Burkina police fire tear gas at protesters angry over mounting jihadist violence

Sat., January 22, 2022


Security forces fired tear gas at protesters barricading the streets and throwing rocks in Burkina Faso’s capital on Saturday, as anger grew at the government’s inability to stop jihadist attacks spreading across the country.

Several hundred people marched through downtown Ouagadougou chanting for President Roch Marc Christian Kabore to resign.

“The jihadists are hitting (the country), people are dying, others are fleeing their homes … We want Roch and his government to resign because their handling of the country is not good. We will never support them,” said protester Amidou Tiemtore.

Some people were also protesting in solidarity with neighboring Mali, whose citizens are angry at the West African economic regional bloc, Ecowas, which imposed sanctions on the country after the ruling junta delayed this year’s elections.

Burkina Faso’s protest comes amid an escalation in jihadist attacks linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State that has killed thousands and displaced 1.5 million people.
No end in sight

The violence shows no signs of abating. Nearly 12,000 people were displaced within two weeks in December, according to the UN.

Four French soldiers were also wounded during a joint operation with Burkina Faso’s military, the first time French soldiers have been injured in the country since two were killed in 2019 during a hostage release operation, Pascal Ianni, spokesman for the chief of defense for the French armed forces, told The Associated Press.

France has some 5,000 troops in the region but until now has had minimal involvement in Burkina Faso compared with Niger or Mali.

This is the second government crackdown on protests since November and comes after the government shut down access to Facebook last week, citing security reasons, and after arresting 15 people for allegedly plotting a coup.

As tensions mount, the government is struggling to stem the jihadist violence. Last month the president fired his prime minister and replaced most of the cabinet.
Negotiations

The government’s national security arm is also said to be preparing to reopen negotiations with the jihadists, according to a military official and a former soldier who did not want to be identified.

The last time the government negotiated secret cease-fire talks with the jihadists was around the 2020 presidential elections when fighting subsided for several months.

But locals say it’s too late for talks and that the country is being overrun by jihadists who control swaths of land, plant their flag and make people abide by Shariah law.

”They just come and are squeezing people (out of their homes) and there is no (government) strategy,” said Ousmane Amirou Dicko, the Emir of Liptako.

For the first time since the conflict he said he no longer feels comfortable driving from the capital to his home in the Sahel.

The entire staff of a bagel shop in California quit after their manager was fired, a report says

NON UNION WORKERS SELF ORGANIZE 

A SOLIDARITY WILDCAT

Grace Dean
Thu, January 20, 2022

The mass resignation occurred at a branch in Vacaville, California, according to a report by KCRA.Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images


Workers at a bagel shop in California told KCRA they quit after their manager was fired.

One former employee discussed the events on TikTok, with one video garnering 6.5 million views.

Noah's NY Bagels told KCRA it was investigating claims that the manager was unfairly fired

All the workers at a bagel shop in Vacaville, California, quit after their manager was fired, according to a report by KCRA.

Former staff member Beonce Sarmiento posted a TikTok video on Saturday, which she said shows her and 15 colleagues – the whole workforce – quitting their jobs at Noah's NY Bagels earlier that day. The video now has 6.5 million views.

Sarmiento told KCRA that staff had thought their manager was unfairly fired, which led to the other workers quitting in solidarity. Noah's NY Bagels told the outlet that it was looking into the matter.

Sarmiento discussed the alleged events in a series of follow-up videos on TikTok, saying that management had been nit-picking after Kowalski had refused to move to a different store and were waiting for an excuse to fire her.

According to Sarmiento, management ultimately told her that Kowalski had been fired because she had failed to open the store on multiple occasions and hadn't communicated properly with higher-level managers.

Sarmiento said that management had also said they fired Kowalski for not taking a deposit to the bank, which Sarmiento said was "the one day she wasn't there."

Bre Kowalski, the store's former general manager, told KCRA that her district manager had told her on Friday that she was on suspension, but then saw that a final paycheck had been sent to her bank account. Kowalski said that a few hours later, management told her that she had been fired.

"The way he went about firing her was awful in our eyes, so we stuck beside her and quit the next day," Sarmiento told Fox Business.

Sarmiento also said in TikTok videos that staff at the store quit because they felt they were being unpaid and were treated badly by rude customers, including some who told staff they came into the store while they had the coronavirus.

"We take the treatment of our team members very seriously and are looking into this matter," a Noah's NY Bagels spokesperson told KCRA. "As an organization, we pride ourselves on providing a rewarding work experience for all our team members as we seek to provide the best possible experience for our guests."

The company didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment made outside of normal working hours.

US job resignation rates have reached record highs during the pandemic as Americans leave their jobs in search of better wages, benefits, and working conditions.

This includes some incidents of staff quitting their workplace en masse, like nine Burger King workers at a restaurant in Lincoln, Nebraska, who left over problems including understaffing, long hours, low pay, and broken air conditioning. Five Chipotle workers also quit their jobs at a restaurant in Austin, Texas, in November over understaffing, burnout, and a surge of to-go orders.

Read the original article on Business Insider

HEY KIDZ SUE THEIR ASSES OFF

Shell CEO Ben Van Beurden: Carbon emissions court ruling was ‘body blow’

Simon Freeman
Thu, January 20, 2022

(Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL’s CEO Ben van Beurden today described a court ruling from The Hague ordering faster, deeper cuts to the company’s carbon emissions as a "body blow".

In comments likely to provoke controversy among green activists, he said: “I was listening at home as the judge gave her verdict. It felt like a body blow.

"I found it deeply troubling that Shell as a single business should be held accountable for how the world produces and uses energy."


Shell last year pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions from its operations by a fifth by 2030, reaching a net-zero target by 2050 in line with the Paris 1.5C climate change agreement.

(AFP via Getty Images)

But in May, the Dutch court ordered it to step up the pace, and get total emissions - including the 90% produced downstream by motorists and businesses which use its fuel - down by 45% on 2019 levels.

In October, Shell responded by raising the target to a 50% cut by 2030 within its own operations, but the company believes it was unfairly “singled out” and is appealing against the landmark judgement.

In a wide-ranging interview posted on the company’s corporate website today, van Beurden said: "[The ruling] goes against everything I believe in when it comes to climate change, namely that this is a societal problem, not a problem for a single company to solve.

"It’s also worrying that the ruling was met with so much approval in some places, as if this was indeed the solution society needed."

Van Beurden has become a lightning rod for criticism from campaigners who complain the energy industry is dragging its feet in the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Shell is ploughing billions into hydrogen and other alternative energy sources but has said cutting oil and gas production before these new green businesses are generating cash would lead it into a “valley of death”.

Van Beurden said: “When people attack Shell for not going fast enough that feels deeply personal. But I have no choice but to deal with the criticism. I cannot walk away from it or hide under my desk.”

Friends of the Earth’s Netherlands chapter Milieudefensie, which led the legal action, has said it has no "immediate plans" to bring a fresh case in the UK, but "continues to explore options against multinational corporations."

(PA Wire)

The 63-year-old, who has spent almost four decades at Shell, also accused governments of fueling the price volatility which has sent energy bills soaring across Europe by "unnecessarily" reducing domestic production while demand remains high.

He said: "It will take intelligent policies and intelligent application of these policies to get it right. “

Shell is Europe’s biggest oil and gas group, producing the equivalent of more than three million barrels of oil a day.

Van Beurden said: "Some governments in north-west Europe have reduced domestic production of natural gas significantly, but demand remains high.

“That cannot be fixed in the short term by increasing domestic production because it is impossible to ramp back up quickly.

(PA)

“It will probably take imports of natural gas, and the higher prices needed to attract those imports, to fill the gaps in supply."

He added: "Governments also need to learn from this moment and tackle the demand for hydrocarbons as much as they have so far wanted to tackle the supply of hydrocarbons.

“Today, motorists still need fuel for their cars, and many homeowners need natural gas for cooking and heating.

"Even if Shell stopped supplying these products, people would still need them, and they would buy them from other companies."

(PA Wire)

Van Beurden went on to describe a decision to abandon Shell’s long-standing Anglo-Dutch dual listing status and move its HQ and tax base to London as: "a very sad moment."

He said the corporate structure was a "real handicap" on its ability to "move fast and do new things", including handing most of the $9.5billion proceeds from the sale of oil assets in the Permian Basin in Texas back to shareholders through buybacks.

It is now the biggest company on the FTSE 100, with a market valuation of around £140 billion.

He said: I had personally worked on finding a solution with the Dutch government for all my eight years as CEO. Still there was no solution in sight, other than the solution to move the headquarters to the UK.

"It was a very sad moment when I made the decision to put the simplification to shareholders and the board.

"When I joined Shell 38 years ago as an engineer, I thought it was the most iconic company in the Netherlands and even in Europe.

“I could never have imagined being CEO, let alone taking the company’s headquarters out of the Netherlands. But I felt there was no choice because of the need to move faster in the energy transition."

The company benefitted from soaring gas prices leading to bumper trading profits in the fourth quarter and will deliver its financial results on February 3.

U.S. House panel turns to oil majors' boards in next climate probe

 A view of the ExxonMobil Baton Rouge Refinery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Fri, January 21, 2022
By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. congressional committee has invited board members at four oil majors to testify about the industry's role in climate change and spreading "disinformation," turning up the heat after lawmakers grilled CEOs last year.

The hearing of officials from Exxon, Shell, Chevron and BP who were elected to spur change at these companies over environmental issues is scheduled for Feb. 8.

It is the next phase of a House oversight committee investigation into the role of fossil fuel companies in blocking action on climate change and misrepresenting the industry's efforts to address it.

The panel concluded the first of these hearings last year featuring the CEOS of oil majors by issuing subpoenas https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/us-congress-puts-big-oil-hot-seat-climate-deception-probe-2021-10-28 for documents on what company scientists have said about climate change and any funds spent to mislead the public on global warming.

"We’ve only begun our investigation into the fossil fuel industry’s role in causing the climate crisis and spreading disinformation," panel chair U.S. Representative Carolyn Maloney said in a statement on Friday.

By turning its sights on on climate change-focused board members, the committee plans to scrutinize corporate pledges to cut emissions and invest in cleaner energy sources.

"These are board members who ran on changing these institutions from the inside," chair of the oversight panel's environment subcommittee Ro Khanna told Reuters. "They will have to chose between their life convictions or fealty to their CEOs."

Among the board members selected to testify include Alexander Karsner, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/engine-no-1-win-third-seat-exxon-board-based-preliminary-results-2021-06-02 a strategist at Google owner Alphabet Inc who took one of three seats for activist hedge fund Engine No. 1 on Exxon's board to address growing investor concerns about global warming.

The committee also sent a letter to Susan Avery, an atmospheric scientist and former president of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and brought on to Exxon's board as a climate expert in 2017.

The letters said board members play a key role in holding management accountable to meaningful emissions reductions.

Each of the four companies invited have announced net zero emission targets by 2050 and said their plans are aligned with the goals of the Paris agreement.

The panel will focus on the fact that the companies' net zero plans are mostly focused on their internal operations, not on the emissions released when consumers burn the fuels they produce.

Exxon spokesperson Casey Norton did not comment on the new hearing but said the company has "provided (committee) staff with more than 200,000 pages of documents, including board materials and internal communications."

The board members were not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell, John Stonestreet and Mark Porter)

Myanmar military arrests more journalists in media crackdown-editor


FILE PHOTO: Soldiers stand next to military vehicles 

as people gather to protest against the military coup, in Yangon

Thu, January 20, 2022, 

(Reuters) - Myanmar's military has arrested three people working for the independent news portal Dawei Watch, an editor at the publication said on Thursday, the latest detentions under a media crackdown that has occurred since last year's coup.

Moe Myint, a 35-year-old journalist and a mother-of-three, was detained on Tuesday in Dawei, a city in southern Myanmar, said the editor, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Another journalist, Ko Zaw, 38, and Thar Gyi, a 21-year-old web designer at the publication, were arrested on Wednesday.

"They are currently being held at a police station in Dawei and the reason for their arrest is still unknown," said the editor, who called for them to be released immediately.

A spokesman for the ruling military junta did not respond to a request for comment.

The junta has previously said it respected the role of the media but would not allow reporting it deemed false or likely to cause public unrest.

The military has rescinded media licences, imposed curbs on internet and satellite broadcasts and arrested dozens of journalists since its Feb. 1 coup.

Myanmar ranked as the world's second-worst jailer of journalists in a report published by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Reporting ASEAN, a Southeast Asia media advocacy group, said since the coup 115 journalists had been detained and 44 remained in detention and three had died.

Some foreign journalists have also bee detained, includingAmerican journalist Danny Fenster https://www.reuters.com/world/american-journalist-fenster-out-prison-myanmar-employer-says-2021-11-15, who was the managing editor of independent online magazine Frontier Myanmar.

Fenster was sentenced to 11 years in prison last November for incitement and violations of laws on immigration and unlawful assembly, before being released following negotiations between former U.S. diplomat Bill Richardson and the junta.

(Reporting by Reuters Staff; Editing by Ed Davies and Alex Richardson)

When it comes to the current job market, maybe employees are not the problem



Liz Carey
Fri, January 21, 2022, 6:52 AM·4 min read

For several months now, we’ve been hearing from businesses and corporations that no one wants to work.

In fact, I’ve heard some people say: “There are plenty of good jobs out there making more than $15 an hour. If people aren’t taking them, it’s because they can make more at home on government hand-outs.”

I beg to differ. I’m beginning to think it’s not the workers who are at fault here.

I’ve watched over the past few months as my son works to get a better paying entry-level job. It has been eye-opening.

He’s in college part-time, and wants to work full-time so he can get an apartment on his own. He had a job, but it was only part-time and barely covered his bills — car, cell phone, insurance, et al. Before he set out to find another job, he crunched the numbers.

The average cost of a one-bedroom apartment in Lexington is around $650. Adding in utilities, car, insurance, cell phone, internet access, groceries, and other necessities, his monthly budget comes to about $2,000. In order to make ends meet, he needed a job paying $17 an hour.

First he looked for jobs making $18 to $21 an hour. A national delivery firm posted that it was hiring thousands of people for $21 an hour. When he looked into it further, the $21 an hour job was only for third shift, and only after you started working full-time, which could take a year or more to get to. In fact, few of the positions they were filling were full-time and none of them paid the $21 an hour advertised. Currently, the same company has seven positions open in Lexington. All but two are part-time.

For a month, my son put in at least two applications a day for entry-level jobs – 47 applications in all. Of the eight responses he got back, three said the job was part-time and at a lower rate than they advertised. Two companies said he’d be working as an independent contractor. And one said he’d be paid by the job when they had work for him to do, but that it would work out to an hourly rate in the end.

Even highly qualified candidates are saying they’re struggling to find jobs in an economy where businesses are screaming that they can’t get anyone to work for them.

In September, Tim Glaza, an Eagle Scout and college graduate with a degree in operations and supply-chain management told Business Insider that his numerous applications to positions in his field had received no response, despite companies saying they were desperate for employees.

In fact, when hiring platform Indeed polled job seekers last year, it found that 77 percent got no response from any of the companies they applied to.

When my son did get positions through networking, he found he didn’t get what he was promised. In one instance, he was told he would get paid more than the job he was leaving. When he got his paycheck, it was for less than he had previously made. When he approached his boss about it, he was told “We’re barely making it. We can’t afford to pay you more.”

At another position, he was promised $2 more an hour, but then shifted to a different position after he started work, where they paid him less, and at part-time hours.

And it’s not just him. I’ve heard from others who say they were promised one hourly rate and paid another. And I work with one woman who said she was offered positions, but all of them were part-time. In order to manage her child care needs and pay the bills, she opted to start her own business instead.

The economy is not what it was in 2019, I get that. Companies are struggling right now, I get that too. And I understand that the supply chain issues are driving up costs for companies as well.

But at the same time, corporations posted RECORD profits in 2021. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, profits in the U.S. rose 3.4 percent to a record high of $2.52 trillion in the third quarter of 2021. Analysts attribute the profits to a rebounding economy, and on the government subsidies given to businesses as part of relief efforts.

“No one wants to work”, but companies aren’t talking to people who want jobs.

“We can’t afford to pay you what you want/need to live”, but companies are making record profits.

“The government subsidies are making people not want to work”, but companies are making record profits because of government subsidies.

I’m beginning to think that maybe it’s not the workers who are at fault here.

Liz Carey is an author, freelance reporter and writing instructor living in Lexington, Ky.

NASA's Swift Observatory may have suffered an attitude control failure



Jon Fingas
·Weekend Editor
Thu, January 20, 2022

NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has run into difficulties after 17 years of largely smooth service. The orbiting explorer has entered safe mode after detecting a "possible failure" in one of the six reaction wheels used to change attitude. While it's not clear exactly what (if anything) went wrong, NASA has halted direction-based scientific observations until it can either give the all-clear or continue operations with five wheels.

This is the first potential reaction wheel problem since the Swift Observatory began operations in February 2005, NASA said. The rest of the vehicle is otherwise working properly.

The Swift Observatory has played an important role in astronomy over the past two decades. It was primarily built to detect gamma-ray bursts and detects roughly 70 per day. However, it has increasingly been used as a catch-all observer across multiple wavelengths, spotting solar flares and hard-to-find stars. NASA won't necessarily run into serious trouble if Swift has a lasting problem, but it would clearly benefit from keeping the spacecraft running as smoothly as possible.

  

James Webb Space Telescope team announces deployment of all mirrors

Julia Musto
Thu, January 20, 2022

The James Webb Space Telescope hit another milestone this week; NASA announced that the $10 billion observatory's 18 hexagonal mirror segments and its secondary mirror have been fully deployed.

"Just in from the @NASAWebb team: All 18 primary mirror segments and the secondary mirror are now fully deployed!" NASA Administrator Bill Nelson wrote in a Wednesday tweet. "Congratulations to the teams that have been working tirelessly since launch to get to this point. Soon, Webb will arrive at its new home, L2!"

JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE IS FULLY DEPLOYED

The process began last week, with the team moving the segments individually from their launch positions.

In a blog update, Erin Wolf – the Webb program manager at Ball Aerospace – wrote that the motors had made over a million resolutions this week, controlled through 20 cryogenic electronics boxes on the telescope.

"The mirror deployment team incrementally moved all 132 actuators located on the back of the primary mirror segments and secondary mirror," she said. "The primary mirror segments were driven 12.5 millimeters away from the telescope structure. Using six motors that deploy each segment approximately half the length of a paper clip, these actuators clear the mirrors from their launch restraints and give each segment enough space to later be adjusted in other directions to the optical starting position for the upcoming wavefront alignment process."

CITIZEN SCIENTISTS FIND 'JUPITER-LIKE' PLANET, NASA SAYS

The 18 radius of curvature (ROC) actuators were also moved from their launch position.

"Even against beryllium’s strength, which is six times greater than that of steel, these ROC actuators individually shape the curvature of each mirror segment to set the initial parabolic shape of the primary mirror," she noted.

Next, Wolf said the team would be moving mirrors in the micron and nanometer ranges to reach the final optical positions for an aligned telescope.

The process of alignment will take approximately three months.

The telescope, which has been in space for nearly a full month and is a joint venture with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, also has to complete a trajectory burn that will send the observatory into orbit around a spot called the Earth-sun Lagrange point 2, or L2.

The agency's timeline has this set for Jan. 23.

‘Fatwa’ Issued Against Bitcoin As Crypto gets Declared Haram in Indonesia


Aaryamann Shrivastava
Thu, January 20, 2022, 8:47 AM·2 min read

The most recent announcement from the country has brought a lot of questions to mind pertaining to the acceptance of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. If not legally can this become a method of obstruction now?

Indonesia Against Bitcoin?

Tajdid Central Leadership (PP) Muhammadiyah along with the Tarjih Assembly today issued a fatwa against cryptocurrencies. According to the fatwa, the use of Bitcoin and other such coins for investment and payment is considered haram.

The Muhammadiyah Tarjih Assembly stated that “The Tarjih Fatwa stipulates that the legal cryptocurrency is haram both as an investment tool and as a medium of exchange”

The reasons revealed behind the fatwa fall back to the same reasons why regulations on cryptocurrencies are being considered. Albeit these reasons are more religiously motivated than legally.

As per the Islamic Sharia cryptocurrencies’ speculative nature is a huge shortcoming. The volatility of currencies such as Bitcoin and such makes it haram.

Secondly using such volatile assets is obscure according to the fatwa. Since cryptocurrencies are not backed by any physical asset, it becomes gharar.

Majelis Tarjih and Tajdid PP Muhammadiyah further added that,

“This speculative and gharar nature is forbidden by sharia as the Word of Allah and the Hadith of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and does not meet the values and benchmarks of Business Ethics according to Muhammadiyah, especially these two points, namely: there should be no gharar (HR). Muslim) and there should be no maisir (QS. Al Maidah: 90)”

This is the first time that the objections are arising out of religious stipulations. And although this isn’t an established pattern, many Islam-dominated countries such as Algeria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Nepal, Qatar, and Tunisia previously absolutely banned cryptocurrency.

In fact, most recently, Pakistan’s central bank too proposed a ban on all forms of cryptocurrency citing risks surrounding volatility.

As it is, regulations are already becoming a huge roadblock when it comes to crypto adoption. And the use of crypto might further reduce if such objections come from religious provenance as people are more obedient to religious laws.
Bitcoin’s ‘Volatile’ Nature

Ironically, over the past 2 weeks, Bitcoin hasn’t been volatile at all. The king coin has kept its movement sideways bound and continues to head in that direction. Although at the time of this report it is maintaining a strong green presence having risen by 3.72%, it might remain consolidated for a while.

This article was originally posted on FX Empire

Weird chemistry is making the Earth's interior cool faster than thought


Phil Plait
Thu, January 20, 2022,


Long ago — 4.5 billion years ago, right after the Earth formed — our planet was hot. It formed by essentially getting slammed billions of times by asteroids, and all that energy of impact was enough to keep the Earth broiling.

Eventually heavy elements like iron and nickel sank to the core, and lighter ones rose to the surface. This differentiation created the Earth we see today: An inner, solid nickel/iron core that's nearly as hot as the surface of the Sun; an outer, liquid iron core; the solid, rocky mantle; and the thin crust topping it off.

Over billions of years the Earth has cooled. Though some heat is generated through various processes like radioactivity, that heat in the core leaks out. It warms up the bottom of the mantle, which then transports that energy extremely slowly up to the Earth's surface where it radiates away into space.

Phil Plait Bad Astronomy Garlick Young Earth Moon Press


Artwork showing the last stages of the Earth and Moon’s formation, called the Late Heavy Bombardment. Photo: Getty Images/ Mark Garlick Science Photo Library

That heat transport drives the tectonic activity we see on the surface today: continental drift, seismic activity, volcanoes, and more.

So how rapidly that heat is transported is important. A team of Earth scientists just investigated a key property of that transport, and was shocked to discover that it's far more efficient than previously thought. If they are correct (link to paper), that means that heat is working its way out of the core more rapidly than thought, which in turn means the Earth is cooling significantly faster than previously thought.

Don't panic! This doesn't mean we're about to be living on the shell of a frozen planet. But if true it does mean that models of how the Earth works will need to be rethought.

The key here is the boundary between the outer core and the lower mantle. This region is about 2,900 kilometers down beneath Earth's surface — or about 3,500 kilometers up from the planet's center. Below this boundary the core is incredibly hot, over 4,200° C (about 7,600°F), but just above it the temperature drops rapidly, by over 400C. This is the largest thermal boundary in the planet, and the steepest change in temperature with distance from center (what's called the thermal gradient).

The temperature is high, but so is the pressure. All that rock above pushes down on the boundary layer with a pressure of over a million times air pressure at sea level. This changes the way elements bind together, so the chemistry down there is weird. One of the most common minerals on Earth's surface is olivine, which is magnesium and iron bound up with silicon tetroxide — (Mg,Fe)SiO4. But under Earth's surface where it gets hot and heavy, the structure of olivine changes, and it becomes minerals like ringwoodite, wadsleyite, and bridgmanite.

The Earth’s major layers consist of the thin rocky crust, the mantle (very hot but solid rock), the outer core (liquid iron), and the inner core (solid iron). Credit: Getty Images / anuwat meereewee

The Earth’s major layers consist of the thin rocky crust, the mantle (very hot but solid rock), the outer core (liquid iron), and the inner core (solid iron). Credit: Getty Images / anuwat meereewee

That last one, bridgmanite, is so pervasive in the deep mantle that it's actually the most common mineral in the planet. And it's one of two minerals, the other being ferropericlase, that dominates the Earth's mantle at the core/mantle boundary. This means that how rapidly the core can cool depends on how efficiently those minerals can transport the heat away.

These minerals can be created in the lab, but it's very difficult, and it's even harder to heat them and subject them to the pressure necessary to measure their ability to transport heat away from the core.

Assumptions for bridgmanite based on lab work have been used in models of the Earth's interior, but until now the actual thermal conductivity — how well heat moves through it — has never been measured at core/mantle conditions.

And that's what the Earth scientist team did. They created bridgmanite in their lab, then squeezed it with a tiny diamond anvil to an incredible 800,000 times atmospheric pressure at sea level, about the pressure at the core/mantle boundary, and then zapped it with a powerful laser to heat it to over 2,300°C, close to the temperature at the boundary as well. This allowed them to measure how well heat flowed through it, and then extrapolate that to the higher temperature at the core/mantle boundary more accurately than has ever been done before.

This was then added to other heat transport methods already known to see how well the core cooled. Comparing the new numbers to previous ones used in models of the Earth's interior, they found the core is cooling 1.5 times faster than previously thought.

Yikes.

Mind you, this doesn't mean the Earth is actually cooling faster than it was before — and yes, this still means global warming is still a thing — but it's more that older models underestimated that rate. That's important.

The Earth’s magnetic field acts like a shield, protecting us from subatomic particles from the Sun. Credit: ESA

It means, for example, the mantle is convecting more vigorously than thought. It's a misconception that the mantle is a liquid; it's actually solid, but it can flow, in a way. Heat from below forces material to fill in cracks and voids in the crystal structure of the minerals above — this is called dislocation creep, a term I love — so in essence hotter material rises and cooler material sinks: convection. This flow is incredibly slow, taking a year on average just to move two centimeters, less than the length of the tip of a finger!

That rate depends on how well heat flows from the core, and now we see heat flows faster, which means convection in the mantle is faster than thought as well. The mantle flow is what drives movement in Earth crust, including plate tectonics, earthquakes and volcanoes, which shape the planet's surface.

All of this depends on the heat balance of the planet: How hot the core is, how much heat is still being generated, how well that heat leaks out, and how well it radiates away into space from the surface. These new measurements mean the old models have to be adjusted — perhaps radioactivity is providing more heat than thought, to accommodate the higher transfer out of the core — and then the equations worked out again to see what this means for the mantle deep beneath our feet.

But the effects are very much felt where we stand. From seismic action to the generation of Earth's magnetic field, it all depends on what's going on deep below. So, deep, in fact, that we can't hope at the moment to test things in situ. Our understanding has to come from models based on the physics, and the numbers have to come from the lab. When a number gets changed, so do the values of the equations.

Humans may never visit this region of the planet nearly halfway down to the center except in science-fiction movies, but we can still get an understanding of what's occurring down there. Experiments like this one will help us get there, at least in our physics.

Trump Solicited Hedge Funds, Family Offices for $1 Billion PIPE



Gillian Tan, Layan Odeh and Hema Parmar
Thu, January 20, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- When former President Donald Trump said in December that his nascent media company was raising $1 billion from a diverse group of institutional investors, the announcement was highly unusual in that it omitted the participants’ names.

A month later, no firm has announced it made the investment, but people familiar with the fundraising say it came from hedge funds, Canadian money managers and family offices that manage fortunes for ultra-wealthy clans.

Some of these investors include Chicago-based Pentwater Capital Management and MMCAP, a fund advised by MM Asset Management and overseen by Toronto-based Spartan Fund Management, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

They were among 36 investors that committed to the so-called private investment in public equity, or PIPE, that Digital World Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, raised as part of its merger with Trump Media & Technology Group.

Representatives for TMTG, Digital World, the SPAC’s underwriter, EF Hutton, as well as Pentwater, Spartan and MMCAP didn’t reply to requests for comment.

Wall Street has largely sought to distance itself from Trump after he incited an insurrection in the U.S. Capitol and was banished from social media platforms.

Those approached to invest in the PIPE who declined to participate, include Millennium Management, Balyasny Asset Management, Apollo Global Management Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Highbridge Capital Management, the New York Times reported earlier Thursday.

When Digital World, led by Chief Executive Officer Patrick Orlando, revealed in October it was investing in Trump Media, several hedge funds that backed the SPAC, such as Lighthouse Investment Partners, Saba Capital Management and D.E. Shaw, sold their shares, even as the stock was soaring on the news.

“Many investors are grappling with hard questions about how to incorporate their values into their work,” Saba’s Boaz Weinstein said at the time. “For us, this was not a close call.”

A PIPE is an important part of a SPAC transaction and relies on institutional investors who can help it go through if early backers redeem their shares. The firms involved typically want to disclose the names of the investors because it gives the deal more credibility.

That didn’t happen with the Trump PIPE, though the terms are likely to be lucrative, with minimal risk.

While Digital World shares traded for $84.06 at noon Thursday in New York, the initial conversion price for the PIPE investors is $33.60, meaning those participating are poised to more than double their money if the merger is completed and the stock continues trading at that level.

The deal isn’t without controversy. The Securities and Exchange Commission has sought records tied to meetings involving Digital World’s board, procedures related to trading and the identities of certain investors.

If the transaction goes ahead, the PIPE will provide Trump’s media company with significant funds to build out operations. It has already added former U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, a fervent Trump supporter, as CEO and plans to start a rival platform called Truth Social.

“As our balance sheet expands, TMTG will be in a stronger position to fight back against the tyranny of Big Tech,” Trump said in a statement last month.