Month: February 2023

Police use of automated data analysis to prevent crime in some German states was unconstitutional, a top German court said on Thursday, ruling in favor of critics of software provided by the CIA-backed Palantir Technologies PLTR.N.

Provisions regulating the use of the technology in Hesse and Hamburg violate the right to informational self-determination, a statement from the constitutional court said.

Hesse has been given a Sept. 30 deadline to rewrite its provisions, while legislation in Hamburg — where the technology was not yet in use — was nullified.

"Given the particularly broad wording of the powers, in terms of both the data and the methods concerned, the grounds for interference fall far short of the constitutionally required threshold of an identifiable danger," the court said.

However, court president Stephan Harbarth said states had the option "of shaping the legal basis for further processing of stored data files in a constitutional manner."

Hesse's State Minister of Interior Peter Beuth said current practices must be made more robust and codified, but welcomed the ruling for recognizing that "police work of the future must deal efficiently with large amounts of data."

He said the technology has so far been used, among other things, to investigate the underground network charged with plotting to overthrow the German government in December.

Palantir's strategy chief in Europe, Jan Hiesserich, said the U.S.-based company merely provides the software for processing data, not the data itself.

"Which data is relevant for investigation in this context is determined exclusively by our customers in accordance with relevant legal provisions," he told the Handelsblatt newspaper.

The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on Thursday.

The German Society for Civil Rights (GFF), which brought the case against police data analysis, said Palantir software used innocent people's data to form suspicions and could also produce errors, affecting people at risk of police discrimination.

Source: Voice of America

Avian flu has reached new corners of the globe and become endemic for the first time in some wild birds that transmit the virus to poultry, according to veterinarians and disease experts, who warn it is now a year-round problem.

Reuters spoke to more than 20 experts and farmers on four continents who said the prevalence of the virus in the wild signals that record outbreaks will not abate soon on poultry farms, ramping up threats to the world's food supply. They warned that farmers must view the disease as a serious risk all year, instead of focusing prevention efforts during spring migration seasons for wild birds.

Outbreaks of the virus have widened in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa, undefeated by summer heat or winter cold snaps, since a strain arrived in the United States in early 2022 that was genetically similar to cases in Europe and Asia.

On Wednesday, Argentina and Uruguay each declared national sanitary emergencies after officials confirmed the countries' first infections. Argentina found the virus in wild birds, while dead swans in Uruguay tested positive.

Egg prices set records after the disease last year wiped out tens of millions of laying hens, putting a staple source of cheap protein out of reach to some of the world's poorest at a time the global economy is reeling from high inflation.

Wild birds are primarily responsible for spreading the virus, according to experts. Waterfowl like ducks can carry the disease without dying and introduce it to poultry through contaminated feces, saliva and other means.

Farmers' best efforts to protect flocks are falling short.

In the United States, Rose Acre Farms, the country's second-largest egg producer, lost about 1.5 million hens at a Guthrie County, Iowa, production site last year, even though anyone who entered barns was required to shower first to remove any trace of the virus, Chief Executive Marcus Rust said.

A company farm in Weld County, Colorado, was infected twice within about six months, killing more than 3 million chickens, Rust said. He thinks wind blew the virus in from nearby fields where geese defecated.

"We got nailed," Rust said. "You just pull your hair out."

The United States, Britain, France and Japan are among countries that have suffered record losses of poultry over the past year, leaving some farmers feeling helpless.

"Avian flu is occurring even in a new poultry farm with modern equipment and no windows, so all we could do now is ask God to avoid an outbreak," said Shigeo Inaba, who raises chickens for meat in Ibaraki prefecture near Tokyo.

Poultry in the Northern Hemisphere were previously considered to be most at risk when wild birds are active during spring migration. Soaring levels of the virus in a broad range of waterfowl and other wild birds mean poultry now face high risks year round, experts said.

"It's a new war," said Bret Marsh, the state veterinarian in the U.S. state of Indiana. "It's basically a 12-month vigil."

In a sign the threat is expected to persist, Marsh is seeking funds from Indiana's lawmakers to hire an additional poultry veterinarian and poultry health-specialist. Indiana lost more than 200,000 turkeys and other birds over the past year, while total U.S. deaths top 58 million birds, according to U.S. government data, surpassing the previous 2015 record.

The virus is usually deadly to poultry, and entire flocks are culled when even one bird tests positive.

Vaccinations are not a simple solution: they may reduce but not eliminate the threat from the virus, making it harder to detect its presence among a flock. Still, Mexico and the EU are among those vaccinating or considering shots.

Global problem

Wild birds have spread the disease farther and wider around the world than ever before, likely carrying record amounts of the virus, said Gregorio Torres, the head of the science department at the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health, an intergovernmental group and global authority on animal diseases. The virus changed from previous outbreaks to a form that is probably more transmissible, he told Reuters.

"The disease is here to stay at least in the short term," Torres said.

Torres could not confirm the virus is endemic in wild birds worldwide, though other experts said it is endemic in certain birds in places like the United States.

While the virus can infect people, usually those who have contact with infected birds, the World Health Organization says the risk to humans is low.

The form of the virus circulating is infecting a broader range of wild birds than previous versions, including those that do not migrate long distances, said David Suarez, acting laboratory director of the U.S. government's Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Georgia.

Such infections of "resident" birds are helping the virus to persist throughout the year when it didn't previously, he said.

Black vultures, which inhabit the southern United States and previously avoided infections, are now among the species suffering, said David Stallknecht, director of the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia.

The virus has also infected mammals like foxes, bears and seals.

"We all have to believe in miracles," Stallknecht said, "but I really can't see a scenario where it's going to disappear."

Crossing borders

High virus levels in birds like blue-winged teal, ducks that migrate long distances, helped spread the virus to new parts of South America, Stallknecht said.

Countries including Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia in recent months reported their first cases.

Ecuador imposed a three-month animal-health emergency on Nov. 29, two days after its first case was detected, the country's Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock said. So far, more than 1.1 million birds have died, the ministry said.

Infections in Uruguay and Bolivia put the disease close to top global chicken exporter Brazil, which has never confirmed a case. Brazilian Agriculture Minister Carlos Favaro said on Wednesday the country investigated three suspected cases, but test results came back negative.

"Everyone is focused on preventing the flu from reaching our country," said Gian Carlos Zacchi, who raises chickens for processor Aurora in Chapecó in Brazil's Santa Catarina state.

Some experts suspect climate change may be contributing to the global spread by altering wild birds' habitats and migratory paths.

"The wild bird dynamics have shifted, and that's allowed the viruses that live in them to shift as well," said Carol Cardona, an avian flu expert and professor at the University of Minnesota.

Farmers are trying unusual tactics to protect poultry, with some using machines that make loud noises to scare off wild birds, experts said.

In Rhode Island, Eli Berkowitz, an egg producer and chief executive of Little Rhody Foods, sprayed the disinfectant Lysol on goose poop on a walkway of his farm in case it contained the virus. He also limits visitors to the farm, a more traditional precaution.

Berkowitz said he is bracing for March and April when migration season will pose an even greater risk to poultry.

"You'd better buckle up and hold on for your dear life," he said.

Source: Voice of America

When Raquel Welch donned a deerskin bikini for a 1966 caveman screen epic, she became one of the hottest sex symbols of her time, a role she never felt able to escape.

The film was mediocre, but the poster for "One Million Years BC" went round the world, taking her with it and making both of them an indelible part of cinema history.

"With the release of that famous movie poster, in one fell swoop, everything in my life changed and everything about the real me was swept away," Welch wrote in her 2010 autobiography Beyond the Cleavage.

"All else would be eclipsed by this bigger-than-life sex symbol."

With an auburn mane and lauded for her famous figure, Welch took over from the late Marilyn Monroe to become the universal sex goddess of the 1960s and 1970s.

The New York Times described her in 1967 as "a marvelous breathing monument to womankind" while Playboy magazine said she was "the most desired woman of the 1970s."

Walk-on parts

Welch, who died Wednesday after a brief illness, was born Jo Raquel Tejada on September 5, 1940, in Chicago to a Bolivian aeronautical engineer and his American wife.

Growing up in California, she took ballet lessons and won the first of several teen beauty titles at the age of 14.

She married her high school sweetheart, James Welch, before she was 20, having two children with him before moving to Dallas to take on jobs as a model and barmaid.

Seeking stardom, she returned to Los Angeles in 1963, where she met her agent and next husband Patrick Curtis.

Her never-illustrious acting career started with a string of walk-on parts in minor films, including the 1964 musical feature "Roustabout" starring Elvis Presley.

But a break came when she was picked by the 20th Century Fox studio to star in the 1966 science fiction film, "Fantastic Voyage."

Typecast

The same year she had a leading role in "One Million Years BC," a fantasy film forgettable except for its bikini-clad cavewoman.

In 1967 Welch married Curtis in Paris in a famously skimpy white crochet dress, living it up in a lavish Beverly Hills villa with black marble swimming pool and Rolls-Royce.

However, by then she was typecast, and struggled to prove herself as an actress.

"Americans have always had sex symbols. It's a time-honored tradition and I'm flattered to have been one," she once said.

"But it's hard to have a long, fruitful career once you've been stereotyped that way."

Welch clocked up a series of films in the late 1960s and 1970s but remained restricted by her status as a beauty.

Titles included the western "Bandolero!" (1968), detective movie "Lady in Cement" (1968) and comedy "Animal" (1977).

In 1969 she was in Hollywood's first interracial sex scene with Jim Brown in "100 Rifles." Then came her most controversial role — a transsexual heroine in the explicit "Myra Breckinridge" (1970).

The swashbuckling "The Three Musketeers" (1973), in which she played the queen's dressmaker, won her the Golden Globe for best actress.

While filming "Cannery Row" in 1982, Welch was fired for insisting on doing her hair and make-up at home. She sued MGM studios for breach of contract, ultimately winning a $15 million settlement.

Later roles

A lover of yoga, Welch later launched herself into the business of wellbeing, publishing her "Total Beauty and Fitness" program in 1984.

Having long hidden her Latino origins, as an elegant 60-something she took on Hispanic roles in the "American Family" series on PBS in 2002 and "Tortilla Soup" in 2001.

In 2008 at age 68, she divorced her fourth husband, Richard Palmer, who was 14 years her junior.

Source: Voice of America

Billionaire Elon Musk said Wednesday that he anticipates finding a CEO for Twitter “probably toward the end of this year."

Speaking via a video call to the World Government Summit in Dubai, Musk said making sure the platform can function remained the most important thing for him.

“I think I need to stabilize the organization and just make sure it’s in a financial healthy place,” Musk said when asked about when he'd name a CEO. “I’m guessing probably toward the end of this year would be good timing to find someone else to run the company.”

Musk, 51, made his wealth initially on the finance website PayPal, then created the spacecraft company SpaceX and invested in the electric car company Tesla. In recent months, however, more attention has been focused on the chaos surrounding his $44 billion purchase of the microblogging site Twitter.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military's use of Musk's satellite internet service Starlink as it defends itself against Russia's ongoing invasion has put Musk off and on at the center of the war.

Musk offered a wide-ranging 35-minute discussion that touched on the billionaire’s fears about artificial intelligence, the collapse of civilization and the possibility of space aliens. But questions about Twitter kept coming back up as Musk described both Tesla and SpaceX as able to function without his direct, day-to-day involvement.

“Twitter is still somewhat a startup in reverse,” he said. “There’s work required here to get Twitter to sort of a stable position and to really build the engine of software engineering."

Musk also sought to portray his takeover of San Francisco-based Twitter as a cultural correction.

“I think that the general idea is just to reflect the values of the people as opposed to imposing the values of essentially San Francisco and Berkeley, which are so somewhat of a niche ideology as compared to the rest of the world," he said. "And, you know, Twitter was, I think, doing a little too much to impose a niche.”

Musk's takeover at Twitter has seen mass firings and other cost-cutting measures. Musk, who is on the hook for about $1 billion in yearly interest payments for his purchase, has been trying to find way to maximize profits at the company.

However, some of Musk's decisions have conflicted with the reasons that journalists, governments and others rely on Twitter as an information-sharing platform.

Musk on Wednesday described the need for users to rely on Twitter for trusted information from verified accounts. However, a confused rollout to a paid verified account system saw some impersonate famous companies, leading to a further withdrawal of needed advertising cash to the site.

“Twitter is certainly quite the rollercoaster,” he acknowledged.

Forbes estimates Musk's wealth at just under $200 billion. The Forbes analysis ranks Musk as the second-wealthiest person on Earth, just behind French luxury brand magnate Bernard Arnault.

But Musk also has become a thought leader for some as well, albeit an oracle that is trying to get six hours of sleep a night despite the challenges at Twitter.

Musk described his children as being “programmed by Reddit and YouTube.” However, he criticized the Chinese-made social media app TikTok.

“TikTok has a lot of very high usage (but) I often hear people say, ‘Well, I spent two hours on TikTok, but I regret those two hours,’” Musk said. "We don’t want that to be the case with Twitter.”

TikTok, owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk warned that artificial intelligence should be regulated “very carefully,” describing it as akin to the promise of nuclear power but the danger of atomic bombs. He also cautioned against having a single civilization or “too much cooperation” on Earth, saying it could “collapse” a society that's like a “tiny candle in a vast darkness.”

And when asked about the existence of aliens, Musk had a firm response.

“The crazy thing is, I’ve seen no evidence of alien technology or alien life whatsoever. And I think I’d know because of SpaceX,” he said. “I don't think anybody knows more about space, you know, than me.”

Source: Voice of America