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Tag: Human rights and civil liberties

  • Montana lawmakers pass bill to ban TikTok

    Montana lawmakers pass bill to ban TikTok

    TikTok logo displayed on a cellphone.

    Hyoung Chang | Denver Post | Getty Images

    Montana legislators approved a bill on Friday that would ban TikTok from being offered in the state in a 54-43 vote. The bill, SB 419, now goes to Montana Republican Governor Greg Gianforte for approval.

    TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, is likely to take action to prevent the bill from becoming law. If implemented, it would be the first statewide ban of its kind.

    Beyond Montana, federal lawmakers have for months been pushing an act that would ban TikTok across the country if ByteDance won’t sell its stake in the viral video app. That threat presents severe potential challenges to TokTok, and the company has invested millions of dollars into combating the effort.

    The Montana bill cited likely Chinese surveillance and the potential theft of state intellectual property as some of the impetus behind the ban. Should a law be enacted, mobile app store providers like Apple and Google would be required to disable Tiktok downloads from within Montana, and TikTok would be prohibited from offering the platform to state residents.

    The ban would take effect on Jan. 1, 2024.

    “TikTok’s stealing of information and data from users and its ability to share that data with the Chinese Communist Party unacceptably infringes on Montana’s right to privacy,” the bill reads. Montana is one of the least-populated states in the U.S., with just over 1 million residents as of the 2020 census.

    Gianforte knows the tech industry well. Prior to public office, he ran RightNow Technologies, a software company he founded in 1997. Oracle acquired RightNow in 2012 for $1.5 billion. As of 2018, Gianforte had an estimated net worth of over $189 million, according to OpenSecrets.org.

    In 2020, Oracle agreed to provide backend technology to TikTok as part of an arrangement to keep the app, at the time, from being banned by the U.S. government. Oracle is currently the cloud hosting service for all of TikTok usage in the U.S.

    Customers in Montana won’t be fined if they fail to abide by the ban or evade it. But companies, including TikTok, face a $10,000 fine per violation if they’re found to have skirted the ban.

    State Sen. Shelley Vance, a Republican, sponsored the bill. Vance did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    TikTok said it opposes the bill, adding that there’s no clear path for the Montana government to enforce it or punish violators.

    “The bill’s champions have admitted that they have no feasible plan for operationalizing this attempt to censor American voices and that the bill’s constitutionality will be decided by the courts,” TikTok said in a statement. “We will continue to fight for TikTok users and creators in Montana whose livelihoods and First Amendment rights are threatened by this egregious government overreach.”

    WATCH: TikTok advertising up 11% in March amid scrutiny

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  • How TikTok and its parent company spent over $13 million on struggling lobbying campaign

    How TikTok and its parent company spent over $13 million on struggling lobbying campaign

    TikTok and its parent company combined to spend more than $13 million on lobbying federal government officials since 2019 — an effort that appears to have fallen flat as lawmakers push proposals targeting the app’s ownership by a Chinese company or even seek to ban TikTok in the U.S. outright.

    Weeks after Republican Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri introduced legislation that would bar TikTok downloads nationwide, Buck’s staff received a call in February from Michael Beckerman, the head of the social media company’s U.S. public policy shop, according to a person close to Buck.

    Beckerman pushed back on concerns from Buck’s staff that TikTok is harvesting customer data, and advocated for the company’s new initiative known as Project Texas, this person explained. Project Texas is TikTok’s effort to place its U.S. customer data into a secure hub managed by the tech giant Oracle, which is meant to ease U.S. government concerns that the information could be accessed by Chinese parent company ByteDance or members of the ruling party in China.

    The lobbying comes amid a sustained effort by TikTok to play down fears raised by lawmakers who want to ban the app, which has 150 million monthly active users in the U.S. The company has tried to show it can address concerns about user information without an outright ban, but most lawmakers at a contentious hearing about TikTok this month seemed unconvinced Project Texas would adequately do so.

    TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew looks on as he testifies before a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing entitled “TikTok: How Congress can Safeguard American Data Privacy and Protect Children from Online Harms,” as lawmakers scrutinize the Chinese-owned video-sharing app, on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 23, 2023.

    Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters

    TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told U.S. lawmakers at the hearing that China-based employees at ByteDance may have access to some U.S. data from the app. But he assured them employees would no longer have that data once Project Texas is complete.

    The sustained lobbying pressure and Chew’s testimony so far have not stifled the effort on Capitol Hill to sever TikTok’s ties to its Chinese owner or limit access to the app.

    Brooke Oberwetter, a spokeswoman for TikTok, did not deny any element of this story. She defended the work of TikTok’s team in Washington and said the company is trying to address lawmakers’ privacy and safety concerns.

    “Our team in Washington is — and always has been — focused on educating lawmakers and stakeholders about our company and our service,” Oberwetter said. “We will continue our work to educate lawmakers and the American public about our progress in implementing Project Texas to address national security concerns, and we will continue to work with lawmakers, stakeholders, and our peer companies on solutions that address the industrywide issues of privacy and safety.”

    TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew: We don't collect precise GPS data

    One of the leading proposals targeting TikTok is the RESTRICT Act, introduced by a bipartisan group of senators led by Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., and John Thune, R-S.D.. The bill, which does not yet have companion legislation in the House, would give the Commerce secretary the authority to evaluate national security risks related to certain technology transactions with firms or individuals in a select group of foreign adversary countries, including China. The Commerce secretary could recommend the president take action up to a ban.

    Another proposal is the DATA Act, introduced by Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas. It would revoke protections that have typically shielded creative content from U.S. sanctions. It would also mandate the president impose sanctions on China-based companies that transfer Americans’ sensitive personal data to individuals or businesses in China. The proposal passed through the GOP-led House Foreign Relations Committee along party lines, with Democrats fearing it was rushed.

    At the furthest end of the extreme is the legislation from Hawley and Buck that simply seeks to ban TikTok outright by directing the president to block transactions with ByteDance.

    Since the call with Beckerman, Buck has not held back in calling the app a threat to national security. Buck’s staff members responded to Beckerman that they were still concerned about the company’s privacy, cybersecurity and national security policies, the person close to Buck said.

    Another ally of the Colorado lawmaker said the lobbying money is wasted on trying to change Buck’s mind. “It’s like they’re lighting their money on fire,” a Republican strategist allied with Buck told CNBC.

    Another GOP strategist familiar with TikTok’s lobbying efforts told CNBC that the company’s “last-minute blitz” to lobby Capitol Hill weeks before Chew’s testimony was “amateur hour.” The person said congressional offices at times declined meetings with company representatives, and that TikTok officials did not reach out to key lawmakers such as Hawley who have targeted the app.

    Hawley has not eased his campaign to ban TikTok. He tried on Wednesday to win unanimous Senate support to fast-track his bill. Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who is now among the small group of lawmakers from both parties who have opposed the effort to bar access to the app, blocked Hawley’s legislation. While there are plenty of lawmakers who haven’t yet concluded a ban is necessary, only a handful have openly ruled it out.

    Those who declined to be named in this story did so to speak freely about private conversations and meetings. A Hawley spokeswoman did not return a request for comment.

    The interaction with Buck’s team represents just one of many instances when lobbyists for TikTok, or its China-based parent company ByteDance, have seen their campaigns fall on deaf ears on Capitol Hill, according to advisors and aides to congressional lawmakers. The fact that some lawmakers have showed little interest in hearing out TikTok executives is the latest sign the company may need more allies in Congress to prevent new restrictions on the app or a potential ban.

    House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on TikTok ban: The last administration had it right

    Warner met earlier this year with TikTok lobbyists, according to a person at the gathering at the senator’s office. The Virginia lawmaker and Thune later introduced their bill that would empower the Commerce secretary to take action against TikTok. The White House has since endorsed the bill and called for Congress to pass it so President Joe Biden can sign it.

    Warner’s office did not return a request for comment.

    TikTok appears to have ramped up its lobbying just ahead of Chew’s testimony in front of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The company flew TikTok influencers to Washington before the event.

    The company also had allies in a handful of Democratic lawmakers such as Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y. A day before the hearing, he and popular content creators on the app held a news conference to oppose a potential ban.

    But in private meetings, some of those same influencers told Bowman that there need to be regulations passed to protect their data across all social media platforms, including TikTok, while keeping the app intact, according to an aide familiar with the discussions.

    Regardless of their impact on lawmakers, creators’ pleas to maintain access to TikTok in the U.S. have seemed to resonate with many American users who see the app as a source of entertainment, information and even income. During and after the hearing, TikTok users shared clips of lawmakers asking basic questions of the CEO, deriding Congress for what they saw as a lack of understanding of the technology.

    But based on the five hours of tense questioning by members of both parties at the hearing, the creators’ appeals didn’t seem to offset the deep concerns lawmakers shared about the app’s connections to China, along with the addictive and potentially harmful qualities of its design.

    “I don’t think they won over any lawmakers,” Alex Moore, communications director for Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., said of TikTok’s pre-hearing lobbying. Bringing in TikTok creators to amplify the company’s message “hasn’t swayed my boss,” Moore added.

    Still, Moore said his office has been hearing a lot from constituents since the hearing. Before the testimony, calls about TikTok would “trickle in,” he said. But after, “our phones were ringing off the hook,” with the majority of callers voicing opposition to a TikTok ban.

    “We heard overwhelmingly that’s not what our constituents are interested in,” he said.

    While often a call like that “starts out hot,” Moore said constituents would tend to calm down once staff explained that Schakowsky wants comprehensive privacy legislation so as not to “let other companies off the hook” for similar data practices.

    Schakowsky told CNBC immediately after the hearing that there will still likely be “further discussion” about how to address the concerns directly related to TikTok’s Chinese ownership. But Schakowsky, who co-sponsored the bipartisan privacy legislation that passed out of the committee last Congress, said she hopes the hearing brings renewed momentum to privacy protections that would apply to other large tech companies as well.

    Connected lobbying efforts

    TiKTok’s and ByteDance’s lobbying efforts are directly linked.

    ByteDance’s quarterly lobbying reports show all of their in-house lobbyists work for TikTok. They include Beckerman, who once worked as a policy director for former GOP Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan, along with Freddy Barnes, who had a stint in Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s office.

    TikTok itself has hired its own legion of outside lobbyists. Its latest recruits include former Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., and Ankit​ Desai, a former aide to Biden when he was a member of the U.S. Senate.

    ByteDance and TikTok have combined to spend over $13 million on federal lobbying since 2019, according to lobbying disclosure reports and data reviewed by OpenSecrets.

    The majority of the spending on lobbying related to the social app has come from ByteDance. The TikTok parent company spent $5.3 million on federal lobbying in 2022, a new record for the company, according to the nonpartisan OpenSecrets.

    TikTok itself has spent just over $900,000 since 2020 on outside lobbying consultants.

    ByteDance also donated over $400,000 last year to nonprofit groups allied with members of Congress for “honorary expenses,” according to a filing.

    The document shows that ByteDance donated a combined $300,000 to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute and Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, groups linked to predominantly Democratic caucuses in the House. Each of those organizations list Jesse Price, a public policy director at TikTok, as a member of either its board of directors or advisory council.

    Beckerman, the leading TikTok lobbyist, signed the report showing the contributions ByteDance made.

    TikTok and ByteDance have also targeted Biden’s executive office in the White House with lobbying since 2020, according to disclosure reports.

    The White House did not respond when asked about further details on the lobbying effort.

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  • US Jews fear collision with expected Israeli government

    US Jews fear collision with expected Israeli government

    JERUSALEM — Israel’s ties to the Jewish American community, one of its closest and most important allies, are about to be put to the test, with Israel’s emerging far-right government on a collision course with Jews in the United States.

    Major Jewish American organizations, traditionally a bedrock of support for Israel, have expressed alarm over the far-right character of the presumptive government led by conservative Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. Given American Jews’ predominantly liberal political views and affinity for the Democratic Party, these misgivings could have a ripple effect in Washington and further widen what has become a partisan divide over support for Israel.

    “This is a very significant crossroads,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, a liberal, pro-Israel group in Washington. “The potential for specific actions that could be taken by this government, these are the moments when the relationship between the bulk of American Jews and the state of Israel begins to really fray. So I’m very afraid.”

    Jewish-American leaders appear especially worried about the prominent role expected to be played by a trio of hard-line, religious lawmakers. The three have made racist anti-Arab statements, denigrated the LGBTQ community, attacked Israel’s legal system and demonized the liberal, non-Orthodox streams of Judaism popular in the U.S. All vehemently oppose Palestinian independence.

    “These are among the most extreme voices in Israeli politics,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish movement in the U.S. “What will be the trajectory of a new Israeli government with such voices in such key leadership roles is of deep, deep concern.”

    More centrist organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League, which fights antisemitism and other forms of hatred, and the Jewish Federations of North America, an umbrella group that supports hundreds of Jewish communities, have also spoken out.

    Though these groups, like J Street and the Reform movement, support a two-state solution with the Palestinians, their recent statements have focused on Israel’s democratic ideals. The Anti-Defamation League said that including the three far-right lawmakers in a government “runs counter to Israel’s founding principles.” The Federations called for “inclusive and pluralistic” policies.

    For decades, American Jews have played a key role in promoting close ties between the U.S. and Israel. They have raised millions of dollars for Israeli causes, spoken out in Israel’s defense and strengthened strong bipartisan support for Israel in Washington.

    But this longstanding relationship has come under strain in recent years — especially during Netanyahu’s 2009-2021 rule.

    Netanyahu’s hard-line policies toward the Palestinians, his public spats with Barack Obama over peacemaking and the Iranian nuclear issue and his close ties with Donald Trump put him at odds with many in the American Jewish community.

    Opinion polls show that roughly three-quarters of American Jews lean toward the Democratic Party. They tend to be more critical of the Israeli government and more sympathetic to the Palestinians than their Republican counterparts, with these divisions even wider among younger Jews in their 20s.

    These trends appear set to go into hyper-drive as Netanyahu prepares to return to power after a year and a half as opposition leader, this time flanked by some of the country’s most extremist politicians.

    After winning elections last month, Netanyahu and his allies are still forming their coalition. But he already has reached a number of deals that are setting off alarm bells overseas.

    Itamar Ben-Gvir, a lawmaker known for his anti-Arab vitriol and provocative stunts, has been offered the job of national security minister, a powerful position that will put him in charge of Israel’s national police force. This includes the paramilitary border police, a unit on the front lines of much of the fighting with Palestinians in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.

    Ben-Gvir has labeled Arab lawmakers “terrorists” and called for deporting them. He wants to impose the death penalty on Palestinian attackers and grant soldiers immunity from prosecution.

    Netanyahu also has agreed to appoint the lawmaker Avi Maoz as a deputy minister overseeing a new authority in charge of “Jewish identity” and giving him responsibilities over Israel’s educational system.

    Maoz is known for his outspoken anti-LGBTQ positions and disparaging remarks about the Reform movement and other non-Orthodox Jews.

    He wants a ban on Pride parades, has compared gays to pedophiles and wants to allow some forms of conversion therapy, a discredited practice that tries to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of LGBTQ children.

    Maoz hopes to change Israel’s “Law of Return,” which allows anyone with a single Jewish grandparent to immigrate to Israel, and replace it with a much stricter definition of who is a Jew. He also opposes non-Orthodox conversions to Judaism. This is an affront to liberal Jewish groups, which have less rigid views on Jewish identity.

    Bezalel Smotrich, a settler leader with a history of anti-gay and anti-Palestinian comments, has been granted widespread authority over settlement construction and Palestinian civilian life in the occupied West Bank.

    Netanyahu has been generous toward his allies because they support major legal reforms that could freeze or dismiss his corruption trial. Critics say such moves will imperil Israel’s democratic foundations.

    Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Netanyahu tried to play down such concerns as he vowed to safeguard democracy and LGBTQ rights. “I ultimately decide policy,” he said.

    Halie Soifer, chief executive of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said it is premature to judge a government that hasn’t yet taken office. But she acknowledged the concerns about issues like LGBTQ rights, Palestinian rights and respect for democracy – particularly with memories of the Trump administration still fresh.

    “Many of those concerns are based on our own experience with an administration that didn’t share our values,” said Soifer.

    Whether U.S. policy will be affected is unclear. The Biden administration has said it will wait to see policies, not personalities, of the new government.

    But Eric Alterman, author of “We Are Not One,” a new book about relations between Israel and American Jews, says the sides are moving in opposite directions.

    Progressive Democrats already have pushed for a tougher approach to Israel because of its treatment of the Palestinians.

    “It may come suddenly. It may come in pieces. But there’s simply a break coming between American Jews and Israeli Jews,” Alterman said.

    ———

    Associated Press writers Eleanor H. Reich in Jerusalem, Luis Henao in New York and Peter Smith in Pittsburgh contributed reporting.

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  • Iowa school district agrees to deal with racial harassment

    Iowa school district agrees to deal with racial harassment

    OTTUMWA, Iowa — A southeast Iowa school district failed to protect a Black student from pervasive racial harassment and now must take steps to help the student and ensure it responds appropriately to any future racist actions, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

    The department announced Monday it had resolved a complaint filed against the Ottumwa school district after investigating allegations of harassment in the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school year against a middle school student. The investigation found the harassment amounted to a “racial hostile environment” that violated the student’s federal civil rights, the department said.

    The student endured repeated racial slurs, was targeted by students making monkey noises and was told racially derogatory jokes. District officials were told of the harassment but didn’t take effective actions and didn’t follow up to ensure the harassment had stopped, the department’s investigation found.

    “Federal civil rights law has for decades promised that no student should experience the racially hostile environment that the young person in this investigation endured,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Catherine E. Lhamon said in a statement.

    In a statement posted on the district’s website, Superintendent Michael McGrory didn’t apologize for how officials responded to the harassment but said the district had worked collaboratively with the Office of Civil Rights and “finalized a joint agreement to move forward with systemic improvements to our policies and procedures to ensure equity for all of our students.”

    Under the agreement, the district promised actions including reimbursing the student’s parents for expenses related to past and future therapeutic services resulting from the harassment as well as publishing an anti-harassment statement. The district also must review its policies related to harassment based on race, color or national origin, provide training to staff and offer age-appropriate information to students.

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  • Vandalism at Missouri elementary school includes a swastika

    Vandalism at Missouri elementary school includes a swastika

    Police in Springfield, Missouri, are investigating after vandals spray-painted a swastika during a vandalism spree at an elementary school that is under construction

    SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Police in Springfield, Missouri, are investigating after a swastika was sprayed on an elementary school during a vandalism spree.

    The vandalism at York Elementary School, which is under construction, was found on Saturday morning, police spokeswoman Cris Waters said.

    Stephen Hall, spokesman for Springfield Public Schools, said the district immediately replaced the window where the swastika was found and removed the graffiti. He declined to say how much damage was found but said it will require the district to file an insurance claim to recover the costs, the Springfield News-Leader reported.

    Hall said the vandalism will not delay the opening of the new York Elementary School in January.

    The vandalism comes amid a surge of anti-Jewish incidents across the country, including antisemitic comments from some celebrities such as the rapper Ye.

    In April, the Anti-Defamation League reported a record number of antisemitic reports in 2021. The organization said the 2,717 incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism was a 34% increase over the previous year and the highest number since the ADL began tracking the events in 1979.

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  • Minnesota board accepts anti-drug aid for minority students

    Minnesota board accepts anti-drug aid for minority students

    FARIBAULT, Minn. — A southern Minnesota school district voted Monday to accept a $1.1 million state grant meant to help curb drug use among students of color, after a pair of board members had delayed accepting the money last month by arguing it could discriminate against white students.

    The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that only one member of the seven-person Faribault school board voted against accepting the funding Monday, at a meeting that drew a crowd so large that district officials had to set up an overflow room.

    Board Member Richard Olson, who also objected to the funding in November, argued that the grant “does not help all students.”

    “This will pass. I know that. But it does not have my support,” he said.

    Six members of the public urged the board to adopt the grant. Martha Brown, a substitute teacher, said: “This should be a no-brainer.”

    Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the board’s previous vote shook his faith in the district’s ability to serve students of color.

    “I not only urge you to vote for it, but I’m also concerned as we move forward that you’re not keenly interested in making sure all of our students are successful,” he said.

    In November, four of the board’s members had been deadlocked in a vote after Olson and another member argued that programs specifically for students of color were unfair to white students.

    The district serves Faribault, a city of 24,000 people less than an hour’s drive south of Minneapolis. About 73% of the city is white, but it also has significant Latino and Black populations, including a Somali American community. More than 60% of the school district’s students are people of color.

    The district applied for the grant from the Minnesota Department of Human Services after a mother from the Somali community approached the school board last summer with concerns about drug use among youth in her community. The funding is meant to address drug use among Black, Indigenous and other students of color.

    The department said in a statement that its data, as well as conversations with community members, show Black, Indigenous and other communities of color require dedicated efforts to address disparities in access to treatment for addiction.

    In the past, funding measures for stopping drug abuse among students have been accepted without objections. But that wasn’t the case on Nov. 21.

    “Would we ever go after a grant that only targeted whites with hopes that it would trickle down to our BIPOC community? Would we do the opposite? And I don’t think we would,” Board Member LeeAnn Lechtenberg said at the November meeting. Lechtenberg said she had reconsidered her objections after receiving assurances from community groups that no student struggling with substance abuse would be excluded from services.

    Before Monday’s vote, Superintendent Jamie Bente urged board members to accept the grant.

    “I will go for any grant that helps any student. And if it leaves out a certain group, then we will look for money to help that group as well,” he said.

    The funding would allow the district to hire a project coordinator, media consultant and youth coordinator, as well as pay six local organizations to survey the community on the best way to prevent drug use.

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  • Amnesty International Canada says it was hacked by Beijing

    Amnesty International Canada says it was hacked by Beijing

    TORONTO — The Canadian branch of Amnesty International said Monday it was the target of a cyber attack sponsored by China.

    The human rights organization said it first detected the breach on Oct. 5, and hired forensic investigators and cybersecurity experts to investigate.

    Ketty Nivyabandi, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada, said the searches in their systems were specifically and solely related to China and Hong Kong, as well as a few prominent Chinese activists. The hack left the organization offline for nearly three weeks.

    U.S. cybersecurity firm Secureworks said “a threat group sponsored or tasked by the Chinese state” was likely behind the attack because there was no attempt to monetize the access, the nature of the searches, the level of sophistication and the use of specific tools which are distinctive of China-sponsored actors.

    Nivyabandi encouraged activists and journalists to update their cybersecurity protocols in light of it.

    “As an organization advocating for human rights globally, we are very aware that we may be the target of state-sponsored attempts to disrupt or surveil our work. These will not intimidate us and the security and privacy of our activists, staff, donors, and stakeholders remain our utmost priority,” Nivyabandi said.

    Amnesty is among organizations that support human rights activists and journalists targeted by state actors for surveillance. That includes confirming cases of activists’ and journalists’ cell phones being infected with Pegasus spyware, which turns the devices into real-time listening devices in addition to copying their contents.

    In August, the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future listed Amnesty and the International Federation for Human Rights among organizations that Chinese hackers were targeting through password-stealing schemes designed to harvest credentials. It called that particularly concerning given the Chinese state’s “reported human rights abuses in relation to Uyghurs, Tibetans and other ethnic and religious minority groups.”

    Amnesty has raised alarms about a system of internment camps in China that swept up a million or more Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities, according to estimates by experts. China, which describes the camps as vocational training and education centers to combat extremism, says they have been closed. The government has never publicly said how many people passed through them.

    China’s embassy in Ottawa did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

    ————

    AP writer Frank Bajack in Boston contributed to this report.

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  • Global survey: workplace violence, harassment is widespread

    Global survey: workplace violence, harassment is widespread

    UNITED NATIONS — The first attempt to survey the extent of violence and harassment at work around the globe has found that workplace abuse is widespread, and particularly pronounced among young people, migrants, and wage earners, especially women.

    More than 22% of the nearly 75,000 workers in 121 countries surveyed last year reported having experienced at least one type of violence or harassment, according to the report released Monday by the U.N. International Labor Organization, the Lloyds Register Foundation and Gallup.

    “Violence and harassment in the world of work is a pervasive and harmful phenomenon, with profound and costly effects ranging from severe physical and mental health consequences to lost earnings and destroyed career paths to economic losses for workplaces and societies,” the three organizations said in the 56-page report.

    According to the findings, one-third of the people who experienced violence or harassment at work said they had experienced more than one form — and 6.3% said they had faced all three forms: physical, psychological, and sexual violence and harassment during their working life.

    Psychological violence and harassment was the most common form, reported by both men and women, with 17.9% of workers experiencing it at some point during their employment, the report said.

    Some 8.5% of those surveyed said they experienced physical violence and harassment at work, with men more likely than women, the report said, and some 6.3% experienced sexual violence and harassment, 8.2% of them women and 5% of them men.

    More than 60% of the victims of violence and harassment at work “said it has happened to them multiple times, and for the majority of them, the last incident took place within the last five years,” according to the report.

    The research also found that people who experienced discrimination at some point in their life based on gender, disability status, nationality, ethnicity, skin color or religion were more likely to experience violence or harassment at work than those who didn’t face such discrimination.

    The three organizations said “statistics on violence and harassment in the world of work are sporadic and scarce” so the ILO joined forces with Lloyd’s and Gallup to carry out “the first global exploratory exercise to measure people’s own experiences.” The survey used data from the 2021 Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll, which was part of the Gallup World Poll.

    The results pave the way for further research, the organizations said.

    “Ultimately, stronger evidence will help forge more effective legislation, policies and practices that promote prevention measures, tackle specific risk factions and root causes, and ensure that victims are not left alone in handling these unacceptable occurrences,” the ILO, Lloyds and Gallup said.

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  • EXPLAINER: US power grid has long faced terror threat

    EXPLAINER: US power grid has long faced terror threat

    WASHINGTON — Investigators believe a shooting that damaged power substations in North Carolina was a crime. What they haven’t named yet is a suspect or a motive.

    Whatever the reason, the shooting serves as a reminder of why experts have stressed the need to secure the U.S. power grid. Authorities have warned that the nation’s electricity infrastructure could be vulnerable targets for domestic terrorists.

    Tens of thousands of people lost their electricity over the weekend after one or more people opened fire on two Duke Energy substations in Moore County, which is roughly 60 miles southwest of Raleigh. Nobody has been charged in the shooting as of Monday.

    Here’s a look at what is known about the shooting and why it could have implications across the U.S.

    WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE SHOOTING?

    The outages in North Carolina began shortly after 7 p.m. on Saturday when one or more people opened fire on two power substations in Moore County, the county’s sheriff said. The outages left tens of thousands of people without electricity, and the equipment could take days to repair, according to Duke Energy.

    Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said at a Sunday news conference that authorities have not determined a motive. He said someone pulled up and “opened fire on the substation, the same thing with the other one.” The sheriff said that it appeared gates were breached at both sites. The Pilot newspaper in Southern Pines, North Carolina reported that a wooden post holding up a gate had been snapped at one of the substations and that it was lying in an access road Sunday morning.

    The sheriff noted that the FBI was working with state investigators to determine who was responsible. He also said “it was targeted.”

    “It wasn’t random,” Fields said.

    Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks said that the company has multiple layers of security at each of its facilities but declined to provide specifics. He said that the company has planning in place to recover from events like the shooting and that they are following those plans.

    Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Ruth Clemens said the department’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has offered support to Duke Energy as it efforts the restoration of power.

    TARGETS FOR EXTREMIST GROUPS

    Federal authorities have warned that the power grid could be a prime target for extremist groups that embrace “accelerationism,” a fringe philosophy that promotes mass violence to fuel society’s collapse.

    In January, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report warned that domestic extremists have been developing “credible, specific plans” to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020. The DHS report warns that extremists “adhering to a range of ideologies will likely continue to plot and encourage physical attacks against electrical infrastructure.”

    The department wrote that attackers would be unlikely to produce widespread, multistate outages without inside help. But its report cautioned that an attack could still do damage and cause injuries.

    Members of white supremacist and antigovernment groups have been linked to plots to attack the power grid. In February, three men pleaded guilty to conspiring to attack U.S. energy facilities. Authorities said they were driven by white supremacist ideologies to “sow mayhem and division among Americans.”

    OTHER ATTACKS

    Fears of an attack on the nation’s electricity infrastructure are nothing new. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ordered grid operators to increase security following a still-unsolved April 2013 sniper attack on a California electric substation.

    The attack on the Pacific Gas & Electric Company’s Metcalf Transmission Substation in an isolated area near San Jose, California, caused power outages and led to calls for millions of people to conserve energy.

    The attack involved snipping fiber-optic phone lines and firing shots into the PG&E substation. The FBI said at the time that it found no evidence that it was an act of terrorism.

    Former U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, who chaired the Senate Energy Committee in 2014, said at the time that it was fortunate the attack didn’t cause a blackout in Silicon Valley, “the horrors of which could only be imagined.”

    In the wake of that attack, FERC and other agencies recommended utilities to take specific measures to protect vulnerable substations, like adding walls, sensors or cameras. Still, many remain exposed in rural areas of the U.S. And experts have warned for years that taking out a few substations could cause rolling blackouts in the U.S., leaving millions without power.

    A Utah man was arrested in 2016 and later sentenced to federal prison time after he used a rifle to shoot the cooling fins of a substation, rupturing the radiator piping and causing the substation to overheat and fail. Court documents said the man had planned to attack other substations as part of an effort to take down power in a large chunk of the western United States.

    WHAT’S THE CHALLENGE IN PROTECTING THE GRID?

    The vastness of American electricity infrastructure makes it difficult to defend. Power plants and substations like those targeted in North Carolina are dispersed in every corner of the country and connected by transmission lines that transport electricity through farmland, forests and swamps.

    “The grid is massive,” said Erroll Southers, a former FBI official and professor of homeland security at the University of Southern California.

    The targets also present an increasing challenge to secure because attackers don’t always have to get as close as they did in North Carolina in order to do damage, Southers said. With the right rifle, skill and line of sight a sniper could take a shot from as far as 1,500 meters (about 4,900 feet) away.

    Protecting substations against a long range rifle shot is “extremely challenging, if not impossible,” he said.

    Southers said all of these challenges mean that protecting the electricity infrastructure can come down to response and backup systems more than defense. “Those are the kinds of things that you put in place to protect, knowing that you may not be able to stop the rifle shot.”

    ———

    Kunzelman reported from Silver Spring, Maryland.

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  • Protesters near White House demand ‘Free China!’

    Protesters near White House demand ‘Free China!’

    WASHINGTON — About 200 protesters lit candles and shouted “Free China!” two blocks from the White House on Sunday in a show of support for demonstrations in China calling for an end to severe anti-virus controls and for political change.

    Protesters in Freedom Plaza held up signs saying, “No Dictatorship, No Censorship,” demanding that President Xi Jinping and the ruling Communist Party give up power. They held up blank sheets of paper, a symbol of opposition to the party’s pervasive censorship. Some yelled, “Free China!”

    The protests erupted Nov. 25 after at least 10 people died in a fire in Urumqi, a city in China’s northwest. Authorities rejected suggestions firefighters or people trying to escape might have been blocked by anti-virus controls. But the disaster became a focus for public frustration with curbs that confine millions of people to their homes.

    “I did not care much about these public issues before as it did not happen to me,” said a Chinese student who would give only her surname, Liu, due to fear of retaliation.

    “The COVID policy is really improper,” said Liu. “Now that I am in a country with free speech, I shall do my best when my rights can be protected.”

    Uighurs, Tibetans and members of other ethnic minorities that are targeted for surveillance and control by the Communist Party joined the protests.

    “I was encouraged by the courageous young people in China,” said a man who refused to give his name.

    “How can we not stand up after they did?” he said. “I shall at least let them know they were not alone.”

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  • As Musk is learning, content moderation is a messy job

    As Musk is learning, content moderation is a messy job

    Now that he’s back on Twitter, neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin wants somebody to explain the rules.

    Anglin, the founder of an infamous neo-Nazi website, was reinstated Thursday, one of many previously banned users to benefit from an amnesty granted by Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk. The next day, Musk banished Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, after he posted a swastika with a Star of David in it.

    “That’s cool,” Anglin tweeted Friday. “I mean, whatever the rules are, people will follow them. We just need to know what the rules are.”

    Ask Musk. Since the world’s richest man paid $44 billion for Twitter, the platform has struggled to define its rules for misinformation and hate speech, issued conflicting and contradictory announcements, and failed to full address what researchers say is a troubling rise in hate speech.

    As the “ chief twit ” may be learning, running a global platform with nearly 240 million active daily users requires more than good algorithms and often demands imperfect solutions to messy situations — tough choices that must ultimately be made by a human and are sure to displease someone.

    A self-described free speech absolutist, Musk has said he wants to make Twitter a global digital town square. But he also said he wouldn’t make major decisions about content or about restoring banned accounts before setting up a “ content moderation council ” with diverse viewpoints.

    He soon changed his mind after polling users on Twitter, and offered reinstatement to a long list of formerly banned users including ex-President Donald Trump, Ye, the satire site The Babylon Bee, the comedian Kathy Griffin and Anglin, the neo-Nazi.

    And while Musk’s own tweets suggested he would allow all legal content on the platform, Ye’s banishment shows that’s not entirely the case. The swastika image posted by the rapper falls in the “lawful but awful” category that often bedevils content moderators, according to Eric Goldman, a technology law expert and professor at Santa Clara University law school.

    While Europe has imposed rules requiring social media platforms to create policies on misinformation and hate speech, Goldman noted that in the U.S. at least, loose regulations allow Musk to run Twitter as he sees fit, despite his inconsistent approach.

    “What Musk is doing with Twitter is completely permissible under U.S. law,” Goldman said.

    Pressure from the EU may force Musk to lay out his policies to ensure he is complying with the new law, which takes effect next year. Last month, a senior EU official warned Musk that Twitter would have to improve its efforts to combat hate speech and misinformation; failure to comply could lead to huge fines.

    In another confusing move, Twitter announced in late November that it would end its policy prohibiting COVID-19 misinformation. Days later, it posted an update claiming that “None of our policies have changed.”

    On Friday, Musk revealed what he said was the inside story of Twitter’s decision in 2020 to limit the spread of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

    Twitter initially blocked links to the story on its platform, citing concerns that it contained material obtained through computer hacking. That decision was reversed after it was criticized by then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Facebook also took actions to limit the story’s spread.

    The information revealed by Musk included Twitter’s decision to delete a handful of tweets after receiving a request from Joe Biden’s campaign. The tweets included nude photos of Hunter Biden that had been shared without his consent — a violation of Twitter’s rules against revenge porn.

    Instead of revealing nefarious conduct or collusion with Democrats, Musk’s revelation highlighted the kind of difficult content moderation decisions that he will now face.

    “Impossible, messy and squishy decisions” are unavoidable, according to Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety who resigned a few weeks into Musk’s ownership.

    While far from perfect, the old Twitter strove to be transparent with users and steady in enforcing its rules, Roth said. That changed under Musk, he told a Knight Foundation forum this week.

    “When push came to shove, when you buy a $44 billion thing, you get to have the final say in how that $44 billion thing is governed,” Roth said.

    While much of the attention has been on Twitter’s moves in the U.S., the cutbacks of content-moderation workers is affecting other parts of the world too, according to activists with the #StopToxicTwitter campaign.

    “We’re not talking about people not having resilience to hear things that hurt feelings,” said Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director of Equality Labs, which works to combat caste-based discrimination in South Asia. “We are talking about the prevention of dangerous genocidal hate speech that can lead to mass atrocities.”

    Soundararajan’s organization sits on Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, which hasn’t met since Musk took over. She said “millions of Indians are terrified about who is going to get reinstated,” and the company has stopped responding to the group’s concerns.

    “So what happens if there’s another call for violence? Like, do I have to tag Elon Musk and hope that he’s going to address the pogrom?” Soundararajan said.

    Instances of hate speech and racial epithets soared on Twitter after Musk’s purchase as some users sought to test the new owner’s limits. The number of tweets containing hateful terms continues to rise, according to a report published Friday by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a group that tracks online hate and extremism.

    Musk has said Twitter has reduced the spread of tweets containing hate speech, making them harder to find unless a user searches for them. But that failed to satisfy the center’s CEO, Imran Ahmed, who called the rise in hate speech a “clear failure to meet his own self-proclaimed standards.”

    Immediately after Musk’s takeover and the firing of much of Twitter’s staff, researchers who previously had flagged harmful hate speech or misinformation to the platform reported that their pleas were going unanswered.

    Jesse Littlewood, vice president for campaigns at Common Cause, said his group reached out to Twitter last week about a tweet from U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene that alleged election fraud in Arizona. Musk had reinstated Greene’s personal account after she was kicked off Twitter for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.

    This time, Twitter was quick to respond, telling Common Cause that the tweet didn’t violate any rules and would stay up — even though Twitter requires the labeling or removal of content that spreads false or misleading claims about election results.

    Twitter gave Littlewood no explanation for why it wasn’t following its own rules.

    “I find that pretty confounding,” Littlewood said.

    Twitter did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story. Musk has defended the platform’s sometimes herky-jerky moves since he took over, and said mistakes will happen as it evolves. “We will do lots of dumb things,” he tweeted.

    To Musk’s many online fans, the disarray is a feature, not a bug, of the site under its new ownership, and a reflection of the free speech mecca they hope Twitter will be.

    “I love Elon Twitter so far,” tweeted a user who goes by the name Some Dude. “The chaos is glorious!”

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  • As Musk is learning, content moderation is a messy job

    As Musk is learning, content moderation is a messy job

    Now that he’s back on Twitter, neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin wants somebody to explain the rules.

    Anglin, the founder of an infamous neo-Nazi website, was reinstated Thursday, one of many previously banned users to benefit from an amnesty granted by Twitter’s new owner Elon Musk. The next day, Musk banished Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, after he posted a swastika with a Star of David in it.

    “That’s cool,” Anglin tweeted Friday. “I mean, whatever the rules are, people will follow them. We just need to know what the rules are.”

    Ask Musk. Since the world’s richest man paid $44 billion for Twitter, the platform has struggled to define its rules for misinformation and hate speech, issued conflicting and contradictory announcements, and failed to full address what researchers say is a troubling rise in hate speech.

    As the “ chief twit ” may be learning, running a global platform with nearly 240 million active daily users requires more than good algorithms and often demands imperfect solutions to messy situations — tough choices that must ultimately be made by a human and are sure to displease someone.

    A self-described free speech absolutist, Musk has said he wants to make Twitter a global digital town square. But he also said he wouldn’t make major decisions about content or about restoring banned accounts before setting up a “ content moderation council ” with diverse viewpoints.

    He soon changed his mind after polling users on Twitter, and offered reinstatement to a long list of formerly banned users including ex-President Donald Trump, Ye, the satire site The Babylon Bee, the comedian Kathy Griffin and Anglin, the neo-Nazi.

    And while Musk’s own tweets suggested he would allow all legal content on the platform, Ye’s banishment shows that’s not entirely the case. The swastika image posted by the rapper falls in the “lawful but awful” category that often bedevils content moderators, according to Eric Goldman, a technology law expert and professor at Santa Clara University law school.

    While Europe has imposed rules requiring social media platforms to create policies on misinformation and hate speech, Goldman noted that in the U.S. at least, loose regulations allow Musk to run Twitter as he sees fit, despite his inconsistent approach.

    “What Musk is doing with Twitter is completely permissible under U.S. law,” Goldman said.

    Pressure from the EU may force Musk to lay out his policies to ensure he is complying with the new law, which takes effect next year. Last month, a senior EU official warned Musk that Twitter would have to improve its efforts to combat hate speech and misinformation; failure to comply could lead to huge fines.

    In another confusing move, Twitter announced in late November that it would end its policy prohibiting COVID-19 misinformation. Days later, it posted an update claiming that “None of our policies have changed.”

    On Friday, Musk revealed what he said was the inside story of Twitter’s decision in 2020 to limit the spread of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

    Twitter initially blocked links to the story on its platform, citing concerns that it contained material obtained through computer hacking. That decision was reversed after it was criticized by then-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. Facebook also took actions to limit the story’s spread.

    The information revealed by Musk included Twitter’s decision to delete a handful of tweets after receiving a request from Joe Biden’s campaign. The tweets included nude photos of Hunter Biden that had been shared without his consent — a violation of Twitter’s rules against revenge porn.

    Instead of revealing nefarious conduct or collusion with Democrats, Musk’s revelation highlighted the kind of difficult content moderation decisions that he will now face.

    “Impossible, messy and squishy decisions” are unavoidable, according to Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety who resigned a few weeks into Musk’s ownership.

    While far from perfect, the old Twitter strove to be transparent with users and steady in enforcing its rules, Roth said. That changed under Musk, he told a Knight Foundation forum this week.

    “When push came to shove, when you buy a $44 billion thing, you get to have the final say in how that $44 billion thing is governed,” Roth said.

    While much of the attention has been on Twitter’s moves in the U.S., the cutbacks of content-moderation workers is affecting other parts of the world too, according to activists with the #StopToxicTwitter campaign.

    “We’re not talking about people not having resilience to hear things that hurt feelings,” said Thenmozhi Soundararajan, executive director of Equality Labs, which works to combat caste-based discrimination in South Asia. “We are talking about the prevention of dangerous genocidal hate speech that can lead to mass atrocities.”

    Soundararajan’s organization sits on Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council, which hasn’t met since Musk took over. She said “millions of Indians are terrified about who is going to get reinstated,” and the company has stopped responding to the group’s concerns.

    “So what happens if there’s another call for violence? Like, do I have to tag Elon Musk and hope that he’s going to address the pogrom?” Soundararajan said.

    Instances of hate speech and racial epithets soared on Twitter after Musk’s purchase as some users sought to test the new owner’s limits. The number of tweets containing hateful terms continues to rise, according to a report published Friday by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, a group that tracks online hate and extremism.

    Musk has said Twitter has reduced the spread of tweets containing hate speech, making them harder to find unless a user searches for them. But that failed to satisfy the center’s CEO, Imran Ahmed, who called the rise in hate speech a “clear failure to meet his own self-proclaimed standards.”

    Immediately after Musk’s takeover and the firing of much of Twitter’s staff, researchers who previously had flagged harmful hate speech or misinformation to the platform reported that their pleas were going unanswered.

    Jesse Littlewood, vice president for campaigns at Common Cause, said his group reached out to Twitter last week about a tweet from U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene that alleged election fraud in Arizona. Musk had reinstated Greene’s personal account after she was kicked off Twitter for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.

    This time, Twitter was quick to respond, telling Common Cause that the tweet didn’t violate any rules and would stay up — even though Twitter requires the labeling or removal of content that spreads false or misleading claims about election results.

    Twitter gave Littlewood no explanation for why it wasn’t following its own rules.

    “I find that pretty confounding,” Littlewood said.

    Twitter did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story. Musk has defended the platform’s sometimes herky-jerky moves since he took over, and said mistakes will happen as it evolves. “We will do lots of dumb things,” he tweeted.

    To Musk’s many online fans, the disarray is a feature, not a bug, of the site under its new ownership, and a reflection of the free speech mecca they hope Twitter will be.

    “I love Elon Twitter so far,” tweeted a user who goes by the name Some Dude. “The chaos is glorious!”

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  • George Clooney, Gladys Knight among Kennedy Center honorees

    George Clooney, Gladys Knight among Kennedy Center honorees

    WASHINGTON — Performers such as Gladys Knight or the Irish band U2 usually would be headlining a concert for thousands but at Sunday’s Kennedy Center Honors the tables will be turned as they and other artists will be the ones feted for their lifetime of artistic contributions.

    Actor, director, producer and human rights activist George Clooney, groundbreaking composer and conductor Tania León, and contemporary Christian singer Amy Grant will join Knight, and the entire crew of U2 in being honored by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

    The organization honors a select group of people every year for their artistic influences on American culture. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their respective spouses are slated to attend.

    The 61-year-old Clooney — the actor among this year’s musically leaning group of honorees — has television credits going back into the late 1970s but became a household name with the role of Doug Ross in the television show ER.

    From there he starred in movies such as “Batman & Robin,” “Three Kings,” “Ocean’s Eleven” (and Twelve and Thirteen), and his most recent movie “Ticket to Paradise.” He also has extensive directing and producing credits including “Good Night, and Good Luck.” He and his wife, humanitarian rights lawyer Amal Clooney, created the Clooney Foundation for Justice, and he’s produced telethons to raise money for various causes.

    “To be mentioned in the same breath with the rest of these incredible artists is an honor. This is a genuinely exciting surprise for the whole Clooney family,” said Clooney in a statement on the Center’s website.

    Knight, 78, said in a statement that she was “humbled beyond words” at receiving the Kennedy honor. The Georgia-born Knight began singing gospel music at the age of 4 and went on to a career that has spanned decades.

    Knight and family members started a band that would later be known as “Gladys Knight & The Pips” and produced their first album in 1960 when Knight was just 16. Since then she’s recorded dozens of albums with such classic hits as “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and “Midnight Train to Georgia.” Along the way she’s acted in television shows and movies. When Knight and the band were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Mariah Carey described Knight as “… a textbook you learn from.”

    Sometimes the Kennedy Center honors not just individuals but groups; “Sesame Street” once got the nod.

    This year it’s the band U2. The group’s strong connection to America goes back decades. They performed in Washington during their first trip to America in 1980. In a statement the band — made up of Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr. — said they originally came to America with big dreams “fueled in part by the commonly held belief at home that America smiles on Ireland.”

    “And it turned out to be true, yet again,” read the statement. “It has been a four-decade love affair with the country and its people, its artists, and culture.”

    U2 has sold 170 million albums and been honored with 22 Grammys. The band’s epic singles include “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” “Pride (In the Name of Love)” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday.” Lead singer Bono has also become known for his philanthropic work to eradicate poverty and to raise awareness about AIDS.

    Christian music performed Amy Grant said in an interview with The Associated Press that she’d never even been to the Kennedy Center Honors even though her husband, country musician Vince Gill, has performed during previous ceremonies. Grammy winner Grant is well known for crossover pop hits like “Baby, Baby,” “Every Heartbeat” and “That’s What Love is For.” She’s sold more than 30 million albums, including her 1991 record “Heart in Motion,” that introduced her to a larger pop audience.

    Composer and conductor Tania Leon said during an interview when the honorees were announced that she wasn’t expecting “anything spectacular” when the Kennedy Center initially reached out to her. After all, she’s worked with the Kennedy Center numerous times over the years going back to 1980 when she was commissioned to compose music for a play.

    But the 79-year-old Pulitzer prize winner said she was stunned to learn that this time the ceremony was going to be for her.

    Leon left Cuba as a refugee in 1967 and eventually settled in New York City. She’s a founding member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem and instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series.

    ——

    Follow Santana on Twitter @ruskygal.

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  • AP PHOTOS: Pageant celebrates transgender life in India

    AP PHOTOS: Pageant celebrates transgender life in India

    GUWAHATI, India — Anilya Boro may not have won the crown at India’s Miss Trans NE pageant this year, but having her parents there in support was a validation in its own right.

    “I must prove to my parents that I can do something as a girl,” said the 22-year-old. “I didn’t win a title, but I am very happy that my parents were at the show to support me. Now they have accepted my decision to live as a girl and undergo surgery, but they don’t want me to rush through.”

    Twenty transgender women sashayed on a stage dressed as ethnic and tribal characters in the beauty pageant, drawing rounds of applause from the audience. The contestants came from India’s remote eight northeastern states, some of them nestled in the Himalayas in a relatively undeveloped region known for its stunning natural vistas.

    The event on Wednesday promoted the beauty and uniqueness of the northeastern region and community pride to uplift the transgender community, said Ajan Akash Barauah, the organizer.

    It wasn’t easy to hold the show with no corporate funding. Ajan turned to friends and organizations supporting the transgender cause to finance the pageant.

    Sexual minorities across India have gained a degree of acceptance, especially in big cities, and transgender people were guaranteed equal rights as a third gender in 2014. But prejudice persists and the community continues to face discrimination and rejection by their families. They’re often denied jobs, education and health care.

    Ajan lived in the Indian capital for 13 years as a fashion designer and moved to her hometown of Guwahati in northeastern Assam state after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the country.

    She had won the title of Trans Queen in 2014, in a pageant held in the southern city of Vishakhapatnam, and later decided to help the community in the northeastern region.

    “The Miss Trans NE pageant on Nov. 30 was only for men who identified themselves as women. Next year, it will include transgender men as well,’’ Ajan said.

    Anilya is keeping her sights high, dreaming of one day winning the Miss Universe title. Her mother, Aikon Boro, said Anilya wore only girl’s clothes since she was 6 or 7, feeling the most comfortable in them.

    “Everybody in the family tried to change her habits and behavior but she didn’t listen. Now the family members have accepted her as a transgender person,’’ she said.

    The top prize at Miss Trans NE went to Lucey Ham from Itanagar in Arunachal Pradesh state which borders on China, while Aria Deka and Rishidhya Sangkarishan, both from Assam in the far northeast, were runners-up.

    “I am overwhelmed with joy. I have nothing to say. I will never forget the biggest moment of my life,” Ham said after she was crowned the winner.

    Creating awareness about transgender people and educating them about their rights was what got Ajan involved with the event.

    “They should know about gender equality everywhere. Even when you go to the office or a hotel or a public toilet you have the right to ask for proper facilities,” Ajan said.

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  • Nebraska man gets prison for leaving noose for coworker

    Nebraska man gets prison for leaving noose for coworker

    LA VISTA, Neb. — A former employee at the Oriental Trading Co. has been sentenced to prison for leaving a noose on a floor scrubber that a Black colleague was set to use.

    The Nebraska U.S. Attorney’s office said Bruce Quinn, 66, was sentenced Friday to four months in prison and one year of supervised release for leaving the noose for his coworker to find. He pleaded guilty in September to a federal civil rights violation.

    Prosecutors said a 63-year-old Black man who worked for Oriental Trading found the noose made out of orange twine sitting on the seat of the equipment in June 2020. He told investigators that he was scared by the noose and viewed it as a death threat.

    “Federal courts have long recognized the noose as one of the most vile symbols in American history,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Individuals, like this defendant, who use a noose to convey a threat of violence at a workplace will be held accountable for their actions.”

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  • Mamie King-Chalmers, woman in civil rights photo, dies at 81

    Mamie King-Chalmers, woman in civil rights photo, dies at 81

    DETROIT — Mamie King-Chalmers, who as a young Black woman appeared in an iconic photo about civil rights struggles in Alabama, has died at the age of 81.

    She died Tuesday in Detroit, her home since the 1970s, daughter Lasuria Allman said. A cause wasn’t disclosed.

    King-Chalmers, 21 at the time, was one of three Black people forced to brace themselves against a building while being blasted with water from a firehose in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1963. The photo by Charles Moore appeared in Life magazine.

    King-Chalmers years later recalled how she was attending a protest in a park when her group was confronted by police and dogs.

    “It trapped me in the doorway,” King-Chalmers said during a Detroit school visit in 2013, referring to the firehose. “The hose was so strong it damaged my hearing.”

    Another activist claimed to be the woman in the photo, but she dropped that claim in 2013 after The Detroit News investigated.

    King-Chalmers earned an associate degree in gerontology from Wayne County Community College, married twice and raised eight children, Allman said. Her husband, Walter Chalmers, died in February.

    “She should be remembered for her courage, strength and determination to make a difference,” Allman said.

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  • Man pleads guilty to federal hate crime for cross burning

    Man pleads guilty to federal hate crime for cross burning

    JACKSON, Miss. — A Mississippi man who burned a cross in his front yard to intimidate his Black neighbors pleaded guilty to a hate crime in federal court, the Justice Department announced Friday.

    Axel Cox, 24, of Gulfport, was charged with violating the Fair Housing Act over the December 2020 incident, according to court records.

    The Justice Department said Cox gathered supplies from his home, put together a wooden cross in his front yard and propped it up so his Black neighbors could see it. He then doused it with motor oil and lit it on fire. He also addressed the family with racially derogatory language, records say.

    A grand jury indicted him in September. Cox’s attorney, Jim Davis, filed a notice of intent for him to plead guilty to the cross burning on Nov. 22, 2022. Davis did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

    Davis told the Biloxi Sun Herald that Cox was reacting to his neighbors allegedly shooting and killing his dog. He added that his client acted “totally inappropriately.”

    The Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups have long practiced cross burnings to intimidate Black and Jewish people.

    “Burning a cross invokes the long and painful history, particularly in Mississippi, of intimidation and impending physical violence against Black people,” said Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Department of Justice will continue to prosecute those who use racially motivated violence to drive people away from their homes or communities.”

    A sentencing hearing is scheduled for March 9. Cox faces a maximum of 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000 or both, according to the Justice Department

    The Gulfport Police Department and the FBI Jackson Field Office investigated the case.

    ———

    Michael Goldberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/mikergoldberg.

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  • Human rights groups criticize Cuba’s new criminal code

    Human rights groups criticize Cuba’s new criminal code

    HAVANA — Cuba enacted a new penal code this week that activists and human rights organizations warned Friday could further limit free expression and snuff out protests at a time of deepening discontent on the island.

    The code, a modified version of the country’s 1987 regulations approved by the Cuban government in May, will ripple to journalists, human rights activists, protesters, social media users and opposition figures.

    The changes come amid deepening discontent in Cuba produced by compounding crises and as the government continues to dole out harsh sentences to participants — including minors — in the island’s historic 2021 protests.

    Among some of the changes are increases in the minimum penalties and prison sentences on things like “public disorder,” “resistance” and “insulting national symbols.”

    The new code also establishes criminal categories for digital offenses, saying that people disseminating online any information deemed to be false could face up to two years in prison.

    It also prohibits the receipt and use of funds made to finance activities “against the Cuban state and its constitutional order,” which human rights groups say could be used against independent journalists and non-governmental groups. Conviction could bring four to 10 years in prison.

    The government has described the new code as “modern” and “inclusive,” pointing to stiffening penalties on gender-based violence and racial discrimination. Following its approval, Rubén Remigio Ferro, Cuban Supreme Court president, said on state TV that the code is not meant to repress, but rather protect “the social peace and stability of our nation.”

    But human rights watchdog groups, many of which are not permitted on the island, raised alarms about the new code Friday.

    “This is clearly an effort to provide a legal avenue for repression and censorship and an effort by Cuban authorities to undercut the little civic space that exists in the island and impede the possibility that Cubans will take to the streets again,” said Juan Pappier, senior investigator for Human Rights Watch in Latin America.

    Pappier, alongside an Amnesty International report, said the code is “plagued with overly broad” language that could be used by Cuban authorities to more easily punish dissent.

    Cuba has faced significant international criticism for the treatment of protesters in anti-government demonstrations in July 2021.

    A total of 790 participants of the protests face prosecution for sedition, violent attacks, public disorder, theft and other crimes, according to the latest figures released in January by Cuba’s attorney general’s office.

    More than 500 are serving prison sentences, according to numbers from opposition organization Justice 11J, which advocates for those on trial or serving prison sentences in connection with the protests.

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  • Wounded officers sue Sig Sauer, say gun goes off by itself

    Wounded officers sue Sig Sauer, say gun goes off by itself

    CONCORD, N.H. — Police and federal law enforcement officers are among 20 people from multiple states saying they were wounded by a popular type of Sig Sauer pistol, the latest lawsuit alleging that the gun is susceptible to going off without the trigger being pulled.

    The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. federal court in Concord, New Hampshire, says there have been over 100 incidents of the P320 pistol unintentionally discharging when the user believed they did not pull the trigger.

    “These men and women were highly trained officers, veterans, and responsible and safety-conscious gun users who put their trust in Sig Sauer, unaware that the gun they used to serve was a danger to themselves and anyone around them,” Robert Zimmerman, an attorney representing the group of 20 and about a dozen spouses, said in a statement.

    Zimmerman said it is the largest P320 lawsuit against the New Hampshire-based gunmaker on behalf of people who were injured.

    The incidents covered in the lawsuit range from February 2020 to this October.

    In many cases, the gun discharged while still in the user’s holster, seriously injuring them in the leg or hip and leaving them unable to perform their usual duties, according to the lawsuit. They were not touching the trigger, the lawsuit said.

    One of the plaintiffs is Dionicio “DJ” Delgado of Virginia, 62, a U.S. Navy veteran who instructed servicemembers in firearms training and safety for over 20 years. He said he was hurt in the leg and calf by a bullet from his P320 in February at a private shooting range on his property after he had just holstered his gun.

    “The first thing that came out of everybody’s mouth who knew me said, ‘How did that happen, you’re the safest person we know with a firearm,” said Delgado, who was out of work for six weeks, unable to climb a ladder or get on a roof for his property inspector job.

    He said some people assumed he had his finger on the trigger, or manipulated it someway, or did something to it to shoot himself.

    “Being looked at and told, ‘It was your fault,’ that was the embarrassing part, and it kind of angers me,” Delgado said.

    Sig Sauer denies allegations that the pistol is prone to discharging without the use of the trigger.

    “The P320 is designed to fire when the trigger is pulled,” Sig Sauer spokesperson Samantha Piatt said in a statement Friday. “It includes internal safeties that prevent the firearm from discharging without a trigger pull.”

    The lawsuit details negligence and product liability claims against Sig Sauer, as well as deceptive marketing practices for the gun, advertising “it won’t fire unless you want it to.”

    One of the allegations of negligence is that Sig Sauer equipped a U.S. Army version of the P320 with a manual safety that guarded against unintentional firing, yet left it off non-military models, co-counsel Daniel Ceisler said. Only one non-military model of the gun offered that feature as an option, the lawsuit said.

    “To make a gun with a trigger this short and this light without any sort of external safety is reckless and unprecedented,” Ceisler said.

    Piatt said that the trigger pull force of the P320 is “consistent with industry practice,” and that Sig Sauer offers models with a manual safety.

    “Some customers, including many law enforcement agencies, believe that inclusion of a manual safety is a detriment to the safe and reliable use of a pistol given their intended use. Other customers take the opposite view given their intended use,” she said.

    The gun was first introduced in 2014. Sig Sauer offered a “voluntary upgrade” in 2017 to include an alternate design that reduces the weight of the trigger, among other features. Zimmerman said the upgrade did not stop the problem of unintentional discharges.

    The lawsuit calls for a trial and unspecified monetary damages. The plaintiffs are from Texas, Georgia, Connecticut, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Virginia, Louisiana, Florida, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Washington, and New Jersey.

    Sig Sauer has also denied the allegations made in similar lawsuits filed by Zimmerman and others, including ones involving a military veteran in Philadelphia and a federal agent from suburban Philadelphia. Milwaukee’s police union sued the city over officers’ use of the P320, saying the handguns inadvertently misfired three times in the last two years resulting in injuries to two officers.

    Sig Sauer has prevailed in some cases. It has settled at least one federal class action lawsuit involving P320 pistols made before 2017, offering refunds or replacement guns to purchasers.

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  • Musk says Twitter has suspended rapper Ye over swastika post

    Musk says Twitter has suspended rapper Ye over swastika post

    Twitter has suspended rapper Ye after he tweeted a picture of a swastika merged with the Star of David.

    It is the second time this year that Ye has been suspended from the platform over antisemitic posts.

    Twitter CEO Elon Musk confirmed the suspension by replying to Ye’s post of an unflattering photo of Musk. Ye called it his “final tweet.”

    “I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended,” Musk tweeted.

    Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, has made a series of antisemitic comments in recent weeks. On Thursday, Ye praised Hitler in an interview with conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

    Ye’s remarks have led to his suspension from social media platforms, his talent agency dropping him and companies like Adidas cutting ties with him. The sportswear manufacturer has also launched an investigation into his conduct.

    Ye was suspended from Twitter in early October after saying in a post that he was going to go “death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” His account was reinstated by the end of the month just as Musk took control of the company, but the billionaire tweeted that “Ye’s account was restored by Twitter before the acquisition. They did not consult with or inform me.”

    Musk is under pressure to clean up Twitter after changes he made following his purchase of the platform resulted in what watchdog groups say is a rise in racist, antisemitic and other toxic speech. A top European Union official warned Musk this week that Twitter needs to do a lot more to protect users from hate speech, misinformation and other harmful content ahead of tough new rules requiring tech companies to better police their platforms, under threat of big fines or even a ban in the 27-nation bloc.

    Ye had offered to buy rightwing-leaning social media site Parler in October, but the company said this week that the deal has fallen through. At the time, Ye and Parlement Technologies, which owns Parler, said the acquisition would be completed in the last three months of the year. The sale price and other details were not disclosed.

    “This decision was made in the interest of both parties in mid-November,” Parlement Technologies said in a statement Thursday. “Parler will continue to pursue future opportunities for growth and the evolution of the platform for our vibrant community.”

    Parler is a small platform in the emerging space of right-leaning, far-right and libertarian social apps that promise little to no content moderation to weed out hate speech, racism and misinformation, among other objectionable content. None of the sites have come close to reaching mainstream status.

    Parler launched in August 2018 but didn’t start picking up steam until 2020. It was kicked offline in January 2021 over its ties to the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol earlier that month. A month after the attack, Parler announced a relaunch but didn’t return to Google Play until September of this year.

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