Day: January 3, 2023

Weather forecasters say it is “all systems go” for a major storm to sweep over California on Wednesday and Thursday, with peak intensity occurring from midnight Wednesday to noon Thursday.
Strong winds will add to impressive storm dynamics “setting the stage for a massive rainfall event” across Southern California’s south-facing coastal mountains, especially the Santa Ynez range in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties, forecasters said.
That could cause dangerous conditions. On January 9, 2018, the community of Montecito on the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains was ravaged by a massive debris flow that killed 23 people when a downpour fell on a fresh wildfire burn scar.
Back-to-back-to-back powerful storms have left many Californians preparing for the worst.

In San Francisco, crews were rushing to clear trash, leaves and silt that clogged some of the city’s 25,000 storm drains during Saturday’s downpour before the next storm.
The National Weather Service is predicting up to 15 cm of rain in San Francisco with winds of speeds up to 48 kph with gusts of 96 kph.
Mayor London Breed said city workers may not have enough time to clean all the storm drains before Wednesday and asked the public to prepare by getting sandbags to prevent flooding, avoiding unnecessary travel and only calling 911 in a life-or-death emergency.
City officials had distributed 8,500 sandbags as of Tuesday, asking residents to only get them if they have experienced flooding in the past.
Tink Troy, who lives in South San Francisco, picked up some sandbags from the city’s public works department on Tuesday.
“They said (Saturday’s storm) was going to be bad, and it was really bad. Now they’re saying this one’s going to be worse. So I want to make sure I’m prepared and not having to do this when it’s pouring rain tomorrow,” she said.
The storms have meant one good thing: The snowpack covering California’s mountains is off to one of its best starts in 40 years, officials said Tuesday.
Roughly a third of California’s water each year comes from melted snow in the Sierra Nevada, a mountain range that covers the eastern part of the state. The state has built a complex system of canals and dams to capture that water and store it in huge reservoirs so it can be used the rest of the year when it doesn’t rain or snow.
That is why officials closely monitor how deep the snow is in the mountains — and Tuesday was the first formal snow survey of the winter, a sort of Groundhog Day event where Californians get their first glimpse of how helpful the winter might be.
Statewide, snowpack is at 174% of the historical average for this year, the third-best measurement in the past 40 years. Even more snow is expected later this week and over the weekend, giving officials hope for a wet winter the state so desperately needs.
But a good start doesn’t guarantee a good finish. Last year, the statewide snowpack was at 160% of average at the first survey. What followed were the three driest months ever recorded in California. By April 1 — when the Sierra snowpack is supposed to be at its peak — the snow was just 38% of historic average.

That history prompted muted optimism from state officials on Tuesday.
“While we see a terrific snowpack — and that in and of itself may be an opportunity to breathe a sigh of relief — we are by no means out of the woods when it comes to drought,” Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources, said Tuesday after a ceremonial snow measurement in the community of Phillips, just west of Lake Tahoe.
This winter’s promising start was aided by a spate of strong storms, most notably on New Year’s Eve, when much of the state was drenched in heavy rain causing floods that killed one person and damaged a levee system in Sacramento County.
That storm was warmer, so it brought more rain than snow. Two more powerful storms are expected to hit the state this week, and these will be much colder. The National Weather Service says the mountains could get up to 1.52 meters of additional snow between the two storms.
While the precipitation seemed out-of-character for the parched state, it reflects the type of rainfall the state would expect to see during a normal winter but that has been absent in recent drought-driven years.
The storms in California are not enough to officially end the drought, now entering its fourth year. Most of the state’s reservoirs are still well below their capacity, with Lake Shasta 34% full and Lake Oroville just 38% full. It takes even longer for underground aquifers to refill, with groundwater providing about 38% of the state’s water supply each year.

“We know that it’ll take quite a bit of time and water to recover this amount of storage, which is why we don’t say that the drought is over once it starts raining,” said Jeanine Jones, drought manager for the California Department of Water Resources.

Source: Voice of America

The Consumer Electronics Show, the biggest technology trade show in the world, is once again open for business.
After two challenging years coping with the COVID-19 pandemic, which was particularly difficult for the conference and trade show industry, CES is expected to welcome about 100,000 attendees this week in Las Vegas.
That’s down about 40% from CES 2020 but still a significant jump in the numbers who attended in 2022. Over the past two years, CES managed to put on its show, which was all digital in 2021 and a hybrid digital and in-person in 2022 amid the Omicron surge.
This year, the Consumer Technology Association, the trade organization that puts on the annual event, says about one-third of the attendees are coming from outside the U.S.
“On the exhibitor side, a significant number come from outside of the U.S., making CES a truly global event,” said John Kelley, vice president and acting show director for CES, who spoke with VOA via Skype.
In fact, of the estimated 3,200 exhibitors who are expected to show off their wares, more than 1,400, or 43%, are coming from outside the U.S.
In the African pavilion, a dozen companies from the Democratic Republic of the Congo will be showcasing their homegrown innovations. The Ukraine pavilion will include technology firms from the Eastern European nation under siege by Russian forces.
Organizers also expect hundreds of Chinese firms to exhibit, despite recent COVID-related requirements for people traveling from China to the U.S.
“The Chinese presence at CES has always been quite pronounced and we’re starting to see it come back this year, which is quite exciting,” Kelley said.
Digital health, transportation technology and the metaverse are just a few of the latest technological innovations being showcased in Las Vegas.
Addressing global concerns
This year’s theme is technology helping to address the world’s greatest challenges, said Kelley.
“We’ve partnered with a U.N.-affiliated group, the World Academy of Arts and Sciences, to showcase how technology is supporting what we call human securities, or human rights,” he said, which includes food, political and environmental security, and mobility.
Show organizers expect increased focus on the metaverse — a shared digital reality connecting users — and on Web3, also known as Web 3.0, which proponents describe as the third generation of the World Wide Web.
CES has partnered with CoinDesk, a news site specializing in bitcoin and digital currencies, to build a studio on the show floor to showcase these types of Web3 applications, including blockchain and crypto.
Cool cars and trash-collecting sharks
From the internet highway to the interstate, automobiles have always had a major presence at the show, with more than 300 auto industry exhibitors showing off their latest products.
Organizers say there is also growth in marine technology, with boat manufacturers moving toward sustainable forms of energy.
The battery-operated WasteShark by the Dutch firm RanMarine Technology is an autonomous surface vessel designed to remove algae, biomass, and floating pollution such as plastics from lakes, ponds, and other coastal waterways.
“There’s a lot of people doing really great stuff out in the ocean and cleaning that up,” said company CEO Richard Hardiman, who spoke with VOA via Skype.
“Our mandate for our company is to clean it before it goes into the ocean,” he said. “So we’re trying to, sort of, what we call, ‘capture that waste at source,’ before it pollutes the ocean.”
Digital health
Another area that’s grown significantly at CES is digital health, CTA’s Kelley said. Dozens of exhibitors will be showcasing the latest health technologies, including new applications and diagnostic tools.
“What this does is give consumers access to their information, access to their data, and allows them to make decisions based on the data that they receive,” he said.
Canadian-based eSight Eyewear plans to display a headset designed to help people with visual impairments such as age-related macular degeneration, also known as AMD.
“When a person with AMD looks at your face, they wouldn’t see any distinct features; it would just be flesh tones,” explained Roland Mattern, eSight Eyewear’s director of marketing, who spoke with VOA via Skype.
Once the user puts on the device, they will be able to see distinct features such eyebrows, mouth and eyes, Mattern said.
“Users can literally see your entire face,” he said. “Your reaction. And that is an important feature because so much of communication is being able to see the other person’s reaction.”
It’s just one example of the many technologies on display this year at CES 2023, where companies from all corners of the world will come together to share their latest innovations.

Source: Voice of America

Cuba registered an infant mortality rate of 7.5 per thousand live births in 2022, with 39 fewer deaths than in 2021 when that indicator was 7.6, authorities from the Ministry of Health reported on Jan 1, 2023 Public (MINSAP).
A note from that portfolio published on its website states that among the main causes of infant mortality in children under one year of age were perinatal conditions, mainly related to low birth weight, prematurity and intrauterine growth retardation, in addition to congenital malformations and sepsis.
After almost two years of confronting Covid-19, in 2022 the National Health System was engaged in maintaining control of the pandemic, the recovery of health activities and improving the indicators of prioritized programs.
The text adds that one of the most sensitive and decisive rates for the future of the country is the Maternal and Child Care Program (PAMI), which had the support of the Government and MINSAP in order to guarantee the well-being of children, pregnant women and postpartum women.
On the subject, the national head of PAMI, Dr. Noemi Causa, stated that among the actions taken were the implementation of measures to improve the Family Doctor and Nurse Program.
In addition, work was done on the development plan for the specialties of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Neonatology, Pediatrics, Pediatric Intensive Care, Pediatric Surgery and Comprehensive General Medicine. New measures were also incorporated to reduce prematurity and intrauterine growth retardation, a comprehensive evaluation of the functioning of maternity homes was carried out to increase the occupational index, teaching activities and professional improvement were carried out.
Likewise, the link between State agencies, political and mass organizations, and the media was intensified to transmit messages that would contribute to preventing adolescent pregnancy, an indicator that decreased from 18 percent in 2021 to 17.8 percent last year.
Despite the efforts of the health personnel, the PAMI did not achieve the desired results, so that at the end of 2022, the Minsap Directorate of Medical Records and Statistics reports that 95,402 live births were reported on the island, three thousand 694 less than the previous year, and that the mortality rate was 7.5 per thousand live births.
The territories with the best rates were Cienfuegos (4.3), Holguin with (4.5), Sancti Spiritus (4.7), Matanzas (5.0), Artemisa (5.4), Pinar del Rio (5.9) and the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud with 2.6.
The rest had higher indicators: Ciego de ivila with 6.2, Granma 6.6, Las Tunas 7.0, Villa Clara 7.3, Camagiey 9.1, Havana 9.5, Guantinamo 9.7, Santiago de Cuba 9.9 and Mayabeque 12.2.

Source: Lao News Agency