Cheddar RSS

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — One after the other, the opportunities vanished. Like so many other Afghan women, Sodaba could do little but watch as her country’s new Taliban government imposed a stranglehold on women’s lives.

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021, and quickly set about implementing a dizzying array of restrictions for women: No visiting parks or gyms, no eating in restaurants, no working, except in very few professions.

But one of the cruelest blows for the pharmacology student was the ban on education beyond primary school.

Pushed by necessity, she went online. And there, she found hope: a free computer coding course for women in Afghanistan. Taught in her own language, Dari, by a young Afghan refugee living half a world away, in Greece.

“I believe a person should not be (bowed) by circumstance, but should grow and get their dreams through every possible way,” Sodaba said. She began learning computer programming and website development.

The new skills “helped me regain my confidence and clarity in my direction,” said the 24-year-old, who asked to be identified by her first name only for safety reasons because of the education ban. “I am so happy to be part of this journey.”

The courses are part of Afghan Geeks, a company created by Murtaza Jafari, now 25, who arrived in Greece on a boat from Turkey years ago as a teenage refugee.

While living in a shelter in Athens after he arrived, Jafari received help from a teacher to enroll in a computer coding course. He knew nothing about computers — not even how to switch one on — didn’t know what coding was and didn’t speak a word of English, essential for computer programming.

“I had no idea about English. No idea, like zero zero,” he said. “And I was trying at the same time to learn Greek, learn English and then also learn computer … It was super difficult for me.”

But several months later, he earned his certificate.

Coding opened up a new world. A couple of years ago, he set up Afghan Geeks.

Jafari said that he started providing online courses last December to help women in his homeland, and as an expression of gratitude for the help he received as a youngster alone in a foreign country.

“The main goal was to give back to the community, especially to the Afghan women, what I had received from the other people for free,” he said, sitting in his sparse one-room flat in downtown Athens.

“I think … sharing knowledge is what makes a real difference to someone,” he said. “And if I share it, it just goes and expands, and then there’s more people to learn things.”

Jafari now has 28 female students in Afghanistan in three classes: beginner, intermediate and advanced.

Aside from teaching, he also mentors his students in finding online internships and jobs using their new skills. For women in a country where nearly all professions are banned, the opportunity for online work is a lifeline.

The most qualified join his team at Afghan Geeks, which also offers website development and chatbot creation services. He now has several clients, he said, from Afghanistan, the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe.

“Those clients were happy that they are contributing in a meaningful goal. So the goal was to support women … And that’s why they keep coming back for other projects that they have,” Jafari said.

Although he’s been teaching his students for seven months, Jafari has never seen their faces. He asks how they are and what the situation is in Afghanistan, “but I’ve never asked them to open their cameras or to share their profile, to share the image. I’ve never done that. I don’t want to do it, because I respect their culture, their choice.”

With the Taliban government’s restrictions increasingly confining women to their homes, and going as far as officially banning women’s voices and bare faces in public, the web has opened a new world of possibilities for women in Afghanistan.

Zuhal, a young Afghan woman whose dream of going to university was shattered, partnered with a university professor to launch an online academy for women about 18 months ago.

What began as a team of five people now has a crew of 150 teachers and administrators, and more than 4,000 students, she said.

“We are all working voluntarily with no salary, no support,” said the 20-year-old, who uses a nickname for fear of reprisals after receiving threats over the academy. “Our only aim or goal is to provide free education for girls and to enhance research in Afghanistan.”

The academy, Vision Online University, now runs courses in a range of subjects, from psychology and foreign languages to Quranic studies, nursing and public speaking, among others.

When the education ban came into effect, Zuhal said that she “was depressed because nothing was available.”

“There was no school, no university, no courses,” she said. “And that really affected me.

“Then I thought (to) myself that this is not the solution. If I get depressed, that will not be helpful, not for me and not for other girls.” She decided “that I shouldn’t give up. I should do something for girls of my country.”

Now she also pursues a degree in computer science through an American online university, the University of the People.

It’s tough, she said. With no funding, the academy for women can’t pay for premium online services that allow large group meetings. She herself often struggles to afford her internet service.

“But I’m doing it because I have a goal,” she said. ”And my goal is to support girls. If I stop it, more than 4,000 or 5,000 girls will be depressed again.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is rising on Wednesday, led by a rally for Apple.

The S&P 500 was 0.7% higher in afternoon trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 145 points, or 0.3%, as of 2:03 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.1% higher.

Apple alone accounted for nearly half of the S&P 500’s gain. It rose 5.7% ahead of an announcement at the White House where it’s expected to increase its U.S. investments by an additional $100 billion over the next four years.

Trading elsewhere on Wall Street was mixed following a jumble of profit reports. McDonald’s and Shopify rose following their latest updates, while Super Micro Computer tumbled after its earnings and revenue came in below analysts’ expectations. The Walt Disney Co. fell after its earnings beat forecasts but its revenue fell short

Worries are still high that President Donald Trump’s tariffs may be hurting the economy, but hopes for coming cuts to interest rates by the Federal Reserve and a parade of stronger-than-expected profit reports from U.S. companies have helped steady the market.

Companies are under pressure to deliver bigger profits to justify the big gains their stock prices have made since the U.S. market hit a low point in April. The S&P 500 is just a bit below its record, which was set late last month, and the big rally fueled criticism that the broad market has become too expensive.

McDonald’s climbed 3.4% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the spring than analysts expected. A meal tied to the “Minecraft” movie proved to be a hit for the restaurant chain.

Shopify jumped 19.7% after the company, which helps businesses sell on the internet, said it made more in revenue last quarter than expected. Analysts also said the company’s forecast for revenue in the current quarter suggests the strong trends are continuing.

Arista Networks was one of the stronger forces lifting the S&P 500 and leaped 18% after the networking company delivered a bigger profit for the latest quarter than expected. Its forecast for revenue in the current quarter also topped forecasts.

They helped offset a 19.3% slump for Super Micro Computer, which gave back some of the huge gains the server maker has made recently. Super Micro came into the day with a nearly 88% gain for its stock so far this year, but it reported weaker profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also gave a forecast for profit in the current quarter that fell short of what Wall Street had penciled in.

Disney dropped 2.4% after its profit beat forecasts but its revenue fell short. Analysts said investors may have been looking for Disney to boost its profit forecast by a bigger amount.

The NFL also announced that it had entered into a nonbinding agreement with Disney’s ESPN, which will give the sports broadcaster the NFL Network, NFL Fantasy and the rights to distribute the RedZone channel. The NFL will get a 10% stake in ESPN in the proposed deal.

Chip company Advanced Micro Devices fell 6% after its profit for the latest quarter only matched analysts’ expectations. Analysts said the company’s financial forecasts for upcoming results also looked solid, but that may not have been enough for investors after its stock had already soared 44.3% for the year so far coming into the day.

In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged up to 4.24% from 4.22% late Tuesday. It’s still well below where it was last week, before Friday’s much weaker-than-expected report on the U.S. job market ignited worries that Trump’s tariffs are pushing employers to hold back on hiring.

That report has traders on Wall Street betting heavily that the Federal Reserve will need to cut interest rates at its next meeting in September. Such cuts can give the economy and investments prices a boost, but they also can push inflation higher.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose modestly across much of Europe and Asia.

___

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

A new federal rule proposed Tuesday would make it easier for companies to use drones over longer distances out of the operator’s sight without having to go through a cumbersome waiver process.

The federal government had already approved 657 waivers to allow companies such as Amazon and major utilities to do this in certain circumstances, but the waiver process made it difficult. The rule would establish a clear process for drone operators to seek approval for using drones this way.

The industry has long pressed for the rule because being able to operate drones out of sight opens up a multitude of possibilities for their use. Being able to do this enables more use of drones for deliveries, inspecting infrastructure like bridges and power lines and other uses in agriculture like spraying fertilizer over thousands of acres on large farms.

“This draft rule is a critical step toward enabling drone operations that will enhance safety, transform commercial services, and strengthen public safety with drones as a force multiplier,” Michael Robbins, president & CEO of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International trade group, said in a statement.

The rule spells out the circumstances drones can be used under 400 feet under while working to ensure they don’t disrupt aviation and cause problems around airports, Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Bryan Bedford said. The drones will be required to have collision-avoidance technology to keep them away from planes and other drones. And the rule will only allow drones up to 1,320 pounds — including their payloads.

“The issue hasn’t been that America just can’t innovate, America can’t create, America can’t build amazing drone technology. It’s that we’ve had a bureaucracy in place that makes it incredibly incredibly difficult for innovators to actually innovate,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said.

The rules are designed to address the way modern drones are being used today.

“While the technology has rapidly advanced over the last decade, our regulatory framework in the United States has failed to keep pace,” said Lisa Ellman, CEO of the Commercial Drone Alliance group. “Drone operators must navigate a labyrinth of ill-suited regulations designed for crewed aircraft.”

President Donald Trump issued executive orders in June directing the Transportation Department to quickly get this rule out. The orders also included restrictions meant to help protect against terrorism, espionage and public safety threats.

Drones are already used in a variety of ways, including bolstering search and rescue operations, applying fertilizer, inspecting power lines and railroad bridges, and even delivering packages.

Amazon is one of the companies that received a waiver allowing it to use drones this way for some of its deliveries in College Station, Texas, as it develops the technology. This rule should make it easier for Amazon and other companies to get approval to use drones this way in more communities.

The war in Ukraine has highlighted how drones could be used in a military or terrorist attack — a concern as the World Cup and Olympics approach in the U.S. There also have been espionage cases where drones have been used to surveil sensitive sites. And White House officials said drones are being used to smuggle drugs over the border, and there are concerns about the potential for a disastrous collision between a drone and an airliner around an airport.

The FAA consulted with the Department of Homeland Security as it developed this rule to make sure security concerns are addressed. The government will accept comments on the new rule over the next 60 days before finalizing the rule likely sometime later this year. Drone operators will have to go through background checks and be certified to operate drones out of their sight.

Duffy and Bedford said they hope having regulations in place can help prevent problems like earlier this year when a small drone collided with a “Super Scooper” plane that was fighting wildfires raging through Southern California. The drone punched a hole in the plane’s left wing, causing enough damage that officials grounded the aircraft for several days to make repairs.

Authorities tracked down the 56-year-old drone operator, who pleaded guilty to a federal charge of recklessly flying his aircraft. The man admitted he launched his DJI quadcopter to observe fire damage over the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, despite the FAA having restricted drone flying in the area, according to court records. The operator lost sight of the drone after it flew about 1.5 miles from where he had launched it. And that’s when it struck the “Super Scooper.”

This rule applies directly to commercial and recreational drone operators who must apply to be able to fly drones out of sight. People who buy drones on their own and don’t get approval would still be prohibited from doing this.

___

Associated Press writers Dee-Ann Durbin, Rio Yamat and Didi Tang contributed to this report.

___

This story has been updated to correct Lisa Ellman’s first name.