Facebook announces new transparency

WASHINGTON — Under pressure in advance of hearings on Russian election interference, Facebook is moving to increase transparency for everyone who sees and buys political advertising on its site.

Executives for the social media company said Friday they will verify political ad buyers in federal elections, requiring them to reveal correct names and locations. The site will also create new graphics where users can click on the ads and find out more about who’s behind them.

More broadly, Rob Goldman, Facebook’s vice president in charge of ad products, said the company is building new transparency tools in which all advertisers — even those that aren’t political — are associated with a page, and users can click on a link to see all of the ads any advertiser is running.

Users also will be able to see all of the ads paid for by the advertisers, whether or not those ads were originally targeted toward them.

The move comes after the company acknowledged it had found more than 3,000 ads linked to Russia that focused on divisive U.S. social issues and were seen by an estimated 10 million people before and after the 2016 U.S. elections.

Trump irked by JFK papers secrecy

WASHINGTON — It was a showdown 25 years in the making: With the world itching to finally get a look at classified Kennedy assassination files, and the deadline for their release just hours away, intelligence officials were still angling for a way to keep their secrets. President Donald Trump, the one man able to block the release, did not appreciate their persistence. He did not intend to make this easy.

Like much else surrounding investigations of the 1963 killing of President John F. Kennedy, Thursday’s release of 2,800 records from the JFK files was anything but smooth. It came together only at the last minute, with White House lawyers still fielding late-arriving requests for additional redactions in the morning and an irritated Trump continuing to resist signing off on the request, according to an account by two White House officials. They spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions.

The tale of the final hours before the congressionally mandated 25-year release deadline adds a new chapter to the story of Trump’s troubled relationship with his spy agencies. He again flashed his skepticism and unpredictability in dealing with agencies long accustomed to a level of deference. Intelligence officials, meanwhile, were again left scratching their heads about a president whose impulses they cannot predict.

Trump staff disavows Puerto Rico power contract

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration scrambled Friday to distance itself from the decision to award a $300 million contract to help restore Puerto Rico’s power grid to a tiny Montana company from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s hometown.

The White House said federal officials played no role in the selection of Whitefish Energy Holdings by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority.

The administration disavowed the contract amid a growing number of investigations and a bipartisan chorus of criticism from Capitol Hill.

Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Zinke had given the president his personal assurance that he had nothing to do with what she described as “a state and local decision made by the Puerto Rican authorities and not the federal government.”

The interior secretary also issued a fiery denial on Twitter, saying “Only in elitist Washington, D.C., would being from a small town be considered a crime.”

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Sharks and lost hope: 2 women rescued after 5 months at sea

HONOLULU — Their engine was crippled, their mast was damaged and things went downhill from there for two women who set out to sail the 2,700 miles from Hawaii to Tahiti.

As their 50-foot sailboat drifted helplessly in the middle of the Pacific for months, their water purifier conked out, sharks started ramming their vessel, their food ran low and their distress calls and signal flares went unanswered day after day.

Some nights they went to sleep wondering if they would live to see the sun rise.

Then their fortunes changed Tuesday: Five and a half months after Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava embarked on a journey that might normally take about three weeks, a Taiwanese fishing vessel spotted their boat 900 miles off Japan and thousands of miles in the wrong direction from Tahiti.

The Navy sent the USS Ashland to their rescue.

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Not just China: US seeks Russia’s help, too, with NKorea

WASHINGTON — China’s increasingly icy posture is thrusting Russia forward as North Korea’s preferred diplomatic partner, forcing the Trump administration to turn to Moscow for help in isolating the rogue, nuclear-armed nation.

Beijing’s close ties to Pyongyang have been strained since leader Kim Jong Un ordered the 2013 execution of his uncle who had been the countries’ chief liaison. Since then, the allies once said to be as “close as lips and teeth” have moved further apart over China’s adoption of U.N. sanctions designed to starve North Korea of revenue for its nuclear and missile programs.

But China isn’t North Korea’s only traditionally friendly neighbor. And for the United States, Russia’s increased importance comes at an uncomfortable time. The State Department on Friday warned countries and companies around the world they risk being blacklisted if they do business with dozens of Russian firms. Investigations also continue into allegations Russia interfered in last year’s U.S. presidential election.

“Russia could play a useful diplomatic role,” Joseph Yun, the U.S. envoy to North Korea, said in an Associated Press interview. “If Russia delivers a unified message with the U.S., China, South Korea and Japan that the U.S. is not interested in regime change but rather we want to resolve the WMD issue, they can help better than anyone else to convince them of that.”

Yun said he and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson want Moscow to support the international pressure campaign against North Korea by implementing U.N sanctions, and to urge the isolated, often inscrutable government to engage in diplomatic efforts. Washington also wants to prevent transfers of weapons technology, amid disputed assessments that North Korea may have acquired a high-performance missile engine through illicit networks in Russia or Ukraine.

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Science Says: Jack Frost nipping at your nose ever later

WASHINGTON — Winter is coming … later. And it’s leaving ever earlier.

Across the United States, the year’s first freeze has been arriving further and further into the calendar, according to more than a century of measurements from weather stations nationwide.

Scientists say it is yet another sign of the changing climate, and that it has good and bad consequences for the nation. There could be more fruits and vegetables — and also more allergies and pests.

“I’m happy about it,” said Karen Duncan of Streator, Illinois. Her flowers are in bloom because she’s had no frost this year yet, just as she had none last year at this time either. On the other hand, she said just last week it was too hot and buggy to go out — in late October, near Chicago.

The trend of ever later first freezes appears to have started around 1980, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of data from 700 weather stations across the U.S. going back to 1895 compiled by Ken Kunkel, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information.

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AP FACT CHECK: Past anti-drug campaigns show little success

President Donald Trump is promising a “massive advertising campaign” as part of his administration’s response to the worst drug crisis in U.S. history, but past marketing efforts have shown few results and experts say other measures could be more effective in curbing the current epidemic.

Trump declared opioid overdoses a public health emergency on Thursday and laid out steps to combat addiction and abuse with heroin and prescription painkillers, drugs that kill nearly 100 Americans daily.

Trump put special emphasis on advertising to discourage young people from trying drugs, saying, “They will see the devastation and the ruination it causes.”

“I think that’s going to end up being our most important thing,” Trump said in a speech from the White House. “Really tough, really big, really great advertising, so we get to people before they start.”

Yet government and academic assessments of “Just Say No”-style messages have repeatedly shown poor results.

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Facebook ads: Social media giant announces new transparency

WASHINGTON — Under pressure in advance of hearings on Russian election interference, Facebook is moving to increase transparency for everyone who sees and buys political advertising on its site.

Executives for the social media company said Friday they will verify political ad buyers in federal elections, requiring them to reveal correct names and locations. The site will also create new graphics where users can click on the ads and find out more about who’s behind them.

More broadly, Rob Goldman, Facebook’s vice president in charge of ad products, said the company is building new transparency tools in which all advertisers — even those that aren’t political — are associated with a page, and users can click on a link to see all of the ads any advertiser is running.

Users also will be able to see all of the ads paid for by the advertisers, whether or not those ads were originally targeted toward them.

The move comes after the company acknowledged it had found more than 3,000 ads linked to Russia that focused on divisive U.S. social issues and were seen by an estimated 10 million people before and after the 2016 U.S. elections.