Baby bottle craze sweeps Mideast

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Cafes across several Gulf Arab states started selling coffee and other cold drinks in baby bottles this month, kicking off a new trend that has elicited excitement, confusion -- and backlash. The fad began at Einstein Cafe, a slick dessert chain with branches across the region, from Dubai to Kuwait to Bahrain. Instead of ordinary paper cups, the cafe, inspired by pictures of trendy-looking bottles shared on social media, decided to serve its thick milky drinks in plastic baby bottles. Although the franchise was no newcomer to baby-themed products -- a milkshake with cerelac, the rice cereal for infants, is a long-standing bestseller -- the unprecedented fervor over the feeding bottles came as a bit of a shock. All the stress and anxiety over the coronavirus pandemic appears to have spurred some to find an outlet in the strange new craze. "Everyone wanted to buy it, people called all day, telling us they're coming with their friends, they're coming with their father and mother," Younes Molla, CEO of the Einstein franchise in the United Arab Emirates, told The Associated Press this week. "After so many months with the pandemic, with all the difficulties, people took photos, they had fun, they remembered their childhood." Lines clogged Einstein stores across the Gulf. People of all ages streamed onto sidewalks, waiting for their chance to suck coffee and juice from a plastic bottle. Some patrons even brought their own baby bottles to other cafes, pleading with bewildered baristas to fill them up. Pictures of baby bottles filled with colorful kaleidoscopes of drinks drew thousands of likes on Instagram and ricocheted across the popular social media app TikTok. A cure for the world's uncertainty? A response to some primal instinct? Either way, a trend was born. Soon, however, online haters took note -- the baby bottle drinkers and providers faced a barrage of nasty comments. "People were so angry, they said horrible things, that we were an 'aeb,' to Islam and the Muslim culture," said Molla, using the Arabic term for shame or dishonor. Last week, the anger reached the highest levels of government. Dubai authorities cracked down. Inspection teams burst into cafes where the trend had taken off and handed out fines. "Such indiscriminate use of baby bottles is not only against local culture and traditions," read the government statement, "but the mishandling of the bottle during the filling could also contribute to the spread of COVID-19," an apparent reference to those bringing their used bottles to other cafes.

8 killed when pickup crashes

AUSTIN, Texas -- Eight people in a pickup truck loaded with immigrants were killed when the vehicle crashed into another truck during a police chase that began when the driver refused to pull over for a traffic violation near the Texas border city of Del Rio. The collision happened weeks after one of the deadliest highway crashes involving migrants entering the U.S. without permission and amid rising crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Texas Department of Public Safety says troopers were chasing a red Dodge pickup truck on U.S. Highway 277 on Monday afternoon when the truck collided head-on with a white Ford F-150 nearly 30 miles north of Del Rio. The driver and a child passenger of the Ford F-150 were hospitalized, as was one of the passengers from the Dodge pickup. All eight of the people killed and the surviving passenger of the Dodge pickup were immigrants in the U.S. without authorization.

Union: Ford backs out on vow

DETROIT -- Ford Motor Co. has backed out on a contract promise to invest $900 million at an assembly plant outside Cleveland for an unnamed product line that instead will be produced in Mexico, United Auto Workers officials said. "We 100% reject the company's decision to put corporate greed and more potential profits over American jobs and the future of our members," UAW Vice President and Director Gerald Kariem said in a letter sent to union members late last week. Ford's promised investment at the Ohio Assembly Plant in Avon Lake was made during 2019 contract negotiations. The plant currently has around 1,700 hourly workers producing Ford E-series vans and Super Duty pickup trucks.

2 saved from dangling pickup

BOISE, Idaho -- Authorities say a set of camp trailer safety chains and quick, careful work by emergency crews saved two people after their pickup truck plunged off a bridge, leaving them dangling above a deep gorge in southern Idaho. Idaho State Police responded to the accident at about 2:45 p.m. Monday, said ISP spokeswoman Lynn Hightower. A trooper found a man and a woman inside the pickup truck that was dangling, nose-down, off the side of the bridge spanning the Malad Gorge. The gorge is narrow but is roughly 100 feet deep below the bridge, roughly the height of a 10-story building. The gorge reaches about 250 feet deep at its deepest point. The only thing keeping the 2004 Ford F-350 pickup from falling was the set of "safety chains" attaching the 30-foot camper trailer, which remained on the bridge, to the pickup. A state trooper and local sheriff's deputy first used an additional set of chains from a nearby semi-truck to help support the dangling pickup truck, holding it in place until additional rescuers with cranes, rope rescue gear and other equipment could arrive. Emergency crews were then able to rappel down to the hanging truck and attach a harness to each occupant, allowing them to be safely carried back to the bridge. Both were taken to hospitals, and neither appeared to have life-threatening injuries, Hightower said. Two small dogs inside the pickup were also safely rescued, and taken to the home of a nearby family member. Workers were still attempting to pull the pickup from the precipice Monday evening. It was terrifying," Hightower said. "It was definitely a heroic rescue from everybody that was out there, and thankfully, they're all fine." Witnesses said the truck appeared to lose control before the crash, first swerving to hit the right shoulder barrier before sliding over the left-side guardrail. The truck then tipped over the bridge.

Ex-Marine fights spy claims

WASHINGTON -- After Amir Hekmati was released from Iranian custody in a 2016 deal trumpeted as a diplomatic breakthrough, he was declared eligible for $20 million from a special U.S. government fund as compensation for years of imprisonment that included brutal torture. But payday never arrived, leaving Hekmati to wonder why. The answer has finally arrived: Newly filed court documents reviewed by The Associated Press reveal decade-old FBI suspicions that he traveled to Iran with the goal of selling classified secrets to the government. Hekmati vigorously disputes the allegations, has never faced criminal charges and is challenging a special master's conclusion that he lied about his visit to Iran and is therefore not entitled to the money. The FBI suspicions help explain the government's ongoing refusal to pay Hekmati for his ordeal and muddy the narrative around a U.S. citizen, Marine and Iraq war veteran whose release was championed at the U.S. government's highest levels, including by Joe Biden, then the vice president, and John Kerry, then the secretary of state. The documents offer radically conflicting accounts of Hekmati's purpose in visiting Iran and detail the simmering behind-the-scenes dispute over whether he is entitled to access a fund that compensates victims of international terrorism. Hekmati said in a sworn statement that allegations he sought to sell out to Iran are ridiculous and offensive. His lawyers say the government's suspicions, detailed in FBI documents and letters from the fund's special master denying payments, are groundless and based on hearsay. "In this case, the U.S. government should put up or shut up," said Scott Gilbert, a lawyer hired to recover damages. "If the government believes they have a case, indict Amir. Try Amir. But you, the U.S. government, won't do that because you can't do that. You don't have sufficient factual evidence to do that."

Child border crossings surging

WASHINGTON -- A surge of migrants on the Southwest border has the Biden administration on the defensive, with the head of Homeland Security acknowledging the depth of the problem Tuesday but insisting it's under control and that he won't revive a Trump-era practice of immediately expelling teens and children. The number of migrants being stopped at the U.S.-Mexico border has been rising steadily since last April, and the administration is still rapidly expelling most single adults and families under a public health order issued by President Donald Trump at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. But it is allowing teens and children to stay, at least temporarily, and they have been coming in ever larger numbers. More than 4,000 migrant children were being held by the Border Patrol custody as of Sunday, including at least 3,000 in custody longer than the 72-hour limit set by a court order, according to a U.S. official. The agency took in an additional 561 on Monday, twice the recent average, according to a second official. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss figures not yet publicly released. It has put President Joe Biden in a difficult spot, blasted by Republicans for what they view as encouragement to illegal border crossers and by some Democrats over the the prolonged detention of minors. It's also a challenge to his effort to overhaul the broader Trump policies that sought to curtail both legal and illegal immigration.

Still snarled by record blizzard

CHEYENNE, Wyo. -- Schools in eastern Wyoming and northern Colorado remained closed Tuesday for a second day and roads were still impassable in the aftermath of a blizzard that pummeled the region with record snowfall. Crews didn't expect to reopen some highways for another day, though a portion of Interstate 25 reopened south of Wyoming's capital, Cheyenne, for the first time since Saturday. Firefighters used an enclosed snow machine called a snowcat to get doctors to an operating room for a patient's emergency surgery. "Those guys are heroes," said one of the surgeons, Elias Kfoury. "The first responders and how they stepped up to the occasion essentially resulted in saving somebody's life."

Google into sleep surveillance

SAN RAMON, Calif. -- Google's next internet-connected home device will test whether consumers trust the company enough to let it snoop on their sleep. New sleep-sensing technology will be a key feature on Google's latest version of its Nest Hub, a 7-inch smart screen unveiled Tuesday. Like the previous generation, the $100 Nest Hub can display pictures and video in addition to fielding questions and handling household tasks through Google's voice-activated assistant. It also doesn't feature a camera. But the latest Nest Hub's new trick may help differentiate it from similar devices, such as Amazon's Echo Show, while also providing a springboard for Google to get more involved in helping people manage their health. If you allow it, the device will also monitor your sleeping patterns from your bedside, negating the need to wear a fitness device or any other potentially bothersome gadget in bed. The feature, which Google intends to offer for free through at least this year, relies on a new chip Google calls Soli, which uses radar to detect motion, including the depth of a person's breathing. The Nest Hub is supposed to generate weekly sleep reports with easy-to-understand breakdowns on the length and quality of sleep, how frequently the user gets up at night and snoring and coughing frequency, along with tips developed in consultation with the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Google says it honed the technology by studying 15,000 sleeping people over a combined 110,000 nights. That kind of help may sound appealing to the millions of people who have trouble sleeping. But the feature may also raise privacy concerns -- especially given Google's long history of online surveillance to collect personal details such as interests, habits and whereabouts to help sell the digital ads that generate most of its revenue. It also underscores Google's obvious intent to extend its tentacles into new areas of people's lives in its relentless quest to make more money, said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, a consumer and privacy rights group. "Google's goal is to monetize every cell of your body," Chester said.

Homecoming court vote fraud

PENSACOLA, Fla. -- An assistant principal at an elementary school is accused of accessing the school district's internal system to cast fraudulent votes for her daughter who was elected homecoming queen at her high school. On Monday, agents arrested Laura Rose Carroll, 50, and her 17-year-old daughter on multiple charges stemming from the October homecoming vote at Tate High School in Pensacola. The investigation began in November when the Escambia County School District reported unauthorized access into hundreds of student accounts. Investigators found that in October, hundreds of votes for the school's homecoming court were flagged as fraudulent, the news release said. There were 117 votes from the same IP address within a short period of time, the investigation found. That's when investigators found evidence of unauthorized access to the system linked to Carroll's cellphone and computers at her home. The were 246 votes cast for homecoming court from those devices. Carroll is an assistant principal at Bellview Elementary School in Pensacola. Multiple Tate students told investigators the daughter described using her mother's system access, or of watching her mother access records, for years, the report said. Investigators learned that since August 2019, Carroll's account accessed 372 high school records and 339 of those were Tate students. Carroll has been suspended from her job. Her daughter has been expelled. Each are charged with offenses against users of computers, computer systems, computer networks and electronic devices; unlawful use of a two-way communications device; criminal use of personally identifiable information and conspiracy to commit those offenses.

US: Russia tried to help Trump

Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized influence operations to help Donald Trump in last November's presidential election, according to a declassified intelligence assessment that found broad efforts by the Kremlin and Iran to shape the outcome of the race but ultimately no evidence that any foreign actor changed votes or otherwise disrupted the voting process. The report released Tuesday from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence represents the most detailed assessment of the array of foreign threats to the 2020 election. These included efforts by Iran to undermine confidence in the vote and harm Trump's re-election prospects.

Russia threatens to block Twitter

MOSCOW -- Russian authorities said Tuesday they would block Twitter in a month if it doesn't take steps to remove banned content, a move that escalates the Russian government's drawn-out standoff with social media platforms that have played a major role in amplifying dissent in Russia. Russia's state communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, last week announced it was slowing down the speed of uploading photos and videos to Twitter over its alleged failure to remove content encouraging suicide among children and information about drugs and child pornography. The agency said Twitter has failed to remove more than 3,000 posts with banned content, including more than 2,500 posts encouraging suicide among minors. The platform responded by emphasizing its policy of zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation, promotion of suicide and drug sales.

Gunmen kill at least 58 in Niger

NIAMEY, Niger -- Gunmen on motorcycles attacked a group of civilians returning from market day in a volatile corner of Niger, leaving at least 58 people dead and then burning granaries to the ground. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday's massacres, though extremists belonging to the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara group are known to be active in the Tillaberi region where the villages were attacked. The victims were returning home from a large livestock market in Banibangou, near Niger's troubled border with Mali. The suspected extremists also destroyed nearby granaries that held valuable food stores.

Battle over Floyd's 2019 arrest

MINNEAPOLIS -- A lawyer for the former Minneapolis police officer who pressed his knee against George Floyd's neck wants to bring up Floyd's history of drug use and a previous arrest in an effort to show jurors that Floyd was partly to blame for his own death. A prosecutor says it's irrelevant and that Derek Chauvin's lawyer is trying to smear Floyd to excuse his client's actions. Chauvin is charged with murder and manslaughter. Now it's up to Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill to decide the critical question of how much the high-profile trial will revolve around Floyd's own actions on May 25, when the Black man was declared dead after Chauvin, who is white, pressed his knee against his neck for about nine minutes. Floyd's death, captured on a widely seen bystander video, set off weeks of sometimes-violent protests across the country and led to a national reckoning on racial justice. The judge previously rejected Chauvin's attempt to tell the jury about Floyd's May 2019 arrest -- a year before his fatal encounter with Chauvin -- but heard fresh arguments Tuesday from both sides. He said he would rule on the request Thursday.