Safety agency opens probe of Norfolk Southern rail accidents

Tue, March 7, 2023 


OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Federal investigators are opening a wide-ranging investigation into one of the nation’s biggest railroads following a fiery derailment on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border last month and several other accidents involving Norfolk Southern, including the death of a train conductor Tuesday.

The National Transportation Safety Board said on Tuesday it will begin a broad look at the company's safety culture — the first such investigation within the rail industry since 2014. The board said it has sent investigation teams to look into five significant accidents involving Norfolk Southern since December 2021.

The agency also urged the company to take immediate action to review and assess its safety practices.

The Federal Railroad Administration also announced its own investigation of Norfolk Southern on Tuesday. The administration will issue a public report after conducting a 60-day safety assessment, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

In the release, the railroad administration said Norfolk Southern must go beyond the steps it announced Monday and take actions “that match the severity of recent incidents.”

Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw pledged to hold a series of companywide safety meetings Wednesday — one day ahead of when he is scheduled to testify in Congress at a hearing on the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment.

“Moving forward, we are going to rebuild our safety culture from the ground up,” he said in a statement. “We are going to invest more in safety. This is not who we are, it is not acceptable, and it will not continue.”

In response to the Ohio derailment, the railroad on Monday announced plans to improve the use of detectors placed along railroad tracks to spot overheating bearings and other problems.

Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board said the crew operating the train that derailed Feb. 3 outside East Palestine, Ohio, got a warning from such a detector but couldn’t stop the train before more than three dozen cars came off the tracks and caught fire.

Half of the town of about 5,000 people had to evacuate for days when responders intentionally burned toxic chemicals in some of the derailed cars to prevent an uncontrolled explosion, leaving residents with lingering health concerns. Government officials say tests haven’t found dangerous levels of chemicals in the air or water in the area.

Within the industry, Norfolk Southern has had a strong reputation for being a safe railroad over the years, said Christopher Barkan, director of the Rail Transportation and Engineering Center at the University of Illinois.

Federal Railroad Administration statistics show accidents involving Norfolk Southern is down since 2019, but the rate of accidents is up over the past decade. The 119 derailments involving Norfolk Southern last year was the lowest number in the last decade. Industrywide, there were more than 1,000 derailments last year.

But pressure has been mounting on the railroad in the aftermath of the East Palestine disaster.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told the nation’s freight railroads in February to immediately act to improve safety while regulators were focusing on strengthening safety rules. Buttigieg said the department will hold the railroad accountable for any safety violations that contributed to the Feb. 3 crash.

President Joe Biden said on Twitter after the derailment that the past pattern of railroads resisting safety regulations must change and that Congress should support the effort to improve safety.

Even though government data shows that derailments have declined in recent years, there were still 1,049 of them last year.

While most don’t cause any major problems, of the five accidents the National Transportation Safety Board pointed to involving Norfolk Southern since the end of 2021, three resulted in the deaths of three workers.

On Saturday, no one was hurt when a Norfolk Southern freight train derailed near Springfield, Ohio.

In the latest incident Tuesday, a train and a dump truck collided at a steel plant in Cleveland, killing the train conductor who was standing on the outside of a car, authorities said. The company said the cause of that accident was not yet known.

Eddie Hall, president of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen union that represents the worker who was killed, said the death is a reminder of the need for safety improvements.

“All railroad accidents are avoidable,” Hall said. “This collision underscores the need for significant improvements in rail safety for both workers and the public.”

___

Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio.

Josh Funk And John Seewer, The Associated Press

No, a BC Company Can’t Sell You Cocaine Now



Tue, March 7, 2023

British Columbians who tuned into the news last Thursday might have gone to bed that night thinking they could soon be buying cocaine as easily as they can purchase a beer.

In question period at the legislature Thursday morning the BC Liberals grilled the government about Langley-based cannabis company Adastra Holdings’ Feb. 22 announcement had been granted federal permission to “legally possess, produce, sell and distribute” cocaine.

At the time, the publicly traded company said it wished to position itself to align with ongoing harm reduction efforts and to “meet the demand for a safe supply of cocaine.”

“Cocaine isn’t prescribed, it isn’t safe, and this is wrong,” said leader of the Opposition Kevin Falcon in the legislature. “Commercializing cocaine as a business opportunity amounts to legalizing cocaine trafficking, full stop.”

He blamed B.C.’s decriminalization pilot program for the announcement, despite the fact it does not legalize the sale or manufacturing of any drug.

“The NDP’s plunge headlong into decriminalization without the proper guardrails that even the federal government insisted should be in place is absolutely not something that we’re going to support on this side of the house,” said Falcon, who previously supported the decriminalization pilot.

The opposition and some experts have characterized safe supply, a harm reduction measure an expert panel convened by the chief coroner has repeatedly called for, as a “public supply of addictive drugs.”

Some media outlets had already reported Adastra’s announcement earlier Thursday morning. Following the exchange in question period, the news cycle spiralled.

In response to a question from Global News at St. Paul’s Hospital Thursday afternoon, Premier David Eby said he was “astonished” the province hadn’t been aware of Health Canada’s decision to grant Adastra an exemption to handle cocaine.

Eby said a prescribed safe supply of cocaine, which some public health experts and drug user rights advocates have called for, “is not part of our provincial plan” to address the toxic drug crisis.

The attention appeared good for Adastra’s business. The company’s stock price rose sharply from 75 cents Thursday morning to $1.60 by 10:30 a.m. Friday, its highest since October 2020.

But by the time many people were taking their Friday afternoon coffee breaks, the concern from both parties was revealed to be largely unfounded.

And public health experts and advocates say in their outrage, both leaders ignored that a safe supply of cocaine would save lives in B.C.’s toxic drug crisis that has killed more than 11,000 since 2016.

What Adastra’s license allows

Adastra had received an amended dealer’s license through a Section 56 exemption from the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act granted by Health Canada, according to its Feb. 22 statement.

That exemption is the same mechanism that allowed North America’s first supervised consumption site, Insite, to open in Vancouver and for B.C. to decriminalize small amounts of some drugs for personal use in January.

Adastra’s amended license allows the company to produce up to 250 grams of cocaine per year and import coca leaves to synthesize the substance. It is also allowed to handle up to 1,000 grams of hallucinogenic psilocybin annually.

Cocaine has some legal uses including as a topical local anesthetic and to prevent excess bleeding in some nose and throat surgeries in B.C. and Canada, as authorized by Health Canada.

Selling, manufacturing or trafficking cocaine or other illicit drugs remains illegal under B.C.’s decriminalization pilot plan.

But Adastra’s license does not permit it to sell or distribute cocaine to the general public, Health Canada clarified in a statement late Thursday evening. It can only deal with other licensed facilities, hospitals, pharmacists and research teams with their own exemptions that include cocaine, a fact the agency reminded Adastra of Friday morning.

Neither Adastra or the Liberals had mentioned that key piece of information, until Adastra retracted part of its previous statement on Friday afternoon.

“The Dealer’s Licence issued to Adastra Labs does not permit Adastra Labs to sell coca leaf, psilocybin or cocaine to the general public,” it said.

Opposition critic for mental health and addictions Elenore Sturko placed the blame for the misleading information she and Falcon shared in the legislature on Adastra.

The new information “doesn’t really change those questions that I have,” Sturko told The Tyee.

“Companies are clearly starting to pivot and are indicating they want to profit off of harm reduction and decriminalization,” she said. “We shouldn’t be getting information about harm reduction from companies themselves, it should come from government.”

The Tyee reached out to the premier’s office but did not hear back by publication time. Multiple interview requests to Adastra CEO Michael Forbes were not returned.

Health Canada said it fulfilled its obligations to consult on Adastra’s exemption, which is separate from the decriminalization exemption granted to B.C.

“Health Canada thoroughly reviews licence applications to ensure that all the appropriate policies and procedures are in place to maintain public health and public safety,” read an emailed statement from a spokesman Friday afternoon.

“If the strict requirements are not being followed, Health Canada will not hesitate to take action, which may include revoking the licence.”

Health Canada did not answer Tyee questions about how many companies or facilities in Canada can legally produce or sell the cocaine, but noted Gulf Islands-based Sunshine Labs is permitted to produce and sell small amounts of cocaine, MDMA and prescription heroin to other licensed facilities as of early January.

Amid the confusion, that company’s Thursday corporate update was also partially retracted and clarified on Friday afternoon.

‘A total gotcha’

While questions of corporate profit and transparency are important, drug policy advisor for the City of Vancouver Karen Ward said the BC Liberals’ failure to verify whether this would impact the general public rang as disingenuous.

“It was a total gotcha,” she told The Tyee in an interview, noting the confusion benefited Adastra’s bottom-line as well.

But she said the NDP’s response meant both parties missed a chance to acknowledge new approaches are needed given that hundreds of people have died from contaminated cocaine in B.C.

“They were like, ‘Oh we’re not talking about legalizing cocaine!’ Well, why not?” said Ward. “The reaction really showed their prohibitionist framing of mind on everything.”

B.C.’s prescribed safer supply project and some federally funded pilot projects have largely focused on replacing or offering alternatives to opioids like heroin and fentanyl for fewer than 16,000 people since 2020.

But a safe supply of cocaine is needed, said Ward and Dr. Paxton Bach. About five per cent of cocaine samples in Vancouver are contaminated with fentanyl, according to drug testing data from the BC Centre for Disease Control.

“I quite regularly see overdoses from people at St. Paul’s who thought they were taking cocaine,” said Bach, co-medical director of the BC Centre on Substance Use. “If we truly want to talk about providing predictable, regulated supply of substances to separate people from the current volatile supply, we need to expand it beyond opioids.”

Cocaine, which falls into the stimulant class of drugs, is highly addictive and long-term use can cause serious harms to health, according to the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction.

Harm reduction experts argue providing a predictable, regulated safe supply of drugs will save lives by separating people from the contaminated and volatile criminalized supply. In studies of B.C.’s smaller prescribed heroin programs, that predictability helped participants stabilize their housing, employment, commit fewer survival crimes and improve their overall health.

Adastra’s licensing offers a strong domestic supply option should the province move forward with a safe supply of cocaine in the future, Ward said. Federal rules have hampered domestic efforts to expand prescription heroin programs in the Lower Mainland, for example, beyond what can currently be imported from Switzerland.

Sturko acknowledged the political theatre of question period doesn’t always lend itself well to delicate discussions. “We’re not wanting to create an atmosphere of panic, but it’s important that we continue to press the government for clarity.”

But Bach said elected officials and media need to be specific to avoid stoking stigma or fear when speaking about issues of substance use, drug poisonings and decriminalization.

Safe supply and decriminalization are connected but not the same, as decriminalization is about reducing the harms of prohibition, not directly addressing the contaminated drug supply.

“Everyone is being touched by these issues, so any information that comes out in this area elicits a strong response,” said Bach. “Stories like these remind us why clarity and specificity are so important in our discussions right now.”

Ward said the fuss was a missed opportunity to discuss what a domestic safe supply of cocaine could mean for people at risk of drug poisoning.

“It’s just so degrading to voters,” said Ward. “Just have that adult conversation about our drug policies and what they’ve done, instead of being as reactive as we are being."

Moira Wyton, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee

Fraser Valley buses to be parked for 3 days over labour dispute

Tue, March 7, 2023

Fraser Valley transit workers will leave their vehicles idle for three days this week as they continue to fight for a new labour agreement. (Ben Nelms/CBC - image credit)

B.C. Transit says Fraser Valley bus service will be suspended from Thursday to Saturday as a labour dispute drags on.

In a statement, B.C. Transit said buses in Abbotsford, Agassiz-Harrison, Chilliwack, Hope and Mission will remain parked for the three days.

The Fraser Valley Express from Abbotsford to Lougheed Station will not run either.

B.C. Transit's contractor, First Transit, runs the buses in the Fraser Valley on behalf of the Crown agency. First Transit is embroiled in a labour dispute with CUPE Local 561, which represents bus drivers and other workers.

Ben Nelms/CBC

"B.C. Transit is closely monitoring the situation and sincerely apologizes to customers for the inconvenience caused by this matter," the agency said in a statement.

"We understand the frustration felt by customers, and that the job action is difficult for everyone involved in the region."

HandyDART service will not be impacted, B.C. Transit added.

The service suspension will be the second in three weeks as drivers and other workers seek better pay, working conditions and benefits.

Talks next week

Abbotsford bus driver Elizabeth Roux explained the three main issues in the strike.

For the first, which is compensation, she says Fraser Valley drivers are making 32 per cent less than drivers in neighbouring communities

The second issues is working conditions. Roux says some drivers are working 14 or 15-hour days, while the union has also said many work long hours of standby time for which they receive less than $3 per hour.

The final issue is to have workers offered pensions.

"I've been here 12 years and I'd like to stay another 20," Roux said. "But when all is said and done, I'm not going to retire with anything if something doesn't change."

Roux said she and her co-workers have never had to suspend service over a contract fight before but says there is optimism after three years without one, a new deal could be reached soon.

She says the plan is for talks to resume next week. If those fail, however, a full walk-out will commence again on March 20.

The union has 213 members, including drivers, utility workers, bus washers and mechanics.

First Transit, in a statement received after the story was first published, called the work stoppage "unfortunate." It said it is committed to the collective bargaining process and lines of communication remain open.

"First Transit presented CUPE Local 561 with an offer that would see significant wage increases on par with trends across the province, as well as structural improvements to enhance reliability of service," the statement read.

"First Transit feels strongly that its offer balances the needs of all stakeholders in the Fraser Valley's transit system with our desire to ensure we are able to continue to attract and retain skilled and talented workers."

B.C. Transit says the Central Fraser Valley and Chilliwack transit systems see roughly 13,000 boardings every weekday, not including HandyDART or Hope and Agassiz-Mission ridership.

First Nations chiefs criticize Alberta premier's oilsands tailings spill comments

Wed, March 8, 2023



First Nations leaders say Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is minimizing the effect of two releases of oilsands tailings water near lands they harvest from.

Chief Billy-Joe Tuccaro of the Mikisew Cree First Nation says Smith's statement that none of the tailings from an Imperial Oil mine entered local waterways is, at best, premature.

Chief Allan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation says the spill is much more than the failure of communications that Smith has suggested.

Adam says Smith is trying to minimize a spill that sent 5.3 million litres of industrial wastewater into the environment, in addition to tailings seepage that has gone on for nine months and still continues.

Earlier this week, Smith blamed Imperial for being slow to release information about the spills from the Kearl mine, saying that resulted in the spread of misinformation.

Tuccaro calls her comments "very concerning," saying Mikisew monitors are now on the site and that trust has been broken between his First Nation, Imperial and the Alberta Energy Regulator.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 8, 2023.

The Canadian Press

ALBERTA
Unpaid oilpatch taxes rise again despite industry boom, say rural municipalities

Wed, March 8, 2023 



EDMONTON — Unpaid municipal taxes from the Alberta oilpatch keep rising despite the industry's boom, the province's rural communities say.

"This is the worst ever," said Paul McLauchlin, president of Rural Municipalities of Alberta, which released the data Tuesday. "We've got a serious problem."

The group says energy companies now owe municipal districts in which they operate a total of $268 million. That's up more than six per cent from last year and up 261 per cent since 2018, when the association began keeping track.

As well, the rate of nonpayment is increasing.

McLauchlin said there was $53 million left unpaid in 2022 and $38 million in 2021.

The growing tax debt is occurring at a time of record profits in the industry. McLauchlin said nearly half the unpaid taxes are due from operating companies.

"You've got the highest commodity prices in a generation, free cash flow like no one's ever seen. You think that people would pay their bills."

It's the third year the municipalities have released a tally of unpaid taxes.

Previously, the province’s United Conservative Party government told the Alberta Energy Regulator that it "may" use factors such as tax arrears in ruling on whether to allow transfers of energy assets. Municipalities can submit statements of concern on applications for licence transfers if the companies involved have unpaid taxes.

Municipalities can also attach liens to property if taxes go unpaid.

McLauchlin said that's no longer enough.

"I don't think you can use kid gloves to deal with this. I don't think 'nudge, nudge, please pay' is working," he said. "You need to use regulation and you need to use enforcement."

Municipal Affairs Minister Rebecca Schulz said the province is aware of the survey results and agrees with the Rural Municipalities of Alberta that the problem of unpaid oil and gas taxes to rural municipalities is unacceptable.

She said the government is consulting with industry, municipalities, and landowners to explore options to ensure taxes are paid as a condition of license transfer.

"The vast majority of companies operating in Alberta’s energy sector pay their local property taxes but some have not, leaving municipalities with hard decisions about raising taxes for other taxpayers or cutting services," Schulz said in a release Tuesday night.

"We will be in contact directly with delinquent companies, reminding them of their tax responsibilities."

Jay Averill, spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said the industry knows it needs to pay its taxes.

"The revenues generated from industry to municipalities play a significant role in maintaining quality of life for rural communities," he said in a statement.

"(The association) also acknowledges that we continue to see the lagging effects of a multi-year downturn for the oil and gas sector. We are committed to continuing to work with the province's liability management system."

The Alberta Energy Regulator said in an email Tuesday night that it does not have jurisdiction to enforce payment of these taxes.

"Municipalities are responsible for collecting and enforcing unpaid municipal taxes."

Last March, when the municipalities released their 2021 total, a spokesman for Alberta Energy Regulator said the agency is working with municipalities and the province to find solutions but can only implement government policy.

But McLauchlin calls the regulator "complicit" in the problem. He said many of the remaining tax deadbeats, most of which are not members of industry associations, are companies so marginal the regulator is afraid to crack down on them and force them to close their doors before they've cleaned up their wells.

Those wells would then go to the Orphan Well Association, which already has a backlog of unremediated wells that has forced the Alberta and federal governments to bail it out.

McLauchlin said the tax tally and the growing environmental liability of unreclaimed wells on the Alberta landscape are linked.

"(The regulator) uses surface payments and property tax to prop up companies that shouldn't be operating," McLauchlin said. "That's why they're not enforcing it.

"If they were, (the companies) wouldn't meet their environmental responsibilities and these companies would go into some level of receivership."

In 2020, the federal government provided $1 billion for well cleanup in Alberta. The province also requires operators to remediate a certain percentage of their wells every year and has introduced programs that allow the industry to concentrate their cleanup efforts in one area to improve efficiency and reduce cost.

But environmental liabilities continue to grow. Alberta needs to figure something out, McLauchlin said.

"What are we doing here? What's our plan?"

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 7, 2023.

— Follow Bob Weber on Twitter at @row1960

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

Oldest reference to Norse god Odin found in Danish treasure


Wed, March 8, 2023 


COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Scandinavian scientists said Wednesday that they have identified the oldest-known inscription referencing the Norse god Odin on part of a gold disc unearthed in western Denmark in 2020.

Lisbeth Imer, a runologist with the National Museum in Copenhagen, said the inscription represented the first solid evidence of Odin being worshipped as early as the 5th century — at least 150 years earlier than the previous oldest known reference, which was on a brooch found in southern Germany and dated to the second half of the 6th century.

The disc discovered in Denmark was part of a trove containing about a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of gold, including large medallions the size of saucers and Roman coins made into jewelry. It was unearthed in the village of Vindelev, central Jutland, and dubbed the Vindelev Hoard.

Experts think the cache was buried 1,500 years ago, either to hide it from enemies or as a tribute to appease the gods. A golden bracteate — a kind of thin, ornamental pendant — carried an inscription that read, “He is Odin’s man,” likely referring to an unknown king or overlord.

NOTE THE SWASTIKA 

“It’s one of the best executed runic inscriptions that I have ever seen,” Imer said. Runes are symbols that early tribes in northern Europe used to communicate in writing.

Odin was one of the main gods in Norse mythology and was frequently associated with war as well as poetry.

More than 1,000 bracteates have been found in northern Europe, according to the National Museum in Copenhagen, where the trove discovered in 2020 is on display.

Krister Vasshus, an ancient language specialist, said that because runic inscriptions are rare, "every runic inscription (is) vital to how we understand the past.”

“When an inscription of this length appears, that in itself is amazing," Vasshus said. "It gives us some quite interesting information about religion in the past, which also tells us something about society in the past.”

During the Viking Age, considered to be from 793 to 1066, Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest and trading throughout Europe. They also reached North America.

The Norsemen worshipped many gods and each of them had various characteristics, weaknesses and attributes. Based on sagas and some rune stones, details have emerged that the gods possessed many human traits and could behave like humans.

“That kind of mythology can take us further and have us reinvestigate all the other 200 bracteate inscriptions that we know," Imer said.

James Brooks, The Associated Press

Distant star TOI-700 has two potentially habitable planets orbiting it – making it an excellent candidate in the search for life


Joey Rodriguez, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University 

Andrew Vanderburg, Assistant Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT

THE CONVERSATION
Wed, March 8, 2023 

The TOI-700 star system is home to four planets, including two in its habitable zone that could host liquid water. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA recently announced the discovery of a new, Earth-sized planet in the habitable zone of a nearby star called TOI-700. We are two of the astronomers who led the discovery of this planet, called TOI-700 e. TOI-700 e is just over 100 light years from Earth – too far away for humans to visit – but we do know that it is similar in size to the Earth, likely rocky in composition and could potentially support life.

You’ve probably heard about some of the many other exoplanet discoveries in recent years. In fact, TOI-700 e is one of two potentially habitable planets just in the TOI-700 star system.

Habitable planets are those that are just the right distance from their star to have a surface temperature that could sustain liquid water. While it is always exciting to find a new, potentially habitable planet far from Earth, the focus of exoplanet research is shifting away from simply discovering more planets. Instead, researchers are focusing their efforts on finding and studying systems most likely to answer key questions about how planets form, how they evolve, and whether life might exist in the universe. TOI-700 e stands out from many of these other planet discoveries because it is well suited for future studies that could help answer big question about the conditions for life outside the solar system.

From 1 to 5,000

Astronomers discovered the first exoplanet around a Sun-like star in 1995. The field of exoplanet discovery and research has been rapidly evolving ever since.

At first, astronomers were finding only a few exoplanets each year, but the combination of new cutting-edge facilities focused on exoplanet science with improved detection sensitivity have led to astronomers’ discovering hundreds of exoplanets each year. As detection methods and tools have improved, the amount of information scientists can learn about these planets has increased. In 30 years, scientists have gone from barely being able to detect exoplanets to characterizing key chemical clues in their atmospheres, like water, using facilities like the James Webb Space Telescope.

Today, there are more than 5,000 known exoplanets, ranging from gas giants to small rocky worlds. And perhaps most excitingly, astronomers have now found about a dozen exoplanets that are likely rocky and orbiting within the habitable zones of their respective stars.

Astronomers have even discovered a few systems – like TOI-700 – that have more than one planet orbiting in the habitable zone of their star. We call these keystone systems.

The TOI-700 system has a large habitable zone, and the newly discovered TOI-700 e, not shown in this image, orbits the star along the inner edge of the habitable zone. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

A pair of habitable siblings

TOI-700 first made headlines when our team announced the discovery of three small planets orbiting the star in early 2020. Using a combination of observations from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Surveying Satellite mission and the Spitzer Space Telescope we discovered these planets by measuring small dips in the amount of light coming from TOI-700. These dips in light are caused by planets passing in front of the small, cool, red dwarf star at the center of the system.

By taking precise measurements of the changes in light, we were able to determine that at least three small planets are in the TOI-700 system, with hints of a possible fourth. We could also determine that the third planet from the star, TOI-700 d, orbits within its star’s habitable zone, where the temperature of the planet’s surface could allow for liquid water.

The Transiting Exoplanet Surveying Satellite observed TOI-700 for another year, from July 2020 through May 2021, and using these observations our team found the fourth planet, TOI-700 e. TOI-700 e is 95% the size of the Earth and, much to our surprise, orbits on the inner edge of the star’s habitable zone, between planets c and d. Our discovery of this planet makes TOI-700 one of only a few known systems with two Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zone of their star. The fact that it is relatively close to Earth also makes it one of the most accessible systems in terms of future characterization.

New tools, like the James Webb Space Telescope, can provide clues about life on distant planets, but with thousands of scientific questions to answer, efficient use of time is key. Bricktop/Wikimedia Commons

The bigger questions and tools to answer them

With the successful launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers are now able to start characterizing the atmospheric chemistry of exoplanets and search for clues about whether life exists on them. In the near future, a number of massive, ground-based telescopes will also help reveal further details about the composition of planets far from the solar system.

But even with powerful new telescopes, collecting enough light to learn these details requires pointing the telescope at a system for a long period of time. With thousands of valuable scientific questions to answer, astronomers need to know where to look. And that is the goal of our team, to find the most interesting and promising exoplanets to study with the Webb telescope and future facilities.

Earth is currently the only data point in the search for life. It is possible alien life could be vastly different from life as we know it, but for now, places similar to the home of humanity with liquid water on the surface offer a good starting point. We believe that keystone systems with multiple planets that are likely candidates for hosting life – like TOI-700 – offer the best use of observation time. By further studying TOI-700, our team will be able to learn more about what makes a planet habitable, how rocky planets similar to Earth form and evolve, and the mechanisms that shaped the solar system. The more astronomers know about how star systems like TOI-700 and our own solar system work, the better the chances of detecting life out in the cosmos.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: Joey Rodriguez, Michigan State University and Andrew Vanderburg, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Read more:

To search for alien life, astronomers will look for clues in the atmospheres of distant planets – and the James Webb Space Telescope just proved it’s possible to do so


James Webb Space Telescope: An astronomer explains the stunning, newly released first images

Joseph Rodriguez receives funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Michigan State University.

Andrew Vanderburg receives funding from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

DIGITAL CURRENCY, NO THANKS
Nigerians’ Rejection of Their CBDC Is a Cautionary Tale for Other Countries


Benson Ibeabuchi


Nicholas Anthony
Mon, March 6, 2023 

In Nigeria, citizens have taken to the streets to protest the nation’s cash shortage, further objecting to their government’s implementation of a central bank digital currency (CBDC). The shortage came about due to cash restrictions aimed at pushing the country into a 100% cashless economy. Yet, instead of adopting the CBDC, Nigerian protesters are demanding paper money be restored.

The country’s experience strongly suggests the average citizen understands that CBDCs present a substantial risk to financial freedom while providing no unique benefit.

Nicholas Anthony is a policy analyst in the Cato Institute’s Center for Monetary and Financial Alternatives.

It is no secret that CBDCs have been growing in popularity among central bankers, policy makers, and consultancy firms in recent years. Yet, for citizens it’s been another story. When the U.S. Federal Reserve solicited comments on CBDCs, more than two-thirds of the commenters were concerned about the risks to financial privacy, financial freedom and the stability of the banking system.

Further, CBDCs really don’t add anything novel to the market in terms of benefits for consumers. To the extent people want it, many currencies are available in digital forms through debit cards, payment apps and even prepaid cards. That much should be clear from the abysmal adoption rate in Nigeria, where less than 0.5 % of Nigerians have used the CBDC. To put that number into perspective, more than 50% of Nigerians have used cryptocurrency.
CBDC adoption incentives in Nigeria have failed

The Nigerian government has unleashed a flurry of tricks to spur adoption but none has proven effective. To its credit, the Nigerian government initially tried to encourage use through modest measures. In August 2022, it removed access restrictions so that bank accounts were no longer required to use the CBDC. Then, in October, it offered discounts if people used the CBDC to pay for cabs.

Yet, neither effort proved to be fruitful. Put simply, Nigerians prefer cash.

Read more: Why Nigerians Aren't Turning to the eNaira Despite Crippling Cash Shortages

Unfortunately, the Nigerian government doubled down and moved to more drastic measures by restricting cash itself. In December the Central Bank of Nigeria began restricting cash withdrawals to 100,000 naira (US$225) per week for individuals and 500,000 naira ($1,123) for businesses.

To make matters worse, the Nigerian government also chose to redesign the currency during this time in a “move aimed at restoring the control of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) over currency in circulation” and to “further deepen the push to [a] cashless economy,” according to a CBN press release.

So not only are citizens limited in how much they may withdraw, but the commercial banks also don’t have the cash to give out because many are still waiting for the newly designed cash to arrive.

With these restrictions in place, the Nigerian government managed to drain the economy of cash and set the stage for the CBDC to finally have its moment in the spotlight.
‘You can’t legislate a change in behavior’

And yet, it didn’t work. Stories of Nigerians struggling with the cash restrictions quickly spread across Twitter posts, TikTok videos and other social media. Rather than turn to the CBDC, Nigerians took to the streets to protest the restrictions and cash shortage.

The new notes will, it is hoped, arrive soon, but even then Nigerians are unlikely to find relief. Central bank Governor Godwin Emefiele said, “The destination, as far as I am concerned, is to achieve a 100% cashless economy in Nigeria.”

The company that designed the Nigerian CBDC called the cash restrictions a creative use of marketing and said other countries could be expected to take similar steps. Yet, Nigeria should serve as a cautionary tale for other countries looking to launch CBDCs.

Ayokunle Olumbunmi, head of financial institutions ratings at Agusto and Co. in Nigeria, put it well when he said that the central bank “doesn’t want us to be spending cash. They want us to be doing transactions electronically, but you can’t legislate a change in behavior.”

CBDCs may be popular among central bankers, but money is ultimately a tool for the people. So long as the risks outweigh the benefits, it's unlikely any CBDC will gain traction in Africa or elsewhere.

Robots are performing Hindu rituals -- some devotees fear they'll replace worshippers

Holly Walters, Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology, Wellesley College

THE CONVERSATION
Wed, March 8, 2023 

A robotic arm (below on right) is used to worship by maneuvering a candle in front of the Hindu god Ganesha. Monarch Innovation

It isn’t just artists and teachers who are losing sleep over advances in automation and artificial intelligence. Robots are being brought into Hinduism’s holiest rituals – and not all worshippers are happy about it.

In 2017, a technology firm in India introduced a robotic arm to perform “aarti,” a ritual in which a devotee offers an oil lamp to the deity to symbolize the removal of darkness. This particular robot was unveiled at the Ganpati festival, a yearly gathering of millions of people in which an icon of Ganesha, the elephant-headed god, is taken out in a procession and immersed in the Mula-Mutha river in Pune in central India.

Ever since, that robotic aarti arm has inspired several prototypes, a few of which continue to regularly perform the ritual across India today, along with a variety of other religious robots throughout East Asia and South Asia. Robotic rituals even now include an animatronic temple elephant in Kerala on India’s southern coast.

Yet this kind of religious robotic usage has led to increasing debates about the use of AI and robotic technology in devotion and worship. Some devotees and priests feel that this represents a new horizon in human innovation that will lead to the betterment of society, while others worry that using robots to replace practitioners is a bad omen for the future.

As an anthropologist who specializes in religion, however, I focus less on the theology of robotics and more on what people actually say and do when it comes to their spiritual practices. My current work on religious robots primarily centers on the notion of “divine object-persons,” where otherwise inanimate things are viewed as having a living, conscious essence.

My work also looks at the uneasiness Hindus and Buddhists express about ritual-performing automatons replacing people and whether those automatons actually might make better devotees.

Ritual automation is not new

Ritual automation, or at least the idea of robotic spiritual practice, isn’t new in South Asian religions.

Historically, this has included anything from special pots that drip water continuously for bathing rituals that Hindus routinely perform for their deity icons, called abhisheka, to wind-powered Buddhist prayer wheels – the kinds often seen in yoga studios and supply stores.

While the contemporary version of automated ritual might look like downloading a phone app that chants mantras without the need for any prayer object at all, such as a mala or rosary, these new versions of ritual-performing robots have prompted complicated conversations.

Thaneswar Sarmah, a Sanskrit scholar and literary critic, argues that the first Hindu robot appeared in the stories of King Manu, the first king of the human race in Hindu belief. Manu’s mother, Saranyu – herself the daughter of a great architect – built an animate statue to perfectly perform all of her household chores and ritual obligations.

Visvakarman, considered to be the architect of the universe in Hindu belief. British Museum

Folklorist Adrienne Mayor remarks similarly that religious stories about mechanized icons from Hindu epics, such as the mechanical war chariots of the Hindu engineer god Visvakarman, are often viewed as the progenitors of religious robots today.

Furthermore, these stories are sometimes interpreted by modern-day nationalists as evidence that ancient India has previously invented everything from spacecraft to missiles.

Modern traditions or traditionally modern?

However, the recent use of AI and robotics in religious practice is leading to concerns among Hindus and Buddhists about the kind of future to which automation could lead. In some instances, the debate among Hindus is about whether automated religion promises the arrival of humanity into a bright, new, technological future or if it is simply evidence of the coming apocalypse.

In other cases, there are concerns that the proliferation of robots might lead to greater numbers of people leaving religious practice as temples begin to rely more on automation than on practitioners to care for their deities. Some of these concerns stem from the fact that many religions, both in South Asia and globally, have seen significant decreases in the number of young people willing to dedicate their lives to spiritual education and practice over the past few decades. Furthermore, with many families living in a diaspora scattered across the world, priests or “pandits” are often serving smaller and smaller communities.

But if the answer to the problem of fewer ritual specialists is more robots, people still question whether ritual automation will benefit them. They also question the concurrent use of robotic deities to embody and personify the divine, since these icons are programmed by people and therefore reflect the religious views of their engineers.
Doing right by religion

Scholars often note that these concerns all tend to reflect one pervasive theme – an underlying anxiety that, somehow, the robots are better at worshipping gods than humans are. They can also raise inner conflicts about the meaning of life and one’s place in the universe.

For Hindus and Buddhists, the rise of ritual automation is especially concerning because their traditions emphasize what religion scholars refer to as orthopraxy, where greater importance is placed on correct ethical and liturgical behavior than on specific beliefs in religious doctrines. In other words, perfecting what you do in terms of your religious practice is viewed as more necessary to spiritual advancement than whatever it is you personally believe.

This also means that automated rituals appear on a spectrum that progresses from human ritual fallibility to robotic ritual perfection. In short, the robot can do your religion better than you can because robots, unlike people, are spiritually incorruptible.

This not only makes robots attractive replacements for dwindling priesthoods but also explains their increasing use in everyday contexts: People use them because no one worries about the robot getting it wrong, and they are often better than nothing when the options for ritual performance are limited.
Saved by a robot

In the end, turning to a robot for religious restoration in modern Hinduism or Buddhism might seem futuristic, but it belongs very much to the present moment. It tells us that Hinduism, Buddhism and other religions in South Asia are increasingly being imagined as post- or transhuman: deploying technological ingenuity to transcend human weaknesses because robots don’t get tired, forget what they’re supposed to say, fall asleep or leave.

More specifically, this means that robotic automation is being used to perfect ritual practices in East Asia and South Asia – especially in India and Japan – beyond what would be possible for a human devotee, by linking impossibly consistent and flawless ritual accomplishment with an idea of better religion.

Modern robotics might then feel like a particular kind of cultural paradox, where the best kind of religion is the one that eventually involves no humans at all. But in this circularity of humans creating robots, robots becoming gods, and gods becoming human, we’ve only managed to, once again, re-imagine ourselves.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. 

It was written by: Holly Walters, Wellesley College.

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Polish TV report: John Paul II knew of abuse as archbishop


FILE - Karol Cardinal Wojtyla, archbishop of Krakow, Poland, foreground, arrives to take part in Oct. 22, 1971 working session of the World Synod of Bishops at the Vatican. Pope St. John Paul II knew about sexual abuse of children by priests under his authority and sought to conceal it when he was an archbishop in his native Poland, according to a television news report. In a story that aired late Monday, March 6, 2023, Polish channel TVN24 named three priests whom the future pope then known as Archbishop Karol Wojtyla had moved among parishes during the 1970s, including one who was sent to Austria, after they were accused of abusing minors. 

(AP Photo/Gianni Foggia) 

MONIKA SCISLOWSKA
Tue, March 7, 2023 

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — St. John Paul II knew about sexual abuse of children by priests under his authority and sought to conceal it when he was an archbishop in his native Poland, a television news report has alleged.

In a story that aired late Monday, Polish channel TVN24 named three priests whom the future pope then known as Archbishop Karol Wojtyla had moved among parishes or sent to a cloister during the 1970s, including one who was sent to Austria, after they were accused of abusing minors.

Two of the priests, Eugeniusz Surgent and Jozef Loranc, eventually served short prison terms for the abuse, TVN24 said its 2 and 1/2 year-long investigation found. Wojtyla served as archbishop of Krakow from 1964 to 1978, when he became Pope John Paul II. He died in 2005 and was declared a saint in 2014 following a fast-tracked process.

TVN24 quoted from documents of Poland's communist-era secret security services, which sought to discredit the Catholic Church and had informers there. The documents are held in the archives of the state National Remembrance Institute. Journalist Marcin Gutowski also spoke with a number of victims and a man who said he informed Wojtyla during the 1970s about the abuse by Surgent. None of the priests were defrocked.

The TV channel also quoted from a letter that it said Wojtyla wrote to the archbishop of Vienna at the time, Franz Koenig, recommending a priest to his care. Wojtyla did not say in the letter that Boleslaw Sadus had abused young boys, and he was made a parish priest in Austria. Wojtyla kept in touch with Sadus also after becoming pope.

TVN24's investigation concluded that there was no doubt Wojtyla knew about abuse by priests in his archdiocese and sought to conceal it.

The broadcast featured a journalist who has written about cases of priestly abuse in Krakow diocese and who argued that Wojtyla reacted in line with Catholic Church procedures of the time.

The findings will gradually lead to a “deconstruction of the image of John Paul II that we have been using so far,” Dominican friar Paweł Gużyński said Tuesday on TVN24, noting that some people may not be prepared to cope with the new facts.

Gużyński stressed, however, that “there is no equality sign between sainthood and total absence of mistakes, even crimes, in someone's actions.”

Polish church officials tasked with the protection of minors said in a communique Tuesday that further research was needed before Wojtyla’s actions could be “fairly assessed.” The officials stressed that the church was prepared to hear from abuse survivors and to support them.

The channel's investigation has unleashed heated reactions in Poland, with some observers deriding it as an attempt by left-wing forces to destroy the memory of John Paul II and others demanding for the Catholic Church to reveal the truth.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, a Catholic, tweeted a photo of John Paul II greeting a crowd in Poland and added the late pope's motto “Do not be afraid," without any comment.

A Polish Jesuit priest, Krzysztof Madel, wrote on Twitter that that the focus should be on the victims, who need the truth to be told.

An official at the Ministry of Education, Radoslaw Brzozka, said on Twitter that John Paul II's reputation was under attack from people who want to eliminate Catholicism from Poland's national identity.

John Paul II is not the only pope under scrutiny for dealing with predator priests.

His immediate successor, Benedict XVI, who had a much stricter stance and defrocked hundreds of abusive priests, was faulted by an independent report commissioned by the German Catholic Church for his handling of four cases while he was Munich bishop.

Accusations of having failed to react to cases of abuse by priests in his native Argentina and in Chile, while bishop and then pontiff, have been also addressed to Pope Francis.

Commentators noted that the Catholic Church hierarchy has mostly sought to protect the image of the institution over the needs of victims.

The choice of Wojtyla for pope in 1978 energized Poland's predominantly Catholic population to openly oppose the nation’s communist system and eventually topple it.

Until recently, the Catholic Church in Poland has played a significant role in the country's public life. Revelations about pedophile priests and the church's close ties with the current right-wing government have depreciated its standing.

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Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.

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Follow AP's coverage of sexual abuse by clergy: https://apnews.com/hub/sexual-abuse-by-clergy