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ChatGPT’s chief testifies before Congress, calls for new agency to regulate artificial intelligence

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:25 GMT

By MATT O’BRIEN (AP Technology Writer)The head of the artificial intelligence company that makes ChatGPT told Congress on Tuesday that government intervention “will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful” AI systems.“As this technology advances, we understand that people are anxious about how it could change the way we live. We are too,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified at a Senate hearing Tuesday.Altman proposed the formation of a U.S. or global agency that would license the most powerful AI systems and have the authority to “take that license away and ensure compliance with safety standards.”His San Francisco-based startup rocketed to public attention after it released ChatGPT late last year. ChatGPT is a free chatbot tool that answers questions with convincingly human-like responses.What started out as a panic among educators about ChatGPT’s use to cheat on homework assignments has expanded to broader concerns abo...

The worst inflation of all: Record levels of debt

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:25 GMT

High consumer prices are one thing. Inflation has taken its toll on most household finances. But add high interest rates on top of soaring consumer debt, and the financial pressure increases even more.How soon should you take action if you’re struggling to pay your bills on time? Days not weeks.Rising debt and delinquenciesCredit card balances increased $61 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022 to $986 billion, surpassing the pre-pandemic high, according to an analysis released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. It’s the most significant debt gain in the history of the New York Fed’s data, compiled since 1999.And timely payments are becoming an issue. “The share of current debt becoming delinquent increased again in the fourth quarter for nearly all debt types,” the report said.In particular, the Fed noted that younger borrowers — in their 20s, 30s and 40s — were struggling to keep up with monthly payments:“Some of these borrowers are strugg...

Putin, Zelenskyy agree to meet with ‘African leaders peace mission,’ says South Africa president

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:25 GMT

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have agreed to separate meetings with a delegation of leaders from six African countries to discuss a possible plan to end the war in Ukraine, South Africa’s president said Tuesday. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he spoke with Putin and Zelenskyy by phone over the weekend and they each agreed to host “an African leaders peace mission” in Moscow and Kyiv, respectively.“Principal to our discussions are efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the devastating conflict in the Ukraine,” Ramaphosa said.The leaders of Zambia, Senegal, Congo, Uganda and Egypt would make up the delegation along with Ramaphosa, he said in a statement. Putin and Zelenskyy gave him the go-ahead to “commence the preparations,” the South African leader said.Four of those six African countries — South Africa, Congo, Senegal and Uganda — abstained from a U.N. vote last year on ...

Brazil sends thousands of Venezuelan migrants to country’s rich southern states

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:25 GMT

PACARAIMA, Brazil (AP) — As the sun rose, Miguel Gonzalez, partner Maryelis Rodriguez and their four young children got off a passenger bus after an 18-hour ride south from the eastern Venezuelan community they desperately wanted to leave.The parents, with minds still muzzy from sleep, retrieved two duffel bags and assessed needs before entering the station: Diaper change for the 1-year-old. Restrooms for the 2-, 4- and 6-year-old. Directions to Brazil.“Taxi? Taxi?” hawkish cab drivers asked everyone walking through the Santa Elena de Uairen station, where thousands of people every month walk through Venezuelan territory one last time. Roughly a half hour later, the Gonzalez family, like dozens of others every day, became migrants for the first time when they exited a taxi in Pacaraima, Brazil.More than 7.2 million people have left Venezuela since the country’s political, economic and social crisis began last decade. Most have gone to Spanish-speaking countries of South America — wi...

Council of Europe summit in Iceland seeks to hold Russia to account for waging war in Ukraine

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:25 GMT

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — Leaders from across the continent are laser-focused on holding Russia to account for its invasion of Ukraine and were poised to approve a system during their Council of Europe summit that would precisely establish the damages Moscow would have to pay to rebuild the nation. The 46-nation Council of Europe is opening its first summit in 18 years late Tuesday, fully backing its member state Ukraine and condemning Russia, which was expelled from the organization, for inflicting war on its neighbor.While almost all European nations have provided military support or taken in refugees from Ukraine, the Council of Europe, the continent’s preeminent human rights organization, is uniquely placed to coordinate legal and judicial support.“When we think in terms of reconstruction it’s an enormously important judicial element to have this register of damages to give justice to the victims,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. And after Ukrainia...

US announces criminal cases involving flow of technology, information to Russia, China and Iran

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:25 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department announced a series of criminal cases Tuesday tracing the illegal flow of sensitive technology, including Apple’s software code for self-driving cars and materials used for missiles, to foreign adversaries like Russia, China and Iran.Some of the alleged theft highlighted by the department dates back several years, but U.S. officials are drawing attention to the collection of cases now to highlight the work of a task force created this year to disrupt the transfer of goods to foreign countries.“We are committed to doing all we can to prevent these advanced tools from falling into the hands of adversaries who wield them in a way that threatens not only our national security but democratic values everywhere,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, who heads the Justice Department’s national security division.One of the cases, unsealed Tuesday in federal court in Los Angeles, accuses a former software engineer from Apple of tak...

Cyprus Finance Ministry: More than 1.2 billion euros in Russian assets frozen

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:25 GMT

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Some 1.2 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in Russian-owned assets managed by Cyprus-registered companies were frozen in compliance with sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, Cyprus’ Finance Ministry said Tuesday.The ministry told The Associated Press “the vast majority” of those assets were held in European Union credit institutions and the entire amount came on top of 105 million euros frozen by banks in Cyprus.The ministry provided the information in response to European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders saying last week that Cyprus appeared to be falling behind on freezing Russian-owned assets.Reynders said that while other EU member nations each froze 2-4 billion euros worth of Russian assets, Cyprus’ reported sum of around 100 million euros “seems to be a little low.”The Finance Ministry said this was an error owed to the European Commission receiving incomplete information – an error since rectified by updating a relevan...

How the American Dream convinces people loneliness is normal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:25 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — At the end of “The Searchers,” one of John Wayne’s most renowned Westerns, a kidnapped girl has been rescued and a family reunited. As the closing music swells, Wayne’s character looks around at his kin — people who have other people to lean on — and then walks off toward the dusty West Texas horizon, lonesome and alone.It’s a classic example of a fundamental American tall tale — that of a nation built on notions of individualism, a male-dominated story filled with loners and “rugged individualists” who suck it up, do what needs to be done, ride off into the sunset and like it that way.In reality, loneliness in America can be deadly. This month, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared it an American epidemic, saying that it takes as deadly a toll as smoking upon the population of the United States. “Millions of people in America are struggling in the shadows,” he said, “and that’s not right.”He cited some potent forces: the gradual withering of l...

Hot and dry conditions persist as wildfires rage through Western Canada

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:25 GMT

Hot and dry conditions are expected to continue as wildfires throughout Western Canada have forced thousands of evacuations and air quality warnings due to smoke as far east as northern Ontario.  Roughly 2,500 people are fighting the fires throughout Alberta and 25 of 88 active wildfires are considered out of control.Wildfires have also been a concern for Alberta’s neighbours, including the Northwest Territories, where the K’atl’odeeche First Nation and town of Hay River, about 120 kilometres from the Alberta boundary, are under evacuation orders. A convoy of vehicles was allowed to leave a northern Saskatchewan village early this morning after Buffalo Narrows issued a mandatory evacuation order.In British Columbia, the City of Fort St. John, about 200 kilometres northwest of Grand Prairie, Alta., also issued an evacuation alert for its roughly 21,000 residents in response to a wildfire that’s more than 130 square kilometres in size.The British Columbia Wildf...

12-year-old Texas boy arrested after fatal shooting at Sonic restaurant

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:12:25 GMT

KEENE, Texas (AP) — A 12-year-old boy has been arrested on a murder warrant in the fatal shooting of a Sonic Drive-In employee in Texas, police said.Matthew Davis, 32, was shot and killed Saturday night as he fought with Angel Gomez, 20, in the parking lot of the restaurant in Keene, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of Dallas, police said.The boy was at the restaurant with Gomez, who was causing an unspecified disturbance in the parking lot, and shot Davis several times after taking a gun from Gomez’s vehicle, according to a police statement.Davis was taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead, police said. The boy used an AR-style rifle in the shooting, Police Chief James Kidd told The Dallas Morning News on Tuesday.Both Gomez and the boy fled the scene, but Gomez later returned and was arrested on a murder warrant and the boy, whose name has not been released, was found and arrested in the nearby town of Rio Vista, police said.Court records do not show that formal ch...