Pig kidney works in a donated body for over a month, a step toward animal-human transplants

Wed, August 16, 2023 



NEW YORK (AP) — Surgeons transplanted a pig’s kidney into a brain-dead man and for over a month it's worked normally — a critical step toward an operation the New York team hopes to eventually try in living patients.

Scientists around the country are racing to learn how to use animal organs to save human lives, and bodies donated for research offer a remarkable rehearsal.

The latest experiment announced Wednesday by NYU Langone Health marks the longest a pig kidney has functioned in a person, albeit a deceased one -– and it’s not over. Researchers are set to track the kidney’s performance for a second month.

“Is this organ really going to work like a human organ? So far it’s looking like it is,” Dr. Robert Montgomery, director of NYU Langone’s transplant institute, told The Associated Press.

“It looks even better than a human kidney,” Montgomery said on July 14 as he replaced a deceased man's own kidneys with a single kidney from a genetically modified pig — and watched it immediately start producing urine.

The possibility that pig kidneys might one day help ease a dire shortage of transplantable organs persuaded the family of the 57-year-old Maurice “Mo” Miller from upstate New York to donate his body for the experiment.

“I struggled with it,” his sister, Mary Miller-Duffy, told the AP. But he liked helping others and “I think this is what my brother would want. So I offered my brother to them.”

"He’s going to be in the medical books, and he will live on forever,” she added.

It’s the latest in a string of developments renewing hope for animal-to-human transplants, or xenotransplantation, after decades of failure as people's immune systems attacked the foreign tissue. What’s different this time around: Pigs are being genetically modified so their organs better match human bodies.

Last year, University of Maryland surgeons made history by transplanting a gene-edited pig heart into a dying man who was out of other options. He survived only two months before the organ failed for reasons that aren’t fully understood but that offer lessons for future attempts.

Now, the Food and Drug Administration is considering whether to allow some small but rigorous studies of pig heart or kidney transplants in volunteer patients.

And it’s critical to answer some remaining questions “in a setting where we’re not putting someone’s life in jeopardy,” said Montgomery, the NYU kidney transplant surgeon who also received his own heart transplant — and is acutely aware of the need for a new source of organs.

More than 100,000 patients are on the nation's transplant list and thousands die each year waiting.

Previously, NYU and a team at the University of Alabama at Birmingham had tested pig kidney transplants in deceased recipients for just two or three days. An NYU team also had transplanted pig hearts into donated bodies for three days of intense testing.

But how do pig organs react to a more common human immune attack that takes about a month to form? Only longer testing might tell.

The surgery itself isn't that different from thousands he's performed “but somewhere in the back of your mind is the enormity of what you're doing ... recognizing that this could have a huge impact on the future of transplantation," Montgomery said.

The operation took careful timing. Early that morning Drs. Adam Griesemer and Jeffrey Stern flew hundreds of miles to a facility where Virginia-based Revivicor Inc. houses genetically modified pigs — and retrieved kidneys lacking a gene that would trigger immediate destruction by the human immune system.

As they raced back to NYU, Montgomery was removing both kidneys from the donated body so there'd be no doubt if the soon-to-arrive pig version was working. One pig kidney was transplanted, the other stored for comparison when the experiment ends.

“You're always nervous,” Griesemer said. To see it so rapidly kickstart, “there was a lot of thrill and lot of sense of relief.”

The University of Maryland’s Dr. Muhammad Mohiuddin cautions that it’s not clear how closely a deceased body will mimic a live patient's reactions to a pig organ — but that this research educates the public about xenotransplantation so “people will not be shocked” when it’s time to try again in the living.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Lauran Neergaard, The Associated Press

‘Impressive’ gate guarded city 5,500 years ago. Now, it’s been uncovered in Israel

Brendan Rascius
Tue, August 15, 2023 

An ancient gateway was unearthed during an excavation in Israel that dates back 5,500 years, making it the oldest such structure found in the country, officials said.

Its discovery sheds light on the early inhabitants of the region and their quest to build a well-defended urban center.

The entryway was discovered in Tell Erani, an archaeological site nestled between the Mediterranean Sea and the Judean foothills, according to an Aug. 15 news release from the Israeli Antiquities Authority.

Large stones, standing about five feet high, make up a narrow passageway leading to the gate, which is flanked by two towers, officials said. The entryway is connected to fortifications that were previously identified.

The gate, which was flanked by two towers, was made of large stones and mudbricks, officials said.

“This is the first time that such a large gate dating to the Early Bronze (Age) has been uncovered,” Emily Bischoff, the director of the excavation, said in the release.

“To construct the gate and the fortification walls, stones had to be brought from a distance, mud bricks had to be manufactured and the fortification walls had to be constructed,” Bischoff said. “The fortification system is evidence of social organization that represents the beginning of urbanization.”

The Tell Erani archaeological site, which spans several acres, has been excavated since the 1960s, according to a study published in 2021 in the journal Antiquity.

An acropolis and multiple terraces have been found at the site, along with artifacts from various time periods and cultures, including the Byzantines and the Ottomans.

City residents likely engaged in trade along the coast to the west and highlands to the east, according to the study.

It’s not clear who was occupying the settlement when its gateway was constructed 5,500 years ago, but the builders may have had a specific enemy in mind when they designed it, officials said.

The “impressive” stone entryway served a “message to outsiders, possibly also to Egypt, where the process that would lead to the unification of the Lower and Upper Egypt under King Narmer was already beginning,” Martin-David Pasternak, a Israel Antiquities Authority researcher, said in the release.

The gateway “conveyed the message that one was entering an important strong settlement that was well-organized politically, socially, and economically,” Pasternak said.

If the goal was to fend off Egyptians, though, the gate ultimately did not achieve its purpose as the southern civilization took over the city during the twilight of the Early Bronze Age, Pasternak said.

But the Egyptians, perhaps in a nod to its craftsmanship, carried on using the gate while they occupied the city.

Astronomers confirm Maisie’s galaxy is one of the oldest observed

At 390 million years after the Big Bang, it isn’t quite as old as initially estimated.

Will Shanklin
·Contributing Reporter
Tue, August 15, 2023

NASA / STScI / CEERS / TACC / The University of Texas at Austin / S. Finkelstein / M. Bagley


Astronomers have used advanced instruments to calculate a more accurate age of Maisie’s galaxy, discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in June 2022. Although the star system isn’t quite as old as initially estimated, it’s still one of the oldest recorded, from 390 million years after the Big Bang — making it about 13.4 billion years old. That’s a mere 70 million years younger than JADES-GS-z13-0, the (current) oldest-known system.

A team led by the University of Texas at Austin astronomer Steven Finkelstein discovered the system last summer. (The name “Maisie’s galaxy” is an ode to his daughter because they spotted it on her birthday.) The group initially estimated that it was only 290 million years after the Big Bang, but analyzing the galaxy with more advanced equipment revealed it’s about 100 million years older than that. “The exciting thing about Maisie’s galaxy is that it was one of the first distant galaxies identified by JWST, and of that set, it’s the first to actually be spectroscopically confirmed,” said Finkelstein.


The spectroscopic confirmation came courtesy of the JWST’s Near InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec) conducted by the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS). The NIRSpec “splits an object’s light into many different narrow frequencies to more accurately identify its chemical makeup, heat output, intrinsic brightness and relative motion.” Redshift — the movement of light towards longer (redder) wavelengths to indicate motion away from the observer — held the key to more accurate dating than the original photometry-based estimate. The advanced tools assigned a redshift of z=11.4 to Maisie’s galaxy, helping the researchers settle on the revised estimate of 390 million years after the Big Bang.

James Webb Space Telescope

The astronomers also examined CEERS-93316, a galaxy initially estimated at 235 million years pre-Big Bang — which would have made it astonishingly old. After studying this system, it revealed a redshift of z=4.9, which places it at a mere one billion years after the Big Bang. The first faulty estimate about CEERS-93316 was understandable: The galaxy emitted an unusual amount of light in narrow frequency bands associated with oxygen and hydrogen, making it appear bluer than it was.

Finkelstein chalks up the miss to bad luck. “This was a kind of weird case,” he said. “Of the many tens of high redshift candidates that have been observed spectroscopically, this is the only instance of the true redshift being much less than our initial guess.” Finkelstein added, “It would have been really challenging to explain how the universe could create such a massive galaxy so soon. So, I think this was probably always the most likely outcome, because it was so extreme, so bright, at such an apparent high redshift.”

The CEERS team is now evaluating about 10 more systems that could be older than Maisie’s galaxy

Looking back toward cosmic dawn − astronomers confirm the faintest galaxy ever seen

Guido Roberts-Borsani, Postdoctoral Researcher in Astrophysics, University of California, Los Angeles
Tue, August 15, 2023

THE CONVERSATION 

A phenomenon called gravitational lensing can help astronomers observe faint, hard-to-see galaxies. NASA/STScI


The universe we live in is a transparent one, where light from stars and galaxies shines bright against a clear, dark backdrop. But this wasn’t always the case – in its early years, the universe was filled with a fog of hydrogen atoms that obscured light from the earliest stars and galaxies.

The early universe was filled with a fog made up of hydrogen atoms until the first stars and galaxies burned it away. NASA/JPL-Caltech, CC BY

The intense ultraviolet light from the first generations of stars and galaxies is thought to have burned through the hydrogen fog, transforming the universe into what we see today. While previous generations of telescopes lacked the ability to study those early cosmic objects, astronomers are now using the James Webb Space Telescope’s superior technology to study the stars and galaxies that formed in the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang.

I’m an astronomer who studies the farthest galaxies in the universe using the world’s foremost ground- and space-based telescopes. Using new observations from the Webb telescope and a phenomenon called gravitational lensing, my team confirmed the existence of the faintest galaxy currently known in the early universe. The galaxy, called JD1, is seen as it was when the universe was only 480 million years old, or 4% of its present age.

A brief history of the early universe

The first billion years of the universe’s life were a crucial period in its evolution. In the first moments after the Big Bang, matter and light were bound to each other in a hot, dense “soup” of fundamental particles.

However, a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, the universe expanded extremely rapidly. This expansion eventually allowed the universe to cool enough for light and matter to separate out of their “soup” and – some 380,000 years later – form hydrogen atoms. The hydrogen atoms appeared as an intergalactic fog, and with no light from stars and galaxies, the universe was dark. This period is known as the cosmic dark ages.

The arrival of the first generations of stars and galaxies several hundred million years after the Big Bang bathed the universe in extremely hot UV light, which burned – or ionized – the hydrogen fog. This process yielded the transparent, complex and beautiful universe we see today.

Astronomers like me call the first billion years of the universe – when this hydrogen fog was burning away – the epoch of reionization. To fully understand this time period, we study when the first stars and galaxies formed, what their main properties were and whether they were able to produce enough UV light to burn through all the hydrogen.

The search for faint galaxies in the early universe

The first step toward understanding the epoch of reionization is finding and confirming the distances to galaxies that astronomers think might be responsible for this process. Since light travels at a finite speed, it takes time to arrive to our telescopes, so astronomers see objects as they were in the past.

For example, light from the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, takes about 27,000 years to reach us on Earth, so we see it as it was 27,000 years in the past. That means that if we want to see back to the very first instants after the Big Bang (the universe is 13.8 billion years old), we have to look for objects at extreme distances.

Because galaxies residing in this time period are so far away, they appear extremely faint and small to our telescopes and emit most of their light in the infrared. This means astronomers need powerful infrared telescopes like Webb to find them. Prior to Webb, virtually all of the distant galaxies found by astronomers were exceptionally bright and large, simply because our telescopes weren’t sensitive enough to see the fainter, smaller galaxies.

However, it’s the latter population that are far more numerous, representative and likely to be the main drivers to the reionization process, not the bright ones. So, these faint galaxies are the ones astronomers need to study in greater detail. It’s like trying to understand the evolution of humans by studying entire populations rather than a few very tall people. By allowing us to see faint galaxies, Webb is opening a new window into studying the early universe.

A typical early galaxy

JD1 is one such “typical” faint galaxy. It was discovered in 2014 with the Hubble Space Telescope as a suspect distant galaxy. But Hubble didn’t have the capabilities or sensitivity to confirm its distance – it could make only an educated guess.

Small and faint nearby galaxies can sometimes be mistaken as distant ones, so astronomers need to be sure of their distances before we can make claims about their properties. Distant galaxies therefore remain “candidates” until they are confirmed. The Webb telescope finally has the capabilities to confirm these, and JD1 was one of the first major confirmations by Webb of an extremely distant galaxy candidate found by Hubble. This confirmation ranks it as the faintest galaxy yet seen in the early universe.

To confirm JD1, an international team of astronomers and I used Webb’s near-infrared spectrograph, NIRSpec, to obtain an infrared spectrum of the galaxy. The spectrum allowed us to pinpoint the distance from Earth and determine its age, the number of young stars it formed and the amount of dust and heavy elements that it produced.


A sky full of galaxies and a few stars. JD1, pictured in a zoomed-in box, is the faintest galaxy yet found in the early universe. 

Guido Roberts-Borsani/UCLA; original images: NASA, ESA, CSA, Swinburne University of Technology, University of Pittsburgh, STScI
Gravitational lensing, nature’s magnifying glass

Even for Webb, JD1 would be impossible to see without a helping hand from nature. JD1 is located behind a large cluster of nearby galaxies, called Abell 2744, whose combined gravitational strength bends and amplifies the light from JD1. This effect, known as gravitational lensing, makes JD1 appear larger and 13 times brighter than it ordinarily would.

Without gravitational lensing, astronomers would not have seen JD1, even with Webb. The combination of JD1’s gravitational magnification and new images from another one of Webb’s near-infrared instruments, NIRCam, made it possible for our team to study the galaxy’s structure in unprecedented detail and resolution.

Not only does this mean we as astronomers can study the inner regions of early galaxies, it also means we can start determining whether such early galaxies were small, compact and isolated sources, or if they were merging and interacting with nearby galaxies. By studying these galaxies, we are tracing back to the building blocks that shaped the universe and gave rise to our cosmic home.

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

It was written by: Guido Roberts-Borsani, University of California, Los Angeles.

Read more:

A subtle symphony of ripples in spacetime – astronomers use dead stars to measure gravitational waves produced by ancient black holes


How the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed a surprisingly bright, complex and element-filled early universe – podcast


The most powerful space telescope ever built will look back in time to the Dark Ages of the universe

This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA JWST. The data were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127 for JWST. These observations are associated with program JWST-ERS-1324, and the authors acknowledge financial support from NASA through grant JWST-ERS-1324.

Citadel Acquires Yellow Debt Owned by Apollo, Other Lenders

Jonathan Randles
Tue, August 15, 2023 



(Bloomberg) -- An affiliate of Ken Griffin’s Citadel has acquired roughly $485 million in Yellow Corp. debt previously owned by Apollo Global Management Inc. and other senior lenders to the bankrupt trucking firm, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The deal comes as Yellow seeks to secure a bankruptcy loan to fund its liquidation. Apollo and other senior lenders had offered to provide the company $142.5 million in new money to fund the trucking firm’s wind-down, but Yellow was approached with less expensive options after filing Chapter 11.

Apollo and other existing Yellow lenders won’t proceed with their proposed Chapter 11 loan as a result of the Citadel deal, the person said. A Yellow lawyer said last week it is considering alternative bankruptcy loans from hedge fund MFN Partners LP, the company’s largest shareholder, and rival trucking company Estes Express Lines.

A Citadel spokesman declined to comment. Lawyers representing Citadel Credit Master Fund LLC filed court papers Tuesday in Yellow’s bankruptcy. A representative for Apollo declined to comment.

The Financial Times first reported that Citadel acquired Yellow debt owned by Apollo and other lenders.

Yellow has said the alternative bankruptcy loans its considering are less expensive and will give the company more time to sell its valuable real estate portfolio and vast fleet of trucks and trailers. The Chapter 11 loan offered by funds managed by Apollo and other existing lenders carried 17% interest and higher fees.

The case is Yellow Corp. 23-11069, US Bankruptcy Court District of Delaware (Wilmington).

Apollo sells Yellow term loan to Citadel

Todd Maiden
Tue, August 15, 2023 

The provider of Yellow's bankruptcy financing could be announced on Thursday. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

Apollo Global Management has sold the term loan it held for Yellow Corp. and has withdrawn its proposal for bankruptcy financing, according to Financial Times.

Miami-based hedge fund Citadel has acquired Yellow’s $485 million debt from Apollo and other lenders. A Tuesday Delaware bankruptcy court filing showed counsel representing Citadel Credit Master Fund would depose representatives from Yellow on Wednesday regarding post-petition financing.

Apollo’s (NYSE: APO) debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing package was touted in bankruptcy filings as the only viable offer made to the less-than-truckload carrier in the days leading up to its Chapter 11 petition. The $142.5 million deal was expected to provide the company with the funds necessary to market and sell off its terminals and equipment.

The deal would have also provided the private equity firm with an improved lien position among secured creditors. It held first-lien position on the term loan as well as a better lien position than the U.S. Treasury, which is due $737 million from a 2020 COVID relief loan to the carrier.

However, representation for Yellow said last week that better offers came forward following the bankruptcy petition and that Apollo’s terms were too onerous. That deal carried a 17% interest rate, a $32 million closing fee and a 90-day window to liquidate the assets.

The frontrunners at the time included LTL carrier Estes Express Lines and Boston hedge fund MFN Partners, which acquired a 40% stake in Yellow’s stock in July. However, Yellow attorney Pat Nash said at a Friday hearing there had been “a number of inbounds from other parties” willing to provide new money in a junior position to existing creditors.

A Tuesday hearing, which could have potentially revealed the new DIP lender, was pushed backed to Thursday.

In recent days, company insiders have been selling restricted and other shares of Yellow ahead of the stock’s delisting on Wednesday.

MONARCHIST MILITARY JUNTA 

Court clears the way for Thai Parliament to pick a new prime minister 3 months after elections

LESE MAJESTIE

JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI
Wed, August 16, 2023 

 Srettha Thavisin, a real estate tycoon and advisor to the opposition Pheu Thai party, arrives at Pheu Thai Party headquater in Bangkok, Thailand, on July 17, 2023. The Pheu Thai party has since cobbled up a coalition consisting of nine parties which together holds 238 seats in the lower house, still short from the majority it needs. Pheu Thai has said it will nominate estate tycoon Srettha Thavisin, as prime minister. 

(AP Photo/Sakchai Lalit, File) 


BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand’s Constitutional Court cleared the way Wednesday for Parliament to vote for a new prime minister more than three months after national elections by declining to rule on a complaint over the rejection of the winning party's leader.

The court had been asked to decide whether Parliament had violated the constitution by refusing to allow the leader of the progressive Move Forward Party to be nominated for a second time as a prime ministerial candidate.

Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat had assembled an eight-party coalition with a majority in Parliament's lower house. But under the military-implemented constitution, a new prime minister must receive a majority of votes from both the elected House and the conservative appointed Senate, which was chosen by an earlier military government.

Pita lost a first vote in Parliament for prime minister last month, with many senators voting against him because of his party’s call for reform of a law that makes it illegal to defame Thailand’s royal family. Critics say the law, which carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison, has been abused as a political weapon. Members of the Senate, like the army, see themselves as guardians of traditional conservative royalist values.


The combined Parliament then refused to allow Pita to be renominated for a second vote.

Several lawmakers from Pita's party and private citizens submitted a complaint to the state ombudsman charging that the action violated the constitution. The ombudsman relayed the complaint to the Constitutional Court, which dismissed the case on Wednesday on the grounds that the complainants had not been directly affected by Parliament’s decision and therefore were not entitled to submit the case before the court.

While the court’s decision suggested that Pita himself could file a petition seeking a ruling on the matter, Move Forward spokesperson Rangsiman Rome said Pita would not do so. He said Move Forward continues to strongly believe that Parliament can renominate a prime ministerial candidate, but that the issue should be resolved through parliamentary procedures, not the court.

After its two failed attempts, Move Forward stepped aside to allow its biggest partner in the eight-party coalition, the Pheu Thai party, to attempt to form a new government.

Pheu Thai, which finished second in the May polls, then excluded Move Forward from the coalition, saying its call to reform the royal defamation law made it impossible to gather enough support from other parties and the Senate to approve a new prime minister.

Pheu Thai has since cobbled together a coalition of nine parties with 238 seats in the 500-member lower house, still short of the majority it needs. It plans to nominate real estate tycoon Srettha Thavisin as prime minister.

Move Forward said Tuesday that its elected House members will not vote for a candidate from the Pheu Thai-led coalition. It said the coalition, which includes parties from the outgoing military-backed administration, had violated popular demand for political reform "that was clearly expressed through the election results.”

The results of May’s general election were a strong repudiation of the country’s conservative elites and reflected the disenchantment in particular of young voters who want to limit the political influence of the military, which has staged more than a dozen coups since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.

Move Forward's stunning victory came after nearly a decade of military-controlled rule led by Prayuth Chan-ocha, who as army chief ousted a Pheu Thai-led government in a 2014 coup and returned as prime minister after 2019 elections.

Many believe that the current Pheu Thai-led coalition needs to include at least one of the two military-backed parties that were soundly rejected in the polls to achieve a House majority. Pheu Thai has not ruled out that possibility.

Pheu Thai is the latest in a string of parties affiliated with ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire populist who was ousted in a 2006 military coup. Thaksin has said he plans to return to Thailand soon following years of self-imposed exile to escape a prison term in several criminal cases which he has decried as politically motivated.

Following the court’s decision, House Speaker Wan Muhamad Noor Matha told reporters on Wednesday that he plans to set the next voting for prime minister on Tuesday and will meet with parliamentary leaders on Thursday to discuss the matter.

Thai election winners reject plea to back ally's 'distorted' PM bid

Tue, August 15, 2023 

By Chayut Setboonsarng and Panarat Thepgumpanat

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's election-winning Move Forward Party declined on Tuesday to back former alliance partner Pheu Thai's bid to form the next government, calling it a distortion of the election outcome and against the will of the public.

The progressive Move Forward was the surprise winner of the May 14 election, closely followed by Pheu Thai, after the two trounced conservative parties in a resounding rejection of nine years of government led or backed by the military.

An alliance between them collapsed after a bicameral parliament over which the royalist military commands significant influence rejected Move Forward leader Pita Limjaroenrat's prime ministerial bid twice last month.

Thailand has been under a caretaker government for five months and Move Forward's refusal to back Pheu Thai could prolong months of political uncertainty exacerbated by the parliamentary deadlock.

"The formation of government now is not reflective of the people's voice ... and distorts the will of the people in the elections," Move Forward secretary general Chaithawat Tulathon told a news conference.

Political veteran Pheu Thai has been accused by critics of outmanoeuvring Move Forward to ensure it leads the government.

Pheu Thai insists it only withdrew its support when it was clear that Move Forward could not win the backing of the legislature, where it encountered resistance to its liberal, anti-establishment agenda.

Despite Pheu Thai's bitter history with the military, it has been lobbying hard for the support of parties and senators allied with generals involved in 2006 and 2014 coups against its governments.

"We do not want to have any part in the formation of government under these conditions," Move Forward's Chaithawat said.

Pheu Thai will nominate for prime minister Srettha Thavisin, a former real estate mogul with no political experience up until the election. To succeed, Srettha needs support from more than half of the joint lower and upper houses, an outcome far from certain.

Pheu Thai leader Cholnan Srikaew said he expected a prime ministerial vote between Aug. 18 and Aug. 22 and he was confident Srettha could still prevail without Move Forward's support.

"We respect Move Forward's decision and we are able to work with all parties," he said.

(Reporting by Chayut Setboonsarng and Panarat Thepgumpanat; Editing by Martin Petty)

Cops Say "Aliens" Attacking Amazonian Village Are Men With Jetpacks

Sharon Adarlo
Tue, August 15, 2023

Jet Set

Picture this: somebody has attacked an isolated indigenous village in rural Peru and tried to kidnap a 15-year-old girl. Locals claim it was aliens, as in little green men. But government officials investigating the strange incident say it's actually... drum roll... illegal miners on jetpacks.

It sounds like a game of Mad Libs gone awry, but this is an actual saga that's been unfolding since July in the Amazon in Northern Peru, according to Spanish-language news outfit RPP Noticias. 

Members of the Ikitu, an indigenous tribe, claim they've been beset by strange, levitating figures that are more than six feet in height and appear to easily deflect their weapons.

"These gentlemen are aliens," local leader Jairo Reátegui Ávila told the outlet. "They seem armored like the Green Goblin from Spider-Man. I have shot him twice and he does not fall, but rises and disappears. We are frightened by what is happening in the community,"

After the locals called for police protection, law enforcement investigators descended on the isolated area and concluded in Early August that it was in fact illegal miners using "high-tech equipment" — jet packs, which they say were intended to intimidate the locals — according to a followup report from RPP Noticias.

Really Though

The reality is that jetpacks are wildly loud, expensive, and impractical — oh, and they're incredible fuel hogs as well. We've never heard of them being used in legal mining operations, nevermind an illegal one.

And yet eyewitnesses insist they saw something. The jetpack story becomes more plausible when you read the eyewitness accounts of a teacher who saw the "aliens" try to kidnap a teenager on July 29.

"They would be using state-of-the-art technology, such as the thrusters that allow people to fly," local teacher Cristian Caleb Pacaya told RPP Noticias. "In this case too, according to Google, they are called 'jetpacks' (jetpacks). We have investigated that these gentlemen would be using this suit to reach those places."

It is true that the area attracts miners intent on extracting gold and other resources illegally, often resulting in terrible environmental damage and even violence. Is it theoretically possible they're using jetpacks? Sure. But it seems unlikely.

No matter the explanation, though, these incidents in the jungle — sounds like 1987's "Predator," right? — are sure to fuel even more speculation during a year when alien conspiracy theories have made the mainstream.

More on aliens: Harvard Professor Says Godlike Aliens May Be Creating Universes in Labs

Green investors are learning to live with carbon in a new ‘energy transition 2.0’ strategy that comes with caveats

Peter Vanham, Nicholas Gordon
Tue, August 15, 2023 at 4:31 AM MDT·2 min read

Dane Rhys—Bloomberg via Getty Images


Good morning, Peter Vanham here in Geneva.

Far away from the political gridlock in Washington, D.C., a new energy consensus is brewing in the U.S., including in its reddest and most fossil fuel-reliant states. It is one where all agree that “energy is energy, whether it is generated by wind, steam or whatever it might be,” as Dewey F. Bartlett Jr., a former oil and gas executive and former mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, told the New York Times recently.

The emerging middle ground looks something like this: advocates of renewable energy acknowledge that fossil fuels will remain in the mix for decades to come to allow for an orderly and affordable transition to cleaner sources of energy. Companies that are very carbon-intensive, meanwhile, do their part to get on a pathway to “net zero” by 2050, but in the meantime can bank on techniques such as carbon capture and storage, which allow for the continued use of fossil fuels.

“The early days of the green transition being focused on green solutions and renewables—I very much believe that was energy transition 1.0,” Megan Starr, global head of impact at Carlyle, told me in an interview yesterday. “Energy transition 2.0 is a recognition that we need all of the clean solutions, but we also need to decarbonize the rest of the economy at the same time.”

At Carlyle, one of America’s largest private equity companies, this “2.0” approach to decarbonization means that the company still invests in businesses that are carbon intensive. But these companies must do two things: first, set long-term emissions targets in line with the international Paris climate accord. And second, find new avenues of business growth in a decarbonized economy.

One beneficial outcome of that approach, Starr told me, is that it allows for a world where “energy security and transition are not in conflict.” Another is that it prevents entire industries and human capital from becoming obsolete. Since embarking on its new strategy, Starr said, Carlyle worked with 22 carbon-intensive businesses to set “Paris-aligned” goals. “They’re investing in hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, and sustainable aviation fuels. They use the infrastructure that they have, and see how it can become part of new-age energy solutions.”

But perhaps the greatest benefit is that the approach is a solution to both the political division around the energy question and the emergency of the climate crisis. That is, of course, if it works.

Invasive yellow-legged hornet spotted in continental U.S. for first time

Simrin Singh
Updated Wed, August 16, 2023

A new invasive species has been spotted in the U.S. for the first time. A living yellow-legged hornet, also known as an Asian hornet, was detected in Georgia, which state officials say could cause damage to its agricultural industry if left uncontrolled.

The Georgia Department of Agriculture said Tuesday the discovery has the potential to threaten honey production and native pollinators.

Earlier this month, a Georgian beekeeper discovered and reported the insect to the state. The yellow-legged hornet's identity was then confirmed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.

An Asian hornet (Vespa velutina) flies on Sept. 14, 2019, in Loue, France. / Credit: JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER/AFP via Getty Images

"Georgians play an important role helping GDA identify unwanted, non-native pests, and I want to thank the beekeeper who reported his sighting to us," said Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper in a statement. "Our experienced team of professionals will continue to assess the situation and are working directly with USDA APHIS and UGA to trap, track, and eradicate the yellow-legged hornet in Georgia. "

The next step for officials will be to set up traps to find out if there are more of these pests in the area. If they are able to find a colony, it will be destroyed, Georgia agriculture officials said. The hornet that has already been identified will be DNA tested so that scientists can determine whether the insect originated from Europe of Asia.

The yellow-legged hornet, which is identified as a social wasp species, is native to tropical and subtropical areas of Southeast Asia, and is also established in much of Europe, parts of the Middle East, and parts of Asia where it is not native.

The insect builds egg-shaped nests, often in trees, and can host up to 6,000 worker hornets.

The press release emphasized how important public reports of the insect will be in its eradication efforts. The GDA encourages people to take photos of any insects they believe to be yellow-legged hornets and file a report here. However, it is important to exercise caution around the hornets as they can be dangerous, the department said.

In 2019, a relative of the yellow-legged hornet — the "murder hornet," or Asian giant hornet — caused alarm after being found in Washington state. The invasive insects, which are now called northern giant hornets, were feared also because of their ability to rapidly kill domestic honeybee and hornet species. Washington state eradicated a giant nest of nearly 1,500 murder hornets in 2021.

California Democrats urge Gavin Newsom to give state worker union a contract and raises

Maya Miller
Tue, August 15, 2023 

Hector Amezcua/hamezcua@sacbee.com


As contract bargaining heats up across the state, the chairs of California’s statehouse committees on labor and public employment have called on Gov. Gavin Newsom to bargain fairly with the largest public employee union in state government.

Assembly Labor and Employment Committee Chair Ash Kalra, along with the chairs of the Assembly and Senate committees on public employment and retirement, wrote to Newsom urging his administration to reach a contract agreement with SEIU Local 1000 this week.

The union represents more than 96,000 state employees in positions as diverse as business analysts, nursing home evaluators, prison librarians and teachers at the state schools for the deaf and the blind. They’ve been bargaining with the state since April, and their previous contract expired at the end of June.

“It is unacceptable that the state workers who make up the backbone of our departments, providing crucial public services to millions of Californians, are struggling to pay their bills as they are offered pre-pandemic wages in contract negotiations,” said Kalra in a statement Monday. The San Jose Democrat criticized the state for “needless delays” and said the lengthy bargaining timeline could increase the risk of workers “falling into dire financial situations.”

The California Department of Human Resources, which represents Newsom’s administration at the bargaining table, cannot comment on contract negotiations while talks are still underway, said department spokesperson Camille Travis.

“CalHR is working in good faith with SEIU Local 1000 at the bargaining table to reach an agreement that meets both the union’s interests and the State’s priorities,” Travis wrote in an emailed statement.

The letter was co-authored by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, an Inglewood Democrat who chairs the Assembly committee on public employment and retirement, and Sen. Dave Cortese, a Santa Clara Democrat who chairs the same committee in the Senate. It urged Newsom to quickly reach a deal that would give adequate raises to public workers who play crucial roles in implementing his administration’s goals, such as combating climate change, providing health care and improving transportation infrastructure.

The union originally asked for a 30% raise over a three-year contract. State negotiators initially countered with 6% over that same time frame, which union leaders called “offensive” and “disrespectful” to members. Late last week, the state bumped the offer up to 8%, according to a Local 1000 update.

State workers have repeatedly said that stagnant wages are eroding the sense of security and stability that used to come with careers in state civil service. A recent study commissioned by Local 1000 and conducted by the UC Berkeley Labor Center showed many members were struggling financially, particularly women, Black and Latino employees. Workers also say they’re worried about how they’ll cover the planned increase in CalPERS health premiums next year.

“The small cost of living adjustments your Administration has offered as a salary increase per year fails to cover workers’ basic needs and would roll back wages to pre-pandemic status,” the letter stated.

Lawmakers have until early September to approve deal

The call to action, co-signed by 21 assemblymembers and five senators, came as lawmakers returned from recess for the last stretch of the legislative session.

The authors argue that if the administration doesn’t deliver a deal before the Legislature’s Sept. 1 deadline for fiscal committees to meet and report bills to the floor, then union members could be left without raises until lawmakers reconvene in January and vote to fund the contract.

In 2019, the last time Local 1000 negotiated a contract, the union and the state reached an agreement on Aug. 29 — two days before the fiscal committee deadline on Aug. 31. Negotiations in 2016 extended well into the fall and led to a planned one-day strike in December. The work stoppage was eventually called off after union leaders reached a deal that workers approved in mid-January.

Teamsters add their heft to dozens of Amazon delivery drivers picketing around the country

Workers picket outside an Amazon distribution center on Monday, July 24, 2023, in Palmdale, Calif. Dozens of Amazon drivers and dispatchers who work for a California-based delivery firm the Teamsters unionized in April have been picketing company warehouses, calling on the e-commerce behemoth to come to the table and bargain over pay and working conditions. 

Brandi Diaz pickets outside one of the Amazon's distribution centers Monday, July 24, 2023, in Palmdale, Calif. Dozens of Amazon drivers and dispatchers who work for a California-based delivery firm the Teamsters unionized in April have been picketing company warehouses, calling on the e-commerce behemoth to come to the table and bargain over pay and working conditions. 

Workers who unionized with the Teamsters picket outside one of the Amazon's distribution centers Monday, July 24, 2023, in Palmdale, Calif. Dozens of Amazon drivers and dispatchers who work for a California-based delivery firm the Teamsters unionized in April have been picketing company warehouses, calling on the e-commerce behemoth to come to the table and bargain over pay and working conditions.
Workers picket outside one of the Amazon's distribution centers on Monday, July 24, 2023, in Palmdale, Calif. Dozens of Amazon drivers and dispatchers who work for a California-based delivery firm the Teamsters unionized in April have been picketing company warehouses, calling on the e-commerce behemoth to come to the table and bargain over pay and working conditions. 

A sign rests on a chair as workers who unionized with the Teamsters picket outside one of the Amazon's distribution centers on Monday, July 24, 2023, in Palmdale, Calif. Dozens of Amazon drivers and dispatchers who work for a California-based delivery firm the Teamsters unionized in April have been picketing company warehouses, calling on the e-commerce behemoth to come to the table and bargain over pay and working conditions.

AP Photos/Marcio Jose Sanchez

HALELUYA HADERO
Wed, August 16, 2023 

NEW YORK (AP) — The Teamsters flexed their muscles during contract negotiations with UPS last month, securing pay hikes for drivers and scoring other wins.

But at Amazon, the picture looks much different.

Since late June, dozens of Amazon drivers and dispatchers who work for a California-based delivery firm that the Teamsters unionized in April have been picketing company warehouses as far out as Michigan and Massachusetts, calling on the e-commerce behemoth to come to the table and bargain over pay and working conditions.

Amazon has essentially said no. Teamsters say the strike will continue until Amazon reinstates the employees and comes to the bargaining table.

Though small, the dispute in California signals what’s poised to be the next battlefront in Amazon’s efforts to fend off organized labor and the Teamsters’ years-long aim to take on one of their most formidable opponents.

During speeches and interviews in recent months, Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien has aired his belief that a strong UPS contract would also bolster the union’s organizing prospects at Amazon, where the sole labor group — made up of current and former warehouse workers who won a union election last year — is still without a contract amid objections and appeals from the company.

“Workers at Amazon are paying attention to the workers at UPS right now,” said Randy Korgan, who was appointed by O’Brien last year to lead the union’s recently launched Amazon division. “These are similar workers that look just like them — doing very similar work to what they’re doing.”

The set-up at Amazon, however, is much different. Though the delivery drivers are clothed in the ubiquitous gray-blue Amazon vests and drive similarly colored vans, they’re not directly employed by the company. Instead, they work for the more than 3,000 delivery service partners, or DSPs, that Amazon has recruited to drop off packages to customers.

Amazon’s business model originally relied heavily on other carriers, including UPS and the U.S. Postal Service where unions had major sway on pay and working conditions. But in the past few years, it has been reducing its dependence on other shippers and expanding its own logistics capability.

Most Amazon shipments these days go through the company’s own last-mile network, the final leg of a delivery that relies on DSPs that handle more than 10 million Amazon packages everyday. Outsourcing the work allows Amazon to eschew financial and legal liability that might come from directly employing hundreds of thousands of drivers. It also gives the retailer more cover from unionization attempts since the workers aren’t classified as Amazon employees under existing labor law.

The Teamsters are seeking to challenge that in California. In a complaint filed in May with the National Labor Relations Board, the union argued Amazon should be considered a single or joint employer with Battle Tested Strategies, a DSP that employs more than 80 delivery drivers and dispatchers. The Teamsters maintain that Battle Tested Strategies belongs to a system that’s “owned and controlled” by Amazon.


Amazon claims the union is spreading a false narrative about how its business works. The company also said that it terminated Battle Tested Strategies even before its workers unionized, accusing it of six breaches of contract, including failing to pay for insurance. Battle Tested Strategies — one of many DSPs that operate in California — stopped delivering for Amazon in late June.

Johnathon Ervin, an Air Force veteran who owns Battle Tested Strategies, said he applied for Amazon’s delivery program in 2018 and launched his business the next year after months of training. Initially, he got five vans from the company and began deliveries in El Monte, a city in Los Angeles roughly 60 miles south of Palmdale, where the firm is located.

Ervin said it was exciting at first, but it soon became challenging as his business grew and costs crept up for vehicle maintenance, insurance and other things like overtime pay during peak seasons. Amazon gives delivery firms a pot of money to cover expenses for every route they’re given, but he said it didn’t cover everything, like all overtime expenses for workers.

Figuring out how to be profitable also became a headache. The company installs devices in vans that monitor drivers’ habits, and issues a weekly scorecard rating their performance on things like delivery completion from a scale from poor to “fantastic plus.” Those ratings determine how much DSPs make per package, but Ervin said the way Amazon assess drivers and the way delivery firms do might not always line up.

“It’s a really insidiously data driven-control that they use to manipulate and move folks in the direction that they want them to go,” he said.

Amazon spokesperson Mary Kate Paradis countered DSP rates vary by location across the country and the vast majority or those surveyed “say they’re within or above the projected profitability range of $75,000 and $300,000 per year.” In response to Ervin’s claims about failing to pay for overtime expenses, Paradis said DSPs are responsible for paying their employees.

The Teamsters seem to be taking a long-term approach to organizing at Amazon. In the past few years, the union has been pushing back on Amazon projects in local communities and questioning the company’s federal contracts, among other things.

John Logan, director of labor and employment studies at San Francisco State University, said focusing on subcontractors is also a good starting point for the Teamsters because its easier to organize those firms compared to larger Amazon warehouses.

But he also noted the union’s campaign still seems somewhat underdeveloped because it's been focused on getting a good contract at UPS. The Teamsters' only other Amazon union victory was short-lived: In 2017, delivery drivers in Michigan who worked at a company that contracts with Amazon voted to organize. But Amazon dissolved their contract shortly thereafter.

“Amongst other groups and younger people in the labor movement... they are very enthusiastic about the idea about not only organizing Amazon, but that there’s a very powerful union that’s prepared to put resources into that,” Logan said. “But it hasn’t happened yet. So we don’t really know.”