SOLIDARITY FOREVER

Shelter cat put in solitary confinement for 'repeatedly' letting other cats out

Quilty the cat has locked up for continually helping other cats at the shelter escape and failed his latest parole board hearing

A cat named Quilty has been sentenced to solitary confinement for continually letting other cats out of their enclosures at his shelter after multiple warnings failed to curb the problem.

The serial offender was caught by staff at Friends For Life Animal Rescue and Adoption Organization jail-breaking other felines out of the senior room 'repeatedly, several times a day'.


Quilty also has a chequered past of consistent offending, after staff at the shelter in Houston discovered he used to let his dog sibling into the house at his old home.

After an online campaign was launched to #FreeQuilty, the shelter said that his review with the parole board had failed but he 'released himself' anyway, before being returned to solitary.

Quilty is a repeat offender (Image: Facebook)

The shelter said: "Quilty will not be contained. And he has no shame.

"Quilty loves to let cats out of the senior room. Repeatedly. Several times a day.


"We have since Quilty-proofed the cat room, while he took a brief hiatus in the lobby.

"His roommates missed him while he was banished to the lobby. They enjoyed their nighttime escapades around the shelter.

"The staff, however, did not miss the morning cat wrangling, so we’ll just have to agree to disagree there."

The shelter continued to post updates in a brilliant thread as Quilty tried, and failed, to escape through a window and a video showed the 'spicy a-hole' being marched back to his holding cell after he got out and crashed a staff meeting.

 

He even escaped solitary to crash a staff meeting (Image: friends4life.org)
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Quilty is still looking for a home and although he's unsure about small children his bio reads: "I do know that I like to open closed doors.

"When I see one it challenges me, and I work hard to get it open and I’m usually successful."


His fans were confident he would find a forever home soon.

One wrote: "Will Quilty let our dogs out for us at night? And would he let them back in? We might need him in our lives..."

An online campaign has been launched to free Quilty (Image: Facebook)

Another replied: "I need Quilty! He will love my house! We have an open door policy (except to the outside) so he can go anywhere he wants!"

A third said: "These instructions I'm about to give you are extremely important. This mission is not optional, and is of essential priority.

"I need you to tell Quilty that I love him, and if at all possible, boop his snoot."

Should Quilty be freed?
6000+ VOTES SO FAR
Yes

THE CANADA AFFAIR

Saudi Crown Prince accused of assassination plot against senior exiled official

By Alex Marquardt, CNN

Updated 6:06 PM ET, Thu August 6, 2020

Washington (CNN)

A former top Saudi intelligence official who fell out with the Saudi Crown Prince is alleging that an assassination squad traveled from Saudi Arabia to Canada to try to kill him just days after journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered by members of the same group, according to a new legal complaint filed Thursday by the alleged target, Dr. Saad Aljabri, in DC District Court.
Aljabri accuses the Kingdom's powerful crown prince and defacto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, of dispatching the hit team to murder him just over a year after Aljabri fled from Saudi Arabia and he refused repeated efforts by the Crown Prince to lure him back home or somewhere more accessible to the Saudis. Aljabri also names numerous alleged co-conspirators, including two of the men accused of being behind the Khashoggi operation.
MBS, according to previously unreported WhatsApp text messages referenced in the complaint, demanded that Aljabri immediately return to Saudi Arabia. As he repeatedly refused, Aljabri alleges the Crown Prince escalated his threats, saying they would use "all available means" and threatened to "take measures that would be harmful to you." The Crown Prince also barred Aljabri's children from leaving the country.
The Saudi government in Riyadh, the embassy in Washington and the Crown Prince's no-profit foundation did not immediately respond to requests for comment.



Saudi consulate staff describe strange events on day of Khashoggi's death
The US national security community has been tracking the Crown Prince's vendetta against Aljabri "at the highest levels" according to a former senior US official. "Everybody knows it," the former official said, "They know bin Salman wanted to lure Aljabri back to Saudi Arabia and failing that, that bin Salman would seek to find him outside with the intent to do him grave harm."
Nine months before Aljabri says the Saudi team landed in Canada to kill him, his son Khalid was warned by FBI agents about threats on Aljabri and his family's lives, according to the complaint. Khalid had arrived in Boston, and at Logan Airport, he was escorted to a meeting with two FBI agents, the complaint says, where he was purportedly told about bin Salman's "campaign to hunt Dr. Saad and his family in the United States, and urged them to exercise caution."
An adviser to Aljabri says the details on the Saudis who flew to Canada -- but were turned around at the airport -- came from western intelligence sources and private investigators.
Both the CIA and the FBI declined to comment. Officials on Capitol Hill who are aware of Aljabri's new allegations could not corroborate the intelligence behind them.
In a royal court, where proximity to the US is paramount, MBS's chief rival for the crown had been his older cousin Mohammed bin Nayef, similarly known as MBN. He and Aljabri, his longtime number two, had fostered close relationships with US intelligence officials over years of work together fighting terrorism, particularly against al Qaeda after 9/11. Aljabri's commitment and depth of knowledge had impressed US intelligence offers and helped save countless lives, former officials say.


Dr. Saad Aljabri pictured in Riyadh, 2016.
In 2017, MBN was deposed and MBS was made the heir apparent to the throne of his father, King Salman. MBN was placed under house arrest and earlier this year was detained. Sensing trouble for those close to MBN, his right-hand man, Aljabri, who had already been removed from his post, fled to Turkey in mid-2017, leaving behind two of his children, Sarah and Omar.
Aljabri's extensive knowledge would have been more beneficial to the Crown Prince than his death, argues Douglas London, a former Senior CIA Operations Officer who served extensively in the Middle East and retired in 2019. The goal of the Saudi team supposedly sent to Canada, he says, may have been to put Aljabri under observation to be able to render him back to Saudi Arabia, or kill him later.
"MBS is eager to neutralize the threat posed by Aljabri, whose intimate knowledge of the ruling family's skeletons, and everyone else's, and broad network, equipped him to enable any aspiring challenger to the crown," London says. "I don't rule out the possibility that MBS wanted to kill Aljabri, but it's just as likely, if not more so, that were there a team deployed to Canada, MBS wanted to put Aljabri under observation, information from which might provide insight on his contacts and activities."

MBS critic in Congress says allegations are 'credible'
The allegations of the assassination squad are "credible," says fervent MBS critic Rep. Tom Malinowski, a Democrat from New Jersey and member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"When somebody who we already know is responsible for the kidnapping, rendition, murder and torture of other people in this category sends you a text message warning that bad things will happen to you, it's fair to assume that he means business," Malinowski said.

From pandering to Putin to abusing allies and ignoring his own advisers, Trump's phone calls alarm US officials
The teenage children Aljabri left in the Kingdom were immediately barred from traveling, their father says, who pleaded with bin Salman to allow them to leave. The Crown Prince responded to the begging, Aljabri says, with WhatsApp messages saying "When I see you I will explain everything to you" and "I want you to come back tomorrow."
A Saudi warrant was issued and a notice was filed with Interpol to limit his movements, Aljabri says, also accusing MBS of pressuring Turkey to extradite him.
In mid-March of this year, according to Aljabri, now-22 year-old Omar and 20-year-old Sarah were abducted from their home and haven't been heard from since. The same month that the children had their travel permissions blocked, a relative of Aljabri's was snatched off the streets of Dubai, taken back to Saudi Arabai and tortured, Aljabri says. The relative says he was told explicitly, according to the complaint, that he was being punished as a proxy for Aljabri.
Meanwhile, since President Donald Trump came into office, his administration has fostered a close working relationship with MBS. In particular, senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner reportedly developed direct correspondence with the 34-year-old ruler that continued at least through the Khashoggi ordeal.
Last month, a group of senators -- including the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Marco Rubio -- wrote to Trump calling on him to raise the issue of the Aljabri children with the Saudis, noting Aljabri's ties to US intelligence and saying: "the Saudi government is believed to be using the children as leverage to try to force their father's return to the kingdom from Canada."

Saudi Arabia stops death penalty for people who committed crimes as minors
The brutal murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul put a spotlight on the Crown Prince's global campaign to violently stifle critics wherever they may be. Despite the US intelligence community assessing with high confidence that the execution was ordered by bin Salman, the failure by the Trump administration to condemn him has highlighted the impunity with which MBS operates. The Crown Prince denies any involvement in the operation while five members of the hit squad were sentenced to death by a Saudi court.
The assassins who killed Khashoggi were part of the Crown Prince's so-called "Tiger Squad," Aljabri says in his complaint, asserting that other members of the same team came after him. He claims the unit was born out of his own refusal to send counterterrorism forces under his command at the Interior Ministry to forcibly render a Saudi an insolent prince from Europe.
The Tiger Squad was formed, Aljabri says in the complaint, as a 50-strong "private death squad ... with one unifying mission: loyalty to the personal whims of Defendant bin Salman."

Aljabri alleges Saudi team arrived in Canada with 'forensic tools'
Aljabri's complaint says that around two weeks after Khashoggi was killed on October 2, 2018, 15 Saudi nationals arrived at Ottawa International Airport (the filing originally said Ontario but it has been corrected and is being resubmitted) with tourist visas to allegedly carry out the murder of Aljabri. Among them, he alleges, were multiple forensics specialists carrying "two bags of forensic tools" in their luggage.
According to the complaint, the team split up as they approached the customs kiosks but raised Canadian officials' suspicions who allegedly found photographic evidence showing some of the members together. After a lawyer from the Saudi embassy was called, the brief says, the members of the team agreed to be deported back to Saudi Arabia. One continued into Canada on a diplomatic passport, Aljabri's filing says.

US removes Saudi Arabia from list of worst human traffickers
The mission, Aljabri says, was supervised back in Saudi Arabia by Saud al-Qahtani who was sanctioned by the Treasury Department for planning and executing the killing of Khashoggi. A second official named by Aljabri as an orchestrator, Ahmed al-Assiri, was also part of the Crown Prince's inner circle and relieved of his duties after Khashoggi was murdered. Neither was given a stiffer punishment.
A Canadian cabinet minister declined to comment on the specific allegations made by Aljabri citing the legal proceedings, but said they are aware of foreign nationals having tried to monitor and threaten people in Canada.
"It is completely unacceptable and we will never tolerate foreign actors threatening Canada's national security or the safety of our citizens and residents," said Bill Blair, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.
With the complaint, Aljabri is asking for a trial and seeking damages under the Torture Victim Protection Act and Alien Tort Statute. While the plot is said to have been attempted in Canada, a spokesman for Aljabri said the complaint is being filed in Washington because the suit alleges wrongdoing in the US.
Aljabri says the assassination attempt followed a campaign in both the US and Canada to hunt him down. He accuses MBS of using his non-profit foundation -- MiSK -- and the man who leads it, Bader Alasaker, of organizing agents in the US to find Aljabri.
One of them, Bijad Alharbi, a former close associate of Aljabri's, was successful in tracking Aljabri down in Toronto after speaking with his son in Boston, according to the complaint.
Though the attempt by the assassination team to enter Canada to kill him failed, Aljabri says, he believes the mission continues. He claims MBS has now secured a fatwa -- a religious ruling -- that allows him to kill Aljabri. Aljabri also accuses the Crown Prince of making other attempts to get to Aljabri in Canada, including sending agents across the border with the US by land.
This story has been updated to add comment from the Canadian government and reflect a corrected court filing from Aljabri's legal team.

CNN's Zachary Cohen contributed to this report.

VIDEO

https://us.cnn.com/2020/08/06/politics/saudi-assassination-plot-allegations/index.html




Former Saudi intelligence officer accuses prince of ordering his assassination

Spencer S. Hsu and Shane Harris Aug 07 2020

Saudi crown prince sued over alleged hand in murder plot

Mohammed bin Salman is accused of dispatching a group of hitmen to kill a former top Saudi intelligence official - Saad al-Jabari, who is in exile in Canada.

A former top Saudi intelligence officer and close US intelligence ally has accused Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of targeting him for assassination and taking his children hostage because he has knowledge of damaging secrets about the prince's rise to power.

In a federal lawsuit filed in Washington on Friday (NZ time), Saad Aljabri said "there is virtually no one that Defendant bin Salman wants dead" more than him because of his relationship with the American government as "a longtime trusted partner of senior US intelligence officials."

Aljabri - now living in exile in Toronto - is "uniquely positioned to existentially threaten Defendant bin Salman's standing with the US Government," the lawsuit said.

In a detailed complaint running more than 100 pages, Aljabri alleges that the Saudi leader orchestrated a conspiracy to kill him in Canada that parallels one that resulted in the death and dismemberment of Jamal Khashoggi, the dissident Saudi columnist and Washington Post contributor.

Khashoggi death: 20 go on trial in absentia

A Turkish court put 20 Saudi officials on trial in absentia on for the gruesome killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which sparked international outrage and tarnished the image of Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler (from 4 July).

The CIA has assessed that Mohammed likely ordered Khashoggi's killing himself, The Washington Post previously reported.

Aljabri says the prince and his allies pressured him to return to Saudi Arabia, with Mohammed sending agents to the United States to locate Aljabri and having malware implanted on his phone. When Aljabri was ultimately located, Mohammed sent a "hit squad" to kill him, the lawsuit asserts.

The team was stopped by Canadian customs officials who, in a grisly echo of the Khashoggi case, were found carrying forensic tools that could have been used to dismember a corpse, Aljabri alleges.

Since March, Saudi authorities have arrested and held one of Aljabri's sons, Omar, 22, and a daughter, Sarah, 20, the suit alleges. Aljabri's brother has also been arrested, and other relatives detained and tortured inside and outside of Saudi Arabia, the lawsuit said, "all in an effort to bait [Aljabri] back to Saudi Arabia to be killed."

A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit. Some of Aljabri's allegations have previously been reported by The Washington Post and The New York Times.

Such explosive claims from a once-high-ranking Saudi official, whom the CIA credits with helping save American lives from terrorist attacks, could further strain Washington's battered relationship with Riyadh.

After Khashoggi's death in 2018, US Democratic and Republican lawmakers once counted as stalwart allies of the kingdom have turned away from the young crown prince and threatened to upend decades of economic and security cooperation between the two countries.

Mohammed has sought to rehabilitate his standing on the world stage. He has benefited from the support of US President Donald Trump, who has refused to accept the CIA's assessment that Mohammed probably ordered Khashoggi's death.

Trump has said the crown prince has assured him that he had nothing to do with what the US president has called "an unacceptable and horrible crime."

SASHA MORDOVETS/GETTY IMAGES
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is once again accused of ordering an assassination

Aljabri, represented by the Jenner & Block law firm, alleges in the lawsuit that Mohammed believes Aljabri "is responsible" for the CIA's conclusion and sees him as an impediment to further consolidating his power in Saudi Arabia and with the US intelligence community.

Aljabri was a close aide to deposed crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who was perhaps the CIA's most trusted ally in the kingdom. Mohammed ousted bin Nayef in 2017 in a manoeuvre that Aljabri says "appeared to receive political cover from President Trump."

Current and former officials familiar with the CIA's assessment in Khashoggi's death, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss sensitive information, said they were sceptical that Aljabri had played such a key role, but did not doubt Mohammed might believe otherwise.

Several officials described Aljabri as a valuable partner to US intelligence operations who modernised Saudi's counterterrorism capabilities after the 9/11 attacks, cracked down on al-Qaida in the kingdom and pursued it into Yemen.

Aljabri has been credited for overseeing a network of informants who exposed a 2010 plot by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula to send bombs concealed in computer printer cartridges on American cargo planes bound for Chicago, saving hundreds of lives.

Those who have spoken on Aljabri's behalf include Michael Morell, an acting director of the CIA under US President Barack Obama, and George Tenet, who served as CIA director during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. Aljabri and bin Nayef also had a close relationship with former CIA director John Brennan, who was also a chief of station in Riyadh.

"In all of my years at CIA, but most especially when I served as director of the CIA Middle East Division, I never worked with any foreign official who had a better understanding of counterterrorism than Dr. Saad," said Daniel Hoffman, who retired from the agency in 2017.

"He justifiably deserves significant credit for building the US-Saudi counterterrorism partnership following 9/11 to the close partnership on which our national security so deeply relies today. He was key to disrupting numerous al-Qaida plots, which would have caused significant destruction and casualties in the US".

BANDAR ALGALOUD/SAUDI KINGDOM COUNCIL/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY IMAGES
US President, Donald Trump meets Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud a the G20 Summit at INTEX Osaka Exhibition Centre in Osaka, Japan on June 29, 2019.

In a July 7 letter to Trump, four senators called Aljabri "a close US ally and friend" and said the United States had "a moral obligation to do what it can to assist in securing his children's freedom."

"The Saudi royal family is holding Sarah and Omar Aljabri as hostages," Senator Patrick Leahy, ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, wrote with Senators Marco Rubio, chairman of the Foreign Relations human rights subcommittee, Tim Kaine, and Chris Van Hollen.

"For a government to use such tactics is abhorrent. They should be released immediately."

Foreign leaders are typically immune from civil suits in US courts while in office. However, Aljabri sued under the Alien Tort Statute and a 1991 law called the Torture Victim Protection Act, which provides recourse in US courts for violations of international law and for victims of "flagrant human rights violations," including torture and summary execution abroad.

The suit also names as defendants Bader Alasaker, who heads the prince's private office and travels regularly to the United States; former Saudi officials linked to Khashoggi's death, the prince's MiSK Foundation, which Aljabri alleged deployed a network of agents to hunt him; as well as alleged agents and hit team members. The foundation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Aljabri's son Khalid, 36, a cardiologist who moved from Boston to be near his father in Toronto, said in an interview that his father has been an ally of the US government since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

"His main goal was the safety of his beloved country Saudi Arabia and its allies," his son said.

WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES
A protester dressed as Saudi Arabian crown prince Mohammad bin Salman, demonstrates with members of the group Code Pink outside the White House in the wake of the disappearance of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

Aljabri stepped down in 2016 and "did not have any kind of experience working with the Trump administration," Khalid Aljabri said, adding, "I think honestly the Trump administration has a role in resolving this whole situation and doing the right thing by securing the release of my siblings."

In a letter Friday (NZ time) responding to concerns raised by U.S. senators, the State Department called Aljabri "a valued partner" to the US government and said it would work with the White House to resolve the situation "in a manner that honors Dr. Aljabri's service to our country."

"Any persecution of Dr. Aljabri's family members is unacceptable," Acting Assistant Secretary Ryan Kaldahl wrote.

He said the department has repeatedly requested that Saudi authorities clarify the nature of his children's detentions and "will continue to urge their immediate release, absent sufficient and compelling justification."

Aljabri's allegations also underscore strains in relations between Canada and Saudi Arabia. In August 2018, Saudi Arabia expelled Canada's ambassador and recalled its own envoy from Ottawa and thousands of government-funded Saudi students after Canada's then-Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland called for the release of civil society and women's rights activists arrested in the kingdom.

Canada imposed a moratorium on new arms-exports permits to Saudi Arabia partly in response to Khashoggi's killing.

The halt was lifted this April, after Canada secured improvements to a highly secretive US$10 billion contract to sell Riyadh light armored vehicles, though current Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne told reporters then that Saudi Arabia's human rights record "remains troubling."

UMAR FAROOQ/GETTY IMAGES
A member of the Organisation 'Justice for Jamal Khashoggi' holds a picture of Khashoggi in 2018.

The suit states that on about October 15, 2018, Canadian border officials intercepted a hit team from the prince's personal mercenary group, known as the Tiger Squad, on their way to kill Aljabri.

The alleged plot was foiled when Ontario airport customs officials became suspicious of the men, who initially claimed not to know one another, and then questioned them.

A lawyer from the Saudi embassy was called, and Canada eventually deported all but one of the alleged hit team members back to Saudi Arabia.

Saudi officials have accused Aljabri and bin Nayef of misspending billions of dollars in operational funds to enrich themselves and of sympathising with the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the lawsuit, however, Aljabri claims that over a 39-year long government career, it was he who was privy to Prince Mohammed's "covert political scheming . . . corrupt business dealings" and use of personal mercenaries.

"Few places hold more sensitive, humiliating, and damning information about Defendant bin Salman than the mind and memory of Dr. Saad - except perhaps the recordings Dr. Saad made in anticipation of his killing," the suit asserted.

The Washington Post's Amanda Coletta and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.

Belarus begins fuelling its first nuclear power plant

The Russian-built Astravets nuclear plant is expected to start powering Belarus by the end of this year. 

JUST DOWN THE ROAD AND AROUND THE CORNER FROM CHERNOBYL ANOTHER RUSSIAN BUILT NUCLEAR PLANT

Belarus denies that the plant poses a risk and has insisted it meets all safety requirements [Getty Images]

Belarus has begun loading fuel into the first of two reactors at its new Russian-built Astravets nuclear power plant, saying it expects to begin using the plant by the end of this year.

Built by the Russian state nuclear agency Rosatom and financed by Moscow with a $10bn loan, the project is opposed by neighbouring Lithuania, whose capital Vilnius is just 50 km (31 miles) away.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda on Friday called it a "threat to our state's national security, public health and environment".

Lithuania's Energy Minister Zygimantas Vaiciunas said he had warned the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over what he called Minsk's haste to launch the project.
Safety fears

Vilnius has banned all electricity imports from the plant, citing concerns about safety and national security, and along with Estonia and Latvia is considering slapping a fee on power imports from Russia, as well.

Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are moving towards a full decoupling from their Soviet-era common power system by 2025.

Belarus denies that the plant poses a risk and has insisted it meets all safety requirements.

Russia's Rosatom says the plant "fully meets post-Fukushima demands", referring to Japan's 2011 nuclear accident, as well as "international norms and IAEA recommendations".

The Belarusian energy ministry said it plans to add the first 1.2 gigawatt VVER 1200 reactor to the country's power system in the fourth quarter of this year.

Construction of the second reactor is scheduled for completion in 2022 and will double the plant's capacity to 2.4 gigawatts.

The ministry said the plant will meet about one-third of Belarus's demand for electricity, replacing 4.5 billion cubic metres of natural gas per year and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than seven million tonnes annually.

Belarus has experienced severe radiation in 1986 from neighbouring Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster. Chernobyl's nuclear fallout contaminated about a quarter of Belarus's territory.


SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

Prehistoric Graves Reveal The Wealth Gap Existed Even in The Stone Age

CARLY CASSELLA
7 AUGUST 2020

Even in early prehistoric Europe, there was a clear wealth gap between the rich and the poor, and this inequality in life followed people long after their deaths.

New archaeological research in Poland reveals the richest humans from Neolithic times were also the ones buried with the most exotic artefacts.

This might sound obvious, but it was not the connection archaeologists were initially after. The study of these 6,600-year-old grave sites, located in the town of Oslonki, was supposed to reveal what Neolithic farmers used to grow and eat all those years ago.

It just so happened that the richest diets also aligned with the most valuable buried artefacts.

During this time, it appears the artefacts humans were buried with were not simple funerary donations by hopeful family members, but direct translations of material wealth from life into death.

"We have uncovered some of the earliest evidence for a direct link between social status and long-term diet in prehistoric Europe," says archaeologist and anthropologist Chelsea Budd from Umeå University in Sweden.

"We are witnessing the emergence of social and economic inequality in early prehistoric communities – the 'haves' and the 'have nots' - at a time much earlier than we thought."

Examining the bones of 30 people, all buried within the same 200 years, the international team found that skeletons containing more carbon-13 isotopes were often buried with fancier grave goods, made of copper.


These isotopes accumulate in food sources at different rates, and are subsequently incorporated into human tissue, thus giving us a potential glimpse at the person's diet during their life. However, exactly what carbon-13 can tell us about Neolithic food is limited. It could possibly suggest more dairy intake, for instance, but there's little evidence of this in the region.

It could also suggest some people had access to plants and animals that were isotopically different from the rest. And this isotopic balance was also seen in cattle bones found in the area.

This implies that some people and animals had privileged access to large fields and more lush pastures well lit by the sun (which leads to more carbon-13 in the plants), while others didn't.

"Perhaps founding members of the community had privileged access to these fields, and, by extension, to the exchange networks that brought exotic copper ornaments this far north," the authors suggest.

"Although speculative, this is a plausible scenario given the abundant ethnographic evidence for the importance ascribed to the 'first settlers' in a region and/or to a community's founders."


What's more, it could very well be argued that these lands were passed down, exhibiting some of the earliest forms of generational wealth.

No matter the specifics, the findings do suggest there was some sort of dietary difference between those who were buried with copper materials and those who weren't.

The copper artefacts discovered, including 50 strips, 200 beads, five pendants and a diadem, were likely brought in from sources hundreds of kilometres away - another line of evidence that suggests they belonged to the richest.

When Oslonki and other nearby sites were abandoned for an unknown reason sometime around 4,500 BC, copper ornaments in northern Europe stopped showing up for a millennium, suggesting the town was an important part of the trade networks involving these precious goods.

"That the system appears quite short-lived highlights that early attempts at developing hierarchical structures were not always successful in the long term," the authors note.

While there's some evidence for income inequality amongst human society in the later Bronze Age of Europe, this new study suggests the wealth gap - a phenomenon we experience to this day - goes back even further in history.

The study was published in Antiquity.

SEE

Sahlins, Marshall, "The Original Affluent Society" (abridged ...

web.mnstate.edu › robertsb › Sahlin-OriginalAffluentSociety-abridged

Sahlins, Marshall, "The Original Affluent Society" (abridged), ch.5,pp79-98. The Politics of Egalitarianism: Theory and practice, ed. Jacqueline Solway.

The Viral Loads of Asymptomatic Coronavirus Carriers Are Surprisingly High, Study Reveals

SO ARE THE LOADS CARRIED BY CHILDREN

THIS IS THE #TRUMPVIRUS HE IS ASYMPTOMATICAFP
7 AUGUST 2020

People who are infected with the coronavirus carry similar levels of the pathogen in their nose, throat and lungs whether they have symptoms or not, a new study from South Korea showed Thursday.

The paper, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, is an important biological line of evidence in support of the idea that asymptomatic carriers can spread COVID-19.

Until now, experts have relied on inferring asymptomatic spread when people contract the virus without contact with a known carrier.

A team of researchers led by Seungjae Lee at Soonchunhyang University College of Medicine analyzed swabs taken between March 6 and March 26 from 303 people isolated at a center in Cheonan, following an outbreak among a religious group in another city.

The group ranged in age from 22 to 36 and two-thirds were women. Of the total, 193 were symptomatic and 110 were asymptomatic.

Among those who were initially asymptomatic, 89 never developed symptoms at all – about 30 percent of the total.

This finding itself helps gives a sense of what portion of infected people are truly asymptomatic rather than merely "presymptomatic," a subject of confusion.

All were sampled at regular intervals after day eight of isolation, and the samples returned comparable values of the virus' genetic material from the upper and lower airways.

The median time taken for the patients to return negative tests was marginally less for asymptomatic patients compared with symptomatic: 17 and 19.5 days, respectively.

The authors wrote their findings "offer biological plausibility" to reports of asymptomatic transmission.

But they added that their study only looked at the amount of viral genetic material present and did not attempt to follow the subjects to see if that translated to the spread of infectious virus.

© Agence France-Presse

Here's How Exploding Stars Forged The Calcium in Your Teeth And Bones

We really are star-stuff.

(sultancicekgil/Getty Images)
SPACE
DAVID NIELD
7 AUGUST 2020

Up to half the calcium in the Universe – and that includes our bones and teeth – is thought to come from exploding supernova stars, and researchers have now been able to get unprecedented insight at how these ultra-rare, calcium-rich supernovae reach the end of their lives.

The never-before-seen look at how these stellar explosions throw out so much calcium was carried out using deep space X-ray and infrared imaging, and fills in quite a few of the gaps in our scientific knowledge about the process.

Drawing together contributions from 67 authors across 15 countries, the resulting study suggests that the calcium-rich supernovae start off as compact stars that quickly lose mass at the end of their lives, giving off an outer layer of gas that exploding materials then collide with.

(Aaron M. Geller, Northwestern University)

"These events are so few in number that we have never known what produced calcium-rich supernovae," says astrophysicist Wynn Jacobson-Galan, from Northwestern University.

"By observing what this star did in its final month before it reached its critical, tumultuous end, we peered into a place previously unexplored, opening new avenues of study within transient science."

The supernova in question, SN 2019ehk, was first spotted by amateur astronomer Joel Shepherd in the Messier 100 (M100) spiral galaxy about 55 million light-years away from Earth. Very soon after the discovery was made, most of Earth's major telescopes were following it – with transient events like this, speed is crucial.


What astronomers weren't expecting was the luminosity of the X-ray light that SN 2019ehk was giving off. Scientists quickly realised they were looking at a flood of high-energy X-rays flowing from the star and hitting the outer shell of gas, providing key clues to the materials that it was shedding and how much of the material there was.

The readings from the dying star helped scientists to work out what was happening: the reactions between the expelled materials and the outer gas ring were producing intensely hot temperatures and high pressures, leading to a calcium-producing nuclear reaction as the star tries to shed its heat and energy as quickly as possible.

"Most massive stars create small amounts of calcium during their lifetimes, but events like SN 2019ehk appear to be responsible for producing vast quantities of calcium and in the process of exploding disperse it through interstellar space within galaxies," says astronomer Régis Cartier, from the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab) in the US.

"Ultimately this calcium makes its way into forming planetary systems, and into our bodies in the case of our Earth!"

It's because these stars are so important in calcium production that scientists have been so keen to take a look at them – something that has proved difficult (even Hubble missed SN 2019ehk). The explosion at the centre of the new study is responsible for the most calcium ever seen emitted in a singular observed astrophysical event.

Being able to see the inner workings of this type of supernova will open up new areas of research and give us a better idea of how the calcium in our bones and teeth – and everywhere else in the Universe – came to be.

It's also a great example of the international scientific community working together to capture and record something of great importance. Just 10 hours after the initial bright burst was spotted in the sky by Joel Shepherd, some of the best telescopes we have were ready to record what happened next.

"Before this event, we had indirect information about what calcium-rich supernovae might or might not be," says astrophysicist Raffaella Margutti, from Northwestern University. "Now, we can confidently rule out several possibilities."

The research has been published in The Astrophysical Journal.

Prehistoric 'Hell Ant' Stuck in Amber Has Been Mauling Its Prey For 99 Million Years

(Barden et al., Current Biology, 2020) NATURE

CARLY CASSELLA
6 AUGUST 2020

A long-extinct lineage of insect, known fondly as the 'hell ant', has been discovered frozen in 99-million-year-old amber, with its scythe-like jaw still pinning its prey.

According to scientists, this fierce predator is a newly identified species of prehistoric ant, known as Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri, and it's the first time we've ever seen a hell ant actively feeding. Its meal is an extinct relative of the cockroach.

"Fossilised behaviour is exceedingly rare, predation especially so," says Phillip Barden, who studies social insect evolution at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT).

"As palaeontologists, we speculate about the function of ancient adaptations using available evidence, but to see an extinct predator caught in the act of capturing its prey is invaluable."

Ants are some of the most diverse creatures on planet Earth. To date, scientists have identified over 12,500 different species and they think there are probably another 10,000 or so out there, just waiting to be discovered underfoot.

That's quite the selection. And yet of all the ants marching today, none of them look anything like what scientists have found in amber deposits from Myanmar, Canada and France.

In fact, Barden says the mouthparts of these haidomyrmecine hell ants are unlike that of nearly all insects alive today. This newly-identified hell ant used its lower mandible to move upwards and pin its prey to the horn-like paddle above.

Other hell ants discovered in the past also have this horn, and while scientists thought it might be a sort of clamp, this 99-million-year-old fossil is the first real evidence that can back that up.

Contrary to these ancient bugs, modern ants and almost all other living hexapods have mandibles that only move on a horizontal axis.

"Since the first hell ant was unearthed about a hundred years ago, it's been a mystery as to why these extinct animals are so distinct from the ants we have today," Barden says.

"This fossil reveals the mechanism behind what we might call an 'evolutionary experiment,' and although we see numerous such experiments in the fossil record, we often don't have a clear picture of the evolutionary pathway that led to them."

 

(Barden et al., Current Biology, 2020)

Above: The hell ant Ceratomyrmex ellenbergeri grasping a nymph of Caputoraptor elegans (Alienoptera) preserved in amber dated to roughly 99 million years.

Hell ants actually precede the most common ancestor of all living ants, and even then, they were incredibly diverse.

Other species trapped in amber have been found equipped with spiky mouthparts, most probably used to drink their victims' blood.

Modern ants, on the other hand, look remarkably different. They have mouths facing forward, which keeps their heads relatively parallel to the ground, although they can look up and around.

Hell ants couldn't move their heads nearly as well, and they likely captured prey with their mouths facing downwards.

A simplified reconstruction of the hell ant eating from a lateral view. (Barden et al., Current Biology, 2020)

"Despite staggering anatomical diversity of insects, larval dytiscid beetles and hell ants together appear to represent the only two known instances of mandible-on-head contact used in prey capture, both appearing with vertically articulating mouthparts," the authors write.

Why exactly hell ants died out as a lineage after nearly 20 million years of existence is still unknown, but it might have to do with their specialised predatory behaviour.

Barden says it just goes to show that even the most diverse and ubiquitous species on Earth can go extinct. Even something as familiar as an ant.

The study was published in Current Biology.

Uncircumcised Men Are Responsible for up to 37% of Vaginal Infections

By Mary Moore | Published on August 6, 2020
Reviewed By Gilmore Health | On: August 6, 2020

Table of Contents

According to a US study, between a quarter and a third of vaginal infections are caused directly by men, depending on whether they are circumcised or not.


Vaginosis

All too often the role of men in women’s reproductive health is overlooked. To remedy this, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have shown that men are responsible for between a third and a quarter of vaginal infections. They published their findings in the journal Frontiers of Cellular Microbiology and Infection on August 4.
Circumcision a real influence

The researchers examined 168 heterosexual couples who had regular sex for one year. They investigated the presence of bacterial vaginosis – an imbalance in the vaginal or vulvar flora that causes the growth of harmful bacteria – in the women at the beginning of the study, six months and a year later. They also took samples from men in the urethral duct, glans and urethral meatus to test for the bacteria.

Read Also: A Comprehensive Look at STDs and Their Various Types

The influence of the men on the development of vaginal infections became clear. The results showed “a clear temporal relationship between the microbial composition of the penis and subsequent disease development,” observed Supriya Mehta, the lead author of the study. About one in four women (26.3%) developed an infection during the study when their partner was circumcised. Among those whose partner is not circumcised, this figure rises to more than every third woman (37.3%). According to the researchers, this difference is explained by the lower number of anaerobic bacteria in circumcised penises.
Men must be included

The role of men in the development of female reproductive diseases is obvious: “The correspondence between the penis microbiome and the vaginal microbiome of the sexual partners does not simply reflect the vaginal microbiome, but can contribute to it,” the researchers argue. It has been shown that the observation of penile microbes is a strong predictor of bacterial vaginosis. Bacterial types were predicted in 74.6% of cases.

The authors believe that these results should help to further investigate the influence of men on reproductive diseases developed by women. “A possible treatment should effectively reduce or modify the presence of bacteria in men” and thus reduce bacterial vaginosis. “I want doctors, researchers, and the general public to involve male partners in their efforts to improve women’s reproductive health,” Supriya Mehta told AFP. It’s not about blaming one of them, but about expanding the possibilities and opportunities for improvement.
References

The Microbiome Composition of a Man’s Penis Predicts Incident Bacterial Vaginosis in His Female Sex Partner With High Accuracy

'Weirdest Fossil' Wasn't a Dinosaur After All

George Dvorsky
Yesterday 4:32PM

A beautifully preserved skull in 99-million-year-old Burmese amber.Image: Lida Xing
CT scan of Oculudentavis skull.Image: L. Xing et al., 2020/Nature

The authors of a high-profile study published earlier this year, in which the scientists claimed to have discovered the world’s smallest dinosaur, have now retracted the paper in response to new fossil evidence.

The now-retracted Nature paper, published on March 11, 2020, apparently misidentified a tiny skull found inside a 99-million-year-old chunk of Burmese amber. Dating back to the Late Cretaceous period, the specimen was said to be the smallest dinosaur in the fossil record, in a claim that attracted considerable media and public attention.

With its bulbous eyes, 14-millimeter-long skull, and dozens of sharp teeth, it was “the weirdest fossil I’ve ever been lucky enough to study,” declared Jingmai O’Connor, the lead author of the paper and a researcher from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, China, in a press release issued when the paper was first published. The fossil was identified as a tiny bird, weighing just 2 grams, and given the name Oculudentavis khaungraae.

This interpretation, however, appears to have been flawed. This fossil, designated HPG-15-3, is probably a lizard, and not an avian dinosaur. As Giuliana Viglione reports at Nature News, the paper was retracted owing to the emergence of a similar fossil, which a separate team of scientists have identified as belonging to a lizard.

“We, the authors, are retracting this Article to prevent inaccurate information from remaining in the literature,” wrote the authors in their official retraction statement. “Although the description of Oculudentavis khaungraae remains accurate, a new unpublished specimen casts doubts upon our hypothesis regarding the phylogenetic position [in the evolutionary tree] of HPG-15-3.”

In an email to Gizmodo, O’Connor said that while she agrees that the original assessment of the fossil as an avian dinosaur was incorrect, she doesn’t think a retraction was the best way to handle the problem, as it has created further problems.

“However, we were wrong and Oculudentavis is not a bird but a lizard, which time and new data will demonstrate,” she said. “Nature was not unfair or unkind to us; they made their decision for their own reasons, which were not disclosed to us but of course we must accept—and we do accept,” said O’Connor, adding that her team “worked every step of the way doing whatever Nature asked of us.”

Speaking to Retraction Watch, O’Connor said her team may have been wrong in their identification of the fossil, “but as we have demonstrated in a Matters Arising reply…the specimen cannot be unequivocally identified as either a bird or a squamate [lizard] without more material (which has come to light but is as yet unpublished and effectively does not exist to science yet).”

Nature’s Matters Arising policy allows outside scientists to submit any concerns they might have about a published Nature paper “as necessary to advancing scientific discourse.” These comments “can involve either challenges or clarifications of the published work and may, after peer review, be published online as Matters Arising, usually alongside a Reply from the original Nature authors,” but these comments “should ideally be based on knowledge contemporaneous with the original paper, rather than subsequent scientific developments,” according to Nature.

O’Connor brings up a good point: It seems odd that Nature would retract a paper based on a forthcoming study that has yet to go through peer review, but that appears to be the case.

O’Connor also said it’s not out of the ordinary for paleontologists to misidentify specimens and for new data to correct previous hypotheses, as she told Retraction Watch:

However, Nature chose not to publish our Matters Arising reply and instead retracts our paper—they must have their reasons. It’s unfortunate because this way science can’t simply correct itself (as it is supposed to do) and on top of that, according to the [International Code of Zoological Nomenclature] ICZN the nomenclatural acts are valid whether retracted or not creating a complex grey area. The paper is retracted, yet will continue to be cited. So science will correct itself and cite the paper even though it is retracted making the retraction pointless.

Which speaks to the new problems that O’Connor alluded to in her email to Gizmodo. It’s now an open question as to whether or not scientists will ignore the retraction or the new name, Oculudentavis khaungraae. As the authors pointed out in their retraction statement, they stand by their description of the fossil, even if their interpretation of its place within the evolutionary tree was flawed.

When asked to explain the retraction, a spokesperson from Nature said in an email that the journal is “unable to discuss the confidential process behind retractions as all correspondence with the author prior to publication remains confidential. The research paper was retracted by the authors and the retraction note reflects their rationale for the retraction.”

Addressing the retraction being influenced by the apparent introduction of a new scientific paper after the fact, the spokesperson said, “Nature retracts or agrees to a request for retraction when important contemporary errors or mistakes have been identified or acknowledged that undermine the conclusions of the research. Subsequent scientific developments are not, in and of themselves, a reason for retraction unless they invalidate the methodology used.”

Not very helpful responses. Nature is being tight-lipped about the situation, to the point where we can’t actually be sure why the paper was retracted and if Nature violated its own policies.

It’s important to point out that a preprint in June, written by a different group of scientists, also took exception to the O’Connor paper. In this preprint, which hasn’t gone through peer review, the authors said their own findings “highly contradict” the interpretation that the fossil belonged to a bird and that this “enigmatic animal demonstrates various morphologies” resembling lizards. In a subsequent retort, O’Connor and her colleagues said these authors “failed to provide conclusive evidence for the reidentification” of the fossil as lizard, but O’Connor now seems to have changed her opinion on the matter.

Paleontologist Andrea Cau from Parma, Italy, is also skeptical of the original classification, as Nature News reports:


[B]ecause so many of the specimen’s features are lizard-like — about ten, by his estimate — “the idea that it was instead a lizard could not be excluded”. Cau is not surprised by the retraction, and notes that reclassifications, especially of incomplete fossil specimens from unknown groups, are not uncommon in the field.

These concerns aside, and revisiting O’Connor’s comments to Retraction Watch, this particular retraction isn’t sitting very well with me. Nature seems to be violating its own Matters Arising policy, by considering data that wasn’t available to the researchers at the time of authorship.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting that criticism of the original paper is wrong, but this whole thing could’ve been handled considerably better.

George Dvorsky
George is a senior staff reporter at Gizmodo.

AU CONTRAIRE
Nuclear Fusion Will Not Save Us
Yessenia Funes
Wednesday  August 6, 2020

A technician walks past the lower cylinder of the cryostat, which provides the high vacuum, ultra-cool environment for ITER.Photo: Clement Mahoudeau/AFP (Getty Images)

Last week, construction kicked off on the world’s largest experimental nuclear fusion reactor. It marked the start of a new era in the energy sector: The fossil fuel industry has historically dominated this arena, but renewable energy is quickly taking over. Now, nuclear scientists are hoping that the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER, the experimental power plant under construction in southern France, can play a role alongside already-established technologies like solar and wind.

All the nuclear power plants that exist today rely on nuclear fission. ITER, however, will rely on nuclear fusion. The two are dramatically different, and scientists have struggled to recreate nuclear fusion—the process that makes stars shine—in a lab setting. ITER is the world’s first true attempt at this on a large scale.

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“The difference between nuclear fission and nuclear fusion is the reason why we’ve developed a nuclear fission reactor in a matter of years, and still after more than six decades, we still don’t have a nuclear fusion reactor,” said Eugenio Schuster, a mechanical engineering and mechanics professor at Lehigh University who is working on ITER.

Around the world, 450 nuclear reactors were operating last year, all using nuclear fission, which involves splitting heavy atoms of elements such as uranium and plutonium. The process produces tons of highly radioactive waste, the ingredients to create nuclear weapons, potential instability that could lead to a destructive nuclear meltdown, and other concerning issues.

This process also requires uranium. In the U.S., the mining of this resource has contaminated the waters of the Navajo Nation and left countless individuals sick. President Donald Trump wants to see more uranium mining, and he doesn’t care where. The Grand Canyon? It can be mined. Bears Ears National Monument? That, too. Nuclear fission has proven destructive to both human health and the environment. There’s a reason many environmental advocates are highly opposed.

“We have a horrible legacy of uranium contamination in our communities,” said Carol Davis, the executive director of Diné C.A.R.E., an environmental organization that supports the Navajo people. “Water was contaminated with uranium, and it’s never been cleaned, and people are using that and drinking that.”

Davis and other advocates worry nuclear power is just another false promise that creates radioactive waste while taking time and money away from developing renewable energy technologies. The United States alone has 90,000 metric tons of nuclear waste with nowhere to go. Nuclear fusion doesn’t create the same level of long-lived radioactive waste as the more popular process of nuclear fission, but it isn’t waste-free, either.

The process begins with the breaking down of lighter atoms into a state of matter called plasma. It requires more than 270 million degrees Fahrenheit of heat to get going, though. When you’re comparing it to fission, of course, fusion is better. It can’t cause the nuclear meltdowns that we’ve seen at other sites. It doesn’t need any uranium; all it needs is lithium and water. If greenhouse gas emissions are the concern, fusion doesn’t have any evidence of contributing there. But the process does still produce some waste, and advocates are worried that their communities will be forced to deal with that waste for the greater good.

“This whole notion of endless power with little to no waste, it just sounds too good to be true. We really need to examine what are the true costs and who are the people who will be impacted,” said Leona Morgan, a Diné activist and coordinator of the Nuclear Issues Study Group, a New Mexico-based volunteer organization against nuclear power. “It seems like we should really learn from what we have already experienced with the loss of human rights and loss of water resources from contamination.”

If scientists want communities to fully embrace nuclear energy, they need to figure out what the hell to do with this toxic trash. In the U.S., decision-makers have historically dumped this stuff near tribal or low-income rural communities. History is bound to repeat itself if leaders don’t take proper action to prevent these injustices.

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“The reason we’re investing in fusion is because the promise is big,” Schuster said. “We’re going to have the benefits of renewables in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, but at the same time, we’re going to reduce the area we need to produce the same amount of energy while eliminating the risk of nuclear accidents and the generation of long-lived radioactive waste.”


That’s the thing, though. Intense attention on the climate crisis allows other ecological crises to happen alongside it. No one wants to see the world burn from rising temperatures, but disenfranchised communities don’t want to keep being sacrificed for the sake of human progress, either. Lithium extraction primarily happens in Argentina and Chile, where Indigenous advocates worry about the amount of water the mining requires, as well as the potential for contamination of their lands. Water is going to become even more valuable as we see droughts dry out lakes, rivers, and streams. Fusion simply doesn’t come without a cost.“This whole notion of endless power with little to no waste, it just sounds too good to be true.”

Proponents of ITER note that the amount of lithium and water needed is minimal, especially compared to the extractive industries that exist today. The plant is expected to need only 550 pounds of fuel a year, half from the isotopes they need from water and half from the isotopes they need from lithium. Schuster notes that most of the water needed for this process would be returned to its source. That’s because researchers need only a specific molecule from the water. These materials won’t be the main issue with nuclear fusion, said Egemen Kolemen, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University who is also working on the plant.

“The real issue is going to be the nuclear safety issues,” Kolemen said. “Even though it doesn’t have this runaway type of [reaction], there is still going to be some sort of nuclear reactions… that are going to have low levels, but still some, nuclear waste of sorts.”

The construction of ITER certainly does mark a new chapter in the world’s energy sector. It marks a moment of technological breakthrough and scientific accomplishment, but it won’t save us by itself. No new energy source can. At the heart of the climate crisis is human behavior. If we’re to survive it—and, more importantly, solve it—we need to take a long, hard look in the mirror. Reducing emissions will require more than finding the perfect clean energy source; it will need a massive shift in human behavior, lowering our emissions through energy efficiency and less consumption.

Then again, emissions aren’t everything. If we’re lowering our carbon footprint without protecting the health of vulnerable communities, what good is it after all? A nuclear future needs a justice and equity lens if it’s to actually be successful. Otherwise, it’ll be another damaging industry. The world already has enough of those.
Yessenia Funes
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Yessenia Funes is a senior staff writer with Earther. She loves all things environmental justice and dreams of writing children's books.