RIP 

Blackhawks legend Bobby Hull dies at 84

Hull notched 610 goals and 1,170 points in 1,063 NHL games and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983.

Arun Srinivasan
·Writer
Mon, January 30, 2023 

Bobby Hull, a Hockey Hall of Famer and Chicago Blackhawks legend, has passed away at the age of 84. (Getty Images)

Former Chicago Blackhawks winger Bobby Hull died at 84 on Monday, the NHL Alumni Association confirmed.

Hull is widely considered one of the greatest players in NHL history, winning the Hart Trophy twice, three scoring titles and is considered by some to be the greatest Blackhawks player ever. He broke into the league as a teenager but truly emerged in his third season, where he recorded 39 goals and 81 points during the 1959-60 campaign, before lifting the Stanley Cup the following season. Hull notched 610 goals and 1,170 points in 1,063 NHL games and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1983.

Nicknamed “The Golden Jet,” Hull was known to shoot with tremendous velocity and helped popularize the slap shot. Some have incorrectly attributed the development of the slap shot to him, although it was invented by Eddie Martin of the Coloured Hockey League's Halifax Eureka in the early 1900s. He was also instrumental in the widespread adoption of curved stick blades — then referred to as "banana blades" — in the 1960s. In response, the NHL implement a rule — widely regarded as the Bobby Hull Rule — limiting the curvature of the blade due to the dangers it posed to goaltenders, who didn't all wear masks at the time.

Hull was an outsized figure in the hockey world and he contested the NHL’s hegemony over professional hockey, believing that he was underpaid relative to his stature in the league. As a result, Hull joined the World Hockey Association’s (WHA) Winnipeg Jets for the 1972-73 season, while still in the latter stages of his prime. Hull played for the Jets until 1979-80, then returned to the NHL for a brief nine-game stint with the Hartford Whalers during the same season.

Off the ice, Hull was a more complex figure and an accurate biography cannot overlook his numerous transgressions. Hull told a Russian newspaper in 1998 that the Nazis were not without merit and that Adolf Hitler had good ideas. He openly said that he did not care if he was perceived to be a racist. Hull was accused by his wife, Joanne, and his third wife, Deborah, of domestic assault and battery. He was convicted of assaulting a police officer during an 1986 domestic dispute with Deborah. His daughter, Michelle, spoke openly in 2002 that Hull would become abusive when he drank and she became a lawyer for victims of domestic abuse in large part due to her father’s actions. Chicago dropped Hull as a team ambassador in February 2022.

Hull is the father of NHL legend Brett Hull, who went on to score 741 goals in the NHL. They are the only father-and-son combination to have both won the Hart Trophy.

'Hazel McCallion was unstoppable': Politicians, internet react to former mayor's death

The former mayor of Mississauga, Ont. died at her home at the age of 101.


Chris Stoodley
·Lifestyle and News Editor
Sun, January 29, 2023 

Hazel McCallion, who earned the nickname "Hurricane Hazel," died at the age of 101. (Photo by Cole Burston/AFP via Getty Images)

People on social media are mourning the death of "trailblazer" Hazel McCallion, who died at age 101.

Known for her tenacity in Canadian politics, McCallion led Mississauga, Ont. as mayor for 12 terms, up until she was 94-years-old. She was the city's fifth mayor between 1978 and 2014.

"My dear friend Hazel was an extraordinary woman who wore many hats: A businessperson, an athlete, a politician and one of Canada's — and the world's — longest-serving mayors. Nicknamed 'Hurricane Hazel' for her bold political style, she was unstoppable," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote in a statement.

"She inspired countless others, including myself, in her decades of tireless and selfless service. I will miss her as a friend, and I'll always cherish the conversations we had, and the wisdom she shared over the years."

Ontario Premier Doug Ford shared his statement on Sunday morning, announcing that McCallion died "peacefully" at her Mississauga home.

"Hazel was the true definition of a public servant. She dedicated her long life to her community, including 36 years as mayor of Mississauga — the longest serving mayor in the city's history," Ford shared in his statement. "She led the transformation of Mississauga into one of Canada's largest cities. Hazel's mark on her community can be found in the many places and organizations that bear her name, including the Hazel McCallion Line.

"There isn't a single person who met Hazel who didn't leave in awe of her force of personality. I count myself incredibly lucky to have called Hazel my friend over these past many years. As I entered the world of politics, I was fortunate enough to learn from her wisdom and guidance, which she selflessly offered until the very end."

Bonnie Crombie, Mississauga's current mayor, shared her own statement Sunday morning, noting her "condolences" to the city's first-ever female mayor.

"Today, we grieve the loss of Mississauga's matriarch, Hazel McCallion — a fierce and passionate leader who touched the lives of many and who served as an inspiration to women in politics across the country. On behalf of the City of Mississauga, I offer my condolences to the entire McCallion family, who are mourning the loss of their mother and grandmother today," she penned in her statement.

"Hazel lived a good life, and the truth is that even in her final days, she never stopped giving back to this great city and to the people who proudly call it home. As our first female mayor at a very critical time in our history, she helped grow and shape Mississauga from farmland and fruit trees into the seventh-largest city in Canada with a quality of life that is 'second to none.'"

Social media users shared in the mourning of McCallion's death. Posts from politicians, Canadians and more left her name trending on Twitter.

UK
Tea and cake breaks are healthy for office morale


Sun, 29 January 2023


THE GUARDIAN / LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

It saddens me deeply that the chair of a national agency should be so dismissive of the human relations aspect of work (People should not take cakes into the office, suggests food watchdog chief, 17 January). Many friendships develop in occupational settings, and I recall fondly playing cricket for my first psychology department, and playing an elephant in my first hospital Christmas pantomime. Decades later, I am still in contact with friends I made in those two jobs.

The late Bill Keatinge demonstrated the value of a weekly collective tea break with a few biscuits or cupcakes. The then London Hospital Medical College had many departments, but the friendliest and perhaps the most stable and productive was the department where Prof Keatinge budgeted for someone to make tea, where workmates who wanted a sit-down chat knew they would all be welcome. I would not support a constant exposure to sugar and fat (that might be obesogenic), but in work settings where there is no opportunity to play a pantomime elephant (or even to have a leisurely lunch together), it may be quite supportive sometimes to share tea and cake.
Woody Caan
Retired professor of public health

• Prof Susan Jebb, chairwoman of the Food Standards Agency, suggests that people should not bring cake into the office for the sake of their colleagues’ health. She has a point. Although retired for a number of years, I still remember how difficult it was to resist temptation on the frequent occasions that colleagues brought in delicious home-baked cakes when I worked for Food Standards Agency Wales.
Mike Pender
Cardiff

In Brazil, Forests Returned to Indigenous Hands See Recovery, Study Finds

Mon, January 30, 2023

Brazil's Atlantic Forest. Alex Popovkin via Wikipedia

Granted formal rights to their ancestral lands in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, Indigenous people have stemmed forest loss and improved tree cover, a new study finds.

“Our paper shows that each year after tenure was formalized, there was a 0.77 percent increase in forest cover, compared to untenured lands, on average — which can add up over decades,” Rayna Benzeev, who helmed the study while a PhD candidate at the University of Colorado, Boulder, said in a statement.

The Atlantic Forest, which runs along more than 1,800 miles of the Brazilian coast, has been heavily denuded. Less that 12 percent of the original forest remains, with intact areas often found in Indigenous lands.

To gauge the impact of granting Indigenous people land tenure, the study looked at satellite imagery of 129 Indigenous territories in the Atlantic Forest from 1985 to 2019. It found less deforestation and more reforestation in the 77 areas where Indigenous communities had land tenure, as compared with the 52 areas where Indigenous communities were still working toward land tenure. The findings were published in the journal PNAS Nexus.

“These communities often have a strong incentive to conserve and restore forests,” said Peter Newton, an environmental researcher at the University of Colorado and a coauthor of the study. “Institutional support and legal recognition can help them protect forests more effectively.”

In the past decade, the process of granting land tenure has stalled for hundreds of Indigenous communities. Only one community included in the study has won formal tenure rights since 2012.

“Much of the stagnation in the land tenure process has taken place in recent years and mainly for political reasons,” Benzeev said. “This is exactly what makes the legal component of tenure important: when tenure is legally granted, Indigenous peoples are able to gain territorial autonomy irrespective of political shifts over time.”

The Bloody Reign of Terror That Almost Destroyed the Amazon


Lewis Beale
Sat, January 28, 2023

AFP via Getty Images

One landowner was known for chainsawing in half the peasants who refused to sell their land to him. Another had a jar in his office in which he kept the severed ears of the men he had ordered murdered. There were as many as 20 clandestine cemeteries used to dispose of the remains of murdered workers. And whole populations of Indigenous people had been wiped out by dynamite, machine guns, and sugar laced with arsenic.

This was, and in some ways still is, the Amazon rain forest, a lawless land of legal impunity and environmental degradation, where to be an activist or peasant fighting against land grabs and slave labor-like working conditions is courting death.

“In the Brazilian rain forest, grilagem, or land grabbing, is a central cause of deforestation, violence, and the array of crimes associated with illicit forest economies—fraud, money laundering, corruption,” says Heriberto Araujo, author of Masters of the Lost Land: The Untold Story of the Amazon and the Violent Fight for the World’s Last Frontier. “And in the 1970s,” he adds, “the reigning lawlessness prompted some criminals and psychopaths to take extreme actions in order to earn a name in the region. By becoming an evil myth, they perhaps could deter squatters from claiming their land-grabbed ranches and farms.”

Araujo’s book is centered on the Brazilian state of Para, the country’s second largest, which has accounted for the largest number of land control murders, and 80 percent of Brazil’s 18,000 slave labor complaints. In explaining what is happening there, and all over the Amazon, he focuses his story on several key players in the area: Dezinho, president of the rural workers union, who is eventually murdered for his advocacy; Maria Joel, his wife, who takes up the causes he fought for; Joselio, a landowner accused of torture, murder and enslavement; and Decio Nunes, a lumber baron twice convicted of murder who has yet to spend a day in prison.

More Than a Third of What’s Left of the Amazon Rainforest Is Dying

Araujo, who was interviewed by The Daily Beast via email from his home in Spain, believes that accountability is a central problem in this area, that “those who violate the law, either because they deforest an area or commit a violent crime, including murder, often manage to dodge prison. The fact that many crimes are committed through middlemen and hired killers represents a challenge for the police and the prosecution offices.”

The numbers seem to bear this out. From 1985-2018, of the 1,790 land and resource-related murders in Brazil, most of them in the Amazon, 92 percent resulted in no arrest or trial. But if this sounds all Wild West, Araujo cautions that there are significant differences between how the American West and Brazilian Amazon were opened up for development, and the land rushes that followed. In the latter, he says, “the federal government never really succeeded, if it ever really attempted, to put in place an effective and lawful system to distribute public lands among the population. The U.S. [government] did play a crucial role in systematically overviewing, if not controlling, the distribution of plots and the records of that process to prevent major fights for land. I don’t argue it was perfect, but it was done in a more professional way than in Brazil.”

The Amazon was essentially opened for major development in 1966 under Operation Amazonia, a campaign to develop and settle the jungle, which included construction of roads to, and into, the interior. But in 1969, when an Indigenous tribe slaughtered a peasant family, the country was forced to develop a policy that protected their lands against invasion. Still, according to the Jornal do Brasil as quoted in Araujo’s book, this didn’t stop planters and cattlemen with powerful ties in other states who had illegally “demarcated great areas, including in the Indian territory, and sold the land, without any deeds, to colonists.” Other pioneers, simply by clearing the land, became owners of it, the idea being that whoever cleared a plot became its owner, no matter the legislation. This became known in Brazil as “Land for people without land.” The harm to nature was seen as the price of progress, and, says Araujo in his book, “the world cared about the fate of the forest, but the immediate concern of many breadwinners was getting a job.”

Eventually the government began to prioritize massive farms, no longer supported the little guy, and by the early years of this century, soybeans had become a major crop, with iron or and gold mining also contributing to the despoliation of the land (The Guardian recently reported about a 75-mile long illegal road cut through an Indigenous reserve to reach an outlaw gold mine). But because of this, the country was also becoming an agricultural superpower, and under the presidency of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (known as Lula) exports tripled.

Still, there was progress in the early years of this century when, says Araujo, “illegal deforestation reached historic lows, and the reason for that progress was that the federal government had allocated resources to fight the networks of criminals behind the looting of the jungle.”

But that progress ground to a halt under the rule of President Jair Bolsonaro when, Araujo claims, “there was a real and purported attempt to destroy that capacity and knowledge, both because he removed key figures and underfunded the environmental agencies fighting the criminal networks operating deep in the forest. As a result, deforestation spiked and those reporting on these problems became a target.” Proof of this came last year, with the murders of Indigenous activist Bruno Pereira and journalist Dom Phillips, an incident that drew international attention to the ongoing lawlessness in the Amazon.

And yet there is hope going forward. Lula’s recent re-election signifies an end to Bolsonaro’s destructiveness, and just days into his new term in office, Lula has named an Amazon activist as minister of environment and an Indigenous woman as the country’s first minister of Indigenous peoples. He has also pledged that unlike his second term in the early 2000s, when he began catering to farmers, he is now embracing proposals for preservation.

Can he make a real difference? “Lula faces multiple challenges,” says Araujo, “from a sophisticated and violent criminality to a widespread mind-set that considers the Amazon a place to plunder. Ultimately, I think he has a chance to end illegal logging if the international community takes part in the process of setting the foundations to sustainable development. The Amazon requires a new model of development that puts at the center the whole system—the rainforest and its people, including Indigenous populations.”

The Daily Beast.

BLUE HYDROGEN
Exxon Mobil sets large-scale hydrogen plant start-up for 2027

Mon, January 30, 2023
By Sabrina Valle

HOUSTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp disclosed on Monday its plan to start operations at its large-scale hydrogen plant in Texas in 2027 or 2028, Exxon's Low Carbon business president Dan Ammann told Reuters.

The unit is part of Exxon's efforts to create a new business to make money out of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from other companies looking to decarbonize their own operations. Exxon estimates 10% or more of return for the business.

Exxon has budgeted $7 billion for hydrogen, carbon capture and biofuels projects between 2022 and 2027. A final investment decision for the hydrogen project is expected by 2024.

"People will see that this works and that it can be economically viable," Ammann said.

Exxon said its Baytown facility in Texas is expected to produce 1 billion cubic feet of blue hydrogen per day. The fuel, which produces no emissions when burnt, is targeted at heavy industries trying to switch from fossil to renewable fuels.

Blue hydrogen is made from natural gas in combination with carbon capture. Exxon plans to permanently bury underground 98% of the associated CO2 produced, or about 7 million metric tons annually.

Last year, Exxon struck its first commercial carbon storage deal with the world's top ammonia maker CF Industries under an effort to target a projected $4 trillion CCS market by 2050. Ammonia in its liquid form can be used to transport hydrogen to different parts of the world, as a hydrogen carrier.

"You are starting to see the foundation of our Low Carbon solutions business taking shape," Ammann said. (Reporting by Sabrina Valle; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

UK
Anger over 'disruption' caused by Esso pipeline project

Chris Yandell
Sun, 29 January 2023 

Mandy Shannon runs Four Marks Golf Course, which has been cut in two by the pipeline work. Photo: BBC (Image: BBC)

BUSINESSES and landowners have hit out at the disruption being caused by the installation of a new underground pipeline between Southampton and London.

Esso is currently constructing a 90km facility that will transport aviation fuel from Boorley Green to an Esso storage facility at Hounslow, near Heathrow Airport.

Described as nationally important, it will replace part of a pipeline that already links Fawley refinery to the capital.

The new section is due to be completed next year and will carry the equivalent of 100 road tankers' worth of fuel each day between Southampton and Hounslow.

READ MORE: Activist who disrupted Hampshire to London pipeline is jailed

Protesters include Mandy Channon, who runs Four Marks Golf Course near Alton. She said the course had been sliced in two by the work, leaving the top four holes inaccessible.

Esso has made an interim compensation payment.

But Ms Shannon said the muddy corridor where the work was being carried out would need to be re-seeded so grass could grow before the section of the course could be reopened.

She told the BBC she would be left with "half a golf course" until next year.

"If it weren't for the members, the locals, the pool team, I'd have no business," she said.

READ MORE: Hampshire to London pipeline given the green light

Other critics include Sarah Oppenheimer, owner of the Headmore Stud, who said a horse was frightened by a digger and bolted from its field, injuring its front leg.

Ms Oppenheimer said the horse was found three-quarters of a mile away "in a very distressed state".

She added: "They should have been out by October. "We're nearly in February and they're still up there with their diggers and it's just going on and on."

Esso has agreed to pay for the horse's veterinary treatment.

In a statement the company said existing agreements with the vast majority of landowners required it to make payments to compensate for any losses.

Local teams were in contact with those affected by the work and it was "grateful for residents' continued patience" during the final stage of the project.

RIGHT WING PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

Trump's Justice Department Goons Oversaw an Actual Witch Hunt While He Screamed About One

Jack Holmes
Mon, January 30, 2023 

Trump's Attorney General Oversaw Actual Witch Hunt

Sorry, but even in this age of goldfish-brain news cycles, we cannot allow a certain development from last week to just fade into obscurity. You may remember that Donald Trump, American president, loved to say the investigation into whether his campaign coordinated with Russia's effort to influence the 2016 election was a "witch hunt" pursued by shadowy bureaucrats with an ax to grind. In his telling, that investigation was opened for political reasons, without justification, and that's why it dragged on forever and ultimately concluded with Special Counsel Robert Mueller declaring "NO COLLUSION!" and shooting off a bunch of confetti like a gender reveal. It was such an egregious violation that it required a counter-investigation overseen by Trump's attorney general, Bill Barr, and his hand-picked hard-nosed prosecutor, John Durham. They would find justice.

Well, the counter-investigation was everything he said about the Russia investigation, as a fantastic report from the New York Times laid out last week. The former took way longer than the latter and failed to uncover anything they said it would. But more than that, it was an actual witch hunt. By the summer of 2020, it was clear Durham had failed, and the Justice Department inspector general published a report that found no evidence the FBI was politically motivated in 2016. But Trump was absolutely losing it on Fox News, floating that Obama and Biden would be indicted for their offenses against him—"the single biggest political crime in the history of our country"—and the only way they wouldn't be was if his two pet prosecutors, Barr and Durham, decided to be "politically correct." (God forbid!) Enter the Times:

Against that backdrop, Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham did not shut down their inquiry when the search for intelligence abuses hit a dead end. With the inspector general’s inquiry complete, they turned to a new rationale: a hunt for a basis to accuse the Clinton campaign of conspiring to defraud the government by manufacturing the suspicions that the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia, along with scrutinizing what the F.B.I. and intelligence officials knew about the Clinton campaign’s actions.

So having failed to produce the goods in time to give Trump some political ammunition for the 2020 election, they just kept the investigation going with an entirely new focus? They came up with nothing, so they started to work the name "Clinton" in there? How is that even the same investigation? It isn't, except for one crucial respect: It continued as a vehicle for Trump's shadowy accusations against his political opponents. As long as the investigation was "ongoing," he had extra salt on his claims that anyone caught up in it was disgustingly corrupt. In this respect, it's a lot like the Ukraine extortion that got Trump impeached the first time: He just wanted Zelenskyy to announce Ukraine was opening an investigation into the Bidens. The subtext, of course, was that Trump would do the rest.

Durham seems to be another guy whose lifelong reputation for honest work could not survive a run-in with Donald Trump.Getty Images

It's clear from his public behavior throughout that Barr—again, the attorney general of the United States—also considered the investigation a political endeavor. As the Times traces, Barr fought the inspector general's report, fearing its (honest) conclusions could endanger his and Durham's probe. He was on Fox News all the time misrepresenting what their counter-investigation was doing and what it had uncovered about the original investigation, just as he'd done with his "summary" of the Mueller report. He waited until after the 2020 election to admit their probe had failed to find evidence to support the conclusion they'd decided on beforehand. And most appallingly, there was The Italian Job.

...Italian officials — while denying any role in setting off the Russia investigation — unexpectedly offered a potentially explosive tip linking Mr. Trump to certain suspected financial crimes. Mr. Barr and Mr. Durham decided that the tip was too serious and credible to ignore. But rather than assign it to another prosecutor, Mr. Barr had Mr. Durham investigate the matter himself — giving him criminal prosecution powers for the first time — even though the possible wrongdoing by Mr. Trump did not fall squarely within Mr. Durham’s assignment to scrutinize the origins of the Russia inquiry...

This all remained secret until this Times report, in which there are some further observations about Barr's public behavior. After it became public that Durham's probe now included a criminal investigation, without any specifics about the crime in question, the entire news media was operating on the assumption that it was the Russia investigators who were now under full-on criminal scrutiny. This was false—Trump was under criminal investigation! But "Mr. Barr, who weighed in publicly about the Durham inquiry at regular intervals in ways that advanced a pro-Trump narrative," the Times notes, "chose in this instance not to clarify what was really happening."

So the probe of the Russia investigation actually uncovered possible financial crimes by Donald Trump, but when there was only a partial leak (and who leaked that?), Barr allowed a narrative that was close to the opposite of reality to blossom in the media, all because it was to Trump's political benefit during an election? Oh, and by the way, knowing all this, is the public supposed to have confidence that whatever allegations made by the Italians were properly investigated by Durham and Barr?

And here's where we might mention how amazing it's been to watch the discussion about Trump and Russia play out. Somehow, "famously amoral lout comes to friendship of convenience with authoritarian strongman" is now considered liberal QAnon—Blueanon—and the counterstory pushed by the biggest public liar in American history has gained broad acceptance. Yeah, the liberals who started talking about Trump being a "Russian asset" lost the plot, but his 2016 campaign manager's previous job was working for pro-Russian interests in Ukraine. Paul Manafort also worked directly for one of Putin's closest allies, Oleg Deripaska, a guy who has overseen political influence campaigns in countries all over the world. The Senate Intelligence Committee, at the time controlled by Republicans, published a report that found that "Manafort hired and worked increasingly closely with a Russian national, Konstantin Kilimnik. Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer," and that "Manafort sought to secretly share internal campaign information with Kilimnik." At the time, Manafort was millions of dollars in debt to Deripaska and was working for the Trump campaign for free.

Maybe Trump was entirely innocent as all this was going on, unaware of his campaign manager's connections, just as those allegations from the Italians may have been nothing. It's not like this guy had to shutter his university and his foundation after allegations of fraud. It's not like his flagship company has been convicted of fraud. He was not, in fairness, charged with conspiring in the 2016 Russian influence campaign, though that investigation was hindered by Trump's repeated obstruction of justice. But considering that Trump was yelling "witch hunt" while his cronies conducted an actual witch hunt, we should probably keep an eye on the new "Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government" his allies just rolled out.

Apes talk in a ‘language’ that humans can understand, study suggests. But why?

BRENDAN RASCIUS

January 25, 2023

Gary Stewart/AP

It turns out you don’t have to be Jane Goodall to understand apes.

Even untrained humans can decipher ape communication, including gestures related to grooming and sex, according to a new study published on Jan. 24 in the journal PLOS Biology.

The findings suggest humans may be able to tap into shared ancestral knowledge preserved long after our evolutionary split from apes, researchers said.

As part of the study, 5,656 participants were asked to watch a series of 20 videos displaying gestures from chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest living ancestors. Only common gestures with confirmed meanings were shown in the experiment.

Some participants, in addition to the videos, were also provided a one-line description of each gesture for context.

Afterwards, participants chose the meaning that they thought best matched each gesture from a multiple choice list.

Among some of the gestures presented in the videos were the “Big Loud Scratch,” which means an animal wants to be groomed, and the “Object Shake,” which signals a desire to have sex, researchers said.

Participants accurately interpreted the meaning of the gestures at a rate “significantly higher than expected by chance,” researchers said.

“Overall they had 52% accuracy when they just saw the gesture action, and 57% when they were told what happened before the gesture,” Dr. Kirsty Graham, a coauthor of the study, told McClatchy News. “If they were randomly clicking we’d expect about 25% accuracy.”

As to why untrained humans can decode ape signals, researchers are not sure, though they have ventured several guesses.

It’s possible apes and humans just happen to share the ability to interpret meaningful signals due to general intelligence and other visual clues, researchers said. After all, some gestures resemble the actions that they want to happen.

It’s also possible that the shared lexicon is inherited biologically from a common ancestor, illustrating “deep evolutionary continuity between” human and ape communication, researchers said.

“The main takeaway is that we now have a clearer idea where humans fit into the great ape gesture picture,” Graham said. “It seems to be a shared communication system across great apes and one that was likely used by our last common ancestors.”

Though researchers disagree about the exact timetable, recent studies indicate humans ancestors diverged from those of chimpanzees and bonobos about eight million years ago.

If you want to take a try at recognizing ape gestures, the test can be taken online here.

‘Flagship species’ was devastated by deforestation. Now PA experts may bring it back

Robert F. Bukaty/AP

Brendan Rascius
Fri, January 27, 2023

One hundred years ago, a native species of the Keystone State disappeared. Now, state officials, backed by an overwhelming majority of Pennsylvanians, are pushing to bring the animal back.

The state’s game commission is evaluating the potential reintroduction of the American marten, a small weasel with reddish fur and a bushy tail.

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, the marten flourished in the hardwood forests in the northern region of the state, according to the game commission.

However, deforestation in the 18th and 19th centuries and unrestrained farming led to the animal’s destruction. The last martens in Pennsylvania were likely snuffed out in the 1920s, officials said.

Its absence did not go without consequences. The creature is a “missing ecological community member” within the state’s wooded areas, game officials said in a Jan. 27 video.

The fleet-footed tree climber, which weighs only a few pounds, carries out crucial functions, including managing rodent populations and dispersing seeds.

The marten has also been referred to as a “flagship” or “umbrella” species because it brings “benefits to many other species that require a healthy and diverse forest,” officials said.

The game commission authorized an assessment of the feasibility of reintroducing the animal in 2022, which included a statewide survey. It found 92% of respondents supported the repopulation effort, and the assessment concluded that “American marten reintroduction to Pennsylvania is likely to succeed.”

The commission’s board is scheduled to meet on Jan. 27 and 28 and may have updates regarding the repopulation effort.

A spokesperson for the game commission did not immediately respond to a McClatchy News request for comment on Jan. 27.

Many formerly extirpated species have been successfully reintroduced in Pennsylvania over the past several decades, including river otters, bald eagles and white-tailed deer, officials said.

PHOTO ESSAY
Nigeria floods: Songs and testimonies from a drowning world
Sun, January 29, 2023
Communities hit by Nigeria's worst recorded floods are at the centre of an exhibition by photographer Gideon Mendel. He took portraits of people standing amid their drowned homes in the southern state of Bayelsa:


In late November last year I travelled to Nigeria, more than a month after the floodwater had arrived and I found many houses were still inundated.

With the water slowly receding, my subjects were able to take me to their homes, often travelling by canoe.

Gift Ikuru standing in flood water in her home in Ogbia Municipality, Bayelsa State, Nigeria - November 2022

"This is the third time I have experienced a flood, but this is by far the worst," said Gift Ikuru (pictured above) from Ogbia municipality.

"All of my belongings are destroyed. There is no shelter for us, so we have been sleeping on the roadside."

I was repeatedly moved by the welcome I received in this community - from people dealing with such difficult circumstances. So many people wanted to have their experience documented that I often had a queue of people waiting to be photographed.

My subjects embraced this moment of witnessing, facing the camera with such dignity, like Shiphrah Timbiri Otuoke (above).

She broke into spontaneous song as she stood outside her home, expressing sorrow but also a resilience shown by so many in Ogbia where many own small plots of land to grow crops.

"On our farm the water was above our heads so we had to take the risk of diving to harvest our cassava," she said.

"It brought so much destruction and hunger to our community. I am a sociology student and the flood was a disaster to me academically. I lost so many learning hours. My textbooks, handouts and notebooks are all damaged. I don't know where to start from now because I support myself with farming as a student."

Floodwater at Dorca Executive Apartments (student accommodation) in Ogbia Municipality, Bayelsa State, Nigeria - November 2022

The residents living on the lower level of Dorcas Apartments, accommodation for university students, have been all flooded.

"None of us have had any assistance in this terrible situation," said Joy Christian, whose husband is a caretaker of the building.

Eruabai Ase standing in flood water in her home in Ogbia Municipality, Bayelsa State, Nigeria - November 2022

"We have seen huge rains this year, more than ever, but we know that this flood came from a dam being opened in Cameroon," said Eruabai Ase Otuaba (above).

"We thought the 2012 floods were the worst but the level is much higher this time. There is nowhere to sleep and the water came with sickness. With so many mosquitoes malaria is here.

"I am living with my family on the top level of the incomplete building. We have to use this contaminated water for washing and drinking."

Satellite dishes at Dorca Executive Apartments (student accommodation) in Ogbia Municipality, Bayelsa State, Nigeria - November 2022

Ms Otuaba said the displaced families had received no help from the government.

"The floodwater destroyed our store of food supplies from our family farm so we have nothing to feed on. The foundation of our house is also damaged. We do not know if it still will be standing after having so much water inside.

"But in our community we support each other. When there is food we share it. I have a degree in business studies, but I am not employed at present. I work on our family farm."

Prince Ogiasa Lume standing in flood water in his home in Ogbia Municipality, Bayelsa State, Nigeria - November 2022

"We were told that a flood is coming but we did not prepare for something of this magnitude, particularly because in this community flooding is rare," said farmer Prince Ogiasa Lume Otuoke (above).

"The flood came suddenly. There was no time for preparation as the water was overflowing with extreme force. I did not have the chance to dive into the water and save my crops.

"Our main crop here is plantain, and for the planting we need the suckers. But they will have all rotted away under the floodwater."

People playing in flood water flood waters outside Dorca Executive Apartments (student accommodation) in Ogbia Municipality, Bayelsa State, Nigeria - November 2022

According to the UN's disaster relief agency (Ocha), the flooding in Nigeria affected more than three million people.

More than 600 people lost their lives and another 1.5 million people were forced to flee their homes. It extensively damaged houses, farms and basic infrastructure and decimated livelihoods across the country.

"The damage to staple foods such as cassava, rice, and plantain, among other crops, risks aggravating the already alarming food and nutrition crisis across Nigeria," said Ocha's Matthias Schmale.

Edigiraru Donald and Iruaro Robert standing in flood water in their home in Ogbia Municipality, Bayelsa State, Nigeria - November 2022

"The experience was not easy. We have been moving from one place to another for shelter. We are now living in the upstairs of an incomplete building," said Iruaro Robert Otuaba, a school student (above right).

"We lost our personal belongings but I was most upset to see all my children's schoolbooks in the water," said his mother Edigiraru Donald (above left).

"All the crops from our farm are destroyed. We are seriously suffering now because I can't do any business to survive."

Greater Evangelical World Crusade Church in Ogbia Municipality, Bayelsa State, Nigeria - November 2022

This is the outside of a church in Ogbia, showing how slow it was taking for the waters to recede.

"I remember the flood when 2012 when I was a boy, but that was not nearly as bad as this. Nobody in our community expected it to be this huge," said Mr Otuaba.

Orubo Oro standing in flood water in her home in Yenagoa Municipality, Bayelsa State, Nigeria - November 2022

For farmer Orubo Oro Tombia (above), from neighbouring Yenagoa municipality, the worst aspect has been the loss of cassava stems: "It is a disaster to me in so many ways and the cause of so much stress.

"The farmland is submerged so all the stems are dead. That means there will be no crop in the coming year."

"We know that many things caused this flood. A dam over the border in Cameroon released water, and our government has failed to prepare for this by building a dam to curtail it," she said.

"I also believe that climate change caused the unusual rains and the overflow of the dam. I have a canoe, so at least I am able to move around and return to my home."

Fidelia Shedrack standing in flood water in her home in Yenagoa Municipality, Bayelsa State, Nigeria - November 2022

Fidelia Shedrack Igbogene (above), also in Yenagoa, said her family were the only ones left on her street as they had an upper floor: "Where we are here there is no comfort because the building is unfinished. Mosquitos feast on us. The situation is terrible and bad.

"I make a living farming fish and we had two fishponds. They were washed away and I have lost all my fish."

Winner Odums standing in flood water outside her home in Ogbia Municipality, Bayelsa State, Nigeria - November 2022

"I am a university student. Many of my academic books are damaged, and how can I study when I am living like this?" said Winner Odums (above) in Ogbia.

"It's hard for my family to survive with food prices so high and all of our farm produce destroyed. With all the water still here it makes life unbearable."

Rain and flood waters outside Dorca Executive Apartments (student accommodation) in Ogbia Municipality, Bayelsa State, Nigeria - November 2022

Many people have been struggling to find refuge - this is Dorcas Apartments where only the upper levels were accessible.

"Someone gave us his place to stay but now he has just asked us to leave so we are now staying by the roadside," said Aruaman Ase in Ogbia.

Alawei Christian standing in flood water in his home in Ogbia Municipality, Bayelsa State, Nigeria - November 2022

"I work in a student building and most of their belongings under my watch as the apartment caretaker are gone, submerged under floodwaters," said Alawei Christian (above).

"This is my fourth experience of flooding, but it is much worse this time, the biggest of all of them. It has really affected my family. We have lost so much, including 25 chickens."

"There has been some help offered, but not nearly enough," said Mr Christian.

"Imagine a bag of rice and beans for hundreds of people in the community. We received just a single cup measure of rice and beans."

Janet Eke standing in flood water at her home in Ogbia Municipality, Bayelsa State, Nigeria - November 2022

Farmer Janet Eke Otuoke is sleeping at her brother's home in Ogbia: "We are seven people in that small room with our children, living and managing together.

"I also lost all my cassava stems, so for us to plant next year it means we would need to buy them. But each stem goes for more than a 1,000 naira [$2.20, £1.75], which is far beyond our means.

"My appeal to government is that they should help us to continue farming and also help with the properties that have been so damaged."

Interviews by Tife Owalabi and Stanley Boroh.

Gideon Mendel's exhibition Fire / Flood is showing in London at the Soho Photography Quarter, part of The Photographers' Gallery, until May 2023.

Images subject to copyright.