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Ex-Treasury Secretary Lew, Biden’s pick for ambassador to Israel, will face senators at a hearing

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 07:28:47 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is moving quickly to confirm Jacob Lew as ambassador to Israel, holding a hearing on his nomination Wednesday as President Joe Biden visits the region to reinforce U.S. support for Israel and try to ease tensions in its new war with Hamas. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing comes as the White House has told lawmakers that it is considering a request of between $90 billion and $100 billion for the wars in Israel and Ukraine and for Taiwan as it faces threats from China, according to four people familiar with the conversations. The request to Congress would cover a year, according to another person familiar with the Biden administration’s expected request. Lew, a Treasury Secretary under President Barack Obama, was nominated by Biden last month after Ambassador Tom Nides left the post in July. Democrats say Lew’s wealth of government experience — he also served as a White House chief of staff and director of the Office of Management and Budget ...

Report: Young driver fatality rates have fallen sharply in the US, helped by education, technology

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 07:28:47 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Crash and fatality rates among drivers under 21 have fallen dramatically in the U.S. during the past 20 years, a new report says, while noting young drivers are still the riskiest group behind the wheel.Using data from 2002-2021, a non-profit group of state highway safety offices says in the report made public Wednesday that fatal crashes involving a young driver fell by 38%, while deaths of young drivers dropped even more, by about 45%. For drivers 21 and older, fatal crashes rose 8% and deaths rose 11%.The report from the Governors Highway Safety Association acknowledges that young people are driving less than they were 20 years ago, but highlights several other reasons for the improvement, while offering recommendations for building on them.State programs that phase in driving privileges were at the top of the list. These programs, called graduated drivers license laws, often restrict or ban certain activities, such as driving at night or with peers, for teens. Th...

World Food Program appeals for $19 million to provide emergency food in quake-hit Afghanistan

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 07:28:47 GMT

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The United Nations’ World Food Program on Wednesday appealed for $19 million to provide emergency assistance to tens of thousands of people affected by a series of devastating earthquakes and aftershocks that has rocked western Afghanistan.Ana Maria Salhuana, deputy country director of the World Food Program in Afghanistan, said it was helping survivors but it urgently needed more funding because “we are having to take this food from an already severely underfunded program.”The group said it is working to provide emergency food assistance to 100,000 people in the region.“Disasters like these earthquakes pound communities who are already barely able to feed themselves back into utter destitution,” the WFP said.A 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck part of western Afghanistan on Sunday, after thousands of people died and entire villages were flattened by major quakes a week earlier. It was the fourth quake the U.S. Geological Survey has measured at 6.3 magnitu...

Gaza carnage spreads anger across Mideast, alarming US allies and threatening to widen conflict

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 07:28:47 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — Within hours after a blast was said to have killed hundreds at a Gaza hospital, protesters hurled stones at Palestinian security forces in the occupied West Bank and at riot police in neighboring Jordan, venting fury at their leaders for failing to stop the carnage.President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi of Egypt, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas — friends of the U.S. who normally relish the chance to meet with American presidents — called off a planned Wednesday summit with Joe Biden, who will now only visit Israel. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spent much of the past week meeting with Arab leaders to try to keep tensions in check, but those efforts are now in doubt following the hospital blast. The raw nerve of decades of Palestinian suffering, left exposed by U.S.-brokered normalization agreements between Israel and Arab states, is throbbing once again, threatening broader unrest.“This war, which has entered a dangerous phase, will ...

Lower house of Russian parliament votes to revoke ratification of global nuclear test ban

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 07:28:47 GMT

MOSCOW (AP) — The lower house of Russia’s parliament on Wednesday gave its final approval to a bill revoking the ratification of a global nuclear test ban treaty, a move Moscow described as putting it on par with the United States.The State Duma lawmakers voted unanimously to revoke the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in the third and final reading on Wednesday. The bill will now go to the upper house, the Federation Council, which will consider it next week. Federation Council lawmakers have already said they will support the bill. The legislation was introduced to parliament following a statement from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who warned earlier this month that Moscow could revoke its 2000 decision to ratify the treaty to “mirror” the stand taken by the United States, which has signed but not ratified the nuclear test ban.The treaty, adopted in 1996, bans all nuclear explosions anywhere in the world, although it has never fully entered into ...

Biden says Gaza hospital blast ‘appears as though it was done by the other team’ and not Israel

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 07:28:47 GMT

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — President Joe Biden vowed to show the world that the U.S. stands in solidarity with Israelis during his visit there Wednesday, and offered an assessment that the deadly explosion at a Gaza Strip hospital apparently was not carried out by the Israeli military. “Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting. But Biden said there were “a lot of people out there” who weren’t sure what caused the blast. Biden didn’t offer details on why he believed the blast was not caused by the Israelis. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike caused the destruction and hundreds of deaths. The Israeli military denied involvement and blamed a misfired rocket from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, another militant group. However, that organization also rejected responsibility.Biden had been scheduled to visit Jordan after the stop in Israel, ...

Former Austrian chancellor Kurz stands trial for allegedly making false statements to an inquiry

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 07:28:47 GMT

VIENNA (AP) — Former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz went on trial Wednesday on a charge of having made false statements to a parliamentary inquiry into alleged corruption in his first government.Once a rising star among conservatives in Europe, Kurz resigned in 2021 amid a separate corruption probe and has since left politics. Kurz, who denies the charge, could face up to three years in prison if convicted. The case, which opened in Vienna’s criminal court, centers on his testimony to an inquiry that focused on the coalition he led from 2017, when his conservative People’s Party formed a government with the far-right Freedom Party, until its collapse in 2019. Prosecutors accuse Kurz of having given false evidence in June 2020 regarding his role in the setting up of a holding company, OeBAG, which administers the state’s role in some companies, and the appointment of his former close confidant Thomas Schmid to its leadership.In their indictment, prosecutors reference potent...

Musk’s X tests $1 fee for new users in the Philippines and New Zealand in bid to target spam

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 07:28:47 GMT

LONDON (AP) — Elon Musk’s social media platform X has begun charging a $1 fee to new users in the Philippines and New Zealand, in a test designed to cut down on the spam and fake accounts flourishing on the site formerly known as Twitter. The company said late Tuesday that it has started trying out the annual subscription method for new and unverified accounts. The program, dubbed Not a Bot, won’t apply to existing users. It’s not clear why it only applies to New Zealand and the Philippines or why those countries were chosen. “This new test was developed to bolster our already successful efforts to reduce spam, manipulation of our platform and bot activity, while balancing platform accessibility with the small fee amount,” the X support account tweeted. “It is not a profit driver.” Since Musk bought X a year ago, he has introduced a slew of changes such as renaming the platform and gutting its workforce — including its content moderation team. Outside watchdog grou...

Former Virginia House Speaker Filler-Corn will forego run for governor and seek congressional seat

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 07:28:47 GMT

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Former Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn has decided against a bid for governor in 2025 and will instead run next year to represent the competitive northern Virginia congressional seat being vacated by a fellow Democrat, U.S. Rep. Jennifer Wexton.Filler-Corn, who has served in the Virginia General Assembly since 2010 and was the first woman and first Jewish person to hold the post of speaker, discussed her decision with The Associated Press on Tuesday afternoon before filing official paperwork.She made the case that she had overseen a period of tremendous progress in Richmond and said she wants to bring her legislative expertise to a “broken” Washington where a speaker-less GOP House majority was “truly taking us backward, making America weaker.” “I have a record for getting the job done, protecting Virginians from all sorts of Republican chaos and extremists,” Filler-Corn said. Filler-Corn’s move leaves two other presumptive candidates, U.S. Rep. ...

A Hong Kong protester shot by police in 2019 receives a 47-month jail term

Published Wed, 25 Dec 2024 07:28:47 GMT

HONG KONG (AP) — A Hong Kong man who was shot by police during pro-democracy protests in 2019 was sentenced Wednesday to 47 months in prison on charges of rioting, assaulting a police officer and perverting the course of justice, in the latest court ruling that severely punished participants in the anti-government movement. Tsang Chi-kin was the first known victim of police gunfire during the months-long protests beginning in June 2019. Then a secondary school student, he was shot at close range after he swung at a police sergeant with a rod. His shooting further inflamed already widespread public anger against the police, who were condemned as being heavy-handed in quelling the unrest.Tsang was charged with rioting and assaulting police. But after he was released on bail, he failed to appear in court. In October 2020, he tried to seek asylum at the U.S. Consulate but was turned away. He hid in various locations in the city with assistance from members of a YouTube channel that was ...