VIRGINIA

Regulators grant critical approval for Dominion wind farm


Two of the offshore wind turbines, which have been constructed off the coast of Virginia Beach, Va., are seen, June 29, 2020. Virginia regulators granted a critical approval Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022, for Dominion Energy's plans to construct and operate a 176-turbine wind farm in the Atlantic Ocean. 

(AP Photo/Steve Helber, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

SARAH RANKIN
Thu, December 15, 2022 at 1:50 PM MST·4 min read

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia regulators granted a critical approval Thursday for Dominion Energy's plans to construct and operate a 176-turbine wind farm in the Atlantic Ocean.

The State Corporation Commission effectively signed off on an agreement Dominion reached this fall with the Virginia attorney general and other parties, in which the company agreed to implement several consumer protections in connection with the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project.

“We thank the Commission for its approval and appreciate the collaboration of the parties involved to reach an agreement that advances offshore wind and the clean energy transition in Virginia," the Richmond-based company said in a statement. “Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind has many benefits for our customers. It is fuel free, emissions free, diversifies our energy mix and is a transformative economic development opportunity for Hampton Roads and Virginia.”

In its order, the commission also issued a warning about the impact the project will have on the electricity bills of Dominion's captive electric utility customers.

“The magnitude of this project is so great that it will likely be the costliest project being undertaken by any regulated utility in the United States. And the electricity produced by this Project will be among the most expensive sources of power — on both a per kilowatt of firm capacity and a per megawatt-hour basis — in the entire United States,” the order said.

Dominion filed its application to build and recover the costs of the project with the State Corporation Commission last year. That kicked off a lengthy process before the regulatory agency, one that has included voluminous filings and an evidentiary hearing in May.

The commission initially signed off on the project in August, but it included a consumer protection provision — a performance guarantee — that Dominion strenuously objected to, saying it would kill the project.

Several parties to the SCC proceeding, including Walmart, the AG's office and conservation groups, began to hash out a compromise, announcing a proposed agreement in late October that did away with the performance guarantee but does include performance reporting requirements and provisions laying out a degree of construction cost sharing.

The agreement now approved by the SCC calls for a cost-sharing arrangement for any overruns beyond the estimated $9.8 billion price tag. The company would cover 50% of construction costs between the range of $10.3-$11.3 billion and 100% of costs between $11.3-$13.7 billion. If construction costs were to exceed $13.7 billion, the issue would go back to the commission.

The proposal would not require the company to guarantee certain energy production levels, like the SCC had initially ordered. Rather, Dominion will have to report average net capacity factors annually and “provide a detailed explanation of the factors contributing to any deficiency.” Capacity factor is a measure of how often a generating facility runs during a period of time.

The commission will also have the continuing authority to inspect Dominion's expenditures on the project to ensure they are reasonable and prudent under state law.

The project, which will be located about 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, has drawn broad support from local officials, policymakers, business groups and trade unions, who say it will help fight climate change and create jobs.

The company already has a two-turbine pilot project up and running. The 2.6-gigawatt, utility-scale project’s schedule calls for an in-service date of late 2026 or early 2027. Dominion expects the project to generate enough clean energy to power up to 660,000 homes.

Thursday's SCC order noted that while Dominion estimates the capital cost of the project to be nearly $10 billion, total project costs, including financing, are estimated to be approximately $21.5 billion.

Clean Virginia, a clean energy and rate-reform advocacy group, said in a statement that the approved compromise would help hold Dominion accountable.

“With its final ruling today, the State Corporation Commission demonstrated that consumer protection must go hand in hand with Virginia’s clean energy transition,” Clean Virginia Energy Policy Manager Laura Gonzalez said. “Absent the Commission’s leadership and pressure from environmental groups, the Attorney General, and Walmart, Dominion Energy would have zero incentive to actually produce clean energy from its offshore wind project or keep costs reasonable.”

Archaeologists discovered a Medieval shipwreck in near perfect condition at the bottom of Norway's largest lake

Erin Snodgrass
Wed, December 14, 2022 

Researchers discovered a shipwreck that is likely hundreds of years old at the bottom of Norway's lake Mjøsa.

Courtesy of Norwegian Defence Research Establishment.

Researchers discovered a shipwreck site at the bottom of Norway's largest lake last month.

Archaeologists believe the vessel, which was in near pristine condition, is up to 700 years old.

Sonar images of the ship showed signs of the boat having had a central rudder.

A team of Norwegian researchers uncovered a maritime miracle while mapping a massive lake bed last month.

Archaeologists discovered a near-pristine shipwreck they believe to be up to 700 years old at the bottom of Norway's largest lake, Mjøsa, during a government research mission.

The vessel, which is estimated to date back sometime between the 1300s and 1800s, was found nearly 1,350 feet below the surface, according to a Facebook post from the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment. Underwater images captured the 33-foot long ship in the lake's depths.

Researchers stumbled upon the site while executing Mission Mjøsa, a government-funded project to map the 140-square mile lake bed. The body of water serves as a source of drinking water to about 100,000 people in the country, according to CNN, but the discovery of unexploded World War II munitions in the lake during previous inspections prompted a more expansive search into the water's potential health risks.

The crew discovered the shipwreck using sonar imagery to measure the lake bed via pulses, CNN reported.

Courtesy of Norwegian Defence Research Establishment

Øyvind Ødegård, a maritime archaeologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, told Live Science last month that he was expecting to find some hidden treasures beneath the surface when he signed on to the project, given the lake's status as a vital trade route since the Viking era.

The vessel was in near-perfect condition due to a lack of wave activity in the freshwater lake, according to CNN. Ødegård told the outlet that some minimal wearing on the ship's metal indicates the wreck has been on the bottom of the lake for a long time since corrosion takes hundreds of years to happen.

Archaeologists said the stern of the ship showed signs of having had a central rudder, which didn't begin appearing on boats until the late 13th century. Using the evidence of light corrosion, as well as the rudder style, researchers narrowed down the ship's possible era to no earlier than 1300 and no later than 1850, Ødegård told CNN.

Archaeologists said the stern of the ship showed signs of having had a central rudder, which didn't begin appearing on boats until the late 13th century.

Courtesy of Norwegian Defence Research Establishment.

Fuzzy, underwater photos of the boat show that the vessel is made of wood and was built with planks laid overlapped on top of one another — an old Norse technique used during the Viking age, according to Live Science.

Ødegård told CNN that the ship likely went down in bad weather since it was found in the middle of the lake.

Soon after researchers discovered the site, the weather turned and they were no longer able to investigate the wreck using camera equipment, Ødegård told media outlets. The team plans to return to the site next year once conditions improve.

Previous expeditions have uncovered some 20 shipwrecks in the lake's shallow waters, according to The Smithsonian Magazine. But Mission Mjøsa is the first project to explore the lake's greatest depths.

Researchers stumbled upon the site while executing Mission Mjøsa, a government-funded project to map the 140-square mile lake bed.

Courtesy of Norwegian Defence Research Establishment

Pacifist Japan unveils unprecedented $320 bln military build-up


Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force’s International Fleet Review at Sagami Bay

Fri, December 16, 2022
By Tim Kelly and Sakura Murakami

TOKYO, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Japan said on Friday it would begin a once-unthinkable $320 billion military build-up that would arm it with missiles capable of striking China and ready it for a sustained conflict as regional tensions and Russia's Ukraine invasion stoke war fears.

Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government worries that Russia has set a precedent that will encourage China to attack Taiwan, threatening nearby Japanese islands, disrupting supplies of advanced semiconductors and putting a potential stranglehold on sea lanes that supply Middle East oil.

In its sweeping five-year plan and revamped national security strategy, the government said it would also stockpile spare parts and other munitions, reinforce logistics, develop cyber warfare capabilities, and cooperate more closely with the United States and other like-minded nations to deter threats to the established international order.

"Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a serious violation of laws that forbid the use of force and has shaken the foundations of the international order," Japan said in the national security paper.

"The strategic challenge posed by China is the biggest Japan has ever faced," it added.

Unthinkable under past administrations, the rapid arming of Japan, which already hosts U.S. forces, including a carrier strike group and a Marine expeditionary force, has the backing of most voters, according to opinion polls. Some surveys put support as high as 70% of voters.

Kishida's plan will double defence outlays to about 2% of gross domestic product over the next five years and increase the defence ministry's share to around a tenth of all public spending. It will also make Japan the world's third-biggest military spender after the United States and China, based on current budgets.

The five-year spending roadmap did not come with a detailed plan for how Kishida's administration would pay for it, as ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers continue to discuss whether to raise taxes or borrow money. 

Reporting by Tim Kelly, Sakura Murakami and Nobuhiro Kubo; Editing by David Dolan and Gerry Doyle.

Japan ruling party panel agrees on tax hikes to boost defence, with delay


 Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force’s International Fleet Review at Sagami Bay


Thu, December 15, 2022 
By Tetsushi Kajimoto

TOKYO (Reuters) -A tax panel of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Thursday agreed to raise the country's key taxes to pay for the defence budget, but stiff opposition among lawmakers effectively delayed a decision on when to implement the politically unpopular move.

The tax plan, following through on Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's commitment to raise taxes to double defence spending to 2% of gross domestic product by 2027, had become bogged down in wrangling among lawmakers who objected to near-term tax increases that could hurt Japan's fragile economy.

The tax plan will be written into an annual tax-code revision for the next fiscal year from April, with the aim of gaining formal government approval on Friday, Yoichi Miyazawa, chief of the ruling party's tax panel, told reporters after the panel's meeting.

"Participants agreed to leave the defence tax plan entirely to me," Miyazawa said.

However, the tax hikes will kick in "at an appropriate time" in fiscal year 2024 or thereafter, he said, stopping short of committing to exactly when to implement the tax hike or suggesting a possible delay.

The delay would highlight challenges for Kishida as his popularity dwindles and he juggles conflicting priorities that pit restoring Japan's tattered public finances against addressing geopolitical risks from an assertive China and unpredictable North Korea and Russia.

Japan is struggling to secure funding sources for planned defence spending of 43 trillion yen ($315 billion) over the next five years, which could further complicate its aim of balancing the budget - excluding new bond sales and debt servicing - by fiscal year 2025.

Kishida has resisted calls from within his own party to issue additional bonds to fund defence spending. However, the government also recently floated issuing construction bonds to develop Self-Defence Forces facilities, Kyodo news reported, which would mark an unprecedented use of infrastructure-related debt for military purposes.

Among the three taxes, including a tobacco tax, targeted for increases, the special income tax was originally intended to help rebuild areas hit by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in northeast Japan, which was unrelated to military spending.

The corporate tax hikes would consist of a surtax of 4% to 4.5%, with exemptions for small firms with annual income of up to 24 million yen, Miyazawa said.

Many LDP lawmakers had objected, saying raising corporate taxes could undermine the push for wage increases the government considers necessary for sustained growth and inflation.

Under the defence build-up plan, Kishida told Miyazawa to come up with a tax hike plan that would secure about 1 trillion yen annually from the fiscal year starting April 2027.

($1 = 136.6100 yen)

(Reporting by Tetsushi Kajimoto; Additional reporting by Yoshifumi Takemoto and Takaya Yamaguchi; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim, Edmund Klamann and Mark Porter)

Factbox: What will Japan's military build-up look like?

 The Pacific Amphibious Leaders Symposium 2022 (PALS22) in Kisarazu, Japan

Fri, December 16, 2022 a
By Sakura Murakami

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan unveiled a new national security strategy on Friday along with details of its biggest military build-up since World War Two, in a marked shift away from the pacifism that has dominated its political discourse for seven decades.

The changes, which come as tensions grow with neighbouring China, Russia and North Korea, include spending on longer-range missiles and cyber warfare capabilities.

Here is what you need to know:

- The changes are set out in three documents: the National Security Strategy (NSS), the National Defense Strategy, and the Mid-Term Defence Program.

- The documents detail Japan's determination to develop new "counter strike" capabilities. These capabilities will allow Tokyo to hit ships and strike targets 1,000 km (621.37 miles)away with land or sea-launched missiles.

- Japan's military is currently armed with missiles that can fly a few hundred kilometres at most. Tokyo believes developing counter strike capabilities will deter potential attacks.

- Japan has been discussing the plan for more than two years.

- Tokyo will spend about $37 billion on boosting counterattack capabilities, such as by extending the range of its ground-launched Type 12 anti-ship missiles by 2027. It also plans to develop other missiles, including hypersonic weapons.

- The documents also say Japan will buy ship-launched, U.S.-made Tomahawk missiles. The Yomiuri newspaper previously reported that Tokyo wants as many as 500 of the cruise missiles, which can fly 1,250km.

- The defence ministry will spend more than 43 trillion yen ($315.76 billion) on its military over five years, doubling its defence budget to about 2% of GDP.

- Some $7 billion of that will go toward cyber warfare operations and another $7 billion toward space capabilities. Some $6 billion will go to developing next-generation fighter jets with Britain and Italy.

- To better coordinate its air, sea and land forces, Japan will establish its first joint command centre. Prime Minister Kishida's ruling party is also discussing joint U.S.-Japan commands, according to sources.

- The documents said Japan will increase munitions supplies and depots, without specifying details. The Yomiuri previously reported of plans to build about 70 munitions depots within five years and 130 by 2035. Military planners worry that Japan has too little ammunition for a lengthy conflict, a problem that has been highlighted by Russia's war in Ukraine. They also say stocks of spare parts are low.

- About 70% of the military's munitions are stored on Hokkaido island in Japan's north, a legacy of Cold War planning, when Japan's military adversary was the Soviet Union, according to a report by Nikkei.

- Japan now sees its main threat coming from China along its southwestern island chain, running along the East China Sea, and Tokyo plans to prepare supply bases in the southwest of Japan in anticipation of conflict near Taiwan.

(Reporting by Sakura Murakami and Tim Kelly. Editing by Gerry Doyle and Tomasz Janowski)

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY

THEY INTRODUCED IT WITH SELF SERVICE CHECK OUT
The CEOs of Walmart and Target are warning of surging theft. Here's how a CVS exec said thieves steal $2,000 from stores in just 2 minutes.

Hannah Towey,Ben Tobin
Thu, December 15, 2022 

CVS pharmacyJohnny Louis/Getty Images

Execs at Walmart and Target have both warned that retail theft is higher than usual in 2022.


CVS Health's director of organized retail crime investigations testified to Congress in 2021 about the topic.


Retailers are pointing to e-commerce for the spike in "sophisticated and highly dangerous" crime rings.

One year after a CVS executive testified about the "massive" scale of organized retail crime in the US, other major retailers are also issuing warnings about a surge in thefts. And this time they say big profit drops and even store closures may come as a result.

According to the National Retail Federation, organized retail crime incidents jumped 26.5% on average in 2021. One of the people who brought the problem into the national spotlight last year was Ben Dugan, director of organized retail crime and corporate investigations at CVS Health.

In congressional testimony, he said organized retail crime-related events are reported in a CVS Pharmacy store every three minutes. In just two minutes, he testified, the average professional thief targeting CVS steals $2,000 worth of goods.

A year later, Target Chief Financial Officer Michael Fiddelke has also sounded the alarm on theft.

Missing inventory has reduced Target's gross margin by more than $400 million in 2022 compared with last year, and Target expects those profit losses to grow to $600 million by the end of the fiscal year, Fiddelke said last month during a company earnings call. Target predominantly blamed the inventory shrink on organized crime.

"Along with other retailers, we've seen a significant increase in theft and organized retail crime across our business," Target CEO Brian Cornell said during the earnings call.

And Walmart CEO Doug McMillon made waves when he told CNBC this month that theft is "higher than what it has historically been" and if it doesn't slow down, prices will be higher, and/or stores will close."

Dugan appeared before a Senate judiciary committee in November 2021 to discuss the illegal sales of stolen and counterfeit goods online. He had personally investigated organized retail crime for over 30 years. He said such crimes had only been getting worse due to the lack of regulation surrounding online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay.

"The ease with which online sellers can open and close their sites, essentially undetected, is directly related to this increase in criminal activity in our stores," he told legislators, adding that an estimated $500 billion in illicit stolen and counterfeit goods are sold on third-party marketplaces like Amazon each year.

"Let me just be clear about what organized retail crime is not. It is not everyday shoplifting," Dugan told the committee. "It is not individuals committing singular opportunistic thefts for personal reasons. It is organized, it is sophisticated, and it is massive in scale."

He said these complex crime rings often begin with a "booster" who steals from stores directly or recruits others to steal for them. The use of a weapon or physical violence during these thefts has more than doubled from mid-2020 to the end of 2021, Dugan added.

The booster then delivers the haul to a "fence" who collects and transports the stolen goods to a consolidation site such as a warehouse.

From there, "the stolen goods can be sold directly online to unsuspecting customers, to other third-party sellers (some of whom know the goods are stolen or counterfeit) or distributed to the marketplaces themselves to fulfill orders," he explained.

Crimes like these cost retailers an estimated $45 billion in losses each year, according to the Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/12/oop-walmart-rolled-out-self-checkout-to.html

Big Tech Companies Join Linux in Effort to Kill Google Maps

Kyle Barr
Thu, December 15, 2022 

A VR representation of a city showing a navigation screen in a 3d representation of a city.

Companies like TomTom have struggled for years to beat Google Map’s might in the world of navigation and geolocation, but a partnership facilitated by the Linux Foundation might offer them and the likes of Meta and Microsoft a new means of one-upping the current king.

Some of Google’s biggest rivals are coming together in a kind of rogues gallery with the hopes of creating new open source services to knock Google Maps from its mapping throne.

On Thursday, the nonprofit Linux Foundation announced its own open project that’s meant to collate new map projects through available datasets. And several other major companies have come out of the woodwork to support it in what seems like a bid to finally end Google’s domineering geolocation reign. Those companies include Meta, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, and none other than Dutch geolocation company TomTom.

This Overture Maps Foundation is essentially an open source program for curating and collating map data across the globe from multiple different data sources. So in essence, the project promises it will use the massive amount of global data housed by these various companies and from outside to build up-to-date maps that developers can then use. Linux also promised this new project will essentially level the playing field for anybody looking to develop up-to-date geolocation services or maps without breaking the bank on expensive commercial data that may not even be accurate.

In the release, Linux Foundation’s Executive Director Jim Zemlin said “Mapping the physical environment and every community in the world, even as they grow and change, is a massively complex challenge that no one organization can manage.”

Of course, all the companies involved could have a major stake in such open services. AWS’ general manager Michael Kopenec said in the release that map data is “cost prohibitive and complex,” though it’s unclear if Amazon wants to break into the world of geolocation as well. Overture could also be a boon to its flagging “metaverse” ambitions, with applications in both VR and AR. The company has its own street view company called Mapillary, and it’s already worked alongside Microsoft on street mapping data.

While Google and its parent company Alphabet were combining its Maps and Waze teams, its street view and AR capabilities keep getting more sophisticated, leaving its potential competitors in the dust, even after it was cited for selling users’ location data. That domination is so great that Google Maps has mapped more than 220 countries and territories, according to the company. Maps is the most-downloaded GPS app by far, and it’s not even close.

Though TomTom’s market share has seriously depleted since highs in 2008, the company has survived against Google Maps with deals in countries where the top performing app wasn’t available. Last month, the company announced a new maps platform. TomTom’s Chief Technology Officer Eric Bowman said in an internal Q&A “The world of maps today is pretty siloed. Everyone who is making a commercial map—whether they admit it or not—is starting to see that there are limits to what any one company can do, no matter how big or powerful or well funded they are.”

TomTom’s CEO Harold Goddijn, said in a release “Overture’s standardization and interoperable base map is fundamental to bringing geospatial information from the world together.”

Meta, Microsoft, AWS and TomTom launch the Overture Maps Foundation to develop interoperable open map data

Paul Sawers
Thu, December 15, 2022 

The Linux Foundation has partnered with some of the world's biggest technology companies to develop interoperable and open map data, in what is a clear move to counter Google's dominance in the mapping realm.

The Overture Maps Foundation, as the new effort is called, is officially hosted by the Linux Foundation, but the program is driven by Amazon Web Services (AWS), Facebook's parent company Meta, Microsoft and Dutch mapping company TomTom.

The ultimate mission of the Overture Maps Foundation to power new map products through openly available datasets that can be used and reused across applications and businesses, with each member throwing their own data and resources into the mix.

"Mapping the physical environment and every community in the world, even as they grow and change, is a massively complex challenge that no one organization can manage," noted the Linux Foundation's executive director Jim Zemlin in a press release. "Industry needs to come together to do this for the benefit of all."


Map and location data plays such a fundamental role across society today, powering everything from IoT (Internet of Things) devices and self-driving cars, to logistics and big data visualization tools. Having all that data under the auspices of just one or two mega-firms can be hugely restrictive in terms of what companies can do with the data and what features they have at their disposal, not to mention the costs involved in licensing it.

Spatial mapping will also be vital to emerging technologies such as those required for the Metaverse, which Meta is heavily invested in.

"Immersive experiences, which understand and blend into your physical environment, are critical to the embodied internet of the future," added Jan Erik Solem, engineering director for Maps at Meta. "By delivering interoperable open map data, Overture provides the foundation for an open metaverse built by creators, developers, and businesses alike."

The anti-Google?

Google is a notable omission from the Overture Maps Foundation's founding members. Indeed, that such big names and rivals from the technology sphere are coming together in partnership is probably testament to the stranglehold Google has on the world of mapping, a position it has slowly garnered since launching its Android mobile operating system nearly fifteen years ago.

Moreover, with the iPhone arriving around the same time, a combination that brought maps and navigation into the pockets of millions of people globally, this had a monumental impact on incumbents such as TomTom, which had built a substantial business off the back of physical navigation devices plastered to car windshields.

This graph shows how TomTom's shares plummeted with the advent of the modern smartphone era.

TomTom's shares since the launch of Android and iOS 15 years ago

In the intervening years, TomTom has tried to evolve, striking map and data partnerships with the likes of Uber and Microsoft, while it has also targeted developers with SDKs and hit the acquisition trail to bolster its autonomous vehicle ambitions. But the fact remains, Google and its mapping empire still rule the roost for the most part, something that this new collaboration will go some way toward addressing.

“Collaborative mapmaking is central to TomTom’s strategy -- the Overture Maps Foundation provides the framework to accelerate our goals," TomTom CEO Harold Goddijn noted in a press release. "TomTom’s Maps Platform will leverage the combination of the Overture base map, a broad range of other data, and TomTom’s proprietary data in a continuously integrated and quality-controlled product that serves a broad range of use cases, including the most demanding applications like advanced navigation, search, and automated driving."
Open sesame

The emergence of this new foundation jibes with trends elsewhere across the technology spectrum, with a growing push toward decentralized and interoperable social networks driven by regulatory and societal pressures. Elsewhere, the Linux Foundation also recently announced the OpenWallet Foundation to develop interoperable digital wallets, pushing back against the closed payment ecosystems fostered by tech juggernauts including Google and Apple.

Today's announcement very much fits into that broader trend.

The founding companies are planning to engage in collaborative map-building programs, meshing data from myriad open data sources and knocking it into a format that's consistent, standardized, and fit for use in production systems and applications. This will include channeling data from long-established projects such as OpenStreetMap, in addition to open data provided by municipalities.

While there are only four member companies at launch, there are plans to expand things in the future to include any company with a direct vested interest in open map data.

For now, the Overture Maps Foundation said that it's working toward releasing its first datasets in the first half of 2023, and will include "basic" layers such as roads, buildings, and administrative information. Over time, this will expand to include more places, routing and navigation, and 3D building data.

House approves referendum to 'decolonize' Puerto Rico


Rep. Norma Torres, D-Calif., left, speaks with Del. Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, R-Puerto Rico, joined at right by Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md., after a vote on the Puerto Rico Status Act that would lay out a process for the people of Puerto Rico to determine the future of their political status, in Washington, Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022.

 (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FARNOUSH AMIRI and DÁNICA COTO
Thu, December 15, 2022 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. House passed a bill Thursday that would allow Puerto Rico to hold the first-ever binding referendum on whether to become a state or gain some sort of independence, in a last-ditch effort that stands little chance of passing the Senate.

The bill, which passed 233-191 with some Republican support, would offer voters in the U.S. territory three options: statehood, independence or independence with free association.

“It is crucial to me that any proposal in Congress to decolonize Puerto Rico be informed and led by Puerto Ricans,” said Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, which oversees affairs in U.S. territories.

The proposal would commit Congress to accept Puerto Rico into the United States as the 51st state if voters on the island approved it. Voters also could choose outright independence or independence with free association, whose terms would be defined following negotiations over foreign affairs, U.S. citizenship and use of the U.S. dollar.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who has worked on the issue throughout his career, said it was “a long and torturous path” to get the proposal to the House floor.

“For far too long, the people of Puerto Rico have been excluded from the full promise of American democracy and self-determination that our nation has always championed,” the Maryland Democrat said.

After passing the Democrat-controlled House, the bill now goes to a split Senate where it faces a ticking clock before the end of the year and Republican lawmakers who have long opposed statehood.

Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi, of the pro-statehood New Progressive Party, traveled to Washington for the vote. He called it a historic day and said the 3.2 million U.S. citizens who live on the island lack equality, do not have fair representation in the federal government and cannot vote in general elections.

“This has not been an easy fight. We still have work to do,” he said. “Our quest to decolonize Puerto Rico is a civil rights issue.”

Members of his party, including Puerto Rico Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González, cheered the approval of the bill, although reaction in the U.S. territory was largely muted and tinged with frustration since it is expected to be voted down in the Senate.

The proposal of a binding referendum has exasperated many on an island that already has held seven nonbinding referendums on its political status, with no overwhelming majority emerging. The last referendum was held in November 2020, with 53% of votes for statehood and 47% against, with only a little more than half of registered voters participating.

The proposed binding referendum would be the first time that Puerto Rico's current status as a U.S. commonwealth is not included as an option, a blow to the main opposition Popular Democratic Party, which upholds the status quo.

Pablo José Hernández Rivera, an attorney in Puerto Rico, said approval of the bill by the House would be “inconsequential” like the approval of previous bills in 1998 and 2010.

“We Puerto Ricans are tired of the fact that the New Progressive Party has spent 28 years in Washington spending resources on sterile and undemocratic status projects,” he said.

González, Puerto Rico’s representative in Congress, praised the bill and said it would provide the island with the self-determination it deserves.

“Many of us are not in agreement about how that future should be, but we all accept that the decision should belong to the people of Puerto Rico,” she said.

___

Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico.

All but 16 House Republicans vote against bill to allow Puerto Rico to decide its future

Bryan Metzger
Thu, December 15, 2022

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other House Republicans at a press conference on Wednesday.Nathan Posner/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

• The House passed a bill to allow Puerto Rico voters to choose independence, statehood, or free association.

• Only 16 Republicans joined all Democrats in supporting the bill.

• Republicans opposed the bill in part due to long-standing opposition to Puerto Rico's statehood.

The House of Representatives voted by a 233-191 margin on Thursday to pass the Puerto Rico Status Act, with all but 16 House Republicans voting against the measure. Every House Democrat voted for the bill.

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who worked on the bill and is of Puerto Rican descent, presided over the vote.

 

The bill would give voters in Puerto Rico the opportunity to vote in a plebiscite next November, allowing them to choose between statehood, independence, or to enter into a compact of free association with the United States.

Lawmakers had long been working on the bill, and its addition to the calendar this week was unexpected. A handful of Republicans had co-sponsored the legislation, including Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida and Don Bacon of Nebraska.

It also had the support of the territory's Republican Resident Commissioner Jenniffer González-Colón who serves as a non-voting representative for the island in Congress.

Despite House passage, the bill is unlikely to pass the Senate, where it would need at least 10 Republican supporters.

House Republicans on Thursday cited a number of reasons for opposing the bill, including a lack of debate and the possibility that it would lead to statehood, which they've long opposed.

"At this point in time I'm not, you know, interested in going down that road," Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas told Insider. "We didn't have a debate about it, I haven't been a part of any of the debates on this. They're trying to jam this through right before Christmas."

Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia told Insider that she didn't think the bill was "the right way to go about something like that."

"I'm just not interested in Puerto Rico being a state," she said, adding that she didn't believe people living in Puerto Rico should get to vote on that.

Here are the 16 Republicans who voted for the bill:

• Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska

• Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming

• Rep. Rodney Davis of Illinois

• Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania

• Rep. Mayra Flores of Texas

• Rep. Andrew Garbarino of New York

• Rep. Tony Gonzalez of Ohio

• Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington

• Rep. Bill Huizenga of Michigan

• Rep. Dave Joyce of Ohio

• Rep. John Katko of New York

• Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington

• Rep. Bill Posey of Florida

• Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of New York

• Rep. Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania

• Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan

Experimental Shock-Absorbing Material Can Stop Projectiles Traveling Over 3,000 MPH


Andrew Liszewski
Thu, December 15, 2022 

Photo: Wikimedia - Nathan Boor & Kurt Groover of Aimed Research (Other)

A team of researchers from the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, have used a protein called talin, which functions as “the cell’s natural shock absorber,” to create a new shock-absorbing material capable of stopping projectiles traveling at supersonic speeds without destroying them in the process.

Developing materials to improve the efficacy of armor isn’t a pursuit exclusive to the militaries of the world. Shock-absorbing materials have benefits in other fields, too. In the aerospace industry, they’ll be essential as we continue to expand our presence in space, where even tiny particles moving at supersonic speeds can cause significant damage to spacecraft. Even other researchers can benefit from breakthroughs in this field, particularly those conducting experiments with high-speed projectiles that eventually need to be safely stopped.

The current design of projectile-stopping armors and materials uses a mix of ceramics and fiber-based components layered together, which are effective at stopping a high-speed object from passing straight through them, but end up transferring a lot of the projectile’s kinetic energy onto the armored vehicle or person, often resulting in non-fatal injuries. These materials also tend to get destroyed in the process, requiring them to be replaced after every use. This new research brings us one step closer to solving the unique challenges of developing shock-absorbing materials.

At the molecular level, talin has a structure that unfolds under tension to dissipate energy and then fold back up again afterwards, leaving it ready to absorb shocks again and again, keeping cells resilient against outside forces. When the protein was combined with other ingredients and polymerised into a TSAM (or Talin Shock Absorbing Material), those unique shock-absorbing properties were maintained.

To test the effectiveness of TSAMs, the researchers subjected them to impacts from basalt particles (around 60 µM in size, or roughly the diameter of a human hair) and later, larger aluminum shrapnel, traveling at 1.5 kilometers/second. That’s over 3,300 miles per hour, and three times faster than the speed of a nine-millimeter bullet fired from a hand gun. Not only was the impact of the particles completely absorbed by the TSAM material, but the particles themselves weren’t destroyed in the process.

The size of these test materials means the particles weren’t imparting as much energy into the TSAMs as a projectile fired from something like a tank would, but it does help demonstrate their potential. Eventually, the researchers are confident the hydrogel could be incorporated into lighter wearable armors for soldiers that do a better job of absorbing the energy of an impact, while retaining their shock-absorbing capabilities, even after saving a life.

It would potentially be even more useful for the aerospace industry, both for protecting spacecraft and for research involving space debris, dust, and micrometeoroids, which could be captured without being destroyed in the process. Of course, the captured micrometeroids would be easier to study than a handful of decimated dust. But far more important to regular readers of Gizmodo is how this new material can be incorporated into smartphone cases, making our expensive investments as durable and resilient as the nearly indestructible Nokia handsets from years ago.

Migrants tell of mass kidnappings in Mexico before crossing into the U.S.



Kidnapped migrants gather after a rescue operation, in Ciudad Lerdo

Wed, December 14, 2022 
By Jose Luis Gonzalez, Jackie Botts and Daina Beth Solomon

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - Many of the hundreds of migrants who crossed the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juarez into El Paso this week were part of a group kidnapped in Mexico as they made their way to the United States, according to nine migrants interviewed by Reuters.

Testimony from the nine migrants suggests there were multiple kidnappings across several days in the northern state of Durango, with people taken to at least two main locations and held against their will while ransoms were demanded.

The kidnappings are a stark reminder of the dangers faced by migrants as they travel across Mexico, crisscrossing areas rife with drug violence and weak rule of law.

Most of the kidnapped migrants were Nicaraguans, who have been leaving their homeland in growing numbers to claim asylum and pursue better economic opportunities in the United States, encouraged by the knowledge they are unlikely to be immediately deported due to frosty relations between their government and Washington.

The incidents appear to comprise one of the biggest known mass kidnappings in Mexico in recent years, said Stephanie Leutert, an immigration expert at the University of Texas at Austin.

Four migrants said people in police uniforms stopped the buses they were traveling in and attempted to extort them for between 200 pesos ($10) and 5,000 pesos ($255), before entire busloads were taken by armed men to nearby properties where they were held against their will.

Durango's state security office said it had not received complaints of state police officers involved in the kidnapping and that municipalities were responsible for their own officers. The Durango prosecutor's office said it had not opened an investigation because it had not received any complaints but confirmed rescues had taken place on Dec. 5 and 7.

In one incident, Mexico's Migration Institute (INM) said that along with the Army and National Guard it had freed more than 250 people from a property in the Durango town of Ciudad Lerdo on Dec. 5. The National Guard confirmed the details in a separate statement.

In another incident, six migrants Reuters spoke to described being held captive for several days. Two of them specified that they were rescued along with hundreds of other migrants by Mexican federal law enforcement on Dec. 7, and then began walking north on highways.

Fernando Reverte, president of Mapimi, a municipality which the migrants passed through after their capture and release, said the group of kidnapped migrants totaled about 1,500.

Mario Rizo, one of the migrants who said he was kidnapped, said he believed his bus was stopped in the area of the adjacent cities of Gomez Palacio and Lerdo by people in a municipal police patrol truck. Two other migrants also said they had seen people in municipal police uniforms during the kidnapping.

The head of the public safety unit in Gomez Palacio, Ivan Torres, confirmed at least 300 people had been rescued on Dec. 7 from a rural site in the area but that his officers had not been involved in the kidnapping. The Lerdo mayor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reuters could not verify the total number of people who were kidnapped in the region last week. Migrant estimates of the different incidents, combined with the INM figure, suggests it was over 1,000.

Authorities have not announced anyone caught or charged with kidnapping.

'REACHED THE END'

Kidnappers rationed meager food and water, prioritizing women and children, the migrants told Reuters. They said they spent chilly nights sleeping on floors without blankets in what appeared to be an event hall. Kidnappers yelled at them to stay quiet.

"I sincerely felt I had reached the end ... that I wasn't going to survive," said Rizo, who is now in El Paso, Texas.

On Dec. 7, according to Rizo, the kidnappers departed quickly after they appeared to spot authorities outside. The migrants broke down the building's front door, and found members of the National Guard, the Army and the INM outside.

The Army and INM did not respond to requests for comment about the Dec. 7 rescue, while the National Guard said it participated as it did on Dec. 5.

Byron Montiel, a Nicaraguan migrant also now in El Paso, showed Reuters a receipt of a money transfer that he said a relative sent to the kidnappers, and text messages from a kidnapper to one of his relatives demanding money.

By Sunday, the group of migrants had traveled to Mexico's northern border, where they formed a long queue alongside the border wall, in one of the largest attempted group crossings in recent years.

Leutert said the incident was one example of what migrants went through in the long journey to reach the United States.

"This kidnapping and others show the risks that migrants face in Mexico and all the different groups trying to make money off of them," she said.

($1 = 19.5774 Mexican pesos)

(Reporting by Jose Luiz Gonzalez in Ciudad Juarez and Jimenez; Jackie Botts in Oaxaca City; and Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City; Additional reporting by Kylie Madry, Lizbeth Diaz, Ted Hesson and Ismael Lopez; Editing by Stephen Eisenhammer and Rosalba O'Brien)

Russians find asylum lifeline to US, but at a high price




A family from Ukraine arrive to a shelter at the Christian church Calvary San Diego, after crossing into the United States from Tijuana, Mexico, Friday, April 1, 2022, in Chula Vista, Calif. 

(AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

ELLIOT SPAGAT
Thu, December 15, 2022

CHULA VISTA, Calif. (AP) — Phil Metzger promises to arrange entry to the United States for Russian-speaking asylum-seekers through unmatched connections with U.S. border officials and people in Mexico who can guarantee safety while traveling. Though seeking asylum is free, the pastor of Calvary San Diego said his services are “not cheap.”

In an interview with a Russian-language YouTube channel, he touted director computer access to U.S. Customs and Border Protection to enroll migrants and was vague about “opportunists” in Mexico who ensure customers’ safety after they fly there on tourist visas and while they wait in Tijuana to cross.

“I just know there’s a lot of power on that side that I just don’t control,” the evangelical Christian pastor said. “But I do have one control. I control who goes across. So I have to negotiate. To keep those people safe, I have to negotiate with those in power (in Mexico).”

Asylum is supposed to be free and for those most in need; many have been unable to even ask for protection under COVID-19 restrictions that are set to expire Wednesday.

Yet Metzger’s service, as described in the 25-minute interview last month at his church in the San Diego suburb of Chula Vista, is a private money-generating enterprise that uses its government connections to bypass those restrictions. It’s part of an opaque, bewildering patchwork of exemptions CBP has developed. Immigration advocates select who gets in, though CBP has final say.

Asked about an outside group charging money, the Department of Homeland Security said there is no fee related to exemptions from asylum restrictions and that it will “look into any allegation of abuse.”

“DHS takes any allegations of fraud or abuse of our immigration systems very seriously,” it said in a written response to questions about the service.

The pastor did not respond to text, email and phone messages left over a week and his office was closed when a reporter went there on a recent weekday afternoon.

___

This story is part of an ongoing Associated Press series, “Migration Inc,” which investigates individuals and companies that profit from the movement of people who flee violence and civil strife in their homelands.

___

Migrants have been denied rights to seek asylum more than 2.5 million times since March 2020 on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19 under Trump-era restrictions known as Title 42.

Exemptions are supposed to be for migrants deemed most vulnerable in Mexico — perhaps for gender identity or sexual orientation, or for being specifically threatened with violence — but some partners say CBP doesn't question choices and that migrants selected often face no unusual danger. The agency doesn’t publicly identify its partners or how many slots are made available to each, leaving migrants guessing who they are and which ones are best connected to U.S. authorities.

In El Paso, Texas, CBP gives out 70 slots daily, half for the government of Mexico's Chihuahua state and the rest for attorneys and advocacy groups, said Nicolas Palazzo, an attorney for Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, which participates in the arrangement. He said some attorneys unaffiliated with his organization charge migrants for the service.

In Piedras Negras, Mexico, across from Eagle Pass, Texas, the city government chooses who escapes the reach of Title 42, according to a report last month from the University of Texas at Austin Strauss Center for International Security and Law. In Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas, a migrant shelter picks who crosses, while in Laredo, Texas, there are no exemptions, the report says.

In San Diego, CBP exempts about 200 people daily, including 40 slots that are set aside for Russian speakers working through Calvary San Diego, said Enrique Lucero, the city of Tijuana's director of migrant affairs, who regularly communicates with U.S. officials.

Other slots in San Diego are for advocacy groups Al Otro Lado, which operates an online registration list, and Border Angels, which leans on migrant shelter directors to select who gets to cross, and the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a refugee resettlement organization.

CBP is allowing more Russians to enter the United States with Title 42 exemptions, with about 3 in 4 coming through California border crossings with Mexico. In October, it exempted 3,879 Russians, more than triple the same period a year earlier. It exempted 21,626 Russians in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, more than five times the previous year.

In the YouTube interview last month with Alex Moore, Metzger said his call center fields more than 1,000 inquiries a day. CBP tells him how many people can cross and “I control who crosses.”

“Honestly, we think it was God opening a door for us,” said Metzger, who grew up in Southern California but spent much of his adult life in Eastern Europe.

Metzger is unclear on who he pays to greet customers in Mexico and bring them to the border, saying he doesn’t know them.

Through a Telegram account called Most V USA, the cost for single adults paying cash was 1,800 (presumably U.S. dollars) Monday — a “price reduction.” For married couples paying cash, the cost was $3,500. Online payments were $300 less for individuals and $500 less for couples. Children were free.

“You pay not for the crossing, but for the consultation on the crossing,” Most V USA says on its website. “We use the only legal way available to our organization — making an appointment with a CBP officer at the border.”

The price includes crossing to the United States safely in groups from Tijuana to San Diego, with a bag containing water and protein bars.

Metzger opened his large church to Ukrainian refugees after Russia's invasion this year, working with volunteers on a smooth-running operation that deployed a mobile app used to track church attendance. Ukrainians who flew to Tijuana were told to report to a San Diego border crossing as their numbers approached, a system organizers likened to waiting for a restaurant table.

Metzger touts connections with CBP developed during that time and warns about falling for scammers who use his Most V USA brand.

“No, it’s not cheap. No, it’s not easy but we will make sure that it is safe and that you will get into the States,” he said.

___

Associated Press writer Jim Heintz in Moscow contributed.

Effort in U.S. Congress to protect 'Dreamer' immigrants stalling





More than 200 "Dreamers" and their supporters from across U.S.A. attempt to lobby members of U.S. Congress in Washington

Thu, December 15, 2022 
By Ted Hesson and Richard Cowan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Over 200 advocates from around the United States converged on Capitol Hill this week with an 11th-hour mission: persuade lawmakers to provide citizenship to "Dreamer" immigrants who illegally entered the United States as children.

Addinelly Moreno Soto, a 31-year-old communications aide who came to the United States from Mexico at age 3, trekked to the Capitol from San Antonio with her husband on Wednesday hoping to meet with her state's U.S. Senator John Cornyn. The influential Republican's support could help advance a deal that has eluded Congress for more than a decade - and which appears likely to fail again this year.

Cornyn could not meet with her and other Dreamer supporters from Texas, she said. One of his staffers told them that Cornyn would need to review the text of any legislation before making a decision.


The end-of-year push comes as a window is nearly closed for Congress to find a compromise to protect Dreamers, many of whom speak English and have jobs, families and children in the United States but lack permanent status.

Supporters of the effort have pushed for Congress to pass the legislation now since Democrats - who overwhelmingly back Dreamers - will cede control of the U.S. House of Representatives to Republicans in January. Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican, has said the border must be secured before other immigration issues can be addressed.

About 594,000 Dreamers are enrolled in a 2012 program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which grants protection from deportation and work permits, but is currently subject to a legal challenge brought by Texas and other U.S. states with Republican attorneys general.

U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat who came to office in 2021, promised during his campaign to protect Dreamers and their families after Republican former President Donald Trump tried to end DACA.

Both Moreno and her husband enrolled in DACA in 2012. They now have two U.S.-citizen boys ages two and three.

"How much longer do we have to prove ourselves - that we are worthy of being here permanently?" Moreno said. "That is the frustrating part. I have children. What about them?"

'NOT GOING ANYWHERE'

Senators Kyrsten Sinema, an independent from Arizona who recently left the Democratic Party, and Republican Thom Tillis of North Carolina, worked on a plan in recent weeks to combine border restrictions with a path to citizenship for an estimated 2 million Dreamers, according to a framework of possible legislation reviewed by Reuters.

But even some House Democrats have expressed reservations with the framework of the Senate bill.

The Senate is split 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote. At least 10 Republicans would need to join Democrats to overcome a procedural hurdle that requires 60 votes to advance legislation in the Senate.

Lawmakers have a narrow timeframe with a little more than a week before Congress is expected to pass a roughly $1.7 trillion spending bill that would serve as a vehicle for the immigration deal, but leading Republicans have said it will not happen.

"It’s not going anywhere," Cornyn told Reuters this week, offering a more blunt assessment than his staffer.

On Thursday, a Senate aide and three other people familiar with the matter said the Dreamer effort would not advance before the end of the year. The offices of Sinema and Tillis did not respond to requests for comment.

Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California said it was frustrating and disappointing that the talks had not even progressed into legislation for senators to review.

Senator John Kennedy, a conservative Republican from Louisiana, said his party had lost trust in the president's willingness to secure the border amid record illegal crossings.

"President Biden's administration is perfectly content to have the border open," Kennedy said. "They're happy to have all those people coming in and everybody knows that."

A Biden administration official criticized Republicans for "finger-pointing" and attacking Biden's record "when they themselves refuse to take the actual steps we need from Congress to fix our broken immigration system."

For Raul Perez, a 33-year-old from Austin, Texas, who came to Washington, the prolonged uncertainty over his and other Dreamers futures was deeply frustrating.

"It's been over a decade now since DACA came out and we're still in the same spot," said Perez, who is part of the immigrant-youth led advocacy group United We Dream. "We need something to pass now. We can't keep waiting."


(Reporting by Ted Hesson and Richard Cowan in Washington; Editing by Mary Milliken, Aurora Ellis and Lisa Shumaker)