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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.
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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. 
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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.
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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 
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Понад 2 мільйони школярів навчаються в офлайн-форматі, ще мільйон – у змішаному, повідомив президент
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.”
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JERUSALEM — The family of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin says he has been killed in the Gaza Strip.

The family issued a statement early Sunday, hours after the Israeli army said it had located bodies in Gaza.

“With broken hearts, the Goldberg-Polin family is devastated to announce the death of their beloved son and brother, Hersh,” it said. “The family thanks you all for your love and support and asks for privacy at this time.”

There was no immediate comment from the army, or details about the other bodies found.

The 23-year-old Goldberg-Polin was among the hostages seized by militants at a music festival in southern Israel on October 7. He lost part of an arm in the attack.

Goldberg-Polin’s parents became perhaps the most high-profile relatives of hostages on the international stage. They met with President Joe Biden, Pope Francis and others and addressed the United Nations. On August 21, they addressed a hushed hall at the Democratic National Convention, where the crowd chanted: “Bring them home.”

A Hamas-issued video in April showing Goldberg-Polin clearly speaking under duress sparked new protests in Israel urging the government to do more to secure his and others’ freedom.

The announcement is certain to put pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reach a deal to bring home remaining hostages. The Israeli leader has said military pressure is needed to win their release as cease-fire efforts falter.

Before Israel’s announcement, Israel said it believed 108 hostages were still held in Gaza and about one-third of them were dead.
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