AI-powered drone beats human champion pilots




Swift AI used technique called deep reinforcement learning to win 15 out of 25 races against world champions

Ian Sample 

Science editor

THE GUARDIAN

Wed 30 Aug 2023 16.08 BST

Having trounced humans at everything from chess and Go, to StarCraft and Gran Turismo, artificial intelligence (AI) has raised its game and laid waste world champions at a physical sport.

The latest mortals to feel the sting of AI-induced defeat are three expert drone racers who were beaten by an algorithm that learned to fly a drone around a 3D race course at breakneck speeds without crashing. Or at least not crashing too often.

Developed by researchers at the University of Zurich, the Swift AI won 15 out of 25 races against world champions and clocked the fastest lap on a course where drones reach speeds of 50mph (80km/h) and endure accelerations up to 5g, enough to make many people black out.

“Our result marks the first time that a robot powered by AI has beaten a human champion in a real physical sport designed for and by humans,” said Elia Kaufmann, a researcher who helped to develop Swift.

First-person view drone racing involves flying a drone around a course dotted with gates that must be passed through cleanly to avoid a crash. The pilots see the course via a video feed from a camera mounted on the drone.

Writing in Nature, Kaufmann and his colleagues describe a series of head-to-head races between Swift and three champion drone racers, Thomas Bitmatta, Marvin Schäpper and Alex Vanover. Before the contest, the human pilots had a week to practise on the course, while Swift trained in a simulated environment that contained a virtual replica of the course.

Swift used a technique called deep reinforcement learning to find the optimal commands to hurtle around the circuit. Because the method relies on trial and error, the drone crashed hundreds of times in training, but since it was a simulation the researchers could simply restart the process.

During a race, Swift sends video from the drone’s onboard camera to a neural network that detects the racing gates. This information is combined with readings from an inertial sensor to estimate the drone’s position, orientation and speed. These estimates are then fed to a second neural network that works out what commands to send to the drone.

Analysis of the races showed that Swift was consistently faster at the start of a race and pulled tighter turns than the human pilots. The quickest lap from Swift came in at 17.47 seconds, half a second faster than the fastest human pilot. But Swift was not invincible. It lost 40% of its races against humans and crashed several times. The drone, it seemed, was sensitive to changes in the environment such as lighting.

The races left the world champions with mixed feelings. “This is the start of something that could change the whole world. On the flip side, I’m a racer, I don’t want anything to be faster than me,” said Bitmatta. And as Schäpper noted: “It feels different racing against a machine, because you know that the machine doesn’t get tired.”

A key advance is that Swift can cope with real world challenges such as aerodynamic turbulence, camera blur and changes in illumination, which can confuse systems that attempt to follow a pre-computed trajectory. Kaufmann said the same approach could help drones search for people in burning buildings or conduct inspections of large structures such as ships.

The military has an intense interest in AI-powered drones, but were not convinced that the latest work would have major implications for warfare. Dr Elliot Winter, a senior lecturer in international law at Newcastle Law School, said: “We must be careful not to assume that advancements such as these can easily be transplanted into a military context for use in military drones or autonomous weapons systems which are involved in critical processes such as target selection.”

Alan Winfield, a professor of robot ethics, said while AI had “inevitable” military uses, he was unsure how the latest work could benefit the military beyond perhaps having flocks of drones that follow a plane in close formation.

Kaufmann was similarly sceptical. “Almost all drones are used in wide-open battlefields and are either used for reconnaissance or as weapons against slow-moving and stationary targets,” he said.

Patients have better outcomes with female surgeons, studies find


Differences in technique, speed and risk-taking suggested as reasons for surgery by men leading to more problems

Ian Sample 

Science editor

THE GUARDIAN
@iansample

Wed 30 Aug 2023


People who are operated on by female surgeons are less likely to experience complications and need follow-up care than when males wield the scalpel, according to two major studies that suggest male surgeons have important lessons to learn.

Doctors in Canada and Sweden reviewed more than 1m patient records from two separate medical registers and found that patients seen by female surgeons had significantly better outcomes with fewer problems in the months after the operation.

The researchers are investigating potential reasons for the differences, but the records suggest that female surgeons tend to operate more slowly and may achieve better results by taking their time in the operating theatre.

Dr Christopher Wallis, who led one of the studies at Mount Sinai hospital in Toronto, said the findings should prompt male surgeons to reflect on their approach to surgery and learn from female colleagues for the benefit of their patients. “As a male surgeon, I think these data should cause me and my colleagues to pause and consider why this may be,” he said.


Female surgeons frustrated by male-dominated field – study

Wallis’s team looked at medical complications, readmission to hospital, and death rates after surgery in nearly 1.2 million Ontario patients between 2007 and 2019. The records included 25 different surgical procedures on the heart, brain, bones, organs and blood vessels.

The analysis, reported in Jama Surgery, showed that 90 days after an operation, 13.9% of patients treated by a male surgeon had “adverse post-operative events”, a catch-all term that includes death and medical complications ranging from problems that require further surgery to major infections, heart attacks and strokes. The equivalent figure for patients seen by female surgeons was 12.5%.

Patients seen by female surgeons fared better one year after surgery too, with 20.7% having an adverse postoperative event, compared with 25% of those seen by male surgeons. When the doctors looked purely at deaths post-surgery, the difference was even starker: patients treated by male surgeons were 25% more likely to die one year after surgery than those treated by female surgeons.

A second study of 150,000 patients in Sweden, also published in Jama Surgery, paints a similar picture. Dr My Blohm and colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm reviewed patient outcomes after surgery to remove the gallbladder. They found that patients treated by female surgeons suffered fewer complications and had shorter hospital stays than those treated by men. The female surgeons operated more slowly than their male colleagues and were less likely to switch from keyhole to open surgery during an operation.

Blohm said that, as with all observational studies, the results should be treated with caution, but the findings suggest that surgical technique and risk-taking might explain some of the differences observed. “In some countries there is a general belief that male surgeons are superior to female surgeons,” she said. “Interestingly, most previously published studies indicate that female surgeons are at least as good as male surgeons, or as in this case even slightly better.”

Wallis said there were “numerous lessons” to learn. “Men and women differ in how they practise medicine. Embracing or adopting some practices that are more common among female physicians is likely to improve outcomes for my patients,” he said. “Since undertaking this work, I have certainly done this personally and would encourage my colleagues to do the same: use this as a moment for introspection.”

Beyond attracting more women to surgery, Wallis said there was a need to “evolve” surgery to ensure it better retained women and promoted them to positions of influence. “There is a wealth of data that we have a so-called leaky pipeline with diminishing numbers of women in senior positions,” he said.

In an accompanying editorial, Prof Martin Almquist at Skåne University hospital in Sweden writes: “The fact that female surgeons had operations with fewer complications but longer operation times suggests that the Navy Seal mantra ‘slow is smooth, and smooth is fast’ also applies to surgery.”

The racist Florida shooter’s ideology extends to ordinary people

It’s not just extremists who hold the views expressed in his manifesto

Jason Stanley
Wed 30 Aug 2023

On Saturday, Ryan Palmeter, a 21-year-old gunman, entered a dollar store in Jacksonville, Florida, and killed 52-year-old Angela Carr, 19-year-old AJ Laguerre Jr, and 29-year-old Jerrald Gallion. All three victims were Black Americans. This shooting comes on the heels of an even larger mass shooting of Black Americans last year, in Buffalo, New York, where 18-year-old Payton Gendron murdered 10 people.

In less than two years, two young white men have committed two mass murders of Americans motivated by an explicit desire to kill Black people.

Ron DeSantis’s Florida is a dangerous and hostile place for Black Americans

In the manifesto Gendron published online, which revealed in detail his motivations and thinking, the very first goal he listed was “kill as many blacks as possible”. None of Palmeter’s three manifestos have been revealed to the public. We have been told by police that they reveal “a disgusting ideology” that tries to justify the irrational hatred of another group, and this ideology of hate is certainly disgusting when it tries to justify the kind of mass killing Palmeter committed. Yet describing Palmeter’s ideology this way, as accurate as it may be, also incurs a risk. Few ordinary people think of themselves as sympathetic to “a disgusting ideology of hate”, even when it bears a close resemblance to a view they themselves possess.

Ideologies don’t kill people. But they do motivate people to kill. Some ideologies lend resentful and angry individuals a justification for mass killing. But ideologies have also motivated perfectly ordinary people into participation, active support or deep complicity in mass atrocity. The view that Black people are naturally subordinate to white people was once widespread in the United States. It justified a system of almost inconceivable brutality, in which whippings and rape were normalized for centuries. It was held by many ordinary people.

Gendron’s manifesto laid out his ideology clearly and consistently, in the question-and-answer style that has become a hallmark of this genre:

Are you a fascist?

Yes, fascism is one of the only political ideologies that will unite Whites against the replacers. Since that is what I seek, calling me a fascist would be accurate.

Are you a white supremacist?

Yes, I would call myself a white supremacist, after all, which race is responsible for the world we live in today? I believe the White race is superior in the brain to all other races.

Are you racist?

Yes I am racist because I believe in differences of capabilities between races.

Gendron’s ideology is white supremacy, which he believes to be under threat from higher birth rates among non-white people. Gendron also thinks that identifying as transgender is a mental illness, and that gender fluidity is a plot by Jews to subvert the west (AKA white civilization). According to Gendron, critical race theory is a (Jewish) plot “to brainwash Whites into hating themselves and their people”. We have been told that the Jacksonville killer also harbored anti-LGBTQ+ and antisemitic views.

Aside from these, something very close to Gendron and Palmeter’s ideology is held by many people today. The idea that white people face athreat of replacement by non-white people is behind the brutal treatment of immigrants in Europe and the United States, including the tolerance of mass drownings on the borders of Europe, family separations in the United States and the widespread denial of food and water to small children on borders. It emerges in the mass incarceration of Black Americans, the lack of action on the vast racial wealth gap and the militarized police force Black Americans often face. Gendron and Palmeter’s ideology is recognizable in the harshness and violence towards gender fluidity, and in the bans on critical race theory and Black history. It is, also, increasingly tied to the reemergence of antisemitism, as Jews, in racist ideology, tend to be viewed as those behind movements for racial equality, as well as intolerance of sexual minorities. As has been increasingly clear in recent years, on the individual level it also justifies murdering non-white people.

Ron DeSantis’s Florida recenters the world through the lens of an America defined by whiteness and Christianity. Through this lens, it certainly does appear that America is under threat by non-white mass immigration. Critical race theory is indeed a threat to such a perspective, as is an education that also allows a Black perspective on US history, or one that normalizes LGBTQ+ citizens. It is a politics that has justified DeSantis’s treatment of immigrants as things. More recently, DeSantis has essentially suggested shooting migrants even suspected to be drug smugglers – here, he connects immigrants to crime, and uses that connection to justify killing some of them on sight.skip past newsletter promotion

Payton Gendron also justified his mass killing in Buffalo by connecting Black Americans to crime. It is not unreasonable to see, in the spate of mass murders of Black Americans, an all too predictably violent echo of Florida’s own emerging ideology.

Jason Stanley is professor of philosophy at Yale University, and the author, most recently, of How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them

Why did tourists keep coming as Rhodes and Maui burned? It’s about far more than denial

As the world heats up, we need to confront what our urge to travel is really rooted in – and rethink it

Moya Lothian-McLean

Wed 30 Aug 2023 


While Rhodes burned, tourists kept flocking in. Homes were being turned to ash, thousands of holidaymakers were being evacuated, and still the visitors came. In the wake of the Hawaii wildfires, which have killed at least 115 people, the island of Maui experienced the same phenomenon.

These images played on my mind as I set off on my own holiday abroad a week later. They niggled at me as I fumbled my way through Turkish thank-yous and waited dutifully in line to see Istanbul’s Blue Mosque. Why did they do it? There were partial explanations available: a lack of funds to book alternative trips, the lingering question of whether refunds would be issued, the quest to escape the grim British summer. But none of these felt enough to explain why people would walk towards the flames – why they’d put their lives and welfare at risk for a holiday.

Clearly there was a compulsion that went deeper than simply sun-seeking. And even though this particular crop of tourists – willingly heading into a climate disaster zone – were taking that impulse to the extreme, it was likely that same invisible hand was guiding my travels too.

Why do we travel? Maui residents told media of their horror at seeing tourists “swimming in the same waters our people died in”. Surely, that level of compartmentalisation in dogged pursuit of a particular experience goes beyond the pursuit of “leisure”? That’s certainly the view of the anthropologist Dean MacCannell. His 1976 book The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class argues that in a post-industrial, increasingly secular world, travel occupies a ritualistic space. Modern western societies are defined by the “freedom” they offer us – but, he writes, this is accompanied by feelings of fragmentation and alienation. Sightseeing in far-off locales is, MacCannell observes, “a way of attempting to overcome the discontinuity of modernity, of incorporating its fragments into a unified experience” (albeit one “doomed to eventual failure”, he cheerily adds). How? Leisure travel gives us perspective, it makes us feel connected to history, and helps connect personal experience with other cultures, people and places – making us feel less isolated. Tourism gives us a sense of selfhood and purpose.

Added to this is the framing of travel as an “authentic” experience in an inauthentic world; a dichotomy that has only become more stark over time. Travel offers one-off experiences; things we can only do in one place. Modern life is marked by its impossible and contradictory obsession with the “authentic”, as any lifestyle marketing bod will testify to. We see travel, rather than our everyday existence, as the portal to “finding ourselves”.

I was reading The Tourist, and its dissection of how various attractions are marked out as important sites of pilgrimage, while I planned my days navigating Istanbul’s own “must-sees”. It may have been published in the 70s, but it feels more relevant than ever. My generation in particular have embraced travelling internationally for “leisure” as almost a right, rather than a luxury; a response I suspect is motivated in part by the “traditional” markers of adulthood and self-actualisation (house ownership, lifelong career, 2.5 children) becoming either more unattainable or less appealing.

As MacCannell perceived almost 50 years ago, there is a moral superiority attached to the well-travelled, too. Those who stay at home have failed to “break the bounds of their everyday experience and beg[un] to ‘live’”. Yet this belief that international travel will always expand our mental horizons – especially given the proliferation of commercialised and sheltered touristic experiences wherever you go – doesn’t bear much scrutiny. A friend spoke recently of an acquaintance who’d returned home after a thrilling world tour, only to exclaim their disgust at the sight of a “tramp” begging on their local streets.

As the climate crisis intensifies, the moral aspect of travel becomes even harder to defend. International travel may give us, as individuals, a sense of connection and purpose within the maelstrom of modernity. But how can we square engaging in ritualistic pilgrimage to Giza’s pyramids, or the hot air balloons of Cappadocia, with a keen awareness of just exactly what mass tourism means for the very sites we have been taught to worship?

Tourism is responsible for 8-10% of annual global CO2 emissions. The rise of cheap flights opened up access to international travel, and yet is surely no longer sustainable. Meanwhile, pandemic-induced shutdowns showed that wildlife around tourist hotspots, at least can, and will, regroup if given half the chance.

We need a substantial and widespread shift in both understanding why we travel – beyond simply “for leisure” – and unpicking our feelings of personal entitlement to the self-actualisation and connection we expect to find in far-flung places.

As my home city of Athens burns, I can only watch in amazement as sunseekers fly in

Helena Smith

This is horribly hard. I don’t want to scale back my ambitions to see the world on a whim. I want sunset epiphanies while sitting in Lycian amphitheatres; to hear the toucan’s call in Costa Rica and to inhale as much mansaf as humanly possible after finally seeing the marvels of Petra with my own eyes. In my heart of hearts, I believe that it’s how I will find myself.

This is why the tourists pile out of airports as acrid black smoke still chokes local countryside: service to the self. But shelving that self is the only way out – and perhaps would lead us back towards more collective forms of organising society that don’t require us to go on such quests in the first place. The problem is, that would require us to cut back, stay home more, forgo cheap travel in favour of pricier and slower overland international routes, or more local excursions. And when luxury has been repackaged as basic human need, who’s going to give that up?

This article was amended on 30 August 2023. An earlier version said that the Hawaii wildfires had killed “hundreds”; to clarify the current total is at least 115 people.

Moya Lothian-McLean is a contributing editor at Novara Media

Rare 'blue supermoon' to rise Wednesday night

By Brian Lada, Accuweather.com

The last blue moon rises behind One World Trade Center and the Manhattan skyline shorty after sunset on October 31, 2020. 

Photo by John Angelillo/UPI |

The last full moon of summer will be the best of the entire season as stargazers witness a rare celestial sight -- one that hasn't been seen in nearly three years.

A blue moon will appear Wednesday night with moonlight so bright that it may cast shadows.

Despite its nickname, the moon will not emit a blue glow. Instead, the nickname means that it is the second full moon in a calendar month. Most recently, a blue moon occurred on Oct. 31, 2020, and another one will not rise until May 31, 2026.

Wednesday night's full moon will also be a supermoon -- the biggest and brightest of the entire year, according to EarthSky.

Every full moon this summer is a supermoon, appearing slightly bigger and brighter than a normal full moon. However, this week's will be even bigger and brighter than the rest -- although the difference will be nearly imperceptible to the human eye.

The nicknames will create the viral sensation of "blue supermoon."

After this week, the next full moon will not rise until Sept. 29, six days after the autumnal equinox ushers in the start of astronomical fall.

Onlookers may also spot Saturn hanging next to the supermoon throughout the night. The duo will rise in the eastern sky after sunset and will slowly traverse the southern sky throughout the night before setting in the west around daybreak.

The moon's gravitational pull is responsible for the tides on Earth, and during a supermoon when it is closer to the planet, it can have a slightly stronger influence.

As Hurricane Idalia hits Florida, the unusually high tides could exacerbate the storm surge, resulting in more flooding and higher water levels along the coast.

Study: Global wetlands, coral reefs 'hanging by a thread' as sea levels rise


A study published Wednesday in the journal Nature said coastal wetlands and coral reefs are "hanging by a thread" as global warming raises sea levels. Pictured is Australia's great Barrier Reef as seen from space. Photo courtesy of NASA | License Photo

Aug. 30 (UPI) -- A study published Wednesday shows rising sea levels are endangering coastal wetland and coral reef ecosystems that are unlikely keep pace with the "drowning" effects of sea-level rise.

"Collectively, these are among the most valuable ecosystems on the planet. For example, the world's fisheries depend to a significant extent on the health of coastal wetlands and coral reefs," co-author Tulane University geology Professor Torbjörn Törnqvist said in a statement about the study in the journal Nature.

These coastal wetlands and coral reefs depend heavily on whether global warming can be contained to less than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius), the study said.

"This shows the importance of the Paris Agreement that aims to keep warming within 2 °C and ideally 1.5 °C," Törnqvist said. "Clearly, this would make a huge difference for coastal ecosystems.

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"However, right now we are on track for 2.4 to 3.5 °C of warming by the end of this century, so a change of course is desperately needed. And this would have to happen very quickly."

Researchers found that if warming is below that temperature these coastal ecosystems will likely survive by 2100, but if the temperature rise is greater than 3.6 degrees F, there "will likely be widespread collapse."

The study found that coastal marshes, mangroves and reef islands "are unlikely to keep pace with rates of sea-level rise that exceed about one quarter of an inch (7 millimeters) per year. This rate is likely to occur by 2100 in most parts of the world in the absence of major efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

Already, though, sea level rise higher than a quarter of an inch has been seen along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Previous Tulane research has shown that the current rate rising sea levels could "drown" marshlands in Louisiana, and possibly other areas along the Gulf Coast, in about 50 years.

The study was done by an international team led by Neil Saintilan at Macquarie University, with researchers at other Australian universities, as well as co-authors from Singapore, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Törnqvist focused primarily on developing new methods to determine wetland vulnerability to sea-level rise in the geologic past, with funds from the National Science Foundation.

US Labor Department rule seeks to provide 3.6M low-paid salary workers overtime pay

Acting Labor Sec. Julie Su said low-paid salary workers work side by side with hourly employees and their salaries don't currently compensate them for overtime hours. 

FPhoto by Chris Kleponis/UPI |

Aug. 30 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Labor Wednesday proposed a new overtime rule guaranteeing overtime pay for 3.6 million workers low-paid salaried workers.

The proposed overtime rule would both restore and extend overtime protections for workers earning less than $1,059 a week, roughly $55,000 per year, who often find themselves exempt from the existing overtime rules despite low pay due to their "management" status.

"For over 80 years, a cornerstone of workers' rights in this country is the right to a 40-hour workweek, the promise that you get to go home after 40 hours or you get higher pay for each extra hour that you spend laboring away from your loved ones," Acting Secretary Julie Su said. "I've heard from workers again and again about working long hours, for no extra pay, all while earning low salaries that don't come anywhere close to compensating them for their sacrifices."

So the new rule would extend overtime protections to 3.6 million more salaried workers who are currently exempt from overtime rules.

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According to the Labor Department, the new rule better identifies which employees are executive, administrative or professional employees who should actually be exempt from overtime regulations.

"Many low-paid salaried employees work side-by-side with hourly employees, doing the same tasks and often working over 40 hours a week," the Labor Department Wednesday statement said. "But because of outdated and out-of-sync rules, these low-paid salaried workers aren't getting paid time-and-a-half for hours worked over 40 in a week."

The proposed rule would better ensure that these low-paid salaried workers who are not exempt " will gain more time with their families or receive additional compensation when working more than 40 hours a week."

Overtime protections would also be restored to U.S. territories under the proposed new rule, returning to how it was between 2004 and 2019 when overtime regulations covered U.S. territories where the federal minimum wage was applicable.

The proposed rule defines and delimits overtime exemptions for executive, administrative, professional, outside sales, and computer workers.

Overtime protections for U.S. workers are included in the Fair Labor Standards Act. The law requires "overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek at a rate not less than time and one-half their regular rates of pay."

Chess prodigy accused of cheating with vibrating sex toys settles legal fight


 A defamation legal battle regarding Hans Niemann, a teenage chess prodigy, who was accused of using vibrating sex toys to cheat during a tournament in Missouri last year reached its conclusion Monday.

 File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo


Aug. 29 (UPI) -- A defamation legal battle regarding a teenage chess prodigy accused of using vibrating sex toys to cheat during a tournament in Missouri last year reached its conclusion Monday.

Hans Niemann, 19, defeated the Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen, 31, in a chess match that led to accusations -- including from other chess grandmasters -- that he had cheated, according to a lawsuit obtained by UPI. The lawsuit was filed against Chess.com, Carlsen and others.

"Shortly after those events, Chess.com privately closed Niemann's account and published an investigative report about Hans Niemann's play," Chess.com said in a statement Monday. Chess.com, the leading platform for online gameplay, had suspended Niemann after the accusations were made.

"Since June, both sides have negotiated privately in a good-faith effort to resolve their issues and allow the chess world to move forward without further litigation. We are happy to share that all sides have reached an agreement," Chess.com said in the statement.

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The statement noted that each entity involved has its own "opinions about the events surrounding the controversy and they agree they should each be able to talk openly about their views."

Chess.com said it has fully reinstated Niemann, affirming that there has been "no determinative evidence" that he cheated in any in-person games.

The organization published a statement from Carlsen in which the grandmaster acknowledged the lack of evidence Niemann cheated in last year's Sinquefield Cup matchup.

"I am willing to play Niemann in future events, should we be paired together," Carlsen said.

Niemann said in a statement that the lawsuit had been resolved "in a mutually acceptable manner" and said he looked forward to returning to Chess.com.

"As Hans returns to Chess.com, he will be allowed to play in any and all events, and will be treated no differently from any other player," the organization said.

"Chess.com always retains the right to open and close accounts based on our judgment, and we take that stewardship seriously."

The lawsuit also involved the American chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura who also implied in several comments on Twitch that Nieman may have had a history of online cheating.

However, it did not appear to include Canadian grandmaster Eric Hansen's Twitch feed ChessBrah, archived by Twitter users, in which he alleged that Niemann had used sex toys to cheat.

Instead, the lawsuit primarily focused on Carlsen who Niemann alleged "viciously and maliciously retaliated" against him for defeating him.

"Carlsen's unprecedented actions, coupled with his unfounded accusations, sent shock waves through the chess world and instantly thrust Niemann into the center of what is now widely reported as the single biggest chess scandal in history," the lawsuit reads.

"Due to his unparalleled stature and influence in the chess community, Carlsen knew that the public would believe his accusations of cheating against Niemann, even though Carlsen had no legitimate basis to believe Niemann actually cheated against him."

In the end, the lawsuit says, experts have concluded that Carlsen lost the match because of his particularly poor play rather than any exceptional play by Niemann.

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JOLTS job report on hires, quits points to a labor slowdown



Fewer people are quitting their jobs and the number of new openings are on the decline as the Fed battles lingering inflation with aggressive rate hikes meant to cool the broader economy. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Fewer people quit their jobs and the number of new job listings declined for the third straight month in July, suggesting a degree of economic cooling, government data published Tuesday show.

Job openings declined to 8.8 million on the last business day of July, a decline of around 338,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary. That's fewer than expected and comes amid a trove of data pointing to a slowdown in the broader economy.

Job openings declined in professional services, social assistance and in government jobs, with services showing the bulk of the slowdown. Job openings increased in transportation, warehousing and utilities. Despite the modest decline, job openings are at their lowest rate in nearly two years.

The number of people who left their jobs voluntarily, a barometer of confidence in the broader market, declined 253,000 to 3.5 million in July. Most of those people quitting their jobs were in hospitality or food services.

Fewer people looking for another job suggests confidence in the market is eroding. And with a wave of strike action, most recently from members of the United Autoworkers Union, the decline in the number of quits may be ominous amid concerns about missing a paycheck.

The number of people fired or laid off was statistically even from June levels, data show.

From mortgage applications to a slump in manufacturing, the economy is showing signs of slowing down. The Federal Reserve last week hinted that more rate hikes may be necessary to cool things further if inflation remains above the 2% target rate.

"Job openings remain high but are trending lower," Fed Chair Jerome Powell said. "Payroll job growth has slowed significantly. Total hours worked has been flat over the past six months, and the average workweek has declined to the lower end of its pre-pandemic range, reflecting a gradual normalization in labor market conditions."

Giant inflatable ducks make a mysterious return to Maine harbor


Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Giant inflatable ducks have returned to a Maine harbor for the third consecutive year -- and this year there are three of them.

The first mysterious giant duck, in the shape of a massive yellow rubber ducky toy, appeared in Belfast Harbor in summer 2021 and bore the word "Joy" on its chest.

A larger duck, labeled "Greater Joy," appeared in the harbor the following year, and made headlines when it became unmoored and floated all the way to Islesboro.

Both "Joy" and "Greater Joy" have now returned to the harbor, along with a third, even larger, inflatable labeled "Greatest Joy."

The origin of the ducks remains a mystery, but they have the support of local officials. The Belfast Area Chamber of Commerce celebrated the return of the ducks in a Facebook post.

Scott Smith, operations manager for the Belfast Area Chamber of Commerce, said officials do not know who has been setting up the ducks and taking them down under cover of night for the past three summers.

"I guess that's the interesting part," Smith told the Bangor Daily News. "We've been scratching our heads this whole time waiting for someone to come forward and say, 'It's me. You're welcome.'"

The Belfast harbor manager's office said officials do not know who owns the ducks and they are not concerned about the presence of the unusual visitors because they do not interfere with the navigation channel.