Nation & World Glance
ASSOCIATED PRESS Mali’s junta bans the media from reporting on political activities in a deepening crackdown
BAMAKO, Mali – In a deepening crackdown, Mali’s ruling junta on Thursday banned the media from reporting on activities of political parties and associations, a day after suspending all political activities in the country until further notice.
The order, issued by Mali’s high authority for communication, was distributed on social media. The notice said it applied to all forms of the media, including television, radio, online and print newspapers.
Mali has experienced two coups since 2020, leading a wave of political instability that has swept across West and Central Africa in recent years. Along with its political troubles, the country is also in the grip of a worsening insurgency by militants linked to al-qaida and the Islamic State group.
The scope of the ban – or how it would be applied in practice – was not immediately clear. It was also not known if journalists would still be allowed to report on issues such as the economy, which are closely tied to politics and who would monitor their work.
The umbrella organization that represents journalists in Mali responded with an unusually stern rebuttal.
Houston police reviewing if DNA tests could have helped in thousands of dropped cases
HOUSTON – Houston police said Thursday that they are still reviewing if DNA testing in connection with thousands of sexual assault and sex crime cases that were dropped due to staffing issues could have led officers to potential suspects and possible arrests.
The more than 4,000 sexual assault cases that were dropped by police in the past eight years are part of more than 264,000 incident reports that were never submitted for investigation as officers assigned them an internal code that cited a lack of available personnel. Police Chief Troy Finner first made public the existence of the dropped cases in February.
During a news conference Thursday, police Cmdr. Elizabeth Lorenzana said that after meeting March 27 with the city’s crime lab, the Houston Forensic Science Center, officials were told that of the 4,000 sexual assault incident reports, more than 1,100 had sexual assault kits that had been tested for DNA.
The crime lab also reviewed nearly 5,100 incident reports related to indecent assaults and exposures and reported that 57 had kits tested for DNA.
All the DNA testing in these cases resulted in 95 with matches to suspects in the FBI’S Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, database.
Lawsuit settled: 2 top US gun parts makers agree to temporarily halt sales in Philadelphia
Two of America’s leading gun parts manufacturers have agreed to temporarily halt sales of their products in Philadelphia and elsewhere in Pennsylvania, city officials said Thursday, announcing a settlement of their lawsuit against the companies.
Philadelphia filed suit against Polymer80 and JSD Supply in July, accusing the manufacturers of perpetuating gun violence in the city by manufacturing and selling untraceable, self-manufactured weapons commonly known as “ghost guns.” The suit came under a broader legal effort to restrict where manufacturers can market their assemble-at-home guns.
David Pucino, legal director of Giffords Law Center, which represented the city, accusing Polymer80 and JSD Supply of “reckless business practices ... that threatened public safety.”
“The gun industry must be held accountable when it breaks the law and endangers Americans,” he said in a statement.
Under the settlement, JSD Supply, based in Butler, Pennsylvania, agreed it would no longer sell its products in the state for four years, city officials said. Jsd-owned Eagle Shows, which bills itself as Pennsylvania’s largest gun show, will be required to prohibit vendors from selling such gun parts for two years.
More aid is supposed to be entering the Gaza Strip. Why isn’t it helping?
JERUSALEM – Under heavy U.S. pressure, Israel has promised to ramp up aid to Gaza dramatically, saying last week it would open another cargo crossing and surge more trucks than ever before into the besieged enclave.
But days later, there are few signs of those promises materializing and international officials say starvation is widespread in hardhit northern Gaza.
Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said this week she accepted “credible” reports that famine is now occurring in the area and urged Israel to take further steps to expedite humanitarian aid shipments.
Power’s remarks echoed those of U.S. President Joe Biden, who said on Wednesday that Israeli efforts to increase aid were “not enough.”
While Israel says it has dramatically increased the number of aid trucks entering the territory, U.N. workers report only a slight uptick – possibly because they count trucks differently.
Instagram begins blurring nudity in messages to protect teens and fight sexual extortion
LONDON — Instagram says it’s deploying new tools to protect young people and combat sexual extortion.
The tools include a feature that will automatically blur nudity in direct messages. The social media platform said in a blog post Thursday that the new features are part of its work to fight sexual scams and other forms of “image abuse” and to make it tougher for criminals to contact teens.
Sexual extortion, or sextortion, involves persuading a person to send explicit photos online and then threatening to make the images public unless the victim pays money or engages in sexual favors.
Instagram and other social media companies have been facing growing pressure for not doing enough to protect young people.