Vast Antarctic iceberg could drift through ocean for years
May 21, 2021


This handout image provided by the European Space Agency (ESA) shows a representation of the size of an which iceberg has calved from the western side of the Ronne Ice Shelf, lying in the Weddell Sea, in Antarctica. A vast iceberg that broke off from Antarctic earlier this month could drift through the ocean for years before it breaks up and melts away, a scientist from the ESA said Friday, May 21, 2021. Spotted in recent images captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission, the iceberg is around 170 km in length and 25 km wide, and is slightly larger than the Spanish island of Majorca. (ESA via AP)

PARIS (AP) — A vast iceberg that broke off Antarctica earlier this month could drift through the ocean for several years before it breaks up and melts away, a scientist from the European Space Agency said Friday.

The iceberg, dubbed A-76, is more than 40 times the size of Paris, or about 73 times as big as Manhattan, making it the largest currently afloat.

It was first spotted by scientists at the British Antarctic Survey and confirmed by the U.S. National Ice Center using images taken by the European Space Agency’s Sentinel 1A satellite.

Mark Drinkwater, a senior scientist at the space agency, said that while icebergs regularly calve from Antarctic ice shelfs, the region where A-76 broke off had seen relatively little change in recent decades.

“It’s become a poster child, obviously, and there’ll be a lot of attention on it,” he said of the 4,320 square-kilometer (1,668 square-mile) floating island of ice.

A-76 will eventually escape from the Weddel Sea around Antarctica and drift into the South Atlantic, but that journey could take years, Drinkwater said.

“We’ve seen icebergs that can last up to 18 years that have been tracked around Antarctica if they remain in relatively cold waters,” he said. “But it’s likely that once this thing gets ejected from the Weddel Sea out into the South Atlantic, it’ll disintegrate fairly quickly.”

The even larger iceberg A-68 that calved from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf in 2017 disappeared by early this year

Drinkwater said satellites have helped scientists keep track of the changes happening on the vast but largely uninhabited continent that would otherwise go unnoticed.

“The continent that everybody thinks of as a benign, frozen part of the world that never changes is actually very dynamic,” he said, adding that increasing calving activity in parts of Antarctica monitored from space over the past 30 years can be attributed to climate change.

Antarctic ice shelves regularly lose large chunks to the sea even as fresh ice forms inland, a process that Drinkwater compared to a bank account that’s continually being paid into and withdrawn from.

“Parts of Antarctica are in arrears, and that’s largely a consequence of increase in temperature or large calving events that have removed ice and destabilized the ice shelves themselves,” he said. “Climate is responsible for these changes. And over the longer term, of course, it will have wide-ranging impacts in different locations around Antarctica.”

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Follow AP’s coverage of climate issues at https://apnews.com/hub/climate

New Zealand spending plan includes rebuilding Antarctic base

By NICK PERRY

May 20, 2021


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New Zealand Finance Minister Grant Robertson discusses the annual budget plan with media, economists and other groups in Wellington, New Zealand Thursday, May 20, 2021. New Zealand plans to rebuild its Antarctic base and spend billions more on welfare payments as part of a spending program aimed at lifting the economy out of a coronavirus slump. (AP Photo/Nick Perry)


WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand plans to rebuild its Antarctic base and spend billions more on welfare payments as part of a spending program aimed at lifting the economy out of a coronavirus slump.

The government on Thursday unveiled its annual budget, which indicated the economy is doing much better than forecast after the pandemic first hit.

That’s thanks in large part to the nation’s success in stopping the spread of the virus, as well as strong international demand for the nation’s milk and other agricultural exports.

Treasury figures indicate the nation’s economy is expected to grow by 2.9% this year and rise to 4.4% growth by 2023. That follows a sharp plunge and quick recovery last year, which ended in an overall economic contraction of 1.7%.

The budget plan includes $344 million New Zealand dollars ($247 million) to rebuild Scott Base in Antarctica, which has been used by scientists since it was first built in 1957.

“The outdated buildings and facilities that keep the residents alive in the coldest, driest, windiest place on Earth have deteriorated,” Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said. “Doing nothing would eventually lead to the closure of the base.”

The project would involve demolishing the existing 12 buildings, which were built in the early 1980s, and replacing them with three large, interconnected buildings. The rebuilt base could accommodate up to 100 people at a time.

One of the new buildings would be used for accommodation and dining, one for science, and one for engineering and storage. A windfarm that produces renewable electricity would be overhauled.

The project still needs final signoff from both New Zealand and its Antarctic treaty partners. Under the plan, bulldozers would be shipped to Antarctica in the first year and construction would take another six years.

Due to its proximity to Antarctica, New Zealand has been a stop-off point from the days of the earliest explorers through to current U.S. missions. New Zealanders have also been involved in exploration and research for generations.

Sarah Williamson, chief executive of Antarctica New Zealand which oversees the base, said it would be the biggest project it had ever embarked upon and would not only future-proof its home on the ice but also bring jobs to the Canterbury region, where the buildings would be pre-constructed.

Other new spending proposed in the budget includes a boost in benefits for welfare recipients that the government hopes will help lift as many as 33,000 children out of poverty.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said families in New Zealand had historically survived on very low incomes while on welfare.

“What we’ve done today is about targeting need and helping to provide just simply the basics,” Ardern said. “Food on the table. Enabling families to be able to pay a power bill.”

She said previous economic downturns have made inequality worse but this time she hoped for a different outcome while also helping to stimulate the economy.

Proposed new infrastructure spending includes an overhaul of the rail network, with 60 new trains and 1,900 new wagons. Officials say the plan will create about 450 jobs and reduce emissions by moving freight from trucks to trains.

Treasury figures indicate unemployment is forecast to peak at 5.2% this year before declining, much less than the 10% rate predicted last year.

The government also plans to borrow less than anticipated, with net government debt reaching a peak of 48% of GDP before declining, down from last year’s forecast of 55%.

“In the face of this one-in-one-hundred-year shock, the New Zealand economy has proved to be remarkably resilient,” Finance Minister Grant Robertson said.

Opposition Leader Judith Collins said the budget lacked the ambition needed to grow the economy and reduce debt, and offered nothing to middle-income earners.

The budget’s approval in Parliament is seen as a formality because Ardern’s Labour Party holds a majority of the seats.

Survey: Bay’s juvenile crab population is lowest since 1990

May 22, 2021

SALISBURY, Md. (AP) — An annual survey of Chesapeake Bay blue crabs estimates that the population of juvenile crabs has fallen to its low level since the Maryland Department of Natural Resources started the survey more than 30 years ago.

The Salisbury Daily Times reports that the department’s review also found positive trends, including a rise in the bay’s population of spawning-age mature female crabs, from 141 million in 2020 to 158 million in 2021.

“Protecting spawning-age females is a critical component to maintaining a healthy and sustainable blue crab population,” Department of Natural Resources Secretary Jeannie Haddaway-Riccio said.

The total abundance of blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay was 282 million, a below-average total largely attributed to the low juvenile numbers.

The bay’s estimated population of juvenile crabs in 2021 was 86 million, the lowest tally since the survey started in 1990. The survey also found 39 million adult male crabs, below the long-term average of 77 million.

The Maryland natural resources department’s survey is a cooperative effort with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Carbon storage offers hope for climate, cash for farmers
By JOHN FLESHER

AP May 20, 2021


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Farmer Rick Clifton drives a spray tractor across one of his fields, applying herbicide to cover crops that occupied the ground during fall and winter in Orient, Ohio, on April 5, 2021. Clifton grows cereal rye and rapeseed to prevent erosion and make the ground healthier for his corn, soybean and wheat cash crops. Cover crops store carbon in the soil, keeping the greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere. (AP Photo/John Flesher)

ORIENT, Ohio (AP) — The rye and rapeseed that Rick Clifton cultivated in central Ohio were coming along nicely — until his tractor rumbled over the flat, fertile landscape, spraying it with herbicides.

These crops weren’t meant to be eaten, but to occupy the ground between Clifton’s soybean harvest last fall and this spring’s planting. Yet thanks to their environmental value, he’ll still make money from them.

Farmers increasingly have been growing offseason cereals and grasses to prevent erosion and improve soil. Now, they’re gaining currency as weapons against climate change.

Experts believe keeping ground covered year-round rather than bare in winter is among practices that could reduce emissions of planet-warming gases while boosting the agricultural economy, if used far more widely.

“For too long, we’ve failed to use the most important word when it comes to meeting the climate crisis: jobs, jobs, jobs,” President Joe Biden said in his April address to Congress. One example, he added: “Farmers planting cover crops so they can reduce the carbon dioxide in the air and get paid for doing it.”

Clifton, 66, started growing cover crops several years ago to improve corn, soybean and wheat yields. Then he read about Indigo Agriculture, a company that helps businesses and organizations buy credits for carbon bottled up in farm fields. He signed a contract that could pay about $175,000 over five years for storing greenhouse gases across his 3,000 acres (1,214 hectares).

“If you can get something green on the ground year-round, you’re feeding the microbes in the soil and it’s a lot healthier,” he said, touring a barn loaded with cultivating and harvesting equipment. “And if somebody wants to pay you to do that, it looks to me like you’re foolish not to do it.”

Agriculture generates about 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions: methane from livestock, nitrous oxide from fertilizers, carbon dioxide from machinery.

All industries are under pressure to reduce emissions, primarily by switching to renewable energy.

But farming has something most others don’t: the ability to pull carbon dioxide, the most prevalent climate-warming gas, out of the atmosphere and store it. Plants use it in photosynthesis, their process of making food.

Besides cover crops, promising techniques for carbon storage include reducing or eliminating tillage and letting marginal croplands revert to plains or woods, said Adam Chambers, a U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service air quality scientist.

Agriculture won’t be “the sole solution, but I see it as a solid plank in an overall program to address climate change over the next few decades,” said David Montgomery, a University of Washington geologist.

The National Academy of Sciences estimates agricultural soils could take in 250 million metric tons (276 million tons) of atmospheric carbon dioxide annually, which would offset 5% of U.S. emissions.

Some caution against overselling farmland’s potential. Iowa State University ecologist Steven Hall says that at some soil depths, microbes convert carbon absorbed by cover crops into gas that returns to the atmosphere.

“It may make sense to pay farmers to do this,” he said. “But I would go into it a bit more suspicious that we’ll get a maximum performance on all farms.”

The federal government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars helping farmers make environmentally friendly changes. Since 2005, those actions have produced an eight-fold increase in prevention of greenhouse gas emissions, the NRCS says.

The latest U.S. Census of Agriculture in 2017 found more farmers were switching from conventional soil tilling, a big source of carbon pollution, to reduced or no-till practices. It also recorded a 50% increase in cover cropping over five years.

But the 15.4 million acres (6.2 million hectares) planted in cover crops were just 6.7 % of the land suitable for it.

Biden has ordered the Department of Agriculture to craft a plan for making such practices so common that the U.S. farm industry would become the world’s first to achieve net zero emissions.

Secretary Tom Vilsack has pledged bigger payments for pulling marginal lands out of crop production to make way for carbon-absorbing grasses, trees and wetlands. He announced $330 million for local climate partnerships and $25 million for testing new ideas.

Supporters say unless the actions are mandatory, which farmers resolutely oppose, more financial incentives will be needed.

The agriculture department is consulting industry groups about tapping the $30 billion Commodity Credit Corp., which helps keeps farm incomes and prices stable, to establish a “carbon bank” that could pump in more funds.

Republican lawmakers say financing carbon storage should be left to rapidly developing private markets.

Indigo Agriculture is among recent arrivals brokering sales of credits for farmland carbon to buyers wanting smaller environmental footprints. Thousands of growers with a combined 2.7 million acres (1.09 million hectares) have signed with Indigo to receive payments for greenhouse gas storage, said Chris Harbourt, head of its carbon program.

The Boston-based company’s agronomists help producers adopt the techniques. It uses farm management data, soil sampling and modeling software to calculate credits, based on volumes of gases pulled underground or prevented from being generated.

IBM, J.P. Morgan Chase and Barclays are among buyers of Indigo’s credits. Farmers currently get $15 for each metric ton ($15 per 1.1 ton) of carbon with payments phased in over several years.

The extra cash is nice but hardly a windfall, said Lance Unger, who recently enrolled 7,500 acres (3,035 hectares) near Carlisle, Indiana. More important is that carbon-sequestering steps also mean bigger yields and profitability from lands packed with organic nutrients, the third-generation farmer said.

“I want to make our farm better for the fourth generation,” said Unger, 33, strolling through corn stubble in a field he now tills more lightly than before. He also uses cover cropping and more efficient fertilizing, which reduces nitrous oxide emissions.

Still, some farmers are reluctant to change habits ingrained over generations. Others wonder whether carbon markets will work.

Pending U.S. Senate and House bills would help farmers get started and provide third-party inspections to verify improvements. The chief Senate sponsor, Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, said attitudes have changed since she unsuccessfully proposed a similar program in 2009.

“Farmers have been hit right in the head with one weather disaster after another. They know the climate is changing,” the Democrat said.

The measures have bipartisan sponsorship and support from industry groups such as the American Farm Bureau Federation. The Environmental Defense Fund is among green organizations backing it.

But an opposing coalition of other environmentalists and small-farm groups says credit markets let corporate polluters outsource carbon reduction instead of mending their own ways.

The critics told Congress that farmers who adopt the newer land management practices could abandon them later. “Without adequate measurement tools or guarantees of permanence, quantifying soil carbon to use in a carbon market becomes a guessing game and does not guarantee actual reductions in greenhouse gases,” they said.

Bruno Basso, a Michigan State University soil and plant scientist, said farmers are unlikely to resume old ways after seeing how the changes benefit their lands. Carbon storage methods and technology to assess their performance are improving, he added.

The NRCS and Colorado State University continue refining an online system that calculates carbon stored and greenhouse gases prevented through conservation efforts. It’s based on factors such as location, soil types, tillage practices, nutrient applications and crop cultivation.

Such complex data analysis lends credibility to eco-friendly agriculture, once widely associated with “offbeat farmers,” said Keith Paustian, a soil and crop scientist at Colorado State.

“It seems to some degree utopian, but what is best for the planet can also be what’s best for farmers and society,” he said.

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Follow John Flesher on Twitter: @johnflesher

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Hi-Crush Proppants liquidating Whitehall frack sand mine

WHITEHALL, Wis. (AP) — A company that was once one of Wisconsin’s biggest producers of frack sand s liquidating one of four state mines.

Hi-Crush Proppants in Whitehall opened in 2014 and had a production capacity of 3 million tons of frack sand per year. Demand for Wisconsin’s northern white sand was high because of its uniformity and strength. The sand is used in hydraulic fracturing for oil and natural gas.

But in recent years, oil companies started using cheaper sand found closer to oil wells, saving as much as $60 per ton by ending shipments from Wisconsin.

Heritage Global Partners has started accepting bids for Hi-Crush’s Whitehall sand production facility. It’s essentially a liquidation sale of the operation or individual pieces of equipment, Wisconsin Public Radio reported. Hi-Crash declared bankruptcy last year.

Poland defies EU court ruling to close major lignite min

FILE - This Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2019 file photo shows the Turow lignite coal mine and Turow power plant near the town of Bogatynia, Poland. European Union's top court has on Friday, May 21, 2021 ordered Poland to immediately stop extracting brown coal at the Turow mine on the border with the Czech Republic and Germany. The Czech Republic filed in March for an injunction, saying the mine drains away water from its inhabited areas. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek, file)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s government on Monday defied an injunction by the top European Union court that ordered the immediate closure of a major brown coal mine, with officials saying it would shake the nation’s energy system and lead to the layoff of thousands of employees.

Development Minister Jaroslaw Gowin said Poland wouldn’t shut the lignite mine in Turow, on the border with Germany and the Czech Republic, but instead was engaged in “very intensive diplomatic and law-related efforts,” to secure undisturbed operation of the mine and connected power plant that generates some 7% of Poland’s energy.

The EU’s Court of Justice on Friday ordered Poland to immediately stop operation of the mine, heeding Prague’s complaints that it drained groundwater from Czech territory and that Poland recently extended its license without proper prior environmental assessment. It’s a temporary measure, pending the court’s full ruling.

Gowin said he considers the court’s decision “scandalously incommensurate” to the situation and one that would lead to the “loss of tens of thousands of jobs and very serious disturbances in Poland’s energy system,” cutting power to millions of households.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was holding an emergency meeting with the managers of state energy company PGE, which runs the mine and the plant, and regional authorities in Wroclaw, in the southwest.

He later said Poland will engage in negotiations with Prague and will also make new points before the EU court to clearly describe the situation to avoid a “disaster.”

The court’s decision is “very dangerous from the point of view of potential threats to the ecology, but it is also dangerous for Poland’s energy security and for the employment of some 5,000 people” working at Turow, Morawiecki said.

He noted that both the Czech Republic and Germany are operating lignite mines and power plants close to Poland’s borders.

In an effort to follow the EU’s ambitious carbon dioxide reduction goals, Poland is gradually phasing out its main fuel, black coal, but still relies on lignite. Critics says the departure from coal and ushering clean energy is much too slow, amid traditional attention given to coal-mining.

A recent energy plan says the last coal mine will be shut by 2049, but critics say it will happen sooner, because Poland’s coal production is inefficient and generates enormous costs that are covered from the state budget.

The EU wants at least 32% participation of renewable sources in the 27-nation bloc’s electricity generation by 2030, but Poland’s plan aims at some 23% participation of green energy, and still up to 56% participation of coal in its energy mix.

Government authorities say they have been in talks with Prague — a close political and economic partner — over the Turow mine for years and believed an understanding had been reached. Critics and the opposition say it hasn’t done enough, but all in Poland agree that closing the mine and the power plant is not possible.

An unexpected automated outage last week at another PGE lignite power plant, in Belchatow, was felt across the European energy grid and made operators scramble to make up for the lost power. On Saturday, Belchatow plant’s largest power unit was shut after coal being conveyed to the unit went on fire. A smaller, reserve unit was put to work in its place.

The head of Poland’s PSE power grid, Eryk Klossowski, told a meeting of the parliamentary energy security group Monday that it wouldn’t be acceptable for the grid to lose Turow’s input. He said the plant is connected to a power transmission station that is key for the southwestern region and for interconnection with east Germany.

PGE deputy head, Pawel Sliwa, told an emergency meeting of a parliamentary commission that closing the mine would also entail closing the power plant that it supplies. He estimated the costs at around 13.5 billion zlotys ($3.6 billion or 3 billion euros), the layoff of thousands of employees and lost investment into filters and other pro-environment modernization.

Coal makes up 65% of Poland’s energy sources, including 17% from lignite, while about 25% of the country’s energy comes from renewable sources and biofuels. Another 10% come from gas and other sources.

Poland’s continuing heavy reliance on coal is a source of tension in the EU, which is seeking to meet ambitious goals to reduce the bloc’s greenhouse gas emissions and stop global warming.

George Floyd’s family holds rally, march in brother’s memory

By MOHAMED IBRAHIM

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George Floyd's sister, Bridgett Floyd, addresses a rally in downtown Minneapolis, Sunday, May 23, 2021. At left is attorney Ben Crump. At right is the Rev. Al Sharpton. “It has been a long year. It has been a painful year,” Floyd's sister Bridgett told the crowd on Sunday.(Jeff Wheeler/Star Tribune via AP)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Members of George Floyd’s family, and others who lost loved ones to police encounters, joined activists and citizens in Minneapolis for a march that was one of several events planned nationwide to mark the one-year anniversary of Floyd’s death.

Hundreds of people gathered for the rally Sunday in front of the courthouse in downtown Minneapolis where former police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted last month in Floyd’s death. Many carried signs with pictures of Floyd, Philando Castile and other Black men killed by police.

Amid chants of “no justice, no peace!” and “Say his name,” Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter watched alongside a dozen of Floyd’s family members as speakers called for justice for families of Black men slain by police.

“It has been a long year. It has been a painful year,” Floyd’s sister Bridgett told the crowd on Sunday. “It has been very frustrating for me and my family for our lives to change in the blink of an eye — I still don’t know why.”

Tuesday will mark one year since Floyd, who was Black, died after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin held his knee on Floyd’s neck as he pleaded for air. Floyd’s death sparked worldwide protests and calls for change in policing in the U.S. Chauvin, who is white, was convicted of murder and manslaughter in his death.

Speakers at the event included several local activists, Floyd family attorney Ben Crump, and the Rev. Al Sharpton, who called on the U.S. Senate to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. The legislation, which would bring about the most significant changes to policing on the federal level, would ban the use of chokeholds and establish a national database of police misconduct.

“We want something coming out of Washington. We want something that will change federal law,” Sharpton said. “There’s been an adjournment on justice for too long. It’s time for them to vote and make this the law.”

The George Floyd Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit based in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where Floyd was born, was hosting a series of events in Minneapolis to honor Floyd on the anniversary.

The nonprofit was launched in Floyd’s honor by his siblings in September 2020 to help combat racial inequities in Black and brown communities.

Other events in Minneapolis ahead of the anniversary include a virtual “day of action” that encourages people to organize remotely and two panels with the families and other activists on Monday, followed by a community festival and candlelight vigil on Tuesday.

In New York on Sunday, Floyd’s brother, Terrence, attended a gathering in Brooklyn in his brother’s memory organized by Sharpton. Terrence Floyd told supporters not to forget his brother or victims of racist violence.

“If you keep my brother’s name ringing, you’re going to keep everybody else’s name ringing,” he said. “Breonna Taylor, Sean Bell, Ahmaud Arbery, you could go through the whole list. There’s a lot of them.”

Executive director Jacari Harris said the group has received donations from the Minneapolis Foundation, Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation and athletic shoe and apparel retailer Finish Line, among others. Despite large grants from corporations and other organizations, Harris the average donation to the nonprofit was $47.

Harris said the group has also funded an initiative in Fayetteville to help reduce homelessness, a scholarship program for law school students and an internship program at Texas A&M University, where Floyd went to school.

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Associated Press writer Karen Matthews in New York contributed to this report. Mohamed Ibrahim is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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Find AP’s full coverage of the death of George Floyd: https://apnews.com/hub/death-of-george-floyd

Family, supporters march in US ahead of anniversary of George Floyd death

Issued on: 24/05/2021 -

The killing of George Floyd by a white policeman a year ago has prompted a reckoning on racial injustice in the United States Kerem Yucel AFP

Minneapolis (AFP)

Supporters and relatives of George Floyd marched Sunday ahead of the first anniversary of his murder by a white policeman, a killing that prompted a reckoning on racial injustice in the United States.

About 1,500 marchers in Minneapolis listened to speeches and joined members of the Floyd family and relatives of other Black people who died in encounters with the police.

Floyd, 46, was killed on May 25, 2020 by city police officer Derek Chauvin who knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes.  9:29

Chauvin, convicted by a jury of murder and manslaughter, is to be sentenced on June 25.

The rally opened with speeches outside the Hennepin County Government Center in central Minneapolis, where Chauvin stood trial.

"It has been a long year. It has been a painful year. It has been very frustrating for me and my family," Floyd's sister Bridgett Floyd told the gathering.#photo1

Floyd said her life changed "within a blink of an eye" when her brother died.

"I will stand and be the voice for him," she said. "I will stand and be the change for him."

Floyd's death sparked protests against racial injustice across the United States and around the world.

- 'Hopeful for change' -

Veteran campaigner Reverend Al Sharpton told the crowd that Floyd's killing was "one of the greatest disgraces in American history."

"What happened to George Floyd, as well as so many others, is driving change not only across America but the world," he said.

"They thought that they could get away with it, and you went to the streets, black and white, young and old, in the middle of the pandemic" to call for justice, Sharpton said.#photo2

"George Floyd should not go down in history as just someone with a knee on his neck, but as a man whose death helped 'break the neck' of police racism, brutality and illegality."

"It's important to show up to represent the Floyd family and the injustices that continue to spread in society," said Lenora McFarthing, 67, of St. Paul, Minnesota, a retired director from AT&T Wireless.

"You can't just sit home and watch TV and tweet and go on social media," she said. "You have to be visible. People are hopeful for change."

Frustrations have been running high in Minneapolis over mounting violence in the city.

Anger over a soaring homicide rate and other gun violence -- a recent three-week span saw three children hit by stray bullets -- has led to the formation of citizen patrols.#photo3

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey plans to add 200 officers to the city's thinned police ranks, and has called for more aid from outside law enforcement agencies.

He supports community-driven efforts, including citizen patrols.

"Minneapolis police officers will continue to rush into harm's way to save lives," Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said after the latest shootings Saturday.

"Our greatest strength is when we all work together to keep our city safe."

© 2021 AFP


George Floyd rally marks a year since murder

Activists and family members met ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Black man's murder at the hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.



Thousands rallied to mark a year since the death of Black man George Floyd by a white police officer

Around 1,500 people rallied in Minneapolis in the US on Sunday ahead of the one-year anniversary of Black man George Floyd's death.

Tuesday will mark 365 days since the unarmed 46-year-old Floyd was killed when former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin held his knee on Floyd's neck for around nine minutes.

Chauvin was found guilty of murder and the incident reignited the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement as protests took place around the world.

Members of Floyd's family, activists and other families of victims of police violence joined citizens in front of the courthouse in downtown Minneapolis where the Chauvin trial concluded a month ago.

Toshira Garraway Allen, founder of Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence, and others raised a fist onstage during the 'One Year, What's Changed?' rally

Many carrying signs with pictures of Floyd, Philando Castile and other Black people killed by police.

The crowds shouted: "no justice, no peace!" and "Say his name" — chants linked to the BLM movement.
'It has been a painful year,' says Floyd's sister

Several local activists, members of Floyd's family and family attorney Ben Crump spoke at the event.

Floyd's sister Bridgett told the crowd on Sunday, "It has been a long year. It has been a painful year."

"I will stand and be the voice for him," she said. "I will stand and be the change for him."

Bridgett Floyd told a crowd that she will 'stand by' her brother

Veteran campaigner Reverend Al Sharpton told the crowd that Floyd's killing was "one of the greatest disgraces in American history."

"What happened to George Floyd, as well as so many others, is driving change not only across America but the world," he said.

"They thought that they could get away with it, and you went to the streets, Black and white, young and old, in the middle of the pandemic" to call for justice, Sharpton said.
Further events honoring George Floyd

In New York on Sunday, Floyd's brother Terrence attended a Brooklyn gathering in his brother's memory organized by Sharpton. He asked supporters to keep the name of his brother "ringing" for other victims of police violence. "Breonna Taylor, Sean Bell, Ahmaud Arbery, you could go through the whole list. There's a lot of them."

Several events are planned in the run-up to the anniversary of George Floyd's murder on Tuesday

Other events in Minneapolis ahead of the anniversary of George Floyd's death include a virtual "day of action" that encourages people to organize remotely. Two panels with Floyd family members and other activists are planned for Monday. On Tuesday, there will be a community festival and candlelight vigil.

New Mexico weighs changes to permit for nuclear waste dump




FILE - This March 6, 2014 file photo shows the idled Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, the nation's only underground nuclear waste repository, near Carlsbad, N.M. U.S. officials are pushing state regulators to clear the way for a new ventilation shaft to be built at the site in southern New Mexico, but watchdog groups say modifying the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s permit to allow for the construction could open the door to expansion. The state Environment Department’s Hazardous Waste Bureau held a virtual hearing in May 2021 to gather comments on the proposed permit change. A final decision is anticipated in mid-October. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan, File)

CARLBAD, N.M. (AP) — U.S. officials are pushing state regulators to clear the way for a new ventilation shaft to be built at the federal government’s nuclear waste repository in southern New Mexico, but watchdog groups say modifying the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant’s permit to allow for the construction could open the door to expansion.

The state Environment Department’s Hazardous Waste Bureau held a virtual hearing over the past week to gather comments on the proposed permit change. A final decision is anticipated in mid-October.

Ventilation has been an issue since 2014, when a radiation release contaminated parts of the underground facility and forced an expensive, nearly three-year closure, delayed the federal government’s cleanup program and prompted policy changes at national laboratories and defense-related sites across the U.S.

Officials with the U.S. Energy Department have said the new shaft is needed to repair a “crippled” ventilation system, the Carlsbad Current-Argus newspaper reported.

With more airflow, officials argue that more workers can be in the underground space working on mining and waste operations simultaneously.

“Air to an underground mine is like blood to body,” said Michael Woodward, counsel for the Energy Department and Nuclear Waste Partnership, the contractor that runs the facility. “Without sufficient airflow, and underground mine simply cannot operate. There must be sufficient air to allow multitasking in the underground.”

Woodward said at the hearing that the utility shaft was not intended to expand the repository. He said the amount of waste to be entombed there was established by Congress and only Congress could expand the plant’s mission.

Robert Kehrman, a retired geoscientist and consultant at the repository, testified about the need for the shaft to allow multiple operations to be done in tandem.

The proposal is supported by leaders from the nearby city of Carlsbad, where many of the plant’s employees live.

Chad Ingram, executive director of the Carlsbad Chamber of Commerce, said the repository for decades provided jobs and support to the community and that he believed the proposed shaft project was developed with worker safety in mind.

Cynthia Weehler, a Santa Fe resident and representative of activist group Stop Forever WIPP, argued the utility shaft was indicative of the Energy Department gradually expanding the repository using individual projects rather than proposing the overall goal of altering the facility’s mission to extend its lifetime.

She said that if New Mexico approves the permit, it would seem to be “colluding” with the Energy Department “to relabel a new mission and a future expansion.”

“It will lead us to an operation we didn’t consent to,” Weehler said.

Powerful US nuclear test reactor getting rare major overhaul

By KEITH RIDLER

May 20, 2021

In this Jan. 31, 2007 photo released by Idaho National Laboratory shows its Advanced Test Reactor at Sunrise at Idaho National Laboratory's desert site about 50 miles west of Idaho Falls, Idaho. (Idaho National Laboratory via AP)

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Scientists in Idaho this summer plan to remove the 62,000-pound (28,100-kilogram) stainless steel lid on one of the world’s most powerful nuclear test reactors for a rare internal overhaul.

The Advanced Test Reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory is being refurbished and improved with new components and experimental capacity, the scientists said in interviews this week.

The nine-month and $170 million effort, called a core internals changeout, started last month and is scheduled to be finished around the end of the year.

An additional $100 million has been spent over the last three years on replacing external equipment to keep the test reactor going.

Experiments at the reactor help the U.S. Navy’s nuclear-powered war fleet stay at sea longer, bolster NASA’s space exploration, and advance life-saving medical treatments. The reactor also plays a key role in the effort to keep commercial nuclear power plants running longer and creating new and safer reactors to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“ATR is an absolutely beautiful reactor,” said Sean O’Kelly, associate lab director in charge of the test reactor. “There has never been one like it on the planet.”

The reactor is configured so it can run multiple tests simultaneously. Some of the best testing slots face a decade-long wait for room to run experiments, and other slots are booked years in advance.

The ATR is unique because unlike commercial nuclear reactors that produce heat that’s turned into energy, the ATR produces neutrons so that new materials and fuels can be tested to see how they react in high-radiation environments. The test reactor’s unique cloverleaf design includes a core that’s surrounded by beryllium metal to reflect the neutrons.

But all those neutrons puts wear on the internal parts of the test reactor, meaning it would lose the ability to conduct experiments if it is not refurbished.

The reactor’s designers foresaw that problem and created a reactor with internal components that can be periodically replaced. The current changeout is the sixth since the reactor started operating in 1967 and the first in 17 years.

O’Kelly and Hans Vogel, director of the ATR Strategic Irradiation Capabilities Division, said that the most difficult challenge will come this summer when workers take off the stainless steel lid, exposing the inside of test reactor.

“Removing the reactor top head itself, that’s a 30-ton lift that we do, and that is a very infrequent evolution,” Vogel said, adding that will be followed by roughly three months of changing internal hardware.

O’Kelly and Vogel said the U.S. has looked at building a new test reactor that would cost billions of dollars, but so far opted to stick with the ATR.

It’s the most powerful test reactor of its kind in the world, producing 250 megawatts at full power. China has a test reactor that can produce 125 megawatts, followed by a test reactor in Belgium that can produce 100 megawatts. The Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee has one that can produce 85 megawatts.

The advantage with more power, O’Kelly said, is that fuels and materials can be tested to their limits.

“You don’t want fuel that is designed for 100 megawatts, and the first time you go to 103 megawatts, it fails,” he said. “You build a safety margin in, and we have to test to that safety margin.”

Additionally, the ATR has what O’Kelly describes as the ability to maintain “a constant gradient of neutron flux throughout the core. ATR has this constant curvature of flux, so the experimenters have a fixed power and they know exactly what the power is in that region.”

He said other test reactors can be more challenging for experiments because the environment is changing during the experiment.

The Advanced Test Reactor has been used to develop reactors and fuel that can last the 30-year lifespans of nuclear-powered U.S. warships. Because they don’t need refueling, the ships can spend more time on their missions, meaning the Navy needs to build fewer ships.

The USS Idaho, a Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine, benefits from work done at the ATR. The submarine is scheduled to launch in 2023 and spend three decades in service.

Late this year or early next year, scientists expect the ATR will be put back together and have completed required safety testing.

“ATR will be able to run for at least another 15 to 20 years,” said O’Kelly, adding this internal changeout might not be the last. “We are planning to do at least one more (core internals changeout) in the lifetime of ATR in the 2030s.”

  

In this April 8, 2009 photo released by Idaho National Laboratory shows the Advanced Test Reactor's distinctive cloverleaf core at Idaho National Laboratory's desert site about 50 miles west of Idaho Falls, Idaho. The blue Cherenkov glow indicates the reactor is in operation. The experiment in-pile tubes are the long tubes extending down into the core from the top of the frame. (Idaho National Laboratory via AP)

 

In this May 7, 2013 photo released by Idaho National Laboratory shows Nuclear operations professional personnel work above the Advanced Test Reactor at Idaho National Laboratory's desert site about 50 miles west of Idaho Falls, Idaho. The small cylindrical section in the center of the platform has access ports that allow access to the reactor core for refueling and experiment loading and unloading during routine outages. (Idaho National Laboratory via AP)

In this May 7, 2013 photo released by Idaho National Laboratory shows Nuclear operations professional personnel work above the Advanced Test Reactor at Idaho National Laboratory's desert site about 50 miles west of Idaho Falls, Idaho. The small cylindrical section in the center of the platform has access ports that allow access to the reactor core for refueling and experiment loading and unloading during routine outages. The platform, a layer of shield blocks totalling more than 150,000 lbs, and then the 62,000-lb reactor vessel top head are temporarily removed in order to complete the ATR core overhaul. (Idaho National Laboratory via AP)

Rare protests in Oman over jobs draw massive police response
By JON GAMBRELL

AP 24 minutes ago



Map locates protests. Scattered protests in Oman over layoffs and poor economic conditions have drawn a massive police presence in at least one city in the sultanate.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Scattered protests in Oman over layoffs and poor economic conditions drew a massive police presence Monday in at least one city in the sultanate, with protesters throwing stones at one point and police firing tear gas.

Videos posted to social media show several dozen Omanis in the city of Sohar trailed by a long line of riot police vehicles. Other images appear to show a line of dozens of officers in riot gear near a government labor office in the city, some 200 kilometers (125 miles) northwest of the capital, Muscat.

Other images appear to show Omanis fleeing smoking tear gas canisters and others being arrested by nightstick-wielding riot police. The images correspond to known landmarks around Sohar, the first major city people enter in the sultanate after coming over the border from the neighboring United Arab Emirates.

Similar scattered protests on Sunday brought another mass police presence, activists said online. That demonstration was acknowledged by Oman’s Labor Ministry in a tweet, which said it was aware of people gathering there to try to “find new job vacancies and to solve the problems of those who were fired.”

It was not immediately clear if there had been a major layoff in Sohar, which is home to a key port, as well as plants producing aluminum and steel. Oil and gas remains a major industry in Oman. Its tourism sector has been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic and repeated lockdowns in the sultanate.

Oman’s tightly controlled private media, as well as its state news agency and television broadcaster, did not immediately report on the protests. However, state TV on Monday afternoon acknowledged that jobless people had been coming to Labor Ministry offices to “expedite the treatment of their conditions.”

The Royal Oman Police did not acknowledge making any arrests. Oman’s Information Ministry and the Omani Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.

The demonstrations mark the first major unrest for Sultan Haitham bin Tariq, who took over in January 2020 after the death of the long-ruling Sultan Qaboos bin Said. State media on Monday referred to employment as “among the most important priorities” of Sultan Haitham.

Oman faces billions in looming loan repayments, including from China, and needs even more money as its youthful population wants jobs and its government cannot afford the cradle-to-grave benefits given in other Gulf Arab nations.

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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.