One of the biggest film stars of all time, Al Pacino is sitting in a suite in a Beverly Hills hotel, looking surprised at the idea that this is an honour which has passed him by. “I’m not convinced, but I don’t hang with people who’d ask me that, I guess,” he muses. “I don’t remember anybody asking me that.”

If you are Al Pacino’s godchild and he has forgotten, as his character Michael Corleone famously said in The Godfather, “it’s not personal”. Pacino has spent a lot of time recently looking back over his life, because at the age of 84, the star of films including Dog Day Afternoon, Heat and The Irishman has written his autobiography, titled Sonny Boy, after what his mother called him. He explains that “part of the reason” he wanted to commit his life to paper was becoming a father for a fourth time last year, aged 83 – to a boy, who is now 16 months old, called Roman. The book is a way of guaranteeing that the baby will have the opportunity to learn about his father’s story. “I want to be around for this child. And I hope I am,” he shares. “I hope I stay healthy, and he knows who his dad is, of course.” (BBC/Photo: CNN)…[+]

USA – Fall is in full swing, but it’s not too soon to look ahead to winter, especially one that could feel considerably different than last year’s dominated by El Niño. A weak La Niña is expected to develop ahead of the season and influence temperatures, precipitation, and by extension, even snow across the United States. La Niña is a natural climate pattern that influences global weather marked by cooler than average ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific. The effects on weather are most pronounced during the winter months in the Northern Hemisphere and have a much weaker influence in the summer.

Last winter was the warmest on record for the Lower 48, because it was dominated by La Niña’s counterpart El Niño in a world also warming due to fossil fuel pollution. The prolonged warmth prevented many heavy snow events in the Northeast and Midwest and created a winter snow drought measured in feet of missing snow. La Niña isn’t here yet, but has a 60% chance of emerging through November, according to the Climate Prediction Center. Once it arrives, it’ll stick around all winter and likely persist into at least early spring of next year.

La Niña or El Niño are never the only factors influencing weather in a given season or location, but emphasis is placed on them, because they typically have an outsized effect on winter weather in the US — especially when they are strong.  While it’s still unclear just how strong La Niña will get, current forecasts favor a weaker one. (CNN)…[+]

Google has signed a landmark deal to use electricity produced by small nuclear reactors to power its artificial intelligence (AI) efforts. Under the agreement with startup Kairos Power announced on Monday, the California-based tech giant will back the construction of seven small nuclear reactors capable of generating 500 megawatts of power.

The first reactor is scheduled to come online by 2030, with others to follow in the coming years. “The grid needs new electricity sources to support AI technologies that are powering major scientific advances, improving services for businesses and customers, and driving national competitiveness and economic growth,” Michael Terrell, the senior director of energy and climate at Google, said in a blog post. “This agreement helps accelerate a new technology to meet energy needs cleanly and reliably, and unlock the full potential of AI for everyone.” Tech giants such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon are driving renewed interest in nuclear energy as they scour the planet for electricity sources to power the data centres underpinning the boom in AI.

Last month, Microsoft signed a deal with the utility Constellation Energy to restore a decommissioned nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania that will supply the tech giant with power for the next 20 years.

Amazon earlier this year inked an agreement with Houston-based Talen Energy to buy a 1,200-acre (486-hectare) data centre campus in Pennsylvania that draws energy from a nearby nuclear plant. (Aljazeera)…[+]

PALESTINA – The thick scent of blood fills the emergency ward of Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza. Near the morgue, Palestinians whisper funeral prayers for loved ones killed by Israeli strikes. Just outside the facility in Khan Younis, vendors sell mangoes and young children play soccer against the backdrop of blown-out buildings, according to Dr. Deborah Weidner. “The site is half destruction,” Weidner, an American psychiatrist who was deployed to the hospital earlier this year, told CNN in September. “Bombs send shockwaves. They can be a couple of miles away, yet they shake the building.”

Medical workers are struggling to cope with the constant flow of people wounded by attacks, as the Israeli bombardment and siege of Gaza starves hospitals of critical supplies, Weidner said. Local staff are burdened by the fear that their loved ones will arrive in the floods of mass casualties.

“Everybody’s going through the motions,” Weidner said. “There’s no physical or emotional safety. There’s no predictability. There’s such randomness in who is injured or where there’s going to be a bomb.” Those with pre-existing mental health conditions, including schizophrenia, are deteriorating, said Weidner, adding that some “fear for their own behavior.” Others arrive at the hospital begging for medication. “They (the Palestinian staff) just keep going,” she said. “So much of it is about faith and trust in God. Trust in Allah … The people are generally hopeful. But I worry what will happen if nothing changes.”…[+]

AFRICA – One by one, the satellites – each of them encrusted with a hodge-podge of solar panels and other gizmos – detached from their mothership. They had blasted off from Earth just an hour earlier, on 16 August. The 116 satellites onboard the launch vehicle were mostly designed and built by Western nations and businesses – but one of them was different. It was the first such spacecraft ever developed by the African country of Senegal. A small CubeSat called GaindeSAT-1A, it will provide earth observation and telecommunications services. Senegal’s president called it a big step towards “technological sovereignty”. The cost of launching a satellite has fallen significantly in recent years, says Kwaku Sumah, founder and managing director at Spacehubs Africa, a space consultancy. “That reduction in cost has opened the market up,” he adds. “These smaller nations… now have the opportunity to get involved.”

To date, a total of 17 African countries have put more than 60 satellites into orbit and, along with Senegal, both Djibouti and Zimbabwe have also watched their first satellites become operational during the past 12 months. Dozens more African satellites are expected to go into orbit in the coming years. And yet, the continent currently has no space launch facilities of its own.  Plus, powerful countries elsewhere in the world are arguably using nascent African space programmes as a means of building relationships and asserting their geopolitical dominance more broadly. “It’s important for African countries to have their own satellites,” says Mr Sumah. He argues that it means better control over the technology and easier access to satellite data.  This information could help Africans monitor crops, detect threats posed by extreme weather such as floods, or improve telecommunications in remote areas, he adds. (BBC)

Photo: Lower space launch costs have given African nations an opportunity says Kwaku Sumah.…[+]