Hollywood actor and writer strikes have broad support among Americans, AP-NORC poll shows

Hollywood Strikes
Striking writers walk outside the gates of Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Calif., Thursday, Sep. 21, 2023. Negotiations between striking screenwriters and Hollywood studios have resumed and will continue Thursday, the latest attempt to bring an end to pickets that have brought film and television productions to a halt. 

(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Demonstrators hold signs during a rally outside the Paramount Pictures Studio in Los Angeles, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023.

. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Writers Brent Mote, left, and Mark McCorckle, right, picket outside the gates of Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Calif., Thursday, Sep. 21, 2023.

 (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)

Demonstrators picket outside the Paramount Pictures Studios in Los Angeles, Thursday, Sept. 21, 2023.  (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)


Picketers walk around the gates of the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, Calif., Thursday, Sep. 21, 2023. 

(AP Photos/Damian Dovarganes)

ANDREW DALTON and LINLEY SANDERS
September 22, 2023

 
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Public support for striking Hollywood actors and writers is broad, but not necessarily deep enough for most people to change their viewing habits, a new poll finds.

A majority (55%) of U.S. adults sympathize with the writers and actors in the months-long dispute than with the studios they're striking against (3%), the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows.

Half of Americans (50%) approve of writers and actors striking, while 40% are neutral on the topic, and 9% disapprove.

The more people said they had heard about the strike, the more likely they were to favor it. About six in 10 Americans have heard “a lot” or “some” about the labor strikes of writers and actors against Hollywood studios. People who have heard “a lot” or “some” about the strike are more likely than those who have heard less to approve (63% vs. 29%).

“I’m a big supporter of labor,” said one respondent, James Denton of Louisville, Kentucky, who said he strongly approves of the strikes and has followed them closely. “I’m a union member myself, my father was the president of a union, I believe in unions, they’re well worth the money.”

About a quarter (24%) of U.S. adults do not sympathize with either the writers and actors or the studios, and 18% are split between the sides.

Overall sympathy toward the writers and actors runs much more strongly among Democrats (70%), than Independents (47%) and Republicans (39%). Republicans (35%) are more likely than Democrats (15%) to say they sympathize with neither side.

When the questions move beyond approval toward potential actions favoring the strike, the support gets considerably softer.

One-third would consider boycotting TV shows, while even more (41%) would not. Slightly fewer (27%) said they would consider canceling streaming services, while 44% said they would not. Three in 10 Americans also said they would consider boycotting movie theaters, while 34% would not. The unions have yet to ask for any of these moves from consumers, though have said they might if the standoffs last long enough.

Denton, 77, said he would not consider such moves, but added that it wouldn't matter much.

“I don’t watch anything anyway,” he said. “I don’t go to movies anymore.”

The poll was conducted September 7-11, as the Hollywood protests over pay and work protections stretched into their fifth month for writers and third month for actors. The Writers Guild of America has restarted negotiations with the alliance of studios and streaming services they're striking against. The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Radio and Television Artists are waiting in the wings.

While actors are usually the ones getting public adulation, many more think writers deserve a pay bump than they do actors.

A majority of Americans (56%) say it would be a good thing for screenwriters to be paid more, but only 38% say the same about actors’ compensation. Americans under 45 are more likely than older adults to call higher wages for actors a good thing (44% vs. 32%), but they are similarly likely to see higher pay for screenwriters favorably.

Along with compensation and job security, an issue at the center of both strikes is the use of artificial intelligence, or AI, in the creation of entertainment, and who will control it.

The poll showed that young people may actually be even more wary of the emerging technology than older adults. Americans under 45 years old are more likely than those 45 and older to say it would be good for studios to be prevented from replacing human writers with artificial intelligence (55% vs. 42%).

Overall, about half of U.S. adults (48%) say it would be a good thing if studios were prevented from replacing writers with AI. Alternatively, only 10% say it would be good for studios to use AI to help write movies and TV shows. Half (52%) say it would be a bad thing for studios to use AI in this way.

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The poll of 1,146 adults was conducted Sept. 7-11, 2023, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.

___

Sanders reported from Washington, D.C.

Americans broadly support auto, Hollywood strikes -Reuters/Ipsos poll
Andy Sullivan
Thu, September 21, 2023 

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Americans broadly back striking workers in the auto industry and Hollywood, according to a two-day Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Wednesday that found significant support among both Democrats and Republicans.

The poll found that 58% of Americans support the first-ever simultaneous strike by the United Auto Workers union against Ford Motor, General Motors and Chrysler parent Stellantis to win better pay and benefits, while 32% oppose the action and 10% were unsure.

Similarly, 60% of Americans support the dual strikes by screenwriters and actors to win better pay and protections in the entertainment industry, while 27% oppose it and 13% were unsure.

The poll found especially strong support among Democrats, who have traditionally allied with labor unions. Some 72% of self-identified Democrats said they backed the auto workers strike and 79% said they supported the Hollywood strike.

A large number of Republicans also said they backed the striking workers, even though their party has traditionally advanced pro-business policies and taken a skeptical view of the liberal views espoused by many Hollywood celebrities.

The poll found that 48% of Republicans backed the auto workers strike, while 47% opposed it. Similarly, 46% said they supported the Hollywood strikes and 46% said they did not.

That divide has been reflected in the battle for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Former President Donald Trump, who leads the field by a wide margin, plans to skip the next candidates' debate on Sept. 27 and instead give a speech to auto workers and other blue-collar union members.

Other candidates like Nikki Haley and Tim Scott have said the auto workers are asking for too much.

Democratic President Joe Biden, who has sided with the UAW and called on auto companies to concede more to striking workers, has made union outreach a central part of his 2024 reelection bid. He won 57% of union households in the 2020 election, compared with 40% for Trump, according to Edison Research.

The poll comes as the United States has seen an uptick in union activism. Through August -- before the UAW strike -- 310,000 U.S. workers were involved in work stoppages, putting 2023 on track to become the busiest year for strikes since 2019.

The poll also found broad support for the labor movement in general, even though private-sector union membership remains at historical lows in the United States.

Some 61% of respondents said labor unions have improved the quality of life for all Americans, while only 35% said labor unions were no longer necessary.

Two-thirds said pay for CEOs and workers should go up equally -- a central talking point of the UAW strike.

The online poll of 1,005 U.S. adults was conducted between Sept. 19 and Sept. 20. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points, and 6 percentage points for Democratic and Republican responses.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone and Deepa Babington)

IT'S UNHEALTHY AND UNSAFE

GM email asks for salaried workers to cross picket lines, work parts distribution centers 

TO CROSS A PICKET LINE

Jamie L. LaReau, Detroit Free Press
Fri, September 22, 2023

General Motors has asked for volunteers among its salaried, nonunion employees to cross a picket line and work at its parts distribution centers in the event there is a strike at them, the Detroit Free Press has learned.

That strike came at noon Friday. UAW President Shawn Fain had warned GM, Stellantis and Ford Motor Co. earlier in the week that if substantial progress in contract negotiations was not made, he would expand the strike from the first three plants the union struck one week ago.

Some 5,600 employees at GM and Stellantis parts distribution centers — 38 of them across the country — walked off the job and joined the picket line Friday. Ford Motor Co. was spared the expansion of the strike because Fain said it was making progress in negotiations and had offered up some wins for the union on issues like reinstatement of the cost-of-living adjustment to wages.

Strikers walk out at noon from 38 GM, Stellantis parts plants including Center Line Packaging as UAW President Shawn Fain, left, shakes hands with Joey Larue, of Clinton Township, a picker packer worker at Center Line Packaging, on Friday, Sept. 22, 2023.

In an internal email, which the Free Press obtained, GM asked team leaders whether they had any volunteers to help at the facilities to pack and ship parts in the event of a work stoppage.

The email said GM sought a temporary commitment, but noted it would be dependent on the length of the strike. The date of the email is unclear.

More: Unifor's Payne talks about the deal the union won and how close it came to striking Ford

When asked about the email, GM spokesman Pat Morrissey did not deny its existence, and another spokesperson provided this statement: "We have contingency plans for various scenarios and are prepared to do what is best for our business and customers. We are evaluating if and when to enact those plans."



One expert interviewed said asking salaried workers to cross a picket line and do jobs they are not trained to do could be a bad idea.

More: Which UAW plants are on strike? The 38 GM, Stellantis locations walking out Friday

"That creates all kinds of problems," said Art Wheaton, director of Labor Studies at Cornell University. "The Teamsters have already said, 'We won’t cross the picket lines,' so if any of those parts are being taken out by UPS, they won’t take them. Then you have people who don’t know what they’re doing because it’s not their job to do this kind of work. I don’t see how (GM) could meet their needs by having replacement workers."

But Wheaton said GM will likely do it because, "you plan for contingencies."

One week ago, 13,000 total workers went on strike at three assembly plants: Ford Motor's Michigan Assembly in Wayne, GM's Wentzville Assembly in Missouri and Stellantis Toledo Assembly in Ohio. The union is negotiating for a new contract with all three automakers separately, but simultaneously.

Contact Jamie L. LaReau: jlareau@freepress.com. 

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: UAW strike: GM asks for salaried staff to cross picket line

SCABBY DA RAT

New Hubble telescope image reveals intergalactic bridge between two merging realms

Samantha Mathewson
Wed, September 20, 2023 

New Hubble telescope image reveals intergalactic bridge between two merging realms

A faint "bridge" of gas connects two colliding galaxies in a new photo from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The Arp 107 system includes a pair of galaxies that are in the process of merging. Located about 465 million light-years from Earth, the galactic duo is connected by a tenuous stream of dust and gas.

Hubble, a joint mission led by NASA and the European Space Agency, snapped this new view of Arp 107 using its Advanced Camera for Surveys. The larger galaxy, captured on the left of the image, boasts one large spiral arm that curves around the galactic core. Known as a Seyfert galaxy, this cosmic realm is home to an active galactic nucleus.

Related: The best Hubble Space Telescope images of all time!

"Seyfert galaxies are notable because despite the immense brightness of the active core, radiation from the entire galaxy can be observed," ESA officials said in a statement. "This is evident in this image, where the spiraling whorls of the whole galaxy are readily visible."

Active galactic nuclei exhibit an intense glow associated with material falling into the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. In fact, the radiation emitted by an active galactic nucleus can outshine the combined light of every single star in its host galaxy.

The galaxy's bright spiral arm is speckled with bright budding stars, stellar births fueled by the abundant source of material being siphoned from the smaller companion galaxy, which can be seen to the lower right of the image.

Related Stories:

— Hubble Space Telescope discovers 11-billion-year-old galaxy hidden in a quasar's glare

— This black hole is devouring a dying star — but it only feasts once a month

— This gamma-ray space mystery may finally be solved with new black hole simulations

The smaller galaxy appears to have a bright core, but relatively faint spiral arms as it is being absorbed into the larger galaxy. The stream of material connecting the merging galaxies hangs delicately beneath the pair in the new Hubble visual, which ESA released on Sept. 18.

Arp 107 belongs to a group of galaxies known as the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, which was compiled in 1966 by Halton Arp. The new Hubble photo was taken as part of a larger initiative to observe understudied members of the Arp catalog.

"Part of the intention of the observing programme was to provide the public with images of these spectacular and not-easily-defined galaxies," ESA said in the statement.

PATIENCE, MY FRIENDS

India's moon lander and rover didn't wake up despite high hopes

Sonam Sheth,Jenny McGrath
Fri, September 22, 2023 

India's moon rover, Pragyaan, made history as the first to explore the lunar south pole.

Indian Space Research Organization

India's moon rover and lander was set to wake up after a nearly month-long nap.


Despite high hopes, the lander and rover didn't respond to a wake-up message.


This could mean the end of a successful mission for the Vikram lander and Pragyan rover.

Despite high hopes, two historic robots remain fast asleep near the moon's south pole, according to the Indian Space Research Organization.

India's Chandrayaan-3 moon lander and its adorable sidekick lunar rover were set to wake up around September 22. The ISRO landed them on the moon in a historic first in August.

Both ISRO's Vikram lander and Pragyan rover run on solar power. Therefore, they need sunlight to charge their batteries and operate their scientific instruments.

They went to sleep in early September when night set in and their batteries drained. The next sunrise took place on September 22. ISRO hoped the solar panels would recharge and reawaken the spacecraft.

However, they haven't responded to mission control's message.

In late August, mission operations director M. Srikanth told The Times of India the team was confident the lander and rover would return to life after sunrise. "If that happens, that will be a bonus and in case that cannot be achieved, the mission is still complete," he said.

Despite Srikanth's optimism, it was always a long shot that the two robots would withstand the moon's elements. Nighttime temperatures on the moon can dip to as low as -334 degrees Fahrenheit, according to NASA. The lander and rover weren't built to withstand such cold, The New York Times reports.

Chandrayaan-3 mission complete

India's Chandrayaan-3 Vikram lander on the moon.ISRO

Mission control will continue to send messages to the spacecraft. Even if ISRO's lunar lander and rover don't wake up, the robots have already done what they were designed to do — explore the lunar south pole region for the first 14 days after touchdown.

Within just those two weeks, the two robots made some important scientific discoveries. For example, the moon rover confirmed the presence of sulfur in the lunar south pole region.

Moreover, preliminary analyses suggested the presence of aluminum, calcium, iron, chromium, titanium, and a possible moonquake.

India is the fourth country — after the US, Russia, and China — to land on the moon, and the first to ever land near the lunar south pole.

The lunar south pole region is of particular interest because it contains water ice. Water ice, or H2O, could eventually be mined and broken down into oxygen for breathing as well as hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel.

India's lunar lander and rover were the first to study the south pole region up-close and sample it directly. Scientists and companies who want to build a base on the moon have watched the mission with great interest.

NASA image shows "unprecedented detail" of moon's south pole region

Kerry Breen
Updated Thu, September 21, 2023 

Thanks to two lunar orbiting cameras working together on the moon's Shackleton Crater, NASA has been able to release a mosaic showing "unprecedented detail" of the region.

Shackleton Crater is in the moon's South Pole region. The area is of interest to scientists because it may have accessible ice deposits in its craters, CBS News previously reported. That ice could be a source of air, water and rocket fuel. India's Chandrayaan-3 lander safely landed in the region in August 2023, and NASA's Artemis program is planning to send astronauts to this area in the next few years.



The mosaic images were captured thanks to the technology on two cameras working in sync. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera can capture detailed images of the moon's surface, NASA said in a news release, but has only "limited ability" to photograph the shadowed areas of the lunar body. These permanently shadowed regions never see sunlight, so the LROC can never take good photos of them.

That's where the ShadowCam comes in. A NASA instrument on board a Korean spacecraft, the ShadowCam is "200-times more light-sensitive than LROC and can operate successfully in these extremely low-light conditions," according to the agency. This reveals features and terrain details that wouldn't otherwise be visible. However, this light sensitivity means it can't capture directly illuminated parts of the moon - those areas are where the LROC works the best.

Combined, the two cameras were able to capture images that were combined "to create a comprehensive visual map of the terrain and geologic features of both the brightest and darkest parts of the Moon."

The images show the moon's permanently shadowed areas in "greater detail than previously possible," allowing scientists to study the area like never before. With this complete map, researchers will be able to conduct more thorough surface exploration endeavors, NASA said, like the Artemis missions intended to search for ice and establish a long-term U.S. presence on the moon.

Chandrayaan-3's measurements of sulfur open the doors for lunar science and exploration

Jeffrey Gillis-Davis, Research Professor of Physics, 

Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis
Fri, September 22, 2023 

THE CONVERSATION

Chandrayaan-3's Pragyan rover has traveled 328 feet (100 meters) and measured the chemistry of the lunar soil ISRO

In an exciting milestone for lunar scientists around the globe, India’s Chandrayaan-3 lander touched down 375 miles (600 km) from the south pole of the Moon on Aug. 23, 2023.

In just under 14 Earth days, Chandrayaan-3 provided scientists with valuable new data and further inspiration to explore the Moon. And the Indian Space Research Organization has shared these initial results with the world.

While the data from Chandrayaan-3’s rover, named Pragyan, or “wisdom” in Sanskrit, showed the lunar soil contains expected elements such as iron, titanium, aluminum and calcium, it also showed an unexpected surprise – sulfur.

Planetary scientists like me have known that sulfur exists in lunar rocks and soils, but only at a very low concentration. These new measurements imply there may be a higher sulfur concentration than anticipated.

Pragyan has two instruments that analyze the elemental composition of the soil – an alpha particle X-ray spectrometer and a laser-induced breakdown spectrometer, or LIBS for short. Both of these instruments measured sulfur in the soil near the landing site.

Sulfur in soils near the Moon’s poles might help astronauts live off the land one day, making these measurements an example of science that enables exploration.
Geology of the Moon

There are two main rock types on the Moon’s surface – dark volcanic rock and the brighter highland rock. The brightness difference between these two materials forms the familiar “man in the moon” face or “rabbit picking rice” image to the naked eye.

The dark regions of the Moon have dark volcanic soil, while the brighter regions have highland soil. Avrand6/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Scientists measuring lunar rock and soil compositions in labs on Earth have found that materials from the dark volcanic plains tend to have more sulfur than the brighter highlands material.

Sulfur mainly comes from volcanic activity. Rocks deep in the Moon contain sulfur, and when these rocks melt, the sulfur becomes part of the magma. When the melted rock nears the surface, most of the sulfur in the magma becomes a gas that is released along with water vapor and carbon dioxide.

Some of the sulfur does stay in the magma and is retained within the rock after it cools. This process explains why sulfur is primarily associated with the Moon’s dark volcanic rocks.

Chandrayaan-3’s measurements of sulfur in soils are the first to occur on the Moon. The exact amount of sulfur cannot be determined until the data calibration is completed.

The uncalibrated data collected by the LIBS instrument on Pragyan suggests that the Moon’s highland soils near the poles might have a higher sulfur concentration than highland soils from the equator and possibly even higher than the dark volcanic soils.

These initial results give planetary scientists like me who study the Moon new insights into how it works as a geologic system. But we’ll still have to wait and see if the fully calibrated data from the Chandrayaan-3 team confirms an elevated sulfur concentration.
Atmospheric sulfur formation

The measurement of sulfur is interesting to scientists for at least two reasons. First, these findings indicate that the highland soils at the lunar poles could have fundamentally different compositions, compared with highland soils at the lunar equatorial regions. This compositional difference likely comes from the different environmental conditions between the two regions – the poles get less direct sunlight.

Second, these results suggest that there’s somehow more sulfur in the polar regions. Sulfur concentrated here could have formed from the exceedingly thin lunar atmosphere.

The polar regions of the Moon receive less direct sunlight and, as a result, experience extremely low temperatures compared with the rest of the Moon. If the surface temperature falls, below -73 degrees C (-99 degrees F), then sulfur from the lunar atmosphere could collect on the surface in solid form – like frost on a window.

Sulfur at the poles could also have originated from ancient volcanic eruptions occurring on the lunar surface, or from meteorites containing sulfur that struck the surface and vaporized on impact.
Lunar sulfur as a resource

For long-lasting space missions, many agencies have thought about building some sort of base on the Moon. Astronauts and robots could travel from the south pole base to collect, process, store and use naturally occurring materials like sulfur on the Moon – a concept called in-situ resource utilization.

In-situ resource utilization means fewer trips back to Earth to get supplies and more time and energy spent exploring. Using sulfur as a resource, astronauts could build solar cells and batteries that use sulfur, mix up sulfur-based fertilizer and make sulfur-based concrete for construction.

Sulfur-based concrete actually has several benefits compared with the concrete normally used in building projects on Earth.

For one, sulfur-based concrete hardens and becomes strong within hours rather than weeks, and it’s more resistant to wear. It also doesn’t require water in the mixture, so astronauts could save their valuable water for drinking, crafting breathable oxygen and making rocket fuel.


The Chandrayaan-3 lander, pictured as a bright white spot in the center of the box. The box is 1,108 feet (338 meters) wide. NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University

While seven missions are currently operating on or around the Moon, the lunar south pole region hasn’t been studied from the surface before, so Pragyan’s new measurements will help planetary scientists understand the geologic history of the Moon. It’ll also allow lunar scientists like me to ask new questions about how the Moon formed and evolved.

For now, the scientists at Indian Space Research Organization are busy processing and calibrating the data. On the lunar surface, Chandrayaan-3 is hibernating through the two-week-long lunar night, where temperatures will drop to -184 degrees F (-120 degrees C). The night will last until September 22.

There’s no guarantee that the lander component of Chandrayaan-3, called Vikram, or Pragyan will survive the extremely low temperatures, but should Pragyan awaken, scientists can expect more valuable measurements.

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

It was written by: Jeffrey Gillis-Davis, Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Read more:

India’s Chandrayaan-3 landed on the south pole of the Moon − a space policy expert explains what this means for India and the global race to the Moon


Returning to the Moon can benefit commercial, military and political sectors – a space policy expert explains

NASA's Plan to Return Samples From Mars Is Pure Science Fiction, Report Finds

Passant Rabie
Fri, September 22, 2023 

An illustration of the Mars Sample Return mission retrieving samples from the surface of the Red Planet.

The findings from an independent review board suggest that NASA’s quest to return samples from Mars is riddled with challenges and seemingly impossible to accomplish under the current cost and schedule expectations.

NASA released the final report on Thursday and announced that it has set up its own team to review the Mars Sample Return (MSR) report and make a recommendation regarding a path forward for the mission by the second quarter of 2024. In the meantime, the space agency has paused its plans to confirm the official mission cost and schedule

“Independent review boards like the one we commissioned for Mars Sample Return help review whether we’re on the right track to meet our mission goals within the appropriate budget,” Sandra Connelly, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for science, said in a statement.

The space agency still hasn’t declared an official cost estimate for its sample return mission. In 2020, NASA and ESA estimated that the mission would require at least $7 billion in total but there are concerns that it will go over budget. The new report suggests that the mission’s full lifecycle cost will likely range between $8 billion and $11 billion.

The mission received $822.3 million in the 2023 spending bill and NASA requested $949.3 million for Mars Sample Return in its budget proposal for 2024. In April, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson revealed that the Mars Sample Return mission needs an additional $250 million in the current fiscal year, plus another $250 million in 2024, in order to stay on track for launch in 2028.

In its proposed 2024 budget for NASA, the Senate Appropriations subcommittee directed the space agency to submit a year-by-year funding profile for MSR within the $5.3 billion lifecycle cost outlined in the 2022 planetary science Decadal Survey. If NASA is unable to do so, it could face mission cancellation, the subcommittee wrote in its report in July.

“Mars Sample Return is a very complex program and campaign with multiple parallel developments, interfaces, and complexities,” Orlando Figueroa, chair of the independent review board, said in a statement. “The development of this historic effort follows many decades of strategic investment.”

The independent review board did highlight the importance of Mars Sample Return as a strategic step within the space agency’s Mars exploration program, which aims to one day land humans on Mars. The rocky samples currently being collected by the Perseverance rover may hold clues as to whether Mars ever hosted some form of life, which would ultimately answer the question of whether life exists beyond Earth.

In fact, the report urges NASA to better communicate the significance of its sample return mission. “The societal, technological, and scientific significance of MSR makes it a mission of the highest importance in NASA’s long-term exploration strategy, and this is not being communicated consistently and clearly with the public and stakeholders,” the report reads. “A successful MSR campaign will revolutionize our understanding of the history of Mars, the Solar System, and the potential for life beyond Earth.”

Gizmodo

NASA's James Webb Telescope may have found the source of Europa's carbon

Scientists believe carbon dioxide on the moon came from its subsurface ocean.

Mariella Moon
·Contributing Reporter
Updated Fri, September 22, 2023 

NASA/JPL/University of Arizona


Before the Galileo spacecraft was destroyed two decades ago, it detected several chemicals on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, including carbon dioxide. Now, a couple of studies using observations by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) suggest that the carbon dioxide on Europa's surface came from the ocean hidden underneath its icy shell. Further, the researchers have come to the conclusion that it's pretty recent in origin — geologically speaking, at least.

The observations made using the telescope's Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument showed scientists that the carbon dioxide on Europa is most abundant in an area called Tara Regio, or "chaos terrain." In the images above, you'll see Tara Regio as the yellowish area to the left of the moon's center.

Emily Martin, a planetary geologist at the National Air and Space Museum, told Scientific American that scientists believe Tara Regio's ice surface broke up when the weather got warm enough at one point. That caused the water from the subsurface ocean to come up, until it got cold again to create a slushy icy water sort of area. It's worth noting that previous Hubble observations of the region show that it also contains table salt, which indicates that saltwater, indeed, could've risen up to the surface of the moon.

If Europa's carbon dioxide truly did come from its ocean instead of from meteors or other sources, then it would establish a big similarity between our planet and the moon. Europa is one of the objects in our solar system that's under observation for potentially having the conditions to support life. In April this year, the European Space Agency launched the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer or JUICE to make detailed observations of the planet's ocean-bearing moons Ganymede, Callisto and Europa. Meanwhile, NASA's Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will focus on the potential for life in the moon's ocean, is scheduled to take off sometime next year.

Astronomers say carbon dioxide on Jupiter's moon Europa likely originated in ocean

Fri, September 22, 2023 

NIRCam (the Near Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured this picture of the surface of Jupiter’s moon Europa. Webb identified carbon dioxide on the icy surface of Europa that likely originated in the moon’s subsurface ocean. Photo courtesy of NASA

Sept. 22 (UPI) -- Data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope shows carbon dioxide on a region of Jupiter's moon Europa, suggesting it potentially could harbor conditions suitable for life.

Astronomers found carbon dioxide on the icy surface of a region called Tara Regio, and analysis from two studies suggests it likely originated in the moon's subsurface ocean.

"Understanding the chemistry of Europa's ocean will help us determine whether it's hostile to life as we know it, or if it might be a good place for life," Geronimo Villanueva, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a news release.

Villanueva is the lead author of one of the studies. Using Webb's Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument, researchers determined the chemical composition of ice by measuring the amount of light at different wavelengths.

"We now think we have observational evidence that the carbon we see on Europa's surface came from the ocean. That's not a trivial thing. Carbon is a biologically essential element," Samantha Trumbo, of Cornell University in Ithaca and lead author of the other paper, said.

Heavy concentrations of carbon dioxide in the salty Tara Regio region, where the surface ice has been disrupted, suggest the carbon originated deep in the ocean. This suggests a similarity with Earth's deep-sea hydrothermal vent systems, where life on Earth may have originated, Scientific American reported.

Villanueva's looked for a plume of water vapor but found no evidence in the new Webb data. Plumes were tentatively detected in previous research, suggesting they could be variable.

"This work gives a first hint of all the amazing solar system science we'll be able to do with Webb," Heidi Hammel of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, said in the NASA news release.

In October 2024, NASA is set to launch its Europa Clipper spacecraft, which will further study the possibility of life-sustaining conditions on Europa.

REST IN POWER
Hollis Watkins, who was jailed multiple times for challenging segregation in Mississippi, dies at 82

EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
Fri, September 22, 2023 





 Hollis Watkins sings in memory of Medgar Evers during a wreath-laying ceremony Thursday, May 16, 2013, at the Jackson, Miss., home of Evers, the Mississippi NAACP leader who was assassinated in 1963. Longtime Mississippi civil rights activist Watkins died Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2023, at age 82 at his home in Clinton, Miss.

 (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Hollis Watkins, who started challenging segregation and racial oppression in his native Mississippi when he was a teenager and toiled alongside civil rights icons including Medgar Evers and Bob Moses, has died. He was 82.

Watkins — who also sometimes went by Hollis Watkins Muhammad — died Wednesday at his home in the Jackson suburb of Clinton, Mississippi, according to the Veterans of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement, a group for which he was chairman.

“I’m just extremely heartbroken over his passing," Cynthia Goodloe Palmer, the group's executive director, said Friday. “He was a tremendous friend, leader, co-worker and someone that everyone looked up to, someone who sacrificed tremendously.”

Michael Morris, director of the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, said Watkins “dedicated his entire life to improving the lives of Black Mississippians.”

Watkins was born July 29, 1941 — the youngest of 12 children whose parents were sharecroppers in the rural Chisholm Mission community in southwest Mississippi's Lincoln County. Watkins said he was 4 years old when he started carrying water to his parents and siblings as they worked in the fields. As he got older, he helped pick cotton, uproot corn and dig up stumps.

He would walk to school through the woods, even as white children rode buses to their segregated and better-equipped school. Questioning inequality that shaped his family's life, Watkins joined a youth chapter of the NAACP.

He said he was in California in 1961 when he saw news coverage of integrated buses full of Freedom Riders arriving in Mississippi, and he knew he wanted to return home and meet them to try to find answers to questions that had been bothering him — why Black people were expected to step aside and avert their eyes while passing white people on sidewalks in Mississippi, for example.

"I was just on a quest to find the answers to why white people could get away with all of this, and we had to treat white people this way, and they could go here, and we couldn’t go there, and all of us are supposed to be treated equal," Watkins said in a 2010 interview with a crew from the University of North Carolina Greensboro for a series on “Unsung Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement.”

Watkins attended Tougaloo College, a historically Black school in Jackson that was a safe haven for civil rights workers.

In 1961, Watkins became one of the first Mississippi residents to work for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, after he met Moses, an SNCC coordinator, in McComb, Mississippi, and Moses showed him how to fill out a voter registration form.

Watkins also got to know Evers, leader of the Mississippi NAACP.

“Even though I was a SNCC staff person, Medgar and I had a close relationship. We worked together all across the state,” Watkins told The Associated Press in a 2013 interview.

Watkins organized Black voter registration drives in McComb and Pike County, near where he had grown up. He and another SNCC activist, Curtis Hayes, were arrested after they conducted a sit-in to try to integrate the Woolworth’s lunch counter in McComb, on Aug. 26, 1961.

Watkins was arrested and jailed multiple times, including in 1962, when he and other activists were sent to the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman after registering Black people to vote in Greenwood.

Also in 1962, Watkins and Hayes went to south Mississippi's Forrest County at the invitation of local NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer to work on Black voter registration. Dahmer was killed in January 1966 when Ku Klux Klansmen firebombed his family's home.

In June 1963, Watkins was attending a mass meeting in Greenwood, Mississippi, when news came that Evers had been assassinated in Jackson.

“We turned that mass meeting into a prayer service, and then we turned the prayer service into a motivational piece to get people, more people, to become registered to vote,” Watkins said in the 2013 AP interview.

“We realized that Medgar was gone, but we would not receive a defeat in Medgar having been assassinated,” he said. "And to prove we did not see it as a defeat, we decided and became more determined that we would get more people registered to vote in the name of Medgar.”

In 1964, Watkins was a county organizer for the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project, as college students traveled from other parts of the U.S. to work on Black voter registration. He was also part of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, an integrated group that challenged the seating of the all-white Mississippi Democratic Party delegation at the party's 1964 national convention in Atlantic City.

Watkins in 1989 founded Southern Echo, a group that worked in community organizing, politics, education and agriculture.

“This is an idea that came to fruition as a result of me realizing that I was not getting any younger, and people from all across the state and even other states had began to call on me to work with them and provide them certain kinds of training and technical assistance,” Watkins said in the interview with UNC Greensboro.

Watkins received the Fannie Lou Hamer Humanitarian Award from Jackson State University in 2011 and an honorary doctorate from Tougaloo College in 2015.

Watkins was a frequent presence at the two Mississippi history museums after they opened in downtown Jackson in 2017, speaking to school groups and teaching freedom songs that he and others sang as they challenged inequality in the Deep South.

In 2013, before the 50th anniversary of Evers’ assassination, Watkins said he was proud that Mississippi had large numbers of Black elected officials and Black attorneys.

“But even though we’re proud of that, we know that racism still exists here in Mississippi,” he told the AP. “So we still have to continue to work today.”

Watkins said he would continue doing civil rights work to honor Evers’ memory.

“That’s how I see it, and that’s one of the motivations that keep me going today,” Watkins said. “And I intend to continue to go as long as I am blessed with life and strength.”

____

Former AP journalist Stacey Plaisance contributed to this report.

THE 1%
Real-life 'Succession' as Lachlan Murdoch solidifies perch atop Fox and News Corp.

Meg James
Thu, September 21, 2023 

Lachlan Murdoch has long shared his famous father's enthusiasm for right-leaning politics and the news business, including the family's vast portfolio of newspapers — even as the industry was ravaged by internet search engines and shunned by investors.

But he also has a sentimental streak.

When Rupert Murdoch decided to unload much of the entertainment assets he had spent decades building, investment bankers advised the clan of ruthlessly bottom line-focused media moguls to include the real estate — the company's legendary movie studio lot in Century City — as part of the deal.

Lachlan Murdoch said no. He felt the lot was the beating heart of the company on the West Coast, one steeped in Hollywood history. Besides, he sensed the Century City land would only grow in value, a belief that has proved true (it's worth billions).

Now, the 52-year-old executive is firmly presiding over the empire his father built — encompassing the most influential conservative media institutions in America — from an office suite on the L.A. studio lot.

Fox Corp. and News Corp. on Thursday announced Rupert Murdoch was stepping down from his executive role at the two media companies and that Lachlan would succeed him atop the two companies. The changes take effect in November.

Lachlan Murdoch becomes the sole chairman of News Corp., the publishing company that owns the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, and executive chairman of Fox, the television arm that includes Fox News, Fox Sports and the Fox broadcast network. Because Lachlan Murdoch has been at the helm as Fox's chief executive since March 2019, and because he is exceedingly close to his father, analysts expect the son's strategy to largely reflect the father's.

"Lachlan is probably the most aligned with his father in terms of politics and in terms of his vision of the business," Paul Verna, principal analyst at Insider Intelligence, said. "There's not a lot of daylight between the two men."

Lachlan Murdoch has previously said the political bent of Fox News, which has made the network a lightning rod, will remain.

Fox documents from late 2020 and early 2021, revealed in the course of high-profile and devastating litigation, underscored the tight collaboration between the two Murdochs. The pair were involved in overseeing Fox News' coverage of President Trump and his false statements that the 2020 election was stolen from him, which proved costly for the company. In April, Fox agreed to pay $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems to avoid a trial over defamation claims.

Documents in the case showed how the Murdochs and Fox News Media Chief Executive Suzanne Scott in November 2020 discussed ways to avoid further alienating viewers after Fox News made the early and accurate call that Arizona had tipped to then-candidate Joe Biden.

The situation "needs constant rebuilding without any missteps,” Lachlan Murdoch wrote, according to the internal documents, referring to the company's effort to regain trust among Fox News fans.

Read more: Murdoch has survived scandal after scandal. Will Dominion-Fox News lawsuit be different?

But there are differences between the pair, beyond the generational gap.

In fact, for a while, Lachlan Murdoch appeared uninterested in working with his father — at a time when his younger brother James dived into his corporate role with relish. Back then, it looked like James was in line for the throne.

Rupert Murdoch has long made clear that one of his two sons would ultimately succeed him. Beyond wanting to keep his business in the family, the elder mogul is known among friends for his lack of sentimentality, buying and discarding properties that he once coveted, including the Hollywood movie studio known for "Avatar" and "Titanic," DirecTV and the European satellite television service Sky.

When he was CEO, he worked in an expansive office on the fifth floor of a modern office building on the lot.

In contrast, Lachlan prefers the ground-floor office of the Depression-era Art Deco structure, Building 88 on Fox's Avenue of the Palms, where movie pioneer Darryl F. Zanuck once ran the show. Inside his office, a bank of TV screens flicker with Fox News and other channels. Editions of the company's newspapers are proudly and neatly displayed nearby.

Lachlan Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch watch the U.S. Open tennis championships in 2018. (Adrian Edwards / GC Images)

Lachlan Murdoch is fulfilling the career trajectory that his father mapped for him. Just as Rupert Murdoch had done seven decades before, after his father — a respected Australian news editor and former war correspondent Sir Keith Murdoch — died when Rupert was in his early 20s and left him a small Australian publishing company.

"My father firmly believed in freedom, and Lachlan is absolutely committed to the cause," Rupert Murdoch wrote in a letter to the staffs of the two companies.

Murdoch's message reads, in many ways, like a rallying call to his troops against so-called elites. The elder mogul has long seen himself as a provocateur, chiding news organizations he viewed as too bloated, too high-brow and too liberal.

For decades, Rupert Murdoch has fashioned himself as a counterbalance to the media establishment. He's never shied away from using his outlets to influence politics and governments — in his native Australia, Britain and the U.S.

"The battle for the freedom of speech and, ultimately, the freedom of thought, has never been more intense," Rupert Murdoch wrote in his letter. "Elites have open contempt for those who are not members of their rarefied class. Most of the media is in cahoots with those elites, peddling political narratives rather than pursuing the truth."

Read more: Fox oral history: Inside the legendary studio at the end of its run

In some ways, Murdoch's letter also felt like a mandate to preserve his legacy.

There have been tensions within family, and the succession battle that played out behind the scenes was intense at times, providing fodder for HBO's fictional drama, "Succession." Some observers have openly wondered whether the final episodes of the real-life Murdoch succession saga have truly been written yet.

Although the elder mogul is pulling back from executive responsibilities at News Corp. and Fox, segueing into chairman emeritus, he retains the family's controlling voting shares of the two companies through a family trust, according to regulatory filings. Rupert Murdoch has the voting control of the trust, through its investment vehicle.

Control of the trust will be passed to his four oldest children — Prudence, Elisabeth, Lachlan and James — after Murdoch dies. They will each have voting shares. Murdoch's two daughters from his marriage to Wendi Deng each have a financial stake, but not voting shares.

The siblings, particularly Lachlan and James, haven't always been aligned in business priorities or in politics.

James Murdoch served as chief executive of 21st Century Fox until its 2019 sale to the Walt Disney Co. After working 23 years in the family enterprise, he no longer had an executive role. Three years ago, James stepped down from News Corp.'s board, citing "disagreements over certain editorial content published by the company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions."

Read more: Legendary Fox Studio Lot set for $1.5-billion expansion

For much of the last decade, Rupert Murdoch has been intent on entrusting Lachlan with the enterprise.

After he graduated from Princeton, the London-born Lachlan joined the family business in Australia, working at some of their newspapers. Within a few years, he was scaling the ladder at the company in the U.S.

In 1999, he was named head of the printing operations in the U.S. and served for a time as publisher of the New York Post during 9/11.

He abruptly resigned in 2005, after souring on the corporate politics and moved with his wife, Sarah, and their children back to Australia to build his own profile in media there.

In 2015, at his father's urging, Lachlan returned to the U.S. to work alongside him in the company.

Fox credits Lachlan Murdoch with savvy business moves, including initially making an $11-million investment in the Australian real estate insights company, REA Group, in which News Corp. now has a majority stake. The publicly traded firm is now worth $8 billion, and News Corp. has a 61% stake.

While running Fox in 2020, Lachlan Murdoch championed the $440-million acquisition of Tubi, a free advertising-supported television streaming service, which is now one of the most popular in the country. This year, Bloomberg News reported that Murdoch turned down unsolicited offers of more than $2 billion for the service.

But the media landscape is particularly challenged, and it will be up to Lachlan Murdoch to steer the enterprise through those difficulties, including cord-cutting and declining ratings for linear television.

"The changes the media industry has been through, and will continue to go through, are monumental," Verna said. "The biggest one is how do you monetize streaming as the cable bundle erodes? That's not a small challenge, but it will be one that Lachlan will face."

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.