Clearview AI Offered Free Facial Recognition Trials To Police All Around The World

As of February 2020, 88 law enforcement and government-affiliated agencies in 24 countries outside the United States have tried to use controversial facial recognition technology Clearview AI, according to a BuzzFeed News investigation.

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Posted on August 25, 2021, at 10:33 a.m. ET

Law enforcement agencies and government organizations from 24 countries outside the United States used a controversial facial recognition technology called Clearview AI, according to internal company data reviewed by BuzzFeed News.

That data, which runs up until February 2020, shows that police departments, prosecutors’ offices, universities, and interior ministries from around the world ran nearly 14,000 searches with Clearview AI’s software. At many law enforcement agencies from Canada to Finland, officers used the software without their higher-ups’ knowledge or permission. After receiving questions from BuzzFeed News, some organizations admitted that the technology had been used without leadership oversight.

In March, a BuzzFeed News investigation based on Clearview AI’s own internal data showed how the New York–based startup distributed its facial recognition tool, by marketing free trials for its mobile app or desktop software, to thousands of officers and employees at more than 1,800 US taxpayer-funded entities. Clearview claims its software is more accurate than other facial recognition technologies because it is trained on a database of more than 3 billion images scraped from websites and social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Law enforcement officers using Clearview can take a photo of a suspect or person of interest, run it through the software, and receive possible matches for that individual within seconds. Clearview has claimed that its app is 100% accurate in documents provided to law enforcement officials, but BuzzFeed News has seen the software misidentify people, highlighting a larger concern with facial recognition technologies.

Based on new reporting and data reviewed by BuzzFeed News, Clearview AI took its controversial US marketing playbook around the world, offering free trials to employees at law enforcement agencies in countries including Australia, Brazil, and the United Kingdom.

To accompany this story, BuzzFeed News has created a searchable table of 88 international government-affiliated and taxpayer-funded agencies and organizations listed in Clearview’s data as having employees who used or tested the company’s facial recognition service before February 2020, according to Clearview’s data.

GO HERE

Clearview AI Offered Free Trials To Police Around The World (buzzfeednews.com)

Some of those entities were in countries where the use of Clearview has since been deemed “unlawful.” Following an investigation, Canada’s data privacy commissioner ruled in February 2021 that Clearview had “violated federal and provincial privacy laws”; it recommended the company stop offering its services to Canadian clients, stop collecting images of Canadians, and delete all previously collected images and biometrics of people in the country.

In the European Union, authorities are assessing whether the use of Clearview violated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a set of broad online privacy laws that requires companies processing personal data to obtain people’s informed consent. The Dutch Data Protection Authority told BuzzFeed News that it’s “unlikely” that police agencies’ use of Clearview was lawful, while France’s National Commission for Informatics and Freedoms said that it has received “several complaints” about Clearview that are “currently being investigated.” One regulator in Hamburg has already deemed the company’s practices illegal under the GDPR and asked it to delete information on a German citizen.

Despite Clearview being used in at least two dozen other countries, CEO Hoan Ton-That insists the company’s key market is the US.

“While there has been tremendous demand for our service from around the world, Clearview AI is primarily focused on providing our service to law enforcement and government agencies in the United States,” he said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. “Other countries have expressed a dire need for our technology because they know it can help investigate crimes, such as, money laundering, financial fraud, romance scams, human trafficking, and crimes against children, which know no borders.”

In the same statement, Ton-That alleged there are “inaccuracies contained in BuzzFeed’s assertions.” He declined to explain what those might be and did not answer a detailed list of questions based on reporting for this story.

Clearview AI has created a powerful facial recognition tool and marketed it to police departments and government agencies. The company has never disclosed the entities that have used its facial recognition software, but a confidential source provided BuzzFeed News with data that appeared to be a list of agencies and companies whose employees have tested or actively used its technology.

Using that data, along with public records and interviews, we have created a searchable database of internationally based taxpayer-funded entities, including law enforcement agencies, prosecutor’s offices, universities, and interior ministries. We have included only those agencies for which the data shows that at least one associated individual ran at least one facial recognition scan as of February 2020.

The database has limitations. Clearview has neither verified nor disputed the underlying data, which The data begins in 2018 and ends in February 2020, so it does not account for any activity after that time or for any additional organizations that may have started using Clearview after February 2020.

Not all searches corresponded to an investigation, and some agencies told us that their employees had merely run test searches to see how well the technology worked. BuzzFeed News created search ranges based on data that showed how many times individuals at a given organization ran photos through Clearview.

We found inaccuracies in the data, including organizations with misspelled or incomplete names, and we moved to correct those issues when they could be confirmed. If we were not able to confirm the existence of an entity, we removed it.

BuzzFeed News gave every agency or organization in this database the opportunity to comment on whether it had used Clearview’s technology and whether the software had led to any arrests.

Of the 88 entities in this database:
36 said they had employees who used or tried Clearview AI.
Officials at 9 of those organizations said they were unaware that their employees had signed up for free trials until questions from BuzzFeed News or our reporting partners prompted them to look.
Officials at another 3 entities at first denied their employees had used Clearview but later determined that some of them had.
10 entities declined to answer questions as to whether their employees had used Clearview.
12 organizations denied any use of Clearview.
30 organizations did not respond to requests for comment.

Responses from the agencies, including whether they denied using Clearview’s technology or did not respond to requests for comment, are included in the table.

Just because an agency appears on the list does not mean BuzzFeed News was able to confirm that it actually used the tool or that its officials approved its employees’ use of Clearview.

By searching this database, you affirm that you understand its limitations.

According to a 2019 internal document first reported by BuzzFeed News, Clearview had planned to pursue “rapid international expansion” into at least 22 countries. But by February 2020, the company’s strategy appeared to have shifted. “Clearview is focused on doing business in the USA and Canada,” Ton-That told BuzzFeed News at that time.

Two weeks later, in an interview on PBS, he clarified that Clearview would never sell its technology to countries that “are very adverse to the US,” before naming China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.

Since that time, Clearview has become the subject of media scrutiny and multiple government investigations. In July, following earlier reporting from BuzzFeed News that showed that private companies and public organizations had run Clearview searches in Great Britain and Australia, privacy commissioners in those countries opened a joint inquiry into the company for its use of personal data. The investigation is ongoing, according to the UK's Information Commissioner’s Office, which told BuzzFeed News that “no further comment will be made until it is concluded.”

Canadian authorities also moved to regulate Clearview after the Toronto Star, in partnership with BuzzFeed News, reported on the widespread use of the company’s software in the country. In February 2020, federal and local Canadian privacy commissioners launched an investigation into Clearview, and concluded that it represented a “clear violation of the privacy rights of Canadians.”

Earlier this year, those bodies officially declared Clearview’s practices in the country illegal and recommended that the company stop offering its technology to Canadian clients. Clearview disagreed with the findings of the investigation and did not demonstrate a willingness to follow the other recommendations, according to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

Prior to that declaration, employees from at least 41 entities within the Canadian government — the most of any country outside the US — were listed in internal data as having used Clearview. Those agencies ranged from police departments in midsize cities like Timmins, a 41,000-person city where officers ran more than 120 searches, to major metropolitan law enforcement agencies like the Toronto Police Service, which is listed in the data as having run more than 3,400 searches as of February 2020.

Loations of entities that used Clearview AI.BuzzFeed News

A spokesperson for the Timmins Police Service acknowledged that the department had used Clearview but said no arrests were ever made on the basis of a search with the technology. The Toronto Police Service did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Clearview’s data show that usage was not limited to police departments. The public prosecutions office at the Saskatchewan Ministry of Justice ran more than 70 searches with the software. A spokesperson initially said that employees had not used Clearview but changed her response after a series of follow-up questions.

“The Crown has not used Clearview AI to support a prosecution.”

“After review, we have identified standalone instances where ministry staff did use a trial version of this software,” Margherita Vittorelli, a ministry spokesperson, said. “The Crown has not used Clearview AI to support a prosecution. Given the concerns around the use of this technology, ministry staff have been instructed not to use Clearview AI’s software at this time.”

Some Canadian law enforcement agencies suspended or discontinued their use of Clearview AI not long after the initial trial period or stopped using it in response to the government investigation. One detective with the Niagara Regional Police Service’s Technological Crimes Unit conducted more than 650 searches on a free trial of the software, according to the data.

“Once concerns surfaced with the Privacy Commissioner, the usage of the software was terminated,” department spokesperson Stephanie Sabourin told BuzzFeed News. She said the detective used the software in the course of an undisclosed investigation without the knowledge of senior officers or the police chief.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police was among the very few international agencies that had contracted with Clearview and paid to use its software. The agency, which ran more than 450 searches, said in February 2020 that it used the software in 15 cases involving online child sexual exploitation, resulting in the rescue of two children.

In June, however, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner in Canada found that RCMP’s use of Clearview violated the country’s privacy laws. The office also found that Clearview had “violated Canada’s federal private sector privacy law by creating a databank of more than three billion images scraped from internet websites without users’ consent.” The RCMP disputed that conclusion.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, a nonprofit group, said that Clearview had facilitated “unaccountable police experimentation” within Canada.

“Clearview AI’s business model, which scoops up photos of billions of ordinary people from across the internet and puts them in a perpetual police lineup, is a form of mass surveillance that is unlawful and unacceptable in our democratic, rights-respecting nation,” Brenda McPhail, director of the CCLA’s privacy, technology, and surveillance program, told BuzzFeed News.

Like a number of American law enforcement agencies, some international agencies told BuzzFeed News that they couldn’t discuss their use of Clearview. For instance, Brazil’s Public Ministry of Pernambuco, which is listed as having run more than 100 searches, said that it “does not provide information on matters of institutional security.”

But data reviewed by BuzzFeed News shows that individuals at nine Brazilian law enforcement agencies, including the country’s federal police, are listed as having used Clearview, cumulatively running more than 1,250 searches as of February 2020. All declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

The UK’s National Crime Agency, which ran more than 500 searches, according to the data, declined to comment on its investigative techniques; a spokesperson told BuzzFeed News in early 2020 that the organization “deploys numerous specialist capabilities to track down online offenders who cause serious harm to members of the public.” Employees at the country’s Metropolitan Police Service ran more than 150 searches on Clearview, according to internal data. When asked about the department's use of the service, the police force declined to comment.

Documents reviewed by BuzzFeed News also show that Clearview had a fledgling presence in Middle Eastern countries known for repressive governments and human rights concerns. In Saudi Arabia, individuals at the Artificial Intelligence Center of Advanced Studies (also known as Thakaa) ran at least 10 searches with Clearview. In the United Arab Emirates, people associated with Mubadala Investment Company, a sovereign wealth fund in the capital of Abu Dhabi, ran more than 100 searches, according to internal data.

Thakaa did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A Mubadala spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that the company does not use the software at any of its facilities.

Data revealed that individuals at four different Australian agencies tried or actively used Clearview, including the Australian Federal Police (more than 100 searches) and Victoria Police (more than 10 searches), where a spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that the technology was “deemed unsuitable” after an initial exploration.

“Between 2 December 2019 and 22 January 2020, members of the AFP-led Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation (ACCCE) registered for a free trial of the Clearview AI facial recognition tool and conducted a limited pilot of the system in order to ascertain its suitability in combating child exploitation and abuse,” Katie Casling, an AFP spokesperson, said in a statement.

The Queensland Police Service and its homicide investigations unit ran more than 1,000 searches as of February 2020, based on data reviewed by BuzzFeed News. The department did not respond to requests for comment.

Clearview marketed its facial recognition system across Europe by offering free trials at police conferences, where it was often presented as a tool to help find predators and victims of child sex abuse.

In October 2019, law enforcement officers from 21 different nations and Interpol gathered at Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre in the Hague in the Netherlands to comb through millions of image and video files of victims intercepted in their home countries as part of a child abuse Victim Identification Taskforce. At the gathering, outside participants who were not Europol staff members presented Clearview AI as a tool that might help in their investigations.

After the two-week conference, which included specialists from Belgium, France, and Spain, some officers appear to have taken back home what they had learned and began using Clearview.


“The police authority did not know and had not approved the use.”


A Europol spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that it did not endorse the use of Clearview, but confirmed that “external participants presented the tool during an event hosted by Europol.” The spokesperson declined to identify the participants.

“Clearview AI was used during a short test period by a few employees within the Police Authority, including in connection with a course arranged by Europol. The police authority did not know and had not approved the use,” a spokesperson for the Swedish Police Authority told BuzzFeed News in a statement. In February 2021, the Swedish Data Protection Authority concluded an investigation into the police agency’s use of Clearview and fined it $290,000 for violating the Swedish Criminal Data Act.

Leadership at Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation only learned about employees’ use of Clearview after being contacted by BuzzFeed News for this story. After initially denying any usage of the facial recognition software, a spokesperson reversed course a few weeks later, confirming that officers had used the software to run nearly 120 searches.

“The unit tested a US service called Clearview AI for the identification of possible victims of sexual abuse to control the increased workload of the unit by means of artificial intelligence and automation,” Mikko Rauhamaa, a senior detective superintendent with Finland’s National Bureau of Investigation, said in a statement.

Questions from BuzzFeed News prompted the NBI to inform Finland’s Data Protection Ombudsman of a possible data breach, triggering a further investigation. In a statement to the ombudsman, the NBI said its employees had learned of Clearview at a 2019 Europol event, where it was recommended for use in cases of child sexual exploitation. The NBI has since ceased using Clearview.

Data reviewed by BuzzFeed News shows that by early 2020, Clearview had made its way across Europe. Italy’s state police, Polizia di Stato, ran more than 130 searches, according to data, though the agency did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for France’s Ministry of the Interior told BuzzFeed News that they had no information on Clearview, despite internal data listing employees associated with the office as having run more than 400 searches.

“INTERPOL’s Crimes Against Children unit uses a range of technologies in its work to identify victims of online child sexual abuse,” a spokesperson for the international police force based in Lyon, France, told BuzzFeed News when asked about the agency’s more than 300 searches. “A small number of officers have used a 30-day free trial account to test the Clearview software. There is no formal relationship between INTERPOL and Clearview, and this software is not used by INTERPOL in its daily work."

Child sex abuse typically warrants the use of powerful tools in order to save the victims or track down the perpetrators. But Jake Wiener, a law fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said that many tools already exist in order to fight this type of crime, and, unlike Clearview, they don’t involve an unsanctioned mass collection of the photos that billions of people post to platforms like Instagram and Facebook.

“If police simply want to identify victims of child trafficking, there are robust databases and methods that already exist,” he said. “They don’t need Clearview AI to do this.”

Since early 2020, regulators in Canada, France, Sweden, Australia, the UK, and Finland have opened investigations into their government agencies’ use of Clearview. Some privacy experts believe Clearview violated the EU’s data privacy laws, known as the GDPR.

To be sure, the GDPR includes some exemptions for law enforcement. It explicitly notes that “covert investigations or video surveillance” can be carried out “for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection, or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, including the safeguarding against and the prevention of threats to public security…”

But in June 2020, the European Data Protection Board, the independent body that oversees the application of the GDPR, issued guidance that “the use of a service such as Clearview AI by law enforcement authorities in the European Union would, as it stands, likely not be consistent with the EU data protection regime.”

This January, the Hamburg Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information in Germany — a country where agencies had no known use of Clearview as of February 2020, according to data — went one step further; it deemed that Clearview itself was in violation of the GDPR and ordered the company to delete biometric information associated with an individual who had filed an earlier complaint.

In his response to questions from BuzzFeed News, Ton-That said Clearview has “voluntarily processed” requests from people within the European Union to have their personal information deleted from the company’s databases. He also noted that Clearview does not have contracts with any EU customers “and is not currently available in the EU.” He declined to specify when Clearview stopped being available in the EU.


CBS This Morning via YouTube / Via youtube.com
Clearview AI CEO Hoan Ton-That

Christoph Schmon, the international policy director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told BuzzFeed News that the GDPR adds a new level of complexity for European police officers who had used Clearview. Under the GDPR, police can’t use personal or biometric data unless doing so is “necessary to protect the vital interests” of a person. But if law enforcement agencies aren’t aware they have officers using Clearview, it's impossible to make such evaluations.

“If authorities have basically not known that their staff tried Clearview — that I find quite astonishing and quite unbelievable, to be honest,” he said. “It’s the job of law enforcement authorities to know the circumstances that they can produce citizen data and an even higher responsibility to be held accountable for any misuse of citizen data.”

"If authorities have basically not known that their staff tried Clearview — that I find quite astonishing."

Many experts and civil rights groups have argued that there should be a ban on governmental use of facial recognition. Regardless of whether a facial recognition software is accurate, groups like the Algorithmic Justice League argue that without regulation and proper oversight it can cause overpolicing or false arrests.

“Our general stance is that facial recognition tech is problematic, so governments should never use it,” Schmon said. Not only is there a high chance that police officers will misuse facial recognition, he said, but the technology tends to misidentify people of color at higher rates than it does white people.

Schmon also noted that facial recognition tools don’t provide facts. They provide a probability that a person matches an image. “Even if the probabilities were engineered correctly, it may still reflect biases,” he said. “They are not neutral.”

Clearview did not answer questions about its claims of accuracy. In a March statement to BuzzFeed News, Ton-That said, “As a person of mixed race, ensuring that Clearview AI is non-biased is of great importance to me.” He added, “Based on independent testing and the fact that there have been no reported wrongful arrests related to the use of Clearview AI, we are meeting that standard.”

Despite being investigated and, in some cases banned around the world, Clearview’s executives appear to have already begun laying the groundwork for further expansion. The company recently raised $30 million, according to the New York Times, and it has made a number of new hires. Last August, cofounders Ton-That and Richard Schwartz, along with other Clearview executives, appeared on registration papers for companies called Standard International Technologies in Panama and Singapore.

In a deposition for an ongoing lawsuit in the US this year, Clearview executive Thomas Mulcaire shed some light on the purpose of those companies. While the subsidiary companies do not yet have any clients, he said, the Panama entity was set up to “potentially transact with law enforcement agencies in Latin America and the Caribbean that would want to use Clearview software.”

Mulcaire also said the newly formed Singapore company could do business with Asian law enforcement agencies. In a statement, Ton-That stopped short of confirming those intentions but provided no other explanation for the move.

“Clearview AI has set up two international entities that have not conducted any business,” he said. ●

CONTRIBUTED REPORTING: Ken Bensinger, Salvador Hernandez, Brianna Sacks, Pranav Dixit, Logan McDonald, John Paczkowski, Mat Honan, Jeremy Singer-Vine, Ben King, Emily Ashton, Hannah Ryan


MORE ON CLEARVIEW AI
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Contact Ryan Mac at ryan.mac@buzzfeed.com


Contact Caroline Haskins at Caroline.haskins@buzzfeed.com

Antonio Pequeño IV is a BuzzFeed News contributor

Contact Antonio Pequeño IV at antonio.pequeno@buzzfeed.com

Review: Sleek modern horror ‘Candyman’ has got quite a hook

By MARK KENNEDY

1 of 5
This image released by Universal Pictures shows Yahya Abdul-Mateen II in a scene from "Candyman," directed by Nia DaCosta. (Parrish Lewis/Universal Pictures and MGM Pictures via AP)

There’s an urban legend that says if you repeat the name “Candyman” aloud five times in front of a mirror, you summon a hook-handed killer. After seeing Nia DaCosta’s film of the same name, you’ll never be tempted to do that. You might even not want anything sweet again. Heck, cancel Halloween.

Equal parts cerebral, political and gross-out, “Candyman” is a worthy addition to the library of top-notch social thrillers being built by Jordan Peele and it marks a stunning step forward for director DaCosta, who had just one indie under her belt, the well-received crime drama “Little Woods.”

“Candyman” — uh, oh, how many times has his name been typed by now? — is an unusual horror movie set in the luxury lofts and haughty art world of Chicago. It’s here that co-writers DaCosta, Peele and Win Rosenfeld can look at gentrification, police brutality, authenticity, myth and Black identity.

  

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Michael Hargrove as Sherman Fields in a scene from "Candyman," directed by Nia DaCosta. (Universal Pictures and MGM Pictures via AP)

It stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Anthony, a visual artist struggling to live up to his billing as “the great Black hope of the Chicago arts scene of tomorrow.” He and his girlfriend, gallery owner Brianna (a wonderful Teyonah Parris) live a life of wealth and privilege, sipping Moscato in their gleaming duplex.

Prodded to create more gritty work, Anthony finds an odd kind of muse in the Candyman, who it is said roamed Chicago’s notoriously dangerous Cabrini-Green housing projects making poorly behaving children scared straight.

The myth goes that the Candyman was a Black artist who fell in love with a white woman he was hired to paint. Her prejudiced father hired hooligans to cut off his hand and smear his body with honey so he would be stung to death by bees. Then they burned him.

The tale is told to Anthony by a Cabrini-Green laundromat owner (Colman Domingo, superb) and yet in this telling the Boogeyman isn’t a vengeful demon meant to keep kids in line, but a victim. Candyman is actually an innocent scapegoat, a way to process a system of white oppression.

Peele has described this new riff as a “spiritual sequel” to the original 1992 “Candyman,” which was written and directed by Bernard Rose. In some nice touches, Virginia Madsen and Tony Todd, who were stars of the first film, have roles here, and Vanessa A. Williams appears in both films as the same character, Anne-Marie McCoy, Anthony’s mom.

The filmmakers use fabulous paper puppets to tell aspects of the past and have a recurring motif of bees and mirrors. “Candyman” gets progressively more filthy as it unspools, going from gleaming granite countertops in elegantly lit and airy kitchens to grimy, muddy abandoned and graffiti-scarred projects.


This image released by Universal Pictures shows Colman Domingo in a scene from "Candyman," directed by Nia DaCosta. 

(Parrish Lewis/Universal Pictures and MGM Pictures via AP)    

EASTER EGG; CANDYMAN IS A SHORT STORY BY CLIVE BARKER

There are more than a few stunning scenes, including the camera steadily pulling away from a well-appointed apartment at night while the woman in it grapples with the Candyman, and one in a girls’ bathroom that is terrifying for the fragments that it doesn’t show.

DaCosta can make a stroll down a well-lit, modern and clean hallway somehow creepy. This is confident, smart filmmaking. There’s a stunning scene in which the Candyman mirrors his prey’s movements and one in an elevator where blood droplets create their own horror-inside-horror.

Anthony’s newly unlocked passion to use the Candyman as fuel for his paintings — “I feel really connected to this. I’ve never been this clear before,” he says to his girlfriend — sends him spinning into madness and into his own past, unlocking secrets and fate.

There are parts of the plot that seem undeveloped or vestigial, like the girlfriend’s personal history handling artists on the edge — but “Candyman” — oh, no, that’s too many times, he’ll be here soon — is a jolt of macabre adrenaline. Hopefully, it’ll get a lot of buzz.

“Candyman,” a Universal Pictures release on Friday, is rated R for bloody horror violence, and language including some sexual references. Running time: 91 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.

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MPAA definition of R: Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

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Online: https://www.universalpictures.com/movies/candyman

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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

THE RETURN OF RUBBER DUCKY
Giant rubber ducky takes flight; where will it land next?
August 24, 2021

A giant rubber ducky floats in Belfast Harbor, Tuesday, Aug, 17, 2021, in Belfast, Maine. Harbor Master Katherine Given says it's a mystery who put it there, but that the 25-foot-tall duck doesn't pose a navigational hazard so there's no rush to shoo it away. 

(New England Cable News/Kenn Tompkins via AP)


BELFAST, Maine (AP) — A 25-foot inflatable duck named Joy disappeared over the weekend, as mysteriously as it arrived, after bringing days of delight to a seaside Maine community.

The rubber ducky was removed from the harbor sometime Saturday, likely because of concerns about Tropical Storm Henri, Belfast Harbor Master Katherine Given was quoted as saying in the Bangor Daily News.

Despite the weather concerns, Given said, people were upset to see the duck leave the harbor.

The duck’s arrival in the harbor two weekends ago was, and remains, a mystery. But Given said she received an anonymous letter from someone claiming to be responsible.

“JOY simply is fowl play. In this day in age of such bitter divisiveness in our country, we wanted to put forth a reminder of our commonalities instead of our differences,” the letter said. “Nothing embodies childhood more than being in a warm bath with your rubber ducky – the joy of not having a care in the world other than having to remember to wash behind our ears.”

Will the ducky return? That’s not known — but the letter alluded to the duck landing somewhere else after Belfast.

One last zinger: Dorothy Parker’s headstone unveiled in NYC
August 24, 2021

FILE - Author and poet Dorothy Parker is shown in an undated photo. Writer, humorist and civil rights supporter Dorothy Parker died in 1967 but it wasn't until 2020 that her ashes found a final resting place. The New York Post reports that a memorial ceremony, held on Monday, Aug. 23, 2021, at the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, New York, unveiled a headstone at her family's plot where her ashes are buried. (AP Photo, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Dorothy Parker died in 1967, but it was not until last year that her ashes found a final resting place.

Now, at a memorial ceremony at the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, her headstone has been unveiled at the family plot where ashes of the writer, humorist and civil rights supporter are buried, the New York Post reported.

Born in 1893 in New York, Parker wrote poems, short stories and theater and literary reviews for magazines like Vogue, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. She was famous for one-liners such as, “The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue” and “Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.”

She died without leaving instructions on what to do with her remains but left her estate, along with the right to collect future royalties, to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whom she had never met.

When King was assassinated, her estate transferred to the NAACP, which laid her ashes to rest in a garden outside their Baltimore headquarters in 1988. Before that, her remains had been held for years at a crematorium and in an attorney’s filing cabinet.

After much wrangling, the NAACP agreed with Parker’s relatives to relocate the ashes to New York as the organization moved its headquarters to Washington. The ashes were reburied in the cemetery, which is also the resting place of many city luminaries, last year.

A jazz band played at the ceremony Monday, which was originally scheduled to take place on Parker’s birthday on Sunday but was delayed by Tropical Storm Henri.

“This is finally her homecoming to her beloved New York City,” Kevin Fitzpatrick, president of the Dorothy Parker Society, told the newspaper.

Parker’s relatives attended the memorial, where those gathered read from Parker’s work and some poured gin, her beverage of choice, on the grave.

The headstone is carved with a poem of Parker’s written in 1925 that reads: “Leave for her a red young rose; Go your way, and save your pity; She is happy, for she knows that her dust is very pretty.”

Dorothy Parker Society | Official Dorothy Parker Site ...

https://dorothyparker.com

2021-08-03 · Dorothy Parker has come home to New York. On August 22–the 127th anniversary of her birth–the poet’s cremains were buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx beside her parents and grandparents. In a small private ceremony witnessed by less than 12 people, the urn containing Mrs. Parker’s cremains ended a 53-year odyssey.

ISRAEL SUPPLIED SAUDI ARABIA
Report finds NSO Group’s spyware used on Bahraini activists
By ALAN SUDERMAN

August 24, 2021

FILE - This Oct. 30, 2019, file photo show the Oregon State Treasury office in Tigard, Ore. Oregon was Novalpina's first major investor. Stephen Peel and Stefan Kowski, two founding Novalpina Capital partners, showed up at Oregon treasury offices in the Portland suburb of Tigard in November 2017 to make a pitch to the Oregon Investment Council, which oversees the state's $90 billion pension fund. Novalpina Capital has been saddled with both an internal dispute among its founding partners and an explosive report showing NSO Group's spyware has been widely misused around the globe. 

(AP Photo/Andrew Selsky, File)


RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Nine activists from Bahrain had their iPhones hacked by advanced spyware made by the Israeli company NSO Group, the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire firm, a cybersecurity watchdog reported on Tuesday.

Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto said NSO Group’s Pegasus malware successfully hacked the phones between June 2020 and February 2021. Those reportedly hacked included members of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights and two political dissidents living in exile. At least one of the activists lived in London when the hacking occurred, Citizen Lab said.

Citizen Lab said it has “high confidence” that at least four of the activists were hacked by the Bahraini government, which has a history of using commercially available spyware.

One of the activists targeted is Moosa Mohammed, who said he was previously a victim of spyware, in 2012.

“When I fled torture and persecution in Bahrain, I thought I would find safety in London but have continued to face surveillance and physical attacks by Gulf regimes,” he said.

The government of Bahrain, a tiny island kingdom off the coast of Saudi Arabia that’s home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet, has a long history of suppressing dissent. Bahrain’s National Communication Centre dismissed Citizen Lab’s findings as “misguided” and said in a statement the country is committed to safeguarding individual rights and freedoms.

NSO Group said in a statement that it had not yet seen the report, but questioned Citizen Lab’s methods and motives. “If NSO receives reliable information related to the misuse of the system, the company will vigorously investigate the claims and act accordingly,” the company said.

Citizen Lab found that in some instances the malware infected targeted iPhones without the users taking any action — what’s known as a zero-click vulnerability.

Bill Marczak of Citizen Lab said the exploits worked against a recent versions of the iPhone’s operating system, adding that there’s ”no indication that the bugs exploited have been fixed.”

Ivan Krstić, head of Apple Security Engineering and Architecture, said such attacks are costly and often have a short shelf life. “They are not a threat to the overwhelming majority of our users,” he said in a statement, adding that Apple constantly adds new protections for its devices and data.

The new report is the latest unwelcome news for NSO Group. The firm was the focus of recent reports by a media consortium that found the company’s spyware tool Pegasus was used in several instances of successful or attempted phone hacks of business executives, human rights activists and others around the world.

Those investigations, based on leaked data obtained by the Paris-based journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories and the human rights group Amnesty International, sparked widespread condemnation of the company.

Last month around 1,000 protesters in Hungary’s capital demanded answers to allegations that the country’s right-wing government used Pegasus to secretly monitor critical journalists, lawyers and business figures. India’s parliament also erupted in protests as opposition lawmakers accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government of using NSO Groups’ product to spy on opponents and others.

France is also trying to get to the bottom of allegations that President Emmanuel Macron and members of his government may have been targeted in 2019 by an unidentified Moroccan security service using Pegasus. Morocco, a key French ally, denied those reports and is taking legal action to counter allegations implicating the North African kingdom in the spyware scandal.

Facebook is currently suing NSO Group in U.S. federal court for allegedly targeting some 1,400 users of its encrypted messaging service WhatsApp with highly sophisticated spyware. That includes users in Bahrain, Facebook said.

Human rights experts working with the United Nations recently called on countries to pause the sale and transfer of spyware and other surveillance technology until they set rules governing its use, with the aim of ensuring that it won’t impinge upon human rights.

THE ALL VOLUNTEER WORKING CLASS MILITARY
`Was it worth it?′ A fallen Marine and a war’s crushing end

By CLAIRE GALOFARO and RUSS BYNUM

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Gretchen Catherwood sits in her home in Springville, Tenn., on Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021. Her son, 19-year-old Alec, was killed in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban in 2010. She and her husband are creating a retreat space, Darkhorse Lodge, for veterans up the road from their home. (AP Photo/Karen Pulfer Focht)

SPRINGVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — She was folding a red sweater when she heard a car door slam, went to the window and realized that a moment she always imagined would kill her was about to be made real: three Marines and a Navy chaplain were walking toward her door, and that could only mean one thing.

She put her hand on the blue stars she’d stuck next to the front door, a symbol meant to protect her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Alec Catherwood, who had left three weeks before for the battlefields of Afghanistan.

And then, as she recalls it, she lost her mind. She ran wildly through the house. She opened the door and told the men they couldn’t come inside. She picked up a flower basket and hurled it at them. She screamed so loud and for so long the next day she could not speak.

“I just wanted them not to say anything,” said Gretchen Catherwood, “because if they said it, it would be true. And, of course, it was.”

Her 19-year-old son was dead, killed fighting the Taliban on Oct. 14, 2010.

As she watched the news over the last two weeks, it felt like that day happened 10 minutes ago. The American military pulled out of Afghanistan, and all they had fought so hard to build seemed to collapse in an instant. The Afghan military put down its weapons, the president fled and the Taliban took over. As thousands crushed into the Kabul airport desperate to escape, Gretchen Catherwood felt like she could feel in her hands the red sweater she’d been folding the moment she learned her son was dead.

Her phone buzzed with messages from the family she’s assembled since that horrible day: the officer who’d dodged the flowerpot; the parents of others killed in battle or by suicide since; her son’s fellow fighters in the storied 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, nicknamed the Darkhorse Battalion, that endured the highest rate of causalities in Afghanistan. Many of them call her “Ma.”

Outside of this circle, she’d seen someone declare “what a waste of life and potential” on Facebook. Friends told her how horrible they’d felt that her son had died in vain. As she exchanged messages with the others who’d paid the price of war, she worried its end was forcing them to question whether all they had seen and all they had suffered had mattered at all.

“There are three things I need you to know,” she said to some. “You did not fight for nothing. Alec did not lose his life for nothing. I will be here for you no matter what, until the day I die. Those are the things I need you to remember.”

In the woods behind her house, the Darkhorse Lodge is under construction. She and her husband are building a retreat for combat veterans, a place where they can gather and grapple together with the horrors of war. There are 25 rooms, each named after one of the men killed from her son’s battalion. The ones who made it home have become their surrogate sons, she said. And she knows of more than a half-dozen who have died from suicide.

“I am fearful of what this might do to them psychologically. They’re so strong and so brave and so courageous. But they also have really, really big hearts. And I feel that they might internalize a lot and blame themselves,” she said. “And oh God, I hope they don’t blame themselves.”

___

The 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment deployed in the fall of 2010 from Camp Pendleton, California, sending 1,000 U.S. Marines on what would become one of the bloodiest tours for American service members in Afghanistan.

The Darkhorse Battalion spent six months battling Taliban fighters in the Sangin district of Helmand province. An area of green fields and mud compounds, Sangin remained almost entirely in the Taliban’s control nearly a decade into the U.S.-led war. Fields of lush poppies used in narcotics gave the militants valued income they were determined to hold.

When the Marines arrived, white Taliban flags flew from most buildings. Loudspeakers installed to broadcast prayers were used to taunt U.S. forces. Schools had closed.

The Marines came under fire as soon as a helicopter dropped them outside their patrol base.

“When the bird landed, we were already getting shot at,” recalled former Sgt. George Barba of Menifee, California. “We run, we get inside and I remember our gunnery sergeant telling us: `Welcome to Sangin. You just got your combat action ribbon.’”

Snipers lurked in the trees. Fighters armed with rifles hid behind mud walls. Homemade bombs turned roads and canals into deathtraps.

Sangin was Alec Catherwood’s first combat deployment. He had enlisted in the Marines while still in high school, went to boot camp shortly after graduation, then was assigned to a 13-man squad led by former Sgt. Sean Johnson.

Johnson was impressed by Catherwood’s professionalism — physically fit, mentally tough and always on time.

“He was only 19, so that was extra special,” Johnson said. “Some are still just trying to figure out how to tie their boots and not get yelled at.”

Catherwood also made them laugh. He carried around a small, stuffed animal he used as a prop for jokes.

Barba recalled Catherwood’s first helicopter ride during training, and how he was “smiling ear-to-ear and he’s swinging his feet like he’s a little kid on a highchair.”

Former Cpl. William Sutton of Yorkville, Illinois, swore Catherwood would crack jokes even during a firefight.

“Alec, he was a shining light in that darkness,” said Sutton, who was shot multiple times fighting in Afghanistan. “And then they took it from us.”

On Oct. 14, 2010, after a late night standing watch outside their patrol base, Catherwood’s squad headed out to assist fellow Marines under attack, who were running low on ammunition.

They crossed open fields, using irrigation canals for cover. After sending half his squad safely ahead, Johnson tapped Catherwood on the helmet and said: “Let’s go.”

After running just three steps, he said, gunfire from ambushing Taliban fighters sounded behind them. Johnson looked down and saw a bullet hole in his pants where he had been shot in the leg. Then came a deafening explosion — one of the Marines had stepped on a hidden bomb. Johnson blacked out momentarily, waking up in the water.

Another explosion followed. Looking to his left, Johnson saw Catherwood floating facedown. It was obvious, he said, that the young Marine was dead.

Explosions during the ambush killed another Marine, Lance Cpl. Joseph Lopez of Rosamond, California, and badly wounded another.

Back in the United States, Staff Sergeant Steve Bancroft began an excruciating two-hour drive toward Catherwood’s parents’ house in northern Illinois. He’d served seven months in Iraq before he became a casualty assistance officer, tasked with notifying families of a death on the battlefield.

“I’d never wish that on anybody, I can’t express that enough: I do not wish looking a mom and dad in the face and telling them their only son is gone,” said Bancroft, who is now retired.

He was stoic when he had to be, as he escorted families to Dover, Delaware, to watch coffins be rolled out of a plane. But when he was alone, he cried. And he still weeps when he thinks about the moment he arrived at the home of Gretchen and Kirk Catherwood.

They laugh now about the hurled flowerpot. He still regularly talks to them and other sets of parents he notified. Though he never met Alec, he feels like he knows him.

“Their son was such a hero, it’s hard to explain, but he sacrificed more than 99% of the people in this world would ever think of doing,” he said.

“Was it worth it? We lost so many people. It’s hard to think about how many we’ve lost.” he said.

___

Gretchen Catherwood keeps the cross her son was wearing on a chain around her bedpost with his dog tags.

Alongside it hangs a glass bead, blown with the ashes of another young Marine: Cpl. Paul Wedgewood, who made it home.

The Darkhorse Battalion returned to California in April 2011. After months of intense fighting, they’d largely seized Sangin from the Taliban’s grip. Leaders of the provincial government could move about safely. Children, including girls, returned to school.

It came at a heavy price. In addition to the 25 who perished, more than 200 returned home wounded, many with lost limbs, others with scars harder to see.

Wedgewood had trouble sleeping when he finished his four-year enlistment and left the Marine Corps in 2013. As he slept less, he drank more.

A tattoo on his upper arm showed a sheet of scroll paper bearing the names of four Marines who died in Sangin. Wedgewood considered reenlisting, but told his mother: “If I stay, I think it’ll kill me.”

Instead, Wedgewood enrolled in college back home in Colorado, but soon lost interest. A welding program at a community college proved a better fit.

Wedgewood had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He was taking medication, participating in therapy.

“He was very engaged in working on his mental health,” said the Marine’s mother, Helen Wedgewood. “He was not a neglected veteran.”

Still, he struggled. On the Fourth of July, Wedgewood would take his dog camping in the woods to avoid fireworks. He quit a job he liked after a backfiring machine caused him to dive to the floor.

Five years after Sangin, things appeared to be looking up. Wedgewood was preparing for a new job that would take him back to Afghanistan as a private security contractor. He seemed to be in a good place.

After a night of drinking with his roommates, Wedgewood didn’t show up for work on Aug. 23, 2016. A roommate later found him dead in his bedroom. He had shot himself. He was 25 years old.

He left a short note.

“He basically said that he loved us, but he was tired,” Helen Wedgewood said.

She considers her son and others who took their own lives to be casualties of war every bit as much as those killed in action.

When the Taliban swept back into control of Afghanistan just before the fifth anniversary of her son’s death, she felt relief that a war that left more than 2,400 Americans dead and more than 20,700 wounded had finally come to an end. But there was also sadness that gains made by the Afghan people — especially women and children — may be temporary.

“As a mom, this kind of stabs you, because would he still be around, would any of these young men still be around if this whole war hadn’t happened?” she said. “But I try to gently correct people when they say this was a waste or this was all for nothing. Because that’s not true. We don’t know what impacts it’s had on the safety of our country, on the safety of the Afghan people.”

___

Some who served with the Darkhorse Battalion are having a hard time seeing it any way other than that their efforts, their blood and the lives of their fallen friends were all for nothing.

“I’m starting to feel like how the Vietnam vets felt. There was no purpose to it whatsoever,” said Sutton, 32, who now works in the veterans services office of a county outside Chicago, helping military vets get care.

“We were able to hold our head up high and say we went to the last Taliban stronghold and we gave them hell,” Sutton said, “only for it all to be taken away. In the blink of an eye.”

Barba, 34, works as a private security guard near Los Angeles. He and his wife are expecting their first child. He said he’s had trouble sorting his feelings about the bleak news from Afghanistan. His wife recently woke to Barba screaming in his sleep. “I think your nightmares are back,” she told him.

“It really is weird,” Barba said. “I’ve seen my guys get mad. I’ve seen my guys get frustrated. But not like this. This is like somebody spit in their face.”

Johnson, 34, works as a commercial diver in Florida. He said the U.S. should have acknowledged years ago that the Afghan security forces Americans trained and equipped would never be able to defend the country on their own.

“My personal opinion, yeah, we probably should have pulled out years and years ago,” Johnson said. “If you’re not going to win the damn thing, what are you doing there?”

___

A few months ago, Gretchen Catherwood was painting the cabins that will become the Darkhorse Lodge. It was dark, still without electricity and no cell service, so it was quiet. She felt suddenly like she could feel her son and his 24 fallen comrades. She could almost see their faces.

“It’s a place where I can feel like they’re together,” she said, “and that they are still caring for their brothers.”

The Catherwoods moved out of their home in Illinois. Every time she walked to the front door, Gretchen remembered those four men arriving with the news. She couldn’t bear it anymore.

The gold star pins she wore everyday on her chest kept breaking. She’d always disliked tattoos and hassled her son when he got one as a Marine. But then she found herself at a tattoo parlor. She had his name inked on her arm, and the shape of a gold star pin put permanently on her chest, just above her heart, so she’d never take it off again.

She could no longer care for her son, she said, but she could for those who made it home. She and her husband moved to the woods in Tennessee and got to work on the Darkhorse Lodge.

They fashioned their logo after the battalion’s mascot, a fierce-looking horse, facing left, its mane sharp like a serrated knife and its eyes squinted for battle. The artist who drew theirs softened its edges and turned it to the right, facing toward a future after war.

They raised a million dollars, mostly in small donations. One woman sends a check for $2 every month. Bancroft, the officer who notified her of her son’s death, donates every year. The obituary for one soldier who died by suicide asked for donations to the Darkhorse Lodge in his memory, and checks flooded the Catherwoods’ mailbox.

They hope to open next summer and offer free stays for any combat veteran from any war or branch of the military who might benefit from time in the woods, where the only conflict is among the dozens of hummingbirds fighting over the feeders on her front porch.

She is hopeful that the American withdrawal from Afghanistan means no one else will die on a battlefield there. But she also worries that it might rattle the vets who made it home, and who might already be struggling to make sense of what happened there and why.

“That’s a constant fear, it’s been my fear since they got back but now it’s even worse,” she said. “They experienced things that 99% of the country never will. I’ve never watched a friend die. I’ve never fought to the death. We are losing these people at a frightening, frightening rate to suicides, and we can’t afford to lose one more.”

She and her husband don’t believe that the chaotic end honors their son’s service, and are particularly troubled that some of the Afghan interpreters and others who helped the military for years might not make it out alive. But they also can’t imagine how it might have ended any other way, had the United States stayed in Afghanistan another year or five or 20.

Part of Alec Catherwood remains there, and for a while that bothered his mother.

When he was alive, she loved to touch his face. He had baby soft skin and when she put her hands on his cheeks, this big tough Marine felt like her little boy. The military did an honorable job making him look whole, she said. But when she touched his cheek as he laid in the casket, she touched a part that had been reconstructed - it wasn’t really him.

“That used to be much harder than it is now,” she said. “Now, it’s like, damn straight, he’s still there. He’s always going to have a presence there, flipping off the Taliban.”

Good things will grow where he is, she likes to think.

“He’s part of their dirt, their soil, he’s part of the Earth there, he is forever there.”

___

Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia.

EXPLAINER: Is Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano going to erupt again?

By AUDREY McAVOY

This Aug. 13, 2021 photograph provided by the U.S. Geological Survey shows the crater of Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island in Hawaii National Park, Hawaii. Geologists on Tuesday, Aug. 24 said they had detected a swarm of earthquakes at the volcano, though it is not erupting. (Drew Downs/U.S. Geological Survey via AP)


HONOLULU (AP) — The ground at the summit of Kilauea volcano in Hawaii has been rumbling and swelling in recent days, prompting scientists to warn that the mountain could once again disgorge lava. But there’s no indication an eruption is imminent. The volcano, which is among the world’s most active, has behaved similarly in the past without any magma breaking the surface.

Here’s an overview of the latest developments at Kilauea:

WHAT ACTIVITY ARE SCIENTISTS SEEING?

Scientists at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory on Monday noticed a surge of earthquakes and the ground swelling at the southern part of the crater at Kilauea’s summit. There are indications magma is shifting about a half-mile to a mile (1 to 2 kilometers) below the surface.

It’s not uncommon for Kilauea to have earthquakes, which could indicate rocks are moving. It’s also not unusual for the ground to swell as the heat from the sun and saturation from rain can cause the ground to expand and contract.

However, earthquakes and ground swelling at the same time may indicate magma is on the move.

“We get a lot of earthquakes here and we get a lot of deformation here, but the combination of the two makes us much more aware,” said Jefferson Chang, a geophysicist at the observatory, which is part of the U.S. Geological Survey.

There have been hundreds of earthquakes since Monday, striking as often as 25 times an hour. The strongest measured magnitude 3, with most coming in between magnitude 1 and 2 At these levels, the quakes are generally too small for people to notice. Chang said there haven’t been any reports of people feeling them.

WHERE IS THE ACTIVITY HAPPENING?

It’s occurring at the summit of Kilauea volcano, an uninhabited area within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island. This is about 200 miles southeast of Honolulu, which is on a different island called Oahu

The site is miles from the nearest town. The park has close off this part of the summit to the public since 2008.

Ben Hayes, the park’s interpretation and education program manager, said the park is preparing for a potential eruption, but he said there’s nothing to be alarmed about. “It’s a natural process at one of the world’s most active volcanoes,” he said.

HAS THIS HAPPENED BEFORE?

Chang said scientists observed activity in the same part of the summit in 2015. That episode lasted three days, and the volcano didn’t erupt. Just like this time, the ground swelled. One difference is that there were more earthquakes then.

The last time Kilauea erupted at the southern part of its caldera or crater was in 1974.

WHAT’S THE CURRENT SITUATION?

The earthquake swarm stopped about 4:30 a.m. Monday. The ground swelling has also subsided. But the activity could return. Chang said sometimes there’s a lull in activity lasting a day or two.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO CHANGE THE ALERT LEVEL?

The observatory changed Kilauea’s volcano alert level to watch from advisory on Tuesday, meaning the mountain was showing heighted unrest with increased potential to erupt.

But scientists don’t know when that eruption may occur, if it does. If scientists believe a hazardous eruption is imminent, they will change the alert level to warning.

The observatory also changed the aviation color code to “orange,” alerting pilots that there’s potential for an eruption and they may need to avoid the area if one occurs.

HOW OFTEN HAS KILAUEA ERUPTED BEFORE?

Hawaiian chants and stories tell the stories of countless eruptions. In Hawaiian tradition, Kilauea is home to the volcano goddess Pele.

Kilauea has erupted 34 times since 1952. From 1983 to 2018, it erupted almost continuously, in some cases sending streams of lava that covered farms and homes. At the end of this decades-long eruption, Kilauea spewed lava from vents in a residential neighborhood on its eastern flank and destroyed more than 700 homes.

In December, Kilauea erupted at the crater, creating a lake with enough lava to fill 10 Hoover dams. That eruption ended in May.

WILDFIRES USA

Crews struggle to stop fire bearing down on Lake Tahoe


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Smoke from the Caldor Fire, shrouds Fallen Leaf Lake near South Lake Tahoe, Calif., Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2021. The massive wildfire, that is over a week old, has scorched more than 190 square miles, (492 square kilometers) and destroyed hundreds of homes since Aug. 14. It is now less than 20 miles from Lake Tahoe. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. (AP) — A Northern California fire that gutted hundreds of homes advanced toward Lake Tahoe on Wednesday as thousands of firefighters tried to box in the flames, and a thick yellow haze of the nation’s worst air enveloped tourists.

In Southern California, at least a dozen homes and outbuildings were damaged or destroyed after a fire broke out Wednesday afternoon and quickly ran through tinder-dry brush in mountains northeast of Los Angeles. Evacuations were ordered for about 1,000 people.

Crews mounted an air attack to keep the South Fire from the tiny communities of Lytle Creek and Scotland near the Cajon Pass in San Bernardino County. By nightfall, the fire appeared to be mostly contained.

To the north, a new fire erupted in the Sierra Nevada foothills and quickly burned at least 1,000 acres of land near New Melones Lake in Calaveras County, prompting evacuations.

Meanwhile, the Caldor Fire spread to within 20 miles (32 kilometers) southwest of Lake Tahoe, eating its way through rugged timberlands and “knocking on the door” of the basin that straddles the California-Nevada state line, California’s state fire chief Thom Porter warned this week.

Ash rained down and tourists ducked into cafes, outdoor gear shops and casinos on Lake Tahoe Boulevard for a respite from the unhealthy air.

South Lake Tahoe and Tahoe City on the west shore had the nation’s worst air pollution at midmorning Wednesday, reaching 334, in the “hazardous” category of the 0-500 Air Quality Index, according to AirNow, a partnership of federal, state and local air agencies.

South of Tahoe, Rick Nelson and his wife, Diane, had planned to host a weekend wedding at Fallen Leaf Lake, where his daughter and her fiance had met. However, the smoke caused most of the community to leave. The sun was an eerie blood orange, and the floats and boats in the lake were obscured by haze Tuesday.

In the end, the Nelsons spent two days arranging to have the wedding moved from the glacial lake several hours southwest to the San Francisco Bay Area.

“Everybody’s trying to make accommodations for the smoke. And I think it’s becoming a reality for us, unfortunately,” Diane Nelson said. “I just think that the smoke and the fires have gotten bigger, hotter and faster-moving.”

Climate change has made the West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.

Although there were no evacuations ordered for Lake Tahoe, it was impossible to ignore a blanket of haze so thick and vast that it closed schools for two days in Reno, Nevada, which is about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the fire.

  

 

Lake Tahoe's Emerald Bay is shrouded in smoke from the Caldor Fire, near South Lake Tahoe, Calif., Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2021. The massive wildfire, that is over a week old, has scorched more than 190 square miles, (492 square kilometers) and destroyed hundreds of homes since Aug. 14. It is now less than 20 miles from Lake Tahoe.

 (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

The school district that includes Reno reopened most schools on Wednesday, citing improved air quality conditions. However, the Washoe County School District’s schools in Incline Village on the north shore of Lake Tahoe remained closed, the district said in a statement.

The Caldor fire has scorched more than 197 square miles (510 square kilometers) and destroyed at least 461 homes since Aug. 14 in the Sierra Nevada southwest of the lake. It was 11% contained and threatened more than 17,000 structures.

The western side of the blaze continued to threaten more than a dozen small communities and wineries. On the fire’s eastern side, crews bulldozed fire lines, opened up narrow logging roads and cleared ridgetops in hopes of stopping its advance, fire officials said.

More than 2,500 firefighters were on the line and more resources were streaming in, including big firefighting aircraft, fire officials said.

Meanwhile, California’s Dixie Fire, the second-largest in state history at 1,148 square miles (2,973 square kilometers), was burning only about 65 miles (104 kilometers) to the north. New evacuations were ordered after winds pushed the blaze to the northeast on Wednesday, as flames crossed State Route 44 and headed toward campgrounds near Eagle Lake.

The Dixie Fire, which broke out July 13, was 43% contained. At least 682 homes were among more than 1,270 buildings that have been destroyed.

Smoke rises from the mountains as the South fire burns in San Bernardino County north of Rialto, Calif., seen from Fontana, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. In Southern California, an unknown number of remote homes and outbuildings burned after a fire broke out Wednesday afternoon and quickly ran through tinder-dry brush in mountains northeast of Los Angeles. Evacuations were ordered, and crews mounted an air attack to keep the South Fire from the tiny communities of Lytle Creek and Scotland near the Cajon Pass in San Bernardino County. (AP Photo/Ringo Chiu)

In the southern Sierra Nevada, there was growing concern after the French Fire expanded near Lake Isabella, a popular fishing and boating destination.

“The fire really made a big push and put up a huge column of smoke,” fire spokesman Alex Olow said Wednesday. Because flames were still active, assessment teams have been unable to get into neighborhoods to see if any homes were damaged, he said.

About 10 communities were under evacuation orders. The fire has blackened 32 square miles (83 square kilometers) since Aug. 18.

Nationally, 92 large fires were burning in a dozen mainly Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

Northern California has experienced a series of disastrous blazes that have burned hundreds of homes, and many remain uncontained.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden declared that a major disaster exists in California and ordered federal aid made available to local governments, agencies and fire victims in four northern counties ravaged by blazes dating back to July 14.

California wildfire dangers may be spreading south

By CHRISTOPHER WEBER and JOHN ANTCZAK

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A firefighter tries to extinguish the flames at a burning house as the South Fire burns in Lytle Creek, San Bernardino County, north of Rialto, Calif., Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A wildfire that burned several homes near Los Angeles may signal that the region is facing the same dangers that have scorched Northern California.

The fire in San Bernardino County erupted Wednesday afternoon, quickly burned several hundred acres and damaged or destroyed at least a dozen homes and outbuildings in the foothills northeast of LA, fire officials said. Crews used shovels and bulldozers and mounted an air attack to keep the South Fire from the tiny communities of Lytle Creek and Scotland near the Cajon Pass.

Some 600 homes and other buildings were threatened along with power transmission lines, and 1,000 residents were under evacuation orders.

By nightfall, firefighters appeared to have gained the upper hand and few flames were to be seen. But the blaze was worrying because Southern California’s high fire season is typically later in the year when strong, dry Santa Ana winds blast out of the interior and flow toward the coast.

After a few cooler days, the southern region was expected to see a return of hot weather heading into the weekend. In addition to dangerously dry conditions, the region is faced with firefighting staffing that is increasingly stretched thin, said Lyn Sieliet, spokeswoman for the San Bernardino National Forest.

“Some of our firefighters that we normally have on our forests are working on fires in Northern California, or Idaho and Washington,” she told KTLA-TV. “We don’t have the full staff that we normally do.”

The largest fires in the state and in the nation were in Northern California, where they have burned down small mountain towns and destroyed huge swaths of tinder-dry forest.

The Caldor Fire destroyed some 500 homes since Aug. 14 in the Sierra Nevada southwest of Lake Tahoe, including much of the tiny hamlet of Grizzly Flats. It was 12% contained and threatened more than 17,000 structures.

Buck Minitch, a firefighter with the Pioneer Fire Protection District, was called to the fire lines last week while his wife fled their Grizzly Flats home with their two daughters, three dogs, a kitten and duffel bag of clothes, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Hannah Minitch evacuated to her parents’ property and the next morning received a text from her husband showing only a chimney where their house once stood. The two briefly wept together during a telephone call before he got back to work.

“‘We’ve got nothing left here,’” she recalled him saying. “‘I’ve got to go protect what’s left for other people.’”

At times the wind-driven fire was burning 1,000 acres of land per hour and on Wednesday it was less than two dozen miles from Lake Tahoe, an alpine vacation and tourist spot that straddles the California-Nevada state line.



There weren’t any evacuations in Tahoe but the fire continued to cast a sickly yellow pall of smoke over the scenic region.

South Lake Tahoe and Tahoe City on the west shore had the nation’s worst air pollution at midmorning Wednesday, according to AirNow, a partnership of federal, state and local air agencies.

Meanwhile, California’s Dixie Fire, the second-largest in state history at 1,160 square miles (3,004 square kilometers), was burning only about 65 miles (104 kilometers) to the north. It was 45% contained. Some 700 homes were among nearly 1,300 buildings that have been destroyed.

In the southern Sierra Nevada, there was growing concern as the French Fire expanded near Lake Isabella, a popular fishing and boating destination. About 10 communities were under evacuation orders. The fire has blackened 32 square miles (83 square kilometers) since Aug. 18.

Smoke from the fires had fouled air farther south. The South Coast Air Quality Management District issued an advisory through Thursday morning for large portions of Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Nationally, 92 large fires were burning in 13 mainly Western states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

Climate change has made the West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.

  

Gaps in wildfire smoke warning network leave people exposed

By MATTHEW BROWN and PADMANANDA RAMA

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Smoke that has traveled from wildfires in Montana and the Western U.S., covers the Missoula Valley on Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021, obscuring visibility and creating unhealthy air quality in Missoula, Mont.

 (AP Photo/Padmananda Rama)


BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Huge gaps between air quality sensors in the western U.S. have created blind spots in the warning system for wildfire smoke plumes sweeping North America this summer, amid growing concern over potential health impacts to millions of people exposed to the pollution.

Government programs to alert the public when smoke pollution becomes unhealthy rely on about 950 permanent monitoring stations and dozens of mobile units that can be deployed around major fires.

Those stations are heavily concentrated around major cities on the West Coast and east of the Mississippi River — a patchwork that leaves some people unable to determine local risks from smoke, including in rural areas where air quality can quickly degrade when fires ignite nearby. The problem persists far beyond fire lines because wildfire smoke travels for thousands of miles and loses its tell-tale odor yet remains a danger to public health.

The monitoring gaps underscore what officials and public health experts say is a glaring shortage of resources for a type of pollution growing worse as climate change brings increasingly long and destructive wildfire seasons to the U.S. West, southern Europe and eastern Russia.

Microscopic particles in wildfire smoke can cause breathing issues and more serious problems for people with chronic health conditions. Long-term effects remain under study but some researchers estimate chronic smoke exposure causes about 20,000 premature deaths a year in the U.S.

“It’s a very frustrating place to be where we have recurring health emergencies without sufficient means of responding to them,” said Sarah Coefield, an air quality specialist for the city of Missoula, Montana. “You can be in your office just breathing smoke and thinking you’re OK because you’re inside, but you’re not.”

Missoula, perched along the Clark Fork River with about 75,000 people, is surrounded by mountains and has become notorious as a smoke trap. All across the region are similar mountain valleys, many without pollution monitors, and smoke conditions can vary greatly from one valley to the next.

Montana has 19 permanent monitoring stations. That’s about one for every 7,700 square miles (20,000 square kilometers) or an area almost as big as New Jersey. New Jersey has 30.

THURSDAY, AUG. 12, 2021 - Maureen Fogarty poses for a photo in her home on Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, in Missoula, Mont. Fogarty, who has lung cancer and suffers from breathing problems, breathes with the aid of oxygen and air filters provided by Climate Smart, a small non-profit group founded to bring attention to global warming and help residents adapt to changes in climate. (AP Photo/Padmananda Rama)

Data on air quality is particularly sparse in eastern Montana, where smoke from a 266-square-mile (690-square-kilometer) fire on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation got so bad this month that officials closed a health clinic when air filters couldn’t keep up with the pollution.

The smoke prompted tribal authorities to shield elders and others who were at risk by extending an evacuation order for Lame Deer, a town of about 2,000 people that sits beneath fire-scarred Badger Peak and is home to the tribal government complex.

But on the same day, Lame Deer and surrounding areas were left out of a pollution alert from state officials, who said extremely high smoke particle levels made the air unhealthy across large areas of Montana and advised people to avoid prolonged exertion to protect their lungs. A pollution sensor on the reservation had burned in the fire, and the nearest state Department of Environmental Quality monitor, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) away, showed an air quality reading of “good.”

That left tribal officials to judge the pollution hazard based on how far they could see — a crude fallback for areas without monitors. On a scale of one to 20, “I would say the smoke was a 19,” tribal spokesperson Angel Becker said.

“What makes it difficult is that Lame Deer is sitting in between a couple of ravines,” she added. “So when you get socked in (with smoke), it just sits here and that’s not good for elders or kids that have asthma or any breathing issues.”

Doug Kuenzli, who supervises Montana’s air quality monitoring program, said regulators recognize the need for more data on smoke but high-grade monitors can be prohibitively expensive — $10,000 to $28,000 each.

Oregon expanded its network over the past two years with five new monitors along the state’s picturesque coastline where smoke only recently became a recurring problem, said Tom Roick with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

“We’re seeing more prevalence of wildfire smoke and increased intensity,” Roick said. “It’s not because we have more monitoring; it’s getting worse.”

Throughout the West, public health officials have struggled to get the message about dangers of smoke to at-risk communities, such as migrant workers who spend lots of time outdoors, people in houses without air filters and the elderly. Children, too, are more at risk of health problems.

That’s no small subset of society: People over 65 and children under 18 make up 40% of the population, said Kaitlyn Kelly, a wildfire smoke pollution specialist with the Washington Department of Health.

Rapid technological advancements mean households can buy their own monitoring equipment for around $250. The equipment is not as reliable as government stations, officials said, but the data from many of the privately-owned sensors is now displayed on an interactive smoke exposure map by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Forest Service.

Although inaccurate readings have been reported for some consumer-grade sensors, officials said they can help fill blind spots in the government’s network. The number in use is fast increasing — from about 6,000 private sensors last year to more than 10,000 currently, according to EPA.

“There’s still gaps,” said Kelly. “The low-cost sensors are the first step in filling in the gaps where we don’t have (government) monitors.”

In Missoula, a small non-profit group founded to bring attention to global warming is going beyond warning people about smoke. It’s providing makeshift air filters and portable air cleaners to the homebound elderly and impoverished households.

Vinette Rupp, a 74-year-old Missoula woman who received a portable air cleaner, said she “can almost taste it” when the smoke gets thick in town. Neighbor Maureen Fogarty, 67, who has lung cancer and suffers from breathing problems, said her coughing has eased since she got one of the filters.

“Well it’s a lifesaver because I can breathe easier now,” Fogarty said. “The way it is, you know, you’ve got to come and go and you’re bringing in the unhealthy air, and it’s gonna affect you.”

Climate Smart Missoula, which provided the portable air cleaner, also makes and distributes filters through a local food bank. Costing about $30 apiece — versus $150 or more for a manufactured unit — the do-it-yourself purifiers are endorsed by public health officials. They’re crafted from box fans with high-efficiency furnace filters duct-taped to the back to trap pollution particles as air passes through.

Climate Smart Missoula director Amy Cilimburg said she and a colleague have built roughly 200 of them, paid for largely with donations.

“Our strategies for dealing with wildfire smoke were pray for rain, or leave town, or suffer — and that seemed inadequate,” Cilimburg said “It’s kind of caught up with us, even though scientists have told us it’s coming. I felt like we needed to get to work.”

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