examine the political decision-making that preceded the attack, which triggered the war in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a memorial ceremony for those killed by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, in Jerusalem, Oct. 28, 2024. (Debbie Hill, Pool Photo via AP, File) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a memorial ceremony for those killed by Hamas during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, in Jerusalem, Oct. 28, 2024. (Debbie Hill, Pool Photo via AP, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Many Israelis believe the mistakes of Oct. 7 extend beyond the military, and they blame Netanyahu for what they view as a failed strategy of deterrence and containment in the years leading up to the attack. That strategy included allowing Qatar to send suitcases of cash into Gaza and sidelining Hamas rival, the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority.The prime minister has not taken responsibility, saying he will answer tough questions only after the war, which has been paused for nearly six weeks by a tenuous ceasefire. Despite public pressure, including from the families of the roughly 1,200 people killed in the Oct. 7 attack and the 251 taken as hostages into Gaza, Netanyahu has resisted calls for a commission of inquiry.The militarys main findings were that the regions most powerful and sophisticated military misread Hamas intentions, underestimated its capabilities and was wholly unprepared for the surprise attack by thousands of heavily armed militants in the early morning hours of a major Jewish holiday. The militarys findings are in line with past conclusions reached by officials and analysts. The military released only a summary of the report and military officials outlined its findings.Oct. 7 was a complete failure, said one military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.A central misconception was that Hamas, which seized control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority in 2007, was more interested in governing the territory than fighting Israel, the inquiry found. Supporters of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip protest outside of the hotel where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is staying during a visit with Israeli leadership, in Tel Aviv, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File) Supporters of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip protest outside of the hotel where U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is staying during a visit with Israeli leadership, in Tel Aviv, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More The military also misjudged the militant groups capabilities. Military planners had envisioned that, at worst, Hamas could stage a ground invasion from up to eight border points, the official said. In fact, Hamas had more than 60 attack routes. Intelligence assessed in the aftermath of the attack has shown Hamas came close to staging the offensive on three earlier occasions but delayed it for unknown reasons, the official said.The official said that in the hours before the attack, there were signs that something was amiss, including when Hamas fighters switched their phones over to the Israeli network.The perception that Hamas did not want war guided decision makers away from taking action that might have thwarted the attack. The Israeli military official said intelligence shows that Yahya Sinwar, a mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack who was killed last October, had begun planning it as early as 2017.With the military off guard on a holiday weekend, Hamas launched a heavy wave of rockets that allowed thousands of fighters to burst through the security fence or fly over it on hang gliders. They knocked out surveillance cameras and quickly overwhelmed hundreds of soldiers stationed along the border. Supporters of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in Gaza stuck a sticker with the face of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a road and poured red liquid, symbolizing blood, over it, in Jerusalem, Feb. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, File) Supporters of Israelis held hostage by Hamas in Gaza stuck a sticker with the face of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a road and poured red liquid, symbolizing blood, over it, in Jerusalem, Feb. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More From there they advanced to key highway intersections and attacked troops dispatched to the area, including some senior officers, disrupting the militarys command and control, according to a second military official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity.For the first three hours after the attack, Hamas fighters marauded through border communities and a music festival with little resistance. That was when most of the 251 hostages were taken and most people were killed, the official said. The official said the chaos led to friendly fire incidents, although he said there were not many, without disclosing a figure. It took hours for the military to regain control and days until the area was fully cleared of militants.According to the first official, the report blamed the military for being overconfident in its knowledge and not showing enough doubt in its core concepts and beliefs. It did not place blame on any individual soldiers or officers, but is likely to pave the way for a reckoning in the military and eventual dismissals.Some high-ranking officers have already resigned, including the former head of military intelligence and Israels top general, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, who steps down next week. The home of David Cunio, a hostage who was abducted into Gaza by Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, stands empty in kibbutz Nir Oz, southern Israel, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, File) The home of David Cunio, a hostage who was abducted into Gaza by Hamas militants during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, stands empty in kibbutz Nir Oz, southern Israel, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, File) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More TIA GOLDENBERG Goldenberg is an Associated Press reporter and producer covering Israel and the Palestinian territories. She previously reported on East and West Africa from Nairobi. twitter mailto

FILE -A sign is seen outside of Seminole Hospital District offering measles testing, Feb. 21, 2025, in Seminole, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez), File)2025-02-27T18:29:34Z Measles is rarely seen in the United States, but Americans are growing more concerned about the preventable virus as cases continue to rise in rural West Texas.This week, an unvaccinated child died in the West Texas outbreak, which involves more than 120 cases. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the last confirmed measles death in the United States was in 2015. There are also nine measles cases in eastern New Mexico, but the state health department said there is no direct connection to the outbreak in Texas.Heres what to know about the measles and how to protect yourself. What is measles?Its a respiratory disease caused by one of the worlds most contagious viruses. The virus is airborne and spreads easily when an infected person breathes, sneezes or coughs. It most commonly affects kids.On average, one infected person may infect about 15 other people, said Scott Weaver, a center of excellence director for the Global Virus Network, an international coalition. Theres only a few viruses that even come close to that.Measles first infects the respiratory tract, then spreads throughout the body, causing a high fever, runny nose, cough, red, watery eyes and a rash. The rash generally appears three to five days after the first symptoms, beginning as flat red spots on the face and then spreading downward to the neck, trunk, arms, legs and feet. When the rash appears, the fever may spike over 104 degrees Fahrenheit, according to the CDC. Theres no specific treatment for measles, so doctors generally try to alleviate symptoms, prevent complications and keep patients comfortable.People who have had measles once cant get it again, health officials say. Can measles be fatal?It usually doesnt kill people, but it can.Common complications include ear infections and diarrhea. But about 1 in 5 unvaccinated Americans who get measles are hospitalized, the CDC said. Pregnant women who havent gotten the vaccine may give birth prematurely or have a low-birthweight baby.Among children with measles, about 1 in every 20 develops pneumonia, the CDC said, and about one in every 1,000 suffers swelling of the brain called encephalitis which can lead to convulsions, deafness or intellectual disability. Its deadly in a little less than 1% of cases, mainly in children, said Weaver, who works at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Children develop the most severe illness. The cause of death in these kinds of cases is usually pneumonia and complications from pneumonia.How can you prevent measles?The best way to avoid measles is to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The first shot is recommended for children between 12 and 15 months old and the second between 4 and 6 years old.Before a vaccine was developed in the 1960s, everybody got measles, Weaver said. But then when the vaccine came along, that was a complete game-changer and one of the most successful vaccines in the history of medicine.There is great data on the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine, he said, because its been around for decades. Any of these outbreaks were seeing can easily be prevented by increasing the rate of vaccination in the community, he said. If we can maintain 95% of people vaccinated, were not going to see this happening in the future. And weve slipped well below that level in many parts of the country.Vaccination rates have declined nationwide since the COVID-19 pandemic, and most states are below the 95% vaccination threshold for kindergartners the level needed to protect communities against measles outbreaks.Do you need a booster if you got the MMR vaccine a while ago? Health care professionals are sometimes tested for antibodies to measles and given boosters if necessary, Weaver said even if theyve already had the standard two doses as a child.He said people at high risk for infection who got the shots many years ago may also want to consider getting a booster if they live in an area with an outbreak. Those may include family members living with someone who has measles or those especially vulnerable to respiratory diseases because of underlying medical conditions.But I dont think everyone needs to go and run out to their doctor right now if they did receive two doses as a child, he said. If people would just get the standard vaccination, none of this would be happening. ___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. LAURA UNGAR Ungar covers medicine and science on the APs Global Health and Science team. She has been a health journalist for more than two decades. twitter mailto

President Donald Trump stands before British Prime Minister Keir Starmer arrives at the White House, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)2025-02-27T05:02:38Z Follow live updates on President Donald Trump and his new administration. WASHINGTON (AP) British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is visiting the White House on Thursday to try to convince President Donald Trump that a lasting peace in Ukraine will endure only if Kyiv and European leaders are at the table as negotiations move forward with Moscow. Starmers trip, coming a few days after French President Emmanuel Macrons own visit, reflects the mounting concern felt by much of Europe that Trumps aggressive push to find an end to Russias war in Ukraine signals his willingness to concede too much to Russian President Vladimir Putin.Were going to do the best we can to make the best deal we can for both sides, Trump said Wednesday as he held the first Cabinet meeting of his second term. For Ukraine, were going to try very hard to make a good deal so that they can get as much (land) back as possible.But the Republican presidents rapprochement with Russia has unsettled Americas historic allies in Europe. They have found themselves on their heels with Trump returning to the White House with a determination to dramatically make over U.S. foreign policy to correspond with his America First world view. The Trump administration held talks last week with Russia without Ukrainian or other European allies represented. And this week, the U.S. refused to sign on to resolutions at the United Nations blaming Russia for the war, which began three years ago when Moscow invaded. The drifting White House view of Ukraine under Trump is leading to a tectonic shift in transatlantic relations. His administration is pushing back on the notion that Trump is ignoring Europe or is too eager in his push for settlement talks with Putin. He hasnt conceded anything to anyone, Vice President JD Vance said. Hes doing the job of a diplomat.Trumps meeting with Starmer comes a day before a White House meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The two leaders are expected to sign off Friday on a contentious agreement that would give the U.S. access to Ukraines critical minerals, which are used in the aerospace, defense and nuclear industries. Zelenskyy had chafed at signing off on an agreement without specific security guarantees from Washington. Trump was noncommittal about any coming American security guarantees. Im not going to make security guarantees ... very much, Trump said. Were going to have Europe do that.If a truce can be reached, Starmer and Macron have agreed to send troops for a potential peacekeeping mission to Ukraine to ensure that fighting between Ukraine and Russia doesnt flare up again.But White House officials are skeptical that Britain and France can assemble enough troops from across Europe, at least at this moment, to deploy a credible peacekeeping mission to Kyiv. It will likely take a consensual peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine before many nations would be willing to seriously providing such forces, according to a senior Trump administration official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House. Zelenskyy, while en route to Washington, met on Thursday with Irelands prime minister, Michel Martin, who said he told Zelenskyy that Ireland is open to helping, including sending peacekeepers to Ukraine.Zelenskyy and European officials have no illusions about U.S. troops taking part in such a mission. But Starmer and others are trying to make the case that the plan can only work with a U.S. backstop for European forces on the ground through U.S. aerial intelligence, surveillance and support, as well as rapid-response cover in case of breaches of a truce.Trump is also looking at the moment as an opportunity to potentially reopen economic relations with Russia after three years of U.S.-led sanction efforts to punish Moscow for the invasion. I think therell be plenty of of economic cooperation opportunities between the two countries, Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff said in an appearance Thursday on Fox News.Starmer is hosting a Sunday meeting in the United Kingdom of international leaders that will focus on Ukraine. Zelenskyy is expected to attend. The prime minister also announced plans this week for the U.K. to bolster defense spending. That should sit well with Trump, who has been critical that European allies are spending too little on defense. Starmers government will increase military spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product by 2027, years earlier than expected, and aim to reach 3% by 2035. Beyond the war in Ukraine, Starmer said the talks will home in on a stable economy, secure borders and national security, as well as cooperation on AI and other cutting-edge technology. He will stress that Europe must play its part on global defense and step up for the good of collective European security.The world is becoming ever more dangerous, and it is more important than ever that we are united with our allies, Starmer said. Starmer is also keen to discuss the opportunities that further technology and AI partnerships could deliver, his office said, including ambitious but vague shared moonshot missions across top technologies including quantum and AI, and a deeper partnership on space.Britain has signaled it aims to eschew the European Unions high-regulation approach to AI as it seeks to become a leader in the field. The U.K. joined the U.S. in refusing to sign a joint declaration at an artificial intelligence summit hosted by Macron in Paris this month in what was seen as an attempt to curry favor with Washington and seek investment from American tech companies. Starmers office said the prime minister will make the case for further integration between the two countries tech sectors to make them the most efficient, ambitious technology sectors in the world.Peter Mandelson, Britains ambassador to the U.S., said the two allies should stand shoulder to shoulder at a very, very significant moment for our lives, between our two countries and indeed for all the freedom-loving democracies in the world.We share people, we share cultures, we share a lot of intelligence, we share technologies, and we also share some of the fighting of our adversaries as well, Mandelson said.___Associated Press writer Panagiotis Pylas in London contributed to this report. ___This story has been corrected to reflect that Emmanuel Macron is the French president, not prime minister. JILL LAWLESS Lawless is an Associated Press reporter covering U.K. politics and more. She is based in London. twitter mailto AAMER MADHANI Madhani covers the White House for The Associated Press. He is based in Washington. twitter mailto

Actor Gene Hackman reacts during an interview on March 24, 1972. (AP Photo/George Brich, File)2025-02-27T19:12:13Z NEW YORK (AP) One of the greatest American actors of the 20th century was voted least likely to succeed by his first theater school, wasnt a star until he was 40 and possessed a face he once described as your everyday mineworker.Gene Hackman, a 6-foot-2 ex-Marine from Denville, Illinois, and a self-described big lummox kind of person, was as hard to define an actor as he was an unlikely star. Everyman was the most common label for Hackman, but even that seems to fall short for a performer capable of such volcanic intensity, such danger.Hes one of the ones who are willing to plunge their arm into the fire as far as it can go, said Arthur Penn, who directed him in three films, including the one that earned Hackman his first Oscar nomination, Bonnie and Clyde.Hackman was found dead alongside his wife, Betsy Arakawa, and their dog in their Santa Fe, New Mexico, home, authorities said Thursday. He was 95. Hackmans death, mourned across the film industry, renewed an old conundrum: How do you describe Gene Hackman? It was never one, easy-to-pinpoint thing that epitomized the actor. It was the totality of his live-wire screen presence. His characters were so real, you could have sworn they walked in right off the street. Like Jimmy Popeye Doyle. Though one of Hackmans defining roles, in William Friedkins The French Connection, Hackman initially recoiled from the characters violence and racism. But in Hackmans hands, Popeye Doyle was a gritty artifact of real life. Guys like this exist. Whether a character was sympathetic or not didnt enter into it. Thats not important to me, Hackman once said. I want to make you believe this could be a human being.Across an incredible array of movies The Conversation, Night Moves, The Poseidon Adventure, Mississippi Burning, Hoosiers, The Birdcage, The Royal Tenenbaums Hackman was, unfailingly, real. At the time of his death, it had been more than two decades since Hackman retired from acting. But time has done nothing to diminish the pugnacious rage, or the sweet sensitivity, of Hackmans finest performances. American movies have always had certain kinds of self-styled actors who shouldnt be stars but are, Penn said. Gene is in the company of Bogart, Tracy, and Cagney.That he seemed so comfortable far away from Hollywood only furthered the mythology of Hackman, who never showed even a little bit of interest in celebrity. In 2001, Hackman told The Los Angeles Times he wasnt sure where his Oscar statues were. Maybe theyre packed somewhere, he said.If you look at yourself as a star youve already lost something in the portrayal of any human being, Hackman told The New York Times in 1989. I need to wear that hair shirt. I need to keep myself on the edge and keep as pure as possible.The nature of that edge propelled Hackman through a blazing career that compressed movie star and character actor into one. Hackman sometimes spoke about the source of his drive. His father left when he was 13, departing with only a wave to his son who watched him go from a friends yard. It was a real adios, Hackman told Vanity Fair. It was so precise. Maybe thats why I became an actor. I doubt I would have become so sensitive to human behavior if that hadnt happened to me as a child if I hadnt realized how much one small gesture can mean.Hackmans youth was spent drifting. He quit high school after a blow-up with his basketball coach an ironic beginning for an actor whose Norman Dale in Hoosiers is probably the quintessential hardwood mentor in movies. He joined the Marines at 16. He was a poor Marine, he said, who chafed at authority.Years later when he was a doorman in New York, Hackmans old drill instructor walked by and muttered that he was a sorry son of a bitch. Hackman resolved to redouble his efforts to make it as an actor. Maybe more than anything, he was fueled by an Ill show you attitude. It was like me against them, Hackman later said, and in some way, unfortunately, I still feel that way. Together with Robert Duvall and Dustin Hoffman (a friend from the Pasadena Playhouse, where their classmates named them both least likely to succeed), Hackman spent years working day jobs in New York while hustling for acting gigs.Our affectation was anti-establishment, Hoffman said. Making it meant staying pure, not selling out. Making it meant doing the work.All of that living, coupled with Hackmans resistance to anything peripheral, led to one of the great acting runs of the 1970s. Foremost in that streak was Francis Ford Coppolas The Conversation (1974). The role of surveillance expert Harry Caul, who overhears a murder, is unique in Hackmans filmography. Coppola had first wanted Marlon Brando for the part, and you can understand why Hackman wouldnt be your first instinct. Hackman called Caul a constipated character everything in him is churning below the surface and never comes out in any kind of release beyond melancholy saxophone playing while sitting in an apartment torn apart by paranoia. Its a straightjacket of a role for a loose-cannon actor, and it showed how Hackman can simmer without coming to a boil.After 1973s The Scarecrow, one of Hackmans personal favorites, he reteamed with Penn for 1975s Night Moves, which, like The Conversation, remains definitive of 70s New Hollywood. Hackman plays a classic archetype, a Los Angeles gumshoe, filtered through a different time and mood. Hackmans private eye, Harry Moseby, finds little moral clarity in a missing-persons case where any heroism, including his own, is hard to find. Malaise reigns.Hackman wasnt just a 1970s leading man, though, and some of his less typical performances highlight his limitless range.For an actor bristling head to toe with defiance to authority, he could be brilliant at embodying it. Thats true of his stubborn submarine captain Frank Ramsey in Crimson Tide (1995) a performance that, like Hackmans in The French Connection, is shaded with racism. Its also true of his close-minded Republican Senator Kevin Keeley in The Birdcage (1996), who enters the movie an up-tight homophobe and leaves it, bewildered, dressed in drag and singing We Are Family.But one of Hackmans most all-encompassing roles was also his last major one. In Wes Andersons The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) Hackman gave arguably the finest comedic performance of the 21st century. His Royal Tenenbaum is an absent father, an unrepentant liar, a jealous scoundrel and a total delight. Its the liveliest swan song youve ever seen.In the glint of Royals eye, Hackmans own zest for life comes through. (Outside of acting, Hackman wrote novels, raced cars and restored homes.) Before taking them on a city-wide escape scored to Paul Simons Me and Julio (Down by the Schoolyard), he tells his grandchildren to worry less and go have some fun: Im talking about taking it out and chopping it up.You couldnt memorialize Hackman anymore than you could Royal. The Tenenbaum patriarchs very fictious, self-penned gravestone read: Died tragically saving his family from the wreckage of a destroyed sinking battleship. Accurate? No. But close enough. JAKE COYLE Coyle has been a film critic and covered the movie industry for The Associated Press since 2013. He is based in New York City. twitter mailto

San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich during the second half of a preseason NBA basketball game against the Orlando Magic in San Antonio, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)2025-02-27T19:30:56Z Gregg Popovich will not coach this season. He is not ruling out a comeback in the future.Popovich met with the San Antonio Spurs on Thursday, releasing a statement afterward to make his decision on this season and hope for next season public. The 76-year-old Popovich, the NBAs all-time coaching wins leader, had a stroke at the teams arena in San Antonio on Nov. 2 and has been away from the team since.Ive decided not to return to the sidelines this season, Popovich said in a statement distributed by the team. (Acting coach) Mitch Johnson and his staff have done a wonderful job and the resolve and professionalism the players have shown, sticking together during a challenging season, has been outstanding.Popovich has been in regular contact with Johnson, some team officials and has talked with some players at times during his absence but he has not been seen at games or been known to be at any practices since the stroke happened. I will continue to focus on my health with the hope that I can return to coaching in the future, Popovich said.Popovichs visit to the team came a week after the Spurs announced that All-Star center Victor Wembanyama the defensive player of the year favorite at the time and someone who was a serious candidate to make the All-NBA team will not play again this season after deep vein thrombosis, or a blood clot, was found in his right shoulder. Wembanyama, who came to San Antonio as the No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft after playing as a pro in France, has called Popovich his biggest basketball influence. Pop isnt just a coach or a boss, the 21-year-old Wembanyama said earlier this month. Pop is a leader.The Spurs have not updated Popovichs rehabilitation process in some time, other than saying that he is expected to make a full recovery. The team has not revealed what, if any, issues Popovich has been dealing with since the stroke. Popovich agreed to a five-year contract extension with the team in 2023, one that would have him signed to be on the sideline through the 2027-28 season. His only public comment prior to Thursday about his health and his future came in mid-December, when he said he and his family were overwhelmed by the outpouring of support weve received during this time.Popovich mentioned returning to coaching in that statement, but did not reveal any timetable in a self-deprecating quip. No one is more excited to see me return to the bench than the talented individuals who have been leading my rehabilitation process, Popovich said in the December statement. Theyve quickly learned that Im less than coachable.Popovichs record was 1,388-824 when he had the stroke, and the Spurs record since 22-30, all with Johnson serving as the active coach also goes toward his career numbers by league rule, since he is still listed as the teams head coach.No coach has been with one team for more games than Popovich, who has led the Spurs to five NBA championships and guided USA Basketball to an Olympic gold medal at the Tokyo Games in 2021. Popovich is one of only three coaches to win the NBA coach of the year award three times, Don Nelson and Pat Riley being the others. Hes one of five coaches with at least five NBA titles; Phil Jackson (11), Red Auerbach (nine), John Kundla (five) and Riley (five) are the others.Popovich has been part of the Spurs for 35 years. He was an assistant coach from 1988-92, then returned to the club on May 31, 1994, as its executive vice president for basketball operations and general manager. He fired coach Bob Hill and appointed himself coach on Dec. 10, 1996.Popovich has led the Spurs ever since.Ive been blessed to be able to grow in my voice and be empowered by him in many ways, Johnson said when the Spurs were in Paris for a pair of games against the Indiana Pacers last month. And we are in contact constantly. He is watching games, still as opinionated as hes ever been, and competitive, and what you would think giving praise and cussing me out, all at the same time.___AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA TIM REYNOLDS Reynolds is an Associated Press sports writer, based in South Florida. twitter mailto