The formation of the North American Monsoon: a unique case in the world

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA

 

IMAGE: DEFLECTION OF THE EASTWARD JET STREAM (ORANGE CONTOURS) FROM THE MIDLATITUDES TOWARD THE EQUATOR, WHERE IT PRODUCES PRECIPITATION (BLUE SHADING, UNITS OF MM/DAY) AS IT THEN ASCENDS OVER THE SIERRA MADRE MOUNTAIN RANGE (OUTLINED BY MAGENTA CONTOUR). view more 

CREDIT: BOOS, W. R., AND S. PASCALE

Monsoons are not found only in South Asia, but they are part of a global-scale circulation that affects almost all tropical regions (e.g. Australian monsoon, African monsoon, etc.). One occurs in North America too, the North American monsoon, which affects western Mexico and the southwestern United States, in particular, Arizona and New Mexico.

To date, this monsoon was considered similar to other monsoons, although smaller. However, new research published in Nature by two scientists from the University of California, Berkeley (USA) and the University of Bologna now provides a new perspective on the processes that drive its formation.

"The results of our study show that the North American monsoon does not originate from the seasonal oscillation of the ITCZ (Intertropical Convergence Zone) over continental masses like a typical monsoon. Indeed, its origin represents a unique case as it is strongly influenced by Mexican orography which plays a key role in generating a stationary wave in the extratropical atmospheric circulation and deflecting the jet stream towards the Mexican west coast", explains Salvatore Pascale, one of the two authors of the study, researcher for the Atmospheric Physics Group of the Department of Physics and Astronomy "Augusto Righi" at the University of Bologna and the Centre for Sustainability and Climate Change at the Bologna University Business School. "This new insight into the North American monsoon is relevant for understanding how climate change may affect this monsoon and how rising temperatures may change the extent of these weather phenomena".

Monsoons indirectly influence global atmospheric circulation. They also play a key role in regulating climate in many tropical areas, which usually experience dry winters and wet summers. They are essential in bringing water to regions inhabited by billions of people. The North American monsoon is especially associated with heavy summer rainfall over an area spanning more than a thousand kilometres and it plays a crucial role in the hydrology of western Mexico and the southwestern US.

In the summer season, monsoons generally originate from the rapid warming of tropical landmasses and the resulting transfer of energy to the atmosphere above. In turn, this generates a circulation capable of producing heavy rainfall. Until now, the North American monsoon was thought to originate in the same manner. Thanks to a set of numerical simulations, scientists analysed the origin of this monsoon, showing that the mountain ranges in the region and their interaction with the extratropical circulation are responsible for its formation.

These results have implications for models and types of analyses used to dynamically forecast rainfalls brought by the North American monsoon in the region, especially considering the consequences that climate change could have in terms of droughts or extreme weather events.

The study was published in Nature under the title “Mechanical forcing of the North American monsoon by orography”. The authors are William R. Boos of the University of California, Berkeley (USA) and Salvatore Pascale of the Department of Physics and Astronomy “Augusto Righi” (Atmospheric Physics Group) at the University of Bologna and the Centre for Sustainability and Climate Change at the Bologna University Business School.

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-021-03978-2 

ARTICLE TITLE

Mechanical forcing of the North American monsoon by orography

Psychedelics show promise in treating mental illness

Peer-Reviewed Publication

VIRGINIA TECH

 

IMAGE: DOCTORAL STUDENT BOHAN ZHU WORKS IN THE LAB OF CHANG LU ON PROJECTS THAT COULD LEAD TO NEW TREATMENTS FOR DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, AND SUBSTANCE USE DISORDER. view more 

CREDIT: TONIA MOXLEY FOR VIRGINIA TECH

One in five U.S. adults will experience a mental illness in their lifetime, according to the National Alliance of Mental Health. But standard treatments can be slow to work and cause side effects.

To find better solutions, a Virginia Tech researcher has joined a renaissance of research on a long-banned class of drugs that could combat several forms of mental illness and, in mice, have achieved long-lasting results from just one dose.

Using a process his lab developed in 2015, Chang Lu, the Fred W. Bull Professor of Chemical Engineering in the College of Engineering, is helping his Virginia Commonwealth University collaborators study the epigenomic effects of psychedelics. 

Their findings give insight into how psychedelic substances like psilocybin, mescaline, LSD, and similar drugs may relieve symptoms of addiction, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The drugs appear to work faster and last longer than current medications — all with fewer side effects.

The project hinged on Lu’s genomic analysis. His process allows researchers to use very small samples of tissue, down to hundreds to thousands of cells, and draw meaningful conclusions from them. Older processes require much larger sample sizes, so Lu’s approach enables the studies using just a small quantity of material from a specific region of a mouse brain.

And looking at the effects of psychedelics on brain tissues is especially important.

Researchers can do human clinical trials with the substances, taking blood and urine samples and observing behaviors, Lu said. “But the thing is, the behavioral data will tell you the result, but it doesn’t tell you why it works in a certain way,” he said.

But looking at molecular changes in animal models, such as the brains of mice, allows scientists to peer into what Lu calls the black box of neuroscience to understand the biological processes at work. While the brains of mice are very different from human brains, Lu said there are enough similarities to make valid comparisons between the two.

VCU pharmacologist Javier González-Maeso has made a career of studying psychedelics, which had been banned after recreational use of the drugs was popularized in the 1960s. But in recent years, regulators have begun allowing research on the drugs to proceed.

In work by other researchers, primarily on psilocybin, a substance found in more than 200 species of fungi, González-Maeso said psychedelics have shown promise in alleviating major depression and anxiety disorders. “They induce profound effects in perception,” he said. “But I was interested in how these drugs actually induce behavioral effects in mice.”

To explore the genomic basis of those effects, he teamed up with Lu.

In the joint Virginia Tech - VCU study, González-Maeso’s team used 2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine, or DOI, a drug similar to LSD, administering it to mice that had been trained to fear certain triggers. Lu’s lab then analyzed brain samples for changes in the epigenome and the gene expression. They discovered that the epigenomic variations were generally more long-lasting than the changes in gene expression, thus more likely to link with the long-term effects of a psychedelic.

After one dose of DOI, the mice that had reacted to fear triggers no longer responded to them with anxious behaviors. Their brains also showed effects, even after the substance was no longer detectable in the tissues, Lu said. The findings were published in the October issue of Cell Reports. 

It’s a hopeful development for those who suffer from mental illness and the people who love them. In fact, it wasn’t just the science that drew Lu to the project. 

For him, it’s also personal.

"My older brother has had schizophrenia for the last 30 years, basically. So I've always been intrigued by mental health,” Lu said. “And then once I found that our approach can be applied to look at processes like that — that's why I decided to do research in the field of brain neuroscience."

González-Maeso said research on psychedelics is still in its early stages, and there’s much work to be done before treatments derived from them could be widely available.

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JOURNAL

Cell Reports

Collapse of ancient Liangzhu culture caused by climate change

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK

 

IMAGE: STALAGMITES IN CAVES LOCATED SOUTHWEST OF THE EXCAVATION SITE SHOW A CLIMATIC CAUSE FOR THE COLLAPSE OF THE ANCIENT CHINESE LIANGZHU CULTURE. view more 

CREDIT: HAIWEI ZHANG

Referred to as "China's Venice of the Stone Age", the Liangzhu excavation site in eastern China is considered one of the most significant testimonies of early Chinese advanced civilisation. More than 5000 years ago, the city already had an elaborate water management system. Until now, it has been controversial what led to the sudden collapse. Massive flooding triggered by anomalously intense monsoon rains caused the collapse, as an international team with Innsbruck geologist and climate researcher Christoph Spötl has now shown in the journal Science Advances.

In the Yangtze Delta, about 160 kilometres southwest of Shanghai, the archeological ruins of Liangzhu City are located. There, a highly advanced culture blossomed about 5300 years ago, which is considered to be one of the earliest proofs of monumental water culture. The oldest evidence of large hydraulic engineering structures in China originates from this late Neolithic cultural site. The walled city had a complex system of navigable canals, dams and water reservoirs. This system made it possible to cultivate very large agricultural areas throughout the year. In the history of human civilisation, this is one of the first examples of highly developed communities based on a water infrastructure. Metals, however, were still unknown in this culture. Thousands of elaborately crafted jade burial objects were found during excavations. Long undiscovered and underestimated in its historical significance, the archaeological site is now considered a well-preserved record of Chinese civilisation dating back more than 5000 years. Liangzhu was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019. However, the advanced civilisation of this city, which was inhabited for almost 1000 years, came to an abrupt end. Until today, it remains controversial what caused it. "A thin layer of clay was found on the preserved ruins, which points to a possible connection between the demise of the advanced civilisation and floods of the Yangtze River or floods from the East China Sea. No evidence could be found for human causes such as warlike conflicts," explains Christoph Spötl, head of the Quaternary Research Group at the Department of Geology. "However, no clear conclusions on the cause were possible from the mud layer itself."

Dripstones store the answer

Caves and their deposits, such as dripstones, are among the most important climate archives that exist. They allow the reconstruction of climatic conditions above the caves up to several 100,000 years into the past. Since it is still not clear what caused the sudden collapse of the Liangzhu culture, the research team searched for suitable archives in order to investigate a possible climatic cause of this collapse. Geologist Haiwei Zhang from Xi'an Jiaotong University in Xi'an, who spent a year at the University of Innsbruck as a visiting researcher in 2017, took samples of stalagmites from the two caves Shennong and Jiulong, which are located southwest of the excavation site. "These caves have been well explored for years. They are located in the same area affected by the Southeast Asian monsoon as the Yangtze delta and their stalagmites provide a precise insight into the time of the collapse of the Liangzhu culture, which, according to archaeological findings, happened about 4300 years ago," Spötl explains. Data from the stalagmites show that between 4345 and 4324 years ago there was a period of extremely high precipitation. Evidence for this was provided by the isotope records of carbon, which were measured at the University of Innsbruck. The precise dating was done by uranium-thorium analyses at Xi'an Jiaotong University, whose measurement accuracy is ± 30 years. "This is amazingly precise in light of the temporal dimension," says the geologist. "The massive monsoon rains probably led to such severe flooding of the Yangtze and its branches that even the sophisticated dams and canals could no longer withstand these masses of water, destroying Liangzhu City and forcing people to flee." The very humid climatic conditions continued intermittently for another 300 years, as the geologists show from the cave data.

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.abi9275 

ARTICLE TITLE

Collapse of the Liangzhu and other Neolithic cultures in the lower Yangtze region in response to climate change

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Nov-2021

Brazilians find stock exchange bull unbearable, remove it

By MAURICIO SAVARESE

November 24, 2021

Activists paste the Portuguese word "hungry" on the Golden Bull, a replica of Wall street Charging Bull symbolizing the financial market, outside the Brazilian B3 Stock Exchange in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2021. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

SAO PAULO (AP) — Many Brazilians felt bearish about the new Wall Street-inspired bull sculpture outside the stock exchange, and didn’t have to wait long for it to crash: The statue has been removed a week after it was installed.

Sao Paulo’s stock exchange had hoped to bestow the rundown city center with a flashy landmark. But its golden sheen was offset by nearby tents for the homeless and the daily line outside a major trade union of people searching for jobs -- any job.

By Tuesday night, it was gone.

Critics said the metal and fiberglass sculpture at the gates of the stock exchange in no way reflects Brazil’s current economic crossroads nor near-term prospects, with poverty and unemployment high and inflation running in the double digits. Local media have shown poor Brazilians in several cities so desperate for food that they rummage through rejected meat scraps.

“It represents the strength and the resilience of the Brazilian people,” Gilson Finkelsztain, the exchange’s CEO, said at its Nov. 16 unveiling. It was sponsored by the stock exchange and investor Paulo Spyer.

Spyer, who owns a consultancy firm named Vai Tourinho (“Go Little Bull” in Portuguese), said he was honored to give “a gift to all Brazilians.” Some locals were keen to snap pictures with the sculpture, which resembles the Charging Bull in Manhattan’s financial district.

But celebration was swiftly met with protests. The next day, a dozen students posted stickers that read “HUNGER” on the bull’s body. After their removal, the nonprofit group SP Invisible, which aids the poor, organized a barbecue beside the bull to feed homeless people. Both demonstrations reverberated widely on social media.

“This bull is suggesting we are experiencing some progress, but it is the exact opposite,” Vinícius Lima, one of the nonprofit’s organizers, told journalists. “Beef prices have skyrocketed. It costs double what it used to. Fewer and fewer Brazilians can afford it. That’s why we came here.”

Over the weekend, the bull’s sponsors attempted to co-opt demonstrations by asking visitors to bring food for donation. Still, the bull continued getting roasted.

City Hall’s urban planning body summoned the sculpture’s sponsors and the artist who crafted it for a meeting. Its main objection with the golden beast was that sponsors didn’t seek approval beforehand and it apparently violated a law limiting what can be displayed outdoors. Sao Paulo limits outdoor advertising.

“There is a law and it must be followed. Everyone has to be aware of the law before doing something,” Viviane Rubio, an adviser to the urban planning body, said during Tuesday’s afternoon meeting. “You needed to let us know before you placed it there,” she said.

The bull’s creator, artist and architect Rafael Brancatelli, expressed contrition.

“I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful or go over anyone’s head. The lesson has been learned,” he said. “In another initiative, we will certainly look for you first.”

Under orders from Sao Paulo’s stock exchange, a crane took away the bull Tuesday night, its head and horns wrapped in plastic.

Maria Gomes, who has worked in the region 30 years, said Wednesday she was pleased by the removal of the sculpture, which she initially thought was an ad for a barbecue restaurant and had deemed “hideous.” Still, she felt the bull may have been unfairly blamed.

“It was a ‘scapebull,’” said Gomes, 67. “Now that it is gone, it feels better. But it is actually the same degraded city center of years ago.”

From serious to scurrilous, some Jimmy Hoffa theories

By ROGER SCHNEIDER

1 of 7

FILE - This photo shows Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa in Washington on July 26, 1959. The FBI's recent confirmation that it was looking at a spot near a New Jersey landfill as the possible burial site of former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa is the latest development in a search that began when he disappeared in 1975. (AP Photo/File)



DETROIT (AP) — The FBI’s confirmation last week that it was looking at a spot near a New Jersey landfill as the possible burial site of former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa is the latest development in a search that began when he disappeared in 1975.

A number of theories have emerged about Hoffa since he was reported missing, though many of them have been tied to book releases. From serious to scurrilous, here are some of the best:

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Theory: Hoffa was killed on the orders of alleged New Jersey mob figure Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano. His body was “ground up in little pieces, shipped to Florida and thrown into a swamp.”

Who put it forth: Self-described mafia murderer Charles Allen, who served prison time with Hoffa and participated in the federal witness-protection program, told the story to a U.S. Senate committee in 1982.


Outcome: The FBI never found enough evidence to support the claim and questions were raised about Allen trying to sell the story to make money.

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Theory: Probably the most infamous had Hoffa buried under Section 107 of Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Who put it forth: Self-described hit man Donald “Tony the Greek” Frankos in a 1989 Playboy magazine interview.

Outcome: The FBI found nothing to support the claim and didn’t bother to show up when the stadium was demolished in 2010.

“When that information came to our attention we batted it around, but we were all convinced in the end that this guy was not reliable,” FBI agent Jim Kossler said then. “We were able to prove to our mind that what he was telling us couldn’t have happened because he either couldn’t have been there or he was in jail at the time.”

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Theory: Hoffa was abducted by ″either federal marshals or federal agents,″ driven to a nearby airport and dropped out of a plane, possibly into one of the Great Lakes that surround Michigan.

Who put it forth: Former Hoffa aide and strong-arm Joseph Franco in the 1987 book ″Hoffa’s Man.″

Outcome: Other than Franco’s word, there was nothing to support his claim.

A Chicago Tribune review of the book put it this way: “Former New York Times reporter Richard Hammer, who helped Franco with the book, candidly writes in the introduction that the stories have the ‘ring of truth.’ Maybe, but they also reek of something else.”

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Theory: Hoffa was killed by one-time ally Frank Sheeran at a Detroit house. Key parts of the narrative became the basis for the 2019 movie “The Irishman.”

Who put it forth: Sheeran.


Outcome: Bloomfield Township police ripped up floorboards at the house in 2004, but the FBI crime lab concluded that blood found on them was not Hoffa’s.

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Theory: New Jersey mob hit man Richard “The Iceman” Kuklinski killed Hoffa in Michigan, drove the body to a New Jersey junkyard, sealed it in a 50-gallon drum and set it on fire. He later dug up the body and put it in the trunk of a car that was sold as scrap metal.

Who put it forth: Kuklinski, who contended in his 2006 book, “The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer,” that he received $40,000 for the slaying.

Outcome: The former chief of organized crime investigations for the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice told The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey, that he doubted the claim.

“They took a body from Detroit, where they have one of the biggest lakes in the world, and drove it all the way back to New Jersey? Come on,” Bob Buccino said.

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Theory: Hoffa was killed and his body was buried beneath a swimming pool in Oakland County’s Hampton Township.

Who put it forth: Richard C. Powell, who used to live on the property and who was serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for a 1982 homicide in Saginaw County.

Outcome: Police used a backhoe to demolish the pool and dig beneath it in 2003, although no trace of Hoffa was found. At one point, police brought Powell to the scene handcuffed and shackled. Then-Bay County Prosecutor Joseph K. Sheeran told the Bay City (Michigan) Times that Powell “didn’t have any connection to Hoffa at all” and that the convict just wanted a few moments of fame.

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Theory: Hoffa’s killers buried him beneath the 73-story Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit.

Who put it forth: Marvin Elkind, a self-described “chauffeur and goon for mob bosses,” in the 2011 book “The Weasel: A Double Life in the Mob.”

Outcome: The building, home to General Motors’ headquarters, stands and the claim has never been taken seriously.

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Theory: Hoffa was buried in a makeshift grave beneath a concrete slab of a barn in Oakland Township about 25 miles north of Detroit.

Who put it forth: Reputed Mafia captain Tony Zerilli in the online “Hoffa Found.” Zerilli was in prison for organized crime when Hoffa disappeared, but he claimed he was informed about Hoffa’s whereabouts after his release.

Outcome: The FBI and police in 2013 spent two days digging at the site that no longer had the barn, but found nothing.

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Theory: Hoffa’s body was delivered to a Jersey City landfill in 1975, placed in a steel drum and buried about 100 yards away on state property that sits below an elevated highway.

Who put it forth: Journalist Dan Moldea, who has written extensively about the Hoffa saga, as a result of interviews with Frank Cappola. Cappola, who died in 2020, says his father owned the landfill and buried the body.

Outcome: To be determined. The FBI obtained a search warrant to do a site survey, which it completed last month and is analyzing the data. The agency hasn’t said whether it removed anything from the site.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; IOC

Former Brazil Olympic boss sentenced to jail for corruption

By MAURICIO SAVARESE

Then President of the Rio 2016 Olympic Organizing Committee Carlos Arthur Nuzman, right, and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, second right, applaud during the opening ceremony of the 129th International Olympic Committee session, in Rio de Janeiro on August 1, 2016, ahead of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. Nuzman, the head of the Brazilian Olympic Committee for more than two decades, was sentenced to 30 years and 11 months in jail for allegedly buying votes for Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympics. The ruling by Judge Marcelo Bretas became public Thursday, Nov. 25, 2021. (Fabrice Coffrini/Pool Photo via AP, File)


SAO PAULO (AP) — Carlos Arthur Nuzman, the head of the Brazilian Olympic Committee for more than two decades, was sentenced to 30 years and 11 months in jail for allegedly buying votes for Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympics.

The ruling by Judge Marcelo Bretas became public Thursday.

Nuzman, who also headed the Rio 2016 organizing committee, was found guilty of corruption, criminal organization, money laundering and tax evasion. The 79-year-old executive won’t be jailed until all his appeals are heard.

He and his lawyer did not comment on the decision.

Bretas also sentenced to jail former Rio Gov. Sergio Cabral, businessman Arthur Soares and Leonardo Gryner, who was the Rio 2016 committee director-general of operations. Investigators say all three and Nuzman coordinated to bribe the former president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, Lamine Diack, and his son Papa Diack for votes.

Cabral, who has been in jail since 2016 and faces a series of other convictions and investigations, told Bretas two years ago he had paid about $2 million in exchange for up to six votes in the International Olympic Committee (IOC) meeting that awarded Rio the Olympic and Paralympic Games. He said the money had come from a debt owed to him by Soares.

Cabral, who governed Rio state between 2003 and 2010, added that another $500,000 was paid later to Diack’s son with the aim of securing three more votes of IOC members.

Bretas’ ruling labels Nuzman as “one of the main responsibles for the promotion and the organization of the criminal scheme, given his position in the Brazilian Olympic Committee and before international authorities.” The judge also said the sports executive “headed and coordinated action of the other agents, clearly as a leader” to illegally garnish support at the IOC.

The judge said he will send the results of the investigation to authorities in Senegal and France, where Papa Diack and Lamine Diack live, respectively.

Rio’s bid beat Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid to host the 2016 Games.

The investigation in Brazil began in 2017 after French newspaper Le Monde found members of the IOC had been bribed three days before the 2009 session in Copenhagen where Rio was picked to host the Games.

UPDATE
Russia: Death toll in Siberian coal mine blast raised to 52

By DARIA LITVINOVA and VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV

1 of 9

In this Russian Emergency Situations Ministry Thursday, Nov. 25, 2021 photo, rescuers prepare to work at a fire scene at a coal mine near the Siberian city of Kemerovo, about 3,000 kilometres (1,900 miles) east of Moscow, Russia,. Russian authorities say a fire at a coal mine in Siberia has killed nine people and injured 44 others. Dozens of others are still trapped. A Russian news agency says the blaze took place in the Kemerovo region in southwestern Siberia. (Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations photo via AP)


In this photo provided by the Governor of Kemerovo Region Press Office, rescuers and officials attend a meeting, after the accident at the Listvyazhnaya coal mine about 100 km (62 mies) of the Siberian city of Kemerovo, about 3,000 kilometres (1,900 miles) east of Moscow, Russia, Thursday, Nov. 25, 2021. At least 14 people have died in a fire at a coal mine in Russia's Siberia that also has left 35 others trapped and feared dead. (Governor of Kemerovo region press office photo via AP)

MOSCOW (AP) — A devastating explosion in a Siberian coal mine Thursday left 52 miners and rescuers dead about 250 meters (820 feet) underground, Russian officials said.

Hours after a methane gas explosion and fire filled the mine with toxic fumes, rescuers found 14 bodies but then were forced to halt the search for 38 others because of a buildup of methane and carbon monoxide gas from the fire. Another 239 people were rescued.

The state Tass and RIA-Novosti news agencies cited emergency officials as saying that there was no chance of finding any more survivors in the Listvyazhnaya mine, in the Kemerovo region of southwestern Siberia.

The Interfax news agency cited a representative of the regional administration who also put the death toll from Thursday’s accident at 52, saying they died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

It was the deadliest mine accident in Russia since 2010, when two methane explosions and a fire killed 91 people at the Raspadskaya mine in the same Kemerovo region.

A total of 285 people were in the Listvyazhnaya mine early Thursday when the blast sent smoke that quickly filled the mine through the ventilation system. Rescuers led to the surface 239 miners, 49 of whom were injured, and found 11 bodies.

Later in the day, six rescuers also died while searching for others trapped in a remote section of the mine, the news reports said.

Regional officials declared three days of mourning.

Russia’s Deputy Prosecutor General Dmitry Demeshin told reporters that the fire most likely resulted from a methane explosion caused by a spark.

The miners who survived described their shock after reaching the surface.

“Impact. Air. Dust. And then, we smelled gas and just started walking out, as many as we could,” one of the rescued miners, Sergey Golubin, said in televised remarks. “We didn’t even realize what happened at first and took some gas in.”

Another miner, Rustam Chebelkov, recalled the dramatic moment when he was rescued along with his comrades as chaos engulfed the mine.

“I was crawling and then I felt them grabbing me,” he said. “I reached my arms out to them, they couldn’t see me, the visibility was bad. They grabbed me and pulled me out, if not for them, we’d be dead.”

Explosions of methane released from coal beds during mining are rare but they cause the most fatalities in the coal mining industry.

The Interfax news agency reported that miners have oxygen supplies normally lasting for six hours that could only be stretched for a few more hours.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a criminal probe into the fire over violations of safety regulations that led to deaths. It said the mine director and two senior managers were detained.

President Vladimir Putin extended his condolences to the families of the dead and ordered the government to offer all necessary assistance to those injured.

Thursday’s fire wasn’t the first deadly accident at the Listvyazhnaya mine. In 2004, a methane explosion left 13 miners dead.

In 2007, a methane explosion at the Ulyanovskaya mine in the Kemerovo region killed 110 miners in the deadliest mine accident since Soviet times.

In 2016, 36 miners were killed in a series of methane explosions in a coal mine in Russia’s far north. In the wake of the incident, authorities analyzed the safety of the country’s 58 coal mines and declared 20 of them, or 34%, potentially unsafe.

The Listvyazhnaya mine wasn’t among them at the time, according to media reports.

Russia’s state technology and ecology watchdog, Rostekhnadzor, inspected the mine in April and registered 139 violations, including breaching fire safety regulations.

Lifting obstacles: France helps women report abuse to police

By MASHA MACPHERSON and SYLVIE CORBET

1 of 12

Women demonstrate against violence against women, Nov. 20, 2021 in Paris. French Junior Interior Minister Marlene Schiappa said France must further help women victims of violence to report abuses to the police, including via a new process to file a complaint at a friend’s home or in a place where they feel safe. (AP Photo/Adrienne Surprenant, File)


PARIS (AP) — France is launching a new process for women to formally report domestic violence and sexual and other abuse, circumventing police stations where many victims feel uncomfortable filing such complaints.

The measure comes after tens of thousands of women in France shared testimonies online about police victim-blaming them or mishandling complaints as they reported sexual abuse. The government has also come under pressure in recent years to better protect women from deadly domestic violence.

Junior Interior Minister Marlene Schiappa said alternative locations for filing police complaints can include a friend’s home or some other place where abused women feel safe.

“There are women who tell us that they don’t dare to come to a police station because they are afraid of not being welcomed, because it’s hard to talk about things that are taboo (with) an unknown person in uniform in a foreign environment,” she said in an interview with The Associated Press. “That’s why we are lifting one after the other, the obstacles they are facing.”

An annual survey led by national statistics institute INSEE found that only 10% of victims of sexual abuse in France file a formal complaint.

And police this week reported a 10% increase in reports of domestic violence last year. It is estimated that more than 200,000 women each year are physically or sexually abused by their partner or ex-partner, according to INSEE.

The latest government initiative will try sending police officers where women have found shelter so that they can file formal complaints. This will allow victims to stay “in an environment where you feel safe, at a friend’s house, at your lawyer’s house, at the hospital, at your doctor’s house,” Schiappa said.

This comes in addition to other efforts made in recent years, including training more police officers, creating a list of questions asked to assess danger, and the possibility to alert police by text message or an internet platform, she added.

The junior minister is in charge of supervising relations between police and female victims of violence. On Tuesday, she visited a renovated police station in Paris’ 13th arrondissement, now including an office providing privacy for those filing complaints, and a room dedicated to children, with toys and books.

The visit was part of other events this week aimed at marking Thursday’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

European lawmakers called Thursday for binding rules across the 27-nation EU to better protect women, noting that one in three women in the bloc experiences sexual or other physical violence in her lifetime, and that half of women murdered in the EU are killed by someone close to them.

In France, the new process of filing complaints is being rolled out in select regions around the country for now with the aim to make it nationwide.

The measure comes after a viral campaign on French social media denounced the shocking response of some police officers as they reported sexual abuse. The hashtag #DoublePeine (#DoubleSentencing) rapidly counted at least 30,000 accounts of alleged mistreatment by police, according to activists.

“I want to value and support the action of the police forces ... and to remind everyone once again that in the vast majority of cases, complaints are handled with a lot of empathy, a lot of support,” Schiappa said. “But for the minority of cases in which it goes badly, it is obviously inadmissible.”

The Interior Ministry in recent months sent instructions to police about the legal obligation to accept all complaints, following accounts by women saying they had been discouraged by officers from reporting abuse — sometimes with the argument of insufficient evidence.

“Refusing to receive a complaint is illegal,” Schiappa said. “We want the complaints to be forwarded to the public prosecutor’s office so that the justice system can take it over.”

Axelle Garnier de Saint Sauveur, a psychologist working with Paris police to help take care of victims and train officers, said there are a series of obstacles to women reporting abuse.

When their partner has a hold on them, it “blocks everything. It prevents (them) from going towards protection, file a complaint,” she said. “You also have the fact that traumatic situations completely hinder the victim’s ability to think.”

Another reason is that “there is surely a part of fear, of ignorance about what to do when you are abused. How are you going to be treated” when filing a complaint.

“That is scary (for the victim) to think: ‘I’m not going to be heard, I’m not going to be welcome’. And then there is the obstacle to overcome: enter a police station.”

On Saturday, tens of thousands of people marched through Paris and other cities to demand more government action on the issue. “We recalled that violence is everywhere. That it is not unavoidable,” women’s right group NousToutes tweeted.

Activists want the government to dedicate 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) each year to fight violence against women, instead of the 360 million ($406 million) spent now — in part to create more shelters.

Who’s a hero? Some states, cities still debating hazard pay

By SUSAN HAIGH

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FILE - Clarissa Johnson of Hartford marches with long-term care members of the New England Health Care Employees Union, during a rally to demand new laws to protect long-term caregivers and consumers, July 23, 2020, at the State Capitol in Hartford, Conn. Connecticut essential state employees, who worked long hours during the COVID-19 pandemic, are still waiting for "hero pay" from $22.5 million in federal pandemic funds set aside in the state budget. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)


HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — When the U.S. government allowed so-called hero pay for frontline workers as a possible use of pandemic relief money, it suggested occupations that could be eligible from farm workers and childcare staff to janitors and truck drivers.

State and local governments have struggled to determine who among the many workers who braved the raging coronavirus pandemic before vaccines became available should qualify: Only government workers, or private employees, too? Should it go to a small pool of essential workers like nurses or be spread around to others, including grocery store workers?

“It’s a bad position for us to be in because you have your local government trying to pick winners and losers, if you would, or recipients and nonrecipients. And hence by default, you’re saying importance versus not important,” said Jason Levesque, the Republican mayor of Auburn, Maine, where officials have not yet decided who will receive hazard pay from the city’s American Rescue Plan funds.

A year and a half into the pandemic, such decisions have taken on political implications for some leaders as unions lobby for expanded eligibility, with workers who end up being left out feeling embittered.

“It sounds like it’s about the money, but this is a token of appreciation,” said Ginny Ligi, a correctional officer who contracted COVID-19 last year in Connecticut, where the bonus checks have yet to cut amid negotiations with unions. “It’s so hard to put into words the actual feeling of what it was like to walk into that place every day, day in, day out. It scarred us. It really did.”

Interim federal rules published six months ago allow state and local COVID-19 recovery funds to be spent on premium pay for essential workers of up to $13 per hour, in addition to their regular wages. The amount cannot exceed $25,000 per employee.

The rules also allow grants to be provided to third-party employers with eligible workers, who are defined as someone who has had “regular in-person interactions or regular physical handling of items that were also handled by others” or a heightened risk of exposure to COVID-19.

The rules encourage state and local governments to “prioritize providing retrospective premium pay where possible, recognizing that many essential workers have not yet received additional compensation for work conducted over the course of many months,” while also prioritizing lower income eligible workers.

As of July, about a third of U.S. states had used federal COVID-19 relief aid to reward workers considered essential with bonuses, although who qualified and how much they received varied widely, according to an Associated Press review.

A list of hazard and premium pay state allocations as of Nov. 18, provided by the National Conference of State Legislatures, shows funds have typically been set aside for government workers, such as state troopers and correctional officers.

In Minnesota, lawmakers still have $250 million in aid set aside for hero pay, but they’ve been been struggling with how to distribute it. A special committee was unable to come up with a compromise plan, instead sending two competing recommendations to the full legislature for consideration.

“I think every time we take another week, we’re just delaying the whole process and I think the fastest way is to get them over to the Legislature,” said Republican state Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, a member of the committee, during a meeting last month.

Minnesota Senate Republicans want to offer a tax-free bonus of $1,200 to about 200,000 workers who they say took on the greatest risk, such as nurses, long-term care workers, prison staff and first responders.

But House Democrats want to spread the money more widely, providing roughly $375 to about 670,000 essential workers, including low-wage food service and grocery store employees, security guards, janitors and others.

Earlier this week, after it appeared that a political impasse was easing over another issue, Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman told Minnesota Public Radio that she believed an agreement can be reached on front-line worker pay, noting there’s a “pretty natural middle ground” between the dueling proposals.

Connecticut has yet to pay out any of the $20 million in federal pandemic money set aside by state lawmakers in June for essential state employees and members of the Connecticut National Guard.

As negotiations continue with union leaders, the Connecticut AFL-CIO labor organization has stepped up pressure on Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont, who is up for reelection in 2022, to provide $1 an hour in hazard pay to all public and private sector essential workers who worked during the pandemic before vaccinations became available.

“The governor needs to reevaluate his priorities and show that these workers who put themselves and their lives at risk are a top priority. I think it’s really the least he can do for these workers,” said Ed Hawthorne, president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO. “These workers showed up for Connecticut. It’s time to governor to show up for them.”

Max Reiss, Lamont’s spokesperson, said the figures cited by organized labor are “just not feasible.”

In the meantime, he said, the administration is in negotiations with state employee unions, classifying the work state employees did during the pandemic and determining whether they may have shifted to other responsibilities that were more or less risky, which could also affect whether they receive more or less money.

“We want to recognize the workers who kept going into work every day because they had to and there was not a choice. And those range from people working in state-run health care facilities to people who needed to plow our roads during severe weather and work in-person jobs,” he said. “The next piece is that you have to come up with the determination as to who all those people were. And there’s a verification process to that.”

In some states like California, cities are in the process of determining how to fairly distribute some of their federal funds to to help essential private sector workers who may not have received extra pay from their employers.

Rachel Torres, deputy of the political and civil rights department at United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 770, said her union is urging cities to follow the lead of Oxnard and Calabasas, which voted this year to provide grocery and drug store workers with payments of as much as $1,000.

“It really should not be a competition among essential workforces. There should be moneys available for many workers,” Torres said.

David Dobbs and his fellow firefighters in Bridgeport, Connecticut, are upset their city has yet to provide them with a share of the $110 million it received in federal pandemic funds. Mayor Joe Gamin, a Democrat, said in a statement that he supports the concept of premium pay but that the matter is still being reviewed to make sure any payments comply with federal rules.

“We’ve demonstrated a commitment to this partnership. And I think we feel a little betrayed by the city right now, when when they’re not dealing with us, when they came into this windfall,” said Dobbs, president of the Bridgeport Firefighters Association, which gave up pay raises in the past when the city’s budget was tight. “Imagine loaning your friends a decent amount of money and then hitting the Powerball and not making things right.”

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Associated Press writer Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

Beijing asks ride-hailing giant Didi to delist from US: report


Ride-hailing giant Didi has been asked to draw up a plan to delist from the United States over data concerns (AFP/Jade GAO)


Thu, November 25, 2021

Regulators in China have asked ride-hailing giant Didi to draw up a plan to delist from the United States over data concerns, a report said Friday, as Beijing continues its tight scrutiny of domestic tech giants.

Over the past year, several of the country's biggest companies -- including Alibaba, Tencent and Meituan -- have been swept up in a regulatory crackdown that has clipped the wings of major internet firms wielding massive influence on consumers' daily lives.

A mammoth New York debut in June for Didi Chuxing was quickly overshadowed by an investigation by the Chinese cyber watchdog on the grounds of cybersecurity, launched just days after the listing.

Bloomberg reported Friday that Chinese regulators now want Didi's executives to take the company off the New York Stock Exchange over worries about sensitive data leakage, citing people familiar with the matter.

The report added that privatisation or a share float in Hong Kong are among options.

The Cyberspace Administration of China, which oversees data security, has directed the company to work out the details subject to government approval, the sources said.

The move is a further blow to Didi, which raised $4.4 billion in its New York IPO -- making it the largest US IPO by a Chinese firm since Alibaba in 2014.

The ride-hailing firm has been hit especially hard by the state's clampdown on tech companies, with its service ordered off app stores in July and government agencies launching on-site inspections at its offices over "national security" fears.

Founded in 2012 by Cheng Wei -- a former executive at Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba -- Didi has dominated the local ride-hailing market since it won a costly turf war against US titan Uber in 2016.

The app claims to have more than 15 million drivers and nearly 500 million users, and is often the fastest and easiest way to call a ride in crowded Chinese cities.

Bloomberg added Friday that it was possible the delisting would form part of a raft of punishments for Didi, after it infuriated Chinese officials by ploughing ahead with its US IPO despite pushback from Beijing.