National Retail Federation says 2021 data was flawed and based on congressional testimony from president of an advocacy group

The powerful National Retail Federation (NRF) lobbying group has retracted a claim that “organized retail crime” accounted for “nearly half” of the shopping industry’s $94.5bn losses due to theft or “shrink” in 2021.

The industry group had said the impact of organized retail crime, which it previously claimed had increased by 26.5%, had become increasingly violent. Retail giants like Target, Walmart and Walgreens said it was threatening their businesses.

The NRF said the figure was based on a congressional testimony from Ben Dugan, the former president of an advocacy group, the Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail, and that an analyst from K2 Integrity, a risk consultancy that co-authored the report, inferred the “nearly half” claim.

Edward C. Mathews, 47, had a pattern of terrorizing his Black neighbors, the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office said.

A white New Jersey man who was captured in a viral video in 2021 harassing his Black neighbors and hurling racial slurs was sentenced Friday to eight years in prison.

Edward C. Mathews, 47, was ordered to serve at least four years before he is eligible for parole, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

In October, he pleaded guilty to four counts of bias intimidation and possession of a controlled dangerous substance with intent to distribute. The charges stem from a 2021 incident in which footage showed him repeatedly calling his neighbors the N-word and another offensive slur outside a home in Mount Laurel.

A woman whose fetus was unlikely to survive called more than a dozen abortion clinics before finding one that would take her, only to be put on weekslong waiting lists. A teen waited seven weeks for an abortion because it took her mother that long to get her an appointment. Others seeking the procedure faced waits because they struggled to travel hundreds of miles for care.

Such obstacles have grown more common since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, doctors and researchers say, causing delays that can lead to abortions that are more complex, costly and in some cases riskier — especially as pregnancies get further along.

About half of U.S. states now have laws that ban or restrict access to abortion. Because of that, many clinics don’t offer the procedure, which has increased demand for appointments at the remaining providers.

Apps and websites that use artificial intelligence to undress women in photos are soaring in popularity, according to researchers.

In September alone, 24 million people visited undressing websites, according to the social network analysis company Graphika.

Many of these undressing, or “nudify,” services use popular social networks for marketing, according to Graphika. For instance, since the beginning of this year, the number of links advertising undressing apps increased more than 2,400% on social media, including on X and Reddit, the researchers said. The services use AI to recreate an image so that the person is nude. Many of the services only work on women.

These apps are part of a worrying trend of non-consensual pornography being developed and distributed because of advances in artificial intelligence — a type of fabricated media known as deepfake pornography. Its proliferation runs into serious legal and ethical hurdles, as the images are often taken from social media and distributed without the consent, control or knowledge of the subject.

The Texas Supreme Court on Friday night put on hold a judge’s ruling that approved an abortion for a pregnant woman whose fetus has a fatal diagnosis, throwing into limbo an unprecedented challenge to one of the most restrictive bans in the U.S.

The order by the all-Republican court came more than 30 hours after Kate Cox, a 31-year-old mother of two from the Dallas area, received a temporary restraining order from a lower court judge that prevents Texas from enforcing the state’s ban in her case.

In a one-page order, the court said it was temporarily staying Thursday’s ruling “without regard to the merits.” The case is still pending.

Public support for the projects has overcome some concerns about costs, as the U.S. plays catchup with other parts of the world that have built extensive high-speed networks.

The Department of Transportation announced more than $6 billion in grant funding for high-speed rail projects this week. The money comes amid ongoing support for a technology that has also encountered concerns about its costs.

Brightline West, an affiliate of Florida’s Brightline intercity rail service, was awarded $3 billion in federal funds for its proposed line between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, which would zoom passengers between the cities in two hours.

The California High-Speed-Rail Authority was awarded $3.1 billion to continue work on its system, which will ultimately connect Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than three hours.

Definitions of high-speed rail vary, but it typically refers to passenger trains that travel at least 125 mph and can reach more than 220 mph.

A teenager from California’s Central Valley has become the youngest person to ever pass the state’s bar exam and is now working as a practicing attorney.

The Tulare county district attorney’s office announced this week that Peter Park learned last month at 17 that he had passed the “rigorous exam” on his first attempt in what officials described as a “legal history making moment”. Park has been a law clerk with the office since August after completing law school.

The teen started high school in 2019 at age 13 and at the same time enrolled in a four-year law program at Northwestern California University School of Law. He was able to enroll due to a state bar rule allowing students to apply to law school after completing the College Level Proficiency Exams.

Park completed his high school studies in 2021 and then focused on law school and graduated in 2023, the DA’s office said. He took the bar exam in July and then went to work for the district attorney’s office.

Respiratory illness activity is elevated or increasing across most areas of the United States, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In total, 15 states plus New York City are experiencing "high" or "very high" levels of respiratory illness activity, defined as people going to the doctor with symptoms from any respiratory disease including flu, COVID, RSV and the common cold.

COVID-19 and flu hospitalizations appear to be trending upward while RSV hospitalizations appear to be to be stable, the data shows.

A Kentucky woman Friday filed an emergency class-action lawsuit, asking a Jefferson County judge to allow her to terminate her pregnancy. It’s the first lawsuit of its kind in Kentucky since the state banned nearly all abortions in 2022 and one of the only times nationwide since before Roe v. Wade in 1973 that an adult woman has asked a court to intervene on her behalf and allow her to get an abortion.

The UN warns that half the population of Gaza is starving and nine out of ten people there can't eat every day - as Israeli bombardment of the territory continues

A hospital boss in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, says his team has "lost control" over the numbers of dead and wounded arriving at the facility

The city is surrounded by Israeli tanks on two sides; the Israeli military says it's fighting from house to house

The death of an Israeli hostage - Sahar Baruch, 25 - has been confirmed by his kibbutz and a hostages' group, following reports of a failed Israeli rescue operation

On Friday, the US blocked a resolution at the UN Security Council calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, arguing this would be dangerous and unrealistic

For those who don't know, New Year's in Russia is like Christmas in the west.

But in 2018, Racine’s suburban sprawl on the edge of Lake Michigan became a source of high caliber weapons for one of Mexico’s top fentanyl trafficking gangs, the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), U.S. federal arms-trafficking investigators allege.

The cartel exploited permissive federal and state-level gun control rules to buy some of the most powerful weapons available to American civilians, according to two former agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and two other sources, all with knowledge of the investigation.

Members of a local family, working with a cousin in Mexico, enlisted friends and relatives who bought guns on their behalf in Racine and transported them to California and south across the border, according to an indictment from Wisconsin’s Eastern District Court unsealed in February.

The traffickers in Racine and two connected cells in other locations bought more than $600,000 of high-end military-style firearms in under a year, internal ATF documents reviewed by Reuters allege. It seemed like an unprecedented shopping spree, said Tim Sloan, the other former ATF investigator. Sloan was the first to trace a CJNG gun to Racine.

Musicians including Cave and Imelda May performed several of MacGowan’s songs during the service, including a rousing rendition of “Fairytale of New York” led by Glen Hansard and Lisa O’Neill that had the congregation dancing in the aisles.

Trudeau has made immigration his main weapon to blunt Canada's big challenge of an aging and slowing population, and it has also helped fuel economic growth. That drove Canada's population up at its fastest clip in more than six decades this year, Statistics Canada said.

But now a reversal of that trend is gradually taking hold. In the first six months of 2023 some 42,000 individuals departed Canada, adding to 93,818 people who left in 2022 and 85,927 exits in 2021, official data show.

The rate of immigrants leaving Canada hit a two-decade high in 2019, according to a recent report from the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC), an immigration advocacy group. While the numbers went down during pandemic lockdowns, Statistics Canada data shows it is once again rising.

While that is a fraction of the 263,000 who came to the country over the same period, a steady rise in emigration is making some observers wary.