List of All Articles with Tag 'erica'

The travel bans of the pandemic caused Glenda and Randy Tuminello from Washington State to reevaluate their lives -- and retire to southern Italy. Here's how they got on.

Quebec's Jewish community, rocked by violence, fears a rise in hate crimes amid the Israel-Gaza war.

The Republican argued the US should build a wall on the Canadian border to halt the flow of fentanyl.

Businessman and presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy appeared on Wednesday to call Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, who is Jewish, a “Nazi” during the latest GOP presidential debate. During a line of comments in which the Republican argued Ukraine is anti-democratic and undeserving of US aid, Mr Ramaswamy claimed, “It has celebrated a Nazi in its ranks – the comedian in cargo pants, a man called Zelensky – doing it in their own ranks. That is not democratic.” However, the entrepreneur may have stumbled over his words and actually been speaking about a separate person as a “Nazi.” During the debate in September, he put it slightly differently, telling the audience, “We need a reasonable peace plan to end this, this is a country whose president just last week was hailing a Nazi in his own ranks.” The attack is an apparent reference to an incident from Canada in September. After hearing a speech from Mr Zelensky, lawmakers there gave an ovation to 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka, who fought for the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, a Nazi unit in WWII. The former soldier was invited to attend the address by then-House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota, who has since resigned. Neither the Ukrainian delegation present nor the Canadian government was informed of the invitation, House government leader later Karina Gould told NPR. “No one in this House is above any of us. Therefore I must step down as your speaker,” Mr Rota said in Parliament in late September. “I reiterate my profound regret for my error in recognising an individual in the House during the joint address to Parliament of President Zelensky. “That public recognition has caused pain to individuals and communities, including to the Jewish community in Canada and around the world in addition to Nazi survivors in Poland among other nations. I accept full responsibility for my actions,” he added. Regardless of Mr Ramaswamy’s intended meaning, the comments generated controversy immediately, with critics arguing they played into Russian propaganda points. “Repeating offensive Kremlin talking points is an odd way to try to win votes in the USA,” retired Navy admiral James Stavridis wrote on X. Russia has repeatedly, falsely attacked the Ukrainian governments and its leaders as Nazis, and refered to its invasion of the country as “denazification.” “I’m increasingly convinced that Ramaswamy is a Ukrainian secret agent performing a parody of how stupid and cruel pro-Putin MAGA propagandists sound,” Russian chess champion and human rights activist Garry Kasparov wrote on X. “People advising Vivek Ramaswamay should be ashamed,” former Trump White House official Alyssa Farah Griffin added in a post of her own. “The paycheck is not worth propping up this ridiculous & offensive person. Antisemitism is on the rising globally & he has the gall to say this about a Jewish leader who is at war for his nation’s sovereignty. Despicable.” The Independent has contacted the Ramaswamy campaign for comment. Read More Ukraine moves step closer to EU membership as European Commission backs talks Russia-Ukraine war: Zelensky ‘sure of’ battlefield success – live Hundreds gather at vigil held for Ukrainian soldiers killed in missile attack Where the GOP presidential candidates stand on the war in Ukraine Trump challenged by Zelensky to come to Ukraine after claims he could stop war Ukraine opens criminal investigation into deadly Russian missile strike

The King visits "Korea Town" in New Malden, which claims to have Europe's biggest Korean population.

It's the first time Canadians have been able to leave the embattled enclave since the war began.

Political prognosticators are monitoring the races for clues a year before the 2024 presidential election.

The Prince of Wales strikes a note of optimism as he reveals the winners of his annual Earthshot Prize.

He is responding to a heckler's demand for a ceasefire in a war which has claimed thousands of lives.

After the New Orleans City Council voted to allow the use of facial recognition software to identify criminals more readily and accurately, reports indicate that the technology was ineffective and erroneous. This system went into effect in the summer of 2022, and Politico obtained records of the year’s worth of results. The outlet found that not only was the facial recognition tool vastly incapable of identifying suspects, but it was also disproportionately used on Black people. And from October 2022 to August 2023, almost every facial recognition request regarded a Black suspect. Politico reported that in total, the department made 19 requests. However, two of them were thrown out because police had identified the suspect before the system’s results came back, while two others were rejected because the program’s application didn’t extend to those crimes. So, of the 15 requests made by the New Orleans Police Department, 14 concerned Black suspects, the outlet wrote. On top of this, only six of these requests turned up with matches — and half of those were erroneous — while the remaining nine did not pull up a match. Facial recognition technology has long been controversial. The city of New Orleans previously had banned the use of facial recognition software, which went into effect in 2020 following the death of George Floyd. Then, in 2022, the city reversed course, allowing it to be used. In the wake of the reversal, the ACLU of Louisiana Advocacy Director Chris Kaiser called the new ordinance “deeply flawed.” He not only pointed out research that indicated that “racial and gender bias” affected the program’s accuracy but also highlighted privacy concerns around the data that the program relies on when identifying potential suspects. A previous investigation by The Independent revealed that at least six people around the US have been falsely arrested using facial ID technology; all of them are Black. One such arrest occurred in Louisiana, where the use of facial recognition technology led to the wrongful arrest of a Georgia man for a string of purse thefts. Regardless of the false arrests, at least half of federal law enforcement agencies with officers and a quarter of state and local agencies are using it. At least one council member acknowledged the shortcomings of this technology. “This department hung their hat on this,” New Orleans Councilmember At-Large JP Morrell told Politico. Mr Morrell voted against using facial recognition last year. After seeing the police department’s data and usage, he said the tool is “wholly ineffective and pretty obviously racist.” “The data has pretty much proven that advocates were mostly correct,” Mr Morell continued. “It’s primarily targeted towards African Americans and it doesn’t actually lead to many, if any, arrests.” City councillor Eugene Green, who introduced the measure to lift the ban, holds a different view. He told Politico that he still supports the agency’s use of facial recognition. “If we have it for 10 years and it only solves one crime, but there’s no abuse, then that’s a victory for the citizens of New Orleans.” It is important to note that despite hiccups with the system’s results, the agency’s use has led to any known false arrests. “We needed to have significant accountability on this controversial technology,” council member Helena Moreno, who co-authored the initial ban, told the outlet. New Orleans has a system in place in which the police department is required to provide details of how the tool was used to the City Council on a monthly basis; although Politico disclosed that the department agreed with the council that it could share the data quarterly. When asking about the potential flaws with the facial recognition tool, as outlined by Politico’s reporting, a New Orleans Police Department spokesperson told The Independent that “race and ethnicity are not a determining factor for which images and crimes are suitable for Facial Recognition review. However, a description of the perpetrator, including race, is a logical part of any search for a suspect and is always a criterion in any investigation.” The department spokesperson also emphasised that its investigators do not rely solely on facial recognition, “but it is one of multiple tools that can be used to aid in investigations,” like evidence and/or forensics, adding that officers are trained to conduct “bias-free investigations.” “The lack of arrests in which Facial Recognition Technology was used as a tool, is evidence that NOPD investigators are being thorough in their investigations,” the statement concluded. 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Natalie Raanan and her mother Judith were visiting family in Israel when they were taken hostage on 7 October.

The FBI has been alerted over online posts that used slurs about Jewish students at the New York college.