NO NAZIS FOUND INSIDE

The Strange Origin of the Hollow Moon Conspiracy Theory

Jessica Coulon - POP MECH.



The hollow moon conspiracy theory came about during the Apollo missions in 1969.

Conspiracy theorists misinterpreted the results of the astronauts’ seismic experiments, leading them to believe the moon was hollow.

Scientists said the moon rings “like a bell.” That’s because the vibrations from the moon’s seismic events, known as moonquakes, last much longer than those on Earth.

Conspiracy theorists once believed that the moon was hollow. Though that’s more likely than the moon being made out of cheese, it still seems pretty ridiculous by today’s standards. So where did that hollow moon theory—or rather, conspiracy—come from?

Surprisingly, it isn’t based in folklore, and the tale isn’t very old, either. The hollow moon theory first came about in 1969 during the Apollo 12 moon-landing mission.

NASA researchers sought to learn more about the composition of the moon. During the Apollo 12 mission, astronauts Pete Conrad and Alan Bean set up a Passive Seismic Experiment (PSE) at the landing site as part of larger set of moon experiments known as the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package (ALSEP).

Once the Apollo 12 astronauts were safely back in the command module, they crashed the lunar module into the moon’s surface. The impact was the equivalent of detonating one ton of TNT and triggered what’s known as a “moonquake”—the first human-made moonquake to take place. The PSE seismometers recorded the resulting vibrations, which were much bigger and lasted much longer than the scientists had anticipated. They were far different from the earthquake vibrations we’re familiar with.


An Apollo 12 astronaut sets up the Passive Seismic Experiment on the moon, 1969.

© Bettmann - Getty Images

NASA continued its moonquake experiments during the Apollo 13, 14, 15, and 16 missions, with similar results.

At the time, the findings were surprising because they pointed to the moon being much less dense than Earth, and it is: the moon is only 60 percent as dense. That doesn’t mean the moon is hollow, but as with many things—like the moon landing itself—conspiracy theorists perpetuated that misinformation.

What Are Moonquakes?

The Passive Seismic Experiment seismometers placed during the Apollo 12 mission remained active until 1977, recording both natural and human-made moonquakes alike. In fact, moonquakes happen fairly regularly, as space debris like asteroids hit the moon more frequently than Earth, because the moon’s atmosphere is much less dense.

Scientists have pinpointed four types of moonquakes: deep sub-700-kilometer quakes, meteorite-caused quakes, thermal quakes, and shallow quakes occurring only 20 kilometers to 30 kilometers deep. Shallow moonquakes, like those triggered by NASA, last the longest and have the most devastating effects—some even measured up to 5.5 on the Richter scale. Shallow moonquakes do occur naturally on the moon, too, though scientists haven’t pinpointed what causes them yet.

Why Does the Moon “Ring” Like a Bell?

Here’s where things got lost in translation. “The moon was ringing like a bell,” Clive R. Neal, professor of civil engineering and geological sciences at the University of Notre Dame, says of the experiment results in a NASA writeup. And that’s true from a scientific standpoint. Similarly, the writeup also compares moonquake vibrations to those of a tuning fork, which is a kind of acoustic resonator. “It just keeps going and going,” Neal says.

However, the moon does not literally sound like a bell ringing, nor is it hollow like one. But conspiracy theorists interpreted it in that manner.


A close-up of the Apollo 12 Passive Seismic Experiment.© NASA

On Earth, vibrations from earthquakes typically last only 30 seconds or so and no more than two minutes. That’s largely due to the amount of water present on the planet. As Neal explains, “Water weakens stone, expanding the structure of different minerals. When energy propagates across such a compressible structure, it acts like a foam sponge—it deadens the vibrations.”

Meanwhile, the NASA-induced moonquakes all lasted over ten minutes. The Apollo 12 moonquake’s shockwave took close to eight minutes to peak after impact and around an hour to fully cease. But we now know there’s a very good, scientific explanation for it. There isn’t much water on the moon that we know of—it’s mostly in the form of ice; and the moon is drier and a lot more rigid than Earth. So, the moon’s composition allows vibrations to “ring” and continue on for a much longer period of time.

The results were surprising at the time of the Apollo missions, but we now know more about the moon’s composition. Though we’ve ruled out the moon being hollow, we have a lot to learn still.

Terry Hurford, a NASA geophysicist, is working on the new Subsurface Lunar Investigation and Monitoring Experiment (SUBLIME), which would “map the moon’s core” and gather even more data on moonquakes for the Artemis program, for instance. “Our understanding of the moon’s interior remains rudimentary and is limited,” he says in a NASA article.

Was the Moon Landing faked? | Neil deGrasse Tyson 

 

A UFO Was Supposedly Spotted During the 2022 USO Air Show

Cassandra Yorgey - Yesterday -Exemplore

It was certainly faster than those planes.

One expects the planes to be the fastest thing at an airshow but not this time! An Unidentified Flying Object was caught on camera at the 2022 US Thunderbirds Air Show and was shown overtaking the airplanes that were performing. The small bright spot appears in the sky behind and to the right of the planes, then seems to pivot to fly parallel to them before whipping out the hyperdrive, whizzing past the planes, and disappearing off into the distance.

Click here to watch the video Pictures of UFO sightings over the Pacific

Did an alien show up to race, unbeknownst to the pilots of the planes? This possibility seems more likely than at any other point in history, as it comes on the heels of the Unites States Government finally admitting they have been collecting and studying reports of UFOs, which they call UAPs - Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.

Some skeptics to point to a camera lens flare as being the culprit of this speeding craft in the sky, but others debate that would not result in it speeding ahead of the jet planes. Still others claim it is a government drone flying at a lower altitude so it only appears to be going faster.

This is not the first time a UFO has made an appearance at an airshow. A strange spinning object was seen coming out of the water and flying off at a recent Miami Sea and Air Show that has left viewers convinced there are more to UFO stories than we fully understand yet.

Leading Iranian actor posts picture without hijab in support of anti-government protests

Celine Alkhaldi - Yesterday - CNN

Leading Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti posted a picture of herself on Instagram without the mandatory hijab to show support for ongoing anti-government protests that kicked off in Iran nearly two months ago.

In the photo, Alidoosti holds a sign that reads “Women, Life, Freedom” in Kurdish, a popular slogan that has been used in the demonstrations that have been largely led by women.

“Your final absence, the migration of singing birds, is not the end of this rebellion,” Alidoosti writes in her Instagram post.

The actor, who starred in Academy Award-winning film “The Salesman,” has previously shared a number of social media posts that are critical of the regime and has been a public supporter of the demonstrations. She is also known as a defender of women’s rights in Iran.



Alidoosti at the 75th annual Cannes film festival at Palais des Festivals on May 26, 2022. - Boyer David/ABACA/Shutterstock

Earlier this week, Alidoosti vowed in another Instagram post to remain in her homeland, saying “I’m the one to stay, and I do not plan on leaving at all.”

“I will stand with the families of the prisoners and the murdered, and demand their rights,” Alidoosti says in that Instagram post.

Related video: Iran anti-Hijab row: Iranian actor Taraneh Alidoosti posts picture without headscarf

Duration 1:21  View on Watch

“I will fight for my home. I will pay whatever price to stand for my right,” she adds.

Alidoosti is one of several female Iranian actors to take off their mandatory hijab to protest the clerical establishment.

On Wednesday, Iranian actors Donya Madani and Khazar Massoumi also posted photos of themselves on Instagram without a headscarf on.

The Islamic Republic is facing one of its biggest and unprecedented shows of dissent following the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman detained by the morality police allegedly for not wearing her hijab properly.

Since her death on September 16, protesters across Iran have coalesced around a range of grievances with the regime. Meanwhile, Iranian authorities have been stepping up efforts to end the uprising.

Around 1,000 people have been charged in Tehran province for their alleged involvement in the protests, state news agency IRNA reported.

As many as 14,000 people have been arrested in total across the country, including journalists, activists, lawyers and educators. Among them is dissident Iranian rap artist Toomaj Salehi, who faces accusations of crimes that are punishable by death, according to Iranian state media.

The “unabated violent response of security forces” has led to the reported deaths of at least 277 people, Javaid Rehman, special rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, said in an address to the UN Security Council Wednesday, a figure backed by reports from human rights groups.

Why Big Tech Is Throwing $1 Billion at Sucking CO2 From the Air

Imad Khan - CNET

A pair of 2,000-gallon water tanks standing 15 feet tall occupy a cordoned-off portion of a parking lot down the street from Georgia Tech University's Carbon Neutral Energy Solutions Laboratory. They're being used to grow algae, but in an extreme and novel way.


Fans at Climeworks' Orca direct air capture facility in Hellisheiði, Iceland. Climeworks

© Provided by CNET

Clear bags filled with a green, mucousy substance float in water while hanging from metal pipes nearby. The bags have tubes sticking out of them, being fed both water and carbon dioxide. That substance, algae, is the key to this whole experiment.


Zooey Liao / CNET© Provided by CNET

Algae are photosynthetic organisms found in water that, like plants, eat up carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Algae alone produce 50% of the oxygen in our atmosphere. Researchers at Georgia Tech are seeing if it's possible to take existing carbon dioxide in the air, capture it and feed it to the algae. Once the algae is refined, it can be used in things from food to fuel.

As an environmental catastrophe looms, researchers are looking at unique solutions such as Georgia Tech's algae experiment to combat climate change. The UN is urging governments to bring carbon emissions down to net zero by 2050, a difficult task considering that 84% of the world's energy comes from the burning of fossil fuels, which is a significant source of the greenhouse gas emissions driving the climate crisis. Letting emissions get out of hand could lead to famine and more extreme weather events, but a rising population and increasing energy demands make it difficult to curb our output.

Direct air capture, or DAC, is a technological process that sucks carbon dioxide out of the air and serves as one part of a multifaceted approach to combat climate change. While the DAC industry is still in its nascent stage and has been criticized as too expensive, it's already embedding itself as an important technology, having secured support from governments around the world.

One person who has high hopes for this process is Chris Jones, chair of the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Georgia Tech University. It's his team that's looking at products that can be made with the help of DAC, such as algae.

"We think of CO2 as a waste product. Direct air capture is the creation of the waste management business that handles that," said Jones. "Carbon started underground in the form of coal, gas and oil, and we're just putting it back underground, where it belongs."



Jose A. Bernat Bacete© Provided by CNET
A carbon countdown

Humans have dumped an estimated 1.5 trillion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. Last year, carbon emissions rose by 6% to 36.3 billion tons, according to the International Energy Agency. An October UN Environment Programme report says global governments, especially richer, carbon-polluting countries, are "falling pitifully short." United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in a video message, "We must close the emissions gap before climate catastrophe closes in on us all."

The bleak analysis says that humans are on track to increase global temperatures 2.8 degrees Celsius by the year 2100, landing far above the 1.5 degree target set by the 2015 Paris agreement.



Algae inside photoreactor bags at Georgia Tech University. Thomas Igou / Georgia Tech University© Provided by CNET

"Every little digit that we shave off is a lesser catastrophic outlook," UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said to the Associated Press.

DAC isn't meant to clean up the atmosphere so that humans can continue polluting. It's not a magic solution that'll save humanity. But it is expected to play a major role.

The technology is an important topic of discussion at the COP27 conference happening in Egypt now.

"Direct air capture's role is in the long-term climate mitigation plan to bring down atmospheric CO2 levels once all CO2 emissions have stopped," said Carlos Härtel, chief technology officer at Climeworks.

As DAC tech develops, it'll prove useful as the world's energy infrastructure shifts to cleaner alternatives. But it'll need constant development, and government incentives could help.

The immediate goal for global governments is to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030. This will include shifting away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible and moving toward wind, solar and nuclear. But that doesn't mean DAC doesn't have a role to play.

"We need to go to zero in terms of fossil fuel production and consumption, and then use the DAC to clean up the mess that we have already made," said Soheil Shayegh, a scientist at the European Institute on Economics and the Environment, or EIEE.

Duration 2:17

WION Climate Tracker | Study: CO2 emissions to hit an all-time high

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Advances in DAC

In 1999, Klaus Lackner, a chemical engineer at Arizona State University, was the first to recognize direct air capture as a way of combating climate change.

Here's how it works: As air passes through a filter lined with chemicals, little bits of CO2 get captured. Once the CO2 is separated, it can either be stored underground or be used to make products, such as carbon fiber or the fizz in a soda. There are about 412 CO2 particles per million in the atmosphere, meaning giant fans have to suck in a lot of air to capture just one ton. While that number might seem small, CO2 was under 300 parts per million in preindustrial times.


Mineralized CO2 at Climeworks' Orca Facilitiy Climeworks

© Provided by CNET

There are now 19 DAC plants worldwide with Switzerland-based Climeworks, Canada's Carbon Engineering and the US' CarbonCapture pushing innovation in the field.

The largest DAC facility is Climeworks' Orca plant in Iceland. Orca is a $10 million carbon capture facility that aims to suck up 4,000 tons of carbon a year, or 0.00001% of annual emissions. And with government tax credits, the cost of capturing carbon will be more manageable for companies. Oil giant Occidental has plans to set up 30 DAC plants in Texas, where it hopes to store 3 billion metric tons of carbon underground.

Climeworks is already working on a second DAC facility 300 meters away from its first in Iceland called Mammoth. It's much larger than Orca, and meant to capture nine times more CO2.

DAC needs to scale up quickly. Right now, all 19 plants account for 0.01 metric tons of carbon capture per year. They need to reach 85 metric tons by 2030 and 980 metric tons by 2050 to help hit current climate targets, according to the IEA. Big Tech is also jumping on board, with Google, Meta and others investing nearly $1 billion into DAC.

Researchers are already imagining new ways of capturing carbon. One idea from the company CO2 Rail involves putting DAC carts on trains. CO2 Rail says that its DAC train carts could remove up to 3,000 tons of carbon per year. Students at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands are touring ZEM, or Zero Emission Mobility, a concept car that sucks up CO2 as it drives.

At Georgia Tech, algae growth was about 5% higher in lab experiments, showing that growing plants by utilizing captured carbon is both possible and not harmful.

There's debate around whether DAC should be limited to large plants near "sinks," or areas where carbon can easily be stored, like the volcanic rock in Hellisheiði, Iceland, where Orca and Mammoth are located. Georgia Tech's Jones envisions a future where small DAC machines the size of cars can be sprinkled around the world, some near major areas of carbon emission, like cities.

Whether it's big or small, DAC will take time to scale up.

"If you want to have it as a technical solution to carbon removal at the gigaton scale from 2050 on, you cannot wait until 2049," said Härtel. "We have to start today. We have no time to lose."

DAC is expensive and not a perfect solution

This year's Inflation Reduction Act, the most expansive climate legislation ever signed into law, gives a $180 tax credit per ton to companies that capture carbon and store it underground.

DAC is part of a larger strategy tied to the Inflation Reduction Act to move America away from fossil fuel dependency. The act includes $128 billion for renewable energy, $30 billion for nuclear power and $13 billion in electric vehicle incentives, along with billions in local government incentives.

Critics say policymakers are making a mistake by giving generous incentives for carbon capture, largely backed by the fossil fuel industry. Sucking up carbon requires expensive materials and large facilities. Funds meant for carbon capture could be put instead toward renewables, which would prevent carbon from being emitted in the first place.



Wind turbines, such as this one in France, are the top source of renewable energy among corporate buyers but solar energy is on the rise. 

Stephen Shankland/CNET

The cost of running the system is a constant concern. For example, it costs $800 to remove one ton of CO2 with Orca, according to Climeworks. The company did note that Orca is not yet optimized to run efficiently and that the cost will go down over time. How far it goes down is still being debated in the scientific community, but Climeworks says it's confident it will cost between $250 and $350 a ton in the 2030s.

The EIEE's Shayegh said the magic number per ton of carbon captured is $100, and that's before expenditures on conversion or in-ground sequestration. Best-case scenarios put the cost per ton for capture and conversion or sequestration at $250 by 2050, he added.

Härtel said costs need to go down to $150 per ton captured and sequestered. He feels that $100 per ton, in today's money, likely won't be possible by 2040. Given the slim margins, it's also why he feels having large facilities near sinks will be most cost effective, as opposed to small DAC machines scattered around the globe. It's also why Härtel is skeptical that downstream products made with captured carbon will make much of an impact since the scale of the problem is so large.

Those numbers don't impress experts who believe the money should be spent elsewhere.

"It is a bad idea to pick the tool that costs a lot and has very little effect on atmospheric carbon dioxide, even though it does reduce it," said Charles Harvey, professor of environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Because if you were to have used the resources for a different tool, like building wind, solar and power storage, you would have taken a lot more carbon out of the atmosphere."

In Harvey's view, taking carbon out of the atmosphere is far more difficult than not emitting it at all. He also worries that DAC is being used as a cover for fossil fuel companies to continue producing. It's actually possible to use captured carbon for enhanced oil recovery, known as CO2-EOR, a process through which carbon is turned into a near-liquid state and pumped underground where oil is. The CO2 fills the cracks underground, creates pressure, forces the oil up and makes it easier to extract. Refining and burning oil extracted by CO2-EOR can negate the benefits of CO2 sequestration, although the oil sold could offset the cost of capturing carbon.

"There's a reason why oil companies are promoting these ideas," said Harvey. "And that's because they want to avoid the option of just not burning as much oil."

We have to move now

This year has been riddled with climate disasters. Hurricane Ian hit Florida, China has endured a yearlong drought and Pakistan saw some of the worst flooding in history, with 1,735 deaths reported so far. There have been at least 29 $1 billion-plus climate events this year alone. These disasters will only increase in intensity as the planet warms.

DAC, along with greener energies, will take creative thinking, experimentation and financial incentives to net a return. Researchers at Georgia Tech are hoping DAC-induced algae growth can contribute to a circular carbon economy, sucking in CO2 and making products to offset costs.

As quickly as we need to cut our dependency on fossil fuels, humans "continue to find ways to waste energy in just really stupid ways that makes demand grow really fast," Jones said. Bitcoin mining alone uses as much energy as Argentina, and fossil fuels are still the cheapest and most readily available supply of energy. But that doesn't mean it needs to be our primary source of fuel forever.

"I think we're going to be stuck with fossil energy for the entirety of your and my life," he said. "And the question simply is, how quickly can we transition to renewables as much as possible and how do we make the fossil energy as clean and safe as possible? And that's where DAC comes in."

CRIMINAL CRYPTO CAPITAL$M

He was hailed as crypto's saviour. Now he needs billions for a bailout

Yvette Brend - 

Last week, California billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried was touted as a key figure in cryptocurrency — even a saviour. Today, amid a series of apologetic tweets, he said "I f--ked up" after his cryptocurrency exchange bled billions of dollars.

His FTX exchange is now scrambling to raise $9.4 billion US from both investors and rivals, as customers rush to withdraw their funds.

A lot of people trusted FTX as a place to buy tokens or cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin.

Now industry watchers say its spectacular fall may be the catalyst that forces governments — including Canada's — to crack down on cryptocurrency.

The trouble sparked when the rival owner of the world's largest exchange, Binance, questioned the stability of FTX on Twitter. That touched off a three-day panic costing FTX an estimated $6 billion US.

Binance head Changpeng Zhao then on Wednesday backtracked on a proposed buyout of his second-ranked rival, citing regulatory concerns, according to the New York Times.

That sent FTX into a tailspin.

Bankman-Fried has said he's in talks with others on another rescue deal, but made no promises.

"I'm sorry. That's the biggest thing. I f--ked up, and should have done better," he wrote on Twitter.

What exact mistakes were made, remain unclear.

But crypto experts say investor money that should be "liquid" is not.

FTX was facing mounting legal and regulatory threats before withdrawals were frozen, according to Samson Mow, CEO of Pixelmatic and JAN3, a new bitcoin technology company.


Binance CEO and founder Changpeng Zhao, left, meets with El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele in San Salvador, El Salvador, on March 24. Zhao was briefly poised to buy out FTX.© Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidencia/Reuters

Mow says the FTX explosion has a familiar feel, though digital assets like bitcoin and ethereum were not the problem.

He says the exchange created tokens called FTT that were used to hold value. FTT was the backbone of FTX so when its value dipped, users scrambled to get out.

Mow says the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission is investigating and that it seems like client money may have been improperly used to help dig FTX's affiliate company Alameda Research out of a $10-billion hole.

People who bought bitcoin or other currencies through the exchange now can't withdraw them.

Mow says bitcoin is reliable but that exchanges which rely on tokens like FTT as collateral are built on a house of financial cards.

He said users know the risk of being "lazy" and leaving assets unclaimed on a currency exchange.



Binance and FTX logos are seen in this illustration. Bankman-Fried blamed himself for FTX's losses, though it's not clear what exactly went wrong.© Dado Ruvic/Reuters

"You gambled on a casino that went bust — and now you've lost your money," said Mow.

He says people who did not withdraw their digital assets and keep them in their own wallet now can't get access them, because FTX used FTT as collateral and those tokens are now worthless, he says.

"There's an old saying — not your keys, not your coins. It's not a new lesson. People are just not learning. They are gambling — and got what they deserved."

The implosion of FTX, which was valued at $32 billion US not long ago, is just the latest bad news for digital asset investors. Bitcoin prices are less than a third what they were at their height in 2021, before a big crash last fall.

But Bankman-Fried was seen as an influential player, someone who "was working closely with regulators," to try to regulate the space, said Ashley Stanhope of Ether Capital Corp., a public company focused on ethereum, and a founding member for the Canadian Web3 Council, a group collaborating with governments to build better investor protections.

He had also spent millions helping other companies, claiming he was a proponent of effective altruism, a movement that espouses charitable giving to safeguard humanity's future.


An advertisement for bitcoin is displayed on a street in Hong Kong, on Feb. 17.

 Kin Cheung/The Associated Press

Her interpretation of his apology is that he made "genuine missteps. It doesn't sound like he was trying to scam investors or do do them wrong," she said.

Stanhope says this situation hurts the industry's credibility and that she fears regulators will now "paint all crypto with the same brush."

Among FTX's investors is the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan's (OTPP) which put more than $126 million into the exchange between October 2021 and January 2022.

In a statement the OTPP said Thursday the "uncertainty" at FTX will have "limited impact" on the pension plan, as the investment was less than 0.05 per cent of its total net assets.

As for FTX's losses and how they will affect the industry, Stanhope admits it's a challenge, and that Bankman-Fried's fall will likely shift the crypto landscape.

"The FTX implosion will likely change investors' approach," she said.

"We'll probably see more users take their assets off centralized exchanges and rely on self-hosted wallets," until exchanges are safer and more transparent, she said.

WORKERS CAPITAL

Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan invested US$95M into failing crypto platform FTX

The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan says it invested US$95 million into failing cryptocurrency exchange platform FTX Trading.


Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan  Canadian Press

Rival exchange platform Binance pulled out of a deal to purchase FTX due to significant concerns, sending cryptocurrency prices falling, with Bitcoin sinking to a two-year low.

FTX is now being investigated for potential securities violations.

Related video: CityBiz: A good day for the markets plus problems with the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan  Duration 5:02  View on Watch

OTPP says it invested in FTX's international and U.S. arms through its Teachers' Venture Growth platform so it could gain small-scale exposure to this emerging area.

It says any financial loss on its investment in FTX will have limited impact on the pension plan because the investment represents less than 0.05 per cent of its total net assets.

Customers were fleeing FTX after concerns arose that it might not have sufficient capital.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 10, 2022.

FTX scrambles for funds as regulators take action

By Selena Li and Vidya Ranganathan - Yesterday 

Illustration shows FTX logo, stock graph and representation of cryptocurrencies

© Thomson Reuters

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Regulators froze some assets of distressed cryptocurrency exchange FTX and industry peers raced to limit losses on Friday amid worsening solvency problems at the firm and heightened scrutiny of its chief executive, Sam Bankman-Fried.

The week-long saga that began with a run on FTX, one of the largest crypto exchanges, and a failed takeover deal by arch-rival Binance has thumped an already struggling bitcoin and other tokens.

FTX is scrambling to raise about $9.4 billion from investors and rivals, a source said on Thursday, as the exchange urgently seeks to save itself after a rush of customer withdrawals.

Meanwhile, the Securities Commission Of the Bahamas said on Thursday it had frozen assets of FTX Digital Markets, an FTX subsidiary. Bankman-Fried is also under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for potential securities law violations, according to an unverified Bloomberg reporter tweet.

Bitcoin tumbled 4% to $16,858 on Friday, with losses totalling 17% this month. FTX's token FTT was down 27% at $2.7, with 89% losses for the month.

Trading volumes in bitcoin futures and exchange traded funds have exploded.

"Confidence is gone on day one of this fallout and there is no sight of it coming back yet," said Kami Zeng, head of research at Fore Elite Capital Management, a Hong Kong-based crypto fund manager.

"We are already seeing regulators' actions from U.S. to Japan to Bahamas, etc. Expect more to come and that's what crypto market needs badly at the moment. People get hurt and need protection."

U.S. lawmakers stepped up their calls for action, including new laws to govern the sector and a probe into what led to the FTX collapse.

Related video 

Analyst speaks on meltdown of cryptocurrency exchange FTX     

Duration 4:03  View on Watch

With losses widening, more crypto lenders and platforms outlined surging volumes and steps to shield themselves. Crypto lender BlockFi said it was pausing client withdrawals until there was clarity on FTX.

Broker Genesis Trading disclosed its derivatives business has approximately $175 million in locked funds on FTX.

"We believe there is a 20-30% chance of a FTX rescue at best," said Matthew Dibb, chief operating officer of Singapore-based crypto investment manager Stack Funds.

He noted speculators are paying 10 cents to each dollar to buy trapped deposits on FTX.

"The damage looks to be done and even if FTX was bailed out, it would no longer be an avenue to trade as they have lost all credibility. A rescue of FTX would not be for the company, but for the clients and crypto ecosystem."

The seeds of FTX's downfall were sown months earlier, in mistakes made by Bankman-Fried after he stepped in to save other crypto firms. Sources told Reuters that FTX transferred at least $4 billion to Alameda, to prop up the trading firm after a series of losses.

BANKING ON SUPPORT

Bankman-Fried has discussed raising $1 billion each from Justin Sun, the founder of crypto token Tron, rival exchange OKX and stablecoin platform Tether, according to the source who has direct knowledge of the matter.

He is seeking the remainder from other funds, including current investors such as Sequoia Capital, the source added.

It was not clear whether Bankman-Fried will be able to raise the funds he needs or if these investors would participate.

FTX's predicament marks a stunning downfall for the 30-year-old crypto executive who was once worth nearly $17 billion.

Graphic: Pain in crypto land -

 https://graphics.reuters.com/GLOBAL-MARKETS/THEMES/lbvggrkadvq/chart.png

The U.S. securities regulator is investigating FTX.com's handling of customer funds and crypto-lending activities, according to a source with knowledge of the inquiry.

(Additional reporting by Rae Wee in Singapore, Hannah Lang in New York, David Shepardson in Washington, Aishwarya Nair in Bangalore; Editing by Sam Holmes)

Amazon's new robot should strike fear into its hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers

lvaranasi@insider.com (Lakshmi Varanasi) - Yesterday 

Amazon© Amazon

Amazon unveiled Sparrow, a robot capable of handling individual items on Thursday.

The robot could reduce the company's reliance on human warehouse workers.

Amazon has been trying to fully automate its warehouses for the past several years.

What do you call a robotic arm that relies on computer vision, artificial intelligence, and suction cups to pick up items?

In Amazon's world, it's called a "Sparrow."

The tech giant unveiled a robot on Thursday that's capable of identifying individual items that vary in shape, size, and texture. Sparrow can also pick these up via the suction cups attached to its surface and place them into separate plastic crates.

Sparrow is the first robot Amazon has revealed of its kind and it has the potential to wipe out significant numbers of the company's warehouse workers.

Related video: KC's new Amazon facility boasts impressive tech and a balance between workers and automation

KC's new Amazon facility boasts impressive tech and a balance between workers and automation   View on Watch   Duration 1:11

 

The arm can identify approximately 65% of Amazon's inventory, the company told CNBC. Until now, this sort of sophisticated identification has been reserved for the company's human employees.




"Working with our employees, Sparrow will take on repetitive tasks, enabling our employees to focus their time and energy on other things, while also advancing safety," the company said in a post announcing Sparrow on its site. "At the same time, Sparrow will help us drive efficiency by automating a critical part of our fulfillment process so we can continue to deliver for customers."

It's not entirely clear how quickly Sparrow will be integrated into Amazon's warehouses. Many of the company's products are stored on mesh shelves, according to Bloomberg, which are incompatible for robotic arms like Sparrow.

However, Amazon has long been aiming to fully automate its warehouses, Bloomberg reported. The company also said in its quarterly earnings call back in April that it had hired too many warehouse workers during the pandemic.

In its post announcing Sparrow, the company said that it already relies on other avian-named robots to redirect packages to various locations in its warehouses.

In June, Amazon unveiled its first autonomous robot called Proteus, which can lift and move package carrying carts.

Right now, about 75% of 5 billion packages the company processes annually are handled by robots in at least one part of the delivery process, the company told CNBC on Thursday.

A spokesperson for Amazon told Insider, "Sparrow is the first robotic system in our warehouses that can detect, select, and handle individual products in our inventory. In our current research and development efforts, we are working with Sparrow to consolidate inventory before it is packaged for customers but the possible applications of this technology in our operations is much broader."

ANNOTATED

Polls says it's time to make educational workers an essential service

CONSIDER THE SOURCE
Brian Lilley - Yesterday - Toronto Sun

CUPE workers on the picket line at Queen's Park on Nov. 7, 2022.

MAKING THEM ESSENTIAL WORKERS VIOLATES INTERNATIONAL LABOUR LAW

A majority of Ontario voters say it’s time for education workers to be made an essential service, according to a poll from Maru Public Opinion.

A MAJORITY OF THOSE POLLED IS NOT A MAJORITY OF ONTARIANS 

Results from the poll show the public is divided on questions such as using binding arbitration or the notwithstanding clause, but a strong majority believe education workers should be an essential service.

The poll of 600 Ontario adults — conducted on Monday and Tuesday of this week — asks respondents the best way to settle such disputes.

“The public wants this solved so that kids and parents are left alone and if it takes banning the strikes to stop what happens today, they are fine with that,” said John Wright, executive vice president of Maru. “They want peace in the land.”

The polling started while 55,000 education workers were engaged in the second day of their walkout and concluded the next day when their union, CUPE, and the government had agreed to return to the bargaining table.

Asked whether the dispute should be settled by binding arbitration — a process to impose a contract on both sides — or through ongoing collective bargaining, it was the negotiated settlement from collective bargaining that won with 53% support, compared to 47% support for arbitration.

On the question of using back-to-work legislation and the notwithstanding clause if workers walk off the job again, 44% said they would support such action to keep schools open, while 56% insisted they would oppose such a measure.
 

BTW IS ALSO ILLEGAL UNDER INTERNATIONAL LABOUR LAW

Wright said that it’s important to note almost half are willing to support Ford using this heavy-handed option to stop further school disruption.

Finally, on making education workers an essential service to ensure there are no strikes in the future, the majority said they favour that path. A total of 59% of poll respondents supported the idea of making education workers an essential service, while 41% did not.

“Making workers an essential service takes the hammer away from both parties,” Wright said.  BULLSHIT

Maru said for comparison purposes, a poll with a probability sample of this size has an estimated margin of error of 4.2%, 19 times out of 20. It was conducted with an online panel

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POST-MODERN ROBBER BARON

Elon Musk failed to give laid-off Twitter employees previously promised severance packages, lawsuit alleges

mloh@businessinsider.com (Matthew Loh) - 8h ago

Laid-off Twitter employees are suing the company saying they were promised a range of severance benefits.

The lawsuit says they were assured these benefits would hold after Elon Musk bought Twitter.

However, recently laid-off employees say Twitter reneged on the promised severance pay.

Laid-off Twitter employees suing the social media platform say the company — now owned by Elon Musk — reneged on previously promised severance benefits.

Five employees — who filed a class-action suit against Twitter on November 1 — now say they were promised at least two month's severance pay, bonus plan compensation, cash value of vested Twitter equity, and healthcare coverage, but these promises were not kept when Musk laid off about 3,700 staffers on November 4.

Since his $44 billion deal to buy the social network closed in October, Musk has introduced a contentious update to Twitter's verification process, laid off 50% of the company's staff, and reportedly reversed those layoffs for some workers.

The site joins a growing list of companies tied to the world's richest man, who leads multiple massive organizations. Over the past five decades, Musk has become the CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, founder of The Boring Company, and cofounder of OpenAI and Neuralink, all while focused on his long-term goal: escaping Earth and colonizing Mars.

It hasn't always been a smooth road for Musk — he almost went broke more than once and incited lawsuits and government scrutiny.

Here's how he became one of the most divisive figures in the business world.
The fresh allegations were made in updated court filings to the San Francisco federal court on Tuesday, which were also seen by Insider.

According to the Tuesday update, Twitter's management previously said at several all-hands meetings, wrote in a recent FAQ, and stated in a merger agreement that employees would get at least the equivalent of the originally promised package if they were laid off after Musk acquired the company.

Twitter employees "reasonably relied" on this promise in the weeks leading up to Musk's purchase and chose not to look for jobs elsewhere, the lawsuit shows.

However, Twitter later told employees affected by November's mass layoffs that they would only get one month's base pay after their termination, the updated lawsuit alleged.

This claim appears to contrast a November 4 tweet from Musk, which said that all exited employees were offered three months' severance.

Musk has worked every day to find new ways to screw over Twitter staff, attorney says

In response to queries from Insider, Shannon Liss-Riordan — the attorney who filed the lawsuit — said Musk is counting an extra two months of severance pay because some workers were told on November 4 that they would be laid off in two months' time.

These employees, which include three of the plaintiffs, were locked out of their company accounts on November 3, but were told they would be paid until January 4, 2023, their lawsuit said.

"This pay is not severance pay," Liss-Riordan wrote in the lawsuit, accusing Musk of using this period of payment only to comply with federal and state labor laws. The WARN Act, or the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, is a federal law that requires businesses with 100 or more employees to give 60 days advance notice of mass layoffs or other work disruptions.

Liss-Riordan filed an emergency motion on behalf of the five employees on Wednesday evening. It seeks to compel Twitter to tell laid-off employees about the pending lawsuit before it can reach any separation agreements with workers.

The motion accused Twitter of trying to get employees to release all claims on their compensation benefits in exchange for their one month of severance pay.

"Since taking control of Twitter just two weeks ago, it seems Elon Musk has worked every day to find new and creative ways to screw over the company's workers," Liss-Riordan said in a statement to Insider. "This emergency motion that we just filed is an effort to protect the employees Twitter is laying off from signing away their rights to get what they are owed by the company."

Twitter's former top four executives — Parag Agrawal, Ned Segal, Vijaya Gadde, and Sarah Personette — stood to gain a collective $88 million from being fired by Musk. On October 31, Musk denied reports that he fired the top executives "for cause" in order to avoid giving them hefty severance payouts.

Musk did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, which was sent after-hours. Twitter's no longer employs its communications department.

Musk Reportedly Bans Remote Work At Twitter And Warns Of ‘Difficult Times’ In Internal Email

Siladitya Ray, Forbes Staff - Yesterday 

Topline

Twitter’s new CEO and owner Elon Musk scrapped the company’s remote work policy and ordered all employees to return to the office in his first email to staffers since taking over the company, Bloomberg reported, marking further impact to the firm’s workforce after nearly half of its staff was laid off last week.

Key Facts

According to Bloomberg, Musk’s first email sent to staffers late on Wednesday night warned of “difficult times ahead” for the company, adding that there was no way to “sugarcoat the message.”

Musk also ended Twitter’s lenient remote work policy that has been in place since the start of the pandemic and allowed employees to work from anywhere, corroborating earlier reports.

In his email, Twitter’s new CEO reportedly said the policy change will go into effect immediately and employees are expected to be in the office “at least 40 hours per week.”

Any exemptions to the remote work policy change will have to be personally approved by Musk himself, the report added.

As advertisers flee Twitter over content moderation concerns, Musk wants $8 per month subscriptions from the new Twitter Blue to make up half of Twitter’s total revenue—a far cry from the current situation where 90% of the company’s revenue comes from ads.

Forbes has reached out to Twitter for comment.

Key Background

Musk’s first official email to Twitter employees comes days after the company laid off nearly half of its workforce, gutting several important teams in the process. The entire layoff process was so chaotic that the company had to eventually ask some of the laid-off workers to come back to the company. People who were asked to come back included those who were reportedly fired “by mistake” and others whose skillset the new management did not anticipate would be necessary to help build some of the new features being demanded by Musk. Twitter was also hit with a class action lawsuit last week accusing the company of violating federal and state labor laws by failing to give the laid-off workers adequate notice. Apart from canceling remote work, Musk previously also scrapped Twitter’s “days of rest” policy which was a company-wide extra off day every month that went into effect during the pandemic.

Tangent

Musk has been vocal about his distaste for remote work several times this year. In June, the Tesla CEO scrapped remote work at the electric car company and ordered its executive staff to work a minimum “40 hours a week” a week from office or leave. When asked on Twitter about people wanting to work remotely, Musk responded, “they should pretend to work somewhere else.” In his email to Tesla workers Musk reportedly added: “The office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo office. If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.” Speaking at an event in May, Musk criticized American workers, stating: “People are trying to avoid going to work at all.” The billionaire’s dig at U.S. workers came after he praised Tesla’s factory workers in China, who he said were willing to work as late as 3 a.m. or not even leave the factory if needed.

Further Reading

Musk’s First Email to Twitter Staff Ends Remote Work (Bloomberg)

Twitter Reportedly Asks Fired Workers To Return—Here’s What To Know About The Aftermath Of Its Mass Layoffs (Forbes)

Musk warns Twitter's survival is at stake as staff quits

Elon Musk warned Twitter employees Thursday to brace for “difficult times ahead” that might end with the collapse of the social media platform if they can't find new ways of making money.


 The Canadian Press

Workers who survived last week's mass layoffs are facing harsher work conditions and growing uncertainty about their ability to keep Twitter running safely as it continues to lose high-level leaders responsible for data privacy, cybersecurity and complying with regulations.

That includes Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of trust and safety — a previously little-known executive who became the public face of Twitter’s content moderation after Musk took over and who had been praised by Musk for defending Twitter’s ongoing efforts to fight harmful misinformation and hate speech. An executive confirmed Roth’s resignation to coworkers on an internal messaging board seen by The Associated Press.

The developments were part of another whirlwind day in Musk's acquisition of the social media platform. It began with an email to employees from Musk on Wednesday night ordering workers to stop working from home and show up in the office Thursday morning. He called his first “all-hands" meeting Thursday afternoon. Before that, many were relying on the billionaire Tesla CEO's public tweets for clues about Twitter's future.

“Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company, but there is no way to sugarcoat the message," wrote Musk, before he described a dire economic climate for businesses like Twitter that rely almost entirely on advertising to make money.

“Without significant subscription revenue, there is a good chance Twitter will not survive the upcoming economic downturn,” Musk said. “We need roughly half of our revenue to be subscription.”

At the staff meeting, Musk said some “exceptional” employees could seek an exemption from his return-to-office order but that others who didn’t like it could quit, according to an employee at the meeting who spoke on condition of anonymity out of a concern for job security.

The employee also said Musk appeared to downplay employee concerns about how a pared-back Twitter workforce was handling its obligations to maintain privacy and data security standards, saying as CEO of Tesla he knew how that worked.

Musk’s memo and staff meeting echoed a livestreamed conversation trying to assuage major advertisers Wednesday, his most expansive public comments about Twitter’s direction since he closed a $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform late last month and dismissed its top executives. A number of well-known brands have paused advertising on Twitter.

Musk told employees the “priority over the past 10 days" was to develop and launch Twitter's new subscription service for $7.99 a month that includes a blue check mark next to the name of paid members — the mark was previously only for verified accounts. Musk's project has had a rocky rollout with an onslaught of newly bought fake accounts this week impersonating high-profile figures such as basketball star LeBron James and the drug company Eli Lilly to post false information or offensive jokes.

In a second email to employees, Musk said the “absolute top priority" over the coming days is to suspend “bots/trolls/spam” exploiting the verified accounts. But Twitter now employs far fewer people to help him do that.

An executive last week said Twitter was cutting roughly 50% of its workforce, which numbered 7,500 earlier this year.

Musk told employees in the email that “remote work is no longer allowed" and the road ahead is “arduous and will require intense work to succeed," and that they will need to be in the office at least 40 hours per week.

Twitter's ongoing exodus includes the company's chief privacy officer, Damien Kieran, and chief information security officer Lea Kissner, who tweeted Thursday that “I’ve made the hard decision to leave Twitter.”

Roth’s resignation is a “huge loss” for Twitter’s reliability and integrity, said his former coworker and friend Emily Horne.

“He’s worked incredibly hard under very challenging circumstances, including being personally targeted by some of the most vicious trolls who were active on the platform,” said Horne, who oversaw global policy communications at Twitter until 2018. “He stayed through all of that because he believed so deeply in the work his team was doing to promote a public conversation and improve the health of that conversation."

Cybersecurity expert Alex Stamos, a former Facebook security chief, tweeted Thursday that there is a “serious risk of a breach with drastically reduced staff” that could also put Twitter at odds with a 2011 order from the Federal Trade Commission that required it to address serious data security lapses.

“Twitter made huge strides towards a more rational internal security model and backsliding will put them in trouble with the FTC” and other regulators in the U.S. and Europe, Stamos said.

The FTC said in a statement Thursday that it is “tracking recent developments at Twitter with deep concern."

“No CEO or company is above the law, and companies must follow our consent decrees," said the agency's statement. “Our revised consent order gives us new tools to ensure compliance, and we are prepared to use them.”

The FTC would not say whether it was investigating Twitter for potential violations. If it were, it is empowered to demand documents and depose employees.

In an email to employees seen by the AP, Musk said "Twitter will do whatever it takes to adhere to both the letter and spirit of the FTC consent decree.”

“Anything you read to the contrary is absolutely false. The same goes for any other government regulatory matters where Twitter operates," Musk wrote.

Twitter paid a $150 million penalty in May for violating the 2011 consent order and its updated version established new procedures requiring the company to implement an enhanced privacy protection program as well as beefing up info security.

Those new procedures include an exhaustive list of disclosures Twitter must make to the FTC when introducing new products and services — particularly when they affect personal data collected on users.

Musk is fundamentally overhauling the platform's offerings and it's not known if he is telling the FTC about it. Twitter, which gutted its communications department, didn't respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Musk has a history of tangling with regulators. “I do not respect the SEC,” Musk declared in a 2018 tweet.

The Securities and Exchange Commission recently examined for possible tardiness his disclosures to the agency of his purchases of Twitter stock to amass a major stake. In 2018, Musk and Tesla each agreed to pay $20 million in fines over Musk’s allegedly misleading tweets saying he’d secured the funding to take the electric car maker private for $420 a share. Musk has fought the SEC in court over compliance with the agreement.

The consequences for not meeting FTC's requirements can be severe — such as when Facebook had to pay $5 billion for privacy violations.

“If Twitter so much as sneezes, it has to do a privacy review beforehand,” tweeted Riana Pfefferkorn, a Stanford University researcher who said she previously provided Twitter outside legal counsel. “There are periodic outside audits, and the FTC can monitor compliance.”

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AP reporters Frank Bajak and Marcy Gordon contributed to this report.

Matt O'brien, The Associated Press