BANGKOK/BHUBANESWAR, India: On a hot, humid afternoon on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar in eastern India, construction worker Sabitri Mahanand frets about increasingly “dangerous” summers. Carrying over a dozen bricks on her head, she fears getting sunstroke while at work, but home offers no respite either.
“When the day’s work is over, I’m so exhausted that I often don’t want to cook food but I have no choice,” said Mahanand, 35, wiping the sweat from her face with a cloth wrapped around her waist. “I have to feed myself, my husband and my son.”
The ancient city of Bhubaneswar is the capital of Odisha state — one of the few parts of South Asia that has a heat emergency plan.
Odisha’s government departments have been asked to put in place measures in anticipation of heat waves this summer.
The world has already experienced three record-breaking hot years in a row, and the rising global temperature could have profound effects for health, work and staple food supplies for hundreds of millions of people, climate scientists told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The poor in urban slums in developing nations are particularly at risk, they said, while solutions to cool homes and bodies that do not hike climate-changing emissions remain elusive.
Even if the world is able to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — a goal set by governments in Paris in 2015 — by 2050, around 350 million people in megacities such as Lagos in Nigeria and Shanghai in China could still be exposed to deadly heat each year, according to a recent study by British researchers.
Estimates from the Institute for Social and Environmental Transition-International (ISET-International) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), both based in Colorado, are even higher. By mid-century, some 300 million Indians and Bangladeshis in the lower Ganges Valley alone will lack sufficient power to run electric fans or air conditioning to combat rising temperatures, they predict.
Fawad Khan, senior economist with ISET-International — which has conducted studies on heat stress, when the body absorbs more heat than is tolerable — describes heat as a “silent killer” and the world’s “biggest impending climate-related hazard.”
“First, your quality of life is going to deteriorate. You don’t feel well, your children don’t perform well at school, your physical and mental ability is affected,” he said.
“The husbands work all day and come back tired and cannot sleep, children cry because it’s too hot, and women say they have more domestic quarrels. These things take a huge toll, and they’re immeasurable,” he said.
Heat index
Contrary to popular perception, temperature alone is not the best indicator of heat stress, and the heat index — a measure that combines temperature and humidity — is more useful, scientists said.
Humidity should be taken into account because it limits the body’s ability to cool via sweating, said Tom Matthews, a climatologist at Liverpool John Moores University in England who contributed to the UK research paper.
A 2014 study conducted by ISET-Pakistan looked at two of the largest hospitals in two Pakistani cities, and found heat stroke was occurring not in the hottest month but when the heat index was highest.
Heat stroke occurs when the body overheats and can be life-threatening.
Extreme heat can also lead to heat exhaustion and severe dehydration, and can aggravate cardiac conditions, kidney disorders and psychiatric illness, said Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Southeast Asia director at the World Health Organization.
Most warnings about heat stress focus on peak temperatures during the day, but rising night-time temperatures are adding to the indirect effects, said NCAR scientist Caspar Ammann.
A report by Australia’s Climate Council estimated that in 2015, nearly 3,500 people died in India and Pakistan from heat waves — defined as three exceptionally hot days in a row.
Recent fatal heat waves were a result of a 0.8 degree Celsius rise in temperatures from pre-industrial levels, the UK study said. Heat waves caused by a further increase of 0.7 degrees — if the world sticks to its 1.5 degree Celsius limit — could be even more severe, it warned.
Vimal Mishra, assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Gandhinagar, said heat stress and heat waves could lead to loss of productivity and earnings, livestock deaths, higher food prices and water shortages.
Raising awareness among the general population and setting up region-wide warning systems will be key, he said.
“We are not acting as fast as we are seeing — every year we see a new anomaly,” added Mishra, whose 2015 research found a significant increase in the number of heat waves between 1973 and 2012, while the frequency of cold waves declined.
Recycled roofs
Scientists say the threat is especially high for the urban poor who live in houses with concrete or tin roofs that absorb heat, and there are few low-energy technologies to counter this.
Roofs made of concrete, the most common material in Pakistan, elevate night-time temperatures indoors by approximately 3 degrees Celsius, ISET-Pakistan found.
In South and Southeast Asia, the heat comes before and with the monsoon, NCAR’s Ammann said. The moisture in the air boosts humidity, which shade can combat only so far.
“High humidity limits the radiative cooling at night,” he said.
Solutions used in other parts of the world, such as basements dug into the cooler ground, tend to flood in Asia unless they have concrete foundations, which many cannot afford, Ammann added.
One inexpensive measure is to paint roofs white so they reflect the sun more effectively, suggested P.K. Mohapatra, special relief commissioner for Odisha.
Meanwhile, a new modular roofing system made with recycled agricultural and packaging waste, called ModRoof, may offer an option for cooling homes without using electricity.
Produced by ReMaterials, a company based in Gujarat, India, the roofs can lower the temperature inside by 6 to 10 degrees Celsius compared with metal and cement roofing, founder Hasit Ganatra told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
So far 75 roofs have been installed in Ahmedabad’s slums, but they aren’t cheap, with an average cost of $772 per family.
Ganatra said the company’s all-women sales team is working with micro-finance firms to make the product more affordable for the poor.
Hundreds of millions of poor menaced by ‘silent killer’: heat
Hundreds of millions of poor menaced by ‘silent killer’: heat
Cold snap chills New York City’s rats, and heats up the fight against them
- The United States’ most populous city has been spared the Upper Midwest’s extreme wind chills, not to mention the shock of record-breaking snow in the deep South
NEW YORK: This week’s frigid weather has many New York City residents shivering, scurrying into cozy spots and feeling sapped. Including the rats.
The United States’ most populous city has been spared the Upper Midwest’s extreme wind chills, not to mention the shock of record-breaking snow in the deep South, in this week’s Arctic blast. But temperatures peaked Monday around 26 degrees Fahrenheit (-3 Celsius) and roughly 20 degrees (-7 Celsius) Tuesday and Wednesday, well below average.
Such cold has, yes, a chilling effect on the Big Apple’s notorious rodents. But it boosts efforts to get rid of them, says city “rat czar” Kathleen Corradi.
“It’s stressing out rats. It’s putting them in their burrows,” she says. “So we kind of get to double down now while the rats are ‘feeling the heat’ from this cold snap.”
New York City’s wild rat species — Rattus norvegicus, also called the Norway rat or brown rat — doesn’t hibernate in winter but does become less active when the weather is freezing for prolonged periods. At the same time, the rodent’s food source tends to shrivel because people are out less and therefore discarding few food wrappers and other rat snacks on the streets, Corradi said.
All that makes for stressed rats and suppresses breeding, which “is really their superpower,” Corradi said. Norway rats can reproduce many times a year, essentially any time conditions are suitable, though they tend to be most prolific from spring through fall.
Jason Munshi-South, a Drexel University ecology professor who has researched New York City’s rats, said those that are already holed up in subway tunnels, sewers, crawlspaces or other nooks can weather the cold fairly well.
Rats that haven’t secured a hideaway might venture to unusual places, such as car engine blocks. Or a tempting basement? Perhaps, if building owners haven’t diligently blocked them out.
But Munshi-South said some of the animals likely will freeze to death, especially if they’re already sick, malnourished or otherwise weakened.
“Harsh winters like we are having so far will keep the rat population at a lower level if we have sustained cold, freezing periods,” he said in an email.
All of that, Corradi said, allows the city’s rat-fighters to make headway ahead of the warmer months.
There’s no official count of New York City’s rats, but no one disputes that they have long been legion. Successive city administrations have tried various approaches to eliminating or at least reducing them.
Current Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who has battled the critters at his own Brooklyn home, created Corradi’s position — officially, the director of rodent mitigation — about two years ago. Adams’ administration also has focused on requiring trash “containerization,” otherwise known as putting household and business garbage into enclosed bins instead of piling refuse-filled plastic bags on the curb.
The Oscar nominations are Thursday. Here’s what to look for
- In the wake of devastating wildfires in Los Angeles that struck at the heart of the movie industry, the twice-delayed nominations to the 97th Academy Awards are going forward Thursday morning
- But after wildfires began burning through the Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other areas around Los Angeles, the academy extended its voting window and postponed the nominations
In the wake of devastating wildfires in Los Angeles that struck at the heart of the movie industry, nominations to the 97th Academy Awards are going forward Thursday morning after a pair of delays.
The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences will announce the nominations Thursday at 8:30am ET via a wide array of platforms, including on Oscar.com, Oscars.org, the academy’s social network sites, ABC’s “Good Morning America,” as well as on Disney+ and Hulu. Bowen Yang and Rachel Sennott will read the nominees.
The Oscar nominations had originally been planned for Jan. 17. But after wildfires on Jan. 7 began burning through the Pacific Palisades, Altadena and other areas around Los Angeles, leaving behind historic levels of destruction, the academy extended its voting window and twice postponed the nominations announcement.
With so many in the film industry reeling from the fires, some called on the academy to cancel the Oscars altogether. Academy leaders have argued the March 2 ceremony must go ahead, for their economic impact on Los Angeles and as a symbol of resilience for the industry. Organizers have vowed this year’s awards will “celebrate the work that unites us as a global film community and acknowledge those who fought so bravely against the wildfires.”
“We will reflect on the recent events while highlighting the strength, creativity, and optimism that defines Los Angeles and our industry,” Bill Kramer, academy chief executive, and Janet Yang, president, said in an email to members Wednesday.
But much of the usual frothiness Hollywood’s award season has been severely curtailed due to the fires, which continue to burn. The film academy canceled its annual nominees luncheon. Other events have been postponed or downsized. On Wednesday, Kramer and Yang said original song nominees won’t be performed this year. Conan O’Brien, whose Pacific Palisades home was spared by the fires, is hosting.
Here are some of the things to look for Thursday:
How wide open is it?
Usually by this time, one or two movies have emerged as the clear favorites for best picture. Not so this year. Four films have been nominated for the top award from the Producers Guild, the Directors Guild and the Screen Actors Guild: “Anora,” “Conclave,” “Emilia Pérez” and “A Complete Unknown.”
They are likely to be joined Thursday by Golden Globe-winner “The Brutalist,” the musical blockbuster “Wicked” and the sci-fi sequel “Dune: Part Two.” In the category’s 10 films, that leaves slots expected for “A Real Pain” and “The Substance.” The last spot could go to the prison drama “Sing Sing,” the journalism drama “September 5” or the POV-shot “Nickel Boys.”
Of them all, Netflix’s contender “Emilia Pérez” could land the most nominations of all, and, possibly, set a new high mark for non-English language films.
Who gets left out in best actress?
As is often the case, best actress is extremely competitive. Most prognosticators expect nominations for Demi Moore (“The Substance“), Cynthia Erivo (“Wicked“), Mikey Madison (“Anora“) and Karla Sofía Gascón (“Emilia Pérez”). Who gets the fifth slot could go to Fernanda Torres (“I’m Still Here“), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (“Hard Truths”) or Pamela Anderson (“The Last Showgirl”). And that still leaves out Nicole Kidman (“Babygirl”) and Angelina Jolie (“Maria”).
Who could make history?
Gascón, the star of Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” is poised to become the first openly transgender actor nominated for an Oscar. Gascón, who plays both a male drug lord in the film and the woman she becomes, has spoken both passionately and sanguinely about the possibility of making Oscar history at a time with trans rights are imperiled.
“If it does happen, I would be so grateful,” Gascón said last fall. “It would be a beautiful thing. But if it doesn’t, whatever. I’d go back to my old life. I’ll do my grocery shopping. I’ll play with cats. I’ll see my family. Maybe I’ll do other jobs and people will like those jobs.”
With Trump now in office, will ‘The Apprentice’ be nominated?
One of 2024’s most audacious films, “The Apprentice,” dramatized the formative years of President Donald Trump’ s emergence in New York real estate under the tutelage of attorney Roy Cohn. Both Sebastian Stan (who plays Trump) and Jeremy Strong (Cohn) are borderline contenders for best actor and best supporting actor, respectively. Trump has called those involved with the film “human scum.”
Will best director be all male again?
For most of Oscar history, the best director category has been all male. That’s changed somewhat in recent years, with wins by Jane Campion (“The Power of the Dog“) and Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland“). But this year may see another all-male group of Audiard (“Emilia Pérez“), Sean Baker (“Anora”), Edward Berger (“Conclave“), Brady Corbet (“The Brutalist“) and James Mangold (“A Complete Unknown“).
The two most likely female contenders are Payal Kapadia (“All We Imagine as Light”) and Coralie Fargeat (“The Substance”). Also in the mix are a pair of big-budget filmmakers in Jon M. Chu (“Wicked”) and Denis Villeneuve (“Dune: Part Two”).
___
For more coverage of this year’s Oscars, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/academy-awards
Microsoft’s LinkedIn sued for disclosing customer information to train AI models
Microsoft’s LinkedIn has been sued by Premium customers who said the business-focused social media platform disclosed their private messages to third parties without permission to train generative artificial intelligence models.
According to a proposed class action filed on Tuesday night on behalf of millions of LinkedIn Premium customers, LinkedIn quietly introduced a privacy setting last August that let users enable or disable the sharing of their personal data.
Customers said LinkedIn then discreetly updated its privacy policy on Sept. 18 to say data could be used to train AI models, and in a “frequently asked questions” hyperlink said opting out “does not affect training that has already taken place.”
This attempt to “cover its tracks” suggests LinkedIn was fully aware it violated customers’ privacy and its promise to use personal data only to support and improve its platform, in order to minimize public scrutiny and legal fallout, the complaint said.
The lawsuit was filed in the San Jose, California, federal court on behalf of LinkedIn Premium customers who sent or received InMail messages, and whose private information was disclosed to third parties for AI training before Sept. 18.
It seeks unspecified damages for breach of contract and violations of California’s unfair competition law, and $1,000 per person for violations of the federal Stored Communications Act.
LinkedIn said in a statement: “These are false claims with no merit.”
A lawyer for the plaintiffs had no immediate additional comment.
The lawsuit was filed several hours after US President Donald Trump announced a joint venture among Microsoft-backed OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank, with a potential $500 billion of investment, to build AI infrastructure in the United States.
The case is De La Torre v. LinkedIn Corp, US District Court, Northern District of California, No. 25-00709.
Mittens the cat becomes an accidental frequent flyer after getting mistakenly left on a plane
- A Maine coon cat named Mittens accidentally flew three times between New Zealand and Australia this month after her cage was mistakenly left in the plane’s cargo hold
WELLINGTON: A Maine coon cat named Mittens became an accidental jetsetter this month when her cage was overlooked in a plane cargo hold and she made three trips in 24 hours between New Zealand and Australia.
Mittens, 8, was booked for one-way travel with her family from Christchurch, New Zealand to their new home in Melbourne, Australia on Jan. 13. But owner Margo Neas said Wednesday that as she waited for Mittens to be unloaded from the plane’s freight area, three hours passed with no sign of the cat.
It was then that ground staff told Neas the plane had returned to New Zealand — with Mittens still on board. The return trip involves about 7.5 hours in the air.
“I said, how can this happen? How can this happen? Oh my God,” Neas said.
The Air New Zealand pilot was told of the extra passenger during the flight and turned on the heating in the cargo hold to keep Mittens comfortable, she added. Neas was told that a stowed wheelchair had obscured a baggage handler’s view of Mittens’ cage.
“It was not a great start to our new life in Melbourne because we didn’t have the family, we weren’t complete,” she said.
But the saga had a happy ending. The pet moving company that Neas used to arrange Mittens’ travel met the cat on her return to Christchurch and ensured she was back on the plane for another trip to Melbourne — this time just one way.
Mittens had lost weight but was otherwise unharmed.
“She basically just ran into my arms and just snuggled up in here and just did the biggest cuddles of all time,” Neas said. “It was just such a relief.”
Air New Zealand would reimburse all costs associated with Mittens’ travel and has apologized for the distress caused, the airline said in a statement.
“We’ll work closely with our ground handler in Melbourne to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” said spokesperson Alisha Armstrong.
Meanwhile Mittens, not usually an affectionate pet, is “the cuddliest she’s ever been,” said Neas.
“The cat gets as much attention as she wants right now because we’re just so absolutely and utterly relieved to have her back.”
Nintendo says its new Switch 2 console will be released in 2025
- The initial reaction to the Nintendo Switch 2 was lackluster, and the company’s Tokyo-traded shares slumped 4.3 percent on Friday
LOS ANGELES: Gaming giant Nintendo revealed its newest console Thursday in a highly anticipated announcement gamers had been waiting for since rumors of its release first spread years ago.
But the initial reaction to the Nintendo Switch 2 was lackluster, and the company’s Tokyo-traded shares slumped 4.3 percent on Friday. Nintendo’s shares had surged to a record ahead of the announcement.
The successor to the Nintendo Switch system will be released this year, the promotional video says.
In the video, Nintendo showcases a larger version of the Switch that looks similar to its predecessor. It also shows the system’s controllers, or Joy-Cons, will attach to the side of Switch 2’s main unit rather than slide in.
The Nintendo Switch 2 will play Switch 2 exclusive games, as well as both physical and digital Nintendo Switch games. Some Nintendo Switch games may not be supported on or fully compatible with Nintendo Switch 2, the company said.
The announcement did not provide many details on the console. Nintendo says more information about the system will be available during the company’s April Nintendo Direct event. The Kyoto-based game developer said it will also host “Nintendo Switch 2 Experience” events in several countries, where players can get a hands-on experience with the new system.
Those events are planned for cities such as Los Angeles, New York, London and Paris beginning in April. Ticket registration for those events begins Friday, Nintendo said.
