Google told its scientists to 'strike a positive tone' in AI research - documents

By Paresh Dave and Jeffrey Dastin

© Reuters/ARND WIEGMANN FILE PHOTO: 

An illuminated Google logo is seen inside an office building in Zurich

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - Alphabet Inc's Google this year moved to tighten control over its scientists' papers by launching a "sensitive topics" review, and in at least three cases requested authors refrain from casting its technology in a negative light, according to internal communications and interviews with researchers involved in the work.

Google's new review procedure asks that researchers consult with legal, policy and public relations teams before pursuing topics such as face and sentiment analysis and categorizations of race, gender or political affiliation, according to internal webpages explaining the policy.

"Advances in technology and the growing complexity of our external environment are increasingly leading to situations where seemingly inoffensive projects raise ethical, reputational, regulatory or legal issues," one of the pages for research staff stated. Reuters could not determine the date of the post, though three current employees said the policy began in June.

Google declined to comment for this story.

The "sensitive topics" process adds a round of scrutiny to Google's standard review of papers for pitfalls such as disclosing of trade secrets, eight current and former employees said.

For some projects, Google officials have intervened in later stages. A senior Google manager reviewing a study on content recommendation technology shortly before publication this summer told authors to "take great care to strike a positive tone," according to internal correspondence read to Reuters.

The manager added, "This doesn't mean we should hide from the real challenges" posed by the software.

Subsequent correspondence from a researcher to reviewers shows authors "updated to remove all references to Google products." A draft seen by Reuters had mentioned Google-owned YouTube.

Four staff researchers, including senior scientist Margaret Mitchell, said they believe Google is starting to interfere with crucial studies of potential technology harms.

"If we are researching the appropriate thing given our expertise, and we are not permitted to publish that on grounds that are not in line with high-quality peer review, then we're getting into a serious problem of censorship," Mitchell said.

Google states on its public-facing website that its scientists have "substantial" freedom.

Tensions between Google and some of its staff broke into view this month after the abrupt exit of scientist Timnit Gebru, who led a 12-person team with Mitchell focused on ethics in artificial intelligence software (AI).

Gebru says Google fired her after she questioned an order not to publish research claiming AI that mimics speech could disadvantage marginalized populations. Google said it accepted and expedited her resignation. It could not be determined whether Gebru's paper underwent a "sensitive topics" review.

Google Senior Vice President Jeff Dean said in a statement this month that Gebru's paper dwelled on potential harms without discussing efforts underway to address them.

Dean added that Google supports AI ethics scholarship and is "actively working on improving our paper review processes, because we know that too many checks and balances can become cumbersome."

'SENSITIVE TOPICS'

The explosion in research and development of AI across the tech industry has prompted authorities in the United States and elsewhere to propose rules for its use. Some have cited scientific studies showing that facial analysis software and other AI can perpetuate biases or erode privacy.

Google in recent years incorporated AI throughout its services, using the technology to interpret complex search queries, decide recommendations on YouTube and autocomplete sentences in Gmail. Its researchers published more than 200 papers in the last year about developing AI responsibly, among more than 1,000 projects in total, Dean said.

Studying Google services for biases is among the "sensitive topics" under the company's new policy, according to an internal webpage. Among dozens of other "sensitive topics" listed were the oil industry, China, Iran, Israel, COVID-19, home security, insurance, location data, religion, self-driving vehicles, telecoms and systems that recommend or personalize web content.

The Google paper for which authors were told to strike a positive tone discusses recommendation AI, which services like YouTube employ to personalize users' content feeds. A draft reviewed by Reuters included "concerns" that this technology can promote "disinformation, discriminatory or otherwise unfair results" and "insufficient diversity of content," as well as lead to "political polarization."

The final publication instead says the systems can promote "accurate information, fairness, and diversity of content." The published version, entitled "What are you optimizing for? Aligning Recommender Systems with Human Values," omitted credit to Google researchers. Reuters could not determine why.

A paper this month on AI for understanding a foreign language softened a reference to how the Google Translate product was making mistakes following a request from company reviewers, a source said. The published version says the authors used Google Translate, and a separate sentence says part of the research method was to "review and fix inaccurate translations."

For a paper published last week, a Google employee described the process as a "long-haul," involving more than 100 email exchanges between researchers and reviewers, according to the internal correspondence.

The researchers found that AI can cough up personal data and copyrighted material - including a page from a "Harry Potter" novel - that had been pulled from the internet to develop the system.

A draft described how such disclosures could infringe copyrights or violate European privacy law, a person familiar with the matter said. Following company reviews, authors removed the legal risks, and Google published the paper.

(Reporting by Paresh Dave and Jeffrey Dastin; editing by Jonathan Weber and Edward Tobin)

Biden allies push back on sweeping plan to promote fair housing

President Donald Trump accused Joe Biden during the 2020 campaign of seeking to “destroy the beautiful suburbs” by supporting a sweeping Obama-era fair housing rule that Trump had scrapped.© Seth Wenig/AP Photo This case touches a special nerve because the Black and Hispanic home-ownership rate is so low and minorities are often relegated to substandard housing.

Now, with Biden planning to reinstate the rule, he's likely to run into opposition again — this time from members of his own party.

Lost in the uproar over the Trump administration’s revocation of the rule in July was that even some Democratic localities had deep misgivings about the 2015 regulation, which was intended to bolster the 1968 Fair Housing Act, a landmark anti-discrimination law of the civil rights era.

Local housing officials from both Democratic and Republican counties saw the rule as a rigid, burdensome directive; many were confused about how to comply with its complex requirements.

“Our biggest problem with this was that a one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate,” said Jennifer Eby, community and resource services manager for Douglas County, a Denver suburb. "It was, from our perspective, very burdensome."

The resistance to the rule suggests Biden will face obstacles even from some of his own allies over the more dramatic plans for his presidency, which include everything from overhauling environmental regulations to reviving the union movement.

Yet this case touches a special nerve because the Black and Hispanic home-ownership rate is so low and minorities are often relegated to substandard housing. The Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule was intended to help remedy that, and Trump's opposition to it sparked charges of racism.

The rule would have required local jurisdictions to actively track and address patterns of poverty and segregation with a checklist of 92 questions — or else lose access to federal housing funds.

Critics decried the process as both onerous and costly, an argument made by Trump's Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson — the only Black member of his Cabinet — when he rescinded the rule. But local government officials and public housing authorities were also among those complaining.

While Trump framed the issue as a Democratic plan to force low-income housing down the throats of suburban residents, the concerns of critics about the rule largely fall under two broad complaints: that the directive from Washington, D.C., is too rigid to allow for local input and differences among jurisdictions, and that it is so complicated that compliance often requires outside help.

Several left-leaning cities, including Los Angeles and St. Paul, Minn., complained of having to hire pricey consultants to navigate the rule’s complex requirements.

Housing officials in other states voiced similar concerns with the top-down approach. A group representing over 75 public housing authorities in California criticized the original rule’s “highly prescriptive framework” in a public comment on a proposal to revamp the rule.

“There also was no additional funding that was put into it,” Eby said. “So there’s a lot of extra analysis to do, and a lot of work to put in and no new funding to do it. When that happens, you’re essentially taking money from services.”

Eby also has concerns with the list of “contributing factors” to housing segregation that the rule requires local jurisdictions to track and make progress on addressing. For one thing, she said, the criteria for making progress weren’t clear. But the factors themselves were also broad, she said.

“In a lot of ways, the contributing factors that they're asking communities to look at are not necessarily vectors that are at all under their control,” she said, pointing to factors like transportation and school quality.

Ultimately, Douglas County commissioners decided it wasn’t worth the possible penalties and compliance burdens. In 2016, the county pulled out of HUD's Community Development Block Grant program — forgoing about $750,000 a year in federal funding — as a result of concerns about ceding control over local decision-making, despite easily passing earlier fair housing assessments.

Biden’s transition website lists racial equity as one of four key issues he will focus on immediately — alongside the raging pandemic, economic collapse and climate change. And housing advocates who have pressed their case with Biden’s HUD landing team say they’re confident the incoming administration believes reinstating the 2015 rule is an urgent priority. The Biden transition team didn't respond to a request for comment.

The confusion over the rule — and what reinstituting it will look like — comes as the Black homeownership rate already lags behind that of white people by about 30 points. Lingering effects from the economic crisis could drive it still wider, exacerbating longstanding inequities caused by decades of government-led segregation.

“Blacks and Latinos are more likely to live in health deserts with fewer health care facilities, dentists, primary care physicians,” said Lisa Rice, president and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance. The 2015 rule “was designed to fix all of these structural issues. And instead of enforcing AFFH, Trump has eviscerated it.”

The data and assessment tools folded into the original Obama rule may need to be “updated,” she said, but the regulation itself is critical to addressing systemic racism.

“It was clear from Day One that the Trump administration did not understand fair housing, and I personally tried to educate key leadership at HUD about fair housing issues,” Rice added.

Carson suspended the regulation in 2018 before replacing it with a weaker version in July. Because the 2015 rule was already on the books, the incoming administration can simply revoke the replacement regulation and revert to the original without having to go through the long process of promulgating a new rule.

The hard part will be implementing it. Critics stressed that they support the rule's goals — they just want something workable.© Mark Wilson/Getty Images The Department of Housing and Urban Development building is seen in Washington, D.C.

HUD in 2018 withdrew a key computer tool that local governments were supposed to use to analyze patterns of segregation, concentrated poverty, residential health hazards and disparities in access to things like transportation, schools and employment opportunities. They were supposed to use that data to draft an “Assessment of Fair Housing” plan addressing discriminatory barriers, which they would then submit to HUD.

Many areas had trouble with the tool. For the 49 jurisdictions in the first group to submit fair housing assessment plans between October 2016 and December 2017, only 37 percent were initially accepted, according to HUD. While another 28 percent of the plans were accepted after jurisdictions amended them with HUD’s technical assistance, 35 percent were ultimately rejected.

Local public housing agencies had hoped that HUD would streamline and improve the tool, which will need to be revived and updated.

“The new administration definitely needs to get a hold of what has been done to gut this thing,” said Marla Newman, director of community development for Winston-Salem, N.C.

Newman said Winston-Salem was “one of the few jurisdictions that actually got a plan approved” after hiring a consultant to help draft it. HUD was making progress on tweaking the rule to make it more accessible before the Trump administration withdrew it, she said.

“We were starting to get good mapping tools — we were really on a path to a good place — and we need to pick back up where the [Obama] administration left off” with the rule, Newman said.

In the meantime, plenty of jurisdictions will have to shell out money they can hardly spare to consultants to tap desperately needed federal housing funds.

“The stakes in developing an acceptable AFFH are high, as jurisdictions face a reduction in funding if they fail,” the Seattle Housing Authority told HUD in 2018, urging the agency to consider providing support to public housing agencies and “taking PHA size into consideration in its expectations and requirements.”

The National Community Development Association, a bipartisan nonprofit representing over 400 local government agencies, also criticized the original rule’s “cookie-cutter approach” in a public comment submitted in March.

It’s a problem “for the small cities that get a small amount of [block grant] funding every year,” association Executive Director Vicki Watson said. “There’s quite a few cities that get less than $500,000 a year but they have the same requirements as a New York or a San Francisco — there’s a disconnect there.”

“We support affirmatively furthering fair housing, but we think it should be more flexible,” she added. “There just needs to be more funding and more flexibility, particularly for smaller cities.”

Astronomers Detect 'Intriguing Signal' Coming From Proxima Centauri 

IT'S A ROBOCALL

(CSIRO/A. Cherney)
SPACE

RAFI LETZTER, LIVE SCIENCE
25 DECEMBER 2020


Astronomers hunting for radio signals from alien civilizations have detected an "intriguing signal" from the direction of Proxima Centauri, the nearest star system to the sun, The Guardian reported.


The researchers are still preparing a paper on the discovery, and the data have not been made public, according to The Guardian. But the signal is reportedly a narrow beam of 980 MHz radio waves detected in April and May 2019 at the Parkes telescope in Australia.

The Parkes telescope is part of the US$100 million Breakthrough Listen project to hunt for radio signals from technological sources beyond the solar system. The 980 MHz signal appeared once and was never detected again. That frequency is important because, as Scientific American points out, that band of radio waves is typically lacking signals from human-made craft and satellites.

Breakthrough Listen detects unusual radio signals all the time - between earthly sources, the Sun's natural radio output and natural sources beyond the Solar System, there are a lot of radio waves bouncing around out there.

But this signal appears to have come directly from the Proxima Centauri system, just 4.2 light-years from Earth. Even more tantalizing: The signal reportedly shifted slightly while it was being observed, in a way that resembled the shift caused by the movement of a planet. Proxima Centauri has one known rocky world 17 percent larger than Earth, and one known gas giant.


The Guardian quoted an unnamed source with apparent access to the data on this signal as saying "It is the first serious candidate for an alien communication since the 'Wow! Signal,'" a famous radio signal detected in 1977 that also resembled a technosignature.

But The Guardian cautioned that this signal is "likely to have a mundane origin too."

Such more mundane sources include a comet or its hydrogen cloud, which also could explain the Wow! Signal.

Penn State University's Sofia Sheikh, who led the analysis of the signal for Breakthrough Listen, voiced her excitement about it: "It's the most exciting signal that we've found in the Breakthrough Listen project, because we haven't had a signal jump through this many of our filters before," Sheikh told Scientific American, adding that the signal is now being referred to as Breakthrough Listen Candidate 1, or BLC1.

An inherent challenge in searching for alien communications is that no one knows how aliens might communicate, and no one knows all the potential natural sources of radio waves in the Universe. So when signals arrive that seem even plausibly technological and don't come with easy natural explanations, it's tempting to make the jump to aliens.

So far, no data on this signal is public, and it's likely that even when it does become public there will be no conclusive answers; that's what happened with the Wow! Signal after all.

At first look, full post-Brexit text goes beyond a 'Canada-style' deal

Faisal Islam
Economics editor
@faisalislamon Twitter

IMAGE COPYRIGHTREUTERS

BBC News has obtained a full copy of the post-Brexit trade deal agreed by the UK and the EU, setting out the shape of their relationship for years to come. Parliament will vote on the plan next week, but so far Downing Street has published only a short summary, rather than the full document. Our economics editor, Faisal Islam, has been looking at the details.

Late into Christmas Eve, UK government and European lawyers were hard at work completing the process of updating the text of the post-Brexit trade deal into formal language, a process known as legally scrubbing.

Because whatever the general relief over the broad outline of this deal, there are nearly 1,300 pages of legal text that will determine every aspect of the hundreds of billions in trade between the UK and EU.
Some of the thorniest negotiation points have made it into the final text.

10 things to look for in the Brexit deal

How many trade deals has the UK done so far?

What just happened with Brexit?

Innocuous and arcane sounding articles and annexes could have a huge impact on industry and government policy.

For example, the restrictions compensation for unfair subsidies to companies "do not apply" in situations such as natural disasters, exempting the EU's huge current pandemic support package for aviation, aerospace, climate change and electric cars.

A late compromise

On electric cars, an annexe reveals a late compromise.

The EU had sought to offer tariff-free access only to those British cars that are made mostly with European parts. That will now be phased in over six years, but is less generous than the UK ask.

This should be just about enough for Japanese owners of massive UK plants Nissan and Toyota's current production, but raises questions about future rounds of investment.

There is a clear commitment not to lower standards on the environment, workers' rights and climate change from those that exist now and mechanisms to enforce it.

But there is also a mutual right to "rebalance" the agreement if there are "significant divergences" in future that is capable of "impacting trade".

These go way beyond standard free-trade agreements such as those between the EU and Canada or Japan, reflecting the UK's history in the single market.

The text reads like these mechanisms are designed to be used, and created to ensure that both sides remain close to each other's regulatory orbit.

EU-UK post-Brexit trade talks - BBC News

Opinion: Even with a deal, Brexit remains a sham

The UK's exit from the EU won't be quite as hard as some had feared. Nevertheless, the move remains a historic mistake, writes DW's Bernd Riegert.




Britain's prime minister and European Union negotiators apparently love Brexit drama. They can prove to an annoyed public, particularly in the UK, that they fought to the end to preserve their own interests. The Christmas Eve deal could have been made three or even six months ago. Aside from a few marginal changes surrounding fishing rights, it's more or less what the EU offered the UK over the summer.

With a blend of chutzpa and naive populism, Britain's impish prime minister, Boris Johnson, is presenting the deal to his citizenry as a resounding success. The promises from the Brexit referendum in 2016 will all be implemented, he says. That is wrong. The deal is a classic compromise, like all trade agreements. No single regulation is better than what the British already had as members of the EU. The comprehensive agreement that is now set to take force is a slimmed-down internal market that sets the stage for both sides to move further apart from one another in the future. From climate protection and science to transportation and the fight against terrorism, the UK and EU want to continue their trusting cooperation. Whether this trust is still justified after the UK's antics during the negotiation process remains to be seen from the European perspective.

Victim of neo-nationalism

One example of those who lose out in Brexit is British students, who can longer participate in the Erasmus exchange program. It was deemed too expensive for the UK government. It will also now be more difficult for young academics from abroad to study at expensive British universities. That will ultimately be a higher price for British society to pay than whatever the Erasmus fees cost.

Bernd Riegert is DW's correspondent in Brussels

This sensible program was one of the many sacrifices made at the Brexiteers' altar of neo-nationalism. The shrewd populist Boris Johnson pulled at the British public's sovereignty heartstrings. He claims to have taken back control that the UK — but, in truth, he never really relinquished to Brussels. No EU member state is ruled by a diffuse occupying power in distant Belgium. Everyone collaborates on legislation. Everyone is beholden to the court of law. Nobody is forced into membership.

The misleading notion of sovereignty

Johnson is now talking about how Great Britain has become independent again. Independent from whom? The prime minister and his Brexit cronies are clinging to an idea of sovereignty from the last century, when British ships ruled the seas as part of a global empire. Today, any state that wishes to participate in trade and international relations must give up a small portion of its sovereignty to enjoy the benefits of cooperation. Membership in the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, NATO, and also the EU, comes with obligations and rights both big and small. Nobody has to give up independence and statehood for this.

In the same vein as the Brexiteers, there are the populists in countries like Poland and Hungary, who also feel patronized, occupied or even enslaved by the EU, an organization to which they voluntarily belong.

Watch video 02:10 EU, UK breathe sigh of relief over last-minute trade deal

In the middle of a pandemic that has hit the UK hard once again, Boris Johnson should have realized that there are more important things than chasing nationalist fantasies. The links between Britain and the EU are too close. Just two days of the Channel Tunnel being shut showed him how vulnerable the UK is. This experience may have spurred London to reach an agreement with Brussels. A hard exit from the internal market into a world of WTO rules would have been a death knell for the already badly shaken British economy.

Hot air

A year ago, after Brexit became official, Boris Johnson spun the yarn that the UK would throw off the EU shackles and negotiate lucrative trade deals around the world. What has become of that? Nothing. There is not even the idea of an agreement with the two other largest trading partners outside the EU: China and the United States. The UK has signed agreements with Singapore and Japan, but they are almost identical to deals that the EU had already negotiated with those two countries. The British simply copied them. These two agreements also only account for a small fraction of annual trade volume.

The bottom line is that Brexit is and remains a sham. The British were better off with the EU — and without the bloviating Boris Johnson

Brexit deal: The day after
Friday, 25 December 2020

© Belga

Exhausted but relieved, the EU and the UK announced on Thursday afternoon, Christmas Eve, that they had managed to agree on the terms of their future cooperation and a free trade agreement that will provide for zero tariffs and zero quotas on all goods that comply with the rules of origin.

On the brink of the abyss, the two parties were very close to give up, with the UK crashing out from the EU without any deal. It would require a last-minute direct interference by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson to bridge the differences in the remaining sticking point, fisheries, an economically insignificant issue but loaded with symbolic value.

At the press conference yesterday afternoon, von der Leyen attributed the positive outcome to EU’s strong negotiation position, based on the fact that it is the world’s largest single market. “The UK would have been harder hit than the EU in case of a no-deal,” she explained and highlighted the huge step taken in the fisheries to reach the agreement.

The full agreement with its 1,200 pages has not been published yet, nor has the Commission yet published the usual list of Questions & Answers to explain in some more detail what has been agreed. In the meantime, an overview with two columns has been published, showing the consequences of the UK leaving the EU and the benefits of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

Fish – free movement

Outsiders may wonder why it was so difficult to agree on fisheries and why the issue threatened to block the whole deal. The annual turnover of EU fishing vessels from British waters is only around €650 million, compared with €850million for the UK vessels. The UK vessels catch about 45 % of the fish, accounts for about 55 % of the total value, and exports 80 % of the catches.

In other words, a small but integrated sector where UK and EU vessels are catching fish, which do not any know any borders, and which would be become more expense if customs fees would have been imposed on the export. For the UK, it was about sovereignty over its territorial waters in a narrow sense of the word. EU coastal members insisted on continuing their fishing in the same waters.

According to the deal, UK becomes an independent coastal state and is free to decide on access to its waters and fishing grounds, in respect of its international obligations. It now leaves the Common Fisheries Policy – the EU’s joint legal framework ensuring equal access to waters, stable quota-sharing arrangements and the sustainable management of marine resources.

In the new arrangements, most will remain more or less the same with reciprocal access rights to fish in each-other’s waters during a 5.5 years transition period. During the transition period, the EU will transfer 25 % of its current fish quotas to the UK. EU vessels will continue to fish in UK coastal waters, including its extended territorial waters (6 – 12 nautical miles) if they already have been doing it.

At the end of the period, EU and UK will conduct annual discussions on fishing quota and access to each-other’s territorial waters. The assumption today is that the access will continue but any side can refuse access to its waters, in which case the other side might trigger compensatory measures, for example customs on fish.

EU Chief Negotiator Michel Barnier was satisfied with the fish deal and promised that, “the EU will be present alongside European fishermen to support them. This is our commitment”.

People – no free movement

“British fish will still be free to cross the channel but British citizens will have to ask permission before they can live, work, love, study or retire in an EU member state,” commented Roger Casale, a former British MP and CEO of citizens rights NGO New Europeans.

Barnier was also less satisfied with the deal on free movement of people and expressed regret that, “The ambition in terms of citizen mobility does not match our historical ties. And again, it is the choice of the British government.”

On the positive side, EU citizens with legal residence in the UK and vice versa UK citizens in the EU are protected by the Withdrawal Agreement and will keep all their EU rights for life. But new rules will apply as of 1 January 2021, allowing for some mobility but not for the free movement which is in place in the EU:

UK nationals will no longer have the freedom to work, study, start a business or live in the EU. Visas will be required for stays over 90 days. However, coordination of some social security benefits such as old-age pensions and healthcare will make it easier to work abroad and any pre-existing build-up of contributions to national insurance will not be lost.

For EU citizens, a non-discrimination clause will ensure equal treatment for short-term visas. Coordination of some social security benefits (old-age and survivors’ pensions, pre-retirement, healthcare, maternity / paternity, accidents at work) will also make it easier to work abroad and no rights will be lost.

“A bad trade deal is arguably better than no deal at all but will not fundamentally mitigate the negative consequences of Britain’s decision to leave the EU,” added Roger Casale. “One casualty of the deal will be the end of free movement between the EU and the UK. The EU is not just a union of states and markets, it is also a union of people.”

M. Apelblat
The Brussels Times

No Time to Rest: EU Nations Assess Brexit Trade Deal with UK
By Associated Press
December 25, 2020 

Ambassadors to The European Union gather ahead of a special meeting of The Committee of the Permanent Representatives of the Governments of the Member States to the European Union in Brussels on Dec. 25, 2020.

BRUSSELS - The fast-track ratification of the post-Brexit trade deal between the U.K. and the European Union got underway on Christmas Day as ambassadors from the bloc's 27 nations started assessing the accord that takes effect in a week.

At Friday's exceptional meeting, the ambassadors were briefed about the details of the draft treaty by the EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier.

They are set to reconvene again on Monday and have informed lawmakers at the European Parliament that they intend to take a decision on the preliminary application of the deal within days.

While voicing their sadness at the rupture with Britain, EU leaders are relieved that the tortuous aftermath of the Brexit vote had come to a conclusion in Thursday's agreement about future trade ties.

All member states are expected to back the agreement as is the European Parliament, which can only give its consent retrospectively as it can't reconvene until 2021. British lawmakers have to give their approval, too, and are being summoned next week to vote on the accord.

European Union chief negotiator Michel Barnier carries a binder of the Brexit trade deal during a special meeting at the European Council building in Brussels, Dec. 25, 2020.

Both sides claim the agreement protects their cherished goals.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it gives the U.K. control over its money, borders, laws and fishing grounds. The EU says it protects its single market of around 450 million people and contains safeguards to ensure the U.K. does not unfairly undercut the bloc's standards.

Johnson hailed the agreement as a "new beginning" for the U.K. in its relationship with European neighbors. Opposition leaders, even those who are minded to back it because it's better than a no-deal scenario, said it adds unnecessary costs on businesses and fails to provide a clear framework for the crucial services sector, which accounts for 80% of the British economy.

In a Christmas message, Johnson sought to sell the deal to a weary public after years of Brexit-related wrangling since the U.K. voted narrowly to leave the EU in 2016. Although the U.K. formally left the bloc on Jan. 31, it remains in a transition period tied to EU rules until the end of this year.

Without a trade deal, tariffs would have been imposed on trade between the two sides starting Jan. 1. Both sides would have suffered in that scenario, with the British economy taking a bigger hit at least in the near-term, as it is more reliant on trade with the EU than vice versa.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson holds a news conference in Downing Street in London, Dec. 24, 2020.

"I have a small present for anyone who may be looking for something to read in that sleepy post-Christmas lunch moment, and here it is, tidings, glad tidings of great joy, because this is a deal," Johnson said in his video message, brandishing a sheaf of papers.

"A deal to give certainty to business, travelers and all investors in our country from Jan. 1. A deal with our friends and partners in the EU," he said.

Though tariffs and quotas have been avoided, there will be more red tape because as the U.K. is leaving the EU's frictionless single market and customs union. Firms will have to file forms and customs declarations for the first time in years. There will also be different rules on product labeling as well as checks on agricultural products.

Despite those additional costs, many British businesses who export widely across the EU voiced relief that a deal was finally in place as it avoids the potentially cataclysmic imposition of tariffs.

"While the deal is not fully comprehensive, it at least provides a foundation to build on in future," said Laura Cohen, chief executive of the British Ceramic Confederation.

One sector that appears to be disappointed is the fishing industry with both sides voicing their discontent at the new arrangements. Arguments over fishing rights were largely behind the delay in reaching an agreement.

Under the terms of the deal, the EU will give up a quarter of the quota it catches in U.K. waters, far less than the 80% Britain initially demanded. The system will be phased in over 5 1/2 years, after which quotas will be reassessed.

"In the end, it was clear that Boris Johnson wanted an overall trade deal and was willing to sacrifice fishing," said Barrie Deas, chief executive of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organizations.

The French government, which had fought hard for fishing access, announced aid for its fishing industry to help deal with the smaller quota, but insisted that the deal protects French interests.

The president of the French ports of Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer, Jean-Marc Puissesseau, said no matter what is in the Brexit trade deal, life for his port will become more difficult because "there will no longer be free movement of merchandise."

Some 10,000 jobs in the Boulogne area are tied to fishing and its seafood-processing industry, he said, and about 70% of the seafood they use comes from British waters.

"Without fish, there is no business," he told The Associated Press.

Air Canada Boeing 737 MAX Suffers Engine Fault On Ferry Flight

by Linnea Ahlgren
December 25, 2020

While on a ferry flight from the Sonoran Desert to Quebec on Tuesday, an Air Canada Boeing 737 MAX 8 declared urgency following indications of low pressure in the left engine and subsequent fuel imbalance from the left wing’s tank. The aircraft diverted to Tucson and landed without incident one hour and 20 minutes after departure.

An Air Canada 737 MAX diverted to Tuscon while on a ferry flight to Montreal on Tuesday. Photo: Getty Images

The crew decided to shut the engine down and divert

On December 22nd, an Air Canada 737 MAX was on its way from long-term storage at Pinal Airpark (MZJ) in Marana, Arizona, to Montreal in Quebec when two connected incidents caused its diversion to Tucson instead.

Flight AC2358 departed from MZJ at 09:32 local time with three crew on board. A short while after take-off, the pilots received a hydraulic low-pressure indication from the left engine.

The crew worked the check-lists and after consultation with dispatch and maintenance, they decided to continue to Canada and Montréal–Trudeau International Airport (YUL). However, that was not the end of their woes, the Aviation Herald reports.

Shortly thereafter, at 39,000 feet, the left-hand wing tank indicated fuel imbalance. At this point, the cockpit crew decided to shut the left engine down. They also declared the international standard urgency signal; PAN-PAN. Rather than continue north, the pilots then turned back and diverted to Tucson International Airport (TUS).

The aircraft landed without incident and was escorted to a remote location by the airport’s emergency services. Photo: Getty Images

Returning after nearly a year in the desert

The MAX landed safely on TUS’s runway 11L about 80 minutes after departure. Emergency services met the aircraft on the taxiway. Following an initial inspection, they accompanied it to a remote position on the apron. At the time of writing, the plane was still in Tucson. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) has said it would conduct an investigation of the incident.

The aircraft in question is a 737 MAX 8 registered as C-FSNQ. It arrived with Air Canada in June 2018. It was transferred to the dry Arizona desert for storage in February this year and joined shortly thereafter by nearly all of Air Canada’s MAXs to Only three, C-FSNU, C-GEIV and C-GEJL, have thus far returned from Arizona.

Air Canada recently sold nine of its 737 MAXs for leaseback. 

Photo: Getty Images

The great MAX migration

The Canadian flag-carrier has a total of 24 MAX 8 jets already in its fleet. However, it has sold nine of them for leaseback in a bid for liquidity during the ongoing crisis. Meanwhile, the Star Alliance member is expecting delivery of another 14 of the aircraft.
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Boeing is underway to clearing its roster of ready but undelivered 737 MAX jets following the type’s recertification by the FAA a little over a month ago. However, one month following its ungrounding, only ten of the planes had made their way to their new owners.

While it appears to be unrelated to the software issues which caused the plane’s grounding, it is too early to say whether or not this incident will in any way impact Air Canada’s decision on when to bring the MAX back into service.

Simple Flying has reached out to the airline for a comment but was yet to receive a reply at the time of publication.

Linnea Ahlgren

Journalist - With a Masters in International Relations, Linnea has combined her love for current affairs with her passion for travel to become a key member of the Simple Flying team. With eight years’ experience in publishing and citations in publications such as CNN, Linnea brings a deep understanding of politics and future aviation tech to her stories. Based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Best of 2020: "Low class" Donald Trump and the Wasps
Our 2020 retrospective continues with this familial reckoning with vulgarity, snobbery and the presidency

By NELL BERAM
DECEMBER 26, 2020 SALON

This essay was originally published in Salon on February 17, 2020. We're revisiting Salon's Best Life Stories of 2020 now through the end of the year. Read more Best of 2020 here.

Try, just try to find a parody of a pair of Wasps more entertaining than Thurston and Lovey Howell of "Gilligan's Island." Played by Jim Backus, who was of Lebanese descent, and Natalie Schafer, who was Jewish, Thurston and Lovey behave the way people like to believe — and sometimes they're right — that real Wasps do: the Howells, possessors of fathomless inherited wealth, are duplicitous snobs who don't do any work. Some of the show's best lines nod to Thurston's blue-blooded Republicanism. When Lovey compliments him for being "democratic," he hears an uppercase D and snips at her, "Watch your language."

Thurston and Lovey are meant to be, like my ancestors of my mother's side, New England Wasps — in one episode, we're told that they're from Boston; another episode mentions a home in Newport, Rhode Island — but I don't recognize my family in the buffoonish Howells. True, my grandmother, whom I just about worshipped — she was quick-witted and cosmopolitan and tall, like Myrna Loy's Nora Charles in the "Thin Man" movies — was a Republican, and I did once witness her committing a Howell-ish act of snobbery. During a nostalgia road trip that brought us to her old neighborhood in Montclair, New Jersey, she described one style of residential architecture as "Wop," a derogatory term for Italian. She meant that the style looked modern, or like something that would never provide shelter for any self-respecting person whose ancestors came over on a boat in the queue behind the Mayflower.

If you had asked me about my background before Trump moved into the White House, I would have led with my father's Syrian side. (My long-legged, button-nosed maternal grandmother must have puzzled at the looks of me, short and with eyes and nostrils for days.) I saw my Wasp side as ethnically neutral — white bread that couldn't hold its own against all the more interesting loaves out there. But since Trump's presidency, I frequently find myself reaching for my grandmother's word, "vulgar," to describe him. You're using the word too, you say? Yes, but hopefully you're not using it with — what's this? — an involuntary air of condescension that I'm worried I may be mistaking for some sort of birthright.

I get why no one is standing on a chair and claiming Wasp as a cultural identity. Wasps went out in the mid-1900s, their markers — repressed colors, repressed emotions — swept aside in a cyclone of unkempt hair and pot smoke (some of it my mother's). Make no mistake: I'm as glad as anyone that Wasps got the cultural heave-ho — they'd been on top for far too long and have the whole snob thing to answer for. But last year I had some strangely gratifying eureka moments as I read Tad Friend's "Cheerful Money: Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor." I recognized in it the window dressing of my childhood: Welsh rarebit. Beatrix Potter. "Grandfather clocks and cocktail shakers brimming with gin." Yes indeed, these were my people — much more so than my Syrian side. After my mother and father divorced when I was two I lived primary with her, our small house accommodating a condensed version of Wasp splendor. It was only after my mother died, in 2010, and I, her only child, inherited a squadron of antique end tables, which she told me on her deathbed I wasn't allowed to sell, that I realized I knew of no other person my age who had grown up in a home that resembled the set of "Leave It to Beaver."

Donald Trump doesn't live in a home that resembles the set of "Leave It to Beaver." Like the Howells, Trump is a Republican who inherited wealth and enjoys shiny things — his wives, his Fifth Avenue pile — and he delights in showing them off. This is how the Howells would fail a true-life Wasp sniff test: people with old money think that it's poor form to flaunt it. When I was a kid and behaved badly, my mother would accuse me of acting "spoiled," which only now do I appreciate meant like someone with a shamefully conspicuous amount of loot.

The Trumps and the Howells have something else in common besides their obvious pleasure in displaying their money: they love to talk about it. This trait makes me squirm even more than Trump's shticky name-calling, cotton candy hair, and allegiance to the trinity of lowbrow entertainment forms professional wrestling, reality television and the beauty pageant. No one ever explicitly told me why it's bad manners to talk about money, but I think the idea is that money is a personal matter, like hygiene, and that talk of it reflects a materialism upon which God (in whom my mother and grandmother unstintingly believed) would frown, which I hope it goes without saying is not remotely the same thing as implying that Wasps are above materialism. Of course, Wasps can get away with insisting that talking about money is vulgar because they generally have enough of it — bloody right my grandmother would have talked about the $54.17 she didn't have if she was in danger of losing her electricity because she couldn't pay her bill.

Where Wasps go wrong, I think, is mistaking bad manners for moral breaches. I have rampaged about Trump being "low-class" but then felt guilty because I know that someone's lack of decorum isn't a good reason to declare him unfit for elected office — I mean, a person should be perfectly free to talk about, say, what Hillary Clinton was doing in the bathroom during a debate break, as Trump did from the stage in 2015, and still earn my vote if he's solid on the issues, right? But as it happens, there are countless cocktail shakers brimming with sound moral reasons not to support Trump. For my grandmother, his greatest offense would have been his underhandedness: she was about nothing if not being aboveboard. (Again, I suppose she could afford to be, but let's give her this one.)

The best-known anecdote about my grandmother — it was trundled out at her funeral, in 1994 — is that well into her dotage she drove back to a store because upon arriving home she realized that the cashier had given her a few dollars too much in change. But I know a better, less funeral-friendly story about her. She had probably never voted for a Democrat in her life, but in 1972, her two hippie children convinced her that Richard Nixon was a crook, so she held her nose, clutched her pearls, and threw the lever for the uppercase D Democrat, George McGovern.

Just as I was idly and, it must be said, rather smugly assembling a mental list of Wasp virtues — we don't brag (Tad Friend writes of our "trademark self-deprecation"), we don't complain (although maybe we don't have much to complain about?), we invented noblesse oblige (because we could afford to, but still!) — it came to me that Trump, whose mother was Scottish and whose father was of German ancestry, is technically at least part Wasp. That took the glory out of my list making, as well it should have: I do know that Wasps haven't cornered the market on virtue. But may I claim for the Wasps just one trait that no one else would want, and with which, were it in my power, I would frost Trump's next beautiful piece of chocolate cake?

The whole point of being a Wasp, as best as I can conjure, is to get through life without embarrassing oneself in public. Trump's ancestors plainly failed to pass on this characteristic; otherwise, he would have known that — to use but one example of dozens — when someone flails his limbs in imitation of a disabled person, as Trump did at one of his rallies, it's not the disabled person who should be mortified.

NELL BERAM

Nell Beram is a former Atlantic Monthly staff editor, a former columnist for The Awl, and coauthor of "Yoko Ono: Collector of Skies."MORE FROM NELL BERAM

An Autopsy of Sidney Powell's 'Kraken' Reveals Suspiciously Similar Affidavits

Federal judges have been underwhelmed by the former Trump campaign lawyer's evidence of massive election fraud.

JACOB SULLUM | 12.25.2020 3:05 PM REASON MAGAZINE

EVEN AYN RAND OBJECTIVIST LIBERTARIANS AREN'T HAVING IT

(YouTube)

As part of her attempt to show that the presidential election was stolen through an elaborate international conspiracy, former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell has submitted two affidavits from Venezuelans who purport to expose the roots of fraud-facilitating software that Powell claims switched Trump votes to Biden votes. Those affidavits include strikingly similar language that suggests they were written or edited by Powell or her colleagues rather than the affiants.

"I want to alert the public and let the world know the truth about the corruption, manipulation, and lies being committed by a conspiracy of people and companies intent upon betraying the honest people of the United States and their legally constituted institutions and fundamental rights as citizens," says a redacted affidavit from an unnamed individual who claims to have served on "the national security guard detail" for Venezuela's president. "This conspiracy began more than a decade ago in Venezuela and has spread to countries all over the world. It is a conspiracy to wrongfully gain and keep power and wealth. It involves political leaders, powerful companies, and other persons whose purpose is to gain and keep power by changing the free will of the people and subverting the proper course of governing."


An affidavit from Ana Mercedes Díaz Cardozo, a naturalized U.S. citizen who says she was "a career official for 25 years at the Supreme Electoral Council of Venezuela," includes a nearly identical passage. Díaz also describes herself as "an adult of the sound mine," while the anonymous Venezuelan affiant uses a similarly mistaken phrase, saying, "I am an adult of sound mine."

Dominion Voting Systems, one of the companies that Powell has implicated in the purported plot to steal the election, notes the similarities between the two Venezuelan affiants' descriptions of their motivations in a December 16 letter demanding that Powell retract her accusations and threatening a defamation lawsuit if she doesn't. Dominion says the fact that the two affiants used almost exactly the same language proves that "those witnesses did not each write their declarations independently" and strongly suggests that the "allegations of a decade-old international conspiracy were written or edited by you or your team—not by the witnesses themselves." The repetition of the "sound mine" error likewise suggests collaboration.

The Dominion letter also notes that another anonymous witness Powell has used in court, codenamed "Spyder" (sometimes "Spider") and identified by The Washington Post as Army veteran Joshua Merritt, has admitted he never worked in military intelligence, although Powell called him a "Military Intelligence expert" and his declaration described him as a former "electronic intelligence analyst under 305th Military Intelligence."

In an interview with the Post, Merritt blamed the erroneous information on Powell's "clerks," who he said wrote the relevant sentence. "That was one thing I was trying to backtrack on," he said. "My original paperwork that I sent in didn't say that."

Dominion notes several other striking errors in witness statements used by Powell. Navid Keshavarz-Nia, presented as a cybersecurity expert, famously placed "Edison County" in Michigan, where no such jurisdiction exists. Russell Ramsland, a cybersecurity analyst and former Republican congressional candidate, discussed locations in Minnesota while alleging fraud in Michigan. Ramsland also claimed that voter turnout in Detroit was an impossible 139 percent and that turnout in North Muskegon was an even more improbable 782 percent, which he presented as clear evidence of fraud. "In reality," Dominion says, "the turnout in those places was 50.88% and 78.11%, respectively."

Powell has submitted these statements, along with many others, as evidence in lawsuits challenging the election results in several states. Although Powell has likened her evidence to a "fire hose" and a Kraken, judges in those cases have been decidedly underwhelmed.

"Plaintiffs append over three hundred pages of attachments, which are only impressive for their volume," wrote Diane Humetewa, a federal judge in Arizona. "The various affidavits and expert reports are largely based on anonymous witnesses, hearsay, and irrelevant analysis of unrelated elections. Because the Complaint is grounded in these fraud allegations, the Complaint shall be dismissed."

In Michigan, U.S. District Judge Linda Parker said Powell offered "nothing but speculation and conjecture that votes for President Trump were destroyed, discarded or switched to votes for Vice President Biden." Parker observed that Powell's lawsuit "seems to be less about achieving the relief Plaintiffs seek—as much of that relief is beyond the power of this Court—and more about the impact of their allegations on People's faith in the democratic process and their trust in our government."

Powell filed a lawsuit in Wisconsin on behalf of William Feehan, a voter and potential presidential elector, and Derrick Van Orden, an unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate. But Van Orden said he never agreed to participate in the case, leaving only Feehan. While dismissing the lawsuit for lack of standing, U.S. District Court Judge Pamela Pepper marveled at the remedy sought by Powell, who argued that state officials should be ordered to decertify Wisconsin's election results. "Federal judges do not appoint the president in this country," Pepper wrote. "One wonders why the plaintiffs came to federal court and asked a federal judge to do so."

Timothy Batten, a federal judge in Georgia, was similarly perplexed. "In their complaint, the plaintiffs essentially ask the court for perhaps the most extraordinary relief ever sought in any federal court in connection with an election," he said. "They want this court to substitute its judgment for that of 2.5 million Georgia voters who voted for Joe Biden, and this I am unwilling to do."