When Savannah Guthrie made a heart-wrenching plea to the kidnapper of her 84-year-old mother to send “proof of life,” she addressed the possibility of people creating deepfakes. “We live in a world where voices and images are easily manipulated,” she said. Before artificial intelligence tools proliferated — making it possible to realistically impersonate someone, in […]
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — In some ways, 10-year-old Giancarlo is one of the lucky ones. He still goes to school. Each morning, he and his family bundle up and leave their Minneapolis apartment to wait for his bus. His little brother hefts on his backpack, even though he stopped going to day care weeks ago because […]
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Lawyers for conservation groups, Native American tribes, and the states of Oregon and Washington are returning to court Friday to seek changes to dam operations on the Snake and Columbia Rivers, following the collapse of a landmark agreement with the federal government to help recover critically imperiled salmon runs. President Donald […]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military said Thursday that it has carried out another deadly strike on a vessel accused of trafficking drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean. U.S. Southern Command said on social media that the boat “was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.” It […]
CLINTON, N.Y. (AP) — A New York man accused of threatening to kill House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries pleaded guilty Thursday, a year after President Donald Trump pardoned him for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Christopher P. Moynihan, 35, also agreed to serve three years of probation. During a hearing in the […]
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia Democrats unveiled a proposed U.S. House map Thursday that aims to give their party four more seats in the latest effort to fight President Donald Trump’s redistricting push, even as an ongoing legal challenge makes use of that map for the midterm elections far from certain. The map would dilute […]
NEW YORK (AP) — In 2015, Woody Allen and his wife, Soon-Yi Previn, went on a trip to Washington, D.C. With the help of their friend Jeffrey Epstein, they were able to tour the White House. Allen’s friendship with Epstein has been known for years, but emails in the huge trove of records released by […]
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado funeral home owner will be sentenced Friday for stashing nearly 200 decaying human bodies in an office building over four years. One of the bodies was the mother of Derrick Johnson. The 45-year-old learned from the FBI that the ashes he had buried behind his home on Maui […]
A Houston doctor has been indicted on charges of falsifying medical records for five patients, making them ineligible to receive a liver transplant, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday. Dr. John Stevenson Bynon Jr. was indicted by a grand jury in Houston last month on five counts of false statements relating to health care matters. Bynon […]
Amazon sales surged 14% during the fourth quarter, helped by strong holiday spending and a better-than-expected growth in its prominent cloud computing unit.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Derrick Johnson buried his mother’s ashes beneath a golden dewdrop tree with purple blossoms at his home on Maui’s Haleakalā Volcano, fulfilling her wish of a final resting place looking over her grandchildren. Then the FBI called. It was Feb. 4, 2024, and Johnson was teaching an eighth-grade gym class. […]
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The U.S. Census Bureau plans to use a survey form with a citizenship question as part of its practice test of the 2030 census, raising questions about whether the Trump administration might try to make a significant change to the once-a-decade headcount that failed during the president’s first term. The field […]
GETTYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — History professor Gabor S. Boritt, a Hungarian immigrant to the United States who wrote widely about the Civil War and President Abraham Lincoln, has died. He was 86. Boritt had been a professor at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania for many years, founding the Civil War Institute and helping establish the $50,000 […]
Thirty-one families that lost relatives in two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 Max jetliners asked a federal appeals court on Thursday to revive a criminal case against the aircraft manufacturer. Paul Cassell, a lawyer for the families, urged a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court’s dismissal […]
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three people were killed and at least six others were seriously hurt when a car slammed into a grocery store Thursday afternoon in Los Angeles, authorities said. The crash was reported shortly after noon at a 99 Ranch Market in the city’s Westwood neighborhood, according Los Angeles Fire Department spokesperson Lyndsey […]
Authorities have increased the reward for information in the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, who they say was abducted from her home outside Tucson. Law enforcement officials have been combing the desert around her house and going door-to-door asking residents for any information that could break open the case. An alert that went out in a […]
NORTH CREEK, N.Y. (AP) — Nearly 70 people were rescued from gondola cabins at an upstate New York ski area after a mechanical problem forced a shutdown of the lift system, leaving skiers stranded for hours up to 70 feet (21 meters) in the air, authorities said. Staff at Gore Mountain in North Creek, nearly […]
The incoming archbishop of New York said Thursday that he plans to emphasize the importance of evangelizing as he takes charge of one of the biggest U.S. archdioceses. “How do we be actually be disciples, who do we make disciples?” Ronald Hicks said during a news conference at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where his installation ceremony […]
Jurors have awarded $8.3 million to the family of a Kansas foster teen who died in 2021 after he was held facedown for 39 minutes in a juvenile intake center while in the throes of a mental health crisis. Five juvenile officers in Sedgwick County either used excessive force on Cedric “C.J.” Lofton or failed […]
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — A $13.5 million settlement has been reached with six children who were placed into an abusive home in California after they had previously been rescued from squalid and torturous conditions in their parents’ home, according to a copy of the settlement. Riverside County agreed to pay $2.25 million to six of […]
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minneapolis man was arrested Thursday on charges of cyberstalking and threatening to kill or assault Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers involved in the crackdown in Minnesota. Federal prosecutors said in a statement that Kyle Wagner, 37, of Minneapolis, was charged by complaint, and that a decision to seek an indictment, which […]
NEW YORK (AP) — By age 2, most kids know how to play pretend. They turn their bedrooms into faraway castles and hold make-believe tea parties. The ability to make something out of nothing may seem uniquely human — a bedrock of creativity that’s led to new kinds of art, music and more. Now, for […]
Pizza Hut plans to close 250 U.S. restaurants in the first half of this year as its parent company considers a sale of the chain. Yum Brands said Wednesday it’s targeting underperforming Pizza Hut restaurants in its system. Pizza Hut has more than 6,000 locations in the U.S. Louisville, Kentucky-based Yum Brands said in November […]
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — The state of Alabama has joined a growing number of Republican-led states seeking to revive the death penalty for child rape, a sentence outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008. Alabama approved legislation Thursday to add rape and sexual torture of a child under 12 to the narrow list of […]
