Flooding in Venice worsens off-season amid climate change
By COLLEEN BARRY

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FILE - In this Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2020 file photo, people wade their way through water in flooded St. Mark's Square following a high tide, in Venice, Italy. Lashing winds that pushed 1.87 meters (nearly 6 feet 2 inches) of water into Venice in November 2019 and ripped the lead tiles off St. Mark’s Basilica for the first time ever shocked Venetians with the city’s second-worst flood in history, but it was the additional four exceptional floods over the next six weeks that triggered fears about the impact of worsening climate change. (Anteo Marinoni/LaPresse via AP, file)

VENICE, Italy (AP) — After Venice suffered the second-worst flood in its history in November 2019, it was inundated with four more exceptional tides within six weeks, shocking Venetians and triggering fears about the worsening impact of climate change.

The repeated invasion of brackish lagoon water into St. Mark’s Basilica this summer is a quiet reminder that the threat hasn’t receded.

“I can only say that in August, a month when this never used to happen, we had tides over a meter five times. I am talking about the month of August, when we are quiet,” St. Mark’s chief caretaker, Carlo Alberto Tesserin, told The Associated Press.

Venice’s unique topography, built on log piles among canals, has made it particularly vulnerable to climate change. Rising sea levels are increasing the frequency of high tides that inundate the 1,600-year-old Italian lagoon city, which is also gradually sinking.

It is the fate of coastal cities like Venice that will be on the minds of climate scientists and global leaders meeting in Glasgow, Scotland, at a U.N. climate conference that begins Oct. 31.

Venice’s worse-case scenario for sea level rise by the end of the century is a startling 120 centimeters (3 feet, 11 inches), according to a new study published by the European Geosciences Union. That is 50% higher than the worse-case global sea-rise average of 80 centimeters (2 feet, 7 1/2 inches) forecast by the U.N. science panel.

The city’s interplay of canals and architecture, of natural habitat and human ingenuity, also has earned it recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its outstanding universal value, a designation put at risk of late because of the impact of over-tourism and cruise ship traffic. It escaped the endangered list after Italy banned cruise ships from passing through St. Mark’s Basin, but alarm bells are still ringing.

Sitting at Venice’s lowest spot, St. Mark’s Basilica offers a unique position to monitor the impact of rising seas on the city. The piazza outside floods at 80 centimeters (around 30 inches), and water passes the narthex into the church at 88 centimeters (34.5 inches), which has been reinforced up from a previous 65 centimeters (25.5 inches).

“Conditions are continuing to worsen since the flooding of November 2019. We therefore have the certainty that in these months, flooding is no longer an occasional phenomenon. It is an everyday occurrence,” said Tesserin, whose honorific, First Procurator of St. Mark’s, dates back to the ninth century.



The damage at columns in St. Mark's Basilica's in Venice, Italy, is seen in this photo taken on Oct. 7, 2021. Lashing winds that pushed 1.87 meters (nearly 6 feet 2 inches) of water into Venice in November 2019 and ripped the lead tiles off St. Mark's Basilica for the first time ever shocked Venetians with the city's second-worst flood in history, but it was the additional four exceptional floods over the next six weeks that triggered fears about the impact of worsening climate change.

(AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)



 In this Friday, Nov. 15, 2019 file photo, a view of flooded St. Mark's Square in Venice, Italy. Lashing winds that pushed 1.87 meters (nearly 6 feet 2 inches) of water into Venice in November 2019 and ripped the lead tiles off St. Mark’s Basilica for the first time ever shocked Venetians with the city’s second-worst flood in history, but it was the additional four exceptional floods over the next six weeks that triggered fears about the impact of worsening climate change. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno, File)

In the last two decades, there have been nearly as many inundations in Venice over 1.1 meters — the official level for “acqua alta,” or “high water,” provoked by tides, winds and lunar cycles — as during the previous 100 years: 163 vs. 166, according to city data.

Exceptional floods over 140 centimeters (4 feet, 7 inches) also are accelerating. That mark has been hit 25 times since Venice starting keeping such records in 1872. Two-thirds of those have been registered in the last 20 years, with five, or one-fifth of the total, from Nov. 12-Dec. 23, 2019.

“What is happening now is on the continuum for Venetians, who have always lived with periodic flooding,” said Jane Da Mosto, executive director of We Are Here Venice. “We are living with flooding that has become increasingly frequent, so my concern is that people haven’t really realized we are in a climate crisis. We are already living it now. It is not a question of plans to deal with it in the future. We need to have solutions ready for today.”

Venice’s defense has been entrusted to the Moses system of moveable underwater barriers, a project costing around 6 billion euros (nearly $7 billion) and which, after decades of cost overruns, delays and a bribery scandal, is still officially in the testing phase.

Following the devastation of the 2019 floods, the Rome government put the project under ministry control to speed its completion, and last year start activating the barriers when floods of 1.3 meters (4 feet, 3 inches) are imminent.

The barriers have been raised 20 times since October 2020, sparing the city a season of serious flooding but not from the lower-level tides that are becoming more frequent.

The extraordinary commissioner, Elisabetta Spitz, stands by the soundness of the undersea barriers, despite concerns by scientists and experts that their usefulness may be outstripped within decades because of climate change. The project has been delayed yet again, until 2023, with another 500 million euros ($580 million) in spending, for “improvements” that Spitz said will ensure its long-term efficiency.

“We can say that the effective life of the Moses is 100 years, taking into account the necessary maintenance and interventions that will be implemented,” Spitz said.

Paolo Vielmo, an engineer who has written expert reports on the project, points out that the sea level rise was projected at 22 centimeters (8 1/2 inches) when the Moses was first proposed more than 30 years ago, far below the U.N. scientists’ current worse-case scenario of 80 centimeters.

“That puts the Moses out of contention,” he said.

According to current plans, the Moses barriers won’t be raised for floods of 1.1 meters (3 feet, 7 inches) until the project receives final approval. That leaves St. Mark’s exposed.

Tesserin is overseeing work to protect the Basilica by installing a glass wall around its base, which eventually will protect marshy lagoon water from seeping inside, where it deposits salt that eats away at marble columns, wall cladding and stone mosaics. The project, which continues to be interrupted by high tides, was supposed to be finished by Christmas. Now Tesserin says they will be lucky to have it finished by Easter.

Regular high tides elicit a blase response from Venetians, who are accustomed to lugging around rubber boots at every flood warning, and delight from tourists, fascinated by the sight of St. Mark’s golden mosaics and domes reflected in rising waters. But businesses along St. Mark’s Square increasingly see themselves at ground zero of the climate crisis.

“We need to help this city. It was a light for the world, but now it needs the whole world to understand it,” said Annapaola Lavena, speaking from behind metal barriers that kept waters reaching 1.05 meters (3 feet, 5 inches) from invading her marble-floored cafe.

“The acqua alta is getting worse, and it completely blocks business. Venice lives thanks to its artisans and tourism. If there is no more tourism, Venice dies,” she explained. “We have a great responsibility in trying to save it, but we are suffering a lot.”

___

Follow all AP stories on climate change at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-change.

UPDATED

Canadian Bruce (Xiaoyu) Liu wins prestigious Chopin piano competition

Previous winners of the Chopin Competition include some of the greatest names in classical music 

Wojtek RADWANSKI AFP

Issued on: 21/10/2021 

Warsaw (AFP)

"Being able to play Chopin in Warsaw is one of the best things you can imagine," 24-year-old Bruce Liu said as the jury announced their decision at the Warsaw Philharmonic Concert Hall.

Previous winners of the Chopin Competition include some of the greatest names in classical music, such as Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich and Krystian Zimerman.

Held every five years since 1927, the Chopin competition would normally have been held last year, but was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic -- a first since World War II.

"It was challenging to get all the competitors into Poland," Artur Szklener, director of the National Institute of Frederic Chopin, which organises the competition, had told AFP.

But one of the 17 jury members, Argentinian concert pianist Nelson Goerner, said that pandemic-related lockdowns helped raise the standard of this year's competition.

"The level this year is remarkable," Goerner told AFP earlier in the competition.

"The pianists have had more time to prepare and I think the pandemic has awakened in all of us a desire to go further, to surpass ourselves," he said.

"You can hear it in how these young pianists are playing."

Japan's Kyohei Sorita, 27, came joint-second with 26-year-old Italian-Slovenian Alexander Gadjiev.

Spain's Martin Garcia Garcia, 24, came third.

'Sleep and party'

Born in Paris, Liu graduated from Montreal Conservatoire.

He has performed with the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and has been on two tours in China.

"The pandemic actually made this kind of meeting for me more special," Liu said after his victory.

Liu said he had to be "really careful all the time" during the coronavirus crisis, so as to be able to keep up his competition and concert schedule, and as a result had "not met many people" in the past two years.

He also said he hoped the competition would be "just a start" in his musical journey.

"It's hard to keep the freshness, to continuously find new ideas so I hope this is not the last point," he told reporters.

He added that he was looking forward "to be finally able to sleep and party".

This year's event drew 87 pianists from across the globe, including 22 from China, 16 from Poland and 14 from Japan.

Broadcast live on YouTube and via a bespoke mobile app, the contest attracted record online interest.

Some 70,000 people watched the result streamed online.

© 2021 AFP

FILHARMONIA NARODOWA

BRUCE (XIAOYU) LIU – final round (18th Chopin Competition, Warsaw)

Oct 20, 2021

  

Canadian wins 18th Chopin international piano competition

By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA


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Pianist Bruce (Xiaoyu) Liu of Canada reacts after being named as the winner of the 40,000-euro ($45,000) first prize in the 18th Frederic Chopin international piano competition, a prestigious event that launches pianists’ world careers. Almost 90 pianists from around the globe took part in the 18th edition of the competition that was postponed from 2020 due to the pandemic. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Bruce (Xiaoyu) Liu of Canada was named early Thursday as the winner of the 40,000-euro ($45,000) first prize in the 18th Frederic Chopin international piano competition, a prestigious event that launches pianists’ world careers.

The announcement from the jury came just hours after Liu played as the last entrant among the 12 finalists, performing Chopin’s concerto in E minor, opus 11 with the orchestra at the packed National Philharmonic in Warsaw. His inspired performance was met with huge applause.

“Oh my god. I don’t know what to say, honestly,” Liu said after being name winner.

“We have been dreaming with all these people here for this prestigious stage,” the 24-year-old born in Paris said in English.

“Being able to play Chopin in Warsaw is one of the best things you can imagine, of course, so I’m truly honored for this award, of course, and for this jury’s trust and for all the warmth I have received in recent days,” Liu said.

The second prize and 30,000 euros ($35,000) went jointly to Alexander Gadjiev, representing Italy and Slovenia, and Kyohei Sorita of Japan. Gadjiev also won Krystian Zimerman’s prize of 10,000 euros ($11,800) for the best sonata performance.

The third prize of 20,000 euros ($23,000) was awarded to Martin Garcia Garcia of Spain, who also won the 5,000 euros ($5,800) prize for best concerto performance.

The fourth prize and 15,000 euros ($17,000) was shared by Aimi Kobayashi of Japan and Poland’s Jakub Kuszlik, who also won best mazurka performance prize and 5,000 euros. Italy’s Leonora Armellini was awarded the fifth prize of 10,000 euros ($11,600), while the sixth prize and 7,000 euros ($8,000) went to Canada’s J.J. Jun Li Bui.

The first prize was funded by the office of Poland’s president, and other prizes were funded by the government, state culture institutions and by private individuals.

High ranking in the renowned competition opens the world’s top concert halls to the pianists and paves the way to recordings with best known record companies.

Jury head Katarzyna Popowa-Zydron said after the announcement that the level of the pianists was very high and made the award decisions very hard for the 17 jurors. She called the participants “wonderful young people.”

During the competition, she had said that apart from being excellent pianists, the participants should also show sensitivity and bring freshness to the music.

“I try to look for a rapport between the performer and Chopin,” Popowa-Zydron said in an interview. Music is a “message from a person, and (the musicians) should know what kind of person Chopin was.”

Bowing to their artistry, the jury allowed two more finalists this year than usual. The competition, held every five years, was postponed from 2020 due to the pandemic.

Among previous winners are Maurizio Pollini of Italy, Argentina’s Martha Argerich, Garrick Ohlsson from the United States, Poland’s Krystian Zimerman and Artur Blechacz, and Seong-Jin Cho of South Korea.

Chopin, Poland’s best known and beloved classical music composer and pianist, was born in 1810 in Zelazowa Wola near Warsaw to a Polish mother and a French father. He left Poland at 19 to broaden his musical education in Vienna and then in Paris, where he settled, composing, giving concerts and teaching the piano. He died on Oct. 17, 1849, in Paris and is buried at the Pere Lachaise cemetery. His heart is at the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.

Coast Guard had earlier notice about California oil spill


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Officials release birds after they were treated for oiling and have now recovered from the Huntington Beach, Calif., shore on Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021. The spill washed blobs of oil ashore affecting wildlife and the local economy, though the environmental damage so far has been less than initially feared. But environmental advocates say the long-term impact on sensitive wetland areas and marine life is unknown and shop owners in surf-friendly Huntington Beach fear concern about oil will keep tourists away even once the tar is gone. (AP Photo/Amy Taxin)


HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (AP) — The Coast Guard received multiple reports of a possible fuel spill off the Southern California coast earlier than previously disclosed and asked local authorities to investigate about 15 hours before its own personnel confirmed a large oil slick, which came from a leaking undersea pipeline, records show.

The initial reports of a possible spill north of the Huntington Beach pier came into the Coast Guard about 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 1, according to an Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s memo provided Wednesday to The Associated Press. The documents said there were multiple similar calls over a marine radio emergency channel from boats leaving the Huntington Beach air show.

The department, which runs the county’s harbor patrol, sent a fireboat to search for the spill, but the crew lost visibility as darkness fell, according to the memo obtained through the California Public Records Act. The spill wasn’t confirmed until about 9 a.m. Saturday.

The Coast Guard did not immediately comment on the documents, which raise more questions about the agency’s response to a spill that forced the closure of some of the region’s signature beaches and harmed animal and plant life.

Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris, who chairs a state legislative committee looking into the spill, said she was told the spill was reported much later Friday evening when it was too late to detect because of darkness.

“It seems too crazy in a world where we’re trying to send a man to Mars that we can’t inspect a potential oil slick in the dark,” she said.

Miyoko Sakashita, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the Coast Guard should have responded more aggressively after getting the initial reports.

“An investigation should have immediately taken place, and it could have significantly reduced the size of the spill,” said Sakashita, whose organization has called on the federal government to stop offshore oil drilling. “Among all those reports, you should be able to triangulate that there’s something that needs investigation immediately.”

Prior to release of the sheriff’s department documents it was thought that the first word of a possible spill came to the Coast Guard at 6:13 p.m. on Oct. 1 from a foreign ship anchored off Huntington Beach that reported a sheen on the water that was more than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) long.

Rear Adm. Brian Penoyer previously told the AP that the Coast Guard put out a radio broadcast to vessels in the area and oil platforms looking for reports confirming a possible spill. But Capt Rebecca Ore, the unified response commander, said no such broadcasts were made.

Coast Guard officials said they needed to look into what — if anything — was done at the time, but have repeatedly declined to answer questions about the purported broadcast.

In this Oct. 7, 2021, file photo, workers in protective suits clean the contaminated beach in Corona Del Mar after an oil spill in Newport Beach, Calif. A group of environmental organizations is demanding the Biden administration suspend and cancel oil and gas leases in federal waters off the California coast after a recent crude oil spill. The Center for Biological Diversity and about three dozen organizations sent a petition Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021, to the Department of the Interior, arguing it has the authority to end these leases. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu, File)

Penoyer said the Coast Guard did not send a boat out to look for the spill because it was limited by darkness and didn’t have the technology to detect it. The report by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, however, says the Coast Guard did request that the Harbor Patrol dispatch a boat.

The next morning, the Coast Guard reached out again to the Harbor Patrol, and its hazardous materials investigators went out on a county fireboat. Authorities on that boat located a miles-long black plume several miles offshore, the memo said.

Huntington Beach Mayor Kim Carr said it’s not clear that earlier notice would have made a difference.

“Hindsight is 20-20,” she said. But Carr added that had she known about the 5:30 p.m. report, it would have elevated the first notice she got of a possible spill at around 9 a.m. the next morning.

Federal investigators are examining whether the Panama-registered MSC DANIT, a 1,200-foot (366-meter) container ship, was dragging anchor during a Jan. 25 storm and snagged the pipeline and dragged it on the seabed. It’s not known why the leak occurred eight months later. Authorities are looking into whether other anchors hit and weakened the pipeline or if a preexisting condition with the line was to blame.

Houston-based Amplify Energy owns and operates the pipeline that ferries oil from the company’s three offshore platforms. It is being scrutinized for its maintenance of the pipe and whether it reacted fast enough to the spill.

The Coast Guard says about 25,000 gallons (94,635 liters) of oil spilled off Orange County. Blobs of oil and tar balls washed ashore, forcing a weeklong closure of beaches that greatly disrupted the local economy and killing dozens of birds. Environmental advocates say the damage was less than initially feared but the long-term impact on wetlands and marine life is unknown.

Pete Stauffer, environmental director for Surfrider Foundation, which is working as a liaison between non-governmental agencies and the unified command for the spill response, said a swift response to a spill is key to limiting damage.

“When there’s a report of a significant-sized oil slick on the ocean, it’s important to investigate,” Stauffer said. “What happens in the first hours and days during an oil spill is absolutely critical.”

Nearly three weeks since the spill, officials are starting to wind down some of the clean-up efforts as conditions along the coastline have improved. While tar balls continue to wash up farther south in San Diego County, beach clean up in some areas of Orange County could soon be deemed complete, California Fish and Wildlife Lt. Christian Corbo said Wednesday.

Workers are also scaling back efforts to scour the coastline for oiled wildlife, but they will continue to respond to reports from the public of oiled birds, said Dr. Michael Ziccardi, director of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network. Six birds that were treated for oiling were released Wednesday along the shoreline and another six are still being cared for, he said, adding they will hopefully be released next week.

A group of environmental organizations Wednesday demanded that the Biden administration suspend and cancel oil and gas leases in federal waters off the California coast. The Center for Biological Diversity and about three dozen organizations sent a petition to the Department of the Interior, arguing it has the authority to end these leases and that the decades-old platforms off the coast of California are especially susceptible to problems because of their age.

The Department of the Interior declined to comment on the petition.

____

Melley reported from Los Angeles.

California lawmaker accepted donations from oil firm linked to spill in her district

By Hannah Schoenbaum, Medill News Service

CA LIF (R) Rep. Michelle Steel has accepted thousands of campaign dollars from oil and gas companies, records show. Photo courtesy of the Michelle Steel for Congress campaign

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (UPI) -- U.S. Rep. Michelle Steel (R-Calif.) has carefully monitored efforts to salvage Southern California's wetlands after a major offshore oil spill, but the lawmaker's record shows she accepted thousands of campaign dollars from oil and gas companies and voted against disaster relief funding for other cities.

A breached undersea pipe, apparently connected to the Elly oil rig, spilled an estimated 25,000 gallons of crude oil off the coast of Huntington Beach and Newport Beach on Oct. 2, covering 13 square miles of the Pacific Ocean.

Steel represents many of the communities impacted by the spill, and has been pushing for federal, state and local assistance to clean up the mess.

But less than a week before the spill, Steel voted against a government funding bill that provided $28.6 billion in disaster relief funds for communities devastated by Hurricane Ida.

RELATED Southern California beaches to reopen after no toxins found from oil spill

She also accepted $37,041 from oil and gas companies during her 2020 campaign, according to Federal Election Commission data. Among those donors was Phillips 66, the largest customer of the Houston-based oil company Amplify Energy, which owns the Elly oil rig.

Neither Steel's District 48 congressional office nor her campaign office in Surfside responded to multiple interview requests.

A sign warns swimmers not to go into the water at Newport Beach after a major spill dumped oil from an offshore platform off Huntington Beach, Calif., on October 4. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

Cleanup workers attempt to contain oil that seeped into Talbert Marsh, home to some 90 bird species, after an oil spill from an offshore oil platform near Huntington Beach, Calif., on October 4. Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

Drilling ban sought

The oil spill drew lawmakers' attention to a provision of President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Act, which would ban future offshore drilling projects in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

Many of Steel's Republican colleagues have remained united in opposing the bill, unwilling to hand Biden a substantial first-term victory.

Facing pressure from her constituents and colleagues, Steel has not stated her position on the bill. In Washington last Tuesday, she did not respond to reporters' questions about whether she would support an offshore drilling ban. Instead, she shifted attention to her efforts to clean up the coastline.

RELATED Damage from 126K-gallon oil spill in Southern California likely unknown for weeks

"Cleaning our beaches -- that's the priority," Steel said.

As she gears up to run for re-election in 2022, the freshman lawmaker has continued to accept money from donors in the energy industry, bringing her career total from 2019 through July 31 to $49,712 from oil and gas companies.

Steel, who represents communities affected by the spill, asked Biden to issue a major disaster declaration to free up federal funds for the district. And since members of Congress cannot formally request a disaster declaration, she also wrote to Gov. Gavin Newsom, encouraging him to join her in asking Biden for federal funding.

Newsom declared a state of emergency in Orange County last week, but has not requested a federal disaster declaration.

Reimbursement sought

Steel did send a letter to Amplify Energy CEO Martyn Willsher on Oct. 8, demanding that his company cover the response costs of the federal government and cooperate with the U.S. Coast Guard on continuing cleanup efforts.

"Trust has been broken and accountability is required," she wrote.

And after federal investigators said Oct. 8 they were "convinced" that a ship anchor snagged the pipeline, the Republican lawmaker introduced legislation that would ban cargo ships from anchoring off the coast of Southern California for 180 days.

Investigators now believe the anchor of a 1,200-foot cargo ship dragged the 16-inch steel pipe an unknown distance across the ocean floor, several months before the leak was detected.

Steel has faced widespread criticism on social media since the spill, particularly after screen captures of the Energy and Environment page of her website, which featured an image of an oil rig, began to make the rounds. The image since has been replaced.

Connor Chung, an intern on Steel's 2020 campaign, and others in the community have shown up to pitch in with cleanup efforts. The Corona del Mar High School senior said he has been disappointed by what he views as the lawmaker's lack of concrete action on environmental issues.

"Steel has done little to nothing yet to affect the spill," Chung said. "I don't have a solidified answer on if I will support her reelection, but I'm definitely watching how she will take action on the oil spill."

Opponent attacks

Democrat Harley Rouda, who Steel narrowly defeated in 2020, is capitalizing on his rival's hesitancy to take a stance on offshore drilling. Rouda held a press conference last Tuesday with environmental advocates outside Steel's Huntington Beach office, demanding that his opponent cut ties with the oil industry.

The Southern California district flipped in the last two election cycles, with Steel beating Rouda by fewer than 9,000 votes in 2020.

Stephen Spaulding, senior counsel for public policy at the non-partisan government watchdog organization Common Cause, said lawmakers in such competitive districts face heightened scrutiny from party members and donors to hold on to their seat.

"When the balance of power hangs on a handful of seats, you will see resources shifted and prioritized for those particular members in swing districts," Spaulding said.

"A candidate can face a number of pressures, but ultimately, it is up to the candidate to run the campaign pursuant to their vision and their values."

NFL, players agree to end ‘race-norming’ in $1B settlement


 In this May 14, 2021, file photo, former NFL players Ken Jenkins, right, and Clarence Vaughn III, center right, along with their wives, Amy Lewis, center, and Brooke Vaughn, left, carry petitions demanding equal treatment for everyone involved in the settlement of concussion claims against the NFL, to the federal courthouse in Philadelphia, in this Friday, May 14, 2021, file photo. Lawyers for the NFL and retired players filed proposed changes to the $1 billion concussion settlement on Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021, to remove race-norming in dementia testing, which made it more difficult for Black players to qualify for payments. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)


PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The NFL and lawyers for thousands of retired NFL players have reached an agreement to end race-based adjustments in dementia testing in the $1 billion settlement of concussion claims, according to a proposed deal filed Wednesday in federal court.

The revised testing plan follows public outrage over the use of “race-norming,” a practice that came to light only after two former NFL players filed a civil rights lawsuit over it last year. The adjustments, critics say, may have prevented hundreds of Black players suffering from dementia to win awards that average $500,000 or more.

The Black retirees will now have the chance to have their tests rescored or, in some cases, seek a new round of cognitive testing, according to the settlement, details of which were first reported in The New York Times on Wednesday.

“We look forward to the court’s prompt approval of the agreement, which provides for a race-neutral evaluation process that will ensure diagnostic accuracy and fairness in the concussion settlement,” NFL lawyer Brad Karp said in a statement.

The proposal, which must still be approved by a judge, follows months of closed-door negotiations between the NFL, class counsel for the retired players, and lawyers for the Black players who filed suit, Najeh Davenport and Kevin Henry.

The vast majority of the league’s players — 70% of active players and more than 60% of living retirees — are Black. So the changes are expected to be significant, and potentially costly for the NFL.

“No race norms or race demographic estimates — whether Black or white — shall be used in the settlement program going forward,” the proposal said.

To date, the concussion fund has paid out $821 million for five types of brain injuries, including early and advanced dementia, Parkinson’s disease and Lou Gehrig’s disease, also known as ALS.

Lawyers for the Black players suspect that white men were qualifying for awards at two or three times the rate of Blacks since the payouts began in 2017. It’s unclear whether a racial breakdown of payouts will ever be done or made public.

Black NFL retiree Ken Jenkins and others have asked the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department to investigate.

The binary scoring system used in dementia testing — one for Black people, one for everyone else — was developed by neurologists in the 1990s as a crude way to factor in a patient’s socioeconomic background. Experts say it was never meant to be used to determine payouts in a court settlement.

However, it was adopted by both sides in the court-approved, $765 million settlement in 2013 that resolved lawsuits accusing the NFL of hiding what it knew about the risk of repeated concussions. The fund was later uncapped amid concerns the money would run out.

This year, amid the national reckoning on race in America, both sides agreed to work to halt the use of race-norming, which assumes Black players start with lower cognitive function. That makes it harder to show they suffer from a mental deficit linked to their playing days.

The NFL would admit no wrongdoing under terms of the agreement. The league said it hoped the new testing formula, developed with input from a panel of experts, would be widely adopted in medicine.

To date, about 2,000 men have applied for dementia awards, but only 30% have been approved. In some cases, the NFL appealed payouts awarded to Black men if doctors did not apply the racial adjustment. The new plan would forbid any challenges based on race.

The awards average $715,000 for those with advanced dementia and $523,000 for those with early dementia. The settlement is intended to run for 65 years, to cover anyone retired at the time it was first approved.

“The NFL should be really enraged about the race norming. …. That should be unacceptable to them and all of their sponsors,” Roxanne “Roxy” Gordon of San Diego, the wife of an impaired former player, said earlier this week.

Amon Gordon, a Stanford University graduate, finds himself at 40 unable to work. He has twice qualified for an advanced dementia award only to have the decision overturned for reasons that aren’t yet clear to them. His case remains on review before the federal appeals court in Philadelphia.

Nearly 20,000 NFL retirees have registered for the settlement program, which offers monitoring, testing and, for some, compensation.

“If the new process eliminates race-norming and more people qualify, that’s great,” said Jenkins, who does not have an impairment but advocates for those who do.

“(But) we’re not going to get everything we wanted,” Jenkins, an insurance executive, said Tuesday. “We want full transparency of all the demographic information from the NFL — who’s applied, who’s been paid.”

Senior U.S. District Judge Anita B. Brody, who has overseen the settlement for a decade, dismissed the suit filed by Davenport and Henry this year on procedural grounds. But she later ordered the lawyers who negotiated the 2013 settlement — New York plaintiffs lawyer Christopher Seeger for the players and Karp for the NFL — to work with a mediator to address it.

In the meantime, the Gordons and other NFL families wait.

“His life is ruined,” Roxy Gordon said of her husband, who spent nearly a decade in the league as a defensive tackle or defensive end. “He’s a 40-year-old educated male who can’t even use his skills. It’s been horrible.”

___

Follow Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale.

___ This story has been corrected to say Najeh Davenport and Kevin Henry filed their civil rights complaint last year, not in 2019.

Big changes in White House ideas to pay for $2 trillion plan 

WAIT, WHAT? 

I THOUGHT IT WAS $3.5 TRILLION

By LISA MASCARO, DARLENE SUPERVILLE and ALAN FRAM

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President Joe Biden greets people after speaking about his infrastructure plan and his domestic agenda during a visit to the Electric City Trolley Museum in Scranton, Pa., Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) — In an abrupt change, the White House is floating new plans to pay for parts of President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion social services and climate change package, shelving a proposed big increase in corporate tax rates though also adding a new billionaires’ tax on the investment gains of the very richest Americans.

The reversal Wednesday came as Biden returned to his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to highlight the middle class values he says are at the heart of the package that Democrats are racing to finish. Biden faces resistance from key holdouts, including Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., who has not been on board with her party’s plan to undo Trump-era tax breaks to help pay for it.

“This has been declared dead on arrival from the moment I introduced it, but I think we’re going to surprise them, because I think people are beginning to figure out what’s at stake,” Biden said in a speech at Scranton’s Electric City Trolley Museum, his first visit home since becoming president.

Negotiations between the White House and Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are underway on what’s now a scaled-back package but would still be an unprecedented federal effort to expand social services for millions and confront the rising threat of climate change. It’s coupled with a separate $1 trillion bill to update roads and bridges.



Biden and his Democratic Party have given themselves a deadline to seal agreement after laboring to bridge his once-sweeping $3.5 trillion vision preferred by progressives with a more limited focus that can win over party centrists. He has no Democratic votes to spare for passage in the closely divided Congress, and leaders want agreement by week’s end.

The newly proposed tax provisions, though, are likely to sour progressives and even some moderate Democrats who have long campaigned on undoing the 2017 GOP tax cuts that many believe unduly reward the wealthy, costing the federal government untold sums in lost revenue at a time of gaping income inequality.

Administration officials spoke with congressional leaders on the tax alternatives, according to a person familiar with the private talks and granted anonymity to discuss them. The changes may be needed to win over Sinema, who had objected to plans to raise the rates on corporations and wealthy individuals earning more than $400,000 a year, said the person and several others.

As it stands, the corporate tax rate is 21%, and Democrats want to lift it to 26.5% for companies earning more than $5 million a year. The top individual income tax rate would rise from 37% to 39.6% for those earning more than $400,000, or $450,000 for married couples.

Under the changes being floated that 21% corporate rate would stay the same.

However, the revisions wouldn’t be all positive for big companies and the wealthy. The White House is reviving the idea of a minimum corporate tax rate, similar to the 15% rate Biden had proposed earlier this year. That’s even for companies that say they had no taxable income — a frequent target of Biden who complains that they pay “zero” in taxes.

And there could be a new billionaires’ tax, modeled on legislation from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the chairman of the Finance Committee, who has proposed taxing stock gains of those with more than $1 billion in assets — fewer than 1,000 Americans.

Sinema has not publicly stated her position, and her office did not respond to a request for comment.

Another key Democrat, conservative Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, has said he prefers a 25% corporate rate. He has been withholding his support for the bill with additional objections to its provisions on climate change and social services.

On the call with the administration and the White House, Wyden said he “stressed the importance of putting an end to America’s two tax codes, and finally showing working people in this country that the wealthiest Americans are going to pay taxes just like they do.”

The possible shift comes as Democrats appear to have made progress uniting themselves, ready to abandon what had been a loftier package in favor of a smaller, more workable proposal the party can unite around.

In the mix: At least $500 billion to battle climate change, $350 billion for child care subsidies and free pre-kindergarten, a new federal program for at least four weeks of paid family leave, a one-year extension of the $300 monthly child tax credit put in place during the COVID-19 crisis, and funding for health care provided through the Affordable Care Act and Medicare.

Likely to be eliminated or shaved back: plans for tuition-free community college, a path to permanent legal status for certain immigrants in the U.S. and a clean energy plan that was the centerpiece of Biden’s strategy for fighting climate change.

“Nothing is decided until everything is decided,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus after a morning meeting of House Democrats. “We’re just trying to get it done.”

Democrats are growing anxious they have little to show voters despite their campaign promises and have had trouble explaining what they’re trying to do with the massive package, made up of so many different proposals.

It’s a tall order that was leading to an all-out push Wednesday to answer the question — “What’s in the damn bill?” — as a press release from Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent from Vermont, put it.

The president especially wants to advance his signature domestic package to bolster federal social services and address climate change by the time he departs for a global climate summit next week.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a progressive caucus member, said, “He really believes American leadership, American prestige is on the line.”

Manchin has made clear he opposes the president’s initial energy plan, which was to have the government impose penalties on electric utilities that fail to meet clean energy benchmarks and provide financial rewards to those that do.

Instead, Biden is focused on providing at least $500 billion in tax credits, grants and loans for energy producers that reach emission-reduction goals.

On other fronts, to preserve Biden’s initial sweep, Democrats are moving to retain many of the programs but trim their duration to shave costs.

Biden wants to extend the $300 monthly child tax credit that was put in place during the COVID-19 crisis for another year, rather than allow it to expire in December, but not as long as Democrats wanted.

What had been envisioned as a months-long federal paid family leave program could be shrunk to as few as four weeks — an effort to at least start the program rather than eliminate it.

Biden also wants to ensure funding for health care programs, including for home- and community-based health care services, supporting a move away from widespread nursing home care.

And a new program to provide dental, vision and hearing aid benefits to people on Medicare proposed by Sanders, is likely to remain in some fashion.

Biden has told lawmakers that after his top priorities there would be $300 billion remaining.

That could lower the overall price tag or be used for other programs.

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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Josh Boak contributed to this report.

Tool for police reform rarely used by local prosecutors

By MARTHA BELLISLE

LONG  READ


1 of 11

In this photo provided by the Auburn Police Department via the Port of Seattle Police Department, Auburn police Officer Jeff Nelson is shown. Nelson has been charged in the killing of Jesse Sarey in 2019, and although Nelson has been investigated in more than 60 use-of-force cases since 2012, he wasn't placed on the King County prosecuting attorney's "potential impeachment disclosure" list, or Brady List, which flags officers whose credibility is in question due to misconduct, until after he was charged in the killing of Sarey. An Associated Press investigation based on hundreds of documents and interviews with prosecutors, defense attorneys and experts on police reform found that prosecutors do not always used the lists to ensure accountability.

 (Auburn Police Dept. via Port of Seattle Police Dept. via AP)


SEATTLE (AP) — Isaiah Obet was behaving erratically and in mental distress in 2017 when Officer Jeff Nelson ordered his police dog to attack and then shot Obet in the torso. Obet fell to the ground and Nelson fired again, fatally shooting Obet in the head. The officer said his life was in danger.

The next year, Joseph Allen was crossing in front of Nelson’s patrol car when the officer swerved and pinned him against a fence, breaking both his ankles. His justification: Allen was a dangerous criminal.

In 2019, Nelson scuffled with Jesse Sarey after attempting to arrest him for disorderly conduct. He punched Sarey seven times and then shot him in the torso. After Sarey fell to the ground, Nelson killed him with a second shot to the forehead. He claimed Sarey was on his hands and knees “ready to spring forward,” which later was disproved by both video and witnesses.

Nelson’s actions in all three cases were outlined in a criminal complaint, eyewitness accounts, and police dashcam video obtained by The Associated Press. In the past decade, Nelson has been investigated in more than 60 use-of-force cases that involved choking suspects until they passed out, severe dog bites, and physical force that required medical care. But he was not on the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s list that flags officers whose credibility is in question due to misconduct – a designation that must be shared with defense attorneys.

Nelson was only added to its “potential impeachment disclosure” list, or Brady List, after he was charged with killing Sarey. A trial is set for February 2022. Mohammad Hamoudi, a federal public defender, said given Officer Nelson’s history, all of his cases should be reviewed. And he hopes his story will encourage prosecutors to track excessive force cases involving other police officers.

“It has to do with respect for the rules, the laws, and others,” he said. “If an officer lacks impulse control or the ability to exercise informed judgment, you can call into question how he investigates cases.”

The murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer has sparked a national conversation on police reform, ranging from defunding departments to enhancing training. But reform activists and civil rights advocates say prosecutors already have powerful tools at their disposal to curb bad behavior by police: They can use Brady Lists to shine a light on troubled officers, and they can then refuse to put forward cases from those officers with tarnished histories.

The AP found that prosecutors sometimes don’t even compile the lists and that wide disparities in what offenses land officers on them are prevalent across the country, with excessive force often failing to merit inclusion.

The AP also found that many prosecutors and police unions have gone to great lengths to keep Brady List information from becoming public.

Now, defense attorneys, public defenders, civil rights groups and even some prosecutors are calling for an increased use of Brady Lists and a broadening of the offenses that will land a police officer on them, while police unions are resisting those efforts.

Amy Parker of the King County Department of Public Defense called it imperative for officers’ violent histories to be exposed.

“As a career public defender, I have listened to prosecutors routinely make the argument that defendants with prior unlawful uses of force/crimes of violence are more prone to violence and lack credibility,” she said in an email. “If prosecutors are going to apply that standard to defendants, then the same standard should apply to police officers when judging their conduct.”

King County prosecutor Dan Satterberg argues excessive force doesn’t make an officer less credible. “An officer who was accused of using too much force in an unrelated arrest has nothing to do with the impeachment of their veracity,” he said.

Brady Lists stem from a ruling in the 1963 Supreme Court case Brady v. Maryland mandating prosecutors turn over exculpatory evidence to defense attorneys, including information that could be used to question the officers’ credibility. But the ruling did not define the steps prosecutors and police departments must take to ensure defendants are informed or whether lists of troubled officers must be kept at all.

The result, critics say, is a mishmash of policies that vary state to state -- and even jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Prosecutors in Atlanta, Chicago, Tulsa, and Pittsburgh told the AP that they don’t track officers with disciplinary problems, and Milwaukee prosecutors only listed officers who have been convicted of crimes.

The Dallas County district attorney’s list contained 192 names, with infractions ranging from making false statements to convictions for theft, assault, and driving under the influence. The Suffolk County, Massachusetts, prosecutor’s list included Boston officers who lied on their timesheets or embezzled funds. Louisiana’s Orleans Parish district attorney tracked officers who committed crimes, lied, or drove dangerously, but not violent arrests.

Dishonesty lands an officer on the list in Detroit, Denver, and Seattle, but using excessive force does not.

The Phoenix district attorney, along with prosecutors in Orange County, Florida, and Los Angeles, were among the few the AP found who include excessive use of force cases on their lists.

“It’s like there’s a huge continuum and the result is you don’t have the same procedures being followed not only across the country but within individual states,” said Will Aitchison, an attorney with Portland, Oregon-based Labor Relations Information Systems, which represents officers after they’ve appealed discipline orders.

Some states have attempted to pass legislation that would address the lack of consistency, including the Washington State Legislature, which approved a bill this year requiring county prosecutors to develop written protocols for collecting potential impeachment information by July 2022.

The California Legislature approved a bill last year that required prosecutors to maintain a list of officers who have had “sustained findings for conduct of moral turpitude or group bias,” but Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the measure due to the cost of such “a significant state mandate.”

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When Larry Krasner was elected Philadelphia district attorney in 2017, his staff discovered a “do not call” list of police officers that had been compiled by a previous prosecutor.

The officers had a history of lying, bias, and excessive force and were barred from testifying “absent explicit permission from the highest levels of the district attorney’s office.”

Krasner shared the list with defense attorneys, who used the information to challenge the convictions of people imprisoned by testimony from those officers and has continued to provide timely Brady material to public defenders.

“When my client goes for a preliminary arraignment first appearance in court where they set bail, the prosecutor might disclose 20 to 30 or 40 pages of materials that they’ve generated on a particular police officer,” Philadelphia public defender Bradley Bridge said.

Using Brady List information, Bridge has filed motions to dismiss about 6,000 convictions based on officer misconduct, with more than 2,000 convictions thrown out so far.

Bridge acknowledges some of those released might be guilty.

“The problem is, there’s no way to know,” he said. “I have no idea how to evaluate whether they’re guilty or not guilty because the officer’s behavior in the cases is too tainted.”

Bridge has filed more than 500 petitions to reopen convictions tied to a sole officer who admitted falsifying records -- Christopher Hulmes of the Philadelphia Police Department’s Narcotics Strike Force, who was charged in 2015 with perjury and tampering with public records. So far, 357 of those convictions have been dismissed, many involving drugs and guns, Bridge said.

Krasner said he feels prosecutors have both a legal and moral obligation to use Brady Lists, but that local police have pushed back.

Last month, he asked for the Philadelphia Police Department to be held in contempt for not cooperating with his request for officer disciplinary material.

Kym Worthy, the prosecutor for Wayne County, Michigan, which includes Detroit, also is disclosing Brady List material to defense attorneys and the public “because in an era of criminal justice reform,” she said, “it just makes sense.”

Worthy has compiled a list of officers who have committed offenses involving theft, dishonesty, fraud, bias or bribery, saying officers who commit these crimes have lost their credibility and won’t be called to testify.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner also has said she won’t take criminal cases filed by untrustworthy officers and has an “exclusion list” with more than 50 names.

“The union’s predictable over-the-top ‘sky is falling’ reaction to any attempt to distinguish the vast majority of honest and hardworking officers from the few bad actors is one big reason why community relations with the people they serve are so frayed,” Gardner said.

Last year, police misconduct records were at issue in the hotly contested Los Angeles district attorney race between Jackie Lacey and former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, who had been the San Francisco police chief when now Vice-President Kamala Harris was the city’s district attorney and became the DA when she ascended to the state attorney general job.

Gascon had partnered with Harris and the police union to establish a “do not call” list that became the model for the state. After he won the Los Angeles election, he sent letters to local law enforcement agencies seeking the names of officers involved in 11 categories of misconduct, including bribery, theft, evidence tampering, dishonesty, and unreasonable force.

“If the officer’s history is such that we just don’t believe the officer, period, we will not use him,” Gascon said.

______

Settlement agreements -- and many police union contracts -- often prohibit the release of the names of officers named in disciplinary records, but Brady Lists can blow open those closed doors.

The contract between Seattle and its police department, for instance, prohibits releasing disciplined officers’ names. But the Brady Lists sent to the AP by the King County prosecuting attorney included 51 Seattle officers.

Seventeen of those officers had criminal charges filed against them, 26 had sustained findings of dishonesty, six had shown racial bias and one violated the department’s ethics policy.

An investigation by the Office of Police Accountability found that a Seattle officer violated policies against biased policing by posting offensive comments on social media in 2019. The office was prohibited from naming the officer and so referred to him in its report as Named Employee #1, but the Brady List identified him as Ron Smith.

One of Smith’s social media comments “stated that the Islamic religion was not one of peace, suggesting that the Islamic religion and all of its approximately 1.57 billion adherents were supportive of violence,” the OPA report said.

Another post targeted Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, saying: “you weak wristed lefties don’t want border security … you want votes to keep your anti-American party in power,” the report said.

Smith resigned, but the OPA investigation did find that he engaged in “bias-based policing.”

Another Seattle officer on the Brady List was Salvatore Ditusa, who was working a side job flagging traffic when he approached three workers and “engaged in a diatribe that included multiple racial slurs towards African Americans,” the OPA said. Ditusa also resigned. The OPA found that he had also engaged in biased policing.

In Los Angeles, the battle over disclosing officer misconduct information traveled all the way to the state’s highest court.

When Jim McDonnell took over the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, he wanted to share the list of officers accused of misconduct with the prosecutor’s office, but both sides were concerned that a state law -- the peace officer’s bill of rights -- would prohibit the move.

After the police union filed an injunction to block any sharing, the case went to the state Supreme Court, which ruled in 2019 that prosecutors could be given the list.

One of the people named was homicide detective Daniel Morris.

In 2003, a car theft suspect had said Morris and other officers kicked, punched, and stomped on him – an accusation Morris denied to three different supervisors. But he eventually admitted to the beating, receiving a 30-day suspension.

That information was not shared with the district attorney’s office until 2019.

Ten years before that, Morris had investigated the murder of a gang member in Paramount, California, obtaining a search warrant for the home of Filipe Angel Acosta.

Morris testified that Acosta, who had no criminal history, was associated with a gang and he was charged with drug possession, with a gang enhancement.

Acosta refused a deal that would have involved admitting to gang involvement, but changed his mind and entered a plea of no contest after getting sick in jail and being hospitalized.

At no point did the district attorney reveal that Morris had been disciplined for dishonesty.

When Morris’ misconduct finally was disclosed, Acosta filed a motion to overturn his conviction because of the prosecutor’s Brady violation. The charges were dismissed.

As a 2013 report on the sheriff’s department by a civilian oversight group called the Office of Independent Review put it: “Instances of deputies lying in reports or during investigations do not simply affect the immediate case at hand. Instead, they may influence the outcome of every other case in which the deputy’s testimony is considered.”

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Email AP’s Global Investigations Team at investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/. See other work at https://www.apnews.com/hub/ap-investigations.

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Follow AP investigative reporter Martha Bellisle at https://twitter.com/marthabellisle

Youth yearning for independence fuel Western Sahara clashes

By ARITZ PARRA

PHTO ESSAY 1 of 18

Polisario Front soldiers during a shooting exercise, near Mehaires, Western Sahara, Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2021. For nearly 30 years, the vast territory of Western Sahara in the North African desert has existed in limbo, awaiting a referendum that was supposed to let the local Sahrawi people decide their future. On one side, the Polisario Front wants the territory to be independent, while Morocco claims the area for itself. 

(AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

MAHBAS REGION, Western Sahara (AP) — As a glowing sun sank behind the sandy barrier that cuts across the disputed territory of Western Sahara, Sidati Ahmed’s battalion launched two missiles that sizzled through the air and then followed with an artillery attack.

Within minutes, a barrage of mortar shells flew in the opposite direction, from Moroccan positions, landing with a thick column of smoke in the barren desert of what is known as Africa’s last colony.

“Low-intensity hostilities,” as a recent United Nations report describes them, have raged for the past year along the 2,700-kilometer (1,700-mile) berm — a barrier second in length only to the Great Wall of China that separates the part of Western Sahara that Morocco rules from the sliver held by the Polisario Front, which wants the territory to be independent. Both sides claim the area in its entirety.

For nearly 30 years this swath of North African desert about the size of Colorado — that sits on vast phosphate deposits, faces rich fishing grounds and is believed to have off-shore oil reserves — has existed in limbo, awaiting a referendum that was supposed to let the local Sahrawi people decide their future. Instead, as negotiations over who would be allowed to vote dragged on, Morocco tightened its control of the territory, which was a Spanish colony until 1975.

Last year, the Polisario Front announced that it would no longer abide by the 1991 cease-fire that ended its 16-year guerilla war with Morocco.

The decision was fueled by frustration among younger Sahrawi — many of whom were born in refugee camps in Algeria, have never lived in their ancestral homeland, and are tired of waiting for the U.N.-promised referendum.

“Everybody is ready for war,” said Ahmed, who spent more than half of his 32 years in Cuba before returning to enlist for battle when the truce ended last year.

“We are fed up. The only thing that is going to bring our homeland back to us is this,” Ahmed said pointing at his AK-47 weapon, as he stood on the front line in Mahbas. The region, at the crossroads of Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria, is where most of the exchanges of fire take place.


Sahrawi refugees stranded by decades old conflict

Ahmed is typical of a generation of Sahrawi youth, most of whom traveled abroad to study — from Spain to Libya — but returned to the camps to form families. And they’ve told their elders that they don’t want to die in exile, with no future to offer to their own children.

“Life abroad can be tempting,” said Omar Deidih, a baby-faced soldier and cybersecurity student who on a recent visit to the front line organized by the Polisario spoke to foreign reporters in fluent English. “But the most important thing is that we have fresh blood in this new phase of the struggle.”

The possibility, however remote, that clashes could escalate into a full-out regional war may be the Polisario’s only hope of drawing attention to a conflict with few known casualties in a vast but forgotten corner of the desert. Many in the camps feel that efforts to finally settle the status of Western Sahara have languished since Morocco proposed greater autonomy for the territory in 2004.

The front’s hopes for independence suffered a major blow last year when the U.S. in the waning days of the Trump administration backed Morocco’s claim to the territory, as part of efforts to get Morocco to recognize Israel. Other countries, including the Polisario’s main ally Algeria, recognize Western Sahara as independent, while still more support U.N. efforts for a negotiated solution.

The rising tensions have gotten the attention of the U.N., whose Minurso force oversaw the cease-fire and whose secretary-general recently appointed Staffan de Mistura, a seasoned Italian diplomat and former U.N. envoy for Syria, to take charge of the negotiations.

The Polisario’s leader, Brahim Ghali, last week warned that de Mistura must be given a clear mandate from the Security Council to carry out a referendum. Western Sahara will be before the Council on Oct. 28, when members vote on whether to extend the Minurso mission.

Achieving progress is also a matter of legitimacy for the Polisario. After years of internal division, the new hostilities have rallied pro-independence supporters around its leadership, but many fear that the lack of results could lead to more radicalization.

In the camps, the live fire from the front line reverberates strongly among refugees, who were forced to confront the precariousness of their existence when the humanitarian aid they rely on slowed to a trickle during the pandemic.

Medical missions were halted, medicine was in short supply and prices of camel, goat and chicken meat all went up, said 29-year old Dahaba Chej Baha, a refugee in the Boujdour camp. On a recent morning, the mother of a 3-year-old was sheltering in the shade while in her third hour of waiting for an Algerian truck to deliver gas canisters.

“Everything is so difficult here,” Chej Baha said, adding that those who would typically find ways to work overseas and send money back have become trapped because of pandemic-related travel restrictions. “I don’t like war, but I feel that nothing is going to change without it.”

Meima Ali, another mother, with three kids, said she was against the war, but that her voice was not listened to in a community dominated by men.

“My husband has to decide between finding work or looking like a traitor for not going to the front,” she said. “How am I going to survive without him? Here, we live as if we were dead.”

Morocco denies that there is an armed conflict raging in what it calls its “southern provinces,” where about 90,000 Sahrawi people are estimated to live alongside 350,000 Moroccans. Morocco has told the U.N. mission that its troops only return fire “in cases of direct threat” and “always in proportion to actions” of the Polisario.

In a response to questions from The Associated Press, the Moroccan government said that there have been “unilateral attacks” by the Polisario but no casualties on the Moroccan side.

It called any effort to portray the conflict as something bigger “propaganda elements intended for the media” and “desperate gesticulations to attract attention.”

Intissar Fakir, an expert on the region for the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said that a full-fledged conflict — which could pit Morocco and Algeria against each other — wasn’t in anyone’s interest. But she said that negotiating a lasting solution wouldn’t be easy either.

“Maybe in terms of international law, the Polisario have their standing, but I think Morocco here is the strongest it has ever been with the U.S. recognition and de facto control over most of the territory,” she said. But the Polisario, she added, “is more entrenched in their own position because they really have kind of nothing to lose at this point.”

Although many interviewed by the AP at the camps or on the front line expressed frustration with the years of negotiations that the Polisario defended until last year, open criticism is hard to come by in such a tight community.

Baali Hamudi Nayim, a veteran of the 1970s and 1980s war against Mauritania and Morocco, said he had been against the 1991 cease-fire.

“If it was up to me, the time for a political solution without any guarantees, through the U.N. or others, is over,” said Hamudi, who is back in his guerrilla attire to oversee battalions in the restive Mahbas. “For me, the solution is a military one.”

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Associated Press journalists Bernat Armangué in Sahrawi refugee camps and Tarik El Barakah and Mosa’ab Elshamy in Rabat, Morocco, contributed to this report.

Origins of domesticated horses traced to north Caucasus region, study finds


New research suggests modern domesticated horses hailed from the Caucasus region, emerging about 4,000 years ago.

 File Photo by Dmytro Pylypenko/Shutterstock

Oct. 20 (UPI) -- Horses were first domesticated in the northern Caucasus region, before conquering the rest of Europe and Asia within a few centuries, according to research published Wednesday by the journal Nature.

Although Eurasia was once populated by genetically distinct horse populations, a dramatic change occurred between 2000 and 2200 BC, when a horse population with single genetic profile, previously confined to the Pontic steppes in the North Caucasus, began to spread, the researchers said.

These horses, formerly confined to their native region in present-day Russia, soon replaced all the wild horse populations from the Atlantic Ocean to present-day Mongolia within a few centuries, according to the researchers.

"We knew that the time period between 4,000 to 6,000 years ago was critical but no smoking guns could ever be found," researcher and study co-author Ludovic Orlando, said in a press release.

RELATED DNA suggests horses didn't originate in Anatolia

"The genetic data also point to an explosive demography at the time ... this is when [humans] took control over the reproduction of the animal and produced them in astronomic numbers," said Orlando, a paleogeneticist the University of Toulouse III in France.

For decades, questions such as where were modern horses first domesticated and when did they conquer the rest of the world have dominated several fields of science, according to Orlando.

In addition, how the specific type of horses now seen globally came from the myriad other types of horses that once roamed the earth remained unknown, he said.

RELATED New rules for managing wild horses, burros on horizon

In 2017, Orlando's team focused on the region of Botai in Central Asia, which had provided the oldest archaeological evidence of domesticated horses, or those trained to perform farming tasks and serve as the primary mode of transport.

However, the DNA of these 5,500-year-old horses showed they were not the ancestors of modern domestic horses.

Meanwhile, other possible locations for initial domestication, such as Anatolia, Siberia and the Iberian Peninsula, had also proved "false," according to the researchers.

RELATED Origin of domesticated horses pinpointed

As a result, the team extended their study to the whole of Eurasia by analyzing the genomes of 273 horses that lived between 50,000 and 200 years BC.

That's when they discovered horses with the same genetic make-up as those seen in other parts of the world today, they said.

The researchers also found two striking differences between the genome of this horse and those of the populations it replaced: one is linked to more docile behavior and the second indicates a stronger backbone.

This suggests that these characteristics ensured the animals' success at a time when horse travel was becoming "global," according to Orlando.

The horses spread throughout Asia at the same time as spoke-wheeled chariots and Indo-Iranian languages, he and his colleagues said.

However, the migrations of Indo-European populations, from the steppes to Europe during the third millennium BC, could not have been based on the horse, as its domestication and population spread came later, they said.

Woman captures 'Brocken spectre' on video at ridge in Washington state
By Lauren Fox, Accuweather.com

A Brocken spectre, center-left, is seen among the clouds on Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park in Washington state on October 11. Photo by Nikki Klein/Facebook

Nikki Klein was having a less-than-pleasant day earlier this month when she decided to venture out to Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park, leading her directly into a "magical" encounter the likes of which she had never experienced before.

Klein resides in Santa Clarita, Calif., but lived on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state for the first 30 years of her life and grew up with Olympic National Park as her back yard.

She was visiting her father in Port Angeles, Wash., when she was having a "pretty crummy morning" on Oct. 11. To relax, she decided to go enjoy some time out exploring nature.

"I went up to the mountains to just kind of wash the crumminess of the morning off me," Klein told AccuWeather.

She sat for a while in a meadow watching the clouds roll by before deciding to walk up to a mountainous area known as Hurricane Ridge. The sun was beginning to go down, and when she arrived, she eventually met another hiker and spent some time chatting with him. It was then that the other hiker pointed out what looked like a rainbow.

"I turned around and said, 'What in the world is that?'" Klein recalled in an interview with AccuWeather. "I've never seen anything like it before."

The phenomenon is commonly referred to as a glory, or in the case of Klein's experience, a "Brocken spectre" -- meaning it is "broken" because the full circle of the rainbow cannot be seen.

When the phenomenon is visible in the air from a plane, it is sometimes referred to as a "pilot's glory."

A "pilots glory" is seen on a flight from Seattle to Philadelphia on October 8. 

The outline of the airplane can be seen in the middle of the glory.

 Photo by Nicole LoBiondo/AccuWeather

A glory is a sequence of colored rings that resemble a rainbow framing the shadow of the observer on a cloud made up of many small water droplets. On very rare occasions, a glory can occur on dew instead of a cloud.

For a glory to occur and be witnessed, AccuWeather meteorologist Nicole LoBiondo said, the sun must be behind the observer, and fog or water droplets must be located below the observer's horizon. The sunlight is then refracted by the water and fog droplets.

"You need fog or a thin cloud below your position in order to see a glory ... but clear and dry [weather conditions] where you stand," LoBiondo said.

While the breathtaking sight may be an unusual one, LoBiondo said, it can actually occur rather frequently and most often can be seen from airplanes.

LoBiondo said a higher elevation is key in witnessing a glory, which is why reports of the phenomenon happen most frequently on airplanes.

A Brocken spectre typically does not occur on ground level, so in order to see one, a person must be on a higher elevation, such as a mountain, like the one seen in Klein's video. At its highest point, Hurricane Ridge has an elevation of 5,242 feet.

"There was a moment that it was a little alarming, and then I moved and realized it was my shadow," Klein said of the experience.

She and the other hiker each had separate glories framing their shadows, so he was not showing up in hers and she was not showing up in his.

"We were just having fun and doing funny things in the shadows just awestruck by the beautiful moment," she said. "It was such an amazing, beautiful moment."

Klein shared the video and photos she took of the glory on YouTube.

One thing that could only be captured by a firsthand experience was the size of the glory, which Klein said did not show up clearly on camera. The size got bigger and smaller as the mist got denser and more sparse, but the projection was "massive" and Klein said her shadow on the other mountain probably stood around 100 feet tall.

"I spend so much time on the tops of mountains hiking and out in the wilderness, and to never have seen anything like that ever in my whole life ... it was just the right time and the right place and it was so magical," Klein said. "It felt like a gift."

Despite being an avid hiker and a snowboard instructor at Mammoth Mountain, Klein has never seen a glory prior to this experience and didn't even know what it was."Almost every time I go out I see something that I've never seen before," Klein, who recently hiked the entire John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada, said.

The trail is more than 200 miles long and she hiked it on her own.

"Almost every day you can witness something that almost nobody will ever see in their whole life," she added.

Klein was quick to document the sight as fast as possible because she thought it would only last for a second, but it ended up lasting for around 30 minutes. She said looking back, she isn't sure that people would have believed her experience had pictures of it not existed.

She also said that the ability to witness the glory in person felt like a "gift" made just for her.

"I know that it is an easily scientifically explained phenomenon, but it really felt like it was a gift just for me," she said. "I really like the quote that you can live your life as if everything is magic or nothing is magic, and this certainly felt like a magical  experience."   

How Spain seeks to prop up its young and desperate generation

A grave lack of state support programs has driven many young Spaniards to despair in recent years, which were marked by multiple economic crises. As students are suffering the most, efforts are underway to help them.


A series of crises has forced thousands of young Spaniards to leave their country in search of employment

Ivan Rosero is 22 years old, and he frankly admits that he's not getting along well with his parents these days. Yet, he continues to live with them in the family's house, and says that he has neither the will nor the money to move out.

Rosero belongs to the majority of young Spaniards who are unable to move out of their parents' house before turning 30 — four years later than the average for the whole of the European Union. Spain's political leaders have long used the country's traditionally close family relations as an excuse for inaction on the rising social problem. And while the government has saved itself the expense of a national program, a whole generation of young people has apparently put up with staying longer with their parents.

Undergoing vocational training as a video technician, Ivan Rosero currently earns nothing to support himself

But change is on its way, if plans by the government of leftist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez are approved by parliament. Under his 2022 budget proposal, Sanchez is planning to offer young people a state allowance of €250 ($289) a month to incentivize them to move out of their parents' houses and apartments.

The stipend would give young people "access to decent rental housing," Sanchez said when he announced the proposal on October 7. All adults between 18 and 35 who earn less than €23,725 per year would be eligible.

Culture shift

The proposal comes at a time when Spain is experiencing a high youth unemployment rate.

According to Eurostat research, a huge problem for young people in Spain has been a bumpy road to tertiary qualifications, which is hardly ever a guarantee for employment in the country. Degrees are the longest in the EU, typically taking 4 years to complete.

An added irritation is low wages, prompting many to just look for internships or continue to study in the hopes of improving future employment prospects. There's also been an overreliance on the public sector for stable employment.

Some 40% of all 29-year-olds have no regular paying job, and there's a shrinking rental market and rising rents.

In addition to rental support, Sanchez now wants to introduce a cultural bonus of €400 for all young people who turn 18, costing the government a "little more than €200 million," according to his figures. The aim of the initiative is to foster cultural activity in Spain after the crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Julieta Martinez enjoys her stint studying in Germany and the multiple opportunities for students there

Meanwhile, 21-year-old Julieta Martinez, who is currently on a student exchange program in the northwestern German town of Münster, is surprised about the large number of job offerings for students in Germany.

"Here it's so uncomplicated to get a flexible student job, and on top of it there are cheap rentals and a state-run benefit program available for students," she said. Nothing similar could be found in Spain, she told DW, quite the contrary: "Employers in Spain always want job experience, but how can we obtain that if we are not even able to get hold of a student job?"

Here, too, the Sanchez government wants to introduce labor market reforms that aim to improve the image of job training. For that, he's planning to use part of the €140 billion in funding Spain will receive from Brussels under the European Union's "Next Generation EU" pandemic recovery program. The government, employers and trade unions have already agreed to raise the national minimum wage to €950 a month, cut the huge number of precarious work contracts and install a model of vocational training resembling that in Germany.

Academic taxi drivers

These Spanish labor market reforms are the brainchild of Yolanda Diaz, the country's minister for labor and social economy and second deputy prime minister in the government coalition.

"We need to start reforming our education system to make it compatible with the needs of the market and so reduce the high unemployment rate among our youth," she said, adding that too many young people obtained a university degree just to end up as taxi drivers.

The 50-year-old leader of the United Left (IU) is believed to be the new rising star in the Sanchez cabinet. Success in reforming the labor and education systems is deemed crucial for Sanchez and his campaign to win a third term in the 2023 elections. A key element in Diaz's reforms is reducing Spain's huge school dropout rate of 16% — the highest in all of Europe.

So far, however, it remains unclear if the youth-friendly reform proposals will find a majority during a vote on the 2022 budget in parliament in December.

Housing problem mounting

"My sister is 26, and she's also still living at home with our parents. We are both feeling that we're stuck somehow," said Ivan Rosero, adding that he supported the reform policies proposed by Diaz.

Diaz has repeatedly warned against "US-style social conditions" in Spain that would "nurture conflict and violence in our cities" if inequality would be allowed to increase. The labor minister has found a like-minded ally in Raquel Sanchez Jimenez, Spain's minister of transport, mobility and urban agendas.

A member of the Socialist Party, Jimenez has raised the property tax for unoccupied rental housing under efforts to curb speculation and lower rents and house prices. According to the country's INE statistics office, about 3.4 million apartments are empty, with landlords speculating on rising prices.

Moreover, she's proposed a new housing law aimed at accelerating the construction of social housing projects for young families and single women.

Jimenez and Diaz both agree that Spain has to explore entirely new ways to stop an emerging social crisis that has hit the young generation in particular. "Young people have been suffering the most from the economic crisis in the 1990s, from the debt crisis in 2010, and now again, from the coronavirus crisis. We can no longer solve our problems on the backs of young people," Diaz warned.

This article has been adapted from German.