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Lies, echo chambers and polarization: Misinformation and disinformation reaching new peaks as 2024 approaches

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:15:15 GMT

With the 2024 presidential election still more than one year away, voters have been flooded with misinformation and disinformation at a pace never seen before.The disinformation has led to increasing political polarization in the country as former President Donald Trump faces four criminal indictments and current President Joe Biden faces an impeachment inquiry by House Republicans.The most prominent example of disinformation, observers said, is that Trump maintains that he won the 2020 presidential election, something repeated by his supporters for more than two years. That misinformation helped cause the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection that led to more than 1,000 rioters being arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol and trying to stop the Electoral College votes that eventually confirmed Biden as president.The ongoing clash has led to a nationwide battle on the facts that has not cooled.“This is totally on the increase,” said Scott McLean, a longtime political science professor at Quinni...

The Supreme Court opens its new term with a case about prison terms for drug dealers

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:15:15 GMT

By MARK SHERMAN (Associated Press)WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court opened its new term Monday with a case about prison terms for drug dealers and rejections of hundreds of appeals, including one from an attorney who pushed a plan to keep former President Donald Trump in power.The court turned away attorney John Eastman’s effort to have a lower-court ruling thrown out that said Eastman and Trump had “more likely than not” committed a crime by trying to keep Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.Justice Clarence Thomas, who once employed Eastman as a law clerk, did not take part in the court’s consideration of Eastman’s appeal.The only case argued Monday concerns the meaning of the word “and” in a federal law dealing with prison terms for low-level drug dealers. The length of thousands of sentences a year is at stake.“I think this is a very hard case,” Justice Amy Coney Ba...

Alok is among the most famous DJs in the world, and he wants to make it a better place

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:15:15 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Alok is one of the biggest DJs on the planet, but at just 32 years old, he’s learned that fortune and fame don’t equal happiness.“I was 24. I was the No. 1 DJ in Brazil. I had financial success, popularity. And I was feeling a huge emptiness because I said if this is the meaning of life for me, life has no meaning,” said the Brazilian electronic dance music star who became the first South American to reach global mainstream fame.Alok was battling another cycle of depression which he first experienced at age 10. After embarking on a quest to find meaning in his life, Alok visited the Amazon rainforest to connect with nature and met the Indigenous Yawanawa people. He then visited Africa with the humanitarian group Friends Without Borders, which was life changing.Alok, who didn’t believe in God at the time, partly due to rampant global poverty, had an encounter with a blind, elderly woman so starved that she had tied a rope around her stomach area to feel less hungry.“S...

Canada government mulling release of Nazi collaborator report

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:15:15 GMT

There is a sign of movement from the Canadian government as Jewish groups push the feds to declassify a report from the 1980s examining those who associated with Nazis who came to Canada after World War II.It comes in the wake of the controversy in the House of Commons when a Ukrainian veteran who fought with the Waffen-SS was recognized by the Speaker.Over a week after the incident sparked embarrassing headlines around the world, a statement from the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration says it is looking to see if any additional information can be released from the Deschênes Commission report.“What happened in Canada’s House of Commons was unacceptable. It was a horrendous violation of the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust and Canadians who fought to liberate Europe from the Nazis, and it was deeply painful for Jewish people, Polish people, Roma people, 2SLGBTQI+ people, people with disabilities, racialized people, and the many millions who were t...

Egypt’s President el-Sissi confirms he will run for a new term in upcoming presidential elections

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:15:15 GMT

CAIRO (AP) — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Monday confirmed he will run for a new term in elections scheduled for December, entering the race as the clear favorite and as his government wrestles with rising inflation and mounting debt.Egypt will hold a presidential election over three days on December 10-12, with a runoff on Jan. 8-10 if no candidate secures more than 50% of the vote.El-Sissi confirmed his candidacy at the end of a three-day national conference called the “Story of Homeland” attended by the country’s leading politicians and broadcast by Egypt’s Extra News television channel, which has close ties to Egyptian security agencies.“I have decided to nominate myself to you to complete the dream of a new presidential term,” el-Sissi said as the conference’s attendees cheered and clapped.A handful of politicians have already announced their bids to run for the country’s highest post, but none poses a serious challenge to el-Sissi, who has ruled the countr...

Trial to begin for former RCMP intelligence director accused of disclosing secrets

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:15:15 GMT

OTTAWA — More than four years after Cameron Jay Ortis was charged with breaching Canada’s secrets law, the former RCMP intelligence director is about to get his day in court.Ortis was taken into custody in Ottawa on Sept. 12, 2019 — an arrest that deeply shocked the national police force.As the head of the RCMP’s National Intelligence Co-ordination Centre, Ortis had access to some of the country’s most closely held information.Ortis, 51, is charged with violating the Security of Information Act by allegedly revealing secrets to three individuals and trying to do so in a fourth instance, as well as breach of trust and a computer-related offence.A multi-week trial is slated to get underway in Ontario Superior Court on Tuesday with the selection of a jury.Jon Doody, co-counsel for Ortis, says he plans to plead not guilty to all charges.“He intends to take the stand in his own defence. He is eager to have his side of the story told,” Doody said. “He f...

North Dakota state senator, his wife and 2 kids killed in Utah plane crash

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:15:15 GMT

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A state senator from North Dakota, his wife and their two young children died when the small plane they were traveling in crashed in Utah, a Senate leader said Monday.Doug Larsen’s death was confirmed Monday in an email that Republican Senate Majority Leader David Hogue sent to his fellow senators and was obtained by The Associated Press. The plane crashed Sunday evening shortly after taking off from Canyonlands Airfield about 15 miles (24 kilometers) north of Moab, according to a Grand County Sheriff’s Department statement posted on Facebook. The sheriff’s office said all four people on board the plane were killed. “Senator Doug Larsen, his wife Amy, and their two young children died in a plane crash last evening in Utah,” Hogue wrote in his email. “They were visiting family in Scottsdale and returning home. They stopped to refuel in Utah.” “I’m not sure where the bereavement starts with such a tragedy, but I think it starts with prayers for the grandpar...

House prepares to vote on new Speaker in rare mid-session election as MPs vie for job

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:15:15 GMT

OTTAWA — The House of Commons will vote for a new Speaker Tuesday in a rare mid-session election.Steven Chaplin, a fellow at the University of Ottawa’s Public Law Centre, said this is only the third time in Canadian history that a Speaker didn’t complete their full term. Anthony Rota resigned from the position last week amid controversy. He had invited parliamentarians, during a visit by Ukraine’s president, to applaud a veteran who served in a Nazi unit in the Second World War.The longest-serving member of the House, Bloc Québécois MP Louis Plamondon, was put in as an interim Speaker — a move Chaplin said is a first in Canada’s history, but one that signals the House aims to rise above partisanship.“It’s unprecedented, but they’ve managed to work their way through a very orderly process and I think that says a lot about the House in many ways,” Chaplin said Monday.All members of Parliament, except for party leaders and ministers, can ...

A riled Trump sounds off outside the New York fraud trial that accuses him of lying about wealth

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:15:15 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Aggrieved and defiant, former President Donald Trump sat through hours of sometimes testy opening statements Monday in a fraud lawsuit that could cost him control of Trump Tower and other prized properties. “Disgraceful trial,” he declared during a lunch break, after listening to lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James excoriate him as a habitual liar. The state’s lawsuit accuses the business-mogul-turned-politician and his company of deceiving banks, insurers and others by misstating his wealth for years in financial statements.“They were lying year after year after year,” Kevin Wallace, a lawyer in James’ office, said as Trump sat at the defense table. He looked straight ahead, arms crossed, facing away from a screen that showed details of Wallace’s presentation. Defense lawyers, in response, said the financial statements were legitimate. Trump’s holdings are “Mona Lisa properties” that can command top dollar, attorne...

Stock market today: Most of Wall Street slips as the bond market cranks up the pressure

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 19:15:15 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Most stocks are drifting lower Monday as the constrictor of higher interest rates tightens its coils around Wall Street.The S&P 500 was 0.4% lower in afternoon trading, coming off its worst month of the year. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 157 points, or 0.5%, as of 2:20 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.Slumps for oil-and-gas stocks weighed on the market after crude prices gave back some of their sharp gains since the summer. The majority of stocks fell alongside them, with over 80% of S&P 500 stocks dropping, but gains for Apple and some other influential Big Tech stocks helped limit the market’s losses.Stocks have broadly given back about 40% of their strong gains for the year since the end of July. The main reason is Wall Street’s growing acceptance that high interest rates are here to stay a while as the Federal Reserve tries to knock high inflation lower. That in turn has pushed Treasury yields to their highest level...