In the frugal last meal of a man 2,400 years ago, scientists see signs of human sacrifice

A study of the gut of a well-preserved body from a bog in Denmark has offered new details that researchers say hint at dark rituals.

Preserved body of the Tollund Man on display at the Silkeborg Museum, Silkeborg, Denmark.Robert Harding / Alamy Stock Photo


July 21, 2021
By Tom Metcalfe

When the Tollund Man was discovered in a bog in Denmark 71 years ago, he was so well preserved that his finders thought he was the victim of a recent murder.

It took archaeologists to reveal he had been thrown into the bog almost 2,400 years ago, and that he’d first been hanged — a noose of plaited animal hide was still around his neck. The careful arrangement of the body and face — his closed eyes and faint smile — suggested he may have been killed as a human sacrifice, rather than executed as a criminal.


The suggestion that the Tollund Man was killed as a human sacrifice has now been reinforced by a study of the condemned man’s frugal last meal, made from a detailed investigation of the contents of his digestive tract: A porridge of barley, flax and pale persicaria.

The seeds of pale persicaria are the clue to this Iron Age murder mystery, said archaeologist Nina Nielsen, the head of research at Denmark’s Silkeborg Museum and the lead author of the study published Tuesday.

Tollund Man’s large intestine.Danish National Museum

The plant grows wild among barley crops, but evidence from Iron Age grain storage shows it was usually cleaned out as a weed during threshing. That suggests it was part of “threshing waste” that was added to the porridge deliberately — perhaps as part of a ritual meal for those condemned to die by human sacrifice.

“Was it just an ordinary meal? Or was threshing waste something you only included when people were eating a ritual meal?” Nielsen said. “We don’t know that.”

The contents of the Tollund Man’s preserved intestines were examined soon after he was found. But the new study refines that initial examination with much improved archaeological techniques and instruments.

“Back in 1950, they only looked at the well preserved grains and seeds, and not the very fine fraction of the material,” Nielsen said. “But now we have better microscopes, better ways of analyzing the material and new techniques. So that means that we could get more information out of it.”

As well as revealing the clue of the threshing waste added to his last meal, the researchers found it was probably cooked in a clay pot — pieces of overcooked crust can be seen in the traces — and that he’d also eaten fish. They also found he was suffering from several parasitic infections when he died, including tapeworms — probably from a regular diet of undercooked meat and contaminated water, Nielsen said.

Tollund Man’s intestine content.N.H. Nielsen

The Tollund Man is one of dozens of bog bodies from the Iron Age between about 2,500 and 1,500 years ago that have been found throughout Northern Europe. They were mummified in the bogs by the low oxygen levels, low temperatures and water turned acidic by the layers of decaying vegetation, or peat, that are found there.

A few seem to have been the victims of accidents, possibly people who drowned after falling into the water. But most, like the Tollund Man, were killed and placed in the bogs deliberately, with their bodies and features carefully arranged. Archaeologists think they were selected as human sacrifices, possibly to avert a pending disaster like a famine.

Miranda Aldhouse-Green, a professor emeritus of history, archaeology and religion at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom and the author of the book “Bog Bodies Uncovered: Solving Europe’s Ancient Mystery,” said the seeds of pale persicaria and other traces of threshing waste in the Tollund Man’s last porridge are further evidence that he was sacrificed.

“That reinforces the idea that he either was being shamed by being given something disgusting and horrible to eat, or it actually reflected the fact that society was in a downward spiral where food was scarce,” she said.

The idea that the human sacrifice victims had somehow been “shamed” before death was also reflected in their burials in bogs, instead of the usual burials in tombs and dry graves, she said.

The preservational properties of bogs were well known to people in the Iron Age — many archaeological objects from that time, including pieces of expensive pottery, were also deliberately deposited there — and it could be that the preservation of a bog body was intended to keep it from joining its ancestors. Bogs were seen as gateways to another realm.

“If you put a body in the bog, it would not decay — it would stay between the worlds of the living and the dead,” Aldhouse-Green said.

The ingredients of Tollund Man’s last meal, in relative quantities: A) barley seeds; B) pale persicaria; C) barley fragments; D) flax; E) black-bindweed; F) "fat hen" seeds; G) sand; H) hemp-nettles; I) camelina; J) corn spurrey; K) field pansy. P.S. Henriksen / Danish National Museum

There’s evidence that threshing waste was added to the last meal of another Iron Age bog body found in Denmark in 1952, that of the Grauballe Man, who is also thought to have been killed as a human sacrifice. Although more than 100 bog bodies have now been found, only 12 are preserved well enough that their last meals can be analyzed, Nielsen said, and she hopes now to look for further evidence of the ritual practice.

The Tollund Man now occupies a glass case in a special gallery at the Silkeborg Museum, where Nielsen can see him almost every day.

“You’re standing face to face with a person from the past,” she said. “He’s 2,400 years old — that’s really amazing.”

Mexican wolf breeding program gets boost from zoo


MEXICO CITY (AP) — Five gray wolf pups born at Mexico City’s Chapultepec Zoo are giving a boost to efforts to broaden the endangered species’ genetic diversity amid continuing efforts to reintroduce the animals to the wild decades after they were reduced to captive populations.

Provided by The Canadian Press

The pups' father, Rhi, alerts them every midday to the delivery of breakfast, in the form of chicken and quail meat brought by zookeeper Jorge Gutiérrez, 58.


Gutiérrez has cared for Rhi since he was born, and is now proud to see he has formed a pack with the pups' mother, Seje.

“It's marvelous. What I am experiencing is something unique," says Gutiérrez.

He watches as the five wolf pups stumble out of their den to eat. The three males and two females were born in early April.

They are part of a four-decade, binational program between the United States and Mexico to breed the gray wolves in captivity and release them back into the wild.

Even the “endangered” classification is progress for the Mexican wolf; two years ago, given the success of the breeding program, Mexican authorities were able to move the subspecies up from its previous “probably extinct in the wild” classification.

For more than two decades, the effort to return Mexican gray wolves to the wild in the U.S. Southwest has been fraught with conflict. Ranchers have complained about the challenges of having to scare away the wolves to keep their cattle from being eaten. Many have said their livelihoods and rural way of life are at stake.

Environmentalists argue that wolf reintroduction has stumbled as a result of illegal killings and management decisions they contend are rooted in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s attempt to accommodate ranchers and the region’s year-round cattle calving season.

North America’s rarest subspecies of gray wolf, the Mexican gray wolf was listed as endangered in 1976 after being hunted, trapped and poisoned to the brink of extinction. From the 1960s to the 1980s, seven gray wolves — believed to be the last of their kind — were captured and the captive breeding program began.

Wolves started being released in the late ’90s. The wild population has nearly doubled over the last five years, with the latest annual census finding about 186 Mexican wolves in the wild in New Mexico and Arizona.

In northern Mexico, the other part of the wolves' historic range, reintroduction initially stumbled.

An effort to reintroduce them to the wild in the border state of Sonora in 2011 ended in tragedy when all five wolves were poisoned, it's not clear by whom. But another release was carried out in 2012 in the state of Chihuahua, and those wolves now number around 40, most born in the wild.

Mexico is now studying other areas for possible releases.

Fernando Gual, a veterinarian who serves as director of Mexico City's zoos, notes that the Chapultepec Zoo also has a sperm and egg bank that provides backup for genetic material.

But the best guarantees are animals like Seje, who holds out a piece of meat with her mouth to show the pups how to eat.

“This is our jewel,” Gual says. “Every litter of pups is hope for the life of this species.”

Fabiola Sánchez, The Associated Press

THIRD WORLD USA
Millions may soon face lower unemployment benefits or lose them altogether
Greg Iacurci 

The long-term jobless who applied for benefits a year or more ago might requalify for state unemployment insurance once federal benefits run out Sept. 6.

These workers have reached the end of their "benefit year." The state will assess a worker's recent earnings to determine if someone is eligible for another round of assistance.

Someone who worked only a little during the pandemic may not qualify for much, if any, based on state formulas.

© Provided by CNBC An employer holds flyers for hospitality employment during a Zislis Group job fair at The Brew Hall on June 23, 2021 in Torrance, California.

Millions of Americans are poised to lose their unemployment benefits or see a lower weekly payment due to a collision of state rules and the expiration of federal programs.

Such workers are reaching the end of their "benefit year," which marks a year since they applied for assistance.

Seeking aid past this point typically triggers a review from state labor agencies. They assess a worker's recent earnings record to judge whether the person qualifies for a new installment of benefits — and, if so, the appropriate amount.
However, recipients who haven't found a job or have worked few hours since the start of the pandemic may be out of luck. Little earnings will likely mean a much lower — if any — benefit.

Until now, a federal program — Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation — has largely kept income support intact for these long-term unemployed, even if their "benefit year" elapsed.

But that program ends nationwide after Labor Day. Around two dozen states, mostly Republican-led, ended it early

.

© Provided by CNBC

Roughly 4.7 million people — a third of all recipients — were collecting benefits through the program as of June 26, according to Labor Department data.

It's unclear how many of them first applied for benefits more than a year ago. But another data set, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, suggests 2.9 million Americans have been out of work for more than a year, though not all necessarily collect jobless benefits.

"Maybe there could be several hundred thousand, maybe 1 million at the high end [who'd qualify for benefits again]," said Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow and unemployment expert at The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank.

"And for everyone else, they'll have to scramble to find a job, go on food stamps, use their savings," he added. "Rental assistance should still be available, but they won't have cash income, really.

"

© Provided by CNBC

(This benefit-year issue applies to those eligible to collect state unemployment insurance. About 5.7 million self-employed, gig, freelance and other workers who are ineligible for state benefits are collecting federal aid through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which also ends Sept. 6.)

The Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program has been available to workers since the beginning of the pandemic.

Created by the CARES Act, it offers aid to those who exhaust their allotment of standard state benefits — generally up to 26 weeks but sometimes much less, depending on the state.

Congress has twice extended the program's duration via Covid relief measures passed in December and March. The most recent, the American Rescue Plan, extended it to Sept. 6.

Twenty-two states opted to end federal unemployment assistance — including aid for the long-term unemployed — in June or July. (Another four opted for an early end to a $300 weekly supplement to benefits.)

State officials claimed the extra benefits were causing recipients to stay home instead of look for jobs. Critics of that stance say other factors, like ongoing health risks and child-care duties, played a bigger role in any perceived labor shortages.

Meanwhile, an upswing in U.S. Covid cases from the delta variant, largely among the unvaccinated, may negatively impact local economies and potentially lead workers to turn to the unemployment system again.

States use different formulas to determine how workers can re-qualify for assistance once their benefit year has elapsed. All of them require at least some recent work history to be eligible, though to varying degrees.

"That new benefit year will be based on earnings throughout the pandemic," said Michele Evermore, a senior policy advisor for unemployment insurance at the U.S. Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration. "And [payments] may be significantly less than they were getting before, if they're eligible at all."

'Billionaire looting the city': Locals turn ire toward Athletics as Oakland lays out terms for new ballpark

Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY 

Oakland’s City Council on Tuesday approved a non-binding term sheet that on paper represents the next step in a $12 billion project proposed by the Oakland Athletics for a new ballpark on the city’s waterfront.

Yet the council vote, by a 6-1 tally with one abstention, came with the strong understanding that the A’s would reject many of the terms that were revised from their April proposal to the city.

So rather than a step forward, Tuesday’s action – which included several hours of public comment that came out strongly against the club's original terms – instead was a chance for the council and citizens to push back against the strong-arm tactics of the franchise and Major League Baseball, which insisted the A’s will relocate if its terms are not met

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© Thearon W. Henderson, Getty Images A view outside the Athletics' stadium in 2019.

MLB in April signaled its approval for the A’s to seek relocation options if the Howard Terminal project is not approved, and club president Dave Kaval has since made multiple trips to Las Vegas, with another scheduled for Wednesday. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters on July 13 that “thinking about Las Vegas as a bluff is a mistake.”

Tuesday, the wounds from those actions – which included Kaval gleefully tweeting from a Vegas Golden Knights Stanley Cup playoff game – surfaced from the council and its constituents.

“The bullying factor, the sleights of hand, the tweets from Vegas – if we were voting on how the A’s have behaved, it would be a no vote,” council member Loren Taylor said before the vote. “But we’re voting on the future of Oakland.”

And the council’s version of a term sheet included one significant concession to the club – absolving the A's of $352 million in infrastructure costs, which the council hoped it could generate by applying for federal and state development funds. But it asked the club to provide 35% affordable housing units among its planned development that actually dwarfs the ballpark itself in the scope of the deal.

The council’s term sheet said the A’s would set aside 15% of onsite housing as affordable, while also requiring the club to establish a displacement prevention strategies fund and provide anti-displacement tenant services in the four neighborhoods affected by the project.

The A’s did not cite any direct affordable-housing set-asides in their April term sheet, instead noting that housing could be funded through tax districts created by the project. While council members hoped to view their term sheet approval as a movement toward further negotiations, Kaval indicated the terms were not acceptable and said the club had not seen the terms until Tuesday.

“We hoped it’d be a vote on something we brought in April, or a derivative of it. It’s hard to understand how that’s a path forward,” he said after reviewing the council’s term sheet.

A resounding number of citizens felt the same way, but for a multitude of different reasons.

Hundreds of Oakland residents virtually queued to make one-minute comments before and after the session, almost all of them rejecting the parameters of the A’s original term sheet. While many were protecting personal interests – such as Port of Oakland workers who may be affected by the project, or East Oakland residents who’d prefer the team stay at the Coliseum site – many were disgusted at the gall displayed by Kaval on behalf of owner John Fisher, who has an estimated net worth of $3.2 billion.

Fisher and his father Donald were part of a group that purchased the A’s for $180 million in 2005, after which the current odyssey for a new ballpark to replace the aging Coliseum began. The team’s value is now estimated by Forbes at $1.125 billion and likely would appreciate further with a new stadium.

The city’s lack of affordable housing and its multitudes of unhoused residents would hardly be addressed by a $12 billion project for a ballclub.

“West Oakland has been devastated,” resident William Chorneau said before the vote. “All my neighbors have been pushed out. The stadium will bring about more traffic, more gentrification and more pollution.”

A Port employee identified as A. Wright said, “This is a billionaire looting the city. Put this on the ballot, and it would lose.”

While Kaval and MLB insisted on action before the council recesses next month, it’s clear the process will not move forward without further negotiation. Other potholes await, including finalization of an environmental impact report, expected in October, as well as Alameda County’s approval.

Council members repeatedly tossed back the A’s since-deactivated hashtag – “Rooted In Oakland” – during their deliberations, a theme that rang hollow once Kaval began canoodling with Las Vegas. With one public commenter urging the club “not to let the Golden Gate hit you on the way out,” the council on Tuesday showed its willingness to negotiate – and also call MLB’s bluff if needed.

"If the A’s are not happy with what was produced today and still talking about leaving after the city bent over backward and provided some of its best work in the interest of Oakland residents – and how these wealthy owners don’t’ have to pay for infrastructure – then I don’t know where we go from here,” says council member Carroll Fife, who abstained from the vote because she felt the A’s would reject it anyway.

“After doing all the somersaults and all the insults…it’s not a negotiation. It’s, ‘Do what we say or we will leave.’ That is not rooted. That is not respectful.”

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CLIMATE EMERGENCY
Plans in place to protect large area of Yukon from unprecedented flooding

WHITEHORSE — Unseasonable heat and rapidly melting snowpacks in Yukon have combined to produce unprecedented flooding far worse the last major flood event, and emergency officials say it could be weeks before conditions improve.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The territory has offered an update on the high water that has affected about 200 properties in the Southern Lakes Region south of Whitehorse and the Lake Laberge area to the north.

Mila Milojevic with Yukon Energy, the territory's primary electricity producer, says water levels are dropping at the dam at Marsh Lake used to manage downriver flows, but modelling suggests levels by August will still be 20 to 80 centimetres above the record floods of 2007.

Dryer, cooler conditions since June mean water levels are expected at the lower end of that scale, but Milojevic says glacial melt is still to come and that could add to the flood risk, especially if August is rainy.

Mark Hill, the liaison between Yukon's Emergency Measures Office and flood managers, says the largest flood mitigation effort in Yukon's history is underway as a state of emergency is in effect in the flood zones and evacuation orders and alerts are posted.

Hill says specialists from Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, a contingent of 100 armed forces members and more than 300 Yukoners have filled more than one million sandbags since June and have built berms that emergency staff are confident will withstand any level of rising water.

"I don't think it's going to matter one way or the other," Hill said in response to a question about damage if waters reach the highest predicted levels.

"Ultimately, we just build our berms to whatever height is necessary," he said.

Most damage to properties so far has been from groundwater seepage, overwhelmed septic fields and flooded crawl spaces.

Hill says it's too soon to assign a dollar figure to those losses.

Efforts are also focused on protecting roads, bridges and other infrastructure threatened by the high water around Carcross and Tagish in the Southern Lakes region and along several sections of Lake Laberge, he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 20, 2021.

The Canadian Press

Bezos' comments on workers after spaceflight draws rebuke


NEW YORK (AP) — The world's richest man wanted to say thanks to the people who made his brief trip into space Tuesday possible.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

But for some, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' expression of gratitude went over like a lead rocket.

“I want to thank every Amazon employee, and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all this,” the 57-year-old Bezos said during a news conference Tuesday after becoming the second billionaire in just over a week to ride in his own spacecraft.

Bezos built Amazon into a shopping and entertainment behemoth but has faced increasing activism within his own workforce and stepped up pressure from critics to improve working conditions.

Labor groups and Amazon workers have claimed that the company offers its hourly employees not enough break times, puts too much reliance on rigid productivity metrics and has unsafe working conditions. An effort to unionize workers at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama failed earlier this year.

Robert Reich, former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton and a professor of public policy at University of California, Berkeley, wrote on Twitter that Bezos has crushed unionizing attempts for decades.

“Amazon workers don’t need Bezos to thank them. They need him to stop union busting — and pay them what they deserve," Reich wrote.

Bezos stepped down as Amazon CEO in July, allowing him more time for side projects including his space exploration company Blue Origin. He has said he finances the rocket company by selling $1 billion in Amazon stock each year.

After the spaceflight, Bezos awarded $100 million donations through a new philanthropic initiative to both D.C. chef Jose Andres and CNN contributor Van Jones to put towards any charity or nonprofit of their choice. Jones has founded a number of nonprofit organizations and Andres' nonprofit group World Central Kitchen provides meals to people following natural disasters.

Nevertheless, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, who is on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, proposed on Tuesday legislation that would tax space travel for non-scientific research purposes.

“Space exploration isn’t a tax-free holiday for the wealthy," said Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat. “Just as normal Americans pay taxes when they buy airline tickets, billionaires who fly into space to produce nothing of scientific value should do the same, and then some."

Others tied his spaceflight to reports that Bezos hasn't paid his fair share of taxes. According to the nonprofit investigative journalism organization ProPublica, Bezos paid no income tax in 2007 and 2011.

“Jeff Bezos forgot to thank all the hardworking Americans who actually paid taxes to keep this country running while he and Amazon paid nothing," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., tweeted.

Allen Adamson, co-founder of marketing consultancy Metaforce, says it's challenging for Bezos to say where the money from the space trip is coming from without being offensive. He says he should have left out those comments and focused on thanking the Blue Origin team.

“For people who have an issue with inequality and his compensation versus the average employee compensation, this was rocket fuel," Adamson said.

____

Follow Anne D’Innocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio

Anne D'innocenzio, The Associated Press

Jeff Bezos thanked Amazon workers for paying for his space flight. For some, the feeling isn't mutual.
tsonnemaker@insider.com (Tyler Sonnemaker,Aleeya Mayo,Charles Davis,Ben Gilbert) 
© Joe Raedle/Getty Images Blue Origin's New Shepard crew (L-R) Oliver Daemen, Mark Bezos, Jeff Bezos, and Wally Funk held a press conference after their suborbital flight into space on July 20, 2021. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Jeff Bezos thanked Amazon's workers and customers for paying for his Blue Origin space flight.
But some Amazon workers said they want better pay and working conditions, not a thank you.
"He should just go to Jupiter and live his best life there," one worker told Insider.
See more stories on Insider's business page.

After Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos flew into suborbital space for around three minutes on Tuesday, he thanked some of the people who helped send him there: Amazon's employees and customers.


"I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, because you guys paid for all of this," Bezos said during a post-flight press conference. "Seriously, for every Amazon customer out there, and every Amazon employee, thank you from the bottom of my heart very much. It's very appreciated."

For many workers who heard Bezos' comments, the feeling wasn't exactly mutual.

Multiple Amazon employees told Insider there appeared to be little interest in the launch, and that they wished Bezos would have spent the money on virtually anything else, like paying Amazon workers better.

"I heard he was going to space but to be honest, I didn't really care," an employee at Amazon's JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, told Insider, adding: "Me and my coworkers were joking that he should just go to Jupiter and live his best life there."

"People certainly weren't rushing to the TVs to watch," one Amazon warehouse employee in Indiana told Insider. "I guess it was just a big deal for Jeff. We didn't get anything out of it. Twenty-minute flight to space on us basically since we do the work."

Amazon and Blue Origin did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this story.

Most of Bezos' wealth is tied up in roughly 51.7 million shares of Amazon stock he owns, shares that have risen to more than $3,549 apiece since the company's IPO price of $18 in 1997. And Bezos previously said he liquidates around $1 billion worth of Amazon stock per year to fund Blue Origin's operations, so those who have helped Amazon succeed literally did fund Bezos' space ambitions.

But some workers said they've paid for the success of Amazon, and by extension Blue Origin, in other ways that they're not too happy about.

"I guess he's thanking us for putting the money in his pocket to do so by our hard work, sacrificing our bonuses and stock options to make it possible," the Amazon employee in Indiana said. (Amazon's hourly warehouse employees aren't eligible for stock options or bonuses).

"I feel like he just said that because he had a guilty conscience, he knows he's wrong for making money off treating workers like slaves," the Staten Island employee said, referencing the grueling and potentially dangerous conditions some Amazon workers encounter.

Amazon has aggressively fought any efforts by its workers to unionize, despite evidence showing unions typically increase wages and can help address racial and gender pay gaps.

As other critics of Bezos' space flight - like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - pointed out, American taxpayers have also subsidized Amazon and Blue Origin.

Amazon's reliance on a massive network of contract delivery drivers allows it to avoid paying for their healthcare, workers' compensation, and unemployment insurance, and 4,000 of its workers in just nine states rely on food stamps, passing those costs off to taxpayers and other employers whose payments into the social safety net help Amazon workers that have fallen through the cracks.

Amazon workers who spoke to Insider also said they felt Bezos should have spent more of his immense wealth addressing these and other issues instead of pursuing his space ambitions.

"I can think of a lot of other things he could do with all that money he spent on it, better wages for starters, the homeless, the poor, mental health," another current Amazon fulfilment center employee told Insider.

"I think it's selfish of him to be so self-consumed to send himself into space when there are so many homeless and hungry people in the world. He could end homelessness and hunger for everybody in the world and he chooses not to because he's selfish," said Vickie Shannon Allen, a former Amazon employee who became homeless after a workplace injury and a long battle with Amazon over medical expenses.

Jeff Bezos' Penis-Shaped Rocket Launches Dr. Evil Comparisons

Andi Ortiz 

The New Shepard spacecraft carrying Jeff Bezos and three other passengers successfully completed its space flight Tuesday morning. It was a brief journey, but an exciting one, drawing 600,000 viewers to the live stream on YouTube.

 TheWrap rocket jeff bezos dr. evil penis dick jokes

But, watching the launch and getting a clear look at the rocket that would get Bezos and his team there, some people could only think of one thing: Austin Powers. Or rather, one very specific scene from "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me".

For those who don't remember, in the 1999 film, Dr. Evil's plan — which he dubbed "The Alan Parsons Project" — is to take over the world using a giant "laser" on the moon. He intends to fire it at the White House, unless they pay him an obscene amount of money (which doesn't even actually exist at that point, since he's traveled back in time).

Of course, before he can fire the "laser," Dr. Evil has to get to his moon base. Naturally, to get to space, one has to take a rocket. Here's how that went:

Once people saw it, it was all they could see. Throughout the morning, the Dr. Evil comparisons kept landing. You can check out more belo

Central banks, wealth funds going greener and more activist -survey

By Marc Jones 7 hrs ago

© Reuters/Chris Helgren FILE PHOTO: Steam rises from a chemical plant in an industrial zone in Hamilton NOT STEAM BUT EXHAUST OF CHEMICALS AND PARTICULATE

LONDON (Reuters) - The COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating a shift by central banks and sovereign wealth and public pension funds to greener and more activist investment strategies, one of the largest annual surveys of their behaviours showed.

The Global Public Investor survey by think-tank Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) sampled 102 institutions overseeing a combined $7 trillion this year to track how the pandemic and other long-term trends are affecting them.

The findings of the survey, seen by Reuters ahead of its publication on Wednesday, showed the scale and speed at which environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors were now driving investment decisions.

"There has definitely been an acceleration due to COVID," OMFIF's Chief Economist Danae Kyriakopoulou said.

"At the beginning (of the pandemic), we thought there would be a focus on the short-term, the quick boosts to recoveries. But actually there has been this realisation that our financial systems are so vulnerable to things outside the financial world".

As well as a store of wealth for future generations, sovereign wealth funds are often used by countries during periods of upheaval.

For the first time since OMFIF started asking about ESG, the majority in all three categories of global public investors (GPIs) said that they now implement it in some way.

This differed widely between types of institution, with all pension funds implementing ESG criteria, compared with around two-thirds of sovereign funds and just over half of central banks.

Central banks made up around 60% of OMFIF's survey sample this year and while many don't invest in equities or infrastructure projects, green bonds remain their most popular ESG option.

Over a third of the banks asked in the survey now hold them, although some also said that liquidity and lack of supply of green bonds, especially in dollars, can be a headache.

Graphic: Central banks and wealth funds ESG approaches - https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/jnvweggkqvw/Pasted%20image%201626790657459.png

TIPPING POINT

The survey also showed a trend for more active ownership, especially among sovereign wealth and public pension funds. Rather than just excluding polluters, many funds are now specifically buying companies or projects that transition to more sustainable practices from dirtier or less responsible ones.

There are still clear gaps though. The survey found that around 60% of GPIs didn't use ESG benchmarks - a kind of shopping list of assets that they can and can't own - and only 8% had their own bespoke benchmarks.

An Invesco survey earlier this month found the majority of sovereign funds think financial markets are fully pricing in the long-term implications of climate change.

Nevertheless, Kyriakopoulou pointed to one day in May when a Dutch court ordered Shell to lower its emissions faster, Exxon Mobil's shareholders defied management to elect two new climate-conscious board members and Chevron's shareholders went against its management to back emissions cuts.

"Policy-makers and investors should not be surprised by such rulings or decisions. Even though they are radical and mark a 'tipping point', it is clear that momentum for change has been building".

Graphic: How activist are central banks and wealth funds - https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/znpneddqrvl/Pasted%20image%201626789998482.png

(Reporting by Marc Jones; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

WERE THEY DRINKING?

Three order-filling robots collide at supermarket warehouse, triggering massive fire

A collision between three robots at a British online supermarket’s largest warehouse sparked a massive fire that has shut down operations for days.

© Provided by National Post An Ocado 'hive' scuttle around the grid in a video by the company.

National Post Staff , Bloomberg News 

Around a hundred firefighters and 15 fire engines responded to the blaze that occurred at Ocado’s largest automated warehouse on Friday, located in Erith, south east London. About 800 staff evacuated from the three-storey facility and no injuries were reported, the London’s fire department said in a statement.

“The fire was deep seated and was a challenging operation,” they said. It took close to 14 hours to put out.

In the ensuing days, thousands of orders have been delayed or cancelled, according to the Financial Times. It’s the second time in three years one of the company’s automated facilities has had a fire-related accident, the newspaper said.

A ‘collision of three bots’ that were used to fill orders triggered the fire, the company said on Saturday. The company expects the facility to begin operating again “within the coming week” as the damage is limited to a small section of “less than 1%” of the grid, it added.

Ocado’s share price fell to its lowest level in over a year and extended 2021 losses to 23%.

A video on Youtube shows their dizzying grid system at work. Hundreds of tightly packed bots zip along the sprawling grid, dropping off crates of groceries for humans, or other robots, to assemble into orders. The robots can move along the grid at a pace of four meters per second and handle thousands of orders a day, according to Insider.

© London Fire Department The blaze took 14 hours for London Fire Department to stamp out.

This Silicon Valley startup wants to replace lawyers with robots

However, the latest incident has raised further questions about the retailer’s robot horde. A huge blaze destroyed Ocado’s distribution center in Andover, southern England, in 2019, requiring a total rebuild. That incident was caused by an electrical fault in a battery that caused a robot to catch fire.

Ocado said the Andover fire had no implications for the viability of the group’s model. It has since signed several more technology partnership deals with overseas supermarket groups.

But a second robot fire may concern existing and potential customers of Ocado’s technology.

Japan's govt panel members call for aid to firms eyeing wage hikes

By Leika Kihara

© Reuters/Kim Kyung Hoon FILE PHOTO: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Tokyo

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan must boost aid to small firms which are seeking to raise wages as part of efforts to prop up spending on tourism, restaurants and other services hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, private-sector members of a key government panel said on Wednesday.

A resurgence in infections led the government to impose a new state of emergency in Olympic host city Tokyo that will last throughout and beyond the Games, dashing policymakers' hope of a strong revival in growth this quarter.

"The key to achieving an economic recovery is to resuscitate service consumption that has been lost due to the pandemic," a group of business executives and academics said in a proposal submitted to the government's top economic council.

Japan must ensure the boost to tourism, events and restaurants from vaccinations leads to a sustained recovery in consumption later this year through next year, they said, calling on the need for "flexible" policy action.

The proposals by the private-sector members tend to highlight the administration's priorities and used to lay the groundwork for the government's economic policies.

Speaking at the council's meeting on Wednesday, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said the government will extend until year-end special employment subsidies for companies hit by the pandemic.

The move would be part of the government's efforts to encourage companies to raise wages, particularly smaller firms that pay minimum wage to their employees.

Suga has made a hike in Japan's minimum wage among his policy priorities to beat deflation and give households more purchasing power.

An influential government panel last week recommended the national average minimum wage be raised around 3% to almost $8.50 per hour in the current fiscal year.

(Reporting by Leika Kihara)

Long-banned athlete protest acts expected at Tokyo Olympics

TOKYO (AP) — Athlete activism is making a comeback at these Olympic Games.

 
When play starts at the Tokyo Games on Wednesday, acts of free expression of the kind athletes were long banned from making at the Olympics will take center stage.

The British women’s soccer team has pledged to take a knee before kickoff against Chile in their Olympic tournament opener in Sapporo, to show support for racial justice.

“We want to show to everyone this is something serious," Britain defender Demi Stokes said. "What a way to do it, on an Olympic stage.”

One hour later in Tokyo, the United States and Sweden should follow in a gesture recognized globally since the murder of George Floyd 14 months ago. The England and Italy men's teams took a knee before the European Championship final this month.

What is common in modern soccer starts a new era for Olympic athletes more than 50 years after the raised black-gloved fists of American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos in Mexico City made them icons and pariahs.

Still, it is a limited freedom allowed by the International Olympic Committee, which just this month eased its longstanding ban on all athlete protest inside the Games field of play. The change followed two reviews in 18 months by the IOC's own athletes commission which advised against it.

Gestures are now allowed before races and games start, on the field, and at the start line.

Medal podiums remain off limits for protest, and even the IOC concessions left each sport’s governing body free to retain the ban.

Lawyers who study Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter — that banned any kind of “demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda” until July 2 — see issues ahead with athletes and the IOC heading on a fast track to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

“I think we can clearly expect some frictions around Rule 50 in the coming weeks,” sports law academic Antoine Duval said when hosting a recent debate on the inevitable athlete activism at Tokyo.

FIFA has had a relaxed view on taking a knee since players were inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement last year.

“FIFA believes in freedom of speech and opinion, and this applies to players, coaches, officials and any other person or organization within the scope of FIFA’s activities,” soccer’s world body said in a statement.

Expect raised fists at least on the start line in the main Olympic stadium when track and field events begin on July 30.

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe, a two-time Olympic gold medalist in the 1,500 meters, has gone even further. He put in play medal ceremonies where protest is denied as it was for Smith and Carlos in 1968.

“I’ve been very clear that if an athlete chooses to take the knee on a podium then I’m supportive of that,” Coe said inside Tokyo's National Stadium last October.

Soccer and athletics are the progressive end of the 33 sports governing bodies at these Summer Games.

Swimmers’ pre-race introductions are similar to track athletes, one by one toward their starting block, but governing body FINA followed the IOC announcement by refusing to allow any gesture that could be viewed as protest.

FINA president Husain al-Musallam spoke of the pool deck “remaining a sanctity for sport and nothing else,” where there should be “respect for the greater whole, not the individual.”

That stance was at odds with the new Rule 50 guidance yet was defended by IOC president Thomas Bach last week.

“There is not really a ‘one size fits all’ solution,” Bach said when asked about the apparent contradiction of some Olympic athletes having fewer freedoms than others in Tokyo.

It will fall to the IOC to decide on potential disciplinary cases which it promised to handle “in full transparency.”

This could lead to inconsistencies, according to Mark James, who teaches sports law at Manchester Metropolitan University in England.

“There will be flashpoints,” James said in the Rule 50 debate hosted by Netherlands-based Asser Institute. “Why are some (gestures) acceptable but some are a breach?”

James anticipated issues over the political intent of flags, and if the more open approach to athlete free speech in Tokyo would survive in China at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games.

What seems clear is a shift in the social media era of athletes' influence over event organizers and sports bodies.

“It is not just an IOC challenge, this is global sport,” said David Grevemberg from the Geneva-based Centre for Sport and Human Rights.

“This is actually, I would say, a crossroads for all sport.”

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Graham Dunbar, The Associated Press