Tag Archives: associated press

You may have heard of white noise used to mask background sounds. Now, it has colorful competition. There’s a growing buzz around pink noise, brown noise, green noise — a rainbow of soothing sounds — and their theoretical effects on sleep, concentration and relaxation response. The science is new with only a few small studies behind it, but that hasn’t …

Haiti’s main international airport reopened Monday for the first time in nearly three months after relentless gang violence forced authorities to close it to all traffic in early March. The reopening of the Toussaint-Louverture airport in the capital of Port-au-Prince is expected to help ease a critical shortage of medications and other basic supplies since the country’s main seaport remains …

Thailand on Monday officially began the selection of new senators, a process that has become part of an ongoing war between progressive forces hoping for democratic political reforms and conservatives seeking to keep the status quo. Hopeful candidates headed to district offices across the country on the first day of registration to compete for one of the 200 seats in …

Former South African President Jacob Zuma was barred Monday from running for Parliament in next week’s national election over a previous criminal conviction, the latest twist in his return to politics. The decision by the country’s highest court, the Constitutional Court, may still be appealed. It ruled that Zuma is only eligible to serve as a lawmaker five years after …

Kosovo’s Cabinet renewed efforts with a new draft law on renting a prison in the south of the country to Denmark to help it cope with its overpopulated prison system, an official said Monday. The first draft of the law failed to pass at the parliament last week. But on Sunday, the Cabinet approved a draft law on 300 cells …

The Philippines blamed Chinese fishermen on Monday for a massive loss of giant clams in a disputed shoal controlled by China’s coast guard in the South China Sea and urged an international inquiry into the amount of environmental damage in the area. The Philippine coast guard presented surveillance photographs of Chinese fishermen harvesting large numbers of giant clams for a …

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange faced a hearing Monday in the High Court in London that could end with him being sent to the U.S. to face espionage charges, or could provide him with another chance to appeal his extradition. The outcome will depend on how much weight judges give to assurances U.S. officials have provided that Assange’s rights won’t be …

A federal magistrate judge on Monday ordered a man accused of opening fire on a busy street outside Wrigley Field earlier this month to remain in custody without bail. Raphael Hammond, 37, has been charged with being a felon in possession of a handgun in connection with the shooting, the Chicago Tribune reported. Hammond was standing outside a bowling alley …

South Korea is set to host a mini-summit this week on risks and regulation of artificial intelligence, following up on an inaugural AI safety meeting in Britain last year that drew a diverse crowd of tech luminaries, researchers and officials. The gathering in Seoul aims to build on work started at the U.K. meeting on reining in threats posed by …

Ed Dwight, America’s first Black astronaut candidate, finally rocketed into space 60 years later, flying with Jeff Bezos’ rocket company on Sunday. Dwight was an Air Force pilot when President John F. Kennedy championed him as a candidate for NASA’s early astronaut corps. But he wasn’t picked for the 1963 class. Dwight, now 90, went through a few minutes of …