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The UN’s top tech official discusses AI, bringing the world together and what keeps him up at night

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:44:57 GMT

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Artificial intelligence, and how and whether to regulate it, has gotten a lot of discussion in and around this year’s U.N. General Assembly meeting of world leaders. With a U.N. advisory group on AI set to convene this fall, the world organization’s top tech-policy official, Amandeep Gill, sat down with The Associated Press to talk about the hopes, concerns and questions surrounding AI. Here are excerpts from the interview, edited for length and clarity.___AP: A number of national governments and multinational groups are talking about or beginning to take action on setting guardrails for artificial intelligence. What can the U.N. bring to the table that others can’t? GILL: I’d say three words. Inclusiveness — so bringing a lot many more countries together, compared with some of the very important existing initiatives. The second one is legitimacy, because there is a record of the U.N. helping countries and other actors manage the impact ...

Scattered storms overnight; fewer storms Monday

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:44:57 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Temperatures hit 103º in Austin at Camp Mabry and at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport on Sunday. This easily smashed the previous record high for this day at Camp Mabry of 99º set in 1926, 2005 and 2011. The record at AUS was also broken today beating the previous record of 101º in 2005.Scattered severe storms continue overnightSevere storms brought tennis and baseball sized hail to the I-35 corridor Sunday evening. We've had reports of massive hail and damage from Georgetown to Austin. PHOTOS: Large, damaging hail pummels parts of Central Texas Storms have recently lost some of their intensity, but 60% rain chances continue for the next few hours.A Severe Thunderstorm Watch has been extended until 1 a.m. to account for some of the strong storms that continue through the area. Severe thunderstorm watch extended until 1 a.m.Most of the area is in a Level 2 out of 5 severe weather risk tonight with large hail and damaging winds the primary concern. Severe weat...

Historic Diamond Bakery preps for Yom Kippur

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:44:57 GMT

Diamond Bakery in the Fairfax District, which first opened in 1946, is prepping for the end of Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar, when observers who have been fasting for 25 hours in accordance with tradition finally break their fast at sundown on Monday to eat traditional foods. Yom Kippur is the end of the of Jewish New Year, Diamond Bakery’s current steward Douglas Weinstein explained, a time for the bakery to prepare foods symbolic of the circle of life. “We’re making round challah, sometimes braided round challah to signify the intertwining of all of us, all life and since we’re fasting, it’s to break the fast. So, we’ll be repenting all day tomorrow and we’ll be breaking the fast in our clean new being,” he said.  Doug Weinstein of Diamond Bakery seen working in preparation for Yom Kippur on Sept. 24, 2023, at Diamond Bakery in the Fairfax District. (KTLA)Along with challah, Weinstein says there’s apple strudel, honey cake and all other types of deli...

Hungry to taste some new local food? Season 2 of WETA’s ‘Signature Dish’ airs Monday night

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:44:57 GMT

toggle audio on and off change volume download audio WTOP's Jason Fraley previews 'Signature Dish' on WETA (Part 1) $(function () { $('.wtop-audio-container .fa-play').on('click', function(){ var audio_filename = $('div.wtop-audio-file').data("mp3-url"); ga('send', 'event', 'Audio', 'play', audio_filename); }); }); Are you looking for some great new restaurants to discover in our area? Season 2 of “Signature Dish” premieres on WETA Monday night at 9 p.m.“We had a great first season. We went to 36 restaurants all across the DMV, and got a lot of great feedback,” producer and host Seth Tillman told WT...

What to stream this week: Ed Sheeran, ‘The Voice,’ ‘The Golden Bachelor’ and Wes Anderson returns

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:44:57 GMT

An Ed Sheeran album and a spinoff of “The Bachelor” starring a 72-year-old widower are some of the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near youAmong the offerings worth your time as selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are Wes Anderson’s movie “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar” starring Benedict Cumberbatch, and Jesse L. Martin returns to NBC in “The Irrational,” playing a behavioral science expert.NEW MOVIES TO STREAM— John Carney, the director of “Sing Street” and “Begin Again,” has a new musically inclined charmer in “Flora and Son,” coming to Apple TV+ on Friday, Sept. 29. Eve Hewson stars as a single mother to a 14-year-old boy in Ireland who are both having a rough time of it. In an attempt to “change the narrative” she signs up for remote guitar lessons, with a California based instructor played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. AP Film Writer Jake Coyle wrote that it’s a star-making turn for Hewson. “Hewson’s confident, charismati...

Today in History: September 25, soldiers escort Black students into Little Rock high school

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:44:57 GMT

Today in HistoryToday is Monday, Sept. 25, the 268th day of 2022. There are 97 days left in the year.Today’s Highlight in History: On Sept. 25, 1957, nine Black students who’d been forced to withdraw from Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, because of unruly white crowds were escorted to class by members of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division. On this date: In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Nunez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and sighted the Pacific Ocean.In 1789, the first United States Congress adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states for ratification. (Ten of the amendments became the Bill of Rights.)In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson collapsed after a speech in Pueblo, Colorado, during a national speaking tour in support of the Treaty of Versailles.In 1956, the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable officially went into service with a three-way ceremonial call between New York, Ottawa and London.In 1964, the sitcom “Gomer Pyle, U.S...

COASTER train service resumes after tree falls on tracks

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:44:57 GMT

CARLSBAD, Calif. -- A fallen tree on train tracks in the Carlsbad area Sunday prompted a temporary halt to Coaster service, transportation officials said.The tracks closure was located between Carlsbad Village Station and Poinsettia Station, according to North County Transit District. Driver killed in North County rollover crash Around 9:56 p.m., FOX 5 arrived on scene and found that train service had resumed service.The service stoppage lasted for about an hour, leaving some riders stranded.

Pakistani journalist who supported jailed ex-Prime Minister Imran Khan is freed by his captors

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:44:57 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — A prominent Pakistani television journalist who went missing more than four months ago after being arrested by police returned home Monday after being freed, police and his colleagues said.It is widely believed that Imran Riaz Khan, known for publicly supporting jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan, was being held by security agencies. The two men are not related.Imran Riaz Khan was arrested at an airport in Sialkot city in Punjab province in May as he tried to leave the country after sharing a video message saying that the space for him to do his job was shrinking in Pakistan and he was leaving so he could continue his professional work.He went missing after his arrest, and since then his family had been trying to determine his whereabouts. Security agencies are notorious for holding people without producing them before the courts as required by law.Police in Sialkot announced Monday on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he had been “safely recovered” and was “n...

More schools are adopting 4-day weeks. For parents, the challenge is day 5

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:44:57 GMT

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) — It’s a Monday in September, but with schools closed, the three children in the Pruente household have nowhere to be. Callahan, 13, contorts herself into a backbend as 7-year-old Hudson fiddles with a balloon and 10-year-old Keegan plays the piano. Like a growing number of students around the U.S, the Pruente children are on a four-day school schedule, a change instituted this fall by their district in Independence, Missouri. To the kids, it’s terrific. “I have a three-day break of school!” exclaimed Hudson.But their mom, Brandi Pruente, who teaches French in a neighboring district in suburban Kansas City, is frustrated to find herself hunting for activities to keep her kids entertained and off electronics while she works five days a week. “I feel like I’m back in the COVID shutdown,” she said. Hundreds of school systems around the country have adopted four-day weeks in recent years, mostly in rural and western parts of the U.S. Districts cite cos...

We carry DNA from extinct cousins like Neanderthals. Science is now revealing their genetic legacy

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 18:44:57 GMT

Neanderthals live on within us.These ancient human cousins, and others called Denisovans, once lived alongside our early Homo sapiens ancestors. They mingled and had children. So some of who they were never went away — it’s in our genes. And science is starting to reveal just how much that shapes us.Using the new and rapidly improving ability to piece together fragments of ancient DNA, scientists are finding that traits inherited from our ancient cousins are still with us now, affecting our fertility, our immune systems, even how our bodies handled the COVID-19 virus. “We’re now carrying the genetic legacies and learning about what that means for our bodies and our health,” said Mary Prendergast, a Rice University archeologist.In the past few months alone, researchers have linked Neanderthal DNA to a serious hand disease, the shape of people’s noses and various other human traits. They even inserted a gene carried by Neanderthals and Denisovans into mice to investigate i...