Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.
Please log in, or sign up for a new account to continue reading.
Thank you for reading! We hope that you continue to enjoy our free content.
Rain early…then remaining cloudy with showers in the afternoon. Thunder possible. High 46F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%..
Thunderstorms early, with occasional rain or snow developing after midnight. Low 34F. Winds SW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of precip 90%.
Updated: January 19, 2023 @ 9:24 am
REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Microsoft cuts about 10,000 jobs, less than 5% of global workforce.
Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Amazon is ending a charity donation program it ran for a decade in its latest cost-cutting move. In a blog post on Wednesday, the company said the program, called AmazonSmile, will shut down by February 20. The program allowed Amazon to donate a small percentage of eligible purchases to a charity selected by shoppers. The retailer says it’s shutting it down because the program had “not grown to create the impact” it had hoped during the past 10 years. The decision also comes as the Seattle-based company is laying off workers and axing different areas of its business in an effort to trim costs.
Thursday
Artificial intelligence systems are training themselves on a vast collection of digitized artworks to produce new images that can be conjured in seconds from a smartphone app. But some living artists and photographers are starting to fight back against the AI software companies creating images derived from their works. Two new lawsuits take aim at popular image-generating services such as Stable Diffusion for allegedly copying and processing millions of copyright-protected images without a license. The lawsuits mark the beginning of a backlash against a new generation of tools — some of them introduced just last year — that can generate new images or readable text on command.
The archbishop of Austria has confirmed that it was he who wrote a letter to the future Pope Benedict XVI urging him to accept election as pontiff in 2005 if the votes went his way. Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn issued a statement Wednesday confirming a revelation in a new book by Benedict’s personal secretary that was published the week after Benedict died Dec. 31 at age 95. But he criticized the book saying “Nothing But the Truth: My Life Beside Pope Benedict XVI” was an ”unseemly indiscretion.” The book has generated controversy because it revealed confidential communications and exposed the tensions that simmered during the decade in which Benedict lived as an emeritus pope alongside Pope Francis.
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
TORONTO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan 19, 2023–
Strong investor demand for properties and continued in-migration should bolster the state’s commercial real estate market even if there is a recession, a longtime Texas economist predicts.
Europe captain Luke Donald has upstaged many players who will be in his team at the Ryder Cup by shooting 8-under 64 to take the first-round lead at the Abu Dhabi Championship. Donald closed with four straight birdies and had nine in total on his card at the start of one of the top events on the European tour schedule. The 45-year-old Englishman’s last title was in 2012. That was when he was the world’s top-ranked golfer and a regular winner on both sides of the Atlantic. After years out of the limelight his profile has been raised by getting the Ryder Cup captaincy.
The idea of Arsenal and Manchester United going head-to-head for the Premier League title feels like a throwback to a bygone era many younger fans will never have known. The same goes for some players. Arsenal forward Bukayo Saka was only 2 years old when Arsene Wenger’s “Invincibles” won the London club’s last title in 2004. He was 11 when United last won in 2013. The teams face each other this weekend knowing victory would be a significant boost to their respective title ambitions at the expense of the other.
VISTA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan 19, 2023–
Dance, theater and geometry have merged in the installment of Paris menswear week. All eyes looked toward Louis Vuitton’s fall winter spectacle to be held later Thursday. A writhing dancing troupe at Issey Miyake performed on the runway against a backdrop of optically striped lighting which moved organically. It was more than just spectacle and introduced a geometric theme this season of how simple shapes can be folded to create more complex ones. It’s something that the Japanese house explored in several distinct sections using its signature techno-pleating techniques throughout.
Serbia’s state RTS television says emergency teams are searching for two people after they were swept away by a swollen river in a southwestern town. Heavy rainfall this week across the Balkans has caused rivers to rise dangerously in Serbia, Bosnia and Montenegro, flooding some areas and threatening flood defenses elsewhere. In the southwestern Serbian town of Novi Pazar, authorities declared emergency measures to cope with the overflowing Raska river. RTS television said Thursday that two men were carried away by the river while trying to protect their houses with wooden planks and plastic sheeting.
Russia and China will conduct naval drills off the coast of South Africa next month in another indication of their strengthening relationships with Africa’s most developed country amid the war in Ukraine and global financial uncertainty. The South African armed forces say they, Russia and China will engage in “a multinational maritime exercise” from Feb. 17-27 in the Indian Ocean off South Africa’s east coast. The drills will happen around the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24. South Africa is a leading voice on its continent and the drills will bring more focus on its refusal to side with Western partners and condemn Russia over Ukraine.
TORONTO & NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan 19, 2023–
LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan 19, 2023–
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan 19, 2023–
MEADVILLE, Pennsylvania — A crush of names clogs a computer screen in an office where sick and hurting people shuffle in one by one, bundled against the winter cold.
Once seen as the death knell for single-family neighborhoods in California, a new law meant to create more duplexes has instead done little to encourage construction in some of the largest cities in the state, according to a new report published Wednesday.
PHILADELPHIA — It was in the days after George Floyd’s murder, and longtime Temple professor Molefi Kete Asante wrote a blistering five-page letter to then-university president Richard M. Englert. He called on the school to do more to support the Africology and African American studies depar…
DALLAS — Nurses on Parkland Memorial Hospital’s life-saving front line against COVID-19 have turned a corner on the most grueling medical calamity of the century.
Fiercely original films, female-focused stories and theatrical-first releases had the clear edge in The Associated Press’s inaugural Top 25 Movies list. The ranking was released Thursday and topped by Searchlight Pictures’ “The Banshees of Inisherin.” In a cinematic landscape where it often seems only franchise films have a shot at traditional box office success, the top five films on the AP’s list were all original. Most did find robust audiences in theaters, despite the fact that moviegoing has yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. All told, 176 unique movies received votes from 26 panelists.
POSSESSION SOUND, Wash. — Squinting out the windowed wheelhouse of the ship he’s helmed for two decades, Captain Skip Green spots something several hundred yards in the distance.
Henrik Stenson says he has been made to feel welcome at his first appearance on the European tour since being removed as Ryder Cup captain for joining the Saudi-run breakaway league. Stenson opened the Abu Dhabi Championship with a 4-under 68 and says “it’s been good fun to catch up with some long-time friends that I haven’t seen for a long time.” Stenson says he had a bad night’s sleep before the first round but that was more to do with jet lag and the fact his clubs didn’t turn up until late. It is Stenson’s first non-LIV Golf event in six months.
DALLAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan 19, 2023–
MUMBAI & LEXINGTON, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan 19, 2023–
LUGANO, Switzerland & WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan 19, 2023–
New album coming in the spring on the Punchline Records label with the comedy special to follow
Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg on Thursday slammed corporate bigwigs meeting in Davos, Switzerland for “prioritizing greed and short term economic profits” over people affected by the climate crisis. Thunberg was joined by prominent activists Vanessa Nakate, Helena Gualinga and Luisa Neubauer in a roundtable at the World Economic Forum with International Energy Agency’s executive director Fatih Birol.
Veja, an expensive global sneaker brand, is making shoes from traditionally-harvested Brazilian Amazon latex in collaboration with local rubber tappers. The project has reenergized production of a sustainable forest product and at the same time improved the standard of living for hundreds of rural families who live from tapping rubber trees. This is something of a feat in a time of synthetic rubber and large plantations. Experts say that even if cattle ranching and deforestation dwarf this sustainable enterprise, the arrangement points the way forward for others.
With hundreds of new movies released each year, many of us depend on the expertise of film critics to help curate our own watching. It’s a thoroughly communal yet deeply personal experience. To honor the supporting role that entertainment journalism can play in this beloved pastime, The Associated Press on Thursday unveiled its inaugural AP Top 25 Movies ranking. The AP Top 25 Movies ranking is a distinctive honor roll of films that premiered in 2022, as determined by a truly representative panel of 26 of the country’s top movie experts working for AP-affiliated news outlets.
The films from 2022 that topped the AP’s inaugural Top 25 Movies poll yield a host of other numbers, facts, figures and trivia on close examination. “Top Gun: Maverick” was the biggest hit of the bunch at year’s end with a global total of $1.5 billion. “Avatar: The Way of Water” was the longest at three hours, 12 minutes. Five actors appear or provide voices in two different films on the list, including Cate Blanchett and Jenny Slate. And three of the movies have significant roles for donkeys: “EO,” “Triangle of Sadness,” and the No. 1 film “The Banshees of Inisherin.”
Thailand is ushering in a new age of train travel as Southeast Asia’s biggest railway station officially begins operations. The government says the huge, modern development on the edge of central Bangkok will bolster the country’s position as a regional hub and boost its economy. Almost all of Thailand’s long-distance domestic and international rail services will pass through the new station, officially called Krung Thep Aphiwat Central Terminal, on which work began 10 years ago. But many Thais are lamenting the shunting aside of the previous terminal, Hua Lamphong Station on the edge of Bangkok’s Chinatown in the middle of the capital. But it will still host some local and eastern lines of the state railway.
The new executive director of European Union border agency Frontex says he will work at ensuring illegal pushbacks of migrants trying to reach Europe don’t take place under his watch. Hans Leijtens’ promise came on Thursday. He was appointed as a replacement for Fabrice Leggeri who resigned last year following media allegations that the agency was involved in pushbacks. A report by the EU’s anti-fraud watchdog into Frontex later concluded that employees from the agency were involved in covering up pushbacks of migrants from Greece to Turkey. Leijtens’ nomination comes as the 27 EU member countries struggle to make progress in discussions over a long-delayed overhaul of the bloc’s asylum system proposed by the EU’s executive arm more than two years ago.
Visceral World War I drama “All Quiet on the Western Front” has a field-leading 14 nominations for the British Academy Film Awards. Unorthodox comedies “The Banshees of Inisherin“ and “Everything Everywhere All At Once” are each nominated in 10 categories. Baz Luhrmann’s flamboyant musical biopic “Elvis” is up for nine awards. All four of those movies are nominated for best picture, along with Todd Field’s symphonic psychodrama “Tár.” The awards, known as BAFTAs, are Britain’s equivalent of Hollywood’s Academy Awards. The winners will be announced Feb. 19 at a ceremony in London.
DUBLIN–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan 19, 2023–
ROOT, Switzerland–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Jan 19, 2023–
TSX and OTC: MPVD
Novak Djokovic has put aside problems with his left hamstring and a persistent heckler to beat 191st-ranked French qualifier Enzo Couacaud 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-2, 6-0 in the second round of the Australian Open. Djokovic is seeking a 10th trophy at Melbourne Park and a 22nd Grand Slam title overall. He took the court knowing that No. 1 seed Rafael Nadal and No. 2 seed Casper Ruud already were out of the tournament.