レアジョブ英会話 Daily News Article Podcast

Artificial intelligence chatbots have become the bane of teachers everywhere, but to prepare for the new school year, a group of educators in Charleston, South Carolina, packed into a high school auditorium and talked about inviting AI into the classroom. The teachers and principals watched as an instructor prompted an AI tool to "create a map of the world." The result drew gasps of disbelief and laughter. Projected on a large screen was a map riddled with bizarre errors. Mali was spelled "Mail." Egypt was identified as "Sopth." In place of Libya was something simply called "Africa." Dozens of other countries' names were misspelled or written in pure gibberish. "If you ever want kids not to overtrust these tools, try the map demo," said the instructor, Amanda Bickerstaff, founder and CEO of AI for Education, an organization that helps schools draft AI policies and train teachers and students in what she calls safe, ethical, and effective use of the technology. After initially trying to ban AI use, a growing number of U.S. public schools are trying a new strategy: encouraging classroom experimentation, partly so students can see its shortcomings, including generative AI's notorious tendency to "hallucinate," or fabricate information. AI literacy has become a buzzword of this back-to-school season as educators try to strike a balance between equipping students with the skills they need for an AI-driven future while preventing them from outsourcing their thinking to chatbots. There is no single definition of what AI literacy means, or how it should be taught. Tech giants like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic offer schools training sessions in how to use their AI tools. But for educators, there is a growing consensus that AI literacy is about more than learning how to use generative AI and write good prompts. "Good AI literacy," said Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, "includes knowing when not to use it." Thirty-seven states have now published official AI guidance that schools can use as a blueprint. South Carolina is not one of them. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

When the temperature heats up, so do emergency rooms, according to a massive study of Chicago hospital and urgent care records, which found increased kidney complaints, skin problems, varicose veins, and even mental health issues. Northwestern University medical school researchers pored through records of 916,404 visits to hospital emergency rooms and urgent care centers in Chicago from 2011 to 2023 to see if they could spot trends in illnesses and injuries when the temperature hits 92.6 degrees Fahrenheit (33.7 degrees Celsius) or higher. They found that when it gets hot, more than a dozen broad categories of injuries and illnesses become more frequent, including some that most people don't associate with heat, according to the study in Science Advances. While the study looked only at Chicago, outside experts said it highlights underestimated health problems and rising costs that affect much of the warming world. This study “helps confirm that we've been underestimating health risks from heat exposures,” said Dr. Jonathan Patz, chair of health and environment at the University of Wisconsin, who wasn't part of the research. Northwestern researchers looked through all the records to see what became more frequent, instead of just focusing on known heat-related problems. “Heat-related illness is undercounted when studies only search for explicit heat codes like heat stroke,” said Dr. Nicholas Cozzi, president-elect of the Illinois College of Emergency Physicians. He wasn't part of the study. Cozzi said that the study has an important message for the public: “Don’t wait for heat stroke symptoms to take heat seriously. If you have a chronic condition—kidney disease, MS (Multiple Sclerosis), venous issues—treat extreme heat days as a trigger for extra caution, not just an outdoor-activity problem.” Many of the diseases that saw an uptick in heat had to do with kidneys and the renal system. The skin issues are known by doctors but not often seen in non-medical literature, study senior author Dr. Abel Kho said. Kho said the study had him thinking back to the nights when he worked the emergency room: “When it’s hot out, it’s going to be a busy night. That’s just how it goes.” This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A Chinese humanoid robot set a new 100-meter sprint record of 8.86 seconds in Beijing, beating its robot competitors—and the fastest recorded human time. The race was part of China’s World Humanoid Robot Games, an Olympic-style competition now in its second year in Beijing. The event is also a showcase for China’s rapid advances in robotics amid an intensifying technology rivalry with the U.S. The previous robot record of 9.39 seconds had been set just three days earlier. For comparison, the men’s 100-meter world record is 9.58 seconds, set by Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt in 2009. Experts are amazed to see such progress in the humanoid robot industry. “This is a significant milestone—not simply because the robot ran faster than a human, but because of what it takes to make a bipedal robot run at this speed,” said Dennis Hong, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles. “As speed increases, balance, control, impacts, actuator performance, and mechanical robustness all become much more challenging,” said Hong. The record-breaking robot fell after hitting the finish line, a padded barrier, with sparks flying from its waist. Hong pointed out that the fall leads to more meaningful and difficult questions: whether robots can move and stop safely, recognize unexpected obstacles, recover from mistakes and continue working, the capabilities that ultimately make them more useful. The Games feature over 1,300 competitions involving more than 2,000 robots in 51 events like running, long jump, and table tennis, as well as ballroom dancing. Unlike the traditional Olympics, the robots also compete in teams in real-world scenarios, including household tasks, hotel services, and emergency response. “‘Housekeeper’ and ‘caregiver’ robots are still in the pilot and validation phase,” China's official newspaper People's Daily said, “(but) challenges are precisely where the focus of development lies…China's robotics industry is evolving toward higher quality and innovation.” This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Australia's recorded music industry will bar tracks wholly generated by artificial intelligence from official charts as burgeoning generative technologies threaten artists' livelihoods, a representative said. The crackdown comes as a variation of Madonna's pop hit "Like a Prayer" created by an Australian producer using AI-generated vocals and drums has spent 16 weeks in the Australian top 20, stoking debate about generative AI's place in music. It peaked at number two on the Australian Record Industry Association's (ARIA) top 20 Australian singles chart in May and remained in fourth place in August 25. Wholly AI-generated tracks will be banned from the ARIA charts, but some AI-assisted music will remain eligible, an ARIA statement said. Tracks can be eligible only if "humans wrote the song and performed the lead vocal and the primary instruments," among other requirements, the statement said. AI-generated music would also be ineligible for the Australian industry's prestigious ARIA awards. ARIA chief executive Annabelle Herd said, "These changes reflect our intent to remain dynamic and promote the human nature of artistry in what is—to say the least—a rapidly developing space." "The ARIA Charts will always remain a transparent measurement of the music Australia consumes, but a chart that rewards unlicensed AI output would undercut the very basis of the recorded music we exist to represent," Herd added. Eligible music must also be produced using legal AI services. The Australian rules are in step with new principles released in July by the London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. The federation represents the recording industry worldwide. The international guidelines state that to qualify for official music charts, a track must be "substantially human-made." Sydney Conservatorium of Music composer and lecturer Alexis Weaver told Australian Broadcasting Corp. the debate around AI in music was "exceptionally fraught and very emotional for a lot of musicians, and so everyone will have a different opinion." This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Giles Sims, 34, was sick of getting passed over for jobs because he didn't have a college degree. But with a wife and a widowed mother to help support, he needed a quick solution. So, the laid-off web developer turned to one of a growing number of three-year degree programs. "I can't afford to be out of the workforce for four years. That just seems like forever, and the three-year made it seem less daunting," said Sims, a student at Ensign College, a private Salt Lake City school that recently changed all its bachelor's degrees to require fewer classes than a traditional four-year degree. The condensed programs have exploded in popularity. As of this spring, 26 U.S. states have a college that offers at least one reduced-credit, three-year bachelor's, according to the nonprofit research group RAND. Advocates say these programs are a solution to the college affordability crisis and a godsend for non-traditional students like Sims. Critics, however, worry that they'll narrow too much what students learn, confuse employers, limit graduate school options, and create headaches in fields that require state licenses. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP), for one, says the programs devalue the meaning of a college credential. "This is not innovation. This is just cutting corners," said Todd Wolfson, AAUP's president. For decades, colleges have offered accelerated programs that let students finish faster, often by forgoing long summer breaks, maximizing transfer credits, and condensing semester-long courses into shorter, five- to 10-week terms. But those programs maintained the same course load, measured as credits. The new programs let students finish faster by completing as few as 90 credit hours. That shaves a year off the typical 120-hour bachelor's degree. Three-year bachelor's degrees are common in other countries, including the United Kingdom, India, France, and Italy. But they can create complications for graduates seeking admission to U.S. graduate schools, which sometimes require extra coursework. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Doctors Without Borders or MSF said that a massive scale-up was needed to contain the fastest-spreading Ebola outbreak on record. The Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo has spread so rapidly and so widely that it’s outpacing health authorities’ ability to respond, Trish Newport, an MSF emergency coordinator, said. “We should be able to circumscribe the outbreak to go and do preventative activities all around where the outbreak has not yet started. So that zones, health zones, health areas, the Ministry of Health is ready to be able to respond. But we don't have the capacity today,” said Newport. Congo’s fast-moving Ebola outbreak has now killed over 2,300 people and become the deadliest outbreak of the disease on record in the Central African nation. “Here, the speed, growth, and spread of this outbreak is much, much bigger. It's much faster and spreads much bigger than the outbreak in 2014 or the outbreak in 2018. This is extremely concerning,” she said. This is Congo’s 17th and largest Ebola outbreak. The toll eclipses that of the country’s 2018-2020 outbreak when 2,299 deaths out of 3,481 cases were recorded. The latest data shows 101 new cases and 33 deaths reported in the previous 24 hours. Over 1,000 people have recovered, while 730 remain in hospitals or isolation. The outbreak has infected and killed more people at a greater speed than any other outbreak in history. The World Health Organization has said it is on track to surpass the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the deadliest on record with more than 11,000 deaths. Newport said that community engagement remained one of the biggest challenges, adding that members need to be more aware of the outbreak and know what the symptoms are as well as what to do if they fall sick. “I will say that this outbreak is horrible. It's horrible. It's horrible for families. We see family members that come in who have had 15 people in their family die. We rapidly need to scale up to be able to prevent more deaths from happening, more families and communities from being impacted,” she said. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

As mass production transforms the fashion industry, one young Kenyan designer is turning back to a traditional craft. In Nairobi, Hillary Mukabwa, founder and lead designer of Mukabwa Studio, is using hand looms not only to make clothes and fabrics, but to preserve a piece of Kenya’s cultural heritage. For Mukabwa, choosing a traditional production method is a deliberate attempt to reconnect with a craft increasingly being pushed aside by modernization. “Modernization kills the aspect of traditional craftsmen and ways of doing work,” Mukabwa says. “I just wanted to be that person who kind of tries to revive the old practices, because this is where culture lives. This is where authenticity lives. And from that, we get to know our roots, know what we used to do, and getting to have unique items that are identified to us." The process begins with preparing and measuring the yarn before threading it through the loom. Weavers then work the threads by hand, using a process that can take several days depending on the size and complexity of the fabric. For Mukabwa, the slower pace is part of the craft's value. Unlike electric machines designed for mass production, hand looms produce each piece with a distinct character. “These hand looms, first of all, they are traditional. So, you find that they carry a story,” Mukabwa says. “It's a piece of art. Rather than producing masses, they produce with meaning," he adds. "It is a slow process. So, it is passion-led. You have to have passion for you to work in that area. And also, this machine produces fabric that no electric machine can produce. That is why we are sticking to it." The studio's looms are operated by hand and foot, and Mukabwa has also adapted some of the equipment to make weaving more efficient. Kenyan artisans with experience in weaving and machine-making produce the machines—a skill Mukabwa says is becoming increasingly rare. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Ask a teen what they want to be when they grow up, and there's a fair chance being an influencer is on their list. Digital media and the people who star in it have been cultural mainstays for teens' entire lives, so creating social media, video, or podcast content seems a natural, albeit nontraditional, career path. And now they can earn a college degree in that very field. Arizona State University (ASU) recently launched a new bachelor's degree in content creation, offered through its Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. The curriculum overlaps with that of ASU's mass communication and media studies degree, with the major departure being a slate of specialized electives on podcasting, studio production, and on-camera presence. ASU's announcement was met with swift criticism from many sides—from people who feel content creation is not a legitimate profession to those who question the value of a college degree in launching a social media career. But the ASU program is not the first of its kind. And the university, which declined an interview request about the new program, is not the first to offer content creation courses. Universities, eager to compete for a shrinking student population, are rolling out new majors intended to prepare students for today's careers. Whether they lead to jobs can be up for debate. To Brooke Erin Duffy, a communication professor at Cornell University, these college programs represent an inflection point. During the past year, Duffy said, institutions in education and beyond have been acknowledging content creation as a viable career path—even if the term "influencer" itself hits a nerve. On social media, influencers are everywhere, sharing shopping recommendations and lifestyle content, or promoting beliefs about health or politics. Because even influencers with relatively small followings have loyal audiences, brands also often pay them to talk about products. The image of a prototypical influencer, Duffy said, is usually a "young girl who is snapping selfies and just reaping in tremendous rewards for seemingly not doing anything." But that's not the reality for many content creators, who are working on media production, audience retention strategies, brand partnerships, and business relationships associated with their online presence. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Millions more people may be able to get smaller, lightweight Amazon packages delivered by drones by the end of the year under a plan the company announced to expand airborne shipping to suburban areas in nearly 500 US cities. Customers could receive the drone deliveries in as fast as 30 minutes, Amazon said in a news release. The drones can carry packages up to 5 pounds. The plan will intensify the battle between Amazon and Walmart to provide consumers with the fastest delivery times. Both giants rely on a mix of drones and drivers to deliver everything consumers have ordered. The goal is not necessarily about cutting costs by replacing drivers and trucks—and drones that can only carry one package at a time would have a hard time doing that. But instead, these companies are using drones as one tool to help keep customers happy with quicker deliveries, banking on a faster delivery system attracting more shoppers. Amazon’s plan would expand its drone delivery operation more than sixfold nationwide into hundreds of new communities, including the Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland, and Boise metro areas. The drones will primarily fly in the suburbs, well away from skyscrapers and major airports that could cause problems. Each drone site serves multiple cities in a metro area, and Amazon would not say exactly how many new sites it is planning to begin flying from. Hundreds of thousands of packages have already been delivered by Amazon drones this year, but even after this expansion, drones will still only handle a fraction of the hundreds of millions of package deliveries each year. In addition to only being able to carry 5 pounds, the drones Amazon builds face countless challenges, from tree cover to landscaping and inflatable pools that can make it hard to find a good drop zone. There are also regulatory hurdles to overcome in every community where Amazon wants to set up operations. Noise concerns also pose a potential challenge. “It’s still an experiment. It’s still in test-and-learn mode,” said Sucharita Kodali, who is a retail analyst with Forrester. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Paul Grinvalds has completed 114 marathons in all 50 states, but he still wilts when he races in temperatures beyond 60 degrees Fahrenheit (15.5 degrees Celsius). It's the same for most runners, as the body can't cool down during exertion, and heat makes that even harder. “One thing about marathoners is typically we're kind of stubborn,” said Grinvalds, 68, from West Des Moines, Iowa, who finds even temperatures in the 50s degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) a bit warm. “So if we have a goal and it's hot, a lot of times we're still going to try to do that goal, which is just stupid because you're almost guaranteed to have a very painful experience.” Such an experience can also be dangerous, a reality that marathon organizers are having to confront as climate change, caused mostly by the burning of fuels like coal and gasoline, pushes temperatures up. To improve the chances of having the 26.2-mile (42-kilometer) race in cooler weather, organizers are shifting race dates, starting earlier, and even giving options for participants to cut their runs short. Starting in 2027, the Twin Cities Marathon in Minneapolis-St. Paul will shift its more than 40-year tradition of holding the race on the first Sunday in October to later in the month. That decision comes after the cancellation of the marathon in 2023 because of record heat and humidity, and starting temperatures near 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius) for the 2025 race. Organizers of the Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Marathon last year similarly moved their annual race from August to September after canceling the 2024 race due to hot conditions. And other races, including the Air Force Marathon in Dayton, Ohio, the Little Rock Marathon in Arkansas, and the Long Beach Marathon in Southern California, all moved their start times to earlier in the morning in search of cooler temperatures. In Los Angeles in March, warm conditions prompted race organizers to give runners the option of stopping after 18 miles and still receiving a finisher's medal. Less than 5% of participants opted for the shorter finish, and only 14 of roughly 27,000 runners were treated at a hospital, with all released the same day. Still, the move led to some online derision. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Companies that secretly vary prices based on how much they think individual customers will pay could face federal charges under a proposed policy released by the Federal Trade Commission. "When consumers see a listed price, they expect it to be (the) same price that everyone else sees, not the retailer's estimate of how much they are willing to pay based on their personal data," FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a statement. The FTC has had its eye on personalized pricing for several years. In a preliminary report filed in January 2025, the agency found that grocers, clothing companies, and others were using third-party companies to help them individualize online prices based on shoppers' locations, browsing histories and other factors, including how long they left items in their virtual shopping carts. In one hypothetical example, the FTC said a consumer profiled as a new parent might be shown higher-priced baby thermometers on the first page of their search results. Ferguson said the FTC doesn't have the legal authority to ban personalized pricing in all circumstances. But under the proposed policy, businesses would have to "clearly and conspicuously disclose" if they are engaging in personalized pricing and share the types of data they're using to set those prices. The proposed policy states that companies engaged in personalized pricing without revealing the practice and the data behind it could violate the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive practices in the marketplace. The FTC is seeking comment on the policy for 30 days. Several retail trade groups didn't comment directly on the FTC's proposal. The National Retail Federation, which represents big companies like Walmart, Target, and Macy's as well as smaller stores, said retailers want to continue to offer incentives like loyalty and rewards programs, which collect personal data and provide offers tailored to individuals. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

OpenAI introduced a version of ChatGPT designed for teenagers—the first generation to grow up with artificial intelligence—who are already using it for schoolwork, questions about daily life, and even companionship. The San Francisco-based company says ChatGPT for Teens is tailored for kids ages 13 to 17 with stronger protections, including content restrictions around things like self-harm and romantic chats. It also provides homework and study support designed to help students learn rather than spit out answers and school essays. The idea is to guide teens toward healthy AI use in an age-appropriate environment, the company said. “We want to treat teens like teens, which means that we have to make sure that we’re showing up with the right developmental stage when we’re not either talking down to them or treating them like kids, but we’re also making sure that they’re not exposed to material that they shouldn’t be exposed to,” said Ann O'Leary, vice president of global policy at OpenAI. The effectiveness of the safeguards remains to be seen, said Brendan Bouffard, associate general counsel for AI and privacy at children’s advocacy group Fairplay. He said it is unclear whether OpenAI’s actions are enough to address young users' compulsive use of and emotional dependence on chatbots. “Announcements like these can be seen as a step in the right direction,” he said. “But I also would caution against parents being lured into this false sense of safety based on the announcement.” Parents, educators, and child development experts have been sounding alarms over children's use of AI chatbots, which have been blamed for facilitating cheating on schoolwork. While even adults can fall victim to anthropomorphizing AI and developing unhealthy relationships with it, teenagers' brains are not yet fully developed, making them particularly vulnerable. In the U.S., more than 70% of teens are turning to AI chatbots for companionship, and half use AI companions regularly, according to a 2025 study from Common Sense Media, a group that studies and advocates for using digital media sensibly. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Paris has transformed into a global cycling capital in recent years, and for international tourists this development offers a new way of seeing some of the city’s most famous sights and landmarks. In June, Paris recorded about 3.8 million tourists, roughly 3% more than in the same month last summer, according to the city’s Tourism Office. And as visitor numbers climb, more travelers are choosing bicycles instead of buses or walking to get around. Among them is the Buss family, from Webster, New York. The family of five is on a 12-day trip to Europe, celebrating the graduation of their two eldest children. After having spent six days in Tenerife, they came to Paris and decided to hop on a 3-hour guided bike tour around the French capital, cycling next to the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and the Panthéon. For Jamie Buss, a 49-year-old project manager working for a nonprofit, and her husband Mike, a 55-year-old IT worker for US news outlets, the bike tour allows them to see, with their children Tyler, 22, Ella, 18, and Lucy, 16, as many landmarks as possible given the little time they have to visit the capital. “It's a unique tour because I'm used to writing things down, either writing with pen and paper or putting things in my notes to remember them,” explained Jamie. “I like to have my notes refer to things, and you don't get that because you have to keep your hands on the bike at all times. But it's also nice to just be in the moment, and then we can come back and take a look at things a second time later and have a little bit more time to absorb the history and the culture of it all,” Jamie added. From here, the family will finish their travels in Amsterdam, another city known for its cycling culture, before flying back to the United States. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The first smartphone with a robotic arm has been launched in China. But are new styles of devices enough to energize the flagging phone market? A simple hand gesture triggers a hidden arm to pop out of the top of this new smartphone. The Honor Robot Phone has an innovative new gadget: an AI-powered camera on a mechanical gimbal. The device playfully interacts with its user, performing tricks on command. It will also take a look at your outfit and give a little confidence boost with its assessment of your style. Jamie Cooper, Sales Director at Honor, says it’s a “completely new innovation in terms of the smartphone category.” The phone uses Honor’s own in-house AI system YOYO Robot Mode to do things like identify faces and track them. That means you can make a hands-free video call and move around as much as you want—the camera will follow, so you’re never out of frame. "What I love about it is that it actually tracks using AI. So, it has a contextual understanding. It uses multimodal tracking for AI. It tracks the user and a center person or the center focal point of a person. And it can kind of follow you around the room as well,” says Cooper. "So let's say, for example, you're cooking. You want to phone your family. And you're pottering around the kitchen, as an example. It's one of those things that can just track. And you have and keep the conversation going and keep connected with people as well, so that's something that's very interesting in terms of a use case of the device.” The Robot Phone is aimed at content creators and vloggers who want to capture the perfect video. Honor has partnered with professional cinema camera manufacturer ARRI to allow filming and editing in high quality. The ambition is for the moving arm to interact with the world around it in ways phones have never been able to before. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Encouraging customers to mend worn clothes instead of buying new ones might seem like a self-defeating sales strategy. But in-store repairs and sewing workshops are becoming essential retail services for clothing brands as they try to appeal to young consumers who want to save money and the planet. While luxury fashion houses and select specialty retailers like Patagonia have offered product repairs for decades, the concept has caught on. Jeans giant Levi Strauss & Co., casual wear chain Uniqlo and budget retailer Primark are some of the apparel companies hoping to win over Generation Z shoppers with a needle and thread. Levi's created a hand-stitching course for high school students after determining that many Gen Zers lacked the sewing skills to match their interest in thrift store shopping and sustainability. Employees spend 90 minutes instructing teenagers on four tasks: sewing on a button, hemming, patching a hole, and fixing a tear. The Wear Longer Project, which the San Francisco-based company is expanding across the U.S., builds on the repair and customization services Levi's offers at hundreds of stores worldwide. "We think it's important to empower the people who buy our clothes with the skill sets to maintain them, to get them to that second life," Paul Dillinger, Levi's head of global design innovation, said. Detroit resident Chloe Halprin is the kind of consumer retailers hope to attract with a "fix it, don't ditch it" message. In high school, Halprin shopped at inexpensive, trendy stores. Fixing a big rip felt beyond her limited sewing ability. If she damaged a top or skirt from Forever 21, "I might just throw it away." These days, Halprin buys most of her clothes secondhand. She recently learned to hem with a sewing machine and hopes to tackle projects like turning a skirt into a shirt. "I try to be conscientious of my carbon footprint," Halprin, a nonprofit grant writer, said. "I really don't like waste. I'm trying to save money as well." This article was provided by The Associated Press.

At a Massachusetts lab, pebble-sized pellets are transformed into forks and films that won't leave persistent microplastics in the environment. These are bioplastic pellets. CJ Biomaterials ferments sugar to make plant-based polymers that microbes will consume. These alternatives to traditional plastics made of fossil fuels are seen by some as one of many solutions needed to confront global plastic pollution. At the company's Woburn research facility, lab technicians recently poured pellets into a molding machine to make forks. The test forks were thin enough for home composting, though too bendy for stabbing a steak. Other batches have been rigid, similar to a typical plastic fork. The technicians melted pellets to roll out flexible films for food packaging, like a bag for baby carrots. The film was quite strong but not stretchy like cling wrap. Technicians from CJ Biomaterials are figuring out how the pellets’ biopolymers can make products with attributes similar to conventional plastics, but that can go in a composting bin instead of a trash can. Forks and films are breaking down in the lab’s compost bin. Straws that were added are long gone. A recently tossed-in knife showed pitting on the surface as bacteria colonized it, starting to consume the material. Plastics have never really fundamentally been disrupted. Now, interest in bioplastics is growing because of concern over microplastics. It's the new “wild card” in this market, said the company's marketing director Leah Ford. “I've been doing this for a long time, and the compostability has always been a really strong driver. But with the greater understanding of microplastics, I think, that's going to change how people think about materials,” she said. Traditional plastics last for decades or even centuries as they fragment into harmful microplastics and even smaller nanoplastics. Microplastics have been found in the ocean and the air, in our food and water, and in a wide range of body tissues. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

WK Kellogg Co said that it will remove artificial colors from all its cereals by the end of this year. The change comes a year ahead of schedule. Kellogg said last August 2025 that it would remove synthetic dyes from its cereals by the end of 2027. But the company said it has identified fruit- and vegetable-based juices that will give cereals like Froot Loops and Apple Jacks their distinctive colors. The Battle Creek, Michigan-based company said it has also invested in equipment that will allow it to transition to natural colors. The company said it is also removing BHT, an artificial preservative, from the small number of cereals that still contain it. “More and more consumers are looking for foods made with simple, recognizable ingredients, and we are proud to meet those expectations even sooner than planned,” Kellogg Chief Growth Officer Doug VanDeVelde said in a statement. Kellogg has faced pressure for years to remove artificial ingredients from its cereals, which it has already done in other countries like Canada. In 2024, dozens of people rallied outside Kellogg's headquarters and delivered petitions with 400,000 signatures asking the company to remove artificial dyes and BHT. That pressure has grown under President Donald Trump's health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has urged food companies to phase out petroleum-based artificial dyes. Last August 2025, Kellogg also signed an agreement with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton saying it would “permanently remove toxic dyes” from its cereals by the end of 2027. Retailers are also forcing companies to act. Earlier this year, Target said it would stop selling cereals that contain artificial colors by the end of May. Walmart has also said it will remove artificial colors from its store brands by January 2027. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Software engineer Josh Dersch loves old computers. He spends countless hours tinkering in his garage, trying to coax decades-old machines back to life. He estimates he owns more than 200 vintage computers and devices in his Seattle home. "It's always been fascinating to me to see the origins of things," Dersch said. "It's a fun challenge to debug and repair. You can understand the entire system from top to bottom." Dersch is part of a growing community of vintage computer collectors who are preserving the classic machines that helped launch the digital revolution. While Silicon Valley has since moved on to shaping the future of artificial intelligence, these hardware enthusiasts are intent on saving the Atari, Commodore, and IBM machines that are ancestors to today's laptops, wearable devices, and smartphones. Where others see junk, people like Dersch see artifacts of computer history that are worthy of attention and respect. They delight in hearing the beeps and chimes of their childhood and firing up a low-def game of "Pong" or "Space Invaders." "The enthusiasm for the history of computers and all the stuff around it is growing," said Erik Klein, president of the Vintage Computer Federation, which organizes an annual festival at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View in the heart of Silicon Valley. This year, more than 3,500 people attended the two-day Vintage Computer Festival in early August that celebrated the 50th anniversary of Apple, founded in 1976 in nearby Cupertino, California. It featured a panel with co-founders Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne reminiscing about the company's early days as a scrappy startup led by the late Steve Jobs. More than a dozen such gatherings have since sprung up in cities across North America, South America, and Europe. Growing interest is reflected in more demand for vintage computers in online marketplaces, Klein said. Rare, iconic computers like the Apple-1—the company's first product—can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A coalition of farmers, consumer associations, and environmental groups is urging Malaysia's National Biosafety Board to reject a proposed field trial of genetically modified rice, warning the project could pose risks to food safety, the environment, and farmers. The board is evaluating an application by Zen Cropscience for the confined field trial in northern Perak state that involves a genetically modified version of the MR219 rice variety that is tolerant to the herbicide glyphosate and resists diseases caused by bacteria and fungi. The coalition of 61 organizations said it had submitted a formal objection as part of a public consultation process that ended several weeks ago. The groups said the project is similar to one submitted for a field trial in Perlis state in 2019 that was later abandoned, and that they are renewing their earlier objections. The groups said their main concern is the potential for genetically modified material to contaminate conventional and wild rice through cross-pollination or other means. They said Malaysia's biosafety law has insufficient legal protection and compensation mechanisms for farmers who could suffer economic losses from accidental contamination of their crops. Farmers also worry that the genetic modification could encourage greater use of glyphosate, potentially accelerating the development of herbicide-resistant "super weeds" that would require farmers to apply more herbicide to control them. They warned glyphosate residues could remain in harvested rice and enter the food supply. The integration of a gene for fungal resistance is worrying as it could potentially compromise food safety by altering nutritional values or increasing allergenic and toxin levels, the coalition said. Abdul Rashid Yob, who heads a farmers' association representing 200,000 members nationwide, pointed to previous negative experience with the herbicide-tolerant Clearfield rice. While production initially improved, weeds quickly developed resistance, forcing farmers to use higher doses of herbicides, which raised production costs and degraded soil fertility, he said. "GM rice will be much worse. It is not the answer," he said. Malaysia relies heavily on imported rice, with domestic production meeting only about half its national consumption needs, according to official data. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A deluge of 90,000 rubber ducks poured out of a truck and into the Chicago River, then bobbed along a stretch of the skyscraper-lined river in the annual Chicago Ducky Derby that raises thousands of dollars for charity. The truck dumped the ducks from one side of a half-raised bridge. After forming a yellow pool in the river, the ducks floated for around 15 minutes before a winner and runner-up were plucked from the water. The annual event, a fundraiser for Special Olympics Illinois, draws thousands of participants. At an accompanying festival, participants snapped pictures with inflatable ducks and doodled on a chalkboard under the prompt, “I adopt a duck because …” Some sported rubber duck-printed shirts. Becky Cavanagh, the Ducky Derby ambassador and a 13-year Special Olympics athlete, held up the winning duck to the cheers of crowds packed on both sides of the river. Cavanagh said her favorite part about the Special Olympics was “making new friends.” Asked before the race how she felt about picking the winning duck, she cheered. “Woo!” Special Olympics Illinois organizes competitions across the state for people with disabilities and special needs. It costs $10 to sponsor a “lone duck,” which will feed an athlete lunch at a competition, and $30 for a “quack pack” of six ducks, which supplies gold medals for a team. The competition has raised more than $480,000. The sponsor of the fastest duck wins an SUV, and the runner-up will win $2,500 in cash, said Pete Beale-DelVecchio, president of Special Olympics Illinois. “It really is a fantastic day for our athletes,” he said ahead of the race at an area next to the river, where derby attendees posed with inflatable rubber ducks and bopped along to a live DJ. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A new study calculates that human-caused climate change doubled the likelihood of the tinderbox weather conditions that sparked Canada's massive summer wildfires, which sent smoke everywhere and raised the ire of some politicians. Fire and climate scientists said some politicians, who have talked about punishing Canada for poor fire management, should look more in the mirror than up north when it comes to blame, given the United States' huge historical emissions of heat-trapping gases from the burning of coal, oil, and gas. The fire weather conditions in Northwest Territories and northwestern Ontario, while unusual, weren't that rare, but still were made twice as likely by global warming, according to a study by World Weather Attribution, a group of international scientists who examine extreme weather conditions to see if there are climate change fingerprints. It's about the same as the team found for summer fires in France, but not nearly as clear a climate fingerprint as they calculated in Spanish fires, which the scientists said were 20 times more likely because of climate change. The study, which was done so quickly that it has not been peer-reviewed yet, looked at the weather conditions that are connected to large wildfires and the Canadian index for those conditions, which are heat, lack of rain, humidity, and wind. The researchers found the doubling of frequency when—using scientifically accepted techniques to search for climate fingerprints—they compared current conditions to a world without the 2.5 degrees (1.4 °C) of warming that's occurred since the industrial age and the burning of fossil fuels started. The weeklong weather conditions that led to the fires in Ontario are now the type that can happen every six years or so, the report said. “In a pre-industrial climate, this would have been much less likely to occur, maybe once in a lifespan. So, climate change has made those events more likely,” said study co-author Jonathan Boucher, a fire scientist at the Canadian Forest Service. Outside climate and fire scientists said the flash study made sense and reflects a world where hotter and drier conditions are making fires burn more often and more intensely. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Nintendo’s first-quarter profit surged 53.5% as the popularity of its recent Super Mario movie worked with solid demand for the Switch 2 gaming console to support the Japanese video-game company’s bottom line. Kyoto-based Nintendo Co. reported 147.4 billion yen ($933 million) in April-June profit, up from 96 billion yen in the same period a year ago. Quarterly sales dipped 9.5% to 517.8 billion yen ($3.3 billion). Working as a negative for Nintendo, as with many Japanese companies, were U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, as well as the rising price of memory chips and other components. Nintendo is forecasting 310 billion yen ($2 billion) in profit for the full fiscal year through March 2027, down nearly 27% from the previous fiscal year, on annual sales slipping 11% to 2.05 trillion yen ($13 billion). Nintendo said sales of Switch 2 machines totaled 3.82 million globally. Nintendo’s older Switch business is still holding up, with both console and software sales continuing, even as the new machine is also in demand. In Switch 2 software, “Yoshi and the Mysterious Book,” released in May, and “Pokémon Pokopia,” released last year, were popular, leading to software sales totaling 9.46 million units for the quarter, according to Nintendo. “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” raked in massive box-office revenue, much of it from overseas. The Nintendo Switch 2, which went on sale in June last year, is still going strong, the company said. Nintendo hopes to keep building on the momentum by adding more games to the lineup, including “Splatoon Raiders,” which went on sale last month, as well as new games in the works, such as “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.” Nintendo is projecting Switch 2 console sales to total 16.5 million units for the fiscal year, down nearly 17% from the previous year. Console sales tend to drop after the first strong year. Nintendo is expecting strong game software sales at 60 million units for the fiscal year, up 23%. Nintendo shares jumped 2.9% in Tokyo trading after earnings results were announced. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The idea was unique for sub-Saharan Africa: use cable cars to lift thousands of commuters above the daily gridlock in one of Africa's fast-growing cities. But the system ran for only a few weeks, and now the car-less cables hang unused above Madagascar's capital in what might be a $170 million mistake by one of the world's poorest countries. The cable car system in Antananarivo was promoted and inaugurated by former President Andry Rajoelina before he was deposed in a military coup late last year following youth-led protests alleging widespread government failures. He reasoned it was the best way to end the reliance on aging, overcrowded minibus taxis that create traffic jams stretching for hours, an annoyance for many in the island nation off East Africa. Light rail wouldn't work because of the area's marshlands, he said. Rajoelina called the system's opening last year a landmark moment, like France building the Eiffel Tower. Officials said the cable cars could carry up to 75,000 people a day, take 2,000 vehicles off the roads and cut commutes from up to three hours to about 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the route. At the unveiling, Rajoelina and his prime minister rode above Antananarivo's steep hills and tightly packed neighborhoods. But few ordinary Madagascans followed. The unusual transit system, built over three years for around $173 million with loans from France, has run into a common problem for Africa and its more than 1.5 billion people: affordability. Officials set the fee for users at between 70 and 90 U.S. cents a trip—six to eight times the price to ride in a minibus. Many people have been unwilling to pay that in a country where the average monthly salary for a commuter is around $72, according to a 2022 report by the World Bank. Pieter Onderwater, a public transport planning consultant and guest lecturer at the Center for Transport Studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, said Madagascar's government and the cable car system's French developers may have missed how money is more important than convenience for most people on a poor continent. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

For passengers on the budget Australian airline Jetstar, the days of cramming your bag into an overhead locker already full of your seatmates' full-sized suitcases are coming to an end, but there's a catch. The carrier will charge passengers for stowing carry-on bags in the overhead compartments, beginning in February 2027. The move came after passengers and airline staff named "having bags weighed at the gate and struggling to find room in overhead lockers as the more stressful parts of the airport experience," the carrier said in a statement. It makes Jetstar the latest low-cost carrier to introduce a payment system for carry-on bags, with budget airlines in the United States and Europe commonly charging passengers to use the compartments. Passengers could stow a purse, laptop bag, or small backpack that fit within specified measurements under the seat in front of them for no charge, Jetstar said. The cost of using the overhead compartments in the cabin would start from 25 Australian dollars ($18) one way, with the price depending on the route. Bags stowed in the lockers can weigh up to 10 kilograms (22 pounds) and will no longer be weighed by airline staff as passengers line up to board, Jetstar said. The existing weight limit of 7 kilograms (15 pounds) will be scrapped for the small items placed under travelers' seats. Like many carriers worldwide, Australian and New Zealand airlines have already introduced charges for checked luggage, seat selection, and some dining and in-flight entertainment options. An industry analyst said, however, that Jetstar was the first to charge for use of the overhead lockers. "It will ruffle feathers because Australian travelers have got such high expectations," said Sharon Petersen, CEO of AirlineRatings.com. "For such a long time they lived in a bubble of full-service options only." Jetstar said the change would reduce frustrations at boarding gates. "By giving customers an underseat bag with the option to add Priority Carry-on, we can make better use of overhead locker space, streamline boarding, and help more flights depart on time," Jetstar CEO Stephanie Tully said in a statement. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Matt Walker couldn't pet a dog without sneezing—until he and other scientists used a gene-editing technique to produce a hypoallergenic beagle named Bailey. Now, he can feed Bailey spoons of peanut butter while she lies on his lap and can play fetch with her in Central Park. His allergies didn't go away: Bailey's saliva and hair no longer contain a key allergy-causing protein. "The feeling right now is sort of a mix of relief and awe and gratitude that it worked," said Walker, a geneticist. His company, Kindred Companion Sciences, created Bailey and her twin Alfie using a Nobel Prize-winning technique called CRISPR. It'll take years before the millions who suffer from dog-related allergies can walk into a pet store and buy a pooch like Alfie or Bailey. Scientists have to monitor the long-term health effects of the genetic tweak, and find ways to commercialize the approach to make it affordable. And experts not involved with the effort say it could hurt shelter and rescue animals waiting to be adopted. "It opens the door to a lot more people being able to own pets. On the negative side, it may discourage people from trying to use strays and unwanted animals that are not engineered to be allergy-free," said bioethicist Arthur Caplan with New York University's Grossman School of Medicine. Researchers have tried to create hypoallergenic pets before, mostly by using cloning. But this led to sicker pups that were too genetically similar. Two years ago, researchers used CRISPR to reduce levels of an allergy-causing protein in a cat named Alsik. But it's not yet clear whether this technique is safe to be tested on other cats. Dogs that shed less, like poodles, are often thought of as hypoallergenic. But these pups still produce allergy-causing proteins that end up in their saliva, hair, and dander, so they can still make people sniffly. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

France has banned unsolicited telemarketing calls under a new law aimed at protecting consumers from intrusive sales pitches and shielding vulnerable people from fraudulent commercial practices. The law, backed by President Emmanuel Macron's government, has been enforced since August 11. While several countries have tried opt-out systems, France is hoping more muscular obligatory opt-in rules will be more effective. Previously in France, people who wanted to avoid marketing calls had to register their number with a government-run service, but consumer groups said some call centers ignored the list. Now, “businesses are prohibited from contacting consumers without their prior consent,” said Alice Vilcot, chief of staff at the Directorate-General for Competition, Consumer Affairs, and Prevention of Fraud. “That consent can be withdrawn at any time.” The government says the law is a response to years of consumer complaints. Authorities estimate that about three-quarters of people in France receive at least one unsolicited sales call every week, and many receive more. In 2024, 11 consumer organizations issued a joint call for a ban, denouncing “relentless harassment of consumers through countless unwanted telemarketing calls to both landlines and mobile phones—an intrusion that has become a regular part of their daily lives.” Parliament approved the law last year. Individuals who make illegal calls can be fined up to 75,000 euros ($87,000) per call. Companies can face fines of up to 375,000 euros ($435,000) per call. There are exceptions. Consumers may consent to receive marketing calls, for example by checking a consent box on a form. Companies can contact customers with new commercial offers if they already have a contractual relationship. People can report unsolicited calls through a government website. Vilcot noted that an Ireland-based company was fined 6 million euros ($6.9 million) last year for violating France’s previous telemarketing rules by calling people on the no-call list. Neighboring Germany has had a similar ban since 2009. The Netherlands tightened rules on telemarketing calls in July. The country had already banned unsolicited sales calls, but now companies are no longer allowed to call their own customers with promotional offers without previous authorization. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Many Americans are changing their eating and shopping habits after the biggest jump in grocery prices in 50 years. According to government figures, the price of food purchased for home use rose 31% from 2019 through 2025. The war in Iran has made it uncertain if a slowdown expected this year will materialize. Some say they are hunting for deals at multiple stores and switching brands. Others are buying fewer of their favorite foods or less food overall. One reason consumers feel so pinched is that other costs have climbed rapidly, too, most recently for gasoline. Like a lot of San Francisco Bay Area residents, Jack Chang has felt surrounded by rising costs. The 33-year-old self-employed barber and father of three isn't just talking about grocery prices and gas. The landlord of his Mission District barbershop raised his rent by 10% this year. Meanwhile, Chang has lost clients who got laid off from their tech jobs. His home utility bill also remains high. With 6- and 4-year-old daughters and a 2-year-old son, he purchased a used 2024 Toyota Sienna hybrid minivan three months ago. So, he now has monthly car and auto insurance payments. It feels like cutting hair five to six days a week just isn't enough at times. Chang wants to spoil his kids. “But I just can't,” he said. “We have to live frugal, because it's hard to afford.” The reasons for the grocery price hikes are numerous, from pandemic-related supply chain disruptions, weather conditions, and diseases like bird flu to tariffs on foreign products like coffee, tomatoes, and chocolate. Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine disrupted oil and fertilizer supplies, making food more expensive to produce. A fresh conflict in the Middle East is creating similar price pressures this year. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Heroes dressed in their capes and costumes ran to help raise money for foster children in Kansas. The Totally Awesome CASA Costume 5K got underway in Lawrence, Kansas, with over 50 racers participating in the inaugural event, with many in costume. Loretta Severin, a runner and former board member with the Douglas County Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) for Children, said this event was to bring awareness of the needs of CASA to the community in a fun way. “We, a couple years before the pandemic, had a run for a few years that was superhero-themed, and one of our board members thought about bringing the run back kind of as a community engagement opportunity and a way to just get the name of CASA out in the community in a way that's fun and family-friendly,” Severin said. The Douglas County CASA works to provide volunteers who can mentor and be an advocate for a child throughout their time in the foster care program. “Children who are in the foster care system really benefit from having a long-standing relationship with a trusted adult who is there and there only to pay attention to what their emotional needs are and also to help them be successful as they navigate a really challenging system,” Severin said. Currently, CASA has over 60 kids on a waiting list to be assigned a volunteer in Douglas County. “Fundraisers like this help us to meet those needs and have more CASAs to support those kids on the waiting list,” Molly Morgison, a board member for Douglas County CASA, said. There are currently over 80 kids in the Douglas County CASA program, and the organization is hoping to raise funds to hire staff to train more volunteers and mentor more children in the foster care system. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay $5.5 billion to tie up remaining lawsuits that claim its talc products caused ovarian cancer. The drugmaker, which has been fighting talc-related lawsuits for more than a decade, said that the settlement is conditioned on at least 95% of remaining claimants participating. A U.S. bankruptcy court judge denied a $9 billion settlement proposed by company subsidiary Red River Talc last year that would have been one of the biggest mass tort settlements in history. Johnson & Johnson decided not to appeal that ruling and instead fight on in court. A federal judge ordered plaintiffs in the case against Johnson & Johnson to show why the remaining pending talc claims should not be dismissed after their witnesses could not provide a direct link between the company's product and cancer. “The Court’s order placed plaintiffs in an untenable position of having to present specific causation evidence to maintain their claims that does not exist,” Erik Haas, worldwide vice president of litigation, Johnson & Johnson, said in a prepared statement. As part of the settlement proposed, Johnson & Johnson will make an initial payment of no more than $3 billion next year. It has no additional payments due until 2028. “While we are confident the company would have ultimately prevailed with further litigation, as it has in the vast majority of cases tried to date, this resolution allows the company to put this matter behind it and remain focused on its mission to develop medicines and devices that save lives,” Haas said. Johnson & Johnson said that it previously settled about 95% of filed lawsuits for mesothelioma, a cancer in the tissue surrounding organs like the lungs and heart, all state consumer protection claims, and all talc-supplier disputes. Shares of the New Brunswick, New Jersey-based company rose more than 2% before the market open on July 28. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Eighty-year-old Maime Kapten is a member of the Seto ethnic community, which once a year turns a village in southeastern Estonia into a symbolic kingdom for a day—complete with entry visas instead of tickets, made-up currency, and even a mock military parade. She's one of only a few thousand fluent speakers of Seto, which is closely related to the Estonian language. The idea was born in 1994 as the Setos, whose homeland was divided by the Estonian-Russian border after the collapse of the Soviet Union, created a special event called Kingdom Day to highlight their unique culture, preserve their language, and bring the community together. “This is an important cultural day for us,” Kapten said. “We get to meet people we know; we get to talk, exchange a few words, give each other a hug.” The Seto people have lived for centuries in the border region and never had a real kingdom. After the Soviet Union's collapse, many on the Russian side of the border eventually abandoned or sold their houses and moved to Estonia. Fewer than 200 stayed behind. According to Estonia's 2021 census, about 25,000 people reported being able to speak Seto, but linguists estimate only a few thousand use it in everyday life. Seto speakers are spread across Estonia, and the Setomaa parish in their traditional home region is home to fewer than 3,000 people. Seto traditions have survived largely by being passed on by word of mouth, and the annual Kingdom Day is one of the most important events for preserving the Seto language. Maria Grünberg, 23, learned Seto by listening to songs as a child and trying to sing along. Now she’s leading the youth choir and her dream is to help every generation embrace Seto. “We all together try to preserve the songs, the language, and show also other young people that Seto songs and Seto language is not only for old people,” said Grünberg, who sang wearing a traditional Seto dress she customized herself and her grandparents' jewelry. “We want to show that this is for everyone.” This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Federal regulators are clearing the way for robotaxis to operate without manual controls like steering wheels or, eventually, even brake pedals as the rules start to catch up to the evolving technology. Amazon's fully autonomous Zoox vehicles got approval to begin charging customers for rides in the specially designed cars that feature four inward-facing seats once they secure state and local approval. Zoox has already been offering free rides in Las Vegas and San Francisco since last year. At least a couple of people were waiting at most stops for rides up and down the Vegas strip aboard one of the distinctive boxy-shaped vehicles. "It's kind of scary at first, but when I just got used to it, it's really cool and chilling. I really liked the music and how you can adjust the temperature," Chloe Huu from Ann Arbor, Michigan, said after taking a ride in a Zoox. But the projected wait time for the ride kept changing, which made it hard to plan. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also proposed a rule to allow robotaxis to operate without brake pedals, but that proposal is still pending. Administrator Jonathan Morrison said his agency wants to update the regulations to fit these fully autonomous vehicles while still acting as the "cop on the beat to make sure that this is being done right." Most vehicle safety regulations were written decades ago, always with the assumption that there would be a human driver behind the wheel. But Morrison said that things like steering wheels, windshield wipers, and side-view mirrors aren't really needed in an autonomous vehicle. The Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety group raised concerns about Zoox's plan to operate without a steering wheel or other standard controls because the company didn't provide detailed evidence to show that its vehicles could operate safely on public roads. "Lots of promises, lots of glossy language, lots of 'We believe, we think we'll do this.' Yet there really was no data behind the promises, and that's really concerning to us," said Peter Kurdock, who is general counsel for the Advocates group. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

As the Trump administration unwinds years of protections for hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti, twin populations of vulnerable people find themselves in the crosshairs: caregivers in jobs to which those immigrants have flocked, and the older adults and disabled people who rely on them. Around the U.S., care homes and home health agencies are bracing for the loss of workers with TPS, which stands for temporary protected status, even as they continue to reel from other immigration policy changes that have squeezed an already short-staffed industry. For businesses, it is a predicament that could hurt bottom lines and tax remaining workers. For their clients, it threatens to upend every aspect of their lives. “They have become like family,” says Katy Sanchez, who lives in a group home for disabled people in Nanuet, New York, run by The Arc Rockland, which stands to lose 19 caregivers with TPS, on top of 20 others it lost in immigration changes last year. “If they are forced to leave, it would be devastating.” The Supreme Court sided with the Trump administration, saying it could end temporary protected status. The ruling specifically pertained to 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians, but immigration advocates and legal observers say it could be applied to a broader group of 1.3 million people from 17 countries. Around 1 in 5 workers in the U.S. is foreign-born, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but immigrants are overrepresented in caregiving roles. Among home health aides, for example, one-third are immigrants, according to Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute (PHI), a nonprofit focused on the caregiving workforce. In lives upended by age or disability, a cherished caregiver is a lifeline. For someone living in their own home, they may be the last line of defense before institutionalization. For those in a care facility, they may be their strongest advocate, who notices subtle changes before anyone else, ensures small comforts like dollar-store word search books, and brings a sense of humanity to the humiliation of being incontinent. Like similar facilities around the country, Cabrini of Westchester, a nursing home in Dobbs Ferry, New York, is prepared to scramble to secure replacement staffers from nursing agencies and plead with remaining workers to take overtime shifts. Cabrini’s workforce is about 75% immigrant. Among those with TPS, Smith senses “almost a hopelessness.” This article was provided by The Associated Press.

It's been a choppy year for restaurants that lean into lettuce. Lettuce prices rose sharply in the first half of 2026 due to hot weather in Arizona, where about one-third of America's lettuce is grown. Now, restaurants are dealing with the fallout from a Cyclospora outbreak linked to shredded lettuce that has sickened thousands of Americans. Yum! Brands, the parent company of Taco Bell, said that Taco Bell's U.S. same-store sales are down 2% so far in the July-September period due to customers' concerns over the outbreak. That compares to a 7% same-store sales increase in the April-June period. Federal health officials first tied the diarrhea-causing outbreak to shredded iceberg lettuce served at Taco Bell restaurants in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia. Later, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said customers in Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania were also affected. Taco Bell removed shredded iceberg lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms from its U.S. restaurants on July 17. The following day, Taylor Farms recalled iceberg lettuce grown in central Mexico. Taco Bell's sales bottomed out the weekend of July 18-19 but have been steadily improving since then, Yum! Brands Chief Financial Officer Ranjith Roy said in a conference call with investors. Taco Bell's U.S. sales have climbed halfway back to their year-ago level, he said. Yum! Brands CEO Chris Turner said Taco Bell's quick action to contain the issue and its clear communication on social media helped bring diners back. The brand also enticed fans with daily specials like a $1 Mexican Pizza. "With respect to the consumer sentiment, we've seen real improvement as consumers have understood better the nature of the issue," Turner said. "They understand that it is not a Taco Bell-specific issue." Other chains are also feeling some impact from the outbreak even though they haven't been named in government investigations. Chipotle Mexican Grill said that it expects its same-store sales to rise only 1% in the July-September period because of lower traffic due to the outbreak. It had previously expected same-store sales to rise 3% in that period. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Researchers are working on a project to develop an AI-powered app for people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). COPD is a lung condition that can cause breathing problems, including shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing, chest tightness, and frequent chest infections. The idea is that an algorithm can analyze what a patient's voice sounds like on any given day and detect dangerous flare-ups before symptoms become severe. The technology is based on the idea that indirect changes in breathing and lung function can affect the sound of a person’s voice before symptoms worsen. The project, led by pulmonologist Dr. Sami Simons at Maastricht University Medical Centre, asks patients to record short voice samples. The app, which is still under research, then uses artificial intelligence to analyze the recordings and identify patterns that may signal declining respiratory health. “A flare-up of asthma COPD means that people suddenly become worse. So, they get more dyspnea, more phlegm, more cough. So, what usually happens is that they are at home. Or they are at work. So, they need to contact the healthcare provider. And so, there's a delay in a way of getting the right care. And that delay can last up to a couple of days,” says Dr. Simons. The team hopes the technology will reduce hospital visits and provide patients with a simple way to monitor their condition from home. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly common in healthcare, privacy concerns remain a major issue for patients. Because the app analyzes a person’s voice, researchers say protecting that sensitive data has been a priority from the start. Dr. Simons says the app was developed with the help of privacy experts to ensure voice recordings remain in a secure environment. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Mark Ragsdale's phone rings off the hook with neighbors asking the same question: Where can I find water? During the day, he works as the state's water commissioner for Norwood, Colorado, where his cousin Snyder ranches. But morning, afternoon, and evening, he hauls water to his small herd of 45 cow-calf pairs. He counts his luck that his solar-powered well is still producing water and his herd is nearby. “It was a no-snowpack winter,” he said. “Maybe a snow or two of five or six inches and it would be gone in a day.” Hauling water across rugged landscapes has become a daily chore for many ranchers in the U.S. Rockies. They historically relied on snowmelt to sustain stock ponds, springs, and creeks for livestock to drink throughout the summer, but this year's snowpack was the worst on record in the Upper Colorado River Basin, which includes Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico. Human-caused climate change made the snow drought about 14 times more likely, a new study confirms. Coping with the impacts of minimal snow and a so far lackluster monsoon season is requiring more time, money, and stress from producers who are already struggling to maintain family legacies and meet America's demand for beef. As water shot into an open stock tank atop a high-country mesa, a trickle soaked the dusty earth below. Scott Snyder rose from the shade to fasten a hose and stop the spillage. It took eight trips in three vehicles over nine hours in sweltering heat before the 800 cow-calf pairs finally had enough water to make it through to the next day—maybe two. He can adapt, said Snyder, who operates Mex and Sons Ranch in Norwood, Colorado, with his family. But there’s a huge cost. “It's every bit of money, every bit of time, every bit of effort, and a lot of sleepless nights of trying to control what is really not controllable,” he said. Like many other ranchers, Snyder and his brother Monte already shrunk their herd, bought hay to supplement what little they could grow, shuttled cows farther to reach grazable land, and are constantly monitoring whether wildfires are blowing their way. And now, they are hauling drinking water. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Conflicts and disruptions to global energy markets could push millions more people into hunger by driving up fuel, fertilizer, and food costs, the head of the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) warned, as a new United Nations report showed global progress against hunger remains fragile. The U.N. food security report, released last month, found global hunger has eased modestly in recent years but projected that more than 500 million people could still face chronic hunger by 2030. Africa is expected to bear the largest share of that burden. In an interview with The Associated Press on July 10, IFAD President Alvaro Lario said geopolitical tensions and potential disruptions to shipping and energy supplies, including uncertainty surrounding the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran war, could leave an additional 9 to 18 million people facing hunger if the shocks persist. "We are in a current era where we have the highest number of conflicts and are still increasing," Lario said. "Whenever there is a conflict, also hunger, displacement, refugees increase." Conflict remains one of the biggest obstacles to reducing hunger worldwide, Lario added. Wars and geopolitical tensions can disrupt shipping, energy supplies, and agricultural inputs, increasing costs across food systems already strained by inflation. Lario stressed that hunger and conflict often reinforce one another, creating a cycle that is difficult to break without greater stability. Higher energy prices are already affecting fertilizers and agricultural production, he said. The impact is especially significant for small-scale farmers, many of whom rely on diesel fuel to pump water, harvest crops, and transport goods to market. Rising fuel costs increase production expenses and can feed directly into higher food prices. The new report identifies affordability as one of the world's biggest food security challenges. While food production continues to grow, roughly a third of the global population still can't afford a healthy diet. In low-income countries, that figure rises to about 77%, according to Lario. "The biggest challenge is no longer simply producing enough food, but making healthy diets affordable," he said. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Snow-capped for much of the year, Mount Olympus, mythological home of ancient Greece’s 12 Olympian gods, has captured the imagination through the millennia. Rising to 2,918 meters (9,573 feet) from a base practically at sea level, the ancient Greeks believed the throne of Zeus, king of the gods, stood on the highest of its craggy, often mist-shrouded peaks. Modern-day Greeks hoped their tallest mountain would be inducted into UNESCO’s World Heritage List as a mixed cultural and natural site. The nomination was discussed when the World Heritage Committee met in Busan, South Korea. “Olympus is our life. It is the place we grew up in,” said Evagelos Geroliolios, mayor of Dion-Olympus, based in Litochoro, the mountain’s main town. “It is the place we see every day, but at the same time, it is also a place which carries with it myth, history, biodiversity, extraordinary beauty, and a very great cultural weight.” Few locations are as central to ancient Greek mythology as Mount Olympus. It was here that Zeus was said to have established his court after overthrowing his father, Cronus, in a 10-year war that ended the reign of the Titans. On one of Olympus’s lower peaks, excavations have uncovered an open-air sanctuary, with the oldest finds dating to the Hellenistic period, which ran from 323 B.C. to 30 B.C. According to Greece’s original UNESCO nomination, the sanctuary is believed to have been one mentioned by the ancient philosopher and historian Plutarch, who in the 2nd century wrote of processions to one of Olympus’s peaks for animal sacrifices to Zeus. The mountain retained religious significance into the Christian era. Α chapel on the peak of Prophet Elias, at 2,803 meters, is believed to be the highest altitude chapel in the Christian Orthodox world. The mountain’s Enipeas Gorge holds the remains of a monastery founded in 1542, while a roughly 20-minute walk from there leads to the Holy Cave of St. Dionysios, a chapel built into a cave from where a small spring flows, believed to carry holy water. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

FBI Director Kash Patel held talks with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on joint efforts to combat international online scam operations that cheat victims out of billions of dollars each year. A report issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that scams caused losses in the Asia-Pacific region alone of as much as $114 billion in 2025. It warned that even as authorities conduct raids on industrial-sized scam centers mostly located in border regions of Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia, criminals have responded by shifting to other parts of the world or operating on a smaller scale. Patel arrived in Cambodia from neighboring Thailand, which co-hosted a two-day summit with the U.S. on scam centers that was attended by representatives of nearly 20 countries and hundreds of law enforcement officials. The head of the top U.S. law enforcement agency met with Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul for talks on joint cooperation to tackle scam centers and other transnational crimes, such as human trafficking and drug trafficking, particularly through information sharing and intelligence exchanges. Cybercrime has flourished in Southeast Asia, where law enforcement is weak, particularly in Cambodia and Myanmar. Scam centers are also linked to human trafficking. Thousands of foreign nationals, who are employed to run “romance” and cryptocurrency scams to swindle victims, are often recruited with false job offers and then forced to work in conditions of near-slavery. Cambodia this year claims to have accelerated a crackdown on the scam operations, whose proliferation there is “a top priority for the U.S. government,” according to a U.S. Embassy statement. Washington appreciates Hun Manet’s pledge to counter this problem and is coordinating closely with the Cambodian government to battle the problem, it said. The embassy said Patel’s visit “reinforces the need for strong, joint efforts to combat transnational cybercrime, including increased efforts to hold high-level scam bosses accountable and for improved information sharing regarding complicit officials and scam compound owners.” The U.S. also “fully supports efforts to ensure justice for victims and criminal accountability for online scam operators, those who enable or protect them, and those complicit in related human trafficking crimes,” it added. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI said that its artificial intelligence system hacked into another AI company on its own in what the company called an “unprecedented cyber incident.” “We had a significant security incident during evaluation of our models,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement posted on social media. AI startup Hugging Face said that it had detected an intrusion into its data processing systems that it suspected was caused by an AI agent autonomously acting on its own. “We suspected the cyberattack might have come from a frontier lab, given the sophistication of the agent,” Hugging Face co-founder and CEO Clément Delangue said in a statement. "Turns out it did!” The disclosure comes amid heightened concerns about the cybersecurity capabilities of powerful models that led President Donald Trump in June to sign an executive order creating a framework for the federal government to vet the national security risks of the most advanced AI systems for up to a month before their public release. “AI is accelerating the discovery and exploitation of vulnerabilities,” OpenAI said in its statement. “The primary lesson from this incident is that model security and safety must keep pace with rapidly advancing capabilities.” Delangue said he spent the past 24 hours working with OpenAI, “and we strongly believe there was no malicious intent on their part. It’s quite mind-blowing that all of this happened autonomously!" Delangue added that it “might be the first incident of its kind.” OpenAI said the intrusion was caused by a combination of its AI models, including its newly released GPT 5.6 Sol and an “even more capable” model that is still being tested internally. OpenAI said its AI used stolen credentials and discovered a previously unknown vulnerability to access Hugging Face servers. It went to “extreme lengths to achieve a rather narrow testing goal” and “found ways to gain access to secret information that it could use to cheat the evaluation,” the company said. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Virginia, the world’s largest data center hub, has released a long-delayed study that examined the state’s eastern region groundwater supply and the resource-hungry industry’s possible impact on it, finding declines are likely in a critical aquifer due to population growth and industrial use, and urging stricter regulations. Produced by environmental scientists, the report—which the state had refused to release for more than six months—said regulators should have more authority to reject industrial water withdrawal permits, force entities to examine alternative sources of water and clamp down on users who might be using more water than they should. The report noted limits around publicly available information on data center water use but did not lay blame on the industry for the concerns raised about the aquifer. The groundwater supply in Virginia’s populous eastern coastal plain region “is constrained, and current projections indicate declining availability in the near future,” said the report, which Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s office provided to The Associated Press. Data centers use water, sometimes in large amounts, to cool their servers. Worries about data centers' impact on the quality and supply of both ground and surface water—and about tech companies’ failures to be as transparent as the public would like—have dogged projects around the country. The issues have become politically explosive heading into the midterm elections. Perhaps nowhere are those topics more resonant than in Virginia, home to hundreds of data centers with more under development and where the sustainability of groundwater, the supply stored naturally under the earth's surface, in the coastal eastern region has been a long-running concern. A wide range of interest groups had begun to publicly admonish the governor's administration for withholding the report; those reviewing it said its findings were sobering. “We’re standing on the ledge,” said Jay Ford, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Virginia policy manager. Virginia enacted its first groundwater law in 1973, but legislators acknowledged it was “too permissive” and tightened it in 1992, the report said. The law remains in effect, but the report warns it should be strengthened again. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Veteran Labour Party politician and popular former Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham became Britain’s prime minister in July, formally taking over from Keir Starmer, who announced his resignation last June. Burnham was the only candidate to secure enough support from his fellow Labour lawmakers to replace Starmer as leader of the governing party. Because Labour holds a majority in government, its leader also becomes the U.K. prime minister. Burnham received support from 349 out of 401 Labour Party lawmakers and was announced Labour leader at a special party conference. He didn't officially become prime minister right away, though—that happened when he met King Charles III at Buckingham Palace for a formal go-ahead. Britain’s parliamentary democracy allows governing parties to change leaders midterm, with the winner becoming prime minister without the need for a general election. Prime ministers can be replaced if one has resigned as leader of their party, or been forced out by a leadership challenge. The next national election does not have to be held until 2029, five years from the last election in 2024. Starmer announced he was quitting as Labour leader on June 22 after barely two years in power, ending a tenure marred by a series of political missteps—most notably his decision to appoint a man with close ties to the controversial figure Jeffrey Epstein as Britain’s ambassador to the United States. Heavy losses suffered by Labour in a midterm set of local elections in May prompted many lawmakers to demand Starmer's resignation. And when Burnham—favored by many within Labour to lead the party and the country—won a special election for a seat in Parliament, Starmer gave in to the mounting pressure to quit. His resignation automatically triggered a Labour leadership contest. Under Labour rules, a lawmaker can challenge the leader if they have the backing of a fifth of the party's House of Commons lawmakers. There was no other contestant other than Burnham, who comfortably surpassed that threshold. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Smoke from wildfires—which are burning more of the Northern Hemisphere as Earth warms—attacks nearly every system in the human body, killing tens of thousands of people a year, numerous medical studies show. It attacks the body immediately, spiking asthma cases with increased ambulance runs within hours, swamps emergency rooms in a day or so with people suffering from heart attacks and other cardiovascular and lung issues, as well as mental health issues, doctors and scientists told The Associated Press. Smoke also harms pregnant women, increasing the risk of premature births and low-weight babies who could have breathing problems the rest of their lives, doctors and studies said. And then there are long-term risks connecting prolonged smoke and other air pollution exposure to some cancers and dementia. After huge global fires in 2018 and 2019, the medical and science communities started looking at the health effects from the burning trees with "more and more studies coming out finding that there’s all types of impacts that may not have been so obvious before,” said Harvard School of Public Health environmental health scientist Dr. Mary Johnson. Smoke causes inflammation by triggering the body's immune system to go into overtime to fight the irritant. Scientists have found it can harm the brain and skin, with almost no system of the body spared, Johnson said. People over 60 become more prone to stroke in wildfire smoke, she said. “Wildfire smoke is the toxic product of combustion of whatever burned,” which could include houses and cars, said Dr. Courtney Howard, an emergency room physician, chair of the Global Climate and Health Alliance and president-elect of the Canadian Medical Association. “So really it's a big giant toxic soup of particles and gases.” Scientists have counted at least 1,000 toxins in wildfire smoke, said Colorado State University environmental toxicologist Luke Montrose. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Drops for computer chipmakers and other winners of the artificial-intelligence boom dragged down stock markets worldwide. The S&P 500 fell 0.5%, even though more stocks rose within the index than fell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 105 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq Composite sank 1.5%. Nearly three out of every four stocks rose within the S&P 500 after more of the country's biggest companies reported better earnings for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Abbott jumped 10.7% after the healthcare company delivered a fatter profit than expected and raised its forecast for earnings over the full year. J.B. Hunt Transport Services climbed 8% after the freight company likewise topped analysts' expectations for the latest quarter. But a 1% move for Nvidia's stock packs more of a punch on the S&P 500 than a 1% move for any other company because it's the largest on Wall Street by value. And Nvidia fell 2.4%, making it the heaviest weight on the index. Other AI winners also sank, giving back some of their stellar gains. Micron Technology fell 5.6% to shave its gain for the year so far below 199%. SanDisk fell 12.6% but is nevertheless up 494% for the year so far. Western Digital sank 9.2% but is still up 171% for the year so far. Such stocks have been under pressure for weeks because of worries that their prices shot too high and that voracious demand for computer memory and processors may not be sustainable if AI ends up not producing as much profit and productivity as promised. The losses came even though Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., a bellwether of the chip industry, reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Its stock in Taiwan rose 1.2%, but its stock that trades in the United States fell 2.3%. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The European Union (EU) issued two new rules for Google to force it to share search data and open up its Android operating system to rival AI companies. In the latest attempt to rein in the tech behemoths’ deep control of the digital economy, the EU said it will support innovation and diversity in the field by enabling fair access to AI features on Android devices and search engines. “Thanks to these measures, we hope to see emerging alternatives to Google Search and Google’s AI services, such as Gemini, and that users in the EU can enjoy greater choice of services,” Henna Virkkunen, an executive vice president at the European Commission overseeing tech, said. The measure is the latest advancement of Brussels’ growing rules and regulations that have given the 27-nation bloc a global leadership position in checking the power of tech juggernauts or “gatekeepers” like TikTok, which are largely based in China and the U.S. Recently, Brussels has pushed through efforts to ensure Google gives access to Gemini AI services to rival AI companies and search engines; forced Apple to add interoperability features to its devices to connect to non-Apple products; and demanded that Meta dismantle “key addictive features” like infinite scrolling. Kent Walker, president of global affairs for both Google and its parent company Alphabet, said the new rules could backfire by removing safeguards that the company had built to protect user privacy, like the vetting of third-party AI assistants. “Europeans’ private searches would be exposed to unfamiliar companies, without adequate anonymization of the data and without user knowledge or consent. This would weaken citizens’ privacy, risk business trade secrets, and endanger national security,” he said in a statement. U.S. President Donald Trump has lashed out at EU tech regulation in the past. In issuing the two new rules, the commission said it found that AI agents not made by Google were unable to function on Android phones at the same level as Google's Gemini. Google must now allow voice activation of these alternative AI agents and enable them to run background tasks like booking restaurants via third-party apps. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

It might seem like a minor inconvenience, but swooping seagulls are a familiar frustration for anyone trying to enjoy a meal by Sydney Harbour. Now, working farm dogs best known for herding sheep are being trained to use those same instincts to keep hungry seagulls at bay. At the request of Sydney's Opera Bar, dog trainer James Webb developed a specialized program that teaches working dogs to deter seagulls. “It's really become like a science, how we do it,” says Webb of the Seagull Patrol. The program is harnessing the dogs’ natural herding instincts. “The reward is getting to chase the seagulls, so we get dogs that just love doing it, and then we work backwards with training from there,” explains Webb. The dogs are trained to anticipate the birds' movements, making them an effective and humane way to discourage unwanted visitors. “If we keep doing the same thing, the seagulls will just watch us walk up and down and they'll help themselves to food when the dogs not there, so we have to be a bit sneaky, so we get the dogs to creep up, we might get them to bark at them or appear when they're not expecting it and just keep the seagulls on their toes,” says Webb. The program has expanded to as many as five locations, including Melbourne's Federation Square, and the dogs have also been brought in at the new Sydney Fish Market. “There was skepticism about whether they would be successful or a gimmick. Since we've had the dogs, the feedback from everybody is tremendous,” says Tanya Lambert of the Sydney Fish Market. There are now 35 dogs trained for the role, with each working no more than a single four-hour shift each week. Known collectively as the "Seagull Patrol," they're working dogs on duty but ordinary family pets once they head home with their owners. Customers have welcomed the initiative, praising the seagull-free dining experience. “Fantastic job, I haven't got any sign of seagull on me, haven't seen one since I've been here,” says Peter, a restaurant patron. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A group of 26 Meta employees has sued the company, claiming it used artificial intelligence systems to select people for layoffs, disproportionately targeting those on medical, parental, or family leave. They are among the 8,000 employees, or about 10% of its workforce, Meta said it would lay off in May. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Oakland, California, claims the company used internal AI systems, keystroke and activity-monitoring data, AI token-usage dashboards, and algorithmically assisted performance rankings, among other methods, to determine who would be laid off. Many of these scores and ratings “by design, cannot be accumulated by an employee who is on protected medical or family leave, or whose output is reduced by a disability,” the lawsuit says. Meta, according to the lawsuit, did not account for protected leave when taking employees' scores into account and “did not pause the system for the individualized, leave- and accommodation-neutral review that the law requires.” As a result, people on protected medical or family leave were disproportionately selected for layoffs, the lawsuit says. Each of the 26 anonymous employees in the lawsuit took protected leave, or requested or received a reasonable accommodation for disability. Though they have been notified of their layoffs, all 26 remain employed by Meta, with separations that began on July 22. Many of the employees in the lawsuit took pregnancy or parental leave, during which time they wouldn't have worked and thus had their measured output reduced. Others took medical leave—one disclosed a “serious health condition and disability” that was approved by Meta's own provider. But according to the lawsuit, he was “discouraged and deterred from taking that leave by a manager” who warned that doing so would result in his selection for the anticipated layoffs. Meta offered no accommodation for his disability, the lawsuit says. Meta said in a statement that the claims "lack merit and are not based on facts. Workforce management and organizational decisions were and are made by people, not AI.” This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Japanese communications company Fujitsu is leading a major push in artificial intelligence using Nvidia's technology, bringing together what it said was the best in Japan's manufacturing prowess in robotics with AI. The technology area known as "physical AI" refers to smart, futuristic robots that can think on their own, not just follow programmed directions, to work safely alongside people in factories, homes, and hospitals. The initiative was announced in Tokyo by Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Jensen Huang and Fujitsu Chief Executive Takahito Tokita, along with the CEOs of Japan's top makers of industrial robots, Fanuc Corp., Yaskawa Electric Corp., and Kawasaki Heavy Industries. The latest announcement comes on top of a deal announced by Nvidia and Fujitsu last year. The executives expressed hopes that the robots can address the nation's acute labor shortage. Japan is among the most rapidly aging societies in the developed world, and the smart robots could help take care of the elderly living alone, they said. Huang said physical AI was a good fit for Japan because of the country's reputation for manufacturing quality, as robots that move independently could potentially be dangerous. "Japan's excellence is a philosophy, a way of life. 'Made in Japan' means the highest quality, the highest precision. Japan sets the standard for the state of the art in modern manufacturing," he said. Huang listed Japan's prized concepts in fine manufacturing such as "kaizen," which means "continuous improvement." The companies did not give a specific time frame for the arrival of such robots in daily life. They stressed efforts were underway, with what they called the first phase of the collaboration coming later this year. There has been no decision on setting up a joint venture, although that could come later, they said. Japan has acknowledged it has fallen behind some nations, including China and the U.S., in AI, and has been eager to play catch-up. The government of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi recently announced a plan to drum up more than 370 trillion yen ($2.3 trillion) in public and private investment in various technology fields by 2040, including physical AI, semiconductors, and data centers. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Dawn and Cassius Spears would like to expand their southwest Rhode Island farm’s reach beyond their farm stand, but it’s challenging. Like many small food producers, the Spears have sought financial assistance through federal programs. Some of these programs have been cut or significantly scaled back under the Trump Administration, including U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs that helped Indigenous farmers like the Spears. Tribes have used these programs to distribute culturally significant foods produced locally. Some legislators are working to reinstate programs as part of the Farm Bill that would help state and tribal governments purchase local food. The Biden administration started two programs during the pandemic to help states and tribes purchase local food from nearby farmers for food banks and schools: the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA) and the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS). These programs offered farmers, including tribal farmers, reliable markets for their products. Tribal governments received assistance to purchase food from local producers to distribute to tribal members. In March 2025, under the Trump administration, the Agriculture Department ended the two programs that provided more than $1 billion for schools and food banks, saying that they no longer aligned with the agency's goals. U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, and Sen. Jim Justice, a West Virginia Republican, introduced a bill they say takes the best from the two programs and creates a permanent grant program. It would allow state and tribal governments to buy local foods from local and regional producers to distribute to nearby hunger relief programs and schools. Reed said he feared that when the USDA programs were cut, families across the country would have a more difficult time getting access to food. And, he said, the access wouldn't be to nutritious, freshly grown produce. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

AI has been dominating news headlines in recent years as people digest what the developments of large language models will mean for our future. A summit in Geneva is considering how the power of AI can be harnessed for good. The “AI for Good” summit follows a meeting of 193 nations to discuss the first UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance. Fred Werner, Head of Strategic Engagement at the International Telecommunication Union, has watched as AI tech progressed at breakneck speed. “We created AI for Good in 2017, and if you think about it, that's an eternity in terms of AI years, right, because AI is moving so fast,” he explains. “Back then, it was all about the fear, the hype, and the promise of AI. The use cases were there, but the technology wasn't really there. But what we see now... is the rise of AI agents. I think we're now entering what I would call a zero-click world, where AI agents are not waiting for our prompts, but they're actually acting on our behalf, autonomously. And then looking at the more physical manifestation of AI, in the form of advanced robotics, autonomous mobility, brain-computer interfaces, and even space computing.” Ability Neurotech has been developing its brain-computer interface for over eight years. Its implant sits on the brain, reading neural signals still intact in patients who've lost the ability to speak or move. It then sends that data, through the skin, to a processor decoding it in real time. Rotem Kopel, the company's CEO, explains what the device is built to do. She says, “We give back people capacities and functionality that they've lost. So, for patients like ALS, stroke, spinal cord injuries, they lose the capacity to communicate, to speak, or to move,” she details. "With the brain implants, we implant it in the brain, we record brain functions that are completely intact. We extract this information out, and with really unique AI capacities we can reconstruct what they were intending to do.” This article was provided by The Associated Press.

South Korea began enforcing a law that allows steep punitive damages against news outlets and social media influencers for spreading false information, as journalist groups warned it could chill public discourse and invite censorship. Journalists and civil liberties groups say the vaguely worded law fails to clearly define what information it prohibits and lacks adequate safeguards for the media, warning it could potentially discourage critical reporting about government officials, politicians, and large businesses. The law allows courts to award damages of up to five times the proven losses against news organizations and large social media channels, including YouTube creators, that circulate illegal, false, or manipulated information to cause harm or generate profit. In addition, those who distribute information more than twice after a court has confirmed it to be false or manipulated could be fined up to 1 billion won ($656,000) by the country’s media regulator. Internet companies operating large social media platforms with more than 1 million daily users are required to take measures such as removing content or suspending user accounts when they receive reports of false or fabricated information. The law was backed by President Lee Jae Myung’s liberal Democratic Party and passed by the National Assembly in December over a boycott by the conservative opposition. The liberals, who unsuccessfully sought to pass similar legislation under previous governments, say the law is necessary to combat fake news and disinformation, which they argue is posing a growing threat to democracy by fueling division and hate speech. The Journalists Association of Korea said the mere prospect of news organizations repeatedly facing massive damage claims or legal disputes could have an “unavoidable chilling effect.” “Even if a law’s objective is legitimate, it could erode the foundations of democracy if it’s enforced in a way that discourages the media and ordinary citizens from freely criticizing and scrutinizing those in power,” the group said in a statement. The Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club also expressed concern about the potential impact on the work of the media and the free flow of information. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The European Union accused Meta of breaching its social media law by designing Facebook and Instagram to get users hooked and demanded it disable “key addictive features” like infinite scrolling. The E.U.'s executive arm issued a fresh set of charges against Meta Platforms as part of its investigation under the 27-nation bloc's strict digital rule book known as the Digital Services Act. The sweeping set of regulations from Brussels requires tech platforms to protect internet users under threat of hefty fines. The European Commission said Meta failed to properly assess the risks its design features pose to the physical and mental health of users, including minors. And while the company has tools and controls to help manage Facebook and Instagram use, it said they were easily overridden, dismissed, or technically challenging to use. Meta “needs to implement design changes” to Instagram and Facebook, such as disabling “key addictive features” like autoplay of videos and infinite scroll so they’re not turned on by default, the commission said in its preliminary findings. Meta now has the chance to respond and defend itself before the commission issues its final decision, which could result in a fine worth up to 6% of the company’s global annual revenue. Meta said that the preliminary findings do not recognize the steps that the company has already taken to protect teens. “Since this investigation began, we rolled out Teen Accounts that automatically protect teens and put parents in control—allowing them to block access to Instagram at night and cap daily screen time at just 15 minutes,” Meta said in a prepared statement. "We share the European Commission’s commitment to providing teens with safe, positive online experiences and will continue to engage constructively with them.” Europe is committed to enforcing its legislation that holds platforms accountable for addictive design features, said Henna Virkkunen, an executive vice-president at the commission overseeing tech. “Protecting the physical and mental health of Europeans must be a priority for social media platforms,” Virkkunen said in a written statement. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Communities along the coastline of Nigeria are struggling to cope with heavy rainfall and unstable, sandy soils, according to the UN's Office for Project Services. It says rising sea levels, climate change, and land reclamation projects are all contributing to coastal erosion. The coastline along Orimedu in Nigeria is facing land degradation. The people there are seeing the destruction of their homes as well as the loss of livelihoods. A cursory glance along the beach shows just how close the creeping shoreline and the boats are to people's homes. The fishermen from the coastline have gathered for a traveling "booxhibition"—an exhibition designed to complement conventional research reports—which uses photographs and landscape designs to highlight the growing threat of sea-level rise and coastal erosion across the Gulf of Guinea. The display features recent photographs of coastal communities in Nigeria, Ghana, and Côte d’Ivoire alongside landscape architecture designs developed through a three-year research project examining how communities can adapt to climate change. The exhibition was curated by Gareth Doherty, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore, and the project as a whole is funded and run by the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University. “It is essential that we bring the research back to the communities… which we've been studying over the last three years. And so, we spent a lot of time in communities like this, along the coast of the Gulf of Guinea, documenting what people have told us about the lived realities of coastal erosion. And what we have here in the booxhibition is a summary of that research presented in a way that is accessible to a general audience. Our hope with the booxhibition is that it starts conversations about the future,” Doherty says. According to Doherty, the exhibition explores how landscape architecture can help communities along the Gulf of Guinea respond to sea-level rise, urban flooding, and coastal erosion through strategies informed by climate science, public participation, and design. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Apple accused OpenAI of stealing trade secrets as it seeks to build its own hardware for ChatGPT, a major rupture in a partnership between the iPhone maker and the artificial intelligence company. Apple said in the lawsuit filed in a California federal court that OpenAI encouraged Apple employees it was recruiting to share confidential information, even guiding how to avoid scrutiny when taking jobs at the other company. “This case is about Apple’s former employees stealing Apple’s trade secrets for the benefit of OpenAI,” the filing says. “Apple brings this suit to put a stop to it.” Two former Apple employees who now work for OpenAI are also named as defendants. One is Tang Tan, who helped design the iPhone, Apple Watch, and iPod and is now OpenAI’s chief hardware officer. The other is Chang Liu, a former electrical engineer, whom Apple says it entrusted with some of its most sensitive product development efforts before Liu left Apple to join OpenAI earlier this year. OpenAI said it is still reviewing the filing, but spokesperson Drew Pusateri said in a statement that OpenAI has “no interest in other companies’ trade secrets. We remain focused on building innovative technology that empowers people everywhere.” OpenAI has never said exactly what type of device it is building, but has described it as an effort to find a new way to interact with AI that goes beyond “traditional products and interfaces.” It’s part of a broader push to create a physical embodiment of the latest AI advances, a decade after Amazon and Google introduced screen-free talking speakers into homes. The lawsuit claims the effort was built partly on knowledge stolen from Apple. Apple said it began investigating whether some of its confidential information was compromised and “uncovered a pattern of theft” of Apple’s trade secrets by former employees who moved on to positions at OpenAI. An Apple spokesperson said in a statement that the company will “always defend our teams’ hard work and innovations, and we are taking all appropriate steps to do so.” This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Akiko Sugaya wheels a cart through the alley-like streets of eastern Tokyo, selling tofu, the protein-rich staple favored in much of Asia. But delivering soybean curd in all shapes and textures is only a small slice of her mission. And it's just that. A mission. More than simply a vendor of healthy food, she's also a social conduit who checks on elderly customers as she guides her pink cart, wearing a straw hat and tooting a small brass bugle to signal her arrival. She knows the habits of many of her customers like family, and they know hers. She's lost some elderly customers over the years who've died alone, which is becoming more common in Japan, which has one of the world's oldest populations. Sugaya is a savior for many, and the job—she's been at it for 23 years—has also strengthened her own self-worth. She feels that the job saved her. She says she was bullied in school and fired from several jobs until she found that delivering high-quality, healthy food also nourished her own mental health and offered value to others. "Selling tofu on a cart made me think I am OK to be myself," Sugaya explained. "I used to be repeatedly put down, but through cart-selling I built up my self-esteem." Sugaya makes her rounds three days per week, a three-hour walk in the afternoon. Her route twists through maze-like streets, and there are sporadic sales—and frequent conversations. A woman walks from her house to buy tofu, chats about her unruly cat, and shows off a strand of wild vine growing in her garden. Another woman reminds Sugaya that cart-selling is a disappearing craft. "Even when I'm in need of tofu, I tell myself I'd better wait for Ako-chan," said customer Toshi Niiyama, using Sugaya's nickname. "We used to have someone coming to sell vegetables, but he stopped coming." Sugaya has no such plans to stop. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

It may be a cold, rainy Sydney winter evening, but for football coach Gabriel Knowles, training under floodlights rather than the intense Australian sun is a welcome relief. The well-being of his team is always a priority for Knowles, especially when it comes to heat management during matches and training sessions, a major concern in Australia. “We've taken to having fans and misting fans in change rooms and on the benches, wet towels for the players as well. The drinks break is obviously a contentious new issue in the World Cup, but something that's been quite normal here for us in the warmer months when we start and finish seasons,” explains the NWS National Premier League football coach. Grant Lynch plays semiprofessional football on Knowles’ team. He says that heat is a constant preoccupation for players. “We have had to cancel a number of games because of the heat. Here in Australia, the competition is played over summer, or there's a big part of the competition that's played over summer. So, we have multiple games that have been cancelled because of the heat,” he says. But when it comes to playing in the best possible conditions, Lynch has a secret weapon. He works as a researcher at the University of Sydney, and the team he is a part of has created a free app called Sports Heat Tool. It could literally be a game changer for ordinary people who play recreational sport and don’t have access to the state-of-the-art tools that elite sport has. “It helps in a few ways. I think the first way is that we take into account more than just temperature. So, we care about things like humidity and airflow and wind speed and the amount of solar radiation from the sun. These things are all important to be able to understand what the risk is for a football player. And then secondly, it gives some recommendations. So, some strategies that you can put in place to be able to help keep yourself cool,” says Lynch. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Rwanda’s renowned Inyambo cows symbolize the nation’s rich cultural heritage. Historically associated with royalty, they are now pampered with poetry and music at a museum in Nyanza. With their long and crescent-shaped horns, the Inyambo cows graze at the King’s Palace Museum in Nyanza and at the homes of some of Rwanda's richest people, including President Paul Kagame. The breed is descended from the distinctive Ankole cattle of East Africa and is also found in neighboring Uganda and Burundi. The Inyambo have long been associated with nobility, as they were raised in royal courts where they symbolized wealth, prestige, and power. Bigira Junior, a curator at the King's Palace Museum, says they are “sacred symbols.” “They’re not for milk, they’re not for meat. They would just be used as decor around the palaces. They would parade them around, use them in ceremonies, basically around the King's Court. The kings would basically present them to the other kings that have visited the palaces, for people to admire, see and say ‘yeah they are looking good,’” he explains. Even though the monarchy no longer exists in Rwanda, so revered are the cows that the traditional gifting and exchange among kingdoms has been embraced by Kagame. The president's practice of giving cattle to heads of state has even been called in local newspaper reports “Inyambo diplomacy.” As Rwanda seeks more tourists, it is investing heavily in places like the King’s Palace Museum, where the Inyambo cows are the main attraction. The cows are pampered with melodious poetry describing their beauty and calling them by their names. This is believed to calm the cows ahead of major events where they are presented to visitors or during traditional ceremonies. “You have beautiful horns. Move your head so that we can see your beautiful neck and body. You are the most beautiful cow among others,” the caretaker sings. The cows are also brushed by caretakers, another way of calming them. “Remember, they are to be loved and cherished, and you can’t love something from afar. You have to get close to it,” Junior says. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A skyscraper-scaling daredevil told police that he and his girlfriend climbed the Empire State Building’s antenna and unfurled a banner about love and peace because he wanted to “do something special” for their engagement, prosecutors said at the couple's arraignment on felony reckless endangerment, burglary, and other charges. The couple, who go by Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, said little as they left court, though Beerkus responded to a journalist's question about the stunt by saying, “We believe in love.” Authorities said the two—who were the subject of the 2024 Netflix documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story about their “rooftopping” exploits and budding romance— created not only a spectacle but a danger by ascending the famed skyscraper's broadcast antenna. After reaching the top, 1,454 feet (443 meters) above midtown Manhattan, the climbers displayed a black banner reading: “When the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace,” a news helicopter video showed. Then they collected the banner and descended to a slightly lower ledge, where an apparently successful marriage proposal unfolded. Nikolau posted images of the escapade on her social media accounts, including a photo that modeled an engagement-style ring above a bird’s-eye view of Manhattan. Police waited about half an hour for the antenna to be powered down before Emergency Services Unit officers started ascending and eventually intercepted the climbers on their way down, according to the complaint, which noted the danger to officers who climbed about 1,250 feet (381 meters) above the ground. The court document identified the two by their formal names, Angelina Nikolau and Ivan Kuznetsov. Skywalkers: A Love Story follows Beerkus and Nikolau as they often make unauthorized ascents of tall structures, sometimes posing as construction workers to sneak in. The court complaint said police found a broken lock on a security door on the Empire State Building's restricted-access 104th floor, which provides access to the antenna. The highest public floor is the 102nd, where there’s an observation deck. Going higher requires a key card, according to the court complaint. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Green means go. Red means stop. Trophies or confetti come with good performance, and people who fall behind get nudged to do better. Those brightly colored engagement tactics long ago jumped from smartphone games to everything from online shopping to sports betting and classrooms. So, it should come as no surprise that many nutrition-tracking apps like MyFitnessPal and Noom also use gaming features to keep users coming back. But as nutrition apps proliferate, some researchers are raising alarms that gamification features may do more harm than good for some people. Isabella Anderberg, a psychologist researching digital dieting behavior at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, said calorie tracking can reinforce behaviors associated with body dysmorphia and disordered eating. “We do know that not everyone’s going to experience harm from using the apps, but there are certainly factors that might increase risk,” Anderberg said. “Approach with caution.” Anderberg said there is certainly a place for the apps. Health professionals she interviewed during her research reported that apps can be especially helpful as meal-planning tools for people managing chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. And physical activity apps remind people to move their bodies. Many users report enjoying them, finding tactics like streak notifications to be motivating. Courtney Simpson, a behavioral psychologist and director of eating disorders at the Evidence-Based Treatment Centers of Seattle, said some apps encourage people to set calorie goals that are far too low for any adult. That's not only unhealthy but can set people up for failure. The gaming features keep people coming back to unrealistic goals, creating shame that may contribute to binge eating or other behaviors people are trying to change, Simpson said. “It’s not that gamification itself is bad. It’s about what it is promoting,” she said. “Is that actually going to be beneficial?” This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The U.S. Justice Department and 17 states reached settlement agreements with three major egg producers to resolve allegations that the companies illegally colluded for years to raise prices, including when the cost soared to record highs last year. The states and federal government accused Cal-Maine Foods, Versova, and Hickman’s Egg Ranch of a behind-the-scenes arrangement to “artificially inflate the daily price quotations for eggs” between June 2022 and March 2025. In particular, their investigation found that the companies coordinated on what bids they would submit to Urner Barry Publications, a company that runs an index key to determining how much grocery stores, restaurants, and others pay for billions of eggs each year. In turn, that meant “higher prices for eggs sold to consumers,” alleged the complaint, which was filed in Iowa the day the settlement terms were announced. “When powerful corporations collude behind the scenes to raise prices, working families suffer the costs,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who helped lead the investigation, said in a statement. “These egg producers manipulated the market to squeeze even more profit out of consumers and businesses.” None of the companies admitted wrongdoing under the settlements. But to settle the states' claims, Cal-Maine, Versova, and Hickman's will collectively be on the hook for $3.3 million and 53 million eggs, James and others said. Those eggs would be donated by the companies and make their way to food banks and nonprofits. The money will be distributed to the states. The Justice Department and the states also outlined actions the companies will need to take, including adopting antitrust compliance programs and banning communicating with competitors on pricing and bidding strategies. The settlements would still need court approval. The Justice Department's Omeed A. Assefi said that the proposed settlements “resolve years of conduct that dragged on Americans’ finances and their everyday lives.” Average U.S. egg prices soared to a record high of about $6.23 per dozen in March 2025, amid a bird flu epidemic that forced farmers to slaughter millions of egg-laying chickens. Egg producers blamed the price spike on the outbreak, but critics accused big companies of taking advantage of their market dominance, and the government began its investigation. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

WhatsApp users will soon get the option of going by usernames instead of phone numbers, the company said, announcing plans to address a privacy blind spot. The app said it has started allowing users to reserve unique usernames, which can be used to contact WhatsApp users when the feature is launched later this year. WhatsApp, which says it has more than 3 billion users globally, has until now allowed users to be contacted by anyone who has their phone number. The app, owned by Meta Platforms, said in a blog post that over the "coming months," users will get the option to be found and contacted only by their username, and not their number. It wasn't more specific about the timeline. "We have designed this as a core privacy feature," Alice Newton-Rex, WhatsApp's vice president of product, told reporters. There won't be a directory of usernames on the app, and the app won't suggest names as you type. "People will need to know your exact username to contact you for the first time," she said. WhatsApp's current privacy settings are limited to blocking individual users and silencing unknown callers. The app also allows users to add a profile name, but that's only displayed in chat groups for other people who don't have the user's contact info saved. While Americans still prefer text messaging to WhatsApp, the app is widely used in Europe, Asia, and much of the rest of the world. Catchy online handles are highly coveted, and users will likely scramble to claim a desirable one. "I think a lot of people will go and get usernames, and that's why we decided to open reservations early," Newton-Rex said. Companies, organizations, and creators with existing accounts on Meta's social media platforms, Instagram and Facebook, will get the chance to claim their usernames on WhatsApp. Usernames need to be between three and 35 characters. To prevent impersonation, WhatsApp will hold back usernames for high-profile people or groups such as celebrities, public figures, and government entities. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and his government coalition partners presented a comprehensive reform package with the goal of getting the country’s sluggish economy back on track. The 34 measures include cuts to income tax for low- and middle-income families, an overhaul of the creaking pension system, tougher rules for employees’ sick leave, and a reduction of the country’s stifling bureaucracy. “These reforms all have one goal: We’re setting out into the future,” Merz said. “We’re strengthening ourselves so that we can live well in these new times.” Merz is trying to cut his government coalition free from that negative reputation. Germany's economy returned to modest growth last year after shrinking for two years in a row. The government expects underwhelming growth of 0.5% this year, a figure that has been pushed down by the fallout from the war in Iran. The government coalition leaders said that the tax cuts, once fully implemented in 2028, would give an annual tax break of about 600 euros ($686.40) for a family with two working parents, two children, and a total taxable income of 60,000 euros ($68,640). The total tax relief provided by the reform amounts to approximately 10 billion euros ($11.4 billion) per year. The pension system reform would include gradually raising the retirement age, currently between 65 and 67 years, depending on the number of years worked, in line with life expectancy. The tougher rules for sick leave would no longer allow employees to call in sick to work for up to three days without seeing a doctor, or call up the doctor and ask for a sick leave letter for one week without actually seeing the doctor. Instead, employers would be able to ask for a doctor's certificate from the first day a person is on sick leave. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Other great apes laugh in a similar way to humans, a new study has found. Just like us, they chuckle in a rhythmic pattern, suggesting they had a common ancestor around 15 million years ago that also laughed. A team led by a researcher from the University of Warwick analyzed recordings of laughter from gorillas, orangutans, bonobos, chimpanzees, and humans. They were aged between six months and seven years old. The ape giggles were collected from tickling and playtime and were recorded for a study in the early 2000s. Humans’ and great apes’ chuckles followed similar rhythms with regular timing between their laughs. “We say that all the species have an isochronous rhythm, meaning that if you think of a metronome, the tick, tick, tick—the regularity is there. So, it's always the same interval going between laughter bursts,” explains Chiara de Gregorio, the study author and a researcher at the University of Warwick. The scientists think that because a rhythmic pattern was observed across all the apes they studied, it's likely they had a common ancestor 15 million years ago that would have also laughed in a similar pattern. Laughter has gotten faster and more complex over time, so human giggles have some aspects that set them apart. For one, our laughs sound different based on context—from a polite chuckle among colleagues to a full-bodied guffaw with close friends. Other apes do not show this variability. “So, in a way we are very similar to other great apes because we've been laughing in a similar way for 15 million years. But at the same time we realize that our laughter holds more information than that is simple ‘I'm playing and having fun.’ And it's something that maybe we don't think about in everyday life: how we could communicate so many things without words,” says de Gregorio. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2026, the largest international maritime exercise in the world, has been ongoing in Hawaii from June 24 to July 31, 2026. Hosted by the U.S. Navy's Pacific Fleet, the exercise aims to improve interoperability and warfighting skills among participating nations while promoting a free Indo-Pacific region. The exercise involves 30 nations, over 30 surface ships, five submarines, 15 national land forces, more than 206 aircraft, and 30,000 personnel who train and operate in and around the Hawaiian Islands during the exercise. RIMPAC provides a unique training opportunity while fostering and sustaining cooperative relationships among participants that are critical to ensuring the security of sea lanes and stability across the region. The U.S. Navy states that the Rim of the Pacific exercise remains the premier multinational maritime training event, bringing together allies and partners committed to strengthening security and stability across the region. This year's theme is "Partners, Integrated and Prepared." The opening ceremony and press conference marked the start of RIMPAC 2026, the 30th iteration of the international maritime exercise, which is highlighted by the 250th anniversary of the United States. At Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Jeffrey T. Jablon, who serves as the Commander of Combined Task Forces and the Deputy Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, stated, "The purpose of RIMPAC is to strengthen relationships, improve interoperability, and enhance the readiness of participating forces to promote maritime security and regional stability in a free and open Indo-Pacific." "Since its inception in 1971, RIMPAC has grown into the world's largest international maritime exercise," Jablon said. "For 250 years, our nation has built enduring relationships with allies and partners based on trust, mutual respect, and shared interests," Jablon added. RIMPAC 2026 builds on the success of previous exercises that unite allies to showcase the maritime forces' flexibility and capability. The exercise includes a variety of training events, including amphibious operations, gunnery and missile exercises, anti-submarine warfare, air defense, military medicine, humanitarian assistance, counter-piracy, mine countermeasures, explosive ordnance disposal, diving, and salvage operations. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Australia plans to double potential fines for social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, that fail to prevent Australian children from holding accounts, as critics argue the world-first ban on under-16s was failing. Communications Minister Anika Wells blamed the platforms’ resistance to the age restrictions for the need to toughen the laws that came into force on December 10. “We can all agree we would like the scheme to work better than it is currently, but that is on Big Tech taking the Mickey,” Wells told the Australian Broadcasting Corp., using an Australian slang term for deceiving, teasing, or mocking. The government announced it would introduce draft legislation into Parliament that would double the maximum fine to 99 million Australian dollars ($68 million) for platforms that fail to take reasonable steps to prevent Australian children from holding accounts. The amendments would also increase the powers of eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, Australia’s online safety watchdog, to demand information and documents to ensure platforms were complying with Australian law, a government statement said. The new powers would also include information from third parties, such as age assurance technology providers, to test claims made by the platforms about how those under 16 continued to circumvent the ban, the statement said. Senior opposition lawmaker Jane Hume said her party would consider voting for the reforms, saying the “social media ban wasn’t working” because of deficient laws. “The legislation was clearly undercooked in the first place. The eSafety Commissioner wasn’t given the powers to be able to pursue these Big Tech companies,” Hume said. Parliament passed the initial legislation with overwhelming support in 2024. The targeted platforms were given more than 12 months to plan and implement the ban. Many countries that have implemented or are planning similar restrictions have been closely watching the progress of Australia’s ban. The government initially reported that more than 5 million children had accounts removed, deactivated, or restricted after the ban became law. But eSafety reported in March that seven in 10 children who held accounts on restricted platforms on December 10 remained on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Apple announced an increase in prices for Macs and iPads, citing a memory chip shortage brought on by the artificial intelligence boom. The Cupertino, California-based company called the spike in demand an “unprecedented challenge” for the consumer electronics industry. “The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly,” the company said in a written statement. The new entry-level MacBook Neo will now cost $699, up from $599. The 512-gigabyte MacBook Air now costs $1,299, up from $1,099. The one-terabyte MacBook Pro is $1,999, up from $1,699. The 128-gigabyte iPad Air is now $749, up from $599, while the 256-gigabyte iPad Pro Wi-Fi is now $1,199, up from $999. Analysts expect iPhone prices to rise later this year. International Data Corporation (IDC) analyst Nabila Popal said the latest price hikes were higher than she had expected, which suggests the iPhone price hikes may also be higher than expected, perhaps as much as $200 for the iPhone Pro and Pro Max models. “I think the days of $50 price increases are over,” she said. Apple said that while it has shielded customers from the component price surges so far, “we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today's increases for iPad and Mac. We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions.” This article was provided by The Associated Press.

California voters will consider a controversial proposal in November to temporarily raise taxes on billionaires after the labor union backing the measure announced it would forge ahead despite pressure from critics to withdraw it. The proposal, backed by the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time 5% tax on individuals whose net worth exceeds $1 billion and who were living in the state as of January 1, 2026. The goal is to generate $100 billion in revenue, mainly to fund the state's Medicaid system after federal cuts. "I am all in on this," union President Dave Regan said on a Zoom call, adding that opponents of the proposal are "totally out of touch." Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and many traditional allies of the union oppose the measure. They argue it is a temporary fix for an ongoing problem and that it would push the ultrawealthy to leave the state, taking the money they would contribute in income taxes with them. Newsom, who is considering a presidential run as he prepares to leave office in January, has generally opposed tax increases during his time as governor. A coalition of healthcare, education, and housing groups—including the California Medical Association and California School Boards Association—banded together to fight the tax. "The dangerous wealth tax directly threatens vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects by making California's revenue even more volatile," the coalition said in a statement. "Driving away the state's sustainable tax base for a one-time grab is bad policy and an even worse deal for 40 million Californians who will be left holding the bag," he said in a statement. Under the proposal, the state would spend the money generated from the tax over multiple years. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office estimates that the proposal would generate tens of billions of dollars in the first few years, but that income tax revenues would subsequently decline by hundreds of millions of dollars annually. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

When Ewa Lutka-Krawczyk was diagnosed with gallbladder cancer, her first thought was for Gaja, a shelter dog she had taken in three years ago. She asked her doctor to assure her she would live a few more years so the deeply attached Gaja “wouldn't be left behind.” But the prognosis was grim, and in June, the 70-year-old was admitted to the palliative ward of a Warsaw hospital. Left at home with Lutka-Krawczyk's husband, Gaja was barely eating. “She is waiting for me,” Lutka-Krawczyk said from her bed, where she rested with a draining tube attached to her abdomen. Under proposed new legislation in Poland, patients like Lutka-Krawczyk soon would have the right to be visited in hospices and palliative care wards by their pets. Visits are already allowed in many clinics, but there is no universal right under the law. Dr. Tomasz Dzierżanowski, director of the Palliative Medicine Clinic at the Medical University of Warsaw, where Lutka-Krawczyk is being treated, has led the proposal, which was introduced to parliament by a member of Prime Minister Donald Tusk's centrist party. Dzierżanowski said the presence of a beloved pet can ease the physical and spiritual pain of terminally ill patients at a time when society is experiencing “an epidemic of loneliness.” “We make sure that no patient dies alone,” Dzierżanowski said in an interview with The Associated Press. “When someone is suffering, it is important that someone is there for them. Ideally, that should be another human being,” he said. “Sometimes, however, there is no one." Dzierżanowski said he often sees older patients isolated because they have outlived their friends, as well as young patients feeling alone in palliative care clinics because in today's world of screens and virtual friends, they have not built the kind of friendships that earlier generations often had. Dzierżanowski said the catalyst for his mission was a seriously ill cancer patient named Waldemar who was not afraid for himself but for his two cats. Dzierżanowski arranged for the cats to be brought into the ward. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

America has been rushing into an artificial intelligence future without much of a plan to stop what could be catastrophic job losses. Critics warn of doomsday scenarios out of a sci-fi thriller, while backers say AI will generate so much new wealth that no one should worry too much about millions of layoffs. A new bipartisan nonprofit hopes to ensure that America can realize the economic gains promised by AI without its workers suffering. RAISE US is starting with more than $500 million to deploy on new forms of education and training, putting a focus on partnering with states and major employers rather than the federal government. Founded by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, and former Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, the group aims to pilot programs and incentives to help American workers pivot to new careers in an economy that will increasingly be automated by artificial intelligence. "We're talking about a certain level of unemployment that could destabilize our country and our democracy," Raimondo said in an interview. "If you want to lead the world in AI, you have to take action to make sure our democracy doesn't crumble." The nonprofit is initially partnering with officials in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland, and Utah, along with several of America's largest companies and charitable organizations. The group intends to develop policies that connect schools more closely to employers, so that layoffs can be replaced by the potential for new jobs with higher incomes. They are also exploring changes to corporate taxes and other incentives with the goal of keeping people working. "Good things tend to happen when you convert have-nots into haves," Holcomb said. Among the companies serving as anchor partners with RAISE US are Amazon, Microsoft, Anthropic, the OpenAI Foundation, and Bank of America. Other employers involved in the project include UPS, General Motors, Eli Lilly, Mastercard, chipmaker AMD, Cisco, and IBM. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Stockholm has opened its first public sauna with the aim of making the traditional experience more accessible. The new facility is part of a broader city strategy to improve public access to Stockholm's waterfronts. Hornstullsbastun (Hornstull’s sauna) can accommodate up to 16 people at a time and includes outdoor showers, sauna baskets, and a designated swimming area along the waterfront. Popular waterfront saunas often have waiting lists numbering in the thousands, while reservations at newly opened venues can be fully booked within minutes. The new public sauna can be booked online up to one month in advance and is open daily from 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. A 90-minute session costs 150 Swedish kronor. It was officially opened by the city's vice mayor, Lars Strömgren. “Stockholm has a long tradition of being a harbor city. And because of that, we haven't really opened up the quays to swimming and to the public. Now, we want to do that more, and we also want to make sure that it's possible for everybody to get access to sauna,” he says. Among those who booked the first available sessions was Wendy Liu, a British traveler who said she learned about the opening at a sauna convention. “It's great to have water and a sauna together. I mean, if a sauna without water is not a real experience, these two need to go together. And this is such a beautiful place. And today we got beautiful weather, so it's a perfect combination,” she says. The sauna stands on the site of the former Liljeholmsbadet, a floating public bathhouse dating to the 1930s. The bathhouse was removed last year after falling into disrepair. Pia Karlsson, a project manager with Stockholm's transport office, says the city will monitor public interest in the facility and evaluate whether additional public saunas should be opened in the future. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

An extreme heat warning has been issued across parts of the U.K., with water safety experts urging people to take care when cooling off in rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) warned that while temperatures on land are soaring, open water can still be cold enough to trigger cold water shock. Regional Water Safety Lead Chris Cousens said the risk increases when there is a large gap between air and water temperatures, and urged people to "think carefully before they enter open water." He advised people who get into difficulty to "float to live" by remaining calm and floating on their backs until the effects of cold-water shock pass. Across Europe, several countries are also sweltering. About a third of France was under a heat red alert on June 21, and temperatures are expected to reach 40°C (104°F) in some areas, in a country where air conditioning isn't widespread. The forecast for June 22 was even hotter. Spain kicked off the summer with large parts of the country on alert due to temperatures expected to hover around 40°C (104°F)—even in the interior of the Basque Country, a northern region that typically experiences cooler temperatures. In Italy, authorities expanded heat warnings—referred to locally as “red flags”—to eight cities in northern and central parts of the country. Temperatures there are mostly in the upper 30s °C (high 90s to low 100s °F). More than 200,000 people across Europe died from heat-related causes over the last four years, and most of the fatalities were preventable, the World Health Organization’s Europe office said. More above-average temperatures are expected this summer, which can cause heat exhaustion and life-threatening heat stroke. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Officials in Kansas City, Missouri, are preparing to equip some public buses with cameras with facial recognition software capable of identifying passengers who appear on a list of banned riders or missing persons. Supporters and opponents alike view the effort as a major litmus test for tapping the AI-powered software on a U.S. public transportation system, positioning Kansas City as the latest epicenter of a fierce debate over whether the safety benefits of artificial intelligence are worth the privacy costs. "The idea of running face recognition on a camera that is pointed at live spaces in public is a line that until recently has never really been crossed in the last 25 years," said Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst for the Project on Speech, Privacy and Technology at the American Civil Liberties Union. The state of Missouri declined to help fund the project as expected due to concerns with the facial recognition component. Still, the city is pushing ahead with local and federal money, said Tyler Means, chief mobility and strategy officer at the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority. "Privacy is always a tricky thing," Means said. "We've always had cameras on our buses. It's just new technology. I think in time it'll smooth over and people will realize, 'Well, it didn't really feel any different.'" SafeSpace Global, the Knoxville, Tennessee-based company partnering with Kansas City to run the cameras, started using live facial recognition years ago to alert nursing homes when residents left the building, then brought the technology to correctional institutions and schools. Kansas City's buses represent the company's inaugural venture in transportation. Images captured by cameras aboard the buses would immediately be checked against any active alerts generated when a missing person, banned rider, or someone on a law enforcement watch list designated by the transportation authority is identified. If no match or safety issue is detected, the facial data won't be retained. After the buses return to the depot, the transportation authority would archive the regular video footage on a local server for up to five years. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire after shares of his rocket company SpaceX soared in Wall Street’s biggest initial public offering of stock. Shares in SpaceX jumped more than 19% after opening for trading in June, a sign that investors are looking past the billions the company is losing and instead betting that its massive investments in satellites, orbital data centers, and artificial intelligence will pay off in the future. SpaceX opened around midday at $150 a share, then rose to around $168 before finishing the day just below $161. That price gave the company a market value of $2.1 trillion, making it the sixth-largest public U.S. company—larger even than its founder and CEO’s other big business, the electric vehicle maker Tesla. Between his holdings in SpaceX and Tesla, where he is also CEO, Musk is now worth an estimated $1.1 trillion, according to Forbes. Musk says SpaceX, founded in 2002, is going public now because it needs money to fund its ambitions of putting satellites and data centers in space and eventually establishing a colony of people on Mars. He marked the opening of trading on Nasdaq by joining a ceremonial bell ringing from Starbase, the South Texas home of SpaceX. He reiterated his lofty goals “to make life multiplanetary.” “Not just a few astronauts; I mean, literally, you,” Musk said. “Whoever you are watching this, SpaceX wants to be able to take you to the moon, take you to Mars, and ultimately beyond.” Known for his technological breakthroughs, as well as wild claims and missed deadlines, Musk was able to whip up enthusiasm for the Initial Public Offering (IPO). The typical company going public has seen a 7% jump in its first day of trading, from 1980 through 2025, according to Jay Ritter, a professor at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business. Institutional and retail investors alike jumped at the opportunity to buy a piece of the company at $135 per share before trading began. The $75 billion in proceeds SpaceX raised easily topped the previous record IPO from oil giant Saudi Aramco in 2019. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Billions of dollars have been pledged for Africa's clean energy transition, yet many renewable energy projects across the continent are still failing to get off the ground as countries struggle with soaring financing costs driven by a financial rule known as the "sovereign ceiling," experts say. Analysts and development finance specialists say the rule, which ties the creditworthiness of projects to the sovereign rating of the country where they operate, is making commercially viable renewable energy projects appear far riskier to international investors than they actually are. Of Africa's 54 countries, only Botswana and Mauritius currently hold investment-grade sovereign ratings. So, the rule is hindering governments' efforts to expand access to electricity and meet climate commitments under the Paris Agreement. Nearly 600 million people across Africa still lack access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency. "The financing environment is the problem," said Dr. John Asafu-Adjaye, a senior fellow at the African Center for Economic Transformation. "A project with strong fundamentals, a long-term power purchase agreement, and predictable cash flow ends up being priced as if it were inherently dangerous. Not because it is, but because of where it sits on a map." The sovereign ceiling rule prevents companies or projects operating within a country from receiving a credit rating significantly higher than the country's sovereign rating. In practice, analysts say, that means renewable energy projects in African countries with weak sovereign ratings inherit the perception of sovereign risk even when projects themselves are commercially sound and backed by international guarantees. Kenya's Menengai Geothermal project, Zambia's IFC-led Scaling Solar program, and Nigeria's Solar IPP pipeline all struggled to get adequate funding as investors raised concerns over sovereign guarantees, creditworthiness, and concessional financing terms. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Robotic exoskeletons are finding new uses in hospitals and workplaces across Spain. The wearable devices are helping wheelchair users practice walking again and also reducing the physical demands of lifting heavy equipment. Strapping into a robotic exoskeleton is now a very normal treatment option in the country for patients recovering from conditions such as stroke, spinal cord injuries, and other neurological disorders. At Quirónsalud Bizkaia Hospital in northern Spain, rehabilitation specialists are using wearable robotic devices designed to help patients stand up and retrain walking patterns that may have been lost after injury or illness. What looks like a robotic suit is actually a powered lower-limb exoskeleton called HANK. Developed by Spanish robotics company GOGOA, the device attaches around the legs and waist and uses motorized joints at the hips, knees, and ankles to help movement. The exoskeleton weighs around 20 kilograms and contains electric motors that generate movement at each joint. Therapists can adjust walking speed, step length, and support levels depending on a patient's condition. In a demonstration, physician Sara Garcia helps a colleague into the device before activating it. As the exoskeleton powers up, the user rises from a wheelchair into a standing position before taking assisted steps across the room. Garcia says, “The exoskeleton we have behind us is a walking exoskeleton that assists the patient in the three main joints of the lower limb: hip, knee, and ankle. What it does for the patient is generate a natural walking pattern where the patient can walk. This is done along with a technical aid that can be provided to them, always supervised in a clinical environment.” The device is designed for rehabilitation rather than transport. Instead of carrying someone from place to place, it repeatedly guides the body through the mechanics of walking. Rehabilitation therapists say that repetition is important because it helps patients practice coordinated movement patterns following neurological injury. Garcia explains, “We can gradually recover their way of walking through the exoskeleton. The patient can move around the room knowing they are moving as they should and correcting those minor anomalies they might have due to their medical diagnosis.” This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Japan recorded a trade deficit in May, the first in four months, as imports of electrical machinery surged, helping to offset a jump in exports, the Finance Ministry reported. Preliminary data showed Japan’s exports rose 17% in May from the same month last year to 9.51 trillion yen ($59.4 billion), while imports rose 12.5% to 9.89 trillion yen ($61.8 billion). That left a deficit of 378.6 billion yen ($2.4 billion), down from a surplus of 301.9 billion yen ($1.9 billion) in April. Oil and gas imports fell 1.8% year-on-year due to the Iran war and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of the world’s oil passed through the Strait until February 28, when the U.S. and Israel began attacking Iran. Japan has sought to diversify its suppliers. Imports of electrical machinery jumped 31.5% as the boom in artificial intelligence generated strong demand for computer chips and other components. Higher prices have also pushed the value of both exports and imports higher. Japan exported fewer vehicles in May, but the value of those shipments rose more than 13%. While imports of oil fell 28.5% in value, they plunged 57.3% in volume. The weak yen was also a factor in boosting imports. The U.S. dollar has been trading at about 160 Japanese yen lately. A year ago, it was at 140 yen levels. The Bank of Japan raised its benchmark interest rate to 1.0% on June 16, the first time since 1995 that the rate has been at that level. It cited inflation as a key concern. So far, the rate hike has not had a noticeable effect on the yen's value. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

They were once among the world's most threatened ecosystems, but now mangrove forests are showing signs of recovery, according to a new study. Research from Tulane University released on June 4 found that huge losses of mangrove forests over the last 40 years have been almost balanced out by restoration efforts and natural resilience. Around the world, mangroves have been in decline for decades because of industries like aquaculture and agriculture. In Louisiana, natural erosion has weakened the living mangrove population. While human development still poses a threat, the study reports that global restoration efforts are seeing them grow back stronger and denser than before. “The great thing about mangroves is that there are these kind of unsung superheroes,” says Daniel Friess, Cochran Family Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Tulane University and director of The Mangrove Lab. “You think they're not that important or they're just there; they're in the way, but they are protecting our shorelines. They're creating fisheries, and they're a great place for recreation and education, and they're taking up our carbon emissions. And they're doing all of this for free. And hundreds of millions of people around the tropics rely on the benefits and the livelihoods provided by mangroves.” The mangroves that have rebounded are playing a crucial role in preventing erosion, stabilizing shorelines, and providing habitats for birds and marine species. They also help tackle climate change by soaking in carbon dioxide, acting as natural carbon sinks. The study drew its findings from four decades of satellite data. From the 1980s to 2010, mangrove forests shrank by nearly 2,900 square kilometers but have been bouncing back over the last 16 years. This has resulted in a net decline of only around 1% for that entire period, according to the study. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Berczy Park is home to a much-loved fountain that features canine sculptures that shoot water out of their mouths. Now, there’s a new dog in town at Berczy. Rather, a new Doug in town. Thousands have already flocked to the Toronto park to catch a glimpse of a beaver sculpture, nicknamed Doug, that is part of a new World Cup-themed contest. The Great Beaver Quest challenges participants to locate 51 beaver statues that have been strategically placed throughout the city’s Old Town Toronto neighborhood. “We expect that it's going to be something that people who are coming in from out of town and looking for something to do and keep their kids busy will love to do. It's easy to participate in,” said Robyn Posner, with the neighborhood’s Business Improvement Area. Old Town is about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) from Toronto Stadium, which will host six World Cup matches, when the host nation takes on Bosnia and Herzegovina. With city officials estimating 300,000 visitors coming to Toronto during the three-week Cup run, Posner said the Beaver Hunt can provide both an enjoyable diversion and serve as a way to get to know the area and its businesses. “The goal was to draw people to this area, to come and experience what it's like being in Old Town and to meet up with some like-minded people,” she said. Forty-eight of the nearly 4-feet-high (1.2-meters) resin fiberglass beavers represent the nations competing in the World Cup, each hand-painted by a local artist. Doug represents Canada and sports a Canadian-influenced soccer uniform layered beneath a red flannel shirt. The other 50 beavers are situated throughout Old Town—in parks, along sidewalks, and even indoors, with the Norway beaver staring out the window from inside an office building lobby. The beavers are accompanied by a QR code that takes participants to a free digital scavenger hunt. Still, why exactly did Old Town Toronto BIA officials decide to center their contest around dam-building rodents? “Well, because it's Canada's national animal, and we thought they were super cute,” Posner said. “And they're small enough. And so, we went with the beaver.” This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Any advertisements in New York that feature artificial intelligence-generated people in place of actors will now be violating state law if they don't clearly label that they have used a "synthetic performer." The law, signed in December by Gov. Kathy Hochul, went into effect June 9. Her office is calling it a "first-in-the-nation law" that will boost transparency at a time when AI-generated performers are popping up across all forms of media, including on social platforms and in digital advertising. Synthetic performers are defined under state law as "digitally created media that appear as a real person." The law applies to ads in any medium. "In New York, we are setting the rules of the road instead of letting AI run the show," Hochul said in a statement. The "simple, honest disclosure" required by the law "protects consumers, respects our creative workforce, and keeps New York at the forefront of responsible innovation," she said. Ads that don't "conspicuously disclose" that they have used a synthetic performer will be subject to a penalty of $1,000 for a first violation and $5,000 for any further violations. There are specific carve-outs listed in the law to exempt ads for movies, television shows, streaming content, video games, and other works that feature synthetic performers in the entire work. It also doesn't apply to audio advertisements or ads where AI is solely used for language translation. When the law was making its way through the state legislature last year, the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4As) and several other advertising organizations issued statements in strong opposition to the law. The 4As said in one blog post that it would hurt advertisers by "injecting compliance uncertainty into the advertising process, burdening brands (and their agencies) who advertise in New York and undermining creative and technological innovation." The biggest supporter of the law was SAG-AFTRA, the actors' union that recently ratified a new contract with studios and streamers that they say provides further protections against synthetic performers. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

In June, Canada introduced legislation that could bar children younger than 16 from having social media accounts unless the companies show they can make their platforms safe. Canada is joining a growing global effort to tighten safety protections. Canadian government officials said social media platforms can obtain an exemption if they have put in place sufficient safeguards. “We are failing our children. Enough is enough,” Marc Miller, Canada’s culture minister, said. “We need basic protection in place.” The legislation covers seven types of harmful content, including content that induces children to harm themselves, content that incites violence and foments hatred, and non-consensual intimate images. A new regulator, the Digital Safety Commission of Canada, will be created. Criteria for what exemptions would look like will be announced at a later date. Miller said setting up the regulator could take up to 18 months. Miller said platforms will need to prove they are safe. Age verification will also be established. Countries including Australia, Brazil, and Indonesia have introduced or announced age-based restrictions or requirements for children’s access to social media. Others, including Britain, France, Spain, Denmark, Thailand, and South Korea, are studying or developing similar approaches. The legislation would also regulate the companies behind artificial intelligence chatbots by imposing on them a duty to act responsibly through measures such as crisis intervention protocols. In Australia, social media companies have revoked access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children since the country banned use of the platforms by those under 16, officials said. The law provoked intense debate in Australia about technology use, privacy, child safety, and mental health, and it has prompted other countries to consider similar measures. A Canadian government official, in a briefing with journalists, said authorities will try to learn lessons from Australia. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

High oil and gasoline prices and energy supply problems won't be solved overnight, despite an agreement to end the Iran war and open the Strait of Hormuz announced on June 14. It will likely take months before energy companies can resume operations to the point of meeting the world’s demand, according to energy experts. The slow pace of the process of shipping and refining crude oil, and doubts about the security of traveling through the strait, mean the effect won't be seen immediately, they said. Ships loaded with crude oil have been stranded in the Persian Gulf for more than three months, unable to safely travel through the waterway, where about a fifth of the world’s oil and gasoline supplies typically traveled before the war began. “It’s going to take time for people to feel comfortable and for insurance to be in place... particularly to get people on the ground to restart some of these assets,” said Daniel Evans, global head of fuels and refining research at S&P Global. Still, oil prices slipped after the deal was announced. Brent crude, the international standard, was down $3.45 at $83.89 per barrel. U.S. benchmark crude oil lost $4.03 to $80.85 per barrel. Those prices are still well above the roughly $70 per barrel where oil was trading before the war started. As the higher prices unwind, ships that have been stranded will have to exit the strait, and then new tankers will have to come in to be loaded, Evans said. “To bring a ship in, you need to be confident that you’ve got a big enough window of safety to bring it in, load it, and move it out,” he added. Oil tankers also move slowly, he explained. It takes months to travel from the Strait to distant countries, deliver the crude oil to a refinery for processing, and then arrive at their final destination. In addition, some producers in the Middle East paused extracting oil from the ground, known as a shut-in, when they ran out of storage space. Restarting those operations can be a slow process. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

On a drizzly Saturday morning in May, the basement of the New Paltz United Methodist Church filled with old lamps, blunt knives, malfunctioning sound mixers, and balky zippers. About a dozen volunteers welcomed the broken goods and their owners to a worldwide movement that’s evangelizing new relationships between people and their things. Repair Cafés—free events where volunteers with technical know-how help neighbors fix myriad household items—are part of a new brand of anti-consumerism that’s trying to offer an alternative to the mass-produced disposable goods that have dominated the global economy for the last half-century. Helping fuel that move to repairing, not buying, are U.S. consumer prices, which climbed sharply again last month as the war with Iran delivered higher gasoline prices and more pain for Americans. After starting in the Netherlands with a single event in 2009, Repair Café has grown into a global nonprofit with more than 59,000 members, some 4,000 cafés, and close to 850,000 items fixed a year. “We need to change our mindset. We need to change the economy,” Repair Café founder Martine Postma said. “Even if Repair Cafés can’t solve the problem alone, then still they are a very clear sign that change is needed on a much higher level.” In New Paltz, a Hudson Valley college town about two hours from New York, 50 people brought about 85 items to the Repair Café: an antique fan that required rewiring, shirts, pants, jackets, stuffed animals. There were old family photos that needed restoring and jewelry awaiting work, like restringing beads or replacing clasps. Repair experts waited behind long cafeteria tables to teach alternatives, giving people chances to learn that flawed goods aren’t automatically junk. “Maybe their initial reason for coming is monetary or sentimental,” organizer Holly Shader said. More than that, she added, "it gives people a chance to work together and extend the life of something. People form relationships.” The experts on hand fixed 71 of the items, found that four needed more work, and deemed 10 beyond repair. They said they volunteer for the low-pressure joy of fixing things, with networking as a side benefit. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Betting that people will soon grow more comfortable having artificial intelligence agents shop for groceries, plane tickets, or diapers on their behalf, payments giant Visa said that it has embedded its payment network inside ChatGPT, empowering the chatbot to independently shop and complete transactions. It means AI agents cannot only recommend products but also complete the purchase on the user's behalf at potentially any merchant that accepts Visa. The payment network's previous attempts at this technological leap were confined to a single retailer or a small set of enrolled merchants. It is not OpenAI's first attempt at e-commerce. Late last year, the company announced Instant Checkout, which allowed ChatGPT to scour the internet for a specific item like a digital personal shopper. But the process was prone to errors and was not widely adopted by merchants due to the fee that OpenAI was charging merchants. The company retired Instant Checkout in March. Visa's collaboration is different from OpenAI's previous attempts, as it will allow users to link their Visa cards to ChatGPT to shop and make it easier for merchants to accept transactions initiated by agents. OpenAI will provide the technology to allow agents to interact, make decisions, and initiate purchases through ChatGPT. Visa, the world's largest payment network outside of China, will provide the payment authorization and fraud monitoring needed to do this at scale. "As AI agents become active participants in the economy, Visa's focus is to ensure transactions are trusted, secure, and seamless," said Jack Forestell, chief product and strategy officer at Visa. Visa and OpenAI did not disclose the financial terms of the collaboration and did not give details on the fees merchants or customers would have to pay. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Steam-powered vehicles, Victorian costumes, and remote-controlled teapots have taken over the New Zealand town of Ōamaru for its annual Steampunk Festival. The festival ran from 29 May to 1 June. The four-day event, now in its 17th year, draws thousands of visitors to one of the world's best-known celebrations of the Victorian-inspired science fiction genre. The town’s annual Steampunk Festival is built around a simple idea: what if steam technology had continued into the modern age? Steampunk imagines an alternative world in which the technology of the Victorian age never faded away, evolving instead into the modern era through steam-powered inventions, brass machinery, and elaborate mechanical design. This year’s theme is “Frontiers of Steam.” Graeme Clark, vice chair of the Ōamaru Whitestone Civic Trust, says, “The theme this year, Frontiers of Steam, is very appropriate considering the looming fuel shortage. Steam power will be the way to travel in the future. As we all know, SPVs, steam-powered vehicles, will be the ‘trump card’ and will dominate world travel and industry.” Rather than recreating the Victorian era exactly as it was, steampunk sets out to try and reimagine it. Participants use its fashions and technologies as a foundation for imagining how the world might look if steam power had continued into the modern age, with plenty of room for invention along the way. Many attendees spend months creating elaborate costumes and props, drawing on skills such as sewing, metalworking, and model-making. The festival attracts people from a wide range of professions, including engineers, artists, farmers, and bricklayers, who use steampunk as a chance to create fictional identities and showcase their work in public. Juliet Thorn, one of those attending the festival, says, “The first time you dress up and go out in public is really scary. And then people get such a buzz out of it. They love it, and they come up, and they go, ‘You look amazing.’ It’s so cool that you take on a different personality.” Steampunk enthusiasts pride themselves on building much of the world themselves. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The Obama Presidential Center opened to the general public on June 19 after a celebratory dedication in Chicago with dignitaries. But tens of thousands of people–friends and family of museum staff, students, and journalists–have already been offered a sneak peek as crews finish final art installations and landscaping. The roughly $850 million project covers both the political and personal realms of the nation’s first Black president. Campaign memorabilia and presidential artifacts are displayed in the admission-based museum tower, while public spaces of the sprawling campus feature other things important to Obama: a new library, basketball court, and picnic area with grills. “This is a safe space for people to come and, yes, reflect on the historic moments of this presidency and the campaigns, but also to come together as a community to think about what change you can bring to your own neighborhood,” Josh Harris, the Obama Foundation’s vice president of public engagement, said during a tour with The Associated Press. Unlike other presidential museums, Obama’s doesn’t contain reams of official papers. It’s the first fully digitized presidential museum where unclassified documents can be viewed through a website they are calling a “digital reading room.” Visitors to the museum will get to walk into a life-sized replica of the Oval Office. On a recent day, a stream of visitors, including school children, walked through the circular room, stopping to sit behind the desk and pose for pictures. One drawer holds a copy of a handwritten letter from predecessor former President George W. Bush and Obama’s beloved BlackBerry phone. “We want to make sure that people from all walks of life have the opportunity to sit behind the Resolute Desk,” said Harris. “You think about the possibilities that if a young organizer from the South Side of Chicago can be president, you can be president too.” Several of the ballgowns Michelle Obama wore as first lady are displayed on mannequins behind glass, including a black and red dress designed by Narciso Rodriguez that the former first lady wore on Election Night in Chicago. Visitors will also get a chance to touch swatches of the fabrics, including the rose gold chain-mail Atelier Versace evening gown she wore at her final state dinner in 2016. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Just a few years ago, America's public schools were rushing to get every child a laptop. Los Angeles middle school teacher Anna Soffer remembers it well: "The idea was that technology is the future, so we need to put tech in every child's hands." Now, the conversation has flipped. After pouring billions of dollars into laptops, tablets, and learning apps, many schools are facing a digital reckoning. Classrooms have become saturated with screens, and a growing number of parents, teachers, and school districts are saying it is time to scale back. "The Chromebook is just a world of distraction," says Soffer, who teaches sixth-grade English and history. She favors pen-and-paper assignments but is required to use laptops and online apps for certain activities. "Every day, I'm battling, 'Who would you rather listen to, Ms. Soffer or Minecraft?'" The Los Angeles Unified School District, where Soffer teaches, recently became the first major school district to say it will stop giving devices to its youngest students. It is part of a new screen time policy taking effect in the fall across the country's second-largest school system. A sweeping resolution passed last April by the Los Angeles school board requires the district to eliminate devices until second grade; set daily and weekly screen limits for all higher grades; block YouTube on school devices; and ban the use of devices at lunch and recess in elementary and middle school. The district will also audit its education technology contracts, which the teachers' union says amount to $1.6 billion. The Los Angeles crackdown is adding momentum to calls for reform emerging around the country. In many cases, parents lobbied a few years ago for school cellphone bans, which have now become the norm. Realizing phones weren't the only classroom distraction, they pivoted to a new target: school-issued devices. The campaign for change is becoming a public policy issue. At least 14 states have proposed laws to limit screen time in schools, according to Ballotpedia. The federal government issued an advisory warning that excessive screen use among youth is becoming a growing public health concern. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Google must allow news sites to opt out of having their online content scraped to feed AI overviews and other artificial intelligence services and features for British users, regulators said in June. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it was ordering Google to give online publishers the option, in what it called a “world first.” The watchdog is seeking to loosen the U.S. tech giant’s stranglehold on the U.K.’s online search market by using new digital powers to force changes to the company’s business practices. Under the decision, Google will have to give publishers “effective tools” to prevent their content from being used to power the company's generative artificial intelligence services and its AI search features like AI Overviews and AI Mode. Google will also have to properly cite publisher content in AI-generated search results by using clear links. In addition, it will have to let publishers opt out of having their content used to fine-tune AI models. The watchdog said the decision will give publishers a stronger hand when negotiating content deals with Google. Publishers are defined as anyone who puts content on the web that's available to people in Britain. The CMA's ruling was expected because it had released draft proposals at the start of the year after using its new digital powers to label Google a “strategic” player in online search advertising. The CMA previously found that news publishers had suffered a drop in traffic since Google rolled out its AI Overviews—summaries that appear at the top of some search queries—because fewer users are clicking through to the original articles. The watchdog said its requirements will also apply to big changes that Google unveiled in May, which further embed AI in the company's search services. Google is “engaging with regulators like the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority to ensure website owners have the right tools as user preferences evolve,” the company's general manager of search ecosystem, Mrinalini Loew, said in a blog post. “Today, we’re beginning to test a new control that lets website owners manage how their links and content appear in generative AI search features.” This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The environmental footprint of data centers already rivals some of the world's largest countries, according to a United Nations University report, which also predicts their water use, energy use, and pollution will double in just four years as the use of artificial intelligence grows. Last year, global data centers used 448 trillion watt-hours of electricity, more than all but 10 countries in the world, said the report recently issued. That electricity use produced about 208 million tons (189 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide, about the same amount as Argentina, and producing that much energy consumed about 1.2 trillion gallons (4.5 trillion liters) of water, according to the report on the environmental consequences of AI's energy use. By 2030, data centers will account for nearly 3% of the world's projected electricity use, with 935 trillion watt-hours. If data centers were a country, the country would be projected to rank sixth-highest in power use in 2030. That would produce nearly 440 million tons (399 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide, the report said. The study focused on energy use and didn’t examine the massive amount of water used to cool data centers. “If you look at these numbers, we're seeing scales comparable to nations,” said study co-author Kaveh Madani, a water scientist and director of the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health in Canada. “The demand is enormous.” Much of the growth of data centers is being driven by AI. About 20% of data centers’ energy is currently due to AI, but that should grow to 40% by 2030, the report said. The report is significant because of the credibility and authority of the U.N., not just because of any one set of eye-popping numbers, said Fengqi You, a Cornell University energy engineering professor who directs the college’s AI sustainability issues. “Its value is that a U.N. institution is putting carbon, water, land, life-cycle impacts, and environmental justice into one frame” for an issue that is often shrouded in secrecy and partial disclosures, said You, who was not part of the report. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Life tasks like paying bills, canceling subscriptions, and answering overdue emails are becoming a reason to socialize for friends, couples, roommates, and other people who get together for what's known as “admin dates.” The low-pressure gatherings taking place in coffee shops, accommodating bars, and private homes are intended to turn tedious and procrastination-inducing adult responsibilities into productive time with a twist. Tackling a personal to-do list alongside others is a double-duty activity that combines the satisfaction of tending to necessary chores with the no less vital work of nurturing relationships. “You can have both—getting things done and connecting with people,” Thema Bryant, a Pepperdine University psychology professor and past president of the American Psychological Association, said. “At the gym, if I'm taking a group exercise class, I'm less likely to stop in the middle of other people. ... In the same way, admin dates can help with accountability, motivation, and connection." Romantic or business partners looking to get on the same page, and club members or volunteers collaborating on a big project, may also find admin dates helpful. Experts generally advise against meeting up in this way with regular work colleagues, especially supervisors, because it might add unnecessary pressure or create self-consciousness that's counterproductive to confronting inbox gremlins. Dealing with too many uncompleted tasks can feel overwhelming to some people, but whittling away at them in the company of trusted friends or even strangers engrossed in their own screens can clear some of the mental fog and foster a sense of community, said Bryant, the author of a book titled Matters of the Heart: Healing Your Relationship with Yourself and Those You Love. One reason admin dates can help with productivity is because of modeling, a theory from behavioral psychology about learning by observing and imitating others, she said. Seeing other people check off items on their agendas can motivate us to do the same, Bryant said. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

European Union leaders, worried about the continent relying too heavily on American companies for AI and cloud computing services and Asia for microchips, are pushing back. The 27-nation bloc unveiled a "tech sovereignty" package with measures to promote homegrown European alternatives to Big Tech services and hardware. The efforts by Brussels have gained urgency as leaders worry about dependence on technologies from foreign providers, which they say could be "weaponized" against Europeans. Those fears crystallized after the International Criminal Court's top prosecutor was sanctioned by the Trump administration, which led to Microsoft canceling his email account, sparking fears of a "kill switch" hidden in U.S. tech services. "Europe wants to be in the position to make its own choices, avoiding risky dependencies on single dominant suppliers, one company or one third country," European Commission Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen, who oversees tech sovereignty, told reporters in Brussels. "Because we live in a world where geopolitics and technology go hand in hand. Those who champion technological innovation will shape the future, and we must ensure that Europe plays a leading role in this." A cornerstone of the package is a sequel to the EU's 2023 Chips Act to further boost local production of semiconductors by cutting red tape for chip fabs and fostering a European chipmaking ecosystem. Europe's vulnerability to the global chip supply chain centered in East Asia was highlighted last year in a power struggle at the Chinese-owned, Netherlands-based chipmaker Nexperia. Another key part of the package is supporting local cloud and AI development, with plans to triple Europe's data center capacity over the next five to seven years. The EU is pushing to expand data centers to keep up with the AI boom, which is driving demand for cloud computing services. The proposals from the EU's executive arm still need to be debated by the EU's two other main institutions, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Imagine taking part in a job interview not conducted by a human, but by an AI avatar. What might seem dystopian in concept is an increasing reality for some applicants. As employers face surging application numbers and a flood of AI-written CVs, companies are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to screen candidates. And as workers flood into offices across the capital, the process of getting a job is increasingly being handed over to artificial intelligence. Bracing for the changes AI is driving in the job market, schools are incorporating it into their teaching. At London Enterprise Academy in East London, students are being taught about the opportunities and risks linked to AI tools as they prepare applications for sixth form (the two final years of secondary school in Britain) places and work experience opportunities. Teacher Mohammed Islam asks students whether they would trust a robot interviewer. Some students say AI can help candidates improve applications but still believe human interaction remains essential. “It does help people to get jobs, and it does help companies to hire people, but we also need humans to interview other people as well because robots don’t have actual feelings, and sometimes, they might not understand what they have to do, and it’s not as reliable as humans,” student Zara says. For growing numbers of applicants for jobs, the first interview may no longer be with a person. Instead, candidates are increasingly facing artificial intelligence-powered hiring systems designed to screen applications, verify identities, and assess answers before any human recruiter becomes involved. In a demonstration showing technology developed by Amsterdam-based hiring platform TestGorilla, an AI-generated avatar interviews an Associated Press reporter through a laptop screen. The system asks spoken questions, records verbal responses, and combines them with timed assessments, behavioral prompts, and identity verification checks. Candidates are asked to complete multiple-choice questions, answer spoken interview prompts, and verify their identity through facial biometric checks comparing their face against identification documents. TestGorilla says its AI interview systems are designed to replace some traditional screening calls, which recruiters say can consume large amounts of time when employers receive hundreds or thousands of applications for a single role. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Whether they’re rummaging through grass in a park or scuttling along pavements on the hunt for crumbs, pigeons seem to fit right in busy London. But the same bird that often blends in as part of the urban background has helped scientists investigate one of the hardest questions in biology. How can a pigeon be taken many kilometers from home and still find its way back? After all, unlike their human counterparts, they don't have the luxury of satellite GPS navigation. Animals use several techniques to navigate. Some follow the stars. Others remember landmarks, smells, or the position of the sun. Birds, fish, and sea turtles are also known to orient themselves using Earth’s magnetic field, effectively giving them a natural compass. That ability is known as magnetoreception. It means an animal can detect information from Earth’s magnetic field and use it for direction, position, and orientation. Since the 1960s, studies by researchers, including Cornell University ornithologist William Keeton, have shown that pigeons use several navigation cues at once. They can use the sun, familiar landmarks, smell, vision, and the Earth’s magnetic field. But scientists still haven’t fully understood how birds physically detect magnetism inside the body. Previous theories focused mainly on the eyes, the beak, and the inner ear. One idea suggested birds might “see” magnetic fields through light-sensitive molecules in the eye called cryptochromes. Now, a new study published in the journal Science points to the liver. Researchers from the University of Bonn, University Hospital Bonn, the University of Duisburg Essen, and the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior found that special immune cells in pigeon livers may respond to magnetic fields. Those cells are macrophages. In the pigeon liver, the researchers found macrophages packed with iron oxide nanoparticles. Those particles appear to make the cells superparamagnetic. In simple terms, superparamagnetic particles don’t stay permanently magnetic like a fridge magnet, but they react strongly when exposed to an outside magnetic field. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

A novel pill helped people with advanced pancreatic cancer live longer, researchers reported, raising hopes of long-needed better treatments for one of the deadliest types of cancer. “While not curing the cancer, it is a very large step forward,” said Dr. Zev Wainberg, of the University of California, Los Angeles, who helped lead the study. The drug is called Daraxonrasib, and it blocks a mutated protein that fuels tumor growth in more than 90% of pancreatic cancer cases—a target that had eluded treatment for decades. The daily pills nearly doubled survival time, with fewer severe side effects, in a study that randomly assigned the experimental drug or more chemotherapy to 500 patients whose metastatic, or spreading, cancer had stopped responding to prior treatment. The findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting in Chicago. Those taking Daraxonrasib lived for a median of 13.2 months compared with 6.7 months for chemotherapy recipients. While that may seem like a small improvement, Wainberg said it marked the first drug to show a substantial advantage over chemotherapy. “Having treated pancreatic cancer for 16 years, I actually started crying” when first seeing the study results, Dr. Rachna Shroff of the University of Arizona Cancer Center, who wasn't involved with the research, said from the ASCO meeting. She was struck by how “patients stayed on this treatment because it was providing durable and meaningful benefit to them.” The pills’ effects eventually wane, but recipients used them for significantly longer than the comparison group stayed on chemotherapy, reporting less pain and a better quality of life as their tumors shrank. Many still were using the drug after the data were analyzed, which Wainberg said means the survival gap may widen as researchers continue tracking them. Dr. Brian Wolpin, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, presented the findings. He said the drug should become “a new standard of care” for previously treated metastatic pancreatic cancer, adding that researchers also will explore its use earlier in the disease, including to see if tumor shrinkage might let more patients qualify for surgery. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Your favorite pair of jeans may have traveled around the world through cotton farms, dye houses, wash facilities, and factories before ending up in your closet. The denim may have never been worn, but it is stonewashed, sanded, chemically faded, or laser-treated to look like it. Those processes can require significant amounts of water, energy, and chemicals—part of the reason denim has become a growing target for sustainability efforts across the fashion industry, which is among the world’s biggest producers of greenhouse gas emissions. Brands are responding to wider awareness by marketing their jeans as “sustainable,” touting regenerative cotton, recycled fibers, and low-water manufacturing techniques. But figuring out if that's true is far more complicated. For one, sustainability is difficult to define—and there isn't a universal set of standards. Recently, Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein acquired Everlane, a brand known for transparency and sustainability efforts, highlighting broader tensions over scale and affordability. Improvements in sustainable processes typically cost more, making it difficult for companies with fast production cycles and low prices to adopt them widely. Consumers are left to navigate a complicated web of tradeoffs involving farming practices, chemical processes, labor ethics, and a wide range of prices. Experts say consumers should be wary of vague sustainability claims and instead look for brands that provide detailed information about their sourcing and manufacturing processes. Dana Davis, a strategic fashion adviser who led sustainability efforts for the label Mara Hoffman, encouraged shoppers to look beyond a single product page and examine whether brands discuss labor rights, textiles, and manufacturing sites across their entire business—not just in a capsule collection. But one of the simplest ways to reduce denim’s environmental footprint is also the least glamorous: to buy fewer jeans, wear them longer, wash them less, and shop secondhand. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Ohio, one of the nation's data center destination hot spots, is suspending a tax break that has been critical to its competition with other states to attract the massive new facilities that power and train artificial intelligence chatbots. The move by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine comes as tax breaks for energy-hungry AI data centers are increasingly playing a role in state budgets, and the industry is under pressure to pay the full costs of the vast network of its computing warehouses needed to power AI. The size of Ohio's tax break skyrocketed, dwarfing previous projections, as opposition to data centers is sweeping through cities, suburbs, and towns there and prompting lawmakers to form a committee to study the impact. In the meantime, residents are trying to bypass the GOP-controlled Legislature and get a referendum on November's midterm election ballot that's designed to permanently ban hyperscale data centers, likely the strictest such statewide ban under consideration in the U.S. DeWine's office cited the rising utilization of the tax break and the state Legislature's new research undertaking to declare a "pause" in granting it to new applicants. "The governor felt it was the right time to let the citizens know, let businesses know that we're going to pause on new offers of this tax incentive while that process plays out," DeWine's spokesperson, Dan Tierney, said. DeWine stressed that he supports data centers—calling them a critical component in today's economy—and that the roughly $37 billion in data center-related investment in 2024 and 2025 in Ohio has been worthwhile. Meanwhile, business groups—including the state Chamber of Commerce—and labor unions warned that pausing the tax break put Ohio at risk of losing tech-sector investments to other states. The state, in 2024, had used previous history in projecting that the exemption would total $136 million in fiscal 2025 and $142 million in fiscal 2026. It was $554 million in 2024 and nearly $1.6 billion in 2025, the state reported. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

For weddings, vacations, or other special occasions, more consumers are turning to clothing rental services instead of buying something new. These subscription-based services, often marketed as a sustainable alternative to fast fashion, ship straight to customers everything from everyday and workwear to dresses, handbags, and formalwear. Then, the items are returned for someone else to use. “I haven’t bought anything for a big occasion since 2019,” said Sasha Eck, a user of clothing rental services. Along with giving her continuous and affordable access to newer, trendier clothes, she said renting formalwear made more sense than spending the equivalent of a month's rent on a dress she would only wear once. A recent survey from ThredUp suggests others face the same predicament, with the resale platform finding 87% of wedding guests said they had purchased at least one outfit they wore only once. Clothing rental services appear to be an environmentally ethical alternative: One garment can be worn by multiple people instead of being tethered to a single closet. But fashion and logistics experts say the reality of rental subscriptions is more complicated, especially once shipping, returns, and consumer habits are factored in. Kate Fletcher, a professor of sustainability, design, and fashion systems at Manchester Metropolitan University, said rental services can sometimes encourage the same mindset that drives fast fashion. “In theory, the embodied resources within that garment get a chance to be worked harder by having that many more people wear it. And so that’s the sort of compelling argument of it,” she said. But Fletcher said many of those environmental benefits can be undermined by repeated shipping, returns, and cleaning. Aja Barber, a sustainability consultant and writer, said people often overlook the footprint of those processes. “When you think about rental, you don’t think about the packaging that comes every time you get something from rental. You don’t think about the carbon footprint of shipping the item to you. And you certainly don’t think about the carbon footprint of dry cleaning,” said Barber. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Oreo is teaming up with K-pop supergroup BTS for a bit of marketing dynamite that capitalizes on consumers' growing interest in global flavors. Mondelez, Oreo's parent company, said that BTS-themed Oreos would go on sale June 1 online and June 8 in stores. The cookies, which feature purple wafers in a nod to the band's signature color, would be sold in more than 80 markets around the world, making the partnership the brand's biggest to date. The band also designed 13 embossments for the wafers, including the names of the seven members and an outline of the light stick that fans hold at BTS concerts. The white-and-tan creme center of the sandwich cookies was formulated to taste like hotteok, a warm, brown sugar-stuffed pancake that's a popular Korean street food. "For Oreo to be the first snacking brand we've collaborated with globally is a huge honor. We ate them as kids, we eat them in the studio, and now Oreo is helping us share a taste of home with the world," BTS said in a statement. BTS Oreos will be sold for a limited time. Chicago-based Mondelez wouldn't say how many packages it's making. Martin Renaud, Mondelez's chief marketing and sales officer, said the BTS cookies strike a balance of staying true to Korean culture and food while remaining consistent with Oreo's brand and flavoring. "You want to be authentic, you want to be differentiated, and live an experience. But when you are Oreo, you need to be pleasing a large group of people," Renaud told The Associated Press. "You cannot come up with something that will be liked only by 20% of the population because it would alienate some of our customers." Renaud said Oreo spent around two years developing the BTS cookie, eventually narrowing the possible flavors to three before settling on hotteok. In recent years, Oreo has partnered with Coca-Cola, singer and actress Selena Gomez, and the K-pop girl band Blackpink, among others. The brand also offers limited-time flavors in specific markets, like cherry sakura in Japan and red bean paste in China. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

America has been called the “breadbasket of the world” due to its export of food products across the globe. Now, with the U.S. agriculture industry grappling with a shrinking labor force and aging farmers, many operations are pivoting to automation. The manufacturer, Carbon Robotics, is making the machines that use lasers and artificial intelligence in the U.S. and selling them to farms across the country and in Europe. It can recognize weeds and distinguish them from plants the farmer wants to keep. “So in our large plant model, we have over 150 million plants already labeled so that when those cameras and the NVIDIA GPUs see a crop or a weed, it pulls from that database to decide if it has to shoot it or not,” says Brian Ballard from Carbon Robotics. The laser weeding robots cost anywhere from $500,000 to $1.4 million, depending on size, and kill weeds that emerge shortly after crops are planted. The robots work with any food crops. Rutgers University is working with Carbon Robotics on developing the tech. So far, their data suggests this could be an improvement on other methods. “We realized that this kind of equipment is as effective as traditional herbicides. And in addition, we realized that some of these traditional herbicides are still hurting the crop. You can still have crop stunting, less biomass production for this crop when you use an herbicide. And it's something that you don't see when you use a LaserWeeder. We did experimentation in spinach and peas, and we have up to 30% yield increase where we use a LaserWeeder. Why? Because we didn't have any herbicides that could potentially be damaging to the crop,” says Thierry Besançon, an Extension Weed Science Specialist at Rutgers University. The shift toward technology comes as the labor pool tightens. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

After more than a decade of mixing and kneading dough in his family’s Brooklyn pizzeria, Salvatore Lo Duca recently made a distressing discovery: a key component of their thin-crust pies, bromated flour, contained a suspected carcinogen already banned in much of the world. So, in the back kitchen of Lo Duca Pizzeria, the 39-year-old began tweaking the original recipe handed down by his parents—with unexpected results. "Cost-wise, yes, it is a little more expensive, but the quality is there. So it's like anything else. You pay a little bit more for better quality. So if you want to give a better product, you should pay a bit more," said Lo Duca, who runs the shop with his five brothers. A looming ban on the additive, potassium bromate, may soon force thousands of pizzerias and bagel shops across New York into a similar transition. The bill, passed by state lawmakers and awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature, has divided dough-makers, triggering fears that even a minor change to long-established baking practices could have dramatic implications for the city’s most iconic foods. “This is an earth-shaking event for New York pizza,” said Scott Wiener, a pizza historian who leads tours of notable slice shops. Employees at several stores that use bromated flour declined to comment for this story. But Wiener estimated that around 80 percent of pizza and bagel shops rely on a flour that contains the oxidizing agent, which reduces rest time for dough and helps ensure a stronger, chewier product. To some, the quintessential qualities of the New York bagel—its height and structure, external crispiness and springy bite—would not be possible, or at least as ubiquitous, without the chemical shortcut. "It's a little alarming. In the sense that you might see a little bit of a price increase on your local neighborhood spot. You might pay a little more for your morning breakfast or your afternoon slice of pizza," lamented Jesse Spellman, the second-generation owner of Utopia Bagels. This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The Trump administration loosened federal rules requiring grocery stores and air-conditioning companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cooling equipment, a step that President Donald Trump said would help lower grocery costs. Trump said at a White House ceremony that the action by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would "substantially lower costs for consumers" by delaying costly restrictions that limit the type of refrigerants U.S. businesses and families can use. The move to relax the Biden-era rules on harmful pollutants known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, emitted by refrigerators and other appliances, was the latest attempt by the Republican administration before pivotal elections in November to try to address rising voter concerns over the cost of living. It is not clear how much or how quickly grocery prices could be impacted. Industry groups said it could even raise prices because manufacturers have already redesigned products, retooled factories, and trained workers to build and service next-generation refrigerant equipment. Inflation in the United States increased to 3.8% annually in April, amid price spikes caused by the Iran war and Trump's sweeping tariffs. Inflation is now outpacing wage gains as the war has kept oil and gasoline prices high. The regulation from the Democratic Biden administration was "unnecessary and costly and actually makes the machinery worse," Trump said at a ceremony joined by top executives from Kroger, Piggly Wiggly, and other grocery chains. He said the EPA action would protect hundreds of thousands of jobs and save Americans more than $2 billion a year. The Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute, which represents more than 330 HVAC manufacturers and commercial refrigeration companies, said the change in approach would "inject uncertainty across the market" and could even raise prices. "This rule works against basic supply and demand," said Stephen Yurek, the group's president and CEO. "By extending the compliance deadline" for phasing out HFCs, the administration "is maintaining and even increasing demand in the market for existing refrigerants while supply continues to fall." The net result will be "higher service costs and higher costs for consumers," he said. This article was provided by The Associated Press.