Friday, December 25, 2020

Nuro gets first California OK to charge money for self-driving services


(Reuters) - Robotics company Nuro on Wednesday received the first-ever permit to commercially deploy its self-driving vehicles in California, allowing the Silicon Valley firm to charge clients for its driverless delivery service


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© Reuters/HANDOUT The unmanned delivery vehicle, Nuro, 
is seen during the Kroger annual shareholders meeting in Cincinnati

Relying on a remote human operator - who could control multiple autonomous vehicles from miles away - is a step that allows a path to profitability in the emerging field of self-driving technology.

Nuro has been testing autonomous vehicles on California's roads with safety drivers since 2017, and it was authorized by the state regulators to test two driverless delivery vehicles in nine cities earlier this year.

The company said it would launch a delivery service with a fleet of autonomous Toyota Priuses, and later add its own low-speed R2 vehicle, which has no pedals or steering wheel and only room for packages.

Last month, Nuro raised $500 million in a funding round, driven by a massive boost to e-commerce from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nuro, a privately held firm based in Mountain View, California, was permitted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in February to deploy up to 5,000 low-speed electric delivery vehicles in Houston without human controls such as mirrors and steering wheels.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil; Editing by Maju Samuel)
Louis Vuitton yoga mat made of leather draws Hindu complaint


“The scenario of yoga — a profound, sacred and ancient discipline introduced and nourished by Hinduism — being performed on a mat made from a killed cow is painful,” 


BOSTON — A Hindu activist is calling on luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton to pull a yoga mat made partly from cowhide leather, calling it “hugely insensitive.”
© Provided by The Canadian Press

Rajan Zed, president of the Universal Society of Hinduism, said in a statement Tuesday that the mat is “highly inappropriate” to practicing Hindus, who regard cows as sacred symbols of life.

“The scenario of yoga — a profound, sacred and ancient discipline introduced and nourished by Hinduism — being performed on a mat made from a killed cow is painful,” Zed said.

Paris-based Louis Vuitton did not immediately respond Tuesday to messages from The Associated Press seeking comment

The company's yoga mat, made mostly of canvas with leather details and a cowhide carrying strap, retails for $2,390 online.
 (MORE THAN THE COW COST)

In an email to AP, Zed called on Louis Vuitton executives to apologize and adhere to its corporate code of conduct, which includes commitments to ethical and social responsibility. The company “should not be in the business of religious appropriation, sacrilege, mocking serious spiritual practices and ridiculing entire communities,” he said.

The Universal Society of Hinduism, which is based in Reno, Nevada, has led several recent campaigns targeting what it considers the commercial misuse of sacred symbols.

Zed’s organization is part of an interfaith coalition that’s recently called on Anheuser-Busch InBev to rename its Brahma beer line — which shares its name with a Hindu god, but isn’t named for the deity, the beer giant says — and also urged nightclubs to stop using sacred Buddhist and Hindu imagery as decor.

In August, online home goods giant Wayfair pulled a towel depicting the Hindu deity Lord Ganesha after the coalition objected.

The Associated Press

RIP
Leslie West, guitarist of rock band Mountain, has died at 75

© Provided by The Canadian Press

LOS ANGELES — Leslie West, an iconic guitarist-vocalist who was behind several '70s rock anthems including “Mississippi Queen” with the popular band Mountain, has died. He was 75.

His spokesman Steve Karas said West died Wednesday in Palm Coast, Florida. Karas said West died from cardiac arrest after being rushed to the hospital.

West battled with health issues in the past few years. In 2011, his lower right leg was amputated in a life-saving operation related to his diabetes.


Rockers like Gene Simmons and Slash showed support for West on social media a day before his death when it was clear he was in dire condition. Paul Stanley called West a “gentle man and guitar hero” on Twitter.

West began his music career in the mid-60s with The Vagrants with his brother Larry West Weinstein, who played bass. The band known as a blue-eyed soul group had a minor hit with “I Can’t Make a Friend” and covered Otis Redding’s “Respect” in 1967.

West stepped out on his own with a solo career, releasing the 1969 album “Mountain,” which was produced by Felix Pappalardi. West and Pappalardi ended up starting the hard rock band Mountain, which was named after West’s debut solo album.

In 1969, Mountain performed an 11-song set at Woodstock before the Grateful Dead. A year later, the band released their biggest hit “Mississippi Queen,” which appeared on numerous movie and TV soundtracks along with video games including Guitar Hero. The song was covered by several artists such as Ozzy Osbourne, W.A.S.P. and Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

Mountain’s song “Long Red” became popular among multiple hip-hop artists including Jay-Z, Kanye West and Nas, who sampled the single. “Theme From An Imaginary Western” was another of the band's notable songs.

During a Mountain hiatus, West formed the group West, Bruce and Laing along with Cream bassist Jack Bruce and Mountain drummer Corky Laing.

West appeared in films such as “Family Honor” and “Money Pit.” He was a regular guest on the Howard Stern Show. The musician was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2006.

West is survived by his wife, Jenni, whom he married on stage after Mountain’s performance at the Woodstock 40th anniversary concert in Bethel, New York in 2009.

Jonathan Landrum Jr., The Associated Press


Thai man uses CPR to save baby elephant struck by motorbike

Who knew CPR worked on elephants?  
© Kunchaylek via Reuters Mana Srivate provides CPR to an elephant calf in Thailand on Dec. 20, 2020.

Mana Srivate didn't know what to expect when he started using the rescue tactic on an injured baby elephant last week after the animal was struck by a motorbike on a road in Thailand. The elephant was crossing the road with its herd when the collision happened.

Mana was on a road trip through the eastern province of Chantaburi when he witnessed the crash late Sunday. The off-duty rescue worker immediately sprang into action, rushing over to the injured elephant while others tended to the dazed rider.

Read more: Florida man wrestles alligator to save puppy in dramatic video

Mana says he's provided CPR to dozens of traffic accident victims over his 26 years on the job, but he's never successfully revived any humans — and he'd certainly never used CPR on an animal.

Nevertheless, he gave it a try.

Video from the scene shows Mana giving the elephant two-handed chest compressions while others stand back and watch.

“It’s my instinct to save lives, but I was worried the whole time because I can hear the mother and other elephants calling for the baby,” Mana told Reuters. “I assumed where an elephant heart would be located based on human theory and a video clip I saw online."

Mana worked tirelessly at the scene while witnesses captured his efforts on video. The elephant eventually got back on its feet after 10 minutes.

"When the baby elephant started to move, I almost cried," he said.

Read more: Woman charged with animal cruelty after dog thrown off motel balcony

Several rescuers loaded the elephant into a truck for additional treatment, then later returned it to the scene and released it back into the wild.

The calf's mother was waiting for it when it came back, Mana said. Mother and child were reunited, and together they stomped off into the darkness.

The motorcycle rider was not seriously injured.

—With files from Reuters
Octopuses filmed sucker-punching fish — 
sometimes out of ‘spite’

© Eduardo Sampaio et. al. via Ecology An octopus lashes out at a fish in the Red Sea in this image from video.

Octopuses might be squishy, but they’re no suckers — and they won’t stand float by while fish mess around with their food.


New research reveals that octopuses in the Red Sea have developed a so-called “partner control mechanism” for dealing with fish that annoy them while they hunt.

The octopus will sucker-punch the fish.

Read more: Massive, deep-sea ‘entity’ leaves ocean scientists ‘blown away’

Videos captured by the research team in Israel and Egypt show several cases of octopuses lashing out to drive off various species of fish on the Red Sea floor. The gesture resembles a punch, though it's more of a "directed explosive arm movement" because they don't have hands, researchers say.

Octopuses and fish are known to hunt together, and their skills complement each other well when they're combing the sea bottom for food, according to lead study author Eduardo Sampaio. However, even the best partnerships trigger the occasional disagreement, and the Red Sea octopuses have shown that their first answer to such an issue is to throw a punch.

"Since multiple partners join, this creates a complex network where investment and pay-off can be unbalanced, giving rise to partner control mechanisms," Sampaio explained on Twitter.



Gallery: Cutest Australian animals (Espresso)


In other words, an octopus will punch a fish when the hunting duties are unfair — or whenever it feels like it.

The unusual behaviour has never been observed before, according to the authors of the study published in the journal Ecology. However, they saw multiple octopuses (Octopus cyanea) demonstrating the same punchy attitude on separate occasions, suggesting that the phenomenon is not a one-hit wonder.

Researchers saw the octopuses lash out in a variety of circumstances. Sometimes they'd punch a fish to gain an advantage, expending a bit of energy to immediately get their tentacles on some prey. However, there were times when there seemed to be no motivation for a punch, according to Sampaio, a researcher at the University of Lisbon in Portugal.

Read more: 57,000-year-old wolf puppy found frozen in Canada’s permafrost

The study suggests these unexplained punches might have occurred out of "spite," or in an attempt to "bully" the fish into co-operating in the future.

"The octopus pays a small cost to impose a heavier one on the misbehaving partner," the study authors write. They add that punching is occasionally "a spiteful behaviour" used to hurt other fish, regardless of the effort it takes from the octopus.

Video: Bald eagle vs. octopus fight caught on camera in B.C.

The octopuses were not shy about what they punched. They socked it to some tailspot squirrelfish. They punched two kinds of groupers. They smacked yellow-saddles. They hammered some half-spotted hinds. They even suckered some Red Sea goatfishes.

Researchers say more study is needed to see if octopuses punch some fish more than others — and to figure out if the Red Sea is the only place to see the Rock'Em Sock'Em cephalopods.
Novelist Yu Miri: Olympics not helping Fukushima rebuilding


TOKYO — Yu Miri, who won this year’s National Book Award for translated literature, says Tokyo’s Ueno Park, where a homeless man kills himself in her award-winning story, looks very clean ahead of next summer's Olympics. Still, she says, that doesn't help to raise hope amid the coronavirus pandemic and the delayed recovery of the disaster-hit Fukushima region.  
© Provided by The Canadian Press

The park is a main setting of Yu's award-winning novel, “Tokyo Ueno Station,” in which the protagonist, Kazu, a seasonal worker from Fukushima, ended up. The elderly man first came to the Japanese capital a year before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics for construction work.

Yu said at a Tokyo news conference Wednesday that she visited the park recently and it was surprisingly clean, but that an area where she used to interview homeless residents for her book has largely been eliminated.

The book, first published in Japan in 2014, portrays the life of the seasonal worker without a place to go back — a theme for many of Yu's works.

The story was based on her interviews with homeless squatters living in huts made of cardboard boxes and blue plastic tarp more than 10 years ago. She said she was also inspired by about 600 Fukushima residents she interviewed while hosting a local radio program that she started a year after the March 2011 meltdowns at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

The triple meltdowns at the plant caused massive radiation leaks to the outside, contaminated the surrounding areas and displaced as many as 160,000 people from the no-go zones and elsewhere in the prefecture. Most of those places have been reopened as the government has tried to showcase the recovery ahead of the Tokyo Games, but those who returned to their homes are largely elderly people.

Many families, especially with small children, say they don't plan to return to their homes due to radiation concerns as well as loss of their former jobs and communities.

But their lives have significantly changed — for the worse — since Yu finished the book, with a growing sense of isolation among Fukushima residents amid preparations ahead of the Olympics, and the coronavirus pandemic that has made them more isolated, said Yu. She has since moved to Minamisoma, where she opened a book cafĂ© in hopes of creating a place for locals to get reconnected after displacement due to the nuclear disaster.

“Both the nuclear accident and the coronavirus pandemic have revealed distortion and inequality in society,” Yu said.

“Many people see the situation through a lens of despair instead of a lens of hope,” she said. “Perhaps the story fit their thinking and that's probably why the book has been widely read."

She said disaster-hit areas have not recovered enough and preparations for the Olympics have taken away resources and jobs from the recovery projects, becoming part of the reasons delaying their reconstruction. “Organizers should have seen the level of progress of the reconstruction before deciding to host the Games," she said.

The Olympics, initially planned for July 2020, were postponed until next summer due to the pandemic.

Many of those Yu interviewed had worked as seasonal workers in Tokyo during Japan’s post-war economic advancement. When they finally came back to have an easy retirement life back in their hometown, they lost their homes in the Fukushima disaster. “A man told me it was back luck, and the word got stuck in my chest like a thorn,” she said.

Yu remembered another thorn she has had in her chest from her past conversation with a homeless man. He told her that those who possess the roof and walls don’t understand the feelings of those who don’t.

“So I wrote the story of how the man named Kazu lived and chose death, not from the outside but his inner self, thinking that perhaps I can convey how he felt to those who have places to go back,” she said. “As a novelist, my job is to play a role as an endoscope to look inside of a person, while also showing him or her with an external camera.”

Yu, an ethnic-Korean who was born and raised in Japan, writes in Japanese and has won a number of Japanese literature awards, including the prestigious Akutagawa Prize in 1997 for “Family Cinema."

___

Follow Mari Yamaguchi on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/mariyamaguchi

Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press



Wealth Inequality Video Goes Viral

From: Mashable

The issue of wealth inequality across the US is well known, but this video shows you the extent of that imbalance in dramatic and graphic fashion. The viral video on Mashable relies heavily on a 2011 Mother Jones article and information from CNNMoney and ThinkProgress, and challenges the relationship between free market capitalism and community values.

MERCANTILIST MONOPOLY
Key events behind China's investigation into Alibaba Group

(Reuters) - China has launched an investigation into Alibaba Group for suspected monopolistic behaviour and will summon its Ant Group to meet in coming days, regulators said, in the latest blow for Jack Ma’s e-commerce and fintech empire.

Here’s a timeline of key events leading up to the investigation.

SEPT 14 - CHINA ROLLS OUT NEW RULES FOR FINANCIAL HOLDING FIRMS

China issues new rules to regulate financial holding companies, with the central bank saying there had been a loophole in regulations for such companies.

Ant was among companies named by Pan Gongsheng, the People’s Bank of China vice governor.

OCT 21 - ANT WINS GREEN SIGNAL FROM REGULATOR


Ant wins the final nod from China’s top securities watchdog to register its Shanghai IPO, clearing the last regulatory hurdle for its issue.

OCT 24 - “OLD MAN’S CLUB

At a public event attended by Chinese regulators, Ma, China’s richest man, said the financial and regulatory system stifled innovation and must be reformed to fuel growth. He also compared the Basel Committee of global banking regulators to “an old man’s club”.

OCT 26 - ANT WINS BACKING OF GLOBAL STRATEGIC INVESTORS


Ant prices its IPO and secures the backing of strategic investors including a unit of Singapore state investor Temasek Holdings, as well as Singaporean and Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth funds, large Chinese insurers and mutual funds.

OCT 30 - MOM-AND-POP INVESTORS BID $3 TRILLION FOR ANT’S SHARES

Retail investors bid for a record $3 trillion worth of shares in Ant’s dual listing, the equivalent of Britain’s gross domestic product, as they bet on demand for Ant’s financial technology services in China.

OCT 31 - BEIJING FLAGS CONCERNS OVER FINTECH


China’s Financial Stability and Development Committee, a cabinet-level body headed by Vice Premier Liu He, flags risks associated with the rapid development of fintech, at a meeting that was widely interpreted as a government response to the rise of players such as Ant.

NOV 2 - REGULATORS ANNOUNCE TALKS WITH ANT

Four of China’s top financial regulators say they conducted regulatory talks with Ant’s top two executives and Ma.

Chinese regulators recommend tighter regulations for online micro-lending companies to help contain potential financial risks and rein in rising debt levels.

NOV 3 - SHANGHAI IPO SUSPENDED; ANT FREEZES HK IPO


The Shanghai stock exchange suspends Ant’s IPO on its tech-focused STAR Market, citing the regulatory talks as a “material event” and a tougher regulatory environment as factors that may disqualify Ant from listing.

The move prompted Ant to also freeze the Hong Kong leg of its dual listing.

NOV 10 - CHINA PUBLISHES DRAFT ANTI-MONOPOLY RULES FOR INTERNET PLATFORMS

China published draft rules aimed at preventing monopolistic behaviour by internet platforms, a move that will increase scrutiny on e-commerce marketplaces and payment services belonging to the likes of Alibaba Group.

NOV 23 - ALIBABA CEO SAYS CHINA’S SCRUTINY OF INTERNET PLATFORMS IS NEEDED

China’s increasing oversight of internet platforms is both “timely and necessary”, Alibaba Group CEO Daniel Zhang told the World Internet Conference.

DEC 14 - CHINA FINES DEALS INVOLVING ALIBABA, TENCENT


China warned its Internet giants it would not tolerate monopolistic practices and to brace for increased scrutiny, as it slapped fines and announced probes into deals involving Alibaba Group and Tencent Holdings.


Reporting by Anshuman Daga; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan
UPDATE
Modi calls farmer protests over contested laws politically motivated










MUMBAI (Reuters) - Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday that protests by farmers against three laws brought by his government were politically motivated, as he touted the success of an agricultural scheme launched last year.

Thousands of farmers from several Indian states have been camped on the outskirts of New Delhi for over a month, blocking highways to demand that Modi’s government repeal the farm laws passed in September that they say threaten their livelihoods.

But Modi’s virtual public address on Friday was not focused on the laws under contention.

Instead, he spoke via video conferencing to seven farmers from different states, asking them how they had benefited from ‘PM Kisan’ - a cash transfer scheme his government launched in February, 2019, under which farmers get minimum income support.





The farmers Modi spoke with on Friday praised his scheme - but none were among the thousands who have been protesting.


Modi repeatedly said “some people” were spreading lies and rumours about farmers’ troubles, and dismissed the protests as motivated by political opponents.

“All these people who are protesting in support of farmers, what did they do when they were in power?” he said, referring to opposition politicians. “Those with political motives...are firing the gun from the farmers’ shoulders.

Modi also said he was open to discussions with farmers. “I ask even those opposing me today, that my government is ready to talk to them on farmer issues...I urge our farmers to not be misled by anyone.”

At least six rounds of talks between Modi’s government and farmer leaders on the new laws have failed.

Modi used his address to also to take a dig at his political rivals, chiefly the fiery leader of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, ahead of legislative assembly elections in the state in 2021. Modi alleged that Banerjee’s government was not allowing the farmers in its state to benefit from Modi’s federal scheme.

For an Explainer on India's multi-billion dollar food programme that is at the heart of the ongoing protests, click here here or here


Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in MUMBAI; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan


In South Africa, child homicides show violence 'entrenched'

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — At night, Amanda Zitho worries her little boy is shivering and cold in his coffin and yearns to take him a blanket. She knows Wandi’s dead and gone and it’s senseless, but that doesn’t stop the ache.
© Provided by The Canadian Press

Wandi was 5 when he was killed in April, allegedly strangled with a rope by a Johannesburg neighbour — another dead child in a land where there are too many.

According to official figures, around 1,000 children are murdered every year in South Africa, nearly three a day. But that statistic, horrific as it is, may be an undercount.

Shanaaz Mathews thinks many more children are victims of homicides that are not investigated properly, not prosecuted or completely missed by authorities. The official figures are “just the tip of the iceberg,” said Mathews, the director of the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town and probably the country’s leading expert on child homicides.

In a country where more than 50 people are murdered every day, children are not special and are not spared.

“Violence has become entrenched” in the psyche of South Africa, Mathews said.

“How do we break that cycle?” she asked.

In 2014, she embarked on a research project to uncover the real extent of those child deaths. She did it by getting forensic pathologists to put the dead bodies of hundreds of newborn babies, infants, toddlers and teenagers on examination tables to determine exactly how they died.

Child death reviews are common in developed countries but had never been done in South Africa before Mathews’ project. As she feared, the findings were grim.

Over a year, the pathologists examined the corpses of 711 children at two mortuaries in Cape Town and Durban and concluded that more than 15% of them died as a result of homicides. For context, Britain’s official child death review last year found 1% of its child deaths were homicides. Mathews’ research showed homicide was the second most common cause of death for children in those two precincts.

“And the numbers are not going down,” she said. “If anything, they are going up.”

There are two patterns in South Africa. Teenagers are being swallowed up in the country’s desperately high rate of violent street crime. But also, large numbers of young children aged 5 and under are victims of deadly violence meted out not by an offender with a gun or a knife on a street corner, but by mothers and fathers, relatives and friends, in kitchens and living rooms, around dinner tables and in front of TVs.

Fatal child abuse is where the justice system often fails and cases are “falling through the cracks,” Mathews said.

There was, she says, the case of a 9-month-old child who had seizures after being dropped off at day care. Though rushed to the hospital, the child died.

Doctors found severe head injuries and told the mother to go to the police, but no one followed up. The mother never reported the death. When investigators tried to revive the case nearly two years later, the baby had long been buried and the evidence was cold.

Joan van Niekerk, a child protection expert, recounts numerous cases tainted by police ineptitude and corruption.

“I sometimes go through stages when I am more angry with the system than I am with the perpetrators and that’s not good,” she said. She said justice for children in South Africa is unacceptably “hard to achieve.”

And failures of justice sometimes lead to more deaths.

The neighbour originally charged with killing Wandi Zitho was released and the case provisionally dropped because the police didn’t deliver enough evidence, possibly because of a backlog in analyzing forensic evidence, according to one policeman working the case. Months later, the woman was arrested again and charged with murdering two other children.

Then there was the case of Tazne van Wyk.

Tazne was 8 when her body was found in February dumped in a drain near a highway nearly two weeks after she disappeared. She had been abducted, raped and murdered, police said.

Tazne’s parents blame the correctional system for paroling the man charged with their daughter's murder despite a history of violent offences against children. He’d already violated his parole once. They also fault police for failing to act on a tip that might have saved Tazne in the hours after her disappearance.

The case was high profile. The Minister of Police spoke at Tazne’s funeral and admitted errors. “We have failed this child,” he conceded, pointing at Tazne’s small white coffin, trimmed in gold. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the van Wyk home and promised meaningful action.

Nine months later, Tazne’s parents feel it was all lip service.

“How many children after Tazne have already passed away? Have been kidnapped? Have been murdered? Still nothing is happening,” said her mother, Carmen van Wyk.

She sheds no tears. Instead, anger bubbles inside her and her community. Houses connected with the suspect and members of his family were set on fire in the wake of Tazne’s killing.

It’s not just on the police to stop the abuse, said Marc Hardwick, who was a policeman for 15 years, 10 of them as a detective in a child protection unit.

He recalls one case, from 20 years ago. A 6-year-old girl was beaten to death by her father because she was watching cartoons and, distracted as any 6-year-old would be, wasn’t listening to him.

When they arrested the father and took him away — he was later sentenced to life in prison — the victim’s 9-year-old cousin approached Hardwick and said: “I think you stopped my bad dreams today.”

Clearly, children in that household had been living a nightmare, and the other adults had remained silent, said Hardwick: “The reality is that child abuse is not a topic people want to talk about.”

___

Janssen reported from Johannesburg.

Gerald Imray And Bram Janssen, The Associated Press