Same-Sex Parents in Italy Ask What's Next After Meloni's Win



Chiara Albanese
Wed, September 28, 2022 at 9:00 PM·3 min read

(Bloomberg) -- Soon after Giorgia Meloni’s landslide win in Italy’s election, members of the Rainbow Families association of same-sex parents joined a heated email chain about the potential impact of the incoming right-wing government.

The subject line read: “Now what?”

Meloni has signaled to voters and investors that she will govern as a moderate. But the 45-year-old leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party opposes abortion and believes family is comprised by the union of a man and a woman, and LGBTQ people are far from reassured.

Already, Italy lags behind much of Europe in protecting their rights, placing near the bottom of one recent ranking — along with countries like Hungary and Poland which have cracked down their LGBTQ communities.

That’s largely because successive Italian governments have failed to introduce hate crime laws that cover sexual orientation and gender identity, and to recognize same-sex parents as families.

Marriage equality legislation has stalled in Italy, despite chiding from the European Union. So while same-sex couples have been able to enter a civil partnership since 2016, they still are not allowed to marry, meaning there is no automatic co-parent recognition.

These families are cut off from social benefits, help with school costs, paid parental leave and other state aid.

Same-sex parents seeking joint adoptions and legal recognition for their children must go to court (a lengthy and costly process which has become common in Italy) even though the Constitutional Court has urged parliament to legislate on the matter.

Meloni says she has no plans to overturn the civil union law, but has no interest in improving the legal situation for LGBTQ people, either. “You already have civil partnerships, what else would you ever want?” she said during a campaign rally after an activist jumped on stage to plead for more rights.

Earlier, in June, Meloni warned against the power of what she called the “LGBTQ lobby.”

There are some other dark clouds on the horizon.

Brothers of Italy backs a legal proposal to label surrogacy a universal crime. And in September, Federico Mollicone, who oversees cultural affairs for the party, pushed the state broadcaster not to air an episode of children’s tv show Peppa Pig featuring a family with two mothers. He claimed that Italy bans same-sex unions.

“We are about to face an even more challenging period for the LGBTQ community in Italy, which will face a lack of legal protection,” said Alexander Schuster, a university researcher and a lawyer member of Rainbow Families.

“We expect the elections to impact on the attitude of individual judges and of local administrators, which often place undue burdens upon gay parents,” Schuster said. “The shift towards a conservative attitude had already started, for instance at the Supreme Court, but could get worse.”

It’s difficult to know exactly how many families are affected as data is scarce and Italy’s last official census dates back about 10 years.

“The ideology is very clear, and against our families,” says Andrea Rubera, a father of three with his husband Dario De Gregorio. “It will be harder to talk about diversity, inclusion and different kind of families in schools. That leaves me embarrassed, and without an answer when I am asked by my daughter why for the state we are not a family.”

The hope for parents on the email chain is that Meloni means it when she says she will be a moderate prime minister. But even if she is, without progress, Italy won’t feel like a safe country for them.

May 15, 2021

The Sad Truth About How Italian Politics Are Holding Up LGBTQ Rights

Chiara Albanese and Alessandra Migliaccio, Bloomberg News

BC-The-Sad-Truth-About-How-Italian-Politics-Are-Holding-Up LGBTQ-Rights , Chiara Albanese and Alessandra Migliaccio

(Bloomberg) -- For Giada Buldrini it wasn’t the one act of homophobia that turned her into a full-time activist. It came from being a girl never feeling safe to hold hands with another girl in public, to having to go overseas to be able to have children with another woman and to waking up at the age of 34 to death threats in her inbox for daring to be a lesbian and a mother.

“Until you read one, you can’t imagine what it’s like,” says the former postwoman from Rimini of the many menacing messages she’s received.

That this happened in a smugly liberal corner of Italy that was also one of the touchstones of the resistance to the Nazis, is a reminder of how far behind even core members of the European Union are on LGBTQ issues. Italy ranks lowest in western Europe for gender equality and a bill that criminalizes violence and hate speech targeting a person’s sexual orientation or identity has kicked off protests this weekend as to why, three years after it was first presented, something so basic is still so controversial.  View this post on Instagram A post shared by Giada_Buldrini (@duemammetrefigli)

The law is in parliamentary limbo, with conservative senators arguing it would limit free speech and damage traditional Roman Catholic family values. In the meantime, Spain has overhauled its constitution to accept same-sex marriage while Poland moved the opposite way, creating  LGBTQ-free zones. Italy is stuck in a frustrating middle, unwilling to embrace root-and-branch change yet shocked by the culture wars in Eastern Europe that are not so far removed from its own existential struggles.

“Italy needs to understand where it stands: it’s either with the EU, where civil rights are also part of a positive business environment, or with Poland and Hungary,” says Alessandro Zan, the 47-year-old openly gay Democratic Party lawmaker who introduced the bill, in an interview in Rome. 

Calls for its passage have been growing since a horrific assault in March when a gay couple was beaten after kissing in a metro station in Rome. A video of the incident shows the mens’ attacker running across the train tracks toward them before repeatedly punching and kicking them, while shouting “are you not ashamed of yourselves?” The footage drew outrage after it was broadcast on local television, but usually such incidents garner less attention, and they’re not recorded in any official data as hate crimes.

Zan has achieved quasi-rockstar status in Italy. He recently staged a one-hour Instagram Live with Fedez, a popular rapper who supports the law and has 12 million followers. And during a demonstration in Milan, he walked alongside Francesca Pascale, the ex-fiancee of Silvio Berlusconi who drew tasteless headlines for dating women.

Whether you love him or hate him comes down to which side of the ideological divide you fall on. By and large, the center-left back him while the center-right won’t. And yet, there are signs of a shift in the status quo. Alessandra Mussolini, the right-wing granddaughter of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, endorsed him by posting an Instagram selfie with ‘Zan’ written on her palm. View this post on Instagram  A post shared by Alessandra Mussolini (@alemussolini_)

A complicating factor is the Catholic Church based in Rome. 

Pope Francis was heralded as the best hope for liberals, but in all of this the Vatican has repeated that it cannot bless same-sex unions and has come out against the Zan law. That’s given Matteo Salvini’s League, the most popular party in the country, yet more reason to hold steadfast in its opposition. Mario Draghi, the current prime minister, is unelected and with a strict mandate to fix the post-pandemic economy before stepping aside after a year or two from now when Italians will go to the ballots.

Salvini has been a vocal opponent of LGBTQ rights, denying the children of same-sex unions to have the name of both parents on national ID cards when he served as interior minister. Andrea Ostellari, the League senator who heads the justice commission that oversees the approval process for social rights bills, has yet to even schedule a debate. He says the issue is too divisive and not as pressing as say, animal rights. 

Even if a debate were to start immediately, the bill’s passage could take months.

The electorate meanwhile is more divided than one would think, with about 68% of Italians saying that gay, lesbian or bisexual people should have the same legal rights compared to heterosexuals, compared to 98% in Sweden, 88% in Germany and 85% in France, according to a European Commission survey from 2019.

There is ambivalence to the Zan law even among the community it wants to protect. Put simply, some just don’t think it goes far enough and are tired of settling for less. 

Though Italy approved same-sex civil unions in 2016, it still denies same sex couples the right to both register as parents of their children — and in the absence of a national law on the matter each city interprets existing legislation differently, creating confusion damaging to both parents and children. For example, two women married in the EU who decide to have a child in Turin or Palermo may be able to both officially register as parents of the baby, whereas in Rome only the woman giving birth will be considered the mother.

And just outside the capital, near the airport of Fiumicino, city hall was allowing registrations until judges in nearby Civitavecchia questioned the practice, leading to panic and hefty legal costs for the families who’d already signed up. Italy’s Constitutional Court said “the continued legislative inertia is no longer tolerable.” 

“Much more needs to be done and quickly, in particular for children,” says Monica Cirinnà, the Democratic Party lawmaker who battled for the civil union law yet freely admits that it was hopelessly flawed.

There are things that don’t just affect the LGBTQ community. If you’re a single heterosexual woman who wants to have a child on her own, artificial insemination is out of the question unless you have the means to pursue it outside of Italy. Buldrini and her partner wound up travelling to Spain to conceive. After their return, and even after the birth of their twins, they still chose not to enter into a civil partnership.

“For a family,” says Buldrini, “it adds duties without rights.”

‘Reason to worry’: Italy's Meloni holds a mirror to Trump's GOP


Domenico Stinellis/AP Photo

Andrew Desiderio
Thu, September 29, 2022

U.S. conservatives are rallying behind Italy’s newly elected far-right prime minister — praise that highlights the Trumpification of GOP foreign policy doctrines and the fragility of the Western coalition against Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Giorgia Meloni’s deep ties to the American right are unusual for a foreign leader: She counts Steve Bannon as an ally and has spoken twice at U.S. conservatives’ premier annual gathering. Statements of support for Meloni’s victory have come almost exclusively from U.S. Republicans, while as of Wednesday President Joe Biden had yet to offer the far-right firebrand his congratulations.

Embracing Meloni, who hasn't yet officially assumed the role, could be a risky play for Republicans. Her party, Brothers of Italy, espouses staunchly anti-immigration policies with a rallying cry against “globalists,” and its previous iteration has roots in neo-fascism. Meloni’s government is shaping up as Italy’s most far-right in the history of the republic formed after the demise of Benito Mussolini, the fascist dictator she once praised.

As Donald Trump’s “America First” foreign policy opens rifts among U.S. conservatives over continued aid to Ukraine, with the former president signaling a desire to stop funding Kyiv, the GOP boost for Meloni runs the risk of emboldening the party's MAGA wing against more establishment voices who want to continue aiding Ukraine. Some of Meloni's coalition partners have allied with Vladimir Putin in the past and, more recently, refused to condemn his brutal invasion.

But if GOP lawmakers are nervous about allying with a future prime minister who has said that immigration “deprives nations and people of their identity” — while opposing new mosques in Italy — they’re not showing it.

“Global elites are crying in their granola because yet another conservative populist was elected,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who praised Meloni’s “spectacular” victory speech. “And across the globe, we see battles between the socialist left — the arrogant elites who want to control people’s lives — and the populist uprising pressing back against it.”

Cruz then illustrated the tricky line that pro-Meloni conservatives must walk by underscoring the importance of Western unity on cutting off Russian energy sources. With winter fast approaching and fuel prices skyrocketing across Europe, keeping Italy and other nations on board with that may not be easy.

Meloni, 45, has sought to moderate her views recently, and this week she tweeted support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Yet as Europe teeters on the brink of a recession stemming at least partly from energy sanctions imposed on Russia, there are fears within the Biden administration and elsewhere that Meloni could slash what's been a significant Italian contribution to Ukraine’s defense.

Such a move could have a domino effect and cause key Western allies to push for a negotiated end to Russia's war on Ukraine. Trump backed that position Wednesday, one Ukraine’s leaders vehemently oppose because it would likely require giving up large swaths of their territory to Putin.

“Like anything with a new administration, you’ve got to see how they act, not what they say,” said Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who recently traveled to Italy for an economic conference. “You can be conservative in your country but not necessarily carry out a foreign policy that’s conservative. If she were to carry out the equivalent of Trump’s foreign policy, that’d be a reason for concern.”

The pandemic briefly halted the rise of far-right parties throughout Europe, Italy included, making Meloni’s victory the strongest evidence in years that the populist movements across the continent — many of which are allied with Trump — are alive and well. Those same populist parties are strengthening their ties to like-minded politicians across the Atlantic.

That at least partially explains Meloni’s celebrity status to some Republicans who’ve watched her espousal of traditional values and family-oriented social conservatism propel her past campaign messaging. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who favors what he calls the “nationalist” approach of Trump and other conservative foreign leaders, said in a brief interview that he's read her recent speeches and found her “very intriguing.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who often aligns himself with the Trump wing of the GOP on foreign policy, said Meloni’s victory speech over the weekend “had me cheering.”

“To me, it was encouraging,” added Paul. “I think people probably reacted in an unfair way to her. For goodness' sake, calling the woman Mussolini is a little bit over the top.”

Some of Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress, like Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), also cheered Meloni’s victory. Others, like Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, simply offered their congratulations.

Establishment Republicans aren’t saying much — yet — but there are private fears that Meloni’s win could embolden more pro-Trump colleagues to push to cut off funding for Ukraine.

Democrats, meanwhile, had mixed reviews. They were reassured when Meloni tweeted her vow to continue Italy’s “loyal support for the cause of freedom of Ukrainian people.” But they vowed to stay clear-eyed about the new prime minister's reaction to the economic headwinds on the horizon this winter as the effort to economically and diplomatically isolate Putin goes on.

Financial pressures on European governments have given oxygen to populist politicians more likely to redirect Ukraine funds to domestic causes — an acute worry for the Biden administration as it works to keep the Western coalition intact.

Some Democrats are more optimistic than others about Meloni.

“Until recently, the idea that a party with its roots in post-Second World War neo-fascism would be leading the government in Italy was unthinkable,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said. “But I don’t think it is the disaster for the EU or NATO coalitions that has been predicted in some settings.”

While Meloni has sought to reassure jittery allies, her record — and her pro-Trump alignment in the U.S. — affirms her potential willingness to reconsider Italy’s strong support for Ukraine. Some in Washington also fear that she could go the more authoritarian route of other far-right leaders in Europe, like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said the Biden administration should have “reason to worry about the Italian government’s seriousness moving forward on Russia policy,” especially given Meloni’s alignment with Trump allies.

Then again, Murphy was equally skeptical about the U.S. maintaining its level of support for Ukraine if Republicans take control of one or both chambers of Congress in November, given Trump’s influence and efforts to defeat previous Ukraine aid packages.

YouTube Removes Incoming Italian Prime Minister Meloni’s Passionate Speech on Family Breakdown

NATIONAL REVIEW CONSPIRACY THEORY; CONSERVATIVES CENSORED ON UTUBE

National Review
Wed, September 28, 2022


YouTube appears to have removed a version of a 2019 speech delivered by incoming Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni that focused on the ongoing leftist assaults on the family unit, God, and national identity.

As of Wednesday, the platform scrubbed the video, leaving a notice: “This video has been removed for violating YouTube’s Community Guidelines.” However, other copies of the video of Meloni’s address at the World Congress of Families in Verona remain on the site.

The video went viral after Meloni’s Monday victory at the head of a right-wing coalition that captured 44 percent of the Italian electorate.

Youtube has maintained that it can restrict videos that feature “spam and deceptive practices,” “sensitive” material such as nudity, suicide, or vulgar language, “violent or dangerous content” such as “hate speech” or “harassment,” “regulated goods” such as firearms, and misinformation relating to elections, Covid-19, vaccines, etc. The company did not specify which rule Meloni’s speech broke.

In her passionate nationalistic message, Meloni, then leader of Italy’s right-wing Brothers of Italy party, railed against the progressive forces in her country that have sought to dismantle the family, tradition, objectivity, biology, and other foundations of society.

“They said it’s scandalous for people to defend the natural family founded on marriage, to want to increase the birth rate, to want to place the correct value on human life, to support freedom in education, and to say no to gender ideology” she declared. She repudiated the accusations that the World Congress of Families represents a step backward for Italy, saying leftists, who she said protested and tried to censor the event, are the regressive ones.

Meloni slammed surrogacy, which she called “degrading and abusive of women,” late-term abortion, and child gender transition hormone therapy. She called the low birth rate one of the “biggest problems facing Europe.”

“The embarrassing ones are those who support practices like “womb for rent,” abortion at nine months, and blocking the development of children with drugs at eleven years of age,” she said.

She rejected the claims that her party is anti-woman, pointing to the fact that she ran for mayor of Rome while pregnant, for which she was intensely criticized. Instead, she said her party is offering a compassionate, pro-human platform that contends that modernity has left women struggling and dissatisfied.

They are fighting for the “right of a woman to be a mother and not have to give up working as a result,” she said. “The right to be a mother, choose not to work, and not starve to death as a result. The right of a woman forced to have an abortion because she has no alternatives.” 

NO WOMAN IS FORCED TO HAVE AN ABORTION

THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE

THE ORIGINAL ITALIAN FEMINIST MOVEMENT

Scientists May Have Just Discovered a Lake on Mars

Jeffrey Kluger
Thu, September 29, 2022 

Mars

Mars captured during a flyby of the planet by the comet-chasing Rosetta spacecraft. The south Martian pole could harbor a buried lake. Credit - Getty Images

The Mars that was and the Mars that is are two very different things. Three or so billion years ago, the Red Planet was awash with water, as now-dry riverbeds, deltas, and ocean basins reveal. But when the planet lost its magnetic field, it lost its protection from the solar wind, which stripped away much of the planet’s atmosphere and allowed most of its water to escape to space.

But the key here is “most.” There is plenty of water, in the form of ice, locked up in Mars’s polar caps—about the same amount as exists in Earth’s Greenland ice sheet. For exobiologists looking for possible life on Mars, water is essential—but only in its liquid state, so ice is kind of a dealbreaker. Now, however, a new study In Nature Astronomy suggests that in the south Martian pole at least, there may be a lake buried beneath the ice. It could measure as much as 30 km (18 mi.) across and is kept warm by geothermal heating, similar to the kind generated on Earth by radioactive isotopes or subsurface magma.

One clue to the possible presence of water beneath Mars’s south pole came from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express orbiter, which conducted radar soundings in 2018 of a region in the ice cap known as Ultimi Scopuli. The scans revealed an area that was highly reflective in a frequency consistent with a large deposit of liquid water. On Earth, such a finding beneath an ice cap would not be at all uncommon. The overlying weight of thick ice sheets often creates enough pressure to generate heat, leading to ice liquefying deep below the surface.

But there were two problems with the Mars Express findings. For one thing, the frigid temperatures at the Martian poles ought to be enough to overcome the heating caused by pressure, keeping the ice solid all the way through. Additionally, there are other materials that reflect in a frequency similar to water’s—including metal bearing minerals and hydrated clays—suggesting that the Mars Express findings might simply be an illusion.

But Mars Express wasn’t the only Martian satellite surveying Ultimi Scopuli. So too was NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor. During the course of its mission, which lasted from 1997 through 2006, that satellite took the measure of the region using not ground-penetrating radar, but a laser altimeter—and that scan revealed something intriguing. Stretching across a 10 to 15 km (6.2 to 9.3 mi) expanse of Ultimi Scopuli was a distinct surface undulation—with the ice dipping as low as 4 m (13 ft.) below the surrounding terrain and at the other end rising 7 m (22 ft.) above it.

That up and down pattern has analogs on Earth, where buried bodies of water—like Antarctica’s subsurface Lake Vostok—display precisely the same undulating pattern in the overlying ice, caused by upstream and downstream water flow. The question of just what is going on beneath the ice in Ultimi Scopuli has lingered since the twin spacecraft took their twin sightings, but now, an international team of researchers led by physical geographer Neil Arnold of the University of Cambridge has taken on the mystery and come to the conclusion that the south pole of Mars is indeed home to a liquid lake.

The investigators based their findings not on any new sightings taken at Mars, but on computer modeling. Beginning with the data returned by the two satellites, they plugged in multiple variables—including simulations of subsurface friction that would be caused by either solid ice or a body of water; varying depths of the theoretical subsurface lake; and the amount of geothermal heat beneath the surface of Mars in recent geological history. No matter how they ran their variables, the likeliest scenario the model spit out was that there is indeed a lake beneath Ultimi Scopuli’s ice, one that has been kept warm by geothermal heating.

“The combination of the new topographic evidence, our computer model results, and the radar data make it much more likely that at least one area of subglacial liquid water exists on Mars today, and that Mars must still be geothermally active in order to keep the water beneath the ice cap liquid,” said Arnold in a statement that accompanied the study’s release.

What implications this could have for life on Mars are unknown. But multiple worlds in the solar system—especially Jupiter’s Moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus—harbor comparatively warm liquid oceans, where exobiologists believe the simple recipe of chemistry plus thermal energy plus time might have been sufficient for the basic mechanics of biology to have gotten started. In October 2024, NASA will launch the Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will make multiple flybys of the Jovian moon to gather new data on Europan geology, chemistry, and more.

No such close-up missions of the Martian poles are planned for now, but Arnold, for one, does see studies like his offering the next best thing. “The quality of data coming back from Mars, from orbital satellites as well as from the landers, is such that we can use it to answer really difficult questions about conditions on, and even under the planet’s surface,” he says. “It’s exciting to use these techniques to find out things about planets other than our own.”

 

Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Charles Dutoit

NASA spacecraft buzzes Jupiter moon Europa, closest in years



NASA-Europa Flyby

This illustration depicts NASA's Juno spacecraft making one of its close passes over Jupiter. Juno made the closest approach to Jupiter’s tantalizing, icy moon Europa in more than 20 years on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022. (NASA via AP)

MARCIA DUNN
Thu, September 29, 2022 

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s Juno spacecraft has made the closest approach to Jupiter’s tantalizing, icy moon Europa in more than 20 years.

Juno on Thursday zipped within approximately 219 miles (352 kilometers) of Europa, thought to have an ocean flowing beneath its thick frozen crust, raising the possibility of underwater life. Scientists hailed the flyby as a success, with four pictures beamed down and released within several hours.

Scientists had hoped to observe possible water plumes shooting from the surface of Europa, close in size to Earth's moon. But none were immediately visible in the initial look.

“We have to be at the right place at just the right time," Juno's chief scientist, Scott Bolton of Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in a statement.

John Bordi, deputy mission manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, expected the spacecraft to go “screaming by pretty fast,” with a relative velocity of almost 15 miles per second (23.6 kilometers per second).

The first photo from the flyby is a closeup of Europa's equatorial region, crisscrossed by ridges, troughs and possibly an impact crater.

The latest observations will help NASA plan for its Europa Clipper mission, due to launch in 2024 and arrive at the Jovian system in 2030. The European Space Agency also plans close encounters with its Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer, or Juice, lifting off next year.

NASA's former Galileo spacecraft still holds the Europa flyby record, passing within 218 miles (351 kilometers) in 2000.

Side-by-side images from flybys of Europa show close-up views of Jupiter's icy moon over 20 years



Paola Rosa-Aquino
Thu, September 29, 2022 

Raw image of Europa by NASA's Juno spacecraft, on September 29, 2022.NASA / SwRI / MSSS

NASA's Juno probe zipped by Jupiter's icy moon Europa on Thursday.

Researchers observed Europa's surface and the ocean underneath the moon's icy crust.

Astronomers say the new data will inform future missions to the moon to study its subsurface ocean.

On Thursday morning, NASA's Juno spacecraft flew within 219 miles of the surface of Europa, a large icy moon that orbits Jupiter. It's humanity's closest look at the frozen world in more than 20 years.

The Juno mission launched in 2011 to study Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. After it successfully completed its primary mission in 2021, the Juno team used the probe to learn about Jupiter's moons, including Europa, Ganymede, and Io.

An image of Jupiter's moon Europa captured by the Juno spacecraft, on October 16, 2021.NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS. Image processing: Andrea Luck CC BY

During Thursday's flyby, Juno made important observations about Europa, including taking high-resolution images of its surface. Juno's visit follows NASA's Galileo spacecraft, which last flew by Europa in 2000.

"This first picture is just a glimpse of the remarkable new science to come from Juno's entire suite of instruments and sensors that acquired data as we skimmed over the moon's icy crust," Scott Bolton, Juno principal investigator, said in a press release.

The first raw images from Juno's close approach to Europa started beaming back to Earth Thursday afternoon. The fresh snapshots, along with decades-old images taken by the Galileo spacecraft, provide important insights about the frozen world.
Europa, two decades after our last visit

At 5:36 a.m. ET, the spacecraft made its closest approach to Europa, zipping by 219 miles above the surface. Juno was in Europa's shadow, but sunlight reflecting off Jupiter provided enough light for the probe's camera to capture images.

On the left, an approximate natural color image of Europa taken by the Galileo spacecraft. On the right, raw images of Europa taken by Juno.

NASA/JPL/DLR/SwRI / MSSS

The above left image, taken by Galileo in 1997, is an approximate natural color image of Europa and showcases the stunning diversity of Europa's surface geology. Above right is a raw image of the Juno probe looking toward Europa on September 29. Both images show long linear cracks and ridges traversing the moon's surface.

After processing the new images, researchers hope comparing them to images of Europa from previous missions could reveal how the icy moon has changed over decades.

"The science team will be comparing the full set of images obtained by Juno with images from previous missions, looking to see if Europa's surface features have changed over the past two decades," Candy Hansen, a Juno co-investigator who leads planning for JunoCam, the probe's visible light camera, said in a press release.

"The JunoCam images will fill in the current geologic map, replacing existing low-resolution coverage of the area."

Europa has an ice shell, which is thought to be between 10 and 15 miles thick. Astronomers believe a salty ocean, estimated to be 40 to 100 miles deep, is hidden beneath its thick icy surface. That's a big deal in our search for life beyond Earth, since liquid water is one of the essential ingredients for all living organisms.

Juno is equipped with powerful instruments that can peer beneath Europa's ice crust, gathering data on its composition and temperature, according to NASA.

Colorized image of Europa's surface, taken by Galileo in 1997.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute

In the close-up image above, taken by the Galileo spacecraft in 1997, you can see Europa's surface crisscrossed with cracks along its icy exterior. Previous missions spied plumes of water vapor erupting through that frozen shell. The Juno team is still processing images from Thursday's flyby, but scientists hope they captured plumes shooting from Europa's surface.

What Juno learns from the flyby could inform future missions, including NASA's Europa Clipper probe, which is set to launch in 2024 to obtain more data on the ocean beneath its icy crust and how it interacts with the surface.

"Thanks to the ingenuity of the navigation team, Juno's trajectory was adjusted to cross the Jovian moon's orbit at the right time, giving us very valuable data for the Europa Clipper mission!" Gregory Dubos, Systems engineer for the Europa Clipper mission, tweeted on Thursday.

That mission may help scientists determine whether the interior ocean exists and if the moon has the potential to be habitable for life.

OUTSOURCING IN SPACE
NASA and SpaceX are studying sending a private crew to boost Hubble’s orbit




Aria Alamalhodaei
Thu, September 29, 2022 

SpaceX and NASA have signed a new agreement to study the feasibility of sending a commercial crew in a SpaceX Dragon to boost the orbit of the Hubble Space Telescope. If completed, the mission could extend the operational lifespan of the telescope by as much as 20 years.

NASA officials cautioned that today’s news is not a mission announcement. For now, it’s just a feasibility study to consider whether such a mission is sensible, given technical and other constraints. Indeed, one might assume that an uncrewed space tug might be best suited for an orbital boosting mission, and there are plenty of space startups working on that kind of technology. But apparently the mission was SpaceX’s idea, and for some reason, they (and their partner, Jared Isaacman’s Polaris Program) want humans involved.

The agreement starts to make more sense with NASA’s acknowledgement that the mission, should it go forward, would come at no cost to the government. NASA and SpaceX are also each funding their participation in the study, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate Thomas Zurbuchen said during a media briefing, though he didn’t specify how much the study will cost.

One of the main goals of the six-month feasibility study is to explore how a crewed Dragon capsule, possible under the aegis of a Polaris Program mission, could safely rendezvous and dock with Hubble, and then boost the Hubble Space Telescope to a higher orbit. While SpaceX has plenty of experience docking with the International Space Station, SpaceX’s VP of customer operations and integration Jessica Jensen acknowledged that Hubble represents an entirely different challenge.

“Hubble’s different,” she said. “It’s in a different orbit, different mass, different vehicle […] it will all be unique to the telescope.”

The feasibility study, which will be predominately technical but will also consider cost and schedule, might determine that an uncrewed mission is more appropriate, Jensen added. “At this point, everything is on the table,” she said.

It seems likely that the mission would be part of the Polaris Program, a private spaceflight program headed by Jared Isaacman, the billionaire that flew to space on the Inspiration4 mission. That mission, which was conducted in partnership with SpaceX, was estimated to cost less than $200 million. Isaacman, who made his fortune from the payment processing company Shift4 Payments, footed the bill.

Hubble recently lost its place as the world’s most famous space telescope, after the newer and more powerful James Webb Space Telescope released its first images this summer. But Hubble’s contributions to science over its 32-year lifespan are arguably immeasurable: The telescope has made more than 1.5 million observations and helped generate material for more than 19,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers, Patrick Crouse, Hubble project manager, said.

But Hubble has not been immune to Earth’s gravity. Since the last servicing mission in 2009, it’s lost about 30 kilometers of altitude, dropping from around 565 kilometers to just under 535. This mission could provide 40-70 kilometers of boost, which could add 15 or even 20 years to the Hubble’s operational life, Crouse said. Should a reboosting mission not take place, Hubble may need to be de-orbited by the end of this decade.

The news is notable not just as the latest sign that the space agency is increasingly turning to commercial partnerships to execute essential missions. It also shows that NASA is theoretically open to working with private, non-astronaut crews, too.

“Alongside NASA, exploration is one of many objectives for the commercial space industry, and probably one of the greatest exploration assets of all time is the Hubble Space Telescope,” Isaacman said. “It’s absolutely exciting to think about extending the life and capabilities of one of our greatest explorers.”

NASA and SpaceX to investigate whether Crew Dragon spaceship could drag Hubble Space Telescope further from Earth

Morgan McFall-Johnsen
Thu, September 29, 2022 

The Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990 and has provided humanity a front-row seat to the cosmos for more than three decades.NASA

NASA, SpaceX, and a billionaire flying on the Crew Dragon spaceship are conducting a study together.

They're investigating whether Crew Dragon could drag the Hubble Space Telescope to a higher orbit.

The reboost maneuver would extend the telescope's lifetime, potentially for decades.

NASA and SpaceX are working together to see if the company's Crew Dragon spaceship could grab the Hubble Space Telescope and drag it into a higher orbit.

If Hubble were further from Earth, its lifetime could be longer. The observatory's eventual death will occur when it loses so much altitude that it succumbs to gravity and falls to Earth. Hubble has already lost about 55 miles of altitude. At that rate, NASA expects it will deorbit in the mid-2030s.

But SpaceX has offered to investigate the possibility of sending one of its Crew Dragon spaceships to grab Hubble and pull it to a higher orbit — a reboost maneuver.

Crew Dragon approaches the International Space Station, on April 24, 2021.NASA

Neither SpaceX nor NASA could say how exactly the reboost would work. That's why they're conducting the six-month feasibility study.

"We're excited to be looking again at new and innovative ways to keep our mission at the forefront of scientific discovery," Patrick Crouse, Hubble Space Telescope project manager, said in a briefing announcing the study on Thursday.

Crouse estimates the maneuver could extend Hubble's life by 15 to 20 years.

Jared Isaacman, a billionaire who flew to space aboard a Crew Dragon last year, was in the press conference and will participate in the study. Isaacman recently purchased three flights on SpaceX vehicles for a program called Polaris. The first mission would take Isaacman and a few others, aboard Crew Dragon, to the highest Earth orbit ever flown by humans. They plan to conduct the first ever commercial spacewalk, donning new SpaceX spacesuits and exiting the vehicle.

When asked in the briefing whether one of his Polaris missions would do the Hubble reboost, Isaacman said "I think we cross the bridge on who's ultimately flying it if the study ultimately supports embarking on a mission."

Jared Isaacman at SpaceX in Hawthorne, California.SpaceX/Business Wire via AP Photo

Still, he said, "this would certainly fit within the parameters we established for the Polaris program."

There's a chance SpaceX and NASA will find it's a bad idea, though.

"We don't want to do something that's going to put Hubble at risk at all," Jessica Jensen, vice president of customer operations and integration at SpaceX, said in the briefing.

NASA is not paying SpaceX to conduct the study. It's not clear whether SpaceX or Isaacman will cover the costs.

NASA is also open to proposals from other companies that might want to perform the reboost, though none of its commercial partners have yet expressed an interest in doing so.

SpaceX and Isaacman said there's a chance the effort could be done with "little or no potential cost to the government."

NASA used to fly astronauts to Hubble to conduct repairs to the Earth-orbiting telescope. But those missions have not been possible since the agency retired its Space Shuttles. The last Hubble servicing mission was in 2009.

Seven astronauts on the Space Shuttle Endeavour replaced a malfunctioning mirror on the Hubble Space Telescope in December 1993.NASA

In recent years, Hubble encountered a series of issues that took it offline for weeks at a time. Even if it never falls out of orbit, eventually its hardware would decline.

Water crisis tests Mississippi mayor who started as activist


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Water Woes Mississippi Mayor

 Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba participates in a forum about the challenges Mississippi's capital city faces with a declining tax base and crumbling infrastructure, Nov. 14, 2013. Lumumba, who died Feb. 25, 2014, had served a term as city councilman and helped spearhead a 1% local sales tax to fund infrastructure improvement. His son Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, credits his parents for instilling in him a value system he employs with his work. 

(AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
Thu, September 29, 2022

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The mayor of Mississippi's capital was 5 years old when his parents moved their family from New York to Jackson in 1988 so that his father, who had been involved in a Black nationalist movement in the 1970s, could return to the unfinished business of challenging inequity and fighting racial injustice.

“Instead of shielding their most precious resource, their children, from the movement or movement work, they felt that they would give us to it,” said Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, now 39.

Lumumba describes himself as a “radical” who is “uncomfortable with oppressive conditions.” A Democrat in his second term as mayor, he faces a high-pressure leadership test as Jackson struggles to consistently produce a basic necessity of life — safe, clean drinking water.

The city has had water problems for decades. Most of Jackson was recently without running water for several days after heavy rains exacerbated problems at a water treatment plant. For a month before that happened, the city was under a boil-water notice because state health officials found cloudy water that could cause illness. Thousands of people lost running water during a cold snap in 2021.

Jackson’s population and tax base eroded as mostly white middle-class residents started moving to the suburbs about a decade after public schools integrated in 1970. More than 80% of Jackson’s 150,000 residents are Black. The city’s poverty rate of 25% is almost double the national rate.

“I see a community that has often been left out of the equation, that has been treated disproportionately in terms of equity of resources,” Lumumba told The Associated Press. “And so I believe that it is imperative that someone stand up for them and someone speak to those issues.”

Emergency repairs are being done at Jackson's two water treatment plants. Water pressure has been restored. And although Republican Gov. Tate Reeves announced Sept. 15 that people can once again drink water from the tap after seven weeks of the boil order, the state health department says pregnant women or young children should take precautions because of lead levels previously found in some homes on the Jackson water system.

Lumumba’s supporters say the mayor cares deeply for Jackson but faces opposition from Republican state leaders, and he inherited extensive problems from previous city administrations, including an unreliable billing system that has undercut revenue for repairs and maintenance.

Critics, though, say Lumumba has failed to provide clear leadership — allowing dangerous levels of understaffing at the treatment plants, obscuring concerns raised by the Environmental Protection Agency and not providing detailed budget proposals for fixing the water system.

Othor Cain, a Jackson radio host, is among the critics. Cain taught Lumumba in Sunday school at a Methodist church when Lumumba was young. He described the mayor as “a nice guy” and a talented orator. But he said Lumumba has not surrounded himself with strong managers and has faltered in building work relationships with other elected officials.

“You can’t blame him for the age-old water system and the age-old infrastructure,” Cain said. “But you can blame him from 2017, when he was elected, for doing nothing.”

Robert Luckett, a civil rights historian, was appointed by Lumumba to serve on the Jackson school board. Luckett said he respects the mayor and believes he's doing a good job. Like many friends and acquaintances, Luckett calls Lumumba by his middle name.

“When Antar first ran for mayor and lost, and then ran and won, there was an idealism to his campaign that was the hallmark of early-career politicians,” Luckett said. “In his first term as mayor, the shine on that idealism was kind of taken off a little bit.”

Republicans control the Mississippi Legislature and all statewide offices. Lumumba and most other Jackson officials are Democrats. The mayor and Gov. Reeves rarely talked before Jackson’s latest water crisis, and they’ve only made a few appearances together since it started.

The day after announcing the end of the boil-water notice in Jackson, the governor spoke at the opening of a business in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

“I've got to tell you, it is a great day to be in Hattiesburg. It's also, as always, a great day to not be in Jackson,” Reeves said. “I feel I should take off my emergency management director hat and leave it in the car, and take off my public works director hat and leave it in the car.”

Lumumba is an attorney and has been a community organizer. He said he’s able to work with people who have different vantage points.

“If you can only organize people who think like you, you’re not much of an organizer,” he said.

Lumumba is the second person in his family to be mayor of Jackson. The man he calls his hero, his father Chokwe Lumumba, was elected mayor in 2013 after serving four years on the city council. Chokwe Lumumba persuaded Jackson voters to approve a 1% local sales tax to fund infrastructure improvements. He died in 2014, after less than nine months in office.

The elder Lumumba, a Michigan native, had lived in Mississippi in the 1970s and was active in a Black nationalist organization, the Republic of New Afrika. After he practiced law in the North for several years, he and his wife, Nubia, moved their family back to Mississippi.

The younger Lumumba said he spent part of his childhood working at Jackson's Malcolm X Grassroots Center for Self-Determination and Self-Defense. He said the center had summer programs for young people, offering them political lessons and leisure activities such as swimming.

“I’m grateful to my parents for giving me that value system in my work today,” Lumumba said.

After his father died, the younger Lumumba ran unsuccessfully in a special mayoral election in 2014.

He won his first term as mayor in 2017 and easily won a second term in 2021. Lumumba said as he was growing up and earning a law degree, he did not aspire to become mayor but prayed God would use him to do big work.

“I believe that the Lord keeps our prayers stored up in vials and they’re like a sweet-smelling aroma to him,” said Lumumba, who attends a nondenominational Christian church. “So, the prayer that I made at like around 8 years old, He remembered and I think that is why I’m in position here.”

Corey Lewis of Gulfport, Mississippi, said he and Lumumba are best friends. They met in 2001 when Lewis was a student at Tougaloo College and Lumumba was graduating from Jackson's Callaway High School.

“He cares about the city of Jackson — like, that is a passion,” Lewis said. “We could be out having fun or going on a trip and he’d be like, ‘Man, I just don’t know what I’m going to do about this situation.'"

Cain, though, said he thinks leading a city is a larger job than the current Mayor Lumumba anticipated.

“I just believe there is a difference between a politician or an elected official than an advocate or an activist,” the radio host said. “I don’t think this guy has been able to make the transition.”

In a 2017 speech at Millsaps College in Jackson, Lumumba said that as a child of two activists, he tends to talk about big issues like social justice and self-determination.

“But as I quickly learned on the campaign trail,” he said, “when you knock on a gentleman or a lady’s door and you talk about these great big ideas, you’re confronted with a brother or sister who says, ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s good, young brother, but how are you going to fix that pothole in the middle of my street?’”

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Follow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter at http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus.

The US Navy keeps finding traces of jet fuel in the water on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, even after it thought the water was safe

Jake Epstein

Wed, September 28, 2022 

In this photo released by the U.S. Navy, the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz transits the Arabian Sea on Aug. 17, 2020.Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Elliot Schaudt/U.S. Navy via AP

• The US Navy recently found traces of jet fuel in the water on board the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier.

• Water testing on Sept. 19 originally didn't reveal any contamination, a Navy official told Insider.

• But more testing two days later yielded "detectable traces" of hydrocarbons, the official said.

After determining the water on the ship was safe, the US Navy again found traces of jet fuel in the water on board the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, a Naval Air Forces official confirmed to Insider on Wednesday.

Officials tested samples of the Nimitz's waste water on September 19 following the carrier's arrival at San Diego's Naval Air Station North Island.

Those laboratory tests, which were conducted several days after traces of jet fuel were initially detected in the ship's water, did not reveal any "measurable" amounts of hydrocarbons, highly-combustible jet fuel components, Ensign Bryan Blair, a Navy spokesperson, told Insider.

But testing of water samples from the Nimitz's potable water tanks on September 21 — just two days later — did yield "detectable traces" of hydrocarbons, Blair said. The Nimitz's departure from San Diego has since been postponed so officials can continue to test and evaluate the ship's water.

"The health and wellbeing of our Sailors is a top priority, and the internal potable water system remains offline until we are certain it can produce the highest quality water for the crew," Blair said. Since September 17, he added, the Nimitz has been connected to San Diego's water supply, which "continues to provide fresh water to the crew that has been tested safe for use."

Navy Times reported that traces of jet fuel — also known as jet propellant-5 or simply JP-5— was originally found in the Nimitz's water system on September 16 while the ship was in the Pacific Ocean. USS Nimitz Spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Adam Demeter told Task & Purpose that the crew "immediately took action," a response that preceded the September 19 testing.

It was not immediately clear how many individuals, if any, may have been impacted by the contaminated water.

According to a USNI News report, it is possible for drinking water can become contaminated with jet propellant-5 because the two mix in a ballast tank system used by the Nimitz. A ship's ballast tank system helps control its buoyancy and stability.

The USS Nimitz was built by Newport News Shipbuilding and commissioned in 1975. The first-in-class ship was the second nuclear-powered aircraft carrier built after the USS Enterprise, a carrier known as the "Big E" that has been decommissioned and is awaiting scrapping. The 1,092-foot-long Nimitz, which can carry dozens of aircraft and thousands of personnel, is slated to be decommissioned in 2025. 

Many have criticized 'non-evacuators' who haven't left their homes for Hurricane Ian — but some TikTokers say they can't afford to leave


Mara Leighton
Thu, September 29, 2022 

Downed palm fronds collect on an empty downtown intersection as Hurricane Ian approaches Florida’s Gulf Coast in Sarasota, Florida, U.S. September 28, 2022.

REUTERS/Steve Nesius

Hurricane Ian, a Category 4 storm, touched down in Florida on Wednesday.

Officials urged residents to evacuate from high-risk areas.

But many said they didn't have the money or resources to leave.

As Hurricane Ian battered parts of the Florida coast this week, some locals took to TikTok to share why they couldn't leave — despite officials urging evacuation.

The Category 4 storm made landfall in Florida on Wednesday after passing through Cuba, and many followed the storm's progression via the social platform. As of Thursday, the hashtag #HurricaneIan had over 1.1 billion views.

Among videos of people filling up their bathtubs with water and advising others on how to tell if food is good after power goes out, were videos from those who say they couldn't or wouldn't be evacuating.

Many satirized Floridians who didn't evacuate, joking that they'd remain as long as Waffle Houses remained open, and criticized "non-evacuaters" for their perceived foolishness. But, the reality is that leaving requires resources. Senior citizens or unhoused people and those with disabilities, language barriers, or a job that makes evacuation difficult or impossible — such as first responders, nurses, or animal shelter volunteers — are often among those left behind in a major weather event.

@shmacked7 people to this day still blame Katrina survivors for their own trauma, simply because they couldn’t evacuate. evacuating is a privilege #fyp #hurricaneian ♬ original sound - shmack

"Evacuating requires money. Evacuating likely requires a car or some mode of transportation. Evacuating requires people to leave their entire lives behind with the possibility of never coming back," said TikTok user @shmacked7 in a clip that's been viewed more than 70,000 times. "I would bet the majority of Americans, especially Black and brown Americans cannot afford to take that risk."

Economic circumstances and short notice left many stuck to ride the storm out at home.

TikToker @Jewelxcollazo, who lives in Temple Terrace, Florida, said the storm wasn't expected to hit her area, but she and her family received a mandatory evacuation notice on Tuesday. At the time, they didn't have the money to leave.

"DO NOT try and make it seem like I was participating in the yearly Floridian pissing match of who can withstand the weather the longest. If we could've, we would have," she wrote.

"We could not evacuate because we didn't have anywhere to go. Hotels were already booked up. Shelters were full. Gas prices were almost $4 at the nearest corner store," she added.



"Evacuation is not as easy as it may seem if you are outside of the evacuation area," Cara Cuite, an assistant extension specialist in the Department of Human Ecology at Rutgers University, told NPR. Cuite studied evacuation decisions people made during Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

For "people with disabilities, those with pets or simply [if] you don't have a car or enough money on hand to leave, that can make it really challenging," she added.

On TikTok and Twitter, people shared experiences of being unable to evacuate, asking for prayers and sharing the potentially prohibitive cost of gas needed to leave the state. Others considered leaving but missed their window of opportunity, while others worried about leaving only to get stuck in gridlock on the highway.

@mylifeandkids21

In the recenty predicted path daytona was/ could be in its path and im absolutely terrified. We can not afford to move and were right in beach side. Please way a prayer for us🤍🤞🏼. #HausLabsFoundation #hurricane #hurricaneian #hurricaneian2022 #storms #momof4 #daytonabeach #florida #fypシ #staysafe #stayaware♬ original sound - songs!🫶🏽🫶🏽

"In the recently predicted path… and I'm absolutely terrified," one TikToker captioned a video. "We can not afford to move and we're right in beach side. Please say a prayer for us."

Another TikToker, @this.is.meg2, said she was frustrated by claims that people who didn't evacuate were simply "poor planners."

"Before you decide that people should feel crappy because they didn't evacuate and now need help," said another TikToker. "Maybe have some compassion — some sympathy and some empathy for people."

The American Red Cross reported thousands of people had fled to evacuation centers. To find a local shelter, go to floridadisaster.org.