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AI pioneers Hinton and Bengio call for more regulation in new proposal

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:48 GMT

TORONTO — Several Canadian pioneers in artificial intelligence have signed a new document urging governments to better manage the technology’s risks as its capabilities continue to advance.Yoshua Bengio and Geoffrey Hinton are among 24 signatories of a letter warning that AI has already surpassed some human abilities because these systems can act faster, absorb more knowledge and communicate faster than humans.They warn further advances mean AI could exacerbate global inequities, facilitate automated warfare, orchestrate mass manipulation and pervasively surveil people. To keep up with the pace of AI innovations and mitigate risks, the signatories are urging governments and companies to allocate one-third of their AI research and development funding to the safe and ethical use of systems.They also want creators of AI systems to adopt safety measures that can counter their products’ dangerous capabilities and companies who make these technologies to be held liable for the...

A German tourist who went missing in a remote Zimbabwe wildlife park is found alive 3 days later

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:48 GMT

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — A German tourist who went missing in a national park teeming with wild animals in northern Zimbabwe has been found alive and in “good health” along with his rental car three days later, a spokesperson for the national parks agency said Tuesday.Tinashe Farawo with the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority said Andreas Hoberg had last been seen buying a drink at the park shop in Matusadona National Park before going for a game drive around 3.30 p.m. on Saturday.He failed to return by 6 p.m., when all game drives should end, and the car rental company failed to locate him on its GPS tracking system, Farawo said.Authorities deployed a helicopter, vehicles and sniffer dogs to scour the remote 1,400-square-kilometer (540-square-mile) park that is home to lions, buffalo, leopards, elephants “and all the dangerous animals you can expect in the bush,” Farawo said.The spokesman said the telephone network is poor in the area and he was yet to get more informa...

Prosecutors close investigation of Berlin aquarium collapse as the cause remains unclear

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:48 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — Prosecutors in Berlin said Tuesday they have closed their investigation into the spectacular collapse of a huge aquarium last December after an expert report failed to pin down a reason why the tank burst.The AquaDom aquarium, which stood in a hotel lobby in the center of the German capital, burst in the early hours of Dec. 16, sending 1 million liters (264,000 gallons) of water gushing into the building and the street outside. Two people were slightly injured.Prosecutors said they have closed an investigation of persons unknown on suspicion of causing bodily harm by negligence after evaluating the export report, commissioned by the building’s owners, which they received on Oct. 6.Its author, engineer Christian Bonten, has presented three theories but said there was no clear evidence to prove any of them. The hypotheses were that an adhesive seam holding together the cylinder may have failed; that the tank may have been damaged by a dent in its base when the aqua...

Pan American Games start in disarray with cleaners still working around the National Stadium

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:48 GMT

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Workers and volunteers at the Pan American Games were still removing bricks, pieces of wood and construction machinery from outside competition venues on Tuesday, the fourth day of the largest multi-sport event in the region.Construction material is scattered around many of the entrances to the National Stadium compound, where six venues are set to stage 30 events at the Pan American Games in Santiago.Chile is hosting the Olympic-style event for the first time and public officials have invested $507 million in the area.Near the stadium’s main entrance, dozens of empty boxes, crates and pieces of wood were untouched between Friday, the day of the opening ceremony, and Saturday. Some of those leftovers are linked to the last-minute installation of rootless trees, two volunteers told The Associated Press.The volunteers spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.One of the workers continued cleaning and picking up ...

Coroner faults police response in case of two girls killed by father in 2020

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:48 GMT

MONTREAL — A coroner investigating the deaths of two Quebec girls who were killed by their father three years ago has described the police efforts to find them as “too little, too late.”Coroner Luc Malouin says Quebec provincial police erred in not quickly launching a ground search for Romy and Norah Carpentier after they and their father mysteriously went missing after a car crash on the evening of July 8, 2020.After crashing his car on Highway 20, Martin Carpentier fled the scene and later killed 11-year-old Norah and six-year-old Romy in the woods near St-Apollinaire, Que., southwest of Quebec City. He then killed himself.While witnesses told police after the crash that Carpentier was a good and loving father, Malouin said they also suggested that he’d been struggling with depression, was scared of losing custody of his daughters and his behaviour was out of character.Malouin said that should have been enough for police to immediately call an emergency response ...

Lebanon’s prime minister visits troops at the country’s tense southern border with Israel

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:48 GMT

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Tuesday visited troops deployed near the border with Israel and U.N. peacekeepers, as Hezbollah militants and Israeli troops clash for a third week.The visit by Prime Minister Najib Mikati to the tense southern province is his first since clashes erupted along the border following a surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7. It also came two days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited troops along the border on Sunday.Mikati and international governments have been scrambling to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from expanding to Lebanon, where the powerful Hezbollah group warned Israel about a ground incursion into the blockaded Gaza Strip. Hezbollah deputy leader Sheikh Naim Kassem said the group is in the “heart” of the war to “defend Gaza and confront the occupation.”“Its finger is on the trigger to whatever extent it deems necessary for the confrontation,” Kassem tweeted.Clashes bet...

COVID-19 passports convinced few people to get vaccinated in Ontario: study

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:48 GMT

COVID-19 vaccine passports in Quebec and Ontario did little to convince the unvaccinated to get the jab and did not significantly reduce inequalities in vaccination coverage, a new peer-reviewed study has found.The passports, which forced people to show proof of vaccination to enter places such as bars and restaurants, were directly responsible for a rise of 0.9 per cent in the vaccination rate in Quebec and 0.7 per cent in Ontario, says Jorge Luis Flores, a research assistant at McGill University and lead author of the paper published Tuesday in the CMAJ Open journal.Compared to wealthier parts of Quebec and Ontario, low-income neighbourhoods in both provinces tended to have higher rates of COVID-19 and lower vaccine coverage, he said in an interview. Areas in Quebec with large racialized populations also had lower vaccination rates, though the opposite was true in Ontario.“What we saw was that, overall, the vaccine passport had very little impact on reducing those inequaliti...

Man wanted Canada-wide appears to mock Toronto police in now-viral TikTok video

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:48 GMT

A man wanted on a Canada-wide arrest warrant with distinctive face tattoos has taken to social media, appearing to mock Toronto police as the search for him continues.Last week, Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) said 31-year-old federal offender Michael Stamatakos is wanted for once again breaching his statutory release.The same suspect was wanted in February for the same reason. He was taken into custody a few weeks later when he was recognized while checking himself into a hospital in Hamilton.TikTok account “Toronto’s Joker” uploaded several since-deleted videos to ostensibly ridicule Toronto police officers. Though not confirmed to be Stamatakos, he strongly resembles the man currently wanted Canada-wide.In one video, a local media outlet’s story on the wanted man can be seen in the background, with the person presumed to be Stamatakos donning sunglasses and a bucket hat, listening on and smiling. In another video uploaded to TikTok, a man with distinguisha...

A new RSV shot for infants is in short supply

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:48 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — A new shot for infants against RSV is in short supply, and U.S. health officials told doctors they should prioritize giving the drug to babies at the highest risk of severe disease.Infants less than 6 months who have chronic lung disease or other underlying conditions should be given priority, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told doctors in a Monday evening advisory. RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is a common cause of coldlike symptoms that can be dangerous for young children. A seasonal virus, it’s being widely reported in the southern United States and is expected to continue to spread over the next month or two.The new, one-time shot is a lab-made antibody that helps the immune system fight off the virus. Sold under the brand name Beyfortus, the drug was developed by AstraZeneca and Sanofi.In July, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved it, and the next month the CDC recommended it for infants born just before or during the RSV s...

5 dead, including 3 kids, after shootings in Sault Ste. Marie: police

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 15:30:48 GMT

Five people — including three children and a shooter — were found dead in the northern Ontario city of Sault Ste. Marie after shootings at two homes, police said Tuesday, calling what happened a tragic case of intimate partner violence.“The grief the families, friends, and loved ones of the victims are facing is unimaginable. Our hearts go out to them,” Sault Ste. Marie Police Chief Hugh Stevenson wrote in a statement on X.“As our community grieves this tragedy, I urge everyone to please watch out for each other.”They say officers also found the 44-year-old shooter, who appeared to have died after a self-inflicted gunshot wound.Police say the deaths are the result of intimate partner violence and say the loved ones of those who died are facing unimaginable grief.Police said the shootings were not random acts of violence and there was no ongoing risk to public safety. They also said they would not be releasing the names of the victims or the accus...