There were 200 kidnappings in Haiti in May, United Nations agency says
Odelyn Joseph/AP
Jacqueline Charles
Fri, June 3, 2022
Exactly one year after warring gangs shut down transportation links to the southern regions of Haiti, armed groups continue to restrict access to vulnerable communities in Port-au-Prince, forcing thousands of others from their homes on the eastern outskirts of the capital and creating travel problems in the north of the country, the United Nations said Friday.
At least 188 people have been killed and almost 17,000 people have been displaced from Port-au-Prince since April 24 by gangs, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said, citing data from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Humanitarian Rights and the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti.
He noted that among those killed were 96 suspected gang members. Despite efforts by police to fight armed gangs, kidnappings have continued unabated and access to violence-affected neighborhoods remains limited, leading to alarmingly high malnutrition rates among children in some capital neighborhoods.
“Incidents of kidnapping for ransom have increased dramatically with some 200 cases in Port-au-Prince, recorded in May alone,” he said. “U.N. partners have been unable to collect and deliver relief supplies due to lack of access to the port area.”
In the Cité Soleil neighborhood of the capital, malnutrition rates have risen dramatically, with 20% of children under the age of 5 suffering from not getting enough food.
“In response to the alarming numbers of malnourished children in Cité Soleil, community health workers are distributing packs of ready-to-use therapeutic food provided by UNICEF. More than 2,000 children have been assisted.”
Haiti’s instability should be high on Summit of the Americas agenda, Rubio urges
The U.N., Dujarric said, is relying more on grassroots organizations and non-governmental groups to provide services in difficult-to-reach areas of the city. Where possible, they are delivering hot meals and hygiene kits and other items. He also noted that this week marks one year since transport links to the south of Haiti were closed down by gangs after clashes erupted in the Martissant neighborhood at the southern entrance of Port-au-Prince.
The dire picture painted by the U.N. comes amid mounting concerns about the situation in Haiti, which is expected to be a focus of discussion among hemispheric leaders attending next week’s Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles. Hosted by the U.S., the event starts Monday and is expected to be attended by interim Haiti Prime Minister Ariel Henry.
‘Either you die or you succeed’: Haiti’s northwest coast spawns migration tide to Florida
In its latest report, the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Humanitarian Rights noted that the situation remains highly volatile in Haiti.
Testimonies collected and cited by the office “describe extreme gang violence, including beheadings, mutilations and burning of bodies, as well as gang rapes, including of young children, used to terrorize and punish people living in areas controlled by rival gangs,” the report said.
Conservatives appalled by the ‘crazy’ were too silent for too long. Now, it’s too late | Opinion
Leonard Pitts Jr.
Fri, June 3, 2022
Where were you when we needed you?
That’s my blanket response to a persistent trickle of emails from readers who keep asking me to, in effect, stop using the word “conservative” when I mean “crazy.” “Or “fascist.” Or “mean.” Which is to say that these people, most of whom would consider themselves conservative, want me to stop using that word to describe the likes of Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ginni Thomas and other luminaries of the political right..
While “conservative” is, in fact, the descriptor self-chosen by Trump and his acolytes, these readers argue that those folks are anything but adherents to the ideas of small government, muscular foreign policy and minimum regulation by which conservatism has traditionally been defined. Rather, they are extremists who have essentially hijacked the word and bent it to their own uses. The readers are correct, as far as it goes.
There’s nothing traditionally “conservative” about scheming to overturn an election as Thomas, wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence, has done. Or undermining an election as Georgia Rep. Greene has done. Or inciting an insurrection as Trump infamously did. Indeed, it’s no stretch to believe that architects of traditional conservatism like Ronald Reagan or William F. Buckley would regard their ideological namesakes with contempt.
That said, I won’t be honoring my readers’ request. Here’s why:
There was a moment when every traditionally conservative voter, pundit and politician could have stood up against what conservatism has become, the rot it has inflicted. There was a time they might have even stopped it had enough of them simply spoken out. Almost none of them did.
We didn’t reach the current state of things overnight, after all. To the contrary, this has been a 30-year train wreck, a slow-motion disaster that mangled conservatism into the moral monstrosity it is today. And it’s not as if nobody saw it happening. What with Newt Gingrich’s hostage-taking approach to government and Fox’s truth-optional approach to news, it was pretty obvious.
Indeed, right-leaning pundits tacitly acknowledged the shift years ago when they began finding it necessary to use the term “thoughtful conservatives” to distinguish themselves from the demagogues and flame throwers increasingly populating their side. Yet “thoughtful conservatives” were nevertheless all too willing to make common cause with unthoughtful ones in exchange for the jolt of energy and enthusiasm the latter brought to the cause.
So they did nothing as alternate reality became the forwarding address of the movement.
As newly brazen racism and xenophobia became the heart of the movement.
As conspiracy became the voice of the movement.
As violence became the good right arm of the movement.
As Trump became the face of the movement.
They stood by and watched as the values they claimed to venerate were smeared in sludge and the name they used to brand themselves was snatched away like money by a playground bully. What it used to mean, folks, it means no more. The fringe became the mainstream. The game played the player. The tail wagged the dog.
Now, along comes that trickle of readers wanting me to know that the Trump cultists are not “real” conservatives. I’m afraid they won’t find me particularly sympathetic.
Yes, it’s a good argument.
But they’re making it to the wrong audience, about 30 years too late.
Pitts
To safely explore the solar system and beyond, spaceships need to go faster – nuclear-powered rockets may be the answer
Iain Boyd, Professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences, University of Colorado Boulder
Sat, June 4, 2022, THE CONVERSATION
Over the last 50 years, a lot has changed in rocketry. The fuel that powers spaceflight might finally be changing too. CSA-Printstock/DIgital Vision Vectors via Getty Images
With dreams of Mars on the minds of both NASA and Elon Musk, long-distance crewed missions through space are coming. But you might be surprised to learn that modern rockets don’t go all that much faster than the rockets of the past.
There are a lot of reasons that a faster spaceship is a better one, and nuclear-powered rockets are a way to do this. They offer many benefits over traditional fuel-burning rockets or modern solar-powered electric rockets, but there have been only eight U.S. space launches carrying nuclear reactors in the last 40 years.
However, in 2019 the laws regulating nuclear space flights changed and work has already begun on this next generation of rockets.
Why the need for speed?
The first step of a space journey involves the use of launch rockets to get a ship into orbit. These are the large fuel-burning engines people imagine when they think of rocket launches and are not likely to go away in the foreseeable future due to the constraints of gravity.
It is once a ship reaches space that things get interesting. To escape Earth’s gravity and reach deep space destinations, ships need additional acceleration. This is where nuclear systems come into play. If astronauts want to explore anything farther than the Moon and perhaps Mars, they are going to need to be going very very fast. Space is massive, and everything is far away.
There are two reasons faster rockets are better for long-distance space travel: safety and time.
Astronauts on a trip to Mars would be exposed to very high levels of radiation which can cause serious long-term health problems such as cancer and sterility. Radiation shielding can help, but it is extremely heavy, and the longer the mission, the more shielding is needed. A better way to reduce radiation exposure is to simply get where you are going quicker.
But human safety isn’t the only benefit. As space agencies probe farther out into space, it is important to get data from unmanned missions as soon as possible. It took Voyager-2 12 years just to reach Neptune, where it snapped some incredible photos as it flew by. If Voyager-2 had a faster propulsion system, astronomers could have had those photos and the information they contained years earlier.
Speed is good. But why are nuclear systems faster?
Systems of today
Once a ship has escaped Earth’s gravity, there are three important aspects to consider when comparing any propulsion system:
Thrust – how fast a system can accelerate a ship
Mass efficiency – how much thrust a system can produce for a given amount of fuel
Energy density – how much energy a given amount of fuel can produce
Today, the most common propulsion systems in use are chemical propulsion – that is, regular fuel-burning rockets – and solar-powered electric propulsion systems.
Chemical propulsion systems provide a lot of thrust, but chemical rockets aren’t particularly efficient, and rocket fuel isn’t that energy-dense. The Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the Moon produced 35 million Newtons of force at liftoff and carried 950,000 gallons of fuel. While most of the fuel was used in getting the rocket into orbit, the limitations are apparent: It takes a lot of heavy fuel to get anywhere.
Electric propulsion systems generate thrust using electricity produced from solar panels. The most common way to do this is to use an electrical field to accelerate ions, such as in the Hall thruster. These devices are commonly used to power satellites and can have more than five times higher mass efficiency than chemical systems. But they produce much less thrust – about three Newtons, or only enough to accelerate a car from 0-60 mph in about two and a half hours. The energy source – the Sun – is essentially infinite but becomes less useful the farther away from the Sun the ship gets.
One of the reasons nuclear-powered rockets are promising is because they offer incredible energy density. The uranium fuel used in nuclear reactors has an energy density that is 4 million times higher than hydrazine, a typical chemical rocket propellant. It is much easier to get a small amount of uranium to space than hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel.
So what about thrust and mass efficiency?
Two options for nuclear
Engineers have designed two main types of nuclear systems for space travel.
The first is called nuclear thermal propulsion. These systems are very powerful and moderately efficient. They use a small nuclear fission reactor – similar to those found in nuclear submarines – to heat a gas, such as hydrogen, and that gas is then accelerated through a rocket nozzle to provide thrust. Engineers from NASA estimate that a mission to Mars powered by nuclear thermal propulsion would be 20%-25% shorter than a trip on a chemical-powered rocket.
Nuclear thermal propulsion systems are more than twice as efficient as chemical propulsion systems – meaning they generate twice as much thrust using the same amount of propellant mass – and can deliver 100,000 Newtons of thrust. That’s enough force to get a car from 0-60 mph in about a quarter of a second.
The second nuclear-based rocket system is called nuclear electric propulsion. No nuclear electric systems have been built yet, but the idea is to use a high-power fission reactor to generate electricity that would then power an electrical propulsion system like a Hall thruster. This would be very efficient, about three times better than a nuclear thermal propulsion system. Since the nuclear reactor could create a lot of power, many individual electric thrusters could be operated simultaneously to generate a good amount of thrust.
Nuclear electric systems would be the best choice for extremely long-range missions because they don’t require solar energy, have very high efficiency and can give relatively high thrust. But while nuclear electric rockets are extremely promising, there are still a lot of technical problems to solve before they are put into use.
Why aren’t there nuclear powered rockets yet?
Nuclear thermal propulsion systems have been studied since the 1960s but have not yet flown in space.
Regulations first imposed in the U.S. in the 1970s essentially required case-by-case examination and approval of any nuclear space project from multiple government agencies and explicit approval from the president. Along with a lack of funding for nuclear rocket system research, this environment prevented further improvement of nuclear reactors for use in space.
That all changed when the Trump administration issued a presidential memorandum in August 2019. While upholding the need to keep nuclear launches as safe as possible, the new directive allows for nuclear missions with lower amounts of nuclear material to skip the multi-agency approval process. Only the sponsoring agency, like NASA, for example, needs to certify that the mission meets safety recommendations. Larger nuclear missions would go through the same process as before.
Along with this revision of regulations, NASA received US0 million in the 2019 budget to develop nuclear thermal propulsion. DARPA is also developing a space nuclear thermal propulsion system to enable national security operations beyond Earth orbit.
After 60 years of stagnation, it’s possible a nuclear-powered rocket will be heading to space within a decade. This exciting achievement will usher in a new era of space exploration. People will go to Mars and science experiments will make new discoveries all across our solar system and beyond.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Iain Boyd, University of Colorado Boulder.
Read more:
Never mind SpaceX’s Falcon 9, where’s my Millennium Falcon?
How SpaceX lowered costs and reduced barriers to space
Mining the moon for rocket fuel to get us to Mars
Iain Boyd receives funding from the following sources, none of it is related to space propulsion: Office of Naval Research Lockheed-Martin Northrop-Grumman L3-Harris
Russia-Ukraine war has killed 'several thousand dolphins' and harmed the marine ecosystem, say Black Sea scientists
Bethany Dawson
Sat, June 4, 2022
A dolphin is seen in the Black Sea, Lazurne urban-type settlement, Kherson Region, southern Ukraine (September 22, 2020)Volodymyr Tarasov/ Ukrinform/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Scientists who study the Black Sea warn that dolphins are being killed in the Russia-Ukraine war.
One Ukrainian ecologist has said that "several thousands of dolphins have already died."
The Turkish Marine Research Foundation has said the war is causing a "crisis in biodiversity."
Scientists are reporting many dolphin deaths, with Putin's invasion of Ukraine blamed for the spike.
Dolphins are washing up on the coastline of the Black Sea (which borders Ukraine, Bulgaria, Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Romania, and Moldova), showing war-related injuries, including burn marks from bombs.
Ivan Rusev, research director at Ukraine's Tuzla Estuaries National Nature Park, has been documenting the 101 days of the war on his Facebook page, using his platform to raise awareness of the ecological effects of the invasion.
Writing on Facebook, Rusev explains how dolphins are washing up on shore with burns from bombs and landmines, internal injuries, and showing signs of not eating for days.
The ecologist states that the data collected by him and his team and other researchers around Europe show that "several thousand dolphins have already died."
"Barbarians kill not only civilized people but smart dolphins," Rusev wrote on Facebook.
Also raising the alarm on the mounting dolphin death toll is the Turkish Marine Research Foundation, which reported that the war is having "devastating effects" on the marine environment.
In a press release, the research foundation outlined the "crisis in biodiversity" caused by the war. It included the destruction of endangered red algae (which acts as a "living ground" for many marine species) and feeding grounds for fish — including dolphins — transformed into a maritime war zone.
The Russian missile cruiser Moskva sank on April 14 after it was struck by Ukrainian missiles.Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP
It also highlighted the danger of oil and gas leaking into the sea from sunken military ships.
Before the war, 100 scientists from a Conservation group for the Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea, and contiguous Atlantic Sea surveyed marine life to determine the number of dolphins within these areas.
Their study found that over 253,000 healthy dolphins lived in the Black Sea, the New York Times reports, with this being a sign of a well-functioning ecological system.
With the war raging on and tampering efforts for data collection, it is unknown precisely how many of these quarter of a million dolphins will survive.
Biden Administration should be embracing refugees, not limiting their acceptance | Opinion
Mihir Ram
Sat, June 4, 2022The Tennessean
The refugee crisis has long been a problem worldwide, and the recent conflict between Russia and Ukraine has only worsened it. President Biden needs to help alleviate the crisis by accepting more refugees into the United States.
In the past decade, the global refugee population has more than doubled. Currently, there are estimated to be over 22.6 million refugees worldwide, and this number does not include the millions of new refugees coming from Ukraine.
Of these millions of people, only a small fraction of them are resettled, and an even smaller fraction are resettled into the United States. This seems like the case because the conversation about refugee admission into the United States always seems to create conflict.
Refugee admission into the U.S. by the numbers
The president controls the refugee cap in the U.S. through a power officially known as Presidential Determination, and for the fiscal year of 2022 that cap was set to a total of 125,000 refugees.
Sarwar Hawez helps newly arrived Afghan refugees check in to a Motel in Nashville, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021.
This cap is quite the increase from the one set during the Trump administration, which was the lowest number in U.S. history at 18,000 refugees during the 2020 fiscal year.
However, the increase in cap size has not seen an increase in refugee admissions. Since 2017, there has only been one year, 2019, in which the cap was met, but that cap was quite low at only 30,000 refugees.
In the fiscal year of 2021, only 11,411 refugees were accepted with a cap of 62,500. Similarly, in the six months in which data has been collected for the 2022 fiscal year, the number of accepted refugees is only 8,758. The Biden administration needs to put in a greater effort towards accepting more refugees into the United States.
The argument for refugees
Despite all of the debate around refugee acceptance, studies have consistently concluded that refugees are a net-positive for the United States, no matter how you look at it.
At a press conference Wednesday, Nashville Deputy Mayor Brenda Haywood highlights the city's partnership with local faith-based nonprofits to welcome Afghan refugees in the city.
First, refugees do not pose a security risk to the U.S. All accepted refugees have undergone a vetting process from both the United Nations and the U.S. federal government that typically lasts anywhere from 18 to 24 months. So they are very unlikely to pose a risk.
Studies have also confirmed that refugees are not a risk and are less likely to commit crimes than natural-born U.S. citizens. Oftentimes, introducing refugees into communities lowers the crime rate.
Furthermore, refugees have been shown to be an economic positive. The amount of revenue a refugee provides to the U.S. is greater than the government costs of resettling and providing aid for the refugee in the long-term.
The U.S. is currently facing a labor shortage. Studies have shown that refugees do not steal jobs from the American worker, but rather they fill labor shortages, and in the long-term they create more jobs.
The United States needs refugees now more than ever, and we could look like heroes helping alleviate the refugee crisis as we solve our own problems.
PRO-LIFE TILL BIRTH
Republicans Won't Renew Free School Meal Program Which Could Hurt Millions of ChildrenMurjani RawlsFri, June 3, 2022
A student picks up a free individually bagged lunch in the cafeteria during the first day of school at Stamford High School on September 08, 2020, in Stamford, Connecticut.A pandemic program allowing waivers for schools to provide free breakfast and lunch to up to 10 million additional students is set to expire on June 30. Currently, Congress has not provided a solution to extend the program to the dismay of many advocated, Salon reports.The waivers gave the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) authority to lift regulatory obstacles to universal school meals, such as income-based eligibility requirements. With that new flexibility, millions of families were able to discard paperwork and red tape for kids to get fed. The National School Lunch program feeds 22.6 million school children daily.
However, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and other Republicans killed a temporary program extension in March – saying they did not see “pandemic-era flexibilities as necessary anymore.”
From Salon:
“There is no urgency and political appetite to even have this conversation,” Jillien Meier, director of the No Kid Hungry campaign, told Vox’s Rachel Cohen on Wednesday. “Frankly this is not a priority for Congress and the White House. People are really focused on having a ‘return to normal’... folks aren’t talking about it and they have no clue that this crisis is looming.
Some states around the country are taking measures into their own hands to extend the lunch program themselves. These efforts come with a high cost, given higher food prices, supply chain breaks, and staffing issues.
From Vox:
“Without them, schools will face financial penalties for not meeting federal nutrition requirements, even though they have no choice,” said Davis. “They will have fewer financial resources to meet higher prices for food and other goods, staffing, and transportation. Summer — already the hungriest time of year — will be particularly hard for kids when many summer sites will be unable to open.”
“Children in rural communities,” Davis added, “will face more barriers to accessing summer meals when important flexibilities like multiple meal pickup and delivery options disappear.”
It would only cost Congress $11 billion to reauthorize the program. Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich) introduced the Support Kids Not Red Tape Act to extend the waivers, but only has support from all Senate Democrats and two lone Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins.
Some representatives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn) want a permanent solution. Last year, they introduced a bill to enact a permanent, universal, and nationwide free school meals program, guaranteeing free breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack to all school children, regardless of their family income. That proposal has not received a vote in the House or Senate.
Mike Pompeo summoned by court to explain alleged US government plot to assassinate Julian Assange, say Spanish media reports
Alia Shoaib
Sat, June 4, 2022
Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (L), WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (R).Jack Taylor/Getty Images (L), Leah Millis/Reuters (R).
Mike Pompeo has been summoned by a Spanish court to explain an alleged CIA plot to assassinate Julian Assange.
A court is probing whether a Spanish security firm spied on Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy.
Pompeo is being asked to testify whether the US received information from the firm.
Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State under President Donald Trump, has been summoned by a Spanish court to explain an alleged US government plot to assassinate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to ABC Spain.
The alleged plot was first revealed by Yahoo News in September, which reported that senior CIA and Trump administration officials discussed possibly kidnapping or killing Assange after being angered by Wikileaks' publication of sensitive CIA hacking tools.
The discussions took place "at the highest levels" of the Trump administration, a former senior counterintelligence official told the outlet, with officials even requesting "sketches" or "options" for how to assassinate Assange.
Pompeo has been called to appear in the Spanish court in connection with a probe into whether Spanish security firm UC Global spied on Assange while providing security for the Ecuadorian embassy in London, sources close to the case told ABC Spain.
Assange sought political asylum to live in the embassy for seven years before being ousted in 2019.
Spanish National High Court Judge Santiago Pedraz summoned Pompeo and former US counterintelligence official William Evanina as witnesses to explain the alleged assassination plot and whether they received information through the security firm.
Evanina allegedly previously confessed to having access to security camera footage and audio recordings from inside the Ecuadorian Embassy, Assange's lawyers claimed in letters seen by Spanish outlet The Objective.
Aitor Martinez, a lawyer for Assange, previously claimed in court documents that the alleged spying plot "would have been orchestrated from the United States," Reuters reported.
Judge Pedraz agreed to summon Pompeo and Evanina at the urging of Assange's lawyers, the ABC Spain report says.
They have been asked to appear in the Spanish court in June and can testify via videoconference, according to the outlet.
Pompeo is yet to comment on the case and confirm whether he will appear in court.
Pompeo was the director of the CIA from 2017 to 2018 and then was appointed Trump's secretary of state in April 2018.
A Uvalde Mom Who Ran Into The School To Save Her Sons From The Shooting Spoke Out About How Police Tried To Stop Her
Steffi Cao
Sat, June 4, 2022
A Uvalde mom who says she was handcuffed by law enforcement while trying to rescue her sons from the school shooting, has claimed that authorities warned her not to speak to the media about her experience.
Angeli Gomez, a farmworker in Uvalde, spoke to CBS News on Thursday, describing how she was able to rush into Robb Elementary School and save her kids during the shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers, despite law enforcements’ attempts to stop her.
Gomez, who previously spoke to the Wall Street Journal about her experience, said she had just gone back to work after her children's graduation ceremony when she first received news about the shooting. She quickly drove 40 miles back to the school, but said that she was prevented from going inside.
“Right away, as soon as I parked my car, US Marshals started coming towards my car saying I wasn’t allowed to be parked there,” Gomez told CBS News. “He said, ‘We’re going to have to arrest you because you’re being very uncooperative,’ and I said, ‘Well, you’re going to have to arrest me because I’m going in there, and I’m telling you right now — I don’t see none of y’all in there.’”
Gomez alleged that the US Marshals handcuffed her to stop her from rushing toward the school.
"I told one of the officers, 'I don't need you to protect me. Get away from me. I don't need your protection. If anything, I need you to go in with me to go protect my kids,'" she told CBS News.
The US Marshals have previously denied handcuffing parents, telling WSJ that their deputy marshals “maintained order and peace in the midst of the grief-stricken community that was gathering around the school.”
CBS News also reported that Gomez, who is reportedly on probation for previous charges against her, claimed that she had received a call from “someone in law enforcement” telling her that if she kept talking to the media and sharing her story she might face some kind of violation for obstruction of justice.
According to CBS News, Gomez said she was able to speak out after a judge called her “brave” and told her that her probation would be shortened.
Uvalde police did not respond to requests for comment and BuzzFeed News could not independently verify Gomez’s account about the call and her probation.
Gomez said that she was able to convince local police to uncuff her, and as soon as she was free, she jumped over a fence and rushed into the building to grab her two sons, who are in the second and third grade, from inside. According to her account, police chased her while she ran towards the building.
Gomez claimed that she did not see officers inside the building while she was in there, but that she could hear gunshots coming from somewhere in the school. When she knocked on the door of her first son’s classroom, she recalled finding teachers and students hiding inside.
Gomez said the teacher asked her if they had time to get out and she replied, “Yeah you have time, I’m going to run and get my other son.’”
She said that authorities tried to escort her out of the building when she approached her other son’s classroom door, but that when she saw them opening the door, she ran back to get her child.
Gomez was captured on camera holding her sons’ hands while running out of the school.
“Nothing was being done,” she told CBS News. “If anything, [law enforcement] were being more aggressive on us parents that were willing to go in there.”
Several videos widely shared on social media showed authorities confronting desperate parents who were angrily asking why armed police officers were not rushing in to save their children during the shooting.
In one video, an officer who was seen pushing parents back, was asked by a parent why police weren’t trying to save their kids.
“Because I'm having to deal with you!" the officer replied.
The mishandling of the shooting by law enforcement has sparked national outcry after it was revealed that police did not enter the classroom to confront the shooter for more than an hour after the shooting began, and have reportedly ignored requests for follow-up interviews by Texas state investigators. The Justice Department has opened an investigation to review the police response to the attack after authorities admitted that mistakes were made.
Even as Gomez recounted being able to rescue her own children, she broke down in tears, thinking about how many other kids’ lives could have been saved if not for police inaction.
"They could have saved many more lives," Gomez said. "They could have gone into the classroom and maybe two or three would have been gone but they could have saved the whole, more, the whole class. They could have done something, gone through the window, sniped him through the window. Something, but nothing was being done."
CASINO CAPITALI$M
Crypto winter has come, and Coinbase is in trouble
Emma Roth - THE VERGE
Coinbase is pulling back on its hiring efforts. In a memo posted to Coinbase’s site, chief people officer L.J. Brock announced that Coinbase is putting a pause on hiring new employees, as well as rescinding several job offers already accepted by prospective workers, citing “current market conditions and ongoing business prioritization efforts.”
© Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeCrypto winter has come, and Coinbase is in trouble
The shift comes as the cryptocurrency market continues to trend downwards, dragging the supposedly immovable stablecoins, which are pegged to a fiat currency or commodity, with it. Coinbase started to slow hiring in mid-May to make sure the company is “best positioned to succeed during and after the current downturn,” but this move halts hiring completely. Brock notes that the freeze will also affect backfills, or the employees hired to replace workers leaving the company. It excludes those hired to fill roles in “security and compliance,” however.
Coinbase is also contending with a lackluster response to the social NFT marketplace it launched widely in May. According to data from Dune Analytics viewed by The Motley Fool, 4,132 people purchased an NFT on the platform within 19 days of its launch, and gross sales amounted to $875,000, or an average of $46,000 per day. It doesn’t help that NFT sales are declining as a whole, dipping to about 19,000 sales per week at the beginning of May, as opposed to the 225,000 NFT sales made in September.
Coinbase’s hiring freeze is an indication of chillier conditions for the cryptocurrency market
It’s unclear how many job offers Coinbase rescinded, and the company didn’t immediately reply to The Verge’s request for comment. Brock says affected individuals will benefit from Coinbase’s “generous severance policy” and will gain access to a talent hub with various career resources, including interview coaching, resume review, and networking opportunities.
The changeup at Coinbase has left some prospective employees struggling. At least two individuals set to be hired by Coinbase say they may lose their OPT (Optional Practical Training) Visa due to the rescinded offer. Others say they received an email reassuring them that they won’t lose their newly-accepted job due to the company’s hiring slowdown, only to receive an impersonal email notifying them of a rescinded offer weeks later.
“You may have seen this week that Coinbase posted an external blog post announcing our intentions to slow down hiring so that we can reprioritize our hiring needs against our highest-priority business goals,” Coinbase’s initial email to new hires reads. “First and foremost, I wanted to communicate that we are still extremely excited about having you join Coinbase and we will not be rescinding the offers of any employees who have already signed or have received an offer from us.”
Coinbase beefed up its staff as part of its plan to hire 2,000 employees in 2022, saying it foresaw “enormous product opportunities ahead for the future of Web3” at the time. Its most recent earnings report reveals that Coinbase added 1,218 employees in the first quarter of 2022 alone, bringing its total headcount to 4,948.
“While we did not make this decision lightly, it is the prudent one given market conditions,” Brock stated in the letter. “We will continue to evaluate all of our options to responsibly navigate Coinbase through the current cycle.”
Coinbase’s hiring freeze is an indication of chillier conditions for the cryptocurrency market, and so are the layoffs made at other companies on the blockchain. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twins behind the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange, also announced that they’re cutting 10 percent of staff. The same goes for Rain, a large crypto exchange based in the Middle East, which also laid off dozens of employees.
Last week, famed short-seller Jim Chanos called Coinbase “tremendously overvalued” on the Crypto Critics Corner podcast (via Fortune), and predicts the price of its stock will sit “in the mid-teens” by the end of this year. Coinbase shares dipped 9.7 percent after news of the hiring freeze went public on Friday.
Crypto SPACs Brace for Cruel Summer With Lower Valuations, SEC Scrutiny
Michael BellusciCOINDESK
Sat, June 4, 2022
Special purpose acquisition companies (SPAC) were Wall Street’s hottest way to hit the public market, but the craze has cooled amid an overall market downturn along with added Securities and Exchange Commission regulations.
If parties involved in existing deals want to proceed, they’re going to need to reprice them to reflect current market comps, Peter Stoneberg, managing director at M&A firm Architect Partners, told CoinDesk. “SPACs overall have been very volatile and on a downward trajectory,” Stoneberg said.
Last Wednesday, media outlet Forbes scrapped its plans to go public via a SPAC at a $630 million valuation through a merger with Hong Kong-based Magnum Opus Acquisition Ltd. (OPA). Crypto exchange Binance had previously provided a $200 million strategic investment in Forbes in conjunction with the proposed deal.
Regulation
To enhance investor protection, the SEC recently said that it would propose “specialized disclosure requirements with respect to, among other things, compensation paid to sponsors, conflicts of interest, dilution, and the fairness of these business combination transactions.”
The SEC’s report noted that SPACs nearly doubled the amount they raised from over $83 billion in such offerings in 2020 to more than $160 billion last year. The SEC added that in those years over half of all initial public offerings were conducted using a SPAC.
Stoneberg noted headwinds for SPAC participants. The SEC is now being more cautious on the overall SPAC process, particularly crypto-linked deals, he added.
Crypto miners and capital
Cryptocurrency miners require plenty of capital for data centers and rigs, but capital is scarce now, Stoneberg said.
“There’s not a lot of capital out there for mining companies right now or for SPACs,” he said. The private investment in the public equity (PIPE) market was “very active, but today it's pretty much dead.”
Here are crypto SPAC deals investors are watching:
Circle, the backer of the USDC stablecoin, and its combination with Concord Acquisition Corp. (CND). The parties reached a new agreement with an initial outside date of Dec. 8, with the potential to extend to Jan. 31, 2023, under “certain circumstances.”
Miner PrimeBlock with 10X Capital Venture Acquisition Corp. II (VCXA), in a deal expected to close in the second half of the year.
Miner Bitdeer and Blue Safari Group Acquisition Corp. (BSGA), in a deal that was recently extended.
Bitmain-backed miner BitFuFu and Arisz Acquisition Corp. (ARIZ), which is expected to list on the Nasdaq in Q3.
Miner Griid Infrastructure and Adit EdTech Acquisition Corp. (ADEX), originally expected to close in Q1.
Coincheck, one of Japan's largest crypto exchanges, with Thunder Bridge Capital Partners IV. The deal is expected to be completed in the second half of this year.
Investing platform eToro Group and FinTech Acquisition Corp. V (FTCV). The deal has a June 30 termination date.
Crypto investment platform Bullish and Far Peak Acquisition Corp. (FPAC), with an outside termination date that was recently extended to July 8.
Digital asset trading network Apifiny Group and Abri SPAC I, expected to close in Q3.
‘Fear is increasing’: Hindus flee Kashmir amid spate of targeted killings
Aakash Hassan In Srinagar - THE GUARDIAN
Hundreds of minority Hindus have fled from Indian-administered Kashmir, and many more are preparing to leave, after a fresh spate of targeted killings stoked tensions in the disputed Himalayan region.
Photograph: Mukhtar Khan/AP
Three Hindus have been killed by militants in Kashmir this week alone, including a teacher and migrant workers, prompting mass protests and the largest exodus of Hindu families from the Muslim-majority region in two decades.
Sanjay Tickoo, a Kashmiri Pandit activist, said: “Some 3,500 people have left and more will be leaving in coming days.”
Many Hindu families said they were waiting to get discharge certificates for their children from schools and then would leave as soon as possible. “Fear is increasing with each new killing,” said Tickoo. “The minorities are facing the worst situation in Kashmir.”
On Thursday morning, suspected rebels killed Vijay Kumar, a bank manager from Rajasthan state, in southern Kulgam district. CCTV footage showed a masked man walking into Kumar’s office and firing a pistol at him.
Later in the evening, two Hindu migrant workers were shot at in Budgam by two masked gunmen. One among them, identified as Dilkhush from Bihar, died from his injuries on the way to the hospital.
Two days before that, Rajni Bala, a Hindu school teacher, was killed by suspected militants, also in Kulgam. On 12 May, Rahul Bhat, a Hindu man, was killed when assailants barged into his office and fired bullets at him.
At least 19 civilians have been killed this year in similar targeted attacks in the region, including minority Hindus, government employees and a woman who was known for her Instagram videos.
Police have blamed Pakistan-backed militant groups for the killings. Kashmir has been a disputed territory between India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947. While both countries control the region in parts, they both lay claim over it in its entirety, and since the 1980s, Indian-controlled Kashmir has been rocked by a violent militant insurgency loyal to Pakistan.
After the string of attacks, Hindus say they being driven out of the region. These include Kashmiri Hindus, commonly referred to as Pandits, 65,000 of whom first fled from the valley in a mass exodus in the 1990s, when a violent pro-Pakistan insurgency broke out in the region and they began to be targeted.
By 2010, a few thousand Kashmiri Hindus had returned to the Muslim-majority region, enticed by a government rehabilitation policy that provided jobs and guarded accommodation to about 4,000 people. But in recent weeks, those who returned have been protesting against the killings and demanding more security. Hindu employees have been abstaining from their duties, urging the government to relocate them to safer locations.
“We are in a 1990s-like situation,” said Pyarai Lal, 65, who lives in Sheikhpora Budgam, in one of the seven guarded housing facilities provided to Hindus. “My son is a teacher and he has not attended his duty for the last two weeks. We are afraid to even leave our home. Who knows when a gunman will attack?”
Lal shifted to southern Jammu city in 1987 with his family and returned in 2010 after the government gave his son a teaching job. But now, he and his family are again preparing to leave. “It seems the situation is going to get worse and we are going to leave soon to Jammu,” said Lal.
Authorities have promised the employees they will be posted to safer locations, and police made assurances they were increasing security by intensifying counter-insurgency operations, surveillance and using drones.
But many Kashmiri Pandits have accused authorities of barring them from leaving and allege that police and paramilitary forces have been deployed at the gates of their government provided accommodations to stop them.
“It seems the government is waiting to get us all killed,” said Rinku Bhat, a Kashmiri Pandit. “Or they are trying to show false normalcy by forcibly holding us at a place where every minute is unsafe for us.”
On Wednesday, the Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Simiti, an organisation that tracks the minority community in the region, wrote a letter to the region’s chief justice raising concern for their safety and accused the government of playing with their lives by preventing them from relocation, seeking high court intervention.
The targeted attacks against Hindus pose a great political challenge to prime minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government, which has made repeated promises to look after the interests of Kashmiri Pandits. On Friday, India’s home minister, Amit Shah, held a high-level review meeting on the security situation in the region, but no government statement has been made on the issue.
In 2019, Modi unilaterally revoked Kashmir’s autonomy, and enforced a military crackdown under the guise of greater security for Kashmir. The government introduced a slew of laws allowing non-locals to buy property in the region, in the hope of enticing Hindus to settle in the state, a move many locals feared was Delhi’s attempt to bring about demographic changes in the Muslim-majority region.
Many see the removal of Kashmir’s autonomy in 2019, as well as Hindu nationalist policies of the Modi government, which have driven an increase in attacks against Muslims in India, as a driving force behind the growing surge of violence in Kashmir.
“Kashmiri Muslims feel their religion and identity is in the danger and [the attacks] definitely seems in reaction to that,” said Tickoo.
