Kit Kats from Japan are displayed for sale at Economy Candy in New York's Lower East Side, Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)2025-04-06T11:09:16Z NEW YORK (AP) Economy Candys shelves brim with sweets from around the world gummies from Germany, lollipops from Spain, chocolates from Japan and a panoply of candies from across the U.S.Standing amid it all, columns of bright jellybeans to his left and exotic Kit Kats to his right, owner Mitchell Cohen is quick with his assessment of how many of this shops 2,000-plus items are affected by the historic round of tariffs announced by President Donald Trump.I think all of them, Cohen says at his store on New Yorks Lower East Side.Few corners of the American economy are untouched, directly or indirectly, by the sweeping tariffs being imposed by Trump. Even a little store like Economy Candy.Cohen had just begun to feel a barrage of inflation-driven price increases from suppliers ease when the tariff threats arrived. For a business with a name like Economy Candy, he wants to remain affordable but fears how high some prices may have to climb in the coming months. I think its gonna be another round of this hyperinflation on some items, says 39-year-old Cohen. If were putting tariffs everywhere, it is going to go up. Stepping into Economy Candy feels like a time warp. Its name is emblazoned on a sign in a vintage, blaring red script, and crossing below its green-and-white striped awning, past the bins of Smarties, butterscotches and Lemonheads in the front window, an indecipherable sweetness fills the air, oldies music sounds overhead and customers mill around stacks of candy bars they forgot still existed. It represents just a blip in the countrys $54 billion candy industry. But it was already feeling the weight of surges in prices of cocoa and other ingredients before tariffs were layered on.Candy and gum prices are up about 34% from five years ago and 89% from 2005, according to Consumer Price Index data. Price, according to the National Confectioners Association, has become the top factor in consumers candy purchase decisions, outweighing a buyers mood. About a third of Economy Candys products are imported, crowded on shelves and tables near the stores rear. There arent just more German Haribo varieties than the Haribo store in Germany, as Cohen claims, but gummies the brand makes in France, Austria and Britain. They have every Milka bar they can find in Switzerland, every type of Leone hard candies that Italy churns out and as many exotic Kit Kats from Japan as they can fit.On products like these, the tariffs toll is obvious. Pistachio Snickers bars are from India, now subject to 26% tariffs, while passion fruit mousse Snickers are from Portugal, now under the 20% European Union levies. But even an American-made Snickers isnt immune.While the bars may roll off conveyors in Texas, they rely on ingredients from around the globe. Sourcemap, which tracks supply chains, says Snickers bars are made with chocolate from Guyana, peanuts from Argentina and sugar from Brazil, wrapped up in packaging from Canada. All are now subjected to varying levels of tariffs. Theres a lot of ingredients in there that have to come from other countries, says Andreas Waldkirch, an economics professor at Colby College who teaches a class on international trade. Unless youre talking about something very simple from your local farmers market, almost every product relies on ingredients from elsewhere. Those indirect costs are really whats going to drive up prices.The story repeats with American candies across the store the boxes of Nerds and bags of Sugar Babies and rolls of Smarties are all inextricably tied to the global supply chain.A table teeming with those domestic delicacies takes center stage near Economy Candys entrance. Cohen took over the store from his parents, who took it over from their parents before. He got his first haircut in the store. He was behind the register as a child. He took his wife by on their first date.As a kid, everything on the stores centerpiece table of American treats cost 59 cents. By 2020, the price was $1.29, but customers who bought a whole box paid a discounted rate of $1 per piece. Now, Cohen cant even get them wholesale at that price.Today, he sells the items on the table for $1.59. Cohen calls the selection a loss leader but thinks its important to showcase his stores affordability. Once the tariffs are fully implemented, hes not sure hell be able to put off price increases. When your margins are coming down and your dollar doesnt go as far at the end of the day, you really start to feel it, he says. But I dont want anyone to come into Economy Candy and not think that its economical.The biggest-ticket implications of the tariff blitz understandably gain the most attention the thousands of dollars a cars price tag may grow, the tens of thousands that disappear from a retirement account in a single day. But here among the root beer barrels and licorice strands, youre reminded that small-dollar items are affected too, and so are the families selling them. At its birth, the business Cohens grandfather started focused on shoe and hat repairs. But in the wake of the Great Depression, when few in a neighborhood of crowded tenements had money for such fixes, the business pivoted. Candy, once relegated to a cart out front, took over the store.In the 88 years since, business hasnt always been Chuckles and Zagnuts. The Sept. 11 attacks kept tourists away and had sales sagging and the pandemic closed the store and forced it to pivot to online sales.If tariffs upend things, Cohen isnt sure how he might adapt again. He sells products that arent made in America and he sells American products made with ingredients from across the globe. He had just been making headway on beginning international sales, but the web of tariff rules may make it impossible.The average U.S. tariff could rise to nearly 25% if the import taxes Trump put on goods from dozens of countries are fully implemented Wednesday. That would be the highest rate in more than a century, including tariffs widely blamed for worsening the Great Depression.Trump said imposing the tariffs amounted to a liberation day for a country that has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by friend and foe alike, insisting it was very, very good news for the U.S.Cohen isnt sure how that can be true for a business like his.I can understand bringing manufacturing and bringing things back to America, but you know, we rely on raw materials that just arent native to our country, he says. And its not like I can get a green tea Japanese Kit Kat from an American company.As Cohen stood before mounds of strawberry candies in shiny wrappers and little cubes of caramel in cellophane, the first word of the tariffs concrete impact on him arrived. A French supplier emailed saying it was immediately imposing a 5% surcharge due to the tariffs, expressing regret for the move and hope that the situation will be resolved swiftly.Cohen wore a smile anyway. He wants this to be a happy place for visitors.You travel back to a time when nothing mattered, Cohen says, when you didnt worry about anything.___Matt Sedensky can be reached at [emailprotected] and https://x.com/sedensky. MATT SEDENSKY Sedensky is a national writer for The Associated Press. twitter mailto

Sarah Makowicki sits in the Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford, Conn., on Thursday, March 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Susan Haigh)2025-04-06T12:39:23Z States increasingly struggling to cover the rising cost of popular GLP-1 drugs like Wegovy, Ozempic and Zepbound are searching for ways to get out from under the budgetary squeeze that took them by surprise. One solution some policymakers may try is restricting the number of people on Medicaid who can use the pricey diabetes drugs for weight-loss purposes.Pennsylvanias Medicaid coverage of the drugs is expected to cost $1.3 billion in 2025 up from a fraction of that several years ago and is contributing to projections of a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. The state is thinking about requiring Medicaid patients who want to use GLP-1s for weight loss to meet a certain number on the body-mass index or try diet and exercise programs or less expensive medications first.It is a medication thats gotten a lot of hype and a lot of press, and has become very popular in its use and it is wildly expensive, Dr. Val Arkoosh, Pennsylvanias human services secretary, told a state House hearing in March. At least 14 states already cover the cost of GLP-1 medications for obesity treatment for patients on Medicaid, the federal health care program for people with low incomes. Democrats and Republicans in at least a half-dozen other states floated bills this year to require the same coverage, according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill-tracking software Plural. Some bills have stalled while others remain alive, including a proposal in Arkansas requiring GLP-1s to be covered under Medicaid when prescribed specifically for weight loss. Iowa lawmakers are thinking about ordering a cost-benefit analysis before making the commitment. Already, West Virginia and North Carolina ended programs in 2024 that provided coverage for state employees, citing cost concerns. It is very expensive, said Jeffrey Beckham, the state budget director in Connecticut, where Medicaid coverage of the drugs for weight loss may be scrapped entirely. Other states are coming to that conclusion, as well as some private carriers. Overall Medicaid spending on GLP-1 drugs before partial rebates from drug manufacturers jumped from $577.3 million in 2019 to $3.9 billion in 2023, according to a November report from KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues. The number of prescriptions for the drugs increased by more than 400% during that same time period. The average annual cost per patient for a GLP-1 drug is $12,000, according to a Peterson-KFF tracker. About half of Americans strongly or somewhat favor having Medicare and Medicaid cover weight-loss drugs for people who have obesity, a recent AP-NORC poll showed, with about 2 in 10 opposed the idea and about one-quarter with a neutral view. But Medicare does not cover GLP-1s, and the Trump administration said Friday that wouldnt put into place a proposed rule by presidential predecessor Joe Biden to cover the medications under Medicares Part D prescription drug coverage. Bidens proposal was expensive: It would have included coverage for all state- and federally funded Medicaid programs, costing taxpayers as much as $35 billion over next decade. States that do provide coverage have tried to manage costs by putting prescribing limits on the GLP-1s. Theres also some evidence that if Medicaid patients lose weight with the drugs, theyll be healthier and less expensive to cover, said Tracy Zvenyach of Obesity Action, an advocacy group that urges states to provide coverage.Zvenyach also stressed how its unclear whether patients will need to regularly take these drugs for the rest of their lives a key cost concern raised by public officials. Someone may have to be on treatment for over the course of their lifetime, she said. But we dont know exactly what that regimen would look like.About 40% of adults in the U.S. have obesity, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Obesity can cause hypertension, Type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol, which lead to greater risks of things like stroke and heart attacks. Dr. Adam Raphael Rom, a physician at Greater Philadelphia Health Action, a network of health centers in the city, said most of his patients who take GLP-1s are covered by Medicaid and some are non-diabetics who use it for weight loss.I had one patient tell me that its like, changed her relationship to food, Rom said. Ive had patients lose like 20, 40, 60 pounds.But obesity experts have told The Associated Press that as many as 1 in 5 people may not lose the amount of weight that others have seen come off. And in a recent survey of state Medicaid directors conducted by KFF, a health policy research organization, they said cost and potential side effects are among their concerns.The debate over coverage coincides with rising Medicaid budgets and the prospect of losing federal funding with congressional Republicans considering siphoning as much as $880 billion from Medicaid over the next decade. Connecticut is facing a $290 million Medicaid account deficit, and Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont proposed doing away with a 2023 requirement that Medicaid cover GLP-1s for severe obesity, though the state has never fully abided by the law due to the cost.Starting June 14, though, state Medicaid patients will be required to have a Type 2 diabetes diagnosis to get the drugs covered. Lamont also is pushing for the state to cover two less expensive oral medications approved by the FDA for weight loss, as well as nutrition counseling.Sarah Makowicki, 42, tried the other medications and said she suffered serious side effects. The graduate student and statehouse intern is working on a bill that would restore the full GLP-1 coverage for her and others. Sara Lamontagne, a transgender woman with a disability who is on Medicaid, said she regained weight when her coverage for GLP-1 medication was cut off in the past. She said she went from 260 pounds to over 300, heavier than she had ever been. So, its a horrible game to be played, to be going back and and forth, said Lamontagne, whose attempts to appeal the states recent denial of her Ozempic prescription refill have been unsuccessful.Makowicki said GLP-1 drugs combined with weight-loss surgery helped her change her life: Shes had knee-replacement surgery and lost over 200 pounds. I am a different person from what I was five years ago, Makowicki said. Not only in my physical space, but also mentally.___Haigh reported from Hartford, Connecticut. Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. SUSAN HAIGH Haigh covers the Connecticut General Assembly, state government, politics, public policy matters and more for The Associated Press. She has worked for The AP since 2002. twitter mailto MARC LEVY Levy covers politics and state government in Pennsylvania for The Associated Press. He is based in Harrisburg. twitter RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

The rising waters of the Licking River touch the basketball hoop at Max Goldberg Park, Saturday, April 5, 2025, in Falmouth, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)2025-04-06T11:11:27Z DYERSBURG, Tenn. (AP) A storm system sweeping over large areas of the U.S. South and Midwest resulted in at least 16 weather-related deaths by early Sunday, with overnight tornado and flash flood warnings setting up more severe weather that forecasters say could cause rising waterways for days to come.Many of the impacted areas already are heavily waterlogged by days of severe storms that spawned deadly tornadoes. New tornado warnings were issued overnight in Alabama and Mississippi, along with flash flood warnings for several counties in Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee.Saturday included more of the torrential rain and flash flooding that has pounded the central U.S., rapidly swelling waterways and prompting emergencies from Texas to Ohio. The 16 reported deaths since the start of the storms included 10 in Tennessee alone. The National Weather Service said dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach what the agency calls major flood stage, with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible.A 57-year-old man died Friday evening after getting out of a car that washed off a road in West Plains, Missouri. Flooding killed two people in Kentucky including a 9-year-old boy swept away that same day on his way to school and a 74-year-old whose body was found Saturday inside a fully submerged vehicle in Nelson County, authorities said. Also Saturday, a 5-year-old died at a home in Little Rock, Arkansas, in a weather-related incident, according to police. No details were immediately provided. Tornadoes earlier in the week destroyed entire neighborhoods and were responsible for at least seven of the deaths. There were 521 flights cancelled and more than 6,400 flights delayed within the U.S. or coming into or leaving the country on Saturday, according to FlightAware.com, which reported 74 cancellations and 478 delays of U.S. flights early Sunday. Interstate commerce also could be affected. The extreme flooding across a corridor that includes the major cargo hubs in Louisville, Kentucky, and Memphis could lead to shipping and supply chain delays, said Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather.The outburst comes at a time when nearly half of NWS forecast offices have 20% vacancy rates after Trump administration job cuts, twice that of just a decade ago.Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg said Saturday that the Ohio River rose 5 feet (about 1.5 meters) in 24 hours and would continue to swell for days.We expect this to be one of the top 10 flooding events in Louisville history, he said.Flash flood threat looms over many statesFlash flood emergency and tornado warnings continued to be issued Saturday across Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky, with more heavy rains and damaging winds in the mix. All of eastern Kentucky was under a flood watch through Sunday morning. Hundreds of Kentucky roads across the state were impassable because of floodwaters, downed trees or mud and rock slides. Downtown Hopkinsville, Kentucky, reopened in the morning after floodwaters from the Little River receded, giving a much-needed reprieve, but still more rainfall was on its way, Mayor James R. Knight Jr. said. We got a little rain, but most of it went north of us, Knight said. Thank goodness on that. Gave us a little break. In north-central Kentucky, emergency officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for Falmouth, a town of 2,000 people in a bend of the rising Licking River. The warnings were similar to catastrophic flooding nearly 30 years ago when the river reached a record 50 feet (15 meters), resulting in five deaths and 1,000 homes destroyed.In Arkansas, weather officials pleaded with people to avoid travel unless absolutely necessary due to widespread flooding.BNSF Railway confirmed that a railroad bridge in Mammoth Spring was washed out by floodwaters, causing the derailment of several cars. No injuries were reported, but there was no immediate estimate for when the bridge would reopen. Why so much nasty weather?Since Wednesday, more than a foot of rain (30.5 centimeters) has fallen in parts of Kentucky, and more than 8 inches (20 centimeters) in parts of Arkansas and Missouri, forecasters said Saturday.Forecasters attributed the violent weather to warm temperatures, an unstable atmosphere, strong wind shear and abundant moisture streaming from the Gulf.At least two reports of observed tornadoes were noted Friday evening in Missouri and Arkansas, according to the National Weather Service. One, near Blytheville, Arkansas, lofted debris at least 25,000 feet (7.6 kilometers) high, according to NWS meteorologist Chelly Amin. The states emergency management office reported damage in 22 counties from tornadoes, wind, hail and flash flooding.In Dyersburg, Tennessee, dozens of people arrived Saturday at a storm shelter near a public school in the rain, clutching blankets, pillows and other necessities. Among them was George Manns, 77, who said he was in his apartment when he heard a tornado warning and decided to head to the shelter. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.I grabbed all my stuff and came here, said Mann, who brought a folding chair, two bags of toiletries, laptops, iPads and medications: I dont leave them in my apartment in case my apartment is destroyed. I have to make sure I have them with me.___Schreiner reported from Shelbyville, Kentucky. Associated Press writers Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Jonathan Mattise and Kimberlee Kruesi in Nashville, Tennessee; Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; Jeff Martin in Marietta, Georgia; John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia; Hallie Golden in Seattle; and Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed.

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)2025-04-06T15:06:21Z KYIV, Ukraine (AP) Ukraine will send a team to Washington next week to begin negotiations on a new draft of a deal that would give the U.S. access to Ukraines valuable mineral resources, Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko told The Associated Press.The new draft agreement from the U.S. shows that the intention to create a fund or jointly invest remains, Svyrydenko said Saturday, during a trip to northern Ukraine. The delegation from Kyiv will include representatives from the Ministries of Economy, Foreign Affairs, Justice and Finance. The long-running negotiations over a mineral deal have already strained relations between Kyiv and Washington. The two sides had been preparing in February to sign a framework agreement but the plan was derailed following a contentious meeting in the Oval Office between U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. After some Ukrainian lawmakers leaked the new draft, critics slammed it as little more than an attempt to strip Kyiv of control over its own natural resources and infrastructure. According to the leaked document, the new draft includes not only rare-earth minerals but gas and oil. Ukraine holds significant deposits of more than 20 minerals deemed strategically critical by the U.S., including titanium, which is used to make aircraft wings, lithium, key to several battery technologies, and uranium, used in nuclear power. New draft only gives the U.S. side of the dealDespite the disruption following the Oval Office meeting, Ukrainian officials showed interest in signing the framework deal at any time, seeing it as an important step to win the favor of President Donald Trump and shore up U.S. backing in the war against Russias full-scale invasion.After weeks of silence on the status of the deal, the U.S. sent a new draft to Kyiv, which goes further than the original framework.Its unclear why the U.S. chose to bypass the signing of the framework deal and instead moved forward with a more comprehensive draft agreement, which would likely require ratification by Ukraines parliament.However, Ukrainian officials have been cautious about commenting on the contents of the draft, stressing that it currently reflects only one sides position.What we have now is a document that reflects the position of the U.S. Treasury legal team, said Svyrydenko. This is not a final version, its not a joint position.She said that Ukraines task now is to assemble a technical team for negotiations, define its red lines and core principles, and send a delegation to Washington for technical talks as early as next week.Its clear that the full parameters of this agreement cant be discussed online, Svyrydenko said. We need to sit down with the teams and continue the conversation in person.Legal, investment, and financial advisers are being selected, she said. This marks a new stage in relations with the United States one that requires expertise across multiple areas, she said. Ultimately, everything will be decided through the course of negotiations. Ukraine seeks terms acceptable to both sidesSvyrydenko declined to elaborate publicly on Ukraines official evaluation of the new draft, but noted that there is now a more detailed document outlining the funds creation. And while the initial draft focused primarily on the intention to establish the fund, Svyrydenko said the latest version lays out how American advisers envision its structure and operation. It remains unclear what role Ukraine would play in managing the fund under the newly proposed U.S. draft. However, analysts who reviewed the leaked document said Kyivs involvement would likely be minimal a point Ukraine hopes to challenge in upcoming negotiations, using the previously agreed framework as its reference.A previous version of the framework agreement, obtained by The Associated Press, outlined plans for a jointly owned and managed investment fund between the United States and Ukraine, intended to support the reconstruction of Ukraines war-torn economy. Under the terms, Ukraine would allocate 50% of future revenues generated from key national assets including minerals, hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas, and other extractable resources to the fund. The framework agreement, which was never signed, stated that revenues from its natural resources would go into the fund and be used for the reconstruction of the country, not that ownership or control of those resources would be transferred to the United States.Were very focused on ensuring that the final draft of the agreement, after negotiations, fully aligns with our strategic interests, Svyrydenko said. I believe the work on the previous memorandum showed that both teams are capable of reaching these goals and agreeing on terms acceptable to both sides. HANNA ARHIROVA Arhirova is an Associated Press reporter covering Ukraine. She is based in Kyiv. twitter instagram mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

A measles sign is seen at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Feb. 25, 2025, in Lubbock, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, file)2025-04-06T15:08:14Z A second school-aged child in West Texas has died from a measles-related illness, a hospital spokesman confirmed Sunday, as the outbreak continues to swell. Aaron Davis, a spokesperson for UMC Health System in Lubbock, Texas, said that the child was receiving treatment for complications of measles while hospitalized and was not vaccinated. The hospital declined to say which day the child died.Neither the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nor the Texas State Department of State Health Services include the death in their measles reports issued Friday. Spokespeople for the state health department and U.S. Health and Human Services Department didnt immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.A unvaccinated school-age child died of measles in February in Lubbock the first measles death in the U.S. in a decade. In early March, an adult in New Mexico who was unvaccinated and did not seek medical care became the second measles-related death. More than two months in, the West Texas outbreak is believed to have spread to New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas, sickening nearly 570 people. The World Health Organization also reported cases related to Texas in Mexico. The number of cases in Texas shot up by 81 between March 28 and April 4, and 16 more people were hospitalized. A team from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is on the ground in Texas assisting with outbreak response. And nationwide, the U.S. has more than double the number of measles cases it saw in all of 2024.Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, has delivered a tepid message on the importance of vaccination against measles, saying it should be encouraged while also sowing doubt in the vaccines safety. The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine has been used safely for more than 60 years and is 97% effective against measles after two doses. Experts and local health officials expect the outbreak to go on for several more months if not a year. In West Texas, the vast majority of cases are in unvaccinated people and children younger than 17.With several states facing outbreaks of the vaccine-preventable disease, some worry that measles may cost the U.S. its status as having eliminated the disease.Measles is a respiratory virus that can survive in the air for up to two hours. Up to 9 out of 10 people who are susceptible will get the virus if exposed, according to the CDC. The first shot is recommended for children ages 12 to 15 months, and the second for ages 4 to 6 years.___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. DEVI SHASTRI Shastri is a public health reporter for The Associated Press, based in Milwaukee. She covers housing access, the social safety net, medical misinformation and other topics that influence the health of communities broadly. twitter mailto

This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows, from left, Jack Black, Jason Momoa and Sebastian Hansen in a scene from "A Minecraft Movie." (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)2025-04-06T16:19:36Z Hollywood needed A Minecraft Movie to be a hit, and it delivered in its opening weekend, significantly narrowing this years box office deficit.No one guessed just how big it would be. In its first few days in theaters, the movie earned a staggering $157 million in ticket sales from theaters in the U.S. and Canada, according to studio estimates Sunday. Internationally, its looking at an additional $144 million for a global debut of $301 million. And with school spring breaks ongoing, A Minecraft Movie is just getting started.Not only is it the biggest opening of 2025, A Minecraft Movie also broke the record for a video game adaptation, a distinction previously held by The Super Mario Bros. Movie ($146 million). Going into the weekend, analysts projected Minecraft might hit $80 million. Instead, it nearly doubled that figure. Nothing is guaranteed in the movie business, but an offering based on the best-selling video game of all time makes for a good start. It hardly mattered that the block-based game doesnt exactly have a narrative. Many of its 200 million active monthly players turned out in droves anyway. The PG-rated movie, directed by Jared Hess (Napoleon Dynamite), was a co-production of Legendary Entertainment and Warner Bros. It cost a reported $150 million to make, not including marketing and promotion expenses. Jack Black and Jason Momoa lead the ensemble cast (Danielle Brooks, Emma Myers and Sebastian Eugene Hansen). Their characters are transported into an imaginative dimension called the Overworld and need to go on a dangerous, and immensely silly, adventure to get home. Critics were largely mixed on A Minecraft Movie, but audiences gave it a more promising B+ CinemaScore and 4/5 stars in PostTrak exit polls. Men made up around 62% of the audience, and 64% were under the age of 25. Warner Bros. went big on its release, opening the film in 4,263 locations domestically and 36,000 screens internationally. Younger audiences love going to the movie theater, believe it or not, said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. We thought this was an audience who would migrate to the small screens, but this is the perfect small screen to big screen alliance. It became a must-see theatrical event. Awareness was off the charts.Video game adaptations have had some pivotal successes in recent years, including The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the Sonic series and Five Nights at Freddys.Video games were once a genre that had very mixed results at the box office, but the code has finally been cracked, Dergarabedian said.Second place at this weeks box office went to the Jason Statham action pic A Working Man, which added $7.3 million in its second weekend. Third place was occupied by the second installment in the episodic The Chosen: Last Supper series. Part two (made up of episodes three through five) earned $6.7 million over the weekend. The third and final batch of episodes arrive in theaters on April 11. Snow White slid to fourth place in its third weekend, bringing in $6.1 million. Its now made over $168 million globally. Its been a difficult start to 2025 for Hollywood and movie theaters, with disappointments including Snow White and Mickey 17. But one hit can change the tides significantly, especially with in-theater marketing pushes in full swing for the pivotal summer movie season, which kicks off the first weekend in May. Before this weekend, the box office was running at a 13% deficit compared with last year. Now the gap is down to 5%. LINDSEY BAHR Bahr has been a film writer and critic for The Associated Press since 2014. twitter instagram mailto

South Carolina head coach Dawn Staley reacts during the first half of a national semifinal Final Four game against Texas during the women's NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)2025-04-06T15:29:44Z Follow APs full coverage of March Madness. Get the AP Top 25 womens college basketball poll delivered straight to your inbox with AP Top 25 Poll Alerts. Sign up here. TAMPA, Fla. (AP) Dawn Staley and South Carolina hope to finish off a second straight season with an NCAA championship, which would give the Gamecocks a third title in four years.To do so, theyll need to beat Paige Bueckers and UConn on Sunday.A victory by Staleys squad would give her four titles tying her with Kim Mulkey for the third most behind UConns Geno Auriemma (11) and Tennessees Pat Summitt (8). The Gamecocks would join the Huskies and Lady Vols as the only schools to ever win three championships in a four-year span.Meanwhile, its been nine years since Auriemmas team won the championship, which capped off a run of four consecutive titles from 2013-16.UConn has reached the title game only once since 2016, and during that drought it has come up on the short end of heartbreaking last-second losses in the Final Four on buzzer-beaters. The Huskies last title game appearance came in 2022 when Staleys team beat UConn to start the Gamecocks current run of success, a game that ended Auriemmas perfect record in title games.The only UConn player who saw significant time in the title game three years ago against South Carolina was Bueckers. Shell be playing in her final game for UConn hoping to leave the school with a championship, joining many other Huskies greats who have played for Auriemma. ___AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen delivers her speech during the French far-right party national rally near the parliament in Paris, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)2025-04-06T10:43:47Z PARIS (AP) Convicted of embezzling public funds and banned from running for office, far-right politician Marine Le Pen stood unshaken before a sea of French flags in Paris on Sunday. For 30 years I have fought against injustice, she told the crowd. And I will continue to fight.Thousands of supporters gathered at Place Vauban, near the golden dome of Les Invalides and the tomb of Napoleon, for what was billed as a protest but observers said it had all the markings of a campaign rally.The National Rally, Le Pens party, organized the event in response to what it calls a politically motivated verdict. But with chants of Marine Prsidente! and They wont steal 2027 from us, the message was clear: this was more than a protest. It was a show of populist defiance aimed squarely at Frances institutions. Bardella sharpens the attackAt the heart of that charge stood Jordan Bardella, Le Pens 29-year-old protg and president of the National Rally. His speech was fiery, accusing Frances judges of trying to silence the opposition.March 29 was a dark day for France, he said, referencing the date of Le Pens conviction. The people must be free to choose their leaders without interference from political judges.Though he claimed the party would respect democracy, Bardella denounced magistrates unions and warned of a system determined to crush dissent. Supporters carried signs reading Justice taking orders and Stop the judicial dictatorship. Others wore Je suis Marine (I am Marine) shirts or compared Le Pen to U.S. President Donald Trump, who was convicted of civil fraud: Trump can run why not Marine? The systems not broken its rigged, said Alice Triquet, a 26-year-old bartender. If they can do this to her, what stops them from coming after anyone who doesnt think like them?One woman raised a handmade scale of justice, its arms bent and broken a symbol of what Le Pens supporters see as a justice system turned against the people. A nation divided over justice and powerLe Pen was found guilty of using European Parliament funds to pay party staff in France a scheme the court described as a democratic bypass. She was sentenced to four years in prison, including two under house arrest, and banned from public office for five years, effective immediately. Her appeal is scheduled for next year.The reaction has been sharply divided. While National Rally supporters denounce the ruling as politically motivated, many outside the party see it as legitimate accountability. I challenge the notion that there is a tsunami of support for Le Pen on this issue, said John Goodman, Ph.D., director of Syracuse Universitys flagship program in France.He also criticized the unusually rapid pace of Le Pens appeal. Her appeal has been fast-tracked so it can be heard in the summer of 2026, well before the 2027 presidential election, and significantly faster than a typical criminal case, Goodman said. Warnings of a Trumpist turnOn the other side of the Seine, hundreds gathered for a counter-rally led by left-wing parties, warning that Frances far right is embracing U.S.-style authoritarianism.This is bigger than Marine Le Pen, said Green Party leader Marine Tondelier. Its about defending the rule of law from people who think justice is optional.Placards read No Trumpism in France and Anti-fascist response. Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal addressed supporters at a meeting of the center-right Renaissance party in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, calling the moment a test of the Republic. Former PM Edouard Philippe stood by his side.Though police were out in force, only minor clashes were reported.The real message: trust the people, not the courtsBeyond the legal battle, Sundays gathering of the National Rally revealed a deeper strategy. Party leaders have spent the week accusing judges of plotting a judicial coup. Theyve called the sentence a political execution. The goal is not just to overturn the ruling its to convince voters the legal system itself cant be trusted.Its a page from the Trump playbook: paint the courts as biased, the system as broken, and frame any legal setback as an attack on democracy. The ballot box becomes the only authority that matters.The judges wear robes, but theyre just politicians in disguise, said Claude Morel, 68, a pensioner from the southern city of Marseille. Let the people decide. What comes nextLe Pen may be barred from running for now but her political machine is far from finished. Bardella, long seen as her polished understudy, is stepping into the spotlight with growing confidence and sharpened rhetoric.We will be here tomorrow, he told the crowd. And we will be stronger.Sundays rally was more than a show of strength. It was a test: can the far right convince enough French voters that justice is no longer neutral, and that only they can return power to the people?How that question is answered may shape not only the 2027 presidential race but the future of French democracy.

South Sudan soldiers patrol the street in Juba, South Sudan on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)2025-04-06T16:35:38Z The United States once cheered the creation of South Sudan as an independent nation. Now the Trump administration has abruptly revoked the visas of all South Sudanese, saying the countrys government has failed to accept the return of its citizens in a timely manner.The decision means South Sudanese could be returned to a nation again on the brink of civil war or unable to seek the U.S. as a haven.There was no immediate response from South Sudans government, which has struggled since independence from Sudan in 2011 to deliver some of the basic services of a state. Years of conflict have left the country of over 11 million people heavily reliant on aid that has been hit hard by another Trump administration decision sweeping cuts in foreign assistance.Heres a look at South Sudan, whose people had been granted temporary protected status by the U.S. because of insecurity at home. That status expires on May 3. A deadly divideThe euphoria of independence turned to civil war two years later, when rival factions backing President Salva Kiir and deputy Riek Machar opened fire on each other in South Sudans capital, Juba, in 2013.The two mens tensions have been so much at the heart of the countrys insecurity that Pope Francis once took the extraordinary step of kneeling to kiss their feet in one of his pleas for lasting peace.Five years of civil war killed hundreds of thousands of people. A peace deal reached in 2018 has been fragile and not fully implemented, to the frustration of the U.S. and other international backers. Notably, South Sudan still hasnt held a long-delayed presidential election, and Kiir remains in power. His rivalry with Machar, compounded by ethnic divisions, has simmered through multiple attempts to return Machar as a vice president. Machar has long regarded himself as destined for the presidency, citing a prophecy years ago by a seer from his ethnic group. Late last month, the threat of war returned. Machar was arrested and his allies in the government and the military were detained following a major escalation: A militia from Machars ethnic group had seized an army garrison upcountry. The government responded with airstrikes. Dozens of people were killed. A United Nations helicopter was attacked.Following the arrest, Machars opposition political party announced South Sudans peace deal is effectively over.Lets not mince words: What we are seeing is darkly reminiscent of the 2013 and 2016 civil wars, which killed 400,000 people, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned days ago.Some Western countries have closed their embassies there while others, including the U.S., have reduced embassy staff. A country in disarraySouth Sudans government has long relied on the countrys oil production. But little of that money has reached the people, in part because of official corruption. Civil servants at times go months without being paid.Conflict in neighboring Sudan has affected landlocked South Sudans exports of oil. Refugees spilling over from Sudan have added to instability at home.Climate shocks including flooding have caused mass displacement and closed schools. South Sudans health and education systems were already among the weakest in the world. Aid organizations have run or supported many. Now that support network has been hit by sweeping cuts in U.S. aid.The Trump administrations announcement Saturday evening revoking visas for all South Sudanese with immediate effect is in sharp contrast to Washingtons past warm embrace as its rebel leaders including Kiir and Machar fought for independence.Educational and other opportunities for South Sudanese have been available in the U.S. for years. On Saturday, hours after the State Department announcement, a freshman from South Sudan was in Dukes starting lineup at the mens NCAA basketball tournament Final Four. Duke spokesman Frank Tramble told The Associated Press the university was aware of the announcement and was working expeditiously to understand any implications for Duke students. It was not immediately clear how many South Sudanese hold U.S. visas or how American authorities will follow up. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said on social media the dispute centers on one person, certified by South Sudans embassy in Washington, that Juba has refused to accept. That person was not named.No new visas will be issued, the U.S. said, and we will be prepared to review these actions when South Sudan is in full cooperation.___Associated Press sports writer Jim Vertuno in San Antonio, Texas, contributed. CARA ANNA Anna is an editor on the APs Global Desk. She has reported from Africa, China, Ukraine, Afghanistan and the United Nations. mailto

President Donald Trump returns to his Mar-a-Lago club from Trump National Golf Club, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)2025-04-06T18:32:27Z FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) Top administration officials said Sunday that more than 50 countries targeted by President Donald Trumps new tariffs have reached out to begin negotiations over the sweeping import taxes that have sent financial markets reeling, raised fears of a recession and upended the global trading system.The higher rates are set to be collected beginning Wednesday, ushering in a new era of economic uncertainty with no clear end in sight. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said unfair trade practices are not the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks. The United States, he said, must see what the countries offer and whether its believable.Trump, who spent the weekend in Florida playing golf, posted online that WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it wont be easy. His Cabinet members and economic advisers were out in force Sunday defending the tariffs and downplaying the consequences for the global economy. There doesnt have to be a recession. Who knows how the market is going to react in a day, in a week? Bessent said. What we are looking at is building the long-term economic fundamentals for prosperity. Trumps tariff blitz, announced April 2, fulfilled a key campaign promise as he acted without Congress to redraw the rules of global trade. It was a move decades in the making for Trump, who has long denounced foreign trade deals as unfair to the U.S. He is gambling that voters will be willing to endure higher prices for everyday items to enact his economic vision. Countries are scrambling to figure out how to respond to the tariffs, with China and others retaliating quickly.Top White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett acknowledged that other countries are angry and retaliating, and, he said, by the way, coming to the table. He cited the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative as reporting that more than 50 nations had reached out to the White House to begin talks. Adding to the turmoil, the new tariffs are hitting American allies and adversaries alike, including Israel, which is facing a 17% tariff. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to visit the White House Monday, with his office saying the tariffs would be a point of discussion with Trump along with the war in Gaza and other issues.Another American ally, Vietnam, a major manufacturing center for clothing, has also been in touch with the administration about the tariffs. Trump said Vietnams leader said in a telephone call that his country wants to cut their Tariffs down to ZERO if they are able to make an agreement with the U.S. And a key European partner, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, said she disagreed with Trumps move but was ready to deploy all the tools negotiating and economic necessary to support our businesses and our sectors that may be penalized.Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick made clear there was no postponing tariffs that are days away. The tariffs are coming. Of course they, he said, adding that Trump needed to reset global trade. But he committed only to having them definitely remain for days and weeks. In Congress, where Trumps Republican Party has long championed free trade, the tariff regiment has been met with applause but also significant unease.Several Republican senators have already signed onto a new bipartisan bill that would require presidents to justify new tariffs to Congress. Lawmakers would then have to approve the tariffs within 60 days, or they would expire.Wyomings John Barrasso, the No. 2 member of the Senates GOP leadership, said Trump is doing what he has every right to do. But, he acknowledged, there is concern, and theres concern across the country. People are watching the markets. Therell be a discussion in the Senate, Barrasso said of the tariffs. Well see which way the discussion goes.Trumps government cost-cutting guru, billionaire businessman Elon Musk, had been relatively silent on Trumps tariffs, but said at a weekend event in Italy that he would like to see the U.S. and Europe move to a zero-tariff situation. The comment from the Tesla owner who leads Trumps Department of Government Efficiency drew a rebuke from White House trade adviser Peter Navarro. Elon, when he is on his DOGE lane, is great. But we understand whats going on here. We just have to understand. Elon sells cars, Navarro said. He added: Hes simply protecting his own interest as any business person would do.Lawrence Summers, an economist who was treasury secretary under Democratic President Bill Clinton, said Trump and his economic team are sending contradictory messages if they say they are interested in reviving manufacturing while still being open to negotiating with trade partners. If other countries eliminate their tariffs, and the U.S, does, too, he said, its just making a deal, then we dont raise any revenue nor do we get any businesses to relocate to the United States. If its a permanent revenue source and trying to get businesses to relocate to the United States, then were going to have these tariffs permanently. So the president cant have it both ways.Bessent was on NBCs Meet the Press, Hassett and Summers appeared on ABCs This Week, Lutnick and Barrasso were on CBS Face the Nation and Navarro was interviewed on Fox News Channels Sunday Morning Futures. ______Associated Press writers Giada Zampano in Rome and Fatima Hussein in Jupiter, Florida, contributed to this report. ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON Gomez Licon writes about national politics for The Associated Press. She is based in Florida. twitter mailto

Washington Capitals left wing Alex Ovechkin (8) celebrates after scoring his 895th career goal during the second period of an NHL hockey game against New York Islanders in Elmont, N.Y., Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)2025-04-06T17:52:16Z NEW YORK (AP) Alex Ovechkin has broken Wayne Gretzkys record for the most goals in NHL history by scoring the 895th of his career.The Washington Capitals captain made history Sunday against the New York Islanders by beating fellow Russian Ilya Sorokin on a power play with 12:34 left in the second period. He took a perfect pass from longtime teammate Tom Wilson and fired an absolute laser past Sorokin with defenseman Jakob Chychrun screening.Ovechkin had never scored on Sorokin before, making his countryman the 183rd different goaltender he has beaten. He dived onto the ice to celebrate as so many Capitals fans in attendance chanted Ovi! Ovi! from the stands.Just as they did after he scored No. 894, teammates mobbed the 39-year-old Ovechkin to celebrate the accomplishment, which replaced a record that had stood for 31 years. Ovechkin then hugged team equipment and training staff on the bench and went through a handshake line with the Islanders as crew members set up for the 895 ceremony. Gretzkys total of 894 goals had long seemed unapproachable. Ovechkin passed it even after missing 16 games in November and December because of a broken left leg, a testament to his durability and a knack for putting the puck in the net consistently for two decades. He surpassed 40 goals this season for a 14th time two more than Gretzky and also the most in league history. Even before this, Ovechkin owned the NHL records for power-play goals, shots on goal and the most goalies scored against, now adding Sorokin to that list. Only Gretzky has more multi-goal games, and Ovechkin earlier this season became just the sixth player with 700 goals and 700 assists, joining Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Jaromir Jagr, Marcel Dionne and Phil Esposito. Ovechkin last moved up the all-time goal-scoring list Dec. 23, 2022, when he got Nos. 801 and 802 to tie and pass Howe. The chase by the Great 8, a nickname honoring his jersey number, captured attention from North America to Ovechkins native Russia, where billboards and goal-counters cheered on and tracked his effort. It helped Ovechkin that his team is one of the best in the NHL this season, defying expectations.Gretzky broke Howes record a little over 31 years ago, since he scored 802 on March 23, 1994. He added 92 more before retiring in 1999 after a total of 1,487 games over 20 seasons.Even with this one falling to Ovechkin which he has said he is excited about Gretzky holds 55 NHL records, and two seem truly untouchable: 2,857 total points and 1,963 assists, the latter of which is more than anyone else has in goals and assists combined.For NHL playoff goals, which do not count toward the record, Gretzky has the most (122). Ovechkin has 72. Gretzky also had another 56 in the World Hockey Association regular season and playoffs, while Ovechkin has 57 from his time in the KHL, Russias top league.Returning to Russia to play in front of family and friends is an option at some point for Ovechkin, who has one season left after this one on the five-year, $47.5 million contract he signed in 2021, which took him through age 40 to give him enough time to chase Gretzkys record. Instead, he got it done earlier than just about anyone could have realistically expected.___AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl STEPHEN WHYNO Whyno has covered the NHL, Washington Capitals, the NFLs Washington Commanders and horse racing for The Associated Press since 2016. twitter facebook RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia of Maryland, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, speaks during a news conference at CASA's Multicultural Center in Hyattsville, Md., April 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, file)2025-04-06T18:21:13Z GREENBELT, Md. (AP) A federal judge is for the second time ordering the Trump administration to return a Maryland man who was mistakenly sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador, blasting the U.S. government in a ruling Sunday that noted a now-suspended Justice Department lawyer admitted he didnt know why the man was being held. The order from U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis reaffirms a ruling she gave days earlier, shooting down arguments that the government cant facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia because he is no longer in U.S. custody. As defendants acknowledge, they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere, Xinis wrote. Having confessed grievous error, the defendants now argue that this Court lacks the power to hear this case, and they lack the power to order Abrego Garcias return. The Justice Department has asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to pause Xinis ruling. Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national, was arrested in Maryland and deported last month despite an immigration judges 2019 ruling that shielded him from deportation to El Salvador, where he faced likely persecution by local gangs. Abrego Garcia had a permit from DHS to legally work in the U.S. and that he was a sheet metal apprentice pursuing a journeyman license, his attorney said. His wife is a U.S. citizen. The White House has described Abrego Garcias deportation as an administrative error but has also cast him an MS-13 gang member. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia said there is no evidence he was in MS-13. In her order Sunday, Xinis referenced earlier comments from now-suspended Justice Department attorney Erez Reuveni in which Reuveni said: We concede he should not have been removed to El Salvador and that he responded I dont know when asked why Abrego Garcia was being held. The Justice Department placed Reuveni on leave after he made the comments. Attorney General Pam Bondi, in an interview on Fox News Sunday, likened Reuvenis comments to a defense attorney walking in, conceding something in a criminal matter.That would never happen in this country, she said. So hes on administrative leave now and well see what happens.Stacey Young, a former Justice Department lawyer and founder of Justice Connection, a network of department alumni that works to support employees, released a statement that defended Reuveni and said he has zealously represented the United States in some of the most high-stakes and controversial immigration cases under the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. Justice Department attorneys are being put in an impossible position: Obey the president, or uphold their ethical duty to the court and the Constitution, Young said. We should all be grateful to DOJ lawyers who choose principle over politics and the rule of law over partisan loyalty.

Visitors walk near entrance of Maha Aungmye Bonzan Monastery, commonly known as the Me Nu Brick Monastery, in the aftermath of Friday's earthquake in Innwa, Tada-U township, Mandalay, Myanmar, Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP Photo)2025-04-06T17:44:53Z BANGKOK (AP) People in Myanmars earthquake-stricken areas braced for thunderstorms late Sunday, after heavy rains and winds the previous night disrupted rescue and relief operations and added to the misery of the many who lost their homes in the disaster and were forced to sleep in the open.Myanmars state-run MRTV reported on Sunday evening that scattered showers and thunderstorms possible across the country for the next week.The public is advised to be aware of the possibility of untimely rain accompanied by strong winds, lightning, hail, and landslides, MRTV said. Daytime temperatures are forecast to reach 38 degrees Celsius C (100 degrees Fahrenheit) by mid-week.The epicenter of the 7.7 magnitude quake on March 28 was near Mandalay, Myanmars second-largest city. It hit a wide swath of the country, causing significant damage to six regions and states including the capital Naypyitaw. Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, a spokesperson for the military government, said Sunday in an audio message to journalists that 3,564 people have been confirmed dead so far, with 5,012 others injured and 210 missing. The quake left many areas without power, telephone or cell connections and damaged roads and bridges, hindering damage assessments.An official from Myanmar Rescue Federation (Mandalay) told The Associated Press on Sunday that rescuers had to temporarily shut down electrical equipment and machines used in search operations due to the rain on Saturday and Sunday, making work more difficult but not halting it. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was afraid of being arrested by the military for speaking without authorization, said rescuers will continue search operations despite the possibility of more rain.Another rescuer working in Mandalay, similarly speaking on condition of anonymity, said the rain and strong winds caused some buildings to collapse, causing further hardship for those seeking shelter. The Irrawaddy, an online Myanmar news site operating in exile, reported that at least 80 dead bodies were found in the wreckage of the Great Wall Hotel in Mandalay after the removal of walls and rubble on Sunday afternoon. Its report could not immediately be confirmed.Myanmar Fire Services Department said in a statement on Sunday that rescuers recovered five bodies from collapsed buildings in Mandalay.Myanmar has had a military government since February 2021, when the army ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi. It tolerates no criticism, and is engaged in a civil war against pro-democracy resistance forces and ethnic minority guerrilla armies.The earthquake left many areas without power, telephone or cell connections and damaged roads and bridges, making the full extent of the devastation hard to assess.Myanmars military government has said 5,223 buildings, 1,824 schools, 2,752 Buddhist monasterial living quarters, 4,817 pagodas and temples, 167 hospitals and clinics, 169 bridges, 198 dams and 184 sections of the countrys main highway were damaged by the earthquake.

2025-04-07T00:41:54Z BANGKOK (AP) Japans share benchmark nosedived on Monday after the meltdown Friday on Wall Street over U.S. President Donald Trumps tariff hikes. Tokyos Nikkei 225 index lost nearly 8% shortly after the market opened and Australias S&P/ASX 200 tumbled more than 6%. South Koreas Kospi lost 4.4%. U.S. futures also were lower.

Actor Jay North, in character as Dennis the Menace, shows his ever-present slingshot to show co-star Gale Gordon, on set in Hollywood, March 29, 1962. (AP Photo/David F. Smith, File)2025-04-07T01:51:07Z LAKE BUTLER, Fla. (AP) Jay North, who starred as the towheaded mischief maker on TVs Dennis the Menace for four seasons starting in 1959, has died. He was 73. North died Sunday at his home in Lake Butler, Florida, after battling colon cancer, said Laurie Jacobson, a longtime friend, and Bonnie Vent, who was his booking agent.He had a heart as big as a mountain, loved his friends deeply. He called us frequently and ended every conversation with I love you with all my heart, Jacobson wrote in a tribute on Facebook. North was 6 when he was cast as the smiling troublemaker in the CBS sitcom adaptation of Hank Ketchams popular comic strip that took place in an idyllic American suburb. Often wearing a striped shirt and overalls, Dennis mischievous antics frequently frustrated his retired next-door neighbor George Wilson, played by Joseph Kearns. Dennis patient parents were played by Herbert Anderson and Gloria Henry. The show ran on Sunday nights until it was canceled in 1963. After that it was a fixture for decades in syndication. Later, North appeared on TV in shows including The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Lucy Show, My Three Sons, Lassie and The Simpsons, and in movies like Maya (1966), The Teacher (1974) and Dickie Robert: Former Child Star (2003).North is survived by his third wife, Cindy, and three stepdaughters. RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

General view part of Kakuma refugee camp in Turkana county, Kenya, Saturday, Feb. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Jackson Njehia)2025-04-07T05:32:30Z KAKUMA, Kenya (AP) Windswept and remote, set in the cattle-rustling lands of Kenyas northwest, Kakuma was never meant to be permanently settled.It became one of Africas most famous refugee camps by accident as people escaping calamity in countries like South Sudan, Ethiopia and Congo poured in.More than three decades after its first tents appeared in 1992, Kakuma houses 300,000 refugees. Many rely on aid to survive. Some recently clashed with police over shrinking food rations and support.Now the Kenyan government and humanitarian agencies have come up with an ambitious plan for Kakuma to evolve into a city.Although it remains under the United Nations management, Kakuma has been redesignated a municipality, one that local government officials later will run.It is part of broader goal in Kenya and elsewhere of incorporating refugees more closely into local populations and shifting from prolonged reliance on aid. The refugees in Kakuma eventually will have to fend for themselves, living off their incomes rather than aid. The nearest city is eight hours drive away.Such self-reliance is not easy. Few refugees can become Kenyan citizens. A 2021 law recognizes their right to work in formal employment, but only a tiny minority are allowed to do so.Forbidden from keeping livestock because of the arid surroundings and the inability to roam widely, and unable to farm due to the lack of adequate water, many refugees see running a business as their only option. World-class entrepreneursStartup businesses require capital, and interest rates on loans from banks in Kakuma are typically around 20%. Few refugees have the collateral and documentation needed to take out a loan.Denying them access to credit is a tremendous waste of human capital, said Julienne Oyler, who runs Inkomoko, a charity providing financial training and low-cost loans to African businesses, primarily in displacement-affected communities.We find that refugee business owners actually have the characteristics that make world-class entrepreneurs, she said.They are resilient. They are resourceful. They have access to networks. They have adaptability. In some ways, what refugees unfortunately have had to go through actually makes a really good business owner.Other options available include microloans from other aid groups or collective financing by refugee-run groups. However, the sums involved are usually insufficient for all but the smallest startups.One of Inkomokos clients in Kakuma, Adele Mubalama, led seven young children six of her own and an abandoned 12-year-old she found en route on a hazardous journey to the camp through four countries after the family was forced to leave Congo in 2018.At the camp it took six months to find her husband, who had fled two months earlier, and six more to figure out how to make a living.It was difficult to know how to survive, Mubalama said. We didnt know how to get jobs and there were no business opportunities.After signing up for a tailoring course with a Danish charity, she found herself making fabric masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Able to borrow from Inkomoko at half the rate charged by banks, she expanded, taking on 26 employees and buying new sewing machines. Last year she made a profit of $8,300 a huge amount when many refugees live on allowances or vouchers of about $10 or less a month.Another beneficiary is Mesfin Getahun, a former soldier who fled Ethiopia for Kakuma in 2001 after helping students who had protested against the government. He has grown his Jesus is Lord shops, which sell everything from groceries to motorcycles, into Kakumas biggest retail chain. Thats thanks in part to $115,000 in loans from Inkomoko.Trading with other towns is also essential. Inkomoko has linked refugee businesses with suppliers in Eldoret, a city 300 miles (482 kilometers) to the south, to cut out expensive middlemen and help embed Kakuma into Kenyas economy. Other challengesSome question the vision of Kakuma becoming a thriving, self-reliant city.Rahul Oka, an associate research professor with the University of Notre Dame said it lacks the resources particularly water and infrastructure to sustain a viable economy that can rely on local production.You cannot reconstruct an organic economy by socially engineering one, said Oka, who has studied economic life at Kakuma for many years.Two-way trade remains almost nonexistent. Suppliers send food and secondhand clothes to Kakuma, but trucks on the return journey are usually empty.And the vast majority of refugees lack the freedom to move elsewhere in Kenya, where jobs are easier to find, said Freddie Carver of ODI Global, a London-based think tank.Unless this is addressed, solutions offering greater opportunities to refugees cannot deliver meaningful transformation for most of them, he said. If you go back 20 years, a lot of refugee rights discourse was about legal protections, the right to work, the right to stay in a country permanently, Carver said. Now its all about livelihoods and self-sufficiency. The emphasis is so much on opportunities that it overshadows the question of rights. There needs to be a greater balance.___For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulseThe Associated Press receives financial support for global health and development coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

A salt farm owner walks around his salt farm on Sinui Island, South Korea, Feb. 19, 2014. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)2025-04-07T04:14:37Z SEOUL. South Korea (AP) The United States has blocked imports of sea salt products from a major South Korean salt farm accused of using slave labor, becoming the first trade partner to take punitive action against a decadeslong problem on salt farms in remote islands off South Koreas southwest coast.U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a withhold release order against the Taepyung salt farm, saying information reasonably indicates the use of forced labor at the company in the island county of Sinan, where most of South Koreas sea salt products are made. Under the order issued on April 2, CBP personnel at all U.S. ports of entry are required to detain sea salt products sourced from the farm.South Koreas Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries didnt immediately comment on CBPs move on Monday. Taepyung is the largest salt farm in Sinan, reportedly producing about 16,000 tons of salt annually, which accounts for approximately 6% of the countrys total output, and is a major supplier to South Korean food companies. The farm, located on Jeungdo island in Sinan and leasing most of its salt fields to tenants, has been repeatedly accused of using forced labor, including in 2014 and 2021. The widespread slavery at Sinans salt farms was exposed in 2014, when dozens of slavery victims most of them with disabilities were rescued from the islands following an investigation by mainland police. Some of their stories were documented by The Associated Press, which highlighted how slavery continued to thrive despite the exposure. CBP said it identified several signs of forced labor during its investigation of Taepyung, including abuse of vulnerability, deception, restriction of movement, retention of identity documents, abusive living and working conditions, intimidation and threats, physical violence, debt bondage, withholding of wages, and excessive overtime. Lawyer Choi Jung Kyu, part of a group of attorneys and activists who petitioned CBP to take action against Taepyung and other South Korean salt farms in 2022, expressed hope that the U.S. export ban would increase pressure on South Korea to take more effective steps to eliminate the slavery. Since the exposure of the problem in 2014, the courts have recognized the legal responsibility of the national government and local governments, but forced labor among salt farm workers has not been eradicated, Choi said. Our hope is that the export ban would force companies to strengthen due diligence over supply chains and lead to the elimination of human rights violations. Most of the salt farm slaves rescued in 2014 had been lured to the islands by man hunters and job brokers hired by salt farm owners, who would beat them into long hours of hard labor and confine them at their houses for years while providing little or no pay.The slavery was revealed in early 2014 when two police officers from the capital, Seoul, came to one of the Sinan islands disguised as tourists and pulled off a clandestine operation to rescue a victim who had been reported by his family as missing. One of the Seoul police officers told the AP they went undercover because of concerns about collaborative ties between the islands police and salt farm owners. Dozens of farm owners and job brokers were indicted, but no police or officials were punished despite allegations some knew about the slavery. In 2019, South Koreas Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that ordered the government to compensate three men who had been enslaved on Sinans salt farms, acknowledging that local officials and police failed to properly monitor their living and working conditions.The salt farm slavery issue resurfaced in 2021 when around a dozen workers at Taepyung were discovered to have endured various labor abuses, including forced labor and delayed payments. KIM TONG-HYUNG Kim has been covering the Koreas for the AP since 2014. He has published widely read stories on North Koreas nuclear ambitions, the dark side of South Koreas economic rise and international adoptions of Korean children. twitter mailto

the rising waters of Cedar Creek and the Kentucky River overflow their banks, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Monterey, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)2025-04-07T05:40:04Z FRANKFORT, Kentucky (AP) Days of unrelenting heavy rain and storms that killed at least 18 people worsened flooding as some rivers rose to near-record levels and inundated towns across an already saturated U.S. South and parts of the Midwest.Cities ordered evacuations and rescue crews in inflatable boats checked on residents in Kentucky and Tennessee, while utilities shut off power and gas in a region stretching from Texas to Ohio.As long as Ive been alive and Im 52 this is the worst Ive ever seen it, said Wendy Quire, the general manager at the Brown Barrel restaurant in downtown Frankfort, Kentucky, the state capital built around the swollen Kentucky River.The rain just wont stop, Quire said Sunday. Its been nonstop for days and days.Officials diverted traffic and turned off utilities to businesses in the city as the river was expected to crest above 49 feet Monday to a record-setting level, said Frankfort Mayor Layne Wilkerson. The citys flood wall system is designed to withstand 51 feet of water. For many, there was a sense of dread that the worst was still to come.This flooding is an act of God, said Kevin Gordon, a front desk clerk at the Ashbrook Hotel in downtown Frankfort. The hotel was offering discounted stays to affected locals. Storms leaving devastating impact The 18 reported deaths since the storms began on Wednesday included 10 in Tennessee. A 9-year-old boy in Kentucky was caught up in floodwaters while walking to catch his school bus. A 5-year-old boy in Arkansas died after a tree fell on his familys home, police said. A 16-year-old volunteer Missouri firefighter died in a crash while seeking to rescue people caught in the storm.The National Weather Service warned Sunday that dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach a major flood stage, with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible. In north-central Kentucky, emergency officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for Falmouth and Butler, towns near the bend of the rising Licking River. Thirty years ago, the river reached a record 50 feet (15 meters), resulting in five deaths and 1,000 homes destroyed.The storms come after the Trump administration cut jobs at NWS forecast offices, leaving half of them with vacancy rates of about 20%, or double the level of a decade ago.Why so much nasty weather?Forecasters attributed the violent weather to warm temperatures, an unstable atmosphere, strong winds and abundant moisture streaming from the Gulf.The NWS said 5.06 inches (nearly 13 centimeters) of rain fell Saturday in Jonesboro, Arkansas making it the wettest day ever recorded in April in the city. Memphis, Tennessee, received 14 inches (35 centimeters) of rain from Wednesday to Sunday, the NWS said. Rives, a northwestern Tennessee town of about 200 people, was almost entirely underwater after the Obion River overflowed. Domanic Scott went to check on his father in Rives after not hearing from him in a house where water reached the doorstep.Its the first house weve ever paid off. The insurance companies around here wont give flood insurance to anyone who lives in Rives because were too close to the river and the levees. So if we lose it, were kind of screwed without a house, Scott said. In Dyersburg, Tennessee, dozens of people arrived over the weekend at a storm shelter near a public school clutching blankets, pillows and other necessities. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.Among them was George Manns, 77, who said he was in his apartment when he heard a tornado warning and decided to head to the shelter. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.I grabbed all my stuff and came here, said Mann, who brought a folding chair, two bags of toiletries, laptops, iPads and medications: I dont leave them in my apartment in case my apartment is destroyed.For others, grabbing the essentials also meant taking a closer look at the liquor cabinet.In Frankfort, with water rising up to his window sills, resident Bill Jones fled his home in a boat, which he loaded with several boxes of bottles of bourbon. ___Izaguirre reported from New York. Kruesi reported from Nashville. Associated Press writers Bruce Schreiner in Shelbyville, Kentucky; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Adrian Sainz in Memphis; Tennessee; Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Obed Lamy in Rives, Tennessee; and Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this report.

U.S. citizens who immigrated from Venezuela between 16 and 30 years ago play dominos outside El Arepazo, a restaurant that is a hub of the largest Venezuelan community in the U.S., in Doral, Fla., Wednesday, April 2, 2025. Many of the friends, including Cesar Mena, at right, voted for President Donald Trump and continue to support him. "I have family and friends on TPS [Temporary Protected Status] and I feel bad for them. But it's a temporary situation, and you need to resolve the problem." (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)2025-04-07T04:50:20Z DORAL, Fla. (AP) Wilmer Escaray left Venezuela in 2007 and enrolled at Miami Dade College, opening his first restaurant six years later.Today he has a dozen businesses that hire Venezuelan migrants like he once was, workers who are now terrified by what could be the end of their legal shield from deportation.Since the start of February the Trump administration has ended two federal programs that together allowed more 700,000 Venezuelans to live and work legally in the U.S. along with hundreds of thousands of Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans. In the largest Venezuelan community in the United States, people dread what could face them if lawsuits that aim to stop the government fail. Its all anyone discusses in Little Venezuela or Doralzuela, a city of 80,000 people surrounded by Miami sprawl, freeways and the Florida Everglades. Deportation fears in DoralzuelaPeople who lose their protections would have to remain illegally at the risk of being deported or return home, an unlikely route given the political and economic turmoil in Venezuela.Its really quite unfortunate to lose that human capital because there are people who do work here that other people wont do, Escaray, 37, said at one of his Sabor Venezolano restaurants. Spanish is more common than English in shopping centers along Dorals wide avenues, and Venezuelans feel like theyre back home but with more security and comfort.A sweet scent wafts from round, flat cornmeal arepas sold at many establishments. Stores at gas stations sell flour and white cheese used to make arepas and T-shirts and hats with the yellow, blue and red stripes of the Venezuelan flag. New lives at risk John came from Venezuela nine years ago and bought a growing construction company with a partner. He and his wife are on Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, which Congress created in 1990 for people in the United States whose homelands are considered unsafe to return due to natural disaster or civil strife. Beneficiaries can live and work while it lasts but TPS carries no path to citizenship.Born in the U.S., their 5-year-old daughter is a citizen. John, 37, asked to be identified by first name only for fear of being deported.His wife helps with administration at their construction business while working as a real-estate broker. The couple told their daughter that they may have to leave the United States. Venezuela is not an option.It hurts us that the government is turning its back on us, John said. We arent people who came to commit crimes; we came to work, to build.A federal judge ordered on March 31 that temporary protected statuswould stand until a legal challenges next stage in court and at least 350,000 Venezuelans were temporarily spared becoming illegal. Escaray, the owner of the restaurants, said nearly all of his 150 employees are Venezuelan and more than 100 are on TPS.The federal immigration program that allowed more than 500,000 Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians and Nicaraguans to work and live legally in the U.S. humanitarian parole expires April 24 absent court intervention. Politics of migrationVenezuelans were one of the main beneficiaries when former President Joe Biden sharply expanded TPS and other temporary protections. Trump tried to end them in his first term and now his second. The end of the temporary protections has generated little political reaction among Republicans except for three Cuban-American representatives from Florida who called for avoiding the deportations of affected Venezuelans. Mario Daz Ballart, Carlos Gimenez and Maria Elvira Salazar have urged the government to spare Venezuelans without criminal records from deportation and review TPS beneficiaries on a case-by-case basis.The mayor of Doral, home to a Trump golf club since 2012, wrote a letter to the president asking him to find a legal pathway for Venezuelans who havent committed crimes.These families do not want handouts, said Christi Fraga, a daughter of Cuban exiles. They want an opportunity to continue working, building, and investing in the United States. A countrys elite, followed by the working class About 8 million people have fled Venezuela since 2014, settling first in neighboring countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. After the COVID-19 pandemic, they increasingly set their sights on the United States, walking through the notorious jungle in Colombia and Panama or flying to the United States on humanitarian parole with a financial sponsor.In Doral, upper-middle-class professionals and entrepreneurs came to invest in property and businesses when socialist Hugo Chvez won the presidency in the late 1990s. They were followed by political opponents and entrepreneurs who set up small businesses. In recent years, more lower-income Venezuelans have come for work in service industries.They are doctors, lawyers, beauticians, construction workers and house cleaners. Some are naturalized U.S. citizens or live in the country illegally with U.S.-born children. Others overstay tourist visas, seek asylum or have some form of temporary status. Thousands went to Doral as Miami International Airport facilitated decades of growth. Frank Carreo, president of the Venezuelan American Chamber of Commerce and a Doral resident for 18 years, said there is an air of uncertainty. What is going to happen? People dont want to return or cant return to Venezuela, he said. GISELA SALOMON Salomon is a Miami-based reporter who covers Latin America and immigration affairs for The Associated Press.Salomon es una periodista que desde Miami cubre asuntos latinoamericanos y de inmigracion. twitter mailto

Israeli tanks maneuver along the border with north of the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, March 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, File)2025-04-07T06:56:09Z DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) Israel struck tents outside two major hospitals in the Gaza Strip overnight, killing at least two people, including a local reporter, and wounding nine, including six reporters, medics said Monday.Fifteen others were killed in separate strikes across the territory, according to hospitals.A strike on a media tent outside Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis at around 2 a.m. set the tent ablaze, killing Yousef al-Faqawi, a reporter for the Palestine Today TV station, and another man, according to the hospital. The six reporters were wounded in that strike.The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas militant, without providing further information. The military says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames Hamas for their deaths because it is deeply embedded in residential areas.Israel also struck tents on the edge of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah, wounding three people, according to the hospital. Nasser Hospital said it received 13 other bodies, including six women and four children, from separate strikes overnight. Al-Aqsa Hospital said two people were killed and three wounded in a strike on a home in Deir al-Balah. Israel has carried out waves of strikes across Gaza and ground forces have carved out new military zones since it ended its ceasefire with Hamas last month. Israel has barred the import of food, fuel, medicine and humanitarian aid since the beginning of March. Thousands of people have sheltered in tents set up inside hospital compounds throughout the 18-month war, assuming Israel would be less likely to target them.Israel has raided hospitals on several occasions, accusing Hamas of using them for military purposes, allegations denied by hospital staff.The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, rampaging through army bases and farming communities and killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. They abducted 251 people, and are still holding 59 captives 24 of whom are believed to be alive after most of the rest were released in ceasefires or other deals. Israel has vowed to keep escalating military pressure until Hamas releases the remaining hostages, lays down its arms and leaves the territory. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he will then implement U.S. President Donald Trumps proposal to resettle much of Gazas population to other countries through what the Israeli leader refers to as voluntary emigration.Palestinians say they do not want to leave their homeland, and human rights experts have warned that implementing the Trump proposal would likely amount to mass expulsion in violation of international law.Netanyahu will meet with Trump in Washington on Monday to discuss Gaza and other issues.Israels military offensive has killed over 50,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gazas Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were militants or civilians. Israel says it has killed around 20,000 militants, without providing evidence.The offensive has destroyed vast areas of Gaza and at its height displaced around 90% of its population.___Magdy reported from Cairo.___Follow APs war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war SAMY MAGDY Magdy is a Middle East reporter for The Associated Press, based in Cairo. He focuses on conflict, migration and human rights abuses. twitter facebook mailto

Israeli military vehicles move inside the Gaza Strip, as seen from southern Israel, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit, File)2025-04-07T06:10:15Z TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) Israel has dramatically expanded its footprint in the Gaza Strip since relaunching its war against Hamas last month. It now controls more than 50% of the territory and is squeezing Palestinians into shrinking wedges of land.The largest contiguous area the army controls is around the Gaza border, where the military has razed Palestinian homes, farmland and infrastructure to the point of uninhabitability, according to Israeli soldiers and rights groups. This military buffer zone has doubled in size in recent weeks.Israel has depicted its tightening grip as a temporary necessity to pressure Hamas into releasing the remaining hostages taken during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that started the war. But the land Israel holds, which includes a corridor that divides the territorys north from south, could be used for wielding long-term control, human rights groups and Gaza experts say. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that even after Hamas is defeated, Israel will keep security control in Gaza and push Palestinians to leave.The demolition close to the Israeli border and the systematic expansion of the buffer zone has been going on since the war began 18 months ago, five Israeli soldiers told The Associated Press. They destroyed everything they could, they shot everything that looks functioning ... (the Palestinians) will have nothing to come back, they will not come back, never, a soldier deployed with a tank squad guarding the demolition teams said. He and four other soldiers spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. A report documenting the accounts of soldiers who were in the buffer zone was released Monday by Breaking The Silence, an anti-occupation veterans group. A handful of soldiers -- including some who also spoke to AP -- described watching the army turn the zone into a vast wasteland. Through widespread, deliberate destruction, the military laid the groundwork for future Israeli control of the area, said the group.Asked about the soldiers accounts, the Israeli army said it is acting to protect its country and especially to improve security in southern communities devastated by the Oct. 7 attack, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. The army said it does not seek to harm civilians in Gaza, and that it abides by international law. Carving Gaza into sectionsIn the early days of the war, Israeli troops forced Palestinians from communities near the border and destroyed the land to create a buffer zone more than a kilometer (0.62 miles) deep, according to Breaking The Silence.Its troops also seized a swath of land across Gaza known as the Netzarim Corridor that isolated the north, including Gaza City, from the rest of the narrow, coastal strip, home to more than 2 million people.When Israel resumed the war last month, it doubled the size of the buffer zone, pushing it as far as 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) into Gaza in some places, according to a map issued by the military. The buffer zone and the Netzarim Corridor make up at least 50% of the strip, said Yaakov Garb, a professor of environmental studies at Ben Gurion University, who has been examining Israeli-Palestinian land use patterns for decades. Last week, Netanyahu said Israel intends to create another corridor that slices across southern Gaza, cutting off the city of Rafah from the rest of the territory. Israels control of Gaza is even greater taking into account areas where it recently ordered civilians to evacuate ahead of planned attacks.Neighborhoods turned into rubbleHundreds of thousands of Palestinians used to live in the land that now makes up Israels buffer zone, an area that was key to Gazas agricultural output.Satellite images show once dense neighborhoods turned to rubble, as well as nearly a dozen new Israeli army outposts since the ceasefire ended. When the ceasefire was announced in January, Nidal Alzaanin went back to his home in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza. His property stood on the edge of the buffer zone and lay in ruins.All that remains is a photo of him and his wife on their wedding day, a drawing of his sons face on a porcelain plate and the carcass of a 150-year-old sycamore tree planted by his great-grandfather. His greenhouse was reduced to twisted scraps of metal. The 55-year-old farmer pitched a tent in the rubble, hoping to rebuild his life. But when Israel resumed its campaign and seized his land, he was again uprooted.It took 20 years to build a house and within five minutes they destroyed all my dreams and my childrens dreams, he said from Gaza City, where he now shelters.Israels bombardment and ground offensives throughout the war have left vast swaths of Gazas cities and towns destroyed. But the razing of property inside the buffer zone has been more methodical and extensive, soldiers said.The five soldiers who spoke to the AP said Israeli troops were ordered to destroy farmland, irrigation pipes, crops and trees as well as thousands of buildings, including residential and public structures, so that militants had nowhere to hide.Several soldiers said their units demolished more buildings than they could count, including large industrial complexes. A soda factory was leveled, leaving shards of glass and solar panels strewn on the ground. Soldier alleges buffer zone was a kill zoneThe soldiers said the buffer zone had no marked boundaries, but that Palestinians who entered were shot at. The soldier with the tank squad said an armored bulldozer flattened land creating a kill zone and that anyone who came within 500 meters of the tanks would be shot, including women and children.Visibly shaken, he said many of the soldiers acted out of vengeance for the Oct. 7 attack.I came there because they kill us and now were going to kill them. And I found out that were not only killing them. Were killing them, were killing their wives, their children, their cats, their dogs, and we destroyed their houses, he said.The army said its attacks are based on intelligence and that it avoids as much as possible, harm to non-combatants.Long-term hold?It is unclear how long Israel intends to hold the buffer zone and other territory inside Gaza.In announcing the new corridor across southern Gaza, Netanyahu said Israel aims to pressure Hamas to release the remaining 59 hostages, of whom 35 are believed dead. He also said the war can only end when Hamas is destroyed and its leaders leave Gaza, at which point Israel would take control of security in the territory. Then, Netanyahu said, Israel would implement U.S. President Donald Trumps call to move Palestinians from Gaza, what Israel calls voluntary emigration.Some Israel analysts say the purpose of the buffer zone isnt to occupy Gaza, but to secure it until Hamas is dismantled. This is something that any sane country will do with regard to its borders when the state borders a hostile entity, said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at two Israeli think tanks, the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute.But rights group say forcibly displacing people is a potential war crime and crime against humanity. Within Gazas buffer zones, specifically, it amounts to ethnic cleansing, because it was clear people would never be allowed to return, said Nadia Hardman, a researcher at Human Rights Watch.Israel called the accusations baseless and said it evacuates civilians from combat areas to protect them.___Associated Press reporter Michael Biesecker contributed from Washington. SAM MEDNICK Mednick is the AP correspondent for Israel and the Palestinian Territories. She focuses on conflict, humanitarian crises and human rights abuses. Mednick formerly covered West & Central Africa and South Sudan. twitter

Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the KEB Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)2025-04-07T04:29:37Z Asian markets plunged on Monday following last weeks two-day meltdown on Wall Street, and President Donald Trump said he wont back down on the sweeping new tariffs he announced on April 2 that have roiled global trade.Countries are scrambling to figure out how to respond to the tariffs, with China and others retaliating quickly.Trumps tariff blitz fulfilled a key campaign promise as he acted without Congress to redraw the rules of the international trading system. It was a move decades in the making for Trump, who has long denounced foreign trade deals as unfair to the U.S.The higher rates are set to be collected beginning Wednesday, ushering in a new era of economic uncertainty with no clear end in sight.___Heres the latest: Trump says hes not backing down on tariffs, calls them medicine as markets reelPresident Donald Trump said Sunday that he wont back down on his sweeping tariffs on imports from most of the world unless countries even out their trade with the U.S., digging in on his plans to implement the taxes that have sent financial markets reeling, raised fears of a recession and upended the global trading system.Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said he didnt want global markets to fall, but also that he wasnt concerned about the massive sell-off either, adding, sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something. His comments came as global financial markets appeared on track to continue sharp declines once trading resumes Monday, and after Trumps aides sought to soothe market concerns by saying more than 50 nations had reached out about launching negotiations to lift the tariffs. I spoke to a lot of leaders, European, Asian, from all over the world, Trump said. Theyre dying to make a deal. And I said, were not going to have deficits with your country. Were not going to do that, because to me a deficit is a loss. Were going to have surpluses or at worst, going to be breaking even. Asian markets plunge as tariff fallout intensifiesAsian markets plunged on Monday following last weeks two-day meltdown on Wall Street, and U.S. President Donald Trump said he wont back down on his sweeping tariffs on imports from most of the world unless countries even out their trade with the U.S.Tokyos Nikkei 225 index lost nearly 8% shortly after the market opened on Monday. By midday, it was down 6%. Hong Kongs Hang Seng dropped 9.4%, while the Shanghai Composite index was down 6.2%, and South Koreas Kospi lost 4.1%.U.S. futures also signaled further weakness.Market observers expect investors will face more wild swings in the days and weeks to come, with a short-term resolution to the trade war appearing unlikely.

A forest official walks with volunteers to search for olive ridley sea turtle eggs on Marina Beach in Chennai, India, Thursday, March 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A.)2025-04-07T03:51:14Z CHENNAI, India (AP) For nearly four decades, residents in southern Indias coastal city of Chennai have patrolled moonlit beaches at night trying to protect sea turtles and their hatchlings that for millennia have nested along these shores.Hungry dogs, locals looking for a snack, and disorienting lights are among the hazards facing the olive ridley turtles and their eggs, which can take up to 60 days to hatch. Many turtles are caught offshore in fishing nets, which this year alone have killed hundreds of them in the area.Nonetheless, local residents have collected and helped to protect more than 260,000 turtle eggs this year in Tamil Nadu state, whose capital is Chennai.Patrollers scan the beaches looking for turtles nesting or small sand mounds that might indicate eggs are buried underneath. When they find a cache of eggs, they transport them to a protected area and rebury them at the same depth as they were initially found. This is crucial since temperatures affect what sex the turtles will be. Researchers say rising temperatures from human-caused planet warming are resulting in fewer male turtles being born. We cover a lot of ground, at least 30 kilometers (18 miles), by breaking into smaller groups and each group walking seven or eight kilometers, said a volunteer named Melvin, who goes only by his first name and has been working with turtle conservation groups for several years. The patrols begin around midnight each day during the turtle nesting season, which runs from December to April. The Associated Press saw one volunteer dig carefully at a possible nesting site until his hand was elbow-deep in the sand, where he found the eggs. He and other volunteers carefully brought the eggs out, counting a total of 137 of them. They were placed in a cloth bag and brought to the safe haven of a nearby hatchery.I come during my summer holidays to Chennai just to do this, said Yajur Karthik, an 11-year-old volunteer from nearby Bengaluru city who has been coming for the last two years to help protect the turtles. Karthik said he feels its important to help conserve the turtles given the growing number of challenges these ancient creatures face.Only one in a thousand turtles survives, he said.___The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. SIBI ARASU Sibi reports on climate change from India and South Asia twitter mailto

Nature, Published online: 07 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01067-2Without clear protocols to catch errors, artificial intelligences growing role in science could do more harm than good.

A dejected investor waits to restart trading, suspended for an hour following a 5% drop in in its main index, at the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSE), in Karachi, Pakistan, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Fareed Khan)2025-04-07T10:13:25Z BANGKOK (AP) The impact of U.S. President Donald Trumpsblast of tariff hikes was reverberating across world markets Monday as Americas trading partners puzzled over whether there is room for negotiating better deals. Several countries said they were sending trade officials to Washington to try to talk through the crisis, which has cast uncertainty over the global economic outlook, hammered markets and left U.S. allies wondering about the value of their ties with the worlds largest economy. However, Germanys economy minister, Robert Habeck, was defiant as he arrived at a meeting of European Union trade ministers in Luxembourg, saying the premise of the wide-ranging tariffs was nonsense and that attempts by individual countries to win exemptions havent worked in the past. Its important for the EU to stick together, he said. That means being clear that we are in a strong position America is in a position of weakness. China, which hit back Friday at Washington with 34% tariffs on U.S. products and other retaliatory moves, accused the U.S. of failing to play fair.Putting America First over international rules is a typical act of unilateralism, protectionism and economic bullying, Foreign Affairs spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters. The ruling Communist Party struck a note of confidence even as markets in Hong Kong and Shanghai crumpled. The sky wont fall, declared The Peoples Daily, the partys official mouthpiece. Faced with the indiscriminate punches of U.S. taxes, we know what we are doing and we have tools at our disposal. Leading big drops in many markets, Hong Kongs stock benchmark, the Hang Seng, plunged 13.2%. The Shanghai Composite index, meanwhile, lost 7.3% despite reported moves by regulators to staunch the losses.Chinas Commerce Ministry said officials met with representatives of 20 American businesses including Tesla and GE Healthcare over the weekend and urged them to take concrete actions to address the tariffs issue.During the meeting, Ling Ji, a vice minister of commerce, promised that China will remain open to foreign investment, according to the readout by the ministry. Other Asian nations seek negotiations South Koreas Trade Ministry said its top negotiator, Inkyo Cheong, will visit Washington this week to express Seouls concerns over the 25% tariffs on Korean goods and discuss ways to mitigate the damage to South Korean businesses, which include major automakers and steel makers.Pakistan also planned to send a delegation to Washington this month to try negotiate over the 29% tariffs on its exports to the U.S., officials said. The prime minister ordered Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb to assess the tariffs potential impact on Pakistans fragile economy and draw up recommendations. The U.S. imports around $5 billion worth of textiles and other products each year from Pakistan, which heavily relies on loans from the International Monetary Fund and other lenders. In Southeast Asia, Malaysias Trade Minister Zafrul Abdul Aziz said his country will seek to forge a united response from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to Trumps sweeping tariffs. As chair of the 10-nation body this year, Malaysia will lead a meeting Thursday in its capital Kuala Lumpur to discuss broader implications of the trade war on regional trade and investment, Zafrul told reporters.We are looking at the investment flows, macroeconomic stability and ASEANs coordinated response to this tariff issue, Zafrul said. He denied reports Malaysia had imposed a 47% tariff on imports from the U.S., saying the actual average Malaysian tariff on American exports is 5.6%. He said that he had met with the U.S. ambassador to Malaysia to try to clarify how the U.S. came up with its 24% tariff. Indonesia plans to increase imports from US Indonesia, one of the regions biggest economies, said it would work with businesses to increase its imports of U.S. wheat, cotton, oil and gas to help reduce its trade surplus, which was $18 billion in 2024. Coordinating Economic Affairs Minister Airlangga Hartarto told a news conference that Indonesia will not retaliate against the new 32% tariff on Indonesian exports, but would use diplomacy to seek mutually beneficial solutions. Some Southeast Asian neighbors, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, face tariffs of over 40%, giving Indonesia a slight advantage, he noted.For Indonesia, it is also another opportunity as its market is huge in America, Hartoto said. He said Indonesia would buy U.S.-made components for several national strategic projects, including refineries.___Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed to this report. ELAINE KURTENBACH Based in Bangkok, Kurtenbach is the APs business editor for Asia, helping to improve and expand our coverage of regional economies, climate change and the transition toward carbon-free energy. She has been covering economic, social, environmental and political trends in China, Japan and Southeast Asia throughout her career. twitter mailto RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

People clean debris from damaged buildings in the aftermath of an earthquake on March 28, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo)2025-04-07T10:26:45Z BANGKOK (AP) Long-shot efforts to find survivors from Myanmars devastating March 28 earthquake were winding down Monday, as rescue efforts were supplanted by increasing relief and recovery activity, with the death toll from the disaster surpassing 3,500 and still climbing.In the capital, Naypyitaw, people cleared debris and collected wood from their damaged houses under drizzling rain, and soldiers removed wreckage at some Buddhist monasteries.Myanmar Fire Services Department said Monday that rescue teams had recovered 10 bodies from the rubble of a collapsed building in Mandalay, Myanmars second biggest city.It said international rescuers from Singapore, Malaysia and India had returned to their countries after their work to find survivors was considered completed. The number of rescue teams operating in the residential areas of Naypyitaw has been steadily decreasing. The 7.7 magnitude quake hit a wide swath of the country, causing significant damage to six regions and states. The earthquake left many areas without power, telephone or cell connections and damaged roads and bridges, making the full extent of the devastation hard to assess. Heavy rains and winds disrupted rescue and relief operations on Saturday night and added to the misery of the homeless forced to sleep in the open. The weather forecast for this week said scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible across the country. Myanmars military government and its battlefield opponents, meanwhile, have been trading accusations over alleged violations of ceasefire declarations each had declared to ease earthquake relief efforts.Myanmar has been in turmoil since the armys 2021 takeover ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, which led to nationwide peaceful protests that escalated into armed resistance and what now amounts to civil war.Although the military government and its armed opponents declared unilateral ceasefires for a temporary period, reports of continued fighting are widespread, with the army coming in for special attention for continuing aerial bombing, according to independent Myanmar media and eyewitnesses. Independent confirmation of fighting is difficult because of the remoteness of the areas in which much of it takes place and restrictions on journalists.The Three Brotherhood Alliance, a trio of powerful ethnic minority guerrilla armies, declared a unilateral temporary ceasefire on April 1, following an earlier declaration by the opposition National Unity Government, or NUG.The NUG, which leads the pro-democracy resistance, said its armed wing, the Peoples Defense Force, would cease offensive actions for two weeks.On Wednesday night, the army announced a similar unilateral ceasefire, as did another ethnic minority group among its foes, the Kachin Independence Organization.All sides reserved the right to act in self-defense.The Taang National Liberation Army, or TNLA, a member of the powerful Three Brotherhood Alliance, charged in a Sunday statement on the Telegram messaging platform that the military conducted airstrikes, including dropping toxic gas bombs, on villages the guerrilla group occupied last year in the northern part of Shan state. Another member of the alliance, the Arakan Army, fighting in the western state of Rakhine, said Saturday night that the military continued to launch daily counterattacks, aerial bombardments, shelling and naval attacks against its troops in two townships in Rakhine state, as well as in Ayeyarwady and Bago regions.The group said it occupied a military base it had besieged on a strategic hill in Bago a day after declaring its ceasefire, but honored its terms by failing to attack the armys retreating soldiers.The shadow National Unity Government on Saturday accused the military of carrying out 63 airstrikes and artillery attacks since the earthquake, resulting in the deaths of 68 civilians, including one child and 15 women.However, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, a spokesperson for the military government, said in an audio message to journalists on Saturday night that the groups in the Three Brotherhood Alliance and the Kachin Independence Army, as well as the Karen National Union in southeastern Myanmar and pro-democracy forces in the central Magway region and other groups violated the ceasefires by attacking the army.We are carrying out relief and assistance efforts for the people affected by the earthquake. I am saying this to make everyone aware of the ceasefire violations at a time like this, Zaw Min Tun said.

Nature, Published online: 07 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01063-6Academics can drive policy innovation but they must shift their focus from publishing papers to creating practical products.

Nature, Published online: 07 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01033-yState of the industry report also shows that 2024 was a breakthrough year for small, sleek models to rival the behemoths.

A soldier plays an accordion during the performance of a corrido for the media at a military base in Mexico City, Monday, March 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)2025-04-07T05:07:07Z MEXICO CITY (AP) At a Mexican military base, Captain Eduardo Barrn picks up not a rifle but a microphone. Swaying boot-to-boot, he belts out a song as the sounds of trumpets and accordions roar from a band of a dozen camouflage-clad soldiers.The rhythmic style known as a corrido is recognizable to just about every soul in the Latin American nation of 130 million. But Barrns lyrics diverge sharply from those blaring on speakers across Mexico.I still remember the day I joined the military, he crooned. This is a dream my soul longed for, and if I were to live another life, Id become a soldier again.Barrn, who performs under the name Eddy Barrn, began releasing music videos and songs on Spotify last year in coordination with the Mexican military. His lyrics extol the armys virtues, celebrate proud parents and honor the fallen. They stand in stark contrast to the controversial narco corridos, a subgenre that has sparked controversy as famed artists pay homage to cartel bosses, portraying them as rebels going against the system.Faced with the challenge of addressing a musical style that depicts cartel violence, local governments across Mexico have increasingly banned performances and pursued criminal investigations of bands and musicians. Mexicos president even vowed to reduce the popularity of narco corridos while promoting other, less violent musical styles. But Barrn, 33, is taking a different approach. Instead of censorship, he wants to build upon the momentum with his own military corridos, an effort to both infuse the genre with more socially acceptable lyrics and recruit young people to the military.Narco life is in style and they make it sound really pretty but the reality is different, he said. Were playing our part to invite young people to join this movement of positive music. A vow to change Mexican musicBarrons military ballads are part of a wider government push spearheaded by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has proposed that the government promote corridos about love, falling out of love and peace.She even announced a government-sponsored Mexican music competition in the northern state of Durango showcasing music that avoids glorifying violence, drugs and discrimination against women.It will completely change Mexican music, she said.But in a subculture long defined by resistance and putting words to the harsh realities facing the poor, the governments initiatives around the genre have been met with skepticism about official attempts to promote family-friendly narratives.I dont think using corridos as a way to incorporate other kinds of narratives, is a bad idea, said Jos Manuel Valenzuela, a Tijuana sociologist who studies the genre. There are a lot of songs that sing of peace and love. Its just that those arent the ones that are turning out to be hits because were living in a moment of aggrieved youth. Singing through social issuesCorridos were born in the 19th century, their classical band instruments and the accordion rooted in German and Polish migration to Mexico. At a time of widespread illiteracy, they were used widely to pass on oral histories.The ballads took off during the Mexican revolution, when they were used to share stories of war heroes and glory from the conflict.That is why Barrn says he didnt invent military corridos, but that hes simply bringing them back.Corridos come from the revolution, and were doing the same thing as those soldiers and revolutionaries, albeit in a different age, but the result is the same, he said.The genre evolved over generations, from singing about smuggling tequila during the 1920s Prohibition era in corridos tequileros to grappling with the rising wave of cartel violence in Mexico with narco corridos.All the big social issues are told through corridos, Valenzuela said. Its a metaphor to speak about what weve been living through. Weapons and barbed wire as inspirationBarrn said he would play guitar with his fathers Mexican regional music band as a teenager, and write his own music. He would bring his guitar to play on deployments after he joined the army at 20.In 2021, he said he began writing his own songs about his time in the military and singing with a military FX Band, named after the type of gun the military uses. But the music never went public.Around 2023, the genre exploded when artists like Peso Pluma, Fuerza Regida and Natanael Cano began to mix the classic style with trap music in what are known as corridos tumbados. That same year, Peso Pluma bested Taylor Swift as the most streamed artist on YouTube.A year later, the Mexican army decided to post Barrns music under his artistic name.The music videos, which have clocked tens of thousands of views on YouTube alone, are layered with images of heavy duty weapons, the Mexican flag, barbed wire and Barrn belting out in camouflage and infrared goggles pulled above his military helmet. Originally intended to entertain troops and boost military recruitment among young Mexicans, Barrns songs took on a different meaning amidst the renewed controversy that has come with the corridos boom.The musical style has long been criticized for romanticizing cartel violence, but has hit an inflection point in recent years.Mexican states have implemented performance bans, and prominent artists have received death threats, often claiming to be from rival cartels whose leaders are glorified in their music. And musicians have been forced to cancel shows due to concerns about potential violence.The controversy intensified last week, after the face of top cartel boss Nemesio Rubn El Mencho Oseguera was projected onto a large screen behind the band Los Alegres del Barranco at a music festival in the northern state of Jalisco. The incident, occurring shortly after Osegueras cartel was linked to a ranch under investigation as a training camp and body disposal site in Jalisco, sent shockwaves across Mexico.The performance was met with a cascade of criticisms. Two Mexican states announced criminal investigations, concerts were cancelled and the Trump administration revoked the U.S. visas of band members.It also marked a hardening in tone by Sheinbaum, who called for an investigation into the concert, adding: You cant justify violence or criminal groups.Barrn, who opposes a ban on corridos, believes the solution is to continue to sing cloaked in camouflage with the hopes of reclaiming the Mexican music from his childhood from the negative stereotypes that have grown to define it.He said the army is already planning to release new songs in the coming months.Sadly, weve been stuck with this label of corridos as negative music, he said. A better approach is to reclaim the genre and take a different path to shift the conversation.____Follow APs coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

Nature, Published online: 07 April 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08924-0Author Correction: Recapitulation of premature ageing with iPSCs from HutchinsonGilford progeria syndrome

An LGBTQ+ related book is seen on shelf at Fabulosa Books a store in the Castro District of San Francisco on Thursday, June 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Haven Daley,File)2025-04-07T10:02:06Z NEW YORK (AP) Removing books from library shelves is no longer just a story of objections from a local community or an individual parent, the American Library Association says. In its new State of American Libraries Report released Monday, the ALA found more than 70% of attempted bans of a given title or titles come from organized groups and elected officials, and just 16% originated with a parent.The most commonly criticized books, including Maia Kobabes Gender Queer and the late Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye, can be found on such websites as www.ratedbooks.org and through lists compiled by Moms for Liberty and other conservative activists.We can trace many of the challenges to lists of books that have been distributed by Moms for Liberty and other groups, said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, who directs the associations Office for Intellectual Freedom. As part of its annual report, the ALA unveiled its list of the 10 most challenged books of 2024, starting with George M. Johnsons All Boys Arent Blue, and also featuring Gender Queer, The Bluest Eye, Stephen Chboskys The Perks of Being a Wallflower and John Greens Looking for Alaska. Most of the books listed have LGBTQ+ themes, continuing a yearslong trend. Other objections include references to drug addiction, such as in Ellen Hopkins Crank, and to slavery and sexual abuse, including those in Patricia McCormicks Sold. The ALA defines a challenge as a formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. The association, which compiles censorship data through media accounts and reports from librarians, has long believed the actual number of challenges is far higher than the numbers cited in its annual studies.The report comes at an especially perilous time for libraries. The Trump administration is implementing drastic cuts at the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which already is canceling grants to state libraries. Bans have surged in recent years and several states, from Texas and Florida to Iowa and Utah, have passed laws restricting what school libraries can acquire. While the ALA is reporting a sharp drop in challenges in 2024, down to 821 attempts compared to 1,247 the year before, the number remains far higher than before 2021. And Caldwell-Stone doesnt believe censorship is declining. Libraries are now more likely to avoid stocking books that are controversial, or may be prohibited by law, she says. I spoke to a librarian from Texas who told me she was looking over a political book and wasnt sure if she could add it to the collection, Caldwell-Stone said. Librarians dont want to get prosecuted or otherwise face legal trouble. A lot of librarians are operating under these kinds of threats.The 10 Most Challenged Books of 20241. All Boys Arent Blue, by George M. Johnson2. Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe3. (Tie) The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison3. (Tie) The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky5. Tricks, by Ellen Hopkins6. (Tie) Looking for Alaska, by John Green6. (Tie) Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, by Jesse Andrews8. (Tie) Crank, by Ellen Hopkins8. (Tie) Sold, by Patricia McCormick10. Flamer, by Mike Curato RSShttps://feedx.net https://feedx.site

In 2018, I spent two days at Facebooks Menlo Park campus doing back-to-back on-the-record interviews with executives who worked on the companys content policy teams. This was after we had published article after article exposing the many shortcomings of Facebooks rules, based on internal guidebooks that were leaked to Joseph. We learned, for example, that Facebook would sometimes bend its rules to comply with takedown requests from governments that were threatening to block the service in their country, that Facebook had drawn an impossible-to-define difference between white supremacy, white nationalism, and white separatism that didnt stand up to any sort of scrutiny, and that it had incredibly detailed rules about when it was allowable to show a Photoshopped anus on the platform.After months of asking for interviews with its top executives, Facebooks public relations team said that, instead, I should fly to Menlo Park and sit in on a series of meetings about how the rules are made, how the team dealt with difficult decisions, how third party stakeholders like civil liberties groups are engaged, and how particularly difficult content decisions were escalated to Sheryl Sandberg. SPONSORED This segment is a paid ad. If youre interested in advertising, let's talk.Your Personal Data May Not Be Hidden. Take Control with DeleteMe.Don't want just anyone finding your information on Search Engines? Remove your personal information from Data Brokers using DeleteMe. Use code 404MEDIA for 20% off Learn more One of the people I interviewed while at Facebook headquarters was Guy Rosen, who was then Facebooks head of product and is now its chief information security officer. I interviewed Rosen about how it could be possible that Facebook had failed so terribly at content moderation in Myanmar that it was being credibly accused of helping to facilitate the genocide of the Rohingya people. What Rosen told me shocked me at the time, and is something that I think about often when I write about Facebook. Rosen said that Facebooks content moderation AI wasnt able to parse the Burmese language because it wasnt a part of Unicode, the international standard for text encoding. Besides having very few content moderators who knew Burmese (and no one in Myanmar), Facebook had no idea what people were posting in Burmese, and no way to understand it: We still dont know if its really going to work out, due to the language challenges, Rosen told me. This was in 2018; Facebook had been operating in Myanmar for seven years and had at that time already been accused of helping to facilitate this human rights catastrophe.Posters that were hanging at Facebook HQ in 2018. Image: Jason KoeblerMy time at Facebook was full of little moments like this. I had a hard time squaring the incredibly often thoughtful ways that Facebook employees were trying to solve incredibly difficult problems with the horrendous outcomes we were seeing all over the world. Posters around HQ read REDUCE CLICKBAIT, DEPOLARIZE, REDUCE MISINFO, and UNSHIP HATE. Yet much of what I saw on Facebook at the time and to this day are, well, all of those things. Other posters talked about having respect for employees, as I wrote about a workforce that was largely made up of low-wage contractors around the world whose job was to look at terrorism videos, hate speech, graphic sexual content, etc. When I asked a Facebook executive about what it was doing to support the mental health needs of its content moderators and to help them deal with PTSD, the Facebook executive in charge of content moderator training at the time told me that they had designed actual physical environments in its offices where traumatized employees could just kind of chillax or, if you want to go play a game, or if you want to just walk away, you know, be by yourself.The biggest question I had for years after this experience was: Does Facebook know what its actually doing to the world? Do they care?In the years since, I have written dozens of articles about Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, have talked to dozens of employees, and have been leaked internal documents and meetings and screenshots. Through all of this, I have thought about the ethics of working at Facebook, namely the idea that you can change a place that does harm like this from the inside, and how people who work there make that moral determination for themselves. And I have thought about what Facebook cares about, what Mark Zuckerberg cares about, and how it got this way.Mostly, I have thought about whether there is any underlying tension or concern about what Facebook is doing and has done to the world; whether its values, to the extent a massive corporation has values, extend beyond making money, amassing power, growing, crushing competition, avoiding accountability, and stopping regulation. Basically, I have spent an inordinate amount of time wondering to myself if these people care about anything at all.Careless People, by Sarah Wynn-Williams, is the book about Facebook that I didnt know I had been waiting a decade to read. Its also, notably, a book that Facebook does not want you to read; Wynn-Williams is currently under a gag order from a third-party arbitrator that prevents her from promoting or talking about the book because Facebook argued that it violates a non-disparagement clause in her employment contract.Wynn-Williams worked at Facebook between 2011 and 2017, rising to become the director of public policy, a role she originally pitched as being Facebooks diplomat, and ultimately became a role where she did a mix of setting up meetings between world leaders and Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, determined the policy and strategy for these meetings, and flew around the world meeting with governments trying to prevent them from blocking Facebook.The reason the book feels so important and cathartic is because, as a memoir, it does something that reported books about Facebook cant quite do. It follows Wynn-Williams interior life as she recounts what drew her to Facebook (the opportunity to influence politics at a global scale beyond what she was able to do at the United Nations), the strategies and acts she made for the company (flying to Myanmar by herself to meet with the junta to get it unblocked there, for example), and her discoveries and ultimate disillusionment with the company as she goes on what often feels like repeated Veep-like quests to get Mark Zuckerberg to take interactions with world leaders seriously, to engineer a spontaneous interaction with Xi Jinping, to get him or Sandberg to care about the role Facebook played in getting Trump and other autocrats elected.Facebook HQ. Image: Jason KoeblerShe was in many of the rooms where big decisions were made, or at least where the fallout of many of Facebooks largest scandals were discussed. If you care about how Facebook has impacted the world at all, the book is worth reading for the simple reason that it shows, repeatedly, that Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook as a whole Knew. About everything. And when they didnt know but found out, they sought to minimize or slow play solutions.Yes, Facebook lied to the press often, about a lot of things; yes, Internet.org (Facebooks strategy to give free internet to people in the developing world) was a cynical ploy at getting new Facebook users; yes, Facebook knew that it couldnt read posts in Burmese and didnt care; yes, it slow-walked solutions to its moderation problems in Myanmar even after it knew about them; yes, Facebook bent its own rules all the time to stay unblocked in specific countries; yes, Facebook took down content at the behest of China then pretended it was an accident and lied about it; yes, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg intervened on major content moderation decisions then implied that they did not. Basically, it confirmed my priors about Facebook, which is not a criticism because reporting on this company and getting anything beyond a canned statement or carefully rehearsed answer from them over and over for years and years and years has made me feel like I was going crazy. Careless People confirmed that I am not.It has been years since Wynn-Williams left Facebook, but it is clear these are the same careless people running the company. When I wonder if the company knows that its platforms are being taken over by the worst AI slop you could possibly imagine, if it knows that it is directly paying people to flood these platforms with spam, if it knows it is full of deepfakes and AI generated content of celebrities and cartoon characters doing awful things, if it knows it is showing terrible things to kids. Of course it does. It just doesnt care.Throughout the book, Wynn-Williams grapples with the morality of what shes being asked to do, and whether it feels ethical for her to be doing it at all. This is her book, of course, and she generally comes off as someone fighting to do the right thing at a company that often did not do the right thing. But even this retrospective introspection hit hard for me; Wynn-Williams is a funny, colorful, and sometimes heartbreaking writer. She writes about staying at Facebook even as shes treated terribly and asked to do horrible things following a near-death health emergency she suffered during childbirth because she needs the health insurance, she talks about sexual harassment she says she endured from her boss and Sheryl Sandberg, and about being fired after reporting it.It is obvious why Facebook doesnt want people to read this book. No one comes out looking good, but they come out looking exactly like we thought they were.

Nature, Published online: 07 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01045-8Spatial proteomics is helping biologists to uncover how cells work by mapping where proteins operate.

Nature, Published online: 07 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00960-0Science journalist and author Carl Zimmer joins us to talk about his new book Air-borne.

Auburn guard Tahaad Pettiford (0) moves on the court against Michigan State during the second half in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)2025-04-07T10:30:07Z Hours before college basketball crowns its next champion, the future of college sports will be hanging in the balance in a California courtroom. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilkens scheduled hearing Monday in a courtroom in Oakland is expected to be the last one before the changes will truly begin under an industry-changing, $2.8 billion settlement of a five-year-old lawsuit against the NCAA and the nations largest conferences. Among other things, it will clear the way for schools to pay up to $20.5 million each with their athletes.Wilken has already granted preliminary approval for the settlement. It was unknown whether she will give final approval at Mondays hearing, which is expected to include testimony from some of those objecting to details of the sprawling plan. LSU gymnast and influencer Olivia Dunne is among the 18 people scheduled to testify, though she is expected to appear via Zoom. The new structure outlined by the settlement, which represents a shift in billions of dollars from the schools into the pockets of athletes, is supposed to go into effect on July 1. Universities across the country have been busy making plans, under the assumption Wilken will put the terms into effect. Were going to have a plan going into July 1, then were probably going to spend the next year figuring out how good that plan is and how we need to modify it going forward, said Florida athletic director Scott Stricklin, whose department is among the biggest in the country and includes a Gators mens basketball team playing for the national title late Monday against Houston. The so-called House settlement, named after Arizona State swimmer Grant House, actually decides three similar lawsuits that were bundled into one. The defendants are the NCAA and the Southeastern, Big Ten, Atlantic Coast, Big 12 and Pac-12 conferences, all of whom have been touting the settlement as the best path forward for their industry. Its a huge step forward for college sports, especially at the highest level, said NCAA President Charlie Baker, whose organization continues to seek antitrust protections from Congress. My biggest problem with the way the whole thing works right now is the schools have been removed from the primary relationship with the student-athletes.The most ground-shifting part of the settlement calls on schools from the biggest conferences to pay some 22% of their revenue from media rights, ticket sales and sponsorships which equals about $20.5 million in the first year directly to athletes for use of their name, images and likeness (NIL). Still allowed would be NIL payments to athletes from outside sources, which is what triggered the seismic shift college sports has endured over the last four years. For instance, Cooper Flagg of Duke reportedly makes $4.8 million in NIL deals from groups affiliated with the school and others. The settlement calls for a clearinghouse to make sure any NIL deal worth more than $600 is pegged at fair market value. Its an attempt to prevent straight pay for play deals, though many critics believe the entire new structure is simply NIL masquerading as that. Another key element is the $2.8 billion in back damages to athletes who played sports between 2016 and 2024 and were not entitled to the full benefits of NIL at the time they attended schools. Those payments are being calculated by a formula that will favor football and basketball players and will be doled out by the NCAA and the conferences.The settlement also calls for replacing scholarship limits with roster limits. The effect would be to allow every athlete to be eligible for a scholarship while cutting the number of spots available. There will be winners and losers under such a formula, though some fear it could signal the end of the walk-on athlete in college sports and also imperil smaller sports programs that train and populate the U.S. Olympic team. ___AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports

President Donald Trump waves as he arrives at the White House on Marine One, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)2025-04-07T11:56:43Z WASHINGTON (AP) President Donald Trump remained defiant on Monday as global markets continued plunging and fears of a recession grew after his tariff announcement last week. He said other countries had been taking advantage of the Good OL USA! in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform.Our past leaders are to blame for allowing this, and so much else, to happen to our Country, Trump wrote. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!Trump has insisted his tariffs are necessary to rebalance global trade and rebuild domestic manufacturing. He has singled out China as the biggest abuser of them all and criticized Beijing for increasing its own tariffs in retaliation. The Republican president also called on the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. On Friday, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned that the tariffs could increase inflation, and he said theres a lot of waiting and seeing going on, including by us, before any decisions would be made. Trump spent the weekend in Florida, arriving on Thursday night to attend a Saudi-funded tournament at his Miami golf course. He stayed at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, and golfed at two of his properties nearby. On Sunday, he posted a video of himself hitting a drive, and he told reporters aboard Air Force One that evening that he won a club championship. Its good to win, Trump said. You heard I won, right? He also said that he wouldnt back down from his tariffs despite the turmoil in the global markets.Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something, Trump said. Goldman Sachs issued a new forecast saying a recession has become more likely even if Trump backtracks from his tariffs. The financial firm said economic growth would slow dramatically following a sharp tightening in financial conditions, foreign consumer boycotts, and a continued spike in policy uncertainty that is likely to depress capital spending by more than we had previously assumed. On Monday, the president is scheduled to welcome the Los Angeles Dodgers to the White House to celebrate their World Series victory. Hes also meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and theyre expected to hold a joint press conference in the afternoon.Trump has strived for a united front after the chaotic infighting of his first term. However, the economic turbulence has exposed some fractures within his disparate coalition of supporters. Bill Ackman, a hedge fund manager, lashed out at Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Sunday as indifferent to the stock market and the economy crashing. He said Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial firm led by Lutnick before he joined the Trump administration, stood to profit because of bond investments. On Monday, Ackman apologized for his criticism but reiterated his concerns about Trumps tariffs. I am just frustrated watching what I believe to be a major policy error occur after our country and the president have been making huge economic progress that is now at risk due to the tariffs, he wrote on X. Top White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told Fox News Channel that Ackman should ease off the rhetoric a little bit.He insisted that other countries, not the United States, are going to bear the brunt of the tariffs.Billionaire Elon Musk, a top adviser to Trump on overhauling the federal government, expressed skepticism about tariffs over the weekend. Musk has said that tariffs would drive up costs for Tesla, his electric automaker.I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move ideally in my view to a zero tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America, Musk said in a video conference with Italian politicians.He added, That certainly has been my advice to the president.Peter Navarro, a Trump trade adviser and tariff proponent, later told Fox News that Musk doesnt understand the situation. He sells cars, Navarro said. Thats what he does. He added that, Hes simply protecting his own interests as any business person would do.___Follow the APs coverage of President Donald Trump at https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump. CHRIS MEGERIAN Megerian covers the White House for The Associated Press. He previously wrote about the Russia investigation, climate change, law enforcement and politics in California and New Jersey. twitter mailto

Nature, Published online: 07 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01070-7Ecologist Cecilia Soldatini tracks the movements of magnificent frigatebirds.

Nature, Published online: 07 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01069-0Curious about using artificial intelligence to boost your research? Here are the programs you shouldnt miss.

FILE Clouds hang over the North Sentinel Island, in India's southeastern Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Nov. 14, 2005. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh, File)2025-04-07T10:53:08Z NEW DELHI (AP) Indian police have arrested a 24-year-old American Youtuber who visited an off-limits island in the Indian ocean and left an offering of a Diet Coke can and a coconut in an attempt to make contact with an isolated tribe known for attacking intruders.Mykhailo Viktorovych Polyakov, from Scottsdale, Arizona, was arrested on March 31, two days after he set foot on the restricted territory of North Sentinel Island part of Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands in a bid to meet people from the reclusive Sentinelese tribe, police said. A local court last week sent Polyakov to a 14-day judicial custody and he is set to appear again in the court on April 17. The charges carry a possible sentence of up to five years in prison and a fine. Indian authorities said they had informed the U.S. Embassy about the case. Visitors are banned from traveling within 3 miles (5 kilometres) of the island, whose population has been isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years. The inhabitants use spears and bows and arrows to hunt the animals that roam the small, heavily forested island. Deeply suspicious of outsiders, they attack anyone who lands onto their beaches. In 2018, an American missionary who landed illegally on the beach was killed by North Sentinel islanders who apparently shot him with arrows and then buried his body on the beach. In 2006, the Sentinelese had killed two fishermen who had accidentally landed on the shore. Indian officials have limited contacts to rare gift-giving encounters, with small teams of officials and scientists leaving coconuts and bananas for the islanders. Indian ships also monitor the waters around the island, trying to ensure outsiders do not go near the Sentinelese, who have repeatedly made clear they want to be left alone. Police said Polyakov was guided by GPS navigation during his journey and surveyed the island with binoculars before landing. He stayed on the beach for about an hour, blowing a whistle to attract the attention but got no response from the islanders. He later left a can of Diet Coke and a coconut as an offering, made a video on his camera, and collected some sand samples before returning to his boat.On his return he was spotted by local fishermen, who informed the authorities and Polyakov was arrested in Port Blair, the capital of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an archipelago nearly 750 miles (1,207 kilometres) east of Indias mainland. A case was registered against him for violation of Indian laws that prohibit any outsider to interact with the islanders.Police said Polyakov had conducted detailed research on sea conditions, tides and accessibility to the island before starting his journey.He planned meticulously over several days to visit the island and make a contact with the Sentinel tribe, Senior Police Officer Hargobinder Singh Dhaliwal said.In a statement, police said Polyakovs actions posed a serious threat to the safety and well-being of the Sentinelese people, whose contact with outsiders is strictly prohibited by the law to protect their indigenous way of life. An initial investigation revealed Polyakov had made two previous attempts, in October last year and January, to visit the islands, including in an inflatable kayak.Police said Polyakov was drawn to the island due to his passion for adventure and extreme challenges, and was fascinated by the mystique of the Sentinelese people.Survival International, a group that protects the rights of Indigenous peoples, said Polyakovs attempted contact with the tribes of North Sentinel was reckless and idiotic.This persons actions not only endangered his own life, they put the lives of the entire Sentinelese tribe at risk, the groups director Caroline Pearce said in a statement.

Its the first Monday after Donald Trump started implementing his so-called reciprocal tariffs and the markets are seeing red. At the time of writing the S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq are all down around four percent with the latter taking the hardest hit. And thats on top of the S&P 500s 10 percent fall last week. Things can still change quickly, and its up to historians to decide what to call Trumps decision to push the economy off a cliff when they write their history books, but Wikipedia editors, who are arguably writing one of the first drafts of history, have already called it the 2025 stock market crash.At the beginning of Donald Trump's second term, he was inaugurated inheriting a particularly strong domestic stock market, the top section of the Wikipedia article titled 2025 stock market crash reads. Whilst this was maintained for a period of a few weeks after his inauguration, the Trump administration began making and announcing increasingly aggressive trade policies in an attempt to practice protectionism and economic pressure, including heightening previous trade wars, starting new trade wars, heavy tariffs, and increasing tensions with allies; most prominently, Canada. As the administration continued to practice these policies, markets began to experience continued turbulence, volatility, and general uncertainty.While the current title of the article definitely calls it a stock market crash, it is, like every Wikipedia article, subject to change depending on how editors continue interpreting events. The article currently includes two disclaimers. The first notes that it may be affected by a current event, and the article may change rapidly as the event progresses. The second notes that there is a pending request from some editors to change the article title to 2025 stock market decline.The suggested renaming is just a placeholder, one editor who wants to call it a decline said in the talk page where Wikipedia editors debate the decision. I cannot find many reliable sources describing this as a "crash", at least not yet. A crash is generally considered to be a fall of >20%.[1] Most indices are bubbling around 910%; it is certainly contentious to label it a crash.The talk page for the Wikipedia article shows that previously there were two Wikipedia pages for the current economic turmoil caused by Trumps tariffs, one titled stock market crash and the other titled stock market decline. Editors agreed to merge the articles, and at least for now keep the crash title.Although there is no definition of a stock market crash it's generally accepted an abrupt double-digit percentage drop in a stock index over the course of a few days is a crash (which both have happened), the editor said, citing Investopedia. Also this is a really big crash, the last time the smp was at 5000 points was in April of 2024, meaning a year of progress has been wiped out in 48 hours. My personal stock portfolio dropped by 25%. But with that being said it might be better to change the title of the article to something like April 2025 stock market crash as there might be a bigger crash later.Just because Wikipedia says something doesnt necessarily mean its fact. Its a crowdsourced repository that ultimately reflects what Wikipedia editors decide. But its also one of the most useful and reliable repositories of information humanity has created, which feeds Google and countless other tools on the internet, and at the very least it reflects a prevailing point of view on what Trump did to the global economy.

Flowers and toys left on a swing seat to commemorate victims killed in Russia's missile attack on Friday, at a children play area near the damaged apartment buildings, in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, Saturday, April 5, 2025. (AP Photo)2025-04-07T14:53:20Z KRYVYI RIH, Ukraine (AP) Anger and outrage gripped the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday as it held funerals for some of the 20 people, including nine children, killed by a Russian missile that tore through apartment buildings and blasted a playground.More than 70 were injured in the attack last Friday evening on Kryvyi Rih. The children were playing on swings and in a sandbox in a tree-lined park at the time. Bodies were strewn across the grass.We are not asking for pity, Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the city administration, wrote on Telegram as Kryvyi Rih mourned. We demand the worlds outrage.The U.N. Human Rights Office in Ukraine said it was the deadliest single verified strike harming children since the start of Russias full-scale invasion in February 2022. It was also one of the deadliest attacks so far this year. Ukraine has consented to a ceasefire proposed weeks ago by Washington. But Russia is still negotiating with the United States its terms for accepting a truce in the more than three-year war.U.S. President Donald Trump has voiced frustration at the continued fighting, and Ukrainian officials want him to compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop. Trump vowed during his election campaign last year to bring a swift end to the war. Were talking to Russia. Wed like them to stop, Trump told reporters Sunday. I dont like the bombing. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reaffirmed Monday that Putin supports a ceasefire proposed by Trump but wants Russian conditions to be met.President Putin indeed backs the ceasefire idea, but its necessary to first answer quite a few questions, Peskov said. In Kryvyi Rih, teacher Iryna Kholod, 59, remembered Arina and Radyslav, both 7 years old and killed in Fridays strike, as being like little suns in the classroom.Radyslav, she said, was proud to be part of a school campaign collecting pet food for stray animals. He held the bag like it was treasure. He wanted to help, she told The Associated Press. After Friday evening, two desks in my classroom were empty forever, Kholod said, adding that she still has unopened birthday gifts for them. How do I tell parents to return their textbooks? How do I teach without them? she asked.Russian missile and drone tactics continue to evolve, making it harder to shoot them down, Yurii Ihnat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force Command, said on national television.Russias Shahed drones have undergone significant upgrades, while Moscow is also modernizing its ballistic missiles, he said.Only the U.S. Patriot missile defense system can help prevent attacks like the one in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyy said late Sunday.He said he had instructed his defense and foreign affairs ministers to work bilaterally on air defense, especially with the United States, which has sufficient potential to help stop any terror.Ukraine will send a team to Washington this week to begin negotiations on a new draft of a deal that would give the U.S. access to Ukraines valuable mineral resources, Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko told The Associated Press. Failure to conclude a mineral deal has hamstrung Ukrainian efforts to secure pledges of continuing U.S. military support.Britains Ministry of Defense and the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, a think tank, say Russias battlefield progress on the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line has slowed since November. But on Saturday night, Russia launched its biggest aerial attack on Ukraine in nearly a month.Both sides are thought to be preparing for a renewed spring-summer military campaign.In Kryvyi Rih on Monday, an air raid alert interrupted a planned memorial a reminder of the continuing threat for civilians. The frustration hit home for Nataliia Freylikh, the schoolteacher of 9-year-old Herman Tripolets, who was killed in last Fridays attack.Even mourning him properly is impossible, Freylikh said.___Novikov reported from Kyiv, Ukraine.___Follow APs coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

UConn guard Paige Bueckers (5) looks to shoot against UCLA during the first half of a national semifinal Final Four game during the women's NCAA college basketball tournament, Friday, April 4, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)2025-04-07T14:00:30Z NEW YORK (AP) Theres no doubt whos going first in the WNBA draft next Monday with Paige Bueckers the consensus top pick. After that it gets interesting with Olivia Miles decision to enter the NCAA transfer portal instead of the draft. The Washington Mystics, with a new coach and general manager, control the direction of the draft with the third, fourth and sixth pick. Five teams dont have picks in the opening round as New York, Indiana, Phoenix and Atlanta all traded away their picks. Las Vegas forfeited its pick following an investigation by the league in 2023 that found the franchise violated league rules regarding impermissible player benefits and workplace policies.Heres a look at how the first round could look on April 14:1. Dallas Wings: Paige Bueckers, UConnA generational player who averaged 20.0 points and shot 42.4% from behind the 3-point line this season. Bueckers is one of the most efficient players in college basketball and will pair with Arike Ogunbowale in the Wings backcourt. 2. Seattle Storm: Dominique Malonga, FranceThe 6-foot-6 center played for the French Olympic team last year and has a bright future in the WNBA. She averaged 15.0 points and 10.3 rebounds so far this season while playing for Lyon. While Seattle has a solid frontcourt with Ezi Magbegor and Nneka Ogwumike, its hard to pass up on this talented 19-year-old. 3. Washington Mystics: Sonia Citron, Notre Dame She averaged 14.3 points and 5.8 rebounds during her career at Notre Dame and also improved her defense to become one of the top defenders on the team. She would be the first of three first-round picks for a rebuilding Washington team and is in need of a solid wing. Citron has shot over 90% from the free throw line the past two seasons, one of the best percentages in the country.4. Washington Mystics: Kiki Iriafen, Southern California Was a star at Stanford before heading to USC for her last season. Shes risen her game since JuJu Watkins went down with an ACL tear and helped get the team to the Elite Eight. She averaged 18.2 points and 8.3 rebounds this season and will be another nice addition to a rebuilding Mystics team.5. Golden State Valkyries: Aneesah Morrow, LSUMorrow led the nation in double-doubles, averaging 18.7 points and 13.5 rebounds a game. She is second all-time in that category, behind only Oklahoma great Courtney Paris, having more than 100 in her career at LSU and DePaul.The 6-foot-1 Morrow has a toughness and nose for the basketball.6. Washington Mystics: Shyanne Sellers, MarylandThe Mystics will have had a lot of chances to see Sellers play in college with the Terrapins right up the road. She has size at 6-foot-2, but also plays the guard and wing spot. Her versatility makes her an attractive pick for the Mystics. She was the first player in Maryland history to have 1,500 points, 500 rebounds and 500 assists in her career.7. Connecticut Sun: Juste Jocyte, LithuaniaJocyte showcased her scoring skills with a 22-point effort against Belgium in the EuroBasket qualifiers. Shes a versatile player who can play any of the guard positions and is really effective on the pick and roll. Has a toughness about her and is fundamentally sound. Sun coach Rachid Meziane, who has spent time coaching in the French league, is well aware of her talents. 8. Connecticut Sun: Sania Feagin, South CarolinaDawn Staley has produced a plethora of talented post players over the last few years, from Aja Wilson to Aliyah Boston to Kamilla Cardoso. The South Carolina coach believes Feagin could be the next one to have an impact in the WNBA, predicting over the weekend that shell be a lottery pick. At 6-3, Feagin has size and shoots over 60% from the field.9. Los Angeles Sparks: Maddy Westbeld, Notre DameWestbeld missed the first half of this season while recovering from a foot injury, and with Miles and Hannah Hidalgo getting the majority of the shots, it was difficult for the 6-3 forward to get back to the numbers she put up the year before. Westbeld averaged 14.4 points, 8.7 rebounds and 1.5 steals in 2023-24. 10. Chicago Sky: Georgia Amoore, KentuckyThe Sky could pair Amoore with veteran guard Courtney Vandersloot to help the Australian learn the pro game. She averaged 19.6 points and 6.9 assists for Kentucky this season after transferring from Virginia Tech to play for Kenny Brooks, her former Hokies coach before he took the job in Lexington.11. Minnesota Lynx: Hailey Van Lith, TCUVan Lith became the first player to play on three different teams in the Elite Eight after seeing her college career revitalized at TCU. She averaged 17.7 points and 5.5 assists to help the Horned Frogs reach the Elite Eight for the first time in school history. She also has some pro experience helping the U.S. win a bronze medal in 3-on-3 at last years Paris Olympics. 12. Dallas Wings: Ajsa Sivka, SloveniaSivka is a multi-level scoring forward with efficient shot-making ability. She made over 42% from the 3-point line. At 6-4, she is a difficult matchup to defend.Other players to watch out for who could be taken in the first round or early in the second include: Te-Hina Paopao, South Carolina; Sedona Prince, TCU; JJ Quinerly, West Virginia; Sania Rivers, N.C. State; and Makayla Timpson, Florida State.___APs Mock WNBA Draft is an analysis on select players and their pro prospects. For more AP WNBA coverage, click here: https://apnews.com/hub/wnba-basketball

On Saturday Elon Musk sat in his personal jet and tested out Starlinks in-air WiFI by streaming some Path of Exile 2. Less than five minutes into the stream, someone in game chat asked him to jerk off mr trump so he dies of a heart attack! For the next hour and 40 minutes, the worlds richest man frowned his way through a livestream while people yelled at him.Path of Exile 2 is an action role-playing game and Musk loves it, but hes terrible at it. He has claimed hes one of the top players in the world and later admitted hes paid people to help keep his account leveled up and full of the high-end gear it needs to play the game at the highest level.Over the weekend, in his jet, he was playing the game in hard core mode. When a player dies in this mode they cannot progress any further. Essentially, players have one life. Musk died a lot. The streams entire vibe was fucked. This is the richest man in the world sitting in a private jet playing a game by himself for an audience of strangers while techno music blasted through the speakers. Streaming on a platform he owns using technology he owns in a jet he owns, he sat stone-faced and grinded his way through the early portions of Path of Exile 2 while other players yelled at him.Elon. Its me, Ashley St. Claire. I have no other means of contacting you so I bought PoE2 early access. Please pay your child support. Thank you Elon, an account named YakubsWorstCreation spammed. The message was a reference to Musks newest (disputed) child.Some of the messages were supportive. One encouraged people to Buy TSLA. Another mentioned Musks deployment of Starlinks to storm ravaged areas in the Carolinas after Hurricane Helene. By the way, thank you for helping out Western NC with the starlinks, we really appreciate it, it said.There were a lot of references to Kekius Maximus, Musks Roman emperor aesthetic Pepe the Frog persona thats steeped in washed out 2016 online culture. Your Imperial subjects demand an audience, one DM said.But a lot of the messages, especially those that were spammed, were trolls. ELON ARE YOU A SMART FELLA OR A FART SMELLA, one asked.Among the juvenile jokes were more personal attacks. The account ELON_MUSK_IS_A_PEDOPHILE spammed Musk with the message YOU HAVE NO REAL FRIENDS AND WILL DIE ALONE.An account called ELON_MUSK_IS_PATHETIC sent messages several times. STILL NOT OVER GRIMES SHE NEVER LOVED YOU, the account spammed at a stoic Musk.Its possible to hide the chat in PoE2. Several times on the stream, Musks watchers spammed the /dnd or Do Not Disturb command at him in a misguided attempt to help save the billionaire from seeming a constant stream of hateful messages.But Musk never typed /dnd. He did not stem the flow of weird hate. He did, on occasion, silence individual accounts. But its hard to tell what the criteria is. At about 20 minutes in he muted the account HC_John_Wick after it spammed ELON HOW IS IT POSSIBLE TO LOOK THIS DUMB AND UGLY WHY IS UR TESLA COMPANY FALLING APART AHAAHAAHAAH! WHAT HAPPENED BUDDY?ELON_MUSK_IS_PATHETIC returned several times before Musk finally silenced it. YOU WILL ALWAYS FEEL INSECURE IT WILL NEVER GO AWAY, it spammed. YOU RUINED THE COUNTRY JUST LIKE YOU RUINED ALL YOUR MARRIAGES, it said 2 minutes later.Anyone spamming the chat will get, uh, ignored, Musk said as he finally muted the account that had been harassing him for almost an hour.The day after the stream, the internet picked it apart for content. A post with screenshots of some of the funniest DMs went viral on BlueSky. Among the PoE2 community, dissecting Musks gameplay and making fun of it is a cottage industry. Quin69TV is a pioneer of the form and already has a 30 minute long video breaking down how much Musk sucks at the game.At about an hour in the stream, we saw Musks login screen and a list of his individual characters and their names. His level 46 amazon is AMAZON_DOT_COM_. A level 75 invoker is BeLessDumb. His level 7 monk is DOESNTMATTERANYWAY. Another invoker hes got at level 100 is FatalismFTW.

Jennifer Vasquez Sura, the wife of Kilmar Abrego Garcia of Maryland, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, speaks during a news conference at CASA's Multicultural Center in Hyattsville, Md., April 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, file)2025-04-07T15:12:39Z WASHINGTON (AP) The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court to block a court order requiring it to return a Maryland man who was mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador. The Justice Department argued in an emergency appeal to the justices that U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis overstepped her authority when she ordered Kilmar Abrego Garcia returned to the United States.The administration has conceded that Abrego Garcia should not have been sent to El Salvador because an immigration judge found he likely would face persecution by local gangs.But he is no longer in U.S. custody and the government has no way to get him back, the administration argued.Xinis gave the administration until just before midnight to facilitate and effectuate Abrego Garcias return.The district courts injunctionwhich requires Abrego Garcias release from the custody of a foreign sovereign and return to the United States by midnight on Mondayis patently unlawful, Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in court papers, casting the order as one in a deluge of unlawful injunctions judges have issued to slow President Donald Trumps agenda. The Trump administration is separately asking the Supreme Court to allow Trump to resume deportations of Venezuelan migrants accused of being gang members to the same Salvadoran prison under an 18th century wartime law. The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, denied the administrations request for a stay. There is no question that the government screwed up here, Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson wrote in a brief opinion accompanying the unanimous denial. The White House has described Abrego Garcias deportation as an administrative error but has also cast him an MS-13 gang member. Attorneys for Abrego Garcia said there is no evidence he was in MS-13. Xinis wrote that the decision to arrest him and send him to El Salvador appears to be wholly lawless, explaining that little to no evidence supports a vague, uncorroborated allegation that Abrego Garcia was once an MS-13 member. Abrego Garcia, a 29-year-old Salvadoran national who has never been charged or convicted of any crime, was detained by immigration agents and deported last month.He had a permit from DHS to legally work in the U.S. and was a sheet metal apprentice pursuing a journeyman license, his attorney said. His wife is a U.S. citizen.In 2019, an immigration judge barred the U.S. from deporting Abrego Garcia to El Salvador.A Justice Department lawyer conceded in a court hearing that Abrego Garcia should not have been deported. Attorney General Pam Bondi later removed the lawyer, Erez Reuveni, from the case and placed him on leave.

Nature, Published online: 04 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01082-3Neuroscientists have observed how deep-brain structures are activated when the brain becomes aware of its own thoughts. Plus, the worlds tiniest pacemaker and how the Trump tariffs will affect US science labs.

The change of the guard by the Utah Highway Patrol during a funeral service for former U.S. Rep. Mia Love, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Melissa Majchrzak)2025-04-07T04:01:20Z SALT LAKE CITY (AP) Family and friends of former U.S. Rep. Mia Love gathered Monday in Salt Lake City to honor the life and legacy of the first Black Republican woman elected to Congress after she died of brain cancer last month at age 49.The former lawmaker from Utah, a daughter of Haitian immigrants, had undergone treatment for an aggressive brain tumor called glioblastoma and received immunotherapy as part of a clinical trial. She died March 23 at her home in Saratoga Springs, Utah, weeks after her daughter announced she was no longer responding to treatment.Hundreds of mourners entered the service from a walkway lined with American flags, at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Institute of Religion on the University of Utah campus. Long tables displayed framed family photos and bouquets of red and white flowers. A choir of Loves friends sang the hymn Consider the Lilies at the start of the service. Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a close friend of Loves, was seated on stage and was named an honorary pallbearer.Loves sister Cyndi Brito shared childhood memories, including how Love used to rehearse all day and night for starring roles in her school plays. She was always the best at everything she did, her sister said. Sis, we will always, always look up to you, Brito said. Keep being the best.Brito read an excerpt of a speech her third-grade daughter gave at a recent school assembly for Black History Month honoring Loves legacy. Mia Love played many roles and had many titles, but the most important role in the most important title that Mia Love played in my eyes was auntie, Brito recalled her daughter, Carly, telling classmates.On Sunday evening, state lawmakers and members of the public visited the Utah Capitol to pay their respects at Loves flag-covered coffin behind ropes in the buildings rotunda. Love, born Ludmya Bourdeau, represented Utah on Capitol Hill from 2015 to 2019. She and her husband, Jason, had three children, Alessa, Abigale and Peyton.She was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2022 and said her doctors estimated she had only 10 to 15 months to live, which she surpassed. With aggressive treatments, Love lived for about three years after receiving her diagnosis.Love entered politics in 2003 after winning a seat on the city council in Saratoga Springs, 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Salt Lake City. She was elected as the citys mayor in 2009, becoming the first Black woman to serve as a mayor in Utah.In 2012, after giving a rousing speech at the Republican National Convention, she narrowly lost a bid for the U.S. House against the Democratic incumbent. She ran again two years later and defeated a first-time candidate by about 7,500 votes.Love did not emphasize her race during her campaigns, but she acknowledged the significance of her election after her 2014 victory. She said her win defied naysayers who suggested a Black, Republican, Mormon woman could not win a congressional seat in overwhelmingly white Utah. She was briefly considered a rising star in the GOP, but her power within the party fizzled out as President Donald Trump took hold. Love kept her distance from Trump and called him out in 2018 for vulgar comments he made about immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and some African nations. Later that year, she lost in the midterm elections as Democrats surged. HANNAH SCHOENBAUM Schoenbaum is a government and politics reporter based in Salt Lake City, Utah. She also covers general news in the Rockies and LGBTQ+ rights policies in U.S. statehouses. twitter mailto

On Monday stocks plummeted again following President Trumps tariff announcements last week. For a brief moment, they dramatically shot back up following reports that Trump was considering a 90-day pause in tariffs. But, that turned out to be false, and people have been trying to find out where the idea that there would be a 90-day pause actually came from.A company called Benzinga carried the headline Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett Says Trump Is Considering A 90-Day Pause in Tariffs For All Countries Except China, according to what appears to be a screenshot of the headline posted to Bluesky.Benzinga itself is now blaming posts on X for the market-moving mistake.In response to an emailed request for comment, Steve Krause, chief of news operations for Benzinga Pro, told 404 Media that the company issued this note:Benzinga Note: Market continues to be volatile after the White House Calls Hassett Tariff Headline 'Fake News' Amid Numerous Tariff Developments from EU, China. Hassett was misquoted by numerous X accounts and sources as indicating that Trump was considering a 90-day pause in tariffs.Most people have probably not heard of Benzinga. Its a company that is supposed to quickly provide information to financial professionals. The headline then got mentioned on CNBC. The outlet said the source of the claim was unclear.Still in response to that snippet of news, the S&P 500 leapt 8.5%. The White House then debunked the tariff pause, and the market immediately went back down.Krause did not provide any more details on how or why unverified claims on X ended up being reported by Benzinga.NBC News found one of it not the earliest claim of Hassett and the pause came from an account called @yourfavorito.

Nature, Published online: 07 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00995-3Success gives hope to scientists and advocates who managed to get millions of dollars in grants restored.

President Donald Trump, left, greets Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, Monday, April 7, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)2025-04-07T14:44:44Z WASHINGTON (AP) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting with President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday, becoming the first foreign leader to visit Trump since he unleashed tariffs on countries around the world.Whether Netanyahus visit succeeds in bringing down or eliminating Israels tariffs remains to be seen, but how it plays out could set the stage for how other world leaders try to address the new tariffs.Trump greeted the Israeli prime minister with a firm handshake as he arrived for talks.Trump ignored shouted questions from reporters about the tumbling global markets and whether he would lift tariffs on Israel.Shortly before their meeting, the White House announced that Trump and Netanyahus plans to hold a joint news conference had been canceled. The White House did not offer any immediate explanation for why it was scrapped, but Trump and Netanyahu were expected to make comments to reporters at the start of their scheduled Oval Office meeting. Netanyahus office has put the focus of his hastily organized Washington visit on the tariffs, while stressing that the two leaders will discuss major geopolitical issues including the war in Gaza, tensions with Iran, Israel-Turkey ties and the International Criminal Court, which issued an arrest warrant against the Israeli leader last year. Trump in February signed an executive order imposing sanctions on the ICC over its investigations of Israel. The prime minister soon after arriving in Washington on Sunday evening met with senior Trump administration officials, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer, to discuss the tariffs. And Netanyahu met on Monday with Steve Witkoff, Trumps special envoy to the Middle East, ahead of his sit down with the president. Trump and Netanyahu are also expected to discuss Israels hoped-for annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank, which the Palestinians want as the heart of their future independent state. Eytan Gilboa, an expert on U.S.-Israel relations, said he expected Trump to use the tariffs as leverage to force concessions from Netanyahu.In Israels case, those concessions might not be economic. Trump may pressure Netanyahu to move toward ending the war in Gaza at the very least through some interim truce with Hamas that would pause the fighting and free more hostages. Gilboa said Trump is hoping to return from his first overseas trip expected next month to Saudi Arabia with some movement on a deal to normalize relations with Israel, which would likely require significant Israeli concessions on Gaza. If he does manage to move toward bolstering ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, that would act as a regional diplomatic counterweight to pressure Iran, against which Trump has threatened new sanctions and suggested military action over its nuclear program.In a preemptive move last week, Israel announced that it was removing all tariffs on goods from the U.S., mostly on imported food and agricultural products, according to a statement from Netanyahus office. The statement did not mention Trumps impending tariffs, which were announced the following day, but said Israels step would bolster ties with its largest trading partner, the United States. Israel is not a major trading partner of the U.S.But the tactic failed, and with a 17% rate, Israel was just one of dozens of countries that were slapped with tariffs on Trumps so-called Liberation Day last week.Although Israel is a tiny market for U.S. products, the United States is a key trade partner of Israel. Much of that trade is for high-tech services, which are not directly affected by the tariffs, but key Israeli industries could be impacted.The Manufacturers Association of Israel estimates that the tariffs will cost Israel about $3 billion in exports each year and lead to the loss of 26,000 jobs in industries that include biotechnology, chemicals, plastics and electronics. The World Bank says Israels gross domestic product, a measure of economic output, is over $500 billion a year.The damage wont stop at exports, said Ron Tomer, the groups president. It will scare investors, encourage companies to leave Israel and undermine our image as a global center of innovation. He called on the government to work urgently to protect the economy. ___Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. 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 AAMER MADHANI Madhani covers the White House for The Associated Press. He is based in Washington. twitter mailto

Nature, Published online: 07 April 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00860-3Nathan Alexander's laboratory welcomes anyone and everyone to use a mix of mathematics and computing to solve challenges in society.