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.

Sports legends took to social media to congratulate Ovi on his historic moment.

Flory Bidunga's return represents a huge victory for coach Bill Self as he rebuilds the Kansas roster after a season that fell below expectations.

Barcelona missed a big chance to pad a lead over Real Madrid in the LaLiga title race. That and more from around Europe in ESPN's Weekend Review.

It could be the worst season for the Manchester teams in 30 years, and this derby showed how bad it is.

As this season's title is won, we take a look at the women's college basketball Way-Too-Early Top 25 for 2025-26.

After four years of disappointment, Paige Bueckers finally lived her -- and UConn's -- dream come true.

Ruben Amorim said that Manchester United and Manchester City aren't good enough to make the derby "a spectacle" after the two teams played out a disappointing 0-0 draw at Old Trafford on Sunday.

Liverpool boss Arne Slot denied his players were complacent, despite the runaway Premier League leaders slumping to a 3-2 defeat at Fulham on Sunday.

Pep Guardiola accused a section of Manchester United supporters of a "lack of class" after targeting Manchester City's Phil Foden with derogatory chants about the player's mother during Sunday's 0-0 draw at Old Trafford.

The Raiders are releasing cornerback Jack Jones after attempting to trade him, sources confirmed to ESPN.

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.

Denny Hamlin took the lead before a final overtime finish, and held off William Byron for a victory in the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway on Sunday, a second straight win for the veteran who has posted five titles overall at the South Carolina track.

Antoine Semenyo and Milos Kerkez are being tracked by Premier League champions-in-waiting Liverpool. Transfer Talk has the latest news, gossip and rumors.

The Pirates announced Sunday that they would be adding the No. 21 logo back to the right field wall to honor Roberto Clemente at PNC Park after the franchise icon's family expressed its unhappiness that the sign was removed for an advertisement.

UConn coach Geno Auriemma reflected on being the oldest coach to win a Division I basketball title, saying victories like this make it worth sticking around.

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

It had been nine long years since UConn won an NCAA tournament, and the Huskies played like it on Sunday, authoring a dominant 82-59 performance over South Carolina in Tampa and securing the 12th national championship under coach Geno Auriemma.

Former Boston Celtics and current Washington Wizards guard Marcus Smart said a fan "crossed the line" when he was heckling the road team's bench during Sunday's game at TD Garden, leading to a bit of shouting before the fan was ushered out of the arena.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and the Blue Jays are in agreement on a 14-year, $500 million contract extension, pending a physical, sources told ESPN's Jeff Passan Sunday night, a no-deferral deal to keep the homegrown star in Toronto for the rest of his career.

Florida coach Todd Golden says his team understands the challenge of facing Houston's top-ranked defense and Hall of Fame coach in the title game.

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

Tottenham Hotspur manager Ange Postecoglou was left fuming after the VAR took nearly five minutes to chalk off a Spurs goal for offside.

Norwegian club SK Brann claimed victory for free speech on Sunday with the CAS ruling that they did not have to pay a fine imposed by UEFA.

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

Southampton's relegation from the Premier League was confirmed on Sunday, as they suffered a 3-1 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur.

Sevilla's LaLiga match with Atltico Madrid was briefly suspended on Sunday after fans threw pieces of card onto the pitch.

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

Chelsea were held to a 0-0 draw by their west London neighbours Brentford on Sunday denting their hopes of Champions League qualification next season.

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.

In an arts landscape where BIPOC, trans, and queer creatives still fight for equitable recognition, Queer|Art continues to push for it. With the announcement of its 2025 judges for the Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists and the Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant, the organization is once again centering those most marginalized [...]The post Meet the 2025 Judges Powering Queer|Arts Grants for Black Trans Women Visual Artists and Lesbian Filmmakers first appeared on GLAAD.

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.

Liverpool are looking at Napoli's Victor Osimhen and RB Leipzig's Benjamin Sesko. Transfer Talk has the latest news, gossip and rumors.

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

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From the Suns' future to a potential Thunder-Nuggets showdown, here's what to watch in the West?

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.

On April 7, 2025 Victor Jackson will take the stage at 54 Below for a highly anticipated one-night-only performance, April Showers. This electric evening promises to be nothing short of transformative, as Jackson invites the audience to experience the depth of his musical journey. With his unparalleled vocal talent and infectious energy, he will offer [...]The post Dancing in the Rain: Victor Jacksons Triumphant Return to 54 Below with April Showers first appeared on GLAAD.

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.