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Meta’s new Twitter rival app Threads gets tens of millions of sign-ups in its first day

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:51:10 GMT

By KELVIN CHAN (AP Business Writer)Tens of millions of people have quickly signed up to Meta’s new app, Threads, as it aims to compete with Twitter — a sign that users are looking for an alternative to the social media platform that has undergone a series of unpopular changes since Elon Musk bought it.Meta Platforms’ CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday that 30 million people had registered for the app, including 10 million in the first seven hours of its launch Wednesday in the U.S. and over 100 other countries, including Britain, Australia, Canada and Japan. Threads is billed as a text-based version of Meta’s photo-sharing app Instagram that the company says provides “a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations.” Instagram users can log in with their existing usernames and follow the same accounts on the new app, giving Threads users a ready-made audience and an edge over other Twitter challengers like Bluesky and Mastodon....

CDC to reduce funding for states’ child vaccination programs

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:51:10 GMT

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reducing funding to states for child vaccination programs, according to an agency email obtained by KFF Health News.The funding cut “is a significant change to your budget,” said the email to immunization managers, dated June 27 and signed by two CDC officials.The immunization managers who received the message are public health officials who direct state, territorial and local programs to promote vaccinations against a variety of infectious diseases, such as measles and chickenpox.The reduction comes from a federal immunization grant — totaling about $680 million in the latest year — that supports vaccination programs for children, according to the Association of Immunization Managers.“There will be no easy solution for this,” said the CDC email. “We know that this change will require some tough decisions.”When asked about the change, CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund said Monday, “The budgetary impact is still being worked out.”Agen...

‘Smallville’ actress Allison Mack, who recruited victims for NXIVM sex cult group, sprung from prison early

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:51:10 GMT

By Jami Ganz and Molly Crane-Newman, New York Daily NewsLess than two years after she landed behind bars for recruiting women into a sadistic upstate sex cult, “Smallville” actress Allison Mack has been released from custody.The one-time NXIVM member was sprung from a federal lockup in California on Monday, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons records, more than a year shy of her three-year sentence.The 40-year-old Mack pleaded guilty to racketeering and conspiracy charges in April 2019, admitting to serving as one of convicted leader Keith Raniere’s top-level masters for the better part of a decade within the Albany-based NXIVM.The actress known for her role as Clark Kent’s friend in the TV series “Smallville” faced between 14 and 17 1⁄2 years in prison before taking a plea.Actress Allison Mack leaves the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse with her lawyers after a court appearance surrounding the alleged sex cult NXIVM on February 06, 2019 in New York City. Along with Clare Bronfman, he...

Congress wants to regulate AI. Big Tech is eager to help

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:51:10 GMT

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress want to regulate artificial intelligence, and Big Tech is watching — and lobbying.Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., launched a major push on AI regulation late last month, promising his colleagues hearings and a series of “AI insight forums” that will bring top AI experts to Washington and eventually lead to the creation of draft legislation.Over the next several months, members of Congress — only a few of whom have any technical expertise — will have to choose whether to embrace a strict regulatory framework for AI or a system that defers more to tech interests. Democratic and Republican lawmakers will have to grapple with the daunting task of learning about rapidly developing technology, and with the fact that even experts disagree about what AI regulations should look like.California’s Silicon Valley-area members of Congress, including Reps. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, Ro Khanna, D-Fremont, and Anna G. Eshoo, D-Menlo Park...

How to test the air quality in your home; what to know about getting professional help

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:51:10 GMT

With climate change and pollution continuing to impact weather and atmospheric conditions around the globe and the pandemic highlighting just how vulnerable humans are to invisible pathogens, many people are thinking harder about the air they breathe and how it could affect their health. Unfortunately, almost 36% of Americans – or 119.6 million people – are living in areas with unhealthy air, according to the American Lung Association’s State of the Air report for 2023.While you can’t do much about the environment around you, one way to breathe easier is by measuring your home’s air quality — and improving it if needed. Here’s how you can test on your own, and what to know about getting professional help.How is air quality measured?You may be familiar with air quality warnings if you follow the local news or weather reports. The standard measurement for air quality is known as Air Quality Index, or AQI. On a large scale, ground and satellite instruments measure particles in the air,...

Families confront the Texas Walmart gunman in court. Some forgive him, others want the death penalty

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:51:10 GMT

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A brother who traveled more than 1,000 miles to confront his sister’s killer. An uncle of an orphaned 4-year-old whose parents died while shielding the boy from the spray of bullets. A wife whose husband was gunned down at her side while their 9-year-old granddaughter looked on. Nearly four years after a white gunman killed 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso in a racist attack that targeted Hispanic shoppers, relatives of the victims are packing a courtroom near the U.S.-Mexico border this week to see Patrick Crusius punished for one of the nation’s worst mass shootings. The sentencing phase, which continued Thursday, is the families’ first opportunity to address Crusius face-to-face since the Aug. 3, 2019, shooting. Crusius, 24, is expected to receive multiple life sentences in federal prison after pleading guilty to 90 murder, weapons and hate crime counts in February. He could still receive the death penalty under separate charges in state court.H...

Hearing underway for first of 2 Iowa teens who pleaded guilty in 2021 beating death of teacher

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:51:10 GMT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A sentencing hearing for the first of two Iowa teenagers who pleaded guilty to beating their high school Spanish teacher to death with a baseball bat was underway Thursday with details about the investigation into the killing.Willard Miller and Jeremy Goodale pleaded guilty in April to the 2021 attack on Nohema Graber in a park in Fairfield, Iowa, where the 66-year-old teacher regularly walked after school. Prosecutors said the teens, who were 16 at the time, were angry at Graber because of a bad grade she had given Miller.Miller will be the first sentenced after he pleaded guilty as part of an agreement in which prosecutors recommended a term of between 30 years and life in prison, with the possibility of parole.Under Goodale’s agreement to plead guilty, prosecutors recommended a sentence of between 25 years and life with the possibility of parole. Goodale’s sentencing is scheduled for August but his lawyers have sought a delay in the hearing.Thu...

Texas man reported missing as a teen in 2015 returned home the next day, police say

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:51:10 GMT

HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas man who went missing as a teenager in 2015 returned home the next day but he and his mother deceived officers by giving false names over the ensuing eight years, police said Thursday.Houston police detectives said prosecutors have declined to bring false report charges against Janie Santana and her son, Rudolph “Rudy” Farias IV, but that their investigation is continuing. The announcement came a week after police said they found Farias after receiving a call about a person lying on the ground in front of a southeast Houston church.Authorities had not previously said where Farias, now 25, spent the eight years since he was reported missing after taking his two dogs for a walk near his family’s home in northeast Houston. He was hospitalized after police found him last week and detectives interviewed him and his mother on Wednesday.“After investigators talked with him yesterday, it was discovered that Rudy returned home the following day on March 8, 2015,” ...

Lavish tomb in ancient Spain belonged to a woman, not a man, new research shows

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:51:10 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — When archaeologists first discovered the 5,000-year-old ornate tomb in Spain, they assumed it was for a man. It held a rock crystal dagger, ivory tusks and other lavish items. But now they’ve determined the remains are those of a woman, and all it took was two teeth.The researchers used a new method of determining sex that analyzes tooth enamel. This technique, developed about five years ago, is more reliable than analyzing skeletal remains in poor condition, according to their study published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports.Most details about the life of the “Ivory Lady,” as researchers dubbed her, remain a mystery but there are some clues.“She was buried alone in a tomb with very special artifacts,” said Leonardo Garcia Sanjuan, a co-author and archaeologist at the University of Seville in Spain. “That shows that she was a special person.”The tomb is located a few miles west of Seville, near Spain’s southern coast, and was excavated in 2008. Arch...

Ex-PM Stephen Harper seeks closer ties with Hungary’s Viktor Orbán

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:51:10 GMT

OTTAWA — Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he wants closer ties between the parties including the Conservative Party of Canada and the Hungarian government during a trip to Budapest today.Hungary has been accused of backsliding under the governance of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.Human Rights Watch says Orbán’s government has delivered sustained “attacks on rule of law and public institutions” and the European Court of Justice repeatedly ruled that Orbán is violating EU migration laws with policies hostile to asylum claimants.Harper met Orbán in Budapest in his role as the chair of the International Democrat Union, a global alliance of right-leaning political parties.Harper says they discussed “the importance of centre-right parties strengthening their collaboration” and the “IDU’s strong support for Ukraine.”Orbán has opposed multiple moves by the European Union to punish Russia for its invasion and has called on Ukraine to con...