AFP USA

Sean “Diddy” Combs pleaded not guilty Friday to a new indictment that added accusations to his US federal sex trafficking and racketeering case.The superceding indictment says that as the hip hop magnate sexually abused people and coerced them into drug-fueled sex parties using threats and violence, he forced employees to work long hours while demanding their silence.The 55-year-old wore a tan shirt and pants in the Manhattan courtroom to enter the plea in the criminal case scheduled to go to trial this spring, with in-person jury selection to tentatively begin May 5 and opening statements expected May 12.Combs has denied all charges.Public allegations have been building against the Grammy winner since late 2023, when singer Cassie, whose real name is Casandra Ventura, alleged Combs subjected her to more than a decade of coercion by physical force and drugs as well as a 2018 rape.Along with the federal criminal case, Combs faces a mountain of civil suits, complaints that allege harrowing abuse by the artist with assistance from a loyal network of employees and associates.The one-time rap superstar has been incarcerated since September, during which time he’s started to look noticeably aged, with a crop of salt-and-pepper hair.During Friday’s hearing he smiled, waved and blew kisses to a row of supporters including two of his children and his mother.

Monkeys infected with Ebola can be cured with a pill, according to a new study out Friday that could pave the way for more practical, affordable treatments in humans.First identified in 1976 and thought to have crossed over from bats, Ebola is a deadly viral disease spread through direct contact with bodily fluids, causing severe bleeding and organ failure.Because outbreaks primarily affect sub-Saharan Africa, pharmaceutical companies have lacked financial incentives to develop treatments, and the sporadic nature of outbreaks has made clinical trials difficult.A vaccine was only widely approved in 2019, and while two intravenous antibody treatments improve outcomes, they require costly cold storage and are difficult to administer in some of the world’s poorest regions.”We’re really trying to come up with something that was more practical, easier to use, that could be used to help prevent, control, and contain outbreaks,” Thomas Geisbert, a virologist at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, who led the new study published in Science Advances, told AFP.For their experiment, Geisbert and colleagues tested the antiviral Obeldesivir, the oral form of intravenous Remdesivir, originally developed for Covid-19.Obeldesivir is a “polymerase inhibitor,” meaning it blocks an enzyme crucial for viral replication.The team infected rhesus and cynomolgus macaques with a high dose of the Makona variant of the Ebola virus.A day after exposure, ten monkeys then received an Obeldesivir pill daily for ten days, while three control monkeys received no treatment and died.Obeldesivir protected 80 percent of the cynomolgus macaques and 100 percent of the rhesus macaques, which are biologically closer to humans. The drug not only cleared the virus from the treated monkeys’ blood but also triggered an immune response, helping them develop antibodies while avoiding organ damage.Geisbert explained that while the number of monkeys was relatively small, the study was statistically powerful because they were exposed to an extraordinarily high dose of the virus — roughly 30,000 times the lethal dose for humans. This reduced the need for additional control monkeys, limiting unnecessary animal deaths.The researcher, who has worked on Ebola since the 1980s and is credited with discovering the Reston strain, said one of the most exciting aspects of Obeldesivir is its “broad-spectrum” protection, compared to the approved antibody treatments that only work against the Zaire species of Ebola. “That’s a huge advantage,” Geisbert said.Pharmaceutical maker Gilead is currently advancing Obeldesivir to Phase 2 clinical trials for Marburg virus, a close relative of Ebola.Geisbert also emphasized the importance of funding from the US National Institutes of Health, amid reports that dozens of grants have been canceled under President Donald Trump’s administration.”All these drugs and vaccines that were developed against Ebola and a lot of these exotic viruses and pathogens — 90 percent of the money comes from the US government,” he said, adding, “I think the general public would agree we need treatments for Ebola.”

The US aviation regulator said Friday it has ordered stricter safety around Washington’s Ronald Reagan airport after a devastating collision between a passenger jet and a military helicopter.Helicopter traffic will be restricted around the airport, where an American Eagle airliner hit a military Black Hawk on January 29, killing 67 people.The Federal Aviation Administration also closed part of a corridor near Ronald Reagan National Airport that the military helicopter was using when it collided with the Bombardier CRJ-700 jet. Both fell into the freezing Potomac River.The route was just 23 meters (75 feet) from the corridor used by the American Eagle jet as it came into land.The National Transportation Safety Board has already warned of a risk of more collisions around the airport unless helicopter access was cut.The FAA said it was taking “a series of steps to improve safety” around Reagan airport following NTSB recommendations.These included “permanently restricting non-essential helicopter operations” around the airport and “eliminating helicopter and fixed-wing mixed traffic”, the FAA statement said.Reagan airport is in a heavily urbanized zone close to the Defense Department headquarters and the FAA said alternative routes would be found for helicopters.”If a helicopter must fly through the airspace on an urgent mission, such as lifesaving medical, priority law enforcement, or presidential transport, the FAA will keep them specific distances away from airplanes.”Two runways will be closed when helicopters on urgent missions are near the airport, the agency added.NTSB head Jennifer Homendy said this week that the distances between helicopter traffic and commercial airliners around the airport posed “an intolerable risk to aviation safety”.The investigation into the January 29 disaster is not complete but has already highlighted different versions over the altitude the military helicopter was flying at and communication difficulties between the crew and the control tower and the looming American Eagle jet.

US President Donald Trump is to give a speech at the Department of Justice on Friday in a show of power over the agency he accused of weaponizing the law against him under his predecessor Joe Biden.The speech on law and order by Republican Trump — the first convicted felon to sit in the White House — will be staged in the same building where officials previously  brought two criminal cases against him.Since returning to office Trump has taken a sledgehammer to the Department of Justice, breaking decades-old political norms aimed at preserving judicial independence.”All I’m going to do is set out my vision,” Trump told reporters on Thursday about the speech.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the speech would be “focused on restoring law and order to our country.””In the last four years in the Biden administration, we unfortunately saw the Department of Justice that was weaponized against Americans for their political ideology,” she told reporters.Trump’s new Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Chief Kash Patel — both key loyalists of the 78-year-old Republican — will be there for the president’s speech.Leavitt said mothers of children killed by “illegal migrant criminals” and families affected by an epidemic of the synthetic drug fentanyl would also attend the speech.- ‘Retribution’ -Trump pledged on the campaign trail in the 2024 election to overhaul the department if he won a second term.He had it in his sights ever since Special Counsel Jack Smith charged him with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election — which he still refuses to admit he lost — and illegally taking thousands of secret documents with him on leaving the White House in 2021.But neither case came to trial and the special counsel — in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president — dropped them both after Trump won the November presidential election.Trump rocked the department on his first day back in office by pardoning more than 1,500 supporters who, in an unprecedented act of US political violence, stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to interrupt certification of Biden’s election win.He has since packed the Justice Department top ranks with loyalists and his own personal defense attorneys.These include Bondi, who defended him at his impeachment trial in his first term, and two of his lawyers in the porn star hush money trial that saw Trump convicted by a New York judge last year.Trump also exacted revenge by firing a number of high-ranking officials and demoting or reassigning others.His iron grip over the Justice Department has sparked fears that he will use it to live up to another campaign pledge — “retribution” against his political enemies.

China-based DeepSeek shook up the world of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) early this year with a low-cost but high-performance model that challenges the hegemony of OpenAI and other big-spending behemoths.Since late 2022, just a handful of AI assistants — such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Google’s Gemini — have reigned supreme, becoming ever more capable thanks to multi-billion-dollar investments in engineers, data centers, and high-performance AI chips.But then DeepSeek upended the sector with its R1 model, which it said cost just $6 million or so, powered by less-advanced chips.While specialists suspect DeepSeek may have cost more than its creators claim, its debut fueled talk that GenAI assistants are becoming just a regular commodity, thanks to innovation and market forces.”The first company to train models must expend lots of resources to get there,” said CFRA senior equity analyst Angelo Zino.”The second mover can get there cheaper and more quickly.”At a HumanX AI conference in Las Vegas this week, Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf said it is getting less expensive to launch GenAI models — and less important which one people use.”I feel like we are moving to this multi-model world, which is a good thing,” Wolf said, pointing to the muted reception given to the most recent version of ChatGPT.- Stay flexible -At the conference, OpenAI chief product officer Kevin Weil pushed back against the notion that all models are created equal.”That’s actually not true,” Weil said.”The days of us having a 12-month lead are probably gone, but I think we have a three- to six-month lead, and that is really valuable.”Weil said OpenAI plans to fight to keep that narrowing edge over its competitors.With 400 million users, San Francisco-based OpenAI has the advantage of being able to use data from massive traffic to continually improve its models, Weil explained.”OpenAI has the Google advantage of being the thing that’s in everybody’s minds,” said Alpha Edison equity firm research director Fen Zhao.Jeff Seibert, chief of the accounting and AI start-up Digits, agreed that OpenAI will stay ahead of the pack but added that he expects the gap to eventually close.”For advanced use cases, yes, there will be a lot of advantages,” he said of OpenAI’s position.”But for a lot of stuff, it won’t matter as much.”Seibert advises entrepreneurs to design their technology to allow them to swap out GenAI models, affording them flexibility in a quickly changing industry.- Cash burn -Improved use of chips and new optimization techniques have driven down the cost of designing the large language models (LLMs) that power ChatGPT, Gemini and their rivals.An open-source approach taken by some LLMs is credited with helping accelerate innovation by making the software free for anyone to tinker with and improve.The valuation of closed-model startups such as Anthropic and OpenAI has likely peaked as their “first-mover advantage dissipates,” according to Zino.Japanese investment colossus SoftBank pumped $40 billion into OpenAI in February in a deal that valued the startup at $300 billion — almost double what it was last year.“If you’re burning a billion dollars a month, which I think OpenAI is, you have to keep raising money,” said Jai Das of venture capital firm Sapphire Ventures.”I have a hard time seeing how they get to a point where revenues are higher than the amount of cash they burn.”Anthropic raised $3.5 billion in early March, valuing the champion of responsible AI at $61.5 billion.

The US Senate appeared closer Friday to avoiding an economically damaging government funding shutdown after the Democrats’ top leader shied away from a major confrontation with President Donald Trump, prompting backlash from the left.Democrats are smarting over Trump’s radical spending cuts which have shredded entire sections of government and seen Congress largely bypassed in what critics say is an unconstitutional exercise of power by the White House.Many in the party argue that refusing to back the Republican bill funding the US government for another six months would be a chance for Democrats to demonstrate opposition to the Trump project. Republicans have a slim majority with 53 of the 100 senators, but need some Democratic support to reach the necessary 60 votes for getting their bill through.Ahead of the Friday midnight deadline, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer — who has long insisted that it is bad politics to shut down the government — said he would support the bill.A Democratic blockade of the bill and the ensuing chaos of the entire US government temporarily being out of funds would be “a gift” to Trump, he said.Many senior Democrats were furious at Schumer but early Friday, Trump signaled his pleasure at the climbdown.”Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took “guts” and courage!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.Among those incensed by Schumer’s decision was former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who issued a pointed statement Friday in apparent defiance of the Senate minority leader, calling the vote “a false choice between a government shutdown or a blank check that makes a devastating assault on…working families across America.” “Let’s be clear: neither is a good option for the American people. But this false choice that some are buying instead of fighting is unacceptable.” The backlash also prompted dozens of protesters to gather outside Schumer’s residence in Brooklyn, New York, calling on him to vote against the resolution.Schumer has been joined by Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senator John Fetterman. However, Schumer has not explicitly told his troops which way to vote, leaving it unclear whether enough Democrats will join Republicans.- Defying Elon Musk? -There have been four shutdowns where operations were affected for more than one business day, with the last occurring during Trump’s first term.During the disruption, up to 900,000 federal employees can be furloughed, while another million deemed essential workers — from air traffic controllers to police — work without pay.Back salaries are paid once Congress agrees to a funding bill.Meanwhile, Americans have to contend with a paralyzed government. Social Security and other benefits are protected, but there are typically delays in a variety of services while parks shut and food-safety inspections are halted.The latest tussle is focused on the far-reaching program run by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Trump’s advisor and top donor, billionaire Elon Musk.Several top Democrats, including Schumer, have warned that a shutdown could play into Musk’s hands, distracting from DOGE’s most unpopular actions and making it easier for him to announce more layoffs.Republicans voiced confidence that the needed Democratic support would be available, with several opposition senators facing challenging reelection fights in the 2026 midterms and wary of being blamed for chaos in Congress.One of the most vulnerable Democratic senators, Georgia’s Jon Ossoff, said however that he was a firm no, berating the Republican authors of the bill for failing to “impose any constraints on the reckless and out-of-control Trump administration.”John Thune, the Republican leader of the Senate, said Friday he had not spoken with his Democrat counterpart Schumer yet, telling Punchbowl News: “Passing this and getting this behind us is the best thing that can happen right now for everybody.”

The US Department of Education opened an investigation on Friday into dozens of universities over diversity, equity and inclusion programs that President Donald Trump alleges discriminate against white students.”The Department is working to reorient civil rights enforcement to ensure all students are protected from illegal discrimination,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.”Students must be assessed according to merit and accomplishment, not prejudged by the color of their skin,” McMahon said.The 45 universities being investigated for “allegedly engaging in race-exclusionary practices” include prestigious Ivy League schools Cornell and Yale and other leading academic institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago and the University of California-Berkeley.The Department of Education said the schools may have violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act by partnering with The PhD Project, a nonprofit that helps members of minority groups obtain doctoral degrees.The PhD Project “purports to provide doctoral students with insights into obtaining a PhD and networking opportunities, but limits eligibility based on the race of participants,” it said.In addition to the probe into the 45 universities, the Department of Education said it had opened an investigation into another seven schools over “alleged impermissible race-based scholarships and race-based segregation.”The Department of Education sent a letter to schools around the country last month stating that it “will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions.””The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent,” it said.The Department of Education, earlier this week, said it had opened an investigation into 60 colleges and universities for alleged “anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination.”The Trump administration cut $400 million in federal grants to Columbia University last week, accusing it of failing to protect Jewish students from harassment as protesters rallied against Israel’s offensive in Gaza.Columbia and other US campuses were rocked by student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. The demonstrations ignited accusations of anti-Semitism.In one of his first moves after taking office, Trump ended diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government that are intended to redress historical inequality but that he claims disadvantage white people, particularly men.

A pair of stranded astronauts will be one step closer to finally coming home when the next crew launches for the International Space Station on Friday.NASA and SpaceX are aiming for liftoff at 7:03 pm (2303 GMT) of a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft on the Crew-10 mission, after a technical issue with ground systems prevented launch on Wednesday.Crew-10 carries an international four-member team set to carry out science experiments on the orbital lab — but the greater interest comes from the fact that their arrival enables others to depart.NASA duo Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, veteran astronauts and ex-Navy pilots, have been stuck aboard the ISS since June after the Boeing Starliner spacecraft they were testing on its maiden crewed flight developed propulsion issues and was deemed unfit to fly them back. The Starliner instead returned empty, without experiencing further major issues.What was meant to have been a days-long trip for Wilmore and Williams has now lasted beyond nine months. Their stay has been longer than the standard ISS rotation for astronauts of roughly six months — but still much shorter than the US space record of 371 days set by NASA astronaut Frank Rubio from 2022-2023, or the world record held by Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov, who spent 437 continuous days aboard the Mir space station from 1994-1995.Still, the unexpected nature of their prolonged stay away from their families — they had to receive additional clothing and personal care items because they hadn’t packed enough — has garnered interest and sympathy.It’s also become something of a political flashpoint of late, as President Donald Trump and his close advisor, Elon Musk — who leads SpaceX — have suggested that former president Joe Biden “abandoned” the pair intentionally and rejected a plan to bring them back sooner.- ‘Maybe they love each other’ -That claim caused uproar in the space community, especially since Musk did not provide any specifics.The plan for the duo’s return has been unchanged ever since they were reassigned to SpaceX’s Crew-9, which arrived in September aboard another Dragon carrying only two crew members — instead of the usual four — to make room for Wilmore and Williams.Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen pointed this out on X, only for Musk to taunt him with a slur for mentally disabled people. Some retired astronauts rushed to Mogensen’s defense — while Wilmore appeared to back Musk, saying his comments must have been “factual” even though he was not privy to any details.Trump himself has been making waves for his bizarre comments, referring to Williams, a decorated former Naval captain, as “the woman with the wild hair” and even suggesting the two may have fallen in love.”They’ve been left up there — I hope they like each other, maybe they love each other, I don’t know,” he said during a recent White House press conference.Only once the Crew-10 spaceship arrives can the Crew-9 spaceship leave. Handover periods generally last a few days, and an earlier plan would have seen Crew-9 depart on Sunday for splashdown off the Florida coast — though it’s not clear if that timeline is still feasible.Along with Wilmore and Williams, NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov will also be aboard the returning Dragon capsule.Space remains an area of cooperation between the United States and Russia despite the Ukraine conflict, with cosmonauts traveling to the ISS aboard SpaceX Crew Dragons and astronauts doing the same via Soyuz capsules launched from Kazakhstan.The Crew-10 team consists of NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi, and Russia’s Kirill Peskov.

Stargazers across a swathe of the world marvelled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of Friday morning.The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa.The phenomenon happens when the Sun, Earth and Moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite.But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the Moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the Moon glowed a reddish colour.This is because the only sunlight that reaches the Moon is “bent and scattered” as it goes through Earth’s atmosphere, said Daniel Brown, an astronomer at Britain’s Nottingham Trent University.It is similar to how the light can become pink or red during sunrises or sunsets on Earth, he added.The more clouds and dust there are in Earth’s atmosphere, the redder the Moon appears.Brown called the lunar eclipse, which will last around six hours, “an amazing way to see the solar system in action”.The period when the Moon is completely in Earth’s shadow — called the totality — lasts just over an hour.This event has been dubbed the “Blood Worm Moon”, after one of the names given to March full moons by some Native Americans.- ‘Inspire us’ -In North America, the moon started to look like a bite was being taken out of it from 1:09 am Eastern Time (0509 GMT), with the totality from 2:26 am to 3:31 am, according to NASA.In France, the totality is from 7:26 am to 8:31 am local time (0626-0731 GMT), according to the French Institute of Celestial Mechanics and Ephemeris Calculation.Only the most western parts of Europe, such as France’s Brittany region, will get any chance to see the totality before the Moon sets.People in New Zealand have the opposite problem, with the eclipse only partially visible as the Moon rose.Brown dislikes the term “Blood Moon”, saying it has a negative connotation and “originates from a misinformed theory of the end of the world”.But not all societies took a negative view of these celestial shows.Some people in Africa traditionally viewed a lunar eclipse as a conflict between the Sun and Moon that could be resolved by people “demonstrating on Earth how we work together” and laying old feuds aside, Brown said.He called it “an amazing story that should inspire us all”.- Solar eclipse soon -It is the first total lunar eclipse since 2022, but there will be another one this September.Thursday’s event is a “Micromoon”, meaning the Moon is the farthest away it gets from Earth, making it appear about seven percent smaller than normal, according to the website Earthsky. This is the opposite of a “Supermoon”, as was seen during 2022’s lunar eclipse.Some stargazers will be in for another treat later this month — a partial solar eclipse, which is when the Moon blocks out the Sun’s light on Earth.This eclipse will be visible on March 29 in eastern Canada, parts of Europe, northern Russia and northwest Africa.Viewing even a partial solar eclipse with the naked eye is dangerous, and people are advised to use special eclipse glasses or pinhole projectors.

The US government was hours from shutting down Friday as Democrats smarting over President Donald Trump’s spending cuts threatened to block his federal funding plans — although hopes were high for a resolution to the impasse.Facing a Friday night deadline to fund the government or allow it to start winding down, the Senate is set to vote ahead of the midnight cut-off on a Trump-backed bill passed by the House of Representatives.The deal would keep federal operations going for another six months, but Democrats are under pressure from their grassroots activists to defy Trump and reject a text they say is full of harmful spending cuts. Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer — who has long insisted that it is bad politics to shut down the government — said he would support the bill, a move seen as improving its chances of success.”President Trump and Republicans leaders would like nothing more than to pull us into the mud of a protracted government shutdown. For Donald Trump, a shutdown would be a gift,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.”It would be the best distraction he could ask for from his awful agenda. Right now, Donald Trump owns the chaos in the government.”He was joined by Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, while other Democrats — worried that they would be blamed over a stoppage with no obvious exit ramp — also appeared ready to back down.But Schumer has not explicitly told his troops which way to jump, telling reporters “each is making his or her own decision” and adding to the suspense of a vote that could still go either way.- ‘Fish or cut bait’ -There have been four shutdowns where operations were affected for more than one business day, with the last occurring during Trump’s first term.During the disruption, up to 900,000 federal employees can be furloughed, while another million deemed essential workers — from air traffic controllers to police — work without pay. Social Security and other benefits are protected, but there are typically delays in a variety of services while parks shut and food-safety inspections are halted.The latest tussle is focused on Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), unofficially spearheaded by tycoon Elon Musk, the world’s richest man.DOGE aims to cut federal spending by $1 trillion this year and claims to have made savings so far of more than $100 billion, although verified cost savings amount to less than a tenth of that figure.Grassroots Democrats, infuriated by what they see as the SpaceX and Tesla CEO’s lawless rampage through the federal bureaucracy, want their leaders to fight hard to defy DOGE and Trump.While Republicans control 53 seats in the 100-member Senate, legislation in the upper chamber requires a preliminary ballot with a 60-vote threshold.The Senate has rules to encourage bipartisan working, meaning the funding bill is likely to need support from eight members of the Democratic minority.This looked like a bridge too far earlier in the week for Democrats furious that the legislation contained no language to rein in Musk. But several top party figures have warned that a shutdown could play into Musk’s hands, distracting from DOGE’s most unpopular actions and making it easier for him to announce more layoffs.Republicans voiced confidence that the needed Democratic support would be available, with several opposition senators facing challenging reelection fights in the 2026 midterms and wary of being blamed for chaos in Congress.One of the most vulnerable, Georgia’s Jon Ossof, said however that he was a firm no, berating Republican authors of the bill for failing to “impose any constraints on the reckless and out-of-control Trump administration.”But John Thune, the Republican leader of the Senate, put Democrats on notice that it was “time for Democrats to fish or cut bait.””Democrats need to decide if they’re going to support this funding legislation, or if they’re going to shut down the government,” he said.