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YouTube changes policy to allow false claims about past US presidential elections

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:42:57 GMT

By The Associated PressYouTube will stop removing content that falsely claims the 2020 election or other past U.S. presidential elections were marred by “widespread fraud, errors or glitches,” the platform announced Friday.The change is a reversal for the Google-owned video service, which said a month after the 2020 election that it would start removing new posts that falsely claimed widespread voter fraud or errors changed the outcome. YouTube said in a blog post that the updated policy was an attempt to protect the ability to “openly debate political ideas, even those that are controversial or based on disproven assumptions.”“In the current environment, we find that while removing this content does curb some misinformation, it could also have the unintended effect of curtailing political speech without meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm,” the blog post said.The updated policy, which goes into effect immediately, ...

Fun things to do in Baja California this weekend: Eagles and Butterflies, mixology and coffee classes, glamping and wine

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:42:57 GMT

SAN DIEGO -- As always, there is plenty to do and experience in Baja California this weekend.You can learn how to mix alcoholic drinks or coffee, go "glamping" in the famous Guadalupe Valley wine country or dance to the music provided by British legend Eagles and Butterflies.Tourists can spend Saturday and Sunday in the Guadalupe Valley drinking wine, off-roading and camping in style.The valley, known as the Napa of Latin America, has more than 100 wineries, some small, others not so small.For about $250 per person, you'll get transportation to and from the border, lodging, wine tasting and an off-road excursion. 500 migrants said to be arriving in Tijuana daily It starts at 9 a.m. Saturday and you'll be back in Tijuana by 4 p.m. on Sunday. If you're looking to dance, Marko Disko and Social Club is hosting world renown Eagles and Butterflies a.k.a. Chris Barratt, who is known for electronic dance music.Barratt starts at 9 p.m. Saturday. Admission is 270 pesos, which comes out to a...

911 transcripts point to chaos, fast-evolving situation in April shootings in Maine

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:42:57 GMT

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A frantic 911 call to report at least one person had been fatally shot led law enforcement to discover four bodies at a home in Maine and eventually to arrest a man who fired at vehicles on a nearby highway before confessing to police that he was behind the killings.According to heavily redacted transcripts from 30 emergency calls that the Maine Department of Public Safety provided to The Associated Press on Friday, the first sign of trouble on April 18 came with a call at 9:18 a.m. The dispatcher tells the caller to not go back inside the property in rural Bowdoin, but to return to his vehicle and wait for police to arrive. Dispatch asks about a bullet hole in a vehicle and how many people live at the house.“And who do you think is the deceased?” the dispatch asks the caller. The caller’s response is redacted.Authorities identified those killed as the parents of the shooting suspect, Cynthia Eaton, 62, and 66-year-old David Eaton; along with their longt...

Ivey signs legislation naming Yellowhammer Cookie as official state cookie

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:42:57 GMT

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama now has an official state cookie: The Yellowhammer Cookie.Gov. Kay Ivey on Friday signed legislation naming the confection created by a Montgomery fourth-grader as the official state cookie. Students at Montgomery’s Trinity Presbyterian School came up with the idea of a state cookie. Fourth-grader Mary Claire Cook submitted the winning recipe, which includes pecans, peanut butter and honey, WSFA-TV reported.Cook brought a batch of the cookies to Ivey for the bill-signing ceremony. Alabama has a long list of official state emblems and symbols, including a state vegetable, nut, amphibian and spirit. The Associated Press

Acclaimed composer Kaija Saariaho dies at age 70 of brain tumor

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:42:57 GMT

Kaija Saariaho, who wrote acclaimed works that made her the among the most prominent composers of the 21st century, died Friday. She was 70.Saariaho died at her apartment in Paris, her family said in a statement posted on her Facebook page. She had been diagnosed in February 2021 with glioblastoma, an aggressive and incurable brain tumor.“The multiplying tumors did not affect her cognitive facilities until the terminal phase of her illness,” the statement said. Her family said Saariaho had undergone experimental treatment at Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris.“Kaija’s appearance in a wheelchair or walking with a can have prompted many questions, to which she answered elusively,” the family said. “Following her physician’s advice, she kept her illness a private matter, in order to maintain a positive mindset and keep the focus of her work.” Her “L’Amour de Loin (Love from Afar)” premiered at the Salzburg Festival in 2000 and made its U.S. debut at the Santa Fe Oper...

Prosecutor in case of Virginia man killed at psychiatric hospital announces resignation

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:42:57 GMT

DINWIDDIE, Va. (AP) — The state prosecutor handling the case against 10 people charged in the death of a Virginia man who was pinned to the floor while being admitted to a psychiatric hospital said she is resigning to attend graduate school in Paris. Ann Cabell Baskervill told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that her resignation as the Commonwealth’s Attorney in Dinwiddie County will become effective on June 20.Baskervill said her acceptance to a master’s program in international governance and diplomacy at the Paris Institute of Political Studies is a dream come true that coincided awkwardly with the death of Irvo Otieno.“I had accepted the offer of admission on March 4, but then Irvo Otieno was killed on March 6 so I didn’t say anything publicly because I didn’t want it to be a distraction from the very important discussion on his case,” Baskervill said.“It does break my heart to leave (the Otieno case) open like that,” Baskervill said. “But I know this is the right thing ...

Police testify about confronting gunman at Pittsburgh synagogue

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:42:57 GMT

Police on Friday described how they exchanged fire with a gunman who carried out the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history, frantic to get wounded worshippers to safety as they shot and neutralized the suspect.Several officers took the stand on fourth day of the prosecution’s case against Robert Bowers, whose lawyers have acknowledged he shot and killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life synagogue in October 2018 but are working to spare his life.Bowers, who surrendered after being shot three times, was asked at the scene why he’d done it and responded that he “had enough. They were killing our children,” and “all Jews need to die,” Officer Clint Thimons, a member of the SWAT team, told jurors at the federal courthouse in Pittsburgh.Survivors have previously testified about the terror they felt that day as Bowers barged into the synagogue and shot everyone he could find.Bowers, a 50-year-old truck driver from the Pittsburgh suburb of Baldwin, faces 63 federal char...

Panama launches operation in Darien jungle targeting organized crime and migrant smugglers

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:42:57 GMT

NICANOR, Panama (AP) — Panama launched a security operation along its shared border with Colombia on Friday to combat criminal gangs and migrant smugglers involved in record-setting migration through the perilous Darien Gap this year.Security officials said the “Shield” campaign is part of an agreement reached with the governments of Colombia and the United States in April to stop the flow of migrants through the border’s jungle-clad mountains.At a naval air base in Panama’s far east Darien province, rifle-toting border police outfitted in camouflage were conducting drills Friday on the tarmac in front of helicopters previously donated by the U.S. government.Panama will dedicate some 1,200 immigration agents, border police and members of the naval air service to what it said will be an air, land and sea effort. The targets will not be the hundreds of migrants traversing the dense jungle each day, but the organized criminal groups that prey on and profit from them on both sides...

As end of session nears, Louisiana lawmakers advance controversial LGBTQ+-related bills

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:42:57 GMT

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — As Louisiana’s legislative session nears adjournment, lawmakers in the Republican-dominated legislature pushed forward controversial LGBTQ+-related bills, including advancing a resurrected ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youths Friday.Despite the state Constitution requiring lawmakers to focus on fiscal and budgetary matters this session, several bills that opponents say target the LGBTQ+- community — similar to GOP-authored legislation passed in statehouses across the country this legislative season — have become a contentious part of this year’s culture-divide debates in Louisiana’s Capitol.One bill, which has received statewide and national attention, would prohibit hormone treatments, gender-affirming surgery and puberty-blocking drugs for transgender minors in Louisiana. So far, at least 18 states have enacted laws restricting or prohibiting gender-affirming care for minors, and all three of Louisiana’s bordering states have enacted ...

8 construction workers injured as building partially collapses during concrete mishap in New Haven

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:42:57 GMT

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A building under construction partially collapsed Friday in New Haven, Connecticut, when a concrete pour went awry, injuring eight workers, including two critically, city officials said, adding there were no fatalities.City firefighters and other authorities were called to Lafayette Street shortly after 12:30 p.m.“Our units responded immediately within minutes and found several persons in varying degrees of injury, from broken bones to three that were partially buried under the rubble,” Fire Chief John Alston Jr. said during a news conference.Firefighters used ladders and ropes to get to the victims through sharp, broken rebar and other debris, witnesses and officials said. Some victims were hoisted out of the deep hole in rescue baskets attached to ropes, while others were pulled out of the side of the building.“We heard a crash and we jumped up,” said Danean Doheny, a medical assistant who was working on the fourth floor of a neighboring building and witnessed t...