IT'S 2023 NOT 1917

Tory MP Dubs Teachers' Union Leaders 'A Bolshevik And A Commie' Ahead Of Potential Strike


Kate Nicholson
Mon, 16 January 2023 

Jonathan Gullis spoke out against the leaders of a main teachers' union


Jonathan Gullis slammed the leaders of the National Education Union on Monday, dubbing them a “Bolshevik” and a “Commie”.

Formerly a teacher, trade union member, and representative for the teaching union NASUWT, Gullis is now the Tory MP for Stoke-on-Trent.


He attacked the joint NEU general secretaries Kevin Courtney and Mary Bousted when speaking to TalkTV on Monday, hours before union members announce the results of their strike ballots.

He dubbed the NEU the “Not Education Union” before getting personal.

Gullis said: ″Commie Courtney and Bolshevik Bousted have been working hard, desperately getting their strike that they’ve been so keen for because they’re Labour Party members, they’re Labour Party agitators who want to make sure they bring the Conservative government, and get an early general election.”

The NEU is the UK’s largest education union with 450,000 members. On its website, it says it does not affiliate to and does not financially support any political party, supposedly making it the largest unaffiliated union in the UK.

The Conservatives have tried to associate the Labour Party with the public sector strike action in recent months.

Labour has promised to oppose the government’s proposed legislation which would restrict the ability to strike for those in the public sector, but leader Keir Starmer has repeatedly refused to back the striking employees.

In July, he sacked his own shadow transport minister Sam Tarry for joining the picket line with rail workers.

While criticising potential strike action, Gullis suggested that the main problem with teaching was the workload.

He suggested should be more conversation around managing that – because teaching is “not a badly paid profession”.

Gullis claimed that when he left teaching he was on £50,000 when he was in a middle leadership role.

Talk TV host Julia Hartley-Brewer then claimed that many NEU members were “political activists, they’d go out to strike at the drop of a hat”, while Gullis nodded in agreement.

The Tory backbencher, who was an education minister briefly under Liz Truss, also said he didn’t think teachers should be striking because the priority needs to be pupils and parents.

This isn’t the first time Gullis has targeted those leading the teaching unions.

He told the Commons last week: “I am very worried about seeing teachers going on strike because it’s the pupils that will suffer the most, particularly disadvantages pupils from areas like Stoke-on-Trent North, Kesgrave and so on.

“And while I am a huge admirer of the incredible work teachers do, they are sadly being cajoled by baron bosses in unions like the Not Education Union, led by Bolshevik Bousted and Commie Courtney, with their Labour mates to force teachers out of the classes and make sure that kids continue to suffer.

“What can we do to make sure pupils will not be victims any further?”

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'Stop the televised horserace of it all': 

Cate Blanchett calls out 'patriarchal pyramid' of award shows after big win

After winning a Critics Choice Award for Tár, 

the actor spoke about how "arbitrary" it is to be

 named Best Actress

Elisabetta Bianchini

Mon, January 16, 2023

Cate Blanchett poses in the press room with the award for best actress for "Tar" at the 28th annual Critics Choice Awards at The Fairmont Century Plaza Hotel on Sunday, Jan. 15, 2023, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Cate Blanchett may have been crowned one of the best actors of year after winning a Critics Choice Award for playing Lydia Tár in the film Tár, but that didn't stop her from calling for an end to the "television horserace" of awards season.

Blanchett is largely regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time, having won notable awards for her work in films like Elizabeth, The Aviator, Blue Jasmine, I'm Not There, and now Tár. During Sunday night's ceremony, Blanchett spoke about what it means to be receiving the award for Best Actress.

"I mean, it is arbitrary considering how many extraordinary performances there have been by women, not only in this room," she said. "Andrea Riseborough, Tang Wei, Penélope Cruz, the list goes on and on and on."

As Blanchett started to recognize her fellow nominees, she pivoted to make a statement about these types of awards ceremonies more broadly.

It's this patriarchal pyramid where someone stands up here. Why don't we just say there is a whole raft of female performances that are in concert and in dialogue with one another. And stop the televised horserace of it all.Actress Cate Blanchett

"Can I tell you, every single woman, whether television, film, advertising, tampon commercials, whatever, you're all out there doing amazing work that is inspiring me continually. So thank you, I share this with you all."

Blanchett's comments come as there has been extensive dialogue about the relevance and lasting power of televised awards shows, largely sparked by the significant controversy around the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) and the Golden Globes.

From a viewer perspective the Globes, which occurred just a week ago, was watched by 6.3 million people, significantly less than the more than 18 million who watched in 2020. Conversely, the Oscars audience grew by about 60 per cent last year, after a record low in 2021 of 10.4 million viewers. But we're still waiting to see if that increase can be sustained in 2023.

Of course, there are also questions around whether these smaller groups of industry professionals deeming something or someone in a TV show or film the best even matters, especially if there are issues with these groups not being representative of the world we live in.

That also has to be balanced with the fact that people have waited their entire lives to receive this kind of recognition for their work.

Following Sunday's ceremony, some people took to social media to comment on Blanchett's statements.

How close to midnight is humanity? 2023 Doomsday Clock announcement could warn of nuclear disaster

Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY

Mon, January 16, 2023 

Each January for the past 75 years, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has published a new Doomsday Clock, suggesting just how close – or far – humanity is from the brink.

The next edition will be revealed Jan. 24 at 10 a.m. EST. It's the first update to the clock since Russia's invasion of Ukraine renewed fears of global nuclear war.

Historically, the clock has measured the danger of nuclear disaster, but that's not the only apocalyptic scenario being considered. Climate change, bioterrorism, artificial intelligence and the damage done by mis- and disinformation also have been included in the mix of possible cataclysms.

Each year, the 22 members of the Science and Security Board are asked two questions:

• Is humanity safer or at greater risk this year than last year?

• Is humanity safer or at greater risk compared to the 76 years the clock has been set?

Here's what to know about the 2023 Doomsday Clock:

How did the Doomsday Clock start?

In 1945, on the anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project that built the world's first atomic bombs began publishing a mimeographed newsletter called The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Two years later, as those same scientists contemplated a world in which two atomic weapons had been used in Japan, they gathered to discuss the threat to humanity posed by nuclear war.

"They were worried the public wasn't really aware of how close we were to the end of life as we knew it," said Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of the Bulletin.

Martyl Langsdorf, an artist and wife of Manhattan project physicist Alexander Langsdorf Jr., came up with the idea of a clock showing just how close things were.

It came to be called the Doomsday Clock.

"It gave the sense that if we did nothing, it would tick on toward midnight and we could experience the apocalypse," Bronson said.

The mushroom cloud from Ivy Mike (codename given to the test) rises above the Pacific Ocean over the Enewetak Atoll in the Marshall Islands on November 1, 1952 at 7:15 am (local time). It was the world's first test of a full-scale thermonuclear device, in which part of the explosive yield comes from nuclear fusion.

Where does the Doomsday Clock stand now?

For the past two years the Doomsday Clock has stood at 100 seconds to midnight, closer to destruction than at any point since it was created in 1947.

What does midnight represent on the Doomsday Clock?

Midnight on the Doomsday Clock represents how close humans are to bringing about civilization-ending catastrophe because of the unleashing of human-caused perils either by nuclear disaster, climate change or other cataclysms.

Who decides where the Doomsday Clock is set?

The Doomsday Clock is set each year by the 22 members of the Bulletin's Science and Security Board in consultation with its Board of Sponsors, which includes 11 Nobel laureates.

The first edition of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which began publishing in 1945 on the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It was launched by scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project creating the world's first atomic bomb. The Bulletin is known for its Doomsday Clock, showing how close humanity is to destruction, which has been published each year since 1947.

Why does the Doomsday Clock exist?

At its heart, the bulletin's founders were asking how well humanity was managing the "dangerous Pandora's box made possible by modern science," Bronson said.

Though technology makes possible amazing and wonderful things, it can also pose risks. In 1947 the biggest of those was nuclear war. Since then the bulletin has added others, including climate change, bioterrorism, artificial intelligence and the damage done by mis- and disinformation.

Why is the Doomsday Clock so prominent?

Over the years the clock has been referenced by the White House, the Kremlin and the leadership of many other nations. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein were on the bulletin's Board of Sponsors, and John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon wrote pieces for the magazine.

Though not everyone agrees with the clock's settings, it is generally respected for the questions it asks and for its science-based stance.

Does the Doomsday Clock always go forward?

The setting of the clock has jumped forward and back over the past 75 years, depending on world events.

The furthest from midnight it has ever been was in 1991, when it was set at 17 minutes to midnight after the U.S. and the Soviet Union signed the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, followed by the dissolution of the USSR.

"People would go to sleep every night worried about were they going to wake up," said Daniel Holz, a professor of physics at the University of Chicago and co-chair of the Bulletin's Science and Security Board. "That threat was definitely reduced at the end of the Cold War."

The most pessimistic years have been 2021 and 2022, when it was set at 100 seconds to midnight, in part because of global nuclear and political tensions, COVID-19, climate change and the threat of biological weapons.

The first clock, announced in 1947, was set at 7 minutes to midnight.

What will the Doomsday Clock be set to on Jan. 24, 2023?

The Doomsday Clock will be reset Jan. 24 at 10 a.m. EST in an announcement that will be livestreamed on the bulletin's website.

Exactly what time the scientists who make up the board have chosen is a closely held secret. But one hint is this: For the first time, the statement is being translated into Russian and Ukrainian.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 2023 Doomsday Clock announcement to warn of nuclear disaster

Jailed Iranian American appeals to Biden, starts hunger strike

Sun, January 15, 2023 
By Arshad Mohammed

Jan 16 (Reuters) - An Iranian American imprisoned in Iran for more than seven years on spying charges that the United States rejects as baseless appealed to U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday to bring him home and said he was starting a seven-day hunger strike.

Siamak Namazi made the plea in a letter to Biden seven years to the day that Iran released five other U.S. citizens in a prisoner exchange choreographed to coincide with the implementation of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

"When the Obama Administration unconscionably left me in peril and freed the other American citizens Iran held hostage on January 16, 2016, the U.S. Government promised my family to have me safely home within weeks," Namazi, 51, said in the letter to Biden released by his lawyer, Jared Genser.

"Yet seven years and two presidents later, I remain caged in Tehran's notorious Evin prison," he added.

Namazi asked Biden to spend one minute a day for the next week thinking about the suffering of U.S. citizens detained in Iran, who include environmentalist Morad Tahbaz, 67, who also has British nationality, and businessman Emad Shargi, 58.

Namazi, whose father was allowed to leave Iran in October for medical treatment after being detained on espionage-related charges rejected by Washington, said he would be on a hunger strike for the same seven days.

"All I want sir, is one minute of your days' time for the next seven days devoted to thinking about the tribulations of the U.S. hostages in Iran," he added. "Just a single minute of your time for each year of my life that I lost in Evin prison after the U.S. Government could have saved me but didn't."

Asked for comment, a White House national security council spokesperson said the government was committed to securing Namazi's freedom.

"We are working tirelessly to bring him home along with all U.S. citizens who are wrongfully detained in Iran," the spokesperson said. "Iran's wrongful detention of U.S. citizens for use as political leverage is outrageous." (Reporting By Arshad Mohammed in Saint Paul, Minn.; Additional reporting by Steve Holland in Willmington, Del. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Belarus puts exiled opposition leader on trial on treason charges

Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya visits Finland

Tue, January 17, 2023 
By Tom Balmforth and John Irish

(Reuters) - Belarus put exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya on trial in absentia on treason charges on Tuesday, in what the outspoken critic of veteran leader Alexander Lukashenko said would be a "farce and a show".

Tsikhanouskaya, 40, fled Belarus after running against Lukashenko in the 2020 presidential election which was followed by mass protests over alleged electoral fraud. She faces a possible jail term of up to 15 years.

Following a crackdown on protesters, she became the head of an opposition-in-exile and denounced the election after Lukashenko, in power since 1994, declared himself the winner.

Tsikhanouskaya, who now lives in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, told Reuters in the Swiss resort of Davos that she did not expect the trial to be fair.

"In Belarus there are no honest trials. We live in absolute lawlessness in our country so tomorrow's trial will be a farce and a show but not real justice," Tsikhanouskaya said on Monday in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.

She said she had asked for the necessary documents from the court-appointed lawyer, but had not received anything.

The BelTa state news agency said the trial had started on Tuesday morning. Tsikhanouskaya and several others were to be tried on charges of treason and attempting to seize power, the court said before the trial.

"Tsikhanouskaya, while on the territory of the Republic of Lithuania, proclaimed herself the winner of the last election... and the only national leader elected by the Belarusian people," the General Prosecutor's Office said.

A day before the trial was due to begin, Belarus brought new criminal charges against Tsikhanouskaya's jailed husband, a 44-year-old video blogger, who was arrested in 2020 while attempting to run for office against Lukashenko himself.

His arrest prompted Tsikhanouskaya to run for office in his place despite having no public profile, and she was allowed onto the ballot.

Rights activists estimate about 1,500 people are in jail in Belarus on politically motivated charges. Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia who has been in power since 1994, is a pariah in the West and a close ally of Russia.

Belarus also put rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ales Byalyatski, and two others, on trial this month on charges of financing protests and smuggling money. They could face from seven to 12 years in jail on charges of financing protests and smuggling money.

(Reporting by Tom Balmforth in Kyiv and John Irish in Davos; Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Belarus brings new charges against opposition leader's jailed husband


 Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Tsikhanouskaya leads Vilnius march

Mon, January 16, 2023 

(Reuters) - Belarus brought new criminal charges against the jailed husband of the exiled opposition leader on Monday, accusing him of violating prison rules while serving an 18-year sentence, investigators said.

Syarhei Tsikhanouski, a 44-year-old video blogger who was arrested during an attempt to run for president against veteran leader Alexander Lukashenko in 2020, could have another two years added to his jail term under the new charges.

He rose to prominence in Belarus after comparing Lukashenko to a moustachioed cockroach from a children's fairy tale and was arrested before the 2020 presidential vote that sparked mass protests when Lukashenko claimed victory despite allegations of electoral fraud.

Tsikhanouski was convicted in December 2021 on charges of organising mass unrest and fuelling social enmity.

His wife, opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, fled to Lithuania to escape the sweeping post-election crackdown that crushed the protests.

Tsikhanouski's lawyer could not be reached for comment about the new charges on Monday.

In a statement, the Investigative Committee, a law enforcement agency, accused Tsikhanouski of "provoking conflicts" in prison, including with his cell mates, and of systematically disobeying orders.

Rights activists estimate about 1,500 people are in jail in Belarus on politically motivated charges. Lukashenko, who has been in power since 1994, is a pariah in the West and a close ally of Russia.

(Writing by Tom Balmforth, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

Belarus opposition leader denounces her trial as 'farce'

Adam PLOWRIGHT
Mon, January 16, 2023 

Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya called her trial in absentia, set to start on Tuesday, a "farce" and "revenge" from President Alexander Lukashenko, saying she had not been given access to court documents.

"These trials are not trials at all. It's a show, it's farce, but it has nothing to do with justice at all," Tikhanovskaya, who lives in exile in Lithuania, told AFP at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Monday.

"It's personal revenge of Lukashenko and his cronies, but not only against me, but other people who are opposing him," she said.

Faced with "about ten charges" including high treason and conspiracy to seize power, the 40-year-old said she had contacted her court-appointed lawyer, but he never replied.


"I don't even know what my so-called lawyer will be doing tomorrow in this court, how he's going to defend me," she added.

"I don't know how long this trial will take place, how many days, but I'm sure they will sentence me to many, many years in jail."

Lukashenko's regime has prosecuted and jailed a growing number of opposition figures, journalists and activists since mass protests in 2020.

- 'Bluffing' -

Tikhanovskaya also dismissed joint air force drills on Monday between Russia and Belarus as the latest "bluffing" from Lukashenko.

The authoritarian leader allowed his military and financial backer Russia to use Belarussian territory to stage attacks on Ukraine last February, but did not send his own troops.

"I would call it bluffing or a show for the Belarussian people," Tikhanovskaya said of the latest exercises.

"First of all to threaten them, to say 'look the Russian army is here, so sit quietly, don't oppose anything'."

She said the other purpose was "attracting the attention of Ukrainian soldiers from hotspots in eastern part (of Ukraine) to the Belarussian borders."

She added: "Ukrainians are prepared for possible land attacks. They mined a lot of kilometres of border and I think it's impossible to again invade Ukraine (from Belarus)."

Tikhanovskaya, who claimed victory in contested 2020 presidential election, said she was the first Belarussian to attend the World Economic Forum since 1992 -- two years before Lukashenko came to power.

"It's a huge honour for us because for (almost) 30 years, Belarus was like a black hole on the map of Europe. Nobody was interested a lot with what was going on there. We were considered as an appendix of Russia. We didn't have our voice," she said.

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Industrial espionage: How China sneaks out America's technology secrets

Nicholas Yong - BBC News
Mon, January 16, 2023

GE turbine blades in France

It was an innocuous-looking photograph that turned out to be the downfall of Zheng Xiaoqing, a former employee with energy conglomerate General Electric Power.

According to a Department of Justice (DOJ) indictment, the US citizen hid confidential files stolen from his employers in the binary code of a digital photograph of a sunset, which Mr Zheng then mailed to himself.

It was a technique called steganography, a means of hiding a data file within the code of another data file. Mr Zheng utilised it on multiple occasions to take sensitive files from GE.

GE is a multinational conglomerate known for its work in the healthcare, energy and aerospace sectors, making everything from refrigerators to aircraft engines.

The information Zheng stole was related to the design and manufacture of gas and steam turbines, including turbine blades and turbine seals. Considered to be worth millions, it was sent to his accomplice in China. It would ultimately benefit the Chinese government, as well as China-based companies and universities.

Zheng was sentenced to two years in prison earlier this month. It is the latest in a series of similar cases prosecuted by US authorities. In November Chinese national Xu Yanjun, said to be a career spy, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for plotting to steal trade secrets from several US aviation and aerospace companies - including GE.

It is part of a broader struggle as China strives to gain technological knowhow to power its economy and its challenge to the geopolitical order, while the US does its best to prevent a serious competitor to American power from emerging.

The theft of trade secrets is attractive because it allows countries to "leapfrog up global value chains relatively quickly - and without the costs, both in terms of time and money, of relying completely on indigenous capabilities", Nick Marro of the Economist Intelligence Unit told the BBC.

Last July FBI director Christopher Wray told a gathering of business leaders and academics in London that China aimed to "ransack" the intellectual property of Western companies so it can speed up its own industrial development and eventually dominate key industries.

He warned that it was snooping on companies everywhere "from big cities to small towns - from Fortune 100s to start-ups, folks that focus on everything from aviation, to AI, to pharma".

At the time, China's then foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said Mr Wray was "smearing China" and had a "Cold War mentality".
'China seeks to topple our status'

In the DOJ statement on Zheng, the FBI's Alan Kohler Jr said China was targeting "American ingenuity" and seeking to "topple our status" as global leader.

Zheng was an engineer specialising in turbine sealing technology and worked on various leakage containment technologies in steam turbine engineering. Such seals optimise turbine performance "whether by increasing power or efficiency or extending the usable life of the engine", the DOJ said.

Gas turbines that power aircraft are central to the development of China's aviation industry.

Aerospace and aviation equipment are among 10 sectors that the Chinese authorities are targeting for rapid development to reduce the country's dependence on foreign technology and eventually surpass it.

But Chinese industrial espionage is targeting a wide range of other sectors too.

According to Ray Wang, founder and CEO of Silicon Valley-based consultancy Constellation Research, they include pharmaceutical development and nanotechnology - engineering and technology conducted at the nanoscale for use in areas such as medicine, textiles and fabrics and automobiles. A nanometre is a billionth of a meter.

It also includes pharmaceuticals, bioengineering - mimicking biological processes for purposes such as the development of biocompatible prostheses and regenerative tissue growth.

Mr Wang cited an anecdote by a former head of research and development for a Fortune 100 company, who told him that "the person he entrusted the most" - someone so close that their children grew up together - was eventually found to be on the payroll of the Chinese Communist Party.

"He kindly explained to me that the spies are everywhere," he said.

China needs technological knowhow to power its economy and its challenge to the geopolitical order

In the past industrial espionage from countries such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore was a concern, Mr Marro said. However once indigenous firms emerge as innovative market leaders in their own right - and so start to want to protect their own intellectual property - then their governments start passing legislation to take the issue more seriously.

"As Chinese firms have become more innovative over the past decade, we've seen a marked strengthening of domestic intellectual property rights protection in tandem," Mr Marro said.

China has also gained expertise by making foreign companies hand over technology under joint venture agreements in exchange for access to the Chinese market. Despite complaints the Chinese government has always denied accusations of coercion.
Hacking deal a 'joke'

There have been attempts to rein in hacking specifically.

In 2015 the US and China struck a deal in which both sides pledged not to carry out "cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information for commercial advantage".

By the following year, the US National Security Agency had accused the Chinese of violating the agreement, although it did acknowledge that the quantity of attempts to hack government and corporate data had dropped "dramatically".

But observers say the deal's overall impact has been minimal. Mr Wang said it was a "joke" due to a lack of enforcement. Chinese cyber-espionage in the US has been "pervasive" and extends to academic labs. "It has been going on in every aspect of Western businesses," he told the BBC.

However Lim Tai Wei from the National University of Singapore noted that there were no "definitive uncontested studies" on the extent of the phenomenon.

"Some believe that there was a short dip in Chinese cyber espionage against the US, but resumed its former level thereafter. Others believe it failed due to the overall breakdown in US-China relations," he said.

Meanwhile the US is now directly trying to block China's progress in the key semiconductor industry - vital for everything from smartphones to weapons of war - saying China's use of the technology poses a national security threat.

In October, Washington announced some of the broadest export controls yet, requiring licences for companies exporting chips to China using US tools or software, no matter where they are made in the world. Washington's measures also prevent US citizens and green card holders from working for certain Chinese chip companies. Green card holders are US permanent residents who have the right to work in the country.

The US is beating China in the battle for chips

Mr Marro says that while these measures will slow China's technological advance, they will also accelerate China's efforts to remove US and other foreign products from its tech supply chains.

"China has been trying to do this for years, with muted success, but these policy goals now command greater urgency as a result of the recent US controls," he said.

With China also invoking its own national security, the scramble for a technological edge between the world's two biggest economies is only likely to intensify further.

But Mr Wang reckons that the US still holds the advantage.

"My cyber-security friends tell me when they hack Chinese sites, the only worthwhile tech [they can find there] is US intellectual property," he said.

THIRD WORLD U$A

Storms expose failures of California's homelessness programs


Tom Elias
Mon, January 16, 2023 

The spate of heavy rainstorms that swept across California during the early weeks of January exposed a lot of problems: weak bridges, inadequate reservoir capacity, poor drainage on many city streets and helplessness in the face of inevitable mudslides, to name just a few.

But the rains revealed nothing more starkly than the failure so far of California’s many programs to help most of the homeless, a failure that exposed how useless has been the bulk of the $11 billion-plus allocated for homeless aid over the last year.

One video, shot in the stormy early morning hours of Jan. 5, says a lot about this. You can see it on YouTube. The tape shows homeless individuals huddled in sleeping bags with water lapping at them. It shows people huddled under soaked blankets and in barely covered alcoves leading to building entrances. Most of all, it shows that in one city with a budget of tens of millions for “homeless services,” no one served the unhoused when they needed it most. The official death toll among California’s more than 172,000 homeless was just two, both felled by branches the storm knocked off trees and into their tents.

No one knows how many more might perish from aftereffects of extreme exposure to cold and wet. Many Californians write off the state’s homeless as some kind of human detritus because many are mentally ill or suffer post-traumatic stress disorder and are often not very functional. No matter, no one deserves the misery inflicted on the homeless this winter.

Some of California’s most prominent and powerful politicians often say they recognize this. New Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, whose city contains more than 56,000 homeless, declared a state of emergency over their situation on her first day in office last month. She wants to humanely eliminate some tent cities, but so far has moved only a few dozen persons indoors. Gov. Gavin Newsom put more than $10 billion for homeless services into the current state budget and billions more into his next planned budget. California has more homeless today than when the 2022-23 budget passed, and far fewer shelter beds than before the coronavirus pandemic.

One thing you can safely bet: No executive heading any of the more than 50 state and local government programs for which big money is ticketed slept in the rain Jan. 5.

One state report indicates this year’s $10 billion allocation is a pittance beside what it will cost to house all the currently homeless. That assessment held it will take more than 30 times as much, or $300 billion

This sum could house many thousands, but there is no sign even that much money can end the problem. At today’s reported average cost of $830,000-plus per one-bedroom apartment, it would pay for less than 3,600 new one-bedroom units, far from enough to permanently shelter even most of today’s homeless.

Yet, use of hotels and motels bought up by state and local governments as both temporary and permanent quarters for the unhoused did not solve the problem.

Here’s an idea not yet in the anti-homelessness portfolio: Use part of the huge government allocations to buy or lease some of the hundreds of millions of square feet of vacant office and commercial space that now dogs many California property owners, the result of changes in working conditions for white collar workers. Studies indicate about one-third of them will likely operate permanently from their homes.

So far, California has seen only about 11,000 conversions to residential units permitted out of that vast space, makeovers state law now says can go forward without zoning changes. How about using some of the billions allocated to homelessness for this? It would allow far more units and take much less time than new construction.

Just as it’s time for a complete rethink of the overall housing crisis, where state officials announce new and different need estimates every few months, it’s also time for this kind of fresh thinking about housing the homeless.

For while no one knows when or where the next big chain of storms may strike hardest, it’s impossible to overstate the misery they will cause if California continues hosting as many unhoused individuals as it now does.

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Storms expose failures of California's homelessness programs

More cities and states make homeless encampments a crime, leaving low-income people with few options

Claire Thornton, USA TODAY
Mon, January 16, 2023

As the number of people experiencing homelessness increases across the country, more cities and states have passed laws making it illegal to live out of tents and cars or sleep in public spaces.

More than 100 jurisdictions have had such bans on the books for years, according to the National Homelessness Law Center. In recent months, high-profile measures have been approved targeting homelessness in many western U.S. cities and across entire states.

Federal data shows 582,462 people were experiencing homelessness on a single night in January 2022. Experts warn more people will enter homelessness as housing costs increase, as has been the case for decades in cities such as New York and in much of California.

If visible, unsheltered homelessness continues to grow, city leaders will have an easier time passing measures advocates say criminalize basic needs such as sleep and sheltering oneself, Eric Tars, legal director for the National Homelessness Law Center, told USA TODAY.

"The danger is that the worse the housing situation gets, the more people we see on the streets, the more will be the push for these punitive policies," Tars said.

A woman pushes a cart past a tent along the sidewalk on Dec. 20, 2022, in Salt Lake City.

These states and cities have passed laws making it illegal to live in tents or sleep on public property:

Missouri bans sleeping in parks

On Jan. 1, a statewide ban on sleeping on state-owned land took effect in Missouri, making it a misdemeanor to sleep in public spaces such as parks or under bridges.

Experts say Missouri's law is concerning because it covers the state and adds pressure on top of municipal bans.

It's wrong to assume people experiencing homelessness can just leave and go to another state, Tars said.

People have an "assumption" that "homeless people are infinitely mobile and they’ll go somewhere else," Tars said. "But most people, contrary to this notion of vagrancy and transience, are homeless in the community where they were once housed."

Missouri's law also restricts state funding for permanent housing, a model taken from template legislation created by the conservative Cicero Institute, according to Stateline, the Pew Charitable Trusts news service.

"To take funding away from housing that has the appropriate resources attached to it is devastating, problematic and perpetuates the issue of homelessness," said Kathy Connors, executive director of Gateway180 shelter in St. Louis. She added that people experiencing homelessness who are displaced from rural areas are forced to seek temporary services available only in cities, which is straining the system.

Gabe DeBay, Medical Services Officer with the Shoreline Fire Department, checks the blood pressure of a homeless man at a tent encampment during the hottest part of the day on July 26, 2022, in Shoreline, Washington. The Pacific Northwest is experiencing a heat wave with potentially record-breaking temperatures, which is expected to last for the rest of the week.

Tennessee makes it a felony to live in a tent

In July, Tennessee became the first state to make it a felony to live in a tent or sleep on state land.

Statewide bans have been introduced in recent years by legislators in five other states, Pew says.

"Policies like this are making homelessness worse," Tars said, because arrest, jail time and a criminal record put up steep barriers to employment, securing an apartment and accessing social services.

Portland, Oregon, bans tent living

The City Council in Portland, Oregon, voted in November to approve a plan to ban living in tents and will shift people living in encampments into six city-sanctioned mass encampment sites capped at 250 people.

The measure includes plans to build 20,000 additional affordable housing units and eventually would require everyone living on the streets to move into shelters, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon sent the Portland City Council a letter warning the new measure could be unlawful. Last month, the civil rights group sued the city of Phoenix over a similar ban, resulting in a temporary block from a federal judge.

Oregon's recently elected Gov. Tina Kotek started her term this week by declaring a state of emergency for parts of the state that have seen huge increases in unsheltered homelessness, including Portland.

Paskal Pawlicki from My Friends House Foundation, hands a bottle of water to a homeless man in the Skid Row area of Los Angeles, Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022.

Washoe County, Nevada, considers bans

In December, Washoe County Commissioners in Nevada voted 3-2 to consider an ordinance to ban camping in tents or vehicles and storing personal items in public when it poses "significant harm to any person, or public area." Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor or a $500 fine. Within the county, Reno and Sparks already had similar ordinances in place.

In 2021, 25% of young people experiencing homelessness served by the Eddy House shelter in Reno lived on the streets, CEO Trevor Macaluso told USA TODAY. He added that people displaced by sweeps in Reno and Sparks usually relocate their encampment somewhere else in the city, which makes the bans ineffective.
Los Angeles bans some homeless tent cities

A City Council-approved ban on tent living in certain areas was expanded in August 2022 to prohibit encampments within 500 feet of schools and day care centers after teachers and parents complained students couldn't access nearby sidewalks.

School administrators have said the ban isn't always enforced by the city and police, according to EdSource, an outlet covering education in California.

More recently, the mayors of Los Angeles and Long Beach and Los Angeles County declared states of emergency over the homeless crisis aimed at speeding up services to reduce and prevent homelessness.

Creepy fish ‘outta the depths from hell’ washes up on Texas shore. What is it?


Facebook screengrab

Mike Stunson
Mon, January 16, 2023 

It’s not a sandworm from “Tremors” or “Beetlejuice” found washed up along a Texas shore, but rather a real fish with some creepy characteristics.

Suzanne Choate Arceneaux shared photos of the sea creature on the Facebook group Bolivar Beachcombers, used by beach visitors at Galveston Bay to share their findings.

“Was walking the beach today and noticed a lot of dead things, seagulls, pelicans, stingray, a ton of jelly fish,” she said in the Jan. 9 post. “I did find a strange fish. Can someone tell me what it is??”

Pictures shared by Arceneaux show the long, slender fish with its mouth wide open exposing its sharp teeth.

Dozens of people have commented on her post, including many who wish to stay away from this particular fish.

“That’s a fish straight outta the depths from hell,” one commenter said.

“That’s a ‘hell naw’ fish if I’ve ever seen one,” another woman joked.

Others said it resembled the sandworm creatures from the “Beetlejuice” and “Tremors” movies.

But some — correctly — said the fish is an eel of some type.

Mark Fisher, the Coastal Fisheries Science Director for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, told the San Antonio Express-News the fish is a snapper eel. The creature is “somewhat common” in Galveston Bay, Fisher said.

While they may be common, Arceneaux was told snapper eels “usually don’t end up washed up on shore,” according to KSAT.

Texas A&M University at Galveston describes snapper eels as having cylindrical body types that can grow to 6 feet in length. The teeth of snapper eels are called “canine-like.”

Snapper eels are found from the Gulf of Mexico to Brazil, according to the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

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China Posts Record Fossil Fuel Output as Security Trumps Climate



Bloomberg News
Mon, January 16, 2023 

(Bloomberg) -- Fossil fuel production in China soared in 2022, with coal and gas hitting record highs, as environmental targets took a back seat to energy security after a tumultuous year for prices.

That swamped some good news for the climate from the steel sector, where China cut output for a second consecutive year to make good on its promise to rein in emissions from the worst-polluting industry after power generation.

The world’s top coal mining nation dug up nearly 4.5 billion tons of the dirtiest fuel last year, an increase of 9% on 2021, the statistics bureau said on Tuesday. Production of cleaner-burning gas rose 6.4% to 218 billion cubic meters, while crude oil rose above 200 million tons for the first time since 2015, helping to cut China’s reliance on pricey imports.

As early as January last year, President Xi Jinping had flagged that China’s ambitious climate goals shouldn’t clash with its economic objectives, which include securing adequate supplies of commodities. Energy security became an even bigger priority after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the following month put a rocket under international prices.

Drought and a power crunch over the summer highlighted the nation’s ongoing vulnerability to insufficient energy supplies. Now, China’s reopening after three years of harsh Covid restrictions has put the onus on producers to ensure they have the fuels at hand that the government deems necessary to power the economy’s recovery.

Steel production fell 2.1% in 2022 to just over 1 billion tons, although it’s uncertain whether the decline could have occurred without the slowdown in growth and the crisis in the metals-intensive property market. Output of aluminum, a lightweight material important to the green transition that nevertheless takes a lot of power to produce, topped 40 million tons for the first time as the industry closes in on the government’s capacity ceiling of 45 million tons.

The figures for December showed little impact from China’s abrupt exit from Covid Zero and a mounting wave of infections. Fossil fuels all showed output gains over the month compared with the prior year, including records for coal and gas. Aluminum also increased as the impact of drought in the south abated, while steel production fell.

Crude refining also rose over the month, although the yearly total dropped from the record set in 2021 as the government’s Covid-related curbs on mobility took their toll on demand.

How did white students respond to school integration after Brown v. Board of Education?

Charise Cheney, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of Oregon
Mon, January 16, 2023 at 8:17 AM MST·4 min read

The collective memory of school desegregation is of anger and division, like in this photo of 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford walking away from a crowd outside a high school in Little Rock, Ark.

  Bettmann via Getty Images

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to curiouskidsus@theconversation.com.

What did white children have to say about their “all-white” schools integrating? – Julia M.N., age 11, New York City

In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racially segregated schools violated the civil rights of Black students. Black Americans throughout the country celebrated the decision as a blow to anti-Black racism.

Whites’ reactions to the case varied, depending on where they lived and whether their local communities had a history of segregation, either through laws or just local customs and practices. White students’ acceptance of this social change was significantly shaped by their parents’ political beliefs about school desegregation.

Stories of peaceful transition to integration are less known than stories of white defiance.

The Supreme Court case was named for a lawsuit that originated in Topeka, Kansas, in 1951, opposing public school segregation. The segregationist Topeka School Board was embarrassed by the publicity associated with the case because of the history of Kansas as a state where slavery was illegal. So eight months before the landmark Supreme Court decision, the board members reversed their prior stance, resolving “to terminate … segregation in the elementary schools as rapidly as is practicable,” according to meeting minutes.

Those records also showed that some white parents threatened to withdraw their children if they were expected to share classrooms with Black students or Black teachers.

Other white parents embraced the new desegregation policy, like the parents of Clay Elementary School student Nancy Jones. Jones’ parents advised her to “be friendly with the new students and to treat them with kindness and respect.”

Although Black students began attending integrated schools in Topeka in 1954, it wasn’t until 1957 that the city assigned Black teachers to predominantly white schools. And even then, anticipating what it called “social hazards,” the School Board let white parents choose whether they wanted their kids to only have white teachers or to let the district assign students and teachers without regard to race.

The parents of Randolph Elementary School student Mike Worswick were among those who chose the latter. It was a decision that indirectly supported the integration of Black teachers.

“It turned out to be one of the best things of my life,” Worswick recalled in an interview years later.

During Boston’s school desegregation debate in 1974, there was cheering as well as violence

. AP Photo/PBR

Jones, whose parents had urged kindness, was upset when she found out about violence that erupted in other places across the nation.

“We never saw anything like that in Topeka,” she recalled in 2019.

Americans’ collective historical memory of desegregation is filled with visual images of white resistance in Southern cities like Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 and northern cities like Boston in 1974.

One iconic photo was taken at Little Rock’s Central High School on Sept. 4, 1957. That day, Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to block Black students’ entry into the school. Local newspaper photographer Will Counts photographed one of the Black students, 15-year-old Elizabeth Eckford, after she was turned away from school. Eckford was surrounded by white students in the picture, as one named Hazel Bryan, also 15, is yelling at her.

The picture quickly spread through national news outlets, and Bryan became the symbolic face of Southern white racism. The notoriety haunted Bryan, who apologized to Eckford five or six years later.

While Bryan and her fellow students became a public spectacle, the fact that most whites did nothing was less remarked upon.

White students who supported integration knew that if they came to Black students’ aid, they risked social repercussions, or worse. Central High junior Robin Woods was “ashamed” of her peers’ behavior outside of school that September day, but did not get involved. When a Black classmate forgot his math book that day, though, Woods shared hers. That act of kindness was met with a “gasp of disbelief,” and a year of harassment followed.

Central High School senior Marcia Webb also witnessed her peers’ aggression toward the integrating Black students, who became known as the “Little Rock Nine.” At the time she was more interested in high school dances and athletic events than the emerging political storm, a racial privilege that was denied her new Black classmates.

“I’m sorry to say now, looking back, that what was happening didn’t have more significance and I didn’t take more of an active role,” she recalled. “But I was interested in the things that most kids are.”

As an adult, Webb expressed regret for her unwillingness to intervene:

“[H]urt can come from words, from silence even, from just being ignored.”

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. If you found it interesting, you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

It was written by: Charise Cheney, University of Oregon.

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