Monday, February 14, 2022

At Winter Olympics, virus fight waged with worker sacrifices
By JOHN LEICESTER

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Olympic Games worker Cathy Chen stands for a photo in the main media center at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Friday, Feb. 11, 2022, in Beijing. In her mind, Chen pictures a scene that she herself says could be drawn from a TV drama: Falling into the arms of her husband after long months apart, when he meets her off the plane from Beijing. Scooping up their two young daughters and squeezing them tight. "I just imagine when we’re back together,” the Olympic Games worker says, "and I just can’t control myself.” (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)


BEIJING (AP) — In her mind, Cathy Chen pictures a scene that she herself says could be drawn from a TV drama: Falling into the arms of her husband after long months apart, when he meets her off the plane from Beijing. Scooping up their two young daughters and squeezing them tight.

“I just imagine when we’re back together,” the Olympic Games worker says, “and I just can’t control myself.”

So athletes from countries where the coronavirus has raged can compete in the Olympic host nation with few infections, China’s workforce at the Winter Games is making a giant sacrifice.

Severing them from lives they were busy living before the Olympic circus came to town, more than 50,000 Chinese workers have been hermetically sealed inside the Great Wall-like ring-fence of virus prevention measures that China has erected around the Games, locked in with the athletes and Olympic visitors.

The Olympians jet in for just a few weeks with their skis, skates, sleds and other gear. Chinese workers who cook, clean, transport, care for them and otherwise make the Winter Games tick are being sequestered inside the sanitary bubble for several months. As Olympians bank memories to cherish for a lifetime, their Chinese hosts are putting family life on ice.



The sacrifice has been made larger by its timing: the Olympic run-up overlapped with the ushering in on Feb. 1 of the Lunar New Year, the biggest and most precious annual holiday in China. As their loved ones feted the advent of the Year of the Tiger, Olympic workers hooked up with them as best they could via video calls from inside the “closed loop.”

That is the soft-sounding name Chinese authorities have given to the anti-viral barrier they’ve built with high walls, police patrols, thickets of security cameras, mandatory daily tests and countless squirts of disinfectant — separating the Winter Games from the rest of China.

Chen found a spot in the workers’ underground canteen of the main Olympic press center for a New Year video-call with her husband, Issac, and their two daughters, Kiiara, aged six, and 18-month-old Sia. They were gathering with extended family for a celebration dinner. Chen keeps a screen grab from the call on her phone. She also has a photo of the four of them posing together on Dec. 26, the day Chen flew from their home in southern China to take up her Olympic job in Beijing.

She works at a Chinese medicine exhibition space in the Olympic press center. Initially hesitant about the prospect of months apart from her family, Chen subsequently decided that the opportunity to mingle with overseas visitors and promote the pharmaceutical company she works for couldn’t be turned down. She is also hoping for triple pay for having worked through the Lunar New Year holiday.

“My boss is happy,” she said. “Because it’s tough work.”

Her Games will end with the closing ceremony next Sunday. Like all Chinese workers when they exit the bubble, she will then be quarantined in Beijing for a week or two. Only then, a full two months after she kissed them goodbye, will come the much-anticipated reunion with her family.

“I can’t wait one more day,” she said. “I miss my younger baby most.”

Because China’s ruling Communist Party does not allow workers to organize independently and with no free trade unions, there’s not a whisper of public complaint about labor conditions inside the bubble.

Many are doing mundane and repetitive tasks and working weeks without days off. Battalions of cleaners constantly wipe and disinfect surfaces. Hospital doctors have been re-tasked to the relatively unskilled job of taking oral swabs for the daily coronavirus tests that are mandatory for all games participants. Volunteers and guards count people in and out of venues, tracking numbers with ticks on sheets of paper. But none will be heard griping publicly about the Olympic endeavor that the Communist Party is using to showcase its rule.

The bubble has been in force from Jan. 4, a month before President Xi Jinping declared the games open. After five weeks of loop life, the most critical things workers will say is that they’re losing track of time, that days resemble each other, and that they’re longing for a break from canteen food: too bland for those from regions with cuisine laced with fiery chili peppers, too unvaried for the many who long for home cooking and comforts.

Publicly, on the other hand, everyone agrees how privileged they are to be doing their bit, no matter how small. And all say that locking them in is a small sacrifice to prevent the coronavirus from jumping the barrier to their families, friends and everyone else outside. More than 1.3 million tests had turned up 432 positives by Day 10, but there were no reports of contamination leaking from the Olympic bubble.

Volunteer worker Dong Jingge misses her grandparents and has an unglamorous Olympic task: She guards the door of a walled-off dining space for Olympic visitors subject to extra health monitoring because they previously tested positive. She counts them in and out, and asks them to disinfect their hands.

The interactions are improving her English, the 21-year-old student enthuses. Her highlight so far was bumping into International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach. He gave her a small metal lapel pin of the Olympic rings.

Her mother, outside the loop, was thrilled. “Such a rare opportunity, an unforgettable moment,” she messaged when Dong posted a photo of her prize. Scheduled to also work through the Paralympic Games in March that follow the Olympics, Dong expects that her total stay inside the loop and post-loop quarantine will together add up to nearly three months.

Olympic driver Li Hong says he’s living his “dream” ferrying visitors and workers from venues on his overnight shift. He has been told to expect the equivalent of just under US$80 per day, which should add up to a tidy sum when he gets home by the end of February, after two months in the bubble.

But he’s in it for the experience, he says, not the money nor the expectation that Olympic service might look good on his membership application if he tries to join the Communist Party.

“I said to myself, I’m over 50. In my lifetime, I should serve the country,” he said. “It feels great.”

___

Associated Press journalist Dake Kang contributed. Follow Paris-based AP journalist John Leicester on Twitter at https://twitter.com/johnleicester. More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-games
CELIBACY FAILS GETS COVERED UP
'Now or never': Victims of Italy's predator priests urge inquiry



'Now or never': Victims of Italy's predator priests urge inquiryInquiries across the United States, Europe and Australia have exposed the scale of the sex abuse problem within the Church -- and also a decades-long cover-up
 (AFP/Isabella BONOTTO)

Ella IDE
Mon, February 14, 2022,

Victims of paedophile priests in Italy will unveil Tuesday a campaign dubbed "Beyond the Great Silence", pushing for an independent investigation into clerical abuse carried out on the Vatican's doorstop.

As inquiries across the United States, Europe and Australia have exposed the scale of the sex abuse problem within the Church -- and also a decades-long cover-up -- many groups say Italy can no longer avoid scrutiny.

"The government must act, must take advantage of the momentum created by impartial investigations elsewhere," Francesco Zanardi, founder of Rete l'Abuso (Abuse Network), told AFP.

"If Italy doesn't do it now, I fear it never will," said Zanardi, who was abused by a priest as a young teen.

Nine groups are now forming a consortium aimed at putting pressure on the country to launch a probe, like the ones seen recently in France and Germany.

Cristina Balestrini, who set up a support group for families after her son was abused by a priest, told AFP that the most important thing for survivors was "to make sure it never happens again".

Not all those molested will survive, "there are many victims who commit suicide, and no one knows about it," Balestrini said.

- 'Total silence' -

Rete L'Abuso has recorded more than 300 cases of priests accused or convicted of child sexual abuse in the past 15 years in Italy, out of a total of 50,000 priests across the country.

Giada Vitale is just one example the group cites. She was a shy 13-year old organ player when her parish priest, Marino Genova, abused her in the vestry. She would be molested for three years.

Vitale's tormentor was convicted in 2020, but victim groups say such a conviction is rare because Italy lags behind other countries in tackling predators.

Precise figures on the scale of the problem are impossible to come by.

The Vatican's top clerical abuse advisor told AFP this month it was time for the Catholic-majority country to hold its own reckoning.

The church is not as powerful as it once was in Italy, the historic home of popes. But it retains a huge influence and two-thirds of the population are believers, according to a 2019 survey.

Pope Francis, who has toughened the punishments meted out to abusing priests under Vatican law, on Monday streamlined the Vatican office that processes abuse complaints, in an attempt to expedite cases.

But Zanardi of Rete l’Abuso said he "would have little faith" in an in-house investigation.

- 'Victims twice over' -

Balestrini, 56, is also distrustful of the church since "they acted as if we were the enemy, making us victims twice over" after her teenage son was abused in 2011.

The cleric in question, Mauro Galli, as initially quietly moved to another parish. He would later be convicted.

She hopes the consortium will be able to pressure the church to open its archives, because the scandal, she said, "is much bigger than you can imagine".

Balestrini said unearthing the truth would not be easy for Italy, but the church would be wise to take an active role in cleaning itself up.

"At the moment, they are trying to keep a lid on it, but it's better to choose to take the lid off yourself, than have it blown off."

ide-cmk/ams/pvh
Black gay priest in NYC challenges Catholicism from within
By KWASI GYAMFI ASIEDU

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The Rev. Bryan Massingale gives a sermon on Sunday, Jan. 30, 2022, at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in the Harlem neighborhood of New York. Massingale has received recognition for his work on racial justice, he supports the ordination of women, making celibacy optional for Catholic clergy, and as a gay man, he vocally disagrees with the church's doctrine on same-sex relations.(AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski)

NEW YORK (AP) — Parishioners worshipping at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Harlem are greeted by a framed portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. -- a Baptist minister named after a rebellious 16th century German priest excommunicated from the Catholic Church.

The Rev. Bryan Massingale, who sometimes preaches at St. Charles, pursues his ministry in ways that echo both Martin Luthers.

Like King, Massingale decries the scourge of racial inequality in the United States. As a professor at Fordham University, he teaches African American religious approaches to ethics.

Like the German Martin Luther, Massingale is often at odds with official Catholic teaching -- he supports the ordination of women and making celibacy optional for Catholic clergy. And, as a gay man, he vocally disagrees with the church’s doctrine on same-sex relations, instead advocating for full inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics within the church.

The Vatican holds that gays and lesbians should be treated with dignity and respect, but that gay sex is “intrinsically disordered” and sinful.

In his homily on a recent Sunday, Massingale – who became public about being gay in 2019 -- envisioned a world “where the dignity of every person is respected and protected, where everyone is loved.”

But the message of equality and tolerance is one “that is resisted even within our own faith household,” he added. “Preach!” a worshiper shouted in response.

Massingale was born in 1957 in Milwaukee. His mother was a school secretary and his father a factory worker whose family migrated from Mississippi to escape racial segregation.

But even in Wisconsin, racism was common. Massingale said his father couldn’t work as a carpenter because of a color bar preventing African Americans from joining the carpenters’ union.

The Massingales also experienced racism when they moved to Milwaukee’s outskirts and ventured to a predominately white parish.

“This would not be a very comfortable parish for you to be a part of,” he recalled the parish priest saying. Thereafter, the family commuted to a predominantly Black Catholic church.

Massingale recalled another incident, as a newly ordained priest, after celebrating his first Mass at a predominantly white church.

“The first parishioner to greet me at the door said to me: ‘Father, you being here is the worst mistake the archbishop could have made. People will never accept you.’”

Massingale says he considered leaving the Catholic Church, but decided he was needed.

“I’m not going to let the church’s racism rob me of my relationship with God,” he said. “I see it as my mission to make the church what it says it is: more universal and the institution that I believe Jesus wants it to be.”

For Massingale, racism within the U.S. Catholic Church is a reason for the exodus of some Black Catholics; he says the church is not doing enough to tackle racism within its ranks and in broader society.

Nearly half of Black U.S. adults who were raised Catholic no longer identify as such, with many becoming Protestants, according to a 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center. About 6% of Black U.S. adults identify as Catholic and close to 80% believe opposing racism is essential to their faith, the survey found.

The U.S. Catholic Church has had a checkered history with race. Some of its institutions, such as Georgetown University, were involved in the slave trade, and it has struggled to recruit African American priests.

Conversely, Catholic schools were among the first to desegregate and some government officials who opposed racial integration were excommunicated.

In 2018, U.S. bishops issued a pastoral letter decrying “the persistence of the evil of racism,” but Massingale was disappointed.

“The phrase ‘white nationalism’ is not stated in that document; it doesn’t talk about the Black Lives Matter movement,” he said. “The problem with the church’s teachings on racism is that they are written in a way that is calculated not to disturb white people.”

At Fordham, a Jesuit university, Massingale teaches a class on homosexuality and Christian ethics, using biblical texts to challenge church teaching on same-sex relations. He said he came to terms with his own sexuality at 22, upon reflecting on the book of Isaiah.

“I realized that no matter what the church said, God loved me and accepted me as a Black gay man,” he said.

His ordination in 1983 came in the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic that disproportionately affected gay men and Black Americans. Among his first funerals as a priest was that of a gay man whose family wanted no mention of his sexuality or the disease.

“They should have been able to turn to their church in their time of grief,” Massingale said. “Yet they couldn’t because that stigma existed in great measure because of how many ministers were speaking about homosexuality and AIDS as being a punishment for sin.”

Pope Francis has called for compassionate pastoral care for LGBTQ Catholics. However, he has described homosexuality among the clergy as worrisome, and Vatican law remains clear: same-sex unions cannot be blessed within the church. Some dioceses have fired openly LGBTQ employees.

Massingale has a different vision of the church: one where Catholics enjoy the same privileges regardless of sexual orientation.

“I think that one can express one’s sexuality in a way that is responsible, committed, life giving and an experience of joy,” he said.

Massingale has received recognition for his advocacy from like-minded organizations such as FutureChurch, which says priests should be allowed to marry and women should have more leadership roles within the church.

“He is one of the most prophetic, compelling, inspiring, transforming leaders in the Catholic Church,” said Deborah Rose-Milavec, the organization’s co-director. “When he speaks, you know very deep truth is being spoken.”

Along with his many admirers, Massingale has some vehement critics, such as the conservative Catholic news outlet Church Militant, which depicts his LGBTQ advocacy as sinful.

At Fordham, Massingale is well-respected by colleagues, and was honored by the university with a prestigious endowed chair. To the extent he has any critics among the Fordham faculty, they tend to keep their misgivings out of the public sphere.

He says he receives many messages of hope and support, but becoming public about his sexuality has come at a cost.

“I have lost some priest friends who find it difficult to be too closely associated with me because if they’re friends with me, ‘what will people say about them?’” he said.

Massingale remains optimistic about gradual change in the Catholic Church because of Pope Francis and recent signals from bishops in Europe who expressed a desire for changes, including blessing same-sex unions.

“My dream wedding would be either two men or two women standing before the church; marrying each other as an act of faith and I can be there as the official witness to say: “Yes, this is of God,” he said after a recent class at Fordham. “If they were Black, that would be wonderful.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Young workers give unions new hope
By DEE-ANN DURBIN

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Food service worker Sheree Allen poses in the Raise Up offices, a branch of the Fight for $15 union, Thursday, Feb. 10, 2022, in Durham, N.C. After decades of decline, U.S. unions have a new reason for hope: younger workers. Sheree Allen was hoping for benefits when she joined the food service company Chartwells last August. Chartwells says it offers health care, paid time off and a 401 (k) plan to its workers, but Allen says she has never been given information about those benefits despite asking her superiors. When she tested positive for COVID in January, she had to stay home without pay.
 (AP Photo/Chris Seward)

After decades of decline, U.S. unions have a new reason for hope: younger workers.

Workers in their 20s __ and even in their teens __ are leading ongoing efforts to unionize companies large and small, from Starbucks and REI to local cannabis dispensaries. The Alphabet Workers Union, formed last year and now representing 800 Google employees, is run by five people who are under 35.

Multiple polls show union approval is high __ and growing __ among the youngest workers. And U.S. union membership levels are even ticking upward for workers between 25 and 34, even as they decline among other age groups.

Between 2019 and 2021, the overall percentage of U.S. union members stayed flat. But the percentage of workers ages 25-34 who are union members rose from 8.8% to 9.4%, or around 68,000 workers, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Young workers say they see unions as the best way to combat wage inequality and poor working conditions. For some, personal heroes like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders __ a vocal labor advocate __ have piqued their interest in unions. Others say the coronavirus pandemic caused them to rethink what they deserve from their jobs.

“Whatever this is isn’t working,” said Adriana Alvarez, 29, a McDonald’s employee in Chicago. “We obviously need change.”

When a union organizer first approached Alvarez in 2014, she was skeptical of his goal to raise her pay to $15 per hour. At the time, she was making $8.50 per hour and hadn’t gotten a raise in three years.

But she got involved with the Fight for $15 labor group, organizing protests and learning about her rights. McDonald’s workers still aren’t unionized, but she says her managers are more respectful and have stopped illegal practices, like making workers reimburse the restaurant if they accidentally accept counterfeit money. She now makes $16.70 per hour.

Like many of her peers, Alvarez didn’t grow up in a union household. U.S. union membership peaked in 1954, when 35% of workers belonged to unions. By last year, that had fallen to 10.3%.

Some of that decline is due to shrinking numbers in sectors with high unionization rates, like the auto industry. But states and courts have also steadily chipped away at unions’ power.

Twenty-seven states now have “right-to-work” laws, which prohibit a company and a union from signing a contract that requires workers to pay dues to the union that represents them. And last year, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1975 California regulation that had allowed union organizers to meet with agricultural workers on company property.

Against that backdrop, unions last year saw some of their biggest increases among young workers in utilities, the motion picture industry and the federal government, said Hayley Brown, a research associate with the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a nonpartisan think tank.

Brown said there are signs those numbers will continue to rise this year under the labor-friendly Biden administration, which issued proposals this month aimed at increasing unionization rates for federal workers and contractors. In January, there were 170 petitions filed for union elections with the National Labor Relations Board; that was more than double the 83 filed in January 2021.

After two Starbucks stores in Buffalo, New York, voted to unionize late last year, workers at more than 70 Starbucks stores in 21 states petitioned the NLRB to hold their own union elections, according to Workers United, the union organizing the effort.

College student and part-time Starbucks worker Joseph Thompson __ who uses they/them pronouns __ is trying to unionize their store in Santa Cruz, California. Thompson, 18, had never heard of “collective bargaining” until a few months ago, but was inspired by colleagues in Buffalo and progressive politicians like Sanders. Thompson says their store is often understaffed despite security problems.

Derrick Pointer, an electrical lineman in Talladega, Alabama, wasn’t convinced he should join the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers when he started working for Halliburton Co. in 2015. At a previous job in food service, his union reps weren’t responsive, he said.

But he joined to take advantage of the union’s training. Pointer now makes $42.30 per hour and has generous benefits, including COVID sick leave. The $60 he pays in union dues each month is well worth it, Pointer said.

Sheree Allen was hoping for benefits like that when she joined the food service company Chartwells last August. Chartwells says it offers health care, paid time off and a 401 (k) plan to its workers, but Allen says she has never been given information about those benefits despite asking her superiors. When she tested positive for COVID in January, she had to stay home without pay.

Allen, who lives in Durham, North Carolina, started attending Fight for $15 meetings with her sister. Now she’s trying to convince her co-workers to organize.

“You have rights, you have a say-so, you don’t have to put up with whatever your manager says to you,” Allen said.

For younger workers, unions no longer have the communist associations that tarred them 40 years ago, said Anibel Ferus-Comelo, who directs the labor studies department at the University of California, Berkeley. Young people lived through the great recession of 2009 and the pandemic, and economic insecurity is a very real fear, she said.

Many young people are also discovering what veterans already know: Forming a union can be difficult. Even when workers vote to unionize, it can take years for companies and unions to hammer out a contract.

“One of one of our organizers always says, ‘It’s not a sprint. It’s a marathon.’ It takes a lot of time and a lot of energy,” said Sylvia Soukup, 19, who helped win a union election at Half Price Books in Roseville, Minnesota, in December.

Soukup said workers at her location and three others haven’t yet heard when contract negotiations will begin. Still, she’s hopeful a contract will ensure better staffing and livable wages. Booksellers’ pay is currently capped at $14 an hour, she said.

“I feel like all of the frustration, all of the energy that I’ve used, all of the anger and the hurt... were absolutely worth it,” Soukup said. “I know that we’re taking steps that are needed for our voices to be heard.”
DNA analysis of elephant ivory reveals trafficking networks
By CHRISTINA LARSON

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FILE - Elephant tusks are stacked in one of around a dozen pyres of ivory, in Nairobi National Park, Kenya on April 28, 2016. According to a report released on Monday, Feb. 14, 2022, scientists found that most large ivory seizures between 2002 and 2019 contained tusks from repeated poaching of the same elephant populations. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — As few as three major criminal groups are responsible for smuggling the vast majority of elephant ivory tusks out of Africa, according to a new study.

Researchers used analysis of DNA from seized elephant tusks and evidence such as phone records, license plates, financial records and shipping documents to map trafficking operations across the continent and better understand who was behind the crimes. The study was published Monday in the journal Nature Human Behavior.

“When you have the genetic analysis and other data, you can finally begin to understand the illicit supply chain – that’s absolutely key to countering these networks,” said Louise Shelley, who researches illegal trade at George Mason University and was not involved in the research.

Conservation biologist Samuel Wasser, a study co-author, hopes the findings will help law enforcement officials target the leaders of these networks instead of low-level poachers who are easily replaced by criminal organizations.

“If you can stop the trade where the ivory is being consolidated and exported out of the country, those are really the key players,” said Wasser, who co-directs the Center for Environmental Forensic Science at the University of Washington.

Africa’s elephant population is fast dwindling. From around 5 million elephants a century ago to 1.3 million in 1979, the total number of elephants in Africa is now estimated to be around 415,000.

A 1989 ban on international commercial ivory trade hasn’t stopped the decline. Each year, an estimated 1.1 million pounds (500 metric tons) of poached elephant tusks are shipped from Africa, mostly to Asia.

For the past two decades, Wasser has fixated on a few key questions: “Where is most of the ivory being poached, who is moving it, and how many people are they?”

He works with wildlife authorities in Kenya, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and elsewhere, who contact him after they intercept ivory shipments. He flies to the countries to take small samples of tusks to analyze the DNA. He has now amassed samples from the tusks of more than 4,300 elephants trafficked out of Africa between 1995 and today.

“That’s an amazing, remarkable data set,” said Princeton University biologist Robert Pringle, who was not involved in the study. With such data, “it becomes possible to spot connections and make strong inferences,” he said.

In 2004, Wasser demonstrated that DNA from elephant tusks and dung could be used to pinpoint their home location to within a few hundred miles. In 2018, he recognized that finding identical DNA in tusks from two different ivory seizures meant they were harvested from the same animal – and likely trafficked by the same poaching network.

The new research expands that approach to identify DNA belonging to elephant parents and offspring, as well as siblings — and led to the discovery that only a very few criminal groups are behind most of the ivory trafficking in Africa.

Because female elephants remain in the same family group their whole life, and most males don’t travel too far from their family herd, the researchers hypothesize that tusks from close family members are likely to have been poached at the same time, or by the same operators.

Such genetic links can provide a blueprint for wildlife authorities seeking other evidence – cell phone records, license plates, shipping documents and financial statements – to link different ivory shipments.

Previously when an ivory shipment was intercepted, the one seizure wouldn’t allow authorities to identify the organization behind the crime, said Special Agent John Brown III of the Office of Homeland Security Investigations, who has worked on environmental crimes for 25 years.

But the scientists’ work identifying DNA links can “alert us to the connections between individual seizures,” said Brown, who is also a co-author. “This collaborative effort has definitely been the backbone of multiple multinational investigations that are still ongoing,” he said.

They identified several poaching hotspots, including regions of Tanzania, Kenya, Botswana, Gabon and Republic of Congo. Tusks are often moved to warehouses in another location to be combined with other contraband in shipping containers, then moved to ports. Current trafficking hubs exist in Kampala, Uganda; Mombasa, Kenya; and Lome, Togo.

Two suspects were recently arrested as a result of one such investigation, said Wasser.

Traffickers that smuggle ivory also often move other contraband, the researchers found. A quarter of large seizures of pangolin scales – a heavily-poached anteater-like animal – are co-mingled with ivory, for instance.

“Confronting these networks is a great example of how genetics can be used for conservation purposes,” said Brian Arnold, a Princeton University evolutionary biologist who was not involved in the research.

___

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.
Millions will celebrate Valentine's Day, except in nations where it's banned or discouraged

A Palestinian walks past red bears displayed outside a store on Valentine's Day in Ramallah, West Bank, on Monday. 
Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Tens of millions of people will commemorate Valentine's Day on Monday, which is a day of celebrating romance throughout most of the world -- but religious and cultural differences mean that the holiday is banned in a handful of countries.

Pope Gelasius is credited with officially establishing Valentine's Day in honor of St. Valentine of Rome, a priest who was martyred in 269 and was said to have secretly married Roman soldiers and restored eyesight to his jailer's daughter and sent her a letter that was signed "Your Valentine" before he was executed.

Throughout history, the holiday began to be more singularly associated with themes of love and romance, including in Britain where the holiday was connected to love birds of the spring.

Despite its evolving nature, some countries -- many with majority Muslim and Hindu populations -- have sought to eliminate the celebration due to its Christian origins and some moral objections.

Here are five countries where Valentine's Day is prohibited, or at least unloved:

People are seen at a beach in Penang, Malaysia. File Photo by Stephen Shaver/UPI

Malaysia

In Malaysia, where about 60% of the population is Muslim, the National Fatwa Council moved to ban the holiday in 2005, stating that it has "elements of Christianity."

The council has also linked the holiday to abortion, consumption of alcohol and other activities that it believes invite moral decay -- particularly among young people.

Christian groups have urged the council to reconsider, stating that there's little connection between modern Valentine's Day and Christianity.

The ban, however, has persisted and couples who celebrate can face penalties, including arrest.

An Iranian woman walk past a wall with an anti-American painting on the wall of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran. File Photo by Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA-EFE

Iran

In 2011, the Middle Eastern and Muslim-majority country banned the production of all goods and gifts associated with Valentine's Day -- and outlawed promotion of any day celebrating romantic love, which is seen as a sign of immorality and the spread of Western culture.

A pair of ancient festivals have effectively taken the place Valentine's Day in Iran.

Sepandarmazgan on Feb. 23 is known as the Persian day of love and honors Spandarmand, a Zoroastrian deity who represents a loving wife.

The other is the festival of Mehrgan, which is observed in early October. It celebrates the concept of Mehr, which can mean friendship, love and affection.

Uzbekistan, a landlocked nation in central Asia, is a breakaway country that declared its independence in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union. File Photo by Richard Tomkins/UPI

Uzbekistan

The former Soviet republic allowed Valentine's Day celebrations for many years, but its Ministry of Education's Department of Enlightenment and the Promotion of Values issued an internal decree a decade ago that forbids celebrating holidays that are "alien to our culture."

Valentine's Day celebrations are not illegal in the country, but the country prefers to celebrate Babur, a Mughal Emperor and descendent of Genghis Khan, who was born on Feb. 14.

Uzbekistan is a secular nation, but the majority of its citizens are Muslim.

Pakistan's high court moved five years ago to dissuade citizens from observing Valentine's Day. File Photo by Shahzaib Akber/EPA

Pakistan

Home to the world's largest Muslim population, Pakistan moved to ban any celebrations, media coverage or mention of Valentine's Day in 2017 following a petition to the High Court in Islamabad.

The primary reason for the move was because Valentine's Day is a Western cultural import that went against the teachings of Islam.

A year earlier, then-President Mamnoon Hussain called on Pakistanis to avoid Valentine's Day, saying it "has no connection with our culture."

The decision did not go over well with flower sellers and university students, and some still celebrate the holiday in secret.

Citizens hold the national flag during a demonstration in downtown Jakarta, Indonesia. UPI Photo/File

India and Indonesia

Valentine's Day is not banned in India or Indonesia, but it has faced pushback from radical religious groups in both countries.

In India, Hindu nationalists have protested the holiday, while threatening and attacking couples who celebrate -- including cutting their hair or blackening their faces.

Some groups have employed anti-Valentine's Day campaigns on social media, and a far-right Hindu political party in 2015 threatened to force people making public displays of love on social media on Feb. 14 to get married.

A ruling by the highest Islamic Council in 2012 -- declaring that Valentine's Day was contradictory to Muslim culture and teaching -- has led to small-scale bans of the holiday in the Indonesian cities of Surabaya and Makassar and an outright ban in Bando Aceh.


However, the holiday is still observed in other parts of the country and is openly celebrated in the capital, Jakarta.
DEEP POCKETS OF BIG PHARMA
J&J going to court in bid to resolve claims that talc products cause cancer

Johnson & Johnson has rejected claims that its baby powder and talc-related products
cause cancer, saying that they have been proven safe for decades and tests have
confirmed that they're free of asbestos. File Photo by Dan Peled/EPA

Feb. 14 (UPI) -- A subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson is scheduled to appear in New Jersey court on Monday over tens of thousands of lawsuits that say the company's famous baby powder and other talc-based products have been shown to cause cancer.

The company is seeking permission from a judge to settle almost 40,000 cases through the bankruptcy process

Johnson & Johnson hopes that by putting the personal injury claims into bankruptcy proceedings, it would drive settlements with the people involved in the lawsuits -- some of whom have had ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, which is related to asbestos exposure.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs, however, will ask the judge to refuse to allow Johnson & Johnson to settle via bankruptcy.

File Photo by Justin Lane/EPA-EFE

RELATED 
Judge orders Johnson & Johnson, Colgate to pay $10M in cancer case

"Specifically, this case was filed to shield J&J from liability for the production, marketing, and sale of carcinogenic products for decades," a committee representing some of the victims said in a court filing, according to Bloomberg.

The plaintiffs argue that if the judge permits Johnson & Johnson to proceed with its bankruptcy plan, it will limit the amount of money they can receive in damages.

A federal bankruptcy judge in New Jersey scheduled a five-day trial for this week to consider the committees' position that the company's bankruptcy case should be dismissed.

RELATED 
Johnson & Johnson subpoenaed over claims baby powder contains asbestos

Nearly two dozen plaintiffs won more than $2 billion last year after a jury concluded that Johnson & Johnson's talc powder caused their cancers. The U.S. Supreme Court later refused to hear an appeal from the company over the award.

Johnson & Johnson created a separate unit, LTL Management LLC, last year to include all of its talc-related liabilities. The unit then filed for bankruptcy in a legal maneuver that's sometimes called the "Texas two-step."

Johnson & Johnson has rejected claims that its baby powder and talc-related products cause cancer, saying that they have been proven safe for decades and tests have confirmed that they're free of asbestos.
CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITALI$M
British tax collector arrests 3, seizes NFTs in $1.9 million fraud case

Some pieces of NFT art are seen at Christie's in New York City on September 28, 2021. NFTs can be various digital assets that track ownership of certain items, such as artwork.
 File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 14 (UPI) -- Britain's tax-collecting agency said on Monday that it's seized three non-fungible tokens -- better known as NFTs -- and that three people have been arrested as part of a fraud case worth almost $2 million.

Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs said in an emailed statement to UPI that the seizure is believed to be the first for a British agency involving NFTs.

NFTs are digital assets that track ownership of certain items, such as artwork, memorabilia and writings. About a year ago, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey sold his first-ever tweet from 2006 as an NFT for almost $3 million. In December, a programmer sold the world's first SMS text message as an NFT for $120,000.

"Our first seizure of a non-fungible token serves as a warning to anyone who thinks they can use crypto assets to hide money from HMRC," Nick Sharp, HMRC deputy director for economic crime, said in the statement.

"We constantly adapt to new technology to ensure we keep pace with how criminals and evaders look to conceal their assets."

The watchdog said it secured a court order to seize three pieces of digital artwork, which have not been appraised for their value, and more than $6,700 in other crypto assets. The HMRC can seize assets under British law to satisfy confiscations.

Jake Moore, an adviser at cybersecurity firm ESET, said that police can "request to keep half of the forfeited goods" -- and the other half will go to Britain's Home Office.

RELATED United Kingdom seeks to regulate crypto asset ads to protect consumers

"The key design of cryptocurrencies is to keep them secure and protected against interception by anyone, whether that be a threat actor or law enforcement," Moore said in a statement.

"But with a fast-moving digital world where mistakes can be made, police forces are beginning to buck the trend in how they investigate digital crime, locate evidence and finally seize digital assets."

Authorities said the unidentified suspects used phony companies, identities and addresses to earn more value-added tax, which is similar to sales tax, than they were owed. The HMRC said they used various "sophisticated methods" in the scheme.
White House says 10M U.S. homes have signed up for Internet affordability program
US POP 335M
By Adam Schrader
   
Feb. 14 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden's administration announced Monday that more than 10 million homes in the United States have enrolled in a new program that's designed to make broadband Internet access affordable for low-income Americans.

The White House said that Vice President Kamala Harris, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and senior adviser Mitch Landrieu will make the announcement and expand on the progress at an event Monday afternoon.

The three will speak at the event, which is scheduled to begin at 2:45 p.m. EST at the White House.

The $14.2 billion Affordable Connectivity Program was created as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which Biden signed last November.

The program provides monthly broadband Internet discounts of up to $30 for households that are at or below 200% of federal poverty guidelines. It also provides low-income homes a one-time $100 discount to buy a computer or tablet. The plan says households on tribal lands can receive monthly Internet discounts up to $75.

"The president and vice president have made it a top priority to ensure all Americans have access to reliable, affordable, high-speed Internet to learn, work, and participate in the 21st-century economy," the White House said in a statement.

"Broadband connectivity is vital for work, school, healthcare and more. But affordable broadband remains out of reach for too many, with one estimate showing almost one out of three internet users worried about paying their internet bills during the pandemic."

Americans can check the Affordable Connectivity Program website to see if they're eligible and apply for discounted Internet service.


Biden, anti-gun violence groups call for action on 4th anniversary of Parkland attack

"Biden has been a friend but not a leader," 
David Hogg, founder of March For Our Lives and a survivor of the Parkland shooting
EVERYONE WHO VOTED FOR HIM HAS DISCOVERED THIS

Students leave the area of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., following a mass shooting there on February 14, 2018.
 File Photo by Gary Rothstein/UPI | License Photo

Feb. 14 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden and multiple advocacy groups on Monday recalled the deadly shooting attack at a school in Parkland, Fla., four years ago and pushed for new actions to prevent gun violence.

Seventeen people died at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, near Fort Lauderdale, on Feb. 14, 2018, when former student Nikolas Cruz walked into the school with a gun and opened fire. A number of youth anti-violence groups were spawned from the attack -- some of which pressed Biden Monday for real efforts to keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them.

March For Our Lives, Guns Down America and Change the Ref launched an online tool Monday -- called "Shock Market" -- to track gun deaths nationwide since Biden took office in January 2021.

"Biden has been a friend but not a leader," David Hogg, founder of March For Our Lives and a survivor of the Parkland shooting, told CNN. "He's made small steps but it's not enough.

"The president hasn't been receptive to our demands. We expected this from [former President Donald] Trump, but we're shocked that it's coming from Biden."


Flowers and 17 crosses are seen outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Fla., on February 26, 2018, to remember the victims of the shooting attack. File Photo by Gary Rothstein/UPI

In a message marking the anniversary of the Parkland shooting, Biden pressed Congress to do more.

"Out of the heartbreak of Parkland a new generation of Americans all across the country marched for our lives and towards a better, safer America for us all," he said.

RELATED Biden to visit NYC next week, meet with Mayor Eric Adams to talk about gun violence

"I've asked Congress to pass a budget that provides an additional half billion dollars for proven strategies we know reduce violent crime -- accountable community policing and community violence interventions. I have also requested increased funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. Marshals.

"And Congress must do much more -- beginning with requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers."


A young person holds a sign during a "March For Our Lives" rally in San Francisco, Calif., on March 24, 2018. The March For Our Lives movement was born out of the Parkland shooting. 
 Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo

Biden said that his administration is working to advance a plan to reduce gun violence, including an improved effort to find unlawful gun dealers and addressing "ghost guns." The proposal, he said, will also promote "extreme risk protection order" legislation for states and improve information sharing between federal and local law enforcement.

RELATED San Jose becomes first U.S. city to require gun owners to carry liability insurance

Authorities say that Cruz legally bought the gun that he used in the attack, although he had brain development problems and depression.

Biden, however, is limited in what he can do as president, as it's mainly Congress' responsibility to regulate the buying and selling of firearms. Few Republicans have supported efforts to make it more difficult to obtain guns, and Democrats have only the slimmest of majorities in the Senate.

In December, Sen.Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, blocked a request to proceed to legislation that the House passed a year ago to expand background checks.

Gun control groups press Biden to do more to stop violence

By ZEKE MILLER and COLLEEN LONG

WASHINGTON (AP) — Four years after 17 people were gunned down at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, families and gun control advocates are pressing President Joe Biden to do more to address gun violence.

One father of a victim killed in the shooting sent an early morning tweet Monday, the anniversary of the Parkland shooting, saying that he’d climbed a 150-foot-tall (46-meter-tall) crane near the White House.

“The whole world will listen to Joaquin today. He has a very important message,” the father, Manuel Oliver, said in a video tweeted at about 6:50 a.m., referring to his son, Joaquin Oliver. “I asked for a meeting with Joe Biden a month ago, never got that meeting.”

Oliver unfurled a sign that showed a photo of his son and criticized Biden for gun deaths on his watch. Police were called to the scene, where at least two people were on the crane. They said later that three people were taken into custody but didn’t identify them.

Meanwhile, dozens of advocates were set to rally outside the White House and unveil a website chronicling the 47,000 gun deaths and 42,000 gun injuries in the country since Biden was inaugurated. The tracker also lists the number of young people killed and injured as well as the number of mass shootings in the same time frame, and it includes a feature allowing users to publicly call on Biden and other administration officials to act against gun violence.

“As a candidate, Joe Biden promised to prioritize gun violence prevention. As president, Joe Biden has not,” said Igor Volsky, founder and executive director of the group Guns Down America.

In his first year in office, Biden’s efforts to pass legislation to tighten gun laws haven’t left the drawing board. He also was forced to pull his nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The group is calling on Biden to stand up a national office to address gun violence and to make a new nomination to head the ATF.

Biden said in a statement before the planned protest that the movement to end gun violence is “extraordinary.”

“We can never bring back those we’ve lost. But we can come together to fulfill the first responsibility of our government and our democracy: to keep each other safe,” he said. “For Parkland, for all those we’ve lost, and for all those left behind, it is time to uphold that solemn obligation.”

Since the Parkland shooting left 14 students and three staff members dead, gun violence at schools has only risen. There were at least 136 instances of gunfire on school grounds between Aug. 1 and Dec. 31, according to a tally last week by the gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety.

Biden has acted to crack down on “ ghost guns,” homemade firearms that lack serial numbers used to trace them and that are often purchased without a background check. He has worked to tighten regulations on pistol-stabilizing braces like the one used in a Boulder, Colorado, shooting that left 10 people dead. He’s also encouraged cities to use their COVID-19 relief dollars to help manage gun violence. But these efforts fall far short of major change.

There are limits to what the president can do when there is no appetite in Congress to pass gun legislation. The strongest effort in recent years failed, even after 20 children and six adults were killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. Parkland happened six years later.

Biden, a Democrat, said he’s asked members of Congress to provide funding to help reduce violent crime and said they must pass legislation requiring background checks on all gun sales, banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and eliminating immunity for gun manufacturers.

The U.S. Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center studied school attacks nationwide from 2006-18 and reported that most attackers were bullied and that warning signs were there. Most important, the researchers said, about 94% talked about their attacks and what they intended to do in some way, whether orally or electronically, and 75% were detected because they talked about their plots. About 36% were thwarted within two days of their intended attacks.

GREAT VALENTINES NEWS
Obama sex education program drove lower teen birth rates in US: study


In 2010 former president Barack Obama initiated two comprehensive sex-education programs:
 Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program (TPP) (AFP/POOL) (POOL)

Issam AHMED
Mon, February 14, 2022, 5:03 PM·3 min read

An Obama-era sex education program that was criticized by conservatives succeeded in reducing teen birth rates in parts of the US that implemented it, a large study said Monday.

Teen births are higher in the United States than in any other G7 country, and the topic of whether to teach adolescents about the use of contraceptives has remained heated among academics, politicians and the public.

A 1996 law allocated federal funding to abstinence-only education, but in 2010 then-president Barack Obama initiated two more comprehensive sex-education programs: Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP) and the Teen Pregnancy Prevention program (TPP).

These programs provided more information about sex, contraception, and reproductive health compared to abstinence-only education, which research has shown has no effect on teen birth rates.

"We looked at 'Where did this funding go? And what happens to teen birth rates in the places that it went?'" Nicholas Mark, a researcher at New York University (NYU) and lead author of the study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) told AFP.

Mark and his co-author, NYU professor Lawrence Wu focused on TPP, because this program's funding was allocated at the county rather than state level. This made it possible to draw comparisons between counties of similar income and poverty levels.

The researchers had access to public data on which counties received TPP funding, and a restricted birth certificate database that gave them birth rates in counties, as well as allowing them to capture the age of mothers at the time of birth and where they lived.

They examined teenage birth rates in 55 US counties from 1996-2009, the years before they received TPP funding, and during the years they received this funding, 2010-2016.

They also compared the birth rates in those 55 counties to more than 2,800 counties without the funding in the years before and after TPP was implemented.


This method allowed them to make the truest comparison possible, by disentangling the specific impact of the sex education program from an overall trend of declining teen birth rates in recent years.

Birth rates among 14 to 19 year olds in counties that received TPP funding dropped by approximately three percent in the years studied -- both compared to the period before they received funding, and compared to unfunded counties.

The paper is the first national effort to study the question, and its methods demonstrated cause-and-effect, rather than simply correlation, according to the authors.

Support for comprehensive sex education versus abstinence-only teaching remains a fault line in the country's ongoing culture wars.

The administration of former president Donald Trump attempted to reallocate funding back towards abstinence programs, but faced opposition in court by the reproductive health group Planned Parenthood.

Many teen pregnancies and subsequent births are unwanted by the mothers, and therefore can be affected by access to abortion.

The conservative-majority Supreme Court may soon be poised to overturn the ruling that made abortion a constitutional right in the United States 50 years ago, paving the way for state-level bans.

ia/caw
Climate-boosted drought in western US worst in 1,200 years


Human-caused global heating accounts for more than 40 percent of the megadrought ravaging the southwestern United States 
(AFP/Raul ARBOLEDA)

Marlowe HOOD
Mon, February 14, 2022, 

The megadrought that has parched southwestern United States and parts of Mexico over the last two decades is the worst to hit the region in at least 1,200 years, researchers said Monday.

Human-caused global heating accounts for more than 40 percent of the dry spell's intensity, they reported in the journal Nature Climate Change.

"The turn-of-the-21st-century drought would not be on a megadrought trajectory without anthropogenic climate change," lead author Park Williams, an associate professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, and colleagues wrote.

Over the last decade, California and other western states have experienced severe water shortages, triggering periodic restrictions on water usage and forcing some communities to import bottled water for drinking.




Occasional heavy snow or rainfall have not been enough to compensate.

2021 was especially dry. As of February 10, 95 percent of western US had drought conditions, according to the US government's Drought Monitor.

Last summer, two of North America's largest reservoirs -- Lake Mead and Lake Powell -- reached their lowest recorded level in more than a century.

The odds are high that the current dry spell will continue for at least a couple of years, probably longer, according to the findings.

Running simulations based on soil moisture records stretching back 1,200 years, the researchers calculated a 94 percent chance that the drought would extend through 2022.

There's a three-in-four chance it will run until the end of decade.

Tree-ring analysis shows that the area west of the Rocky Mountains from southern Montana to northern Mexico was hit repeatedly by so-called megadroughts -- lasting at least 19 years -- between the years 800 and 1600.




- Chronic water scarcity -


Earlier research had established that the period 2000-2018 was likely the second worst drought since the year 800, topped by one in the late 1500s.

Data from 2019-2021, backed by new climate models released last year, have revealed the current drought to be worse than any from the Middle Ages.

But without climate change it "wouldn't hold a candle to the megadroughts of the 1500s, 1200s or 1100s," Williams said in a statement.

Western North America is not the only region hit by increasingly severe dry periods.

Climate change worsened the El Nino-driven droughts of 2015-2016, leading to widespread crop failures, loss of livestock, Rift Valley fever outbreaks, and increased rates of malnutrition.

Globally, 800 million to three billion people are projected to experience chronic water scarcity due to drought caused by two degrees Celsius warming above preindustrial levels, according to a draft 4,000-page Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on climate impacts seen by AFP.

In a 4C world, that figure is up to four billion people.

Earth's surface has already warmed 1.1C on average, and is almost certain to breach the 1.5C cap called for in the Paris Agreement within two decades.

Other natural extreme weather events enhanced by global warming include deadly heatwaves, flood-causing rainfall and superstorms.

mh/ach

West megadrought worsens to driest in at least 1,200 years

By SETH BORENSTEIN

Water drips from a faucet near boat docks sitting on dry land at the Browns Ravine Cove area of drought-stricken Folsom Lake in Folsom, Calif., on May 22, 2022. The American West's megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest it has been in at least 1200 years and a worst-case scenario playing out live, a new study finds. (AP Photo/Josh Edelson, File)

The American West’s megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest in at least 1,200 years and is a worst-case climate change scenario playing out live, a new study finds.

A dramatic drying in 2021 — about as dry as 2002 and one of the driest years ever recorded for the region — pushed the 22-year drought passed the previous record-holder for megadroughts in the late 1500s and shows no signs of easing in the near future, according to a study Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.



The study calculated that 42% of this megadrought can be attributed to human-caused climate change.

“Climate change is changing the baseline conditions toward a drier, gradually drier state in the West and that means the worst-case scenario keeps getting worse,” said study lead author Park Williams, a climate hydrologist at UCLA. “This is right in line with what people were thinking of in the 1900s as a worst-case scenario. But today I think we need to be even preparing for conditions in the future that are far worse than this.”

Williams studied soil moisture levels in the West — a box that includes California, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, most of Oregon and Idaho, much of New Mexico, western Colorado, northern Mexico, and the southwest corners of Montana and Texas — using modern measurements and tree rings for estimates that go back to the year 800. That’s about as far back as estimates can reliably go with tree rings.

A few years ago, Williams studied the current drought and said it qualified as a lengthy and deep “megadrought” and that the only worse one was in the 1500s. He figured the current drought wouldn’t surpass that one because megadroughts tended to peter out after 20 years. And, he said, 2019 was a wet year so it looked like the western drought might be coming to an end.



But the region dried up in late 2020 and 2021.


All of California was considered in official drought from mid-May until the end of 2021, and at least three-quarters of the state was at the highest two drought levels from June through Christmas, according to the U.S. drought monitor.

“For this drought to have just cranked up back to maximum drought intensity in late 2020 through 2021 is a quite emphatic statement by this 2000s drought saying that we’re nowhere close to the end,” Williams said. This drought is now 5% drier than the old record from the 1500s, he said.

The drought monitor says 55% of the U.S. West is in drought with 13% experiencing the two highest drought levels.

This megadrought really kicked off in 2002 — one of the driest years ever, based on humidity and tree rings, Williams said.


“I was wondering if we’d ever see a year like 2002 again in my life and in fact, we saw it 20 years later, within the same drought,” Williams said. The drought levels in 2002 and 2021 were a statistical tie, though still behind 1580 for the worst single year.

Climate change from the burning of fossil fuels is bringing hotter temperatures and increasing evaporation in the air, scientists say.


Williams used 29 models to create a hypothetical world with no human-caused warming then compared it to what happened in real life — the scientifically accepted way to check if an extreme weather event is due to climate change. He found that 42% of the drought conditions are directly from human-caused warming. Without climate change, he said, the megadrought would have ended early on because 2005 and 2006 would have been wet enough to break it.

The study “is an important wake-up call,” said Jonathan Overpeck, dean of environment at the University of Michigan, who wasn’t part of the study. “Climate change is literally baking the water supply and forests of the Southwest, and it could get a whole lot worse if we don’t halt climate change soon.”

Williams said there is a direct link between drought and heat and the increased wildfires that have been devastating the West for years. Fires need dry fuel that drought and heat promote.

Eventually, this megadrought will end by sheer luck of a few good rainy years, Williams said. But then another one will start.

Daniel Swain, a UCLA climate scientist who wasn’t involved in the study, said climate change is likely to make megadrought “a permanent feature of the climate of the Colorado River watershed during the 21st century.”


A car crosses Enterprise Bridge over Lake Oroville's dry banks on May 23, 2021, in Oroville, Calif. The American West's megadrought deepened so much last year that it is now the driest it has been in at least 1200 years and a worst-case scenario playing out live, a new study finds. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)

___

Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/Climate

___

Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears.



'Don't be Google': The rise of privacy focused startups


Startups are taking on Google Analytics, a product used by more than half of the world's websites to understand people's browsing habits 
(AFP/Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV)

Joseph BOYLE
Mon, February 14, 2022,

Google once used the slogan "don't be evil" to distinguish itself from its competitors, but now a growing number of pro-privacy startups are rallying to the mantra "don't be Google".

They are taking on Google Analytics, a product used by more than half of the world's websites to understand people's browsing habits.

"Google made a lot of good tools for a lot of people," says Marko Saric, a Dane living in Belgium who set up Plausible Analytics in Estonia in 2019.

"But over the years they changed their approach without really thinking what is right, what is wrong, what is evil, what is not."

Saric and many others are benefitting from GDPR, a European privacy regulation introduced in 2018 to control who can access personal data.

Last week, France followed Austria in declaring Google's practice of transferring personal data from the EU to its US servers was illegal under GDPR because the country does not have adequate protections.

Google disagrees, saying the data is anonymised and the scenarios envisaged in Europe are hypothetical.

Nevertheless, startups see an opening in a true David vs Goliath battle.

"The week that Google Analytics was ruled illegal by the Austrian DPA (data protection authority) was a good week for us," says Paul Jarvis, who runs Fathom Analytics from his home in Vancouver Island, Canada.

He says new subscriptions tripled over that week, though he does not give exact numbers.

Google dominates the analytics market with 57 percent of all websites using its service, according to survey group W3Techs. The best-established privacy-focused tool, Matomo, accounts for one percent of websites.

The smaller players know they are not going to overturn Google's domination, rather their aim is to inject a bit of fairness and choice into the market.

- 'Behemoth' application -


The supercharging moment for pro-privacy software developers came in 2013 when former CIA contractor Edward Snowden revealed how US security agencies were engaged in mass surveillance.


"We already knew some of it," says Matomo founder Matthieu Aubry. "But when he came out, we had proof that we weren't just paranoid or making stuff up."

Snowden showed how the US National Security Agency, aided by a system of secret courts, was able to gather personal data from users of websites including Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

Snowden's revelations helped to solidify support across Europe for its new privacy regulation and inspired software developers to make privacy central to their products.

The first thing the startups have taken aim at is the sheer complexity of Google Analytics.

"You have 1,000 different dashboards and all this data, but it doesn't help you if you don't understand it," says Michael Neuhauser, who launched Fair Analytics last month.

Jarvis, who had previously trained people to use Google Analytics, describes it as a "behemoth".

Unlike Google, the privacy-focused products do not use cookies to track users around the web and offer a much simpler array of data, helping them to keep within the boundaries of GDPR.

And they all make this a key selling point on their websites.

- 'An alternative internet' -

But making a living from these tools is no mean feat.

Saric of Plausible and Jarvis of Fathom both sank time and money into their projects before they could pay themselves a wage.

Both firms still operate with a startup mentality -- tiny teams working remotely across countries having direct contact with clients.

Aubry, who founded Matomo in 2007 when he was in his early 20s, remembers being in a similar position.

"For a long time, we didn't even have a business around the project, it was pure community," says the Frenchman from his home in Wellington, New Zealand.

But he says his firm now has global reach and he wants to help create "an alternative internet" not dominated by big tech.

His peers are at a much earlier stage but they certainly agree with the sentiment.

Jarvis reckons anyone switching from a big tech product is "a win for privacy" and helps to create a fairer system.

But a huge barrier remains: Google can afford to offer its tools for free, whereas the smaller firms need clients to pay, even if just a few dollars a month.

The privacy-focused firms say it is time to overhaul our understanding of these transactions.

"All of these free products that we use and love, we're not paying for them with money, we're paying for them with data and privacy," says Jarvis.

"We charge money for our product because it's just a more honest business model."

jxb/lth


GOP ASSAULT ON FACEBOOK
  G 



US: Texas sues Facebook parent Meta over biometric data 'violations'

Meta has been accused of collecting and storing biometric data to "grow its empire'"without consent of users. The state attorney general said the company "knowingly" violated state law.

Facebook discontinued the the autotag function on photos over privacy regulations at the end of 2021, before the state of Texas decided to sue

The Attorney General of Texas filed a lawsuit against Facebook parent company Meta for allegedly violating state laws in how the social media giant collects and handles biometric data.

In a statement posted on Twitter Monday, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that the biometric data of millions of Texans had been captured without "properly obtaining their informed consent to do so, in violation of Texas law."

"Facebook will no longer take advantage of people and their children with the intent to turn a profit at the expense of one's safety and well-being,” Paxton said. "This is yet another example of Big Tech's deceitful business practices and it must stop. I will continue to fight for Texans' privacy and security.”

Biometric data stored 'without consent'

The feature, which automatically tagged people appearing in photos was scrapped at the end of 2021. 

However, Paxton said that Facebook has been storing millions of biometric identifiers contained in photos and videos uploaded onto the social media platform.

Paxton alleged Meta and Facebook exploited personal information of both users and non-users in order to "grow its empire and reap historic windfall profits." This, its alleged was done repeatedly and without consent.

A spokesperson for Meta said: "These claims are without merit and we will defend ourselves vigorously."

In 2020 a similar lawsuit saw the state of Illinois settle with Facebook for an amount of $650 million.