AI Journalism Lessons from a 150-Year-Old Argentinian Newspaper

By Laura Oliver | 

A solar farm in Cauchari, Jujuy province. Image: Screenshot (La Nación)

This article was originally published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and is republished here with permission. It is part of an ongoing series of cross-posts GIJN is running on AI and investigative journalism.

Media companies are looking at artificial intelligence (AI) in 2022, according to Nic Newman’s Trends and Predictions 2022 Report, based on a survey of hundreds of media leaders around the world. For newsrooms looking to deepen their understanding of how AI could be used for newsgathering, storytelling, and business purposes, La Nación is blazing a trail. The 150-year-old Argentinian newspaper has produced a diverse range of stories assisted by AI technologies and has created an AI lab.La Nación needed an infrastructure and skills that it didn’t yet have in its newsroom to produce this reporting.

La Nación’s experiments with AI began with an investigation into private renewable energy in Argentina. In 2016, Mauricio Macri, the Argentinian President at the time, launched a program to open up the country’s clean energy resources to private and international investment. Inspired by an initiative mapping every solar panel in the US she had encountered as a JSK Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford, Florencia Coelho, new media researcher at La Nación, pitched a project to map the government program’s progress four years after it was launched.

La Nación data team started the project in collaboration with Mathias Felipe, a visiting fellow from the University of Navarra in Spain. The team used machine learning and computer vision, and worked with a third-party lab specializing in geospatial analysis and AI. La Nación’s algorithm was trained to identify the shape of solar farms in Argentina. Computer vision is a process that trains computers to analyze and understand visuals. So 10,999 images were used to train the algorithm before a total of 7 million images were processed and 2,780,400 square kilometers (1,074,000 square miles) of land analyzed. The data suggested the government program had not met its

 targets.

A map from La Nación’s investigation into the Argentinian government’s pledge to build solar farms. Image: Screenshot (La Nación).

The project threw up some challenges. Accessing satellite imagery is costly. Solar farms look like agricultural farms depending on what image-recognition system you use. They didn’t have enough images of solar farms in Argentina in 2019 to train the model so images from Chile had to be sourced. “We couldn’t map every solar panel in Argentina because it needed very high-definition imaging, so we focused on solar farms because machine learning looks at shapes and this was an easier pattern for them to identify,” Coelho says.

Ultimately, La Nación needed an infrastructure and skills that it didn’t yet have in its newsroom to produce this reporting. “We didn’t have all the hardware and computing power needed for this project, so that’s why we collaborated. It was data for good,” says Coelho.
Analyzing Trap Song Lyrics

From this early example, the La Nación data team learned the benefits of collaboration. They also learned that until their own tech-savvy in terms of AI grew they they might not be able to ask the right questions, such as testing how accurate a model is. Setting up an AI lab involving journalists, data analysts, and developers to work on AI projects within La Nación’s newsroom has helped expedite this learning process. None of the seven staff members work in the lab full-time, though, as they have other commitments in the newsroom.

The lab’s first project was an analysis of the lyrics of trap music that took seven months to complete. Gabriela Bouret and Delfina Arambillet were the leaders of the project, in which Coelho didn’t participate. The team used machine learning, natural language processing, Spotify’s API, and lyrics from genius.com to process 692 songs and dig into the topics, trends, and messages of this increasingly popular music genre in Argentina. The AI that journalists used had to deal with some linguistic problems, including invented words used in trap songs. An interactive feature, including an extensive trap dictionary, an “egometer” measuring how many times an artist mentions him or herself, and other analysis of hallmarks of the genre allowed readers to explore the results.

A gif showing La Nacíon’s trap music project. Courtesy of La Nación

Much of what they learned, Coelho says, can be applied to other types of music or even to different texts. “Today the topic was trap, but tomorrow we may use this for political discourse or for a different topic,” says data analyst Gabriela Bouret.

Bringing new technologies, reporting processes, and topics into play has pushed the newsroom too. “It was such a different thing to publish in La Nación,” Bouret notes. “It’s a very traditional newspaper and trap is especially for very young people. It’s totally different from what our audience expects from us and gets us out of the box.”

La Nación’s experiments are also exposing that AI has been built or trained for the English language and for audiences in the Global North. “Every [natural language processing] model has been prepared for the English language,” says Bouret. “It was very difficult for us to find the libraries and the processes to help us deal with the problem of the Spanish language [for the trap project].”
AI for Electoral Coverage

In 2021, the newsroom again used computer vision to detect errors in the telegrams returned from polling stations during parliamentary elections in Argentina.

Working with a third-party company to build and train an algorithm to identify inconsistencies in the telegrams, which record details including the number of votes won by each party and how many election monitors were present, human volunteers were then asked to sift through flagged records. La Nación used its existing VozData platform, where readers have collaborated on data investigations and worked with transparency initiatives and universities. Human helpers refined the algorithm: it had to be adjusted to deal with telegrams that were wonky or that had been uploaded upside-down. The results suggested that 95% of telegrams returned were filled out correctly, but 5% had some information missing.

Collaborating with a third party brought another use of computer vision into the newsroom and showed what it could do in a different context. Coelho hopes this model could be used to monitor future elections and to encourage returning officers to fill out telegrams properly. “I think it’s good that the government knows you are using AI to find nuances in documentation,” she says.“We are being investigative journalists of technology… We are taking these projects and learning by doing with this lab.” — La Nacíon’s Florencia Coelho

Finding Time for AI Projects

One of the biggest challenges for newsrooms looking to implement more AI projects is understanding the time it can take and protecting that time. There is no target for how many projects the lab produces in a year, it depends on the work involved and what other demands are placed on the team members’ time.

“These projects can take five to seven months — it’s long-term. It’s difficult for newsrooms to understand because they are always in a rush. You have to be patient. Once a week we have a meeting to work on this because if not, all of the other things will cover you,” says Bouret.

“Investigative journalists can spend a year looking into corruption or an event. We are being investigative journalists of technology,” adds Coelho. “We are taking these projects and learning by doing with this lab. Once we have enough information, we will be able to react in a faster way.”

Collaboration, whether with third-party AI specialists, university departments, or academic experts, can help newsrooms expedite the process and reduce the costs of introducing new technologies, says Coelho. Working with a newsroom may provide a real-life case study for a class or academic research, while start-ups may be interested in testing their tools and AI models to help news organizations solve a problem.

La Nación has also secured third-party funding for some of its AI work, including a Google News Initiative grant for a forthcoming machine learning project. Based on the idea of password strength checkers, the tool will make recommendations for journalists to improve wording related to diversity and inclusion.
A Focus on Gender and the Business SideA collaborative approach runs through all of La Nación’s AI projects and is exemplified by its team approach in the newsroom.

In La Nación’s experience, internal collaboration can also foster support for AI development within the organization and uncover more resources. The team is working on a Spanish-language version of the gender gap tracker, a tool originally devised to measure the ratio of female-to-male sources quoted in online news articles in Canadian media. Coelho and her colleague Delfina Arambillet began working on the project through the JournalismAI Collab project organized by the London School of Economics and has brought the work into La Nación’s newsroom to better understand gender biases in reporting, including whether a source’s gender affects the topics on which they are likely to be quoted. The resulting tool will be useful for the newspaper’s business insights team to assess how article performance is affected by the gender or topics featured.

In an extension of the gender tracker project, La Nación was also involved in an open source AI model developed to detect gender in faces to help analyze the ratio of male and female images used by news outlets. By sharing around 50 Argentinian and Latinx portraits with the team training the AI model, which was originally trained on Asian faces, the AI’s ability to detect a more diverse range of faces in terms of skin tone and ethnicity will improve, making it more useful to a wider range of newsrooms.

Whether with technology companies, commercial departments, other newsrooms, or audience volunteers, a collaborative approach runs through all of La Nación’s AI projects and is exemplified by its team approach in the newsroom. “The skills are so tough to learn that it’s better to learn them together even with competitors. Learn the skill together and then compete for the stories,” Coelho says. “We are already competing with Google and Facebook for the attention of our readers. It’s not good that we take five to 10 years to learn these things. We need to speed up the process of learning and radical sharing, and work with other countries. You will have to study too, but it’s too much for one person.”

Additional Reading

Journalists’ Guide to Using AI and Satellite Imagery for Storytelling

Deepfake Geography: How AI Can Now Falsify Satellite Images

AI in Journalism: With Power Come Responsibilities

Laura Oliver is a freelance journalist based in the UK. She has written for the Guardian, BBC, The Week, among others. She is a visiting lecturer in online journalism at City, University of London, and works as an audience strategy consultant for newsrooms.

Nestle to double investments in Brazil in 2022 as it expands output capacity


Logo of Nestle is seen in Konolfingen

Tue, February 22, 2022
By Roberto Samora

SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Nestle SA said on Tuesday it will almost double its investments in Brazil in 2022 from a year earlier as it builds a new pet food factory and looks to expand its overall industrial capacity in the country.

The annual investments are expected to reach more than 1.8 billion reais ($355.59 million), up from 939 million reais in 2021, Nestle told Reuters, adding that its new Purina plant in the southern state of Santa Catarina - which is already under construction - will get about 40% of the total amount.

Some 1.1 billion reais will be invested in Nestle's industrial operations in the South American country, including new technologies, logistics and sustainability initiatives.

Of that, 90% is set to go to new lines as it aims to boost output capacity, Nestle said, while also planning to invest in energy to shift part of its power generation in Brazil to biomass from gas.

Nestle's coffee plants - seen as a priority for the company in Brazil, the world's largest producer and exporter of the commodity - will get 160 million reais this year. Such an amount does not include investments in sales and distribution channels, it said.

"It is going to be a year of a lot of investments in innovation, increased efficiency and productivity in our lines," Nestle's chief executive in Brazil, Marcelo Melchior, said in a statement.

"We are accelerating investments and... that will allow us to expand capacity while also supporting the business strategies we planned for the period," Melchior said.

($1 = 5.0620 reais)

(Reporting by Roberto Samora; Writing by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Sandra Maler)

WORKING FOR FARMER PRIDDY
Wildlife officials mark rare Florida panther for death



FOR DOING WHAT PREDATORS DO


Ben Montgomery
Tue, February 22, 2022

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency formed to protect wildlife, has taken an unprecedented step and marked for death a rare Florida panther known as FP 260.

FP 260 is still alive, but has been targeted for capture and euthanasia, Craig Pittman reports for the Florida Phoenix.

Driving the news: Because of an Immokalee rancher's persistent complaints that FP 260 was killing her calves, the federal agency decided the endangered panther should die, despite protests from biologists.

"FP 260 is the renegade panther with a taste for veal, unfortunately," one state biologist wrote, per Pittman, who reviewed some 400 agency emails about the panther.

The big picture: The endangered Florida panther has been in decline in the last half century or so, from hunting before it was illegal, then from development and cars.

There are around 200 Florida panthers left on the southern tip of the peninsula, a rebound from fewer than 30 in the 1990s.

How it happened: FP 260 first caught biologists' attention after it was struck by a car in 2020 and crawled off the road and onto the Immokalee ranch of Liesa Priddy.

FP 260 was treated by veterinarians, fitted with a tracking collar, then turned loose a few weeks later in the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge.

Yes, but: Priddy, a former state wildlife commissioner, has complained about panthers killing her cows for a decade. She said FP 260 killed 10 of her calves in a matter of months. Annual losses to panthers topped $25,000, she reported.

Her complaints reached the top levels of wildlife bureaucracy.

Wildlife officials tried everything, from hazing the animal to firing "shell crackers" to scare it off. They eventually relocated the panther 18 miles south, but it returned to the ranch.

In late December, federal panther coordinator David Shindle wrote that his agency had determined FP 260 should be "permanently" removed from the wild after Priddy said she feared the panther would attack a human.

Shindle wrote that the law "provides for removing animals that constitute a demonstrable but non-immediate threat to human safety."

The latest: Calving season has ended at Priddy's ranch and the panther has gone back to the wild.

A USFWS spokesperson told Pittman they're not actively looking for the panther.

The full story is worthy of your time

Archaeologists find 9,000-year-old shrine in Jordan desert

Tourists visit the Amman Citadel in Jordan in 2021. Jordanian and French archaeologists said Tuesday they had found a roughly 9,000-year-old shrine at a remote Neolithic site in Jordan’s eastern desert. (AFP/File )

https://arab.news/rkzkq
AP
February 22, 202223:06

The ritual complex was found in a Neolithic campsite near large structures known as “desert kites"

Jordanian archaeologist Wael Abu-Azziza, co-director of the project said: “It's 9,000 years old and everything was almost intact”

AMMAN, Jordan: A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists said Tuesday that it had found a roughly 9,000-year-old shrine at a remote Neolithic site in Jordan’s eastern desert.

The ritual complex was found in a Neolithic campsite near large structures known as “desert kites,” or mass traps that are believed to have been used to corral wild gazelles for slaughter.

Such traps consist of two or more long stone walls converging toward an enclosure and are found scattered across the deserts of the Middle East.

“The site is unique, first because of its preservation state,” said Jordanian archaeologist Wael Abu-Azziza, co-director of the project. “It’s 9,000 years old and everything was almost intact.”

Within the shrine were two carved standing stones bearing anthropomorphic figures, one accompanied by a representation of the “desert kite,” as well as an altar, hearth, marine shells and miniature model of the gazelle trap.

The researchers said in a statement that the shrine “sheds an entire new light on the symbolism, artistic expression as well as spiritual culture of these hitherto unknown Neolithic populations.”

The proximity of the site to the traps suggests the inhabitants were specialized hunters and that the traps were “the center of their cultural, economic and even symbolic life in this marginal zone,” the statement said.

The team included archaeologists from Jordan’s Al Hussein Bin Talal University and the French Institute of the Near East. The site was excavated during the most recent digging season in 2021.

Dakota Access pipeline suffers U.S. Supreme Court setback

Tue, February 22, 2022
By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a bid led by Dakota Access oil pipeline operator Energy Transfer LP to avoid additional environmental review of a section that runs under an artificial lake and is opposed by nearby Native American tribes, leaving the pipeline vulnerable to being shut down.

The justices left in place a lower court's decision that ordered the federal government to undertake a more intensive environmental study of the pipeline's route underneath Lake Oahe, which straddles the border of North Dakota and South Dakota. The pipeline, known as DAPL and open since 2017, will continue to operate as the review is carried out.

"We call on the administration to close the pipeline until a full safety and environmental review is complete. DAPL never should have been authorized in the first place, and this administration is failing to address the persistent illegality of this pipeline," said Jan Hasselman, a lawyer for the environmental group Earthjustice who represents the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Related video: Dakota Access urged SCOTUS to reverse pipeline decision in early 2021

BLACKSNAKE

The Dakota Access pipeline has been the subject of a lengthy court battle between tribes seeking its closure and Dallas-based Energy Transfer.

Whether the project should be shut down was not at issue in Energy Transfer's Supreme Court appeal. But Energy Transfer said in court papers that the pipeline remains "vulnerable to a shutdown" with the new environmental review pending. The company did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, along with the Yankton Sioux Tribe, the Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, have opposed the biggest pipeline out of the Bakken shale basin. The pipeline runs about 1,170 miles (1,885 km) from North Dakota to Illinois. The disputed section on federal property under Lake Oahe, an artificial reservoir on the Missouri River, is 1.7 miles (2.7 km) long.

The tribes draw water from the lake for various purposes, including drinking, and also consider the waters of the Missouri River to be sacred. Their lawyers have said the tribes are worried about a potential oil spill.

The tribes lobbied hard to prevent the easement under the lake from being approved and initially appeared to have succeeded when in 2016 the administration of Democratic former President Barack Obama said it would review its original action to allow construction. But after Republican Donald Trump became president in 2017, the government endorsed the original decision to grant an easement.

Democratic President Joe Biden's administration urged the Supreme Court not to hear the appeal, saying the pipeline operator concerns about a shutdown were overstated.

Washington-based U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg in 2020 found that the government had violated a law called the National Environmental Policy Act and threw out the approval.

Boasberg ordered a more detailed "environmental impact statement," which was the decision the pipeline operator was challenging. Boasberg subsequently ruled that the pipeline be shut down but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit blocked that decision while allowing the additional environmental review.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency overseeing the permit approval process, has said it expects to complete the review later this year.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)

'We are expecting war', say Ukraine frontline residents

AFP - © Aris Messinis

Ninety-year-old Raisa Simanovna still sleeps in her flat on the frontline in eastern Ukraine but goes down into the cellar in the daytime to shelter from the ever more intense shelling and mortar fire.


© Aris Messinis

People have to constantly try and repair windows broken by the fighting, which threatens to escalate with Russia's recognition of the separatists

Located in territory held by Ukrainian forces on the border with the separatist Lugansk republic backed by Russia, the town of Schastya -- which means "happiness" -- has been a symbol of promise in a conflict which began in 2014.


© Aris Messinis

Shells were exploding near the local power plant near the frontline in eastern Ukraine's separatist war

Before it was closed down due to Covid restrictions, the bridge over the Donetsk, the river that flows through the town, was one of the rare crossing points between the two sides.

The town is once again on a volatile frontline following President Vladimir Putin's move to recognise the separatist self-proclaimed republics of Lugansk and Donetsk and order Russian troops in.

And the Soviet-era apartment block in which Simanovna lives is on a canal that connects to the river, right on that frontline.

"We are expecting war any hour, any minute," said the pensioner, her face wrapped in a scarlet-coloured kerchief as she descended into the cellar with an electric torch in hand.

The electricity, heating and water in her building have been cut off after shelling hit the town's power supply.

Like the few neighbours she has left, Simanovna has nowhere to go. Out of the 10 flats in her part of the building, only three are occupied.

- 'We weren't expecting this' -

In the night between Monday and Tuesday, the area came under fire and residents could be seen cleaning up the damage.

Valentina Shmatkova, 59, said she was woken up by all the windows in her two-room apartment shattering.

"We spent the war in the basement," she said while clearing up her flat, referring to the most intense years of the conflict between 2014 and 2016.

"But we weren't expecting this. We never thought Ukraine and Russia wouldn't end up agreeing.

"I didn't think there would be a conflict. I thought our president and the Russian president were intelligent and reasonable people," she said.

"I have one request: that they sort this out and we can forget about this misunderstanding!"

Asked what she thought of Putin's decision to recognise the separatists, Shmatkova laughed: "I have no idea what's going on, we have no light, no electricity, nothing!"

- 'We have to leave' -

The shelling and mortar fire gradually intensified as the day progressed. Deafening explosions began shaking the walls and set off car alarms.

Black smoke could be seen billowing from the local power station after it took a hit.

"They're aiming for the bridge," one man said calmly as the ground shook under him, before lugging a heavy box to his 4x4.

Nearby, Daniil and his father sat smoking on a bench outside their home.

The younger man, who is unemployed, said he wanted to stay in Schastya despite the lack of jobs but Putin's speech would change things.

"They recognised the republics and, if they recognised the republics, that means there will be an escalation. And if there is an escalation, that means we have to leave."

tbm/dt/zak/yad

CHEERLEADERS FOR WAR
Russian lawmakers lavish Putin with praise after rebel recognition




Members of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, applaud after voting to ratify President Vladimir Putin's agreements with east Ukraine's separatist republics 

(AFP/Handout)


Ola CICHOWLAS
Tue, February 22, 2022, 

Russian lawmakers lined up Tuesday to lavish President Vladimir Putin with praise for recognising east Ukraine's rebel territories, in a show of loyalty as they unanimously voted to ratify the Kremlin's deals with the separatists.

Lawmakers took to the tribunes to defend Putin's move in ultra-patriotic speeches and broke into applause as they approved the agreements, which give legal cover for Russian troops to be sent in to Ukraine.

Not a single lawmaker in the lower or upper houses of parliament -- the Duma and the Federation Council -- voted against the deals with the Donetsk and Lugansk separatists.

In scenes reminiscent of Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, the lawmakers presented Putin's move as a major victory and backed dubious historical theories made in his national address the night before.

"Let's thank the president for his bravery, for his responsible position," Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said as he opened the voting session.

A day earlier, Putin announced he was recognising the rebel republics.

The longtime leader did so at the end of an hour-long speech heavy in murky historical references.

He claimed Ukraine was "entirely created by Russia" and questioned Kyiv's right to statehood throughout his address.

Several hours later, he ordered the Russian army to send troops to eastern Ukraine to "maintain peace".

- 'Not scared of sanctions' -

As Western countries announced new sanctions against Moscow throughout the day, lawmakers said Moscow was being unfairly punished for correcting a historical injustice.

"Moscow is not scared of any sanctions," Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko told lawmakers as he presented the deals in parliament.

Even as Russian stock markets were hit and the ruble tanked to almost 80 to a dollar, Duma speaker Volodin called on Russians to "believe in our national currency."

At one point, it seemed that one lawmaker had not voted in favour of ratifying a deal with the Lugansk People's Republic, with the Duma's voting results screen showing 399 out of 400 for it.

But soon afterwards, Communist MP Oleg Smolin owned up that he had not pressed the button in time and that he was indeed in favour.

The sessions included some of Russia's most vehemently anti-Western public speakers that have sat in parliament for years -- even decades -- within the so-called "systemic opposition" that challenges Putin domestically but supports his foreign policy.

"NATO holds us by the throat," 77-year-old Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov said in an angry speech defending Putin.

- 'What has Russia done wrong?' -

Among those who took the floor was Andrei Lugovoi -- a nationalist MP who British police believe is a suspect in the 2006 poisoning of former agent Alexander Litvinenko in London.

Lugovoi, who the UK has tried and failed to extradite to London, said that Russia "spits on the opinion of the West".

When the vote went from the Duma to the Federation Council, the upper chamber's speaker Valentina Matvienko seemed to have tears in her eyes as the deals were ratified.

"I assure you that we are ready for (Western) sanctions," she said after the vote.

A day earlier, she had been the only woman to participate in a highly unusual Kremlin security council meeting, in which officials made impassioned speeches to Putin to recognise the rebels.

When it was her turn, 72-year-old Matvienko, who was born in Ukraine, asked: "What has Russia done wrong to Ukraine in 30 years?"

oc/dt/pvh

Moldova, then Georgia, now Ukraine: How Russia built ‘bridgeheads into post-Soviet space’

LOOKING FOR THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE

Massive Snake Nearly Eight Feet Long Found in Georgia: 'Hell No'
Rebecca Flood - 
Newsweek
© sstaton/Getty Images

A snake measuring close to 8 feet long was discovered in Georgia, the biggest one found in the state for years, and just shy of the national record.

Wildlife biologists at Fort Stewart captured an Eastern Indigo Snake, a Facebook post from the Georgia Southern University Department of Biology said.

The snap, shared on Thursday, shows a man holding up the black serpent, which measured 7 feet 7 inches long.

The impressive specimen was hailed by the team, who called it "undoubtedly one of the most magnificent animals in our region."

And despite its impressive size, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) confirmed the animals aren't venomous, and are in fact "harmless."

It's unusual to find one this big, as the researchers explained: "Unfortunately, they are Federally threatened due to habitat loss and persecution by humans." Under the FWS's Endangered Species Act, the snake is listed as "threatened."

That is why the "exciting" find was eagerly welcomed by the biologists. "Indigo Snakes are the longest snake in the U.S., but this is still a noteworthy size. It is apparently the longest Indigo Snake measured in Georgia in recent years," they added.

Florida Fish and Wildlife, and the Encyclopedia of Alabama, both say the longest Eastern Indigo Snake found was nine feet two inches long, with the Georgia specimen not too far short of this record.

The FWS claimed they can grow up to 8ft 5ins for males, and 6ft 5ins for females, and weigh between 6.5 pounds and 11lbs.

The snake is now "restricted to southern Georgia and Florida," the university noted, adding: "They are being reintroduced" in Alabama.


In the three states, the snakes' preferred habitat is: "Dry, fire-maintained sandhill habitat with scattered oaks and longleaf pine. The presence of gopher tortoise burrows is a plus."

The Orianne Society explained how these two species are connected, saying: "In addition, the Eastern Indigo Snake is directly linked to another vulnerable species—the Gopher Tortoise.

"In the northern portion of its range, the Eastern Indigo Snake is dependent on Gopher Tortoise burrows for shelter in the winter. As suitable Gopher Tortoise habitat has declined, so have the tortoise populations and with it the Eastern Indigo Snake."

And in response to questions over the snake's fate, the team confirmed in comments that the creature was not killed. The biology department added: "These wildlife biologists work with Indigo Snakes on a regular basis as part of long-term monitoring of their populations."

The impressive find was praised on Facebook, with the post amassing hundreds of likes and shares, as Anna Franklin Wickman wrote: "Wow! What impressive find. Beautiful."

Jonathan Augustine raved: "That's incredible."

Rebecca Minchew Stanford commented: "What a beauty!"

Jane G. Williams wrote: "Wonderful! These snakes are so important to our ecosystem! That is an awesome snake!"

Donna Scott Henson noted: "It's a BIG snake!!!!"

While Sharon Fortune added: "Oh hell no!!"

In 2017, the United States Department of Agriculture's National Resources Conservation Service announced swathes of the Peach State would be the latest addition to the Sentinel Landscapes program.

Explaining the joint effort, a press release said: "The Departments of Agriculture, Defense and Interior have designated southern Georgia as the newest Sentinel Landscape designed to protect natural resources, enhance habitat for several key species, and maintain military readiness.

"The Georgia Sentinel Landscape includes nine important military installations and ranges, including Fort Stewart, Fort Benning, and Townsend Bombing Range."

The Georgia Sentinel Landscape partners added part of their goals were to "ensure the continued viability of important military installations and support the protection of habitat corridors for diverse important species such as the gopher tortoise, red-cockaded woodpecker, and eastern indigo snake."

Newsweek reached out to Georgia Southern University Department of Biology for comment.

REST IN POWER

Procol Harum Frontman Gary Brooker Dead at 76
Andy Greene - 3h ago
Rolling Stone
© Michael Putland/Getty Images

RECORDED LIVE WITH THE EDMONTON SYMPHONY 1972

Procol Harum frontman Gary Brooker, who led the band throughout their 55-year history, and co-wrote and sang their 1967 classic “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” died at his home from cancer on Saturday, Feb. 19. He was 76.

“He lit up any room he entered, and his kindness to a multilingual family of fans was legendary,” Procol Harum wrote in a group statement. “He was notable for his individuality, integrity, and occasionally stubborn eccentricity. His mordant wit, and appetite for the ridiculous, made him a priceless raconteur (and his surreal inter-song banter made a fascinating contrast with the gravitas of Procol Harum’s performances).”

Brooker is best known for his work in Procol Harum, but he also toured heavily with Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr, and recorded with Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and countless other legends.

“His first single with Procol Harum, 1967’s ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale,’ is widely regarded as defining ‘The Summer of Love’, yet it could scarcely have been more different from the characteristic records of that era,” Procol Harum’s statement read. “Nor was it characteristic of his own writing. Over 13 albums, Procol Harum never sought to replicate it, preferring to forge a restlessly progressive path, committed to looking forward, and making each record a ‘unique entertainment’.”

“Gary’s voice and piano were the single defining constant of Procol’s fifty-year international concert career,” the band continued. “Without any stage antics or other gimmicks he was invariably the most watchable musician in the show (he played several other instruments in the studio).”

Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker, Singer and Co-Writer of ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale,’ Dies at 76

Chris Willman - 
Variety


© Peter Gercke/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images



Gary Brooker, the frontman for Procol Harum, the long-running band most famous for 1967’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” died Saturday at age 76. The cause of death was cancer.

The surviving members announced Brooker’s death in an obituary on the group’s official website, writing that the “brightly shining, irreplaceable light in the music industry… had been receiving treatment for cancer, but died peacefully at home.”

Brooker had been appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire by the Queen in 2003.

Prior to Procol Harum, Brooker had founded the Paramounts in 1962 with future British blues-rock legend Robin Trower. He and Keith Reid formed Procol Harum in 1966, with Trower and organist Matthew Fisher as mainstays in the early days before they dropped out and left Brooker as the key driving force of the band.

Procol Harum broke up in 1977, but after becoming a solo artist and session man, Brooker led reunion tours in later decades.

He appeared on George Harrison’s recently reissued classic “All Things Must Pass” album, and continued to work with the former Beatle on “Gone Troppo” and “Somewhere in England.” After Harrison’s death, he appeared at the “Concert for George” and sang the honoree’s “Old Brown Shoe.”

In 1979, Brooker joined Eric Clapton’s touring band and appeared on the album “Another Ticket,” continuing to sit in with Clapton on special occasions through the years. Other credits include singing the lead vocal on a 1985 Alan Parsons project song, “Limelight,” from the “Stereotomy” album, and playing on two Kate Bush albums, 1993’s “The Red Shoes” and 2005’s “Aerial.”

Brooker also toured as a member of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band in 1997-99, taking a turn in the spotlight to sing “Whiter Shade of Pale” each night.

He appeared on screen as an actor in Alan Parker’s film adaptation of the stage musical “Evita,” singing alongside Antonio Banderas and playing the role of Juan Atilo Bramuglia.

“He lit up any room he entered, and his kindness to a multilingual family of fans was legendary,” the band wrote in its obituary. “He was notable for his individuality, integrity, and occasionally stubborn eccentricity. His mordant wit, and appetite for the ridiculous, made him a priceless raconteur (and his surreal inter-song banter made a fascinating contrast with the gravitas of Procol Harum’s performances). But for all his other interests and skills — prize-winning angler, pub-owner, lyricist, painter, inventor — he was above all a devoted and loyal husband to Franky, whom he met in 1965 and married in 1968. Our thoughts must be with her, their families and friends at this extremely sad time.”

Procol Harum was never nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, to the consternation of many, but “A Whiter Shade of Pale” itself became part of the Hall as part of a Singles category in 2018. The song was originally credited to Brooker for music and Reid for lyrics, although Fisher brought a successful lawsuit in British court in 2009 that awarded him a portion of the royalties.

With a stately, slightly melancholy feel and a strong Bach influence, “Pale,” the band’s first single, went to No. 1 in the U.K. and reached No. 5 in the U.S. in July 1967. After the group’s debut album arrived in the fall, a second single, “Homburg,” went to No. 6 in Britain but only No. 34 in America. Nonetheless, their legend was cemented, with “Pale” continuing to be an oldies radio staple and synch favorite well into the 21st century.

“I had been listening to a lot of classical music, and I got particularly keen on what I call baroque music, that might have included Handel and Bach,” Brooker told Songwriter Universe in a November 2020 interview. “I also liked the Swingle Sisters who were doing treatments of Bach. … Also about that time, the Jacques Louissier Trio… made an album called ‘Play Bach.’ They were a jazz trio, and they’d start off with a piece of Bach, and they would improvise around it. Louissier had done a fabulous version of what was called ‘Air on a G String’ which was also used in a set of good adverts in Britain. And all those things came together one morning… a bit of Bach and ‘Air on a G String’ going through my head.”

The group released nine albums during its original 1968-1977 run, the most acclaimed of which was its third, “A Salty Dog,” released in ’69. The prog-rock-leaning title track employed strings, a direction that ultimately led to the 1973 album “Procul Harum Live: In Concert With the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.” “It was almost unheard of at the time, for a rock band to play with an orchestra,” Brooker said.

The name of the band was a subject of some fascination over the years, though the answer was simple — it was lifted from a cat’s breeding certificate.

After a 14-year layoff from the recording studio, Procol Harum returned in 1991 with a new album, “A Prodigal Stranger,” which brought Brooker back together with Trower, Fisher and lyricist Reid after the death of drummer B.J. Wilson, to whom the album was dedicated. The album did not chart in the U.S. but the single made a minor showing on the rock airplay chart. Mostly, though, it served as a kickoff for this new incarnation of the group to hit the road for the first time since the ’70s.

Three more albums followed, the last of which, 2017’s “Novum,” did not include any early members other than Brooker. His last tour under the group banner took place in the spring and summer of 2019.

He is survived by Franky; the couple had no children.

The announcement of Brooker’s death on the band’s website said a private funeral would be followed later by a more public memorial celebration later, and asked fans to “please respect the privacy of Franky Brooker.” It asked for donations in Brooker’s name to be made to Phyllis Tuckwell Hospice Care.

Greenland's ice is melting from the bottom up and far faster than previously thought

By Isabelle Jani-Friend, CNN - 2h ago


The ice sheet covering Greenland is melting rapidly at its base and is injecting far more water and ice into the ocean than previously understood, according to new research, which could have serious ramifications for global sea level rise.

"Unprecedented" rates of melting have been observed at the bottom of the ice sheet, caused by huge quantities of meltwater falling down from the surface, according to the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

As the meltwater falls, its gravitational potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, which ultimately warms the water as it pools at the base of the ice sheet. In that process, the study found that the Greenland ice sheet produces more energy than the world's 10 largest hydroelectric dams combined.

"However, the heat generated by the falling water is not used to generate electricity. Instead, it melts the ice," Poul Christoffersen, a Canmridge University senior scientist who took part in the study, told CNN.

During warmer months, meltwater pools into lakes and streams on the surface of the ice sheet. Some of that water drains to the bottom of the ice sheet, falling through cracks and large fractures that form in the ice with movement and stress.

That meltwater contributes to more melting at the bottom of the ice sheet, and it also behaves as a lubricant that promotes faster flow and increases the quantity of ice discharged into the ocean.

Christoffersen explained that when researching the melting of ice sheet and glaciers at their bases, studies tended to focus on external heat sources.

"But what we hadn't really looked at was the heat generated by the draining meltwater itself," he said. "There's a lot of energy stored in the water that forms on the surface, and when it falls, the energy has to go somewhere."

The Greenland ice sheet is the second largest in the world and is already the biggest single contributor to global sea level rise.

"The ice in Greenland is melting on the surface faster than the snowfall can keep up with, so there is quite a big loss from the melting," Christoffersen told CNN. "In a substantial part of the ice, we get melt rates which can be up to five or six centimeters a day."

However, directly measuring conditions at the base -- around 1 kilometer below the surface -- poses challenges, particularly in Greenland, where glaciers are among the world's fastest-moving.

The Cambridge researchers teamed up with scientists at the University of California Santa Cruz and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland for this study. It focused on the Store Glacier, a large outlet from the Greenland ice sheet.


© Tom Chudley

Meltwater on the surface of the ice sheet falls through cracks to the base.

To measure the melt rates, the researchers used a technique developed at the British Antarctic Survey called phase-sensitive radio-echo sounding, a process by which they can measure the thickness of the ice.

It's a method that had previously been used on floating ice sheets around Antarctica.

"We weren't sure that the technique would also work on a fast-flowing glacier in Greenland," said Tun Jan Young, first author of the study, who installed the radar system on Store Glacier.

"Compared to Antarctica, the ice deforms really fast, and there is a lot of meltwater in summer, which complicates the work."


© Poul Christoffersen

"Unprecedented" rates of melting have been observed at the bottom of the ice sheet.

Fact check: Debunking a 'totally nuts' conspiracy theory about UN troops in Canada

By Daniel Dale, CNN -

Tanya Vrebosch, deputy mayor of the Canadian city of North Bay, saw something strange when she checked her phone on Sunday: North Bay was a trending topic on her Twitter feed.

North Bay doesn't do much trending -- it's a city of about 52,000 people in northern Ontario -- so Vrebosch had a moment of intrigued anticipation, she told CNN on Monday. Were people tweeting, just maybe, about the city's recent announcement that North Bay had set a new record for the value of its building construction?

Nope. Very much nope.

North Bay, Vrebosch learned, was "trending for something so stupid." Specifically: a false -- and, frankly, ridiculous -- conspiracy theory about a United Nations plane, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the "Freedom Convoy" protests that police officers had just cleared out in Ottawa, the Canadian capital about a four-hour drive from North Bay.

"I was like, 'Are you kidding me?'" Vrebosch said.

Here's what happened.

Some social media users, and at least one conspiracy website, speculated late last week that officers seen in green uniforms during the police operation to clear the Ottawa protest could be UN troops Trudeau had authorized to enter the country -- though journalists on the scene had repeatedly noted that they were actually officers from the provincial police service of the neighboring province of Quebec.

Then a woman with an account on the social media app TikTok spotted a plane marked "UN" parked at North Bay's Jack Garland Airport. The woman -- who had previously posted videos supporting the protests and talking about her refusal to get vaccinated against Covid-19 -- made a video suggesting that what she was seeing at the airport could be evidence for the theory that UN forces had been secretly involved in the Ottawa dispersal operation.

The woman later took down the video, but the flames had been fueled.

A man went to the North Bay airport to film the plane himself, posting a video that gained tens of thousands of YouTube views. Actor Adam Baldwin promoted the conspiracy theory about Trudeau and the plane to his 345,000 Twitter followers. Brandon Buechler, an editor at the CP24 television news channel in Toronto, tweeted Sunday night that he had been forced to field "furious calls" related to the conspiracy theory.

As Buechler explained, it was nonsense.

"This is a totally nuts conspiracy theory that has no basis in reality," Alexander Cohen, spokesperson for Canadian Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, said on Monday.

Facts First: No UN forces were involved in the Ottawa police operation -- and no UN forces landed in North Bay. The passenger plane seen at the North Bay airport is owned by a North Bay company, Voyageur Aviation, that flies and performs maintenance on aircraft used by the UN; planes with UN markings have been spotted for years at Voyageur's North Bay facility. Flight records pulled up by Canadian aviation photojournalist Tom Podolec show that the regional jet that has been subject of this week's conspiracy theories arrived in North Bay on January 29 after departing the day prior from Amman, Jordan.

"I can confirm that the aircraft has been in North Bay for several weeks for a routine aircraft maintenance heavy check event at our Voyageur North Bay facility," Manon Stuart, spokesperson for Voyageur parent company Chorus Aviation, said in a Monday email. "Voyageur employs approximately 220 people in North Bay, providing aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul services for a global customer base."

Voyageur's UN relationship is no secret

Vrebosch said Voyageur is one of North Bay's major employers and that most local residents know that "we always have these types of planes coming in." Voyageur, which Vrebosch said has been in North Bay for roughly 40 years, makes no secret of its relationship with the UN; its website's Frequently Asked Questions page for pilots mentions three times that the UN is one of its customers.

But this isn't even the first time the North Bay presence of a plane with UN markings has prompted a conspiracy theory. An immigration-related conspiracy theory, also complete fiction, was debunked by Agence France-Presse in 2018.

Vrebosch said this latest fast-spreading misinformation is yet more evidence of the dangers of social media. But she also said she would adopt an all-publicity-is-good-publicity attitude to the saga.

"We welcome anybody to come to North Bay for a visit, come buy a house," she said -- adding that you might even get to see a cool plane.