EU seeks satellite array offers in space race with AI

Fri, December 15, 2023 
By Tim Hepher

PARIS (Reuters) - Europe is seeking final offers for a 6 billion euro ($6.55 billion) EU satellite constellation which is designed to compete with Elon Musk's Starlink and Jeff Bezos' Kuiper.

But authorities have been warned that the IRIS² system, initiated by the European Commission, risks missing out on the latest wave of artificial intelligence and becoming outdated before it is even launched due to bureaucracy.

The European Space Agency said on Friday it would seek final offers to develop the secure communications system, a flagship project spurred in part by the role of Musk's Starlink as a backbone for Ukraine in the war with Russia.

For now, the sole known bidder for the main IRIS² contract is a consortium of Airbus, Thales Alenia Space, Eutelsat, Hispasat and SES.

The array of up to 170 satellites will secure communications for European Union governments and open new commercial broadband services to under-served areas between 2025 and 2027.

"As things stand, IRIS² runs the risk of being outdated before it even launches," former French air force chief Denis Mercier and ex-Airbus executive Marc Fontaine wrote in a sponsored opinion piece for Politico last week.

Both are involved with German defence AI start-up Helsing, which specialises in offering onboard AI software, with Mercier on its board and Fontaine running its French activity.

When IRIS² was launched, AI was a "somewhat futuristic technology," they wrote. "However, over the past two or three years, the world has learned that AI has matured and is ready for deployment practically everywhere."

The European Commission said it was already acting on this.

"The inclusion of artificial intelligence capabilities in the algorithms running the IRIS² system is a very promising avenue that is currently being considered," a spokesperson said.

Advanced computing is widely deployed on the ground by users such as intelligence agencies to sift and analyse vast amounts of raw data from space or elsewhere, technology analysts say.

But putting AI to work directly inside satellites - known as Edge computing - may allow them to reduce information overload for analysts or adapt themselves to so-called smart jamming.

"We must assume that competitive countries like China have designed this key capability into their constellations — Europe's IRIS² must not launch without it," the paper said.

DEFTECH

Helsing is among a small but growing number of "deftech" firms trying to disrupt the security market in the same way as new players have done in space, with business up for grabs.

The EU has pledged 30% of the EU-funded part of IRIS², which is worth 2.4 billion euros, will be farmed out to small firms.

But the comments have rekindled a debate about whether traditional procurements are nimble enough to embrace the new business models coming into space and now defence.

Under traditional programmes a winning bidder controls the flow of instructions to suppliers, often with long lead times.

Entrepreneurs say the fusion of defence with software and AI requires faster footwork so that flexibility can be built in.

Growing attention to computing in defence was highlighted on Friday when Airbus was reported to be in talks to buy Atos cybersecurity assets.

The Airbus-led consortium declined direct comment on the Helsing article but said IRIS² would "aim to leverage state-of-the-art technology and expertise of companies across Europe".

ESA said that once the main IRIS2 contract is awarded, work would gradually flow to smaller companies.

"This will take some time ... and take place throughout 2024," ESA Director of Navigation Francisco-Javier Benedicto Ruiz said.

($1 = 0.9163 euros)

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Alexander Smith)


Days after announcing a deal with SpaceX, Amazon seeks to dismiss lawsuit claiming it snubbed the Elon Musk space company last year

Steve Mollman
Thu, December 14, 2023


With space launches, timing matters. Elon Musk’s SpaceX routinely delays rocket launches when adverse weather develops, for example, and the optimal time for a trip to Mars is when the Red Planet is closest to Earth, or about every two years.

In other notable timing in the space business, Amazon on Monday sought the dismissal of an investor lawsuit involving the launch of internet satellites for its Project Kuiper, which will compete with SpaceX’s Starlink in providing broadband connections globally, including in remote areas. Amazon sought the dismissal just 10 days after announcing a deal for SpaceX to carry some of its satellites.

Last year, Amazon announced agreements for up to 83 launches to carry its Kuiper satellites. Notably, not one of them involved SpaceX, despite it being a clear leader in the field. Instead, the contracts all went to Blue Origin, Europe’s Arianespace, and United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The investor lawsuit—filed in Delaware in August by the multiemployer Cleveland Bakers and Teamsters Pension Fund—alleges there was a “glaring conflict of interest” due to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s proximity to both Amazon and Blue Origin. The damages requested were unspecified.
‘Bezos’s personal rivalry with Musk’

To understand the conflict-of-interest allegation, it helps to know that Bezos is executive chairman of Amazon—though he retired as CEO in 2021—and is also the primary owner of Blue Origin. The lawsuit alleges that Amazon’s leadership, including current CEO Andy Jassy, “excluded the most obvious and affordable launch provider, SpaceX, from its procurement process because of Bezos’s personal rivalry with Musk."

It also states: “Amazon’s directors and officers consciously and intentionally breached their most basic fiduciary responsibilities by approving a series of related-party contracts that are due to collectively funnel more than [redacted amount] to a company founded and owned by [Bezos], following no effort to properly discharge their fiduciary duties.”

After investors filed the lawsuit in August, Amazon announced on Dec. 1 that it had signed a contract with SpaceX for three launches of Project Kuiper satellites. That was notable both in light of the lawsuit and because Amazon would be paying SpaceX to send up satellites to compete against it.

In its announcement, Amazon put the SpaceX deal in context, writing:

“Our earlier procurement of 77 heavy-lift rockets from Arianespace, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance (ULA) provides enough capacity to launch the majority of our satellite constellation, and the additional launches with SpaceX offer even more capacity to support our deployment schedule.”

While the deal with SpaceX would seem to ding the investor lawsuit—Amazon ultimately procured business with Musk’s space company, after all—Amazon denied that it was done in response to the litigation.

“The claims in the shareholder lawsuit had no impact on our procurement plans for Project Kuiper, including our recently disclosed launch agreement with SpaceX,” an Amazon spokesperson told Fortune. “The claims in that suit are completely without merit, and we look forward to showing that through the legal process.”

It’s also worth noting that launch procurement discussions can unfold over many months or years.

‘You have been judged’

But the timing of the SpaceX deal just a few months after the lawsuit is striking, and there’s no denying that Musk and Bezos have been trading barbs in the space business for years.

When Blue Origin lost a legal fight against NASA in 2021 over the space agency giving a multibillion-dollar moon lander contract to SpaceX, for example, Musk rubbed it in by tweeting, “You have been judged,” along with a photo from the dystopian sci-fi flick Judge Dredd.

However the lawsuit shakes out, Starlink and Kuiper will compete for customers in the future. For now, SpaceX has a big head start. Amazon plans to launch over 3,000 satellites into low earth orbit. SpaceX has more than 5,000 in operation already, and its broadband service is becoming increasingly available—the popular retailer Costco recently began selling its receivers, for instance.

Amazon is making notable progress, but has a long way to go. After launching two prototype satellites in October, it announced this week that it had successfully used lasers to beam data between them, noting that eventually all its satellites will use the technology to create mesh network connectivity, allowing for greater reliability and faster internet speeds.

But here, too, Musk is well ahead of Bezos and company. He explained the advantages of such lasers in a July 2021 Twitter post, and his Starlink service announced in late September that it now has “more than 8,000 space lasers across the constellation.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Amazon’s Project Kuiper successfully tests satellite space lasers
Mack DeGeurin
Fri, December 15, 2023 

Amazon says "the OISL network enables it to transfer data from one part of the world to another without touching the ground."

SpaceX and its billionaire CEO Elon Musk may finally have a reason to look over their shoulder in the satellite internet race. On Thursday, Amazon revealed it successfully used a space laser technology called “optical inter-satellite link” (OISL) to beam a 100 gigabit per second connection between two of its Project Kuiper satellites stationed 621 miles apart from each other in low Earth orbit. That’s roughly the distance between New York and Cincinnati. Amazon believes that same tech could help it soon deliver fast and reliable broadband internet to some of the most remote regions on Earth.

Typically, LEO satellites send data between antennas at the customer's location and ground gateways that connect back to the internet. An OISL eliminates the need for that immediate data downlink to the ground, which can increase internet speed and reduce latency, particularly for end-users in remote areas. The ability to communicate directly between satellites means that, in practical terms, OISLs could bring strong internet connections to cruisers in the ocean or offshore oil rigs many miles away from land.

“With optical inter-satellite links across our satellite constellation, Project Kuiper will effectively operate as a mesh network in space,” Project Kuiper Vice President of Technology Rajeev Badyal said in a statement.

https://youtu.be/ZsUDWXI5KbM

“Mesh networks” generally refer to a group of connected devices that work side-by-side to form a single network. In a press release, Amazon says it plans to outfit its satellites with multiple optical terminals so several of them can connect with each other simultaneously. In theory, that should establish “high-speed laser cross links” that form the basis for a fast mesh network in space. Amazon expects this space-based mesh network should be capable of transferring data around 30% faster than terrestrial fiber optic cables sending data across roughly the same distance. How that actually plays out in practice for everyday users still remains to be seen since Project Kuiper’s services aren’t currently available to consumers.

Amazon launched its first two satellites into orbit in October and carried out the OISL tests in November. The two satellites, KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2, were reportedly able to send and receive data at speeds of roughly 100 gigabits per second for an hour-long test window. The satellites had to maintain that link while moving at up to 15,534 miles per hour.

Kuiper Government Solution Vice President Ricky Freeman said the network’s ability to provide “multiple paths to route through space” could be particularly appealing to customers “looking to avoid communications architecture that can be intercepted or jammed.”

When asked by PopSci if the potential customer described here is a military or defense contractor, an Amazon spokesperson said Project Kuiper is focused “first and foremost” on providing internet coverage to residential customers in remote and underserved communities. The spokesperson went on to say it may approach government partners in the future as well.

“We are committed to working with public and private sector partners that share our commitment to bridging the digital divide,” the spokesperson said. “We’re building a flexible, multi-purpose communications network to serve a variety of customers that will include space and government agencies, mobile operators, and emergency and disaster relief operations.”

Project Kuiper slowly moving out of the shadows

Project Kuiper launched in 2019 with a goal of creating a constellation of 3,236 satellites floating in low-Earth- orbit. Once completed, Amazon believes the constellation could provide fast and affordable broadband internet previously underserved regions around the globe. But the project has taken its sweet time to actually lift off. After more than four years, the company finally launched its first satellites into orbit in October. As of this month the company had reportedly ordered just 94 rocket launches according to CNBC.

SpaceX, Project Kuiper’s biggest rival, already has a huge head start. The company has reportedly launched more than 5,000 Starlink satellites into space and currently offers its satellite internet service to paying customers. In a surprise twist, Amazon recently struck a deal with its rival where it will use SpaceX rockets to quickly launch more Kuiper satellites into orbit

The new laser tests prove Amazon’s Project Kuiper is indeed much more than a wishful multi-billion dollar side quest. Whether or not it can ramp up satellite deployments in time to catch up with SpaceX, however, remains to be seen.


Jeff Bezos says humans will live in massive space stations before settling on other planets, once again veering away from Elon Musk's Mars ambitions

Lloyd Lee
Thu, December 14, 2023 

Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk both have ambitions of space colonization.


But the billionaires disagree on how exactly that future will play out.


Bezos said in an interview that "planetary surfaces" are too small for mass human colonization.

Jeff Bezos said in a recent interview that he hopes for a distant future in which "a trillion" humans will inhabit the solar system, but the only way to get there is with massive space stations.

The Amazon and Blue Origin founder said on the Lex Fridman podcast published Thursday that a trillion humans would mean there could be a "thousand Mozarts and a thousand Einsteins" at any given point — a vision he previously shared in a 2018 interview with Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company Axel Springer.

Our solar system has enough resources to support a civilization that large, Bezos said, but people won't be inhabiting other planets.

"The only way to get to that vision is with giant space stations, he said. "The planetary surfaces are just way too small unless you turn them into giant space stations."

Bezos said that humans will take resources from planets or the moon to support life on space colonies that resemble cylindrical space stations envisioned by the late physicist Gerard Kitchen O'Neill.

"They have a lot of advantages over planetary surfaces. You can spin them to get normal earth gravity. You can put them where you want them," he said of O'Neill-style colonies, adding that most people are going to want to live near Earth anyway.

Bezos's space colony agenda is notable in that it differs from his main competitor, SpaceX founder Elon Musk.

Bezos doesn't explicitly mention Musk in his answer to Fridman, but the two billionaires have butted heads in the past over what the future of space colonization will look like.

Musk has repeatedly spoken about his ambitions to colonize Mars, claiming that he wants to start building human settlements as soon as 2050.

SpaceX also has plans to help NASA send humans to the moon for the first time in 1972, but its colonization goals are mostly focused on Mars.

Bezos on the other hand has set his target on the moon, unveiling the giant Blue Moon lunar lander concept in 2019 that will help humans get there. He also has previously spoken about O'Neill-style space cylinders that can maintain a good climate all year long.

As the two battle over colonization, Musk apparently longs for a competitive space race, saying that he wished Bezos "would get out of his hot tub and yacht" and focus more on Blue Origin, according to his biographer Walter Isaacson.

Spokespersons for Blue Origin and SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment sent outside of working hours.

Experts previously told Business Insider about the scientific and ethical dilemmas that lie in both billionaires' grandiose plans of space colonization, including the problems with gravity and space's impact on the human immune system. But that doesn't mean their efforts are worthless.

"As a species, we've got to do this. We're going to crucify this planet sooner or later. So you might as well die going to Mars," Kevin Moffat, an associate professor at the University of Warwick who specializes in human physiology, told BI.

Bezos told Fridman that, in the future, humans will be able to choose to go back and forth between space stations and Earth, and that space colonization is ultimately a means to preserve the planet.

"We've sent robotic probes to all the planets," he said. "We know that this is the good one."

Vaping grows fastest among UK groceries in 2023

Reuters
Fri, December 15, 2023

FILE PHOTO: A man holds an electronic cigarette as he vapes at a Vape Shop in Monterrey

LONDON (Reuters) - Vaping products were the fastest growing category in UK grocery for the second year running in 2023, while sales of cigarettes, cigars and loose tobacco fell sharply, industry data showed.

Britain's government in October proposed banning younger generations from ever buying cigarettes and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it also needed to act on youth vaping.

And on Thursday the World Health Organization (WHO) urged governments to treat e-cigarettes in a similar way to tobacco and ban all flavours, threatening the bets tobacco companies have made on smoking alternatives.

Vaping products saw growth in value sales in Britain of 897.4 million pounds ($1.15 billion) in 2023, according to the data published on Saturday by market researcher NIQ and The Grocer.

The Lost Mary brand, owned by Chinese vaping firm Heaven Gifts, was the UK's fastest growing product with sales up by 310.6 million pounds on the previous year, the data showed.

NIQ said vaping products also saw growth on a volume basis, or the amount people bought, while sales of cigarettes and cigars and loose tobacco were down 849.1 million pounds and 393.1 million pounds respectively on a sales value basis.

Another growth area was in sales of sport and energy drinks, which rose 390.1 million pounds, boosted by the viral success of Prime Hydration, the brand fronted by YouTubers KSI and Logan Paul and distributed by Congo Brands.

Some of the fastest growing grocery categories in 2023 were as a result of inflation, NIQ said, with value sales of milk, cheese, fresh meat and poultry increasing significantly but masking volume declines.

It said sales of bagged snacks, chocolate and sweet biscuits also declined on a volume basis.

Meat-free products were in marked decline, down 34.8 million pounds on a value basis and also down on a volume basis.

NIQ also noted that own label sales increased 12.8% as shoppers sought value by trading down from branded items, which are generally more expensive.

($1 = 0.7831 pounds)

(Reporting by James Davey; Editing by Alexander Smith)

A Palestinian student was expelled from a Florida high school after his mother made pro-Palestinian posts on social media

Alaa Elassar, CNN
Fri, December 15, 2023 at 2:08 PM MST·7 min read

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has requested the US Department of Education investigate the expulsion of a Palestinian American high school student over pro-Palestinian content his mother posted on social media.

Jad Abuhamda, 15, was expelled on November 19 from the Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and his mother, Dr. Maha Almasri, was fired from her position as a math tutor at the school after she made posts criticizing Israel’s “collective brutality” against Palestinian civilians and children in Gaza during the ongoing war, CAIR said in a Wednesday news release.

The private school issued a statement saying they considered Almasri’s social media posts to be “hateful and incendiary,” which Almasri has denied.

“We viewed some of this individual’s posts — including, for example, an image of a soldier pointing a machine gun at an infant inside of an incubator and an image with commentary suggesting that some wanted to roast babies in an oven — as having the possibility of inciting hatred and creating a climate of fear,” Pine Crest School said. “Her behavior was also such that the School believed it could increase the risk of violence in our community and compromise the safety of our students, employees, and families.”

Almasri told CNN her posts were taken out of context and her son has been subjected to wrongful treatment.

CAIR Florida managing attorney Omar Saleh said during a Thursday news conference they have not received a response from the school to their letters requesting more information on why Jad was expelled. The school responded to CNN’s request for comment with a link to its news release.

“For these reasons, the Student Handbook and enrollment agreement make clear that if a parent engages in behavior that is ‘disruptive, intimidating, or overly aggressive’ or ‘interferes … with the School’s … safety procedures, responsibilities, or the accomplishment of its educational purpose or program,’ the School may take the action that it deems necessary to address the situation,” the school statement said.

CNN has independently viewed the social media posts, which discussed the mounting death toll of children in Gaza, the number of explosives dropped on Gaza, and the history of Palestinians who were violently expelled from Palestine in 1948 to form the state of Israel.

One of the photos the school alluded to is a cartoon graphic depicting an Israeli soldier pointing a gun at a baby in an incubator, a metaphorical reference to the premature babies at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, whose incubators stopped working when Israeli airstrikes cut off the generator powering the incubators. At least three of the babies died, according to previous CNN reporting.

Almasri says her posts were referring to the mounting humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where in response to Hamas’ October 7 attack that killed 1,200 people, Israel has launched a siege and war that has killed more than 18,700 Palestinians, 70% of whom are women and children, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza.

“None of my posts were inciting violence, they were merely shedding light on what was happening, the humanitarian crisis that was happening in Gaza,” Almasri said during a CAIR news conference Thursday. “It didn’t call for hate or violence or any of that. I feel that, again, criticizing a government or a set of people should not lead to any retaliation against that person who’s trying to express that and also take it upon themselves to also punish her child.”

Saleh said the group’s call for an investigation is about the expulsion of Jad, who Saleh says did not say or do anything to warrant the expulsion, as well as what CAIR described as inaccurate accusations regarding Almasri’s social media posts.

Jad, who is in 10th grade, has been unable to attend classes since November 19. The expulsion has interrupted his studies and college preparation, his mother told CNN, adding they now have to find a new school.

“He gets very depressed and withdrawn. He doesn’t know what to do with all this time,” Almasri told CNN. “He misses his friends a lot, he misses the school corridors, he misses everything. He’s trying to be strong, but he feels betrayed. At the end of the day, this is about expelling Jad for nothing he did.”
‘It’s almost like a weight lifted off my chest’

Jad, who was born and raised in Florida and grew up at the school, said he had always hidden his Palestinian identity until he was expelled as a result of his mother’s social media posts.

“Most people at Pine Crest had no idea that I was Palestinian, because I never felt safe to say that I was Palestinian at Pine Crest School,” Jad said. “Now that it’s out, it’s almost like a weight lifted off my chest … Now I feel that I can finally come out as who I am, which is a Palestinian kid who was wrongfully expelled by Pine Crest School.”

“Pine Crest School was my home, is a place where I was very comfortable, since 1st grade, since I was six years old,” Jad said during the news conference as he stood next to his mother.

Dr. Maha Almasri was fired from her position as a math tutor for her posts supporting Palestinians. - CNN

“The friends I made there became family, even the people who I am not as close with there are still my community. They are the people I’ve seen every day of my life for the past 10 years. To have that taken away from me, for no reason at all, is heartbreaking,” he added. “I didn’t do anything at all.”

A petition started by an anonymous person calling for the school to reinstate Jad garnered more than 31,000 signatures in over two weeks and the family has received “overwhelming” support from community members, Almasri said.

“Think about the other Jads in that school and around,” said Abdullah Jaber, executive director of CAIR-Florida. “Our main concern is suppressing the right of Americans to express what they feel within their heart is to be decent human rights.”

The treatment of pro-Palestinians who speak up, Saleh said, is dangerously “one-sided” and the same discipline is not applied to those who post or make pro-Israeli commentary.

Both CAIR representatives and Almasri denied accusations her social media content condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza incited hatred or violence and instead advocated for the rights of Palestinians.

CAIR has recorded more than 2,171 requests for help and reports of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bias in the nine weeks since October 7, including students and faculty being targeted for supporting Palestinian rights.

In Maryland, the advocacy group filed a discrimination complaint on behalf of a Black Muslim, Arab American teacher who was placed on administrative leave for her email signature, which included “from the river to the sea,” a controversial phrase supporting Palestinian rights.

By requesting a DOE investigation into Jad’s expulsion and the accusations made against Almasri based on her posts, CAIR said it hopes to protect other Arabs, Muslims and pro-Palestinian people from receiving unfair punishment for condemning Israel’s actions.

CNN has reached out to the Department of Education for comment on the request.

“We have to get real. Speech because it’s sympathetic to Palestinians or because it’s critical to Israeli military or because it evokes a sense of conscience for humanity, it doesn’t make it antisemitic, it doesn’t make it anti-Jewish, it’s not disruptive and it’s not inciteful,” Saleh said. “You can wish peace to Israel and say free Palestine at the sametime.”

One Billionaire Made It His Mission to Oust Harvard’s President. He Had Ulterior Motives.

Nitish Pahwa

SLATE
Thu, December 14, 2023



If you’d like to diagnose a particularly acute case of Main-Character Syndrome as it pertains to the latest college-campus handwringing, might I suggest Bill Ackman? The controversial 57-year-old hedge fund manager has injected himself into the outrage over a messy congressional hearing on antisemitism in universities this month, most notably by becoming the leading voice of an all-out pressure campaign to force Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, to resign.

After a clipped video of three university presidents testifying before Congress appeared to show them waffling when asked how their schools address hypothetical calls for a Jewish genocide, Ackman cheered the resignation of University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill, and made public threats to go after MIT President Sally Kornbluth. But it was the president of Harvard, Ackman’s alma mater, who became the target of his extreme and unadulterated ire.

In the past month, he has amplified misinformation around Gay’s career; shared a petition calling for a no-confidence vote on her leadership; boosted a tweet baselessly framing a letter that Gay wrote in 2020—calling for expanded “teaching and research on racial and ethnic inequality”—as a nefarious “agenda”; and tweeted myriad ridiculous and offensive statements about Gay, over and over. 

(They include accusing Harvard of only hiring Gay, a Black woman, to satisfy a diversity, equity, and inclusion requirement, as well as fatuous declarations about how “the DEI movement” has brought about “the McCarthy era Part II.”)

You don’t have to defend all parts of the presidents’ testimony—indeed, Gay herself apologized to the Harvard Crimson for getting “caught up” in “policies and procedures” in her responses—to recognize that bad-faith calls for these presidents to resign have been just a touch too loud.

There’s undoubtedly been an uptick in open antisemitic rhetoric and violence in the United States since Oct. 7, when Hamas forces killed, assaulted, and kidnapped hundreds of Israeli citizens. A small number of the many U.S. protests against Israel’s retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip—which has now killed about 18,000 Palestinian civilians—have featured some antisemitic elements or some whitewashing of Hamas’ barbarity. All of this warrants unequivocal condemnation.

What it does not warrant, however, is a response that equates activists who are justly concerned over the mass displacement and death of Palestinian Arabs with neo-Nazis calling for Jewish genocide. Critiques of the state of Israel are not attacks on all Jewish people, but—surprise, surprise—right-wingers are not interested in navigating arguments about that in good faith. Instead, they have pounced on a tantalizing opportunity to attack “diversity” and the left through ham-fisted rage-bait.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, the Republican chair of the House committee that oversaw the university hearing, has herself gleefully trafficked in antisemitic conspiracies about immigration and George Soros, while excusing fellow Republicans (including Donald Trump) who’ve done the same. But she was able, through the hearing, to conflate vague, context-dependent slogans like “globalize the intifada” with automatic calls for a Jewish genocide, using the confusion to berate the university presidents for any equivocation about whether this speech violated their school codes of conduct. Questions with important free speech implications were reduced to social media soundbites, and Magill resigned four days later.

The outrage has not abated, however, and few have been as outraged as Ackman. But his reactions are somewhat selective. The financier is pals with Elon Musk, who publicly kowtows to white supremacists and amplifies hateful rhetoric around Jewish figures; he even restored Kanye West’s Twitter account just a year after booting the rapper off the platform for his vile, unmistakable antisemitism. Ackman has consistently brushed off such inconvenient facts; he defended Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after the presidential candidate implied that COVID was “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and doesn’t seem to care that another candidate he likes, Vivek Ramaswamy, has baldly endorsed the antisemitic Great Replacement Theory. No—Ackman’s saved his invective to lambaste perceived wrongdoings at Harvard, instead.

In October, he demanded a hiring blacklist to penalize Harvard students who were part of organizations that co-signed a letter claiming Israel bears responsibility for the Hamas attack. (Talk about McCarthyism.) In November, about a month before the congressional hearings, he penned a social media open letter to President Gay that accused Harvard’s DEI office specifically of discriminating against Jewish, white, and Asian students (a common and unfounded talking point among the conservative Silicon Valley set). He claimed there had been little to no trouble with antisemitism at Harvard in recent years prior to Oct. 7 (an absolutely bizarre thing to say), and implied that the mere presence of pro-Palestine student rallies is no different from violence against Jewish students. On Dec. 3, just before the hearings, Ackman posted another letter reiterating the same points.

Following the hearings, Ackman doubled down—quadrupled down—in tweets that implied that Gay only got her job because she’s a Black woman and calculated the probabilities of future resignations. He also penned a letter to Harvard’s governing boards reading, in part: “Claudine Gay has done more damage to the reputation of Harvard University than any individual in our nearly 500-year history.” (Quite a way to whitewash the history of Harvard-employed slaveholders, not to mention its past discrimination against Jewish applicants!)

Indeed, Ackman wanted so badly to be the alum responsible for ousting President Gay that he whined about not being “polled” by the Harvard Alumni Association before it expressed its support for her. He then boosted dubious “reporting” from far-right activist Christopher Rufo that accused Gay of plagiarism in her past academic work, charges that Harvard’s governing board had previously reviewed and determined to be “a few instances of inadequate citation” that merited “no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct.” (Rufo, it should be mentioned, recently held a Twitter Space where a participant advocated for electing white nationalists as allies in power against the left.)

In one sense, it all worked: Ackman’s name has certainly been featured in plenty of coverage of the hullabaloo—the Wall Street Journal spotlighted his “ruthless quest to oust college presidents.” In another sense, though, Ackman’s campaign to push himself as representative of real Harvard values was belied not just by the alumni association, but also by hundreds of its professors, hundreds of Black alumni, and by the Harvard Crimson’s editorial board, all of whom stood by Gay.

Ackman certainly seems to believe his campaign backfired: When the Harvard board officially announced Monday night that Gay would not be leaving, Ackman cited anonymous reports that the board was “concerned it would look like they were kowtowing to me.” Elon Musk, whose social network is rife with actual antisemitism, echoed former Trump aide Stephen Miller’s reply to Ackman that Harvard should be defunded.

Bizarre as all of this is, Ackman’s self-promotion has obscured a perhaps far baser motivation for attacking Harvard. A New York Times report published Tuesday noted that “Ackman, by his own admission and according to others around him, resents that officials at his alma mater, to which he’s donated tens of millions of dollars, and its president, Claudine Gay, have not heeded his advice on a variety of topics.” These include his ideas for a testing lab to get students back to campus during the peak of the COVID pandemic, and his ultimately empty threat to withhold donations from Harvard fundraisers “because they hadn’t heeded his advice on how to invest an earlier donation.”

The donation, Ackman expounded in a tweet, consisted of $10 million of stock in a private company, Coupang, that Ackman gave to the school in 2017 under the agreement that “if and when the company went public in a few years, if the stock was worth more than $15m, I would have the right to allocate the excess realized value above $15m to the Harvard-related initiative of my choosing.” Harvard’s endowment managers sold this stock in March 2020, and Ackman only learned of that when Coupang readied for an IPO in 2021. Ackman contends that the “the premise of the [Times] story is false” but he “continue[s] to have a serious issue with Harvard” over l’affair Coupang.

What’s the point of all this? I have no doubt Ackman is at least somewhat sincere in his public mission to rout out campus antisemitism; he has often spoken of his upbringing in a Jewish family and about finding a welcome home in Harvard’s Jewish communities. But because I’ve been familiar with Ackman and his punditry for a while now—including his characterization of Kyle Rittenhouse as a “patriot,” his interest in RFK Jr.’s COVID vaccine skepticism, and his 2022 funding of an anti-social-justice financial firm launched by Vivek Ramaswamy, long before the latter’s candidacy—I suspect there’s also something else at play here.

It’s no secret that the famed tech oligarchs of Silicon Valley are miffed by the yearslong “techlash” that’s downgraded them from visionary innovators to profit-seeking manipulators in the eyes of the public, the press, the government, and their own employees. It’s also no secret that, as part of their backlash to that backlash, many of those tech figures have denounced all four of these pillars of society in turn—assuming a reactionary posture where only they deserve to be the overlords of a world gone mad, marking a stark pivot in their political strategies.

Countless absurd, troubling examples of this may be gleaned from just the past few years alone: the persistent support for Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, which has been celebrated by white nationalists as helping to extend the reach of white nationalist messaging; concerted efforts to influence urban politics, starting with attacks on criminal justice reformers in San Francisco and extending to efforts to build techie-utopian cities; and the self-fashioning of these investors and coders into all-around pundits who weigh in on everything from geopolitical conflicts to constitutional law to human health, no matter their (lack of) expertise in the subject matter.

Increasingly, elite Big Tech players are allied with far-right influencers against the Big Tech–skeptical left: A.I. enthusiasts are making common cause with eugenicist philosophers; Silicon Valley is embracing disreputable “reporters” like Bari Weiss and Michael Shellenberger; and Musk is actively encouraging antisemitic conspiracy-mongers like Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, and Kanye West. Now Ackman, too, is boosting his clout and power with the assists of Rufo, Musk, and white nationalist Stephen Miller. That trend, frankly, is far worse for Jewish Americans—including those on Harvard’s campus—than anything President Gay has said or written.

Harvard President Claudine Gay corrects two scholarly articles following allegations of plagiarism

Sabrina Souza and Matt Egan, CNN
Fri, December 15, 2023 

Ken Cedeno/Reuters


Harvard President Claudine Gay submitted corrections to two scholarly articles published in 2001 and 2017 following allegations of plagiarism, University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain told CNN on Friday.

Harvard commissioned an independent review of Gay’s writings following the plagiarism accusations. Gay denied the allegations, saying in a statement last week that she stands by the integrity of her scholarship.

“Throughout my career, I have worked to ensure my scholarship adheres to the highest academic standards,” she said.

The Harvard Corporation, the university’s top governing body, on Tuesday announced that the review revealed inadequate citations in a few instances but “no violation of Harvard’s standards for research misconduct.” It said then that Gay would request “four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications.”

Swain on Friday confirmed Gay made the corrections in an emailed statement. He said that the edits involved “quotations marks and citations,” correcting a reference to three articles, according to Harvard’s student newspaper the Crimson.

Bill Ackman a billionaire Harvard donor and vocal critic of Gay, has recently been calling on Gay to resign, in part because of allegations of plagiarism. But the Harvard Corporation said that the review was requested before Ackman first made his claims of plagiarism last Saturday.

“With regard to President Gay’s academic writings, the University became aware in late October of allegations regarding three articles,” the Harvard Corporation said in its Tuesday statement. “At President Gay’s request, the Fellows promptly initiated an independent review by distinguished political scientists and conducted a review of her published work. On December 9, the Fellows reviewed the results, which revealed a few instances of inadequate citation.”

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What firing or not firing a university president accomplishes
Harold Maass, The Week US
Thu, December 14, 2023 

The University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The House on Wednesday passed a bipartisan resolution rebuking the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology over their testimony on their handling of rising antisemitism on college campuses since the Israel-Hamas war erupted. Lawmakers at a Dec. 7 congressional hearing asked whether someone calling for genocide of Jews would violate campus rules, and the administrators gave what The Boston Globe described as "legalistic and equivocal answers" that outraged alumni, donors, and politicians.

Claudine Gay of Harvard and Sally Kornbluth of MIT survived calls to step down. Harvard's board called Gay "the right leader to help our community heal" in "this tumultuous and difficult time." But, CNN noted, Penn President Liz Magill resigned last weekend after donors canceled gifts and the board of the university's Wharton Business School called for new leadership.

Scott Bok, the chair of Penn's board of trustees, also resigned. He told USA Today that Magill had been "over prepared and over lawyered" before heading into a "hostile forum." "She provided a legalistic answer to a moral question, and that made for a dreadful 30-second sound bite in what was more than five hours of testimony," he said. Will all of this scrutiny and criticism of university presidents have any impact on the thorny issue of protecting free expression — and stamping out hate speech — on college campuses?

Booting college presidents accomplishes nothing

Universities can't salvage their reputations by publicly shaming their presidents, says Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker in The Boston Globe. "A history of punishing speech is what sapped the presidents' credibility in the first place." At Harvard, "using the wrong pronoun is a hanging offense but calling for another Holocaust depends on context." Instead of expanding "forbidden speech" to include antisemitism and Islamophobia, "universities should adopt a clear and conspicuous policy on academic freedom." The way to fight "deplorable speech" is to refute it, not criminalize it.

That's why standing by these university leaders was the right thing to do, says Jill Filipovic at CNN. "On the merits, they are correct. Context does matter. And permitted speech should be as broad as possible." Their "most effective questioner," Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), set a trap for them when she asked Magill — "Yes or no?" — whether calling for genocide of Jews violates Penn's rules. "She was referring to the now-common pro-Palestine chants 'from the river to the sea' and the use of the word 'intifada,'" gray areas. College administrators should "limit campus speech" only when it "threatens or harasses or incites," not when some simply find it "ugly and offensive."

"Antisemitism is a real, significant problem at Harvard and across the United States," says the editorial board of the Harvard Crimson, the university's student newspaper. Vicious posts are everywhere on social media, and hate crimes against Jewish people in New York City have tripled from October 2022 to October 2023. But "the problem of antisemitism demands nuanced and serious discussion. Instead, it's been treated as a prop in political theater."

Leaders must be held accountable

There is nothing phony about the fear of Jewish students who "feel unsafe on campus," says Alan Dershowitz in The Boston Globe. They are responding to "actual incidents" of harassment. Gay's defenders insist the pressure to fire her was inconsistent with Harvard's commitment to academic freedom. But university presidents should be held accountable for the atmosphere on campus. It's fair to call them out for failing "to make Jewish students feel safe."

"Harvard may think this will all blow over," says Joe Concha in The Messenger. But standing by Gay won't stop donations from drying up, or Jewish students from seeking other schools where they feel protected. One thing keeping Gay on the job won't do is make Harvard a place where all feel safe.

"Too few people understand basic concepts of academic freedom and free expression" on college campuses today, says Danielle Allen in The Washington Post. We've "gotten lost" trying to "protect intellectual freedom and establish a culture of mutual respect at the same time." It's essential to discipline people for genuine harassment, like distributing antisemitic or Islamophobic flyers. It's also OK to correct or challenge ideas we think are wrong, just as a professor would correct a student's math. Schools must write clear policies that encourage free debate while discouraging a "culture of intimidation." The "health of our democracy" depends on it.

Bill Ackman took a Wall Street tactic to an Ivy League fight in his attempt to oust Harvard’s president
Analysis by Allison Morrow, CNN
Fri, December 15, 2023 at 12:08 PM MST·6 min read

When Bill Ackman, a financier who got rich betting against companies’ stocks, decided to wage a battle against Harvard’s president, he relied on a strategy that earned him a reputation as one of the most ruthless investors on Wall Street.

Ackman, a Harvard alum who sits on the law school’s board, and a handful of other deep-pocketed donors have been furious over what they see as Harvard’s inaction on antisemitism on campus. That anger reached a boiling point earlier this month when Harvard’s president, Claudine Gay, stumbled during congressional testimony and failed to give a full-throated condemnation of hate speech calling for genocide against Jews — comments that she later apologized for.

Of all the donors threatening to yank their money from Harvard, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania and others, none have been as relentless as Ackman. The billionaire has posted open letters, tweeted and even pushed to publicly identify students who expressed anti-Israel sentiment in the days after Hamas’ attack.

In particular, Ackman wants Gay, the first Black woman to lead Harvard, fired. To that end, he has gone on X to claim (without evidence), that Harvard hired Gay only to fulfill diversity requirements. He has called Gay unqualified for the job and accused her of plagiarism — an accusation she and Harvard deny.

All of Ackman’s rabble-rousing to try to sway public opinion comes straight from the activist short-selling playbook that he practically authored. Put simply, activist shorts win when the company they’ve bet against fails. One of the most vital tools for executing such a play: a big, booming megaphone.

CNN has reached out to Ackman via his company, Pershing Square Capital Management. Representatives didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment.

Ackman made his fortune as the founder and CEO of Pershing Square, a heavyweight hedge fund that notched a series of wins taking big stakes in companies like JC Penney, Target and Wendy’s. But recently, following some notable losses in the 2010s, Ackman has steered the fund away from the activist-short strategy he’s known for.

In the spring of 2022, Ackman announced that he had “permanently” retired from activist short-selling.

Of course, old habits die hard, and Ackman, who is 57 and worth just shy of $4 billion, according to Forbes, clearly isn’t done agitating.

His message to Harvard is not unlike the message he delivered to the businesses he has targeted in the past: Run your business the way I say, or watch me and my followers tank your stock (and your reputation). The financial saber-rattling succeeded in getting other big donors and right-wing pundits to align around his view. But it also catalyzed anger among conservative activists, some of whom responded by doxxing dozens of the students Ackman accused of antisemitic speech.

Ackman’s crusade to get Harvard’s president fired hit a big snag this week when the university’s board rallied to her side. But it hasn’t silenced Ackman, who continues to air his grievances on social media and sling allegations of antisemitism against Harvard. That’s also part of the short-seller playbook: keep hammering your target no matter what.

There may be a sizable hitch in Ackman’s strategy, however, in applying ruthless capitalist maneuvering against a venerated Ivy League school: Harvard isn’t Wall Street.

Why Ackman hasn’t won

Harvard University President Claudine Gay. - Ken Cedeno/Reuters

Infamously, Ackman in 2012 made a $1 billion bet against Herbalife, the multi-level marketing company that sells dietary supplements. He claimed the bet was an ethical choice and that Herbalife was a scam. But he had a powerful foil: Carl Icahn, a rival activist investor who promoted the company’s stock just as loudly as Ackman trashed it. In 2018, Ackman ended his short bet, and Icahn claimed he made $1 billion from the ordeal.

Similarly, Ackman may have met his match with Harvard. Despite his attacks, more than 700 faculty members, 800 Black alumni and ultimately, on Tuesday, Harvard’s highest governing board, came to Gay’s defense. At Harvard, Ackman isn’t just going up against C-suite executives and corporate board members, he’s taking on a phalanx of donors and power players who are just as wealthy and savvy as he is — including billionaire Penny Pritzker, the Harvard Corporation’s most senior leader.

Harvard is a private institution, and the people Ackman needs to persuade to turn off the money supply aren’t only everyday shareholders but the wealthy donors who, so far, haven’t publicly condemned Gay or Harvard as vociferously as he has.

Even if he had, Harvard may be able to withstand the punishment. Harvard’s nearly $51 billion endowment is bigger than the GDP of some small countries.
Taking on Harvard

Ackman started sounding off about Harvard’s handling of antisemitism on campus shortly after the October 7 Hamas attack. He called for the students who blamed Israel for the attack to be outed so “that none of us inadvertently hire” them.

Later, he said on X that the leaders of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania should “resign in disgrace” over their congressional testimony.

His campaign against Gay hasn’t managed to oust her. But Ackman carried the banner for an army of pundits and wealthy donors who have been on the attack against what they perceive as the leftist agenda on college campuses.

Ackman this week denounced the doxxing trucks prowling Harvard’s campus, which have displayed students names and faces and called Gay “the best friend Hamas ever had.” But in a follow-up post on X, he suggested the trucks harassing Gay may serve a legitimate purpose.

“Perhaps the doxxing trucks will give President Gay some perspective on what it is like to be Jewish and/or Israeli on the @Harvard,” he wrote on X.

If Harvard were a publicly traded company, its stock may have fallen the minute Ackman went on offense, causing other investors to flee. But Harvard isn’t beholden to shareholders with a fiduciary duty to maximize value. As a private institution, it serves an array of parties, including students, faculty and alumni, many of whom bristle at the notion that one wealthy donor could wield such outsize influence.

“We can’t function as a university if we’re answerable to random rich guys and the mobs they mobilize on Twitter,” Ben Eidelson, a professor at Harvard Law School, told the New York Times this week.

Why Ackman could still win

What undid former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill was ultimately a total revolt against her: A donor threatened to pull a $100 million gift from the university. Politicians called for her ouster. And her own boards at Wharton and Penn ultimately rebelled against her.

Ackman has some powerful allies on his side, too. New York Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik has not let up on her calls to oust Gay and MIT president Sally Kornbluth, who, like Gay, struggled to say whether calls on campus for the genocide of Jews would violate school rules.

Stefanik and her peers continue to probe antisemitism on campuses, and Ackman continues to bang the drum against Gay.

If there’s a lesson to be gleaned from Ackman’s Herbalife saga, it’s that Ackman rarely backs down, even if it costs him a small fortune.

Who is Bill Ackman, Harvard's fierce and ultra-wealthy critic?

George Glover
Fri, December 15, 2023 

Bill Ackman is known in the world of investing for risky bets that sometimes pay handsomely — and sometimes not. He waged an unsuccessful six-year campaign against dietary-supplement firm Herbalife, and made a now-legendary bet that the COVID-19 pandemic would tank the stock market.

He's already known for combativeness in business, describing himself in a 2012 interview as "unfiltered." Increasingly, he's just as outspoken on politics.

Since Hamas' terrorist attacks on Israel October 7, Ackman has led corporate America in condemning elite US colleges, their students, and their leaders for failing to address what he sees as a rise in on-campus antisemitism.

That campaign has resulted in Wall Street firms rescinding job offers to students, and political scrutiny of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania. As Ackman and his peers kept up the pressure, Penn president Elizabeth Magill, stepped down after a rough Congressional appearance.

Here's what you need to know about Ackman, including how he made his billions and his stances on hot-button issues.
Billionaire investor

Bill AckmanYouTube / Saïd Business School, University of Oxford

Ackman, 57, is the son of real-estate mogul Larry Ackman, who helped finance iconic New York buildings including Manhattan Plaza and Chelsea Market. The younger Ackman received his MBA from Harvard in 1992, the same year he cofounded investment firm Gotham Partners with a fellow graduate.

In his 12 years running Gotham, he made a high-profile bet against the bond insurer MBIA — which paid off during the 2008 financial crisis — and started a feud with activist investor Carl Icahn that has now rumbled on for two decades.

In 2004, Ackman used tens of millions of dollars of his own money to set up Pershing Square Capital Management, the hedge fund he still runs today. In its lifetime, Pershing Square has delivered returns of over 1,500%, according to an annual investor letter published earlier this year. The benchmark S&P 500 stock-market index is up around 440% over the same period.

Some of Ackman's best-known Pershing Square trades include building up big stakes in Target and Chipotle Mexican Grill, unsuccessfully shorting shares in Herbalife, and turning $27 million into $2.6 billion by hedging against stocks crashing during the pandemic. The latter move had been inspired by watching the 2011 film "Contagion", starring Matt Damon, he said.

In 2023, Ackman disclosed a billion-dollar investment in Google parent Alphabet and has made around $200 million betting against 30-year US Treasury bonds, which cratered in late September and early October with investors fretting about the Federal Reserve's interest-rate hikes.

Forbes estimates his net worth to be $3.8 billion, making him the world's 765th-richest person.

Polarizing politics

What makes Ackman a relative rarity among Wall Street's elite is his outspokenness — in contrast with more media-shy hedge-fund legends, such as Citadel's Ken Griffin and Point72's Steve Cohen.

Ackman has historically donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats including Barack Obama, Al Gore, and Pete Buttigieg.

But he called on Joe Biden to step down last month, warning that the incumbent president's "legacy will not be a good one if he is the nominee." He also said in November he's become "much more open to Republican candidates", and has given money to PACs supporting Vivek Ramaswamy, as well as anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, formerly a Democratic candidate and now independent.

It's on Elon Musk's social-media platform X that Ackman shares the majority of his opinions, often clashing with establishment views. His account had just under a million followers as of Wednesday.

The billionaire joined Twitter in 2017. For his first three years on the platform, he posted infrequently — but he became more active and widely-followed after the pandemic, during which he implored the US government to lock the population down and speed up its vaccination rollout.

On X, he's voiced support for high-profile figures including Kyle Rittenhouse ("a civic-minded patriot"), Sam Bankman-Fried ("telling the truth"), and Elon Musk ("not an antisemite"). He's also repeatedly defended RFK Jr.'s skepticism of vaccines — and called for Harvard to release the names of members of the student organizations behind a letter blaming Israel for Hamas' October attacks.

Now, Ackman has zeroed in on Harvard president Claudine Gay, as well as MIT's Sally Kornbluth and the University of Pennsylvania's Liz Magill, all of whom he said should "resign in disgrace" for a perceived failure to condemn on-campus antisemitism during a congressional hearing earlier this month. Magill stood down Sunday, but Harvard and MIT have released statements backing Gay and Kornbluth.

Ackman has reserved particular fury for Gay, his alma mater's first Black president. In a post on X last week, he claimed, without presenting evidence, that someone with "first-person knowledge" told him Harvard wouldn't consider a candidate for that position who didn't meet Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) criteria.

Business Insider's Linette Lopez wrote in October that Ackman's reputation now on Wall Street was "king of uninformed, unnecessary, and seemingly unlimited tweets."

When Magill resigned this week after her Congressional appearance, Ackman posted on X: "One down."



With one university president's scalp under his belt, it's unlikely Ackman will stop.

Business Insider

Medieval 'curse tablet' summoning Satan discovered at the bottom of a latrine in Germany

Jennifer Nalewicki
Fri, December 15, 2023 

A piece of metal with an inscription. .


Archaeologists in Germany have discovered a rolled-up piece of lead that they think could be a medieval "curse tablet" that invokes "Beelzebub," or Satan.

Upon first glance, the researchers thought the "inconspicuous piece of metal" was simply scrap, since it was found at the bottom of a latrine at a construction site in Rostock, a city in northern Germany, according to a translated statement.

However, once they unfurled it, archaeologists realized that the 15th-century artifact contained a cryptic message etched in Gothic minuscule that was barely visible to the naked eye. It read, "sathanas taleke belzebuk hinrik berith." Researchers deciphered the text as a curse that was directed toward a woman named Taleke and a man named Hinrik (Heinrich) and summoned Beelzebub (another name for Satan) and Berith (a demonic spirit).

While researchers may never know who these people were, they did offer some ideas for the reasoning behind the bad blood.

Related: 'Curse tablet' with oldest Hebrew name of god is actually a fishing weight, experts argue

"Did someone want to break up Taleke and Heinrich's relationship? Was this about spurned love and jealousy, should someone be put out of the way?" the researchers asked in the statement.

Archaeologists said the finding was unique, especially since similar "curse tablets are actually known from ancient times in the Greek and Roman regions from 800 B.C. to A.D. 600," Jörg Ansorge, an archaeologist with the University of Greifswald in Germany who led the excavation, said in the statement. For instance, a 1,500-year-old lead tablet inscribed in Greek and found in what is now Israel calls on demons to harm a rival dancer, while 2,400-year-old tablets found in Greece ask the underworld gods to target several tavern keepers.

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"Our discovery, on the other hand, can be dated to the 15th century," Ansorge said. "This is truly a very special find."

Researchers weren't surprised to find the artifact at the bottom of a latrine, considering that curse tablets "were placed where they were difficult or impossible to find" by those who have been cursed, according to the statement.