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San Francisco turns to AI to save whales from ship strikes as deaths soar

Climate change is pushing starving grey whales to San Francisco Bay, where ship strikes led to 40% of 21 deaths Ferries, cargo ships and tankers cut through choppy waters in the San Francisco Bay on Tuesday as a whale surfaced nearby, its spout barely visible against the white caps. Until now, whales could easily go unnoticed by mariners, but an AI-powered detection network launched this week is designed to track them day and night. The system, called WhaleSpotter, scans the bay around the clock for whale blows and heat signatures up to 2 nautical miles away, alerting mariners to slow down or reroute when whales are nearby. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/E1S9F35

NS&I to contact bereaved families owed £367m after missing savings scandal

The bank’s interim chief executive says ‘this issue should never have happened’, but warns it may take time to process claims National Savings and Investments bank will start to contact thousands of families affected by a missing savings scandal next week, as it confirmed how much they are owed. In March, the chief executive of the state-backed bank was forced out after it emerged there had been long-running problems with the tracing of accounts belonging to customers who had died . Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/Ye50j7K

Pope Leo to issue text on human dignity and AI with Anthropic co-founder

The pope’s encyclical will address ‘the protection of the human person in the age of AI’, the Vatican says In the first major text of his papacy, Pope Leo will address the rapid rise of artificial intelligence . The Chicago-born pontiff will present the document, known as an encyclical, at the Vatican next week during an event attended by Christopher Olah, the co-founder of Anthropic – a US-based AI firm that has clashed with Donald Trump’s administration. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/AlHW9nK

Farm Fatale review – freaky scarecrows make hay out of climate crisis

Southbank Centre, London Between a sci-fi concert for eggs and an interview with a bee, the scarecrow broadcasters in Philippe Quesne’s oddball performance piece make the case for art as salvation and for farms as the lifeblood of humanity Bump into one of these scarecrows at night and you’d be forgiven for running a mile. But stick around to listen to this hay-laden gang of crop-protector castaways, who no longer have crops to protect nor birds to scare thanks to the climate crisis, and you’ll see they have only good intentions. The sensorily ambitious Farm Fatale joins five scarecrows with faces of melted plastic and voices of children swallowed by machines in the artificial studio of their pirate radio station. It is set in the near future, when the air is hard to breathe and birdsong is recorded. The only people getting by are the industrial farmers capitalising on the ruin of others. When the scarecrows interview a bee, with a microphone charmingly taped to a pitchfork, the little...

The Minnesota Timberwolves’ motley crew brought a burst of fun to the NBA playoffs

The Wolves probably won’t win a title without big roster changes, but their postseason run made their case as one of the league’s most entertaining teams The Minnesota Timberwolves are out of the NBA playoffs . It’s a miracle it took this long. In their first-round series against the Denver Nuggets, they saw two starters and another key reserve suffer significant injuries . The Nuggets entered the series on a 12-game winning streak and were favored from the jump. After somehow winning that series in six games, finding Denver’s weak points and pummeling them until they broke, the Wolves met an even more daunting opponent in the San Antonio Spurs. Though they’d have been forgiven for tiredly accepting a sweep, the Wolves swiped Game 1 on the Spurs’ home floor, then a close Game 4 at home. After that, the tank finally ran empty. But even in the losses – including Friday night’s in Game 6 – the Wolves found ways to frighten. They’d go down 18-3 and then tie the game by the end of the fir...

Saints and sinners: if Southampton are found guilty of spying they should be punished | Jonathan Wilson

There needs to be a zero-tolerance approach to stealing other clubs’ secrets – Kim Hellberg’s emotional response shows just how deep this goes Kim Hellberg was clearly upset and his press conference after Middlesbrough’s defeat at Southampton in the Championship semi‑final playoff second leg became unexpectedly moving as a result. In football, the Boro manager said, you accept that some teams have greater resources than others but where the coach of the less well-off team can gain an advantage is in the “tactical element”; it is in effect the only weapon he has. And if that weapon is made less effective by an opponent cheating, it is understandable that Hellberg should feel that his profession, the skillset he has developed to test himself against his peers, has been betrayed. That disgust is, no doubt, genuine enough, and it is perhaps difficult for those of us who do not work in that world fully to grasp how frustrating it must be if strategies and ploys carefully conceived and pra...

Thirteen years in the making: Madrid’s search for a saviour set to end in Mourinho return

The idea that one day Mourinho might return to the Bernabéu had hung in the air, if not really as a serious possibility. Now the impossible is probable The last time José Mourinho was at the Santiago Bernabéu, he parked up in the bus. That night in late February the Benfica manager was suspended, a red card from the first leg of the Champions League playoff meaning he wasn’t allowed on the touchline he had prowled 13 years and a lifetime ago, so Real Madrid prepared a media booth for him to watch from. Situated on the eighth floor, Spanish radio to the left of him, Portuguese to the right, Cabin No 6 had been supplied with nuts, fruit, salad and jamón sandwiches. As kick-off approached, a crowd gathered by the door. But if the camera phones were out, he wasn’t. Mourinho never showed. Instead, he stayed in the basement 10 floors below, watching from an iPad on board the bus and leaving the post-match press conference to his assistant, João Tralhão. The next time he comes, which could b...