All posts tagged: scramble

The MAGA scramble to defend Mark Robinson

The MAGA scramble to defend Mark Robinson

Published by skeptic

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Mark Robinson is pointing a finger at artificial intelligence amid the recent revelations about disturbing comments he allegedly made on a porn site. Robinson, the lieutenant governor of North Carolina who is now the GOP’s gubernatorial nominee, suggested that the comments in which he apparently called himself a “black NAZI,” yearned for the restoration of slavery, and enjoyed reading Mein Kampf could have been artificially generated. “Look, I’m not going to get into the minutiae about how somebody manufactured these salacious tabloid lies,” Robinson told CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski, who broke the original story. “But I can tell you this: There’s been over $1 million spent on me through AI by a billionaire’s son who’s bound and determined to destroy me. The things that people can do with the internet now is incredible,” Robinson insisted. “But what I can tell …

Brazil authorities scramble to get aid to flooded south amid forecasts of more rain

Brazil authorities scramble to get aid to flooded south amid forecasts of more rain

Published by Sam

Teams in flood-ravaged southern Brazil scrambled Tuesday to deliver humanitarian aid to Porto Alegre and other inundated municipalities, where queues formed for drinking water as forecasters warned of more downpours. Issued on: 08/05/2024 – 03:00 3 min The worst natural calamity ever to hit the state of Rio Grande do Sul has claimed at least 95 lives, with 372 people reported injured and 131 still missing, according to the civil defense force that handles disaster relief. “The tolls continue to rise and unfortunately we anticipate that they are still very inaccurate because the emergency is continuing to develop,” said Governor Eduardo Leite. Nearly 400 municipalities have been hit, including state capital Porto Alegre, with more than 160,000 people forced to leave their homes as streets have transformed into rivers after days of record-breaking rain. Porto Alegre is home to some 1.4 million people and the larger metropolitan area has more than double that number. The state’s Guaiba River, which runs through Porto Alegre, remained at historic high levels Tuesday, and officials said five dams were …

Black holes scramble information – but may not be the best at it

Black holes scramble information – but may not be the best at it

Published by skeptic

Previously, physicists theorised that black holes are the fastest possible scramblers of information MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Alamy When two quantum objects interact, all the information they carry becomes scrambled. Now, physicists have calculated a fundamental limit for how quickly this can happen. One striking example of information scrambling happens in black holes, says Victor Galitski at the University of Maryland. When objects fall into these super-dense bodies, some of the information they contain reemerges in the black hole’s emitted radiation – but in a highly scrambled form. In fact, physicists have theorised that black holes… Source link

Smethwick fire LIVE: Huge blaze engulfs building as over 50 firefighters scramble to scene | UK | News

Smethwick fire LIVE: Huge blaze engulfs building as over 50 firefighters scramble to scene | UK | News

Published by skeptic

West Midlands Fire Service has issued a statement after a former cinema complex caught fire in Smethwick. It read: “We received calls around 1.34pm on 5 May 2024 reporting smoke issuing from a building on Windmill Lane, Smethwick. “A total of 12 fire crews are currently in attendance at this incident, which involves a fire in a commercial property, formally a cinema complex.  A hydraulic aerial platform is also at the scene. “There is severe smoke logging to the premises and crews are working to locate and tackle the fire. “West Midlands Police are also in attendance, road closures around the incident are likely, but not confirmed at this time. Please avoid the area where possible. “Due to smoke in the area, local residents and businesses are asked to close their doors and windows as a precaution.” Source link

Mold explosion LIVE: Huge blast rips through chemical factory as firefighters scramble | UK | News

Mold explosion LIVE: Huge blast rips through chemical factory as firefighters scramble | UK | News

Published by skeptic

Firefighters have rushed to the scene after “eight or nine” huge blasts ripped through a chemical factory in North Wales.  North Wales Police are urging locals to stay away and to keep their windows and doors shut after the massive fire broke out at Synthite in Mold, Flintshire. The force said in a post on social media: “Due to an ongoing incident at Synthite in Mold can all residents in the Mold area please keep their doors and windows closed.” THIS IS A LIVE BLOG. FOLLOW BELOW FOR UPDATES.  Source link

Cities scramble to find trees that will survive

Cities scramble to find trees that will survive

Published by skeptic

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. Last fall, I invited a stranger into my yard.  Manzanita, with its peeling red bark and delicate pitcher-shaped blossoms, thrives on the dry, rocky ridges of Northern California. The small, evergreen tree or shrub is famously drought-tolerant, with some varieties capable of enduring more than 200 days between waterings. And yet here I was, gently lowering an 18-inch variety named for botanist Howard McMinn into the damp soil of Tacoma, a city in Washington known for its towering Douglas firs, bigleaf maples, and an average of 152 rainy days per year. It’s not that I’m a thoughtless gardener. Some studies suggest that the Seattle area’s climate will more closely resemble Northern California’s by 2050, so I’m planting that region’s trees, too. Climate change is scrambling the seasons, wreaking havoc on trees. Some temperate and high-altitude regions will grow more humid, which can lead to lethal rot. In other temperate zones, drier springs and hotter summers are disrupting annual cycles of growth, damaging root systems, and rendering any survivors more vulnerable to pests. The …

Macron and Scholz scramble to create new ‘EU defence club’ | World | News

Macron and Scholz scramble to create new ‘EU defence club’ | World | News

Published by skeptic

In the wake of escalating global tensions and looming conflicts, France and Germany are seeking to strengthen European defence cooperation by making it easier for EU countries to collaborate on defence projects. President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz are leading this effort, focusing on reducing administrative hurdles and avoiding fruitless projects. The two countries have proposed creating a “club of the willing and able” among EU governments, where member states work together on identifying and developing defence projects. This concept led to the launch of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), designed to foster collaboration on various defence projects such as troop mobility, cyber, and land warfare. Despite its ambitious goals, PESCO has encountered significant challenges, with limited success to date. Of the initial 68 projects launched under PESCO, four were abandoned due to lack of progress or relevance, and over half will not yield tangible results before 2025. According to Berlin and Paris, PESCO “does not translate into increased strategic relevance and is lacking political attention.” The slow pace of development and the burdensome …

The college financial-aid scramble – The Atlantic

The college financial-aid scramble – The Atlantic

Published by skeptic

This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. An attempt to simplify federal financial-aid forms led to a bureaucratic mess. That may shape where students go to college—and whether they enroll at all. First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic: A Botched Rollout Even under the best conditions, applying to college is rarely easy. But this year, the process became an extraordinary source of stress for many American families when the planned rollout of a simplified Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form devolved into a series of delays and website glitches that left students in limbo. The plan to simplify the FAFSA process has been a few years in the making: In 2020, as part of a massive spending bill, Congress ordered the Department of Education to create a shorter version of the FAFSA form; the new application reduces the maximum number of …

Haitians scramble to survive, seeking food, water and safety amid gang violence

Haitians scramble to survive, seeking food, water and safety amid gang violence

Published by skeptic

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti —  As the sun sets, a burly man bellows into a megaphone while a curious crowd gathers around him. Next to him is a small cardboard box with several banknotes worth 10 Haitian gourdes — about 7 U.S. cents. “Everyone give whatever they have!” the man shouts as he grabs the arms and hands of people entering a neighborhood in the capital of Port-au-Prince that has been targeted by violent gangs. The community recently voted to buy a metal barricade and install it themselves to try to protect residents from the unrelenting violence that killed or injured more than 2,500 people in Haiti from January to March. “Every day I wake up and find a dead body,” said Noune-Carme Manoune, an immigration officer. Life in Port-au-Prince has become a game of survival, pushing Haitians to new limits as they scramble to stay safe and alive while gangs overwhelm the police and the government remains largely absent. Some are installing metal barricades. Others press hard on the gas while driving near gang-controlled areas. The …

‘Bad for business’: Gulf states scramble to avert wider war

‘Bad for business’: Gulf states scramble to avert wider war

Published by Sam

DUBAI: Gulf states are grappling with the widening Middle East conflict as hostilities between Iran and Israel threaten their security and ambitious plans to reshape their economies. Leaders of the resource-rich Gulf monarchies engaged in a rapid round of diplomacy after last weekend’s Iranian drone and missile strikes on Israel raised the spectre of a regional conflagration. The desert countries lie across the Gulf from Iran, placing them on the doorstep of the latest crisis after months of tensions generated by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. US military facilities are scattered around the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, and Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have both faced previous attacks on oil facilities by Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels. The Gulf countries share an “overall realisation that conflict is bad for business and avoiding conflict comes now almost at any cost”, said King’s College London Middle East analyst Andreas Krieg. On Monday (Apr 15), Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, spoke to the Iranian president about the “need to reduce all forms of …