Why ecologists are fighting to contain aggressive new species at Point Pelee National Park


Fri., November 6, 2020

An aggressive plant has popped up in Point Pelee National Park, and it has ecologists furiously trying to contain its spread.

The Japanese Chaff-flower was first discovered on Middle Island, Canada's southernmost land in June, 2018 during a routine plant survey of the rare Wild Hyacinth.

According to Parks Canada, ecologist Tammy Dobbie didn't recognize the plants when she stumbled upon a cluster of them, but was determined to identify them.

It wasn't until the fall of that year that botanist James Kamstra successfully identified the plant, "confirming the first apparent case of its existence in Canada," according a news release.

A 'startling' find

"This ominous discovery would have rippling effects through the scientific community as the implications became painfully clear," park officials said in a news release.

Parks Canada

Point Pelee National Park, in southwestern Ontario, cares for the protected area of Middle Island and its "fragile Carolinian ecosystem." The island is a small 18.5 hectare island, part of an archipelago in western Lake Erie.

Given that the Japanese Chaff-flower is rooted in East Asia, its arrival at the national park was "startling."

"It's appearance on Middle Island can likely be attributed to the dispersal of seeds by migratory birds nesting on the island — evidence to date suggests double-crested cormorants as a likely carrier," the news release said.

Cormorants have been known to be problematic on Middle Island.The park has spent the last decade or so managing the population with regular culls by park staff to try to protect the "ecological integrity" of the park, officials have said.

Containment efforts underway

The plant's presence is concerning because it has the capacity to "spread and choke out" native and desirable flora, plus it has the potential to spread far and wide throughout Canada because of its ability to thrive in multiple different ecological zones.

Drew Olsen

Parks Canada said the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Canada's national plant protection authority, is conducting a full risk analysis of the plant, and at Point Pelee National Park, control and "eradication" efforts are already underway.

Park authorities said, within a year of it being discovered, the flower had reproduced and increased to more than ten thousand plants on Middle Island.

The plant's existence is also threatening the survival of the Wild Hyacinth, an endangered species only found on Lake Erie islands.

"Time will tell whether or not it's possible to prevent the spread of Japanese Chaff-flower into southern Ontario and beyond," Parks Canada said in a news release.

"Control, research, vigilance, and eradication efforts will play a large role in its containment."

UK

Glut of pheasants caused by lockdown shooting ban could threaten songbirds, warn conservationists

Helena Horton,
The Telegraph•November 6, 2020

The pheasants released into the wild will not be shot until lockdown ends - Owen Humphreys/PA Wire

A glut of pheasants caused by the lockdown shooting ban could impact songbird populations, the RSPB has warned.

Countryside organisations have spoken out after the government ruled that hunting and most shooting is unable to continue over the lockdown period.

This is because people cannot meet in groups of more than two, or stay overnight to take part in recreational activity, meaning most shoots will be unviable.

Tim Bonner, the Chief Executive of the Countryside Alliance, said that woods will be full of the birds as they are unable to be shot.

He said there would be "woods full of pheasants released and acclimatised to the wild which will have to be fed and protected until December while every shoot day has to be cancelled. The pinnacle of a year’s work brought to a sudden and complete halt. Their colleagues in Wales and Scotland have been wrestling with their own lockdowns and restrictions, but this is the most serious blow to the countryside since we were released from the first lockdown in the summer."

The countryside campaigner added that the lockdown would be a "huntsman’s or gamekeeper’s worst nightmare" because of the kennels full of dogs and woods full of unshot birds.

A Natural England commissioned review found that large, dense populations of pheasants can compete with songbirds for food, including seeds and insects.

An RSPB spokesperson confirmed to the Telegraph that it is likely heightened pressure will be put on native bird populations because shooters will be unable to reduce the pheasant populations.

Martin Harper, director for conservation at the RSPB said: “Every year around 60 million non-native pheasants and red-legged partridges are released into our countryside. This is twice the biomass of all UK’s native breeding birds.

“Last month, Defra acknowledged in their response to the legal challenge on releasing gamebirds on protected sites, the release of this huge quantity of gamebirds can have direct and indirect impacts on our environment. What’s more, the number released has been increasing."

He recommended the shooting industry spends lockdown improving the environment for Britain's birds, adding: “Sadly, because this is an unregulated activity we do not have a baseline against which we can compare the impact of the forced end to this year’s shooting season. That said, a pause buys time for both the shooting industry to massively improve environmental standards and for governments across the UK to get a better understanding of the impact that gamebird shooting is having on our countryside and end environmentally unsustainable forms of shooting.”

Last week, the government confirmed it would be putting in place a licensing system for pheasant releases close to Special Protected Areas, in order to mitigate the environmental damage reports have shown they cause in large numbers.

This was in response to a judicial review brought by BBC presenter Chris Packham's wildlife campaign group, and it is likely to affect around a quarter of shoots.

Russian scientists discover huge walrus haulout in Arctic circle

Maria Vasilyeva,
Reuters•November 6, 20

Huge walrus haulout discovered by Russian scientists

VIDEO https://news.yahoo.com/russian-scientists-discover-huge-walrus-134713617.html

By Maria Vasilyeva

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Scientists in northern Russia have discovered a huge walrus haulout on the shores of the Kara Sea where their habitat is under threat from shrinking ice and human activity.

The haulout, a place of refuge where walruses congregate, reproduce, and socialise, is located in a remote corner of Russia's Yamal peninsula, and scientists say they counted over 3,000 animals there last month.

Walrus haulouts have traditionally been located on drifting sea ice or on Arctic islands, scientists say. But warmer climate cycles mean sea ice is shrinking and habitats are under threat from oil and gas exploration and more Arctic shipping.

"This haulout is unique because there are both female and male walruses, as well as calves of different age," said Aleksander Sokolov, a senior Arctic researcher at Russia's Academy of Sciences who called the find a "unique open-air laboratory".

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed the species as "nearly threatened" in 2016, estimating the total number of adult Atlantic walruses in the world at 12,500.

Before commercial hunting of them was banned internationally in the middle of the 20th century, their numbers were threatened by overharvesting for their blubber and ivory.

Andrei Boltunov, from the Marine Mammal Research and Expedition Center, said the Yamal haulout which was first discovered last year but only properly documented last month, showed that the Atlantic walrus population was recovering.

"We want to believe that it's a positive sign," said Boltunov, who said there was too little information for now to draw sweeping conclusions however.

According to Boltunov, the Kara Sea's ice-free season has become longer in recent decades.

Scientists have taken DNA samples and fitted several walruses with satellite tags to monitor their movements for up to several months.

But Boltunov says much work was required to establish what made this particular Arctic beach so attractive for thousands of walruses and what steps could be taken to protect them.




(Reporting by Maria Vasilyeva and Anastasia Adasheva; Writing by Maria Vasilyeva; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Raissa Kasolowsky)

A 15-foot, 2,000-pound great white shark tracked off the Keys. She’s come a long way.

David Goodhue
Thu., November 5, 2020

Unama’ki, a 15-foot, 2,000-pound female great white shark is spending some time off the Florida Keys.

Tagged with an electronic tracking device in September 2019 off Nova Scotia, Canada, scientists with the nonprofit Ocearch shark research group said she “pinged” off Key Largo at 5:46 a.m. Thursday morning.

Unama’ki, which means “Land of the fog” in Mi’kmaq, the indigenous people of Nova Scotia, pinged off Vero Beach Sunday and was northeast of the Bahamas out in the Atlantic Ocean late last week.

She’s come a long way since the summer when she pinged off Nova Scotia in early August, according to the Ocearch tracking website.

Ocearch said in a Facebook post in October that Unam’aki was making a similar journey as two  other large female great whites the group was tracking and the hope was she was pregnant and could lead scientists to where she gives birth.

Unama’ki is one of the largest sharks Ocearch has tagged in the North Atlantic. The largest was a 16-foot female tagged in 2012.

'We're seeing more than ever': white shark populations rise off California coast

Katharine Gammon,
The Guardian•November 6, 2020

Photograph: Patrick Rex/Reuters

Chris Lowe is no longer surprised when he sees drone footage of juvenile white sharks cruising near surfers and swimmers in southern California’s ocean waters.

Lowe directs the shark lab at California State University, Long Beach, and for the past 12 years he’s been monitoring populations of juvenile white sharks off the southern California coast with tags, drones and planes. This year, Lowe has already tagged a record 38 sharks, triple the number that were tagged last year. “Normally they’d be leaving by now, but instead we are seeing more sharks than ever.”

Two years ago, Lowe was asked by the state to investigate in more detail what sharks are doing along the beaches and how they behave in proximity to people – research that officials hope will help predict where and when the sharks show up and will help educate the public about the animals.

White sharks have been affected by humans for more than a century. Commercial fisheries caught them for years (many a fish taco was probably shark, Lowe said) and sharks’ primary adult food – marine mammals – has been hunted to the brink of extinction.

Related: 'Buses with fins': giant basking sharks reappear off California coast

California moved to protect its white shark population in 1994, and has seen its numbers rise steadily since. In southern California, most sharks spotted near beaches are juveniles.

White sharks are born at 4.5 to 5ft long, and grow a foot each year for their first five years of life. They love southern California’s shallows because the water is warmer (young sharks lack the ability to retain heat in colder waters), safer from predators and full of their preferred food: stingrays. When they reach 10ft, they switch food sources to marine mammals like seals, and they spend more time away from the shoreline.

Lowe studies the animals from the land, in the water and from the skies.

He works closely with lifeguards, who are on the frontlines during the summer and fall beach season. His team also goes out to tag sharks, when they try to surgically implant the animals’ back with a finger-sized acoustic transmitter that connects with listening stations all along the coastline.

The acoustic stations display where the sharks are spending their time, and they allow the research team to track individual sharks for years – even when they cross the southern border with Mexico to Baja California. Some of the transmitters will last for a decade. “It’s a little like how you get a bill at the end of the month for a toll road,” said Lowe. “We use the same technology – the only difference is we get the bill, they don’t.”

In addition to tagging and tracking, the team also uses an autonomous underwater robot that can rise up and down and looks like a torpedo. It carries a full set of oceanographic sensors on its nose and a video camera. The robot allows the researchers to make high-resolution three-dimensional maps, and study why sharks are hanging out where they are: is it because there are more stingrays, warmer water, or fewer people?

Aerial drones are the team’s final piece of tech – the researchers fly drone surveys from the San Diego border with Mexico to Santa Barbara, to identify sharks’ location and size, and to see when they are close to people. “We can go through and count how many people are in the water, surfers, fishers, paddle boarders, and plot the distance to any shark,” Lowe said.

Lowe has found that not only are there more kid-sharks in the waters, they’re around longer, too. Juvenile white sharks typically leave California waters for Baja California in the fall, and return in the spring, but that pattern has been changing – probably due to warmer waters and an abundance of food. “We may have white sharks here year-round,” he said.

Up in Monterey Bay in northern California, David Ebert, who directs the Pacific Shark Research Center at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, has seen a similar rise in numbers of juvenile white sharks off the coast.

Ebert recalled taking a helicopter ride in 2015 over the Monterey Bay and being astounded by what he saw from the sky: little sharks hanging out in small groups, right off the beach.

Marine biologists from the shark lab study sharks along the California coast. 

Photograph: Patrick Rex/Reuters

On one hand, the growing presence of the juveniles is a good sign, he said, because it shows the ecosystem is clean and there is enough food to support the sharks. But it also points to how the climate crisis, and warmer ocean temperatures, can shift the range of the animals. Southern California used to be at the northern limit of their range, and now it might be in the middle, Ebert said.

Even with more sharks in the water, Ebert said humans have little to fear from the juveniles. Since 1950, when the state started keeping records, there have been on average only three or four attacks a year in California, Ebert says – even as the state population has swelled from 15 million to 40 million. “There are so many people in the water: you have paddle boards, kayaks, wetsuits, but the number of attacks hasn’t really changed. That tells you that people are not on the menu, they’re not out here hunting people.”

“They’re an amazing animal to see in person,” he added. “I think it’s one of those rare wildlife experiences, you can spend your whole life out there on the water and never see one.”

Lowe, too, said that generally when he sees sharks swimming around people, the people have no idea – and the sharks generally don’t care.

He and his team now hope to create a shark forecast – “it’s going to be a sharky week!” – that can help educate beachgoers about the sharks in California’s waters. Lowe said he could see a future where lifeguards can post signs about where the juveniles are hanging out, alongside information about the tides and waves. He says that if you happen to see a group of sharks on the beach, it’s actually a cause for celebration: “They are keeping the stingray population down, and they generally don’t care about people.”

VW CEO Says Existential Electric Race Awaits After Pandemic

Christoph Rauwald, Chad Thomas and Daniel Schaefer
Thu, November 5, 2020

Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess

 Says Existential Electric Race Awaits After Pandemic

(Bloomberg) -- Volkswagen AG Chief Executive Officer Herbert Diess vowed to pursue a sweeping transition to electric cars, declaring it a matter of survival even as the coronavirus risks upending business in the near term.

While the world’s largest carmaker has a “healthy order bank,” its development in the coming months hinges on major economies controlling the disease and averting restrictions that would hurt demand and operations, Diess said Thursday. Despite the uncertainties, VW will press ahead with aggressive investment in new technology to avoid falling behind as the auto industry fundamentally changes.

“If you’re not fast enough, you’re not going to survive,” Diess said during a virtual Bloomberg event. “In the long run, climate change will be the biggest challenge mankind is facing.”


While the CEO warned another lockdown would be “difficult to manage,” the German automaker has shown it can weather turbulence. It swung back to profit in the third quarter, echoing robust results from peers including Daimler AG, Tesla Inc. and Ford Motor Co. on the back of a swift demand recovery in China.

Another wave of new infections in key markets, an unsettled U.S. election and Britain’s messy exit from the European Union are now bearing down on the auto industry. Car registrations fell in Europe’s four largest auto markets last month, signaling that sales have relapsed after a surprise gain in September.

Beyond managing through those issues, the more complex task for Diess is positioning the 83-year-old industrial behemoth for the future. Volkswagen, which operates the Audi, Porsche and Lamborghini brands, mastered the combustion engine and now wants to control the software brains for next-generation vehicles.

“This is the most important race and decisive point for our industry in next five to 10 years,” the 62-year-old executive said, adding he won’t compromise on the company’s technology roadmap even if the coronavirus crisis saps sales. “We think we can do it. We have software skills, and we are ramping up fast.”

Volkswagen shares rose 1.5% at 2:22 p.m. in Frankfurt. The stock has declined about a quarter this year, valuing the company at 70 billion euros ($83 billion) -- roughly a fifth of Tesla’s market capitalization.

Pulling off the transition and trying to catch up with Tesla have been made all the more challenging by divisions within VW’s supervisory board and powerful works council, which publicly clashed with the former BMW AG executive earlier this year.

The coming months will be critical for the CEO to show his electric push is working. After the launch of the Europe-focused ID.3 hatchback was delayed due to software problems, VW is going global with the introduction of its crossover sibling, the ID.4, which will be built and sold in China and eventually the U.S.

To bolster its electric push, Volkswagen plans to raise investment in the technology, build up battery production capacity and transform entire plants to churn out electric cars, Diess said. Even the ultra-luxury Bentley brand will become electric within four to five years, he said.

VW’s supervisory board will meet next week for the annual review of the group’s investment plans. Budgets are poised to tighten after the pandemic weighed on economic prospects, while analysts are concerned about Diess’s efforts to lower costs.

Because of the fallout from the coronavirus, “there are several million cars missing in our planning so we have to adapt,” Diess said. “It’s a long-range crisis recovery plan. It reinforces the way we are going. There’s no changing direction.”

The investment review might also determine whether the CEO can make VW’s conglomerate structure more nimble by focusing decision-making mainly on the VW, Audi and Porsche divisions. Over the past four years, the manufacturer has been reviewing options for non-core businesses and niche nameplates such as the Ducati motorcycle brand and Bugatti supercars.

Volkswagen aims to double electric-vehicle sales in 2021, the CEO said, as the company seeks to meet increasingly stringent emissions regulations in Europe and elsewhere, part of a broad-based political push to adapt to climate change.

“Governments play a huge a role” by setting policy to influence consumer choices, Diess said. “For many people, it will be very difficult to decide against an electric car.”

With an eye on the election in the U.S., he said his strategy probably better aligns with Democrats, though the company also has developed a “trustful” relationship with Donald Trump’s administration.

While incumbent automakers wrestle with overhauls of their legacy operations, Tesla has surged ahead to become the world’s most-valuable car manufacturer, even as it generates far less cash and sells fewer vehicles than VW or Toyota Motor Corp.

That puts VW under pressure to keep pace with technology development, even as the pandemic roils the day-to-day business of making cars. At stake is what role Volkswagen will play in the future.

“Are we able to convert this exciting, precious device into a real internet device?” Diess said. “We’re confident, but there’s still a lot to do.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Electric Vehicles Are Becoming The Future Of The Automotive Industry

IAM Newswire 
October 26, 2020 


BNEF predicts that by 2040 EV sales will rise to nearly 60% of the global auto market. That is quite a difference compared to 2010 when annual sales were close to zero. With consumers becoming more aware and conscious, along with favorable market forces that are gaining momentum, EVs are quickly becoming the future of the automotive industry with many EV companies showing massive growth potential.
E-Tractors

Ideanomics Inc IDEX 0.89% has acquired 15% of California-based Solectrac, Inc. for $1.3 million, its very first US-based OEM, Solectrac develops, assembles and distributes 100% battery-powered electric tractors for agriculture and utility operations. With this investment in Solectrac, Ideanomics expands its global footprint in the EV industry through specialty commercial vehicles. Moreover, Ideanomics gained a seat on Solectrac's Board of Directors. This opportunity will give Ideanmoics access to the global agricultural tractor market that is poised for rapid growth, although currently valued at $75 billion. The time has come to say goodbye to diesel tractors.

Solar Powered EVs

Besides recently forming an agreement with Atlis Motor Vehicles, Worksport Ltd WKSP 4.25% has announced today to engage Thermal Technology Services Canada to test the Company's groundbreaking TerraVis solar panel technology and increase its efficiency. Increases in product efficiency of even a few per cent can make all the difference when it comes to the performance of an electric vehicle. Each additional mile counts and Worksport is set to deliver the most advanced product with solar technology, from which the technologically advanced and eagerly-anticipated for Atlis XT electric pickup truck can greatly benefit.
Traditional Automakers Are Not Wasting Any Time

General Motors Company GM 0.78% revived the Hummer for the 2022 GMC Hummer EV, a fully electric truck that is expected to arrive in dealership next year. Last week, GM unveiled its "Factory Zero" as it gave a new life to its Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant. The new GMC Hummer EV electric truck will be built in this all-electric factory, accompanied by the Cruise Origin, a self-driving EV designed by GM and Honda Motor Co Ltd HMC 6.1%. Last month, Ford Motor Company F 2.5% also announced plans for a new factory at its large Rouge site in Dearborn, Michigan, that will build it's the all-electric version of its legendary F-150 pickups.
New Entrants Are Upping Their Game

Northeast Ohio-based Lordstown Motors RIDE 1.16%, which purchased GM's former Lordstown Assembly Complex and DiamondPeak Holdings Corp NASDAQDPHC, a special purpose acquisition company, completed a merger that makes the EV startup a publicly traded company, effective Monday. The deal gives Lordstown the financing it needs to start production of its electric Endurance truck. It aims to deliver its truck by next September, the same time Rivian Automotive Inc., Tesla Inc TSLA 1.86% and General Motors Co. plan to launch their own electric truck candidates.
Outlook

On Thursday, during the last presidential debate, former Vice President Joe Biden pledged to shift the U.S. economy away from oil. This goal is impossible to reach without a wider EV adoption as road transport accounted for almost 70% of America's oil consumption in 2019. Therefore, market forces and green government policies can only accelerate the EV revolution, both in the United States and around the world, with Europe already being well on that path. A cleaner tomorrow where we will no longer have to choose between performance, economy and environmental sustainability is well underway.

This article is not a press release and is contributed by a verified independent journalist for IAMNewswire. It should not be construed as investment advice at any time please read the full disclosure . IAM Newswire does not hold any position in the mentioned companies. 

The post Plugging Into the Future appeared first on IAM Newswire.

Photo by Pratik Gupta on Unsplash

Trucks To The Rescue Of Ford And Fiat Chrysler


IAM Newswire
Fri, November 6, 2020


Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) and Fiat Chrysler (NYSE: FCAU) reported strong profits as demand rebounded. Not only did Ford crush Wall Street expectations, but Fiat Chrysler also had record earnings.

Ford

Ford's top and bottom beats were based on a stronger-than-expected demand during the pandemic. A long restricting has started paying off with a big jump in profit in the third quarter. Adjusted EPS were 65 cents, exceeding the expected 19 cents with automotive revenue of $34.71 billion also topping the expected $33.51 billion.


During the quarter that ended in September, the Detroit automaker earned $2.4 billion. This is an increase from $425 million for the same period a year earlier. Although it lost money overseas, Ford's North American operations and its division that offers credit did well.

The North American branch made $3.18 billion on total revenue of $25.3 billion, which led the way towards profits. The strong figures were a direct result of a stronger-than-expected demand and a rich sales mix of popular Ford trucks and SUVs, along with commercial vehicles. Ford's new-vehicle sales were down just 5% in the third quarter as it increased the share of more-profitable trucks, vans and SUVs. This trend resulted in increased profitability per vehicle sold.

However, Ford expects to break even or show a loss of up to $500 million in the fourth quarter before interest expenses and taxes are taken into account due to costs related to new or redesigned vehicle launches. Ford expects its figures to be hurt by higher costs and lower production due to introducing a fully redesigned F-150 pickup truck, a new Bronco and the Mustang Mach-E electric sport utility vehicle. The redesigned F-150, Mach-E and Bronco Sport are all due to reach dealer lots later this year.

Ford revised its previous guidance that had predicted an annual loss, now expecting positive full-year adjusted earnings are expected. Overall, the Blue Oval plans to invest more than $11 billion on developing EVs by 2022.

It remains unknown when Ford expects to reinstate its prized dividend, which it suspended in March. Overall, despite a 15% increase in October, shares remain down by 17% this year.

Fiat Chrysler

On Wednesday, Fiat Chrysler said it earned an overall net profit of $1.414 billion, marking an increase of 773% compared to last year's loss. Revenues in the third quarter, however, did fall 6% to $30.298 billion, although sales of profitable trucks and sport utility vehicles recovered after a sharp drop in the spring. Ram and Jeep retail sales in North America fueled Fiat Chrysler to a record $2.671 billion in pre-tax earnings and 8.8% margin in the quarter that ended in September. Ram pickup retail sales were up 15% for the quarter, and the profit-heavy truck segment in total surpassed sales of the Chevrolet Silverado for the first time this year. In the third quarter, FCA's North America's pre-tax earnings rose 26% year-over-year to a record $2.9 billion and 13.8% margin.

But FCA also disclosed this week it could face costs of up to $840 million to resolve a Justice Department investigation into excess diesel emissions and as a result of higher fuel economy penalties.

The Italian-American company was just joined by Honda Motor Company (NYSE: HMC) in pooling its fleet with Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) to comply with emissions standards for passenger cars in Europe this year.

The results come as the European Union's executive branch is expected to approve the Italian American automaker's 50-50 Stellantis merger with Peugeot (OTC: PUGOY) and Citroën maker, PSA Groupe, with 14 of 22 jurisdictions already giving their blessing. The two ancient rivals expect the merger that is expected to close during the first quarter of 2021 to bring savings of $6 billion on a yearly basis while providing a scale for electrification.

FCA showed a strong financial position, ending the third quarter with $30 billion in cash, more than $45 billion in liquidity, and having repaid the $15 billion in credit it drew down during the first quarter.

Considering that FCA counts on only one popular pickup as opposed to its Detroit 3 counterparts, it's quite impressive that, just at the start of last year, pickups made up less than a quarter of its vehicle sales, whereas now they make up more than a third. The ongoing success of Ram is expected to continue to add to the company's bottom line as CEO Mike Manley confirmed plans for a battery-electric Ram only a week after General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) debuted its electric GMC Hummer truck. The automaker plans to capitalize further on its trucks as it is also scheduled to unveil the next-generation Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV and a new three-row Jeep SUV.

Outlook

It seems that the third quarter allowed automakers to shake off the pandemic-induced losses from plant and dealership closures as U.S. automakers are reporting a strong financial performance. Record-high transaction prices were fueled by a perfect combination of an unexpectedly strong recovery of demand and low inventories due to spring's shutdowns. Still, the companies are staying conservative in their outlook as COVID-19 cases are increasing in the United States and Europe, with Germany and France having already reinstated a second lockdown. General Motors has some large shoes to fill when it reveals its financial results on November 5th.

Americans largely reject Trump's victory declaration: Reuters/Ipsos poll

Chris Kahn
Thu., November 5, 2020

2020 U.S. presidential election in Washington D.C.


By Chris Kahn

(Reuters) - A bipartisan majority of Americans do not accept President Donald Trump's premature victory declaration in the U.S. presidential election and most are willing to wait for all votes to be counted before deciding who won, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released Thursday.

The Nov. 4-5 survey also showed that the public has largely brushed aside Trump's assessment of the election result as rigged to deny him a second term.

The Republican president trails Democrat Joe Biden in Arizona and Nevada and has seen his leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia shrink by the hour as those states count mail-in ballots. As his path to victory narrowed this week, Trump complained without proof that he is a victim of widespread voter fraud.

Trump asserted that he should be ahead in most of the states that are still counting ballots and prematurely declared victory in a rambling early morning speech that misread vote tallies across the country.

According to the poll, few Americans agree with the president's view on the race: 16% of U.S. adults, including 7% of Democrats and 30% of Republicans, accept Trump’s victory declaration.

Another 84%, including 93% of Democrats and 70% of Republicans, said that “candidates should not be declaring victory until all of the votes are counted.”

Two-thirds of Americans say they trust their local election officials to do their job honestly, and 83% agreed that "our democracy can withstand waiting until all of the votes are counted to know who won the election."

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the United States. It gathered opinions from 1,115 U.S. adults, including 524 Democrats and 417 Republicans, and has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of about 6 percentage points.

(Reporting by Chris Kahn; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

Incendiary texts traced to outfit run by top Trump aide

Fri., November 6, 2020



BOSTON — A texting company run by one of President Donald Trump’s top campaign officials sent out thousands of targeted, anonymous text messages urging supporters to rally where votes were being counted in Philadelphia on Thursday, falsely claiming Democrats were trying to steal the presidential election.

The messages directed Trump fans to converge at a downtown intersection where hundreds of protesters from the opposing candidates’ camps faced off Thursday afternoon. Pennsylvania is a crucial battleground state where former Vice-President Joe Biden's jumped ahead Friday and in a televised address later predicted a victory that would give him the presidency.

“This kind of message is playing with fire, and we are very lucky that it does not seem to have driven more conflict,” said John Scott-Railton, senior researcher at the University of Toronto’s online watchdog Citizen Lab. Scott-Railton helped track down the source.

The texts were sent using phone numbers leased to the text-messaging platform Opn Sesame, said two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition they not be further identified. The company’s CEO is Gary Coby, the Trump campaign’s digital director. It provides text-messaging services to GOP clients including the Republican National Committee.

“ALERT: Radical Liberals & Dems are trying to steal this election from Trump! We need YOU!” the text said, directing recipients to “show your support” on a street corner near the Philadelphia Convention Center where votes were being counted and tensions were running high.

A top Trump campaign official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the message did not come from the campaign. Because Opn Sesame is used by multiple customers, none of whom the company would identify, it could not be determined exactly who sent the message. Coby declined to comment.

Opn Sesame’s connection with the messages was first reported by The Washington Post.

Among those who received the rallying text was Chris Bray, who lives in rural Bucks County, about 25 miles outside Philadelphia.

A registered Independent who said he voted for Biden, Bray said he was very surprised to see the message pop up on his phone since he never signed up for anything related to the Trump campaign.

“I actually texted a number of other friends to say ‘hey, have you guys been getting robo-texts like this?’" Bray said Friday. “It was a call to action. It borders on that the rhetoric that we’ve been hearing for months now and that’s really dangerous if you get the right people together with a slight screw loose, we just don’t know what can happen.”

Later Thursday night, two men were arrested near the convention centre for carrying loaded handguns without a permit, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said. District Attorney Larry Krasner said there were no indications they were part of an extremist group. Their vehicle bore a window sticker for the right-wing conspiracy theory QAnon and an AR-style rifle and ammunition inside, Outlaw said.

The text messages were sent using 13 different phone numbers identified by RoboKiller, a mobile phone app that lets users block text and voice spam, said company vice-president Giulia Porter. RoboKiller traced the numbers to Twilio, a gateway for bulk-messaging services.

After being notified, Twilio shut down the numbers, saying in a statement that the texts “were sent without consumer opt-out language, which is in direct contravention of our policies.” A company spokesman declined further comment.

About 80 million political text messages have been sent daily since September in the U.S. — many of those from the Trump camp echoing his baseless claims that Democrats were trying to steal the election, said RoboKiller’s Porter. They are highly targeted.

Political text-messaging campaigns can exploit the same flaws in telecommunications infrastructure that let robocallers hide their origin. They can spoof the numbers they call from and auto-blast thousands of texts with a single mouse click.

Opn Sesame has earned millions as a hub of text-messaging efforts for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee this election cycle, said a digital Republican strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of political retribution.

Facebook and Twitter cracked down on disinformation in the runup to the election, making text messaging and robocalls more attractive to those seeking to spread false and sometimes dangerous messages directly to voters via their phones.

“The extent to which these companies are relying upon loopholes in the law and a lack of regulation in this space has really staggered me,” said Sam Woolley, a misinformation and computational propaganda researcher at the University of Texas at Austin.

“They really want to circumvent the need to rely social media firms which is why they are using these private mechanisms," he added. "They are using tech that we don’t think of as particularly new, texting, calling, but using them in ways that are very Machiavellian.”

___

Burke reported from San Francisco.

Frank Bajak And Garance Burke, The Associated Press

The Disinformation Is Coming From Inside the White House

Supporters and strategists predict Trump will not leave the spotlight quietly, even if he loses


 The New York Times
Matthew Rosenberg, Jim Rutenberg and Nick Corasaniti
Fri., November 6, 2020, 

A disinformation push to subvert the election is well underway, and it is coming straight from President Donald Trump and his allies. The goal: to somehow stop a victory by former Vice President Joe Biden, or, failing that, undermine his legitimacy before he can take office.

Trump’s false declaration of victory in the small hours of Wednesday morning quickly united hyperpartisan conservative activists and the standard-bearers of the right-wing media, such as Breitbart, with internet trolls and QAnon supporters behind a singular viral message: #StopTheSteal.

But its impact has become apparent far beyond the internet, with the theme dominating conservative talk radio and the prime-time lineup on Fox News. There, Trump-aligned hosts pressed the false notion that the vote counting in the crucial, still-undecided states was illegitimate — the sort of message that was drawing flags on Twitter and Facebook but flourishing elsewhere.

“How big of a mistake is it for the Democrats to have kind of a burn-it-all-down approach,” Laura Ingraham asked on her program Wednesday night, “to destroy the integrity of our election process with this mail-in, day-of-registration efforts, counting after the election’s over — dumping batches of votes a day, two days, maybe even three days after the election?”

The messaging was far blunter from the president himself, who used a Thursday evening briefing at the White House to reel off a series of baseless attacks on an election system he described as “rigged” by Democrats trying to “steal an election.” It was the continuation of a diatribe he had started earlier in the day with a tweet reading “STOP THE FRAUD!” that Twitter quickly flagged as containing information that “might be misleading.”

Trump and his campaign aides had long indicated that they would challenge any unwelcome result with charges that the election was being stolen through “voter fraud,” which is in fact exceedingly rare.

On Thursday, senior aides to Biden portrayed the disinformation push as part of a desperate, coordinated campaign that, in tandem with the president’s legal strategy to press lawsuits against election officials across the country, was intended to halt a count that seemed likely to end Trump’s presidency.

“This is part of a broader misinformation campaign that involves some political theater,” Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to Biden, told reporters. “All of this is intended to create a large cloud that it is the hope of the Trump campaign that nobody can see through. But it is not a very thick cloud, it’s not hard to see what they’re doing — we see through it; so will the courts, and so will election officials.”

If there was little indication that the disinformation push was helping the Trump campaign in court, where it was seeking to use small instances of worker error or technical fouls to challenge Democratic ballots, it nonetheless seemed likely to do one thing: convince a large swath of American voters that any Biden presidency was being stolen through illegal and unconstitutional means.

“This country is too corrupt, I’m so angry,” said Min Liu, who drove down from New York City to join protests in Philadelphia supporting Trump. “The Democrats are cheating right now, and the people need to wake up.”

She was not alone. On Wednesday and well into Thursday, the media campaign was spilling into the real world with similar protests in Detroit, Phoenix and elsewhere. Some were led by notorious alt-right trolls, like Mike Cernovich, who rose to national prominence in 2016 pushing the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, a precursor to the QAnon movement that falsely claimed that powerful Democrats were running a child-trafficking ring out of the basement of a Washington pizza restaurant that, in reality, has no basement.

Now, Cernovich is pushing a message of widespread election fraud in lockstep with the president, his children and well-established members of his inner circle, like his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

Taken together, the media activity and the protests were emerging as a national and online version of the “Brooks Brothers riot” in the aftermath of the 2000 presidential election, when preppy Republican operatives, claiming fraud, stormed the Miami-Dade County canvassing board in Florida and effectively halted recount efforts that were expected to benefit the Democratic candidate, Al Gore.

Supporters of President Donald Trump attempt to gain access to observe ballot processing at the Clark County Election Department in Las Vegas on Thursday, Nov. 5, 2020. (Bridget Bennett/The New York Times) ROGER STONE STYLE DIRTY TRICKS RENT A CROWD

A “Stop the Steal” Facebook page, created Wednesday to help organize groups to flood ballot-counting centers with “observers,” quickly amassed nearly 300,000 members before the social network stepped in and shut it down Thursday afternoon. Facebook said it saw worrying calls for violence in the group, which was “organizing around the delegitimization of the election process.”

The Facebook page was started by Republican activist Kylie Jane Kremer. It followed on a “Stop the Steal” group, with a similar playbook, created in 2016 by Roger Stone, the self-described Republican dirty trickster and Trump confidant. (Stone was convicted on charges stemming from the Russia investigation but had his sentence commuted by Trump.)

Biden’s aides said later in interviews that they did not believe that anyone beyond Trump’s most die-hard supporters would question the legitimacy of a Biden victory. They pointed to statements from prominent Republicans dismissing Trump’s unsubstantiated attacks on the voting system. And they said they were heartened by a striking split at Fox News: While its prime-time hosts have parroted elements of Trump’s unfounded missives, its decision desk has not been shy in calling states for Biden, and several of its journalists have challenged dubious claims by Trump and his supporters.

The president and his allies have nonetheless relied heavily on the broader conservative media ecosystem to lob accusations against election officials, and then quickly moved to amplify them.

On Wednesday, the president shared two articles from Breitbart on Twitter. One falsely claimed that officials in Detroit had barred ballot-counting observers, even though both campaigns had the maximum number of observers allowed inside the building. Another Breitbart post shared by the president rounded up criticism from conservative influencers on social media of Josh Shapiro, the Democratic attorney general of the still-contested state of Pennsylvania, as evidence of calls for him to “step aside.”

Searches related to the keywords “steal” or “stealing” in the context of the election had more than 1.2 million mentions across social media platforms from 11 a.m. Tuesday to 11 a.m. Thursday, according to Zignal Labs, a firm that monitors disinformation. Michigan was leading the way with more than 96,000 mentions, followed by Pennsylvania at roughly 80,000 mentions and Arizona at just over 46,000.

Followers of QAnon, the convoluted pro-Trump conspiracy theory that falsely claims that the president is fighting a deep-state cabal of Democratic satanist pedophiles, were eagerly joining in with claims of election fraud. It fit their imagined narrative perfectly — only widespread fraud by the deep state could defeat Trump, a man whom many QAnon followers venerate as something akin to divine.

There were indications that at least some parts of the campaign were planned in advance of Election Day.

A young conservative activist, John Doyle, who runs a YouTube channel called Heck Off, Commie!, was circulating a Google doc that encouraged people to head off the purported fraud in Pennsylvania and lobby state legislators “to cast their electoral votes as Republican!” The document, which listed the names and numbers of all the state’s legislators, was created Tuesday — that is, before the president or his allies were claiming the election was being stolen in Pennsylvania.

Doyle did not respond to a request for comment, and his Twitter account, @ComradeDoyIe, was suspended Thursday for violating the platform’s terms of service. Mark Levin, a popular conservative radio host and ardent Trump supporter, echoed Doyle’s call for Republican state legislators to disregard the outcome of the voting. In a tweet Thursday, he wrote: “REMINDER TO THE REPUBLICAN STATE LEGISLATURES, YOU HAVE THE FINAL SAY OVER THE CHOOSING OF ELECTORS, NOT ANY BOARD OF ELECTIONS, SECRETARY OF STATE, GOVERNOR, OR EVEN COURT. YOU HAVE THE FINAL SAY.”

Dozens of other Twitter accounts pushing the hashtag #StopTheSteal were created in October and the first few days of November. The use of freshly created social media accounts to amplify a message is a common feature of disinformation campaigns.

By Wednesday, the hashtag had quickly jumped from the hard-right of the internet to mainstream Republicans. The Philadelphia Republican Party picked up the hashtag in a tweet, tagging Eric Trump, the president’s son, and Giuliani, and urging them to “get ready to #StopTheSteal and deliver Pennsylvania” to the president.

Eric Trump went even further. He posted and then quickly deleted a tweet using the hashtag Thursday and asking, without evidence, why the FBI and the Justice Department were not stepping in to stop election fraud. Jeanine Pirro, a popular Fox News personality, tweeted a similar thought.

A day earlier, Eric Trump had posted a video purporting to show ballots that had been cast for his father in Virginia Beach, Virginia, being burned. City officials later said that the ballots were clearly samples and not real. But even before that, the video’s questionable provenance probably should have been a tipoff that it was fake: It came from a Twitter user who goes by the handle @Ninja_StuntZ and is connected to the troll-infested message board 8kun.

Ninja — or is it StuntZ? — appears to spend his days selling 8kun-branded coffee. By Thursday morning, his Twitter account had been suspended and the video was no longer available.

The relentless messaging and noise appeared to drive the campaign’s legal strategy. On Thursday morning, with the president’s slim lead in the key state of Pennsylvania growing slimmer, Pam Bondi, the former attorney general of Florida, and Corey Lewandowski, a close political adviser, held a news conference amid dueling protests outside the Philadelphia convention center, the city’s main ballot-processing site.

Lining 12th Street and protected by police barricades were dozens of protesters supporting Black Lives Matter and Democrats’ call to “count every vote.” On the opposite corner along Arch Street were roughly two dozen Trump supporters, chanting back to “count every legal vote.”

Bondi entered through the back of a barricade and stood in the middle of the Trump supporters, holding up a printed-out court order permitting the Trump campaign poll watchers to get closer to observe the ballot counting.

But her speech was drowned out by protesters across the street, who were armed with a DJ and a full PA system blasting “Party” by Beyoncé. The DJ, counting to 10 repeatedly, in rhythm, was the only audible voice during Bondi’s remarks. As she continued, he broke into a chant: “Count, Philly, Count.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company