By BINSAR BAKKARA and NINIEK KARMINI

BATANG TORU, Indonesia (AP) — Emergency crews raced to reach survivors and recover more bodies Tuesday as the death toll from last week’s catastrophic floods and landslides surged past 1,300 in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand, with nearly 900 people missing.

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Days of heavy monsoon rains inundated vast areas, leaving thousands stranded and many clinging to rooftops and trees waiting for help. The flooding and landslides killed at least 1,338 people: 744 in Indonesia, 410 in Sri Lanka, 181 in Thailand and three in Malaysia, authorities said Tuesday. Sri Lanka’s president, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, said it’s too early to determine the exact number of dead in his country.

In Indonesia, the hardest-hit nation, rescuers struggled to access villages on Sumatra island, where roads have been washed out and bridges collapsed. At least 551 people remain missing, according to the country’s National Disaster Management Agency. Helicopters and boats have been deployed, but officials warn that worsening weather and damaged infrastructure are slowing operations.

Indonesia’s forests in ruins

Floods and landslides in North Sumatra carried away millions of cubic meters of felled timber, officials said, sparking public concern that illegal logging may have contributed to the disaster.

Batang Toru, the lush forested area, has turned into a wasteland of broken logs and shattered homes. Roads have vanished, replaced by rivers of sludge.

Men stand on logs swept away by flash flood in Batang Toru, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)

“This is not just a natural disaster, it’s a manmade crisis,” said Rianda Purba from the Indonesian Environmental Forum, an activist group. “Deforestation and unchecked development have stripped Batang Toru of its resilience. Without urgent restoration and stricter protections, these floods will become the new normal.”

Survivors desperately search for their loved ones

A week after flash floods and landslides swept through West Sumatra, survivors were still awaiting news of their loved ones.

A house is seen buried in the mud at a village affected by flash flood in Pidie Jaya, Aceh province, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Reza Saifullah)

Zahari Sutra held photos of his missing wife and two daughters aged 4 and 2, as he pleaded for help with rescuers in Sikumbang village in Agam district. “Other victims have been found … why not my family?”

The 38-year-old farmer said he dropped his motorbike and ran for higher ground when rising waters blocked his path to home last Thursday. He said the raging current swallowed his home. He waded through the water shouting for his wife and daughters, but there was only silence.

As darkness fell, he found his eldest, a 5-year-old girl, covered in mud, but safe. Fearing more floods, Sutra clung to a lychee tree with his daughter until dawn, when the full scope of the disaster was revealed: all homes were gone or buried under tons of mud.

“I carried my daughter and went for help,” he said, his voice breaking. “My only prayer is to find my wife and children.”

In this aerial photo taken using a drone, people are seen making their way on a muddy road at a village affected by a flash flood in Batang Toru, North Sumatra, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Binsar Bakkara)

The U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres expressed his condolences for victims’ families on Tuesday and said the U.N. is “in close contact with authorities in all four countries and stands ready to support relief and response efforts,” according to spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.

Sri Lanka counts the dead and Thailand begins cleanup

Military-led rescue teams in Sri Lanka scoured flood-devastated areas for 336 people still missing in the aftermath of Cyclone Ditwah, the Disaster Management Center said Tuesday. R oads were blocked by landslides and bridges have collapsed, making access difficult.

In the central city of Kandy, residents struggled without running water, relying instead on bottled water collected from natural springs. Authorities warned that conditions could worsen as more rain is forecast in the coming days.

A man looks at the damage caused by the floods at Gampola, Sri Lanka, Monday, Dec.1, 2025. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

President Dissanayake, speaking in a meeting with government officials, described the disaster as the worst to strike the country in recent history, saying it remains impossible to determine the full scale of casualties. He warned that the death toll is likely far higher than current figures.

He said that government agencies were working to reach isolated communities.

Selladurai Yogaraj, 35, a resident of Sarasavigama, said he lost his entire family: mother, wife and two children. “I can’t even think what life is going to be like,” he said.

Another man, Duraikannu Mahoharan, said he lost his wife, daughter and a house. “Only my sons and I survived. Now I am staying with my brother,” he said.

At least three people were confirmed dead in Malaysia after floods left stretches of northern Perlis state underwater, authorities said. About 6,000 people sought shelter in emergency centers.

People look at a building damaged by the floods in Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, Monday, Dec. 1,2025. (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

In southern Thailand, cleanup has begun on streets and in buildings after massive floods affected more than 1.5 million households and 3.9 million people. Authorities are working to restore infrastructure, including water and electricity.

Thailand’s Interior Ministry said Monday it would set up public kitchens to provide freshly cooked food to affected residents. The first batch of compensation payments of 239 million baht ($7.4 million) is set to be distributed to 26,000 people, government spokesperson Siripong Angkasakulkiat also said Monday.

Pakistan and India spar over overflight permission

Pakistan on Tuesday accused India of blocking a military aircraft carrying humanitarian aid to Sri Lanka, an allegation New Delhi swiftly rejected.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said a Pakistan air force transport plane had been delayed for more than 60 hours while waiting for India to clear its route through Indian airspace. It said India withheld overflight permission then issued what Islamabad called an “operationally impractical” clearance late Sunday that was valid for only a few hours and did not include a return route.

Indian officials rejected Pakistan’s allegations as baseless, saying they approved the overflight request within four hours on humanitarian grounds.

Airspace restrictions between India and Pakistan have been in place since April, after a deadly attack in disputed Kashmir triggered a brief four-day conflict before a ceasefire was reached.

Karmini reported from Jakarta, Indonesia. Associated Press journalists Jintamas Saksornchai in Bangkok, Krishan Francis in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and Eranga Jayawardena in Sarasavigama, Sri Lanka, and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.

The volunteer angels who run Saintly City Snow Angels found themselves scrambling after this weekend’s snowfall.

Too much snow, not enough shovelers.

With a chance of more snow this weekend, the Saintly City Snow Angels are seeking volunteers to join their Facebook group and be on call to shovel the sidewalks and driveways of people who need help.

“We need angels. We need shovelers,” said Heather Worthington, who started the group in the pre-pandemic days of 2020 after she and her husband, Chris Worthington, noticed sidewalks in their Midway neighborhood not getting shoveled. “It’s really just super-simple: All you need to do is watch the page, and if you see someone who posts that they need help near you, and you can go out and help, then you go out and help.”

That first winter, the group had 50 members. Now there are 1,500.

The mission of the group, which has expanded from Midway to every neighborhood in the city, is “to help less-abled and elderly neighbors make sure their sidewalks are shoveled so that we have safe and passable sidewalks,” according to Worthington.

How it works

Anyone who needs help posts a message on the group’s Facebook page listing their cross streets. “Looking for snow help in the area of West 7th and Forbes Avenue. Thanks so much,” a woman wrote on Sunday night.

A few hours later, a volunteer responded: “Hi, I can help with shoveling. Can you DM me your address?”

Worthington said she chose Facebook as the group’s platform because it was the “easiest way to connect people using that kind of bulletin board approach.”

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“It’s a very user-friendly interface, especially for elderly people, who make up the vast majority of the people who use the service,” she said. “We like to keep it pretty simple so that people don’t feel like they have to learn a lot of things in order to use it.”

Organizations who work with seniors know about the group and will post if they learn of someone needing help who might not be online, Worthington said. “Midway Elders, for example, is great about going on the page and making a post for that person,” she said.

Worthington and fellow moderators/matchmakers Melissa Wenzel, Nikita Godette and Becky Graham also will step in and help connect people, she said.

“We are trying to normalize asking for help,” said Wenzel, who works at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and, during her lunch breaks, updates the Saintly City Snow Angel spreadsheet with names and addresses of those seeking help.

There are no limitations or criteria set for people to receive help, she said.

“We assume people ask for help because they need it, but there’s a lot of different ways or reasons why somebody might need help,” she said. “It’s not always physical. If people hear about this and they are looking for help, that’s great. You don’t need to justify why you need help. Whatever your needs are, they are your needs.”

‘Good for my mental health’

Among those who have asked for help from Saintly City Snow Angels: people with heart conditions, a man who needed his driveway cleared to get to dialysis, a man who needed his front walk cleared so his oxygen tank could be delivered, and a man who has had both legs amputated, said Wenzel, who lives in the West Seventh Street neighborhood of St. Paul.

Some volunteers don’t even own shovels, she said.

“They’re borrowing shovels from other people to be able to do this,” she said. “They’re just, like, ‘I want to help wherever I can.’”

One volunteer, Crystal Heflin, drives in from Waseca to help. Heflin, who used to live on St. Paul’s East Side, shovels a dozen different walks in her old neighborhood each time it snows. “It’s good for my mental health,” she said. “I can only plow my driveway one time.”

Volunteer Aman Imani joined the group this year and “helped out nine people his first day,” said Godette, who lives in Highland. “He made a comment back to us of, ‘I’m happy to be a snow angel! Today was my first day out as a snow angel helping folks around the city, and it was so gratifying.’”

Saint Agnes School’s wrestling team regularly helps out in the city’s Frogtown neighborhood, Godette said. Whenever there’s a snowfall, groups of wrestlers will head out to the homes to shovel after their practice ends.

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“One of our big themes is family. We’re a family,” Dean Cummings, the assistant coach for the high school wrestling team and the head coach for the youth team, told the Pioneer Press in 2022. “People live by our school. They’re a part of our family, too; we need to take care of them.”

Worthington said the Snow Angels group is especially needed in this day and age because people “are not as good about knowing our neighbors as we used to be.”

“Part of the reason I started this was that I wanted my neighbors to meet each other and know each other, so they could help each other,” she said. “The whole point is to take care of each other. It’s very simple. But I love how people have literally met somebody who lives two doors down. They’ve never met them in, like, 20 years. That has happened so many times, and that is really super-heartwarming for me.”

Saintly City Snow Angels

If you live in St. Paul and either need help shoveling this winter or would like to volunteer, search for the Saintly City Snow Angels on Facebook.

By Zoe Tillman and Jaewon Kang, Bloomberg News

Costco Wholesale Corp. joined a fast-growing list of businesses suing the Trump administration to ensure eligibility for refunds if the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down the president’s signature global tariffs policy.

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The nation’s biggest warehouse club chain is among dozens of companies to file lawsuits in a U.S. trade court since late October challenging President Donald Trump’s use of an economic emergency powers law to impose the levies, according to court records. It’s one of the biggest corporate players to jump into a fight largely driven this year by small businesses and Democratic state officials.

The Supreme Court heard arguments on Trump’s tariffs on Nov. 5. The justices put the fight on a fast-tracked schedule but didn’t say when they intend to rule. In the meantime, businesses of all sizes have brought cases pressing similar legal claims with the goal of avoiding uncertainty about their eligibility for refunds if the court rules against Trump.

Costco’s lawyers wrote that the complaint, filed on Nov. 28 in the U.S. Court of International Trade, was prompted due to the uncertainly that refunds will be guaranteed for all businesses that have been paying duties if the Supreme Court declares the tariffs unlawful.

The lawsuit doesn’t specify how much Trump’s tariffs have cost the company to date.

Costco argues that it needs a court intervention immediately because Customs and Border Protection denied its request to extend the schedule for finalizing tariff determinations under Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The company says that could jeopardize its ability to seek full refunds in the future.

Costco didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement that, “The economic consequences of the failure to uphold President Trump’s lawful tariffs are enormous and this suit highlights that fact. The White House looks forward to the Supreme Court’s speedy and proper resolution of this matter.”

Skeptical Justices

During arguments before the Supreme Court last month, key justices appeared skeptical of Trump’s tariffs, which have generated tens of billions of dollars a month. Lower federal courts ruled against the administration in a handful of lawsuits filed early on, but judges have allowed the government to enforce the tariffs until the Supreme Court issues its decision.

Other household names to bring tariff lawsuits in recent weeks include cosmetics giant Revlon Consumer Products Corp. and motorcycle maker Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing Corp.

The expansive, fast-changing tariff policies have disrupted the retail sector this year, threatening to raise prices of goods and hamper the purchasing power of U.S. consumers who are already cautious following years of inflation.

The impact has been more muted than expected due to exemptions and changes in rates after negotiations, though some items such as electronics and apparel are more expensive compared to a year ago. While retailers have warned that they continue to see higher costs, many big operators have not pursued lawsuits like Costco — making it an outlier.

Costco has said it’s working to mitigate tariffs, which primarily affect its non-food items. It has rerouted some products to non-U.S. markets, ordered more inventory early to get ahead of the levies and purchased from fewer suppliers by consolidating buying. When items get too expensive, it’s changing merchandising altogether.

“We’re doing everything we can,” Chief Financial Officer Gary Millerchip said in an interview with Bloomberg News earlier this year. “Whether that’s working with the suppliers to find efficiencies to offset the impact of tariffs, or whether it’s sourcing with them often to different countries.”

For example, Costco said in May that it kept steady prices of pineapples and bananas imported from Central and South America because they are important items to customers. At the same time, it increased prices of flowers sourced from the region because they are less of a necessity to shoppers.

The club chain said its big size and limited assortment — its stores carry a couple thousand items versus over 100,000 for some big-box retailers — give it a leg-up when navigating tariffs. Still, it’s difficult to predict what will happen to prices, company executives said.

The case is Costco Wholesale Corp. v. Customs and Border Protection, 1:25-cv-316, U.S. Court of International Trade.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By ELAINE KURTENBACH, AP Business Writer

BANGKOK (AP) — Behind the hoopla over the promise of artificial intelligence lay difficult realities, including how such technology might affect people already disadvantaged in a data-driven world.

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A new report by the United Nations Development Program notes most of the gains from AI are likely to be reaped by wealthy nations unless steps are taken to use its power to help close gaps in access to basic needs, as well as such advanced know-how.

The report released Tuesday likens the situation to the “Great Divergence” of the industrial revolution, when many Western countries saw rapid modernization while others fell behind.

Questions over how companies and other institutions will use AI are a near universal concern given its potential to change or replace some jobs done by people with computers and robots.

But while much of the attention devoted to AI focuses on productivity, competitiveness and growth, the more important question is what it will mean for human lives, the authors note.

“We tend to overemphasize the role of technology,” said Michael Muthukrishna of the London School of Economics, the report’s main author, told reporters. “We need to ensure it’s not technology first, but it’s people first,” he said, speaking by video at the report’s launch in Bangkok.

The risk of exclusion is an issue for communities where most people are still struggling to access skills, electric power and internet connectivity, for older people, for people displaced by war, civil conflict and climate disasters. At the same time, such people may be “invisible” in data that will not take them into account, the report said.

“As a general-purpose technology, AI can lift productivity, spark new industries, and help latecomers catch up,” the report says.

Better advice on farming, analysis of X-rays within seconds and faster medical diagnoses, more effective weather forecasts and damage assessments hold promise for rural communities and areas prone to natural disasters.

“AI systems that analyze poverty, health, and disaster risks enable faster, fairer, and more transparent decisions, turning data into continuous learning and public value,” it says.

Still, even in wealthy nations like the United States, the potential for data centers to devour too large a share of electricity and water has raised concerns. Ramping up power generation to meet higher demand may hinder progress in limiting the emissions of carbon from burning fossil fuels that contribute to global warming, while also causing health hazards.

The technology raises ethical, privacy and cybersecurity concerns: researchers have found hackers using AI to automate portions of cyberattacks. There also is the problem of deepfakes that can misinform or facilitate criminal activity.

Asian nations including China, Japan, South Korea and Singapore are well placed to take advantage of AI tools, the report notes, while places like Afghanistan, the Maldives and Myanmar lack skills, reliable power and other resources needed to tap into the computing potential of AI. Inequalities between regions within countries mean some places even in advanced economies are prone to be left behind.

About a quarter of the Asia-Pacific region lacks online access, the report says.

If such gaps are not closed, many millions may be excluded from the kinds of devices, digital payment systems, digital IDs and education and skills that are required to participate fully in the global economy, falling further behind, said Philip Schellekens, the UNDP’s chief economist for the Asia Pacific.

Other risks include misinformation and disinformation, surveillance that violates rights to privacy and systems that can act as “black boxes,” reinforcing biases against minorities or other groups. So transparency and effective regulations are crucial guardrails for ensuring AI is used in fair and accountable ways, he said.

“We believe we need more balance, less hysteria and hype,” Schellekens said.

AI is becoming essential for modern life, like electricity, roads, and now the internet, so governments need to invest more in digital infrastructure, education and training, fair competition and social protections, the report says.

“The goal,” it says, “is to democratize access to AI so that every country and community can benefit while protecting those most at risk from disruption.”