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Pope Leo XIV flags AI impact on kids’ intellectual and spiritual development
ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV warned Friday that artificial intelligence could negatively impact the intellectual, neurological and spiritual development of young people as he pressed one of the priorities of his young pontificate. History’s first American pope sent a message to a conference of AI and ethics, part of which was taking place in…
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‘I was terrified I was going to die.’ Rape victims in Brazil struggle to access legal abortions
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A 27-year-old Brazilian woman, who said she became pregnant after being raped in March during Carnival in Brasilia, should have been granted access to a legal abortion. But when she sought to terminate the pregnancy at a hospital around a month later, she was told she needed a police report…
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Hackers say they wiped out $90 million from Iran cryptocurrency exchange
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Hackers with possible links to Israel have drained more than $90 million from Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, according to blockchain analytics firms. The group that claimed responsibility for the hack leaked on Thursday what it said was the company’s full source code. “ASSETS LEFT IN NOBITEX ARE NOW…
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Arkansas parole board chair resigns after police personnel file shows he lied about sex with minor
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — The chair of Arkansas’ parole board resigned on Friday after personnel records revealed he was fired from a local police department several years ago for lying to investigators about having sex with a minor. Jamol Jones, who Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders named the board’s chair last week, stepped down from…
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Turning Rideau Cottage into prime minister’s permanent home comes with cost: docs
Turning Rideau Cottage into the permanent residence of the prime minister would have to include creating staff offices and other “residential infrastructure,” an internal government document says. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been living in the house on the grounds of Rideau Hall, the Governor General’s residence, since he came into office. Making that situation…
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Supreme Court rules Ford government doesn’t have to disclose mandate letters
Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government can keep marching orders to cabinet ministers confidential, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday, marking an end to a long-running legal battle over access to the documents. The CBC had asked – under the province’s freedom-of-information law – for the letters written to ministers after Ford won the 2018…
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Who freed Flaco? One year later, celebrity owl’s escape from Central Park Zoo remains a mystery
NEW YORK (AP) — This New York love story begins with a criminal act of sabotage. Under cover of darkness a year ago Friday, someone breached a waist-high fence and slipped into the Central Park Zoo. Once inside, they cut a hole through a steel mesh cage, freeing a majestic Eurasian eagle-owl named Flaco who…
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Ottawa declassifies more details from Rodal report on Nazi war criminals in Canada
The federal government has released previously classified details from a report that outlines the extent to which Canada provided a safe haven to former Nazis during the Cold War. Ottawa faced renewed calls for greater transparency about the presence of war criminals in Canada after parliamentarians inadvertently gave two standing ovations last fall to a…
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Meta, TikTok and other social media CEOs testify in heated Senate hearing on child exploitation
Sexual predators. Addictive features. Suicide and eating disorders. Unrealistic beauty standards. Bullying. These are just some of the issues young people are dealing with on social media — and children’s advocates and lawmakers say companies are not doing enough to protect them. On Wednesday, the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X and other social media companies…
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton gets temporary reprieve from testifying in lawsuit against him
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to temporarily halt state Attorney General Ken Paxton’s scheduled testimony in a whistleblower lawsuit that was at the heart of the impeachment charges brought against him in 2023, delaying what could have been the Republican’s first sworn statements on corruption allegations. Paxton had urged…
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US says it disrupted a China cyber threat, but warns hackers could still wreak havoc for Americans
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. officials said Wednesday they disrupted a state-backed Chinese effort to plant malware that could be used to damage civilian infrastructure, as the head of the FBI warned that Beijing is positioning itself to disrupt the daily lives of Americans if the United States and China ever go to war. The operation,…