FREEDOM OF THE PRESS REPRESSED
Moroccan lawmakers denounce European Parliament criticism






Morocco Lawmakers convene during a session denouncing a European Parliament resolution, in the Moroccan parliament in Rabat, Monday, Jan. 23, 2023. Morocco’s parliament announced it would re-evaluate its partnership with the European Parliament after a recent resolution criticized press freedom in Morocco.

 (AP Photo/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Mon, January 23, 2023 at 12:52 PM MST·3 min read

RABAT, Morocco (AP) — The Moroccan Parliament decided Monday to reconsider its ties with the European Parliament and subject them to a comprehensive evaluation after the EU legislature criticized the state of press freedoms in Morocco.

The decision followed an extraordinary joint plenary session of Morocco's two houses of Parliament in Rabat on Monday that was convened to address the European Parliament's resolution from last week.

The Moroccan legislators called the resolution an unacceptable attack on the kingdom’s sovereignty and the independence and sanctity of its judicial institutions, according to a joint parliamentary statement read out by the speaker of the House of Representatives, Rachid Talbi Alami.

Last week, EU legislators approved a non-binding resolution calling on Moroccan authorities to improve their respect of freedom of expression and media freedom.

The resolution said press freedom in the North African kingdom has been “continuously deteriorating,” and called for “a fair trial with all due process guarantees” for imprisoned journalists, including Omar Radi, Soulaimane Raissouni and Taoufik Bouachrine.

Such resolutions do not force EU member states to act, but are a broad indication of how the bloc of 450 million people feels about certain issues. The vote was 356-32 with 42 abstentions.

The Moroccan Parliament said the resolution broke trust and hurt progress that had been made over many years. It described Morocco as a long-standing and trustworthy partner that plays a major role in protecting rights and freedoms and defending regional and international peace and security, according to the statement.

It added that the kingdom will never accept guardianship or lessons from anyone.

The Parliament defended judges’ decisions in the cases mentioned by the European resolution, saying they had nothing to do with journalism or freedom of speech but were about crimes such as sexual assault and taking advantage of people’s weaknesses.

Radi, a prominent investigative journalist and activist, was convicted in 2021 on charges of espionage and sexual assault and sentenced to six years in prison. Radi denies wrongdoing, and rights groups say the charges were politically motivated.

Radi was the subject of an Amnesty International report in June 2020 that said Moroccan authorities had unlawfully spied on the journalist through his phone by using sophisticated surveillance software. The Moroccan government disputed the claim.

Raissouni, also mentioned in the European resolution, was sentenced to five years in prison for sexual assault, and Bouachrine has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for sexual offenses, according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

The EU resolution condemns what it calls Morocco’s “misuse of allegations of sexual assault to deter journalists from performing their duties,” warning that such misuse “endangers women’s rights.”

It also raised concerns about allegations that Moroccan authorities sought to bribe European Parliament members as part of a broad influence-buying scandal also involving allegations against Qatar. Belgian prosecutors are investigating the allegations, part of a sweeping corruption scandal that has deeply shaken the EU.

The United States, a Moroccan ally, has in the past also voiced concerns about Morocco’s treatment of journalists.

NTSB details deadly accident involving airport ground worker

Mon, January 23, 2023 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A co-worker who saw an Alabama airport employee nearly knocked over by exhaust from a jet tried to warn her to stay back, but moments later the employee walked in front of one of the engines and was pulled in, killing her on Dec. 31, federal investigators said Monday.

Another ground worker on the other side of the plane had backed away after a pilot leaned out the window and said the engines were still running.

Throughout the incident, rotating beacons on the plane appeared to be illuminated, warning that engines were still running, investigators said.

The National Transportation Safety Board provided new details about the fatal accident involving an American Eagle jet in a preliminary report that relied on video surveillance and witness accounts. The board did not state a probable cause for the incident — that step usually follows an investigation that can take a year or longer.

The flight from Dallas to Montgomery Regional Airport with 63 passengers and crew was operated by Envoy Air, an affiliate of American Airlines.

An auxiliary power unit used to power the plane without using the engines was not working, according to the safety board, and pilots decided to leave both engines running for a two-minute engine cool-down period while they waited to for the plane to be connected to ground power.

The NTSB said the ground crew huddled shortly before the Embraer jet arrived at the gate to note that engines would remain running until the plane was connected to ground power, and the plane shouldn't be approached until the engines were shut down and pilots turned off the beacon light.

The board also noted that an American Eagle manual revised in July warns workers never to come within 15 feet of the front of an engine — an area called the “ingestion zone” — until the engine’s blades stop spinning.

This Is Fine: NASA Pauses Attempts to Fix Lucy's Pesky Solar Array


Kevin Hurler
Mon, January 23, 2023 

An illustration of the Lucy spacecraft with both of its circular solar arrays fully deployed.

NASA is taking a break from attempts to unfurl a finicky solar array on the Lucy spacecraft, claiming that the probe is too cold and that efforts at deploying the array could be more fruitful when Lucy is closer to the Sun in December 2024.

After launching in October 2021, one of the spacecraft’s two 24-foot-wide (7-meter-wide) solar arrays, which supplies power to Lucy, failed to fully unfurl, remaining stuck in an unlatched position. While NASA has made previous attempts to fully deploy the array, the agency announced in a blog post that the Lucy team will be suspending attempts to completely unfurl the array, saying the spacecraft is too cold.

That said, NASA’s not sweating the issue, and estimated in a blog post that the array is 98% deployed and will be able to withstand the remainder of Lucy’s 12-year mission to visit Jupiter’s mysterious Trojan asteroids, which orbit both ahead and behind the gas giant.

More on this story: 7 Things to Know About NASA’s First Mission to the Jupiter Trojan Asteroids

“Ground-based testing indicated that the deployment attempts were most productive while the spacecraft was warmer, closer to the Sun,” NASA communication officer Erin Morton wrote in the post last week. “As the spacecraft is currently 123 million miles (197 million kilometers) from the Sun (1.3 times farther from the Sun than the Earth) and moving away at 20,000 mph (35,000 km/hr), the team does not expect further deployment attempts to be beneficial under present conditions.”

NASA noticed issues with the solar array shortly after the mission’s launch, and deduced that it was a loss in tension in a lanyard used to unfurl the circular array. Lucy is now hurtling away from the Sun, getting colder and colder, but will return to Earth for a gravity assist in December 2024. At this time, the Lucy team hopes that spacecraft will be warm enough to try again.

In the meantime, the team behind Lucy will be collecting data on the misbehaving solar array to see how it operates at its slightly incapacitated state as Lucy continues its mission to visit Jupiter’s Trojan asteroid clusters.

George Santos Appears To Confirm Drag Photo: 'Sue Me For Having A Life'

Story by Josephine Harvey • Sunday - HuffPost

VIDEOS
Fresh Fibs From Lyin’ George Santos?
Duration 1:47
View on Watch

CNN' Sue me for having a life': Santos responds to drag photo
3:35

MSNBC What the George Santos drag queen denial reveals about the Republican Party
4:52

MSNBC  New twists in George Santos saga
7:44

Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) appeared to tell reporters on Saturday that he had dressed in drag but insisted that he was never a drag queen.

“No, I was not a drag queen in Brazil, guys. I was young and I had fun at a festival. Sue me for having a life,” Santos told reporters at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, according to CNN.

A Brazilian drag performer recently told journalists that Santos, who is gay, performed in Brazil as a drag queen named Kitara. She provided a picture of herself with another person in drag who she said was Santos at a parade in Rio de Janeiro.

In a tweet last week, Santos said the suggestion he was a drag performer was “categorically false.”

However, it appears Santos himself may have confirmed more than a decade ago that he performed in drag as a teenager in Brazil, Politico reported. According to a 2011 Wikipedia entry written by a user named Anthony Devolder ― one of Santos’ aliases ― Devolder started his “stage life at age 17 as [a] gay night club DRAG QUEEN.”

The embattled lawmaker is under multiple federal and local-level investigations as a tally of falsehoods about the background he sold to voters continues to grow. He has admitted to lying about his work experience, heritage and education and is also being probed over alleged campaign finance violations.

Though Republicans in Congress have done little to punish the lawmaker over the lies he told to get elected, appearances as a drag queen could cause a stir within the party, whose members have been targeting drag artists as part of their anti-LGBTQ hate campaign.

Reporters on Saturday also grilled Santos about his claim that his mother was inside the World Trade Center’s south tower during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Records have shown that she was in Brazil at the time and she died in 2016.

According to CNN, Santos ignored the questions and lashed out at reporters for asking them.


WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 05: U.S. Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY) watches proceedings in the House Chamber during the third day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 05, 2023 in Washington, DC. The House of Representatives is meeting to vote for the next Speaker after House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) failed to earn more than 218 votes on several ballots; the first time in 100 years that the Speaker was not elected on the first ballot. 

(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

 George Santos' Drag Queen Admission Is a Complete Disaster for Republicans

BY GIULIA CARBONARO 

NEWSWEEK

ON 1/23/23 

Newly elected Republican congressman George Santos continues to be a headache for his own party, as the representative finally confirmed he has performed in drag on at least one occasion.

The admission, made in an interview with ABC 7 on Saturday as the congressman returned home to New York over the weekend, came after Santos had repeatedly denied ever dressing in drag despite evidence to the contrary.

Several images and videos showing Santos in drag have recently resurfaced online and have been widely circulated on social media. But the New York congressman claimed he only ever dressed in drag once at a festival in Brazil.

"I was young and I had fun at a festival—sue me for having a life," he told ABC 7 on Saturday. Last week, he described claims he had performed in drag as "outrageous" and "categorically false."


While Santos' drag performances aren't an issue per se, the reports—as well as his denial of the claims and now his admission—are likely to put the Republican Party in a very awkward spot.

As part of a broader right-wing push against LGBTQ rights, several Republican lawmakers have recently tried to limit or ban drag performances—especially those with kids in the audience, like drag story hour—claiming the shows are inherently sexual or obscene and harmful to children.

In at least eight states—including Arizona, Idaho, Michigan, Montana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas—legislators have proposed anti-drag bills in recent months.

Republican lawmakers in Arizona and Oklahoma have this year proposed bills comparing drag shows to "adult cabaret performances," seeking to make it a misdemeanor or even a felony to hold a drag performance in a public space where children could be in attendance.

In this combination image, U.S. Rep.-elect George Santos (R-NY) in the House Chamber during the second day of elections for Speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Building on January 4, 2023, and a file photo of a drag queen. Santos has admitted to performing in drag, claims he had previously denied.

In November last year, a Texas lawmaker introduced a bill that would classify venues hosting drag performances as "sexually oriented" businesses and would make it a misdemeanor to admit anyone under 18 in the audience. In June last year, Michigan Republicans proposed a law allowing parents to sue their children's schools for hosting drag shows.

Attempts at criminalizing drag shows—performances which have long been celebrated by the LGBTQ community—and recent attacks on trans and LGBTQ rights by conservatives across the country have led to an increase in anti-LGBTQ sentiment, threats and violent protests against performers and the community at large.

Santos made history last month when he was elected as the GOP's first non-incumbent openly gay candidate to Congress. While many touted his victory as the sign of a new generation of LGBTQ conservatives emerging within the GOP, the revelation that he performed in drag hit the party at the core of what have been its recent battles against the LGTBQ community.

READ MORE George Santos clashes with drag queen, attacks "terrible" impersonations

And perhaps the biggest headache for the GOP is that Santos initially denied claims he had ever performed in drag, apparently not telling the truth about his past.

The congressman has recently come under fire for lying about several aspects of his career and biography during his electoral campaign, including graduating from college and working for two major Wall Street firms. Among other fabrications, Santos claimed that his mother was inside the World Trade Center on 9/11, while in reality she was living in Brazil.

While Santos appears to be in line with his party on many issues, including supporting anti-LGBTQ legislation like the Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill, the scandals that have recently hit the congressman may make him something of a liability for the GOP.

Several Republican members of Congress called for the congressman to resign following the exposure of his largely fictional résumé, but party leaders are standing by him, keen to avoid losing the narrow majority in the House.

Drag artist says George Santos was a left-wing Lula supporter in Brazil before going to the US and turning into 'this crazy thing'



Nicole Gaudiano, Virginia Alves
Mon, January 23, 2023 

Embattled Rep. George Santos campaigned as an ultra conservative.

A drag artist who knew him in the mid-2000s told Insider Santos supported Brazil's left-wing president then.

Santos now faces scrutiny over multiple fabrications about his past.

A Brazilian drag artist who says she knew George Santos when he dressed in drag in Brazil remembers the congressman during his younger years as a supporter of the country's progressive president, not as the ultra-conservative politician he says he is now.

The artist Eula Rochard made headlines for circulating a photo she says is of Santos dressed in a red dress.

But in an interview with Insider, she said what's puzzling to her is how Santos went from backing left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known as "Lula," to his current political incarnation.

Rochard said Santos supported Lula and then "goes to the US and turns into this crazy thing there. What craziness is this?"

Santos, who represents parts of Queens and Long Island, now embraces former President Donald Trump and policies considered anti-LGBTQ. He has accused the left of trying to "groom" kids, a conservative talking point equating gender and sexuality discussion with priming for sexual abuse.

But in the mid-2000s, Rochard supported a Brazilian president who one expert said had more in common, at least on economic policy, with the progressive politics of Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Rochard said many gay people living in the city of Niterói at the time supported Lula, a left-wing reformer who served as president of Brazil from 2003 to 2010 and who was just reelected for a third term, starting this month.

"Lula promised to make laws to help us gays. They were all Lulistas and Anthony was too because he hung out with us," Rochard told Insider, using the name Rochard says Santos used in Brazil, "Anthony."

Brazilian drag artist Eula Rochard holds a newspaper from 2008 that she says shows GOP Rep. George Santos in drag attire.Insider screen shot.

It's not surprising that Santos, as a gay person, would have supported Lula in the 2000s, said Rafael Ioris, a professor of Latin American history at the University of Denver. Lula represented the chance for the expansion of civil rights for minority groups in Brazil, and most members of the LGBTQ community were aligned with that perspective, he said.

It's hard to imagine a member of today's Republican Party in the US aligning with Lula, even as he became more moderate while governing. Lula is a former trade unionist who built his political career on policies similar to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party: a higher minimum wage and spending more on health care and education.

Sen. Bernie Sanders tweeted his congratulations to Lula in October when he defeated far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, whose supporters this month stormed government buildings, refusing to accept the results.

"It's a pretty dramatic shift," Ioris said of Santos. People change, he said, but "how did that happen?"

It's one of the many questions swirling around Santos, who is at the center of a scandal about lies on his resume, falsely claiming his mother died on 9/11, and unexplained wealth that helped finance his congressional bid.

Freelance journalist Marisa Kabas broke the story in a Substack post about Santos dressing in drag under the name Kitara in the mid-2000s. Rochard also told Kabas that Santos' friends in Brazil were left-leaning.

Santos, whose staff did not respond to a request for comment, at first denied that he performed as a drag queen but later told reporters, "I was young and I had fun at a festival. Sue me for having a life." More videos have since emerged, suggesting it was more than a one-off.

Rochard met Santos when he was about 17 years old and said she used to catch Santos in "little white lies." She said he wanted to be famous "no matter what."

"He wasn't a bad person," Rochard said. "He was a regular gay teenager in a country where there were no laws protecting gay people."

Wild New George Santos Claim Astonishes Rachel Maddow: 'Surreal Is 1 Word For It'

Lee Moran

Tue, January 24, 2023 

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Monday aired an exclusive video of serial liar Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) claiming to have been the subject of an assassination plot and the victim of a mugging on Fifth Avenue in New York.

“We have already suffered an attempt on my life, an assassination attempt, a threatening letter, having to have the police, a police escort standing in front of our house,” the then-congressman-elect told the Brazilian podcast “Radio Novelo Apresenta” in December.

Santos alleged his Florida home was vandalized in January 2021 “because we were at a Republican party” to celebrate the new year.

And he said two white men mugged him “in broad daylight” on Fifth Avenue in the summer of 2021, stealing his shoes, watch and briefcase.

“That wasn’t the worst of it,” he told the podcast host. “Nobody did anything. Nobody did anything. The fear is real. It’s surreal what we live through here.”

“Surreal is one word for it,” Maddow said after showing the footage.

After Santos won his congressional seat in the 2022 midterms, it emerged that he had fabricated much of his life story.

Santos did not respond to Maddow’s request for comment on the claim, she said. “We have also put in a records request with the NYPD for any police report that matches what Mr. Santos described,” the anchor added.

Watch the video here:

The women who lived as sex slaves to an Indian HINDU goddess

Aishwarya KUMAR
Sun, January 22, 2023 


Dedicated to an Indian goddess as a child, Huvakka Bhimappa's years of sexual servitude began when her uncle took her virginity, raping her in exchange for a saree and some jewellery.

Bhimappa was not yet 10 years old when she became a "devadasi" -- girls coerced by their parents into an elaborate wedding ritual with a Hindu deity, many of whom are then forced into illegal prostitution.

Devadasis are expected to live a life of religious devotion, forbidden from marrying other mortals, and forced at puberty to sacrifice their virginity to an older man, in return for money or gifts.

"In my case, it was my mother's brother," Bhimappa, now in her late 40s, told AFP.

What followed was years of sexual slavery, earning money for her family through encounters with other men in the name of serving the goddess.

Bhimappa eventually escaped her servitude but with no education, she earns around a dollar a day toiling in fields.

Her time as a devotee to the Hindu goddess Yellamma has also rendered her an outcast in the eyes of her community.

She had loved a man once, but it would have been unthinkable for her to ask him to marry.

"If I was not a devadasi, I would have had a family and children and some money. I would have lived well," she said.

Devadasis have been an integral part of southern Indian culture for centuries and once enjoyed a respectable place in society.

Many were highly educated, trained in classical dance and music, lived comfortable lives and chose their own sexual partners.

"This notion of more or less religiously sanctioned sexual slavery was not part of the original system of patronage," historian Gayathri Iyer told AFP.

BRITISH COLONIALISM

Iyer said that in the 19th century, during the British colonial era, the divine pact between devadasi and goddess evolved into an institution of sexual exploitation.

It now serves as a means for poverty-stricken families from the bottom of India's rigid caste hierarchy to relieve themselves of responsibility for their daughters.

The practice was outlawed in Bhimappa's home state of Karnataka back in 1982, and India's top court has described the devotion of young girls to temples as an "evil".

Campaigners, however, say that young girls are still secretly inducted into devadasi orders.

Four decades after the state ban, there are still more than 70,000 devadasis in Karnataka, India's human rights commission wrote last year.

- 'I was alone' -

Girls are commonly seen as burdensome and costly in India due to the tradition of wedding dowries.

By forcing daughters to become devadasis, poorer families gain a source of income and avoid the costs of marrying them off.

Many households around the small southern town of Saundatti -- home to a revered Yellamma temple -- believe that having a family member in the order can lift their fortunes or cure the illness of a loved one.

It was at this temple that Sitavva D. Jodatti was enjoined to marry the goddess when she was eight years old.

Her sisters had all married other men, and her parents decided to dedicate her to Yellamma in order to provide for them.

"When other people get married, there is a bride and a groom. When I realised I was alone, I started crying," Jodatti, 49, told AFP.

Her father eventually fell ill, and she was pulled out of school to engage in sex work and help pay for his treatment.

"By the age of 17, I had two kids," she said.

Rekha Bhandari, a fellow former devadasi, said they had been subjected to a practice of "blind tradition" that had ruined their lives.

She was forced into the order after the death of her mother and was 13 when a 30-year-old man took her virginity. She fell pregnant soon after.

"A normal delivery was difficult. The doctor yelled at my family, saying that I was too young to give birth," the 45-year-old told AFP.

"I had no understanding."

- 'Many women have died' -

Years of unsafe sex exposed many devadasis to sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.

"I know of women who are infected and now it has passed on to their children," an activist who works with devadasis, who asked not to be named, told AFP.

"They hide it and live with it in secrecy. Many women have died."

Parents are occasionally prosecuted for allowing their daughters to be inducted as devadasis, and women who leave the order are given meagre government pensions of 1,500 rupees ($18) per month.

Nitesh Patil, a civil servant who administers Saundatti, told AFP that there had been no "recent instances" of women being dedicated to temples.

India's rights commission last year ordered Karnataka and several other Indian states to outline what they were doing to prevent the practice, after a media investigation found that devadasi inductions were still widespread.

The stigma around their pasts means women who leave their devadasi order often endure lives as outcasts or objects of ridicule, and few ever marry.

Many find themselves destitute or struggling to survive on poorly paid manual labour and farming work.

Jodatti now heads a civil society group which helped extricate the women AFP spoke to from their lives of servitude and provides support to former devadasis.

She said many of her contemporaries had several years ago become engrossed by the #MeToo movement and the personal revelations of celebrity women around the world that revealed them as survivors of sexual abuse.

"We watch the news and sometimes when we see famous people... we understand their situation is much like ours. They have suffered the same. But they continue to live freely," she said.

"We have gone through the same experience, but we don't get the respect they get.

"Devadasi women are still looked down upon."

ash/gle/mca/aha/dhc

AS CAPTAIN SIR RICHARD BURTON DOCUMENTED IN THE 19TH CENTURY BRITISH IMPERIALISM OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY PERVERTED INDIAN AND SOUTH ASIAN SEXUAL MORES AND DID SO WITH CODIFICATION INTO LAW SUCH AS FELONY OR EXECUTION FOR HOMOSEXULAITY

OUTLAW TIPPING AS A WAGE; $15 MINIMUM
Is tipping getting out of control? Many consumers say yes





Tipping Fatigue

A tipping option is displayed on a card reader at a restaurant in Schaumburg, Ill., Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. Tipping fatigue, it seems, is swarming America as more businesses adopt digital payment methods that automatically prompts customers to leave a gratuity. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

HALELUYA HADERO
Mon, January 23, 2023 

NEW YORK (AP) — Across the country, there’s a silent frustration brewing about an age-old practice that many say is getting out of hand: tipping.

Some fed-up consumers are posting rants on social media complaining about tip requests at drive-thrus, while others say they’re tired of being asked to leave a gratuity for a muffin or a simple cup of coffee at their neighborhood bakery. What’s next, they wonder -- are we going to be tipping our doctors and dentists, too?

As more businesses adopt digital payment methods, customers are automatically being prompted to leave a gratuity — many times as high as 30% — at places they normally wouldn't. And some say it has become more frustrating as the price of items has skyrocketed due to inflation, which eased to 6.5% in December but still remains painfully high.

“Suddenly, these screens are at every establishment we encounter. They're popping up online as well for online orders. And I fear that there is no end,” said etiquette expert Thomas Farley, who considers the whole thing somewhat of “an invasion.”

Unlike tip jars that shoppers can easily ignore if they don’t have spare change, experts say the digital requests can produce social pressure and are more difficult to bypass. And your generosity, or lack thereof, can be laid bare for anyone close enough to glance at the screen — including the workers themselves.

Dylan Schenker is one of them. The 38-year-old earns about $400 a month in tips, which provides a helpful supplement to his $15 hourly wage as a barista at Philadelphia café located inside a restaurant. Most of those tips come from consumers who order coffee drinks or interact with the café for other things, such as carryout orders. The gratuity helps cover his monthly rent and eases some of his burdens while he attends graduate school and juggles his job.

Schenker says it's hard to sympathize with consumers who are able to afford pricey coffee drinks but complain about tipping. And he often feels demoralized when people don’t leave behind anything extra — especially if they’re regulars.

“Tipping is about making sure the people who are performing that service for you are getting paid what they’re owed,” said Schenker, who’s been working in the service industry for roughly 18 years.

Traditionally, consumers have taken pride in being good tippers at places like restaurants, which typically pay their workers lower than the minimum wage in expectation they’ll make up the difference in tips. But academics who study the topic say many consumers are now feeling irritated by automatic tip requests at coffee shops and other counter service eateries where tipping has not typically been expected, workers make at least the minimum wage and service is usually limited.

“People do not like unsolicited advice,” said Ismail Karabas, a marketing professor at Murray State University who studies tipping. “They don’t like to be asked for things, especially at the wrong time.”

Some of the requests can also come from odd places. Clarissa Moore, a 35-year-old who works as a supervisor at a utility company in Pennsylvania, said even her mortgage company has been asking for tips lately. Typically, she’s happy to leave a gratuity at restaurants, and sometimes at coffee shops and other fast-food places when the service is good. But, Moore said she believes consumers shouldn’t be asked to tip nearly everywhere they go — and it shouldn’t be something that’s expected of them.

“It makes you feel bad. You feel like you have to do it because they’re asking you to do it,” she said. “But then you have to think about the position that puts people in. They’re paying for something that they really don’t want to pay for, or they’re tipping when they really don’t want to tip — or can’t afford to tip — because they don’t want to feel bad.”

In the book “Emily Post’s Etiquette,” authors Lizzie Post and Daniel Post Senning advise consumers to tip on ride-shares, like Uber and Lyft, as well as food and beverages, including alcohol. But they also write that it’s up to each person to choose how much to tip at a café or a take-out food service, and that consumers shouldn’t feel embarrassed about choosing the lowest suggested tip amount, and don't have to explain themselves if they don’t tip.

Digital payment methods have been around for a number of years, though experts say the pandemic has accelerated the trend towards more tipping. Michael Lynn, a consumer behavior professor at Cornell University, said consumers were more generous with tips during the early days of the pandemic in an effort to show support for restaurants and other businesses that were hard hit by COVID-19. Many people genuinely wanted to help out and felt sympathetic to workers who held jobs that put them more at risk of catching the virus, Lynn said.

Tips at full-service restaurants grew by 25.3% in the third quarter of 2022, while gratuities at quick or counter service restaurants went up 16.7% compared to the same time in 2021, according to Square, one of the biggest companies operating digital payment methods. Data provided by the company shows continuous growth for the same period since 2019.

As tip requests have become more common, some businesses are advertising it in their job postings to lure in more workers even though the extra money isn’t always guaranteed.

In December, Starbucks rolled out a new tipping option on credit and debit card transactions at its stores, something a group organizing the company's hourly workers had called for. Since then, a Starbucks spokesperson said nearly half of credit and debit card transactions have included a gratuity, which - along with tips received through cash and the Starbucks app - are distributed based on the number of hours a barista worked on the days the tips were received.

Karabas, the Murray State professor, says some customers, like those who’ve worked in the service industry in the past, want to tip workers at quick service businesses and wouldn’t be irritated by the automatic requests. But for others, research shows they might be less likely to come back to a particular business if they are feeling irritated by the requests, he said.

The final tab might also impact how customers react. Karabas said in the research he did with other academics, they manipulated the payment amounts and found that when the check was high, consumers no longer felt as irritated by the tip requests. That suggests the best time for a coffee shop to ask for that 20% tip, for example, might be on four or five orders of coffee, not a small cup that costs $4.

Some consumers might continue to shrug off the tip requests regardless of the amount.

“If you work for a company, it's that company's job to pay you for doing work for them,” said Mike Janavey, a footwear and clothing designer who lives in New York City. “They're not supposed to be juicing consumers that are already spending money there to pay their employees.”

Schenker, the Philadelphia barista, agrees — to a certain extent.

“The onus should absolutely be on the owners, but that doesn’t change overnight," he said. "And this is the best thing we have right now.”

The Road To Decarbonization: Ammonia-Powered Trucks Take the Lead

Editor OilPrice.com
Sun, January 22, 2023 at 1:00 PM MST·3 min read

This week, the world’s first ammonia-powered, zero-emissions semi truck was unveiled, potentially signaling the dawn of a new era for the shipping and transportation industry. Like Tesla’s semi truck, Brooklyn company Amogy’s ammonia-powered truck holds about 900 kWh of energy. Unlike the Tesla semi, it takes just about eight minutes to refuel. And, according to Amogy, their new model has five times the system-level energy density of batteries.

For some time now, hydrogen fuel cells have been touted as the future power source of the shipping industry, but ammonia has several benefits in comparison to hydrogen. For one thing, it exists as a liquid at room temperatures, making shipping and storage a whole lot easier for ammonia than hydrogen. “Hydrogen either needs to be heavily compressed to around 700 bar, or else kept cryogenically cooled as a liquid, to just 20.28 K (−252.87 °C; −423.17 °F),” a recent report by New Atlas explained, before adding that, “both of these are energy-intensive processes.”

Like hydrogen, ammonia is only as clean as the energy that’s used to make it. But green ammonia holds great promise for helping to decarbonize some of the most fuel-intensive and high emissions industries that our economy is built on. At present, transportation is the single highest emitting sector in the United States, representing 27% of overall greenhouse gas emissions according to figures from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). And over a quarter of transportation emissions come from medium- and heavy-duty trucks.

Avoiding the worst impacts of climate change will require that the United States, the country with the second-most greenhouse gas emissions in the world after China, makes good on its climate pledges. That will require a major transformation of the transportation industry on a pretty short timeline. The EPA has been wrestling with how to do this.




At the beginning of last year, the EPA proposed two different pathways to drastically decreasing nitrous oxide [N2O] emissions in the trucking industry: “a two-step process with standards getting progressively tighter in model years (MY) 2027 and 2031, or a one-step standard in 2027 that would be less aggressive in cutting emissions.” 

N2O is a greenhouse gas that accounts for just 7% of emissions, but which stays in the atmosphere for over 100 years and has a warming impact 300 times stronger than carbon dioxide. The new EPA standards are more than 80% stronger than the 2021 iteration, and the EPA says that they will increase the lifespan of governed vehicles by 1.5 to 2.5 times, and yield emissions warranties that are from 2.8 to 4.5 times longer than current standards.

This new ruling has caused significant unease in the trucking industry, according to transportation and shipping news outlet Freight Waves. The Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA) President Jed Mandel says that the EPA’s new ruling “is very stringent and will be challenging to implement” and that “ultimately, the success or failure of this rule hinges on the willingness and ability of trucking fleets to invest in purchasing the new technology to replace their older, higher-emitting vehicles.”

While every advance in low-emissions trucking technology and infrastructure is an exciting and important step for the imperative of decarbonizing national and global supply chains, the Tesla Semi and the Amogy ammonia-powered truck are all but useless if they’re not affordable and accessible for truckers and trucking companies. These technologies are still in their nascency, however, and the hope is that with continued improvements and targeted policy measures they can soon be scalable enough to make a change that helps the planet without hurting the truckers that make it run.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

What did people eat 9,000 years ago? Hunting cave reveals glimpses of diets in Mexico

Moira Ritter
Mon, January 23, 2023 

Keto. Mediterranean. Vegan. Vegetarian. Pescatarian. The list of diets people follow in 2023 goes on and on and on.

Now, archaeologists in Mexico might have a new addition: the prehistoric hunter-gatherer diet.

Buried beneath thousands of years of sediment, experts recently unearthed the remains of several ancient groups dating back up to 9,000 years, according to a news release from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History.

Carving debris, including tools used by ancient groups, were buried beneath the cave’s floor.

The Cueva de la Paloma — which is about 300 miles southeast of Mexico City in the Oaxaca Valley — was first inhabited by hunter-gatherers on a seasonal basis as early as 7516 B.C., evidence shows. Archaeologists unearthed debris from basic tools, givings greater insight to how hunter-gatherers collected their meals.

Archaeologists unearthed four distinct layers of sediment spanning several thousand years.

Cave paintings covered one of the cave’s walls.

There were also traces of charred birds and turtles that had been exposed to fire and stoves with the remains of plants, the institute said. Of the plant remains found, archaeologists have identified pollen from about 40 mostly wild species, including yucca, chile and guava.

Pumpkin seed remains were among the diet indicators found inside the cave.

A hearth with charred botanical remains inside, which experts believe to be agave leaves.

More than 3,500 years later — between 1276 to 1390 A.D. — the cave was used by another group of Mexican people: the Zapotecs.

The Zapotecs used the cave to leave offerings, including this pitcher.

Also known as the “cloud people,” the Zapotecs used the cave to leave offering, such as a set of miniature vessels and an urn-like pitcher discovered by archaeologists, according to the institute.

Google Translate was used to translate the news release from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH).

Answer Man: As Duke builds renewable energy, how long do solar panels, wind turbines last?

Andrew Jones, Asheville Citizen Times
Tue, January 24, 2023 

ASHEVILLE - Power is infinite, right? Electricity doesn’t run out unless you stop paying the bill, right?

Not right. Today’s question probes something we often forget about: How long does power-providing equipment last? Moreover, with state and nationwide moves toward renewable energy, how long do emerging energy tools last?

Got a question for Answer Man or Answer Woman? Email Interim Executive Editor Karen Chávez at KChavez@citizentimes.com and your question could appear in an upcoming column.

Question: Duke Energy in our area is increasing the amount of solar energy that they are producing. Duke also has indicated that it plans to produce wind turbine energy offshore on the North Carolina coastline. What is the life expectancy of solar panels and wind generators before they need to be replaced? What types of routine maintenance is required to maximize the amount of energy generated?

Answer: There is a little variation, but there are also some solid ranges.

More:  

Rallygoers demand a better carbon reduction plan from Duke Energy before, during hearing

Related:Answer Woman: Can Asheville's water system support all its new development?

More:Answer Man: New poles and pads at Duke Energy site? DOT tree trimming?

Let’s hone in specifically on Duke Energy’s answers to these questions, starting with solar power.

The company has a helpful crash course on renewable energy maintenance titled, fittingly, “Sustainable Life-Cycle Management for Renewables.”

DESS eBook Sustainable Life... by Andrew Jones

“The typical lifespan of solar PV panels is approximately 20-30 years,” Duke’s e-book explains. “The life span for solar power inverters is upwards of 10 years.”

To be clear, “PV” stands for photovoltaic and a panel is what you picture in your head when you think of solar power.

You may not be familiar with “power inverters,” so allow the U.S. Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy to explain:

“An inverter is one of the most important pieces of equipment in a solar energy system. It’s a device that converts direct current (DC) electricity, which is what a solar panel generates, to alternating current (AC) electricity, which the electrical grid uses.”

Related:Buncombe votes for expansion of NC's largest public solar cluster, zero-emission vehicles

So, inverters need to be replaced more often than panels and solar power owners are looking at a few decades before the equipment may need complete replacement.

However, that’s not the only option.

According to Duke’s e-book, there is “decommissioning,” which means removing and entirely replacing a system in some cases and there is “recommissioning” or “repowering” which is essentially maintenance.

“Recommissioning or repowering is the process of finding and replacing underperforming – and potentially non-working – components of existing solar PV and/or battery energy storage systems,” the e-book explains. “If the system is failing systemically, a full system replacement is probably the right way to go. However, most systems are in better condition than their performance might suggest.”

Duke extols the “value” of “great maintenance schedules” that include cleaning solar panels and taking advantage of equipment warranties.

Then there’s the wind turbine, a monster of a tool for generating clean energy and the star of some of Duke’s sustainability marketing.

Related:Answer Man: Will mail distribution facility return to Asheville? 2020 mail-in ballots?

Related:Answer Woman: What happened to the city's $74M in bond projects? 2023 deadline?

Again, to narrow the scope here, let’s focus on Duke and one of its latest endeavors, an offshore wind energy lease in the Carolina Long Bay, just southeast of Wilmington. A Duke subsidiary in May 2022 was named a provisional winner of a $155 bid to lease turbines there.

According to a news release, the company could begin “site assessment” there in 2023 and “could support up to 1.6 gigawatts of potential offshore wind energy, enough to power nearly 375,000 homes.”

Fully assembled wind turbines undergoing tests and adjustments before being towed out to the site of the Hywind Tampen wind farm, about 85 miles off the Norwegian coast.

Construction will take at least 10 years, Duke estimates.

The turbines at this site could have roughly 15-megawatt output. It’s not immediately clear what brand of turbine this project will use, but turbines have a roughly 20-30-year lifecycle.

Page 19 of a report titled “Building North Carolina's Offshore Wind Supply Chain” references a 30-year lifespan.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management concurs.

In a helpful overview of offshore wind farms titled “Navigational, design, and decommissioning concerns for offshore wind facilities: Fact Sheet,” the BOEM addresses the lifespan question.

“A typical offshore wind lease is valid for approximately 30 years,” the fact sheet states. “Before facilities may be installed under an approved Construction and Operations Plan, a lessee must provide financial assurance that covers the decommissioning of all structures, cables, and obstructions.”

Andrew Jones is an investigative reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at @arjonesreports on Facebook and Twitter, 828-226-6203 or arjones@citizentimes.com. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: As Duke Energy grows, how long do solar systems, wind farms last?

Giant Wind Turbines Keep Mysteriously Falling Over. This Shouldn't Be Happening.

Tim Newcomb

POP MECH
Mon, January 23, 2023 



Turbine failures are on the uptick across the world, sometimes with blades falling off or even full turbine collapses.

A recent report says production issues may be to blame for the mysterious increase in failures.

Turbines are growing larger as quality control plans get smaller.

The taller the wind turbine, the harder they fall. And they sure are falling.

Wind turbine failures are on the uptick, from Oklahoma to Sweden and Colorado to Germany, with all three of the major manufacturers admitting that the race to create bigger turbines has invited manufacturing issues, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Multiple turbines that are taller than 750 feet are collapsing across the world, with the tallest—784 feet in stature—falling in Germany in September 2021. To put it in perspective, those turbines are taller than both the Space Needle in Seattle and the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. Even smaller turbines that recently took a tumble in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, England, and Colorado were about the height of the Statue of Liberty.

Turbines are falling for the three largest players in the industry: General Electric, Vestas, and Siemens Gamesa. Why? “It takes time to stabilize production and quality on these new products,” Larry Culp, GE CEO, said last October on an earning call, according to Bloomberg. “Rapid innovation strains manufacturing and the broader supply chain.”

Without industrywide data chronicling the rise—and now fall—of turbines, we’re relying on industry experts to note the flaws in the wind farming. “We’re seeing these failures happening in a shorter time frame on the new turbines,” Fraser McLachlan, CEO of insurer GCube Underwriting, told Bloomberg, “and that’s quite concerning.”

The push to produce bigger wind-grabbing turbines has sped production of the growing apparatuses. Bloomberg reports that Siemens has endured quality control issues on a new design, Vestas has seen project delays and quality challenges, and GE has seen an uptick in warranty costs and repairs. And this all comes along with uncertain supply chain issues and fluctuating material pricing.

With heights stretching taller than 850 feet, blades 300 feet long, and energy generation abilities ratcheting up accordingly, the bigger the turbine, the more energy it can capture. But the bigger the turbine, the more that can go wrong—and the farther it falls.