Exclusive-The king of oil bets on batteries for a green world
Reuters
September 30, 2021


By Dmitry Zhdannikov

LONDON (Reuters) - Alex Beard is losing his thirst for oil.

Once one of the world's most powerful oil traders, the former Glencore executive is now raising money to build a portfolio of strategic battery sites across the United Kingdom to support the renewable energy industry.

In his first interview since leaving the commodities giant in 2019, billionaire Beard said his Adaptogen Capital investment fund planned to build storage with a capacity of at least 500 megawatts (MW) to power homes when grid supplies fall short.

In his heyday at Glencore, Beard's team was trading as much as 7% of the world's oil. The fact he is turning to infrastructure to support renewables is another sign of the way the wind is blowing for the global energy industry.

"I have time for a second career in energy markets. It won't be oil and gas but it will be the transition away from carbon that will be most relevant for the next 25 years," he told Reuters at his offices off Regent Street in London.

Adaptogen Capital's fund raising drive comes at a time when the United Kingdom's energy industry is facing one of its worst crises for decades. A perfect storm of low gas supplies globally has sent prices surging while wind and nuclear power have been unable to take up the slack.

"The current crisis gives you a taste of what we will be experiencing more and more often," said Beard, who is 54. "Batteries provide you with stability when the grid becomes unstable and are key enabling assets in the energy transition."

As economies move away from fossil fuels, power grids are becoming increasingly important and governments and companies are looking at how to make them more resilient to avoid the supply outages and price volatility that have plagued networks from China to California in the past year.

Supplies of renewable energy like wind and solar can fluctuate wildly depending on the weather and the peaks and troughs don't necessarily correspond with demand so battery storage has long been seen as a way to help cushion shocks.

'VOLATILITY BOX'

At the moment, the United Kingdom has 1.1 gigawatts (GW) of operational battery capacity to store power that can then be fed back into the grid when required. An additional 15 GW of capacity is under construction or being planned, much of it by companies also investing in renewable power assets.

Beard said Adaptogen's 500 MW of storage will use lithium-ion battery technology. That would be enough to supply about 750,000 homes in the United Kingdom, according to a Reuters calculation based on National Grid data.

The National Grid has estimated that under a scenario where the country decarbonises rapidly, it could need more than 40 GW of storage capacity by 2050.

"The world has learnt how to build renewables at a large scale and now we need to build enough storage to accelerate that transition to net zero," said Beard.

He also said renewable power companies have a long way to go to fully understand and integrate trading and price volatility into their operations - the kind of risks that have felled nine energy suppliers in Britain this month as wholesale power and gas prices soar.

At the moment, renewable power companies rarely face spot price risks as they operate under government-guaranteed contracts, which has allowed them to stay competitive with fossil fuels, he said.

But as renewable output grows and government price support expires, the green energy industry would face a steep learning curve to understand how to hedge price volatility better, said Beard, who spent much of his career as a trader.

"Batteries can also be viewed as a volatility trading box for the green energy industry and a crucial asset to add to wind and solar generation," he said.

The battery response to supply and demand takes milliseconds and can be executed by algorithmic software to take advantage of power market volatility, as opposed to analogue instructions to ramp up output at a traditional fossil-fuel power plant.

Beard, who holds a stake of about 2% in Glencore worth $1.2 billion at current prices, has also co-sponsored Energy Transition Partners, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) listed in Amsterdam.

The blank cheque company raised 175 million euros ($205 million) when it went public in July and is looking at targets in the renewables, electric vehicles and storage asset sectors.

Beard says oil and gas will continue to play a vital part in global energy supply but renewables will grow faster and hundreds of billions of dollars will be spent on the energy transition away from carbon in the coming years.

($1 = 1.1714 euros)

(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by David Clarke)

Great-grandmother keeps Indian martial art alive
Agence France-Presse
October 01, 2021

Meenakshi Amma practitioner and teacher of 'Kalaripayattu' has trained since she was seven years old Manjunath Kiran AFP

Deftly parrying her son with a bamboo cane, Meenakshi Amma belies her 78 years with her prowess at kalari, thought to be India's oldest martial art.

The great-grandmother in Kerala, southern India, has been a driving force in the revival of kalaripayattu, as the ancient practice is also known, and in encouraging girls to take it up.

"I started kalari when I was seven years old. I am 78 now. I am still practising, learning and teaching," the matriarch of the Kadathanad Kalari Sangham school, founded by her late husband in 1949, told AFP.

"When you open the newspapers, you only see news of violence against women," she said.

Kalari, which contains elements of dance and yoga, can involve weapons such as swords, shields and staffs Manjunath Kiran AFP

"When women learn this martial art, they feel physically and mentally strong and it makes them confident to work and travel alone."

Kalari, which contains elements of dance and yoga, can involve weapons such as swords, shields and staffs. Reputedly 3,000 years old, and mentioned in ancient Hindu scriptures, it remains infused with religion in the present day.


India's British colonial rulers banned the practice in 1804 but it survived underground before a revival in the early 20th century and after independence in 1947.

In recent decades it has come on in leaps and bounds, thanks in no small measure to Meenakshi, who won a national award in 2017.

India's British colonial rulers banned the practice in 1804 but it survived underground before a revival in the early 20th century Manjunath Kiran AFP


Now it is recognised as a sport and practised all over India.

Inside Meenakshi's kalari hall, her bare-chested son Sanjeev Kumar, a lungi tied around his waist, puts barefoot pupils -- boys and girls alike -- through their paces on the ochre-red earth floor.

"There are two divisions in kalaripayattu -- one is that kalaripayattu is peace and the other is kalaripayattu in war," said the "gurukkal" (master).


"It's an art that purifies mind, body and soul, improves concentration, speed and patience, regenerates physical and mental energy.

"When totally connected mentally and physically to kalari, then the opponent disappears, the body becomes eyes."

The practice is reputedly 3,000 years old, and mentioned in ancient Hindu scriptures Manjunath Kiran AFP


"It's a form of poetry," said civil engineer Alaka S. Kumar, 29, daughter of Kumar and the mother to some of Meenakshi's many great-grandchildren.

"I am going to teach kalari, with my brother. We have to take over. Otherwise it is gone."

© 2021 AFP

Scarlett Johansson and Walt Disney Co. settle lawsuit over "Black Widow" release

SEPTEMBER 30, 2021 / 11:23 PM / AP

Scarlett Johansson and the Walt Disney Co. on Thursday settled her lawsuit over the streaming release of "Black Widow," bringing a swift end to what had begun as the first major fight between a studio and star over recent changes in rollout plans for films.

Johansson filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court two months ago, saying the streaming release of the Marvel movie breached her contract and deprived her of potential earnings.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the two sides released a joint statement in which they pledged to continue working together.

"I am happy to have resolved our differences with Disney," said Johansson, who has played Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, in nine movies going back to 2010's "Iron Man 2." "I'm incredibly proud of the work we've done together over the years and have greatly enjoyed my creative relationship with the team. I look forward to continuing our collaboration."

Alan Bergman, chairman of Disney Studios Content, said he is "pleased that we have been able to come to a mutual agreement."

"We appreciate her contributions to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and look forward to working together on a number of upcoming projects," Bergman said.

The lawsuit said Johansson's contract guaranteed an exclusive theatrical release, with her potential earnings tied to the box office performance of the film.

But as it has with other recent releases since the coronavirus pandemic began, Disney released the film simultaneously in theaters and through its streaming service Disney+ for a $30 rental.

The rhetoric of the lawsuit and Disney's response suggested a long and ugly battle was ahead.

"In the months leading up to this lawsuit, Ms. Johansson gave Disney and Marvel every opportunity to right their wrong and make good on Marvel's promise," the lawsuit said. "Disney intentionally induced Marvel's breach of the Agreement, without justification, in order to prevent Ms. Johansson from realizing the full benefit of her bargain with Marvel."

Disney at the time said the lawsuit had "no merit whatsoever," adding that it was "especially sad and distressing in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged global effects of the COVID-19 pandemic."

Disney said the changed release plan "significantly enhanced her ability to earn additional compensation on top of the $20M she has received to date."

Delayed more than a year because of COVID-19, "Black Widow" debuted to what was then a pandemic-best of $80 million in North America and $78 million from international theaters on July 9. But theatrical grosses declined sharply after that. In its second weekend in release, the National Association of Theater Owners issued a rare statement criticizing the strategy.

Revised hybrid release strategies have occasionally led to public spats between stars, filmmakers and financiers who are unhappy with potential lost revenues and their lack of say in such strategies. But none were as big or as public as Johansson's lawsuit.

Yellen signals support for Harriet Tubman on $20 bill
Agence France-Presse
October 01, 2021

Harriet Tubman statue in Harlem, New York 

Putting Harriet Tubman, a Black woman who escaped slavery and became a leader of the pre-Civil War abolitionist movement, on the $20 bill would be an "honor" but designing banknotes takes time, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday.

Shortly after taking office in January, President Joe Biden's administration announced that it would expedite plans to put Tubman on the bill that is among the most commonly used in the country.

The project, launched by former president Barack Obama but significantly delayed under former president Donald Trump, came back to the forefront after historic demonstrations denouncing racism and police violence against people of color last year.

"I couldn't possibly think of a better way to honor Harriet Tubman's legacy and her courage in fighting for the freedom of the enslaved people and women's right to vote then seeing her on a $20 bill," Yellen said in testimony to the House Financial Services Committee.

However, she warned that "issuing notes is a very lengthy process. It involves collaboration among a number of different agencies and it's necessary to design counterfeit features."

Tubman was born into slavery in 1822 but escaped. She returned multiple times to the slave-owning southern states to help dozens of others flee bondage, either to the northern United States or Canada, both before and during the 1861-1865 Civil War.

During the war she even helped with a raid on Confederate troops, and after the war, she became a champion of women's rights before her death in 1913.

Her life, and in particular her work helping enslaved people escape as a conductor on the "Underground Railroad," were featured in a 2019 Hollywood biopic.

Tubman's image was set to replace the portrait of Andrew Jackson, the US president behind the "Trail of Tears" that drove dispossessed Native American tribes from the southeast of the expanding country, and who was much admired by Trump.

His Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin announced in 2019 that the revamp of the $20 bill was being put off until 2028, citing "security issues" around counterfeiting.


Yellen appeared alongside Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell days after two regional Fed bank presidents suddenly retired after facing questions over their stock trading activity.

The central bank has faced criticism over the lack of diversity among its top officials, and in response to a question from a lawmaker, Powell promised to consider appointing people of color to replace them.

"I can absolutely guarantee you that we will work hard in both of these processes to find and give a fair shot to diverse candidates for these two jobs; it will be a big focus of both of these processes," Powell said.

Ocasio-Cortez blasts anti-abortion Texas ob-gyn during House panel

Dylan Stableford
·Senior Writer
Thu, September 30, 2021, 12:57 PM


During a House Oversight Committee hearing on abortion Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., excoriated an anti-abortion witness who had asserted that women who have been raped have ample time to seek abortion care under a controversial Texas law that bans the procedure after six weeks.

“Six weeks pregnant is two weeks late for one’s period,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “When you are raped, you don’t always know what happened to you. And I speak about this as a survivor. You are in so much shock.”

Ocasio-Cortez pointed out that most victims of sexual assault are assaulted by someone they know.

“This myth that it’s some person lurking on a street or in a parking lot waiting to sexually assault you — that myth only benefits the abusers in power who want you to think that’s how it happens,” she said. “It’s your friend. It’s a boyfriend. It’s a boss. It’s a legislator. You are in so much shock at what’s happened to you, sometimes it takes years to realize what actually went on.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a House hearing about abortion on Thursday.

 (House Oversight Committee via YouTube)

Ocasio-Cortez argued that two weeks is not nearly enough time to recognize an unwanted pregnancy.

“I’m a buck-15. I’m 115 pounds. You look at me funny, I'm two weeks late for my period,” she said. “And you’re supposed to expect me to know I'm pregnant? Or the stress of a sexual assault? That makes you two weeks late for your period, whether you’re pregnant or not.”

Earlier in the hearing, Dr. Ingrid Skop, a Texas-based ob-gyn, defended the state's newly passed Senate Bill 8, which bans abortion after six weeks and makes no exceptions for cases of rape or incest.

Skop said that women often know when they are raped and have time to figure out if they’re pregnant.

“In the case of a rape, women generally know that they’ve been raped,” she said.

The Texas law, she said, “gives enough time for a woman who knows she’s been raped to determine that she is pregnant.”

Ocasio-Cortez said it was “unbelievable” that the Republicans on the committee would call a witness who would be so “irresponsible and hurtful to survivors across this country.”

NYT unmasks researchers who discovered Trump computers talking to Russian bank in 2016

Bob Brigham
September 30, 2021

US President Donald Trump (right) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin talk during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit in the central Vietnamese city of Danang on November 11, 2017 (AFP Photo/JORGE SILVA)

One of the largest unanswered questions about former President Donald Trump and Russia came into sharper focus on Thursday after The New York Times published a bombshell new report by Charlie Savage and Adam Goldman.

The story focused on the mystery of Trump Organization computer servers communicating with "Kremlin-linked" Alfa Bank in Russia.

Interest in the case has grown since special counsel John Durham indicted Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann for allegedly lying to the FBI when he came forward to alert them to the unusual traffic.

On Thursday, CNN reported Durham had issued new subpoenas in the case and noted it was "an indication that Durham could be trying to build a broader criminal case, according to people briefed on the matter."

The researchers who uncovered the traffic were not identified by Durham in the indictment, but were unmasked by The Times.

"Originator-1" is April Lorenzen, the chief data scientist at Zetalytics. "Researcher-1" is Georgia Tech computer scientist Manos Antonakakis. "Researcher-2" is David Dagon, a Georgia Institute of Technology data scientist.

The researchers are standing by their findings.

Dagon's lawyer told the newspaper the results "have been validated and are reproducible. The findings of the researchers were true then and remain true today; reports that these findings were innocuous or a hoax are simply wrong."

The newspaper noted what was going on remains a mystery.

"The F.B.I., which had already started its Trump-Russia investigation before it heard about the possible Trump-Alfa connections, quickly dismissed the suspicions, apparently concluding the interactions were probably caused by marketing emails sent by an outside firm using a domain registered to the Trump Organization," the newspaper reported. "A 2018 analysis commissioned by the Senate, made public this month, detailed technical reasons to doubt that marketing emails were the cause."

And the report noted the Alfa Bank server traffic was not the only thing discovered and taken to the federal government.

"Their other set of concerns centered on data suggesting that a YotaPhone — a Russian-made smartphone rarely seen in the United States — had been used from networks serving the White House, Trump Tower and Spectrum Health, a Michigan hospital company whose server had also interacted with the Trump server," the newspaper reported. "Mr. Sussmann relayed their YotaPhone findings to counterintelligence officials at the C.I.A. in February 2017, the people said. It is not clear whether the government ever investigated them."

The newspaper also reported on how the Pentagon helped discover the traffic.

"The involvement of the researchers traces back to the spring of 2016. Darpa, the Pentagon's research funding agency, wanted to commission data scientists to develop the use of so-called DNS logs, records of when servers have prepared to communicate with other servers over the internet, as a tool for hacking investigations," the newspaper reported. "Darpa identified Georgia Tech as a potential recipient of funding and encouraged researchers there to develop examples."

While sifting through the data, Lorenzen "noticed an odd pattern: a server called mail1.trump-email.com appeared to be communicating almost exclusively with servers at Alfa Bank and Spectrum Health."

Trump's Russia special counsel John Durham is misrepresenting mysterious Trump-Russia link, researchers say

Peter Weber, Senior editor
Fri, October 1, 2021, 12:24 

John Dunham U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Connecticut, 

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

One of the many subplots of the 2016 election was the mystery of whether Russia's Alfa Bank was secretly communicating with a server in Trump Tower, an apparent connection uncovered by four computer researchers who passed on their data to the FBI in September 2016. Five years later, "the data remains a mystery," The New York Times reports, but Special Counsel John Durham, appointed under former President Donald Trump to investigate the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, cast doubt on the researchers and their analysis in an indictment he handed down in mid-September.

The data researchers hit back Thursday, saying that despite misleading, cherry-picked snippets of their emails that Durham included in his 27-page indictment of cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussmann, they stand by their analysis that Alfa Bank and Trump's company were communicating and trying to hide it, their lawyers told the Times and CNN.

Sussmann, then working at the firm Perkins Coie, brought the findings from the four researchers to the FBI in September 2016. At the time, his clients included both Hillary Clinton's campaign and Rodney Joffe, an internet entrepreneur and one of the four data researchers. Durham's grand jury indicted Sussmann on one count of lying to the FBI for allegedly omitting his ties to the Clinton campaign. Sussmann says he was only representing Joffe at the meeting and denies lying to the FBI.

It isn't clear why Durham, whose investigation is shrouded in secrecy, included the long sections on the Alfa Bank research in his Sussmann indictment. But "more than two years after being commissioned by then Attorney General William Barr to investigate whether federal authorities improperly targeted the Trump campaign, Durham has little to show for his efforts," CNN recaps. "His special counsel probe, which has lasted longer than Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, has so far brought only two lying charges against little-known figures, including the case against Sussmann, who has pleaded not guilty."

Since indicting Sussmann, Durham has subpoenaed more information from Perkins Coie, CNN and the Times report.

The Sussmann case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge Christopher "Casey" Cooper in Washington, D.C. Cooper "will likely weigh during court proceedings before a trial whether Sussmann disclosing his client to the FBI mattered," CNN reports. "If Cooper allows the case to move forward, he could kick that question to a trial jury."

White terror: Millions of Americans say they'd support violence to restore Trump to power

"Justice for J6" was a flop — but the Jan. 6 insurrection has fueled growing support for white extremist violence

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
PUBLISHED OCTOBER 1, 2021

SALON

A supporter of US President Donald Trump wears a gas mask and holds a bust of him after he and hundreds of others stormed stormed the Capitol building on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)

Two weekends ago, Trump loyalists gathered in Washington for the "Justice for J6" rally, a supposed show of solidarity with the "political prisoners" arrested for their alleged (or confessed) participation in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

Trump's Republican-fascists and their propagandists have elevated these hooligans, vandals and (in many cases) terrorists to the status of martyrs and patriots as a way of legitimizing their anti-democratic movement, creating sympathy among Trump's faithful that can be exploited for fundraising and, of course, recruiting and encouraging more extremists to the cause.

Despite warnings from the Capitol Police, DHS and other authorities that more violence was possible, the rally on Sept. 18 was a tame and peaceful affair. No more than a few hundred Trump cultists attended, greatly outnumbered by law enforcement and the news media. This low turnout was widely mocked among the chattering class, liberals and progressives of the "resistance" and others who oppose Trump and his movement.

As I have argued before, such reactions are shortsighted and ill-advised — another example among many of the way America's political class, news media and the public at large still does not understand the nature of the threat they face from the Republican-fascist movement and the larger white right.

Experts on domestic terrorism have repeatedly warned that in the aftermath of Jan. 6 many militant Trumpists and other neofascists are operating more covertly, perhaps by breaking up into small cells that are difficult for law enforcement to track and apprehend. Right-wing militants and terrorists are more likely to attack "soft targets" as opposed to widely publicized events and locations where law enforcement is sure to be present.

As seen in Michigan and elsewhere, right-wing militants are likely to focus their attention at the state and local level where law enforcement assets are more porous and likely targets are, in general, more vulnerable to attack.

But in fact the real power of Jan. 6 and its aftermath is difficult to measure by such standards. Those events, and Republican efforts to rewrite the history of that day, have increasingly normalized right-wing political violence as acceptable — if not, in fact, a preferred and desired way of obtaining and keeping political power.

In keeping with Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels' "Big Lie" strategy, a large majority of Republican and Trump voters actually believe that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" from Donald Trump — and, in effect, from them as well. Public opinion polls also show that a significant percentage of Republicans believe that the violence and coup attempt on Jan. 6 was a "patriotic" or at least understandable action that was necessary to "defend" democracy and Trump's presidency.

On a daily basis, neofascist white supremacist opinion leaders and other propagandists on Fox News and across the right-wing propaganda echo chamber are radicalizing millions of white Americans. Most will not personally commit acts of violence against nonwhites, Muslims, "radical socialist Democrats" and others designated to be the enemy. But they are ever more likely to tolerate or condone such crimes.

Ultimately, fascism is a type of political and social poison which manifests as violence and other antisocial and anti-human behavior. New research by Robert Pape and the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats demonstrates how far that poison has spread among the American people.

In a new essay at The Conversation, Pape summarizes these findings, beginning with the most startling result:

We have found that 47 million American adults – nearly 1 in 5 – agree with the statement that "the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president." Of those, 21 million also agree that "use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency."

Our survey found that many of these 21 million people with insurrectionist sentiments have the capacity for violent mobilization. At least 7 million of them already own a gun, and at least 3 million have served in the U.S. military and so have lethal skills. Of those 21 million, 6 million said they supported right-wing militias and extremist groups, and 1 million said they are themselves or personally know a member of such a group, including the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.

Only a small percentage of people who hold extremist views ever actually commit acts of violence, but our findings reveal how many Americans hold views that could turn them toward insurrection.

Pape's polling found that 9% of American adults agreed that "Use of force is justified to restore Donald J. Trump to the presidency, while 25% agreed that "The 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump and Joe Biden is an illegitimate president."

Pape reports a margin of error of 4 percentage points, meaning that the proportion of American adults who hold both those views is somewhere between 4% and 12%. "The best single figure," he writes, "is the middle of that range, 21 million." He continues:

People who said force is justified to restore Trump were consistent in their insurrectionist sentiments: Of them, 90% also see Biden as illegitimate, and 68% also think force may be needed to preserve America's traditional way of life.

In an interview with the CBS News podcast "Intelligence Matters," Pape further explained what this new research reveals about the relationship between the white supremacist "great replacement" theory, the QAnon cult and right-wing violence:

Sixty-three percent of the 21 million adamant insurrectionists in the country believe in the "Great Replacement," the idea that the rights of whites will be overtaken by the rights of Blacks and Hispanics. The second most important driver was a QAnon belief, where 53 percent of the 21 million believed that our government is run and controlled by a satanic cult of pedophiles. Those are the two radical beliefs that are really ... the key drivers of the insurrectionist sentiments in the country today.
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Pape also sounded the alarm about the prospects for right-wing political violence and terrorism in the months leading up to the 2022 midterm elections:

This is about, what are the prospects for other instances of collective violence, especially related to elections going forward? ... I think that we need to be aware that we are moving into already a politically tumultuous 2022 election season just in the last month with the events in Afghanistan, which has created tremendous amount of anger in many of our military circles, military communities; with the new mandates for COVID, which President Biden has just announced, which are already generating tremendous pushback against the federal government. ... We need to understand the risks that that could break out into violence.

For all of these escalating warnings about the potential for serious right-wing political violence, America's political class remains largely unwilling to properly respond to the clear and present danger. Such an outcome is in part explained by the very language that is most often used in these discussions.
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For example, "right-wing terrorism" or "right-wing extremism" is often presented in a race-neutral fashion.

A more accurate description would be to say "white right-wing terrorism" or "white supremacist violence." Similarly, the events of Jan. 6 could be described as a "white insurrection" or "white riot," which more clearly captures the role of race and racism in the violence of both that day and the Age of Trump as a whole.

To be clear, there are Black and brown people who belong to Trump's cult. Some are among his most militant supporters. Regardless of their skin color, such people are loyal to Whiteness as a social and political force. As such, Black and brown Trumpists and other neofascists want to access white power and white privilege for themselves. For them, the end goal is to somehow "earn" a type of transactional honorary whiteness.

Trumpism and other forms of American neofascism and racial authoritarianism are an extreme personal and existential problem for nonwhite people and others who are marginalized as the Other. They are also a problem spawned by and of White America.

Until that distinction is internalized by America's elites, and widely accepted as common sense by the American people, neofascism will continue to gain momentum and the country's democracy crisis will continue to escalate toward full-on disaster, from which no return to "normal" will be possible. America's past and America's present (again) runs along and through the color line.

CHAUNCEY DEVEGA is a politics staff writer for Salon. His essays can also be found at Chaunceydevega.com. He also hosts a weekly podcast, The Chauncey DeVega Show. Chauncey can be followed on Twitter and Facebook.

MANDATES WORK! 

‘Mandates are working’: Employer ultimatums lift vaccination rates, so far

Shawn Hubler, 

The New York Times
Published: 01 Oct 2021


A syringe is filled with a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccine centre in Rohnert Park, Calif on Jan 27, 2021. The New York Times

As California’s requirement that all health care workers be vaccinated against the coronavirus took effect Thursday, major health systems reported that the mandate had helped boost their vaccination rates to 90% or higher. In New York, another mandate that began this week compelled thousands of hospital and nursing home workers to get shots. And at several major corporations, executives reported surges in vaccination rates after adding their own requirements.

Until now, the biggest unknown about mandating COVID-19 vaccines in workplaces has been whether such requirements would lead to compliance or to significant departures by workers unwilling to get shots — at a time when many places were already facing staffing shortages. So far, a number of early mandates show few indications of large-scale resistance.

“Mandates are working,” said John Swartzberg, a physician and professor at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. “If you define ‘working’ by the percentage of people getting vaccinated and not leaving their jobs in droves.”

Unlike other incentives — “prizes, perks, doughnuts, beer, we’ve seen just about everything offered to get people vaccinated” — mandates are among the few levers that historically have been effective in increasing compliance, said Swartzberg, who has tracked national efforts to increase rates of inoculation.

The various mandates in place are arriving as many employers await further guidance from the Biden administration, which announced sweeping actions in September, including a mandate that all companies with more than 100 workers require vaccination or weekly testing. President Joe Biden also moved to mandate shots for health care workers, federal contractors and a vast majority of federal workers, who could face disciplinary measures if they refuse.

A number of the earliest mandates have been in places where vaccination rates were already relatively high, suggesting that their efficacy in other corners of the country remains somewhat untested. In a June survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, half of unvaccinated workers nationally said that if their employers mandated vaccination, they would leave their jobs.

And without question, there have been signs of resistance to mandates that have gone into effect. In New York, where about 92% of hospital and nursing home staff members had gotten a shot as of Monday, at least eight lawsuits have been filed and several angry protests have taken place. At United Airlines, which announced that 99% of its workforce was vaccinated, 600 unvaccinated workers were to be fired, the company said.

Still, the pushback has been less dramatic than initially feared. At Houston Methodist Hospital, which mandated vaccines this summer for 25,000 employees, for example, only about 0.6% of employees quit or were fired.

Dorit Reiss, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco who is tracking employer mandates, said that, despite their propensity for backlash and litigation, mandates generally increase vaccine compliance because the knowledge that an order is coming has often been enough to prompt workers to seek inoculation before courts even can weigh in.


Mandates are becoming more commonplace as several other states have imposed requirements for workers. In New York, Rhode Island, Maine, Oregon and the District of Columbia, health care workers must get vaccinated to remain employed. In New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Illinois, health workers have the option to be tested regularly if they choose not to get inoculated. In Connecticut, state employees, school employees and child care workers must have at least one vaccine dose or a legitimate religious or medical exemption by the end of the day Monday.

Some of the country’s largest states have already seen some success. In New York, where some 650,000 employees at hospitals and nursing homes were to have received at least one vaccine dose by the start of this week, 92% were in compliance, state officials said. That was up significantly from a week ago, when 82% of the state’s nursing home workers and at least 84% of its hospital workers had received at least one dose.

In California, several major hospital systems reported that hundreds — and in some cases, thousands — more workers had opted to be vaccinated since Aug. 5, when Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration issued the health order, which allows for limited medical or religious exemptions.

At UC Davis Health in Sacramento, where 94% of some 15,000 workers are now vaccinated, Dr David Lubarsky, the chief executive, said employee compliance was boosted both by the state mandate and an earlier one imposed in July by the University of California.

After the first mandate, he said, the system’s vaccination rate, which had plateaued at about 80%, rose by about 9 points, or roughly 1,350 employees. The needle then moved by another 5 points or so after the second mandate, adding 750 more vaccinated workers. By contrast, Lubarsky said, fewer than 1,000 employees systemwide have requested religious or medical waivers, and about 50 are expected to be so resistant to vaccines that they will face disciplinary action and eventually lose their jobs.

Lubarsky credited the compliance in part to the terrifying rise of the delta variant. Part, too, was from a concerted strategy within the system to educate workers and combat misinformation. But, he said, “as deadlines loom, people tend to make decisions in their best interest.”

“If you’re in health care because you’re committed to taking care of people, then getting vaccinated is a pretty straightforward decision,” said state Sen. Richard Pan, a paediatrician who led a push in recent years to tighten California’s vaccine laws. “If we stand firm, I think most people will step up.”

Much remains unknown though about how mandates will be received in regions of the country with lower vaccination rates and higher levels of hesitancy. In another recent poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, Americans said fear of the virus’s delta variant, more than mandates, had fuelled their decisions to get vaccinated.


Aggressive health measures in California have yielded one of the nation’s lowest rates of new coronavirus infections, but in parts of the state that are politically conservative or that have active pockets of vaccine resistance, some hospitals reported hundreds of applications for exemptions.

A spokesperson for Enloe Medical Centre in rural Chico, which last week reported a surge of COVID-19 hospitalisations among unvaccinated patients, said this week that about 88% of the staff there was vaccinated. In another case, health authorities said vaccine refusals had left a hospital without ultrasound technicians.

But other companies, including those outside the health care industry, have seen some success in more conservative parts of the country.

When Tyson Foods announced Aug 3 that it would require coronavirus vaccines for all 120,000 of its US employees, less than half of its workforce was inoculated.

Nearly two months later, 91% of the company’s US workforce is fully vaccinated, said Dr Claudia Coplein, Tyson’s chief medical officer.

“At the start of this our vaccination rates in the Southern states were somewhat lower — which was reflective pretty much of the characteristics of what was going on in the country overall,” Coplein said. “But as those areas saw surges, and hospitals became overwhelmed, I think you saw the vaccination rates increase in the communities, but even higher within our plant population.”

Swartzberg, of the University of California, Berkeley, said that businesses have been emboldened in part because government and modern medicine are aligned in the view that mass vaccination is the surest way to move Americans and the US economy beyond the pandemic.

“Companies think, ‘If the government is doing it, why shouldn’t we?’ ”

© 2021 The New York Times Company

 

Exclusive-‘Giant can of worms’: Some Afghans leave U.S. military bases before resettlement

By Phil Stewart and Mica Rosenberg  METRO USA

Posted on October 1, 2021

U.S. Army at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin shelters Afghan refugees

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Something unexpected is happening at U.S. military bases hosting Afghan evacuees: Many hundreds of them are simply leaving before receiving U.S. resettlement services, two sources familiar with the data told Reuters.

The number of “independent departures,” which top 700 and could be higher, has not been previously reported. But the phenomenon is raising alarms among immigration advocates concerned about the risks to Afghans who give up on what is now an open-ended, complex and completely voluntary resettlement process.

In the speed and chaos of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August following 20 years of war, many evacuees were brought into the United States under a temporary status of “humanitarian parole.” Once transferred to U.S. military bases, refugee resettlement groups and U.S. officials have been trying to connect people with services for a smooth transition to the United States.

In a statement, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson declined to comment on the figures provided to Reuters by sources but said people who had left the bases “generally” had ties to the United States, like family members of friends, and resources to support themselves.

The spokesperson said that in addition, at the outset of the operation many of those evacuated were U.S. citizens, permanent residents or had approved Special Immigrant Visas so were able to depart quickly.

But leaving early could cost other Afghan evacuees critical benefits – like expedited work permits – and create a slew of legal problems down the road, given the complexities of the U.S. immigration system.

“It’s a giant can of worms,” said one U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“This could lead to years and years of terrible immigration status problems.”

The benefits the evacuees have received have been more limited, so far, than what’s offered to refugees. But that appears set to change following legislation passed on Thursday by Congress – despite opposition from Republicans – that would give Afghan evacuees the more extensive assistance usually provided to refugees.

“We should do everything in our power to help our Afghan allies get off to a strong start in their new homes,” Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley said in a statement.

The new legislation says Afghan asylum applications should be expedited. But those who leave U.S. bases early might not get all the legal orientation they need start their applications.

ONE-WAY TRIP OFFBASE

Immigration experts say Afghans who leave the bases are not breaking U.S. laws and military officials have no legal authority to hold law-abiding Afghans against their will at any of the eight locations hosting 53,000 Afghans who fled the Taliban on U.S. evacuation flights.

The scale of the independent departures vary from base to base, according to the sources – more than 300 alone at Fort Bliss in Texas – a figure that is likely to alarm both advocates and critics of the massive U.S. resettlement operation.

However, U.S. officials stress that all of the Afghans leaving U.S. bases had already undergone security screening before arriving in the United States. The risk of the independent departures is to the Afghans themselves.

Reuters viewed a document, entitled “Departee Information,” that is meant to warn Afghans considering leaving before completing their resettlement. It reminds them that, on base, they can get their immigration paperwork processed and even cash to help pay for travel to their destination in the United States.

“Once you leave this base, you forfeit these advantages and may not return,” it reads.

Margaret Stock, an immigration lawyer with expertise in cases related to the military, said the warning was not ill-intentioned.

“I think they’re trying to look out for people,” she said.

“The people managing the bases are rightfully concerned that somebody might not be fully aware of the consequences of wandering off.”

Afghans leaving U.S. bases can be a touchy issue in some parts of the country, particularly given media coverage of security incidents at Fort McCoy, in Wisconsin, and Fort Bliss.

But General Glen VanHerck, head of Northern Command, pushed back on the idea that criminality was a problem on the U.S. bases. He told Pentagon reporters on Thursday that the numbers of incidents involving robbery and theft were substantially lower than in the general U.S. population, with only eight cases in six weeks.

Asked what was the limiting factor in getting Afghans processed for resettlement, VanHerck said it was not vaccinations against measles or the coronavirus or security checks.

Instead, it was efforts by U.S. officials to ensure “each of the Afghan guests have a great place to land and have assurances for where they’re going to relocate to.”

“So I understand that, right now, is the limiting factor on output,” he said.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Mica Rosenberg; additional reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by Mary Milliken and Grant McCool)

Afghan refugee girls watch a soccer match near where they are staying in the Village at the Fort McCoy, in Wisconsin

Afghan refugees stand outside housing in the Village, where they are temporarily living at Fort McCoy U.S. Army base

U.S. Military Police walk past Afghan refugees at the Village at Fort McCoy U.S. Army base

U.S. Army at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin shelters Afghan refugees

VULCANOLOGY

Lava eruption at Kilauea spews 'Pele's hair' volcanic glass into Hawaii's skies

Pilots flying by the volcano reported seeing "Pele's hair."

The Kilauea eruption, as seen at dawn local time on Sept. 30. Lava fountains are spurting out at multiple fissure locations at the base and west wall of the crater, and a lava lake is growing within Halema'uma'u. (Image credit: B. Carr/USGS)

Kilauea volcano is erupting, sending lava and thread-like pieces of volcanic glass, known as Pele's hair, into Hawaii's skies, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Weather Service.

The eruption began at about 3:20 p.m. local Hawaii time Wednesday (Sept. 29), when the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory detected a glow from its webcam at Kilauea summit. That glow indicated a lava eruption happening at Halema'uma'u crater — a pit crater nestled in the much larger Kilauea caldera, or crater.

The webcam footage also revealed fissures at the base of Halema'uma'u crater that were releasing lava flows onto the surface of the lava lake that had been active until May 2021, the USGS said in a statement. However, the eruption at Kilauea — located within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, on Hawaii's Big Island — is confined to Halema'uma'u crater, meaning it's not currently a threat to the public.

Related: Photos: Fiery lava from Kilauea volcano erupts on Hawaii's Big Island

"At this time, we don't believe anybody or any residents are in danger, but we do want to remind folks the park remains open," Cyrus Johnasen, a Hawaii County spokesperson, told Hawaii news station KHON2 on Sept. 29. "It will remain open until the evening. Please proceed with caution," especially for those with respiratory conditions, he added.

However, the part of the park where the eruption is happening is currently closed to the public, according to the USGS.

Due to the eruption, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory has elevated Kilauea's volcano alert level from "watch" to "warning" and its aviation color code from orange to red, which warns pilots about possible ash emissions. Those are the highest warning levels, meaning a "major volcanic eruption is imminent, underway or suspected, with hazardous activity both on the ground and in the air," according to the USGS.


The eruption within Halema'uma'u crater is spewing low lava fountains in the center of the lava lake (pictured) and along the western wall of Halema'uma'u. (Image credit: M. Patrick/USGS

Telephoto image of fissures that opened at Halema'uma'u crater during the ongoing eruption that began Septe. 29 at Kilauea. (Image credit: M. Patrick/USGS)

Meanwhile, several pilots flying aircraft near Kilauea Wednesday evening reported seeing volcanic glass known as Pele's hair, according to the National Weather Service. The golden, sharp strands of glass — named for Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes — form when gas bubbles within lava burst at the surface.

"The skin of the bursting bubbles flies out, and some of the skin becomes stretched into these very long threads, sometime[s] as long as a couple of feet [more than half a meter] or so," Don Swanson, a research geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, previously told Live Science.

Pele's hair can be beautiful, but it poses a danger if it's ingested through drinking water, Swanson cautioned.

The current eruption is the latest of a long string of volcanic activity at Kilauea. At an elevation of 4,009 feet (1,222 m) aboveground, the shield-shaped volcano has a magma-pumping system that extends more than 37 miles (60 kilometers) below Earth, according to the USGS. Kilauea has erupted 34 times since 1952, and it erupted almost continuously from 1983 to 2018 along its East Rift Zone. A vent at Halema'uma'u crater was home to an active lava pond and a vigorous gas plume from 2008 to 2018.

Kilauea's volcanic activity also made headlines in May 2018, when the lava lake at the summit caldera drained just as the Eastern Rift Zone revved to life with lava fountains and new fissures, whose lava created a red-hot river that destroyed hundreds of houses before draining into the ocean.

From December 2020 to May 2021, a summit eruption made a lava lake within Halema'uma'u crater, and in August 2021, a series of small earthquakes rattled the summit.

El Salvador President: Volcano-Powered Bitcoin Mining Has Begun

President Nayib Bukele has tweeted that El Salvador has begun mining Bitcoin using geothermal power from volcanoes.

By Scott Chipolina
Oct 1, 2021 


EL SALVADOR PLANS TO USE GEOTHERMAL ENERGY FROM VOLCANOES TO MINE BITCOIN. IMAGE: SHUTTERSTOCK

The President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, took to Twitter early this morning to provide an update on the country’s recently launched Bitcoin mining industry.

According to Bukele's tweet, El Salvador has mined almost $500 worth of Bitcoin, a number that the government surely intends to increase over time.

In a follow-up tweet, Bukele clarified that “this is officially the first #Bitcoin mining from the #volcanode,” the country’s volcano-powered Bitcoin mine. Earlier this week, he shared a video on Twitter that appeared to show the country taking its first steps to mining Bitcoin using geothermal energy from volcanoes.

The video—which shows a data center in a forest before zooming in on a worker wiring up a Bitcoin mining machine—has been viewed over 2 million times already. In today’s tweet, Bukele noted that the project is “still testing and installing.”

Bitcoin mining is controversial given its energy-consumption demands and resulting carbon footprint. Due to increased scrutiny over the cryptocurrency’s impact on the environment, some miners have turned to cleaner, renewable power sources, such as geothermal energy.

In June, President Bukele said that El Salvador’s state-owned electricity company LaGeo would use “very cheap, 100% clean, 100% renewable, 0 emissions energy from our volcanoes,” to mine Bitcoin.

While the decision may have spared President Bukele criticism from environmentalists, his own population remains divided over the country’s embrace of Bitcoin as legal tender.
Bukele's Bitcoin ambitions

President Bukele first announced his plans to accept Bitcoin as legal tender in El Salvador during this year’s Bitcoin Conference in Miami.

Ever since, his decision has been mired in controversy, with some Salvadorans claiming that the Bitcoin Law has exposed President Bukele’s already well-documented authoritarian streak.

Despite President Bukele’s suggestions to the contrary, Article 7 of the Bitcoin Law compels businesses to accept Bitcoin as a payment, even if they don’t want to. And the government has doubled down on this stance ever since.

“The government has harassed big business and small business alike. They’ve sent government agents to inspect businesses to ensure they are following labor regulations just because C-level executives have said negative things about the Bitcoin Law,” one local businessperson told Decrypt on condition of anonymity.

Critics who've spoken out against the government’s policy have also been targeted. “The police doesn’t have to take anyone to court. They just scare one of the vocal dissidents with kidnapping him a couple of hours or a couple of days,” another local businessperson told Decrypt, referring to the illegal arrest of Bitcoin critic Mario Gomez earlier this month.

This summer also saw multiple surveys and protest after protest after protest—all evidencing the fact that many Salvadorans do not wish to accept Bitcoin as legal tender.

Yet, President Bukele’s embrace of Bitcoin has continued—with crucial details of the project yet to be revealed.

“There are so many things that are not being disclosed. For example, who’s holding the private keys to these Bitcoin?" Nolvia Serrano, head of operations at crypto wallet provider BlockBank, asked on the Decrypt Daily podcast earlier this week. "Also, what’s the criteria for saying, 'Oh, today, we’re going to buy more Bitcoin, or we’re going to wait until next month.' We don’t know that."

“There’s no space to make wrong calls on this, and we need to be transparent because the cryptocurrency community cares about these principles,” she added.

However, many of the world’s loudest Bitcoin advocates, including Jack Mallers, Michael Saylor and Peter McCormack—have rushed to heap praise on the crypto ambitions of the self-professed “coolest dictator in the world.”