To save spotted owls, US officials plan to kill hundreds of thousands of another owl species

posted in: News | 0

By MATTHEW BROWN

To save the imperiled spotted owl from potential extinction, U.S. wildlife officials are embracing a contentious plan to deploy trained shooters into dense West Coast forests to kill almost a half-million barred owls that are crowding out their smaller cousins.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service strategy released Wednesday is meant to prop up declining spotted owl populations in Oregon, Washington state and California. The Associated Press obtained details in advance.

Documents released by the agency show a maximum of about 450,000 barred owls would be shot over three decades after the birds from the eastern U.S. encroached into the West Coast territory of two owls: northern spotted owls and California spotted owls. The smaller spotted owls have been unable to compete for food and habitat with the invaders.

Past efforts to save spotted owls focused on protecting the forests where they live, sparking bitter fights over logging but also helping slow the birds’ decline. The proliferation of barred owls in recent years is undermining that earlier work, officials said.

“Without actively managing barred owls, northern spotted owls will likely go extinct in all or the majority of their range, despite decades of collaborative conservation efforts,” said Fish and Wildlife Service Oregon state supervisor Kessina Lee.

The notion of killing one bird species to save another has divided wildlife advocates and conservationists. Some grudgingly accepted the proposal after a draft version was announced last year; others denounced it as reckless and a diversion from needed forest preservation.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service is turning from protector of wildlife to persecutor of wildlife,” said Wayne Pacelle with the advocacy group Animal Wellness Action. He predicted the program would fail because the agency won’t be able to keep more barred owls from migrating into areas where some are killed off.

The shootings would likely begin next spring, officials said.

Barred owls would be lured by the shooters using megaphones to broadcast recorded owl calls, then shot with shotguns. Carcasses would be buried on site.

Barred owls already are being killed by researchers in some spotted owl habitats, with about 4,500 removed since 2009, said Robin Bown, barred owl strategy leader for the Fish and Wildlife Service. Those targeted included barred owls in California’s Sierra Nevada region, where the animals have only recently arrived and officials want to stop populations from taking hold.

In other areas where barred owls are more established, officials aim to reduce their numbers but acknowledge shooting owls is unlikely to eliminate them entirely.

Public hunting of barred owls wouldn’t be allowed. The wildlife service would designate government agencies, landowners, American Indian tribes or companies to carry out the killings. Shooters would have to provide documentation of training or experience in owl identification and firearm skills.

The publishing in the coming days of a final environmental study on the proposal will open a 30-day comment period before a final decision.

That follows decades of conflict between conservationists and timber companies that cut down vast areas of older forests where spotted owls reside.

Early efforts to save the birds culminated in logging bans in the 1990s that roiled the timber industry and its political supporters in Congress.

Yet spotted owl populations continued declining after barred owls started showing up on the West Coast several decades ago.

Opponents say the mass killing of barred owls would cause severe disruption to forest ecosystems and could lead to other species — including spotted owls — being mistakenly shot. They’ve also challenged the notion that barred owls don’t belong on the West Coast, characterizing their expanding range as a natural ecological phenomenon.

Researchers say barred owls moved westward by one of two routes: across the Great Plains, where trees planted by settlers gave them a foothold in new areas; or via Canada’s boreal forests, which have become more hospitable as temperatures rise because of climate change.

Supporters of killing barred owls to save spotted owls include the American Bird Conservancy and other conservation groups.

“Our organizations stand in full support of barred owl removal as a necessary measure, together with increased habitat protections for all remaining mature and old-growth forests,” the groups said in comments on a draft proposal to remove barred owls that was released last year.

Northern spotted owls are federally protected as a threatened species. Federal officials determined in 2020 that their continued decline merited an upgrade to the more critical designation of “endangered.” But the Fish and Wildlife Service refused to do so at the time, saying other species took priority.

California spotted owls were proposed for federal protections last year. A decision is pending.

Under former President Donald Trump, government officials stripped habitat protections for spotted owls at the behest of the timber industry. Those were reinstated under President Joe Biden after the Interior Department said political appointees under Trump relied on faulty science to justify their weakening of protections.

Movie review: ‘Despicable Me 4’ fun for kids, nightmare for adults

posted in: Adventure | 0

The experience of watching “Despicable Me 4” is a Kafkaesque nightmare, and not only because one of the main characters turns himself into a roach. The film is an interminable 95 minutes of circular, intertwining, seemingly never-ending storylines rendered with such audio-visual cacophony that it dissolves into an indiscernible din. This fourth (or is it sixth?) installment of the inexplicably popular animated franchise featuring those dreaded Minions has all the charm of an ocular migraine, but small children did rush to dance in front of the screen during the end credits, so what do I know?

Directed by longtime Minion wrangler Chris Renaud, with Patrick Delage, “Despicable Me 4” naturally centers on Gru (Steve Carell), the proud supervillain with toothpick legs, a barrel chest, and an army of banana-obsessed Minions (voiced by French madman Pierre Coffin). He has now settled down with a cute wife, Lucy (Kristen Wiig), four kids and a pet goat, and even works for the Anti-Villain League. This line of work intrudes on his domestic bliss when he nabs an old classmate on behalf of the AVL at the Lycee Pas Bon (School of Villainy) reunion, and earns himself an enemy in the process.

Gru’s old high school rival Maxime (Will Ferrell) is the aforementioned Roach Man (they really are running out of supervillains) because he wants to harness the power of the cockroach for world domination or what have you. Upon his receipt of a coveted alumni award, Gru apprehends Maxime on behalf of the AVL, humiliating him. Maxime swears vengeance on Gru, and when he escapes from prison, Gru and his family have to go into witness protection in the town of Mayflower.

It’s a tortured setup to launch this fish-out-of water comedy wherein Gru and his family have to pretend to be normal. Gru is now “Chet,” obsessed with tennis to impress his preppy neighbors the Prestons (Stephen Colbert and Chloe Fineman), and Lucy is now “Blanche,” a hair stylist. Random family high jinks ensue in what is essentially several short film ideas mashed into feature length. It’s all well-meaning enough, but it feels like the screenwriters Ken Daurio and Mike White throwing random ideas at the wall without much thought put into how or why it might all fit together. The kiddie audience won’t care, so why should they?

Back at the AVL headquarters, Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan) has put of a bunch of Minions in a toaster, which is to say that he’s injected them with super serum to make the X-Minions, or “Mega-Minions” as he calls them, with their powers borrowed from Marvel superheroes the Fantastic Four (there’s a rock Minion, a stretchy Minion, a big Minion, a flying Minion, etc). It’s a bizarre mashup of Bond and mutant superhero tropes, and it’s unclear exactly what it’s doing here except to add another subplot.

There is something weirdly — and undeniably — charming about the character of Gru, which is why they must keep making these. Those Minions certainly do have moxie, and the silly, quasi-naughty humor and style apparently acts as a chemical stimulant for children. But this installment is so noisy and aimless, it feels like they didn’t just hit the end of the road, they kept going past the limit. One can only hope that Gru finally embraces domesticity over being despicable so we can all finally enjoy some peace and quiet.

‘Despicable Me 4’

1 star (out of 4)

MPA rating: PG (for action and rude humor)

Running time: 1:35

How to watch: In theaters on Wednesday, July 3

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Other voices: U.S. chip dreams will fade without more skilled immigrants

posted in: Society | 0

Democrats and Republicans worked together to pass the Chips and Science Act — but their persistent failure to unite behind common-sense, bipartisan reforms to bring more skilled immigrants to the U.S. puts this notable achievement in jeopardy.

Congress passed the law in 2022 to revive domestic semiconductor manufacturing and reduce dependence on fabrication plants in East Asia. On paper, the initiative is already a success: Nearly $30 billion in subsidies and $25 billion in loans have been awarded, supporting investments of roughly $350 billion. One industry-sponsored study expects U.S. chipmaking capacity to triple by 2032, with output of advanced logic chips rising from zero in 2022 to 28% of global production.

To build and run those fabrication plants, however, companies need workers the U.S. doesn’t have. Shortages of skilled installers of hyper-precise chipmaking equipment have already delayed projects. The number of Americans studying in relevant graduate programs has been flat for 30 years. A third of current fab workers are 55 and older, and more than half say they’re eager to quit. The Semiconductor Industry Association says chipmakers will face a shortfall of 67,000 skilled workers by 2030.

Congress needs to weigh the consequences. Companies that can’t scale up will demand additional subsidies or shift production to Taiwan and Japan. As domestic production struggles, the problem might get worse, as American STEM graduates seek work in other fields. The hoped-for benefits — U.S. technological leadership and enhanced national security — will come to nothing.

The Chips Act anticipated this difficulty. It includes a $200 million training and education fund, and it requires companies to prioritize workforce development. Colleges have announced new degree and certificate programs aimed at the semiconductor industry. But these efforts will take time to yield results. They won’t meet the industry’s immediate needs and will likely fail in the long term too if recruiters can’t hire more immigrants. U.S. citizens are a minority among STEM graduates with advanced degrees relevant to chipmaking.

The current immigration pipeline is no use. The much-maligned H-1B program is hugely oversubscribed every year. Caps on visas plus limits per country mean applicants from India, the likeliest source of new semiconductor workers, can wait decades for their status to be resolved.

Comprehensive immigration reform would be best, but failing that, here’s a good idea: the “chipmaker’s visa,” suggested by the Economic Innovation Group. It would auction a certain number of visas (say, 10,000 per year for 10 years) for high-skilled workers, subject to a salary minimum. Recipients could change jobs within the industry and would be offered an expedited path to permanent residency after working for five years. Proceeds from the auctions would help fund scholarships and workforce development programs for American students and workers.

That’s the minimum Congress should do. The shortage of STEM workers extends far beyond semiconductors. The U.S. should increase the overall number of visas for high-skilled immigrants, prioritizing applicants with in-demand STEM skills and exempting foreign graduates of U.S. schools with advanced STEM degrees from green-card caps.

Many in Congress are proud of the Chips Act. If they ignore the skilled-worker shortage, it will become an embarrassment.

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Noah Feldman: Supreme Court social media ruling is a free-speech landmark

posted in: Politics | 0

In a blockbuster decision, the Supreme Court has held for the first time that social media platforms, just like newspapers, have First Amendment rights that bar the government from forcing them to leave up or take down content.

The decision, Moody v. NetChoice, can be understood as the Brown v. Board of Education of the emerging field of social media law: It establishes basic principles and rights that the courts will use to shape the evolution of the social media industry in the U.S. and beyond.

The majority opinion, written by Justice Elena Kagan and joined by the court’s other liberals as well as by moderate conservatives Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, technically sent the case back to the lower courts for a do-over. But in the process of telling the lower courts what they should do, the majority opinion laid out the free-speech principles that apply to social media.

That’s what makes the case so important.

At issue were laws passed by Texas and Florida in the wake of conservative users’ complaints that their views were being censored by the platforms. The laws were designed to limit how social media companies could remove or restrict political content. The lower courts, the majority said, hadn’t fully addressed the technical question of whether the state laws being challenged were “facially unconstitutional,” meaning they could not have been constitutional under any circumstances.

The most crucial part of this case is that the platforms are no different from newspapers, the archetypal bearers of free press and free speech rights. It’s significant that the chief justice gave Kagan, a lifetime strong supporter of free speech, the opportunity to write such an important decision.

In setting rules for content moderation and in curating users’ feeds through algorithms, Kagan wrote, the platforms are exercising editorial discretion. And it doesn’t matter that they typically allow the great majority of posted content to stay up: Editorial discretion is protected by the First Amendment and exists even if an editor or curator bars only certain limited types of speech.

This conclusion might sound obvious, but it wasn’t. For some years, advocates of directly regulating the platforms have claimed that they should be treated not like newspapers, but like common carriers — entities like railroads or package delivery companies that take on all comers, and therefore may be regulated by the government without worrying about freedom of speech.

Kagan’s opinion makes that argument passé. In addition to newspapers, which are entitled to First Amendment-protected editorial discretion when they decide what to publish, she also compared the platforms to cable companies, which the court has held may not be forced to carry content they don’t wish to carry.

Most fundamentally, Kagan drew an analogy between the platforms and the organizers of Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day parade in an important 1995 case called Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston. In the Hurley case, the parade organizers refused to allow a gay-themed float in the parade, which violated Massachusetts antidiscrimination law. But in an opinion by Justice David Souter, one of the court’s leading thinkers on the topic of compelled speech, the majority held that the organizers of the parade had a free-speech right to curate the parade however they wanted, including by excluding the gay float. It didn’t matter that the organizers usually allowed new floats to join, and it didn’t matter what their motivation was.

In First Amendment law, comparing platforms to newspapers and parade organizers gives them the highest level of protection available. And that protection extends not just to human discretion in individual cases but to the algorithms that control the vast majority of content curation, Kagan wrote.

The algorithm question is especially subtle because it raises the intriguing question of whether free-speech rights should apply to purely algorithmic choice that is not oriented toward human decisions about what content should be allowed. Barrett wrote a concurrence in which she raised this problem without answering it, also invoking artificial intelligence as a potential twist. In a footnote, Kagan replied that her opinion wasn’t addressing algorithms that “respond solely to how users act online.”

But as someone who has advised various big platforms on content moderation and free-speech issues, I can tell you that I haven’t encountered an algorithm that pays no attention to curation according to content-moderation rules. If one does exist, that company could protect its algorithm by simply adding a component to the algorithm that considers such standards. And AI is itself a set of algorithms, which can be set to take account of content moderation rules — as all the public-facing, foundational LLM models already do.

The takeaway for the platforms, and their users, is that the act of curation is protected by the First Amendment.

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by the other hardline conservatives, justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, wrote a concurrence that functioned almost like a dissent. The conservatives wanted the common carrier arguments to be addressed, not sidelined the way the majority opinion did.

Alito’s key argument was that there should be no First Amendment protection when someone is merely the “compiler” of material for publication and the compilation is not “inherently expressive.” For what it’s worth, it seems obvious to me that the platforms’ curated compilations are inherently expressive, since they are meant to give users a certain experience and to differentiate their platform from the other platforms. But Alito would appear to disagree.

We will be hearing more about free speech and social media in the future. Barrett’s concurrence devoted a paragraph to raising questions about the federal government’s TikTok ban, which is likely to reach the Supreme Court in 2025. But those future cases will be decided against the backdrop of the NetChoice decision, which is going to be a free-speech landmark for at least a generation.

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