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Takeaways from AP’s reporting on an American beef trader’s links to Amazon deforestation

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:22 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Data analysis by The Associated Press and the Rainforest Investigations Network, a nonprofit reporting consortium, found that a little-known American meat trading company in Utah is feeding China’s growing appetite for Brazilian beef, a commodity that’s driving the deforestation of the Amazon.The world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon plays a critical role in the global climate by absorbing carbon emissions.As Chinese beef imports have surged sixfold in the last decade, according to U.N. Comtrade data, Salt Lake City-based Parker-Migliorini International, known as PMI Foods, has shipped more than $1.7 billion dollars in Brazilian beef, almost all of that to China. PMI’s biggest supplier of Brazilian beef is meat processing giant JBS SA, which has been cited repeatedly by Brazilian federal prosecutors for buying cattle raised on deforested land.PMI’s role as middleman shipping meat across borders shows how the growing international trade in beef can drive deforestat...

Biden is bound for Maine to mourn with a community reeling from a shooting that left 18 people dead

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:22 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is heading to Lewiston, Maine to mourn with a community where 18 people were killed in the deadliest mass shooting in state history. It’s the type of trip that is becoming far too familiar. “Too many times the president and first lady have traveled to communities completely torn apart by gun violence,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on the eve of the Bidens’ trip on Friday. “We can’t accept it as normal.” In addition to those killed, 13 people were injured in the Oct. 25 shootings at a bar and a bowling alley.The Bidens will pay their respects to the victims, meet with first responders and grieve with families and community members affected by the shootings, Jean-Pierre said. The president has said he’s determined to fight gun violence in the U.S. He created the first-ever White House office of gun violence prevention, which is charged with finding solutions and fully implementing landmark gun safety ...

The FBI is investigating a Texas sheriff’s office, a woman interviewed by agents says

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:22 GMT

DALLAS (AP) — The FBI is investigating a Texas sheriff who faced complaints of corruption from his own deputies for years before drawing broader scrutiny for his agency’s response to a mass shooting, according to a woman interviewed by federal agents.The woman said she’s twice met with a pair of FBI agents in recent months after contacting them about what she feels was the sheriff’s botched investigation of her brother’s killing. Jenifer Jones told The Associated Press the agents gathered records accusing San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers and his staff of wide-ranging misconduct and told her they were looking for potential civil rights violations. During hourslong interviews, Jones said they asked specific questions about cases and events well beyond her brother’s death. Federal investigators’ interest in the rural sheriff comes after an AP investigation found longstanding accusations that Capers has ignored deputies’ misconduct and neg...

Hintz has 2 goals and an assist to help Stars beat Oilers for 3rd straight win

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:22 GMT

EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Roope Hintz had two goals and an assist, Scott Wedgewood made 46 saves and the Dallas Stars beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 Thursday night for their third straight win.Joe Pavelski had a goal and two assists and Matt Duchene also scored for the Stars, who improved to 7-1-1 on the season.Sam Gagner scored twice in his return to the lineup and Evander Kane also had a goal struggling Oilers, who have lost five of their last six and dropped to 2-6-1. Stuart Skinner had 23 saves.Dallas opened the scoring 8:08 into the game right after Edmonton’s Ryan Nugent-Hopkins missed a golden opportunity. The Stars went the other way on a 2-on-1 with Duchene opting to shoot and beating Skinner down low for his second of the season.The Oilers bounced back with 3 minutes left in the first period as Nugent-Hopkins stripped a puck in the Dallas zone and directed it to Kane, who blasted his third of the season past the Wedgewood’s glove.The Stars regained the lead 3:25 into th...

Anthony Albanese soon will be the first Australian prime minister in 7 years to visit China

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:22 GMT

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Anthony Albanese will become the first Australian prime minister in seven years to visit China in recognition that bilateral relations have improved after crashing to unprecedented depths over trade and security differences that remain largely unresolved.The election of Albanese’s center-left government last year after nine years of conservative rule created an opportunity for a reset. His three-day visit that starts Saturday will take him to Shanghai then Beijing, though details about his itinerary are limited.Since 2016, when Chinese leader Xi Jinping met an Australian prime minister twice in six months, China severed top-level ministerial contacts. Official and unofficial trade sanctions stacked up since 2020 to cost Australian exporters up to 20 billion Australian dollars ($13 billion) a year for commodities including coal, wine, beef, barley and lobsters as business and politics entwined in the relationship as never before.But many say the trade boyco...

Christie banks on New Hampshire as he makes the case that only he can stop Trump: ‘I am the cavalry’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:22 GMT

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has a message for disgruntled Democrats and independents in New Hampshire fed up with the 2024 presidential front-runners.“Vote in the Republican primary, baby. We’re the only game in town, and we’re the only way to stop Donald Trump,” he told voters at a diner in Derry last week during a swing through the first-in-the-nation primary state.As his GOP rivals including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott go all in on Iowa in the weeks before voting begins, Christie often has New Hampshire all to himself. He’s charting a path here as the race’s most vocal critic of the former president, casting himself as the only Republican willing to directly take him on and arguing that Trump will lose to President Joe Biden next November if he’s the party’s nominee.While he’s unpopular in national polling, some surveys here conducted in September suggest his support reaches the low do...

How an American meat broker is fueling Amazon deforestation

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:22 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — As incomes in China have grown in the last decade, so has China’s appetite for beef. No longer out of reach for China’s middle class, beef now sizzles in home woks and restaurant kitchens. China has become the world’s biggest importer of beef, and Brazil is China’s biggest supplier, according to United Nations Comtrade data. More beef moves from Brazil to China than between any other two countries. But the Brazilian cattle industry is a major driver of the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Data analysis by The Associated Press and the Rainforest Investigations Network, a nonprofit reporting consortium, found that a little-known American company is among the key suppliers and distributors feeding China’s hunger for beef – and the Amazon deforestation that it fuels.The world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon plays a critical role in the global climate by absorbing carbon emissions. A new study published this week in the journal of the National Academy of Sciences ...

Daylight saving 2023: Here’s what a sleep expert says about the time change

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:22 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — Brunch dates and flag football games might be a little easier to get to this Sunday, when phones grace early-risers with an extra hour of rest before alarm clocks go off.The downside: Next week across most of the U.S., the sun will set well before many folks step foot out of the office, leaving them to run errands or take walks in utter darkness. Come Nov. 5, daylight saving time is out and standard time is in, and will last until March 10.No need to wait till the midnight hour to prepare for the time change that clocks in early Sunday, when 2 a.m. becomes 1 a.m. Before bed beckons Saturday night, rewind the clock on the microwave, oven, car, or any other device not yet clever enough to make the leap on its own. Besides scheduling stumbles and sleep habit disruptions, experts say the twice-yearly ritual can have more serious effects on human health.Many Americans are already sleep-deprived, and a change in time messes with sleep schedules even more, says Dr. Phyllis Z...

What’s streaming now: Annette Bening, Jason Aldean, ‘Planet Earth,’ NKOTB and ‘Blue Eye Samurai’

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:22 GMT

Awkwafina starring as a game-show-obsessed woman in “Quiz Lady” and the animated historical drama “Blue Eye Samurai” about a mixed-race, revenge-seeking female samurai in Japan are some of the new television, movies, music and games headed to a device near youAlso among the offerings selected by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists are a studio album from Jason Aldean, a new Hulu series made from Charmaine Wilkerson’s novel “Black Cake” and Annette Bening portrays a real-life hero who swam the treacherous passage from Cuba to Key West in 2013.NEW MOVIES TO STREAM— It took Diana Nyad more than 30 years and five tries to swim from Cuba to the Florida Keys. “Free Solo” filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s “Nyad,” streaming Friday on Netflix, dramatizes her feat of endurance, along with the perseverance of her closest friends and collaborators. Bening plays Nyad, who was 60 when she began training herself again for the open-ocean swim. In a stand-out supporti...

Poll shows most US adults think AI will add to election misinformation in 2024

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:11:22 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — The warnings have grown louder and more urgent as 2024 approaches: The rapid advance of artificial intelligence tools threatens to amplify misinformation in next year’s presidential election at a scale never seen before.Most adults in the U.S. feel the same way, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy.The poll found that nearly 6 in 10 adults (58%) think AI tools — which can micro-target political audiences, mass produce persuasive messages, and generate realistic fake images and videos in seconds — will increase the spread of false and misleading information during next year’s elections.By comparison, 6% think AI will decrease the spread of misinformation while one-third say it won’t make much of a difference.“Look what happened in 2020 — and that was just social media,” said 66-year-old Rosa Rangel of Fort Worth, Texas.Rangel, a Democrat who sa...