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In fight against Canada fires, dancing South Africa crews are a familiar and uplifting sight

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Read time : 4 mins

Level : Intermediate

South African firefighters gather for a safety briefing in Fox Creek, Alberta, on Tuesday, July 4, 2023. Several countries, including South Africa, deployed firefighters to Canada to help local efforts to control widespread wildfires. (AP Photo/Noah Berger)

By NOAH BERGER Associated Press

FOX CREEK, Alberta (AP) — Some three dozen South African firefighters, clad in their bright yellow jackets and dark blue pants, danced, sang and cheered in a sprawling parking lot close by the majestic woods of central Alberta. The mood was light as the men and women smiled and clapped, some taking out smartphones to record video of their dancing colleagues before heading off to another day battling the fires raging through Canada.

The group gathered on an early July day in the small town of Fox Creek had traveled nearly 10,000 miles (16,000 kilometers) to help fight the hundreds of devastating wildfires that have burned homes and wild lands in the region, destroying an area about the size of the U.S. state of Virginia. They chanted and worked through drills before signing a Canadian flag presented to them as a token of thanks. Continue reading

Hollywood plunges into all-out war on the heels of pandemic and a streaming revolution

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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Advanced

Striking writers and actors chant as they walk a picket line, Friday July 14, 2023, at NBC Universal Studios in New York. The picketing comes a day after the main actors’ union voted to join screenwriters in a double-barreled strike for the first time in more than six decades. The dispute immediately shut down production across the entertainment industry after talks for a new contract with studios and streaming services broke down. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

By JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — To get a sense of just how much animosity is flying around Hollywood these days, watch how Ron Perlman responded to a report that the studios aimed to prolong a strike long enough for writers to lose their homes.

Perlman, the hulking, gravel-voiced actor of “Hellboy,” leaned into the camera in a since-deleted Instagram live video to vent his anger. “Listen to me, mother-(expletive),” Perlman said. “There’s a lot of ways to lose your house.”

Three years after the pandemic brought Hollywood to a standstill, the film and TV industry has again ground to a halt. This time, though, the industry is engaged in a bitter battle over how streaming — after advancing rapidly during the pandemic — has upended the economics of entertainment. Continue reading

No more free coffee on your birthday? Companies rein in customer rewards programs — here’s why

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Read time : 4 mins

Level : Intermediate

File – The Dunkin’ logo is seen on a storefront, Friday, Oct. 14, 2022, in Boston. Reward programs have long been a way for brands to build loyalty and incentivize spending. But now some companies are becoming a bit more stingy, and customers are taking notice. Last fall, for example, many balked at Dunkin’s decision to stop offering a free drink on their birthday and instead give them triple loyalty points on their purchase. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS AP Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Reward programs, including birthday freebies and discounts, have long been a way for brands to build loyalty and incentivize spending. But now some companies are becoming a bit more stingy — and customers are taking notice.

Last fall, for example, many balked at Dunkin’s decision to stop offering a free drink on their birthday and instead give them triple loyalty points on their purchase. On June 1, Sephora started requiring a $25 minimum purchase for online customers looking to claim a free gift and 250 loyalty points during their birthday month. And Red Robin added a dine-in only and $4.99 minimum purchase requirement for customers to get their free birthday burger.

Changes to birthday rewards or redemption requirements aren’t new. Starbucks, which gives its rewards members a free drink or food item for their birthdays, progressively limited the timeframe for redeeming that gift over the years — from 30 days, to one week, to four days and, finally, to just the date of your birthday in 2018. Continue reading

‘Clone’ or competitor? Users and lawyers compare Twitter and Threads

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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Advanced

FILE – This photo, taken in New York on July 5, 2023, show the logo for Meta’s new app Threads, right, and that of Twitter. In a cease-and-desist letter earlier this week, Twitter threatened legal action against Instagram parent company Meta over the new text-based app, Threads. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

By MATT O’BRIEN and WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS The Associated Press

Just how similar is Instagram’s chatty new app, Threads, to Twitter?

In a cease-and-desist letter earlier this week, Twitter threatened legal action against Instagram parent company Meta over the new text-based app Threads, which it called a “copycat.”

Threads has drawn tens of millions of users since launching as the latest rival to Elon Musk’s social media platform.

Threads creators pushed back on the accusations, and legal experts note that much is still unknown. For now, “it’s sort of a big question mark,” Jacob Noti-Victor, an associate professor at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo Law School who specializes in intellectual property, told The Associated Press. Continue reading

UN council to hold first meeting on potential threats of artificial intelligence to global peace

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Read time : 2 mins

Level : Intermediate

United Kingdom Ambassador to the United Nations Dame Barbara Woodward speaks during a security council meeting at United Nations headquarters, Friday, June 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council will hold a first-ever meeting on the potential threats of artificial intelligence to international peace and security, organized by the United Kingdom which sees tremendous potential but also major risks about AI’s possible use for example in autonomous weapons or in control of nuclear weapons.

UK Ambassador Barbara Woodward on Monday announced the July 18 meeting as the centerpiece of its presidency of the council this month. It will include briefings by international AI experts and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who last month called the alarm bells over the most advanced form of AI “deafening,” and loudest from its developers.

“These scientists and experts have called on the world to act, declaring AI an existential threat to humanity on a par with the risk of nuclear war,” the U.N. chief said. Continue reading

The American flag wasn’t always revered as it is today. At the beginning, it was an afterthought

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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Advanced

FILE – Tang De Wong, lower left, and other members of the Chinese Benevolent Association march in an Independence Day parade in Philadelphia, July 4, 2008. Flags proliferate every July Fourth, but it wasn’t always a revered and debated symbol. Unlike the right to assemble or trial by jury, the flag’s role was not prescribed by the founders: Flags would have been rare during early Independence Day celebrations and were so peripheral to early U.S. history that no original flag exists. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

By HILLEL ITALIE AP National Writer

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — In the bedroom of the Betsy Ross House, a reconstruction of where the upholsterer worked on her most famous commission, a long flag with a circle of 13 stars hangs over a Chippendale side chair and extends across the floor. Over the weeks in 1776 needed to complete the project, Ross would have likely knelt on the flag, stood on it and treated it more like an everyday banner — not with the kind of reverence we’d expect today.

“She would not have worried about it touching the floor or violating any codes,” says Lisa Moulder, director of the Ross House. “The flag did not have any kind of special symbolism.”

Flags proliferate every July 4. But unlike the right to assemble or trial by jury, their role was not prescribed by the founders. They would have been rare during early Independence Day celebrations. Only in the mid-19th century does the U.S. flag become a permanent fixture at the White House, scholars believe; only in the mid-20th century was a federal code established for how it should be handled and displayed; only in the 1960s did Congress pass a law making it illegal to “knowingly” cast “contempt” on the flag. Continue reading

The Olympic flame for the 2024 Paris Games will be carried for 68 days before the cauldron is lit

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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Intermediate

A map is shown on a giant video screen during the unveiling of the route for the Paris 2024 Olympic Torch relay at Sorbonne University in Paris, Friday, June 23, 2023. The route of the Torch is expected to take in more than 60 departments across France as it is carried for three months in the lead-up to the July Olympics in Paris. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)

By JEROME PUGMIRE AP Sports Writer

PARIS (AP) — The Olympic flame for the 2024 Paris Games will pass through 64 departments — including five overseas — and 400 towns over 68 days before the cauldron is lit.

Organizers announced the route for the torch relay on Friday at a Paris university.

“Paris 2024 is the greatest collective project in our history,” organizing committee president Tony Estanguet said. “The torch relay plays an important role because it has the capacity to touch so many people.”

The torch will be lit by the sun’s rays on April 16 in Ancient Olympia, Greece. It will then be carried around the nation before its handover in Athens.

The flame will leave Athens on April 27 aboard a three-mast ship named Belem for the French port of Marseille — a former Greek colony founded 2,600 years ago.

The Belem was first used in 1896, the same year the modern Olympics came back. It will be skippered by French navigator Armel Le Cléac’h, winner of the solo around-the-world race Vendée Globe in 2017. The crew will reach Marseille on May 8. Continue reading

Want a climate-friendly flight? It’s going to take a while and cost you more

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Read time : 2 mins

Level : Advanced

FILE – A man walks down the steps of the Boeing 777X airplane during the Paris Air Show in Le Bourget, north of Paris, France, Monday, June 19, 2023. Airlines are facing increasing pressure to cut their climate-changing emissions. That made sustainable aviation fuel a hot topic this week at the Paris Air Show, a major industry event. Sustainable fuel made from food waste or plant material is aviation’s best hope for reducing emissions in the next couple of decades. (AP Photo/Lewis Joly, File)

By DAVID KOENIG AP Airlines Writer

When it comes to flying, going green may cost you more. And it’s going to take a while for the strategy to take off.

Sustainability was a hot topic this week at the Paris Air Show, the world’s largest event for the aviation industry, which faces increasing pressure to reduce the climate-changing greenhouse gases that aircraft spew.

Even the massive orders at the show got a emissions-reduction spin: Airlines and manufacturers said the new planes will be more fuel-efficient than the ones they replace.

But most of those planes will burn conventional, kerosene-based jet fuel. Startups are working feverishly on electric-powered aircraft, but they won’t catch on as quickly as electric vehicles. Continue reading

Americans mark Juneteenth with parties, events and quiet reflection on the end of slavery

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Read time : 4 mins

Level : Intermediate

Kici Ashton, 3, waves a Juneteenth sign from a car while riding in the annual Galveston Juneteenth Parade in Galveston, Texas, on Saturday, June 17, 2023. (Stuart Villanueva/The Galveston County Daily News via AP)

By BIANCA VÁZQUEZ TONESS, ED WHITE and ADRIAN SAINZ Associated Press

Detroit (AP) — Americans across the country this weekend celebrated Juneteenth, marking the relatively new national holiday with cookouts, parades and other gatherings as they commemorated the end of slavery after the Civil War.

While many have treated the long holiday weekend as a reason for a party, others urged quiet reflection on America’s often violent and oppressive treatment of its Black citizens. And still others have remarked at the strangeness of celebrating a federal holiday marking the end of slavery in the nation while many Americans are trying to stop parts of that history from being taught in public schools.

“Is #Juneteenth the only federal holiday that some states have banned the teaching of its history and significance?” Author Michelle Duster asked on Twitter this weekend, referring to measures in Florida, Oklahoma and Alabama prohibiting an Advancement Placement African American studies course or the teaching of certain concepts of race and racism. Continue reading

UN steps up criticism of IMF and World Bank, the other pillars of the post-World War II global order

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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Advanced

FILE – United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks to reporters in the Treaty Room before a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the State Department, April 27, 2023, in Washington. From the ashes of World War II, three institutions were created as linchpins of a new global order. Now, in an unusual move the top official in one, Guterres, is pressing for major changes in the other two. Guterres says the International Monetary Fund has benefited rich countries instead of poor ones. And he describes the IMF and World Bank’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a “glaring failure” that left dozens of countries deeply indebted. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — From the ashes of World War II, three institutions were created as linchpins of a new global order. Now, in an unusual move, the top official in one — the secretary-general of the United Nations — is pressing for major changes in the other two.

Antonio Guterres says the International Monetary Fund has benefited rich countries instead of poor ones. And he describes the IMF and World Bank ‘s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a “glaring failure” that left dozens of countries deeply indebted.

Guterres’ criticism, in a recent paper, isn’t the first time he’s called for overhauling global financial institutions. But it is his most in-depth analysis of their problems, cast in light of their response to the pandemic, which he called a “stress test” for the organizations.

His comments were issued ahead of meetings called by French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Thursday and Friday to address reforms of the multilateral development banks and other issues. Continue reading