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Fencing offers a ray of hope to young people living in Nairobi’s poorest neighborhoods. This is not just a hobby for them: it's a force for good in their lives. Fencing has helped carve a path away from crime, drugs, and other social pressures.

"I used to be a gangster," says Mburu Wanyoike, who is now a coach for Kenya's National Fencing team. "I was in crime, and crime makes you feel isolated. It actually puts you in a place where you are isolated, making you feel depressed, having stress. And I chose fencing as a way for me to escape out of the hood and escape that lifestyle."

His journey from delinquency to fencing coach and senior athlete in Kenya's national team has been transformative. However, challenges persist, particularly regarding the affordability of fencing equipment.

"Sometimes it is tough when it comes to competing with well-equipped international countries that are well organized, so what we do is just to move on with enthusiasm and obsession. The fact that we don't have the equipment, the limited ones we have, we use them. We don't complain that we do not have equipment," says Wanyoike.

Tsavora Fencing Mtaani, an initiative under Tsavora Fencing, offers mentorship and training in fencing to the youth of these impoverished neighborhoods, shielding them from the dangers of their environment.

With 45 members, most of whom are students, the team serves as a beacon of hope in the community. Participants are required to become disciplined and put on integrity.

Steve Okalo, Secretary General of the Kenya Fencing Federation, acknowledges the uphill battle the sport faces in gaining popularity but remains optimistic about its future.

"Fencing is not a popular sport like football or athletics, but we are trying our best to see how it is going because when we started, I started with about four people and now I'm seeing that I have good fencers," Okalo remarks.

As Tsavora Fencing continues to thrive, fueled by the determination of its members and the support of the community, it stands as a testament to the transformative power of sport in even the most challenging environments.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Conservationists are marking 25 years of crocodile breeding and recovery in Cambodia, with a record release of a critically endangered species.

Once believed extinct, Siamese crocodiles were rediscovered in Cambodia in the early 2000s. Conservationists at Fauna & Flora International have worked to save them by breeding them in protected conditions and then releasing them into remote areas of forest to bolster wild populations.

International demand for crocodile skins and the boom of the crocodile farming industry has been blamed for pushing the species to extinction in Cambodia.

“Twenty-five years ago now, Fauna & Flora rediscovered a population of Siamese Crocodiles in Cambodia,” says Pablo Sinovas, country director of Fauna & Flora International in Cambodia.

“The species was thought to be extinct in the wild up until that point. And so, following that discovery, we have been working with the government and with local communities to help bring the species back from the brink of extinction. We are doing that by protecting the habitat, by monitoring populations, and importantly by breeding the species in captivity and taking it back into remote areas in the wild where they are also protected by those local community patrols.”

Following the groundbreaking discovery, Fauna & Flora launched the Cambodian Crocodile Conservation Programme with the goal of safeguarding the recovery of the species.

“Siamese crocodiles are one of the rarest reptiles in the world,” Sinovas says.

“To help with its recovery, we are releasing them in very remote sites in the Cardamom Mountains, a jungle area where the species can be safe. And we are doing this because it is an important species for the ecosystem. As a top predator, it contributes to maintaining ecosystem health. Also in Cambodia, this is a very important species culturally. It is considered to be sacred by Indigenous people in that landscape. And so, the recovery of the species is essential from an ecological, as well as cultural, perspective.”

To mark 25 years since the rediscovery of Siamese crocodiles, Fauna & Flora released 50 crocodiles into the Cardamom Mountains last month.

They say this is the largest crocodile release on record.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed off on legislation designed to protect songwriters, performers and other music industry professionals against the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.

The move makes Tennessee, long known as the birthplace of country music and the launchpad for musical legends, the first state in the U.S. to enact such measures. Supporters say the goal is to ensure that AI tools cannot replicate an artist’s voice without their consent. The bill goes into effect July 1.

“We employ more people in Tennessee in the music industry than any other state,” Lee told reporters shortly after signing the bill into law. “Artists have intellectual property. They have gifts. They have a uniqueness that is theirs and theirs alone, certainly not artificial intelligence.”

The Volunteer State is just one of three states where name, photographs and likeness are considered a property right rather than a right of publicity. According to the newly signed statute—dubbed the Ensuring Likeness, Voice, and Image Security Act or “ELVIS Act”—vocal likeness will now be added to that list.

The law also creates a new civil action where people can be held liable if they publish or perform an individual’s voice without permission, as well as use a technology to produce an artist’s name, photographs, voice or likeness without the proper authorization.

Yet it remains to be seen how effective the legislation will be for artists looking to shield their art from being scraped and replicated by AI without their permission. Supporters like Lee acknowledged that despite the sweeping support from those inside the music industry and unanimous approval from the Tennessee Statehouse, the legislation is untested. Amid ongoing clashes between the GOP supermajority and a handful of Democrats, this level of bipartisan agreement is a shocking anomaly.

Many Tennessee musicians say they don’t have the luxury of waiting for a perfect solution, pointing out that the threats of AI are already showing up on their cellphones and in their recording studios.

“Stuff comes in on my phone and I can’t tell it’s not me,” said country star Luke Bryan. “It’s a real deal now and hopefully this will curb it and slow it down.”

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The theft of sensitive information belonging to millions of AT&T’s current and former customers has been recently discovered online, the telecommunications giant said in March.

In a March 30 announcement addressing the data breach, AT&T said that a dataset found on the “dark web” contains information including some Social Security numbers and passcodes for about 7.6 million current account holders and 65.4 million former account holders.

Whether the data “originated from AT&T or one of its vendors” is still unknown, the Dallas-based company noted—adding that it had launched an investigation into the incident. AT&T has also begun notifying customers whose personal information was compromised.

Consumers impacted by this breach should be receiving an email or letter directly from AT&T about the incident. The email notices began going out on March 30, an AT&T spokesperson confirmed to The Associated Press.

Beyond these notifications, AT&T said that it had already reset the passcodes of current users. The company added that it would pay for credit monitoring services where applicable. AT&T also said that it “launched a robust investigation” with internal and external cybersecurity experts to investigate the situation further. AT&T has seen several data breaches that range in size and impact over the years.

While the company says the data in this latest breach surfaced on a hacking forum several weeks ago, it closely resembles a similar breach that surfaced in 2021 but which AT&T never acknowledged, cybersecurity researcher Troy Hunt told the AP.

Avoiding data breaches entirely can be tricky in our ever-digitized world, but consumers can take some steps to help protect themselves going forward.

The basics include creating hard-to-guess passwords and using multifactor authentication when possible. If you receive a notice about a breach, it's a good idea to change your password and monitor account activity for any suspicious transactions. You'll also want to visit a company's official website for reliable contact information—as scammers sometimes try to take advantage of news like data breaches to gain your trust through look-alike phishing emails or phone calls.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

The fast-food chain Chick-fil-A backtracked from its decade-old "no antibiotics ever" pledge intended to help prevent human antibiotic resistance linked to the rampant use of the drugs in livestock production.

Instead, the company said in a statement that it will embrace a standard known as "no antibiotics important to human medicine," often abbreviated as NAIHM, which entails the avoidance of medications commonly used to treat people and limits the use of animal antibiotics to cases of actual animal illness.

Livestock producers have long used antibiotics to boost rapid weight gain in animals such as chickens, pigs, cows and sheep, improving the profitability of their businesses. Over the past decade, however, many nations, including the United States, have begun to restrict the practice as evidence mounted that it was contributing to drug resistance and reducing the effectiveness of antibiotics against disease in humans.

Chick-fil-A said it will begin shifting to the new policy in the spring of 2024. A company spokesman added that the move reflects company concerns about its ability to acquire sufficient supplies of antibiotic-free chicken. One of the poultry industry's largest companies, Tyson Foods, said last year that it was reintroducing some antibiotics to its chicken production and removing its “No Antibiotics Ever” package labeling. It began to eliminate antibiotics from some of its poultry production in 2015.

In a May 2023 video featured on the Tyson Foods YouTube channel, Tyson's senior director of animal welfare, Karen Christensen, described the shift as "based on scientific research and industry learnings." She noted that Tyson planned to begin using antibiotics known as ionophores, which don't play a role in human medicine, to "improve the overall health and welfare of the birds in our care." Ionophores have long been used to promote growth in livestock.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.

Meta sunsetted Facebook News in early April for users in the U.S. and Australia as the platform further deemphasizes news and politics. The feature was shut down in the U.K., France, and Germany last year.

Launched in 2019, the News tab curated headlines from national and international news organizations, as well as smaller, local publications.

Meta says users can still be able to view links to news articles, and news organizations can still be able to post and promote their stories and websites, as any other individual or organization can on Facebook.

The change came as Meta tries to scale back news and political content on its platforms following years of criticism about how it handles misinformation and whether it contributes to political polarization.

“This change does not impact posts from accounts people choose to follow; it impacts what the system recommends, and people can control if they want more,” said Dani Lever, a Meta spokesperson. “This announcement expands on years of work on how we approach and treat political content based on what people have told us they wanted.”

Meta said the change to the News tab does not affect its fact-checking network and review of misinformation. But misinformation remains a challenge for the company, especially as the U.S. presidential election and other races get underway.

“Facebook didn’t envision itself as a political platform. It was run by tech people. And then suddenly it started scaling and they found themselves immersed in politics, and they themselves became the headline,” said Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute in the Cornell Brooks School of Public Policy who studies tech policy and how new technologies evolve over time.

News makes up less than 3% of what users worldwide see in their Facebook feeds, Meta said, adding that the number of people using Facebook News in Australia and the U.S. dropped by over 80% last year.

However, according to a 2023 Pew Research study, half of U.S. adults get news at least sometimes from social media. And one platform outpaces the rest: Facebook.

This article was provided by The Associated Press.