Solar eclipse: State of emergency declared in Niagara Region

 A state of emergency has been declared in Niagara Region with thousands of people expected to head there to view the April 8 solar eclipse.

A news release issued by the region said the state of emergency was declared “out of an abundance of caution” by Regional Chair Jim Bradley under the Emergency Management and Civil Protection Act (EMCPA), effective Thursday, March 28.

“Declaring a state of emergency under the EMCPA strengthens the tools the region has at its disposal to safeguard the health and safety of residents and visitors and protect our critical infrastructure in any scenario that might arise,” the release said.

The release said residents and visitors to Niagara are welcome to safely enjoy the eclipse on April 8, “and Niagara’s local governments, emergency responders, schools and other organizations have been working together with the province and other key partners to make that possible.”

Police have previously said estimates suggest one million people could descend on Niagara Falls alone.

Niagara Region is along the path of totality for the eclipse, making it one of the best places to take in the event.

View image in full screen

Global News

“On April 8, the spotlight will be on Niagara as thousands of visitors join us to share in this once-in-a-lifetime event, and we will be ready to shine,” Bradley said.

“I would like to thank all of our local governments, first responders, and community organizations who have been working together diligently to make sure our community is able to offer a safe and unforgettable experience, both for our visitors, and for all those who call Niagara home.”

The release said individuals should be prepared for crowds and long lines and should consider filling up on gas, getting groceries and running errands before the eclipse.

“Follow local directives and road signage as you travel on April 8. While travelling on highways, don’t stop, take pictures, or get out of your car to view the eclipse,” the release said.

Most schools in Niagara will be closed on April 8 and parents were encouraged to have a childcare plan in place.

Those viewing the eclipse should only wear ISO 12312-2 certified glasses, the region noted.

Niagara Region will also be closing some facilities and modifying some programs / services to help keep traffic off the roads.

https://globalnews.ca/news/10392024/solar-eclipse-state-of-emergency-niagara-region/

Massive crane put in place to clear Baltimore bridge debris

 The biggest operational crane on the U.S. Eastern Seaboard towered over Baltimore's port on Friday, ready to begin clearing the wreckage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge days after a cargo ship crashed into it, sending the span crashing into the harbor.

Crews were still surveying the damage as of midday Friday. The crane, which can lift up to 1,000 tons, arrived late Thursday night and will probably start hauling debris out of the water on Saturday morning, according to U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson Carmen Carver.

A second crane is en route and expected to arrive soon to assist the effort, she said.

State and federal authorities are focused on clearing the busy port and rebuilding the bridge after the Dali, a massive container ship that had lost power, plowed into a support column early on Tuesday, toppling the structure and leaving six workers presumed dead.

Divers have recovered two bodies of the missing construction workers, who were repairing the bridge at the time of the collision. The remaining four are believed to be trapped beneath the water. All were immigrants from Mexico and Central America.

Finding the remaining bodies is the top priority, Maryland Governor Wes Moore told a press conference on Thursday. Crews must also assess how to remove the stuck vessel, loaded with thousands of containers and trapped by bridge debris.

"The Dali is almost as long as the Eiffel Tower, and the Dali has the Key Bridge on top of it. We're talking 3,000 or 4,000 tons of steel that's sitting on top of that ship, so we've got work to do," Moore said at Thursday's press conference.

Within hours of Moore's request for emergency funds, the U.S. government on Thursday had awarded Maryland $60 million to clear debris and begin rebuilding the bridge, a reflection of how critical the infrastructure is to shipping and transportation industries along the Eastern Seaboard.

Three days after the tragedy, the jobs of some 15,000 people whose work revolves around daily port operation are on hold. Maryland lawmakers are looking to pass emergency legislation to provide income replacement for those affected, the state senate president said this week.

The situation poses a temporary risk to the area's economy, since the port receives the greatest share of U.S. auto imports and is one of just four on the U.S. east coast with the 50-foot channel needed for larger cargo boats, bond rating agency Moody's Investors Service said.

Replacing the 47-year-old bridge will likely require "years of work," but the port, whose operations recently surpassed pre-pandemic levels, could reopen within weeks, "if debris is rapidly removed," according to a Moody's report.

"As long as the port is closed, diversion of automotive imports and other cargo to other East Coast ports will erode Baltimore's advantage as the port closest to the Midwest, to the detriment of terminal operators," the report said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/massive-crane-put-place-clear-174151305.html

Pension fund CalPERS backs Peltz, Rasulo in Disney board battle

 The California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) said on Friday it voted to elect activist investment firm Trian Fund Management's two director candidates to Walt Disney's board, in one of the most closely watched and expensive battles for corporate control.

"CalPERS believes Walt Disney Co will benefit from fresh eyes on its board of directors and voted its company shares in favor of candidates Nelson Peltz and Jay Rasulo," the U.S. pension fund, which owned 6.65 million shares in the entertainment giant at the end of December, told Reuters.

CalPERS, which ranks among Walt Disney's top 30 investors, according to LSEG data, said its "established voting guidelines focus on the need for independent corporate boards, a say in setting executive pay, and increased transparency. Two new directors who are qualified and capable of leading needed change in corporate governance will serve the Disney board well."

Shareholders will decide at next week's annual meeting who will sit on the home of Mickey Mouse's 12-person board and help guide strategy as CEO Bob Iger seeks to transform a company valued at $224 billion.

As more big shareholders are expected to cast votes in the coming days, Disney is racing to convince investors there is no need for new blood on the board at a time when the share price has climbed and Iger has laid out

new initiatives

to cut costs and reignite the company's creative spark.

Trian and another hedge fund, Blackwells Capital, which is trying to win three Disney board seats, are doing the same, telling investors the Disney board has bungled succession planning for Iger, needs to better harness technology, and should consider separating its real estate holdings.

Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) recommended that investors elect Peltz, while its much smaller rival, Egan-Jones, recommended votes for Peltz and Rasulo, a former Disney chief financial officer who was passed over for the top job at the entertainment company years ago. Glass Lewis, another proxy advisory firm, suggested investors back all of Disney's 12 directors.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-us-pension-fund-calpers-002237314.html

Xiaomi Prices First EV Competitively, Aiming for Pole Position in Crowded Market

 Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has put a lower-than-expected price tag on its first electric vehicle as it joins the fiercely competitive race in China's EV market.

Xiaomi is selling the standard entry-level version of its four-door sporty sedan for 215,900 yuan ($29,871.19), which according to its chief executive, Lei Jun, is much cheaper than the equivalent Tesla vehicle.

"It's CNY30,000 cheaper than the Model 3," Lei said late Thursday at a two-hour launch event, noting that the Tesla car starts at CNY245,900 in China.

After the launch, Xiaomi, which also makes consumer electronics, said that it had received 50,000 orders for its range of SU7 EVs in less than 30 minutes.

Xiaomi announced plans to build its own electric vehicle 2021, saying it would invest $10 billion in the business over the next decade. Lei referred to the venture as his "last major start-up project." Xiaomi took a different route than fellow smartphone maker Huawei, which chose to collaborate with existing automakers for its foray into EVs.

The Beijing-based company is entering the race at a time when major players like BYD and Tesla are aggressively cutting prices to gain share in the world's biggest auto market. This is happening as the Chinese economy slows amid weak consumer demand. The latest data showed that retail sales of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles dropped 12% in China last month. EV makers NIO and Li Auto have both lowered first-quarter deliveries guidance due to soft sales.

Against this backdrop, Xiaomi's price strategy could give it a valuable edge.

"The prices are lower than street and our expectations," CCB International equity analyst Clint Su said, which should benefit sales volumes.

The more advanced pro and max versions of the SU7 will retail for CNY245,900 and CNY299,900, respectively. Xiaomi is positioning its cars to compete against Tesla's Model 3 and Porsche's Taycan, as well as Geely Automobile's Zeekr 007.

Lei said the max version can hit speeds of 265 kilometers per hour, faster than the top speed of the Porsche Taycan Turbo.

Xiaomi plans to start deliveries of the standard and max models in late April, with the pro versions expected to be available by the end of May. The company is targeting 39 Chinese cities by the end of the year but didn't say if it plans to sell the car overseas.

Citi analysts said initial orders for Xiaomi's SU7 look encouraging, and projects that shipments will reach 60,000 units in 2024.

If Xiaomi did indeed log 50,000 orders for its EVs, that could change market dynamics, Nomura analyst Joel Ying said.

However, the lower price tags may put short-term pressure on Xiaomi's gross profit margin, analysts say.

"Overall, we sense the confidence from the company in core business and commitment in EV business while investors still have concerns on competition and margin outlook," Citi analysts wrote in a recent note.

Xiaomi's U.S.-listed stock closed 12% higher overnight on Wall Street. Hong Kong markets are closed on Friday for the Easter holidays.

https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/20240329179/xiaomi-prices-first-ev-competitively-aiming-for-pole-position-in-crowded-market

Microsoft, OpenAI planning $100B ‘Stargate’ to house supercomputer: report

 Microsoft and ChatGPT parent OpenAI are working on plans for a data-center project that could cost as much as $100 billion and include an artificial intelligence supercomputer called “Stargate” set to launch in 2028, according to a report on Friday.

The companies did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

Rapid adoption of generative artificial intelligence technology has led to sky-rocketing demand for AI data centers capable of handling more advanced tasks than traditional data centers.

The Information reported that Microsoft would likely be responsible for financing the project, which would be 100 times more costly than some of the biggest current data centers, citing people involved in private conversations about the proposal.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in November. OpenAI’s next major AI upgrade is expected to land by early next year.AP

The proposed US-based supercomputer would be the biggest in a series of installations the companies are looking to build over the next six years, the report added.

The Information attributed the tentative cost of $100 billion to a person who spoke to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman about it and a person who has viewed some of Microsoft’s initial cost estimates. It did not identify those sources.

Altman and Microsoft employees have spread supercomputers across five phases, with Stargate as the fifth phase.

Microsoft is working on a smaller, fourth-phase supercomputer for OpenAI that it aims to launch around 2026, according to the report.

Microsoft and OpenAI are in the middle of the third phase of the five-phase plan, with much of the cost of the next two phases involving procuring the AI chips that are needed, the report said.

Altman and Microsoft employees have spread supercomputers across five phases, with Stargate as the fifth phase.AFP via Getty Images

AI chips are often sold at high prices. Chip company Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC earlier in March that the latest “Blackwell” B200 artificial intelligence chip will be priced between $30,000 and $40,000.

Microsoft had also announced a duo of custom-designed computing chips in November last year.

The report said the new project would be designed to work with chips from different suppliers.

“We are always planning for the next generation of infrastructure innovations needed to continue pushing the frontier of AI capability,” Frank Shaw, a Microsoft spokesperson, said in a statement to the publication.

The proposed efforts could cost in excess of $115 billion, more than three times what Microsoft spent last year on capital expenditures for servers, buildings and other equipment, the report stated.

https://nypost.com/2024/03/29/business/microsoft-openai-planning-100b-data-center-to-house-ai-supercomputer/

Vile: AP wins award for photo of Hamas terrorists proudly posing with their 'kill' like big game hunters

 In the arts these days, they insist that context is everything.

So what is one to make of this vile picture, of Hamas terrorists from the October 7 massacre proudly posing with their 'kill' on the bed of a pickup truck, the mangled, mutilated, body of a 22-year old woman, proudly preening and posing for their trusted photographer from the Associated Press?

 

 

I thought lefties didn't like photographs of big-game hunters posing with their gratuitous kills. Seems there's an exception now, if the 'trophy' is a woman and a Jew.

According to the New York Post:

A sickening image of Hamas terrorists parading a slain woman’s nearly naked body through the streets of Gaza has been awarded a prestigious photo-of-the-year prize — sparking fierce outrage from those who slammed the win as “an outrageous desecration of Jewish life.”

The grim photo featuring Shani Louk’s body was among a collection of 20 images that helped the Associated Press secure first place in one of the Pictures of the Year International award categories earlier this month.

The awards, which are run by the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism, are self-described as the world’s oldest photojournalism competition.

So much for 'say her name' as the lefties like to say. Neither AP nor the University of Missouri did that to the helpless murder and probable rape victim.

It's not just that the picture is vile and ensured that a lot of us turned in favor of Israel completely destroying Hamas.

It's that the photographer could get that close to the scene of the violence.

Can any old photographer come visit Hamas in Gaza and take pictures like that?

I don't think so.

Only the most trusted and vetted ones can do that.

Hamas is basically are cartel-like criminal gang that commits heinous crimes, and as a result, trusts no one. I've been around people like this, in Indonesia years ago, and they are scary in their distrust of free-press reporters. Russian and Chechen gangsters, too; there's a kind of electricity around them in everything they say and do that threatens one to 'stay away.'

How it was that Hamas could come to trust this AP photographer who took the photo unless he was basically one of them? How was it that he could 'embed' with this group before the went on their murder spree on October 7 to photograph the carnage? He would have had to have had foreknowledge of it before it happened. That leaves a lot of open questions as to what his motives were and who his friends were. Was he there to create the terrorist pornoviolence, to use the term Tom Wolfe used for playing over and over scenes of gratuitous violence for its own sake? We know that Osama bin Laden got his rocks off watching pornoviolence of his own atrocities, as do many dictators. If he knew about this, he'd probably be upset he didn't think it up himself.

Had Osama bin Laden invited along an Associated Press photographer to photograph up his atrocities, too, would his pals have gotten prestigious journalism awards, too?

We know that Mexican cartels will often carry along trusted photographers for their acts -- there used to be websites that I knew about where I'd see videos of graphic violence I never knew could exist - of terrified victims in blindfolds with guns shoved at their temples, of a pickup truck running its tire back and forth over a guy's head as the brains gushed out. Since those are historic pictures, too, should those photographers, too, get prestigious journalism awards?

And hasn't the press been most critical of reporters with unorthodox methods, such as James O'Keefe, with his undercover reporting, which is truthful and significant? Like the up-close AP photograph, such things are obtained by unorthodox methods, but they're certainly something the press won't give him recognition as a journalist for. Double standards, anyone? And another for the unorthodox pile, Julian Assange, whose claim to journalism is the wholesale publication of stolen secrets? Sure, it's historical. But it's not exactly journalism, any more than having a participant in the Hamas attacks get called a journalist and get awards for his 'output.'

To obtain such a photo, one must be vetted and trusted by some of the world's worst terrorists:

 

 

And Israel has charged that members of the press were actual Hamas members. AP has been accused of sharing office space with Hamas in 2021, too.

AT managing editor Andrea Widburg pointed out the problem with the entire context of this photo:

It's the difference between awarding a prize to someone who smuggled an important photo out of Auschwitz and to one of the guards in Auschwitz who proudly photographed a day at work.

It can't be better said than that. Let's reserve journalism rewards for real journalism.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/vile_ap_wins_photography_award_for_snapshot_of_hamas_terrorists_proudly_posing_with_their_kill_like_big_game_hunters.html

Joe Biden had $7.5 billion to spend on 500,000 EV charging stations. He has built ... 7

 By Monica Showalter

Way back in 2021, Joe Biden vowed to spend $7.5 billion of our taxpayer dollars to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations. The greenie future was just around the corner, he assured, soon everyone would be driving an electric vehicle, and the future was so bright, we'd have to wear shades. 

Now that his term is ending, how's that going?

According to the Washington Post:

President Biden has long vowed to build 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations in the United States by 2030. Those stations, the White House said, would help Americans feel confident purchasing and driving electric cars, and help the country cut carbon pollution.

But now, more than two years after Congress allocated $7.5 billion to help build out those stations, only 7 EV charging stations are operational across four states. And as the Biden administration rolls out its new rules for emissions from cars and trucks — which will require a lot more electric cars and hybrids on the road — the sluggish build-out could slow the transition to electric cars.

“I think a lot of people who are watching this are getting concerned about the timeline,” said Alexander Laska, deputy director for transportation and innovation at the center-left think tank Third Way.

Seems his call to leave it to him to turn our economy green isn't working out quite like he thought it would work out.

It's like the shovel-ready jobs promised by President Obama early in his term that he eventually admitted never quite panned out like he thought it would?

Now Joe Biden has "toppped" that Obama failure with his electric vehicle charging stations scheme, making his promises even more empty than Obama's.

It's not surprising. It's the idiocy of leftist big government policies in action.

It's the old problem of central planning for a Better Tomorrow instead of letting the market decide.

Had Biden left the green future up to market forces, the charging stations would have gone up on their own because enterprising entrepreneurs would have found a market for it and with that, a profitable opportunity to do so.

They didn't, because electric vehicles are expensive and less efficient than gas-powered vehicles, harder to drive, and seemingly more dangerous and less socially responsible based on their reliance on rare earth minerals mined by third world children. Those were the signals the market was responding to, but for Biden, that didn't matter.

Biden ignored all that and took it upon himself to force electric vehicles onto the public anyway with his electric charging station schemes.

Getting everyone into electric vehicles whether they like it or not was the name of his greenie leftist game, which he and his allied claimed was all about saving the planet. The greenie left has always had a thing against efficient cars with members of the public driving these individual cars without a bus driver directing them and Joe Biden has embraced its agenda, with ambitious mandates on buying less-efficient electric vehicles, impossible fuel efficiency standards, actual bans on gasoline-powered vehicles in coming years, and innovations-from-hell like metered mileage taxes, as we see bruited about in California.

Now that he's gotten what he wanted, he's made another mess of it, wasting a lot of money on consultant contracts, crony payouts and other things that don't put charging stations on the ground.

In reality it has never been about global warming but about consolidating government and greenie control and power.

Biden had the most ambitious of plans to spend big on EV infrastructure to be ready for artificial deadlines he calls "the future"-- $7.5 billion in spending at least count -- and mandates galore.

Except that he hasn't lived up to his much-touted end of the bargain. He's running for re-election based on his record, and well, the seven charging stations are his record.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/03/joe_biden_had_7_5_billion_to_spend_on_500_000_ev_charging_stations_he_has_built_7.html