Headline

Biden Vows To Fight Republicans’ ‘Extreme’ Anti-abortion Push

Published

11 months ago

June 24, 2023

Editor

A year after the US Supreme Court scrapped the constitutional right to abortion, President Joe Biden on Saturday vowed to fight against the “extreme and dangerous” effort by Republicans to curb access to the procedure nationwide.

The high court’s decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision passed the regulation of abortion back to individual states — some of which have since moved to drastically restrict the procedure.

“State bans are just the beginning,” Biden said in a statement on the anniversary of the ruling. “Their agenda is extreme, dangerous, and out-of-step with the vast majority of Americans.”

Some 20 states, mostly in the South and Midwest, have prohibited abortion outright or severely restricted access while others, mainly on the coasts, have moved to protect it.

The closure of abortion clinics in about a dozen states has forced tens of thousands of women to travel elsewhere to terminate a pregnancy.

Biden warned that Republicans were working to enact a nationwide abortion ban.

“Congressional Republicans want to ban abortion nationwide, but go beyond that, by taking FDA-approved medication for terminating a pregnancy, off the market, and make it harder to obtain contraception,” the president said referring to the Food and Drug Administration.

With a divided US Congress, there is little the president can do. Still, Biden said he would push for federal-level protections.

“My Administration will continue to protect access to reproductive health care and call on Congress to restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law once and for all,” he said.

Abortion proved a key issue in the 2022 midterm elections, and is likely to be just as important in the 2024 presidential race.

AFP

Headline

Google To Offer AI-generated Answers In Search Results

Published

7 hours ago

May 14, 2024

Editor

Google has announced it would introduce AI-generated answers to online queries made by users in the United States, in one of the biggest updates to its search engine in 25 years.

“I’m excited to announce that we will begin launching this fully revamped experience, ‘AI overviews,’ to everyone in the US this week,” Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said at an event in California on Tuesday, May 14.

Google’s search results will feature an AI summary at the top of the page before the more typical unfurling of links.

The AI answers generated by Google’s Gemini technology will offer succinct summaries of what it found on the internet with links to the online sources that supplied the information.

“You can ask whatever’s on your mind or whatever you need to get done – from researching to planning to brainstorming – and Google will take care of the legwork,” said Google Search team boss Liz Reid.

The change comes as Google feels growing pressure from AI-powered search engines like Perplexity, and from the rumors that OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is building its own AI search tool.

Searches through AI chats have also appeared on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, with users able to get information from the web without Google.

The change will soon spread to other countries, Pichai added, making it accessible to more than a billion people.

Headline

College Volleyball Player Killed In US Nightclub Shooting

Published

7 hours ago

May 14, 2024

Editor

Albany State University volleyball player Mariam Creighton has been tragically killed in a nightclub shooting in Atlanta.

Atlanta Police Department said on Tuesday, May 14, that the incident happened around 2:28 AM on Sunday, May 14, when officers responded to shots fired at the Elleven45 establishment.

Six people were shot, two of whom were pronounced dead at the scene, Creighton and 20-year-old Nakyris Ridley.

The police department said in a statement;

“Preliminary investigation indicates the shooting occurred during a physical dispute at the location that escalated to gunfire.”

Creighton was a member of the ASU Golden Rams volleyball team, and was one semester from graduating from the HBCU with a biology degree.

Her family said she was at the club on Sunday celebrating her niece’s birthday. “It’s just senseless,” Creighton’s sister, Tiffany, said. “My sister was just out having a good time, and now our lives are just altered forever.”

Headline

Nigerian Burnt To Death In Bangkok Car Crash

Published

8 hours ago

May 14, 2024

Editor

A 35-year-old Nigerian man identified as Daniel was burnt to death in a car accident in Bangkok, Thailand.

Bangkok’s Prawet Police Station, confirmed the identity of the Nigerian national in a statement on Tuesday, May 14, 2024,

Daniel, whose Thai wife came to confirm his identity with the police, died on Saturday, May 11, when his car crashed into a road median and caught fire.

This serious road accident occurred at 5:30 a.m. on a three-lane road near Soi Phatthanakan 53/1, Suan Luang Subdistrict and District, Bangkok.

When officials received the report and arrived at the scene, they found a gray Toyota Vios with Samut Prakan province license plates overturned and engulfed in flames, blocking the middle of the road.

The officers spent about 10 minutes spraying water to extinguish the fire, but the car was completely damaged by the flames.

At that time, rescuers had to use cutting and prying equipment to remove the driver’s body from the wreckage and send it to the Police Hospital for an autopsy. They found a document with a front-facing photo of a foreign man.

Eyewitnesses stated that they saw the car driving at high speed in the far right lane before losing control and crashing into the road median.

The car spun and hit a palm tree with such force that it flipped over and ended up on its roof in the middle of the road.

At that moment, good Samaritans tried to pry open the door to help the unconscious driver, but before they could pull him out, sparks ignited, and the car quickly caught fire.