Government – Page 109 – The Tarbabys Blog

Biden and Congress Craft $2 Billion Aid Package as Israel Vows to ‘Crush’ Hamas

Time

Biden and Congress Craft $2 Billion Aid Package as Israel Vows to ‘Crush’ Hamas

Eric Cortellessa – October 11, 2023

President Joe Biden confers with his National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan during a roundtable with Jewish community leaders in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Oct. 11, 2023, in Washington, DC. Credit – Drew Angerer—Getty Images

As Israel prepares to launch a likely ground invasion into Gaza, the Biden Administration and leading members of Congress are crafting an American aid package of roughly $2 billion in supplementary funding to support the nation’s war effort against Hamas, multiple sources familiar with the matter tell TIME.

The funding would go toward replenishing Israel’s stockpile of interceptors for its Iron Dome missile-defense system, artillery shells, and other munitions. If approved, the assistance would come at a crucial time for Israel, as it gears for a lengthy and devastating offensive against the terror group that brutally massacred more than 1,200 Israelis in Saturday’s surprise attack.

“We’re heading into a war for many, many weeks, maybe several months, in which the objective is to dismantle Hamas,” Rep. Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, told TIME shortly after attending a briefing from White House officials on the situation. “It will be perhaps the highest casualty war Israel has faced since the War of Independence,” he added, referring to the 1948 blitz that five Arab nations waged against Israel shortly after its establishment. “But Israel didn’t ask for this.”

While there’s strong bipartisan consensus on bolstering Israel’s campaign against Hamas, the White House is planning to tie that assistance to more polarizing causes: military support for Ukraine and Taiwan and increased border security funding. In a call with senators Tuesday night, administration officials said they were drawing up a supplemental defense package that would cover all four portfolios, according to a source on the call.

That’s sure to turn the measure into a flashpoint in Washington. Many hard-right Republican lawmakers vehemently oppose sending more resources to Ukraine and have been willing to destabilize the government over it. A small band of right-wing rebels recently ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy as House Speaker in part because of his continued support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine.

The White House would not confirm or deny its plans. “We’re in active conversations with Congress about additional funding that we know we need specifically for Israel and Ukraine,” White House National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby said. “I’m not prepared to detail those conversations for you right now or tell you what the parameters are going to be.”

Both Sherman and a senior White House official said they expect President Joe Biden to send a formal request to Congress over supplementary Israel funding in the coming weeks. “My tentative figure, along with a number of others, is that we can introduce legislation on this for $2 billion,” says Sherman, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. While Biden may want to leverage GOP eagerness to help Israel swiftly in order to secure a new tranche of Ukraine aid, Sherman expects the Israeli package will ultimately pass as a stand-alone measure.

The effort to advance supplementary Israel aid comes after the country suffered a massive intelligence and military failure over the weekend, resulting in a multi-front incursion by Hamas terrorists into Israel through land, air, and sea. The militants stormed kibbutzim in southern Israel near the Gaza border, where they savagely attacked civilians—including acts of barbarism such as beheading babies—and took hundreds hostage. At least 14 Americans were killed in the attack and others were taken hostage. Administration officials are unsure of the exact number of U.S. hostages but said on Wednesday that 17 Americans are still missing.

Egyptian security officials warned Israel in the days ahead of a looming attack, according to multiple reports, and some in Israel have cast blame on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet for diverting military resources away from the Gaza border to protect West Bank settlements.

Since the attack, Netanyahu has declared a war against Hamas, vowing to abandon Jerusalem’s strategy of containing the Islamist group that rules the Gaza Strip. “Every Hamas member is a dead man,” the Israeli premier said. “Hamas is ISIS, and we will crush and eliminate it just as the world crushed and eliminated ISIS.”

The Israeli military has amassed forces along the Gaza border in what appears to be the early stages of a ground invasion. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has deployed an aircraft carrier strike group near the region to deter Hezbollah and other Iran-backed militant groups from joining the fight.

In remarks Tuesday, Biden said the U.S. was sending “additional military assistance” to the Jewish state. “We stand with Israel, and we will make sure it has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself and respond to this attack.”

The escalating conflict stands to inflict even more destruction and suffering in the strip, where roughly 2.3 million Palestinians live. “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said this week. “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed.” At the White House’s congressional briefing Wednesday, several members pressed the administration on how it would ensure that Palestinian civilians in Gaza have access to food, water, and medicine in the coming months.

Both American and Israeli officials are anticipating support for Israel to waver as the war ramps up and Palestinian civilian casualties mount. Hamas is known to place its weapon depots in densely populated areas, effectively using Palestinian non-combatants as human shields. It then disseminates photos and videos of their deaths through media channels in an apparent bid to turn public opinion against Israel.

Still, officials say, the Biden Administration plans to stick with Israel over the long haul. It’s been warning members of Congress of the pain and bloodshed likely to come as Israel moves to decimate an enemy that caught it off guard. “Nothing is worse than underestimating your rival,” says Uzi Arad, Netanyahu’s National Security Adviser from 2009 to 2011. “We underestimated their determination or their motives or the extremes to which they were willing to go.”

Godfather of AI tells ’60 Minutes’ he fears the technology could one day take over humanity

Yahoo! Entertainment

Godfather of AI tells ’60 Minutes’ he fears the technology could one day take over humanity

Geoffrey Hinton hails the benefits of artificial intelligence but also sounds the alarm on such things as autonomous battlefield robots, fake news and unintended bias in employment and policing.

Kyle Moss – October 9, 2023

“We’re entering a period of great uncertainty where we’re dealing with things we’ve never done before,” says Geoffrey Hinton of AI. “We can’t afford to get it wrong.” (CBS)

Geoffrey Hinton, who has been called “the Godfather of AI,” sat down with 60 Minutes for Sunday’s episode to break down what artificial intelligence technology could mean for humanity in the coming years, both good and bad.

Hinton is a British computer scientist and cognitive psychologist, best known for his work on artificial neural networks — aka the framework for AI. He spent a decade working for Google before leaving in May of this year, citing concerns about the risks of AI.

Here is a look at what Hinton had to say to 60 Minutes interviewer Scott Pelley.

The Intelligence

After highlighting the latest concerns about AI to set up the segment, Pelley opened the Q&A with Hinton by asking him if humanity knows what it’s doing.

“No,” Hinton replied. “I think we’re moving into a period when for the first time ever, we have things more intelligent than us.”

Hinton expanded on that by saying he believes the most advanced AI systems can understand, are intelligent and can make decisions based on their own experiences. When asked if AI systems are conscious, Hinton said that due to a current lack of self-awareness, they probably aren’t, but that day is coming “in time.” And he agreed with Pelley’s take that, consequently, human beings will be the second-most intelligent beings on the planet.

After the idea was floated by Hinton that AI systems may be better at learning than the human mind, Pelley wondered how, since AI was designed by people — a notion that Hinton corrected.

“No, it wasn’t. What we did was, we designed the learning algorithm. That’s a bit like designing the principle of evolution,” Hinton said. “But when this learning algorithm then interacts with data, it produces complicated neural networks that are good at doing things. But we don’t really understand exactly how they do those things.”

Robots in a Google AI lab were programmed merely to score a goal. Through AI, they trained themselves how to play soccer. (CBS)

The Good

Hinton did say that some of the huge benefits of AI have already been seen in healthcare, with its ability to do things like recognize and understand medical images, along with designing drugs. This is one of the main reasons Hinton looks on his work with such a positive light.

The Bad

“We have a very good idea sort of roughly what it’s doing,” Hinton said of how AI systems teach themselves. “But as soon as it gets really complicated, we don’t actually know what’s going on any more than we know what’s going on in your brain.”

That sentiment was just the tip of the iceberg of concerns surrounding AI, with Hinton pointing to one big potential risk as the systems get smarter.

“One of the ways these systems might escape control is by writing their own computer code to modify themselves. And that’s something we need to seriously worry about,” he said.

Hinton added that as AI takes in more and more information from things like famous works of fiction, election media cycles and everything in between, AI will just keep getting better at manipulating people.

“I think in five years time it may well be able to reason better than us,” Hinton said.

And what that means is risks like autonomous battlefield robots, fake news and unintended bias in employment and policing. Not to mention, Hinton said, “having a whole class of people who are unemployed and not valued much because what they used to do is now done by machines.

The Ugly

To make matters worse, Hinton said he doesn’t really see a path forward that totally guarantees safety.

“We’re entering a period of great uncertainty where we’re dealing with things we’ve never done before. And normally the first time you deal with something totally novel, you get it wrong. And we can’t afford to get it wrong with these things.”

When pressed by Pelley if that means AI may one day take over humanity, Hinton said “yes, that’s a possibility. I’m not saying it will happen. If we could stop them ever wanting to, that would be great. But it’s not clear we can stop them ever wanting to.”

So what do we do?

Hinton said that this could be a bit of a turning point, where humanity may have to face the decision of whether to develop these things further and how people should “protect themselves” if they do.

“I think my main message is, there’s enormous uncertainty about what’s going to happen next,” Hinton said. “These things do understand, and because they understand we need to think hard about what’s next, and we just don’t know.”

Pelley reported that Hinton said he has no regrets about the work he’s done given AI’s potential for good, but that now is the time to run more experiments on it to understand, to impose certain regulations and for a world treaty to ban the use of military robots.

60 Minutes airs Sundays on CBS, check your local listings.

Rogue AI will learn to ‘manipulate people’ to stop it from being switched off, predicts British ‘Godfather of AI’

Fortune

Rogue AI will learn to ‘manipulate people’ to stop it from being switched off, predicts British ‘Godfather of AI’

Ryan Hogg – October 10, 2023

Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile for Collision via Getty Images

The “Godfather of AI,” and one of its biggest critics, believes the technology will soon become smarter than humans and could learn to manipulate them.

Geoffrey Hinton, a former AI engineer at Google, told 60 Minutes he expected artificial intelligence to become self-aware in time, making humans the second most intelligent beings on the planet.

Humans have about 100 trillion neural connections, while the biggest AI chatbots have just 1 trillion connections, according to Hinton.

However, he suggests the knowledge contained within those connections is likely much more than that contained in humans.

Eventually, Hinton says, computer systems might be able to write their own code to modify themselves, in a sense going rogue. And if it does, he thinks AI will have a way to stop itself from being switched off by humans.

“They will be able to manipulate people,” Hinton told 60 Minutes.

“These will be very good at convincing because they’ll have learned from all the novels that were ever written, all the books by Machiavelli, all the political connivances. They’ll know all that stuff.”

Bigger threat than climate change

Hinton quit his role as an engineer at Google in May after more than a decade with the company, in part to speak out against the growing risks of the technology and lobby for safeguards and regulations against it.

While at Google, Hinton helped build the AI chatbot Bard, the tech giant’s competitor to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. He also set the foundations for the growth of AI through his pioneering neural network, which helped him win a prestigious Turing Award.

Since he quit, Hinton has been one of the leading voices warning of AI’s dangers. Following his resignation announcement in the New York Times, he told Reuters he thought the tech had become a bigger threat to humans than climate change.

In late May, he was at the top of a list of hundreds of experts, which included OpenAI founder Sam Altman, calling for urgent regulation of AI.

“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” the 22-word statement read.

Hinton’s biggest worry about AI right now pertains to the labor market. He told 60 Minutes he feared a whole class of people would find themselves unemployed as more capable AI systems take their place.

In the longer run, though, he worries about AI’s militaristic potential. In his interview with 60 Minutes, Hinton called for governments to commit to not building battlefield robots. The warning is akin to J. Robert Oppenheimer’s calls to stop world leaders from developing nuclear weapons after he pioneered the first atomic bomb.

Hinton summed up by saying he couldn’t see a path that guarantees safety, adding he wasn’t sure robots could ever be stopped from wanting to take over humanity.

The world’s major governments appear to have heard Hinton’s and others’ warnings loud and clear.

The U.K. will host the first global AI summit in November, which is expected to be attended by 100 politicians, academics, and AI experts.

It could lay the groundwork for sweeping regulatory changes by major countries including the United States.

The U.S. is crafting an AI Bill of Rights, and in the coming months is expected to bring in safeguards that tech companies must abide by.

The European Union is crafting its own guardrails around AI, titled the AI Act. However, the potential for varying regulations based on geography is creating tension.

In June, more than 150 major European execs requested the EU pull back on its proposed restrictions around AI, including increased bureaucracy and tests on certain tech’s safety. They argued these would create a “critical productivity gap” in the region that would leave it trailing the U.S.

170,000-plus books used to train AI; authors say they weren’t asked

Deseret News

170,000-plus books used to train AI; authors say they weren’t asked

Lois M. Collins – October 9, 2023

An investigation by The Atlantic indicated thousands of e-books are being used to train an artificial intelligence system called Books3. | Adobe Stock

Authors are upset after tech companies started using their books to train artificial intelligence without letting them know or seeking their permission. They worry about copyright infringement and loss of income, among other issues.

Per CNN, “The system is called Books3, and according to an investigation by The Atlantic, the data set is based on a collection of pirated e-books spanning all genres, from erotic fiction to prose poetry. Books help generative AI systems with learning how to communicate information.”

“The future promised by AI is written with stolen words,” The Atlantic article said.

The article notes that some of the text that’s training AI on how to use language is taken from Wikipedia and other online entries. But “high-quality generative AI requires higher-quality input than is usually found on the internet — that is, it requires the kind found in books.”

Many authors apparently don’t view the use of their books to train artificial intelligence as an honor. Rather, it’s a shortcut that robs them of their due, they say.

CNN reported that Nora Roberts, who writes romantic novels, has 206 books in the database — “second only to William Shakespeare.” She told CNN the database is “all kinds of wrong. We are human beings, we are writers and we are being exploited by people who want to use our work, again without permission or compensation, to ‘write’ books, scripts, essays because it’s cheap and easy,” she said in a statement to CNN.

Per The Atlantic, Sarah Silverman, Richard Kadrey and Christopher Golden filed a lawsuit in California that claims Meta — owner of Facebook — violated their copyrights by using their books to train the company’s large language model LLaMA. That’s an algorithm that competes with OpenAI’s GPT-4 to create its own text by using word patterns it learned from the books and other sources, the article said.

The Atlantic’s Alex Reisner created a stir when he got a list of the books and published a searchable database so that anyone can see if their favorite author’s work is being used to teach AI communication skills. He notes the authors include well-known names like Stephen King, John Kratz and James Patterson, among others. The books apparently came through web-crawling technology that found bootleg PDF copies of the books for free online and they were then packaged into a database called Books3, where different AI companies are using them. Bloomberg said it will not use Books3 in the future as it trains its BloombergGPT.

The Authors Guild on Sept. 27 published a guide on actions authors can take if they learned their books are in the Books3 dataset. “This can be an unsettling revelation, raising concerns about copyright, compensation and the future implications of AI,” the article said.

The guild and 17 authors filed a different class-action suit in New York against OpenAI for copyright infringement. Those authors, per a separate guild article, include David Baldacci, Mary Bly, Michael Connelly, John Grisham, Jodi Picoult, Scott Turow and Rachel Vail, among others.

“The complaint draws attention to the fact that the plaintiffs’ books were downloaded from pirate ebook repositories and then copied into the fabric of GPT 3.5 and GPT 4 which power ChatGPT and thousands of applications and enterprise uses — from which OpenAI expects to earn many billions, the article said.

Reisner also wrote that while Meta is using authors’ books without permission, it employed a “takedown” order against at least one developer who used LLaMA coding after it was leaked a few months ago, on the claim that “no one is authorized to exhibit, reproduce, transmit or otherwise distribute Meta Properties without the express written permission of Meta.” And once it decided to make LLaMA open-source, Meta still requires developers to get a license in order to use it.

Not everyone’s upset, however, by use of their work to train AI. Ian Bogost, author of “Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom and the Secret of Games,” among other works, wrote a column for The Atlantic titled “My Books Were Used to Train Meta’s Generative AI. Good.” And he promised “It can have my next one, too.”

Bogost contends that successful art “exceeds its creator’s plans,” noting that an author cannot accurately predict a book’s audience. “Who am I to say what my work is good for, how it might benefit someone — even a near-trillion-dollar company? To bemoan this one unexpected use for my writing is to undermine all of the other unexpected uses for it. Speaking as a writer, that makes me feel bad.”

Shell Aims to ‘Decarbonize Profitably,’ Its New Energies US CEO Says

Hart Energy

Shell Aims to ‘Decarbonize Profitably,’ Its New Energies US CEO Says

Velda Addison – October 9, 2023

Shell’s strategy has not changed as the company remains focused on delivering more value with less emissions, Shell New Energies US CEO Glenn Wright said this week, addressing unease about its position in the energy transition.

“In order for that to be a reality, it’s imperative that what we do is both economically viable, socially acceptable and environmentally sustainable,” Wright said Oct. 5 during an event co-hosted by the Baker Institute Center for Energy Studies and Baker Botts LLC in Houston. “Those are the three legs of the stool. If any one of those legs fails, the solution fails. So, our aim … is to continue our work and to decarbonize profitably.”

The comments were delivered in response to concerns that the supermajor was scaling back investments in renewable energy. Focused on increasing returns, Shell said it will hold oil output steady through 2030, having hit a lowered oil production target early through divestments.

Shell, which is targeting net-zero emissions by 2050, continues progress on providing cleaner energy solutions as energy demand rises, Wright said, pointing out how the company is repurposing the footprint of its energy and chemical parks. Shell’s low-carbon investment plans include investing between $10 billion and $15 billion through 2025 in areas such as biofuels, hydrogen, electric vehicle charging and carbon capture and storage.

“In my business, we will continue to invest in power opportunities, but we will do so in areas and spaces where it makes economic sense to do so and where we are incentivized to do so,” Wright said.

Energy companies, including Shell, are under pressure to not only provide affordable energy safely and lower emissions, but also increase returns for the shareholder. However, inflationary pressure and supply chain issues have posed obstacles, especially for offshore wind.

While the company has pulled out of some wind projects, including two wind projects offshore Ireland, it has powered forward with other investments. These have included the acquisitions of renewable natural gas company Nature Energy and Sprng Energy, a solar and wind power supplier, as well as starting construction on one of Europe’s largest renewable hydrogen plants.

The renewables investment comes alongside continued oil and gas production.

Shell New Energies CEO — “We will continue to invest in power opportunities, but we will do so in areas and spaces where it makes economic sense to do so and where we are incentivized to do so,” Shell New Energies US CEO Glenn Wright says. *(Source: Baker Institute)*

Protecting the core

Determining where to invest capital is probably the biggest question in boardrooms today, said Michael LaMotte, senior managing director for Guggenheim Securities. Speaking about E&Ps’ limited capital investment and moves to pay down debt and pay dividends, he said companies in the industry should protect the core first.

“Identify that and focus on it because that’s where all that cash comes from at the end of the day,” said LaMotte, who spoke on a separate panel. “The return on your capital is going to be enhanced if you improve the efficiency of the operations in and around that core.”

It is also important to think about creating long-term value. Despite views on the pace of the transition, the “transition is here and we are in it.” He spoke of the need for companies to leverage core competencies into new energies.

Many are doing just that. Think Occidental Petroleum Corp. in the carbon management space.

“[It’s] really important how to think about taking what feels like a liability, what feels like a compliance cost to the business, and flip it on its head and say, ‘okay, this is actually a new business opportunity,’” LaMotte said, acknowledging the core is not leaving anytime some.

Sharing similar sentiments as Wright, LaMotte added that investments must be economic with focus on obligations to shareholders to generate a return.

“But it also has to be cleaner. It’s striking that balance” between protecting the core and focusing on something new and cleaner to leverage competitive advantages.

By 2050, the world’s population is expected to exceed 9 billion, nearly 2 billion more people than today, Wright said. Energy demand will likely double.

“We must find ways to profitably decarbonize. I cannot emphasize that enough. We aim to decarbonize, but we must do so profitably,” Wright said. “And we must work closely with others in new ways because we can only reach net zero if society reaches it, too.”

Pumping up power

The most profound change and fastest growth will happen in the power sector, according to Wright. Shell deepened its position in the renewable power space with its 2021 acquisition of Savion, a large utility-scale solar and battery energy storage developer, and the 2022 launch of its residential retail business in Texas. The company manages more than 8 gigawatts of power generation across North America.

“Electricity is far and away the easiest energy source to decarbonize. Every energy consuming sector, which is everybody from road transport to home and commercial heating and cooling, to manufacturing and major industrial processes, is actively pursuing electrification in some fashion,” Wright said.

Like others in energy, he says reform is needed—particularly regarding access to interconnections and transmission reform—as more renewable energy lines up to flow to the grid.

“FERC Order 2023 starts to help us in this regard. … How this will play out will continue to unfold, but it will encourage and allow quicker access to bring renewables online,” Wright said. “We also need to ensure that the market design encourages resource adequacy. We can encourage certainly the development of renewables. What’s important is that these assets are located in the right places at the right time.”

Power grids in parts of the U.S.—including the Electric Reliability Council of Texas—experienced stress this summer amid high demand and temperatures, which prompted some conservation alerts.

“As we see more and more renewables come onstream, we need more and more resources that can provide ancillary services that can help firm those renewables and ensure that the grid continues to operate,” Wright said.

California hits major industry with lawsuit for allegedly spreading ‘lies and mistruths’: ‘[They] have privately known the truth for decades’

The Cool Down

California hits major industry with lawsuit for allegedly spreading ‘lies and mistruths’: ‘[They] have privately known the truth for decades’

Leo Collis – October 10, 2023

California is one of the most committed regions in the United States when it comes to striving for a sustainable future.

The state is seeking to provide 100% renewable energy to residents and businesses by 2045, and it has seen billions of dollars of investment in “clean energy technologies.”

Now, it is taking on the oil industry, with the state of California filing a lawsuit against industry giants like ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP, as well as lobbying body the American Petroleum Institute.

NPR reported the suit was filed in the San Francisco Superior Court, and the focus is on claims the big players in the oil industry have been misleading the public about the dangers of dirty energy.

“California is suing these big polluters to hold them accountable for their decades of deception, cover-up, and billions of dollars in harm done to our state,” the office of California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement.

The Governor’s office added the “lies” pushed by Big Oil over the course of decades have contributed to global heating, resulting in extreme weather events such as superstorms, wildfires, extreme heat, extreme drought, and flooding.

“It has been decades of damage and deception,” Governor Newsom continued. “Wildfires wiping out entire communities, toxic smoke clogging our air, deadly heat waves, record-breaking droughts parching our wells. California taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill. California is taking action to hold big polluters accountable.”

If the state is successful, it is calling on oil companies to compensate the state and its residents for the industry’s impact on the environment and to help bring protection initiatives to mitigate against future damage that rising temperatures bring. It is also hoping to stop oil companies from engaging in further pollution and to cease misinformation campaigns.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is also leading the lawsuit.

“Oil and gas companies have privately known the truth for decades — that the burning of fossil fuels leads to climate change — but have fed us lies and mistruths to further their record-breaking profits at the expense of our environment,” he said. “Enough is enough.”

According to Cal Fire, there have been 5,741 wildfire incidents in the state in 2023 alone, with over 305,000 acres burned.

As California Local observed, Southern California saw its first tropical storm since 1939 in August, leading to record quantities of rainfall in Palm Springs, San Diego, and downtown Los Angeles. The state also saw its hottest recorded month in history in July, and 12 major rainstorms were recorded earlier in the year.

It’s clear, then, that California is bearing a significant burden when it comes to the impact of global heating, and the lawsuit will leave Big Oil with a lot to answer for.

Join our free newsletter for cool news and actionable info that makes it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.

This state is requiring every new home to be built with money-saving, energy-efficient heat pumps: ‘The right choice’

The Cool Down

This state is requiring every new home to be built with money-saving, energy-efficient heat pumps: ‘The right choice’

Jill Ettinger – October 9, 2023

Starting this summer, every new house or apartment built in the state of Washington will be required to use money-saving, energy-efficient heat pumps for heating and cooling.

The decision came last November when the Washington State Building Code Council voted in favor of the mandate, making it one of the strongest building codes in the country for energy-efficient heat pumps.

Electric heat pumps are two to four times more energy efficient than gas heaters, which means they can help you cut down your electricity bill dramatically.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CnhGVZYsMau/embed/captioned?cr=1&v=12

Another reason they’re being lauded is because they don’t run on methane, a potent gas that traps heat in our atmosphere and causes our planet to overheat. Methane is also linked to a number of human health issues, including respiratory illness, memory loss, and heart disease.

The Council voted for the heat pumps following a 2021 state law that requires 45% in greenhouse gas pollution reductions by 2030 and 95% by 2050, compared with 1990 levels. The state is also required to increase energy efficiency in buildings by 70% by 2031.

“The State Building Code Council made the right choice for Washingtonians,” Rachel Koller, managing director of the green-building alliance Shift Zero, said in a statement. “From an economic, equity and sustainability perspective, it makes sense to build efficient, electric homes right from the start.”

An influx of transplants to Washington in recent years has led to a 50% increase in planet-overheating gas pollution from buildings between 1990 and 2015 — the fastest-growing source in the state.

Across the country, lawmakers are making decisions like this to help move their municipalities away from dirty-energy-based heating systems. More than 90 cities and counties in the U.S. now have similar measures in place.

“It’s an exciting step forward toward meeting our goal to reduce greenhouse gases in our state,” Katy Sheehan, a council member who voted in favor of the heat pump mandate told Spokane’s Spokesman-Review. “I’m really happy that we did it.”

Florida has ‘Help Wanted’ hanging on it. Economist says labor shortage is here to stay

Miami Herald

Florida has ‘Help Wanted’ hanging on it. Economist says labor shortage is here to stay

Mary Ellen Klas, Syra Ortiz Blanes – October 8, 2023

“We’re hiring” banners hang above grocery stories in nearly every community in Florida. “Help wanted” signs are taped to storefronts and posted on hundreds of online job boards. Florida’s unemployment rate is nearing a record low, even as the state population grows.

“Get used to it,” said Ron Hetrick, who lives in St. John’s County, south of Jacksonville. He’s a senior labor economist at labor market analytics firm Lightcast.

This is Florida’s new normal, and the results will translate into competitive wages, longer waits for professional and domestic services, and higher costs of living — for everyone.

Florida is unlike many other states because of its fast growth, aging population and dependence on migrants for both skilled and unskilled labor, Hetrick said. But a beefed-up state law that attempts to crack down on undocumented labor is exacerbating the deep hole in the work force that may take years to close.

“What makes Florida unique is that people are moving from all over the country, but the unemployment rate is not going up — it’s going down or holding a low level,’’ Hetrick said.

According to the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which is updating its 2021 “Workforce Needs Study,” 73% of job creators surveyed in Florida reported challenges in recruiting qualified candidates, and more than 58% reported they anticipate a need for training and “up-skilling” current employees.

Hardest hit are industries such as construction, restaurants, hotels, roofing, landscaping and agriculture, which traditionally have relied on both legal and illegal migrant workers. They have hit a new hurdle with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ recent crackdown on undocumented workers in Florida.

At DeSantis’ urging, legislators passed a package of immigration related measures this year that attempt to keep undocumented immigrants from coming into the state and make it more difficult for those living here to stay.

Dependence on migrant labor

Greg Batista, founder and owner of G. Batista Engineering & Construction, has seen the effect of the new laws first hand. He specializes in condo development in Miami-Dade and Broward counties and employs about 50 people.

“The immediate impact is that we’ve got four or five ongoing construction jobs at this moment and fewer people to do the jobs,’’ he said. “The job that you told the owner was going to take five months is now going to take 10 months.”

He attributed much of the problem to the exodus of construction workers from Florida.

“They’re just picking up and leaving to a state where they’re more friendly towards migrants, where they don’t have to be looking over their shoulder every 10 seconds and saying, ‘Look, I’m going have to go to be deported, going to go to jail, or I’m going to be fined,’ ’’ he said.

According to a 2021 analysis of U.S. Census data by the policy research and polling firm KFF, undocumented workers in Florida made up 11% of the state’s workforce, including 37% of all agriculture workers, 23% of construction workers, 14% of service workers, and 14% of transportation workers.

In Miami-Dade County, the number of all immigrants, legal and undocumented, are even higher: 65% of the county’s employed labor force are immigrants, according to the county’s Office of cq New Americans.

According to a survey of 25 Florida construction companies in 2023 by The Associated General Contractor of America and Autodesk, nearly all the surveyed companies were having difficulty filling some or all craft and salaried positions.

Eighty percent of companies reported having to increase base pay rates, 65% reported delays due to shortage of workers, and 68% said they expected to add new employees over the next 12 months.

Jeff Lozama, CEO of Miami-based glazing contractor CMS Group, said his staff is made up of immigrants and, without them, the construction industry in Florida could not continue at its current pace.

“They often take on jobs that are physically demanding and require skills in jobs that most Americans are not willing to take on,’’ he told an audience during the Miami Opportunity Summit in August.

Lozama recounted his company’s experiences at a recent job fair in Liberty Square, a predominantly Black community with a small immigrant population.

“We had a poor showing. It was really horrible. No one showed up,’’ he said. They also participated in a similar job fair in North Miami, home to a large Haitian population.

“There were busloads of immigrants that showed up,’’ Lozama said. “… It just tells you how important that immigrant population is.”

Many professions in Florida are heavily dependent on legal immigrants, such as nurses coming to Florida from the Philippines. The state’s agricultural industry depends on H2-A workers, a federal visa program that farmers use to bring temporary workers that harvest crops.

“People aren’t fully aware of just how dependent our labor force growth is on immigration,” Hetrick said. “A lot of our homes, a lot of our foods that we’re eating are because of immigration right now.”

Enforcement crackdown

Florida’s strengthened immigration laws increase the penalties for anyone who transports an undocumented migrant into the state, require hospitals that accept Medicaid to ask patients about their immigration status and require employers with 25 or more workers to check whether new hires are allowed to work in the country by using the federal E-verify program.

There is little evidence that the laws have produced many arrests, but they have had a chilling effect on available workers.

Farmers are scrambling to find workers for the fall and winter harvest season. Restaurants, hotels and construction industries are also straining.

Rep. Rick Roth, a Belle Glade vegetable farmer and one of the Republican legislators who supported the laws strengthening immigration enforcement, said many Florida farmers are relying on a loophole in the law that allows seasonal workers who were employed last season to come back without having their immigration status checked.

“The good news is, we’re hearing pretty much from the industry that if you had a seasonal workforce back in April and May and you told them to come back in November, that’s not going to be a problem,’’ he said. “They’ll come back and we’ll get to treat them as returning workforce. They’re not new employees who would have to go through E-verify.”

Roth acknowledged, however, that the law has added to a labor shortage years in the making. “Absolutely,’’ it’s having an impact, he said. “The difficulty is measuring the problem.”

Florida’s unemployment rate is 2.6%, well below the national rate of 3.8%

Florida’s retiree dilemma

As Florida has grown, so has its labor force — just not fast enough to meet the demand.

In 2008, before the Great Recession, the state’s unemployment rate was 2.4% and the labor force was about 9 million people. In 2023, the unemployment rate is 2.6% and there are 11 million people in the workforce. By comparison, the national unemployment rate is 3.8%

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, there were 552,000 job openings in Florida in July, the last month with data.

The dilemma now facing Florida, Hetrick said, is whether to continue to encourage population growth when that growth is not producing workers to match the demand, or tamp down expansion to allow the labor force to catch up and costs to stabilize.

Remote workers are coming to the Sunshine State bringing jobs with them, new residents quickly find something once they arrive, or retirees are coming with demands for services but aren’t working while they’re here, he explained.

“The reality is, to get somebody to fill your job, you’re gonna have to unseat them from an existing job,’’ he said.

Retirees entering Florida “used to be a good thing, but it’s not anymore,’’ he said. “Because you cannot have people who put demand on an economy but who don’t contribute to the supply of an economy.”

Former Gov. Rick Scott used his “Let’s Get to Work” mantra to activate Baby Boomers and get elected in Florida.

But, now job creation absent a steady stream of new workers is “the worst thing you could possibly do,’’ Hetrick said, “because your existing employers are dying and they need workers.”

Legal immigration slowdown

Part of the pressure of the influx of migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border is happening because consulates shut down and stopped processing visas during the pandemic, Hetrick said.

He tells governors and other elected officials with whom he consults across the country, that “instead of focusing so much attention on talking about what we should not be doing, let’s focus on what we should be doing: Creating faster visa processing, getting companies involved in sponsorships” and expanding the federal temporary worker programs of H2-A and H2-B.

“You would see a lot more people pursuing the legal route if they knew something would happen in two or three months, rather than two or three years,’’ he said.

Getting creative

Batista, the Davie construction and engineering company owner, said the market has forced him to “get creative.” In August, he went on a recruiting mission to a large engineering conference in Puerto Rico, an American territory, where he hoped to recruit U.S. citizens and avoid immigration paperwork.

He was prepared to pay to relocate structural engineers to have them move to Florida to help fill the need for people to certify inspections to meet Florida’s new condominium safety laws, he said.

But, he discovered, Puerto Rico continues to rebuild after Hurricane Maria, “everyone is looking for structural engineers” and none of the prospective candidates wanted to move to South Florida.

“I thought the trip to Puerto Rico was going to be more fruitful and it hasn’t been,’’ Batista said. “I don’t know what else to do. If people aren’t there, they aren’t there.”

Hamas surprise attack out of Gaza stuns Israel and leaves hundreds dead in fighting, retaliation

Associated Press

Hamas surprise attack out of Gaza stuns Israel and leaves hundreds dead in fighting, retaliation

Josef Federman and Issam Adwan – October 7, 2023

People look at the damage from a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Moti Milrod)

Fire and smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. The militant Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented, multi-front attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, firing thousands of rockets as dozens of Hamas fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations by air, land, and sea, killing dozens and stunning the country. Palestinian health officials reported scores of deaths from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

Palestinians inspect the rubble of a building after it was struck by an Israeli airstrike, in Gaza City, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. The militant Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented, multi-front attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, firing thousands of rockets as dozens of Hamas fighters infiltrated the heavily fortified border in several locations by air, land, and sea and catching the country off-guard on a major holiday. (AP Photo/Fatima Shbair)

An Israeli woman react over the body of her relative who was killed by Palestinian armed militants who entered from the Gaza strip, in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas, the militant group ruling the Gaza Strip, carried out a surprise, multi-front attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, firing thousands of rockets and infiltrating the country by land, air and sea. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)

An Israeli soldier stands by the bodies of Israelis killed by Palestinian armed militants who entered from the Gaza Strip, in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas, the militant group ruling the Gaza Strip, carried out a surprise, multi-front attack on Israel at daybreak Saturday, firing thousands of rockets and infiltrating the country by land, air and sea. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Backed by a barrage of rockets, Hamas militants stormed from the blockaded Gaza Strip into nearby Israeli towns, killing dozens and abducting others in an unprecedented surprise attack during a major Jewish holiday Saturday. A stunned Israel launched airstrikes in Gaza, with its prime minister saying the country is now at war with Hamas and vowing to inflict an “unprecedented price.”

In an assault of startling breadth, Hamas gunmen rolled into as many as 22 locations outside the Gaza Strip, including towns and other communities as far as 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the Gaza border. In some places they gunned down civilians and soldiers as Israel’s military scrambled to muster a response.

Gunbattles continued well after nightfall, and militants held hostages in standoffs in two towns. Militants occupied a police station in a third town, where Israeli forces struggled until Sunday morning to finally reclaim the building.

Before daybreak Sunday, militants fired more rockets from Gaza, hitting a hospital in the Israeli coastal town of Ashkelon. The hospital sustained damage, said senior hospital official Tal Bergman. Video provided by Barzilai Medical Center showed a large hole punched into a wall and chunks of debris scattered on the ground of what appeared to an empty rooms and a hallway. There was no report of casualties.

Israeli media, citing rescue service officials, said at least 250 people were killed and 1,500 wounded in Saturday’s attack, making it the deadliest in Israel in decades. At least 232 people in the Gaza Strip were killed and 1,700 wounded in Israeli strikes, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Hamas fighters took an unknown number of civilians and soldiers captive into Gaza.

The conflict threatened to escalate with Israel’s vows of retaliation. Previous conflicts between Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers brought widespread death and destruction in Gaza and days of rocket fire on Israeli towns. The situation is potentially more volatile now, with Israel’s far-right government stung by the security breach and with Palestinians in despair over a never-ending occupation in the West Bank and suffocating blockade of Gaza.

In a televised address Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who earlier declared Israel to be at war, said the military will use all of its strength to destroy Hamas’ capabilities. But he warned, “This war will take time. It will be difficult.”

“All the places that Hamas hides in, operates from, we will turn them into ruins,” he added. “Get out of there now,” he told Gaza residents, who have no way to leave the tiny, overcrowded Mediterranean territory of 2.3 million people.

Early Sunday, the Israeli military issued warnings in Arabic to residents of communities near the border with Israel to leave their homes and move to areas deeper inside the tiny enclave. In previous Israel-Hamas fighting on Gaza soil, the Gaza communities near the border were hit particularly hard, both by artillery fire and at times by ground incursions.

Gaza’s residents have endured a border blockade, enforced to varying degrees by Israel and Egypt, since Hamas militants seized control in 2007. Civilians are trapped and particularly vulnerable during wars and bouts of fighting.

Israeli airstrikes in Gaza intensified after nightfall, flattening residential buildings in giant explosions, including a 14-story tower that held dozens of apartments as well as Hamas offices in central Gaza City. Israeli forces fired a warning just before.

Around 3 a.m., a loudspeaker atop a mosque in Gaza City blared a stark warning to residents of nearby apartment buildings: Evacuate immediately. Just minutes later, an Israeli airstrike reduced one nearby five-story building to ashes.

After one Israeli strike, a Hamas rocket barrage hit four cities, including Tel Aviv and a nearby suburb. Throughout the day, Hamas fired more than 3,500 rockets, the Israeli military said.

The strength, sophistication and timing of the Saturday morning attack shocked Israelis. Hamas fighters used explosives to break through the border fence enclosing Gaza, then crossed with motorcycles, pickup trucks, paragliders and speed boats on the coast.

In some towns, civilians’ bodies lay where they had encountered advancing gunmen. At least nine people gunned down at a bus shelter in the town of Sderot were laid out on stretchers on the street, their bags still on the curb nearby. One woman, screaming, embraced the body of a family member sprawled under a sheet next to a toppled motorcycle.

In amateur video, hundreds of terrified young people who had been dancing at a rave fled for their lives after Hamas militants entered the area and began firing at them. Israeli media said dozens of people were killed.

Among the dead was Col. Jonathan Steinberg, a senior officer who commanded the Israeli military’s Nahal Brigade, a prominent infantry unit.

The shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, said the assault was in response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, Israeli raids inside West Bank cities over the past year, violence at Al Aqsa — the disputed Jerusalem holy site sacred to Jews as the Temple Mount — increasing attacks by settlers on Palestinians and the growth of settlements.

“Enough is enough,” Deif, who does not appear in public, said in the recorded message. He said the attack was only the start of what he called “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” and called on Palestinians from east Jerusalem to northern Israel to join the fight.

The Hamas incursion on Simchat Torah, a normally joyous day when Jews complete the annual cycle of reading the Torah scroll, revived painful memories of the 1973 Mideast war practically 50 years to the day, in which Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, aiming to take back Israeli-occupied territories.

Comparisons to one of the most traumatic moments in Israeli history sharpened criticism of Netanyahu and his far-right allies, who had campaigned on more aggressive action against threats from Gaza. Political commentators lambasted the government and military over its failure to anticipate what appeared to be a Hamas attack unseen in its level of planning and coordination.

Asked by reporters how Hamas had managed to catch the army off guard, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli army spokesman, replied, “That’s a good question.”

The abduction of Israeli civilians and soldiers also raised a particularly thorny issue for Israel, which has a history of making heavily lopsided exchanges to bring captive Israelis home. Israel is holding thousands of Palestinians in its prisons. Hecht confirmed that “substantial” number of Israelis were abducted Saturday.

Associated Press photos showed an elderly Israeli woman being brought into Gaza on a golf cart by Hamas gunmen and another woman squeezed between two fighters on a motorcycle. AP journalists saw four people taken from the kibbutz of Kfar Azza, including two women.

In Gaza, a black jeep pulled to a stop and, when the rear door opened, a young Israeli woman stumbled out, bleeding from the head and with her hands tied behind her back. A man waving a gun in the air grabbed her by the hair and pushed her into the vehicle’s back seat. Israeli TV reported that workers from Thailand and the Philippines were also among the captives.

Netanyahu vowed that Hamas “will pay an unprecedented price.” A major question now was whether Israel will launch a ground assault into Gaza, a move that in the past has brought intensified casualties.

Israel’s military was bringing four divisions of troops as well as tanks to the Gaza border, joining 31 battalions already in the area, the spokesman Hagari said.

In Gaza, much of the population was thrown into darkness after nightfall as electrical supplies from Israel — which supplies almost all the territories’ power — were cut off. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that Israel would stop supplying electricity, fuel and goods to Gaza.

Hamas said it had planned for a potentially long fight. “We are prepared for all options, including all-out war,” the deputy head of the Hamas political bureau, Saleh al-Arouri, told Al-Jazeera TV. “We are ready to do whatever is necessary for the dignity and freedom of our people.”

U.S. President Joe Biden said from the White House that he had spoken with Netanyahu to say the United States “stands with the people of Israel in the face of these terrorist assaults. Israel has the right to defend itself and its people, full stop.”

Saudi Arabia, which has been in talks with the U.S. about normalizing relations with Israel, called on both sides to exercise restraint. The kingdom said it had repeatedly warned about the danger of “the situation exploding as a result of the continued occupation (and) the Palestinian people being deprived of their legitimate rights.”

Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group congratulated Hamas, praising the attack as a response to “Israeli crimes.” The group said its command in Lebanon was in contact with Hamas about the operation.

The attack comes at a time of historic division within Israel over Netanyahu’s proposal to overhaul the judiciary. Mass protests over the plan have sent hundreds of thousands of Israeli demonstrators into the streets and prompted hundreds of military reservists to avoid volunteer duty — turmoil that has raised fears over the military’s battlefield readiness.

It also comes at a time of mounting tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, with the peace process effectively dead for years. Over the past year, Israel’s far-right government has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence has displaced hundreds of Palestinians there and tensions have flared around a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.

Palestinians demonstrated in towns and cities around the West Bank on Saturday night. Palestinian health officials said Israeli fire killed five there, but gave few details.

Adwan reported from Rafah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writers Wafaa Shurafa in Gaza City and Isabel DeBre and Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

The Ripples of Republican Chaos

The New York Times – Opinion

The Ripples of Republican Chaos

By Charles M. Blow – October 4, 2023

A blurry image of an American flag. — Credit…Emil Lippe for The New York Times

This week, Donald Trump delivered his version of a sad tiny desk performance, hunched over the defendant’s table in a New York courtroom, diminished and watching the illusion of power and grandeur he has sold voters thin and run like oil in a hot pan.

He insisted on appearing in person at his civil fraud trial, apparently believing that he would continue to perform his perverse magic of converting that which would have ended other political careers into a political win for himself.

His hubris seemed to consume him, persuading him that in matters of optics, he’s not only invincible but unmatched.

He has done it before: In August he scowled in his mug shot — a precursor to his Fulton County, Ga., criminal trial — summoning the allure of an outlaw, using the photo to raise millions of dollars, according to his campaign.

But I think his attempts at cosplaying some sort of roguish flintiness will wind up being missteps. Courtrooms don’t allow for political-rally stagecraft. There’s no place to plant primed supporters behind him to ensure that every camera angle captures excited admirers. He’s not the center of attention, the impresario of the event; no, he must sit silently in lighting not intended to flatter and in chairs not intended to impress.

Courtrooms humble the people in them. They equalize. They democratize. In the courtroom, Trump is just another defendant — and in it, he looks small. The phantasm of indomitability, the idea of him being wily and slick, surrenders to the flame like tissues in a campfire.

The image was not of a defiant would-be king but of a man stewing and defeated.

The judge in the case even issued a limited gag order after Trump posted a picture of and a comment about the judge’s clerk on Truth Social.

Meanwhile, there’s the historic ouster of the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, by members of his own party for the unforgivable sin of seeking a bipartisan solution to keep the government open.

In Greek mythology exists the story of the Gigantomachy, a battle between the Olympian gods and giants. According to prophecy, the gods could emerge victorious only if assisted by a mortal. Hercules came to the rescue.

But in Republicans’ version of this drama, McCarthy could have emerged victorious over his party’s anarchists only if Democrats had come to his aid. None did.

He was felled by a revolt led not by a giant but by the smallest of men, not in stature but in principles: the charmless Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida.

Anyone who thought that Democrats were going to save McCarthy should have thought again. Ultimately, he succumbed to the result of his own craven pursuit of power: The rule that Gaetz used to initiate the vote to strip McCarthy of the speaker’s gavel was the rule McCarthy agreed to in order to get his hands on the gavel in the first place.

Republicans are engaged in an intense session of self-flagellation. Does it also hurt the country? Yes. But in one way it might help: America needs to clearly see who the culprits are in today’s political chaos, and the damage they cause, so that voters can correct course.

And the events of this week should give voters pause. The tableau that emerges from the troubles of Trump and McCarthy is one in which the G.O.P.’s leaders are chastened and cowed, one in which their power is stripped and their efforts rebuked.

This is just one week among many leading up to the 2024 elections, but it is weeks like this that leave a mark, because the images that emerge from them are indelible.

All the inflamed consternation about Joe Biden’s age and Hunter Biden’s legal troubles will, in the end, have to be weighed against something far more consequential: Republicans — obsessed with blind obeisance, a lust for vengeance and a contempt for accountability — who no longer have the desire or capacity to actually lead.

Their impulses to disrupt and destroy keep winning out, foreshadowing even more of a national disaster if their power grows as a result.

How Republican primary voters respond to this Republican maelstrom of incompetence is one thing. How general election voters will respond to it is quite another.