It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, February 06, 2022
A Tracking System is now Scanning the Entire sky Every 24 Hours Looking for Dangerous Asteroids
As evidenced by a recent Netflix movie, dangerous asteroids can come from anywhere. So there was an obvious weakness in our asteroid defense system when only one of the hemispheres was covered by telescopes that constantly scan the sky. That was the case until recently, with the expansion of the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) system into the southern hemisphere.
ATLAS, funded by NASA and run by the University of Hawai’i, was originally just two telescopes set up on Haleakal? and Maunaloa, two separate parts of Hawai’i. After becoming fully operational in 2017, the system was able to scan the sky every 24 hours, barring any cloud cover, to watch for any potential moving asteroids. But from their vantage point, they could only scan half of the sky.
One of the telescopes being lifted into place in South Africa. Credit – Willie Koorts (SAAO)
NASA funded two more telescopes in the southern hemisphere to rectify that problem – one located in South Africa and one in Chile. The one in South Africa was contracted to the South African Astronomical Observatory, while the Chilean telescope was supported by a public-private consortium that included the Millennium Institute for Astrophysics and Obstech, a company that runs a private observatory.
The Covid pandemic slowed down the installation process and bungled up some supply chains, but recently both telescopes achieved first light. Importantly, they did so at different times of the day, allowing observes located in Hawai’i to remotely monitor the dark sky over South Africa and Chile during the daytime on their island.
ATLAS telescope located on Maui Credit – Henry Weiland
Those observations have already been a success, with the South African observatory identifying its first Near-Earth Object on January 22nd. 2022 BK, as it is now known, is a 100-m asteroid that poses no threat to Earth. However, asteroids of a similar size could potentially wipe out an entire region if they impact the planet. ATLAS would be capable of providing about three weeks warning of any asteroid large enough to cause such devastation. Even for smaller asteroids, such as a 20-m asteroid that could wipe out a city, it was capable of providing at least 24 hours’ notice.
While that might not seem like a lot of time, it is the best system so far for providing such detections. However, it does work with other systems, such as Pan-STARRS and the Catalina Sky Survey, to fully understand what hazardous asteroids may be in the area. Humanity could use all the help it could get in that regard.
NASA State-of-the-Art Asteroid Tracking System Now Capable of Full Sky Search
ByNASAFEBRUARY 3, 2022
The NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS)—a state-of-the-art asteroid detection system operated by the University of Hawai‘i (UH) Institute for Astronomy (IfA) for the agency’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO)—has reached a new milestone by becoming the first survey capable of searching the entire dark sky every 24 hours for near-Earth objects (NEOs) that could pose a future impact hazard to Earth. Now comprised of four telescopes, ATLAS has expanded its reach to the southern hemisphere from the two existing northern-hemisphere telescopes on Haleakala and Maunaloa in Hawai‘i to include two additional observatories in South Africa and Chile.
From left to right: Sutherland ATLAS station during construction in South Africa. Credit: Willie Koorts (SAAO); Chilean engineers and astronomers installing the ATLAS telescope at El Sauce Observatory. Credit: University of Hawaii; Illustration of NASA’s DART spacecraft and the Italian Space Agency’s (ASI) LICIACube prior to impact at the Didymos binary system. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins, APL/Steve Gribben; Illustration of the NEO Surveyor spacecraft
“An important part of planetary defense is finding asteroids before they find us, so if necessary, we can get them before they get us” said Kelly Fast, Near-Earth Object Observations Program Manager for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office. “With the addition of these two telescopes, ATLAS is now capable of searching the entire dark sky every 24 hours, making it an important asset for NASA’s continuous effort to find, track, and monitor NEOs.”
UH IfA developed the first two ATLAS telescopes in Hawai‘i under a 2013 grant from NASA’s Near-Earth Objects Observations Program, now part of NASA’s PDCO, and the two facilities on Haleakala and Maunaloa, respectively, became fully operational in 2017. After several years of successful operation in Hawai‘i, IfA competed for additional NASA funds to build two more telescopes in the southern hemisphere. IfA sought partners to host these telescopes, and selected the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in South Africa and a multi-institutional collaboration in Chile. The ATLAS presence augments already substantial astronomical capability in both countries.
Each of the four ATLAS telescopes can image a swath of sky 100 times larger than the full moon in a single exposure. The completion of the two final telescopes, which are located at Sutherland Observing Station in South Africa and El Sauce Observatory in Chile, enable ATLAS to observe the night sky when it is daytime in Hawai‘i.
To date, the ATLAS system has discovered more than 700 near-Earth asteroids and 66 comets, along with detection of 2019 MO and 2018 LA, two very small asteroids that actually impacted Earth. The system is specially designed to detect objects that approach very close to Earth – closer than the distance to the Moon, about 240,000 miles or 384,000 kilometers away. On January 22, ATLAS-Sutherland in South Africa discovered its first NEO, 2022 BK, a 100-meter asteroid that poses no threat to Earth.
The addition of the new observatories to the ATLAS system comes at a time when the agency’s Planetary Defense efforts are on the rise. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)—the world’s first full-scale mission to test a technology for defending Earth against potential asteroid impacts—launched November 24, 2021 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. DART will deflect a known asteroid, which is not a threat to Earth, to slightly change the asteroid’s motion in a way that can be accurately measured using ground-based telescopes.
Additionally, work on the agency’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor space telescope (NEO Surveyor) is underway after receiving authorization to move forward into Preliminary Design, known as Key Decision Point- B. Once complete, the infrared space telescope will expedite the agency’s ability to discover and characterize most of the potentially hazardous NEOs, including those that may approach Earth from the daytime sky.
“We have not yet found any significant asteroid impact threat to Earth, but we continue to search for that sizable population we know is still to be found. Our goal is to find any possible impact years to decades in advance so it can be deflected with a capability using technology we already have, like DART,” said Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA Headquarters. “DART, NEO Surveyor, and ATLAS are all important components of NASA’s work to prepare Earth should we ever be faced with an asteroid impact threat.”
The University of Hawai‘i ATLAS is funded through a grant from the Near-Earth Object Observations Program administered by NASA’s PDCO. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab manages the DART mission for NASA’s PDCO as a project of the agency’s Planetary Missions Program Office (PMPO). NEO Surveyor is being developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and the University of Arizona and managed by NASA’s PMPO with program oversight by the PDCO. NASA established the PDCO in 2016 to manage the agency‘s ongoing efforts in Planetary Defense.
Ice Age woolly mammoth and rhino remains found in Devon cave
Andy Wells ·Freelance Writer Thu., February 3, 2022 A mammoth tusk is boxed up and sent away to be analysed. (SWNS)
An “exceptional” discovery of the remains of several huge extinct beasts has been described as a “brilliant insight” into life in Ice Age Britain thousands of years ago.
The finds at Sherford, a new town being built in Devon, include a woolly mammoth, rhino and wolf and are estimated to be from the last Ice Age, around 30,000-60,000 years ago in the Middle Devensian period.
They have been described as "rare and nationally significant" and have been painstakingly recovered by a specialist and highly skilled team from across the UK for analysis.
The detailed samples taken from the site have so far uncovered partial remains of a woolly mammoth, including a tusk, molar tooth and other bones and partial remains of a woolly rhinoceros, including an incomplete skull and lower jaw.
There is also a virtually complete wolf skeleton and partial remains of hyena, horse, reindeer, mountain hare and red fox. An ancient wolf skull was among the finds at the site in Devon. (SWNS) Woolly rhinoceros remains were found at the site. (SWNS)
Bones of various small mammals such as bats and shrews are also present and it is anticipated that further bones of small mammals will be identified during post-excavation laboratory analysis.
The ‘megafauna’ – large animals now extinct – are hoped to provide new insights into early Britain and enrich what is already known.
Understanding the range of mammals present, particularly herbivores and their food sources, also provides an insight into the plants that may have existed in the local environment, for which little evidence survives today.
Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, said: "This discovery is exceptional. The molar of a mammoth is just one of the incredible finds at the site. (SWNS) Partial remains of a woolly rhinoceros, including an incomplete skull and lower jaw, were discovered. (SWNS)
"To have found partial remains of such a range of species here in Devon gives us a brilliant insight into the animals which roamed around Ice Age Britain thousands of years ago, as well as a better understanding of the environment and climate at the time.
"We are delighted that this important part of our history will be preserved for future generations."
The town of Sherford is is a new 5,500-home community still under development on the edge of Plymouth, and is already home to over 1,500 people.
It was excavation during infrastructure work on site that led to the discovery of the remains. Samples taken from the site have so far uncovered partial remains of a woolly mammoth, including a tusk, molar tooth and other bones. (Getty/stock picture) Archaeologists recover ancient woolly rhinoceros remains. (SWNS)
The area where the remains were found will be preserved and no construction will take place on top of it.
Rob Bourn, managing director of Orion Heritage and lead archaeologist on the project for the Sherford Consortium, added: “This is a major discovery of national significance – a once in a lifetime experience for those involved.
"Construction happening at Sherford is the sole reason these findings have been discovered and it is remarkable that they have laid undisturbed until now.
"To find such an array of artefacts untouched for so long is a rare and special occurrence. Equally rare is the presence of complete or semi-complete individual animals. Parts of a woolly rhinoceros were discovered, including an incomplete skull and lower jaw. (Getty/stock photo) An archaeologist team member in Devon recording deposits by the wolf skull. (SWNS)
"We look forward to reaching the stage where the discoveries can be shared and displayed, so that everyone can find out more about our distant past.”
Mr Bourn said working theories of how they ended up there included some of the creatures falling into a pit and unable to escape while carnivorous scavengers followed and met a similar fate – or the animals died elsewhere and the bones washed there over a period of time.
The remains of a woolly mammoth, rhinoceros, bison, wolf and hyena have been found in a cave system uncovered by a digger during the building of a new town in the south-west of England.
Experts said the find at Sherford, a 5,500-home development on the outskirts of Plymouth, was “exceptional” and gave an astonishing glimpse into the megafauna that roamed what is now Devon between 30,000 and 60,000 years ago.
More than 200 clusters of bones have been carefully removed from the cave and they will be examined to try to help paint a picture of what life was like in ice age Britain.
Partial remains of a woolly mammoth, including a tusk, molar tooth and other bones
Partial remains of a woolly rhinoceros, including an incomplete skull and lower jaw
A virtually complete wolf skeleton
Partial remains of hyena, horse, reindeer, mountain hare and red fox
Bones of various small mammals such as bats and shrews. It is anticipated that further bones of small mammals will be identified during post-excavation laboratory analysis.
Woolly mammoth molar.
Whether all of the creatures uncovered at Sherford coexisted or lived at different points over a much longer time span is uncertain. One theory is that some of the creatures fell into a pit and were unable to escape, and carnivorous scavengers followed and met a similar fate – or the animals died elsewhere and the bones washed into the area over a period of time.
Danielle Schreve, professor of quaternary science at Royal Holloway University of London, was one of those who crawled into the cave to help supervise the recovery work. “It’s really extraordinary to go into a cave and find remains of things like woolly mammoth tusks,” she said. “It’s pretty special.”
Schreve said it was probably the most significant find of its kind since the discovery of the Joint Mitnor cave in Devon more than 80 years ago.
The animal bones and environmental samples have been recorded and removed from the ground and are undergoing academic analysis and conservation.
It is expected that the full archive of remains will return to Devon, into the care of The Box, Plymouth’s revamped museum. Developers have said the area where the remains were found would be conserved and nothing would be built on top, but the entrance to the cave will be sealed.
Woolly rhinoceros mandible with teeth attached.
Rob Bourn, the managing director of Orion Heritage and lead archaeologist on the project for the Sherford Consortium, said: “This is a major discovery of national significance, a once in a lifetime experience for those involved. To find such an array of artefacts untouched for so long is a rare and special occurrence.”
Bourn said the south-west of England was very different in the time of the mammoth. “It was an area where mammoths and other creatures thrived, roaming great distances across a landscape that looked very different to today, with glaciers not far away in south Wales and a volatile climate prone to huge floods.”
Duncan Wilson, the chief executive of Historic England, said: “This discovery is exceptional. To have found partial remains of such a range of species here in Devon gives us a brilliant insight into the animals which roamed around ice age Britain thousands of years ago, as well as a better understanding of the environment and climate at the time.”
A fossil woolly rhino jaw and teeth, immediately after it was excavated. Credit: Professor Danielle Schreve
Fossils of extinct species, including mammoth, rhinoceros and wolf, have been discovered in a Devon cave by a team of archaeologists, including an academic from Royal Holloway, University of London.
Excavations at Sherford, a new town in Plymouth, uncovered the approximate 30-60,000-year-old fossils, belonging to wooly mammoths, wooly rhinoceros, hyena, horse, reindeer, mountain hare and red fox, giving an incredibly rare insight into Britain during the last ice age.
Speaking about the discovery, Professor Danielle Schreve, Head of the Department of Geography and a member of the Centre for Quaternary Research at Royal Holloway, said: "To find a previously unknown cave system is a really special discovery. The fossil bones and teeth not only allow us to reconstruct what conditions were like in the past—a cool, open grassland patrolled by huge herds of grazing animals and across which Neanderthals and then modern humans hunted—but knowledge of how species responded to rapid climate change by shifting their range, evolving or going extinct can help us make better conservation decisions today."
Over recent months, the archaeological team has conducted a detailed analysis of the findings. The work has been led by an expert team including academics from Winchester University and the University of Manchester, Orion Heritage and Exeter-based AC Archaeology, supported by Devon County Council and the South West Science Advisor from Historic England.
Whether all of the fossils uncovered are from a similar time period or existed at different points over a longer time span is under investigation. The remains of megafauna—which are large animals of a geological period that are extinct—as well as a complete skeleton of a wolf, suggest that they probably met an accidental death, falling in through an opening to the ground surface and unable to escape.
It is expected that the full archive of remains will return to Devon, into the care of The Box museum in Plymouth, just a few miles from where they were discovered.
Sherford is a new 5,500-home community under development in Plymouth. The Sherford Consortium—a partnership of Taylor Wimpey and Vistry Partnerships—instigated archaeological work at the start of construction in 2015 and have remained committed to funding an ongoing program of archaeological investigation ever since. Excavation during infrastructure work led to the discovery of these fossils, in an area near Sherford Quarry.New discovery of the earliest known hippo fossil in the UK
Hannah Elston preparing the model by sprinkling sand on the surface of the clay. Credit: UMass Amherst
In a new paper recently published in the journal Geology, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst unveiled a physical model that yields an unprecedented, high-resolution look at the slip rates of faults, which determine the likelihood of earthquakes.
When most of us picture a fault line, we imagine a giant crack in the earth where two tectonic plates smash into each other. When geologists think of faults, however, they see a branching system made up of thousands of individual faults. "The closer you look," says Michele Cooke, one of the paper's co-authors and a professor of geosciences at UMass Amherst, "the more you find, and when you look in detail, the picture gets very complicated."
Such complexity makes it difficult to accurately understand what is happening at any given place in the system—let alone to predict when an earthquake will occur, and where. To blur the picture even more, the vast majority of individual faults are buried under feet of dirt or obscured by vegetation, and so can't be directly observed. Finally, fault systems evolve over the course of thousands, tens of thousands, or even millions of years. Therefore, geologists have traditionally generated generalized slip rates for entire fault systems and theorized broadly about how fault systems evolve.
In a new study, the authors used a physical model, "about the size of a kitchen sink," says Hanna Elston, the paper's lead author and a graduate student in geosciences at UMass Amherst, and filled it with a carefully composed kaolin clay, "about the consistency of Greek yogurt," that behaves much like the earth's crust. At the bottom of the model are two plates that can be precisely moved. Elston and her co-authors then carefully cut the clay, to form a fault, and, over the course of four hours, which simulated a million years, moved the plates 12 centimeters, all the while taking pictures with an array of overhead cameras, which they could then analyze to uncover the slip rates and mechanics of their modeled faults.
The precision of the first-of-its-kind technique that Elston and her co-authors developed allows them to track slip rates at specific locations along faults, with an unprecedented fidelity, which can then provide a record that researchers can directly compare to field studies to estimate the slip rate at any particular point along a fault.
Not only does the model perform in ways that mirror real-life faults, it allowed Elston and her colleagues, including Cooke and Alex Hatem, now at the U.S. Geological Survey, to observe two different phenomena that no one else has seen before. First, the model shows that slip rates can change at a particular site on the fault as that fault evolves. Second, the team showed that slip rates are interactive: the rate can change at many different points along one fault in response to changing slip rates at other, nearby faults.
"This study gives us the finest-grained picture yet into how faults evolve, which could be used to help the assessments of seismic hazards," says Elston—and it's only the start. The research in this paper, which was supported by the National Science Foundation, represents a proof-of-concept for the team's analytical techniques. Future will detail make 3D reconstructions of different faults' evolution.
A video overview of the team's model is available from YouTube:
More information: Non-steady-state slip rates emerge along evolving restraining bends under constant loading, Geology (2022). DOI: 10.1130/G49745.1
Thanks to his Gladue report, Blaine Hotomanie is now serving a reduced six month sentence in jail after being found guilty of impaired driving. He's seen here in Carry the Kettle Nakoda Nation, Sask., in early January, before he started his sentence (Richard Agecoutay/CBC News)
Blaine Hotomanie's Gladue report did more than reduce the time he'll spend behind bars.
"It changed my life, the way I look at things," he said. "I've got a big family and I want to show my grandchildren not to drink and drive. I talk to them about it."
Gladue reports present circumstances of a self-identified Indigenous accused's life for a judge to consider while deciding on a sentence. These can include personal and community histories, and traumas such as colonialism and its ongoing impacts.
Even though Gladue reports are a right for every Indigenous person who appears in court — thanks to two court decisions from 1999 and 2012 — not everyone is aware of their right to them, or has access to Gladue report writers. Saskatchewan in particular ranks near the bottom of the country for the use of Gladue reports, according to data from the Aboriginal Legal Society, which intervened in the landmark 1999 court case.
Gladue reports are time-consuming and resource-intensive, but in late 2020 the Integrated Justice Program (IJP), which is funded by Public Safety Canada, created a team of legal experts and people who study and work with people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), entirely focused on writing the reports for Saskatchewan trials.
WATCH| What are Gladue reports?
What are Gladue reports?
9 hours ago
Duration2:51
Gladue reports explain an Indigenous person’s history, their families history and their community's history to the courts to take the individual’s unique circumstances and challenges into consideration. 2:51
Advocates say the writing team is allowing more people to get the Gladue reports they are entitled to.
Michelle Stewart and Robyn Pitawanakwat, members of the Integrated Justice Program, seen here working on laptops at the University of Regina, are part of a team that writes Gladue reports for people with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. (Bryan Eneas/CBC)
Hotomanie, 57, from Carry the Kettle Nakoda Nation — roughly 80 kilometres east of Regina — had at one point been facing 18 months for impaired driving last spring. After his Gladue report, which presented factors including his FASD, Hotomanie's sentence was reduced to six months.
Over the course of three days of three-hour interviews for his Gladue report, Hotomanie shared the pains he faced growing up. He experienced a lot of violence as a child in a home where both his parents drank. He lost loved ones — particularly his parents — and was in the residential school system.
It wasn't until his interviews with the IJP that Hotomanie learned how these traumas impacted him.
Now, with a large support network consisting of his wife, his six children, 25 grandchildren, friends and leaders in Carry the Kettle, he's more worried about his future than his sentence.
"I've got all that stuff out and I'm doing better. I've got a job. I've never had a job for a long time," he said.
"I'm kinda hoping that I can save my job, but time will tell."
Representing the most marginalized
The IJP was launched in 2019. It is a joint initiative run by the Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Network and File Hills Tribal Council. The program focuses on comprehensive support for Indigenous people with FASD in Saskatchewan.
IJP launched the team focused on writing in-depth Gladue reports in fall 2020.
Hotomanie said he didn't know what a Gladue report was until he met Michelle Stewart and Robyn Pitawanakwat from the IJP.
Stewart, an expert on FASD, is the IJP's project lead and Gladue project coordinator, while Pitawanakwat is the program's coordinator, runs the organization's frontline services and conducts Gladue interviews.
"These are often the most marginalized people within the justice system," Pitawanakwat said.
"We work with them because their disability [FASD] isn't understood, and their disability often makes them more vulnerable to charges, where someone else who presents differently would probably not be charged."
Stewart, an associate professor at the University of Regina, said the initial goal was to work directly with people with FASD to ensure their complex needs were being met.
"Our goal is to expand that circle of support for them, because we're talking about individuals that experience compounding forms of marginalization and alienation," Stewart said.
Stewart and Pitawanakwat said their work — building relationships to learn about someone's traumas, personal and familial history, taking the time to understand those subjects, then preparing the reports — is an effort toward reconciliation within Saskatchewan's justice system.
Pitawanakwat, the Integrated Justice Program's lead interviewer, seen here at the University of Regina, said those involved feel supported in what they do and those who've participated felt the process was good for them. (Bryan Eneas/CBC )
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's 34th call to action calls on governments, "to make changes to the criminal justice system to improve outcomes for offenders with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD)."
Pitawanakwat said IJP writers provide courts with important context. Many of the interviewees have been separated from their families and peers, Pitawanakwat said.
"One of the strongest ways that we can push back against colonialism is to bring families back together; to bring people home and keep them home whenever possible," Pitawanakwat said.
Hotomanie's report did just that, allowing him to stay in Carry the Kettle a bit longer before he was incarcerated. He will also be able to reconnect with his family sooner, due to the reduction in his sentence the judge granted after reading the report.
Program's work greatly needed
The IJP team has completed more than 30 Gladue or pre-sentencing reports in Saskatchewan as of January 2022, Stewart and Pitawanakwat said.
Gladue reports can take weeks to months to complete, due to resource constraints within the justice system. The IJP's team-based approach has dramatically reduced turnaround times in Saskatchewan, where the need for the program is great.
The province ranks near the bottom when it comes to using Gladue reports in court, said Jonathan Rudin, the program director for Aboriginal Legal Services.
Jonathan Rudin, Aboriginal Legal Service's program director, said most Gladue reports completed in Saskatchewan are privately funded. He's seen here speaking at a lectern at Lakehead University. (Amy Hadley/CBC)
"In most parts of Canada where there are Gladue reports, the provincial government in particular, or the provincial legal aid plan, steps up with funding," Rudin said.
"In Saskatchewan the provincial government does not seem inclined to provide that funding at all."
Data provided by the Ministry of Justice showed that the provincial government paid a combined $78,080 for 24 Gladue reports over the past five years. That data doesn't include reports by independent agencies like the IJP.
In the 2019-2020 reporting year — the last time the province covered the costs for Gladue reports — the government paid for two reports. In the 2018-2019 reporting year it paid for 10, the most in the five years of data provided.
In the 2020-2021 reporting year, it paid for none.
Rudin said that, aside from IJP reports, the few cases where Gladue reports were completed in the province were primarily privately funded. In just a few instances, courts were asked to provide the money or ordered the government to provide the money.
Government support needed, expert says
Jane Dickson, who trained Stewart in Gladue writing and is currently a professor of law at Carleton University, said there shouldn't need to be independent agencies doing Gladue reports, as the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled every Indigenous person should be granted one.
"If government stepped up and adequately funded Gladue we wouldn't need to find these creative solutions to secure funding," Dickson said.
She said in Saskatchewan and many other parts of Canada, courts take it upon themselves to decide whether or not they have the right amount of information to determine someone's fate.
Stewart, left, the Integrated Justice Program's lead, seen here at the University of Regina, said a variety of different people participate in the practicum program offered through the IJP, which in turn spreads the knowledge and style of Gladue writing the team offers. (Bryan Eneas/CBC)
In Saskatchewan, the Ministry of Justice said courts were committed to using "relevant Gladue information" in pre-sentencing reports completed by community corrections staff like parole officers.
"Community corrections has made a concerted effort to heighten awareness of Gladue factors and provide Gladue information in pre-sentence reports," the ministry's statement said.
Dickson said legal professionals would rather see full Gladue reports like those being done by the IJP, but there is too much demand. She's working with organizations across Canada on a team-based approach like what the IJP is doing in Regina.
"The model is absolutely generalizable across the country," Dickson said.
A success, so far
Pitawanakwat said while some of the reports the IJP did were more beneficial than others, the program was successful so far because the people involved feel supported in their work.
Most importantly, Pitawanakwat said the clients involved in the program seemed to feel the process was good for them and judges seem to be recognizing the reports are well researched and well written.
Hotomanie says he was a bit nervous about his six month sentence, though he was mostly more worried about being able to return to his job in Carry the Kettle when he comes home. (Richard Agecoutay / CBC News)
Hotomanie said he felt comfortable during the interview process. When things got tough and he became emotional, the group pressed pause and agreed to continue the next day when he felt better.
He also felt as though he got to know Pitawanakwat and Stewart through the process as much as they got to know him.
The final report made him feel understood by the courts in a way the justice system never had.
"I wasn't just a person who was getting caught for impaired [driving], I felt good about myself," Hotomanie said.
Bryan Eneas is a journalist from the Penticton Indian Band currently based in Regina, Saskatchewan. Before joining CBC, he reported in central and northern Saskatchewan. Send news tips to Bryan.Eneas@cbc.ca.
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Vast DOJ Probe Looks at Almost 30 Short-Selling Firms and Allies
Katia Porzecanski and Tom Schoenberg, Bloomberg News
, Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) -- The Justice Department is collecting a trove of information on dozens of investment firms and researchers engaged in short selling as part of a sweeping U.S. hunt for potential trading abuses, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation seized computers from the home of prominent short seller Andrew Left, the founder of Citron Research, in early 2021, some of the people said. In more recent months, the Justice Department subpoenaed certain market participants seeking communications, calendars and other records relating to almost 30 investment and research firms, as well as three dozen individuals associated with them, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential inquiries.
Many on that roster -- a veritable who’s-who of the activist short-selling realm -- said they haven’t been contacted directly by the government, leaving some exasperated about being left in the dark. Reached for comment, Left also said he’s frustrated.
“It’s very tough to defend yourself when you haven’t been accused of anything,” Left said. “I’m cooperating and I have full faith in the system and the First Amendment,” he added, referencing protections on free speech.
The long list of names underscores the breadth of the Justice Department investigation first described by Bloomberg in December and shows how authorities are trying to map out alliances and understand how short sellers handle research and arrange bets that stocks will fall. It remains unclear which, if any, of the names mentioned in subpoenas might be targets of the inquiry or merely have ties to other people or entities of interest.
SEC Scrutiny
The Securities and Exchange Commission also has sent some requests for information, people with knowledge of those inquiries said. Spokespeople for the Justice Department and SEC declined to comment. No one has been accused of wrongdoing, and in many cases, the opening of a probe doesn’t lead to anyone facing charges.
Prominent firms and their leaders mentioned in the Justice Department’s requests to some market participants include Melvin Capital Management and founder Gabe Plotkin; Orso Partners and Nate Koppikar; Sophos Capital Management and Jim Carruthers; as well as Kerrisdale Capital Management. The list also includes well-known researchers such as Nate Anderson and his Hindenburg Research, as well as Fraser Perring and his Viceroy Research.
Representatives for most of those firms -- Melvin, Orso, Sophos and Hindenburg -- declined to comment or didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.
“We haven’t been contacted by DOJ, SEC or any governmental authorities about any investigations,” Kerrisdale’s chief investment officer, Sahm Adrangi, wrote in an email. “We literally haven’t spoken to anyone at the government in many years.”
Viceroy’s Perring said his firm also hasn’t received requests for information.
“We will always cooperate with any such investigations and are happy to assist regulators in carrying out their duties,” he said. “All our reports are based on information that is publicly available, sourced from records that anyone at any given time could research or find. Our most recent contact with the DOJ was in assisting an investigation into the fraud at a company that we had researched.”
Firms in the Dark
Bloomberg had noted in December that Anson Funds, Marcus Aurelius Value, Muddy Waters Capital and Citron are part of the probe.
Other firms mentioned in requests include Atom Investors, Bonitas Research, Connective Capital Management, Falcon Research, GeoInvesting, Gotham City Research, GrizzlyRock Capital, J Capital Research, Oasis Management, Park West Asset Management, QKM, Sabrepoint Capital Management, Silverado Capital, Spruce Point Capital Management, Valiant Capital Management and White Diamond Research.
Representatives for many of those firms -- among them Falcon, GrizzlyRock, J Capital, Oasis, Valiant and White Diamond -- said they hadn’t been contacted by investigators. “It’s hard for us to comment on something we don’t know anything about,” said Taylor Hall, a representative for Oasis.
Valiant “has a long-standing policy of cooperating with any inquiries it receives from regulators and other government bodies,” but is not aware of being involved in the short-selling probe, chief compliance officer Michaela Beckman said in an email. “Compliance with securities regulations has always been a point of significant emphasis at the firm since inception and we have not been subject to any regulatory action regarding insider trading or short-selling in our 13-year history.”
“Ethics are a key part of my work, and I wouldn’t do anything unethical or untruthful,” said White Diamond’s Adam Gefvert. “I may write negative things about a company but I wouldn’t embellish anything. Everything is backed by proof.”
Not all of the firms enter into public battles with companies. Atom invests in short-selling hedge funds. And GrizzlyRock isn’t an activist short seller, founder Kyle Mowery noted, adding that he’s glad the Justice Department is looking into that space.
Representatives for the rest declined to comment or didn’t respond to messages.
Pressure on DOJ
Short selling often involves borrowing and selling shares, in a bet that they can be bought back cheaper later to lock in a profit. Investors may also use derivatives such as put contracts.
The Justice Department and financial regulators have faced a growing number of calls in recent years to dig into short sellers and their research partners. Corporate executives including the world’s richest person, Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk, have decried short sellers, accusing them of maligning businesses for profit.
The Justice Department’s probe is being run by the fraud section with federal prosecutors in Los Angeles and there’s no public signal that authorities have drawn any conclusions. As Bloomberg previously reported, they’ve been examining trading in dozens of stocks, as well as relationships between funds and researchers, looking for signs that they manipulated markets or broke other laws to profit.
Tough Times for Shorts
The U.S. probe adds to a treacherous period for short sellers. Some bearish funds threw in the towel as government stimulus drove equity markets, a situation exacerbated during the pandemic. The pressure intensified during 2021’s meme-stock frenzy, when retail investors banded together to bid up shares of popular short targets, inflicting losses on hedge funds and other traders. By late January of last year, Citron vowed to give up short-selling research and focus on long bets.
Read more: Short Sellers Face End of an Era as Rookies Rule Wall Street
Some of the loudest short-selling critics include executives at companies that were later found to have engaged in malfeasance. But legions of small investors have also expressed outrage over stock slumps, especially during last year’s wild trading. Amid the complaints, members of Congress started demanding more government scrutiny.
Researchers make money in a variety of ways beyond placing their own bets. Some sell insights to subscribers, or make arrangements to give clients, such as hedge funds, ideas in exchange for a cut of the profits. Paying customers often get to see research alleging problems at publicly traded companies before publication.
One area of focus is how investors set up their bets that stocks will decline. Investigators have been looking, for example, for signs that money managers might try to engineer startling stock drops to induce selling by market makers or other investors, or engage in other abuses, such as insider trading, people familiar with the matter have said.