Twitter Hack: Why Wasn’t Donald Trump Targeted?



Donald Trump's Twitter account wasn't directly affected by the Twitter hack GETTY IMAGES

Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Apple, Joe Biden, Barack Obama... the list of the Twitter glitterati who had their accounts hijacked last night is long. But there’s one notable name that doesn’t appear on the list, arguably the most famous Twitter user of them all: Donald Trump.

While many of the biggest Twitter accounts were vandalized with messages urging people to participate in what appears to be a bitcoin scam, the @realDonaldTrump account and its 83.5 million followers were not targeted. Neither was the official account of the president @POTUS and its 30.8m audience.

The question looms large: why did the scammers not target the most high-profile account of them all?

Enhanced security

The first theory is that Trump’s accounts have some form of enhanced security measures that aren’t available to other verified account holders.

The president would undoubtedly be the service’s prime target for hackers, so it is possible that Twitter has afforded Mr Trump and his staff some form of extra verification that made it more difficult to breach his account.

Twitter has this morning admitted that the breach was a result of a “social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools”.

“We know they used this access to take control of many highly-visible (including verified) accounts and Tweet on their behalf,” Twitter said in a series of tweets published on its support account.

What might those enhanced security measures be? Twitter may, for example, only permit tweets to be made to Trump’s accounts from authorized devices, meaning that even the elevated staff accounts that the hackers breached weren’t able to tweet on the president’s behalf.

Politically motivated

Given that Donald Trump’s predecessor and forthcoming opponent in the presidential election were targeted, but not Trump himself, there’s also the question of whether the attack was politically motivated.

That, currently, seems unlikely. Prominent Republicans were targeted during the attack, such as one-time Republican presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg. There was also no political messaging in any of the faked tweets.

A direct attack on the president would also raise the stakes in what is already an incredibly high-profile attack. A statement released by the FBI suggests it’s already looking into the attacks. “We are aware of today's security incident involving several Twitter accounts belonging to high profile individuals," the FBI said in a statement last night. It would be under much greater pressure to investigate, and investigate hard, if the president’s account had been compromised in the run-up to an election.

That’s not to say investigations aren’t going to be pursued. Indeed, Republican politicians are already pressing for a probe. A Vice report claims Republican senator Josh Hawley has already written to Twitter, asking the company to “reach out immediately to the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and take any necessary measures to secure the site before this breach expands".

Sign of things to come?

The ease with which the hackers managed to breach so many high-profile accounts is the biggest cause for concern. Given the enormous audience the hackers were able to reach - albeit temporarily - it raises obvious questions over Twitter’s security and whether it could be used for something more sinister than a ham-fisted bitcoin scam.

Although Twitter will now undoubtedly go through a fresh security review, it’s been punished for a similar kind of attack previously. A decade ago, the company settled a case with the FTC in which it was found that “an intruder compromised an employee’s personal email account, and was able to infer the employee’s Twitter administrative password, based on two similar passwords, which had been stored in the account”. This was used to “access non-public user information and non-public tweets for any Twitter user. In addition, the intruder could, and did, reset at least one user’s password.”

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has already promised to publish the findings of an internal investigation into the attack.


This time Twitter will really have to learn its lessons.

Barry Collins Contributor
Consumer Tech
I am a consumer tech expert writing about Windows, PCs, laptops, Mac, broadband and more.

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.
I have been a technology writer and editor for more than 20 years. I was assistant editor of The Sunday Times’ technology section, editor of PC Pro magazine

Some of the world's biggest Twitter accounts are hacked. Here's what we do and don't know about what's going on right now.

Rob Price and Charles Davis

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey REUTERS/Anushree Fadnav

Elon Musk wants to give you free bitcoin — at least, that's what his Twitter account says.

Don't trust him.

The Tesla account is one of numerous high-profile accounts on the social network that have been compromised as part of a remarkable, far-reaching hack, in an attempt to scam people using digital currency bitcoin.

As of writing on Wednesday, there's still a whole lot of unknowns. But here's what we do and don't know so far.

Who's been hacked?

Tons of people. And some companies.

Joe Biden, Jeff Bezos, Apple's official account, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, Uber, Wiz Khalifa, Floyd Mayweather, Cash App, MrBeast, XXXTentacion, parody account TheTweetOfGod ... the list goes on and on.

The only common thread between the accounts appears to be that they're all, well, very famous. The hacker(s) appears to be targeting high-profile accounts that will spread the scam as far as possible.
How did they get hacked?

Late Wednesday evening, Twitter said it had uncovered "what we believe to be a coordinated engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools." Those with access to those tools, "ostensibly Twitter employees," can reset email addresses associated with accounts, as TechCrunch reported.
What do the hacked messages look like?

Like this:

No, Obama is not going to give you free bitcoin. BI

What's Twitter saying about all this?

In a fairly unenlightening statement via tweet, Twitter's Security team confirmed there were shenanigans happening and that it was looking into it. "We are aware of a security incident impacting accounts on Twitter. We are investigating and taking steps to fix it. We will update everyone shortly," they wrote.

CEO Jack Dorsey chimed in on the incident in a tweet later on Wednesday evening, calling it a "tough day for us at Twitter."

"We all feel terrible this happened. We're diagnosing and will share everything we can when we have a more complete understanding of exactly what happened," Dorsey said.

Later on Wednesday, however, the company asserted that, once it became aware of the attack, it "locked down the affected accounts and removed Tweets posted by the attackers." As a precaution, it also limited access for a larger group of accounts — verified users ("blue checks") were unable to post for some time.

Despite the company's actions, hacked posts remained on the site long after many of its users realized things were awry.

"Our investigation continues and we hope to have more to share there soon," a Twitter spokesperson told Business Insider.

What's Twitter doing to stop it?

Many verified users, including this reporter, said that they were unable to tweet, but could retweet others' posts. Twitter's Security team eventually followed its original tweet with updates confirming that users might not be able to tweet or reset their passwords while it looked into things.

Around 9:30 p.m. ET, they returned to say that the account restrictions should be lifted.

"Most accounts should be able to Tweet again. As we continue working on a fix, this functionality may come and go. We're working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible," it tweeted.

Later on Wednesday, the company said that "Internally, we've taken significant steps to limit access to internal systems and tools while our investigation is ongoing."

What's the scam?

Generally, the compromised accounts are posting a tweet saying they're feeling generous (or some other similar motivation), and falsely claiming that if people send them bitcoin to their address, they'll resend them double back.
Should I send them bitcoin?

No.
Who's behind the hack?

We don't know yet. 

US death penalty: Supreme Court clears way for second federal execution in two days 

#ABOLISHTHEDEATHPENALTY

A protester holds a sign demonstrating against the death penalty in the US. (AP)

The Associated Press, Terre Haute, IndianaThursday 16 July 2020

Text size A A A

The Supreme Court early Thursday cleared the way for a second federal execution in as many days.

The vote to allow the execution to go forward was 5-4, with the court’s four liberal members dissenting.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that “proceeding with Purkey’s execution now, despite the grave questions and factual findings regarding his mental competency, casts a shroud of constitutional doubt over the most irrevocable of injuries.” She was joined by fellow liberal justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court, in another 5-4 overnight vote, will allow the federal execution of Wesley Purkey to proceed — overturning multiple lower court orders halting the execution for multiple reasons. pic.twitter.com/qJtkxDcjIK

— The Justice Collaborative (@Justice_Collab) July 16, 2020

For all the latest headlines follow our Google News channel online or via the app

Purkey was convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 16-year-old girl before dismembering, burning and then dumping the teen’s body in a septic pond. He was also convicted in a state court in Kansas after using a claw hammer to kill an 80-year-old woman who suffered from polio.

Purkey’s execution had been scheduled for Wednesday at the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. On Tuesday, Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death at the facility after his eleventh-hour legal bids failed. It was the first federal execution after a 17-year hiatus.

Read more: US carries out first federal execution in 17 years: Spokeswoman

Daniel Lewis Lee, who was executed on Wednesday. (Twitter)

Lawyers for the 68-year-old Purkey argued that he has dementia and is unfit to be executed. They said his condition has deteriorated so severely that he didn’t understand why he was being executed. They also said that if Purkey’s execution did not take place Wednesday, the government would need to set a new date. But government lawyers said there was no obstacle to going through with the execution Thursday if the Supreme Court lifted the injunctions.

The issue of Purkey’s mental health arose in the runup to his 2003 trial and when, after the verdict, jurors had to decide whether he should be put to death in the killing of 16-year-old Jennifer Long in Kansas City, Missouri. Prosecutors said he raped and stabbed her, dismembered her with a chainsaw, burned her and dumped her ashes 200 miles (320 kilometers) away in a septic pond in Kansas. Purkey was separately convicted and sentenced to life in the beating death of 80-year-old Mary Ruth Bales, of Kansas City, Kansas, who suffered from polio.

Noam Chomsky On COVID-19 And His New Book: Internationalism Or Extinction

Why Does Comet NEOWISE Have Two Tails?

Ethan SiegelSenior Contributor
Starts With A Bang
Contributor Group
Science
The Universe is out there, waiting for you to discover it.


This outstanding composition shows the blue ion tail and the grey/white dust tail of comet NEOWISE ... [+] DAMIAN PEACH / IAN SHARP

For the first time in many years, there’s currently a comet visible to the naked eye in Earth’s night sky: comet NEOWISE. It’s visible to most of the world’s population, currently positioned just below and slightly to the east of the Big Dipper’s ladle. If you look at it with the naked eye, it might appear as a faint, diffuse cloud: identifiable as a comet if you know where to look for it, but without much detail visible.

Through binoculars, a telescope, or with long-exposure photographs, however, an incredible set of phenomena can suddenly be seen. The main nucleus of the comet can be seen shining brightly: all by itself it’s as bright as the top 100 stars in the sky. The main tail of the comet can be seen extending for upwards of 10° away from the nucleus, wide, diffuse, and curving. But alongside it, narrow, straight, and faint, a second, bluish tail can also be seen. These two tails accompany many comets, including comet NEOWISE, and can show us things we might never otherwise see for ourselves about our Solar System. Here’s why there are two of them.


When a comet approaches the Sun, two independent tails can often be seen, a dust tail made of ... [+] SERGEY PROKUDIN-GORSKY; ЮКАТАН / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
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Since even before the invention of the telescope, the “great comets” that have graced Earth’s skies have shown this two-tailed phenomenon. Famously documented in the late 1500s by Tycho Brahe, the main, bright tail always appears to curve, but a second tail, no matter where the comet is located in Earth’s skies, always appears to point perfectly, directly away from the Sun.

In addition, the main tail always appears to be a grey/white color: it reflects sunlight fairly well at all wavelengths. Whatever color the material is that the comet itself is made from, the main tail is always that color as well: the same color as the parent body that gives rise to the tail. But the secondary tail is never the same color as the comet itself, and is instead blue, faint, and always makes a perfectly straight line, pointing away from the Sun in a ray-like configuration.


This 1997 photo of Earth's last "great comet," Hale-Bopp, clearly shows the curved dust tail and the ... [+] UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGES

By the late 1600s, nearly a full century later, we had started to identify some of the comets as periodic: originating from the outer Solar System and maintaining a very eccentric elliptical orbit. Every so often, these comets pass through the inner Solar System — some of them returning after decades, centuries, or millennia — and experiencing all sorts of changes when they do.

When they’re very far from the Sun, these bodies remain completely frozen, as the Sun’s radiation is far too weak at such large distances to cause any notable effects. But as the comet gets closer and closer to the Sun, its radiation becomes more and more intense. Right around the time where a comet plunges through Jupiter’s orbit, the volatile ices on its surface begin to heat up and sublimate, expelling tiny fragments of the comet and creating two effects:


a coma, or halo, around the “nose” of the comet,
and a tail of dust, where these tiny fragments get ejected from the comet itself.




Like many comets, C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) displayed a bright green coma at its head, trailed by a ... [+] JOHN VERMETTE / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Even though a comet’s tail looks curved, we can only see it in two dimensions, not the full three. What winds up physically happening is that the tail always curves outside the ellipse that the comet’s path traces out, and we can understand why if we take a look at the physics. When a dust particle gets ejected from the comet itself, it can come from a variety of processes.

It can get ejected because a tiny fissure forms in the comet, pushing heated material out. It can get ejected because the molecules beneath it sublimate, causing it to become free from the electromagnetic forces binding the comet’s nucleus together. Or it can get ejected because the heat causes tiny cometary fragments to separate from the main body. Regardless of the cause, particles of dust get separated from the main body of the comet itself, and they create a dust tail: what we typically identify as the main tail of a comet.


The evolution of a comet as it approaches, passes through, and exits the inner Solar System. The gas ... [+] LABORATORY FOR ATMOSPHERIC AND SPACE SCIENCES/ NASA

Once a dust particle stops being bound to the main cometary nucleus itself, it starts to experience a combination of three forces:


the gravitational force on it from the Sun,
the gravitational force on it from the main body of the comet,
and the force from the Sun’s radiation — the light itself — on these dust particles.



At each point along a comet’s orbit, the dust appears to move away from the Sun, but the position of the comet changes over time; its path is curved. The dust you see towards the far end of the tail was emitted earlier in the comet’s orbit than the dust towards the comet’s nucleus, and the path only appears curved because of the fact that these relative forces change in importance with time, with the comet’s motion, and with their distance from the Sun.


Comet McNaught, as imaged in 2006 from Victoria, Australia. The dust tail is white and diffuse (and ... [+] SOERFM / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

But there’s an entirely different, independent tail that becomes prominent even sooner than the dust tail: the blue ion tail. There’s a critical threshold — dependent mostly on the distance of the comet from the Sun — where the amount of ultraviolet sunlight striking the comet becomes strong enough that it can start ionizing the weakest ice-based molecule that comets are made out of: carbon monoxide (CO).

When we state that comets are made out of violatile ices, we don't just mean water-based ice (H2O), but also dry ice (solid CO2), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), and carbon monoxide (CO), which make up the "big five." Carbon monoxide is the easiest to ionize, and this ultraviolet radiation creates a positive carbon monoxide ion (CO+), which heralds the first sign of a cometary tail. If you look at very early pictures of comets, when they’re out at rather large distances from the Sun, this blue ion tail is the only one that can be seen.


When Comet ISON was the same distance from the Sun as Jupiter, about five times the Earth-Sun ... [+] NASA, ESA, J.-Y. LI (PLANETARY SCIENCE INSTITUTE), AND THE HUBBLE COMET ISON IMAGING SCIENCE TEAM

When you compare these two different tails with one another — the dust tail and the ion tail — the color is just one of many differences. One notable discrepancy between the two is how wide the tail is. The dust tail is extremely diffuse, taking up a very large amount of area on the sky and an even larger volume in space. On the other hand, the ion tail is always narrow, irrespective of how far away the comet is from the Sun.

Why is that?

When a comet emits dust grains, these grains come in a wide variety of sizes. As a result, even though the gravitational acceleration on each grain is the same, the amount of pressure they receive from the solar radiation varies wildly, with smaller grains disproportionately affected by sunlight compared to larger ones. With ions, on the other hand, they’re all simply single molecules or even free electrons with the same mass as one another. As a result, the forces on each ion particle is identical, so they all follow the same path.


Captured by Patrick Knaup in Germany, this image of comet NEOWISE illustrates its large, bright dust ... [+] PATRICK KNAUP

The largest cause of a “spread” in the ion tail is due to the fact that the comet’s coma, made of a mix of gas, dust, and ions, is diffuse, and the Sun itself is a sphere rather than a true point source. The sunlight that interacts with the coma sheds material off in a slightly conical shape, leading to a tail with a small but non-negligible opening angle. The dust tail, on the other hand, diffuses wildly, largely due to the grains being various sizes and moving at a variety of speeds.

But there’s even more to the story, once you realize that the ion tail, despite being created at a variety of points along the comet’s orbit, isn’t curved at all. Why would the ion tail be perfectly straight while the dust tail is curved? Even if all the dust grains were somehow the same exact size and mass as one another, the forces acting on the dust tail would still cause it to show a curve. Yet, somehow, the ion tail never curves: a phenomenon noted by Brahe more than 400 years ago.


While the grey/white dust tail never appears perfectly straight, the ion tail always does, as the ... [+] LIEM BAHNEMAN

The reason the ion tail is straight, in this instance, is precisely because these are charged particles. The Sun itself might be incredibly massive, but it also has electromagnetic properties that can — particularly for charged particles — dominate over its gravitational effects. In particular, the Sun isn’t just a ball of gas and plasma confined to a region of space some 700,000 kilometers in radius at our Solar System’s center.

Instead, it has a large, extended atmosphere that reaches all throughout the Solar System, populated by solar wind particles, coronal streamers, and a large-scale magnetic field. In a very real sense, the Earth itself resides within the Sun’s outer atmosphere, and so do the comets that pass through our Solar System.

The comet's ionized particles, in motion, form a plasma that creates a magnetosphere around the comet, which itself interacts with the solar wind: charged particles being emitted by the Sun. A combination of both cometary and solar ions following these magnetic field lines are responsible for the features seen in the blue ion tail: a spectacular case of agreement between simulations and observations.


This animation portrays a comet as it approaches the inner solar system. As the comet nears the Sun, ... [+] NASA/JPL-CALTECH

On July 23, 2020, comet NEOWISE will make its closest approach to planet Earth, where it will appear just beneath the ladle of the Big Dipper to all observers at northern and equatorial latitudes. Once the Sun dips far enough below the horizon for the sky to darken sufficiently, more skywatchers than ever should be able to see it. Even though we’ve already passed the comet’s peak brightness, it will remain highly visible through the end of the month, appearing particularly spectacular in binocular, telescopic, and long-exposure photographic views.

But one feature to look for is the presence of these two very different tails: the dust tail, which appears bright, grey/white, wide and curved, as well as the ion tail, appearing comparatively faint, blue, narrow and straight. The dust tail is made of tiny fragments of the comet itself, coming in a wide variety of grain sizes and masses, while the ion tail is only made of extremely low-mass particles, tracing out the combined magnetic field created by the Sun and comet together. It’s the best comet to grace our night sky in more than a decade, and the remainder of this month is your best chance to experience it for yourself.

Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website or some of my other work here.

Ethan Siegel
I am a Ph.D. astrophysicist, author, and science communicator, who professes physics and astronomy at various colleges. I have won numerous awards for science writing since 2008 for my blog, Starts With A Bang, including the award for best science blog by the Institute of Physics. My two books, Treknology: The Science of Star Trek from Tricorders to Warp Drive, Beyond the Galaxy: How humanity looked beyond our Milky Way and discovered the entire Universe, are available for purchase at Amazon. Follow me on Twitter @startswithabang.

Covid-19 outbreaks up to 20 times more likely in large care homes, study finds

Exclusive: likelihood of UK homes being infected triples with every additional 20 beds

Robert Booth Social affairs correspondent
Wed 15 Jul 2020
 

Jane Ross, 88, has her nails done by care worker Debra Wright at Eskgreen care home in Musselburgh. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Coronavirus outbreaks are up to 20 times more likely in large care homes, according to a major study seen by the Guardian, prompting calls to divide them into “bubbles” before any second wave hits.

In research that will increase scrutiny of private care chains, which often operate the largest facilities, NHS Lothian and Edinburgh University found the likelihood of infection getting into a home tripled with every additional 20 beds.

It comes amid pressure on ministers to draw up stricter guidelines to prevent further outbreaks in care homes. Of more than 55,500 people to have died with Covid-19 in the UK according to their death certificates, nearly 40% (21,600) were care home residents, despite ministers’ claims to have “thrown a protective ring” around them.

Last week Boris Johnson came under fire for accusing many homes of failing to follow proper procedures during the pandemic. Care leaders have condemned the government for not providing clear procedures. At the height of the crisis, 25,000 people were discharged from hospitals into care homes without being tested for coronavirus.


'Fighting something invisible': how a UK care provider is curbing Covid-19

Read more

In the newly published study, researchers examined infection patterns at 189 care homes in the NHS Lothian area where a total of more than 400 people died from coronavirus. In homes with fewer than 20 residents, the chance of an outbreak was 5%, but in homes with 60 to 80 residents the likelihood soared to between 83% and 100%. The study is believed to be the widest analysis yet of coronavirus care home test results from anywhere in the UK.


High footfall of staff – including agency workers, cooks and maintenance engineers, going in and out of the largest homes – is thought to be a key factor for infecting elderly residents.

The study led to calls for operators to establish infection control “bubbles” in big facilities before any second wave emerges, but ministers have been warned it will be costly.

“More footfall will give you more risk of infection,” said the report’s author, Prof Bruce Guthrie, the director of the Advanced Care Research Centre at Edinburgh University and associate researcher at Health Data Research UK. “Although care home size cannot be altered without losing places for existing residents, there may be potential to create discrete units within care homes where smaller numbers of staff and residents are effectively cohorted to create self-contained units.”

While the average UK care home has around 36 beds, HC-One, the largest provider of private care homes, averages 50 beds. It has lost more than 1,000 residents to the virus. Care UK, another major chain, averages 66 beds.

Twenty-six people died at the 87-bed Melbury Court in Durham and 22 died at the 80-bed Highgate care home outside Glasgow, both run by HC-One. Fifteen died at the independent Castletroy residential home in Luton, which has more than 60 beds.

Sally Warren, the director of policy at the King’s Fund health thinktank, said the relationship between the size of care homes and the likelihood of infection was “a difficulty not just for providers but for the government”. She said ministers provided funding levels for social care that encouraged private operators to seek economies of scale.

The creation of “bubbles” would increase the cost of staffing and providing facilities which have previously been shared across large homes, she said. “If we want to move to a model based on smaller units we are going to have to pay more as taxpayers.”


'I've decided to go against government guidance': a care home owner's diary

Read more

Separate research into how the pandemic affected 248 care homes in Norfolk has shown outbreaks were more likely in locations that employed higher numbers of support staff, such as cooks and cleaners. The research by the University of East Anglia found they were less likely to wear PPE and more likely to work across multiple locations than care workers.

Another study, published last week by the Office for National Statistics, of 5,000 care homes in England found that regular use of temporary “bank” staff who worked across several homes – a common practice among larger operators – increased the risk of infection more than one and a half times.

In 2018, the Care Quality Commission reported that “in both nursing and residential homes, there is a trend that smaller homes are rated better than larger homes”.

HC-One said it recognised that the high numbers of staff required in large homes increased infection risk, but that this could be mitigated. “In a large service you can create smaller services, cohorting your staff and having a safe way of working with shared kitchen and laundry staff,” said Liz Whyte, the director of standards at HC-One. “That is now in place. Until there is a cure, we have to work as if we are in an outbreak.”

The ability of care operators to adapt buildings is also likely to be limited by the strain Covid-19 has put on their finances. Four Seasons Health Care, which went into administration in April, said it was on course to spend £6.5m on PPE this year. HC-One said occupancy levels had fallen so sharply it was no longer generating cash.


The need to better isolate infected care home residents was recognised by Public Health England (PHE) in April when it recommended that the government set up separate quarantine units for infected care home residents using spare capacity in NHS Nightingale hospitals. The idea was not taken up.

A limited version of the proposal has been introduced in Ealing, west London: the NHS last month opened a special unit to accept infected care home residents as well as infected hospital patients before they are discharged into care homes.

Play Video
6:37 Masks, beers and 2 metre visits: life in a care home after a coronavirus outbreak – video


The Lothian study also says the intensity of outbreaks in a few locations has left a large pool of residents untouched by the virus so far. It found no outbreaks in 63% of the Lothian homes – close to the 57% of care homes in England that have not reported outbreaks, according to PHE.

“There is considerable risk of further outbreaks with large number of deaths in care homes if community Covid-19 incidence increases again,” Guthrie said.

Katie Dee, the deputy director of public health and health policy at NHS Lothian, said: “It is important to analyse the risk factors for Covid-19 infection in care homes in order to prevent future outbreaks.”

The Department of Health and Social Care has said it “worked tirelessly with care homes to reduce transmission and save lives”, and has announced £600m to help tackle the spread of coronavirus, including limiting staff movement between care homes.

Chemical Analysis Reveals Egypt Was a Multi-Cultural Hub For Centuries

The Hyksos, who ruled during the 15th Dynasty of ancient Egypt, were not foreign invaders, but a group who rose to power from within, according to a study published by Chris Stantis of Bournemouth University, UK and colleagues.

The Hyksos were a foreign dynasty that ruled parts of Egypt between approximately 1638-1530 BCE, the first instance of Egypt being ruled by individuals of a foreign origin. The common story is that the Hyksos were invaders from a far-off land, but this idea has been drawn into question. Archaeological evidence does link Hyksos culture with an origin in the Near East, but exactly how they rose to power is unclear.

In this study, Stantis and colleagues collected enamel samples from the teeth of 75 humans buried in the ancient Hyksos capital city of Tell el-Dab’a in the northeast Nile Delta. Comparing ratios of strontium isotopes in the teeth to environmental isotope signatures from Egypt and elsewhere, they assessed the geographic origins of the individuals who lived in the city. They found that a large percentage of the populace were non-locals who immigrated from a wide variety of other places. This pattern was true both before and during the Hyksos dynasty.

This pattern does not match the story of a sudden invasion from a single far-off land, but of a multi-cultural region where one internal group – the Hyksos – eventually rose to power after living there for generations. This is the first study to use archaeological chemistry to address the origins of the Hyksos rulers, but the authors note that more investigations and broader chemical techniques will be needed to identify the specific ancestries of the Hyksos and other non-local residents of Egypt.

Stantis adds: “Archaeological chemistry, specifically isotopic analysis, shows us first-generation migration during a time of major cultural transformations in ancient Egypt. Rather than the old scholastic theories of invasion, we see more people, especially women, migrating to Egypt before Hyksos rule, suggesting economic and cultural changes leading to foreign rule rather than violence.”

Header Image – Seal amulet with the name of the Hyksos pharaoh Apophis. Image Credit : The Metropolitan Museum of Art (CC0)

PLOS

Oil giants including Exxon set first joint carbon target


LONDON (Reuters) - A group of the world’s top oil companies including Saudi Aramco, China’s CNPC and Exxon Mobil have for the first time set targets to cut their combined greenhouse gas emissions as a proportion of production, as pressure on the sector’s climate stance grows

However, the target set by the 12 members of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) is eclipsed by more ambitious plans set individually by the consortium’s European members, including Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Total.

The OGCI members agreed to reduce the average carbon intensity of their aggregated upstream oil and gas operations to between 20 kg and 21 kg of CO2 equivalent per barrel of oil equivalent (CO2e/boe) by 2025, from a collective baseline of 23 kg CO2e/boe in 2017, the OGCI said in a statement.

Intensity targets mean absolute emissions can rise with increasing production.

The OGCI includes BP (BP.L), Chevron (CVX.N), CNPC, Eni (ENI.MI), Equinor (EQNR.OL), Exxon (XOM.N), Occidental Petroleum (OXY.N), Petrobras (PETR4.SA), Repsol (REP.MC), Saudi Aramco (2222.SE), Shell (RDSa.L) and Total (TOTF.PA), which together account for over 30% of the world’s oil and gas production.

“It is a significant milestone, it is not the end of the work, it is a near term target ... and we’ll keep calibrating as we go forward,” OGCI Chairman and former BP CEO Bob Dudley told Reuters.

The members agreed on a common methodology to calculate carbon intensity and the targets could be extended to other sectors such as liquefied natural gas and refining in the future, Dudley added.

The announcement marks an important change for Exxon, the largest U.S. oil company, which has resisted investor pressure to improve the disclosure of its impact on the environment. It did not report its carbon emissions in 2019.

Exxon supports the OGCI targets to decrease the carbon intensity of energy production and is “part of the industry’s efforts to take practical, meaningful steps to reduce emissions,” a spokesman said.

The targets set by different companies can vary widely in scope and definition, making it difficult to compare.

However, some members of the OGCI already exceed or plan to overshoot the joint target.

For example, Saudi Aramco, the world’s top oil exporter, had an upstream carbon intensity of 10.1kg CO2e/boe in 2019, according to its annual report.

Norway’s Equinor aims to reduce its CO2 intensity below 8kg/boe by 2025. It has said the current global industry average is 18 kg CO2e/boe.

OGCI said the group’s collective carbon intensity would be reported annually, with data reviewed by EY, as an independent third party.

The target includes reductions in methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas, which the group had previously committed to cut.

GRAPHIC: European oil majors' spending tilts green here

Oil majors' 2020 spending

The world's top oil and gas companies slashed their spending plans by over 20% in response to the coronavirus crisis. The European majors left their spending on renewables and low-carbon technologies largely stable.

SHARE OF LOW-CARBON INVESTMENT

Percentage

 

After cuts

 

Before cuts

POST-CUTS 2020 SPENDING

In $ bln

 

Oil & gas

 

Low carbon

PRE-CUTS 2020 SPENDING

In $ bln

 

Oil & gas

 

Low carbon

Source: Companies, Reuters estimates

Reporting by Ron Bousso, additional reporting by Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Mark Potter

America's secret weapon against a plummeting world population

Opinion by Frida Ghiti Wed July 15, 2020

Frida Ghitis, a former CNN producer and correspondent, is a world affairs columnist. She is a frequent opinion contributor to CNN, a contributing columnist to The Washington Post and a columnist for World Politics Review. Follow her on Twitter @fridaghitis. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author. Read more opinion on CNN.


(CNN)The only way the United States can remain the world's most prosperous, powerful country is by embracing immigration. That's the inescapable conclusion from a new study published on Tuesday in the Lancet that predicts the world's population will peak far sooner than anticipated, and start shrinking before the end of this century.

There is, however, no guarantee that the US will embrace immigration, even to save itself. Domestic politics, currently inflamed by divisive nativist leaders, have turned immigration into a contested topic. A country that rose to historic heights of influence and prosperity by welcoming immigrants, is now led by a President who has weaponized the issue with unfathomable cruelty.

One example: At this moment, hundreds of migrant families held in detention facilities face the wrenching choice of whether to let their children be released to third parties, or stay together in detention. This awful decision comes as the result of court order last month that called for the children's release in light of the coronavirus pandemic -- and it is essentially a new version of the family separation policy that tore apart thousands of children from their parents earlier in the Trump administration.

Such heartless political measures flout America's founding principles -- but are also out of step with public opinion on immigration: an overwhelming majority of Americans -- 77%, according to a recent 2020 Gallup poll- say it is good for the country. The prospect of falling birth rates predicted by study -- from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington's School of Medicine -- may be a thumb on the scale in favor of more immigration. After all, businesses will need workers. Even the military will likely feel the pressure of contracting numbers of people of military age.

Trump is doing all the wrong things on immigration
The new study shows how far off the mark earlier assumptions about exploding population growth fell. Some among you, my dear readers, may remember when intellectuals were gripped by the fear of a "Malthusian catastrophe," fear that population growth would outpace our ability to feed ourselves. But it turns out that Thomas Robert Malthus, the 18th century economist and demographer, got it all wrong.

Not only did agricultural advances undercut his thesis, it turns out the world's population will start contracting before long, with powerful economic, geopolitical and environmental implications.

According to the study, population will climb from the current 7.8 billion to 9.7 billion by 2064, but that will be the end of the increases. By 2100, it will shrink by almost a billion people, to 8.8 billion. The downward trend, a revolution triggered by the education of women, who choose to have fewer babies, will affect almost every country -- 183 out of 195 -- on Earth.

To keep the population unchanged, women must have an average of 2.1 babies, the replacement fertility rate, the study found. The rate has nosedived from 3.2 in 1990 to 2.5 last year, and, according to a 2019 United Nations projection, is continuing to crash.

Trump administration's planned purge of international students serves a cruel purpose
Adding to the demographic transformation, medical advances will extend life expectancy, producing a lopsided age distribution, with growing numbers of old people and diminishing numbers of young, working-age citizens.
The massive population revision from recent estimates, has repercussions that boggle the mind.
On the positive side, the strain on resources will diminish. Perhaps Earth can at last catch a break. But picture an economy where the number of retired people grows far faster than the number of productive workers, who have to keep the economy moving and pay enough taxes to support growing health care and retirement costs. Who's going to do all the work? Who's going to pay all the taxes? Who's going to keep countries competitive, strong enough to defend from potentially aggressive rivals?
The answer lies in expanding the workforce. That can be done by coaxing older workers to remain productive and by encouraging more women to enter the workforce. But that only goes so far. The obvious solution is to allow workers from countries where the population continues to grow or exceeds job opportunities, to make up for shortfalls. That is, immigration.
Shrinking populations are disastrous for economic growth, not only because of the obvious labor shortages, but because they reduce consumption. They reduce the need for building factories, for expanding infrastructure. Lower demand can send economies into a tailspin of deflation, or simply produce stubborn stagnation.
The depth and breadth of the looming crisis -- should it happen as predicted -- is astonishing. In nearly two dozen countries, the population will shrink by more than half, others will contract nearly as much. Japan will go from 128 million in 2017 to 60 million in 2100; Italy from 61 to 31 million, Spain from 46 to 23 million, South Korea from 53 to 27 million. China, America's principal economic and geostrategic rival, will shrink from the current 1.4 billion to 730 million, the study predicts.

Targeting international students is a dangerously dumb move
And the US? The study optimistically predicts that the collapse in fertility rates in the US will be offset by -- that's right -- immigration. That infusion of new muscle, new talent and new stamina, has the power not only to preserve America's preeminent position on the global stage, but also to reverse the current trend that has China's economy surpassing the US by 2035.
The study forecasts that the US economy will regain its top spot by 2098, as China shrinks and the US thrives, partly due to a constant refreshing of its population.
If the US is need of an example of how crucial this is, it can look at Japan, where a declining population has caused economic stagnation. The foreigner-averse Japanese have tried to solve this by enticing women into the workforce, but it's not enough. Now the government is inviting "guest workers," to try to replace nonexistent Japanese.
Italy can also serve as a cautionary tale. It didn't need the Lancet to see the crisis. The number of working-age Italians has been crashing for years. The crisis was temporarily stalled by immigrants, but a right-wing government built its political support by attacking migrants, and now Italy is entering a "demographic recession," whose solution will not please nativist demagogues.
The result will be increased friction over immigration, with the arguments of immigration advocates bolstered by demographers, economists and a business community anxious to see consumption increase and workers available.
The present may be blazing with the demagogues' sturm und drang about keeping immigrants out. But the future belongs to the country that welcomes them.

POPULATION
World population to shrink in 2064, causing major power shift to Africa, India - study

The global population is likely to peak in a few decades' time before declining, new modelling research shows, causing a huge shift in how the world's geopolitical power is distributed that favours Africa and India.

The study, conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) and published in scientific journal The Lancet, estimates the world population will peak at around 9.7 billion in 2064 before dropping to about 8.8 billion by the year 2100.

This places the world's population in 2100 at more than 2 billion people fewer than other estimates - including a UN Population Division model that predicts there will be 11 billion people on Earth by then due to continued growth.

New Zealand's population hits 5 million

Is the world full, nearly full - or past the point of no return?

The new research estimates that in 2100, the overwhelming majority of countries will have total fertility rates below 2.1, the level needed to ensure replacement of the population, causing population declines in these countries unless they're bolstered by immigration.

But it's the shift in age demographics that are of particular note, as this will have major knock-on effects on the number of people in the workforce, how our health and social support systems will be managed and ultimately on the distribution of the world's power.

By 2100, the IHME's models estimate there are likely to be 2.37 billion people over 65, compared to just 1.7 billion under the age of 20.

Dr Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of The Lancet, says the changes will establish India, Nigeria, China and the US as the world's most dominant powers by 2100.

"The 21st century will see a revolution in the story of our human civilisation," he said.
A map of the year net production rates are expected to fall below replacement levels. Photo credit: The Lancet / IHME


"Africa and the Arab World will shape our future, while Europe and Asia will recede in their influence. By the end of the century, the world will be multipolar… This will truly be a new world, one we should be preparing for today."

Sub-Saharan Africa will become an increasingly powerful geopolitical force amidst huge population increases, Science Daily reports, with Nigeria not only becoming one of the world's most populated nations but the only one in the top ten to grow its working-age population.

This will set the foundations for massive economic growth, with its GDP ranking to surge from 23rd in 2017 to 9th by the start of the 22nd Century.

Meanwhile India will be the only major Asian nation to retain most of its working-age population. This will see it surpass China's workforce population in the mid-2020s, causing it to rise up the GDP rankings from 7th to 3rd.

While the UK, Germany, and France are expected to remain in the top 10 for largest GDP worldwide at the turn of the century, Italy (from rank 9th in 2017 to 25th in 2100) and Spain (from 13th to 28th) are projected to fall down the rankings, reflecting much greater population decline.