POSTMODERN MANICHAEISM

Influential prophesizing pastors believe reelecting Trump is a win in the war of angels and demons

PETER SMITH
Thu, October 3, 2024 





Election 2024-Spiritual Warfare
Pastor Hank Kunneman of Lord of Hosts Church in Omaha, Nebraska, is projected on a large screen as he speaks at the Opening the Heavens conference on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, at the Mid-America Center in Council Bluffs, Iowa. 

(AP Photo/Peter Smith)

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (AP) — Thousands sang, cheered and prayed as multiple preachers declared Donald Trump to be God’s favored candidate to defeat what one called the “forces of darkness.”

Headliners denounced Democrat Kamala Harris — Trump's campaign rival — as influenced by demons and the spirit of the wicked biblical queen Jezebel.

Attendees stood and recited in unison a “Watchman Decree,” invoking a government that honors God and has “righteous” laws and “biblical” judicial rulings. They pledged to “take back and permanently control” positions of leadership in sectors such as government, business and culture.


“We break every curse against Donald Trump — we break every satanic incantation against his presidency,” declared the host preacher, Hank Kunneman, at the annual Opening the Heavens conference, held in mid-September at the Mid-America Center arena in Council Bluffs.

The conference is one of several of its type around the country this election year, featuring exuberant worship and speeches by influential preachers. It represents a highly politicized wing of charismatic Christianity, a larger movement that emphasizes spiritual gifts such as healings, prophecy and speaking in tongues.

As a sign of this movement's influence, Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance appeared recently at a similar conference, called the Courage Tour, in Pennsylvania.

Goals for the conference included getting out the vote for Trump and his allies, and mobilizing believers to pray and take part in what’s proclaimed to be a literal spiritual war surrounding the election.

“Get your butt out there and vote. Get your voice and raise it!" declared Kunneman, who pastors Lord of Hosts Church in nearby Omaha, Nebraska, with his wife, Brenda. "Let every devil fall. ... We push back any attempt to steal the executive office."

The conference emerges from a movement that emphasizes authoritative direction from leaders considered to be modern-day apostles and prophets. It also incorporated Christian nationalism, a fusion of American and Christian identity.

Critics view the movement with alarm, seeing it as anti-democratic and supporting a candidate with authoritarian ambitions and incendiary rhetoric. Many of its leaders rallied behind Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

“The attitude coming into 2024 is, ‘The demons are probably going to try to steal this election again, and so we need to do spiritual warfare in advance to prevent that,’” said Matthew Taylor, author of the new book on the movement, “The Violent Take It By Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy.”

“It’s very hard to have a pluralistic democracy," Taylor said, when many distrust the electoral system.

Several leaders in this movement were present at rallies in Washington protesting Biden’s presidential victory before and on Jan. 6, 2021, said Taylor.

Leaders weren’t among the Capitol rioters, but some issued decrees and prayers that the certification of Biden's win be blocked and Trump returned for a second term.

Such ideology “is one of those golden threads” in the social media feeds of many participants of the Jan. 6 rallies, said Taylor, Protestant scholar at the Baltimore-based Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies.

Headliners at the Council Bluffs conference repeatedly spoke of being in a true spiritual war, merging decrees of political victory and Christian revival.

The “favor of the Lord” is on Trump, said one preacher, Dutch Sheets. “America is going to be saved, and I believe this election is a part of it."

His brother and fellow preacher, Tim Sheets, recounted seeing a vision of a warrior angel firing an arrow that landed in front of the White House, claiming the territory for God.

“We must move into battle for the Lord,” he said. “The drums of spiritual war are beating.”

Preachers repeatedly denounced abortion — one described it as an outpouring of blood craved by demons — and the “mutilation” of children, as they depicted gender-affirming treatment for transgender youths.

The arena appeared a little more than half full, with thousands of attendees from multiple states. Many wore T-shirts with slogans like, “Defender of Territory” and “We the People Trust Jesus,” while several bundled up with American flag-themed fleece blankets amid chilly air conditioning.

Participants at the Council Bluffs conference, mostly but not exclusively white, aligned with the larger evangelical Christian support of Trump.

About 8 in 10 white evangelicals supported Trump in 2020, according to AP VoteCast. Pew Research Center’s validated voter survey found similar support levels in 2016.

This year, about 7 in 10 white evangelical Protestants view the Republican nominee favorably, an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey found.

Behind that supermajority is a diverse evangelicalism. The charismatic exuberance and focus on the supernatural contrast in tone with the relatively restrained approach of groups such as Southern Baptists, though they have allied in their political conservatism and opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

And the charismatic movement has its own diversity. This heavily politicized branch teaches that in the present day, God has re-established the ancient biblical roles of apostle — an authoritative leader — and prophet, someone issuing divine proclamations.

The movement isn’t a denomination. Churches and ministries largely operate independently, even as its leaders speak at each others’ conferences, endorse each others’ books and appear on each others’ broadcasts.

As one example of the overlap: The Opening the Heavens conference in Council Bluffs featured one segment called FlashPoint Live — an in-person version of a television show that mixes charismatic Christianity and conservative politics. It’s one of several such FlashPoint Live conferences this year, hosted by pastor Gene Bailey — whose recent interview with Trump demonstrated the close ties between the movement and the former president.

The ReAwaken America tour, started by Trump’s former national security advisor Michael Flynn, has similarly blended the political with revival-like rallies and featured members of Trump's family.

While a range of evangelicals served as Trump’s faith-based advisors during his administration, charismatic leaders were especially prominent.

The apostles-and-prophets movement overlaps with two related, popular ideas: dominionism, which says Christians are to be in charge of society, and the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” which specifies seven areas where Christians are to lead — politics, religion, media, business, family, education and the arts and entertainment.

Bailey led in the reciting of the Watchman Decree at Council Bluffs, which included a pledge to “permanently control positions of influence and leadership in each of the seven mountains.”

Bailey and Kunneman declined interview requests through a media representative.

Taylor said that according to this strand of charismatic theology, Holy Spirit-filled Christians have the power not just to ask God for results but to speak them into being.

“It’s not just spouting off or praying prayers,” he said. “They believe that they are changing reality with these Watchman Decrees.”

He added: "It looks wild when you encounter it, but it is very popular, and it’s very dangerous."

Separate from the Council Bluffs conference organizers, but with an overlapping cast of speakers, is the Courage Tour. It’s led by Lance Wallnau, who popularized the Seven Mountain concept and was an early booster of Trump’s 2016 candidacy.

The tour has been held in crucial battleground states, mixing worship, prayers for miraculous healings and overt politics — including a call for Christians to become election workers or poll watchers to “fight the fraud” in swing states.

Taylor said this appears to lay groundwork for a campaign to delegitimize the 2024 election results if Harris wins.

While movement leaders speak of spiritual warfare — that is, angel vs. demon rather than human vs. human — Taylor said such rhetoric can stoke some people into taking matters into their own hands.

He said it’s no surprise that some rioters at the Capitol in 2021 were loudly praying and displaying Christian symbols.

“I really do worry that we could see a lot more political violence,” he said.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

\

Thousands of shipping containers have been lost at sea. What happens when they burst open?

CHRISTINA LARSON, HELEN WIEFFERING and MANUEL VALDES
Wed, October 2, 2024

PHOTO ESSAY

LONG BEACH, Wash. (AP) — Russ Lewis has picked up some strange things along the coast of Long Beach Peninsula in Washington state over the years: Hot Wheels bicycle helmets with feather tufts, life-size plastic turkey decoys made for hunters, colorful squirt guns.

And Crocs — so many mismatched Crocs.

If you find a single Croc shoe, you might think somebody lost it out on the beach, he said. “But, if you find two, three, four and they’re different — you know, one’s a big one, one’s a little one — that’s a clue.”

These items aren’t like the used fishing gear and beer cans that Lewis also finds tossed overboard by fishers or partygoers. They’re the detritus of commercial shipping containers lost in the open ocean.

Most of the world’s raw materials and everyday goods that are moved over long distances — from T-shirts to televisions, cellphones to hospital beds — are packed in large metal boxes the size of tractor-trailers and stacked on ships. A trade group says some 250 million containers cross the oceans every year — but not everything arrives as planned.

More than 20,000 shipping containers have tumbled overboard in the last decade and a half. Their varied contents have washed onto shorelines, poisoned fisheries and animal habitats, and added to swirling ocean trash vortexes. Most containers eventually sink to the sea floor and are never retrieved.

Cargo ships can lose anywhere from a single container to hundreds at a time in rough seas. Experts disagree on how many are lost each year. The World Shipping Council, an industry group, reports that, on average, about 1,500 were lost annually over the 16 years they’ve tracked — though fewer in recent years. Others say the real number is much higher, as the shipping council data doesn’t include the entire industry and there are no penalties for failing to report losses publicly.

Much of the debris that washed up on Lewis’ beach matched items lost off the giant cargo ship ONE Apus in November 2020. When the ship hit heavy swells on a voyage from China to California, nearly 2,000 containers slid into the Pacific.

Court documents and industry reports show the vessel was carrying more than $100,000 worth of bicycle helmets and thousands of cartons of Crocs, as well as electronics and other more hazardous goods: batteries, ethanol and 54 containers of fireworks.

Researchers mapped the flow of debris to several Pacific coastlines thousands of miles apart, including Lewis’ beach and the remote Midway Atoll, a national wildlife refuge for millions of seabirds near the Hawaiian Islands that also received a flood of mismatched Crocs.

Scientists and environmental advocates say more should be done to track losses and prevent container spills.

“Just because it may seem 'out of sight, out of mind,’ doesn’t mean there aren’t vast environmental consequences,” said marine biologist Andrew DeVogelaere of California’s Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, who has spent more than 15 years studying the environmental impact of a single container that was found in sanctuary waters.

“We are leaving time capsules on the bottom of the sea of everything we buy and sell — sitting down there for maybe hundreds of years,” he said.

Nitric acid, plastic pellets and baby seals

This year’s summer winds washed thousands of plastic pellets ashore near Colombo, Sri Lanka, three years after a massive fire aboard the X-Press Pearl burned for days and sank the vessel a few miles offshore.

The disaster dumped more than 1,400 damaged shipping containers into the sea — releasing billions of plastic manufacturing pellets known as nurdles as well as thousands of tons of nitric acid, lead, methanol and sodium hydroxide, all toxic to marine life.

Hemantha Withanage remembers how the beach near his home smelled of burnt chemicals. Volunteers soon collected thousands of dead fish, gills stuffed with chemical-laced plastic, and nearly 400 dead endangered sea turtles, more than 40 dolphins and six whales, their mouths jammed with plastic. “It was like a war zone,” he said.

Cleanup crews wearing full-body hazmat suits strode into the tide with hand sieves to try to collect the lentil-size plastic pellets.

The waterfront was closed to commercial fishing for three months, and the 12,000 families that depend on fishing for their income have only gotten a fraction of the $72 million that Withanage, founder of Sri Lanka’s nonprofit Centre for Environmental Justice, believes they are owed.

“Just last week, there was a huge wind, and all the beaches were full of plastic again,” he said in mid-June.

Lost container contents don’t have to be toxic to wreak havoc.

In February, the cargo ship President Eisenhower lost 24 containers off the central California coast. Some held bales of soon-waterlogged cotton and burst open. Debris washed ashore near Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, a federally protected area.

The ship’s captain informed the U.S. Coast Guard, which worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and California State Parks to remove the debris. Each bale was too heavy to drag away — instead they had to be cut up, each filling two dump trucks.

“A rancid soggy mess,” said Eric Hjelstrom, a chief ranger for California State Parks. “If tidal pools get filled with cotton, that can block out sunlight and harm a lot of organisms.”

One bale landed in an elephant seal nursery, surrounded by baby seals. “You have to be careful how to approach it – you don’t want to injure the seals,” Hjelstrom said. A marine mammal specialist gently escorted 10 pups away before the bale was removed.

Although the operators of the President Eisenhower helped pay for cleanup, neither California nor federal authorities have ordered the company to pay any penalties.

As for the metal shipping containers, only one was spotted on a U.S. Coast Guard overflight, and it had vanished from sight by the time a tugboat was sent to retrieve it, said Coast Guard Lt. Chris Payne in San Francisco.

When shipping containers are lost overboard, “Most of them sink. And a lot of times, they’re just in really deep water,” said Jason Rolfe of NOAA’s Marine Debris Program.

Most sunken containers — some still sealed, some damaged and open — are never found or recovered.

The Coast Guard has limited powers to compel shipowners to retrieve containers unless they threaten a marine sanctuary or contain oil or designated hazardous materials. “If it’s outside our jurisdiction,” said Payne, “there’s nothing that we can do as the federal government to basically require a company to retrieve a container.”

The long-term impact of adding on average more than a thousand containers each year to the world’s oceans — by the most conservative estimates — remains unknown.

Scientists at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California are studying the cascade of changes wrought by a single container found by chance on the seabed.

Their research team was operating a remote-control vehicle at 4,200 feet (1,280 meters) below the surface to study deep-sea corals in 2004 when they were surprised to encounter a metal box. “It’s just serendipity that we found it,” said marine ecologist Jim Barry. Despite multiple spills in nearby shipping lanes, “It’s the only container that we know exactly where it landed.”

“The first thing that happens is they land and crush everything underneath them,” said DeVogelaere, who studied the sunken container. By changing the flow of water and sediment, the container completely changes the micro-ecosystem around it — impacting seafloor species that scientists are still discovering.

“The animals in the deep have felt our presence before we even knew anything about them,” he said.

Labels showed the container came from the Med Taipei, which had lost two dozen boxes in rough seas on a journey between San Francisco and Los Angeles. In 2006, the ship owners and operators reached a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice to pay $3.25 million for estimated damages to the marine environment.

Steering floating skyscrapers at sea

More than 80% of international trade by volume arrives by sea. All this cargo travels on increasingly vast ships.

“On the modern big ships, it’s like a high-rise building,” said Jos Koning, a senior project manager at MARIN, a Netherlands-based maritime research organization that studies shipping risks.

Today’s largest cargo vessels are longer than three football fields, with cranes required to lift containers and stack them in towering columns. When the industry took off some 50 years ago, ships could hold only about a tenth of the freight that today’s behemoths carry. According to the insurer Allianz, container ship capacities have doubled in just the last two decades.

Greater size brings heightened risks. The largest ships are more difficult to maneuver and more prone to rolling in high waves. And there’s a greater chance that any single box could be damaged and crushed — a destabilizing accident that can send an entire stack of containers cascading into the sea.

In February, the marine insurer Gard published a study based on six years of their claims that showed 9% of ultra-large ships had experienced container losses, compared to just 1% of smaller vessels.

Accidents are often linked to cargo that has been inaccurately labeled, weighed or stored. Investigators determined that the X-Press Pearl’s devastating spill near Sri Lanka, for instance, was the result of a fire that likely started from a poorly stacked container that was leaking nitric acid.

But cargo ship operators don’t have the capacity to verify all container weights and contents, and instead must rely on information that shippers provide.

“It’s just completely impractical to think that you can open every container,” said Ian Lennard, president of the National Cargo Bureau, a nonprofit that works with the U.S. Coast Guard to inspect seagoing cargo.

In a pilot study, the group found that widespread mislabeling and improper stowage meant that nearly 70% of shipping containers arriving in the U.S. with dangerous goods failed the bureau’s safety inspection.

“Despite all these problems, most of the time it arrives safely,” Lennard said.

But when there is a crisis — a ship hits rough weather, or a container carrying a chemical ignites in summer heat — accidents can have catastrophic impacts.

High seas, high losses, but no definitive counts

How often do shipping container spills happen? There’s no clear answer.

Existing tracking efforts are fragmented and incomplete. Although a few shipwrecks and disasters grab headlines, like the March crash of a cargo ship into a Baltimore bridge, much less is known about how often containers are lost piecemeal or away from major ports.

To date, the most widely cited figures on lost shipping containers come from the World Shipping Council. The group’s membership, which carries about 90% of global container traffic, self-reports their losses in a survey each year.

Over 16 years of collected data through 2023, the group said an average of 1,480 containers were lost annually. Their recent figures show 650 containers were lost in 2022 and only about 200 last year.

Elisabeth Braw, senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative, said self-reported surveys miss the full picture.

For example, not included in the 2023 tally were 1,300 containers from the cargo ship Angel, which sank near Taiwan’s Kaohsiung port. That’s because the ship’s operators aren’t members of the World Shipping Council.

Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a maritime intelligence company that’s tracked thousands of marine accidents on container ships over the past decade, told AP that underreporting is rampant, saying ship operators and owners want to avoid insurance rate hikes and protect their reputations.

Marine insurers, which are typically on the hook to pay for mishaps, likely have access to more complete data on losses – but no laws require that data to be collected and shared publicly.

World Shipping Council president and CEO Joe Kramek said the industry is researching ways to reduce errors in loading and stacking containers, as well as in navigating ships through turbulent waters.

“We don’t like when it (a container loss) happens,” said Kramek. “But the maritime environment is one of the most challenging environments to operate in.”

Earlier this year, the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization adopted amendments to two global ocean treaties aimed at increasing transparency around lost shipping containers. Those changes, expected to take effect in 2026, will require ships to report losses to nearby coastal countries and to authorities where the vessel is registered.

But with no enforceable penalties, it remains to be seen how extensively operators will comply.

Alfredo Parroquín-Ohlson, head of cargo in the IMO’s maritime safety division, said, “We just encourage them and tell them how important it is, but we cannot be a police.”

What floats above and what lies beneath

It’s not just environmentalists who worry. Some lost containers float for days before sinking — endangering boats of all sizes, from commercial vessels to recreational sailboats.

The sporting body World Sailing has reported at least eight instances in which crews had to abandon boats because of collisions with what were believed to be containers. In 2016, sailor Thomas Ruyant was 42 days into a race around the world when his sailboat’s hull split from a sudden crash with what appeared to be a floating container.

“It gives me the shivers just thinking about it,” he said in a video dispatch from his damaged boat as he steered toward shore.

In Sri Lanka, the consequences of the X-Press Pearl accident linger, three years after the ship went down.

Fishermen have seen stocks of key species shrink, and populations of long-lived, slow-reproducing animals such as sea turtles may take several generations to recover.

For his part, Lewis, the volunteer beach cleaner in Washington state, said he wonders about all the debris he doesn’t see wash up on his shores.

“What’s going to happen when it gets down deep and, you know, it just ruptures?” he said. “We know we’ve got a problem on the surface, but I think the bigger problem is what’s on the seafloor.”

 Long Beach Peninsula in Pacific County, Wash., Monday, June 17, 2024

AP Photos/Lindsey Wasson

___

Larson and Wieffering reported from Washington, D.C. Bharatha Mallawarachi contributed reporting from Colombo, Sri Lanka.

___

This story was supported by funding from the Walton Family Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Strike by longshoremen continues for second day along East Coast

Lorraine Mirabella, The Baltimore Sun
Wed, October 2, 2024 




A longshoremen strike in the eastern U.S. continued for the second day Wednesday as the dockworkers union and port operators traded accusations of blame for the walkout.

Tens of thousands of longshoremen joined picket lines after midnight Tuesday after a labor contract expired, shutting down the Port of Baltimore and dozens of ports from Maine to Texas. Members of the International Longshoremen’s Association, fighting for better wages and protection from automation, rejected an offer by the U.S. Maritime Alliance to boost wages by 50% over six years.

The Maritime Alliance, which represents port employers like shipping lines and marine terminals, fired back with its first public comment since the walkout, saying it has done its part to end “the completely avoidable ILA strike.”

“Our current offer of a nearly 50% wage increase exceeds every other recent union settlement, while addressing inflation, and recognizing the ILA’s hard work to keep the global economy running,” the alliance said in a news release. “We look forward to hearing from the Union about how we can return to the table and actually bargain, which is the only way to reach a resolution.”

“Our current offer of a nearly 50% wage increase exceeds every other recent union settlement, while addressing inflation, and recognizing the ILA’s hard work to keep the global economy running,” the alliance said in a news release. “We look forward to hearing from the Union about how we can return to the table and actually bargain, which is the only way to reach a resolution.”

The ILA countered that the alliance last made a contract offer in February 2023, then waited until the eve of a potential strike to make another.

“USMX’s claim that they are ready to bargain rings hollow,” the ILA statement said.

The union said the offer fails to address demands of members, many of whom operate container handling equipment worth millions of dollars for $20 an hour when minimum wage is $15 in many states. And two-third of ILA members work on an on-call basis with no guaranteed employment if no ships are in port for loading or unloading, the ILA said.

“Our members endure a grueling six-year wage progression before they can even reach the top wage tier, regardless of how many hours they work or the effort they put in,” the union’s statement said.

The maritime alliance responded again late Wednesday, saying it will not agree to preconditions to return to bargaining but is focused on addressing “critical” issues.”

“Reaching an agreement will require negotiating — and our full focus is on how to return to the table to further discuss these vital components, many of which are intertwined,” the statement said.

The work stoppage is the first widespread longshoremen’s strike in almost five decades. Dockworkers in Baltimore, about 2,400 of whom are ILA members, are walking picket lines outside terminals such as Dundalk, Seagirt and South Locust Point.

The union argues that wage increases in the previous contract were wiped out by rising inflation, while ocean carriers, most of them foreign-owned, have made record profits.

The strike has led to a shutdown of Baltimore’s port for the second time this year. The port was largely closed for about two months after the container ship Dali struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing the span into the Patapsco River, blocking the channel and killing six roadway workers.

It’s also expected to disrupt the economy, both locally and around the country, as the delivery of goods from overseas is delayed. Some economists expect costs to rise, rekindling inflation just as it seemed to be coming under control.

If the strike drags on, pressure would rise on the federal government to intervene, using powers under the Taft-Hartley Act, but such intervention seems unlikely for now.

In a statement on the strike, Acting U.S. Labor Secretary Julie Su criticized the shipping companies.

“As these companies make billions and their CEOs bring in millions of dollars in compensation per year, they have refused to put an offer on the table that reflects workers’ sacrifice and contributions to their employer’s profits,” Su said.

She also urged the ILA and the alliance to resolve their differences quickly.

“There is room for both companies and their workers to prosper,” Su said. “The parties need to get back to the negotiating table, and that must begin with these giant shipping magnates acknowledging that if they can make record profits, their workers should share in that economic success.”

A port shutdown in Baltimore could cause losses similar to those caused by the Key Bridge collapse and cost the state’s economy an estimated $15 million a day, said Daraius Irani, chief economist of Towson University’s Regional Economic Studies Institute.

“It would be a hit, and depending on how long it goes would determine how long it takes to recover,” Irani said. “The other challenge is, unlike when the bridge collapsed and the port was closed, there were alternatives,” for rerouting ships along the Eastern seaboard.

Striking US port workers sound resolute note: ‘This is for our future generations’

Edward Helmore in Elizabeth, New Jersey

THE GUARDIAN
Thu 3 October 2024

Dockworkers strike outside of the Port of Newark in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on 1 October 2024.Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images


A parade of tractors without their trailers made their way through the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine terminal on Wednesday morning, blaring their horns, to cheers from the picket lines.

Tens of thousands of longshoremen walked off the job at dozens of ports across the east and Gulf coasts earlier this week. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey confirms most operations have been shut down as a result of the strike.

On the picket lines at Elizabeth, New Jersey – one of the largest container ports in the US – strikers have been instructed to man the picket lines 24 hours a day, seven days a week, until the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the US Maritime Alliance (USMX) reach a deal.

“If a monsoon comes, we’re gonna stay out, because we’re used to working in a monsoon,” one striker said. The warm October sun was shining – at least for now.

Disagreements over pay and the automation of machinery are at the heart of the dispute.

Joe Mosquera, a crane operator and union organizer with ILA, local 1235, said its goals were straightforward. “The action is going to give us a fair contract and we can get back to work to get people the goods they need,” he said. “This is for our future generations. To keep automation out is to keep our jobs for the future. And if anything becomes automated, we want to make sure that there’s a worker to back it up.”

The ILA has not had a new contract for six years. “We honored our last contract,” said Mosquera, “even through Covid when we had to work double or triple. We never shut down, so everybody could get their goods. We didn’t ask for a pay raise. We didn’t walk out to try to get leverage when we could have, because we were honoring our agreement.”

Mosquera, 47, is a third-generation longshoreman in his family. His grandfather was hired in 1954, and he hoped his family would work at the port for generations to come. “I hope to keep it going, yes,” he said.

Iwona Purwin, an inventory checker who has worked at the port since 1998, said she had been out all night and the strikers would stay for “as long as it takes”. “I would like to see no automation take place at all and for the American people to keep their jobs.”

The port management “are trying to take our jobs”, Purwin said. “I’m a single mom of three. How would I provide for my family if I’m not working?”

Related: Biden urges port operators to increase wages after 45,000 workers go on strike

Purwin, 46, drives an hour to work each day from central New Jersey, and described how she had shouldered increases “in gas prices, tolls and everything else. We’re not getting paid for any of this stuff. We didn’t get a raise for inflation or for anything else. We were essential workers. We worked through Covid. And we didn’t ask for anything.”

The demands of the union workers, she said, had been mischaracterized. “They don’t understand how much we work and the sacrifices we make for our families. It’s not a nine-to-five job. This is seven days a week around the clock, so we’re here, often more than we are with our families.”

Questions have been raised about the strike’s potential impact on Thanksgiving and the holiday season. Mosquera expressed hope that a deal will come sooner. “I’m a father and a husband, I worry about everything,” he said. “I hope it will not last that long. We demand a fair contract, so we can get back to work.”

Dockworkers go on strike for the first time in almost 50 years. What's impacted and how long will it last?

Union President Harold Dagget warned in a Sept. video that the coastwide strike would "cripple" the U.S. economy.

Katie Mather
·Reporter
Wed, October 2, 2024

Workers picket outside of the Red Hook Container Terminal in Brooklyn on Oct. 1. (Michael Nigro/Getty Images)


Around 45,000 dockworkers went on strike Tuesday for the first time in almost 50 years, in a move that could temporarily put up to 105,000 workers out of work.

Thirty-six East and Gulf Coast ports from Maine to Texas are affected after labor negotiations stalled between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA), the largest union of maritime workers in North America, and the U.S. Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents the employers of the longshore industry.

The strike could result in one of the greatest supply chain disruptions since COVID-19.


“If it lasts for more than a few days or more than a week, you’re going to get massive cascading effects,” Ryan Peterson, the founder and CEO of Flexport, told Yahoo Finance. Peterson added that the stoppage would affect 15% of the world’s container ships.
Why did the dockworkers go on strike?

Simply put: The ILA wants higher wages. USMX said in a statement that it has been negotiating contracts with the ILA since May.

"Our members top out at $39 (per hour). We are looking for a 77%, close to 77% increase over the next seven years. When you look at the cost of inflation, that's more than reasonable," Johnnie Dixon, president of the Fort Lauderdale chapter of the ILA, told CBS News.

On Sept. 26, USMX filed an Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) with the National Labor Relations Board in an attempt to legally require the ILA to keep bargaining and not go on strike.

A source told Reuters that USMX made a new offer on Monday to try to curtail the strike from happening, but ILA called it “an unacceptable wage package that we reject.”
What products are affected by the port strike?

In an ILA video uploaded to YouTube last month, ILA President Harold Daggett warned that the coastwide strike would “cripple” the U.S. economy. “Everything in the United States comes on a ship,” he said.

Nonperishable goods, like fresh fruit and vegetables, will be most affected — especially imports coming from Central and South America. The American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) reports that 75% of bananas in the U.S. come in through ILA ports, along with almost 90% of cherries, 82% of hot peppers, 80% of chocolate and 85% of canned food.

A majority of U.S. imports of beer, wine, whiskey, scotch and rum also come into ILA’s ports, as well as more than 100 other categories of food.

The AFBF also noted that U.S. exports sent out through ILA ports will be affected, including 80% of the country’s poultry exports, 56% of raw cotton exports, 36% of red meat exports, 30% of dairy product exports and 6% of soybean exports.

“A strike would create backlogs of exports, denying farmers access to a higher price in the world market, leading to a domestic oversupply, driving down prices for key commodities … and further eroding farm profitability,” the AFBF reported. “On the import side, shortages and delays would raise costs for consumers — particularly for perishable goods.”
It's not just food that will be affected

Almost 180 trade associations that represent companies across numerous industries warned that the strike would be “devastating” in a Sept. 17 letter to President Biden. These industries include automakers, chain drugstores, retailers, toy companies and furniture manufacturers.
What is the economic impact?

Experts have estimated that the strike could cost the U.S. economy $540 million or up to $5 billion daily.

If the strike lasts for more than a few weeks, it could negatively impact supply chains, cause shortages or increase prices. Experts say consumers will likely not notice a difference for at least a few weeks.

Depending on the length of the strike, which will affect the shortages of goods, consumers could experience price hikes and economic setbacks, similar to postpandemic supply chain issues.

Sea-Intelligence, a shipping advisory firm based in Copenhagen, Denmark, estimated that it would take anywhere from four to six days to clear the backlog that accumulated following just a one-day strike. Should the strike last a week, the group anticipates recovery will last longer than a month.

Poll by US Chamber finds voters want Biden to halt potential port strike


Port strike could throttle imports from cars to bananas and vaccines

US dockworkers launch mass strike a month before election

John BIERS
Tue, October 1, 2024 

The strike was the first by the ILA in almost 50 years, and affects 36 ports from Maine to Texas (Mark Felix) (Mark Felix/AFP/AFP)


Tens of thousands of workers at major ports on the US East and Gulf Coasts went on strike Tuesday in an action that could drag down the world's largest economy just over a month before the presidential election.

The shutdown, the first strike by the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) in almost 50 years, affects 36 ports from Maine to Texas, which handle an array of goods from food to electronics.

About 45,000 workers are on strike, according to the ILA.

After weeks of stalled talks, the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), which represents shipping companies and terminal operators, had late Monday expressed some hope of a deal. But there was no agreement before the midnight deadline.

In Elizabeth, New Jersey, trucks passing by honked their horns in support of about 200 striking workers carrying American flags and signs blasting port automation as a job killer.

"Profits over people is unacceptable," one sign read.

A possible stoppage had been telegraphed for months, with the odds rising in recent weeks as the September 30 contract deadline loomed.

Analysts caution that a lengthy strike could pose a major headwind to the US economy, leading to shortages of some items and lifting costs at a time when inflation has been moderating.

The White House said President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were "closely monitoring" the strike, with both briefed on government assessments that "impacts on consumers are expected to be limited at this time," according to a statement.

Biden was briefed late Tuesday on the situation and again called for a "strong and fair offer" to the longshoremen, the White House said, singling out "foreign-owned ocean carriers" represented by USMX.

"These foreign companies have seen record profits... and the president believes it is time they present an offer that reflects ILA workers' invaluable contribution to their success," it said.

Under the Taft-Hartley Act, Biden has the authority to order the parties to resume talks for an 80-day "cooling off" period, with union members going back to work during that time.

But Biden has ruled out such a move, citing respect for collective bargaining rights.

The National Retail Federation called on Biden to "immediately" restore operations, including by invoking Taft-Hartley, saying the strike "will have devastating consequences for American workers, their families and local communities."

And former president Donald Trump, who is seeking to take back the Oval Office, blamed Biden for the crisis, saying in Milwaukee: "He should have worked out a deal."

- Automation anxiety -

The first ILA walkout since 1977 follows recent high-profile strikes at US automakers, Boeing and other employers.

The union is pressing for protections against automation-related job loss and for hefty wage hikes after dockworkers kept providing essential services throughout the Covid-19 pandemic.

Media reports say the ILA is asking for a 77 percent wage increase over six years.

USMX on Tuesday defended its latest offer to increase wages by "nearly 50 percent."

"We have demonstrated a commitment to doing our part to end the completely avoidable ILA strike," USMX said. "We look forward to hearing from the Union about how we can return to the table and actually bargain, which is the only way to reach a resolution."

The ILA responded late Tuesday, accusing USMX of attempting to "distort the facts and mislead the public" and offering details about the working conditions of its members.

"Our members feel underappreciated, especially given the sacrifices they made during the pandemic, keeping ports open and the economy moving," it said.

- 'We moved the world' -

Oxford Economics estimated that the strike would dent US gross domestic product by $4.5 billion to $7.5 billion per week. The overall economic hit depends on the length of the strike, analysts say.

Jonita Carter, a dockworker for 23 years, said workers are feeling financially pinched by inflation and anxious about automation.

"We worked during Covid. We never stopped. We moved the world," she told AFP.

Capital Economics said fears about the economic impact of the strike were "overdone," in part because recent shocks to the supply chain have made businesses more aware of the need to bake in precautionary measures.

But Biden would have "little choice" but to take action if the situation worsens, according to the note, "forcing workers to return while negotiations continue."

"There is little chance that the administration would risk jeopardizing its recent economic successes just five weeks before a tightly contested election."

bur-jmb/jul-sst/jgc


Strike over automation fears shuts down operations at 36 ports across the US

Nandika Chatterjee
Tue, October 1, 2024

Dockworkers strike Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Union dockworkers from Maine to Texas began walking picket lines early Tuesday in a strike over wages and automation, halting the movement of billions of dollars worth of goods, ABC News reported.

Picketing from the East Coast to the Gulf Coast began shortly after midnight, following unsuccessful negotiations between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), the body overseeing ocean carriers and port operators, over a new contract. The strike, if it continues, could cause supply shortages and increase the price of goods.

The last dock worker contract, which expired on Tuesday at midnight, was between the ports and 45,000 members of the ILA. The strike, the first by the union since 1977, is presently affecting operations at 36 ports, according to ABC News.

"USMX brought on this strike when they decided to hold firm to foreign-owned Ocean Carriers earning billion-dollar profits at United States ports, but not compensate the American ILA longshore workers who perform the labor that brings them their wealth,” ILA President Harold Daggett said in a statement, NPR reported.

Workers picketing at the Port of Philadelphia started marching in a circle at a rail crossing outside the port, chanting: “No work without a fair contract.” Meanwhile, the union displayed messages on the side of a truck that read, “Automation Hurts Families: ILA Stands For Job Protection.”

Port strike raises fears of toilet paper shortages; Here's what to know and stock up on

Maria Francis, USA TODAY NETWORK

Erie Times News
Wed, October 2, 2024 

The port strike has induced fears of toilet paper shortages reminiscent of the COVID-19 pandemic era.

Thousands of dockworkers took to the picket lines on Tuesday, shutting down the East and Gulf ports from Maine to Texas after stalled negotiations between the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) and the shipping industry's group US Maritime Alliance (USMX) over wages and automation.

But, the lack of toilet paper on the shelves today is not directly caused by Tuesday's port strike, but rather it's because of panic buying.

Pictures on social media and TikTok videos are surfacing of long lines of customers at stores with carts full of grocery items, bottled water, toilet paper and bare shelves as shortages are already being reported.

Videos posted online claim that toilet paper is sold out at Costco stores from Arizona and Colorado to New Jersey, with one worker saying their stock was cleared one hour after opening, according to news source.

However ... over 90% of toilet paper used in the U.S. comes from domestic factories and not from containers shipped from overseas, per news reports.

The supply chain disruption and economic impacts could be in fact be catastrophic with each passing day that the 36 ports are shut down — as much as $5 billion a day as imports and exports are blocked. It could lead to raised prices on goods and potentially cause shortages.

“Any strike that lasts more than one week could cause goods shortages for the holidays,” Eric Clark, portfolio manager at Accuvest Global Advisors, told USA TODAY. “We could get the kind of inflation for six months similar to or worse than peak inflation levels a year ago.”

Retailers, such as Costco, had been shipping months in advance, expediting holiday goods orders ahead of the possible port strike, signaled by a surge in container imports and freight rates in July and August according to news reports, but holiday shopping could be impacted.

Consumers would first notice shortages of perishable products, as grocery aisles could be bare of popular fruits like bananas within weeks, given that about two-thirds of bananas in the U.S. arrive in East Coast ports. Other likely shortages include seafood, electronics, pharmaceuticals, cars and auto parts, machinery parts, and alcohol.

Toilet paper lines the shelves at a Giant supermarket, Wednesday, October 2, 2024, in Plumstead Township.

Here's what you need to know.
What is at the heart of the labor dispute?

Union workers at ports in the East and Gulf coasts earn a base wage of $39 an hour after six years on the job compared to reports that West Coast union workers, which make $54.85 an hour.

The International Longshoremen's Association is demanding a 77% pay raise increase over six years and more restrictions and bans on the automation of cranes, gates and container movements used in loading or unloading of cargo.

According to news sources, USMX responded with an offer of 40% in wage increases, but the union rejected it, calling the counter “a joke.”

There hasn’t been an ILA strike against these ports since 1977.
What products would be impacted by a port strike?

A port strike will impact vehicle imports, auto parts, machinery, fabricated steel, precision instruments, computers, electronic parts and alcohol - 80% of imported beer, wine, whiskey and scotch and 60% of rum arrive at East and Gulf coast ports.

The Port of Baltimore, Maryland leads the nation in car shipments. The Philadelphia port leads in fruits and vegetables, New Orleans port brings in coffee and wood products such as plywood.

Agricultural impacts such as the imports of bananas and fruits, coffee and cocoa or exports of soybeans and soybean meal would be felt. However, even more significant impacts would be felt on the chilled or frozen meat products, seafood and eggs, which require refrigerated containers that cannot sit for very long.

The Port of Wilmington in Delaware is the leading port for Dole Fresh Fruit Co. and Chiquita Fresh North America, getting about two-thirds of all banana imports in the U.S.

“Any fruit that arrives after 1 October will be condemned to the trash can,” Peter Kopke Sr. of Port Washington-based importer Kopke Fruit told The Orange County Register. “And all of the people who have invested in that business will lose a fortune.”

Knitted and non-knitted apparel, furniture, plywood and pharmaceutical products and year-end holiday items would be among the endless list of products impacted by the strike.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Port strike raising fear of toilet paper shortages and panic buying

Cargo delays expected as workers strike at East, Gulf Coast ports, including Port of Virginia

Nathaniel Cline
Tue, October 1, 2024 



A view of the Port of Virginia in Norfolk. (Courtesy Port of Virginia)

As experts anticipated, members of the International Longshoremen’s Association went on strike Tuesday, hoping to settle on a new agreement with the United States Maritime Alliance, leaving cargo in limbo at East and Gulf Coast ports, including at the Port of Virginia.

Workers want better pay and restrictions on how automation can be used at ports, according to the association.

Representing members working at American ports from Maine to Texas, the association said Monday that USMX continues to “block the path” towards an agreement by refusing the association’s demands for a “fair and decent contract.”

“ILA longshore workers deserve to be compensated for the important work they do keeping American commerce moving and growing,” the association stated. The group is the largest union of maritime workers in North America.

Some ILA members work at the Port of Virginia, which suspended operations on Monday in anticipation of the work stoppage. It’s uncertain how long the stoppage will last, or the full impact on delayed shipments of goods to stores and businesses.

Analysts at Sea-Intelligence, a Copenhagen-based shipping advisory firm, told Reuters in August that the backlog from a one-day strike could take between four to six days to clear.

“Our hope is for a speedy resolution that allows The Port of Virginia to implement its resumption of operations plan to methodically and safely bring terminals back online,” representatives of the Port of Virginia said in a statement.

Until an agreement is reached, the Port of Virginia said operations at the following areas would be closed:

Norfolk International Terminals


Virginia International Gateway


Newport News Marine Terminal


Pinners Point Container Yard


Portsmouth Chassis Yard


Reefer Service Area


The Damage Annex

The offices of the Virginia Port Authority, Virginia International Terminals and Hampton Roads Chassis Pool II are open according to their regular schedules.

Portsmouth Marine Terminal will remain open. Richmond Marine Terminal and Virginia Inland Port will also stay open, but customers should expect cargo operations to be impacted.

According to last May’s State of the Port, a total of 3.7 million units of cargo were processed in 2022, a 5% increase since 2021.

Port of Virginia and 35 others go on strike; Gov. Youngkin issues statement

Monique Calello, Staunton News Leader
Wed, October 2, 2024 



Dockworkers at ports from Maine to Texas officially went on strike Monday. Thirty-six East and Gulf coast ports shut down, including the Port of Virginia, as 45,000 union workers walked off the job after labor negotiations over higher pay and protections against automation stalled between the International Longshoremen's Association and the United States Maritime Alliance, or USMX, according to a report in USA TODAY.

The ILA strike has the potential to cost the economy up to $5 billion a day, upend holiday shopping for millions of Americans and dictate whether many small- and medium-size businesses and farmers turn a profit or lose money this year, experts said.

The strike could also affect availability of a range of goods from bananas and coffee to clothing and cars shipped via container, while creating weeks-long backlogs at ports resulting in the potential for short supply and stockpiling by consumers. It could also stoke shipping cost increases that may be passed on to consumers, according to logistics experts.

In response to the strike, Governor Glenn Youngkin issued a statement Tuesday calling on the federal government to resolve it, that it jeopardizes the livelihoods of countless Americans and cripples supply chains nationwide, according to a press release from the governor's office.

"Every day this strike of Port Workers along the East and Gulf Coasts continues, the economic impacts intensify, affecting livelihoods, supply chains and prices," said Youngkin. "The economic fallout from the work stoppage at The Port of Virginia extends well beyond the Commonwealth, as the Port manages approximately $66 billion in essential imports, with nearly 60 percent destined for locations outside of Virginia. As a cornerstone of Virginia's economy, the Port supports 10 percent of the gross state product and supports employment for over half a million jobs in Virginia.

"The time for leadership is now, President Biden has the tools to remedy this situation for the Commonwealth of Virginia and the nation, including utilizing provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act. The well-being of Virginia and American workers, as well as the health of our economy, depends on a swift resolution to this strike. A failure to lead will only drive-up prices, disrupt trade, and exacerbate the challenges already faced by Virginians and Americans."

Read Governor Youngkin’s Letter to President Biden on the port strike here.

More: Queen City Word Fest will bring authors, readers together in downtown Staunton
Why is Biden not stopping the strike?

On Monday, Biden explained his position on the negotiations.

“Collective bargaining is the best way for workers to get the pay and benefits they deserve. I have urged USMX, which represents a group of foreign-owned carriers, to come to the table and present a fair offer to the workers of the International Longshoremen’s Association that ensures they are paid appropriately in line with their invaluable contributions. Ocean carriers have made record profits since the pandemic and in some cases profits grew in excess of 800 percent compared to their profits prior to the pandemic. Executive compensation has grown in line with those profits and profits have been returned to shareholders at record rates. It’s only fair that workers, who put themselves at risk during the pandemic to keep ports open, see a meaningful increase in their wages as well.

“As our nation climbs out of the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, dockworkers will play an essential role in getting communities the resources they need. Now is not the time for ocean carriers to refuse to negotiate a fair wage for these essential workers while raking in record profits. My Administration will be monitoring for any price gouging activity that benefits foreign ocean carriers, including those on the USMX board.

“It is time for USMX to negotiate a fair contract with the longshoremen that reflects the substantial contribution they’ve been making to our economic comeback.”

More: Staunton NAACP to host local candidate forum at Blackfriars Playhouse
The Port of Virginia impacts over half a million jobs across the Commonwealth

The Port of Virginia directly employs over 450 people, including approximately 2,600 longshoreman and around an equal number of truckers and there are nearly 9,500 jobs supported directly by the port and harbor operations. Virginia economic impacts of the Port of Virginia include:

$124.1 billion in output sales


$63.0 billion in Virginia gross state product


$41.4 billion in Virginia labor income


565,000 full- and part-time jobs


$5.8 billion in state and local taxes and fees

Virginia has access to consumers with 75% of the U.S. population within a two-day drive.

The Virginia Port is able to handle a variety of container exports through nearly 30 international shipping line services with connections to more than 200 countries, provides global market access for Virginia businesses through easy access to the open sea, the release said.

The Port of Virginia handled 14.3 million tons of containerized imports worth an estimated $66 billion.

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Gov. Youngkin calls on federal government to end port workers strike

  

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

SAP, Carahsoft Probe Expanded to Work With Nearly 100 Agencies

Jake Bleiberg and Christina Kyriasoglou
Wed, October 2, 2024 at 3:43 PM MDT 4 min read


(Bloomberg) -- US prosecutors are broadening a probe of potential price-fixing by German software maker SAP SE and tech reseller Carahsoft Technology Corp., seeking to examine the companies’ work with almost 100 government agencies, according to new court records that show the scope of the investigation is far greater than previously known.

The Justice Department sent Carahsoft a legal demand for documents and information on 94 civilian government agencies with which it has done business for SAP products, according to a document filed in Baltimore federal court Tuesday. In it, the company characterized the prosecutors’ demand as “dramatically expanding” a civil probe that was already examining whether the companies overcharged the military and some other parts of government on purchases of more than $2 billion worth of SAP technology since 2014.

The investigation’s expanded reach across the US government, which hasn’t been previously reported, signals the depth of legal risk it poses to a top technology vendor and to Germany’s most valuable company. Many investigations end without any formal accusations of wrongdoing.

An SAP spokesperson, Joellen Perry, said the company and its US-based unit, SAP National Security Services, Inc., each received document demands from the Justice Department in August 2022 and have been cooperating with the civil investigation. The demands were “broad and seek documents relating to bidding and pricing practices by SAP and its resellers (including Carahsoft), but the information SAP has produced to date has been more narrowly focused,” Perry said.


A lawyer for Carahsoft, William Lawler III, declined to comment. On Tuesday, Lawler asked a judge to seal the records describing the expanded scope of the civil investigation, saying it included “several unsupported substantive allegations about Carahsoft and its business partners.”

A Justice Department spokesperson also declined to comment.

In June 2022, the Justice Department demanded information from Carahsoft about whether the company and SAP overcharged the US government by making false statements to the Department of Defense, according to court records. Investigators later asked Carahsoft to hand over records related to the Department of Agriculture, Department of Labor, Office of Personnel Management and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Lawler wrote in the Tuesday court filing. The company declined because doing so would cause it to miss a deadline to produce the other records, he said.

SPACE/COSMOLOGY

  Webb telescope reveals surprising details of Pluto's moon Charon

Will Dunham
Tue, October 1, 2024 

FILE PHOTO: Pluto's largest moon, Charon, is seen in a high-resolution, enhanced color view captured by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft


By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Observations by the James Webb Space Telescope are giving scientists a fuller understanding about the composition and evolution of Pluto's moon Charon, the largest moon orbiting any of our solar system's dwarf planets.

Webb for the first time detected carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide - both frozen as solids - on the surface of Charon, a spherical body about 750 miles (1,200 km) in diameter, researchers said on Tuesday. Those are added to the water ice, ammonia-bearing compounds and organic materials previously documented on Charon's surface.


Charon, discovered in 1978, has the distinction of being the solar system's largest moon relative in size to the planet it orbits. It is about half the diameter and an eighth the mass of Pluto, a dwarf planet that resides in a frigid region of the outer Solar System called the Kuiper Belt, beyond the most distant planet Neptune.

The distance between Charon and Pluto is about 12,200 miles (19,640 km), compared to the 238,855 miles (384,400 km) on average separating Earth from its moon.

Most of Charon's surface is gray, with reddish-brown regions around its poles composed of organic materials.

The Webb observations build on data obtained when NASA's New Horizons spacecraft flew by Charon during its visit to the Pluto system in 2015. The new study tapped into the ability of Webb, which was launched in 2021 and began collecting data the following year, to observe across a greater range of wavelengths than previously available.

The presence of hydrogen peroxide speaks to the irradiation processes Charon has experienced over time, the researchers said, while the carbon dioxide is probably an original component dating to this moon's formation about 4.5 billion years ago.

The hydrogen peroxide, the researchers said, formed as the water ice on Charon's surface was chemically altered by the perpetual onslaught of ultraviolet radiation from the sun as well as energetic particles from the solar wind and from galactic cosmic rays that traverse the universe.

The researchers said the carbon dioxide observed by Webb was probably buried underneath the surface and exposed by impacts on Charon. The carbon dioxide, they said, is likely to have been part of the primordial material from which both Charon and Pluto originally formed.

Scientists had been surprised that carbon dioxide was not previously spotted.

"The detection of carbon dioxide was a satisfying confirmation of our expectations," said Silvia Protopapa, assistant director of the department of space studies at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, co-investigator of the New Horizons mission and lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Communications.

"The detection of hydrogen peroxide on Charon was unexpected. I honestly did not anticipate finding evidence of it on the surface," Protopapa added.

The new observations of Charon help tell a broader story about the celestial bodies populating our solar system.

"Every small body in the outer solar system is a unique piece of a larger puzzle that scientists are trying to put together," Protopapa said.

The researchers used a Webb instrument called the Near-Infrared Spectrograph to make four observations in 2022 and 2023, getting full coverage of Charon's northern hemisphere.

"These new Webb observations add carbon dioxide and hydrogen peroxide to the known inventory of (Charon's) surface components. Both of these provide insights into ongoing processes of irradiation and impact-driven resurfacing," said study co-author Ian Wong, staff scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.

(Reporting by Will Dunham, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)




Grounded Astronauts Angry They Were Forced to Give Up Their Seats for Stranded Starliner Crew

Victor Tangermann
Wed, October 2, 2024 



Grounded

NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Stephanie Wilson were intending to get a lift to the International Space Station on board a SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft over the weekend.

But thanks to Boeing's disastrous crewed test flight of its issues-laden Starliner spacecraft, the two women had to stay behind to make space for their stranded colleagues, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams.

Wilmore and Williams, who have been stuck on board the ISS since June and had to wave their Starliner ride goodbye as it made its reentry without them last month, will take Cardman and Wilson's seats in February instead.

"I think it was hard not to watch that rocket lift off without thinking, 'That's my rocket and that's my crew,'" Cardman said during NASA's live broadcast of Saturday's Crew-9 launch, as quoted by Space.com. "It makes me feel very connected to this mission."
Hate to Watch You Leave

Two out of the four seats on board the Crew Dragon were occupied by NASA astronaut Nick Hague and cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, who will be returning alongside Wilmore and Williams early next year.

Hague has been on two trips to the ISS, while Gorbunov is on his first flight to space. Cardman has yet to visit the ISS, while Wilson flew to space onboard three Space Shuttle missions between 2006 and 2010.

It must've been a bittersweet moment, watching the two leave without Cardman or Wilson on board. After all, an opportunity to launch into space is exceedingly rare.

"We, of course, want to be together," Wilson said during the broadcast. "We have built friendship and camaraderie … but I'm very excited for them, looking forward to hearing their stories from space."

To balance out the weight, Cardman and Wilson's bodies were simulated using pieces of ballast inside the Crew Dragon capsule.

Cardman applauded NASA for prioritizing the "safety of the crew," and added that Williams and Wilmore were "well-prepared" professionals.

In late August, NASA made the decision to bump the two women from the flight. Instead, they had to watch their colleagues get ready over many weeks, an unfortunate reality brought about by Boeing's plagued Starliner.

"Zena and Stephanie will continue to assist their crewmates ahead of launch," NASA chief astronaut Joe Acaba said in a statement at the time. "They exemplify what it means to be a professional astronaut."

More on Starliner: NASA Almost Gave All Its Crew Funding to Boeing's Disastrous Starliner, Leaving SpaceX Out in the Cold


NASA switches off instrument on Voyager 2 spacecraft to save power

ADITHI RAMAKRISHNAN
Wed, October 2, 2024 at 9:18 AM MDT·1 min read
60


FILE - This photo provided by NASA shows the "Sounds of Earth" record being mounted on the Voyager 2 spacecraft in the Safe-1 Building at the Kennedy Space Center, Fla. Aug. 4, 1977. (AP Photo/NASA, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — To save power, NASA has switched off another scientific instrument on its long-running Voyager 2 spacecraft.

The space agency said Tuesday that Voyager 2's plasma science instrument — designed to measure the flow of charged atoms — was powered down in late September so the spacecraft can keep exploring for as long as possible, expected into the 2030s.

NASA turned off a suite of instruments on Voyager 2 and its twin Voyager 1 after they explored the gas giant planets in the 1980s. Both are currently in interstellar space, or the space between stars. The plasma instrument on Voyager 1 stopped working long ago and was finally shut down in 2007.

Four remaining instruments on Voyager 2 will continue collecting information about magnetic fields and particles. Its goal is to study the swaths of space beyond the sun's protective bubble.

Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to visit Uranus and Neptune. It's currently more than 12 billion miles (19.31 billion kilometers) from Earth. Voyager 1 is over 15 billion miles (24.14 billion kilometers) from Earth.

___

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


NASA astronaut snaps footage of glorious comet flying through space

Mashable
Tue, October 1, 2024

The International Space Station viewed from a SpaceX Dragon craft.


An icy visitor is flying through the inner solar system.

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, also called Comet C/2023 A3, has grown brighter as it's approached the sun, allowing astronauts aboard the International Space Station to capture vivid footage of this ancient ball of ice, rock, and dust. NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick recently posted a view of the comet rising beyond Earth as the station zipped through its orbit at some 17,500 mph.

"Comet rises above the horizon just before orbital sunrise amongst aurora and swirling satellites," the space agency's flight engineer posted online. The comet makes its appearance at the bottom of the view at about 12 seconds into the short clip.

SEE ALSO: NASA scientist viewed first Voyager images. What he saw gave him chills.

In this view from Sept. 29, the comet is some 75 million miles from Earth, and 38 million miles from the sun (Earth is 93 million miles from our star). As comets approach the sun, they heat up and eject dust and gas into space, leaving long wakes of millions-of-miles-long material, as you can see below. Comet C/2023 A3 just made its closest approach to the sun on Sept. 27, and is now en route to the profoundly frigid realms of the deep solar system.



Comets have a lot of material to burn, as they're typically miles long to tens of miles long. "When frozen, they are the size of a small town," NASA explained. One particular comet, discovered in 2021, is a whopping 85 miles wide.

Although Dominick captured the comet with a camera, he did note that it's visible to the naked eye from the space station, too. And down on Earth, it might be visible to skygazers. The "best show," as the comet zooms between Earth and the sun, is likely to happen in mid-October.

But if this comet eludes you, or you can't escape to dark enough skies, enjoy the view from space.

NASA’s TESS spots record-breaking stellar triplets

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

 

image: 

This artist’s concept illustrates how tightly the three stars in the system called TIC 290061484 orbit each other. If they were placed at the center of our solar system, all the stars’ orbits would be contained a space smaller than Mercury’s orbit around the Sun. The sizes of the triplet stars and the Sun are also to scale.

view more 

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Professional and amateur astronomers teamed up with artificial intelligence to find an unmatched stellar trio called TIC 290061484, thanks to cosmic “strobe lights” captured by NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite). 

The system contains a set of twin stars orbiting each other every 1.8 days, and a third star that circles the pair in just 25 days. The discovery smashes the record for shortest outer orbital period for this type of system, set in 1956, which had a third star orbiting an inner pair in 33 days.

“Thanks to the compact, edge-on configuration of the system, we can measure the orbits, masses, sizes, and temperatures of its stars,” said Veselin Kostov, a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. “And we can study how the system formed and predict how it may evolve.”

A paper, led by Kostov, describing the results was published in The Astrophysical Journal Oct. 2.

Flickers in starlight helped reveal the tight trio, which is located in the constellation Cygnus. The system happens to be almost flat from our perspective. This means the stars each cross right in front of, or eclipse, each other as they orbit. When that happens, the nearer star blocks some of the farther star’s light.

Using machine learning, scientists filtered through enormous sets of starlight data from TESS to identify patterns of dimming that reveal eclipses. Then, a small team of citizen scientists filtered further, relying on years of experience and informal training to find particularly interesting cases.

These amateur astronomers, who are co-authors on the new study, met as participants in an online citizen science project called Planet Hunters, which was active from 2010 to 2013. The volunteers later teamed up with professional astronomers to create a new collaboration called the Visual Survey Group, which has been active for over a decade.

“We’re mainly looking for signatures of compact multi-star systems, unusual pulsating stars in binary systems, and weird objects,” said Saul Rappaport, an emeritus professor of physics at MIT in Cambridge. Rappaport co-authored the paper and has helped lead the Visual Survey Group for more than a decade. “It’s exciting to identify a system like this because they’re rarely found, but they may be more common than current tallies suggest.” Many more likely speckle our galaxy, waiting to be discovered.

Partly because the stars in the newfound system orbit in nearly the same plane, scientists say it’s likely very stable despite their tight configuration (the trio’s orbits fit within a smaller area than Mercury’s orbit around the Sun). Each star’s gravity doesn’t perturb the others too much, like they could if their orbits were tilted in different directions.

But while their orbits will likely remain stable for millions of years, “no one lives here,” Rappaport said. “We think the stars formed together from the same growth process, which would have disrupted planets from forming very closely around any of the stars.” The exception could be a distant planet orbiting the three stars as if they were one.

As the inner stars age, they will expand and ultimately merge, triggering a supernova explosion in around 20 to 40 million years.

In the meantime, astronomers are hunting for triple stars with even shorter orbits. That’s hard to do with current technology, but a new tool is on the way.

Images from NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will be much more detailed than TESS’s. The same area of the sky covered by a single TESS pixel will fit more than 36,000 Roman pixels. And while TESS took a wide, shallow look at the entire sky, Roman will pierce deep into the heart of our galaxy where stars crowd together, providing a core sample rather than skimming the whole surface.

“We don’t know much about a lot of the stars in the center of the galaxy except for the brightest ones,” said Brian Powell, a co-author and data scientist at Goddard. “Roman’s high-resolution view will help us measure light from stars that usually blur together, providing the best look yet at the nature of star systems in our galaxy.”

And since Roman will monitor light from hundreds of millions of stars as part of one of its main surveys, it will help astronomers find more triple star systems in which all the stars eclipse each other.

“We’re curious why we haven’t found star systems like these with even shorter outer orbital periods,” said Powell. “Roman should help us find them and bring us closer to figuring out what their limits might be.”

Roman could also find eclipsing stars bound together in even larger groups — half a dozen, or perhaps even more all orbiting each other like bees buzzing around a hive.

“Before scientists discovered triply eclipsing triple star systems, we didn’t expect them to be out there,” said co-author Tamás Borkovits, a senior research fellow at the Baja Observatory of The University of Szeged in Hungary. “But once we found them, we thought, well why not? Roman, too, may reveal never-before-seen categories of systems and objects that will surprise astronomers.”

TESS is a NASA Astrophysics Explorer mission managed by NASA Goddard and operated by MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Additional partners include Northrop Grumman, based in Falls Church, Virginia; NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley; the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts; MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory; and the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. More than a dozen universities, research institutes, and observatories worldwide are participants in the mission.

NASA’s citizen science projects are collaborations between scientists and interested members of the public and do not require U.S. citizenship. Through these collaborations, volunteers (known as citizen scientists) have helped make thousands of important scientific discoveries. To get involved with a project, visit NASA’s Citizen Science page.

---

Journal

The Astrophysical Journal

DOI

10.3847/1538-4357/ad7368 

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Article Publication Date

2-Oct-2024

Scientists discover planet orbiting closest single star to our Sun

ESO

 

image: 

This artist’s impression shows Barnard b, a sub-Earth-mass planet that was discovered orbiting Barnard’s star. Its signal was detected with the ESPRESSO instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), and astronomers were able to confirm it with data from other instruments. An earlier promising detection in 2018 around the same star could not be confirmed by these data. On this newly discovered exoplanet, which has at least half the mass of Venus but is too hot to support liquid water, a year lasts just over three Earth days.

view more 

Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), astronomers have discovered an exoplanet orbiting Barnard’s star, the closest single star to our Sun. On this newly discovered exoplanet, which has at least half the mass of Venus, a year lasts just over three Earth days. The team’s observations also hint at the existence of three more exoplanet candidates, in various orbits around the star.

Located just six light-years away, Barnard’s star is the second-closest stellar system — after Alpha Centauri’s three-star group — and the closest individual star to us. Owing to its proximity, it is a primary target in the search for Earth-like exoplanets. Despite a promising detection back in 2018, no planet orbiting Barnard's star had been confirmed until now.

The discovery of this new exoplanet — announced in a paper published today in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics — is the result of observations made over the last five years with ESO’s VLT, located at Paranal Observatory in Chile. “Even if it took a long time, we were always confident that we could find something,” says Jonay González Hernández, a researcher at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Spain, and lead author of the paper. The team were looking for signals from possible exoplanets within the habitable or temperate zone of Barnard’s star — the range where liquid water can exist on the planet’s surface. Red dwarfs like Barnard’s star are often targeted by astronomers since low-mass rocky planets are easier to detect there than around larger Sun-like stars. [1]

Barnard b [2], as the newly discovered exoplanet is called, is twenty times closer to Barnard’s star than Mercury is to the Sun. It orbits its star in 3.15 Earth days and has a surface temperature around 125 °C. “Barnard b is one of the lowest-mass exoplanets known and one of the few known with a mass less than that of Earth. But the planet is too close to the host star, closer than the habitable zone,” explains González Hernández. “Even if the star is about 2500 degrees cooler than our Sun, it is too hot there to maintain liquid water on the surface.”

For their observations, the team used ESPRESSO, a highly precise instrument designed to measure the wobble of a star caused by the gravitational pull of one or more orbiting planets. The results obtained from these observations were confirmed by data from other instruments also specialised in exoplanet hunting: HARPS at ESO’s La Silla Observatory, HARPS-N and CARMENES. The new data do not, however, support the existence of the exoplanet reported in 2018. 

In addition to the confirmed planet, the international team also found hints of three more exoplanet candidates orbiting the same star. These candidates, however, will require additional observations with ESPRESSO to be confirmed. “We now need to continue observing this star to confirm the other candidate signals,” says Alejandro Suárez Mascareño, a researcher also at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias and co-author of the study. “But the discovery of this planet, along with other previous discoveries such as Proxima b and d, shows that our cosmic backyard is full of low-mass planets.”

ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction, is set to transform the field of exoplanet research. The ELT’s ANDES instrument will allow researchers to detect more of these small, rocky planets in the temperate zone around nearby stars, beyond the reach of current telescopes, and enable them to study the composition of their atmospheres.

Notes

[1] Astronomers target cool stars, like red dwarfs, because their temperate zone is much closer to the star than that of hotter stars, like the Sun. This means that the planets orbiting within their temperate zone have shorter orbital periods, allowing astronomers to monitor them over several days or weeks, rather than years. In addition, red dwarfs are much less massive than the Sun, so they are more easily disturbed by the gravitational pull of the planets around them and thus they wobble more strongly. 

[2] It’s common practice in science to name exoplanets by the name of their host star with a lowercase letter added to it, ‘b’ indicating the first known planet, ’c’ the next one, and so on. The name Barnard b was therefore also given to a previously suspected planet candidate around Barnard's star, which scientists were unable to confirm.

More information

This research was presented in the paper “A sub-Earth-mass planet orbiting Barnard’s star” to appear in Astronomy & Astrophysics. (https://www.aanda.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202451311)

The team is composed of J. I. González Hernández (Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain [IAC] and Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, Spain [IAC-ULL]), A. Suárez Mascareño (IAC and IAC-ULL), A. M. Silva (Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, Universidade do Porto, Portugal [IA-CAUP] and Departamento de Física e Astronomia Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, Portugal [FCUP]), A. K. Stefanov (IAC and IAC-ULL), J. P. Faria (Observatoire de Genève, Université de Genève, Switzerland [UNIGE]; IA-CAUP and FCUP), H. M. Tabernero (Departamento de Física de la Tierra y Astrofísica & Instituto de Física de Partículas y del Cosmos, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain), A. Sozzetti (INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino [INAF-OATo] and Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Torino, Italy), R. Rebolo (IAC; IAC-ULL and Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain [CSIC]), F. Pepe (UNIGE), N. C. Santos (IA-CAUP; FCUP), S. Cristiani (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Italy [INAF-OAT] and Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe, Trieste, Italy [IFPU]), C. Lovis (UNIGE), X. Dumusque (UNIGE), P. Figueira (UNIGE and IA-CAUP), J. Lillo-Box (Centro de Astrobiología, CSIC-INTA, Madrid, Spain [CAB]), N. Nari (IAC; Light Bridges S. L., Canarias, Spain and IAC-ULL), S. Benatti (INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo, Italy [INAF-OAPa]), M. J. Hobson (UNIGE), A. Castro-González (CAB), R. Allart (Institut Trottier de Recherche sur les Exoplanètes, Université de Montréal, Canada and UNIGE), V. M. Passegger (National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Hilo, USA; IAC; IAC-ULL and Hamburger Sternwarte, Hamburg, Germany), M.-R. Zapatero Osorio (CAB), V. Adibekyan (IA-CAUP and FCUP), Y. Alibert (Center for Space and Habitability, University of Bern, Switzerland and Weltraumforschung und Planetologie, Physikalisches Institut, University of Bern, Switzerland), C. Allende Prieto (IAC and IAC-ULL), F. Bouchy (UNIGE), M. Damasso (INAF-OATo), V. D’Odorico (INAF-OAT and IFPU), P. Di Marcantonio (INAF-OAT), D. Ehrenreich (UNIGE), G. Lo Curto (European Southern Observatory, Santiago, Chile [ESO Chile]), R. Génova Santos (IAC and IAC-ULL), C. J. A. P. Martins (IA-CAUP and Centro de Astrofísica da Universidade do Porto, Portugal), A. Mehner (ESO Chile), G. Micela (INAF-OAPa), P. Molaro (INAF-OAT), N. Nunes (Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço, Universidade de Lisboa), E. Palle (IAC and IAC-ULL), S. G. Sousa (IA-CAUP and FCUP), and S. Udry (UNIGE).

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class observatories on the ground — which astronomers use to tackle exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy — and promote international collaboration for astronomy. Established as an intergovernmental organisation in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO’s headquarters and its visitor centre and planetarium, the ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama Desert, a marvellous place with unique conditions to observe the sky, hosts our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its Very Large Telescope Interferometer, as well as survey telescopes such as VISTA. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. Together with international partners, ESO operates ALMA on Chajnantor, a facility that observes the skies in the millimetre and submillimetre range. At Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, we are building “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. From our offices in Santiago, Chile we support our operations in the country and engage with Chilean partners and society. 

Links

• Research paper
• Photos of the VLT
• For journalists: subscribe to receive our releases under embargo in your language
• For scientists: got a story? Pitch your research

---

Journal

Astronomy and Astrophysics

DOI

10.1051/0004-6361/202451311 

Generating water on-demand in extreme environments, including other planets


By Dr. Tim Sandle
DIGITAL JOURNAL
October 1, 2024




This handout image taken by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity shows rippled patterns on the surface of rocks caused by the waves of a shallow lake billions of years ago - Copyright AFP Zein Al RIFAI


For first time, researchers witnessed formation of nanosized water bubbles in real time and at the molecular-scale. Here, the scientists observed hydrogen and oxygen atoms merge to form tiny, nano-sized bubbles of water. This demonstrated how palladium, a rare metallic element, can rapidly generate water from hydrogen and oxygen. The element catalyzes the gaseous reaction to generate water.

Since the early 1900s, researchers have known that palladium can act as a catalyst to rapidly generate water. But how, exactly, this reaction occurs has remained a mystery. Viewing the process with atomic precision was simply impossible, at least until nine months ago.

The researchers from Northwestern University witnessed this process at the nanoscale for the first time with an electron microscope. By viewing the process with extreme precision, they discovered how to optimize it to generate water at a faster rate.

The new process could be used to generate water on-demand in extreme environments, including on other planets. This is useful since the reaction does not require extreme conditions; hence, the researchers say it could be harnessed as a practical solution for rapidly generating water in arid environments.

For the experiment, the scientists developed an ultra-thin glassy membrane that holds gas molecules within honeycomb-shaped nanoreactors, so they can be viewed within high-vacuum transmission electron microscopes.

Here the researchers can examine samples in atmospheric pressure gas at a resolution of just 0.102 nanometers, compared to a 0.236-nanometer resolutionusing other state-of-the-art tools. The technique also enabled, for the first time, concurrent spectral and reciprocal information analysis.

The researchers think their observation might be the smallest bubble ever formed that has been viewed directly. A process called electron energy loss spectroscopy, to analyze the bubbles.

“By directly visualizing nanoscale water generation, we were able to identify the optimal conditions for rapid water generation under ambient conditions,” states Northwestern’s Vinayak Dravid, senior author of the study. “These findings have significant implications for practical applications, such as enabling rapid water generation in deep space environments using gases and metal catalysts, without requiring extreme reaction conditions.”

Dravid adds: “Think of Matt Damon’s character, Mark Watney, in the movie ‘The Martian.’ He burned rocket fuel to extract hydrogen and then added oxygen from his oxygenator. Our process is analogous, except we bypass the need for fire and other extreme conditions. We simply mixed palladium and gases together.”

The research has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study is titled “Unraveling the adsorption-limited hydrogen oxidation reaction at palladium surface via in situ electron microscopy”.