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Author: natixis-ezine
Coffee, sculptures and financial advice. Banks try to make new branches less intimidating
Read time : 3 mins
Level : Advanced
By KEN SWEET AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — It’s like Sephora or Starbucks now offered a checking account.
After years of closing or mostly neglecting physical bank branches across the U.S., the nation’s largest banks are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on refurbishing old locations or building new ones, and in the process changing the look, feel and purpose of the local bank branch.
Many of these branches are larger, airier, and meant to feel more comfortable for those walking in with difficult financial questions. Others are being designed as “third spaces” to allow local nonprofits or community representatives to hold workshops or seminars for customers or neighbors. They are a contrast to the marble-clad temples to finance built 50 or 75 years ago and the stale cookie-cutter branches that more recently cluttered suburban malls. Continue reading
Centenarian veterans are sharing their memories of D-Day, 80 years later
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Level : Intermediate
By SYLVIE CORBET and DANICA KIRKA Associated Press
CAEN, France (AP) — World War II veterans from the United States, Britain and Canada are in Normandy this week to mark 80 years since the D-Day landings that helped lead to Hitler’s defeat.
Few witnesses remain who remember the Allied assault. The Associated Press is speaking to veterans about their role in freeing Europe from the Nazis, and their messages for younger generations.
PAPA JAKE
“I am the luckiest man in the world,” D-Day veteran Jake Larson, a 101-year-old American best known on social media under the name “Papa Jake,” said as he arrived in Normandy this week. Papa Jake has more than 800,000 followers on TikTok.
Born in Owatonna, Minnesota, Larson enlisted in the National Guard in 1938, lying about his age as he was only 15. Continue reading
Ford renovates historic train station, former eyesore that had become a symbol of Detroit’s decline
View time : 1 min 45
Level : Intermediate
Paris is aiming for the most sustainable Olympics yet
View time: 1 min 36
Level : Advanced
Tests find AI tools readily create election lies from the voices of well-known political leaders
Read time : 4 mins
Level : Advanced
By ALI SWENSON Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — As high-stakes elections approach in the U.S. and European Union, publicly available artificial intelligence tools can be easily weaponized to churn out convincing election lies in the voices of leading political figures, a digital civil rights group said Friday.
Researchers at the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Countering Digital Hate tested six of the most popular AI voice-cloning tools to see if they would generate audio clips of five false statements about elections in the voices of eight prominent American and European politicians.
In a total of 240 tests, the tools generated convincing voice clones in 193 cases, or 80% of the time, the group found. In one clip, a fake U.S. President Joe Biden says election officials count each of his votes twice. In another, a fake French President Emmanuel Macron warns citizens not to vote because of bomb threats at the polls. Continue reading
Gary Oldman’s advice to his younger self
View time : 1 min 28
Level : Intermediate
World Health Assembly hopes to reinforce pandemic preparedness after bold treaty project stalls
Read time : 3 mins
Level : Intermediate
By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press
GENEVA (AP) — Member countries kicked off the World Health Organization’s annual assembly on Monday with hopes of improving global readiness for deadly outbreaks like COVID-19, after an ambitious “pandemic treaty” ran aground last week.
Health officials are racing to get the world to agree to new ways to prepare for and fight an inevitable future pandemic. COVID-19 is fading into history as elections and crises like climate change and war compete for the public’s attention.
A bold project to adopt a pandemic “treaty” at this week’s World Health Assembly was shelved on Friday as 2 1/2 years of work ran into disagreements over sharing information about pathogens that cause pandemics and the technology used to fight them.
Experts say the best chance now to address pandemics at the assembly will be proposed changes to the WHO’s International Health Regulations, which were set up in 2004. Amendments would urge countries to boost alert, detection and containment capacities and cooperate internationally.
One proposal would let the WHO director-general declare a “pandemic emergency.” Continue reading
More money is going to African climate startups, but a huge funding gap remains
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Level : Advanced
New York will set aside money to help local news outlets hire and retain employees
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Level : Advanced
By MAYSOON KHAN Associated Press/Report for America
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York is offering up to $90 million in tax credits for news outlets to hire and retain journalists in an effort to help keep the shrinking local news industry afloat.
The U.S. newspaper industry has been in a long decline, driven by factors including a loss in advertising revenue as outlets have moved from primarily print to mostly digital. That prompted state lawmakers to help in a measure passed in the state budget.
New York’s three-year program allows some news organizations to tap into refundable tax credits each year, with a single outlet able to receive tax credits of up to $320,000 annually.
State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation, said preserving journalism jobs is vital for the health of democracy. As evidence, he cited the weakened New York news media’s failure to research the background of George Santos, a Republican who fabricated many details of his life story, until after he had been elected to Congress. Continue reading