Australian election could end country's climate change inaction

Flood and drought-stricken Australia votes on Saturday. As a major exporter of coal and one of the world's worst CO2 emitters per capita, the result will be decisive for global climate goals.


Australians want action on climate change, but major parties have hardly mentioned the issue in their election campaigns

The results of the Australian election this Saturday will set the climate agenda for one of the planet's worst per-capita CO2 emitters. It comes as the world faces a rapidly closing window to stop the most severe impacts of climate change.

The country, dubbed a "wrecker" at climate change negotiations, is a major exporter of fossil fuels, largely to East Asia and India. It has been criticized for grossly insufficient climate targets by the UK and US as well as its neighboring Pacific nations who could see their homes disappear as sea levels rise.

At the same time, polls clearly show voters back stronger climate action in the "sunburned land," having already experienced deadly and costly flooding and wildfires linked to climate change in recent years. The country is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis.

"Australians are feeling and seeing climate damage now and that's why most Australians are very worried about climate change and want the government to do a lot more than they are," said Kelly O'Shanassy, chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF).

Despite public support, the major parties vying for votes in the tight election have barely mentioned the issue in their campaigns, said Peter Christoff, senior research fellow with Melbourne Climate Futures, which is part of the University of Melbourne.

"And that's really quite concerning and worrying," said Christoff.


Wildfires in 2021: Australians are already feeling the effects of the climate crisis
Coal lobby pushing against climate protection policies

Since 2007, Australia's two major parties, the center-left Labor Party and the conservative Liberal Party, led by incumbent Prime Minister Scott Morrison, have been in an open war over climate change policies, leading to multiple leaders being toppled.

"The public vitriol in political exchanges — particularly over an emissions trading scheme and a price on carbon and carbon taxes — led to some of the ugliest politics we've seen in Australia over a 15-year period," said Christoff.

Labor believes it lost the supposedly unlosable "climate election" in 2019 to the Liberals because of a backlash against its strong climate policies and job fears in key seats in coal-mining areas.

Australia is the world's second biggest coal exporter. And because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, rising coal prices mean Australia will likely earn 100 billion Australian dollars (€67 billion, $70 billion) in one year from coal.

Meanwhile, between 100,000 and 300,000 Australian jobs connected to coal, oil and gas are at risk if the country doesn't prepare for the shift away from fossil fuels, according to a study by independent Australian think tank, the Centre for Policy Development.

Major parties weak on climate

To date, the conservatives have stymied significant action on climate change — blocking a major emissions trading scheme, slashing funding on climate research, subsidizing and allowing fossil fuel production to expand and abolishing the government-funded Climate Commission.

At the 2021 UN climate conference in Glasgow, the government refused to budge from its 2030 emission cuts of 26% to 28% on 2005 levels — one of the weakest targets in the developed world. The UN Climate Action Tracker rates Australia's emissions and net-zero targets as "poor" and "highly insufficient," putting it on a path to more than 3 degrees Celsius warming.

Going into the 2022 election, the Liberal Party pledged to go net-zero by 2050, but has given itself scope to ignore this. At the same time, it has vowed to continue exports of Australia's coal and gas past 2050 and has included these fossil fuels in its domestic energy blueprint.

Labor — currently forecast to win this election— has also vowed to go net-zero by 2050 and has stronger emission cuts of 43% by 2030. It has pledged tens of billions of dollars to revitalize the nation's energy grid and install solar banks and batteries. But it says it won't stop exporting coal and gas.

Anthony Albanese's Labor Party look set to win

A new climate force in the country?

Australia is dominated by two main parties, but by dragging their heels on climate change Labor and the Liberals have opened the door to new challengers.

A group of independents, dubbed "the teals," are competing with Liberal lawmakers for urban seats. Mostly women, they receive funding from a group called Climate 200 — a relatively new political fund established by clean energy investor Simon Holmes a Court — and have campaigned on climate, integrity, and gender equality. They have all set ambitious 2030 emission reduction targets ranging from 50% to 70% by 2030.

And they appear to be attracting moderate Liberal voters who have become disillusioned with a lack of movement on climate change. Most recent polling shows several key seats are at risk.

Meanwhile, the Greens have enjoyed a surge and are now polling at about 15% nationally — compared to 10% in the 2019 election. They have pledged to cut emissions by 75% by 2030, go net-zero by 2035, phase out the mining, burning and exporting of coal by 2030 and convert the grid to 100% renewables.

Depending on the result of the election, both the Greens and the teal candidates could wield significant power over the government.

Federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg may lose his seat to a climate-friendly independent

Business calling for climate action, huge potential for renewables

Businesses are also calling for more action. In one example, Australian tech billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes is attempting to use his wealth to force energy giant AGL to exit coal-fired power generation.

Even the Business Council of Australia — which represents big banks and corporations, such as industrial and retail giant Wesfarmers, mining companies BHP and Rio Tinto and airline Qantas — is now also calling for major emission cuts by 2030. It's a dramatic shift for the organization that in 2018 called 45% emissions reduction cuts "an economy wrecking target."

"It's certainly not the community that is holding back the Australian political parties on climate action and also not the business community," ACF's O'Shanassy said. "Everyone wants climate action except for the people that go to Parliament House."

But neither Labor nor the Liberals' targets are enough to bring Australia in line with its Paris Commitments. Emissions cuts of at least 50% by 2030 are what's required to keep it below the upper threshold of 2 degrees warming and about 75% for the 1.5-degree target, according to some estimates.

ACF believes the next government should take advantage of the country's huge solar and wind potential and could quickly cut emissions while preserving jobs by replacing fossil fuel exports with products created with renewable energy such as hydrogen and ammonia.

"We need to use the vast amount of renewable energy we have in this country. We need to times it by about ten and then turn that into exports and stop exporting pollution to the world," O'Shanassy said. "That would be our greatest contribution to climate change."

Conservatives tipped to lose in Australian nail-biter election




Many voters are expected to support candidates unaffiliated with the traditional left-right parties (AFP/Saeed KHAN)

Andrew BEATTY
Tue, May 17, 2022, 11:18 PM·5 min read

Australians punch drunk after three crisis-ridden years of fire, flood and plague will go to the polls on Saturday, in a tight race narrowly tipped to end a decade of conservative rule.

Opinion polls have consistently shown centre-left Labor ahead, suggesting a government led by veteran party lawmaker Anthony Albanese that would be more climate-friendly and less antagonistic toward China.

But pugilistic Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who leads a conservative coalition, appears to be rapidly closing the gap as election day approaches.

The often-acrimonious campaign has been marked by fears about soaring prices, divisions over Morrison's leadership and anxiousness about tougher days to come.

The last three years have seen Australia's once-envied way of life upended by back-to-back bushfires, droughts, the Covid-19 pandemic and several "once-in-a-century" floods.

Australians -- usually some of the world's most optimistic voters -- have grown markedly more dissatisfied with their lives, more pessimistic about their future and more turned off by traditional political parties, according to polling by Ipsos.

For many Aussies, their unofficial mantra of gung-ho optimism -- "she'll be right" -- suddenly seems a bit wrong.

"It has been a very difficult period for the country," said Mark Kenny, a professor at the Australian National University.

"There's a fair bit of dissatisfaction with this government, and the prime minister's standing has been called into question quite a lot."

Surveys show the malaise is pronounced among women and younger voters, who face the prospect of being poorer than their parents while inheriting a country at the pointy end of climate change and located in an increasingly tough neighbourhood.

- Lurching from crisis to crisis -

Just over 17 million Australians are registered to go to the polls on Saturday, electing 151 representatives to the lower house and just over half the members of the Senate.

Voting is compulsory and voters rank the candidates in order of preference, adding extra layers of unpredictability to the outcome.

Fifty-four-year-old Morrison is hoping for a repeat of his 2019 "miracle" come-from-behind election victory. But he will have to overcome the collective trauma of the last three years.

Within months of his shock victory, the "Black Summer" bushfires would cut through the east of the country, burning an area the size of Finland and choking Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne in a miasma of acrid smoke for weeks on end.

Morrison's decision to take a family holiday to Hawaii in the middle of the crisis was widely pilloried, as was his downplaying of the affair by saying "I don't hold a hose, mate."

No sooner had the fires ended than the Covid-19 pandemic began.

Morrison's popularity initially surged as Australians watched the horrors unfolding in China, Italy and elsewhere from a state of Covid-free normalcy on Bondi and other beaches.

The turning point was the lengthy delay in rolling out vaccines, despite Morrison's promises that Australia was at the "front of the queue", said Ben Raue of The Tally Room, a popular political blog.

The delay prolonged lockdowns in major cities and a two-year-long border closure -- splitting families and gaining Australia a reputation for being a "hermit state" isolated from the rest of the world.

"That was the point when Morrison went from being a little bit behind, to being quite a long way behind" in the polls, said Raue.

"They've never really recovered since then. They've had some better polls and some worse polls, but they've pretty much never been ahead."

- Playground taunts -

Albanese, a 59-year-old veteran Labor lawmaker, has tried to make the election a referendum on Morrison's performance.

His own "small target" campaign has given Morrison and Australia's partisan media few policies to shoot at, but also left voters guessing at what an Albanese-led government might bring.

The contest has been rough and tumble, highly personal and at times bordering on juvenile.

The Liberal party has splashed adverts claiming "it won't be easy with Albanese", and has repeatedly suggested he is dangerous and a "loose unit" on the economy.

Labor has hit back, imploring Australians to "fire the liar".

Around a third of voters are expected to look beyond traditional left and right parties as their first preference.

They can choose from an array of populists, the far-right and centrist independent candidates angered by the Liberals' pro-coal stance on climate.

"There's an absolute sense that Liberal voters who sit near the centre, who are perhaps economic conservatives and social progressives, that they've been left in the wilderness," Zoe Daniel, an independent candidate challenging one Melbourne constituency, told AFP.

- From flip-flops to bootstraps -

In the latter stages of the campaign, the focus has turned to the soaring cost of living in what was already one of the world's most expensive places to live.

Despite presiding over a record deficit, the first recession in a generation and sclerotic wage growth, Morrison's ability to reinvent his image and reframe the debate has kept his party well within touching distance.

One poll commissioned by The Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday predicted a Labor win, but put his re-election within the margin of error.

There is a perception Morrison's attacks on Albanese's "dangerous" economic plan may be starting to stick.

"I think there's a sense of change in this country. The question is, has the opposition done enough to convince people that change is a safe option?" said Kenny.

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EXPLAINER: What we know about shuttered baby formula plant

An Abbott Laboratories manufacturing plant is shown in Sturgis, Mich., on Sept. 23, 2010. In mid-February 2022, Abbott announced it was recalling various lots of three powdered infant formulas from the plant, after federal officials began investigating rare bacterial infections in four babies who got the product. Two of the infants died. But it's not certain the bacteria came from the plant; strains found at the plant didn't match the two available samples from the babies.

 (Brandon Watson/Sturgis Journal via AP, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — At the center of the nationwide baby formula shortage is a single factory: Abbott Nutrition’s plant that has been closed for more than three months because of contamination problems.

On Monday, U.S. officials announced a deal with Abbott that paves the way to restart production at the Sturgis, Michigan, facility, the largest in the U.S. and source of leading brands like Similac.

But it’s not yet clear how soon the site will be up and running. And even bigger questions remain unanswered, including what caused the contamination and whether U.S. regulators could have alleviated the current formula shortage by stepping in sooner. The plant shutdown exacerbated ongoing supply chain problems among U.S. formula makers.

WHAT CAUSED THE SHUTDOWN?

In mid-February, Abbott announced it was recalling various lots of three powdered infant formulas from the plant, after federal officials began investigating rare bacterial infections in four babies who were fed formula. Two of the infants died. But it’s not certain the bacteria came from the plant; strains found at the plant didn’t match the two available samples from the babies.

The company halted production while Food and Drug Administration inspectors conducted a six-week investigation of the plant.

A preliminary report released in March found traces of a bacteria — cronobacter— on several surfaces throughout the plant, though not in areas used to make the powder. Plant records showed Abbott had detected the bacteria eight times in its products or facility since 2019.

Inspectors also flagged other problems, including standing water on the floor and employees who didn’t properly sanitize their hands.

WHAT IS CRONOBACTER?

The bacteria occurs naturally in soil, water and other parts of the environment. Infections with cronobacter are rare but can be fatal in babies. Almost all previous outbreaks in the U.S. have been linked to powdered baby formulas, which don’t undergo the same high temperatures used to kill germs in many other foods.

Sometimes the bacteria can get into powdered formula after its opened at home if a dirty scoop is used or it is mixed with water that’s contaminated with the germ, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Cronobacter typically causes fever in infants and can sometimes lead to dangerous blood infections or swelling of the brain.

The four reported illnesses were in Minnesota, Ohio and Texas between September and January.

WHAT ROLE DID ABBOTT’S FORMULA PLAY IN THE ILLNESSES?

It’s still not yet clear. The FDA hasn’t released a final ruling on the problems at the plant and whether they are linked to the infections.

“There are many factors involved in this ongoing investigation and we’re just not in a position to make any definitive statement,” FDA Commissioner Robert Califf said Monday..

Food safety experts say the case underscores the challenges of tracing foodborne illnesses.

Because there were only two samples collected from the four cases, “Right from the get-go we were limited in our ability,” to link the baby formula to the illnesses, said the FDA’s food director Susan Mayne. “We simply don’t have the evidence to demonstrate that causality.”

Abbot says the lack of a strain match indicates “there is no evidence to link our formulas to these infant illnesses.”

SHOULD THE FDA HAVE STEPPED IN SOONER?

The FDA is facing intense scrutiny about what steps it took — and didn’t — in the months before the recall.

FDA inspectors visited the factory in late September for a routine inspection, around the time that the first bacterial infection was reported in Minnesota. Although inspectors uncovered several violations— including standing water and unsanitary conditions — they didn’t find any bacteria and let the plant stay open. It’s unclear if inspectors were even aware of the first reported illness.

After three more cases were reported, the FDA returned to the plant in January and detected the bacteria.

The FDA mainly focuses on assuring the safety of the food supply, with extra regulations and standards on foods for babies and children. But former FDA officials say the agency is supposed to consider potential shortages that result from shutting down plants.

In previous cases, the FDA has worked with companies to shift production to other facilities or find alternative supplies.

The FDA is doing that now under a new policy that eases imports of baby formula from foreign manufacturers. But both the agency and the White House are facing questions on why that step wasn’t taken sooner.

“We always believe we can do better in terms of the time frame,” Califf said.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., reported last month that a whistleblower had contacted the FDA in October with allegations about unsafe conditions and practices at the plant, including falsifying plant records and failing to properly test formula for contamination. She said the FDA did not interview the whistleblower until late December. Califf is scheduled to answer questions from DeLauro and other lawmakers on Thursday.

WHEN WILL THE PLANT RESTART PRODUCTION?

Both the FDA and Abbott say they are working as quickly as possible to restart manufacturing at the plant. But FDA officials say the onus is on Abbott to demonstrate its Michigan plant meets rigorous safety standards.

Former FDA officials say fixing the type of problems uncovered at Abbott’s plant takes time, and infant formula facilities receive more scrutiny than other food types. Companies need to exhaustively clean the facility and equipment, retrain staff, repeatedly test and document that there is no contamination.

Even after the facility opens, Abbott says it will take eight-to-ten weeks before new products start shipping to stores. The company continues to produce baby formula at its other plants in the U.S. and overseas.

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Follow Matthew Perrone on Twitter: @AP_FDAwriter

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Defense officials: Reports of unidentified objects 'frequent, continuing'

The Milky Way is seen above the Cerro Tololo Observatory near La Serena, Chile. A congressional hearing on Tuesday was scheduled to hear expert testimony regarding "unidentified aerial phenomena." File Photo by Joe Marino/UPI | License Photo

May 17 (UPI) -- Pentagon officials told a House panel Tuesday that reports of "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena" are getting more frequent -- and there is not always a ready explanation.

In an open session of the House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee, Defense Under Secretary Ronald Moultrie and Deputy Director of Navy Intelligence Scott Bray showed short videos of objects encountered by U.S. military that remained undefined.

They said some of the reports by service members have turned out to be classified experimental technology by the military, civilian assets such a drones or previously unknown technology by adversaries.

But the said some sightings don't fall in any of those categories, with objects appearing to move and at speeds that defied known modern physics. While some are simply eyewitness accounts, others have been recorded by radar and other instruments.

"Since the beginning of 2000s, we have seen an increasing number of unauthorized or unidentified aircraft or objects in military-controlled training areas and training ranges and other designated airspace," Bray told the committee. "Reports of sightings are frequent and continuing."

Bray deferred to talk about many of those incidents in an open session because the technology used to record the objects is classified.

Moultrie and Bray said there has been more reports of UAPs by military personnel because of better technology, and more people feel more comfortable reporting it because of the seriousness of the work. They said fewer service members feel stigmatized by reporting UAPs.

Bray assured the subcommittee that its work into UAPs carries serious risk and responsibility to the Pentagon, where officials work to stay on top of new technology developed by adversaries.

"Incursions within our training ranges by unidentified objects represents serious hazards to safety of flight," Bray said. "In every aspect of naval aviation, the safety of our crews is paramount. Second, intrusions by unknown aircraft of objects pose potential threats to the security of our operations."

Moultrie oversees the Pentagon's Airborne Object Identification and Management Synchronization Group, which was established by the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act and is tasked with detecting identifying and attributing "objects of interest in special use airspace and to assess and mitigate any associated threats to safety of flight and national security."

The same provision requires Pentagon officials to issue regular classified and public reports to oversight committees on new UAP incidents.

A June 2021 report from the team's predecessor, the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force, concluded there wasn't enough information to draw conclusions about 143 of 144 reports of UAP that had been submitted by government sources between 2004 and 2021. The one that was explained involved a large, deflating balloon.

The report noted "unusual" aerial activity on several of the reported incidents but did not rule out the possibility that they were caused by "sensor errors, spoofing or observer misperception." It added that "rigorous" further analysis was required in those cases.

Tuesday's was the first open hearing on UFOs in Congress in more than a half-century. The Air Force, following a public investigation known as Project Blue Book, concluded in 1969 that no UFO had ever threatened national security, that objects it studied did not display technology beyond what was presently known and that no evidence indicated any of the reported objects were extraterrestrial in nature.

Fossilized tooth proves extinct Denisovans lived in southeast Asia


An ancient tooth found in southeast Asia links extinct Denisovans to modern day humans, according to findings published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. A close-up of the 3D printed reconstruction of a female Denisovan. File Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo

May 17 (UPI) -- A fossilized tooth dug from a mountain cave in northern Laos is the first evidence to show the extinct human species, the Denisovans, lived in southeast Asia.

Scientists published their findings Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications and said the large ancient molar, found in Cobra Cave, appears to be from a young Denisovan girl who died between 164,000 and 131,000 years ago.

"We've always assumed that Denisovans were in this part of the world, but we've never had the physical evidence," said study co-author Laura Shackelford, a paleoanthropolotist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. "This is one little piece of evidence that they were really there."


RELATED Scientists use Neanderthal genes to grow tissue in a Petri dish

Denisovan teeth and finger bones were first discovered in Siberia and Tibet in 2010. DNA testing revealed these extinct hominids interbred with Neanderthals and modern humans, and are among the ancestors to current populations in Australia and the Pacific. But until now, scientists could not track the ancient species to the area.

Tuesday's published discovery of a Denisovan fossilized tooth in southeast Asia provides the geographical link between these ancient hominids and people living today.

It also shows the Denisovans occupied a wide range of areas and were able to adapt to different climates. It shows that 131,000 years ago the Denisovans could survive in temperate conditions as well as frigid temperatures, making them more similar to our own species.

RELATED Earliest evidence of hominin interbreeding revealed by DNA analysis

University of Toronto researcher Bence Viola said the molar was in the "right place and right time" to belong to a Denisovan. "In its size, it is comparable to hominins that lived two or three million years ago... but the age of it shows that it is very recent."

Scientists were convinced five years ago there were Denisovan fossils in southeast Asia.

"The genetic data shows that these guys were spread over large parts of Asia, so we must have them," Viola said in 2017.

Child’s 130,000-year-old tooth could offer clues to extinct human relative

Researchers believe the discovery in a Laos cave proves that Denisovans lived in the warm tropics of southeast Asia

A view of the molar thought to belong to a young female child from the extinct human species called the Denisovans, was found in cave Tam Ngu Hao in northeastern Laos.
Photograph: Fabrice Demeter/Reuters

Agence France-Presse

Tue 17 May 2022

A child’s tooth at least 130,000 years old found in a Laos cave could help scientists uncover more information about an early human cousin, according to a new study.

Researchers believe the discovery proves that Denisovans – a now-extinct branch of humanity – lived in the warm tropics of southeast Asia.

Very little is known about the Denisovans, a cousin of Neanderthals.

Scientists first discovered them while working in a Siberian cave in 2010 and finding a finger bone of a girl belonging to a previously unidentified group of humans.

Using only a finger and a wisdom tooth found in the Denisova Cave, they extracted an entire genome of the group.

Researchers then found a jawbone in 2019 on the Tibetan Plateau, proving that part of the species lived in China as well.

Aside from these rare fossils, the Denisovans left little trace before disappearing – except in the genes of human DNA today.

Through interbreeding with Homo sapiens, Denisovan remnants can be found in current populations in southeast Asia and Oceania.

Aboriginal Australians and people in Papua New Guinea have up to five percent of the ancient species’ DNA.

Scientists concluded “these populations’ modern ancestors were ‘mixed’ with Denisovans in southeast Asia”, said Clement Zanolli, a paleoanthropologist and co-author of the study published Tuesday in Nature Communications.

But there was no “physical proof” of their presence in this part of the Asian continent, far from the freezing mountains of Siberia or Tibet, the researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research told AFP.

This was the case until the group of scientists began searching in the Cobra Cave in northeast Laos.

Cave specialists discovered the area in a mountain in 2018 next to Tam Pa Ling Cave, where the remains of ancient humans have already been found.

The tooth immediately appeared to have a “typically human” shape, explained Zanolli.

The study said, based on ancient proteins, the tooth belonged to a child, likely female, aged between 3.5 and 8.5 years old.

But the tooth is too old for carbon-dating, and the DNA has been badly preserved because of heat and humidity, said paleoanthropologist and study co-author Fabrice Demeter.

After analysing the shape of the tooth, scientists reckon it was most likely a Denisovan who lived between 164,000 to 131,000 years ago.

They then studied the tooth’s interior through different methods including analysing proteins and a 3D X-ray reconstruction.


'Spectacular' jawbone discovery sheds light on ancient Denisovans

The tooth’s internal structure was similar to that of the molars found in the Tibetan Denisova specimen. It was clearly distinguishable from modern humans and other ancient species that lived in Indonesia and the Philippines.

“The proteins allowed us to identify the sex – female – and confirm its relation to the Homo species,” said Demeter, a researcher at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, where the tooth is temporarily based.

The tooth’s structure had common characteristics with Neanderthals, who were genetically close to Denisovans. The two species are thought to have diverged about 350,000 years ago.

But Zanolli explained that the researchers concluded it was a Denisova specimen because no Neanderthal traces have been found so far east.

For Demeter, the discovery shows that Denisovans occupied this part of Asia and adapted to a wide range of environments, from cold altitudes to tropical climates, whereas their Neanderthal cousins seemed more “specialised” in cold western regions.

The last Denisovans could have therefore met and interbred with modern humans, who passed on their genetic heritage to southeast Asia’s modern populations, in the Pleistocene epoch.

Arkansas water tower leak makes Johnny Cash silhouette appear to be urinating

May 17 (UPI) -- Johnny Cash is once again making headlines in his Arkansas hometown after a bullet hole in a "very sensitive area" of the musician's silhouette on the local water tower made the man in black appear to be urinating.

Mayor Luke Neal of Kingsland said a bullet struck the town's water tower last week, right between the legs of a Johnny Cash silhouette painted on the side of the structure.

"Somebody shot our water tower, shot the silhouette of Johnny Cash in a very sensitive area," Neal told KLRT-TV. "It's been leaking for the last almost week."

Neal told KTHV-TV the town is "losing about 30,000 gallons of water per day" at a daily cost of about $200.

The sight of Johnny Cash's silhouette spraying water onto the ground below has been drawing in tourists to witness the unusual scene.

"Just the placement of where it was at, I mean it was -- you could tell someone was trying to be funny," Neal said.

Neal said the water tower previously leaked from a bullet hole in 1993.

He said an investigation has been opened into the most recent bullet hole.

Experts advocate better red flag laws as 2022 sees 202 mass shootings

A group prays in the street on Sunday near the site of the mass shooting on Saturday at a Tops supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y. 

Photo by Aaron Josefczyk/UPI | License Photo

May 16 (UPI) -- There have been 202 mass shootings in the United States through the 5 1/2 months of this year, including Saturday's racially motivated attack at a Buffalo supermarket that killed 10.

One person was killed and four others were critically injured in a shooting at a California church Sunday, while two people died after an argument escalated at a Houston flea market on the same day.

Eight other mass murders have occurred, and midway through May, more than 7,100 people have been killed by gun violence.

"We are a country right now that is awash in weaponry. We have lots and lots of violent rhetoric and we have lots of weapons," Josh Horwitz, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, told UPI in a interview Monday.

"What we're seeing around the country is an unprecedented rise in shootings," said Horwitz, who pointed to a 35% increase in firearm-related homicides in 2020, the most-recent data available.


"There's an unprecedented level of gun violence in America right now. What we're seeing right now is a rise in homicide. We don't know why that's happening. We know some of the factors that can cause a rise in homicide [rates], but we don't know exactly how all those have come together."

Factors include pandemic-related job loss and subsequent economic hardships.

"The type of social dislocation that we see in the pandemic -- we see economic and housing dislocation, the type of community supports that have been in place -- have fallen away," Horwitz said.

"We know that these are risk factors, we just don't know how they're combining right now."

But it's not just economic desperation, spurred on by record inflation.

"You see an unprecedented level of gun purchasing. There are more firearms in peoples' hands and a lot of new gun owners are out there," he said.

That, combined with a political rhetoric that can at times be used to justify violence, means Americans will continue experiencing cases like Buffalo.

"We've got a much more coarse political system with open appeals to violence and that cannot help but trickle down to other people," Horwitz said, pointing to politicians like Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and former President Donald Trump.

"When some leaders talk using violence in the political system, some people take that realistically. And so there's a responsibility to really tone down our rhetoric."

Strengthening or expanding firearms laws is also essential to see any tangible changes, Jooyoung Lee, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Toronto's Center for the Study of the United States, said in an interview.

"One of the big takeaways we can glean from any mass shooting is that the people who go on to do them, overwhelmingly, buy their guns legally. They don't go through secret networks of gun traffickers," said Lee, an American who has studied gangs and gun violence in Los Angeles, publishing books on the subject.

"While mass shootings get everyone talking about the problems of gun violence, there are far more instances, quantitatively speaking, of everyday, routine conflicts that escalate into serious injuries or deaths because the wrong people have access to guns."

No system is perfect, Lee said, but one solution is so-called red flag laws that allow individuals or law enforcement to petition the court to have someone's firearm temporarily taken away, if they've shown a proclivity for or have a history of violence.

In Buffalo, shooting suspect Payton Gendron had been investigated by police after threatening a school shooting.

"In principle, red flag laws are a good thing. They empower police and law enforcement to confiscate weapons from people who are at risk of using them against themselves or others," said Lee, who is also a senior fellow with the Yale University Urban Ethnography Project.



"There are some studies showing the efficacy of efforts at the municipal level of using red flag legislation to take guns when there is credible information about a person planning an attack or using them against themselves. I don't think that any red flag law would be a perfect model but certainly, we have to try something."

Horwitz agrees.

"We need better gun laws, we need more investment in violence intervention," he said, having contributed to California's existing regulations.

"In 2014 in California, we helped develop a modern version of the extreme risk protection order that allows for family members and law enforcement to petition the court for a civil order to remove a firearm from a person who would hurt themselves or others," Horwitz said.

"These [laws] are a really important tool. But they are very young and they need to be widely implemented, and frankly, they're only in 19 states and the District of Columbia. They need to be in every state."

On a state-by-state basis, getting congruence can be challenging.

"We need to use them [laws] and state governors need to provide money for these things to work," Horwitz said, while acknowledging he does see a shift in thinking.

"Often when these [red flag] laws are proposed, you'll have rural sheriffs or law enforcement say, 'We're not going to do this.' But the reality is, when push comes to shove, and people need it, they use it. If you need to get a firearm out of their hands, this is a great tool, these extreme risk protection orders."

A sustained spate of public violence may spur even the most hardened state legislators to change their position, he said.

"I think states are moving in this direction. What we do at the center is, we provide the information and the research when there is a critical opportunity for change. Right now is a critical opportunity for change. State legislators are looking and saying, 'We don't want that to happen in our state.'"

Ukrainian soldiers uncover ancient amphorae while digging trenches


Officials believe the amphorae date to between the 3rd and 4th century, when Odessa was an ancient Roman settlement. Photo courtesy of the 126th Territorial Defense

May 17 (UPI) -- Ukrainian soldiers digging trenches in the city of Odessa in preparation for a Russian attack uncovered artifacts dating as far back as the 3rd century, the military announced.

Ukraine's 126th Brigade of Territorial Defense of Odessa unveiled the discovery May 11 in a Facebook post.

The archaeological find included multiple amphorae used to store liquid or dry goods. This style of amphora -- with a tall, bottle-necked shape -- was popular in ancient Roman, Greek and Byzantine settlements, ARTnews reported.

The items date to between the 3rd and 4th century at a time when Odessa was a Roman settlement known as Odessus, Heritage Daily reported.

Because of the dangerous nature of the war in Ukraine, archaeologists were unable to document the site of the finds. Instead, the brigade said it recovered the artifacts and handed them over to staff at the Odessa Archaeological Museum.

Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, UNESCO estimates some 127 archaeological or culturally significant sites have sustained damage, including religious buildings, museums, historic buildings, monuments and libraries.

Second endangered cheetah cub dies in Iran: state media

A critically endangered Asiatic cheetah is seen in its enclosure at Pardisan Park in the

 Iranian capital Tehran in 2017. Just a dozen individuals are believed to survive in the wild.

The second of three Asiatic cheetah cubs born in captivity in Iran has died in a blow to conservation efforts for the critically endangered subspecies, state media reported Wednesday.

"The cause of death of the cub is being investigated and the result will be announced after the post mortem," environment department official Hassan Akbari told state news agency IRNA.

The announcement came just two weeks after a first cub from the litter died.

The cause of death was established as congenital malformation of the left lung, an environment department statement said.

The cubs were born in the Touran Wildlife Refuge by caesarean section on May 1, in what the department said was the first birth of an Asiatic cheetah in captivity.

The world's fastest land animal, capable of speeds of up to 120 kilometres (75 miles) per hour, cheetahs once stalked habitats from the eastern borders of India to the Atlantic coast of Senegal.

They are still found in parts of southern Africa, but have practically disappeared from North Africa and Asia.

The Asiatic subspecies -– Acinonyx jubatus venaticus—is critically endangered, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Iran is the last country in the world where the Asiatic cheetah can be found in the wild. Authorities launched a United Nations-supported protection programme in 2001.

In January, deputy environment minister Hassan Akbari said only a dozen individuals were left in the wild—down from an estimated 100 in 2010.

Their situation "is extremely critical", Akbari said, adding that animals had been lost to drought, hunters and car accidents.Rare birth of Asiatic cheetah cubs in Iran

© 2022 AFP

OH, SO IT WAS DELIBERATE THEN

Pentagon finds no fault in 2019 Syria airstrike that killed civilians

The Pentagon under U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Tuesday that there was no need to reprimand anyone in response to a 2019 airstrike in Syria that resulted in the deaths of at least four civilians. Pool File Photo by Win McNamee/UPI | License Photo

May 17 (UPI) -- A U.S. Department of Defense investigation into dozens of people killed during a 2019 airstrike in Syria found no rules or laws were broken but a number of compliance deficiencies caused the initial reporting of the incident to be delayed.

A two-page executive summary of the report made public Tuesday states that no Rules of Engagement or Law of War violations occurred on March 18, 2019, when the U.S. military conducted an airstrike targeting ISIS militants in Baghuz, Syria.

The airstrike was conducted in support of ally Syrian Democratic Forces who had requested Coalition air support.

The investigation was launched in November with Michael Garrett, a four-star general of the Army's Forces Command, tapped to lead the probe by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after a report from The New York Times said 80 people including civilians were killed in the strike while alleging officials attempted to cover it up.

Garrett's report found that the strike killed 56 people, including 52 enemies and four civilians, one woman and three children, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters during a press conference Tuesday.

Of those labeled enemies, 51 were adult men and one was a child.

There were also 15 civilians wounded, including 11 women and four children, he said.

The report said U.S. ground forces commander "acted reasonably" and within the bounds of the law when he initiated the strike.

The officer received confirmation that no civilians were in the strike area before conducting the attack, the report said, adding that "[u]nbeknowst to the GFC, civilians were within the blast radius," resulting in deaths, it said.

"I found clear evidence that the GFC demonstrated awareness and concern for CIVCAS and took steps to mitigate harm," Garrett wrote in his summary.

Garrett said his review included additional information not available to the ground forces commander that showed he relied on data that was not "fully accurate" but that was "no fault of his own."

"In accordance with the [Law of War], the GFC's actions cannot be judged based on what we know now in hindsight, but only on the reasonableness of his decisions given the information known at the time," he said.

The report also found numerous policy deficiencies at multiple levels of command that led to delays in reporting the incident, which Garrett said contributed to the impression that the Pentagon was not treating it seriously and was not being transparent.

In a memo, Austin said he was "disappointed" that issues led to the original incident review missing deadlines and that the negative perception the department gave off could have been avoided by timely review and a clear explication of the situation surrounding the strike.

In response, he ordered several policy changes concerning reviews of civilian casualty incidents.

"Our efforts to mitigate and respond to civilian harm resulting from U.S. military operations are a direct reflection of U.S. values," he wrote.

Concerning why no one was held responsible for the civilian deaths and casualties, Kirby said Garrett did not see need for reprimands as he did no find anyone who acted outside the Law of War or with malicious intent.

He also added that Austin is holding the entire department accountable for the issues that affected the incident's reporting.

"In this case, Gen. Garrett found that the ground force commander made the best decisions that he could, given the information he had, at the time, given a very lethal, very aggressive ISIS threat in a very confined space," he said. "And it is deeply regrettable, we deeply regret, we apologize for the loss of innocent life that was taken in this particular strike."


"It matters to us," he said.

Los Angeles observatory evacuated as firefighters battle blaze


The Griffith observatory, opened in 1935, has appeared in many Hollywood films such as the James Dean movie "Rebel Without a Cause."

 (AFP/MARIO TAMA)

Tue, May 17, 2022, 5:14 PM·1 min read

A small fire broke out at a park in the heart of Los Angeles on Tuesday, causing officials to evacuate the city's historic Griffith Observatory.

Los Angeles Fire Department declared the four-acre blaze a "major emergency" and were tackling the flames from the ground and by air.

Park rangers were called in to ban hikers from trails in the area, which is popular with tourists and residents of the nearby upmarket Los Feliz neighborhood.

Griffith Park is a sprawling and rugged expanse of countryside criss-crossed by hiking and riding trails, home to Griffith Observatory as well as Los Angeles Zoo.

The landmark observatory, opened in 1935, is world-famous and has appeared in many Hollywood films such as the James Dean movie "Rebel Without a Cause."

The news evoked memories of a major fire in 2007 which ripped through 800 acres of the park before it was contained.

The cause of Tuesday's fire was not known, and no homes had been evacuated by mid-afternoon.

Wildfires are a natural phenomenon in the western United States, but their frequency and ferocity has increased in recent years as the planet warms.

Human behavior, including the unchecked burning of fossil fuels, is altering weather patterns, exacerbating droughts in some areas and generating unseasonal storms in others.

Southern California is in the grip of a multi-year drought.

In California, average temperatures during the summer are 1.6C higher than at the end of the 19th century.

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