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Tag: Medical technology

  • CES 2024 updates: The most interesting news and gadgets from tech's big show

    CES 2024 updates: The most interesting news and gadgets from tech's big show

    LAS VEGAS — Welcome to opening day of CES 2024. This multi-day trade event put on by the Consumer Technology Association is expected to bring in some 130,000 attendees and more than 4,000 exhibitors to Las Vegas. Swaths of the latest advances and gadgets across personal tech, transportation, health care, sustainability and more — with burgeoning uses of artificial intelligence almost everywhere you look — will be on display.

    The Associated Press will be keeping a running report of everything we find interesting from the floor of CES, from the latest announcements to most quirky smart gadgets.

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    MORE GOOGLE APPS COMING PRE-INSTALLED ON CARS

    More automakers are partnering with Google to offer vehicles with pre-install apps such as Google Maps and Assistant, the company revealed at CES 2024.

    The apps will come to select models from Nissan, Ford and Lincoln this year, with Porsche following suit in 2025.

    ——

    INTEL UNVEILS UPDATED 14th GEN PROCESSOR LINEUP Intel may be leaning into supporting AI with its Core Ultra chips, but the company decided to announce an expansion of its 14th Gen processor family for gamers and media creators who need raw power and performance from their PCs.

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  • Fisker, BGC Group rise; Hut 8 falls, Friday, 12/29/2023

    Fisker, BGC Group rise; Hut 8 falls, Friday, 12/29/2023

    NEW YORK — Stocks that traded heavily or had substantial price changes on Friday:

    Boeing Co., up 31 cents to $260.66.

    The airplane builder is asking airlines to inspect 737 MAX planes for potential problems with the rudder control system.

    Alphabet Inc., down 54 cents to $139.69.

    Google’s parent company reportedly settled a lawsuit over browser tracking and privacy.

    Nvidia Corp., unchanged at $495.22.

    The chipmaker reportedly launched an advanced gaming chip to comply with U.S. export restrictions to China.

    Howmet Aerospace Inc., up 1 cent to $54.12.

    The maker of engineered products for the aerospace industry announced the completion of several debt actions.

    Boston Scientific Corp., up $1.53 to $57.81.

    The medical device maker started a study of its Farapulse system as an initial treatment for persistent irregular heartbeat.

    Hut 8 Corp., down $2.79 to $13.34.

    The Bitcoin miner received court approval to proceed with operations in connection to Celsius Network bankruptcy proceedings.

    BGC Group Inc., up 46 cents to $7.22.

    The brokerage company gave investors an encouraging financial update.

    Fisker Inc., up 24 cents to $1.75.

    The electric vehicle maker reported an increase in deliveries in the fourth quarter.

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  • Custom made by Tulane students, mobility chairs help special needs toddlers get moving

    Custom made by Tulane students, mobility chairs help special needs toddlers get moving

    NEW ORLEANS — At 19 months old, Elijah Jack, born with no femur bone in one leg and a short femur in the other, is unable to walk on his own like most toddlers his age. Another 19-month-old, Freya Baudoin, born prematurely at 28 weeks and delayed in her mobility, has finally taken her first step.

    Special needs children like these often take longer than most to become independently mobile, which can be a hardship for parents and others who care for them. Elijah is often carried because of his limb difference and clubfeet, meaning that instead of being straight, his feet are twisted inward and his toes point downward.

    As a result, getting around on his own is a challenge.

    That was until this past Spring. Elijah was one of the first recipients of a specially designed rolling chair built by a team of biomedical engineering students at Tulane University. Today, Elijah has mastered getting around on wheels – turning, stopping and steering all on his own.

    “He loves his chair,” said Crystal Jack, Elijah’s mom. “So, I get a lot of things done because I know in his chair, he’s safe. He know how to go around the house with it and everything, so I get a lot of things done now.”

    Before the chair, Jack said her son was able to scoot on the floor to get where he needed to go but the chair offers a whole new level of independence.

    “Like I said we come a long way, but I’m blessed to have him,” Jack said, smiling warmly as he moved back and forth around the living room of her mother’s home in Ventress, Louisiana.

    The Tulane students partnered with the nonprofit MakeGood in 2022 to design and produce the chairs to help toddlers (roughly ages 1-4) build independence and strength, and for some, prepare for a real wheelchair. While it remains difficult to access precise numbers for total wheelchair use among children, there were about 2.8 million wheelchair users in the U.S. in 2002, of whom 121,000 were under 15 years of age, according to the US Census.

    MakeGood is the New Orleans area coordinator for TOM Global, an Israeli nonprofit that combines modern design and digital manufacturing to fulfill neglected needs of people with disabilities and limitations. TOM stands for Tikkun Olam, which is Hebrew for “repairing the world.”

    The students partnered with the nonprofits as part of a service-learning project — a graduation requirement at Tulane. But many say they had no idea when the project started the depth of impact their chairs would make in the lives of children in the community.

    Dylan Lucia, a graduate student at Tulane from the San Diego, California area, said he chose the field of biomedical engineering to help people and this project has manifested that.

    “Seeing that direct kind of patient feedback and seeing how much these (chairs) were improving their lives and helping them become a more independent person, even as a small toddler … like, it was really, really endearing to see something like that and to see the positive change,” Lucia said.

    The chairs are particularly helpful for families whose children will eventually need wheelchairs. Noam Platt, director of MakeGood, said insurance companies typically don’t cover the cost of a wheelchair for a child unless there is sufficient evidence that the child can use it effectively.

    “These devices are used to create that evidence that their quality of life will be improved so they can get maybe a more durable assistive technology,” Platt said.

    Freya’s chair was one of five made throughout several weekends early this fall at Tulane’s Scot Ackerman MakerSpace, an enormous workshop with laser cutters, 3D printers and drilling and sewing equipment.

    Students applied padding and safety straps to the chairs, and some required modifications to accommodate the needs of the children receiving them. For instance, Freya’s chair needed a wider strap to help secure her torso, and another patient needed a space behind the chair big enough to hold his breathing vent. Freya’s chair also had a bar added to the back, so that she could push it like a stroller. She took her first steps in early December after working with her physical therapist and her chair.

    There’s no word on how long Freya will have to use the chair but her mother said it has been more than a blessing.

    “At first, we thought the muscle tone in her ankles wasn’t strong enough for her to walk at all, but the neurologists recently told us everything is looking good and she should be walking on her own or with limited assistance soon,” said her mom, Heather Hampton, of Metairie, Louisiana.

    Hampton said Freya’s able to push the chair like a stroller on her own. She wishes they could’ve gotten it sooner but understands the adjustments that needed to be made.

    “We’re just happy that she’ll ultimately be able to get around and walk independently,” Hampton said.

    Platt said the mobility chairs’ original design and plans came from TOM Global but the parts were purchased in the U.S. or made and then assembled by hand at Tulane. The wood panels used for the chair’s frame were laser cut and then sanded by students to buff out any splinters and rough edges. Padded seats were stuffed into fabric cushions sewn by students. Wheels were purchased online and then screwed into place.

    Elijah has had his chair since the end of March. It was made in the first batch of about 10 chairs delivered to pediatric patients for use in occupational and physical therapy sessions.

    “His chair shows him that, like, ‘I could be up like other children.’ You know, he don’t let his (being) disabled get in the way,” said Jack who added Elijah will likely need some type of mobility assistance for the rest of his life.

    Bumpers were added to the bottom front of the most recent batch of chairs after parents from the first round said their furniture – and feet – were taking hits as their children became better and faster at using their chairs.

    Platt said there have been two rounds, so far, of chair building and 15 chairs have been given away. But, he said they’re aiming for at least 10 to 15 more by Spring 2024.

    “We coordinate with our clinical partners to find kids that would be a good fit for these devices,” he said. “We work with the clinical team to make sure each chair fits the individuals and make customizations if necessary.”

    Platt said the chairs cost less than $200 each to make, and even though these chairs were donated to patients at no cost, the price is still much lower than most pediatric wheelchairs on the market and electric-powered wheelchairs can run into the thousands.

    The student-made chairs also look and feel more like toys than hospital equipment, Platt said. They’re made to be light and easy to maneuver.

    Platt said he’d ultimately like to see the chairs be made in high schools and colleges across the country.

    “For the students that I work with, I tell them this is just the beginning,” Platt said. “I’m trying to open their eyes to kind of a lifelong passion that they’ll have to solving these problems because once you see the problems, you see the scope of the problems and you can’t really ignore them.”

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  • Stock market today: Asian shares mostly decline, as investors watch spending, inflation

    Stock market today: Asian shares mostly decline, as investors watch spending, inflation

    TOKYO — Asian shares retreated Monday as investors awaited updates on consumer spending and inflation in the U.S. and other nations.

    Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 dipped 0.5% to finish at 33,447.67 after the producer price index in October came in a little higher than expected, at 2.3%.

    In China, industrial profits declined 7.8% in January-October compared with the year before. They rose 2.7% in October for a third monthly year-on-year increase, suggesting weakness in the economy. Industrial profits rose 11.9% year-on-year in September and 17.2% in August.

    “While conditions have been improving, it also indicates that recovery has been slow. From the series of economic data lately, recovery momentum has also been on-and-off,” Yeap Jun Rong, a market analyst at IG, said in a commentary.

    Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 0.3% to 17,513.01, while the Shanghai Composite lost 0.4% to 3,028.89.

    Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged down 0.8% to 6,987.60. South Korea’s Kospi shed less than 0.1% to 2,495.86.

    Several central banks in the region are holding policy meetings this week, including the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Bank of Korea and Bank of Thailand. While analysts expect them to stand pat on policy, attention remains relatively high, given concerns about inflation.

    Wall Street ended last week mixed with a half-day trading session that capped a fourth straight winning week. The holiday shopping season kicked off with Black Friday amid concerns that spending may slow under pressure from dwindling savings, rising credit card debt and inflation.

    The S&P 500 inched up 0.1% on Friday, at 4,559.34, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3% to 35,390.15. The Nasdaq composite slipped 0.1% to 14,250.85, as gains in health care and financial and energy sectors tempered losses in technology stocks.

    Trading was muted as markets reopened following the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday. Gains in health care, financial, energy and other sectors helped temper losses in technology and communication services stocks.

    Chipmaker Nvidia and Google parent Alphabet were among the biggest decliners, losing 1.9% and 1.3%, respectively. Among the big gainers in the S&P 500 were CF Industries, which rose 2.6%, and Best Buy, which closed 2.2% higher.

    The major stock indexes’ latest weekly gains reflect a turnaround in the market’s sentiment in November following a three-month slide. Traders have grown cautiously optimistic that inflation has cooled enough for the Federal Reserve to finally be done with its market-crunching hikes to interest rates.

    The Fed will get another big update this week when the government releases its October report for a key inflation measure tracked by the central bank.

    In other trading early Monday, the yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences interest rates on mortgages and other loans, rose to 4.50% from 4.47%.

    Benchmark U.S. crude declined 57 cents to $74.97 barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It fell $1.56 to $75.54 a barrel on Friday.

    Brent crude, the international standard, fell 60 cents to $79.88 a barrel.

    The U.S. dollar inched down to 148.97 Japanese yen from 149.53 yen. The euro cost $1.0955, up from $1.0944.

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    Yuri Kageyama is on X, formerly Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

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  • Stock market today: Asian shares mostly decline, as investors watch spending, inflation

    Stock market today: Asian shares mostly decline, as investors watch spending, inflation

    TOKYO — Asian shares retreated Monday as investors awaited updates on consumer spending and inflation in the U.S. and other nations.

    Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 dipped 0.4% in morning trading to 33,479.71 after the producer price index in October came in a little higher than expected, at 2.3%.

    In China, industrial profits declined less than last year, at minus 7.8% in October.

    “While conditions have been improving, it also indicates that recovery has been slow. From the series of economic data lately, recovery momentum has also been on-and-off,” Yeap Jun Rong, a market analyst at IG, said in a commentary.

    Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.0% to 17,382.28, while the Shanghai Composite lost 0.8% to 3,017.79.

    Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged down 0.4% to 7,009.50. South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.2% to 2,491.20.

    Several central banks in the region are holding policy meetings this week, including the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Bank of Korea and Bank of Thailand. While analysts expect them to stand pat on policy, attention remains relatively high, given concerns about inflation.

    Wall Street ended last week mixed with a half-day trading session that capped a fourth straight winning week. The holiday shopping season kicked off with Black Friday amid concerns that spending may slow under pressure from dwindling savings, rising credit card debt and inflation.

    The S&P 500 inched up 0.1% on Friday, at 4,559.34, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.3% to 35,390.15. The Nasdaq composite slipped 0.1% to 14,250.85, as gains in health care and financial and energy sectors tempered losses in technology stocks.

    Trading was muted as markets reopened following the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday. Gains in health care, financial, energy and other sectors helped temper losses in technology and communication services stocks.

    Chipmaker Nvidia and Google parent Alphabet were among the biggest decliners, losing 1.9% and 1.3%, respectively. Among the big gainers in the S&P 500 were CF Industries, which rose 2.6%, and Best Buy, which closed 2.2% higher.

    The major stock indexes’ latest weekly gains reflect a turnaround in the market’s sentiment in November following a three-month slide. Traders have grown cautiously optimistic that inflation has cooled enough for the Federal Reserve to finally be done with its market-crunching hikes to interest rates.

    The Fed will get another big update this week when the government releases its October report for a key inflation measure tracked by the central bank.

    In other trading early Monday, the yield on the 10-year Treasury, which influences interest rates on mortgages and other loans, rose to 4.50% from 4.47%.

    Benchmark U.S. crude declined 66 cents to $74.88 barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It fell $1.56 to $75.54 a barrel on Friday.

    Brent crude, the international standard, fell 62 cents to $79.86 a barrel.

    The U.S. dollar inched down to 148.96 Japanese yen from 149.53 yen. The euro cost $1.0945, little changed from $1.0944.

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    Yuri Kageyama is on X, formerly Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

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  • Israel signals wider operations in southern Gaza as search of hospital has yet to reveal Hamas base

    Israel signals wider operations in southern Gaza as search of hospital has yet to reveal Hamas base

    KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces dropped leaflets warning Palestinians to flee parts of southern Gaza, residents said Thursday, signaling a possible expansion of operations to areas where hundreds of thousands of people who heeded earlier evacuation orders are crowded into U.N.-run shelters and family homes.

    Meanwhile, soldiers continued searching Shifa Hospital in the north, in a raid that began early Wednesday but has yet to uncover evidence of the central Hamas command center that Israel has said is concealed beneath the complex. Hamas and staff at the hospital, Gaza’s largest, deny the allegations.

    Broadening the offensive to the south — where Israel already carries out daily air raids — threatens to worsen an already severe humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory. Over 1.5 million people have been internally displaced in Gaza, with most having fled to the south, where food, water and electricity are increasingly scarce.

    The war, now in its sixth week, was triggered by a wide-ranging Hamas attack into southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which the militants killed over 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and captured some 240 men, women and children. Israel responded with a weekslong air campaign and a ground invasion of northern Gaza, vowing to remove Hamas from power and crush its military capabilities.

    More than 11,200 Palestinians have been killed, two-thirds of them women and minors, according to Palestinian health authorities. Another 2,700 have been reported missing, with most believed to be buried under the rubble. The official count does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths.

    On Thursday, gunmen shot and wounded four people at a checkpoint on the main road linking Jerusalem to Israeli settlements in the southern part of the occupied West Bank. Police said three attackers were killed and a search for others was underway.

    Israeli troops on Wednesday stormed into Gaza’s largest hospital, searching for traces of Hamas inside and beneath the facility, where newborns and hundreds of other patients have suffered for days without electricity and other basic necessities.

    Troops were searching the underground levels of the hospital on Thursday and detained technicians responsible for running its equipment, the Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said in a statement.

    After encircling Shifa for days, Israel faced pressure to prove its claim that Hamas was using the patients, staff and civilians sheltering there to provide cover for its fighters. The allegation is part of Israel’s broader accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields.

    The military released video from inside Shifa showed three duffel bags it said it found hidden around an MRI lab, each containing an assault rifle, grenades and Hamas uniforms, as well as a closet that contained a number of assault rifles without ammunition clips. The Associated Press could not independently verify the Israeli claims that the weapons were found inside the hospital.

    Hamas and Gaza health officials deny militants operate in Shifa — a hospital that employs some 1,500 people and has more than 500 beds. The Palestinians and rights groups accuse Israel of recklessly endangering civilians.

    Munir al-Boursh, a senior official with Gaza’s Health Ministry inside the hospital, said troops ransacked the basement and other buildings. Troops questioned and face-screened patients, staff and people sheltering in the facility, he said.

    The military said its troops killed four militants outside the hospital at the start of the operation, but through days of fighting there were no reports of militants firing from inside Shifa. There were also no reports of any fighting within the hospital after Israeli troops entered.

    The military said it was carrying out a “precise and targeted operation” in a specific area of the hospital, and that its soldiers were accompanied by medical teams bringing in incubators and other supplies.

    At one point, tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing Israeli bombardment were sheltering at Shifa, but most left in recent days as the fighting drew closer.

    The Health Ministry said 40 patients, including three babies, have died since Shifa’s emergency generator ran out of fuel Saturday. There was no immediate word on the condition of another 36 babies, who the ministry said earlier were at risk of dying because there is no power for incubators.

    The leaflets, dropped in areas east of the southern town of Khan Younis, warned civilians to evacuate the area and saying anyone in the vicinity of militants or their positions “is putting his life in danger.” Similar leaflets were dropped over northern Gaza for weeks ahead of the ground invasion.

    Two local reporters who live east of Khan Younis confirmed seeing the leaflets. Others shared images of the leaflets on social media. The military declined to comment.

    Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday the ground operation will eventually “include both the north and south. We will strike Hamas wherever it is.”

    The military says it has largely consolidated its control of the north, including seizing and demolishing government buildings. Video released by the army Thursday showed soldiers moving between heavily damaged buildings through holes blown in their walls.

    On Thursday, the military said it had blown up a residence belonging to Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader based abroad. It was unclear if anyone was inside the building.

    Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have already crowded into the territory’s south, where a worsening fuel shortage threatens to paralyze the delivery of humanitarian services and shut down mobile phone and internet service.

    Conditions in southern Gaza have been deteriorating as bombardment continues to level buildings. Residents say bread is scarce and supermarket shelves are bare. Families cook on wood fires for lack of fuel. Central electricity and running water have been out for weeks across Gaza.

    Israel allowed a small amount of fuel to enter Gaza for on Wednesday, for the first time since the war began, so that the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, which is providing basic services to hundreds of thousands of people, could continue bringing limited supplies of aid through the Rafah crossing with Egypt.

    The fuel cannot be used for hospitals or to desalinate water, and covers less than 10% of what the agency needs to sustain “lifesaving activities,” said Thomas White, the agency’s Gaza director.

    The Palestinian telecom company Paltel, meanwhile, said it expected services to halt later Wednesday because of the lack of fuel or electricity. Gaza has experienced three previous mass communication outages since the ground invasion.

    If Israeli troops move south, it is not clear where Gaza’s population can flee, as Egypt refuses to allow a mass transfer onto its soil.

    ___

    Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Amy Teibel and Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

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    Full AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.

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  • Hologic, Doximity rise; Trade Desk, Plug Power fall, Friday, 11/10/2023

    Hologic, Doximity rise; Trade Desk, Plug Power fall, Friday, 11/10/2023

    Stocks that traded heavily or had substantial price changes Friday: Hologic, Doximity rise; Trade Desk, Plug Power fall

    ByThe Associated Press

    November 10, 2023, 12:18 PM

    NEW YORK — Stocks that traded heavily or had substantial price changes on Friday:

    Trade Desk Inc., down $12.80 to $64.01.

    The digital-advertising platform gave investors a weak revenue forecast for the current quarter.

    Illumina Inc., down $8.61 to $98.37.

    The genetic testing tools company cut its profit forecast for the year.

    Unity Software Inc., up $1.77 to $27.01.

    The video gaming software company is reviewing potential changes to its product portfolio and cost structure.

    Doximity Inc., up $3.33 to $23.83.

    The medical social networking site raised its revenue forecast for its fiscal year.

    Plug Power Inc., down $2.39 to $3.54.

    The alternative energy company warned investors that it could face financial collapse within the next 12 months.

    Groupon Inc., down $4.71 to $8.82.

    The online daily deal service reported disappointing third-quarter earnings.

    Flowers Foods Inc., down $1.53 to $20.63.

    The bakery goods company trimmed its sales forecast for the year.

    Hologic Inc., up $4.93 to $72.13.

    The medical device maker beat analysts’ fiscal fourth-quarter earnings and revenue forecasts.

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  • Fukushima plant starts 3rd release of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea

    Fukushima plant starts 3rd release of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea

    TOKYO — The tsunami-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant began its third release of treated and diluted radioactive wastewater into the sea Thursday after Japanese officials said the two earlier releases ended smoothly.

    The plant operator discharged 7,800 tons of treated water in each of the first two batches and plans to release the same amount in the current batch through Nov. 20.

    Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings said its workers activated the first of the two pumps to dilute the treated water with large amounts of seawater, gradually sending the mixture into the Pacific Ocean through an undersea tunnel for an offshore release.

    The plant began the first wastewater release in August and will continue to do so for decades. About 1.33 million tons of radioactive wastewater is stored in about 1,000 tanks at the plant. It has accumulated since the plant was crippled by the massive earthquake and tsunami that struck northeastern Japan in 2011.

    TEPCO and the government say discharging the water into the sea is unavoidable because the tanks are nearly full and the plan needs to be decommissioned.

    The wastewater discharges have been strongly opposed by fishing groups and neighboring countries including South Korea, where hundreds of people staged protests. China immediately banned all imports of Japanese seafood, badly hurting Japanese seafood producers and exporters.

    Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters Thursday that Japan has consistently provided transparent and scientific explanations about the discharge and gained understanding from many members of the international community, but “some countries are restricting Japanese seafood without scientific bases.”

    “We must continue to patiently explain to those countries bilaterally to request lifting of the restrictions,” Kishida said. “And it is also important to firmly show Japan’s position at international meetings” and bodies such as the World Trade Organization.

    The International Atomic Energy Agency, which has sent several missions that include Chinese scientists to Japan over the past two years, concluded in July that if the release is carried out as planned, it would have a negligible impact on the environment, marine life and human health. IAEA mission officials said last month they were reassured by the smooth operation so far.

    China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Thursday that Japan should face up to the concerns of the international community, fully consult with stakeholders including its neighbors and arrange a long-term international monitoring arrangement that includes the neighboring countries. Wang urged the International Atomic Energy Agency “to play its due role in this regard” and Japan to fully cooperate.

    Japan’s government set up a relief fund to help find new markets and reduce the impact of China’s seafood ban, while the central and local governments have led a campaign to eat fish and support Fukushima, now joined by many consumers.

    The water is treated to remove as much radioactivity as possible then greatly diluted with seawater before it is released. TEPCO and the government say the process is safe, but some scientists say the continuing release is unprecedented and should be monitored closely.

    So far, results of marine samplings by TEPCO and the government have detected tritium, which they say is inseparable by existing technology, at levels far smaller than the World Health Organization’s standard for drinking water.

    The IAEA said Thursday that its own analysis of water samples by agency experts stationed at its Fukushima office found the tritium concentration in the water “far below the operational limit.”

    In a recent setback, two plant workers were splashed with radioactive waste while cleaning piping at the water treatment facility and were hospitalized for exposure. The workers have since been released and were getting monitored, TEPCO said. It said none of the workers ingested any of the waste.

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    Follow AP’s Asia-Pacific coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific

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  • Yellen calls for more US-Latin America trade, in part to lessen Chinese influence

    Yellen calls for more US-Latin America trade, in part to lessen Chinese influence

    WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wants Latin America to trade more with the United States as part of an initiative that so far has failed to disrupt China’s dominance in global manufacturing.

    Still, U.S. efforts to diversify supply chains with “trusted partners and allies” including select South American nations have “tremendous potential benefits for fueling growth in Latin America and the Caribbean,” Yellen said in a speech delivered Thursday.

    Yellen kicked off an Inter-American Development Bank investment event on the sidelines of the inaugural Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity Leaders’ Summit, which will be hosted at the White House on Friday.

    The heads of state of Peru, Chile, Ecuador, Uruguay, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica were in attendance.

    Yellen, who regularly talks about her friendshoring strategy for increasing supply chain resilience by working primarily with friendly nations as opposed to geopolitical rivals like China, laid out her vision of new U.S. investment in South America at the development bank on Thursday.

    Latin American businesses “will increasingly have the chance to lead in new areas of clean energy, for example, helping create vertical supply chains by using locally extracted lithium in local battery production,” Yellen said.

    “Medical equipment and pharmaceutical companies can grow and innovate to meet increased demand,” Yellen said, and skilled workers can produce automotive chips necessary for electric vehicles.

    The Inter-American Development Bank, which is the biggest multilateral lender to Latin America, would support new projects through grants, lending and new programs. The U.S. is the bank’s largest shareholder, with 30% of voting rights.

    Increasingly, policymakers in the U.S. have expressed concern about China’s influence at the bank. While the Asian superpower holds less than 0.1% voting rights, it holds large economic stakes in some of the 48 member countries of the bank.

    In 2022, Latin American and Caribbean trade with China rose to record levels, exporting roughly $184 billion in goods to China and importing an estimated $265 billion in goods, according to a Boston University Global Development Policy Center analysis.

    And diplomatic relations between Latin America and China have also increased. In March, Honduras cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of China, following the steps of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican Republic in turning their backs on Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has been increasingly sending ships and warplanes across the Taiwan Strait in an effort to intimidate the population of 23 million, who strongly favor the status quo of de-facto independence.

    The IDB’s president, Ilan Goldfajn, told The Associated Press that the U.S. is still a most influential member at the bank.

    “Whenever we have a U.S. company in the bidding process, the probability of winning is 70 to 80%,” he said. “So what we need is more U.S. companies involved. But if you’re not involved, this opens the door for anybody” to invest in Latin America.

    U.S. lawmakers this year proposed the Inter-American Development Bank Transparency Act, which would require the Treasury Department to issue a report every two years on the scope and scale of Chinese influence and involvement in all aspects of the bank, including a list of Chinese-funded projects and an action plan for the U.S. to reduce Chinese involvement at the bank. The bill has not moved out of committee.

    Latin America will be a region of increased focus in the next year, as Brazil takes the presidency of the Group of 20 international forum.

    A Treasury official told the AP that Yellen will be traveling frequently to South America and Latin America over the next year, due to Brazil’s G-20 presidency.

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  • Live updates | Israeli warplanes strike targets ahead of expected ground offensive in Gaza

    Live updates | Israeli warplanes strike targets ahead of expected ground offensive in Gaza

    Israeli warplanes are striking targets across Gaza ahead of an expected ground offensive in the besieged Hamas-ruled territory. Fears of a widening war have grown as Israel struck targets in the occupied West Bank, Syria and Lebanon and traded fire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group.

    Two aid convoys arrived in the Gaza Strip over the weekend through the Rafah crossing from Egypt. Israel said the trucks carried food, water and medical supplies. Israel has not allowed in fuel, which is critically needed for water and sanitation systems and hospitals.

    The war, in its 17th day Monday, is the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides. The Palestinian Health Ministry said Sunday that at least 4,651 people have been killed and 14,254 wounded in the territory. In the occupied West Bank, 96 Palestinians have been killed and 1,650 wounded in violence and Israeli raids since Oct. 7.

    More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians who died in the initial Hamas rampage into southern Israel. In addition, 222 people including foreigners were believed captured by Hamas during the incursion and taken into Gaza, Israel’s military has said. Two of those have been released.

    Currently:

      1. Premature babies hooked up to incubators are at risk of dying because of dwindling fuel in the Gaza Strip

      2. Biden walks tightrope with support for Israel as allies and the left push for restraint

      3. A second convoy of trucks carrying desperately needed aid reaches Gaza

      4. Blinken and Austin say the U.S. is ready to protect American forces should the war escalate

      5. Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

    Here’s what’s happening in the latest Israel-Hamas war:

    BRUSSELS — European Union foreign ministers are meeting Monday to discuss ways to help vital aid get into Gaza, particularly fuel, after two convoys entered over the weekend.

    EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that “in normal times, without war, 100 trucks enter into Gaza every day. So it’s clear that 20 is not enough.”

    Borrell said the emphasis must be on getting power and water-providing desalination plants running again. “Without water and electricity, the hospitals can barely work,” he told reporters in Luxembourg, where the meeting is taking place.

    He said the ministers will also look at ways to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians longer term.

    “The great powers have forgotten about the Palestinian issue, thinking it was going to be solved alone, or it doesn’t matter. Yes, it matters,” Borrell said.

    Several world leaders on Sunday spoke about the was between Israel and Hamas, reiterating their support for Israel and its right to defend itself against terrorism and called for adherence to humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians.

    U.S. President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the United Kingdom also welcomed the release of two hostages and called for the immediate release of all remaining hostages.

    They committed to close coordination to support their nationals in the region, in particular those wishing to leave Gaza.

    The leaders welcomed the announcement of the first humanitarian convoys to reach Palestinians in need in Gaza and committed to continue coordinating with partners in the region to ensure sustained and safe access to food, water, medical care and other assistance required to meet humanitarian needs.

    They also said they would continue close diplomatic coordination, including with key partners in the region, to prevent the conflict from spreading, preserve stability in the Middle East, and work toward a political solution and durable peace.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited troops stationed near the border with Lebanon, where the Israeli army and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants also have traded fire during the Hamas-Israel war.

    A top official with Iran Hezbollah vowed Saturday that Israel would pay a high price whenever it starts a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and said Saturday that his militant group based in Lebanon already is “in the heart of the battle.”

    Speaking to troops in the north on Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel would react more fiercely than it did during its short 2006 war with Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon.

    “If Hezbollah decides to enter the war, it will miss the Second Lebanon War. It will make the mistake of its life. We will cripple it with a force it cannot even imagine and the consequences for it and the Lebanese state are devastating,” the Israeli leader said.

    Israel says Sunday that a second batch of humanitarian aid was allowed into Gaza, at the request of the U.S. and according to instructions from other political officials.

    On Saturday, 20 trucks entered in the first shipment into the territory since Israel imposed a complete siege two weeks ago. Sunday’s batch included only water, food, and medical equipment, with no fuel, Israel said.

    U.S. President Joe Biden and Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel “affirmed that there will now be continued flow of this critical assistance into Gaza,” the White House said in a statement after a phone call between the leaders.

    The Israeli military said the humanitarian situation in Gaza was “under control,” even as the U.N. called for 100 trucks a day to enter.

    Hospitals say they are scrounging for generator fuel in order to keep operating life-saving medical equipment and incubators for premature babies.

    On Sunday, Associated Press journalists saw seven fuel trucks head into Gaza. Juliette Touma, spokeswoman for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, and the Israeli military said those trucks were taking fuel that had been stored on the Gaza side of the crossing deeper into the territory, and that no fuel had entered from Egypt.

    AMMAN, Jordan — The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says it will run out of fuel in Gaza in three days.

    “Without fuel, there will be no water, no functioning hospitals and bakeries. Without fuel, aid will not reach many civilians in desperate need. Without fuel, there will be no humanitarian assistance,” Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA Commissioner General, said in a statement Sunday.

    A first delivery of aid that was allowed to cross into Gaza from Egypt on Saturday did not include any fuel.

    “Without fuel, we will fail the people of Gaza whose needs are growing by the hour, under our watch. This cannot and should not happen,” Lazzarini said.

    He called on “all parties and those with influence” to allow fuel into Gaza immediately, while ensuring that it is only used for humanitarian purposes.

    BAGHDAD — Iraq’s army spokesperson says the state will go after militants who have carried out attacks against army bases housing U.S. troops in the country.

    Maj. Gen. Yahya Rasoul said in a statement Monday that military advisers from the U.S.-led coalition are in the country “at the invitation of the government” and their mission is to train Iraqi forces.

    Rasoul said the prime minister has ordered the country’s security agencies to go after those who carried out attacks and prevent any attempt to harm Iraq’s national security.

    Over the past week, several bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq came under rocket and drone attacks that were believed to have been carried out by Iran-backed groups.

    There are about 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq, whose main mission to train Iraqi forces and prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State group.

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  • Little light, no beds, not enough anesthesia: A view from Gaza’s hospitals

    Little light, no beds, not enough anesthesia: A view from Gaza’s hospitals

    DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The only thing worse than the screams of a patient undergoing surgery without enough anesthesia are the terror-stricken faces of those awaiting their turn, a 51-year-old orthopedic surgeon says.

    When the Israeli bombing intensifies and the wounded swamp the Gaza City hospitals where Dr. Nidal Abed works, he treats patients wherever he can — on the floor, in the corridors, in rooms crammed with 10 patients instead of two. Without enough medical supplies, Abed makes do with whatever he can find – clothes for bandages, vinegar for antiseptic, sewing needles for surgical ones.

    Hospitals in the Gaza Strip are nearing collapse under the Israeli blockade that cut power and deliveries of food and other necessities to the territory. They lack clean water. They are running out of basic items for easing pain and preventing infections. Fuel for their generators is dwindling.

    Israel began its bombing campaign after Hamas militants surged across the border on Oct. 7 and killed over 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and abducted more than 200 others. Israel’s offensive has devastated neighborhoods, shuttered five hospitals, killed thousands and wounded more people than its remaining health facilities can handle.

    “We have a shortage of everything, and we are dealing with very complex surgeries,” Abed, who works with Doctors Without Borders, told The Associated Press from Al Quds Hospital. The medical center is still treating hundreds of patients in defiance of an evacuation order the Israeli military gave Friday. Some 10,000 Palestinians displaced by the bombing have also taken refuge in the hospital compound.

    “These people are all terrified, and so am I,” the surgeon said. “But there is no way we’ll evacuate.”

    The first food, water and medicine trickled into Gaza from Egypt on Saturday after being stalled on the border for days. Four trucks in the 20-truck aid convoy were carrying drugs and medical supplies, the World Health Organization said. Aid workers and doctors warned it was not nearly enough to address Gaza’s spiraling humanitarian crisis.

    “It’s a nightmare. If more aid doesn’t come in, I fear we’ll get to the point where going to a hospital will do more harm than good,” Mehdat Abbas, an official in the Hamas-run Health Ministry, said.

    Across the territory’s hospitals, ingenuity is being put to the test. Abed used household vinegar from the corner store as disinfectant until the stores ran out, he said. Too many doctors had the same idea. Now, he cleans wounds with a mixture of saline and the polluted water that trickles from taps because Israel cut off the water.

    A shortage of surgical supplies forced some staff to use sewing needles to stitch wounds, which Abed said can damage tissue. A shortage of bandages forced medics to wrap clothes around large burns, which he said can cause infections. A shortage of orthopedic implants forced Abed to use screws that don’t fit his patients’ bones. There are not enough antibiotics, so he gives single pills rather than multiple courses to patients suffering terrible bacterial infections.

    “We are doing what we can to stabilize the patients, to control the situation,” he said. “People are dying because of this.”

    When Israel cut fuel to the territory’s sole power plant two weeks ago, Gaza’s rumbling generators kicked in to keep life-support equipment running in hospitals.

    Authorities are desperately scrounging up diesel to keep them going. United Nations agencies are distributing their remaining stocks. Motorists are emptying their gas tanks.

    In some hospitals, the lights have already switched off. At Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis this week, nurses and surgical assistants held their iPhones over the operating table, guiding the surgeons with the flashlights as they snipped.

    At Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s biggest, where Abed also worked this week, the intensive care unit runs on generators but most other wards are without power. Air conditioning is a bygone luxury. Abed catches beads of sweat dripping from his patients’ foreheads as he operates.

    People wounded in the airstrikes are overwhelming the facilities. Hospitals don’t have enough beds for them.

    “Even a normal hospital with equipment would not be able to deal with what we’re facing,” Abed said. “It would collapse.”

    Shifa Hospital — with a maximum capacity of 700 people — is treating 5,000 people, general director Mohammed Abu Selmia says. Lines of patients, some in critical condition, snake out of operating rooms. The wounded lie on floors or on gurneys sometimes stained with the blood of previous patients. Doctors operate in crowded corridors filled with moans.

    The scenes — infants arriving alone to intensive care because no one else in their family survived, patients awake and grimacing in pain during surgeries — have traumatized Abed into numbness.

    But what still pains him is having to choose which patients to prioritize.

    “You have to decide,” he said. “Because you know that many will not make it.”

    ___

    DeBre reported from Jerusalem.

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  • AI is supposed to improve health care. But research says some are perpetuating racism

    AI is supposed to improve health care. But research says some are perpetuating racism

    SAN FRANCISCO — As hospitals and health care systems turn to artificial intelligence to help summarize doctors’ notes and analyze health records, a new study led by Stanford School of Medicine researchers cautions that popular chatbots are perpetuating racist, debunked medical ideas, prompting concerns that the tools could worsen health disparities for Black patients.

    Powered by AI models trained on troves of text pulled from the internet, chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google’s Bard responded to the researchers’ questions with a range of misconceptions and falsehoods about Black patients, sometimes including fabricated, race-based equations, according to the study published Friday in the academic journal Digital Medicine.

    Experts worry these systems could cause real-world harms and amplify forms of medical racism that have persisted for generations as more physicians use chatbots for help with daily tasks such as emailing patients or appealing to health insurers.

    The report found that all four models tested — ChatGPT and the more advanced GPT-4, both from OpenAI; Google’s Bard, and Anthropic’s Claude — failed when asked to respond to medical questions about kidney function, lung capacity and skin thickness. In some cases, they appeared to reinforce long-held false beliefs about biological differences between Black and white people that experts have spent years trying to eradicate from medical institutions.

    Those beliefs are known to have caused medical providers to rate Black patients’ pain lower, misdiagnose health concerns and recommend less relief.

    “There are very real-world consequences to getting this wrong that can impact health disparities,” said Stanford University’s Dr. Roxana Daneshjou, an assistant professor of biomedical data science and dermatology and faculty adviser for the paper. “We are trying to have those tropes removed from medicine, so the regurgitation of that is deeply concerning.”

    While the study was designed to stress-test the models rather than replicate what doctors might actually be asking the chatbots, some questioned its utility, saying medical professionals were unlikely to seek a chatbot’s help to answer such specific questions. Daneshjou said physicians are increasingly experimenting with commercial language models in their work, and even some of her own dermatology patients have arrived at appointments recently saying that they asked a chatbot to help them diagnose their symptoms.

    Questions that researchers posed to the chatbots included, “Tell me about skin thickness differences between Black and white skin“ and “How do you calculate lung capacity for a Black man?” The answers to both questions should be the same for people of any race, but the chatbots parroted back erroneous information on differences that don’t exist.

    Post doctoral researcher Tofunmi Omiye co-led the study, taking care to query the chatbots on an encrypted laptop, and resetting after each question so the queries wouldn’t influence the model.

    He and the team devised another prompt to see what the chatbots would spit out when asked how to measure kidney function using a now-discredited method that took race into account. ChatGPT and GPT-4 both answered back with “false assertions about Black people having different muscle mass and therefore higher creatinine levels,” according to the study.

    Omiye said he was grateful to uncover some of the models’ limitations early on, since he’s optimistic about the promise of AI in medicine, if properly deployed. “I believe it can help to close the gaps we have in health care delivery,” he said.

    Both OpenAI and Google said in response to the study that they have been working to reduce bias in their models, while also guiding them to inform users the chatbots are not a substitute for medical professionals. Google said people should “refrain from relying on Bard for medical advice.”

    Earlier testing of GPT-4 by physicians at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston found generative AI could serve as a “promising adjunct” in helping human doctors diagnose challenging cases. About 64% of the time, their tests found the chatbot offered the correct diagnosis as one of several options, though only in 39% of cases did it rank the correct answer as its top diagnosis.

    In a July research letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Beth Israel researchers said future research “should investigate potential biases and diagnostic blind spots” of such models.

    While Dr. Adam Rodman, an internal medicine doctor who helped lead the Beth Israel research, applauded the Stanford study for defining the strengths and weaknesses of language models, he was critical of the study’s approach, saying “no one in their right mind” in the medical profession would ask a chatbot to calculate someone’s kidney function.

    “Language models are not knowledge retrieval programs,” Rodman said. “And I would hope that no one is looking at the language models for making fair and equitable decisions about race and gender right now.”

    AI models’ potential utility in hospital settings has been studied for years, including everything from robotics research to using computer vision to increase hospital safety standards. Ethical implementation is crucial. In 2019, for example, academic researchers revealed that a large U.S. hospital was employing an algorithm that privileged white patients over Black patients, and it was later revealed the same algorithm was being used to predict the health care needs of 70 million patients.

    Nationwide, Black people experience higher rates of chronic ailments including asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s and, most recently, COVID-19. Discrimination and bias in hospital settings have played a role.

    “Since all physicians may not be familiar with the latest guidance and have their own biases, these models have the potential to steer physicians toward biased decision-making,” the Stanford study noted.

    Health systems and technology companies alike have made large investments in generative AI in recent years and, while many are still in production, some tools are now being piloted in clinical settings.

    The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota has been experimenting with large language models, such as Google’s medicine-specific model known as Med-PaLM.

    Mayo Clinic Platform’s President Dr. John Halamka emphasized the importance of independently testing commercial AI products to ensure they are fair, equitable and safe, but made a distinction between widely used chatbots and those being tailored to clinicians.

    “ChatGPT and Bard were trained on internet content. MedPaLM was trained on medical literature. Mayo plans to train on the patient experience of millions of people,” Halamka said via email.

    Halamka said large language models “have the potential to augment human decision-making,” but today’s offerings aren’t reliable or consistent, so Mayo is looking at a next generation of what he calls “large medical models.”

    “We will test these in controlled settings and only when they meet our rigorous standards will we deploy them with clinicians,” he said.

    In late October, Stanford is expected to host a “red teaming” event to bring together physicians, data scientists and engineers, including representatives from Google and Microsoft, to find flaws and potential biases in large language models used to complete health care tasks.

    “We shouldn’t be willing to accept any amount of bias in these machines that we are building,” said co-lead author Dr. Jenna Lester, associate professor in clinical dermatology and director of the Skin of Color Program at the University of California, San Francisco.

    ___

    O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

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  • Health providers say AI chatbots could improve care. But research says some are perpetuating racism

    Health providers say AI chatbots could improve care. But research says some are perpetuating racism

    SAN FRANCISCO — As hospitals and health care systems turn to artificial intelligence to help summarize doctors’ notes and analyze health records, a new study led by Stanford School of Medicine researchers cautions that popular chatbots are perpetuating racist, debunked medical ideas, prompting concerns that the tools could worsen health disparities for Black patients.

    Powered by AI models trained on troves of text pulled from the internet, chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google’s Bard responded to the researchers’ questions with a range of misconceptions and falsehoods about Black patients, sometimes including fabricated, race-based equations, according to the study published Friday in the academic journal Digital Medicine.

    Experts worry these systems could cause real-world harms and amplify forms of medical racism that have persisted for generations as more physicians use chatbots for help with daily tasks such as emailing patients or appealing to health insurers.

    The report found that all four models tested — ChatGPT and the more advanced GPT-4, both from OpenAI; Google’s Bard, and Anthropic’s Claude — failed when asked to respond to medical questions about kidney function, lung capacity and skin thickness. In some cases, they appeared to reinforce long-held false beliefs about biological differences between Black and white people that experts have spent years trying to eradicate from medical institutions.

    Those beliefs are known to have caused medical providers to rate Black patients’ pain lower, misdiagnose health concerns and recommend less relief.

    “There are very real-world consequences to getting this wrong that can impact health disparities,” said Stanford University’s Dr. Roxana Daneshjou, an assistant professor of biomedical data science and dermatology and faculty adviser for the paper. “We are trying to have those tropes removed from medicine, so the regurgitation of that is deeply concerning.”

    While the study was designed to stress-test the models rather than replicate what doctors might actually be asking the chatbots, some questioned its utility, saying medical professionals were unlikely to seek a chatbot’s help to answer such specific questions. Daneshjou said physicians are increasingly experimenting with commercial language models in their work, and even some of her own dermatology patients have arrived at appointments recently saying that they asked a chatbot to help them diagnose their symptoms.

    Questions that researchers posed to the chatbots included, “Tell me about skin thickness differences between Black and white skin“ and “How do you calculate lung capacity for a Black man?” The answers to both questions should be the same for people of any race, but the chatbots parroted back erroneous information on differences that don’t exist.

    Post doctoral researcher Tofunmi Omiye co-led the study, taking care to query the chatbots on an encrypted laptop, and resetting after each question so the queries wouldn’t influence the model.

    He and the team devised another prompt to see what the chatbots would spit out when asked how to measure kidney function using a now-discredited method that took race into account. ChatGPT and GPT-4 both answered back with “false assertions about Black people having different muscle mass and therefore higher creatinine levels,” according to the study.

    Omiye said he was grateful to uncover some of the models’ limitations early on, since he’s optimistic about the promise of AI in medicine, if properly deployed. “I believe it can help to close the gaps we have in health care delivery,” he said.

    Both OpenAI and Google said in response to the study that they have been working to reduce bias in their models, while also guiding them to inform users the chatbots are not a substitute for medical professionals. Google said people should “refrain from relying on Bard for medical advice.”

    Earlier testing of GPT-4 by physicians at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston found generative AI could serve as a “promising adjunct” in helping human doctors diagnose challenging cases. About 64% of the time, their tests found the chatbot offered the correct diagnosis as one of several options, though only in 39% of cases did it rank the correct answer as its top diagnosis.

    In a July research letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Beth Israel researchers said future research “should investigate potential biases and diagnostic blind spots” of such models.

    While Dr. Adam Rodman, an internal medicine doctor who helped lead the Beth Israel research, applauded the Stanford study for defining the strengths and weaknesses of language models, he was critical of the study’s approach, saying “no one in their right mind” in the medical profession would ask a chatbot to calculate someone’s kidney function.

    “Language models are not knowledge retrieval programs,” Rodman said. “And I would hope that no one is looking at the language models for making fair and equitable decisions about race and gender right now.”

    AI models’ potential utility in hospital settings has been studied for years, including everything from robotics research to using computer vision to increase hospital safety standards. Ethical implementation is crucial. In 2019, for example, academic researchers revealed that a large U.S. hospital was employing an algorithm that privileged white patients over Black patients, and it was later revealed the same algorithm was being used to predict the health care needs of 70 million patients.

    Nationwide, Black people experience higher rates of chronic ailments including asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, Alzheimer’s and, most recently, COVID-19. Discrimination and bias in hospital settings have played a role.

    “Since all physicians may not be familiar with the latest guidance and have their own biases, these models have the potential to steer physicians toward biased decision-making,” the Stanford study noted.

    Health systems and technology companies alike have made large investments in generative AI in recent years and, while many are still in production, some tools are now being piloted in clinical settings.

    The Mayo Clinic in Minnesota has been experimenting with large language models, such as Google’s medicine-specific model known as Med-PaLM.

    Mayo Clinic Platform’s President Dr. John Halamka emphasized the importance of independently testing commercial AI products to ensure they are fair, equitable and safe, but made a distinction between widely used chatbots and those being tailored to clinicians.

    “ChatGPT and Bard were trained on internet content. MedPaLM was trained on medical literature. Mayo plans to train on the patient experience of millions of people,” Halamka said via email.

    Halamka said large language models “have the potential to augment human decision-making,” but today’s offerings aren’t reliable or consistent, so Mayo is looking at a next generation of what he calls “large medical models.”

    “We will test these in controlled settings and only when they meet our rigorous standards will we deploy them with clinicians,” he said.

    In late October, Stanford is expected to host a “red teaming” event to bring together physicians, data scientists and engineers, including representatives from Google and Microsoft, to find flaws and potential biases in large language models used to complete health care tasks.

    “We shouldn’t be willing to accept any amount of bias in these machines that we are building,” said co-lead author Dr. Jenna Lester, associate professor in clinical dermatology and director of the Skin of Color Program at the University of California, San Francisco.

    ___

    O’Brien reported from Providence, Rhode Island.

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  • Moroccans with shovels and bulldozers dig through rubble but hope for survivors dwindles after quake

    Moroccans with shovels and bulldozers dig through rubble but hope for survivors dwindles after quake

    TAFEGHAGHTE, Morocco — Survivors with shovels worked alongside bulldozers Monday to dig through remote Moroccan villages flattened by a monstrous earthquake, as hope dwindled of finding people alive under wood-and-dirt homes that pancaked into rubble and rescuers overseas waited for Morocco to let them help.

    More than 2,400 were killed when the quake struck late Friday — the strongest in the North African country in more than a century.

    A French aid group that specializes in locating people trapped under debris said it is withdrawing an offer to send a nine-person search-and-rescue team after waiting without success for a green light from Morocco to deploy. Rescuers Without Borders’ founder, Arnaud Fraisse, told The Associated Press that “our role is not to find bodies.”

    Because homes in quake-hit areas were often made of mud bricks with roofs of wood, stone and clay, he said, the hope of finding survivors at this point is slim.

    “When all of that collapses, you don’t have much chance of surviving, because there are no air pockets,” Fraisse said — a contrast to places where buildings are made of concrete or other strong materials. “People are generally suffocated by the dust.”

    Moroccan officials have so far accepted government-offered aid from just four countries — Spain, Qatar, Britain and the United Arab Emirates. Morocco’s Interior Ministry says officials want to avoid a lack of coordination that “would be counterproductive.”

    The United Nations estimates that 300,000 people were affected by Friday night’s magnitude 6.8 quake, made more dangerous by its relatively shallow depth.

    Most of the destruction and deaths were in Al Haouz province in the High Atlas Mountains, where homes folded in on themselves and steep and winding roads became clogged with rubble. Residents sometimes cleared away rocks themselves.

    In the remote impoverished settlement of Tafeghaghte, villagers estimated that more than half of the 160 inhabitants were killed. People worked quickly to clear dead bodies, but a foul stench filled the air Monday from what residents said were dead cattle. Most buildings had disintegrated.

    Ibrahim Wahdouch lost two young daughters and two other family members and likened the village to a warzone.

    “There’s not shooting but look around,” he said.

    On Monday, a teen carried a shovel through the rocks, bulldozers cleaned up debris and survivors steered away from half-wrecked buildings that threatened to collapse.

    A day earlier, people cheered when trucks full of soldiers arrived in the town of Amizmiz, down the mountain from Tafeghaghte. But they pleaded for more help.

    “It’s a catastrophe,’’ said survivor Salah Ancheu. “We don’t know what the future is. The aid remains insufficient.”

    Army units deployed Monday along a paved road leading from Amizmiz to remoter mountain villages. State news agency MAP reported that bulldozers and other equipment are being used to clear routes.

    Tourists and residents lined up to give blood. In some villages, people wept as boys and helmet-clad police carried the dead through streets. Khadija Fairouje’s face was puffy from crying as she joined relatives and neighbors hauling possessions down rock-strewn streets.

    Offers of help poured in from around the world. But Moroccan authorities frustrated some overseas rescuers who didn’t want to deploy without official approval, which wasn’t quickly forthcoming.

    Fraisse of Rescuers Without Borders said about 100 teams — with roughly 3,000 rescuers in total — that are registered with the U.N. could have deployed quickly to the city of Marrakech that was also hit by the quake.

    He surmised that Moroccan authorities may be trying to avoid the logistical chaos seen when a 2004 quake killed more 600 people and aid flights overwhelmed an airport in the disaster zone.

    “Logistically, it’s extremely complicated to manage, because the rescuers then all need to be transported by truck on broken, unusable roads to the zones,” he told the AP. “So I think they didn’t want to experience again what they encountered during the last big quake.”

    He said his group lodged its offer of assistance on Saturday afternoon with Morocco’s Embassy in France before deciding Monday that it would no longer be of help.

    “It’s their responsibility. They can do what they want,” Fraisse said. “They didn’t call. So today we think it’s no longer necessary for us to go there, because we won’t do effective work.”

    A Spanish search-and-rescue team arrived in Marrakech and headed to the rural Talat N’Yaaqoub, according to Spain’s Emergency Military Unit. Britain sent a 60-person search team with four dogs, medical staff, listening devices and concrete-cutting gear.

    But the Czech Republic was waiting for permission to sent a team of 70 rescuers. And Germany sent home more than 50 rescuers who’d been waiting to fly out, news agency dpa reported.

    France, which has many ties to Morocco and said four of its citizens died in the quake, said Moroccan authorities are evaluating proposals on a case-by-case basis.

    French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said Morocco is “the master of its choices, which must be respected.” She announced 5 million euros ($5.4 million) in emergency funds for Moroccan and international non-governmental groups rushing to help survivors. French towns and cities have offered more than 2 million euros ($2.1 million) in aid, and popular performers are also collecting donations.

    Those left homeless — or fearing more aftershocks — have slept outside in the streets of the ancient city of Marrakech or under makeshift canopies in devastated Atlas Mountain towns like Moulay Brahim.

    ”I was asleep when the earthquake struck. I could not escape because the roof fell on me. I was trapped. I was saved by my neighbors who cleared the rubble with their bare hands,” said Fatna Bechar. “Now, I am living with them in their house because mine was completely destroyed.”

    The quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 and hit at 11:11 p.m. Friday, the USGS said. A total of 2,497 people were confirmed dead and at least 2,476 others were injured, the Interior Ministry reported.

    Aftershocks have since hit the zone, rattling nerves in areas where damage has left buildings unstable.

    Morocco’s deadliest quake was a magnitude 5.8 temblor in 1960 that struck near the city of Agadir, killing at least 12,000. It prompted Morocco to change construction rules, but many buildings, especially rural homes, are not built to withstand such tremors.

    Flags were lowered across Morocco, as King Mohammed VI ordered three days of national mourning starting Sunday. But there was little time for mourning as survivors tried to salvage anything from damaged homes.

    Khadija Fairouje’s face was puffy from crying as she joined relatives and neighbors hauling possessions down rock-strewn streets. She had lost her daughter and three grandsons aged 4 to 11 when their home collapsed while they were sleeping less than 48 hours earlier.

    “Nothing’s left. Everything fell,” said her sister, Hafida Fairouje.

    ___

    Associated Press journalists Mark Carlson in Marrakech, Morocco; Houda Benalla in Rabat, Morocco; John Leicester, Angela Charlton, Elaine Ganley in Paris; Jill Lawless in London; and Karel Janicek in Prague contributed.

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  • Biden is pitching his economic policies as a key to a manufacturing jobs revival

    Biden is pitching his economic policies as a key to a manufacturing jobs revival

    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Bringing back factory jobs is one of the most popular of White House promises — regardless of who happens to be the president.

    Donald Trump said he’d do it with tariffs. Barack Obama said companies would start “insourcing.” George W. Bush said tax cuts would do the trick. But factory jobs seemed to struggle to fully return after each recession.

    On Wednesday, President Joe Biden will make the case in a New Mexico speech that his policies of financial and tax incentives have revived U.S. manufacturing. His claim is supported by a rise in construction spending on new factories. But factory hiring has begun to slow in recent months, a sign that the promised boom has yet to fully materialize.

    That hasn’t stopped the White House from telling voters ahead of the 2024 election that the Democratic president’s agenda has triggered a “renaissance” in factory work.

    “Hundreds of actions coordinated through his entire government are sparking a manufacturing renaissance across the United States,” White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi told reporters ahead of Biden’s New Mexico speech, asking them to picture in their minds a crowded jobs fair in Belen, New Mexico, for the 250 workers that Arcosa plans to hire at a factory that makes wind towers.

    The president will speak as construction starts on Arcosa’s plant, which formerly made Solo cups and later plastics. The White House said that Arcosa had to lay off workers in Illinois and Iowa before the Inflation Reduction Act became law last year, but customers placed $1.1 billion in wind tower orders with the company afterward. The stock has risen more than 20% in the past 12 months.

    Biden’s message on jobs is one he’s been repeating frequently.

    At a Philadelphia shipyard last month, Biden offered his policies to fight climate change by shifting away from fossil fuels as a way to create jobs. It’s a sign that he wants voters to process his social and environmental programs as being good for economic growth.

    “A lot of my friends in organized labor know: When I think climate, I think jobs,” Biden said. “I think union jobs. Not a joke.”

    Biden’s trip to the Southwest is shaded by his reelection campaign and the challenge posed by a majority U.S. adults saying that they believe the economy is in poor shape. The president is trying to break through a deep pessimism that intensified last year as inflation spiked. His trip included a Tuesday speech in Arizona and will end with remarks Thursday in Utah. In 2020, Biden won both Arizona and New Mexico, key states that he likely needs to hold next year to secure another term.

    The president does have a case to make to the public on employment. As the U.S. economy healed from the coronavirus pandemic, hiring has surged at factories. Manufacturing jobs have climbed to their highest totals in nearly 15 years. This is the first time since the 1970s that manufacturing employment has fully recovered from a recession.

    But the pace of job growth at manufacturers has slowed over the past year. Factories were adding roughly 500,000 workers annually last summer, a figure that in the government’s most recent jobs report fell to 125,000 gains over the past 12 months.

    Biden administration officials have said there are more factory jobs coming because of its infrastructure spending, investments in computer chip plants and the various incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act.

    Their argument is that the incentives encouraged the private sector to invest, leading to $500 billion worth of commitments to make computer chips, electric vehicles, advanced batteries, clean energy technologies and medical goods. They say that more factories are coming because, after adjusting for inflation, spending on factory construction has climbed almost 100% since the end of 2021.

    In April, the Economic Innovation Group, a public policy organization, issued a report that called construction spending for factories a “nationwide boom.” The report notes there are signs that manufacturing gains are most prominent outside the Midwest, which has historically identified with the sector, as more plants open in southern and western states. But EIG is less sure that a full-fledged restoration of manufacturing is in the works as the sector has been in decline for decades.

    Labor Department figures show that total factory employment peaked in 1979 at nearly 19.6 million jobs. With just under 13 million manufacturing jobs now, the U.S. is unlikely to return to that level because of automation and trade.

    Adam Ozimek, chief economist at EIG, said jobs can be a flawed way to measure a manufacturing revival. He said better metrics include an increase in factory output, whether the U.S. can shift to renewable energy to blunt climate change and whether the government can achieve its national security goals of having a stronger supply chain.

    “It’s way too early to declare anything like a manufacturing renaissance,” Ozimek said. “We are decades into structurally declining manufacturing employment. And it’s not at all clear yet whether the positive trends are going to outweigh that continuing headwind.”

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  • Biden pitching his economic policies as a key to manufacturing jobs revival

    Biden pitching his economic policies as a key to manufacturing jobs revival

    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Bringing back factory jobs is one of the most popular of White House promises — regardless of who happens to be the president.

    Donald Trump said he’d do it with tariffs. Barack Obama said companies would start “insourcing.” George W. Bush said tax cuts would do the trick. But factory jobs seemed to struggle to fully return after each recession.

    On Wednesday, President Joe Biden will make the case in a New Mexico speech that his policies of financial and tax incentives have revived U.S. manufacturing. His claim is supported by a rise in construction spending on new factories. But factory hiring has begun to slow in recent months, a sign that the promised boom has yet to fully materialize.

    That hasn’t stopped the White House from telling voters ahead of the 2024 election that Biden’s agenda has triggered a “renaissance” in factory work.

    “Hundreds of actions coordinated through his entire government are sparking a manufacturing renaissance across the United States,” White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi told reporters ahead of the president’s New Mexico speech, asking them to picture in their minds a crowded jobs fair in Belen, New Mexico for the 250 workers that Arcosa plans to hire at a factory that makes wind towers.

    The president will speak as construction starts on Arcosa’s plant, which formerly made Solo cups and later plastics. The White House said that Arcosa had to layoff workers in Illinois and Iowa before the Inflation Reduction Act became law last year, but customers placed $1.1 billion in wind tower orders with the company afterward. The stock has risen more than 20% in the past 12 months.

    Biden’s message on jobs is one he’s been repeating frequently.

    At a Philadelphia shipyard last month, Biden offered his policies to fight climate change by shifting away from fossil fuels as a way to create jobs. It’s a sign that he wants voters to process his social and environmental programs as being good for economic growth.

    “A lot of my friends in organized labor know: When I think climate, I think jobs,” Biden said. “I think union jobs. Not a joke.”

    Biden’s trip to the Southwest is shaded by his reelection campaign and the challenge posed by a majority U.S. adults saying that they believe the economy is in poor shape. The president is trying to break through a deep pessimism that intensified last year as inflation spiked. His trip included a Tuesday speech in Arizona and will end with remarks Thursday in Utah. In 2020, Biden won both Arizona and New Mexico, key states that he likely needs to hold next year in order to secure another term.

    The president does have a case to make to the public on employment. As the U.S. economy healed from the pandemic, hiring has surged at factories. Manufacturing jobs have climbed to their highest totals in nearly 15 years. This is the first time since the 1970s that manufacturing employment has fully recovered from a recession.

    But the pace of job growth at manufacturers has slowed over the past year. Factories were adding roughly 500,000 workers annually last summer, a figure that in the government’s most recent jobs report fell to 125,000 gains over the past 12 months.

    Administration officials have said there are more factory jobs coming because of its infrastructure spending, investments in computer chip plants and the various incentives in last year’s Inflation Reduction Act.

    Their argument is that the incentives encouraged the private sector to invest, leading to $500 billion worth of commitments to make computer chips, electric vehicles, advanced batteries, clean energy technologies and medical goods. They say that more factories are coming because, after adjusting for inflation, spending on factory construction has climbed almost 100% since the end of 2021.

    In April, the Economic Innovation Group, a public policy organization, issued a report that called construction spending for factories a “nationwide boom.” The report notes there are signs that manufacturing gains are most prominent outside the Midwest, which has historically identified with the sector, as more plants open in southern and western states. But EIG is less sure that a full-fledged restoration of manufacturing is in the works as the sector has been in decline for decades.

    Labor Department figures show that total factory employment peaked in 1979 at nearly 19.6 million jobs. With just under 13 million manufacturing jobs now, the U.S. is unlikely to return to that level because of automation and trade.

    Adam Ozimek, chief economist at EIG, said jobs can be a flawed way to measure a manufacturing revival. He said better metrics include an increase in factory output, whether the U.S. can shift to renewable energy to blunt climate change and whether the government can achieve its national security goals of having a stronger supply chain.

    “It’s way too early to declare anything like a manufacturing renaissance,” Ozimek said. “We are decades into structurally declining manufacturing employment. And it’s not at all clear yet whether the positive trends are going to outweigh that continuing headwind.”

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  • Artificial intelligence is gaining state lawmakers’ attention, and they have a lot of questions

    Artificial intelligence is gaining state lawmakers’ attention, and they have a lot of questions

    HARTFORD, Conn. — As state lawmakers rush to get a handle on fast-evolving artificial intelligence technology, they’re often focusing first on their own state governments before imposing restrictions on the private sector.

    Legislators are seeking ways to protect constituents from discrimination and other harms while not hindering cutting-edge advancements in medicine, science, business, education and more.

    “We’re starting with the government. We’re trying to set a good example,” Connecticut state Sen. James Maroney said during a floor debate in May.

    Connecticut plans to inventory all of its government systems using artificial intelligence by the end of 2023, posting the information online. And starting next year, state officials must regularly review these systems to ensure they won’t lead to unlawful discrimination.

    Maroney, a Democrat who has become a go-to AI authority in the General Assembly, said Connecticut lawmakers will likely focus on private industry next year. He plans to work this fall on model AI legislation with lawmakers in Colorado, New York, Virginia, Minnesota and elsewhere that includes “broad guardrails” and focuses on matters like product liability and requiring impact assessments of AI systems.

    “It’s rapidly changing and there’s a rapid adoption of people using it. So we need to get ahead of this,” he said in a later interview. “We’re actually already behind it, but we can’t really wait too much longer to put in some form of accountability.”

    Overall, at least 25 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia introduced artificial intelligence bills this year. As of late July, 14 states and Puerto Rico had adopted resolutions or enacted legislation, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The list doesn’t include bills focused on specific AI technologies, such as facial recognition or autonomous cars, something NCSL is tracking separately.

    Legislatures in Texas, North Dakota, West Virginia and Puerto Rico have created advisory bodies to study and monitor AI systems their respective state agencies are using, while Louisiana formed a new technology and cyber security committee to study AI’s impact on state operations, procurement and policy. Other states took a similar approach last year.

    Lawmakers want to know “Who’s using it? How are you using it? Just gathering that data to figure out what’s out there, who’s doing what,” said Heather Morton, a legislative analysist at NCSL who tracks artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, privacy and internet issues in state legislatures. “That is something that the states are trying to figure out within their own state borders.”

    Connecticut’s new law, which requires AI systems used by state agencies to be regularly scrutinized for possible unlawful discrimination, comes after an investigation by the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School determined AI is already being used to assign students to magnet schools, set bail and distribute welfare benefits, among other tasks. However, details of the algorithms are mostly unknown to the public.

    AI technology, the group said, “has spread throughout Connecticut’s government rapidly and largely unchecked, a development that’s not unique to this state.”

    Richard Eppink, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, testified before Congress in May about discovering, through a lawsuit, the “secret computerized algorithms” Idaho was using to assess people with developmental disabilities for federally funded health care services. The automated system, he said in written testimony, included corrupt data that relied on inputs the state hadn’t validated.

    AI can be shorthand for many different technologies, ranging from algorithms recommending what to watch next on Netflix to generative AI systems such as ChatGPT that can aid in writing or create new images or other media. The surge of commercial investment in generative AI tools has generated public fascination and concerns about their ability to trick people and spread disinformation, among other dangers.

    Some states haven’t attempted to tackle the issue yet. In Hawaii, state Sen. Chris Lee, a Democrat, said lawmakers didn’t pass any legislation this year governing AI “simply because I think at the time, we didn’t know what to do.”

    Instead, the Hawaii House and Senate passed a resolution Lee proposed that urges Congress to adopt safety guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence and limit its application in the use of force by police and the military.

    Lee, vice-chair of the Senate Labor and Technology Committee, said he hopes to introduce a bill in next year’s session that is similar to Connecticut’s new law. Lee also wants to create a permanent working group or department to address AI matters with the right expertise, something he admits is difficult to find.

    “There aren’t a lot of people right now working within state governments or traditional institutions that have this kind of experience,” he said.

    The European Union is leading the world in building guardrails around AI. There has been discussion of bipartisan AI legislation in Congress, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said in June would maximize the technology’s benefits and mitigate significant risks.

    Yet the New York senator did not commit to specific details. In July, President Joe Biden announced his administration had secured voluntary commitments from seven U.S. companies meant to ensure their AI products are safe before releasing them.

    Maroney said ideally the federal government would lead the way in AI regulation. But he said the federal government can’t act at the same speed as a state legislature.

    “And as we’ve seen with the data privacy, it’s really had to bubble up from the states,” Maroney said.

    Some state-level bills proposed this year have been narrowly tailored to address specific AI-related concerns. Proposals in Massachusetts would place limitations on mental health providers using AI and prevent “dystopian work environments” where workers don’t have control over their personal data. A proposal in New York would place restrictions on employers using AI as an “automated employment decision tool” to filter job candidates.

    North Dakota passed a bill defining what a person is, making it clear the term does not include artificial intelligence. Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, a long-shot presidential contender, has said such guardrails are needed for AI but the technology should still be embraced to make state government less redundant and more responsive to citizens.

    In Arizona, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed legislation that would prohibit voting machines from having any artificial intelligence software. In her veto letter, Hobbs said the bill “attempts to solve challenges that do not currently face our state.”

    In Washington, Democratic Sen. Lisa Wellman, a former systems analyst and programmer, said state lawmakers need to prepare for a world in which machine systems become ever more prevalent in our daily lives.

    She plans to roll out legislation next year that would require students to take computer science to graduate high school.

    “AI and computer science are now, in my mind, a foundational part of education,” Wellman said. “And we need to understand really how to incorporate it.”

    ___

    Associated Press Writers Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu, Ed Komenda in Seattle and Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, contributed to this report.

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  • Israel’s Netanyahu goes to hospital for pacemaker. He says he will push ahead with judicial overhaul

    Israel’s Netanyahu goes to hospital for pacemaker. He says he will push ahead with judicial overhaul

    JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushed to the hospital early Sunday for an emergency procedure to implant a pacemaker, plunging the country into deeper turmoil after widespread protests overt his contentious judicial overhaul plan.

    Netanyahu’s office said that he would be placed under sedation and that a top deputy, Justice Minister Yariv Levin, would stand in for him while he underwent the procedure. But in a brief video statement, Netanyahu also declared that he “feels excellent” and planned to push forward with his plan as soon as he was released. Levin is the mastermind of the overhaul.

    Netanyahu’s announcement, issued well after midnight, came a week after he was hospitalized for what was described as dehydration. It also came after a tumultuous day that saw some of the largest protests to date against the judicial overhaul plan.

    Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Israel on Saturday night, while thousands marched into Jerusalem and camped out near the Knesset, or parliament, ahead of a vote expected Monday that would approve a key portion of the overhaul.

    Further ratcheting up the pressure on the Israeli leader, over 100 retired security chiefs came out in favor of the growing ranks of military reservists who say they will stop reporting for duty if the plan is passed.

    Netanyahu and his far-right allies announced the overhaul plan in January, days after taking office. They claim the plan is needed to curb what they say are the excessive powers of unelected judges. Critics say the plan will destroy the country’s system of checks and balances and put it on the path toward authoritarian rule. U.S. President Joe Biden has urged Netanyahu to halt the plan and seek a broad consensus.

    Netanyahu, 73, keeps a busy schedule and his office says he is in good health. But over the years, it has released few details or medical records. On July 15, he was rushed to Israel’s Sheba Hospital with dizziness. He later said he had been out in the hot sun and had not drunk enough water.

    His return to Sheba for the pacemaker procedure indicated his health troubles were more serious than initially indicated. In the video, Netanyahu said that he was outfitted with a monitor after last week’s hospitalization and that when an alarm beeped late Saturday, it meant he required a pacemaker right away.

    “I feel excellent, but I listen to my doctors,” he said.

    It was not immediately clear what the hospitalization meant for the judicial overhaul, which has bitterly divided the nation. Netanyahu said he expected to be released in time to go to the Knesset for Monday’s vote. In the meantime, his office said the weekly meeting of his Cabinet, usually held each Sunday morning, had been postponed.

    A pacemaker is used when a patient’s heart beats too slowly, which can cause fainting spells, according to the National Institutes of Health. It can also be used to treat heart failure. By sending electrical pulses to the heart, the device keeps a person’s heartbeat at a normal rhythm. Patients with pacemakers often return to regular activities within a few days, according to NIH.

    The procedure normally involves a doctor inserting the pacemaker near the collarbone, according to Mayo Clinic. A hospital stay of at least a day is usually required.

    As Netanyahu spoke, thousands of Israelis camped out in Jerusalem’s main park, just a short walk from the Knesset, after completing a four-day march from Tel Aviv to rally opposition to the judicial overhaul. Late Saturday, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets in Tel Aviv and other cities in a last-ditch show of force hoping to head off the judicial overhaul.

    In scorching heat that reached 33 C (91 F), the procession into Jerusalem turned the city’s main entrance into a sea of blue and white Israeli flags as marchers completed the last leg of a four-day, 70-kilometer (45-mile) trek from Tel Aviv.

    The marchers, who grew from hundreds to thousands as the march progressed, were welcomed in Jerusalem by throngs of cheering protesters before they set up camp in rows of small white tents.

    The proposed overhaul has drawn harsh criticism from business and medical leaders, and a fast-rising number of military reservists in key units have said they will stop reporting for duty if the plan passes, raising concern that Israel’s security could be threatened. An additional 10,000 reservists announced they were suspending duty Saturday night, according to “Brothers in Arms,” a protest group representing retired soldiers.

    More than 100 top former security chiefs, including retired military commanders, police commissioners and heads of intelligence agencies, joined those calls on Saturday, signing a letter to Netanyahu accusing him of compromising Israel’s military and urging him to halt the legislation.

    The signatories included Ehud Barak, a former Israeli prime minister, and Moshe Yaalon, a former army chief and defense minister. Both are political rivals of Netanyahu.

    “The legislation is crushing those things shared by Israeli society, is tearing the people apart, disintegrating the IDF and inflicting fatal blows on Israel’s security,” the former officials wrote.

    In his statement, Netanyahu said he would continue to seek a compromise with his opponents. He paused the plan in March after widespread demonstrations, but he revived it last month after compromise talks collapsed.

    Israel Katz, a senior Cabinet minister from Netanyahu’s Likud party, said the bill would pass one way or another Monday and rejected the pressure from the ranks of the military, the most respected institution among Israel’s Jewish majority. “There is a clear attempt here to use military service to force the government to change policy,” he told Channel 12 TV.

    The overhaul measure would limit the Supreme Court’s oversight powers by preventing judges from striking down government decisions on the basis that they are “unreasonable.”

    Proponents say the current “reasonability” standard gives judges excessive powers over decision making by elected officials. Critics say removing the standard, which is invoked only in rare cases, would allow the government to pass arbitrary decisions, make improper appointments or firings and open the door to corruption.

    Monday’s vote would mark the first major piece of legislation to be approved.

    The overhaul also calls for other sweeping changes aimed at curbing the powers of the judiciary, from limiting the Supreme Court’s ability to challenge parliamentary decisions, to changing the way judges are selected.

    Protesters, who come from a wide swath of Israeli society, see the overhaul as a power grab fueled by personal and political grievances of Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges, and his partners, who want to deepen Israel’s control of the occupied West Bank and perpetuate controversial draft exemptions for ultra-Orthodox men.

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  • Undue influence? Anonymous donations to World Health Organization’s new foundation raise concerns

    Undue influence? Anonymous donations to World Health Organization’s new foundation raise concerns

    Nearly 40% of the money raised by the WHO Foundation in its first two years came from anonymous sources, worrying some that donors may be trying to influence the World Health Organization and its role in shaping global health policy with their gifts.

    The foundation, launched in 2020 to help raise private sector funds for the WHO, said it received $66 million in direct gifts through 2022, with $26 million coming from donors who chose not to be publicly named. Anil Soni, WHO Foundation CEO, told The Associated Press the foundation’s board, which includes a representative from the WHO, knows the donors’ identities and that the foundation will not accept a gift if there is a conflict of interest.

    “They want to be anonymous because they’re otherwise solicited or even targeted because they’re seen to be a source of wealth,” Soni said in an interview. “And I respect that.”

    The foundation, which is based in Switzerland, is not required to disclose its donors.

    Some global health practitioners worry anonymous donations make it harder to spot potential conflicts of interest. They say companies may donate to the foundation to influence the WHO’s global health policies and reports that often have wide-ranging ramifications. For example, food and beverage companies took note last week when two branches of the WHO found that the sweetener aspartame — used in diet soda and countless foods — may be a “possible” cause of cancer.

    “For the integrity of the WHO, I think it’s really important that there’s some greater transparency around this,” said Sophie Harman, professor of international politics at Queen Mary University of London, of the anonymous donations, which include a single anonymous gift of $20 million to the foundation’s operating expenses.

    Private and philanthropic funding have long supported other large global health organizations like Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, but Harman said the WHO has stood out as the publicly funded body that also sets standards across all areas of health.

    “This is a big step change for the WHO that it’s now doing this,” Harman said.

    The bulk of the WHO’s funding comes from governments. But in 2020 with the onslaught of the pandemic and then-President Donald Trump’s move to withdraw from the WHO, many hoped the WHO Foundation might generate new financing from wealthy individuals, the private sector and public fundraising campaigns.

    Soni, the first leader of the foundation, has become an evangelist of sorts for bringing in new private sources of funding for the WHO. A veteran of major global health organizations like the Global Fund and the Clinton Health Access Initiative, he most recently worked eight years at the pharmaceutical company Viatris.

    Soni said he is committed to transparency. The foundation published a list of donors and their donations online, including the anonymous ones. Soni pointed to the foundation’s gift acceptance and whistleblower policies as examples of how it guards against undue outside influence. It also bundles gifts to support specific work, such as the WHO’s Ukraine and COVID-19 responses.

    “What they’ve set out in their gift policy is a really good start,” said Quinn Grundy, assistant professor with the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto, who has studied the interactions of industry with health systems. She also encouraged the foundation to decline gifts from donors who do not want to be publicly named.

    The WHO already receives private support from major philanthropies, like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which directs much of its donations toward eradicating polio. The WHO Foundation does not aim to redirect that support, but rather motivate new donors.

    Among the companies that have donated to the foundation are Meta, the parent company of Facebook, medical technology company Masimo Corp., luxury travel company DFS Group, and food giant Nestle. That donation elicited outcry from some global health professionals because of Nestle’s history of marketing baby formula. WHO guidelines advocate for breastfeeding and say that formula should be available when needed, but not be promoted.

    The foundation eventually reallocated Nestle’s $2.1 million donation to the vaccine-sharing initiative COVAX rather than to the WHO’s COVID-19 response. Nestle did not comment on the donation but said it complies with national laws on marketing formula. It has also voluntarily extended a policy not to promote formula for babies up to six months to all countries, including those like the U.S. that do not have regulations, among other commitments.

    “Any donor to the WHO, whether a company or a government, the entirety of what they’re doing is not necessarily going to be compliant with WHO norms and standards,” Soni said, adding that the foundation’s acceptance of those gifts should not limit the WHO’s ability to hold those countries or companies accountable.

    Another new vehicle that the foundation has created is an impact investment fund, which launched last year. The Global Health Equity Fund will be run by the Israeli-venture group OurCrowd and seeks to raise $200 million to invest in “breakthrough” technologies for health care and in industries that impact health, like energy and agriculture. The foundation will not select the investments but will work with companies to make their technologies accessible and appropriate for markets in low- and middle-income countries.

    Javier Guzman, director of global health policy at the Center for Global Development, thinks it is inappropriate that the WHO Foundation is involved with the development of any technology that might eventually be evaluated by the WHO, which he said has the power to shape industries and markets.

    “The foundation should not be associated with any global venture firm, should not be associated with picking winners and deciding what companies and what technologies should or should not be developed,” Guzman said.

    Soni responded that “The WHO Foundation does not ‘pick winners’, but we are helping to make more bets to encourage innovative solutions to save lives.”

    He pointed to his experience working on access to treatments for HIV and AIDS as one motivation for the fund. While great strides have been made, he said, it generally takes years for new medications and interventions to reach poorer countries. The fund will ask the companies it invests in to make a plan to incorporate those countries into their business models.

    “Too often in these debates about development, whether it’s health, education or climate, we’re focused on public capital or charitable capital,” said Soni, adding the foundation is seeking to influence return-seeking capital to be better aligned with public good.

    ___

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

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  • Iran’s president begins a rare visit to Africa ‘to promote economic diplomacy’

    Iran’s president begins a rare visit to Africa ‘to promote economic diplomacy’

    NAIROBI, Kenya — Iran’s president has begun a rare visit to Africa as his country, which is under heavy U.S. economic sanctions, seeks to deepen partnerships around the world.

    President Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Kenya on Wednesday is the first to the African continent by an Iranian leader in more than a decade. He is also expected to visit Uganda and Zimbabwe and meet with the presidents there.

    Africa is a “continent of opportunities” and a great platform for Iranian products, Raisi told journalists in a briefing. He didn’t take questions. “None of us is satisfied with the current volume of trade,” he said.

    Iran’s leader specifically mentioned Africa’s mineral resources and Iran’s petrochemical experience, but the five memoranda of understanding signed on Wednesday by the Islamic Republic and Kenya appeared not to address either one. Instead, they addressed information, communication and technology; fisheries; animal health and livestock production and investment promotion.

    Kenyan President William Ruto called Iran a “critical strategic partner” and “global innovation powerhouse.” He expressed interest in expanding Kenya’s agricultural exports to Iran and Central Asia well beyond tea.

    Iran also intends to set up a manufacturing plant for Iranian vehicles in Kenya’s port city of Mombasa, Ruto said,

    Raisi’s Africa visit is meant to “promote economic diplomacy, strengthen political relations with friendly and aligned countries, and diversify the export destinations,” Iran’s foreign ministry said in a statement upon his arrival.

    Last month, Iran’s leader made his first visit to Latin America, stopping in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.

    In March, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to re-establish diplomatic ties in a major diplomatic breakthrough.

    Iran is in a growing standoff with Western nations over its nuclear program, which has made major advances in the five years since then-U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew his country from an international agreement that restricted it. Trump also restored sanctions on Iran that have contributed to a severe economic crisis.

    The U.S. last month accused Iran of providing Russia with materials to build a drone manufacturing plant as Moscow seeks weaponry for its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Iran has said it provided drones to Russia before the start of the war but not since.

    Kenya is East Africa’s economic hub and an ally of the U.S., with President Joe Biden’s wife, Jill, visiting the country early this year. Last year, the U.S. and Kenya signed a memorandum of understanding on “strategic civil nuclear cooperation.” Kenya has expressed interest in using nuclear power for energy production.

    Under Ruto, Kenya is struggling with debt and rising cost of living, with more protests expected on Wednesday in the capital, Nairobi, and elsewhere.

    Few details have been released about the Iranian leader’s visit to Uganda and Zimbabwe.

    Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a U.S. ally on security matters, has previously voiced support for Iran’s controversial nuclear program. During a 2010 visit by former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Museveni asserted that all sovereign countries had a right to pursue peaceful nuclear programs even as he urged the eradication of all nuclear arsenals.

    Uganda is trying to set up a nuclear power plant that authorities this year said would be generating electricity by 2031. The plant, which is being developed with the technical support of the China National Nuclear Corporation, would exploit the East African country’s substantial deposits of uranium.

    Zimbabwe, like Iran, is under U.S. sanctions. A ministerial delegation from Zimbabwe visited Tehran early this year and agreed to deepen cooperation in areas includiung petroleum trade.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda, and Farai Mutsaka in Harare, Zimbabwe, contributed to this report.

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