Nation & World Glance

Donald Trump wins Nevada’s Republican caucuses after being the only major candidate to participate

LAS VEGAS — Former President Donald Trump won Nevada’s Republican presidential caucuses Thursday after he was the only major candidate to compete.

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley skipped the caucuses, which are the only contest in Nevada that counts toward the GOP nomination. Haley cited what she considered an unfair process favoring Trump and instead ran in Nevada’s symbolic staterun presidential primary on Tuesday, when she finished behind the “none of these candidates” option.

Trump’s win in Nevada gives him all 26 of the state’s delegates. He needs to accrue 1,215 delegates to formally clinch the party’s nomination and could reach that number in March.

Though Trump has been the front-runner, Nevada’s caucuses were seen as especially skewed in his favor due to the intense grassroots support caucuses require candidates to harness around a state in order to win. Nevada’s state party last year barred candidates from running both in the primary and caucuses and also restricted the role of super PACS like the groups that were key to Florida Gov. Ron Desantis’ campaign before he dropped out.

Strikes kill 13 in Gaza as Biden describes Israel’s military response as ‘over

the top’

RAFAH, Gaza Strip – Israeli airstrikes killed at least 13 people in Rafah in the Gaza Strip after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Hamas’ cease-fire terms and vowed to expand the offensive into the southern Gaza town.

President Joe Biden called Israel’s military response in Gaza “over the top” and said he continues to work “tirelessly” to press Israel and Hamas to agree on an extended pause in fighting.

“I am of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in the Gaza Strip has been over the top,” Biden told reporters in an exchange on Thursday evening after delivering remarks on a special counsel report on his handling of classified documents.

Biden has been under political pressure to mend any rifts with voters he might need, especially in the Arab American community, where he has faced increased backlash for his vocal support of Israel’s war in Gaza. On Thursday, he sent emissaries to a suburb of Detroit, where the nation’s largest concentration of Arab Americans resides.

More than half of the Gaza Strip’s population has fled to Rafah, a city on the mostly sealed border with Egypt that is also the main entry point for humanitarian aid. Egypt has warned that any ground operation there or mass displacement across the border would undermine its 40-year-old peace treaty with Israel.

The Senate votes to begin working on a last-ditch effort to approve funds for Ukraine and Israel

WASHINGTON – Overcoming a week of setbacks, the Senate on Thursday voted to begin work on a package of wartime funding for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies. But doubts remained about support from Republicans who earlier rejected a carefully negotiated compromise that also included border enforcement policies.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the latest vote a “good first step” and pledged that the Senate would “keep working on this bill – until the job is done.”

The 67-32 vote was the first meaningful step Congress has taken in months to approve Ukraine aid, but it still faces a difficult path to final passage. Continued support from GOP senators is not guaranteed, and even if the legislation passes the Senate, it is expected to be more difficult to win approval in the Republican-controlled House, where Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA., has been noncommittal on the aid.

The Senate prepared for a days-long slog to reach a final vote. Leaders had not agreed to a process to limit the debate time for the bill as Republicans remained divided on how to approach the legislation.

The $95 billion package is intended to show American strength at a time when U.S. military troops have been attacked and killed in Jordan, allies including Ukraine and Israel are deep in war and unrest threatens to shake the global order. It is also the best chance for Congress to replenish completely depleted military aid for Ukraine – a goal shared by President Joe Biden, Schumer and Senate Republican leader Mitch Mcconnell.

Ai-generated voices in robocalls can deceive voters. The FCC just made them illegal

NEW YORK – The Federal Communications Commission on Thursday outlawed robocalls that contain voices generated by artificial intelligence, a decision that sends a clear message that exploiting the technology to scam people and mislead voters won’t be tolerated.

The unanimous ruling targets robocalls made with

AI voice-cloning tools under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, a 1991 law restricting junk calls that use artificial and prerecorded voice messages.

The announcement comes as New Hampshire authorities are advancing their investigation into Ai-generated robocalls that mimicked President Joe Biden’s voice to discourage people from voting in the state’s first-in-the-nation primary last month.

Effective immediately, the regulation empowers the FCC to fine companies that use AI voices in their calls or block the service providers that carry them. It also opens the door for call recipients to file lawsuits and gives state attorneys general a new mechanism to crack down on violators, according to the FCC. The agency’s chairwoman, Jessica Rosenworcel, said bad actors have been using Ai-generated voices in robocalls to misinform voters, impersonate celebrities and extort family members.

Google rebrands its AI services as Gemini, launches new app and subscription service

SAN FRANCISCO – Google on Thursday introduced a free artificial intelligence app that will enable people to rely on technology instead of their own brains to write, interpret what they’re reading and deal with a variety of other task in their lives.

With the advent of the Gemini app, named after an AI project unveiled late last year, Google will cast aside the Bard chatbot that it introduced a year ago in an effort to catch up with CHATGPT, the chatbot unleashed by the Microsoft-backed startup Openai in late 2022. Google is immediately releasing a standalone Gemini app for smartphones running on its Android software.

In a few weeks, Google will put Gemini’s features into its existing search app for iphones, where Apple would prefer people rely on its Siri voice assistant for handling various tasks.

Although the Google voice assistant that has been available for years will stick around, company executives say they expect Gemini to become the main way users apply the technology to help them think, plan and create. It marks Google’s next foray down a new and potentially perilous avenue while remaining focused on its founding goal “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

“We think this is one of the most profound ways we are going to advance our mission,” Sissie Hsiao, a Google general manager overseeing Gemini, told reporters ahead of Thursday’s announcement.