ICYMI
BP's CEO resigns as investigation into personal relationships continue

Hadley Gamble (L) of CNBC listens to Bernard Looney (R), CEO of BP, during a session at Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference on October 31, 2022. Looney resigned from BP. 

File Photo by Ali Haider/EPA-EFE

Sept. 13 (UPI) -- BP, one of the world's leading oil and gas producers, said that CEO Bernard Looney has announced his resignation as a renewed investigation started into his relationships with company colleagues.

The company said that Looney, whose resignation was accepted immediately, did not fully disclose the nature of his relationships last year when its board and outside counsel first looked at the relationship allegations in accordance to the company's code of conduct.

During its initial investigation, while the company found no code violations, Looney gave them assurance about his conduct and handling such incidents in the future.

"Looney has today informed the company that he now accepts that he was not fully transparent in his previous disclosures," BP said in a statement Tuesday. "He did not provide details of all relationships and accepts he was obligated to make more complete disclosure.

"The company has strong values and the board expects everyone at the company to behave in accordance with those values. All leaders in particular are expected to act as role models and to exercise good judgement in a way that earns the trust of others."

The company said it was tipped off anonymously about Looney's conduct with colleagues and an investigation about the latest allegations against Looney remained under investigation.

Looney, who started at BP as a drilling engineer and worked his day to the top of the company over the next 30-plus years, led a shakeup of the company's leadership when he became CEO and started reducing exploration and production of oil because of climate change commitments.

He then drew the ire of environmental groups when he said the ramping down of oil and gas production would happen more slowly and he initially planned.

HATE SPEECH KILLS
X accused of preserving extreme content in violation of its own policies

Twitter owner Elon Musk threatened to sue the Center for Countering Digital Hate for making “a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business,” according to a letter Musk sent on July 20. Photo by Ismael Mohamad/ UPI | License Photo

Sept. 13 (UPI) -- The platform formerly known as Twitter violated its moderation policies after leaving up extreme content that was first reported to the social media giant two weeks ago, according to a digital watchdog that monitors hate speech, misinformation and other harmful content.

The Center for Countering Digital Hate issued the report Wednesday showing X Corp. had failed to address about 86% of the 300 incendiary posts that were flagged earlier this month for promoting hate and extolling White supremacy, neo-Nazism, antisemitism, and racism against Black people.

The report comes after Twitter owner Elon Musk threatened to sue the nonprofit for making "a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business," according to a letter Musk sent on July 20.

On its website, the whistleblower agency accused Musk of trying to "silence our work exposing hate and disinformation on Twitter," adding that "platforms and their owners must be held accountable for enabling the spread of hate and misinformation."

Read More

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Supreme Court hears arguments on social media giants' legal protections

In August, several Democratic lawmakers sent a letter to Twitter's front office demanding an explanation for its efforts to thwart independent research into the harms of social media.

U.S. Reps. Lori Trahan, D-Mass., Sean Casten, D-Ill., and Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asked if X had successfully lowered the number of terms of service violations on the platform, including hate speech and extremism.

"After Mr. Musk purchased X on Oct. 27, 2022, some of his first actions were to lay off trust and safety workers, dissolve the Trust and Safety Council and restore banned accounts of misogynists and Neo-Nazis," the lawmakers wrote. "Unsurprisingly, this has coincided with a documented rise in hate speech and extremism on X."

During the CCDH analysis, researchers collected the sampling of 300 hate-filled posts that appeared on 100 accounts between Aug. 30 and 31.

Moderators at X were immediately notified through the platform's official reporting tools, but as of Sept. 7 only 41 of the 300 posts had been removed from the site, while 90 of the accounts from the sample remained active, the report claims.

The platform allowed ads for trusted brands like Apple and Disney to run alongside the vitriol, the report claims before calling out X CEO Linda Yaccarino, who had vowed to boost "brand safety and content moderation tools that have never existed before at this company" when she took the helm from Musk this past summer.

The company's current policies are designed to prohibit hateful conduct on the platform, including incitement and harassment of others through racial discrimination, while barring slurs, dehumanization, hateful imagery and threats of violence.

The agency again called on Congress to regulate the social media industry.

"Twitter/X is enabling dangerous content that could lead to real-life violence," the report said. "The longer Congress delays social media regulation, the longer people's safety will be in the hands of greedy and unreliable billionaires."

FOUR WHITE DUDES
NASA approves crew for Axiom's third private mission to space station

NASA has approved the crew for Axiom's third commercial space mission, which is scheduled to travel to the International Space Station in 2024. Photo courtesy of NASA

Sept. 12 (UPI) -- NASA has approved a four-person crew for the third Axiom mission, which is intended to launch no sooner than January 2024.

"Axiom Space's chief astronaut and former NASA astronaut Michael Lopez-Alegria will command the private mission. Italian Air Force Col. Walter Villadei will serve as pilot. The two mission specialists are Alper Gezeravci of Turkey and ESA (European Space Agency) project astronaut Marcus Wandt of Sweden," NASA said in a press release Tuesday.

The crew will travel to the International Space Station in a Crew Dragon spacecraft that will be launched from a Falcon 9 rocket. Once they have docked, the crew will spend 14 days onboard the ISS.

NASA hopes commercial space flight will expand the horizons of space travel.

"Private astronaut missions to the space station help pave the way toward commercial space stations as part of NASA's efforts to develop a thriving low-Earth orbit ecosystems and marketplace and enable more nations, more people, and more opportunities in space than ever before," NASA said.

"This crew is shifting the paradigm of how governments and space agencies access and reap the benefits of microgravity," said Lopez-Alegria, "I look forward to working with this team and with all those who will support our mission on the ground, on orbit, and around the world."

NASA also hopes that private space missions will help lower costs to free up funding for the upcoming Artemis moon mission.

"The agency's goal is to enable a strong commercial marketplace in low-Earth orbit where NASA is one of many customers for private industry. This strategy will provide services the government needs at a lower cost, enabling the agency to focus on its Artemis missions to the moon in preparation for Mars," NASA said.

23 SKIDOO

Mysterious yellow line appears on 23 miles of Florida highway

Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Drivers on a stretch of highway in the Jacksonville, Fla., area reported a mysterious yellow line weaving through lanes, and officials said they are still trying to determine its origins.

The yellow line was discovered this week on a 23-mile stretch of southbound Interstate 95, starting at the Acosta Bridge and ending at St. Johns County Road 210 in St. Augustine.

Drivers said the yellow line, which would usually denote a barrier vehicles aren't supposed to cross, weaves in and out of lanes.

"You couldn't not notice it," driver Richard Campbell told First Coast News.

Some travelers raised concerns about safety.

"It's a yellow line with a yellow line on the other side," Richard Albandy told WJXT-TV. "Most people like, especially if they are out of town, they're not really too much looking at if that's the line that goes where they're supposed to go. They are trying to get to their destination."

Florida Department of Transportation officials said they believe the line is the result of paint spilling from a truck, but they have yet to identify the source.

"I don't believe that anybody has taken responsibility for it yet. But we're going to work with whoever we can make sure that that's identified," FDOT Community Outreach Manager Hampton Ray said.

FDOT officials warned operators of self-driving vehicles to switch the feature off while traveling in the area to avoid their vehicles becoming confused.

"We're going to have an operation, where we take a street sweeper, with a wire brush, and we will be going and doing our best to dislodge some of the yellow paint from the roadway," Ray said. "We do not expect this to be the end-all solution."

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for 23 SKIDOO 

Florida zoo hatches six baby Komodo dragons

THEY ARE SO CUTE AS BABIES

Six baby Komodo dragons, the world's largest species of lizard, hatched at ZooTampa at Lowry Park in Florida.

Photo courtesy of ZooTampa at Lowry Park/Facebook


Sept. 13 (UPI) -- A Florida zoo announced the hatching of six Komodo dragons, an endangered species known as the world's largest lizards.

ZooTampa at Lowry Park said the hatching of the three female and three male babies marks an important milestone in the conservation of the species, which is native to Indonesia.

"Once full grown, they can reach up to 10 feet long and 200 pounds," the zoo said in the announcement. "The new baby Komodo dragons will be behind the scenes adapting and growing before meeting the public later this fall."

"This successful breeding is the result of years of work by the zoo's herpetology team. ZooTampa has long supported Komodo dragon conservation via the Species Survival Program, and we are glad to continue our contributions with this hatching," the zoo said.

U.S. pledges $19M for marine debris removal, prevention


Volunteers fish out marine debris from the Anacostia River Watershed during its annual cleanup in the Washington, D.C. metro area. On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced $19 million in funding to clean up marine debris in coastal communities throughout the United States. 

Photo courtesy of NOAA


Sept. 13 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Commerce has announced plans to spend $19 million to clean up marine debris in coastal communities throughout the United States.

The funding, from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will go to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Sea Grant College Program, the department announced Wednesday.

"Marine debris degrades water quality, harms habitats and ecosystems and hurts coastal workers and businesses," said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo.

"These funding opportunities, part of President Biden's Investing in America agenda which is a key pillar of Bidenomics, will help us tackle the challenges of marine debris head on, helping to restore and protect our coastal marine environments and the communities that rely on them," Raimondo added.

The funding is broken down into two parts with $16 million going to the Marine Debris Challenge Competition, which will support research and projects to prevent and remove marine debris.

Another $3 million will go to the Marine Debris Community Action Coalitions Opportunity, to create and support partnerships that tackle the issue of marine debris.

Applicants from the United States or tribal nations can submit their proposals through a Sea Grant Program.

"Through the Challenge funding opportunity, we will support innovative research that can readily and immediately be applied to prevent and remove marine debris," Steve Thur, NOAA assistant administrator for Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, said in a statement.

"The goal is that the techniques developed by these awards can be broadly applied to locations around the country, multiplying the environmental and economic impacts of the funding well beyond marine debris removal at a single site," Thur added.

The $19 million targeting marine debris is part of a larger investment of $3 billion by NOAA for habitat restoration, coastal resilience and weather forecasting infrastructure.

"The heaviest costs of marine debris pollution fall on those who have the least ability and resources to address it," Jonathan Pennock, director of NOAA's National Sea Grant College Program, said in a statement.

"This funding opportunity is designed to bring more people together with the resources to tackle, prevent and remove marine debris in our coastal communi

Talking Heads reunite for 'Stop Making Sense' re-release at TIFF

 Lynn Mabry and David Byrne perform in "Stop Making Sense." Photo courtesy of A24

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Looking back at the 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense brought some harmony to the members of Talking Heads, who have been estranged since their 1991 breakup.

Reuniting for a Toronto International Film Festival Q&A on Monday, band members David Byrne, 71, Jerry Harrison, 74, Chris Frantz, 72, and Tina Weymouth, 72, recalled how director Jonathan Demme captured their onstage chemistry and gave them confidence in their art.

"The lasting power of the film is you see that we are having so much fun onstage," keyboardist and guitarist Harrison said in the session that was simulcast to IMAX theaters around the world after a screening. "Every time I watch this, it brings back that wonderful emotion."

A24 is re-releasing the film, restored for IMAX, Sept. 29 ahead of the anniversary of the performances captured in December 1983 at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood.

"He made us feel like what we were doing was very worthwhile," drummer Frantz said at the discussion moderated by director Spike Lee. "It was something that was worthy of making a motion picture and also worthy of being remembered into the future."

Frantz acknowledged feeling self-conscious watching himself vocalize during the performance of "Genius of Love."

"I wish I kept my mouth shut a little bit more," Frantz said.

When Byrne went solo in the '90s, the other three bandmates still played together. The last time the four appeared publicly together was their 1992 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, for which they performed three songs.

Looking back on Stop Making Sense, Byrne said Demme changed the way he saw the Talking Heads. In 1983, the lineup also included Bernie Worrell on keyboards, Steven Scales on drums, Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt singing backup and Alex Weir on guitar and vocals.

"I realized that he was looking at it as an ensemble film," Byrne said. "He lets you get to know them, lets you get familiar with them and then you watch how they all interact with one another. I'm in my own world but he saw that. He saw what was going on there."

Byrne said he was moved by the way Demme captured the interaction between bandmates.

"There's all these moments he caught where one of us looks at the other, looks over at Bernie or Bernie looks at us," Byrne said. "Those little quick interactions, I thought that stuff is amazing."

For her part, Weymouth said she took her bandmates into consideration when modulating her bass.

"My big contribution was I never turned my amp up past 3," Weymouth said. "That left room for everybody else to shine because if the bass player gets too loud, forget about it."

The band shares the "film by" credit with Demme. Byrne remembered visiting Demme and editor Lisa Day, not to give specific notes but to remind the filmmakers of particular moments.

"Alex is doing this incredible thing right at this moment," Byrne recalled saying to them. "Do you have that? Is that on one of the cameras? We knew the show backwards and forwards."

The innovative show begins with Byrne performing "Psycho Killer" solo as stagehands set up behind him. Each band member joins the stage one song at a time.

Byrne recalled persuading the behind-the-scenes crew to take center stage.

"It took a while for the crew, the grips and everybody to get used to being onstage and being visible," Byrne said. "We were saying, 'No no no, it's fine. Just move with purpose and with intention and it'll be fine.'" 

'Up Close' documentarian Bertie Gregory: Animals don't read scripts

The six-part Nat Geo wildlife series premieres Wednesday on Disney+.

NEW YORK, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Filmmaker and presenter Bertie Gregory said he had a plan at the start of his new National Geographic docuseries, Animals Up Close with Bertie Gregory, but his non-human co-stars didn't always cooperate.

Premiering Wednesday on Disney+, the six-part series shows Gregory following individual animals and capturing their daily lives for weeks at a time in Antarctica, the Galapagos Islands, Botswana, Patagonia, Indonesia and the Central African Republic.

"The lovely thing about the natural world is that animals don't read scripts," Gregory told UPI in a Zoom interview Monday.

"We document the incredible lives of these animals, alongside our struggles to keep up with them. Because that's a pretty open format, it means that we can really roll with whatever happens," he said.

Up Close builds on what the filmmaker learned making the 2022 series Epic Adventures with Bertie Gregory, which also documented animal behavior in remote locations.

"The most powerful and engaging wildlife stories were when -- rather than focusing on an entire species-- we focused on an individual animal family, and that's what's really cool about Animals Up Close. We are following not just one [type of] animal, but an individual animal," he said.

Of course, tracking specific animals that don't generally like people presented challenges.

"It means if you lose your puma or your killer whale family, you can't just find another one," he said. "That was the only puma we were interested in filming."

The team had to re-find the Patagonian big cat every day for nearly two months because they didn't follow her at night.

"Some days, the family would only move a couple of miles and hang out for most of the day, lounge around in the sun," Gregory said.

"Some days, she would leave the cubs and walk 15-plus miles up and down the mountains in a gale and we just had to keep up with her, with all our camera equipment."

MUTUAL AID

One of the highlights of Up Close shows Gregory and his team capturing footage of two humpback whales in Antarctica trying to intervene as endangered B1 killer whales hunted a seal, offering rare evidence of one marine animal trying to protect another species from a predator.

"That was certainly the most incredible demonstration of animal intelligence I've ever seen," Gregory said.

"People always want to know just how smart animals are. That, to me, was just spine-tingling to watch. To see such levels of team work and cooperation and, I think, creativity, was really amazing."

Advances in technology in recent years have made Gregory's job easier, resulting in extraordinarily beautiful footage he can share to educate and entertain TV audiences.

"Drones are probably the biggest game changer in wildlife films in the last five years," Gregory said. "They allow us to tell animal behavior stories like never before."

Gregory and his team also used military-grade re-breathers to help them track hard-to-find underwater subjects in the Devil Ray Islands.

"Traditional scuba-diving equipment is very noisy. You make a lot of bubbles and you are very limited by the amount of time you can spend underwater," Gregory said.

The re-breathers recycled the divers' air and produced no bubbles.

"That means you can be much quieter and get much closer to elusive animals and, critically, they allow you to stay down for much longer," Gregory said.

"We could do single dives that were more than three hours in length. Rather than being a temporary visitor to the underwater world, you become part of the environment, which is really important for wildlife stories."



Gregory wants viewers of the program to come away with an appreciation for the natural world and a better understanding of the threats it faces.

"There's enough doom and gloom in the news cycle and one thing I'm really proud of with the series is that we celebrate the conservation success stories in each episode," he said.

"There are some amazing people that really do give me hope, turning around our relationship with the natural world and I'm really excited that, as we shine a spotlight on the animals, we get to shine a light on them, as well."

COMMODITY FETISH

Sotheby's auction collection includes Pablo Picasso painting of artist's muse

A viewer observers Femme a la montre, 1932 oil on canvas by Pablo Picasso, which is on display as part of the Emily Fisher Landau Collection at Sotheby's in New York on Wednesday. 

Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo


Sept. 13 (UPI) -- A painting by the influential cubist artist Pablo Picasso with an estimated value of $120 million will lead the Sotheby's auction of the landmark collection of Emily Fisher Landau in November.

Picasso painted Femme à la montre in 1932, soon after the end of the secrecy around his affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter, his "golden muse" depicted in the work.

"He was able to give full painterly voice to his love for her," Sotheby's said of the work.

Picasso first met Walter outside the Galeries Lafayette in Paris in 1927 when the painter was still married to the Ukrainian dancer Olga Khokhlova. She was 17 at the time.

"As time passed, Picasso found it ever harder to exclude his lover's features from his art," the auction house said in the news release.

In its release, Sotheby's claimed that no other Picasso painting from 1932 of "remotely significant importance" has gone up for auction since 2010.

"Its date, scale, subject, vibrancy and provenance are all exceptional, and perfectly aligned. But in addition to this, it has another important distinguishing feature: the watch that the artist has so conspicuously placed on Marie-Thérèse's wrist," Sotheby's said.

"Among the many paintings Picasso created in his long and varied career, only three major works, including this, are known to feature a watch, yet watches were objects of immense significance to him, in various ways."

Emily Fisher Landau, a famed collector who was a member of the board of the Whitney Museum of American Art for three decades, bought the prized work in 1968 at the start of her collecting career -- which began when she used a Lloyd's insurance settlement from a jewel heist in her apartment to begin purchasing art.

She has been known to loan the Picasso painting out for exhibitions, allowing it to be seen by the public and her extensive collection -- with 1,200 works -- were displayed at her own private museum called the Fisher Landau Center for Art from 1991 to 2017.

Fisher Landau died in March at her home in Palm Beach, Fla., at the age of 102. Before her death, she pledged almost 400 of the works to the Whitney Museum.

The "historic" auction, scheduled for Nov. 8-9 in New York, will include about 120 works from her collection, which are believed to be collectively worth more than $400 million.

Other paintings featured in the sale include Ed Ruscha's Securing the Last Letter (Boss) painted in 1964 and an untitled work by color field painter Mark Rothko, the estimated values of which were not outright provided by Sotheby's in the news release.

The sale also includes painting of two American flags by Jasper Johns estimated to be worth up to $45 million, a self-portrait by the pop artist Andy Warhol worth up to $20 million, and a painting by Willem de Kooning estimated to be worth up to $8 million.

THE FUNCTION OF THE CAPITALI$T STATE
Top tech CEOs call for AI regulation in closed-door Senate meeting

IS TO REGULATE COMPETITION

Owner of X and CEO of Tesla Elon Musk calls artificial intelligence a "civilizational risk," as he speaks to the press Wednesday following a Senate AI Insight Forum at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 13 (UPI) -- The top names in tech, including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, warned senators in a first-ever closed-door summit on artificial intelligence about the evolving technology's "civilizational risk," as they called for AI regulation.

"The consequences of AI going wrong are severe so we have to be proactive rather than reactive," Musk told reporters in Washington, D.C., as he got into a Tesla after the meeting.

"The question is really one of civilizational risk. It's not like ... one group of humans versus another. It's like, hey, this is something that's potentially risky for all humans everywhere," the chief executive officer of Tesla, Space X and social media platform X added.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., hosted the private AI Insight Forum in the grand Kennedy Caucus Room on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, as lawmakers sought advice from 22 AI tech giants, human rights and labor leaders about how government should regulate the new technology.

In addition to Musk, Meta CEO Zuckerberg and Microsoft co-founder Gates, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Google CEO Sundar Pichahi attended, as well as leaders from human rights, labor and entertainment groups.

According to Schumer, every leader in the meeting raised their hand when asked if government should regulate AI.

"We got some consensus on some things ... I asked everyone in the room, does government need to play a role in regulating AI and every single person raised their hand, even though they had diverse views," Schumer told reporters. "So that gives us a message here that we have to try to act, as difficult as the process might be."

"I agree that Congress should engage with AI to support innovation and safeguards," Zuckerberg said in prepared remarks. "This is an emerging technology, there are important equities to balance here, and the government is ultimately responsible for that."

"I think people all agreed that this is something that we need the government's leadership on," Altman told reporters during a break. "Some disagreement about how it should happen, but unanimity this is important and urgent."

While Wednesday's meeting was open to all 100 senators, about two dozen lawmakers -- mostly Democrat -- attended. The forum was blasted by some members of both parties who questioned why it was closed to the public and the news media.

"They're sitting at a big round table all by themselves. All of the senators are to sit there and ask no questions," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said.

"The people of Massachusetts did not send me here not to ask questions," Warren added. "There's no interaction, no bumping each against each other on any of these issues."

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who is drafting bi-partisan AI legislation, did not attend the closed-door meeting.

"I don't know why we would invite all the biggest monopolists in the world to come and give Congress tips on how to help them make more money and then close it to the public," Hawley said. "That's a terrible idea."

Three public hearings on AI have previously been held in Washington, D.C.

In June, Sens. Ed Markey and Gary Peters urged the U.S. Government Accountability Office in a letter to assess the potential harms of AI and how to mitigate them. The letter argued that generative AI's ability to mimic voice, music, text and product design could exploit communities and harm society, if unchecked.

Hundreds of AI researchers and tech executives have signed a number of statements and letters over the past year warning about the potential dangers of AI and calling for better regulation.

"Tackling AI is a unique, once-in-a-kind undertaking," Schumer said Wednesday. "Because today, we begin an enormous and complex and vital undertaking: building a foundation for bipartisan AI policy that Congress can pass."

As Musk left the meeting, he was asked by reporters if AI will destroy mankind.

"There is some chance that is above zero that AI will kill us all. I think it's low. But if there's some chance, I think we should also consider the fragility of human civilization."