FEMA administrator continues pushback against false claims as Helene death toll hits 230


 North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, right, and Deanne Criswell, Administrator of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, await the arrival of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris for a briefing on the damage from Hurricane Helene, at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, Oct. 5, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, file)Read More

A worker cuts up a tree that impaled itself on a fire hydrant during Hurricane Helene, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024, in the Oak Forest neighborhood of Asheville, N.C. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)

Contractors for Duke Energy rebuild destroyed electrical lines near the Swannanoa River in Asheville, N.C., Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee visits with a volunteer at the East Tennessee Disaster Relief Center, for Hurricane Helene disaster response Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, in Bristol, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV via Pool)

Volunteer Ann Davis speaks with Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, right, during his visit to the East Tennessee Disaster Relief Center, for Hurricane Helene disaster response Monday, Oct. 7, 2024, in Bristol, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV via Pool)

BY JOHN RABY AND GABRIELA AOUN ANGUEIRA
October 7, 2024

LAKE LURE, N.C. (AP) — The head of the U.S. disaster response agency continued to forcefully push back Monday against false claims and conspiracy theories about her agency’s response to Hurricane Helene as the death toll from the storm continued to climb.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell pointed to the agency’s massive, collaborative effort that keeps growing, and she strongly urged residents in hard-hit areas to accept the government’s offer for assistance.

“We have thousands of people on the ground, not just federal, but also our volunteers in the private sector,” Criswell said at a news conference in Asheville, North Carolina. “And frankly, that type of rhetoric is demoralizing to our staff that have left their families to come here and help the people of North Carolina. And we will be here as long as they’re needed.”

Misinformation has spread over the past week in communities hit the hardest by Helene, including that the federal government is intentionally withholding aid to people in Republican areas. Former President Donald Trump and other Republicans have questioned FEMA’s response and falsely claimed that its funding is going to migrants or foreign wars.

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Death toll rises from Helene while supplies are rushed to North Carolina


Helene's aftermath: Supplies arrive in North Carolina as death toll tops 130

FEMA has dedicated part of its website to providing accurate answers to questions and addressing rumors on its response to Helene.

On Friday, the agency put out a statement debunking rumors that it will only provide $750 to disaster survivors to support their recovery. Criswell said that initial money helps residents with expenses for medicine or food. She said additional funding will be available to reimburse them for the cost of home repairs, personal items lost, post-hurricane rental units and hotel stays.

“But I can’t give it to them if they don’t apply,” Criswell said. “And if people are afraid to apply, then it is hurting them.”

When asked directly about a circulating claim that FEMA would seize people’s property if they don’t pay back the $750 in within one year, Criswell said that was “absolutely false.”

The cleanup and response to the storm that killed at least 230 people continued Monday, while Milton strengthened rapidly into a Category 5 hurricane on a path toward Florida, the same area battered by Helene less than two weeks ago.

More than 130,000 customers in western North Carolina were still without electricity Monday, according to poweroutage.us.

Also in North Carolina, more than 1,600 local and state search-and-rescue team members have been joined by about 1,700 members of the state National Guard, according to Gov. Roy Cooper’s office.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon said Monday that an additional 500 active-duty troops have been deployed to North Carolina. Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said troops with advanced technological assets will be arriving, bringing the total number of active-duty forces to about 1,500. The troops are bringing surveillance equipment to allow officials to get a better overview of the region.

Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, said search-and-rescue aircraft were flying 10-hour sorties providing wellness checks, medical care and evacuations. He called the military’s operations the “most important and honorable mission for us, which is to help fellow citizens.”

Cooper said more than 50 water systems were destroyed or impaired by the storm and that the pace of restoring service varies by community. He said he couldn’t give a specific timeline but said the process might take longer in Asheville and Buncombe County, where at least six dozen people died.

“It’s still going to be a while,” he said.

Cooper also visited the towns of Chimney Rock and Lake Lure in Rutherford County, which both experienced devastating damage.

“We’re going to help western North Carolina come back,” Cooper said as he stood with Lake Lure’s mayor, Carol Pritchett. “It’s too important to our economy, to our state, not to do it.”

Pritchett told Cooper that the tiny town would need all the help it could get. Its sewer and wastewater treatment systems needed complete replacements, and the lake would have to be completely dredged. She estimated the costs would be in the tens of millions of dollars.

“We’re a town of 1,300; we certainly can’t do it on our own,” Pritchett said.

Without restoring major infrastructure, Pritchett said the tourism on which the town depends could not come back.

“The town’s name is Lake Lure. With no lake here, the ‘Lake Lure’ kind of begs the question,” she said.

In South Carolina, officials estimate $250 million has been spent on debris cleanup, infrastructure damage and emergency response. More than 300 homes were destroyed and 5,200 damaged, state Emergency Management Division Director Kim Stenson said Monday.

The state’s largest school district, Greeneville County, plans to reopen Wednesday after shutting down for seven days. The district said it has had to modify bus routes because of blocked roads, closed bridges, sinkholes, and traffic signal outages at major intersections.

In Tennessee, where at least 12 people died from Helene, Gov. Bill Lee on Monday visited Bristol Motor Speedway, now a hub for collecting donations for victims and centralizing other operations in the wake of the flooding. Lee met with coordinators and volunteers who were sorting through donations.

“These are Tennesseans and they’re hurting,” Lee said. “Not only are they hurting, but they’re helping.”
___

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor, Jeffrey Collins and George Walker contributed to this report.

US disaster relief chief blasts false claims about Helene response as a ‘truly dangerous narrative’


President Joe Biden talks with Deanne Criswell, Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as he arrives at Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in Greer, S.C., Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024, to survey damage from Hurricane Helene. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

BY FARNOUSH AMIRI
 October 6, 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government’s top disaster relief official said Sunday that false claims and conspiracy theories about the federal response to Hurricane Helene — spread most prominently by Donald Trump — are “demoralizing” aid workers and creating fear in people who need recovery assistance.

“It’s frankly ridiculous, and just plain false. This kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people,” said Deanne Criswell, who leads the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people, and that’s what we’re here to do. We have had the complete support of the state,” she said, referring to North Carolina.

Republicans, led by the former president, have helped foster a frenzy of misinformation over the past week among the communities most devastated by Helene, promoting a number of false claims, including that Washington is intentionally withholding aid to people in Republican areas.

Trump accused FEMA of spending all its money to help immigrants who are in the United States illegally, while other critics assert that the government spends too much on Israel, Ukraine and other foreign countries.


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“FEMA absolutely has enough money for Helene response right now,” Keith Turi, acting director of FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery said. He noted that Congress recently replenished the agency with $20 billion, and about $8 billion of that is set aside for recovery from previous storms and mitigation projects.

There also are outlandish theories that include warnings from far-right extremist groups that officials plan to bulldoze storm-damaged communities and seize the land from residents. A falsehood pushed by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., asserts that Washington used weather control technology to steer Helene toward Republican voters in order to tilt the presidential election toward Democrat Kamala Harris.

Criswell said on ABC’s “This Week” that such baseless claims around the response to Helene, which caused catastrophic damage from Florida into the Appalachian mountains and a death toll that rose Sunday to at least 230, have created a sense of fear and mistrust from residents against the thousands of FEMA employees and volunteers on the ground.

“We’ve had the local officials helping to push back on this dangerous -- truly dangerous narrative that is creating this fear of trying to reach out and help us or to register for help,” she said.

President Joe Biden said in a statement Sunday that his administration “will continue working hand-in-hand with local and state leaders –- regardless of political party and no matter how long it takes.”

Meantime, FEMA is preparing for Hurricane Milton, which rapidly intensified into a Category 1 storm on Sunday as it heads toward Florida.

“We’re working with the state there to understand what their requirements are going to be, so we can have those in place before it makes landfall,” she said.

'Field day for Russia': Ex-Trump staffer slams his 'gross' and 'dangerous' FEMA 'lies'

Daniel Hampton
October 7, 2024 

A former White House communications director for Donald Trump ripped her old boss Monday over the MAGA leader's falsehoods relating to hurricane response in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. (Screengrab via CNN)

A former White House communications director for Donald Trump ripped her old boss Monday over the MAGA leader's falsehoods relating to hurricane response in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

Alyssa Farah Griffin joined CNN anchor Anderson Cooper on Monday night to discuss the former president's false statements over the weekend that Helene victims were only receiving $750 in disaster relief.

"They send hundreds of billions of dollars to foreign nations. And you know what they're giving our people? 750 bucks," Trump told rally-goers in a clip shared on Cooper's show. He repeated the misleading statement in a second clip as Cooper noted that the $750 is "for immediate need."

"One form of aid, among others, that the government offers," Cooper said, noting the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, now has a webpage dedicated to combatting false information.

In a second clip, Trump claims FEMA spent over $1 billion on sheltering "illegal migrants" and said the agency now has "no money" for states reeling from the storm.

Cooper then played a clip of Thom Tillis, the Republican senior senator of North Carolina, who told CBS News' "Face The Nation" that the Biden administration's immigration policies have not affected its hurricane response.

"Not at this time," said Tillis.

When Cooper asked Griffin her reaction to her former boss' remarks, she gave a blunt assessment.

"It's gross, but it's dangerous," she said.

Griffin said FEMA may have been the "most effective" at executing its job of all the agencies she's worked with.

"He knows this information isn't true and it has real-life consequences on the ground," said Griffin.

Volunteers are depressed due to fears they think there's not a need or they're unable to get where they need, she said. Additionally, FEMA is now spending resources to "knock down these lies," and there are people who need help who are being told the're no help to give, when "in fact, there are quite a lot of federal resources out there."

Moreover, America's adversaries "love this," she said.

"This is a field day for Russia and China who are then going to amplify on social media ahead of the election to tear us apart," she said. "Listen, everything becomes politicized a month out from an election, but this is a step further that I've never really seen something like this. When you're dealing with multiple horrible national natural disasters at the same time."

She added: "It shows Donald Trump is willing to go so low."

Watch the clip below or at this link.

 

Water gushes through sand dunes after a rare rainfall in the Sahara desert

SAM METZ and BABA AHMED
Updated Tue, October 8, 2024

A rare deluge left blue lagoons amid the palm trees and sand dunes of the Sahara, bringing more water to its drought-stricken regions than many had seen in decades.


A view of lakes caused by heavy rainfall between sand dunes in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)


Palm trees are reflected in a lake caused by heavy rainfall in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)


A man gestures as he walks on sand dunes next to a lake caused by heavy rainfall in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)


Palm trees are flooded in a lake caused by heavy rainfall in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)

A vehicle transports tourists on sand dunes next to a lake caused by heavy rainfall in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)

The Moroccan government said two days of rainfall in September exceeded yearly averages in several areas that see less than 250 millimeters (10 inches) annually, including Tata, one of the areas hit hardest. In Tagounite, a village about 450 kilometers (280 miles) south of the capital, Rabat, more than 100 millimeters (3.9 inches) was recorded in a 24-hour period.

The storms left striking images of water gushing through the Saharan sands amid castles and desert flora. NASA satellites showed water rushing in to fill Lake Iriqui, a famous lake bed between Zagora and Tata that had been dry for 50 years.

In desert communities frequented by tourists, 4x4s motored through the puddles and residents surveyed the scene in awe.

“It’s been 30 to 50 years since we’ve had this much rain in such a short space of time,” said Houssine Youabeb of Morocco’s General Directorate of Meteorology.


Flooding kills more than 20 people in Morocco and Algeria
Such rains, which meteorologists are calling an extratropical storm, may change the course of the region’s weather in months and years to come as the air retains more moisture, causing more evaporation and drawing more storms, Youabeb said.


A view of lakes caused by heavy rainfall between sand dunes in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)

Palm trees are reflected in a lake caused by heavy rainfall in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)

Six consecutive years of drought have posed challenges for much of Morocco, forcing farmers to leave fields fallow and cities and villages to ration water.

The bounty of rainfall will likely help refill the large groundwater aquifers beneath the desert that are relied upon to supply water in desert communities. The region’s dammed reservoirs reported refilling at record rates throughout September. However, it’s unclear how far September’s rains will go toward alleviating drought.

An oasis is reflected in a lake caused by heavy rainfall in the desert town of Merzouga, near Rachidia, southeastern Morocco, Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2024. (AP Photo)

Salmon swim freely in the Klamath River for 1st time in a century after dams removed

Associated Press
Mon, October 7, 2024 

FILE - The Iron Gate Dam powerhouse and spillway are seen on the lower Klamath River near Hornbrook, Calif., March 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus, File)


HORNBROOK, Calif. (AP) — For the first time in more than a century, salmon are swimming freely along the Klamath River and its tributaries — a major watershed near the California-Oregon border — just days after the largest dam removal project in U.S. history was completed.

Researchers determined that Chinook salmon began migrating Oct. 3 into previously inaccessible habitat above the site of the former Iron Gate dam, one of four towering dams demolished as part of a national movement to let rivers return to their natural flow and to restore ecosystems for fish and other wildlife.

“It’s been over one hundred years since a wild salmon last swam through this reach of the Klamath River,” said Damon Goodman, a regional director for the nonprofit conservation group California Trout. “I am incredibly humbled to witness this moment and share this news, standing on the shoulders of decades of work by our Tribal partners, as the salmon return home."


The dam removal project was completed Oct. 2, marking a major victory for local tribes that fought for decades to free hundreds of miles (kilometers) of the Klamath. Through protests, testimony and lawsuits, the tribes showcased the environmental devastation caused by the four hydroelectric dams, especially to salmon.

Scientists will use SONAR technology to continue to track migrating fish including Chinook salmon, Coho salmon and steelhead trout throughout the fall and winter to provide "important data on the river’s healing process,” Goodman said in a statement. “While dam removal is complete, recovery will be a long process.”

Conservation groups and tribes, along with state and federal agencies, have partnered on a monitoring program to record migration and track how fish respond long-term to the dam removals.

As of February, more than 2,000 dams had been removed in the U.S., the majority in the last 25 years, according to the advocacy group American Rivers. Among them were dams on Washington state’s Elwha River, which flows out of Olympic National Park into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and Condit Dam on the White Salmon River, a tributary of the Columbia.

The Klamath was once known as the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast. But after power company PacifiCorp built the dams to generate electricity between 1918 and 1962, the structures halted the natural flow of the river and disrupted the lifecycle of the region’s salmon, which spend most of their life in the Pacific Ocean but return up their natal rivers to spawn.

The fish population dwindled dramatically. In 2002, a bacterial outbreak caused by low water and warm temperatures killed more than 34,000 fish, mostly Chinook salmon. That jumpstarted decades of advocacy from tribes and environmental groups, culminating in 2022 when federal regulators approved a plan to remove the dams.




Klamath River dam removal: before and after images show dramatic change
Cecilia Nowell
Tue, October 8, 2024 

Water flowing down the Klamath River where the Copco 2 dam once stood in Siskiyou county, California.Photograph: Swiftwater Films/AP


Related: Salmon swim freely in Klamath River for first time in more than 100 years

With California’s Klamath Dam removal project finally completed, new before and after photos show the dramatic differences along the river with and without the dams. The photos were taken by Swiftwater Films, a documentary company chronicling the dam removal project – a two decade long fight that concluded 2 October.

“The tribally led effort to dismantle the dams is an expression of our sacred duty to maintain balance in the world,” Yurok tribal chairman Joseph L James said in a statement. “That is why we fought so hard for so long to tear down the dams and bring the salmon home.”

Between 1903 and 1962, the electric power company PacifiCorp built a series of dams along the Klamath River to generate electricity. The dams disrupted the river’s natural flow, and the migratory routes of its fish - including, most famously, the Chinook salmon.

By 2002, low water levels and high temperatures caused a bacterial outbreak in the river, killing more than 34,000 fish. The incident spurred tribes, like the Yurok and Karuk, and environmentalists to begin advocating for the removal of the river’s dams. In 2022, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved a plan to remove four dams, which would allow the river to flow freely between Lake Ewauna in Oregon to the Pacific Ocean.

The Klamath Dam removal project, which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) called “the world’s largest dam removal effort”, began in July 2023 and concluded more than a year later.

“This is a monumental achievement – not just for the Klamath River but for our entire state, nation and planet,” Gavin Newsom, the California governor, said in a statement. “By taking down these outdated dams, we are giving salmon and other species a chance to thrive once again, while also restoring an essential lifeline for tribal communities who have long depended on the health of the river.”

With the removal project completed on 2 October, scientists with the non-profit California Trout captured images of a 2.5-ft-long Chinook salmon migrating upstream for the first time in more than 100 years the very next day. Yet, scientists stress that it will take many more years to fully restore the ecosystems impacted by the dams.


Yukon River salmon runs remain low, but glimmers of improvement emerge

Mon, October 7, 2024 

Yereth Rosen
Alaska Beacon

Salmon numbers in the Yukon River and its tributaries remained low this year, continuing a yearslong trend of struggles and harvest closures, but there were some positive signs, according to late-season information from Alaska and Canadian fisheries managers.

The fall run of chum salmon, which usually comes into the river system from mid-July to October, is the third lowest in a record that goes back to the 1970s, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said in a Yukon River update issued on Wednesday. It is expected to be less than a quarter of the historic average of about 900,000 fish, the update said.

However, the summer run of chum salmon, which arrived in the river system earlier, was strong enough this year to allow some subsistence harvests, albeit with various gear restrictions and a requirement that any Chinook salmon that were caught be returned to the water alive.

Subsistence fishing was allowed in both state-managed segments and federally managed segments of the Yukon River system. And it was allowed during the period when the two runs were overlapping.

Subsistence harvests of chum salmon from the summer run were allowed last year as well, after the return emerged as better than forecast.

While runs are low – and are failing to meet treaty targets for returns into Canada — there has been some marginal improvement since the worst period a few years ago, official reports show

“We hit rock bottom in 2021 for all species on the Yukon,” said Christy Gleason, an Alaska Department of Fish and Game area biologist for the Yukon River region.

There were upticks even for the river’s troubled Chinook salmon runs. As of Sept. 19, 24,112 of the fish had reached the Alaska-Canada border, according to the most recent update from Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

That is well below the goal of a 71,000-fish target in the U.S.-Canada Yukon River Salmon Agreement. But it is well above the 14,752 Chinook that made it that far up the river last year and the 13,000 total predicted in this year’s preseason forecast, according to the update.

Fewer fall chum salmon had reached the Yukon River’s Canadian border than the total counted the same time last year, however, Fisheries and Oceans Canada said.

The summer chum salmon run, which generally returns in the period leading up to mid-July, has presented a brighter picture than the fall run, which generally starts in mid-July and runs to October.

The runs differ more in the timing of their entry into the Yukon River system, Gleason said.

The summer run is bigger and has a different age composition, she said. While both have a mix of 4-year-old and 5-year-old fish, the summer run’s mix is more even while the fall run typically tilts heavily to the age-4 fish, she said.

That is important because the age-4 fish are part of an age group that was especially hard-hit by poor ocean conditions triggered by warmer temperatures, she said.

Federal and state scientists have found evidence that extreme marine heatwaves in the Bering Sea from 2014 to 2019 harmed the chum salmon that were in the ocean at the time.

Problems in the saltwater environment appear to be lingering, including for the age-4 salmon that are the offspring of the poor 2020 return, Gleason said. “The ocean conditions aren’t really improving, so we’re not seeing improvement in the fall chum,” she said.

Another difference between the summer and fall chum runs concerns spawning areas. The fall chum spawn much farther upstream in the Yukon River system, including in the Canadian headwaters, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

An additional factor hindering recovery of the fall chum salmon run could stem from that reliance on Canadian headwaters

An abrupt change in Canadian river habitat, resulting from extreme glacial retreat in 2016, created a case of what scientists termed “river piracy” that wiped out an important chum-spawning site.

That event is tied to climate change. It happened when Canada’s Kaskawulsh Glacier retreated so much that it stopped sending water to one of the two rivers it previously fed. The Slims River, which fed the Yukon River system, was the loser, and the water was instead diverted to the Kaskawulsh River, which flows into the Gulf of Alaska rather than the Bering Sea.

Exclusive The Salmon’s Call Trailer Explores Indigenous Relationship With Wild Salmon

Anthony Nash
Mon, October 7, 2024

(Image Credit: Firediva Productions)


ComingSoon is debuting an exclusive The Salmon’s Call trailer, previewing the upcoming documentary exploring the spiritual and cultural relationship between salmon and the Indigenous people of British Columbia.

What happens in The Salmon’s Call trailer?

The Salmon’s Call trailer highlights the film’s exploration of wild salmon and the Indigenous people who share a connection to them. The film dives deep into the salmon’s cycle, the unique ways of catching and preserving the fish, and the hidden dangers of fish farms on the Pacific coast.

Check out the exclusive The Salmon’s Call trailer below (watch other trailers and clips):

The Salmon’s Call is directed by Joy Haskell, an Indigenous filmmaker and founder of Firediva Productions. The film will have its world premiere at the Red Nation International Film Festival in Los Angeles on Friday, November 15, 2024. More screenings, including future festival appearances and a broadcast date for the film’s premiere on Knowledge Network, will be announced in the future.

“The Salmon’s Call is a powerful documentary that explores the intricate spiritual and cultural relationship between wild salmon and Indigenous people that has lasted centuries,” reads the film’s official synopsis. “It is told through an Indigenous lens and gives a unique voice to a vital symbol of renewal, transformation, and resilience. The film takes viewers on a breathtaking journey with the Sockeye salmon from the West Coast waters of British Columbia, traversing the Fraser River, through the Chilcotin and the Stuart River (Nak’alkoh) and Stuart Lake (Nak’albun) situated in Northern British Columbia. Along this journey, we meet various members of the community from elders to youths as they share their rich connection to the salmon.”


(Image Credit: Firediva Productions)

The post Exclusive The Salmon’s Call Trailer Explores Indigenous Relationship With Wild Salmon appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and  (

Joe Biden pushed UK to surrender Chagos Islands

Tony Diver
Mon, October 7, 2024 

The Chagos Islands has been a UK overseas territory since 1965 known officially as the British Indian Ocean Territory - US Navy


Joe Biden pushed the UK into giving up the Chagos Islands over concerns the US would lose control of an important air base, The Telegraph understands.

Days after the general election in July, senior officials from the White House’s National Security Council and State Department told the incoming Labour government that refusing to sign away the islands would jeopardise the “special relationship” with Washington.

Sir Keir Starmer was criticised last week for his decision to give up the archipelago of more than 1,000 tiny islands, a UK overseas territory since 1965 known officially as the British Indian Ocean Territory.


It was suggested the deal could give China access to the Diego Garcia air base, which is on the largest island in the chain.

Under the deal, Mauritius will take control of the islands, but Britain and the US will rent the base for 99 years.
Strategically important air base

The Telegraph understands that American officials pushed the UK toward the deal, fearing that if it was not signed, Mauritius would successfully apply for a binding ruling at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to take control of the islands, effectively shuttering the air base.

The Diego Garcia military air base is on the largest island - AFP

The base is considered strategically important because it puts some bomber aircraft within range of the Middle East. Diego Garcia was previously used by the US to conduct bombing runs in Iraq and Afghanistan.

US officials told the Foreign Office that a quick deal should be signed before the American and Mauritian elections next month, agreeing to give up UK territory in exchange for the base.

The officials argued that handing over the islands would safeguard Britain’s special relationship with the US, and that a binding court ruling would make it more difficult to fly aircraft to the base, conduct repairs, and cooperate with UN agencies.
‘Deal makes UK look pathetic’

Since announcing the deal on Thursday, the Government has faced criticism from MPs, who argue that Britain should not have agreed to give up territory and to rent a military base it already controls.

Boris Johnson said the “terrible” deal made the UK look “pathetic”.

Some also argued that the base would come under threat from Chinese spyware, because Mauritius and China are economically aligned.

The Telegraph understands that the full terms of the deal, which has not been made public, contain protections against Chinese influence in the islands without the agreement of Britain and the US.

Joe Biden and Sir Keir Starmer meet in the White House last month - Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street

On Monday, Robert Jenrick said David Lammy had signed the deal so that he could “feel good about himself at his next north London dinner party”.

In a debate discussing the decision in Parliament, the Tory leadership contender said: “We’ve just handed sovereign British territory to a small island nation which is an ally of China – and we’re paying for the privilege.

“All so that the foreign secretary can feel good about himself at his next North London dinner party.”
‘Unsustainable’ legal position

However, the Foreign Secretary told MPs on Monday that the dispute between Britain and Mauritius was “clearly not sustainable” and that Labour faced a choice between “abandoning the base altogether or breaking international law”.

Friends of the British Overseas Territories, a charity dedicated to British-owned islands abroad, called Mr Lammy’s statement “shameful”.

“Proceeding with the transfer of [the island] goes against our national interests and must be stopped at once,” it said.

The ICJ had already issued a non-binding ruling that the islands belong to Mauritius, and a further ruling that forced the handover of the base was likely, he said, because of the “regrettable” removal of indigenous islanders by the UK in the 1960s.

Downing Street insisted the deal to give up sovereignty over the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) was due to the “unsustainable” legal position and had no impact on other disputed territories including the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman would not be drawn on the cost to the UK taxpayer of the deal which will see Mauritius being given sovereignty over the islands, with a 99-year agreement to secure the strategically important UK-US military base on Diego Garcia.

The spokesman said: “The Government inherited a situation where the long-term secure operation of the military base at Diego Garcia was under threat with contested sovereignty and legal challenges, including through various international courts and tribunals.

“You will be aware that the previous government initiated sovereignty negotiations in 2022 and conducted a number of rounds of negotiations. This Government picked up those negotiations and has reached an agreement, which means that for the first time in over 50 years, the base will be undisputed, legally secure, with full Mauritian backing.”

Asked why the Islands should not be seen as a precedent for other sovereignty disputes such as the Falklands and Gibraltar, the spokesman said: “It’s a unique situation based on its unique history and circumstances, and has no bearing on other overseas territories.”

The spokesman added: “British sovereignty of the Falkland Islands or Gibraltar is not up for negotiation.”

THIRD WORLD U$A

Majority of homeowners left to clean up without insurance after Hurricane Helene

Anne Geggis, Palm Beach Post
Updated Mon, October 7, 2024 

While she baked cookies at her home at the foot of the Smoky Mountains, Vicki Hunter heard a flood alert for the other side of the river. An hour later, she was hanging on for life.

Hunter, 62, like countless others in the inland counties of Georgia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas, was completely unprepared for the events of Sept. 27 as Hurricane Helene came to call. The death toll of 215 deaths and climbing is already the most deadly of a mainland weather event since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Beyond the heartbreak, though, financial trauma from the event promises to linger into the future.

Little of the damage is covered by insurance and that reality has already filled GoFundMe with pleas for help, spotlighted the ailing National Flood Insurance Program and spurred leaders to call for a re-evaluation of how flood insurance works and who should buy it. All as another tempest, Hurricane Milton, takes aim at the already-battered Florida Gulf Coast this week.

Foreboding signs appeared soon after Hunter heard the flood warning. She looked out her window and thought how strange it was that the trees surrounding her rural oasis in Jonesborough, Tennessee appeared to be moving toward her home, she recalled.

She couldn't feel the house moving and that flash flood warning she heard for Embreeville, on the other side of the Nolichuckee River, had seemed like it had nothing to do with the place she’d lived for 14 years.

“It hasn’t flooded here in 50 years,” Hunter said of her home that sits at 1,519 feet above sea level.

But, in fact, something grave was happening.

As the river’s rise became undeniable, 30 minutes of sheer terror began. Hunter saw her husband’s car and hers bobbing like apples in the carport. She lost track of her husband’s exact whereabouts as she dodged furniture that started moving around faster in the rising water as her house moved into neighbors’ farm fields.

“My little dog was shaking and I didn’t know where Jerry was,” she said, recalling a moment on her back porch, the last time she saw her miniature Schnauzer, Batman, alive and dry. “I was praying to Jesus.”

She managed to call her sister, Vedette Rice, from her cell to say she loved her — just before a swift water rescue came to her aid and saved her. She could only watch helplessly as Batman was swept away, struggling in the water.

Her 77-year-old husband’s body was found Sunday.

As she and countless others are faced with the shock of suddenly losing a loved one, financial realities are pressing down. Hunter said she felt she had no other choice other than selling five of her 12 quarter horses to pay for her husband’s funeral, especially after a recent meeting with her insurance agent added to the inundation of bad news.

“My car insurance … they are going to take care of me, but my homeowners’ said, ‘Nope, sorry, I can’t do anything for you.’”

Hunter said she never imagined she’d need flood insurance. Another of her sisters, gathered around Vicki Hunter to offer support, summed up the reason: “Who would ever think that a Category 4 (hurricane) would come to Tennessee and kill more people than it did in Florida?” Valerie Paulson, 61, of nearby Johnson City asked rhetorically.

Not only has Hurricane Helene dealt out unimaginable grief, the disaster has also come in a form from which there is no easy financial recovery.
New territory for floodwaters

Hurricane Helene’s strengthening in the Gulf of Mexico and landfall in the Big Bend area of Florida were predicted, but the devastation the monster storm wreaked across the inland Southeast from Georgia to North Carolina came as a shock. This turn has experts in disaster management and the insurance industry calling for rethinking flood coverage and expanding the definition of areas prone to destructive deluges.

“Asheville (North Carolina) wasn’t supposed to flood,” said Michael Hecht, president and CEO of Greater New Orleans, Inc., whose involvement in rebuilding New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina’s devastation has meant working to improve the country’s flood insurance.

Parts of the famed tourist town in western North Carolina's high country is in ruins and searches for those unaccounted for were still ongoing a week after the calamity.

“What this latest disaster is making clear is that virtually anywhere in America can experience intense weather and subsequent devastating flooding,” continued Hecht, who testified before the Senate Banking, House, and Urban Affairs Committee about national flood insurance earlier this year. “We need national policies that address this new reality.”
Record-breaking uninsured losses expected due to Hurricane Helene

In the counties hardest hit by Hurricane Helene’s deadly inland tear from Georgia to North Carolina, fewer than 1% of the properties are insured against flooding through the National Flood Insurance Plan (NFIP), which underwrites most of the nation’s flood insurance policies, according to the insurance industry-funded Insurance Information Institute. It's administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Given the scant flood coverage in the area and how standard homeowner insurance policies like the one Hunter has don’t cover flood losses, the collective financial devastation to Helene's victims is likely to make a mark in the history books, according to Mark Friedlander, director of communications for the Insurance Information Institute.

“Helene may be the largest uninsured loss we have seen from a landfalling hurricane because of the widespread devastation in areas where flood insurance take-up rates are so low,” Friedlander said.

Joi McPherson, right, hugs her brother-in-law, Thomas Hall, as they remove items from her home which flooded during Hurricane Helene in Swannanoa, North Carolina, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024.

A standard insurance policy doesn't cover water damage from hurricanes unless it is determined the hurricane's winds caused an opening in the property allowing the water to pour in, or the winds blew a tree branch down that caused a breach for the water to flow into the insured structure.

Without those factors, flood insurance must provide the financial backstop for fixing storm-induced damage or replacing what was lost. Or, without flood insurance, as most of the residents in this area of the country are, the loss will largely be managed out of their own pockets.

Limited consumer awareness

Flood insurance is not widely required by lenders as homeowner insurance is. Only those who live in federally designated flood hazard zones are required by their lender to get it.

Many homeowners are unaware of their standard policy's limitations and don't understand that living in a flood hazard zone is not a prerequisite for fortifying property with flood insurance, said Dan Kaniewski, former FEMA deputy administrator for resilience. And hearing that your property has a chance of flooding once every 100 years may lead to a false assessment of the risk, he added.

Nationally, the average flood insurance policy bought through the NFIP costs between $800 and $1,000. It can be twice as a high in a flood hazard zone.

“They (a potential policyholder) might think, ‘Well, I’m only going to own this house for 30 years,’” Kaniewski said. “What they don’t realize is that means there’s a 1% chance of flooding every single year.

“It’s not surprising that a lot of these homes that were inundated (in Helene) lack flood insurance because it (flood risk) is a hard concept to communicate in an effective way,” he added.

Florida has an average elevation of 100 feet above sea level — lower than Tennessee’s lowest point — and lists the highest percentage of properties protected by flood insurance than any other state. Most of the participation in flood insurance — amounting to 20% of Florida properties — is driven by mortgage lender requirements because of the property location in a flood hazard zone, industry officials say.

FEMA's flood hazard zone maps are where the error lies, said John Dickson, president and CEO of Aon Edge, a private flood insurance company, based in Montana. These zones that lenders use to determine who must buy flood protection don’t reflect the real flood risks and emerging realities of climate change, Dickson said.

“We have mandatory purchase area maps that were drawn five to 10 years ago, and they are not keeping pace with how the weather is changing,” Dickson said. “Flood has been historically driven by proximity to the coast. Today, it’s rainfall.”
Federal flood insurance woes in contrast to private market

Hurricanes have caused disruption to the private, insured market that most homeowners participate in.

After Hurricane Ian in 2022, for example, some Florida property owners’ standard homeowner insurance premiums were hit by increases that doubled their annual bill, pushed a bevy of insurers out of state or into insolvency, and increased the number of property owners who were dropped by private insurers and had to go to the Citizens Property Insurance Corp. The state-backed insurer of last resort hit a new high in the number of policies it issued shortly after that storm.

Because Helene is largely a flooding event, flash estimates show that the storm will be a much more manageable event for the private insurance market. For traditional insurers, the storm is going cost about six times more than Hurricane Debby, which blew through in August, but about one-tenth of Ian's privately insured losses, according to a top disaster loss modeling company, Karen Clark & Company.

The nation’s flood insurance, however, has a whole different set of problems than the private insurance market, Hecht, in New Orleans, said.

“Home insurance is the acute crisis — like an avalanche,” Hecht said. “Flood insurance, because the (premium) increases are capped at 18% a year, is a slow-moving crisis, like a melting glacier.”

The program started in the wake of Hurricane Betsy in 1965. Hecht said that the water inundation along the Gulf of Mexico had caused the private insurance market to retreat from covering flood damage.

Now, as a federally run program, Congress must authorize the flood insurance program and legislators have not been able to agree on a multiyear renewal since 2017. Its most recent authorization was approved Sept. 20 and expires Dec. 20.

Debris is piled up outside of a home that flooded during Hurricane Helene in the Lower Beacon neighborhood of Swannanoa, North Carolina, Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024.

That short-term commitment, national flood proponents say, has prevented FEMA from fixing the long-term problems that plague the flood insurance program. That's caused more and more policyholders to drop the coverage. The current 5 million policies in force are expected to drop to 4 million shortly, according to testimony in front of the Senate committee.

That drop in purchased policies threatens to defeat an aim of the flood insurance program: Spreading the risk far and wide, across the country.

Criticism of the country's national flood insurance has come from a number of quarters.

The National Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, for example, paints the NFIP as encouraging unsustainable development in places that repeatedly flood. And, starting in 2021, the program went to a new rate structure with the goal of being actuarily sound. Instead of just borrowing to offset larger-than-expected claims, premiums are now set to offset expected losses and reflect the risk at each property.

As some policies advance to premiums that reflect actual risk — with perhaps many years of 18% increases over the previous year — the aim is to end the deficit spending; the NFIP is about $20.5 billion in the red, reflecting money borrowed from the U.S. Treasury to offset policyholder claims, according to Ohio's Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown's office.

What to do about the debt is just one of the issues that Congress can't agree on, Kaniewski, the former FEMA official said. But the government can't let the program lapse because then new policies can't be written or renewed for properties in the high flood hazard zones that have mortgages that require the coverage.

"To address the challenges that NFIP faces, Congress needs to provide FEMA with the reforms it has requested," Kaniewski said, noting that FEMA would like to offer flooding insurance rates based on income to broaden its appeal. "The program is going to continue to have challenges well into the future until Congress acts."

Kaniewski said that he expects that Hurricane Helene's victims' effort to return to their old lives will illustrate just how important flood insurance is.

"It's only going to become more apparent that very few of these disaster survivors have flood insurance and they will struggle through this disaster recovery," he predicted. "It's going to take the government, at all levels, philanthropic organizations and friends and family to get them back on their feet."

Jerry and Vicki Hunter in their home in Jonesborough, Tennessee before Hurricane Helene's destruction took Jerry's life, their home and their dog.
The road to recovery from Hurricane Helene

On Saturday, Jerry Hunter was laid to rest, leaving his widow to rebuild her life without him.

Vicki Hunter is eligible for individual assistance from FEMA to begin the journey, but that funding is considered a safety net for immediate needs, not meant for rebuilding destroyed property.

Many Katrina victims also didn’t have flood insurance, relying on the levees to keep them safe, according to Stephen Murphy, a disaster management professor at Tulane University in New Orleans. A court case determined that homeowners’ policies did not cover Katrina’s flooding, and many expect that flooding claims from Helene against standard homeowners' insurance will not be covered.

“We're going to have to have some innovative tools like there were for New Orleans following Katrina,” Walker said. “It’s pretty obvious that the homeowner insurance (in the disaster zone) doesn’t cover floods, so something has to be done … or people are going to be leaving that area.”

Right now, Vicki Hunter can’t imagine going back and living in the same place. Her home’s destruction basically amounts to losing all the equity accumulated over 14 years of living there, she said.

She thinks she’ll have to sell the property. Donations to the GoFundMe her sister started five days ago have slowed since garnering more than 130 donations on its fourth day. Her tragic story competes with many more tellings of worlds shattered by a torrent of water.

“That’s where I lost my husband, my dog, my house,” she said.

Anne Geggis is the insurance reporter at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at ageggis@gannett.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This story was updated with the correct information about where Aon Edge is based.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Most Hurricane Helene damage not covered by regular property insurance

After '60 Minutes,' Palm Beach County legislator calls for probe of Ian insurance payouts

Anne Geggis, Palm Beach Post
Tue, October 8, 2024 

Reports that damage claims from Hurricane Ian were systemically downgraded has a Palm Beach County state lawmaker leading a call for a Florida grand jury and a select legislative committee to investigate.

Democratic state Rep. Kelly Skidmore of Boca Raton said the report on the CBS network news magazine “60 Minutes” that aired Sept. 29 echoes testimony heard during a 2022 House Commerce Committee meeting. During that hearing homeowners and insurance adjusters testified that valid claims from the hurricane two years ago were rejected and underpaid once it came time to make insured Floridians whole from the damage suffered.

“This exposé was, unfortunately, not news to us in Florida,” Skidmore said. “For nearly 30 years, Republicans have had full oversight and control over the insurance industry. The result? A downward spiral for property owners with no real solutions to the problem.”

The Florida House Democratic Caucus has sent a letter to Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis asking for the special statewide grand jury to investigate whether illegal activity resulted in insurers giving Hurricane Ian victims short shrift. And another letter was sent asking for the select legislative committee to Speaker of the House-Designate Daniel Perez, a Miami area Republican, Skidmore said.
Governor DeSantis: Concern already addressed on Hurricane Ian insurance payouts

Asked about the Democrats’ request, a spokesman for the governor provided a clip of DeSantis reacting to the 60 Minutes’ report but not the call for the statewide grand jury. DeSantis said that safeguards against downgraded claims were already baked into reforms that were passed post-Hurricane Ian.

“We now have protections in Florida law that you can't just disregard what the adjuster does,” DeSantis said, after noting he is “not much of a fan” of the CBS news magazine. “You actually have to have a clear, valid reason to be able to depart downward. That may not have been in place when Ian happened.”

DeSantis also noted that the company the news magazine focused on, Heritage Property & Casualty Insurance, was fined $1 million last May for violating claims-handling requirements after Ian. Most of the findings in that March report, however, focused on handling claims in a timely manner and following procedures, rather than the actual amounts paid, although it did note Heritage’s failure to pay interest.

Kelly Skidmore

Heritage, for its part, issued a public statement after the 60 Minutes segment aired noting the program's reporting omitted information the 12-year-old company had provided about improvements that were made in its claims-handling procedures in Ian’s wake. And also there was no deliberate effort to deceive customers about the value of their claims, Heritage said.

“It is important to point out that when we did our own review of Hurricane Ian claims following 60 Minutes’ outreach — using a random sample of 10,000 claims — we found that 4,162 of those were revised downward, 2,583 of them were revised upward and about 3,311 of them had no change from what the adjuster reviewed. This is further evidence that we work to pay every eligible claim,” the company statement reads.

Perez could not be reached by email, text or phone to respond to the Democrats’ call.
Florida property insurance a political hot potato

The same year that Hurricane Ian's winds made landfall at nearly Category 5 strength, five property insurance companies became insolvent or stopped doing business in the state. Special legislative sessions were called to shore up the situation.

But Democrats were unhappy with many of the reforms that the Republican-dominated Legislature put in place. Those measures largely focused on stemming the tide of litigation from contested damage claims. But critics said the Legislature's actions left consumers with little recourse to contest an insurance companies' valuation of a claim.

More than a year out from those reforms, Floridians typically pay two to three times more for their property insurance premiums than the national average. The state's potential for catastrophic hurricanes, the number of lawsuits and the financial industry's reluctance to help insurers' with the risk of those factors have been largely blamed for the state of affairs in providing ample and affordable property insurance.

Florida should lead the way in seeking solutions to the problem, Skidmore said, noting that Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz has proposed spreading the risk of these storms around a much wider area with a National Catastrophic Risk Pool. Moskowitz of Parkland has proposed that natural catastrophes like the one hurricanes Ian, Helene and, now possibly Milton present — with widespread, devastating damage — would be backed by the nation’s credit, instead of relying on private insurers and money markets to shoulder the worst sort of risks that have wiped out some insurers faced with a crush of damage claims.

“I am renewing my call to act and support Congressman Moskowitz’s efforts to, at the very least, have a conversation about creating a National Catastrophe Risk Pool,” Skidmore said in a prepared statement.

The risk pool idea is similar to a bill former Democratic U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist proposed when he represented Pinellas County. Moskowitz’s bill, introduced in March 2023, has not gotten a committee hearing or a cosponsor.

Nobel-winning physicist 'unnerved' by AI technology he helped create

Issam AHMED
Tue, October 8, 2024 

John Hopfield was honored for devising the 'Hopfield network' — a theoretical model demonstrating how an artificial neural network can mimic the way biological brains store and retrieve memories (Denise APPLEWHITE) (Denise APPLEWHITE/PRINCETON UNIVERSITY/AFP)


A US scientist who won the 2024 Nobel physics prize for his pioneering work on artificial intelligence said Tuesday he found recent advances in the technology "very unnerving" and warned of possible catastrophe if not kept in check.

John Hopfield, a professor emeritus at Princeton, joined co-winner Geoffrey Hinton in calling for a deeper understanding of the inner workings of deep-learning systems to prevent them from spiraling out of control.

Addressing a gathering at the New Jersey university via video link from Britain, the 91-year-old said that over the course of his life he had watched the rise of two powerful but potentially hazardous technologies -- biological engineering and nuclear physics.


"One is accustomed to having technologies which are not singularly only good or only bad, but have capabilities in both directions," he said.

"And as a physicist, I'm very unnerved by something which has no control, something which I don't understand well enough so that I can understand what are the limits which one could drive that technology."

"That's the question AI is pushing," he continued, adding that despite modern AI systems appearing to be "absolute marvels," there is a lack of understanding about how they function, which he described as "very, very unnerving."

"That's why I myself, and I think Geoffrey Hinton also, would strongly advocate understanding as an essential need of the field, which is going to develop some abilities that are beyond the abilities you can imagine at present."

Hopfield was honored for devising the "Hopfield network" -- a theoretical model demonstrating how an artificial neural network can mimic the way biological brains store and retrieve memories.

His model was improved upon by British-Canadian Hinton, often dubbed the "Godfather of AI," whose "Boltzmann machine" introduced the element of randomness, paving the way for modern AI applications such as image generators.

Hinton himself emerged last year as a poster child for AI doomsayers, a theme he returned to during a news conference held by the University of Toronto where he serves as a professor emeritus.

"If you look around, there are very few examples of more intelligent things being controlled by less intelligent things, which makes you wonder whether when AI gets smarter than us, it's going to take over control," the 76-year-old told reporters.

- Civilizational downfall -

With the meteoric rise of AI capabilities -- and the fierce race it has sparked among companies -- the technology has faced criticism for evolving faster than scientists can fully comprehend.

"You don't know that the collective properties you began with are actually the collective properties with all the interactions present, and you don't therefore know whether some spontaneous but unwanted thing is lying hidden in the works," stressed Hopefield.

He evoked the example of "ice-nine" -- a fictional, artificially engineered crystal in Kurt Vonnegut's 1963 novel "Cat's Cradle" developed to help soldiers deal with muddy conditions but which inadvertently freezes the world's oceans solid, causing the downfall of civilization.

"I'm worried about anything that says... 'I'm faster than you are, I'm bigger than you are... can you peacefully inhabit with me?' I don't know, I worry."

Hinton said it was impossible to know how to escape catastrophic scenarios at present, "that's why we urgently need more research."

"I'm advocating that our best young researchers, or many of them, should work on AI safety, and governments should force the large companies to provide the computational facilities that they need to do that," he added.

‘Godfather of AI’ who warned technology could end humanity wins Nobel prize

Nilima Marshall, PA Science Reporter
Tue, October 8, 2024 



A British-Canadian computer scientist who warned that artificial intelligence (AI) could pose an existential threat to humanity has been awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics.

Professor Geoffrey Hinton, often touted as the “godfather of AI”, shares the honour with US academic John Hopfield for their pioneering work on machine learning, which powers AI.

The announcement was made by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at a press conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

Prof Hinton, 76, who has warned about the dangers of intelligent machines, said he was “flabbergasted”, adding: “I had no idea this would happen. I’m very surprised.”

The University of Toronto professor resigned from Google last year, saying he was worried about the “existential risk” posed by machines that could outsmart humans.

Speaking on the phone at the event in Stockholm, Prof Hinton described the call about being awarded the Nobel as a “bolt from the blue”, saying: “I am in a cheap hotel in California that does not have an internet connection and does not have a very good phone connection.

“I was going to get an MRI scan today, but I think I’ll have to cancel that.”

Machine learning is a key component of AI which allow machines to perform tasks that mimic human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, and problem solving.


The impact of AI can be seen in every aspect of human lives, from uncovering hidden cancers and editing photos on phones to powering systems such as ChatGPT.

Prof Hinton, who shares a prize fund worth 11m Swedish kronor (£810,000) with Prof Hopfield of Princeton University, said artificial intelligence will have a “huge influence” on humanity that could be comparable with the Industrial Revolution – a period of scientific and technological development in the 18th century.

He added: “But instead of exceeding people in physical strength, it (AI) is going to exceed people in intellectual ability.

“We have no experience of what it is like to have things smarter than us, and it is going to be wonderful in many respects.”

Prof Hinton said that in areas like healthcare, AI will make things “more efficient” with “huge improvements in productivity”.

But he also said he was worried about “a number of possible bad consequences, particularly the threat of these things getting out of control”.


When asked about whether he had any regrets about his groundbreaking work on AI, Prof Hinton said: “There are two kinds of regret – there is regret where you feel guilty because you did something you knew you should not have done, and then then there is regret where you did something that you would do again in the same circumstances.”

He said that he “would do the same again” but was “worried that the overall consequence of this might be systems more intelligent than us that eventually take control”.

Prof Hinton said he uses Chat GPT 4 “whenever I want to know the answer to anything”, but he does not usually trust the chatbot, “because it can hallucinate”.

Commenting on the announcement, Professor Sir Keith Burnett, president of the Institute of Physics, said: “Congratulations to John J Hopfield and Geoffrey E Hinton for winning the Nobel Prize in Physics today.

“It is incredibly exciting to see key ideas and techniques in Physics helping to drive new ways to model and understand the wider world and machine learning is undoubtedly one of the transformational technologies of the future.

“Their work with artificial neural networks is contributing to a whole new generation of smarter, faster and more adaptable processing and thinking systems, which could transform all of our lives.”

Meric Gertler, preseident of the University of Toronto, said: “On behalf of the University of Toronto, I am absolutely delighted to congratulate University Professor Emeritus Geoffrey Hinton on receiving the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics.

“The U of T community is immensely proud of his historic accomplishment.”

Ellen Moons, a member of the Nobel committee at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said the pair “used fundamental concepts” from physics to “design artificial neural networks” that have “become part of our daily lives, for instance in facial recognition and language translation”.

AI pioneers John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton win Nobel Prize in physics
Gabriela Galvin
Tue, October 8, 2024 at 3:52 AM MDT·3 min read

Artificial intelligence pioneers John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton won the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics for discoveries that enabled machine learning with artificial neural networks and set the scene for today’s breakthroughs in AI.

Hans Ellegren, secretary general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, awarded the prize Tuesday in Stockholm.

Hopfield, who carries out research at Princeton University in the United States, is known for creating a network in 1982 that can retain and recreate patterns in images and other types of data by identifying the values between points, working through them, and updating the missing values.

Now called Hopfield networks, they can be used to recognise images, correct mistakes, and optimise functions in computer science.

In 1985, Hinton, a computer scientist at the University of Toronto in Canada who is known as the “godfather of AI,” used the Hopfield network to create a new model. After being fed examples, the network – called the Boltzmann machine – can recognise characteristics in data and use that to identify specific elements in images or other patterns.

Hopfield and Hinton’s work, which relied on tools and concepts from physics, set the groundwork for modern machine learning.

“The laureates’ discoveries and inventions form the building blocks of machine learning that can aid humans in making faster and more reliable decisions, for instance when diagnosing medical conditions,” Ellen Moons, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said.

Speaking to journalists, Hinton said that AI-driven advancements will be “comparable with the Industrial Revolution, but instead of exceeding people in physical strength, it’s going to exceed people in intellectual ability”.

That could come with incredible societal benefits, but also “the threat of these things getting out of control,” Hinton said.

Hinton spent a decade working on AI at Google before resigning last year, joining a growing chorus of ex-tech employees to warn about the potential dangers of these systems.

Related

‘Godfather of AI’ Geoffrey Hinton quits Google to warn over the tech’s threat to humanity

Asked about the common AI tools he uses, Hinton said he’s a fan of the chatbot ChatGPT – but with some caveats.

"I actually use GPT-4 quite a lot,” Hinton said. “Whenever I want to know the answer to anything, I just go and ask GPT-4. I don't totally trust it cause it can hallucinate, but on almost everything, it's a not-very-good expert, and that's very useful".
Nobel Prizes through the years

The Nobel Prizes were created by Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel, who died in 1896. It comes with a cash award of 11 million Swedish kroner, which is nearly €976,000.

From 1901 to 2023, 117 Nobel Prizes were awarded in Physics. The youngest of the 225 laureates was 25, while the oldest was 96.

Last year’s physics award went to Pierre Agostini from Ohio State University in the United States, Ferenc Krausz from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Germany, and Anne L’Huillier from Lund University in Sweden.

The trio found a way to create extremely short pulses of light that can be used to measure how the electrons inside atoms and molecules move or change energy.

Related

Quantum dots, mRNA, and attoseconds: What are the discoveries behind the 2023 science Nobel Prizes?

On Monday, American scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of microRNA, tiny RNA molecules that govern how genes are regulated.

The rest of the 2024 prizes, awarded for advancements in chemistry, economics, literature, and toward peace, will be announced throughout this and next week.

The Nobel laureates will receive their prizes at an awards ceremony in Sweden in December.

Former Caltech and Google scientists win physics Nobel for pioneering artificial intelligence

Noah Haggerty

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
Tue, October 8, 2024 a

Professor John Hopfield, left, of Princeton University, and professor Geoffrey Hinton, of the University of Toronto, won the 2024 Nobel Prize winners in Physics. (Associated Press)


On Tuesday morning, Princeton University professor John Hopfield and University of Toronto professor Geoffrey Hinton won the Nobel Prize in Physics 2024 for their foundational discoveries and inventions that pioneered modern artificial intelligence.

Hopfield joined Caltech as faculty in 1980 and, two years later, published his seminal paper in which he applied principles of the brain to computer circuits, creating a neural network able to hold memory and recognize patterns.

Building off of Hopfield's network, Hinton created a model that could not only distinguish between different patterns or images, but generate new ones altogether. His development later landed him a job at Google after the tech giant bought his company.

"These artificial neural networks have been used to advance research across physics topics as diverse as particle physics, material science and astrophysics," said Ellen Moons, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, at the announcement. "The laureates' discoveries and inventions form the building blocks of machine learning."

Read more: Sex, radiation and mummies: How farms are fighting a pesky almond moth without pesticides

The researchers will split a prize of roughly $1 million.

Hopfield was recruited to Caltech in 1978 after the university appointed a new president with a background in physics.

After years of attempting to model the human brain, Hopfield finally made his breakthrough in early 1980. He called Caltech a "splendid environment" for testing out his various ideas.

Around the same time, Hinton had left UC San Diego for Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, where he developed his model based on Hopfield's.

Called the Boltzmann machine, the model formed the basis of current generative AI models like ChatGPT (the "G" stands for "generative").

Read more: Are tiny black holes zipping through our solar system? Scientists hope to find out

Hinton and two of his students created a company based on the research in 2012, focused on using AI to identify common objects in photos, like flowers and dogs. Shortly after, Google bought it at auction for $44 million.

Hinton quit his job at the tech giant in 2023 so he could publicly voice concerns about the technology he helped invent.

He fears people will no longer be able to distinguish AI-generated images and videos from real ones and opposes the use of AI on the battlefield. Hinton said a part of him regrets his life's work.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

'Godfather of AI' shares Nobel Physics Prize

Georgina Rannard - Science reporter and Graham Fraser - Technology reporter
Tue, October 8, 2024 

BBC

The announcement was made in Stockholm, Sweden [Getty Images]


The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to two scientists, Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield, for their work on machine learning.

British-Canadian Professor Hinton is sometimes referred to as the "Godfather of AI" and said he was flabbergasted.

He resigned from Google in 2023, and has warned about the dangers of machines that could outsmart humans.

The announcement was made by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at a press conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

American Professor John Hopfield, 91, is a professor at Princeton University in the US, and Prof Hinton, 76, is a professor at University of Toronto in Canada.

Machine learning is key to artificial intelligence as it develops how a computer can train itself to generate information.

It drives a vast range of technology that we use today from how we search the internet to editing photographs on our phones.

“I had no idea this would happen. I'm very surprised,” said Prof Hinton, speaking on the phone to the Academy minutes after the announcement.

He said he was in a hotel with bad internet in California and thought he might need to cancel the rest of his day's plans.

The Academy listed some of the crucial applications of the two scientists’ work, including improving climate modelling, development of solar cells, and analysis of medical images.

Geoffrey Hinton said on Tuesday that he uses ChatGPT4 [Getty Images]

Prof Hinton's pioneering research on neural networks paved the way for current AI systems like ChatGPT.

In artificial intelligence, neural networks are systems that are similar to the human brain in the way they learn and process information. They enable AIs to learn from experience, as a person would. This is called deep learning.

Prof Hinton said his work on artificial neural networks was revolutionary.

“It’s going to be like the Industrial Revolution - but instead of our physical capabilities, it’s going to exceed our intellectual capabilities," he said.

But he said he also had concerns about the future. He was asked if he regretted his life's work as he told journalist last year.

In reply, he said he would do the same work again, "but I worry that the overall consequences of this might be systems that are more intelligent than us that might eventually take control".

He also said he uses the AI chatbot ChatGPT4 for many things now but with the knowledge that it does not always get the answer right.

Professor John Hopfield invented a network that can save and recreate patterns.

It uses physics that describes a material’s characteristics due to atomic spin.

In a similar way to how the brain tries to recall words by using associated but incomplete words, Prof Hopfield developed a network that can use incomplete patterns to find the most similar.

The Nobel Prize committee said the two scientists' work has become part of our daily lives, including in facial recognition and language translation.

But Ellen Moons, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said "its rapid development has also raised concerns about our future collectively".

The winners share a prize fund worth 11m Swedish kronor (£810,000).

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When Prof Hinton resigned from Google last year, he told the BBC some of the dangers of AI chatbots were "quite scary".

He also said at the time that his age had played into his decision to leave the tech giant.

Earlier this year, in an interview with BBC Newsnight, he said the UK government will have to establish a universal basic income to deal with the impact of AI on inequality, as he was “very worried about AI taking lots of mundane jobs”.

He added that while AI would increase productivity and wealth, the money would go to the rich “and not the people whose jobs get lost and that’s going to be very bad for society”.

In the same interview, he said developments over the last year showed governments were unwilling to rein in military use of AI while the competition to develop products rapidly meant there was a risk tech companies wouldn't “put enough effort into safety”.

Prof Hinton said "my guess is in between five and 20 years from now there’s a probability of half that we’ll have to confront the problem of AI trying to take over".
Previous winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics

2023 - Pierre Agostini, Ferenc Krausz and Anne L'Huillier for work on attoseconds - extremely short pulses of light that can be used to capture and study rapid processes inside atoms;

2022 - Alain Aspect, American John Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger for research into quantum mechanics - the science that describes nature at the smallest scales;

2021 - Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi were given the prize for advancing our understanding of complex systems, such as Earth's climate;

2020 - Sir Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez received the prize for their work on the nature of black holes;

2019 - James Peebles, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz shared the prize for ground-breaking discoveries about the Universe;

2018 - Donna Strickland, Arthur Ashkin and Gerard Mourou were awarded the prize for their discoveries in the field of laser physics.

AI chatbots 'may soon be more intelligent than us'

Two artificial intelligence leaders win physics Nobel Prize

Clyde Hughes
Tue, October 8, 2024 at 6:50 AM MDT·2 min read

Professor Anders Irback speaks at a press conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences after announcing the winners of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics, in Stockholm, Sweden, on Tuesday to John J. Hopfield and Geoffrey E. Hinton. Photo by Christine Olsson/EPA-EFE


Oct. 8 (UPI) -- The Nobel Prize in physics was awarded on Tuesday to scientists a pair of scientists hailing from the United States and Canada for their work in artificial intelligence that has become the foundation of powerful machine learning.

The Nobel committee said John Hopfield, of Princeton University, created an associative memory that can store and reconstruct images and other types of patterns in data while Geoffrey Hinton, of the University of Toronto, invented a method that can autonomously find properties in data and perform tasks such as identifying specific elements in pictures.

"The laureates' work has already been of the greatest benefit," Ellen Moons, chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said in a statement. "In physics, we use artificial neural networks in a vast range of areas, such as developing new materials with specific properties."

The Nobel Committee said the idea of machine learning using artificial neural networks was inspired by how the human brain works. In the artificial neural network, the brain's neurons are represented by nodes that have different values and influence each other through connections.

"This year's laureates have conducted important work with artificial neural networks from the 1980s onward," the committee said.

The committee said the world is just now coming to recognize how the work of Hopfield and Hinton in laying down some of the crucial foundations of artificial intelligence has shaped the global world and will continue to do so.

"With their breakthroughs, that stand on the foundations of physical science, they have shown a completely new way for us to use computers to aid and to guide us to tackle many of the challenges our society faces," the committee said.

Hinton, known as the "Godfather of AI," made headlines last year when he quit Google to focus on AI threat issues and joined hundreds of tech leaders to sign a statement warning about the risk of AI without the proper guardrails.




Two AI pioneers won the Nobel Prize for their work in machine learning

Britney Nguyen
Tue, October 8, 2024 

U.S. physicist John J. Hopfield (top L) and Canadian-British computer scientist and cognitive psychologist Geoffrey E. Hinton displayed on a screen at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden on October 8, 2024. - Photo: JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP (Getty Images)


Two artificial intelligence pioneers were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work in machine learning, which laid the foundation for the current AI boom.

Geoffrey Hinton, also known as the “godfather of AI,” and John Hopfield were named as the 2024 winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics on Tuesday. Hinton and Hopfield, who both started their work in machine learning in the 1980s, were awarded the prize “for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said in a statement.

Hopfield is known for inventing a network used in machine learning called the “Hopfield network,” which is used for storing and reconstructing images and other patterns in data using physics, according to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. Hopfield’s network was then used by Hinton as the foundation for a new network that uses statistical physics, called the “Boltzmann machine,” which “can learn to recognize characteristic elements in a given type of data,” the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

“The laureates’ work has already been of the greatest benefit,” Ellen Moons, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, said. “In physics we use artificial neural networks in a vast range of areas, such as developing new materials with specific properties.”

Last May, Hinton left his job on Google’s (GOOGL) AI research team to talk openly about his concerns over the risks of AI.

“I console myself with the normal excuse: If I hadn’t done it, somebody else would have,” Hinton told The New York Times (NYT).

On Tuesday, Hinton said in response to questions about regrets over his work, that he “would do the same again, but I am worried that the overall consequence of this might be systems more intelligent than us that eventually take control,” Bloomberg reported.

Hopfield and Hinton will share the prize of 11 million Swedish kronor, or $1 million.