It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Fox News Hosts Trashed For ‘Disgraceful’ Spin On Colin Powell’s Death
Tucker Carlson, Will Cain and John Roberts each faced backlash for their coverage. Powell, 84, was fully vaccinated but also had multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that attacks the immune system, making him more susceptible to the effects of the virus.
Cain used the news of Powell’s death to rail against President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates, claim there’d be calls for “more truth from our government” and note that fully vaccinated people are being hospitalized and dying from COVID-19, even though the vast majority of victims now are unvaccinated.
Roberts deleted a widely criticized tweet saying Powell’s death “raises new questions” about the shots, replacing it with a thread saying he was not anti-vaccine.
Carlson, meanwhile, suggested Americans are “being lied to” about the vaccines. He did not appear to reference Powell’s other health issues until the end of his broadcast.
“The man had just died and this guy couldn’t wait to make it into a fight about vaccine mandates. It is disgraceful,” he said of Cain.
Others agreed:
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
Turkey summons 10 ambassadors after call for philanthropist's release
FILE PHOTO: Re-trial of philanthropist Osman Kavala in Istanbul
Mon, October 18, 2021, 4:51 PM·2 min read
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey's foreign ministry summoned the ambassadors of 10 countries, including the United States, Germany and France, over a statement calling for the urgent release of philanthropist Osman Kavala, state-owned Anadolu agency said on Tuesday.
The statement, shared by some of the embassies on Monday, called for a just and speedy resolution to Kavala's case, four years after he was jailed, saying the case "cast a shadow over respect for democracy."
Kavala, a businessman, has been in jail in Turkey for four years without being convicted, despite the European Court of Human Rights calling for his release.
He was acquitted last year of charges related to nationwide protests in 2013, but the ruling was overturned this year and combined with charges in another case related to a coup attempt in 2016.
Rights groups have described the trials against Kavala as symbolic of a crackdown on dissent under President Tayyip Erdogan.
"The continuing delays in his trial, including by merging different cases and creating new ones after a previous acquittal, cast a shadow over respect for democracy, the rule of law and transparency in the Turkish judiciary system," the embassies said in the statement.
"Noting the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights on the matter, we call for Turkey to secure his urgent release," the statement said.
The other countries named in the statement were Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland and New Zealand.
In response, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Turkey is a democratic state of law. "Ambassadors making a recommendation and suggestion to the judiciary in an ongoing case is unacceptable," he said on Twitter.
"Your recommendation and suggestion cast a shadow on your understanding of law and democracy," Soylu said.
Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul said diplomats need to respect laws and ambassadors cannot make suggestions to courts.
The Council of Europe has said it will begin infringement proceedings against Turkey if Kavala is not released.
The next hearing in the case against Kavala, who has denied all charges, and others will be held on Nov. 26.
(Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by Giles Elgood and Karishma Singh)
Millions of Years Ago, Our Ancestors Had Tails — But We Can Thank a Gene Mutation for Why We Don't
Daisy Hernandez Mon, October 18, 2021 Photo credit: Daniel Day - Getty Images
A new study seems to have found the reason why humans don’t have tails even though our ancestors did.
In their study, a group of researchers found that a mutation of the TBXT gene caused rat embryos to develop stunted tails or no tails at all.
The researchers hypothesize that 20 million years ago, a random human ancestor was struck by the TBXT gene mutation and passed the tailless trait to its offspring for several generations. Eventually, humans evolved with this mutation which is why we don't have tails.
Millions of years ago, our ancestors had tails. So, why don’t we?
The short answer, of course, is we lost the ability and need to grow tails thanks to evolution. The longer, more accurate explanation is one that scientists have been working to figure out and now we might finally have an answer: genetic mutation.
In a new study, New York-based researchers theorize that the mutation was mediated by the addition of a short segment of DNA—known as an Alu element—and is the reason why humans and apes do not have tails but monkeys do. In fact, the question of why humans lack tails has plagued Bo Xia, an NYU Grossman School of Medicine stem cell biology graduate student, since he was a child, he told the New York Times.
In an effort to find some answers, Xia studied embryo development with a particular focus on which genes were activated and which were turned off at different points during the growth within the womb. He also analyzed tail development in other animals and compared the DNA of tailless apes to monkeys with tails.
Because scientists have previously discovered over 30 genes responsible for tail development in various animals—including Manx cats who famously have no tail or a small nub for a tail caused by a genetic mutation—Xia theorized that the same had happened to our ancestors, and eventually, us.
Photo credit: Angie Selman / EyeEm - Getty Images
After comparing the apes and monkeys, Xia made an exciting discovery: a mutation in the TBXT gene was evident in humans and apes but not seen in monkeys. To test the theory that this gene was the genetic mechanism responsible for tail loss in humans, Xia and his team genetically modified mice embryos to see what would happen.
They found that the addition of the TBXT gene resulted in some mice having no tails while others developed short, stubby tails.
This led Xia and colleagues to hypothesize that 20 million years ago, a random gene mutation in an ape caused it to either develop a shortened nub of a tail or no tail at all. That ape then passed the trait down to its offspring and the mutation continued to rapidly make its way down several genealogies until it reached us.
Still, the question remains as to why the loss of a tail was beneficial to our ancestors. Did tails get in the way more than they helped? Plus, there was the increased risk of developing neural tube defects (NTD) which could adversely affect the brain and spine. Developing NTDs is still a concern during pregnancy which is why the CDC recommends “all women of reproductive age ... get 400 micrograms (mcg) of folic acid every day” in an effort to prevent the defects.
We may not yet know what the advantage was to losing our tails, but further research may one day be able to pinpoint the answer.
HUNTING PREDATORS IS A MALE EGO TRIP Massive male cougar captured, tagged in 2018 by biologists legally killed by hunter in northeast Washington
Eli Francovich, The Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Wash. Sun, October 17, 2021,
Oct. 17—A massive male cougar that was captured and tagged by biologists in 2018 was legally killed by a hunter on Sept. 9 in Eastern Washington. In 2018, the tom cougar weighed 197 pounds, its head was 56 centimeters in circumference and it was 9 years old, according to Bart George, a wildlife biologist for the Kalispel Tribe who captured the cougar in 2018. The cougar was so large that biologists had to dart him twice. He was so muscular that one of the darts popped out when the animal flexed his thigh muscle. On average, tom cougars weight between 150 and 155 pounds.
At that time, the animal was captured and collared as part of Washington's ongoing predator-prey project, which is attempting to better understand the relationship between wolves and ungulates. A secondary consideration, however, is how wolves and cougars interact. In 2018, the cougar was the largest captured cougar in Washington.
"Congratulations to the hunter, that's a big mature animal that has very likely sired lots of offspring in the region," George said in a text. "The removal of the big cat will make room for another mature male to fill his niche."
On Sept. 9, Brandon Reed was fishing and camping with his girlfriend and two children on Carl's Lake. That morning, they went for a hike around the lake, and he scrambled up to a rocky outcropping for scout for elk. Reed started searching a nearby drainage with his binoculars when he saw the tom cat lying under a tree.
"I'm glassing and laying clear across this drainage was a cat and a big cat," he said. "It struck me as huge. Laying there like your normal house cat."
Reed, who had his Tikka .300 mag rifle with him, went to the ground and sighted in on the tom. He estimated the shot was between 300 and 350 yards.
Reed figured that with a target so small, he would either hit the cat or completely miss.
"I'm either going to be high, low or I'm going to hit it," he said.
He fired, the recoil knocking him off the scope.
When he got the scope back on the cat, he saw it do two flips down the drainage before it disappeared into the tree line.
Reed hiked back to his truck and family, grabbed a shotgun and then went to retrieve the cat. He found the tom wrapped around a tree downhill from where he'd been lying. He also brought a rangefinder and found that he'd shot at 366 yards. He also found the collar and tag placed on the animal in 2018 and he notified state and tribal biologists.
Over the next several hours, Reed skinned the cat and packed out between 50 and 60 pounds of meat in addition to its hide and skull. He's waiting for the skull to be processed at the taxidermist and will submit it to check for a world record. The largest cougar shot, according to the Boone and Crockett Club's record, was killed in 1979 by Douglas E. Schuk in British Columbia. The skull scored 16 4/16 points. The Boone and Crockett Club's runner-up cougar was killed in Idaho's Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness by Gene R. Alford of Kamiah, Idaho, in 1988.
"Truth of the matter is I want it to be a record," Reed said.
Farmer jailed over cruelty that led to ‘UK’s biggest animal rescue mission’
Telegraph reporters Sun, October 17, 2021 Animal welfare officers at the farm of Geoffrey Bennett, where they found more than 200 animals being kept in vile conditions
A farmer has been jailed after more than 200 animals were freed from vile conditions in what has been described as the “UK’s biggest rescue mission”.
In total, 22 animals had to be put down or died following their rescue from Geoffrey Bennett’s farm. The 68-year-old left two starving ponies suffering with disease caused by parasites and a goat that was so ill it collapsed in its pen.
All those animals were so sick they had to be put down by vets when Hurst Farm in Ripley, Surrey, was raided by police in January 2019.
Despite receiving urgent treatment, another 14 horses that had been weakened by worms and parasitic disease died. Two dogs, a goat, a chicken and a duck also died, the RSPCA said.
Officers found herds of ponies riddled with worms and living out in fields with hazardous metal underfoot and broken fencing sticking up from the thick mud.
Inside two barns were pens filled with donkeys, goats, alpacas and ponies squashed in together, standing on top of months worth of waste and faeces.
Many were malnourished and had been suffering from underlying health conditions, the RSPCA said.
Dozens of dogs - some pregnant and others with tiny puppies in tow - were found chained and tethered on the “filthy” yard, while others were shut inside “tiny cramped cages” and makeshift kennels.
Dozens of dogs were found in cramped cages
After being rescued, several animals were born in care of the RSPCA, including 20 foals, six goat kids, one alpaca and nine puppies. Two puppies died and two ponies were stillborn.
A total of 204 animals were discovered at the site, with 131 horses, 33 dogs, two alpacas, donkeys, goats, chickens, ducks and birds all requiring veterinary treatment.
Bennett admitted to failing to provide the stricken animals with enough nutritious food and not seeking treatment for them when they became ill.
At Guildford Crown Court, Bennett was given a 19-week jail sentence and was disqualified from owning animals for life, after admitting to a string of animal abuse offences.
He pleaded guilty to two Animal Welfare Act offences as well as six charges of failing to dispose of animal by-products after rescuers found bones and skeleton parts buried among the muck and wrapped in rugs.
Sentencing Bennett, the judge took into account his guilty plea, age and health problems, but added that due to the severity of the crimes, he had to be jailed.
Geoffrey Bennett has been given a 19-week jail sentence and was disqualified from owning animals for life
Recorder Darren Reed also ordered that Bennett receive 12 months supervision on release from prison.
As he sentenced him, Recorder Reed said: “They [the prison service] will show you responsibility and care many times greater than you showed the animals in your care.”
PC Hollie Iribar, from Surrey Police, said the case was “one of the most difficult” she had ever seen. ‘One of the most difficult cases’ officers had seen
She added: “As a Rural and Wildlife Crime Officer for Surrey Police, I have witnessed some devastating acts of animal cruelty over the years.
“This was one of the most difficult cases I’ve seen, and I am grateful to the RSPCA and our other partner agencies for the hard work put in to bring this case to trial.
“I’m very glad that this heartbreaking case has seen a resolution in the courts, and that the animals involved were rescued and given a second chance at a happy and healthy life.”
Kirsty Withnall, of the RSPCA, coordinated the rescue mission and led the investigation. She said: “The RSPCA and World Horse Welfare officers had received complaints about the farm and had been looking into these concerns and gathering evidence.
“This was a huge multi-agency rescue mission which was the culmination of weeks of planning and evidence gathering. In total, there were 100 staff from different agencies working on the case to help round up the animals.
“It took almost 12 hours on the day to assess all of the animals, load them into horseboxes and animal ambulances, and move them off-site; making it one of the biggest coordinated rescue missions the UK has ever seen.”
More oil trains will run through Minnesota, Twin Cities
Mike Hughlett, Star Tribune Sun, October 17, 2021, 4:00 PM·6 min read A new Canadian railroad venture is sparking a significant increase of 15 to 20 oil trains that run through Minnesota each month.
Canadian Pacific Railway's specialized new Canadian crude cargoes run on its main line, which bisects the Twin Cities. And the Canadian rail giant's recent deal to purchase a major U.S. railroad will likely make its new oil service even more appealing to shippers.
Oil-by-rail has stoked safety concerns in Minnesota and elsewhere since 2013 when an oil train in Quebec caught fire and exploded, killing 47 people.Since then, several more oil trains in North America have derailed and spilled, some catching fire.
Canadian Pacific declined to say how many of the new oil trains it's currently running. But during a conference call with analysts in July, the railroad's chief marketing officer said he expects "business to ramp up to 15 to 20 trains per month during the third quarter," which ended Sept. 30. Their destination: Port Arthur, Texas.
Canadian Pacific and the company behind the new Alberta, Canada, rail venture, USD Partners, say they're using a new technology that makes shipping oil safe enough it need not be categorized as a flammable hazardous cargo.
"From an innovation, sustainability and safety perspective, this is a game changer," Canadian Pacific CEO Keith Creel said in 2019 when the project was announced.
USD Partners said testing of its proprietary oil blend indicates that if it's spilled into water during a derailment, it will float. Unlike lighter oil, heavy Canadian crude can eventually sink and diffuse, making cleanup efforts more difficult.
But the venture and USD's claims have some skeptics.
"There are a lot of problems with this proposal and the complete lack of transparency around it," said Frank Hornstein, the Minneapolis DFLer who heads the Minnesota House's Transportation Finance and Policy Committee.
"We don't know the characteristics of this material being transported," he said. "We have to depend on the company making a profit off of it to guarantee its safety."
Plus, Hornstein said it's imprudent to launch such new fossil fuel projects "at a time when a climate emergency is building day by day."
Most Canadian crude bound for the United States — by far Canada's biggest oil export market — travels on pipelines, particularly Enbridge's corridor of six lines across Minnesota. Enbridge recently completed a $3 billion-plus pipeline to replace Line 3, which was corroding and able to operate only at 50% of capacity.
One of Enbridge's arguments for the controversial pipeline was that without it, the number of oil trains in Minnesota would multiply, said Laura Triplett, a geology and environmental studies professor at Gustavus Adolphus College.
"Now we are getting more trains anyway," she said.
The Canadian Pacific's route runs the length and breadth of Minnesota, hugging the Mississippi River in the southeast. For the past 21 months, Department of Public Safety records indicate CP is the largest rail shipper of oil in the state.
Volume varies considerably. For the week ending Oct. 3, CP had five to six hazardous trains running through the most heavily trafficked counties for those types of loads. For the week ending Sept. 5, that count was 16 to 19. Crude oil and ethanol generally make up the bulk of hazardous rail cargoes.
The new oil trains running from USD's terminal aren't likely to be tallied in those state counts. USD said the oil is not hazardous cargo as defined under U.S. and Canadian transportation regulations.
Heavy Canadian crude, known as bitumen, is considerably less volatile and combustible than lighter oil from North Dakota, which was at the heart of the massive accident in Quebec eight years ago. But Canadian crude can still catch fire.
A Canadian Pacific train derailed in rural Saskatchewan in February 2020, spilling around 400,000 gallons of oil, which ignited. A similarly-sized CP derailment and oil spill two months earlier in Saskatchewan also burned.
USD says oil processed through its new technology is not flammable — and therefore not hazardous. A key to that claim involves something called diluent.
Bitumen from Canada's oil sands is so thick that it's often extracted from big open pit mines, a particularly carbon-intensive process. To make the stuff fluid enough to transport, oil shippers use diluent made from lighter — and more flammable — hydrocarbons.
Diluent typically makes up about 30% of the oil shipped through pipelines. Sometimes, oil will be moved directly off pipelines to railcars with that 30% diluent level maintained. Other times, trains will transport heavy crude with about 15% diluent.
USD Partners' said that with its "DRUbit" process, the diluent level of a barrel of oil is reduced to 5% and the diluent that remains has fewer light hydrocarbons.
"By design, DRUbit reduces diluent to allow the product to not meet the flammable and hazardous classifications of the U.S. Department of Transportation and Canada's Transport of Dangerous Goods regulations," USD said in a statement to the Star Tribune.
Canadian Pacific, also in a statement, said, "DRUbit is specifically designed for safe rail transportation."
U.S. and Canadian transportation regulators say it is the shipper's responsibility to classify whether oil and other cargoes are hazardous.
For years, companies in Canada's oil patch have been working on ways to remove diluent from rail cars — and not just for safety reasons. Economics plays a key role.
Diluent is a low-value product that adds costs to shipping, said Kevin Birn, a Calgary-based oil industry analyst for IHS Markit. "It basically occupies space."
USD's terminal in Hardisty, Alberta — a joint venture with the Canadian firm Gibson Energy — receives crude from pipelines with 30% diluent. It recycles much of that diluent and ships it back to Alberta oil producers to reuse, a particularly cost-effective measure.
Publicly traded USD Partners has a long-term agreement with oil producer ConocoPhillips to ship crude from Alberta and is looking for more customers.
Shipping oil by pipelines is generally significantly cheaper than by rail. But USD Partners claims that its technology is cost-competitive with pipelines — and analysts say that is possible.
The economics for USD Partners and the Canadian Pacific should get even better if CP's $27 billion purchase of Kansas City Southern goes through.
The Canadian Pacific's system runs south to Kansas City. From there, the KCS has extensive ties to the Gulf Coast — the largest U.S. oil refining hub — including Port Arthur, Texas. ConocoPhillips has a refinery nearby.
In Port Arthur, USD Partners has built a new terminal, which like its Hardisty venture, was completed this summer. Like CP, KCS has been instrumental in advancing the new DRUbit rail service to Port Arthur.
But with the merger, CP will be able to offer single-line service all the way to the Gulf Coast, which should reduce costs for all traffic moving on the combined railway.
"That single-line service, you'll hear us talk a lot about that," Kansas City Southern CEO Pat Ottensmeyer told stock analysts in September. "That is significant in that it avoids interchanges, avoids those [situations] that generally add cost and add time."
Lucy space mission apparent glitch under investigation by NASA and Lockheed after Saturday launch
Enlarge A Lockheed Martin Space worker tests the deployment of one of the 24-foot- diameter solar arrays that power NASA's Lucy space probe. The spacecraft was built and tested at the company's headquarters in Jefferson County. PATRICK H. CORKERY
NASA’s Lucy space probe, built in Jefferson County by Lockheed Martin Space, started its 4-billion-mile journey to study rare asteroids near Jupiter on Saturday, but the company and space agency are sorting out an apparent glitch in deploying the spacecraft’s solar arrays.
One of two 24-foot in diameter, circular solar arrays may not have “latched” into place after unfurling, and, while the $450 million space probe otherwise is functioning as planned, officials are trying to latch the array and understand if it might affect the planned 12-year research flight.
“Lockheed Martin and its Lucy mission operations flight team are working closely with NASA to address the situation with the spacecraft’s solar array,” Lockheed Martin Space said in an email statement issued by spokeswoman Lauren Duda. “We’re fully dedicated to the health, safety and success of the Lucy mission and team.”
The 3,300-pound Lucy launched successfully from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida before dawn Saturday on an Atlas V rocket made by Centennial-based United Launch Alliance.
A United Launch Alliance rocket lifts off from the launch pad at Cap Canaveral Space Force base, Florida, before dawn Oct. 16, 2021. It was the Centennial-based company's fourth launch of the year and its 146 consecutive successful mission. UNITED LAUNCH ALLIANCE
Lucy was released from the rocket’s upper stage 58 minutes after launch, starting a complicated flight path to reach eight, rare Trojan-class asteroids orbiting the sun in two clusters, held in place by Jupiter’s gravity and traveling in the same orbital plane as the giant planet.
Lucy is designed to travel farther than any solar-powered spacecraft ever launched. The solar arrays, built by Northrop Grumman, are meant to generate 504 watts of electricity at the furthest Lucy will be from the sun, a distance at which the sun’s light is several times weaker than near earth.
The spacecraft unfurled its two solar arrays after launch to charge its batteries, each one unfolding like a Chinese hand fan.
Enlarge Testing deployment of the solar arrays for NASA's Lucy space probe in early 2021 at Lockheed Martin Space's headquarters campus. PATRICK H. CORKERY
There were indications that one of the two arrays didn’t latch into place as planned after it unfurled, NASA said Sunday. Both arrays were collecting power, Lucy’s batteries started charging, and all other systems were operating normally, NASA said.
“In the current spacecraft attitude, Lucy can continue to operate with no threat to its health and safety. The team is analyzing spacecraft data to understand the situation and determine next steps to achieve full deployment of the solar array,” NASA said in a Sunday blog post.
Lucy is scheduled to fly by four Trojan asteroids over 12 months starting in 2027. Then, after looping across the solar system assisted by earth and Jupiter’s gravity, it’s slated to reach the second swarm of Trojan asteroids in 2033.
The Trojan asteroids, unlike the ones orbiting in the asteroid belt just past Mars, are believed to be remnants of the material that pre-dates the solar system and came together billions of years ago to make planets.
Studying the asteroids is hoped to reveal insights about the processes that made planets and formed the solar system that exists today.
Russia's remote permafrost thaws, threatening homes and infrastructure Russia's remote permafrost thaws, threatening homes and infrastructure
A drone picture shows private houses on a territory of former airfield, damaged by thermokarst processes in the village of Churapcha Maxim Shemetov Mon, October 18, 2021,
CHURAPCHA, Russia (Reuters) - The old airport in the Siberian settlement of Churapcha has been unusable for years, its runway transformed into a swampy field of puffed-up mounds and reliefs.
Like cities and towns across northern and northeastern Russia, Churapcha is suffering the consequence of climate change thawing the permafrost https://graphics.reuters.com/CLIMATE-CHANGE/PERMAFROST/oakveelglvr/index.html on which everything is built.
"There isn't a single settlement in Russia's Arctic where you wouldn't find a destroyed or deformed building," said Alexey Maslakov, a scientist at Moscow State University.
Homes are becoming separated from sinking earth. Pipelines and storage facilities are under threat. Roads are increasingly in need of repair.
As Russia warms 2.8 times faster than the global average, the melting of Siberia's long-frozen tundra is releasing greenhouse gases that scientists fear could frustrate global efforts to curb climate-warming emissions.
With permafrost covering 65% of Russia's landmass, the costs are already mounting.
Russia could face 7 trillion roubles ($97 billion) in infrastructure damage by 2050 if the rate of warming continues, said Mikhail Zheleznyak, director of Yakutsk's Melnikov Permafrost Institute.
The bumpy landscape around Churapcha, located some 5,000 km (3,100 miles) east of Moscow, resembles giant sheets of bubble wrap in places where ice wedges inside the ground have melted, causing the ground to crumble, sag or cave in altogether.
"Roads, electric power supply lines, gas pipelines, oil pipelines - all linear structures respond primarily to the warming climate and its impact on the permafrost," said Alexander Fyodorov, deputy director of the Permafrost Institute.
'WE HAVE TO ADAPT'
Built in the 1960s and 1970s as Soviet Russia expanded into the Arctic, many buildings in the far north and far east were constructed with the assumption that the permafrost – frozen for millennia – was sturdy and would never thaw.
Apartment blocks sit atop stilts driven metres into the ground.
Churapcha, with a population of 10,000, saw its airport closed in the 1990s because of the melt, scientists say.
Over the years, the once-smooth runway has become a mottled field that looks more like a dragon's back, as the ground sinks and the ice melts. Eventually, the area could become a lake, according to scientists.
Fyodorov at the Permafrost Institute has been studying the site for years, and found that some areas were subsiding at an average rate of 2-4 centimetres a year, while others were sinking by up to 12 cms annually.
In eight settlements in central Yakutia, a region in northeast Russia, 72% of people surveyed by the North-Eastern State University said they have had problems with the subsidence of their homes' foundations, said Fyodorov.
Across Russia, there are more than 15 million people living on permafrost foundations. Russia is investing to better monitor the subterranean thaw.
"We don't know what's actually happening to it," Ecology Minister Alexander Kozlov said in August. "We need the monitoring not only to follow what is melting and how. Scientists will use it to predict its consequences and learn how to prevent accidents."
The ministry plans to deploy 140 monitoring stations, each with up to 30-metre wells to measure the situation underground. While that may help determine how quickly the region is thawing, it won't help villagers like Yegor Dyachkovsky whose home is already buckling at Churapcha's former airport.
In the five years since his family built their home, the ground has sunk below it. At first the home was raised 30 centimetres off the ground on its stilt foundations. The gap is now a full metre.
Dyachkovsky has brought five truckloads of soil to fill the gap between the ground and his home, and says he still needs more.
Some of his neighbors are trying to sell their homes. "Everyone is trying to figure out the situation on their own," said Sergei Atlasov, another Churapcha resident.
But Dyachkovsky's family is actually building a garage and seems ready to take his chances.
"How can we go against nature? We have to adapt," Dyachkovsky said. "It's like this everywhere. There's no one to complain to. To the spirit up high, perhaps."
(Reporting by Maxim Shemetov; additional reporting by Maria Vasilyeva and Dmitry Turlyun; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Katy Daigle and Mike Collett-White)
NYC They made homes of illegal basement apartments. Ida's surge killed them. LONG READ
NYT
Mon, October 18, 2021
Hongsheng Leng used to sell his art in New York's Times Square, where he would set up his works against the backdrop of neon lights and big-box stores. Some pieces he was proudest of were Chinese ink on rice paper — ones he’d name “Bamboo” and “Spring.” Leng, 82, also worked odd jobs under a visitor’s visa he was granted in 1995, when he immigrated to the U.S. from China. His friends once described him as “always optimistic.”
“He was very, very happy doing his artwork,” Norman Wong, Leng’s longtime friend and immigration lawyer said, adding that his work was driven by purpose. "It’s not like he was trying to make himself known or he thought he had any chance of success.”
His family joined him in the U.S. after he secured asylum and later a green card. Together with his wife, they cared for their daughter, who had autism and needed added home assistance. His earnings were barely enough to get by on, and as he got older, he had to slow down, and the family mostly relied on welfare. Once he retired with medical issues, he was largely confined to his home — a small, inexpensive basement apartment in Queens.
Stuck in a precarious financial situation, the family had no choice but to continue living there, his estate lawyer Jim Li said.
It was a plight that would prove fatal. After Hurricane Ida ripped through New York City, Leng was found dead in his flooded basement apartment at noon on Sept. 2. The bodies of his wife and daughter were discovered later that same day. Related video: Inside a New York apartment after Hurricane Ida
Nearly all of the 11 New York City basement-flooding deaths were residents of Asian descent who lived in below-ground dwellings that were particularly susceptible to storms. The victims included Leng; his wife, Aihua Shen, 65; and their daughter, Ling Leng, 31. They were in addition to: Darlene Lee, 48; Yue Lian Chen, 84; Lobsang Lama, 2, and his parents, Mingma Sherpa, 48, and Ang Sherpa, 50; and Tara Ramskriet, 43, and her son Nick Ramskriet, 22. One victim hasn’t been named.
“Realistically, a lot of these tenants would have family members, many who are clustered into very, very small rooms,” Lina Lee, a nonprofit executive, said. “When you have these natural disasters, there's obviously going to be really a life-and-death situation."
More than a month after the storm, communities and families are still reeling from the loss, which experts say was the result of a confluence of crises, including a lack of affordable housing, the pandemic and climate change — a hidden issue for many low-income Asian immigrants who are often forced by cultural needs, poverty and immigration status to live in unsafe conditions. In addition, many face language barriers and some of the highest rates of multigenerational living.
The average income in the Queens neighborhoods where victims died ranged from $39,763 to $50,952, and the median monthly rent for an apartment in the borough is $2,250.
Image: Hurricane Ida flood cleanup. (Mark Lennihan / AP file)
“Realistically, a lot of these tenants would have family members, many who are clustered into very, very small rooms,” said Lina Lee, executive director of housing justice nonprofit organization Communities Resist. “When you have these natural disasters, there's obviously going to be really a life-and-death situation, and when you have very limited or no access to leave your living space, these families really had no way out.”
According to the New York City Department of Buildings, five of the six properties where New Yorkers died in the flooding were illegally converted cellar and basement apartments. All six are undergoing active law enforcement investigations, including the one where the Leng family lived. The Department of Buildings received a complaint in 2007 that the property included an illegally converted apartment. Inspectors visited the property twice, but no one responded to knocks on the door, so the complaint was never investigated, according to the department's records.
Many basements are “high-risk, dangerous” living situations in the city, Lee said. They often have low ceilings with exposed wiring and bathrooms that don’t function properly. When water floods into their space, the families often do not have a window or a direct exit from which they can flee. Lee said it’s easy to get trapped inside. ‘I couldn’t be there for her’
On Sept. 1, Darlene Lee, who lived on the sixth floor of her building, went downstairs to visit the superintendent’s cramped basement apartment. When it started to rain, water poured into the unit, crashing through a sliding glass door and pinning Lee to the metal frame of the entrance. Her screams caught the attention of two building maintenance workers, who rushed in to help. But she was stuck, and the water levels were rising.
Fighting to keep her head above water, the two men tried to free her by taking the door off its hinges, but they too struggled to stay afloat in the murky water. By the time she was freed around 10 p.m., it was too late. She was transferred to a nearby hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
Image: Darlene Lee (Facebook)
It was 1 a.m. when Dennis Hsu got a call from his sister saying Lee, his ex-wife and close friend, was at the hospital. Rain was beating down on already flooded streets, but Hsu rushed over. When he finally got there, he was asked to identify her body.
A month later, he said he can’t even bear to look at her photo — and he will always miss her.
Even after their split, she was there for him as a friend in his times of need. He described her as selfless, caring for everyone around her.
"I can't accept mother nature had 100 percent fault in this,” Dennis Hsu, Darlene Lee's friend and ex-husband, said.
“It’s one in a million that you find a person like her,” Hsu said. “I couldn’t be there for her.”
Others had no immediate family to turn to in the U.S. That was the case for Nepali immigrants Mingma Sherpa; her husband, Ang Lama; and their young son, Lobsang Lama, according to a GoFundMe created by their niece. Sherpa was also the sole provider for her mother in Nepal.
The role of landlords
City data shows that nearly a quarter of Asian American immigrants live in poverty, among the highest rates compared to other races. An estimated 13 percent of Asian American and Pacific Islander immigrants are undocumented, according to the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, a share that experts have long said is likely an underestimate. The number of undocumented Asian immigrants has grown rapidly, tripling from 2000-2015, a 15-year period.
Close quarters where families pack tightly has made the impacts of Covid grave, and displacement by the flooding has only worsened its effects on the lower-income. Image: Johnson Ho's basement in the days following the flood.
(Courtesy Johnson Ho)
Given these vulnerabilities, many Asian immigrants resort to living in illegal basement apartments of their family, friends and social networks. For some, it’s because they have nowhere else to go.
The city defines an illegal conversion as one that was done without the necessary permits from the Department of Buildings. Basement apartments are a popular example. Often, there’s no formal paperwork between landlord and tenant, only a verbal agreement.
“They cluster in small communities where they are able to access people who speak the same language, who are from the same culture and are living in the same conditions that they have to live in,” Lina Lee, of the housing group, said. “For them, they have nowhere else to live with, except those small pockets in Queens.”
Johnson Ho lives in one of the Queens neighborhoods that was devastated the most by the flooding. It’s the same block he grew up on and is mostly made up of Chinese immigrants. He had always felt safe in his second-floor unit; the first-floor unit is occupied by four lower-income tenants who were placed there by a local church that once used the property.
“You’re not going to have people pouring out clamoring to connect with a city official,” nonprofit organization executive Annetta Seecharran said. “They need the help, they’re afraid.”
When the rain worsened during the night of Sept. 1, Ho left the second floor and walked downstairs, where water was already pouring in from under the front door. It had risen several feet and covered the front stoop. Within 20 minutes, the first floor was completely underwater.
Image: The stairs leading down to Johnson Ho's storage basement.
(Courtesy Johnson Ho)
He heard knocks at his door. His neighbors were trapped outside and had no place to go.
“I waddled through the 3 or 4 feet of sewage water,” he said.
He unlocked his door for them, and the four tenants spent the night in Ho’s living room, where they were safe until the Red Cross placed them in hotels the next day. Ho fears what might have happened if he had been asleep when they knocked.
The next day was chaotic in his apartment and his neighborhood, he said. People were hand-washing their clothes in the streets and trying to contact emergency services. A forensic team, police officers and a police car blocked the street four houses down. A family had died in their basement apartment.
The first floor of Ho’s building was uninhabitable. Fridges, furniture, food and personal effects of his four neighbors were destroyed. The basement was covered in a layer of sewage that had such a stench that city cleaning crews hesitated to enter. Ho’s car, parked on the hill, was totaled. Despite the destruction, many in the community were reluctant to accept government aid because of their fear of being criminalized for their immigration status or their basement units, Ho said.
Myoungmi Kim, executive vice president of Queens-based nonprofit group Korean Community Services of Metropolitan New York, said the day after the storm, nearly 500 people contacted her organization for help. Government assistance exists, she said, but it’s difficult to navigate, especially when services are only in English. So her group steps in to fill urgent needs.
“The day after the storm, so many people wanted to talk to me because of the KCS emergency fund distribution. But they couldn’t speak because of their crying,” Kim said. “They just cried and kept crying and crying because they had lost everything.”
Lee said the solution isn’t as simple as reporting landlords for housing violations. If tenants make a complaint, the Department of Buildings, which enforces building codes and zoning regulations, may not necessarily fix the problem, she said. Rather, the agency could issue a vacate order, forcing a tenant, who likely does not have much money, to move immediately. For those displaced because of vacate orders, the Environmental Housing Department provides relocation and rehousing services in family centers and single-room-occupancy hotels, defined as smaller-than-average studio apartments sharing common kitchen or bathroom facilities, according to the Department of Buildings website. Image: Damage to the first floor of Johnson Ho's apartment building, where four lower-income Asian Americans lived in one unit. (Courtesy Johnson Ho)
“For the tenant, it's not worth even reporting these repairs. It's just not worth reporting the living conditions because the other choice would just be living on the streets,” Lee said.
In many cases, the landlords who offer these basement areas for Asian immigrant families may not have insidious intentions, she said. Landlords themselves are often low-income and bring in tenants for extra income but don’t have the resources for major fixes.
That’s not to say marginalized tenants don’t face exploitation, Lee said, since some predatory landlords take advantage of vulnerable, undocumented and limited-English-speaking immigrants. But these circumstances aren’t just the result of predatory landlords and developers: It’s also about the severe lack of public resources that go toward protecting these families, she said.
“It is only when there is a tragedy like the victims of Hurricane Ida that the city pays attention to the plights of Asian American tenants,” Lee said.
Community organizations attempt to do what officials haven’t: Too often, community organizations end up picking up the government’s slack, experts say.
“There have been so many issues with folks being able to get what they need on time,” said Annetta Seecharran, executive director of Chhaya, a New York-based organization dedicated to helping low-income South Asians and Indo-Caribbeans with housing needs.
For South Asians in Queens, who are more likely to live in multigenerational housing, the need is critical, especially for caregivers and older people still dealing with the impacts of Covid-19, Seecharran said.
“The Indo-Caribbean community was ravaged by Covid,” she said.
Bangladeshis and Indo-Caribbeans tend to be essential workers, with the former group living in some of the most overcrowded housing conditions in the city, according to Chhaya research. And the destruction of homes and property with the flood has the potential to worsen this problem.
Undocumented folks and those living in basements are even less likely to trust government officials, Seecharran said, and they often won’t ask for help at all. She and other organizers have been trying to bridge the gap, providing free, culture-specific meals and translation services for those looking to get aid.
Image: Johnson Ho. (Courtesy Johnson Ho)
“FEMA is coming in and telling them to fill out these applications, but they don't have access to them,” Deepti Sharmi, who has worked in community food access for years, said, referring to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “They don't understand them.”
Ho, one of the only English speakers on his block in Queens, has been going to houses in his neighborhood to help people fill out forms. He’s also been communicating with the Office of the Queensborough President about his community’s needs.
“With a lot of the housing, they got moved to JFK airport, which is an almost two-hour bus commute,” he said. “These are elderly, retired Asian people who only speak Chinese. That was really difficult for them.” Asking to be a ‘priority’
Kim, of the Korean Community Services of Metropolitan New York, said there needs to be more awareness around climate change and the simple things immigrants can do to protect themselves, like calling 911 during flooding emergencies and unlocking car doors to prevent being trapped. But experts also say there needs to be more institutional support for vulnerable communities.
“We keep being shown that we, frankly, are just not a priority,” Sharma said. “It feels like every time there’s a disaster, nothing is set up.”
Julie Sze, a professor of American studies at University of California, Davis, who focuses on environmental justice, said marginalized populations are often unconsciously or consciously viewed as easily disposable.
“A lot of the common sense of how things are structured are already based on a racist necropolitics, where it's just assumed that some populations are more vulnerable to death than others,” Sze said. “It’s this idea that some people are meant to die.”
Community activists trying to direct aid to people said that on top of the lack of disaster preparation in general, they noticed that the city’s history of punishing tenants and landlords of basement apartments made people less likely to come forward.
Image: Cleanup crews clean sewage, dirt and damage from the basement of Johnson Ho's apartment. (Courtesy Johnson Ho)
“You’re not going to have people pouring out, clamoring to connect with a city official,” Seecharran said. “They need the help. They’re afraid.”
The day after the flooding, Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Bill de Blasio went to Queens and visited some of the neighborhoods that were heavily impacted, including Ho’s.
De Blasio told MSNBC after the storm that even airtight plans can topple in the wake of a storm, but more needs to be done about basement apartments. In May, he proposed an emergency warning system for basement-dwellers for when storms are about to make landfall. The completion date is set for 2023.
“All the people came by and did a whole show for the news,” Ho said. “They give their promises, and they move on.”
Dennis Hsu, Darlene Lee's ex-husband, said he’s frustrated by the emergency response time and the lack of safety measures that led to her death, and the cost was something he can never get back.
"I can't accept Mother Nature had 100 percent fault in this," he said.
Billionaire ex-Walmart exec says the first 'settlers' of his planned $400 billion city 'Telosa' will likely be selected through applications - and they could move in by 2030
Avery Hartmans
A rendering of Telosa, including the "Equitism Tower." BIG and Bucharest Studio
Former Walmart exec Marc Lore wants to build a futuristic utopia called Telosa.
Telosa will be built on the concept of "equitism," a mash-up of equality and capitalism.
There will be an application for the first 50,000 Telosa "settlers," who could move in by 2030.
If Marc Lore's vision comes to fruition, 50,000 residents could be living in a egalitarian utopia by 2030.
While citizens of Telosa will be able to build their own homes and sell them, the city will maintain ownership of the land itself, Lore told USA Today's Scott Gleeson on Sunday. He calls his vision for the city "equitism" - a mash-up of equality and capitalism.
"The sole purpose of creating a city in the desert would be so it's owned by the community, basically take all the appreciation of the land and give it back to the citizens," Lore told USA Today. "Taxes paid will go back to the city for infrastructure - roads, tunnels and bridges - so everyone would know exactly where their money is going."
It's an ambitious endeavor, and an expensive one: the city's website estimates the first phase will cost $25 billion, with the total cost of the city surpassing $400 billion. It will be funded by investors and philanthropists, as well as government grants and subsidies, according to the Telosa website.
There's no set location for Telosa just yet, but a few regions have been mentioned as possibilities: Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Texas, and the Appalachian Region, which includes 13 states in the eastern part of the US.
A rendering of the streets of Telosa. BIG and Bucharest Studio
The first phase of Telosa - stocking the city with 50,000 residents by 2030 - will likely include an application process, Lore told USA Today.
"Settlers" of the city will be chosen via a selection process focused on diversity and inclusion, he said, and he's working to determine the criteria with the help of a team of staff and volunteers that includes architects, economists, engineers, climate experts, and more.
Lore told USA Today that he also plans to build a venture capital fund for startups willing to relocate to Telosa.
In renderings of Telosa created by the prestigious Danish architectural firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), the streets are filled with robots and autonomous vehicles, there's a high-speed rail system, and a futuristic skyscraper - dubbed "Equitism Tower," according to USA Today - dominates the skyline.
Telosa may be Lore's most radical undertaking to date, but he has a long history of entrepreneurial projects. In 2005, Lore cofounded Quidsi, the parent company of Diapers.com, which he sold to Amazon six years later for $500 million. After a short stint at Amazon, Lore founded Jet.com, an e-commerce competitor that he sold to Walmart in 2016 for $3 billion in cash, plus stock. He served as Walmart's US e-commerce CEO for over four years, announcing in January 2021 that he was leaving to focus on building "a reformed version of capitalism," he told Recode at the time.
Like fellow tech billionaires Mark Cuban, Steve Ballmer, and the late Paul Allen, Lore has also gotten involved in the world of professional sports: In July, Lore and former Yankees star Alex Rodriguez teamed up to purchase the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA's Minnesota Lynx.
