CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Charlotte company agrees to pay $218 million for bribing foreign government officials
Gavin Off
Fri, September 29, 2023 

A Charlotte-based chemical manufacturing company agreed to pay more than $218 million in penalties following federal investigations that found the company spent years bribing foreign government officials in return for business, a U.S. Justice Department release said.

Albemarle Corporation agreed to the payment after admitting to Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission investigators that its third-party agents conspired to bribe officials in Vietnam, Indonesia and India for business with the countries’ state-owned oil refineries, the release said. The schemes took place between 2009 and 2017 and violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Albemarle was named a Fortune 500 company this year.

“Albemarle earned nearly $100 million by participating in schemes to pay bribes to government officials in multiple countries,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division in the department’s release.

According the the Justice Department:

• Albemarle Corporation got contracts at two state-owned oil refineries in Vietnam after an intermediary sales agent sought higher commissions to pay bribes to Vietnamese officials.

• The company used a third-party intermediary to secure business with Indonesia’s state-owned oil company even after an intermediary told Albemarle that it would have to pay bribes for the business ties.

• Albemarle used a third-party to “corruptly retain catalyst business with India’s state-owned oil company by avoiding Albemarle being blacklisted,” the government release said.

“Corruption has no borders, but neither does justice,” said Dena King, U.S. attorney for the Western District of North Carolina in the department’s press release. “Companies are expected to adhere to the same ethical and legal standards whether they are doing business on U.S. soil or overseas.”

In a statement, Albemarle said: “The actions taken by a limited number of former employees and third-party sales representatives happened years ago ... Those responsible for these past actions were held to account and separated years ago.”

The statement said Albemarle’s payment resolved the self-reported investigation and the company has since changed how it monitors third parties.

In addition to the $218 million payment, Albemarle has agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department in any current or future investigations related to its business dealings.

India's Jaishankar says Canada has 'climate of violence' for Indian diplomats

Fri, September 29, 2023 

FILE PHOTO: Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Jakarta


By Kanishka Singh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Friday there was a "climate of violence" and an "atmosphere of intimidation" against Indian diplomats in Canada, where the presence of Sikh separatist groups has frustrated New Delhi.

"Because there is freedom of speech, to make threats and intimidate diplomats, I don't think that's acceptable," Jaishankar told reporters on Friday evening in Washington.

Relations between India and Canada have been tense of late, mostly due to the presence of Sikh separatists in Canada who have kept alive the movement for Khalistan, or the demand for an independent Sikh state to be carved out of India.


Canada's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Earlier this month, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged that Indian agents may have had a role in the June murder of Sikh separatist leader and Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was labeled a "terrorist" by India.

New Delhi dismissed the allegations as absurd. Washington has urged India to cooperate with Canada in the murder probe.

In 2018, Trudeau assured India that Canada would not support anyone trying to revive a separatist movement in India, while repeatedly saying that he respects the right to free speech and assembly of protesters to demonstrate.

Canada is home to an influential Sikh community, and Indian leaders say some fringe groups there remain sympathetic to the cause of an independent Sikh state. The cause hardly has any support in India.

The demand for Khalistan has surfaced many times in India, most prominently during a violent insurgency in the 1980s and 1990s which paralyzed the state of Punjab for over a decade.

The insurgency killed tens of thousands of people and the Khalistan movement is considered a security threat by the Indian government. Sikh militants were blamed for the 1985 bombing of an Air India Boeing 747 flying from Canada to India in which all 329 people on board were killed.

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated in 1984 by two Sikh bodyguards after she allowed the storming of the holiest Sikh temple, aimed at flushing out Sikh separatists.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Blinken urges Indian cooperation in Canada's Sikh murder probe

Updated Fri, September 29, 2023 

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets with India's External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar in Washington, U.S.


By Humeyra Pamuk and David Brunnstrom

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Friday he had urged his Indian counterpart to work with Canada to investigate the killing of a Sikh separatist advocate that the Canadian prime minister has linked to Indian government agents.

India's Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar confirmed earlier he had spoken to Blinken and the U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan about Canadian allegations of New Delhi's possible involvement in the June killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Canada.

Blinken met with Jaishankar at the State Department on Thursday afternoon.

"We're very concerned about the allegations that have been raised by Canada, by Prime Minister Trudeau," Blinken told a news conference after a meeting with Mexican officials.

"We have been in close contact with Canada about that and at same time we have engaged with the Indian government and urged them to work with Canada on an investigation," he said, adding that he repeated the call in his meeting with Jaishankar.

"Those responsible need to be held accountable and we hope that our friends in both Canada and India will work together to resolve this matter," Blinken added.

A State Department spokesperson said that in the meeting Blinken had urged India to cooperate "fully" with the ongoing Canadian investigation.

Ties between Indian and Canada have become seriously strained after Trudeau told parliament this month that Canada suspected Indian government agents were linked to the murder.

The incident has put the United States in an awkward spot diplomatically, caught between its neighbor and close ally Canada and India, which Washington has been courting as a key partner in its effort to push back against expanding Chinese influence.

An official State Department readout of the meeting between Blinken and Jaishankar issued on Thursday made no mention of the Nijjar issue, but an unnamed U.S. official subsequently confirmed late on Thursday that it was raised in the meeting.

On Friday, a State Department spokesperson said that during their meeting, the two "discussed a full range of issues impacting the important, strategic, and consequential relationship between the United States and India" and that the key issues were noted in the official readout.

Speaking in Quebec on Thursday, Trudeau said he was certain that Blinken would broach the issue with Jaishankar.

Nijjar was a Canadian citizen but India had declared him a "terrorist." He supported the cause of Khalistan, or an independent homeland for Sikhs to be carved out of India.

Jaishankar said on Tuesday New Delhi had told Canada it was open to looking into any "specific" or "relevant" information it provides on the killing.

Trudeau, who has yet to publicly share any evidence, said last week he shared the "credible allegations" with India "many weeks ago."

Blinken and Sullivan said last week that Washington was "deeply concerned" about the allegations raised by Trudeau.

The U.S. ambassador to Canada told Canadian television that some information on the case had been gathered by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, which groups the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Britain.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and David Brunnstrom; Writing by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Caitlin Webber, Daniel Wallis and Don Durfee)


Blinken raises Sikh leader’s murder in meeting with Indian foreign minister Jaishankar

Alisha Rahaman Sarkar
Fri, September 29, 2023 



US secretary of state Antony Blinken reportedly asked Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar to cooperate with Canada's investigation into the killing of Sikh separatist leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

Ties between India and Canada plummeted after prime minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of involvement in the killing of the Canadian national.

Nijjar – a designated terrorist in India – was assassinated in Surrey on 18 June by two masked men. He has been linked to the secessionist Khalistan movement, which calls for a separate homeland for the Sikh religious community to be carved out of India's Punjab state.

India vehemently denied what it called an "absurd" allegation, adding it was not New Delhi's "policy" to be involved in assassination on foreign lands.

“Blinken raised the Canadian matter in his meeting, (and) urged the Indian government to cooperate with Canada’s investigation,” Reuters quoted a US official as saying, though a State Department statement made no mention of the issue.

Mr Trudeau has been reportedly mounting pressure on Canada's "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing allies to push India into cooperating with the investigation.

The prime minister on Thursday said he was certain that Mr Blinken would broach the issue with India's Jaishankar.

The US State Department’s formal statement on its website after Mr Blinken’s meeting with Mr Jaishankar made no mention of Nijjar’s murder or of Canada.

A readout from the State Department listed points like India's G20 presidency, the creation of an India-Middle East-Europe corridor, defence, space and clean energy as topics of conversation between the two.

Mr Jaishankar on Tuesday said New Delhi has told Canada it was open to looking into any "specific" or "relevant" information it provides on the killing.

Mr Trudeau, who is yet to publicly share any evidence, said last week he shared the "credible allegations" with India "many weeks ago".

Mr Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan said last week the United States was “deeply concerned” about the allegations raised by Canada.

India has responded to the allegation by suspending visa services in all categories for Canadian nationals citing “security threats” to its consulates. Each country expelled one senior diplomat from the other in a tit-for-tat move.

A group of hackers called the “Indian Cyber Force” claimed responsibility for temporarily taking over the official website of the Canadian Armed Forces on Wednesday.

"That's a very common thing that happens, unfortunately, often. But our cyberofficials and security officials acted very, very quickly," defence minister Bill Blair told reporters.

Court orders Subway franchise owners to pay workers nearly $1M - and to sell or close their stores

Associated Press
Updated Fri, September 29, 2023 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal court ordered the owners of 14 Subway locations north of San Francisco to pay employees nearly $1 million in damages and back pay — and also to sell or shut their businesses, with any sale proceeds going to the Department of Labor.

Federal investigators said franchise owners John and Jessica Meza directed children as young as 14 to operate dangerous machinery, assigned minors work hours that violated federal law, and failed to pay their employees regularly, including by issuing hundreds of bad checks and illegally keeping tips left by customers.

The Labor Department also charged that the Mezas coerced employees in an attempt to prevent them from cooperating with its investigation and that an associate, Hamza Ayesh, played a role in those efforts, including threatening an employee who complained about receiving a bad check.

The Mezas did not admit to threatening or coercing employees, according to Arkady Itkin, their lawyer, who added that they did admit to issuing bad checks and violating some labor standards. He added that Ayesh did not admit to threatening an employee, but agreed to settle what Itkin called a “he said, she said situation" to put it to rest.

Itkin added that the Mezas are people of modest means who are very unlikely to be able to pay the sum agreed to in the court order. “The settlement agreement might make it look like they're just going to cough up a million dollars,” he said. “It's not going to happen.”

Unpaid 15-year-old Subway workers were threatened when they asked for wages, feds say

Julia Marnin
Fri, September 29, 2023 

Szymon via Unsplash

When two 15-year-old Subway workers in California asked for their unpaid wages, their supervisor threatened to file a police report against them and “push for the max sentence,” court documents say.

They were threatened for simply exercising their rights as a Department of Labor Investigation was underway, according to the agency and a complaint filed in federal court.

The restaurant’s owners and operators, who run 14 Bay Area Subway restaurants, didn’t properly pay their employees, including the two teens, stole workers’ tips, violated child labor laws and tried convincing workers to not cooperate with a federal investigation, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

“Hundreds of bad checks” were issued to the employees — that bounced, officials said.

As a result, the Department of Labor sued the franchisees, John Michael Meza and his wife, Jessica L. Meza, who run the 14 Subway restaurants with franchisor and operator Doctor’s Associates LLC. The restaurants are located in Antioch, Clayton, Concord, Cotati, Napa, Petaluma, San Pablo, Santa Rosa, Vallejo and Windsor, according to officials.

Now, a federal judge has ordered the Subway operators to pay nearly $1 million in back wages and damages to 184 employees after repeatedly violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Department of Labor announced in a Sept. 29 news release.

In addition to this, they must also “sell or shut down their businesses by Nov. 27,” according to officials who described the court order as a “rare action.”

“Thanks to some very brave young people who stood up to their employers’ exploitation and attempts to intimidate them, the Department of Labor and a federal court are holding these business owners accountable,” the agency’s Wage and Hour Regional Administrator Ruben Rosalez in San Francisco said in a statement.

Attorney Arkady Itkin told McClatchy News in a statement on Sept. 29 that the court’s order was the result of the parties reaching an agreement.

“Any settlement payments will be subject to my client’s ability to pay which appears to be quite modest at this time,” Itkin said.

In addition to threatening teen employees, the Subway franchisees had 14- and 15-year-olds using dangerous equipment, which is illegal under federal law, officials said.

Young workers were also assigned shifts that resulted in them working “hours not permitted by law,” the release said.

The 184 Subway employees are owed $475,000 in minimum wage, overtime and tips they never received and will be paid that same amount in liquidated damages, according to officials.

The Mezas must pay $150,000 in penalties and the couple, along with their associate, must pay $12,000 in punitive damages “for their retaliatory conduct,” officials said.

“The contempt employers showed for their workers’ safety, dignity and rights cost them the businesses they hoped to build and brought significant financial consequences,” Marc Pilotin, the regional solicitor of labor in San Francisco, said in a statement.

‘Escalating and unsettling’: British Columbia residents condemn ‘whites-only mom and tots’ poster

“We are seeing growing support for the far-right and racist politics," says the Canadian Anti-Hate Network

Imani Walker
·Writer
Fri, September 29, 2023 at 3:19 PM MDT·5 min read
5

One of the posters at the Coquitlam Centre, pictured on Monday. (Brandi Morin)

The discovery of a “whites-only mom & tots” poster in Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, is raising major concerns about the rise of racism and hate speech in the province.

Posted on Instagram by Indigenous journalist Brandi Morin, thousands of Canadians have commented, horrified by the poster that asks white parents if they’re “tired of being a minority?” The poster also shares how white people can “escape forced diversity” by joining “other proud parents of European children to create an atmosphere in which their kids can feel like they belong.”

“Invest in your child’s sense of well being and racial identity by giving them the gift of time spent amongst their own people – because they deserve it,” the poster states, accompanied by a URL link and an email address for parents to join a chat group.

Morin joined the "White Tri-cities" group and posted screenshots of the chat discussion which includes hundreds of members being encouraged to keep their identities anonymous. The chat mainly focused on when and where the parents can meet, as well as discussion about why they feel they’re “not the racists.”

“It’s a thinly veiled meeting of white supremacy that breeds hate into the next generation – truly sickening and wholly unsafe,” commented Instagram user @indigi_nish under Morin’s post.

“It’s pretty easy to see the scandalous unethical behaviour in this country, especially when most leadership stood and applauded for a Nazi veteran in our parliament. Nothing here is unbelievable anymore,” wrote another user.

“Their ancestors imposed their presence on native lands at the expense of Native American and African people and now they want to act victimized,” commented another user.

ispace unveils new lunar lander that will fly to the moon in 2026

Aria Alamalhodaei
Updated Fri, September 29, 2023 

Image Credits: ispace (opens in a new window)

Japanese space company ispace has invested over $40 million in its new U.S. subsidiary to date, as it looks to take advantage of growing investment from NASA and the Pentagon in technologies for the moon.

The level of investment is a mark of ispace’s “strong commitment to the U.S. market,” CEO Takeshi Hakamada said in a statement.

“We expect this number to continue to grow as part of our strategic commitment to contribute to government missions and the creation of a cislunar ecosystem from the United States,” he added.

The U.S. subsidiary, called ispace technologies U.S., employs more than 80 people out of Denver, Colorado. Ronald J. Garan, former NASA astronaut and SVP of World View, was appointed CEO of the U.S. business back in June.

ispace also unveiled a new lander, called Apex 1.0, which will fly in place of a previous lander iteration, Series 2. Apex 1.0 is designed for short trajectory flights to the moon and will be capable of carrying up to 300 kilograms to the lunar surface. This is a 10x increase in capacity versus ispace’s first lander, Series 1.

Apex 1.0 will launch on ispace’s third mission, which will be conducted in partnership with Draper Laboratory to deliver payloads to the far side of the moon for NASA. Draper and ispace, along with General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems, and Systima Technologies, a division of Karman Space & Defense, were awarded the $73 million contract last summer. The mission date slipped from 2025 to 2026 in part due to transitioning from the Series 2 lander design to Apex 1.0, ispace said.

Team Draper, as the consortium is called, is one of several to have won contracts under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. Firefly Aerospace, Intuitive Machines and Astrobotic have also won awards under that program, and are all vying to be the first to land a commercial lander on the moon.

“The updated schedule enables Team Draper and ispace – U.S. to accommodate sensitive payloads by harnessing Apex 1.0’s enhanced capabilities for Mission 3, which is targeting a technically challenging landing location on the far side of the Moon,” the company explained in a statement.

The new lander will have more than 10 times the capacity of ispace’s first lander, Series 1, which suffered a devastating impact into the lunar surface back in April.

Palestinian security force deploys in school compound in Lebanon refugee camp following clashes

AHMAD MANTASH
Updated Fri, September 29, 2023 








Commander of Shabab al Muslim, Haitham al-Shaabi, stands in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh near the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Friday, Sept. 29, 2023. A Palestinian security force deployed Friday in a school complex in Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp in the country's south, replacing gunmen who had occupied it since fighting broke out in late July leaving more than 30 people dead.

 (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
ASSOCIATED PRESSMore


SIDON, Lebanon (AP) — A Palestinian security force deployed Friday in a school complex in Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp in the country’s south, replacing gunmen who had occupied it since fighting broke out in late July leaving more than 30 people dead.

The deployment raises hopes that a nearly two-week cease-fire can hold at the Ein el-Hilweh camp near the southern port city of Sidon and that school buildings can be restored. On Sept. 14, members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah group and two Islamic militant factions, Jund al Sham and Shabab al Muslim, agreed to a cessation of hostilities.

The complex includes eight schools. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has been urging gunmen from various factions who had dug into position in around the compound to evacuate the area ahead of the school year that is supposed to start in early October.

In the afternoon, a security force of 55 armed fighters who had been considered neutral in the recent clashes — from factions including Hamas, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Asbat al-Ansar — took over the badly damaged compound.


Some of the school walls were riddled with bullets and rockets.

In late July, Fatah accused the Islamic groups of gunning down a senior Fatah military official, Abu Ashraf al-Armoushi, triggering intense street battles . Several cease-fires were agreed but collapsed. The groups still have not handed over militants accused in the al-Armoushi slaying.

The commander of Shabab al Muslim, Haitham al-Shaabi told reporters that “the situation in the camp will soon return to normal.” He declined to answer questions related to the handover of suspects in al-Armoushi's killing.

The latest cease-fire agreement, reached on Sept. 14, came after clashes that killed at least 18 people and wounded more than 100. The previous round of fighting earlier in the summer killed at least 13.

Earlier this week, UNRWA had said that more than 11,000 Palestinian children in south Lebanon were in danger of not being able to join their peers at the beginning of the school year on Oct. 2 because of the hostilities at Ein el_Hilweh. That amounted to a quarter of the refugee school children.

UNRWA’s director in Lebanon Dorothee Klaus said not only had the schools been taken over by armed groups, but that many of the buildings had sustained significant damage.

Since the fighting began in late July, at least 4,000 people have been forced to flee their homes in the camp, with many of them seeking refuge in UNRWA facilities.

US judge refuses to block Medicare from negotiating drug prices

Updated Fri, September 29, 2023 


By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) -The U.S. government's Medicare health insurance program can begin negotiating prices for some prescription drugs this fall under a new program, a federal judge ruled on Friday, vindicating one of President Joe Biden's signature initiatives.

The order by U.S. District Judge Michael Newman in Dayton, Ohio, comes in a lawsuit brought against the Biden administration by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The nation's largest business lobbying group argues that the program violates the U.S. Constitution by allowing the government to force drugmakers to accept unfairly low prices, and would stifle innovation.

Newman in a preliminary order rejected that argument, finding that drugmakers were unlikely to prevail in the case. He said they were not being forced to give anything up because participating in Medicare is "completely voluntary."

"As there is no constitutional right (or requirement) to engage in business with the government, the consequences of that participation cannot be considered a constitutional violation," he wrote.

The Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Biden administration "will continue fighting to lower health care costs for American families, no matter how many challenges Republicans and Big Pharma put in our way," White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement.

Although Newman's ruling allows the price negotiation program to begin as scheduled on Oct. 1, the judge allowed the lawsuit to continue, denying a motion by the government to dismiss it altogether.

The ruling is the first to come from multiple lawsuits by drug companies and industry groups challenging the program. Newman was appointed to the bench by Republican former President Donald Trump.

The drug price negotiation program is part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which Biden, a Democrat, signed last year.

Americans pay more for prescription medicines than people in any other country. The program aims to save $25 billion annually by 2031 by requiring drugmakers to negotiate the prices of selected expensive drugs with the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS), which oversees Medicare.

Medicare mostly serves the millions of Americans aged 65 and older.

Drugmakers whose medicines were selected for the first round of pricing negotiations must agree to begin talks on Oct. 1. Those who do not negotiate either would have to pay steep penalties, up to 19 times a drug's sales, or stop participating in the government healthcare programs, which account for a significant portion of the companies' U.S. sales.

CMS announced the first 10 drugs to be negotiated on Aug. 29. They include the blood thinners Eliquis from Bristol Myers Squibb and Pfizer, Xarelto from Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co's diabetes drug Januvia, and AbbVie's leukemia treatment Imbruvica.

The negotiated prices would take effect in 2026 with a minimum discount from the list price at 25%.

The Chamber of Commerce's lawsuit is one of several similar cases challenging the program. The others were filed by individual drugmakers and by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the leading drug industry lobbying group.

Companies that have sued over the program include J&J, Merck, Bristol Myers and Boehringer Ingelheim, which make drugs on CMS's negotiation list.

The Chamber of Commerce was the only plaintiff to ask for a preliminary injunction halting the price negotiations while its lawsuit proceeds. The other lawsuits are moving at a slower pace, and judges may not rule on them until next year.

The Biden administration has repeatedly said there is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits drug price negotiations. Many other countries already negotiate drug prices.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York and Nate Raymond in Boston; additional reporting by Costas Pitas; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Bill Berkrot, Chris Reese and Leslie Adler)

Federal judge denies request to block Medicare negotiation 

Joseph Choi

Fri, September 29, 2023 



A federal judge on Friday declined to block the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation program, meaning companies will have to play ball with the government for the time being.

U.S. District Judge Michael J. Newman ruled against a request for a preliminary injunction on the program that was requested by the Chamber of Commerce in its lawsuit to stop negotiations.

His ruling comes right before the Oct. 1 deadline by which drugmakers whose products were named for negotiation are required to sign agreements to engage in the process or face the penalties.

Along with denying the Chamber’s request for an injunction, Newman also denied a request from the federal government to dismiss the case entirely. The government is arguing the Chamber has no standing to sue over Medicare negotiation since it’s not a pharmaceutical company itself.

Newman issued no opinion on whether the trade group had standing and said he “will entertain the filing of one or more renewed motion(s) to dismiss.” The Chamber has maintained that it can sue on behalf of its members.

The judge noted that while case law regarding associational standing is “scarce,” individual participation from a member of an organization is ” not normally necessary” when a group is seeking relief on behalf of said member.

Many of the companies — Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca — have said they plan to sign the agreements, albeit with protest.

Oral arguments over the injunction were heard two weeks ago in the Southern District Court of Ohio.

The legal threshold for obtaining a preliminary injunction involves demonstrating the party which requested it is likely to succeed in the case based on the merits, that the party will suffer irreparable harm without an injunction, the opposing party will not suffer harm as a result and that issuing an injunction is in the interest of the public.

During the oral arguments, the Chamber asserted it would win in the case because the program is not truly a negotiation, but a scheme passed by Congress to “blur lines of accountability.”

In its request, the Chamber said “irreparable harm” would occur and has already been experienced by some of its members. The government pushed back on these assertions, noting that the negotiated prices are years away from going into effect.

The Chamber alleged a host of constitutional violations within the Medicare negotiation program in its lawsuit and they argued that blocking any constitutionally unsound program is in the public’s interest.

Based on his decision, it appears Newman was unconvinced by the Chamber’s argument.

“They have demonstrated neither a strong likelihood of success nor irreparable harm. Consequently, their request for immediate preliminary injunctive relief—to stop implementation of the Program on or before October 1, 2023—is denied,” Newman stated in his ruling.

Another key aspect of the government’s argument against the lawsuits to stop Medicare negotiation is that the program is voluntary at the end of the day, meaning no companies are compelled to take part in it if they disagree with how it’s operated. Newman appeared to agree with this argument in his ruling on Friday.

Noting a prior ruling, Newman found that “participation in Medicare, no matter how vital it may be to a business model, is a completely voluntary choice.”

The lower, negotiated prices are set to go into effect at the start of 2026 if everything goes to plan. The government had argued that all the lawsuits suing to stop Medicare negotiation will likely have been decided by that point, making the supposedly urgent need for an injunction moot.

During the oral arguments, the government emphasized the fact that the Chamber itself is not a pharmaceutical company and would not suffer harm as a result of the negotiation program, even as it is suing on behalf of one of its members.

With the preliminary injunction denied, the negotiation process is now free to proceed as scheduled, with talks set to take place during 2023 and 2024.

This story was updated at 6:27 p.m.

Decentralized Energy Production Shakes Up Traditional Grids

Editor OilPrice.com
Fri, September 29, 2023 

The renewable revolution is forcing a major evolution in the way our power grids operate, as well as the way utilities regulate energy flow. While a major retooling of the system will be required to support the scale of the change brought on by the green energy transition, evolution has so far been slow and piecemeal. But that won’t be the case for long, as grids will be forced to update themselves to keep up with a more intensive and flexible energy flow – or risk collapse.

Grids will be faced with three major challenges as a result of the massive growth of renewable energy: a much higher demand for electricity, more variable energy sources, and a more decentralized grid. As more and more services become electrified and plug-in electric vehicles proliferate, the amount of demand on the energy grid will skyrocket. The renewable energy sources that will be expected to meet this demand, primarily wind and solar energy, are variable – meaning that, unlike fossil fuels, they don’t produce energy on demand. Instead, they depend on the weather and the seasons, and peak production times are often at odds with peak demand times. This will require a high degree of grid flexibility, as well as long-term energy storage capabilities. Finally, as energy markets become more and more diversified with new forms of energy production and new forms of energy producers (especially now that any home or business can produce solar power to sell back to the grid), the grid is becoming more and more decentralized.

As solar panels and home batteries become increasingly accessible and more widely adopted, the newly decentralized nature of power production will change the way grids and utilities work at a profound level. While this could cause some destabilizing shifts to an industry that was only prepared for a one-way flow of energy, from producer to consumer, it could also represent a crucial source of grid resilience. This is where Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) come in. VPPs represent a decentralized and diversified pool of producer-consumers (known as ‘prosumers’) working together to form a power plant without a home base. “Bundled together by the hundreds or thousands, [solar panels and home batteries] can also serve as a critical tool: they can be called on to supply vast amounts of power when grid supplies are stretched or store it when there is more solar and wind power than needed,” Reuters explains.

Source: Next Kraftwerke

Some experts believe that VPPs – somewhat rare now – are positioned to become the new normal. The solar industry’s days as a “net metering type of industry” are “starting to be numbered,” according Jigar Shah, the director of the US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office, as quoted from the recent RE+ 2023 conference in Las Vegas. “Most solar systems come with batteries, and most are integrating smart panels,” he went on to say. “They’re integrating demand response and load control capabilities into the inverter controls.”

The potential uses of VPPs extends beyond distributed energy storage and production. VPPs could also include electric vehicle chargers, smart thermostats, and smart electric water heaters which could collectively function to improve energy efficiency – another key imperative of the global decarbonization movement. While it makes good economic sense to employ VPPs, says Shah, there’s also really no alternative. “Frankly, it is the only way for [electric utilities] to integrate all of the huge load that is coming their way.” As such, VPPs are already underway in large parts of the U.S. (especially via Duke Energy in the Carolinas) and in Puerto Rico.

And private sector actors aren’t the only ones taking notice – the United States Department of Energy anticipates lending support on the order of $100 million to advance VPPs, PV magazine reports. This is just a drop in the bucket, however, of the kind of monetary investments that will be required to bring energy grids up to speed. The International Energy Agency estimates that annual investments in energy sector infrastructure and technologies will need to quadruple from current levels to reach $4 trillion by just 2030 to enable the world to reach its goal of net-zero by 2050.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

Former telenovela star looks to ignite Mexico's right in presidential bid

Brendan O'Boyle
Fri, September 29, 2023 

Salvadorian president Nayib Bukele meets with cast of Sound of Freedom movie in San Salvador

By Brendan O'Boyle

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Eduardo Verastegui, an outspoken Mexican actor and right-wing activist who calls Donald Trump "my friend," is hoping to unite his country's conservatives with a long-shot presidential bid ahead of next year's elections.

In an interview in a Mexico City hotel on Wednesday, Verastegui, 49, said he wanted to stop abortion - which is increasingly accessible in Mexico - and end child sex trafficking, the subject of a film he produced that became a breakout hit in the United States this summer.

He called doctors performing abortions assassins and said they should be imprisoned for "a minimum of 100 years."

"We're a Catholic country governed by an anti-Catholic government," he said.

Verastegui has never held elected office and has no political party, but he has gained supporters through a series of films he has produced, and acted in, centered around themes influenced by his Catholic faith.

To get on the ballot he still needs to secure signatures equivalent to 1% of voters - nearly 1 million - and across at least 17 of Mexico's 32 states by early January.

"I don't think he is going to be able to gather the signatures," said political analyst Carlos Bravo.

"I know he has a lot of money... Money helps, but you need a political infrastructure," he added.

Although Verastegui is unlikely to come close to the presidency, his emergence has caught the attention of political observers in a country where the right wing vote appears wide open for the 2024 presidential election.

The favorite, ruling party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum, hails from the left-wing MORENA party while the main opposition candidate Xochitl Galvez represents the historically center-right National Action Party (PAN) but is herself more centrist and was a Marxist in her youth.

Polls show Sheinbaum, the former mayor of Mexico City and a staunch ally of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, as the favorite to win. Verastegui's support is in the low single digits.

Bravo said Galvez "might be too progressive" to appeal to the PAN's far right wing, but he thought it unlikely Verastegui would be able to capitalize on that.

However, early polls have frequently been poor guides in recent years. Outsider candidates have often fared well, including with the sudden emergence of Trump in the U.S. in 2016 and former President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.

TRUMP TIES

Rumors have swirled for months about Verastegui's political ambitions. In 2022, Verastegui organized CPAC Mexico, a local spinoff of the conservative political conference that has boosted hard-right leaders like Trump, Bolsonaro and Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Verastegui told Reuters he looks to Orban, as well as Hungary's President Katalin Novak and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, as models among global leaders.

"The Hungary model seems very good to me: country, family, freedom," Verastegui said.

Orban, a right-wing populist and one of Europe's longest-serving leaders, has been widely criticized for hardline stances on LGBT rights and immigration and for undermining democratic institutions.

"Mexico is a country that has been raped, raped for decades," Verastegui said. International elites were trying to "destroy Mexico's culture and values so that Mexico ends up disconnected from its roots," he added.

In the interview, Verastegui also blasted "gender ideology" and repeated an unsupported claim that schools are putting out litter boxes for children who believe they are cats.

Verastegui grew his platform internationally this summer when a film he produced and acted in, Sound of Freedom, became an unexpected blockbuster.

Trump hosted a screening of the film at his New Jersey golf club, introducing Verastegui as "presidente."

Verastegui's film, which follows a U.S. government agent who rescues children from sex trafficking in Colombia, has received praise for shining a light on the problem of child trafficking.

Some critics say Sound of Freedom fuels conspiracy theories like QAnon, which claims that satan-worshiping Democrats and celebrities in the U.S. run a pedophilia ring.

Verastegui said he had heard of QAnon, but that he did not know anything about it.

Asked if he rejects the idea that Democrats are engaged in a pedophilia ring, Verastegui said "there are good people and bad people on all sides."

On security, a hot-button issue in Mexico where around 30,000 homicides are recorded a year, Verastegui offered less detail.

Asked how he would improve security, Verastegui said he would fight corruption and pay soldiers and police more, but would not be drawn further.

"If I share the strategies, then they are also seeing me and reading me, and you don't share your strategy with the enemy, telling him how you are going to defeat him."

(Reporting by Brendan O'Boyle; Editing by Stephen Eisenhammer and Michael Perry)

Perseverance spotted an immense 2 kilometre-high dust devil on Mars

Scott Sutherland
Fri, September 29, 2023 

Perseverance spotted an immense 2 kilometre-high dust devil on Mars

As NASA's Perseverance rover approached its 900th day on Mars, its cameras recorded something extra special: an immense dust devil, whirling across the landscape just a few kilometres away.

Perseverance has been exploring Jezero Crater since February of 2021, and has snapped well over 500,000 images of the local terrain so far.

On August 30, 2023, a sequence of pictures taken by the rover's front navigation cameras captured something remarkable.

Roughly 4 kilometres away, along a formation nicknamed Thorofare Ridge, a dust devil whirled through its field of view.


A large dust devil moves along an elevated ridge near the Perseverance rover. A red arrow points to the phenomenon, which may be challenging to spot in the black and white image from the rover's navigation camera. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Scott Sutherland


According to the mission team, based on its distance, they estimated the Martian twister was around 60 metres wide. Only the lowest 118 metres of the funnel is visible in the rover's images, they said.

"We don't see the top of the dust devil, but the shadow it throws gives us a good indication of its height," Mark Lemmon, a planetary scientist at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, and a member of the Perseverance science team, said in a NASA press release. "Most are vertical columns. If this dust devil were configured that way, its shadow would indicate it is about 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) in height."

Dust devils on Mars form in the same way they do here on Earth.

Intense heating of the surface by sunlight results in parcels of warm air rising very quickly through much cooler air. Air rushing in from the sides to replace that rising air causes the column of air to rotate. The size of the dust devil depends on how much warmer that rising air is than the cooler air above it, and how quickly that rising air cools to the temperature of the air surrounding it.

Here on Earth, dust devils can reach up to a few hundred metres in height.

Due to Mars' extremely thin atmosphere, temperatures drop off very quickly the farther you are from the ground. While air near the ground can reach over 20°C, the air just a metre or two above that can be freezing cold. In that kind of environment, dust devils form very quickly, and can climb to extreme heights.

This one was estimated at 2 kilometres tall. The tallest can apparently reach heights of up to 20 kilometres above the ground.


This gigantic Martian dust devil was spotted by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on March 14, 2012. It was estimated at 140 metres wide and reached a height of 20 kilometres. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

Despite the extreme size of Martian dust devils, they could be thought of as 'gentle giants' because Mars has only 1 per cent of the atmosphere that Earth has. So, even if the largest dust devil on Mars passed over you, the winds swirling around it would have so little force behind them that you'd barely feel it.

What's even more remarkable about this is that Perseverance's cameras captured the dust devil purely by coincidence.

NASA says that while dust devils are most common during spring and summer on Mars, and it's currently summer where Perseverance and Curiosity are located, there is no way to accurately predict when dust devils will appear at any particular location.

The Curiosity rover caught this dust devil passing across the base of Mount Sharp, in Gale Crater, on August 9, 2020. The top image shows the raw view, in which the twister is barely visible. The bottom panel shows the enhanced view, which makes the dust devil far easier to see. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI

So, to capture them, the mission teams have to rely on luck. They command Perseverance and Curiosity to take multiple images with their navigation cameras around midday, with the hopes that at least one of these remarkable atmospheric vortices will pass through their field of view at just the right time.
WATCH BELOW: Mars dust devil footage from Curiosity Rover released by NASA

Click here to view the video

Trump is attacking electric vehicles. Automakers already bet their future on them

Nathaniel Meyersohn, CNN
Fri, September 29, 2023 


The auto industry has announced more than $100 billion in electric car investments, creating more than 100,000 American jobs. A second Donald Trump presidency could derail the push.

Despite Former President Donald Trump’s claims at a Detroit rally Wednesday that EVs are “too expensive” and “don’t go far enough,” consumers are increasingly demanding EVs because of falling costs, a wider variety of vehicle availability, and a flood of government and manufacturing investments.

But EV adoption has been slow – just 7.2% of the market last quarter, up from 5.7% the same time a year prior, according to Cox Automotive. Organic demand alone probably isn’t enough to justify automakers’ massive investments in EV technology.

That’s why automakers are counting on Biden administration incentives to give consumer demand an artificial boost. Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency is pushing for EVs to account for up to two-thirds of new cars sold in the US by 2032 through a combination of tax incentive carrots and miles-per-gallon-floor sticks.

Without these carrots and sticks, which Trump wants to reverse, US automakers’ plans will likely blow up.

“The possibility of a sudden shift [of policy] would be pretty shocking for the industry to absorb,” said Barry Rabe, a professor of public policy and environmental policy at the University of Michigan. “I can’t imagine the industry is going to want to be jerked back and forth every four or eight years.”

And while Trump may denounce EVs, many lawmakers in his party are capitalizing on these investments and welcoming the transition. More than half of new clean energy projects announced since passage of the IRA have been located in GOP-led districts.

Georgia has seen the most EV jobs announced and is home to major factories from established manufacturers like Hyundai and Kia to EV upstarts like Rivian. The state’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp has pledged to make Georgia the “electric mobility capital” of the country.

Automakers’ future

Automakers have announced more than $120 billion in EV investments and 143,000 new US jobs in the last eight years, with more than 40% of those investments happening since the passage of the IRA, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.

Battery plants from US and foreign automakers like Nissan and Mercedes-Benz are being built in states like Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama.

Legacy automakers are pivoting to electric vehicles in response to expected strong consumer demand, tougher environmental regulations both from US states and foreign countries, and a push from Wall Street.

An electric vehicle is plugged into a charger in Los Angeles in August 2022. - Jae C. Hong/AP

Investors have made Tesla by far the most valuable automaker on the planet, despite having only a fraction of other major automakers’ sales, and other automakers are jealously eyeing its stock market growth.

Electric vehicles have outpaced growth of traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) cars in recent years. More than 50% of shoppers were interested in buying an EV, according to a Cox survey this summer. Fifty-three perecent of consumers said that EVs will eventually replace ICE-powered vehicles.

As a result of consumer demand and regulations, General Motors has set a goal of phasing out the sale of all internal combustion vehicles by 2035, and Ford has said it hopes EVs make up almost half of its sales by 2030. GM even changed its logo to look like an electrical plug.

“For a major manufacturer to bet that the future of transportation is ICE-powered vehicles seems like a tougher and tougher case to make,” said Rabe.

Biden’s EV strategy

The Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act included billions of dollars in government loans to the automakers to fund their plans to build EV battery plants. Consumers can get up to $7,500 back in tax credits on US-made EVs.

The administration’s separate infrastructure bill provides $7.5 billion to fund a network of charging stations to power EVs.

These incentives are designed to lower the cost of buying and manufacturing EVs in the United States.

An electric vehicle charging station at Alton Shopping Center parking lot, in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, in February. - Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Legacy US automakers are behind Tesla and Chinese manufacturers in the EV race, and they need those subsidies to remain competitive, experts say.

“We find ourselves behind in battery technology. If we want to maintain competitiveness in the industry, we have to invest to make gains and catch up,” said Jon McNeill, the co-founder of DVx Ventures and former president at Tesla. McNeill is on the Board of General Motors. “If we let up on the accelerator, we may cede the industry. That’s not good for any American,” McNeill said.

Trump’s plan to roll back EVs

Trump clashed with automakers during his tenure in the White House.

While in office, Trump upended the auto industry by proposing to replace Obama-era fuel standards with a plan that called for substantially lower annual increases.

Trump also relaxed air pollution and mileage regulations. But automakers bucked Trump and agreed to meet tougher standards set by California rather than the Trump administration’s rules.

Now, Trump wants the EV push halted.

At a Detroit battery plant Wednesday, Trump said America didn’t need what the factory produced.

“This plant, we just walked through this plant and the electric vehicles are gonna put [automakers] out of business,” Trump said. “They don’t need any of this. The things that you make in Michigan, they don’t need any of it.”

Writing on Truth Social this past weekend, Trump said electric vehicles are a “hoax” and “all of these cars are going to be made in China.” Trump claims the EV pivot will destroy the US auto industry and kill jobs.

Some autoworkers have expressed concerns about the EV transition. Trump spoke to non-union workers in Michigan on Wednesday and played up those fears.

Trump has pledged to reverse the Environmental Protection Agency’s ambitious new car pollution rules that could require electric vehicles to account for up to two-thirds of new cars sold in the US by 2032. And a Trump presidency could also make it more difficult for consumers to take advantage of the $7,500 tax credit for EVs contained in the Inflation Reduction Act and turn off billions of dollars in grants and loan guarantees the Biden administration has given to companies to boost EV technology.

Trump’s proposals could undermine US companies’ EV investments and hand over control of an increasingly EV future to foreign manufacturers.

Anger in UK

Developments in the UK offer a preview to how US automakers may oppose any efforts by Trump to slow the transition to EVs.

The UK government said last week it would delay a ban on the sale of new gas and diesel cars by five years, from 2030 to 2035, angering automakers who warned the move would undermine the industry’s efforts to switch to electric vehicles.

“We are going to ease the transition to electric vehicles,” said UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

But automakers said the delay would cause confusion.

“Our business needs three things from the UK government: ambition, commitment, and consistency. A relaxation of 2030 would undermine all three,” Ford UK chair Lisa Brankin said in a statement.

Stellantis, which owns the Fiat, Peugeot and Citroën brands, echoed the call for clarity and said it was committed to achieving 100% zero emission new car and van sales in the UK by the end of the decade.

CNN’s Hanna Ziady contributed to this article.

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Is climate change bad for democracy? Future-watchers see threats, and some opportunities

DEREK GATOPOULOS
Fri, September 29, 2023 




APTOPIX Greece Floods

Georgia Sirtarioti, 76, stands at the doorstep of her flooded home in the storm-hit city of Volos, Greece, where power and water outages remained in some districts, Friday, Sept. 29, 2023. Bad weather has eased in central Greece leaving widespread flooding and infrastructure damage across the farming region that has been battered by two powerful storms in less than a month. 

(AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Instability driven by climate change could threaten democracies in the future, even though representative governments are best equipped to provide solutions, experts gathered at an annual conference have argued.

The Athens Democracy Forum, an event backed by the United Nations, wrapped up in the Greek capital Friday with attention focused on the impact that rising temperatures and extreme weather could have on democratic stability.

Princeton University climate scientist Michael Oppenheimer warned that authorities globally are responding too slowly to damage caused by weather disasters despite a rise in their frequency.

“As time goes on and on, the interval for recovery is shrinking,” said Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs and director at the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment at Princeton.


“We’re in a situation where the services that governments provide – and one of the key services is protection of life and limb – are not happening the way they should. And to my mind, this is just another pressure that’s going to happen on democracy,” he said.

The three-day Athens event gathered leading academics as well as politicians and community project managers and took place as national authorities have struggled to cope with widespread flooding in central Greece, weeks after the country suffered its worst wildfire on record.

Rising global temperatures and an acceleration of migration in parts of the world have sustained concerns that governments in the upcoming decades could turn more autocratic to retain control of increasingly scarce resources and deal with civil unrest.

In the long term, that would be a bad idea, argued Ann Florini, a fellow at the New America Political Reform Program, part of a U.S.-based think tank.

“Autocracy is the worst possible response to the climate emergency, because what you need is a lot of local empowerment,” Florini said.

“They may be very good at building a big solar power industry … but the idea that an autocracy is going to have the information systems and the flexibility and the resilience to deal with the climate emergency for the next several generations to me is self-evidently ludicrous.”

Only open societies, she insisted, could foster the systemic transformations in energy, agriculture, and water systems required due to their far-reaching ecological impact.

Daniel Lindvall, a senior researcher with the Department of Earth Sciences at Sweden’s Uppsala University, said democratic governments needed to share the benefits of renewable energy with people at a local level.

“If you build a wind farm and part of the benefits and profits are going back to the local communities, then you will have people supporting it instead of protesting against" it, he said.

“All the benefits of energy independence would then sap the power from autocratic regimes like Putin’s (Russia) and Saudi Arabia.”

The Athens Democracy Forum, is organized by the New York Times newspaper, the Kofi Annan Foundation, the City of Athens, and the United Nations Democracy Fund. ____ Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

Why finding alien life in Universe is now 'only a matter of time'

Pallab Ghosh - Science correspondent
Fri, September 29, 2023

Europa, one of Jupiter's icy moons is the most likely place in our solar system to be home to alien life


Many astronomers are no longer asking whether there is life elsewhere in the Universe.

The question on their minds is instead: when will we find it?

Many are optimistic of detecting life signs on a faraway world within our lifetimes - possibly in the next few years.

And one scientist, leading a mission to Jupiter, goes as far as saying it would be "surprising" if there was no life on one of the planet's icy moons.

Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently detected tantalising hints at life on a planet outside our Solar System - and it has many more worlds in its sights.

Numerous missions that are either underway or about to begin mark a new space race for the biggest scientific discovery of all time.


"We live in an infinite Universe, with infinite stars and planets. And it's been obvious to many of us that we can't be the only intelligent life out there," says Prof Catherine Heymans, Scotland's Astronomer Royal.

"We now have the technology and the capability to answer the question of whether we are alone in the cosmos."
The 'Goldilocks zone'

Telescopes can now analyse the atmospheres of planets orbiting distant stars for signs of chemicals that, on Earth at least, can be produced only by living organisms.

The first flicker of such a discovery occurred earlier this month with the possible sign of a gas that is produced by simple marine organisms on Earth in the atmosphere of a planet named K2-18b, which is 120 light years away.

Artwork: K2-18 b orbits a cool dwarf star shown in red just far enough away for its temperature to support life.

The planet is in what astronomers call ''the Goldilocks zone' - the right distance away from its star for the surface temperature to be neither too hot, nor too cold, but just right for there to be liquid water, which is essential to support life.

The team expects to know in a year's time whether the tantalising hints they have obtained are confirmed or have gone away.

Prof Nikku Madhusudhan, of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge University, who led the study, told me that if the hints are confirmed "it would radically change the way we think about the search for life".

"If we find signs of life on the very first planet we study, it will raise the possibility that life is common in the Universe."

Even if they don't find life signs on K2-18b, the team has 10 more Goldilocks planets on their list to study and possibly many more after that.

Prof Madhusudhan predicts that within five years there will be what he describes as "a major transformation" in our understanding of planetary habitability and life in the Universe.

"By then we will have had the chance to study half a dozen planets like K2-18b or ones that are slightly hotter.

"It is possible that we are close to having the first detection. On the other hand, having no detection on any of them would also provide important insights into the possibility of life on such planets."

But as powerful as JWST is, it has its limits. Earth's size and proximity to the Sun enable it to support life. But JWST wouldn't be able to detect faraway planets as small as Earth (K2-18b is eight times bigger) or as close to their parent stars, because of the glare.

So, Nasa is planning the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO), scheduled for the 2030s. Using what is effectively a high-tech sunshield, it minimises light from the star which the planet orbits. That means it will be able to spot and sample the atmospheres of planets similar to our own.

Artwork: The Habitable Worlds Observatory places a sunshield in front of the star to see the planets around it more clearly

Also coming online later this decade is the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which will be on the ground, looking up at the crystal-clear skies of the Chilean desert. It has the largest mirror of any instrument built, 39-metres in diameter, and so can see vastly more detail at planetary atmospheres than its predecessors.

All three of these atmosphere-analysing telescopes make use of a technique, used by chemists for hundreds of years, to discern the chemicals inside materials from the light they give off.

But JWST, HWO are so incredibly powerful that they can do this from the tiny pin prick of light from the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a star, hundreds of light years away.


Close to home

While some look to distant planets, others are restricting their search to our own backyard, to the planets of our own Solar System.

The most likely home for life is one of the icy moons of Jupiter, Europa. It is a beautiful world with cracks on its surface that look like tiger stripes. Europa has an ocean below its icy surface, from which plumes of water vapour spew out into space.

Europa's tiger stripes are caused by cracks on its icy surface

Nasa's Clipper and the European Space Agency (ESA)'s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) missions will both arrive there in the early 2030s.

When I asked Prof Michelle Dougherty, who is the lead scientist of the European mission, if she thought there was a chance of finding life she replied: "It would be surprising if there wasn't life on one of the icy moons of Jupiter."

Nasa is also sending a spacecraft called Dragonfly to land on one of the moons of Saturn, Titan. It is an exotic world with lakes and clouds made from carbon-rich chemicals which give the planet an eerie orange haze. Along with water these chemicals are thought to be a necessary ingredient for life.

Mars is currently too inhospitable for living organisms, but astrobiologists believe that the planet was once lush, with a thick atmosphere and oceans and able to support life.

Nasa's Perseverance rover is currently collecting samples from a crater thought once to have been an ancient river delta. A separate mission in the 2030s will bring those rocks to Earth to analyse them for potential microfossils of simple life forms that are now long gone.

These are just some of the many missions that are under way or planned for the coming years searching for signs of life on the planets in our Solar System - others looking much further, into deep space.


Intelligent life

Could aliens out there somewhere be trying to reach us?

Some scientists consider this the realm of science fiction and a long shot, but the search for radio signals from alien worlds has gone on for decades, not least by the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (Seti) institute.

All of space is a large place to look, so their searches have been random to date.

But the ability of telescopes, such as JWST, to identify the most likely places for alien civilisations to exist means that Seti can focus its search. And that has injected fresh impetus, according to Dr Nathalie Cabrol, director of Seti's Carl Sagan Center for the study of life in the Universe.

Seti's Allen array of radio telescopes.

The institute has modernised its telescope array and is now using instruments to look for communications from powerful laser pulses from distant planets.

As a highly qualified astrobiologist, Dr Cabrol understands why some scientists are sceptical of Seti's search for a signal.

But chemical signatures from faraway atmospheres, interesting readings from moon flybys and even microfossils from Mars are all open to interpretation, Dr Cabrol argues.

Looking for a signal "might seem the most far-fetched of all the various approaches to find signs of life. But it would also be the most unambiguous and it could happen at any time".

"Imagine we have a signal that we can actually understand," says Dr Cabrol.

Thirty years ago, we had no evidence of planets orbiting other stars. Now more than 5,000 have been discovered, which astronomers and astrobiologists can study in unprecedented detail.

All the elements are in place for a discovery that will be more than just an incredible scientific breakthrough, according to Dr Subhajit Sarker of Cardiff University, who is a member of the team studying K2-18b.

"If we find signs of life, it will be a revolution in science and it is also going to be a massive change in the way humanity looks at itself and its place in the Universe."

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NASA Wants Ideas for How to Destroy the International Space Station

Cassidy Ward

Fri, September 29, 2023 


The ill-fated crew of SFYY's The Ark (streaming now on Peacock) have plenty of problems to deal with in the nearly empty space between here and Proxima centauri. But taking a one-way trip to another star relieves them of at least one common space travel concern: They don’t have to worry about protecting the Earth from their ship.

Here in the real world, most of our spacecraft stick around in Earth orbit to do their jobs. Even the ones that leave for more distant locales usually ditch a booster or two nearby, adding to the growing space junk problem. For a spacecraft like the International Space Station, we have to have an end of life plan to get it out of the sky safely when we’re done with it.

NASA Wants to Know Your Plan to Destroy the International Space Station

The International Space Station (ISS) has been in continuous operation in low-Earth orbit for more than two decades. During that time, crewmembers have carried out countless experiments and delivered a unique view of the world back to those of us on the surface. That mission has been the responsibility of five space agencies — CSA, ESA, JAXA, Roscosmos, and NASA — and more than a dozen contributing nations.

Credit: NASA via Getty Images

At present, Roscosmos has committed to continued use and maintenance of the station through 2028 while the other four agencies will remain through 2030. After that, unless there’s another extension, everyone will come home, and the station’s life will end. Of course, we can’t just leave the largest spacecraft we’ve ever built unattended and uncontrolled. Instead, all five agencies share responsibility for bringing the ISS down in a controlled and safe way. No easy task.

Previous plans relied on Russian Progress vehicles to reduce the station’s orbit and push it into the atmosphere. Now, NASA is looking for a bespoke craft to do the job more efficiently. To that end, NASA has released their final Request for Proposals (RFP) for a novel deorbit vehicle to aid in the destruction of the International Space Station.

Interested parties must submit proposals by November 17. A virtual pre-proposal conference is planned for October 3 at 12:00 p.m. Central.

If you’ve ever wanted to destroy an orbiting science laboratory, this is probably your best chance. Who knows when we’ll have another station that needs vaporizing.