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Bear gives West Virginia principal a roaring wake-up call

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:29:10 GMT

By BEATRICE DUPUY (Associated Press)A black bear gave a West Virginia principal quite the wake-up call when it emerged — growling and roaring — from a dumpster outside an elementary school.Zela Elementary School principal James Marsh was surprised to discover the bear had somehow managed to get inside the dumpster over the weekend even after the school installed a lock bar. As Marsh was unlocking the bin Monday, the bear began pushing open the lid. “That will wake a person up,” Marsh said Tuesday in a phone interview. “That was 7:15 a.m., if you are not already awake that will wake you up.”Marsh darted away once the bear’s head appeared. The bear then jumped out and ran off in an encounter that was recorded by a school security camera and has since being shared widely across social media. “He looked like he was scared, too — as scared as I was,” Marsh said. “He might not be back.”The school in Nicholas County, a...

Oklahoma woman: Sex offender controlled daughter’s family

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:29:10 GMT

By SEAN MURPHY (Associated Press)HENRYETTA, Okla. (AP) — A registered sex offender found dead on a rural Oklahoma property with his wife, her teenage children and two visiting teens kept the family “under lock and key” and always had to know where they were, the wife’s mother said Tuesday. Janette Mayo, 59, of Westville, said Jesse McFadden’s controlling behavior was concerning, but the family didn’t learn about his criminal history until a few months ago. “He lied to my daughter, and he convinced her it was all just a huge mistake,” Mayo told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Tuesday morning. “He was very demure. He was very standoffish, generally very quiet, but he kept my daughter and the kids basically under lock and key. He had to know where they were at all times, which sent red flags up.”Okmulgee County Sheriff Eddy Rice said Monday that the bodies found near the town of Henryetta, were believed to includ...

‘Godfather of AI’ leaves Google, warns of tech’s dangers

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:29:10 GMT

By MATT O’BRIEN and WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS (AP Business Reporters)WASHINGTON (AP) — Sounding alarms about artificial intelligence has become a popular pastime in the ChatGPT era, taken up by high-profile figures as varied as industrialist Elon Musk, leftist intellectual Noam Chomsky and the 99-year-old retired statesman Henry Kissinger.But it’s the concerns of insiders in the AI research community that are attracting particular attention. A pioneering researcher and the so-called “Godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton quit his role at Google so he could more freely speak about the dangers of the technology he helped create.Over his decades-long career, Hinton’s pioneering work on deep learning and neural networks helped lay the foundation for much of the AI technology we see today.There has been a spasm of AI introductions in recent months. San Francisco-based startup OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed company behind ChatGPT, rolled out its latest artificia...

On Illinois highway, blinding dust, then ‘crash after crash’

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:29:10 GMT

By JOHN O’CONNOR (Associated Press)DIVERNON, Ill. (AP) — Winds stirred up a wall of dust from farm fields that engulfed a stretch of busy interstate highway in a matter of minutes. The brown cloud’s intensity caked even the insides of vehicles in dirt. As darkness enveloped them, some cars and trucks hurtling down the road put on their brakes; others didn’t.They slammed into one another, leaving them mangled or in some cases, burned. And when it was over, almost 40 people were injured and six people were dead — two of them still unidentifiable. Monday’s deadly and fiery crashes along a 2-mile stretch of Interstate 55 in central Illinois, 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of St. Louis and just south of the state capital of Springfield, came as high spring winds kicked up dust at a time when farmers are busy tilling or planting their fields, police said.“They were very unusual circumstances. Certainly dust storms happen, but it is not something ...

Boston Pizza teases unofficial name change to honour Leafs, mock Bruins

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:29:10 GMT

Boston Pizza isn’t messing around when it comes to an Original Six rivalry.After Auston Matthews and the Toronto Maple Leafs overcame years of playoff failure to advance to the second round, Boston Pizza decided to honour the franchise and, in turn, mock Toronto’s rival.On Monday, a billboard popped up on Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway declaring that “Boston’s Out [and] Auston’s In,” accompanied by an unofficial franchise name change from “Boston Pizza” to “Auston Pizza.” This comes after the Boston Bruins, who set an NHL record with 135 points during the regular season, were upset and eliminated by the Florida Panthers in the first round. Boston Pizza, a Canadian multi-national restaurant chain, has no affiliation with the city of Boston despite past lawsuits with Boston Market over the trademark. On Monday, a billboard popped up on Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway declaring that “Boston’s Out [and] Aus...

The balloon that flew over Hawaii? US says it’s not China’s

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:29:10 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Defense Department and the Federal Aviation Administration have been tracking a balloon that was flying off the coast of Hawaii last week, but a defense official said Tuesday there’s no indication it is connected to China or any other adversary, and it presents no threats to aviation or national security.The balloon was first detected by radar on Friday and “Pacific Air Forces launched three F-22s to assess the situation and visually identified a spherical object,” U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said. “We monitored the transit of the object and assessed that it posed no threat.”The defense official said the balloon was floating at about 36,000 feet (11,000 meters), and it did not fly over any critical defense infrastructure or sensitive sites. After determining that the balloon presented no threat to people on the ground or to aviation over Hawaii, the military took no action to bring it down, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss m...

Workers: ‘Rotten egg’ smell before chocolate factory blast

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:29:10 GMT

Workers at a Pennsylvania chocolate factory smelled “rotten eggs” before a powerful natural gas explosion that leveled one building, heavily damaged another and killed seven people, federal safety officials said Monday in a preliminary report.The National Transportation Safety Board’s five-paragraph account of the fatal explosion confirmed earlier reporting by The Associated Press and other media outlets that employees had detected an odor of natural gas at the R.M. Palmer Co. factory in West Reading, a small town 60 miles (96 kilometers) northwest of Philadelphia.About 70 Palmer production workers and 35 office staff were working in two adjacent buildings at the time of the March 24 blast, according to the agency’s report, and employees in both buildings told federal investigators they’d smelled gas.“Employees from Building 2 recalled that they were sanitizing equipment in the building when they detected an odor of natural gas. The employees in Building 1 re...

Mechanic charged with homicide in fatal NYC elevator plunge

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:29:10 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — An elevator mechanic’s failure to execute basic safety procedures caused an elevator at a New York City building to plunge six stories and crush a co-worker to death, prosecutors said Tuesday.Mechanic Peter Milatz, 67, was charged with criminally negligent homicide for the Feb. 18, 2021 death of apprentice mechanic Joseph Rosa, 25, at a Bronx building where the men were working to modernize the elevator.According to prosecutors, Milatz and Rosa were working on replacing the steel ropes between the elevator cabin and the counterweight when Milatz told Rosa to go to the pit at the bottom of the shaft.At Milatz’s instruction, prosecutors said, Rosa secured the counterweight, then used a small saw to cut through the ropes. The elevator cabin plunged down the shaft and crushed Rosa. Prosecutors said Milatz had failed to carry out a procedure called hanging the elevator cabin, which prevents the elevator from falling when the ropes are cut. Additionally, they ...

Toronto police officers charged for taking stolen alcohol from 51 Division

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:29:10 GMT

Two Toronto police constables were charged after the pair allegedly took bottles of alcohol that had been recovered during the arrest of a suspect two weeks ago.A Toronto Police Service (TPS) spokesperson said that on April 12, the two officers arrested one person on several outstanding warrants.During the arrest, two bottles of stolen alcohol were recovered from the suspect. The two officers transported the accused and stolen items to 51 Division in Toronto.The TPS said the two officers were later seen taking the stolen bottles of alcohol to their personal vehicles.Members of the TPS later executed search warrants, and the stolen property was recovered from one officer’s residence and the other officer’s personal vehicle.On Tuesday, 55-year-old Const. Brian James and 27-year-old Const. Thomas Victor of 51 Division were both arrested. They will be suspended with pay, the TPS noted.Const. James and Const. Victor faces several charges, including theft under $5,000, possess...

Idaho Supreme Court justice to retire, cites low salary

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:29:10 GMT

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho Supreme Court Justice John Stegner has announced his resignation, telling the governor that the relatively low pay has made it necessary to return to private practice. The Idaho Legislature gave most state employees cost-of-living raises of up to 7% last year, but refused to approve any raises for judges, and declined to make up the difference during this year’s session. In his letter Monday to Idaho Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, Stegner said his decision is bittersweet and that serving as judge has been the privilege of his professional career. His resignation will take effect at the end of October, and Stegner will serve as a Senior Judge, until any pending appellate cases are resolved. “Given the disparity in pay between a Supreme Court Justice (which is lower than a beginning lawyer at some Boise firms and one of the lowest in the nation) and a lawyer in private practice, I find it necessary financially to leave the public sector and return to t...