Study nixes Mars life in meteorite found in Antarctica

By MARCIA DUNN

January 13, 2022

The meteorite labeled ALH84001 is held in the hand of a scientist at a Johnson Space Center lab in Houston, Aug. 7, 1996. Scientists say they've confirmed the meteorite from Mars contains no evidence of ancient Martian life. The rock caused a splash 25 years ago when a NASA-led team announced that its organic compounds may have been left by living creatures, however primitive. Researchers chipped away at that theory over the decades. A team of scientists led by Andrew Steele of the Carnegie Institution published their findings Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A 4 billion-year-old meteorite from Mars that caused a splash here on Earth decades ago contains no evidence of ancient, primitive Martian life after all, scientists reported Thursday.

In 1996, a NASA-led team announced that organic compounds in the rock appeared to have been left by living creatures. Other scientists were skeptical and researchers chipped away at that premise over the decades, most recently by a team led by the Carnegie Institution for Science’s Andrew Steele.

Tiny samples from the meteorite show the carbon-rich compounds are actually the result of water — most likely salty, or briny, water — flowing over the rock for a prolonged period, Steele said. The findings appear in the journal Science.

During Mars’ wet and early past, at least two impacts occurred near the rock, heating the planet’s surrounding surface, before a third impact bounced it off the red planet and into space millions of years ago. The 4-pound (2-kilogram) rock was found in Antarctica in 1984.

Groundwater moving through the cracks in the rock, while it was still on Mars, formed the tiny globs of carbon that are present, according to the researchers. The same thing can happen on Earth and could help explain the presence of methane in Mars’ atmosphere, they said.

But two scientists who took part in the original study took issue with these latest findings, calling them “disappointing.” In a shared email, they said they stand by their 1996 observations.

“While the data presented incrementally adds to our knowledge of (the meteorite), the interpretation is hardly novel, nor is it supported by the research,” wrote Kathie Thomas-Keprta and Simon Clemett, astromaterial researchers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“Unsupported speculation does nothing to resolve the conundrum surrounding the origin of organic matter” in the meteorite, they added.

According to Steele, advances in technology made his team’s new findings possible.

He commended the measurements by the original researchers and noted that their life-claiming hypothesis “was a reasonable interpretation” at the time. He said he and his team — which includes NASA, German and British scientists — took care to present their results “for what they are, which is a very exciting discovery about Mars and not a study to disprove” the original premise.

This finding “is huge for our understanding of how life started on this planet and helps refine the techniques we need to find life elsewhere on Mars, or Enceladus and Europa,” Steele said in an email, referring to Saturn and Jupiter’s moons with subsurface oceans.

The only way to prove whether Mars ever had or still has microbial life, according to Steele, is to bring samples to Earth for analysis. NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover already has collected six samples for return to Earth in a decade or so; three dozen samples are desired.

Millions of years after drifting through space, the meteorite landed on an icefield in Antarctica thousands of years ago. The small gray-green fragment got its name — Allan Hills 84001 — from the hills where it was found.

Just this week, a piece of this meteorite was used in a first-of-its-kind experiment aboard the International Space Station. A mini scanning electron microscope examined the sample; Thomas-Keprta served as operated it remotely from Houston. Researchers hope to use the microscope to analyze geologic samples in space — on the moon one day, for example — and debris that could ruin station equipment or endanger astronauts.

Biden chooses 3 for Fed board, including first Black woman

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden will nominate three people for the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, including Sarah Bloom Raskin, a former Fed and Treasury official, for the top regulatory slot and Lisa Cook, who would be the first Black woman to serve on the Fed’s board.

Biden will also nominate Phillip Jefferson, an economist, dean of faculty at Davidson College in North Carolina and a former Fed researcher, according to a person familiar with the decision Thursday who was not authorized to speak on the record. The three nominees, who will have to be confirmed by the Senate, would fill out the Fed’s seven-member board.

The nominees would join the Fed at a particularly challenging time in which the central bank will undertake the delicate task of raising its benchmark interest rate to try to curb high inflation, without undercutting the recovery from the pandemic recession. On Wednesday, the government reported that inflation reached a four-decade high in December. Inflation has become the economy’s most serious problem, a burden for millions of American households and a political threat to the Biden administration.

Raskin’s nomination to the position of Fed vice chair for supervision — the nation’s top bank regulator — will be welcomed by progressive senators and advocacy groups, who see her as likely to take a tougher approach to bank regulation than Randal Quarles, a Trump appointee who stepped down from that post last month. She is also viewed as someone committed to incorporating climate change considerations into the Fed’s oversight of banks. For that reason, though, she has already drawn opposition from some Republican senators.

A Harvard-trained lawyer, Raskin, 60, previously served on the Fed’s seven-member board from 2010 to 2014. President Barack Obama then chose her to serve as deputy Treasury secretary, the No. 2 job in the department.

As Fed governors, Raskin, Cook and Jefferson would vote on interest-rate policy decisions at the eight meetings each year of the Fed’s policymaking committee, which also includes the 12 regional Fed bank presidents.

Raskin’s first term as a Fed governor followed her work as Maryland’s commissioner of financial regulation. Before her government jobs, Raskin had worked as a lawyer at Arnold & Porter, a high-profile Washington firm, and as a managing director at the Promontory Financial Group.

Kathleen Murphy, CEO of the Massachusetts Bankers Association, worked with Raskin when Raskin was Maryland’s banking regulator from 2007 to 2010 and Murphy led the Maryland bankers’ group. Murphy said the state’s financial industry regarded her as a “strong regulator but a fair regulator.”

“She has always had a very collaborative approach,” Murphy said. “She wanted to make sure all the voices were at the table when decisions were made.”

Still, Raskin is likely to draw fire from critics for her progressive views on climate change and the oil and gas industry. Two years ago, in an opinion column in The New York Times, she criticized the Fed’s willingness to support lending to oil and gas companies as part of its efforts to bolster the financial sector in the depths of the pandemic recession.

“The decisions the Fed makes on our behalf should build toward a stronger economy with more jobs in innovative industries — not prop up and enrich dying ones,” Raskin wrote, referring to oil and gas providers.

On Thursday, Sen. Pat Toomey, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, criticized Raskin for having “explicitly advocated that the Fed allocate capital by denying it to this disfavored sector.”

Raskin is married to Rep. Jamie Raskin, a liberal Maryland Democrat who gained widespread visibility as a member of the House Judiciary Committee when it brought impeachment charges against President Donald Trump.

If confirmed, Cook, together with Jefferson, would be the fourth and fifth Black members of the Fed’s Board of Governors in its 108-year history. She has been a professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State since 2005. She was also a staff economist on the White House Council of Economic Advisers from 2011 to 2012 and was an adviser to the Biden-Harris transition team on the Fed and bank regulatory policy.

Cook is best-known for her research on the impact of racial violence on African-American invention and innovation. A 2013 paper she wrote concluded that racially motivated violence, by undermining the rule of law and threatening personal security, depressed patent awards to Black Americans by 15% annually between 1882 and 1940 — a loss that she found also held back the broader U.S. economy.

In an interview in October, Cook said that despite encouragement from prominent economists such as Milton Friedman and George Akerlof, she struggled for years to get the paper published. The major economics journals, she said, typically didn’t deal with “patents, or economic history, or anything that related to African-Americans.”

Cook has also been an advocate for Black women in economics, a profession that is notably less diverse than other social sciences. In 2019, she co-wrote a column in The New York Times that asserted that “economics is neither a welcoming nor a supportive profession for women” and “is especially antagonistic to Black women.”

To combat those problems, Cook has spent time mentoring younger Black women in economics, directing a summer program run by the American Economic Association, and won an award for mentoring in 2019.

Jefferson, who grew up in a working-class family in Washington, D.C., according to an interview with the American Economic Association, has focused his research on poverty and monetary policy. In a 2005 paper, he concluded that the benefits of a hot economy from the reduction in unemployment among lower-skilled workers outweighed the costs, including the risk that companies would adopt automation once labor grew scarce.

___

AP Writer Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.

Elephants dying from eating plastic waste in Sri Lankan dump

By ACHALA PUSSALLA

1 of 6

Wild elephants scavenge for food at an open landfill in Pallakkadu village in Ampara district, about 210 kilometers (130 miles) east of the capital Colombo, Sri Lanka, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2022. Conservationists and veterinarians are warning that plastic waste in the open landfill in eastern Sri Lanka is killing elephants in the region, after two more were found dead over the weekend. Around 20 elephants have died over the last eight years after consuming plastic trash in the dump. Examinations of the dead animals showed they had swallowed large amounts of nondegradable plastic that is found in the garbage dump, wildlife veterinarian Nihal Pushpakumara said. (AP Photo/Achala Pussalla)

PALLAKKADU, Sri Lanka (AP) — Conservationists and veterinarians are warning that plastic waste in an open landfill in eastern Sri Lanka is killing elephants in the region, after two more were found dead over the weekend.

Around 20 elephants have died over the last eight years after consuming plastic trash in the dump in Pallakkadu village in Ampara district, about 210 kilometers (130 miles) east of the capital, Colombo.

Examinations of the dead animals showed they had swallowed large amounts of nondegradable plastic that is found in the garbage dump, wildlife veterinarian Nihal Pushpakumara said.

“Polythene, food wrappers, plastic, other non-digestibles and water were the only things we could see in the post mortems. The normal food that elephants eat and digest was not evident,” he said.

Elephants are revered in Sri Lanka but are also endangered. Their numbers have dwindled from about 14,000 in the 19th century to 6,000 in 2011, according to the country’s first elephant census.

They are increasingly vulnerable because of the loss and degradation of their natural habitat. Many venture closer to human settlements in search of food, and some are killed by poachers or farmers angry over damage to their crops.

Hungry elephants seek out the waste in the landfill, consuming plastic as well as sharp objects that damage their digestive systems, Pushpakumara said.

“The elephants then stop eating and become too weak to keep their heavy frames upright. When that happens, they can’t consume food or water, which quickens their death,” he said.

In 2017, the government announced that it will recycle the garbage in dumps near wildlife zones to prevent elephants from consuming plastic waste. It also said electric fences would be erected around the sites to keep the animals away. But neither has been fully implemented.

There are 54 waste dumps in wildlife zones around the country, with around 300 elephants roaming near them, according to officials.

The waste management site in Pallakkadu village was set up in 2008 with aid from the European Union. Garbage collected from nine nearby villages is being dumped there but is not being recycled.

In 2014, the electric fence protecting the site was struck by lightning and authorities never repaired it, allowing elephants to enter and rummage through the dump. Residents say elephants have moved closer and settled near the waste pit, sparking fear among nearby villagers.

Many use firecrackers to chase the animals away when they wander into the village, and some have erected electric fences around their homes.

But the villagers often don’t know how to install the electric fences so they are safe and “could endanger their own lives as well as those of the elephants,” said Keerthi Ranasinghe, a local village councilor.

“Even though we call them a menace, wild elephants are also a resource. Authorities need to come up with a way to protect both human lives and the elephants that also allows us to continue our agricultural activities,” he said.

Afghan tradition allows girls to access the freedom of boys

By MSTYSLAV CHERNOV and ELENA BECATOROSan hour ago


KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — In a Kabul neighborhood, a gaggle of boys kick a yellow ball around a dusty playground, their boisterous cries echoing off the surrounding apartment buildings.

Dressed in sweaters and jeans or the traditional Afghan male clothing of baggy pants and long shirt, none stand out as they jostle to score a goal. But unbeknown to them, one is different from the others.

At not quite 8 years old, Sanam is a bacha posh: a girl living as a boy. One day a few months ago, the girl with rosy cheeks and an impish smile had her dark hair cut short, donned boys’ clothes and took on a boy’s name, Omid. The move opened up a boy’s world: playing soccer and cricket with boys, wrestling with the neighborhood butcher’s son, working to help the family make ends meet.

In Afghanistan’s heavily patriarchal, male-dominated society, where women and girls are usually relegated to the home, bacha posh, Dari for “dressed as a boy,” is the one tradition allowing girls access to the freer male world.

Sanam, a bacha posh, a girl living as a boy, center, celebrates a goal as she plays soccer with boys from her neighbourhood, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021. In the heavily patriarchal, male-dominated society of Afghanistan, where women and girls are usually relegated to the home, there is one tradition which allows girls access to the male world: bacha posh. A girl dresses, behaves and is treated as a boy, allowing her to play and to work as a boy would be able to do, until she reaches puberty. 

(AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)

Under the practice, a girl dresses, behaves and is treated as a boy, with all the freedoms and obligations that entails. The child can play sports, attend a madrassa, or religious school, and, sometimes crucially for the family, work. But there is a time limit: Once a bacha posh reaches puberty, she is expected to revert to traditional girls’ gender roles. The transition is not always easy.

It is unclear how the practice is viewed by Afghanistan’s new rulers, the Taliban, who seized power in mid-August and have made no public statements on the issue.

Their rule so far has been less draconian than the last time they were in power in the 1990s, but women’s freedoms have still been severely curtailed. Thousands of women have been barred from working, and girls beyond primary school age have not been able to return to public schools in most places.

With a crackdown on women’s rights, the bacha posh tradition could become even more attractive for some families. And as the practice is temporary, with the children eventually reverting to female roles, the Taliban might not deal with the issue at all, said Thomas Barfield, a professor of anthropology at Boston University who has written several books on Afghanistan.

Sanam, a bacha posh, a girl living as a boy, stands next to her father at their street stand selling masks, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2021. In the heavily patriarchal, male-dominated society of Afghanistan, where women and girls are usually relegated to the home, there is one tradition which allows girls access to the male world: bacha posh. A girl dresses, behaves and is treated as a boy, allowing her to play and to work as a boy would be able to do, until she reaches puberty. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)

“Because it’s inside the family and because it’s not a permanent status, the Taliban may stay out (of it),” Barfield said.

It is unclear where the practice originated or how old it is, and it is impossible to know how widespread it might be. A somewhat similar tradition exists in Albania, another deeply patriarchal society, although it is limited to adults. Under Albania’s “sworn virgin” tradition, a woman would take an oath of celibacy and declare herself a man, after which she could inherit property, work and sit on a village council - all of which would have been out of bounds for a woman.

In Afghanistan, the bacha posh tradition is “one of the most under-investigated” topics in terms of gender issues, said Barfield, who spent about two years in the 1970s living with an Afghan nomad family that included a bacha posh. “Precisely because the girls revert back to the female role, they marry, it kind of disappears.”

Girls chosen as bacha posh usually are the more boisterous, self-assured daughters. “The role fits so well that sometimes even outside the family, people are not aware that it exists,” he said.

“It’s almost so invisible that it’s one of the few gender issues that doesn’t show up as a political or social question,” Barfield noted.

Sanam, not quite 8 years old, gets a boy's haircut, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Dec. 17, 2021. In the heavily patriarchal, male-dominated society of Afghanistan, where women and girls are usually relegated to the home, there is one tradition which allows girls access to the male world: Bacha posh. A girl dresses, behaves and is treated as a boy, allowing her to play and to work as a boy would be able to do, until she reaches puberty. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)

The reasons parents might want a bacha posh vary. With sons traditionally valued more than daughters, the practice usually occurs in families without a boy. Some consider it a status symbol, and some believe it will bring good luck for the next child to be born a boy.

But for others, like Sanam’s family, the choice was one of necessity. Last year, with Afghanistan’s economy collapsing, construction work dried up. Sanam’s father, already suffering from a back injury, lost his job as a plumber. He turned to selling coronavirus masks on the streets, making the equivalent of $1-$2 per day. But he needed a helper.

The family has four daughters and one son, but their 11-year-old boy doesn’t have full use of his hands following an injury. So the parents said they decided to make Sanam a bacha posh.

“We had to do this because of poverty,” said Sanam’s mother, Fahima. “We don’t have a son to work for us, and her father doesn’t have anyone to help him. So I will consider her my son until she becomes a teenager.”

A photo of Najieh dressed as a boy at a young age lies in a grass, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Dec. 19, 2021. In the heavily patriarchal, male-dominated society of Afghanistan, where women and girls are usually relegated to the home, there is one tradition which allows girls access to the male world: bacha posh. A girl dresses, behaves and is treated as a boy, allowing her to play and to work as a boy would be able to do, until she reaches puberty. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)

Still, Fahima refers to Sanam as “my daughter.” In their native Dari language, the pronouns are not an issue since one pronoun is used for “he” and “she.”

Sanam says she prefers living as a boy.

“It’s better to be a boy...I wear (Afghan male clothes), jeans and jackets, and go with my father and work,” she said. She likes playing in the park with her brother’s friends and playing cricket and soccer.

Once she grows up, Sanam said, she wants to be either a doctor, a commander or a soldier, or work with her father. And she’ll go back to being a girl.

“When I grow up, I will let my hair grow and will wear girl’s clothes,” she said.

The transition isn’t always easy.

Najieh, who grew up as a bacha posh, sits at her house during an interview, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Oct. 1, 2021. In the heavily patriarchal, male-dominated society of Afghanistan, where women and girls are usually relegated to the home, there is one tradition which allows girls access to the male world: bacha posh. A girl dresses, behaves and is treated as a boy, allowing her to play and to work as a boy would be able to do, until she reaches puberty. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)

“When I put on girls’ clothes, I thought I was in prison,” said Najieh, who grew up as a bacha posh, although she would attend school as a girl. One of seven sisters, her boy’s name was Assadollah.

Now 34, married and with four children of her own, she weeps for the freedom of the male world she has lost.

“In Afghanistan, boys are more valuable,” she said. “There is no oppression for them, and no limits. But being a girl is different. She gets forced to get married at a young age.”

Young women can’t leave the house or allow strangers to see their face, Najieh said. And after the Taliban takeover, she lost her job as a schoolteacher because she had been teaching boys.

“Being a man is better than being a woman,” she said, wiping tears from her eye. “It is very hard for me. ... If I were a man, I could be a teacher in a school.”

“I wish I could be a man, not a woman. To stop this suffering.”

 

Video: In Afghanistan's heavily patriarchal, male-dominated society, where women and girls are usually relegated to the home, bacha posh, Dari for "dressed as a boy," is the one tradition allowing girls access to the freer male world. (AP Video/Mstyslav Chernov)

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BOY BRIDES 

Without animals to disperse seeds, some plants may not survive climate change

While birds and mammals that eat the fruit and seeds of plants -- an American robin is pictured eating winterberries -- can migrate to more hospital environs when needed, plants need these animals' help to do the same.

 Photo courtesy of Paul D. Vitucci/Rice University

Jan. 13 (UPI) -- As ecosystems warm or dry out because of climate change, plants and animals are being forced to move in search of friendly conditions. Animals can swim, scamper and fly, but plants are rooted in place -- they rely on seed dispersal to migrate.

That's a problem, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science, because the global loss of seed dispersers -- animals that spread plant seeds -- could inhibit the ability of plants to adapt to climate change.

Like animals, each plant species has evolved to thrive within a range of ideal conditions. While some species may be more adaptable than others, all plants have specific habitats for which they are best suited.

"Those habitat characteristics are going to be somewhere other than where they are now as a result of climate change," Rice University ecologist Evan Fricke, the study's first author, told UPI. "Our study focuses on how plants will get to those new places."

Plants need help to migrate

Trees don't have legs or wings, so they rely on other forces to colonize new territory. Natural forces like wind and flowing water can disperse seeds, but flowering species mostly rely on animals to scatter their progeny.

Until now, seed dispersal studies mostly were limited in scale, focused on a distinct location, a particular forest or an island.

RELATED Study: North American bird population has declined by 2.9 billion since 1970

"Like most researchers, I had studied declines of seed dispersal on a pretty small scale, like on the island of Guam," Fricke said. "But seed dispersal is also important for this global phenomenon that is climate change, and seed dispersers are declining on a global scale."

To understand the global nature of the phenomenon, Fricke and his research partners -- including scientists from the University of Maryland, Iowa State University and Aarhus University in Denmark -- used data from several hundred seed dispersal studies to train a machine-learning algorithm to make connections between an animal's traits and its seed dispersal abilities.

"For example, the model can learn to realize that a small bird or bat won't disperse seeds as far as a large mammal like an elephant," Fricke said.

RELATED Non-native species are the primary seed-dispersers on Hawaiian island

But the model can make much more sophisticated inferences, too, Fricke said, like identifying the different dispersal patterns produced by a bird species that spends most of its time foraging on the ground and another that prefers to hang out in the tree canopy.

The model allowed researchers to more precisely estimate the seed dispersal capabilities of birds and mammals, for which there is little published research.

"We can infer what the seed dispersal would have been for now-extinct birds," Fricke said. "The same thing goes for a super rare monkey species that lives in a faraway isolated location."

Characterizing seed dispersal decline

Using the model, researchers characterized the global decline in seed-dispersing bird and mammal species. Fricke and associates estimate declines in seed disperser biodiversity has reduced the geographic mobility of plants by 60% globally.

Beyond identifying the scale of seed dispersal declines, the new analysis advances the quest to make sense of ecological complexity.

Inspired by what's called Ecological Network Theory, more and more scientists are paying closer attention to the mutualistic interactions that make ecosystems the diverse, dynamic places that they are.

"In short, networks are formed by sets of species, or nodes, connected by their interactions, or links, with each other in a certain location," ecologist Jeferson Vizentin-Bugoni told UPI in an email.

"Such interactions are often very complex and hard to study," said Vizentin-Bugoni, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who was not involved in the study.

In a given ecosystem, for example, there may be 50 seed dispersing species and 100 plant species, forming as many as 5,000 unique links -- the kind of models developed by Fricke and others are essential to making sense of this complexity.

Though the algorithm developed by Fricke and company works to compensate for blind spots in the available data, Vizentin-Bugoni suggests the acquisition of more and better data remains the best way to make sense of network complexities, whether it's a forest or coral reef.

"The quality of the answers and solutions scientists provide to society depends on funding for better data to be collected and analyzed," Vizentin-Bugoni said. "This cannot be downplayed if society wants to understand and mitigate properly the impacts of climate change and species extinctions."

But data acquisition takes time, and the authors of the latest study suggest their findings have important implications for policy decisions being made right now.

Seeing the forest for the trees

Just as researchers have come to look at habitats and ecosystems more holistically, so too should conservationists and policy makers.

Too often, authors of the new study claim, conservation efforts focus on a single species instead of a community of connected plants and animals.

Efforts to preserve ecosystems and bolster the resiliency of plants and animals to climate change, they argue, must focus on protecting and re-establishing vital ecological relations -- between predator and prey, seed disperser and plant, pollinator and flower.

"While reforestation has been heralded as an important nature-based solution for mitigating climate change, this study underscores the importance of wildlife conservation and rewilding as a nature-based strategy for reducing the impacts of climate change on biodiversity," Haldre Rogers, co-author of the new study, told UPI in an email.

"Assisted migration is not feasible on a global scale. Therefore, conservation measures that protect and restore large-bodied seed dispersers are critical for facilitating movement of plant species to suitable habitat," said Rogers, an ecologist and associate professor at Iowa State University.

Quebec, Canada, reports increase in COVID-19 shots after proposing tax on unvaccinated
By Daniel Uria

Quebec Health Minister Christian Dube said the province has seen an "encouraging" increase in vaccinations after proposing a financial penalty for those who refuse to get vaccinated. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Quebec's health minister said the Canadian province has seen an increase in vaccinations after it proposed a fine for unvaccinated individuals earlier this week.

In a tweet on Wednesday morning, Quebec Health Minister Christian Dube said the province recorded 7,000 new first-dose appointments and administered 107,000 doses on Tuesday when the potential financial penalty was announced.

"It's encouraging!" Dube wrote.

On Tuesday, Quebec Premier Francois Legault said that the province would impose a health tax on residents who refuse to get their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine in the coming weeks.

Legault did not specify exactly when the tax would go into effect or how large the fine would be but said he wanted the cost to be "significant" -- totaling more than $50 or $100. The proposed tax would also not apply to those with a medical exemption from receiving the vaccine.

Quebec has reported the most COVID-19 deaths of any Canadian province with more than 12,000. The province has ordered schools to close and implemented a 10 p.m. curfew due to rising cases amid the presence of the Omicron variant.

The premier added that 10% of eligible Quebecers had not received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while unvaccinated people make up 50% of the province's intensive care patients.

"Those who refuse to get their first doses in the coming weeks will have to pay a new health contribution," Legault said. "The majority are asking that there be consequences ... It's a question of fairness for the 90% of the population that have made some sacrifices. We owe them."

The province also last week announced that it would require residents to be vaccinated in order to buy alcohol or cannabis, with proof of vaccination already required to eat in restaurants, go to a gym or attend a sporting event.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters Wednesday that he was awaiting more details about the proposed fine before he would support the idea, adding it must comply with the Canada Health Act -- which guarantees universal access to healthcare -- and be consistent with "the rights we all cherish as Canadians.

"Details matter. We need to know exactly what measures they're putting forward. We need to know the terms and conditions so we can know if it'll be effective," Trudeau said. "We'll be looking at the details to see how exactly this will transpire."

'It was like a different planet': Sand sculptures litter Lake Michigan beach

By Monica Danielle, AccuWeather, Accuweather.com 

A walk along Lake Michigan this week was a lot like a stroll through a museum gallery thanks to some weather elements coming together to create an incredible phenomenon. Small, delicate sand sculptures casually littered the beach at Tiscornia Park in St. Joseph, Mich.

"It was like a different planet," Terri Abbott told Fox 2. "I've never seen anything like them, and I spend a lot of time there!" Tiscornia Park is on the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan, about 190 miles west of Detroit.

Photographer Joshua Nowicki has taken many incredible photos of the phenomenon and other beautiful winter scenes in the Midwest and says the sculptures are a fleeting creation of nature.

"They do not last very long. The wind completely erodes them or knocks them down. If the temperature goes up above freezing they crumble, and often in the winter, they soon get covered by drifting snow," Nowicki told Colossal. The sculptures this year are the biggest he's ever seen with the largest being about 15 inches tall.

The otherworldly phenomenon is caused when a combination of weather elements occurs simultaneously: wind, cold and snow or rain. The wind erodes the frozen sand, which is slightly wet from precipitation then the cold air holds the delicate shapes in place.

Alan Arbogast, the chair of the Geography Department at Michigan State University who also studies the state's dunes, explained to Fox 2 how the sand formations are created just like a sculptor chisels away at stone until a form emerges

"I imagine what happened is that the sand is frozen. Then, we had a big storm roll through a couple weeks ago with strong winds. The wind blew along the beach and blasted out the areas that were a little less frozen," he explained. "Those things aren't being built up. Everything around the features that are standing up was eroded from it. Those are the things that are left behind."

Sunset photo of the sand sculptures at Tiscornia Park in St. Joseph, Mich., on Tuesday. (Twitter/DavidCaulfield_)

Like much of the country, parts of Michigan experienced cold weather and brutal winds in early January, making for perfect conditions for the phenomenon to occur. Brutally cold air from the Arctic made its way through the North Central states and into the Northeast

The gusty conditions across portions of the Midwest led the outside air to feel even colder than the thermometer reading as AccuWeather RealFeel® Temperatures dipped below zero at times across northeastern Iowa, northern Illinois and central Michigan. AccuWeather forecasters say Tuesday was the coldest day of the winter so far in the region. The high on Monday was 20 degrees Fahrenheit with a low of 15 degrees. Overnight into Tuesday, the temperature dropped as low as 11 degrees Fahrenheit.

The average high temperature for this time of year in St. Joseph is 34, with the low bottoming out at 20, on average, according to the latest 30-year climate normals. Meanwhile, lake water temperatures have been running above normal this winter across the Great Lakes, with Lake Michigan's water temperature 1.1 degrees above average as of this week

While the frigid temperatures aren't ideal for humans, it's clearly the perfect weather to form these sandy creations that caused several people, including meteorologist Dave Caulfield, to brave the cold for some stunning shots. Nature is incredible and can sometimes make sub-freezing temperatures a little more bearable.

Probe of Texas National Guard border mission demanded over suicide attempts
By James Barragán, The Texas Tribune & Davis Winkie, Military Times

Migrants wait to turn themselves over to National Guard and Customs and Border Protection officials in Del Rio, Texas. Photo by Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas Tribune

Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Thirteen Democratic members of the Texas congressional delegation called Thursday for a sweeping inspector general investigation into Operation Lone Star, Gov. Greg Abbott's highly touted border mission, following news reports of poor working and living conditions for troops, habitual pay problems, and suspected suicides tied to the operation.

The letter comes as another service member, based in the city of Pharr, survived a suicide attempt Sunday, according to an incident report obtained by Army Times and The Texas Tribune.

In a letter addressed to Col. Daniel Heape, inspector general of the Texas Military Department, the lawmakers said Operation Lone Star was "severely eroding the readiness of our National Guardsmen and their ability to be deployed on federal orders."

"It is clear state leadership does not have our troops best interest in mind. Instead, they continue to use them as political props, whether it be through assigning them to support OLS or by refusing to comply with federal vaccine requirements intended to protect them from COVID-19," the letter read, using an abbreviation for Operation Lone Star. "As such, we urge you to launch a full investigation into TMD's actions related to OLS and how this mission is impacting the well-being, morale, and overall readiness of our troops so Texans can have a full accounting of what is happening to these servicemembers."

The co-signers of the letter comprise all Democrats in the Texas congressional delegation: Reps. Veronica Escobar of El Paso; Sheila Jackson Lee, Al Green, Sylvia Garcia and Lizzie Fletcher of Houston; Lloyd Doggett of Austin; Colin Allred and Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas; Marc Veasey of Fort Worth; Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, Filemon Vela of Brownsville; Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen; and Henry Cuellar of Laredo.

The lawmakers referenced a story by the Army Times in late December that reported on four suicides by soldiers tied to Operation Lone Star. In January, the publication reported on another suicide attempt tied to the mission and another soldier who died when he accidentally shot himself in an alcohol-related incident.

The soldier who survived Sunday's suicide attempt was transported to the hospital after telling another soldier she had ingested prescription medications and alcohol in her unit's hotel, according to the incident report.

RELATED Texas lawmakers decry mistreatment of National Guardsmen on border duty

On Tuesday, Abbott pushed back on the reports of suicides being linked to his border mission, saying his detractors were "just playing politics." He pointed to the military's broader suicide problem, adding that the Texas suicides are under investigation and he suspected that not all "actually occurred during Operation Lone Star."

In fiscal year 2017, the Texas Army National Guard saw nine suicides, 14 attempts and 42 ideations among its troops, according to budget documents. Army Times asked state officials for more recent numbers Thursday but did not immediately receive a response.

On Thursday, Abbott spokesperson Nan Tolson said President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats "have turned a blind eye to the United States' borders that they all swore to protect and defend."

"The reckless open border policies have created an absolute crisis along our southern border, with a 61-year record-high number of illegal immigrants surging into our state and millions of lethal doses of drugs like fentanyl streaming into our country," Tolson said in a written statement. "Texas has had no choice but to step up and address this crisis in the wake of President Biden's and Congressional Democrats inaction."

Tolson said Operation Lone Star had deployed more than 10,000 Texas National Guard soldiers and DPS troopers, erected temporary barriers and built a state-funded border wall to deter border crossings. She also touted Abbott's $36 million in grants to local law enforcement and prosecutors who he directed to arrest migrants and prosecute them for state crimes. Tolson said the operation had resulted in more than 186,000 migrant apprehensions, more than 10,000 "border-related" crime arrests and more than 208 million lethal doses of seized fentanyl.

But Tolson did not answer questions about poor working conditions, habitual pay problems and suicides tied to the congressional request for an investigation.

"Texas will do whatever it takes to secure our southern border and protect Texans in President Biden's absence, because nothing is more important than the safety and security of our communities," Tolson said.

The Texas Military Department did not respond to a request for comment.

The lawmakers also cited Army Times reports on habitual pay issues and poor working and living conditions during the mission, calling them "severely concerning."

"These alarming reports call into question decisions made by the leadership of the TMD and Governor Abbott, and necessitate an immediate impartial and comprehensive investigation of all TMD actions related to OLS and the conditions of National Guard troops deployed at the U.S.-Mexico border," the letter read.

Abbott deployed Operation Lone Star last March after blaming Biden for an increase in migrant crossings at Texas' southern border. The mission sent a sharp increase of Texas National Guard and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to the border in an effort to curb migrant crossings.

But some soldiers on the border have said the mission lacks a clear directive and that they play little role in apprehending migrants attempting to cross into Texas, according to the Army Times. Other troops at busier sections of the border have expressed concerns about a shortage of first aid and protective equipment for their interactions with people who cross, retired Command Sgt. Maj. Jason Featherston, the Texas Army National Guard's former top enlisted soldier, said last week in a news conference with Allen West, a GOP candidate for governor and a former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army.

Last fall, the Texas Military Department increased the number of troops deployed to Operation Lone Star from 1,200 in June to about 10,000 by November. The department said the drastic increase led to "austere conditions" for troops. The department's public affairs office said all pay issues were resolved as of last week and has cautioned against drawing a link between the operation and the suspected suicides.

Texas Guard officials are telling a different story behind closed doors, though. More than 80 soldiers' pay issues weren't resolved as of Tuesday, 36th Infantry Division commander Maj. Gen. Charles Aris said in a Wednesday town hall event. Army Times and the Tribune obtained a recording of the 2-hour event.

On Tuesday, Abbott told the Tribune "all paycheck issues have been resolved." Tolson, his spokesperson, did not respond to a question about the ongoing paycheck issues.

The congressional Democrats praised National Guard soldiers for their other recent state deployments on recovery efforts after last February's deadly winter storm, which left millions of Texans without power for days, and the aftermath of Hurricanes Ida and Laura in Texas and Louisiana. But they expressed concern that consecutive deployments "take a toll on a servicemember who has already spent weeks away from home."

"Being activated again for OLS, sometimes with less than a four-day notice, is leading troops to scramble to get their civilian affairs in order, if they are able to, without any idea when they may be able to return to their civilian lives," the letter read.

The letter from the congressional Democrats comes as criticism of the mission mounts against Abbott for his handling of the troops. Earlier this month, West blasted the mission as a political stunt that led soldiers to "rush into a failure." West also called for the resignation of the Texas National Guard's top military leader, Texas Adjutant General Tracy Norris.

West retired from the military in 2003 after he was investigated for torturing an Iraqi detainee for information.

Beto O'Rourke, the leading Democratic candidate for governor, has also criticized Abbott's handling of the mission, saying he has failed to provide the deployed troops basic rights and calling on the governor to send the troops home if he cannot provide them.

On Wednesday, state Rep. Alex Dominguez, D-Brownsville, announced in an op-ed in the Military Times that he'd asked the House General Investigating Committee to begin an investigation into the suicides and morale on the mission. Dominguez, chair of the chamber's veterans caucus, also called on Abbott to impose a moratorium on further troop deployment until the House completed its investigation and Abbott released a plan to address the morale crisis on the mission.

Tolson, Abbott's spokesperson, did not answer questions about Dominguez's call for an investigation or his request for a moratorium on deployments. State Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, the chairman of the House General Investigating Committee, declined comment.

Dominguez also requested information from the Texas Military Department regarding Operation Lone Star, as well as recommendations for the Legislature on how to remedy issues with housing, pay, benefits and leave.

Other legislative leaders, including the lawmakers in charge of committees overseeing the Texas Military Department, have also expressed concern following the Army Times reports and have begun seeking information from the department.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune. Read the original here. The Texas Tribune is a non-profit, non-partisan media organization that informs Texans -- and engages with them -- about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Turkish writer Ahmet Altan: 'I prefer prison to exile'



Turkish author Ahmet Altan says he feels an added urgency to write after spending nearly five years in jail on tenuous charges (AFP/BULENT KILIC)

Remi BANET
Thu, January 13, 2022, 7:20 PM·3 min read

Freed after nearly five years in jail for alleged involvement in a failed coup, Turkish journalist and author Ahmet Altan, 71, now counts his time by the number of books he has left to write.

Celebrated in the West -- particularly Germany and France, where he won literary prizes while still behind bars -- Altan remains in a tricky situation back home, where he faces the threat of further prosecution.

But speaking to AFP in his Istanbul flat, Altan said he would rather spend his last days in a Turkish prison "where I spoke my native language" than be a free man in exile, where "you are nearly no one (and) have no roots".

"Writers are very anxious because every minute is a minute that you can write, you can do your job, so every minute that you don’t write, you feel regret," he said in fluent English.

"I feel it now much more than before prison," he confided, ensconced in a black leather chair flanked by stacks of books.

- 'Revenge' -

Altan, who has sold nearly seven million books worldwide, was one of tens of thousands of Turks jailed or fired from their jobs in purges that followed a 2016 coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The soft-spoken intellectual was locked up in Silivri, an Istanbul prison complex fitted out with Turkey's largest courtroom -- the main venue for mass trials that saw more than 2,500 suspects jailed for life.

Altan was partially singled out for his work with Taraf, a newspaper he founded. The government closed the paper on allegations it had obtained financial backing from a US-based Muslim cleric Erdogan blames for the coup plot.

Released less than half way through his 10.5-year sentence last April by order of the European Court of Human Rights, which found "no evidence" of wrongdoing, Altan returned to his family having written two more books in jail and nearly completed a third.

The first, a prison memoir called "I Will Never See the World Again", was translated into 28 languages but never published in Turkey.

He describes the second, a novel called "Lady Life", as an ode to freedom and his personal "revenge".

It became a best-seller in Turkey after his release, scooping up France's Prix Femina foreign book prize in 2021.

"It's kind of saying, 'you couldn't steal those five years from me'," the silver-bearded writer said of the novel, between cigarette puffs.

He recalled writing "eight or nine hours a day", while his two cellmates nagged him about the endless cigarette smoke.

- 'Exile would be harder' -

One day in prison he stumbled across FlashTV, a "low-end" channel that showed voluptuous women singing and dancing in skimpy dresses.

"They were the only ladies I could see while in prison... I really liked to watch it but my cellmates were very religious," laughed Altan, who describes himself as an atheist who is passionate about religion.

"Lady Life", a story of a literature student who falls in love with two sensuous women, "came in this atmosphere", he said.

"I lived in some other world," he said. "If you can write, there is nothing to complain about."

Altan's jailing sparked international outrage, turning him into a symbol of oppression in Turkey after the coup attempt.

Thirty-eight Nobel laureates -- including JM Coetzee and Kazuo Ishiguro -- published a letter in Britain's Guardian newspaper in 2018 calling on Erdogan to secure the writer's release.

Aware of his high profile and the new court proceedings he faces, Altan shies away from answering overtly political questions today.

But while he vows to publish his future books abroad before trying his luck at home, Altan sounds resolute about staying in Turkey, no matter what.

"It's not because of courage. But being in exile is something I believe is harder than being a prisoner," he said.

In exile, "you may be safe and secure ... but you cannot feel like you are (sleeping) in your own bed, in your own home. I'd rather be in prison."

rba/raz/zak/gil

Venezuela: The Decline Of An Oil Giant In Crisis


By Margioni BERMEDEZ
01/13/22 AT 9:26 PM

Leaks, rusted pipes, pieces of broken equipment scattered about and staircases leading nowhere: Lake Maracaibo's oil field is a metaphor for Venezuela's once-flourishing petroleum industry that is now on its knees.

More than a century ago, the Maracaibo basin in northwestern Zulia state was the birthplace of a business that transformed the country into one of the world's 10 largest oil producers and a Latin American economic heavyweight.

By 2008, the country was producing 3.2 million barrels of oil a day.

View of oil installations on Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela -- the oil field there is in disrepair, much like the industry as a whole across the country 

Photo: AFP / Federico PARRA

Just 13 years later, it can only muster 500,000 to one million barrels per day amid a grinding economic crisis marked by years of recession and hyperinflation. Venezuela's gross domestic product per capita is now similar to that of Haiti.


Despite sitting on the world's largest proven oil reserves, the country battles fuel shortages and frequent blackouts, and at one point even had to import fuel from Iran.


The Maracaibo basin was once a flurry of oil activity, with a halo of light over the complex visible at night from a fair distance.

Today, it is a humid swamp that stinks of oil from leaking pipes floating on the water.

The equipment in the Lake Maracaibo oil basin is now in a state of disrepair, with installations rusted out or broken Photo: AFP / Federico PARRA

Hardly anyone risks going to that area "for fear of an explosion due to the gases," one fisherman who asked not to be named told AFP.

The oil platforms have long been pillaged of any valuables, including taps and valves that control the flow of oil and gas.

State-owned Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) had a monopoly in the 1970s, and then Hugo Chavez forced all private firms to merge with it after he came to power in 1999; after that, the industry fell victim to corruption and problems with maintenance 

Photo: AFP / Yuri CORTEZ

It is a sea change from the prosperous 1970s when Venezuela's oil industry was nationalized, giving state-run PDVSA a monopoly.

That lasted until the 1990s when the industry was opened to private capital.

But after Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999, he ordered all private oil companies to merge with PDVSA and made the state institution the majority shareholder.

View of an oil refinery operated by state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) in Puerto La Cruz -- PDVSA was once a cash cow for Venezuela's government but mismanagement and corruption led to hard times for the company and its workers Photo: AFP / Yuri CORTEZ

From then on, the industry was hit by corruption, poor decision-making, problems with maintenance and aging equipment, and later financial sanctions.

PDVSA did not immediately respond to requests from AFP for comment for this story.

Many analysts believe the key moment in the industry's decline came in the early 2000s when Chavez, who died in 2013 while still president, became embroiled in an protracted battle with PDVSA executives.

The clash resulted in a crippling strike from December 2002 to March 2003, during which production dropped to a historic low of just 25,000 barrels a day.

Cracked oil pipelines like this one cross through farms and private property in Venezuela's eastern oil zones 

Photo: AFP / Yuri CORTEZ

Blasting the "sabotage" of Venezuela's oil production, Chavez sacked most of PDVSA's management and thousands of employees, replacing them with people "loyal to the revolution" who often lacked the necessary expertise.

Production rebounded after the strike, but by 2009, 70 businesses involved in the supply chain were also nationalized.

This resulted in "a lack of maintenance, and a lack of motivation among employees," whose salaries plummeted, said one former employee identified here as Carlos (his name has been changed to protect his anonymity).

He had started working at PDVSA in the early 2000s, when he was just 18.

On some oil platforms in Venezuela, idle employees at one point began "fishing to feed themselves" as provisions were no longer reaching them, said one current employee who asked not to be named 

Photo: AFP / Federico PARRA

But when the onetime "cash cow" for Venezuela's government encountered hard times, so did its employees.

"Many women left their husbands because they no longer worked for PDVSA. Families broke up. I didn't earn enough any more," said Carlos, who blamed his own divorce on a loss of income.

By that time, half of the country's oil wells were paralyzed.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has blamed US sanctions for the crisis in the oil industry, but the problems predate the punitive measures imposed by Washington Photo: AFP / ADALBERTO ROQUE

In 2013, the crisis deepened when subcontractors stopped working due to unpaid bills.

Idle employees began spending their days "fishing to feed themselves" as provisions never reached workers on the platforms, recounted Maria, who worked for the company at the time and still does (her name has been changed for this story).

The pipeline's operator has been accused of delaying repairs on damaged parts of the Meraux Pipeline that were detected during a 2020 inspection. 

In photo: a man carries buckets while working to clean up an oil spill near a PDVSA pipeline in Voladero, Monagas state Photo: AFP / Yuri CORTEZ

The politicization at PDVSA had reached a high point: even computer screensavers at the company used pictures of Chavez, and later, his successor Nicolas Maduro.

"Hiring people based on their politics badly affected production... we got rid of experienced people, and any semblance of meritocracy disappeared," said Maria, who asked that AFP not explain the job she performs for PDVSA.

It also created a "breeding ground for corruption," with embezzlement at the highest level, she added.

In 2017, authorities launched a vast operation targeting corruption within PDVSA, investigating former managers including the company's ex-president Rafael Ramirez.

Oil leaks are killing off wildlife in Lake Maracaibo -- a dead fish is seen here 

Photo: AFP / Federico PARRA

"They seize public resources and illegally seek to legalize the capital," Attorney General Tarek William Saab said at the time.

Ramirez, now in self-exile in Italy, said the accusations against him are politically driven.

Several witnesses with direct knowledge of the situation, including Maria, said PDVSA vehicles were put to private use, company funds were used for personal purchases -- and even televisions and computers were stolen.

But that was nothing new.

"There's old corruption and new corruption," said Carlos Mendoza Pottella, a professor of oil economics at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, adding that irregular purchases and illicit practices were already happening in the 1980s.

With PDVSA in solid decline, some employees jumped ship and found jobs as taxi drivers or in supermarkets, while engineers and geologists fled abroad in search of opportunities.

Maria stayed, however, and works twice a week for a meager 60 bolivars (less than $15) per month and no benefits. Before, she had a good salary and medical coverage.

"We are in God's hands now," she said.

"No oil employee can live off their PDVSA wage," said Maria, except for those employed by "mixed companies" -- joint ventures with Chinese or Russian firms.

Venezuela blames US sanctions for its difficulties, but those punitive measures only began in 2014 -- long after the rot had set in.

By the time Donald Trump intensified sanctions against Venezuela when he took office in 2017, the country's oil industry was already on its knees, though they have certainly made things even more difficult.

Once Venezuela's main crude oil client, the United States today hinders even the importation of spare parts needed by refineries, as it moves to eviscerate Maduro's government, which it no longer recognizes.

Roy, a 30-year-old fisherman who only gave his first name, remembers how impressed he was by the complex on Lake Maracaibo.

Now, the abandoned installation does little but pollute the water, with crude occasionally spewing out of the dilapidated platforms.

"One day, I saw oil spraying 70 meters into the air. I thought it was water but it was oil," said Roy.

Some areas of Lake Maracaibo are known as "dead zones" because oil slicks, visible on NASA satellite images, have deprived them of oxygen.

Local residents are bearing the brunt of the environmental disaster.

"The oil slicks prevent you from working," said Roy, who added he once lost 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of crabs ruined by crude.

The lake's floor is criss-crossed by "a mishmash of pipes and pipelines releasing oil that is killing biodiversity," said Mendoza Pottella.

But it's not the only problematic site. Leaks are common wherever Venezuela drills for oil, although PDVSA rarely acknowledges them.

In Venezuela's eastern oil zones, near the town of Maturin, residents say cracked pipelines pass through farms and private property.

"There is a continuous leak," complained Eleazar Gonzalez, who grows bananas and papayas in the village of Los Pozos de Guannipa. "It pollutes everything."

This week, three people were injured in an oil pipeline explosion to the east of Lake Maracaibo in Naricual, not far from Maturin.

Despite the chronic problems, Maduro nevertheless claimed earlier this month that production had climbed back up to one million barrels a day and said the aim was to double the figure in 2022.

Over the past year, there was a "small uptick" in activity, and PDVSA has started to pay its subcontractors, a businessman with decades of experience in the sector told AFP on condition of anonymity.

In an era where the world is seeking to move away from fossil fuels, Maduro has vowed to break the economically crippled country's reliance on so-called "black gold."

"We are not going to depend anymore on oil," he said, calling for more economic diversification.