Connect with us

The Center Square

Gulf of Mexico ‘dead zone’ larger than average, exceeds June prediction | Alabama

Published

on

www.thecentersquare.com – By Steve Wilson | The Center Square – 2024-08-01 11:16:00

(The Center Square) – A low-oxygen “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico was larger than average but smaller than predicted, a recent survey found.

The “dead zone” with little to no oxygen can kill fish and marine life is approximately 6,705 square miles, or 4 million acres, the 12th largest found in 38 years of surveys. Work was done by scientists from Louisiana State University and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium supported by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

This “dead zone” is the size of New Jersey, and is larger than NOAA predicted in June.

The agency predicted an above-average sized “dead zone” of 5,827 square miles, utilizing data on Mississippi River discharge and nutrient runoff data from the U.S. Geological Survey.



TCS - hypoxia Gulf of Mexico map

A map of the Gulf of Mexico’s hypoxia zone. A red area on the map denotes 2 mg/L of oxygen or lower, the level which is considered hypoxic, at the bottom of the seafloor.




The average size of the hypoxia zone in the Gulf over the past five years has been 4,298 square miles. 

These zones of low to no oxygen are caused by excessive nutrients, such as fertilizer runoff from farmland, and from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya river systems.

These nutrients set off an overgrowth of algae that dies and decomposes, depleting oxygen from the water as it sinks to the bottom. Research has shown this depletion causes fish and other marine life to vacate the area. 

“It’s critical that we measure this region’s hypoxia as an indicator of ocean health, particularly under a changing climate and potential intensification of storms and increases in precipitation and runoff,” Nicole LeBoeuf, assistant administrator of NOAA’s National Ocean Service, said in a release. “The benefit of this long-term data set is that it helps decision makers as they adjust their strategies to reduce the dead zone and manage impacts to coastal resources and communities.”

The Environmental Protection Agency started the Gulf Hypoxia Program to reduce excessive nutrients and reduce the “dead zones” to 3,100 square miles or less by 2035. It is funded by $60 million from the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.

Read More

The post Gulf of Mexico ‘dead zone’ larger than average, exceeds June prediction | Alabama appeared first on www.thecentersquare.com

The Center Square

Essayli resigns from CA State Assembly to accept appointment as U.S. attorney | California

Published

on

www.thecentersquare.com – Dave Mason – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-02 17:18:00

(The Center Square) – A legislator known for his conservative stance on illegal immigration and other issues has been nominated for U.S. attorney for a district that includes Los Angeles County.

Assemblymember Bill Essayli, R-Corona, resigned Tuesday night from the California State Assembly to accept President Donald Trump’s appointment to the U.S. District for Central California. The appointment will require the Senate’s confirmation.

During a Fox interview, Essayli said his top priorities as U.S. attorney would include prosecuting illegal immigrants and those who aid and support them.

In January, Essayli sought answers from Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom about whether bills introduced to “Trump-proof” the state would hinder the president’s mass deportation efforts. Essayli told Fox News Digital he believed money from a $50 million initiative would be used to defend illegal immigrants with criminal records. Newsom’s office later said no funds would be used for “immigration-related services for criminals.”

In 2024, Essayli amended his Assembly Bill 2641 to end sanctuary protections for illegal immigrants convicted of sex crimes against minors. 

After Trump’s nomination, Essayli said he felt honored by the trust placed in him by the president and Attorney General Pam Bondi.

“I intend to implement the President’s mission to restore trust in our justice system and pursue those who dare to cause harm to the United States and the People of our nation,” the former Riverside County legislator said in a statement. 

The Central District consists of Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. The district serves about 20 million people.

Essayli, a former Riverside County prosecutor and former assistant U.S. attorney, became the Assembly’s first Muslim member when he was elected in 2022.

“In just over two years, we have achieved major victories to restore common sense in Sacramento,” Essayli said. “When I joined the Assembly, parental rights, illegal immigration and voter ID were peripheral issues; we’ve made them centerpieces of our party. This past election we added true fighters, and I am confident they will continue the important work needed in the Legislature to make Republicans start winning in California.”

The post Essayli resigns from CA State Assembly to accept appointment as U.S. attorney | California appeared first on www.thecentersquare.com

Continue Reading

News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

Analysis: ‘Valley’ of AI journey risks human foundational, unique traits | National

Published

on

www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-02 14:21:00

(The Center Square) – Minority benefit against the majority giving up “agency, creativity, decision-making and other vital skills” in what is described as a valley of an artificial intelligence journey is likely in the next few years, says one voice among hundreds in a report from Elon University.

John M. Stuart’s full-length essay, one of 200 such responses in “Being Human in 2035: How Are We Changing in the Age of AI?,” speaks to the potential problems foreseen as artificial intelligence continues to be incorporated into everyday life by many at varying levels from professional to personal to just plain curious. The report authored by Janna Anderson and Lee Rainie of Elon’s Imagining the Digital Future Center says “the fragile future of some foundational and unique traits” found only in humans is a concern for 6 in 10.

“I fear – the time being – that while there will be a growing minority benefitting ever more significantly with these tools, most people will continue to give up agency, creativity, decision-making and other vital skills to these still-primitive AIs and the tools will remain too centralized and locked down with interfaces that are simply out of our personal control as citizens,” writes Smart, a self-billed global futurist, foresight consultant, entrepreneur and CEO of Foresight University. “I fear we’re still walking into an adaptive valley in which things continue to get worse before they get better. Looking ahead past the next decade, I can imagine a world in which open-source personal AIs are trustworthy and human-centered.

“Many political reforms will reempower our middle class and greatly improve rights and autonomy for all humans, whether or not they are going through life with PAIs. I would bet the vast majority of us will consider ourselves joined at the hip to our digital twins once they become useful enough. I hope we have the courage, vision and discipline to get through this AI valley as quickly and humanely as we can.”

Among the ideas by 2035 from the essays, Paul Saffo offered, “The first multi-trillion-dollar corporation will employ no humans except legally required executives and board, have no offices, own no property and operate entirely through AI and automated systems.”

Saffo is a futurist and technology forecaster in the Silicon Valley of California, and a consulting professor at the School of Engineering at Stanford.

In another, Vint Cerf wrote, “We may find it hard to distinguish between artificial personalities and the real ones. That may result in a search for reliable proof of humanity so that we and bots can tell the difference.”

Cerf is generally known as one of the “fathers of the internet” alongside Robert Kahn and for the internet protocol suite, colloquially known as TCP/IP.

Working alongside the well-respected Elon University Poll, the survey asked, “What might be the magnitude of overall change in the next decade in people’s native operating systems and operations as we more broadly adapt to and use advanced AIs by 2035? From five choices, 61% said considerable (deep and meaningful change 38%) and dramatic (fundamental, revolutionary change 23%) and another 31% said moderate and noticeable, meaning clear and distinct.

Only 5% said minor change and 3% no noticeable change.

“This report is a revealing and provocative declaration to the profound depth of change people are undergoing – often without really noticing at all – as we adapt to deeper uses of advancing AI technology,” Anderson said. “Collectively, these experts are calling on humanity to think intentionally and carefully, taking wise actions now, so we do not sleepwalk into an AI future that we never intended and do not want.”

In another question, respondents answered whether artificial intelligence and related technologies are likely to change the essence of being human. Fifty percent said changes were equally better and worse, 23% said mostly for the worse, and 16% said mostly for the better.

The analysis predicted change mostly negative in nine areas: social and emotional intelligence; capacity and willingness to think deeply about complex concepts; trust in widely shared values and norms; confidence in their native abilities; empathy and application of moral judgment; mental well-being; sense of agency; sense of identity and purpose; and metacognition.

Mostly positive, the report says, are curiosity and capacity to learn; decision-making and problem-solving; and innovative thinking and creativity.

Anderson and Rainie and those working on the analysis did not use large language models for writing and editing, or in analysis of the quantitative data for the qualitative essays. Authors said there was brief experimentation and human realization “there were serious flaws and inaccuracies.” The report says 223 of 301 who responded did so “fully generated out of my own mind, with no LLM assistance.”

Results were gathered between Dec. 27 and Feb. 1.

The post Analysis: ‘Valley’ of AI journey risks human foundational, unique traits | National appeared first on www.thecentersquare.com

Continue Reading

News from the South - Texas News Feed

Medicare, Medicaid coverage of rural telehealth services could expand | National

Published

on

www.thecentersquare.com – By Thérèse Boudreaux | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-02 13:59:00

(The Center Square) – Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries in rural regions may soon get better coverage for telehealth services if newly introduced bipartisan legislation passes.

The Equal Access to Specialty Care Everywhere Act would amend the Social Security Act to allow the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to work with provider networks and nonprofit health centers to expand telehealth services to people living in rural areas.

“The lack of specialty care for rural Americans has resulted in worse outcomes and higher costs,” Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner Tuesday. “I’m proud to introduce the EASE Act, which leverages technology to close the health care gap in rural and underserved communities with greater access to specialty and integrated care.”

Currently, Medicaid coverage for telehealth varies by state. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, all qualified Medicare providers have provided telehealth services, while federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics have served as Medicare distant site providers.

Medicare coverage of telehealth is set to expire in September, and roughly 13% of Medicare beneficiaries used telehealth services in 2023, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The EASE Act, introduced in both the House and Senate, would help Medicare and Medicaid recipients facing geographical restrictions to continue accessing telehealth services.

Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Ore., joined Arrington in sponsoring the House version of the bill, while Sens. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., and Alex Padilla, D-Calif., sponsored the companion bill in the Senate.

The federal government spent roughly $848 billion on Medicare in 2023, about 14% of total federal spending that year.

The post Medicare, Medicaid coverage of rural telehealth services could expand | National appeared first on www.thecentersquare.com

Continue Reading

Trending