Rare ice volcanoes captured erupting on Lake Michigan beach but may not stick around

Bisma Parvez, Detroit Free Press
Monday, Feb. 17, 2020

The recent cold front has brought an interesting phenomenon to Lake Michigan: first ice balls, now ice volcanoes.

National Weather Service meteorologist Ernie Ostuno was able to capture some amazing photos of erupting ice volcanoes at Oval Beach in Saugatuck Sunday.

An ice volcano is a cone-shaped mound of ice formed over a terrestrial lake by the eruption of water and slush through an ice shelf.

"Ice volcanoes occur in locations in which waves hit accumulated ice on the shoreline with some force," said Cort Spholten, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service of Grand Rapids.

© National Weather Service Grand Rapids 'Ice volanoes' erupt on Lake Michigan on Sunday Feb. 16

"We were cold enough to form ice on the shore of Lake Michigan and water had broken the surface of that ice," Spholten said. "The waves ... were strong enough so the water channels through, it squeezes water upwards and tosses the floating ice up. As it happens, over the course of hours or days, it forms a cone and it resembles a volcano." 

© National Weather Service Grand Rapids 'Ice volcanoes' erupt on Lake Michigan

According to Spholten, there have to be very specific conditions for the ice volcanoes to form.

"It needs to stay cold enough to keep the ice around and waves need to be large enough to force water upwards against the ice shelf," he said.

How long will it last?

"Today, winds from the southeast should diminish the waves. It's unlikely ice volcanoes will be seen today compared to yesterday, but it's not impossible," Spholten said.

However, ice volcanoes can also be dangerous especially when people climb on them. There may be no way to get out of the icy water if someone slips down the side of one of the mounds. 

 

© Sean Mulligan, Michigan DNR Ice balls, a rare phenomenon on Lake Michigan, rolled up on the beaches Friday at Holland State Park.

The ice volcanoes formed after another rare phenomenon on Lake Michigan.

On Friday, thousands of ice balls rolled up onto the lake shore. According to experts the weather conditions have to be just right: The temperatures are just below freezing along shallow beaches. Slush collects into round shapes and the waves sculpt ice chunks into orbs.

Thousands of rare ice balls appear on Lake Michigan beach, some as big as yoga balls

Frank Witsil, Detroit Free Press, USA TODAY•February 14, 2020

  

Ice balls, a rare phenomenon on Lake Michigan, rolled up on the beaches Friday at Holland State Park.

DETROIT – A rare phenomenon on a Lake Michigan beach caught the eye of a Michigan state park supervisor Friday morning, who snapped cell phone photos and posted them to the Holland State Park's Facebook page.

"We went down to the beach to check on things and we saw these large ice balls," said Sean Mulligan, a Department of Natural Resources supervisor at the park. "I had heard of them before, but I hadn't ever seen them."

Thousands of the balls, he estimated, rolled up onto the lakeshore.

Some were the size of baseballs and softballs; others were the size of bowling balls and dodge balls, and the biggest ones, just a few, looked to be the size of yoga balls, the kind some people use to work out with and do Pilates.

Watch: Rare, egg-shaped balls of ice wash ashore in Finland

The balls, experts say, form on beaches when weather conditions are just right: The temperatures are just below freezing along shallow beaches. Slush collects into round shapes and the waves sculpt ice chunks into orbs.

Ice balls are occasionally spotted on the Great Lakes, as well as on beaches in Germany, Russia and Scandinavia. Last year, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported an amateur photographer took photos of ice balls on an island in the Gulf of Bothnia between Finland and Sweden.

"I don't know how long they'll last for," Mulligan said, "But, they were definitely down there this morning in force."

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Volvo VNR Electric semi truck first drive: More than just a truck
Andrew Krok 

WILL THE I-95 BECOME AN AUTONOMOUS EV TRUCKING ROUTE ONLY

 AS WAS PROPOSED UNDER THE ORIGINAL NAFTA

a truck that is driving down the road: Aside from one crazy vinyl wrap, the Volvo Trucks VNR Electric doesn't look all that different from a standard semi cab, and that's by design.

4/8 SLIDES © Provided by Roadshow

Aside from one crazy vinyl wrap, the Volvo Trucks VNR Electric doesn't look all that different from a standard semi cab, and that's by design.If you want to sell an electric truck, you're going to need more than just the truck itself

Electrification has the potential to bring some big benefits to society, and not merely through the adoption of electric cars . So much of our existence is propped up on the backs of trucks that criss-cross the country, delivering goods like food, medicine -- pretty much everything you consume was likely moved on a truck.

Now, think about those trucks for a second. They're big. They're slow. They're loud. They shoot plumes of diesel fumes into the sky. So long as the technology is there, this is a great place to start cleaning up roadways, neighborhoods and whole cities through electric powertrains.

But an electric truck by itself isn't very useful. We need an entire ecosystem of moving parts to support this move, and Volvo thinks it has the best way to make everything happen: the Low Impact Green Heavy Transport Solutions program, or Lights.© Provided by Roadshow You probably won't be able to get this look from the dealership, sadly. Andrew Krok/Roadshow

Volvo VNR Electric semi truck is eerily silent

VNR Electric: The cornerstone of the plan

Aside from one crazy vinyl wrap, the Volvo Trucks VNR Electric doesn't look all that different from a standard semi cab, and that's by design. By maintaining the standard VNR shape, Volvo is able to integrate production of this new truck on the same lines as before.

Even the VNR Electric's packaging takes this into account. The power electronics live in a giant box where the diesel engine would be, while batteries take the place of the fuel tanks. The electric motors live in the middle of the frame, hooking up to the driveshafts that send the power rearward. The interior is largely the same as a standard VNR, too, its dashboard replete with buttons and knobs, the only hint about its EV underpinnings being a gauge cluster with charge and power meters in place of a fuel gauge and tachometer.

Climbing (literally) into the driver's seat, I find it's eerie to hear absolutely nothing when the truck is on. The air brakes release their grip with a push of a big yellow button, and it's time to set off. The VNR Electric doesn't have a creep mode, so a light push of the throttle sends the truck off -- not silently, but with a noise level somewhere between an electric passenger car and a Formula E race car. The electric torque makes for an easy departure, seeing as how there's no manual or automated manual transmissions playing with clutches and switching gears every three seconds.

Despite rolling in a cab without a box behind it, the VNR Electric feels pretty smooth. The bumps on the road course at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, don't bother me much as I take hold of the gargantuan steering wheel and give it the ol' what-for around some cones. I can see everything from my seat, making it pretty easy to nail corners with precision.

© Provided by Roadshow Plug and chug (electrons). Volvo Trucks

On the back straight, I put my foot to the floor. It isn't a violent motion, but the VNR Electric definitely exhibits some get-up-and-go when prompted. A three-stage regenerative braking system captures some extra energy on deceleration, but disc brakes behind the truck's wheels will bring the whole thing to a halt in surprisingly little time, if necessary.

In the cabin, the electric motors make barely any racket, leaving a bit of space for things like power-steering pumps and other parts that a diesel engine would otherwise drown out. It's not Audi A8 -quiet, but after talking to truckers at the event, I found they were all impressed with how hushed the cabin was. Overall, the truck drivers and journalists I talked to at the event are excited for the VNR Electric's potential benefits.

Volvo hasn't laid out too many specifications for the VNR Electric just yet. Sales aren't going to start in earnest until later this year, so Volvo Trucks is in no rush to deliver range figures or anything like that. What I do know is that the preproduction VNR Electric is running routes between 75 and 175 miles, with a gross vehicle weight of 66,000 pounds.
Turn the Lights on

So, that covers the truck. But what about when it comes time to charge, or when these things need service? It's not like there's a parade of EV truck mechanics waiting in the wings, nor is it suggested that VNR Electrics start jamming up public parking lots to grab some juice. That's where Volvo Lights comes in.

Lights is a public-private partnership that includes money from California's cap-and-trade program, in addition to investments from all the parties involved. The goal is to create an entire electrified ecosystem that incorporates charging, education, service and other factors to reduce emissions in and around California's Inland Empire, east of Los Angeles. The program extends from the Port of Long Beach inward, covering drayage runs between the port and various nearby warehouses.

To charge all these trucks, the Volvo Lights program is working to install publicly available fast chargers for the VNR Electric, in addition to installing chargers at dealerships and ports. It's an arduous 12-step process to get a charger in place, and companies need to work closely with grid operators to ensure that demands can be met at specific times. Multiply that by the number of places chargers should be, and you can see why this is such a big undertaking. The 50-kilowatt chargers are the bread and butter, but supplier ABB can build fast chargers providing up to 600 kW of energy, adding more than 75 miles of range per hour. A more normal charge rate sees about 25 miles of range entering the battery each hour.

© Provided by Roadshow Once the wrap is off, the VNR Electric will look like any other VNR on the road, with just a few small tweaks. Volvo Trucks

When it comes to sales, it's obviously on dealerships to make sure their staff are trained and knowledgeable on the latest EV truck tech. More importantly, the salespeople need to sit down and crunch figures with owners and operators to see if an electric truck can fit into a person's schedule -- for some drivers, it's still not a feasible shift, and the Volvo Lights program is really only focused on local drayage. Long-haul electric trucking is a goal, albeit one that's further off.

It'll also be important to ensure these trucks can be serviced. Training is the hardest part here, which is why Volvo Lights' partners include Rio Hondo College and San Bernardino Valley College, both of which are establishing certification programs for EV truck techs. These jobs will be in high demand in the years to come, and there's some good money to be made here for those willing to learn about new technologies. Just remember: Electricity is no joke.
What's left?

Volvo Lights is limited to Southern California for now, but its benefits can be seen and applied just about everywhere. Think about islands like Hawaii or Guam -- electric trucks could ignore the high-cost diesel that needs to be shipped out there, and an entire microgrid based on solar and wind sources could provide a whole lot of emissions-free juice. Fuel costs aren't going to stay low forever, so it's best to figure out where these electric trucks can deliver the most benefits and make it happen.

Volvo's VNR Electric will be heading to interested parties later this year, but an electric truck by itself is less than half the battle. Thankfully, the Volvo Lights program has already proven that many companies will be willing to band together and create an entirely new way of powering logistics with an eye on improving the environment.

Editors' note: Travel costs related to this story were covered by the manufacturer, which is common in the auto industry. The judgments and opinions of Roadshow's staff are our own and we do not accept paid editorial content.

This was originally published on Roadshow.

The Berniephobes Are Wrong

Annie Lowrey
2 days ago

© Mike Segar / Reuters

Earlier this week, Lloyd Blankfein, the former head of Goldman Sachs, waded into the presidential race. “If Dems go on to nominate Sanders, the Russians will have to reconsider who to work for to best screw up the US,” he wrote on Twitter. “Sanders is just as polarizing as Trump AND he’ll ruin our economy and doesn’t care about our military. If I’m Russian, I go with Sanders this time around.”


Gaining an anti-endorsement from one of the leading experts on economy-ruining must have delighted the Sanders campaign. And it was just the latest nastygram Wall Street has sent to the Democrat leading in the presidential primary. The billionaires Jeff Gundlach and Stanley Druckenmiller have suggested that a Sanders victory would cause the stock market to tank; big money has tossed big money at every candidate who might plausibly defeat Sanders and his progressive fellow traveler, Elizabeth Warren; and bankers have spent months bellowing about the two liberals’ policies, some with smarm, some with true alarm.

A social democrat winning the nomination or the White House would damage the financial markets, hurt business investment, and slow the underlying American economy, or so the argument goes. The only problem is that there is no reason to think that this is actually true.

A President Bernie Sanders would have about as much control over the economy as President Donald Trump: outside of a recession, not nearly as much as one might think, and particularly not in the short term. Political scientists and economists have demonstrated that how well the economy performs under different administrations mostly has to do with the fortuities of market timing. President Barack Obama inherited a catastrophe that had nowhere to go but up; Trump inherited a long boom that has just kept booming. Their policies have mattered but, outside the response to the Great Recession itself, mostly on the margin. The same would be true for Sanders or Warren or Amy Klobuchar or Joe Biden or any of the other candidates. If the economy tanks on Sanders’s watch, what he does will be enormously important. If it does not, his policies would take years to change the shape of American growth.

Presidents are just not that powerful in the United States’s polarized, divided, and choke-point-choked political system. Sanders has put out a slate of transformative economic policies, but realistically, few of them are likely to be passed, and those probably in watered-down and compromised versions. As The American Prospect, the left-of-center magazine, has noted, Sanders or another progressive could do a considerable amount via executive action, including the instant forgiveness of student debt held on the federal books. But many of the biggest changes Sanders seeks—wealth taxes, Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, a jobs guarantee—would have to wend their way through Congress.

There is no majority in Congress for any of those policies at the moment. Bodies that overrepresent old, white, and rural voters are unlikely to pass a new New Deal anytime soon. Bernie’s camp openly admits as much, as do elected progressives. Is Medicare for All achievable? “The worst-case scenario? We compromise deeply and we end up getting a public option,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said this week. “Is that a nightmare? I don’t think so.” Wall Street knows it, too. In a recent note to clients, JPMorgan’s analysts argued that American “political institutions” would make dramatic policy changes highly unlikely. “We put the probability of major changes like Medicare-for-all or a wealth tax at less than 5 percent.”



Would the economy tank if Congress did pass Sanders’s chosen policy regime? That is questionable as well. Sanders’s economic plans are meant to bolster the earning and political power of low- and middle-income families, while forcing companies to compete with another, taming the power of the financial system, and greening the economy. They amount to a huge fiscal-stimulus program, which would be unlikely to ruin the economy any more than the Trump tax cuts, another big stimulus program, would. The country’s staggering levels of income and wealth inequality are distorting the very fabric of the economy: raising saving relative to consumption and investment, dampening GDP growth, impeding mobility, and fraying the political system. There’s a good argument that reducing inequality would boost the country’s long-term growth rate, not hurt it.

As for Sanders’s proposed hefty tax hikes on the wealthy and on corporations: Those might slow down spending and investment a bit, and certainly might dampen animal spirits on Wall Street. (They’re already calling the prophesied sell-off the “Sanders Scare.”) But Trump’s huge tax cuts for the rich and for businesses did not speed up the economy much at all, as economists predicted. Raising taxes on the rich and on businesses would be unlikely to tamp down economic activity too much, either. Were Sanders’s election to hurt stock prices, Americans would largely not notice, at least not by looking at their own bank accounts, rather than cable news and the financial press. Stock ownership is now heavily, heavily concentrated in the hands of the very wealthy.

All that said, presidents do have considerable influence over individual industries: Think of what Trump has done to American farming, for example, or Obama’s role in the American auto market. Sanders has promised and would likely cause significant disruptions for Wall Street—if not through legislation, through antitrust enforcement and political appointees at the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve. Banking could become a lot more boring, and investment banking could become a lot less profitable. That would not mean “ruining the economy.” But it would make life on Wall Street a lot less fun.

China’s Chernobyl Never Seems to Arise

Rory Truex
THE ATLANTIC
© China Daily CDIC / Reuters

For a cottage industry of Western experts, the fall of the Chinese Communist Party is always just one crisis away. In 2008, it was the Wenchuan earthquake in Sichuan province that toppled shoddily constructed schools and killed 70,000 people. Later that year, 300,000 babies became sick from drinking milk made from formula tainted with melamine, which revealed the fragility of the country’s food-safety system. In 2011, it was a collision of high-speed trains in Wenzhou that showed the problems with the country’s pace of infrastructure development. Each of these catastrophes was going to be China’s version of Chernobyl, the nuclear leak that revealed and accelerated the terminal decline of the Soviet Union, but that moment has never come.


Now 2020 has brought the novel coronavirus outbreak, which has killed more than 1,600 people and sickened 69,000. The outbreak clearly has been worsened by unforced errors by the Chinese government, and for that reason could (or should) be the basis of a legitimacy crisis.

Yet claims about the “brittle nature” of the Communist Party’s rule reflect a certain amount of wishful thinking. By focusing on the prospect of revolution and regime change in China, Western commentators are missing the more nuanced debates that will ultimately be more important for the future of the Chinese government and people.

For much of the Communist Party’s history, the overarching question in its elite circles has not been whether democracy or authoritarianism is more attractive, but which version of authoritarianism is best. As documented in research by Jonathan Stromseth, Edmund Malesky, and Dimitar Gueorguiev, there have always been two schools of thought: a more coercive model, and one based more on openness to and participation by citizens and elites alike. Xi Jinping is firmly in the coercive camp, but the coronavirus outbreak has become a tragic case study of what’s wrong with his method of governance.

China today is arguably the most repressive it has been since the period following the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. Xi has fostered a cult of personality; removed any semblance of opposition within the Communist Party; centralized power around himself; gutted civil society; jailed hundreds of human-rights, labor, feminist, and pro-democracy activists; and tightened control of social and traditional media. His answer for how to best to govern Chinese society: Control it. Dominate it.

A public-health crisis is exacerbated by such a government. Local officials in Wuhan and Hubei province, too scared to report bad news in their jurisdictions, were slow to act during the onset of the outbreak. Health-care workers and citizen journalists who tried to warn the public were censored and detained, including the heroic whistle-blower Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist who later died of the virus himself.

Citizens and health experts need good information, but most official statistics in China are unreliable. Chinese colleagues of mine whisper, based on past experience, that the government must be radically underestimating the number of deaths. Nobody really knows how many people have the virus, and even expert baseline estimates of its mortality rate are unreliable. Some observers are even looking to air pollution near crematoriums to try to deduce death totals.

These issues aside, Americans should be skeptical of any “coming collapse of China” predictions. The Communist Party has a well-defined playbook for handling the deadly crises that have arisen on its watch.

Step 1: Find a local official to take the blame. In political science, we often describe China’s governing system as one of “fragmented authoritarianism.” Responsibility for making and implementing policies is diffused across multiple levels of government. This structure allows for easy scapegoating in times of crisis. For the coronavirus, local officials in Wuhan and Hubei have been blamed for mishandling the outbreak. Jiang Chaoliang, the highest-ranking official in Hubei, recently resigned in disgrace.

Step 2: Respond aggressively, even excessively. When a crisis arises, the central government will take great pains to show that it cares. This is what the author Ian Johnson recently called “Actionism”—action for action’s sake. This response might come in the form of a new law, or visits by top officials to the affected area. Entire cities, roughly 50 million people, have been quarantined in response to the coronavirus. And on evening television, the news shows clips of cranes and cement mixers building whole hospitals in just a matter of days. (Of note: These machines have become internet celebrities in China).

Step 3: Control the narrative. In China’s political-education system, citizens are taught to internalize the idea of “struggle.” China’s rejuvenation will come only if citizens join together to work hard, solve problems, and develop the country. When necessary, the Communist Party taps into those ideas, and it has framed the coronavirus as just another obstacle the people must struggle against. Anyone proffering the counter narrative—that the Chinese government has needlessly endangered its people—is silenced. The courageous citizen video journalist Chen Qiushi, who exposed the poor conditions in Wuhan hospitals, has recently gone missing.

This playbook is largely effective, not in actually resolving problems but in preserving the clean and competent image of top Communist Party leaders. One of the most robust findings in the study of Chinese politics is that citizen anger over corruption or misrule is usually directed at local officials, rather than the central government or senior party leadership, which enjoy very high levels of trust. Little evidence suggests that citizens blame China’s governance problems on the authoritarian system itself. The party’s narrative—that it is leading the “people’s war” against the novel coronavirus—has more cultural resonance and dominates all media.

So the regime will go on. The question now is whether the suffering and sickness of the Chinese people these past few weeks has changed the mind of anybody in the Chinese Communist Party who matters.

There is another way for the party to rule: what we might call the participatory model. Hu Jintao offered hints of this approach during his tenure as China’s leader from 2002 to 2012, and certain localities (namely Guangdong province) have developed it as well. The party remains in absolute control, yes, but civil society is allowed some space to develop. The government is more transparent about its activities and invites citizens to take part in policy making. Party leaders play nice with one another and share power, delegating responsibility more equally in line with individual expertise. Muckraking journalists, human-rights lawyers, nongovernmental organizations—these things can be good for the Chinese government, because they allow some check on local malfeasance and provide information on citizen grievances. This answer for how best to govern Chinese society amounts to: Empower it, within boundaries.

This model and Xi’s have always coexisted, embodied in the ruling philosophies of different officials and their jurisdictions. One province can be more open and participatory, another brutally repressive. One ministry in the government can be wonderfully transparent, another dated and out of touch. Throughout the history of the People’s Republic of China, periods of openness have given way to coercive turns, and vice versa. Maoist totalitarianism preceded Deng Xiaoping’s opening, which was interrupted by the Tiananmen Square massacre and its aftermath. That eventually led to a softer Communist Party under Hu Jintao, who was replaced by the repressive Xi Jinping.

Any change in China will come from the top. Contrary to popular belief, Xi Jinping has not formally secured the right to rule China for the rest of his life. He appears bent on doing so, but according to existing party norms, he should hand over power to someone else in 2022. This means that for the next two years, there will be a power struggle within the party—one that outsiders will be unable to observe unless it turns particularly nasty. Xi will likely prevail, but that is not a guarantee.

After the failures of the Great Leap Forward—the period from 1958 to 1962 in which upwards of 45 million Chinese died from famine and forced labor—Mao Zedong was edged out by his peers and forced, albeit temporarily, to remove himself from the day-to-day business of governance. In the best of worlds, the lives needlessly lost in the coronavirus outbreak will give other party leaders the wisdom and courage to change course, to challenge Xi from the inside and repudiate his model.

A democratic revolution is unlikely to break out anytime soon, but modern Chinese history shows the problems that arise when a single leader becomes too powerful. In the words of the whistle-blower, the late Chinese doctor Li Wenliang, “a healthy society should not have just one voice.”

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Dairy Farmers of America agrees to buy Dean Foods

 for $425 million

Amelia Lucas
© Provided by CNBC A container of Dean Foods Co. Dairy Pure brand sour cream is displayed for a photograph in Dobbs Ferry, New York, U.S., on Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2019.

Dairy Farmers of America announced Monday that it has agreed to buy Dean Foods, America's largest milk producer, for $425 million.

The dairy co-operative will also assume Dean's liabilities as part of the deal to acquire 44 of the company's facilities, as well as other assets.

Dean filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November as the business struggled to attract consumers who have instead turned to nondairy milk or private-label products. At the time it filed for bankruptcy, Dean had reported a net loss in seven of its last eight quarters.

The transaction makes the Dairy Farmers of America the stalking horse bidder, meaning that the transaction would be subject to receiving higher or better offers while the company is in bankruptcy.

The deal would also need approval from the Department of Justice, which has reportedly begun probing the merger, according to the Wall Street Journal.

VIDEO Here's how plant-based milk flooded the market

Bald eagles across the United States are dying from lead poisoning

HAS TO DO WITH THE SECOND AMENDMENT 

NOT WINDMILLS/WIND TURBINES
By Alaa Elassar, CNN

© Cape Fear Raptor Center Dr. Joni Shimp, executive director 

of Cape Fear Raptor Center, poses with a bald eagle.

Bald eagles across the United States are dying from lead bullets -- but it's not because they're being shot.

The Cape Fear Raptor Center, North Carolina's largest eagle rehab facility, has treated seven eagles in the past month for lead poisoning, executive director Dr. Joni Shimp told CNN.

Since November, at least 80% of the eagles the facility has euthanized were put down because of lead poisoning.

Hunters use lead bullets to kill deer and other animals. Although the hunters aren't targeting eagles, the birds are still indirectly affected when they consume animals shot with those bullets.

"Hunters in no way, shape or form intentionally try to kill an eagle, vulture or any other species," she said.

"If the deer isn't killed immediately and runs and the hunter can't find the deer, the eagles and vultures find it and ingest the lead."

Once absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract, the lead becomes toxic.

The latest incident for the center occurred Friday, when Hatteras Island Wildlife Rehabilitation found an eagle showing symptoms of lead poisoning and transported it to the Cape Fear Raptor Center for treatment. Dehydrated and too weak to move, the bird died the same night, said Lou Browning, president of the rehabilitation center.

Lead poisoning can cause a "lack of judgment when flying across roadways, the inability to take flight quickly resulting in being hit by cars, seizures and death," Shimp said.

Depending on the severity of the poisoning, some eagles survive after veterinarians use chelation therapy, injecting the birds with a drug that binds the toxins in their bloodstream and allows it be removed from their bodies.

Those in too much pain are put down. Many die despite treatment.
It's a national problem

Millions of birds across the United States, including bald eagles, are poisoned by lead every year, according to the American Bird Conservancy.

"It's an overall US problem. The lead poisoning increases during deer season but we see it all year," Shimp said. "Some times it's chronic low-grade exposure over time that also brings them down."

Shimp said she believes the only solution is to educate hunters on the importance of using of non-lead ammunition.

Copper bullets can be purchased online but are more expensive and difficult to find in stores, she said.

"We need to target the big chain stores and get them to carry copper bullets," Shimp said. "Then I can set up education days at these stores, with a vulture, red tail (hawk) or eagle and show the hunters and point them to the copper ammo. Then we can start to win this war ... the war on lead, not on hunters."
The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, established in 1940, prohibits possessing, selling or hunting bald eagles. Federal, state and municipal laws continue to protect these animals even after they were removed from endangered animal lists in 2007.

California's first Asian-American sheriff, Miyamoto, is well-aware of milestone

SAN FRANCISCO — The first Asian American sheriff in California history walks over to a closet inside his City Hall office to stow some equipment, then takes a seat behind a large desk. He extends his arms, fingers interlaced.


“So,” Sheriff Paul Miyamoto says casually as if to imply that he isn’t sure what all the fuss is about. “What would you like to know?”

On the one hand, as the son of a Japanese American father and a Chinese American mother and the husband of a Filipino American wife, Miyamoto is well aware his election represents an inspirational milestone for a new generation of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, a broad group often referred to by the acronym AAPI.

On the other, as a 23-year department veteran who was sworn in last month as San Francisco County’s 37th sheriff in 150 years, Miyamoto sees his rise up through the ranks simply as a result of hard work in his beloved profession.

“Being the first sheriff of my heritage is humbling, and it gives me a sense of responsibility to be a role model,” he says. “But what I’d really like is for us to never have any more firsts. I’d like us to be on an equal footing. Hopefully, I’m a step on that path.”






a person standing in front of a statue: San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto, the first Asian-American sheriff in the history of California, was sworn into his new position on Jan. 8, 2020.
4/5 SLIDES © Brian Feulner for USA TODAY

San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto, the first Asian-American sheriff in the history of California, was sworn into his new position on Jan. 8, 2020.

The election of a new sheriff with a familiar immigrant backstory has particular resonance these days.

President Donald Trump and his administration have not only taken a hard stance toward immigration broadly but also have clashed with so-called sanctuary cities such as San Francisco, where lawmakers and advocates have pledged to resist the sweeps of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on the grounds that they are unconstitutional.

Miyamoto says he is foremost a law enforcement officer duty-bound to deliver on the civic promise of public safety. But he says he is also a proud product of a city that has a long history of helping immigrants and people of color, and is eager to balance both.

"San Francisco is very forward-thinking in terms of social justice issues, including the clashes with the federal government these days," he says. "My predecessors have set the foundation in this office, which means reflecting the values we have here. Supporting sanctuary cities and the like, and ensuring people are equal in terms of how they're treated."

Miyamoto says when considering "who we hand over to the federal government," he won't hesitate to take a hard look at anyone with a violent history. But he refuses to let his deputies act in a manner that demonizes people because of their ethnicity.

“I don’t want to see anything happen in line with what happened to my own family and my cultural group,” he says, referring to the internment during World War II of 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry largely out west. “I don’t want to see citizens of our community behind barbed wire simply because of who they are.”

That attitude is bound to be a boon to San Francisco's immigrant community, says Bill Ong Hing, professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law and director of the Immigration and Deportation Defense Clinic, which represents unaccompanied immigrant children as well as families who are in removal proceedings.

"Visibility is everything," Hing says of Miyamoto's position. "When immigrants see someone who looks like them or is at least a person of color, that sends a very positive message."

The San Francisco sheriff's department is 78% male and 22% female, and very ethnically diverse, including whites (25%), Asian Americans (23%), Hispanic Americans (21%), Filipino Americans (14%), African Americans (13%) and Native Americans (0.5%).

"Without the trust of the immigrant community, law enforcement officials cannot do their work and provide security for all parts of the city," Hing says. "Respecting the immigrant community is good public policy and good policing."
A family interned during World War II

For Miyamoto, being sensitive to the plight of newcomers is deeply ingrained. In the early part of the 20th century, Miyamoto's father's family had achieved "a small measure of the American Dream," owning a San Francisco home and a thriving dry-cleaning business.

But after Japan attacked Hawaii's Pearl Harbor in 1941, destroying a large part of the U.S. naval fleet, Americans of Japanese ancestry were rounded up because federal officials were concerned, despite a lack of evidence, that the group consisted of potential traitors and saboteurs. Eventually, President Ronald Reagan would sign the 1988 Civil Liberties Act, which included an apology and a $20,000 check for each surviving victim.

Those Japanese American detainees included Miyamoto's grandfather, grandmother, father and two uncles. Stripped of their home and business, the family spent years at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center east of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, along with 10,000 other detainees.

Despite being interned, several of Miyamoto’s uncles joined other detainees in becoming part of the highly decorated, all-Japanese American 442nd Infantry Regiment. One uncle even designed the regiment’s “Go for broke” Statue of Liberty-themed logo, which as a child Miyamoto was stunned to see in a war museum during a visit to Washington, D.C.

"It meant so much to me to see that," he says.

While some Japanese Americans likely saw service as a way out of their imprisonment, Miyamoto says such actions were also "part of the fiber of Japanese culture, which is being a part of the whole and of putting yourself in front of everyone else in times of adversity."

When the Miyamotos finally were let out of the camp, starting over again was a hardship. But the family eventually thrived, with the future sheriff’s father, Phil, studying law and becoming a California state appellate judge.

That accomplishment greatly influenced his son's eventual career choice. "I'm part of that legacy of service, I guess," he says.
Asian Americans flex political muscle

Miyamoto’s success is reflective of the proliferation of public servants of Asian and Pacific Islander descent not just in San Francisco — which has had a Chinese American mayor and chief of police — but across California and the nation.

With its proximity to the Pacific Rim, California has long been a magnet for immigration from the Far East. Of the Golden State’s 40 million people, some 15% are of Asian or Pacific Islander heritage, according to the recent U.S. Census, with a similar percentage of lawmakers in the state’s Legislature in Sacramento.

Statewide, U.S. citizens of Asian and Pacific Islander descent account for 3 million registered voters, representing 13% of the total vote. Reports indicate a majority of those voters remain undecided and could be a powerful factor in the state’s upcoming March 3 Democratic primary.

Nationally, Asian American and Pacific Islander citizens represents 6% of the population and about 4% of the electorate. But some political pundits say that if there are upticks in what is traditionally a low voter turn-out rate — because of factors such as language barriers and poor outreach from political campaigns — this growing minority could soon have an outsized impact on state and national elections.

“We’re very happy for Sheriff Miyamoto and the Bay Area to have even more Asian American leadership, especially in a position that involves votes from the public,” says Cyndy Yu-Robinson, executive director of the National Association of Asian American Professionals in Raleigh, North Carolina, a non-profit networking group. Miyamoto has served as a board member of the group's San Francisco chapter.

“We need more Asian Americans who are willing to put themselves out there for public service," says Yu-Robinson.

In Washington, D.C., 14 members of the House of Representatives and three members of the Senate are of Asian or Pacific Islander heritage, including high-profile leaders such as Thai American Iraq war veteran Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Illinois), Indian American Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) and Samoan American presidential hopeful Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii).
San Francisco celebrates diversity

Miyamoto's own path to public service was direct. He grew up attending Bay Area and California public schools, earning a law degree that found him interning with the San Francisco district attorney’s office.

But he quickly changed tack from coveting a desk to hitting the pavement. "I thought I could do more being on the front lines," he says. "Maybe by being a member of a public safety organization, I figured I could be there at the beginning of when things happened to people and be more helpful to them."

He applied to the police, fire and sheriff's departments for any job in San Francisco. The sheriff's department welcomed him. On Miyamoto's first day on the job, he was late replacing another deputy. She was ticked off — and later became his wife.

Miyamoto lives in San Francisco along with his Filipino American wife, LeeAnn, who retired from the police department to focus on raising the couple’s five children. They reside in the same house Miyamoto grew up in on the western end of the city.

“With prices here these days, that’s about the only way to afford to stay,” he says with a laugh.

The family celebrates various Asian holidays, he says. Most recently, Miyamoto saluted his Chinese ancestry by hoisting a dragon in a new year's parade in town.

“Representing so many different Asian cultures is great for the kids and also reflective of the fabric of San Francisco,” he says of a city that is 45% white and 34% Asian.

Being on the streets of the city often as both a citizen and peace officer, Miyamoto knows first-hand how much homelessness is impacting life here. Many of California’s 140,000 homeless people call San Francisco home, and often Miyamoto’s county-wide deputies — his force of 850 serve as a policing supplement to the much larger city police department — are called upon to send street residents to appropriate agencies.

The vexing problem, Miyamoto says, has “room for improvement; I won’t sugar coat it.”

But that said, he says he is pleased to not only hail from but also serve a city where many citizens are more inclined to help out than criticize and where what you look like often is secondary to who you are.

"Sure, even here there certainly are people who use your background and ethnicity as a way to insult you in order to feel better about themselves, and I experienced a bit of that growing up," says Miyamoto.

"But in terms of treatment by society as a whole," he adds, "I was and am fortunate that here in San Francisco we are mostly embracing of diversity, so there's less of that backlash overall by individuals or the government."

Miyamoto smiles and leans back in his office chair: "And that is something to be proud of."

Follow USA TODAY national correspondent Marco della Cava: @marcodellacava

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: First Asian American sheriff in California vows to protect immigrants from Trump policies

Force One photo deleted by Trump's campaign manager after people point out it's from 2004

By Daniel Dale, CNN

Trump campaign tweets, then deletes photo from 2004

President Donald Trump's campaign manager deleted a tweet featuring a dramatic photo of Air Force One at the Daytona 500 after users pointed out that the shot was from President George W. Bush's visit to the NASCAR race in 2004, not from Trump's visit on Sunday.

Brad Parscale tweeted the 2004 photo, which shows Air Force One rising above packed stands at the Daytona International Speedway in Florida, and wrote, ".@realDonaldTrump won the #Daytona500 before the race even started."

The tweet stayed online for about three hours, drawing at least 6,700 retweets and 23,000 likes before it was deleted. Users identifying themselves as Trump supporters replied with messages like "Amazing shot wow" and "WOW WHAT A SHOT!!!!!!!!!"

But the photo was taken by photographer Jonathan Ferrey on February 15, 2004, after Bush's visit to the racetrack, as Air Force One took off from the adjacent Daytona Beach International Airport.

"I have a lot of talented colleagues photographing the Daytona 500 this year," Ferrey told CNN. "I am unfortunately not there today, but apparently I won the Daytona 500 photography before the race even started."

It can be found on the website of Getty Images. It was also used in articles in the past week previewing Trump's visit, and in a Sunday article on the conservative website The Daily Wire about the crowd's reaction to Trump's Air Force One arrival.

After Twitter users, including Voice of America White House bureau chief Steve Herman, noted that the photo was from 16 years ago, Parscale deleted the tweet and replaced it with a tweet featuring the same caption but a slightly less dramatic photo from Trump's arrival on Sunday -- of Air Force One circling speedway stands that were not completely full at the time.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This story has been updated to include a response from the photographer who took the 2004 picture. 

© Twitter The now-deleted tweet by Brad Parscale.

Parents from lower-income families less likely to say child's water supply is safe
by University of Michigan

Overall, three in four parents say their home tap water is safe for their child to drink, but another 13% say their tap water is not safe and 11% are unsure. Credit: The C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health at the University of Michigan.

Parents from lower-income families are less likely to describe their home tap water as safe, say their water has been tested or feel confident in the quality of drinking fountain water at their child's school compared with higher income peers, a new national poll suggests.


Two-thirds of parents from households earning over $100,000 report that both home tap water and school drinking fountains are safe for their child to drink, compared to only half of those earning under $50,000 per year, according to the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health at the University of Michigan.

The nationally-representative report is based on responses from 1,940 parents who had at least one child age 2-18 years.

"Water plays a vital role in children's health and development, Unfortunately, not all U.S. children have access to safe drinking water," says Mott Poll co-director Sarah Clark, M.P.H.

"Only three quarters of parents polled said their home tap water is safe to drink, with substantial differences by household income. Disparities in access to safe drinking water for children is a significant public health issue that warrants attention."

Overall, three in four parents say their home tap water is safe for their child to drink, but another 13% say their tap water is not safe and 11% are unsure. This feedback was consistent regardless of whether the home water source was a city water system, a rural water system or well water.

Sixteen percent of parents say they would know if their water is unsafe by its taste and smell. This is incorrect, says Clark, noting that some contaminants, such as lead, have no taste or color or odor.

Parents may also judge water discolored by iron as unsafe, when this is an aesthetic issue rather than a sign of unsafe water.

"There is no substitute for testing water for safety," Clark says.

One third of parents also believe the city or county would notify them if there was a problem with their home water supply.

"Parents may not know how their city or county communicates the results of water testing," Clark says. "Rather than assume, parents should seek out water safety information through their local government website or their community's water treatment plant."


Higher-income parents were substantially more likely than those from lower-income households to say their home tap water has been tested and is safe (80% versus 62%.) Clark points to several potential factors, including that lower-priced housing may have old water lines and plumbing, and because poorer communities may have limited funding for water system upgrades.

State and federal regulations establish specific requirements for water testing, but in many cases, parents may not have thought to look for this information, Clark says. Even when parents seek out information about water safety, parents may not know where test results are posted or may not understand the technical language used in water testing reports.

Clark also notes that testing of the public water supply tests might not detect contamination that occurs within the home, such as from lead pipes, so some parents choose to do additional testing. Families relying on residential well water also should do additional testing, she says.

A common question for parents is also whether they need a home water treatment system. Clark says parents should think carefully about their family's needs and the functionality and effectiveness of the water treatment systems under consideration.

In homes where the water has tested as unsafe, a filter attached to the faucet may be sufficient to remove a contaminant like lead, she says. In cases where home tap water meets water quality standards, parents may use a water filter to improve taste.

However, some home treatment systems remove elements from water that actually improve public health and safety.

"Parents don't want to make a decision that offers little benefit, and the possibility of reduced health and safety," Clark says.

Water safety has been in the spotlight over recent years after news of the Flint water crisis in Flint, Mich. that started in 2014 and exposed residents, including children, to lead in the water.

Since then, reports have found that children in other communities may also be exposed to lead in drinking water from lead pipes, faucets, and plumbing fixtures. Certain pipes that carry drinking water from the water source to the home may also contain lead.

When children are at school or preschool, 68% of parents polled believe it is safe for them to use the drinking fountain, while 5% of parents say the drinking fountains are unsafe, and 27% are unsure. The majority of parents also say their child has access to bottled water at school.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recommends that schools test their drinking water for lead to confirm it is safe for students, but there aren't any universal requirements to do so.

In the absence of testing, bottled water can also be a solution, Clark says.

"The bottom line for parents is this: Your children need clean water to drink every day," she says. "If you have any concerns about the safety of the water at home or at school, it's very important to gather information, talk with experts, and take whatever action you think is necessary."


Explore furtherChildren drink sweet drinks when they lack clean drinking water
Provided by University of Michigan

Research reveals unique reproductive trait for seagrass

by David Malmquist, Virginia Institute of Marine Science

Drs. Robert "JJ" Orth (at surface) and Gary Kendrick use SCUBA to study seeds of the seagrass Posidonia along the coast of Western Australia. Credit: A. Rossen.

Seagrasses have long been known as some of Earth's most remarkable organisms—descendants of flowering land plants that have re-colonized the ocean by developing traits that allow them to grow, pollinate, and release seeded fruits while fully immersed in salty seawater.

Now, research by a joint Australian-U.S. team reveals that one group of seagrasses, Australian species of the genus Posidonia, have evolved yet another remarkable adaptation for ocean survival: a winged seed whose shape harnesses the force of underwater currents to hold it on the seafloor for rooting.

Results of the study offer valuable insights for efforts to restore seagrass populations in Australia, the Chesapeake Bay, and elsewhere. Seagrass meadows, which provide important nursery and feeding habitat for other marine life and play a key role in maintaining water quality, are under threat worldwide from warming and over-fertilization of coastal waters.

Published in a recent issue of Scientific Reports, the seagrass study is the first to record a winged seed among marine angiosperms, and to experimentally determine its adaptive benefit. It also shows that seeds of Posidonia species in areas with stronger currents have larger wings, further evidence of the trait's utility.

Lead author on the report was Dr. Gary Kendrick of the University of Western Australia. The research emerged from a long-term collaboration between Kendrick and Dr. Robert "JJ" Orth of William & Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science, a pioneer in monitoring and restoring seagrasses in the Chesapeake Bay and mid-Atlantic coastal lagoons. Also contributing to the study were Marion Cambridge, Jeremy Shaw, Lukasz Kotula, and Ryan Lowe of UWA and Andrew Pomeroy of the Australian Institute for Marine Science.

"Understanding the basic biology of seeds and their establishment allows us to optimize our seed-based restoration practices," says Kendrick. "Working with JJ and the team at VIMS—using their deep understanding of the world the seed experiences—has resulted in a truly interdisciplinary outcome that combines the skills of seagrass and restoration biologists, plant anatomists, and hydrodynamic modelers."

A meadow of Posidonia seagrass plants about to release their ripe, buoyant fruits. Credit: A. Rossen.

A serendipitous seed story

Winged seeds are commonly used by land plants for dispersal by wind, with the helicopter-like seeds of maple and ash trees a familiar example. So when Orth first noted the wing-like structure on Posidonia seeds during Australian fieldwork in the mid-1990s, his initial thought was that it served a similar function.

"My preliminary hypothesis was that [the wing] would serve to move the seed farther away from the parent plant when it was released from the fruit," says Orth. Posidonia produces large buoyant fruits that break off from the adult plant and can float kilometers away, releasing seeds as they mature.

But years of painstaking research showed the opposite. "When released from the fruit," says Orth, "the seeds drop really fast."

Based on that finding, Orth and colleagues developed a second working hypothesis, that the purpose of the wing was to get the seed to the bottom quickly, before it could be eaten by predators. But field research again proved them wrong. "It turns out not many creatures like to eat these seeds, except for crabs and other small crustaceans," says Orth.

Seeds of Posidonia species growing in areas with stronger currents have larger wings. From L to R: Posidonia coriacea (strongest currents, largest wings), P. australis, and P. sinuosa (weakest currents, smallest wings). Credit: Dr. Gary Kendrick, University of Western Australia.

The third time's the charm

The researchers' path to discovering the wing's true function began when Dr. Marion Cambridge of UWA's Oceans Institute suggested a third hypothesis—that the wing keeps the seed at the sediment surface until it can grow anchoring roots.

To test this hypothesis, the team carefully measured the surface area of the seeds using both scanning electron microscopy and X-ray tomography, gauged the flow of currents around seeds placed in a flume, and used these data to build a computer model of the relevant hydrodynamic forces.

"When we brought in Andrew [Pomeroy], a hydrodynamics expert, he got pretty excited about what he saw," says Orth. "He launched the modeling effort that's highlighted in the paper. Together with our microscopy and flume data, it clearly supports the idea that the wing helps the seed maintain its position on the bottom, very similar to how flatfishes can stay on the bottom in strong currents."

In sum, rather than helping to lift and disperse the seeds as with maples, the team's research shows that evolution has engineered the Posidonia wing to push the seed against the seafloor, like the downforce generated by the wing on the rear of a race car.

Stronger currents, larger wings

Further support for the team's hypothesis comes from their comparison of wing width in the seeds of Australia's three Posidonia species, which inhabit a gradient of coastal habitats from current-scoured open shorelines to more sheltered bays.

"The neatest thing about the project," says Orth, "is that the width of the wing differs in the three species that dominate the west coast of Australia, and correlates with each species' environment. Posidonia coriacea, which lives in the most wave-swept areas, has the widest wing, while the other two species —australis and sinuosa—live under calmer conditions and have smaller wings." This correlation extends all the way to the quiet waters of the Mediterranean, where a relict population of the same genus (P. oceanica) has seeds with barely any wing at all.

The findings have important implications for seagrass restoration. "Our modeling work and experiments will better inform Australian resource managers on where to place seeds of these different species," says Orth. "Hopefully armed with this information we can increase the low success rate we observed from one of our recent large-scale restoration efforts in Cockburn Sound."

The findings have also further piqued Orth's interest in traits exhibited by the eelgrass seeds that have long been at the heart of his team's restoration efforts in Virginia's seaside bays. Orth and colleagues first began sowing the bays' shallow waters with eelgrass seeds in 1999. Barren at the time, they today hold more than 7,000 acres of lush eelgrass meadow, making them the largest example of seagrass restoration in the world. In fact, they now hold 75% of the world's restored seagrass acreage.

"We've conducted a lot of experiments with our eelgrass seeds," says Orth, "but still know relatively little about the function of the ribs on these seeds and whether their barrel shape might play some role in keeping them from rolling along the bottom. Our work with Posidonia has added new intrigue to this work."

Study identifies bottlenecks in early seagrass growth

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More information: Gary A. Kendrick et al, A novel adaptation facilitates seed establishment under marine turbulent flows, Scientific Reports (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-56202-7