Belarus, Iran, US, Nicaragua activists win 'alternate' Nobel


AFP
A Belarusian pro-democracy campaigner, an imprisoned Iranian human rights lawyer, a US civil rights attorney, and a Nicaraguan activist on Thursday won a top Swedish honour sometimes called "the alternative Nobel Prize.

© - Opposition supporters parade through the streets during a rally to protest the country's presidential inauguration in Minsk

Ales Bialiatski of Belarus and his NGO Viasna, Nasrin Sotoudeh of Iran, Bryan Stevenson of the United States and indigenous rights and environmental activist Lottie Cunningham Wren of Nicaragua share the Right Livelihood Award.

Ole von Uexkull, Executive Director of the Right Livelihood Foundation, said this year's laureates were united in their "fight for equality, democracy, justice and freedom."

"Defying unjust legal systems and dictatorial political regimes, they successfully strengthen human rights, empower civil societies and denounce institutional abuses," von Uexkull said in a statement.

Bialiatski and Viasna were awarded "for their resolute struggle for the realisation of democracy and human rights in Belarus."

Viasna, which translates to Spring, was founded by Bialiatski in 1996 in response to the repression of demonstrations by the government of president Alexander Lukashenko.

Following the disputed re-election of Lukashenko this year, Belarus is once again seeing widespread protests, with calls for his resignation amid accusations of a rigged vote.

Over the past month riot police have detained thousands of protesters who have allegedly been tortured and abused in custody, prompting international condemnation and proposed EU sanctions.

- US 'historic trauma' -

Human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh was in turn selected "for her fearless activism, at great personal risk, to promote political freedoms and human rights in Iran."

Sotoudeh, who is currently serving a 12-year sentence after she defended women arrested for protesting compulsory hijab laws, rose to prominence when she represented dissidents arrested during mass protests in 2009 against the disputed re-election of the ultra-conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

US civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson was honoured "for his inspiring endeavour to reform the US criminal justice system and advance racial reconciliation in the face of historic trauma."

The death of George Floyd in police custody in the US state of Minnesota in May triggered nationwide protests that have drawn the world's attention to the disproportionate number of black people killed and jailed in the US criminal justice system.

The fourth laureate, Lottie Cunningham Wren, was highlighted "for her ceaseless dedication to the protection of indigenous lands and communities from exploitation and plunder."

The Right Livelihood Award was created in 1980 by Swedish-German philatelist Jakob von Uexkull after the Nobel Foundation behind the Nobel Prizes refused to create awards honouring efforts in the fields of the environment and international development.

The award consists of a cash prize of one million Swedish kronor ($111,000 or 95,000 euro) for each laureate, meant to support the recipient's work.

jll/lc

The coming American crisis
by KAREN TREVERTON
and GREGORY TREVERTON

As the election nears, America’s democracy faces its gravest crisis since the Civil War. But it doesn’t have to be that way. There is still time, time for bravery by those who have so far shown so little.

Sadly, the looming crisis is predictable. Indeed, Trump has hardly been subtle about what he intends. He will continue to label the election a fraud, and continue to act to make it so. He will do everything he can to discredit mailed ballots, continue to welcome Russian and other efforts to sow division and, especially, suppress voting by the Latinx community and by people of colour.

Come election day, Trump’s thugs — if not US troops — will turn up at the polls, less to watch than to intimidate. He will encourage sympathetic, gerrymandered legislatures in battleground states to nullify the vote and bind the state’s electors to vote for Trump. If Trump is leading on election night, he will proclaim victory, and declare that no more mail-in ballots need be counted.

After weeks of turmoil — and very likely, considerable violence — the issues will get to the Supreme Court, where Trump has already said he expects it to go. Trump will have already appointed another lickspittle as Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s successor, so he will be declared the victor.

This sounds like a repeat of 2000, albeit with additional violence. But it isn’t. Then, the nation was lucky to have Al Gore, who committed one of the most gracious acts in the history of the Republic by accepting what was plainly an ill-begotten decision. Then, too, Democrats still retained some respect for the Court, but now they can and will have none, for it has become Trump’s playpen. The crisis will be on us.

Our President will go down in history for the number of lies he’s spewed and conspiracy theories he has advanced. So, really, we have no reason to believe anything he says. But when the President of the United States asserts the urgency in appointing a replacement for Justice Ginsburg in order to have a full court to determine the results of an election that hasn’t even happened yet, we should believe him. But not for the obvious political ploy that he’s undertaking.

Put the politics of the Court aside for a moment. The question we should be asking is why there is a presumption that any Court involvement will be necessary to determine this election. That is the dystopian view we should be addressing. In 2000, the election never should have gone to the Court in the first place.

Trump has spent months fomenting the idea that voter fraud through mail-in-ballots will be rampant, and will therefore necessitate a legal challenge. He has set the stage, as is his way. And the sheep that are his Administration — those seemingly principled, professional men and women who have degenerated into the president’s lackeys — enable his loathsome, fearmongering.

Do not be reassured by the non-binding resolution that passed by unanimous consent in the Senate last Thursday, reaffirming its spirit for a peaceful transition of power. It’s about as believable, and enforceable as the rest of the hypocritical affirmations bestowed by the Republican leadership in the past several years.

Tony Schwartz, co-author with Trump of The Art of The Deal, wrote about Trump: “His obsession with domination and power have prompted Trump to tell lies more promiscuously than ever since he became president, and to engage in ever more unfounded and aggressive responses aimed at anyone he perceives stands in his way… Understanding what we’re truly up against — the reign of terror that Trump will almost surely wage the moment he believes he can completely prevail — makes the upcoming presidential election a true Armageddon.”

It is time to be wise, America. It is time to rise to the occasion. We are being led by a madman who is out of control. And he has surrounded himself with aiders and abetters like DeJoy, Barr, and McConnell.

At this point, it is time to hear a response to the open letter written on August 11 to General Mark Milley, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from fellow soldiers, John Nagl and Paul Yingling. They contend that given Trump’s undermining confidence in elections, his probable defeat at the polls, legal charges he will face in Manhattan District Court, and the private army he has assembled “capable of thwarting not only the will of the electorate but also the capacities of ordinary law enforcement,” it will be up to the US military to uphold the Constitution, to which they’ve sworn an oath. They write, “Should you remain silent, you will be complicit in a coup d’etat.”

We’re waiting.

Heather Heyer's mother says she wasn't surprised Trump refused to condemn white supremacy

By Christina Maxouris, CNN
1 hour ago


More than three years after her daughter, Heather Heyer, was killed in the Charlottesville rally, Susan Bro says she gasped when President Donald Trump refused to denounce white supremacy during the debate

.

© CNN Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer, appears as a guest on AC360 on September 29, 2020.

And then she returned back to work.

"I thought, well, OK, not surprised," she told CNN's Anderson Cooper Wednesday night. "This is not exactly new news."

The President has faced stark criticism since Tuesday's debate when he referenced the far-right group the Proud Boys and told them to "stand back and stand by," adding "somebody has to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem, this is a left-wing problem."

But according to Kathleen Belew, an assistant professor of history at the University of Chicago, that's not exactly the case.

Extremist groups remain a threat

In the past 25 years, hundreds in the US have lost their lives in domestic terrorist attacks, Belew told CNN. And the number of victims from those attacks, she added, "far outstrips the threat posed by the radical left."

"Those groups have waged violence on Americans countless times," she said. "The record, the casualty count is overwhelming."

Last year, the FBI director said white supremacy presents a "persistent" and "pervasive" threat to the US.

But this wasn't the first time Trump refused to denounce members of hate groups, including white supremacists. When Bro's daughter was killed during a 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, Trump said there were "some very fine people on both sides."

But Bro says unlike her daughter, victims of white supremacy who are people of color are often lost in the conversation.

"Unfortunately, that's why people are refusing to step up and act," she added. "Everybody get up and get busy."

A moment not just about the Proud Boys

Members of the Proud Boys have celebrated the President's comments this week, often with memes and other posts on social media. But Belew says Trump's words were seen as a green light by more than just that one group.

"I think it would be a mistake to think about this as a problem that is only about the Proud Boys," she said. "Certainly the Proud Boys are galvanizing this moment for their own purposes ... but this is about a broader situation."

That broader situation, she says, is the larger social movement of extremist groups including "people who are involved in paramilitary underground activity," she said, who also heard the same comments.

"All of those people have been called to stand by," she said. "That's not the same thing as stand down and the results, I think, could be catastrophic."

The End of Climate Change Denial Is the Start of Something Much Worse

Brian Kahn
Yesterday 11:48AM

 Saul Loeb/AFP (Getty Images)

Last night’s presidential debate was an abomination by just about any standard. The sitting president told white supremacists to “stand by,” took no responsibility for the deaths of more than 200,000 Americans killed by covid-19, refused to back a peaceful transfer of power, and generally lied with reckless abandon while moderator Chris Wallace essentially took a nap in the green room for most of it then laughed off the whole proceeding at the end.

As a climate reporter, the one “bright” spot was actually hearing Wallace wake from his slumber to ask a series of climate questions in the waning minutes of the debate. It broke 12 years of climate silence at presidential debates (and proved Chris Wallace clearly reads Earther). I have quibbles with the questions themselves, but President Donald Trump’s responses, in particular, showed that outright climate denial is basically done for, at least at the policymaking level. The only problem is, the toxic stew replacing it is much, much worse.

Without outright denial of human-caused climate change to lean on, Trump and the rest of the far-right are reverting to anti-democratic, potentially violent tactics to maintain their hold on power despite the mutual destruction their goals will mean for us all.

Wallace’s first question to Trump on climate was about his beliefs. In 2018, I said they were no longer worth asking him about because his brain makes lace look like a wall of steel. The incoherence was present again, but this time Trump copped to greenhouse gas emissions “to an extent” causing the climate crisis. (They are the primary cause.) He then segued to talking about California and also needing “better management of our forest” while implying climate change played a role in the state’s devastating wildfires. The section of the debate discussing science was also basically the only time during the 90 minutes of hell that Trump actually shut up—and he even hedged in favor of electric cars!

It shows that the flat out climate denial that dominated conservative politics for most of this century has lost its grip. The reasons are simple: Looking at the state of the world in 2020, it is impossible to deny what’s happening right outside our windows. Raging fires, wild hurricanes, intense rainstorms, coastal cities flooding under sunny skies due to rising seas.

But what’s replacing denial is a darker evolution of conservatism in a climate-constrained era. Trump has, first and foremost, served industries actively making climate change worse by deregulating everything from power plants to cars to endangered species and water protections. That will accelerate the crisis that Trump begrudgingly acknowledged. But you can’t acknowledge a crisis then defend policies that clearly make it worse.

Sure, he hand waved about the Green New Deal (which Democratic nominee Joe Biden does not support, though his climate plan incorporates some of its elements), lied about the cost of addressing climate change, and said: “they want to take out the cows.” They’re predictable, tired-ass Republican talking points stuff. All that is bad and unforgivable given that repeating these talking points is designed to delay climate policy that will, in turn, conscript millions around the world to suffering, displacement, and death. But it’s the policies and tactics Trump said outside the climate portion of the debate that will have a truly chilling impact on our ability to slow Earth’s warming.

First up is the foundation of democracy itself: voting. Trump’s refusal to accept losing the election and wild lies about voter fraud are part of a greater Republican push to disenfranchise voters. The goal is to keep as many Americans from voting as possible. And for those who can cast a ballot, Republicans are looking to invalidate them. It’s a way of maintaining minority rule, with a president who lost the popular vote and a Senate that Republican control despite representing 15 million fewer Americans. That perversion of democracy is step one to ensuring climate policy remains a pipe dream, despite a majority of Americans actually wanting the government to address the crisis.

Likewise, Trump’s race to appoint Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett—who he said during the debates was “good in every way” despite much evidence to the contrary—will ensure the court represents business interests for decades to come. Even if Democrats win the White House and Senate, hold the House, and pass meaningful climate legislation (dare to dream, right?), any challenge to it would appear before a court that has six conservatives that could shoot down any new laws—not to mention regulations put forward by executive order. A court with Coney Barrett—whose entire judicial philosophy justifies reversing precedents—could even overturn previous rulings, including a landmark case that allows the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gases.

The most putrid part of the debate, though, was Trump’s call to the Proud Boys, a far-right hate group, to “stand back and stand by.” That poses an immediate threat as the election approaches where the Republican approach is disenfranchisement by any means necessary. In the context of the climate crisis, it could lead to violent outcomes targeting the most vulnerable among us.

In recent years, the rise of ecofascism has also put a new twist on a hateful ideology. It left a horrific imprint on El Paso last year, when a gunman killed 22 people. He wrote a manifesto decrying corporate pollution and arguing the U.S. needed to “get rid of enough people” as justification for cold-blooded murder.

Just this month, we’ve also seen the far-right embrace wildfire conspiracy theories as a way to test boundaries and usurp power in Oregon. While it’s not textbook ecofascism, it’s a sign of the growing ways the far-right is using the climate crisis—which Republican policies are making worse—to further its goals of white supremacy.

The coming decades will be a time of great upheaval. Activists will be in the streets clamoring for just policies that meet the moment to deal with climate change and the intertwined issues of racism and inequality at the same time as Republicans are courting violent forces to repress the popular will. Climate denial was a form of slow violence. Now, Trump and Republicans appear to be embracing an accelerationist view while propping up polluters at all costs.

Brian Kahn
Managing editor, Earther

Cheops Finds a World That’s Utterly Alien From Anything We Have in the Solar System


POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 30, 2020 BY EVAN GOUGH


The ESA’s CHEOPS (Characterizing Exoplanets Satellite) mission has announced its first discovery. It’s called WASP-189 b, and it’s a blistering hot temperature of 3,200 °C (5,790 °F), hotter than some stars. They’re calling the planet an “ultra-hot Jupiter.”

CHEOPS’ job is not to find exoplanets, but to find out more about exoplanets discovered by other missions like Kepler and TESS. CHEOPS is designed to examine known exoplanets orbiting bright, nearby stars. The goal is to determine the size of these planets, which will lead to a better understanding of their mass, composition, density, and formation. The mission was launched in December 2019, with a planned duration of 3.5 years.

“Cheops has a unique ‘follow-up’ role to play in studying such exoplanets.”Kate Isaak, Cheops project scientist at ESA.

The discovered details of WASP-189 b were announced in a new paper titled “The hot dayside and asymmetric transit of WASP-189 b seen by CHEOPS.” Lead author is Monika Lendl, of the University of Geneva. The paper is published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

CHEOPS’ power comes from its ultra-precise measurements of light as exoplanets orbit their stars. It features a cooled CCD inside the focal plane of the 32 cm (12.6 inch) Ritchey-Chretien telescope at the heart of the spacecraft. It’s especially efficient when looking at exoplanets in the super-Earth to Neptune mass range. (About 1 to 6 Earth radii.)

As an ultra-hot Jupiter, WASP-189 b is similar to our own Solar System’s gas giant, except that it orbits its star at a very close distance. The exoplanet is orbiting its star 20 times closer than Earth is orbiting the Sun. This heats the planet to such extreme temperatures.

<Click to enlarge.> This graphic shows some of the key facts about WASP 189 b as determined by the ESA’s CHEOPS mission. Image Credit: ESA

“Only a handful of planets are known to exist around stars this hot, and this system is by far the brightest,” said lead author Lendl in a press release. “WASP-189b is also the brightest hot Jupiter that we can observe as it passes in front of or behind its star, making the whole system really intriguing.”


The planet is so bright that its light can still be seen, even when occulted by its star. “As the planet is so bright, there is actually a noticeable dip in the light we see coming from the system as it briefly slips out of view,” explained Lendl. “We used this to measure the planet’s brightness and constrain its temperature to a scorching 3200 degrees C.”

This figure from the study shows the CHEOPS observed light curve from four occultations by its host star. Each grey dot is a data point, the black dots are the data binned into 20 minute intervals, and the red line represents the final occultation model arrived at by the researchers. (See the study for a more detailed explanation.) Image Credit: Lendl et al, 2020.

This extreme planet is nothing like our own Solar System, though in the past Jupiter was likely much closer to the Sun than it is now. The grand tack hypothesis says that Jupiter migrated as close as 1.5 AU from the Sun. But even though that’s a lot closer than Jupiter’s current 5.2 AU orbit, it’s nowhere near as close as WASP-189 b is to its host star.

The planet is so hot that it’s impossible to really imagine. It’s hot enough not only to melt iron, but to turn it into a gas. So unless some organism has figured out how to breathe iron, there’s no chance of habitability on something so hot.


After watching the planet as it passed behind its star, CHEOPS watched as the two traded places, and WASP-189 b transited in front of its host star. Exoplanet transits are a rich source of information. The team of researchers learned a lot about the shape, the size, and the orbital characteristics of the planet during its transit. They learned that WASP-189 b is actually larger than thought: its radius is almost 1.6 times greater than Jupiter’s.

<Click to enlarge.> This figure shows both light curves observed by CHEOPS: during the occultation, and during the transit. Image Credit: ESA

But it’s not just the unusual characteristics of the planet that’s generating interest. The host star itself is also unusual.


“It’s spinning around so fast that it’s being pulled outwards at its equator!”Lead Author Monika Lendl

“We also saw that the star itself is interesting – it’s not perfectly round, but larger and cooler at its equator than at the poles, making the poles of the star appear brighter,” said Lendl. “It’s spinning around so fast that it’s being pulled outwards at its equator! Adding to this asymmetry is the fact that WASP-189 b’s orbit is inclined; it doesn’t travel around the equator, but passes close to the star’s poles.”


That tilted orbit hints at a chaotic past, just as Uranus’ does in our own Solar System. Uranus is tilted sideways compared to other planets, and that’s probably the result of an ancient collision with another protoplanet in the early, formative years of the Solar System.

There’s no certainty around what might have caused WASP-189 b’s orbital inclination, but it’s part of the mystery surrounding the formation of hot and ultra-hot Jupiters.

“As we measured such a tilt with Cheops, this suggests that WASP-189 b has undergone such interactions in the past,” added lead author Lendl, referencing how planets jostle for position in a young solar system, or how interactions with other stars could cause planets to tilt.

Artist’s impression of CHEOPS © ESA / ATG medialab

Astronomers are rightly excited about this first result from CHEOPS. There are so many questions about exoplanets, and planetary scientists are pursuing multiple, fruitful lines of inquiry into exoplanets. “This first result from Cheops is hugely exciting: it is early definitive evidence that the mission is living up to its promise in terms of precision and performance,” said Kate Isaak, Cheops project scientist at ESA.

In their paper, the authors are also similarly complimentary to the spacecraft’s power and precision. “These observations showcase the capability of CHEOPS to detect shallow signals with an extremely high level of precision, thereby illustrating the potential of future studies of exoplanet atmospheres with CHEOPS.”

The catalogue of exoplanets keeps growing; we know of thousands of them now, and there’s no reason to believe we won’t keep finding them around most stars. While TESS is still operating and scientists are finding more planets in its data, it’s up to CHEOPS to tell us more about those planets.


“Cheops has a unique ‘follow-up’ role to play in studying such exoplanets,” added Isaak. “It will search for transits of planets that have been discovered from the ground, and, where possible, will more precisely measure the sizes of planets already known to transit their host stars. By tracking exoplanets on their orbits with Cheops, we can make a first-step characterisation of their atmospheres and determine the presence and properties of any clouds present.”

“For the most favourable objects, CHEOPS will conduct phase curve observations, revealing the longitudinal cloud distribution in the planets’ atmosphere,” the study says. CHEOPS also has the mission flexibility to examine exoplanets across a wide swathe of the sky, meaning it can spend its time on the most promising exoplanets. This separates it from a planet-hunting mission like Kepler, which remained focused on one patch of sky, looking for evidence of planetary transits.

The CHEOPS mission is the first of three missions that the ESA is planning to advance our understanding of exoplanets. The other two are PLATO (PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars) and ARIEL (Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey.) Those missions are a few years away, but they hold a great deal of promise. For the moment, it’s up to CHEOPS.


“Cheops will not only deepen our understanding of exoplanets,” said Isaak, “but also that of our own planet, Solar System, and the wider cosmic environment.”
More:

Press Release: First results from Cheops: ESA’s exoplanet observer reveals extreme alien world

New Research: The hot dayside and asymmetric transit of WASP-189 b seen by CHEOPS

Universe Today: Here are the First Pictures from CHEOPS

EMERGENT TECH

What price your home delivery? Amazon accused of hiding real injury rate in its overworked warehouses

Internal docs tell a different story to public pronouncements

Wed 30 Sep 2020 // 23:40 UTC

Kieren McCarthy in San Francisco 

Amazon has apparently been misleading the public over the number of injuries that happen in its warehouses, with the e-commerce giant actually suffering nearly double the typical injury rate, according to leaked documents.

Despite years of complaints over how the company’s constant efforts to speed up the turnaround of packages has led to dangerous work practices that show in greater number of workers injured, Amazon has always insisted that it goes to great lengths to keep injuries down.

However confidential documents acquired by Reveal for The Center for Investigative Reporting tell a different story: Amazon has double the industry average when it comes to serious injuries – defined as requiring a worker to take a day off or restrict their activities and those injuries are increasing each year.

Those findings fit with what Amazon employees told The Register when we spoke to a number of them across the United States earlier this month, when they reported that a drive to fit aggressive turnaround times for packages was leading to corners being cut, injuries being dismissed, and as a result a higher level of injuries.

Injuries in any warehouse are an unfortunate part of the job given the constant movement of large numbers of heavy items, but whereas the US industry average is around 4 serious injuries per 100 employees, Reveal notes that Amazon has an overall rate of 7.7, with several warehouses reporting extremely high levels of injuries: the DuPont warehouse an hour south of Amazon’s headquarters in Seattle, for example, reported 22 injuries per 100 workers.

The Reveal article identifies several factors for the higher rate of injuries at Amazon warehouses. They include the fact that new packing robots have put pressure on human workers to work faster while at the same timeforcing more repetitive tasks, which tend to strain specific muscles; and the rush that comes with the Prime Day and Cyber Monday events during which workers are pushed to deal with the larger throughput in the same timeframe.

There's more

However in our conversations with workers, they identified other factors, including that workers were encouraged – and sometimes pressured – to continue working after an incident in order to keep up with prescribed work rates or risk being fired.

Workers also reported safety rules being changed – such as the number of pallets that could be safety stacked and transported on top of one another – and pressure on staff to stay on task, resulting in them not asking for additional help with heavy items, as contributing to a larger number of injuries that they have experienced in other warehouses.

For its part, Amazon has always pointed out the amount of time and money it has invested in safety and its CEO Jeff Bezos insisting that “nothing is more important than the health and well-being of our employees.”

As Amazon pulls union-buster job ads, workers describe a 'Mad Max' atmosphere – unsafe, bullying, abusive

READ MORE

Reveal reveals that in response to Congressional inquiries about the injury rate, Amazon’s vice president of public policy Brian Huseman noted that its 2019 holiday peak had seen a lower injury rate than the same time the previous year – something that was technically true, but he failed to note that the injury had actually increased across the whole of 2019.

In fact, Amazon did what it always does to drive change: it introduced another target and connected it to data, the documents reveal. They pushed for a 20 per cent decrease in the injury rate in 2018 – but the rate went up. In 2019 they reduced the required decrease to 5 per cent – but the injury rate went up again.

“Our investments in safety training and education programs, in technology and new safety infrastructure are working,” was a carefully worded Amazon statement. The changes were working in the sense that they had been implemented and were being used but not in the far more important context of the actual number of injuries.

And now COVID

That is not the only issue where Amazon is using careful statements to deflect concern while refusing to provide the actual data that shows what is really going on.

The issue of COVID-19 transmission in warehouses – especially given the close proximity of workers – has been a significant one for Amazon and the company has repeatedly outlined the protocols and efforts it goes to in order to limit the spread.

However, Amazon workers that we spoke to said that many of those rules were being persistently violated and ignored. As one example, drivers are required to say their temperature has been taken before the start of every shift but in reality, in part due to the need to hit delivery targets and the time it takes to be tested, drivers are simply tapping on their Amazon-supplied devices to say they have been tested and driving off.

Social distancing rules are also ignored, we were told, and the company did not always pay workers that stayed at home over COVID-19 fears, pushing them to come into work in order to make enough money for rent and food.

Workers are supposed to wipe down their equipment at the end of their shift, according to Amazon policies, but the company did not account for the time to do that while still insisting that they hit required work rates and do not go over acceptable “time off task” (TOT) rates.

Amazon automatically identifies the lowest 5 per cent of workers according to their work rates, regardless of how well the warehouse does overall, and writes them up. Too many write-ups or too much “time off task” and workers are fired, resulting in what employees told us was “the most dog-eat-dog environment I've ever seen in nearly 40 years in the workforce.”

Reports of COVID-19 virus infections were also delivered far too late to be useful, workers told us, sometimes as much as two weeks after the fact.

OSHITA

Amazon’s problem of coronavirus break-outs at warehouses was covered in a separate investigation published today by NBC, which reported that “Amazon’s lack of transparency, combined with the lack of federal protections for US workers who contract infectious diseases in the workplace, make it almost impossible to track the spread of COVID-19 at one of America’s largest employers during a coronavirus-led boom in online retail.”

The truth is that it’s impossible to know the size of the problem of how effective measures are because federal authorities are doing a poor job of getting the data or investigating themselves.

The organization that is supposed to key an eye on worker safety – the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) – is failing to do its job, complain health experts. OSHA requires companies to report illnesses and injuries but companies have been shown to constantly under-report the true figures.

We asked Amazon for any comment on the reports, its high injury rate and concerns over COVID-19 virus spread at its warehouses. We will update this article with any responses. ®

Celebs back away from Trump admin.’s $300M COVID-19 ad campaign

Funding for the public-awareness campaign came out of the CDC's budget.

BETH MOLE - 9/30/2

Former Trump campaign official Michael Caputo arrives at the Hart Senate Office building to be interviewed by Senate Intelligence Committee staffers on May 1, 2018 in Washington, DC. Mark Wilson / Getty Images

The Trump administration's more-than-$300-million "public advertising and awareness campaign" on the COVID-19 pandemic is floundering as A-list celebrities back away and staff at the Department of Health and Human Services express opposition, according to reporting by Politico.

The campaign—organized by former Trump campaign official Michael Caputo—was intended to "defeat despair" and bolster confidence in the Trump administration's response to the pandemic. A central feature of the campaign would be video interviews between celebrities and administration officials, who would discuss the pandemic and the federal response.

To pull it off, Caputo and his team requisitioned $300 million that Congress had previously budgeted for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They also made a list of more than 30 big-name celebrities that they hoped to appear in the Health Department's videos, including Taylor Swift, Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Billy Joel, Britney Spears, Bruno Mars, Bon Jovi, and Madonna.

But the project has been plagued by missteps from an inexperienced team, disorganization, and tepid celebrity interest. So far, it has only managed to recruit Dennis Quaid, CeCe Winans, and Hasidic singer Shulem Lemmer. Quaid dropped out of the campaign this week.

The campaign was further thrown into question earlier this month when Caputo—whom Trump appointed as spokesperson for the HHS—announced a leave of absence.

Meanwhile, many current and former staff at the HHS are against the campaign, which many see as a public-relations bid to help Trump's reelection.

FURTHER READINGAfter ranting about armed uprising, top Health Dept. spokesperson takes leaveJosh Peck, a former HHS official who oversaw the Obama administration's advertising campaign for HealthCare.gov, noted to Politico earlier that: "CDC hasn't yet done an awareness campaign about Covid guidelines—but they are going to pay for a campaign about how to get rid of our despair? Run by political appointees in the press shop? Right before an election?"

"It's like every red flag I could dream of," he added.

Others expressed frustration that the campaign was not relying on expertise within the HHS. Instead, the campaign contracted with a video firm run by a former business partner of Caputo. The firm has struggled to meet deadlines and retain staff, people involved with the campaign told Politico.

Still others at the HHS were upset that funds were being spent on a video campaign about the pandemic response rather than the pandemic response itself.

"This is a boondoggle," an HHS official who requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive department project, told Politico. "We're in the middle of a pandemic... we could use that quarter of a billion dollars on buying PPE [personal protective equipment], not promoting PSAs with C-list celebrities."

Trump ensures first presidential debate is national humiliationThe Guardian

 Neanderthal genes linked with severe COVID-19

A group of genes passed down from extinct human cousins is linked with a higher risk for severe COVID-19, researchers say. When they compared the genetic profiles of about 3,200 hospitalized COVID-19 patients and nearly 900,000 people from the general population, they found that a cluster of genes on chromosome 3 inherited from Neanderthals who lived more than 50,000 years ago is linked with 60% higher odds of needing hospitalization. People with COVID-19 who inherited this gene cluster are also more likely to need artificial breathing assistance, coauthor Hugo Zeberg of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology said in a news release. The prevalence of these genes varies widely, according to a report published on Wednesday in Nature. In South Asia, roughly 30% of people have them, compared to roughly one in six Europeans. They are almost non-existent in Africa and East Asia. While the study cannot explain why these particular genes confer a higher risk, the authors conclude, "with respect to the current pandemic, it is clear that gene flow from Neanderthals has tragic consequences." (go.nature.com/36lHwnC)

Top U.S. airlines starting 32,000 furloughs as bailout hopes fade


By Tracy Rucinski, David Shepardson


CHICAGO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American Airlines and United Airlines, two of the largest U.S. carriers, said they were beginning furloughs of over 32,000 workers on Thursday as hopes faded for a last-minute bailout from Washington.

Both airlines told employees, however, in memos seen by Reuters on Wednesday that they stood ready to reverse the furloughs, which affect about 13% of their workforces before the pandemic, if a deal was reached.

Tens of thousands of other employees at those airlines and others including Delta Air Lines and Southwest Airlines have accepted buyouts or leaves of absence aimed at reducing headcount as carriers battle a health crisis that has upended the global travel industry.

U.S. airlines have been pleading for another $25 billion in payroll support to protect jobs for a further six months once the current package, which banned furloughs, expires at midnight EDT.

Earlier, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said talks with House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi had made progress on a bipartisan aid plan, although no deal was reached and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called a $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief proposal “outlandish.”

In a memo to employees, American Chief Executive Doug Parker said Mnuchin told him that he and Pelosi were continuing to negotiate on a bipartisan COVID-19 relief package that would include an extension of aid for airlines and could reach an agreement in coming days.


“Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that any of these efforts will come to fruition,” Parker said.

American will furlough 19,000 employees, including some 1,600 pilots. More than 13,000 United employees will be on furlough, but not any pilots following an agreement reached this week.

“Tomorrow, tens of thousands of essential aviation workers will wake up without a job or healthcare and tens of thousands more will be without a paycheck,” Association of Flight Attendants-CWA President Sara Nelson said in a statement that urged lawmakers to reach a deal.

Nick Calio, who heads the airline trade group Airlines for America, said earlier that the industry was still pursuing all potential avenues for new assistance as time runs short.

“People keep talking, but we need results,” Calio told Reuters. “We are hopeful but not confident about them reaching a deal on a larger bill.”


U.S. airline shares ended flat on Wednesday.

Weeks of intense airline lobbying has won over many but not all Washington lawmakers, while drawing attention to the plight of other pandemic-hit industries as the crisis persists.

U.S. airlines are operating about half their 2019 flying schedules and suffering a 68% decline in passenger volumes.

The impact of the coronavirus on travel may cost as many as 46 million jobs globally, according to projections published on Wednesday by the Air Transport Action Group.

Airlines have argued they need trained employees to help drive an economic recovery as the pandemic subsides. American Airlines’ Parker told CNN he believed one more round of aid would be sufficient.


Reporting by Tracy Rucinski and David Shepardson; Editing by Peter Henderson and Peter Cooney