THE MAN WILL NEVER DEFEAT THE PEOPLES WILL

China’s Top Chipmaker Achieves Breakthrough Despite US Curbs

Debby Wu and Jenny Leonard
Thu, July 21, 2022 


(Bloomberg) -- Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. has likely advanced its production technology by two generations, defying US sanctions intended to halt the rise of China’s largest chipmaker.

The Shanghai-based manufacturer is shipping Bitcoin-mining semiconductors built using 7-nanometer technology, industry watcher TechInsights wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. That’s well ahead of SMIC’s established 14nm technology, a measure of fabrication complexity in which narrower transistor widths help produce faster and more efficient chips. Since late 2020, the US has barred the unlicensed sale to the Chinese firm of equipment that can be used to fabricate semiconductors of 10nm and beyond, infuriating Beijing.

A person familiar with the developments confirmed the report, asking not to be named as they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. SMIC climbed as much as 1.9% in Hong Kong, while Chinese chip and chip gear stocks including Shanghai Fudan Microelectronics Group Co., Naura Technology Group Co. and Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. gained more than 5%.

SMIC’s surprising progress raises questions about how effective export controls have been and whether Washington can indeed thwart China’s ambition to foster a world-class chip industry at home and reduce reliance on foreign technologies. It also comes at a time American lawmakers have urged Washington to close loopholes in its Chinese-oriented curbs and ensure Beijing isn’t supplying crucial technology to Russia.

The restrictions effectively derailed Huawei Technologies Co.’s smartphone business by cutting it off from the tools to compete at the cutting edge -- but that company is now quietly staffing up a renewed effort to develop its in-house chipmaking acumen.

Previously, SMIC has said that its core capabilities stand at 14nm, two generations behind 7nm, which in turn is roughly four years behind the most advanced technology available now from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and Samsung Electronics Co. The company has worked with clients on technologies more advanced than 14nm as early as 2020, it said on an earnings call that year.

China-based MinerVa Semiconductor Corp., which is named as SMIC’s customer in the TechInsights report, showcases a 7nm chip on its website and said mass production began in July 2021, without specifying the manufacturer. Dylan Patel, chief analyst at SemiAnalysis, was first to note the report.

Representatives of SMIC and MinerVa didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The labels attached to generations of chip production technology have become increasingly controversial as they no longer represent dimensions of the microscopic transistors that give chips their electronic function. Companies have accused each other of mislabeling their products to make them appear more advanced than they actually are.

And while the ability to produce a small number of chips using the next level of production technique signals that a company is making technological progress, what determines economic viability -- under normal circumstances -- is yield, or the percentage of every production run that’s successful. Intel Corp, once the leader in production technology, stalled on one type of production for five years because it couldn’t get enough viable chips to make it profitable to introduce that node into mainstream production.

SMIC is not operating under standard business conditions however. It is critical to China’s ability to produce chips domestically as the US tries to undercut the country’s tech advancements. Beijing may be willing to subsidize losses at domestic competitors like SMIC -- out of fear its companies won’t have access to key components.

The Trump administration blacklisted SMIC about two years ago on national security concerns, citing the company’s ties with the Chinese military, an allegation the chipmaker has denied. Following Washington’s move, American equipment suppliers have been banned from providing the Chinese company with gear “uniquely required” to produce 10nm or more advanced chips without licenses, although it is not clear exactly what the US Department of Commerce has allowed domestic firms to sell to SMIC since.

Huawei and SMIC Scored Billions in US Licenses, Lawmakers Say

US Senator Marco Rubio and US Congressman Michael McCaul have repeatedly urged the department to tighten export control restrictions pertaining to SMIC to strengthen US security and ensure China is not transferring technology to Russia and helping Moscow evade sanctions.

“The Biden Administration will continue working to grow and strengthen our cooperation with allies and partners to ensure effective controls on semiconductor production so that we remain generations ahead of competitors in advanced semiconductor technology,” a spokesperson for the Commerce Department said. The National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

SMIC has said that its blacklist status hurts its ability to develop sophisticated technologies. The company’s capability is severely curbed by its lack of access to ASML Holding NV’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) systems, which are required to make the most advanced chips that include 5nm and 3nm geometries. The Dutch firm has not shipped a single EUV machine to mainland China because of US pressure on the Dutch government.

US Pushes for ASML to Stop Selling Chipmaking Gear to China

The administration of President Joe Biden at one point considered tightening restrictions around SMIC but ruled out any unilateral action to allow for more time to negotiate with other trading partners. Those talks have not borne fruit so far. Washington is, however, pushing ASML to stop selling even less advanced gear to China.

SMIC told analysts in mid-2020 that a large share of the equipment it has for 14nm chips can be used to make more advanced chips and it is seeking to develop more sophisticated technology to improve its profitability.

(Updates with background on labelling of chip technology from eigth paragraph.)

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BRITISH ROYAL CONSPIRACY
Secret hearing over Prince Philip's will was wrong, UK court told


Funeral of Britain's Prince Philip in Windsor

Wed, July 20, 2022 
By Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - It was wrong to hold a secret hearing which decided that the will of Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth's late husband, should be sealed and kept private for 90 years, lawyers for a newspaper told the Court of Appeal in London on Wednesday.

Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, died in April last year aged 99 at Windsor Castle after more than seven decades of marriage to the queen.

In September, Andrew McFarlane, the president of the High Court’s Family Division, disclosed that he had agreed Philip’s will should be sealed up "and that no copy of the will should be made for the record or kept on the court file".

He said that by a convention dating back to 1910, the death of a senior royal is followed by an application to seal the will, with such hearings and judgments kept private.

HARDLY ANCIENT TRADITION 

McFarlane said he was the custodian of a safe containing more than 30 envelopes with the wills of dead royals.

The Guardian newspaper is appealing against a decision to exclude the press and public from a hearing on July 28 last year. An earlier hearing that agreed to this exclusion was also held in secret.

The first the media became aware of the hearings was when McFarlane's ruling was made public two months later.

"An entirely private hearing such as this is the most serious interference with open justice," Caoilfhionn Gallagher, the Guardian's lawyer, told the court, describing the decision as "disproportionate and unjustified".

The paper is arguing that McFarlane was wrong not to allow the media a chance to question whether the application to seal the will should proceed in private.

Gallagher said the paper "does not and could not" at this stage challenge McFarlane's substantive ruling to seal the will, but was likely to seek to make submissions as a third party should the application be re-heard.

The appeal is being heard by three of Britain's most senior judges - Master of the Rolls Geoffrey Vos; Victoria Sharp, the president of the Queen's Bench Division; and Justice Eleanor King.

In Britain, once probate - the administering of a deceased’s estate - is complete, wills are normally made public.

McFarlane had ruled that publishing Philip's will would be "contrary to the aim of maintaining the dignity of the Sovereign". He also agreed to exclude the value of the estate from the grant of probate.

(Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

FALLING RATE OF PROFIT MEMES

 

 

 

THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN CUBA

To get their degrees, Mexico's medical students practice medicine at gunpoint

Leila Miller
Thu, July 21, 2022

Mar Nevarez, left, and Itzel Olimpia Acevedo Luna embrace over the casket of classmate Eric Andrade Ramirez at his funeral on Sunday. Andrade was killed while completing a year of community service that's required for his medical degree.

 (Fermin Ricardo Soto Munoz / For The Times )

When Alfredo Cortes arrived at a tiny clinic for his year of community service required of all medical students in Mexico, he found that he had no cellphone or internet access — only a radio.

He lived alone at the clinic, a simple dwelling in a rural community of Michoacan state where police were a rare sight. In the early hours of a spring morning in 2020, he was roused from sleep by growling trucks and pounding on the front door.

Several armed men ordered Cortes to leave with them. When he refused, one truck sped away and quickly returned with a man bleeding heavily from his belly. He had been shot.

As Cortes got to work, one of the men trained a gun on him and shouted, “Save him!”

The patient needed surgery, but the clinic lacked basic supplies, so all Cortes could do was bandage the wound and warn that if the man didn’t receive treatment elsewhere he would die.

“They’re pointing their guns, they’re shouting, there are people communicating by radio, and you don’t know with whom,” recalled Cortes, now 26, who learned later that the man had lived. “It’s a very tense situation.”

Such stories are common among Mexico’s medical students these days.

Medical students protest in Durango this week demanding an end to the community service program. 

Mandatory service has long been part of the government’s effort to improve healthcare in isolated communities. But as drug cartels and other criminal groups have increased their footprint across the country, it has become an increasingly dangerous rite of passage.

The shooting death of a medical student last week inside the hospital where he worked in the mountains of Durango state sparked protests by medical students across the country. Some marched in white lab coats and carried signs that said, “We’re not your cheap labor” and “No more community service, they’re killing us.”

It’s unclear exactly how many students have been killed or suffered attacks during their community service, but even university officials have started to acknowledge that the program has become unsafe.

“This scheme is a total anachronism and should be changed,” said Dr. Luis Carlos Hinojos, the director of the medical school at the Autonomous University of Chihuahua.

He said the university has tried to place more students in safer urban locations and relocate those deemed to be in danger. After a doctor was shot and killed this month in the municipality of Bocoyna, which has seen clashes between cartels, six students set to start work there were reassigned.

Mourners carry a sign and a portrait of Eric Andrade Ramirez outside the funeral Mass for him last Sunday. (Fermin Ricardo Soto Munoz / For The Times)

The government defends the program, which dates to 1936 and graduates about 18,000 students each year. Mexican Health Secretary Jorge Alcocer told reporters this week that officials would be reviewing security conditions but that the community service is an “academic requirement that, in principle, cannot be canceled.”

“It’s not advisable to suspend that process of formation that’s so important for doctors,” he said. “We can’t set aside the most far-away placements that don’t have conditions that are completely safe.”

Moreover, the program has been a crucial source of medical care in rural areas. For every 10,000 people, Mexico has 24 doctors — not far behind the U.S. figure of 26 — but they are heavily concentrated in cities.

In May, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced that the country would fill the gaps by contracting Cuban doctors, prompting criticism that the real problem was security.

Medical school in Mexico starts right after high school and usually lasts six or seven years, the last of which is spent doing community service, which can entail conducting research or working in clinics. Typically, the government determines what slots are available and leaves it to the schools to fill them.

Students with the best grades get the first pick of assignments, so those with lower averages tend to get the most dangerous jobs. They sometimes work without supervision or outside contact and live alone at the clinics — problems that students and university officials say have long been recognized but not adequately addressed.

Locals tend to view the students as full-fledged doctors — and that leads to situations in which the newcomers can incur wrath of the community when a patient can’t be saved.

“They won’t say the clinic doesn’t have the resources, the clinic doesn’t have an ambulance, the roads aren’t accessible, the routes aren’t easy,” said Cinthya Flores, president of a national association that represents medical students. “It’ll be the doctor’s fault.”

Andrade's mother, Maria Paula Ramírez Yañez, leans over his body while his father, Jose Mauricio Andrade Avila, sister Suhey Andrade Ramirez and family friend Cecilia Ramirez, left, stand beside her at his funeral. 

(Fermin Ricardo Soto Munoz / For The Times)

Dr. Jorge Valdez Garcia, president of the Mexican Assn. of Medical Schools, said that sometimes universities aren’t given enough time to choose their placements carefully and that conditions can change rapidly, such as when a cartel arrives in a community.

“That’s happened many times,” he said. “No one has the intention to send them to unsafe areas.”

In interviews, more than two dozen current and former students described harrowing experiences that included navigating cartel checkpoints to get to their clinic, delivering medical care at gunpoint and working in places where criminals leave severed heads in the street.

“We were always worried for our security,” said Adonai Esparza, 28, who did his service in 2019 at a rural clinic in northern Michoacan, which has seen violence related to the avocado trade, which has been infiltrated by cartels.

One night, a teenager arrived with a knife injury on his hand. Esparza began to treat him when he heard several cars arrive.

The boy’s father, a drug boss in the area, entered with two armed men. He asked about his son and on his way out told Esparza, “Don’t worry, you’ll be watched and protected.”

“After that, I felt a bit strange,” said Esparza. “I realized I had security but not the security that I had expected.”

Medical students in the state of Durango call for authorities to better protect students completing their year of mandatory community service.

 (Fermin Ricardo Soto Munoz / For The Times)

Hilary López, 27, who did her service in 2020 in the southern state of Quintana Roo, quickly learned to give priority to certain patients: those who a nurse told her were relatives of drug traffickers.

In one incident, a man who arrived after midnight insisted that she examine an older woman who had fallen in her home and was still there. When López explained she couldn’t leave the clinic with a stranger, he returned 15 minutes later with a gun.

“Doctor, are you going to come out or are you not going to come out?” he told her.

López called the nurse, who calmed the man down and persuaded him to stop threatening López, who said that the scare prompted her to ask health officials for more security but that nothing changed.

She happened to be out of town when armed men from the community surrounded the clinic and threatened to set it on fire after one of her patients died from COVID-19. The nurse warned her not to return, and López found a new placement and changed her telephone number.

“I disappeared from the map,” she said.

Such close calls seldom make headlines. Killings of medical students are a different story, with two recent cases pushing the issue into public view.

The first victim was Luis Fernando Montes de Oca Armas, 23, who was finishing his service at a hospital in Huejuquilla El Alto, Jalisco state, in June 2021 when he left to accompany a patient in an ambulance to the neighboring state of Zacatecas.

Lui Fernando Montes de Oca Armas, a student at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara, was killed in Zacatecas while doing his community service in 2021. (Courtesy of José Fernando Montes de Oca Padilla)

On his way back, he sent a disturbing voice message to his father.

“There’s a truck here,” he said. “They’re probably going to kidnap us or something, I don’t know.”

His father called his son-in-law, Juan Carlos Galaviz, who discovered the bullet-ridden bodies of Montes de Oca and the ambulance driver along a highway next to the abandoned vehicle.

Then last Friday evening, several men arrived at the rural Durango hospital where Eric Andrade Ramirez was working. They appeared to be under the influence of drugs.

The details of what happened next are unclear, but at one point, at least one of them pulled out a gun.

Mourners watch as Andrade's coffin is lowered. 

(Fermin Ricardo Soto Munoz / For The Times)

Andrade, 25, was killed, just days before he would have finished his service in El Salto, a logging town about an hour-and-a-half drive from his home in the city of Durango.

After the killing, some medical students in Durango deserted their placements and vowed not to return.

“How is it possible that we’re giving a health service to take care of others but no one protects us?” asked Daniel Ramirez, 27, a classmate who decided to leave his assignment in a Durango town where he said drug traffickers colluded with the police.

Dr. Martin Gerardo Soriano Sariñana, the rector of the Autonomous University of Durango, where Andrade had been a student, said about 180 students will be reassigned placements. He pledged to develop “community service programs for our students that don’t put their safety at risk.”

At Andrade’s funeral on Sunday afternoon, classmates wearing white lab coats cried quietly as they watched his casket being lowered into a grave while a 13-person orchestra played. Friends described him as a charismatic person who loved norteño music and threw parties.

Mourners attend Andrade's funeral.

 (Fermin Ricardo Soto Munoz / For The Times )

His brother, Luis, 29, said Andrade had spent his final year in a state of unease as armed men would show up demanding to be seen.

“He lived with fear,” Luis said. “He didn’t want to be doing the service.”

Their sister, Suhey, 24, the youngest of the three siblings and a medical student herself, is scheduled to start her community service on Aug. 1 in a town on the outskirts of the city of Durango. She is reconsidering.

“Right now I have a hatred toward medicine,” she said.

The hospital where her brother died, a dilapidated one-story white building, is now closed. In the lobby, a bouquet of flowers and candles lie on the floor next to a large patch of dried blood.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

House passes same-sex-marriage protections, citing threat from Roe decision

Tom LoBianco

·Reporter

Tue, July 19, 2022 

WASHINGTON — House Democrats and a sizable group of Republicans voted Tuesday in favor of protecting same-sex marriage from being overturned by the Supreme Court.

The House voted to pass the Respect for Marriage Act, 267-157, with 47 Republicans joining Democrats. The bill would codify same-sex marriage into federal law and bolster other marriage protections, and came in response to fears that the Supreme Court may strike down such protections after overturning in June the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that established the constitutional right to an abortion.

The bill would also formally repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The measure is widely expected to fall short of the 60 votes needed to clear a filibuster in the Senate, where Democrats and Republicans hold 50 seats apiece.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi at a press event on reproductive rights in front of the U.S. Capitol on July 15. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi cited Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, in which he argued that same-sex marriage and access to contraception were also not inherently protected by the U.S. Constitution.

“Make no mistake, while his legal reasoning is twisted, and unsound, it is crucial that we take Justice Thomas and the extremist movement behind him at their word. This is what they intend to do,” Pelosi said.

But House Republicans, who spent much of the debate arguing on items other than marriage itself, called the vote a last-minute political ploy by Democrats to gin up support from their voters ahead of the November midterm elections.

“We’re debating this bill today because it is July in an election year, and inflation is at a level not seen in 40 years,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who is expected to head the House Judiciary Committee if Republicans retake control of the House in November.

In response to a question Tuesday about the legislation, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at a briefing that President Biden “strongly supports the bill. He’s grateful that this has bipartisan support in the House.”

She added that “the exact reason for why this bill is being voted on is because of Republicans’ assault on the recognition of Americans’ right to privacy, which has been recognized and upheld over decades by judges appointed by a wide range of presidents — that puts us here. That is why the House had to vote for this bill, so that we can protect people’s rights because of what we have seen this past several weeks.”

Protesters march to the White House to denounce the Supreme Court decision to end federal abortion rights protections on July 9. (Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

A handful of hard-right lawmakers have called for ending the same-sex-marriage protections derived from the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican and a possible White House candidate, said last weekend the decision was “clearly wrong.”

But other Republicans tamped down that talk, citing Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion in which he wrote that ending abortion protections should not be viewed as setting precedent for upending other rights.

House lawmakers debated passionately for close to an hour, but top House Republicans — including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and his top deputies — were absent from the debate Tuesday.

In a rare move, McCarthy and other top Republicans decided not to press their members — or “whip” the vote — to vote against the marriage protections, Punchbowl News reported Tuesday.

Public attitudes on same-sex marriage have shifted dramatically in recent years. A decade ago, the issue divided Democrats, who were apprehensive about being seen as too liberal. But now 70% of the broader public supports same-sex-marriage rights, according to the most recent Gallup poll on the issue.

The surprise vote Tuesday comes as Pelosi has promised to hold a series of votes on hot-button issues that Thomas indicated could be decided by the court.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C, in 2021. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

In his concurring opinion, Thomas did not mention the landmark Loving v. Virginia case, which legalized interracial marriage decades ago. But others, including actor Samuel L. Jackson, have questioned whether that right could be overturned as well.

“He didn’t mention interracial marriage, but it’s on the same theory,” said Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. “Of course he’s involved in an interracial marriage; he wouldn’t be married to [Ginni Thomas] but for that Loving decision.”

But even that issue has garnered a surprising amount of attention recently. Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., said in March that interracial marriage should be decided by each state. Following an uproar, he later explained that he did not want to ban interracial marriage.

Republicans show political evolution with same-sex marriage vote



Emily Brooks

The Hill.
Tue, July 19, 2022 

A vote on codifying federal protections for same-sex marriage demonstrated a sharp political evolution for Republicans on the issue over the last decade, with nearly four dozen House GOP members voting in favor of the legislation.

The House Republican Conference gave members breathing room by not whipping votes against the bill, which Democrats brought up in response to concerns about the Supreme Court potentially reversing course on the case that protected the right for same-sex couples to marry

Titled the Respect for Marriage Act, the bill would also repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act that defined marriage for federal purposes as being between one man and one woman.

“I’m sure we’ll probably be split” on the bill, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said of the conference on Tuesday morning, noting that he does not formally whip the conference for or against most bills.

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), vice chairman of the House GOP conference, said that the whip team communicated to members that the vote was “a matter of personal conscience.”

In the end, 47 House Republicans voted for the bill, including two members of House GOP leadership: Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Emmer (Minn.).

“It’s the right vote, and I’m proud to vote for it,” said Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.).

Just a decade ago, the 2012 national Republican Party platform asserted support for a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman.

The vote also cemented an evolution for Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), who expressed opposition to same-sex marriage in 2013 despite her sister Mary being married to another woman. Cheney expressed regret for that position in an interview last year.

The number of House GOP votes, accounting for about a fifth of the conference, bodes well for the legislation’s chance of passing in the Senate, where it would need at least 10 Republican votes to pass. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Monday expressed optimism about the bill’s chances of reaching the 60-vote threshold necessary to pass in the chamber.

Though the majority of House Republican conference voted against the bill, Republicans against it largely did not center their arguments on the acceptability of same-sex marriage. Instead, they focused on the feeling that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi aimed to use the vote as a political tool in the midterms.

The bill was a response to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned the landmark abortion rights case Roe v. Wade. Thomas suggested the court “reconsider” its substantive due process precedents — including in the case that legalized same-sex marriage, Obergefell v. Hodges.

Republicans countered that the majority opinion in Dobbs said that its overturning Roe should not cast doubt on precedents like Obergefell. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said on the House floor that the bill was a “further effort to intimidate the Court.”

Others, like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), said they were against the bill because they think recognition of same-sex marriage should be left up to the states.

Several Republicans, including Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), expressed hesitation on Tuesday morning about voting for the bill due to the political maneuvering of Democrats and the speediness with which it was brought to a vote without going through committees. But later on Tuesday evening, they voted for it.

Bacon said that he thinks many Republicans have softened on the issue of same-sex marriage. His own decision on how to vote on the bill was a “little bit of a tug-of-war” due to his religious convictions, but weighed that against the fact that same-sex marriage had been legal nationally for seven years, and that the country is not going to go backwards.

“I have brothers who are gay,” Bacon said. “I have a view that people have a right to live their lives the way they want.”

The Log Cabin Republicans, a group representing LGBT conservatives, said that Democrats’ aim to get Republicans on the record on the issue was a reason to vote for the bill rather than against it.

“Democrats, desperate to deflect from the disastrous leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration, are trying to use this election year vote to paint the GOP as out of step with the rest of the country,” Log Cabin Republicans President Charles Moran said in a statement. “There are critical fights to be had in the coming months on issues like the Left’s assault on Title IX and gender identity lessons in kindergarten classrooms, but Republican voters increasingly agree marriage equality is not one of them.”

Support for same-sex marriage among U.S. adults reached 71 percent in a May 2022 Gallup poll, the highest percentage since the company started measuring support for it in 1996. Gallup found that a majority, 55 percent, of Republicans supported same-sex marriage in 2021.

Weekly churchgoers are the primary demographic likely to oppose same-sex marriage, Gallup found, with 58 percent in that group opposed.

That religious segment is still present among GOP members and their voter base.

In 2019 and 2020, former Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) was censured by some local GOP committees, which his office at the time said was retaliation against him officiating a same-sex wedding.

The congressman who replaced Riggleman, Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), voted against the bill.

“I’m a biblical conservative, I believe in God’s definition of marriage. And, you know, God’s perfect design is one man for one woman for a lifetime,” Good said. “I don’t think the Supreme Court should have tried to make law on that issue.”

THE WORKPLACE IS NOT A DEMOCRACY

Glassdoor ordered to unmask former toy company employees who posted scathing criticism, showing the scary stakes of ‘anonymous’ reviews

Jane Thier

Tue, July 19, 2022 

A new lawsuit indicates that those Glassdoor reviews you’re writing may not be anonymous.

Last week, Alex Tse, a magistrate judge in a Northern California district court, ruled in favor of a New Zealand–based billion-dollar toy company called Zuru in its case against Glassdoor. Zuru’s co-CEOs alleged that anonymous “false, disparaging and defamatory” reviews on the employer-review site materially harmed its business and complicated its recruiting process.

In January, Zuru filed a subpoena against Glassdoor to compel it to reveal the identities of the person or people who slammed Zuru on the site, calling it a "burnout factory" with a "toxic" culture and "incompetent" leaders. In court, Zuru said it plans to file a defamation lawsuit in New Zealand against whoever posted these on Glassdoor, once their identities are revealed.

Fortune's review of Zuru's Glassdoor page currently shows largely positive posts; yet several negative ones remain standing. Glassdoor also posted an alert on the company's page, alerting users that Zuru has taken legal action and saying, "Please exercise your best judgment when evaluating this employer."

This is bad news for Glassdoor, whose entire billion-dollar business model is based on the promise of anonymity. Even if it is sued, the company maintains in its FAQ, it will “object to and resist” subpoenas it receives. “And, if necessary and as appropriate, we will appear in court to oppose and defeat your request.”

Competing interests are at play, Judge Tse wrote in his decision, according to court documents Fortune reviewed. “Glassdoor wants to safeguard anonymous speech on its website. Zuru wants to protect its reputation. Both interests can’t simultaneously be accommodated.”

A Glassdoor spokesperson told Fortune that the company is committed to its users and its mission in helping people find jobs, promising to continue to fight to protect users' anonymous free speech rights.

"Of the 2.2 million companies that have been rated and reviewed on Glassdoor, we are only involved in a small handful of legal battles with employers, and we almost always prevail," they said. "The Court's decision is a rare outlier under New Zealand law and its implications are limited to reviews involving one employer acting against multiple former New Zealand-based employees."

Judge Tse wrote that Glassdoor may have a legitimate interest in shielding the reviewers’ identities if Zuru's defamation claim is baseless. “But if the reviewers made false statements, their right to remain anonymous may give way to [Zuru’s] need to discover [their] identity in order to pursue its claim.”

Even though the ruling occurred in a U.S. federal court, Judge Tse said he made the ruling based on New Zealand law, as Zuru intends to sue in that jurisdiction. Therefore, the court's ruling was decided based on New Zealand law's definition of defamation, and not the U.S. legal definition.

In other words, Glassdoor shouldn't be ordered to turn over "anonymous" user data in any case solely based on U.S. law. But you never know.

For Glassdoor posters worried about being found out, a judge and jury may not even be involved. If you’ve written a review via a company desktop, phone, or laptop, your employer could digitally track you down. As with any so-called anonymous site, that’s all the more reason to err on the side of caution.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

FALLING RATE OF PROFIT

AT&T Falls Most in 20 Years After Overdue Bills Hit Cash Flow

Scott Moritz
Thu, July 21, 2022


(Bloomberg) -- AT&T Inc. fell the most in 20 years after saying some customers are starting to put off paying their phone bills, which contributed to the wireless carrier cutting its forecast for free cash flow this year by $2 billion.

The emerging economic strain on consumers is adding to pressure the company had already been facing from deep discounts on new phones and higher spending on network equipment.

AT&T shares fell as much as 11%, their biggest slide since 2002. The rout erased the stock’s gain for the year and sent phone company peers Verizon Communications Inc. and T-Mobile US Inc. lower.

AT&T said Thursday that it now expects 2022 free cash flow of $14 billion. About $1 billion of the difference was tied to the “timing of customer collections.” The gloomier outlook overshadowed second-quarter results that topped estimates for profit and wireless subscriber growth.

The forecast raises concerns that consumers are pulling back on spending in the face of decades-high inflation. Part of that pressure is that their bills are getting more expensive. AT&T raised prices by $6 a line on older mobile plans in May.

“I’m not surprised to hear consumers are paying bills more slowly; they are already struggling with higher food and energy prices,” said Wolfe Research analyst Peter Supino. “I’m not worried so much for AT&T as I am for the broader consumer economy. You wonder if this is the canary in the coal mine.”

The highest US inflation in four decades has been squeezing household budgets everywhere from the gas pump to the grocery aisle. That has soured people’s view of the economy and forced some to scale back entertainment and other discretionary spending. But wireless has long been considered an essential service, even for low-income Americans, and discounts on phones are still luring them to sign up with AT&T.

The company added 813,000 regular monthly phone subscribers in the second quarter, exceeding the 554,000 average estimate of analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Earnings, excluding some items, topped estimates at 65 cents a share, while analysts were looking for 62 cents. Revenue in the quarter met estimates at $29.6 billion.

Recent price increases and subscriber gains allowed the company to raise its forecast for full-year wireless service revenue growth to a range of 4.5% to 5%, up from at least 3% previously. Even so, those price hikes aren’t fully covering costs, Chief Executive Officer John Stankey told analysts on AT&T’s earnings call.

Stankey said he expects higher bad debt and slower payments to continue. Customers are eventually paying their bills, but they’re “less timely,” he said. On average, customers are taking an extra two days to pay their bills.

AT&T added 316,000 new fiber broadband customers in the quarter, topping the 289,000 added in the first three months of the year, giving the company a total of 6.6 million fiber customers. This marked the first full quarter since AT&T spun off its media and streaming business to Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. so it could focus exclusively on wireless and broadband growth.

AT&T used most of the proceeds from the Discovery deal to reduce its net debt by $37 billion in the quarter to $132 billion.

Webb telescope suffered ‘uncorrectable damage’ in micrometeoroid hit, NASA report says


Addy Bink, Nexstar Media Wire
Tue, July 19, 2022 

(NEXSTAR) – A micrometeoroid caused “significant uncorrectable damage” to NASA’s $10 billion James Webb Telescope, a new report explains. While experts say the impact was small, it has prompted further investigation.

At 21 feet, Webb’s gold-plated, flower-shaped mirror is the biggest and most sensitive ever sent into space. It’s comprised of 18 segments, one of which was smacked by the bigger than anticipated micrometeoroid in May. Micrometeoroids are fragments of asteroids that are usually smaller than a grain of sand, according to NASA.

At the time, Paul Geithner, technical deputy project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center explained it was known that Webb would have to survive the harsh environment of space, including micrometeoroids.

In a newly released report, Webb’s commissioning team said that while the mirrors and sunshields on the telescope are “expected to slowly degrade from micrometeoroid impacts,” the impact to one specific segment, known as C3, “exceeded prelaunch expectations of damage for a single micrometeoroid.”

Despite this, Webb’s team has determined the overall impact on the telescope is small. Engineers were able to realign Webb’s segments to adjust for the micrometeoroid’s damage.

Webb has been hit by at least six micrometeoroids since its December launch, equal to roughly one impact per month, matching expectations, according to their report. The damage to C3, however, has engineers investigating whether the impact was rare, meaning it could happen once every few years, or if Webb is “more susceptible to damage by micrometeoroids than pre-launch modeling predicted.”

They are now working to determine how other micrometeoroids could impact Webb’s mirrors, how many of these asteroid fragments there are, and whether the telescope should be adjusted to spend less time pointing toward orbital motion, where it may be at greater risk of being struck by a micrometeoroid.

Depending on its fuel usage, and expected degradation to the telescope, Webb could survive for more than 20 years, according to engineers. It launched into space in December from French Guiana in South America and reached its lookout point 1 million miles from Earth in January. Then the lengthy process began to align the mirrors, get the infrared detectors cold enough to operate and calibrate the science instruments, all protected by a sunshade the size of a tennis court that keeps the telescope cool.

Webb’s first images, which gave us the deepest view into both time and distance that we’ve ever seen, were released last week. With one exception, the latest images showed parts of the universe seen by other telescopes. But Webb’s sheer power, distant location off Earth and use of the infrared light spectrum showed them in new light.

The plan is to use the telescope to peer back so far that scientists will get a glimpse of the early days of the universe about 13.7 billion years ago and zoom in on closer cosmic objects, even our own solar system, with sharper focus.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This image released by NASA on Tuesday, July 12, 2022, shows the Southern Ring Nebula for the first time in mid-infrared light. It is a hot, dense white dwarf star, according to NASA. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI via AP)


This image provided by NASA on Tuesday, July 12, 2022, shows Stephan’s Quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies captured by the Webb Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). This mosaic was constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files, according to NASA. (NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI via AP)More


This image provided by NASA on Monday, July 11, 2022, shows galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope is designed to peer back so far that scientists can get a glimpse of the dawn of the universe about 13.7 billion years ago and zoom in on closer cosmic objects, even our own solar system, with sharper focus. (NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI via AP)More


This image released by NASA on Tuesday, July 12, 2022, shows the bright star at the center of NGC 3132, the Southern Ring Nebula, for the first time in near-infrared light. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI via AP)


FILE – In this April 13, 2017 photo provided by NASA, technicians lift the mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope using a crane at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The telescope is designed to peer back so far that scientists will get a glimpse of the dawn of the universe about 13.7 billion years ago and zoom in on closer cosmic objects, even our own solar system, with sharper focus. (Laura Betz/NASA via AP, File)More


This image released by NASA on Tuesday, July 12, 2022, combined the capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope’s two cameras to create a never-before-seen view of a star-forming region in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), this combined image reveals previously invisible areas of star birth. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI via AP)More


This combo of images released by NASA on Tuesday, July 12, 2022, shows a side-by-side comparison of observations of the Southern Ring Nebula in near-infrared light, at left, and mid-infrared light, at right, from the Webb Telescope. (NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI via AP)More


FILE – This 2015 artist’s rendering provided by Northrop Grumman via NASA shows the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope is designed to peer back so far that scientists will get a glimpse of the dawn of the universe about 13.7 billion years ago and zoom in on closer cosmic objects, even our own solar system, with sharper focus. (Northrop Grumman/NASA via AP, File)More


This image provided by NASA on Tuesday, July 12, 2022, shows Stephan’s Quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies captured by the Webb Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). (NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI via AP)

Most Americans approve of NASA’s new $10 billion James Webb Telescope, poll says



Joseph Guzman | July 20, 2022

Story at a glance

A recent YouGov poll found most Americans believe the development of the James Webb Space Telescope is a good investment.

The survey also found widespread support for previous space programs.

The telescope will spend the next several decades gathering information and images on the first galaxies that formed in the early universe.

NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope developed to peer into the deepest corners of space cost taxpayers some $10 billion and a new poll suggests Americans believe it was money well spent.

A recent YouGov poll of 1,000 U.S. adults found 35 percent of respondents said the James Webb Space Telescope — which was launched late last year and recently delivered the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe — is a very good investment and 25 percent believed it was a somewhat good investment. Just 13 percent said it was either a somewhat bad or very bad investment while 26 percent were unsure.

The poll was conducted July 14-18 following the release of the first images, which included galaxies billions of lightyears away that formed after the Big Bang.

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The survey also found widespread support for previous space programs. The majority of respondents said the Hubble space telescope, sending astronauts to the moon and sending probes to other planets are worthwhile investments. When it comes to support for NASA overall, 31 percent of Americans said they had a “very favorable” opinion of the space agency and 39 percent said they had a “somewhat favorable” opinion, compared to 14 percent who said they viewed the agency unfavorably.

When it comes to NASA’s budget, 27 percent said it should be increased, 32 percent said it should stay about the same while 14 percent want it reduced and 5 percent said it should be cut entirely.

The James Webb Space Telescope, which is a joint effort by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, is among some of the most costly scientific endeavors in history and has been in development over more than two decades. NASA’s largest and most powerful space telescope was initially supposed to cost much less but a combination of engineering and mismanagement led to delays and higher costs.

The telescope will spend the next few decades gathering information and images on the first galaxies that formed in the early universe.

James Webb Space Telescope Program director credits segregated schools for his success: 'Some of the best teachers in the world'

George Back
·Producer, Yahoo Entertainment
Wed, July 20, 2022 

Fresh off last week’s release of awe-inspiring photos from the James Webb Space Telescope, Program Director Gregory Robinson visited The Daily Show With Trevor Noah on Tuesday. Robinson took over the $10 billion project in 2018 and “got it across the goal line,” as he put it. While the feat would be impressive for anyone, it was especially so for Robinson.

His parents were tobacco sharecroppers in rural Virginia, where he attended a segregated school. While that may seem like a disadvantage, Robinson actually credits that education for his later success.

Noah asked, “Where does that light come from and how did you get into this role?”

“That education in the segregated school was excellent,” Robinson explained. “We had some of the best teachers in the world. Many of them were far more educated than the teachers in other schools because they couldn't get jobs in the industry like they can today.”

While Robinson modestly gave his colleagues at NASA credit for the program’s success, he gave his teachers credit for nurturing his young intellect.

“We had great teachers who really nurtured us and cared about us,” he said. “So my beginnings were very strong.”

Putin faces second war front as Chechens threaten new offensive in Russia


Caitlin McFall
Wed, July 20, 2022

Russian President Vladimir Putin could be facing another war front, this time on his own turf, as one Chechen battalion prepares a second offensive against Moscow, a spokesman for the volunteer fighting force in Ukraine said.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, volunteer Chechen forces joined the fight in support of Kyiv — fueling the flames to a long-held animus towards not only Russia, but Putin.

"We know the enemy’s positions, where Russian military bases are," Islam Belokiev, spokesman for the Sheikh Mansur Battalion, said in a video message obtained by Fox News Digital this week with the help of Ukraine Frontline Media Platform.

"We have divided the Chechen Republic of Icheriya into three fronts and 16 sectors," he added while announcing a plan to once again fight for Chechen independence.

Members of the volunteer Sheikh Mansur Battalion speak to an AFP journalist during an interview on June 9, 2022, in the town of Zaporizhzhia, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo by GENYA SAVILOV/AFP via Getty Images

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Chechen resistance to Russian rule dates back centuries, and calls for independence began more than 30 years ago following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Broad autonomy was granted under a peace treaty signed by then Russian President Boris Yeltsin after a brutal war devastated the republic from 1994-1996.

However, disdain for Putin and a decade of war broke out after he voided the treaty and launched a deadly military campaign in 1999 following his appointment as prime minister by Yeltsin.

Grozny, Russia, besieged by the Russian army in August 1996. 

Photo by Eric BOUVET/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

In an infamous speech that was a prelude to his presidential rise, Putin said, "We will pursue the terrorists everywhere. If we catch them on the toilet, we will wipe them out in the outhouse."

An estimated 160,000 people were killed in both campaigns, though exact figures remain unclear.

At least two volunteer Chechen battalions, including veteran soldiers from both the first and second Chechen wars, have taken up arms against Russia in Ukraine, including the Sheikh Mansur Battalion and the Dzhokhar Dudayev Battalion.

Both groups have been vocal in denouncing the leader of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, who was appointed to the post in 2007 by Putin and has brutally backed his war efforts against Kyiv.

Ramzan Kadyrov proudly displays his shooting skills in front of members of his private army at a firing range in his village of Tsentoroi in Checknya, Russia, in November 2004. 

Photo by Kadyrov Press Office/Getty Images

RUSSIA'S NEED FOR TROOP ‘DISPOSAL’ BEHIND PUSH TO BRING BELARUS INTO WAR, UKRAINIAN OFFICIAL WARNS

A spokesman for the Sheikh Mansur Battalion said the resistance group had divided Chechnya into three sectors and claimed to have begun working with local populations "to uncover the enemy troop movements, type of transport, type of armaments, number of troops and quantity of weapons."

Fox News could not independently verify the claims, but Rebekah Koffler, a Russia expert and former intelligence officer in Russian doctrine and strategy for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), said it could serve as a strategy to distract Putin’s war effort in Ukraine.

"The possibility of them taking advantage of Putin’s forces being tied up in Ukraine to assert their independence is very plausible," she explained.

It is unclear if the Chechen volunteer forces are strategizing with Kyiv by creating a second front, but Koffler noted that even if a second front is not fully launched in Chechnya, it could still strain Putin’s forces.

It would "at least make Putin and the Russians believe that they will have to divert their attention and take eyes off Ukraine, so Ukrainians could launch a counter-offensive," she said. "That’s very clever."