Factbox: Who is Agnes Chow, the Hong Kong activist jailed over a 2019 protest?

By Reuters Staff

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Agnes Chow, 23, a prominent Hong Kong democracy activist, was jailed on Wednesday for 10 months on charges related to unlawful assembly near the city’s police headquarters during last year’s anti-government protests.

WHO IS AGNES CHOW?

Chow, along with prominent activists Joshua Wong and Nathan Law, founded the now-disbanded democracy group Demosisto in 2016. The party was dissolved hours after Beijing passed a contentious national security law for the city on June 30 amid fears it could be targeted under the legislation. Chow was most recently arrested in August under the new security legislation on suspicion of “colluding with foreign forces,” a charge that carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

POLITICS:

Chow, who has a strong youth following, became active in politics in the former British colony at the age of 15 and played a leading role in pro-democracy protests in 2014 that paralysed parts of the city for 79 days. The so-called Umbrella movement protests were aimed at securing universal suffrage for the former British colony. They were largely peaceful, but not successful. In 2018, she was banned from running in a Legislative Council by-election under rules to curb independence advocacy. Chow said at the time: “Hong Kong Demosisto has never had a pro-independence stance but we believe Hong Kong people have the right to self-determination on the future of Hong Kong.” Chow also featured prominently in the anti-government protests last year, alongside Wong and Law, who is now in exile in Britain.

OVERSEAS LOBBYING:

Fluent in Japanese, Chow has a sizable following in Japan, particularly on social media and had travelled to the country frequently before her arrest. Chow often tweeted in Japanese and has been dubbed the “goddess of democracy” by Japan’s media. Under the national security law, Beijing punishes what it broadly defines as sedition, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in jail. Her YouTube channel has 325,000 subscribers.

Google violated U.S. labor laws in clampdown on worker organizing, regulator says

By Paresh Dave




OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - The National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint on Wednesday accusing Alphabet Inc’s Google of unlawfully monitoring and questioning several workers who were then fired for protesting against company policies and trying to organize a union.

The U.S. labor regulator found Google unlawfully placed employees on administrative leave and terminated them for accessing documents related to how the company polices internal forums, according to the complaint. The agency also found unlawful Google policies for accessing documents and meetings rooms as well as its tactics for investigating employees because all of the efforts were aimed at deterring workplace organizing, the complaint said.

Google said it was confident it acted legally.

“Google has always worked to support a culture of internal discussion, and we place immense trust in our employees,” it said. “Actions undertaken by the employees at issue were a serious violation of our policies and an unacceptable breach of a trusted responsibility.”

Google said the workers breached information security rules.

Their firings capped two years of battling between Google and its workforce, particularly in the United States. At issue is how much input the rank and file has on which projects the company takes on and how it handles sexual misconduct and other workplace matters.

At least five people fired after leading efforts to rally colleagues partnered with the Communications Workers of America union to petition the NLRB to challenge Google.


One of the fired workers, Laurence Berland, described Wednesday’s complaint as significant “at a time when we’re seeing the power of a handful of tech billionaires consolidate control over our lives and our society.”

The NLRB did not include in its complaint several other allegations sought by the workers, who said they would appeal.

Google has until Dec. 16 to formally respond to the NLRB. The case, which could lead to reinstatement of fired workers and changes in company policies, is scheduled to be tried in front of an administrative law judge on April 12.


Reporting by Paresh Dave in Oakland, California; Editing by Tom Brown and Grant McCool

The U.S. has spent billions stockpiling ventilators, but many won’t save critically ill COVID-19 patients

By Tom Bergin

(Reuters) - With the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across its shores earlier this year, the U.S. government in April announced orders for almost $3 billion of ventilators for a national stockpile, meant to save Americans suffering from severe respiratory problems brought on by the disease.



FILE PHOTO: A ventilator of Hamilton Medical AG is transported on a conveyor at a plant in Domat/Ems, Switzerland March 18, 2020. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo

But of the 140,000 machines added since then by the government to the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile, almost half were basic breathing devices that don’t meet what medical specialists say are the minimum requirements for ventilators needed to treat Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, the main cause of death among COVID-19 patients, according to a Reuters review of publicly-available device specifications and interviews with doctors and industry executives.

Only about 10% are full intensive care unit (ICU) ventilators of a type that doctors and ventilator specialists say they would normally use to intubate patients suffering from Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome or ARDS, the Reuters review found. The remainder - or about 40% - are transport ventilators normally employed for shorter periods but are considered sophisticated enough to be used long enough for ARDS patients to recover.

A September study by 22 ventilator specialists published in the official journal of the American College of Chest Physicians found half the models added to the stockpile were not suitable for treating ARDS.

The Reuters analysis is the first to examine the numbers of machines and their ability to save lives, according to those familiar with their use and published standards, and to tally the purchase cost to American taxpayers. The analysis is based on publicly-disclosed order details along with peer-reviewed studies about what types of ventilators are suitable for treating ARDS, interviews with medical specialists and World Health Organization guidance.

Many of the machines don’t meet the requirements of ARDS patients and their presence in the stockpile gives “a false sense of security,” Sajid Manzoor, director of adult respiratory therapy at The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. “The COVID patients are so sick when they have ARDS. For the patients’ benefit we really need to stick with the full ICU ventilators,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is responsible for making purchases for the national stockpile, said that an interagency task force on ventilators made recommendations on which models and quantities to procure in March, a time of “extreme projections for respiratory care needs.”


With little known about COVID-19 at the time, the HHS “was preparing for the worst possible scenario,” the spokeswoman said. HHS declined to share the medical advice it relied upon in setting its minimum requirements or in selecting devices.

She added that the federal government has since adjusted its response as more clinical data has become available about the treatment of COVID-19. For instance, she said, the HHS is now procuring kits to provide alternatives to intubation, such as plastic tubes that deliver oxygen into the nose.

Today, the United States is engulfed in a deadly escalation of the virus with more than 1.1 million new infections last week. The country has reported more than 268,000 coronavirus-related deaths in total since the pandemic began.

There is currently no ventilator supply crisis in the United States as other treatments, including steroids, have reduced the need for intubation. HHS and manufacturers of the more basic devices said they can have a role in dealing with less acute cases of COVID.

But three respiratory specialists with ICU experience, and who have published papers on ventilator use, told Reuters that the government should have only added machines that could be used for dealing with ARDS. With limited resources, they said, the focus in the spring should have solely been on machines that could save the most critically ill -- and it was those types of machines that were in short supply at the time.

In a situation where the vast majority of patients in intensive care have serious respiratory issues, “you need complex ventilators to be able to support them,” said Dr Michael Christian, a London-based doctor who specializes in critical care medicine and an author of the September study.

The U.S. Strategic National Stockpile, the country’s largest store of medical supplies for use in a crisis, is intended to provide life-saving equipment in emergencies.

Respiratory care specialists – including HHS staff - have over the past decade said in congressional hearings and studies that the national stockpile should contain devices to help patients suffering from respiratory failure in the event of a flu-type pandemic.

Unlike full ICU ventilators, breathing devices that are designed as transport machines are meant to be used for short periods - typically hours – such as for getting critically-ill patients to ICU or treating non-critical breathing issues, rather than the weeks that COVID-19 patients can spend on a machine. As a result, the more basic versions frequently lack the lung-protecting features that would allow them to be used for more than hours, and experts say they have little chance of saving the lives of critically ill COVID-19 patients.

“MAY NOT HAVE BEEN IDEAL”

As COVID-19 swept through China and Europe early in the year, governments around the world scrambled to procure ventilators, mechanical devices that push carefully calibrated volumes of air and oxygen into the lungs via a tube in the windpipe. They are crucial for the care of people with respiratory failure, which is the primary killer of patients with COVID-19, the disease coronavirus causes.

In February, HHS Secretary Alex Azar said the U.S. stock of ventilators would not be sufficient to tackle a pandemic. Prior to the pandemic, the stockpile held some 14,000 machines, mostly sophisticated transport ventilators capable of dealing with severe respiratory distress.


In late March, President Donald Trump vowed the United States would make or otherwise procure 100,000 additional ventilators. Over the following weeks, the HHS announced a flurry of orders.

The HHS spokeswoman said there was a deliberate move to diversify the types of devices held in the stockpile to also include models designed for use in transport or temporary field hospitals in addition to those that meet requirements for use in ICUs.

“In the event that the infection curve could not be flattened, HHS was identifying and recommending procurement of as many respiratory care devices as available to meet the needs of healthcare facilities, even if those devices may not have been ideal,” she said.

Of the roughly 140,000 machines the stockpile had received by October, about 15,000 were ventilators that are specifically designed for use in intensive care units. Those machines cost on average about $21,600, according to HHS contract notices.

It also received some 58,000 machines that were designed for use while transporting critical patients to an ICU or within health facilities but also have some complex features such as pressure controls and the ability to vary oxygen levels that, according to medical specialists, could help COVID-19 patients suffering severe respiratory distress for days or potentially even weeks while they recover. The average cost of those kinds of machines added to the stockpile was about $16,800.

The government also spent about $450 million on roughly 66,000 units spanning four models that are designed for transporting critically ill patients for short periods and for providing care to patients with less acute respiratory problems. These devices, which are unlikely to save the lives of critically-ill COVID-19 patients, cost on average about $7,900 each.


None of the four models meet the minimum requirements for functionality for treating severely affected COVID-19 patients as identified by the World Health Organization (WHO) in guidance published in March, the Reuters analysis found.

Combat Medical, the maker of one of the models, said its device could help less acute COVID-19 patients. Manufacturers of the two other devices, Hill-Rom Holdings Inc’s and ResMed Inc, acknowledged that their devices did not meet all the WHO standards and also that their devices could help less acute COVID-19 patients.

“PUTS THE PATIENTS AT RISK”

A fourth model, made by a partnership between General Electric Co and Ford Motor Co., was the pNeuton. According to its specifications and experts familiar with the device, the pNeuton is not suitable for intubating severe COVID-19 patients with ARDS over a long period of time.

When California in July asked for 500 ventilators from the national stockpile, it received the pNeuton. But California, according to the state’s department of public health, needed more full-featured ventilators, prompting it to go back to the national stockpile. HHS then sent 500 ICU ventilators to the state, allowing California to also keep the pNeutons, both parties said.

Ford referred questions about the machine’s capabilities to General Electric, which declined to comment on whether it was suitable for treating COVID-19 patients with ARDS. According to a user manual for the pNeuton, it “has been specifically designed for patient support during transport and non-critical care unit mechanical ventilation.”

Richard Branson, a professor at the University of Cincinnati who has advised officials overseeing the national stockpile, said sending pNeutons when hospitals need ventilators that are suitable for intubating COVID-19 patients could have consequences.

“It’s a risk because if they get something they are not expecting and it isn’t capable of meeting the patients’ needs, then that puts the patients at risk,” he said. Without the right equipment at the right time, Branson said, “the patient won’t survive.”


Reporting by Tom Bergin; Editing by Tom Lasseter and Cassell Bryan-Low

Fact check: False article claims Barack Obama was ‘arrested for espionage’

By Reuters Staff

An article circulating on social media claims that President Barack Obama was arrested on Nov. 28 for espionage. This is false. The fabricated article includes segments of a press release by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Aug. 17, on the arrest of a former CIA officer.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during a drive-in campaign rally on behalf of Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden in Miami, Florida, U.S., November 2, 2020. REUTERS/Marco Bello

The article, visible here (archived version here ), was published on Nov. 28 by a site describing itself as a Canadian conservative news site ( here ), called The Conservative Beaver.

The first paragraph of the story says, “Barack Obama, a former President of the US, was arrested on Nov. 28, 2020, on a charge that he conspired with a business partner of his who also was a former CIA officer to communicate classified information up to the Top Secret level to intelligence officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).” “The Criminal Complaint containing the charge was unsealed this morning,” it adds.

The article claims “the announcement” of the purported arrest was made by U.S. officials, including Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers and U.S. Attorney for the District of Hawaii Kenji M. Price; it also includes their alleged statements.

A Google search of the statements in question brought up a DOJ press release here , about the detainment of Alexander Yuk Ching Ma, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who was arrested on Aug. 14. The release, however, makes no mention of Barack Obama.


It appears the first paragraph of the release was edited in the story by the Conservative Beaver to reference Obama and a recent date. The fake story also says Obama was charged on conspiring “with a business partner of his who also was a former CIA officer”, while the DOJ release refers to “a relative of his (Ma) who was also a former CIA officer”.

The article includes virtually the same statements by U.S. Attorney Price, Alan E. Kohler Jr., Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, Eli Miranda, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Honolulu Division.

Several media outlets reported on Ma’s arrest ( here , here , here , here ).

This fabricated article copied segments of a press release from the Department of Justice on the arrest of a former CIA official, not President Obama. Reuters found no credible news reports on the alleged arrest. An event of this kind would have widely been reported in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Reuters recently debunked the claim George Soros was arrested, also published by The Conservative Beaver ( here ). 

 
VERDICT

False. President Barack Obama was not arrested. This fabricated article copied segments of a press release from the Department of Justice on the arrest of a former CIA official.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work   here   .       

SUSPECT SALAD —
Poopy salad greens still plague public health
The CDC has 3 open investigations, and FDA announced 4 recalls this month.

BETH MOLE - 11/30/2020


With pandemic stress-eating colliding with holiday feasts last week, many of us may be eyeing some healthy salads in the coming days. But if there’s one constant we can rely upon in this year of upheaval—it’s the enduring possibility that our leafy greens may be laced with poopy bacteria.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently has three open investigations on Escherichia coli outbreaks—two directly linked to leafy greens and the other involving a bacterial strain that caused an outbreak in 2018 linked to romaine lettuce.

Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration had issued four separate safety alerts for recalled salad fixings this month. Three of the recalls involved romaine lettuce—a now notorious source of gut-busting bacteria—for potential E. coli contamination. Over the past weekend, the FDA added baby spinach to the list, another common culprit, for potential Salmonella contamination.

Only one of the recalls has been directly linked to an outbreak so far. On November 6, Tanimura & Antle Inc. voluntarily recalled its packaged single head romaine lettuce (labeled as being packed on Oct. 15 2020 or Oct. 16, 2020) over possible E. coli contamination. Routine lab testing in Michigan picked out a strain of E. coli in the soiled salad sample that was found to be sickening people. In all, 12 people across six states were infected with that particular strain, and five of the infected people were hospitalized. Of 11 people interviewed, all reported eating various types of leafy greens, including romaine lettuce (5), spinach (5), iceberg lettuce (3), and red leaf lettuce (3), the CDC notes.
Poopy possibilities

The agency noted a similar pattern in another E. coli outbreak investigation, which was last updated November 23. In this outbreak, 39 people have been sickened across 18 states, with 19 people ending up in the hospital. Of 22 ill people health investigators have been able to interview, all reported eating a variety of leafy greens, such as spinach (16), romaine lettuce (15), iceberg lettuce (12), and mixed bag lettuce (8). “No single type or brand of leafy greens or other food item has been identified as the source of this outbreak,” the CDC added.Advertisement


In the third E. coli outbreak investigation, researchers haven’t fingered leafy greens specifically. The outbreak, which began back in June, has sickened 21 people in eight states, with eight people needing hospitalization. One person has died. The CDC notes that the E. coli strain in this outbreak was also behind a massive multi-state outbreak back in 2018 linked to romaine lettuce. That outbreak sickened 210 people across 36 states, sending 96 people to the hospital. Five people died. The CDC cautioned that “food linked to a previous outbreak alone is not enough to prove a link in another outbreak of the same strain. This is because different foods can be contaminated by the same strain of bacteria.” The agency noted that “several” people sickened in the current outbreak seemed to all be infected at the same restaurant. Still, health investigators haven’t identified a specific food as the source of the outbreak.

In all the outbreak investigations, researchers have identified strains of E. coli O157:H7—that is otherwise harmless E. coli strains that carry disease-causing toxins that originated in Shigella dysenteriae bacteria (aka Shiga toxins). In infected people, Shiga toxins cause stomach cramps, vomiting, and diarrhea (often bloody). Some people develop low fevers. In serious cases, the toxins can cause a type of kidney failure called hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), which can lead to permanent organ damage and even death.

The poop of 100K cows may be to blame for that deadly romaine E. coli outbreak

The main source of these E. coli O157:H7 strains is the intestines of livestock, particularly cattle. They are often thought to make it to the leaves of salad greens via runoff from livestock farms and contaminated water sources used for crop irrigation. The massive outbreak in 2018, for instance, was linked to manure from a high-density cattle farm found contaminating canal water upstream of contaminated lettuce fields.


BETH MOLE Beth is Ars Technica’s health reporter. She’s interested in biomedical research, infectious disease, health policy and law, and has a Ph.D. in microbiology.EMAIL beth.mole@arstechnica.com // TWITTER @BethMarieMole

On This Day: Environmental Protection Agency formed
On Dec. 2, 1970, the Environmental Protection Agency was formed with Indianapolis lawyer William Ruckelshaus as its administrator.

By UPI Staff


Environmental Protection Agency Administrator William Ruckelshaus (L) meets with underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau on December 7, 1983. The EPA was formed December 2, 1970. File Photo by Don Rypka/UPI | License Photo

FCC DEADLOCK —

Senate rushes to confirm Trump FCC nominee in order to hinder Biden admin

Democrats fight nomination, hoping for 2-1 FCC majority when Biden is sworn in.

JON BRODKIN - 12/2/2020 ARS TECHNICA

Enlarge / Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) at an FCC oversight hearing held by the Senate Commerce Committee on June 24, 2020.
Getty Images | Washington Post

Senate Republicans are rushing to confirm President Donald Trump's nominee to the Federal Communications Commission in order to create a 2-2 deadlock for the Biden FCC.

In a 14-12 party-line vote today, the Senate Commerce Committee approved Trump's nomination of Nathan Simington. If Simington is confirmed by the full Senate, the FCC would be deadlocked at two Republicans and two Democrats after the upcoming departures of Chairman Ajit Pai and Michael O'Rielly. To get a 3-2 majority on the FCC, President-elect Joe Biden would have to nominate a Democrat after taking office and hope that the Senate confirms the nomination.

Senate Democrats said today that Simington is not qualified to be an FCC commissioner and that he misrepresented his work in the Trump administration during the committee's confirmation process.

"I will continue this fight on the Senate floor," Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said. "I will continue to do everything I can to hold this nomination and to oppose it because I think Mr. Simington lacks the qualifications and independence that are required of an FCC commissioner."

Approving Simington would create "a deadlock at the commission in the middle of a national crisis," Blumenthal also said. "Perhaps the telecommunications and media companies want that kind of deadlock. They may wish for an FCC that is absent and neutralized. But we face right now a national emergency, both a pandemic and economic crisis that requires this independent agency to be more active than ever in protecting consumers and our telecommunications. The fact is, Mr. Simington has failed to provide this committee with an assurance that he will have the candor and independence that is required."
Nominee backs Trump “assault on First Amendment”

No Republican senators offered any justification for confirming Simington at today's meeting, which covered three nominations, including Simington's, and lasted less than 15 minutes. Blumenthal and Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) pointed out that Simington was nominated only after Trump pulled the renomination of O'Rielly, who did not support Trump's attempted crackdown on Twitter and Facebook for alleged anti-conservative bias.Advertisement


"It would seem that Mr. Simington was nominated for just one purpose: to support the president's indefensible assault on the First Amendment," Blumenthal said. "It appears in fact to be his sole qualification—his reason for replacing Commissioner O'Rielly."

As Cantwell said, O'Rielly's "nomination was reportedly pulled as retaliation for Mr. O'Rielly speaking his mind about problems with the FCC trying to issue rules related to section 230 at the president's behest." The process "raises real questions about why the White House chose Mr. Simington, particularly given his lack of experience with the FCC, its statutory responsibilities, and many of the key issues at the agency," she said.

Simington is a senior adviser at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), which petitioned the FCC for a new interpretation of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to limit social media platforms' legal protections for hosting third-party content when platforms take down or modify content they consider objectionable. Simington played a role in drafting and promoting that plan.

Blumenthal said he asked Simington to recuse himself from the FCC's Section 230 proceeding, but Simington has not committed to do so.
Simington lobbied Fox News

Newly revealed emails showed that Simington "reached out to Fox News this summer in an attempt at 'engaging' host Laura Ingraham to support President Donald Trump's quest to make it easier to sue social media companies like Facebook and Twitter," Politico reported last week. "Simington... wrote that the popular Fox News host could help sway the FCC to act on Trump's proposal before Election Day."

Blumenthal and Cantwell said the emails proved that Simington downplayed his role in the Trump administration's Section 230 proposal. Simington reportedly claimed during his nomination hearing that he had only a "minor role" in the NTIA's petition to the FCC.

"We have learned he sought to enlist Fox News to 'help get the FCC on board more quickly and thereby ensure a freer and fair social media landscape going into the elections this fall,'" Blumenthal said today, quoting from Simington's email to a Fox News staffer. "He then described restraining social media companies as a concern both to the presidency and down ballot. He failed to disclose this to the committee, he failed to tell us about it, Mr. Chairman. So I asked Mr. Simington again and received a nonanswer."Advertisement

Nominee “misrepresented his involvement”

Blumenthal also said that Simington's answers to questions from both Democratic and Republican senators were "inadequate, incomplete, and evasive."

Cantwell said there are "real questions... about Mr. Simington's candor with the committee during this confirmation process. We now know based on his own emails that he misrepresented his involvement in pushing the FCC to do the president's bidding on Section 230."

"The FCC and NTIA simply cannot be permitted to be an instrument of political bullying," Blumenthal said. "It is an assault on the integrity and independence of the FCC, and this committee must take this threat seriously."

FCC nominations have in some cases been approved in pairs, with one Democrat and one Republican joining the commission simultaneously. That's what happened in August 2017 when Republican Brendan Carr and Democrat Jessica Rosenworcel were confirmed on the same day. Before that, Rosenworcel had to leave the commission for about seven months because the Republican-led Senate refused to reconfirm her, a move that gave Trump a 2-1 FCC majority when he took office.

"She had to leave the commission to ensure that President Trump could appoint an accompanying [Republican] FCC nominee, and we should hold this nomination as well," Blumenthal said.

“Zero qualifications”

The sole purpose of Simington's nomination is "obstructing the incoming Biden administration and its FCC appointees," said Matt Wood, VP of policy and general counsel of media-advocacy group Free Press.

"Nathan Simington has zero qualifications for this position," Wood said. "He's here only as a result of strong-arm political tactics to reward his loyalty to Trump. Hand-picked and then forced on the Senate by a now-defeated president, Simington was not chosen for his expertise or ability, but for his apparent willingness to improperly cast a vote on the unlawful, unconstitutional, and just plain bad Section 230 petition that he helped write."

Fight for the Future, an advocacy group, warned that Simington's nomination is an attempt to prevent the restoration of net neutrality rules and urged people to contact their senators to oppose it.


ARS

SAY GOODBYE TO AJIT PAI —

Ajit Pai announces departure from FCC after four-year deregulatory blitz

Democrats may gain 2-1 FCC majority Jan. 20, with Rosenworcel as possible chair.

JON BRODKIN - 11/30/2020 ARS TECHNICA

Enlarge / FCC Chairman Ajit Pai speaking at a press conference on October 1, 2018, in Washington, DC.
Getty Images | Mark Wilson

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced today that he will leave the FCC on January 20, 2021, the day Joe Biden will be inaugurated as president. In his four years as FCC chief, Pai deregulated the broadband industry, eliminated net neutrality rules, and justified his deregulatory agenda by using faulty data and taking credit for broadband deployments that were planned before he became chairman.

Pai called being chairman "the honor of a lifetime."

"I am grateful to President Trump for giving me the opportunity to lead the agency in 2017, to President Obama for appointing me as a Commissioner in 2012, and to Senate Majority Leader McConnell and the Senate for twice confirming me. To be the first Asian-American to chair the FCC has been a particular privilege. As I often say: only in America," Pai said in his statement today.

FURTHER READING Ajit Pai touted false broadband data despite clear signs it wasn’t accurate

As per tradition in which presidents nominate commissioners from both parties, Obama nominated Pai in 2012 at the request of Senate Republicans. When Democrats were in power, Pai fought against the Obama-era FCC's decisions to adopt consumer-protection rules such as net neutrality and broadband-privacy regulations. When Trump became president and promoted Pai to the chairmanship, he set out to overturn some of the biggest decisions made by his predecessor, Democrat Tom Wheeler.

Democrats have path to 2-1 majority in January

Pai's departure from the FCC would give the Biden administration a 2-1 Democratic majority immediately upon the new president's inauguration. The FCC is currently 3-2 in Republicans' favor, but Republican Michael O'Rielly is leaving at the end of 2020 because Trump pulled O'Rielly's renomination. Trump's choice to replace O'Rielly has not been confirmed by the Senate.

It's likely that Biden and the Senate will work out a deal to add one Democrat and one Republican to fill the commission's two empty seats sometime in 2021, eventually giving Democrats a 3-2 majority. But a Democratic-majority FCC could get moving on restoring net neutrality rules and other regulatory matters with a three-member group consisting of Democrats Jessica Rosenworcel and Geoffrey Starks, and Republican Brendan Carr.

Rosenworcel, who has been an FCC commissioner since 2012 and is widely respected by lawmakers and consumer advocates, could be promoted to FCC chair by Biden on either an interim or permanent basis. Starks has been on the FCC less than two years and is not seen as a leading candidate for the chair spot. If Biden doesn't want to make either Rosenworcel or Starks the chair, he could bring in a new Democrat for the role as Obama did with Wheeler in 2013. One possible chair candidate is former commissioner Mignon Clyburn, who has already been appointed to a Biden transition team that will review the FCC.
Social-media crackdown likely dead

Biden's election victory likely spelled doom for Trump's plan to impose a crackdown on social-media companies like Twitter and Facebook, which have been trying to counter Trump's attempts to spread misinformation on their platforms. A few weeks before the election, Pai announced a proposal to implement Trump's request, which would limit legal protections for social media websites that block or modify content posted by users.

After the election, Congressional Democrats called on Pai to "immediately stop work on all partisan, controversial items" during the presidential transition period. Pai did not immediately respond to that request, and in today's statement Pai did not say anything about policy plans for the remainder of his term. Pai also didn't say anything about his post-FCC plans; he was a Verizon lawyer from 2001 to 2003, and then held several government positions before joining the FCC.

Democrats' upcoming 2-1 majority was made possible by Trump's decision to pull O'Rielly's renomination, which came shortly after O'Rielly refused to back the social-media crackdown. If Trump hadn't pulled the renomination, the Senate could have voted to give O'Rielly another term, deadlocking the FCC at 2-2 in the early part of the Biden administration.

There is still a chance for a 2-2 deadlock if the Republican-controlled Senate confirms Nathan Simington, Trump's pick to replace O'Rielly.

Pai helped telecoms “at the expense of the public”

"Unfortunately, Chairman Pai has succeeded in many of his efforts to promote the interests of large telecommunications, broadcasting, and cable companies at the expense of smaller competitors and, especially, the public," Benton Institute Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman said in a statement today. "We have less competition and higher prices as a result of these policies, some of which may still be overturned in the courts."

Pai's court losses included one that overturned his attempt to take broadband subsidies away from tribal residents and another that overturned his attempt to kill environmental and historic-preservation reviews of 5G small cells. Though Pai's repeal of net neutrality rules was upheld in court, judges overturned Pai's related decision to preempt state-level net neutrality laws. Pai won a case allowing the FCC to preempt local fees and regulations imposed on wireless carriers deploying 5G networks.

In his statement today, Pai said the FCC has "delivered for the American people over the past four years: closing the digital divide; promoting innovation and competition, from 5G on the ground to broadband from space; protecting consumers; and advancing public safety. And this FCC has not shied away from making tough choices. As a result, our nation's communications networks are now faster, stronger, and more widely deployed than ever before." O'Rielly issued a statement applauding Pai for deregulating the broadband industry and for moves that "open[ed] up more spectrum bands for commercial use, and expand[ed] broadband access to unserved Americans."

Rosenworcel, who consistently opposed Pai's deregulatory moves and criticized the FCC majority for not doing more to help Americans access broadband during the pandemic, issued a statement about Pai's departure today. "While we did not always agree on policy matters, I always valued our shared commitment to public service," Rosenworcel said. "Serving the American people is a tremendous honor and I wish him the best in the future."

Amazon to roll out tools to monitor factory workers and machines
Sensor, computer vision hardware come as tech giant pushes into industrial sector.

DAVE LEE, FINANCIAL TIMES - 12/1/2020


Amazon is rolling out cheap new tools that will allow factories everywhere to monitor their workers and machines, as the tech giant looks to boost its presence in the industrial sector.

Launched by Amazon’s cloud arm AWS, the new machine-learning-based services include hardware to monitor the health of heavy machinery and computer vision capable of detecting whether workers are complying with social distancing.

Amazon said it had created a two-inch, low-cost sensor—Monitron—that can be attached to equipment to monitor abnormal vibrations or temperatures and predict future faults.

AWS Panorama, meanwhile, is a service that uses computer vision to analyze footage gathered by cameras within facilities, automatically detecting safety and compliance issues such as workers not wearing PPE or vehicles being driven in unauthorized areas.

The new services, announced on Tuesday during the company’s annual cloud computing conference, represent a step up in the tech giant’s efforts to gather and crunch real-world data in areas it currently feels are underserved.

“If you look at manufacturing and industrial generally, it’s a space that has seen some innovations, but there’s a lot of pieces that haven’t been digitized and modernized,” said Matt Garman, AWS’s head of sales and marketing, speaking to the FT.
“Locked up in machines”

“There’s a ton of data in a factory, or manufacturing facility, or a supply chain. It’s just locked up in sensors, locked up in machines that a lot of companies could get a lot of value from.”Advertisement


Amazon said it had installed 1,000 Monitron sensors at its fulfillment centers near the German city of Mönchengladbach, where they are used to monitor conveyor belts handling packages.

If successful, said analyst Brent Thill from Jefferies, the move would help Amazon cement its position as the dominant player in cloud computing, in the face of growing competition from Microsoft’s Azure and Google Cloud as well as a prolonged run of slowed segment growth.

“This idea of predictive analytics can go beyond a factory floor,” Mr. Thill said. “It can go into a car, on to a bridge, or on to an oil rig. It can cross fertilize a lot of different industries.”

A number of companies are already trialling AWS Panorama. Siemens Mobility said it would use the tech to monitor traffic flow in cities, though would not specify which. Deloitte said it was working with a major North America seaport to use the tool to monitor the movement of shipments.

“Easy for us to get worried”

However, Amazon’s own use of tools to monitor the productivity of employees has raised concerns among critics. Throughout the pandemic, the company has used computer vision to ensure employee compliance with social distancing guidelines.

Swami Sivasubramanian, AWS’s head of machine learning and AI, said none of the services announced would include “pre-packaged” facial recognition capabilities, and he said AWS would block clients who abused its terms of service on data privacy and surveillance.

“When you look at this technology, sometimes it’s very easy for us to get worried about how they can be abused,” he told the FT.

“But the same technology can be used to ensure worker safety. Are people walking in spaces where they shouldn’t be? Is there an oil spill? Are they not wearing hard hats? These are real-world problems.”

© 2020 The Financial Times Ltd. All rights reserved 

Yes, the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was bad—but was it really that bad?

The United States saw a total of 12 landfalls. Louisiana, alone, experienced five.

ERIC BERGER - 12/1/2020, 1:41 PM

Enlarge / All of 2020's tropical storms and hurricanes in a single image.

Monday was the last "official" day of the Atlantic hurricane season, drawing down the curtain on what has been a frenetic year for storms forming in the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea.

The top-line numbers are staggering: there were a total of 30 tropical storms and hurricanes, surpassing the previous record of 28 set in the year 2005. For only the second time, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami ran out of names and had to resort to using the Greek alphabet.

Of all those storms, 12 made landfall in the United States, obliterating the previous record of nine landfalling tropical storms or hurricanes set in 1916. The state of Louisiana alone experienced five landfalls. At least part of the state fell under coastal watches or warnings for tropical activity for a total of 474 hours this summer and fall. And Laura became the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the Pelican State since 1856.
Not all records broken

By some measures, however, this season was not all that extraordinary. Perhaps the best measurement of a season's overall activity is not the number of named storms but rather its "accumulated cyclone energy," or ACE, which sums up the intensity and duration of storms. So a weak, short-lived tropical storm counts for almost nothing, whereas a major, long-lived hurricane will quickly rack up dozens of points.

The ACE value for the 2020 Atlantic season to date is 179.8—and another weak tropical or subtropical storm could still form. This is notably higher than the climatological norm for ACE values (about 104), but it would not quite make the top 10 busiest Atlantic seasons on record, which is paced by the 1933 and 2005 seasons.Advertisement

In terms of estimated damages, this season has been far from a record-breaker as well. So far, damages across the Atlantic basin are estimated at $37 billion. This is substantially less than the devastating 2017 season, which included hurricanes Harvey and Irma and totaled more than $300 billion in damages. It is also less than 2005, which featured Katrina, Rita, Wilma, and other storms, topping $200 billion. One factor in 2020 was that most of the biggest storms missed heavily populated areas.

Also, the hyperactive Atlantic basin stands out amid the other basins where tropical activity typically occurs, including the northeastern and northwestern Pacific Ocean, which were much quieter than normal this year. Overall, in 2020, the Northern Hemisphere is seeing an ACE value about 20 percent below normal levels for a calendar year.
Legacy of 2020

Perhaps the biggest legacy of this Atlantic hurricane season is the disturbing trend of tropical storms rapidly developing into strong hurricanes. This "rapid intensification" occurs when a storm's maximum sustained winds increase by 35mph or more within the period of 24 hours, and it was observed in 10 storms this year.

Moreover, three late season storms—Delta, Eta, and Iota—increased their speeds by 100mph or more in 36 hours or less. Iota, which slammed into Nicaragua on November 17, was the latest Category 5 hurricane on record in the Atlantic.

FURTHER READING Hurricanes might not be losing steam as fast as they used to

Some recent studies, including a paper published by Nature Communications in 2019, have found that climate change has goosed intensification. The study observed, for the strongest storms, that rate of intensification over a 24-hour period increased by about 3mph to 4mph per decade from 1982 through 2009. Storms that strengthen more quickly, especially near landfall, leave coastal residents and emergency planners with less time and information to make vital preparations and calls for evacuation.

High-energy X-rays reveal the secrets of ancient Egyptian inks

Analysis involved 12 papyri fragments from the Tebtunis Temple, southwest of Cairo.

JENNIFER OUELLETTE - 12/2/2020

Enlarge / Detail of a medical treatise from the Tebtunis Temple Library with headings marked in red ink.

The Papyrus Carlsberg Collection


An international team of scientists used high-energy X-rays to analyze 12 fragments from ancient Egyptian papyri and found lead compounds in both red and black inks used. According to their recent paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, this is evidence that these compounds were added not for pigmentation but for their fast-drying properties, to prevent the ink from smearing as people wrote. Painters in 15th-century Europe used a similar technique when developing oil paints, but this study suggests ancient Egyptians discovered it 1,400 years earlier. So the practice may have been much more widespread than previously assumed.

“Our analyses of the inks on the papyri fragments from the unique Tebtunis Temple Library revealed previously unknown compositions of red and black inks, particularly iron-based and lead-based compounds,” said co-author Thomas Christiansen, an Egyptologist from the University of Copenhagen.

As I've written previously, synchrotron radiation is a thin beam of very high-intensity X-rays generated within a particle accelerator. Electrons are fired into a linear accelerator to boost their speeds and then injected into a storage ring. They zoom through the ring at near-light speed as a series of magnets bend and focus the electrons. In the process, they give off X-rays, which can then be focused down beamlines. This is useful for analyzing structure because in general, the shorter the wavelength used (and the higher the energy of the light), the finer the details one can image and/or analyze.

That's what makes synchrotron radiation particularly useful for analyzing art and other priceless artifacts, among other applications. Back in 2008, European scientists used synchrotron radiation to reconstruct the hidden portrait of a peasant woman painted by Vincent van Gogh. The artist (known for re-using his canvases) had painted over it when he created 1887's Patch of Grass. The synchrotron radiation excites the atoms on the canvas, which then emit X-rays of their own that can be picked up by a fluorescence detector. Each element in the painting has its own X-ray signature, so scientists can identify the distribution of each in the many layers of paint.

Last year, we reported on the work of a team of Dutch and French scientists who used high-energy X-rays to unlock Rembrandt's secret recipe for his famous impasto technique, believed to be lost to history. Impasto (translated as "dough" or "mixture") involves applying paint to the canvas in very thick layers. It's usually done with oil paint because of the thick consistency and slow drying time, although it's possible to add acrylic gels as a thickening agent to get a similar effect with acrylics. Rembrandt used it to represent folds in clothing or jewels, among other objects, in his paintings. The scientists discovered the presence of a mineral called plumbonacrite in the impasto layer—an uncommon element in paints from that period.

And earlier this year, we reported on the work of an international team of scientists who used this method to determine the cause of alarming signs of degradation to Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream. Their analysis revealed that the damage is not the result of exposure to light, but humidity—specifically, from the breath of museum visitors, perhaps as they lean in to take a closer look at the master's brushstrokes.
Ink is history

This latest study builds on work over the past decade or so to investigate the invention and history of ink in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. "Ink is history in the sense that ink has been used to inscribe a vast number of scripts and languages on various media over the course of more than 5,000 years," the authors wrote, with the earliest such examples dating back to Egypt, circa 3200 BCE. During this period, black ink was used to write the main body of a text, and red ink was used for highlighting headings, keywords, and so forth.

"By applying 21st century, state-of-the-art technology to reveal the hidden secrets of ancient ink technology, we are contributing to the unveiling of the origin of writing practices," said co-author Marine Cotte, a scientist at the ESRF.

A papyrus fragment from a long astrological treatise (inv. P. Carlsberg 89) from the Tebtunis Temple Library and X-ray fluorescence maps showing the distribution of iron (red) and lead (blue) in the red letters that write out the ancient Egyptian word for "star."

The Papyrus Carlsberg Collection and the ESRF

Ancient Egyptian scribal palette c. 100 BCE to 100 CE. It has a rectangular cavity in one end in which a dry black ink cake was placed.

Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale

Ruins of the city Tebtunis, where the only temple library to survive from ancient Egypt was discovered in the 1930s.
Kim Ryholt, University of Copenhagen

These inks were typically made from soot and ocher, mixed with some kind of binder (usually gum Arabic), then suspended in animal glue, vegetable oil, or vinegar. Then the mixture would be dried and pressed into pellets so that scribes could easily carry the inks with them. When they needed to use it, they would mix the dried pellet with a bit of water, using the nib of a reed pen for the actual writing. In that sense, the colorants were more closely akin to paints, in that they would be classified as pigments rather than dyes.

Cotte, Christiansen, and their colleagues have previously studied the red, orange, and pink inks used on 11 surviving fragments from several manuscripts found in two small cellars in the so-called Tebtunis Temple Library, southwest of Cairo. That work revealed an unusual red ink based on a mixture of iron and lead compounds that had not been previously documented, although there is a reference in Pliny's Natural History to blending red ocher and lead white to make an orange-reddish pigment. It was generally used as a flesh tone by Egyptian painters between 30 BCE to 400 CE, according to the authors, but had not been identified in ancient Egyptian papyri until their study.Advertisement

Ring around the ocher

For this latest study, the team was interested in analyzing the mineral compounds of the red and black inks from the temple papyri fragments, especially the specific iron and lead compounds. They used numerous synchrotron radiation techniques to probe the chemical composition, including micro X-ray fluorescence, micro X-ray diffraction, and micro-infrared spectroscopy. They found a complex mix of lead phosphates, potassium lead sulphates, lead carboxylates, and lead chlorides.

“The iron-based compounds in the red inks are most likely ocher—a natural earth pigment—because the iron was found together with aluminium and the mineral hematite, which occur in ocher," said co-author Sine Larsen, also of the University of Copenhagen, of the results. "The lead compounds appear in both the red and black inks, but since we did not identify any of the typical lead-based pigments used to color the ink, we suggest that this particular lead compound was used by the scribes to dry the ink rather than as a pigment.”

Cotte et al. believe that the temple priests likely did not make the inks themselves, given the complexity of the red ink in particular, which would have required some specialized knowledge, and the sheer amount of raw materials that would have been needed to make them.

The team also noted an unusual "coffee ring effect" in the red ink markings. The coffee ring effect occurs when a single liquid evaporates and the solids that had been dissolved in the liquid, like coffee grounds, form a telltale ring. It happens because the evaporation occurs faster at the edge than at the center. Any remaining liquid flows outward to the edge to fill in the gaps, dragging those solids with it. In this case, the red ocher pigment is present in coarse particles, which stayed in place while the more finely ground soluble lead compounds diffused into the papyrus cells to create a ring effect, making it appear (at the micrometer scale) as if the letters had been outlined.

"The advanced synchrotron-based microanalyses have provided us with invaluable knowledge of the preparation and composition of red and black inks in ancient Egypt and Rome 2,000 years ago," said Christiansen. "And our results are supported by contemporary evidence of ink production facilities in ancient Egypt from a magical spell inscribed on a Greek alchemical papyrus, which dates to the third century AD. It refers to a red ink that was prepared inside a workshop. This papyrus was found in Thebes, and it may well have belonged to a priestly library like the papyri studied here, thus providing insights into some of the chemical arts applied by Egyptian priests of the late Roman period."

DOI: PNAS, 2020. 10.1073/pnas.2004534117 (About DOIs).