Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez gets engaged to long-time partner Riley Roberts


Democratic congresswoman confirms engagement to Roberts, whom she met as a student at Boston University

Ocasio-Cortez with Riley Roberts at the In America: a Lexicon of Fashion show at the New York Met in September. 

Photograph: Erik Pendzich/Rex/Shutterstock


Ankita Rao

Thu 19 May 2022 
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took a break between visiting Amazon union workers and endorsing progressive candidates to get engaged to her longtime partner Riley Roberts.


Ocasio-Cortez to unionized Amazon workers: victory is ‘just the beginning’

Ocasio-Cortez, 32, confirmed to Insider on Thursday that she and Roberts, who met while both were at Boston University, got engaged last month while visiting her parents’ home town in Puerto Rico.

She then wrote on Twitter: “It’s true! Thank you all for the well wishes.”

According to Insider, the pair were quiet about their relationship even before Ocasio-Cortez became a popular political voice, and their friends at university did not always know they were together.

Roberts has also been one of her greatest support systems throughout her career, according to a biography published earlier this year, People magazine reported.

“What we do know about Roberts doesn’t fit the stereotype of a politician’s partner,” writes Josh Gondelman in an essay in Take Up Space: The Unprecedented AOC by the editors of New York magazine.

“He doesn’t seem focus-grouped or media-trained for state dinners and press conferences. We know he’s supportive and encouraging in private,” Gondelman writes. “And his expertise, as far as his public image goes, is his elusiveness and restraint.”

The few times Roberts, a marketing professional, has popped up in media it has been with the couple’s dog, Deco, or in the 2018 documentary Knock Down the House.

Ocasio-Cortez said she and Roberts would not start planning a wedding for at least a month.

Israel will not hold criminal inquiry into killing of journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh


Military police say they are satisfied with assurances of Israeli troops over death of US-Palestinian despite international demands

Foreign activists and Palestinians take part in a protest in Berlin on 18 May, after the death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh. 

Photograph: APAImages/Rex/Shutterstock

Peter Beaumont

Thu 19 May 2022 

Israel will not launch a criminal investigation into the killing of the US-Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, which Palestinian officials and witnesses have blamed on Israeli soldiers.

In a statement released on Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces claimed that because Abu Aqleh was killed in an “active combat situation”, an immediate criminal investigation would not be launched, although an “operational inquiry” would continue.

According to a report in the Haaretz newspaper, the Israeli military police branch has accepted the assurances of Israeli troops that they were not aware she was in a village adjacent to the Jenin refugee camp when she was killed on 11 May.

The Biden administration and the UN security council have called for a transparent investigation.

Abu Aqleh was a household name across the Arab world, known for documenting the hardship of Palestinian life under Israeli rule for Al Jazeera. Her killing received widespread international coverage and prompted criticism from the White House.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, promised her family that Washington would demand that her death be properly investigated.

Abu Aqleh was killed during an arrest raid by an Israeli commando unit on Palestinian militants.

According to Haaretz, the head of the Commando Brigade, Col Meni Liberty, identified six occasions during the raid when Israeli soldiers opened fire, allegedly at armed Palestinians who were near Abu Aqleh and other journalists.

The Israeli military had previously released an account that said it could not unequivocally determine the source of the bullet that killed Abu Aqleh. That account speculated that the bullet could have been fired by either a Palestinian militant or an Israeli soldier using a “telescopic scope” at 200 metres.

Palestinian officials have refused to give the recovered bullet to Israeli authorities to analyse but said it welcomed international investigations.

The decision by the Israeli military advocate general, Maj Gen Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, not to order an investigation by the military police criminal investigation division marks a departure from the majority of recent incidents involving IDF shootings of civilians in the occupied West Bank, which have been followed by investigations.

At her funeral on Friday police beat mourners carrying her casket, prompting more criticism of Israeli authorities.

Last week the UN high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, complained about a lack of Israeli accountability for deaths in the occupied territories.

Commenting on Abu Aqleh’s killing and the subsequent violence at her funeral, Bachelet said: “As I have called for many times before, there must be appropriate investigations into the actions of Israeli security forces.

“Anyone found responsible should be held to account with penal and disciplinary sanctions commensurate to the gravity of the violation. This culture of impunity must end now.”

Israel knows it will get away with the attack on Shireen Abu Aqleh’s funeral
Elizabeth Tsurkov

The Israeli NGO Yesh Din criticised the decision not to investigate, saying that “the army law enforcement mechanisms no longer even bother to give the appearance of investigating”.

More than 100 artists, including Hollywood stars, acclaimed authors and prominent musicians, have meanwhile signed a joint letter condemning Abu Aqleh’s killing.

Steve Coogan, Kathryn Hahn, Mark Ruffalo, Susan Sarandon and Tilda Swinton were among the signatories to a letter published by Artists for Palestine UK that called for “full accountability for the perpetrators of this crime and everyone involved in authorising it”.

The Israel Defence Forces released a statement on Thursday claiming that “dozens of Palestinian gunmen fired recklessly and indiscriminately while IDF soldiers were conducting counter-terrorism activities in the Jenin camp” on the day that Abu Aqleh died.

“An exchange of fire occurred between Palestinian gunmen and the soldiers. Toward the end of the activity, the journalist Shireen Abu [Aqleh], who was present at the battle zone during the exchange of fire, was hit.

“Due to the nature of the active combat situation, an immediate [military criminal] investigation was not launched. A decision regarding the necessity of an … investigation will be determined by the military advocacy, in accordance with the findings of the still-ongoing operational inquiry, as is standard in such cases.”

The police branch decision came a day after Israeli authorities said they have given the go-ahead for flag-waving Jewish nationalists to march through the heart of the main Palestinian thoroughfare in Jerusalem’s Old City later this month, in a decision that threatens to re-ignite violence in the holy city.

The office of the public security minister, Omer Barlev, said the march would take place on 29 May along its “customary route” through Damascus Gate, which is an Arab neighbourhood.

The Old City, located in East Jerusalem, has experienced weeks of violent confrontations between Israeli police and Palestinian demonstrators, and the march threatens to trigger new unrest.

Who pays the ‘real living wage’ in Britain – and who does not?


More than 10,000 companies pay £9.90 an hour in the UK and £11.05 in London – Burberry and Ikea among them

Executive pay system is broken, says Church of England’s pension board

Ikea won praise from union Usdaw last year for being unusual 

among retailers for paying the ‘real living wage’. 

Photograph: Ray Tang/Rex/Shutterstock


Joe Middleton

Thu 19 May 2022 

The “real living wage” is set by the Living Wage Foundation (LWF) and is £9.90 across the UK and £11.05 in London. It is independently calculated based on what people need to get by and is currently paid by more than 10,000 businesses. The organisation runs an accreditation scheme where businesses are committed to paying all staff and those in their network the living wage. Here we look at some of the big players in retail that have received accreditation for paying the living wage, and some that have not.

Accredited by the Living Wage Foundation

Burberry

Jonathan Akeroyd.

The fashion powerhouse was accredited by the LWF in April 2015. The luxury British brand is listed on the London Stock Exchange and has more than 9,000 employees worldwide. Its chief executive, Jonathan Akeroyd, took the helm last October after being the boss at rival fashion house Versace since 2016. He had also held jobs at Alexander McQueen and Harrods. Akeroyd was given a £6m “golden hello” for leaving his previous position, with a deal to be paid a base salary of £1.1m, with a maximum annual bonus worth up to 200% of his base, and a share plan worth 162.5% of annual salary.

Ikea

Peter Jelkeby.

The flatpack Scandinavian furniture retailer was accredited by the LWF in March 2016. The Sweden-based company was founded in 1943 and rapidly expanded to have stores in 30 countries and 225,000 employees. The company was praised by the retail trade union Usdaw last year for being “one of a few retail employers who pay the real living wage”. Jesper Brodin is chief executive of Ingka group, the holding company that controls most Ikea stores globally, but in the UK its boss is Peter Jelkeby, who according to documents at Companies House was paid £268,000 in 2019 and £271,000 in 2020.

Lush

Helen Ambrosen.

The cosmetics firm was accredited by the LWF in April 2017. It was set up in 1995 by six co-founders: Helen Ambrosen, Liz Bennett, Rowena Bird, Mark Constantine, Mo Constantine and Paul Greaves. Mark Constantine is the current chief executive and the company employs more than 4,000 staff in the UK and 13,652 people globally. The company is private so does not make its chief executive’s pay public. It prides itself on its ethical approach to business and natural handmade products. It previously said that paying the living wage was “another important ethical commitment that we’ve made as a business”.
Not Living Wage Foundation accredited


Primark

Paul Marchant.

The popular high street clothes shop is not LWF accredited. However, the firm, which employs 78,000 people, has unveiled a sustainability strategy pledging that all workers within its supply chain will be paid the living wage by 2030. The plan also commits the company to ensuring its clothes are made from recyclable or more sustainably sourced materials. Its chief executive, Paul Marchant, said the “new and exciting chapter” would still deliver customers the affordable goods they are accustomed to but “in a way that is better for the planet and the people who make them”. The retailer is owned by Associated British Foods, where the chief executive is George Weston, whose total pay was £1.13m in 2020 and £3.39m in 2021.

JD Sports

Peter Cowgill.

The sportswear company was founded by John Wardle and David Makin in Bury, Greater Manchester in 1981 and is not an accredited LWF employer. There have been no recent announcements or commitments from the firm about paying the living wage for the more than 37,000 staff it employs. The current executive chairman is Peter Cowgill, who has been in the position at the company since March 2004. He was paid £4.29m in 2021 and £4.72m in 2020.
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Asos

Nick Beighton.

The fast fashion retailer is not an accredited LWF employer. However, the company has pledged it will have a net zero impact on the environment by 2030, give customers more information about its supply chain and recruit a more diverse workforce. The previous chief executive, who left in October last year, was Nick Beighton who was paid £1.88m in 2021 and received a total pay packet of £1.73m in 2020. The company is still searching for a replacement CEO, with chief financial officer, Matt Dunn, ruling himself out of the running for the top job. The company directly employs 3,600 staff.

'Spy cops' scandal Police


Met police chiefs decided not to infiltrate far-right groups in 70s, hears inquiry


Police unit known to have spied on anti-fascists believed it would be ‘difficult’ to place undercover officers

EASIER TO GROW YOUR HAIR LONG, 

SCUFF YOUR SHOES AND EAT YOUR VEGETBALES

Police clash with anti-fascist demonstrators during a National Front march in New Cross, London, in August 1977. Analysis shows police overwhelmingly spied on leftwing groups. 

Photograph: Gary Weaser/Getty


Rob Evans
@robevansgdnThu 19 May 2022

Police leaders took a high-level policy decision not to place undercover officers in far-right groups at a time when fascists were intimidating and attacking ethnic minority communities in the 1970s, an inquiry has heard.

The undercover police officers that were sent to infiltrate political groups during that time were exclusively targeted at leftwing and progressive groups, including those opposing fascists.

Former DI Angus McIntosh told the inquiry on Thursday: “My recollection is that this was a high-level policy decision, and I certainly was too junior to be a part of this.”

Asked why, he replied: “It was a very violent section, and it was often involved in crime, so to put an undercover officer into that would have very, very difficult.”
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Between 1976 and 1979, McIntosh was the deputy head of a Metropolitan police undercover unit, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS).

The inquiry – led by retired judge Sir John Mitting – is reviewing the activities of 139 undercover officers who spied on more than 1,000 mainly leftwing political groups between 1968 and at least 2010.

The current phase of the inquiry is questioning the managers in charge of the covert operations between 1968 and 1982, and is due to end on Friday.

In the 1970s, fascist organisations such as the National Front organised provocative marches through areas that had sizeable ethnic minority communities. The communities and anti-fascist campaigners resisted the marches amid public disorder on the streets.

Geoffrey Craft, who led the SDS in 1976 and 1977, told the inquiry on Wednesday that police had “other sources in the far right” so it was not necessary to place undercover officers from his unit in fascist groups.

This appears to be a reference to another method of infiltration – the use of informants. These are individuals who are members of groups and are persuaded through a variety of means to pass on information secretly to the police.

The police used both methods of infiltration – undercover officers and informants – to collect information on leftwing activists.


Police spies infiltrated UK leftwing groups for decades

Barry Moss, the head of the SDS during 1980, told the inquiry last Friday: “There was probably a policy decision at that time not to deploy anyone into the far right, because they were too violent, and we were concerned what the officer may have to do to prove his credentials.”

Moss blamed leftwing groups for causing disorder when they sought to prevent fascist marches, adding: “If the National Front had just been allowed to demonstrate and the left wing hadn’t turned up, there probably wouldn’t have been any disorder.”

An undercover police officer who infiltrated the leftwing Socialist Workers party (SWP) in the 1970s was asked by the inquiry who had initiated the violence on the streets during these demonstrations. He replied: “It depended on exactly where it was and how many people were there. From the SWP side, it was mostly shouting. From the far right thing, it was mostly physical violence.”
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The SDS, which was founded in 1968, first sent one of its undercover officers to infiltrate the far right in the 1980s. After that, a handful of far-right groups were monitored.

An analysis of the political groups that were known to have been spied on by undercover officers between 1968 and 2010 shows that the police overwhelmingly spied on leftwing and progressive political groups.

UK consumer confidence falls to lowest level since 1974


Consumers increasingly pessimistic about economy and personal finances amid deepening cost of living crisis

Consumer confidence continues to nosedive as the cost of living 

crisis deepens, the GfK index shows. 

Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

Richard Partington

Economics correspondent
Fri 20 May 2022 

Consumer confidence in the UK has fallen to the lowest level since records began in 1974 amid growing concern over the cost of living crisis.

Stoking fears that Britain is heading for a recession caused by the squeeze on family budgets, the latest monthly snapshot showed consumers are now gloomier about their prospects than they were during the 2008 financial crisis.

Almost all confidence measures tracked by the polling firm GfK fell in May, continuing a steep decline from April when households were hit by record increases in energy bills after the rise in the Ofgem price cap.

The headline UK consumer confidence index, a measure of how people view their personal finances and the wider economic outlook, dropped by two percentage points to -40 in May, surpassing the previous record low of -39 set in July 2008 when the global banking system was imploding.

Joe Staton, client strategy director at GfK, said: “This means consumer confidence is now weaker than in the darkest days of the global banking crisis, the impact of Brexit on the economy, or the Covid shutdown.”

Economists warned in April when the index dropped to -38 that such a low reading was consistent with Britain’s economy falling into recession, because it had closely tracked UK GDP over the past five decades.

“That correlation has been robust to many economic regimes and shocks, from 1970s stagflation to the great moderation and the financial crisis,” said Robert Wood, UK economist at the Bank of America. “Consumer confidence matters because it gives an early, reliable, signal.”

UK inflation rose to 9% in April, the highest level since the early 1980s, as hard-pressed families come under mounting pressure from soaring energy bills, record petrol prices and the rising cost of the weekly shop.

It comes as the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine ripples through global oil and gas markets, exacerbating a post-lockdown surge in prices.

Economists expect the historic hit to living standards to lead to consumers tightening their belts as soaring prices for essentials such as food, fuel and energy force them to cut back on other purchases. Official figures show retail sales fell by more than expected in March, while industry data suggests the spending slump continued in April as households grappled with the record 54% rise in gas and electricity bills.

The Bank of England warned earlier this month that Britain’s economy runs a heightened risk of recession as inflation heads towards 10%.

GfK said its index measure based on asking consumers about their plans for big-ticket purchases had decreased for each of the past six months. Consumer pessimism was most evident in people’s views on the general economy, with an index score of -63 for the past year and -56 for the coming year.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics published on Thursday showed a six percentage point weekly fall in UK credit and debit card spending last week, as well as a 10 point drop in the number of seated diners in restaurants. However, the figures come after the early May bank holiday weekend, when sales rose sharply.

The ONS said the rising cost of materials and energy were the top concern for UK companies. As many as 26% of businesses said rising costs were their main concern this month, up from 24% in April 2022, followed by 20% who said soaring energy prices were the biggest worry.

Joe Staton, from GfK, added: “Even the Bank of England is pessimistic, with governor Andrew Bailey this week offering no hope of tackling inflation. The outlook for consumer confidence is gloomy, and nothing on the economic horizon shows a reason for optimism any time soon.”

Environmental toxins are worsening obesity pandemic, say scientists


Exclusive: Pollutants can upset body’s metabolic thermostat with some even causing obesity to be passed on to children

Pollutants cited by the researchers as increasing obesity include BPA,

 which is widely added to plastics. Photograph: Jonathan Brady/PA


Damian Carrington 

Environment editor
Thu 19 May 2022 16.51 BST


Chemical pollution in the environment is supersizing the global obesity epidemic, according to a major scientific review.

The idea that the toxins called “obesogens” can affect how the body controls weight is not yet part of mainstream medicine. But the dozens of scientists behind the review argue that the evidence is now so strong that it should be. “This is critical because the current clinical management of obese patients is woefully inadequate,” they said.

The most disturbing aspect of the evidence is that some chemical impacts that increase weight can be passed down through generations by changing how genes work. Pollutants cited by the researchers as increasing obesity include bisphenol A (BPA), which is widely added to plastics, as well as some pesticides, flame retardants and air pollution.

Global obesity has tripled since 1975, with more people now obese or overweight than underweight, and is increasing in every country studied. Almost 2 billion adults are now too heavy and 40 million children under five are obese or overweight.

“The focus of the clinical people is on calories – if you eat more calories, you’re going to be more fat,” says Dr Jerrold Heindel, lead author of one of the three review papers, and formerly at the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. “So they wait untill you get obese, then they’ll look at giving you diets, drugs, or surgery.

“If that really worked, we should see a decline in the rates of obesity,” he said. “But we don’t – obesity continues to rise, especially in children. The real question is, why do people eat more? The obesogenic paradigm focuses on that and provides data that indicate that these chemicals are what can do that.”

Furthermore, the scientists say, the approach offers the potential to prevent obesity by avoiding exposure to pollutants, especially in pregnant women and babies: “Prevention saves lives, while costing far less than any [treatment].”
Strong evidence

The evidence for obesogens is set out by more than 40 scientists in three review papers, published in the peer-reviewed journal Biochemical Pharmacology and citing 1,400 studies. They say these chemicals are everywhere: in water and dust, food packaging, personal hygiene products and household cleaners, furniture and electronics.

The review identifies about 50 chemicals as having good evidence of obesogenic effects, from experiments on human cells and animals, and epidemiological studies of people. These include BPA and phthalates, also a plastic additive. A 2020 analysis of 15 studies found a significant link between BPA levels and obesity in adults in 12 of them.

Other obesogens are pesticides, including DDT and tributyltin, former flame retardants and their newer replacements, dioxins and PCBs, and air pollution. Several recent studies link exposure to dirty air early in life to obesity.

The review also names PFAS compounds – so-called “forever chemicals” due to their longevity in the environment – as obesogens. These are found in food packaging, cookware, and furniture, including some child car seats. A two-year, randomised clinical trial published in 2018 found people with the highest PFAS levels regained more weight after dieting, especially women.

Some antidepressants are also well known to cause weight gain. “That is a proof of principle that chemicals made for one thing can have side effects that interfere with your metabolism,” said Heindel. Other chemicals with some evidence of being obesogens included some artificial sweeteners and triclosan, an antibacterial agent banned from some uses in the US in 2017.

How it works

Obesogens work by upsetting the body’s “metabolic thermostat”, the researchers said, making gaining weight easier and losing weight harder. The body’s balance of energy intake and expenditure through activity relies on the interplay of various hormones from fat tissue, the gut, pancreas, liver, and brain.

The pollutants can directly affect the number and size of fat cells, alter the signals that make people feel full, change thyroid function and the dopamine reward system, the scientists said. They can also affect the microbiome in the gut and cause weight gain by making the uptake of calories from the intestines more efficient.

“It turns out chemicals dumped in the environment have these side effects, because they make the cells do things that they wouldn’t otherwise have done, and one of those things is laying down fat,” said Prof Robert Lustig at the University of California, San Francisco, and lead author of another of the reviews.

The early years of child development are the most vulnerable to obesogens, the researchers wrote: “Studies showed that in utero and early-life exposures were the most sensitive times, because this irreversibly altered programming of various parts of the metabolic system, increasing susceptibility for weight gain.”

“We’ve got four or five chemicals that also will cause transgenerational epigenetic obesity,” said Heindel, referring to changes in the expression of genes that can be inherited. A 2021 study found that women’s level of obesity significantly correlated with their grandmothers’ level of exposure to DDT, even though their granddaughters were never directly exposed to the now banned-pesticide.

“People need to know that [obesogenic effects] are going on,” Lustig said. “Because it affects not just them, but their unborn children. This problem’s going to affect generation after generation until we get a hold of it.”

Cause and effect

Directly proving a causal link between a hazard and a human health impact is difficult for the simple reason that it is not ethical to perform harmful experiments on people. But strong epidemiological evidence can stack up to a level equivalent to proof, such as with tobacco smoking and lung cancer.

Lustig said that point had been reached for obesogens, 16 years after the term was first coined. “We’ll never have randomised control trials – they would be illegal and unethical. But we now have the proof for obesogens and obesity.”

The obesogen paradigm has not been taken up by mainstream researchers so far. But Prof Barbara Corkey, at Boston University School of Medicine and past president of the Obesity Society, said: “The initial worldview was that obesity is caused by eating too much and exercising too little. And this is nonsense.

“It’s not the explanation because all of the creatures on Earth, including humans, eat when they’re hungry and stop when they are full. Every cell in the body knows if you have enough food,” she said. “Something has disrupted that normal sensing apparatus and it is not volition.

“People who are overweight and obese go to tremendous extremes to lose weight and the diet industry has fared extremely well,” Corky said. “We’ve learned that doesn’t work. When the medical profession doesn’t understand something, we always blame patients and unfortunately, people are still being held responsible for [obesity].”

Lustig said: “Gluttony and sloth are just the outward manifestations of these biochemical perturbations that are going on beneath the surface.”

Super-sized

How much of the obesity pandemic may be caused by obesogens is not known, though Heindel said they will have an “important role”.

Lustig said: “If I had to guess, based on all the work and reading I’ve done, I would say obesogens will account for about 15% to 20% of the obesity epidemic. But that’s a lot.” The rest he attributes to processed food diets, which themselves contain some obesogens.

“Fructose is a primary driver of a lot of this,” he said. “It partitions energy to fat in the liver and is a prime obesogen. Fructose would cause obesity even if it didn’t have calories.” A small 2021 trial found that an ultra-processed diet caused more weight gain than an unprocessed diet, despite containing the same calories.

Cutting exposure to obesogens is difficult, given that there are now 350,000 synthetic chemicals, many of which are pervasive in the environment. But those known to be harmful can be removed from sale, as is happening in Europe.

Heindel said prospective mothers in particular could adjust what they eat and monitor what their children play with in their early years: “Studies have shown modifying diets can within a week or so cause a significant drop in several obesogens.”

Lustig said: “This cause is very pervasive and pernicious, and it’s also lucrative to a lot of [chemical] companies. But we must address it rationally.” To do that, the “knowledge gap” among doctors, regulators and policymakers must be addressed, the scientists said.

“It’s time now that [obesity researchers and clinicians] should start paying attention and, if they don’t think the data is strong enough, tell us what more to do,” said Heindel, who is organising a conference to tackle this issue.
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Corkey is yet to be fully convinced by the obesogen paradigm, but said the concept of an environmental toxin is probably the right direction to go in. “Is there proof? No, there is not,” she said. “It’s a very difficult problem, because the number of chemicals in our environment has just astronomically increased.

“But there’s no alternative hypothesis that to me makes any sense and I would certainly challenge anyone who has a better, testable idea to come forth with it,” she said. “Because this is a serious problem that is impacting our societies enormously, especially children. The problems are getting worse, not better – we’re going in the wrong direction as it stands.”

Paper plane takes record-breaking 252-foot flight in South Korea


May 19 (UPI) -- A trio of paper aircraft enthusiasts broke a Guinness World Record in South Korea when they sent a folded plane for a flight of 252 feet, 7 inches.

The paper airplane was designed by Chee Yie Jian of Malaysia, folded by Shin Moo Joon of South Korea and thrown into the air by Kim Kyu Tae of South Korea.

Kim threw the plane eight times, achieving a distance of 252 feet and 7 inches with his best throw. The throw took the Guinness World Record for farthest flight of a paper aircraft from quarterback Joe Ayoob and paper airplane designer John M. Collins, whose folded flying machine reached a distance of 226 feet and 10 inches in 2012.

"My design coupled with Shin's wing mods/adjustments and Kim's 'rocket arm' is a winning combination, so I wasn't worried," Chee Yie Jian told Guinness World Records.

Chee formed the "Shin Kim Chee Team" after a 2019 attempt at breaking the world record fell short. Chee was not present for the record-breaking attempt, and has never met the other two men in person, but he and Shin have been corresponding for years.

"The paper airplane community is small yet global, in that everyone knows one another online," Chee said. "I have known Shin close to a decade now and we've been constantly discussing new ways to fly higher, further, and longer via email and social media."

New Twitter policy aims to pierce fog of war misinformation

SHOW'S MUSK STILL DOESN'T OWN IT

By DAVID KLEPPER


FILE - A destroyed tank near the village of Malaya Rohan, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Monday, May 16, 2022. Twitter is stepping up its fight against misinformation with a new policy cracking down on posts that spread potentially dangerous false stories. Under the new rules, which take effect Thursday, May 19, 2022, Twitter will no longer automatically recommend posts that mischaracterize conditions during a conflict or make misleading claims about war crimes or atrocities.

(AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File)


SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Twitter is stepping up its fight against misinformation with a new policy cracking down on posts that spread potentially dangerous false stories. The change is part of a broader effort to promote accurate information during times of conflict or crisis.

Starting Thursday, the platform will no longer automatically recommend or emphasize posts that make misleading claims about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, including material that mischaracterizes conditions in conflict zones or makes false allegations of war crimes or atrocities against civilians.

Under its new “crisis misinformation policy,” Twitter will also add warning labels to debunked claims about ongoing humanitarian crises, the San Francisco-based company said. Users won’t be able to like, forward or respond to posts that violate the new rules.

The changes make Twitter the latest social platform to grapple with the misinformation, propaganda and rumors that have proliferated since Russia invaded Ukraine in February. That misinformation ranges from rumors spread by well-intentioned users to Kremlin propaganda amplified by Russian diplomats or fake accounts and networks linked to Russian intelligence.

“We have seen both sides share information that may be misleading and/or deceptive,” said Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, who detailed the new policy for reporters. “Our policy doesn’t draw a distinction between the different combatants. Instead, we’re focusing on misinformation that could be dangerous, regardless of where it comes from.”

The new policy will complement existing Twitter rules that prohibit digitally manipulated media, false claims about elections and voting, and health misinformation, including debunked claims about COVID-19 and vaccines.

But it could also clash with the views of Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, who has agreed to pay $44 billion to acquire Twitter with the aim of making it a haven for “free speech.” Musk hasn’t addressed many instances of what that would mean in practice, although he has said that Twitter should only take down posts that violate the law, which taken literally would prevent action against most misinformation, personal attacks and harassment. He has also criticized the algorithms used by Twitter and other social platforms to recommend particular posts to individuals.

The policy was written broadly to cover misinformation during other conflicts, natural disasters, humanitarian crises or “any situation where there’s a widespread threat to health and safety,” Roth said.

Twitter said it will rely on a variety of credible sources to determine when a post is misleading. Those sources will include humanitarian groups, conflict monitors and journalists.

A senior Ukrainian cybersecurity official, Victor Zhora, welcomed Twitter’s new screening policy and said that it’s up to the global community to “find proper approaches to prevent the sowing of misinformation across social networks.”

While the results have been mixed, Twitter’s efforts to address misinformation about the Ukraine conflict exceed those of other platforms that have chosen a more hands-off approach, like Telegram, which is popular in Eastern Europe.

Asked specifically about the Telegram platform, where Russian government disinformation is rampant but Ukraine’s leaders also reaches a wide audience, Zhora said the question was “tricky but very important.” That’s because the kind of misinformation disseminated without constraint on Telegram “to some extent led to this war.”

Since the Russian invasion began in February, social media platforms like Twitter and Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, have tried to address a rise in war-related misinformation by labeling posts from Russian state-controlled media and diplomats. They’ve also de-emphasized some material so it no longer turns up in searches or automatic recommendations.

Emerson Brooking, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and expert on social media and disinformation, said that the conflict in Ukraine shows how easily misinformation can spread online during conflict, and the need for platforms to respond.

“This is a conflict that has played out on the internet, and one that has driven extraordinarily rapid changes in tech policy,” he said.


Associated Press writer Frank Bajak contributed to this report from Boston.

Spy agencies urged to fix open secret: A lack of diversity

AS WHITE AS THE UNIVERSITIES THEY RECRUIT FROM

By NOMAAN MERCHANT

A sign stands outside the National Security Administration (NSA) campus on in Fort Meade, Md., on June 6, 2013. The national reckoning over racial inequality sparked by George Floyd's murder two years ago has gone on behind closed doors inside America's intelligence agencies. Shortly after his death, employees of the National Security Agency had a call to speak to their director about racism and cultural misunderstandings. One by one, officers spoke about examples of racism that they had seen in America's largest intelligence service.

(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — The peril that National Security Agency staff wanted to discuss with their director didn’t involve terrorists or enemy nations. It was something closer to home: racism and cultural misunderstandings inside America’s largest intelligence service.

The NSA and other intelligence agencies held calls for their staff shortly after the death of George Floyd. As Gen. Paul Nakasone listened, one person described how they would try to speak up in meetings only to have the rest of the group keep talking over them. Another person, a Black man, spoke about how he had been counseled that his voice was too loud and intimidated co-workers. A third said a co-worker addressed them with a racist slur.

The national reckoning over racial inequality sparked by Floyd’s murder two years ago has gone on behind closed doors inside America’s intelligence agencies. But publicly available data, published studies of diversity programs and interviews with retired officers indicate spy agencies have not lived up to years of commitments made by their top leaders, who often say diversity is a national security imperative.

People of color remain underrepresented across the intelligence community and are less likely to be promoted. Retired officers who spoke to The Associated Press described examples of explicit and implicit bias. People who had served on promotion boards noted non-native English speakers applying for new jobs would sometimes be criticized for being hard to understand — what one person called the “accent card.” Some say they believe minorities are funneled into working on countries or regions based on their ethnicity.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, the first woman to serve in her role, has appointed diversity officials who say they need to collect better data to study longstanding questions, from whether the process for obtaining a security clearance disadvantages people of color to the reasons for disparities in advancement. Agencies are also implementing reforms they say will promote diversity.

“It’s going to be incremental,” said Stephanie La Rue, who was appointed this year to lead the intelligence community’s efforts on diversity, equity and inclusion. “We’re not going to see immediate change overnight. It’s going to take us a while to get to where we need to go.”

The NSA call following Floyd’s death was described by a participant who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private discussion. The person credited Nakasone for listening to employees and making public and private commitments to diversity. But the person and other former officials said they sometimes felt that their identities as people of color were discounted or not fully appreciated by their employers.

The NSA said in a statement that the agency “has been steadfast in our commitment to building and sustaining a diverse and expert workforce.”

“Beyond the mission imperative, NSA cultivates diversity and promotes inclusion because we care about our people and know it is the right way to proceed,” the statement said.

MAD MAGAZINE SPY VS SPY WAS MORE DIVERSE

A former NSA contractor alleged this year that racist and misogynistic comments often circulate on classified intelligence community chatrooms. The contractor, Dan Gilmore, wrote in a blog post that he was fired for reporting his complaints to higher-ups. A spokeswoman for Director Haines, Nicole de Haay, declined to comment on Gilmore’s allegations but said employees who “engage in inappropriate conduct are subject to a variety of accountability mechanisms, including disciplinary action.”

The U.S. intelligence community has evolved over decades from being almost exclusively run by white men — following a stereotype that Rep. Jim Himes, a Connecticut Democrat, referred to in a hearing on diversity last year as “pale, male, Yale.” Intelligence agencies that once denied security clearances to people suspected of being gay now have active resource groups for people of different races and sexual orientation.

Testifying at the same hearing as Himes, CIA Director William Burns said, “Simply put, we can’t be effective and we’re not being true to our nation’s ideals if everyone looks like me, talks like me, and thinks like me.”

But annual charts published by the Office of Director of National Intelligence show a consistent trend: At rising levels of rank, minority representation goes down.

Latinos make up about 18% of the American population but just 7% of the roughly 100,000-person intelligence community and 3.5% of senior officers. Black officers comprise 12% of the community — the same as the U.S. population — but 6.5% at the most senior level. And while minorities comprise 27% of the total intelligence workforce, just 15% of senior executives are people of color.

A 2015 report commissioned by the CIA said the “underrepresentation of racial/ethnic minority officers and officers with a disability at the senior ranks is not a recent problem and speaks to unresolved cultural, organizational, and unconscious bias issues.” Among the report’s findings: Progress made between 1984 and 2004 in promoting Black officers to senior roles had been lost in the following decade and recruitment efforts at historically Black colleges and universities “have not been effective.”

“Since its founding, the Agency has been unmistakably weak in promoting diverse role models to the executive level,” the report said.

Lenora Peters Gant, a former senior human capital officer for the CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence, wrote last year that the intelligence community constantly imposes barriers on minorities, women and people with disabilities. Gant, now an adviser at Howard University, called on agencies to release some of their classified data on hiring and retention.

“The bottom line is the decision making leadership levels are void of credible minority participation,” Gant said.

ODNI is starting an investigation of the slowest 10% of security clearance applications, reviewing delays in the cases for any possible examples of bias. It also intends to review whether polygraph examiners need additional race and ethnicity training.

The intelligence community currently doesn’t report delays in getting a security clearance — required for most agency jobs — based on race, ethnicity or gender. The months or years a clearance can take can push away applicants who can’t wait that long.

The office is implementing annual grant monitoring and assigning additional staff to work with universities in the intelligence community’s Centers for Academic Excellence program, intended to recruit college students from underrepresented groups. A 2019 audit said it was impossible to judge the program due to poor planning and a lack of clear goals.

The program also got a new logo after ODNI officials heard that the previous “IC CAE” insignia appeared to spell out “ICE,” an unintended reference to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Additional quiet changes are taking place across the agencies. Officials say the changes were in process before Floyd’s death, though conversations held with employees brought new urgency to diversity issues.

The NSA stopped requiring applicants for internal promotions to disclose the date they were last promoted to the boards considering their application. Officials familiar with the change say it was intended to benefit applicants who take longer to move up the agency ladder, often including working parents or people from underrepresented communities.

The agency said in a statement that officials “regularly examine the outcomes of our personnel systems to assess their fairness.”

The CIA two years ago formally tied yearly bonuses for its senior executives to their performance on diversity goals, measured next to factors such as leadership and intelligence tradecraft. Last year’s class of new senior executives was the most diverse in the agency’s history, with 47% women and 27% people from minority backgrounds, exceeding the percentages of women and minorities in the agency’s total workforce.

Said CIA spokesperson Tammy Thorp: “We are proud of the agency’s progress in ensuring our hiring, assignment, and promotion processes do not create barriers to advancement.”

La Rue, the chief diversity officer for the intelligence community, has hired several data analysts and plans for her office to issue annual report cards on diversity for each intelligence agency. She acknowledges advocates have to break through enduring skepticism inside and outside government that diversity goals undermine the intelligence mission or require lower standards.

“The narrative that we have to sacrifice excellence for diversity, or that we are somehow compromising national security to achieve our diversity goals, is ridiculous,” she said.

 

EVEN SIXTIES TV HAD A MORE DIVERSE SPY AGENCY

Handling of Buffalo suspect spurs talk of uneven restraint

By DEEPTI HAJELA and CLAUDIA LAUER

 People pray outside the scene of a shooting where police are responding at a supermarket, in Buffalo, N.Y., May 15, 2022. When police confronted Payton Gendron, the white man suspected of killing 10 Black people at the supermarket, he had an AR-15-style rifle and was cloaked in body armor. Yet officers talked to Gendron, convinced him to put down his weapon and arrested him without firing a single shot. Some people are asking why that type of treatment hasn't been afforded to Black people in encounters where they were killed over minor traffic infractions, or no infractions at all. 

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — When police confronted the white man suspected of killing 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket, he was the very poster boy for armed and dangerous, carrying an AR-15-style rifle and cloaked in body armor and hatred.

Yet officers talked to Payton Gendron, convinced him to put down his weapon and arrested him without firing a single shot. Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia that day cited their training and called it “a tremendous act of bravery.”

In a country where Black people have been killed in encounters with police over minor traffic infractions, or no infractions at all, though, it’s raised the question: Where is that training, that determined following of protocol, when it comes to them?

“It’s important to emphasize this is not about why aren’t police killing white supremacist terrorists,” said Qasim Rashid, a human rights lawyer and satellite radio host who was among those on social media making posts about the subject. “It’s why can’t that same restraint and control be applied to a situation involving an unarmed Black person?”

He and others pointed to a litany of examples of white men taken calmly into police custody after shootings, including Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black people at a South Carolina church in 2015; Robert Aaron Long, who killed eight people at Georgia massage businesses last year; Patrick Crusius, who is accused of killing 23 people in a racist attack at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart in 2019; and Kyle Rittenhouse, whose attempt to surrender immediately after shooting three white people at a Wisconsin protest was rebuffed. Meanwhile, George Floyd, Atatiana Jefferson, Tamir Rice and a host of other Black people have died at police hands when the initial circumstances were far less volatile.

“There’s just a stark contrast between how a Kyle Rittenhouse or a Payton Gendron gets treated by the system in these incidents versus how a Black man gets treated in general,” said Insha Rahman, vice president of advocacy and partnerships at the Vera Institute — a national nonprofit research and advocacy group focused on criminal justice.

Rahman said there are a lot of similarities in the public perception of the two cases. Rittenhouse walked toward police with an AR-15-style rifle slung over his shoulder, his hands raised. He testified at trial that police told him to “go home,” and he turned himself in the next day. He was acquitted of all charges after arguing self-defense.

“A few folks said at the time, if Kyle Rittenhouse was a young Black man, he wouldn’t have made it out of Kenosha that night. He might not have ever made it to a trial,” she said.

Rahman also cautioned against viewing high-profile incidents in a vacuum. She said people need to consider everyday interactions with the police, which along with arrests happen at a disproportionate and often more dangerous level for Black people.

The difference has been noted in Buffalo, said Jillian Hanesworth, 29, the city’s poet laureate and director of leadership development at Open Buffalo, a nonprofit focused on social justice and community development.

“We see how Black and brown people get treated by the police,” she said, that police don’t hesitate to “take deadly action against Black and brown people.”

Martìn Sabelli, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said historically there has been a racial divide in the U.S. that affects every aspect of the criminal legal process.

“The perception of racism is perpetuated because it’s rooted in a reality,” Sabelli said, noting the impact of implicit bias on policing has been studied extensively. “We are unfortunately in the process of trying to reverse decades or even longer of explicit racism in many police departments around the country and that is often aggravated by implicit bias that exists at a subconscious level. And unfortunately it taints these encounters by subconsciously making officers believe a person of color is more dangerous than a white person.”

Frank Straub, director of the National Policing Institute Center for Targeted Violence Prevention, said he hoped there’s a rethinking of how police respond to situations, in the wake of what the public has seen of disparate treatment in recent years.

“Maybe the fact that these videos are out there ... hopefully that now is impacting how officers are being trained to respond to arrest situations,” he said.

Chuck Wexler, executive director of Police Executive Research Forum, an organization dedicated to improving the professionalism of policing, said Buffalo’s Gramaglia asked his group for help with de-escalation training last year as a deputy commissioner.

The specific training is known as ICAT, for integrating communication assessment and tactics. Wexler’s group trained Buffalo’s police trainers on the tactics in February 2021, he said, adding that the department had not completed that training with all of its officers yet.

“That gives you a sense of how the department was thinking,” Wexler said. “It’s communication, slowing things down, using time and distance and cover, rather than rushing into a situation.”

“I think you have to look at the facts and training and tactics and realize every situation is different,” Wexler said. He noted that a security guard, who was a former police officer, shot at the gunman as he stalked the aisles inside Tops Friendly Market. The guard was killed.

“But the situation changed,” he said. “I don’t know all the facts, but when the suspect came out, officers might have a different perception of whether he was an immediate threat.”

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Lauer reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press videojournalist Noreen Nasir contributed from Buffalo.

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Hajela is a member of the AP’s team covering race and ethnicity, and is on Twitter at twitter.com/dhajela.