Experts worry about how US will see next COVID surge coming


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Firefighters from the Marins-Pompiers of Marseille extract samples of sewage water at a retirement home in Marseille, southern France, Thursday Jan. 14, 2021, to trace concentrations of COVID-19 and the highly contagious variant that has been discovered in Britain. As coronavirus infections rise in some parts of the world, experts are watching for a potential new COVID-19 surge in the U.S. — and wondering how long it will take to detect. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)

NEW YORK (AP) — As coronavirus infections rise in some parts of the world, experts are watching for a potential new COVID-19 surge in the U.S. — and wondering how long it will take to detect.

Despite disease monitoring improvements over the last two years, they say, some recent developments don’t bode well:

—As more people take rapid COVID-19 tests at home, fewer people are getting the gold-standard tests that the government relies on for case counts.

—The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will soon use fewer labs to look for new variants.

—Health officials are increasingly focusing on hospital admissions, which rise only after a surge has arrived.

—A wastewater surveillance program remains a patchwork that cannot yet be counted on for the data needed to understand coming surges.

—White House officials say the government is running out of funds for vaccines, treatments and testing.

“We’re not in a great situation,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, a Brown University pandemic researcher.

Scientists acknowledge that the wide availability of vaccines and treatments puts the nation in a better place than when the pandemic began, and that monitoring has come a long way.

For example, scientists this week touted a 6-month-old program that tests international travelers flying into four U.S. airports. Genetic testing of a sample on Dec. 14 turned up a coronavirus variant — the descendant of omicron known as BA.2 — seven days earlier than any other reported detection in the U.S.

More good news: U.S. cases, hospitalizations and deaths have been falling for weeks.

But it’s different elsewhere. The World Health Organization this week reported that the number of new coronavirus cases increased two weeks in a row globally, likely because COVID-19 prevention measures have been halted in numerous countries and because BA.2 spreads more easily.

Some public health experts aren’t certain what that means for the U.S.

BA.2 accounts for a growing share of U.S. cases, the CDC said — more than one-third nationally and more than half in the Northeast. Small increases in overall case rates have been noted in New York, and in hospital admissions in New England.

Some of the northern U.S. states with the highest rates of BA.2, however, have some of the lowest case rates, noted Katriona Shea of Penn State University.

Dr. James Musser, an infectious disease specialist at Houston Methodist, called the national case data on BA.2 “murky.” He added: “What we really need is as much real-time data as possible ... to inform decisions.”

Here’s what COVID-19 trackers are looking at and what worries scientists about them.

TEST RESULTS

Tallies of test results have been at the core of understanding coronavirus spread from the start, but they have always been flawed.

Initially, only sick people got tested, meaning case counts missed people who had no symptoms or were unable to get swabbed.

Home test kits became widely available last year, and demand took off when the omicron wave hit. But many people who take home tests don’t report results to anyone. Nor do health agencies attempt to gather them.

Mara Aspinall is managing director of an Arizona-based consulting company that tracks COVID-19 testing trends. She estimates that in January and February, about 8 million to 9 million rapid home tests were being done each day on average — four to six times the number of PCR tests.

Nuzzo said: “The case numbers are not as much a reflection of reality as they once were.”

HUNTING FOR VARIANTS

In early 2021, the U.S. was far behind other countries in using genetic tests to look for worrisome virus mutations.

A year ago, the agency signed deals with 10 large labs to do that genomic sequencing. The CDC will be reducing that program to three labs over the next two months.

The weekly volume of sequences performed through the contracts was much higher during the omicron wave in December and January, when more people were getting tested, and already has fallen to about 35,000. By late spring, it will be down to 10,000, although CDC officials say the contracts allow the volume to increase to more than 20,000 if necessary.

The agency also says turnaround time and quality standards have been improved in the new contracts, and that it does not expect the change will hurt its ability to find new variants.

Outside experts expressed concern.

“It’s really quite a substantial reduction in our baseline surveillance and intelligence system for tracking what’s out there,” said Bronwyn MacInnis, director of pathogen genomic surveillance at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

SEWAGE SURVEILLANCE

An evolving monitoring system is looking for signs of coronavirus in sewage, which could potentially capture brewing infections.

Researchers have linked wastewater samples to the number of positive COVID-19 tests a week later, suggesting health officials could get an early glimpse at infection trends.

Some health departments also have used sewage to look for variants. New York City, for example, detected signals of the omicron variant in a sample taken on Nov. 21 — about 10 days before the first case was reported in the U.S.

But experts note the system doesn’t cover the entire country. It also doesn’t distinguish who is infected.

“It’s a really important and promising strategy, no doubt. But the ultimate value is still probably yet to be understood,” said Dr. Jeff Duchin, the health officer for Seattle/King County, Washington.

HOSPITAL DATA

Last month, the CDC outlined a new set of measures for deciding whether to lift mask-wearing rules, focusing less on positive test results and more on hospitals.

Hospital admissions are a lagging indicator, given that a week or more can pass between infection and hospitalization. But a number of researchers believe the change is appropriate. They say hospital data is more reliable and more easily interpreted than case counts.

The lag also is not as long as one might think. Some studies have suggested many people wait to get tested. And when they finally do, the results aren’t always immediate.

Spencer Fox, a University of Texas data scientist who is part of a group that uses hospital and cellphone data to forecast COVID-19 for Austin, said “hospital admissions were the better signal” for a surge than test results.

There are concerns, however, about future hospital data.

If the federal government lifts its public health emergency declaration, officials will lose the ability to compel hospitals to report COVID-19 data, a group of former CDC directors recently wrote. They urged Congress to pass a law that will provide enduring authorities “so we will not risk flying blind as health threats emerge.”

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AP reporters Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Laura Ungar in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed.

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The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT

Scientists figure out how vampire bats got a taste for blood

By CHRISTINA LARSON

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This photo provided by Sherri and Brock Fenton/AAAS in March 2022 shows a vampire bat in flight. According to a report published Friday, March 25, 2022 in the journal Science Advances, scientists have figured out why vampire bats are the only mammals that can survive on a diet of only blood. (Sherri and Brock Fenton/AAAS via AP)


WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have figured out why vampire bats are the only mammals that can survive on a diet of just blood.

They compared the genome of common vampire bats to 26 other bat species and identified 13 genes that are missing or no longer work in vampire bats. Over the years, those gene tweaks helped them adapt to a blood diet rich in iron and protein but with minimal fats or carbohydrates, the researchers reported Friday in the journal Science Advances.

The bats live in South and Central America and are basically “living Draculas,” said co-author Michael Hiller of Germany’s Max Planck Institute. About 3 inches (8 centimeters) long with a wingspan of 7 inches (18 centimeters), the bats bite and than lap up blood from livestock or other animals at night.

Most mammals couldn’t survive on a low-calorie liquid diet of blood. Only three vampire species of the 1,400 kinds of bats can do that — the others eat mostly insects, fruit, nectar, pollen or meat, such as small frogs and fish.

“Blood is a terrible food source,” said Hannah Kim Frank, a bat researcher at Tulane University, who was not involved in the study. “It’s totally bizarre and amazing that vampire bats can survive on blood — they are really weird, even among bats.”

Some other creatures also have a taste for blood, including mosquitoes, bedbugs, leeches and fleas.

The latest work expands upon research by another team that pinpointed three of the 13 gene losses.

“The new paper shows how different vampire bats are from even other closely related bats, which eat nectar and fruit,” said Kate Langwig, a bat researcher at Virginia Tech, who had no role in the study.

With such a low-calorie diet, vampire bats can’t go long without a meal. In a pinch, well-fed ones will regurgitate their food to share with a starving neighbor. They seem to keep track of who has helped them in the past, said Hiller, noting that vampire bats have complex social relationships.

“It’s not a kin thing,” said Tulane’s Frank. “They just notice and remember: You’re a good sharer, I will reward you.”

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

USA

Affordable housing, long overlooked, getting federal boost

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Tilicia Owens and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, center, listen to Detroit Water and Sewerage Department director Gary Brown in her basement Friday, Feb. 18, 2022, in Detroit. They discussed the city’s $15 million effort to provide flood prevention pumps and other equipment in 11 neighborhoods. Part of the money will come from the $350 billion Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds which can be used by states, counties and cities to recover from the pandemic and can be used for everything from job creation to child care to housing. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)


BOSTON (AP) — After her home flooded five times in the past year, Tilicia Owens was on edge with every impending storm and ready to leave her Detroit neighborhood behind.

But then the 40-year-old quality engineer heard the city had a program that could prevent heavy rains from inundating her basement and damaging her furniture, photos and exercise equipment. The city is tapping $2.5 million in federal stimulus money as part of a $15 million effort to provide pumps and other equipment to help prevent flooding in 11 neighborhoods.

“That would mean the world to me,” said Owens, who has applied to the city’s Basement Backup Protection Program, which would provide homeowners a pump to remove floodwaters or a valve outside the home to prevent water from entering.

“I have invested so much into my home,” she added. “I want to protect that and I want to protect my investment. It would take away all my anxiety.”

Detroit has turned to the $350 billion in Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds to partly finance the project. Part of the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan approved last year, the money is meant to help communities recover from the pandemic and can be used for everything from job creation to child care to housing.

More than 60 states, counties and cities, including Detroit, are tapping the funds for housing programs.

With President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill floundering and federal Emergency Rental Assistance running out in some places, the funds have become a critical source of money to address a shortage of affordable housing and a growing homelessness crisis. Prioritizing housing is also a reminder that the long-running shortage of affordable housing, especially in communities of color, has worsened during the pandemic, a time when a looming eviction crisis and rising housing prices threatened millions of families.

“There was already growing awareness before the pandemic in states and cities around the country that affordable housing problems that always existed were reaching an all time level and just had to be addressed,” said Stockton Williams, the executive director of the National Council of State Housing Agencies. “The pandemic has shown a brighter light on that, especially as they relate to the most vulnerable renters and homeowners.”

For many communities, the amount of money available in the state and local fiscal recovery funds is also historic and more than many have spent on housing in a year or even a decade.

“This is certainly transformational funding,” Jacqueline Edwards, the director of the Maricopa County Human Services Department in Arizona, said of the nearly $85 million it has to spend on everything from new housing to additional shelter beds to helping homeowners repair their air conditioning and stay in their homes when temperatures heat up. Typically, the county has a few million dollars to spend each year on these services.

“We’ll be able to make significant changes, not just that will impact today, but will impact lives for years to come,” she added.

But advocates say it still is only a start and significant federal investment — much of it in the Build Back Better bill, passed by the House but currently held up in the Senate — is necessary to fix the problem.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1 in 4 families eligible for federal rental assistance received it before the pandemic. The National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates that $86 billion annually is needed over the next decade for universal housing vouchers and housing funds. Another $70 billion is needed for public housing repairs.

So far, more than $11 billion from the state and local fiscal recovery funds have been committed to housing-related programs, according to the Center, which is tracking spending.

States in the West, Midwest and East have already made significant commitments, according to a February report from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Southern states, long known for having among the weakest tenant protections, have committed very little.

Among the biggest areas of investment is a promise to build more affordable housing.

Massachusetts has allotted nearly $600 million to affordable housing, including $150 million for new housing and $150 million to maintain public housing. Colorado lawmakers have proposed spending $400 million and Washington, D.C., has set aside $323 million, including $17 million for community groups to provide housing for victims of domestic violence. Clark County, Nevada, home to Las Vegas, whose tourist economy was hammered by the pandemic, plans to spend more than a third of its funds, or $157 million, on housing.

Others states, led by Washington, Oregon and New Jersey, are working to shore up their eviction protections — something the U.S. Treasury Department has encouraged.

Washington is spending $403 million to bolster its emergency rental assistance program and $174 million for homeowner assistance. New York City plans to spend nearly $329 million to increase access to rental assistance vouchers. New Jersey is spending $750 million in rental and utility assistance and creating a statewide eviction prevention program.

“A lot of people who never thought they would be housing unstable ... are in this situation. And so it is scary and people don’t know quite where to turn,” said Janel Winter, the director of New Jersey’s Division of Housing and Community Resources.

“This provides them with that assistance. ... So everybody who is in that court understands their rights, understands their responsibilities, is able to take advantage of whatever protections are there for them.”

Several communities are using the funds to help the homeless.

North Carolina has set aside $15 million to rapidly rehouse people at risk of homelessness because of the pandemic. Clark County, Washington, is spending $4.4 million to fund homeless outreach teams while Burlington, Vermont, plans to use $1.4 million on 30 shelter pods for people to sleep in and store their belongings.

Austin, Texas, which has hundreds of homeless encampments and upwards of 2,500 people sleeping on the street most nights, is putting more than $106 million towards homelessness. That is in addition to the $110 million that Travis County, home to Austin, is putting towards the problem.

The funds will help move the homeless into temporary housing and eventually into permanent units that offer services like counseling and rental assistance. There is also funding for 1,300 new housing units set aside for the homeless and the city has acquired several hotels with the money.

“We are focused on building a system that doesn’t just move people off the streets into shelters but is focused on resolving their housing crisis,” said Dianna Grey, the city’s homeless strategy officer.

Several cities are using the funds to save homes battered by years of neglect and to ensure impoverished families can remain housed. Milwaukee wants to spend $15 million to rehabilitate up to 150 city-owned, foreclosed houses.

Detroit has set aside more than $83 million for housing-related spending, including $27.5 million to repair 1,000 roofs — tripling the amount it spends on its low-income home-repair program. It’s also spending $14.2 million to renovate vacant homes and $6.4 million to set up an online system allowing residents to find and apply for low-income housing.

Deputy Mayor Conrad Mallett said the spending priorities are aimed at preventing further declines in the city’s population, which has dropped dramatically since the 1950s.

“If we are going to maintain population and attract new people to the city, it is going to be because of the housing opportunities that we can provide,” he said, adding that the city also has to help those who have remained in Detroit.

“We are going to deliver service to the people who stayed,” he said. “We are not simply going to say to the people who endured, that you have no place. We want you to stay. We want you to succeed.”

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Associated Press writers Corey Williams in Detroit and Lisa Rathke in Marshfield, Vermont, contributed to this report.

WHAT ABOUT BOYS SPORTS

Utah bans transgender athletes in girls sports despite veto

THEY NEVER TALK ABOUT TRANSBOYS

OMG GIRLS IN BOYS BATHROOMS

SOUNDS ABSURD RIGHT

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State Rep. Kera Birkeland, a Republican high school basketball coach who led Utah's efforts to ban transgender girls from youth sports, addresses a crowd of supporters on the steps of the Utah State Capitol on Friday, March 25, 2022, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Lawmakers convened to override Gov. Spencer Cox, who vetoed their proposed ban. (AP Photo/Samuel Metz)


SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — GOP lawmakers in Utah pushed through a ban on transgender youth athletes playing on girls teams Friday, overriding a veto and joining 11 other states with similar laws amid a nationwide culture war.

A veto letter from Gov. Spencer Cox drew national attention with a poignant argument that such laws target vulnerable transgender kids already at high suicide risk.

Business leaders also sounded the alarm that the ban could have a multimillion-dollar economic impact on Utah, including the possible loss of the NBA All-Star Game next year. The Utah Jazz called the ban “discriminatory legislation” and opposed it.

Before the veto, the ban received support from a majority of Utah lawmakers, but fell short of the two-thirds needed to override it. Its sponsors on Friday flipped 10 Republicans in the House and five in the Senate who had previously voted against the proposal.

Cox was the second GOP governor this week to overrule lawmakers on a sports-participation ban, but the proposal won support from a vocal conservative base that has particular sway in Utah’s state primary season. Even with those contests looming, however, some Republicans stood with Cox to reject the ban.

“I cannot support this bill. I cannot support the veto override and if it costs me my seat so be it. I will do the right thing, as I always do,” said Republican Sen. Daniel Thatcher.

With the override of Cox’s veto, a dozen states have some sort of ban on transgender kids in school sports. Utah’s law takes effect July 1.

Not long ago efforts to regulate transgender kids’ participation in sports failed to gain traction in statehouses, but in the past two years groups like the American Principles Project began a well-coordinated effort to promote the legislation throughout the country. Since last year, bans have been introduced in at least 25 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. This week, lawmakers in Arizona and Oklahoma passed bans.

“You start these fights and inject them into politics,” said Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project. “You pass them in a few states and it starts to take on a life of its own and becomes organic. We helped start this fight and we’re helping carry it through, but a lot of this is coming from the local level.”

Leaders in the deeply conservative Utah say they need the law to protect women’s sports. The lawmakers argue that more transgender athletes with possible physical advantages could eventually dominate the field and change the nature of women’s sports without legal intervention.

Utah has only one transgender girl playing in K-12 sports who would be affected by the ban. There have been no allegations of any of the four transgender youth athletes in Utah having competitive advantages.

The group Visit Salt Lake, which hosts conferences, shows and events, said the override could cost the state $50 million in revenue. The Utah-based DNA-testing genealogy giant Ancestry.com also opposed it.

Salt Lake City is set to host the NBA All-Star game in February 2023. League spokesman Mike Bass said the league is “working closely” with the Jazz on the matter. The team is partially owned by NBA all-star Dwyane Wade, who has a transgender daughter.

Ban supporters, though, say they planned ahead to blunt the impact of boycotts like those that forced North Carolina to repeal a law limiting which public restrooms transgender people could use, Schilling said. The American Principles Project strategically focused on early legislation in populous, economic juggernaut states where companies and organizations would lose sizable investments if they left. With a precedent of muted economic backlash set, the group expects smaller states to get similar treatment.

Legislative leaders in Utah said concerns about economic blowback and the NBA’s withdrawal from Salt Lake City were premature and noted Texas and Florida hadn’t faced boycotts.

“I hope the NBA and other groups understand that our intent here is to protect women sports and keep women’s sports safe and competitive. And if they have thoughts on how best to do that, we’d be happy to chat with them,” said Utah Republican House Speaker Brad Wilson.

Utah has historically been among the nation’s most conservative states. But an influx of new residents and technology companies coupled with the growing influence of the tourism industry often sets the stage for heated debate over social issues in the state home to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

On Thursday and Friday, demonstrators both for and against a ban rallied at Utah’s Capitol.

Friday’s deliberations came after more than a year of negotiation between social conservatives and LGBTQ advocates. Republican sponsor Rep. Kera Birkeland worked with Cox and activists at Equality Utah before introducing legislation that would require transgender student athletes to go before a government-appointed commission.

The proposal, although framed as a compromise, failed to gain traction on either side. LGBTQ advocates took issue with Republican politicians appointing commission members and evaluation criteria that included body measurements such as hip-to-knee ratio.

In the final hours before the Legislature was set to adjourn earlier this month, GOP lawmakers supplanted the legislation with an all-out ban.

Birkeland, who is also a basketball coach, acknowledged the proposal provoked intense emotion, but said conversations with female student athletes compelled her to continue her effort.

“When we say, ‘This isn’t a problem in our state,’ what we say to those girls is, ‘Sit down, be quiet and make nice,’” she said.

Lawmakers anticipate court challenges similar to blocked bans in Idaho and West Virginia, where athletes have said the policies violate their civil rights. They’ve argued the bans violate their privacy rights, due to tests required if an athlete’s gender is challenged. The ACLU of Utah said on Friday that a lawsuit was inevitable.

Utah’s policy would revert to the commission if courts halt the ban.

The threat of lawsuits worried school districts and the Utah High School Athletic Association, which has said it lacks funds to defend the policy in court. Lawmakers also amended the ban on Friday to provide taxpayer dollars to underwrite fees from potential lawsuits and insulate districts and the association from liability.

Arizona Republicans fight culture war in battleground state

By JONATHAN J. COOPER

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FILE - A number of Arizona reproductive health, rights, and justice advocates protest an abortion bill at the Arizona Capitol Monday, April 26, 2021, in Phoenix. GOP lawmakers thrust Arizona into the national culture wars Thursday, March 24, 2022, when they passed three bills in party-line votes banning abortion after 15 weeks, prohibiting transgender girls from playing on girls sports teams and restricting gender-affirming health care for minors. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)


PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona has long been fertile ground for a social conservative agenda, with some of the nation’s toughest laws against abortion and a history of restricting LGBTQ rights.

That hasn’t changed even as Republican dominance has waned over the past five years, a fact made plain this week when GOP lawmakers passed strict measures targeting abortion and the rights of transgender young people.

“It’s just become this political wedge issue that our legislators use to get more votes, and it’s not fair,” said Andi Young, the parent of a transgender teenager and co-chair of the board of directors for GLSEN Phoenix, an advocacy group promoting inclusive education.

GOP lawmakers thrust Arizona into the national culture wars Thursday when they passed three bills in party-line votes banning abortion after 15 weeks, prohibiting transgender girls from playing on girls sports teams and restricting gender-affirming health care for minors.

The measures have been popular with the conservative base in states where Republicans dominate but could be politically risky in a battleground state where Democrats have made significant inroads.

Arizona Republicans have not aggressively promoted the bills as they’ve moved through the Legislature. Few GOP lawmakers explained their support during sometimes emotional debates in the House.

That doesn’t surprise Mike Noble, a former Republican political consultant who now does nonpartisan polling in the Southwest from his base in Phoenix.

“Those are clearly issues to really get the base fired up. However, the base is already fired up,” Noble said. “I think what you’re doing is giving the other side, who doesn’t have much of a reason to turn out, a reason to now come out and vote in these midterm elections.”

Democrats have grown increasingly successful in Arizona since Donald Trump’s election as president in 2016. Democrats Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly were elected to the Senate in 2018 and 2020, respectively, and President Joe Biden became only the second Democrat since Harry Truman to win the state’s electoral votes. Democrats control a majority of the state’s U.S. House seats and two of the top five state offices. Republican legislative majorities have dwindled to the bare minimum.

With that backdrop, Kelly’s reelection race this year could be pivotal to the GOP’s hopes of winning a majority in the U.S. Senate.

The decision on whether to sign the bills lies with Republican Gov. Doug Ducey, who has been mum. Advocates on both sides of the issues moved swiftly to pressure him to sign or veto the bills.

Ducey opposes abortion rights and is widely expected to sign that bill. He has less of a track record on transgender issues, but has occasionally bucked the social conservatives in his party on issues affecting the LGBTQ community.

Last year, he vetoed a bill barring all classroom discussions about gender identity, sexual orientation or HIV/AIDS without parental permission. He later signed a scaled back version.

“Governor Ducey needs to veto these hateful bills; lives are in the balance,” Kell Olson, a staff attorney in Tucson for the LGBTQ rights group Lambda Legal, said in a statement.

Likewise, Cathi Herrod, the influential head of the social conservative group Center for Arizona Policy, blasted an email alert to the group’s supporters urging them to contact Ducey and press him to sign the sports participation bill.

“LET’S STAND UP FOR WOMENS SPORTS IN ARIZONA!” Herrod wrote.

Arizona and Florida could join Mississippi and Louisiana in adopting a 15-week abortion ban, and nearly a dozen have limited participation in girls sports. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered state officials to investigate gender-affirming care as child abuse, and Arkansas banned it in a bill similar to Arizona’s. Both directives were put on hold by courts. A Florida bill awaiting the governor’s action would bar classroom instruction about gender identity and sexual orientation before fourth grade, which critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

The Republican governors of Utah and Indiana this week vetoed bills banning transgender girls from girls sports, calling the issue virtually nonexistent in their states. Utah’s Republican lawmakers overrode the governor’s veto Friday, and Indiana lawmakers were considering doing the same.

In Arizona, about 16 high school athletes have receive waivers to play on the team that aligns with their gender identity, according to the Arizona Interscholastic Association.

“I will not stop fighting for women. I will not stop standing for women. I will not stop speaking for women. Especially my daughters, who wanted to win,” House Speaker Rusty Bowers said in explaining his support for the bill.

It’s adults who are hung up on the gender of kids playing sports, said Democratic Rep. Cesar Chavez.

“This is not a problem for these kids,” Chavez said. “Yet it’s a problem for these individuals who feel like they’re losing their antiquated political system.”

Arizona Republicans pass two bills targeting transgender youth rights

The Arizona House passed the bill not long after it also approved a strict ban on abortions in the state.


Demonstrators protest near the Supreme Court as the Court hears oral arguments in three cases on LGBTQ discrimination protections in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, Oct. 8, 2019. Arizona Republicans Thursday passed two bills targeting transgender youth rights. 

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo


March 25 (UPI) -- Republican Arizona lawmakers have passed two bills targeting the rights of transgender youth. The bills are headed to Gov. Doug Ducey's desk.

Without a single Democratic vote, the Arizona House Thursday passed two state Senate bills.

SB 1165 bars anyone born a male from participating in female sports, whether or not she is fully transitioned.

Republican supporters of that bill said it recognizes that males are inherently stronger than females.

RELATED Indiana Gov. Holcomb vetos bill to ban transgender student athletes from girls' sports


SB 1138 bans "irreversible gender reassignment surgery" for anyone under 18, even with consent of parents.

That bill also targets medical professionals involved in gender reassignment surgery for people under 18.

"Any referral of gender transition procedures to an individual who is under eighteen years of age is unprofessional conduct and is subject to discipline by the appropriate licensing entity or health professional regulatory board," the legislation said.

RELATED ACLU sues to block Texas from investigating parents of transgender children

The SB 1138 bill said, "It is of grave concern to the legislature that the medical community, despite the lack of studies showing that the benefits of such extreme interventions outweigh the risks, is allowing individuals who experience distress at identifying with their biological sex to be subjects of irreversible and drastic non-genital gender reassignment surgery and irreversible, permanently sterilizing genital gender reassignment surgery, which may actually increase the risk of suicide."

The Arizona ACLU urged Arizona Gov. Ducey to veto the bills targeting transgendered youth.

"Arizona has unfortunately joined the long list of states that have made bullying and discriminating against trans students a priority this legislative session," ACLU of Arizona policy director Darrell Hill said in a statement. "Gov. Ducey should follow in the footsteps of the Republican governors in Utah and Indiana and veto legislation that harms the health and well-being of transgender youth."

RELATED Utah Gov. Spencer Cox to veto last-minute bill banning transgender school athletes

Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox vetoed a bill that would have prohibited transgendered student athletes from participating in girl's sports.

Gov. Cox cited figures indicating 86% of all transgendered youth have considered suicide. He said he said he wants them to live.

In Indiana, GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb vetoed a similar bill.

Earlier on Thursday, the Arizona House also passed a bill banning abortions after 15 weeks and sent it to Ducey's desk, where he's expected to sign it. The state's House and Senate both narrowly passed the bill strictly along party lines.

Last April, Ducey signed into law a sweeping anti-abortion bill that criminalized abortions performed due to genetic issues of the fetus.

RIP

Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins dead at 50

By ANDREW DALTON

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FILE - Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters performs at Pilgrimage Music and Cultural Festival at The Park at Harlinsdale on Sunday, Sept. 22, 2019, in Franklin, Tenn. Hawkins, the longtime drummer for the rock band Foo Fighters, has died, according to reports, Friday, March 25, 2022. He was 50. (Photo by Al Wagner/Invision/AP, File)


LOS ANGELES (AP) — Taylor Hawkins, for 25 years the drummer for Foo Fighters and best friend of frontman Dave Grohl, has died during a South American tour with the rock band. He was 50.

There were no immediate details on how Hawkins died, although the band said in a statement Friday that his death was a “tragic and untimely loss.”

Foo Fighters had been scheduled to play at a festival in Bogota, Colombia, on Friday night. Hawkins’ final concert was Sunday at another festival in San Isidro, Argentina.

“His musical spirit and infectious laughter will live on with all of us forever,” said a message on the band’s official Twitter account that was also emailed to reporters. “Our hearts go out to his wife, children and family.”

Police vehicles, an ambulance and fans were gathered outside the hotel in northern Bogota where Hawkins was believed to have been staying.

“It was a band I grew up with. This leaves me empty,” Juan Sebastian Anchique, 23, told The Associated Press as he mourned Hawkins outside the hotel.

Authorities in Colombia have not commented on Hawkins’ death. The U.S. Embassy in Bogota expressed its condolences in a tweet.

After Grohl, Hawkins was the most recognizable member of the group, appearing alongside the lead singer in interviews and playing prominent, usually comic, roles in the band’s memorable videos and their recent horror-comedy film, “Studio 666.”

Hawkins was Alanis Morrissette’s touring drummer when he joined Foo Fighters in 1997. He played on the band’s biggest albums including “One by One” and “On Your Honor,” and on hit singles including “My Hero” and “Best of You.”

In Grohl’s 2021 book “The Storyteller,” he called Hawkins his “brother from another mother, my best friend, a man for whom I would take a bullet.”

“Upon first meeting, our bond was immediate, and we grew closer with every day, every song, every note that we ever played together,” Grohl wrote. “We are absolutely meant to be, and I am grateful that we found each other in this lifetime.”

It’s the second time Grohl has experienced the death of a close bandmate. Grohl was the drummer for Nirvana when Kurt Cobain died in 1994.

Tributes poured out on social media for Hawkins on Friday night.

“God bless you Taylor Hawkins,” Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello said on Twitter along with a photo of himself, Hawkins and Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Ferrell. “I loved your spirit and your unstoppable rock power.”

“What an incredible talent, who didn’t also need to be so kind and generous and cool but was all those things too anyway,” tweeted Finneas, Billie Eilish’s brother, co-writer and producer. “The world was so lucky to have his gifts for the time that it did.”

Born Oliver Taylor Hawkins in Fort Worth Texas in 1972, Hawkins was raised in Laguna Beach, California. He played in the small Southern California band Sylvia before landing his first major gig as a drummer for Canadian singer Sass Jordan.

Hawkins told The Associated Press in 2019 that his early drumming influences included Stewart Copeland of The Police, Roger Taylor from Queen, and Phil Collins, who he said was “one of my favorite drummers ever. You know, people forget that he was a great drummer as well as a sweater-wearing nice guy from the ’80s, poor fella.”

When he spent two years in the mid-1990s drumming for Morrissette, he was inspired primarily by the playing of Jane’s Addiction’s Stephen Perkins.

“My drums were set up like him, the whole thing,” Hawkins told the AP. “I was still sort of a copycat at that point. It takes a while and takes a little while to sort of establish your own sort of style. I didn’t sound exactly like him, I sound like me, but he was a big, huge influence.”

He and Grohl met backstage at a show when Hawkins was still with Morrissette. Grohl’s band would have an opening soon after when then-drummer William Goldsmith left. Grohl called Hawkins, who was a huge Foo Fighters fan and immediately accepted.

“I am not afraid to say that our chance meeting was a kind of love at first sight, igniting a musical ‘twin flame’ that still burns to this day,” Grohl wrote in his book. “Together, we have become an unstoppable duo, onstage and off, in pursuit of any and all adventure we can find.”

Hawkins first appeared with the band in the 1997 video for Foo Fighters’ most popular song, “Everlong,” although he had yet to join the group when the song was recorded. He would, however, go on to pound out epic versions of it hundreds of times as the climax of Foo Fighters’ concerts.

In another highlight of the group’s live shows, Grohl would get behind the drums and Hawkins would grab the mic to sing a cover of Queen’s “Somebody to Love.”

“The best part of getting to be the lead singer of the Foo Fighters for just for one song is I really do have the greatest rock ‘n’ roll drummer on the planet earth,” Hawkins said before the song in a March 18 concert in Chile.

Grohl can be heard telling him to shut up.

Hawkins also co-starred in Foo Fighters’ recently released horror-comedy film, “Studio 666,” in which a demonic force in a house where the band is staying seizes Grohl and makes him murderous. Hawkins and the other members of the band are killed off one by one. The premise came out of their work on their 10th studio album at a home in Los Angeles.

He also drummed and sang for the side-project trio Taylor Hawkins and the Coattail Riders. They released an album, “Get the Money,” in 2006.

Hawkins is survived by his wife Alison and their three children.

___

Associated Press Writer Manuel Rueda contributed to this report from Bogota, Colombia.

___

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More than half of the Texas House wants to stop the execution of Melissa Lucio

By Jolie McCullough, The Texas Tribune

State Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, (2nd-R) and other members of the Texas House Criminal Justice Reform Caucus ask state officials to halt the execution of Melissa Lucio at the Texas Capitol on Thursday. File Photo by Sergio Flores/The Texas Tribune

March 24 (UPI) -- More than half the members of the Texas House of Representatives are asking the state's parole board to stop next month's planned execution of Melissa Lucio, who would otherwise become the first Latina put to death by Texas.

Widely circulated doubts of Lucio's guilt in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, as well as a call for mercy from her other children, spurred a bipartisan group of nearly 90 lawmakers to plead with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Gov. Greg Abbott to either change Lucio's death sentence to one of life in prison or halt her execution for three months.

"When we do everything that we can to ensure that an innocent Texan is not put to death by the state, or even a potentially innocent Texan is not put to death by the state ... we are strengthening our criminal justice system," state Rep. Jeff Leach, a Plano Republican who co-chairs the House Criminal Justice Reform Caucus, said at a press conference in the Texas Capitol on Thursday.

Lucio, 53, has been imprisoned since her daughter, Mariah, died in February 2007. The family called 911 after the toddler was found unresponsive at their Harlingen apartment. Numerous bruises, scratches and what seemed to be a bite mark on her body led police investigators to believe the child had been killed. Mariah's death was later determined to be caused by a blunt-force head injury.

Melissa Lucio pictured with her daughters Adriana (L) and Mariah. File Photo courtesy of the Lucio family

Lucio was the primary suspect, as police said she was most often alone with the child. Lucio told police repeatedly during a late-night interrogation that she did not hurt her child. Mariah had fallen down the stairs at their apartment a couple of days earlier, she and other children told police. Lucio lived with her husband and nine of her children at the time. Mariah was Lucio's twelfth and youngest child.

After about three hours of interrogation, Lucio admitted, when prompted by police, to spanking and biting Mariah. She still denied any involvement in a head injury.

"What do you want me to say? I'm responsible for it," Lucio said when a Texas Ranger pushed her on the apparent bite mark on Mariah's back.

RELATED Texas woman on death row seeks clemency citing bad medical evidence

Lucio's statements admitting to spanking and biting her child were the crux of the state's case against her. Though she didn't admit to killing her child or causing a fatal injury, her admissions of child abuse led prosecutors, and a Cameron County jury, to connect her to the child's death and find her deserving of the death penalty.

The admissions Lucio made during more than 5 hours of interrogation on the day her daughter died have been shrouded in doubt from the start. At trial, the judge did not allow a psychologist to testify on why Lucio may admit to things she did not do, including her history of sexual abuse as a child and domestic violence as an adult.

According to the National Registry of Exonerations, about 12% of convictions found to be wrongful stem at least in part from false confessions. State Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, pointed to the prevalence of false confessions and interrogation techniques that prompt them at the criminal justice reform caucus press conference Thursday.

"The techniques used to secure her statement ... have been shown to wear down suspects to false confessions," Thompson said.

Lucio's legal defense team, which now includes the Innocence Project, has asked various courts to halt the execution, pointing in part to new pathology reviews that support the theory that Mariah died from a fall down the stairs. Lucio's children, siblings and mother have sought public attention in and outside of the Rio Grande Valley to raise awareness of their mother's claim of innocence. The House lawmakers have centered their focus on the parole board.

"As policymakers, we have an obligation to stand up and speak out, especially those of us who consider ourselves to be pro-life, pro-women and pro-law and order," said state Rep. Lacey Hull, a freshman Republican from Houston. "As much as we all want justice for Mariah, the facts simply do not support any conclusion that Ms. Lucio committed capital murder and is deserving of the ultimate punishment."

About a month before an execution, the parole board reviews petitions from condemned prisoners seeking clemency. Board members can recommend either a change in sentence to life in prison or a delay in the execution. If the board recommends relief, the governor can accept or reject it. If the board does not recommend relief, the governor can at most delay an execution by 30 days.

Though the board does not weigh on legal issues, the House lawmakers pushed it to consider Lucio's possible innocence, as well as pleas from her children to let her live and her in-prison conversion and dedication to Catholicism. Thompson noted the case of Henry Lee Lucas, a convicted serial killer whose death sentence former Gov. George W. Bush commuted to life in prison in 1998 over doubts about Lucas' guilt in the murder that landed him on death row.

Lucio's case is the second time the House Criminal Justice Reform Caucus, formed by state Rep. Joe Moody and Leach in 2019, has sought to intervene in an upcoming execution. That year, 26 lawmakers asked the parole board to spare the life of Rodney Reed, whose guilt is also widely doubted in a 1996 Bastrop murder. The board recommended that Abbott delay the execution by 120 days, but Reed's execution was instead halted by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on legal challenges.

Lucio has garnered support from more than three times as many of the chamber's 150 members than Reed.

By 10 a.m. Thursday, 87 lawmakers had signed on to the caucus' letter to the parole board, which they planned to send at 5 p.m. with more members adding their names. Moody said he was proud that the caucus -- born out of frustration with the Legislature's failure to pass criminal justice reforms -- has encouraged a groundswell of support for Lucio.

"It is easy to dismiss people like Melissa Lucio. In fact, the system is set up to make us forget her and treat her as less than human," the El Paso Democrat said. "I hope this is a moment that we are turning the tide in Texas for a fairer system, for a more just system."


This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune. Read the original here. The Texas Tribune is a non-profit, non-partisan media organization that informs Texans -- and engages with them -- about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Ukraine's Snake Island guards freed in prisoner exchange with Russia

Commemorative stamp to be issued

By Simon Druker

Ukrainian border guards dubbed national heroes by President Volodymyr Zelensky will have a commemorative stamp issued in their honor, depicting their defiant defense of Snake Island against the Russian military. File Photo By Ronald Wittek/EPA-EFE

March 24 (UPI) -- Ukraine conducted a prisoner swap with Russia which freed 10 border guards who were captured while defending a small island in the Black Sea, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Thursday.

Vereshchuk announced the two countries each exchanged 10 prisoners of war, the first large-scale exchange of the conflict that began with Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February.

"In exchange for 10 captured occupiers we rescued 10 of our servicemen," she wrote on Facebook.

The countries have conducted at least two prior, smaller prisoner swaps, including one that involved Melitopol Mayor Ivan Fedorov.

Both sides also exchanged a number of civilian prisoners, including more than a dozen Ukrainian sailors, plucked from the Black Sea as their ship sank in February.

"Also, today we sent 11 Russian civilian sailors to the Russians, whom we rescued from a sunken ship near Odessa. As a result of this exchange, 19 Ukrainian civilian sailors are returning home from the rescue ship Sapphire, which was captured by the occupiers while trying to take our troops from Snake Island.

"Under the terms of the exchange, the lifeboat itself will also be returned to Ukraine and sent to a port in Turkey," Vereshchuk wrote.

The Ukrainian government also announced Thursday that it will introduce a new postage stamp honoring the border guards who made international headlines while defending Snake Island in the early days of the Russian invasion.

Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister Emine Dzhaparova made the announcement on Twitter.

"The sketch by artist Boris Groh received the most votes and will soon be published by Ukraine's state postal company," Dzhaparova wrote on Twitter.

Snake Island also is known as Serpent or Zmiinyi Island.



The stamp features a lone Ukrainian soldier standing, flipping the middle finger at a passing warship.

The stamp's design was sketched and submitted by artist Boris Groh and chosen through a public vote from a collection of 20 submissions.

The Ukrainian soldiers were hailed as heroes in late February after they were believed to have died while swearing at invading Russian troops. Days later, it was revealed they were alive and being held prisoner.

The border guards were defending the remote island when they were approached by a Russian warship and told to surrender. "I ask you to lay down your arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed and unnecessary deaths. Otherwise, you will be bombed," the Russian warship said over the radio.

Rather than submit, the group of border guards responded over the radio by replying "Russian warship, go f--- yourself."

The incident led to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky branding them national heroes.

MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

New EU law targets big tech companies with expansive digital antitrust law


The EU's new law will make big tech companies subject to a number of obligations and prohibitions designed to prohibit what the 27-member union considers unfair market practices or practices that create or strengthen barriers for other companies. File Photo by Patrick Seeger/EPA-EFE

March 25 (UPI) -- The European Union has passed a new law that lays out a wide range of rules that target the world's most influential technology companies, and could change the way customers shop, see ads and interact online.

Part of the motivation for the Digital Markets Act is to boost competition, open markets to new competitors and decrease the influence of a small number of tech giants.

The European Commission said the law is among the first initiatives to comprehensively regulate the power of so-called "tech gatekeeper power."

"What we want is simple: Fair markets also in digital," EC Competition Commissioner and Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager said in a statement Thursday. "We are now taking a huge step forward to get there -- that markets are fair, open and contestable."

Vestager said large gatekeeper tech platforms are stifling competition and keeping consumers from the benefits of an open digital market. One way Big Tech is doing this, she says, is favoring their own products over similar products on e-commerce platforms.

The EU said almost a year ago that it was investigating Google over whether the U.S. tech giant is stifling competition in the bloc by favoring its own digital advertising platform. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI

Vestager said more than a year ago that Amazon, in particular, was using its dominant market position to distort competition. Similar complaints have been leveled at other online giants like Google and Apple.

"The gatekeepers will now have to comply with a well-defined set of obligations and prohibitions," Vestager added. "This regulation, together with strong competition law enforcement, will bring fairer conditions to consumers and businesses for many digital services across the EU."

RELATED Russia restricts Google News, alleges false Ukraine war news

The EU's new law will make big tech companies subject to a number of obligations and prohibitions designed to prohibit what the 27-member union considers unfair market practices or practices that create or strengthen barriers for other companies.

The Digital Markets Act will also create an enforcement mechanism to ensure speedy compliance.

"This agreement seals the economic leg of our ambitious reorganization of our digital space in the EU internal market," Thierry Brenton, EC commissioner for the internal market, said in a statement. "We will quickly work on designating gatekeepers based on objective criteria."

Brenton said companies will have six months to comply with the new obligations.

"Through effective enforcement, the new rules will bring increased contestability and fairer conditions for consumers and business users, which will allow for more innovation and choice in the market," he said.

Tech companies will face new antitrust legislation in the EU as early as this year

March 25, 2022 by Kareem Anderson

The European Union may have just handed the US and North America its latest blueprint for regulating big tech with its new Digital Markets Act (DMA) legislation.

The DMA marks a concerted effort by the EU to give both big tech and the countries it operates in, outside of the US, a fair understanding of baseline reforms to antitrust concerns.

According to the News - European Parliament, "The Digital Markets Act (DMA) will blacklist certain practices used by large platforms acting as “gatekeepers” and enable the Commission to carry out market investigations and sanction non-compliant behavior."

While the language needs to be finalized to get passed officially, the DMA is defining "gatekeepers" as businesses or firms with a minimum market capitalization of €75 billion equal to $82B and or €7.5 billion annually as well as 45 million monthly users that make use of an app or platform. By including the "or" the EU broadens the antitrust conversation to include big name players such as Facebook as well as unthought of ones such as Booking.com, according to The Verge.

Regarding the tertiary details, the DMA will be imbued with the power to fine "gatekeepers" up to 10 percent of total worldwide turnover from the preceding fiscal year and 20 percent for repeat infractions that fail to meet the following antitrust objective goals in the EU:

• Interoperability. Gatekeepers should allow their platforms to work with similar services from smaller third-parties. Exactly how this will be interpreted isn’t yet clear, but it could mean letting users on large messaging platforms like WhatsApp contact users on other platforms.
• The right to uninstall. Consumers are to be given more choice over software and services, particularly in mobile operating systems like iOS and Android. They should be able to uninstall any preloaded software, and be giving a choice when setting up a new device what service they want to use for applications like email and web browsing.
• Data access. Businesses should be able to access data they generate for larger platforms. This would mean, for example, letting companies who sell goods on platforms like Amazon access Amazon’s analytics about their performance.
• Advertising transparency. If a company buys adverts on Facebook, for example, they should be given the tools to independently verify the reach of their ads. Companies will also be barred from “combining personal data for targeted advertising” without explicit consent.
• An end to self-preferencing. Companies can’t use their platforms to put their products first. This means Google, for example, can’t put its shopping service at the top of its search results unless there is some sort of competitive tender for that spot.
• App store requirements. The commission says platform owners can no longer require app developers to “use certain services (e.g. payment systems or identity providers) in order to be listed in app stores.”

In reaction to the news of the DMA, both Google and Apple, prime targets of many of the antitrust stipulations, have issued their "concern" for the ruling, in the following responses:

We remain concerned that some provisions of the DMA will create unnecessary privacy and security vulnerabilities for our users while others will prohibit us from charging for intellectual property in which we invest a great deal. - Apple

"While we support many of the DMA's ambitions around consumer choice and interoperability, we're worried that some of these rules could reduce innovation and the choice available to Europeans. - Google

As Reuters notes, both Apple and Google have been lobbying against the passing of the DMA for some time now.

Despite the DMA being in the works for quite some time and deriving many of its tentpole objectives from real-world legislative battles in the EU, it remains early days for tech companies to digest the broad implications.

EU Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager seems optimistic about it officially passing and being implemented as early as October of 2022, which could give some "gatekeepers" as little as three months afterwards to make the necessary interoperability changes suggested by the DMA

CYBERWAR

Google: North Korean hackers targeted U.S. media, IT, crypto firms


North Korean hackers recently targeted U.S. media, IT and crypto firms in a coordinated attack,

 Google said. File Photo by SP-Photo/Shutterstock

March 25 (UPI) -- Google recently discovered coordinated attacks by North Korean government-backed hackers against U.S.-based organizations in the news media, IT, fintech and cryptocurrency industries, the company's cybersecurity unit said.

Two separate North Korean groups exploited a vulnerability in the web browser Chrome in an effort to remotely install malware, Google's Threat Analysis Group said in a blog post Thursday.

The earliest evidence of the exploit was on Jan. 4 and a patch was issued on Feb. 14, Google said.

One campaign by the hackers targeted over 250 individuals in 10 different companies by posing as recruiters with fake job offers from Disney, Google and Oracle.

Google said it suspected the two groups worked for the same entity but had different missions and used different techniques. The company said it notified all the targets of the attacks.

The report came days after U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said North Korean hackers are working with Russian cybercriminals.

"North Korea's cyber capabilities have been manifest in the world and they work with all kinds of cybercriminals around the world, including Russian cybercriminals," Sullivan said Tuesday at a press conference.

He was responding to a question about a report from Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs last week that drew a connection between the two countries' cybercrime operations.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday warned American companies to be on heightened alert for cyberattacks by Russia in response to the heavy sanctions that have been imposed since its invasion of Ukraine.

Russian officials charged in years-old energy sector hacks



FILE - Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco speaks to The Associated Press during an interview at the Department of Justice in Washington, Nov. 2, 2021. The Justice Department says four Russian government officials have been charged in hacks that targeted the global energy industry and thousands of computers around the world between 2012 and 2018. “Russian state-sponsored hackers pose a serious and persistent threat to critical infrastructure both in the United States and around the world,” Monaco said in a statement. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Four Russian officials, including hackers with a government intelligence agency, have been charged with the malicious hacking of critical infrastructure around the globe including the U.S. energy and aviation sectors between 2012 and 2018, the U.S. Justice Department and British Foreign Office announced.

Among the thousands of computers targeted in some 135 countries were machines at a Kansas nuclear power plant — whose business network was compromised — and at a Saudi petro-chemical plant in 2017 where the hackers overrode safety controls, officials said Thursday.

Though the intrusions date back years, the indictments were unsealed as the FBI has raised fresh alarms about efforts by Russian hackers to scan the networks of U.S. energy firms for vulnerabilities that could be exploited during Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The Foreign Office suggested in an announcement on its website that the timing — exposing “the global scope” of hacking by the KGB’s successor spy agency — was directly related to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “unprovoked and illegal war in Ukraine.”

Additionally, multiple U.S. federal agencies on Thursday published a joint advisory on the hacking campaign, alerting energy executives to take steps to protect their systems from Russian operatives.

“The DOJ is firing warning shots at people who run Russia’s cyberattack capability,” tweeted threat intelligence analyst John Hultquist at the cybersecurity firm Mandiant.

“Russian state-sponsored hackers pose a serious and persistent threat to critical infrastructure both in the United States and around the world,” Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement. “Although the criminal charges unsealed today reflect past activity, they make crystal clear the urgent ongoing need for American businesses to harden their defenses and remain vigilant.”

None of the four defendants is in custody, though a Justice Department official who briefed reporters said officials deemed it better to make the investigation public rather than wait for the “distant possibility” of arrests. The State Department on Thursday announced rewards of up to $10 million for information leading to the “identification or location” of any of the four defendants.

The indicted Russians include an employee at a Russian military research institute accused of working with co-conspirators in 2017 to hack the systems of a foreign refinery and to install malicious software, twice resulting in emergency shutdowns of operations. The British Foreign Office identified the target as Saudi and said the military research institute was being sanctioned. The so-called “Triton” case — affecting the Petro Rabigh complex on the Red Sea — has been well-documented by cybersecurity researchers as one of the most dangerous on record. The malware was designed with a goal of inflicting physical damage by disabling a safety shutdown function that would normally stop a refinery from “catastrophic failure,” a Justice Department official said.

The employee, Evgeny Viktorovich Gladkikh, also tried to break into the computers of an unidentified U.S. company that operates multiple oil refineries, according to an indictment that was filed in June 2021 and was unsealed Thursday.

The three other defendants are alleged hackers with Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB — which conducts domestic intelligence and counterintelligence — and members of a hacking unit known to cybersecurity researchers as Dragonfly.

The hackers are accused of installing malware into legitimate software updates on more than 17,000 devices in the U.S. and other countries. Their supply chain attacks between 2012 and 2014 targeted oil and gas firms, nuclear power plants and utility and power transmission companies, prosecutors said.

The goal, according to the indictment, was to “establish and maintain surreptitious unauthorized access to networks, computers, and devices of companies and other entities in the energy sector.” That access would enable the Russian government to alter and damage systems if it wanted to, the indictment said.

A second phase of the attack, officials said, involved spear-phishing attacks targeting more than 500 U.S. and international companies, as well as U.S. government agencies including the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The hackers also successfully compromised the business network — though not the control systems — of the Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation in Burlington, Kansas, which operates a nuclear power plant.

The British Foreign Office said the FSB hackers had also targeted U.K. energy companies and stolen data from the U.S. aviation sector and other key U.S. targets.

____

AP reporter Frank Bajak contributed from Lima, Peru. Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP.

Russians charged in U.S. for 'historic' hacking rampage against systems worldwide

U.S. and British officials said that the four Russians were responsible for targeting systems in more than 100 countries over a six-year period, including energy and aviation sectors of the United States. Photo courtesy Federal Bureau of Investigation

March 25 (UPI) -- U.S. and British officials have accused four Russian officials -- including hackers with a Moscow intelligence agency -- with various cybercrimes committed over a period of several years against more than 100 countries, including the United States.

The U.S. Justice Department and British Foreign Office announced the cybercrimes on Thursday. They say the Russian officials worked with the Kremlin to conduct cyber intrusions between 2012 and 2018 that targeted the global energy sector in about 135 countries.

The department said the attacks came as part of two separate conspiracies targeting "thousands of computers, at hundreds of companies and organizations" over the six-year period.

The charges are part of two separate indictments last summer and unsealed on Thursday.

RELATEDU.S., EU strike deal to cut Russian fuel dependency; Biden heads on to Poland

One of the Russians identified in the indictment is Evgeny Viktorovich Gladkikh, an employee of a Russian defense research institute. Prosecutors say that he and three co-conspirators caused two separate emergency shutdowns at a foreign refinery by hacking the system and installing malware.

The attacks also included breaches at a nuclear power plant in Kansas and a chemical plant in Saudi Arabia.

"In some cases, the spearphishing attacks were successful, including in the compromise of the business network of the Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation in Burlington, Kan., which operates a nuclear power plant," the Justice Department said in a statement.

Gladkikh is charged with one count of conspiracy to cause damage to an energy facility.

The other three were identified as Pavel Aleksandrovich Akulov, Mikhail Mikhailovich Gavrilov and Marat Valeryevich Tyukov. Authorities said they undertook years-long efforts to target and compromise computer systems of energy companies around the world. Those three are suspected hackers with Moscow's Federal Security Service.

None of the four have been arrested, officials said.

"After establishing an illegal foothold in a particular network, the conspirators typically used that foothold to penetrate further into the network by obtaining access to other computers and networks at the victim entity," the department added.

Akulov, Gavrilov and Tyukov are charged with conspiracy to cause damage to an energy facility and conspiracy to commit computer fraud and abuse and wire fraud.

Akulov and Gavrilov are also charged with substantive counts of wire fraud and computer fraud related to unlawfully obtaining information from computers and causing damage to systems. The pair were also charged with three counts of aggravated identity theft.

The British Foreign Office said that the charges are directly related to Russian President Vladimir Putin's "unprovoked and illegal war in Ukraine," which is now in its second month.

"The U.K., together with the U.S. and other allies, has exposed historic malign cyber activity of Russia's Federal Security Service," the foreign office said.

The Federal Security Service is Moscow's successor spy agency to the Soviet-era KGB.

Authorities said the cybercrimes include "substantial scanning and probing of networks in the American aviation sector, and exfiltration of data in aviation and other key U.S. targets."

"We are sending a clear message to the Kremlin by sanctioning those who target people, businesses and infrastructure," Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said in a statement. "We will not tolerate it."

SPIRIT ANIMALS
Pale raccoon siblings move to Denver Zoo after being found inside a wall
By Wade Sheridan

March 25 (UPI) -- The Denver Zoo is welcoming two pale, raccoon siblings who were rescued after being found inside the wall of a home.

The raccoons, named Cashew and Pecan, suffer from leucism, which makes them unlikely to survive in the wild. Leucism is an abnormal condition that causes partial pigment loss.



Cashew and Pecan were treated at the Helen and Arthur E. Johnson Animal Hospital and put in quarantine before they entered their new habitat at the zoo. The pair are located at the Harmony Hill section of the zoo, which highlights how humans can better co-exist with wildlife.

The Denver Zoo's animal care staff have already started working with the siblings and uploaded a video of Cashew and Pecan exploring their new home on Twitter.

Pecan, who has darker fur than his sister, is described as outgoing and confident. Cashew is described as being selective about the food she eats and is always on the lookout for treats given by the zoo staff.

Denver Zoo's Curator of Carnivores Rebecca McCloskey defended the decision to add two raccoons to the zoo.

"Harmony Hill is a place where we share the story about living with wildlife. Raccoons are an excellent example of a species we can teach our guests live alongside, so they were a natural fit for the space. Because of their light coloring, these two would not survive in the wild, so we're giving them a safe place to call home. And our visitors will learn a lot from these two, like how raccoons contribute to the ecosystem, and how we can live in harmony with wildlife," McCloskey said.