NewsAFP NewsVaquitas still exist, but barely: sea 'panda' survey
The vaquita, a small porpoise on the verge of extinction, is still hanging in there, said scientists Wednesday who had spotted about a dozen specimens of Mexico's "panda of the sea" on an expedition in May. Scientists conducting a survey of the vaquita's endemic range in the Gulf of California off Mexico's north coast -- spotted between 10 and 13 of the porpoises last month, they reported Wednesday.
NewsHuffPostHazy Photos Show Wildfire Smoke Blanketing Northeast
Canadian wildfire smoke is creating dangerous air quality conditions in parts of the U.S.
NewsAFP NewsCanada's Quebec expects thousands more to flee wildfires
Canada's Quebec province, now the epicenter of a devastating wildfire season that has ravaged the country, expects thousands more people to be forced to flee advancing fires, its leader said Wednesday.The French-speaking Canadian province has recorded 438 wildfires since the beginning of the year, more than double the average over the past decade for the same period.
BusinessReutersMicrosoft to offer OpenAI's GPT models to government cloud customers
The Redmond, Washington-based company has added support for large language models (LLMs) powering GPT-4 the latest and the most sophisticated of the LLMs from OpenAI, and GPT-3, to Azure Government. Use of LLMs have boomed since the launch of ChatGPT from OpenAI, in which Microsoft holds a stake, and businesses of all shapes and sizes are racing to build features on top of them. It is the first time Microsoft is bringing the GPT technology to Azure Government, which offers cloud solutions to U.S. government agencies, and marks the first such effort by a major company to make the chatbot technology available to governments.
PoliticsHuffPost‘Hold The Floor’: Right-Wing Stages Blockade Of House As Payback For Kevin McCarthy
Conservatives can't stand that McCarthy cut a debt ceiling deal with Joe Biden that passed the House with Democratic votes.
NewsHuffPostHear That Sound? Oh, It's Just Lindsey Graham Whining Over The Debt Ceiling.
The South Carolina Republican is upset over defense funding. Allegedly.
NewsHuffPostTrial Begins For Former Parkland Deputy Who Stayed Outside During School Shooting
Former Broward Sheriff’s Office Deputy Scot Peterson waited outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School as shots rang out inside the school in 2018.
NewsAFP NewsUkraine dam's destruction increases mines threat: Red Cross
The destruction of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine will have a catastrophic effect on locating landmines in the affected region, the Red Cross warned Wednesday."We knew where the hazards were," said Erik Tollefsen, head of the Weapon Contamination Unit at the International Committee of the Red Cross.
NewsAFP NewsUS sets $5 mn reward for Swede who marketed encrypted phones to traffickers
The United States offered a $5 million reward Wednesday for the Swedish man who marketed an encrypted communications network for drug traffickers -- unaware that the technology was developed by the FBI. The State Department posted the hefty reward for Maximilian Rivkin, who has escaped arrest since the 2021 takedown of the ANOM network, which saw 800 arrested on three continents as well as seizures of 38 tonnes of drugs and $48 million in various currencies."Rivkin was administrator and influenc
BusinessReutersAirbus deliveries up in May, Go First orders fall by 16 units
Airbus delivered 63 aircraft in May, up 34% from the same month last year, bringing its total for the year to 244 jets, the company said on Wednesday, confirming Reuters reports. It booked no new net orders during the traditional lull immediately before the upcoming Paris Airshow. But it reshuffled orders for 17 planes including 16 removed from the list of outstanding orders for India's Go First, days before the airline sought bankruptcy protection last month, according to a monthly data sheet from the company.
ScienceAFP NewsOceans warmer last month than any May on record
Global oceans were warmer last month than any other May in records stretching back to the 19th century, the European Union's climate monitoring unit reported Wednesday.Temperatures over the ocean could be further boosted in coming months "as we are seeing the El Nino signal continuing to emerge in the equatorial Pacific," she said in a statement, referring to a periodic, natural shift in ocean winds that enhances warming globally.
PoliticsHuffPostMike Pence's Campaign Launch Attracts Twitter Mockery From All Sides
The former vice president is bringing Americans together, one jeering tweet at a time.
NewsAFP NewsBelarus pardons jailed student detained in plane diversion
Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has pardoned Sofia Sapega, a student arrested with her partner, the dissident Roman Protasevich, when their plane was forcibly grounded in 2021. Sapega was detained with Protasevich, a Belarusian opposition activist, in May 2021 when their Ryanair flight from Greece to Lithuania was grounded as it passed over Belarus.
NewsAFP NewsSunak pitches UK leadership on AI on Washington visit
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak pushed Wednesday for a leading UK role in regulating the fast-growing field of artificial intelligence, on a visit to Washington where he is also highlighting unstinting support on Ukraine.Sunak has also been talking up British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace as a candidate to lead NATO before the Western military alliance holds a summit next month in Lithuania, with the prime ministers of Denmark and Estonia also seen as contenders.
NewsAFP NewsPope operation on painful hernia completed 'without complications'
Pope Francis underwent an operation on a painful abdominal hernia Wednesday, which was completed without complications but which revived concerns over the 86-year-old's increasingly fragile health.- Side effects - For about a year, Pope Francis has had to rely on a wheelchair because of recurring knee pain.
NewsAFP NewsSmog from Canada wildfires blankets New York
An orange-tinged smog caused by Canada's wildfires shrouded New York on Wednesday, obscuring its famous skyscrapers and causing residents to don face masks, as cities along the US East Coast issued air quality alerts.America's financial capital and much of New York state were subject to an air quality health advisory alert that was in effect until Wednesday night.
NewsAFP NewsUK says awaiting 'all available facts' on Ukraine dam
Britain is unwilling to apportion blame at this stage for the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine and is awaiting "all available facts", Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told AFP on Wednesday."It's clear that this event is a direct repercussion of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and there's nothing that Russia can do to hide that fact," he said.
NewsAFP NewsPressure on frontline medics as Ukraine fights back
Ukraine's assault against Russian positions flanking the city of Bakhmut has triggered a surge in battlefield casualties and piled pressure on frontline medics.Kyiv has not released casualty figures, but AFP journalists saw Ukrainian military medics at a "stabilisation point" near the front treating wounded soldiers.
NewsHuffPostTexas Police Searching For Gunman That Shot Family Of 5 In Their Car
Sunnyvale police said a gunman opened fire on the car, killing 27-year-old Tyesha Merritt and hospitalizing four others, including three young children.
PoliticsHuffPostAlaska Official Sends BDSM-Themed Letter To Feds: 'We’re The Sub To EPA’s Dom’
Jason Brune invoked kinky sex to make a point about how he views power dynamics between his state and the federal government.
BusinessReutersBT CEO pay to be frozen until retirement - Sky News
The BT Group chief's base pay will be maintained at the level it was set when he joined the company in 2019 and is expected to be published in the telecoms group's annual report due Thursday, according to Sky News. The FTSE-100 firm announced plans in May to shed its global workforce by 40%, while Franco-Israeli billionaire Patrick Drahi increased his stake in the firm to 24.5%. Jansen's annual salary had been fixed for five years upon assuming the role in 2019, which would have expired this year.
PoliticsAFP NewsCNN chief Chris Licht ends turbulent run at network
Chris Licht, the embattled head of CNN, has stepped down "effective immediately," the network's parent company Warner Brothers Discovery announced Wednesday, as the global news outlet struggles to reverse a ratings decline.During Licht's tenure, CNN saw ratings diminish even as it tried to position itself in the middle between the hard-right Fox News and the progressive MSNBC. In announcing the change, Warner Brothers Discovery chief David Zaslav said he has "great respect" for Licht, whom he de
BusinessAFP NewsStocks slip as Canada raises interest rates
Stocks slipped Wednesday after Canada's central bank made a surprise interest rate hike, dampening hopes that the US Federal Reserve would skip an interest rate increase later this month.Canada's central bank on Wednesday increased its benchmark lending rate by 25 basis points to 4.75 percent, as the economy rose unexpectedly and inflation remained stubbornly high, following Australia's lifting of its interest rate to an 11-year high on Tuesday.
NewsHuffPostDetroit Clerk Who Locked Door Before Customers Were Shot Will Face Trial
The gas station clerk locked in several other customers with a gunman. One person was fatally shot in the ensuing violence.
NewsAFP News'You can't even see the roof': Ukrainians flee dam flood
With the flood reaching the rooftops, rescuers raced to save people in Kherson as water from the destroyed Kakhovka dam engulfed the southern Ukrainian city.The Dnipro River that flows through Kherson has risen by more than five metres since the dam upstream was destroyed early Tuesday, and official expected it to keep rising throughout Wednesday.
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