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Horses from Winnipeg sent abroad for slaughter

Horses have forever been admired, featured prominently in popular children’s books and television programs, noted for being sleek, majestic, poetry in motion. But they also have a high level of emotional intelligence. A University of Sussex study found that horses can read emotional cues from our facial expressions, not only recognizing human emotions, but also deeply absorbing them.

German military swaps APCs for NATO force after breakdowns

BERLIN (AP) — Defense officials said Monday that Germany is readying decades-old armored personnel carriers for a key NATO unit after the modern vehicles that should have been deployed suffered a mass breakdown.

Germany is scheduled to take the rotating lead of NATO's Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, or VJTF, on Jan. 1.

The German army's 37th Panzergrenadier Brigade had originally earmarked dozens of modern Puma APCs for the force, but during a recent military exercise all 18 Pumas deployed suffered technical failures.

A Defense Ministry spokesman said the ailing Pumas will now be replaced with much older Marder vehicles.

Arctic air will blast much of US just before Christmas

ATLANTA (AP) — Forecasters are warning of treacherous holiday travel and life-threatening cold for much of the nation as an arctic air mass blows into the already-frigid southern United States.

“We’re looking at much-below normal temperatures, potentially record-low temperatures leading up to the Christmas holiday,” said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The polar air arrives as an earlier storm system gradually winds down in the northeastern U.S. after burying parts of the region under two feet (61 centimeters) of snow. More than 80,000 customers in New England were still without power on Sunday morning, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks outages across the country.

The incoming artic front brings “extreme and prolonged freezing conditions for southern Mississippi and southeast Louisiana,” the National Weather Service in a special weather statement Sunday.

‘Hallowed space’: Divers pull 275 artifacts from 2022 excavation of Franklin ship

Eleven metres below the surface of the Northwest Passage, deep within the wreck of one of Capt. John Franklin's doomed ships, something caught the eye of diver Ryan Harris.

Harris was in the middle of the 2022 field season on the wreck of HMS Erebus. The team had been hauling dozens of artifacts to the surface -- elaborate table settings, a lieutenant's epaulets still in their case, a lens from someone's eyeglasses.

But this, sitting within the steward's pantry, was something else.

"It's probably the most remarkable find of the summer," said Harris, one of the Parks Canada team of archaeologist divers who have been excavating Franklin's two lost ships since they were found under the Arctic seas.

Oppenheimer wrongly stripped of security clearance, US says

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has reversed a decades-old decision to revoke the security clearance of Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist called the father of the atomic bomb for his leading role in World War II’s Manhattan Project.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the 1954 decision by the Atomic Energy Commission was made using a “flawed process" that violated the commission’s own regulations.

“As time has passed, more evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was subjected to while the evidence of his loyalty and love of country have only been further affirmed," Granholm said in a statement on Friday.

Oppenheimer, who died in 1967, led the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. The theoretical physicist was later accused of having communist sympathies and his security clearance was revoked following a four-week, closed-door hearing.

Anti-LGBTQ hate thrives online, spurs fears of more violence

In the days after a gunman killed five people at a gay nightclub in Colorado last month, much of social media lit up with the now familiar expressions of grief, mourning and disbelief.

But on some online message boards and platforms, the tone was celebratory. “I love waking up to great news,” wrote one user on Gab, a platform popular with far-right groups. Other users on the site called for more violence.

The hate isn't limited to fringe sites.

On Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, researchers and LGBTQ advocates have tracked an increase in hate speech and threats of violence directed at LGBTQ people, groups and events, with much of it directed at transgender people.

Youngkin executive order bans TikTok from state computers

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin banned the use of several Chinese-owned apps, including TikTok and WeChat, on state government devices and wireless networks on Friday, calling them a threat to national security.

Youngkin’s executive order covers apps developed by ByteDance and Tencent. Businesses who contract with Virginia must also prohibit their use on state-owned devices or IT infrastructure.

“TikTok and WeChat data are a channel to the Chinese Communist Party, and their continued presence represents a threat to national security, the intelligence community, and the personal privacy of every single American,” Youngkin, a Republican, said in a statement. “We are taking this step today to secure state government devices and wireless networks from the threat of infiltration and ensure that we safeguard the data and cybersecurity of state government.”

Youngkin joins at least 14 others governors who have taken such an action, amid calls for Congress to also ban the use of the programs on federal government devices.

OSHA: Amazon failed to record some warehouse injuries

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon failed to properly record work-related injuries at warehouses located in five states, a federal agency said Friday while announcing it issued more than a dozen citations during the course of its ongoing investigation of the company.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it handed out 14 citations during inspections over the summer at six Amazon warehouses in New York, Florida, Illinois, Colorado and Idaho.

The citations were for failing to record, or misclassifying, injuries and illnesses, not recording them within the required time and not giving the agency “timely” records of such matters, OSHA said. The e-commerce giant, which earned over $33 billion last year, faces about $29,000 in penalties.

Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a prepared statement the company invests millions in a “robust safety program” to protect workers.

Elon Musk claims he was doxxed. But what exactly is that?

NEW YORK (AP) — When Twitter abruptly suspended the accounts of several journalists with no explanation, the platform's owner Elon Musk hinted at the possible reason: They allegedly doxxed him.

"You dox, you get suspended. End of story. That's it,” he said on a Twitter Space audio discussion late Thursday, referring to the act of disclosing someone personal details online.

Musk targeted journalists from The New York Times, CNN, Washington Post and other outlets after suspending a Twitter account that tracked his private jet using publicly available data — an account Musk had previously said he would leave alone as a demonstration of his commitment to free speech.

Twitter updated its policy this week, saying it would remove any tweets or accounts that share someone's live location if it's not done to help in humanitarian efforts or during public events.

Phoenix airport 1st to offer self-driving ride service Waymo

PHOENIX (AP) — As Phoenix gets ready to host the Super Bowl, Mayor Kate Gallego announced Friday that Sky Harbor International Airport will be the first to offer the self-driving ride-hailing service Waymo.

“The future is here," Gallego said at a news conference in front of the airport’s sky train station. "Phoenix is the first airport anywhere in the world to have autonomous service bringing people to our airport."

A test group has been using Waymo vehicles from the station, which connects to the airport terminals, to downtown Phoenix since early November. The cars are electric Jaguar models.

The announcement comes at a time when the city wants to expand its reputation as a place for innovation and just before visitors arrive for the holidays and events such as the Super Bowl, on Feb. 12.

New this week: Mariah Carey special, ‘Maverick,’ ‘Best Man’

Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.

MOVIES

— At long last, “Top Gun: Maverick” is coming to a streaming hub. The biggest film of the year is gearing up to land on Paramount+ as of Thursday after its high-flying run in theaters in which it became the highest grossing film of the year with over $1.4 billion in worldwide ticket sales. In the unlikely chance you’ve been holding out for this moment to finally watch the film which finds Tom Cruise back in the cockpit, the AP’s Mark Kennedy, in his review, wrote that "Top Gun: Maverick" is "a textbook example of how to make a sequel.”

— Netflix also saved a big gun for the holiday corridor with Rian Johnson’s “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” hitting the service on Friday, Dec. 23. The crowd-pleasing whodunnit brings back Daniel Craig’s honey-voiced detective Benoit Blanc and puts him on a private Greek island with a group of self-styled disruptors to solve a new mystery (what the mystery is is even part of the mystery this time). The star-studded cast includes Edward Norton, Janelle Monáe, Kate Hudson and Dave Bautista. With its wealthy protagonists, intrigue and enviable vacation fashions, it’s a terrific chaser for those mourning the loss “White Lotus” season 2.

FTC didn’t stop Facebook-Instagram. How about Meta-Within?

SAN JOSE, California (AP) — Facebook parent Meta is sparring with government regulators in federal court over its pending acquisition of a virtual reality fitness company Within Unlimited

CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to testify as a witness at the trial in San Jose, California.

At issue is whether Meta's acquisition of the small company that makes a VR fitness app called Supernatural will hurt competition in the emerging virtual reality market. If the deal is allowed to go through, the Federal Trade Commission argues, it would violate antitrust laws and dampen innovation, hurting consumers who may face higher prices and fewer options outside of Meta-controlled platforms.

Meta, the FTC argued in court this week, scrapped its own plans to enter the nascent VR fitness market in the summer of 2021 when it decided to buy Within. Without the competitive threat of the tech giant's entry into the market, the agency asserts, innovation stalls, hurting end users.

Journalist suspensions widen rift between Twitter and media

Elon Musk's abrupt suspension of several journalists who cover Twitter widens a growing rift between the social media site and media organizations that have used the platform to build their audiences.

Individual reporters with The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America and other news agencies saw their accounts go dark Thursday.

Musk tweeted late Friday that the company would lift the suspensions following the results of a public poll on the site. The poll showed 58.7% of respondents favored a move to immediately unsuspend accounts over 41.3% who said the suspensions should be lifted in seven days.

The company has not explained why the accounts were taken down. But Musk took to Twitter on Thursday night to accuse journalists of sharing private information about his whereabouts, which he described as “basically assassination coordinates.” He provided no evidence for that claim.

Satellite launched to map the world’s oceans, lakes, rivers

A U.S.-French satellite that will map almost all of the world’s oceans, lakes and rivers rocketed into orbit Friday.

The predawn launch aboard a SpaceX rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California capped a highly successful year for NASA.

Nicknamed SWOT — short for Surface Water and Ocean Topography — the satellite is needed more than ever as climate change worsens droughts, flooding and coastal erosion, according to scientists. Cheers erupted at control centers in California and France as the spacecraft started its mission.

“It is a pivotal moment, and I’m very excited about it," said NASA program manager Nadya Vinogradova-Shiffer. "We're going to see Earth's water like we've never before."

US puts 3 dozen more Chinese companies on trade blacklist

BANGKOK (AP) — The U.S. Department of Commerce is adding 36 Chinese high-tech companies, including makers of aviation equipment, chemicals and computer chips, to an export controls blacklist, citing concerns over national security, U.S. interests and human rights.

The inclusion of the companies in the trade “Entity List” means that export licenses will likely be denied for any U.S. company trying to do business with them. In some cases, companies based in other countries are also required to comply with the requirements to prevent technologies from being diverted to uses banned under the export controls.

The move signals a hardening of U.S. efforts to prevent China, especially its military, from acquiring advanced technologies such as leading edge computer chips and hypersonic weapons. It’s the latest in a years-long escalation of U.S. restrictions of Chinese technology that began with President Donald Trump and has continued under President Joe Biden’s administration.

At the same time, the Biden administration has been moving to beef up American manufacturing capabilities for semiconductors and other advanced technologies.

Twitter suspends journalists who wrote about owner Elon Musk

Twitter on Thursday suspended the accounts of journalists who cover the social media platform and its new owner Elon Musk, among them reporters working for The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Voice of America and other publications.

The company hasn’t explained to the journalists why it took down the accounts and made their profiles and past tweets disappear. But Musk took to Twitter on Thursday night to accuse journalists of sharing private information about his whereabouts that he described as “basically assassination coordinates.” He provided no evidence for that claim.

The sudden suspension of news reporters followed Musk’s decision Wednesday to permanently ban an account that automatically tracked the flights of his private jet using publicly available data. That also led Twitter to change its rules for all users to prohibit the sharing of another person’s current location without their consent.

Several of the reporters suspended Thursday night had been writing about the new policy and Musk's rationale for imposing it, which involved his allegations about a stalking incident he said affected his family on Tuesday night in Los Angeles.

Oregon city drops fight to keep Google water use private

Residents of The Dalles, Oregon, are learning how much of their water Google's data centers have been using to cool the computers inside the cavernous buildings — information that previously was deemed a trade secret.

Google says its data centers in the Oregon town consumed 274.5 million gallons (1 billion liters) of water last year. Dawn Rasmussen, who lives on the outskirts of The Dalles and has seen the level of her well water drop year after year, said she is shocked.

“I'm flabbergasted and I'm scared for the future,” Rasmussen said. “As we continue to be in drought conditions and the natural water table continues to get depleted, then the city itself is going to start to struggle.”

Data centers around the world help people stream movies, store trillions of photos and conduct daily business online, but a single facility can churn through hundreds of thousands of gallons of water per day.