UNITED STATES
Keystone vote looms
The US Senate braced for yesterday’s cliffhanger vote on whether to approve construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, with President Barack Obama signaling that he might veto the controversial bill. Congressional Republicans have long pushed the Obama administration to lift its hold on the US$5.3 billion project, which remains under extended review about six years after it was submitted. The pipeline, which would bring oil from tar sands in the Canadian province of Alberta to refineries on the US Gulf coast, easily passed the House of Representatives last week.
UNITED NATIONS
African birthrates lauded
Fewer babies could mean an “economic miracle” for sub-Saharan Africa, with gains of US$500 billion a year over three decades for the region, the UN Population Fund said yesterday. The State of World Population report said a total of 59 nations were poised for a “demographic dividend” when the working-age population outnumbers the rest due to declining fertility rates. The agency said these nations — almost all in Africa — could follow the example of East Asian economies like South Korea, whose rise since the 1970s was helped by demographics.
HONDURAS
Family pleads for sisters
The family of the reigning Miss Honduras pleaded with police on Monday to find their teenage daughter, who was abducted just days before she was set to fly to London for the Miss World contest. Maria Jose Alvarado, 19, and her sister Sofia Trinidad have not been heard from since they vanished on Thursday outside the northern city of Santa Barbara, and all signs are that the siblings have been kidnapped. “Days have gone by and we have not heard a thing. The police have to know something,” said a tearful Teresa Munoz, their mother. The sisters disappeared after attending a birthday party for Sofia’s boyfriend.
UNITED STATES
Second USC killer gets life
The second of two men convicted of murder in the 2012 shooting deaths of two University of Southern California (USC) graduate students from China was sentenced on Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Javier Bolden was found guilty last month of first-degree murder for the slayings of 23-year-old engineering students Qu Ming (瞿銘) and Wu Ying (吳穎), who were gunned down in a botched robbery attempt as they sat together in a car parked outside Wu’s rented home, a few blocks from campus. Bolden, 22, received two consecutive life terms without parole eligibility for the USC killings in April 2012, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said. Bolden’s accomplice, 21-year-old Byran Barnes, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in February after pleading guilty to murder and admitting he was the actual shooter. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty for the two men.
UNITED KINGDOM
Hammer attacker sentenced
A judge on Monday handed out a life sentence with a minimum of 18 years in prison for a thief who brutally attacked three sisters from the United Arab Emirates in a London hotel room with a claw hammer. Drug addict Philip Spence, 33, attacked the tourists as they slept with their children at the four-star Cumberland Hotel on April 6, in an incident that raised concern about the safety of visitors from the Gulf.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
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