Despite mistrust, Afghan Shiites seek Taliban protection
2 of 14

A woman leaves a Shiite shrine in a predominantly Hazara neighborhood while two men stand guard in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021. A strange, new relationship is developing in Afghanistan following the takeover by the Taliban three months ago. The Taliban, Sunni hard-liners who for decades targeted the Hazaras as heretics, are now their only protection against a more brutal enemy: the Islamic State group. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

A woman leaves a Shiite shrine in a predominantly Hazara neighborhood in Kabul, Afghanistan, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021. A strange, new relationship is developing in Afghanistan following the takeover by the Taliban three months ago. The Taliban, Sunni hard-liners who for decades targeted the Hazaras as heretics, are now their only protection against a more brutal enemy: the Islamic State group. (AP Photo/Bram Janssen)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Outside a Shiite shrine in Kabul, four armed Taliban fighters stood guard on a recent Friday as worshippers filed in for weekly prayers. Alongside them was a guard from Afghanistan’s mainly Shiite Hazara minority, an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder.

It was a sign of the strange, new relationship brought by the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. The Taliban, Sunni hard-liners who for decades targeted the Hazaras as heretics, are now their only protection against a more brutal enemy: the Islamic State group.

Sohrab, the Hazara guard standing watch over the Abul Fazl al-Abbas Shrine, told The Associated Press that he gets along fine with the Taliban guards. “They even pray in the mosque sometimes,” he said, giving only his first name for security reasons.

Not everyone feels so comfortable.

Syed Aqil, a young Hazara visiting the ornate shrine along with his wife and 8-month-old daughter, was disturbed that many of the Taliban still wear their traditional garb — the look of a jihadi insurgent — rather than a police uniform.

“We can’t even tell if they are Taliban or Daesh,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

Since seizing power three months ago, the Taliban have presented themselves as more moderate, compared with their first rule in the late 1990s when they violently repressed the Hazaras and other ethnic groups. Courting international recognition, they vow to protect the Hazaras as a show of their acceptance of the country’s minorities.

But many Hazaras still deeply distrust the insurgents-turned-rulers, who are overwhelmingly ethnic Pashtu, and are convinced they will never accept them as equals in Afghanistan. Hazara community leaders say they have met repeatedly with Taliban leadership, asking to take part in the government, only to be shunned. Hazaras complain individual fighters still discriminate against them and fear it’s only a matter of time before the Taliban revert to repression.

“In comparison to their previous rule, the Taliban are a little better,” said Mohammed Jawad Gawhari, a Hazara cleric who runs an organization helping the poor.

“The problem is that there is not a single law. Every individual Talib is their own law right now,” he said. “So people live in fear of them.”

Some changes from the previous era of Taliban rule are clear. After their August takeover, the Taliban allowed Shiites to perform their religious ceremonies, such as the annual Ashura procession.

The Taliban initially confiscated weapons that Hazaras had used, with permission from the previous government to guard some of their own mosques in Kabul. But after devastating IS bombings of Shiite mosques in Kandahar and Kunduz provinces in October, the Taliban returned the weapons in most cases, Gawhari and other community leaders said. The Taliban also provide their own fighters as guards for some mosques during Friday prayers.

“We are providing a safe and secure environment for everyone, especially the Hazaras,” Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. “They should be in Afghanistan. Leaving the country is not good for anyone.”

The Hazaras’ turning to Taliban protection shows how terrified the community is of the Islamic State group, which they say aims to exterminate them. In past years, IS has attacked the Hazaras more ruthlessly than the Taliban ever did, unleashing bombings against Hazara schools, hospitals and mosques, killing hundreds.

IS is also a shared enemy. Though they are Sunni hard-liners like the Taliban, IS militants are waging an insurgency, with frequent attacks on Taliban fighters.

Some Hazara leaders see a potential for cooperation. Ahmed Ali al-Rashed, a senior Hazara cleric, praised the Taliban commanders who now run the main police station in Dashti Barchi, the sprawling district of west Kabul dominated by Hazaras.

“If all Taliban were like them, Afghanistan would be like a garden of flowers,” he said.

Others in Dashti Barchi were skeptical the Taliban will ever change.

Marzieh Mohammedi, whose husband was killed five years ago in fighting with the Taliban, said she’s afraid every time she sees them patrolling Dashti Barchi.

“How can they protect us? We can’t trust them. We feel like they are Daesh,” she said.

The differences are partly religious. But also Hazaras, who make up an estimated 10% of Afghanistan’s population of nearly 40 million, are ethnically distinct and speak a variant of Farsi rather than Pashtu. They have a long history of being oppressed by the ethnic Pashtu majority, some of whom stereotype them as intruders.

Aqil said that when he tried to go to a police station for a document, the Taliban guard at the gate only spoke Pashtu and impatiently slammed the door in his face. He had to come back later with a Pashtu-speaking colleague.

“This sort of situation makes me lose hope in the future,” he said. “They don’t know us. They are not broadminded to accept other communities. They act as if they are the owners of this country.”

A young Hazara woman, Massoumeh, said four people were killed last month in her part of Dashti Barchi, raising residents’ fears that people with roles in the previous government were targets.

She went with a community delegation led by a local elder to the area’s Taliban police station to discuss security. The only woman in the delegation, she had to wait in the yard while the others met with the district commander, who she said tried to blame the security failings on the local elder. As the delegation left, a guard told them not to bring a woman with them again, she said.

“How can you keep security in Afghanistan if you can’t keep security in our village?” she said.

The 21-year-old Massoumeh was a nurse at Dashti Barchi’s main hospital in 2020 when IS gunmen stormed the maternity ward, killing at least 24 people, mostly mothers who were pregnant or had just given birth — one of the militants’ most horrific attacks.

Since then, she has been too afraid to return to work because of death threats after she spoke about the attack on Afghan TV. Soon after the attack, two militants approached her on a bus late at night, picking her out using a photo on their phone, and pulled a gun on her, warning her not to go back to work, she said. She and her father still get threatening phone calls, she said.

Police under the previous government gave her some protection, she said. But she doesn’t even bother to ask the Taliban police for help.

“Of course not. We are afraid of them,” she said. “No one will come and help us.”

Other events in the Hazaras’ central Afghanistan heartland have raised the community’s concerns. In Daikundi province, Taliban fighters killed 11 Hazara soldiers and two civilians, including a teenage girl, in August, according to Amnesty International. Taliban officials also expelled Hazara families from several Daikundi villages after accusing them of living on land that didn’t belong to them.

After an uproar from Hazaras, further expulsions were halted, Gawhari and other community leaders said.

But so far, the Taliban have rejected repeated requests from the Hazaras for a say in government. Gawhari, the cleric, said a Hazara delegation approached the Taliban and proposed 50 Hazara experts and academics to be brought into the administration. “They were not interested,” he said.

The international community is pressing the Taliban to form a government that reflects Afghanistan’s ethnic, religious and political spectrum, including women. The Taliban’s Cabinet is comprised entirely of men from their own ranks.

Last week, Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi expressed impatience with international demands for inclusivity. “Our current Cabinet fulfils that requirement, we have representatives from all ethnicities,” he told reporters.

The highest level Hazara in the administration is a deputy health minister. Several other Hazaras hold some provincial posts, but they are Hazaras who long ago joined the Taliban insurgency and adopted its hard-line ideology. Few in the Hazara community recognize them.

Ali Akbar Jamshidi, a former parliament member representing Daikundi province, said Hazaras won’t be satisfied with a few local positions and want to be brought into the Cabinet and the intelligence and security services.

The Taliban, he said, are running a government “that acts like a warlord who has seized everything.”

“Physical security is not enough. We need psychological security as well, feeling like we are part of this government and it is part of us,” he said. “The Taliban can benefit from us. They have the opportunity to form a government for the future, but they are not taking this opportunity.”

___

Abdul Qahhar Afghan contributed.

Afghan evacuees enjoy Albania but have eyes set on Canada
By LLAZAR SEMINI

1 of 7

Afghan women look at their cell phones as children play at a coastline tourist resort of Golem, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Tirana, Albania, Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021. A group of Afghans evacuated earlier this month are housed at an Albanian coastline tourist resort enjoying the warm welcome and a normal daily life. The last group of judges, sportsmen, journalists, activists, artists, law enforcement officers, scientists and more arrived earlier in October. They all miss and fear of the fate of their families back home. (AP Photo/Franc Zhurda)

GOLEM, Albania (AP) — One Afghan teacher calls Albania a “paradise” while a former Afghan government official cannot get enough of “the freedom” that exists in the tiny Western Balkan country where they were evacuated to after the Taliban took over their homeland.

Others are more pensive. An Afghan woman who mentored orphan girls deplores the end of her project and the fate of her former students and women under their new Taliban rulers, while a businessman misses his company back home.

All of them are in limbo, waiting for a visa to the United States at the Kolaveri tourist resort on Golem Beach, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of the Albanian capital, Tirana. And all share a common dream: to go from the U.S. to Canada, where they hope to build a better future.

The resort shelters 571 Afghan evacuees plucked from their “fearsome and chaotic” country, as Fareidoon Hakimi, who has become the community’s leader, described Afghanistan.

A group of 125 Afghans, including judges, cyclists, journalists, TV presenters, human rights activists, family members of Afghan diplomats, artists, law enforcement officers and scientists landed in Albania on Oct. 13, assisted by IsrAID, an Israeli aid organization.

Albania has sheltered up to 2,000 Afghan evacuees, all housed in hotels and resorts. They are supposed to stay there for a year or so until U.S. authorities finish processing their special immigration visas.

“The Albania country in the world / Its soil is like paradise,” was part of a poem that 61-year-old poet and teacher Sadiq Zarei wrote and recited to visiting Associated Press journalists. “They saved shama’il and all of us,” it ends, referring to a collection of sacred tales about the life of the Islamic prophet Muhammad compiled by a 9th-century scholar.

Hakimi said everyone at the resort could now pray in peace there or go to a nearby mosque, especially on Fridays. Albania’s 2.8 million people are predominantly Muslim, living in harmony with Orthodox and Catholic communities.

Hakimi, a 36-year-old former public administration adviser at a province near Kabul, spoke for hours about the saga of how they fled Afghanistan.

“People never expected this to happen suddenly,” he said of the U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Along with his wife, his 2- and 5-year-old sons and his mother, Hakimi reached Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, where they tried to cross into Tajikistan. There were about 125 people like him whom the Taliban tried to stop. After many days, they went to the Mazar-i-Sharif airport, flew to Tajikistan and had to wait for three days inside the terminal until Albania offered them visas and IsrAID chartered a plane.

At the resort, Hakimi and 17 other section leaders are working nonstop to supply food, entertainment, psychological support and other basic needs for the relocated community. He and others enjoy the freedom they have been given and praised the warmth of the Albanian staff.

“We would hardly pass this difficult moment without their open-hearted welcome,” said Hakimi.

At the fenced and guarded beach resort, children play while elders stay at the coffee bar, walk around or stroll on the beach. A young Afghan woman studies on a laptop. Many get together in groups to spend the day in Tirana or the nearby city of Durres.

When Mohammad Javed Khan, who worked as a clerk at the Afghan parliament, was asked what they found in Albania, his immediate answer was “Freedom.”

“The freedom which every human needs; relaxation, sleep,” he said. “We can sleep without fear.”

Afghan poet and teacher and his niece talk on their experience in Albania where they have been evacuated earlier this month, at a coastline tourist resort in Golem, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Tirana, Albania, Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021. A group of Afghans evacuated earlier this month are housed at an Albanian coastline tourist resort enjoying the warm welcome and a normal daily life. The last group of judges, sportsmen, journalists, activists, artists, law enforcement officers, scientists and more arrived earlier in October. They all miss and fear of the fate of their families back home. (AP Photo/Franc Zhurda)

Security and fears about family members were top concerns for Afghans seeking to flee. Khan, who arrived with his wife and 3-month-old daughter, said he has finally relaxed.

“No one will take our daughter,” the 27-year-old said. “No one will carry out suicide bomb attacks. ... We ran away because there was no security.”

Leqa Fahimi arrived with her husband, 9-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son, who misses home and wants to return. In Afghanistan, she worked with an international non-governmental organization taking care of orphan girls.

“I taught them about kindness, about friendship, self-confidence, how to share their own story to the world,” Fahimi said, adding in a desperate voice: “We had lot of activity for the girls. And now ... I don’t know where they are.”

The evacuees try to keep themselves busy, helping the resort staff and each other, organizing sports activities or entertainment for the children.

Hakimi is expecting the confirmation of a special application visa by the U.S. government.

“We have all the good things here that we had lost back at home,” he said. “But I want to go to Canada, where my brother and sister are.”

The same with Fahimi, the poet-teacher, and the clerk, Khan.

“We would love to go to Canada because Canada has the best immigration policies and part of my family lives in Canada,” said Khan.

___

Follow all AP stories on Afghanistan at https://apnews.com/hub/Afghanistan

___

Follow Llazar Semini at https://twitter.com/lsemini

English cricket racism exposed by victim Rafiq at parliament

There is no ‘yeah, but’ with racism; there is no ‘two sides’ to racism.”

Former cricketer Azeem Rafiq gives evidence during a parliamentary hearing at the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee on sport governance at Portcullis House in London, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. Former Yorkshire player Rafiq reported that former national captain Michael Vaughan used racially insensitive comments toward a group of players of Asian ethnicity at county club Yorkshire. (Video grab House of Commons via AP)

LONDON (AP) — English cricket was forced to confront its racist culture on Tuesday when former player Azeem Rafiq testified through tears at a parliamentary hearing but with a determination to expose the Islamophobia and bullying he suffered for more than a decade.

“Do I believe I lost my career to racism? Yes, I do,” said Rafiq, who played for Yorkshire — England’s most successful cricket club.

“I hope in five years’ time we are going to see a big change, that I did something far bigger than any runs or any wickets I got.”

Racism complaints that led to Yorkshire launching an investigation in September 2020 reached the British Parliament after the report that dismissed some abuse as “friendly banter” led to no immediate departures from the club’s hierarchy and was not publicly released.

Rafiq told legislators that Yorkshire teammates used an offensive term referencing his Pakistani heritage and that the leadership at the 33-time winners of the English county championship failed to act on the racism.

“Pretty early on, (for) me and other people from an Asian background,” Rafiq told a House of Commons select committee overseeing sport, “there were comments such as, ‘You lot sit there near the toilets,’ ‘Elephant washers.’ The word P(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk) was used constantly. And there just seemed to be an acceptance in the institution from the leaders and no one stamped it out.”

Asked if he thought cricket was institutionally racist in the country, Rafiq responded: “Yes, I do.”

Two former players at Essex have recently also said they were racially abused at that club, whose chairman resigned las week over the use of racist language at a board meeting four years ago.

Rafiq, a former England Under-19 captain, said he felt “isolated, humiliated at times” by his treatment at Yorkshire during two spells playing for the club from 2008 to 2018.

During testimony, Rafiq also made fresh claims of racial discrimination against former England internationals Matthew Hoggard, Tim Bresnan, Alex Hales and Gary Ballance who are accused of using the offensive abbreviation of Pakistani toward him.

“For any part I played in contributing to Azeem Rafiq’s experience of feeling bullied at Yorkshire, I apologize unreservedly,” Bresnan said.

Rafiq said Ballance’s use of “Kevin” as a blanket derogatory term for all people of color was “an open secret in the England dressing room” and Hales called his dog Kevin because it was black.

“It’s disgusting how much of a joke it was,” Rafiq said.

As a graduate of the Yorkshire academy, Rafiq recalled Hoggard told Asian players “you lot sit over there” and referred to them as “elephant washers.”

Rafiq has also said former England captain Michael Vaughan said “there’s too many of you lot” at a 2009 game for Yorkshire. Vaughan denies saying it.

Yorkshire said last month that it would not take any disciplinary action against any of its employees, players or executives despite a report upholding seven of the 43 allegations that Rafiq was the victim of racial harassment and bullying. Only recently have the chairman and chief executive resigned.

The England and Wales Cricket Board has suspended Yorkshire from hosting international matches over its “wholly unacceptable” response to the racism faced by Rafiq, while sponsors are ending deals, including kit supplier Nike.

“I agree that the handling of the report indicates issues around institutional racism,” ECB chief executive Tom Harrison told legislators.

Rafiq said he was being talked about as a captain of Yorkshire before reporting his concerns in 2017. Then Rafiq said board minutes said he was “a problem, a troublemaker and an issue that needs to be resolved.”

That followed a 2017 preseason tour when Rafiq said he suffered abuse from a teammate in front of others.

“Gary Ballance walks over and goes, ‘Why are you talking to him? You know he’s a P(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk).’ Or, ‘He’s not a sheikh, he’s got no oil,’” Rafiq testified.

Two weeks ago, Ballance, a former England cricketer, admitted to using a racial slur against Rafiq when they were teammates at Yorkshire, but said that was in the context of friends saying offensive things to each other.

In a written submission to the hearing, Rafiq claimed that Yorkshire “protected” Ballance by allowing him to miss drug hair sample tests to avoid sanctions.

“When he failed a recreational drug test and was forced to miss some games,” Rafiq said, “the club informed the public he was missing games because he was struggling with anxiety and mental health issues.”

At one point the committee had to break for several minutes after Rafiq grappled with the emotions of recounting painful experiences.

The Pakistan-born Rafiq, who is Muslim, described his distressing first experience of alcohol at the age of 15 after being asked about his drinking.

“I got pinned down at my local cricket club and had red wine poured down my throat, literally down my throat,” the 30-year-old Rafiq said. “I (then) didn’t touch alcohol until about 2012 and around that time I felt I had to do that to fit in. I wasn’t perfect. There are things I did which I felt I had to do to achieve my dreams.

“I deeply regret that but it has nothing to do with racism. When I spoke I should have been listened to. The game as a whole has a problem, with listening to the victim. There is no ‘yeah, but’ with racism; there is no ‘two sides’ to racism.”

___

More AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Judge rules Enbridge Line 5 oil pipeline case with Michigan be heard in federal court

JAMES MCCARTEN
WASHINGTON
THE CANADIAN PRESS

Nuts, bolts and fittings are ready to be added to the east leg of the Enbridge Line 5 pipeline near St. Ignace, Mich.

DALE G. YOUNG/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. scored a key victory in the Line 5 dispute Tuesday as a judge in Michigan rejected the state attorney general’s bid to get the dispute over the cross-border pipeline kicked out of federal court.

U.S. Circuit Court Judge Janet Neff issued the long-awaited written ruling late Tuesday, agreeing with Enbridge that its dispute with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s administration involves “substantial federal issues.”

The decision resolves one of the central questions in the case – whether a federal court is the proper forum for it – and gives additional weight to Enbridge’s argument that the standoff is an important bilateral issue with consequences for both countries, and is for Canada and the U.S. to resolve.

In her ruling, Neff said she’s satisfied that the Line 5 case comprises a “substantial federal question” and that hearing it won’t undermine Michigan’s right to resolve state issues.

“The court holds that the Enbridge parties have borne their burden of demonstrating that this action was properly removed (from state court),” she writes.

“The scope of the property rights the state parties assert necessarily turns on the interpretation of federal law that burdens those rights, and this court is an appropriate forum for deciding these disputed and substantial federal issues.”

The ruling marks a significant victory for Enbridge, which sought the move from state to federal court in the first place, a move the state of Michigan has been contesting for the last 12 months.

“Enbridge is pleased with the decision and agrees that this case belongs in federal court, as we’ve asserted all along,” the company said in a statement. “This is both a federal and international law issue and the federal court will now handle the case.”

A spokesperson for the Michigan attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to media inquiries Tuesday.

Neff also agreed to accept two recent supplemental briefs filed by the federal government in Ottawa detailing Canada’s decision to invoke a 1977 treaty designed to ensure the uninterrupted flow of cross-border energy between the two countries.

Those briefs make it clear that planning for bilateral treaty talks on Line 5 is “well under way,” with formal negotiations expected to begin “shortly.” Should those negotiations fail, the next stage of the dispute resolution process would be binding international arbitration.

The decision comes at an opportune time for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who will have Line 5 on his agenda when he meets Thursday with U.S. President Joe Biden and Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador at the White House.

Canada opted to formally invoke the 44-year-old treaty last month after talks involving a court-appointed mediator ended in what Neff described Tuesday as a “standstill.”

Last November, Whitmer revoked a 1953 easement that allowed Line 5 to operate and ordered it shut down for fear of an environmental disaster in the ecologically sensitive Straits of Mackinac, the waterway where the pipeline crosses the Great Lakes.

The White House has acknowledged that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is conducting an environmental assessment on Enbridge’s plans to encase the underwater portion of the twin pipeline in a deep, fortified underground tunnel.

But they have assiduously avoided casting judgment on the efforts by Whitmer, by all accounts a close ally of Biden’s who was once on the shortlist to be his vice-president, to get the line shut down entirely.

Line 5 ferries upwards of 540,000 barrels per day of crude oil and natural gas liquids across the Canada-U.S. border and the Great Lakes by way of a twin line that runs along the lake bed beneath the straits linking Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

Proponents call it a vital and indispensable source of energy – particularly propane – for several Midwestern states, including Michigan and Ohio. It is also a key source of feedstock for refineries on the northern side of the border, including those that supply jet fuel to some of Canada’s busiest airports.

Critics want the line shut down, arguing it’s only a matter of time before an anchor strike or technical failure triggers a catastrophic environmental disaster in one of the area’s most important watersheds.

They also point to a recent pipeline rupture off the coast of California, believed to be the result of an anchor strike, as an example of the fate that could befall the straits if Line 5′s operations continue.

JUST IN TIME FUNDING

US Infrastructure bill unleashes funding to address risky dams

By DAVID A. LIEB

 In this aerial photo provided by the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, area officials monitor a potential dam/levee failure in the Springridge Place subdivision in Yazoo County, Miss., Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2020. Federal money is poised to flow to states to address a pent-up need to repair, improve or remove thousands of aging dams across the U.S., including some that could devastate downstream towns or neighborhoods. The money is included in a $1 trillion infrastructure bill signed by President Joe Biden and is significantly more than has gone to dams in the past.

 (David Battaly/Mississippi Emergency Management Agency via AP, File)


JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — States will soon be flooded with federal money to address a pent-up need to repair, improve or remove thousands of aging dams across the U.S., including some that could inundate towns or neighborhoods if they fail.

The roughly $3 billion for dam-related projects pales in comparison to the tens of billions of dollars going to roads, rails and high-speed internet in the $1 trillion infrastructure plan signed Monday by President Joe Biden. But it’s a lot more than dam projects had been getting.

The money could give “a good kick-start to some of these upgrades that need to be done to make the dams as safe as possible,” said David Griffin, manager of Georgia’s Safe Dams Program and president-elect of the Association of State Dam Safety Officials.

The U.S. has more than 90,000 dams, averaging over a half-century old. An Associated Press analysis in 2019 identified nearly 1,700 dams in 44 states and Puerto Rico that were in poor or unsatisfactory condition and categorized as high-hazard — meaning their failure likely would result in a deadly flood. The actual number almost certainly is higher, because some states declined to provide complete data for their dams.

Though many large dams are maintained by federal or state agencies, most of the nation’s dams are privately owned. That makes fixing them more challenging, because regulators have little leverage over dam owners who don’t have the money to make repairs or simply neglect the needed fixes.

Over the past decade, the Federal Emergency Management Agency provided more than $400 million for projects involving dams, mostly to repair damage from natural disasters. But until just a few years ago, there was no national program focused solely on improving the thousands of dams overseen by state and local entities.

FEMA’s Rehabilitation of High Hazard Potential Dams Grant Program has divvied up $31.6 million among 36 participating states from 2019-2021. That amount, appropriated by Congress, was barely one-fifth of what had been authorized under a 2016 federal law.

The infrastructure bill provides more than 18 times that amount, pumping $585 million into the program for hazardous dams, including $75 million set aside for their removal. Because of administrative requirements, FEMA said the new money likely won’t start flowing to states before the 2023 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, 2022. Previous grants often have been enough only to cover engineering or planning expenses.

“This funding will allow for significant increases in the number and amount of actual dam rehabilitation and removal projects which the current funding levels have not allowed,” said David Maurstad, FEMA’s deputy associate administrator for insurance and mitigation.

Repairing and modernizing all 14,343 high-hazard dams that aren’t owned by the federal government could cost more than $20 billion, according to an estimate by the dam safety association.

“The program is not really intended to fix all of them, but this will definitely help to fix some of the worst of those,” said Mark Ogden, a former Ohio dam safety official who is now a technical specialist at the association. “It will definitely improve public safety.”

The infrastructure legislation also includes $148 million for FEMA to distribute to state dam safety offices — a significant increase over the $6 million to $7 million annually that has been divided among states. The new money could help states hire more staff or consultants to assess the safety of dams and develop emergency action plans. Every state except Alabama has a dam safety program, but many are underfunded and understaffed, creating a backlog of work.

After dam failures resulted in flooding that forced the evacuation of about 10,000 people last year in Michigan, a review by the dam safety association found the state’s dam safety office was “extremely understaffed” and that it hadn’t invested in dam safety “for many decades.”

Michigan responded by beefing up its budget. A state spending plan that took effect last month includes $13 million for grants to repair and remove dams and $6 million for an emergency fund that could be tapped when dam owners are unwilling or unable to make repairs. It also includes money to hire more staff for the dam safety program.

Additional dam funding is sprinkled throughout the federal infrastructure legislation.

The Bureau of Reclamation will get $500 million over five years for its dam safety program, a 50% increase over its current annual appropriation. The money is likely to go toward major renovation projects at B.F. Sisk Dam on San Luis Reservoir in California and El Vado Dam in New Mexico, said reclamation dam safety officer Bob Pike. That will free up other funds to hasten repairs at about 20 other high-hazard dams in the bureau’s footprint of 17 western states, he said.

Reclamation will get an additional $100 million for repairs at certain old dams. An additional $118 million will fund repairs at dams through the Natural Resources Conservation Service. And $75 million will flow through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a loan program to make dam repairs.

The bill includes up to $800 million through several federal agencies that could be used to remove dams, allowing fish to pass through.

The large influx of federal funds shows that “removing dams in many places is good and appropriate and healthy for river resilience,” said Tom Kiernan, president of the nonprofit group American Rivers.

The infrastructure bill also includes about $750 million that could fund improvements at hydroelectric dams or retrofit existing dams to start producing energy. That includes a new grant program capped at $5 million a year per facility. The hydropower industry is pushing for separate legislation that also would create a tax credit for improvements to hydroelectric dams.

The funding in the infrastructure bill “is just a down payment,” said LeRoy Coleman, spokesman for the National Hydropower Association. “We need transformational change for more clean energy and for healthier rivers.”

Northwest Storm: ‘Devastating’ flood damage near border

By LISA BAUMANN

1 of 20

A woman and children who were stranded by high water due to flooding are rescued by a volunteer operating a boat in Abbotsford, British Columbia on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. Officials in a small city near the Canada border are calling the damage devastating after a storm that dumped rain for days caused flooding and mudslides. City officials in Sumas, Washington said Tuesday that hundreds of people had been evacuated and estimated that 75% of homes had water damage. Just over the border, residents in about 1,100 rural homes in Abbotsford were told to evacuate as waterways started to rise quickly. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)

BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) — More people were urged to leave their homes Tuesday and officials in a small Washington city near the Canada border are calling the damage devastating after a storm that dumped rain for days caused flooding and mudslides.

Sumas city officials said Tuesday on Facebook that hundreds of people had been evacuated and they estimated that 75% of homes had water damage in a soaking that reminded people of western Washington’s record, severe flooding in November 1990 when two people died and there were more than 2,000 evacuations.

“These families and businesses need our prayers and support as we start the process of cleanup and rebuilding over the next few days,” the post said.

Additionally, six railroad cars that had been sitting on tracks in a BNSF rail yard in Sumas derailed in the flooding Tuesday, according to Lena Kent, BNSF general director of public affairs. Trains in that location and others won’t be running until water recedes and debris is removed and tracks are inspected, she said.

Just over the border, residents in about 1,100 rural homes in Abbotsford, British Columbia were told to evacuate Tuesday as waterways started to rise quickly. Police said they understood many of the affected properties are dairy farms or house other livestock, but said the situation was changing rapidly and residents must leave.

In the northern Washington city of Ferndale, officials on Tuesday urged people in homes and businesses to evacuate in an area near the rising Nooksack River, saying it had potential to breach the levee.

Road crews on Tuesday managed to partially reopen the West Coast’s main north-south Interstate 5 near Bellingham, a city south of Ferndale, following its complete closure overnight. But the highway’s northbound lanes were still closed in the area.

People stand atop a flood wall holding back the Skagit River in downtown Mount Vernon, Wash., Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. An atmospheric river—a huge plume of moisture extending over the Pacific and into Washington and Oregon—caused heavy rainfall in recent days, bringing major flooding in the area. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

The rains were caused by an atmospheric river — a huge plume of moisture extending over the Pacific and into Washington and Oregon.

It was the second major widespread flood event in the northwest part of the state in less than two years after a similar storm in early 2020, and climate change is fueling more powerful and frequent severe weather, Whatcom County officials told the newspaper.

At the height of the storm, more than 158,000 electrical customers in western Washington on Monday had no power and schools in and around the city of Bellingham were closed on Tuesday for the second day in a row. Nearly 50,000 Washington state electrical customers remained without power on Tuesday, officials said.

Northeast of Bellingham in the Everson area, authorities said one person was still missing Tuesday after being seen in floodwaters clinging to a tree.

And a motorist in Bellingham was seriously injured Monday on Interstate 5 when a tree fell on a vehicle. Monday winds reached speeds of 60 mph (96 kph), including one gust of 58 mph (93 kph) at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Conditions were drier Tuesday but the National Weather Service issued flood warnings for several rivers around western Washington. The National Weather Service also said there was good news in that south of Bellingham, the Skagit River at Mount Vernon would crest at a level below previous estimates and potentially cause less damage.

Up the Skagit River from Mount Vernon in the town of Hamilton, floodwaters surrounded homes while vehicles were packed into a parking lot outside a church that served as a Red Cross evacuation site.

One worker stands on a closed bridge as another on the flooded walkway below where a flood wall at left holds back the Skagit River from downtown Mount Vernon, Wash., Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. An atmospheric river—a huge plume of moisture extending over the Pacific and into Washington and Oregon—caused heavy rainfall in recent days, bringing major flooding in the area. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Skagit County officials compared the flood to severe flooding in 2009, when the Skagit and Samish rivers overflowed and caused damage to homes, farms and infrastructure.

Gov. Jay Inslee declared a severe weather state of emergency in 14 counties and said the state Emergency Management Division, with support from the Washington National Guard, would coordinate the response.

Bellingham’s record rainfall on Sunday totaled 2.78 inches (7 centimeters), crushing the prior daily record from 1998 of 0.88 inches (2.2 centimeters), according to the National Weather Service. Another 1.89 inches (4.8 centimeters) poured down on Bellingham on Monday.

West of Seattle on the Olympic Peninsula, several highways were partially closed and the U.S. Coast Guard helped local authorities evacuate about 10 people near the town of Forks. In nearby Quillayute, a daily record rainfall of 4.01 inches (10 centimeters) was set on Monday.

CLIMATE CHANGE AFTER COP26

At least 1 dead from mudslides in Canada after heavy rains

By JIM MORRIS and ROB GILLIES

People, including a toddler and dog who were stranded by high water due to flooding are rescued by a volunteer operating a boat in Abbotsford, British Columbia, on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. 

(Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP)


VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — The body of a woman was recovered from one of the mudslides caused by extremely heavy rainfall in the Pacific coast Canadian province of British Columbia, authorities said Tuesday.

Police said search and rescue personnel were continuing to look for other possible victims from Monday’s slides.

“Our team did recover one person,” said David MacKenzie, the Pemberton District Search and Rescue manager.

He said his team came across seven vehicles at the slide site on Highway 99 near the town of Lillooet and police were trying to determine if there were any other bodies.

“It is a significant amount of debris. It makes it very difficult for our search crews. The mud is up to their waist. I can’t recall our team being involved in anything like this in the past,” he said.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Staff Sgt. Janelle Shoihet said the total number of people and vehicles unaccounted for had not yet been confirmed. She said investigators had received reports of two other people who were missing but added that other motorists might have been buried in the slide.

Vancouver Heavy Urban Search and Rescue Team spokesman Jonathan Gormick said while the roadway has been cleared of potentially trapped vehicles or people, they’ll now be searching the slide’s debris field.

Elsewhere in the province, Abbotsford Mayor Henry Braun said impassable highways were creating havoc in his city as police and firefighters tried to get people to evacuation centers.

“It breaks my heart to see what’s going on in our city,” Braun said.

Sunny skies followed two days of torrential storms that dumped the typical amount of rain that the city gets in all of November, but the mayor said the water was still rising and Highway 1 would be cut shut down for some time.

Braun said he was worried about getting enough information from officials in Washington state about water levels that have risen dramatically from the overflowing Nooksack River and over the Sumas dike.

“When are we going to crest? When is it going to level off here? It’s like a full cup of coffee. Once it’s full, it keeps flowing over the sides,′ he said.

Abbotsford Police Chief Mike Serr said officers removed some people from the roofs of cars awash in flood waters Monday night but left some motorists in semi-trucks because they were higher above the water.

“I was out there last night. You could not see where the side of the road was. We had one member put on a life-jacket and swim out towards a car that was overturned to bring someone back. And that was on a regular basis for about two hours,” Serr said.

About 1,100 homes had been evacuated in Abbotsford, adding to others in various parts of British Columbia, including in Merritt, where the entire town of 7,000 people was forced to leave after the sanitation system failed.

___

Associated Press writer Jim Morris reported this story in Vancouver and AP writer Rob Gillies contributed from Toronto.

Devastation continues to mount in rain- and flood-stricken southwestern B.C.

Civil engineering expert says repairing some of the more seriously damaged infrastructure will take time

CBC News · Posted: Nov 16, 2021 

Two people canoe past a submerged truck near a flooded Trans Canada highway in Abbotsford, B.C., on Tuesday. Officials in the province were still assessing damage from floods and mudslides after torrential rains that began on the weekend finally started to subside. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

One person is confirmed dead and the toll of damage and destruction continues to escalate as the torrential rain that fell across southwestern British Columbia over the weekend and into Monday subsided on Tuesday.

It was an "atmospheric river" event that brought heavy downpours and triggered flooding and landslides, leading to the evacuation of the entire city of Merritt, as well as further evacuations in the Fraser Valley, the Interior and Vancouver Island.

A woman's body was recovered at the site of a mudslide that swept across Highway 99 near Lillooet on Monday. Police say there could be more fatalities as search and rescue efforts continue.

Evacuations orders were issued in Abbotsford and Chilliwack Tuesday morning, with residents told to leave the Sumas Prairie and Yarrow neighbourhoods immediately as flood waters continued to rise, and schools in the Fraser Valley municipalities of Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Hope and Mission were closed Tuesday.

A significant portion of the province is currently under either flood watch or flood warning.

As of Tuesday morning, much of southern British Columbia is under either flood watches or flood warnings. The B.C. River Forecast Centre classifies a flood watch as being when river levels are rising and will approach, or may exceed, their banks and flood adjacent areas. A flood warning is when river levels have exceeded their banks, or will imminently. (CBC News)

Flood watch means river levels are rising and may exceed their banks and flood adjacent areas. A flood warning means that's already happened.

Highways across the south of the province were also closed due to mudslides and debris flows, with parts of the Coquihalla and Trans Canada highways washing away in surging rivers. Hundreds of motorists were trapped on the roads, and many were rescued by helicopter Monday.

Woman confirmed dead in mudslide that swept across B.C. highway during extreme rain storm

A civil engineering expert said repairs to some of the most seriously damaged infrastructure will take time and upcoming challenges this week will be on flood protection works and dikes.

"That will be a major emphasis to make sure damage that has occurred isn't compounded," said Jonathan Fannin of UBC's Department of Civil Engineering.

"Then getting the roads and especially the bridges back up and going, probably with temporary structures to begin with and then more permanent works over time."

29 PHOTOS | Scenes of the flooding and mudslides in southern B.C.:

Incessant rain led to widespread flooding across southern B.C. on Sunday and Monday, with the cities of Abbotsford and Merritt particularly hard hit. Here, a helicopter arrives Monday afternoon to rescue people who were trapped between two mudslides along Highway 7 near Agassiz, B.C. More than 250 people were stranded in the area for more than 12 hours after the slides late Sunday. 

Submitted by Mike Stronach

 

Spencer Coyne, the mayor of Princeton, B.C., told CBC's Heather Hiscox on Tuesday that rivers are starting to go down.

The Similkameen River didn't get as high as town officials feared it might, Coyne said, which was a positive development for the small community where 295 homes have been evacuated and another 300 are on alert.

The mayor said most evacuees are with friends and family, and he believes there are about 30 people at a local reception centre. But he noted the community is without natural gas and temperatures are expected to fall Tuesday, with flurries in the forecast.

Still reeling from fire season, Merritt, B.C., evacuees now taking stock of 'devastating' floods

Town of Princeton swamped after floodwaters breach dike

"We're going to try to move our evacuees to Kelowna today to try to keep them warm because our … reception centre won't have heat."

WATCH | Mayor Spencer Coyne describes the situation in Princeton:

 

Mayor Spencer Coyne of Princeton, B.C., tells the CBC's Heather Hiscox that his heavily flooded town could face several days without heat because of a broken natural gas line. 7:05

Waking up on the road

Some travellers were forced to spend a second night in their vehicles on Monday due to road closures.

Andrew Clark, a musician from Ladysmith, had been in Kelowna for the weekend to play concerts, but on the way home Sunday he got stuck near Hope with two colleagues.

He said they're part of a group that was forced to sleep in their vehicles and crowd into local restaurants and gas stations for food and services.

"Everyone's been very good humoured," he said. "Everyone knows that we are in the same boat, so that's all quite good, but I think there's a sort of general air of disappointment that we can't find out more information about what's happening down the road.

"People are a little bit worried about how many nights we might be staying here."

Rescuers lift hundreds of motorists trapped on B.C. highway to safety

VIDEOCoquihalla Highway and sections of Hwy 1 closed due to major flood damage

An airlift operation Monday rescued hundreds of people trapped by mudslides on Highway 7 near Agassiz.

The Department of National Defence told CBC News that a total of 311 people, 26 dogs and one cat were airlifted from the highway.

Jeff Kuhn, the lead pastor at Grace Baptist Church in Hope, B.C., said about 250 people were staying at the church and that there are also people staying at a local high school or in their cars.

"The community has pulled together," he said, noting that grocery stores and people in town have been sending food and water.

WATCH | Pastor Jeff Kuhn walks CBC News around Grace Baptist Church:

Stranded travellers find sanctuary in Hope, B.C., church

The Grace Baptist Church in Hope, B.C., is offering a warm welcome to dozens of stranded travellers with every comfort it can provide, right down to the padded pews at bedtime, says lead pastor, Jeff Kuhn. 7:11

Kuhn said there's some hope that Highway 1 west will open later in the day, allowing some people trapped in Hope to start making their way home.

There is no clear timeline for when the province's highway network will be functional again, or when evacuation orders will be lifted for those forced to leave their homes.
Weaker weather system possible Thursday

Tuesday will see the end of the weather system bringing heavy rain to the province, according to Environment Canada meteorologist Kenneth Chan.

"On Thursday, perhaps, we'll have another weather system coming," he said.

"But this one should be much weaker and also just mostly to the Pacific Northwest, Washington state. So we won't be affected by that as much."

A car drives on a flooded road in Abbotsford, B.C., on Monday. Schools in the district will be closed Tuesday as parts of the city remain under evacuation order. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

Snowfall warnings remained in place overnight for the Coquihalla Highway, with Environment Canada saying up to 20 centimetres of snow could fall between Hope and Merritt.

Wind speeds are still expected to be high throughout B.C. Gusts of up to 90 km/h were forecast in parts of the Fraser Valley on Monday.

On Monday afternoon, Public Safety Minister and acting Premier Mike Farnworth said conditions were in flux throughout the province.

"I would like to thank everyone who is affected for your patience, strength and for doing everything you can to stay safe," he said at a media conference.

In a statement, the federal Ministry of Public Safety said officials from the Government Operations Centre are in close contact with B.C. emergency management staff and that Ottawa is prepared to assist if necessary and if the province makes a request.

Anyone placed under evacuation order should leave the area immediately.

To find an evacuation centre close to you, visit the Emergency Management B.C. website.

Evacuees are encouraged to register with Emergency Support Services online, whether or not they access services at an evacuation centre.

Road conditions can be checked at DriveBC.

With files from Bridgette Watson, Corey Correia and Jennifer Walter

WHICH GOD IS THAT?

Deadly COVID-19 spike after church event is 'unfortunate' but part of God's plan, says pastor

Social Sharing

• Facebook

• Twitter

• Email

• Reddit

• LinkedIn

Pastor Robert Smith says Gospel Light Baptist Church is 

being persecuted (ADMITING PARANOIA)

ITS FROM REVELATIONS; PESTILENCE 

ONE OF THE FOUR HORSEMEN

Taryn Grant · CBC News · Posted: Nov 16, 2021 

Pastor Robert Smith gives a sermon at Gospel Light Baptist Church in Amherst, N.S., on Sunday. A recent gathering hosted by the church has been linked to three COVID-19 deaths. (Gospel Light Baptist Church/Facebook)

The pastor of a Nova Scotia church that hosted an event linked to a COVID-19 spike and three deaths told his parishioners this week that what happened is "unfortunate," but it is all part of God's plan.

Robert Smith, the pastor of Gospel Light Baptist Church in Amherst, N.S., held his first in-person service in three weeks on Sunday and livestreamed video of his sermon on Facebook. The video was later taken down. 

At the end of October, Smith's church hosted a multi-day gathering of faith groups from across the province. Public health officials have said more than 100 people attended and were not asked to show proof of vaccination — a violation of public health orders.

"I followed what God wanted us to do," Smith said from the pulpit. "We had a great week of meetings … a young lady got saved."

Three people have died in the past week of COVID-19 — one at a group home in Amherst and two at a long-term care home in Pugwash, N.S. — and the province has said those cases trace back to the Gospel Light event.

Community spread in Nova Scotia's northern and western health zones is "primarily associated" with that event, according to the province.

Gospel Light Baptist Church in Amherst, N.S. (Robert Guertin/CBC)

Rise in hospitalizations, ICU stays

The number of hospitalizations and people in intensive care with COVID-19 has jumped in recent days, prompting Premier Tim Houston to say Monday he was "very upset and concerned." 

Smith equated the response his church has received to persecution.

Several times throughout his 30-minute sermon, Smith said people are trying to shame his community, but he urged his parishioners to resist internalizing the feeling, saying it's Satan, "trying to drag us down."

"The Bible says 'all things work together for good.' Hey, some of the things, people that we know that's in hospitals and stuff, that still applies, too," he said.

Smith has not responded to repeated requests for an interview.

Nova Scotia Public Health officials have previously said that about 70 per cent of the religious community that attended last month's event was fully vaccinated, and that the community has been co-operative with contact tracing and testing.

Public Health has set up a COVID-19 testing centre in Amherst as the coronavirus continues to spread in that community. (Robert Guertin/CBC)

Proof of vaccination is not required at regular religious services, such as Gospel Light's Sunday church service, but is required at any other events hosted by faith groups, such as Gospel Light's "week of meetings."

Masking is mandatory at religious services. 

As of Monday, Amherst police had not laid any charges. 

When Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia's chief medical officer of health, first reported the event and associated spread nearly two weeks ago, he said he planned to reach out to faith leaders across the province to make sure they understood the rules around vaccination and masking. 

'They did everything that they could have done'

Brandon Lake, pastor of Amazing Grace Baptist Church in Bridgetown, N.S., said he and about 20 of his congregants attended Gospel Light's event.

"The pastor and the church that organized the event, they did everything that they could have done," Lake said in an interview. "We were operating within the guidelines that were available to the public."

He said Public Health did not make the rules around proof of vaccination requirements clear until after the gathering. 

"Meetings like this are things that we do on a fairly regular basis, so we were under no understanding from what we had read or downloaded on the [provincial government's] website that proof of vaccination was required for an event such as that," said Lake, who declined to speak about his own vaccination status or that of his congregants.

Those rules say proof of vaccination is not required for faith events, but is for "indoor and outdoor festivals, special events and arts and culture events," such as the Gospel Light gathering.

• Resident of Amherst, N.S., group home dies of COVID-19

• N.S. reports 3 deaths, 99 new cases of COVID-19 over weekend

Lake said he thinks faith groups have been unfairly targeted in the media as contributors to the spread of COVID-19. He also disputed the reported number of people who were at the gathering, saying there were never more than 100 people.

Asked about the three deaths that have been linked to the event, Lake said he was aware deaths had been announced, but denied the connection.

"I don't think it's fair to say that they're as a result of the faith gathering, but rather they're as a result of more liberty being given to people that are doubly vaccinated who still may be carriers of the virus," said Lake.

IT'S A HYPOTHESIS LOOKING TO BE A THEORY

Wormholes may be viable shortcuts through space-time after all, new study suggests

The new theory contradicts earlier predictions that these 'shortcuts' would instantly collapse.

An artist's impression of the inside of a wormhole. (Image credit: Shutterstock)

By Paul Sutter 

LIVESCIENCE

Wormholes, or portals between black holes, may be stable after all, a wild new theory suggests.

The findings contradict earlier predictions that these hypothetical shortcuts through space-time would instantly collapse.

The sea change comes because tiny differences in the mathematics of relativity, which is used to describe such wormholes, end up dramatically changing our overall picture of how they behave.

A game of metrics

First, some background on how general relativity operates. Relativity is like a machine. Put in certain objects — say, a mass or an arrangement of particles — and the machine spits out how that collection will behave over time due to gravity. Everything in general relativity is based on movement in space and time: Objects start at certain physical coordinates, they move around, and they end up at other coordinates.

While the rules of general relativity are fixed, the theory itself provides a lot of freedom to describe those coordinates mathematically. Physicists call these different descriptions "metrics." Think of the metric as different ways to describe g how to get to your grandma's house for Thanksgiving. That may be street directions, satellite-based latitude and longitude, or landmarks scribbled on a napkin. Your metric is different in each case, but no matter which metric you choose, you end up at the big feast.

Related: 8 ways you can see Einstein's theory of relativity in real life

Similarly, physicists can use different metrics to describe the same situation, and sometimes one metric is more helpful than another — akin to starting off with the street directions, but switching over to the napkin to double-check if you're at the right landmark.

The extended black hole

When it comes to black holes and wormholes, there are a few potential metrics. The most popular one is the Schwarzschild metric, which is where black holes were first discovered. But the Schwarzschild metric contains some funky math. That metric misbehaves at a particular distance from the black hole, a distance known today as the Schwarzschild radius or the event horizon.

And by "misbehaves," we mean that metric completely breaks down, and it can no longer distinguish between different points in space and time. But there's another metric, called the Eddington-Finkelstein metric, that does describe what happens to particles when they reach the event horizon: They pass right through and fall into the black hole, never to be seen again. What does all this have to do with wormholes? The simplest way to construct a wormhole is to "extend" the idea of a black hole with its mirror image, the white hole. This idea was first proposed by Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen, hence the reason wormholes are sometimes called "Einstein-Rosen bridges." While black holes never let anything out, white holes never let anything in. To make a wormhole, you just take a black hole and a white hole and join their singularities (the points of infinite densities in their centers). This creates a tunnel through space-time.

The result? A highly misbehaving tunnel.

A narrow path

Once a theoretical wormhole exists, it's perfectly reasonable to ask what would happen if someone actually tried to walk through it. That's where the machinery of general relativity comes in: Given this (very interesting) situation, how do particles behave? The standard answer is that wormholes are nasty. White holes themselves are unstable (and likely don't even exist), and the extreme forces within the wormhole force the wormhole itself to stretch out and snap like a rubber band the moment it forms. And if you try to send something down it? Well, good luck.


But Einstein and Rosen constructed their wormhole with the usual Schwarzschild metric, and most analyses of wormholes use that same metric. So physicist Pascal Koiran at Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon in France tried something else: using the Eddington-Finkelstein metric instead. His paper, described in October in the preprint database arXiv, is scheduled to be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Modern Physics D.

—Traversable wormholes are possible under certain gravity conditions

—Stephen Hawking's most far-out ideas about black holes

Koiran found that by using the Eddington-Finkelstein metric, he could more easily trace the path of a particle through a hypothetical wormhole. He found that the particle can cross the event horizon, enter the wormhole tunnel and escape through the other side, all in a finite amount of time. The Eddington-Finkelstein metric didn't misbehave at any point in that trajectory.

Does this mean that Einstein-Rosen bridges are stable? Not quite. General relativity only tells us about the behavior of gravity, and not the other forces of nature. Thermodynamics, which is the theory of how heat and energy act, for example, tells us that white holes are unstable. And if physicists tried to manufacture a black hole-white hole combination in the real universe using real materials, other math suggests the energy densities would break everything apart.

However, Koiran's result is still interesting because it points out that wormholes aren't quite as catastrophic as they first appeared, and that there may be stable paths through wormhole tunnels, perfectly allowed by general relativity.

If only they could get us to grandma's faster.