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WASHINGTON — The U.N. World Food Program has agreed to help deliver aid for the starving civilians of Gaza once the U.S. military completes a pier for transporting the humanitarian assistance by sea, U.S. officials said Friday. The involvement of the U.N. agency could help resolve one of the major obstacles facing the U.S.-planned project — the reluctance of aid groups to handle on-the-ground distribution of food and other badly needed goods in Gaza absent significant changes by Israel. An Israeli military attack April 1 that killed seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen intensified international criticism of Israel for failing to provide security for humanitarian workers or allow adequate amounts of aid across its land borders. President Joe Biden, himself facing criticism over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza while supporting Israel's military campaign against Hamas, announced March 8 that the U.S. military would build the temporary pier and causeway, as an alternative to the land routes. The U.S. Agency for International Development confirmed to The Associated Press that it would partner with the WFP on delivering humanitarian assistance to Gaza via the maritime corridor. "This is a complex operation that requires coordination between many partners, and our conversations are ongoing. Throughout Gaza, the safety and security of humanitarian actors is critical to the delivery of assistance, and we continue to advocate for measures that will give humanitarians greater assurances," USAID said in its statement to the AP. U.S. and WFP officials were working on how to deliver the aid to Palestinian civilians "in an independent, neutral, and impartial manner," the agency said. There was no immediate comment from the WFP, and a WFP spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment. Israel promised to open more border crossings into Gaza and increase the flow of aid after its drone strikes killed the seven aid workers, who were delivering food into the Palestinian territory. The war was sparked when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking some 250 others hostage. The Israeli offensive in Gaza, aimed at destroying Hamas, has caused widespread devastation and killed over 33,800 people, according to local health officials. Hundreds of U.N. and other humanitarian workers are among those killed by Israeli strikes. International officials say famine is imminent in northern Gaza, where 70% of people are experiencing catastrophic hunger. The U.S. military will be constructing what’s known as a modular causeway as part of the maritime route, in hopes that handling the inspection and processing of the aid offshore will speed the distribution to Gaza's people. Offshore, the Army will build a large floating platform where ships can unload pallets of aid. Then the aid will be transferred by Army boats to a motorized string of steel pier or causeway sections that will be anchored to the shore. Several Army vessels and Military Sealift Command ships are already in the Mediterranean Sea, and are working to prepare and build the platform and pier. That pier is expected to be as much as 550 meters long, with two lanes, and the Pentagon has said it could accommodate the delivery of more than 2 million meals a day for Gaza residents. Army Col. Sam Miller, commander of the 7th Transportation Brigade, which is in charge of building the pier, said about 500 of his soldiers will participate in the mission. All together, Pentagon officials have said about 1,000 U.S. troops will be involved. Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, told reporters this week that the U.S. in on track to have the system in place by the end of the month or early May. The actual construction of the pier had been on hold as U.S. and international officials hammered out agreements for the collection and distribution of the aid. He said the U.S. has been making progress, and that Israel has agreed to provide security on the shore. The White House has made clear that there will be no U.S. troops on the ground in Gaza, so while they will be constructing elements of the pier they will not transport aid onto the shore. U.S. Navy ships and the Army vessels will provide security for U.S. forces building the pier.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Washington — After years of high-level US pressure on its ally to show restraint, Israel's purported attack on Iran takes the region and Western-led diplomacy into uncharted territory. Iran and Israel have long waged a shadow war, marked by assassinations of Tehran's nuclear scientists and attacks on Israel by the clerical state's allies in the Arab world such as Lebanon's Hezbollah, but the United States has put a top priority on preventing a wide-scale war. The deadliest-ever assault on Israel, carried out on October 7 by Iranian-backed Palestinian militants Hamas, shook Israel and solidified its resolve, with President Joe Biden's administration resigned to limiting rather than preventing a regional flare-up. Direct Iranian and Israeli attacks are "a milestone, because it's completely changed the rules of engagement between the two adversaries," said Merissa Khurma, director of the Middle East program at the Wilson Center. "It has also elevated tensions across the region. It has made the specter of all-out war very real for many countries in the region," she said. Israel early Friday appeared to have struck near the Iranian city of Isfahan, after Iran last weekend carried out its first-ever direct assault on Israel with a barrage of 300 missiles, drones and rockets. Neither the Iranian nor the Israeli direct strikes are known to have caused major casualties or damage and neither country publicly confirmed Friday's strikes, leading U.S. officials privately to voice hope that Iran will not retaliate and the cycle will end. Forcing Iran to change calculus The Iranian drone strikes were in turn revenge for Israel's apparent destruction on April 1 of an Iranian consular building in Syria that killed seven members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards including two generals. Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute, said Israel clearly gamed out the consequences of the Damascus strike -- and he pointed to speculation that Israel may have been hoping to draw in the United States, which has been increasingly critical of Israel's relentless assault on Hamas-ruled Gaza. Vatanka said Israel sought to force Iran -- an enemy since the 1979 Islamic revolution overthrew the pro-Western shah -- to rethink the costs versus benefits of its "Axis of Resistance," the fighters around the region including in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen nurtured by Tehran over two decades. "It's a very simple model in the sense that Iran is fighting its adversaries in the region so that they don't have to fight them inside of Iran," Vatanka said. "That basic calculation is being put to a test because of what the Israelis have done, I'm sure deliberately," he said. Both Biden and his Democratic predecessor Barack Obama have counseled diplomacy over military action with Iran, with Obama negotiating a 2015 nuclear deal loathed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Biden's Republican challenger in November, Donald Trump, as president ripped up the nuclear deal and imposed sweeping sanctions, which have hurt the Iranian economy but not stopped Tehran's regional strategy. Diplomatic success after failure? Israel appeared to have steered clear of targeting Iran's nuclear sites -- although its message was unmistakable as Isfahan is the province of Iran's key nuclear facility of Natanz. "Israel wanted to demonstrate to Iran what it could do without really doing it," said Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project at the International Crisis Group. U.S. officials have worried that a direct Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities would lead the ruling clerics to rush forward toward a bomb, quickly unleashing war and pushing Iran's Arab rivals such as Saudi Arabia to pursue nuclear weapons themselves. The Iranian and Israeli strikes led to criticism both from the left and the right that the Biden administration has failed at its key post-October 7 goal of preventing regional war. But the United States also quietly pressed both Israel and Iran to keep their strikes within limits, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken seeking to send a message to Tehran through his Chinese, Turkish, German and other counterparts. "Diplomatic efforts this past week have very much been focused on de-escalation and -- for now -- it seems like they have been successful," Khurma said.

JERUSALEM — Every year, Alon Gat's mother led the family's Passover celebration of the liberation of the ancient Israelites from Egypt thousands of years ago. But this year, Gat is struggling with how to reconcile a holiday commemorating freedom after his mother was slain and other family members abducted when Hamas attacked Israel. Gat's sister, Carmel, and wife, Yarden Roman-Gat, were taken hostage in the October 7 attack. His wife was freed in November, but his sister remains captive. "We can't celebrate our freedom because we don't have this freedom. Our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers are still in captivity and we need to release them," Gat said. On Monday, Jews around the world will begin celebrating the weeklong Passover holiday, recounting the biblical story of their exodus from Egypt after hundreds of years of slavery. But for many Israelis, it's hard to fathom a celebration of freedom when friends and family are not free. The Hamas attack killed some 1,200 people, while about 250 others were taken hostage. About half were released in a weeklong cease-fire in November, while the rest remain in Gaza, more than 30 of them believed to be dead. For many Jews, Passover is a time to reunite with family and recount the exodus from Egypt at a meal known as the Seder. Observant Jews avoid grains, known as chametz, a reminder of the unleavened bread the Israelites ate when they fled Egypt quickly with no time for dough to rise. But this year many families are torn about how — or even if — to celebrate. When Hamas attacked Kibbutz Be'eri, Gat, his wife, 3-year-old daughter, parents and sister hid for hours in their rocket-proof safe room. But fighters entered the house and killed or abducted everyone inside, except for his father who hid in the bathroom. His mother was dragged into the street and shot. Gat, his arms and legs bound, was shoved into a car with his wife and daughter. During a brief stop, they managed to flee. Knowing he could run faster, Roman-Gat handed him their daughter. Gat escaped with her, hiding in a ditch for nearly nine hours. His wife was recaptured and held in Gaza for 54 days. Passover this year will be more profound as freedom has taken on a new meaning, Roman-Gat told The Associated Press. "To feel wind upon your face with your eyes closed. To shower. To go to the toilet without permission, and with the total privacy and privilege to take as long as I please with no one urging me, waiting for me at the other side to make sure I'm still theirs," she said in a text message. Still, Passover will be overshadowed by deep sorrow and worry for her sister-in-law and the other hostages, she said. The family will mark the holiday with a low-key dinner in a restaurant, without celebration. As hard as it is in times of pain, Jews have always sought to observe holidays during persecution, such as in concentration camps during the Holocaust, said Rabbi Martin Lockshin, professor emeritus at Canada's York University, who lives in Jerusalem. "They couldn't celebrate freedom but they could celebrate the hope of freedom," he said. The crisis affects more than the hostage families. The war, in which 260 soldiers have been killed, casts a shadow over a normally joyous holiday. The government has also scaled back festivities for Independence Day in May in light of the mood and fearing public protests. Likewise, the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, capped by the three-day Eid al-Fitr feast, was a sad, low-key affair for Palestinians. Over 80% of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced by the fighting, and Hamas health officials say nearly 34,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. The scenes of suffering, devastation and hunger in Gaza have received little attention in Israel, where much of the public and national media remain heavily focused on the aftermath of the October 7 attack and ongoing war. After several months of fits and starts, negotiations on a deal to release the remaining hostages appears at a standstill — making it unlikely they will be home for Passover. The hostages' pain has reverberated around the world, with some in the Jewish diaspora asking rabbis for prayers specifically for the hostages and Israel to be said at this year's Seder. Others have created a new Haggadah, the book read during the Seder, to reflect the current reality. Noam Zion, the author of the new Haggadah, has donated 6,000 copies to families impacted by the war. "The Seder is supposed to help us to relive past slavery and liberation from Egypt and to learn its lessons, but in 2024 it must also ask contemporary questions about the confusing and traumatic present and most important, generate hope for the future," said Zion, emeritus member of the faculty of Jewish studies at the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. The revised Haggadah includes excerpts from hostage families urging people not to hate despite their pain. It offers a guide for navigating the mixed feelings during the holiday, while posing existential questions about the Jews and the state of Israel. Some families say it's too painful to celebrate at all. The girlfriend of Nirit Lavie Alon's son was abducted from the Nova music festival. Two months later the family was informed by Israel's military that Inbar Haiman, a 27-year-old graffiti artist, was dead, her body still in Gaza. "It's impossible to celebrate a freedom holiday," said Alon. Instead of being with family this year, she's going to spend a few days in the desert. There will be no closure until all of the hostages are back, including the remains of those who were killed, she said. Ahead of Passover, some families are still holding out hope their relatives will be freed in time. Shlomi Berger's 19-year-old daughter, Agam, was abducted two days after the start of her army service along the border with Gaza. Videos of her bloodied face emerged shortly after the Hamas attack, one showing an armed man pushing her into a truck, another showing her inside the vehicle with other hostages. The only proof of life he's had since was a call from a released hostage, wishing him happy birthday from Agam, who she'd been with in the tunnels, he said. Still, he refuses to give up hope. "The Passover story says we come from slaves to free people, so this is a parallel story," Berger said. "This is the only thing I believe that will happen. That Agam will get out from darkness to light. She and all of the other hostages."

TYBEE ISLAND, Georgia — Thousands of Black college students expected this weekend for an annual spring bash at the largest public beach in the U.S. state of Georgia will be greeted by dozens of extra police officers and barricades closing off neighborhood streets. While the beach will remain open, officials are blocking access to nearby parking. Tybee Island east of Savannah has grappled with the April beach party known as Orange Crush since students at Savannah State University, a historically Black school, started it more than 30 years ago. Residents regularly groused about loud music, trash littering the sand and revelers urinating in yards. Those complaints boiled over into fear and outrage a year ago when weekend crowds of up to 48,000 people daily overwhelmed the 4.8-kilometer island. That left a small police force scrambling to handle a flood of emergency calls reporting gunfire, drug overdoses, traffic jams and fistfights. Mayor Brian West, elected last fall by Tybee Island's 3,100 residents, said roadblocks and added police aren't just for limiting crowds. He hopes the crackdown will drive Orange Crush away for good. "This has to stop. We can't have this crowd anymore," West said. "My goal is to end it." Critics say local officials are overreacting and appear to be singling out Black visitors to a Southern beach that only white people could use until 1963. They note Tybee Island attracts vast crowds for the Fourth of July and other summer weekends when visitors are largely white, as are 92% of the island's residents. "Our weekends are packed with people all season, but when Orange Crush comes, they shut down the parking, bring extra police and act like they have to take charge," said Julia Pearce, one of the island's few Black residents and leader of a group called the Tybee MLK Human Rights Organization. She added: "They believe Black folks to be criminals." During the week, workers placed metal barricades to block off parking meters and residential streets along the main road parallel to the beach. Two large parking lots near a popular pier are being closed. And Tybee Island's roughly two dozen police officers will be augmented by about 100 sheriff's deputies, Georgia state troopers and other officers. Security plans were influenced by tactics used last month to reduce crowds and violence at spring break in Miami Beach, which was observed by Tybee Island's police chief. Officials insist they're acting to avoid a repeat of last year's Orange Crush party, which they say became a public safety crisis with crowds at least double their typical size. "To me, it has nothing to do with race," said West, who believes city officials previously haven't taken a stronger stand against Orange Crush because they feared being called racist. "We can't let that be a reason to let our citizens be unsafe and so we're not." Tybee Island police reported 26 total arrests during Orange Crush last year. Charges included one armed robbery with a firearm, four counts of fighting in public and five DUIs. Two officers reported being pelted with bottles, and two women told police they were beaten and robbed of a purse. On a gridlocked highway about a mile off the island, someone fired a gun into a car and injured one person. Officials blamed the shooting on road rage. Orange Crush's supporters and detractors alike say it's not college students causing the worst problems. Joshua Miller, a 22-year-old Savannah State University senior who plans to attend this weekend, said he wouldn't be surprised if the crackdown was at least partly motivated by race. "I don't know what they have in store," Miller said. "I'm not going down there with any ill intent. I'm just going out there to have fun." Savannah Mayor Van Johnson was one of the Black students from Savannah State who helped launch Orange Crush in 1988. The university dropped involvement in the 1990s, and Johnson said that over time the celebration "got off the rails." But he also told reporters he's concerned about "over-representation of police" at the beach party. At Nickie's 1971 Bar & Grill near the beach, general manager Sean Ensign said many neighboring shops and eateries will close for Orange Crush though his will stay open, selling to-go food orders like last year. But with nearby parking spaces closed, Ensign said his profits might take a hit, "possibly a few thousand dollars." It's not the first time Tybee Island has targeted the Black beach party. In 2017, the city council banned alcohol and amplified music on the beach only during Orange Crush weekend. A discrimination complaint to the U.S. Justice Department resulted in city officials signing a non-binding agreement to impose uniform rules for large events. West says Orange Crush is different because it's promoted on social media by people who haven't obtained permits. A new state law lets local governments recoup public safety expenses from organizers of unpermitted events. In February, Britain Wigfall was denied an permit for space on the island for food trucks during Orange Crush. The mayor said Wigfall has continued to promote events on the island. Wigfall, 30, said he's promoting a concert this weekend in Savannah, but nothing on Tybee Island involving Orange Crush. "I don't control it," Wigfall said. "Nobody controls the date that people go down there."

New Orleans — Texas nurse Nick Nwoye had never heard of Fenton, Louisiana, before their police pulled him over. It’s how a lot of people first learn about the town. "I was driving home to Houston a few years ago and had to pass through Fenton," he told VOA. "The moment I saw the speed limit had changed from 65 mph to 50 mph [105 kph to 80 kph], I began to slow down. But it was too late." Nwoye says a police car was waiting behind a tree. The officer turned on his lights and pulled him over. "He said I was driving 77 mph in a 50-mph zone [124 kph in an 80-kph zone], and there’s no way I was," Nwoye explained. "The officer had this big smile on his face like, ‘I got you,’ as if this was a game the police played." Deciding to challenge the ticket, Nwoye called the town’s court to speak to the judge. That’s when he realized how difficult it would be to appeal the Louisiana fine. "You know who the judge was?" he asked, exasperated. "It was the mayor. The mayor was his own town’s court judge. So on one hand, he’s deciding whether or not I should have to pay, and on the other hand he’s incentivized to have me pay because this is the money he needs to run Fenton." "He told me there was nothing he could do," Nwoye scoffed. "But why would he want to do anything other than have me pay the town?" Small town, big revenue Located in western Louisiana, about an hour drive from the Texas border, Fenton’s 226 residents have a city hall, a gas station, a library, a grain elevator, a Baptist church, a public housing complex and a Dollar General store. For such a small place, Fenton finds itself regularly in the news. At first glance, its notoriety might appear to come from being a "speed trap town" — an area near a municipality in which the speed limit drops suddenly and drastically. Police officers wait for drivers to miss the speed change or fail to slow down in time and then pounce, writing them a costly ticket. When those tickets are paid, the revenue can be substantial. In Fenton, for example, the 12 months ending in June 2022 brought $1.3 million to the town’s coffers from traffic violations. By comparison, that is about the same as Louisiana’s third-largest city, Shreveport. While speed traps are not illegal, some legal experts caution that a quirk in the judicial system used in small Louisiana towns unfairly disadvantages those seeking to challenge their fines. 'Write more tickets' "They have a real racket going on in Fenton," says Bo Powell, a retiree from Monroe, Louisiana, who was pulled over in Fenton in 2014. The non-profit investigative journalism group ProPublica obtained and published a recording of Fenton Mayor Eddie Alfred, Jr. telling police officers last September that they needed to write more tickets or there would be layoffs in town government. "Our main income is traffic tickets, and they ain’t getting written," said the mayor in the recording. "We need to write more traffic tickets." "It’s like the whole village is a crime family," Powell tells VOA. "Everyone in that courtroom — the mayor, the clerk, the police officer — is paid for by these tickets. How is this legal?" But a "Mayor’s Court," as it’s called, is legal in the states of Louisiana and Ohio. Mayor’s Court Bobby King is city attorney for Walker, Louisiana. He helps train mayors on their responsibilities in Mayor’s Courts, which have jurisdiction over municipal ordinance violations including traffic fines, but not over felonies or juvenile offenses. "Mayor’s Courts are important for helping with managing a crowded docket of cases, and for providing a more economical option to smaller towns that can’t afford to pay for a judge and a city court," King told VOA. "But the potential for bias due to revenue generation is definitely a valid concern." A just way forward Mayor’s Courts were more common before a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that a driver in Monroeville, Ohio, was denied a fair trial because the mayor who ruled against him was responsible for both law enforcement and generating municipal revenue. "However, that case wasn’t a blanket ruling saying all Mayor’s Courts are unconstitutional," explained Eric Foley, an attorney with the MacArthur Justice Center, which litigates for civil rights in criminal justice. "The ruling said that the law must consider whether ‘the mayor’s executive responsibilities for village finances might make him partisan to maintain the high level of contribution from the Mayor’s Court.’" Louisiana and Ohio concluded that a mayor could be an impartial judge. For Ohio, where one out of every six traffic tickets are issued in jurisdictions governed by a Mayor’s Court, a federal judge ruled in 1995 that a mayor could be considered biased if at least 10% of the town’s revenue came from its Mayor’s Court. Louisiana’s Judicial College recommends that Mayor’s Courts exceeding that 10% threshold should hire a magistrate. "It’s still a Mayor’s Court," says King, "but having someone else oversee cases could help ensure impartiality and fairness in the judicial process." Foley says it’s not a question of "whether there’s a percentage of overall revenue before a Mayor’s Court becomes unconstitutional." "Rather, these kinds of courts just shouldn’t exist," says Foley. "The financial conflicts of interest are too great. A Mayor’s Court is largely unaccountable to anyone, and they lack the safeguards we should expect in criminal proceedings." The Mayor’s Court in Fenton generates more than 90% of town revenue. After some resistance, Mayor Alfred agreed in December to appoint a magistrate to his court. "But why does a town of 226 people require its own court anyway?" asks Joanna Weiss, co-executive director of the Fines and Fees Justice Center. "The conflict is present in the existence of the court itself. The court, a key government function meant to protect everyone’s rights and responsibilities, is instead being used to meet a budget."

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts — Facebook parent Meta Platforms has unveiled a new set of artificial intelligence systems that are powering what CEO Mark Zuckerberg calls "the most intelligent AI assistant that you can freely use."  But as Zuckerberg's crew of amped-up Meta AI agents started venturing into social media in recent days to engage with real people, their bizarre exchanges exposed the ongoing limitations of even the best generative AI technology.  One joined a Facebook moms group to talk about its gifted child. Another tried to give away nonexistent items to confused members of a Buy Nothing forum.  Meta, along with leading AI developers Google and OpenAI, and startups such as Anthropic, Cohere and France's Mistral, have been churning out new AI language models and hoping to convince customers they've got the smartest, handiest or most efficient chatbots.  While Meta is saving the most powerful of its AI models, called Llama 3, for later, on Thursday it publicly released two smaller versions of the same Llama 3 system and said it's now baked into the Meta AI assistant feature in Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.  AI language models are trained on vast pools of data that help them predict the most plausible next word in a sentence, with newer versions typically smarter and more capable than their predecessors. Meta's newest models were built with 8 billion and 70 billion parameters — a measurement of how much data the system is trained on. A bigger, roughly 400 billion-parameter model is still in training.  "The vast majority of consumers don't candidly know or care too much about the underlying base model, but the way they will experience it is just as a much more useful, fun and versatile AI assistant," Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, said in an interview.  'A little stiff' He added that Meta's AI agent is loosening up. Some people found the earlier Llama 2 model — released less than a year ago — to be "a little stiff and sanctimonious sometimes in not responding to what were often perfectly innocuous or innocent prompts and questions," he said.  But in letting down their guard, Meta's AI agents have also been spotted posing as humans with made-up life experiences. An official Meta AI chatbot inserted itself into a conversation in a private Facebook group for Manhattan moms, claiming that it, too, had a child in the New York City school district. Confronted by group members, it later apologized before the comments disappeared, according to a series of screenshots shown to The Associated Press.  "Apologies for the mistake! I'm just a large language model, I don't have experiences or children," the chatbot told the group.  One group member who also happens to study AI said it was clear that the agent didn't know how to differentiate a helpful response from one that would be seen as insensitive, disrespectful or meaningless when generated by AI rather than a human.  "An AI assistant that is not reliably helpful and can be actively harmful puts a lot of the burden on the individuals using it," said Aleksandra Korolova, an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton University.  Clegg said Wednesday that he wasn't aware of the exchange. Facebook's online help page says the Meta AI agent will join a group conversation if invited, or if someone "asks a question in a post and no one responds within an hour." The group's administrators have the ability to turn it off.  Need a camera? In another example shown to the AP on Thursday, the agent caused confusion in a forum for swapping unwanted items near Boston. Exactly one hour after a Facebook user posted about looking for certain items, an AI agent offered a "gently used" Canon camera and an "almost-new portable air conditioning unit that I never ended up using."  Meta said in a written statement Thursday that "this is new technology and it may not always return the response we intend, which is the same for all generative AI systems." The company said it is constantly working to improve the features.  In the year after ChatGPT sparked a frenzy for AI technology that generates human-like writing, images, code and sound, the tech industry and academia introduced 149 large AI systems trained on massive datasets, more than double the year before, according to a Stanford University survey.  They may eventually hit a limit, at least when it comes to data, said Nestor Maslej, a research manager for Stanford's Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.  "I think it's been clear that if you scale the models on more data, they can become increasingly better," he said. "But at the same time, these systems are already trained on percentages of all the data that has ever existed on the internet."  More data — acquired and ingested at costs only tech giants can afford, and increasingly subject to copyright disputes and lawsuits — will continue to drive improvements. "Yet they still cannot plan well," Maslej said. "They still hallucinate. They're still making mistakes in reasoning."  Getting to AI systems that can perform higher-level cognitive tasks and common-sense reasoning — where humans still excel— might require a shift beyond building ever-bigger models.  Seeing what works For the flood of businesses trying to adopt generative AI, which model they choose depends on several factors, including cost. Language models, in particular, have been used to power customer service chatbots, write reports and financial insights, and summarize long documents.  "You're seeing companies kind of looking at fit, testing each of the different models for what they're trying to do and finding some that are better at some areas rather than others," said Todd Lohr, a leader in technology consulting at KPMG.  Unlike other model developers selling their AI services to other businesses, Meta is largely designing its AI products for consumers — those using its advertising-fueled social networks. Joelle Pineau, Meta's vice president of AI research, said at a recent London event that the company's goal over time is to make a Llama-powered Meta AI "the most useful assistant in the world."  "In many ways, the models that we have today are going to be child's play compared to the models coming in five years," she said.  But she said the "question on the table" is whether researchers have been able to fine-tune its bigger Llama 3 model so that it's safe to use and doesn't, for example, hallucinate or engage in hate speech. In contrast to leading proprietary systems from Google and OpenAI, Meta has so far advocated for a more open approach, publicly releasing key components of its AI systems for others to use.  "It's not just a technical question," Pineau said. "It is a social question. What is the behavior that we want out of these models? How do we shape that? And if we keep on growing our model ever more in general and powerful without properly socializing them, we are going to have a big problem on our hands."

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Osaka, Japan — Wider access to abortion in Japan has largely remained elusive a year after the historic approval of medical abortion pills. In April last year, lawmakers approved the use of the two-step abortion pill — MeFeego Pack — for pregnancies up to nine weeks. Before that, women in the East Asian nation could only receive a surgical abortion in private clinics by designated surgeons that often charge as much as $370. Financial strain aside, women were often required to provide proof of spousal consent to receive an abortion, making it nearly impossible for them to make the decision on their own. Reports showed that even for single women, doctors still asked for permission of a male partner before agreeing to perform such surgeries. Despite the approval of the abortion pill, only 3% of all clinics with abortion services in Japan provide them a year after the pill’s approval, according to Kumi Tsukahara, independent researcher of reproductive health and rights, "and none of them have a Maternal Body Protection Law (MBPL) designated doctor," Tsukahara told VOA News. Under the MBPL, the controversial requirement for spousal consent before a doctor can prescribe oral abortion medication still exists — it’s the same condition for gaining permission for a surgical abortion. "Unfortunately, there are no signs of change with regard to either," the expert said. In contrast to countries with better abortion access, Japan’s approved abortion pills cannot be administered more than once — sometimes, multiple tries are necessary — and the pregnant women will still need to resort to surgical abortion that involves a serious risk to their health. Since such surgeries are only allowed in private clinics and are considered profitable by designated doctors, they often charge the same price or higher for abortion pills as for a surgical abortion. Neither measure is covered by Japan’s national health system. "The high prices and low affordability depending on individual doctors, the inaccurate information given by doctors who cannot use drugs to guide people to conventional surgical procedures, the unjust situation and the state’s failure to respond, and the women are disempowered to have a sense of entitlement on their part," Tsukahara explained. Abortion rights activist Kazuko Fukuda, who spearheads a grassroots movement to push for women’s rights to end pregnancies in Japan, echoed the sentiment. "The abortion rights [in Japan] didn’t improve," Fukuda told VOA News. "Of course, this [approval of oral abortion] was better than nothing, but conservative politicians went against such pills before the approval. … It’s mandated that women have to stay in hospitals that provide beds until the end of the abortion, but designated private clinics don’t usually have beds." Women in Japan are banned from taking abortion pills at home. They must be in hospitals and take the pills in front of the doctors as authorities fear that they might resell them. If violated, these women can be subject to imprisonment for up to a year. Male-dominated political scene Abortion is still a big taboo in politics, and real rights improvement will go a long way, Fukuda added. "News of women being arrested for giving birth alone and abandoning them is still very common -- we hear that just a few days ago. … The government should repeal the criminalization of abortion. [Things don’t work] as doctors are still afraid of being sued so they require signatures from boyfriends to prescribe abortion pills." Last year, Japan started a study, selling morning-after pills over the counter without prescription. However, the study suffers limited availability in many cities. Girls under 15 are not allowed to purchase them, and those ages 16 to 18 must be accompanied by a parent to buy the pills. Both experts VOA spoke with say that the information and availability of these contraceptive pills doesn’t appear high in online searches — the usual method for the targeted group to look for contraception. Japan ranked among the lowest of developed countries in a March report this year by the World Bank in terms of women’s rights. Currently, women account for less than 10% in Japan’s lower house of parliament and 27% in the upper house. In local politics, only 15% of women are on the front line. The gender pay gap in Japan reached 40%, according to a report from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Women’s issues like abortion access or contraceptive measures are often not viewed as priorities for female politicians. "In the male-dominated politics, a lot of women have to become more conservative and look strong to be accepted so it’s really hard for women to liberal or supportive in this kind of thing [abortion and contraception in the parliament]," Fukuda said. Women blamed for low fertility rate Social stigma connected to abortion remains strong as Japan blames women for its low fertility rate. The country hit a record low number of births last year. "The Japanese government has attributed the ‘decreasing number [fertility rate] to 'women who don’t give birth,' women are made to feel socially guilty for trying to choose not to give birth. Of course, such an issue construction is itself highly biased and misogynistic," said researcher Tsukahara. Fukuda said that the government’s support of favorable reproductive policies stops with women who don’t want babies. "Anything against that [wanting babies] is not supported at all. Many people think that ‘contraception’ is a taboo and even taking [morning after] pills can expose to judgment as a promiscuous woman. It’s not easy for women to talk about it."

BRASILIA, Brazil — Indigenous representatives from 35 countries issued a declaration Thursday criticizing the fact that they are too rarely consulted about mining that takes place on or near their lands, an issue that has become more acute with increased demand for minerals needed in the transition to a cleaner energy system. "We recognize and support the need to end fossil fuel reliance and shift to renewable energy as critical in addressing the climate crisis," the statement read. "However, the current trajectory of the energy transition fails to meet the criteria of justice, social equity, and environmental sustainability, particularly from the perspectives of Indigenous Peoples' rights and well-being." The document comes out of the Conference on Indigenous Peoples and the Just Transition which took place in New York last week. Indigenous leaders from the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Kenya, Australia and Norway among other countries attended. Lithium, nickel and cobalt are often used in batteries, which are key to both electric vehicles and extending production from solar and wind farms. Copper and aluminum are in higher demand as countries expand their electrical grids. Lesser-known rare earth elements are used in magnets in electric motors. Mining has left a legacy of environmental damage in many places for more than a century and is now expanding. The declaration also mentioned increasing criminal persecution and attacks against Indigenous leaders. The statement called out both the International Council of Mining and Metals, a trade group that says it represents a third of the industry, and the International Seabed Authority, for failing to respect Indigenous rights and conducting what it calls business as usual. Neither group responded to queries from The Associated Press. About half of energy transition minerals and metal projects are located on or near the lands of Indigenous and other subsistence farmers, according to a study published in 2022 by the journal Nature Sustainability. "We are those who generate the least impact on the planet," Ruth Alipaz Cuqui, an Indigenous leader from the Bolivian Amazon who attended the conference, told the AP in a phone interview. "But even so, we understand that we have to be part of this whole process." That participation should be comprehensive or else the energy transition will not be fair, she said. Alipaz Cuqui cited conflicts in the arid region of Uyuni, Bolivia, where local communities oppose the intense use of water to produce lithium. The project, still in its beginnings, is a joint venture between Bolivia and China. The Bolivian Ministry of Energy did not respond to a request for comment. The lead organizer for the conference was the Indigenous Peoples Rights International, a nonprofit registered in the Philippines and the U.S., with financial support from Nia Tero, a nonprofit that supports Indigenous rights, The Christensen Fund, the Henry Luce Foundation, the Waverley ST Foundation, and the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, according to the event website.

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WASHINGTON — One woman miscarried in the lobby restroom of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to check her in. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died. Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, federal documents obtained by The Associated Press reveal. The cases raise alarms about the state of emergency pregnancy care in the U.S., especially in states that enacted strict abortion laws and sparked confusion around the treatment doctors can provide. "It is shocking, it’s absolutely shocking," said Amelia Huntsberger, an OB/GYN in Oregon. "It is appalling that someone would show up to an emergency room and not receive care -- this is inconceivable." It’s happened despite federal mandates that the women be treated. Federal law requires emergency rooms to treat or stabilize patients who are in active labor and provide a medical transfer to another hospital if they don’t have the staff or resources to treat them. Medical facilities must comply with the law if they accept Medicare funding. The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday that could weaken those protections. The Biden administration has sued Idaho over its abortion ban, even in medical emergencies, arguing it conflicts with the federal law. "No woman should be denied the care she needs," Jennifer Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, said in a statement. "All patients, including women who are experiencing pregnancy-related emergencies, should have access to emergency medical care required under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA)." Pregnancy care after Roe Pregnant patients have "become radioactive to emergency departments" in states with extreme abortion restrictions, said Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University health law and policy professor. "They are so scared of a pregnant patient, that the emergency medicine staff won’t even look. They just want these people gone," Rosenbaum said. Consider what happened to a woman who was nine months pregnant and having contractions when she arrived at the Falls Community Hospital in Marlin, Texas, in July 2022, a week after the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion. The doctor on duty refused to see her. "The physician came to the triage desk and told the patient that we did not have obstetric services or capabilities," hospital staff told federal investigators during interviews, according to documents. "The nursing staff informed the physician that we could test her for the presence of amniotic fluid. However, the physician adamantly recommended the patient drive to a Waco hospital." Investigators with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services concluded Falls Community Hospital broke the law. Reached by phone, an administrator at the hospital declined to comment on the incident. The investigation was one of dozens the AP obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request filed in February 2023 that sought all pregnancy-related EMTALA complaints the previous year. One year after submitting the request, the federal government agreed to release only some complaints and investigative documents filed across just 19 states. The names of patients, doctors and medical staff were redacted from the documents. Federal investigators looked into just over a dozen pregnancy-related complaints in those states during the months leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s pivotal ruling on abortion in 2022. But more than two dozen complaints about emergency pregnancy care were lodged in the months after the decision was unveiled. It is not known how many complaints were filed last year as the records request only asked for 2022 complaints and the information is not publicly available otherwise. The documents did not detail what happened to the patient turned away from the Falls Community Hospital. 'She is bleeding a lot' Other pregnancies ended in catastrophe, the documents show. At Sacred Heart Emergency Center in Houston, front desk staff refused to check in one woman after her husband asked for help delivering her baby that September. She miscarried in a restroom toilet in the emergency room lobby while her husband called 911 for help. "She is bleeding a lot and had a miscarriage," the husband told first responders in his call, which was transcribed from Spanish in federal documents. "I’m here at the hospital but they told us they can’t help us because we are not their client." Emergency crews, who arrived 20 minutes later and transferred the woman to a hospital, appeared confused over the staff’s refusal to help the woman, according to 911 call transcripts. One first responder told federal investigators that when a Sacred Heart Emergency Center staffer was asked about the gestational age of the fetus, the staffer replied: "No, we can’t tell you, she is not our patient. That’s why you are here." A manager for Sacred Heart Emergency Center declined to comment. The facility is licensed in Texas as a freestanding emergency room, which means it is not physically connected to a hospital. State law requires those facilities to treat or stabilize patients, a spokesperson for the Texas Health and Human Services agency said in an email to AP. Sacred Heart Emergency’s website says that it no longer accepts Medicare, a change that was made sometime after the woman miscarried, according to publicly available archives of the center’s website. Meanwhile, the staff at Person Memorial Hospital in Roxboro, North Carolina, told a pregnant woman, who was complaining of stomach pain, that they would not be able to provide her with an ultrasound. The staff failed to tell her how risky it could be for her to depart without being stabilized, according to federal investigators. While en route to another hospital 45 minutes away, the woman gave birth in a car to a baby who did not survive. Person Memorial Hospital self-reported the incident. A spokeswoman said the hospital continues to "provide ongoing education for our staff and providers to ensure compliance." In Melbourne, Florida, a security guard at Holmes Regional Medical Center refused to let a pregnant woman into the triage area because she had brought a child with her. When the patient came back the next day, medical staff were unable to locate a fetal heartbeat. The center declined to comment on the case. What’s the penalty? Emergency rooms are subject to hefty fines when they turn away patients, fail to stabilize them or transfer them to another hospital for treatment. Violations can also put hospitals’ Medicare funding at risk. But it’s unclear what fines might be imposed on more than a dozen hospitals that the Biden administration says failed to properly treat pregnant patients in 2022. It can take years for fines to be levied in these cases. The Health and Human Services agency, which enforces the law, declined to share if the hospitals have been referred to the agency’s Office of Inspector General for penalties. For Huntsberger, the OB/GYN, EMTALA was one of the few ways she felt protected to treat pregnant patients in Idaho, despite the state’s abortion ban. She left Idaho last year to practice in Oregon because of the ban. The threat of fines or loss of Medicare funding for violating EMTALA is a big deterrent that keeps hospitals from dumping patients, she said. Many couldn’t keep their doors open if they lost Medicare funding. She has been waiting to see how HHS penalizes two hospitals in Missouri and Kansas that HHS announced last year it was investigating after a pregnant woman, who was in preterm labor at 17 weeks, was denied an abortion. "A lot of these situations are not reported, but even the ones that are — like the cases out of the Midwest — they’re investigated but nothing really comes of it," Huntsberger said. "People are just going to keep providing substandard care or not providing care. The only way that changes is things like this." President Joe Biden and top U.S. health official Xavier Becerra have both publicly vowed vigilance in enforcing the law. Even as states have enacted strict abortion laws, the White House has argued that if hospitals receive Medicare funds they must provide stabilizing care, including abortions. In a statement to the AP, Becerra called it the "nation’s bedrock law protecting Americans’ right to life- and health-saving emergency medical care." "And doctors, not politicians, should determine what constitutes emergency care," he added. Idaho’s law allows abortion only if the life, not the health, of the mother is at risk. But the state’s attorney general has argued that its abortion ban is "consistent" with federal law, which calls for emergency rooms to protect an unborn child in medical emergencies. "The Biden administration has no business rewriting federal law to override Idaho’s law and force doctors to perform abortions," Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said in a statement earlier this year. Now, the Supreme Court will weigh in. The case could have implications in other states like Arizona, which is reinstating an 1864 law that bans all abortions, with an exception only if the mother’s life is at risk. EMTALA was initially introduced decades ago because private hospitals would dump patients on county or state hospitals, often because they didn’t have insurance, said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas of the American Civil Liberties Union. Some hospitals also refused to see pregnant women when they did not have an established relationship with physicians on staff. If the court nullifies or weakens those protections, it could result in more hospitals turning away patients without fear of penalty from the federal government, she said. "The government knows there’s a problem and is investigating and is doing something about that," Kolbi-Molinas said. "Without EMTALA, they wouldn’t be able to do that."

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NIAMEY, Niger — Drug seizures soared in the West African Sahel region according to figures released Friday in a new U.N. report, indicating the conflict-ridden region is becoming an influential route for drug trafficking. In 2022, 1,466 kilograms of cocaine were seized in Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso and Niger compared to an average of 13 kilograms between 2013 and 2020 , said the report from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. Cocaine is the most seized drug in the Sahel after cannabis resin, the report said. The analysis comes as Senegal, which borders on the Sahel, announced Sunday a record-breaking cocaine seizure of 1,137 kilograms – the most ever intercepted on land and valued at $146 million – near an artisanal mine in the east of the country. Incidents like this are becoming more common in the region: In one incident last year in December, the Senegalese navy seized a total of 3 tons of cocaine at sea. The location of the Sahel, lying south of the Sahara desert and running from the Atlantic to the Arabian Ocean, makes it a natural transit point for the increasing amount of cocaine produced in South America and destined for Europe. The trafficking has detrimental impacts for both peace and health, locally and globally, said Amado Philip de Andrés, UNODC Regional Representative in West and Central Africa. "The involvement of various armed groups in drug trafficking continues to undermine peace and stability in the region," said Philip de Andrés. The report said the drug trade provides financial resources to armed groups in the Sahel, where Islamic extremist networks have flourished as the region struggles with a recent spate of coups. Increased trafficking networks in the region is spilling out onto local markets and leading to higher drug consumption, said Lucia Bird, director of the West Africa observatory of illicit economies at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime. "We've had reports of rising crack cocaine consumption in Agadez, Niger driven by payment in kind," said Bird. "Smaller traffickers get paid in drugs and offload it onto local markets because they don't have the contacts in more lucrative consumption destinations." A patrol in southwest Niger on Monday intercepted a shipment of cannabis and Tramadol, an opioid painkiller pill, worth $50,000, according to a national TV announcement. Another significant trend in the region is the direct exchange of Moroccan hashish for South American cocaine via West Africa, said Bird. This arrangement – which has been developing since 2020 — bypasses the need for cash payments and exploits differences in the prices of drugs across continents, she explained, adding that this increases the amount of drugs trafficked overland which transit from West African ports across some of the most conflict-affected areas of the Sahel. Corruption and money laundering are major enablers of drug trafficking and recent seizures and arrests revealed that political elite, community leaders and leaders of armed groups facilitate the drug trade in the Sahel, the UN report added. "States in the Sahel region — along with the international community — must take urgent, coordinated, and comprehensive action to dismantle drug trafficking networks," said Leonardo Santos Simão, Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for West Africa.

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washington — This month, when a story claiming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had secretly purchased a $24 million castle from the British royal family went viral on China's Weibo social media platform, something interesting happened. A fake-news function on the platform debunked it as misinformation. Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Chinese social media platforms have been full of pro-Russia false claims and conspiracy theories, some of which the Chinese government has endorsed. Influential Chinese nationalist bloggers, as well as Russia's state media RT, regularly post and spread misinformation on Weibo. Less than 20 hours after RT posted the misinformation about Zelenskyy, Weibo attached a fact-checking note to the post. Public criticism of Russian state media is rare in China, but the fact-check function is part of Weibo's latest effort to regulate misinformation on the site. Weibo rolled out the feature, called Side Note, last August. Side Note allows qualified users to submit fact-checking notes on others' posts for Weibo to review. Over the past few months, users have added Side Note to posts from high-profile Weibo bloggers and foreign government-backed accounts, including RT and the U.S. Embassy in China. Weibo has tried to appear neutral when deciding what kind of misinformation to fact-check, debunking false claims from both liberal and nationalist influencers. But it has also used the feature to push Beijing's talking points on international issues. So far, Chinese government and state media accounts have not been subject to any fact-checking. Weibo's version of Community Note In July 2023, China's internet regulator told social media companies to crack down on false information. " 'Personal media' that create and publish rumors, stir up hot societal topics or matrix [linked cross-platform] publish and transmit illegal or negative information, creating a vile impact, are all to be closed, included in the platform database of blacklisted accounts, and reported to the internet information departments," said a memo from Central Cyberspace Administration of China. A month later, Weibo, one of China's biggest social media apps with a focus on news and current issues, came out with the Side Note feature. Like the Community Note function on X, Side Note lets qualified users take on the job of fact-checking, with Weibo getting the final say on approval or rejection. Other U.S. social media firms offer similar features. Facebook and Instagram offer "community standards" and "community guidelines," respectively, which flag posts containing disinformation. But unlike these firms, Weibo itself decides which posts stay up. The company says it selects qualified users from those with verified identities or high Weibo credit scores and is gradually expanding the feature to include more users. Side Note targets US Embassy Since January, posts by the U.S. Embassy in China have been tagged with Side Note at least three times. A post detailing U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's expressed concerns about China's religious freedom received two notes, one accusing Blinken of having "no regard for facts." A February post sanctioning 17 Chinese companies for helping Russia's war effort in Ukraine got a note that included a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson's public remarks. And a post last month condemning Beijing for a collision between Chinese and Philippine coast guard vessels got a Side Note message from Shen Yi, a prominent Chinese international relations professor with a strong nationalistic leaning.  In the note, Shen accused the U.S. of spreading misinformation on multiple "global social media platforms" to "smear China's national image." Chinese government accounts immune Most posts tagged with Side Note belong to influencers, including nationalist bloggers. For example, Shu Chang, who runs the popular nationalist account Guyan Muchan, saw a Side Note added to a post last week claiming that schoolchildren in the U.S. have to learn how to use "bulletproof boards" in classrooms. The Side Note clarified that the photos were from a hurricane self-protection exercise. In recent years, nationalist bloggers like Shu have become some of the most traffic-drawing opinion leaders on Weibo. Eric Liu, who analyzes Chinese censorship at China Digital Times, says one shouldn't read too much into Weibo fact-checking Shu's post. "A lot of her stuff isn't state narratives. She sensationalized it herself," Liu told VOA. "Weibo doesn't really have to protect her. Plus, [fact-checking her posts] adds to the credibility of the Side Note feature." Liu, who worked as a censor for Weibo and other Chinese internet companies before moving to the U.S., pointed out that Weibo has not used Side Note to fact-check government accounts or false information from state media. In a November post, Weibo thanked users for submitting Side Notes. "Ever since Side Note went online, active participation from every Side Note-er has effectively lowered the negative impact of controversial content and biased information, helping all users access information that's truer and more comprehensive," the post said. But Liu doesn't think of Side Note as a feature that truly gives users the power to regulate speech on the platform, because Weibo remains the final arbitrator of what notes can be added to what posts. "Weibo's Side Note isn't something that netizens can fully edit, as it's still user-generated content," he said. "In the end, it still needs to be reviewed by censors." Weibo did not respond to VOA's request for comment. Evie Steele contributed to this report.