AP-National

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS and LAURA UNGAR NEW YORK (AP) — According to Elon Musk, the first human received an implant from his computer-brain interface company Neuralink over the weekend. In a Monday post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Musk said that the patient received the implant the day prior and was recovering

By MATT OTT AP Business Writer American consumers, fresh off strong holiday spending, are feeling more confident than they have in two years. The Conference Board, a business research group, said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index rose for the third straight month, to 114.8 in January from 108 in December. January’s reading came in

By YURAS KARMANAU Associated Press TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A Belarusian journalist has been sentenced to three years in prison on charges related to his work covering protests. It’s the latest move in a sweeping government crackdown on dissent. The Minsk City Court convicted photojournalist Alyaksandr Zyankou on charges of “participation in an extremist group,”

By GERALD IMRAY Associated Press CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — Residents have been evacuated from small coastal towns near Cape Town in South Africa as wildfires sweep down from surrounding mountains and burn out of control. Authorities ordered a full evacuation of Pringle Bay, a coastal village popular with holidaymakers. The fires began Monday

By KELVIN CHAN AP Business Writer LONDON (AP) — Italian regulators say they informed OpenAI that its ChatGPT artificial intelligence chatbot has violated European Union’s stringent data privacy rules. The country’s data protection authority said Monday that it notified San Francisco-based OpenAI of breaches of the EU rules, known as General Data Protection Regulation. The

ROME (AP) — Australian Open champion Jannik Sinner has returned to Italy amid great fanfare with RAI state TV broadcasting his arrival at the airport in Rome. Sinner was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt with his orange racket bag strapped onto his shoulders and he also held a green bag with gold-colored straps that appeared

By ALBERT AJI Associated Press DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The first United Arab Emirates ambassador to Damascus in nearly 13 years has taken up his post as Syria is reintegrating into mainstream regional acceptance.  Syrian state media said Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad received Ambassador Hassan Ahmad al-Shihi’s credentials Tuesday. The UAE embassy was reopened in

By ADAM BEAM Associated Press EUREKA, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom is pledging to fast-track more than half a dozen projects to remove or bypass dams that have blocked salmon. The proposals are part of Newsom’s strategy to protect salmon. Millions of salmon once filled California’s rivers and streams. But last year, there

By KEVIN McGILL Associated Press NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Award-winning musician Branford Marsalis is taking on a new job in his hometown of New Orleans. Marsalis was named Tuesday as the new artistic director for the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music, named for his late father. Ellis Marsalis was the patriarch of a family of

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse an opposition protest in the island nation facing its worst economic crisis while gearing up for a national election later this year. Protesters from the main opposition United People’s Power party gathered Tuesday in the capital and accused President

By PAUL WISEMAN AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The International Monetary Fund has upgraded its outlook for the world economy this year, envisioning resilient growth led by the United States and a slower pace of inflation. The IMF now expects the global economy to grow 3.1% this year, unchanged from 2023 but better than

By DUSAN STOJANOVIC Associated Press BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — Serbia’s president says the country is considering the reintroduction of compulsory military service, citing tensions in the Balkans and elsewhere in Europe. President Aleksandar Vucic said top army commanders gave him “a strong argumentation” in favor of the reintroduction of a mandatory draft, which was suspended

By MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The songwriters who gave us “Your Song,” “Tiny Dancer” and “Rocket Man” will add to their stuffed awards shelf later this year when Elton John and Bernie Taupin are awarded the Gershwin Prize. The Library of Congress says Tuesday that songwriter-performer John and lyricist Taupin

By KATE ASHFORD of NerdWallet Only one-third of men correctly estimated how long a 60-year-old man in the U.S. could expect to live, according to a 2022 TIAA Institute survey. And fewer than half of women got it right for a 60-year-old woman. Advisers call this understanding of how long you’ll live in your retirement

By CIARÁN GILES Associated Press MADRID (AP) — Catalan separatist lawmakers have dealt Spain’s government a blow by voting against a hugely divisive amnesty law that was aimed at helping hundreds of their supporters involved in Catalonia’s unsuccessful 2017 independence bid. The most radical separatists, who want to ensure that their fugitive leader Carles Puigdemont

By KEN MORITSUGU Associated Press BEIJING (AP) — The head of a U.S. government delegation to China says that American and Chinese officials have committed to working together to stem the flow of fentanyl into the United States. Their meeting was a hopeful sign of cooperation as the two global powers try to better manage

LONDON (AP) — Elon Musk’s social media platform X has restored searches for Taylor Swift after temporarily blocking users from seeing some results as pornographic deepfake images of the singer circulated online. Searches for the singer’s name on the site Tuesday turned up a list of tweets as normal. A day earlier, the same search

By ELAINE KURTENBACH and ZEN SOO AP Business Writers BANGKOK (AP) — A Hong Kong court’s order to liquidate the world’s most heavily indebted real estate developer is only a tentative step toward resolving a debt crisis that is haunting financial markets and dragging on the Chinese economy. China Evergrande owes about $340 billion to

LONDON (AP) — UK regulators say HSBC has been fined $72.8 million for failing to adequately protect customer deposits in the event the bank collapsed. The Prudential Regulation Authority said Tuesday that two units of London-based HSBC Holdings Plc violated rules designed to ensure regulators have the information they need to protect depositors when banks

By RODNEY MUHUMUZA Associated Press KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Only a small fraction of millions of needy people in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region are receiving food aid, according to an aid memo seen by The Associated Press. That’s more than one month after aid agencies resumed deliveries of grain following a lengthy pause over massive