Demis Hassabis, from chess prodigy to Nobel-winning AI pioneer

Paris (AFP) – Long before Demis Hassabis pioneered artificial intelligence techniques to earn a Nobel prize, he was a master of board games.

Issued on: 09/10/2024 - 

'I've worked on this my whole life because I believe it's going to be the most beneficial technology to humanity.' 

© TOBY MELVILLE / POOL/AFP/File

The London-born son of a Greek-Cypriot father and a Singaporean mother started playing chess when he was just four, rising to the rank of master at 13.

"That's what got me into AI in the first place, playing chess from a young age and thinking and trying to improve my own thought processes," the 48-year-old told journalists after sharing the Nobel prize in chemistry with two other scientists on Wednesday.

It was the second Nobel award in as many days involving artificial intelligence (AI), and Hassabis followed Tuesday's chemistry laureates in warning that the technology they had championed can also "be used for harm".

But rather than doom and gloom warnings of AI apocalypse, the CEO of Google's DeepMind lab described himself as a "cautious optimist".

"I've worked on this my whole life because I believe it's going to be the most beneficial technology to humanity -- but with something that powerful and that transformative, it comes with risks," he said.
Dabbling in video games

Hassabis finished high school in north London at the age of 16, and took a gap year to work on video games, co-designing 1994's "Theme Park".

In his 20s, Hassabis won the "pentamind" -- a London event that combines the results of bridge, chess, Go, Mastermind and Scrabble -- five times.

Nobel prize for chemistry 2024 

© Valentina BRESCHI, Jean-Michel CORNU, Lise KIENNEMANN / AFP/File

"I would actually encourage kids to play games, but not just to play them... the most important thing is to try and make them," Hassabis said.

He then studied neuroscience at University College London, hoping to learn more about the human brain with the aim of improving nascent AI.

In 2007, the journal Science listed his research among the top 10 breakthroughs of the year.

He co-founded the firm DeepMind in 2010, which then focused on using artificial neural networks -- which are loosely based on the human brain and underpin AI -- to beat humans at board and video games.

Google bought the company four years later.

Demis Hassabis was among three scientists to win Wednesday's chemistry Nobel 

© Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP

In 2016, DeepMind became known around the world when its AI-driven computer programme AlphaZero beat the world's top player of the ancient Chinese board game Go.

A year later, AlphaZero beat the world champion chess programme Stockfish, showing it was not a one-game wonder. It also conquered some retro video games.

The point was not to have fun or win games, but to broaden out the capability of AI.

"It's those kinds of learning techniques that have ended up fuelling the modern AI renaissance," Hassabis said.
Protein power

Hassabis then turned the power he had been building towards proteins.

These are the building blocks of life, which take the information from DNA's blueprint and turn a cell into something specific, such as a brain cell or muscle cell -- or most anything else.

By the late 1960s, chemists knew that the sequence of 20 amino acids that make up proteins should allow them to predict the three-dimensional structure they would twist and fold into.

But for half a century, no one could accurately predict these 3D structures. There was even a biannual competition dubbed the "protein olympics" for chemists to try their hand.

In 2018, Hassabis and his AlphaFold entered the competition.

Two years later, it did so well that the 50-year-old problem was considered solved.

Around 30,000 scientific papers have now cited AlphaFold, according to DeepMind's John Jumper, who shared Wednesday's Nobel win along with US biochemist David Baker.

"AlphaFold has already been used by more than two million researchers to advance critical work, from enzyme design to drug discovery," Hassabis said.

© 2024 AFP

THE LAND OF DE SADE

Could the shocking Pelicot rape trial help to finally change French attitudes to sexual violence?

Katherine Butler, associate editor, Europe
Wed 9 October 2024 

The story of Gisèle Pelicot has mobilised people in France.Photograph: Berzane Nasser/ABACA/REX/Shutterstock

It is the trial that has shaken France to its core, and shocked the world.

Dominique Pelicot, a retired estate agent, is accused of drugging his wife Gisèle and recruiting other men online over nine years to sexually assault her at their home. Pelicot has admitted rape. Fifty other men are on trial for alleged rape alongside him.

But it is Gisèle Pelicot, the victim, who has for many people become the focus of this horrifying story. Thousands have turned out in towns and cities across France to demonstrate in solidarity with her and against “rape culture” in France. Last week, Le Monde published a joint “letter” to Gisèle from four members of parliament, calling her “heroic” and demanding a parliamentary debate on how French law defines rape. Her courage has made her a “feminist icon”, the New York Times said.

Gisèle Pelicot has chosen to refuse the anonymity usually granted in rape cases, and attends the trial sessions in Avignon, in order – she says – to shift the shame and humiliation often faced by victims of sexual violence on to the alleged perpetrators.

Angelique Chrisafis, the Guardian’s France correspondent, has reported on such unspeakably violent events as the Bataclan massacre in 2015 and the Bastille Day terror attack in Nice in 2016. Yet, covering the Pelicot case stood out, she told me, because of the scale of the sexual violence, and because such a trial would normally be held behind closed doors away from the media.

That this case is being heard in public is at Gisèle’s insistence. Why has she fought so hard to have potentially traumatising evidence aired this way?

“Gisèle Pelicot wanted the trial to be public to draw attention to the use of drugs to commit sexual abuse,” Angelique said. “That’s why she called for the lifting of restrictions on the screening of video evidence in the trial. Her lawyer said the ‘shock wave’ of this public trial and public video evidence was necessary to show the true horror of rape. He said for Pelicot herself: ‘It is too late. The harm is done. But if these hearings, through being publicised, help prevent other women from having to go through this, then she will find meaning in her suffering’.”

Angelique, whose podcast Today in Focus interview on the case is worth a listen, explained that the trial is also highly unusual because it can’t rely on the victim’s evidence.

“In most rape trials, the alleged rape would be detailed by the victim’s word against the word of the alleged attacker. But in this case, the victim has no word on what happened because she was drugged and comatose with no recollection. Instead, the main defendant, Dominique Pelicot, has admitted rape and meticulously kept video evidence. It is that video evidence which is crucial – without it there wouldn’t be a trial. So often, in other rape cases, there is no such video evidence.”

The court proceedings have highlighted confusion over what constitutes consent and raised questions about online chatrooms and pornography. Gisèle Pelicot has told the court that she could not have consented as she was in a comatose state.

“Some of the men on trial with Pelicot accept that what they did was rape and have apologised in court. But many argue that they didn’t intend to commit rape, saying they thought Gisèle was pretending to be asleep and that they were pressured into it,” Angelique said. “The courtroom testimony has highlighted how society in general has not yet got a clear understanding of consent. The trial has opened a debate on whether to more explicitly spell out the active need for consent within the law on rape in France.”

***

Ordinary men, monstrous crimes

Could Gisèle Pelicot’s conduct and the extensive media coverage of the case mark a turning point for attitudes in France, and perhaps elsewhere?

“Many French writers have said this case marks the end of a stereotype of the ‘monster’ rapist - or the notion that rapes are only carried out by strangers,” Angelique said. “Instead it has highlighted the dangers women face in their own homes and within marriages or relationships. Some of the accused men had notable jobs in society such as local councillor, nurse, prison warden or journalist.”

Some media have labelled Dominique Pelicot “the monster of Avignon”. But among those people who have turned out to demonstrate on behalf of Gisèle or to applaud her in court, many are appalled by the apparently “normal” profile of the accused men. This is why chants include: “We are all Gisèle,” and “Rapist we see you, victim we believe you.” Angelique noted graffiti in Avignon that read: “Ordinary men, horrible crimes.” In Marseille a banner read: “Shame must change sides,” echoing Gisèle Pelicot’s own words.

And could the case ultimately change how victims of sexual violence are perceived?

“An important aspect of this trial and the feminist icon status of Gisèle Pelicot is that she can be seen in many ways as an irreproachable victim: a grandmother who had no knowledge of the attacks she was subjected to.”

“Yet, as happens with many rape victims in court, some defence lawyers have still questioned her sexuality in court and asked if the men might not have thought she was looking for sexual encounters.”

Angelique added: “Gisèle has said she felt humiliated and under attack in court. That this trial is being held in public has allowed more people to experience how a rape trial is conducted.”

One woman who came to court in support of Gisèle told Angelique that the case was “so beyond comprehension” that she needed to understand it. Her conclusion? “Things have to change.”

Pelicot trial: French court hears how mass rape went undetected for years

Relatives of Gisèle Pelicot, the woman at the heart of a mass rape trial that has shaken France, testified in court on Tuesday about the deterioration they witnessed in Pelicot’s health throughout her almost decade-long ordeal, and the failure to determine its cause. Their accounts shed light on the widespread ignorance of drug-facilitated abuse that allowed the victim’s ordeal to go undetected for years.


Issued on: 09/10/2024 -

Gisèle Pelicot arrives at the courthouse in Avignon on October 3, 2024, for the trial of her former husband and 50 other men accused of raping her while she was unconscious. 

© Manon Cruz, Reuters

By :Louis CHAHUNEAU
FRANCE24


Pelicot’s former husband Dominique, 71, is standing trial in the city of Avignon, along with 50 other men, accused of drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her in a case that has stunned the nation and made headlines around the world.

The affaire Mazan, after the small town in Provence where the couple lived, has been described as many things at once: a trial of warped masculinity and patriarchal domination, of societal indifference to the abuse suffered by women, and of French laws on sexual crimes that critics say omit the notion of consent.

The chilling case has also prompted soul-searching among health workers in France, highlighting doctors’ struggle to detect the signs of drug-facilitated abuse – known in France as “chemical submission”.

“To understand the origin of all this, we would have had to think of the unimaginable,” Joël Pelicot, a doctor and Dominique Pelicot's elder brother, told the court on Tuesday, illustrating widespread ignorance of the use of drugs to prey on women, particularly in cases of domestic abuse.
A court sketch showing Joël Pelicot (centre), the brother of the main suspect in the mass rape trial that has shaken France, at the hearing in Avignon on October 8, 2024. © Benoît Peyrucq, AFP

“But we didn’t think of it,” added the bespectacled doctor, 76, one of several medical practitioners who prescribed an anti-anxiety drug known as Temesta to Gisèle Pelicot, telling the court that “she suffered from bouts of anxiety and had trouble sleeping”.
A common drug

After previously testing a variety of drugs and sleeping pills, Dominique Pelicot began administering Temesta to his wife in 2015, acting on the advice of a nurse he met online. The drugs put his wife into a deep sleep, allowing him to sexually abuse her without her realising.

The pensioner himself had been prescribed Temesta for several years, the court learned on Tuesday, telling his doctor he was experiencing financial difficulties and suffering from anxiety. Prescribing Temesta for patients who suffer from sleep disorders or anxiety is extremely common in France, to the point that pharmacies frequently run out of the drug.

Once he had honed his method, Dominique Pelicot contacted dozens of strangers on the Coco.fr dating website and invited them to rape his sedated wife. To ensure that she remained inert, he gradually increased the doses, to between three and ten tablets a day, which he crushed into her food and drink.

There were warning signs, such as the day Gisèle Pelicot noticed that her beer was a dubious shade of green, but little to suggest the extent of the scheme. In all, nearly 780 Temesta tablets were prescribed by various doctors until 2020, the year Dominique Pelicot was arrested.

Read more‘I was convinced it was a game': Defendants begin testifying at Pelicot rape trial gripping France

The 71-year-old has admitted inviting strangers into their home to rape her. Most of his co-defendants have pleaded not guilty to rape charges, some claiming they believed Gisèle Pelicot was consenting or that her husband’s consent was sufficient.
‘She sounded in a daze’

Throughout her ordeal, the toll on Gisèle Pelicot’s health did not go unnoticed by doctors and relatives, though they failed to understand its cause. Taking the witness stand on Tuesday, her son-in-law Pierre Peyronnet spoke of the family’s concern about her rapidly deteriorating health and of the difficulty in reaching out to her.

“We found it very difficult to get her on the phone, and most of the time it was [Dominique] who answered, explaining that Gisèle was asleep, even in the middle of the day,” Peyronnet told the court. “It sounded plausible because she did a lot, especially looking after the children,” the 52-year-old said.

When they were finally able to speak to her, she “often spoke incoherently and sounded in a daze”, Peyronnet added, accusing his father-in-law of deliberately misleading them.

“We believed [Dominique Pelicot's] perverse argument that it was our fault that her health was deteriorating,” he said. “We even discussed making her come to see us less often, so that she wouldn’t wear herself out. I now understand that the aim was to keep her under his thumb.”

12:09

A mural created by Maca_dessine depicting Gisèle Pelicot and a sentence reading "So that shame changes sides" in Gentilly, south of Paris. © Geoffroy Van der Hasselt, AFP

Gisèle Pelicot consulted a host of doctors over such mystifying symptoms as memory loss and momentary absences, as well as gynecological conditions that included an inflamed cervix. Her husband feigned surprise, taunting her with suggestions she may be having an extra-marital affair.

Consumed by anxiety, Gisèle Pelicot ceased to drive her car or travel alone. Her husband was only caught after three women reported him to the police for trying to use his camera to film up their skirts in a grocery store.
Training doctors to detect ‘chemical submission’

When quizzed about doctors’ failure to piece things together, Joël Pelicot, the brother of the accused, told the court that in medicine, “you only find what you look for – and you only look for what you know”.

In a recent interview with Le Monde, gynaecologist Ghada Hatem, the founder of a pioneering medical facility that caters to women who are vulnerable or victims of abuse, acknowledged that even she knew very little about domestic “chemical submission” before hearing of the Pelicot case.

Since then, special courses on the subject have been set up at the Maison des femmes she founded and at similar facilities, designed to train medical workers to detect the symptoms experienced by victims of drug-facilitated abuse.

In 2022, police registered more than 2,000 complaints involving allegations of “chemical submission”, an increase of 69% on the previous year. However, it is estimated that only 10% of victims lodge a complaint.

The subject made waves in parliament last year when lawmaker Sandrine Josso accused a French senator of spiking her drink with the intent of sexually abusing her. Josso, who led a government-appointed commission on “chemical submission”, told FRANCE 24 last month that she was paying close attention to the Pelicot trial, voicing hopes that it would help raise awareness of what she described as a “blind spot” in the fight against sexual violence.

Gisèle Pelicot, who refused to hold the trial behind closed doors, has herself emerged as a champion of the cause, stating at the start of the proceedings that she would "speak out so that no other woman has to endure chemical submission”.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

 COMMODITY FETISH

Lucian Freud 'masterpiece' fetches £13.9 million at London sale

London (AFP) – A nude by Lucian Freud that took 16 months to paint sold for £13.9 million ($18.2 million) at a London auction on Wednesday, the first time the work, hailed as a "masterpiece," has come to market.


Issued on: 09/10/2024 - 
Lucian Freud's 'Ria, Naked Portrait' took 16 months to paint © BENJAMIN CREMEL / AFP
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Works by the British artist, who died in 2011, have attracted growing interest -- and prices -- in recent years.

"Ria, Naked Portrait" was the star attraction of Wednesday's sale, fetching £11,810,00, rising to £13,891,500 once the buyer's fee is added on.

"It's a late masterpiece," Anna Touzin, from auctioneers Christie's, told AFP. "It was painted between 2006 and 2007 and in the same collection since it was made.

"It's the first time it's coming to the market, which is really exciting."

Freud, considered one of Britain's greatest portrait artists, took 16 months to paint the work, with the subject -- Ria Kirby -- sitting virtually every day for up to five hours.

"So a really long process and I think it shows Freud's relationship with his sitters, the kind of dedication that they would give to him but that he also gave to them, painting them," Touzin added.

Freud's 'Head of a Woman' sold for £4,187,880 

© BENJAMIN CREMEL / AFP

Freud -- the grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud -- is known for his uncompromising nudes and self-portraits, replete with flabby breasts or rounded stomachs.

"He doesn't want to portray an idealised view of the body... he's really trying to paint people as they are," said Touzin.

That has made Freud one of the most sought-after artists on the art market.

In 2022, his "Large Interior, W11" sold for a record $86 million, while in 2015, another nude, "Benefits Supervisor Resting", went for more than $56 million.

The Christie's sale also included Freud's "Head of a Woman", which sold for £4,187,880.

Works by Marc Chagall, Berthe Morisot, Willem de Kooning and Jeff Koons also went under the hammer.

© 2024 AFP

UN warns world's water cycle becoming ever more erratic

Geneva (AFP) – Increasingly intense floods and droughts are a "distress signal" of what is to come as climate change makes the planet's water cycle ever more unpredictable, the United Nations warned Monday.


Issued on: 07/10/2024 - 

A shepherd leads his flock along the dried-up Studen Kladenets reservoir bed in southern Bulgaria in August © Nikolay DOYCHINOV / AFP

Last year the world's rivers were their driest for more than 30 years, glaciers suffered their largest loss of ice mass in half a century and there was also a "significant" number of floods, the UN's World Meteorological Organization said in a report.

"Water is the canary in the coalmine of climate change," WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement accompanying the State of Global Water Resources report.

"We receive distress signals in the form of increasingly extreme rainfall, floods and droughts which wreak a heavy toll on lives, ecosystems and economies," she said.

Saulo said the heating up of the Earth's atmosphere had made the water cycle "more erratic and unpredictable.
Monsoon flooding hit Roshi village in Nepal's Kavre district in September © PRABIN RANABHAT / AFP

Last year was the hottest on record, with high temperatures and widespread dry conditions producing prolonged droughts.

There were also many floods around the world.

These extreme events were influenced in part by naturally-occurring climate conditions including the La Nina and El Nino weather phenomena -- but also and increasingly by human-induced climate change.

"A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, which is conducive to heavy rainfall. More rapid evaporation and drying of soils worsen drought conditions," Saulo said.
Massive glacier melt

Water is either too abundant or insufficient, plunging many countries into increasingly difficult situations.
World Meteorological Organization chief Celeste Saulo © Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP

Last year, Africa was the most heavily impacted continent in terms of human casualties.

In Libya, two dams collapsed due to a major flood in September 2023, claiming more than 11,000 lives and affecting 22 percent of the population, according to the WMO.

Floods also hit the Greater Horn of Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Mozambique and Malawi.

Currently, 3.6 billion people have insufficient access to fresh water at least once a month per year, according to the UN. That figure is expected to rise to more than five billion by 2050.

For the past three years, more than 50 percent of river catchments have been drier than usual.

Meanwhile the inflow to reservoirs has been below normal in many parts of the world over the past half decade.

Rising temperatures also mean glaciers have melted at unprecedented rates, losing more than 600 billion tonnes of water, the worst in 50 years of observations, according to preliminary data for September 2022 to August 2023.

"Melting ice and glaciers threaten long-term water security for many millions of people. And yet we are not taking the necessary urgent action," Saulo said.

Switzerland's glaciers, including the Rhone glacier, shed 2.4 percent of their volume over the past year © Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP

In addition to curbing the man-made greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, the WMO wants the world's fresh water resources to be monitored better, so early warning systems can reduce the damage to people and wildlife.

"We cannot manage what we do not measure," Saulo stressed.

Stefan Uhlenbrook, director of the WMO's hydrology, water and cryosphere department, stressed the importance of investing in infrastructure to preserve water and protect people from hazards.

But he also highlighted the need to conserve water, particularly for agriculture, which uses 70 percent of the world's fresh water consumption.

He warned returning to a more regular natural water cycle would be difficult.

"The only thing we can do is to stabilise the climate, which is a generational challenge," he said.

© 2024 AFP

Call her savvy? Harris unleashes unconventional media blitz

Washington (AFP) – She loves raisin bran and exercise, and is as comfortable talking about abortion as she is about beer. Meet Kamala Harris -- or at least a rather different side that emerged in an unconventional US media blitz this week.


Issued on: 09/10/2024 - 

Kamala Harris has launched a major US media blitz this week 

© Charly TRIBALLEAU / AFP

After weeks of largely avoiding interviews since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, Harris has taken a leaf out of rival Donald Trump's playbook and started speaking to a host of podcasters and friendly outlets.

From the popular "Call Her Daddy" podcast aimed at Gen-Z women to former radio "shock jock" Howard Stern, the 59-year-old vice president has barely been off the airwaves.

It's true that Harris did also sit down for a full-on interview on topics with one of the biggest US news institutions of all, the "60 Minutes" show on CBS — one that Trump himself backed out of.

But it was in less formal settings, which also included Hollywood star Whoopi Goldberg's daytime show "The View" and with the late-night comic Stephen Colbert, where Harris appeared to relish a more relaxed atmosphere.

Her campaign has heavily played up what it says is a way of targeting specific groups of voters, including young people and women, especially as Americans increasingly abandon "legacy" media.

"This plan makes a ton of sense to me," former White House spokesperson Jen Psaki told the left-leaning MSNBC network -- rejecting as sour grapes the complaints by some traditional media that Harris would face softball questions.
'Daddy gang'

Psaki highlighted Harris's appearance on podcaster Alexandra Cooper's "Call Her Daddy" show, which features frank discussions on sex and mental health, saying it was "far more valuable than any interview with a more traditional outlet."

Kamala Harris largely avoided interviews in the first weeks after becoming Democratic nominee © Evelyn Hockstein / POOL/AFP

The podcast was ranked as Spotify's second-biggest of 2023, behind "The Joe Rogan Experience," and the top podcast for women listeners.

Harris's interview with the podcast was a prime example of a more at-ease side of America's first Black, female and South Asian vice president, who has often appeared tense in major interviews.

Asked by Cooper to "tell the daddy gang" about her views, Harris spoke at length on protecting abortion rights and slammed Republican Trump for his sexist comments, saying it was "really important not to let other people define you."

Predictably in a deeply polarized America, there was some backlash against the host, including from listeners who criticized her for bringing politics into the show.

Trump has had similar success with unconventional media, reaching out to a core constituency of disaffected young men with macho messaging on influential right-wing podcasts -- and through an interview and campaign appearances with tech titan Elon Musk.

But Harris has been keen to show she has her own mediasphere on the left.

Former bad-boy Howard Stern hailed Harris on his SiriusXM show on Tuesday as "great" and "compassionate" and urged her to "end this nightmare" by beating Trump -- while Harris spoke about her fondness for raisin bran cereal and exercises while watching a left-leaning morning political show, and how she is a fan of Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton.
'Softball questions'

Trump hit back the next day. "BETA MALE Howard Stern made a fool of himself on his low rated radio show when he "interviewed" Lyin' Kamala Harris, and hit her with so many SOFTBALL questions that even she was embarrassed," he said on his Truth Social network.

Trump has increasingly spoken to right-wing podcasts - and tech titan Elon Musk 

© Jim WATSON / AFP

But Harris faced multiple probing questions on her blitz. Colbert, with whom she shared a Miller High Life beer, pushed her repeatedly on Israel's war in Gaza, while Republicans pounced on Harris for saying on ABC's "The View" that there was "not a thing that comes to mind" that she'd change about President Joe Biden's policies.

Kenneth Miller, a political science expert of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said non-traditional media were increasingly a better way to get policy across to voters.

"Frankly, traditional outlets ask bad questions," he told AFP.

He said Trump and Harris were doing similar things for different reasons.

"Trump is about seeking out friendly outlets," he said, whereas "Harris is about seeking outlets that give her access to the voters that she needs" including under-50s and independents.

"It's a style of media that candidates enjoy," he added.

Two strangely similar remarks by Trump and Harris on Tuesday seemed to bear that out in the middle of a punishing campaign.

"This is my form of therapy, right now," Harris told Stern, just hours before Trump said on a Los Angeles radio station: "You know what this is for me? Therapy."

© 2024 AFP

Harris media blitz aimed at connecting with younger white voters, Trump supporters, expert says


Issued on: 09/10/2024 - 

07:22 Video by:Vedika BAHLFollow|Mark OWENFollow

Vice President Kamala Harris is in the midst of a spree of media appearances - across radio, television and podcasts - as the tight race for the White House ticks ever closer. FRANCE 24's Mark Owen speaks to Dr Renée Carr, a media psychologist and political advisor. She says that Kamala Harris media blitz this week is aimed at connecting with younger white voters and Trump supporters who are questioning his mental fitness.

'It's got to stop': Biden uses national address to shame Marjorie Taylor Greene

'I DON'T CONTROL THE WEATHER'

Sarah K. Burris

RAW STORY
October 9, 2024 

President Joe Biden (Photo: Screen capture via CSPAN video)

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is continuing to spread misinformation about liberals controlling national disasters, and President Joe Biden on Wednesday told her publicly to cut it out.

Speaking in a nationally-televised address with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the leaders pressed those in the path of the Category 4 Hurricane Milton to take it seriously.

Biden then directly hit Greene and former President Donald Trump for lying about FEMA funds and other conspiracy theories

"I want to thank the governors," Biden began. "They stepped up."

Then he quickly pivoted to "all of this disinformation going out about how, you know, we're devoting all of this money to migrants."

Biden cited, "Even one congresswoman suggested that I control the weather, implying that I'm sending it to red states. I mean, stuff off the wall. It's like out of a comic book."

“Yes, they can control the weather,” Greene wrote on X on Oct. 3. “It’s ridiculous for anyone to lie and say it can’t be done.”

"It's beyond ridiculous. It's got to stop," said Biden at another point in his comments.

Biden said that he spoke to FEMA's administrator about Trump's claims that people were getting a check for $750 and that was all they were able to obtain in assistance.

"You lost everything, and you get $750. ... They give you an immediate what you need to get by the next day to get a prescription to get whatever," he said, stating that the amount was to cover desperately immediate needs and not the total amount of assistance the affected individuals can claim.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said that one of Trump's false claims is that FEMA staff on the ground will take people's land, which he was quick to say was not true and that such lies hurt those who are trying to help.

Kamala Harris 'is in control of this hurricane' using 'weather weapons': Alex Jones

David Edwards
October 8, 2024 

Infowars/The Alex Jones Show/screen grab


Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones accused Vice President Kamala Harris of having the ability to control hurricanes through so-called "weather weapons."

Jones kicked off his Tuesday broadcast by promising to explain how he knew the government could control the weather.

"I'm going to be covering today, and I've sent the crew over 20 clips, and I've got over a hundred documents right here," he explained. "I'm gonna do a big presentation for everybody on what's really going on with weather weapons."

Jones claimed to have interviews and government documents that would prove his point.

"Then we have the bold headlines that I put up on X that the Kamala Harris, you know, the Biden-Harris administration is in control of this hurricane," he said of Hurricane Milton.

"So they have the power certified easily with just five or six big aircraft," he opined. "And that's the old technology, not the lasers that are all certified and the Doppler radar. They also have on ships and in large oil drilling platforms that they've launched. They could totally just make this thing stop and dump the water in the ocean."

Jones insisted that the technology to control hurricanes was used before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"And on 9/11, the hurricane was gonna hit," he asserted. "Remember in 2001, but that meteorologists never saw anything like it. It just turned away from the coast went away because that was gonna get in the way of some of the stuff the deep state was up to."

Scientists have said it is currently impossible to control weather events like Hurricane Milton.

Control the path and power of hurricanes like Milton? Forget it, scientists say

Watch the video below from Infowars

.

 

As Hurricane Nears, Port of Tampa Bay's Energy Role Takes Center Stage

File image courtesy Port of Tampa Bay

Published Oct 8, 2024 8:06 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

The impending arrival of Hurricane Milton in western Florida has left residents scrambling to get out of the Tampa Bay region, and in their rush to evacuate, drivers have used up so much gasoline that about 40 percent of service stations in the Tampa area have run dry. State troopers are escorting fuel trucks from the Port of Tampa Bay, home to a major receiving terminal for refined products, to clear traffic and get tanker trucks to retail gas stations - highlighting a little-noticed but critical role that the port plays in Florida's economy. 

According to the Florida Maritime Association, nearly 90 percent of Florida’s refined petroleum products are shipped from refineries in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi aboard Jones Act tankers, making this one of the busiest trade lanes in U.S. coastwise transportation. This critical transport link flows through Port of Tampa Bay, which handles more than 40 percent of the state's petroleum products. 

Courtesy EIA

The Coast Guard has closed the port's shipping channels in advance of the arrival of tropical storm force winds, but the landside operations will continue as long as safely possible, according to the port. Once the storm has passed and the port has reopened, Jones Act vessels are already positioned to offload more fuel for rescue and recovery operations, according to the FMA.

In expectation of significant impacts from Hurricane Milton, Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio (R-FL) have asked President Joe Biden to put extra resources behind the post-storm recovery for Port of Tampa Bay and its 70 miles of shipping channels. The area is known to be vulnerable to storm surge and shoaling, and the senators emphasized the port's critical role in energy transport. 

"In severe hurricane conditions the port and channel could be . . . obstructed by sediment and other storm debris.  The port’s location could also result in some of the most severe storm surge from Hurricane Milton impacting onshore facilities, including petroleum infrastructure," the senators warned. "Long-term disruptions to the port would not only hinder disaster response and recovery, but have lasting consequences for Florida’s economy."

The senators asked the White House to prepare Coast Guard and Corps of Engineers assets to address debris, navigability and emergency dredging needs as fast as possible, and even tap federal resources to repair fuel terminals if they are damaged by the storm. The senators also requested a Jones Act waiver for "maritime modes of transportation" to "facilitate interstate deliveries of petroleum fuel products." 

Florida's elected officials have reason to be concerned about the potential damage. Hurricane Milton is headed east across the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 5 storm, and while it is likely to weaken before landfall, its horizontal extent will likely spread - and its storm surge will be deadly. The most-affected areas - potentially including Tampa - could see a life-threatening surge of up to 15 feet. The center is likely to make landfall along the west coast of Florida on Wednesday night and move across central Florida through Thursday. 

 

Category 5 Hurricane Milton seen from space station

 

Hurricane Milton seen from space station on Oct. 8 in time-lapse

 

Oct 7: New Satellite Video Captures The Eye Of Hurricane Milton

 

Hurricane Milton seen from space station on Oct. 8 in time-lapse

The October Surprise

D. Earl Stephens
October 9, 2024

RAW STORY

Hurricane Milton as seen from the International Space Station (Screen cap via NASA)

This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers

Mother Nature has abruptly slammed upon our shores with an unmatched force and fury as our endless election season mercifully winds down toward its finishing kick, and if you don’t think she’s serious about exposing the Republicans’ reprehensible response to the catastrophic impacts of global warming, I suggest you contact the victims of Hurricane Helene and the looming Milton for a reference.

Because of course it was going to be a woman who put the hammer down and made Americans painfully aware yet again of the very real consequences of our rapidly changing climate, and which political party is interesting in doing something about it, and which one incredibly wants to make its crushing impacts even worse.

If in the choppy wake of these one-after-another terrible storms Democrats are understandably reticent to make this a full-blown campaign issue for fear of sending an insensitive message to the victims of these storms, who are currently hip-deep in mud, misery, and mourning, I sure the hell won’t be.

There is no issue that illustrates the extreme differences between the two governing parties in America more than this one, and depending on which of these parties prevails at the ballot box in fours weeks, will generate a forecast of much-needed hope or extreme worry going forward.

Our media is doing their level best to once again fail the American public by informing them of the glaring difference between the two parties in attacking global warming, but more on that one with a gust in a minute ...

We are in this terrible place precisely because Republicans have done everything in their power to ignore it. Their relentless attacks on the science, facts and inconvertible evidence of the dangers we are facing because of our changing climate have been appalling at best, and incredibly dangerous at worst.

That’s about as lightly as I can put it.

To be sky-blue clear here: Kamala Harris understands the significance of this issue, and the need to act with alacrity, and Donald Trump does not. Or as his third wife, Melania, would say, “I really don’t care, do you?”

Led by former-Vice President Al Gore, Harris and the Democrats have been warning of the dire impacts of global warming for three decades now, while Republicans like Trump have dutifully ignored it at behest of their reprehensible bosses in the fossil fuel industry, who have never seen a pristine ecosystem they won’t dig into and destroy with glee.

Their massive failures to take this problem seriously have turned what has been a horrible problem into a full-blown crisis effecting millions.

Interestingly, and perhaps even more perplexing, there is a decent and increasing slice of Republicans who don’t agree with their party’s brutally stupid and wobbly stance on this critical issue.

According to a landmark study on climate change by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communications late last year, 72 percent of Americans “believe global warming is happening” and only 15 percent don’t. Of the nearly three-quarters of Americans who believe our planet is warming, 58 percent believe that humans are behind it, while only 29 percent of Americans don’t.

So twice as many Americans think we are to blame for the demise of our planet than don’t. That is a significant finding.

From the report:

Majorities of Americans are worried their local area might be harmed by electricity power outages (74%), air pollution (73%), extreme heat (70%), water pollution (67%), droughts (63%), agricultural pests and diseases (63%), flooding (58%), water shortages (56%), tornados (56%), and wildfires (52%). Many Americans are also worried their local area might be harmed by hurricanes (39%), rising sea levels (38%), and reduced snow pack (37%).

If politics are local then this issue resonates throughout an ample cross-section of America, which cuts across any red- or blue-state boundaries. These stunning numbers have been steadily on the rise, and are getting to the point where only the willingly ignorant and/or those who stuff their pockets with cash from the sludge they pull out of the ground are willingly blind to what is happening right in front of their eyes.

Their continued ignorance around the most important issue of our times has been abhorrent, wildly irresponsible, resulted in the needless deaths of thousands of Americans, and if not dealt with in a responsible bipartisan fashion pronto, will be the thing that ultimately finishes us off.

We are now at the point where our active-duty military are being deployed to help the people on the ground who are fighting and losing this war against an undefeated foe.

The good people in western North Carolina who never dreamed they could see their family members and homes vanish due to the impacts of hurricanes are enduring unbelievable hardships right now. Florida, and the moron who inhabits its statehouse, are once again staring down a hurricane packing a storm surge that will swallow an entire one-story house whole.

This is simply not sustainable. Just ask the reprehensible insurance industry in the state, which has made it almost impossible for Floridians to protect their homes. They know the storms are only getting started, and have no answers but to jack up prices so high only the wealthy can afford them …

So what is the Republican plan to help combat the defining issue of our times?

Well, it’s to do everything they can to continue to make it even worse.

In Project 2025, their only known platform heading into this election besides eliminating the fictional illegal immigrants who are eating our suburban pets, there is an entire chapter devoted to their insane plans to throw gasoline on our overheated planet. Here are just some of the gory highlights:

— Withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, and all other formal engagement and collaboration with other countries on the issue.
—Replace civil servants and renowned experts on the subject within our government with rightwing political hacks.
—“Unleashing all of America’s energy resources” by eliminating federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands, curtailing federal investments in renewable energy technologies, and easing environmental permitting restrictions and procedures for new fossil fuel projects such as power plants.
— Eliminating the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service (NWS) and replacing them with private companies, which will do their bidding not ours.
— Moving the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), which handles federal disaster response, from the Department of Homeland Security, to the either the Department of the Interior or the Department of Transportation, which is just insane.
—Multiple rollbacks of policies that have been in place for decades protectingAmericans’ access to clean air, clean drinking water, and protected public lands.

As Kamala Harris said in her very first speech on the campaign trail in Wisconsin I attended back in July, “Can you believe they put all this in writing?”

Worse, no less than six Republican congresspeople from Florida have voted to cut FEMA. You are reading that one correctly.

Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to reconvene Congress to discuss addressing potential funding shortfalls in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

I mean, what kind of ghoul does that?

Instead of taking the repeated warnings seriously, these complete idiots are literally spitting into the 160 mph winds of a hurricane.

And what of our media, which I mentioned above? Why, when it is so damn obvious which party is taking this extreme threat seriously and which one isn’t, aren’t they treating it with the importance it demands?


Americans need to know where the two parties stand. They need to know the Republicans intend to somehow make this tragic situation even worse.

This is the bare minimum our working press should be providing their audiences right now, and they are once again catastrophically failing us.

As I put this piece to bed, Hurricane Milton is bearing down on the Sunshine State packing sustained winds of 150 mph, and sure as I am typing this will flatten a large part of the west coast of Florida in the coming days. Hundreds of thousands of Floridians and people in the adjacent states will have their lives radically changed forever.

Some will die.

With women’s rights hanging in the balance this November, Mother Nature is on the scene right now doing everything she can to shake some damn sense into all of us. She is literally showing us that if Trump and his vile Republicans win in November, we might not survive it.

Just how in the hell is this still a surprise?


D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.