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AI will eavesdrop on world’s wildest places to track and help protect endangered wildlife

PUERTO JIMÉNEZ, Costa Rica (AP) — The endangered Geoffrey’s spider monkeys that dangle high in the rainforest canopy are elusive and hard for scientists to track. So biologist Jenna Lawson hid 350 audio monitors in trees across Costa Rica's lush Osa Peninsula to spy on them. The devices recorded the sounds of the forest and surrounding countryside for a week, collecting so much data that Lawson could have spent years listening to it all. Instead, she fed it into artificial intelligence systems trained to instantly recognize spider monkey calls and detect where the animals traveled. One of the world’s largest...

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AI will eavesdrop on world’s wildest places to track and help protect endangered wildlife

PUERTO JIMÉNEZ, Costa Rica (AP) — The endangered Geoffrey’s spider monkeys that dangle high in the rainforest canopy are elusive and hard for scientists to track. So biologist Jenna Lawson hid 350 audio monitors in trees across Costa Rica's lush Osa Peninsula to spy on them. The devices recorded the sounds of the forest and surrounding countryside for a week,...

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How faith communities can be welcoming of believers with disabilities this holiday season and beyond

The Rev. Shannon Blosser sees how his son loves church — the music, the singing, the communion. But the United Methodist pastor said his family hasn’t always felt like 11-year-old Noah, who is autistic, has been welcome. At one point, Blosser’s wife and the couple’s two sons stopped attending in-person services at a church where he served. “If we felt more...

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Former NFL great Michael Vick introduced as Norfolk State’s football coach

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — To shouts of “Coach” and “Let’s go Spartans,” Michael Vick was introduced Monday as Norfolk State’s football coach, a homecoming for the former NFL star and a splashy, attention-grabbing hire for a program that has struggled in recent years. Vick, who grew up about 30 minutes away in Newport News, donned a Norfolk State letterman’s jacket...

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Trump again calls to buy Greenland after eyeing Canada and the Panama Canal

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — First it was Canada, then the Panama Canal. Now, Donald Trump again wants Greenland. The president-elect is renewing unsuccessful calls he made during his first term for the U.S. to buy Greenland from Denmark, adding to the list of allied countries with which he's picking fights even before taking office on Jan. 20. In a Sunday announcement naming his ambassador to...

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Ex-OpenAI engineer who raised legal concerns about the technology he helped build has died

Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI engineer and whistleblower who helped train the artificial intelligence systems behind ChatGPT and later said he believed those practices violated copyright law, has died, according to his parents and San Francisco officials. He was 26. Balaji worked at OpenAI for nearly four years before quitting in August. He was well-regarded by colleagues at the San...

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38 people are dead and over 100 remain missing in Congo after a ferry capsizes in the river Busira

KINSHASA, Congo (AP) — Thirty-eight people are confirmed dead, and over 100 remain missing in Congo after an overloaded ferry — full of people returning home for Christmas — capsized in the river Burisa late Friday night, according to local officials and eyewitnesses. The boat sank less than four days after another boat in the northeast of the country capsized, killing 25....

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Shutdown saga exposes new fault lines for Speaker Johnson and tests his grip on the gavel

WASHINGTON (AP) — One of the most turbulent sessions of Congress in the modern era is about to make way for the next one. Midnight passage of the government shutdown package put in sharp focus the political fault lines emerging in Washington, as President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., fights for his job and Republicans sweep into control of the House and Senate...

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Penn State opens the College Football Playoff by steamrolling mistake-prone SMU in 38-10 rout

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Dominic DeLuca and Tony Rojas returned interceptions for touchdowns and Penn State toyed with mistake-prone SMU in a 38-10 victory on Saturday in the opening round of the College Football Playoff. The sixth-seeded Nittany Lions (12-2) advanced to face fourth-seeded Boise State in the Fiesta Bowl on New Year's Eve by hounding Mustangs quarterback Kevin...

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It’s beginning to look like another record for holiday travel

Drivers and airline passengers without reindeer and sleighs better make a dash for it: it's beginning to look like another record for holiday travel in the U.S. The auto club AAA predicts that more than 119 million people will travel at least 50 miles from home between Saturday and New Year’s Day, which would top the previous holiday-season high set in 2019. The two...

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California declared an emergency over bird flu. How serious is the situation?

California officials have declared a state of emergency over the spread of bird flu, which is tearing through dairy cows in that state and causing sporadic illnesses in people in the U.S. That raises new questions about the virus, which has spread for years in wild birds, commercial poultry and many mammal species. The virus, also known as Type A H5N1, was detected for the first time...

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