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Autism is front and center in the pioneering new musical ‘How to Dance in Ohio’ on Broadway

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:07:01 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Actor Haven Burton wasn’t worried about what professional critics thought of her new musical “How to Dance in Ohio.” Who she really wanted to hear from was her 11-year-old son, Hudson.The show follows seven autistic characters as they prepare for a spring dance. After co-starring in a performance this fall, Burton asked her son what he thought. His opinion mattered not just because Mom is in it but also because he has autism.“He said, ‘I loved it. It was amazing. I just I can’t believe that there are people who think like me,’” Burton recalled. “I thought, ‘This is why I am doing this. This is why this is so important.’”“How to Dance in Ohio” opens on Broadway on Sunday both celebrating and starring those on the autism spectrum as well as opening a window about autism’s highs and lows for the neurotypical.“When we talk about this piece internally, we really view it as a piece of activism,” said Burton, whose Broadway credits include “Kinky Boots” an...

Mom convicted of killing kids in Idaho pleads not guilty to Arizona murder conspiracy charges

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:07:01 GMT

A woman sentenced to life in an Idaho prison for murdering her two youngest children and another woman has pleaded not guilty to charges in Arizona of conspiring to kill her estranged husband and her niece’s ex-husband.Lori Vallow Daybell, dressed in an orange jail uniform, stated her name and birthdate when a judge asked her to do so during a five-minute arraignment hearing Thursday in state court in Phoenix. Her trial is scheduled for April 4.Keith Terry, Vallow Daybell’s attorney, did not immediately return a phone call and email Thursday morning after the hearing seeking comment on his client’s behalf.In 2019, Vallow Daybell still lived in a Phoenix suburb with her children, 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and then-16-year-old Tylee Ryan. She was estranged from her fourth husband, Charles Vallow, at the time, and he had written in divorce filings that she claimed to be a goddess sent to usher in the Biblical apocalypse.Charles Vallow was shot and killed by Vallow Daybell’s brother...

Scientists: Climate change intensified the rains devastating East Africa

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:07:01 GMT

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ongoing catastrophic rains in Eastern Africa have been worsened by human-caused climate change that made them up to two times more intense, an international team of climate scientists said Thursday.The analysis comes from World Weather Attribution, a group of scientists who examine whether and to what extent human-induced climate change has altered the likelihood and magnitude of an extreme-weather event.Hundreds of people have died and millions more have been affected since the rains began in October.October to December is a “short rains” season in Eastern Africa, with the frequency and intensity of the rains influenced by two naturally occurring climate phenomena: El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), which this year have both shaped up to increase the likelihood of heavy rainfall.To assess how climate change may have affected this year’s season, 10 researchers used weather data from the three countries, as well as clima...

Myanmar’ army is facing battlefield challenges and grants amnesty to troops jailed for being AWOL

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:07:01 GMT

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military government has been freeing soldiers and police who had been jailed for desertion and absence without leave, seeking to get them to return to active duty, a police officer and an army officer said Thursday. The releases follow an an amnesty plan announced earlier this week to get them back into service in order to ease an apparent manpower shortage.The plan was an apparent consequence of the military facing the greatest battlefield pressures since it seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. It began to encounter severe challenges after fierce fighting erupted in late October when an alliance of three ethnic minority armed groups launched an offensive in the northern part of Shan state, on the northeastern border with China.The offensive sparked renewed fighting nationwide on the part of both the pro-democracy Peoples Defense Force and their allies among other ethnic minority armed groups, spreading the military’...

Germany’s chancellor lights first Hanukkah candle on a huge menorah at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:07:01 GMT

BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday expressed his unwavering support for the Jewish people as he lit the first candle of Hanukkah on a huge menorah in front of Berlin’s iconic Brandenburg Gate.“I wish that the candle of Hanukkah will shine far beyond this square and much longer than just for the eight days of Hanukkah,” Scholz, wearing a black velvet skullcap, said in the center of the German capital.Hanukkah, also known as Judaism’s festival of lights, marks the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in the 2nd century B.C., after a small group of Jewish fighters liberated it from occupying foreign forces.This year’s holiday comes as many Jews feel traumatized by Hamas’ deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and in which the militants took some 240 as hostages. The attack triggered the latest Israel-Hamas war, which has so far killed more than 16,200 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry. The ministry does...

Meta makes end-to-end encryption a default on Facebook Messenger

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:07:01 GMT

NEW YORK (AP) — Meta is rolling out end-to-end encryption for calls and messages across its Facebook and Messenger platforms, the company announced Thursday.Such encryption means that no one other than the sender and the recipient — not even Meta — can decipher people’s messages. Encrypted chats, first introduced as an optional feature in Messenger in 2016, will now be the standard for all users going forward, according to Messenger head Loredana Crisan.“This has taken years to deliver because we’ve taken our time to get this right,” Crisan wrote in a blog post. “Our engineers, cryptographers, designers, policy experts and product managers have worked tirelessly to rebuild Messenger features from the ground up.”Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised, back in 2019, to bring end-to-end encryption to its platforms after the social media company suffered a string of high profile scandals, notably when Cambridge Analytica accessed user data on Facebook. Privacy advocates again shined a spotli...

U.S. sanctions money lending network to Houthi rebels in Yemen, tied to Iranian oil sales

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:07:01 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — Responding to increased attacks on ships in the southern Red Sea by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, the U.S. announced sanctions against 13 people and firms alleged to be providing tens of millions of dollars from the sale and shipment of Iranian commodities to the Houthis in Yemen.Treasury says that previously sanctioned Houthi and Iranian financial facilitator Sa’id al-Jamal uses a network of exchange houses and firms to help Iranian money reach the country’s militant partners in Yemen.The sanctions block access to U.S. property and bank accounts and prevent the targeted people and companies from doing business with Americans.Money lenders in Lebanon, Turkey and Dubai are listed for assisting al-Jamal, along with shipping firms from Russia to St. Kitts and Nevis, which allegedly move al-Jamal’s Iranian commodity shipments. All people and firms were hit with sanctions Thursday. Brian Nelson, Treasury’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intellig...

Families had long dialogue after Pittsburgh synagogue attack. Now they’ve unveiled a memorial design

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:07:01 GMT

PITTSBURGH (AP) — In the years following the deadly 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue attack, relatives of those slain have gone through their own private grief, public memorial services and the trial and death sentence of the perpetrator. They’ve also been deliberating, slowly and methodically, on what kind of permanent memorial should be built to honor their loved ones.They sought counsel from people who had experienced similar, wrenching processes — whether in post-9/11 New York or cities that suffered their own mass shootings.And they visited the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, which marks another terror attack about 70 miles (115 kilometers) from Pittsburgh.It’s been an effort that a growing number of American communities have faced — how to memorialize the victims of a senseless, hate-filled act of violence.For those who lost relatives in the Pittsburgh attack, it was also a unique exercise. They sought a way to honor the simple, devout lives of 11 individu...

Sea otter pup found alone in Alaska has new home at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:07:01 GMT

CHICAGO (AP) — An 8-week-old arrival from Alaska chirps loudly before devouring ice chips in the nursery at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium.He is Pup EL2306 — proper name to be determined — a northern sea otter who was found alone and malnourished in the remote town of Seldovia in October and taken to the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward. Shedd, one of only a few facilities in the United States with the resources to care for rescued otters, was contacted by the SeaLife Center and the aquarium’s otter team made the cross-country journey with the fluffy brown marine mammal who arrived in Chicago at the end of November.“Caring for a little otter pup is just like caring for an infant,” including round-the-clock feeding, said Lana Gonzalez, a manager of penguins and otter at Shedd. “He also needs to get groomed. Sea otters have a very dense coat — there’s anywhere from a 700,000 to a million hairs per square inch, and that’s what they use to keep themselves warm. They don’t have a thick layer of...

TV's Judge Frank Caprio reveals pancreatic cancer diagnosis

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2025 10:07:01 GMT

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — Frank Caprio, a retired Rhode Island traffic judge well known to viewers of "Caught in Providence," has announced he has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.Caprio, who turned 87 in November, posted a Facebook video revealing the diagnosis, telling viewers that the news put a damper on his birthday."Quite recently, I was not feeling well and received a medical examination. And the report was not a good one," he said. "I have been diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas, which is an insidious form of cancer." Study: High sugar levels could help pancreatic cancer treatments Caprio is currently getting treatment both in Rhode Island and Massachusetts from a "wonderful" team of doctors, he said."I know this is a long road and I'm fully prepared to fight as hard as I can," he added.Caprio also asked his fans to pray for him, explaining that he believed prayer to be "the most powerful weapon to help me survive this" along with his medical treatment."Just knowin...