Sunday, June 14, 2020

In rare session, Senate advances bill to fund $20B backlog at national parks

The light of the moon mixes with spray from Yosemite Falls to throw a lunar rainbow at Northern California's Yosemite National Park. File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo
June 12 (UPI) -- The U.S. Senate advanced a bipartisan conservation bill early Friday during a rare session that was prompted by some lawmakers who refused to delay voting on the measure until next week.

The measure, which some have called the most significant conservation legislation in a generation, would permanently fund the Land and Water Conservation Fund with $900 million annually and allocate $9.5 billion over five years to address a $20 billion maintenance backlog for national parks and public lands.


The Senate voted 65-19 in favor of the Great American Outdoors Act at 1 a.m. Friday. Sixteen senators did not vote.

The proposal has broad bipartisan support, but after it passed a procedural vote Wednesday several Republican senators refused to grant unanimous consent to lay over its next procedural vote until Monday, which would have allowed senators to adjourn for the weekend.

RELATED Most protected areas are vulnerable to invasive species

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah and others objected to a move by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to close debate on the bill, and sought amendments. He said the proposal worsens "our already highly problematic federal public lands policy."

The bill, however, is on track to pass with no amendments and President Donald Trump has said he'll sign it if it's passed by Congress.

The Great American Outdoors Act is next scheduled for three additional procedural votes on Monday and is expected to pass.

RELATED Global warming is undoing decades of progress in marine reserves

The National Parks Service said last year it has a $12 billion backlog of deferred maintenance that has compiled for decades, and if unresolved it could threaten the safety of park visitors and staff.

RELATED Trump administration plans to open 2.3M acres for hunting, fishing
Pew Research Center: Unemployment rise is higher than Great Recession
Food banks have seen an uptick in demand as unemployment has surged around the country amid COVID-19. The Pew Research Center said Thursday that the unemployment rate is worse than it was during the Great Recession. Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI | License Photo
June 11 (UPI) -- The number of unemployed rose more during three months of the COVID-19 pandemic than it did during two years of the Great Recession, the Pew Research Center said Thursday.

Pew Research Center's data shows that U.S. unemployment rose by more than 14 million people from February to May.

The Great Recession officially lasted from December 2007 through June 2009, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
From the end of 2007 to the beginning of 2010, the number of unemployed rose by 8.8 million compared to a rise of 14 million in just three months of COVID-19, Pew Research Center analysts found.

RELATED Survey: African-Americans closely following coronavirus news


The unemployment rate increased from 3.8 percent in February to 13 percent in May. Last month's unemployment rate was slightly lower than April when it reached 14.4 percent.

In January 2010, the Great Recession had brought the unemployment rate to a peak of 10.6 percent.

Furthermore, analysts said that the unemployment rate in May might be underestimated because of measurement challenges due to the pandemic and a sharp decline in labor force participation.

"In May, 9 million Americans not in the labor force were in want of a job compared with 5 million in February, per government estimates," the Pew Research Center said in a statement. "But these workers are not included in the official measure of unemployment. Thus, the COVID-19 recession is comparable more to the Great Depression of the 1930s, when the unemployment rate is estimated to have reached 25 percent."

The Pew Research Center showed a rise in unemployment across a range of demographic groups.

Unemployment rate was notably higher for women than men across all racial/ethnic groups in May.

During the same month, Hispanic women had the highest rate of unemployment at 19.5 percent, rising from 5.5 percent in February.

The Pew Research Center also noted that black men were the only demographic group whose unemployment rate in May was substantially less than the peak rate they faced in the Great Recession.

The unemployment rate for black men was 15.8 percent in May, rising from 7.3 percent in February, but notably less than their 21.2 percent unemployment rate during the Great Recession.
Pew Research Center analysts said that it's unclear why black men were the only group to experience this, but unemployment hit black men worse when "goods-producing sectors" were hit in the Great Recession.

Earlier this month, the Economic Policy Institute said that black workers are disproportionately among the essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Senate Armed Services Committee advances $740B defense policy bill


AMERICA CANNOT AFFORD MEDICARE FOR ALL UNTIL THEY DEFUND THE MILITARY



Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe (L) and Ranking Member Jack Reed (R) said Thursday that the committee has advanced the 2021 defense policy bill. File Pool Photo by Shawn Thew/UPI | License Photo


June 11 (UPI) -- The Senate Armed Services Committee said Thursday that it has advanced a $740.5 billion defense policy bill in a bipartisan vote.

The panel voted 25-2 for the National Defense Authorization Act, supporting $740.5 billion in fiscal year 2021 funding for national defense, in a closed-door meeting Wednesday
The committee's approval means that the bill will head to the Senate floor.

The vote was "overwhelmingly bipartisan," the Senate Committee on Armed Services Chairman Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., and ranking member, Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island, said in a statement.

The committee adopted 229 bipartisan amendments after considering 391, according to the statement.

Among those amendments, was one requiring the Pentagon to rename military bases that were named after Confederate leaders.

The naming of the bases after Confederate leaders has come under renewed national scrutiny after the killing of George Floyd, 46, on Memorial Day, during an arrest by Minneapolis police officers, responding to a report of a man passing a counterfeit bill at a store. Video of a white officer kneeling on the neck of the unarmed black man for nearly nine minutes as he was dying sparked worldwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality.


U.S. Army posts in question were named decades after the end of the Civil War.

Earlier this month, the Pentagon moved about 1,600 active-duty Army troops to help authorities respond to protests sparked after Floyd was killed if needed.

The threat to deploy the military in response to protesters has sparked backlash, reflected in another amendment to the NDAA, which bars the use of troops against protesters.

till, most of the bill's funding is designated for the usual defense issues, including a base defense budget of 636.4 billion within the Department of Defense. Other funds designated include $25.9 billion for national security programs within the Department of Energy, $69 billion for Overseas Contingency Operation and $8.15 billion for military construction.

The bill also includes a 3 percent pay raise for troops that the administration requested.
"The bipartisan NDAA is a needed step toward strengthening national security and prioritizing national defense resources," the ranking member, Reed said in the statement. "It provides our troops with a well-deserved pay raise and tools to protect the health and well-being of our forces and their families. I commend Chairman Inhofe for his bipartisan leadership, collaboration, and commitment to ensuring our troops have a budget and policies to match their extraordinary courage and sacrifice."

SEE

Pause in fieldwork hurts scientists' plans for research, futures

By Anne Snabes JUNE 11, 2020 

Sophia Horigan was supposed to study gypsy moths in a southwestern Michigan forest this spring and summer.

Instead, the University of Chicago PhD student is studying in her apartment, where she rotates between a wooden table and a grey armchair.

With her field research in Michigan shut down because of the pandemic, she has foregone conducting experiments on the gypsy moths and substituted using mathematical models to learn about diseases that kill the moths.

"It'll be helpful in the end, and I feel lucky that I am not at a total standstill, even though my fieldwork got canceled," she said.

Scientists in ecology, geochemistry and other fields often conduct field research in the spring or summer, but many of these research trips have been prohibited now due to the coronavirus pandemic. While the pause in field research has allowed scientists to spend more time on data analysis and reading academic papers, experts say that fieldwork is an important part of research in some fields, and the cancellation of this research could delay some students' completion of their PhD programs.

Diarmaid O'Foighil, chair of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan, said a large part of his department's work takes place in the field.

"And it happens worldwide," he said. "So we have people working on ecosystems all over the planet. Every summer, there's a major exodus of faculty, postdocs, grad students and undergrads working in the field, and they can't do that."

In March, fieldwork at the University of Michigan was stopped, but starting May 8, researchers were allowed to return to the field in southeastern Michigan. On June 1, they could start conducting field research anywhere in the state.

But, O'Foighil said, only a small fraction of the department's workforce does field research in the state.

On Wednesday, the university allowed researchers to start doing fieldwork anywhere in the United States. They have to receive permission from their college to do so, though.

To fill their time away from the field, some scientists have turned to their computers. Horigan is learning the programming language in which her model is written and grasping how to run the model.

Horigan said the gypsy moth populations grow rapidly and crash once every nine or 10 years. A virus and a fungus both contribute to the demise of the insects. Mathematical models allow researchers to see how a parameter, like precipitation, affects another variable, like the number of moths. Horigan said the parameter she is studying is a moth's susceptibility to the fungus if it has already been infected by the virus. She uses her model to inform her field research.

"You can see what values of different parameters actually have an impact that is interesting, and then you can take those numbers and put them into your fieldwork," she said.

Greg Dwyer, Horigan's adviser, said that normally his graduate students collect data in the field and then incorporate it into a model. Now, his students are running their models before they gather data in the field, he said.

Allie Balter, a geochemistry PhD student at Columbia University, was supposed to go to Alaska for two weeks in July to participate in the Juneau Icefield Program.

Balter would have skied on the icefield, collecting rocks with undergraduate students. She said the rocks were once in or beneath glaciers, and scientists determine the age that the rocks became exposed to air so they can find out when the glacier left that area. She also would have taught classes to the students. She said she's "really bummed" that her field research trip was canceled.

"I feel like, for me, fieldwork is a big reason why I got into the field I got into, like I really love doing fieldwork," she said.

Balter added that she makes interpretations in the field. She observes the sequence of glacial retreat events when she's in the field, she said.

Instead of doing research on the icefield, she will take her qualifying exam, required for all PhD students, in early July, three months later than the original test date, which was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

During the pandemic, she said she has been writing, analyzing data and reading papers. She said she skims abstracts of papers in her field or similar fields.

"I think it just gives me a better breadth of knowledge of both my field and like surrounding fields so that I can make connections and inferences from my data better," she said.

Balter added that it also allows her to have more in-depth conversations with scientists who do not study the same subject as hers.

Virginia Edgcomb, an associate scientist with tenure at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, also has spent time this spring writing papers and editing as well as writing grant applications.

Edgcomb's field research has "come to a complete stop for the time being." She planned to go on a field research trip on a boat in August, which will probably be pushed back to spring 2020. She said she also she studies denitrification -- a process that removes nitrogen -- in sediments beneath oyster aquaculture farms, but the town where the research takes place, Falmouth, Mass., canceled its aquaculture operations this summer.

"Every single project is set back," Edgcomb said.

The University of Michigan's O'Foighil said the halt in field research "impacts in particular graduate students who need to finish their work to finish their thesis projects" as well as post-doctoral students who are funded by grants.

Katie Dixon, an ecology and evolution PhD student at the University of Chicago, said she was supposed to go to Missoula, Mont., in the spring and summer to study a virus that infects Douglas-fir tussock moths. The third-year PhD student had been planning on conducting field research for two more summers. If she continues with that plan, she will have to stay in her PhD program for a sixth year.

"And that was not in my plan before," she said. "And then funding is always an issue. ... But I'm hoping people will be flexible, like this happened to a lot of people."

John Freudenstein, the chair of Ohio State University's Department of Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology, also said some PhD students in his department think they may need additional time to finish their PhDs.
The pause in field research also affects assistant professors, who are trying to earn tenure. To compensate, the University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and other academic institutions have given these professors an additional year to earn tenure.

Not all field research was canceled this spring and summer, though. Douglas Buhler, Michigan State University's assistant vice president of research and innovation and the university's director of AgBioResearch, said some agricultural research at Michigan State has been allowed since the start of the pandemic.

Stephen Hsu, the university's senior vice president for research and innovation, sent a letter to faculty on March 23 saying that essential research activities could continue, including "seasonally dependent agricultural and environmental field research with critical implications for human and animal health, as well as food security."

Horigan said that field researchers are used to their plans changing.

"I think that ecologists and field researchers in particular are fairly used to the fact that nature is dynamic, and nothing will ever go to plan, really," she said. "So, hopefully, I think a lot of us are a lot more flexible and creative about what to do when that happens, and so I think it's kind of built some resilience for things like this."

International Criminal Court denounces U.S. sanctions over Afghanistan probe


The International Criminal Court in The Hague has condemned sanctions placed on it by U.S. President Donald Trump after its decision to investigate alleged war crimes in Afghanistan. File photo by By OSeveno/Wikimedia Commons/UPI
June 12 (UPI) -- The International Criminal Court has condemned U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order imposing sanctions on court investigators probing alleged war crimes by the American military in Afghanistan.

The ICC on Thursday expressed "profound regret" at Trump's move, which was announced earlier in the day at the White House.

The Hague-based tribunal, which investigates war crimes and genocides, said it "stands firmly by its staff and officials and remains unwavering in its commitment to discharging, independently and impartially, the mandate bestowed upon it by the Rome Statute and the States that are party to it."

It called the Trump sanctions the "latest in a series of unprecedented attacks on the ICC" and an "unacceptable attempt to interfere with the rule of law and the Court's judicial proceedings."

In the executive order, Trump called the ICC a "threat" while declaring a national emergency against the body.

The United States is not among the 123 countries party to the Rome Statute establishing the ICC in 2002, nor does it recognize its authority.
"Any attempt by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain or prosecute any United States personnel without the consent of the United States constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, and I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with that threat," Trump said in the executive order.
RELATED ICC readies final position on Palestinian statehood

Attorney General William Barr has accused "foreign powers like Russia" of manipulating the court.

The ICC in March authorized Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to proceed with a far-reaching investigation into whether forces of the United States, Afghanistan and the Taliban committed war crimes.

The European Union's top diplomat called Trump's decision "a matter of serious concern."

RELATED
ICC authorizes investigations of war crimes in Afghanistan

"The court has been playing a key role in providing international justice and addressing the gravest international crimes -- it is a key factor in bringing justice and peace. It must be respected and supported by all nations," EU foreign affairs high representative Josep Borrell told reporters.
Vast number of Americans support 
COVID-19 precautions, CDC says
A woman wears a protective face mask while walking on a sidewalk on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City in May. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

June 12 (UPI) -- The vast majority of Americans still support social distancing and other measures aimed at containing COVID-19 across the country, even as states begin relaxing the restrictions, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said Friday.

A survey conducted by the agency in May, when the outbreak of the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, was at its peak in New York, New Jersey and elsewhere in the Northeast, found that 80 percent of Americans agreed with "stay-at-home" orders and the closure of "non-essential" business.

The agency also found that 82 percent felt that gatherings of 10 or more people should not be allowed, while 88 percent agreed that people should stay six feet apart.

The findings are a sign of Americans' willingness to be "selfless in protecting those most vulnerable during the outbreak," CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield said during a conference call with reporters Friday.

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"The pandemic has not ended," he said. "While we're making real progress, we have a lot of work ahead as we reopen America."

The survey findings were published Friday in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. More than 4,000 U.S. adults were surveyed, including a large segment from New York City, which has been the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States.

The report also offers guidance for Americans as restaurants, theaters and other businesses reopen and large gatherings and events resume in some parts of the country. While New York City has reported declines in new cases of and deaths from COVID-19, several states have reported increases in new infections.

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CDC officials on the call avoided being drawn into the debate about whether restrictions were being relaxed too soon. Different communities are experiencing "different levels of [virus] transmission," Dr. Jay C. Butler, the agency's deputy director of infectious diseases and COVID-19 response incident manager, said during the call.

"That decision needs to be made locally, based on disease transmission," Butler said. "If cases go up again [in some areas], strict measures may be needed again [in those areas."

The goal of recommendations in the report -- which include maintaining social distancing at large gatherings, wearing face coverings when outside and washing hands frequently -- "is to keep curve [of new cases] as flattened as possible" and safeguard against the healthcare system being overwhelmed with the new cases, Butler said.

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The full list of recommendations is available on a special CDC web page. Among the the suggestions highlighted by Butler:

When dining out, choose restaurants with outdoor seating and tables at least six feet apart.

At the gym, don't share equipment that hasn't been disinfected and avoid "high-fiving" and fist bumps.

When shopping or taking out library books -- among other activities -- try to use businesses and services offering curbside pick-up.

"The purpose of these suggestions is helping people make decisions about how to resume activities and prepare for [large] gatherings," Butler said.

"A general rule of thumb is, the more closely you interact with others, the longer interaction lasts and the more people involved in that interaction, the higher risk for COVID-19 spread," he said.

Americans should expect these recommendations to remain in effect until a vaccine for COVID-19 is available, because even states that have seen a drop in cases could see a resurgence in new infections in the fall or winter, Butler said.

"We must be over-prepared for what we could face later in the year," he said.
GAO report: CBP misspent funds on boats, ATVs, other expenses

#ABOLISHCBP

A U.S. Border Patrol boat travels east on the Rio Grande between Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas, on January 25, 2019. File Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI | License Photo


June 12 (UPI) -- U.S. Customs and Border Protection spent some emergency funds earmarked for humanitarian aid along the U.S.-Mexico border on things like transportation and computer upgrades, according to congressional auditors.

The Government Accountability Office said in a report Thursday the money was intended for medical supplies and migrant facilities but was used by CBP for unrelated expenses including upgrades to its computer network, transportation involving boats, all-terrain vehicles and dirt bikes and vaccines for staffers.

The GAO review said the misspent funds came a line item of $112 million meant for "medical consumables" as part of a $4.6 billion emergency funding bill last year to address a surge of Central American families and children arriving at the U.S. border.

"For the transportation-related items CBP uses to perform its border enforcement duties and to transport individuals as part of CBP's operations, we find no nexus to consumables or medical care. Further, CBP did not provide any explanation as to how these items relate to the consumables and medical care line item appropriation," the 11-page report states.

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Therefore, we conclude that CBP violated the purpose statute ... and should adjust its accounts."

The GAO is a nonpartisan watchdog of the legislative branch that performs investigation, audit and evaluation services for Congress and is the supreme audit institution of the federal government.

GAO General Counsel Thomas Armstrong said the agency "plans to adjust its accounts for several of these obligations and should do so for any additional purpose violations by obligating the account available for the appropriate purpose."
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The review was requested by Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Diane Feinstein of California, the ranking member of the Senate judiciary committee.

CBP responded that the GAO report is a "legal opinion" rather than a formal audit and that the inconsistencies it found were "technical in nature."

"As the opinion notes, CBP charged a small subset of expenses in fiscal year 2019 to the incorrect account," the agency said. "We are working to itemize all such expenses, and correct our accounts as recommend by the GAO."
Carbon dioxide reaches a record level despite COVID-19's drastic impact
By John Roach, Accuweather.com JUNE 12, 2020 / 8:20 PM

Atmospheric carbon dioxide reached a seasonal peak of 417.1 parts per million for 2020 in May, the highest monthly reading ever recorded, according to scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego, who used measurements at Mauna Loa Observatory.

That's a carbon dioxide level not experienced by the atmosphere in at least several million years, according to the scientists' press release.

This year's peak value was 2.4 ppm higher than the previous peak of 414.7 ppm recorded in May 2019. Monthly carbon dioxide values at Mauna Loa first topped the 400 ppm mark in 2014.


The peak comes despite worldwide government policies during the coronavirus pandemic that have drastically altered patterns of energy demand, according to a recent study in the journal Nature Climate Change.

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The study estimates daily global CO2 emissions decreased by 17 percent by early April because of stay-at-home orders, reductions in transportation and changing consumption patterns. Emissions in individual countries decreased by 26 percent on average at their peak, the study notes.

"People may be surprised to hear that the response to the coronavirus outbreak hasn't done more to influence CO2 levels," said geochemist Ralph Keeling in the release. Keeling runs the Scripps Oceanography program at Mauna Loa. "But the buildup of CO2 is a bit like trash in a landfill. As we keep emitting, it keeps piling up.

"The crisis has slowed emissions, but not enough to show up perceptibly at Mauna Loa. What will matter much more is the trajectory we take coming out of this situation," Keeling said.

RELATED U.S. ranks 24th in newly released 2020 Environmental Performance Index

The Nature Climate Change study, meanwhile, says government actions and economic incentives post-crisis will likely influence the global CO2 emissions path for decades. The impact on 2020 annual emissions depends on the duration of the confinement and related actions, with a low estimate of a four percent decrease if pre-pandemic conditions return by mid-June and a high estimate of seven percent decrease if some restrictions remain worldwide until the end of 2020.

The late Charles David Keeling, Ralph's father, began on-site CO2 measurements at NOAA's weather building on Mauna Loa in 1958, initiating what has become the longest unbroken record of C
O2 measurements in the world.

The Mauna Loa observatory is on a barren volcano in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, making it ideally situated for sampling well-mixed air -- undisturbed by the influence of local pollution sources or vegetation -- that represents the global background for the northern hemisphere, according to the release.


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ON THIS DAY
In 1951, Univac I, the world's first commercial computer, designed for the U.S. Census Bureau, was introduced.

UNIVAC - CHM RevolutionUNIVAC I - History - U.S. Census Bureau
On June 14, 1951, Remington Rand delivered its first computerUNIVAC I, to the U.S. Census Bureau. It weighed 16,000 pounds, used 5,000 vacuum tubes, and could perform about 1,000 calculations per second.

First Univac 1 delivered to US Census Bureau ... J. Lyons & Company introduce LEO-1 ... and was performing useful work before any other commercial computer system in the world. ... Engineer Raymond Stuart-Williams turned Bennet's design into an actual machine that debuted at the Festival on April 12th, 1951. Ferranti ...
Mar 31, 2016 - The Remington Rand Univac was the first commercial computer produced in ... 31, 1951, the U.S. Census Bureau signed a contract for the first ... Advances in computer technology during the Second World War made for faster ...
Mar 5, 2019 - The UNIVAC computer was the first commercially available computer ... proceeded badly, and it was not until 1948 that the actual design and ... On March 31, 1951, the Census Bureau accepted delivery of the first UNIVAC computer. ... the first American manufacturers of a commercial computer system.
On this date in history:
In 1623, in the first breach-of-promise lawsuit in the United States, the Rev. Greville Pooley sued Cicely Jordan in Charles City, Va., for jilting him for another man.
In 1775, the Continental Congress established the Army as the first U.S. military service.
In 1777, the Stars and Stripes became the national U.S. flag.
In 1922, Warren G. Harding became the first U.S. president to broadcast a message over the radio. The occasion was the dedication of the Francis Scott Key Memorial in Baltimore.
In 1940, German troops marched down Paris' Champs-Élysées as Allied forces abandoned the French capital.
In 1982, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher announced a cease-fire with Argentina, bringing to an end the Falkland Islands War after 74 days.
In 1985, Shiite Muslim gunmen highjacked TWA Flight 847 carrying 153 passengers and crew from Athens to Rome. The ordeal ended 17 days later in Beirut, where one of the hostages, a U.S. sailor, was killed.
In 1998, the Chicago Bulls won their sixth NBA title in eight years and third in a row, defeating the Utah Jazz in the championship series.
In 2003, the Czech Republic voted overwhelmingly to join the European Union.

In 2013, Hassan Rouhani was elected president of Iran.
In 2017, Ireland's parliament elected Leo Varadkar, the country's youngest and first openly gay prime minister.
InIn 2017, a gunman opened fire at a Republican team charity baseball practice in suburban Washington, D.C, seriously injuring House Republican Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana. The shooting also left three others injured by gunfire and two more sustained injuries trying to flee.