Archives for February 2021

Google fires AI manager who protested her peer’s departure

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — Google has fired a leader of its artificial intelligence ethics team in the fallout from the recent departure of another former employee involved in the same field.

The internet company confirmed the firing Friday after Margaret Mitchell announced her ouster on Twitter.

The firing comes a month after Mitchell also vented on Twitter about the handling of her former colleague, Timnit Gebru, who parted ways with Google late last year. Gebru, a Black woman, said she was fired in a dispute over a research paper, while Google said it had accepted her resignation.

Hundreds of Google employees have signed an online petition protested Gebru’s departure. Mitchell, though, was even more outspoken in a Jan. 19 tweet t hat insinuated that a meeting company CEO Sundar Pichai had scheduled with the leaders of historically Black colleges and universities was merely window dressing.

Google said Mitchell was fired after an internal investigation concluded she had broken multiple company policies. The violations included the unauthorized removal of confidential company documents and other private information about its employees, according to Google’s statement.

Things to Know: US COVID-19 death toll tops 500,000

Here’s what’s happening Monday with the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.:

THREE THINGS TO KNOW TODAY:

— The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 has topped 500,000. The virus has reached into all corners of the country and communities of every size. At the same time, many families are left to cope in isolation, unable even to hold funerals. Experts warn that over 90,000 more deaths are likely in the coming months, despite the vaccination campaign.

— President Joe Biden is targeting federal pandemic assistance to those firms with fewer than 20 employees, the nation’s smallest businesses and ventures owned by women and people of color.

— A new study finds that teachers may be more important drivers of COVID-19 transmission in schools than students. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied nine transmission clusters in elementary schools in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, and in only one was a student clearly the first documented case. The CDC advises schools to cut down on teacher-to-teacher meetings, ensure that masks are worn correctly and increase physical distancing. Teacher vaccinations also might be desiriable, the CDC says, although it adds they aren’t required for schools to reopen.

THE NUMBERS: According to data through Feb. 21 from Johns Hopkins University, the seven-day rolling average for daily new cases in the U.S. fell over the past two weeks, from roughly 117,222 on Feb. 7 to 69,986 on Feb. 21. Over the same period, the seven-day rolling average for daily new deaths also fell from 2,813 on Feb. 7 to 1,872 on Feb. 21.

QUOTABLE: “It’s very hard for me to imagine an American who doesn’t know someone who has died or have a family member who has died,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics at the University of Washington in Seattle. “We haven’t really fully understood how bad it is, how devastating it is, for all of us.”

ICYMI: Health officials in Washington, D.C., hope religious leaders will serve as community influencers to overcome what officials say is a persistent vaccine reluctance in the Black community. Blacks make up a little under half of the district’s population but constitute nearly three-fourths of the COVID-19 deaths. The city is offering vaccinations to any resident over 65 and giving priority status for vaccine registration to those in predominantly Black ZIP codes.

ON THE HORIZON: Rhode Island’s largest health care organization started allowing patients to have visitors again, in line with state Department of Health guidelines announced last week, including maternity services to allow for a birthing partner only. All visitors must stick to designated visiting hours and be screened for symptoms or potential exposure.

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Find AP’s full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic: https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

BWX: 4Q Earnings Snapshot | Federal News Network

LYNCHBURG, Va. (AP) _ BWX Technologies Inc. (BWXT) on Monday reported fourth-quarter earnings of $65.7 million.

The Lynchburg, Virginia-based company said it had net income of 69 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs and restructuring costs, were 74 cents per share.

The results topped Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of three analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 71 cents per share.

The supplier of nuclear fuel and components to the U.S. government posted revenue of $556.9 million in the period.

For the year, the company reported profit of $278.7 million, or $2.91 per share. Revenue was reported as $2.12 billion.

BWX expects full-year earnings in the range of $3.05 to $3.20 per share.

BWX shares have fallen 4% since the beginning of the year.

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This story was generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on BWXT at https://www.zacks.com/ap/BWXT

SS Bo Bichette has big expectations for upgraded Blue Jays

TORONTO (AP) — Shortstop Bo Bichette has big expectations for the upgraded Toronto Blue Jays.

“I believe in the team, just like I did last year,” Bichette said Monday as the Blue Jays held their first full-squad workout in Dunedin, Florida. “Obviously we added some new names.”

“I think this year, if we go home without a trophy, that’ll be disappointing,” he said.

Toronto was among the busiest teams on the free-agent market, agreeing to a $150 million, six-year contract with outfielder George Springer; an $18 million, one-year contract with shortstop Marcus Semien; a $5.5 million, one-year deal with right-hander Kirby Yates; a $3 million, one-year contract with right-hander Tyler Chatwood and a $1.75 million, one-year contract with right-hander David Phelps.

“We’re very excited, we all believe in ourselves, and we believe that we can play with the best teams,” Bichette said.

Semien said he’s already impressed by the winning attitude at camp.

“There’s a level of confidence I’m excited about,” he said. “We’re going to get better as time goes on but I like where we’re starting.”

The Blue Jays went 32-28 last season, finishing third in the AL East behind Tampa Bay and the Yankees and qualifying for the expanded 16-team postseason.

Back in the playoffs for the first time in four years, Toronto was swept in two games by the AL champion Rays in a first-round series.

Springer was a perennial playoff performer in Houston, helping the Astros win their first-ever World Series in 2017. He was MVP of that seven-game victory over the Los Angeles Dodegrs.

“He’s put up some crazy numbers on the biggest stage in the game and that’s what it’s about,” Bichette said. “When we make the playoffs, if we make the playoffs, we’ll be able to watch him and see how he goes about his business.”

Bichette had an explosive debut with Toronto after being called up July 29, 2019, collecting 13 extra base hits in his first 11 games and becoming the first rookie since Ted Williams to record extra-base hits in nine straight games.

Bichette, who turns 23 next month, hit .301 with five home runs and 23 RBIs in 29 games last year during the virus-shortened season. He missed some time with a knee sprain.

Manager Charlie Montoyo views Bichette as a future All-Star.

“He’s got confidence and he knows he’s a winner,” Montoyo said. “He’s going to help us win a lot of games just because he’s got that.”

Even so, the Blue Jays pursued a trade for shortstop Francisco Lindor over the winter, but the former Cleveland star ended up with the New York Mets. Toronto eventually signed Semien, who played shortstop with Oakland but is expected to play second base with the Blue Jays, something the team made sure Bichette understood right away.

“I was called the minute that they reached an agreement (with Semien), basically to tell me before the news came out that I was still playing shortstop,” Bichette said.

On the same day Padres star Fernando Tatis finalized his $340-million, 14-year deal, Bichette said he and the Blue Jays discussed a potential long-term contract over the winter, but no formal offer was ever made.

“I’m open but obviously there’s more important things at hand,” Bichette said. “I would rather focus on spring training, the season ahead, but we’ll see what happens.”

Unable to play in Canada because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Blue Jays will play their first two homestands of the regular season at their spring training facility in Dunedin, just a few miles from where Bichette grew up and went to high school in St. Petersburg.

“Obviously we all would much rather be in Toronto” Bichette said. “For me, personally, I guess it’s the best of the worst-case scenario to be home, be in a comfortable spot.”

A return north of the border would be made easier by widespread vaccinations of players and team officials. So far, however, Bichette said the Blue Jays have not discussed a team-wide vaccination program. Even he hasn’t decided whether or not to get vaccinated.

“We’ll see,” Bichette said. “I don’t have enough data on it but I’ll look at the data and figure out if it’s good for me or not.”

Bichette’s father Dante, who hit 274 home runs over 14 big league seasons, was a member of Toronto’s coaching staff in 2020 but has stepped back from that role this year and is now a special assistant.

“It was a family decision,” the younger Bichette said. “I think my dad has been through the grind enough. I think he forgot what it was like to be in the clubhouse every single day.”

Also Monday, the Boston Red Sox claimed right-hander Joel Payamps off waivers from the Blue Jays. Toronto had claimed Payamps on waivers from Boston on Feb. 10.

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NASA releases Mars landing video: ‘Stuff of our dreams’

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA on Monday released the first high-quality video of a spacecraft landing on Mars, a three-minute trailer showing the enormous orange and white parachute hurtling open and the red dust kicking up as rocket engines lowered the rover to the surface.

The footage was so good — and the images so breathtaking — that members of the rover team said they felt like they were riding along.

“It gives me goose bumps every time I see it, just amazing,” said Dave Gruel, head of the entry and descent camera team.

The Perseverance rover landed last Thursday near an ancient river delta in Jezero Crater to search for signs of ancient microscopic life. After spending the weekend binge-watching the descent and landing video, the team at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, shared the video at a news conference.

“These videos and these images are the stuff of our dreams,” said Al Chen, who was in charge of the landing team.

Six off-the-shelf color cameras were devoted to entry, descent and landing, looking up and down from different perspectives. All but one camera worked. The lone microphone turned on for landing failed, but NASA got some snippets of sound after touchdown: the whirring of the rover’s systems and wind gusts.

Flight controllers were thrilled with the thousands of images beamed back — and also with the remarkably good condition of NASA’s biggest and most capable rover yet. It will spend the next two years exploring the dry river delta and drilling into rocks that may hold evidence of life 3 billion to 4 billion years ago. The core samples will be set aside for return to Earth in a decade.

NASA added 25 cameras to the $3 billion mission — the most ever sent to Mars. The space agency’s previous rover, 2012’s Curiosity, managed only jerky, grainy stop-motion images, mostly of terrain. Curiosity is still working. So is NASA’s InSight lander, although it’s hampered by dusty solar panels.

They may have company in late spring, when China attempts to land its own rover, which went into orbit around Mars two weeks ago.

Deputy project manager Matt Wallace said he was inspired several years ago to film Perseverance’s harrowing descent when his young gymnast daughter wore a camera while performing a backflip.

Some of the spacecraft systems — like the sky crane used to lower the rover onto the Martian surface — could not be tested on Earth.

“So this is the first time we’ve had a chance as engineers to actually see what we designed,” Wallace told reporters.

Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s science mission chief, said the video and also the panoramic views following touchdown “are the closest you can get to landing on Mars without putting on a pressure suit.”

The images will help NASA prepare for astronaut flights to Mars in the decades ahead, according to the engineers.

There’s a more immediate benefit.

“I know it’s been a tough year for everybody,” said imaging scientist Justin Maki, “and we’re hoping that maybe these images will help brighten people’s days.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Archives for February 2021

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