DADEVILLE, Ala. (AP) — No state has a longer, more profit-driven history of contracting prisoners out to private companies than Alabama. With a sprawling labor system that dates back more than 150 years — including the brutal convict leasing era that replaced slavery — it has constructed a template for the commercialization of mass incarceration. […]

DADEVILLE, Ala. (AP) — A storm was looming when the inmate serving 20 years for armed robbery was assigned to transport fellow prisoners to their jobs at private manufacturers supplying goods to companies like Home Depot and Wayfair. It didn’t matter that Jake Jones once had escaped or that he had failed two drug and […]

ROME (AP) — Italy’s data protection watchdog said Friday it has fined OpenAI 15 million euros ($15.6 million) after wrapping up a probe into the collection of personal data by the U.S. artificial intelligence company’s popular chatbot ChatGPT. The country’s privacy watchdog, known as Garante, said its investigation showed that OpenAI processed users’ personal data […]

MIAMI (AP) — Activists sued the federal government Thursday to release images of dead orca whales, sea lions and other marine mammals entangled by commercial fishing boats off the U.S. West Coast. The complaints were filed after the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration failed to fulfill multiple Freedom of Information Act requests filed by […]

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s acting leader said Thursday he would veto a spate of contentious bills sponsored by the main opposition party, deepening political strife in the wake of parliament’s impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol. The ruling and opposition parties have been bickering over how much authority Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, […]

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A state judge in Montana has temporarily blocked policies that prevented transgender people from changing the sex designation on their birth certificates and driver’s licenses. District Judge Mike Menahan issued his order Monday, blocking the rule while the case moves through the courts. Menahan said it was not necessary at this […]

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A Dutch court has convicted a woman of crimes against humanity for keeping a Yazidi woman as a slave in Syria and sentenced her to 10 years in prison. The Hague District Court on Wednesday found Hasna A. guilty of multiple offenses for traveling to Syria in 2015, to join […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named Andrew Ferguson as the next chair of the Federal Trade Commission. He will replace Lina Khan, who became a lightning rod for Wall Street and Silicon Valley by blocking billions of dollars’ worth of corporate acquisitions and suing Amazon and Meta while alleging anticompetitive behavior. It […]

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Bashar Barhoum woke in his dungeon prison cell in Damascus at dawn Sunday, thinking it would be the last day of his life. The 63-year-old writer was supposed to have been executed after being imprisoned for seven months. But he soon realized the men at the door weren’t from former Syrian […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump on Friday offered a public show of support for Pete Hegseth, his embattled choice to lead the Defense Department, whose confirmation by the Senate is in doubt as he faces questions over allegations of excessive drinking, sexual assault and his views on women in combat. Hegseth, a former Fox […]

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan Democrats are pushing this month to pass legislation they say will improve reproductive health care, in particular the safety of digital health data, ahead of Republicans taking over the state House in 2025. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is backing a bill designed to protect reproductive health data including data logged […]

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A United Nations watchdog has been selected to lead an external probe into allegations of sexual misconduct against the top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, The Associated Press learned Tuesday. The move will likely generate conflict of interest concerns owing to the prosecutor’s wife’s past work for the oversight […]