WASHINGTON (AP) — The CIA now believes the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic most likely originated from a laboratory, according to an assessment that points the finger at China even while acknowledging that the spy agency has “low confidence” in its own conclusion.

The finding is not the result of any new intelligence, and the report released Saturday was completed at the behest of the Biden administration and former CIA Director William Burns. It was declassified and released Saturday on the orders of President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency, John Ratcliffe, who was sworn in Thursday as director.

The nuanced finding suggests the agency believes the totality of evidence makes a lab origin more likely than a natural origin. But the agency’s assessment assigns a low degree of confidence to this conclusion, suggesting the evidence is deficient, inconclusive or contradictory.

“I had the opportunity on my first day to make public an assessment that actually took place in the Biden administration. So it can’t be accused of being political,” Ratcliffe told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” He said the CIA “has assessed that the most likely cause of this pandemic that has wrought so much devastation around the world was because of a lab-related incident in Wuhan. And so we will continue to investigate that moving forward.”

Earlier reports on the origins of COVID-19 have split over whether the coronavirus emerged from a Chinese lab, potentially by mistake, or whether it arose naturally. The new assessment is not likely to settle the debate. In fact, intelligence officials say it may never be resolved, due to a lack of cooperation from Chinese authorities.

The CIA “continues to assess that both research-related and natural origin scenarios of the COVID-19 pandemic remain plausible,” the agency wrote in a statement about its new assessment.

Instead of new evidence, the conclusion was based on fresh analyses of intelligence about the spread of the virus, its scientific properties and the work and conditions of China’s virology labs.

Lawmakers have pressured America’s spy agencies for more information about the origins of the virus, which led to lockdowns, economic upheaval and millions of deaths. It’s a question with significant domestic and geopolitical implications as the world continues to grapple with the pandemic’s legacy.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told “Fox News Sunday” it was important now “to make China pay for unleashing this plague on the world.” He mentioned imposing tariffs or passing legislation that would repeal China’s permanent most favored nation status.

Chinese authorities have dismissed speculation about COVID’s origins as unhelpful and motivated by politics. On Saturday, a spokesperson for China’s U.S. embassy said the CIA report has no credibility.

“We firmly oppose the politicization and stigmatization of the source of the virus, and once again call on everyone to respect science and stay away from conspiracy theories,” embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press.

While the origin of the virus remains unknown, scientists think the most likely hypothesis is that it circulated in bats, like many coronaviruses, before infecting another species, probably racoon dogs, civet cats or bamboo rats. In turn, the infection spread to humans handling or butchering those animals at a market in Wuhan, where the first human cases appeared in late November 2019.

Some official investigations, however, have raised the the question of whether the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan. Two years ago a report by the Energy Department concluded a lab leak was the most likely origin, though that report also expressed low confidence in the finding.

The same year then-FBI Director Christopher Wray said his agency believed the virus “most likely” spread after escaping from a lab.

Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, has said he favors the lab leak scenario, too.

“The lab leak is the only theory supported by science, intelligence, and common sense,” Ratcliffe said in 2023.

The CIA said it will continue to evaluate any new information that could change its assessment.

BANGKOK (AP) — Ford Motor Co. is recalling 272,827 Broncos and Mavericks due to a power problem that can cause vehicles to stop unexpectedly or fail to start.

Information from the National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration says the problem is related to a 12 volt battery made by Camel Battery of China that has “internal manufacturing defects,” including weld failures that can cause open circuits.

It said there were no reports of accidents, fires or injuries caused by the problem.

The vehicles were made between February 2021 and October 2023, when Ford stopped using those specific batteries. The defects are thought to affect only 1% of the vehicles equipped with the batteries.

Ford pledged in November to review and improve its recall decision-making process and to submit to monitoring by an independent third party that will oversee its recall performance for three years after the U.S. government fine it for moving too slowly on an earlier recall.

The NHTSA said that after a previous recall of 2021-23 Ford Bronco Sport SUVs and 2022-2023 Ford Maverick pickups, some vehicles lost power including the ability to turn on hazard lights, without warning. The remedy involves software updates to improve detection of battery problems and provide warnings to drivers, it said.

LONDON (AP) — Should I stay or should I go — from Meta’s social media platforms?

That’s what some Facebook, Instagram and Threads users are wondering after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement this month that the company is relaxing rules on harmful content such as hate speech and abandoning its fact checking program and replacing it with crowdsourced notes.

The changes have renewed interest among some users about deleting their Meta social media accounts. If you want to stop using platforms owned by Meta, here are some pointers:

Save your data

Before deleting your Facebook account, you should download a copy of all your personal information, which includes details about your activity on the platform, things you’ve shared and data that the company has collected about you.

You’ll have to go to your settings or the accounts center — the master control panel for all your Meta accounts — where you can choose to download everything or just items such as your profile, posts, messages, comments and reactions, and list of friends, even the ads you’ve clicked on and IP addresses you’ve used to connect to Facebook.

You can download information from a certain date range, such as the past month or six months, or for all the time you’ve had an account. If you’re downloading photos, you can select their quality level: low, medium, high.

For security purposes, you’ll only have four days to download your file. The process is similar for Instagram and Threads users.

Instagram users will need a password to download and access files and it could take up to 30 days to receive a download link by email, the platform says on its help page.

Maybe you don’t want to download all your personal information but instead want to get any photos and videos you’ve posted. Facebook provides a separate option to transfer these files to another online service, with options including Google Photos, Dropbox or Photobucket.

Staying in touch

A tip for Facebook users: before you pull the plug, check if you have friends or connections you don’t want to lose complete contact with.

Send them a message asking for their phone, email or other non-Meta contact details. You could also make a final post telling people that you’re leaving, though there’s a chance not everyone will see it.

Take a break

If you’re not ready to go all the way, Facebook allows users to temporarily shut down their accounts in case they just want to take a break from social media.

You can do this through the account center, where you can click on the Personal details section, and then the Account ownership and control setting.

Temporarily deactivating an account means other users won’t see it anymore, but your posts, photos and videos won’t be deleted and you can still use Facebook Messenger. You can reactivate the account at any time.

Don’t change your mind too often: Instagram and Threads users can only temporarily deactivate their accounts once a week.

Deletion

Ready to take the plunge and delete your account permanently?

After tying up any loose ends, head back to the accounts center, click the Personal details section, and then Account ownership and control, where you can choose to delete it.

Once you’ve triggered the deletion process, you’ve got 30 days to change your mind, which you can do by logging back into your account and clicking the Cancel Deletion button.

“After 30 days, your account and all your information will be permanently deleted, and you won’t be able to retrieve your information,” Facebook warns on its help center.

Take note: Deleting a Threads account won’t have any effect on your corresponding Instagram account. But deleting an Instagram account will also result in the deletion of the linked Threads account because Instagram accounts are used to manage Threads accounts.

What about WhatsApp?

Meta also owns WhatsApp, although Zuckerberg’s content policy changes aren’t likely to affect the chat app.

Similar to Meta’s social platforms, WhatsApp users can export a copy of their chat history or ask for information on their settings or channels.

If you decide you want to get rid of WhatsApp and perhaps switch to competing chat services like iMessage or Signal, it’s easy to do through the app’s settings.

Deleting WhatsApp will erase your account info, your chat history backup and your presence from any chat groups as well as any channels you set up where you’re the only admin.