'Fire that smelly old man': Yelp freezes McDonald's comments amid anti-Trump reviews

YOU KNOW ITS FAKE CAUSE HE HAS NO HAIRNET

Erik De La Garza
October 22, 2024 

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump works behind the counter during a visit to McDonald's in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, U.S. October 20, 2024. Doug Mills/Pool via REUTERS

Yelp temporarily disabled new reviewers from posting comments until it probes a spike of “unusual reviews” at the Pennsylvania McDonald’s where Donald Trump worked the fry baskets and drive-through window.


The “unusual activity alert” was issued days after the former president held a photo-op at the fast food restaurant in Feasterville, closing down normal operations for hours, and prompting a flood of Yelp reviews which, as NBC News reported, "varied in content, jest and vulgarity, with some criticizing the franchise owner for hosting the Trump campaign."

“Customer service was a joke. Senile old man got bronzer on my fries, didn't wear gloves. Repeated himself several times, something about Ronald McDonald in the showers at the golf club? Idk. 0 stars. Do not recommend,” read one user’s one-star review.


ALSO READ: 'He’s mentally ill:' NY laughs ahead of Trump's Madison Square Garden rally

Another one-star reviewer wrote: “The person who was at the drive through vaguely resembled someone who I saw on the news for being a convicted felon..”

A two-star reviewer wrote: "Fire that smelly old man cursing at the fryer! Employees seemed extremely angry and confused like he didn't even really know where he was. I think I smelled s---. Fries still pretty good."


The fast food restaurant received more than 145 reviews before Yelp issued its “unusual activity alert” and halted commenting Monday, according to NBC News.

A notice on the McDonald’s location’s Yelp page informs users that “this business recently received increased public attention, which often means people come to this page to post their views on the news.”

The message added that the site was working to “investigate whether the content you see here reflects actual consumer experiences rather than the recent events.” Yelp encouraged users who had a “first-hand experience with the business” to check back later to leave a review.

Lara Trump admits ex-president's McDonald's visit was 'stunt' after hairnet complaints

David Edwards
October 22, 2024 

Bianca de la Garza and Lara Trump (Newsmax/screen grab)

Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump admitted that former President Donald Trump's recent visit to a Pennsylvania McDonald's was a political stunt after he was criticized for not wearing a hairnet while serving fries.

During an interview on Newsmax, host Bianca de la Garza told Lara Trump that Republicans had more "joy" than Vice President Kamala Harris' campaign.

"I think that that is why you've seen so many people move in Donald Trump's direction," Lara Trump agreed. "Well, Donald Trump was having a great time at a McDonald's, working the fryer there, putting extra fries in for people, handing them out through the drive-through window."

"Kamala Harris could never have gone in there and done this sort of thing and actually had the same impact as Donald Trump, and she knows it," she continued. "And that's why you see the left so upset about this. And they're saying, he didn't work the whole shift. It wasn't a full shift at McDonald's.

"I saw somebody say he wasn't wearing a hairnet. Everybody knows that this was a political stunt. Yeah, but it was fun and it was lighthearted."

The Newsmax host accused Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) of taking "cheap shots" at the former president over his McDonald's "costume."

"They are making fun of us. It's not a costume. It's a uniform," the host said.

"Yeah, and it's just gross," Lara Trump complained. "So when you hear people go out there and try to knock somebody for a retail politics-type stop, like at a McDonald's, I think it's ridiculous."

Watch the video below from Newsmax.

KARMA IS A BITCH

Judge orders Rudy Giuliani to turn over his NYC penthouse to defamed election workers

David Edwards
October 22, 2024 

FILE PHOTO: Former mayor of New York City and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani speaks at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum during a rally held by Republican presidential nominees and former U.S. President Donald Trump, in Uniondale, New York, U.S., September 18, 2024. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

A federal judge this week ordered former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to turn over real estate and luxury possessions to two former Georgia election workers who sued him for defamation.

In a 24-page order on Tuesday, Judge Lewis Liman said Giuliani must place the property in receivership controlled by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. Giuliani owes the women $150 million after a judge determined they were defamed following the 2020 presidential election.

Freeman and Moss could potentially sell Giuliani's Manhattan penthouse apartment for millions. Other luxury items would be transferred directly to the women's ownership.

It was not immediately clear if Giuliani would be able to keep his Palm Beach condominium or the four New York Yankees World Series rings. The former mayor claims to have given the rings to his son, Andrew.

Liman said that the women were also entitled to $2 million, which former President Donald Trump is said to owe Giuliani.

'Sweet justice': Rudy Giuliani mocked as judge seizes almost all of his property

Matthew Chapman
October 22, 2024

Rudy Giuliani (Photo by Mandel Ngan for AFP)

Former President Donald Trump's legal ally Rudy Giuliani was roundly mocked on social media after a devastating court order against him Tuesday.

Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor and New York City mayor who has been one of Trump's most dedicated surrogates, helped push baseless lawsuits to try to throw out the 2020 presidential election, and ended up facing a $148 million default judgment in a defamation suit brought by a pair of Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, whom he had accused of stuffing the ballot box in Atlanta.

Already in a dire financial situation, and with his bid to shield his assets through bankruptcy being thrown out in court, a judge has ordered the seizure of Giuliani's New York penthouse and several other assets to start paying off the money.
The video player is currently playing an ad.

Commenters had a field day over the new development.

"Well that is called sweet justice and should serve as a deterrent to others in this MAGA orbit," wrote former DOJ attorney and political consultant Julie Zebrak.

"When you repeatedly lie about people committing election fraud in 2020, it can lead to $146 million judgments against you," wrote congressional reporter Jamie Dupree. "On the bright side, Rudy Giuliani won't have to sell his 3 World Series rings - at least not yet."

"A federal judge has ordered the property of election denying TRAITOR Rudy Giuliani to be put into receivership," wrote singer/songwriter Bill Madden. "Repeating the lies of the loathsome piece of sh-t, Giuliani put the lives of election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss in danger — and he is now paying the price."

"The Martin Scorsese saga of the rise and fall of Rudy Giuliani is going to be excellent," wrote statehouse reporter Jake Zuckerman, noting that among the other possessions Giuliani has to surrender are a luxury watch collection, movie star Lauren Bacall's former Mercedes, and a jersey signed by baseball legend Joe DiMaggio.

'Definition of a fascist:' Ex-White House chief of staff John Kelly sounds alarm on Trump

Erik De La Garza
October 22, 2024 

Gen. John Kelly (Wikimedia Commons) and Donald Trump (AFP)


Former Marine General John Kelly, who also served as Donald Trump’s longest-running chief of staff, blasted his old boss in interviews with the New York Times, spurred by the former president’s recent threats to use the military on the “enemy from within.”

“I think this issue of using the military on — to go after — American citizens is one of those things I think is a very, very bad thing — even to say it for political purposes to get elected — I think it’s a very, very bad thing, let alone actually doing it,” Kelly told the Times in the wide-ranging interview that hit on topics from Trump’s “lack of understanding of history and the Constitution” — to his speaking "positively of Hitler."

Kelly told the newspaper that his former boss “met the definition of a fascist, would govern like a dictator if allowed, and had no understanding of the Constitution or the concept of rule of law.”

He confirmed reports that Trump “made admiring statements about Hitler, had expressed contempt for disabled veterans and had characterized those who died on the battlefield for the United States as 'losers' and 'suckers' — comments first reported by The Atlantic.”

Kelly said that Trump is the only president in his lifetime to notderstand American values and reject the Constitution.

“He just doesn’t understand the values — he pretends, he talks, he knows more about America than anybody, but he doesn’t,” Kelly said, according to the publication.

He added in the interviews that denials by Trump and his aides regarding the former president reportedly referring to injured and killed service members as “losers and suckers” were false.

“The time in Paris was not the only time that he ever said it,” Kelly told the Times. He continued: "Whenever John McCain’s name came up, he’d go through this rant about him being a loser, and all those people were suckers, and why do you people think that people getting killed are heroes?”

'Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals?' John Kelly opens up about Trump's shocking ask

Matthew Chapman
October 22, 2024 

Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump makes a campaign speech at the Johnny Mercer Theatre Civic Center in Savannah, Georgia, U.S. September 24, 2024. REUTERS/Megan Varner/File Photo

Former President Donald Trump's one-time chief of staff retired Marine Gen. John Kelly told The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg more details about the infamous exchange in which he demanded Kelly act more like the generals for Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.


Kelly, who also served as Trump's Homeland Security secretary and has become increasingly outspoken against the former president since leaving the administration, has previously revealed Trump's obsession with Hitler.

Peter Baker and Susan Glasser's book, The Divider: Trump in the White House, has already detailed that Trump asked Kelly, “Why can’t you be like the German generals?” at a moment when he was frustrated over his lack of full compliance from the military on every scheme he wanted to do. Kelly told Trump that Hitler's generals actually “tried to kill Hitler three times and almost pulled it off,” which Trump didn't believe, saying, “No, no, no, they were totally loyal to him.”

Kelly had a bit more detail to add in his conversation with Goldberg.

Specifically, Kelly, said Goldberg, "told me that when Trump raised the subject of 'German generals,' Kelly responded by asking, '‘Do you mean Bismarck’s generals?’' He went on: 'I mean, I knew he didn’t know who Bismarck was, or about the Franco-Prussian War. I said, ‘Do you mean the kaiser’s generals? Surely you can’t mean Hitler’s generals? And he said, ‘Yeah, yeah, Hitler’s generals.’ I explained to him that [Erwin] Rommel had to commit suicide after taking part in a plot against Hitler.' Kelly told me Trump was not acquainted with Rommel."

Many of the former military officials who held high positions in Trump's administration have warned they believe he is unfit for office — a point that Vice President Kamala Harris frequently brings up in interviews, debates, and elsewhere on the campaign trail.

The story concludes the recorded, on-the-record interview series by saying that Kelly had “nothing good to say about Mr. Trump.”

Montana GOP Senate candidate used

 $160M meant for local job creation to

 pay off investors: report

Adam Nichols
October 22, 2024

Tim Sheehy (Credit: Tim Sheehy for Senate press materials)

A Republican Senate candidate running on his private sector experience is now being scrutinized for a deal in which he sided with wealthy investors over his own would-be constituents.

NBC News reported Tuesday that Tim Sheehy — who is running against Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) in a competitive Senate race — has yet to explain why jobs his company promised to Montanans have yet to materialize.

The outlet reported that his aerial firefighting business, Bridger Aerospace Group, convinced Gallatin County, Montana commissioners in 2020 to use the county's credit rating to raise $160 million in a bond issue. That money would then be used to help the company expand, creating local jobs in the process.

Bridger executives ultimately won over county leaders, who unanimously voted for Bridger's proposal. But four years later, that money has been spent without any benefit to the county.

READ MORE: 'The company is bleeding cash': GOP Senate candidate's failing business becomes a liability

According to NBC, $134 million of that $160 million (more than 83%) ended up in the pockets of the New York-based private equity firm Blackstone Group in 2022. And while Bridger pledged to build two new hangars in Gallatin County, only one hangar has actually been built, and its workforce has actually declined rather than grown as promised.

“When, where and how benefits accrue locally when local governments support these types of business ventures is exactly the right question to ask,” University of Chicago public policy professor Justin Marlowe said. “If the project fails, it sends a signal about the future of that jurisdiction.”

Bridger has been bleeding money for years as it struggles to stay above water. Since the $160 million bond issue was granted in 2022, the company has lost roughly $150 million. That includes more than $20 million in the first quarter of 2024 alone, and $77.4 million of losses in 2023. NBC reported that Bridger's stock price is at a paltry $3.60 per share, which is a 64% decline from when it launched its initial public offering in 2023.

The network further reported that an independent auditor estimated that Sheehy's company may not survive another 12 months given its rate of losses. And while the conditions of the bond issue don't leave Gallatin County on the hook, its credit rating could still take a dive if Bridger goes bankrupt.

READ MORE: GOP Senate candidate says he was wounded in combat. This park ranger says he shot himself

Despite his company's poor performance, Sheehy was still well-compensated as its CEO. In 2023, while his company was losing tens of millions of dollars, he was paid a base salary of $149,000 and got a $2.3 million bonus. In 2022, when Bridger lost $42.1 million, the company paid Sheehy a $450,000 base salary and gave him a bonus of $4.4 million.

Sheehy is currently polling ahead of Tester by as many as eight percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight. If he wins, it will make Democrats' chances of keeping the Senate majority that much more difficult. Republicans would regain control of the chamber by flipping either Montana or Ohio, assuming West Virginia's open Senate seat also flips Republican in the deep-red state. However, Democrats could still keep a slim majority by flipping either Florida, Nebraska, or Texas, which have all polled within the margin of error in the last month.

Click here to read NBC's report in full.

READ MORE: GOP Senate candidate's account of military service 'does not match his own words': report

WAIT, WHAT?!

Missouri AG tells judge reducing teen pregnancies would hurt state financially

Anna Spoerre, Missouri Independent
October 22, 2024 

: A container holding boxes of Mifepristone, the first medication in a medical abortion, are prepared for patients at Alamo Women's Clinic in Carbondale

Missouri’s attorney general has renewed a push to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone, arguing in a lawsuit filed this month that its availability hurt the state by decreasing teenage pregnancy.

The revised lawsuit was filed by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, alongside GOP attorneys general in Kansas and Idaho. It asks a judge in Texas to order the Federal Drug Administration to reinstate restrictions on mifepristone, one of two medications prescribed to induce chemical abortions.

The trio of attorneys general were forced to refile the litigation after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the original lawsuit after concluding the original plaintiffs — a group of anti-abortion doctors and medical organizations — did not have standing to sue because they couldn’t show they had been harmed.

In making the case that the states have standing this time, the attorneys general contend access to mifepristone has lowered “birth rates for teenaged mothers,” arguing it contributes to causing a population loss for the states along with “diminishment of political representation and loss of federal funds.”

“Younger women are more likely to navigate online abortion finders or websites ordering mail-order medication to self-manage abortions,” the filing argues.

Missouri’s teen pregnancy birth rate has steadily declined over the past several years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though it still remains among the highest in the country.

The lawsuit demands the federal government restore its previous restrictions on mifepristone by requiring three in-person doctor visits, reducing the gestational period during which the medication can be taken from 10 weeks to seven and rolling back recent federal policy that allowed for the mailing of mifepristone and allowed for prescriptions to be made online or through pharmacies.

In a statement to The Independent, Bailey framed the lawsuit as an attempt to ensure “long-standing safety requirements” for use of mifepristone are put back in place.

“We are moving forward undeterred for the safety of women across the country,” Bailey said.

Molly Meegan, chief legal officer and general counsel with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said the latest legal attempt to reduce access to mifepristone is based on “out-of-date and unscientific federal restrictions.”

“Science has conclusively demonstrated that mifepristone is safe and effective, including when used as directed through telehealth, and that patients of any age who become pregnant and need medication abortion can safely use the combination regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol,” she said in a statement. ”Imposing needless barriers on mifepristone will make it harder for people to access this needed care—which of course is the point—and worsen existing health disparities.”

According to the FDA, mifepristone is safe to use if taken as directed. Cramping and bleeding are common side effects of the medication. Those prescribed mifepristone are urged to call their doctor if they experience heavy bleeding, abdominal pain or a fever. The same guidance applies to those who recently underwent surgical abortions, experienced miscarriages or delivered a baby.

Since the medication was approved for use 28 years ago, only 32 deaths have ever been reported associated with mifepristone, according to the FDA.

Bailey and his fellow GOP attorneys general, however, argue the drug is dangerous.

“The FDA has enabled online abortion providers to mail FDA-approved abortion drugs to women in states that regulate abortion — dispensing abortion drugs with no doctor care, no exam and no in-person follow-up care,” the attorneys general wrote in the amended lawsuit. “These dangerous drugs are now flooding states like Missouri and Idaho and sending women in these states to the emergency room.”

The filing also argues that the current regulations around mifepristone make it impossible to track and prevent medication abortions.

“All of this makes it difficult for state law enforcement to detect and deter state law violations and to give effect to state abortion laws,” the attorneys general wrote.
Lost revenue and fewer teen mothers

When the constitutional right to an abortion was overturned in June 2022, Missouri became the first state to enact a trigger law banning the procedure in all cases except for medical emergencies.

A decade ago, more than 5,000 abortions were performed in Missouri, according to data from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. By 2020, that number dropped to 167 due to a series of “targeted regulation of abortion providers” laws enacted by the legislature, including a mandatory 72-hour waiting period between the initial appointment and a surgical abortion and mandatory pelvic exams for medication abortions.

Between June 2022 and March 2024, only 64 abortions were performed in Missouri under the state’s emergency exemption, according to health department data.

Despite these laws, thousands of Missourians have still accessed abortion in the past two years, either by driving to clinics in Illinois and Kansas or by ordering abortion medication through the mail.

In the six months after the Supreme Court’s abortion ruling, the number of self-managed medication abortions rose by more than 26,000 across the U.S. according to a study published in JAMA, the American Medical Association’s journal.

The attorneys general in their filing attempt to estimate how many people may have undergone medication abortions in each state, and how many may have been on Medicaid.

Between April 2018 and August 2023, there were 438 abortion complication reports — including 186 from medication abortions — filed with Missouri’s health department, according to the litigation.

Bailey’s office estimates that just shy of 400,000 women and girls of reproductive age are eligible for Missouri Medicaid, and that about 13% of those individuals are enrolled in Medicaid.

Bailey raised these data points in an attempt to estimate how much abortion medication costs the state, noting that under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, public hospitals must treat anyone who comes in for emergency care, regardless of their ability to pay.

“If a public hospital provides medical services for complications stemming from chemical abortions,” the filing reads, “and the state’s Medicaid program does not cover the full portion of the bill, the outstanding balance is a loss to the public hospital, which is itself an instrumentality of the state.”

The attorney general’s office also noted the “loss of potential population” that resulted from an increase in access to medication abortions among Missourians.

“Reflecting the ease of driving to another state to receive abortion drugs, it is estimated that just 2.4%of abortion-minded women were prevented from getting abortions in Missouri after Dobbs,” the attorneys general write in the filing.

Fewer abortions would have occurred, the attorneys general argue, if the FDA’s previous requirements were still in place.

Bailey made a similar argument last year while attempting to inflate the estimated cost of an abortion-rights ballot measure, saying it would cost the state $6.9 trillion in lost revenue. A judge rejected his claim.

The filing also pointed to a November 2023 study that found abortion bans didn’t result in an increase in teenage pregnancies that ended in births for those between the ages of 15 and 19.

The study attributed this in part to young people’s ability to find online abortion medication providers.

“This study thus suggests that remote dispensing of abortion drugs by mail, common carrier, and interactive computer service is depressing expected birth rates for teenaged mothers in Plaintiff States, even if other overall birth rates may have been lower than otherwise was projected,” the attorneys general wrote.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Union raises concerns over cracks in newly poured concrete in Montreal's La Fontaine Tunnel

CBC
Mon, October 21, 2024 

A workers' union says cracks are appearing in the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine Tunnel's new concrete. (Ivanoh Demers/Radio-Canada - image credit)


A workers' union is sounding the alarm after cracking was discovered in Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine Tunnel's newly poured concrete.

"When you see something crack, rarely does it stop cracking," said Philippe-Michel Lang, who is responsible for prevention and worker safety with the union, Conseil provincial du Québec des métiers de la construction.

His union represents about 25 per cent of the tunnel renovation project's workforce, including all trades from labourers to team management. But, he said, it's not just his union that is seeing deficiencies and cracking in the tunnel, which connects Montreal to its South Shore.

"We've known for several months that these cracks are unusual," said Lang.

"We've poured thousands and thousands of metres of concrete in our careers and we've never seen a concrete this new with this many cracks. Something unusual is going on, and we want somebody to reassure us."

Images provided by the Conseil provincial du Québec des métiers show cracking in the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine Tunnel newly poured concrete.

Images provided by the Conseil provincial du Québec des métiers show cracking in La Fontaine Tunnel's newly poured concrete. (Submitted by Conseil provincial du Québec des métiers)

Freshly poured concrete can have some small cracking, he said, but workers are seeing walls and ceilings full of cracks, raising concerns about structural integrity. He said site inspectors have told crews the concrete is curing twice as fast as it should. While it normally should take 25 days, it's taking half that, he said.

Because it is drying so fast, cracks are appearing, said Lang, "but somebody is going to have to do the tests and reassure everybody that the structural integrity is OK."

In a statement, Ministry of Transport spokesperson Martin Girard says it is normal for cracks to appear in new, fresh concrete.

The Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine Tunnel's new concrete has an unusual amount of cracking, according to the Conseil provincial du Québec des métiers de la construction.

La Fontaine Tunnel's new concrete has an unusual amount of cracking, according to the Conseil provincial du Québec des métiers de la construction. (Submitted by the Conseil provincial du Québec des métiers de la construction)

"These are mainly superficial cracks," Girard said. "The quality of the work is not compromised by these. Interventions are planned for larger cracks."

Throughout the renovation process, there is rigorous quality control, the statement says. Inspections are carried out during construction and will be carried out after, he says.

"If deficiencies are detected, they must be corrected by the contractor," Girard said.

No matter what is going on, the province should not wait to look into the matter as the project is already delayed and over budget, said Pierre Barrieau, a Université de Montréal lecturer in transportation planning and the president of Gris Orange, a public transit consulting service.

Traffic congestion is increasingly worse due to the lane reductions and there have been more collisions than usual, he said. Further delays to this project will not only continue to create traffic snarls, but it will also delay further construction projects in the region, he said.

Cracking in the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine Tunnel's new concrete worries workers.

Cracking in La Fontaine Tunnel's new concrete worries workers. (Submitted by the Conseil provincial du Québec des métiers de la construction)

Noting he is not an engineer, Barrieau said some cracking is normal, but a lot of cracking is not. Independent engineers and chemists need to be called in to study the situation and determine what is leading to the quick curing and cracking, he said.

Cracks in the concrete can allow salt to seep in, leading to rusted rebar and compromising the structure's integrity, he said. Applying the right sealant is essential to prevent salt infiltration, he said.

If the problem is extensive and the concrete needs to be demolished and repoured, it must be done quickly to stay on schedule, said Barrieau. It wouldn't be the first time a major project needed to be redone, he said, citing the recent repaving of Highway 40 in Montreal's West End.

In the case of the tunnel, he said it's important to verify and repair as needed now rather than having to demolish everything and redo it after completion.

"If we had known how much it would have cost, we probably would not have fixed it. We would have replaced it. We've passed that point," he said. "Now, unfortunately, there's so much money sunk into the project, we have to continue."

Archbishop of Canterbury: My ancestors were slave owners

Alex Barton
Tue 22 October 2024

The Telegraph

Justin Welby said his father was the great-great grandson of Sir Anthony Montague Browne - Paul Grover for The Telegraph

The Archbishop of Canterbury has apologised for his family’s past after disclosing that his ancestor was a slave owner.

Most Rev Justin Welby said his father, Sir Anthony Montague Browne, was the great-great grandson of Sir James Fergusson, the 4th Baronet of Kilkerran, who enslaved people on a plantation in Jamaica and was compensated when slavery was abolished.

The archbishop said: “I am deeply sorry for these links. It is now time to take action to address our shameful past.”


Rev Mr Welby said he discovered his late biological father, a private secretary to Winston Churchill, “had an ancestral connection to the enslavement of people in Jamaica and Tobago”.

In 2016, he learnt that he had been conceived as a result of a previous relationship between his mother Jane and Browne, and that Gavin Welby, who his mother later married, was not his biological father.

The archbishop had no relationship with Browne, who died in 2013, and did not receive any money from him while he was alive or after his death.

The archbishop’s statement said Fergusson enslaved people at the Rozelle plantation in St Thomas.

Fergusson, who died in 1838, was given a portion of a £20 million compensation package from the British government for loss of “property” when slavery was abolished.
‘Time to address shameful past’

The Rozelle plantation had almost 200 enslaved people at its height. The Fergusson family shared compensation of £3,591 in 1836, which is estimated at more than £3 million in today’s money, according to the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery.

The Church of England vowed to set up a £100 million slavery reparations fund in January 2023, a year after announcing it was “time to take action to address our shameful past”.

It said investments into “communities affected by historic slavery” would be “delivered over the nine years commencing in 2023”.

However, it is yet to announce how the fund will work or set a date for when its first investments will be made.

A 2022 report found that the Church’s £10 billion endowment had partially benefited from 18th century investments in the transatlantic slave trade.

The £100 million sum represents just 3 per cent of the £3.6 billion figure that the Church Commissioners, who manage the endowment, expect to distribute in total over the next nine years.

Rev Mr Welby said the fund was intended to “address past wrongs by investing in a better future” when he made the announcement.

Giant meteorite strike may have helped life thrive on Earth, research suggests

Sky News
Updated Mon 21 October 2024 




A meteorite four times the size of Mount Everest may have helped life to thrive after it smashed into Earth, research suggests.

The S2 meteorite crashed into our planet around 3.26 billion years ago and such impacts are usually considered disastrous for life.

But experts suggest the conditions caused by the impact of the space rock, which had a diameter of 37-58km, might have caused certain life forms to bloom.


"We think of impact events as being disastrous for life," said Nadja Drabon, an early-Earth geologist and assistant professor in the department of Earth and planetary sciences at the University of Harvard in the US.

"But what this study is highlighting is that these impacts would have had benefits to life, especially early on ... these impacts might have actually allowed life to flourish."

S2 is estimated to have been up to 200 times larger than the meteorite that killed the dinosaurs.

Analysis, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, suggests it triggered a tsunami that mixed up the ocean and flushed debris from the land into coastal areas.

The top layer of the ocean boiled off due to the heat from the impact, which also heated the atmosphere, experts said, while a thick cloud of dust blanketed everything.

But bacterial life rebounded quickly, according to the research, bringing sharp spikes in the populations of single-celled organisms that feed off phosphorus and iron.

Iron was likely stirred up from the deep ocean into shallow waters by the tsunami, while phosphorous was brought to the planet by the meteorite itself and from an increase of erosion on land, the scientists suggest.

Iron-metabolising bacteria would have flourished in the immediate aftermath of the impact, Prof Drabon's findings indicate.

Experts suggest such a shift towards iron-favouring bacteria could provide a snapshot of early life on Earth.

Evidence of the impact of S2 can be found in South Africa's Barberton Greenstone belt today.

"Picture yourself standing off the coast of Cape Cod, in a shelf of shallow water," Dr Drabon said.

"It's a low-energy environment, without strong currents. Then all of a sudden, you have a giant tsunami, sweeping by and ripping up the sea floor."


A giant meteorite boiled the oceans 3.2 billion years ago. Scientists say it was a ‘fertilizer bomb’ for life

Ashley Strickland, CNN
Tue 22 October 2024

A massive space rock, estimated to be the size of four Mount Everests, slammed into Earth more than 3 billion years ago — and the impact could have been unexpectedly beneficial for the earliest forms of life on our planet, according to new research.

Typically, when a large space rock crashes into Earth, the impacts are associated with catastrophic devastation, as in the case of the demise of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, when a roughly 6.2-mile-wide (10-kilometer) asteroid crashed off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in what’s now Mexico.

But Earth was young and a very different place when the S2 meteorite, estimated to have 50 to 200 times more mass than the dinosaur extinction-triggering Chicxulub asteroid, collided with the planet 3.26 billion years ago, according to Nadja Drabon, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. She is also lead author of a new study describing the S2 impact and what followed in its aftermath that published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“No complex life had formed yet, and only single-celled life was present in the form of bacteria and archaea,” Drabon wrote in an email. “The oceans likely contained some life, but not as much as today in part due to a lack of nutrients. Some people even describe the Archean oceans as ‘biological deserts.’ The Archean Earth was a water world with few islands sticking out. It would have been a curious sight, as the oceans were probably green in color from iron-rich deep waters.”

When the S2 meteorite hit, global chaos ensued — but the impact also stirred up ingredients that might have enriched bacterial life, Drabon said. The new findings could change the way scientists understand how Earth and its fledgling life responded to bombardment from space rocks not long after the planet formed.

Nadja Drabon, right, is pictured with students David Madrigal Trejo and Öykü Mete during fieldwork in South Africa. - Nadja Drabon/Harvard University

Uncovering ancient impacts

Early in Earth’s history, space rocks frequently hit the young planet. It is estimated that “giant impactors,” greater than 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) across, pummeled the planet at least every 15 million years, according to the study authors, meaning that at least 16 giant meteorites hit Earth during the Archean Eon, which lasted from 4 billion to 2.5 billion years ago.

But the fallout of those impact events isn’t well understood. And given Earth’s ever-changing geology, in which massive craters are covered over by volcanic activity and the movement of tectonic plates, the evidence of what happened millions of years ago is hard to find.

Drabon is an early-Earth geologist intrigued by understanding what the planet was like before the first continents formed and how violent meteoritic impacts affected the evolution of life.

“These impacts must have significantly affected the origin and the evolution of life on Earth. But how exactly remains a mystery,” Drabon said. “In my research, I wanted to examine actual ‘hard’ evidence — excuse the pun — of how giant impacts affected early life.”

Drabon and her colleagues conducted fieldwork to search for clues in the rocks of the Barberton Makhonjwa Mountains of South Africa. There, geological evidence of eight impact events, which occurred between 3.6 billion and 3.2 billion years ago, can be found in the rocks and traced through tiny meteorite impact particles called spherules.

The small, round particles, which can be glassy or crystalline, occur when large meteorites hit Earth, and they form sedimentary layers in rocks that are known as spherule beds.

Spherules can be seen in this sample taken from another meteorite impact. - Nadja Drabon/Harvard University

The team collected a range of samples in South Africa and analyzed the rocks’ compositions and geochemistry.

“Our days typically begin with a long hike into the mountains to reach our sampling locations,” Drabon said. “Sometimes we’re fortunate to have dirt roads that bring us closer. At the site, we study the structures in the rocks across the impact event layer in great detail and use sledgehammers to extract samples for later analysis in the lab.”

The tightly sandwiched layers of rock preserved a mineral timeline that allowed the researchers to reconstruct what happened when the S2 meteorite hit.
Waves of destruction

The S2 meteorite was between 23 and 36 miles (37 and 58 kilometers) in diameter as it struck the planet. The effects were swift and ferocious, Drabon said.

“Picture yourself standing off the coast of Cape Cod, in a shelf of shallow water,” Drabon said. “It’s a low-energy environment, without strong currents. Then all of a sudden, you have a giant tsunami, sweeping by and ripping up the seafloor.”

This graphic shows the sequence of events following the S2 giant meteorite impact. - James Zaccaria

The tsunami swept across the globe, and heat from the impact was so intense that it boiled off the top layer of the ocean. When oceans boil and evaporate, they form salts such as those observed in the rocks directly after the impact, Drabon said.

Dust injected into the atmosphere from the impact darkened the skies within hours, even on the opposite side of the planet. The atmosphere heated up, and the thick dust cloud prevented microbes from converting sunlight into energy. Any life on land or in shallow waters would have felt the adverse effects immediately, and those effects would have persisted from a few years to decades.

Eventually, rain would have brought back the top layers of the ocean, and the dust settled.

But the deep ocean environment was another story. The tsunami churned up elements such as iron and brought them to the surface. Meanwhile, erosion helped wash coastal debris into the sea and released phosphorus from the meteorite. The lab analysis showed a spike in the presence of single-celled organisms that feed off iron and phosphorus immediately after the impact.

Life rapidly recovered, and then it thrived, Drabon said.

“Before the impact, there was some, but not much, life in the oceans due to the lack of nutrients and electron donors such as iron in the shallow water,” she said. “The impact released essential nutrients, such as phosphorus, on a global scale. A student aptly called this impact a ‘fertilizer bomb.’ Overall, this is very good news for the evolution of early life on Earth, as impacts would have been much more frequent during the early stages of life’s evolution than they are today.”
How Earth responds to direct hits

The S2 and Chicxulub asteroid impacts had different consequences due to the space rocks’ respective sizes and the stage the planet was in when each one struck, Drabon said.

The Chicxulub impactor struck a carbonate platform on Earth, which released sulfur into the atmosphere. The emissions formed aerosols that caused a sharp, extreme drop in surface temperatures.

The researchers studied layers in this rock and determined that a global tsunami was initiated by the S2 meteorite impact 3.26 billion years ago. - Nadja Drabon/Harvard University

And while both impacts caused significant die-offs, hardy, sunlight-dependent microorganisms in shallow waters would have rapidly recovered after the S2 impact once the oceans filled back in and the dust settled, Drabon said.

“Life during the time of the S2 impact was much simpler,” she said. “Consider brushing your teeth in the morning: You might eliminate 99.9% of bacteria, but by evening, they have returned.”

Ben Weiss, the Robert R. Shrock Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was intrigued by the geological observations of the spherule beds in the paper, which he believes are allowing researchers to explore Earth’s ancient impact record the way astronomers can study the surfaces of planets like Mars. Weiss was not involved in the study.

“There are no impact craters preserved on the Earth today that come anywhere near in size to what has been inferred to have produced the rocks studied here,” Weiss said. “Of course, what is special about our record is that, however fragmental and incomplete, it is the only record we can currently study in detail that can tell us about the effects of impacts on the early evolution of life. It’s also impressive that despite the very local nature of these observations (outcrops in a small region in South Africa), we can start to understand something about the global nature of these giant impact events.”

The rocks in the Barberton Makhonjwa Mountains are opening up a whole new line of research into Earth’s history of impacts for Drabon and her colleagues.

“We aim to determine how common these environmental changes and biological responses were after other impact events in early Earth’s history,” she said. “Since the effect of each impact depends on various factors, we want to assess how frequently such positive and negative effects on life occurred.”

Woman wedged upside down between rocks for 7 hours after trying to retrieve her phone

JUST BUY A NEW ONE

Hilary Whiteman
Tue, October 22, 2024 
A woman who tried to retrieve her lost phone from between boulders in Australia’s Hunter Valley became stuck upside down for seven hours before she was rescued earlier this month.

Just the bare soles of the woman’s feet can be seen in photos of the incident posted on social media Monday by the New South Wales (NSW) Ambulance service.

The woman had been walking with friends on a private property in Laguna, a country town in the Hunter Valley about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from Sydney, when she dropped her phone.

As she tried to retrieve it, she slipped face-first into a 3-meter (about 10 feet) crevice between two large boulders, so deep that her friends were unable to reach her. The woman’s name wasn’t formally released by rescue services but NSW Police said she was 23 years old.

The woman was wedged between rocks near an overgrown bush track. - NSW Ambulance

NSW Ambulance specialist rescue paramedic Peter Watts told CNN there was no phone signal in the area, so her friends had to leave her to phone for help.

He was among the first on the scene on the morning of October 12.

“My initial thought was, how are we going to get her out of here? Because I’ve never come across this,” he told CNN.

“In our ambulance rescue training, we’d cover some trench rescue, confined space rescue and vertical rescue, and it was sort of an amalgamation of all those things in the one job.”

When Watts and others arrived, all they could see were the woman’s feet between a 10-centimeter (4-inch) gap in the rocks.

“As she’s crawled into this little hole, she slipped and slid about three meters down a chute and got stuck,” Watts said.

The area where she fell was about 50 meters (164 feet) down an overgrown bush track that was inaccessible even with off-road vehicles.

“We all put our heads together and determined the only way to get her out is to come out vertically, which means we have to remove these rocks,” Watts said.

Rescuers had to remove several large boulders to get close enough to her feet to pull her out. - NSW Ambulance
A delicate rescue operation

For the next seven hours, police, ambulance, fire and volunteer rescue crews worked to free her.

Rescuers advised her to stay still – they were worried that if she moved she could slip further down the hole, making her even harder to reach.

It was already difficult enough to remove surrounding rocks without having to dig any deeper.

“We were concerned that anytime we moved a rock, if it fell in the wrong direction, it was going to fall down on top of her,” Watts said.

Six large boulders had to be removed before rescuers could get close enough to physically touch her feet, he said.

“She was so calm and collected through the whole thing. I was very impressed. I would have been frantic. She was not panicked whatsoever,” said Watts.

However, at times, she seemed to go quiet, he said.

They were concerned about her being upside down for so long and possibly suffering from the effects of excess pressure on her limbs.

The 23-year-old had been walking with friends when she dropped her phone between rocks. - NSW Ambulance

It took a few hours before enough rock was removed for rescuers to first access one foot, then the other.

The last remaining boulder – weighing some 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) – proved difficult to shift, Watts said.

“We used a winch to pull that out of the way. We were using timber on either side of that to prevent that from rocking or rolling over that little 10-centimeter gap until we got it well out of the way,” said Watts.

Then they started to manipulate her body to get her out of the hole.

“The chute that she slid down didn’t go straight down, so we couldn’t pull her straight up,” Watts said.

The rescue effort involved multiple emergency teams from police, fire and ambulance services. - NSW Ambulance

She had to form an ‘S’ shape, with her legs to one side, then the other.

“Once we got her hips out, then we had to move her legs back around to the left-hand side to get her shoulder out. So, it was a bit of a bit of a maneuver to get all of her out of that little crevice.”

Once freed, at around 4:30 p.m. that day, Watts said she was “100% relieved.”

“She was tired, and she was quite dizzy. All of her blood was in her head, and she had nothing in her legs, so she couldn’t stand, couldn’t really walk at that stage,” he said.

Miraculously, she escaped with only minor scratches and bruising.

The woman was taken to the hospital for observation. Her phone, however, remains trapped between the rocks.

India considers imports of Mongolian coking coal via Russia, source says

JCB machine loads coal onto a dumper at the Deendayal Port in Kandla · 

Updated Mon, October 21, 2024 at 6:18 AM MDT 2 min read
By Neha Arora and Mayank Bhardwaj

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India is exploring ways to import regular supplies of Mongolian coking coal by way of Russia, a senior government official with direct knowledge of the matter said, as New Delhi seeks to avoid over-reliance on transit through China.

Mills in India, the world's second-biggest producer of crude steel, grappled with volatile Australian supplies of coking coal last year, and the government sent delegations to Mongolia in an effort to diversify sources of the fuel.

Despite a longer route, Indian steel companies will now consider importing Mongolian coking coal by way of Russia, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, as the deliberations are not public.

"There are strategic issues about sourcing via China, and the route is much longer if it has to come from Russia," the source said.

India's steel ministry did not immediately reply to an email from Reuters to seek comment.

After the Australian supply disruptions, Indian mills asked the government to step in and help work out routes to ensure regular supplies of coking coal from Mongolia.

Landlocked but resource-rich Mongolia can offer superior grades of coking coal, say industry officials. Its product is about $50 a metric ton cheaper than the Australian equivalent, the government source said.

Although some supplies have come to India by way of China, Indian authorities feel New Delhi should not entirely rely on Beijing for steady supplies of coking coal from neighbouring Mongolia, however.

Ties between the Asian giants have been tense since the biggest military confrontation in decades on their disputed Himalayan border killed 20 Indian and at least four Chinese soldiers in June 2020.

Thousands of troops remain mobilised on each side.

India and China reached a deal on Monday to patrol their disputed border in a bid to de-escalate tensions. Unlike China, India has traditionally maintained close ties with Russia.

Indian steel companies consume about 70 million metric tons of coking coal a year, with 85% of the need filled by imports.

Australia usually accounts for more than half of India's annual imports of coking coal. In addition, India imports coking coal from Russia, the United States and a few other countries.

India imported 29.4 million metric tons of coking coal during the first half of the current fiscal year from April, up nearly 2% on the year, says commodities consultancy BigMint.

(Reporting by Neha Arora and Mayank Bhardwaj; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)