Ukrainian chess grand master and girlfriend found dead in Russia after ‘inhaling laughing gas’

Deaths come days after Bogdanovich faced criticism for playing in Russian team against Ukraine

Vincent Wood @wood_vincent

Bogdanovich, once the world number eight in high-paced Blitz chess, was ranked 31st in Ukraine before his death ( Youtube/Школа чемпионов )


A Ukrainian chess grandmaster once ranked eighth in the world and his teenage girlfriend, who also played professionally, have died. Investigators claimed the pair may have choked to death after inhaling nitrous oxide.

Stanislav Bogdanovich, 27, and 19-year-old Alexandra Vernigora, both from the Odessa region, were found dead in their adoptive home of Moscow, according to industry publication Chess-news.ru.

The couple, who had been together for a year, were initially claimed to have been found alongside balloons used to inhale the gas, which is legally available in the country.

However Russian broadcaster Ren TV, citing Russian investigators, later said the couple had been found with bags over their heads.

The supply of nitrous oxide, also known as laughing gas, was outlawed for recreational purposes in the UK in 2016 – however, the death rate associated with its use is relatively low. Between 2010 and 2016, 25 people were confirmed to have died as a result of inhaling the gas in Britain.

Investigators reportedly said there was no evidence of foul play.

Read more

Russian figure skater wears concentration camp uniform costume

It comes after Bogdanovich faced criticism for his decision to play for Russia against his home nation of Ukraine in an online team chess event, provoking anger and annoyance among his fellow Ukrainians.

Saying he was only doing “what is best for business”, he added: “I am now in Russia. It would be ugly as a guest to speak out against those who provide a warm welcome. This is just a tribute.”

“I believe that in this way I have made a modest contribution to the peace between our countries. It is time for us to shy away and stop this feud. Perhaps, if each of us only played for Russia one at a time, then any conflict would already be over.”

However the decision, and his explanation, continued to face criticism in Ukraine. Anatoliy Hrytsenko, the nation’s former defence minister, wrote on Facebook five days before his death that Bogdanovich’s actions had been “callous”.

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Influencer's Dry Ice Pool Stunt At Birthday Party Leaves Three Dead, Including Husband

A pool party in Russia ended in a tragedy after three people died and seven rushed to the hospital due to the elevation of carbon dioxide levels in the blood.

A pool party in Russia ended in a tragedy after three people died and seven were rushed to the hospital due to the elevation of carbon dioxide levels in their blood. According to reports, famous social media influencer Ekaterina Didenko and her husband Valentin Didenko were hosting a party for the former's birthday when the incident took place. As per reports, three people were killed after Ekaterina's husband unloaded 25 kg of dry ice into the swimming pool to create a dramatic visual effect intended to impress guests at the party. Ekaterina's husband was among the three people who died at the party.
Mishap at birthday party

Two other guests, Natalia Monakova and Yuri Alferov were also reportedly killed in the incident as it is believed that they were in the swimming pool when the dry ice was poured released. Ekaterina later shared the news with her followers on social media where she said that 'Valya is not with us anymore' referring to her husband Valentin Didenko. According to reports, Ekaterina is a mother of two and a popular Instagram blogger with over one million followers. Ekaterina is a highly qualified pharmacist and gives medical advice to her followers. She also offers tips on keeping medicines at home for personal use. 

Dry ice is a solid form of carbon dioxide and it is used primarily as a cooling agent. While generally not very toxic, the outgassing from it can cause hypercapnia, which abnormally elevates carbon dioxide levels in the blood, if used in a confined environment or a poorly ventilated space. As per reports, the Russian Investigative Committee has launched a criminal case into the matter for causing death by negligence. Didenko recently celebrated her husband's 32nd birthday where she thanked him for providing technical support for her channel and being the brains behind her success.

International Women’s Day: This is why sex workers are striking in London

This is the third year that sex workers will be marching on International Women's Day. Sophie Gallagher speaks to them about what they want to achieve by walking the capital's streets


On a Sunday afternoon Juno Mac would normally be trying to get work. The 30-year-old, who has worked in the sex industry for ten years as an escort, a stripper and a brothel worker says she has to make herself available “around the clock” in order to secure enough work to pay her bills and ensure she has a stable income. But on 8 March, Mac is going on strike for 24 hours and will spend her day marching through central London with thousands of other women.

This is the third year that the strippers and sex workers branch of the United Voices of The World (UVW) union have gone on strike and joined the International Women’s Day march, which ends in Soho Square. They are calling for the full decriminalisation of sex workers and recognition of rights like sick pay, pension provision and a guaranteed basic pay.


Although buying and selling sex is legal in England and Wales, most activities associated with the transaction are still illegal; soliciting in a public place, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel and pimping are all criminalised. For a first-time offence of street solicitation a woman can be fined up to £500.

[Sex workers] have to work enough to get the job security that is denied to them by their employers and the state,” explains Mac. “I’ll be marching to highlight the inadequate working conditions faced by sex workers in this country, namely that they are forced to work in illegal and therefore dangerous ways by the law.”

Mac says by downing tools it draws attention to their “struggle as workers”. “The criminalisation of our workplaces and clients destroys access to help and justice when we are targeted for violence. Theres no reason any sex industry job should be allowed to be a place of exploitation just because it’s been that way for a long time.

“By striking we want to make lawmakers understand the damage created when you criminalise the survival strategies of marginalised people – they will be abused by bosses or clients, they might be locked into a cycle of selling sex to pay off unaffordable fines, closed off from other jobs, they could lose their homes or children.”

Cleaning toilets, raising babies and cooking food is often seen as low value work..."

She says that to "add insult to injury” many more women are now being forced to turn to sex work in order to survive the Conservative policy of austerity that followed the 2008 financial crash, which has been blamed for life expectancy stalling for the first time in a century and even reducing for women in some regions. “Austerity has taken away their other options,” she says.

Mac says this is a particularly pertinent feminist issue because it disproportionately affects women, queer people, migrants, people of colour and disabled people. “It’s for this reason that decriminalisation of sex work is an issue that the international Women’s March community should be given it’s attention to,” she says.

Shiri Shalmy, an organiser at the union branch for sex workers and strippers, who will also be marching, tells The Independent that activism, like the strike, is starting to have a positive impact on the ground. 

Juno Mac/Flickr

On Friday the union was informed that two employment tribunals, where they had proposed that women in London strip clubs should be legally recognised with worker status, not independent contractors, were successful. “On Sunday we’ll definitely be celebrating this as well as calling for more progress in this area,” she says.

Not only are they calling for legal change, but Mac and Shalmy say, they want a cultural shift in how women’s work is perceived – and not just that of sex workers.

“Sex workers know that the way their work is devalued resembles the disrespect given to other labour traditionally done by women,” says Mac. “Cleaning toilets, raising babies and cooking food is often seen as low value work – or even not real work at all, but society would collapse without this essentially reproductive labour done in the home."

Women's March 2020: in photos
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Shalmy says: “We want to recognise all forms of unrecognised work that women do. We are going to stop cooking, stop caring for the children, stop having sex with men for one day and see the impact.”

Recent surveys suggest UK support for the sex worker rights movement is at an all time high: a 2019 poll found 49 per cent of Brits are in favour of decriminalising brothel-keeping (currently punishable by up to seven years in prison) and 44 per cent think sex workers should not face prosecution for street solicitation.


Between 2015 and 2018 there were 186 prosecutions and 174 convictions for brothel-keeping offences according to the study’s analysis of Home Office figures. Some 54 per cent of these prosecutions were against women defendants.

On Sunday the women will join hundreds of others to walk the streets of London calling for change to these laws. Shalmy says the march brings together migrant women, trans women, undocumented women and “all the women the white patriarchy deem to not fit the definition of a ‘good woman” in order to demand their work is valued and paid fairly.

“As a group of people whose presence is often merely tolerated, with poorly concealed distaste, it feels amazing to take up so much space,” says Mac. “And I hope other supporters turn out to march with us [because] someone they know is a sex worker, whether they realise it or not.”

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'Zero-empathy' Trump shows lack of emotion when told about 8-year-old boy's family being killed in tornado
James Crump, The Independent•March 6, 2020



Donald Trump has been filmed showing “zero empathy” for an 8-year-old boy during a meeting with families of Tennessee tornado victims.

The US president met with the families on Friday in the town of Cookeville as part of a trip to see the devastation caused by this week’s tornadoes.

As Trump stood in front of destroyed homes he spoke to the press about an 8-year-old boy who was carried away from his family home by a tornado, only to land alive two blocks away.

“An 8-year-old boy was ripped out, flown to a certain area and dropped off at the street two or three blocks away and they found him walking and he said ‘I just flew in the air,” said Trump in the Fox News video.

After asking ”how did his parents do?” and being informed the boy’s parents and sister had died in the storms he relayed that information to the crowd before moving on by saying “So we’re gonna go see some of the folks.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME???
Trump while visiting tornado victims in TN tells a story about a boy being carried by the tornado, like it’s the greatest thing he’s ever heard! Then he asks about the parents....People tell him they’re dead along with his sister. No emotion, NOTHING! Idiot! pic.twitter.com/0ZqaQN2OzS

— Mystery Solvent (@MysterySolvent)

March 6, 2020

No condolences were expressed from the president. Twitter user @mysterysolvent expressed disbelief at the way he acted.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Trump while visiting tornado victims in TN tells a story about a boy being carried by the tornado, like it’s the greatest thing he’s ever heard! Then he asks about the parents....People tell him they’re dead along with his sister. No emotion, NOTHING! Idiot!”

User @nightlypolitics echoed that statement accusing Trump of having zero empathy.

“Watch Zero-Empathy Trump Get Excited Over Tornado Deaths, ‘A Whole Family Got Wiped-Out!’ Wow what a pig” they tweeted​.​


Watch Zero-Empathy Trump Get Excited Over Tornado Deaths, ‘A Whole Family Got Wiped-Out!’

Wow what a pig https://t.co/dfsLDO3vce

— The Resistance 🇺🇸 (@NightlyPolitics)

March 6, 2020

Wearing a hat emblazoned with “Keep America Great” Trump told the crowd at Cookeville that federal aid to help support the affected areas would be arriving “very quickly.”

“What they need. We are going to take care of what they need.” said Trump when asked about when they should expect the funding he had earlier approved.

After speaking to the press, Trump met with local families where he was applauded by some, with one man telling him "We're a big family. We support you." according to the video.

Grindr’s China Owner Sells Gay App for $600 Million

Zheping Huang

BloombergMarch 7, 2020

(Bloomberg) -- The Chinese owner of gay dating app Grindr has reached a deal to offload one of the world’s largest LGBT social platforms, a year after U.S. regulators pressed for disposal over national security concerns.

Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. said in a Friday filing to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange that it has agreed to sell its 99% stake in Grindr LLC to San Vicente Acquisition LLC for about $608.5 million. The deal needs the approval of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., better known as CFIUS, which required the Chinese firm to unwind its purchase of Grindr, according to the filing.

The sale underscores a growing concern in the U.S. that Beijing could use Chinese tech companies as a tool to amass sensitive data on millions of American citizens. The U.S. watchdog has also begun a review of ByteDance Inc.’s 2017 purchase of the business that became TikTok, a viral mini-video app.

Kunlun bought a majority stake in Grindr for just $93 million in 2016, and acquired the remaining shares two years later. Prior to the CFIUS inquiry, the Chinese firm was planning an initial public offering for the app overseas.

Boeing’s New CEO Regrets Blasting Predecessor as Backlash Grows

Julie Johnsson and Anders Melin Bloomberg March 7, 2020

(Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co. Chief Executive Officer Dave Calhoun said he regretted berating his predecessor in an interview with the New York Times this week, backtracking almost immediately from a harsh critique that rattled employees of the embattled planemaker.

“I am both embarrassed and regretful about the article,” Calhoun wrote in a message to senior executives at the company, referring to a story that appeared March 5. “It suggests I broke my promise to former CEO Dennis Muilenburg, the executive team and our people that I would have their back when it counted most.”

The about-face suggests an attempt at damage control just two months after Calhoun took over as CEO following a decade of service on Boeing’s board. The new boss’s first extensive print interview as CEO left many inside Boeing dumbfounded and angry, said current and former employees. The article spread like wildfire both inside the company and among the wide network of Boeing alumni, and a stunned “wow” was a common response, one of the people said.

A veteran of General Electric Co. and Blackstone Group Inc., Calhoun, 62, is one of only a handful of outsiders to ascend to the top job at Boeing. His chiding of Muilenburg and other executives were especially meaningful given the setting: a leadership center outside of St. Louis that was modeled on GE’s famed Crotonville campus north of New York.

“Regarding Dennis, he is a friend, and I was personally invested in his success -- and still am,” Calhoun wrote a day later in the memo, which was viewed by Bloomberg News. “I explicitly stated to the reporters that I helped select the leadership team I have on the field and that they had my full support. I gave names. This discussion failed to make it into the story.”

‘Pot of Gold’

Calhoun has pledged to be transparent and to move decisively in steering Boeing out of one of the worst crises in the company’s century-long history, two fatal crashes of its 737 Max that killed 346 people. He didn’t mince words in the interview with the New York Times.

Muilenburg made bets that were too risky, including pushing jet production rates to record heights, Calhoun told the newspaper. That ended up damaging relationships with customers, regulators and suppliers, he said.

“If anybody ran over the rainbow for the pot of gold on stock, it would have been him,” Calhoun said of Muilenburg. The array of issues he now must deal with “speaks to the weakness of our leadership,” Calhoun said.

Given Calhoun’s status as a longtime board member, his comments potentially give plaintiffs’ attorneys and victims’ families leverage by validating some of the most damaging allegations against Boeing. Calhoun may also have opened himself to being hauled before Congress to explain just how much worse the situation at Boeing is than he knew when he was chairman or lead director.

Damaged Credibility

“It was damaging to his credibility and the company,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with Teal Group. “Saying your predecessor was motivated by ‘gold’ to cut corners? That’s as damaging as it gets.”

The harsh rebuke was probably a calculated move by Calhoun to distance himself from previous decisions and clear the runway for Boeing’s recovery, said Gene Grabowski, a partner at crisis communications firm kglobal, in comments before the apology. Trouble is, it strained credulity.

For a decade, Calhoun had been among the most outspoken and influential directors on Boeing’s board, one of the people said. Calhoun was lead independent director before replacing Muilenburg as chairman last year, and his opposition was enough to kill company initiatives. Years ago, Calhoun had been in the running to replace Jim McNerney as Boeing CEO. Instead, Muilenburg got the nod.

“It’s a risky strategy,” Grabowski said. “Because of his long tenure on the board, Calhoun surely must have had a good idea of what was going on inside the company. If he didn’t, he would have been negligent.”

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The Desert Town That’s Home to U.S. Drones and People Smugglers
Katarina Hoije Bloomberg March 7, 2020


(Bloomberg) -- Moctar raised his right hand above his head and from an almost impossible height poured hot tea into a glass as he recounted his latest trip to Libya transporting migrants seeking to make the hazardous Mediterranean crossing to Europe.

The 72-hour journey across the border from Niger to Libya was perilous, with the list of potential dangers including attacks by bandits and Islamist militants to the more mundane of crashing into sand dunes or simply running out of gas. Luckily he reached his destination.

He then stuffed his Toyota Hilux with pasta, canned tomatoes, sugar, flour and cooking oil for sale back home. It was one of dozens of such excursions Moctar, 30, has made over the years from Agadez, a sprawling cluster of low, sand-colored compounds huddling in the desert of northern Niger. Now it’s also the front line of both Europe’s anti-migration efforts and the fight by U.S., French and African forces against the spread of Islamist militancy.

Increasingly, Moctar, who is not being identified in full because of the nature of his work, and other smugglers are finding times tough because of the crackdown on trafficking by the Nigerien authorities in cooperation with European nations. Sometimes he turns to smuggling the opioid tramadol, which is popular in neighboring Nigeria.

“The trafficking of migrants continues, the only difference is now sometimes I fill up the car with drugs, mostly tramadol, when I can’t find enough migrants,” he said. “If you’re taking the risk of breaking the law, there’s no point holding back. You might as well go big, at least that’ll make it worth the risk.”



Agadez’s role as a hub for trans-Saharan trade dates back centuries — from salt caravans in the 15th century to illicit convoys of migrants.

“People here live off migrants, it’s how we feed our families,” said 38-year-old Andre, who’s been driving migrants from Agadez, a city of about 100,000 people, to southern Libya since 2007, but these days struggles to find work. “The authorities treat us like criminals when we are just trying to do our job. I know at least two dozen people who have become bandits for lack of work.”

Today Agadez is playing a new role in the region as home to Air Base 201, where American forces target insurgents affiliated to al-Qaeda and Islamic State in cooperation with the French military throughout the Sahel, an arid area on the southern fringe of the Sahara. The expanded U.S. profile in the region was highlighted in 2017 when four American soldiers died in an ambush in Niger.

“With Mali and Burkina Faso having lost control of large swaths of territory and the presence of the jihadists’ bases, the risk is that they link battlefields across the Sahel,” said Frank Van der Mueren, head of the European Union’s civilian capacity-building mission in Niger, known as EUCAP Sahel Niger.

Niger is now seen by the Europeans as a strategic partner and a “lock on the door’’ for security in the Sahel, he said.

The Nigerien authorities passed a law in 2015 that made trafficking in migrants a criminal offense and reinforced border patrols. A quarter of the 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) in aid the EU has provided Niger over the 2017-20 period has gone to policies to curb migration.

The Nigerien measure followed an agreement between African and European leaders to a common approach to address the root causes of migration amid a surge of arrivals by sea and on land at the EU’s external borders, with more than 1 million asylum seekers and migrants trying to reach EU member states that year.

In 2018, the EU border control authority Frontex opened its first Risk Analysis Cell on the continent in Niger’s capital, Niamey, about 950 kilometers (590 miles) southwest of Agadez.

The efforts appear to be working. In 2018, illegal crossings on the Niger route plunged by 80% to 23,000, the lowest number since 2012, according to Frontex.

At the same time, migration has now picked up along a western route through Morocco, and prompted smugglers to forge new, more dangerous routes through its eastern neighbor Chad, the European Council on Foreign Relations said in an October 2019 policy brief.



And some of Niger’s tougher measures on migration have fueled concerns that they’re worsening security.

“The largely military approach has pushed the traffic underground and reinforced criminal networks, including the militias in Libya and some terrorist groups,” said Mohamed Anacko, the president of Agadez’s regional council.

Competition over drug trafficking routes between ethnic militias in the tri-border area between Niger, Chad and Libya further risks destabilizing northern Niger.

“The situation in Libya boosts the development of transnational border crime and the circulation of arms that reinforces the armed actors and feeds into the conflicts across the Sahel,” said Niger’s interior minister, Mohamed Bazoum. “The conflict in Libya is fuel on the fire.”

The exploration of new gold deposits and oil with the construction of a $5 billion oil pipeline by the China National Petroleum Corp., from the Agadem fields in northeastern Niger, brings its own risks. Small-scale gold mining is an increasingly important source of revenue for jihadists operating in the Sahel, including Niger.

In northern Niger, most people live off farming, construction work, seasonal migration to Libya and the migrants who still pass though. At one point, young men left to fight with the rebels in Libya, until the spread of Islamic State made the situation there too dangerous.

Until 2015, migration-related activities contributed as much as $100 million per year to the regional economy around Agadez, according to the International Crisis Group, citing local authorities in a recent report. At one point, the industry was estimated to support more than half of the households in the town.

Authorities managed local conflicts by turning a blind eye to former ethnic Tuareg rebels-turned-smugglers running unofficial travel agencies and moving people, gold, drugs and pasta across the desert. Travel agents made as much as $5,000 a week, employing drivers, cooks, guards and coaxers who picked up migrants from bus stops and brought them to so-called ghettos, or migrant housing, in town.

Today, they’ve seen their revenue dwindles.

Dealing with illegal migration by banning the movement of contraband goods and people could be counter-productive, said William Assanvo, an analyst with the Institute for Security Studies in Dakar, Senegal.

“In some areas, contraband and illicit activities is simply the way in which people are making an income and how the economy is structured,“ Assanvo said.

The U.S. drone base hasn’t been much help, either. For a few months in 2017, Agadez residents were bused to the base to help elongate the airstrip for the armed drones that started taking off last year. When that was done, the offers of work quickly dried up.

“First, the tourists stopped coming,” said Surajh Rabiou, a craftsman selling jewelry and wooden carvings near the town’s mosque. “Then Europe decided to shut down migration, so we lost that income too. Now the American troops are here, but they don’t buy my jewelry like the tourists used to do.”

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Gulf of Alaska cod losing sustainability certification label

The Canadian PressMarch 7, 2020

KODIAK, Alaska — Shoppers will no longer see a blue-sticker label on Gulf of Alaska cod after its sustainability certification is suspended starting in April.

The label designates which fish are sustainably caught.

Alaska's Energy Desk reported Friday that the Marine Stewardship Council, which sets standards for sustainable fishing, will suspend the label starting April 5.

“What the MSC certification really does is along the supply chain it allows for there to be traceability,” council spokeswoman Jackie Marks previously told Alaska's Energy Desk. “And at the end of the supply chain, allows that product to have the MSC blue fish label on it signifying to consumers that it has been caught sustainably.”

Gulf of Alaska cod have had the certification for about 10 years. The impacts of losing certification are unclear.

An independent audit found there were not enough young cod entering the gulf fishery, which led to the suspension. But auditors blame a climate change-caused heatwave from 2013 to 2016 for reducing gulf cod by more than half and pushing them to near-overfished status last year.

“GOA Pacific cod stock and fishery continue to be extremely well managed and monitored,” the report said.

“We believe that responsible management should be rewarded and hope this unfortunate situation will be a catalyst for the MSC program to make changes to address future scenarios such as this,” Alaska Fisheries Development Foundation executive director Julie Decker said in a statement Friday.

In January, Marks said distinguishing climate change-caused fishery suspensions is worth taking another look at, though no actions have been taken yet.

The Gulf of Alaska previously accounted for as much as 25% of the state's cod market, but after the crash, gulf cod now make up less than 10%, according to the foundation.

The majority of the state’s cod — sold fresh or frozen, and processed for foods like fish and chips — comes from the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands fisheries. Both remain MSC-certified.

The Associated Press

Record Winter Warmth Is Raising Pressure on Forecasters

Jonathan Tirone Bloomberg March 7, 2020

Record Winter Warmth Is Raising Pressure on Forecasters

(Bloomberg) -- Record winter warmth around the globe has raised pressure on weather forecasters from utilities and financial markets that depend on models to work out the economic impact of climate change.

Abnormally high temperatures led to billions of dollars of lost revenue for energy producers, which have curtailed fuel supplies because everyone from homeowners to heavy industry didn’t need as much heat as usual. Europe was particularly affected with temperatures some 3.4 degrees Celsius (6.1 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal. Those extreme variations are sharpening the focus on the systems meteorologists use to predict seasonal patterns weeks or even months in the future.

“Our work is becoming more and more relevant,” said Alberto Troccoli, who heads the World Energy and Meterology Council and is developing new forecasting tools with companies including Enel SpA and the National Grid Plc in the U.K. “Demand has always been driven by climate, but there’s even more scope now to examine how production is impacted by climate change.”

This year’s unprecedented winter heat was capped last month by the second warmest February on record both in Europe and globally, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. The European Union program uses billions of measurements from satellites, ships, aircraft and weather stations around the world for its monthly and seasonal forecasts and found that the current winter is the warmest on record.

“This was a truly extreme event in its own right,” Copernicus Director Carlo Buontempo said in an emailed statement. “Now more than ever, the role of Copernicus is becoming more important” as “these sorts of events have been made more extreme by global warming.”

Copernicus seasonal weather models performed pretty well heading into this winter. Utilities and power producers checking the outlook in November would have seen there was a 70% chance of higher-than-normal temperatures in northern Europe and a 90% probability around the Mediterranean basin. Other forecasters saw it differently, expecting that cold air from the Arctic would flow down into Europe as it usually does. Both AccuWeather Inc. in Pennsylvania and Maxar, a Maryland-based commercial forecaster, predicted this year’s winter would be colder than the last one, suggesting that U.S. heating costs would likely be elevated.

“Our models are not perfect but they give you a good indication,” said Troccoli, who runs the Copernicus energy operational service the provides tools to analyse the role that climate plays in energy supply and demand. The seasonal weather model run by Copernicus has been refined over three decades to ensure accuracy to “a pretty good extent,” he said.

Troccoli is an Italian scientist who published “Weather & Climate Services for the Energy Industry” last year. Now, he’s mapping new data sets to show how monthly changes in atmospheric pressure systems impact economic activity.

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With painted faces, artists fight facial recognition tech

The Canadian Press March 8, 2020

With painted faces, artists fight facial recognition tech

LONDON — As night falls in London, Georgina Rowlands and Anna Hart start applying makeup. Instead of lipstick and eyeliner, they’re covering their faces with geometric shapes.

Rowlands has long narrow blue triangles and thin white rectangles criss-crossing her face. Hart has a collection of red, orange and white angular shapes on hers.

They’re two of the four founders of the Dazzle Club, a group of artists set up last year to provoke discussion about the growing using of facial recognition technology.

The group holds monthly silent walks through different parts of London to raise awareness about the technology, which they say is being used for “rampant surveillance.” Other concerns include its lack of regulation, inaccuracy and how it affects public spaces.

Some 19 people attended the most recent event in the East London neighbourhood of Shoreditch, and anyone can take part in the walks, in which participants have to paint their faces in a style called CV Dazzle.

The technique, developed by artist and researcher Adam Harvey, is aimed at camouflaging against facial detection systems, which turn images of faces into mathematical formulas that can be analyzed by algorithms. CV Dazzle - where CV is short for computer vision - uses cubist-inspired designs to thwart the computer, said Rowlands.

“You're trying to kind of scramble that by applying these kind of random colours and patterns,” she said. “The most important is having light and dark colours . So we often go for blacks and whites, very contrasting colours , because you’re trying to mess with the shadows and highlights of your face.”

A similar technique was used extensively in World War I to camouflage British naval ships and confuse opponents about the actual heading or location of the ships.

To test that their designs work, they use the simple face detection feature on their smartphone cameras.

“I can see that I’m hidden, it’s not detecting me,” Rowlands said, checking her phone to see her face doesn't have a square around it.

The rise of facial recognition technology is being tested and spreading in developed democracies after aggressive use in some more authoritarian countries like China.

Britain has long been used to surveillance cameras in public spaces to counter security threats, and London is ranked as having one of the world’s highest concentrations of closed-circuit television cameras. But that acceptance is being tested as authorities and corporations increasingly seek to deploy a new generation of cameras with facial recognition technology while activists, lawmakers and independent experts raise concerns about mass surveillance, privacy, and accuracy.

Opposition to algorithmic surveillance is not limited to Britain. Russia activists were reportedly arrested last month for holding a similar face paint protest over Moscow’s facial recognition cameras. Hong Kong pro-democracy activists routinely use face masks in street protests to hide their identities. Rights groups in Serbia and Uganda have opposed government projects to install Chinese-supplied cameras.

Other designers have come up with countermeasures like sunglasses that reflect infrared light to blind cameras.

“There is a movement of resistance against facial recognition that we are actively participating in and we want to kind of further initiate,” said Rowlands.

Rowlands, Hart and two other artists founded the Dazzle Club in August, following news that London’s King’s Cross district — a busy transport hub where many big offices are being built rapidly — had quietly experimented with live facial recognition cameras without public knowledge or consent, sparking a backlash.

London police recently started using live facial recognition cameras on operational deployments. Last week officers arrested a woman wanted for assault after the cameras picked her out of a street crowd on a busy shopping street. Police say new technology is needed to keep the public safe and images of innocent people are deleted immediately.

Public attitudes to facial recognition technology in Britain appear to be mixed, according to one survey last year, which found most people said they don’t know enough about it but nearly half said they should be able to opt out.

The Dazzle Club’s founders say they’re worried about the effect that the technology has on people in public if cameras are collecting their biometric data — facial images — without clearly explaining what’s being done with it.

“We’re having to adjust our behaviour in public space in a way that I think is problematic,” said Hart.

___

Read more AP stories on developments in technology at https://apnews.com/apf-technology

Kelvin Chan, The Associated Press

Child care, education, housing at heart of affordability fears, Morneau told
The Canadian Press March 8, 2020


Child care, education, housing at heart of affordability fears, Morneau toldMore


OTTAWA — Finance Minister Bill Morneau was told weeks into the Liberals' second mandate that Canadians are most worried about affordability in areas where governments have a lot of power over prices — particularly child care.

The Canadian Press obtained the November presentation through the Access to Information Act.

Though wage growth has stayed ahead of inflation over the past 15 years, officials told Morneau that the costs of "highly visible items" like child care, education, and prescriptions have surged faster.

The documents note that "differences in policy prioritization" among provinces have led to wide gaps in affordability and access to child care.

Morneau was also provided policy options, but the recommendations were not released because officials say they are sensitive government advice.

The federal finance minister is weeks away from delivering his first budget of the Liberal government's minority mandate, which he has said will prioritize climate change and easing Canadians' worries about the cost of living.

Officials wrote that there is an argument to invest more in child care because of its connection to increases in women's ability to work, and incomes.

The budget is supposed to include details on a Liberal campaign promise to create 250,000 before- and after-school care spaces. Combined with a pledge to cut fees by 10 per cent, the Liberals estimated the measures would cost $535 million a year.

The presentation can be seen as making a case for more government action in areas where costs are determined by public policy, said David Macdonald, senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Unlike the prices of things like clothes and gasoline, which move

"In that sense, affordability isn't something the market can help with. Instead of getting government out of the way, we need to get it in the way of rising costs for Canadians," said Macdonald, who studies the cost of child care in Canada.

Macdonald co-wrote a report in 2017 that surveyed child-care costs across the country. Although prices depend on the age of the child, spaces cost about $1,000 a month on average.

But the variation was huge among provinces: in Quebec, where the government subsidizes child-care very heavily, median fees were under $200 a month; in Toronto, a space for a pre-schooler cost $1,212 a month and one for an infant was $1,758 a month.

There are also expectations the budget will increase the value of the Canada Child Benefit for children under age one, a pledge the parliamentary budget officer estimated would cost $252 million in its first year.

Garima Talwar Kapoor, policy and research director at Maytree, an anti-poverty foundation, said child benefits are critical to increasing family incomes, but it is less clear how much they address child-care costs.

"If I were in government and were trying to address the child-care affordability challenges that families face, I'd ask whether further investments in child benefits ... alleviate child care concerns, or whether systemic responses to child-care spaces are needed," she said.

Inflation in housing costs has stayed just behind median wage growth, helped by "downward pressures from falling interest rates" that have lowered the cost of ownership, the presentation said.

Costs remain high in many cities owing to a shortage of places to buy or rent, though.

Finance officials calculated Toronto is the most unaffordable city in Canada, followed closely by Vancouver, in an analysis that compared average weekly wages in 12 cities once adjusting for the cost of living in each place.

Elsewhere in the country, there are "uncertain and regional effects of policy response on jobs and cost of living" when it comes to the federal approach to environmental concerns.

Looking ahead, about one-quarter of people nearing retirement might not have enough money to pay for their golden years, notably those without workplace pension plans, the document says. Meanwhile, even the expanded Canada Pension Plan may not "fully offset the decline in private pension coverage, leaving workers more exposed to risk."



If people aren't saving on their own for retirements, that might eventually reduce tax revenues coming into the federal treasury and increase money going out through old-age security payments, said Jennifer Robson, an associate professor of political management at Carleton University in Ottawa. That would be tough on the federal budget.

She said it's not clear whether an expansion of the Canada Pension Plan — by raising benefit amounts but also premiums over time — will be enough.

"Government can actually do quite a lot for people at the bottom end who don't have pensions," Robson said, "but the ones that they tend to think about are the ones in the middle."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 8, 2020.