Maybe rats didn't spread the Black Death after all, new evidence suggests


Samuel Cohn

THE CONVERSATION
Tue, January 24, 2023

A large number of black rats swarming all over each other.

The Black Death ravaged Europe between 1347 and 1353, killing millions. Plague outbreaks in Europe then continued until the 19th century.

One of the most commonly recited facts about plague in Europe was that it was spread by rats. In some parts of the world, the bacterium that causes plague, Yersinia pestis, maintains a long-term presence in wild rodents and their fleas. This is called an animal "reservoir."

While plague begins in rodents, it sometimes spills over to humans. Europe may have once hosted animal reservoirs that sparked plague pandemics. But plague could have also been repeatedly reintroduced from Asia. Which of these scenarios was present remains a topic of scientific controversy.

Our recent research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), has shown that environmental conditions in Europe would have prevented plague from surviving in persistent, long-term animal reservoirs. How, then, did plague persevere in Europe for so long?

Our study offers two possibilities. One, the plague was being reintroduced from Asian reservoirs. Second, there could have been short- or medium-term temporary reservoirs in Europe. In addition, the two scenarios might have been mutually supportive.

However, the rapid spread of the Black Death and subsequent outbreaks of the next few centuries also suggest slow-moving rats may not have played the critical role in transmitting the disease that is often portrayed.

European climate

To work out whether plague could survive in long-term animal reservoirs in Europe, we examined factors such as soil characteristics, climatic conditions, terrain types and rodent varieties. These all seem to affect whether plague can hold on in reservoirs.

For example, high concentrations of some elements in soil, including copper, iron, magnesium, as well as a high soil pH (whether it is acidic or alkaline), cooler temperatures, higher altitudes and lower rainfall appear to favour the development of persistent reservoirs, though it is not entirely clear why, at this stage.

Based on our comparative analysis, centuries-long wild rodent plague reservoirs were even less likely to have existed from the Black Death of 1348 to the early 19th century than today, when comprehensive research rules out any such reservoirs within Europe.

This contrasts sharply with regions across China and the western US, where all the above conditions for persistent Yersinia pestis reservoirs in wild rodents are found.

In central Asia, long-term and persistent rodent reservoirs may have existed for millennia. As ancient DNA and textual evidence hints, once plague crossed into Europe from central Asia, it appears to have seeded a short- or medium-term reservoir or reservoirs in European wild rodents. The most likely place for this to have been was in central Europe.

However, as local soil and climatic conditions did not favour long-term and persistent reservoirs, the disease had to be re-imported, at least in some instances. Importantly, the two scenarios are not mutually exclusive.
Radical difference

To go deeper into the role of rats in spreading plague in Europe, we can compare different outbreaks of the disease.

The first plague pandemic began in the early sixth century and lasted until the later eighth century. The second pandemic (which included the Black Death) began in the 1330s and lasted five centuries. A third pandemic began in 1894 and remains with us today in places such as Madagascar and California.

These pandemics overwhelmingly involved the bubonic form of plague, where the bacteria infect the human lymphatic system (which is part of the body’s immune defences). In pneumonic plague, the bacteria infect the lungs.

The plagues of the second pandemic differed radically in their character and transmission from more recent outbreaks. First, there were strikingly different levels of mortality, with some second pandemic outbreaks reaching 50%, while those of the third pandemic rarely exceeded 1%. In Europe, figures for the third pandemic were even lower.

Young steppe marmot in natural reserve

Second, there were different rates and patterns of transmission between these two plague epochs. There were massive differences in the frequency and speed of transporting goods, animals, and people between the late middle ages and today (or the late 19th century). Yet the Black Death and many of its subsequent waves spread with astonishing speed. Over land, it raced almost as fast each day as the modern outbreaks do over a year.

As described by contemporary chroniclers, physicians, and others – and as reconstructed quantitatively from archival documents – the plagues of the second pandemic spread faster and more widely than any other disease during the middle ages. Indeed they were faster than in any period until the cholera outbreaks from 1830 or the great influenza of 1918-20.

Regardless of how the various European waves of the second pandemic began, both wild and non-wild rodents – rats, first and foremost – move much slower than the pace of transmission around the continent.

Third, the seasonality of plague also shows wide discrepancies. Plagues of the third pandemic (except for the rare ones, principally of pneumonic plague) have closely followed the fertility cycles of rat fleas. These rise with relatively humid conditions (although lower rainfall is important for plague reservoirs to first become established) and within a temperature band between 10°C and 25°C.

By contrast, plagues of the second pandemic could cross winter months in bubonic form, as seen across the Baltic regions from 1709-13. But in Mediterranean climes, plague from 1348 through the 15th century was a summer contagion that peaked in June or July – during the hottest and driest months.

This deviates strikingly from plague seasons in these regions in the 20th century. Because of the low relative humidity and high temperatures, these months were then the least likely times for plague to break out among rats or humans.

These differences raise a crucial question about whether the bubonic form of the plague depended on slow-moving rodents for its transmission when instead it could spread much more efficiently directly, from person to person. Scientists have speculated that this could have occurred because of ectoparasites (fleas and possibly lice), or through people’s respiratory systems and through touch.

Questions such as the precise roles played by humans and rats in past plague pandemics need further work to resolve. But as shown by this study, and others, major steps forward can be made when scientists and historians work together.

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

Bigger population, smaller carbon footprint: Can Canada have both?

Having more people means more heating, lighting, and general demand for energy

Jeff Lagerquist
Tue, January 24, 2023

Experts hope immigration-fuelled population growth will create economies of scale for Canada's energy transition. (GETTY)

Canada's population is rising at the quickest pace since the height of the post-war baby boom as Ottawa targets almost 1.5 million new permanent residents by the end of 2025. That's good news for a nation with an aging workforce and stubbornly-tight labour market. But what about reaching net-zero by 2050? Can a larger Canada achieve meaningfully lower emissions?

Simple math suggests more people means more heating, lighting, and general demand for energy. Owing partly to its large geography, dispersed population, and wide range of temperatures, Canada had the worst per-capita lifestyle-related carbon emissions record by far in a recent analysis of 10 economies spanning various income levels.

At the same time, the nation's population is booming. Statistics Canada data show Canada is growing at the fastest clip since the second quarter of 1957. International migration accounted for 94 per cent of the 362,453-person increase seen in the third quarter, according to the agency. This sent the national population above 39 million for the first time.

Growth is set to pick up in the coming years. Ottawa's annual immigration plan released in November calls for 465,000 permanent residents in 2023, 485,000 in 2024, and 500,000 in 2025 to counter "critical labour market shortages causing uncertainty for Canadian businesses and workers."

"I think the government's preference is to think about immigration to enhance the economy, and then enable green investment," Bruce Newbold, a professor at McMaster University's School Of Earth, Environment & Society, said in an interview. "There are challenges, yes, in terms of that relationship between immigration and energy use."

Andrew Leach, an energy and economics professor at the University of Alberta, says it's essential to consider both sides of the supply-demand equation when it comes to Canada's immigration-fuelled population growth. Immigrants add to the labour supply, but also push up demand through increased consumption.

"One of those demand items is also going to be energy. All else equal, more energy consumption will mean more emissions," he told Yahoo Finance Canada.

"But I think you need to include consideration of where we need to end up re: net-zero, which is rapid decarbonization of household and transportation energy use."

Last April, the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) released a report calling for swift action by world leaders to avoid the worst potential impacts of the climate crisis. Canada was identified as one of the highest per-capita emissions producers among developed countries, alongside Australia and the United States.

It’s going to take a lot more investment to meet these goals.Bruce Newbold, professor at McMaster University’s School Of Earth, Environment & Society

In late-2021, Royal Bank of Canada pegged the cost of transitioning Canada's economy to net-zero emissions at $2 trillion over the next 30 years. The bank's report calls the 13-digit sum "hefty," but "affordable." Of course, that was some time before widespread calls for a recession in 2023.

Among today's headwinds for Canada's economy is a persistent skilled labour shortage, which factors into scarce affordable housing in cities where new immigrants typically settle. The situation prompted the federal government last week to bolster a program for construction workers who have overstayed work permits or visas to become permanent residents.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation figures released earlier this month show urban housing starts actually declined year-over-year in 2022. Meanwhile, Statistics Canada data show cities seeing their strongest population growth in over two decades.

Mike Moffatt, senior director of policy and innovation at the Smart Prosperity Institute, says building affordable urban density will help lower emissions through more efficient buildings and less reliance on cars.

"Size does matter," he said. "It's one of the reasons larger population cities tend to have a lower carbon footprint [per capita]."

On top of the housing supply issue, Moffatt says Canada lacks the labour capacity to hit ambitious green building retrofit targets set by Ottawa.

"If we do it right, bringing in more of a skilled workforce actually helps us make those investments," he said. "Adding more people doesn't necessarily make the situation better, but it provides the raw ingredients."

Moffatt says new residents in regions like Quebec, where electricity is virtually emissions-free and EVs are more popular than average, will be inclined to have a smaller carbon footprint. However, he also expects those who settle in areas where more fossil fuel is needed to play an important role.

"Let's say we had a bunch of people locate in rural Saskatchewan. Ironically, that actually might make it easier for Saskatchewan to make investments in new power generation, and close existing coal plants," he said. "The analysis gets kind of complex."

Leach sees climate-friendly economies of scale kicking in as Canada's population grows.

"As we move toward vehicle and home electrification, and decarbonization of our electricity supply, adding more people doesn't change the trajectory much," he said. "Insofar as we have more distributed energy storage, generation, and demand response, more people add more flexibility to our power systems."

Leach also notes that some of Canada's worst-emitting sectors, like oil and gas production, are export-oriented, and therefore subject to the whims of global markets more so than forces within Canada.

"More domestic immigration doesn't really change the global market for Canadian commodities," he said.

For McMaster professor Newbold, the correlation is clear. Canada's population must get bigger before its economy can become greener.

"If we don't have immigration, our economy is not going to prosper, and we're not going to be able to pay for those investments that we need in order to make a green economy," he said.

"It's going to take a lot more investment to meet these goals."

Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

NASA and DARPA will test nuclear thermal engines for crewed missions to Mars

The agencies hope to demonstrate the tech as soon as 2027.


NASA/DARPA


Kris Holt
·Contributing Reporter
Tue, January 24, 2023

NASA is going back to an old idea as it tries to get humans to Mars. It is teaming up with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to test a nuclear thermal rocket engine in space with the aim of using the technology for crewed missions to the red planet. The agencies hope to "demonstrate advanced nuclear thermal propulsion technology as soon as 2027," NASA administrator Bill Nelson said. "With the help of this new technology, astronauts could journey to and from deep space faster than ever — a major capability to prepare for crewed missions to Mars."

Under the Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations (DRACO) program, NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate will take the lead on technical development of the engine, which will be integrated with an experimental spacecraft from DARPA. NASA says that nuclear thermal propulsion (NTP) could allow spacecraft to travel faster, which could reduce the volume of supplies needed to carry out a long mission. An NTD engine could also free up space for more science equipment and extra power for instrumentation and communication.

As far back as the 1940s, scientists started speculating about the possibility of using nuclear energy to power spaceflight. The US conducted ground experiments on that front starting in the '50s. Budget cutbacks and changing priorities (such as a focus on the Space Shuttle program) led to NASA abandoning the project at the end of 1972 before it carried out any test flights.

There are, of course, risks involved with NTP engines, such as the possible dispersal of radioactive material in the environment should a failure occur in the atmosphere or orbit. Nevertheless, NASA says the faster transit times that NTP engines can enable could lower the risk to astronauts — they could reduce travel times to Mars by up to a quarter. Nuclear thermal rockets could be at least three times more efficient than conventional chemical propulsion methods.

NASA is also looking into nuclear energy to power related space exploration efforts. In 2018, it carried out tests of a portable nuclear reactor as part of efforts to develop a system capable of powering a habitat on Mars. Last year, NASA and the Department of Energy selected three contractors to design a fission surface power system that it can test on the Moon. DARPA and the Defense Department have worked on other NTP engine projects over the last few years.

Meanwhile, the US has just approved a small modular nuclear design for the first time. As Gizmodo reports, the design allows for a nuclear facility that's around a third the size of a standard reactor. Each module is capable of producing around 50 megawatts of power. The design, from a company called NuScale, could lower the cost and complexity of building nuclear power plants.

Post-nuclear Moscow subway novels strike chord as Doomsday Clock nears midnight

Dmitry Glukhovsky poses in this undated handout picture

Tue, January 24, 2023 at 9:39 AM MST·3 min read

(Reuters) - Best-selling novelist Dmitry Glukhovsky says sales of his books depicting life in the Moscow Metro after a nuclear apocalypse have been booming since Russia put him on a "wanted" list for opposing the war in Ukraine and he was forced to flee abroad.

Glukhovsky, 43, is known mainly for his dystopian novel "Metro 2033" and its sequels, along with their spin-off video games, about how Muscovites survive in the city's famed metro system - "the world's biggest nuclear shelter" - after a war.

With President Vladimir Putin and other top Russian politicians regularly warning the West of nuclear war over its support for Ukraine, Glukhovsky said it was hardly surprising that Russians were trying to imagine life after such a disaster.

"It's getting us much closer (to midnight) because during Soviet times, during the times of the Cold War, nobody dared to really invoke that (possibility of Armageddon)...," he told Reuters in an interview from an undisclosed location.

"... Never a diplomat, let alone the head of state, would threaten another superpower with using nukes against his capital. So that definitely gets us way closer to that possibility," he said, speaking in English.

Atomic scientists on Tuesday reset the "Doomsday Clock" - a symbolic timepiece - based on their latest assessment of how close they believe humanity is to annihilation due to existential threats such as nuclear war. The "time" is now 90 seconds to midnight, they said, 10 seconds closer than it has been for the past three years.

Glukhovsky deplored what he called the "routinisation" of the nuclear threats by Russia's leaders but said the Ukraine war was unlikely to trigger a global nuclear catastrophe.

"... the Russian regime is not suicidal. You know, they're not religious or political fanatics. They are very pragmatic. I would say they're mainly motivated by such things as greed and self-esteem. And I don't see (how) greed and self-esteem can bring you to begin a nuclear holocaust," he said.

'FOREIGN AGENT'

Glukhovsky, who faces up to 15 years in jail if he returns home due to his anti-war stance, said his books must now be sold in Russia with a label bearing the disclaimer "This was written by a foreign agent". Under-18s are barred from buying them.

"But "Metro 2033" was the number one bestseller within my publisher. And my publisher was the biggest publisher in Russia. So there is some kind of schizophrenia where, on the one hand, they are persecuting me and, on the other, the books are still available in the bookstores and they are bestsellers," he said.

Glukhovsky, a former journalist who also wrote the screenplay for an award-winning film version of his novel "Text", said he got the inspiration for his subway novels travelling the Moscow Metro as a child during the Cold War and discovering it was built some 40 to 100 metres below ground.

"I really started to imagine what it was going to be like if we are hit by missiles and then we have to live in the subway as if it was a modern-day Noah's Ark, you know, and we would not be able to go outside of the metro, of the subway, ever," he said.

The nuclear war depicted in "Metro 2033" occurs in 2013, he noted, adding grimly: "So apparently I was wrong (by) a decade."

(Reporting by Reuters TV; Writing by Gareth Jones; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

'Doomsday Clock' moves to 90 seconds to midnight as nuclear threat rises




Tue, January 24, 2023
By Katharine Jackson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Atomic scientists set the "Doomsday Clock" closer to midnight than ever before on Tuesday, saying threats of nuclear war, disease, and climate volatility have been exacerbated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, putting humanity at greater risk of annihilation.

The "Doomsday Clock," created by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to illustrate how close humanity has come to the end of the world, moved its "time" in 2023 to 90 seconds to midnight, 10 seconds closer than it has been for the past three years.

Midnight on this clock marks the theoretical point of annihilation. The clock's hands are moved closer to or further away from midnight based on scientists' reading of existential threats at a particular time.

The new time reflects a world in which Russia's invasion of Ukraine has revived fears of nuclear war.

"Russia's thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons remind the world that escalation of the conflict by accident, intention or miscalculation is a terrible risk. The possibilities that the conflict could spin out of anyone's control remains high," Rachel Bronson, the bulletin's president and CEO told a news conference in Washington on Tuesday.

The bulletin's announcement will for the first time be translated from English into Ukrainian and Russian to garner relevant attention, Bronson said.

A Chicago-based non-profit organization, the bulletin updates the clock's time annually based on information regarding catastrophic risks to the planet and humanity.

The organization's board of scientists and other experts in nuclear technology and climate science, including 13 Nobel Laureates, discuss world events and determine where to place the hands of the clock each year.

Apocalyptic threats reflected by the clock include politics, weapons, technology, climate change and pandemics.

The clock had been set to 100 seconds to midnight since 2020, which was already the closest it had ever come to midnight.

The board said the war in Ukraine had also heightened the risk that biological weapons could be deployed if the conflict continued.

"The continuing stream of disinformation about bioweapons' laboratories in Ukraine raises concerns that Russia itself may be thinking of deploying such weapons," Bronson said.

Sivan Kartha, a bulletin board member and scientist at the Stockholm Environmental Institute, said natural gas prices pushed to new heights by the war had also spurred companies to develop sources of natural gas outside of Russia and turned power plants to coal as an alternative power source.

"Global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, after having rebounded from the COVID economic decline to an all-time-high in 2021, continue to rise in 2022 and hit another record high... With emissions still rising, weather extremes continue, and were even more clearly attributable to climate change," Kartha said, pointing to the devastating flooding in Pakistan in 2022 as an example.

The clock was created in 1947 by a group of atomic scientists, including Albert Einstein, who had worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the world's first nuclear weapons during World War Two.

More than 75 years ago, it began ticking at seven minutes to midnight.

At 17 minutes to midnight, the clock was furthest from "doomsday" in 1991, as the Cold War ended and the United States and Soviet Union signed a treaty that substantially reduced both countries' nuclear weapons arsenals.

(Reporting by Katharine Jackson, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

Doomsday Clock to be updated against backdrop of Ukraine war

Mon, 23 January 2023 


The "Doomsday Clock," which represents the judgment of leading science and security experts about the perils to human existence, is to be updated on Tuesday against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine and other crises.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists will announce at 10:00 am (1500 GMT) whether the time of the symbolic clock will change.

The organization describes the clock as a "metaphor for how close humanity is to self-annihilation" and says the annual resetting should be seen as a "call-to-action to reverse the hands."

A decision to reset the hands of the clock is taken each year by the Bulletin's science and security board and its board of sponsors, which includes 11 Nobel laureates.

For 2023, the Bulletin said they will take into account the Russia-Ukraine war, bio-threats, proliferation of nuclear weapons, the continued climate crisis, state-sponsored disinformation campaigns and disruptive technologies.

The hands of the clock moved to 100 seconds to midnight in January 2021 -- the closest to midnight it has been in its history -- and remained there last year.

"The clock remains the closest it has ever been to civilization-ending apocalypse because the world remains stuck in an extremely dangerous moment," the Bulletin said in a statement at last year's event.

The clock was originally set at seven minutes to midnight.

The furthest from midnight it has ever been is 17 minutes, following the end of the Cold War in 1991.

The Bulletin was founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J Robert Oppenheimer and other scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project which produced the first nuclear weapons.

The idea of the clock symbolizing global vulnerability to catastrophe followed in 1947.

cl/jh

Ford in talks with China's BYD to sell German plant - WSJ

Jan 24 (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co is in talks with Chinese electric-vehicle maker BYD Co over the sale of a manufacturing plant in Germany, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The factory in discussion is the Saarlouis plant, where vehicle production is slated to eventually end in 2025, the WSJ report said, adding that the talks are still in a preliminary stage and may ultimately fall through.

Ford, which manufactures its Focus compact model at the plant, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Rising costs for electric vehicle battery materials and projected slowdown in the United States and European economies are putting pressure on automakers to cut expenses.


Separately, Ford said on Tuesday that it intends to decide by mid-February on how many jobs will be cut in Europe after announcing plans to cut up to 3,200 jobs at a factory in the German city of Cologne.

The report said Ford is also gauging interest from around 15 potential investors, but terms of the deal could not be learned.

 (Reporting by Kannaki Deka in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Philips)

Brazil’s female diplomats in new equality push after dark days of Bolsonaro

Constance Malleret in Rio de Janeiro
Mon, January 23, 2023 

Photograph: Sérgio Lima/AFP/Getty Images

More than a century after Maria José de Castro Rebello Mendes became, in 1918, the first woman to enter Brazil’s diplomatic service, the country’s female diplomats have launched a new push for equal rights and opportunity. Women make up less than 25% of Brazil’s diplomatic corps and just 12% of ambassadors.

“We are blossoming at this moment of democratic government,” said Irene Vida Gala, a senior diplomat who served as ambassador to Ghana and is now the president of the newly created Association of Female Brazilian Diplomats.

This institutional push to address the lack of diversity within Brazil’s foreign office, known as Itamaraty, after the 19th-century Rio palace where it was once housed, coincides with the return to power of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after the four-year term of his openly misogynistic far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro. Lula, who has appointed Brazil’s most diverse cabinet ever, promised a fresh start after the trail of devastation left by Bolsonaro.

Related: Brazilian diplomats ‘disgusted’ as Bolsonaro pulverizes foreign policy

In the case of Itamaraty, this means “total reconstruction, because what we have today is scorched earth,” said Marília Closs of Plataforma Cipó, a thinktank focused on governance, peace and climate. “Bolsonaro’s foreign policy wasn’t used as a tool to guarantee Brazil’s national interest, but instead as a tool for bolsonarismo.”

When he took office in 2019, Bolsonaro appointed a Bible-bashing climate denialist to lead the foreign office and defend his nationalistic, ultra-conservative agenda abroad. Together, they took a hammer to Brazil’s decades-old tradition of foreign policy based on cooperation and multilateralism, cosying up to rightwing strongmen, torpedoing Brazil’s environmental leadership, and undermining the country’s past work defending human rights, with a particularly persistent campaign against expanding gender rights.

“Gender was emblematic of the transformation of Brazil’s foreign policy [under Bolsonaro],” said Jamil Chade, a Brazilian foreign correspondent in Geneva.

The country’s highly professional and once-respected foreign service was “hijacked” to serve this ultra-conservative agenda, Chade added. He describes watching embarrassed Brazilian diplomats forced to defend outlandish positions at the United Nations, while the international community looked on with befuddlement and concern.

“We were there having to back positions that were basically against our vocation, against our very nature,” said Vida Gala. Fearing retribution that would further harm their career progression, female diplomats who were once vocal about their demands retreated into the shadows.

Now, they are being given a role in recovering Brazil’s international credibility and soft power. There is some disappointment that Lula failed to name Brazil’s first female foreign minister – the post went to Mauro Vieira, who previously held the position in 2015 to 2016 under Lula’s hand-picked successor Dilma Rousseff – but Itamaraty nonetheless gained its first female secretary-general, the second highest position, in Maria Laura da Rocha.

Meanwhile, women are tipped to represent Brazil in Washington and Buenos Aires, two of the most prestigious diplomatic postings.

“We women have a really important contribution to make to [Lula’s] agenda,” said Vida Gala. “We can strengthen diplomatic action … to contribute to a diplomacy focused on reducing inequality, care of the most vulnerable, and even the construction of peace.”

The three-week-old government has already turned its back on the Bolsonaro era with regards to Brazil’s position on Israel, migration and reproductive rights, notably withdrawing from a coalition of ultra-conservative, anti-abortion nations known as the Geneva Consensus. Bolsonaro-appointed ambassadors in the US and Israel have been sacked.

Restoring Brazil’s battered reputation will not happen overnight, warned Chade, but these signals are welcome, “showing, look, we’re not only formulating a new policy, but also a new team that is going to take the lead on this new foreign policy”.

“Brazil no longer wants to be part of the problem, it wants to be part of the solutions,” he added. Ambassador Vida Gala and her colleagues will be striving for those solutions to be female.

Ex-FBI Official Involved in Trump-Russia Probe Indicted for Working on Behalf of Sanctioned Russian Oligarch

Ari Blaff
Mon, January 23, 2023

Charles McGonigal, a former FBI official involved in the investigation of Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, has been charged with violating sanctions and collaborating with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the Department of Justice announced Monday.

According to federal prosecutors, McGonigal received “concealed payments” from a Russian intelligence officer in exchange for his help in having sanctions targeting Deripaska lifted. McGonigal is being charged by the Federal District in Manhattan with additional counts relating to money laundering and conspiracy.

“Charles McGonigal, a former high-level FBI official, and Sergey Shestakov, a Court interpreter, violated U.S. sanctions by agreeing to provide services to Oleg Deripaska, a sanctioned Russian oligarch. They both previously worked with Deripaska to attempt to have his sanctions removed, and, as public servants, they should have known better,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams wrote in a statement released Monday.


As chief of counterintelligence in the bureau’s New York City field office, McGonigal was among the first FBI officials to learn of the fateful conversation between a senior Trump campaign adviser and a foreign diplomat over the topic of Hillary Clinton’s emails, the Washington Free Beacon noted. Knowledge of that interaction proved crucial to the federal agency opening an investigation into the matter, which ultimately found there was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Deripaska, a well-known aluminum magnate and close friend of President Vladimir Putin, was reportedly a client of Paul Manafort, an attorney and former Trump presidential campaign consultant.

Deripaska was recently the subject of a 60 Minutes segment alongside other prominent Russian oligarchs known for laundering illicit funds through the European Union member country of Cyprus. According to the investigation, Deripaska arranged for a child of his to be born in the United States in an attempt to bypass the sanctions imposed upon him.

The indictment, which also outlined charges against FBI interpreter Sergey Shestakov, prompted the federal agency to release a statement condemning the abuse of power.

“Russian oligarchs like Oleg Deripaska perform global malign influence on behalf of the Kremlin and are associated with acts of bribery, extortion, and violence,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge Michael Driscoll noted in a statement. “There are no exceptions for anyone, including a former FBI official like Mr. McGonigal.”

McGonigal legal team, headed by Seth DuCharme, remained adamant about his client’s innocence.

“Charlie served the United States capably, effectively, for decades,” DuCharme told the New York Times. “We have closely reviewed the accusations made by the government and we look forward to receiving discovery so we can get a view on what the evidence is upon which the government intends to rely.”

DuCharme added that McGonigal plans to enter a plea of not guilty before a federal court appearance in Manhattan later Monday.

McGonigal was arrested at JFK Airport in New York City on Saturday upon returning from recent travels to Sri Lanka.


Ex-FBI official worked for sanctioned Russian oligarch, prosecutors say




Mon, January 23, 2023 
By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A former top FBI official was charged on Monday with working for sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, as U.S. prosecutors ramp up efforts to enforce sanctions on Russian officials and police their alleged enablers.

Charles McGonigal, who led the FBI's counterintelligence division in New York before retiring in 2018, pleaded not guilty to four criminal counts including sanctions violations and money laundering at a hearing in Manhattan federal court.

He was released on $500,000 bond, following his arrest over the weekend.

Prosecutors said McGonigal, 54, in 2021 received concealed payments from Deripaska, who was sanctioned in 2018, in exchange for investigating a rival oligarch.

McGonigal was also charged with unsuccessfully pushing in 2019 to lift sanctions against Deripaska.

Sanctions "must be enforced equally against all U.S. citizens in order to be successful," FBI Assistant Director in Charge Michael Driscoll said in a statement. "There are no exceptions for anyone, including a former FBI official."

Separately on Monday, federal prosecutors in Washington said McGonigal received $225,000 in cash from a former member of Albania's intelligence service, who had been a source in an investigation into foreign political lobbying that McGonigal was supervising.

McGonigal faces nine counts in that case, including making false statements to conceal from the FBI the nature of his relationship with the person.

"This is obviously a distressing day for Mr McGonigal and his family," the defendant's lawyer Seth DuCharme told reporters after the Manhattan hearing. "We'll review the evidence, we'll closely scrutinize it, and we have a lot of confidence in Mr McGonigal."

Deripaska, the founder of Russian aluminum company Rusal, was among two dozen Russian oligarchs and government officials blacklisted by Washington in 2018 in reaction to Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.

He and the Kremlin have denied any election interference.

Also charged in the Manhattan case was Sergey Shestakov, a former Soviet diplomat who later became an American citizen and Russian language interpreter for U.S. courts and government agencies.

Prosecutors said Shestakov he worked with McGonigal to help Deripaska, and made false statements to investigators.

Shestakov pleaded not guilty on Monday and was released on $200,000 bond.

The enforcement of sanctions are part of U.S. efforts to pressure Moscow to stop its war in Ukraine, which the Kremlin calls a "special military operation."

Deripaska was charged last September with violating the sanctions against him by arranging to have his children born in the United States.

The following month, British businessman Graham Bonham-Carter was charged with conspiring to violate sanctions by trying to move Deripaska's artwork out of the United States.

Deripaska is at large, and Bonham-Carter is contesting extradition to the United States.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Rosalba O'Brien, Bill Berkrot, Jonathan Oatis and Marguerita Choy)

US: Ex-FBI counterintelligence agent aided Russian oligarch

 Russian businessman and founder of RUSAL company Oleg Deripaska speaks on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Russia, Friday, June 17, 2022. A former high-ranking FBI counterintelligence official has been indicted on charges he helped the Russian oligarch in violation of U.S. sanctions. (AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky, File)

MICHAEL R. SISAK and ERIC TUCKER
Mon, January 23, 2023 

NEW YORK (AP) — A former high-ranking FBI counterintelligence official who investigated Russian oligarchs has been indicted on charges he secretly worked for one, in violation of U.S. sanctions. The official was also charged, in a separate indictment, with taking cash from a former foreign security officer.

Charles McGonigal, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s counterintelligence division in New York from 2016 to 2018, is accused in an indictment unsealed Monday of working with a former Soviet diplomat-turned-Russian interpreter on behalf of Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire they purportedly referred to in code as “the big guy” and “the client.”

McGonigal, who had supervised and participated in investigations of Russian oligarchs, including Deripaska, worked to have Deripaska’s sanctions lifted in 2019 and took money from him in 2021 to investigate a rival oligarch, the Justice Department said.

The FBI investigated McGonigal, showing a willingness to go after one of its own. Nonetheless, the indictment is an unwelcome headline for the FBI at a time when the bureau is entangled in separate, politically charged investigations — the handling of classified documents by President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump — as newly ascendant Republicans in Congress pledge to investigate high-profile FBI and Justice Department decisions.

McGonigal and the interpreter, Sergey Shestakov were arrested Saturday — McGonigal after landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport and Shestakov at his home in Morris, Connecticut — and held at a federal jail in Brooklyn. They both pleaded not guilty Monday and were released on bail.

McGonigal, 54, and Shestakov, 69, are charged with violating and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, conspiring to commit money laundering and money laundering. Shestakov is also charged with making material misstatements to the FBI.

McGonigal "has had a long, distinguished career with the FBI,” his lawyer, Seth DuCharme, told reporters when he left court with McGonigal following his arraignment.

“This is obviously a distressing day for Mr. McGonigal and his family, but we’ll review the evidence, we’ll closely scrutinize it and we have a lot of confidence in Mr. McGonigal," said DuCharme, the former top federal prosecutor in Brooklyn.

Messages seeking comment were left for lawyers for Shestakov and Deripaska.

McGonigal was separately charged in federal court in Washington, D.C. with concealing at least $225,000 in cash he allegedly received from a former Albanian intelligence official while working for the FBI.

The indictment does not charge or characterize the payment to McGonigal as a bribe, but federal prosecutors say that, while hiding the payment from the FBI, he took actions as an FBI supervisor that were aimed at the ex-intelligence official's financial benefit.

They included proposing that a pharmaceutical company pay the man’s company $500,000 in exchange for scheduling a business meeting involving a representative from the U.S. delegation to the United Nations.

In a bureau-wide email Monday, FBI Director Christopher Wray said McGonigal’s alleged conduct “is entirely inconsistent with what I see from the men and women of the FBI who demonstrate every day through their actions that they're worthy of the public’s trust.”

The U.S. Treasury Department added Deripaska to its sanctions list in 2018 for purported ties to the Russian government and Russia’s energy sector amid Russia’s ongoing threats to Ukraine.

In September, federal prosecutors in Manhattan charged Deripaska and three associates with conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions by plotting to ensure his child was born in the United States.

Shestakov, who worked as an interpreter for federal courts and prosecutors in New York City after retiring as a diplomat in 1993, helped connect McGonigal to Deripaska, according to the indictment.

In 2018, while McGonigal was still working for the FBI, Shestakov introduced him to a former Soviet and Russian diplomat who functioned as an agent for Deripaska, the indictment said. That person is not named in court papers but the Justice Department says he was “rumored in public media reports to be a Russian intelligence officer.”

According to the indictment, Shestakov asked McGonigal for help getting the agent’s daughter an internship in the New York Police Department’s counterterrorism and intelligence units. McGonigal agreed, prosecutors say, and told a police department contact that, “I have an interest in her father for a number of reasons.”

According to the indictment, a police sergeant subsequently reported to the NYPD and FBI that the woman claimed to have an “unusually close relationship” with an FBI agent whom, she said, had given her access to confidential FBI files. The sergeant felt it was “unusual for a college student to receive such special treatment from the NYPD and FBI,” the indictment said.

After retiring from the FBI, according to the indictment, McGonigal went to work in 2019 as a consultant and investigator for an international law firm seeking to reverse Deripaska’s sanctions, a process known as “delisting.”

The law firm paid McGonigal $25,000 through a Shestakov-owned corporation, prosecutors say, though the work was ultimately interrupted by factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2021, according to the indictment, Deripaska’s agent enlisted McGonigal and Shestakov to dig up dirt on a rival oligarch, whom Deripaska was fighting for control of a large Russian corporation, in exchange for $51,280 up front and $41,790 per month paid via a Russian bank to a New Jersey company owned by McGonigal’s friend. McGonigal kept his friend in the dark about the true nature of the payments, prosecutors say.

McGonigal is also accused of hiding from the FBI key details of a 2017 trip he took to Albania with the former Albanian intelligence official who is alleged to have given him at least $225,000.

Once there, according to the Justice Department, McGonigal met with Albania’s prime minister and urged caution in awarding oil field drilling licenses in the country to Russian front companies. McGonigal’s Albanian contacts had a financial interest in those decisions.

In an example of how McGonigal allegedly blurred personal gain with professional responsibilities, prosecutors in Washington say he “caused” the FBI’s New York office to open a criminal lobbying investigation in which the former Albanian intelligence official was to serve as a confidential human source.

McGonigal did so, prosecutors allege, without revealing to the FBI or Justice Department his financial connections to the man.
__

Eric Tucker reported from Washington. Jim Mustian and Larry Neumeister in New York contributed to this report.

__

Follow Michael Sisak on Twitter at twitter.com/mikesisak and Eric Tucker at twitter.com/etuckerAP. Send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips/.

Idaho students protest ban on 'brown pride' sweatshirts deemed a sign of gang affiliation

Edwin Flores
Mon, January 23, 2023 

A video that has gone viral has exposed a clash between students and school officials in Idaho over whether the term “brown pride” is a symbol of cultural pride or a sign of gang affiliation.

A video viewed by more than 1.6 million people on TikTok and later shared on other platforms shows students at Caldwell High School in Idaho protesting for the right to wear culturally significant clothing items with features like the words “brown pride.”

In the video, Latina high school student Brenda Hernandez says school officials told her to remove her “brown pride” hoodie, as it can be deemed racist and akin to wearing a "white pride" shirt.

Hernandez, a senior, said in a phone interview that the Jan. 17 protest followed an incident in early December. She was sitting in her fifth-period economics class when she was called into the principal’s office and escorted there by a school staff member.

Hernandez said she had no reason to suspect she would be in trouble. She said the staff member informed her the visit was due to her hoodie.

“He was telling me: 'You can’t wear it, because it has ‘brown pride’ on it. It’s like wearing a white pride shirt. People can find it racist,'” she said.

Hernandez said the principal described the clothing item as gang-related and she received a dress code violation.

Brenda Hernandez waves a Mexican flag at the day of the protest on Jan. 17. (Courtesy Brenda Hernandez)

Caldwell High School’s dress code policy prohibits the “wearing, using, carrying, or displaying any other gang clothing or attire, or style, jewelry, emblem, badge, symbol, sign, codes, tattoos, or other things or items which evidence membership or affiliation in any gang is prohibited on any school premises or at any school sponsored activity at any time."

NBC News contacted Caldwell High School officials and was directed to the Caldwell School District’s director of communications, Jessica Watts, who responded in an email statement: “In making this decision our research shows the term ‘Brown Pride’ is associated with street gangs currently operating in the Northwest. Therefore, students are not allowed per District Policy to wear clothing affiliated with gangs. We understand that some students may be concerned with this Policy."

Char Jackson, the public information officer for the city of Caldwell, the Caldwell Police Department and the Caldwell Fire Department, said there are two primary gangs in the region they are dealing with — the Norteños and the Sureños.

Caldwell police found that the Brown Pride Sureños were a subset of the Sureños and that they became active in around the last two years, Jackson said.
A clothing brand subjected to 'stereotype'

Sonny Ligas, the director of the Idaho chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, is also the owner of Jefito Hats, the local community brand that made the "Brown Pride" hoodie and that first opened its doors in 1997.

The shop sells Chicano-style hats, apparel and accessories. The merchandise has become popular with young people and is frequently worn by students in several high schools.

“It really irritates me where they can stereotype, you know, saying that it’s gang-related," Ligas said. “I’m not gang-related — how are we going to allow these people to manchar [stain] a culture with their palabras [words] that they know nothing about whatsoever?”

Hernandez, who models for Jefito Hats, said she has worn the same hoodie to school previously and never received a dress code violation until last month.

A participant in the student-organized protest holding a

Hernandez said she believes wearing culturally significant clothes comes from a place of comfort, a way to show her pride. She said she organized the peaceful protest in accordance with her school’s principal.

She estimated a turnout of 100 students that morning before classes began. They wore rosaries, bandannas and clothing inspired by Latino heritage and brown pride, and some students brought Mexican flags, she said. Ligas also participated in solidarity.

But Hernandez said tensions grew after they weren’t allowed to protest by walking inside the building — which she and the principal had agree to previously, she said — because they might disturb other classrooms. The group was moved outside, and it wasn’t allowed to return inside unless members removed their brown pride-related clothes.

Ligas and several students said they saw the school policy as a form of censorship and discrimination.

“Brown pride” is not about racism; “it’s completely different,” Ligas said. The term is associated with decadeslong Chicano and Mexican American cultural and civil rights movements.

According to the Caldwell School District’s 2022 spring enrollment figures, 62.5% of K-12 students are Latino. More than 99% of all enrolled students come from low-income families.

A quarter of Canyon County’s population, which includes the city of Caldwell, is Hispanic. Latinos account for 24% of the state’s population growth in the last decade, according to a 2021 Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs report.

Lilly Meinen, a Latina freshman at Caldwell High School, said the term “brown pride” was something students should be proud of. Asked whether she thought the term could have negative implications, she said, “I knew that it could, but it wasn’t worn negatively from anyone that I’ve ever seen.”

Another student, Alexxis Childers, said she was suspended for having participated in the protests. The school district said it “cannot comment on student discipline.”

Childers, who is white, said students are being racially profiled.

“If they’re going to take away rosaries because they feel like it could be affiliated with a gang, then just as people think certain other religious groups are cults, then they need to take away the cross from every other student, as well,” she said.

“I believe it was extremely peaceful,” Childers said about the protest. “The school is trying to say that these kids are all just gang members. And when you have, just, this diverse group of kids, you cannot say every single one of these kids are gang members.”

NBC News asked an area charter school, Elevate Academy, about its dress code policies after several students said it had banned brown pride-related clothing and rosaries. The school hasn’t responded.

Two days after the protest, Caldwell High School was vandalized with a "white power" tagging and a white van was vandalized with "f--- brown pride" tagging. Local authorities initially said they were investigating a possible hate crime; they later announced they believed it was an "act of intimidation between two rival Hispanic criminal street gangs from Caldwell."

Caldwell school officials’ handling of the protest is also an issue, said students, who said that they were treated poorly and that their parents and the media didn’t get the facts from the school.

Ligas and other community members, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Idaho, were scheduled to address the issues at a LULAC meeting later Monday.

Ghislaine Maxwell says Jeffrey Epstein was murdered in US jail

Joe JACKSON
Mon, January 23, 2023


Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell has claimed the disgraced late US financier Jeffrey Epstein was murdered in prison, in an interview with a British broadcaster that aired on Monday.

The Oxford-educated daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell is imprisoned in a Florida penitentiary after her conviction and 20-year sentence for helping Epstein sexually abuse girls.

Epstein, who was facing charges of trafficking underage girls for sex, escaped trial by killing himself in a New York jail in August 2019.

The autopsy concluded suicide by hanging, although the 66-year-old's sudden death fuelled widespread controversy and conspiracy theories.

"I believe that he was murdered," former socialite Maxwell said in the series of jailhouse interviews aired on Britain's TalkTV. "I was shocked. Then I wondered how it had happened."

A forensic pathologist hired by Epstein's brother said in 2019 that evidence suggested he had been murdered, arguing multiple fractures found in his neck were "very unusual for suicide".

The US Department of Justice has conducted a years-long investigation into how Epstein was able to hang himself inside New York's Metropolitan Correctional Center, but has not released any evidence of foul play.

Two prison guards on duty who admitted to falsifying records related to the night he died were charged later in 2019 over their alleged failure to monitor him.

But federal prosecutors dismissed the charges in late 2021 after the pair completed community service work as part of an earlier legal agreement.

- 'Closure' -

Maxwell, who is appealing her 2021 conviction for sex trafficking minors, also insisted she now regrets ever meeting Epstein.

She said she did not know "he was so awful" when they first met and began a relationship in the late 1990s.

US prosecutors successfully proved during Maxwell's high-profile trial in New York that she was "the key" to his scheme of enticing young girls to give him massages, during which he would sexually abuse them.

She expressed sympathy for the victims during a court statement, saying she was "sorry for the pain that you experienced" but blamed Epstein.

Maxwell opted against apologising to the victims during her TalkTV interviews when given the opportunity.

"Epstein has died and they should take their disappointment and upset out on the authorities that allowed that to happen," she replied.

"I hope that they have some closure via the judicial process that took place.

"And I wish them... to be able to have a productive and good life going forward."

- 'Fake' photograph -

In interview excerpts released Sunday, Maxwell also claimed that a decades-old photograph of Prince Andrew with his sexual abuse accuser Virginia Giuffre is "fake".

Giuffre has said she was trafficked by Epstein and Maxwell to, among others, Andrew, King Charles III's younger brother.

The 39-year-old sued the discredited royal in a US court, claiming they had sex in London when she was 17 and a minor under US law.

He settled the sexual assault lawsuit at considerable cost last year, sparing him the public humiliation of a trial.

The prince, 62, has not been criminally charged and has continued to deny the accusations.

The photograph of Andrew with his arm around Giuffre's waist and Maxwell standing next to them -- said to have been taken in London in 2001 -- is seen as crucial to the claim against the prince.

Matthew Wright criticises Jeremy Kyle for his interview with Ghislaine Maxwell

‘Don’t give her a platform’

Sam Moore
Tue, January 24, 2023

Matthew Wright has hit out at Jeremy Kyle for interviewing Ghislaine Maxwell. (PA)

Matthew Wright has criticised Jeremy Kyle for interviewing convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell on his TalkTV show.

In her first interview from prison, Maxwell discussed her relationships with Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein.

Read more: Jeremy Kyle invites people to insult him online as he joins social media

Appearing on This Morning, Wright said: "You don’t give a platform to convicted sex traffickers or abusers, that is a disgraceful piece of journalism."

He added: "One of the things that we know about people that have been convicted of crimes is that normally what they say can’t be trusted, and yet you’re giving an uncritical platform to a sex abuser. I am sickened and disgusted."

Matthew Wright criticised Jeremy Kyle for giving Ghislaine Maxwell a platform. (TalkTV)

Wright continued to criticise Kyle for giving Maxwell a platform after she was convicted: "It’s like super rich people who have attempted to evade justice for as long as she did, are a special case and they’re allowed to pipe out their ridiculous excuses."

Kyle did discuss his interview with Maxwell before it aired, particularly how she never apologises to any of her victims: "There is no part of any of this where she apologises to her victims. For me, they are the first and most important thing we should think about, the people who were trafficked, the young girls who were taken advantage of."

Ghislaine Maxwell on Jeremy Kyle: Ghislaine Behind Bars. (TalkTV)

During the interview, Maxwell discussed how she didn't like prison food, talked about meeting former President Bill Clinton and her regrets about meeting Epstein.

Last year, the former socialite was found guilty of enticing minors and sex trafficking underrage girls for Epstein. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison and is awaiting trial for further offences relating to lying under oath about Epstein's abuse of children.

Maxwell is also known to have a long-lasting friendship with Prince Andrew and introduced the royal to the deceased billionaire.