9/11 first responders with high exposure to dust at increased liver disease risk



First responders to New York City's World Trade Center following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks show increased signs of liver damage, according to new research. File photo by Monika Graff/UPI | License Photo

July 30 (UPI) -- First responders who arrived at the World Trade Center immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were more likely to develop liver disease than those who later worked at the site during rescue and recovery efforts, a study published Friday by the American Journal of Industrial Medicine found.

Among emergency workers who arrived at the site in lower Manhattan in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, 17% showed signs of liver damage, the data showed.

That percentage fell to 16% for those who reported for rescue and recovery efforts on Sept. 12 or 13 and then to 11% for among emergency workers at the site from Sept. 14 to 30.

The liver damage seen in these workers increased their risk for toxicant‐associated fatty liver disease, which in turn often leads to liver failure or liver cancer, according to the researchers.

RELATED Body's natural chemicals may have protected some 9/11 responders, study says

"This new study suggests that responders who arrived at Ground Zero earlier should receive enhanced monitoring for liver disease," study co-author Artit Jirapatnakul said in a press release.

"Now that we have this link, the next step is to understand why or how the toxic dust actually causes liver damage," said Jirapatnakul, an assistant professor of diagnostic, molecular and interventional radiology at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, which monitors these responders as part of a federal World Trade Center Health Program.

The liver is vulnerable to damage from chemical exposures due to its role in detoxifying foreign substances that enter the body.

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The liver damage seen in this study, called hepatic steatosis, or fatty liver disease, is associated with chemical exposures, the researchers said.

It occurs when the liver contains abnormally high levels of fat, they said.

After the 2001 attacks, more than 20,000 responders were exposed to dust, airborne particulates and chemicals known to cause liver toxicity, increasing their risk for toxicant-associated fatty liver disease.

RELATED Many Ground Zero rescue workers battling cancer years later

Researchers discovered the liver disease by analyzing chest commuted tomography, or CT, scans of the lungs of 1,788 World Trade Center responders.

While the scans were given to monitor the responders for lung disease, an algorithm developed by the researchers found evidence of liver disease in the portion of the liver visible in the scans, the researchers said.

The algorithm found evidence of hepatic steatosis in just over 14% of the responders.

Responders who arrived earlier, within about two weeks of the attack, had a higher exposure to the toxic dust at the World Trade Center site and more evidence of liver disease in their scans.

Responders with evidence of liver damage are being evaluated for possible referral to liver specialists for diagnosis and treatment, according to the researchers.

"Our study showed that continued monitoring for liver disease is warranted in World Trade Center responders, such as law enforcement, fire, and recovery workers in any field at the site, particularly those who arrived at or shortly after the attacks and had a higher exposure to the toxic dust," study co-author Dr. Claudia Henschke said in a press release.

"At the moment, there are no protocols to monitor responders for liver disease, so this study points to the need to further study this issue in this at-risk population," said Henschke a professor of diagnostic, molecular and interventional radiology at Mount Sinai.

 

Tesla's Giant Australian Battery Bursts Into Flames

By Charles Kennedy - Jul 30, 2021, 9:30 AM CDT

The giant Tesla lithium-ion battery that French Neoen is building in the Australian province of Victoria is burning, according to the fire and rescue service of the province.

"A 13 tonne lithium battery in a shipping container is fully involved with crews wearing breathing apparatus working to contain the fire and stop it spreading to nearby batteries," Fire and Rescue Victoria reported earlier today, adding that there was no threat to local residents or drivers despite the release of smoke at the sight.

The battery installation, with a capacity of 300 MW/450 MWh, is due to be completed later this year and is expected to provide about half of the storage capacity Victoria needs to replace the Lorne power plant, which is due for retirement. The megabattery was also planned to reduce electricity bills for Victorians and increase grid reliability.

"By securing one of the biggest batteries in the world, Victoria is taking a decisive step away from coal-fired power and embracing new technologies that will unlock more renewable energy than ever before," Victoria environment minister Lily D'Ambrosio said last November when the project was made public.

Currently, firefighters are on site trying to contain the fire to the container where it first started, 7NEWS Melbourne reported. Other Australian media noted that the battery installation had been approved for partial operation earlier this month. The companies involved in the project—Tesla and French Neoen—have not responded to media requests for comment on the cause of the fire.

This is the second megabattery that Tesla is building in Australia.

The first one, in South Australia, has a capacity of 100 MW/129 MWh and, according to Tesla's Elon Musk, is able to supply some 30,000 households with power from a local wind farm and reduce the risk of blackouts. The installation, Musk said three years ago, would "manage summertime peak load to improve the reliability of South Australia's electrical infrastructure."

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

Tesla’s Battery Fire Actually Shows It Is More Than an EV Company

Al Root  

July 30, 2021 

Tesla Powerpack batteries at Hornsdale Wind Farm in Adelaide, Australia.Mark Brake/Getty Images

Electric-vehicle pioneer Tesla appears to have suffered a setback in another one of its businesses. A fire has been reported at one of Tesla’s stationary power projects in Australia.

This setback, however, is also a reminder that Tesla’s ambitions stretch well beyond cars.

A Tesla (ticker: TSLA) megapack—which is essentially a huge collection of rechargeable batteries for utility-scale power storage—caught fire in Australia at a projected called the Victorian Big Battery, Reuters reported. The battery can store 450 megawatt hours of energy—that’s like 4,500 Tesla vehicles connected together.

A battery facility of that size can power, perhaps, 150,000 homes for a year. That estimate, of course, depends on a few factors—such as average household consumption.

Tesla and Neoen (NEOEN.France), the French utility that manages the reserve, weren’t immediately available to comment about the fire.

Tesla stock isn’t taking a hit. Stationary power news doesn’t seem to move the stock all that much. Shares are up 2% in midday trading. The S&P 500 is off about 0.5%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has shed 0.4%. Tesla stock is building on gains from earlier in the week, after the company reported better-than-expected second-quarter numbers Monday evening. Tesla shares have gained about 7.4% for the week so far.

Stock in Neoen was up about 0.6% in overseas trading Friday.

Tesla and Neoen have other projects in Australia, such as the Hornsdale Power Reserve. The reserve stores power from the Hornsdale Wind Farm. Adding battery storage to renewable power generation—such as wind and solar—can make renewable resources part of baseload generating capacity.

For now, Neoen calls Hornsdale the largest storage battery reserve in the world. The Victorian Big Battery is still under construction. The first stage of the Hornsdale project is a 100-megawatt battery pack. The second phase of the project is another 50-megawatt battery pack.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly spoken about the importance and opportunity for his company in the stationary power market, even if Tesla vehicles still grab the headlines. A 2015 Tesla shareholder letter called the total addressable market for stationary storage products “enormous and much easier to scale globally than vehicle sales.”

A the company’s battery technology day in September 2020, Musk said: “Less than 0.1% of [potential] stationary storage has been done…stationary storage has barely begun, converting the global vehicle fleet to electric has barely begun.” Tesla has a lot of opportunity for growth in stationary power.

And this past week, on the company’s earnings conference call, Musk added again that “we have a significant unmet demand in stationary storage.” One of the things holding the company back on this front is battery supply. For now, Tesla is prioritizing building cars instead of stationary battery packs.

Still, the stationary storage business is growing: Tesla deployed 1,274 megawatt hours of storage in the second quarter of 2021, up from 419 megawatt hours deployed in the second quarter of 2020.

Sales in the Energy Generation and Storage division—how Tesla reports its stationary power business—amounted to $653 million in the second quarter, up from $225 million from a year earlier. But, companywide, total Tesla sales amounted to almost $12 billion in the second quarter of 2021.

Storage is a small slice of the overall pie—for now.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK
British military launches its own Space Command with official opening


The military emblem for Britain's new Space Command was presented to personnel, as the military agency was launched on Friday. Photo courtesy of RAF Flyingdales/Twitter

July 30 (UPI) -- Britain established its Space Command on Friday in a ceremonial opening, with responsibilities split between three specific groups to form a joint space command, Britain's Ministry of Defense announced on Friday.

The British military budget includes $1.95 billion, over 10 years, for space capabilities, part of a defense budget increase of $33.34 billion in the next four years.

Officially called the "U.K. Space Command," the new agency will immediately take command and control of the country's Space Operations Center, its SKYNET military communications center and the ballistic early warning radar station at RAF Flyingdales in northeastern England.

"Under the leadership of Air Vice Marshal Paul Godfrey, the Joint Command will have oversight of all space capability development in the Ministry of Defense across three main areas; space operations; space workforce training and growth; and space capability to develop and deliver space equipment programmers," a Defense Ministry statement on Friday said.

British leaders met for the opening of the Space Command headquarters at the Royal Air Force Base in High Wycombe, near London, on Friday.

They awarded "Space Operator" badges, with a new Space Command emblem, to eight members of the headquarters personnel.

"As our adversaries advance their space capabilities, it is vital we invest in space to ensure we maintain a battle-winning advantage across this fast-evolving operational domain," Defense Minister for Procurement Jeremy Quin said in the ministry's statement.

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"The stand-up of Space Command is an exciting and important step in our commitment to operate in space effectively," Quin said.

The United States launched its Space Force as a separate military branch in 2019, charging it with a broad mission to organize, train and equip space forces to protect U.S. and allied interests in space.

On July 13, of this year, Germany opened its own space command center at the Center for Air Operations in Uedem, near the Dutch border.

EF3 tornado ravages Philadelphia suburb amid mass casualty event

By Adriana Navarro & Mark Puleo, AccuWeather, Accuweather.com

July 30 (UPI) -- One day after a destructive tornado struck eastern Pennsylvania, causing the partial collapse of a car dealership and injuring several people inside, National Weather Service meteorologists confirmed that an EF3 tornado had torn through the area with peak winds of up to 140 mph.

The most intense damage, the NWS office in Mount Holly, N.J., said on Friday, was to a car dealership and an adjacent mobile home park.

Just after 7:10 p.m. Thursday, amid an outburst of severe weather in the mid-Atlantic, the twister struck near the Neshaminy Mall in Bensalem, Pa., according to the NWS Storm Prediction Center. The town in Bucks County sits about 20 miles northeast of Philadelphia.

Bensalem Public Safety Director Fred Harran said it was the worst damage he had ever seen, comparing the destruction to that of which a viewer might see "on a TV show."
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"It just looked like a bomb went off. I mean, it's gone," he told ABC News. "I've been doing this for 34 years. I never saw that kind of devastation from a storm."

The Bensalem Fire Rescue reported numerous trees and wires had been downed throughout the township. Fire crews were working across a number of locations, including at reported building collapses on Metropolitan Drive and at Faulkner Buick GMC. The Faulkner Volvo building had also sustained damage.

First responders arrived at a partially collapsed building in Bucks County, Pa., after a destructive tornado tore through the area on Thursday. Photo by @87Oladipo/Twitter

In the lot, showcased vehicles were turned on their roofs and wind-blown utility poles smashed cars. Pieces of the dealership roof could be seen strewn throughout the lot on video shared to social media.

"I just heard this loud bang in the middle of the parking lot and it blew right through the windows [of the dealership]," Victor Rivera, a customer inside the dealership at the time of the tornado, told 6abc. "My mom got under the table and I just held her in my arms. Then I watched the glass implode and the ceiling fall in and everything caved in from there."

Emergency responders that entered the Faulkner Buick GMC building found all persons to be accounted for, according to the Courier Times.




Anthoney Perez, an employee of the dealership, told the newspaper that a weather alert had sounded on his phone "seconds" before the building was hit. He and a group of employees and customers had just enough time to take cover in a car before the roof collapsed.

According to emergency officials, five people were injured in the car dealership, an incident that was declared a mass casualty event because of the multiple injuries.

Bill Rollin, the director for emergency alerts for Bucks, Montgomery and Delaware counties, told CBS3 that a mass casualty incident for the area is defined as "any incident where three or more people are injured."

A mass casualty incident is any event that overwhelms local systems and exceeds resources.

The storms caused damage in other areas of the town as well, including a gardening center. No other injuries have been reported.

A second tornado in Bucks County was later confirmed by the NWS, though not as powerful as the EF3 that brought down the car dealership building. An EF1 tornado tracked through Plumstead Township, Pa., on Thursday as well, with peak winds of 90 mph.

Severe damage was left behind in a garden center located in Bensalem, Pa., after a tornado touched down in the area on Thursday. Photo by @PFDSullivan/Twitter

"In addition to the reports of tornadoes, there were also numerous reports of wind damage, hail as large as 1.5 inches in diameter and flash flooding from torrential rainfall across eastern Pennsylvania and central New Jersey with the thunderstorms Thursday," AccuWeather meteorologist Derek Witt said.

Bensalem resident Lindsay Morris told AccuWeather that the intense rain was both sudden in its arrival and departure.

According to reports from the NWS Philadelphia office, a strong thunderstorm passed over the Northeast Philadelphia Airport, just 5 miles from Bensalem, shortly before 7 p.m., dumping over 0.25 of an inch of rain in less than an hour.

"It basically poured buckets and the wind was crazy and then it stopped like someone flipped a switch and the sun came out," Morris said.

Another resident of Bensalem, Amanda Amos, told AccuWeather that she was driving into Bensalem when stormy weather was striking. Tornado alerts were popping up on her car and phone as she drove into the area, and the intensity of rain and wind forced her to pull over due to "zero visibility."

"I thought I was going to be taken away," she said. "All I kept thinking about was strapping myself to a pole with a belt like the movie Twister."

But like Morris, Amos said it went from hectic to calm and sunny in an instant.

The storms that rolled through the region are associated with the same weather system that brought damaging winds, hail and isolated tornadoes to parts of the Midwest at midweek. There was a total of six preliminary tornado reports on Thursday across Ohio and Pennsylvania, with a seventh in Illinois.

NWS storm survey teams confirmed at least four tornadoes had tracked through New Jersey on Thursday evening.

Damage from an EF0 was confirmed in Verona, located in Essex County, N.J., with winds of up to 65 mph, and along with an EF1 and an EF2 tornado in Ocean County, N.J. The EF2 tornado, which had tracked through Waretown to Barnegate Light, was upgraded from an EF1 rating to its current status after it was found to have peak winds of up to 115 mph.

An EF2 tornado was confirmed to have tracked from near New Hope, Pa., and crossed the Delaware River into Mercer County, N.J.

Looking ahead, weather in the region is expected to mostly cooperate with cleanup efforts.

"Temperatures across the region will run 5-10 degrees below average from Friday through early next week, and humidity levels will be down quite a bit during that time," Witt said. "Also, conditions will be dry on Friday and Saturday, but there can be a thunderstorm around on Sunday afternoon and evening."

Big Data helps researchers understand burial practices in Medieval Europe



During the sixth century AD, many people in Western Europe stopped burying the dead with personal artifacts and began laying them to rest unadorned. Photo by pxhere/CC


July 29 (UPI) -- Big data analysis techniques have offered archaeologists new insights into the transformation of burial practices across medieval Europe.

At the outset of the sixth century AD, most burials in Western Europe were "furnished," that is, the deceased were buried with accessories -- jewels, tools and other personal effects.

Beginning around the middle of the century, however, unfurnished burials became widespread. By the seventh century, most people were buried unadorned.

Previously, scientists have pointed to the rapid pace of this cultural transformation as evidence of the interconnectedness of early medieval Europe

The latest findings -- published Thursday in the journal Internet Archaeology -- tell a more complex story.

Suspecting the tale of rapid cultural transformation was too simplistic, study author Emma Brownlee, researcher at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and fellow at Girton College, University of Cambridge, surveyed burial rites data for some 26,000 medieval graves across Western Europe.

Brownlee deployed Big Data analytical techniques to study regional variabilities and regional shifts in burial practices. Her work showed that there was very little about medieval burial practices that was uniform.

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"Burial change across this period has long been viewed as a simple trajectory from a variable, furnished burial rite, to a much more standardized shrouded burial in a churchyard," Brownlee said in a press release.

She notes that there is wide variation both in how grave good use changed over time, and how it differed to begin with.

"It isn't possible to come up with a simple narrative to explain why funerary rites look a certain way in different parts of Europe, because although there are broad tendencies in certain directions, there is also a huge amount of variation within regions," Brownlee said.

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Brownlee's analysis revealed a connection between Kent and northern France, not in their use of particular burial goods, but in their continued practice of furnished burials well into the seventh century.

At the beginning of the sixth century, popular burial goods in Kent were similar to those popular across the rest of England, where people were often buried with brooches, beads and knives.

"But, while grave good use gradually declined in other parts of England, Kentish graves continued to be richly furnished until the end of the seventh century, when those rich cemeteries were abandoned," Brownlee said.

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"This is exactly what we see in northern France; despite a quite different funerary culture -- with much more focus on vessels in graves -- rich furnishing continues to be common long after it began declining in other areas," she said.

The analysis suggests stronger cultural connections between Kent and northern France than between Kent and the rest of England.

Meanwhile, Brownlee found evidence of a stronger cultural connection between the rest of England and southern Germany.

"Essentially, there is no way of demonstrating that a certain combination of grave goods indicates one regional tradition over another," she said. "Instead, we see a funerary rite that is influenced by the choices others in a community are making, influenced by the choices made in the surrounding communities, influenced by the identity of the deceased."

Regardless of tracking the changes in graves over time, Brownlee noted that burial is a highly personal practice, and it includes decisions people make during the emotionally charged circumstances of death.

"Other aspects of a funeral, such as the choice of inhumation or cremation, or the use of a coffin, stone settings, or a plain, earth-cut grave, were most likely influenced by similar decisions," she said.

Though regional trends are present, even among very personal choices, Brownlee said overly simplistic narratives in archaeology can obscure important variability in cultural practices.

Dog days in prehistoric Europe
Remains suggest wild hunting dogs arrived in Europe more than 1.7 million years ago.


A pack of Eurasian hunting dogs chasing prey. Credit: Mauricio Antón with the scientific supervision by D. Lordkipanidze and B. Martínez-Navarro.

Scientists have unearthed the earliest evidence of wild hunting dogs in Europe, from more than 1.7 million years ago – and they may have lived alongside early humans.

A team led by Saverio Bartolini-Lucenti from the University of Florence, Italy, found a large canine at the archaeological site of Dmanisi in Georgia. This site is renowned for yielding the earliest direct evidence for humans out of Africa, dating back 1.8 million years.

This new discovery is the first record of a dog from the site, and the remains have been dated back to between 1.77 and 1.76 million years.

3D scans of the hemimandible fragments of the Eurasian hunting dog, Canis (Xenocyon) lycaonoides, from Dmanisi (specimen number D6327) superimposed on a mandible of the same species. Credit: S. Bartolini-Lucenti.

By looking at the dog’s dental remains, the researchers found that it likely belonged to a young adult dog weighing about 30 kilograms – the size of a Labrador. The teeth had distinctive characteristics resembling other wild dog species from the same era, showing that it was highly carnivorous, and the researchers matched the remains to the species Canis (Xenocyon) lycaonoides.

Otherwise known as the Eurasian hunting dog, this species originated in East Africa and is potentially the ancestor of living species such as the endangered Indian dhole and African hunting dog.

“Much fossil evidence suggests that this species was a cooperative pack‑hunter that, unlike other large‑sized canids, was capable of social care toward kin and non‑kin members of its group,” the authors write in their paper, published in Scientific Reports.

While the evolution of these dogs is still largely unknown, they are thought to have originated in Asia and then moved into Europe and Africa somewhere between 1.8 million and 800,000 years ago. This finding is the earliest known instance of these dogs near Europe, showing that the species was on the move by 1.7 million years ago.

This may suggest the ecological conditions favoured migration at the time.

A group of Homo erectus sharing food with an old and toothless individual who lived several years without teeth. Credit: Mauricio Antón with the scientific supervision by D. Lordkipanidze and B. Martínez-Navarro.

“Interestingly, its dispersal from Asia to Europe and Africa followed a parallel route to that of hominins, but in the opposite direction,” the authors write.

At this same Dmanisi archaeological site, previous research teams have found the oldest direct evidence of hominins outside of Africa (though slightly earlier artefacts have been found in southern China). This indicates the two species may have shared the location at this time.

The authors note that hominins and wild hunting dogs are the only two mammal species in this era with proven altruistic behaviour towards their group members, which may have been a survival strategy that played a role in their successful migrations.

“The co-occurrence of two highly social species in the same locality around 1.8 Ma…raises interest in the role played by social behaviour and by mutually-beneficial cooperation and reciprocity in the geographic expansion of these species,” they conclude.

Lauren Fuge - Cosmos Magazine

Is the truth out there?
How the Harvard-based Galileo Project will search the skies for alien technology.

Artist’s impression of interstellar asteroid 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua). 

Credit: European Southern Observatory / M. Kornmesser


30 July 2021 The Conversation
By Ray Norris, Western Sydney University

Can we find alien technology? That is the ambitious goal of the Galileo Project, launched this week by Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb with substantial private financial backing.

The project is far from the first attempt to detect signs of civilisations beyond Earth. Loeb has been criticised in the past for his dismissive approach to previous efforts to find extraterrestrial life and his argument that an alien artefact passed through our solar system in 2017.

So why do Loeb and his collaborators think they have a chance of finding something where others have failed? There are three triggers that suggest they might.
Exoplanets, ‘Oumuamua, and UFOs

First, years of painstaking observations have shown that many stars host Earth-like planets. There is a real chance these “exoplanets” might be home to alien civilisations.

Second, five years ago, an interstellar visitor, dubbed ‘Oumuamua, tumbled though our solar system. It was a skinny object about 400 metres long, and we know from its speed and trajectory that it arrived from outside our solar system. It was the first time we had ever seen an interstellar object enter our neighbourhood.

Unfortunately it caught us on the hop, and we didn’t notice it until it was on its way out. So we didn’t get a chance to have a really good look at it.

Scientists were divided on the question of what ‘Oumuamua might be. Many thought it was simply an interstellar shard of rock, even though we had no idea how such a shard might be produced or slung our way.

Others, including Loeb, thought there was a chance it was a spacecraft from another civilisation. Some scientists felt such claims to be far-fetched. Others pointed out that science should be open-minded and, in the absence of a good explanation, we should examine all plausible solutions.

Today, the question is still hanging. We don’t know whether ‘Oumuamua was a spaceship or merely an inert lump of rock.

The third trigger for the Galileo Project came from the US military. In June, the Office of the US Director of National Intelligence announced that some military reports of UFOs, or UAPs (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) as they are now known, seem real.

Specifically, the report said some UAPs “probably do represent physical objects given that a majority of UAP were registered across multiple sensors” and there was no known explanation for them.

In other words, they aren’t meteorological phenomena, or faulty instruments, or weather balloons, or clandestine military experiments. So what are they?

Again, the question is left hanging. The report seems to rule out known technology, and suggests “advanced technology”, but stops short of suggesting it is the work of aliens.
Science to the rescue

Loeb takes the view that instead of debating whether either ‘Oumuamua or UAPs provide evidence of alien intelligence, we should do what scientists are good at: get some reliable data. And, he argues, scientists are the people to do it, not politicians or military staff. As the US report says, the sensors used by the military “are not generally suited for identifying UAP”.

Few subjects divide scientists as much as the existence of aliens. On one hand, there are serious SETI (Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence) projects, such as Project Phoenix and Breakthrough Listen, that use the world’s largest telescopes to search for signals from some extraterrestrial intelligence.

At the other extreme, few scientists are persuaded by the fuzzy photos and dubious eyewitness accounts that seem to characterise many UFO reports.

The Galileo Project is very different from SETI searches or collections of UFO sightings. Instead, it will explicitly search for evidence of alien artefacts, either in space or on Earth.
But is it science?

Is this science? Loeb is convinced that it is. He argues the Galileo Project will bring scientific techniques and expertise to bear on one of the most important questions we can ask: are we alone? And the project will build purpose-designed equipment, optimised for the detection of alien artefacts.

Will it find anything? The odds are poor, as Loeb admits. In essence it’s a fishing expedition. But if there is a prima facie case for the existence of alien technology, then science has a duty to investigate it.

But suppose they do find something? Will we get to hear about it, or will it be locked up in some future Area 51?

The Galileo Project has promised all data will be made public, and all results will be published in peer-reviewed journals. Indeed, one of the reasons it will not use existing military data is because much of it is classified, which would restrict the project’s freedom to make the results public.

Or perhaps the project will find natural explanations for ‘Oumuamua and UAPs. But even that will be a new scientific discovery, perhaps revealing new natural phenomena.

As Loeb says:


Whenever we look at the sky in a new way, we find something new. We will find something exciting no matter what.

Ray Norris, Professor, School of Science, Western Sydney University

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

Government watchdog denies protests of SpaceX's lunar lander contract

An illustration depicts a SpaceX Starship rocket outfitted as a 

lunar lander on the moon. Photo courtesy of SpaceX

ORLANDO, Fla., July 30 (UPI) -- A U.S. government watchdog denied protests Friday of NASA's nearly $3 billion contract award to Elon Musk's SpaceX to build a lunar lander for astronaut missions.

In denying the arguments made by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Alabama-based Dynetics, the Government Accountability Office noted that NASA's options for the contract were restricted by a lack of congressional funding.

NASA's description of the contract competition had stated that the outcome would depend on that funding, Kenneth Patton, a GAO managing associate general counsel, said in a emailed statement.

"In addition, the announcement reserved the right to make multiple awards, a single award, or no award at all," Patton wrote. "The protesters could not establish any reasonable possibility of competitive prejudice."

Blue Origin and Dynetics filed the protests in April when they were shut out of the three-way competition.

NASA had said it would like at least two finalists to build two unique landers for upcoming Artemis moon missions. The agency requested $3.4 billion this year for the lunar Human Landing System program, but the Congress appropriated just $850 million.

Since April, several members of Congress have introduced a bill to boost NASA's current funding by $10 billion to make another award under the program. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a June congressional hearing that the agency was prepared to move quickly once the GAO made its decision.

Blue Origin will continue to press for a contract despite the GAO ruling, according to an emailed statement.

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"We've been encouraged by actions in Congress to add a second provider and appropriate additional resources to NASA's pursuit to return Americans to the moon," the company wrote.

Blue Origin's bid was evaluated by NASA to cost of $5.99 billion, about twice that of the SpaceX proposal. But Bezos said in an open letter to NASA on Monday that the company would permanently waive $2 billion in payments and absorb the cost of a pathfinder mission to fly its lander in Earth orbit as a preliminary test.

The first Artemis mission, an uncrewed test flight of the SLS rocket and Orion capsule, is scheduled for launch from Florida later this year.

Deliveroo unveils plans to pull out of Spain in wake of ‘rider law’

THEY DON'T WANT TO PAY WORKERS BASIC BENEFITS

Delivery firm says ‘disproportionate level of investment’ would be needed to achieve top-level market position

The changes in Spain will mean a worker is presumed to be an employee 

rather than self-employed contractor. 

Photograph: Albert Gea/Reuters

Jasper Jolly
@jjpjolly
Fri 30 Jul 2021


Deliveroo has announced plans to pull out of Spain only months after the government promised a law to give gig economy workers greater employment rights.

Deliveroo, which is headquartered and listed in London, said remaining in Spain would require too much investment compared with its other markets, given the scale of its operations in the country.

The takeaway app company blamed its relatively small market share, saying that “achieving and sustaining a top-tier market position in Spain would require a disproportionate level of investment with highly uncertain long-term potential returns that could impact the economic viability of the market for the company”.

A spokesman for Deliveroo said Spain’s employment rights law was not the determining factor, but added that it had resulted in an earlier withdrawal from the country

The Spanish government announced plans in March to legislate to give workers at food delivery companies and other online platforms more employment rights after a landmark legal ruling, as the first EU country to do so.

Known as the “rider law”, the changes will mean a worker is presumed to be an employee rather than self-employed contractor. The changes will also force food digital platforms to inform delivery riders about how computer algorithms and artificial intelligence affect their working conditions.

Deliveroo said its withdrawal from Spain was subject to a month-long consultation with affected employees, beginning in September, with its services in the country halting in October.

The firm indicated the move would not have a significant financial impact,with less than 2% of its gross sales in Spain. Deliveroo operates in 12 markets, including Australia, Belgium, France, Hong Kong, and Italy, but the UK and Ireland account for half of its revenues.

Although the company did not explicitly mention the Madrid government’s changes as it announced the move on Friday, the Spanish reforms have been seen as a direct challenge to the business models of companies such as Deliveroo, which rely on farming out delivery jobs to workers who are classified as independent contractors.

Deliveroo says this gives workers desired flexibility, but some workers have campaigned for rights such as sick pay and holiday.

Deliveroo workers in the UK are still treated as contractors. In June, the company successfully argued in the court of appeal that workers were self-employed, to the dismay of unions seeking to improve conditions in the gig economy. However, the UK’s supreme court had previously found that Uber workers should be treated as employees.

The status of workers was deemed a particular issue by big City investment funds, with some major investors saying it was a key reason for not buying shares in a disappointing initial public offering of Deliveroo stock in March. One investor told the Guardian labour issues were a “ticking bomb” for the company.

The plan to pull out of Spain comes as Deliveroo has faced stiff competition from rivals, including Uber Eats, which is owned by the US taxi app company Uber, Anglo-Dutch Just Eat Takeaway, and homegrown Spanish competitor Glovo.

Glovo has said it plans to hire 2,000 delivery riders permanently, but will still try to retain some independent workers. Uber Eats is outsourcing its rider services to other companies.

“The decision to propose ending our operations in Spain is not one we have taken lightly,” said Hadi Moussa, Deliveroo’s chief business officer for international. He thanked its riders, and said employees would be supported throughout the consultation period.

EU fines Amazon close to $900M for breaching data protection laws

"We strongly disagree with the ruling," an Amazon spokesperson said of the penalty


"Maintaining the security of our customers' information and their trust are top priorities," Amazon said in a response to the penalty. File Photo by Friedemann Vogel/EPA-EFE

July 30 (UPI) -- The European Union has fined retail giant Amazon close to $900 million for, according to investigators, running afoul of the alliance's data protection laws.

The fine was imposed a couple weeks ago, but disclosed on Friday in a securities filing by Amazon.

The penalty was given by the EU's National Commission for Data Protection, which said Amazon failed to comply with a data protection law.

The watchdog said Amazon data-processing practices were not in line with the statute.

As part of the penalty, the commission urged Amazon to change certain business practices.

The retail giant said in a response to the fine that none of its practices have violated the EU law.

"The decision ... relies on subjective and untested interpretations of European privacy law, and the proposed fine is entirely out of proportion," Amazon said, according to The Wall Street Journal.

"Maintaining the security of our customers' information and their trust are top priorities," the company added, according to CNBC.

Regulators last month had proposed a $425 million fine for Amazon.

In its response, Amazon said it's planning to appeal the punishment.

"We strongly disagree with the CNPD's ruling," a spokesperson for the company said, according to the CNBC report.

The disclosure of the fine came a day after Amazon reported $113 billion in second-quarter revenue. The April-July period was third straight quarter of at least $100 billion, but missed most analysts' expectations by about $2 billion.

Amazon is the not the only tech company to be targeted as of late. Google recently faced fines in France for $267 million for abusing its power in the online marketplace and $600 million earlier this month related to content.

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange stripped of Ecuadorian citizenship

Agence France-Presse
July 28, 2021

 (AFP)

Ecuador has revoked the citizenship of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks who is currently in a British prison.

Ecuador's justice system formally notified the Australian of the nullity of his naturalisation in a letter that came in response to a claim filed by the South American country's Foreign Ministry.

A naturalisation is considered damaging when it is granted based on the concealment of relevant facts, false documents or fraud.

Ecuadorian authorities say Assange's naturalisation letter had multiple inconsistencies, different signatures, the possible alteration of documents and unpaid fees, among other issues.

Carlos Poveda, Assange's lawyer, told The Associated Press the decision was made without due process and Assange was not allowed to appear in the case.

"On the date (Assange) was cited he was deprived of his liberty and with a health crisis inside the deprivation of liberty center where he was being held," Poveda said.

Poveda said he will file appeals asking for an amplification and clarification of the decision. "More than the importance of nationality, it is a matter of respecting rights and following due process in withdrawing nationality."

Assange received Ecuadorian citizenship in January 2018 as part of a failed attempt by the government of then-President Lenín Moreno to turn him into a diplomat to get him out of its embassy in London.

On Monday, the Pichincha Court for Contentious Administrative Matters revoked this decision.

Ecuador's Foreign Ministry told AP the court had "acted independently and followed due process in a case that took place during the previous government and that was raised by the same previous government."

Assange, 50, has been in London' high-security Belmarsh Prison since he was arrested in April 2019 for skipping bail seven years earlier during a separate legal battle.

Assange spent seven years holed up inside Ecuador's London embassy, where he fled in 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.

Sweden dropped the sex crimes investigations in November 2019 because so much time had elapsed.

U.S. prosecutors have indicted Assange on 17 espionage charges and one charge of computer misuse over WikiLeaks' publication of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 175 years in prison.

U.S. prosecutors say Assange unlawfully helped U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files that WikiLeaks later published.

Lawyers for Assange argue that he was acting as a journalist and is entitled to First Amendment freedom of speech protections for publishing documents that exposed U.S. military wrongdoing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, Britain's High Court granted the U.S. government permission to appeal a decision that the WikiLeaks founder cannot be sent to the United States to face espionage charges.

In January, a lower court judge had refused an American request to send Assange to the U.S.

(AP)

HIV-positive man's arrest puts Mexican law in spotlight

Agence France-Presse
July 28, 2021

Gay Pride in Mexico ( Guillermo Arias AFP/File)

The arrest of a man accused of failing to tell a partner that he had HIV has sparked fresh controversy about a Mexican law that campaigners say is outdated and discriminatory.

Prosecutors in the capital drew criticism for releasing images of the man, identified as Juan "N," after his detention in June at a time when the country was celebrating sexual diversity and inclusion.

In Mexico, knowingly putting someone in danger of infection with a sexually transmitted or serious disease is a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.

"What the crime does is criminalize people who live with any health condition, be it HIV or any other," said Geraldina Gonzalez de la Vega, president of the Mexico City authorities' Council to Prevent and Eliminate Discrimination.

Alleged breaches of the law have escalated amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2020, prosecutors in the capital opened 78 investigations into accusations of people putting others in danger of infection.

Another 52 have been launched this year, according to official data that does not specify the diseases involved.
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But compared with the nine such complaints in 2018 and 12 in 2019, the impact of the coronavirus is evident.

- 'Stigmatizing' -

Although there are no reports of new detentions, Gonzalez de la Vega considers it "deeply stigmatizing" to criminally investigate a Covid-19 patient.
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With 2.7 million confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 238,000 deaths, Mexico is one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic.

The law was prompted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which led to a toughening of the capital's penal code in the 1990s.

But it is unnecessary because someone who fraudulently infects another can be prosecuted under other laws used to deal with inflicting injuries, Gonzalez de la Vega said.

Academic studies have argued that the law reflects decades-old moralisms in the Catholic-majority country, such as punishing promiscuous behavior.

Jaime Morales, director of sexual diversity for the capital government, now works to train and sensitize the personnel who revealed the man's identity.

"It is illegal," Morales said.

The man's detention, which lasted a week, followed a complaint by his ex-partner who, lawyers allege, was deceived and put at risk.

The prosecution said Juan "N" was arrested for failing to respond to subpoenas.

The judge granted him release pending trial.

AFP contacted Juan "N" and his defense team, but they declined to comment while legal proceedings are underway.

- 'Intervention by the state' -

The crime of which the man is accused is also anachronistic from a medical perspective, campaigners say.

For two decades, antiretroviral drugs have successfully reduced HIV until it is undetectable and therefore non-communicable, while prevention methods including condoms can also significantly reduce the risk of infection.

"A person who has it totally under control does not transmit the virus to their partners," said Sergio Montalvo, a doctor at a public clinic in the capital specializing in HIV.

Any person with HIV has the choice whether to share their diagnosis, he said.

In 2020, 342 new cases of HIV were diagnosed in Mexico City, out of 9,220 throughout the country, according to official figures.

The case of Juan "N" has opened the door to the possible repeal of the contentious law.

Temistocles Villanueva, a lawmaker for the ruling Morena party, plans to present such a proposal in the capital's legislature in August.

"It is an intervention by the state in people's private life, in their sexual relations," said Villanueva, who does not believe criminalization reduces infection.

"What it does is make people hide their state of health so as not to risk being accused," he said.

DEMOCRATS FAIL 2

House adjourns for recess without passing bill to extend federal eviction ban

BY CRISTINA MARCOS,SCOTT WONG AND MIKE LILLIS 

- 07/30/21 04:00 PM EDT

House Democratic leaders failed to round up enough votes on Friday to pass legislation extending the federal ban on evictions just two days before it is set to expire, ultimately adjourning the chamber for a long summer recess with no path forward on the issue.

After hours of inactivity on the House floor as Democratic leaders worked to corral support for legislative action, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) tried to pass a bill by unanimous consent that would have renewed the moratorium through Oct. 18, but Republicans objected.

While Republicans objected to the bill’s passage on the floor, the House’s inability to advance legislation was also a result of Democrats’ inability to unite around the best path forward — a failure they blamed on the short, one-day notice they’d been given by the Biden administration.


"We only learned of this yesterday — not enough time to socialize it within our caucus as well as to build the consensus, especially in a time of COVID,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) explained after the failed vote.

Party leaders are now vowing to keep working on the legislation to win more Democratic support, with designs to vote on the bill in the coming weeks, when the House may reconvene to deal with a budget package under consideration in the Senate.

“We have advised members that they may well be back here in a fashion ... which would keep this issue very much alive [and] very much in our focus and ready to act," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).

The diplomatic sentiments from party leaders disguised the underlying internal tensions that hounded the day’s debate and will now carry into the August break.

Moderate Democrats, eager to leave Washington, were fuming at leadership for keeping the caucus in town until late in the day.

Liberals, fighting for the most robust renter protections they could muster, were furious with the Biden administration for waiting so long to request a congressional fix; with moderates, for prioritizing the vacation over the renter assistance; and with leadership, for adjourning the chamber without adopting a fix.

And even party leaders — loath to break with President Biden — were notably agitated with the administration for its 11th hour entreaty that Congress act before a deadline that all parties knew for weeks was coming.


Pelosi couldn’t quite find the right word to describe her feelings toward the White House, but others were happy to help out.

"Unfortunate," said Hoyer.

"Inconvenient," said House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.).

And liberals were even more fierce.

“The fact that this statement came out just yesterday is unacceptable,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). “I want to make that very clear. Because the excuses that we've been hearing about it, I do not accept them."

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the head of the House Financial Services Committee and author of the eviction moratorium bill, took the remarkable step of breaking with Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn by refusing to endorse their strategy of rushing the bill to the floor by unanimous consent — a gambit doomed from the start. Waters wanted the bill to go through the regular order and receive a recorded vote.

“I did not sign on to the statement or join any of them because I just thought that we should have fought harder,” a frustrated Waters told reporters just off the chamber floor. “I agree that we didn’t have the votes. But what I did not agree to was that we didn’t take it up.”

Just steps away, looking on as she spoke, were Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn.

Researchers at the Aspen Institute estimated this week that as many as 15 million people could be at risk of facing evictions with the expiration of the federal moratorium, which ends on Sunday. And liberal members of the "squad" were irate that the House was leaving town without helping them.

Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), who lived out of her car for a time and has been evicted three times, pressed her colleagues to show more empathy for people at risk of eviction.

"I know firsthand the trauma and devastation that comes with the violence of being evicted, and we have a responsibility to do everything we can to prevent this trauma from being inflicted on our neighbors and communities," she wrote in a letter to colleagues.

Democrats were caught by surprise on Thursday when Biden urged Congress to extend the eviction ban, which has been in place since last September and was renewed as recently as June 24.

Biden insisted that his administration no longer has the authority to unilaterally extend the moratorium due to a Supreme Court ruling last month.

That left House Democratic leaders scrambling to round up enough votes in their own caucus, given Republican opposition to extending the moratorium.


Even if House Democrats had passed a bill, it would have all but certainly failed in the Senate due to widespread opposition from Republicans — a dynamic that seemed to contribute to Pelosi’s decision to adjourn Friday without a deal.

“The prospect in the Senate did not look too good,” she said.

Shortly before the House adjourned, Biden issued a statement Friday calling on state and local governments "to take all possible steps to immediately disburse" emergency rental assistance funds.

"Every state and local government must get these funds out to ensure we prevent every eviction we can," Biden said.

Pelosi and her team initially pushed for an extension that would last until Dec. 31. But the vote count fell far short amid resistance from moderates and housing industry groups.

House Democrats can currently afford only three defections and still pass bills on their own without support from Republicans. Democratic sources said Friday they were short by more than a dozen votes, which proved to be insurmountable despite more than a day of persuasion attempts by party leaders.

Pelosi later proposed a compromise of only extending the eviction ban to Oct. 18, in part to appease centrists who preferred ending the moratorium by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. The Oct. 18 date would have coincided with the end of the public health emergency declaration issued by the Biden administration.


Lawmakers expressed frustration that the $46.5 billion in rental aid allocated by Congress by pandemic relief measures is still largely unspent, with only $3 billion distributed to renters by state and local governments thus far. Indeed, Clyburn, the whip, said that issue was the single greatest barrier to achieving a deal on Friday.

"A lot of the members were very concerned that this money's all bottled up. And they want to know: what can we do to get the money out of these offices and into the landlords' and tenants' pockets? You can extend it, and it's still bottled up,” Clyburn said. “That gave our members more angst than anything else."

But Democrats pushing to extend the moratorium argued that renters shouldn’t be evicted in the meantime as a result of bureaucratic failures.

“There cannot be mass evictions right now,” said Ocasio-Cortez.

The National Association of Realtors urged lawmakers to direct rental assistance toward housing providers in a statement opposing another extension of the eviction moratorium.

"Nearly half of all rental housing in America is a mom-and-pop operation, and these providers cannot continue to live in a state of financial hardship," said Shannon McGahn, chief advocacy officer for the group.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) renewed the eviction ban on June 24 through the end of July, saying it would be the last extension.


The Supreme Court warned the Biden administration on June 29 that the CDC did not have the authority to issue the ban and that any further extensions would need to be enacted by Congress.

With the increased threat of the delta variant of the coronavirus, the White House pushed for another extension of the eviction ban on Thursday.

“Given the recent spread of the delta variant, including among those Americans both most likely to face evictions and lacking vaccinations, President Biden would have strongly supported a decision by the CDC to further extend this eviction moratorium to protect renters at this moment of heightened vulnerability,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement.

"Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has made clear that this option is no longer available," she added.

The eviction moratorium bill wasn’t the only measure scrapped from Friday’s House floor schedule due to Democratic leaders' inability to round up enough votes in their caucus.

The House was also set to possibly consider an annual appropriations bill this week to fund the departments of Justice and Commerce in the next fiscal year. But Democrats couldn't secure enough votes due to internal divisions over police reform.

“This is a balance between providing the resources that we need for our police and our police departments, and making sure that there are the safeguards in terms of making sure that we're moving in the direction of reform,” House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) told The Hill.

Updated at 8:30 p.m.

'People will die': Congress blasted for failing on eviction moratorium — then going on 7-week vacation

Bob Brigham
July 30, 2021

Homeless man with sign (Shutterstock)

The Democratic-led Congress was blasted on Friday for going on vacation after failing to protect renters before a Saturday deadline.

"House Democrats on Friday failed to push through a last-minute extension of the federal eviction moratorium that expires Saturday, leaving town for a seven-week recess without holding a vote," NBC News reported. "About a dozen House Democrats opposed the measure and were unwilling to budge, two senior Democratic aides told NBC News."

The sponsor of the renter protection legislation, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) reportedly disagreed about holding a public vote.

"Waters wanted a vote, which would have allowed progressive activists to blame specific Democratic lawmakers for its failure, while Pelosi didn't want to expose some of her caucus members to the wrath of the base, according to the second aide," NBC News reported. "Ultimately, the effort died when Majority Leader Steny Hoyer tried to pass the measure by unanimous consent — a process that doesn't require a vote — and a Republican member objected."

The House of Representatives is not scheduled to be in session until September 20th.

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