December 5, 2024

An Oklahoma City police officer is under investigation and on paid leave following the release of body camera footage that shows him slamming an elderly Vietnamese man to the ground during a traffic stop. The man suffered a brain bleed and remains hospitalized after the incident.

The footage shows the Oct. 27 event that begins with Officer Joseph Gibson explaining to 70-year-old Lich Vu that he was being issued a ticket for an improper U-turn.

There appears to be a language barrier between the two as they argue over whether Vu would sign the citation. Vu eventually exits the car and the argument continues.

Nov 15 (Reuters) - The family of Malcolm X, a militant civil-rights leader who was assassinated almost 60 years ago, filed a $100-million federal lawsuit on Friday that accuses the FBI, CIA and New York Police Department of allowing his murder to be carried out.

The lawsuit, brought by Malcolm X's daughter Ilyasah Shabazz and other family members, alleges the law-enforcement agencies concealed evidence that they had known of the plot to kill him but did nothing to stop it.

"We believe that they all conspired to assassinate Malcolm X, one of the greatest thought leaders of the 20th century," Ben Crump, a civil-rights attorney who is representing the family, said at a press conference.

The wrongful-death lawsuit was announced at a memorial center on the site in New York City where Malcolm X was killed. It seeks to answer questions surrounding the assassination, and paint an accurate history of the events, Crump said. It is also intended to bring reparations to the family.

The United States State Department says it will not be limiting the weapons it supplies to Israel, elaborating only that it has not been able to “reach an assessment” that Israel is not working to allow sufficient aid into the enclave that it has been bombing for more than 13 months.

In mid-October, the US said Israel had 30 days to ease the humanitarian crisis it caused in Gaza, a month later, it acknowledged the humanitarian situation in Gaza remained dire but said it would not impose a ban on selling more weapons to Israel to continue its war.

With winter approaching and no letup in the current siege conditions imposed by the Israeli military on all of Gaza, residents and aid agencies say they fear that worse is still to come.

In its October 13 letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the State Department appeared to address some of the concerns over the humanitarian crisis its unflinching support of Israel’s war on Gaza had produced.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin demanded, among other things, a written commitment that Israel was not pursuing a siege of Gaza’s north in line with what is commonly referred to as the “General’s Plan”. 

Spear points, hammer stones and picks lost to history under layers of leaves, roots and rocks — it was the evidence Scott Ashcraft was looking for.

The ancient tools were inadvertently unearthed in 2021 by a bulldozer fighting a wildfire along a steep slope in western North Carolina. Ashcraft, a career U.S. Forest Service archaeologist, knew these wooded mountainsides held more clues to early human history in the Appalachian Mountains than anyone had imagined.

He tried for years to raise the alarm to forest managers, saying outdated modeling that ignored the artifacts sometimes hidden on steep terrain — especially sites significant to Native American tribes — needed to be reconsidered when planning for prescribed fires, logging projects, new recreational trails and other work on national forest lands.

Instead, Ashcraft says managers retaliated against him and pushed ahead with their plans, often violating historic preservation and environmental protection laws by side stepping consultations with tribes, limiting input from state archaeologists and systematically suppressing scientific data.

Two former police officers have been jailed in Brazil for the murder of Marielle Franco, a prominent left-wing politician killed in a drive-by shooting in 2018.

Anderson Gomes, Franco's driver, was also killed in the attack but her press officer Fernanda Chaves, who was in the car, survived.

Ronnie Lessa confessed to firing the shots and was sentenced to 78 years and nine months, while Élcio de Queiroz received 59 years and eight months for being behind the wheel.

Franco, a gay Black woman, was an emerging light in Brazil's socialist party, with her death at the age of 38 sparking nationwide protests.

Speaking to the court from prison by video-link, Lessa said he was "blinded" and "driven crazy" by the prospect of a million-dollar reward for the murder.

In March 2024, Brazil's Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski said the homicide was "evidently politically motivated".

He said Franco wanted to convert property into housing for the poor, while others wanted to use it for commercial use.

Both defendants signed plea bargains, leading to the arrest of politician Chiquinho Brazão and his brother Domingos in March on suspicion of ordering the hit.

NEW YORK (AP) — Maribel Hidalgo fled her native Venezuela a year ago with a 1-year-old son, trudging for days through Panama’s Darien Gap, then riding the rails across Mexico to the United States.

They were living in the U.S. when the Biden administration announced Venezuelans would be offered Temporary Protected Status, which allows people already in the United States to stay and work legally if their homelands are deemed unsafe. People from 17 countries, including Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan and recently Lebanon, are currently receiving such relief.

But President-elect Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, have promised mass deportations and suggested they would scale back the use of TPS that covers more than 1 million immigrants. They have highlighted unfounded claims that Haitians who live and work legally in Springfield, Ohio, as TPS holders were eating their neighbors’ pets. Trump also amplified disputed claims made by the mayor of Aurora, Colorado, about Venezuelan gangs taking over an apartment complex.

Since 2018, Haiti has been the site of an ongoing crisis. At various points over the last six years, key moments have broken through into global media — such as the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and a devastating earthquake centered in the Canal du Sud, both of which took place within weeks of each other during the summer of 2021 — and recent headlines about escalating gang violence in the capital of Port-au-Prince. 

However, there is much more at stake beyond the headlines, and the burden of this protracted crisis is being felt by Haiti’s most vulnerable citizens, 5.5 million of whom require humanitarian assistance in 2024. Despite the increased needs, humanitarian funding has lagged in recent years, creating even more dire circumstances. Here’s what you need to know about the crisis in Haiti in 2024.

Elon Musk has trouble telling the truth. Whether he’s overpromising on what his companies can accomplish or twisting the facts about his own children, it’s clear he doesn’t feel constrained by reality, which is no doubt what made him into the mogul of misinformation he is today.

Almost two years after Musk completed his $44 billion takeover of Twitter (now X), he and the platform — where he reigns not just as owner but the most-followed user — have become essential to the life cycle of incendiary falsehoods and conspiracy theories. While mainstream social media companies have long tried to prevent such content from gaining traction, leaving extremists to ply their lies on smaller, obscure, unmoderated networks, Musk fired the Twitter teams tasked with battling deceptive material. He also reinstated thousands of accounts that had received permanent bans, including neo-Nazis and conspiracy kingpin Alex Jones, often engaging with these people himself. On top of that, he changed the verification system into a pay-to-play scheme in which subscribers enjoy boosted visibility; at the same time, it became harder to tell which accounts belonged to genuine public figures.

Last month, in a room full of Washington’s most prominent Black conservatives, Donald Trump declared that Black voters are drawn to him because of his criminal indictments and mugshot.

Democrats quickly denounced his comments as “racist”. But some Black Republicans have defended Trump, claiming that “life was better four years ago under his administration” because of certain initiatives during his presidency that were geared towards Black communities.

“No amount of media deception or liberal race-baiting will sway the minds of Black voters who will cast their ballots this November for safer streets, a better financial wellbeing, a secure border and a complete rejection of Joe Biden’s disastrous tenure,” Diante Johnson, the president of the Black Conservative Federation (BCF), said.

The incident puts a renewed spotlight on Black supporters of Trump, bringing into focus how these voters reconcile his racism as the 2024 election draws closer.

At a BCF gala on 24 February, where 500 Republicans gathered, Trump accepted the group’s Champion of Black America award, emphasizing support he has found in Black communities and linking it to his criminality.

Much has been said about who’s to blame—or who’s to thank, depending on your political persuasion—for Trump’s resounding election win. Hispanic men, who flocked to him in unprecedented numbers, might have made the difference in Pennsylvania, giving Trump the shiniest jewel in his crown. Many hoped (myself included) that after calling Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage,” and promising to deport millions of immigrants, the Hispanic vote would help lift Kamala Harris to victory. But as I take stock of my feelings, it’s the role that Latino men played that stings most.

There are lessons to learn here, if so obvious it feels silly to name them. Hispanic, working-class men are (gasp!) swayed by the same message that all working-class men are. They are as affected by the economy as other working-class people (and as uninformed about its root causes). They proved as susceptible, if not more, to the fear-mongering of socialism creeping into America (no matter if Harris would be considered center-right in a place like Venezuela, for example). There’s also the underlying stench of misogyny; hard to single out amid the cornucopia of other reasons men backed Trump, but impossible to dismiss. 

The former president and now president-elect often skipped over details but through more than a year of policy pronouncements and written statements outlined a wide-ranging agenda that blends traditional conservative approaches to taxes, regulation and cultural issues with a more populist bent on trade and a shift in America’s international role.

What to know about the 2024 election:

• Turning promises into policy: Americans frustrated over high prices await the change Trump has promised. Proponents of school choice will have an ally in the White House once again, but private schooling suffered high-profile defeats in several states.
• Balance of power: Republicans won control of the U.S. Senate, giving the GOP a major power center in Washington. Control over the House of Representatives is still up for grabs.
• AP VoteCast: Democracy was a motivating factor for both Harris and Trump voters, but for very different reasons.
• Voto a voto: Sigue la cobertura de AP en español de las elecciones en EEUU.

News outlets globally count on the AP for accurate U.S. election results. Since 1848, the AP has been calling races up and down the ballot. Support us. Donate to the AP.

Trump’s agenda also would scale back federal government efforts on civil rights and expand presidential powers.

A look at what Trump has proposed:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters for the first time elected two Black women to serve simultaneously in the Senate and sent an openly transgender lawmaker to Congress on Tuesday. They’re among historic choices in nearly a dozen races showing Americans opting for more diverse representation, even as Vice President Kamala Harris lost her own historic bid for the White House.

Delaware’s Lisa Blunt Rochester and Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks prevailed in their races, doubling the number of Black women ever elected to the Senate – from two to four. And Delaware voters elected Sarah McBride in an at-large House race, making her the first openly transgender person elevated to Congress.

The victories come in an election year defined in part by historic firsts, even with issues such as affirmative action and LGBTQ inclusion driving deeper divisions.

“Marking these milestones does two things: One, it celebrates the increasing diversity that we are seeing in women’s political representation, whether it be in a state or nationally,” said Kelly Dittmar, director of research at Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics.

“But at the same time, it reminds us that we have more work to do,” said Dittmar, noting that U.S. women overall aren’t represented equitably in elected offices and that Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans, as well as Native Americans, lag behind their share of the population.

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM, Nov 12 (Reuters) - The Israeli military pounded Beirut's southern suburbs with airstrikes on Tuesday, mounting one of its heaviest daytime attacks yet on the Hezbollah-controlled area after the defence minister ruled out a ceasefire until Israeli goals were met.

Smoke billowed over Beirut as around a dozen strikes hit the southern suburbs from mid-morning. After posting warnings to civilians on social media, the Israeli military said it had struck Hezbollah targets in the Dahiyeh area of southern Beirut, including command centres and weapons production sites.

It said it had taken steps to reduce harm to civilians and repeated its standing accusation that Hezbollah deliberately embeds itself into civilian areas to use residents as human shields, a charge Hezbollah rejects.

In northern Israel, two people were killed in the city of Nahariya when a residential building was hit by a missile, Israeli police said.

Israelis were forced to take shelter across the north as attack drones were launched from Lebanon, the military said. One hit the yard of a kindergarten in a Haifa suburb, where the children had been rushed into a shelter, rescue workers said. None were hurt.

An Israeli strike back across the border killed five people in the Lebanese village of Baalchmay southeast of Beirut, and five more were killed in a strike on the town of Tefahta in the south, Lebanon's health ministry said. Another person was killed in a strike in Hermel in the northeast, it said.

Beirut residents have largely fled the southern suburbs since Israel began bombing it in September. Footage of one strike shared on social media showed two missiles slamming into a building of around 10 storeys, demolishing it and sending up clouds of debris.

The Elements of AI is a series of free online courses created by MinnaLearn and the University of Helsinki. We want to encourage as broad a group of people as possible to learn what AI is, what can (and can’t) be done with AI, and how to start creating AI methods. The courses combine theory with practical exercises and can be completed at your own pace.

In 2020, when Joe Biden won the White House, generative AI still looked like a pointless toy, not a world-changing new technology. The first major AI image generator, DALL-E, wouldn’t be released until January 2021 — and it certainly wouldn’t be putting any artists out of business, as it still had trouble generating basic images. The release of ChatGPT, which took AI mainstream overnight, was still more than two years away. The AI-based Google search results that are — like it or not — now unavoidable, would have seemed unimaginable.

In the world of AI, four years is a lifetime. That’s one of the things that makes AI policy and regulation so difficult. The gears of policy tend to grind slowly. And every four to eight years, they grind in reverse, when a new administration comes to power with different priorities.

That works tolerably for, say, our food and drug regulation, or other areas where change is slow and bipartisan consensus on policy more or less exists. But when regulating a technology that is basically too young to go to kindergarten, policymakers face a tough challenge. And that’s all the more case when we experience a sharp change in who those policymakers are, as the US will after Donald Trump’s victory in Tuesday’s presidential election.

This week, I reached out to people to ask: What will AI policy look like under a Trump administration? Their guesses were all over the place, but the overall picture is this: Unlike on so many other issues, Washington has not yet fully polarized on the question of AI.