Author: PolitCens

SEOUL, South Korea — An Apple TV+ documentary series, “K-pop Idols,” premiering Friday, offers an intimate look at how the K-pop industry is embracing diversity while grappling with challenges in a field that demands perfection.

The six-part series features Korean American star Jessi and up-and-coming K-pop bands like Cravity and Blackswan, documenting the highs and lows of their careers.

K-pop is known for its blend of vocals with precise choreography.

Blackswan members Fatou and Nvee told The Associated Press they practice up to 10 hours daily, including choreography and vocal sessions before the “comeback” season which refers to a string of events to promote their latest songs.

The grueling practice starts early.

Once under contract, K-pop trainees enter a system that includes classes in manners, language, dance, and choreography. As of 2022, there were 752 K-pop trainees under entertainment labels, according to a Korea Creative Content Agency report.

Despite recent pushback against the perennial “dark side of K-pop” narrative, the documentary shows that some industry problems persist.

Former Blackswan member Youngheun said members had a curfew and were not allowed to drink or date. “We even had to report when we were getting our nails done and going to the convenience store in front of our house,” she shared in the documentary.

Rigid control extends to diet.

Blackswan member Gabi is seen eating a meal of egg, chicken breast and what resembles sweet potato sticks during her trainee period. “I am dieting because Mr. Yoon [the label’s head] told me I need to lose weight,” Gabi said.

The pressure applies to boy bands, too.

Cravity member Wonjin shared that he was given two weeks to lose weight to join the label. “I would eat like one egg a day […] I lost about 7kg,” he said in the documentary.

Bradley Cramp, one of executive producers of the documentary, noted that such restrictions exist in other competitive industries as well.

“I honestly don’t know one idol or elite sports athlete or entertainer that doesn’t deal with the issue of diet and self-image and mental health to some degree or another,” he told The Associated Press.

The documentary also touches on K-pop’s new challenge: embracing diversity.

Following BTS’ international success, K-pop labels have been actively recruiting foreign talents, which sometimes brings unfamiliar challenges.

In the documentary, Yoon Deung Ryong, the founder of Blackswan’s label DR Music, struggles to settle internal conflicts among members, which later escalated to online clashes between fans.

“If the company says, ‘don’t fight,’ they won’t fight,” he said, referring to traditional K-pop groups. He added that he can’t control a “multinational group” the same way because of language and cultural differences. There are currently no Korean members in Blackswan after member changes.

With K-pop’s global expansion, fundamental questions remain about the essence of K-pop.

“In a K-pop group, if there are no Korean members, I feel like it’s just a K-pop cover group, isn’t it?” Blackswan’s former Korean member Youngheun said in the documentary.

However, Cravity’s Hyeongjun disagrees. “If foreigners come to Korea and sing in other languages, I am not sure if I can call that K-pop, but since they [Blackswan members] are active in Korea and use Korean, they are K-pop.”

Cramp said social media has impacted K-pop’s ecosystem in various ways, including creating a “symbiotic relationship” between K-pop stars and fans, and forcing stars to live their lives “under a microscope.”

“There’s a desire to be real. But on the other hand, you have to obviously keep certain things kind of out of the public spotlight,” he told the AP. “You want to be famous, but yet at the same time, you still want your privacy and you want to be able to go and have dinner with your friends and have a good time and not be filmed doing it.”

“K-Pop Idols” is now available on Apple TV+.
…

Mexico City — “That’s it, dude! Done!” exclaimed Eliezer López as he jumped up and down, throwing his arms to the sky and drawing a sign of the cross across his chest. His joy was so contagious, his friends started to emerge from nearby tents to celebrate with him.

López, a 20-year-old Venezuelan migrant in Mexico City, had reason to rejoice: After several frustrating attempts, he was able to secure an appointment to seek asylum in the U.S.

He is one of thousands of migrants whose U.S.-bound journey has landed them in the Mexican capital, the southernmost point until recently from which migrants can register to request an appointment to seek asylum through the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s mobile app known as CBP One.

Since June, when the Biden administration announced significant restrictions on migrants seeking asylum, the app became one of the only ways to request asylum at the Southwest border.

This U.S. asylum policy and its geographic limits are a driving force behind the emergence of migrant encampments throughout the Mexican capital where thousands of migrants wait weeks — even months — in limbo, living in crowded, makeshift camps with poor sanitation and grim living conditions.

From point of transit to temporary destination

Historically, Mexico City has not been a stop for northbound migrants. They try to cross the country quickly to reach the northern border. But the delays in securing an appointment, coupled with the danger that plagues cartel-controlled northern Mexico border cities and the increased crackdown by Mexican authorities on migrants have combined to turn Mexico City from a point of transit to a temporary destination for thousands.

Some migrant camps have been dismantled by immigration authorities or abandoned over time. Others, like the one where López has lived for the past few months, remain.

Like López, many migrants have opted to wait for their appointment in the somewhat safer capital, but Mexico City presents its own challenges.

Shelter capacity is limited, and unlike large U.S. cities like Chicago and New York, which rushed last winter to find housing for arriving migrants, in Mexico City they are mainly left to their own devices.

Andrew Bahena, coordinator of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, or CHIRLA, said that up until late 2023 many migrants were contained in southern Mexican cities like Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala. Many tried to disguise their location to defeat CBP One’s geographic limits, but when U.S. authorities took notice, more migrants began aiming for Mexico City to make their appointments from there, he said.

As a result, there has been an increase in the migrant population living in the Mexico City camps.

“We talk about this as border externalization and it’s something the United States and Mexico have been jointly implementing for years,” said Bahena. “The CBP One app is probably one of the best examples of that today.

“These folks are asylum seekers, they’re not homeless people living in Mexico,” he added.

A maze of tents and tarps

When López first arrived in Mexico City at the end of April, he thought about renting a room only to realize it was not an option.

He earned $23 a day working three times a week at a market. Rent was $157 per person to share a room with strangers, an arrangement that has become commonplace in Mexican cities with migrant populations.

“The camp is like a refuge,” said López. Migrants can share space with people they know, avoid the curfews and strict rules of shelters and potentially stay longer if necessary.

The camps are a maze of tents and tarps. Some call their space “ranchito,” or small ranch, assembled from wood, cardboard, plastic sheets, blankets and whatever they can find to protect them from the chilly mountain air and intense summer rains that pound the city.

At another camp in La Merced neighborhood, hundreds of blue, yellow and red tents fill a plaza in front of a church. It’s one of the capital’s largest camps and just a 20-minute walk from the city center.

“This is a place where up to 2,000 migrants have been living in the last year,” said Bahena. “About 40% are children.”

Migrants in La Merced have organized themselves, building an impromptu pump that moves water from the public system and distributes it on a fixed schedule, with every tent receiving four buckets of water every day.

“At the beginning there were a lot of problems, lots of trash and people in Mexico didn’t like that,” said Héctor Javier Magallanes, a Venezuelan migrant, who has been waiting nine months for a CBP One appointment. “We made sure to fix those problems little by little.”

As more migrants kept arriving at the camp, he set up a task force of 15 people to oversee security and infrastructure.

Despite efforts to keep the camp clean and organized, residents haven’t been able to avoid outbreaks of illnesses, exacerbated by drastic weather changes.

Keilin Mendoza, a 27-year-old Honduran migrant, said her kids constantly get colds, especially her 1-year-old daughter.

“She’s the one that worries me the most, because she takes the longest to recover,” she said. Mendoza has tried accessing free medical attention from humanitarian organizations at the camp, but resources are limited.

Israel Resendiz, coordinator of Doctors Without Borders’ mobile team, said the uncertainty of life in the camps weighs heavily on migrants’ mental health.

“It’s not the same when a person waiting for their appointment […] can get a hotel, rent a room or have money for food,” Resendiz said. “The majority of people don’t have these resources.”

The secretary of inclusion and social welfare and the secretary of the interior in Mexico City didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press about the camps. Press representatives of Clara Brugada, the incoming mayor of Mexico City, said the issue must first be discussed at the federal level.

Meanwhile, tensions between camp residents and neighbors have increased, sometimes leading to mass evictions of the camps.

In late April, neighbors from the trendy and central Juárez neighborhood blocked some of the city’s busiest streets, chanting, “The street is not a shelter!”

Eduardo Ramírez, one of the protest organizers, said it’s the government’s job to “help these poor people that come from their countries in search of something better and have the bad luck of traveling through Mexico.”
…

Washington — A decision on whether to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug in the U.S. won’t come until after the November presidential election, a timeline that raises the chances it could be a potent political issue in the closely contested race.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration last week set a hearing date to take comment on the proposed historic change in federal drug policy for Dec. 2.

The hearing date means a final decision could well come in the next administration. While it’s possible it could precede the end of President Joe Biden’s term, issuing it before Inauguration Day “would be pretty expedited,” said cannabis lawyer Brian Vicente.

That could put a new spotlight on the presidential candidates’ positions on marijuana. Vice President Kamala Harris has backed decriminalizing the drug and said it’s “absurd” to have it in the DEA’s Schedule I category alongside heroin and LSD. The Democratic nominee’s position has shifted over the years; she once oversaw the enforcement of cannabis laws and opposed legalized recreational use for adults in California while running for attorney general in 2010.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, signaled support for a Florida legalization measure on Saturday, following earlier comments that he increasingly agrees that people shouldn’t be jailed for the drug now legal in multiple states, “whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

During his run for president in 2016, Trump said that he backed medical marijuana and that pot should be left up to the states. But during his first term, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions lifted an Obama-era policy that kept federal authorities from cracking down on the pot trade in states where the drug is legal.

Trump’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a query about his position on rescheduling the drug.

The Justice Department proposed reclassifying it in May, saying the change would recognize marijuana’s medical uses and acknowledge it has less potential for abuse than some of the nation’s most dangerous drugs. The proposal, which would not legalize marijuana for recreational use, came after a call for review from Biden, who has called the change “monumental.”

The DEA has said it doesn’t yet have a position on whether to go through with the change, stating in a memo that it would keep weighing the issue as the federal rulemaking process plays out.

The new classification would be the most significant shift in U.S. drug policy in 50 years and could be a potent political issue, especially with younger voters. But it faces opposition from groups such as Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

Its president, Kevin Sabet, argues there isn’t enough data to move cannabis to the less-dangerous Schedule III category, alongside ketamine and some anabolic steroids. The DEA’s move to hold the hearing is “a huge win in our fight to have this decision guided by medical science, not politics,” he said in a statement, adding that 18 states’ attorneys general are backing his opposition.

The hearing sparked some consternation among pot industry players, though little surprise about the DEA decision to hold one.

“While the result ultimately may be better, I think we’re so used to seeing delays that it’s just a little disappointing,” said Stephen Abraham, chief financial officer at The Blinc Group, supplier of cartridges and other hardware used in pot vapes. “Every time you slow down or hold resources from the legal market, it’s to the benefit of the illicit market.”

The proposal, which was signed by Attorney General Merrick Garland rather than DEA Administrator Anne Milgram, followed a recommendation from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Federal drug policy has lagged behind that of many states in recent years, with 38 having already legalized medical marijuana and 24 legalizing its recreational use.

Lawmakers from both major political parties have pushed for the change as marijuana has become increasingly decriminalized and accepted. A Gallup poll last year found 70% of adults support legalization, the highest level yet recorded by the polling firm and more than double the roughly three in 10 who backed it in 2000.

The marijuana industry has also grown quickly, and state-licensed pot companies are keen on rescheduling partly because it could enable them to take federal business-expense tax deductions that aren’t available to enterprises involved in “trafficking” any Schedule I or II drug. For some of Vicente’s clients, the change would effectively reduce the tax rate from 75% to 25%.

Some legalization advocates also hope rescheduling could help persuade Congress to pass legislation aimed at opening banks’ doors to cannabis companies. Currently, the drug’s legal status means many federally regulated banks are reluctant to lend to such businesses, or sometimes even provide checking or other basic services.

Rescheduling could also make it easier to research marijuana, since it’s difficult to conduct authorized clinical studies on Schedule I substances. Some medical marijuana patient advocates fear that the discussion has already become deeply politicized and that the focus on rescheduling’s potential effect on the industry has shifted attention from the people who could benefit.

“It was our hope that we could finally take the next step and create the national medical cannabis program that we need,” said Steph Sherer, founder and president of Americans for Safe Access. The organization advocates for putting cannabis in a drug category all its own and for creating a medical cannabis office within DHS.

The immediate effect of rescheduling on the nation’s criminal justice system, though, would likely be more muted, since federal prosecutions for simple possession have been fairly rare in recent years.
…

NEW YORK — Parisa Imanirad, a scientist and cancer researcher from San Francisco, is married and has a wide circle of friends. But once or twice a week, she goes to a restaurant by herself.

Imanirad said dining alone gives her time to think or read. She tries not to touch her phone and relishes the silence. “It’s like a spa, but a different type,” Imanirad said during a recent solo lunch at Spruce, an upscale restaurant in San Francisco.

Imanirad isn’t alone in her desire to be alone. In the United States, solo dining reservations have risen 29% over the last two years, according to OpenTable, the restaurant reservation site. They’re up 18% this year in Germany and 14% in the United Kingdom.

Japan even has a special term for solo dining: “ohitorisama,” which means “alone” but with honorifics spoken before and after the word to make parties of one feel less hesitant. In a recent survey, Japan’s Hot Pepper Gourmet Eating Out Research Institute found that 23% of Japanese people eat out alone, up from 18% in 2018.

As a result, many restaurants in Japan and elsewhere are redoing their seating, changing their menus and adding other special touches to appeal to solo diners.

“Even so-called family restaurants are increasing counter seats for solitary diners, and restaurants are offering courses with smaller servings so a person eating alone gets a variety of dishes,” said Masahiro Inagaki, a senior researcher at the institute.

OpenTable CEO Debby Soo thinks remote work is one reason for the increase, with diners seeking respites from their home offices. But she thinks there are deeper reasons, too.

“I think there’s a broader movement of self-love and self-care and really … enjoying your own company,” Soo said.

The pandemic also made social interactions less feasible and therefore less important while eating out, said Anna Mattila, a professor of lodging management at Penn State University who has studied solo dining. And smartphones help some restaurant patrons feel connected to others even when they’re by themselves, she said.

“The social norms have changed. People don’t look at solo diners anymore and think, ‘You must be a loner,’” Mattila said.

More people live and travel solo

The growth comes as more people are living alone. In 2019, the Pew Research Center found that 38% of U.S. adults ages 25 to 54 were living without a partner, up from 29% in 1990. In Japan, single households now make up one-third of the total; that’s expected to climb to 40% by 2040, according to government data.

Increasing interest in solo travel — particularly among travelers ages 55 and over — is also leading to more meals alone.

On a recent solo trip to Lucerne, Switzerland, Carolyn Ray was stunned when the hostess led her to a beautiful lake-view table set for one, complete with a small vase of flowers. Ray, the CEO and editor of JourneyWoman, a website for solo women travelers over 50, said other restaurants have tried to seat her toward the back or pointedly asked if someone will be joining her.

Ray counsels women planning to dine alone to go somewhere else if they’re treated rudely or given a bad table.

“It’s almost like the world hasn’t caught up with this idea that we are on our own because we want to be on our own and we’re independent and empowered,” she said. “We can go into any restaurant we want and have a table for one and feel good about it.”

Shawn Singh, a Houston-based content creator and restaurant reviewer, said he eats alone about 70% of the time. If the idea of venturing out for a solitary meal is intimidating, he suggests going to lunch instead of dinner — when tables are usually more crowded with groups — or going early on a weekday.

“The best way to see a restaurant you’ve been wanting to see for a long time is definitely going solo,” Singh said. “If I go at 5 p.m. and alone, I haven’t been denied at one place ever.”

Restaurants aren’t always thrilled to seat a single diner at a table that could fit more. A Michelin-starred London restaurant, Alex Dilling at Hotel Cafe Royal, caused a stir last year when it started charging solo patrons the same price as two customers. Its eight-course dinner tasting menu, which includes caviar and Cornish squid, costs 215 pounds ($280) per person.

The restaurant, which has only 34 seats, didn’t respond to a request for comment. But its website doesn’t allow reservations for fewer than two people.

‘Playing the long game’

Other restaurants say it’s worth seating one person at a table made for two because solo diners tend to be loyal, repeat customers.

“While there may be a short-term loss there, I think we’re kind of playing the long game and establishing ourselves as a place that’s truly special,” said Drew Brady, chief operating officer at Overthrow Hospitality, which operates 11 vegan restaurants in New York.

Brady has seen an increase in solo diners since the pandemic, and says they’re evenly split between men and women. At the company’s flagship restaurant, Avant Garden, they make up as much as 8% of patrons.

In response, the restaurant teamed up with Lightspeed, a restaurant tech and consulting company, to develop a solo dining program. Avant Garden now has a spacious table designed for solo diners, with a $65 four-course menu fashioned like a passport to enhance the sense of adventure. If solo diners order a cocktail, a bartender mixes it tableside.

Mattila, at Penn State, said restaurants might want to consider additional changes. Her research has found that solo diners prefer angular shapes — in lights, tables or plates, for example — to round ones, which are more associated with the connectedness of groups. They also prefer slow-tempo music.

Jill Weber, the founder of Sojourn Philly, a Philadelphia company that owns two restaurants and a wine bar, said she adds a communal table at special events such as wine tastings so individuals have a place to gather. She also doesn’t offer specials designed for two.

Weber, who is also an archaeologist, loves dining alone when she’s traveling.

“There’s something about not having to agree on where to go and everything that goes with that. You have the freedom to stay as long as you want, order what you want and sit with those things,” she said. “It also feels brave sometimes.”
…

Ankara, Turkey/Washington — A nationalist Turkish youth group physically assaulted two U.S. soldiers Monday in western Turkey, the U.S. Embassy in Turkey and the local governor’s office said, adding that 15 assailants had been detained over the incident.

In a statement, the Izmir governor’s office said members of the Turkey Youth Union (TGB), a youth branch of the nationalist opposition Vatan Party, “physically attacked” two U.S. soldiers dressed in civilian clothes in the Konak district.

It added that five U.S. soldiers joined in after seeing the incident, and that police intervened. All 15 attackers had been detained and an investigation was launched into the matter, it said.

A White House spokesperson said Monday, Washington was “troubled” by the assault but added it was “appreciative that Turkish police are taking this matter seriously and holding those responsible accountable.”

The U.S. Embassy to Turkey also confirmed the attack and said the U.S. soldiers were now safe.

“We can confirm reports that U.S. service members embarked aboard the USS Wasp were the victims of an assault in Izmir today, and are now safe,” it said on social media platform X.

Earlier, the TGB posted a video on X showing a group holding down a man on the street and putting a white hood over his head, while shouting slogans.

The group said the man was a soldier on board the USS Wasp, an amphibious assault ship. The U.S. Embassy in Ankara had said earlier Monday that the ship was carrying out a port visit to the Aegean coastal town of Izmir this week.

“U.S. soldiers who carry the blood of our soldiers and thousands of Palestinians on their hands cannot dirty our country. Every time you step foot in these lands, we will meet you the way you deserve,” TGB said.

U.S.-Turkey ties have been strained in recent years by the U.S. alliance with Syrian Kurds that Turkey deems extremists, and over Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 defenses that prompted U.S. sanctions and removal from a F-35 jet program.

There has also been divergence over Israel’s war in Gaza, where over 40,000 people have been killed according to Gaza authorities, and over which Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has sharply criticized Washington’s ally.

Earlier this month, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey said U.S.-Turkey relations are now “in a better place than we’ve been in a while” and noted the “useful role” Turkey played in a recent prisoner exchange between the United States and Russia.
…

The Paris Olympics have just ended, but some diehard fans are already planning for the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles, California. Vivianne Robinson is one of them. The self-described Olympics superfan has been following the Games’ flame all over the world. Angelina Bagdasaryan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Vazgen Varzhabetian.
…

new york — Five people were shot Monday at New York City’s West Indian American Day Parade, police said. It was the latest incident of violence to mar one of the world’s largest annual celebrations of Caribbean culture.

A gunman targeting a specific group of people opened fire along the parade route in Brooklyn around 2:35 p.m., NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell said. The parade had kicked off hours earlier, with thousands of revelers dancing and marching down Eastern Parkway, a main thoroughfare through the borough. It was expected to continue into the night.

Two people were critically wounded, Chell said. The three other victims were expected to survive their injuries, he said. The gunman fled.

“This was not random,” Chell said. “This was an intentional act by one person towards a group of people. We do not by no means have any active shooter or anything of that nature running around Eastern Parkway as we speak. The parade is going on and will go on until later on tonight.”

An Associated Press videographer who was nearby when the shots rang out saw at least two people being treated for what appeared to be wounds to the face and arm. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was marching in the parade at the time and completed the route. A message was left with Schumer’s office.

Police cordoned off an area adjacent to the parade route, where they placed crime scene markers. The parade continued flowing past as officers were seen bagging items.

Chell asked that bystanders provide police with any video footage they may have recorded of the shooting.

“We need that video,” Chell said. “We are going to solve this, but it’s going to take a lot of work.”

The parade, an annual Labor Day event in its 57th year, turns Eastern Parkway into a kaleidoscope of feather-covered costumes and colorful flags as participants make their way down the thoroughfare alongside floats stacked high with speakers playing soca and reggae music.

The parade routinely attracts huge crowds, who line the almost 2-mile (3.2-kilometer) route that runs from Crown Heights to the Brooklyn Museum. It’s also a popular destination for local politicians, many of whom are of West Indian heritage or represent members of the city’s large Caribbean community.

Though a joyous occasion, the parade and related celebrations have been plagued by violence over the years.

In 2016, two people were killed and several others were wounded near the parade route. The year before, Carey Gabay, an aide to then-Governor Andrew Cuomo, was shot in the head during pre-parade festivities. He died nine days later.

The West Indian American Day Parade has its roots in more traditionally timed, pre-Lent Carnival celebrations started by a Trinidadian immigrant in Manhattan around a century ago, according to the organizers. The festivities were moved to the warmer time of year in the 1940s.

Brooklyn, where hundreds of thousands of Caribbean immigrants and their descendants have settled, began hosting the parade in the 1960s.

The Labor Day parade is now the culmination of days of carnival events in the city, which include a steel pan band competition and J’Ouvert, a separate street party commemorating freedom from slavery. 
…

Washington — The U.S. government has seized a plane used by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro that officials say was illegally purchased through a shell company and smuggled out of the United States, citing violations of sanctions and export control laws.

The Dassault Falcon 900EX was seized in the Dominican Republic and transferred to the custody of federal officials in Florida, the Justice Department said Monday.

U.S. officials say associates of the Venezuelan leader used a Caribbean-based shell company to hide their involvement in the purchase of the plane, valued at the time at $13 million, from a company in Florida. The plane was exported from the U.S. to Venezuela, through the Caribbean, in April 2023 in a transaction meant to circumvent an executive order that bars U.S. persons from business transactions with the Maduro regime.

The plane, registered to San Marino, was widely used by Maduro for foreign travel, including for trip earlier this year to Guyana and Cuba.

“Let this seizure send a clear message: aircraft illegally acquired from the United States for the benefit of sanctioned Venezuelan officials cannot just fly off into the sunset,” Matthew Axelrod, an assistant secretary for export enforcement in the Commerce Department, said in a statement.

CNN first reported the plane seizure.

The seizure announcement comes just over a month after Venezuelans headed to the polls for a highly anticipated presidential election in which ruling party-loyal electoral authorities declared Maduro the victor without showing any detailed results to back up their claim. The lack of transparency has drawn international condemnation against Maduro’s government.

Meanwhile, the opposition managed to obtain more than 80% of vote tally sheets – considered the ultimate proof of results – nationwide. The documents, the faction said, show Maduro losing by a wide margin against former diplomat Edmundo Gonzalez.

It was also the plane that carried several Americans jailed for years in Venezuela to the Caribbean Island of Canouan last December where they were swapped for a close Maduro ally, businessman Alex Saab, imprisoned in the U.S. on money laundering charges.

In March, it flew to the Dominican Republic, along with a Venezuelan-registered plane, for what was believed to be maintenance, never to leave again.

The U.S. has sanctioned 55 Venezuelan-registered planes belonging to state owned oil giant PDVSA.

It’s also offered a $15 million bounty for the arrest of Maduro to face federal drug trafficking charges in New York.

The Venezuelan government’s centralized press office did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press seeking comment Monday.
…

In New York, aspiring fashion designers often attend colleges like the Fashion Institute of Technology or Parsons School of Design. But for those without the means or access to higher education, a Harlem-based fashion incubator – a company that helps new fashion designers grow and learn the business – is providing alternative paths to the industry. VOA’s Tina Trinh shows us two emerging talents. Camera: Tina Trinh 
…

…

Sacramento, California — California lawmakers approved a host of proposals this week aiming to regulate the artificial intelligence industry, combat deepfakes and protect workers from exploitation by the rapidly evolving technology.

The California Legislature, which is controlled by Democrats, is voting on hundreds of bills during its final week of the session to send to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. Their deadline is Saturday.

The Democratic governor has until Sept. 30 to sign the proposals, veto them or let them become law without his signature. Newsom signaled in July he will sign a proposal to crack down on election deepfakes but has not weighed in on other legislation.

He warned earlier this summer that overregulation could hurt the homegrown industry. In recent years, he often has cited the state’s budget troubles when rejecting legislation that he would otherwise support.

Here is a look at some of the AI bills lawmakers approved this year.

Combating deepfakes

Citing concerns over how AI tools are increasingly being used to trick voters and generate deepfake pornography of minors, California lawmakers approved several bills this week to crack down on the practice.

Lawmakers approved legislation to ban deepfakes related to elections and require large social media platforms to remove the deceptive material 120 days before Election Day and 60 days thereafter. Campaigns also would be required to publicly disclose if they’re running ads with materials altered by AI.

A pair of proposals would make it illegal to use AI tools to create images and videos of child sexual abuse. Current law does not allow district attorneys to go after people who possess or distribute AI-generated child sexual abuse images if they cannot prove the materials are depicting a real person.

Tech companies and social media platforms would be required to provide AI detection tools to users under another proposal.

Setting safety guardrails

California could become the first state in the nation to set sweeping safety measures on large AI models.

The legislation sent by lawmakers to the governor’s desk requires developers to start disclosing what data they use to train their models. The efforts aim to shed more light into how AI models work and prevent future catastrophic disasters.

Another measure would require the state to set safety protocols preventing risks and algorithmic discrimination before agencies could enter any contract involving AI models used to define decisions.

Protecting workers

Inspired by the monthslong Hollywood actors strike last year, lawmakers approved a proposal to protect workers, including voice actors and audiobook performers, from being replaced by their AI-generated clones. The measure mirrors language in the contract the SAG-AFTRA made with studios last December.

State and local agencies would be banned from using AI to replace workers at call centers under one of the proposals.

California also may create penalties for digitally cloning dead people without consent of their estates.

Keeping up with the technology

As corporations increasingly weave AI into Americans’ daily lives, state lawmakers also passed several bills to increase AI literacy.

One proposal would require a state working group to consider incorporating AI skills into math, science, history and social science curriculums. Another would develop guidelines on how schools could use AI in the classrooms.
…

New York — A broadening rally in U.S. stocks is offering an encouraging signal to investors worried about concentration in technology shares, as markets await key jobs data and the Federal Reserve’s expected rate cuts in September.

As the market’s fortunes keep rising and falling with big tech stocks such as Nvidia NVDA.O and Apple AAPL.O, investors are also putting money in less-loved value stocks and small caps, which are expected to benefit from lower interest rates. The Fed is expected to kick off a rate-cutting cycle at its monetary policy meeting on Sept. 17-18.

Many investors view the broadening trend, which picked up steam last month before faltering during an early August sell-off, as a healthy development in a market rally led by a cluster of giant tech names. Chipmaker Nvidia, which has benefited from bets on artificial intelligence, alone has accounted for roughly a quarter of the S&P 500’s year-to-date gain of 18.4%.

“No matter how you slice and dice it you have seen a pretty meaningful broadening out and I think that has legs,” said Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment officer at Charles Schwab.

Value stocks are those of companies trading at a discount on metrics like book value or price-to-earnings and include sectors such as financials and industrials. Some investors believe rallies in these sectors and small caps could go further if the Fed cuts borrowing costs while the economy stays healthy.

The market’s rotation has recently accelerated, with 61% of stocks in the S&P 500 .SPXoutperforming the index in the past month, compared to 14% outperforming over the past year, Charles Schwab data showed.

Meanwhile, the so-called Magnificent Seven group of tech giants — which includes Nvidia, Tesla TSLA.O and Microsoft MSFT.O — have underperformed the other 493 stocks in the S&P 500 by 14 percentage points since the release of a weaker-than-expected U.S. inflation report on July 11, according to an analysis by BofA Global Research.

Stocks have also held up after an Nvidia forecast failed to meet lofty investor expectations earlier this week, another sign that investors may be looking beyond tech. The equal weight S&P 500 index, a proxy for the average stock, hit a fresh record [last] week and is up around 10.5% year-to-date, narrowing its performance gap with the S&P 500.

“When market breadth is improving, the message is that an increasing number of stocks are rallying on expectations that economic conditions will support earnings growth and profitability,” analysts at Ned David Research wrote.

Value stocks that have performed well this year include General Electric GE.N and midstream energy company Targa Resources TRGP.N, which are up 70% and 68%, respectively. The small-cap focused Russell 2000 index, meanwhile, is up 8.5% from its lows of the month, though it has not breached its July peak.

The jobs report “tends to be one of the more market moving releases in general, and right now it’s going to get even more attention than normal.”

Investors are unlikely to turn their back on tech stocks, particularly if volatility gives them a chance to buy on the cheap, said Jason Alonzo, a portfolio manager with Harbor Capital.

Technology stocks are expected to post above-market earnings growth over every quarter through 2025, with third-quarter earnings coming in at 15.3% compared with a 7.5% gain for the S&P 500 as a whole, according to LSEG data.

“People will sometimes take a deep breath after a nice run and look at other opportunities, but technology is still the clearest driver of growth, particularly the AI theme which is innocent until proven guilty,” Alonzo said.
…

…

NEW YORK — About 1,070 hotel workers in the U.S. cities of Boston and Greenwich are on strike after contract talks with hotel operators Marriott International MAR.O, Hilton Worldwide HLT.N and Hyatt Hotels H.N stalled, the Unite Here union said on Sunday.

The strikes in Boston and Greenwich will last three days, the union said, adding that more hotel workers in different cities are expected to walk off the job across the U.S. throughout the Labor Day holiday weekend.

Unite Here, which represents workers in hotels, casinos and airports across the United States and Canada, said frustrated workers may strike in major destinations including San Francisco and Seattle as they struggle to agree with hotel operators on wages and on reversing pandemic-era job cuts.

“Strikes have also been authorized and could begin at any time in Baltimore, Honolulu, Kauai, New Haven, Oakland, Providence, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and Seattle,” Unite Here said in a statement.

A total of 40,000 Unite Here hotel workers in more than 20 cities are working under contracts that expire this year. About 15,000 of those workers have authorized strikes in 12 markets from Boston to Honolulu.

Workers have been in negotiations for new four-year contracts since May.

“We’re on strike because the hotel industry has gotten off track,” Unite Here President Gwen Mills said.

“We won’t accept a ‘new normal’ where hotel companies profit by cutting their offerings to guests and abandoning their commitments to workers,” Mills added.

Unite Here workers in 2023 won record contracts in Los Angeles following rolling strikes and in Detroit after a 47-day strike.

In Las Vegas, casino operators MGM MGM.N, Caesars CZR.O and Wynn WYNN.O resorts reached an agreement in November to avert a strike with 40,000 hospitality workers days before a deadline that would have crippled the Vegas Strip.
…

New York — Does American tennis have a pickleball problem?

Even as the U.S. Open opened this week with more than a million fans expected for the sport’s biggest showcase, the game’s leaders are being forced to confront a devastating fact — the nation’s fastest-growing racket sport (or sport of any kind) is not tennis but pickleball, which has seen participation boom 223% in the past three years.

“Quite frankly, it’s obnoxious to hear that pickleball noise,” U.S. Tennis Association President Dr. Brian Hainline grumbled at a recent state-of-the-game news conference, bemoaning the distinctive pock, pock, pock of pickleball points.

Pickleball, an easy-to-play mix of tennis and ping pong using paddles and a wiffleball, has quickly soared from nearly nothing to 13.6 million U.S. players in just a few years, leading tennis purists to fear a day when it could surpass tennis’ 23.8 million players. And most troubling is that pickleball’s rise has often come at the expense of thousands of tennis courts encroached upon or even replaced by smaller pickleball courts.

“When you see an explosion of a sport and it starts potentially eroding into your sport, then, yes, you’re concerned,” Hainline said in an interview with The Associated Press. “That erosion has come in our infrastructure. … A lot of pickleball advocates just came in and said, ‘We need these tennis courts.’ It was a great, organic grassroots movement but it was a little anti-tennis.”

Some tennis governing bodies in other countries have embraced pickleball and other racket sports under the more-the-merrier belief they could lead more players to the mothership of tennis. France’s tennis federation even set up a few pickleball courts at this year’s French Open to give top players and fans a chance to try it out.

But the USTA has taken a decidedly different approach. Nowhere at the U.S. Open’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is there any such demonstration court, exhibition match or any other nod to pickleball or its possible crossover appeal.

In fact, the USTA is flipping the script on pickleball with an ambitious launch of more than 400 pilot programs across the country to broaden the reach of an easier-to-play, smaller-court version of tennis called “red ball tennis.” Backers say it’s the ideal way for people of all ages to get into tennis and the best place to try it is (wait for it) on pickleball courts.

“You can begin tennis at any age,” USTA’s Hainline said. “We believe that when you do begin this great sport of tennis, it’s probably best to begin it on a shorter court with a larger, low-compression red ball. What’s an ideal short court? A pickleball court.”

And instead of the plasticky plink of a pickleball against a flat paddle, Hainline said, striking a fuzzy red tennis ball with a stringed racket allows for a greater variety of strokes and “just a beautiful sound.” Players can either stick with red ball tennis or advance through a progression of bouncier balls to full-court tennis.

“Not to put it down,” Hainline said of pickleball, “but compared to tennis … seriously?”

So what does the head of the nation’s pickleball governing body have to say about such comments and big tennis’ plans to plant the seeds of its growth, at least in part, on pickleball courts?

“I don’t like it but there is so much going on with pickleball, so many good things, I’m going to stick to what I can control, harnessing the growth and supporting this game,” said Pickleball USA CEO Mike Nealy.

Among the positive signs, Nealy said, is the continuing construction of new pickleball courts across the country, raising the total to more than 50,000. There’s also growing investment in the game at clubs built in former big-box retail stores, pro leagues with such backers as Tom Brady, LeBron James and Drake, and the emergence of “dink-and-drink” establishments that tap into the social aspect of the game by allowing friends to enjoy pickleball, beer, wine and food under the same roof.

“I don’t think it needs to be one or the other or a competition,” Nealy said of pickleball and tennis. “You’re certainly going to have the inherent frictions in communities when tennis people don’t feel that they’re getting what they want. … They’re different games but I think they are complimentary. There’s plenty of room for both sports to be very successful.”

Top-ranked American tennis player Taylor Fritz agreed. “There are some people in the tennis world that are just absolute pickleball haters, and that’s fine. But for me, I don’t really have an issue with pickleball. I like playing sometimes. … I don’t see any reason why both of them can’t exist.”
…

CHEYENNE, Wyoming — A “mega den” of hundreds of rattlesnakes in Colorado is getting even bigger now that late summer is here and babies are being born.

Thanks to livestream video, scientists studying the den on a craggy hillside in Colorado are learning more about these enigmatic — and often misunderstood — reptiles. They’re observing as the youngsters, called pups, slither over and between adult females on lichen-encrusted rocks.

The public can watch too on the Project RattleCam website and help with important work including how to tell the snakes apart. Since researchers put their remote camera online in May, several snakes have become known in a chat room and to scientists by names including “Woodstock,” “Thea” and “Agent 008.”

The live feed, which draws as many as 500 people at a time online, on Thursday showed a tangle of baby snakes with tiny nubs for rattles. They have a lot of growing to do: A rattlesnake adds a rattle segment each time it sheds its skin a couple times a year, on average.

The project is a collaboration between California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, snake removal company Central Coast Snake Services and Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

By involving the public, the scientists hope to dispel the idea that rattlesnakes are usually fierce and dangerous. In fact, experts say they rarely bite unless threatened or provoked and often are just the opposite. 

Rattlesnakes are not only among the few reptiles that care for their young. They even care for the young of others. The adults protect and lend body heat to pups from birth until they enter hibernation in mid-autumn, said Max Roberts, a CalPoly graduate student researcher.

“We regularly see what we like to call ‘babysitting,’ pregnant females that we can visibly see have not given birth, yet are kind of guarding the newborn snakes,” Roberts said Wednesday.

As many as 2,000 rattlesnakes spend the winter at the location on private land, which the researchers are keeping secret to discourage trespassers. Once the weather warms, only pregnant females remain while the others disperse to nearby territory.

This year, the scientists keeping watch over the Colorado site have observed the rattlesnakes coil up and catch water to drink from the cups formed by their bodies. They’ve also seen how the snakes react to birds swooping in to try to grab a scaly meal.

The highlight of summer is in late August and early September when the rattlesnakes give birth over a roughly two-week period.

“As soon as they’re born, they know how to move into the sun or into the shade to regulate their body temperature,” Roberts said.

There are 36 species of rattlesnakes, most of which inhabit the U.S. They range across nearly all states and are especially common in the Southwest. Those being studied now are prairie rattlesnakes, which can be found in much of the central and western U.S. and into Canada and Mexico.

Like other pit viper species but unlike most snakes, rattlesnakes don’t lay eggs. Instead, they give birth to live young. Eight is an average-size brood, with the number depending on the snake’s size, according to Roberts.

Roberts is studying how temperature changes and ultraviolet sunlight affect snake behavior. Another graduate student, Owen Bachhuber, is studying the family and social relationships between rattlesnakes.

The researchers watch the live feed all day.

“We are interested in studying the natural behavior of rattlesnakes, free from human disturbance. What do rattlesnakes actually do when we’re not there?” Roberts said.

Now that the Rocky Mountain summer is cooling, some males have been returning. By November, the camera running on solar and battery power will be turned off until next spring, when the snakes will re-emerge from their “mega den.”
…

…