Nerve stimulation cuts pain, opioid use after orthopedic surgery, study finds


Nerve stimulation treatments reduce the need for opioids for post-surgical pain, according to a new study. Photo by skeeze/Pixabay

April 15 (UPI) -- Nerve stimulation treatments are effective for reducing pain in patients recovering from orthopedic surgery and limit the need for potentially addictive opioid medications, a study published Thursday by the journal Anesthesiology found.

A treatment called percutaneous peripheral nerve stimulation lowered patients' post-operative pain scores after common procedures by an average of 50%, the data showed.

The treatment delivers small amounts of electricity to surgically affected nerves and interrupts the transmission of pain signals to the brain, the researchers said.

In addition, patients' use of opioid-based pain medications dropped by 80% during the first week after the treatments, according to the researchers, who described the findings as "impressive."

RELATED Study: Patients use a fraction of opioids prescribed after surgery

The benefits of postoperative nerve stimulation were "much greater than what we had anticipated," researchers from the University of California-San Diego wrote.

The results "stand on their own and indicate that percutaneous peripheral nerve stimulation is highly effective for acute pain," they said.

Reducing the need for opioid-based pain medications after surgical procedures has become a point of emphasis in recent years due to the risk that patients might become addicted to the drugs.

RELATED Hospital costs for substance use patients exceed $13B annually, study finds

Prescription opioid-based pain medications have helped fuel an "epidemic" of abuse and misuse of these drugs, which have similar intoxicating effects to illegal drugs such as "heroin," according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

For this study, the researchers enrolled 65 adults who underwent a common outpatient joint surgery, such as foot bunion removal and shoulder rotator cuff repair.

All study participants had electrical leads placed near the nerve or nerves that serve the surgical joints, with half of them receiving active electrical stimulation adjusted to achieve the desired sensory change sometimes described as feeling like a "pleasant massage," the researchers said.

RELATED Study: One-third of U.S. teens, young adults misuse prescription drugs

The remaining participants received an inactive treatment, with a pulse generator that appeared to function normally, but did not deliver electrical current, according to the researchers.

After one week, participants who received active percutaneous peripheral nerve stimulation showed significantly lower pain ratings, with average scores on a zero-to-10 scale of about 1, compared to just over 3 in the sham treatment group, the data showed.

Participants in the active treatment group used, on average, about 5 milligrams of opioid pain relievers during the first week following surgery, or about one-tenth of the amount used by those the in the sham treatment group, the researchers said.

"Percutaneous peripheral nerve stimulation will most likely prove the optimal management after painful surgical procedures," they wrote.

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The Pentagon has stopped laughing about UFOs. Why hasn't Silicon Valley?

Rizwan Virk 

NBC

4/16/2021


In our era of life-changing innovation, there are major breakthroughs that could well come from the serious study of a phenomenon we too often mock: UFOs. The government has reversed its official position of publicly ignoring UAPs (unidentified aerial phenomenon, the new trendy name for UFOs) and is starting to tackle the subject openly. But within academia and industry, the topic is still too frequently dismissed with a chuckle accompanied by some trite remark about “extraterrestrials.”

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In February, for instance, one of the biggest innovators of this century, Elon Musk, was asked what he thought about the recent Pentagon acknowledgment that Navy pilots have seen objects flying in our airspace using advanced technology we can’t identify, let alone understand or explain or reproduce. Musk’s answer was, “Honestly, I think I would know if there were aliens,” and, honestly, this response could have come from any number of prominent scientists or industry figures.

Musk’s nonanswer was revealing because it suggested that he wasn’t aware of — or interested in — basic unclassified facts about military sightings of UFOs, or that the government is looking into the possibility that they are made from advanced technology that our scientists can’t yet figure out.

In June, a new task force championed by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., must submit an unclassified report on unidentified aerial phenomena to Congress. It comes as several erstwhile officials, including former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and two former CIA directors, have called for a more rigorous look at these sightings.

The most famous example (the one Musk was asked about) occurred when Navy pilots reported a craft resembling a Tic Tac that was moving unlike anything seen in the U.S. arsenal: They said it “wasn’t behaving by the normal laws of physics.”

The craft’s movements were, however, typical of both military and civilian UFO reports: Descending from 80,000 feet to 20,000 feet in an instant; stopping in midair and reversing direction without inertial effects; exceeding the speed of sound without generating a sonic boom; and submerging into the ocean. After The New York Times and The Washington Post reported on it in 2017 along with the military’s secret UFO tracking program, the Pentagon publicly acknowledged last year that the leaked videos in the stories were authentic.

Videos of UFO encounters released by Pentagon


Now recently retired national security officials are speaking out. In the run-up to the task force’s report in June, John Ratcliffe, former director of national intelligence, told Fox News last month that there were “a lot more sightings than have been made public.” Similarly, James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, said on a podcast this month he was taking the subject seriously, as did a successor at the CIA, John Brennan, in December.

The Pentagon hasn’t offered an official explanation for UAPs like the Tic Tac craft, calling them “unidentified.” Former officials don’t seem to be willing to utter the word “alien,” but it’s the implication of what they do say. Lue Elizondo, who ran the secret Pentagon UFO tracking unit, has publicly ruled out the theory that the Tic Tac craft came from the U.S. arsenal or from the arsenals of our adversaries, leaving only the theory that it came from “someone or something else.”

According to Brennan, some of the phenomena we’re seeing “could involve some type of activity that some might say constitutes a different form of life.” U.S. Navy pilots who have actually seen the Tic Tac craft are even more direct, with one telling the Post it was “Something not from the Earth.”

While it’s good that the government is finally taking UFOs more seriously, its job is primarily to figure out whether they represent a military threat. But these unidentified objects may also represent an opportunity to advance our science and technology significantly — if our other two pillars of innovation, academia and industry, are willing to catch up.

Unfortunately, when scientists are asked about UFOs, they generally laugh off the subject. The well-known astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, for one, said he would only take the idea seriously when aliens send him a dinner invite.

Why do leading scientists show such a profound lack of curiosity in a subject that might redefine not just their fields, but also all of science? It could lead to a new understanding of our place in the universe, and new advances in materials science, biology, quantum physics, cosmology and social sciences.

Part of the problem likely stems from an academic version of the old IBM rule in industry that “No one ever gets fired for buying IBM.” Similarly, no professor ever gets fired for mocking UFOs. The case of Harvard Medical School’s Dr. John Mack, though, shows the dangers if you don’t.

Thankfully, small cracks are appearing in academia’s wall of mockery. Avi Loeb, chief astronomer at Harvard University, was willing to say in his new book, “Extraterrestrial,” that he thinks that ‘Oumuamua, the first object we have spotted in the night sky whose origin is definitely from outside our solar system, was most likely a technological artifact of a long-vanished alien civilization.

Most academics, though, still invoke some version of Musk’s nonargument: “If aliens were here, we would know!” But the government is saying that it does know: These craft exist. My purpose today is not to convince you of the evidence, however, but to encourage academics and industry leaders to move beyond their biases into an open-minded investigation to figure out who or what created them, and how they work.

I’m not naïve enough to assume that academics will study UFOs just to further human knowledge. But to point out the obvious: In the long term, there could be multiple Nobel prizes, not to mention new laws of physics, for those who are willing to dive in and risk ridicule in the short term.


Elon Musk talks about SpaceX’s first all-civilian mission to space

Scientists in Europe who dismissed the idea of rocks falling out of the sky eventually opened their minds enough to discover meteorites — ending up with a more complex understanding of the universe. The results this time could lead to new kinds of transportation devices capable of submerging into the ocean and in the air, transporting cargo and passengers across the globe in minutes, as well as ferrying humans safely beyond planet Earth.

Similar rewards await industry risk-takers as well, especially innovators in Silicon Valley who are interested in speculative topics such as the Singularity and the Simulation Hypothesis. To some extent, their apathy is the predictable spillover effect from the ivory tower: Venture capital firms aren’t going to invest in something that academics haven’t stamped as “viable” technology.

But peer pressure may also be at work here, too. Businessman Joe Firmage, for instance, was once the toast of the valley only to resign so as not to hurt his company’s reputation after speaking of his interest in UFOs (and being skewered as “the Fox Mulder of Silicon Valley” in the press).

Despite the risks, there are some encouraging signs. Recently, Prof. Garry Nolan of Stanford University and Jacques Vallee, a venture capitalist who worked with J. Allen Hynek — a part of the Air Force’s first UFO investigation group, Project Blue Book, from 1947-1969 — have teamed up to investigate samples of materials supposedly ejected at purported UFO landing sites.

As a starting point, if the ratios of the metals’ specific isotopes don’t naturally occur on Earth, the chemical composition could open up new opportunities for high-performance craft materials on- and off-planet. Vallee (inspiration for the French scientist in director Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”) told me they would go through the academic peer-review processes, which might greatly advance respect for the subject.

Where does this leave us?

We will know more when the Pentagon’s report on unidentified aerial phenomena comes out in June, but now that the government is starting to take UFOs seriously, it’s high time that more academics and industry leaders step up to do the same.

Pentagon Confirms Newly Leaked UFO Footage Was Filmed By Navy

RECENT YEARS HAVE SEEN A NUMBER OF HIGH-PROFILE UFO SIGHTINGS BY US MILITARY PERSONNEL. ANURAKE SINGTO-ON/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
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The Pentagon has confirmed that a number of freshly leaked videos appearing to show UFOs, or "unidentified aerial phenomena" (UAP) as they are officially known, were taken by Navy personnel. However, there's no word yet on what exactly these mysterious sightings actually are.

The footage was recently shared by TV investigative journalist George Knapp at MysteryWire.com and documentary filmmaker Jeremy Corbell at ExtraordinaryBeliefs.com, both of whom are well-versed in the world of UFOs.

The first of the leaked videos, captured on a night vision camera, shows a "pyramid"-shaped UAP buzzing above the USS Russell warship off the coast of San Diego in July 2019.

Another set of images was captured by the USS Omaha, appearing to show an orb-like shape. The object was reportedly spotted in the sky but proceeded to descend into the water without destruction. Corbell notes that the US Navy deployed a submarine to search for the object, but it appears nothing was found.

The Pentagon has confirmed that the images and footage were taken by Navy personnel, but made no further comment on what the sights might have been.

“I can confirm that the referenced photos and videos were taken by Navy personnel. The UAPTF has included these incidents in their ongoing examinations,” Susan Gough, a Pentagon spokesperson, told The Black Vault. “As we have said before, to maintain operations security and to avoid disclosing information that may be useful to potential adversaries, DOD does not discuss publicly the details of either the observations or the examinations of reported incursions into our training ranges or designated airspace, including those incursions initially designated as UAP.”

Aside from a few short descriptions, not much information about the footage has been released. Is it a UFO from another world? An experimental military aircraft? Spyware, weather balloons, drones? Or simply a camera artifact? The sightings have already divided opinion, but there's little denying it's intriguing footage.

Recent years have seen a number of high-profile UFO sightings by military personnel, combined with a renewed sense of openness on the subject from the Pentagon. Just last year, the US Department of Defense acknowledged and publically released three videos of "unidentified aerial phenomena," including the famous "Tic Tac" video shot by a US Navy jet pilot.

As per the New York Times, there's even been an uptick of UFO sightings in the US since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Nationwide, sightings shot up by more than 1,000 reports compared to an average year to a total of at least 7,200 sightings in 2020. However, even hardcore "ufologists" conceded that this is not necessarily evidence of an incoming alien invasion, but simply a reflection of more people having time to stargaze during the lockdown

By Tom Hale 14 APR 2021,

Why The West's 'First World Problems' Over AstraZeneca Are A Deadly Risk For The Planet's Poorest

New research from Oxford University deserves publicity in Europe and beyond.


By Paul Waugh
HUFFINGTON POST

4/15/2021
You’re reading The Waugh Zone, our daily politics briefing. 

“Vaccine nationalism” is one of those practices that every country disowns, but some secretly indulge. And when it comes to their handling of the pandemic more broadly, politicians are often happy to comment on other countries’ failures while bristling at any outsider verdict on their own.

We had a flavour of that over the past 24 hours after Canada’s Justin Trudeau blurted out that the UK was ahead of the world on vaccinations “yet they maintain very strong restrictions and are facing a very serious third wave”. It was a (characteristically) hamfisted attempt to justify his own continued lockdown and sparked a wave of British indignation.

There was a gentle rebuff on Thursday from Boris Johnson’s spokesperson, who said “I don’t have a specific response for Justin Trudeau, but I think the case data speaks for itself with this”. He then proceeded to say that UK case numbers, hospitalisations and deaths had all fallen and “that’s a tribute to our vaccine roll out and the work of the British public and our NHS”.

The only problem with that response is that, well, the PM himself this week made plain that vaccination wasn’t the real driver of those falling numbers. And while Trudeau’s claim about a “serious” third wave certainly baffled scientists here, Johnson and Chris Whitty and Patrick Vallance have all warned there will be a third wave of some kind, it’s just unclear when or how big it will be.

Although the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine is not a “British” vaccine as such, there was also some early government defensiveness on its behalf as other countries raised concerns about possible links to blood clots. Now that our own regulator has paused the jab for under-30s, there is unsurprisingly some European muttering of “we told you so”.

Of course, it all comes down to a balance of risks, and the need to make informed assessments of that risk. And a brand new Oxford study concluded that the risk of cerebral venous thrombosis (CVT) is – wait for it – around eight to 10 times higher after catching the virus than getting vaccinated.

Based on data from more than 500,000 Covid-19 patients, the experts calculated the occurrence of CVT was 39 in a million people. Among those who had a vaccine made by AstraZeneca, the occurrence was about five in a million after the first dose. Intriguingly, they found for the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines the occurrence of CVT was around four in a million. That’s not much different from AZ, yet neither has the same PR problem.

Crucially, Professor Paul Harrison, who led the study, said that the risk was still higher “even for those under 30”. The much less diplomatic Professor John Bell put it bluntly: “If you don’t get a vaccine you’re going to get Covid. And if you get Covid you’ll have a very, very much higher risk of getting a bad clotting problem.”

The new research paper has come too late for some countries. On Wednesday, Denmark had actually become the first European country to completely halt its AstraZeneca rollout, to all age groups. It admitted “the risk in absolute terms is slight” but went ahead with the ban anyway.

Yet today, as Europe passed the awful milestone of a million deaths (with France set to pass 100,000 tonight), there was a genuinely jaw-dropping revelation about Denmark. The WHO’s Europe chief Hans Kluge said he’d been told by Soren Brostrom, director general of the Danish Health Authority, that “the ministry of foreign affairs of Denmark is ready to, or looking already into options, for sharing AstraZeneca vaccines with poorer countries.”

Yes, you read that right: they’re saying this vaccine is not safe enough for Danes, but it is for the developing world. That betrays a shocking assumption about the comparative value placed on lives in richer and poorer states. But the truly shocking factor is the failure to properly weigh the risks. As the Oxford study shows, the chances of dying from Covid are much higher than of dying from a vaccine – even among the young.

There is also a real danger that our old friend “an abundance of caution” is not the benign concept it seems, and is in fact utterly deadly. Actions like Denmark’s can only undermine confidence in the AstraZeneca jab, the only not-for-profit vaccine, in the very countries that depend on it most. Gordon Brown and others urged global action today, as 90% of people in poor countries already face a 2021 without any vaccines at all.

Being able to reject a vaccine on grounds of the “slight” risk it poses, simply because you have plentiful alternative stocks (as Denmark claims), brings a whole new tawdriness to that phrase “First World problems”. The risk is a continued spread that ends up becoming a global problem. Let’s hope that the reassuring findings of the new Oxford research can drown out the messages that somehow the AstraZeneca jab is “unsafe".

Blood clots as prevalent with Pfizer and Moderna vaccine as with AstraZeneca's: study

Published: April 15, 2021 

By 

Steve Goldstein

Referenced Symbols

PFE
+2.58% 
MRNA
+6.84% 
AZN
-0.18% 

A study by Oxford University found the number of people who receive blood clots after getting vaccinated with a coronavirus vaccine are about the same for those who get Pfizer PFE, +2.58% and Moderna MRNA, +6.84% vaccines as they are for the AstraZeneca AZN, -0.18% vaccine that was produced with the university's help. According to the study, 4 in 1 million people experience cerebral venous thrombosis after getting the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, versus 5 in 1 million people for the AstraZeneca vaccine. The risk of getting CVT is much higher for those who get COVID-19 -- 39 in a million patients -- than it is for those who get vaccinated. AstraZeneca's vaccine use has been halted or limited in many countries on blood clot concerns.

Scientists Create Whitest Paint In The World That Could Help Us Fight Global Warming


By Dr Alfredo Carpineti15 APR 2021, 19:00


Last October, scientists announced the creation of ultra-white paint so reflective it could be used to keep surfaces and even entire buildings cool. That breakthrough really pushed the envelope on new ways to fight global warming. Now, they've produced an even whiter paint.

The ultra-white paints are considered the opposite of vantablack, which absorbs 99.9 percent of light. They reflect so much light that a surface painted with them actually ends up being cooler than the ambient temperature around them.

The paint revealed in October was based on calcium carbonate (CaCO3), the mineral that makes chalk. It had a reflectance of about 95.5 percent, meaning that less than 5 percent of sunlight hitting it would be absorbed as heat.

The new one, detailed in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, uses barium sulfate instead, something that is already employed commercially in paper and cosmetics. The team estimates that 98.1 percent of sunlight is reflected back by the new paint, meaning only 1.9 percent of heat is absorbed.

“In our experiment, the new paint doubles the cooling power of the previous one,” senior author Professor Xiulin Ruan from Purdue University told IFLScience.

Professor Xiulin Ruan holds up his lab's sample of the whitest paint on record. Image credit: Purdue University/Jared Pike

Tests have shown that during strong sunlight noon hours material covered in the new paint was 4.4°C (8°F) cooler than ambient temperature. At night, the material kept a temperature of 10.5°C (19°F) below the surrounding areas.

This extraordinary ability to cool could be a game-changer in the fight against global warming. This paint could be used to cool buildings instead of air conditioners.
The whitest white paint square seen with a normal camera (left) and in infrared (right). The infrared shows the temperature difference with the whitest paint cooling not only itself but also the board it is attached to. Image Credit: Purdue University/joseph peoples

“Conventional air conditioners consume power that is often from burning fossil fuel. Meanwhile, while they move the heat from inside of a house to the outside, they turn the electricity into heat and leave even more heat to the ambient and earth, further causing a heat island effect and warming up the Earth,” explained Professor Ruan to IFLScience.

“In contrast, our paint does not consume any power, and directly sends off all the heat to the deep space, hence helping cooling down the Earth. According to a previous model, painting 0.5-1% of the Earth's surface (roofs, roads, cars, unused land, etc) with our paint will stop the warming trend.”

While painting that fraction of the Earth's surface might be very difficult, employing the paint on human-made structures could still have a major impact. The team has shown that the barium sulfate paint can handle outdoor conditions and is compatible with standard commercial paint processes. A patent h.as also been filed for the paint. If and when available for commercial use, this could be a simple solution towards combatting and mitigating the complex issue of global warming.e paint. If and when available for commercial use, this could be a simple solution towards combatting and mitigating the complex issue of global warming

Just 3 percent of terrestrial habitat is 'ecologically intact'


In Africa, there is a surprising amount of usable habitat, but due to poaching threats, elephants only utilize a small percentage. File Photo by Daniel Irungu/EPA

April 15 (UPI) -- For more than 30 years, conservationists and policy makers have prioritized the protection of wilderness and intact habitat, acreage undisturbed by human activities.

More recently, scientists and policy makers have called for more concrete definitions of "wilderness." In its efforts to combat climate change and preserve biodiversity, the United Nations has highlighted the importance of ecosystem integrity.

As new research proves, intact habitat doesn't guarantee ecosystem integrity. In fact, the new analysis -- published Thursday in the journal Frontiers in Forests and Global Change -- suggests an overwhelming majority of the planet's terrestrial ecosystems are compromised.

"We know intact habitat is increasingly being lost, and the values of intact habitat have been demonstrated for both biodiversity and people," lead study author Andrew Plumptre, biodiversity expert at the University of Cambridge's Conservation Research Institute, said in a news release. "But this study found that much of what we consider as intact habitat is missing species that have been hunted by people, or lost because of invasive species or disease."

RELATED Climate change, biodiversity loss the top concerns in UNESCO survey

Numerous studies have highlighted the problem of ecosystem fragmentation, but few have quantified the issue. In Africa, there is a surprising amount of usable habitat, but due to poaching threats, elephants only utilize a small percentage. Even the planet's protected wilderness is highly fragmented.

Previous efforts to quantify and map ecosystem integrity have focused exclusively on the influence of human activity -- including the incursion of human settlements, roads and light and noise pollution -- on terrestrial acreage all over the world. Estimates suggest between 20 and 40 percent of terrestrial habitat is free from human influence.

For the new study, scientists added another level of analysis. Plumptre and his research partners compared current plant and animal diversity levels in intact habitat with historical biodiversity benchmarks.

RELATED Scientists map Earth's undiscovered biodiversity

They determined only between 2 and 3 percent of habitat identified as intact still hosts a full slate of animal and plant diversity and remains mostly free of invasive species.

Many of the regions identified as ecologically intact are places managed by Indigenous communities.

"Areas identified as functionally intact included east Siberia and northern Canada for boreal and tundra biomes, parts of the Amazon and Congo basin tropical forests and the Sahara Desert," the study's authors wrote.

RELATED Scientists map ocean areas where protections offer greatest benefits

According to the new study, there is hope for recovery. Scientists determined as much as 20 percent of Earth's terrestrial habitat could be restored to faunal intactness.

"The results show that it might be possible to increase the area with ecological intactness back to up to 20 percent through the targeted reintroductions of species that have been lost in areas where human impact is still low, provided the threats to their survival can be addressed and numbers rebuilt to a level where they fulfill their functional role," Plumptre said.

Numerous studies have highlighted the importance of ecosystem integrity and biodiversity for maintaining vital ecosystems services, curbing climate change and promoting human health. Scientists hope their latest research will help conservationists and policy makers improve protection and restoration plans.

U.S. Exposes Hackers’ Helpers to Punish Russian Cyber-Attacks

IS THAT LIKE HAMBURGER HELPER


Michael Riley and Ryan Gallagher, 

Bloomberg News Apr 15, 2021


Vladimir Putin Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg , Bloomberg


(Bloomberg) -- In punishing Russian hacks and election meddling, the Biden administration on Thursday revealed new details about Russian intelligence’s vast disinformation and cyber-operations, including the names of companies that allegedly help facilitate cyber-attacks and websites accused of spreading false claims to damage the U.S.

The information release is designed partly to damage Russian intelligence services by blowing the cover of its support network, including companies that provide essential services and, in one case, the location of a technology park near the Black Sea used by spies for Russian’s military intelligence directorate, the GRU.

“This is how you roll up people’s networks,” said James Lewis, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “You identify them, so that they have to rebuild their tradecraft and rebuild their cover. It’s cheap for us but can be very costly to them.”

The names of companies and individuals, including a deputy chief of staff to Russian President Vladimir Putin, were officially released in relation to U.S. sanctions imposed Thursday, but the larger harm may come from being associated with Russia’s spy operations, experts say.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, a Russian cybersecurity company called Positive Technologies hosts large-scale conventions that are used as a recruiting pipeline for Russia’s intelligence agencies, the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the GRU. While the U.S. didn’t identify the name of the conference, one annual event held by Positive Technologies -- which names Societe Generale, UniCredit and Enel as clients on its website -- is called “Positive Hack Days.” In 2019, it hosted 8,000 people, and participants competed to hack into cash machines and a Tesla car.


The disclosure about the company’s alleged links to Russian intelligence comes just after reports that it was considering an initial public offering, which Kommersant newspaper reported in March, citing an unidentified person familiar with the plan. The company earned 5.6 billion rubles ($73 million) in 2020 and was targeting a valuation of between $2 billion and $4 billion, the paper said.

Positive Technologies didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The U.S. also sanctioned ERA Technopolis, a research center and technology park located in Krasnodar Krai, Russia, which is near the Black Sea. U.S. officials alleged that ERA Technopolis “houses and supports” units of Russia’s main intelligence directorate, the GRU, which it said was responsible for offensive cyber and information operations.

The technology park had been publicly linked to the Russian Ministry of Defense, which claims that the facility combines scientific and educational functions. But the fact that it’s now known to house GRU units will likely be an inconvenience for an agency that thrives in secrecy.

Russian officials have repeatedly denied allegations of hacking, election meddling and spreading disinformation in the U.S.

It’s likely that many of the details about the intelligence agencies’ support networks were classified until recently, but Lewis said the decision to release them was a result of an internal U.S. government debate about how to impose stiff costs for what the U.S. calls “malign behavior.”

Those activities include aggressive efforts to influence the outcome of U.S. presidential elections in 2016 and 2020, the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, and the recent hack of U.S. government agencies and private firms through software made by Texas-based SolarWinds Corp.

“The debate is over how to impose costs on the Russians, as well as whether those costs will be enough to get them to change their behavior,” Lewis said. “Some of these companies go to a lot of effort to establish cover and to build business networks. They can try to restart that process, but it won’t be easy.”

The Biden administration also disclosed new details about how Russian intelligence agencies have used disinformation outlets and companies to secretly try to influence U.S. voters and spread false claims about candidates and elections.

“Private and public sector corruption facilitated by President Vladimir Putin has enriched his network of confidants, who used their illicit business connections to advance Russia’s campaign to undermine the 2020 U.S. presidential election—and to give Russia plausible deniability in its disinformation activities,” according to the Treasury Department.

The FSB operates several disinformation outlets, including SouthFront, which is registered in Russia and attempts to appeal to military enthusiasts, veterans and conspiracy theorists while hiding its connections to Russian intelligence, according to the Biden administration. Following the November U.S. presidential election, SouthFront allegedly published content alleging voter fraud had taken place during the election.


Another disinformation outlet, NewsFront, is based in Crimea and allegedly worked with FSB officers to attempt to undermine the credibility of a news website that advocated for human rights. NewsFront was also used to distribute false information about the Covid-19 vaccine, “which further demonstrates the irresponsible and reckless conduct of Russian disinformation sites,” according to the Treasury Department.

In addition, SVR directs an online journal called the Strategic Culture Foundation that created “false and unsubstantiated narratives” about U.S. officials involved in the 2020 presidential election, while GRU operates InfoRos, which used a network of websites to spread false conspiracy theories and disinformation, according to the U.S.

One of the companies outed Thursday is based in Pakistan, but it seems to have provided Russian intelligence agents with an essential -- if illicit -- service. The Treasury Department sanctioned the company for creating and selling fake identities to Russian intelligence, including documents to help companies and individuals evade sanctions. Since at least 2012, Second Eye Solution, also known as Forwarderz, provided digital copies of fake passports, drivers licenses and bank statements to help verify social media and financial services accounts, according to a Treasury Department statement.

An archived version of the Second Eye Solution website advertised the sale of illicit documents to support verification for banned or suspended accounts on sites including Facebook, Amazon.com, Google Wallet and CoinBase. “We provide high-quality, real-looking documents through which many of our clients get restored their accounts,” reads the now defunct website.

The site, accessed using the Wayback Machine web archive, now reads, “coming soon.”

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

OLYMPICS 2022 PERHAPS

Tokyo Olympics 2021: With 100 days to go, 70% of Japanese don't want games to go ahead, poll finds

Coronavirus infections are rising in many parts of Japan and many will not be vaccinated by the scheduled start in July.

The mascots for the Tokyo Olympic Games, Miraitowa (L) and Someity are unveiled

Martha Kelner

Sports correspondent @marthakelner
Wednesday 14 April 2021
Sky News

The Tokyo Olympics mascots were unveiled today to celebrate the 100 days-to-go milestone amid mounting public opposition to the Games taking place this summer.

But British Olympic Association chair Sir Hugh Robertson said he believed it was not a matter of if the Games happen, but how.

"I'm very confident it will go ahead," he told Sky News.

The countdown clock starts on the last 100 days before the Olympics begins

"I think the fact they have decided on no foreign spectators, now makes it more likely it will happen. They're taking the measures necessary in order to enable the Olympics to go ahead safely in July."

Coronavirus infections are rising in many parts of Japan and the country only began its vaccination programme this week, meaning vast swathes of the nation will still be unvaccinated when the Olympics are slated to begin on 23 July.

A newspaper poll this week indicated that 70% of Japanese people don't want the Games to go ahead.

"I'm not surprised that the polling figures are like that," Robertson said, "if you're a country in lockdown and then somebody proposes hosting an Olympics you're bound to think that this probably isn't the ideal.

"It's also the case that in every single country that ever hosts the Olympic Games, that the public is generally somewhere between hostile and not very keen, right up until the last moment and then it flips about.

"I think when it actually gets right up close to the games the Japanese will want to do what they're really well known for doing which is lay on a fantastic Games and welcome as much of the world as is safe to do."

Tokyo Olympics mascot Miraitowa and the famous rings

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The Olympics was awarded to Tokyo seven and a half years ago because it was considered a safe choice.

Since then a sexism scandal which led to the resignation of the head of the organising committee, a bribery investigation and a pandemic have coloured things differently.

Many experts think the risk to public health is too great to hold the Games, which under the current advice from the Japanese government would see an estimated 90,000 people flocking to Tokyo this summer, including 15,000 Olympic and Paralympic athletes.

"We are seeing sicker people than before, in ICU and the number of people infected surging, very rapidly," Professor Kentaro Iwata, infectious disease specialist at Japan's Kobe University, told Sky News.

"It is mainly in the west side of Japan called Kansai area but the east side, including Tokyo also has the increase in the number of people with infection. So, we are in a really critical period.

"I'm very pessimistic in holding the Olympic Games safely," he added, "Particularly, when people talk about inviting all the audiences domestically, that will be extremely dangerous to have."

The Olympic torch relay was diverted from the centre of Osaka this week and proceeded largely in private amid rising coronavirus cases in the area.

The torch is lit by a member of Japan's women's national soccer team

Athletes are still unsure when they will be able to get into Japan for qualifying events and preparation for the Games.

Mallory Franklin is a world champion canoe slalom racer and will make her Olympics debut in Tokyo as one of Team GB's best gold medal hopes. She says she is trying to ignore the undercurrent of controversy.

"I'm not actually that engaged with the news, generally, which isn't great for me but it means I don't see things like that and I think that it allows me just to stay focused on my training," she said.

"I wouldn't do anything differently, I'd still turn up to train and I'd still try and be the best athlete I could be and whether or not the games does or doesn't happen."

For many athletes this will be their only opportunity to go to an Olympics, for others it could be their swansong and, amid a whirl of unknowns, there is one certainty; this will be a Games unlike any other.

SAINT JOE NEEDS TO 'EVOLVE'

Biden’s blunt opposition to marijuana legalization

As his own party moves ahead on the issue, the president remains opposed to legalization.

By German Lopez@germanrlopezgerman.lopez@vox.com 

 Apr 16, 2021

This month, something unusual happened: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took a stand against President Joe Biden.

The New York Democrat, typically a strong Biden ally, has transformed into one of the Senate’s biggest advocates for marijuana legalization, which Biden continues to oppose. But Schumer said he’ll move forward with his legalization bill anyway.

“I want to make my arguments to him, as many other advocates will,” Schumer said. “But at some point we’re going to move forward, period.”

Schumer is likely worried, at least in part, about a primary challenge from the left in the future — something Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has openly discussed.

But there’s a bigger issue here for Biden. Increasingly, the president is out of step with not just his party but the country and perhaps even most Republicans on marijuana legalization.

Marijuana legalization is extremely popular. Gallup and the Pew Research Center, two of the country’s leading polling organizations, have consistently found at least two-thirds of Americans back legalization.

Support is so high that, at this point, a majority of Republicans — who are generally more skeptical of drug policy reforms — may support it. Pew found 55 percent of Republicans back legalization. Gallup found a slim majority of Republicans supported it in 2017, 2018, and 2019. That reversed in 2020, but the difference between support and opposition among Republicans was still within the sampling margin of error. And, at any rate, a solid minority of 48 percent were behind it.

Support among Democrats, meanwhile, is in the high 70s and 80s across polls.

Maybe Biden doesn’t entirely trust the polls — after 2016 and 2020, many of us don’t. But there’s real-world evidence legalization is very popular, too.

For one, 17 states have now legalized marijuana, most recently New Mexico. Among the 15 states where marijuana legalization has been put in front of voters since 2012 (when Colorado and Washington state first legalized), it’s won in 13.

Even more impressive is marijuana’s recent record in Republican states. Since 2012, marijuana legalization has come up for a vote in four states that former President Donald Trump won by double digits in 2020. It’s won in three of those states (Alaska, Montana, and South Dakota), and lost in one (North Dakota). Weed is 3-1 in deep-red states.

So what could explain Biden’s opposition? Based on his public remarks, he seems genuinely conservative on the issue — arguing only for decriminalization (in which the threat of jail or prison time is removed for possession, but sales remain illegal), and calling for “more scientific investigations” into the issue, particularly whether pot is a “gateway drug.”

Biden, after all, not just supported but spearheaded many of the country’s current drug war policies. During the 1980s and ’90s, he backed and helped write bill after bill that toughened federal criminal penalties against all sorts of drugs. Biden has since admitted to going too far in at least some respects, but this is where he built his early political career.

Of course, the failure of these policies to stop major drug problems — the country is currently mired in its deadliest drug overdose crisis ever in the opioid epidemic — and these policies’ punitive nature are reasons the public has shifted toward backing marijuana legalization. And the real-life evidence of legalization suggests it works fine, even leading governors in legalization states to regularly flip to supporting it.

But Biden is not convinced, even as his party moves ahead without him. With a veto pen in hand, it could make the president the biggest barrier to legalization.

DYING ART

Colorful coffins lighten mood at New Zealand funerals

By NICK PERRY

1 of 14
This photo provided by Ross Hall, shows a cream doughnut shaped coffin for the funeral of Phil McLean outside a church in Tauranga, New Zealand on Feb 17, 2021. Auckland company Dying Art makes unique custom caskets which reflect the people who will eventually lay inside them, whether it's a love for fire engines, a cream doughnut or Lego. (Ross Hall via AP)

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — When the pallbearers brought Phil McLean’s coffin into the chapel, there were gasps before a wave of laughter rippled through the hundreds of mourners.

The coffin was a giant cream donut.

“It overshadowed the sadness and the hard times in the last few weeks,” said his widow, Debra. “The final memory in everyone’s mind was of that donut, and Phil’s sense of humor.”

The donut was the latest creation by Phil’s cousin Ross Hall, who runs a business in Auckland, New Zealand, called Dying Art, which custom builds colorful coffins.

Other creations by Hall include a sailboat, a firetruck, a chocolate bar and Lego blocks. There have been glittering coffins covered in fake jewels, a casket inspired by the movie “The Matrix,” and plenty of coffins depicting people’s favorite beaches and holiday spots.

“There are people who are happy with a brown mahogany box and that’s great,” said Hall. “But if they want to shout it out, I’m here to do it for them.”

The idea first came to Hall about 15 years ago when he was writing a will and contemplating his own death.

“How do I want to go out?” he thought to himself, deciding it wouldn’t be like everyone else. “So I put in my will that I want a red box with flames on it.”

Six months later, Hall, whose other business is a signage and graphics company, decided to get serious. He approached a few funeral directors who looked at him with interest and skepticism. But over time, the idea took hold.

Hall begins with special-made blank coffins and uses fiberboard and plywood to add details. A latex digital printer is used for the designs. Some orders are particularly complex, like the sailboat, which included a keel and rudder, cabin, sails, even metal railings and pulleys.

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Depending on the design, the coffins retail for between about 3,000 and 7,500 New Zealand dollars ($2,100 and $5,400).

Hall said the tone of funerals has changed markedly over recent years.

“People now think it’s a celebration of life rather than a mourning of death,” he said. And they’ve been willing to throw out stuffy conventions in favor of getting something unique.

But, a donut?

Debra McLean said she and her late husband, who was 68 when he died in February, used to tour the country in their motorhome and Phil loved comparing cream donuts in every small town, considering himself something of a connoisseur.

He considered a good donut one that was crunchy on the outside, airy in the middle, and definitely made with fresh cream.

After Phil was diagnosed with bowel cancer, he had time to think about his funeral and, along with his wife and cousin, came up with the idea for the donut coffin. Debra said they even had 150 donuts delivered to the funeral in Tauranga from Phil’s favorite bakery in Whitianga, more than 160 kilometers (100 miles) away.

Hall said his coffins are biodegradable and are usually buried or cremated along with the deceased. The only one he’s ever gotten back is his cousin’s, he said, because he used polystyrene and shaping foam, which is not environmentally friendly.

Phil was switched to a plain coffin for his cremation and Hall said he’ll keep the donut coffin forever. For now, it remains in the back of his white 1991 Cadillac hearse.

As for his own funeral? Hall said he’s changed his mind about those red flames. He’s emailed his kids saying he wants to be buried in a clear coffin wearing nothing but a leopard-pattern G-string.

“The kids say they’re not going,” he says with a smile.

MANWOMAN WOULD APPROVE