Machine learning can help keep the global supply chain moving

Karen Roby 

TECHREPUBLIC

4/13/2021

© Image: Busakorn Pongparnit/Moment/Getty Images

© Provided by TechRepublic
The last year showed that the global supply chain is fragile
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TechRepublic's Karen Roby spoke with Noel Calhoun, CTO of Interos, an artificial intelligence supply chain solution, about AI in the supply chain. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Karen Roby: Noel, we're going to talk a little bit about AI today in our supply chain. You spent many years in the public and the private sectors, working with the CIA. When we talk about our supply chain, I mean, never before has the light been put on it as much as it is right now. I mean, I think the vulnerabilities are really showing through.

Noel Calhoun: It absolutely is true. I mean, basically every day some event is happening that is showing companies how fragile their supply chains are. It's so complicated and so convoluted sometimes as to where all of your material, where all of your software, where all of your services come from, that a lot of people have a tendency to put it in a box and pretend that it's working fine until the day it's not. Then they're made really brutally aware of how fragile it is. I think that's what we've seen over the last year, year and a half, especially with COVID, but with trade wars, with China, with software attacks, like SolarWinds, with ships going crazy in the Suez Canal. I mean, it's just a never-ending string of things that really disrupt the flow of material and services and goods. That's been something that has brought the issue of supply chain really to the fore, I think, in the last six months especially.

Karen Roby: Talk a little bit about how is machine learning helping with the supply chain? And down the road, how much more can it be involved to really make a difference in terms of securing our supply chain?

Noel Calhoun: There is a lot of talk about AI and machine learning. I think they're siblings in a way. AI tends to get a lot of buzz because people didn't think of Terminator, and Sarah Connor and protecting the future, and all these things. I know certain celebrities have helped propagate that to some degree. But really I think from a practical perspective, what we're really talking about is the ability to develop machine learning software that can interpret the facts, the things that are going on around the world in a way that a human would. Then being able to figure out what's anomalous, what's weird. What has happened that maybe you haven't seen happen before, and isn't a trend that you don't really want to go that particular way. Identifying that and alerting you to that, or making it really clear when something happens that you can really quickly investigate something without having to spend weeks digging through a bunch of information.

When I was at CIA, everyone, all analysts at CIA are considered all-source analysts. Which means that you're not focusing on one particular type of information, human-reported information, signal-intercepts from NSA, or you're not recording. You're not thinking about any one particular type, you're thinking about all the types of information that you could possibly bring to bear on a problem. That's the way I think machine learning and the current trend is to do an all-source analysis approach toward the supply chain. Is it a news story? Is it a weather event? Is it the position of a ship in the Suez Canal? Is it telemetry on satellites? What information do you need to give you the insights on your supply chain?

Any one of those streams would be too much for a human to process constantly day in and day out. You would have to hire tens, if not hundreds, or thousands of analysts all day to be looking at the information, to figure out, what's going on in my supply chain and how does this affect me? Everyone realizes that's not doable. I think machine learning really is the solution there where it's not perfect, you're going to have errors. You have human errors too, so it's not like humans are perfect. But you apply machine learning to basically process all the information and give you a superpower to really observe everything that's going on without having to invest all that human research and effort into it.

Karen Roby: I know when you talk about the acceptance, do people really get that, that this is where we are, and this is the technology we need to look to? Because there are so many layers here. I mean, and like you said, you just can't wrap your brain around how many humans it would take to analyze all of this on a daily basis. Is the level of acceptance there?

Noel Calhoun: It's interesting, I think, I would almost say the level of acceptance is there, but in a very uninformed way, I think people are looking for a silver bullet, and saying, can AI solve my problem? Can machine learning solve this problem? The answer, for those who have worked in this space for a very long period of time is, it is one tool in the toolbox, and it's a very important one, and one that probably has not been used as much in the past. But just as equally important is how you apply that and the data that you apply to that problem. It's being able to pull in all the right data at one time and in real time analyze it. That in and of itself is a challenge.

This is a combination of machine learning, which everyone gravitates to and says, "OK, if I could just apply some AI to this, I would solve my problem." But what they ended up finding out is that's the shiny surface of it. Underneath is months and months and months, if not years of grunge work going through data and combining it together, putting it into a place where you can analyze it and apply the machine learning algorithms to it. That's a little bit of an education for most people. You're not three or four months away from a magic solution, if you can just get some AI, bring an AI team in and apply it to your data. There's a lot more to it. That's where, from my perspective is, always, at the CIA, at Kensho my previous company. Today it's always been that data, that data groundwork, that data plumbing that ends up taking up a big portion of your time, and that's true for, I think for most machine learning engineers.

Karen Roby: 2020 and now into 2021 have been teaching us a lesson when it comes to our supply chain. What has it really taught us this last year?

Noel Calhoun: I think it's taught us you can't take anything for granted. I think probably the worst thing to happen to the supply chain was probably Amazon because you basically got used to the fact that you could request something from Amazon and it would show up magically the next day or the day after. What the last year and a half has shown us is that even Amazon is dependent on these things. I went looking for a piece of woodworking equipment and it doesn't ship until 2022. I mean, that's how messed up some of the supply chains are right now. It's just amazing machinery. The demand on manufacturing, the demand on machinery, idling car factories for weeks because there are no microchips. You just can't take for granted that if it's needed and you have money to pay for it, it's just going to show up. It may not.

Karen Roby: Yeah. I think my teenagers need to learn that lesson because that's all they've ever known, right? They click on their phone, "I want something." In three days, two days, some of them the next day, it's on the front porch, right?

Noel Calhoun: Exactly.

ONTARIO UNIVERSITY DECLARES BANKRUPTCY

'An ugly stain for years to come': Laurentian University students, staff reeling from cuts

CBC/Radio-Canada 

4/13/2021

© Adam Kirkwood/Supplied Adam Kirkwood, a PhD student in the boreal ecology program at Laurentian University, one of the graduate programs left unscathed by cuts announced Monday, said Tuesday the school community is 'going through a lot.'

The emotionally charged reaction to deep cuts to staff and programs at Laurentian University continued to pour in Tuesday, a day after the news first hit students, staff and other interests in the Sudbury, Ont., community.

On Monday, roughly 100 faculty members lost their jobs and dozens of programs were axed.

Adam Kirkwood, a PhD student in Laurentian's boreal ecology program, one of the grad programs that avoided the cuts, said Tuesday he's experiencing, sadness, fear and guilt.

"I am one of the lucky ones where my supervisor wasn't terminated and my program wasn't terminated. But I'm watching everyone being cut and terminated, and all of my friends who are losing supervisors," he said.

"They're going through a lot. I don't even think they or their supervisors know what their plans are. And definitely there's a lot of fear for those students, and I feel absolutely terrible for them."

As Laurentian manoeuvres the insolvency process, the job and program cuts are the most stunning development yet, the result of an academic senate vote last week that aims to help the financially beleaguered university restructure operations.

Laurentian's court proceeding under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) started Feb. 1. The insolvency process allows for creditor protection, so organizations can keep operating while undergoing changes to regain financial footing.

Kirkwood said people are reaching out and asking how this incredible situation unfolded.

"There's decades of mismanagement that came to a head and then, unfortunately, some decisions were made that weren't in the best interest of preserving the university," he said.

"The university has really just been reduced to a numbers game, and trying to satisfy creditors and balance the books rather than thinking about the people at the university and community of the university."

Kirkwood acknowledged finances are important for a university, but he doesn't believe it's a business.

"It's a place of higher education where people are able to go and learn, and develop critical thinking skills and learn about so many different aspects of life or science or art," he said.

"And if you're running it as a business, then things become a product. And I think that, at some point, defeats the purpose of what a university is purposed to do."

Earlier Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau weighed in on the evolving situation at Laurentian, shifting the focus to the Ontario government.

"Our francophone institutions, particularly for minority communities like franco-Ontarians, are extremely important that we protect," he told reporters in Ottawa.

Trudeau gave assurances that Minister of Official Languages Mélanie Joly has reached out to her Ontario counterparts "to see what their plan is to support and protect this institution."

"The federal government will be there to support. But it is a provincial jurisdiction, and therefore they need to figure out what the plan is. And we will be there to support because we know how important it is to protect official language minorities across the country."

Province on 'the sidelines'

On Tuesday morning, Sudbury MPP Jamie West delivered a passionate member's statement at the Ontario Legislature, detailing ways students, faculty and the broader community are being affected by the Laurentian situation.

West also called out the province for not stepping in to provide funding and prevent the cuts.

"Conservatives aren't defending francophone and Indigenous programs ... The Conservatives are responsible for every single one of these job losses, and [the] Conservatives could have stopped this from happening and are simply refusing to get off the sidelines."

Students, staff and faculty have felt as if they've been on the sidelines since Laurentian surprisingly launched its financial insolvency. Little has been said to the school community as administrators swiftly moved to try to find solutions.

Monday's cuts were a gut punch for people including political science student Katlyn Kotila.

"I found out the news on my program on Twitter ... but then to see it officially confirmed in the email was just absolutely heartbreaking," said Kotila.

"It's an absolute loss, not just for the university, but especially for students.These students came to Laurentian to study with academics who are top of the class in their field. Many of these professors are doing incredible things in the fields that they study."
Faculty, dismissed or not, also react

"I've got friends and colleagues whose lives are destroyed. It's brutal," said Albrecht Schulte-Hostedde, a professor in the department of biology and a Canada Research Chair.

"I have to go back to work, and how am I going to handle working for an administration that implemented this grossly inhumane and cruel plan? It's very difficult."

The biology department is not part of the School of the Environment, which has been shuttered, but the discontinued ecology and restoration biology programs are within the department where Schulte-Hostedde works.

"The entire legacy of the re-greening of Sudbury has been wiped out," said Schulte-Hostedde. "The university uses its expertise in environmental science and environmental studies in its marketing. Its strategic plan points out our expertise and productivity in those areas. It has wiped out the whole school of the environment.

"I am deeply deeply worried about my colleagues and friends. I am worried about the mental health state of all of the people who have endured this inhumane process we have been asked to go through," he said.

"Every aspect of what made Laurentian unique — its Indigenous character, the francophone programs — all of that stuff is just gone."
Losing academic programs will 'hurt,' prof says

Gone as well will be money flowing into the Greater Sudbury economy, something David Robinson, an associate professor of economics at Laurentian, said will be in the tens millions of dollars.

In the wake of the cuts, the professional programs were left intact.

"Which is kind of appropriate for the city; it's the right general direction," said Robinson.

"This is Canada's big mining town. Right? This is the mining university for Ontario. And I see that they haven't cut that part of the university."

© Yvon Theriault/CBC David Robinson, a Laurentian economics professor, says the cuts will come with 'a whole cascading bunch of effects,' including to the school's reputation.

But the more academic programs are gone, which "will hurt a bit," said Robinson.

"We don't have a lot of people coming to Sudbury," he said. "When you don't have a decent arts scene, it's hard to get partners to move to Sudbury in many cases.

"There is a whole cascading bunch of effects. The reputation effect is one. It doesn't look good for a city that has been seen as a dirty mining town — and had changed its image to a large extent — to suddenly have its intellectual sector collapsing. That doesn't look good at all."
Impact on Indigenous learning

A spokesperson for the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario (CFS-Ontario), which represents 350,000 students, said French-language students are being targeted.

Midwifery, the only bilingual program of its kind and the only one in the North, is among the close to 40 French-language programs dropped, representing a big proportion of the cuts.

"Laurentian University is one of the most significant francophone institutions in the province," said Sébastien Lalonde, president of CFS-Ontario.

"Francophone students are being told that their education, language and culture aren't worth saving."

In a statement, CFS-Ontario also points out that Laurentian's mandate is tricultural, and a hub for Indigenous learning and research. It says the program cuts will have severe and negative impacts on Indigenous learning and language degrees.

"These groundbreaking programs have made significant contributions to Indigenous sovereignty, self-determination and decolonization through research and expansive curriculum," the statement said.

"These cuts counter the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's Call to Action #16: 'We call upon post-secondary institutions to create university and college degree and diploma programs in Aboriginal languages.'"

"It is unacceptable that students, who have invested so much in their education, are impacted by financial challenges created by reckless administrative decisions and the erosion of public university funding," said Kayla Weiler, CFS-Ontario's national executive representative.

"The manufactured crisis at Laurentian could be stopped at any time by the Ontario government. The 2021 budget is the third budget in a row with reduced funding for post-secondary education. It is time to invest in all students no matter where they live in Ontario."

Push for provincial funding help

For its part, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) is calling for the resignation of Minister of Colleges and Universities Ross Romano, and for the province to provide immediate investment in Laurentian.

"If Ross Romano had done his job, none of these cuts would have occurred," said OCUFA president Rahul Sapra.

"Romano and the Ford government knew about the depths of Laurentian's financial difficulties for months, if not years. They had numerous opportunities to take action to avert this crisis. Instead, they chose to do nothing and betrayed the trust of Ontarians."

For students like Kotila, whose future as a student is now up in the air, Monday's news will be "an ugly stain on Laurentian University for many years to come."

"We're losing so many incredible academics and in the process. We're also going to be losing many students who will likely leave and go on to pursue academics elsewhere now that their program is being cut," she said.

"I urge people to pay attention, because what happened at Laurentian can happen anywhere. And so hopefully this never has to happen to any other … post-secondary institution ever again."

‘Simpsons’ Star Hank Azaria Apologizes to ‘Every Single Indian Person’ for Voicing Apu

Antonio Ferme

VARIETY

4/13/2021

© Azaria: David Buchan/Variety/REX/Shutterstock

Hank Azaria has issued an apology for voicing Kwik-E-Mart owner Apu on “The Simpsons,” a controversial role he played for 30 years despite Apu being Indian.

“I apologize for my part in creating that and participating in that,” Azaria said. “Part of me feels I need to go round to every single Indian person in this country and apologize.”

Azaria, who began voicing the convenience store owner in 1990, spoke about the recent controversies surrounding his character on Dax Shepherd’s “Armchair Expert” podcast. In January 2020, he stepped down from voicing Apu on “The Simpsons.” The voice actor insists the character was created with good intentions but said there were real negative consequences to the portrayal.

“I really didn’t know any better,” Azaria said. “I didn’t think about it. I was unaware of how much relative advantage I had received in this country as a white kid from Queens.”

Azaria said Peter Seller’s performance in “The Party” inspired Apu’s voice on “The Simpsons.” Seller, the white actor who portrayed the gawky Hrundi V. Bakshi in the film, wore brownface and perpetuated Indian stereotypes. Looking back, Azaria said this was “a great example of white privilege relative advantage.”

“At the time, Indian people were very upset with that portrayal back in 1966,” Azaria said. “I couldn’t be possibly passing along structural racism more perfectly, at least in a show business context, by taking something that was already upsetting and going, ‘Oh, this is wonderful!”‘

Indian comic Hari Kondabolu outlined the negative stereotypes and racial microaggressions that Apu’s character represents in his documentary “The Problem With Apu,” which was released on truTV in 2017. Kondabolu brought in various Indian talents from Hollywood to share their personal stories of how white people bullied them by using Apu’s character. Many people used Apu’s ubiquitous line “Thank you, come again” as the punchline for their harmful and racist gestures.

Shortly after the film’s release, “The Simpsons” writers addressed the controversies surrounding Apu. In the episode “No Good Read Goes Unpunished,” Marge purchases an old fairytale book from her childhood to read to Lisa as a bedtime story. While reading the story, Marge began to realize how culturally offensive the book actually is. Toward the end of the episode, Lisa looks directly into the camera, saying: “Something that started decades ago and was applauded and inoffensive is now politically incorrect. What can you do?” She then looks over at a framed picture of Apu, which has the line “Don’t have a cow!” written on it.

Since stepping down from the role, Azaria said he has “read [and] spoke to people who knew a lot about racism, spoke to lots of Indian people and went to seminars.” While he still voices characters on “The Simpsons,” he is now a major proponent for casting actors of color to voice characters of color. Azaria said he slowly came to realize that Apu was the only representation of Indian people in American pop culture for 20 years.

“If that were the only representation of my people in American pop culture,” he said, “I don’t think I would’ve been crazy about that.”

The ocean can no longer be a climate victim
Michael Conathan, opinion contributor 

4/13/2021

Over the past several decades as the world has come to understand the threat of climate change, the ocean has been portrayed primarily as a victim. Alarm bells about warming, acidification, sea-level rise, coral bleaching, species migration and other symptoms have dominated headlines. But this narrative misses the greater point. The ocean is also one of the most powerful tools we have to help head off the worst consequences of global climate change.

© Getty Images The ocean can no longer be a climate victim

The ocean contains 96 percent of the water on Earth and serves as the foundation for and ultimate source of all life on the planet as well as the primary regulator of our global climate system. As Congress and the Biden administration consider their next round of investment on climate change and infrastructure, they must keep the ocean and its potential contributions squarely in their sights.

Earlier this week, a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) found that estimates of the capacity of the ocean's "biological pump," a natural conveyor belt of organisms that pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere down into the depths, could be off by a significant margin. This would make the global target of keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius even more difficult to achieve than previously thought.

The consequences of this revised estimate could be significant. The ocean absorbs between a quarter and a third of annual global carbon dioxide emissions - approximately equivalent to the total output of the European Union. According to a 2020 report from the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy, ocean systems and technologies, including marine renewable energy production, can further provide up to one-fifth of the carbon reductions necessary to meet that 1.5 degree target by 2050.

The ocean's potential as a climate solution is only now beginning to emerge, and with the addition of one of the High-Level Panel's co-chairs and former NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco to President Biden's climate team, the administration is in a prime position to act. Four areas of opportunity exist in the immediate term for Congress and the administration to boost federal engagement in ocean-based climate action.

First, we must institute policies to accelerate the transition to zero-carbon maritime transportation, including affiliated shoreside infrastructure. Over 90 percent of global trade moves by ship, and the maritime transportation industry as a whole emits approximately 2.9 percent of global greenhouse gasses - roughly equivalent to the total annual contribution of Germany or Japan. Deploying scalable, zero-emission shipping fuels and jumpstarting the process of electrifying coastal fleets such as Washington State's ferry system, the largest in the nation, are critical initial steps to reduce this footprint. And cutting emissions at port facilities, as called for in Biden's Healthy Ports program, will provide the double benefit of reducing carbon while producing cleaner air for port-adjacent communities that are often lower-income neighborhoods.

Second, healthy coastal habitats are efficient carbon sinks and provide myriad additional benefits to coastal regions, including protection from storm surges, erosion control and providing critical habitat for commercially and recreationally important species. A bipartisan coalition of legislators led by Reps. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) and Don Young (R- Ark.) have called for a $10 billion investment in coastal restoration projects that would begin to capitalize on this potential.

Furthermore, early efforts exploring the potential of cultivating kelp to remove and ultimately store carbon in the deep ocean seabed are showing great promise. Some engineered solutions are emerging as well, including negative emission production of hydrogen from seawater that can in turn be used as fuel. Government investment to help measure the efficacy and better understanding the ecological implications of these projects will spur private industry to further develop promising negative emission methodologies.

Third, we already know that most seafood already has a smaller carbon footprint than other meat products, but we can still do better. As in the maritime transportation industry, electrification of fishing fleets is an obvious starting point, but creative solutions abound. Emerging research is also showing that some species of kelp, when added to cattle feed, can eliminate over 80 percent of methane produced by cows. Development of sustainable aquaculture, regulated with strong environmental safeguards, can further reduce emissions while also putting a dent in our massive seafood trade deficit.

Fourth, expanding development of offshore wind and continuing to research other methods of ocean-based renewable energy can help drive our pivot to a renewable energy future. Offshore wind in particular has proven successful across Europe, in China and around the world, but has been slow to develop in the U.S. Crafting a thoughtful process of engagement with the fishing industry and other ocean users must be part of the solution moving forward to gain buy-in and clear hurdles if the Biden administration is to achieve its ambitious target of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity installed in U.S. waters by 2030.

Finally, in order to preserve the ocean's biomass that allows it to function properly as our planet's climate control system, we should continue to support the global goal of protecting 30 percent of the ocean by 2030. While the U.S. has nearly achieved this target in our waters, the vast majority of our fully protected marine reserves are in the remote Pacific. True conservation value will stem from safeguarding a diversity of marine ecosystems, including areas of the high seas, particularly those in close proximity to our Exclusive Economic Zone, such as the Sargasso Sea. After all, the biological pump, like all of our ocean ecosystems, only works efficiently if there is enough biomass in the ocean to keep it going.

As the urgency of addressing the existential threat of global climate change rises to prominence in policymaking, we face an all hands on deck situation. It's time that we recognize the power of the ocean to help shape our climate future - after all, it has forever been our planet's single greatest asset.

Michael Conathan is a senior ocean policy fellow with the Aspen Institute's Energy and Environment Program and a former Republican staff member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

St. Vincent seeks water, funds as volcano keeps erupting

KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent — Leaders of volcano-wracked St. Vincent said Tuesday that water is running short as heavy ash contaminates supplies, and they estimated that the eastern Caribbean island will need hundreds of millions of dollars to recover from the eruption of La Soufriere

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Between 16,000 to 20,000 people have been evacuated from the island’s northern region, where the exploding volcano is located, with more than 3,000 of them staying at more than 80 government shelters.

Dozens of people stood in lines on Tuesday for water or to retrieve money sent by friends and family abroad. Among those standing in one crowd was retired police officer Paul Smart.

“The volcano caught us with our pants down, and it’s very devastating,” he said. “No water, lots of dust in our home. We thank God we are alive, but we need more help at this moment.”

Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said in a press conference on local station NBC Radio that St. Vincent will need hundreds of millions of dollars to recover from the eruption but did not give any details.

He added that no casualties have been reported since the first big blast from the volcano early Friday. “We have to try and keep that record,” he said. Gonsalves said some people have refused to leave communities closest to the volcano and urged them to evacuate.

Falling ash and pyroclastic flows have destroyed crops and contaminated water reservoirs. Garth Saunders, minister of the island’s water and sewer authority, noting that some communities have not yet received water.


“The windward (eastern) coast is our biggest challenge today,” he said during the press conference of efforts to deploy water trucks. “What we are providing is a finite amount. We will run out at some point.”

The prime minister said people in some shelters need food and water, and he thanked neighbouring nations for shipments of items including cots, respiratory masks and water bottles and tanks. In addition, the World Bank has disbursed $20 million to the government of St. Vincent as part of an interest-free catastrophe financing program.

Adam Billing, a retired police officer who lived and tended to his crops on land near the volcano, said he had more than 3 acres of plantains, tannias, yams and a variety of fruits and estimates he lost more than $9,000 worth of crops.

“Everything that (means) livelihood is gone. Everything,” said Billing, who was evacuated. “We have to look at the next couple of months as it's not going to be a quick fix from the government.”

The volcano, which had seen a low-level eruption since December, experienced the first of several major explosions on Friday morning, and volcanologists say activity could continue for weeks.

Another explosion was reported Tuesday morning, sending another massive plume of ash into the air. It came on the anniversary of the 1979 eruption, the last one produced by the volcano until Friday morning. A previous eruption in 1902 killed some 1,600 people.

“It’s still a pretty dangerous volcano,” said Richard Robertson with the University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Center. “It can still cause serious damage.”

___

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Associated Press videographer Orvil Samuel contributed to this report.

Kristin Deane And DáNica Coto, The Associated Press

Caribbean island tackles water, food shortages after volcano eruption

By Robertson S. Henry and Kate Chappell

4/13/2021

© Reuters/ROBERTSON S. HENRY Local residents fill containers of water after a series of eruptions from La Soufriere volcano

KINGSTOWN, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (Reuters) - The tiny eastern Caribbean island of Saint Vincent was rocked by a fifth day of eruptions from the La Soufriere volcano on Tuesday as leaders warned of shortages of water and the potential need for hundreds of millions of dollars to rebuild.

© Reuters/MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES An overview of La Soufriere volcano on Saint Vincent island

The explosion happened around 6 a.m., causing another billowing plume of smoke and ash as well as pyroclastic currents of ash and rock hurtling down the volcano's flanks. Officials have warned it could continue to be active for months.

© Reuters/ROBERTSON S. HENRY Local residents clear ash from a roof after a series of eruptions from La Soufriere volcano

Ash blankets much of the island, as thick as 8 inches (20 cm) in some parts. It has destroyed crops, contaminated water, killed animals and devastated infrastructure, also rendering some roads impassable, complicating search and rescue efforts.

So far, there have been no reports of casualties or injuries. Damages for an eruption in 1979 were $100 million. But residents are struggling to deal with supply shortages.

Video: Power outages hit Saint Vincent island amid volcano tremors (Reuters)


“We are still looking for drinking water and food,” said Jenetta Young Mason, 43, who fled from her home in the danger area to stay with relatives.

Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves said some supplies from neighboring countries had started rolling into the island nation of just over 100,000 residents, during a press conference broadcast on a local station. But more help was needed.

© Reuters/MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES A satellite image shows Richmond Vale waterfront on Saint Vincent island after the volcanic eruption

The Central Water and Sewage Authority has been unable to harvest any water from the water sources since the volcano erupted, government spokesman Sehon Marshall said, which has resulted in a more than 50% depletion of water storage.

Some Caribbean islands have delivered cots, food, masks and respiratory tanks, and the World Bank said it intended to disburse $20 million to the government via an interest-free catastrophe financing program.

Dormant for decades, the volcano first erupted on Friday, prompting between 16,000 and 20,000 people to evacuate from surrounding areas, with many staying in shelters near the capital of Kingstown.

© Reuters/CHANTEL WILLIAMS Smoke billows from the La Soufriere volcano in St Vincent

Government efforts to shelter people are being complicated by protocols to limit the spread of COVID, including caps on the number of people and testing and vaccination requirements.

One of the issues is locals' reluctance to take the vaccine. Kitron Sam, 34, who fled after the eruption, said that officials visited his shelter near Kingstown and offered the vaccine, but no one opted to take it.

(Reporting by Robertson S. Henry in Kingstown and Kate Chappell in Kingston; Editing by Sarah Marsh and Lisa Shumaker)

Magna plans to expand manufacturing in North America to focus on EVs


Canadian auto parts company Magna International Inc. is planning to expand its global manufacturing capacity to North America as it focuses on electric vehicle production.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Aurora, Ont.-based auto supplier plans to become an industry leader in North America while aiming for carbon neutrality by 2030, Magna executives said Tuesday during the company investor call.


"We have indicated many times over the years, we are interested in establishing vehicle manufacturing in North America," said CEO Seetarama (Swamy) Kotagiri.

The company will partner with more overseas startups, including the recently announced collaboration with Innoviz Technologies, in its move toward electric vehicles, said Kotagiri.

The comments come a day after Israeli electric mobility startup REE Automotive announced its partnership with Magna to develop modular electric vehicles.

The agreement with Magna will bring full-fledged MEVs for tech companies and new electric mobility players under the "Powered by REE" brand, said REE on Monday.

"We see a growing demand for highly modular EVs from leading tech companies and new electric mobility players who have set their sights on entering the EV realm and building a brand in automotive," said REE co-founder and CEO Daniel Barel.

Late last year, Magna signed a deal with LG Electronics to create a joint venture called LG and Magna e-Powertrain JV to build components for electric cars.

The partnership will help manufacture electric motors, inverters and on-board chargers as Magna ambitiously expands into the fast-growing electric vehicle market.

The company expects its electrified powertrain business to have over US$2 billion in managed sales by 2023 and double by 2027, said Kotagiri.

The company also plans to electrify pickup trucks using its existing assembly processes and "eBeam" technology, he said.

In what he described as Magna's "solution for automakers to electrify pickup trucks without sacrificing their utility and functionality," Kotagiri said the company has received "significant interest from several (original equipment manufacturers) and expect(s) to bring this to market soon."

Kotagiri added that Magna will be launching its driver monitoring system, a safety feature that detects distracted driver behaviour, drowsiness and fatigue through an in-vehicle camera, in 2022.

Magna expects its sales to grow to between US$43 billion and US$45.5 billion in 2023, the company said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 13, 2021.

Companies in this story: (TSX:MG)

Denise Paglinawan, The Canadian Press

$291 Adobe Cancelation Fee Sees Twitter Users Argue it's 'Morally Correct' to Pirate Software

Adobe cancelation fee has provoked fierce criticism of the creative software company.

Aatif Sulleyman 

NEWSWEEK

4/13/2021

© iStock The Adobe logo at the company's HQ in San Jose, California. The creative software company is under heavy fire for charging customers a steep cancelation fee when they try to end their subscriptions.

A post from a customer has gone viral on Twitter, after he discovered that he would have to pay nearly $300 to bring his Creative Cloud subscription to an end.

It has sparked a discussion about Adobe's practices, with many others coming forward to say that they too have faced extremely steep cancelation fees when they've tried to cut ties with the company.

A screenshot uploaded to the micro-blogging site by Twitter user @Mrdaddguy showed that they faced a $291.45 fee to cancel their Adobe Creative Cloud plan.

At the time of publication the tweet has attracted more than 13,000 retweets, more than 4,000 quote tweets, and more than 70,000 likes.

Twitter users have been almost universally in agreement in their criticism of the company, with some describing the cancelation fee as "absurd", "disgusting," and likening it to being held hostage by the company.


Ah, I see Adobe is trending for absurd subscription fees. I thought this would be problematic back in 2014. pic.twitter.com/kM58I5i7HA— Jen Sorensen (@JenSorensen) April 13, 2021

"Adobe has been holding me hostage for the better part of a year on a free trial that magically converted to a yearlong subscription with a wild cancellation fee," wrote Twitter user Laura Hudson. "Blink twice if they have you too."

Some have weighed into the conversation by suggesting alternatives to Adobe's suite of products, such as Clip Studio Paint, Procreate, Blender, Krita, Paint tool Sai, many of which are either free to use or available as one-time purchases.

Others, meanwhile, are arguing that Adobe's penalty fees are so severe that it should be considered "morally correct" to pirate the company's software in revenge.


Watching people pirate older adobe versions and using viable alternatives instead of shoveling money over to a billionaire corp like adobe pic.twitter.com/9ec64zEOWR— Radar's Pet д̶͉̈р̴̙̅у̸̡̑г̶͎̓ Yote (@RadarCoyote) April 13, 2021

"Adobe on their hands and knees begging us to pirate their software," wrote Twitter user JoshDeLearner.

"This thread is a great reminder of why it's morally correct to pirate Adobe products," wrote Dozing Starlight. A multitude of similar tweets can be found here.


by looking up "adobe cancel fee" you can instantly find numerous people talking about this everywhere. what essentially happens is that you usually sign up for the full adobe creative cloud programs or multiple programs as you so wish, and pay monthly for them.— asgore enjoyer 💖 (@MRDADDGUY) April 12, 2021


however when you enter the subscription, you are usually not given the terms of service to read over in detail at all! you are supposed to directly go and find this information that despite paying a monthly fee, you are actually in an annual one and if you try to cancel early,— asgore enjoyer 💖 (@MRDADDGUY) April 12, 2021


you will be charged a ridiculous amount to make up for the charges you "didn't pay" for the year. and the most infuriating thing about all of this is that you are not even shown this information when purchasing!— asgore enjoyer 💖 (@MRDADDGUY) April 12, 2021

Newsweek has asked Adobe for comment, and this article will be updated with the company's response.

There have also been widespread complaints from customers who say that they thought they had subscribed to one of Adobe's services on a monthly basis, only to find that they were actually on an annual contract.

Adobe's cancelation terms are not consistent across its various subscriptions and packages.

For instance, the firm's Subscription and Cancellation Terms for a Creative Cloud, Document Cloud and Acrobat annual contract, paid monthly, state that customers who cancel after 14 days will be "charged a lump sum amount of 50% of your remaining contract obligation and your service will continue until the end of that month's billing period."

However, the same product is also available on a month to month subscription plan, which states that "Should you cancel after 14 days, your payment is non-refundable, and your service will continue until the end of that month's billing period."

Twitter user @Mrdaddguy added that they managed to successfully swerve the cancelation fee after contacting Adobe's customer support team.

Living near a US Superfund site could shave a year off your life, study finds
Paola Rosa-Aquino 

THE GUARDIAN

4/13/2021

Superfund sites are scattered across America: they’re places like landfills and manufacturing plants so contaminated with hazardous waste that the federal government has designated them a national priority to clean up. And according to a new, large-scale study, living near one can shave months – and in some cases, more than a year – off how long you live.

Related: ‘They couldn’t care less’: plan to solve sewage crisis in Illinois town merely ‘a patch’

After Hurricane Harvey made landfall in south-east Texas in 2017, the University of Houston’s Hanadi Rifai began research along the 50-mile-long Houston Ship Channel, the petrochemical industry’s main artery. Rifai and her colleagues noticed how neighborhoods adjacent to hazardous waste sites, such as where the San Jacinto River meets the channel, seemed to have a lower life expectancy. “That got us interested in a more comprehensive [national] study,” Rifai said.

© Photograph: Matthew Brown/AP Water contaminated with arsenic, lead and zinc flows from a pipe out of the Lee Mountain mine and into a holding pond near Rimini, 

Montana, part of the Superfund site

In a first-of-its-kind study out Tuesday in Nature Communications, Rifai and a team of researchers found that living in a zip code in close proximity to a Superfund site may decrease average life expectancy by 0.2 years. It could be up to a year in socioeconomically challenged communities, says Rifai, who is a professor of civil and environmental engineering and the study’s lead author.


In places with an even higher concentration of waste sites, like Texas’s Harris County, where Rifai lives, “we’re not talking 0.2 [years] – we’re talking a few years.”

The study used data available for more than 65,000 of the 72,268 census tracts – defined geographical areas where census data is collected – within the contiguous US.

“It was a bit surprising and concerning,” Rifai says. “We weren’t sure [when we started] if the fact that you are socioeconomically challenged would make [the Superfund’s effects] worse” and would lower life expectancy.

What Rifai and her team found confirms that social and health-related disadvantages – such lack of higher education or limited income – could make those living in the vicinity of Superfund sites all the more vulnerable to contaminant exposure.

Currently, there are more than 1,300 Superfund sites in the US. The fight to rid the country of toxic waste sites begun in 1980 with the first – and most famous – Superfund site in Love Canal, a neighborhood in Niagara Falls, New York. The site was used as an industrial dump by the Hooker Chemical Company; over 22,000 tons of toxic waste buried by Hooker caused illnesses, miscarriages, birth defects, and death among residents.

Now, when the EPA labels an area a Superfund site, it’s added to the National Priorities List – a catalog that guides investigations and cleanup funding toward some of the nation’s most serious sources of contamination.

But just because the site is added to the list doesn’t mean nearby residents’ lives are free from pollution. Often, the government relocates residents impacted residents out of harm’s way – at least temporarily. But even when Superfund sites have been designated as “remediated,” chemicals can still linger.

For others, the battle to remove toxic contaminants is still going on. Studies have shown sites without a remediation strategy can continue to leak their pollutants into surrounding areas, prompting billions in medical bills and lost productivity alone.

The perils posed by the nation’s industrial wastelands can be amplified with other natural hazards, Rifai says.

“We call them cascading impacts. We wanted to see, in the big context of these waste sites, how an event might bring toxic chemicals closer to people.”

Approximately 60% of Superfund sites managed by the EPA could potentially be affected by natural hazards; they’re vulnerable to hurricanes, flooding, sea-level rise, increased precipitation or wildfires, all of which are intensifying as the planet warms. Flooding, for example, can increase the chances that dangerous chemicals can be released and contaminate nearby land and water, putting communities at risk of adverse health effects.

Thus, the study’s authors write, it is essential to understand to what extent being located in a Fema-defined floodplain could influence the effects of Superfund sites on average life expectancy.

“You may think you’ve already built with an issue [in mind], but a natural hazard may change that picture. You may have to go back and rethink what you did and make sure that it’s hardened against natural hazards, so that you don’t have continuing exposure or any emerging exposure,” Rifai adds.

Too high, or not high enough? 

Study finds cannabis potency labeling is often wildly inaccurate

IN BOTH USA AND CANADA

Nicole Karlis 

SALON

4/13/2021

© Provided by Salon Marijuana
Getty Images


If you've bought marijuana products legally in the United States, you might be familiar with the regulatory labeling system, which features two three-letter acronyms accompanied by percentages: CBD and THC. Just as alcoholic drinks list their potency by denoting alcohol-by-volume (or ABV), both recreational and medicinal marijuana products list the amount of two different naturally-occurring chemicals, cannabidiol (CBD), and tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), as a means for consumers to gauge how high they do (or don't) want to get.

But while alcohol-by-volume is a fairly easy number to test, THC and CBD content aren't as simple. Now, a new study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) suggests that this labeling system could frequently be way off — giving consumers radically different psychoactive experiences than what they might be expecting.

"People are buying products they think are THC-free but in fact contain a significant amount of THC," said Jodi M. Gilman, PhD, the study's lead author and an investigator in the Center for Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. "One patient reported that she took a product she thought only contained CBD, and then when driving home that day she felt intoxicated, disoriented and very scared."

The crux of the discrepancy relates to these two naturally-occuring chemicals, CBD and THC. Because CBD has a reputation for being a non-psychoactive, "soothing" chemical, while THC is its psychoactive cousin, the listing system theoretically lets marijuana consumers decide what kind of high they prefer. Those who prefer cannabidiol (CBD) instead of the psychoactive compound in cannabis, THC, are often looking to experience a more soothing "high." On the other hand, THC connects with cannabinoid 1 receptors in the brain and can sometimes create unwanted psychoactive effects — the glued-to-your-chair, immobilizing kind of high.

Indeed, the JAMA study from Massachusetts General Hospital researchers found that many consumers who are told that they are taking CBD to help with anxiety, depression, pain or insomnia, are often actually consuming products with unwanted THC in them.

Researchers analyzed urine samples from 97 patients who enrolled in a clinical trial to study the effect of using medical cannabis for anxiety, depression, pain or insomnia. The researchers wanted to see if the products were delivering the expected ingredients to patients or if they were mislabeled.

According to the results published in JAMA Network Open, there was no CBD in about one-third of the urine samples from patients who said they were using products that were mostly CBD or were roughly half CBD and half THC. In total, THC was detected in 80 percent of those samples — which included people who thought they were only consuming CBD.

The participants reported that they were using products from licensed dispensaries within 48 hours. Vaping was the most common method reported of consuming CBD, and yet nobody who reported vaping had measurable cannabinoids in their samples.

"A lot of questions about the content of the products and their effects remain," said Gilman. "Patients need more information about what's in these products and what effects they can expect."

The findings are consistent with previous ones that hint at mislabeling. For example, one study published in JAMA Network in 2015, found that only 17 percent of 75 edible marijuana products were labeled incorrectly.

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"Edible cannabis products from 3 major metropolitan areas, though unregulated, failed to meet basic label accuracy standards for pharmaceuticals," the researchers stated. "Greater than 50% of products evaluated had significantly less cannabinoid content than labeled, with some products containing negligible amounts of THC."

A more recent survey by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2020 yielded similar results. The FDA randomly tested 200 capsules, edibles, drinks, pet products, tinctures, and oils containing CBD; nearly 50 percent of them had THC, too.

"These preliminary data are from a limited sample size and cannot be used to draw conclusions about the marketplace and supports the need for the long-term study, which will capture multiple retail sources (on-line and brick and mortar) and a greater number of products," the report concluded.

The FDA at the time emphasized that more testing is needed. But some experts have previously stated that the FDA needs to step in and regulate such products.

"The big problem, with this being something that is not federally legal, is that the needed quality assurance oversight from the Food and Drug Administration is not available," Marcel Bonn-Miller, PhD, an adjunct assistant professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a press statement previously. "So, right now, if you buy a Hershey bar, you know it has been checked over; you know how many calories are in it, you know it has chocolate as an ingredient, you know how much chocolate is in there. Selling these oils without oversight, there is no way to know what is actually in the bottle."

USA

UFO sightings spiked dramatically during the coronavirus pandemic

Mark Serrels 

CNET

4/13/2021

In a year when many of us were stuck indoors, it turns out we had more time to look at the night sky. © Provided by CNET A faked UFO photo created by a small-town newspaper in 1970 to illustrate extraterrestrial visitations. Getty Images

A fascinating report by The New York Times uncovered that according to data from the National U.F.O. Reporting Center, UFO sightings surged across the United States. New York especially saw a dramatic rise, with sightings doubling year on year during 2020 to 300 total sightings.

Nationwide sightings increased by 1,000 to a total of 7,200, an increase of around 16%.

Why have sightings increased? Most likely because people had more time to scan the night sky with strict lockdowns in place, particularly in New York. But there was also a spate of UFO news throughout 2020 that pushed the topic to the forefront of the zeitgeist.

In fact it was predicted in early 2020 that, thanks to companies like SpaceX and OneWeb inspiring us to look up, we'd most likely see a rise in UFO sightings throughout the year. This combined with the Pentagon releasing three previously classified "UFO" sighting videos had people thinking about and discussing UFOs.

© Getty Images
A faked UFO photo created by a small-town newspaper in 1970 to illustrate extraterrestrial visitations.

In general 2020 felt like a big year for sightings. Oumuamua, the interstellar space object spotted travelling through our solar system was speculated as being alien technology. Not by kooks, but by people as informed as Harvard scientist Avi Loeb.

All this combined most likely contributed to an increase in sightings. Keep your eyes to the skies folks.

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