California oil spill legal fight likely to last years

Surfers and swimmers return to the Huntington Beach pier waves since the crude oil spill at the California beach, Monday, Oct. 11, 2021. The reopening of Huntington Beach, dubbed "Surf City USA," came far sooner than many expected after a putrid smell blanketed the coast and blobs of crude began washing ashore. (AP Photo/Amy Taxin)


LOS ANGELES (AP) — It took little more than 48 hours from the moment a major oil spill was discovered off Southern California until the first lawsuit was filed against the Houston company that owns and operates the ruptured pipeline.

Finding the cause, who is to blame and if they will be held accountable will take much longer.

Several federal and state agencies are investigating in parallel as they seek the cause of the pipe rupture, how quickly pipeline operators responded and determine whether criminal charges are warranted.

Coast Guard Capt. Jason Neubauer said investigators are trying to find which ship among thousands of possibilities may have snagged the pipeline with its anchor in the past year, possibly during rough seas and high winds in January.

“We are not ruling out anybody at this time,” Neubauer said.

A possible leak off the Orange County coast south of Los Angeles was first reported Oct. 1. The spill was confirmed the next morning, and crude came ashore on Huntington Beach and then spread south to other beaches. Much of the coastline nearby was shut down more than a week, crippling businesses that cater to beachgoers and boaters.

The Coast Guard has estimated between about 25,000 gallons (94,635 liters) and 132,000 gallons (495,889 liters) spilled.

It could take a long time for investigators to comb through marine tracking data to see which ships passed over and anchored near the Amplify Energy pipeline running from platform Elly to the Long Beach port.

Investigations by federal prosecutors, the Coast Guard and several other federal agencies, including the National Transportation Safety Board, could lead to criminal charges, civil penalties and new laws or regulations.

“Criminal charges — when they’re warranted — you absolutely want to go after for all the reasons that you pursue criminal charges: accountability, deterrence, punishment,” said attorney Rohan Virginkar, a former assistant U.S. attorney who helped prosecute BP for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. “But really in these environmental cases, it’s about finding somebody who’s going to pay for the cleanup.”

Coast Guard investigators already have boarded two vessels and plan to track down others, many from overseas, Neubauer said. They will inspect anchors for damage and review all logs kept by the captain, deck officers and engineers, and the voyage data recorder — the equivalent of the so-called black box on airplanes. They will also interview crew.

Under some environmental laws, prosecutors only have to show negligence to win a conviction, Virginkar said. That could lead to a charge against a shipping company for anchoring outside an assigned anchorage or too close to a pipeline marked on nautical charts.

The accident occurred where huge cargo ships anchor waiting to unload at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex — the nation’s largest.

Other investigators, including federal pipeline regulators, will focus on Amplify Energy, which owns the three offshore oil platforms and the pipeline.

They will review pipeline inspections for evidence of corrosion that might show it was being operated negligently and seek any information that records were falsified, which is what they found in the BP case, said attorney William Carter, a former federal environmental crimes prosecutor. A forensic analysis will be performed after the cracked is retrieved from 100 feet (30 meters) of water.

The Amplify pipeline was required to have thorough inside and outside checks on alternating years. The most recent showed no issues requiring repairs, according to federal documents.

Prosecutors will also scrutinize control room data to see if there were pipeline pressure drops that would have indicated a possible leak and what was done to respond, Carter said.

The company could be prosecuted if it realized there was a leak and did not quickly call state and federal hotlines to alert the Coast Guard, fish and wildlife officials and multiple other agencies that respond to spills, Carter said.

Prosecution for an untimely response is fairly common in spills, he said.

“The elements necessary for that violation are: I knew there was a release, and I didn’t immediately report it — regardless of the cause,” Carter said. “I mean, it could have been lightning or an earthquake did it and you knew it, and you didn’t report it in a timely fashion.”

Plains All American Pipeline was convicted for that crime for a breach in a pipe on land that sent tens of thousands of gallons of crude pouring onto a Santa Barbara beach and into the ocean in 2015.

In the Amplify pipeline leak, federal regulators said a low-pressure alarm at 2:30 a.m. Oct. 2 alerted control room operators on platform Elly to a possible leak. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said the line wasn’t shut down until 6:01 a.m. and the Coast Guard wasn’t notified until 9:07 a.m.

Amplify CEO Martyn Willsher has refused to answer questions about the reported pressure drop, including the fact that the first report to authorities made on behalf of the company listed the incident at 2:30 a.m. He has insisted the company didn’t know of the spill until a company inspection boat saw the sheen at 8:09 a.m.

Carter said lawyers probably told Willsher not to discuss the timeline because he could incriminate himself.

If charged with failure to report the spill quickly, the company could also face charges for allowing oil to harm endangered species and other wildlife that might have been saved by a more prompt response.

Federal prosecutors have five years to bring felony charges. Carter said they would likely wait until they know the cost of the damage to demand restitution.

Federal penalties for failing to notify authorities can be $500,000 or it could be as much as double the total damage. State penalties could run up to $10 per gallon spilled that wasn’t recovered.

Regardless of whether a ship is ultimately found to be the cause of the spill, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 requires whoever spills the oil to pay for the cleanup, said attorney James Mercante, a maritime lawyer. Amplify, however, can later seek to recover its losses from other liable parties.

Mercante said the law was passed in the wake of the Exxon Valdez tanker spill in Alaska in 1989 to speed the cleanup without finger-pointing.

“The spirit and purpose is to get the oil cleaned up and then fight it out,” Mercante said. “It will take years and years and years to be resolved.”

So far, two proposed class-action lawsuits have been filed on behalf of a disc jockey who runs beachfront events in Huntington Beach and a surf school that operates in the city known as “Surf City USA.”

Those cases will rely heavily on government investigations and will take years to play out.

Fewer in US turn to food banks, but millions still in need


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Volunteer Markel Lucas, center, takes a box of food to a patron of the food bank's car, at the Town Hall Education Arts & Recreation Campus (THEARC), Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunger and food insecurity across the United States have dropped measurably over the past six months, but the need remains far above pre-pandemic levels. And specialists in hunger issues warn that the situation for millions of families remains extremely fragile.

An Associated Press review of bulk distribution numbers from hundreds of food banks across the country revealed a clear downward trend in the amount of food handed out across the country, starting in the spring as the COVID-19 vaccine rollout took hold and closed sectors of the economy began to reopen.

“It’s come down, but it’s still elevated,” said Katie Fitzgerald, COO of Feeding America, a nonprofit organization that coordinates the efforts of more than 200 food banks across the country and that provided the AP with the national distribution numbers. She warned that despite the recent decreases, the amount of food being distributed by Feeding America’s partner food banks remained more than 55% above pre-pandemic levels. “We’re worried (food insecurity) could increase all over again if too many shoes drop,” she said.

Those potential setbacks include the advance of the delta variant of the coronavirus, which has already delayed planned returns to the office for millions of employees and which could threaten school closures and other shutdowns as the nation enters the winter flu season. Other obstacles include the gradual expiration of several COVID-19-specific protections such as the eviction moratorium and expanded unemployment benefits.

All told, families facing food insecurity find themselves still dependent on outside assistance and extremely vulnerable to unforeseen difficulties.

“There are people going back to work, but it’s slow going and God forbid you should need a car repair or something,” said Carmen Cumberland, president of Community Harvest Food Bank in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Nationally, the food banks that work with Feeding America saw a 31% increase in the amount of food distributed in the first quarter of 2021 compared with the first quarter of 2020, just before the global pandemic reached America.

When the nationwide closures of offices and schools began in March 2020, the impact was immediate. Feeding America-affiliated food banks distributed 1.1 billion pounds of food in the first quarter on 2020; in the second quarter, the number jumped 42% to more than 1.6 billion pounds. The third quarter saw a smaller 5% increase up to nearly 1.7 billion pounds of food. While distributions declined from the end of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021, recent data suggests that the decline has leveled off.

The national data is mirrored in the experiences of individual food banks across the country. At the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Oakland, California, the level of community need spiked in winter and early spring of this year. In February 2021, the organization set a record with 5 million pounds of food distributed. That record stood for one month as March 2021 saw 6 million pounds distributed.

After the March peak, the numbers started dropping steadily — down to 4.6 million pounds in August 2021. But that’s still compared with 2.7 million pounds in June 2019.

“The recovery is going to be very, very long and steep for families who are typically reliant on food banks,” said Michael Altfest, the food bank’s director of community engagement. Altfest said the coronavirus pandemic was an additional trauma for families already suffering from food insecurity, and it introduced a whole new category of client who had never used food banks before but had been pushed over the financial edge by the pandemic. Both categories are projected to remain in need of assistance well into next year.

“Things are not getting any easier here for low- and moderate-income households, and we don’t expect it to for a while,” Altfest said.

Among those newcomers to the food bank system is Ranada James. The 47-year-old child care professional had received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits in the past but never dealt with a food bank before the pandemic. On a recent overcast Wednesday, James was one of a few dozen people lining up in their cars for a weekly drive-through food pantry operated by a local charity called The Arc in southeast Washington, D.C., the poorest and most virus-ravaged part of the city. Volunteers loaded her backseat with pre-prepared hot meals, lunch sacks, fresh vegetables from The Arc’s garden and sealed boxes of durable goods.

“I never thought I would need it,” she said. “It helped tremendously, and it still really helps.”

Even as the situation slowly improves, James finds herself in need. She has two grandchildren and two nieces living with her, and she’s keeping them from attending in-person school out of fear of the pandemic — which means she can’t go back to work.

“They really do eat,” she said with a laugh, adding that broccoli and fresh string beans were household favorites. “They’re growing, and they’re picky.”

Other food banks across the country are reporting similar trends: a gradual decrease this year, starting in about April, but still far higher than any pre-pandemic numbers. At the Central California Food Bank in Fresno, the numbers have “leveled off” in recent months but remain 25% higher than in 2019, said the food bank’s co-CEO, Kym Dildine.

“Many people are still out of work, particularly women, who are the primary caregivers in the home,” she said.

At the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington, D.C., the amount of food distributed in July 2021 was 64% higher than in the same month in 2019.

“COVID isn’t over by any means,” said the food bank’s president, Radha Muthiah. “We’re still seeing existing need.”

Just how long the elevated level of need will last is a matter of debate, with the most conservative estimates projecting it will last well into next summer. Some are predicting that the country’s food banks may never return to normal.

Parallel government food assistance programs like SNAP benefits, commonly known as food stamps, also saw a pandemic-fueled spike in usage. The Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, reports that the number of SNAP users increased by 7 million between 2019 and 2021. In August, President Joe Biden instituted a permanent 25% boost in SNAP benefits, starting this month.

But the SNAP program doesn’t come close to covering every family in need. Muthiah said many of the clients who depend on food banks for their nutrition are either ineligible for SNAP benefits, intimidated by the bureaucratic paperwork or fearful of applying due to their immigration status. That leaves food banks as the primary source of aid for millions of hungry people.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack told the AP that at the peak of the pandemic, 14% of American adults were receiving SNAP benefits. That number is now down around 8%, but the need remains highly elevated, and nonprofit charitable options like food banks serve a vital role in papering over the remaining holes in millions of family budgets, he said.

“We just need to understand what this pandemic has done in terms of significant disruption of what was probably a pretty fragile system to begin with,” said Vilsack, who also filled the same Cabinet post under former President Barack Obama. ”It has exposed the fragility of the system, which makes programs like SNAP, programs like summer feeding programs, school feeding programs, food bank assistance ever more important.”

Vilsack said the Biden administration has moved to strengthen the national food bank infrastructure by devoting $1 billion in June to help fund refrigerated trucks and warehouses that will allow food banks to store and provide more fresh fruits, vegetables and dairy products.

Now the country’s food bank network is busy trying to project the level of need going forward, factoring in multiple influences — positive and negative. Theoretically, the boosted Child Tax Credit payments, which started in July, are meant to alleviate the monthly burden for lower-income and middle-class families by providing money to use as the families see fit. But food bank executives and researchers estimate that it could take six to 12 months to see a real impact on food security as families initially devote those funds to issues like rent or car repairs.

And the end of the nationwide eviction moratorium looms as a major pressure point that could push vulnerable families back into crisis.

The Biden administration allowed the federal moratorium to expire in late August, and Congress did not extend it. While the federal government now focuses on pumping money into rental assistance programs, the national moratorium has devolved into a patchwork of localized moratoriums, in places like Washington, D.C., Boston and New York state — all expiring on different schedules.

At the southeast Washington drive-through food pantry, volunteers there have developed friendships with some of the regulars, including Rob and Devereaux Simms. A retired bus driver and a school aide, both in their 70s, they consider themselves solidly middle class and had never used food stamps. But when the pandemic hit and two of their children were laid off, “things started running short,” Devereaux Simms said.

Now, with three grandchildren living at home, they’re fixtures at the Wednesday drive-through. They even make a point of taking home extra supply boxes to distribute to needy neighbors and recently took small gifts for the volunteers.

“God’s been good to us,” Devereaux Simms said, “and you should never be too proud to accept help.”

___

Associated Press writer Michael Casey in Boston and data journalist Camille Fassett in Oakland, California, contributed to this report.

___

This story has been corrected to fix Katie Fitzgerald’s job title from CEO to COO.

WHITE SUPREMACIST REVISIONISM

Florida city's first Black female firefighter sues over mural that depicted her as White

Oct. 12 (UPI) -- City attorneys and commissioners in a South Florida city will meet Tuesday to discuss a lawsuit filed by its first Black female firefighter over a controversial public mural -- on which she was depicted as being White.

The firefighter, Latosha Clemons, filed the suit against the city of Boyton Beach in April, which says the mural honoring her and others "reflected her as a White member of the city fire department."

A second amended complaint filed last month says the case is being brought on Clemons' behalf "to redress the defamatory statement [the City of Boyton Beach] made regarding her race and/or its negligence in failing to properly oversee an approved use of the likeness of Clemons."

The suit seeks $100,000 and claims that Clemons, 48, has faced damage to her personal and professional reputations, loss of income and has been subjected to "ridicule, contempt, disgrace and/or humiliation" since the mural was revealed.

City Manager Lori LaVerriere told CNN that the Boyton Beach City Commission will "meet in a closed-door session Tuesday to discuss the litigation."

The mural used a photograph of Clemons and two white female firefighters as a template but portrayed all three women as White and was removed a day after it was unveiled in June 2020.

The lawsuit says that representing Clemons as White on the mural "completely disrespected" all that she had accomplished and "demonstrated disrespect" to the Black population of Boyton Beach, a city in Palm Beach County, Fla., located about 55 miles north of Miami.

A 2019 project by the city's art commission to honor the fire department also depicted former city fire chief Glenn Joseph, a Black man, as White.

The city fired public arts manager Debby Coles-Dobay and fire chief Matthew Petty after the mural was unveiled.

Boyton City attorneys James Cherof and Gal Betesh said in a court filing that employees responsible for altering the mural "acted outside the scope of their employment and without the city's knowledge or consent.

Clemons' attorneys have requested a jury trial and they will discuss a range of options during Tuesday's closed-door session, which include seeking a settlement to litigating the case in court.

Groups sue U.S. government over failure to protect giraffes

"Recognizing that giraffe have a complex cooperative social system and live in matrilineal societies will further our understanding of their behavioral ecology and conservation needs,"


Two newborn South African giraffe calves (Giraffa camelopardalis giraffa) nurse from a female giraffe in the African section of the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem, Israel. 

File Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 12 (UPI) -- The Humane Society's U.S. and international branches, along with a conservation group, sued Tuesday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to protect Africa's giraffes from extinction.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Humane Society International and Humane Society of the United States argued in the 24-page suit that the federal agency and Secretary of the Interior Debra Haaland missed a legal deadline to propose Endangered Species Act protections.

The Humane Society petitioned for the giraffe protections in April 2017, which triggered a 12-month statutory deadline, which the Service and Haaland failed to meet, according to the suit.

"As giraffes face a silent extinction, it's shocking and sad that federal officials are punting on protections for these desperately imperiled animals," Tanya Sanerib, international legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement. "The U.S. market is flooded with products made with giraffe bones and skins, from knife handles and saltshakers to rugs and pillows. It's past time we halt these gruesome imports to help save everyone's favorite long-necked mammal."

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The statement noted that the giraffe population has decreased nearly 40% due to habitat loss, civil unrest, poaching and human-caused habitat changes, exacerbated by international trade in bone carvings, skins and trophies, and fewer than 69,000 mature giraffes remain in the wild.

"It is tragic that the U.S. is a top importer and seller of giraffe parts--heads, legs, feet, tails, skin--and a leading contributor to the species' threat of extinction," Adam Peyman, wildlife programs director for Humane Society International, said in the statement. "It is the responsibility of the Fish and Wildlife Service to stop this horrific trade and provide the long overdue protection that these animals deserve, before it is too late."

In August, a study revealed that giraffes are socially complex, but have been misunderstood.

"Recognizing that giraffe have a complex cooperative social system and live in matrilineal societies will further our understanding of their behavioral ecology and conservation needs," researchers wrote in the study published in Wiley Online Library.

GUN FETISH PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

U.S. on pace to easily surpass last year's gun violence toll on children

Thousands of pairs of shoes were placed on the U.S. Capitol lawn on March 13, 2018, to memorialize the children who lost their lives to gun violence following the 2012 Sandy Hook school shootings. 

File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 11 (UPI) -- The United States is well on its way to surpassing last year's total for deaths and injuries among children and teens due to gun violence, updated figures showed Monday.

Some 4,472 children aged 17 and younger have been killed or injured across the country so far during 2021, according to the nonprofit research group Gun Violence Archive.

Those figures put the United States on pace for a year-end total of more than 5,700 deaths and injuries -- a mark that would easily surpass last year's total of 5,141, a UPI analysis found.

This year's grim toll includes the deaths of 940 teens between the ages of 12 and 17 and 239 children of 11 and under. Some 2,686 teens and 607 younger children have been injured from gun violence so far this year, the group reported.

The updated figures came just days after the release of an FBI report showing that overall homicide in the United States rates were up a record 29.4% in 2020 over 2019.

There were more than 21,500 reported homicides last year, according to the figures, including around 1,600 in which the victims were 19 or younger.

Still, the homicide rate at 6.5 per 100,000 people was about 40% below the peak in the 1980s and the 1990s, the FBI's data showed.

Meanwhile, data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics last week showed the homicide rate for the United States rose 30% between 2019 and 2020 -- the biggest increase in modern history.

Students march in Washington to protest gun violence

A young woman shouts with "Don't Shoot" written on her palms as students from the Washington, D.C., area protest gun violence.

Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo

Chemicals in plastic containers, cosmetics linked to risk for earlier death in study


Chemicals found in plastic food containers and cosmetics may cause early death in older adults, according to a new study. Photo by harrydona/Pixabay

Oct. 12 (UPI) -- Daily exposure to chemicals used in the manufacture of plastic food containers and cosmetics may cause up to 100,000 premature deaths among older people in the United States annually, a study published Tuesday by Environmental Pollution found.

Of more than 5,000 adults ages 55 to 64, those with the highest concentrations of chemicals called phthalates in their urine were more likely to die of heart disease than those with lower exposure, the data showed.

In addition, people in this high-exposure group were more likely to die from any cause than those in low-exposure groups, the researchers said.

However, high levels of the toxic chemicals in urine did not appear to increase risk for death from cancer, they said.

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"Our research suggests that the toll of this chemical on society is much greater than we first thought," study co-author Dr. Leonardo Trasande said in a press release.

"The evidence is undeniably clear that limiting exposure to toxic phthalates can help safeguard Americans' physical and financial well-being," said Trasande, who is director of the Center for the Investigation of Environmental Hazards at NYU Langone Health in New York City.

Deaths caused by high levels of exposure to phthalates generates up to $47 billion in healthcare costs and lost productivity, according to Trasande and his colleagues.

RELATED Study: Chemicals in food, clothing, cosmetics increase ADHD risk in kids

Phthalates pose a potential danger to human health because the chemicals can interfere with the function of hormones, signaling compounds made in glands that circulate to influence processes in the body, research has found.

Exposure is believed to occur through buildup of these toxins as consumer products break down and are ingested, with exposure linked to obesity, diabetes and heart disease as well as mental health disorders, studies suggest.

For this study, Trasande and his colleagues analyzed data on phthalate levels found in urine samples obtained from adults who participated in the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Survey from 2001 to 2010, an ongoing assessment of health led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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The researchers also used data from the CDC's Wonder database, the U.S. Census Bureau and models from earlier studies to estimate the economic cost of early death in adults ages 55 to 64, a group they said is particularly vulnerable to phthalate exposure.

The findings, however, do not establish a direct cause and effect association between phthalate exposure and early death, in part because the specific biological mechanism that would account for the connection remains unclear, they said.

The researchers said they plan to further study the role these chemicals may play in hormone regulation and inflammation in the body.

"Our findings reveal that increased phthalate exposure is linked to early death, particularly due to heart disease," Trasande said.

"Until now, we have understood that the chemicals connect to heart disease, and heart disease in turn is a leading cause of death, but we had not yet tied the chemicals themselves to death," he said.

Bookchin M. Our Synthetic Environment - Libcom
https://libcom.org/files/Bookchin M. Our Synthetic Environment.pdf · PDF file

Our Synthetic Environment Murray Bookchin 1962 Table of contents Chapter 1: THE PROBLEM Chapter 2: AGRICULTURE AND HEALTH Chapter 3: URBAN LIFE AND HEALTH Chapter 4: THE PROBLEM OF CHEMICALS IN FOOD Chapter 5: ENVIRONMENT AND CANCER Chapter 6: RADIATION AND HUMAN HEALTH Chapter 7: HUMAN ECOLOGY Chapter 8: HEALTH AND SOCIETY Appendixes

US Economy: Record 4.3 Million Workers Quit In August Amid Mass Exodus From Retail, Food Service Sectors

By Ashley Palya
10/12/21 AT 1:02 PM

The Labor Department reported Tuesday that job openings and hiring rapidly declined in August, along with the largest number of workers quitting their jobs in more than two decades.

A total of 4.3 million workers left their jobs, an increase of 242,000 as about 4 million people left the workforce in July. The latest figures include 892,000 food-service workers, 721,000 retail workers and 534,000 healthcare and social assistance workers.

Surveys have shown that workers are confident they can find a new job amid a labor shortage.

Employment vacancies decreased to 10.44 million during August, according to the department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.

Many economists have noted that U.S. labor issues are due to low wages and benefits.

“There’s simply no labor shortage when you’re talking about finding house cleaners for a hotel — there is a shortage of workers who want to work at what you’re offering,” Sylvia Allegretto, a UC Berkeley labor economist, told the Los Angeles Times in July.

DHS to end worksite immigration raids, focus on employers

Undocumented workers who report abusive employers could be shielded from deportation

Immigration activists march in front of the Capitol in May.

 (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call file photo)

By Suzanne Monyak

Posted October 12, 2021

The Biden administration will halt massive worksite immigration raids while it prepares policies offering deportation protection to undocumented immigrants who report their employers for labor abuses, according to an agency memo released Tuesday.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in his memo that immigration agents would no longer conduct immigration sweeps at work sites, where hundreds of people suspected of working without authorization can be arrested at once.

These raids are “not focused on the most pernicious aspect of our country's unauthorized employment challenge: exploitative employers,” Mayorkas wrote in a memo to the leaders of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

These types of enforcement actions can also chill or even be used “as a tool of retaliation” for undocumented workers who cooperate with labor investigations against their employers, he said.

Mayorkas also instructed immigration agency officials to, within 60 days, develop proposals to encourage witnesses and victims of labor trafficking to come forward and cooperate with law enforcement. These plans should “provide for the consideration of deferred action, continued presence, parole, and other available relief for noncitizens” who report abuses, a reference to various forms of legal protections from deportation.

The agencies should also consider ways to ensure that undocumented immigrants are not placed into deportation proceedings while investigations continue, Mayorkas said.

“We will not tolerate unscrupulous employers who exploit unauthorized workers, conduct illegal activities, or impose unsafe working conditions.  Employers engaged in illegal acts compel the focus of our enforcement resources,” Mayorkas said in a Tuesday statement.

The memo is part of the administration’s stated effort to crack down on employers who violate U.S. labor law.

President Joe Biden has for years been a vocal supporter of labor movements and unions. He issued a stark pro-union statement during the unsuccessful union drive among Amazon workers in Alabama and nominated former Boston mayor and union leader Marty Walsh to lead the Department of Labor.

The memo also signals a departure from the immigration enforcement priorities of the Trump administration, which ramped up the use of worksite immigration raids, particularly in the Southeast.

In 2019, under the prior administration, ICE conducted the largest raid in the agency’s history when it arrested nearly 700 workers at poultry processing plants across Mississippi in a single day.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the Homeland Security Committee chair whose home state was targeted in those immigration raids, praised Tuesday's action.

“The previous Administration too often carried out raids that tore apart communities but allowed employers to continue exploiting workers,” Thompson said in a statement. “Refocusing resources to counter exploitative employers is a necessary step in protecting the American labor market and workers.”

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., a key player in congressional immigration talks, called the memo “an important step in safeguarding the safety and well-being of undocumented workers" and stressed the contributions of undocumented essential employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The memo comes less than a month after ICE released its final guidance narrowing enforcement priorities to focus resources on migrants who recently crossed the border and on immigrants who threaten national security or public safety.

That Sept. 30 guidance also prohibited immigration enforcement from being used to retaliate against noncitizens exercising workplace or tenant rights, previewing Tuesday’s memo.

Marielena Hincapié, the executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, praised the changes as “a paradigm shift away from targeting undocumented workers to holding accountable the unscrupulous employers.” Hincapié previously co-chaired the immigration unit of the Biden-Sanders unity task force.

The announcement “signals pivotal changes ahead that will make workplaces across the country safer and more equitable for all workers and finally puts an end to deeply harmful worksite raids,” she said in a statement.

Caroline Simon contributed to this report.

 Radio waves from distant stars indicate hidden planets

This discovery is an important step for radio astronomy.

BYAMIT MALEWAR

OCTOBER 12, 2021

 

SPACE

Image: Pixabay

Using the world’s most powerful radio telescope Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), Dr. Benjamin Pope from the University of Queensland and colleagues at the Dutch national observatory ASTRON have searched for planets. Recently, the team has discovered radio waves blasting out from distant stars, indicating the presence of hidden planets.

Scientists have discovered radio signals from 19 distant red dwarf stars. Four out of them are best explained by the existence of planets orbiting them.

Dr. Pope said, “We’ve long known that the planets of our solar system emit powerful radio waves as their magnetic fields interact with the solar wind, but radio signals from planets outside our solar system had yet to be picked up.”

“This discovery is an important step for radio astronomy. It could potentially lead to the discovery of planets throughout the galaxy.”

Scientists focused on red dwarf stars that have intense magnetic activity. The magnetic activity from these stars drives stellar flares and radio emissions. But some old, magnetically inactive stars also showed up, challenging conventional understanding.

Dr. Joseph Callingham at Leiden University, ASTRON, and lead author of the discovery, said that “the team is confident these signals are coming from the magnetic connection of the stars and unseen orbiting planets, similar to the interaction between them. Jupiter and its moon, Io.”

“Our own Earth has aurorae, commonly recognized here as the northern and southern lights, that also emit powerful radio waves – this is from the interaction of the planet’s magnetic field with the solar wind.”

“But in the case of aurorae from Jupiter, they’re much stronger as its volcanic moon Io is blasting material out into space, filling Jupiter’s environment with particles that drive unusually powerful aurorae.”

“Our model for this radio emission from our stars is a scaled-up version of Jupiter and Io, with a planet enveloped in the magnetic field of a star, feeding material into vast currents that similarly power bright aurorae.”

“It’s a spectacle that has attracted our attention from lightyears away.”

Dr. Pope said, “We can’t be 100 percent sure that the four stars we think have planets are indeed planet hosts, but we can say that a planet-star interaction is the best explanation for what we’re seeing.”

“Follow-up observations have ruled out planets more massive than Earth, but there’s nothing to say that a smaller planet wouldn’t do this.”

This work exhibits that radio space science is on the cusp of altering our comprehension of planets outside our Solar System.

Journal Reference:

1. Callingham, J.R., Vedantham, H.K., Shimwell, T.W. et al. The population of M dwarfs observed at low radio frequencies. Nat Astron (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-021-01483-0
2. Benjamin J. S. Pope et al. The TESS View of LOFAR Radio-emitting Stars. DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/ac230c

Barbarians at the gate stand down: KKR private equity barons Henry Kravis and George Roberts quit as co-chief execs after 45 years

By HUGO DUNCAN FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED 12 October 2021

Two of the world's most powerful private equity tycoons have stepped down as co-chief executives of buyout firm KKR after 45 years of dealmaking.

Billionaires Henry Kravis and George Roberts – cousins who set up the business in New York with the late Jerome Kohlberg in 1976 – handed over to long-term co-presidents Scott Nuttall and Joe Bae.

The shake-up marks a changing of the guard in an industry that has long attracted fierce criticism for debt-fuelled buyouts they pioneered.

Dealmakers: Henry Kravis (left), George Roberts have stepped down as co-chief executives of their buyout firm KKR

Kravis, 77, and Roberts, 78, will stay on as executive chairmen. Kohlberg died aged 90 in 2015 having left the firm in 1987.

KKR shot to fame in 1988 when it pulled off what was then the largest leveraged buyout in history with the £18billion takeover of food and tobacco giant RJR Nabisco.

As the bidding war raged, Time magazine said the 'invisible line that separates reasonable conduct from anarchy' had been crossed, adding: 'Seldom since the robber barons of the 19th century has corporate behaviour been so open to question.'

The deal was immortalised in the best-selling book Barbarians At The Gate and a film starring James Garner as Nabisco boss F Ross Johnson and Jonathan Pryce as Kravis.

Kravis and Roberts have since grown KKR into a global titan with nearly 2,000 staff and £315bn of assets. Current investments include ride-sharing start-up Lyft and media group Axel Springer.

Earlier this year, the company set up a team of dealmakers to target British firms amid a tsunami of takeover bids in the UK.

It has offices in Hanover Square in Mayfair, central London. According to business magazine Forbes, Kravis has a fortune of £6.3billion while Roberts is worth £6.7billion.

The duo worked together at investment bank Bear Stearns before departing with their mentor, Kohlberg, to set up KKR.

Nuttall, 48, and Bae, 49, have long been seen as successors having risen through the ranks after joining KKR in their twenties in 1996.

KKR pointed out that its share price has tripled and assets under management doubled since the pair became co-presidents and co-chief operating officers in July 2017.

But they face a stiff challenge to replicate the success of Kravis and Roberts, who have maintained a tight grip on the firm for almost half a century.

In a statement announcing the shake-up, Kravis and Roberts said: 'Whether reflecting on the business, our mission or the team that undertakes it, we are proud of what we have built to support companies and serve our clients over the last four and a half decades.

Joe and Scott – over the last 25 years – have played a significant role in that endeavour and in shaping the firm, its culture, and our market leading businesses into what they are today.

'We could not be more excited about this moment in time.

'There is such a huge need for private capital to support businesses, and KKR still has so much potential even 45 years later.'

Anarchy of production - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchy_of_Production

In Marxist theory, anarchy of production is a characteristic feature of all commodity production based on private property, which is the primary mode of production in the capitalist market economy. The term is often used as a criticism of market economies, emphasizing their chaotic and volatile nature in contrast to the stable nature of planned economies, as proposed by Marxists.