Category: United States

Atlantic Hurricane Season Expected To Be Stormier Than Normal – Nova Scotia – CBC News

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Batten down the hatches — we’re likely in for a rougher-than-normal Atlantic hurricane season this year, according to Canadian and U.S. hurricane monitoring agencies. The U.S.-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says a “weak or non-existent” El Nino is a factor in its prediction. There is “the potential for a lot of Atlantic storm activity this year,” said acting NOAA administrator Ben Friedman. “We cannot stop hurricanes. But, again, we can prepare for them.” Hurricane season officially starts June 1 and runs through Nov. 30. NOAA predicts a 45…

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Trump’s Wall Will Do Nothing To Block The 740,000 People Who Overstayed Their US Visa Last Year — Quartz

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For years, the best—and virtually only—publicly released statistic tracking illegal immigration in the US has been the number of people caught at the southern border. Now, the US Department of Homeland Security is scrutinizing a lesser known type of undocumented immigrant: the one who comes in legally. In a new report released May 22, the agency has attempted to count the people who overstayed their visas in fiscal year 2016. The results tell a different story than the border apprehension numbers, and suggest that the US should broaden its singular…

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The Older The Doctor, The Higher The Patient Mortality Rate, Study Finds | Ars Technica

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The age of your doctor may impact the quality of the care you receive—and even cut your chances of survival—researchers report in the British Medical Journal. Harvard researchers looked over data on more than 700,000 hospital admissions of elderly patients cared for by nearly 19,000 physicians between 2011 and 2014. They found that mortality rates crept up in step with physician age. The stats are adjusted for a variety of variables, such as hospital mortality rates and severity of patients’ illnesses. All the patients were aged 65 or older and…

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Oil Prices As Little As 4 Years From Collapse Amid Historic Shift In Transport: Report

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A new report from a Stanford University lecturer predicts oil prices could collapse permanently as soon as four years from now, as electric cars and ride-hailing fleets bring a rapid end to the age of the personal combustible-engine vehicle. The report points to a significant threat to Canada’s economy, dependent as it is on oil and auto manufacturing, but it also predicts “huge opportunities” for companies that jump into the new “transportation-as-a-service” industry. “We are on the cusp of one of the fastest, deepest, most consequential disruptions of transportation in…

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US Utility Offers Clients Cheap Tesla Batteries For Grid Backup

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For the first time, a power utility has teamed up with Tesla to use its battery packs for extra grid power during peak usage times. Vermont’s Green Mountain Power (GMP) is not only installing Tesla’s industrial Powerpacks on utility land, it’s also subsidizing home Powerwall 2s for up to 2,000 customers. Rather than firing up polluting diesel generators, the utility can use them to provide electricity around the state. At night, when power usage is low, they’re charged back up again. Green Mountain Power said the idea started after a…

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A Secretive Silicon Valley Tech Giant Set Up Shop In Canada. But What Does It Do? – Technology & Science – CBC News

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It’s one of the most valuable and secretive technology companies in Silicon Valley: Palantir Technologies, a developer of data mining software used by spies, banks and some of the biggest companies in the world. The company was co-founded in 2004 by billionaire Peter Thiel — previously the co-founder of PayPal — and now an adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump. Financial institutions are said to use Palantir’s software to detect fraud and cyberattacks, while pharmaceutical researchers have been sold on its potential to more speedily discover new drugs. Hershey says…

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Some Canadian Bank Record Information Being Sent Directly To IRS – Politics – CBC News

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Thousands of reports containing confidential Canadian banking information records have been sent directly to the U.S Internal Revenue Service, without the Canadian government’s knowledge. According to information obtained by CBC News under a U.S. Freedom of Information Act request, 31,574 such reports have been sent directly to Internal Revenue Service over the past two years under the U.S. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). That is in addition to about 469,827 reports that the Canada Revenue Agency has transferred to the IRS under a Canada-U.S. agreement negotiated in the wake of the adoption…

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Tesla Hopes To Double Supercharger Network In 2017 – Roadshow

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Tesla hopes to double the size of its Supercharger network in 2017. It wants to bring its equipment total to 10,000 Superchargers at 15,000 Destination Charging connectors. To that end, Tesla is already deep in site selection, and several spots will begin construction soon, in anticipation of the summer driving season. Tesla could make some cash licensing Supercharger use to other automakers, but that could also create some serious gridlock. It should be noted that the above figures represent Tesla’s global Supercharger network. In the US alone, Tesla wants to…

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The Photography Of Trump’s Presidency Is A Huge Break From Obama’s – The Verge

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Many of the most iconic photos of Barack Obama’s presidency came from Pete Souza, the official White House photographer. Granted extensive access to Obama, he shot the Osama Bin Laden war room photo, moments the president shared with Michelle Obama, the many famous images of the president interacting with kids, and countless more. These carefully composed photos so defined the public image of Obama that it nearly made Souza a household name. In its visual representation, as in so many other respects, the Trump administration has made a break with…

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Machines Replacing Workers: Fed Budget To Look At Historic Economic Challenge | The Chronicle Herald

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WASHINGTON — Next week’s Canadian federal budget will raise concern about workers being displaced en masse by new technologies. It’s arguably an under-told story of the last U.S. election — people often talked about Ohio and Pennsylvania’s coal miners and steel workers, less so about technologies pushing them aside: automated steel production, and the 3D underground imaging finding cheaper natural gas. It’s a concern as old as policy-making itself. The very first book of Aristotle’s ”Politics” warned that if shuttles could weave and harps could pluck themselves, labourers and slaves would be obsolete. When the…

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