Talking Heads reunite for 'Stop Making Sense' re-release at TIFF

 Lynn Mabry and David Byrne perform in "Stop Making Sense." Photo courtesy of A24

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Looking back at the 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense brought some harmony to the members of Talking Heads, who have been estranged since their 1991 breakup.

Reuniting for a Toronto International Film Festival Q&A on Monday, band members David Byrne, 71, Jerry Harrison, 74, Chris Frantz, 72, and Tina Weymouth, 72, recalled how director Jonathan Demme captured their onstage chemistry and gave them confidence in their art.

"The lasting power of the film is you see that we are having so much fun onstage," keyboardist and guitarist Harrison said in the session that was simulcast to IMAX theaters around the world after a screening. "Every time I watch this, it brings back that wonderful emotion."

A24 is re-releasing the film, restored for IMAX, Sept. 29 ahead of the anniversary of the performances captured in December 1983 at the Pantages Theater in Hollywood.

"He made us feel like what we were doing was very worthwhile," drummer Frantz said at the discussion moderated by director Spike Lee. "It was something that was worthy of making a motion picture and also worthy of being remembered into the future."

Frantz acknowledged feeling self-conscious watching himself vocalize during the performance of "Genius of Love."

"I wish I kept my mouth shut a little bit more," Frantz said.

When Byrne went solo in the '90s, the other three bandmates still played together. The last time the four appeared publicly together was their 1992 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, for which they performed three songs.

Looking back on Stop Making Sense, Byrne said Demme changed the way he saw the Talking Heads. In 1983, the lineup also included Bernie Worrell on keyboards, Steven Scales on drums, Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt singing backup and Alex Weir on guitar and vocals.

"I realized that he was looking at it as an ensemble film," Byrne said. "He lets you get to know them, lets you get familiar with them and then you watch how they all interact with one another. I'm in my own world but he saw that. He saw what was going on there."

Byrne said he was moved by the way Demme captured the interaction between bandmates.

"There's all these moments he caught where one of us looks at the other, looks over at Bernie or Bernie looks at us," Byrne said. "Those little quick interactions, I thought that stuff is amazing."

For her part, Weymouth said she took her bandmates into consideration when modulating her bass.

"My big contribution was I never turned my amp up past 3," Weymouth said. "That left room for everybody else to shine because if the bass player gets too loud, forget about it."

The band shares the "film by" credit with Demme. Byrne remembered visiting Demme and editor Lisa Day, not to give specific notes but to remind the filmmakers of particular moments.

"Alex is doing this incredible thing right at this moment," Byrne recalled saying to them. "Do you have that? Is that on one of the cameras? We knew the show backwards and forwards."

The innovative show begins with Byrne performing "Psycho Killer" solo as stagehands set up behind him. Each band member joins the stage one song at a time.

Byrne recalled persuading the behind-the-scenes crew to take center stage.

"It took a while for the crew, the grips and everybody to get used to being onstage and being visible," Byrne said. "We were saying, 'No no no, it's fine. Just move with purpose and with intention and it'll be fine.'" 

'Up Close' documentarian Bertie Gregory: Animals don't read scripts

The six-part Nat Geo wildlife series premieres Wednesday on Disney+.

NEW YORK, Sept. 12 (UPI) -- Filmmaker and presenter Bertie Gregory said he had a plan at the start of his new National Geographic docuseries, Animals Up Close with Bertie Gregory, but his non-human co-stars didn't always cooperate.

Premiering Wednesday on Disney+, the six-part series shows Gregory following individual animals and capturing their daily lives for weeks at a time in Antarctica, the Galapagos Islands, Botswana, Patagonia, Indonesia and the Central African Republic.

"The lovely thing about the natural world is that animals don't read scripts," Gregory told UPI in a Zoom interview Monday.

"We document the incredible lives of these animals, alongside our struggles to keep up with them. Because that's a pretty open format, it means that we can really roll with whatever happens," he said.

Up Close builds on what the filmmaker learned making the 2022 series Epic Adventures with Bertie Gregory, which also documented animal behavior in remote locations.

"The most powerful and engaging wildlife stories were when -- rather than focusing on an entire species-- we focused on an individual animal family, and that's what's really cool about Animals Up Close. We are following not just one [type of] animal, but an individual animal," he said.

Of course, tracking specific animals that don't generally like people presented challenges.

"It means if you lose your puma or your killer whale family, you can't just find another one," he said. "That was the only puma we were interested in filming."

The team had to re-find the Patagonian big cat every day for nearly two months because they didn't follow her at night.

"Some days, the family would only move a couple of miles and hang out for most of the day, lounge around in the sun," Gregory said.

"Some days, she would leave the cubs and walk 15-plus miles up and down the mountains in a gale and we just had to keep up with her, with all our camera equipment."

MUTUAL AID

One of the highlights of Up Close shows Gregory and his team capturing footage of two humpback whales in Antarctica trying to intervene as endangered B1 killer whales hunted a seal, offering rare evidence of one marine animal trying to protect another species from a predator.

"That was certainly the most incredible demonstration of animal intelligence I've ever seen," Gregory said.

"People always want to know just how smart animals are. That, to me, was just spine-tingling to watch. To see such levels of team work and cooperation and, I think, creativity, was really amazing."

Advances in technology in recent years have made Gregory's job easier, resulting in extraordinarily beautiful footage he can share to educate and entertain TV audiences.

"Drones are probably the biggest game changer in wildlife films in the last five years," Gregory said. "They allow us to tell animal behavior stories like never before."

Gregory and his team also used military-grade re-breathers to help them track hard-to-find underwater subjects in the Devil Ray Islands.

"Traditional scuba-diving equipment is very noisy. You make a lot of bubbles and you are very limited by the amount of time you can spend underwater," Gregory said.

The re-breathers recycled the divers' air and produced no bubbles.

"That means you can be much quieter and get much closer to elusive animals and, critically, they allow you to stay down for much longer," Gregory said.

"We could do single dives that were more than three hours in length. Rather than being a temporary visitor to the underwater world, you become part of the environment, which is really important for wildlife stories."



Gregory wants viewers of the program to come away with an appreciation for the natural world and a better understanding of the threats it faces.

"There's enough doom and gloom in the news cycle and one thing I'm really proud of with the series is that we celebrate the conservation success stories in each episode," he said.

"There are some amazing people that really do give me hope, turning around our relationship with the natural world and I'm really excited that, as we shine a spotlight on the animals, we get to shine a light on them, as well."

COMMODITY FETISH

Sotheby's auction collection includes Pablo Picasso painting of artist's muse

A viewer observers Femme a la montre, 1932 oil on canvas by Pablo Picasso, which is on display as part of the Emily Fisher Landau Collection at Sotheby's in New York on Wednesday. 

Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo


Sept. 13 (UPI) -- A painting by the influential cubist artist Pablo Picasso with an estimated value of $120 million will lead the Sotheby's auction of the landmark collection of Emily Fisher Landau in November.

Picasso painted Femme à la montre in 1932, soon after the end of the secrecy around his affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter, his "golden muse" depicted in the work.

"He was able to give full painterly voice to his love for her," Sotheby's said of the work.

Picasso first met Walter outside the Galeries Lafayette in Paris in 1927 when the painter was still married to the Ukrainian dancer Olga Khokhlova. She was 17 at the time.

"As time passed, Picasso found it ever harder to exclude his lover's features from his art," the auction house said in the news release.

In its release, Sotheby's claimed that no other Picasso painting from 1932 of "remotely significant importance" has gone up for auction since 2010.

"Its date, scale, subject, vibrancy and provenance are all exceptional, and perfectly aligned. But in addition to this, it has another important distinguishing feature: the watch that the artist has so conspicuously placed on Marie-Thérèse's wrist," Sotheby's said.

"Among the many paintings Picasso created in his long and varied career, only three major works, including this, are known to feature a watch, yet watches were objects of immense significance to him, in various ways."

Emily Fisher Landau, a famed collector who was a member of the board of the Whitney Museum of American Art for three decades, bought the prized work in 1968 at the start of her collecting career -- which began when she used a Lloyd's insurance settlement from a jewel heist in her apartment to begin purchasing art.

She has been known to loan the Picasso painting out for exhibitions, allowing it to be seen by the public and her extensive collection -- with 1,200 works -- were displayed at her own private museum called the Fisher Landau Center for Art from 1991 to 2017.

Fisher Landau died in March at her home in Palm Beach, Fla., at the age of 102. Before her death, she pledged almost 400 of the works to the Whitney Museum.

The "historic" auction, scheduled for Nov. 8-9 in New York, will include about 120 works from her collection, which are believed to be collectively worth more than $400 million.

Other paintings featured in the sale include Ed Ruscha's Securing the Last Letter (Boss) painted in 1964 and an untitled work by color field painter Mark Rothko, the estimated values of which were not outright provided by Sotheby's in the news release.

The sale also includes painting of two American flags by Jasper Johns estimated to be worth up to $45 million, a self-portrait by the pop artist Andy Warhol worth up to $20 million, and a painting by Willem de Kooning estimated to be worth up to $8 million.

THE FUNCTION OF THE CAPITALI$T STATE
Top tech CEOs call for AI regulation in closed-door Senate meeting

IS TO REGULATE COMPETITION

Owner of X and CEO of Tesla Elon Musk calls artificial intelligence a "civilizational risk," as he speaks to the press Wednesday following a Senate AI Insight Forum at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 13 (UPI) -- The top names in tech, including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, warned senators in a first-ever closed-door summit on artificial intelligence about the evolving technology's "civilizational risk," as they called for AI regulation.

"The consequences of AI going wrong are severe so we have to be proactive rather than reactive," Musk told reporters in Washington, D.C., as he got into a Tesla after the meeting.

"The question is really one of civilizational risk. It's not like ... one group of humans versus another. It's like, hey, this is something that's potentially risky for all humans everywhere," the chief executive officer of Tesla, Space X and social media platform X added.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., hosted the private AI Insight Forum in the grand Kennedy Caucus Room on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, as lawmakers sought advice from 22 AI tech giants, human rights and labor leaders about how government should regulate the new technology.

In addition to Musk, Meta CEO Zuckerberg and Microsoft co-founder Gates, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Google CEO Sundar Pichahi attended, as well as leaders from human rights, labor and entertainment groups.

According to Schumer, every leader in the meeting raised their hand when asked if government should regulate AI.

"We got some consensus on some things ... I asked everyone in the room, does government need to play a role in regulating AI and every single person raised their hand, even though they had diverse views," Schumer told reporters. "So that gives us a message here that we have to try to act, as difficult as the process might be."

"I agree that Congress should engage with AI to support innovation and safeguards," Zuckerberg said in prepared remarks. "This is an emerging technology, there are important equities to balance here, and the government is ultimately responsible for that."

"I think people all agreed that this is something that we need the government's leadership on," Altman told reporters during a break. "Some disagreement about how it should happen, but unanimity this is important and urgent."

While Wednesday's meeting was open to all 100 senators, about two dozen lawmakers -- mostly Democrat -- attended. The forum was blasted by some members of both parties who questioned why it was closed to the public and the news media.

"They're sitting at a big round table all by themselves. All of the senators are to sit there and ask no questions," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said.

"The people of Massachusetts did not send me here not to ask questions," Warren added. "There's no interaction, no bumping each against each other on any of these issues."

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who is drafting bi-partisan AI legislation, did not attend the closed-door meeting.

"I don't know why we would invite all the biggest monopolists in the world to come and give Congress tips on how to help them make more money and then close it to the public," Hawley said. "That's a terrible idea."

Three public hearings on AI have previously been held in Washington, D.C.

In June, Sens. Ed Markey and Gary Peters urged the U.S. Government Accountability Office in a letter to assess the potential harms of AI and how to mitigate them. The letter argued that generative AI's ability to mimic voice, music, text and product design could exploit communities and harm society, if unchecked.

Hundreds of AI researchers and tech executives have signed a number of statements and letters over the past year warning about the potential dangers of AI and calling for better regulation.

"Tackling AI is a unique, once-in-a-kind undertaking," Schumer said Wednesday. "Because today, we begin an enormous and complex and vital undertaking: building a foundation for bipartisan AI policy that Congress can pass."

As Musk left the meeting, he was asked by reporters if AI will destroy mankind.

"There is some chance that is above zero that AI will kill us all. I think it's low. But if there's some chance, I think we should also consider the fragility of human civilization."

Federal judge again declares that DACA is illegal with issue likely to be decided by Supreme Court


 People rally outside the Supreme Court over President Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA), at the Supreme Court in Washington, Nov. 12, 2019. A federal judge on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, declared illegal a revised version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

 Susana Lujano, left, a dreamer from Mexico who lives in Houston, joins other activists to rally in support of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, June 15, 2022. A federal judge on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, declared illegal a revised version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students gather in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, June 18, 2020. A federal judge on Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023, declared illegal a revised version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. 

AP Photos/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File

BY JUAN A. LOZANO
 September 13, 2023

HOUSTON (AP) — While a federal judge on Wednesday declared illegal a revised version of a federal policy that prevents the deportation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, he declined to order an immediate end to the program and the protections it offers to recipients.

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen agreed with Texas and eight other states suing to stop the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. The judge’s ruling was ultimately expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, sending the program’s fate before the high court for a third time.

“While sympathetic to the predicament of DACA recipients and their families, this Court has expressed its concerns about the legality of the program for some time,” Hanen wrote in his 40-page ruling. “The solution for these deficiencies lies with the legislature, not the executive or judicial branches. Congress, for any number of reasons, has decided not to pass DACA-like legislation ... The Executive Branch cannot usurp the power bestowed on Congress by the Constitution — even to fill a void.”

Hanen’s order extended the current injunction that had been in place against DACA, which barred the government from approving any new applications, but left the program intact for existing recipients during the ongoing legal review.

Hanen also declined a request by the states to order the program’s end within two years. Hanen said his order does not require the federal government to take any actions against DACA recipients, who are known as “Dreamers.”

Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, which is representing DACA recipients in the lawsuit, said it will ultimately be up to higher courts, including the Supreme Court, to rule on DACA’s legality and whether Texas proved it had been harmed by the program.

“Judge Hanen has consistently erred in resolving both of these issues, and today’s ruling is more of the same flawed analysis. We look forward to continuing to defend the lawful and much-needed DACA program on review in higher courts,” Saenz said.

The Biden administration criticized the judge’s ruling.

“We are deeply disappointed in today’s DACA ruling from the District Court in Southern Texas,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement Wednesday night. “... As we have long maintained, we disagree with the District Court’s conclusion that DACA is unlawful, and will continue to defend this critical policy from legal challenges. While we do so, consistent with the court’s order, DHS will continue to process renewals for current DACA recipients and DHS (the Department of Homeland Security) may continue to accept DACA applications.”

The Texas Attorney General’s Office, which represented the states in the lawsuit, and the U.S. Department of Justice, which represented the federal government, didn’t immediately return emails or calls seeking comment.

The states have argued the Obama administration didn’t have the authority to first create the program in 2012 because it circumvented Congress.

In 2021, Hanen had declared the program illegal, ruling it had not been subject to public notice and comment periods required under the federal Administrative Procedures Act.

The Biden administration tried to satisfy Hanen’s concerns with a new version of DACA that took effect in October 2022 and was subject to public comments as part of a formal rule-making process.

But Hanen, who was appointed by then-President George W. Bush in 2002, ruled the updated version of DACA was still illegal as the Biden administration’s new version was essentially the same as the old version, started under the Obama administration. Hanen had previously said DACA was unconstitutional.

Hanen also had previously ruled the states had standing to file their lawsuit because they had been harmed by the program.

The states have claimed they incur hundreds of millions of dollars in health care, education and other costs when immigrants are allowed to remain in the country illegally. The states that sued are Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi.

Those defending the program — the federal government, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the state of New Jersey — had argued the states failed to present evidence that any of the costs they allege they have incurred have been tied to DACA recipients. They also argued Congress has given the Department of Homeland Security the legal authority to set immigration enforcement policies.

There were 578,680 people enrolled in DACA at the end of March, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The program has faced a roller coaster of court challenges over the years.

In 2016, the Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 over an expanded DACA and a version of the program for parents of DACA recipients. In 2020, the high court ruled 5-4 that the Trump administration improperly ended DACA, allowing it to stay in place.

In 2022, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld Hanen’s earlier ruling declaring DACA illegal, but sent the case back to him to review changes made to the program by the Biden administration.

President Joe Biden and advocacy groups have called on Congress to pass permanent protections for “ dreamers.” Congress has failed multiple times to pass proposals called the DREAM Act to protect DACA recipients.

“We continue to urge Congress and President Biden to create permanent solutions for all immigrants to ensure none are left in the perilous road DACA has been on for the past decade,” Veronica Garcia, an attorney with the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, an advocacy organization, said in a statement.
___

Follow Juan A. Lozano on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

Supporters of effort to repeal ranked voting in Alaska violated rules, report finds

BY BECKY BOHRER
 September 13, 2023

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Backers of an effort to repeal ranked voting in Alaska violated state campaign finance rules, including by channeling money through a church-affiliated organization in a way that initially concealed the source of the contributions, a new report alleges.

The report, from the staff for the Alaska Public Offices Commission, recommends penalties of $22,500 for Art Mathias, a leader of the repeal effort, and around $20,000 for the church-affiliated Ranked Choice Education Association among its findings. The report alleges that Mathias, also president of the association, contributed money to the association knowing it “would be repurposed to support” the ballot group behind the repeal effort and that he gave $90,000 using the association as a “third party conduit.”

Those contributing at least $500 to an initiative application group must report that no later than 30 days after making the contribution. Mathias contributed $90,000 in late December, and in a June filing the association reported Mathias as the source of its contributions to the ballot group, the report states.

The report still must be considered by the commission, which is charged with enforcing campaign finance rules in the state.

Kevin Clarkson, an attorney for Mathias, the association and others that were the focus of a complaint filed this summer, said by email Wednesday that many of the report’s conclusions were faulty and that he intended to file a response with the commission.

“The staff has made it impossible for a non-profit to make contributions to a ballot group without subjecting their donors to charges of donating in the name of another,” he said.

Clarkson in an earlier response to the complaint said the association was “entitled” to donate to the ballot group and that the association and Mathias “made no effort to hide” Mathias’ contributions.

The complaint was filed by Alaskans for Better Elections, the group that successfully pushed a 2020 ballot measure that replaced party primaries with open primaries and instituted ranked-choice general elections. The first elections conducted in Alaska under the new system were held last year.

One of the attorneys behind the complaint, Scott Kendall, was an author of the 2020 ranked choice initiative.

The complaint alleged that the Ranked Choice Education Association appeared to have been created as a “passthrough entity, allowing donors to unlawfully conceal their identities behind the RCEA’s name while also potentially providing those donors with an unwarranted tax deduction.”

The public offices commission staff report said it did not weigh allegations around potential tax deductions because that is an issue beyond the agency’s jurisdiction.

Clarkson said allegations around “‘unlawful’ tax deductions are both uninformed and unknowledgeable. In any event, the only government agency with jurisdiction to adjudicate tax-exempt status and the lawfulness of federal income tax deductions that may or may not be claimed, is the IRS.”

The report from commission staff also recommended lesser penalties for reporting and other alleged violations by Alaskans for Honest Elections, the ballot group behind the repeal effort, and another group called Alaskans for Honest Government. The ballot group has been gathering signatures in a bid to get the proposed repeal initiative on the ballot.

Pro-Bolsonaro rioters on trial for storming Brazil’s top government offices


Supporters of Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro sit in front of a line of military police inside Planalto Palace after storming the official workplace of the president in Brasilia, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 8, 2023. Brazil’s federal police on Aug. 18, 2923 arrested seven senior military police officers accused of assisting right-wing rioters during the Jan. 8 attacks on government buildings.

 (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres, File)

BY MAURICIO SAVARESE
September 13, 2023


SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s Supreme Court justices on Wednesday began deciding whether to convict defendants accused of storming top government offices on Jan. 8 in an alleged bid to forcefully restore former President Jair Bolsonaro to office.

Bolsonaro supporter Aécio Lúcio Costa Pereira, 51, was first in line.

In January, cameras at the Senate filmed him wearing a shirt calling for a military coup and recording a video of himself praising others who had also broken into the building. Almost 1,500 people were detained on the day of the riots, though most have been released.

Pereira denied any wrongdoing and claimed he took part in a peaceful demonstration of unarmed people.

Three other defendants also were standing trial Wednesday as part of the same case, but a final decision for each defendant could drag into coming days.

The rioters refused to accept the right-wing leader’s defeat to leftist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose inauguration took place one week before the uprising. Lula also governed Brazil between 2003-2010 and beat Bolsonaro by the narrowest margin in Brazil’s modern history.

The buildings of Congress, the Supreme Court and presidential palace were trashed by the pro-Bolsonaro rioters. They bypassed security barricades, climbed onto roofs, smashed windows and invaded all three buildings, which were believed to be largely vacant on the weekend of the incident.

Lula has accused Bolsonaro of encouraging the uprising.

The incident recalled the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump. Politicians warned for months that a similar uprising was a possibility in Brazil, given that Bolsonaro had sown doubt about the reliability of the nation’s electronic voting system — without any evidence.

Argentina shuts down a publisher that sold books praising the Nazis. One person has been arrested


Federal agents put seized books inside boxes after displaying them to the press at Federal Police headquarters in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023. Law enforcement officers say the books were printed by what they describe as the biggest manufacturer of Nazi propaganda in Argentina after carrying out raids this week, following a two year investigation to shut down the illegal printing press and arrest its operator.

A federal police officer puts seized books back inside boxes after displaying them to the press at Federal Police headquarters in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023. Law enforcement officers say the books were printed by what they describe as the biggest manufacturer of Nazi propaganda in Argentina after carrying out raids this week, following a two year investigation to shut down the illegal printing press and arrest its operator. 

Seized books are displayed to the press by the federal police at Federal Police headquarters in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023. Law enforcement officers say the books were printed by what they describe as the biggest manufacturer of Nazi propaganda in Argentina after carrying out raids this week, following a two year investigation to shut down the illegal printing press and arrest its operator. 

Seized books are displayed to the press by the federal police at Federal Police headquarters in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Sept. 13, 2023. Law enforcement officers say the books were printed by what they describe as the biggest manufacturer of Nazi propaganda in Argentina after carrying out raids this week, following a two year investigation to shut down the illegal printing press and arrest its operator.

 (AP Photos/Natacha Pisarenko)

September 13, 2023

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina’s Federal Police shut down a publisher that sold books that praised Nazi ideology, seized hundreds of texts and arrested one person as part of what authorities characterized as a “historic seizure” of Nazi propaganda, officials said Wednesday.

Law enforcement officers seized around 230 books during Tuesday’s raids in the town of San Isidro, north of Buenos Aires, in which officials said they seized the largest number of texts praising Nazi ideology in recent years.

“We’re still astonished by the amount of material from what is truly a printing press for the dissemination and sale of Nazi symbolism, books and indoctrination,” Police Commissioner General Carlos Alejandro Ñamandú said. He went on to characterize it as a “historic seizure” of Nazi documents in Argentina.

Ñamandú described the books as “high quality,” although videos of the raids released by authorities suggested a homegrown operation rather than a large printing press.

Authorities detained Pablo Giorgetti, an Argentine national who is suspected of being the main person responsible for running the bookstore and has been accused of violating Argentina’s anti-discrimination law.

The bookstore’s website, which is still operational, had a large disclaimer on the front page that it sold books related to the two world wars that have been “marginalized from the more popular bookstores,” but warned that it did not “agree with them” and that the sale was meant for “collecting and research.”

Law enforcement officers seized numerous electronic and printing devices, as well as a large amount of Nazi propaganda material. They seized books ready for distribution that included images of swastikas, iron crosses and other Nazi symbols, an Argentine Federal Police unit said in a statement.

The mere display of this type of Nazi symbols amounts to a violation of Argentina’s anti-discrimination law.

The material wasn’t just sold on the bookstore’s website, but also on numerous online outlets, such as Mercado Libre, the region’s largest online sales platform.

Although authorities did not detail how many items the bookstore had sold, they said that the seller had a high profile on the online platform, which suggests “a high degree of consultation and consumption.”

“This is the first stage of the investigation,” Ñamandu said. “The first thing we did was cut off the sales and distribution channel. We’re moving on to a second stage. The law penalizes not only those who manufacture, but also those who buy.”

The raids Tuesday took place after an investigation that began with a complaint filed by the Delegation of Israeli Associations in Argentina (DAIA), the country’s main Jewish association, in 2021.

“It is astonishing that there are people producing this type of material, and it is concerning that there are people consuming it,” DAIA Vice President Marcos Cohen said.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Wisconsin settles state Justice Department pollution allegations against 2 factory farms

September 13, 2023

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin lawmakers agreed Wednesday to settle allegations that two factory farms violated their pollution permits for more than a quarter of a million dollars.

The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee unanimously approved a $17,500 settlement with North Side Genetics LLC in Fennimore and a $228,000 settlement with Stahl Brothers Dairy LLC. The state Justice Department accused North Side Genetics of failing to construct a feed storage runoff control system by an Aug. 1, 2019, deadline. The department accused Stahl Brothers Dairy of multiple manure-spreading violations.

Republicans passed a state law in late 2016 that requires the Justice Department to obtain permission from the finance committee before entering into legal settlements. The law was part of a GOP effort to weaken Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul and Gov. Tony Evers before they began their first terms.

The committee on Wednesday also signed off on a $940,000 settlement with Didion Milling Inc. The Justice Department sued the company in November 2020 alleging inspectors discovered multiple emissions, record-keeping and reporting violations at its Cambria corn mill in 2019. A grain dust explosion at the mill two years earlier killed five employees.

Last year, a federal grand jury charged the company with fraud and conspiracy in connection with the explosion, alleging the company failed to keep up with cleanings at the plant and falsified records to make it appear as if the cleanings were completed. The company responded to the charges by insisting the explosion was an accident.

Scientists call fraud on supposed extraterrestrials presented to Mexican Congress


Experts from Mexico, the United States, Japan and Brazil gathered before the Mexican Congress on Sept. 12, 2023 to share their findings on the existence of UFOs and extraterrestrials that date back to 2017 in the sandy Peruvian coastal desert of Nazca. 

(AP Photo/Marco Ugarte, File)

BY MEGAN JANETSKY
September 13, 2023Share

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Supposed aliens landed in Mexico’s Congress but there were no saucer-shaped UFOs hovering over the historic building or bright green invaders like those seen in Hollywood films.

The specter of little green men visited Mexico City as lawmakers heard testimony Tuesday from individuals suggesting the possibility that extraterrestrials might exist. The researchers hailed from Mexico, the United States, Japan and Brazil.

The session, unprecedented in the Mexican Congress, took place two months after a similar one before the U.S. Congress in which a former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer claimed his country has probably been aware of “non-human” activity since the 1930s.

Mexican journalist José Jaime Maussan presented two boxes with supposed mummies found in Peru, which he and others consider “non-human beings that are not part of our terrestrial evolution.”

The shriveled bodies with shrunken, warped heads left those in the chamber aghast and quickly kicked up a social media fervor.

“It’s the queen of all evidence,” Maussan claimed. “That is, if the DNA is showing us that they are non-human beings and that there is nothing that looks like this in the world, we should take it as such.”

But he warned that he didn’t want to refer to them as “extraterrestrials” just yet.

The apparently desiccated bodies date back to 2017 and were found deep underground in the sandy Peruvian coastal desert of Nazca. The area is known for gigantic enigmatic figures scraped into the earth and seen only from a birds-eye-view. Most attribute the Nazca Lines to ancient indigenous communities, but the formations have captured the imaginations of many.

BOLIVIAN SKELETON

PERUVIAN SKULLS

 

In 2017, Maussan made similar claims in Peru, and a report by the country’s prosecutor’s office found that the bodies were actually “recently manufactured dolls, which have been covered with a mixture of paper and synthetic glue to simulate the presence of skin.”

The report added that the figures were almost certainly human-made and that “they are not the remains of ancestral aliens that they have tried to present”. The bodies were not publicly unveiled at the time, so it is unclear if they are the same as those presented to Mexico’s congress.

On Wednesday, Julieta Fierro, researcher at the Institute of Astronomy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, was among those to express skepticism, saying that many details about the figures “made no sense.”

Fierro added that the researchers’ claims that her university endorsed their supposed discovery were false, and noted that scientists would need more advanced technology than the X-rays they claimed to use to determine if the allegedly calcified bodies were “non-human”.

“Maussan has done many things. He says he has talked to the Virgin of Guadalupe,” she said. “He told me extraterrestrials do not talk to me like they talk to him because I don’t believe in them.”

The scientist added that it seemed strange that they extracted what would surely be a “treasure of the nation” from Peru without inviting the Peruvian ambassador.

Congressman Sergio Gutiérrez Luna of the ruling Morena party, made it clear that Congress has not taken a position on the theses put forward during the more than three-hour session.

Believing or not was up to each member of the legislative body, but those who testified had to swear an oath to tell the truth.

Gutiérrez Luna stressed the importance of listening to “all voices, all opinions” and said it was positive that there was a transparent dialogue on the issue of extraterrestrials.

In the U.S. in July, retired Maj. David Grusch alleged that the U.S. is concealing a longstanding program that retrieves and reverse engineers unidentified flying objects. The Pentagon has denied his claims.

Grusch’s highly anticipated testimony before a House Oversight subcommittee was the U.S. Congress’ latest foray into the world of UAPs — or “unidentified aerial phenomena,” which is the official term the U.S. government uses instead of UFOs.

Democrats and Republicans in recent years have pushed for more research as a national security matter due to concerns that sightings observed by pilots may be tied to U.S. adversaries.