SAN FRANCISCO — Google has revised a help page that erroneously described how its “Location History” setting works, clarifying for users that it still tracks their location even if they turn the setting off.
On Monday, an Associated Press investigation revealed that several Google apps and websites store user location even if users have turned off Location History. Google has not changed its location-tracking practice in that regard.
But its help page now states: “This setting does not affect other location services on your device.” It also acknowledges that “some location data may be saved as part of your activity on other services, like Search and Maps.”
Previously, the page stated: “With Location History off, the places you go are no longer stored.”
The AP observed that the change occurred midday Thursday, three days after the AP’s initial report.
VATICAN CITY — The Vatican expressed “shame and sorrow” on Thursday about a scathing Pennsylvania grand jury report about clergy who raped and molested children in six dioceses and decried the abuse as “criminally and morally reprehensible.”
In uncharacteristically strong language for the Holy See even in matters like the long running abuse scandals staining the U.S. church, Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said that victims should know “the pope is on their side.”
Pope Francis himself wasn’t quoted in the statement, and there was no mention of demands in the United States among some Catholics for the resignation of Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington.
The grand jury report made public this week accused the cardinal of helping to protect some molester priests while he was previously bishop of Pittsburgh, Pennsylania.
Burke, in the statement, described the abuse in the report as “betrayals of trust that robbed survivors of their dignity and their faith. The church must learn hard lessons from its past, and there should be accountability for both abusers and those who permitted abuse to occur.”
MILAN — Collapsed concrete, twisted metal, crushed cars.
While the disaster in Genoa was the deadliest in recent years, Italy has seen other bridge and highway collapses that have raised alarm about the state of its aging transportation infrastructure.
The 51-year-old Morandi Bridge was a key artery that linked highways to Milan and France, a vital lifeline for both commercial traffic as well as vacationers bound for the mountains and famous Mediterranean beaches.
“When it was inaugurated, it was vaunted as an engineering achievement, representing the most advanced technology and a model that Italy spread throughout the world,” said Antonio Occhiuzzi, president of Italy’s CNR society of civil engineers.
“It was a project that was constantly under surveillance,” he said. “Notwithstanding all these efforts, it came down. It is a little metaphor for the country.”
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Donald Trump is the phantom of U.S. District Courtroom 900.
His name has rarely been uttered during the two-week trial of his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. References to his campaign and administration have slipped in only through carefully scrubbed exchanges.
The Trump name has been so studiously avoided that when the trial judge said “Mr. Trump” during a morning hearing Thursday, courtroom spectators jumped
This is the first major courtroom test of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian contacts with the Trump campaign.
But the president’s absence is strictly intentional. All sides have feared that too much Trump could prejudice the jury somehow — and they don’t know which way — in a case that has little to do with the most polarizing figure in American politics.
Mueller’s team, Manafort’s attorneys and U.S. District Judge T. S. Ellis III all took actions — either before trial or during proceedings in the historic Alexandria courthouse — to erase almost all mentions of the president.
WASHINGTON — Is the latest pickup in U.S. economic growth destined to slow in the years ahead as most analysts say?
Or, as the Trump administration insists, is the economy on the cusp of an explosive boom that will reward Americans and defy those expectations?
On Thursday, President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser, made his case for the boom. Calling mainstream predictions “pure nonsense,” Larry Kudlow declared that the expansion — already the second-longest on record — is merely in its “early innings.”
“The single biggest event, be it political or otherwise, this year is an economic boom that most people thought would be impossible to generate,” Kudlow said at a Cabinet meeting, speaking at the president’s request and looking directly at him. “Not a rise. Not a blip.”
“People may disagree with me,” Kudlow continued, “but I’m saying this, we are just in the early stages.”
SAN FRANCISCO — A Northern California district attorney has reversed course and says she will no longer consider plea deals to resolve the only criminal case filed in connection to a 2016 warehouse fire that killed 36 people, according to a court document obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday.
Derick Almena and Max Harris are scheduled to appear in court on Friday for the first time since Judge James Cramer rejected a plea deal negotiated by O’Malley’s office and their attorneys. Each is charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter and face a maximum sentence of life in prison
The negotiated settlement called for Almena to accept a nine-year prison sentence and Harris to receive a six-year term.
Both men likely would have been released after serving half their terms with time off for good behavior.
Both men have been in jail since June 2017. Under terms of the deal, it was likely that Almena would have been released from prison by late 2022 or early 2023. Harris would have probably been released in 2021.
From Associated Press