Scientists praise 'Don't Look Up' as 'evocative' climate change parable

Ben Adler
·Senior Climate Editor
Tue, January 4, 2022

Climate change has often struggled to penetrate the popular imagination, but now a movie intended to evoke it has taken the world by storm. “Don’t Look Up,” the dark comedy about a comet headed toward Earth that director Adam McKay calls “a Clark Kent-level disguise for the climate crisis,” topped the Netflix most-watched list last week, the first it was available to stream, in 88 of 89 countries. (The reference to Clark Kent, Superman’s alter ego who merely wears glasses, is McKay’s way of saying it’s barely disguised at all.)

Director Adam McKay in Beverly Hills in 2019. (David McNew/Reuters)

While the movie’s central metaphor has struck some reviewers as inapt, climate scientists are overwhelmingly impressed by the film’s accurate depiction of their struggle to communicate to the public and policymakers the urgency of the climate crisis. Spoiler alert: In the movie, politicians including the president treat the threat to humanity’s existence as an issue to be used for political gain, and tech industry leaders do the same, prioritizing profit. The movie’s title comes from the refrain heard in the film from astronomy deniers who argue that the comet can simply be ignored into oblivion.

“I actually stayed up till midnight to watch it at the very first moment it was available to me on the West Coast,” Lisa Graumlich, president-elect of the American Geophysical Union and a professor at the University of Washington School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, told Yahoo News. “I went between laughing and sort of feeling ready to weep, because it did ring so true.”

One particularly poignant element of the movie for some scientists is the shallow, even dismissive, treatment that their warnings have sometimes received in the media. In “Don’t Look Up,” the scientists who discover the comet go to a New York Times-esque newspaper, and the resulting exposé leads to an appearance on a morning TV talk show, where they are told to lighten up and make the news more appealing. The subsequent despair and rage that the younger researcher, played by Jennifer Lawrence, feels is familiar to Graumlich.

“To have ourselves not taken seriously, at times ridiculed by the press, to have politicians sometimes pay attention for a while but then lose their focus, for many of us it was very evocative of what we’ve experienced,” she said.

Early in her career, Graumlich had an eerily similar experience to the one Lawrence’s character, a PhD student, has in “Don’t Look Up.”

Lisa Graumlich at the University of Washington in Seattle in 2014.

 (Elaine Thompson/AP)

“I’m a tree ring scientist: I study how climate has changed over the long term, in part to understand whether what we’re seeing is natural variability or human-caused,” Graumlich said. “So, imagine, being a young scientist, I turned 30. A week later, my science was covered in the New York Times: about tree rings, looking for past climate variability. This is something you send to your mother, you feel proud. And later that day, the story was picked up by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show. And he was making fun of me, my name, and the silliness of someone thinking they could understand global warming from looking at tree rings.”

To some climate scientists, the way that the news media treats the comet in “Don’t Look Up” is analogous to the way American society as a whole has reacted to climate change. “There’s obviously some criticism of the media in the film — I don’t think it’s a media problem, per se, it’s a societal problem,” UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain told Yahoo News. “But there are some scenes that were funny in the movie, but on further reflection not all that funny,” he added, referring to the scientists’ appearance on the morning show. “They’re essentially told to lighten up, loosen up, don’t be so gloomy. I’ve had people in a similar role tell me the same thing, almost verbatim, when talking about climate change and extreme [weather] events.

“Usually my interactions with journalists are very positive and constructive, but the criticism about the broader media landscape and about the way society interprets bad news rings very true,” Swain said.

Of course, the threat posed by climate change is not much like a comet that will hit the Earth in less than seven months. Its effects are so slow-moving that despite beginning as early as the late 19th century, they have become perceptible to the average observer only in recent decades. But, while acknowledging that distinction, scientists mostly say the film nonetheless captures the political and economic challenges to mobilizing the public against any future threat.

Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill and Adam McKay at the world premiere of “Don’t Look Up” at Lincoln Center on Dec. 5 in New York. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

“It was a kind of parody that revealed an underlying truth,” Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Yahoo News about the new film. “It was obviously a huge exaggeration, but that’s what parodies are. And the underlying truth is that scientists are growing increasingly frantic that they’re not being listened to and the media and politicians are basically ignoring them.”

“I enjoyed the movie,” Christopher Field, director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and professor for interdisciplinary environmental studies at Stanford University, told Yahoo News. “It is really thought-provoking about lots of issues. It’s also a parable about climate change; it’s not about what we actually expect to happen with climate change. I enjoyed the insight into the frustrations and temptations that scientists feel when talking about important issues. It’s also important to keep in mind that climate change isn’t Earth-ending in six months and 14 days, or whatever the timeline is in ‘Don’t Look Up.’”

“Climate change is not like a physical object hurtling towards Earth that could instantly wipe out humanity,” Swain said. “In the physical science sense, it’s not a good analogy for climate change. But I think that was deliberate, because, at this point, there are some pretty alarming things that have been going on in the global climate system that we’ve been pretty good at closing our eyes, plugging our ears and burying our heads in the sand collectively. Apparently, some of these climate disasters are too subtle. So I think this was a necessary choice, to make it an over-the-top, end-of-humanity, physical object impacting Earth, with everything being over in a moment.”

Leonardo DiCaprio at the world premiere of “Don’t Look Up” on Dec. 5. (Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

“My own view is that it’s an imperfect analogy by design,” Michael E. Mann, a professor of atmospheric science at Penn State, told Yahoo News. Mann was specifically mentioned by Leonardo DiCaprio as an inspiration for the character he plays in “Don’t Look Up” because of how Mann handles his frequent media appearances.

“I suspect that McKay wanted to focus our attention on a crisis that isn’t laden with ideological baggage in the way that climate change has become thanks to the fossil-fuel-funded disinformation campaign,” Mann said. “So instead he created a politically neutral vehicle for exploring the strictures of our politics and media environment when it comes to acting on an imminent crisis where vested interests stand to benefit from inaction. Among other things, McKay drives home a central point I make in my recent book ‘The New Climate War’ about the risk in allowing techno-billionaires to dictate how we respond to the crisis.”

“Don’t Look Up” also captures the way humanity has delayed action to address climate change, such as transitioning from fossil fuels to clean energy sources, for so long that it now requires bigger, faster and more aggressive action than it otherwise would have.

“No metaphor is perfect, but there are two aspects of it that do afford a comparison with the climate problem,” Emanuel said. “One is that it’s something that’s going to happen in the future that’s not having much effect today. The other thing that is dramatically true in that case, and is also true in the climate case, is that the longer you wait, the harder it is to do anything about it and the more expensive it is to do anything about it.

An illustration of an asteroid approaching Earth. (Getty Images)

“If you catch this meteor or asteroid when it’s still very far away, you don’t need very much energy at all to knock it off course,” Emanuel said. “But if you wait until the last minute, you have to exert huge forces on it. And at some point, you don’t have enough energy to do anything about it. And the climate is similar in that sense. If we had started doing [climate action] 40 years ago, we wouldn’t have had to spend very much money and we’d be fine today. You keep putting it off, putting it off, and hoping it will be the next generation’s problem and not ours, and it’s getting more and more expensive. And at some point, you won’t be able to do anything about it.”

In fact, some climate scientists themselves have previously used the analogy of an object from outer space. “Imagine a giant asteroid on a direct collision course with Earth. That’s the equivalent of what we face now,” said James Hansen, former longtime director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in a 2012 TED talk on climate change. Hansen noted how “Don’t Look Up” echoed his own observation on his website at Columbia University, where he is now an adjunct professor in the program on climate science, awareness and solutions at the Earth Institute.

In his blog post, Hansen went on to note both the similarities and differences between the scenario in the film and climate change. “Scientists are frustrated as they try to communicate the emergency in both the asteroid story and the real-world climate story,” Hansen writes. “Villains in the asteroid story include greedy industrialists, incompetent and corrupt government, media that abdicate responsible reporting in favor of ratings, and a public focused on tabloid entertainment. With all that headwind, can the asteroid story have a happy ending? ... The real climate story faces those headwinds and more. The long timescale brings intergenerational conflict: today’s adult leaders fail to take needed actions, but today’s young people and offspring bear the consequences.”

Several climate scientists said their frustration with political denialism and inaction on climate change seems to be felt by scientists with other specialties, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and other threats to public health and safety. Although the filmmakers had climate change in mind when making the movie, “it could well have been” about COVID, Emanuel said. Being ignored by politicians and members of the public who are unwilling to accept an unpleasant truth “is frustrating for climate scientists, as it is for the whole medical profession trying to get people to wear masks and get vaccinated,” he added.

People protest vaccine mandates on Aug. 9 in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

“[‘Don’t Look Up’] sort of distills a lot of the societal and systemic issues that relate not only to climate change, but to a bunch of other global-scale society problems like the pandemic, to its most essential form,” Swain said. “There’s hard empirical evidence that a very bad thing is going to happen, but that it potentially can be completely averted, in all likelihood, if society and governments do what needs to be done quickly enough. And despite that overwhelming evidence, the things that need to be done aren’t done, for reasons that have more to do with political ideology and money than anything else.”

Swain also observed that living through climate change increasingly feels like a dystopian fantasy, making “Don’t Look Up” an overdue artistic expression of that growing reality.

“Getting real tired of living in a real-world disaster movie,” Swain tweeted on Dec. 30. He was referring to the fires that ravaged Boulder County, Colo., last week, an unusual incident in winter made more likely by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s shocking to me that there aren’t more climate change shows,” Swain told Yahoo News. “Why isn’t there more science fiction that talks about climate? Why isn’t climate just folded into more narratives that aren’t directly about climate change?”

Perhaps, now that Hollywood has seen the success of “Don’t Look Up,” there will be.

Teachers at culture war front lines with Jan. 6 education
By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH

Waukee School District teacher Liz Wagner in her home, Thursday, Dec. 23, 2021, in Urbandale, Iowa. Teachers have already landed on the front lines of the culture war. Now the Jan. 6 anniversary is prompting some to decide how -- or whether -- to teach their students about the events that sit at the heart of the country’s division.

 (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

MISSION, Kan. (AP) — What students are learning about the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 may depend on where they live.

In a Boston suburb in heavily Democratic Massachusetts, history teacher Justin Voldman said his students will spend the day journaling about what happened and talking about the fragility of democracy.

“I feel really strongly that this needs to be talked about,” said Voldman, who teaches history at Natick High School, 15 miles (24 kilometers) west of Boston. As the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, he said “it is fair to draw parallels between what happened on Jan. 6 and the rise of fascism.”

Voldman said he feels fortunate: “There are other parts of the country where ... I would be scared to be a teacher.”

Liz Wagner, an eighth and ninth grade social studies teacher in a Des Moines suburb of increasingly Republican Iowa, got an email from an administrator last year, warning teachers to be careful in how they framed the discussion.

“I guess I was so, I don’t know if naïve is the appropriate word, perhaps exhausted from the pandemic teaching year last year, to understand how controversial this was going to be,” she said.

Some students questioned Wagner last year when she referred to what happened as an insurrection. She responded by having them read the dictionary definition for the word. This year, she will probably show students videos of the protest and ask them to write about what the footage shows.

“This is kind of what I have to do to ensure that I’m not upsetting anybody,” Wagner said. “Last year I was on the front line of the COVID war, trying to dodge COVID, and now I’m on the front line of the culture war, and I don’t want to be there.”

With crowds shouting at school board meetings and political action committees investing millions of dollars in races to elect conservative candidates across the country, talking to students about what happened on Jan. 6 is increasingly fraught.

Teachers now are left to decide how — or whether — to instruct their students about the events that sit at the heart of the country’s division. And the lessons sometimes vary based on whether they are in a red state or a blue state.

Facing History and Ourselves, a nonprofit that helps teachers with difficult lessons on subjects like the Holocaust, offered tips on how to broach the topic with students in the hours after the riot.

Within 18 hours of publication, it had 100,000 page views — a level of interest that Abby Weiss, who oversees the development of the nonprofit’s teaching tools, said was unlike anything the group has seen before.

In the year that has followed, Weiss said, Republican lawmakers and governors in many states have championed legislation to limit the teaching of material that explores how race and racism influence American politics, culture and law.

“Teachers are anxious,” she said. “On the face of it, if you read the laws, they’re quite vague and, you know, hard to know actually what’s permissible and what isn’t.”

Racial discussions are hard to avoid when discussing the riot because white supremacists were among those descending on the halls of power, said Jinnie Spiegler, director of curriculum and training for the Anti-Defamation League. She said the group is concerned that the insurrection could be used as a recruitment tool and wrote a newly released guide to help teachers and parents combat those radicalization efforts.

“To talk about white supremacy, to talk about white supremacist extremists, to talk about their racist Confederate flag, it’s fraught for so many reasons,” Spiegler said.

Anton Schulzki, the president of the National Council for the Social Studies, said students are often the ones bringing up the racial issues. Last year, he was just moments into discussing what happened when one of his honors students at William J. Palmer High School in Colorado Springs said, “’You know, if those rioters were all Black, they’d all be arrested by now.”

Since then, three conservative school board candidates won seats on the school board where Schulzki teaches, and the district dissolved its equity leadership team. He is covered by a contract that offers academic freedom protections, and has discussed the riot periodically over the past year.

“I do feel,” he said, “that there may be some teachers who are going to feel the best thing for me to do is to ignore this because I don’t want to put myself in jeopardy because I have my own bills to pay, my own house, to take care of, my own kids to take back and forth to school.”

Concerned teachers have been reaching out to the American Federation of Teachers, which last month sued over New Hampshire’s new limits on the discussion of systemic racism and other topics.

“What I’m hearing now over and over and over again is that these laws that have been passed in different places are really intended to chill the discussion of current events,” said Randi Weingarten, the union’s president and a former social studies teacher. “I am very concerned about what it means in terms of the teaching as we get closer and closer to January 6th.”

The biggest fear for Paula Davis, a middle school special education teacher in a rural central Indiana district, is that the discussion about what happened could be used by teachers with a political agenda to indoctrinate students. She won’t discuss Jan. 6 in her classroom; her focus is math and English.

“I think it’s extremely important that any teacher that is addressing that topic does so from an unbiased perspective,” said Davis, a regional chapter chair for Moms for Liberty, a group whose members have protested mask and vaccine mandates and critical race theory. “If it cannot be done without bias, then it should not be done.”

But there is no way Dylan Huisken will avoid the topic in his middle school classroom in the Missoula, Montana, area town of Bonner. He plans to use the anniversary to teach his students to use their voice constructively by doing things like writing to lawmakers.

“Not addressing the attack,” Huisken said, “is to suggest that the civic ideals we teach exist in a vacuum and don’t have any real-world application, that civic knowledge is mere trivia.”

Massachusetts' Sokhary Chau elected as 1st Cambodian American mayor in U.S.

By UPI Staff

Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Sokhary Chau made history on Monday night in becoming the first mayor of color in the town of Lowell, Mass. -- and the first Cambodian American mayor anywhere in the United States.

The former city councilor was elected by unanimous vote, 11-0, from the Lowell City Council.

Chau will serve as mayor for at least the next two years.

Erik Gitschier was elected Lowell's vice mayor.

RELATED  U.S. hits Cambodia with arms embargo over growing Chinese military influence

During his address, Chau said that he stands on the shoulders of the many immigrants who came before him. He said that regardless of their origins, they all arrived in search of their own American dream.

"We cannot change the world. But collectively, we can make historic change in Lowell," he said, according to The Lowell Sun.

RELATED U.S. targets corruption in Cambodia with advisory, sanctions

"To the Cambodian diaspora around the world, we can no longer be just victims. It is our time to now to be leaders and to succeed."


Chau fled the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia with his mother and six siblings in 1979. They ultimately traversed the jungles of Thailand while attempting to reach refugee camps. His mother died last month.

‘Our time now’: 1st Cambodian American mayor in US sworn in

By PHILIP MARCELO

1 of 5

Mayor Sokhary Chau addresses the assembly during the Lowell City Council swearing-in ceremony, Monday, Jan. 3, 2022, in Lowell, Mass., held at Lowell Memorial Auditorium due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Chau, a refugee who survived the Khmer Rouge’s bloody regime, has become the city’s first mayor of color and the first Cambodian American mayor in the United States. 

(Julia Malakie/The Lowell Sun via AP)

BOSTON (AP) — He came to the U.S. as a young refugee, having survived Khmer Rouge’s brutal rule. Now, Sokhary Chau is the nation’s first Cambodian American mayor.

The 49-year-old city councilor in Lowell, Massachusetts, was unanimously picked by his colleagues to assume the body’s top post Monday, in the process also becoming the city’s first Asian American mayor.

“God bless America, right? I was a refugee, now I’m mayor of a major city in Massachusetts,” Chau said hours after he was officially sworn in. “I don’t know if that could happen anywhere else in the world. I’m still trying to absorb it.”

Chau, in his inaugural remarks, reflected on his family’s perilous escape from Cambodia and the deep immigrant roots in Lowell, about about 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Boston near the New Hampshire line. It was an early center of America’s textile industry, drawing waves of European and Latin American immigrants over generations.

Today, the city of more than 115,000 residents is nearly 25% Asian and home to the nation’s second-largest Cambodian community.

“As a proud Cambodian American, I am standing on the shoulders of many immigrants who came before me to build this city,” Chau said Monday before a crowd that included his wife and two teenage sons.

Chau recounted how his father, a captain in the Cambodian army, was executed by the communist Khmer Rouge in 1975 during civil war.

His mother, who died late last year, managed to keep her seven children alive for four years, surviving “landmines, jungles, hunger, sickness and uncertainty” to deliver them safely to the U.S., he said.

In an interview later, Chau said he was around 9 years old when his family arrived in Pittsburgh with the help of the Catholic Church. They lived for a time in a convent and embraced Christianity.

They made their way to Lowell’s growing Cambodian community in the mid-1980s, where some of his older siblings immediately set to work in local manufacturing operations.

Chau, however, continued his studies and earned a scholarship to Phillips Academy, an elite boarding school in nearby Andover. He went on to Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he studied economics and political science, also on a scholarship.

Before running for office, Chau said, he worked mostly in financial services, including running a mortgage lending company in Lowell with his wife. He now works for the Social Security Administration.

Chau’s election follows the ascendance of new Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan. She was sworn in last November as Boston’s first woman and first person of color elected to the post.

Chau is also among a growing list of Cambodian American officeholders in Massachusetts that includes two other city councilors, a school committee member and two state lawmakers, all from Lowell, said Vannak Theng, president of the Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association of Greater Lowell.

But while Cambodian Americans served on local boards and state legislatures nationwide, none were elected mayor, according to the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, a nonprofit that helps Asian Pacific Americans pursue public office.

In fact, Long Beach, California, home to the nation’s largest Cambodian community, elected its first Cambodian American city councilor only in 2020, the organization noted.

Chau’s election also comes on the heels of a federal lawsuit that argued Lowell’s election process violated the voting rights of minority residents, who comprise nearly 50% of its population.

A recent settlement in the case led the city to change its electoral system, starting with the 2021 elections. The result was the city’s most diverse class of officeholders, said Oren Sellstrom, litigation director at Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston group that brought the 2017 suit.

“Just four years ago, the city’s elected officials were all white and largely unresponsive to the needs of the city’s communities of color,” he said.

Chau’s role as mayor is largely ceremonial. Lowell’s day-to-day operations are handled by a city manager picked by the council, and Chau effectively serves as council president, leading its meetings and also serving as chair of the school committee.

But he believes he can make a difference by ensuring the city workforce, including its police department and school system, better represents its diverse populace.

He also acknowledges his election is significant to the Cambodian diaspora. The community’s political dynamics played a role during the lead-up to Monday’s vote — his primary rival was a fellow Cambodian American councilor.

Chau says he tries to stay out of “old world politics” and intends to focus on the nuts and bolts of governance. But hopes he can inspire the next generation of Cambodian Americans to step up.

“We can no longer be just victims,” Chau said as he closed his inaugural remarks. “It is our time now to be leaders and to succeed.”

Once a status symbol, older BlackBerry devices to go dark on Tuesday


A Blackberry Z10 is seen at a launch event in New York City on January 30, 2013. Starting Tuesday, older BlackBerry devices that run on the BlackBerry operating system will no longer work. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Americans who still own and use classic BlackBerry devices will no longer be able to use them after Tuesday.

BlackBerry, based in Canada, says that the cellular networks and WiFi service for the older devices will no longer be available.

Specifically, BlackBerry devices that run on the company's own operating system will no longer work. Android-powered models, such as the BlackBerry KEY2, will not be affected by the shutoff.

"We thank our many loyal customers and partners over the years and invite you to learn more about how BlackBerry provides intelligent security software and services to enterprises and governments around the world," BlackBerry said in a statement.

"The legacy services for BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier, BlackBerry 10 software, BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.1 and earlier versions, will no longer be available after January 4, 2022."

For years, the BlackBerry was the hip device for executives and other business players on the move. It set itself apart from cellphones with its QWERTY keyboard, which allowed users to quickly send text messages. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

The closure of the service marks the end of an era that began in the early 2000s, when BlackBerry offered unique service and phones that were different than ordinary cellphones. The BlackBerry, in fact, was sort of a forerunner to modern smartphones.

For years, the BlackBerry was the hip device for executives and other business players on the move. It set itself apart from cellphones with its QWERTY keyboard, which allowed users to quickly send text messages. Some have continued to hang onto the devices, even after they were surpassed in capability by modern smartphones.

"They've been holding onto it for so long because there's no replacement," said Adam Matlock, who operates the YouTube technology review channel TechOdyssey, according to The New York Times.

"I always felt like BlackBerries, they were special because they had a keyboard and were not trying to be another phone with a touch screen."

China's Mars orbiter captures series of selfies using remote camera


The China National Space Administration published a stunning Martian selfie captured by the Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter above the Red Planet after releasing a small camera and beaming photos via WiFi to mission control. Photo by CNSA/UPI | License Photo

Jan. 4 (UPI) -- The China National Space Administration released photos on New Year's Day, of its Mars orbiter circling high above the Red Plant.

The selfies were taken by a small camera which was deployed by the Tianwen 1, capturing images of the orbiter and sending them back to it via a WiFi connection.

The photos were then relayed back to Earth where they were published by China's space agency.

Three of the four photos capture the orbiter above Mars' frozen northern ice cap, while a fourth shows the planet's surface, as captured by a previously-deployed rover.

RELATED China releases new images from Zhurong rover to mark 100 days on Mars

The first two give a clear shot of Tianwen 1's golden body and silver antenna and include the first full-body shot of the craft.



Tianwen 1 has now obtained and transmitted nearly 540 gigabytes of data back to mission controllers, according to the administration

The spacecraft, officials say, is now approximately 350 million kilometers away from Earth.

The Tianwen 1 was originally launched in July 2020 and has now traveled a total of 475 million kilometers, carrying out several trajectory maneuvers en route to entering Martian orbit on Feb. 10, 2021.

The probe successfully deployed a landing capsule to the planet's surface on May 15, 2021, becoming the second country after the United States to successfully do so.

The solar-powered Zhurong rover has now worked for 224 days and outlived its three-month life expectancy, while traveling over 1,400 meters.


The China National Space Administration published a stunning image of the northern ice cap on Mars after releasing a small camera and beaming photos via WiFi to mission control. Photo by CNSA/UPI | License Photo

Record 4.5 million U.S. workers quit their jobs in November, figures show

A sign seeking new employees is seen in the window of Dos Gringos in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of Washington, D.C., on October 14, 2021. File Photo by Sarah Silbiger/UPI | License Photo

Jan. 4 (UPI) -- A record 4.5 million American workers quit their jobs during the month of November, the Labor Department said in its monthly assessment Tuesday.

The department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary, or JOLTS, said that quits increased by 370,000, or 3%, over October.

Most resignations were seen in the accommodation and food services industries (159,000). About 52,000 left the healthcare and social assistance industries and 33,000 quit in the transportation, warehousing and utilities sectors.

The department said the Northeast, South and Midwest regions all saw increases in the number of workers quitting their jobs.

Meanwhile, there were 10.6 million job openings posted in November, down from 11.1 million in October.

The department said about 6.7 million workers were hired in November compared to 6.3 million separations -- which includes layoffs, firings and other involuntary reasons for departures.

The JOLTS report noted that job openings decreased across several industries, including 261,000 fewer openings in accommodation and food services, 110,000 in construction and 66,000 in non-durable goods and manufacturing.

Job openings increased in finance and insurance (83,000) and the federal government (25,000). The South and the Midwest regions saw the largest increases in openings.

Canada announces $40B agreement to compensate First Nations children
By Adam Schrader

A father and his children walk near a tribute in front of the Catholic St-Francis Xavier Mission, for the 215 indigenous children buried in an unmarked mass grave on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in July 2021. File Photo by Andre Pichette/EPA-EFE

Jan. 4 (UPI) -- The Canadian government has reached a $40 billion agreement to settle lawsuits alleging that the on-reserve child welfare system received discriminatory funding and that First Nations children were unnecessarily taken from their homes, officials announced on Tuesday.

The agreement in principle, meaning that the groundwork has been decided but final details have not been made, was reached on Dec. 31 and is expected to be negotiated before March 31, according to a press release from Indigenous Services Canada.

The decision means the end is approaching for a process started in 2007, when two nonprofit organizations filed a complaint under the Canadian Human Rights Act alleging that the government was fighting jurisdictional disputes over the payment for services provided to First Nations children rather than prioritizing their needs.

The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found in a 2016 decision that the federal government had underfunded the welfare system and later ordered in 2019 that Ottawa pay $40,000 to each child and their primary guardian who were a part of the system.

A federal court upheld the tribunal's decision last year and the government then appealed, but the appeal was set aside while the parties worked toward the agreement that was reached Tuesday.

The agreement earmarks $20 billion in compensation to be given to First Nations children, and their parents and caregivers, who were removed from their homes between April 1, 1991 and March 31, 2022.

"The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found that the current program contains a perverse incentive for child welfare agencies to apprehend children," the Assembly of First Nations said in a statement.

"Specifically, a child welfare agency would not be reimbursed for expenses incurred to provide services, unless the child was removed from their home and placed into state care."

It also sets aside $20 billion to reform the First Nations Child and Family Services program, including support for young First Nations adults aging out of the system and prevention services, as well as new on-reserve housing.

"First Nations children thrive when they can stay with their families, in their communities, surrounded by their culture," Patty Hajdu, Canada's Minister of Indigenous Services, said in a statement.

"No compensation amount can make up for the trauma people have experienced, but these Agreements-in-Principle acknowledge to survivors and their families the harm and pain caused by the discrimination in funding and services."

According to the Assembly of First Nations, the exact number of children who will be compensated is not yet known but independent third-party experts estimated that more than 200,000 First Nations children were impacted by the program and would be eligible to receive funds.

If a final agreement is reached and approved, funds could be distributed by the end of 2022 or early 2023.

First woman of color completes solo expedition in Antarctica
By Simon Druker

Jan. 4 (UPI) -- A British-born Sikh officer in the British armed forces on Monday became the first woman of color to complete a solo expedition of Antarctica.

Capt. Harpreet Chandi, a physiotherapist, posted a photo of herself on social media after completing the 700-mile trip.

The 32-year-old made the journey in 40 days, documenting the trip on her Instagram account.

Chandi had to fight through sickness along the way, temperatures dropping to minus 58 degrees F and wind speeds of up to 60 mph.

She received congratulations from the British government upon completing the journey.

To prepare for the trip, Chandi completed at 27-day expedition in Greenland, battling conditions she referred to as "like travelling through a marshmallow." She also underwent crevasse training in the French Alps.

Her expedition began Nov. 7, when Chandi first flew to Chile. She then tackled Antarctica's Hercules Inlet. Along the way, she hauled a sled weighing close to 200 pounds, which held the requisite equipment, fuel and food to last for roughly 45 days.



In 1994, Norwegian cross-country skier Liv Arnesen became the first woman to complete a solo-encounter across the Antarctic. Without support, Arnesen skied 745 miles and reached the South Pole in 50 days.

As the first woman of color to complete the feat, Chandi said she hopes to inspire others to break barriers.

"I want to encourage people to push their boundaries and to believe in themselves, and I want you to be able to do it without being labelled a rebel ... I don't want to just break the glass ceiling, I want to smash it into a million pieces," she wrote on her blog on Day 40.

Powerful 6.1-magnitude earthquake strikes near islands south of Japan

Chichijima island is seen in the Ogasawara island chain, south of Japan. A 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck off its coast Tuesday morning. File Photo by Everett Kennedy Brown/EPA

Jan. 4 (UPI) -- A strong earthquake struck off the coast of Japan on Tuesday, near Chichijima island.

The 6.1-magnitude quake had a seismic intensity of an upper 5 on its 1-7 scale.

The quake was registered in the Ogasawara archipelago, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency, located south of Japan in an area administered by the Tokyo metropolitan government.

The Ogasawara islands are about 620 miles south of Tokyo. There were no immediate reports of injuries or significant damage.

"There was a strong jolt while I was sleeping and I jumped out of bed, but the tremor soon stopped," said Mamoru Kizaki, an official of the Ogasawara village office, according to Japan Today.

Tuesday's was the first earthquake of such magnitude to hit the region since 2015, when a quake with an upper 5 intensity hit Hahajima island.

The earthquake occurred one day after a similar-sized temblor occurred off the coast of Taiwan.

Strong 6.2-magnitude earthquake strikes off coast of Taiwan


Jan. 3 (UPI) -- A strong 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Taiwan on Monday.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the epicenter of the quake was located about 40 miles east of Hualien City at a depth of about 18 miles.


Despite the quake's strength, the USGS said there was a 65% chance that the tremor caused only minimal economic loss or injuries.

On a scale of 1 to 7 that gauges earthquake intensity in Taiwan, Central Weather Bureau officials said the tremor intensity reached a 4 in Yilan County, Taipei City and New Taipei City.

The intensity level was lower, a 3, in Hualien County, Taichung City, Hsinchu County, Taoyuan City, Hsinchu City and Changhua County.

Video posted online by China's state-run Global Times showed the lights in one Taipei office building swinging wildly for more than 30 seconds after the quake.

Israel ends ban on surrogacy for same-sex couples

Six months after a Supreme Court decision, Israel has opened surrogacy to every citizen — including same-sex couples, single men and transgender people.



Israel's LGBTQ community had demanded for years to be allowed to pursue surrogacy

Israeli same-sex couples can now become parents through surrogacy in Israel starting next week, the country's health minister announced Tuesday.

The decision upholds a Supreme Court ruling from last year that called for an end to the ban.

"It is a historic day for the LGBTQ struggle in Israel," said Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, who is openly gay. "[This will] fulfil the dream of many to start a family,"

"Full equality. That is the simple demand and it is the goal of the LGBTQ struggle, the long struggle of my community" he said. "Equality before the law and equality of parenthood."

The ministry had issued a circular granting equal access for all to surrogate pregnancy, including single men and transgender people, Horowitz said.

TEL AVIV PRIDE BRINGS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS TO THE STREETS
Hundreds of thousands strong
Around 250,000 people took part in Tel Aviv's pride parade on Friday, making it far and away the biggest LGBT+ event in the Middle East. Participants wound their way through downtown Tel Aviv to the beachfront to see 2018 Eurovision Song Contest winner Netta Barzilai perform.
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Surrogacy law in Israel

Until the announcement, surrogacy in Israel was only accessible to heterosexual couples and single women.

The law did now allow same-sex couples to engage a surrogate in the country, forcing them to look for the costlier alternative of finding one abroad.

The country's LGBTQ community had long called for a change in this law and finally scored a victory last year.


Israeli Health Ministry had issued a circular granting equal access for all to surrogate pregnancy

In July, the country's Supreme Court annulled parts of a surrogacy law that prevented gay couples from having children through a surrogate in the Jewish state.

The state had argued that the law was intended to protect surrogate mothers.

The court, however, ruled that a balance could be struck without discriminating against same-sex couples. It added that the change in the law would come into effect after six months, allowing time for the formation of professional guidelines.

Israel is quite tolerant toward the LGBTQ community, in contrast with the rest of the Middle East.

While gays can openly serve in the country's military and parliament, they still face some obstacles, including the right to marriage.

DW/adi/rt (AP, Reuters)

Israel opens surrogacy to same-sex couples, single fathers, transgender people

By Simon Druker


Activists attend a demonstration for LGBT rights in Tel Aviv, Israel. The country's health ministry said Tuesday that same-sex couples can pursue parental surrogacy. 

File Photo by Abir Sultan/EPA-EFE

Jan. 4 (UPI) -- Israel announced on Tuesday that the country will begin allowing same-sex couples, single fathers and transgender individuals to pursue parental surrogacy.

The news was delivered by Israeli health minister Nitzan Horowitz, who said the rules will take effect on Jan. 11.

The health ministry said the new rules will allow equal access to surrogacy across Israel.

Parenting children through surrogacy had previously been banned for same-sex couples, single men and transgender people in Israel.

Israel's highest court ruled last February that the ban was unconstitutional and current laws stipulate that surrogacy for parenthood is open only to heterosexual married couples or single women who have a genetic connection to the baby.

"The sweeping exclusion of homosexual men from the use of surrogacy is viewed as 'suspicious' discrimination, suggesting that this part of the population is inferior," Supreme Court President Esther Hayut and Justices Hanan Melcer and Neal Hendel wrote at the time.

"This is a historic day for the struggle of the LGBT community in Israel and for Israeli society as a whole. We are putting an end to years of injustice and discrimination -- the surrogacy equality revolution is underway," Horowitz told The Jerusalem Post.

Horowitz is the second openly-gay member of the Knesset, Israel's legislative body. In an interview with the Times of Israel, he called the topic a "personal struggle."

The first legal challenge to Israeli surrogacy laws was filed in 2011 by a same-sex couple and has dragged on for more than a decade.

France vows action on femicide after 3 more women killed

The killings of three women on the first day of 2022 have evoked massive outcry over France's growing problem of femicide. Activists have criticized the government's inability to rein in deadly domestic violence.



Feminist groups say government efforts should focus more on prevention of violence against women

The French government on Tuesday promised to step up the fight against femicide after three women were found dead in different parts of the country on New Year's Day, in suspected domestic violence attacks.

The incidents, which took place within a span of 24 hours, have sparked an outcry by feminist campaigners who accuse President Emmanuel Macron's government of having failed to protect women.

"There were more than 100 femicides in 2021 and already since the start of the year three new murders committed in scandalous conditions," Prime Minister Jean Castex told parliament on Tuesday.

"The government and the nation are completely committed to the fight against this scourge," he added.

In 2021 alone, 113 women were killed by men who were, in most cases, their male partners or ex-partners.

While families and friends celebrated the New Year, "three women have already been murdered because they are women," said French feminist collective Nous Toutes (All of us).

Who were the 3 women victims?

Police in the southern French city of Nice found the body of a 45-year-old woman in the trunk of a car after her husband turned himself in, confessing to having strangled her.

The same day, police in the eastern Meurthe-et-Moselle region found the body of a 56-year-old woman with a knife stuck in her chest. Her partner, a man in his 50s, admitted to killing her following an argument.

In the early hours of Sunday, a 27-year-old woman, a soldier, was found lying with fatal stab wounds outside her home in a town near Saumur, western France.

Her 21-year-old partner, also a soldier, was arrested and a murder probe opened.
What do feminist groups say?

Nous Toutes denounced "the silence of Emmanuel Macron and the government in the face of sexist and sexual violence in France."

Following the widespread outrage, government ministers held an online meeting on Tuesday with officials from the town where one of the killings took place.

"We're all mobilized," junior minister for equal rights, Elisabeth Moreno said in a tweet deploring the killings.

Nous Toutes responded to her saying: "In 2022, there is no longer the time to lament, it is the time to act. These femicides could have been avoided."

"Three women killed in 24 hours and their only reaction is to organize a little meeting days later," Marylie Breuil of Nous Toutes. " No, their work isn't done."

WOMEN'S DAY RALLIES HIGHLIGHT INEQUALITY AMID PANDEMIC

Germany: Demanding better equality

Hundreds of protesters called for gender equality as they marched to the historic Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, local media reported. A study showed that, in recent months, women held proportionally less management positions in German companies than men. More women have faced challenges to advance their careers while they take care of their children in lockdown.

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She said that nearly two-thirds of victims had reported past abuse to police, adding that such killings are "just the top tip of the iceberg" of domestic abuse.

"There are so many signals you can notice" before such abuse turns deadly, Breuil said.

"The number of femicides from year to year is not falling, and that's very serious," she said.
What steps has the government taken?

The French prime minister said the government had taken several measures to combat femicide.

This includes setting up a 24/7 emergency hotline and sensitivity training for 90,000 police officers to improve the handling of mistreatment complaints from women, Castex said.

But activists argue that the police training doesn't reach enough officers and is often too cursory to make a difference.

Castex also said there would be an "equality week" at schools around March 8 International Woman's Day every year from now.

The government was spending €1 billion ($1.1 billion) per year on the fight against domestic violence, he added.


DW RECOMMENDS

Violence against women: When daily life becomes a nightmare

Every two-and-a-half days a woman in Germany dies at the hands of her partner or former partner, according to figures presented on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

France: Tens of thousands protest violence against women

Thousands of chanting protesters took to the streets across France to call for an end to sexual violence. More than 100 women have been killed in France by their partners or ex-partners in 2021.

China: US and Russia should reduce nukes first

A day after world powers jointly pledged to avoid nuclear conflict, signatory Beijing has conceded it is "modernizing" its own arsenal. But it denied allegations from the United States that it was enlarging it at speed.



China has said it intends its nuclear weapons solely as a deterrent

China said on Tuesday it was continuing to "modernize" its arsenal of nuclear weapons, but argued that this was only to ensure that it met its minimum requirements for national defense.

"China has always adopted the no first-use policy, and we maintain our nuclear capabilities at the minimal level required for our national security," said Fu Cong, the director general of the Foreign Ministry's arms control department.

He also denied US allegations that China was expanding its arsenal. The US Defense Department said in a report in November that China is planning to have as many as 700 nuclear warheads by 2027, and possibly 1,000 by 2030.

The comments were made a day after the US, China, Russia, Britain and France issued a joint statement pledging to avoid a nuclear conflict and to work toward freeing the world of atomic weapons.

China says onus on Russia, US to disarm

Fu said Beijing would "continue to modernize its nuclear arsenal for reliability and safety issues."

He called on the US and Russia, as the world's two biggest nuclear powers, to make the first steps toward disarmament.

"The US and Russia still possess 90% of the nuclear warheads on Earth," he told reporters in Beijing. "They must reduce their nuclear arsenal in an irreversible and legally binding manner."

Fu also dismissed speculation over the possibility of deploying weapons near the Taiwan Strait.

"Nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent; they are not for war or fighting," he said.
What are the current tensions with China?

China has been rapidly modernizing its military in the past years while at the same time increasingly showing self-assertion in regional territorial disputes.

Among other things, Beijing has stepped up its rhetoric on Taiwan, regularly saying that it intends to take possession of the island, which it considers a breakaway province, by force if necessary.

Taiwan has been increasing its defense capabilities in the face of threats from China

US and global concerns about the extent of China's arsenal were fueled last year when its armed forces announced they had developed a missile that can fly at five times the speed of sound.

Washington does not have the same kind of dialogue on weapons control with Beijing as it has long had with Moscow since the days of the Cold War.

Atomic weapons have so far been used only in one conflict, when the US bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II in 1945.

tj/msh (AP, AFP)

After PM resigns, Sudan's democracy at crossroads again

Some have greeted Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok's resignation as a reason for pro-democracy forces to unite. Others fear the Sudanese military will now simply take over.

    

Pro-democracy protests have been ongoing in Sudan since a military coup in October 2021

Abdalla Hamdok's resignation is just the latest move in an increasingly worrying political to-and-fro in the country, as civilian and military forces jostle for control.

Opinions on the resignation are mixed. Some are worried it equals the beginning of the end of Sudan's democratic transition and that the military will take power by force now, appointing a new prime minister of their own choosing. Others see the resignation as a positive, a way to unite squabbling pro-democracy forces on the ground and to ensure that the Sudanese military's role is seen clearly by international observers.

Hamdok was previously part of the country's transitional civilian-military government, formed in 2019, after the overthrow of former Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir. That transitional government was described as an historic chance for a return to civilian rule and democracy in Sudan. It saw the country welcomed back by the international community with elections planned for 2023.

In a televised speech, PM Hamdok said his best efforts to build consensus had failed

But then the transitional government was itself overthrown, in October last year, with the military half of the government ousting civilian politicians like Hamdok and taking over.

Just around a month later though, Hamdok returned to government. Previously under house arrest, he signed a 14-point power-sharing deal on November 21 with Sudan's army chief, General Abdel Fattah Burhan.

Ongoing violence

"Sudanese blood is precious," Hamdok said at the time. "Let us stop the bloodshed."

Which is why the now ex-prime minister didn't have any choice but to resign, said Christine-Felice Roehrs, head of the Khartoum office of German foundation, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung. "He said he would run again to prevent bloodshed on the streets during anti-military protests," Roehrs explained. "And he clearly failed to do it," she said, pointing out that in protests over the past few weeks, at least 57 people have been killed .

The main civilian coalition, Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC), which had previously been part of the transitional government, refused to recognize the agreement between Hamdok and the military anyway. Many of the anti-military demonstrators saw Hamdok as a "fig leaf," hiding what was, in reality, just another version of military rule, Roehrs added. As a result Hamdok, who had been a figurehead for civilian rule, lost popular support.

FFC supporters, along with many others including local trade unions and youth groups, have been demonstrating against ongoing military rule in the country for weeks now. Protests have been met with blockades, tear gas and even live ammunition. During protests, the internet has been cut off, media outlets attacked and mobile phones blocked. Over the past week, at least three more protester deaths were confirmed.

United civilian front

Some in Sudan have welcomed the resignation. "He signed a bad deal," Fatima, a Khartoum resident who supports the anti-military demonstrations, said of the November contract Hamdok agreed to; she didn't want to give her full name because she is not a spokesperson for any protest movement.

The UN reported serious human rights violations during recent protests in Sudan

"Some were saying, this is nonsense, we cannot be supportive because he was coming back in with this terrible political agreement," Fatima said, describing the atmosphere on the street in the Sudanese capital. "Others were saying, we should support him. Maybe he can undo some of the damage from within. It was causing a huge conflict."  So when Hamdok resigned, "he simplified things for us," she continued. "I think it's going to be much easier to have a united civilian front now."

Jihad Mashamoun, a Sudanese researcher and political analyst based in the UK, is similarly optimistic. "I think he [Hamdok] actually did us a service by resigning," Mashamoun told DW, "because he exposed the military's role to the international community."

All-important international support for Sudan's economy depends on the country's democratic transition

A new government?

It's hard to know whether those optimistic scenarios can come to fruition, cautioned Theodore Murphy, director of the Africa program at the European Council for Foreign Relations.

"The protest movement had already escalated its demands in response to the coup on October 25, calling on the military to step back from the political leadership of the country altogether," Murphy told DW. "Before Hamdok’s resignation, the international community found this position unrealistic. They backed the November 21 agreement as a starting point to reconstitute the transitional government with both the military and civilian elements, however imperfect."

"International efforts will need to redouble in order to dissuade the military from capitalizing on Hamdok’s exit to complete their coup," Murphy argued. 

Sudan is at a crossroads, Amin Ismail Majzoub, a strategic expert and specialist in crisis management at the Center for National Studies in Khartoum, confirmed to DW Arabic.

"What is urgently needed now is the appointment of a prime minister and a government of technocrats as well as an understanding with the street [the anti-military protesters] that meets their demands," Majzoub said. "This is another major problem because it means the exit of the military completely — which is difficult, at least during the remainder of the transitional period."

Cycles of chaos

If there is one thing that everyone can agree upon now, it is that nobody knows what happens next. "It's all foggy," confirmed the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung's Roehrs in Khartoum. There are rumors, fears and many varied interpretations of the situation, she said.

Some say elections should be held more quickly, others are concerned that the military will simply choose a new prime minister unilaterally, Roehrs and other experts all agreed. But if they do this, pro-democracy protesters would react and this would only plunge the country into another round of revolutionary fervor, political chaos and more potential violence.

After Hamdok's resignation, the head of the army Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said a new PM should be appointed quickly

"I don't know where this is going to go. It may go very badly," Fatima, the Khartoum resident and pro-democracy supporter, admitted.

But Hamdok's resignation "has returned us to a black and white scenario," she said. "Now the page will turn. We are back in full revolution mode. Young Sudanese are very determined to move this country forward and to try to push the military back into its barracks and build a civilian democratic society. That has a momentum that no one can stop," she concluded.

Sudan security forces use teargas to

disperse protesters

Anti-coup protesters have again taken to the streets following Prime Minister Adballa Hamdok's resignation. Western powers, in a joint statement, warned the Sudanese military against naming its own prime minister.



Sudan's security forces have been accused of using excessive force when dealing with anti-coup demonstrators

Pro-democracy protesters on Tuesday again took to the streets of Sudan's capital Khartoum and other cities.

Security forces used teargas to disperse groups of protesters who had congregated at a number of locations in the capital.

It's unclear if there have been any injuries as a result of the confrontations. There were also protests in nearby Omdurman.

Streets leading to key points in the city like the presidential palace and military headquarters were sealed off. Protesters chanted: "No, no to military rule."

What are the protests about?

Protesters are calling for the ruling council, which is currently led by Sudan's army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, to be dissolved.

The demonstrations come two days after the country's Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok resigned. Hamdok said he was giving an opportunity for someone else to lead.

The former prime minister had been reinstated by the military six weeks after it overthrew the government in October. However, there was concern in some quarters over the military's continued involvement, with civic organizations demanding complete civilian rule.

There's also been criticism that the reinstatement of Hamdok and continued engagement with the military legitimized the coup.

"Generally the Sudanese popular sentiment has lost trust in the ability of the political class to come together and to raise the higher values and aspirations of the people in the streets," journalist Mohanad Hashim, who is based in London, told DW.

How have Western powers responded?

The United States, the European Union, Britain, and Norway on Tuesday issued a joint statement warning the Sudanese military that they would not support any government which did not include "a broad range of civilian stakeholders."

They called for all Sudanese parties to engage in "an immediate, Sudanese-led and internationally facilitated dialogue" to address the ongoing crisis.

"Unilateral action to appoint a new Prime Minister and Cabinet would undermine those institutions' credibility and risks plunging the nation into conflict," they said.

The four Western powers also threatened to hold those impeding the county's democratic transition accountable.

They further called for elections, scheduled under the transition timetable for 2023, to be held as planned as well as for the building of an independent legislature and judiciary.

"The right of the Sudanese people to assemble peacefully and express their demands needs to be protected," the statement said.

Journalist Mohanad Hashim said the Biden administration had "to raise its game and to see if it can mediate a way forward."
Security forces accused of abuses

The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) has accused security personnel of using excessive force on civilians and violating human rights.

The CCSD accused forces of attacking medical staff at a medical training facility. Security forces were also accused of using teargas inside a hospital and attempting to seize the bodies of civilians killed during a protest on December 30.



On Sunday, two protesters were killed by security personnel, with one man dying as a result of head injuries and another as a result of gunshot wounds in the city of Omdurman.

There have also been allegations of sexual attacks against women during protests in December.

The UN said at least 13 women and girls were victims of rape or gang rape.

The attacks prompted the European Union and the United States to issue a joint statement condemning the use of sexual violence "as a weapon to drive women away from demonstrations."

kb/rt (AFP, AP)