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Pope condemns ‘unjustifiable’ assassination of Ecuadorian presidential candidate

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:25:04 GMT

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis on Saturday strongly condemned the “unjustifiable” assassination of an Ecuadorian presidential candidate and urged all Ecuadorians to work together for peace.History’s first Latin American pope sent a telegram of condolence following the brazen assassination of Fernando Villavicencio at a political rally Wednesday in the capital Quito. The killing of a figure whose life work was fighting crime and corruption has focused global attention on Ecuador’s wave of violent deaths and the country’s vulnerability to crime.The Argentine Jesuit pope, who visited Ecuador in 2015 in one of the first trips of his pontificate, said he was praying for Villavicencio’s family and all Ecuador’s people.“Likewise, in the face of the suffering caused by unjustifiable violence, which he condemns with all his forces, His Holiness calls on all citizens and political forces to join in a common effort in favor of peace,” said the telegram, which was signed by the Vatican secretar...

Inside Austin Public Library's vinyl record collection and the event series showcasing it

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:25:04 GMT

Editor's note: The above video is from the first installment of the event series on Sunday, August 6. There are three more installments that will be held each Sunday of the month. AUSTIN (KXAN) -- Did you know you can check out more than just books from the Austin Public Library? How Austin Public Library’s used bookstore diverts 47K pounds of items from landfills each month APL's Carver Branch location houses a vinyl record collection of a few hundred records, spanning from a pressing of the first album from The Jackson 5 to jazz collections from the 60s and 70s.The Carver Branch of the Austin Public Library houses a vinyl record collection (KXAN Photo/Abigail Jones)The Carver Branch of the Austin Public Library houses a vinyl record collection (KXAN Photo/Abigail Jones)The Carver Branch of the Austin Public Library houses a vinyl record collection (KXAN Photo/Abigail Jones)The Carver Branch is the only of Austin Public Library's system of 20 locations that has vinyl records avai...

The searing heat and very high fire danger continue this weekend

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:25:04 GMT

AUSTIN (KXAN) -- You might want to stay up late (or get up very early Sunday morning) to see this year's Perseid meteor shower. A clear sky will allow for an excellent view of the show where up to 100 meteors will be zipping across the sky. Venture away from the city lights. The record for consecutive days of a high reaching 100° and higher is up to 35. There have been 51 days this season of triple-digit heat. There will be at least seven more added to both counts during the current 7-Day Forecast period.The average high temperature in August is 106°. There has been only one day this month with a higher under 105° (104° August 3).Weekend heat alertsThe Excessive Heat Warning for 13 counties and the Heat Advisory for Blanco and Gillespie Counties continue today and Sunday from 12:00 to 9:00 p.m. Very high to extreme wildfire danger continues this weekendThe Red Flag Warning continues for every county from noon to 11 p.m. both days. As fire danger remains critically high, make sure yo...

Sheriff: Pine County boy, 3, dead after finding gun, shooting himself

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:25:04 GMT

HINCKLEY, Minn. — The Pine County Sheriff’s Office said it is investigating how a 3-year-old boy shot and killed himself Tuesday night after finding a handgun in his father’s house.Pine County sheriff’s deputies responded at about 9:15 p.m. Tuesday to a home on the 500 block of First Street Southwest in Hinckley.According to an application for a search warrant filed by law enforcement, a man called Pine County dispatch “screaming for help,” saying “his son had shot himself.”The father and his roommate said they were in the basement when they heard something fall upstairs. Soon after, they heard a gunshot.They ran upstairs and found the boy lying in the roommate’s room with a gunshot wound to his head. The man “stated he had a 9mm handgun in his room and that was what [the child] got ahold of.”When investigators arrived, they found the child lying on a mattress in an upstairs bedroom.“Lying near the child was a black cell phone and a gun in question was lying on top of th...

Belwin Conservancy’s ‘Music in the Trees’ will bring nature and art together

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:25:04 GMT

Belwin Conservancy will host its fourth annual “Music in the Trees” next weekend featuring musicians performing from treetop perches 16 feet above the ground.Program director Susan Haugh says Belwin’s grove of red pine trees, which are not native to Minnesota this far south, have become iconic to students from St. Paul Public Schools who use Belwin as an educational nature venue.When the red pines began suffering from an engraver beetle infestation, Haugh decided something had to be done to raise awareness of the problem and inspire conservers to save the pines.To do that, Haugh wanted more eyes on the trees, and a musical performance seemed to be a perfect way to do just that.The public is welcome to admire the pines and look up to see musicians of various genres perform from stands supported 16 feet off the ground. Picnic blankets, hammocks and camp chairs are encouraged.This year’s “Music in the Trees” will feature Ritika Ganguly and Shinjan S...

Storms weaken, leaving rain and lightning in their wake

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:25:04 GMT

ST. LOUIS -- The storms have weakened below severe limits, but they continue to push across the southern third of the viewing area, bringing heavy rain and frequent cloud-to-ground lightning.These storms will exit to the south later this morning. A cold front lags behind these storms and will drop south this afternoon. We could see some redevelopment ahead of it, especially south of I-70. If storms redevelop, they do have the potential to become strong, at least briefly, with wind and hail being the main concerns. It will be hot and humid today, with highs in the low 90s and heat index readings around 100.Some uncertainty really comes into the forecast for tonight and Sunday. A weakening complex of storms could move through some of the region into Sunday morning, but the question comes as to their strength.These morning storms will lead to cloudiness through at least the morning of Sunday. The morning rain could also limit the severe potential for Sunday evening into early Monday as...

We’re using AI chatbots wrong. Here’s how to direct them.

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:25:04 GMT

By Brian X. Chen, The New York Times CompanyAnyone seduced by AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard — wow, they can write essays and recipes! — eventually runs into what are known as hallucinations, the tendency for artificial intelligence to fabricate information.The chatbots, which guess what to say based on information obtained from all over the internet, can’t help but get things wrong. And when they fail — by publishing a cake recipe with wildly inaccurate flour measurements, for instance — it can be a real buzzkill.Yet as mainstream tech tools continue to integrate AI, it’s crucial to get a handle on how to use it to serve us. After testing dozens of AI products over the last two months, I concluded that most of us are using the technology in a suboptimal way, largely because the tech companies gave us poor directions.The chatbots are the least beneficial when we ask them questions and then hope whatever answers they come up with on their own are true, which is...

Should Denver have a night mayor?

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:25:04 GMT

New Mayor Mike Johnston has a lot of city positions to fill after taking the reins of Denver government less than a month ago but he’s already voiced his interest in the possibility of adding another job to that stack. The potential new city job, should it be created, could come with a trendy nickname, too; night mayor.To be clear, the so-called “night mayor” would not be a new elected office. It would not require someone to sit in Johnston’s chair at city hall when he goes home for the evening or to wear a cape and cowl and roam the streets to deter crime.It’s a real position that exists — under different formal titles — in more than a dozen American cities from New Orleans to San Francisco. Just what the person filling the role does varies by municipality, but in most cases, it involves economic boosterism and problem-solving for restaurants, bars, clubs, art spaces and other businesses that do a lot of their work after dark.The Denver Art...

Colorado asked 4 states to share their gray wolves. So far, it’s received 3 maybes and a hell no.

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:25:04 GMT

Colorado wildlife officials have a 261-page wolf management plan, a voter-mandated Dec. 31 deadline to bring the canine to the state and an area designated for their release.But they don’t have any wolves. Yet.Colorado wildlife officials continue to search for the wolves they need four months before the deadline for the species’ reintroduction to the state, as decided by voters in 2020. Conversations continue with three states — Washington, Oregon and Montana — and another two have unequivocally rejected the idea.The search for wolves has highlighted the fractured system of management of the species across the West and the complex politics around the carnivores, which have inspired contentious litigation and political spats.Colorado wildlife officials remain confident they’ll be able to find wolves to release between Glenwood Springs, Vail and the Roaring Fork Valley by the voter-mandated Dec. 31 deadline.“We are confident that we will gain the co...

Detroit police changing facial-recognition policy after pregnant woman says she was wrongly charged

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:25:04 GMT

DETROIT — The Detroit police chief said he’s setting new policies on the use of facial-recognition technology after a woman who was eight months pregnant said she was wrongly charged with robbery and carjacking in a case that was ultimately dismissed by prosecutors.The technology, which was used on images taken from gas station video, produced leads in the case but was followed by “very poor” police work, Chief James White said.“We want to ensure that nothing like this happens again,” White said Wednesday.His comments came two days after the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan urged Detroit police to stop using the technology. The city was sued last week by Porcha Woodruff, a 32-year-old Black woman, who was arrested in February while trying to get children ready for school. There have been two similar lawsuits against Detroit.Woodruff was identified as a suspect in a January robbery and carjacking through facial-recognition technology. She denied any role. The Wayne Co...