China's drone carrier hints at 'swarm' ambitions for Pacific

This handout photo provided by Yuman Gao and Rui Jin on May 4, 2022 shows a new flight path planning system enables drone swarms to fly through crowded forests without collisions. 

(Photo: Yuman Gao and Rui Jin/AFP/Handout)

08 Jun 2022 

PARIS: Officially it is just a research vessel, but China's newly unveiled drone carrier is a clear sign Beijing is rushing to deploy an autonomous swarm of unmanned devices in its push for military supremacy in the Pacific Ocean.

State media last month showed the launching of the Zhu Hai Yun - "Zhu Hai Cloud" - capable of transporting an unspecified number of flying drones as well as surface and submarine craft, and operating autonomously thanks to artificial intelligence.T

The 89m ship would be operational by year-end with a top speed of 18 knots, vastly increasing China's surveillance potential of the vast Pacific area it considers its zone of influence.

"The vessel is not only an unprecedented precision tool at the frontier of marine science, but also a platform for marine disaster prevention and mitigation, seabed precision mapping, marine environment monitoring, and maritime search and rescue," Chen Dake, lab director at the firm that built the carrier, told China Daily.

Armies worldwide see drone squadrons as key players in combat, able to overwhelm defence systems by sheer numbers and without putting soldiers' lives at risk, such as with more expensive jets or tanks.

"It's probably a first-of-its-kind development but other navies across the world, including the US Navy, are experimenting with remote warfare capabilities in the maritime domain," said US Army Lieutenant Colonel Paul Lushenko, who is also an international relations specialist at Cornell University in New York.

Even if the vessel's actual capabilities remain to be seen, Beijing is broadcasting its intent to cement territorial claims in the region, as seen with the security partnership agreed last month with the Solomon Islands northeast of Australia.

"It's definitely imposing, provocative, escalatory and aggressive," Lushenko told AFP.

COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE

Building fleets of autonomous and relatively inexpensive drones would greatly augment China's ability to enforce so-called anti-access and area denial (A2-AD) in the Pacific, with the aim of weakening decades of US influence.

Unlike traditional aircraft carriers or destroyers carrying hundreds of troops, the drone carrier could itself navigate for longer periods while sending out devices that create a surveillance "net," potentially able to fire missiles as well.

The Zhu Hai Yun could also improve China's mapping of the seafloor, providing a covert advantage for its submarines.

"These are capabilities that are likely to be critical in any future conflicts that China wages, including over the island of Taiwan," strategists Joseph Trevithick and Oliver Parken wrote on the influential War Zone site.

Beijing has made no secret of its desire to wrest control of Taiwan, and military experts say it is closely watching the West's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine to gauge how and when it might make its move.

And last month, Chinese researchers published a drone swarm experiment allegedly showing 10 devices autonomously navigating a dense patch of bamboo forest, without crashing into the trees or each other.

"The ultimate goal is something that has a collective intelligence," said Jean-Marc Rickli, head of risks at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy.

"The analogy is a bit like a school of fish. They create forms in the water that are not the decision of any single fish, but the result of their collective intelligence," he told AFP.

GAME-CHANGER

It would be a big technological advance from current weapons, which can be programmed and semi-autonomous but must have human operators to react to unexpected challenges.

A fleet of self-navigating drones could in theory incapacitate defence systems or advancing forces by sheer numbers, saturating combat zones on land or at sea until an opponent's arsenal is depleted.

"A conventional attack becomes impossible when you're facing dozens, hundreds or thousands of devices that are much cheaper to develop and operate than heavy conventional weapons," Rickli said.

Noting this profound shift in modern warfare, a RAND Corporation study from 2020 found that while unmanned vehicles need significant improvements in onboard processing, "the overall computing capability required will be modest by modern standards - certainly less than that of a contemporary smartphone."

"A squadron of approximately 900 personnel, properly equipped and trained, could launch and recover 300 L-CAATs every six hours, for a total of 1,200 sorties per day," it said, referring to low-cost attributable aircraft technology - meaning devices so cheap an army can afford to lose them.

"We do have indications that China is making rapid capabilities development," Lushenko said of Beijing's new drone carrier.

"What we lack is empirical data to suggest that China's one-party state can actually employ the ship in an integrated fashion in conflict."

Source: AFP

FSU professor answers questions about the sea for World Oceans Day

Bill Wellock
Wed, June 8, 2022

Families and friends gather at St. George Island beach as many enjoy their spring break vacations Thursday, March 25, 2021. DURING COVID OUTBREAK

The United Nations marks June 8 as World Oceans Day, an opportunity to celebrate the ocean and how it supports life on Earth.

As director of Florida State University’s Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS), Eric Chassignet leads investigations into the physical processes that govern the ocean and its interactions with the atmosphere. He spoke about his research and questions scientists are trying to answer about the ocean.

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Eric Chassignet is director of Florida State University’s Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies.

Q: What are some of the factors that make the ocean so important?

A. The ocean covers about 70% of the Earth and plays a major role in transporting heat from the equator to the poles. Ninety-seven percent of the water on Earth is in the ocean, and most of the rain on Earth comes from evaporation over the ocean. The ocean can also store about 50 times more carbon dioxide than the atmosphere, helping control temperatures.

But that may be changing. Since 1870, oceans have absorbed most of the carbon dioxide produced from burning oil and gas. However, research shows that the ocean’s ability to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide might be declining, therefore leading to an increase in CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and an amplification of the Earth’s greenhouse effect.

Of course, there are other reasons why the ocean is important. It is a vast and diverse ecosystem and a major source of food. For many, the ocean is also a source of livelihood and a place for recreation and relaxation.

Q. Tell me about your research.

A. My main research interest is on the role of the ocean in climate variability using computer models and observations. I am especially interested in the dynamics behind ocean currents and ocean eddies and their impact on the world ocean circulation.

Ocean models are complex computer programs that simulate the physical state and dynamic properties of oceans. At COAPS, we use global and regional models to study processes such as the ocean’s response to a hurricane or to improve both short- and long-term ocean forecasts. Just as meteorologists make weather forecasts, we do the same thing for the ocean.

While changes in currents do not affect the public as much as changes in the weather, it does matter. If you’re a fisherman, for example, you would like to know where there is a change in sea surface temperature, which identifies the edge of a current where fish congregate.

The Navy needs to know the temperature distribution at depths for operating their submarines. An in-depth knowledge of ocean currents saves fuel when routing cargo ships. And most importantly, ocean predictions are essential in determining where oil may go in case of a major spill such as the one that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

Q. How has research changed during your career?

A. The biggest aspect is in computing. The computing power of a smartphone is as much as a supercomputer of the 1980s. What we can do now with supercomputers is just amazing. Technology, and the type of modeling we can do, has changed so much in the past 40 years. Now we integrate global computer models at extremely high resolution, as small as 1 kilometer.

Q. What are the big unanswered questions in ocean-atmospheric forecasting?

A. Our biggest challenge is understanding the interaction between the ocean and the other Earth system components (atmosphere, the frozen parts of the ocean and land). We are reaching a point in the technology where one can perform Earth system predictions, not just weather or ocean current predictions alone.

For example, how does the melting Arctic ice cover modify the ocean’s properties? How does the atmosphere respond to changes in the ocean? What is the importance of the ocean in our changing climate?

Plastic Symptoms Co-Founders Heather Bolint and Bryan Galvin stand atop the steps of the Florida Historic Capitol after two hours of unloading nearly 3,000 pounds of garbage the pair collected from the ocean along Florida's coastline onto the steps. They brought the load to the Capitol Monday, July 29, 2019, to bring awareness to the harms of single-use plastics.

Q. What's something that would surprise people to learn about the ocean?

A. The amount of mismanaged plastic waste in the ocean. And where it ends up.

We know that 80% of litter in the ocean comes from land sources, and plastics are the most abundant type of litter. At COAPS, we developed a global marine litter model to show where litter in the ocean comes from and where it goes. In this model, you can see the trajectories of litter as it is moved around by the ocean currents.

For example, some of the plastic debris that originates from the east coast of the United States travels across the Atlantic Ocean to Western Europe. It might surprise people to know that a piece of trash dumped off the west coast of the United States can travel all the way across the Pacific and Indian oceans and end up washing ashore on the east coast of Africa.

It shows just how interconnected we all are, and that is all through the ocean.

Never miss a story: Subscribe to the Tallahassee Democrat using the link at the top of the page.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: FSU professor talks climate, predictions, plastics on World Oceans Day

WORLD OCEANS DAY

The Mediterranean is the world's most overfished sea and in Italy,

 illegal fishing has became a big problem. FRANCE 24's Natalia Mendoza reports.

Singapore warily monitors rising sea levels as world marks Oceans Day

On World Oceans Day 2022, climate experts and activists aim to inform the public on the impact of human activity on the seas. It's a familiar topic in Singapore, where rising sea levels pose an existential threat to the city-state of 6 million inhabitants.

Dr Jędrzej Majewski, a research fellow at the Earth Observatory of Singapore, plunges a scale into the water to measure the current sea level.

The water level right now is not alarming, but that, Majewski warns, could change. "Under the high emission target, we may reach 90 centimeters something and there is some very low probability that because we don't understand the Antarctic ice sheets, there may be advances that make it rise to actually roughly 1.7 meters... it's the size of me," said Majewski with a wry smile.

The smile though hides a very real fear for the future of this wealthy island nation. One of the richest countries in the world, Singapore is also one of the most endangered.

Click on the video player to view the full report

WORLD OCEANS DAY
Oceans of opportunity: How seaweed can helpfight climate change

Cyrielle CABOT AFP

It’s a nutritional food source, an alternative to plastic, has medicinal properties and can help limit global warming: Marine algae might just be the next weapon in the fight against climate change.

  

© Loïc Venance, AFP

This article was originally published on February 8, 2022, during the One Ocean Summit in the northern French town of Brest. FRANCE 24 is republishing it on Wednesday, June 8, 2022, on the occasion of World Oceans Day.

From February 9 to 11, the French town of Brest hosted the One Ocean Summit, the first international summit dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans. Scientists, activists, business leaders and heads of state met in the Breton town to discuss how to protect marine ecosystems and promote sustainability.

Philippe Potin, a marine biologist and researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, and Vincent Doumeizel, a senior advisor and food expert for the United Nations Global Compact, spoke to FRANCE 24 about what’s at stake at the summit.

There’s one point on which they are unanimous. “We have to invest in marine algae!” they say.

“Often, when we talk about algae, it conjures up this negative image of piles of green or brown slime washed up on beaches in Brittany or the Caribbean. It’s a real shame,” says Potin. “When seaweed ends up on beaches, it’s because it’s been dragged up from the seabed by pollution or industrial activity. It’s not the problem, it’s a consequence.”

"The reality is that these plants play a vital role for our planet,” Potin continues. Seaweed is to marine environments what forests are to the land. “They’re also the lungs of the planet. Thanks to their photosynthesizing, they absorb CO2 and emit oxygen,” he explains. “Alone, they are responsible for half of all of Earth’s renewal of oxygen. They are hugely helpful for the climate.”

"They are also indispensable to ocean life because they help to create habitats for thousands of different types of fish and shellfish. There’s then a knock-on effect, because it’s in part thanks to algae that we have such a variety of fishing stock on the coasts.”

In total, some 10,000 species of algae visible to the naked eye grow across the planet – from sea lettuce in Brittany to Tasmanian kelp and wakame in Japan.
‘The world’s most under-used resource’

On top of the role seaweed plays for the climate and biodiversity, it can also be useful across a number of other sectors, like food, industry and even medicine.

“It’s one of the world’s most under-used resources,” says Doumeizel. “Our planet is made up of 70 percent water and yet the seas and oceans only account for three percent of our food supply. It’s absurd.”

He goes on, “We know that one of the biggest challenges we face this century is that we have reached our limit on land in terms of the food industry. We’re running out of land and intensive agriculture is particularly damaging for the planet … It’s clearly time to think of new ways of doing things.”

So could seaweed be the magic answer to these problems? It’s already a daily foodstuff in Asia and is recommended by dieticians, who say it’s packed full of fibre, protein and vitamins and is low in fat. According to a study carried out by Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands, devoting just two percent of the world’s oceans to farming algae could produce enough protein to fulfil the needs of everyone on the planet.

It’s not just humans who stand to benefit. “We can also use it to feed animals, particularly cattle. It would help to improve their immune system,” says Doumeizel. In the agricultural sector, a number of French villages – mostly in Brittany – already use seaweed as fertiliser.

Seaweed is already starting to leave its mark in the medical sector, predominantly in antifungal creams or anti-inflammatory products. Fucales, a type of brown algae, are known for being able to ease heartburn. Recently, researchers registered a patent for a cream and a gel to treat acne made from a type of microalgae.

In the industrial sector, Europe already counts several companies using seaweed to manufacture biodegradable packaging as an alternative to plastic. "Other companies are planning on using it to make clothing. In the Netherlands, a start-up is even looking into producing sanitary products made from seaweed,” says Doumeizel.

One place where it’s actually hard to use algae is in the energy sector. Potin tells FRANCE 24, “For a while we thought about using seaweed to make a biofuel, but the sheer quantity needed to do it is just too much.”

 
Rest of the world trailing behind Asia

"In reality, none of this is anything new. Algae has been consumed for hundreds of years. Prehistoric people ate it, as well as indigenous people all over the world,” explains Doumeizel. “The practice simply disappeared almost everywhere during the Roman and Greek period, apart from in Asia.”

Nowadays, Asia is a pioneer in algaculture – the farming of algae – and is responsible for 99 percent of global production. In 2015, China was the world’s leading producer, with 13 million tonnes collected, followed by Indonesia with 9 million tonnes.

In Europe, France and Norway are the biggest producers in a sector that’s still in its infancy. According to a report by the European Commission on the ‘Blue Economy’, only 32 percent of algae in Europe comes from algae farms. The remaining 68 percent comes from wild farming, or harvesting the plants directly from their natural environment. “We’re still at the hunter-gatherer stage!” says Doumeizel wryly.

The global market is rapidly growing, however. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, production tripled between 2000 and 2018. The report notes that algae accounts for the fastest-growing food sector in the world.

 
Finding a balance between farming and sustainability

Potin and Doumeizel are calling to accelerate research in algaculture. “Beyond its economic potential, it’s even more important because lots of alga species are disappearing, due to ocean heating and climate change,” explains Potin, drawing on the example of a forest of seaweed off the coast of California that has declined by 80 percent in the last few years. “Developing algaculture would allow us to restore ecosystems.”

“But of course, this has to be done carefully and with a lot of thought,” he adds. “We mustn’t damage our oceans even further by doing anything we can to grow algae.” In Asia, algaculture has already come up against limitations. Just as with intensive agriculture, algaculture is often blamed for taking up too much space. The use of fertiliser for accelerating production is also very common. “And often it’s monocultures that are grown, which effectively wipe out other species,” Potin notes with regret.

There’s an added challenge for algae farming in Europe. “Amongst the thousands of species of algae that exist, we are only able to farm about 10, and mostly Asian species. We have to do more research on European species. We want to avoid importing exotic algae that could disrupt ecosystems here,” emphasises Potin.

Potin and Doumeizel are part of the team behind the Safe Seaweed Coalition, a new organisation managed by the United Nations, the French National Centre for Scientific Research and the Lloyd’s Register Foundation. Its aim is to bring together businesses, scientists and farmers to set up international legislation for the seaweed industry.

At the One Ocean Summit, Doumeizel will be pushing algae’s many virtues in talks with Barbara Pompili, France’s minister of ecological transition. “France has huge potential. Brittany has a seaweed zone that’s unique in the world,” he says. “The government has to take advantage of it.”

This story is a translation of the original in French.

Spanish lawmakers vote on whether to draw up laws to abolish prostitution

Issued on: 08/06/2022 - 

LENGTH 01:45 

Video by: Sarah MORRIS

Spain voted on Tuesday in favour of a proposal to draw up legislation to abolish prostitution, cracking down further on pimping and introducing tougher penalties for men buying sex in a controversial initiative that has split the women's rights movement. FRANCE 24's Sarah Morris reports from Madrid, Spain.

New panels want to talk ethics, rules of climate tinkering

By SETH BORENSTEIN

June 6, 2022

A youngster, with an eye drawn on her hand to show she is watching and 1.5 for countries to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius, takes part in a Fridays for Future climate protest inside a plenary corridor at the SEC (Scottish Event Campus) venue for the COP26 U.N. Climate Summit, in Glasgow, Scotland, Nov. 10, 2021. The idea of tinkering with the air to cool Earth's ever-warming climate seems to be gaining momentum. Two new high-powered panels have started to look at the ethics and governing rules surrounding the controversial technologies of geoengineering. 

(AP Photo/Alberto Pezzali, File)


Tinkering with the planet’s air to cool Earth’s ever-warming climate is inching closer to reality enough so that two different high-powered groups — one of scientists and one of former world leaders — are trying to come up with ethics and governing guidelines.

On Thursday, the newly formed Climate Overshoot Commission — which includes the former presidents of Mexico, Niger and Kiribati, a former Canadian prime minister, the ex-chief of World Trade Organization and other national minister level officials — will have its first meeting in Italy in a 15-month process to come up with governance strategy on pulling carbon dioxide out of the air, lowering temperatures by reflecting sunlight with artificial methods and adapting to climate change. This month, the American Geophysical Union, the largest society of scientists who work on climate issues, announced it was forming an ethics framework for “climate intervention” that would be ready for debate during the major international climate negotiations in November in Egypt.

This shows the idea of “solar geoengineering is finally getting serious,” said Harvard University climate scientist David Keith, a leader in the field.

Both groups said they aren’t quite advocating geoengineering, which includes putting particles in the air to reflect sunlight or whiten clouds, or the less-disputed carbon dioxide removal, such as technology to suck carbon out of the air but also more nature-based solutions such as more trees and getting oceans to sponge up more carbon.

But the two groups say the ideas need to be discussed with global warming nearing and likely shooting past the international goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since preindustrial times. The world has already warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the mid-1800s and scientists say the world likely to pass the 1.5-degree mark in the 2030s.

“The climate change problem is at a point where even extreme options need to be thought about seriously,” Climate Overshoot Commission Executive Secretary Jesse Reynolds said in a Monday interview. “Now, to be clear, thinking about them includes the possibility of rejecting them. But not thinking about them does not seem to be a responsible path forward.”

What’s needed are ethical guidelines before anything is done to get the public trust, much like the scientific community did with the possibility of human cloning, said AGU Executive Director Randy Fiser said. If this doesn’t happen the public will have a giant backlash and won’t trust the community, said National Academy of Sciences President Marcia McNutt, who has studied the issue but declined a spot on the AGU ethics panel because of other commitments.

An earlier report by the academy “spoke to the double moral hazard of climate intervention: damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” McNutt said.

Opponents of geoengineering — such as Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann — worry that just talking about guidelines will make the tinkering more likely to occur in the real world.

“I see it as a potentially cynical maneuver to buy the ostensible moral license to move forward with dangerous geoengineering prescriptions,” Mann said in an email. He said not only could there be harmful side effects, but it takes the pressure off of cutting fossil fuel emissions, which is what’s really needed.

Mann also said no one can enforce ethics or governance rules, citing efforts to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine, but McNutt pointed to rules governing international oceans.

With or without guidelines, some of these high-tech ideas are going to happen, leaders of the two groups said. However, last year the Swedish government canceled an early but politically charged test of a device designed to put particles in the air that eventually, if fully implanted, could create what some would call an artificial volcano cooling the globe temporarily like 1991’s Mt. Pinatubo’s eruption in the Philippines.

“The work of looking at climate strategies continues to go on in labs, both in the for-profit and non-profit sectors,” said AGU’s Fiser, who said investors are funneling money into such projects.

Ethicists Nancy Tuana of Penn State and Christopher Preston of the University of Montana said if anything talking about the ethics of the tinkering with the atmosphere will put the brakes on efforts a bit more.

“It will slow it and this is a good thing,” Preston said in an email. “Ethical thresholds placed within frameworks are typically challenging to satisfy... An ethical framework can lead to paralysis. Ethics is not like maths. Ethical problems don’t often get ‘solved’.”

But not doing anything — no cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, no carbon dioxide removal and no solar geoengineering — “that’s the worst outcome and also the path of least resistance,” said Stanford University ethics expert Hank Greely.

“I view climate intervention in the same way I view the ‘Hail Mary’ pass in football,” said Colorado University ice scientist Waleed Abdalati, a former NASA chief scientist, referring to a last ditch desperation effort in a seemingly losing cause. “There is a chance it could get us to where we need to be, but just as no team wants to be in a position where that is the play they have to make, scientists recognize that we as a society would never want to be in a situation that we have to use such an approach to address the challenge we face.”

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

On Broadway, more visibility, yes, but also an unseen threat

By MARK KENNEDYJune 6, 2022


This combination of photos shows scenes Broadway performances from the musical "Six," top row from left, the Lynn Nottage play "Clyde's," and the musical "Paradise Square," bottom row from left, the musical "MJ," the play ""for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf," and the musical "A Strange Loop." 

(Boneau/Brian Brown/Polk & Co., The Press Room, O & M Co./DKC, Polk & Co. and Polk & Co. via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — At a lunch for Tony Award nominees last month, veteran theater producer Ron Simons looked around and smiled. It seemed appropriate that the gathering was held at The Rainbow Room.

“I can guarantee you I have not seen this many people of color represented across all categories of the Tony Awards,” he recalled. “It was a diverse room. I was so uplifted and impressed by that.”

For the first full season since the death of George Floyd reignited a conversation about race and representation in America, Broadway responded with one of its most diverse Tony slates yet.

Multiple Black artists were nominated in every single performance category, including three of five featured actors in a musical, four of six featured actresses in a play, two of seven leading actors in a play and three of five leading actresses in a play. There are 16 Black performance nods out of 33 slots — a very healthy 48%.

By comparison, at the 2016 Tonys — the breakout season that included the diverse “Hamilton,” “Eclipsed” and “The Color Purple” revival — 14 of the 40 acting nominees for plays and musicals or 35% were actors of color.

“Let’s hope that the diversity that we saw in the season continues to be the norm for Broadway, that this isn’t just an anomaly or a blip in reaction to what we’ve been through, but just a reset,” said Lynn Nottage, the first writer to be nominated for both a play (“Clyde’s”) and musical (“MJ”) in a single season.

The new crop of nominees also boasts more women and people of color in design categories, such as first-time nominees Palmer Hefferan for sound design of a play (“The Skin of Our Teeth”), Yi Zhao for lighting design of a play (“The Skin of Our Teeth”) and Sarafina Bush for costume design of a play (“for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf”).

Other firsts this season included L Morgan Lee of “A Strange Loop” becoming the first out trans performer to be nominated for a Tony. Adam Rigg, scenic designer of “The Skin of Our Teeth,” became the first out agender designer nominated and Toby Marlow, “Six” co-creator is the first out nonbinary composer-lyricist nominated.

James Jackson, Jr., L. Morgan Lee, Antwayn Hopper, John-Andrew Morrison, Jaquel Spivey, Jason Veasey and John-Michael Lyles during a performance of "A Strange Loop." (Marc J. Franklin/Polk & Co. via AP)

Eleven performers — including Jaquel Spivey from “A Strange Loop,” Myles Frost in ”MJ” and Kara Young from “Clyde’s” — received a nod for their Broadway debut performances and 10 designers received nominations for their Broadway debuts, as did creators like “A Strange Loop” playwright Michael R. Jackson and “Paradise Square” co-book writer Christina Anderson.

“I’m very, very excited about all the new voices we’re hearing, all the new new writers who are represented on Broadway for the first time,” said A.J. Shively, an actor nominated for “Paradise Square.” “I really hope that trend continues.”

Perhaps nowhere is the diversity more apparent than in the oldest play currently on Broadway. “Macbeth,” directed by Sam Gold, has a Black Lady Macbeth in Ruth Negga, a woman taking on a traditional male role (Amber Gray plays Banquo), a non-binary actor (Asia Kate Dillon) and disability representation (Michael Patrick Thornton).

“If all the world’s a stage, our stage certainly is the world. I’m really proud to be up there with all the actors,” says Thornton, who uses his wheelchair as a cunning asset to play the savvy nobleman Lennox.

But while representation was seen across Broadway this season so was an invisible virus that didn’t care. The various mutations of COVID-19 sickened actors in waves and starved many box offices of critical funds. Skittish theater-goers who returned often had an appetite for only established, comfort shows.

Hailee Kaleem Wright, Karen Burthwright and Sidney Dupont during a performance of "Paradise Square." (Alessandra Mello/The Press Room via AP)

Several of the Black-led productions came up short, including “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” “Chicken and Biscuits,” and “Pass Over.” They debuted in the fall, just as Broadway was slowly restarting and audiences were most fearful. “Thoughts of a Colored Man” closed early because it didn’t have enough healthy actors, at one point enlisting the playwright himself to get onstage and play a role.

One of the most painful blows was a revival of Ntozake Shange’s “for colored girls,” which struggled to find an audience. The cast of seven Black women included deaf actor Alexandria Wailes and, until recently, a pregnant Kenita R. Miller. It earned strong notices and a whopping seven Tony nominations. But it will close this week.

“In past seasons, had there been a play with seven Tony nominations and this bevy of glowing reviews, the show would have gone on for quite a while,” says Simons, the lead producer. “There’s an audience for this show. That’s not the problem. The problem is getting the audience into the theater to see the show.”

Despite a glut in inventory and not enough consumers, there were clear game-changers, like “A Strange Loop,” a musical about a gay Black playwright, that captured a leading 11 nominations, besting establishment options like a Hugh Jackman-led “The Music Man.” Broadway veterans agree that extraordinary storytelling was available for those hardy souls who bought tickets.

Jaquel Spivey during a performance of "A Strange Loop" in New York.

 (Marc J. Franklin/Polk & Co. via AP)

“I’m really proud to be a part of one of the voices of Broadway this year,” said Anna D. Shapiro, who directed Tracy Letts’ Tony-nominated play “The Minutes,” which exposes delusions at the dark heart of American history. “ I am so impressed by the vitality and the dynamism.”

Broadway data often suggest improvements one year, then a drop off the next. Take the 2013-14 season, which was rich with roles for African Americans, including “A Raisin in the Sun” starring Denzel Washington, Audra McDonald channeling Billie Holiday in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill” and the dance show “After Midnight.”

There were also African-Americans in nontraditional roles, like James Monroe Iglehart as the Genie in “Aladdin,” Nikki M. James and Kyle Scatliffe in “Les Miserables,” and Norm Lewis becoming the first Black Phantom on Broadway in “The Phantom of the Opera.”

That season, Black actors represented 21% of all roles. But the next season, the number fell to 9%.

Camille A. Brown participates in the 73rd annual Tony Awards "Meet the Nominees" press day in New York on May 1, 2019. Brown is nominated for two Tony Awards, one for best direction of a play, and one for best choreography her work on "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf." (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)

Camille A. Brown, who this season together with Lileana Blain-Cruz became only the second and third Black women to be nominated for best direction of a play, has weathered the ups and downs.

“My thing is, let’s see what the next year and the year after that and the year after that look like?” she says. “I think the landscape was definitely a challenge, especially after George Floyd and the events that happened after that. But this is only the first season out after all of that stuff happened. So let’s see if it keeps going, and keeps evolving and keeps progressing.”

Simons is optimistic the gains this year will last and celebrates that, at the very least, a group of diverse actors got their Broadway credits this season. He predicts more Tony winners of color than ever before.

“Even though the box office hurt all of our feelings, it really is a celebration because never have we seen this kind of diversity happen on Broadway,” he says. “It is a rare year and it is a rare year for both the good and the bad.”

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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

RIP
Former Bon Jovi bassist, founding member Alec John Such dies
By The Associated Press

June 5, 2022

In this June 19, 2004 photo Alec John Such, of Colts Neck, N.J., sits for a portrait inside his second floor bathtub. Alec John Such, the bassist and a founding member of Bon Jovi, has died. He was 70. The band announced Sunday, June 5, 2022 that John Such died. No details on when or how John Such died were immediately available. (M. Kathleen Kelly/NJ Advance Media via AP)


NEW YORK (AP) — Alec John Such, the bassist and a founding member of the iconic rock band Bon Jovi, has died. He was 70.

The group on Sunday announced the death of Such, the New Jersey band’s bassist from 1983 to 1994. No details on when or how Such died were immediately available. A publicist for singer-songwriter Jon Bon Jovi didn’t immediately respond to messages.

“He was an original,” Bon Jovi wrote in a post on Twitter. “As a founding member of Bon Jovi, Alec was integral to the formation of the band.”

Bon Jovi credited Such for bringing the band together, noting that he was a childhood friend of drummer Tico Torres and brought guitarist and songwriter Richie Sambora to see the band perform. Such had played with Sambora in a band called Message.

The Yonkers, New York-born Such was a veteran figure in the thriving New Jersey music scene that helped spawn Bon Jovi. As manager of the Hunka Bunka Ballroom in Sayreville, New Jersey, Such booked Jon Bon Jovi & The Wild Ones before joining the singer-songwriter’s band. He played with Bon Jovi through the group’s heyday in the 1980s.

Such departed the band in 1994, when he was replaced by bassist Hugh McDonald. He later rejoined the band for its induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2018.

“When Jon Bon Jovi called me up and asked me to be in his band many years ago, I soon realized how serious he was and he had a vision that he wanted to bring us to,” said Such at the Hall of Fame induction. “And I am only too happy to have been a part of that vision.”

Crypto meltdown is wake-up call for many, including Congress

By KEN SWEET and FATIMA HUSSEIN

Ranking member Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., speaks during a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing, Tuesday, May 10, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. After the latest cryptocurrency implosion, Washington appears ready to take its first steps to regulate the industry. Toomey is circulating a bill focused on regulating stablecoins, which would require stablecoin providers to have a license to operate, restrict the types of assets they carry to back those stablecoins, as well as be subject to routine auditing to make sure they are complying. 

(Tom Williams/Pool Photo via AP, File)


NEW YORK (AP) — Meltdowns in the cryptocurrency space are common, but the latest one really touched some nerves. Novice investors took to online forums to share tales of decimated fortunes and even suicidal despair. Experienced crypto supporters, including one prominent billionaire, were left feeling humbled.

When the stablecoin TerraUSD imploded last month, an estimated $40 billion in investor funds was erased — and so far there has been little or no accountability. Stablecoins are supposed to be less vulnerable to big swings — thus the name — but Terra suffered a spectacular collapse in a matter of days.

The Terra episode publicly exposed a truth long-known in the always-online crypto community: for every digital currency with staying power, like bitcoin, there have been hundreds of failed or worthless currencies in crypto’s short history. So Terra became just the latest “sh—coin” — the term used by the community to describe coins that faded into obscurity.

Terra’s quick collapse came just as bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, was in the midst of a decline that has wiped out nearly half of its value in a couple of months. The events have served as a vivid reminder that investors, both professionals and the mom and pop variety, can be rolling the dice when it comes to putting money into digital assets.

After being mostly hands-off toward crypto, it appears that Washington has had enough. On Tuesday, two senators — one Democrat and one Republican — proposed legislation that seeks to build a regulatory framework around the cryptocurrency industry; other members of Congress are considering more limited legislation.

What’s surprising, however, is that the cryptocurrency industry is signaling its cooperation. Politicians, crypto enthusiasts, and industry lobbyists all point to last month’s collapse of Terra and its token Luna as the possible end of the libertarian experiment in crypto.

Stablecoins are typically pegged to a traditional financial instrument, like the U.S. dollar, and are supposed to the cryptocurrency equivalent of investing in a conservative money market fund. But Terra was not backed by any hard assets. Instead, its founder Do Kwon promised that Terra’s proprietary algorithm would keep the coin’s value pegged to roughly $1.00. Critics of Terra would be attacked on social media by Kwon and his so-called army of “LUNAtics”

Kwon’s promise turned out to be worthless. A massive selling event caused Terra to “break the buck” and collapse in value. Reddit boards dedicated to Terra and Luna were dominated for days by posts referencing the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.

Terra’s ascendance attracted not only retail investors but also better-known cryptocurrency experts. One notable “Lunatic” was billionaire Mike Novogratz, who tattooed his upper arm with the word Luna and a wolf howling at the moon. Novogratz told his followers that the tattoo “will be a constant reminder that venture investing requires humility.”

Michael Estrabillo entrusted his crypto investments to stablegains, an investment vehicle that he says had assured him and other investors that the funds were secured in USD Coin, one of the largest stablecoins. Then, on May 9, he said he was informed his money was locked up in Terra.

“Had I known I was involved in a currency that was backed by an algorithm, I would have never invested in that,” Estrabillo lamented.

Washington may also be waking up to the fact that what used to be niche part of the internet and finance has gone mainstream and can no longer be ignored.

The total value of crypto assets hit a peak of $2.8 trillion last November; it’s now below $1.3 trillion, according to CoinGecko. Surveys show that roughly 16% of adult Americans, or 40 million people, have invested in cryptocurrencies. Retirement account giant Fidelity Investments now offers crypto as a part of a 401(k) plan. Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, has repeatedly pointed out that crypto is particularly popular among Black Americans, a community long distrustful of Wall Street.

Further, crypto has permeated popular culture. Numerous Super Bowl ads touted crypto. Sports arenas are now named after crypto projects and the Washington Nationals baseball team took a sponsorship deal from Terra before it collapsed. Celebrities routinely shill crypto on social media, and YouTube personalities generate millions of views talking about the latest crypto idea.

Terra’s collapse was a bridge too far, it seems.

On Tuesday, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, and Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, proposed a framework to start regulating the industry, which would include giving the Commodity Futures Trading Commission full regulatory jurisdiction over cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and rewriting the tax code to include crypto. It would also fully regulate stablecoins for the first time ever.

This comes after the Biden administration’s working group on financial markets issued a 22-page report last November, calling on Congress to pass legislation that would regulate stablecoins. One recommendation includes a requirement that stablecoin issuers become banks that would hold sufficient cash reserves.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has also called for stablecoin regulation, saying “we really need a regulatory framework to guard against the risks,” during a House committee meeting in May.

Further, it appears that the cryptocurrency industry — with its libertarian leanings and deep skepticism of Washington — might also be on board.

“I do think this is a bit of a wake-up call. A lot of people were taken aback by Terra’s failure,” said Perianne Boring, founder of the Chamber of Digital Commerce, one of the top lobbyists for the cryptocurrency industry.

Other crypto lobby groups, like the Association for Digital Asset Markets, have announced support for the Lummis-Gillibrand bill.

One idea that Washington seems to be coalescing around is that entities that issue stablecoins — often used as a bridge between traditional finance and the crypto world — need to be transparent about the assets backing them and be as liquid as any other instrument playing a key role in finance.

Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pennsylvania, is circulating a separate bill that would require stablecoin providers to have a license to operate, restrict the types of assets they carry to back those stablecoins, as well as be subject to routine auditing to make sure they are complying.

Describing Terra as a “debacle,” Toomey said in an interview that Terra’s collapse made it even more important that Washington build some guardrails around stablecoins. Toomey is the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee.

“It’s always difficult to get anything across the goal line in the Senate, but there’s nothing politically polarizing about creating a statutory regime for stablecoins,” Toomey said.

After Terra’s collapse there are two remaining big stablecoins: USD Coin issued by the company Circle, and Tether, created by the Hong Kong-based company Bitfinex. Both hold hard assets to back their value, but Bitfinex is less transparent about the assets it holds and is not audited. There are also a host of smaller stablecoin issuers, which in the world of crypto could become the latest hot item overnight.

“It’s not just urgent that Washington step in, it’s urgently urgent,” said Jeremy Allaire, founder and CEO of Circle, in an interview.

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Hussein reported from Washington. Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed.

EL NORTE BIENIVETO 
Migration gets top billing as Biden hosts hemisphere leaders

By ELLIOT SPAGAT

Migrants, many from Central American and Venezuela, walk along the Huehuetan highway in Chiapas state, Mexico, early Tuesday, June 7, 2022. The group left Tapachula on Monday, tired of waiting to normalize their status in a region with little work and still far from their ultimate goal of reaching the United States. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Migration has taken center stage at an assembly of Western Hemisphere leaders, reflecting its emergence as a top foreign policy issue amid red-carpet drama over who comes and who stays home.

The “Los Angeles Declaration,” to be announced while U.S. President Joe Biden meets with his counterparts from North, Central and South America Wednesday through Friday, is expected .to be a brief call to action that supporters hope will guide countries on hosting people fleeing violence and persecution and searching for more economic stability.

The United States has been the most popular destination for asylum-seekers since 2017, posing a challenge that has stumped Biden and his immediate predecessors, Donald Trump and Barack Obama.

But the U.S. is far from alone. Colombia and neighboring South American countries host millions who have fled Venezuela. Mexico fielded more than 130,000 asylum applications last year, many of them Haitians, which was triple from 2020. Many Nicaraguans escape to Costa Rica, while displaced Venezuelans account for about one-sixth the population of tiny Aruba.

“Countries are already having to do this, so rather than each country trying to sort this out and figure it out for themselves, what we’re doing is saying, ‘Let’s come together in a coherent way and construct a framework so we can all work together to make this situation more humane and more manageable,’” said Brian Nichols, assistant U.S. secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs.

Biden was scheduled to arrive at the summit Wednesday, trailed by questions about how much progress he can make on migration and other issues when some of his counterparts from the region — most notably Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador — are boycotting the event.

The controversy has undermined the start of the summit, which is being hosted by the U.S. for the first time since the inaugural event in 1994, at a time when China has been trying to make inroads in the region.

Migrants, many from Central American and Venezuela, walk along the Huehuetan highway in Chiapas state, Mexico, early Tuesday, June 7, 2022. The group left Tapachula on Monday, tired of waiting to normalize their status in a region with little work and still far from their ultimate goal of reaching the United States. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Although Biden was heavily involved in Latin America while he was vice president, his focus has largely been elsewhere since taking office as president last year. He’s been trying to reorient U.S. foreign policy toward Asia while also rallying allies to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

Some concrete measures may be announced, perhaps funding for development banks. Nichols said in an interview Monday that discussing any specific initiatives would be premature, but officials have made clear that the agreement will be largely aspirational.

There is widespread agreement that relief must target growth and stability for entire communities in which migrants live, not just migrants.

“If you only help the migrants and not the communities around them, that’s counterproductive,” Nichols said.

The agreement may call for more pathways to legal status, mechanisms to reunite families, more efficient and humane border controls and improved information sharing, according to experts who have seen early drafts.

Leaders of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — each critical to any regional migration strategy — are skipping the Summit of the Americas, depriving Biden of symbolic heft and unity amid the photo opportunities and pageantry starting with an inaugural ceremony Wednesday.

Mexico’s López Obrador said he delegated Foreign Affairs Secretary Marcelo Ebrard because the U.S. excluded Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, all countries that send large numbers of migrants to the U.S. and neighboring countries.

Upon leaving for Los Angeles on Tuesday, Ebrard said Mexico’s close relationship with the United States was unchanged and noted that Lopez Obrador will visit Washington in July.

President Guillermo Lasso of Ecuador said a migration accord would be an important recognition of what governments are facing.

“(When) you speak about problems and it becomes part of a declaration, a summit as important as this, obviously the problem exists, the problem enters the consciousness of those who should be part of the solution,” he told a group of civic activists in Los Angeles.

The migration accord took shape during discussions of top diplomats in Colombia in October and in Panama in April. Experts who have been consulted by governments say it is largely driven by the U.S. and other countries that take in lots of migrants, such as Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Peru and Panama.

The strategy appears to resemble a U.S.-only plan that Vice President Kamala Harris announced last July, calling for “secure and humane management of borders” and more paths to legal status.

So far, the Biden administration has little to show for it.

A man carries a child past members of the Mexican National Guard, on their way north on the Huixtla road in Chiapas state, Mexico, Wednesday, June 7, 2022. The group, part of a larger migrant caravan, left Tapachula on Monday, tired of waiting to normalize their status in a region with little work and still far from their ultimate goal of reaching the United States. 

The meeting of regional leaders comes as several thousand migrants on Tuesday walked through southern Mexico — the largest migrant caravan of the year — with local authorities showing no signs yet of trying to stop them.

Mexico has tried to contain migrants to the south, far from the U.S. border. But many have grown frustrated there by the slow bureaucratic process to regularize their status and the lack of job opportunities to provide for their families.

U.S. authorities are stopping migrants crossing the Mexican border more often than at any time in about two decades. Under a pandemic-era rule aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19, many are quickly expelled without a chance to seek asylum. But Title 42 authority, which a federal judge in Louisiana has kept in place, is applied unevenly by nationality.

In Eagle Pass, Texas, one of the busiest spots for illegal crossings, Cubans freely wade through the Rio Grande and are released in the United States on humanitarian parole, aided by Cuba’s refusal to take them back. On the flip side, Mexico has agreed to take back migrants expelled from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, as well as Mexico.

Cristian Salgado, of Honduras, hoped he would be treated as Cubans he saw when he crossed illegally with his wife and 5-year-old son about a month ago but U.S. authorities turned him back to the Mexican border city of Piedras Negras without allowing him to plead his case. He remembers a border agent saying, “There is no asylum for Honduras.”

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Associated Press writers Maria Verza in Mexico City, Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.