World's largest pilots' union TELLS  asks U.S. to improve cockpit procedures for Boeing 737 MAX


By Eric M. Johnson, Allison Lampert and Tracy Rucinski

© Reuters/Asgeir Asgeirsson 

An inside view of the Icelandair Boeing 737 MAX training simulator in the TRU Flight Training Iceland in Reykjavik

By Eric M. Johnson, Allison Lampert and Tracy Rucinski


SEATTLE/MONTREAL/CHICAGO (Reuters) - The U.S. aviation regulator should require new cockpit procedures for Boeing Co's 737 MAX to help pilots disable an erroneous stall alert that could be a serious distraction during mid-flight emergencies, the world's largest pilot union said on Monday.

The proposal about an erroneous "stick shaker" alert is among recommendations the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) submitted during a 45-day public comment period for proposed 737 MAX design and operating changes laid out last month by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

Monday was the deadline for comments.

The 737 MAX changes could pave the way for the FAA to lift a ban on the jet, potentially before year-end. The 737 MAX was grounded worldwide 18 months ago after crashes killed 346 people in Ethiopia and Indonesia.

In both crashes, pilots grappled with Boeing's flawed MCAS flight control system, which repeatedly forced down the jet's nose, and multiple audio and visual warnings that included the rapid and noisy rattling of their control column known as "stick shaker" and excess speed.

The proposals, which include recommendations for pilots during emergency situations, came during a U.S.-led gathering of regulators in the UK for a training review of the MAX.

While the FAA is in charge of certifying the MAX, other regulators like Transport Canada and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) could add different training requirements as part of their validation of the aircraft.

ALPA proposed steps that would allow flight crews to identify and pull a circuit breaker to stop the stick shaker after they confirm an alert is erroneous, echoing an earlier recommendation by Transport Canada.

Among other comments, the National Transportation Safety Board has called the FAA's proposed changes "positive progress," while crash victims' families have said Boeing's changes to MCAS do not address the jet's underlying aerodynamic problem.

Meanwhile, Boeing whistleblower Curtis Ewbank has urged additional protections, while the British Airlines Pilots Association has called for Boeing to add a third "angle of attack" sensor to the jet.

(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and Tracy Rucinski in Chicago; Writing by Eric M. Johnson; Editing by David Gregorio and Tom Brown)

Madrid opera canceled after audience revolts over social distancing concerns
IN DEFENSE OF PUBLIC HEALTH 
By Zamira Rahim and Renee Valdes

© Europa Press News/Getty Images/FILE The Teatro Real on June 5. In a statement, the theater said it was in full compliance with Madrid's health regulations.

A live audience is always difficult to impress, perhaps even more so in the age of social distancing.

An opera in Madrid was halted on Sunday night after audience members protested over concerns that seating was too crowded in the venue.

The Teatro Real in Spain's capital city was forced to cancel the performance of Giuseppe Verdi's "Un ballo in maschera" after a group of spectators staged a protest during the performance, eventually ending the show and closing the venue for the night.

Police officers were called to the site on Sunday.

The venue said Monday that it "greatly regrets what happened" but attributed the upset to shifts in the city's health regulations.

In July, the theater hosted performances of another Verdi opera, "La Traviata," and spaced out audience members by sealing off some chairs and placing empty chairs between each pair of occupied seats, it said.

But it relaxed its seating policy after the city eased coronavirus restrictions, allowing some venues to host bigger audiences. On Sunday, the Teatro Real was at 65% capacity, still below city guidelines that allow such venues to fill up to 75% of normal capacity, it said. Audience members were allowed to freely choose their seats, though they wore masks during the performance.

The Teatro Real on Monday acknowledged in a statement that some spectators had felt unsafe in their seats, "even if the current health regulations were scrupulously complied with, verified by the police who traveled to the [Teatro Real] last night."

The statement added: "The Teatro Real wants to reiterate its commitment to the health safety of the public, artists and workers, in which it has been working with dedication, responsibility and great energy, since April, with its own Medical Committee and scrupulous monitoring of the regulations of the Government of Spain and the Community of Madrid."

It also said the venue would "adopt all the necessary measures to make the audience feel safer [and would] also [reinforce] its communication with the public."

Madrid has seen a recent spike in coronavirus cases, accounting for approximately a third of all new cases, according to data from the Spanish Health Ministry. On Monday, strict distancing rules were imposed anew in several areas of the city.

Spain has now recorded more than 30,000 deaths since the start of the outbreak, with more than 600,000 total cases.

Arctic sea ice at second-lowest level in satellite record: scientists

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Satellite pictures show Arctic sea ice is at its second-lowest level since such records began and barely missed breaking the old mark.

"There's no going back at this point," said Mark Serreze of the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.

"It's not going to come back up."

Although some melting might yet occur, the centre fixed Monday as the day when the overall level of all Arctic sea ice — crucial to northern ecosystems and southern weather patterns — stops shrinking and starts growing again.

Satellite images suggest the area at least 15 per cent covered by sea ice is now 3.7 million square kilometres.

That's at least 1.5 million square kilometres less than the 1981-2010 median. It's barely more than the all-time low in 42 years of satellite data, the 3.4 million square kilometres recorded in 2012.

All 14 of the lowest ice years on record have happened in the last 14 years, said Serreze.

Like 2012, this year's low depended on a lot of things happening at once, Serreze said. That included an Arctic heat wave on the Siberian side, which helped create unprecedented fires across the Russian tundra.

The melt cost the Arctic much of its remaining multi-year ice, meaning the ice is increasingly seasonal. The old coverage of thick ice that survives the summer will soon be a thing of the past, said Serreze.

"I don't think there's any escaping that. It's just too warm now."

This summer, Canada's last intact ice sheet — the Milne on Ellesmere Island — collapsed.

The implications are many, said David Barber, an Arctic systems scientist at the University of Manitoba.

"The ice controls the light and it controls the heat. We don't find anything that isn't affected."

Whole ecosystems that hang on the bottom of the ice are disappearing. Invasive species from small fish to killer whales are moving in from both east and west.

Biologists have recently estimated that polar bears along south Hudson Bay will have trouble raising cubs by the end of the decade, due to the loss of their frozen hunting platform.

Less ice cover means bigger storm surges. Erosion on Arctic coastlines has more than doubled in the last few decades.

It also means the remaining ice has more room to drift, which leads to choking jams in places that don't normally experience them.

"Some people locally will go, 'Hold it. There's all kinds of ice out here,'" Barber said. "That's because it's so much more mobile."

Many scientists also believe sea ice matters to southern weather.

Published research suggests the strength of the jet stream — a high-atmosphere river of air that influences continental weather patterns — depends on the temperature difference between the Arctic and mid-latitudes. Less ice and a warmer Arctic Ocean means a weaker jet stream.

Any effects of melting sea ice are likely to increase. Open ocean absorbs more sunlight than water covered by reflective ice, so heavy melt years create a feedback loop.

"That (open water) is absorbing all that heat and you have to get rid of it in the fall before you can start to form ice," Barber said. "Which means you'll have a thinner ice cover."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 21, 2020

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

100-foot waves possible offshore as Hurricane Teddy nears East Coast

Digital Writers 


Once a major Category 3 hurricane, Teddy is slowly losing strength as it nears the Atlantic provinces, on a track over cooler waters. People in the region shouldn't be complacent, however: although the storm will possibly be post-tropical by the time it actually reaches land, it will still pack a serious punch, with strong winds, very high seas and torrential downpours all in the hopper, beginning Tuesday morning before the storm's actual arrival. Read below for more details.

Hurricane Teddy continues to weaken, with further decreasing in strength expected, but still boasted winds of 155 km/h as of Monday morning, keeping it just over the Category 2 threshold still.

Teddy shifted to a northerly track Sunday night and the centre will trek east of Bermuda early Monday morning before it begins its approach towards Atlantic Canada. A tropical storm warning is currently in effect for Bermuda.

© Provided by The Weather Network

By late Monday, Teddy is expected to be picked up by a deep upper-level trough that will allow for a brief intensification. Teddy will undergo a transition to post-tropical status as it approaches Atlantic Canada, impacting the region likely as a strong post-tropical cyclone.

While it is expected to track through eastern Nova Scotia by late Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, rain and wind impacts could begin pushing into the province Tuesday morning.

Tropical storm watches are now in effect for Atlantic coastal regions of Nova Scotia including Halifax.

RELATED: What you need in your hurricane preparedness kit

Large swells are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions, extending several hundreds of kilometres from the centre of the storm. Significant wave heights and storm surge is expected to continue into Wednesday for coastal sections of Atlantic provinces.

The Weather Network meteorologist Tyler Hamilton says that towering waves over 30 metres (100 feet) are possible on Tuesday morning as Teddy approaches. Hamilton says that these waves would be roughly the height of the 7th storey on an apartment and will occur within a couple hundred kilometres south of the Scotian Shelf.

© Provided by The Weather Network

An extremely large wind field associated with Teddy is likely to spread moderate to strong winds onshore. The strongest, and potentially damaging wind gusts, are expected to impact coastal Nova Scotia and Newfoundland through Wednesday.

As Hurricane Teddy moves into Canadian waters, there is a reasonable chance of hurricane-force winds near and south of the track, mainly over southern Atlantic Canada forecast waters. Tropical storm-force winds are likely farther north into the Gulf of St. Lawrence and southern coastal Newfoundland.

The heaviest rainfall amounts are likely north-northwest of the track of the storm, impacting areas such as eastern Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. The effects of Teddy are expected to continue into late Wednesday for Newfoundland.

© Provided by The Weather Network

WATCH BELOW: HIGHEST WINDS STAY OFF THE COAST DURING TEDDY, CANADIAN HURRICANE CENTRE SAYS
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/weather/topstories/100-foot-waves-possible-offshore-as-hurricane-teddy-nears-east-coast/ar-BB19g0mD?ocid=msedgdhp

The last landfalling tropical system in Atlantic Canada was last year's Dorian, which made landfall in Nova Scotia as a Category 1-equivalent extratropical storm on September 7th, and later on made a second landfall in Newfoundland.

As the situation has the potential to be impactful, continue to check back for updates as we keep an eye on Teddy's movements.

Hurricane Teddy to bear down on Canada after brushing Bermuda

By UPI Staff & Adam Douty, AccuWeather, Accuweather.com

The powerful Hurricane Teddy is forecast to hit Atlantic Canada later this week. Image courtesy of NOAA

Sept. 21 (UPI) -- Less than one week after feeling the full force of Hurricane Paulette, residents of Bermuda were preparing for a strike from powerful Hurricane Teddy, which unlike Paulette, may take a path that could eventually bring impacts to Atlantic Canada and perhaps the northeastern United States.

Paulette brought a wind gust of 117 mph to Bermuda and an island-wide power outage when it passed directly overhead Sunday night into early Monday. More than 20,000 customers were without power following Paulette's approach.

After passing to the east of Bermuda through Monday, powerful Hurricane Teddy will set its sights on Atlantic Canada for the middle of the week.

Teddy first developed in the central Atlantic on Saturday, Sept. 12. On Friday night, Teddy strengthened into a Category 4 major hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. Laura is the only other Atlantic storm to achieve major hurricane status so far this season.

As of 5 p.m. AST Monday, the storm was about 175 miles east-northeast of Bermuda, packing maximum sustained winds of 90 mph, making it a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. It was traveling north at 24 mph.

The government of Bermuda issued a tropical storm warning for the island nation while the Canadian Hurricane Center extended the tropical storm watch east from Canso to Main-a-Dieu, Nova Scotia.

"Little change in strength is expected during the next day or so," the NHC advisory said. "Gradual weakening is forecast to being mid-week, but the cyclone is expected to remain a large and powerful hurricane Tuesday, then become a strong post-tropical cyclone when it nears Nova Scotia by Wednesday morning.

Teddy is currently forecast to be more intense than Paulette as it makes its closest approach to Bermuda.

The impacts, however, will depend on how close the center of the storm passes to the islands. The closer the center of the storm, the greater the impacts will be.

AccuWeather's current Eye Path takes Teddy just east of the islands. This would spare Bermuda from the worst conditions Teddy has to offer. Should the track shift west, the core of strongest wind and heaviest rain could impact the islands.

However, even a glancing blow by Teddy can still have significant impact on the islands due to the hurricane's current large size.

After passing Bermuda, Teddy is expected to continue to meander on a generally northern track, which would cause the hurricane to approach Atlantic Canada or northern New England around Tuesday afternoon.

"If Teddy takes a northerly track, areas from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland would be the most likely to see impacts. Teddy may still be a hurricane at this time with impacts including potentially damaging wind gusts, heavy rainfall and pounding surf," Miller explained.
RELATED Tropical Depression 22 forms in the Gulf of Mexico



On this track, 2-4 inches of rain would be widespread across Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Locally heavier rainfall could fall where the center of the storm tracks.

If Teddy makes landfall as a Category 1 or 2 hurricane, widespread wind damage and power outages would result.

Dorian tracked across Atlantic Canada in early September of 2019 and brought widespread wind damage to Atlantic Canada. Teddy has the potential to bring similar results should it remain on its current forecast track.

Residents should begin to make appropriate preparations as this appears to be the most likely scenario.

Another scenario would have Teddy track farther to the east and miss Atlantic Canada on the storm's trek into the North Atlantic.

These appear to be the two most likely scenarios.

"There remains the chance that Teddy is pulled more to the northwest and could impact northern New England before curving across Atlantic Canada and into the North Atlantic," Miller said.

This could bring strong winds, heavy rain and coastal flooding to much of the New England coastline.

A hurricane has never hit Maine from any direction other than from the southwest, according to AccuWeather Senior Weather Editor Jesse Ferrell.

"Only eight hurricanes have hit Maine on record with only three of those since 1950," Ferrell said. "Bob in 1991 was the most recent and only the Unnamed 1869 hurricane, Bob and Gerda from 1969 were Category 2 when they hit with the remaining storms being Category 1 strength."

According to Colorado State University Meteorologist Phil Klotzbach, the average date for the second major hurricane formation in the Atlantic is Oct. 3.

Regardless of the final track and impacts from Teddy, even if the hurricane remains out to sea, forecasters warn that rough surf and dangerous rip currents are possible along the New England and mid-Atlantic coasts this weekend and early next week.

Small craft should avoid venturing too far offshore as monstrous waves could develop from and propagate toward the coast from the large hurricane.

FALL EQUINOX

 

An online troll who called Fauci a 'mask nazi' and said that US public health leaders should be executed for a 'massive fraud' actually worked at his agency

Jake Lahut BI

Dr. Anthony Fauci attends Trump-Bel Edwards coronavirus response meeting at the White House in Washington Reuters

William B. Crews, a press officer at NIAID, has been reportedly moonlighting as an anonymous blogger at RedState, making outlandish claims about Dr. Anthony Fauci, according to a Daily Beast report.

Crews promoted COVID-19 misinformation and undermining Fauci, calling him a "mask Nazi" and part of a "massive fraud." 

He also reportedly called infectious disease experts like Fauci "fascists" who should be sent to "the gallows and gibbet their tarred bodies in chains until they fall apart.”

It's unclear if these blog posts were written on government time, but the Daily Beast confirmed Crews' identity via "public records, social media postings, and internal records from the National Institutes of Health, NIAID’s parent agency."

Crews will be stepping down from his position at the agency, the Daily Beast later reported on Monday.

A previously anonymous online troll who spread coronavirus misinformation and referred to Dr. Anthony Fauci as a "mask Nazi" was outed on Monday as an employee at Fauci's own agency, according to a new report from the Daily Beast.

William B. Crews' LinkedIn profile listed him as a press officer at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 2007, following a 15-year stint as a US Army infantry officer. But, the Daily Beast reported, he's been reportedly moonlighting as an anonymous blogger at RedState, making outlandish claims about Fauci, the country's leading infectious disease expert.

"When the smoke clears on this Wuhan virus tragedy ... one thing will become blindingly obvious: the nation and the Trump administration were failed at every turn by the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci," Crews wrote under his pseudonym, streiff, for RedState in mid-July.

In addition to pushing COVID-19 conspiracy theories, Crews called Fauci a "mask nazi" in another blog post.


"I think we're at the point where it is safe to say that the entire Wuhan virus scare was nothing more or less than a massive fraud perpetrated upon the American people by 'experts' who were determined to fundamentally change the way the country lives and is organized and governed," Crews wrote on RedState in June. He also referred to medical experts as "fascists," who should be sent to "the gallows and gibbet their tarred bodies in chains until they fall apart."

RedState, a longtime conservative blog, has come under criticism on several occasions for factual inaccuracies and derogatory language. The site has also had to take down an op-ed promoting the Seth Rich conspiracy theory following his death, and they published nude photos of former Rep. Katie Hill of California, ultimately leading to her resignation from Congress. Streiff is listed as RedState's managing editor.

It is unclear if Crews was blogging while on the clock for his government agency. Daily Beast reporter Lachlan Markay wrote that he was able to confirm Crews' identity by going through "public records, social media postings, and internal records from the National Institutes of Health, NIAID's parent agency."

Later on Monday, an NIAID spokeswoman told the Daily Beast that Crews will be leaving the agency.


"NIAID first learned of this matter this morning, and Mr. Crews has informed us of his intention to retire," Kathy Stover, an agency spokeswoman, wrote in a statement to the publication. "We have no further comments on this as it is a personnel matter."
—Noah Shachtman (@NoahShachtman) September 21, 2020

Tweets from streiff's account line up with Crews' self-reported military experience in Germany and include multiple references to his work at NIH.
—streiff (@streiffredstate) November 9, 2019

The Daily Beast obtained internal emails from the parent agency showing that Crews shared internal information on COVID-19 with other RedState writers, even prefacing a memo with "from office email."

The news outlet also found articles from Crews' pseudonym on RedState that criticized Fauci during the Ebola outbreak.

Crews' contributions to the site go back to 2004. Just in 2020, he posted more than 400 pieces on RedState, sometimes up to five in a single day, according to the Daily Beast.

Crews and RedState did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

NASA requests white papers to help choose Artemis science operations
Shane McGlaun - Sep 20, 2020,

One of the biggest missions NASA is working on today is getting prepared for the Artemis mission that will return humans to the moon. NASA recently requested science white papers to help the agency design a framework for the Artemis mission’s science operations. One of the proposals suggests astronauts on the mission should bring back samples of lunar ice and samples of lunar regolith.

By bringing lunar ice back to earth, scientists may be able to figure out where the moon’s water came from. Scientists speculated that ice might exist on the moon since the days of the Space Race in the 60s and 70s. As for where the ice came from, scientists believe it could have been deposited by comets or produced by interactions between hydrogen and oxygen-rich rocks.

The first clear evidence of water ice on the moon was discovered in the 1990s by the Lunar Prospector spacecraft. That spacecraft launched in 1998 and spent over a year and a half mapping the moon’s surface. It detected high concentrations of hydrogen in the regolith near the polar regions with a depth of about 3.3 feet during its mission.

The Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 that orbited the moon in 2008 and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2009 confirmed the presence, particularly in the permanently shadowed craters on the moon’s south pole. A later mission called the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite inspected the southern Cabeus crater and found water concentrations up to approximately five percent by weight.

The spacecraft also found an abundance of other volatiles, including hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, and ammonia. The hope is that there is enough water ice on the moon to sustain a human colony and crewed missions by providing drinkable water and the ability to produce rocket fuel locally.

YES HE DID
Donald Trump Asks Women Attending His Rally If Their Husbands Approved

DREW ANGERER / GETTY IMAGESUS POLITICS

President Donald Trump held a campaign rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina on Saturday, where he spoke about a range of topics, from military weaponry to the recently deceased Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As video posted to YouTube by NBC revealed, he suggested that he was planning to nominate a woman. Around the same time, he also asked the female attendees if their husbands approved of their decision to attend his events.

Trump appeared to recognize several of the women in the audience before he pretended to hold a poll over whether he should nominate a male or a female to replace Ginsburg, who died on Friday from complications due to metastatic pancreatic cancer.

“Ok let’s do a poll. Oh, there they are. How many of these have you come to?” he said. “What is this, number what? Like, 90? I see ’em all over the place, they’re great. I hope your husbands are okay with it. Are they okay?”

He posited a question to the audience about which gender they would prefer.

“Would you rather have a woman on the Supreme Court?… Or would you rather have a man on the Supreme Court?”

The crowd cheered louder for the option of having a woman.

He added that he was strongly considering a female to replace Ginsburg because “I actually like women much more than men,” as The Inquisitr previously reported.

Trump had kind things to say about the late judge while speaking to the crowd. He told them that he believed she was inspiring to many and noted that the country was facing a great loss.

Mike Pompeo Attacks Pope Francis & The ‘Moral Authority’ Of The Vatican Amidst Potential Deal With China

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALIST PROTESTANT 

ANTI-PAPISM


September 19, 2020

JASON LEE / CHRIS JACKSON / GETTY IMAGESRELIGION

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has hit out at Pope Francis following the news that diplomats from the Holy See are meeting later this month with members of the Chinese Communist Party to renew a two-year-old agreement between China and the Vatican.

Though the Middle Kingdom nominally adheres to the principle of religious freedom, it is officially an atheist state and has routinely been accused of cracking down on faith-based organizations.

“Two years ago, the Holy See reached an agreement with the Chinese Communist Party, hoping to help China’s Catholics. Yet the CCP’s abuse of the faithful has only gotten worse. The Vatican endangers its moral authority, should it renew the deal,” Pompeo wrote in a tweet.

In a longer statement published on First Things, Pompeo also criticized the Holy See’s decision to “legitimize” Chinese priests and bishops who were simultaneously involved with the CCP, claiming that they had “unclear” loyalties.

Pompeo cited the plight of Father Paul Zhang Guangjun, who was tortured and has since disappeared after refusing to join the CCP-run Patriotic Catholic Association. Similarly, Bishop James Su Zhimin was arrested in 1997 and last seen in 2003.

The secretary of state also explained the link between religious freedom and protesters in Hong Kong, naming Martin Lee and Jimmy Lai in particular.

Pompeo noted that it is not just Catholics who have suffered under China’s restrictions on religious freedom. He added that credible reports detailed that the minority Uighur Muslim population in the Xinjiang province has been subjected to forced sterilizations, forced abortions, labor camps, and reeducation programs.


 

Franco Origlia / Getty Images

As was similarly reported by The Inquisitr, several sources claimed that the Asian nation had started a new program that offered rewards to those who reported home churches in their communities. Bounties on the underground churches have reportedly tallied as high as $14,000.

Pompeo continued his missive with the hope that the Pope would reconsider making an alliance with China, bringing up Catholicism’s power in helping end communism in Eastern Europe and fascism in South America in the 20th century.

Pompeo ended his statement by citing both the leader’s own words as well as the Gospel’s.

“Pope Francis said in 2013 that ‘Christians must respond to evil with good, taking the Cross upon themselves as Jesus did.’ History teaches us that totalitarian regimes can only survive in darkness and silence, their crimes and brutality unnoticed and unremarked,” he wrote.

“I pray that… the Holy See will heed Jesus’s words in the Gospel of John, ‘The truth will set you free,'” he concluded.

https://www.inquisitr.com/6290274/mike-pompeo-pope-francis-china/

 The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) launched a new research and develop laboratory on Monday that features blockchain technology among its focus areas.

• CIA Labs' webpage said the labs will research "distributed ledger/blockchain-enabled technologies" alongside other tech stacks: wireless telecommunications, quantum computing, artificial intelligence and data analytics, to name a few.
• Officers who develop tech inventions in the lab will be permitted to patent, disclose and partially profit from their work, according to MIT Technology Review.
• MIT's reporting notes the labs will give CIA a useful incentive to woo tech talent that might otherwise turn to Silicon Valley's giants.
• That the CIA, one of the U.S. intelligence community's two code-breaking hubs, would take an interest in researching a technology secured by cryptography should come as no surprise to observers.
• The Block first reported CIA Labs' blockchain focus.