100 Degrees Fahrenheit Is Just a Number
But it sure feels bad.

Alexi Rosenfeld / Getty

By Jacob Stern

THE ATLANTIC

AUGUST 3, 2022

It’s hot outside. It’s been hot outside pretty much everywhere this summer. On five continents. In China, which is less than halfway through a predicted 40 days of extreme heat. In the United Kingdom, which recently set its new all-time heat record. In Seville, which for the first time named a heat wave. (Hi, Zoe.) And in the United States—very recently in Northern California, where a historic drought and the heat have conspired to create ideal conditions for wildfires, and in Oregon, where authorities have preliminarily blamed heat for at least 14 deaths; now in Kentucky, where it will compound deadly flash flooding that has left whole communities without electricity to power air-conditioning or refrigerators, or other relief from the heat; soon in the Northeast.

Many U.S. cities are breaking (or repeatedly breaking) the threshold of triple-digit temperatures. Salt Lake City tied its all-time mark for most consecutive 100-degree days. Boston and Denver each recently broke 100 degrees to set daily heat records. And Newark, New Jersey, did the same—on its fifth straight day in the triple digits.

Read: The world is burning once again

It’s worth keeping in mind that, as the NASA climate scientist Alex Ruane told me, daily temperature records are being broken year-round. For all the news it makes, the 100-degree cutoff is totally arbitrary. (Just ask anyone who doesn’t live in the U.S., the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Liberia, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, or the Marshall Islands—they’ll set you straight.) There’s nothing magical about 100: It’s a big round number that our minds latch on to, a quirk of psychology rather than a fact of physiology. And yet, nonsense or not, 100 degrees feels somehow commensurate with the experience it’s meant to capture. “I think this is the one place where the Fahrenheit scale is better than the Celsius scale, just in terms of resonance,” Daniel Horton, a climate scientist at Northwestern University, told me. “When it hits triple digits, you know it’s bad.” The people seem to agree. “America is wrong about everything except fahrenheit,” the writer Erin Chack tweeted over the weekend. “Farenheit is the correct way to measure temperature. fahrenheit is like ‘man, it’s so hot out. it’s gotta be like.......100 hots.’” The tweet racked up more than 298,000 likes.

That said, assessing actual danger requires a more sophisticated calculus. To do so, scientists who study heat’s effects on the human body, one of whom is the Indiana University professor Zachary Schlader, speak of the limits of “compensability,” which basically means the point at which the body can no longer offset ambient heat and, unable to cool itself, begins to warm internally. This is when the really bad stuff happens: heat cramps, heat exhaustion, heatstroke. The threshold for that depends on a number of factors. Sheer heat matters, but so too do humidity, activity, and your personal risk profile. “The evaporation of sweat is our air conditioner,” Schlader told me. “It’s our most powerful way to get rid of the heat. But it only works if that sweat evaporates.” The more humid it is outside—i.e., the more water vapor there is in the air—the harder it is for sweat to evaporate and the body to cool down. Which is why a triple-digit day in Phoenix, Arizona, can feel so much more pleasant than a double-digit day in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (The heat index works by taking both temperature and humidity into account.)

Activity, too, strains our ability to regulate body temperature, because the more we exert ourselves, the more heat we produce and must then shed. And the longer the heat persists, the more dangerous it gets, Horton told me. The body relies on the nighttime to cool down, and although after-dark temperatures aren’t hitting 100, they’re not dipping as low as they used to either.

Even well below that tolerance threshold, though, heat can do serious damage, Schlader told me. Cooling the body is a major physiological production: The heart and kidneys, in particular, must kick into overdrive. For people with underlying conditions, that extra exertion can turn deadly long before the body hits the theoretical limits of compensability. If you look at hospitalization data, Schlader said, the biggest absolute increases come not in heat illness itself but in heart problems, kidney problems, and dehydration. As a result, we likely underestimate the true toll of some heat waves.

At both an individual and a societal level, we know how to mitigate these threats. Access to air-conditioning is key, but generally, Schlader told me, the people most vulnerable to the heat are also the ones without AC. Electric fans are a good alternative, he said, though only to a point; beyond a certain temperature—as low as 95 degrees, by some estimates—fans do more harm than good. Soaking your shirt or wetting your skin with a sponge may also help, as can drinking cold water. At a societal level, Horton told me, governments can set up neighborhood cooling centers, park buses with air-conditioning on street corners, and offer utility discounts, so that people who have AC are not scared to use it.

When I asked Horton what distinguishes this current American heat wave from the one in Europe I spoke with him about two weeks ago (or, for that matter, the ones last summer or the summer before), his answer was simple: Nothing. “It’s another heat wave, another extreme heat wave, but it’s kind of boring,” he told me. “If these things become so common, they’re just not that interesting.” By that, he did not mean to diminish anyone’s suffering. But when the same thing happens over and over, you run out of new things to say. You lose interest.

That, in short, is our predicament. The heat has become so regular that it no longer interests us—and yet the fact of its regularity is exactly why it should.

Jacob Stern is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Habitual mask-wearing is likely helping Japan, Singapore and South Korea bring daily Omicron deaths down,
epidemiologists say

1 August 2022
RNZ/ABC

As the mask mandate debate rages on, epidemiologists and medical specialists suggest looking to countries where citizens are perfectly happy to wear them to see how powerful the simple infection-control measure can be.

Nearly two-and-a-half years into the Covid-19 pandemic, countries where mask-wearing is a cultural norm are seeing some signs of success as the persistent Omicron sub-variants spread throughout their communities.

University of Otago public health professor and epidemiologist Michael Baker said underlying the widespread acceptance of masks in some counties was a sense of personal responsibility to protect others from Covid-19.

"I'm looking at the countries that appear, on paper, to be keeping their mortality very low - despite having lots of circulating virus, and it's basically the Asian countries, particularly Japan, South Korea, Singapore," he said.

Asia's advantage in taming the impact of Omicron may be its culture of "mass masking". 

Baker said Singapore was a good comparison.

"They did have elimination for a long time, and then they decided that it wasn't compatible for their economic model so they switched to allowing transmission. And, really, they're still keeping case numbers and, particularly, deaths down," he said.

While several infection-control specialists have warned that fatigue around Covid-19 control measures is likely contributing to the spread of Omicron in both Australia and New Zealand, the World Health Organization has urged countries seeing surges in the BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants to accelerate vaccine uptake and bring back mask-wearing.

New Zealand has a much wider mask mandate than Australia but, even if face coverings are required, there is no established culture of wearing them.

Deakin University epidemiologist and associate professor Hassan Vally said wearing masks was just one example of how cultural differences were contributing to Covid-19 success in some Asian countries.

Wearing masks is the norm in countries like South Korea. Photo: AFP

"Clearly there's the uptake of masks in those areas, which is a really positive and useful tool in our toolkit, but I think there are a lot of things going on," Vally said.

"We have a very individualistic culture in the West and it's the mirror image in the East.

"The emphasis rather, [than] being on freedoms and individuality and independence, is on community and unity and looking at things in a holistic way.

"And, so, I think that's a really quite important cultural difference that underpins a lot of the success that has happened in Asian countries."

Mask mandates in Singapore

Masks are required in indoor public places in Singapore. Photo: AFP

In Singapore, there is a requirement for masks to be worn in indoor public spaces, including libraries, markets, shopping centres, schools and weddings.

The bride and groom are allowed to switch their mask for a face shield as the ceremony takes place, but the mandate only allows guests to take their face coverings off while eating and drinking.

Associate Professor Ashley St John - from Singapore's Programme in Emerging Infectious Diseases - said that, largely, there had been acceptance of the rules.

"Mask-wearing is still required indoors [when] outside the home in Singapore, when not actively eating or drinking," she said.

"From my perspective, most are supportive of maintaining this measure."

Just as the population is happy to wear masks, St John noted, there were few barriers to the uptake of vaccines.

"Mask-wearing is effective in limiting the spread of Covid-19, but probably the most important aspect of the response to Covid-19 now, that is lowering Covid-associated deaths, is vaccination," she said.

"Vaccine compliance is high in most Asian countries."

St John said efforts had been made to communicate the evidence behind Singapore's mask policy to the public and there was an understanding that masks worked to limit transmission.

Vally said Australians had made a huge shift in their awareness of masks, but there needed to be clear messaging about what their behaviour should be right now as the country sees more than 100 people a day die from the disease and more than 5000 people admitted to hospital.

"We might not have the level of conformity and social pressure that some Asian countries have, and I think right now there is confusion in the messaging because people seem to think that if the government doesn't mandate it, they don't think it's actually important," he said.

"If there is a time to sort of dust off mask-wearing, it's exactly in this situation as part of pulling out all stops to do the right thing for ourselves and our community to try [to] bring transmission down," he said.

Japanese reminded to take masks off

Tokyo residents were warned about the risk of heat stroke while wearing masks during a heatwave in June. Photo: NANAKO SUDO

In Japan, face masks have come to be known as "face pants".

"It sounds like the throwaway line, but it's actually really important," Vally said.

Such is the social pressure to wear a mask in Japan, residents report being stared at should they venture outside without one.

Japan's laws do not allow the government to order the population to wear masks nor into lockdown, but the country has managed to keep the Covid-19 mortality rate low.

Even as Japan sweltered during a heatwave in May and June, residents did not lose their commitment to outdoor face masks, so much so, the government was forced to issue heat stroke warnings.

Public broadcaster NHK reported that local authorities struggled to convince people to remove their masks during the periods of high heat, with one local governor committing to going mask-free just to set an example.

"Wearing masks has become a daily custom, so people seem resistant to removing them and people also might feel it's difficult to stop wearing them when many around them continue to do so," Miyagi Governor, Murai Yoshihiro, said.

A history of 'mass masking' in South Korea

In pre-Covid times, South Koreans were accustomed to wearing face masks due to seasonal dust that would blow across the country. Photo: AFP or licensors

When South Korea dropped its mandate on outdoor mask usage in May, Reuters reported many people were reluctant to give up the face coverings, due to ongoing Omicron infections.

From there, South Korea managed to bring the number of daily new Covid-19 deaths down, but it is also now dealing with the stickier BA.4 and BA.5 sub-variants.

According to modelling from its Centres for Disease Control, the country will see 200,000 daily confirmed cases from August to October.

"It is one third of the amount of confirmed cases that we experienced with Omicron last year, when we experienced a peak of confirmed cases in Korea," Dr Yujin Jeong told a Covid-19 conference in Sydney last week.

"So what is the main strategy with the new surge in Korea? It is still minimising severe illness in high-risk groups and maintaining our lives."

In recent decades, environmental factors also laid the foundations for the "mass masking" of Koreans, including concerns about pollution and the seasonal Hwangsa phenomenon, which sees dust blow eastward from China, across the Korean Peninsula.

Koreans were quick to turn to masks as an infection-control measure at the outbreak of Covid-19.

Mask-wearing has been "an entrenched feature in the public responses against infectious diseases since the early 20th Century" in South Korea, according to an article published in the East Asian Science, Technology and Society journal in April.

"Now, wearing facial masks was not merely a means for individual protection. It was also an act of social responsibility and solidarity," the authors argued.

Making mask-wearing a habit

Pressure from family and friends can help embed new social norms around mask-wearing, according to research. Photo: AFP / David Gray

Earlier this year, Canadian psychologists conducted research into mask-wearing, looking specifically at how attitudes and behaviours were split along cultural lines.

Their research - which was published in Frontiers in Psychology journal in March - analysed sentiments towards mask-wearing among East-Asian Canadians and non-East Asian Canadians.

"The frequent use of masks may be reinforced by the relatively favourable attitudes [that] Chinese Canadians held toward public mask-wearing, such as perceiving mask-wearers to be respectful and responsible," the findings read.

"In contrast, the early mask use hesitancy among non-East Asian Canadians might be associated with their ambivalent attitudes toward public mask use. Specifically, although some non-East Asian Canadians perceived mask-wearers to be socially responsible, others perceived mask-wearers to be ill, strange and overreacting."

The researchers said cultural and social norms were "a powerful force in shaping health-related behaviours" and recommended policy makers utilise the power of personal connections to bring about long-lasting change.

They said "increased use among one's family, friends, neighbours and colleagues may induce the pressure for one to conform to avoid social disapproval".

In cultures where masks are widely adopted, there appears to be both an individualistic motivation and a responsibility to the greater good.

And the act of wearing a mask is not political, so much as a logical, infection-control measure.

Vally said as well as getting booster shots, wearing a mask was "one of the easiest things we can do" right now to help prevent transmission and to protect vulnerable people.

"With wearing masks and with mandates, it's reached this kind of emotionally charged position where it seems to be a symbol of other things," he said.

"At the end of the day, it's a piece of fabric that you put over your nose and your mouth to act as a bit of a barrier to help us reduce your likelihood of being exposed to the virus or exposing other people to the virus. That's all it is."

- ABC

Clarence Thomas Will No Longer Be Teaching Law at George Washington University After Student Protests

By Rashad Grove
| August 1, 2022

Image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has informed George Washington University (GWU) that he won’t be returning to teach at its law school this fall after student protests, reports NPR.

Thomas has taught the constitutional law seminar at the university since 2011.

“The students were promptly informed of Justice Thomas’ decision by his co-instructor who will continue to offer the seminar this fall,” said GWU spokesperson Joshua Grossman.

Thomas has been under fire by some of the GWU law students after voting to overturn the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade decision, which deemed abortion a constitutional right for Americans.

Since the court ruling,”we have heard from members of our community who have expressed feelings of deep disagreement with this decision,” GWU Provost Christopher Alan Bracey and Law Dean Dayna Bowen Matthew wrote in an email to the university community.

“Justice Thomas’ views do not represent the views of either the George Washington University or its Law School,” Bracey and Matthew said. “Additionally, like all faculty members at our university, Justice Thomas has academic freedom and freedom of expression and inquiry.”

Additionally, the law school cited the school’s guidelines on academic freedom which state that the university should not shield its students from “ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”

Did the US violate Doha accord by taking out Al Qaeda chief Zawahiri?

UMER BIN AJMAL
3 AUG 2022

In a first drone strike since the Taliban took over, the US targeted a key Al Qaeda leader in Afghanistan’s capital city Kabul, raising concerns about whether the attack was in violation of the Doha agreement between the two parties.

Al Qaeda chief Ayman al Zawahiri’s killing in Kabul has sparked a debate whether the Doha agreement, which paved the way for ending America's 20-year war in Afghanistan, will hold and ensure continuation of peace in the war-stricken country.

The United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed on August 1 that Zawahiri was struck by an American drone that killed him instantly. Calling the world “a safer place following the death of Zawahiri”, Blinken also accused the Taliban of violating its peace accord with the US, signed in 2020 in the Qatari capital of Doha, by hosting and sheltering the Al Qaeda supremo.

Was the Doha pledge violated? Here's what experts say.

Obaidullah Baheer, lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan and visiting scholar at The New School in New York City, calls it a "chicken-and-egg problem".

“I think both sides violated the agreement. One in violating Afghanistan’s sovereignty with the attack, and the other by hosting Al Qaeda affiliates and leadership within Kabul,” he says. So, Baheer adds, “the Doha agreement is whatever both parties make it to be.”

The Doha agreement was signed as the US sought to end its 20-year war in Afghanistan, and a joint declaration, comprising four interrelated and interdependent parts, was made public. The declaration spoke about guarantees to prevent the use of Afghan soil by terrorists, timeline of the US withdrawal, intra-Afghan political settlement and a permanent and comprehensive ceasefire.

While the deal explicitly mentions a key commitment on part of Afghanistan to prevent any international terror groups or individuals from using its soil, in the overall context of the agreement, the US drone strike could also be seen as a violation of the ceasefire and in extension a violation of the agreement.

“I guess the Taliban's understanding was if they are not active militarily then it should be fine,” says Baheer, adding that it will have to be seen what the Taliban communicate to the American officials.

However, this isn’t the first occasion when an accusation has been levelled by one party against the other for not upholding the accord.

Consensual act?

Zawahiri’s killing comes at a time when Al Qaeda has lost much of its operational capabilities due to several factors ranging from the loss of much of its senior leadership to lack of funding.

Ashok Swain, professor of peace and conflict research at Uppsala University, thinks it’s unlikely the Taliban were unaware of the US strike.

“I think the Taliban had direct knowledge about the American operation, and also, it had given its consent either directly or indirectly for it,” he says. “Otherwise, it wouldn’t have waited for President Biden’s press conference to issue a formal and mild criticism of it.”

Baheer, too, thinks the messaging on part of the Taliban, which is not too aggressive and appears to be cautious, is worth reading into.

“The Taliban’s response really says a lot,” he says.

“The fact that it hasn’t been too aggressive shows that there is willingness to work towards some sort of understanding and I guess we’ll have to see if both sides can sit down and maybe discuss the appendices to the actual Doha agreement — that were never released (and) had some mechanisms to enforce the deal.”

However, he cautions and says it will have to be seen how both parties react moving forward, but doubts that this is the end of engagement between the US and the Taliban.

The reason Baheer says so is because of late the US and the Taliban have been quite satisfied with each other on the security front. “It’s just that this came very abruptly … so, if both sides do sit down and certain guarantees and mechanisms are provided, (then) maybe this is a one-off thing,” he says.

Swain, too, does not foresee the new-found peace between the two sides getting derailed. “I think it is business as usual,” he says. “Zawahiri was a big name but had been reduced to almost nothing. So, his killing is a win-win for everyone.”

What the Al-Qaeda Drone Strike Reveals About U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan

AARON DAVID MILLER
AUGUST 02, 2022
COMMENTARY

Summary: It was a victory for Biden, but the jihadi threat to United States is not nearly acute as the challenges that ail the nation internally.


Saturday’s U.S. drone strike that killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul, Afghanistan, carries important political and symbolic implications for President Joe Biden’s administration and substantive ramifications for U.S. counterterrorism strategy. Here are some key takeaways.

YES, THE UNITED STATES CAN OPERATE OVER THE HORIZON

In the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan last August, critics charged that the United States would not be able to operate effectively without on-the-ground intelligence, including the deployment of special forces, however limited, to act against terror assets. The U.S. intelligence community warned that a failing Afghan state shaped by the Taliban’s own relationships with terror groups would allow the groups’ presence to grow. And within a year, the number of operatives of both the self-proclaimed Islamic State in Khorasan (IS-K) and the smaller al-Qaeda organization had doubled.

The precision strike against Zawahiri, ensconced in a safe house in Kabul, was a master class in intelligence and operational capacity and an affirmation that U.S. intelligence could still be effective in Afghanistan. The intelligence community had been tracking Zawahiri for months, establishing a pattern of his routine and activity much like the period leading up to the strike on Osama bin Laden in May 2011. And it managed to carry out an operation that reportedly caused no civilian deaths or injuries. The strike was a counter-argument to those who believed a permanent presence on the ground was essential to what President Joe Biden had declared in August 2021 was the only U.S. vital interest in Afghanistan: preventing a terror attack on the homeland. Indeed, Saturday’s strike was a much needed corrective to the failed U.S. drone strike a year earlier against IS-K that killed ten Afghan civilians.

NO, THE TERROR PROBLEM IN AFGHANISTAN HAS NOT BEEN SOLVED

Whether the strike against Zawahiri is part of a trend line of stepped-up U.S. counter-terrorism activity remains to be seen. After all, Saturday’s strike was the first significant operation in Afghanistan since the U.S. withdrawal. And the Zawahiri’s presence in Afghanistan—in a Kabul neighborhood where Taliban officials also resided—reflected the challenge of al-Qaeda’s presence in the country. It’s one thing to plan an operation to eliminate a high-profile target and another to track, infiltrate, and destroy an active cell involved in carrying out specific terrorist operations without an on-the-ground presence and an intelligence network.

It should have come as little surprise that ties between the Taliban and al-Qaeda remain strong. Historical connections run deep, and senior Taliban officials—especially Sirajuddin Haqqani, Afghanistan’s acting interior minister and a U.S.-designated terrorist—have close ties with al-Qaeda leaders. The 2020 Doha agreement commits the Taliban leadership to preventing terrorist activity against the United States from its soil, but attacks by the Pakistani Taliban in Pakistan have increased. And IS-K—a key Taliban adversary with as many as 4,000 members—continues to operate.

The strike against Zawahiri seems all the more impressive in view of the fact that the withdrawal had reportedly weakened U.S. cooperation with partners on the ground, undermined a sustainable foundation to collect intelligence, and eliminated in-country bases of operation. There’s much that we don’t know about how the CIA pulled off this operation, and perhaps its assets in Afghanistan are stronger than believed. In any event, the Taliban is already reeling from international pressure and isolation, and it will face greater pressure to act against remaining al-Qaeda assts. It’s doubtful that it will. Still, the threat to the United States from al-Qaeda in Afghanistan—or even IS-K—is not nearly acute as the challenges that ail the nation internally.

WHAT HAPPENS TO AL-QAEDA

Zawahiri never had the charisma and leadership skills of bin Laden. Reportedly in ill health and in hiding for more than a decade, Zawahiri clearly was not the day-to-day tactician and manager of al-Qaeda operations. More likely, his real significance lay in his ability to keep al-Qaeda’s brand and image intact after bin Laden’s death. Bin Laden might well be satisfied in what al-Qaeda has accomplished in the past decade: while it may not have regained its operational effectiveness after September 11, 2001, it has spread far and wide into local affiliates throughout the Middle East and Africa. Groups such as Hurras al-Din in Syria, al-Shabab in Somalia, and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen are far more capable of carrying out operations against U.S. interests in the areas in which they operate, and they’re perhaps a longer-term threat to planning operations against the United States than al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Indeed, the most likely threat against U.S. interests emanate from ISIS-K in Afghanistan.

As for successors to Zawahiri, it’s not entirely clear. A number of established al-Qaeda senior leaders in Africa and Iran could serve in the role, though it’s possible a struggle might ensue and a new, younger face could emerge. To keep itself viable and demonstrate continuity, al-Qaeda will likely announce the new leader soon.

THE IMPACT ON BIDEN’S POLITICAL FORTUNES

Presidential fortunes ebb and flow, and lately, Biden has had some good news. His alliance management of the war in Ukraine has been as adept as any since the administration of President George H.W. Bush’s handling of the first Gulf War. At home, legislation on gun safety, drug prices, and climate change has improved his image. While Americans more often than not want as little to do with foreign policy as possible, the announcement of the Zawahiri strike will help somewhat counter the chaotic images of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Much of the president’s remarks announcing the strike on Monday centered on fostering the image of a strong president determined to protect Americans and deliver justice to those who have harmed them. Biden’s moving words sought to mark the 9/11 attacks, remember the lost, grieve with the living, honor the troops, and never give up or abandon the effort to protect Americans. It was one of the few moments of the Biden presidency, aside from statements issued in the wake of mass shootings, that the president could speak to the nation as commander in chief seemingly above the political fray. If the past is any guide, Biden is likely to get scant credit in the November midterms.

A NEW DEFINITION OF HOMELAND SECURITY

Killing Zawahiri won’t eliminate the threat from jihadi groups, but it does strengthen the argument that the presence of U.S. forces and bases on the ground, which comes at a severe cost, may well be the best way to guarantee maximum protection of the United States but not necessarily the only way. Since September 11, with one potential exception, there has not been a successful attack organized, directed, and carried out by a foreign terror organization. And while the threat from these jihadi groups demands a robust counterterrorism strategy, the United States can’t allow itself to be guided by a one-dimensional approach to homeland security. The core threats to the United States, including the coronavirus pandemic and climate change, have taken a far greater toll on U.S. security, prosperity, and human suffering than jihadi threats.

And none of this even begins to address an increasingly polarized nation, a dysfunctional political system, and the rise of white nationalist extremist groups and militias—all of which pose a much greater danger to America’s stability, democracy, security, and prosperity than any threat from al-Qaeda or other groups. As vigilant as Washington must be to confront the threats and challenges from abroad, we need to look inward to see where the far greater danger lies.

End of document

Aaron David Miller is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, focusing on U.S. foreign policy.

Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

(CRIMINAL)CYBER CAPITALI$M

Meta is being sued for giving US hospitals a data-tracking tool that allegedly ended up disclosing patient information to Facebook

Samantha Delouya
Aug 2, 2022,

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

A new lawsuit alleges that Meta has used people's medical data without permission for targeted ads on Facebook.

 
This is the second recent lawsuit accusing hospitals of sharing sensitive patient data with Meta.

According to the suit, one person was served ads for her heart and knee conditions based on her hospital patient portal.

A new lawsuit alleges that Meta has access to the private medical data of millions of people without permission and has used it to serve targeted medicine and treatment ads on Facebook.

The suit, which was filed last week in the Northern District of California, is the second such lawsuit that accuses US hospitals of providing Meta with sensitive patient information and violating HIPAA. The Verge originally reported on the suit earlier Tuesday.

The complaint says that these hospitals used Meta's Pixel tool, which then accessed patients' password-protected portals and shared sensitive health information that Meta then sold to Facebook advertisers.

Meta Pixel is a tool that allows businesses to measure and build audiences for ad campaigns.
In June, an investigation by nonprofit newsroom The Markup found that 33 of the top 100 hospitals in America use the Meta Pixel.

The complaint details the experience of one Facebook user who began receiving targeted ads for medication related to heart and knee conditions that she had entered in her private patient portal at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center.

Meta's policy says advertisers should not share data with Meta that they know includes health, financial information, or other categories of sensitive information. However, the lawsuit accuses Meta of knowingly collecting this sensitive medical data from healthcare websites.

Meta declined to provide Insider with a comment for this story.

Meta has come under fire for its data-tracking policies in the past, and Insider has reported that the company is currently building a "basic ads" product that doesn't rely on users' personal information.

Reports: Meta To Stop Paying US Publishers To Put Content In Facebook’s News tab

ByB&T MAGAZINE
3 AUGUST, 2022

Tech giant Meta has reportedly started informing its news partners in the US that the company will stop paying publishers for their content to run on Facebook’s News Tab.

According to US new site Axios, as the company moves forward with big changes to the Facebook experience, news has apparently become far less of a priority.

Insiders have revealed that Meta’s VP of media partnerships, Campbell Brown, had reportedly told staff that the company was shifting resources away from its news products to support more “creative initiatives”

Back in 2019, Facebook brokered a slew of three-year deals with publishers as it ramped up its investment in news and even hired journalists to help direct publisher traffic to its new tab for news.

The deals were set to have cost Zuckerberg a cool $US105 million ($A153 million) and included $US10 million ($A14.4 million) for the Wall Street Journal, $US20 million ($A29 million) for the New York Times, and $US3 million ($A4.3 million) for CNN.

Meta also spent $US90 million ($A130 million) on news videos for the company’s video tab called “Watch”, citing sources, the report said.

A Facebook spokesperson is being quoted by Axios as having said: “A lot has changed since we signed deals three years ago to test bringing additional news links to Facebook News in the US. Most people do not come to Facebook for news, and as a business it doesn’t make sense to over-invest in areas that do not align with user preferences.”

When Facebook first introduced the News tab back in 2019, it promoted the potential of a section with daily top stories “chosen by a team of journalists” that could avoid the pitfalls of other news deed adventures that sometimes boosted fake news, the Instant Articles that publishers didn’t appreciate, or its infamous “pivot to video”.

Kenyan ministers rally around Meta's Facebook after watchdog's ultimatum




Supporters of Kenya's opposition leader and presidential candidate Raila Odinga of the Azimio la Umoja (Declaration of Unity) party attend a campaign rally ahead of the forthcoming general election, in the Rift Valley town of Suswa, Narok county, Kenya July 30, 2022. 

REUTERS/Thomas Mukoya/File Photo

NAIROBI, Aug 1 (Reuters) - Kenya has no intention of shutting down Facebook, which is owned by Meta (META.O), its ICT minister said on Monday after the national cohesion watchdog gave the platform seven days to comply with rules on hate speech or face suspension.

The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) on Friday accused Facebook of contravening Kenya's constitution and laws for failing to tackle hate speech and incitement on the platform ahead of Aug. 9 national elections. read more

"We do not have a plan to shut down any of these platforms," Joe Mucheru, the minister for information, communication and technology, told Reuters. "Press freedom is one we cherish, whether it is (traditional) media or social media."

His statement echoed that of the interior minister, Fred Matiangi, who accused the NCIC of making haphazard decisions over the weekend, and vowed that the platform will not be shut down.

"They (NCIC) should have consulted widely because they don't have the power to shut anybody down. They don't licence anybody," Mucheru said.

When it issued its ultimatum, the NCIC said it was consulting with the Communication Authority of Kenya, which regulates the industry, adding that it would recommend suspension of Facebook's operations if it does not comply.

Meta has taken "extensive steps" to weed out hate speech and inflammatory content, and it is intensifying those efforts ahead of the election, a company spokesperson told Reuters.

Mucheru agreed, adding that the platform has deleted 37,000 hate speech related posts during the electioneering period.

Supporters of the leading presidential candidates, veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga and deputy president William Ruto, have used social media platforms to praise their candidates, persuade others to join them or to accuse opposing sides of various misdeeds.

Some of Kenya's 45 tribes have targeted each other during violence in past polls, but Mucheru said this election is different and the country is enjoying peace and calm in spite of the heightened political activities.

Climate change and the Supreme Court’s version of police abolitionism

BY ANDREW KOPPELMAN, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 

07/31/22 

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, which in June gutted the Biden administration’s ability to reduce the electrical power industry’s carbon emissions, may be the Supreme Court’s most reckless and lawless decision (in an extremely competitive field). The court comes close to anarchism, crippling Congress’s capacity to protect the country from disaster and undermining the fundamental purpose of the Constitution.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, embraced a newly bloated version of the “major questions” rule for interpreting statutes, one that Congress could not have known about when it gave the president the power to create environmental regulations: “there are extraordinary cases . . . in which the history and the breadth of authority that the agency has asserted and the economic and political significance of that assertion provide a reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress meant to confer such authority.” The challenged Obama-era plan would have restructured an entire industry, and Roberts declared that there was “little reason to think Congress assigned such decisions to the Agency.”

If you need a reason, how about the plain words of the statute? Section 111 of the Clean Air Act instructs the EPA to select the “best system of emission reduction” for power plants, as part of its mandate to regulate stationary sources of any substance that “causes, or contributes significantly to, air pollution” and “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”

Roberts says the court should look to the “history and breadth of the authority” asserted by the agency as well as the “economic and political significance” of the regulation, and then speculate as to whether Congress really “meant to confer such authority.” But the best evidence of what Congress meant is the language it enacted.

“The current Court is textualist only when being so suits it,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan, dissenting. “When that method would frustrate broader goals, special canons like the ‘major questions doctrine’ magically appear as get-out-of-text-free cards.” (A few months ago, she made the same point about the court’s invalidation of OSHA’s rules to limit COVID-19 in workplaces.) The court’s decision is already being cited in challenges to regulations of pipelines, asbestos, nuclear waste, corporate disclosures and highway planning.

Roberts observes that the EPA has rarely used its Section 111 power. But statutes don’t disappear because they aren’t being used. They remain in effect until they are repealed. Right now, we are seeing antiabortion laws that have been dead for half a century suddenly spring back into life.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, concurring, offers a more specific account of how one decides what counts as a “major question,” explaining that the first question a court should ask is whether “an agency claims the power to resolve a matter of great ‘political significance.’”

How does a court know what gives a matter great political significance? Gorsuch cites “earnest and profound debate across the country” — not at the time of enactment, but decades later. OSHA’s effort to prevent thousands of COVID-19 deaths was improper because it came “at a time when Congress and state legislatures were engaged in robust debates over vaccine mandates.

I thought I was offering a reductio ad absurdum last January when I wrote that the Supreme Court was making Fox News a source of law. But Gorsuch isn’t even hiding it: If the conservative press raises enough of a fuss to trigger a political fight, then government action that was previously authorized will become illegal.

Congress in the 1970s was under the impression that air pollution and workplace dangers were unquestionably evils, and that creating agencies was the best way to address those threats. The court declared way back in 1819 that Congress has broad discretion to choose the most convenient means for carrying out its powers. Kagan observed: “A key reason Congress makes broad delegations like Section 111 is so an agency can respond, appropriately and commensurately, to new and big problems. Congress knows what it doesn’t and can’t know when it drafts a statute.”

It knew that scientific knowledge would improve. For instance, now we understand that coal – the leading source of water and air pollution— is the worst fossil fuel: When one accounts for the costs it imposes, every unit that is burned has negative economic value. The EPA aimed to have coal provide 27 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2030, down from 38 percent in 2014.

Most Americans once would have been astounded to learn that anyone would ever try to block efforts to contain a pandemic or prevent environmental catastrophe. The court’s decision reflects the growing influence of libertarianism, which thinks that liberty means a government that is small and weak. Libertarians have been unable to think clearly about environmental harms. That’s why, for all their purported cold rationality, they are drawn to daffy climate change denialism and, more recently, antivaxx ideology. The libertarians’ capture of the Republican Party is so complete that its members will not give President Biden a single vote for his climate plan. Actually, from a libertarian standpoint, the effects of climate change involve clear violations of property rights that the state must remedy: One isn’t permitted to devastate other people’s land.

The slogan “abolish the police,” embraced by some on the left, is foolish because it focuses on government dysfunction while failing to notice what government is for. The court has now embraced its own form of reckless anarchism — and at the worst possible time. In the midst of a deadly plague and worsening climate catastrophe, it has blocked Congress’s ability to choose the tools it deems most effective — and left unclear what Congress or the EPA is now allowed to do to protect the human race from impending disaster.Nuclear deterrence: Actions speak louder than wordsBiden administration rebrands, pushes chemical abortions at cost of women’s health care

Gorsuch presumes that an agency exceeds its authority when it “seeks to regulate‘ a significant portion of the American economy,’” or “require ‘billions of dollars in spending’ by private persons or entities.” Both he and Roberts tell us, in effect, that the bigger the problem, the less capacity Congress has to address it by delegation. This is like a weirdly selective form of police abolition that abolishes only the homicide squad or yanks police out of high-crime neighborhoods.

There have always been some Americans who did not like the Constitution, who thought that it created government that was too powerful. In 1788 they almost prevented it from being ratified. Most voters, however, have repeatedly rejected the radical libertarian notion that liberty means a government too feeble to solve the nation’s most urgent problems. They voted that way when the Constitution was adopted, and again when Congress created these agencies. Today’s Supreme Court perversely interprets law as if the Constitution’s opponents had won.

Andrew Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law at Northwestern University, is the author of “Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed” (St. Martin’s Press, forthcoming). Follow him on Twitter @AndrewKoppelman.

Robot cooks are rapidly making their way into restaurant kitchens


Todd Wasserman@TODDWASSERMAN

WED, AUG 3 2022

KEY POINTS

Robots have been making their way into kitchens nationwide as the technology becomes cheaper and finding workers becomes harder.

Chipotle, Wing Zone, and White Castle are just some of the restaurant chains investing in robotics.

Stellar Pizza, founded by former SpaceX engineers, built a touchless machine that fits in the back of a truck that can make pizzas in under a minute.



A White Castle team member next to Miso Robotics’ Flippy.
Courtesy: Miso Robotics


Before the end of this year, a brand-new pizza purveyor plans to hit the Los Angeles area. But this isn’t just another pizza place.

This company plans to serve pizza from trucks and the pies themselves are put together not by humans but by robotics developed by former engineers from SpaceX. The machine can produce a pizza every 45 seconds.

Benson Tsai, who founded Stellar Pizza in 2019 along with fellow SpaceX engineers Brian Langone and James Wahawisan, got about two dozen former SpaceX employees to build a touchless pizza-making machine that fits in the back of a truck.

Stellar isn’t the first company to conceive of robot-made pizza, and the early track record for the business model includes one notable failure. Softbank-backed Zume Pizza, which was once valued at $4 billion, shuttered its robot pizza delivery business in January 2020 and has since pivoted to making compostable packaging.


VIDEO13:19
These robots turn waste into compostable packaging


Entrepreneurs are not giving up on the robot pizza concept. Chef Anthony Carron’s 800 Degrees Go of Cleveland, which specializes in wood-fired cooking, and robot-based artisanal pizza maker Piestro of Santa Monica, Calif., have a venture to use robotic pizza machines at bricks-and-mortar and ghost kitchen locations in what they say will be a lower cost restaurant model. They plan to have 3,600 machines deployed in the next five years.

The trend has moved far beyond pizza as well, with Miso Robotics, the maker of the Flippy 2 — a robot arm that works the fryer at fast-food restaurants — already deployed at Chipotle, White Castle and Wing Zone. It’s being introduced to the Middle East market as well through a partnership with Americana, a franchisor and franchisee with over 2,000 restaurants in the region including KFC, Hardees and Pizza Hut.
Robot chefs becoming “commonplace”

Jake Brewer, Miso Robotics’ chief strategy officer, said such machinery will soon be commonplace in restaurants.

“I believe that if anyone wanted to, they could go see a robot working in a restaurant in 2024, 2025,” Brewer said. “You can go see robots cooking right now and that’s only going to grow week over week.”

Chipotle Mexican Grill worked with Miso Robotics to customize the “Chippy” robot, which cooks and seasons Chipotle’s chips with salt and fresh lime juice. The robot is trained to recreate the exact recipe using artificial intelligence.

As of March, Chipotle was testing the robot at its innovation hub in Irvine, California, the Chipotle Cultivate Center. The company plans to use it in a restaurant in Southern California later this year and will determine if it will roll it out nationally.

“Right now, the general sense is that there’s going to be a lot more robots,” said Dina Zemke, assistant professor at Ball State University. She said in the past adding robotics to the staff was prohibitively expensive, but now there are more companies making kitchen-ready robots, which is helping to drive prices down.

A finished pepperoni pizza exiting a machine made by Stellar Pizza, a robotics-powered mobile pizza restaurant created by a team of former SpaceX engineers
Medianews Group/long Beach Press-telegram | Medianews Group | Getty Images

Fast-food preparation is made for robotics. “The recipes are highly standardized. And really, it’s mostly heating an assembly,” Zemke said. “No one’s creating just the right secret sauce in the back of the house; all of that is provided through a commissary system.”

Wing Zone, a 61-unit chain, is perhaps the most robotics-friendly fast-food restaurant right now. In May, the chain expanded its relationship with Miso Robotics. Wing Zone has been testing Flippy 2 in the last step of the wing-frying process and is using its Wing Zone Labs arm to develop fully automated Wing Zones.

Lack of restaurant staff aids robotics push

Part of the adoption is driven by an inability to find workers. The National Restaurant Association reported last year that 4 in 5 operators are understaffed, and overall employment in the leisure and hospitality category that includes restaurant staffing has been the most challenged since the pandemic, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

A recent report from Lightspeed found that 50% of restaurant owners plan to install automation technology within the next two or three years.

For Chipotle, it’s not about replacing workers but allowing them to complete more impactful tasks than repetitive things like making chips.

“It started with, ‘How do we remove some of the dreariness of a worker standing at the fryer and frying chip basket after chip basket?’” Chipotle chief technology officer Curt Garner told CNBC earlier this summer. “It allows our crew to spend more time doing culinary tests, serving guests,” he said.

Clemson University professor Richard Pak, an expert on the use of autonomous technology, said automation works better for food that is cheap. “When you’re paying for it, when you’re paying more, you’re paying for experience and artistry and experience,” he said. “And so I don’t know if these kinds of robots would be acceptable in higher-end restaurants. People would wonder what they’re paying for.”

Yet there is some trepidation in the broader restaurant market as well. A recent poll by Big Red Rooster found that a third of diners don’t want to see robots preparing their food.

For Stellar founder Tsai, the robotics are a means to an end: making sure that the company can deliver an affordable pizza pie that customers like. While pricing has not been finalized, he said the target price is “definitely sub-$10.” A 12-inch pie of cheese pizza will run about $7, Tsai said.

The plan for Stellar, which has raised $9 million in funding, includes national expansion.

“The pizza market is a big, big market and as we sort of establish a foothold here in Los Angeles we will start to grow and expand outwards towards Las Vegas, towards Phoenix, towards Texas,” Tsai said.

Steve Bannon confirms Trump's 'deconstructing' government plan for 2024

Conservative podcaster Steve Bannon confirmed the news that former President Donald Trump has a plan to "deconstruct" conventional government in his second term.



A federal jury, after less than three hours of deliberation, found Bannon guilty of contempt of Congress on Friday for his refusal to answer a subpoena from the House committee investigating January 6. As soon as the verdict was in, Bannon ran straight to Fox News to guest on a segment of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" that had the vibe of an alt-right party at 4AM, when the old head is ranting while the young ones try to figure out how to buy more cocaine with crypto.

"I support Trump and the Constitution and if they want to put me in jail for that, so be it," Bannon raved, swearing revenge on the January 6 committee.

Bannon, as usual, is using bluster to intimidate the legal authorities out of holding him accountable for his role in Donald Trump's attempted coup and his ongoing efforts to overturn democracy. Clearly, he wants them to envision Adolf Hitler in the 1920s, when he used his time in prison after the Beer Hall Putsch to write "Mein Kampf" and gather more support for the fascist cause. Bannon wants law enforcement to see him as a martyr for Trumpism, someone whose speckled visage will become an icon of the movement that will rally supporters, creating even more momentum for 21st-century American fascism.

No one should feel intimidated. Steve Bannon is not Adolf Hitler and this is not 1920s Germany, despite many admittedly alarming parallels between now and then. For one thing, Hitler was a healthy man in his mid-thirties, one who had actually put himself in the fray during the attempted insurrection. Bannon, on the other hand, is a decrepit 68-year-old. Despite all of his big talk behind the microphone, Bannon has yet to actually put himself in any physical danger for his fascist beliefs. More importantly, Bannon's been declaring for months that he will be a martyr for the cause and that attempts to hold him accountable will only make him stronger. So far, the opposite has been happening, and there's no reason to think things will change if or when Bannon sees the inside of a prison cell.

There's a lesson in this that could be applied to the entire pantheon of Trumpist leaders: They talk a big game, but if they face real consequences, they turn out to be paper tigers.

If only more of them were actually prosecuted for their crimes, we'd find a mob of Steve Bannons. Behind the microphone, they are mighty warriors. But when facing actual consequences, they've got nothing.

When Bannon was first arrested, his bluster about how he was going to turn this into a recruitment opportunity for his fascist cause was genuinely frightening. After all, Bannon is a talented propagandist. With Trump's help, he was able to remake the GOP in the image of the site he used to run, Breitbart. So when he started to paint a picture of how he would use this trial to champion his cause, much as Hitler used his trial for treason to build up his public image, smart people were reasonably worried. Salon's own Heather "Digby" Parton even wrote at the time that "being indicted for defying Congress is the best thing that ever happened to him" and that Bannon may "turn any trial into a spectacle in order to foment more chaos."

I'm not blowing up Digby's spot, I hope. I'm sure she's as grateful as I am that none of this happened. As she wrote more recently of Bannon's efforts to escape consequences, "Usually arrogant and full of bravado, Bannon does seem to be scrambling."

Bannon didn't use the trial as he initially envisioned, as an opportunity for grandiose speech-making, à la Hitler in 1924. Unlike Hitler, who had a sympathetic judge, Bannon found himself facing a judge who wasn't interested in fascist grand-standing. Instead, Judge Carl Nichols was so effective at shutting down the defense's trollish hijinks that Bannon's lawyer complained, "What's the point in going to trial here if there are no defenses?" Eventually, the defense went with a failed "no defense" strategy of offering no witnesses or evidence, which is just as well, because Bannon probably didn't have any worth considering.

During last Thursday's January 6 hearing, the committee played a video that showed the aftermath of Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and his infamous raised fist encouragement of the January 6 insurrectionists. The video shows Hawley running for his life from the rioters after they breached the Capitol. The choice to play the video was largely received by the press as gratuitous mockery of Hawley, though most everyone agrees he deserves it.

Presenting the evidence against Trump has weakened his hand.

In truth, the committee was likely doing something both sly and profound with the video: Reminding both the public and, crucially Attorney General Merrick Garland, that if you peel back the bravado of authoritarian bullies like Hawley and Bannon, you'll find empty-headed cowardice. It underscores why it's important not to be intimidated by the braggadocio, but instead to take these folks head on. Often, as with Bannon, one finds that they don't simply don't have some secret reserve of power to draw on, just hot air.

Bannon's not even the first example of this.

During the coup itself, Trump's lawyer Sidney Powell loved to brag into any microphone stuck in her face that she planned to "unleash the Kraken," i.e. bury Joe Biden's electoral victory in so many lawsuits that Biden's win would simply crack in half and, presto bingo, Trump would be able to stay president. But it turns out that you can't sue an electoral victory into oblivion like you're dealing with a contractor you stiffed on a bill. Trump's team did, in fact, file a dizzying number of lawsuits, and one by one, they all failed to make a dent in Biden's victory. Now Powell is facing a defamation lawsuit and she's been frozen out by Trump, who has no loyalty to return to those who serve him.

We see a similar situation play out, over and over again, with the people who actually rioted at the Capitol on January 6.

As has been remarked on by many at length, the insurrectionists ended up creating most of the evidence used to convict them, by filming themselves and posting the videos and photos of the riot online. Flush with white privilege and high on Trump's encouragement, most of these folks didn't stop to consider the possibility of consequences for their actions. As they are churned through the court system and found guilty of their crimes, they often blubber in disbelief, the fascist warrior front dissolving to reveal the crybaby underneath.

Of course, as the Capitol insurrection shows, these folks are indeed very dangerous, if their violent impulses and authoritarian longings remain unchecked.

Listen: Steve Bannon cheers Trump plan to axe thousands of government employees

Conservative podcaster Steve Bannon cheered the news that former President Donald Trump has a plan to "deconstruct" government departments in his second term — stacking them with thousands of Trump appointees.

Axios reported over the weekend that Trump has a "radical plan" for his second term, which threatens the jobs of 50,000 government employees. The plan would involve "purging potentially thousands of civil servants and filling career posts with loyalists to him and his 'America First' ideology," and go beyond traditional government appointments to government agencies.

Bannon — recently convicted of defying a Congressional subpoena to testify to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attacks — seemed defiant and energized by aggressive plans for a potential Trump second term.

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On Monday, Bannon and former Trump adviser Steve Cortes were gleeful that the plan had been revealed publicly.

"You have to deconstruct it," Bannon said of the government. "You have to take it apart brick by brick."

"It gets my deplorable blood going on a Monday morning to hear Jonathan Swan talk about a purge," Cortes exclaimed while Bannon laughed. "A purge of the administrative state. Of course, he means that to be an exposé, to be a hit on our movement. We took it exactly the opposite and wear it as a badge of honor."

"It tells me that, yes, Jonathan Swan recognizes that there is a plan in place," he continued, "that this second Trump term is going to be far more consequential than the first one."

"This is taking on and defeating and deconstructing the administrative state," Bannon said.

Bannon also claimed that he is planning a one-hour special to prepare "4,000 shock troops" to be ready to take over the government. Bannon has spoken about a plan to "deconstruct" the government before, including in an October interview with NBC News.

"If you’re going to take over the administrative state and deconstruct it, then you have to have shock troops prepared to take it over immediately," Bannon quipped to NBC News. "I gave 'em fire and brimstone."

The length of Earth’s days has been mysteriously increasing, and scientists don’t know why

The Conversation
August 05, 2022

Sun and Earth (Shutterstock)

Atomic clocks, combined with precise astronomical measurements, have revealed that the length of a day is suddenly getting longer, and scientists don’t know why.

This has critical impacts not just on our timekeeping, but also things like GPS and other technologies that govern our modern life.

Over the past few decades, Earth’s rotation around its axis – which determines how long a day is – has been speeding up. This trend has been making our days shorter; in fact, in June 2022 we set a record for the shortest day over the past half a century or so.

But despite this record, since 2020 that steady speedup has curiously switched to a slowdown – days are getting longer again, and the reason is so far a mystery.

While the clocks in our phones indicate there are exactly 24 hours in a day, the actual time it takes for Earth to complete a single rotation varies ever so slightly. These changes occur over periods of millions of years to almost instantly – even earthquakes and storm events can play a role.

It turns out a day is very rarely exactly the magic number of 86,400 seconds.

The ever-changing planet

Over millions of years, Earth’s rotation has been slowing down due to friction effects associated with the tides driven by the Moon. That process adds about about 2.3 milliseconds to the length of each day every century. A few billion years ago an Earth day was only about 19 hours.

For the past 20,000 years, another process has been working in the opposite direction, speeding up Earth’s rotation. When the last ice age ended, melting polar ice sheets reduced surface pressure, and Earth’s mantle started steadily moving toward the poles.

Just as a ballet dancer spins faster as they bring their arms toward their body – the axis around which they spin – so our planet’s spin rate increases when this mass of mantle moves closer to Earth’s axis. And this process shortens each day by about 0.6 milliseconds each century.

Over decades and longer, the connection between Earth’s interior and surface comes into play too. Major earthquakes can change the length of day, although normally by small amounts. For example, the Great Tōhoku Earthquake of 2011 in Japan, with a magnitude of 8.9, is believed to have sped up Earth’s rotation by a relatively tiny 1.8 microseconds.

Apart from these large-scale changes, over shorter periods weather and climate also have important impacts on Earth’s rotation, causing variations in both directions.

The fortnightly and monthly tidal cycles move mass around the planet, causing changes in the length of day by up to a millisecond in either direction. We can see tidal variations in length-of-day records over periods as long as 18.6 years. The movement of our atmosphere has a particularly strong effect, and ocean currents also play a role. Seasonal snow cover and rainfall, or groundwater extraction, alter things further.

Why is Earth suddenly slowing down?

Since the 1960s, when operators of radio telescopes around the planet started to devise techniques to simultaneously observe cosmic objects like quasars, we have had very precise estimates of Earth’s rate of rotation.


Using radio telescopes to measure Earth’s rotation involves observations of radio sources like quasars. NASA Goddard.

A comparison between these estimates and an atomic clock has revealed a seemingly ever-shortening length of day over the past few years.

But there’s a surprising reveal once we take away the rotation speed fluctuations we know happen due to the tides and seasonal effects. Despite Earth reaching its shortest day on June 29 2022, the long-term trajectory seems to have shifted from shortening to lengthening since 2020. This change is unprecedented over the past 50 years.

The reason for this change is not clear. It could be due to changes in weather systems, with back-to-back La Niña events, although these have occurred before. It could be increased melting of the ice sheets, although those have not deviated hugely from their steady rate of melt in recent years. Could it be related to the huge volcano explosion in Tonga injecting huge amounts of water into the atmosphere? Probably not, given that occurred in January 2022.

Scientists have speculated this recent, mysterious change in the planet’s rotational speed is related to a phenomenon called the “Chandler wobble” – a small deviation in Earth’s rotation axis with a period of about 430 days. Observations from radio telescopes also show that the wobble has diminished in recent years; the two may be linked.

One final possibility, which we think is plausible, is that nothing specific has changed inside or around Earth. It could just be long-term tidal effects working in parallel with other periodic processes to produce a temporary change in Earth’s rotation rate.

Do we need a ‘negative leap second’?

Precisely understanding Earth’s rotation rate is crucial for a host of applications – navigation systems such as GPS wouldn’t work without it. Also, every few years timekeepers insert leap seconds into our official timescales to make sure they don’t drift out of sync with our planet.

If Earth were to shift to even longer days, we may need to incorporate a “negative leap second” – this would be unprecedented, and may break the internet.

The need for negative leap seconds is regarded as unlikely right now. For now, we can welcome the news that – at least for a while – we all have a few extra milliseconds each day.

Matt King, Director of the ARC Australian Centre for Excellence in Antarctic Science, University of Tasmania and Christopher Watson, Senior Lecturer, School of Geography, Planning, and Spatial Sciences, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Revealed: Joe Manchin's price for supporting the climate change bill
Pro Publica
August 05, 2022

Screengrab.

From his Summers County, West Virginia, farmhouse, Mark Jarrell can see the Greenbrier River and, beyond it, the ridge that marks the Virginia border. Jarrell moved here nearly 20 years ago for peace and quiet. But the last few years have been anything but serene, as he and his neighbors have fought against the construction of a huge natural gas pipeline.

Jarrell and many others along the path of the partially finished Mountain Valley Pipeline through West Virginia and Virginia fear that it may contaminate rural streams and cause erosion or even landslides. By filing lawsuits over the potential impacts on water, endangered species and public forests, they have exposed flaws in the project’s permit applications and pushed its completion well beyond the original target of 2018. The delays have helped balloon the pipeline’s cost from the original estimate of $3.5 billion to $6.6 billion.

But now, in the name of combating climate change, the administration of President Joe Biden and the Democratic leadership in Congress are poised to vanquish Jarrell and other pipeline opponents. For months, the nation has wondered what price Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin would extract to allow a major climate change bill. Part of that price turns out to be clearing the way for the Mountain Valley Pipeline.

“It’s a hard pill to swallow,” said Jarrell, a former golf course manager who has devoted much of his retirement to writing protest letters, filing complaints with regulatory agencies and attending public hearings about the pipeline. “We’re once again a sacrifice zone.”

The White House and congressional leaders have agreed to step in and ensure final approval of all permits that the Mountain Valley Pipeline needs, according to a summary released by Manchin’s office Monday evening. The agreement, which would require separate legislation, would also strip jurisdiction over any further legal challenges to those permits from a federal appeals court that has repeatedly ruled that the project violated the law.

The provisions, according to the summary, will “require the relevant agencies to take all necessary actions to permit the construction and operation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline” and would shift jurisdiction “over any further litigation” to a different court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

In essence, the Democratic leadership accepted a 303-mile, two-state pipeline fostering continued use of fossil fuels in exchange for cleaner energy and reduced greenhouse emissions nationwide. Manchin has been pushing publicly for the pipeline to be completed, arguing it would move much needed energy supplies to market, promote the growth of West Virginia’s natural gas industry and create well-paid construction jobs.

“This is something the United States should be able to do without getting bogged down in litigation after litigation after litigation,” Manchin told reporters last week. He did not respond to questions from Mountain State Spotlight and ProPublica, including about the reaction of residents along the pipeline route.

ProPublica and Mountain State Spotlight have been reporting for years on how a federal appeals court has repeatedly halted the pipeline’s construction because of permitting flaws and how government agencies have responded by easing rules to aid the developer.

The climate change legislation, for which Manchin’s vote is considered vital, includes hundreds of millions of dollars for everything from ramping up wind and solar power to encouraging consumers to buy clean vehicles or cleaner heat pumps. Leading climate scientists call it transformative. The Sierra Club called on Congress to pass it immediately. Even the West Virginia Environmental Council urged its members to contact Manchin to thank him.

“Senator Manchin needs to know his constituents support his vote!” the council said in an email blast. “Call today to let him know what climate investments for West Virginia means to you!”

But even some residents along the pipeline route who are avidly in favor of action against climate change say they feel like poker chips in a negotiation they weren’t at the table for. And they are anything but happy with Manchin. “He could do so much more for Appalachia, a lot more than he is, but he’s chosen to only listen to industries,” farmer Maury Johnson said.

It’s not clear exactly when the Mountain Valley Pipeline became a focal point of the efforts to win Manchin’s vote on the climate change legislation. Reports circulated in mid-July that the White House was considering giving in to some Manchin demands focused on fossil fuel industries. That prompted some environmental groups to urge Biden to take the opposite route, blocking the pipeline and other pro-industry measures.

Pipeline spokesperson Natalie Cox said in an email that it “is being recognized as a critical infrastructure project” and that developers remain “committed to working diligently with federal and state regulators to secure the necessary permits to finish construction.” Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC, the developer, is a joint venture of Equitrans Midstream Corp. and several other energy companies.

The company “has been, and remains, committed to full adherence” with state and federal regulations,” Cox added. “We take our responsibilities very seriously and have agreed to unprecedented levels of scrutiny and oversight.”

The White House and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Mountain Valley Pipeline is one of numerous pipelines proposed across the region, reflecting an effort to exploit advances in natural gas drilling technologies. Many West Virginia business and political leaders, including Manchin, hope that natural gas will create jobs and revenue, offsetting the decline of the coal industry.

To protect the environment, massive pipeline projects must obtain a variety of permits before being built. Developers and regulators are supposed to study alternatives, articulate a clear need for the project and outline steps to minimize damage to the environment.

In Mountain Valley Pipeline’s case, citizen groups have successfully challenged several of these approvals before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In one widely publicized ruling involving a different pipeline, the panel alluded to Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax,” saying that the U.S. Forest Service had failed to “speak for the trees” in approving the project. The decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, but not before the project was canceled.

The 4th Circuit has ruled against the Mountain Valley Pipeline time and again, saying developers and permitting agencies skirted regulations aimed at protecting water quality, public lands and endangered species. In the past four years, the court has found that three federal agencies — the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management — illegally approved various aspects of the project.

While those agencies tweaked the rules, what Manchin’s new deal would do is change the referee. In March, Manchin told the Bluefield Daily Telegraph that the 4th Circuit “has been unmerciful on allowing any progress” by Mountain Valley Pipeline.

Then, in May, lawyers for the pipeline petitioned the 4th Circuit to assign a lawsuit by environmental advocates to a new three-judge panel, instead of having it heard by judges who had previously considered related pipeline cases. Among other things, the attorneys cited a Wall Street Journal editorial, published a week earlier, declaring that the pipeline had “come under a relentless siege by green groups and activists in judicial robes.”

Lawyers for the environmental groups responded in a court filing that Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC was just “dissatisfied that it has not prevailed” more often and was unfairly lobbing a charge that the legal process was rigged. The 4th Circuit rejected the company’s request.

It is unclear whether this pending case, which challenges a water pollution permit issued by West Virginia regulators, would be transferred if the Manchin legislation becomes law.

Congress has intervened in jurisdiction over pipeline cases before. In 2005, it diverted legal challenges to decisions on pipeline permits from federal district courts to the appeals court circuit where the projects are located. The move was part of a plan encouraged by then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s secretive energy task force to speed up project approvals. (Under the Constitution, Congress can determine the jurisdiction of all federal courts except the U.S. Supreme Court.)

Besides the pipeline, Manchin has cited other reasons for his change of heart on the climate change bill. He has emphasized that the bill would reduce inflation and pay down the national debt.

Approval for the pipeline may not be a done deal. Both senators from Virginia, where the pipeline is also a hot political issue, are signaling that they don’t feel bound by Manchin’s agreement with the leadership. Manchin’s own announcement said that Democratic leaders have “committed to advancing” the pipeline legislation — not that the bill would pass. Regional and national environmental groups are walking a fine line. They support the climate change legislation while opposing weakening the permit process.

The pipeline’s neighbors say they’ll keep fighting, but they recognize that the odds are against them. “You just feel like you’re not an equal citizen when you’re dealing with Mountain Valley Pipeline,” Jarrell said.