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 Outdated infrastructure and unpaved roads have not kept pace as European and Chinese investment pours into the fishing industry, and as migrants and their children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

Protestors hold signs during a rally for a nationwide economic blackout Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)2025-02-27T20:17:05Z NEW YORK (AP) A grassroots organization is encouraging U.S. residents not to spend any money Friday as an act of economic resistance to protest what the groups founder sees as the malign influence of billionaires, big corporations and both major political parties on the lives of working Americans. The Peoples Union USA calls the 24 hours of spending abstinence set to start at midnight an economic blackout, a term that has since been shared and debated on social media. The activist movement said it also plans to promote weeklong consumer boycotts of particular companies, including Walmart and Amazon. Other activists, faith-based leaders and consumers already are organizing boycotts to protest companies that have scaled back their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and to oppose President Donald Trumps moves to abolish all federal DEI programs and policies. Some faith leaders are encouraging their congregations to refrain from shopping at Target, one of the companies backing off DEI efforts, during the 40 days of Lent that begin Wednesday. Here are some details about the various events and experts thoughts on whether having consumers keep their wallets closed is an effective tool for influencing the positions corporations take. Whos behind the 24-hour Economic Blackout?The Peoples Union USA, which takes credit for initiating the no-spend day, was founded by John Schwarz, a meditation teacher who lives near the Chicago area, according to his social media accounts. The organizations website said its not tied to a political party but stands for all people. Requests for comment sent to the groups email address this week did not receive a reply. The planned blackout is scheduled to run from 12 a.m. EST through 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday. The activist group advised customers to abstain from making any purchases, whether in store or online, but particularly not from big retailers or chains. It wants participants to avoid fast food and filling their car gas tanks, and says shoppers with emergencies or in need of essentials should support a local small business and try not to use a credit or debit card. Peoples Union plans another broad-based economic blackout on March 28, but its also organizing boycotts targeting specific retailers Walmart and Amazon as well as global food giants Nestle and General Mills. For the boycott against Amazon, the organization is encouraging people to refrain from buying anything from Whole Foods, which the e-commerce company owns. What other boycotts are being planned? There are a number of boycotts being planned, particularly aimed at Target. The discounter, which has backed diversity and inclusion efforts aimed at uplifting Black and LGBTQ+ people in the past, announced in January it was rolling back its DEI initiatives. A labor advocacy group called We Are Somebody, led by Nina Turner, launched a boycott of Target on February 1 to coincide with Black History Month.Meanwhile, an Atlanta-area pastor, the Rev. Jamal Bryant, organized a website called targetfast.org to recruit Christians for a a 40-day Target boycott starting March 5, which marks Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Other faith leaders have endorsed the protest. The Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network, a civil rights organization, announced in late January it would identify two companies in the next 90 days that will be boycotted for abandoning their diversity, equity and inclusion pledges. The organization formed a commission to identify potential candidates. Donald Trump can cut federal DEI programs to the bone, he can claw back federal money to expand diversity, but he cannot tell us what grocery store we shop at, Sharpton said in a statement posted on the National Action Networks website. Will the events have any impact? Some retailers may feel a slight pinch from Fridays broad blackout, which is taking place in a tough economic environment, experts said. Renewed inflation worries and Trumps threat of tariffs on imported goods already have had an effect on consumer sentiment. The (market share) pie is just so big, Marshal Cohen, chief retail advisor at market research firm Circana, said. You cant afford to have your slices get smaller. Consumers are spending more money on food. And that means theres more pressure on general merchandise or discretionary products.Still, Cohen thinks the overall impact may be limited, with any meaningful sales declines more likely to surface in liberal-leaning coastal regions and big cities. Anna Tuchman, a marketing professor at Northwestern Universitys Kellogg School of Management, said she thinks the economic blackout will likely make a dent in daily retail sales but wont be sustainable.I think this is an opportunity for consumers to show that they have a voice on a single day, she said. I think its unlikely that we would see long-run sustained decreases in economic activity supported by this boycott. Other boycotts have produced different results. Target saw a drop in sales in the spring and summer quarter of 2023 that the discounter attributed in part to customer backlash over a collection honoring LGBTQ+ communities for Pride Month. As a result, Target didnt carry Pride merchandise in all of its stores the following year.Tuchman studied the impact of a boycott against Goya Foods during the summer of 2020 after the companys CEO praised Trump. But her study, based on sales from research firm Numerator, found the brand saw a sales increase driven by first-time Goya buyers who were disproportionately from heavily Republican areas. However, the revenue bump proved temporary; Goya had no detectable sales increase after three weeks, Tuchman said.It was a different story for Bud Light, which spent decades as Americas bestselling beer. Sales plummeted in 2023 after the brand sent a commemorative can to a transgender influencer. Bud Lights sales still havent fully recovered, according to alcohol consulting company Bump Williams.Tuchman thinks a reason is because there were plenty of other beers that the brands mostly conservative customer base could buy to replace Bud Light. Afya Evans, a political and image consultant in Atlanta, said she would make a point of shopping on Friday but will focus on small businesses and Black-owned brands.Evans is aware of other boycotts but she said she liked this one because she believes it could have some effect on sales.Its a broader thing, she said. We want to see what the impact is. Let everybody participate. And plan from there.___AP Business Writer Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit contributed to this report. ANNE DINNOCENZIO DInnocenzio writes about retail, trends, the consumer economy and hourly workers for The Associated Press. twitter mailto HALELUYA HADERO Hadero covers online shopping and technology with a focus on Amazon, TikTok and internet culture for The Associated Press. twitter mailto

A doctor holds a vial of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil in Chicago on Aug. 28, 2006. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)2025-02-27T20:12:23Z A new government report adds to evidence that the HPV vaccine, once called dangerous by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is preventing cervical cancer in young women.The report comes after Kennedy pledged to give a family member any fees he might earn from HPV vaccine litigation. In a 2019 video posted on the anti-vaccine nonprofit Childrens Health Defense website, Kennedy called Gardasil the most dangerous vaccine ever invented. The new report found that from 2008 to 2022, rates for precancerous lesions decreased about 80% among 20- to 24-year-old women who were screened for cervical cancer. The estimates were published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.HPV, or human papillomavirus, is very common and is spread through sex. Most HPV infections cause no symptoms and clear up without treatment. Others develop into cancer, about 37,000 cases a year, according to the CDC. Women in their 20s are the group most likely to have been given the HPV vaccine, which has been recommended in the U.S. since 2006 for girls at age 11 or 12 and since 2011 for boys the same age. Catch-up shots are recommended for anyone through age 26 who hasnt been vaccinated. Jane Montealegre of MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, who was not involved in the study, called the decline dramatic and said it can be attributed to the increasing use of the safe and effective HPV vaccine. This should reassure parents that theyre doing the right thing in getting their children vaccinated against HPV, said Montealegre, a cancer-prevention researcher.Other countries also have reported declining rates of cervical precancer in younger and more vaccinated cohorts, she said. The U.S. doesnt have a national registry but estimates whats happening across the country by monitoring five sites.Kennedys financial relationship with litigation against the maker of the HPV vaccine came under scrutiny during his confirmation hearings. The health secretary has since told lawmakers that he has referred hundreds of clients to the law firm suing vaccine-maker Merck in an arrangement where he would be entitled to 10% of contingency fees awarded.One of Kennedys sons, Conor, is an attorney at that law firm, WisnerBaum. In an amended ethics agreement, Kennedy said he will give any fees he earns from litigation over the HPV vaccine to a nondependent adult family member. ___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. 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

In this file photo provided by Los Alamos National Laboratory, barrels of radioactive waste are loaded for transport to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) at the Radioactive Assay Nondestructive Testing (RANT) facility in Los Alamos, N.M., April 2019. (Nestor Trujillo/Los Alamos National Laboratory via AP, File)2025-02-27T20:48:14Z WASHINGTON (AP) Civilian federal jobs are being cut by the thousands, as Elon Musks Department of Government Efficiency continues to shrink the government workforce at the behest of President Donald Trump.Thats brought a lot of churn and uncertainty in the nations capital, where 20% of the countrys more than 2 million civilian or nonmilitary federal workers are located. Its also affecting workers and communities outside the Washington, D.C. area, where about 80% of that workforce is based. Those cuts mean that members of Congress are now facing potential angst among the out-of-work federal employees in their districts across the country. The precise locations of all of the thousands of federal employees now out of work isnt yet known, but a look at the areas with the highest concentrations of civilian U.S. government jobs gives a glimpse at some places that could be most affected. Heres a breakdown of federal government jobs across the country by the numbers, surveying data from a Congressional Research Service analysis of Census Bureau estimates, as of 2023: D.C. area, represented by Democrats, has highest federal worker concentrationIts no surprise that the District of Columbia has the highest percentage of federal workers, who account for 18.5% of the total workforce.And the areas immediately outside the city, in whats known as the DMV which includes Washington and parts of Maryland and Virginia are next up with the highest concentrations of federal workers, with the top nine districts where percentages of federal workers range from 18.2% down to 8.4%. Most of those districts are represented by Democrats, meaning that some of the areas albeit those in the D.C. area likely to have the most significant impacts from DOGE cuts are represented by that party in the U.S. House.The one with the highest percentage of federal workforce is Marylands 5th District, represented by Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer. There, about 18.2% of all workers are employed by the federal government. Republican districts are affected, tooAfter the districts closest to Washington, D.C., there are GOP-represented areas with high federal worker percentages.Virginias 2nd District, represented by Republican Rep. Jennifer Kiggans along the states southeastern border with North Carolina is the GOP area with the highest concentration of federal workers, at 8.1%. Home to Virginia Beach, and a large U.S. Navy presence, its considered among the nations most politically competitive districts.Central Oklahomas 4th District, represented by GOP Rep. Tom Cole, has a workforce where 7.7% is employed by the federal government. The district is home to Fort Sill Army Post and Tinker Air Force Base, the latter of which includes the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Complex. Oklahomas largest single-site employer, according to Tinkers website, the complex provides support for dozens of other Air Force Bases.Federal employees make up 7.6% of the workforce in Alabamas 5th District, which includes Huntsville and is represented by Republican Rep. Dale Strong. The area encompasses NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center, which has had a role in rocket engineering and U.S. space exploration efforts from the Saturn rockets integral to moon missions, the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Stations laboratory modules.The data examined here doesnt pertain directly to military jobs. Thousands of civilian government employees across the country work in areas near or attached to military installations. Alaska, represented by an at-large Republican, has a high concentrationAlaskas sole U.S. House member, Rep. Nick Begich, represents a state with a total federal worker percentage of 6.3%. Scott Goldsmith, an economist at the University of Alaska Anchorage, has described the states economy as a three-legged stool kept balanced by three components: the oil and gas industry, the federal government, and then all other industries combined.The federal government manages a significant amount of land in Alaska. Workers are employed by the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Service, among others. New Mexico has highest percentage of federal workers across all districtsAll three of New Mexicos House districts are represented by Democrats, and all of them have significant federal workforces. Sandia National Laboratories and Los Alamos National Laboratory, two major federal research institutions, are located in the state, where the federal government is the No. 2 largest employer, according to the New Mexico Partnership.Percentages of federal workers across the districts range from 6.3% in Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandezs 3rd District to 6.2% in Rep. Gabriel Vasquezs 2nd District. In the 1st District, represented by Rep. Melanie Ann Stansbury, the workforce is 6.8% federal employees.___Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP MEG KINNARD Kinnard covers national politics for The Associated Press. She lives in South Carolina. twitter instagram mailto

A Social Security card is displayed Oct. 12, 2021, in Tigard, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane, File)2025-02-27T21:16:00Z WASHINGTON (AP) The Social Security Administration is preparing to lay off at least 7,000 people from its workforce of 60,000, according to a person familiar with the agencys plans who is not authorized to speak publicly. The workforce reduction, according to a second person who also spoke on condition of anonymity, could be as high as 50%.Its unclear how the layoffs will directly impact benefits of the 72.5 million Social Security beneficiaries, which include retirees and children who receive retirement and disability benefits. However, advocates and Democratic lawmakers warn that layoffs will reduce the agencys ability to serve recipients in a timely manner. Some say cuts to the workforce are in effect a cut in benefits.The layoffs are part of the Trump administrations intensified efforts to shrink the size of the federal workforce through the Department of Government Efficiency, run by President Donald Trump advisor Elon Musk. A representative from the Social Security Administration did not respond to an Associated Press request for comment.The people familiar with the agencys plans say that SSAs new acting commissioner Leland Dudek held a meeting this week with management and told them they had to produce a plan that eliminated half of the workforce at SSA headquarters in Washington and at least half of the workers in regional offices. In addition, the termination of office leases for Social Security sites across the country are detailed on the DOGE website, which maintains a Wall of Receipts, which is a self-described transparent account of DOGEs findings and actions. The site states that leases for dozens of Social Security sites across Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, and other states have been or will be ended. The Social Security Administration is already chronically understaffed. Now, the Trump Administration wants to demolish it, said Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, an advocacy group for the popular public benefit program. Altman said the reductions in force will deny many Americans access to their hard-earned Social Security benefits. Field offices around the country will close. Wait times for the 1-800 number will soar.Social Security is one of the nations largest and most popular social programs. A January poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that two-thirds of U.S. adults think the country is spending too little on Social Security.The program faces a looming bankruptcy date if it is not addressed by Congress. The May 2024 Social Security and Medicare trustees report states that Social Securitys trust funds which cover old age and disability recipients will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2035. Then, Social Security would only be able to pay 83% of benefits.Like other agencies, DOGE has embedded into the Social Security Administration as part of Trumps January executive order, which has drawn concerns from career officials. This month, the Social Security Administration s former acting commissioner Michelle King stepped down from her role at the agency after DOGE requested access Social Security recipient information, according to two people familiar with the officials departure who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said in a statement that a plan like this will result in field office closures that will hit seniors in rural communities the hardest.Other news organizations, including The American Prospect and The Washington Post have reported that half of the Social Security Administrations workforce could be on the chopping block. FATIMA HUSSEIN Hussein reports on the U.S. Treasury Department for The Associated Press. She covers tax policy, sanctions and any issue that relates to money. twitter mailto

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, speaks during a hearing, May 8, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)2025-02-27T22:10:40Z WASHINGTON (AP) Five former secretaries of defense are calling on Congress to hold immediate hearings on President Donald Trumps recent firings of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and several other senior military leaders, according to a letter obtained by The Associated Press.The five men who represented Republican and Democratic administrations over the past three decades said the dismissals were alarming, raised troubling questions about the administrations desire to politicize the military and removed legal constraints on the presidents power.Late last week, Trump fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth followed that by firing Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations; Gen. Jim Slife, vice chief of the Air Force; and the judge advocates general for the military services. Hegseth has defended the firing of Brown, saying that other presidents made changes in military personnel and that Trump deserves to pick his own team. Hegseth said he fired the JAGs because he didnt think they were well-suited to provide recommendations when lawful orders are given. The letter signed by William Perry, Leon Panetta, Chuck Hagel, Jim Mattis and Lloyd Austin said there were no real justifications for the firings because several of the officers had been nominated by Trump for previous positions. And it said they had exemplary careers, including operational and combat experience. We, like many Americans including many troops are therefore left to conclude that these leaders are being fired for purely partisan reasons, said the letter, adding that were not asking members of Congress to do us a favor; were asking them to do their jobs.In the meantime, they said, senators should refuse to confirm any new Pentagon nominations, including retired Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, who Trump has said should be the next joint chiefs chairman. Trumps choice of Caine is unusual. Caine, who is widely respected in the military, would have to come back onto active duty but he does not meet the legal requirements for the top post. According to law, a chairman must have served as a combatant commander or service chief. The president can waive those requirements. Hagel is a Republican and Mattis, an independent, was Trumps first defense chief. The other three are Democrats. Four of the five served in the military, including two Mattis and Austin who were four-star generals.The House and Senate should demand that the administration justify each firing and fully explain why it violated Congress legislative intent that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff complete a four-year term in office, the letter said.The chairman has a four-year term, and Brown had served a bit less than 17 months.In recent decades, a number of three-star and four-star officers have been fired, but Pentagon leaders have routinely made clear why they were ousted. Those reasons included disagreements over the conduct of the Iraq or Afghanistan wars, problems with the oversight of Americas nuclear arsenal and public statements critical of the president and other leaders. 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

Megan Brown and other protesters fill the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)2025-02-27T05:05:15Z DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) Iowa lawmakers voted to remove gender identity protections from the states civil rights code Thursday despite massive protests by opponents who say it could expose transgender people to discrimination in numerous areas of life.The measure raced through the legislative process after first being introduced last week. The state Senate was first to approve the bill on Thursday, followed by the House less than an hour later. Hundreds of LGBTQ+ advocates streamed into the Capitol rotunda on Thursday waving signs reading Trans rights are human rights and chanting slogans including No hate in our state! There was a heavy police presence, with state troopers stationed around the rotunda. Of the 167 people who signed up to testify at a 90-minute public hearing before a House committee, all but 24 were opposed to the bill. Protesters that watched the vote from the House gallery loudly booed and shouted Shame! as the chamber adjourned. Many admonished Iowa state Rep. Steven Holt, who floor managed the bill and delivered a fierce defense of it before it passed. The bill would remove gender identity as a protected class from the states civil rights law and explicitly define female and male, as well as gender, which would be considered a synonym for sex and shall not be considered a synonym or shorthand expression for gender identity, experienced gender, gender expression, or gender role.The measure would be the first legislative action removing nondiscrimination protections based on gender identity, said Logan Casey, director of policy research at the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ rights think tank.Supporters of the change say the current law incorrectly codified the idea that people can transition to another gender and granted transgender women access to spaces such as bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams that should be protected for people who were assigned female at birth. The legislature of Iowa for the future of our children and our culture has a vested interest and solemn responsibility to stand up for immutable truth, Holt said. The legislation now goes to Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who has been supportive of efforts to limit gender identity protections.The Iowa lawmakers actions came on the same day the Georgia House backed away from removing gender protections from the states hate crimes law, which was passed in 2020 after the death of Ahmaud Arbery. Protesters fill the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Protesters fill the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Iowas current civil rights law protects against discrimination based on race, color, creed, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation, religion, national origin or disability status.Sexual orientation and gender identity were not originally included in the states Civil Rights Act of 1965. They were added by the Democratic-controlled Legislature in 2007, also with the support of about a dozen Republicans across the two chambers.Iowa Republicans say their changes are intended to reinforce the states ban on sports participation and public bathroom access for transgender students. If approved, the bill would go to Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, who signed those policies into law. A spokesperson for Reynolds declined to comment on whether she would sign the bill. Protesters fill the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Protesters fill the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Protesters fill the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Protesters fill the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Protesters fill the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Protesters fill the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Iowa state Rep. Aime Wichtendahl was the last Democrat to speak out against the bill, becoming emotional as she offered her personal story as a transgender woman, saying: I transitioned to save my life. The purpose of this bill and the purpose of every anti-trans bill is to further erase us from public life and to stigmatize our existence, Wichtendahl said. The sum total of every anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ bill is to make our existence illegal.About half of U.S. states include gender identity in their civil rights code to protect against discrimination in housing and public places, such as stores or restaurants, according to the Movement Advancement Project. Some additional states do not explicitly protect against such discrimination but it is included in legal interpretations of statutes. Lawmakers are present to vote on a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Lawmakers are present to vote on a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Protesters fill the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Protesters fill the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Protesters fill the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Protesters fill the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Protesters sit in the rotunda at the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Protesters sit in the rotunda at the Iowa state Capitol to denounce a bill that would strip the state civil rights code of protections based on gender identity, Feb. 27, 2025, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Iowas Supreme Court has expressly rejected the argument that discrimination based on sex includes discrimination based on gender identity.Several Republican-led legislatures are also pushing to enact more laws this year creating legal definitions of male and female based on the reproductive organs at birth following an executive order from President Donald Trump. Trump also signed orders laying the groundwork for banning transgender people from military service and keeping transgender girls and women out of girls and womens sports competitions, among other things. Most of the policies are being challenged in court.___Associated Press writer Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed to this report.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin speaks at the East Palestine Fire Department in East Palestine, Ohio, Feb. 3, 2025. (Rebecca Droke/Pool Photo via AP, File)2025-02-27T23:00:42Z WASHINGTON (AP) Despite a comment by President Donald Trump, the Environmental Protection Agency does not plan to reduce its staff by 65%, the White House and the agency said Thursday, though major budget cuts are likely.A White House spokeswoman said the 65% figure referred to expected spending cuts at the agency, rather than staffing levels, a comment that was amplified by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.We dont need to be spending all that money that went through the EPA last year, Zeldin told Fox News on Thursday. We dont want to spend it. We dont need it. The American public needs it and we need to balance the budget.President Joe Biden requested about $10.9 billion for the EPA in the current budget year, an increase of 8.5% over the previous one, but Zeldin said the agency needs far less money to do its work. He also criticized EPA grants authorized under the 2022 climate law, including $20 billion for a so-called green bank to pay for climate and clean-energy programs. Zeldin has vowed to revoke contracts for the still-emerging bank program that is set to fund tens of thousands of projects to fight climate change and promote environmental justice. Were saying to Congress and the American people, please dont send us tens of billions of dollars to spend this year, Zeldin said in the Fox interview.White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers said Thursday that President Trump, DOGE, and Administrator Zeldin are committed to cutting waste, fraud, and abuse. ... Administrator Zeldin is committed to eliminating 65% of the EPAs wasteful spending. The head of the EPAs largest union called the comments by Trump and Zeldin disheartening and said there is a lack of leadership within the EPA.Marie Owens Powell, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238, said she was saddened by the carelessness of Trumps remarks Wednesday at a White House Cabinet meeting. A 65% reduction in staffing would be devastating to the agency and its mission, Powell said, adding that Trumps widely publicized comments put EPA employees in a tailspin. The EPA had 15,123 full-time employees as of last December, according to the latest budget. A reduction of 65% would mean the loss of nearly 10,000 jobs. Efforts by Zeldin and the White House to clarify that Trump was referring to budget cuts rather than staffing cuts offer little comfort, Powell said. Such a large spending cut would require major staffing reductions for jobs such as monitoring air and water quality, responding to natural disaster and lead abatement, among many other agency functions, she said.Frankly I dont know if we believe it,' she said of administration efforts to explain away Trumps comments. Powell cited a White House memo circulated this week that directs federal agencies to develop plans for eliminating thousands of employee positions and consolidating programs. Such an effort would be devastating to the EPA and other federal agencies,. Powell said.Democrats and environmental groups rushed to defend the EPAs mission, saying huge budget cuts would be disastrous. Gutting the agency by 65% will leave polluters unchecked, contaminating clean air, water and public health, and all but guaranteeing greater risk for vulnerable populations like children and the elderly, said Lauren Pagel, policy director of the environmental group Earthworks.She called on Congress and the courts to stop this reckless, ideological sabotage of the EPA.Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said recent layoffs at EPA, coupled with Zeldins comments about sharp spending cuts, show he had no intent to follow through on a pledge during his confirmation hearing to work collaboratively with EPAs staff.It is now clear that the fix was in from the very beginning, to help the looters and polluters who bankrolled President Trumps campaign, Whitehouse said. MATTHEW DALY Daly covers climate, environment and energy policy for The Associated Press. He is based in Washington, D.C. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

In this image released by the FBI shows the wanted posted for Rafael Caro Quintero. (FBI via AP, File)2025-02-27T20:06:31Z MEXICO CITY (AP) Mexico has sent drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was behind the killing of a U.S. DEA agent in 1985, to the United States with 28 prisoners requested by the U.S. government, a Mexican government official and other sources said Thursday.It comes as top Mexican officials are in Washington trying to head off the Trump administrations threat of imposing 25% tariffs on all Mexican imports starting Tuesday.The official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, confirmed Caro Quinteros removal. Another person familiar with Mexicos actions also confirmed the removal on the condition of anonymity because they were unable to discuss sensitive diplomatic negotiations.Mexicos Attorney Generals Office said in a statement that the 29 prisoners sent to the U.S. Thursday faced charges related to drug trafficking among other crimes. Also among those removed were two leaders of the Los Zetas cartel, Mexicans Miguel Trevio Morales and his brother Omar Trevio Morales, known as Z-40 and Z-42, the official confirmed.This is historical, this has really never happened in the history of Mexico, said Mike Vigil, former DEA chief of international operations. This is a huge celebratory thing for the Drug Enforcement Administration. The removal of the drug lords from Mexico coincided with a visit to Washington by Mexicos Foreign Minister Juan Ramn de la Fuente and other top economic and military officials, who met with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The meeting was the latest in ongoing negotiations with the U.S. over trade and security relations, which have radically shifted since U.S. President Donald Trump took office. In exchange for delaying tariffs, Trump had insisted that Mexico crack down on cartels, illegal migration and fentanyl production, despite significant dips in migration and overdoses over the past year. The removals may indicate that negotiations are moving along as the tariff deadline approaches. Mexicos surprise handover of one of the FBIs Ten Most Wanted Fugitives was weeks in the making.Caro Quintero had walked free in 2013 after 28 years in prison when a court overturned his 40-year sentence for the 1985 kidnapping and killing of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Kiki Camarena. The brutal murder marked a low point in U.S.-Mexico relations.Caro Quintero, the former leader of the Guadalajara cartel, had since returned to drug trafficking and unleashed bloody turf battles in the northern Mexico border state of Sonora until he was arrested by Mexican forces in 2022.In January, a nonprofit group representing the Camarena family sent a letter to the White House urging the Trump administration to renew longstanding U.S. requests for Mexico to extradite Caro Quintero, according to a copy of the letter provided to The Associated Press by a person familiar with the familys outreach.His return to the U.S. would give the family much needed closure and serve the best interests of justice, the letter states. Pressure increased after Trump threatened imposing stiff trade tariffs on Mexico and designated several Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, according to the person on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive diplomacy that went into Caro Quinteros removal.The acting head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Derek Maltz, provided to the White House a list of nearly 30 Mexican targets wanted in the U.S. on criminal charges, according to the person. Caro Quintero, for whose arrest the U.S. had offered a $20 million reward, was number one on that list, according to the person.The person said President Claudia Sheinbaums government, in a rush to seek favor with the Trump administration and show itself a strong ally in the fight against the cartels, bypassed the formalities of the U.S.-Mexico extradition treaty to remove Caro Quintero and the other defendants.That means it could potentially allow prosecutors in the U.S. to try him for Camarenas murder something not contemplated in the existing extradition request to face separate drug trafficking charges in a Brooklyn federal court. If hes being sent to the U.S. outside of a formal extradition, and if Mexico didnt place any restrictions, then he can be prosecuted for whatever the U.S. wants, according to Bonnie Klapper, a former federal narcotics prosecutor in Brooklyn who is familiar with the case.The U.S. had sought the extradition of Caro Quintero shortly after his arrest in 2022. But the request remained stuck at Mexicos foreign ministry for unknown reasons as Sheinbaums predecessor and political mentor, Andrs Manuel Lopez Obrador, severely curtailed Mexican cooperation with DEA to protest undercover U.S. law enforcement operations in Mexico targeting senior political and military officials. The removal of the Trevio Morales brothers also marks the end of a long process that began after the capture in 2013 of Miguel Trevio Morales and two years later of his brother, Omar. The process wound on for so many years that Mexicos Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero, described the lags as truly shameful.The Trevio Morales family, who have been accused by American authorities of running the violent northeastern Cartel from prison, have charges pending in the US for participation in a criminal organization, drug trafficking, firearms offenses and money laundering.Mexican security analyst David Saucedo said that since negotiations with the Trump administration began, he had expected the U.S. government to demand three things: an increase in drug seizures, arrests of high-profile drug trafficking suspects and the handing over of drug traffickers long targeted by the U.S. for extradition.He called Thursdays removals an important concession by Mexicos government to the United States.The United States intention is to extend its justice system, so that crimes committed in Mexico are prosecuted in the U.S., Saucedo said.The decision also threatens to upend an unwritten understanding with notable exceptions that Mexican drug lords would serve sentences in Mexican prisons where they were often able continue to run their illicit businesses, Saucedo said. There will surely be a furious reaction by drug trafficking groups against the Mexican state, he said.____Goodman reported from Miami. Megan Janetsky contributed to this report from Mexico City.____Follow APs coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america JOSHUA GOODMAN Goodman is a Miami-based investigative reporter who writes about the intersection of crime, corruption, drug trafficking and politics in Latin America. He previously spent two decades reporting from South America. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Demonstrators protest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) layoffs in front of the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Feb. 18, 2025. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, file)2025-02-27T17:26:12Z SAN FRANCISCO (AP) A federal judge in San Francisco on Thursday found that the mass firings of probationary employees were likely unlawful, granting some temporary relief to a coalition of labor unions and organizations that has sued to stop the Trump administrations massive trimming of the federal workforce.U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered the Office of Personnel Management to inform certain federal agencies that it had no authority to order the firings of probationary employees, including the Department of Defense.OPM does not have any authority whatsoever, under any statute in the history of the universe, to hire or fire any employees but its own, he said.Alsup handed down the order on a temporary restraining order sought by labor unions and nonprofits in a lawsuit filed by the coalition filed last week.The complaint filed by five labor unions and five nonprofit organizations is among multiple lawsuits pushing back on the administrations efforts to vastly shrink the federal workforce, which Trump has called bloated and sloppy. Thousands of probationary employees have already been fired and his administration is now aiming at career officials with civil service protection. The plaintiffs say the Office of Personnel Management had no authority to terminate the jobs of probationary workers who generally have less than a year on the job. They also say the firings were predicated on a lie of poor performance by the workers. Lawyers for the government say the Office of Personnel Management did not direct the firings, but asked agencies to review and determine whether employees on probation were fit for continued employment. They also say that probationary employees are not guaranteed employment and that only the highest performing and mission-critical employees should be hired. There are an estimated 200,000 probationary workers generally employees who have less than a year on the job across federal agencies. About 15,000 are employed in California, providing services ranging from fire prevention to veterans care, the complaint says. Unions have recently struck out with two other federal judges in similar lawsuits attempting to stop the Trump administrations goal of vastly reducing the federal workforce. Alsup, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, has presided over many high-profile cases and is known for his blunt talk. He oversaw the criminal probation of Pacific Gas & Electric and has called the nations largest utility a continuing menace to California.

Retired reverend Carrol Jensen wears a hat mimicking the Statue of Liberty as Reverend Emilie Binja, a former refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo speaks during a rally outside the U.S District Court after a federal judge blocked President Donald Trump's effort to halt the nation's refugee admissions system, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025 in Seattle. (AP Photo/Ryan Sun)2025-02-28T00:06:59Z SEATTLE (AP) Refugee aid groups said in a federal court filing Thursday that President Donald Trumps administration appears to be trying to circumvent a ruling this week that blocked his efforts to suspend the nations refugee admissions program.U.S. District Judge Jamal Whitehead in Seattle had determined on Tuesday that while the president has broad authority over who comes into the country, he cannot nullify the law passed by Congress establishing the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Whitehead, a 2023 appointee of former President Joe Biden, said Trumps actions amounted to an effective nullification of congressional will, and from the bench, he granted the aid groups request for a preliminary injunction blocking Trumps executive order suspending the refugee resettlement program. He promised a written ruling in the next few days. But Wednesday, aid groups, including Church World Service and the Jewish refugee resettlement organization HIAS, received notifications that their cooperative agreements with the State Department had been canceled.The groups on Thursday asked Whitehead for an emergency hearing to discuss the impact of the termination notices, or to make clear that his ruling also applies to those newly issued notices. The groups called the administrations actions a flagrant attempt to evade the courts ruling. Defendants are continuing to implement their defunding of the USRAP, and an emergency hearing is necessary to ensure that Defendants are not permitted to evade this Courts bench ruling and the forthcoming written order with antics designed to confuse the state of play, the motion said. Whitehead set a hearing for Monday.The State Department acknowledged receipt of an email from The Associated Press about the plaintiffs motion, but did not otherwise respond to questions about it. The notices indicated the cooperative agreements with the resettlement agencies were being terminated for the convenience of the U.S. Government pursuant to a directive from U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for alignment with Agency priorities and national interest. The refugee program, created by Congress in 1980, is a form of legal migration to the U.S. for people displaced by war, natural disaster or persecution a process that often takes years and involves significant vetting. It is different from asylum, by which people newly arrived in the U.S. can seek permission to remain because they fear persecution in their home country.Despite longstanding support from both parties for accepting refugees, the program has become politicized in recent years. Trump also temporarily halted it during his first term, and then dramatically decreased the number of refugees who could enter the U.S. each year.There are 600,000 people being processed to come to the U.S. as refugees around the world, according to the administration.Trumps order and the administrations subsequent withholding of funds stranded refugees who had already been approved to come to the U.S., forced the refugee aid groups to lay off staff, and cut off short-term assistance, such as rent, for those who had recently resettled here, the organizations said in the lawsuit challenging the actions. Thursdays filing came the day after the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block another court order requiring it to release billions in suspended foreign aid. The administration also outlined plans to cancel 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.Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran and head of #AfghanEvac, a coalition supporting Afghan resettlement efforts, said the termination of the contracts would hurt Afghans who worked closely with the U.S. during its more than two-decade-long war in Afghanistan and are now at risk. They have been resettling in the U.S. via the refugee program as well as the special immigrant visa program. While the special immigrant visa program is still operational, the contract terminations strip away funding that went to helping those who qualified come to America and start new lives here.Now Afghans are on their own to get here, he said.Make no mistake about it, this is a betrayal on par with what we all felt in August of 2021, he said, referring to the chaotic American withdrawal from Kabul under the Biden administration.___Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed.

The National Weather Service monitoring station is seen in Brownville, Texas, May 23, 2014. (Valley Morning Star/Valley Morning Star via AP, File)2025-02-28T03:21:43Z WASHINGTON (AP) Hundreds of weather forecasters and other federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration employees on probationary status were fired Thursday, lawmakers and weather experts said.Federal workers who were not let go said the afternoon layoffs included meteorologists who do crucial local forecasts in National Weather Service offices across the country.Cuts at NOAA appeared to be happening in two rounds, one of 500 and one of 800, said Craig McLean, a former NOAA chief scientist who said he got the information from someone with first-hand knowledge. Thats about 10% of NOAAs workforce. The first round of cuts were probationary employees, McLean said. There are about 375 probationary employees in the National Weather Service where day-to-day forecasting and hazard warning is done.The firings come amid efforts by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency to shrink a federal workforce that President Donald Trump has called bloated and sloppy. Thousands of probationary employees across the government have already been fired. Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., released a statement saying: Today, hundreds of employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), including weather forecasters at the National Weather Service (NWS), were given termination notices for no good reason. This is unconscionable. Meng added: These are dedicated, hardworking Americans whose efforts help save lives and property from the devastating impacts of natural disasters across the country. This action will only endanger American lives going forward. Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat who is the ranking minority member in the House Natural Resources Committee, also said hundreds of scientists and experts at NOAA were let go.Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said on social media that the job cuts are spectacularly short-sighted, and ultimately will deal a major self-inflicted wound to the public safety of Americans and the resiliency of the American economy to weather and climate-related disasters. SETH BORENSTEIN Borenstein is an Associated Press science writer, covering climate change, disasters, physics and other science topics. He is based in Washington, D.C. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Premier of Ontario Doug Ford speaks to reporters, accompanied by other Council of the Federation members, at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)2025-02-28T03:40:34Z VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) Ontario Premier Doug Ford won reelection to lead Canadas most populous province Thursday, giving him the mandate he wanted to fight tariffs threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump.I am very grateful to the people of Ontario, Ford told CTV News afterward. Were going to make sure we will protect the people of Ontario and protect their families, their jobs and businesses. Ill fight tooth and nail against Donald Trump.Unofficial results from Elections Ontario showed Fords Progressive Conservative Party would win a majority government, giving him his third term as premier.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose Liberal Party will choose a new leader March 9, congratulated Ford on his victory.Ford called the election on Jan. 29, more than a year early. The Conservatives already held a majority with 79 seats. He said at the time he needed a four-year mandate to protect Ontario, Canadas manufacturing and automobile hub.Trump has threatened to implement 25% tariffs on all Canadian imports, with a lower 10% levy on energy, beginning Tuesday. He also has angered Canadians by talking about Canada becoming the 51st U.S. state. During the campaign Ford made two trips to Washington to speak to U.S. government and business leaders about the tariffs.Ford has said his government is prepared to spend tens of billions of dollars to protect jobs and the economy of Ontario, and he has mused about making Americans pay more for the electricity Ontario sends to the U.S. Opposition parties accuse Ford of calling an early election before any potential charges emerge from a police investigation into his now-scrapped plan to develop lands under environmental protection.They also said the cost of the election could have been better spent on health care and affordable housing.Jonathan Malloy, a political scientist at Carleton University in Ottawa, said the tariff threats gave Ford the excuse he needed to call an early election. Canadians are concerned with the Trump tariffs, Malloy said. Mr. Ford is being seen as being out front, responding to them. Thats politically advantageous for him.With a population of around 16 million, Ontario is the Canadian province with the most people and an economy that makes up 38% of Canadian GDP.During the campaign, Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie promised to connect every Ontarian to a family doctor, and New Democratic Party Leader Marit Stiles addressed health care and affordability.Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner made promises about building more housing, protecting farmland and improving affordability.I think this had been a very low-profile election, said Malloy. When Canadians are asked about the number one public issue these days, Im sure they would say the Trump tariffs. That has overshadowed the election.When the election was called, the NDP had 28 seats, the Liberals had nine and the Greens had two. There were six independents. A majority government requires at least 63 seats.Unofficial results from Elections Ontario showed the Progressive Conservatives winning 79 seats, the NDP 25, the Liberals 14, the Greens two and one independent.

A bird's eye view of a corrugated tin roof house, center in red, of the Angh, or tribal chief, which lies both in Myanmar and India, as seen from Longwa village, India, Friday, Dec. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath)2025-02-28T03:12:08Z LONGWA, India (AP) To the people who live there, Longwa is a typical hilltop village. The most imposing structure is a corrugated tin roof belonging to the Angh, a hereditary tribal chief. But recently, residents have been worried about another, less visible, local landmark: the border between India and Myanmar, which runs right through the villages center.National boundaries never mattered before to the local Konyak tribe. I eat in Myanmar and sleep in India, says Tonyei Phawang, the Angh, whose house sits on the border.The Indian government is now seeking to stop border crossings for the first time, revoking a system that made it legal for Indigenous people to cross freely and threatening to build a border fence that could cut villages like Longwa in two. Two countries, one communityOn a Thursday in December, Longwas marketplace was bustling with shoppers from the Myanmar side, motorbikes loaded with as much salt, flour, biscuits, clothes, milk, tea, soap as they could carry. The nearest town with a market on the other side of the border is Lahe, a full days drive away.Locals have long come and gone to shop, study or seek medical care, with no sign that theyre crossing an international border except a border marker sitting on a hilltop in the village. The Angh and village council members say their forefathers had no idea that the concrete pillar was meant to divide them when it was built in the early 1970s. B. Phohi Konyak stands near the border pillar erected on a hill top at Longwa village, on the India Myanmar border in the northeastern India state of Nagaland, Friday, Dec.13, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) B. Phohi Konyak stands near the border pillar erected on a hill top at Longwa village, on the India Myanmar border in the northeastern India state of Nagaland, Friday, Dec.13, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Villagers from Myanmar walk with their goods after shopping at Longwa village, that lies both in India and Myanmar, in the far eastern India state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Villagers from Myanmar walk with their goods after shopping at Longwa village, that lies both in India and Myanmar, in the far eastern India state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Villagers from Myanmar shop for clothes at Longwa village, that lies both in India and Myanmar, in the far eastern India state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Villagers from Myanmar shop for clothes at Longwa village, that lies both in India and Myanmar, in the far eastern India state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More A motorcycle of a villager from Myanmar laded with goods is parked at the corner of a dirt road at Longwa village, in the India-Myanmar border in the far eastern state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec.12, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) A motorcycle of a villager from Myanmar laded with goods is parked at the corner of a dirt road at Longwa village, in the India-Myanmar border in the far eastern state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec.12, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More At that time we had no idea this is India or Myanmar. It was a free land. There was nobody who understood English or Hindi. They understood nothing, Phawang says. Like dozens of other Indigenous Naga tribes, the Konyaks land straddles the mountains that divide India and Myanmar. Naga villages are usually built on hilltops for security, something that wasnt considered when the British East India Company drew the border in an agreement with the then-Kingdom of Burma. The Constitution of India does not allow dual citizenship, but people in Longwa see themselves as belonging to both countries. I am from both India and Burma, Phawang said, using another name for the country officially known as Myanmar. I vote in the Burmese election. And when the Indian election comes I vote there too. Tonyei Phawang, the Angh, or chief, sits in the entrance of his house which is divided between Myanmar and India, as marked on the gate, at Longwa village in the far eastern Indian state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Tonyei Phawang, the Angh, or chief, sits in the entrance of his house which is divided between Myanmar and India, as marked on the gate, at Longwa village in the far eastern Indian state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Tonyei Phawang, the Angh, or chief, stands outside his house which is divided between Myanmar and India at Longwa village in the far eastern India state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Tonyei Phawang, the Angh, or chief, stands outside his house which is divided between Myanmar and India at Longwa village in the far eastern India state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Tonyei Phawang, the Angh, or chief, walks in his house which is divided between Myanmar and India at Longwa village in the far eastern India state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Tonyei Phawang, the Angh, or chief, walks in his house which is divided between Myanmar and India at Longwa village in the far eastern India state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Phawang is chief of six Konyak villages in India and more than 30 in Myanmar, whose residents pay allegiance with a yearly feast as they have for some 10 generations.The reach of the Indian state was very limited in these borderlands until recently. People here often have documents from both governments, said Khriezo Yhome, a senior fellow and editor at Asian Confluence, a think tank working to create an understanding of eastern South Asian. However, there was practically no way for the state to do anything to check it.Border guards and fences could cut the village Indian Army soldiers stand near a community building at Longwa village on the India-Myanmar border in the northeastern India state of Nagaland, Friday, Dec.13, 2024. (AP Photo/Yirmiyan Arthur) Indian Army soldiers stand near a community building at Longwa village on the India-Myanmar border in the northeastern India state of Nagaland, Friday, Dec.13, 2024. (AP Photo/Yirmiyan Arthur) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Until recently, residents from both sides could travel legally within 16 kilometers (9.9 miles) of the border, but that started to change in February 2024, when the government revoked the Free Movement Regime to ensure the internal security of the country and to maintain the demographic structure of Indias North Eastern states bordering Myanmar. Change has come slowly in Longwa: it took almost a year before soldiers stationed in the village began checking documents, and Longwa residents still move freely after their shifts end in the early afternoon. But people from other villages in Myanmar are afraid to travel beyond Longwa to reach schools or medical care, said B. Phohi Konyak, a former local leader of an organization representing Konyak women. An elderly Kenyan Naga carries a basket filled with her belongings in the India-border village of Longwa, in the northeastern Indian state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec.12, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) An elderly Kenyan Naga carries a basket filled with her belongings in the India-border village of Longwa, in the northeastern Indian state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec.12, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Family members of the Angh, or tribal chief Tonyei Phawang sit and talk in the kitchen at Longwa village in the far eastern India state of Nagaland, Friday, Dec.13, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Family members of the Angh, or tribal chief Tonyei Phawang sit and talk in the kitchen at Longwa village in the far eastern India state of Nagaland, Friday, Dec.13, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Konyak Naga women carry baskets filled with firewood at Longwa village, on the India-Myanmar border in the northeastern India state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec.12, 2024. (AP Photo/Yirmiyan Arthur) Konyak Naga women carry baskets filled with firewood at Longwa village, on the India-Myanmar border in the northeastern India state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec.12, 2024. (AP Photo/Yirmiyan Arthur) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Children play by a traditional log drum in the house of the Angh, or chief, at Longwa village on the India-Myanmar border in the northeastern India state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec.12, 2024. (AP Photo/Yirmiyan Arthur) Children play by a traditional log drum in the house of the Angh, or chief, at Longwa village on the India-Myanmar border in the northeastern India state of Nagaland, Thursday, Dec.12, 2024. (AP Photo/Yirmiyan Arthur) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Indian Home Minister Amit Shah said the government has decided to construct a fence along the entire 1,643-kilometer (1,021-mile) long Indo-Myanmar border.If it follows the legal border, it would have to cut through dozens of houses. Of the 990 buildings in the village, 170 lie on the boundary line including a government school, the church and an army camp. Locals say a fence wont helpWangron Konyak, 23, drove five hours on his motorcycle from the village of Momkho to pick up his sister as school closed for vacation. If we are not allowed to come this side then we will suffer a lot. For those studying in Myanmar school it will be alright, but people like my sister who study in India will be very affected.Residents and state officials are rejecting the changes.The Nagaland state government passed a resolution opposing the end of the Free Movement Regime and plans for border fencing, and on Feb. 3 Longwa residents staged a protest carrying placards with slogans like Respect Indigenous rights, not colonial legacy! Dirt tracks are seen in the Myanmar side of the border, from the border pillar erected on a hilltop at Longwa village, on the India-Myanmar border, in the far eastern state of Nagaland, Friday, Dec.13, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Dirt tracks are seen in the Myanmar side of the border, from the border pillar erected on a hilltop at Longwa village, on the India-Myanmar border, in the far eastern state of Nagaland, Friday, Dec.13, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Konyak Naga women carry baskets filled with firewoods on their backs and walk past a concrete structure marking the India-Myanmar border at Longwa village, in the northeastern Indian state of Nagaland, Friday, Dec.13, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Konyak Naga women carry baskets filled with firewoods on their backs and walk past a concrete structure marking the India-Myanmar border at Longwa village, in the northeastern Indian state of Nagaland, Friday, Dec.13, 2024. (AP Photo/Anupam Nath) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Yhome, the expert, said that an effort to stop locals from crossing the border could violate the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, which seeks to protect the integrity of border-straddling communities.For us there is no Burma Longwa or India Longwa, Yanlang, a 45-year-old village council member. How can one village and one family be divided? asked RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Law enforcement officials talk outside the home of actor Gene Hackman on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025 in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Hackman, his wife Betsy Arakawa and their dog were found dead in the home a day earlier. (AP Photo/Roberto Rosales)2025-02-28T06:14:35Z Gene Hackman, a Hollywood giant and two-time Oscar winner, was found dead along with his wife and dog in their New Mexico home Wednesday, though investigators believe they may have been dead for some time and the cause of death has yet to be revealed.Hackman, 95, was a prolific actor who performed as an array of heroes and villains in films including The French Connection, Hoosiers and Superman from the 1960s until his retirement in the early 2000s. Questions swirl around the deaths as details of the scene trickle out. Here is what we know: What we know about the deathsInvestigators in Santa Fe, New Mexico, have not said whether they have determined the cause of death.According to a search warrant affidavit, a maintenance worker called police after finding the bodies Wednesday. He reported the homes front door was open when he arrived to do routine work. In a 911 call, the maintenance worker said he could see Hackmans wife, 63-year-old Betsy Arakawa, laying on the floor through a window but he was unable to get inside.Hackmans body was discovered in the homes entryway and Arakawa was found dead next to a space heater in a bathroom. On a countertop near Arakawa, pills were scattered next to an open prescription bottle, according to the search warrant. Police said they found the body of a German shepherd in the bathroom closet. Two other dogs were found alive on the property. No foul play was suspected, authorities said, though a search warrant showed investigators thought the deaths were suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation. The New Mexico Gas Co. tested gas lines at the home but didnt find any signs of problems at the time, according to the warrant.An investigator noted people may not show signs of poisoning if they are exposed to gas leaks or carbon monoxide, but also there werent signs of a leak.Results of autopsies conducted on both bodies were not available Thursday, authorities said. What was Hackman famous for?Hackman appeared in a broad range of movie roles dating back to 1961, when he debuted in Mad Dog Coll. Through the next four decades, his roles including arch nemesis Lex Luthor in the Superman movies and the iconic coach in Hoosiers helped put Hackman on a Hollywood pedestal. Hackmans performance as an obsessed and amoral cop in the 1971 film The French Connection earned an Oscar for best actor in a leading role and was considered one of his defining roles. Hackman swung another Oscar for playing a sadistic sheriff in 1992s Unforgiven. Hackman demurred from the pomp of celebrity and was considered an actors actor who focused on the job and not on his image, dodging social circuit appearances beyond some award ceremonies.As a boy, films offered Hackman an escape from a tumultuous homelife with an abusive father who left the family when Hackman was 13. How is Hollywood reacting?Sympathy and admiration for Hackman poured in from Hollywood legends including director Francis Ford Coppola, actor-director Clint Eastwood and actor Bill Murray.Murray worked with Hackman on director Wes Andersons 2001 film The Royal Tennenbaums. Hackman gave young directors such as Anderson a hard time but brought skill to the set, Murray said.I watched him once do, like, 25 takes where he did it perfectly with an actor who kept blowing it every single time, Murray told The Associated Press. He was a great one. He was a great actor.Actor Cary Elwes called Hackman a force of nature.Growing up on his movies was an absolute thrill for me, Elwes said on Instagram. To observe his remarkable facility and humanity in every role was something to behold.Everything you ever wanted to learn about acting can be found in any of Hackmans performances, actor Steve Toussaint posted on Instagram.The French Connection. Crimson Tide, The Conversation. Gosh! I could go on, Toussaint wrote. Who was his wife?Arakawa was born in Hawaii in December 1959 and grew up in the state. She studied piano while growing up in Honolulu and, as an 11-year-old sixth grader, performed in youth concerts in front of thousands of first and second graders at the Honolulu International Center Concert Hall, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin reported in 1971.Arakawa attended the University of Southern California from 1981 through 1983, the university said in an email.While in Los Angeles, she was a cheerleader for the Los Angeles Aztecs, a professional soccer team in the North American Soccer League, and worked as a production assistant on the television game show Card Sharks, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported in 1981.The classically trained pianist met Hackman while working part-time at a California gym in the mid-1980s. They soon moved in together and relocated to Santa Fe by the end of the decade.Arakawa was vice president of Pandoras, a home decor and furnishing store in Santa Fe, according to New Mexico business records. Where were Hackman and his wife living?Their Southwestern-style ranch sits atop a hill with views of the Rocky Mountains far from Hollywood. The area is known as a preferred location among artists and a retreat for celebrities. The home was featured in a 1990 article by Architectural Digest. The four-bedroom, 8,700-square-foot (808-square-meter) structure on 6 acres (2.4 hectares) had an estimated market value of a little over $4 million, according to Santa Fe County property tax records.Hackman often was seen around the historic state capital. His hobbies included painting, deep-sea diving and, later in life, writing novels. The couple enjoyed watching DVDs that Arakawa would rent, Hackman told the film magazine Empire in a 2009 interview.In his later years, Hackman was seen far less in public. Papers reported sightings of Hackman in mundane scenarios, such as when The New York Post detailed the former actor pumping gas and getting a chicken sandwich at Wendys in 2023.___Associated Press reporters Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, and Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, contributed to this report.___Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. JESSE BEDAYN Bedayn is a statehouse reporter for The Associated Press based in Denver. He is a Report for America corps member. mailto

Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes and carry their belongings as the Israeli military continues its operation in the area on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)2025-02-28T05:13:58Z JENIN, West Bank (AP) When Israeli snipers took positions in her neighborhood, Haleemeh Zawaydeh knew her family needed to leave quickly. As the snipers gunfire rang out, the 63-year-old matriarch said there was no time to pack as she and 14 other family members fled on foot. The invasion of Jenin was faster than past Israeli assaults, she said. And, now, like some 37,000 other Palestinians the U.N. estimates have been driven out by a month-old offensive against militant groups in the occupied West Bank, Zawaydeh and her family are waiting to return to the place theyve long called home. Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes and carry their belongings as the Israeli military continues its operation in the area on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes and carry their belongings as the Israeli military continues its operation in the area on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More But its unclear if Israel will let them. Israels assault has mostly emptied four refugee camps sites that originated to house Palestinians driven from homes in the 1948 war surrounding Israels creation and have since grown into densely built up towns or neighborhoods. Across the four camps, troops have ripped up roads and destroyed buildings, infrastructure, and water and electricity lines. The Israeli defense minister said Monday that troops were preparing to stay for a year and would prevent Palestinians from returning. That leaves thousands who hail from among the poorest areas of the West Bank in dire straits as many are forced to rent temporary housing in neighboring villages. OCHA, the U.N.s humanitarian agency, said there is an urgent need for cash assistance for 4,000 families to meet rent needs. Zawaydeh said she was safe now at her shelter outside Jenin, but not at ease.I was born and raised in the camp, and now I have grown up and I still live in the camp, she said. There is no place that can replace the camp. Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes and carry their belongings, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes and carry their belongings, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Israeli soldiers are seen during an army operation in the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Israeli soldiers are seen during an army operation in the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More The displacement is the biggest since the 1967 warMany Palestinians displaced from their West Bank homes are renting temporary housing or relying on friends or family to take them in. Some are staying in university dorms, others in makeshift shelters. Help is limited: The Palestinian Authority is strapped for cash, and the main U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known by the acronym UNRWA, has been handicapped by Israeli legislation.The West Bank has never seen large-scale forced displacement of the level were seeing now since 1967, said Roland Friedrich, the West Bank field director for UNRWA. During the 1967 Mideast War, some 250,000 Palestinians were forced from the West Bank when Israel seized the territory along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.After announcing a widespread crackdown against West Bank militants on Jan. 21 just two days after it began a ceasefire with Hamas in Gaza Israeli forces descended on Jenin camp, as they have dozens of times since Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. But unlike past operations, Israeli forces also pushed deeper and more forcefully into several other nearby camps known as bastions of militant groups, including Tulkarem, Fara and Nur Shams. Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes and carry their belongings as the Israeli military continues its operation in the area on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes and carry their belongings as the Israeli military continues its operation in the area on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Israels military says it has engaged in fierce battles with Palestinian militants inside the camps, which are now mainly emptied of their civilian populations. The dispersals are stirring bitter memories of the 1948 war over Israels creation, when some 750,000 Palestinians were expelled from or fled their homes in whats now Israel. Forcible population transfers are banned under international law, and, if implemented as a policy, could be a war crime, rights groups say.The emptying of the West Bank camps comes as Israels government and military have embraced U.S. President Donald Trumps call for pushing out the population of the Gaza Strip permanently. Troops have demolished homes in the campsIn Nur Shams, a smaller refugee camp with a population of roughly 13,700, a number of displaced people returned Wednesday to clear what possessions they could from their homes after learning the Israeli military had slated them for demolition. Palestinians said the military puts out maps of intended demolitions in the camps. Asked the reasons for the demolitions, the military said it could not discuss operational plans. Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams speak with an Israeli soldier as the Israeli military continues its operation in the area on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams speak with an Israeli soldier as the Israeli military continues its operation in the area on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Mohammed Abdullah took advantage of the brief access to visit the grave of his son, Ali, who he said was killed by Israeli troops during a previous incursion into the camp. He hadnt been able to visit since being forced out two weeks ago.Abdullah then packed up his familys things from his home. No one can take everything, he said. Every person has memories in his home, in his neighborhood, in the streets.The damage to the camps has been extensive. In Jenin camp, troops have demolished over 100 homes, Friedrich said. In Tulkarem camp, they have destroyed about 100 housing units and at least 300 commercial shops and set fire to at least 10 homes, according to the local Awda community center. Families have scattered among sheltersAt a charity for helping the blind in Jenin, converted into a shelter for those driven from the camp, barefoot children swung from monkey bars while their parents smoked cigarettes and looked on.Some 85 people from 23 families have taken up at the shelter. Rooms have been turned into separate dorms for men and women and children. Some have beds, others have mats on the floor. The charity relies on donations to feed its new residents. Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes and carry their belongings as the Israeli military continues its operation in the area on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes and carry their belongings as the Israeli military continues its operation in the area on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More Facing mounting financial pressure and worried for their homes, many families have tried to return to the camps only to be blocked by the military. Every day, we try to go back to the camp, hoping to enter, but they prevent us, said Nazmi Turkman, 53, who fled Jenin camp a month ago. Theyve set up checkpoints, placed tanks, and stationed soldiers. Even drones are flying around the people.God willing, we will return soon, he said. But he said he has no idea if his home still stands.There are few resources to help the displacedThe Palestinian Authority, the body charged with administering affairs in pockets of the West Bank where the camps lie, has denounced the wave of displacement. It says it has dispatched over 16 trucks of aid and sent funds to first responders.But its ability to help is limited. It has been left cash-strapped by the war, with Israel for months holding up tax revenues it needs to pay its workers. It is also largely detested across the territory, especially in the refugee camps, where it is seen as a tool of Israeli authorities.What is happening in the West Bank is a continuation of what the Israeli authorities did in the Gaza Strip, said Nabil Abu Redeineh, spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. What is happening will only lead to escalation, the repercussions of which will be felt throughout the region. Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes and carry their belongings as the Israeli military continues its operation in the area on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Residents of the West Bank urban refugee camp of Nur Shams evacuate their homes and carry their belongings as the Israeli military continues its operation in the area on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed) Share Share Copy Link copied Email Facebook X Reddit LinkedIn Pinterest Flipboard Print Read More UNRWA, too, is hampered. In the past, it could coordinate evacuations with the Israeli military. But new Israeli laws ban any interaction between Israeli authorities and the agency, making it difficult to evacuate people or ascertain when they will be allowed back, Friedrich said. On Tuesday, a small group of displaced men gathered outside Tulkarem camp, holding signs reading The right of return is sacred No to displacement.Nihad al-Shaweesh, head of a local political council for Nur Shams camp, said they were there to tell the whole world and all parties that we will not accept displacement. JULIA FRANKEL Frankel is an Associated Press reporter in Jerusalem. twitter mailto

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks to journalists during press conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)2025-02-26T19:15:26Z KYIV, Ukraine (AP) A preliminary economic agreement between Ukraine and the United States would ensure long-term U.S. involvement in rebuilding the country, but the deal leaves the question of security guarantees sought by Kyiv to future negotiations.According to the final version of the deal obtained by The Associated Press, the United States and Ukraine will establish a co-owned and jointly managed investment fund aimed at financing the reconstruction of Ukraine and its war-damaged economy.The agreement comes after two weeks of back-and-forth between Kyiv and Washington over how the U.S. could gain access to Ukraines natural resources. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has insisted that specific assurances for Ukrainian security must accompany a deal on those resources.U.S. President Donald Trump planned to meet with Zelenskyy on Friday at the White House to sign the pact, which will closely tie the two countries together for years to come.Heres more about what the agreement says, and what it doesnt say. What about security guarantees for Ukraine?While the preliminary agreement references the importance of Ukraines security, it leaves that matter to a separate agreement to be discussed between the leaders of the two countries.According to wording in the deal, the United States supports Ukraines efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace, and the U.S. has a long-term financial commitment to the development of a stable and economically prosperous Ukraine.Participants will seek to identify any necessary steps to protect mutual investments as defined in the Fund agreement, it states. The American people desire to invest alongside Ukraine in a free, sovereign and secure Ukraine.Speaking at a news conference Wednesday in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said his country needs to know first where the United States stands on its continued military support. He said he expects to have a wide-ranging conversation with Trump during his visit to Washington. The economic agreement may be part of future security guarantees, but I want to understand the broader vision. What awaits Ukraine? Zelenskyy said.A senior Ukrainian official familiar with the matter told the AP on Wednesday that those discussions would take place independently from the establishment of the joint fund.The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations, said Kyiv believes the establishment of the fund would itself serve to bolster Ukraines security since U.S. and Ukrainian investments would need to be protected amid continuing Russian attacks. How does the agreement work?Under the agreement, Ukraine will contribute 50% of future revenues to the joint fund from national assets including minerals, hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas and other extractable materials. Kyiv has hoped that access to those materials would incentivize the Trump administration to help secure a fair and lasting end to the war.The idea to involve the U.S. in Ukraines natural resource wealth was initially proposed last fall by Zelenskyy as part of his plan to strengthen Kyivs hand in future negotiations with Moscow.Ukraine would also contribute half of its revenues from infrastructure relevant to the extraction, processing or transportation of its natural resources, but those contributions would not apply to assets that are already part of the Ukrainian governments budget revenue, such as state-owned oil and gas companies.Contributions to the fund will be reinvested annually in Ukraine to promote its safety, security and prosperity, the agreement says.Is Ukraine giving away its natural resources?The agreement states that revenues from its natural resources will go into the fund and be used for reconstruction of the country, not that ownership or control of those resources would be transferred to the United States.On Wednesday, a senior Ukrainian official told the AP that the U.S. will not own Ukraines mineral and other resources. The official added that the fund would receive 50% of the revenues that come from natural resource deposits once theyre developed. Is Ukraine paying off a debt for previous U.S. support?The deal does away with earlier Trump demands that Ukraine pay $500 billion as compensation for Washingtons assistance until now. The senior Ukrainian official said that contributions to the fund do not constitute a repayment of any debt to the U.S. for its previous support during the war with Russia, but an investment in the future. The agreement states that the U.S. will maintain a long-term financial commitment to Ukraines stability and economic prosperity, and could make further contributions outside the fund in the form of financial instruments and other assets critical for Ukraines reconstruction.Ukrainian payments into the fund could provide a mechanism for any future U.S. assistance to be recouped in the long term, the Ukrainian official said. We are not debtors, Zelenskyy said Wednesday, adding that, while he is grateful for previous U.S. support, Ukraine had not entered into any agreements that would require previous U.S. assistance to be repaid. There were no such agreements in the past, so there is nothing to discuss in this regard, he said.The agreement will also seek to avoid conflict with any obligations Ukraine has to the European Union as it seeks membership in the bloc, or any potential conflicts with obligations to other financial institutions or creditors.___Associated Press writers Hanna Arhirova and Vasilisa Stepanenko contributed to this report. JUSTIN SPIKE Spike is an Associated Press reporter based in Budapest, Hungary. twitter mailto

Leonard Peltier speaks during an interview in Belcourt, N.D, on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave)2025-02-28T05:12:12Z More than 50 years after a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation landed him in federal prison, Leonard Peltier remains defiant.He maintains his innocence in the deaths of two FBI agents in 1975 and sees his newfound freedom the result of a commutation from former President Joe Biden as the beginning of a new phase of his activism.Im going to spend the rest of my life fighting for our people, because we aint finished yet. Were still in danger, Peltier, now 80, said in an exclusive interview with the Associated Press at his new home on the Turtle Mountain Reservation, his tribal homeland in North Dakota, near the Canadian border.There among the rolling, often snow-covered hills, he will serve out the rest of his sentence on house arrest.Born into an era of violent hostility between the American government and Indigenous peoples, the former American Indian Movement member has now stepped into another politically volatile moment in the country. He said he understands well the threats the rise of the far right, as well as the federal government, pose to tribal nations and Indigenous peoples. He believes that, like previous administrations, President Donald Trump will come for mineral and oil on tribal lands.You dont have to get violent, you dont have to do nothing like that. Just get out there and stand up, he told AP this week, in his first sit-down conversation with a journalist in over 30 years. We got to resist. The FBI and Native American activists: A volatile mixPeltier was part of a movement in the late 1960s and 1970s that fought for Native American rights and tribal self-determination, sometimes occupying federal and tribal property. The movement grabbed headlines in 1973 when it took over the village of Wounded Knee on Pine Ridge, leading to a 71-day standoff with federal agents. They also protested at Alcatraz and the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters. For many members of the American Indian Movement, or AIM, their activism was part of legacy of resistance stretching back to the countrys founding. The day of the shootout came amid heightened tensions on the Pine Ridge reservation, where residents felt the FBIs heavy presence was a threat to the peoples autonomy. Peltier and other AIM members got into a confrontation with agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams when the agents drove onto a rural property where the AIM members were staying. Both agents were shot and killed, along with Joseph Stuntz, another AIM member.The FBI says Peltier shot the agents at close range. In a letter sent to Biden last year opposing his release, former FBI director Christopher Wray called Peltier a remorseless killer.His guilt is clear to many, including North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong.More than 20 federal judges upheld his conviction, and he was denied parole as recently as last July, Armstrong said in a statement to the Associated Press. There was no legal justification for his release. He should still be in prison.Peltier was not pardoned; Biden said he was commuting Peltiers sentence because of his age, his declining health, and the long period he had already been in prison. Peltier has acknowledged he was at the shootout, but says he acted in self-defense and wasnt the one whose bullets killed the agents. He believes the FBI and prosecutors were looking for someone to take the blame, after his two co-defendants were exonerated for self-defense.They wanted revenge, and they didnt know who was responsible, Peltier told the AP from the kitchen table of his new home. And they said Put the full weight of the American government on Leonard Peltier, we need a conviction. And when they say that you dont have no rights, he said.Amnesty International and scores of political leaders around the world called Peltier a political prisoner of the U.S., questioning the fairness of his trial and conviction. James Reynolds, the former U.S. Attorney who oversaw Peltiers conviction, urged clemency in a letter to Biden in 2021, acknowledging that prosecutors couldnt prove Peltier fired the fatal shots and calling his imprisonment unjust. His grandson, Cyrus Peltier, remembers visiting him every weekend at Leavenworth, a federal prison in Kansas. He didnt always understand why his grandfather wouldnt just tell the parole board he was sorry for the crimes, and hopefully win his freedom.And he would say Well, thats just not what Im fighting for, grandson, Cyrus Peltier, now 39, recalled from his home in North Dakota this week. Im sorry for what happened to those agents, but Im not going to sit here and admit to something I didnt do. And if I have to die in here for that, Im going to. A life behind bars, but always hope for freedomIn prison, Peltiers fame only grew, as he amassed the support of prominent political leaders around the globe and celebrities in the U.S. and became a symbol of the injustices against Native Americans.He said it was all their letters of support and acts of protest for his release that kept him going.Peltier said there were moments in the last few years where he began to lose hope that he would ever see freedom. His denial of parole in July was another crushing blow. They gave me the strength to stay alive and to know what I was in prison for, he said.Many Indigenous people, leaders, and organizers lobbied for decades for Peltiers release.However, some who believe Peltier was involved in the murder of AIM member Anna Mae Pictou Aquash in 1975, fought against his release. Two other AIM members were convicted of the crime.Their ability to say that he is free and he gets to go home negates the whole fact that Anna Mae never got to go home, said Aquashs daughter, Denise Pictou Maloney.In his interview with the AP, Peltier denied having any knowledge of Aquashs death.I didnt give my life for nothingIn the end, Biden listened to the counsel of former Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and the first Native American to lead the Interior Department. Pelltier was released on Feb. 18, and returned to North Dakota. A week later, he still often wakes up at night terrified that it is all a dream and that he is still in a cell. Peltier remains confined to his home and nearby community. But he now has access to routine medical treatment for his many health issues, including an aortic aneurysm. He gets around with the help of a cane or a walker.He is heartened by the many people who come to visit him and drop off gifts like beaded medallions, letters and artwork, which are piling up in his home. Peltier wants to make a living selling his paintings, as he did in prison, and plans to write more books. He also wants to train young activists about the threats they will face. When he was in prison, lying in his bunk at night, he would often wonder if his protest efforts resulted in any change. Seeing young Native activists today continuing to fight for the same things gives meaning to the 49 years he was incarcerated. It makes me feel so good, man, it does, he said, holding back tears. Im thinking, well, I didnt give my life for nothing.___AP reporter Jack Dura in Bismarck, North Dakota, contributed to this report. GRAHAM LEE BREWER Brewer reports for the APs Race and Ethnicity team, focusing on Indigenous communities and tribal nations. He is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and is based in Oklahoma. twitter mailto

Security official checks at the site of a bomb blast in Quetta, Pakistan, Friday, Feb. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)2025-02-28T09:47:40Z PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) A suicide bomber blew himself up after walking into a mosque within a pro-Taliban seminary in northwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing a top cleric and five other worshippers and wounding dozens of others ahead of the fasting month of Ramadan, according to local police.The blast occurred in Akora Khattak, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said district police chief Abdul Rashid. He named Hamidul Haq, who is the head of a faction of the Jamiat-e-Ulema Islam (JUI) party, as being among the dead. No group has immediately claimed responsibility. Haq is the son of Maulana Samiul Haq, known as the father of the Taliban, who was killed in a knife attack at his home in 2018. Haqs family confirmed he was killed in Fridays attack and appealed to his followers to remain peaceful. He was also in charge of the Jamia Haqqania seminary, where many Afghan Taliban had studied in the past two decades. Zulfiqar Hameed, the provincial police chief, said more than a dozen police officers were guarding the mosque when the attack occurred, and Haqs seminary also had its own security. Pakistans Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack, which came ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which is expected to start either on Saturday or Sunday subject to the sighting of the crescent moon. Surge in attacks in recent yearsYawar Zia, a police officer who was wounded in the attack, said he was on a security duty at the seminary when the attack occurred and splinters from the bomb hit him. He was transported to the Qazi Hussain Ahmed Hospital by ambulance.After offering prayer, Hamidul Haq was leaving the mosque to go home and as he reached the main gate, a powerful explosion occurred, and I fell to the ground, losing consciousness, Zia told The Associated Press from his hospital bed. Zahir Shah, a worshipper, said that hundreds of people were leaving the mosque after offering prayers when he heard a powerful blast. He said Haq, accompanied by guards, was heading to his home located within the seminary premises when the attack occurred. Shah described a chaotic scene with blood and body parts scattered around, adding that the number of casualties could have been much higher had the bomber struck during the prayers.Pakistan has witnessed a surge in attacks in recent years.As many as 101 people, mostly police officers, were killed in 2023 when a suicide attack targeted a mosque in Peshawar, the capital of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Pakistani authorities have blamed the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, for previous attacks. Attacks blamed on separatistsThe TTP never claim attacks on mosques, saying it does not target places of worship. The TTP is a separate group but an ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war.Many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuary and have even been living openly in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover, which also emboldened the Pakistani Taliban.Separately on Friday, a roadside bomb exploded near a vehicle carrying security forces in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, wounding 10 people, including two soldiers, police and officials said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing, but previous attacks have been blamed on separatists.Quetta is the capital of Balochistan, which has for years been the scene of a long-running insurgency. Separatists want independence from the central government in Islamabad. Although Pakistan says it has quelled the insurgency, violence in Baluchistan has continued.___Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar and Abdul Sattar contributed to this story from Peshawar, Pakistan and Quetta, Pakistan.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump, right, and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shake hands during their meeting at Trump Tower, Sept. 27, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)2025-02-28T05:01:36Z WASHINGTON (AP) Ukraines leader will meet with President Donald Trump in Washington on Friday at a pivotal moment for his country, one that hinges on whether he can persuade Trump to provide some form of U.S. backing for Ukraines security against any future Russian aggression.During his trip to Washington, President Volodymyr Zelenskyys delegation is expected to sign a landmark economic agreement with the U.S. aimed at financing the reconstruction of war-damaged Ukraine, a deal that would closely tie the two countries together for years to come. Though the deal, which is seen as a step toward ending the three-year war, references the importance of Ukraines security, it leaves that to a separate agreement to be discussed between the two leaders talks that are likely to commence Friday. As Ukrainian forces hold out against slow but steady advances by Russias larger and better-equipped army, leaders in Kyiv have pushed to ensure a potential U.S.-brokered peace plan would include guarantees for the countrys future security. Many Ukrainians fear that a hastily negotiated peace especially one that makes too many concessions to Russian demands would allow Moscow to rearm and consolidate its forces for a future invasion after current hostilities cease. According to the preliminary economic agreement, seen by The Associated Press, the U.S. and Ukraine will establish a co-owned, jointly managed investment fund to which Ukraine will contribute 50% of future revenues from natural resources, including minerals, hydrocarbons and other extractable materials. A more detailed agreement on establishing the fund will be drawn up once the preliminary one is signed. Trump, a Republican, has framed the emerging deal as a chance for Kyiv to compensate the U.S. for wartime aid sent under his predecessor, President Joe Biden, a Democrat. But Zelenskyy has remained firm that specific assurances for Ukraines security must accompany any agreement giving U.S. access to Ukraines resources. On Wednesday, he said the agreement may be part of future security guarantees, but I want to understand the broader vision. What awaits Ukraine? Trump remains noncommittal about any American security guarantees.Im not going to make security guarantees ... very much, Trump told reporters this week. Were going to have Europe do that.If a truce can be reached, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel 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. Both leaders traveled to Washington this week before the Zelenskyy visit to discuss with Trump the potential peacekeeping mission and other concerns about the war.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 provide 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 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 the truce is breached. Youve created a moment of tremendous opportunity to reach a historic peace deal a deal that I think would be celebrated in Ukraine and around the world, Starmer told Trump. That is the prize. But we have to get it right.Zelenskyy has been vague on exactly what kinds of security guarantees would be suitable for his country, and while he continues to advocate for Ukraines eventual membership in NATO, he has also suggested a similar security arrangement would suffice. But Trump on Wednesday said Ukraine could forget about joining the Western military alliance.Still, Zelenskyys meeting with Trump, their first since the U.S. leaders inauguration in January, is seen in Kyiv as a diplomatic win for Ukraine. On Wednesday, Zelenskyy said being able to meet personally with Trump before Russian President Vladimir Putin does is a good signal.Zelenskyy said he hopes to discuss whether the U.S. plans to halt its military aid to Ukraine and, if so, whether Kyiv would be able to purchase weapons directly from the U.S.He also wants to know whether Ukraine can use frozen Russian assets for the purchase of weapons and whether Washington plans to lift sanctions on Moscow.Fears that Trump could broker a peace deal with Russia that is unfavorable to Ukraine have been amplified by recent precedent-busting actions by his administration. Trump held a lengthy phone call with Putin, and U.S. officials met with their Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia without inviting European or Ukrainian leaders both dramatic breaks with previous U.S. policy to isolate Putin over his invasion. Trump later seemed to falsely blame Ukraine for starting the war, and called Zelenskyy a dictator for not holding elections after the end of his regular term last year, though Ukrainian law prohibits elections while martial law is in place. As Zelenskyy seeks to lower the temperature with the U.S. while in Washington, American officials are saying the economic deal, if implemented, would itself provide a measure of security to Ukraine through the presence of U.S. investments on its territory. On Wednesday, Trump said the U.S. working on mineral extraction in Ukraine would amount to automatic security because nobodys going to be messing around with our people when were there.Its a great deal for Ukraine too, because they get us over there and were going to be working over there, Trump said. We will be on the land.That perspective is echoed by the text of the economic agreement, which says the U.S. supports Ukraines efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace. Washington, it continues, has a long-term financial commitment to the development of a stable and economically prosperous Ukraine.___Spike reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. JUSTIN SPIKE Spike is an Associated Press reporter based in Budapest, Hungary. twitter mailto AAMER MADHANI Madhani covers the White House for The Associated Press. He is based in Washington. twitter mailto

Friends, family and soccer fans attend a public memorial ceremony for slain hostage Tsachi Idan, a fan of Hapoel Tel Aviv F.C., who was killed in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip, at Bloomfield Stadium in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, Feb. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)2025-02-28T11:55:31Z JERUSALEM (AP) Mourners in Israel on Friday were burying the remains of one of the last hostages released in the first phase of the ceasefire between Hamas militants and Israel, as negotiators discussed a second phase of the deal that could end the war in Gaza and see the remaining live hostages returning home.The funeral procession for Tsachi Idan, an avid soccer fan who was 49 when he was abducted by Hamas militants, began from a football stadium in Tel Aviv towards the cemetery where he was to be buried in a private ceremony.The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Idan, who was taken from Kibbutz Nahal Oz during the Hamas-led Oct. 7 2023 attack that sparked the war in Gaza, was killed in captivity.His body was one of four released by Hamas overnight Wednesday to Thursday, in exchange for over 600 Palestinian prisoners, the last planned swap of the ceasefires first phase, which began in January. Idan was the only one of his family to have been taken to Gaza. His eldest daughter, Maayan, was killed as militants shot through the door of their saferoom. Hamas militants broadcast themselves on Facebook live holding the Idan family hostage in their home, as his two younger children pleaded with the militants to let them go. My brother is the real hero. He held on, Idans sister, Noam Idan ben Ezra, said in an interview on Israeli radio Friday. She said Idan had been a pace away from being released during a brief ceasefire in November 2023, when more than 100 of the 251 people abducted on Oct. 7 were released. Tsachi was forsaken twice. The first time when he was kidnapped from his home and the second time when the deal blew up, she added. The fact that Tsachi is not standing next to me today is the outcome of the decision-making and the policy here in Israel. They did not listen to us then, but its not too late to listen to us today. Concern for remaining hostagesThe relatives of hostages still held in Gaza are ramping up pressure on Netanyahu to secure the release of their loved ones. According to Israel, 32 of the 59 hostages still in Gaza are dead, and there has been growing concern about the welfare of an unknown number who are still alive, particularly after three hostages who were released Feb. 8 emerged emaciated from captivity.One of the three, Eli Sharabi, said in an interview with Israels Channel 12 Friday that he and other hostages had been held in iron chains, starved and sometimes beaten or humiliated. During the first three days, my hands are tied behind my back, my legs are tied, with ropes that tear into your flesh, and a bit of food, a bit of water during the day, he said, in one of the first interviews by a hostage released under the current deal. I remember not being able to fall asleep because of the pain, the ropes are already digging into your flesh, and every movement makes you want to scream.Sharabi only found out after his release that his wife and daughters had been killed during the Oct. 7 attack. The next phase of the ceasefireUnder the terms of the truce Israel and Hamas agreed to, Phase 2 of the ceasefire is meant to involve negotiations on ending the war that has devastated the Gaza Strip. That includes the return of all remaining living hostages and the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from the Palestinian territory. The return of the bodies of the remaining deceased hostages would occur in Phase 3.Officials from Israel, Qatar and the United States have started intensive discussions on the ceasefires second phase in Cairo, Egypts state information service said Thursday. Netanyahus office confirmed he had sent a delegation to Cairo. The mediators are also discussing ways to enhance the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, as part of efforts to alleviate the suffering of the population and support stability in the region, its statement said.The first phase of the ceasefire saw 33 hostages, including eight bodies, released in exchange for nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. 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. After suffering heavy losses in the war, the militant group has nonetheless emerged intact, and says it will not give up its weapons.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.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.___Follow APs war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war JULIA FRANKEL Frankel is an Associated Press reporter in Jerusalem. twitter mailto

People walk at dusk in St Peter's Square at The Vatican, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)2025-02-28T08:06:54Z ROME (AP) Pope Francis reached the two-week mark in his recovery from pneumonia Friday as doctors suggested he had overcome the most critical phase of the infection but held out on declaring him out of danger entirely.The Vatican, though, made alternative plans for Ash Wednesday next week, making clear Francis still had a long road ahead. Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, a Vatican official and former vicar of Rome, will preside over the March 5 ceremony and procession that inaugurates the churchs solemn Lenten season leading up to Easter in April.The Vaticans early Friday update suggested a level of normalcy and routine as the 88-year-old pope continues recovering at Romes Gemelli Hospital. As in past days, the night was tranquil and the pope now is resting, it said.Francis had breakfast, read the days newspapers and was receiving respiratory physiotherapy, the Vatican said. In their Thursday evening bulletin, doctors said Francis clinical condition had confirmed that he was improving. He was alternating the high-flow supplemental oxygen he had been receiving by a nasal tube with a mask in a sign of improved respiratory function. Additionally, he left his hospital room to go to his nearby private chapel to pray, while continuing with respiratory physiotherapy and work, the Vatican said. For the second day in a row, doctors avoided saying Francis was in critical condition, suggesting he had overcome the most acute phase of the infection. But given the complexity of his lung infection, they said further days of clinical stability are needed before they revise their prognosis officially and say he is out of danger. Francis has been at Gemelli Hospital since Feb. 14 after his bronchitis worsened. He has shown steady, albeit slight, improvements since a respiratory crisis and kidney trouble over the weekend sparked fears for his life. The improvements beat back speculation of an imminent death or resignation and signaled that he was still very much in charge. Prayers continued to pour inIn Mexico City, a few dozen people gathered Thursday night at the cathedral to pray for Francis recovery.He is like part of the family, said Araceli Gutirrez, who treasures the time she saw the pope during his trip to the country of nearly 100 million Catholics in 2016. Thats why we feel so concerned for him.Mara Teresa Snchez, who was visiting from Colombia with her sister, said that she has always felt close to Francis the first Latin American pope.Thats like having a relative within the higher-ups, with God, she said. He has done so much for religion; hes such a humble person.Upcoming calendar in question Despite his improvements, Francis near-term upcoming calendar of events was being changed: The Vatican canceled a Holy Year audience scheduled for Saturday, and it remained to be seen if Francis would skip his Sunday noon blessing for the third week in a row. With Ash Wednesday now delegated to a cardinal, the next major events come during Holy Week and Easter, which this year falls on April 20.In past years, when Francis has battled bronchitis and influenza in winter, he curbed his participation in Ash Wednesday and Holy Week events, which call for the pope to be outdoors in the cold leading services, participating in processions and presiding over prayers in the solemn period in which the faithful commemorate Christs crucifixion and resurrection. Beyond that, Francis has a few major events coming up that he presumably would hope to keep if well enough. On April 27, he is due to canonize Carlo Acutis, considered to be the first millennial and digital-era saint. The Vatican considers the Italian teenager, who died of leukemia in 2006 at the age of 15, an inspiration for young Catholics. Another important appointment is the May 24 commemoration of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea, Christianitys first ecumenical council. The spiritual leader of the worlds Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Bartholomew I, has invited Francis to join him in Iznik, Turkey, to commemorate the anniversary, which he has called an important sign of reconciliation between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. Before he got sick, Francis said he hoped to go, though the Vatican hasnt confirmed the trip. ___Maria Hernandez contributed from Mexico City.___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.

Customers wait in line for eggs at a Costco store in the Van Nuys section of Los Angeles on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)2025-02-28T13:42:26Z WASHINGTON (AP) U.S. consumers cut back sharply on spending last month, the most since February 2021, even as inflation declined, though stiff tariffs threatened by the White House could disrupt that progress.Americans cut their spending by 0.2% in January from the previous month, the Commerce Department said Friday, likely in part because of unseasonably cold weather. Yet the retreat may be hinting at more caution by consumers amid rising economic uncertainty. Inflation declined to 2.5% in January compared with a year earlier, down from 2.6% in December, the government said. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices dropped to 2.6%, the lowest since June, from 2.9%.One other bright spot in the report was that incomes jumped 0.9% in January from December, fueled in part by a large annual cost of living adjustment for Social Security beneficiaries. Inflation spiked in 2022 to its highest level in four decades, propelling President Donald Trump to the White House and causing the Federal Reserve to rapidly raise interest rates to tame prices. It has since fallen from a peak of 7.2%. Last months decline could reassure Fed officials that inflation is still slowly cooling. The Fed prefers Fridays measure to the more widely-known consumer price index, which rose for the fourth straight month in January to 3%. Fridays gauge calculates inflation slightly differently: For example, it puts less weight on the costs of housing and used cars. Even so, the key question preoccupying many American consumers, investors, and business executives is whether Trumps extensive tariff proposals will push prices higher in the coming months. Trump said Thursday he will double his recently-announced tariffs on Chinese imports to 20%, and will impose 25% import taxes on Canada and Mexico next Tuesday. The three countries are the United States top trading partners. Trump is also calling for widespread layoffs of federal workers, which could cause hundreds of thousands of job losses and potentially lift the unemployment rate. Increased uncertainty surrounding trade, fiscal and regulatory policy is casting a shadow over the outlook, said Lydia Boussour, a senior economist at accounting and consulting firm EY. Americans also likely cut back on their spending after a healthy winter holiday season that saw a surge in credit card debt in December, economists noted.On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.3% in January from the previous month, matching Decembers 0.3% increase. Core prices rose 0.3%, up from 0.2% in December. If sustained, Januarys increases would keep inflation running above the Feds target. The Fed pays more attention to core prices because they provide a better read of future inflation. A big concern right now is whether tariffs will push up inflation, or slow the economy, or in a particularly toxic combination both. A report from the Federal Reserves Boston branch this month concluded that 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, along with Trumps initial 10% import taxes on China, could lift core inflation by as much as 0.8 percentage points. The last time Trump imposed tariffs in 2018-19, inflation was largely unaffected but those tariffs were on a much narrower range of goods. And the economy still slowed, prompting the Fed to cut interest rates. Worries about tariffs pushing prices higher have sent consumer confidence plunging, unwinding the modest gains that had occurred after the election. Americans are also expecting inflation to move higher in the coming months. Thats a risky trend because if consumers and businesses expect higher prices, they may act in ways to lift inflation, such as accelerating their purchases and boosting demand. CHRISTOPHER RUGABER Rugaber has covered the Federal Reserve and the U.S. economy for the AP for 16 years. He is a two-time finalist for the Gerald Loeb award for business reporting. twitter mailto

Law enforcement officers detain migrants in the area in Coral Gables, Fla., Jan. 28, 2025. (Pedro Portal/Miami Herald via AP File)2025-02-28T05:20:00Z TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) For most people in Florida, misdemeanor theft can result in up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. For an immigrant illegally in Florida, that same crime now carries a felony punishment of up to five years behind bars and a $5,000 fine.The new laws in Florida come as President Donald Trump cracks down on illegal immigration. They impose harsher penalties for offenses committed by people illegally in the U.S. than for everyone else. The consequences are particularly stiff for first-degree murder, which now carries an automatic death sentence for anyone who is in the U.S. illegally. While Florida is more aggressive than most, there are other states considering similar measures to enhance criminal penalties based on immigration status. A deterrence, but is it constitutional?Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis says Florida will be safer and securer, and a model for other states, because of its sweeping immigration laws. The stiffer penalties are meant to be a deterrent, Republican state Rep. Lawrence McClure said.Dont come to the state of Florida illegally, he said. Thats the premise.Some civil rights advocates and legal experts are raising alarm. The laws are leading into a head-on collision with the constitutional guarantee of equal protection to everyone who is in the United States, said Csar Cuauhtmoc Garca Hernndez, a law professor at Ohio State University who specializes in immigration and criminal law. Are mandatory death sentences allowed?On his first day in office, Trump ordered a renewed emphasis on the death penalty. His executive order highlighted two particular grounds for it: murdering a law enforcement officer or committing any capital offense while in the U.S. illegally. But jurors and federal judges would still decide whether to impose the death sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 ruled North Carolinas mandatory death sentence for first-degree murder violated the Constitutions prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. States since then have generally used court proceedings in which jurors first decide guilt, then weigh aggravating and mitigating factors when deciding whether defendants should be sentenced to death. There is longstanding precedent making clear that mandatory death penalty laws are unconstitutional, said Kara Gross, legislative director and senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida.But Floridas new laws eliminate judicial discretion in certain cases. They require courts to impose a death sentence on defendants in the U.S. illegally who are found guilty of capital offenses such as first-degree murder or child rape. Republican state Sen. Randy Fine acknowledged the legislation he co-sponsored will likely face a legal challenge, but he expects the Supreme Court to overturn its prior ruling. Its almost 50 years later, Fine said, adding, The Supreme Court changes its mind on things. More time for the same crimeLast year, DeSantis signed a law enhancing penalties for people who commit state felonies after being previously deported and convicted of illegal reentry under federal law. The measure increased sentences by one classification, meaning someone convicted of a third-degree felony typically punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine would instead be sentenced for a second-degree felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.The latest Florida laws apply similar sentencing enhancements to anyone in the U.S. illegally, regardless of any convictions for reentering, and apply the enhanced penalties to misdemeanors. If the new laws get challenged, Garca Hernndez said, a court would likely look to a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The justices said Texas failed to show a substantial state interest for a law barring state school funding for children not legally admitted to the U.S. The high court cited the Constitutions 14th Amendment, which says a state shall not deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. To defend Floridas law, state attorneys would probably have to answer a similar question: What is your compelling justification for treating individuals who are accused of a crime the same crime differently based solely on their citizenship status? Garca Hernndez said. Other states may follow Floridas leadLegislation pending in several states including Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Minnesota, South Carolina and Texas would allow enhanced penalties for some state crimes committed by immigrants illegally in the U.S., according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill-tracking software Plural.A bill by Texas state Sen. Pete Flores would raise penalties one notch for most felonies committed by people in the U.S. illegally.Flores, who is chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee and co-founder of the Texas Hispanic Republican Caucus, described the legislation as a common-sense, tough-on-crime response to enforce the rule of law and better protect Texans. Legislation that passed the Utah Senate and is now pending in the House takes a more narrow approach focused on theft and drug dealing. It would impose mandatory jail sentences, without the potential for early release, for repeat offenders who are lawful U.S. residents or for any offenders who were previously deported and then convicted in federal court of illegally reentering the U.S. Republican state Sen. Cal Musselman said his legislation targets a small group of individuals. Law enforcement officers have told him they see a clear connection between being deported multiple times, coming in, and committing crimes within the state.___Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri. ___Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. DAVID A. LIEB Lieb covers issues and trends in state governments across the U.S. Hes reported about government and politics for The Associated Press for 30 years. twitter mailto KATE PAYNE Payne writes about state government and education and is based in Tallahassee, FL. She is a Report for America corps member. 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)2025-02-28T15:24:01Z President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Friday designating English as the official language of the United States, according to the White House.The order will allow government agencies and organizations that receive federal funding to choose whether to continue to offer documents and services in language other than English, according to a fact sheet about the impending order.It was not immediately clear when on Friday that Trump planned to sign the order.The executive order will rescind a mandate from former President Bill Clinton that required the government and organizations that received federal funding to provide language assistance to non-English speakers.Designating English as the national language promotes unity, establishes efficiency in government operations, and creates a pathway for civic engagement, according to the White House. More than 30 states have already passed laws designating English as their official language, according to U.S. English, a group that advocates for making English the official language in the United States.For decades, lawmakers in Congress have introduced legislation to designate English as the official language of the U.S., but those efforts have not succeeded. Within hours of Trumps inauguration last month, the new administration took down the Spanish language version of the official White House website. Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion and frustration at the change. The White House said at the time it was committed to bringing the Spanish language version of the website back online. As of Friday, it was still not restored.The White House did not immediately respond to a message about whether that would happen. Trump shut down the Spanish version of the website during his first term. It was restored when President Joe Biden was inaugurated. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the order Friday. MICHELLE L. PRICE Price is a national political reporter for The Associated Press. She is based in New York. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Actor Gene Hackman arrives with his wife, Betsy Arakawa, for the 60th Annual Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., Sunday, Jan. 19, 2003. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)2025-02-28T15:45:31Z SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) Authorities investigating the deaths of Oscar-winner Gene Hackman and his wife are waiting for the results of the autopsies, and carbon monoxide and toxicology testing to determine how they died. Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, apparently had been dead for days or even a couple of weeks when investigators found their bodies while searching the couples Santa Fe home on Wednesday. Investigators are trying to figure out the last time anyone saw or spoke to them, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza told NBCs Today show on Friday.That is a challenge because they were very private individuals, the sheriff said, noting that the autopsy results could take months. Hackman, 95, was found Wednesday in an entryway of the home and Arakawa, 65, was found lying on her side in the bathroom. A dead German shepherd was found in a kennel near Arakawa, Mendoza said Thursday. There was no indication of foul play, according to the sheriffs office. Detectives wrote in a search warrant affidavit that investigators thought the deaths were suspicious enough in nature to require a thorough search and investigation. No gas leaks were discovered in and around the home, but a detective noted in the affidavit that people exposed to gas leaks or carbon monoxide might not show signs of poisoning.A space heater was next to Arakawa and may have fallen when she abruptly fell to the floor, according to the affidavit. The sheriffs office planned a Friday afternoon news conference to provide updates. A maintenance worker who showed up to do routine work at the house discovered their bodies, investigators said. The worker said he was unable to get inside when a 911 operator asked whether the people in the house were breathing.I have no idea, the subdivisions caretaker said on the call. I am not inside the house. Its closed. Its locked. I cant go in. But I can see shes laying down on the floor from the window. He and another worker later told authorities that they rarely saw the homeowners and that their last contact with them had been about two weeks ago.Mendoza told Today there were several conflicting stories about which doors were locked at the house. Several were unlocked and a rear door was open, which allowed two dogs that survived to go in and out. He also said he thought the front door was closed but unlocked.Hackman was among the most accomplished actors of his generation, appearing as villains, heroes and antiheroes in dozens of dramas, comedies and action films from the 1960s until his retirement in the early 2000s.He was a five-time Oscar nominee who won best actor in a leading role for The French Connection in 1972 and best actor in a supporting role for Unforgiven two decades later. He also won praise for his role as a coach finding redemption in the sentimental favorite Hoosiers.He met Arakawa, a classically trained pianist, at a California gym in the mid-1980s. They moved to Santa Fe by the end of the decade. Their Pueblo revival home, sits on a hill in a gated community with views of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. In his first couple of decades in New Mexico, Hackman was often seen around the state capital and served on the board of trustees for the Georgia OKeeffe Museum from 1997-2004.In recent years, he was far less visible. Aside from appearances at awards shows, he was rarely seen in the Hollywood social circuit and retired from acting about 20 years ago.Hackman had three children from a previous marriage. He and Arakawa had no children but were known for having German shepherds.___Seewer reported from in Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Felicia Fonseca in Flagstaff, Arizona; Jacques Billeaud in Phoenix; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed. JOHN SEEWER Seewer covers state and national news for The Associated Press and is based in Toledo, Ohio. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Amazons recent decision to stop allowing people to download copies of their Kindle e-books to a computer has vindicated some of my longstanding beliefs about digital media. Specifically, that it doesnt exist and you dont own it unless you can copy and access it without being connected to the internet.The recent move by the megacorp and its shiny-headed billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos is another large brick in the digital wall that tech companies have been building for years to separate consumers from the things they buyor from their perspective, obtain licenses to. Starting Wednesday, Kindle users will no longer be able to download purchased books to a computer, where they can more easily be freed of DRM restrictions and copied to e-reader devices via USB. You can still send ebooks to other devices over WiFi for now, but the message the company is sending is one tech companies have been telegraphing for years: You dont own anything digital, even if you paid us for it. The Kindle terms of service now say this, explicitly. Kindle Content is licensed, not sold, to you, meaning you dont buy a book, you obtain a digital content license.The situation brings to mind an interview I did over a decade ago, with the executive of a now-defunct streaming platform. He told me candidly that the goal of all this was to make digital media a utility like gas or electricitya faucet that dispenses the worlds art as content, with tech companies in complete control of what goes in the tank and what comes out of it.Hearing this was a real tin foil hat moment for me. For more than two decades, Ive been what some might call a hoarder but what Ive more affectionately dubbed a digital packrat. Which is to say I mostly avoid streaming services, I dont trust any company or cloud with my digital media, and I store everything as files on devices that I physically control. My mp3 collection has been going strong since the Limewire days, I keep high-quality rips of all my movies on a local media server, and my preferred reading device holds a large collection of DRM-free ebooks and PDFseverything from esoteric philosophy texts and scientific journals to scans of lesbian lifestyle magazines from the 1980s.Sure, there are websites where you can find some of this material, like the Internet Archive. But this archive is mine. Its my own little Library of Alexandria, built from external hard drives, OCD, and a strong distrust of corporations. I know Im not the only one who has gone to these lengths. Sometimes when Im feeling gloomy, I imagine how when society falls apart, we packrats will be the only ones in our village with all six seasons of The Sopranos. At the rate were going, that might not be too far off.Amazon is far from alone in this long-running trend towards eliminating digital ownership. For many people, digital distribution and streaming services have already practically ended the concept of owning and controlling your own media files. Spotify is now almost synonymous with music for some younger generations, having strip-mined the music industry from both ends by demonetizing more than 60% of the artists on its platform and pushing algorithmic slop while simultaneously raising subscription fees.Of course, surrendering this control means being at the complete mercy of Amazon and other platforms to determine what we can watch, read, and listen toand weve already seen that these services frequently remove content for all sorts of reasons. Last October, one year after the Israeli military began its campaign of genocide in Gaza, Netflix removed Palestinian Stories, a collection of 19 films featuring Palestinian filmmakers and characters, saying it declined to renew its distribution license. Amazon also once famously deleted copies of 1984 off of peoples Kindles. Fearing piracy, many software companies have moved from the days of Dont Copy That Floppy to the cloud-based software-as-a-service model, which requires an internet connection and charges users monthly subscription fees to use apps like Photoshop. No matter how you look at it, digital platforms have put us on a path to losing control of any media that we cant physically touch.How did we get here?In the US, it goes back to the legal concepts of individual versus intellectual property rights, which are mediated by something called exhaustion. The idea behind the exhaustion principle was that copyright owners, like the studio that produces a film, relinquish some (but not all) of their rights over how a work is used when they sell copies to consumers. For example, if you buy a DVD, the law may prohibit you from duplicating the work for non-personal use, but the company that produced the movie cant stop you from re-selling or gifting the physical disc to someone else.The fact that youre free to do whatever you want with the things you buy seems very obvious and intuitive from our perspective, but the truth is that copyright holders have been trying to erode these individual rights granted by exhaustion from the very beginning. Over the years, book publishers have tried to punish students for reselling expensive textbooks at lower prices, and record labels have launched unsuccessful crackdowns on stores selling used CDs. Hollywood tried to shut down the video rental market multiple times after it first emerged in the 1970s, and video game industry lobbyists have repeatedly claimed that used game sales will herald the apocalypse, with some publishers calling second-hand stores like GameStop a bigger threat than piracy.In all these cases, the companies claims were overblown, but they boiled down to one simple gripe: technology was changing and creating new markets that they didnt control. After much hooting and hollering, their inevitable response has always been to enter those markets and attempt to position themselves at the absolute center. And nothing has made that task easier than the rise of digital distribution.The basic principle of exhaustionthe notion that owners have rights that are not contingent on copyright holder permissioncan and should survive the transition to a digital copyright economy, explain Aaron Perzanowski and Jason Schultz, in their book The End of Ownership: Personal Property in the Digital Economy. Rights holders have always fought against this principle, but the digital marketplace gives them their best chance to kill it.Following the mass corporate freakout over piracy in the post-Napster era, copyright holders finally found two ways to get past the exhaustion principle: Digital rights management (DRM), which locks downloaded content to a centrally controlled platform with varying degrees of success, and streaming services, where companies fully control access to all media and users pay fees to access it with an internet connection.The streaming model was particularly appealing to most normal people, because who wants to pay for and manage thousands of media files when you could have unlimited access to an entire library for a monthly fee? Piracy never went away of courseservices like Netflix simply outpaced it in terms of convenience. Streaming beat piracy at its own game, but this time Silicon Valley tech companies and copyright owners were the ones at the controls.This was fine for a time. But when two or three streaming services turned into several dozen, all with their own monthly fees, some of us started turning back to the Old Ways.Over the past decade, keeping your own DRM-free digital media archive has become something of a lost art. It requires time and patience that many people no longer have, and it certainly cant compete with the convenience of streaming. As large corporations and algorithms tighten their grip to a clenched fist, I think were long past due for a second DIY Media Renaissance. But in order for that to happen, we first need to change our habits and expectations around media consumptionstarting with deprogramming this idea that media is something that should be unlimited and available at all times through a digital faucet."Every collection becomes deeply personal, and thats beautiful"One of the more abstract but dire consequences of this streaming mentality is that weve started to treat art and culture like wallpaper. The rise of algorithmic curation and AI-generated content has sent this into overdrive: On Spotify, music is detached from its human creators and flattened into algorithmically-generated playlists with hashtag-able labels like Lo-Fi Chillwave Anime Vibes. Netflix has even started dictating that producers make TV shows less engaging, so that people can passively consume them as second screen content while scrolling on their phones.In her recent book Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Cost of the Perfect Playlist, music journalist Liz Pelly refers to this process as Muzak-ingthe conversion of media from discrete works of art with a discernible context and author to anonymous background noise meant for passive consumption at the gym or while relaxing at home.It turns out that playlists have spawned a new type of music listener, one who thinks less about the artist or album they are seeking out, and instead connects with emotions, moods and activities, where they just pick a playlist and let it roll, Pelly wrote in an essay for The Baffler. These algorithmically designed playlists, in other words, have seized on an audience of distracted, perhaps overworked, or anxious listeners whose stress-filled clicks now generate anesthetized, algorithmically designed playlists.Digital Packratting is the antithesis of this trend. It requires intentional curation, because youre limited by the amount of free space on your media server and devicesand the amount of space in your home youre willing to devote to this crazy endeavor. Every collection becomes deeply personal, and thats beautiful. It reminds me of when I was in college and everyone in my dorm was sharing their iTunes music libraries on the local network. I discovered so many new artists by opening up that ugly app and simply browsing through my neighbors collections. I even made some new friends. Mix CDs were exchanged, and browsing through unfamiliar microgenres felt like falling down a rabbit hole into a new world.While streaming platforms flatten music-listening into a homogenous assortment of vibes, listening to an album youve downloaded on Bandcamp or receiving a mix from a friend feels more like forging a connection with artists and people. As a musician, Id much rather have people listen to my music this way. Having people download your music for free on Soulseek is still considered a badge of honor in my producer/dj circles.I dont expect everyone to read this and immediately go back to hoarding mp3s, nor do I think many people will abandon things like Spotify and Amazon Kindle completely. Its not like Im some model citizen either: I share a YouTube Premium account because the ads make me want to die, and I will admit having a weakness for the Criterion Channel. But the packrat lifestyle has shown me that other ways are possible, and that at the end of the day, the only things we can trust to always be there are the things we can hold in our hands and copy without restriction.Living with some degree of artificial scarcity also changes the way you value those things, and makes you question how much media is enough. If more people reflected on their desire for unlimited everything, maybe wed find a way to break through the walled gardens that have been built to satisfy them.Janus Rose is New York City-based journalist, educator and artist whose work explores the impacts of A.I. and technology on activists and marginalized communities. Previously a senior editor atVICE, she has been published in digital and print outlets includinge-Flux Journal,DAZED Magazine,The New Yorker, andAl Jazeera.

A sign is seen outside a clinic with the South Plains Public Health District Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, in Brownfield, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)2025-02-28T16:42:16Z DALLAS (AP) The number of people with measles in Texas increased to 146 in an outbreak that led this week to the death of an unvaccinated school-aged child, health officials said Friday.The number of cases Texas largest in nearly 30 years increased by 22 since Tuesday. The Texas Department of State Health Services said cases span over nine counties in West Texas, including almost 100 in Gaines County, and 20 patients have been hospitalized so far.The child who died Tuesday night in the outbreak is the first U.S. death from the highly contagious but preventable respiratory disease since 2015, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The child was treated at Covenant Childrens Hospital in Lubbock, though the facility said the patient didnt live in Lubbock County. The virus has largely spread through rural, oil rig-dotted West Texas, with cases concentrated in a close-knit, undervaccinated Mennonite community, state health department spokesperson Lara Anton has said. Gaines County has a strong homeschooling and private school community. It 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. The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is safe and highly effective at preventing infection and severe cases. The first shot is recommended for children ages 12 to 15 months, and the second for ages 4 to 6 years. Most kids will recover from measles, but infection can lead to dangerous complications such as pneumonia, blindness, brain swelling and death. 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.The U.S. had considered measles, a respiratory virus that can survive in the air for up to two hours, eliminated in 2000, which meant there had been a halt in continuous spread of the disease for at least a year. Measles cases rose in 2024, including a Chicago outbreak that sickened more than 60.Eastern New Mexico has nine cases of measles currently, but the state health department said there is no connection to the outbreak in West Texas.