Two Andy Warhol artworks stolen in Netherlands gallery heist

Two out of four artworks from US pop art pioneer Andy Warhol's "Reigning Queens" series were stolen during the night of Thursday to Friday from a Dutch gallery. The thieves used explosives to break into the MPV Gallery in Oisterwijk in North Brabant province and abandoned two other Warhol screenprints that apparently didn't fit in the getaway car.


Issued on: 01/11/2024 -

By: NEWS WIRES
A man takes a photo of a screenprint depicting Queen Elizabeth II, one in a series of sixteen prints of four queens titled "Reigning Queens, 1985" by Andy Warhol at Museum Paleis Het Loo in Apeldoorn, Netherlands, October 9, 2024. © Peter Dejong, AP


Two works by artist Andy Warhol were stolen during the night of Thursday to Friday from a gallery in the south of the Netherlands, while two other screenprints were abandoned nearby.

The thieves used heavy explosives to break into the MPV Gallery in Oisterwijk in North Brabant province and took off with two screenprints showing former queens Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Margrethe II of Denmark, Dutch media NOS reported.

"The entrance of the gallery was blown out and there was glass all around the building," NOS said.

Not much is known yet about the theft "but it is strange that explosives were used," well-known Dutch art detective Arthur Brand said.

"That's not common for art thefts," said Brand, who has made headlines for recovering artworks, including a missing Picasso and a stolen Van Gogh.

The "Reigning Queens" series by Pop Art pioneer Andy Warhol were on display in the gallery before going on sale at the PAN Amsterdam art fair that runs from November 24 to December 1.

Two other works from the same series, showing former Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and Queen Ntombi Tfwala of Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, were abandoned on the street because the full haul did not fit in the getaway car, NOS said.

"The works are worth a considerable sum," the owner of the gallery Mark Peet Visser told local media Omroep Brabant.

Brand, however, told AFP the stolen artworks were "not unique and most likely tens of them were made."

"This makes it easier to sell than unique works, but not that much easier," he said.

La MPV Gallery did not instantly respond to a request for comment by AFP.

The "Reigning Queens" series was created in 1985, two years before the American artist's death, when all four queens were in power.

(AFP)

REVANCHIST TRUMP

US Republican Liz Cheney slams 'tyrant' Trump after he suggests she face firing squad


Former Republican Representative Liz Cheney called former US president Donald Trump a "vindictive, cruel" dictator on Friday after he said she was a "war hawk" and suggested she face a firing squad. Trump made the remarks as he criticised Cheney's father for endorsing his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, during an interview with Fox News.


Issued on: 01/11/2024 - 
By: NEWS WIRES

This combination of file pictures created on November 1, 2024 shows former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Cumming, Georgia on October 15, 2024 and forrmer Republican representative Liz Cheney in Malvern, Pennsylvania on October 21, 2024. © Elijah Nouvelage, Brendan Smialowski, AFP


Prominent Republican and vocal Donald Trump critic Liz Cheney called the former president a "vindictive, cruel" dictator on Friday after he suggested she would be less of a "war hawk" with guns trained on her face.

"This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death," the former US congresswoman and daughter of ex-vice president Dick Cheney said Friday in a post on social platform X.


"We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant."

Trump -- who is running for reelection -- made the remarks as he criticized Cheney's father for endorsing Democratic White House candidate Kamala Harris, speaking during a fireside chat with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in Arizona.

"And I don't blame him for sticking with his daughter, but his daughter is a very dumb individual, very dumb," Trump said Thursday.

"She's a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face."

The backlash was swift, with Harris campaign advisor Ian Sams contrasting Trump "talking about sending a prominent Republican to the firing squad" with Harris "talking about sending one to her cabinet."

Harris herself also lambasted Trump, saying the “verbal rhetoric” directed against Liz Cheney should disqualify him from becoming president again.

Trump has "suggested rifles should be trained on former representative Liz Cheney," Harris told reporters. "This must be disqualifying. Anyone who wants to be president of the United States who uses that kind of violent rhetoric is clearly disqualified and unqualified to be president."

Alyssa Farah Griffin, a top aide in Trump's White House, called his comments "unconscionable."

"I don't know how Republican leaders -- many of whom served with Liz Cheney and at one point considered her a colleague and friend -- cannot denounce this. It's dangerous. It's escalatory," she told CNN.

A Trump campaign spokeswoman called Cheney a "warmonger" in a statement to AFP, adding that the Republican meant that she is "very quick to start wars and send other Americans to fight them, rather than go into combat themselves."

Cheney was once seen as rising star among the Republicans in the House of Representatives but was booted from a leadership position and then lost her Wyoming seat over her strong criticism of Trump's refusal to concede defeat in the 2020 election.

Watch more'Far from over': Cheney sacrifices career to lead anti-Trump Republicans

The ex-president endorsed her opponent in the 2022 House primary, Harriet Hageman.

Cheney -- who led the successful effort to have Trump impeached for a second time -- announced last month that she would be voting for Harris and has appeared with the vice president multiple times to woo soft conservatives.

Trump has a long history of attacking Cheney and as recently as last week called her a "Muslim-hating warmonger... who wants to invade practically every Muslim country on the planet."

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

Macron recognises Algerian national hero Larbi Ben M'hidi 'killed by French soldiers' in 1957

French President Emmanuel Macron issued a statement on Friday, the 70th anniversary of the November 1, 1954 uprising that led to the Algerian War, acknowledging that prominent Algerian revolutionary leader Larbi Ben M'hidi was killed by French soldiers after his arrest in 1957.


Issued on: 01/11/2024 -
By: NEWS WIRES

Larbi Ben M'Hidi, Algerian leader of the FLN, tortured to death in 1957. © AFP Archives


President Emmanuel Macron on Friday acknowledged that Larbi Ben M'hidi, a key figure in Algeria's War of Independence against France, had been killed by French soldiers after his arrest in 1957, the French presidency said.

"He recognised today that Larbi Ben M'hidi, a national hero for Algeria... was killed by French soldiers," the presidency said on the 70th anniversary of the revolt that sparked the war, in a new gesture of reconciliation by Macron towards the former colony.

France's more than a century-long colonisation of Algeria and the viciously fought 1954-62 war of independence have left deep scars on both sides.

In recent years, Macron has made several gestures towards reconciliation while stopping short of issuing any apology for French imperialism.
Watch more

Red All Saints' Day: Remembering the start of the Algerian War, 70 years ago

Since coming to power in 2017, Macron has sought "to look at the history of colonisation and the Algerian War in the face, with the aim of creating a peaceful and shared memory", the presidency said.

Ben M'hidi was one of six founding members of the National Liberation Front (FLN) that launched the armed revolt against French rule that led to the war.

The presidency said that according to the official version, Ben M'hidi after his arrest in February 1957 attempted to commit suicide and died during his transfer to the hospital.

But it said he had in fact been killed by soldiers under the command of General Paul Aussaresses, who admitted to this at the beginning of the 2000s.

Read more 

Sixty years on, Algerian and French nationals share stories of the Algerian War

In 2017, then-presidential candidate Macron dubbed the French occupation a "crime against humanity".

A report he commissioned from historian Benjamin Stora recommended in 2020 further moves to reconcile the two countries, while ruling out "repentance" and "apologies".

But Macron, who has sought to build a strong relationship with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, in 2022 questioned whether Algeria existed as a nation before being colonised by France, drawing an angry response from Algiers.

(AFP)

  JUST ANOTHER REACTIONARY

UK Conservative Party elects 'anti-woke' Kemi Badenoch as new leader

IF YOU AIN'T WOKE YOU AIN'T ALIVE

The UK's Conservatives on Saturday elected Kemi Badenoch as their new leader, replacing Rishi Sunak after the party's poor performance in July's general election. Badenoch, a staunch "anti-woke" advocate, faces the challenge of uniting a divided party while redefining its future.

Issued on: 02/11/2024
By: NEWS WIRES

03:47

Kemi Badenoch speaks after being announced as the new leader of the UK's Conservative Party. 

© Benjamin Cremel, AFP

The UK's battle-scarred Conservatives on Saturday elected "anti-woke" candidate Kemi Badenoch as its new head, making her the first black leader of a major UK party.
[13:29] DAOU Marc
x.com

The combative former equalities minister replaces Rishi Sunak and now faces the daunting task of reuniting a divided and weakened party emphatically ousted from power in July after 14 years in charge.

Badenoch, 44, came out on top in the two-horse race with former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, winning 57 percent of the votes of party members.

She said it was an "enormous honour" to assume the role, but that "the task that stands before us is tough."


"We have to be honest about the fact we made mistakes" and "let standards slip," she said.

"It is time to get down to business, it is time to renew," she added.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer congratulated Badenoch, writing on X that "the first Black leader of a Westminster party is a proud moment for our country."

Sunak said that Badenoch would be a "superb leader", while fellow former prime minister Boris Johnson wrote that "she brings a much needed zing and zap to the Conservative Party".

Badenoch will become the official leader of the opposition and face off against Labour's Keir Starmer in the House of Commons every Wednesday for the traditional Prime Minister's Questions.

However, she will be leading a much-reduced cohort of Tory MPs in the chamber following the party's dismal election showing.

She must plot a strategy to regain public trust while stemming the flow of support to the right-wing Reform UK party, led by Brexit figurehead Nigel Farage.

Having campaigned on a right-wing platform, she also faces the prospect of future difficulties within the ranks of Tory lawmakers, which includes many centrists.
'No wallflower'

Badenoch, born in London to Nigerian parents and raised in Lagos, has called for a return to conservative values, accusing her party of having become increasingly liberal on societal issues such as gender identity.

She describes herself as a straight-talker, a trait that has caused controversy on the campaign trail.

Kemi Badenoch (R) is congratulated by beaten candidate Robert Jenrick (L) after being announced as the new leader of the UK's Conservative Party. © Benjamin Cremel, AFP

Badenoch was widely criticised after suggesting that statutory maternity pay on small businesses was "excessive" and sparked further furore when she joked that up to 10 percent of Britain's half a million civil servants were so bad that they "should be in prison".

On immigration, she said that "not all cultures are equally valid" when deciding who should be allowed to live in the UK.

Jenrick, 42, had also staked out a tough position on the issue, and resigned as immigration minister in Sunak's government after saying that his controversial plan to deport migrants to Rwanda did not go far enough.

Read moreUK resolves Rwanda asylum seeker cases after Labour govt scraps deportation policy

The pair faced off after Tory MPs whittled down the original six candidates during a series of votes.

Former foreign minister James Cleverly, from the party's more centrist faction, had looked certain to make the last two, but was surprisingly eliminated in the final vote by lawmakers last month.

Badenoch, an MP since 2017, has risen from relative obscurity just a few years ago to now lead the country's second-biggest party.

The Brexit supporter has made a name for herself as a trenchant critic of "identity politics".

According to Blue Ambition, a biography written by Conservative peer Michael Ashcroft, Badenoch became "radicalised" into right-wing politics while at university in the UK.

He described her view of student activists there as the "spoiled, entitled, privileged metropolitan elite-in-training".

She has insisted criticism of her abrasive style is misplaced.

"I'm not a wallflower. And people will often take your strengths and present them as weaknesses," she told Sky News.

She worked in IT and banking before entering politics around a decade ago, eventually winning a seat in the London Assembly in 2015.

Elected to parliament two years later, she was supported as she rose through the Tory ranks by one-time party heavyweight Michael Gove.

Badenoch held various ministerial roles during the tail end of the Conservatives' 14-year tenure in power.

(AFP)

Simple science summaries written by AI help people understand research, trust scientists

The Conversation
October 31, 2024 

AI Artificial Intelligence SkillUp / Shutterstock

Artificial intelligence-generated summaries of scientific papers make complex information more understandable for the public compared with human-written summaries, according to my recent paper published in PNAS Nexus. AI-generated summaries not only improved public comprehension of science but also enhanced how people perceived scientists.

I used a popular large language model, GPT-4 by OpenAI, to create simple summaries of scientific papers; this kind of text is often called a significance statement. The AI-generated summaries used simpler language – they were easier to read according to a readability index and used more common words, like “job” instead of “occupation” – than summaries written by the researchers who had done the work.

In one experiment, I found that readers of the AI-generated statements had a better understanding of the science, and they provided more detailed, accurate summaries of the content than readers of the human-written statements.

I also investigated what effects the simpler summaries might have on people’s perceptions of the scientists who performed the research. In this experiment, participants rated the scientists whose work was described in the simpler texts as more credible and trustworthy than the scientists whose work was described in the more complex texts.

In both experiments, participants did not know who wrote each summary. The simpler texts were always AI-generated, and the complex texts were always human-generated. When I asked participants who they believed wrote each summary, they ironically thought the more complex ones were written by AI and simpler ones were written by humans.




It can feel like you need a Ph.D. to understand science research published in a journal. R.Tsubin/Moment via Getty Images

Why it matters

Have you ever read about a scientific discovery and felt like it was written in a foreign language? If you’re like most Americans, new scientific information is probably hard to understand – especially if you try to tackle a science article in a research journal.

In an era where scientific literacy is crucial for informed decision-making, the abilities to communicate and grasp complex ideas are more important than ever. Trust in science has been declining for years, and one contributing factor may be the challenge of understanding scientific jargon.

This research points to a potential solution: using AI to simplify science communication. By making scientific content more approachable, this work demonstrates that AI-generated summaries may help to restore trust in scientists and, in turn, encourage greater public engagement with scientific issues. The question of trust is particularly important, as people often rely on science in their daily lives, from eating habits to medical choices.

What still isn’t known

As AI continues to evolve, its role in science communication may expand, especially if using generative AI becomes more commonplace or sanctioned by journals. Indeed, the academic publishing field is still establishing norms regarding the use of AI. By simplifying scientific writing, AI could contribute to more engagement with complex issues.

While the benefits of AI-generated science communication are perhaps clear, ethical considerations must also be considered. There is some risk that relying on AI to simplify scientific content may remove nuance, potentially leading to misunderstandings or oversimplifications. There’s always the chance of errors, too, if no one pays close attention.

Additionally, transparency is critical. Readers should be informed when AI is used to generate summaries to avoid potential biases.


Simple science descriptions are preferable to and more beneficial than complex ones, and AI tools can help. But scientists could also achieve the same goals by working harder to minimize jargon and communicate clearly – no AI necessary.

David Markowitz, Associate Professor of Communication, Michigan State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Deep sea rocks suggest oxygen can be made without photosynthesis

The Conversation
November 1, 2024 

chaylek/Shutterstock

Oxygen, the molecule that supports intelligent life as we know it, is largely made by plants. Whether underwater or on land, they do this by photosynthesising carbon dioxide. However, a recent study demonstrates that oxygen may be produced without the need for life at depths where light cannot reach.

The authors of a recent publication in Nature Geoscience were collecting samples from deep ocean sediments to determine the rate of oxygen consumption at the seafloor through things like organisms or sediments that can react with oxygen. But in several of their experiments, they actually found oxygen was increasing as opposed to decreasing as they would have expected. This left them questioning how this oxygen was being produced.

They found that this “dark” oxygen production at the seafloor seems to only happen in the presence of mineral concentrates called polymetallic nodules and deposits of metals called metalliferous sediments. The authors think the nodules have the right mixture of metals and are densely packed enough for an electrical current to pass through for electrolysis, creating enough energy to separate the hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O) from water (H₂O).

The authors also suggested that the amount of oxygen created may fluctuate depending on the number and mixture of nodules on the ocean floor.

This research team was trying to understand the implications of mining metals from the deep-sea floor such as lithium, cobalt or copper, funded by an extractions company in an effort to ensure deep sea mining leads to a net benefit to humanity and the Earth system. Lithium and cobalt are used, for example, to make rechargeable batteries for mobile phones, laptops and electric vehicles. Copper is vital for electrical wiring in devices like TVs and radios and for roofing and plumbing.

The investigation was focused on the Clarion-Clipperton zone of the Pacific Ocean, a vast plain between Hawaii and Mexico where millions of tons of these metals have been found. However, scientists believe mining on this scale is potentially unpredictable and can destroy habitats vital to ocean ecosystems. Deep-sea mining can also introduce harmful sediment plumes to fragile ecosystems leading to a growing number of countries calling for a moratorium.

Dark oxygen for life

The implications for this finding may also play a role in life elsewhere.

Oxygen is essential to complex life as we know it. Complex life has evolved and expanded alongside photosynthesisers, which actually produce oxygen as a waste product. Yet this oxygen allows organisms’ metabolisms to be much more efficient than without it.

Without photosynthetic bacteria, the reliance that Earth’s life has on oxygen may well have never happened, in addition to the evolutionary pathway to biodiversity as we know it. But this study shows that rich-nodules on the seafloor may have provided an additional source of oxygen to the biosphere - the zone of life on Earth encompassing all living organisms.

We can’t understand how these nodules may have affected evolution until we understand more about how they formed deeper in time. At the moment, all we really know it that we these nodules would have needed oxygen themselves to form.

Studies like this show how much the origin of life on Earth is still a mystery.

Lewis Alcott, Lecturer in Geochemistry, University of Bristol

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

WHITE Americans own guns to protect themselves from PERCIEVED psychological as well as physical threats

The Conversation
October 31, 2024


Man holds gun in front of US flag (Shutterstock.com)

Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, Tim Walz and JD Vance all have something in common. All four of them, along with an estimated 42% of American adults, have lived in a home with at least one gun.

Gun ownership in the United States is widespread and cuts across all sorts of cultural divides – including race, class and political ideology. Like all mass experiences in American life, owning a gun can mean very different things to different people.

One thing that American gun owners tend to agree on, no matter their differences, is that guns are for personal protection. In a 2023 Pew survey, 72% of gun owners reported that they owned a firearm at least in part for protection, and 81% of gun owners reported that owning a gun helped them to feel safer. This perspective contrasts to that of gun owners in other developed economies, who generally report that guns are more dangerous than safe and that they own a gun for some other reason.

I’m a psychologist who studies contemporary society. In the lab, my colleagues and I have been investigating this feeling of safety that American gun owners report. We’re trying to get a more complete sense of just what people are using their firearms to protect against. Our research suggests it goes much deeper than physical threats.


Social scientists are exploring the motivations and effects of owning a gun. Cécile Clocheret/AFP via Getty Images

Protection goes beyond the physical

By combining social-scientific research on firearms ownership with a raft of interviews we’ve conducted, we’ve developed a theory that gun owners aren’t just protecting against the specific threat of physical violence. Owners are also using a gun to protect their psychological selves. Owning a gun helps them feel more in control of the world around them and more able to live meaningful, purposeful lives that connect to the people and communities they care for.

This sort of protection may be especially appealing to those who think that the normal institutions of society – such as the police or the government – are either unable or unwilling to keep them safe. They feel they need to take protection into their own hands.

This use of a deadly weapon to provide comfort and solace may come at a cost, however, as firearms often bring a heightened sense of vigilance with them. Firearm instructors frequently teach owners to be especially aware of their environment and all the potential dangers and threats within. When gun owners look for danger, they often are more likely to find it.

Gun owners may end up perceiving the world as a more dangerous place, institutions as more uncaring or incompetent, and their own private actions as all the more important for securing their lives and their livelihoods.

How gun owners feel during daily life

What does this cycle of protection and threat look like in everyday life? My colleagues and I recently ran a study to investigate. We’re still undergoing peer review, so our work is not final yet.

We recruited a group of over 150 firearms owners who told us that they regularly carry their guns, along with over 100 demographically matched Americans who have never owned a gun. Over two weeks, our research team texted the participants at two random times each day, asking them to fill out a survey telling us what they were doing and how they were feeling.

To get a sense of how guns change the psychological landscape of their owners, we divided our gun-carrying group into two. When we texted one half of the group, before we asked any other questions, we simply asked whether they had their gun accessible and why they’d made that decision. For the other half of our gun-owning participants, and for our non-gun-owning control group, firearms and firearm carrying never came up.



When subtly reminded of guns in general – regardless of whether their gun was accessible – our participants reported feeling more safe and in control and that their lives were more meaningful. Thanks to our random-assignment procedure, we can be pretty confident that it was thinking about guns, as opposed to any differences in the underlying groups themselves, that caused this particular increase in psychological well-being.

About half of the times that we texted, the gun owners told us that they had a gun accessible at that moment. When a gun was handy, our participants told us that they were feeling more vigilant and anxious, and that their immediate situation was more chaotic. This result didn’t seem to be driven by owners choosing to have guns available when they were putting themselves into objectively more dangerous situations: We found the same pattern when we looked just at moments when our participants were sitting at home, watching television.

Raising fear and promising rescue

Contemporary American gun ownership may have conflicting messages embedded within it. First, a gun is a thing you can use to bolster your fundamental psychological needs to feel safe, to feel in control and to feel like you matter and belong. Second, having a gun focuses your attention on the dangers of the world.

By both fueling a sense of danger and holding out the promise of rescuing you from the fear, messaging around guns may end up locking some owners into a sort of doom loop.



A sense of responsibility goes along with gun ownership for the vast majority of Americans who own a firearm. Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images

My collaborators and I are currently exploring whether stressing other parts of gun ownership may help owners to move beyond this negative spiral. For instance, while owners often talk about “danger,” they also talk frequently about “responsibility.”

Being a responsible gun owner is central to many owners’ identities. In one study, 97% of owners reported that they were “more responsible than the average gun owner,” and 23% rated themselves as being in the top 1% of responsibility overall. This, of course, is statistically impossible.

To more fully understand the many ways responsible firearm ownership can look, we are in the process of interviewing gun owners from all around the state of Wisconsin, a notably diverse state when it comes to gun ownership. We’re tapping into as many of the ways of owning a gun as we can, talking with protective owners, hunters, sport shooters, collectors, folks in urban areas, folks in rural areas, men, women, young people, old people, liberals, conservatives, and, of course, trying to capture the complex ways that race shapes ownership.

Who do gun owners feel they are responsible for? What kinds of actions do they think responsible owners take?

We hope to learn more about the many different ways that people conceptualize what a gun can do for them. American gun cultures are complex and distinct things. By exploring the worldviews that support firearm ownership, we can better understand what it means to live in the U.S. today.

Nick Buttrick, Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Forever chemicals are in our drinking water – here’s how to reduce them

The Conversation
November 1, 2024 

Woman Drinking Water (fast-stock/Shutterstock)

News reports of so-called forever chemicals in drinking water have left people worried about the safety of tap and bottled water. But recent research has shown there are ways to significantly reduce the levels of these harmful chemicals in our water.

Per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a wide range of synthetic chemicals that are used in many everyday products such as cosmetics, fabrics and food packaging (where they are used to make products resistant to water and grease), as well as in fire-fighting foams.

Unusually in the chemical universe, the structures of PFAS include groups of atoms within the same molecule that imbue them with both water-hating and water-loving properties. They are also resistant to degradation.

While this latter characteristic can improve the quality of the products we buy, it also means it is nearly impossible to break these chemicals down once they escape into the environment. Some PFAS chemicals are are also toxic. For example, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) has been classified as carcinogenic to humans, and has been found to lower immune response to common childhood vaccines.

PFAS can penetrate human skin and have been found in our drinking water, air, food, and even in human milk.

Concerns about their safety has led numerous jurisdictions to set limits on levels of some PFAS in drinking water. Nevertheless, many news stories have reported on research finding dangerous levels of PFAS chemicals in drinking water sources in England.


With this in mind, my colleagues and I measured concentrations of ten key PFAS in 41 samples of tap water from the West Midlands of the UK and 14 samples from Shenzhen, China. We also measured the same PFAS in 112 samples of bottled water.

We sampled 87 different brands from 15 countries that we bought either from shops or online in the UK and China. The PFAS we tested included many of those regulated in drinking water as well as some others we have found previously in indoor air and dust.


Forever chemicals are in our drinking water. Shining symbols/Shutterstock

We compared concentrations of PFAS in plastic and glass bottled water, as well as in sparkling versus still water. In neither case did we find significant differences in concentrations of PFAS. In contrast however, in China we found significantly higher concentrations of PFAS in natural mineral water than in bottled purified water.

Crucially, while we found PFAS in every sample analysed, the maximum concentration limits set recently by the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) for some PFAS were only exceeded for PFOA in some samples of tap water from Shenzhen.


Concentrations of PFAS were lower in bottled water than in tap water from the same locality. This finding is in line with studies conducted in other countries like Spain.

It may be reassuring to some extent but our study only examined a relatively small number of tap water samples from two municipalities and cannot be taken as representative of the UK or China overall. There is no room for complacency as the USEPA’s target concentration limits for two of the PFAS we measured are zero.

So, taking note of the lower concentrations we saw in bottled purified water, we examined the effectiveness of boiling and filtration using activated carbon jug filters.

Boiling in a regular kettle reduced concentrations of all ten of the PFAS we tested. The level of reduction varied between different PFAS though. For PFOA and the three other PFAS that we measured for which there are USEPA concentration limits, concentrations reduced by 11%−14% but were much greater (61%-86%) for the more volatile and non-regulated PFAS we examined that are more easily evaporated.

Reductions were greater for all the PFAS we tested (81%−96%) when we passed the water through an activated carbon jug filter. Boiling the water after activated carbon filtration, as sometimes happens in China, reduced concentrations a little further to between 81 and 99.6%.

These results suggest that using a jug water filter can substantially reduce concentrations of some regulated PFAS in our tap water. Boiling water before drinking also reduces PFAS concentrations but is less effective.

Our findings add to those of a 2024 study in Montreal, which suggested that using a filter fitted to the kitchen tap reduced concentrations of 75 PFAS in tap water.

Our findings are a small first step towards reducing our exposure to PFAS. But we should not lose sight of the need to reduce and eliminate such forever chemicals. There’s still a lot we don’t understand about these chemicals but what we’ve learned so far shows that some of them present an urgent threat to the health of both humans and wildlife.

Stuart Harrad, Professor of Environmental Chemistry, University of Birmingham

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

WHITE Extremists posing as aid workers urge NC locals to tear down cell towers and hit military

Jordan Green, Investigative Reporter
November 1, 2024 

Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer booking photo from 2018 (Courtesy Tucson Police Department)

A group of anti-government extremists who showed up in western North Carolina promising to provide disaster relief after Hurricane Helene is now threatening to destroy cell-phone towers and sabotage military vehicles.

The group, Veterans on Patrol, attracted attention by setting up a disaster relief staging area in the parking lot of the Ingles grocery store in Lake Lure, about 50 miles from Asheville.

But locals, including some who initially cooperated with the group, began to complain about threats and harassment.


Over the past three weeks, members of the group, which falsely claims that Helene was caused by a “weather weapon,” have been making conspiracy-driven claims that the U.S. military is attempting to kill U.S. citizens with “directed energy weapons.”

Veterans on Patrol’s channel on the encrypted social-media platform Telegram posted a message on Thursday displaying photos of what appears to be a cell tower on a mountaintop. The message asserted that locals “are in Live Exercises where the United States Military is permitted to destroy your homes, bodies and minds,” while suggesting that equipment on the tower “is solely for providing the U.S. military the means to murder Americans.”

“Focus on tearing down their weapons,” the message reads. It continues, “All it takes is one weapon tower being toppled with the stated reason spoken boldly.”


Another message posted in the group’s Telegram channel appears to advocate for sabotaging military vehicles and assets.

“Simple acts of pouring sugar into fuel tanks of military equipment, backup power systems, and personal vehicles of military personnel can wreak havoc on those who murdered all these people out here,” reads the message, which was posted on Wednesday.

Soldiers from Fort Liberty and Fort Campbell have deployed to western North Carolina to assist in the disaster response, along with National Guard members from nine states.


Veterans on Patrol is led by Michael Lewis Arthur Meyer, who has a long history of anti-government extremism, dating back at least 10 years. Meyer, according to the extremism watchdog group Southern Poverty Law Center, is not a veteran.

Reached by phone on Friday, Meyer doubled down on the threats.

“Jesus used bullwhips and flipped tables,” he told Raw Story. “We’re going to use our bullwhips and topple towers.”


At first during the interview, Meyer argued that the Telegram messages weren’t advocating for targeting cell towers, saying instead that the group would “surgically” remove the supposed “directed energy weapons." He went on to say that they would provide Appalachian residents with generators and Starlink boxes so they could maintain power and communication links.

Asked about the message referencing “pouring sugar into fuel tanks,” Meyer told Raw Story: “We’re going to destroy your tanks…. You want to get dirty? That’s what we should be doing.”

Veterans on Patrol has promoted multiple conspiracy theories based on false claims since arriving in western North Carolina.


One message posted on Telegram on Oct. 22 claimed that “Helene was a Weather Weapon steered to destroy the area, while also claiming that the investment fund BlackRock is attempting a “land grab” and describing the storm and its aftermath as “an act of war perpetrated against the People.”

As the final day of voting in the presidential election approaches, posts on the group’s Telegram channel have taken on an increasingly urgent tone.

The Oct. 22 post claimed that “stolen elections” are a real phenomenon, along with “weather weapons,” “Satanic pedophiles” and “adrenochrome," which refers to a QAnon conspiracy theory that a cabal of elites tortures children to extract a chemical from their bodies which is then used as a recreational drug.


In another post last week, a Veterans on Patrol member nicknamed “Shepherd” claimed that the U.S. Air Force command is instructing pilots “to deploy additional weather weapons.” The post goes on to say, “These people don’t have 2 weeks to wait for vote and 3 months to hopefully wait for a Regime change.”

Another message on the group channel that was published on Wednesday suggests without basis that Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff is the beneficiary of BlackRock’s supposed landgrab.

Speaking to Raw Story, Meyer seemed to all but dare law enforcement to intervene.


“For people to go and do something to prevent weapons from being deployed — that’s not a crime,” he said. “If they want to bring this to court and charge us with conspiracy, then let’s go.”

The FBI did not respond to an inquiry about Veterans on Patrol's activities, but Meyer told Raw Story in an email that he "would imagine the FBI knows full well what we are attempting through Operation Leaning Tower."

Meyer told Raw Story that he notified the office of Gov. Roy Cooper about his "operation." Cooper's office did not immediately respond to a voicemail message from Raw Story.

Phone calls from Raw Story for this story to officials in Lake Lure and Rutherford County, which surrounds the town, went unreturned.


Meyer’s history of extremism dates back to the Bundy Ranch standoff, when armed militants faced down the FBI and other federal agencies in 2014 during a dispute over rancher Cliven Bundy’s refusal to pay grazing fees. Meyer’s involvement in the Bundy Ranch standoff came to light later, when the Oregonian reported that he and a group of friends got into a brawl with other anti-government extremists during the standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, which Bundy and a group of armed supporters had occupied.

Meyer founded Veterans on Patrol in Arizona in 2015, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Prior to presenting itself as a disaster response group in the aftermath of Helene, Veterans on Patrol has claimed its efforts were directed towards rescuing children from sex trafficking, addressing veteran suicide and dubious claims that the military is maliciously harming civilians. Meyer’s activities have frequently landed him in trouble with law enforcement.

Meyer was arrested twice in 2015 after emergency responders talked him down from a light pole in Surprise, Ariz. in 2015.


In 2018, was arrested by the police in Tucson, Ariz. for trespassing and an outstanding warrant for an assault charge, after occupying a tower on an industrial property. A press release from the Tucson Police Department claimed that Meyer “found an abandoned homeless encampment” on the property, “and fictitiously declared, without evidence or corroboration, that the area was the site of a sex-trafficking ring.”

The Tucson police said they received complaints from Tucson residents that Meyer and his followers had threatened and intimidated them, and Meyer made “multiple threatening and hostile remarks directed towards various elected and appointed officials” through social media.

In the summer of 2024, before Hurricane Helene, Veterans on Patrol was active in Spokane, Wash. In Telegram message from July 2, 2024, Veterans on Patrol announced to the police that it “would no longer be safe” for one of its officers “to work his beat.” The channel also posted the home addresses of city council members.


Jordan Green is a North Carolina-based investigative reporter at Raw Story, covering domestic extremism, efforts to undermine U.S. elections and democracy, hate crimes and terrorism. Prior to joining the staff of Raw Story in March 2021, Green spent 16 years covering housing, policing, nonprofits and music as a reporter and editor at Triad City Beat in North Carolina and Yes Weekly. He can be reached at jordan@rawstory.com. More about Jordan Green.

To hell with Trump's voters

D. Earl Stephens
October 28, 2024 

A supporter of Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump holds a MAGA hat during a rally at Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center in Aurora, Colorado, U.S., October 11, 2024. REUTERS/Isaiah J. Downing

This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. 

I have heard way more than enough of this grotesque garbage that perhaps we should try to understand what makes the Trump voter tick, and somehow sympathize with their support of an unapologetic loudmouth who is so vile he sees “good people” on both sides of a violent white supremacist rally.

Have you seen or heard any of this crap?

Have you seen or heard this heated drivel that Kamala Harris and other Democrats have done an inadequate job of connecting with Trump voters who see nothing dangerous about a man who refers to human beings as “vermin,” and has adopted Adolph Hitler’s talking points at his odious campaign rallies?

Have you seen or heard this absolute low-grade nonsense that we should work to lower the temperature in this country, and maybe not take it so personally when one party has gone completely in the tank for a hideous man who told the people who attacked America on January 6, 2021 that he “loves them?”

It is deplorable, and I’m here to remind you it is not normal.

These Trump supporters are shattered people, who have proven only one thing the past eight years: They can ALWAYS go lower, even if it means diving into the dumpster themselves to prove that they truly do believe in their lower cause.


Do not allow yourselves to be gaslit during this the most important election since the Civil War. Understand: If you support the Democratic Party, it does not make you perfect, but is does put you squarely on the right side of human decency and history.

This not only needs to be said out loud, and over and over again, but SHOUTED, because if you are telling me you support the despicable Donald Trump, you have essentially told me everything I need to know about you.

-You have told me you don’t really believe in “law in order” because in fact you support a convicted felon, who is currently facing scores of other felony charges for all manner of crimes, instead of supporting the career prosecutor who locked cheating lowlifes like Trump away behind bars ...


-You have told me you don’t believe in democracy, because you support the traitor who helped plan and execute the first attack on our Capitol since 1812, and attempted a violent coup that was one corrupt vice president away from possibly succeeding.

-You have told me you don’t believe in truth and honesty, because you support the man who told an astonishing documented 30,573 lies and mistruths during his epically awful presidency, and does nothing but lie from the time his fat little feet hit the deck in the morning until he finally passes out from overexposure at midnight.

-You have told me you don’t believe in our children’s future or the future of our planet, because you support the complete imbecile who is a sworn enemy of science, thinks climate change is a hoax, and that wind turbines cause cancer.


-You have told me you don’t have a shred of respect for the women in your lives, because you support the felon who physically attacks and berates them, and does not believe they should have the same rights men do.

-You have told me you don’t believe in a strong economy because you support the guy who wrecked the perfectly good one he inherited from Barack Obama so magnificently by failing to pass the only real test of his gross presidency. His multi-pronged failures to answer the COVID crisis, was among the greatest failures in American history. He simply couldn’t find it in his dark, empty soul to drum up even a shred of compassion for the millions of Americans who were sick and dying, and even went so far as suggesting that maybe we try drinking Lysol to combat COVID’s terrible effects. Even wearing masks was a bridge too far for the guy who would have died from the disease if he had listened to is own sickening counsel.

-You have told me you don’t believe all Americans deserve affordable healthcare, because the guy you support tried to do away with that without any plan to replace it, and now pathetically tells us he has “a concept of a plan” to make it better. Can you really be this damn stupid?


-You have told me you don’t really support blue collar, working Americans because you support the guy who passionately hates unions, refuses to support raising minimum wage, and has relentlessly stood up for the corporations, starting with Big Oil, who grease his bottomless pockets.

-You have told me you really aren’t Christian, if I am to understand this religious orthodoxy at all, because I just don’t think Jesus Christ would have much respect for a foul-mouthed, abusive slob, who dutifully avoids church, belittles people who have less than him, and pawns off Bibles online like they are some steak, sneaker, or watch to pay off his endless stream of lawyers, and pad a lifestyle spent behind locked gates, where he cheats at golf and avoids working-class Americans at all costs.

-You have told me you don’t really support the men and women in uniform because you bow to a reprehensible draft-dodger who calls our fallen “suckers and losers” and just weeks ago disgraced the hallowed grounds of Arlington National Cemetery for a cheap, campaign photo op. The last two chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of staff, including one he appointed are telling you that the man you support means our country harm, so kindly save all that phony patriotic garbage you are trying to dump on the rest of us.


Truth is, I could go on for three full pages here pointing out your wretched hypocrisies, and gladly would if I thought it would have the positive effect of shaking some damn sense into you.

But I’m not interested in wasting my time with that. You have successfully proven you are broken beyond repair. So congratulations for that.

I am only interested in making good and damn sure people know that YOU, and YOU alone, are responsible for the extreme danger that this country finds itself in right now.


You are complete frauds and phonies, who are most likely white, male and angry to the point of violence. You are going nowhere in life, except lower because you are weak in character, and have allowed gravity and depravity to tug you in that lazy, misguided direction.

You want everything done for you and handed to you on a silver platter, because despite your despicable selves, you somehow think you are owed everything simply because of the color of your lily-white skin.

In fact, you are racist as hell, even if you’d like to somehow think you aren’t, because you lack the capacity to do even the minimal amount of introspection needed to attain the most basic understanding that in this country ALL men (and women) are supposed to be created equal.

You don’t believe in a better America, you believe in an America where you can legally drag good people through the dirt, who you still somehow think are lesser than you, and then have a good laugh about it.


You support the monstrous, orange man because he has given you license to be just as completely awful as you want to be. He brings out the very worst in you, and because you are weak in character, you somehow get off on it.

I will always blame the gross “leadership” in your broken party — 80 percent who know better — for the predicament we are in, as we fight tooth and nail to keep this anti-American loudmouth out of our White House, and preserve our republic.

How dare you put this on us, and threaten to end a country 250 years in the making so casually and pathetically.


And I will alway blame my former brethren in the bought-off, reprehensible corporate media for normalizing one of the worst people in world history. They have done catastrophic damage with their refusal to cover one of the biggest stories ever with the weight and vigor it deserves.

He will do everything he can to end us, and YOU know it, damn you.

But it is you, Trump voter, who I reserve the majority of my disdain. You have been coddled long enough in this country. You aren’t misunderstood. The truth is you have very effectively spent the past eight years making it crystal clear to anybody paying even the slightest amount of attention just how revolting and toxic you truly are.


I understand you all too well, and hope you all go straight to hell for the damage you have done to America, the majority of our people, and the brave souls who gave their lives defending her.

NOW READ: Kamala's secret weapon against Trump: The F-word that's changing everything


D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.