Ancient DNA helps reveal social changes in Africa 50,000 years ago that shaped the human story

The Conversation
February 25, 2022

Together with artifacts from the past, ancient DNA can fill in details about our ancient ancestors.

Nina R/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY

Every person alive on the planet today is descended from people who lived as hunter-gatherers in Africa

The continent is the cradle of human origins and ingenuity, and with each new fossil and archaeological discovery, we learn more about our shared African past. Such research tends to focus on when our species, Homo sapiens, spread out to other landmasses 80,000-60,000 years ago. But what happened in Africa after that, and why don’t we know more about the people who remained?

Our new study, conducted by an interdisciplinary team of 44 researchers based in 12 countries, helps answer these questions. By sequencing and analyzing ancient DNA (aDNA) from people who lived as long ago as 18,000 years, we roughly doubled the age of sequenced aDNA from sub-Saharan Africa. And this genetic information helps anthropologists like us understand more about how modern humans were moving and mingling in Africa long ago.


People took shelter in natural rock overhangs, leaving behind an archaeological record of their daily activities – and sometimes their graves. By digging carefully, archaeologists can connect information from aDNA to information about the social lives of these people.
Jacob Davis, CC BY-ND

Tracing our human past in Africa

Beginning about 300,000 years ago, people in Africa who looked like us – the earliest anatomically modern humans – also started behaving in ways that seem very human. They made new kinds of stone tools and began transporting raw materials up to 250 miles (400 kilometers), likely through trade networks. By 140,000-120,000 years ago, people made clothing from animal skins and began to decorate themselves with pierced marine shell beads.


While early innovations appeared in a patchwork fashion, a more widespread shift happened around 50,000 years ago – around the same time that people started moving into places as distant as Australia. New types of stone and bone tools became common, and people began fashioning and exchanging ostrich eggshell beads. And while most rock art in Africa is undated and badly weathered, an increase in ochre pigment at archaeological sites hints at an explosion of art.

What caused this shift, known as the Later Stone Age transition, has been a longstanding archaeological mystery. Why would certain tools and behaviors, which up until that point had appeared in a piecemeal way across Africa, suddenly become widespread? Did it have something to do with changes in the number of people, or how they interacted?


Beads made from ostrich eggshell were hot trade items and can show the extent of ancient social networks.
Jennifer Miller, CC BY-ND

The challenge of accessing the deep past

Archaeologists reconstruct human behavior in the past mainly through things people left behind – remains of their meals, tools, ornaments and sometimes even their bodies. These records may accumulate over thousands of years, creating views of daily livelihoods that are really averages over long periods of time. However, it’s hard to study ancient demography, or how populations changed, from the archaeological record alone.

This is where DNA can help. When combined with evidence from archaeology, linguistics and oral and written history, scientists can piece together how people moved and interacted based on which groups share genetic similarities.

But DNA from living people can’t tell the whole story. African populations have been transformed over the past 5,000 years by the spread of herding and farming, the development of cities, ancient pandemics and the ravages of colonialism and slavery. These processes caused some lineages to vanish and brought others together, forming new populations.

Using present-day DNA to reconstruct ancient genetic landscapes is like reading a letter that was left out in the rain: some words are there but blurred, and some are gone completely. Researchers need ancient DNA from archaeological human remains to explore human diversity in different places and times and to understand what factors shaped it.

Unfortunately, aDNA from Africa is particularly hard to recover because the continent straddles the equator and heat and humidity degrade DNA. While the oldest aDNA from Eurasia is roughly 400,000 years old, all sequences from sub-Saharan Africa to date have been younger than around 9,000 years.


Map of all published ancient genomes, with black dots scaled to the number of individuals’ genomes. Blue dots indicate Later Stone Age foragers comparable to those in our study. Red stars indicate individuals reported for the first time in our study. Inset map underscores the gap between Africa and other parts of the world in terms of published ancient genomes. Ancient DNA preserved between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn is rare.
Mary Prendergast; basemaps by Natural Earth, CC BY-ND

Breaking the ‘tropical ceiling’

Because each person carries genetic legacies inherited from generations of their ancestors, our team was able to use DNA from individuals who lived between 18,000-400 years ago to explore how people interacted as far back as the last 80,000-50,000 years. This allowed us, for the first time, to test whether demographic change played a role in the Later Stone Age transition.

Our team sequenced aDNA from six individuals buried in what are now Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia. We compared these sequences to previously studied aDNA from 28 individuals buried at sites stretching from Cameroon to Ethiopia and down to South Africa. We also generated new and improved DNA data for 15 of these people, trying to extract as much information as possible from the small handful of ancient African individuals whose DNA is preserved well enough to study.

This created the largest genetic dataset so far for studying the population history of ancient African foragers – people who hunted, gathered or fished. We used it to explore population structures that existed prior to the sweeping changes of the past few thousand years.


National Museum of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam. Ancient DNA studies in Africa are made possible by the efforts of curators to protect and preserve remains in tropical conditions.
Mary Prendergast, CC BY-ND

DNA weighs in on a longstanding debate

We found that people did in fact change how they moved and interacted around the Later Stone Age transition.

Despite being separated by thousands of miles and years, all the ancient individuals in this study were descended from the same three populations related to ancient and present-day eastern, southern and central Africans. The presence of eastern African ancestry as far south as Zambia, and southern African ancestry as far north as Kenya, indicates that people were moving long distances and having children with people located far away from where they were born. The only way this population structure could have emerged is if people were moving long distances over many millennia.


Genetic data now suggests that people moved and mingled across the eastern African Rift Valley during the Ice Ages.
Elizabeth Sawchuk, CC BY-ND

Additionally, our research showed that almost all ancient eastern Africans shared an unexpectedly high number of genetic variations with hunter-gatherers who today live in central African rainforests, making ancient eastern Africa truly a genetic melting pot. We could tell that this mixing and moving happened after about 50,000 years ago, when there was a major split in central African forager populations.

We also noted that the individuals in our study were genetically most like only their closest geographic neighbors. This tells us that after around 20,000 years ago, the foragers in some African regions were almost exclusively finding their partners locally. This practice must have been extremely strong and persisted for a very long time, as our results show that some groups remained genetically independent of their neighbors over several thousand years. It was especially clear in Malawi and Zambia, where the only close relationships we detected were between people buried around the same time at the same sites.

We don’t know why people began “living locally” again. Changing environments as the last Ice Age peaked and waned between about 26,000-11,500 years ago may have made it more economical to forage closer to home, or perhaps elaborate exchange networks reduced the need for people to travel with objects.

Alternatively, new group identities may have emerged, restructuring marriage rules. If so, we would expect to see artifacts and other traditions like rock art diversify, with specific types clumped into different regions. Indeed, this is exactly what archaeologists find – a trend known as regionalization. Now we know that this phenomenon not only affected cultural traditions, but also the flow of genes.


Recovering and sorting archaeological remains is a slow and laborious process, where even small fragments can tell big stories.
Chelsea Smith, CC BY-ND

New data, new questions

As always, aDNA research raises as many questions as answers. Finding central African ancestry throughout eastern and southern Africa prompts anthropologists to reconsider how interconnected these regions were in the distant past. This is important because central Africa has remained archaeologically understudied, in part because of political, economic and logistical challenges that make research there difficult.

Additionally, while genetic evidence supports a major demographic transition in Africa after 50,000 years ago, we still don’t know the key drivers. Determining what triggered the Later Stone Age transition will require closer examination of regional environmental, archaeological and genetic records to understand how this process unfolded across sub-Saharan Africa.

Finally, this study is a stark reminder that researchers still have much to learn from ancient individuals and artifacts held in African museums, and highlights the critical role of the curators who steward these collections. While some human remains in this study were recovered within the past decade, others have been in museums for a half-century.

Even though technological advances are pushing back the time limits for aDNA, it is important to remember that scientists have only just begun to understand human diversity in Africa, past and present.



Elizabeth Sawchuk, Banting Postdoctoral Fellow and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, University of Alberta; 

Jessica Thompson, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Yale University,

Mary Prendergast, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Rice University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Listening to everything: How sound reveals an unseen world

The Conversation
February 25, 2022

Lawrence English, Author provided

Vision is often regarded as first among the human senses, as our eyes are the way most of us come to know the world. However, vision has its limits.

Even now, as you use your eyes to read this, other senses are in operation that open up a greater appreciation of the world. Perhaps the most powerful of these is listening - audition.

Sound carries cues about the world we might otherwise miss. And with the development of new technologies and the work of dedicated scientists and artists, we can today listen to what was previously unimaginable, from the inner workings of plants to catastrophes in distant galaxies.

In my own work, currently exhibited at the Museum of Brisbane, I have made field recordings of environments and creatures around the world. These works take their place alongside an ever-growing collection of recordings revealing the unheard sounds of our world.

The limits of the ear

Humans can only hear a limited range of sounds: those with frequencies between about 20 hertz (low sounds like thunder) and 20 kilohertz (very high sounds like some species of bats). Other sounds exist outside the scope of our auditory capacities.

“Infrasonic” sounds such as the rumble of earthquakes have frequencies too low for us to perceive, although other animals can detect them. There are “ultrasonic” sounds too, with frequencies above the threshold of human hearing.

Strictly speaking, a sound is a vibration in air. But we can also think of other kinds of vibrations, such as electromagnetic waves, as having the potential to be registered as sounds.

With the right kind of technological translation tools, you can hear the electromagnetic sounds emitted by devices like the one on which you are reading this right now.

The ‘Stereo Bugscope’ created by the artist Haco amplifies the sounds of electronic circuitry.

Why should we listen?

Listening is a different way of knowing the world that expands our understanding. Sound travels around corners and through walls, from places that are out of sight.

Our ears are a gateway to a deeper sensing of the world. Take bird calls, for example.

For most, even those of us living in densely populated urban centres, dawn’s arrival is trumpeted by a chorus of bird calls. These voices, that seemingly splay out in all directions suggest acts of territorial dominance, of the seeking and discovery of food and other fundamental activities of animal species. A variation of the chorus occurs again, as the sun vanishes over the horizon.

These daily occurrences are so commonplace as to not draw themselves to attention. But on closer examination, we are discovering they reveal much about habitat health, seasonality and other environmental markers.

Listening longer, listening deeper, listening wider

Today we are listening to more of the world, and beyond, than ever before, with the growth of disciplines such as bio-acoustics, radio telescopy, and more philosophical fields such as sound studies.

The proliferation of technologies such as hydrophones (underwater microphones) and electromagnetic receivers has also increased the reach of our ears.

It’s this combination of intellectual, scientific and artistic curiosity, matched with technological developments and availability that have resulted in the capture of some incredible sound events that exist well beyond the visual plane.

Just a quarter of a century ago it seemed like science fiction that we might be able to capture the sound of two black holes colliding in space – but scientists did it in 2015.

The sound of black holes colliding: gravitational waves converted to sound waves. Caltech / MIT / LIGO Lab163 KB (download)

These discoveries and others like them have fostered new research programs that aim to undertake the deepest and most concentrated galactic listening to date.

As above, so below

We have made many discoveries closer to home, too.

We have known for a long time that the underwater world is rich in sounds, but it has been underrepresented in dedicated research. This trend is changing, with numerous studies highlighting the rich acoustic diversity of rivers, oceans and reefs.


Plants may use the sound of water to guide the growth of their roots.
Shutterstock

On land, the Australian researcher Monica Gagliano has explored plant audition. She demonstrated how plants can use sound to find water – so next time your plumbing is blocked by a plant’s roots, keep in mind they have been listening to the water flowing through the pipes.

Equally profound are the studies of bioelectrical sounds emitted by plants carried out by artists such as the Irish “sound ecologist” Michael Prime. For several decades, Prime has catalogued various bioelectric emissions from plants. At times they resemble unsettled but rhythmic avant-garde music.

Field recording

This curiosity for listening into places and those that inhabit them, has also spawned a zone of creative sound practice called field recording. A field recordist is a listener who is primarily focused on capturing the sonic aspects of environments that captivate them.

Once a marginal part of the sound arts canon, field recording has come to be regarded as a critical field of creative engagement. This year artists such as Philip Samartzis have been memorialised in a series of Australian Antarctic postage stamps.

Even if you don’t want to make your own field recordings, you might be interested in listening to the sound walks of Canadian artist Hildegard Westerkamp, or experiencing the situational listening of Japanese artist Akio Suzuki’s Oto Date project.

These works, like my own Site Listening at the Museum Of Brisbane, recognise that the more we listen into the world around us, the more we realise we are yet to hear its true resonances.

Lawrence English, Adjunct Research Fellow, Griffith University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

Nuclear fusion record broken – what will it take to start generating electricity?

ANOTHER FIFTY YEARS
The Conversation
February 25, 2022

Nuclear fusion is what generates the energy of the sun: scientists are getting closer to controlling a sustained fusion reaction on Earth. Marko Aliaksandr/Shutterstock

Scientists at a nuclear fusion lab in the UK just broke the world record for the amount of energy produced in a single fusion reaction. In this episode of The Conversation Weekly, we ask two experts what this means, and how long it’ll take before we can switch on the world’s first nuclear fusion power plant.

And we talk to a social psychologist about new research into the societal pressure some people feel to be happy.

Scientists first demonstrated the ability to fuse two atoms in lab experiments in the 1930s. Nuclear science has come a long way since then, but we still haven’t managed to harness the energy produced by nuclear fusion to generate electricity.

In early February, scientists at the Joint European Torus (JET) lab in Oxfordshire in the UK announced they’d broken the world record for the amount of energy produced in a nuclear fusion experiment. They produced 59 megajoules of heat energy in a single fusion “shot” that lasted for five seconds. This doubled the previous world record set by JET in 1997, but was still only enough to heat about 60 kettles of water.

So how excited should we be about the latest news? How much closer does this world record take us to getting electricity from fusion power – and what would success mean for the planet’s future energy mix?

The JET experiment is the world’s biggest nuclear fusion device. It uses an approach called magnetic confinement to fuse nuclei at very high speeds and temperatures inside a doughnut-shaped container called a tokomak.

Livia Casali, assistant professor in nuclear engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in the US, says the latest result from JET confirms some of the choices made for the fusion reactors of the future – particularly around the materials used to line the inside walls of the tokomak. “These results also confirm that we can achieve fusion energy using a deuterium and tritium fuel mix, which is the same fuel mix that we are planning to use for future fusion devices,” she says.

In particular, JET’s results are a proof of concept for ITER, a huge fusion reactor under construction in southern France and due to be ready by 2026.

“To make a fusion reaction is very easy, but that doesn’t mean that we’re able to produce energy,” says Angel Ibarra Sanchez, a research professor in fusion technology at the Centre for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research in Madrid, Spain’s national fusion laboratory.

Like JET, ITER won’t produce electricity – that will only happen once a demonstration reactor is built. Ibarra says the hope is that the first demo fusion reactor in Europe will be available around 2050. If these demo reactors are shown to work, he predicts the first generation of fusion power reactors could arrive in the 2060s or 2070s. “It will probably not be much faster than this,” he says.

Once fusion power arrives, Ibarra believes the energy it will generate – which releases no carbon dioxide and is dubbed “clean energy” – will be transformational. But he warns us not to pin all our hopes on fusion. “To think that the energy production in the future will be based in a single type of energy sources is not feasible. It’s not realistic,” he says. Instead, Ibarra thinks the energy mix of the future should be “a mix of solar energy, wind energy, and hopefully fusion energy”.

In our second story in this episode, we find out that living in a country that scores highly on global happiness rankings might not be all that it’s cracked up to be. Brock Bastian, professor of psychological sciences at the University of Melbourne in Australia, just co-authored new research showing increased social pressure to feel happy in countries that come top of these rankings. And for some people, this social pressure can be linked to poor mental health. “When a lot of people seem to be doing well and happy, it can exacerbate for some people those feeling of low mood,” says Bastian. (Listen from 27m)

And finally, Eric Smalley, science and technology editor at The Conversation in Boston, recommends some recent analysis on the technology dimensions of the unfolding Ukraine war. (Listen from 37m20)

This episode of The Conversation Weekly was produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. You can find us on Twitter @TC_Audio, on Instagram at theconversationdotcom or via email. You can also sign up to The Conversation’s free daily email here.

Newsclips in this episode are from BBC News and the UK Atomic Energy Agency/Culham Center for Fusion Energy.

Daniel Merino, Assistant Science Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation and Gemma Ware, Editor and Co-Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

How new microalgae technologies can hasten the end of our reliance on oil

The Conversation
February 25, 2022

Chokniti Khongchum/Shutterstock


Microalgae have been used by the Chinese for medicinal and nutritional purposes for thousands of years in the belief they could cure almost any health condition. The idea that microalgae have extraordinary healing powers isn’t as far-fetched as some might think. Though the ancient Chinese believed the microalgae was responsible for health-improving benefits, we now know that it was in fact the biochemical compounds produced by these microscopic creatures that provided the “magic”.

There are approximately 100,000 species of microalgae, each with their own distinct set of properties. This diversity allows microalgae to flourish in almost every environment on Earth. Mostly they exist in aquatic habitats such as fresh or wastewater, but they have been found in moist soil – and even snowbanks too.

Microalgae are usually described as being green, and this is true for species such as B. braunii and C. vulgaris. But there are other species, such as C. officinalis, which is red or F. spiralis, which is brown. Each classification produces different types or quantities of biochemical compounds, making some more useful for certain applications than others.

Over the past few decades research has demonstrated the huge potential of microalgae, especially in the production of biofuel – fuel that is created from plant material or animal waste. I wanted to review this research to provide a framework to establish the most suitable microalgae species for large-scale biofuel production that can ultimately rival oil and gas giants and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

The magic of micoalgae

Microalgae have a unique ability to convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into a wide range of biochemical compounds. Despite being classed as animals, they metabolise the same way as plants, producing oxygen to replenish what we humans consume. This cycle acts as a carbon capture system, whereby harmful CO₂ in the atmosphere is converted to useful oxygen. Microalgae also produce a wide range of other compounds found inside the cells, and these are what make microalgae so good at combating the effects of global warming.

Generally, the products from microalgae can be grouped into three classes: proteins, carbohydrates and lipids (fats). But research has found that there are several other high-value biochemical compounds that have significant applications in a wide range of different industries. For example, microalgae produce compounds known as carotenoids, more commonly known as dyes or pigments. These compounds are responsible for giving salmon its pink colour, as the food they eat contains high quantities of carotenoids.

Another high-value class of compounds are polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). These compounds are part of the lipid family and play a vital role in supplying the cells with energy. Microalgae have been deemed one of the richest sources of these compounds, which help treat the effects of diabetes and arthritis.

But how is it possible for these organisms to produce oil that can be used in cars? The petrol and diesel currently used is derived from crude oil that was formed millions of years ago from dead sea creatures. But modern biofuel is produced from living organisms on a real-time basis.

How biofuel is produced

Biofuel made from microalgae is currently one of the most promising fossil fuel alternatives to sustain the world’s energy demand. This is no easy task, especially having to compete with a highly profitable industry that has been established for more than a century. But unlike oil, which is non-renewable, biofuel is a renewable and sustainable source of fuel. Unfortunately, the economics of biofuel can’t yet compete with traditional fossil fuels. It all boils down to the bottom line, and currently the scale-up technology required isn’t here yet.

Microalgae don’t directly produce biofuel – they produce lipids (fats). To make biofuel these fats must be converted through a process known as transesterification. The process involves removing as much water as possible, known as dewatering, but this requires significant amounts of energy, resulting in high operating costs. As a result, the overall process becomes too expensive to compete with the oil and gas industry, despite its positive environmental impact.

Economics aside, the future for microalgae cultivation and lipid extraction is extremely promising. The development of hybrid technologies will accelerate the global shift to reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. These include cell factories that use gold nanoparticles – subatomic particles similar to atoms that form the building blocks of physical matter – to increase production rates and increase efficiencies.

Another potential solution is a process known as “milking”. Traditional cultivation methods for microalgae mean they are destroyed after the cultivation period has ended, which limits the full potential of what each cell can offer. Just like milking a cow, the process can be repeated without killing the cow, and the same goes for microalgae. By repeatedly removing high-value compounds from the same culture of microalgae, the high production cost issues can be removed, resulting in a sustainable and scalable process for the future.

This would result in biofuel becoming cost competitive with current fossil fuels, helping to accelerate the shift towards alternative energy sources. Unfortunately, the prospect of competitive biofuel production has some way to go before it can rival fossil fuel prices and quantities. But these developing technologies have the potential to speed up the transition needed to help the world reach its 2050 emissions targets.

Callum Russell, Chemical Engineering PhD, University of the West of Scotland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

PROTESTS AGAINST GILDEN SWEATSHOPS

A journalist covering a protest in Haiti is dead. Now police are investigating their own

2022/2/24 
© Miami Herald

A journalist is escorted after being hit by a stone during a protest by factory workers demanding pay increase, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 2022. - 

RICHARD PIERRIN/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

The Haiti National Police force has begun an internal investigation into allegations that officers shot and killed a local photojournalist and seriously injured two others who were covering a garment workers protest in the capital over higher wages on Wednesday.

Police spokesman Garry Desrosiers said the internal investigation into the shooting that led to the death of Maxiben Lazarre, who also went by Maxihen, will be conducted by both the inspector general’s office, which investigates accusations against police officers, and the Central Directorate of the Judicial Police.

Witnesses are accusing Haitian police of firing the fatal shot that led to Lazarre’s death.

Lazarre, who worked for the online media outlet Rois des infos, or Kings of Info, was killed when men wearing police uniforms drove by the protest and fired into the crowd of protesters. They were traveling in a white, unmarked vehicle with a “government service” license plate, said Robest Dimanche, spokesman for an online journalists association, CMEL, who was at the protest. Two other journalists were also injured as well as a factory worker, he said.

“Everything unfolded before my eyes,” said Dimanche, who noted that right before the shooting police had broken up the protest by firing tear gas. “Of the three journalists who were shot, one died on the scene, Lazarre.”

On Friday, Lazarre’s family and Dimanche, speaking on behalf of the association, condemned the killing and demanded justice.

Lazarre is the third journalist killed in Haiti in two months. In January, John Wesley Amady and Wilguens Louis-Saint were fatally shot by suspected gang members while they were reporting a story on the country’s gang problems. The killing was immediately condemned by the international watchdog group Committee to Protect Journalists.

Haiti has been seeing an increase in the slaying of journalists, none of which have been solved. In 2018, photojournalist Vladjimir Legagneur went missing while working on an independent project inside the Port-au-Prince slum of Grand Ravine. The following year radio journalists Pétion Rospide and Néhémie Joseph were killed. Last June, Diego Charles, of Radio Vision 2000, was gunned down along with human rights advocate Antoinette “Netty” Duclaire.

“Every time a journalist is killed, the police says the same thing, ‘An investigation has been opened,’ “ Dimanche said. “Since Jean Dominique there has been an investigation opened and since then, there has never been any progress with the investigation. We have no choice but to put pressure ... and ask all journalists’ associations, local and international, to take a stance to end the impunity.”

Jean Dominique was a Haitian journalist, agronomist and human rights advocate in Haiti. His April 3, 2000, assassination remains unsolved, and has served as a symbol of the country’s ongoing problem bringing the killers of journalists to justice.

In a message on his Twitter account, Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry said he deplored Lazarre’s death and condemned the violence. “I offer my sympathies to the family of the deceased, as well as to the other victims of these brutal acts,” he wrote.

The incident was also condemned by the monitoring office of the Montana Accord, a group that seeks to take charge of the country and lead a two-year transition to elections. A tweet from the group referred to Lazarre’s death as “murder” and condemned “all acts of repression against workers.”

“The de facto power cannot continue to allow the police to shoot at Haitians like all of us who are claiming for a better life,” the tweet said.

The protests for higher wages by garment workers have been ongoing for several weeks. On Monday, the government announced a hike in the daily minimum wage by as much as 54%.

The hike would take the minimum salary for factory workers from $5 a day to just under $7.50 a day. The main union representing factory workers has said the increase is not enough and has called for continued demonstrations. The unions are demanding a minimum of $15 a day.

On Thursday, factories throughout Port-au-Prince shut down in protest of the violence that has accompanied the strike. Some factory owners say buildings have been attacked with rocks, and that workers who have joined the protests have been violently dragged from their working stations.

\------/

Texas teacher on leave after video shows woman criticizing conservative Christians

2022/2/25
© Fort Worth Star-Telegram

A video captured an educator in a hallway at Colleyville Middle School saying that conservative Christians needed' to get COVID and die.' She was immediately placed on administrative leave. - Lori Martin/Dreamstime/TNS

A Colleyville Middle School teacher has been placed on administrative leave after a video captured an educator in the school hallway saying conservative Christians needed "to get COVID and die."

The description of a video posted by an account called CriticalRaceTheory to the Canadian video platform Rumble claims it was taken at Colleyville Middle School in Texas.

In the video, a woman is seen chatting with two other women in a hallway about vaccines and her frustration with how they've become political.

The woman said COVID vaccines were being given out the same way flu vaccines are, and said that if they had been given out immediately, the virus would be gone.

"The rest of my life is impacted because of politics?" she said. "Because of conservative Christian crap?

"I'm telling you, those conservative Christian people, they need to die, they need to get COVID and die."

In a note to parents Wednesday, the Grapevine-Colleyville school district said the teacher's statements don't reflect the views of the school district or middle school. The district said it will continue to investigate what happened.

School board president Jorge Rodriguez said in a statement sent by the school district that the board rejected the teacher's statements and that they supported the decision to place her on administrative leave until the investigation is complete.

In November, former Colleyville Heritage High School principal James Whitfield came under criticism after he was accused of teaching and promoting Critical Race Theory. Whitfield, hired in 2020, was the school's first Black principal and left the school district in November after reaching a settlement with the school district.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M 101

Elon Musk under investigation for insider trading: report

2022/2/24 
© New York Daily News

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, and his brother Kimbal, a Tesla director, are under investigation by the federal regulators on suspicion of insider trading, according to a report. - 

Saul Martinez/Getty Images North America/TNS

Elon Musk and his brother are under investigation by the federal regulators on suspicion of insider trading, according to a report.

The Securities and Exchange Commission investigation is about a tweet Musk sent in November 2021, in which he asked his followers if he should sell Tesla stock, the Wall Street Journal reported.

One day before the tweet, Musk’s brother Kimbal Musk sold 88,500 Tesla shares, according to the Journal. Musk’s followers said he should sell, and he did. Tesla’s stock tumbled after the tweet.

Kimbal Musk also sits on Tesla’s board of directors

Elon Musk has been at odds with the SEC for several years. In 2018, Musk and the federal regulators settled a fraud case, and the oddball CEO responded by flaming the SEC online.

“Just want to (say) that the Shortseller Enrichment Commission is doing incredible work,” he tweeted at the time. “And the name change is so on point!”

Madison Cawthorn unveils his 'Contract with ON America' that destroys Social Security to 'incentivize' the elderly to work

David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement
February 23, 2022

Photo via Madison Cawthorn Facebook page

U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC) has revealed his "New Contract with America" that's designed to destroy Social Security, one of the most successful and life-saving programs in U.S. history, to "incentivize" the elderly to return to work.

That's just one aspect of what Cawthorn describes as a 10-point plan that reads like a far right-wing dream from capitalist kingpins to return America to the days of child labor, seven-day work weeks, and no retirement for senior citizens. But it does call for the federal government to "promote and celebrate the American manufacturing and agriculture industry by incentivizing domestic production," despite the US economy being so on fire the Federal Reserve is poised to dramatically raise interest rates to cool off spending and so-called "inflation."

The youngest member of Congress, currently facing a legal battle that could ban him from keeping his seat over his role in the January 6 insurrection, explained to Fox News his "new Contract With America is really a "retort" to the Green New Deal.

"I think the Green New Deal is much less of a climate plan and much more of a Communist manifesto."

Cawthorn does not reveal who actually wrote the plan, which is in the form of a House resolution (embedded below) – so it has zero chance of passing as long as Democrats hold the chamber.

It includes "slashing government spending by a third by 2031; enacting a balanced budget amendment; and abolishing the income tax and finding a replacement flat tax or consumption tax by 2026," Fox News adds.

"The contract also calls for abolishing the Department of Education, making English the official language of the United States, banning federal funding for critical race theory teachings, and enacting school choice on the federal level so federal dollars follow the students to their school of choice, including private religious schools."

There's also a companion video that looks more like a video game than a rational political agenda.


New Contract with America by Fox News

US Trucker convoy in disarray: Ousting of 'Nazi' leads to mutual accusations of snitching to the Feds

Jordan Green, Staff Reporter
February 24, 2022

Telegram video screengrab

Ryan Sanchez, a Groyper-aligned white supremacist, has pulled out of the People’s Convoy on the second day of the group’s trek from southern California to Washington, DC after getting called out by Three Percenter leader Erik Rohde.

Sanchez has made no secret of his desire to infiltrate the anti-COVID restriction convoy effort for the purpose of mainstreaming white nationalism into the broader conservative movement. In a post on Telegram earlier this month, Sanchez cited his involvement in the Stop the Steal rallies at Huntington Beach Pier in late 2020 as an example of white nationalists joining forces with MAGA activists to push the movement to take more radical positions. One of the participants in those rallies was America First Bruins founder Christian Secor, who goes on trial in June for assaulting law enforcement, obstruction of an official proceeding and breaching the Capitol in connection with his role in the attempted insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.

“I have always been up front about what I believe in,” Sanchez wrote. “I am Catholic, a nationalist, and I am pro-white. People will always respect courage and honesty, and although a few people would disagree on some issues, the vast majority of people have been nothing but friendly. This video was taken shortly after the election of 2020 in the middle of the Stop the Steal movement. After Jan 6th, even the people who I argued and bantered within this video have since closed ranks with the rest of the right. We asserted ourselves, moved the Overton window, and have a leading role in the conservative coalition.”

Sanchez has made no attempt to downplay his white nationalist beliefs even while announcing his plans to tag along with the convoy. On Feb. 18, Sanchez posted a photo of himself posing with members of the now-defunct white supremacist group Rise Above Movement, expressing pride in his association with three men who are currently serving federal prison sentences for their role in perpetrating violence at the August 12, 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va.

READ: 'Freedom Convoy' ends in failure -- and heads back to Pennsylvania after less than a day: report

“I am proud to have known such men as Rob Rundo, Ben Daly, Tom and Michael,” Sanchez wrote. “We must never forget our political prisoners of RAM, jailed for daring to stand against Antifa. I will never apologize for being in this picture, or knowing these men.”

RAM members Benjamin Daley, Michael Miselis and Thomas Gillen received sentences ranging from 27 to 37 months for conspiracy to riot in 2019. Characterizing RAM as a “combat-ready, militant group that represented itself as part of the new nationalist and white supremacy movement,” the Justice Department said in a press release announcing sentencing that the three defendants “collectively pushed, punched, kicked, choked, head-butted, and otherwise assaulted several individuals, resulting in a riot” a the Unite the Right rally.

In another recent post, Sanchez expressed sympathy for Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber. Kaczynski, the eco-terrorist who is serving a life sentence for a murderous bombing campaign that spanned more than two decades, has become a hero to accelerationist white supremacists who want to hasten the collapse of society to achieve their political goals. In his recent post, Sanchez reported that Kaczynski had been diagnosed with cancer, adding, “#PrayForTed.”

Since the convoy’s departure from Adelanto, Calif. on Wednesday, Sanchez has been making frequent Telegram posts with video updates, photos of supportive crowds, and upbeat reports about restaurants and gas stations providing free food, drink and fuel to the travelers.

READ: Truck convoy leader 'has no idea where he is' and is 'driving in circles' around I-495: report

The convoy organizers’ disapproval of Sanchez’s presence came to light on Wednesday night when the official Telegram channel for the campaign posted a message stating, “It has come to our attention that there [are] some people using our posts and our images as their own for their personal gain. While some people may be independent journalists riding in the convoy, The People’s Convoy does not endorse nor support the views on their page. Also, when they ask for donations, know that they are going to their pockets, not in support of the convoy.”

The post then tagged Sanchez’s Telegram account, adding, “any and all views expressed on that page are strictly denounced by the People’s Convoy.”

Criticism of Sanchez was even more pointed in the comments under the post.

“We actually can show he’s been lying to ppl claiming to be raising money n gathering items for the convoy when in fact it was only for him n 5 friends to goto dc…n he’s a nazi little prick promotes harming others…oh yes we know who n what he is,” an admin with the handle DIESELPATRIOT1 wrote. “We’ve made it clear…. This isn’t n Airport no need to announce your departure… make sure you take the rest of the garbage with you.”

READ: Right-wing protest 'convoy' in Lansing MI leads to embarrassing outcome

But it was a video posted on Thursday afternoon by Washington Three Percenters leader Erik Rohde, who described himself as a consultant with the People’s Convoy, that ultimately prompted Sanchez’s departure. Rohde was featured in Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, the 2020 mockumentary by Sacha Baron Cohen. As depicted in the film, Rohde and his fellow Three Percenters were enjoying an anti-lockdown event when a bluegrass band stepped on stage and its singer started singing songs with lyrics like, “Obama, what we gotta do, inject him with the Wuhan flu.”

“Some of you might have seen me before,” Rohde said in his video on Thursday. “I was unfortunately featured in the latest Borat movie where I chased his ass off my stage.”

Moving on to the business at hand, Rohde suggested that anyone who saw Sanchez along the convoy route should “make him unwelcome.”

“Why I’m talking to you today is it has come to the attention of the organizers of the People’s Convoy that there is a semi-known fringe weirdo, a little Nazi piece of trash,” Rohde said.

Rohde’s denunciation appears to have prompted a change of heart from Sanchez, who had previously posted on Telegram: “I’m tired of self-proclaimed ‘revolutionaries’ on the internet telling people that protesting and networking with the conservative base is a waste of time, it couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Sharing Rohde’s video, Sanchez suggested it was evidence of “how much of a disaster this is shaping up to be.”

Then, an hour later, he announced: “My crew and I are breaking off from the People’s Convoy. We have been threatened and slandered, and I cannot justify putting my team at unnecessary risk.”

Rohde ended his video by questioning whether Sanchez is a federal informant.

“Figure out what you’re doing man,” Rohde said. “Are you a fed? Are you a Nazi? I mean, a lot of us real patriots in the country, we’ve been talking about you the last couple days, and you’re 50-50 on the board. Half of ’em think you’re a fed trying to set up other Nazis and stuff. And half of ’em think you’re just a little man crush on those Aryan dudes.”

Singed by rejection, Sanchez suggested he has reached a similar conclusion about his accusers.

“This movement, which is filled with thousands of brave and dedicated Americans, is being led into the gaping maw of the Federal government by an incompetent team of grifters and bad actors.”

Jordan Green covers right-wing extremism for Raw Story. A Kentucky native, he now lives in North Carolina, where he spent 16 years writing for alt-weeklies and freelancing for the Washington Post and other publications.

Deadly earthquakes rock Indonesia's Sumatra island

Back-to-back earthquakes in Indonesia have killed four people and injured 32, damaging buildings in Sumatra island and neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore.

Indonesia's meteorological agency BMKG warned people to stay away from slopes over fears of landslides at the peak of the rainy season. (AFP)

At least four people have died and 32 were injured when a 6.2-magnitude earthquake rocked Indonesia's Sumatra island, with residents shuttling loved ones to safety as buildings crumbled around them.

The local Public Health Center said in a statement on Friday that four people died, including a child.

The quake came just minutes after a less violent tremor as terrified residents had begun evacuating their houses.

Irpanda, a resident of Pasaman city, told Metro TV that he felt both the first, recorded at 5.0 by USGS, and second tremors.

"At first, the quake only lasted for a few seconds. People fled their homes and buildings nearby were swaying," he said.

"But then another quake happened and it was so strong. More people fled their houses," he said, adding patients at a local hospital were moved outside.

The quake hit the island's north at a depth of 12 kilometres (7.5 miles), about 70 kilometres from the town of Bukittinggi in West Sumatra province, according to the United States Geological Survey.

Indonesia's meteorological agency BMKG warned people to stay away from slopes over fears of landslides at the peak of the rainy season.

The quake was felt in the neighbouring provinces of Riau and North Sumatra and as far away as Malaysia and Singapore. No tsunami warning has been issued.

Tremors felt in Singapore, Malaysia

Images shared with AFP from Pasaman city, near the quake's epicentre, showed partially collapsed houses with bricks lying on the ground and holes in the walls.

Television footage showed patients being wheeled out of a hospital in West Sumatra's provincial capital Padang.

"The mayor called and ordered all second and third floors in every building should be vacated," said Alim Bazar, head of the disaster mitigation agency of Pasaman.

Tremors were also felt in Singapore, witnesses and police said.

The police and emergency services "have received several calls from the public reporting these tremors", police added.

One Singapore resident told AFP he felt a slight shake at home which left him dizzy, while state broadcaster CNA showed a video of ceiling lamps swaying at a highrise apartment.

Malaysia's meteorological department said in a tweet that "vibrations" were felt on the peninsula's western states.

READ MORE: 

Deadly quake hits Indonesia's Java island, no tsunami warning

Deadly earthquakes rock Indonesia's Sumatra island

 

Quake rattles Indonesia's Sumatra island, killing at least 7 people
Yesterday 
© Reuters/ANTARA FOTO


JAKARTA (Reuters) - A magnitude 6.1 earthquake killed at least seven people and injured dozens more when it struck inland near the western coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island on Friday, with tremors also felt in neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore, officials said.

The quake caused residents to flee buildings in some areas and triggered evacuations nearly 400km (250 miles) away in Malaysia.

"We continue to monitor and advise people to remain on alert," Dwikorita Karnawati, the head of Indonesia's geophysics agency BMKG, told MetroTV. The agency initially put the magnitude at 6.2.

The disaster mitigation agency said seven were killed and 85 were injured. Its chief said some buildings, including a government office, homes and a bank sustained damage.

A hospital was evacuated in West Pasaman, about 17 km (10.6 miles) from the epicentre, while a witness said residents in other areas panicked as the earthquake shook buildings for over a minute, rattling glass windows and furniture.

"People gathered outside their homes and workplaces. They were scared of the tremors. Cables were shaking," said Frans Kiky Nainggolan, a shopkeeper living in Riau province on Sumatra.

Authorities in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur received calls about tremors felt in the city, though there had been no reports of injuries or damage.

"I felt the tremors for one to two minutes...We evacuated fast and others from another floor also," said Hilfa Akmal, who lives on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.

Singapore police said on Twitter they had also received calls from people reporting tremors, though there were no reports of injuries.

Indonesia suffers frequent earthquakes, straddling the so-called "Pacific Ring of Fire", a seismically active zone where different plates of the earth's crust meet.

The fault along Sumatra island can be particularly active and dangerous. In 2004, a massive 9.1 magnitude quake and a tsunami off the northern tip of Sumatra killed 226,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other countries.

(Reporting by Angie Teo, Fransiska Nangoy, Stanley Widianto, Bernadette Christina; Additional reporting by Rozanna Latiff in Kuala Lumpur and Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore; Editing by Ed Davies and Kanupriya Kapoor)