UK
Ministers’ attacks on civil servants ‘damaged Whitehall staff retention’

Rowena Mason and Matthew Weaver
Mon, 14 August 2023

Ministers’ disparaging public attacks on civil servants have damaged staff retention and morale in Whitehall, the government’s ethics watchdog has said.

Government officials have been accused of being “obstructive and furthering their own agenda”, according to the committee on standards in public life, which pointed to an erosion of the normal conventions that govern civil servants’ relationship with ministers.

In its submission to a parliamentary inquiry on Whitehall leadership and reform, the committee – which is chaired by a former head of MI5, Jonathan Evans – said ministers should be mindful of the power imbalance as public disparagement had consequences.

It also said there had also been a rise in anonymous briefings from within the civil service, with some officials opposed to the government’s “willingness to test the boundaries of legality”.

“In recent times there has been an erosion of the conventions that have governed the relationship, with public criticism of civil servants becoming increasingly disparaging in tone and an increase in anonymous briefings by civil servants to the media,” the committee said in evidence to the Commons public administration committee.

“During and after our review, we heard examples of low civil service morale. There will be a range of factors to explain this, but public accusations of civil servants being obstructive and furthering their own agenda is undoubtedly damaging for staff retention and is unlikely to attract the very best people to work in the public sector.”

The submission outlined findings from the committee’s report on leadership in public life, published earlier this year, which said it had heard that the government’s “willingness to test the boundaries of legality in challenging policy areas” had been difficult for some civil servants who had “struggled to reconcile their work with their own personal values”.

It said ministers were right to expect high standards of their officials. It had been suggested to the committee that in some cases civil servants may mistake a feeling of “dislike or discomfort” over policy choices for ethical considerations that could constitute a breach of the civil service code, the submission said.

The watchdog said civil servants must serve the government of the day impartially and if they felt unable to do that they must move roles or departments or leave.

The committee was set up in 1994 under John Major. It advises the prime minister on upholding standards of conduct across public life in England.

Its members include Lady Arden, a former supreme court justice, Dame Margaret Beckett, the former Labour minister, Ian Blackford, the former Westminster leader of the SNP, Lady Finn, a Conservative peer and former deputy chief of staff to Boris Johnson, Ewen Fergusson, a City lawyer, and Prof Gillian Peele.

Evans is nearing the end of his five-year term at the helm, telling Sky News recently that he thought there should be more transparency about the source of political donations and suggesting a ceiling on the amount MPs can earn from second jobs.

The inquiry on civil service leadership and reform was opened by the Commons public administration committee after a torrid period for relations between ministers and Whitehall, with relations hitting a low last year.

In February 2022, Jacob Rees-Mogg, then the Cabinet Office minister, outlined huge job cuts and left “sorry you were out” notes on the desks of civil servants working from home. Since leaving office, Rees-Mogg has claimed “idle”, “workshy and snowflakey” civil servants frustrated his efforts to scrap EU laws.

In April this year, Dominic Raab quit as deputy prime minister after he was found to have acted in an intimidating way towards civil servants. He then claimed to have been the subject of a concerted campaign by unionised officials trying to undermine him.

Relations have also been strained by protracted pay disputes and strikes, as well as the sacking of Tom Scholar as the Treasury’s permanent secretary by Liz Truss during her brief time as prime minister.

Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, defended the civil service in July, saying criticism of officials had been “insulting and dehumanising”. He said any minister labelling the civil service with terms such as “the blob” would be engaged in “self-defeating cowardice”.

Case, appointed under Boris Johnson, said relations had improved under Rishi Sunak since November but added: “The last five years or so have seen, I think, an increased number of attacks on civil servants individually and collectively by significant political figures which has undoubtedly undermined the good functioning of government.”

Some quarters of Whitehall previously felt Case failed to defend them sufficiently after Raab’s attack on “unionised officials” and when some civil servants were under fire during the Partygate scandal.

Earlier this year, the Institute for Government found that political turmoil had contributed to record levels of staff turnover and declining morale in the civil service.

Lucille Thirlby, the assistant general secretary of the FDA union, said: “Civil servants have no right of reply to the accusations levelled at them by certain politicians, and also have no effective means of raising concerns about ministerial behaviour when the prime minister remains judge and jury on any complaints.

“Our own survey of senior civil servants found over 17% had witnessed unacceptable behaviour by a minister, across 20 government departments, and nearly 70% said they did not have confidence that, if they raised a complaint, it would be dealt with fairly.”

She said ministers must “heed the warning and seek to rebuild trust with civil servants, end the negative briefings, and ensure the civil service is able to recruit and retain the most talented people to deliver our vital public services.”

Mark Serwotka, the general secretary of the PCS union, the biggest civil service union, said: “The best way for ministers to improve the morale, efficiency and productivity of civil servants is to treat them with the respect they deserve and give them a fair pay rise to help them through the cost of living crisis and beyond.”

Asked about the committee’s submission, a government spokesperson said: “There is and always should be a professional and productive relationship between ministers and civil servants. The civil service continues to work closely and collaboratively with ministers to deliver for the public on the government’s priorities.”

Girl, 13, gives birth after she was raped and denied abortion in Mississippi


Lauren Aratani
Mon, 14 August 2023 

Photograph: Rogelio V Solis/AP

A 13-year-old girl in Mississippi gave birth to a boy after she was raped as well as impregnated by a stranger – and then was unable to get an abortion, according to a Time magazine report published on Monday.

The mother of the girl, who uses the pseudonym Ashley in the report, was looking to get an abortion for her daughter but was told the closest abortion provider was in Chicago – a drive of more than nine hours from their home in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Related: ‘Ohio saw through the con’: abortion rights advocates celebrate Issue 1 result


Ashley’s mother, referred to as Regina in the report, told Time that the cost of getting an abortion in Chicago was too expensive when considering the price of travel, taking time off work and getting the abortion for her daughter.

“I don’t have the funds for all this,” Regina told Time.

The report is the latest in a series of horrific personal accounts that have surfaced after the US supreme court overturned the nationwide abortion access rights which had been established by the Roe v Wade precedent. Since the decision, titled Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 14 state laws banning abortion have gone into effect, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights.

The women’s health clinic that was at the center of the case was the last abortion provider in Mississippi until it closed last summer after the Dobbs decision.

Last summer, just a week after the ruling, a local newspaper in Ohio reported that a 10-year-old who was raped had to travel to Indiana for an abortion because of restrictions in her state. A man was found guilty last month of raping and impregnating the girl in that case, and he received a sentence of life imprisonment.

Other stories detail how women nearly died because doctors had to wait until their life was at risk to perform an abortion – or that many women now have to travel long distances to get any kind of reproductive healthcare. An estimated 25 million women ages 15 to 33 live in states that have abortion restrictions.

With respect to Monday’s Time report, Ashley discovered she was pregnant after her mother took her to the hospital for uncontrollable vomiting. Regina noticed that Ashley was behaving differently, staying in her room when she used to enjoy going outside to record TikTok dances. Upon receiving bloodwork showing Ashley was pregnant, the hospital contacted the police.

“What have you been doing?” a nurse asked Ashley at that time, according to the report. The hospital ultimately directed Ashley to the Clarksdale Women’s Clinic, which provides OB-GYN services. The clinic did not respond to requests from the Guardian for comment.

“It was surreal for her,” Dr Erica Balthrop, Ashley’s physician, told Time. “She just had no clue.”

Before Dobbs, Balthrop could have directed Regina to a Memphis abortion clinic that was a 90-minute drive north, or to Jackson Women’s Health, which is a 2.5-hour drive south. But Mississippi – along with all the states surrounding it – has banned abortion.

Mississippi, along with many other states that also ban abortions, technically make exceptions for when the pregnancy is from rape or is life-threatening. But abortions granted under these exceptions are extremely rare and poorly tracked.

In January, the New York Times reported that Mississippi made two exceptions since the state’s abortion ban went into effect. The state requires that a rape be reported to law enforcement in order to qualify for a legal abortion.

Two out of three sexual assault cases in the US are not reported to the police, according to Rainn, or the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, an anti-sexual assault nonprofit. Even if an exception is made, a person must travel out of their state to get an abortion procedure if their state bans it.

The laws exacerbate longstanding health inequalities in Mississippi, where Black women are four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications compared with white women, according to the state’s health department. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 60% of women who seek abortions are people of color and about half live below the federal poverty line.

Regina said she filed a complaint with the Clarksdale police department after she learned Ashley was pregnant. She told Time that her daughter ultimately opened up about what happened: a man came into their front yard while she was making TikToks outside while her uncle and sibling were inside and assaulted her. Ashley said she did not know who the man was and that no one witnessed the attack.

The police department confirmed to Time that a report had been filed. But the agency declined to comment publicly on the case since it involved a minor.

After 39 weeks of pregnancy, Ashley gave birth to a boy, whom they nicknamed Peanut. Ashley told Time the birth was “painful”.

“This situation hurts the most because it was an innocent child doing what children do, playing outside, and it was my child,” Regina told Time. “It still hurts, and is going to always hurt.”

A 13-year-old who couldn't get an abortion is now starting 7th grade as a mom, report says

Gabby Landsverk
Mon, 14 August 202



A young girl in Mississippi gave birth after being sexually assaulted by a stranger outside her home, Time reported.


Because of the state's strict abortion laws, the nearest abortion provider was 9 hours away.


Her doctor said the girl had "no clue" what was happening and didn't understand pregnancy.

A 13-year-old from Clarksdale, Mississippi will start seventh grade as a new mom after being sexually assaulted and unable to get access to an abortion, Time reported.

The girl, referred to by the pseudonym Ashley in the report to protect her privacy, was raped in autumn of 2022 and told no one for weeks, her mother Regina (also a pseudonym) told Time.

Regina had noticed something was wrong when Ashley lost interest in her usual hobbies, like TikTok dances, and had symptoms such as nausea. Regina said she hadn't even talked to her daughter about how babies are made because she felt Ashley was too young to understand, according to Time.


Despite severe trauma that left Ashley almost unable to speak, Regina later learned that Ashley had been assaulted by an unknown man while she had been outside their house.
Ashley was already 10 weeks pregnant by the time her pregnancy was discovered

Regina told Time that she brought Ashley to the emergency room on January 11, 2023 because she couldn't stop vomiting. While they were there, bloodwork showed that Ashley was 10 or 11 weeks pregnant.

"She just had no clue," Dr. Erica Balthrop, a provider at the Clarksdale Woman's Clinic and the OB-GYN on call, told Time.

Regina was told that the closest abortion provider was a nine-hour drive away in Chicago. But the family couldn't afford the cost of gas, food, or lodging along with the procedure itself and time off work to complete the journey.

Instead, the family did their best to disguise the fact that Ashley was pregnant with oversized clothes until it was too obvious to hide. Then they removed her from school, saying she needed surgery for an ulcer, Time reported.

Ashley completed sixth grade on her laptop, and gave birth to her son, nicknamed Peanut, on a Saturday when she was 39 weeks pregnant. Her mother told Time that she's working to get Ashley permission to start seventh grade from home, too.
Strict abortion laws disproportionately affect high-risk mothers, experts say

Mississippi's abortion laws are some of the most restrictive in the nation. On paper, they allow exceptions in the case of rape or if the mother's life is at risk, but the process for obtaining exemptions isn't clear, Time reported.

Mississippi also has high rates of poverty and maternal mortality. Black women in Mississippi are four times as likely to die from pregnancy-related complications as white women, according to state Department of Health data. And pregnancy-related health complications are on the rise as a result of stricter bans on abortion, the Washington Post reported.

There are also few providers available in regions of the country where states have banned abortion, including Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Alabama, following the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

Meanwhile, stricter laws are leading to significantly more births. But most people don't even realize they're pregnant until week seven, which is already too late to get an abortion in a dozen states.

A Mississippi Nurse Questioned 13-Year-Old's Responsibility After She Got Pregnant From Rape

Caitlin Cruz

JEZEBEL
Mon, August 14, 2023 

Close-up of examination table in doctor's office

A 13-year-old girl in Mississippi gave birth this month after she was raped last fall, and just weeks before she will start 7th grade. When the pregnancy was first discovered at an emergency room earlier this year, her mother told Time magazine that a nurse reportedly asked the child, “What have you been doing?”

Ashley (a pseudonym to protect her privacy), is Black, and her story illustrates the horrific effects of abortion bans in already disadvantaged areas. She was raped last fall while filming a TikTok video in the yard of her family’s house in Clarksdale, while her relatives were inside. Her mother, who goes by the pseudonym Regina said, according to Time, that Ashley said “a man came down the street and into the front yard, grabbed Ashley, and covered her mouth...He pulled her around to the side of the house and raped her” and that the “assailant was an adult, and that she didn’t know him. Nobody else witnessed the assault.”

At the next appointment, Regina broached the subject of abortion. But it was early 2023: The world of abortion access is the South was already at a humanitarian-level crisis. The closest abortion provider was in Chicago. “I don’t have the funds for all this,” Regina told Time, referencing the need to take off work, pay for gas, food and lodging—as well as the abortion.

Ashley and Regina’s position is horrifically not unique: There are nearly 2 million people of reproductive age who live in a county without abortion or maternity care access, according to a new analysis from ABC News and Boston’s Children’s Hospital. If you zoom out a bit, to include counties that only have “low access” to maternal healthcare, these healthcare deserts now include 3.7 million women.

Obviously, Ashely didn’t get the abortion; that’s why you’re reading this story. She joined the growing number of people who are simply unable to make true choices of bodily autonomy. Having a child—even as a teen—should be a choice. Instead, Ashley was raped and forced to become a mother at age 13.

Ashley’s story is the inverse of a 10-year-old Ohio girl who was raped by Gerson Fuentes in summer 2022. That girl was able to travel across state lines to Indiana to receive a medication abortion before she reached seven weeks. (Of course, she was forced to travel because Roe v. Wade was overturned, and her home state of Ohio implemented a six-week abortion ban shortly thereafter.) After the girl’s pregnancy from the rape was discovered, child protective services got involved. A child abuse doctor reached out to Dr. Caitlin Bernard, the abortion provider in Indiana. They made travel plans, and the girl received her abortion. Ashley was not so lucky.

She also experienced the all-too-common “adultification” bias, which treats Black children as more grown up than they are and, in this case, presumes immense responsibility when the nurse asked, “What have you been doing?”

Even though Regina filed a police report, and the family gave the name of a possible suspect, little has been done for Ashley’s case. Police only collected a DNA sample from the newborn child after Time made multiple inquiries. Time reported that the Clarksdale Police Chief Vincent Ramirez essentially shrugged when asked about the delay. “It’s a pretty high priority, as a juvenile,” he told the magazine. “Sometimes they slip a little bit because we’ve got a lot going on, but then they come back to it.”

This seems like a pretty big slip—especially because Ashley’s life has already been irrevocably changed.

UK
OPINION - Could voters see Rayner as a Trojan horse for the Left?

James Kirkup
Mon, 14 August 2023 

Deputy leader Angela Rayner with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer (Peter Byrne/PA) (PA Wire)

“John Prescott in a skirt.” That’s Angela Rayner’s well-practised line to describe her relationship with Sir Keir Starmer. The words are carefully chosen, intended to remind people of Tony Blair’s long-serving deputy, a word-mangling former trade unionist whose loyalty to Blair underpinned the New Labour project for more than a decade.

But Rayner isn’t Starmer’s Prescott. Her relationship with her leader is fated to be much more complicated. Prescott is 15 years older than Blair and abandoned any hope of leading Labour when the younger man beat him to the top job in 1994. Angela Rayner is 43, some 17 years younger than Starmer. Prescott saw his role as deputy leader and deputy prime minister as the end of his career. No one at Westminster thinks that this is Rayner’s last job.

The fact that she could one day take the top job means some tension between her and Starmer is inevitable. That tension is only heightened by the fact that Rayner is more charismatic and, frankly, interesting than her leader.

Labour’s deputy leaders are always important figures in the party because they’re not hired — or fired — by the leader but elected by the members. That means they have a mandate and a power base of their own. Such a power base needs to be carefully maintained though, for instance by making sure your allies and supporters get selected for winnable seats. Starmer’s team have been working hard to ensure such seats go to loyal, centrist allies, much to the chagrin of the Labour Left.

Some Left-wing Labour members and trade unionists hope Rayner will be their champion at the top of the party. She’s a former care worker and union organiser who came up on the Left of the party and backed Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Right now, though, the most important audience for Labour isn’t those Left-leaning activists. It’s the floating and undecided voters and soft Tories the party needs to win over if it is to achieve any sort of majority in the Commons. Will former Tory voters in places such as Stevenage and Milton Keynes warm to a blunt-spoken Mancunian who repeatedly backed Corbyn and has described Tories as “scum”?

Conservative election planners hope not. A key plank of Tory election strategy is to paint Starmer’s Labour as unreformed socialists intent on taxing and spending and waging a Corbynite war on wealth and aspiration.

On paper at least, Rayner should be perfect fuel for the Tory campaign PR machine — living proof that Labour hasn’t changed and that Starmer is just a front for old-school Corbynism.

Rayner, after all, was a consistent backer of Corbyn and his policies. She joined his shadow cabinet in 2016 when many Labour moderates turned against him, and remained part of his top team as voters overwhelmingly rejected Labour in the 2019 election. Of course, much the same is true of Starmer, who served in that same shadow team and once called Corbyn a “friend” who would make a “great prime minister”.

Labour’s leader today wants to distance himself and his party from Corbyn. The more voters see of a self-described “socialist” deputy leader who was a prominent part of the Corbyn team, the more open they may be to claims that she is a Trojan horse meant to let the old Labour Left into power.

In reality, she is a much harder target for Tory spinners, because of the striking discipline she is showing in remaining on-message with the Starmer agenda. When he surprised his colleagues by announcing that Labour would keep the Conservatives’ deeply controversial “two child limit” on welfare claims, it would have been unsurprising to see Rayner expressing doubts. After all, she has previously described the policy as “obscene” and cruel.

Yet when Labour MPs raged about Starmer’s position at a recent meeting in the Commons it was Rayner who took the flack for the leadership. Likewise when Starmer hardened Labour’s line on trans issues to declare that a woman is an “adult female”, Rayner, an outspoken advocate of trans rights, could have played to the Left-wing gallery by dissenting. Instead, she kept quiet.

Will she toe the line all the way to the election? No one should be surprised by her discipline and professionalism. You don’t go from being a teenage mother on a depressed council estate to Parliament and the shadow cabinet without formidable drive and determination. And Rayner can count. Today, Starmer leads a party that’s 20 points ahead of the Tories in the polls. This is not a time to be seen challenging the boss. Better to knuckle down, and maintain your base in the party for the future.

If she’s moved to a new position in the shadow cabinet at a reshuffle next month, bet on her accepting the move graciously rather than publicly resisting a switch as she did in 2021 when Starmer was in a much weaker position.

The real tests for the Starmer-Rayner relationship will come if and when their party takes power. A Starmer government may lack a big Commons majority and expects to have very little money to spend, meaning a cautious safety-first agenda. That’s a recipe for discontent among Labour activists hungry for boldness and looking for someone to champion their cause in government, perhaps in the hope of taking over in due course. Angela Rayner isn’t Keir Starmer’s John Prescott but she could become his Gordon Brown.

James Kirkup is director of the Social Market Foundation

AUSTRALIA
Vandals damage Indigenous birthing tree sacred to Victoria’s Djab Wurrung people

Adeshola Ore
Tue, 15 August 2023 



A sacred Indigenous birthing tree that was once at the centre of large protests in western Victoria over Aboriginal cultural heritage rights has been vandalised with a pro-highway message and had three drill holes cut into its trunk.

Police are investigating after the tree – sacred to the Djab Wurrung people – was vandalised near Buangor, about 180km west of Melbourne. The Djab Wurrung people have been fighting for four years to prevent the destruction of the birthing trees as part of a major state government road project.

Eastern Maar Aboriginal corporation, responsible for the western Victoria region, has offered a $10,000 reward for information that will lead directly to a prosecution and conviction for the alleged offence.

The corporation’s chief executive, William Briggs, said it was “deeply saddened” by the vandalism.

The vandalism, believed to have taken place last week, included spray painting that read “build the road”. Three drill holes were also discovered in the tree’s trunk, prompting allegations from traditional owners it had been poisoned.

The independent Victorian senator Lidia Thorpe on Tuesday said the attacks had caused great pain for Djab Wurrung elders, matriarchs and women.

“Our maternity trees have sheltered the birth of countless generations of Djab Wurrung babies,” she said.

Thorpe, a Gunnai, Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung woman, visited the site on Saturday.

The trees were due to be destroyed for a project to duplicate the Western Highway that was due to be completed in 2020, but it has been halted after lengthy legal battles.

In 2021, Victoria’s supreme court dismissed a Djab Wurrung-led case to protect the trees after the state government lawyers said they would no longer rely on a cultural heritage report approved by the relevant Indigenous body in 2013.

A new cultural heritage plan is now being prepared for the project. It is unclear if the new route will protect the sacred tree.

Our Milky Way galaxy was not always a spiral. Here's how it changed shape

Robert Lea
Mon, August 14, 2023 

The clashing galaxies NGC 4568 (bottom) and NGC 4567 (top) as seen by the Gemini North telescope in Hawai‘i

A 100-year-old mystery surrounding the "shape-shifting" nature of some galaxies has been solved, revealing in the process that our Milky Way galaxy did not always possess its familiar spiral appearance.

Astronomer Alister Graham used old and new observations to show how the evolution of galaxies from one shape to another takes place — a process known as galactic speciation . The research shows that clashes and subsequent mergers between galaxies are a form of "natural selection" that drives the process of cosmic evolution.

This means that the Milky Way's history of cosmic violence is not unique to our home galaxy. Nor is it over. "It's survival of the fittest out there," Graham said in a statement. "Astronomy now has a new anatomy sequence and finally an evolutionary sequence in which galaxy speciation is seen to occur through the inevitable marriage of galaxies ordained by gravity."

Related: Milky Way galaxy: Everything you need to know about our cosmic neighborhood

Galaxies come in an array of shapes. Some, like the Milky Way, are composed of arms of well-ordered stars revolving in a spiral shape around a central concentration or "bulge" of stellar bodies. Other galaxies like Messier 87 (M87) are composed of an ellipse of billions of stars chaotically buzzing around a disordered central concentration.

Since the 1920s, astronomers have classified galaxies based on a sequence of varying galaxy anatomy called the "Hubble sequence." Spiral galaxies like ours sit at one end of this sequence, while elliptical galaxies like M87 sit at the other. Bridging the gap between the two are elongated sphere-shaped galaxies, lacking spiral arms, called lenticular galaxies.

But what this widely-used system has lacked until now were the evolutionary paths that link one galaxy shape to another.

The Hubble tuning fork of galactic evolution as created by Key Insights on Nearby Galaxies: A Far-Infrared Survey with Herschel survey

Reshaping galactic evolution

To cleave out evolutionary paths on the Hubble sequence, Graham looked at 100 galaxies near to the Milky Way in optical light images collected by the Hubble Space Telescope and compared them to infrared images from the Spitzer Space Telescope. This allowed him to compare the mass of all the stars in each galaxy to the mass of their central supermassive black holes.

This revealed the existence of two different types of bridging lenticular galaxies: One version that is old and lacks dust, and the other that is young and rich in dust.


a glowing orange ring-shape in space

When dust-poor galaxies accrete gas, dust, and other matter, the disk that surrounds their central region is disrupted, with said disruption creating a spiral pattern radiating out from their hearts. This creates spiral arms, which are over-dense rotating regions that create gas clumps as they turn, triggering collapse and star formation.

The dust-rich lenticular galaxies, on the other hand, are created when spiral galaxies collide and merge. This is indicated by the fact that spiral galaxies have a small central spheroid with extending spiral arms of stars, gas and dust. Young and dusty lenticular galaxies have notably more prominent spheroids and black holes than spiral galaxies and dust-poor lenticular galaxies.

The surprising upshot of this is the conclusion that spiral galaxies like the Milky Way actually lie between dust-rich and dust-poor lenticular galaxies on the Hubble sequence.

"Things fell into place once it was recognized that the lenticular galaxies are not the single bridging population they were long portrayed as," Graham explained. "This re-draws our much-loved galaxy sequence, and, importantly, we now see the evolutionary pathways through a galaxy wedding sequence, or what business might refer to as acquisitions and mergers."

A history of cosmic acquisitions and mergers

The history of the Milky Way is believed to be punctuated with a series of "cannibalistic" events in which it devoured smaller surrounding satellite galaxies to grow.

This research indicates that in addition to this, our galaxy's cosmic "acquisitions" also included it accreting other material and gradually transforming from a dust-poor lenticular galaxy to the spiral galaxy we know today.

Our galaxy is set for a dramatic merger with its closest large galactic neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, in between 4 billion and 6 billion years. This collision and merger will see the spiral arm pattern of both galaxies erased and the new research indicates that the daughter galaxy created by this union is likely to be a dust-rich lenticular galaxy still possessing a disk, albeit without a spiral structure carved through it.

Should the Milky Way-Andromeda daughter galaxy encounter a third, dust-rich lenticular galaxy and merge with it, then the disk-like aspects of both galaxies will also be wiped clean. This would create an elliptical-shaped galaxy without the ability to harbor cold gas and dust clouds.

a white spiral galaxy in space

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Just as this new galaxy will carry the story of its evolution for astronomers in the far-future, the dust-poor lenticular galaxies could serve as fossil records of the processes that transformed old and common disk-dominated galaxies in the early universe.

This could help explain the discovery by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) of a massive spheroid-dominated galaxy just 700 million years after the Big Bang. The new research could indicate, too, that the merging of elliptical galaxies is a process that could explain the existence of some of the universe's most massive galaxies, which sit at the heart of clusters of over 1,000 galaxies.

Graham's research is published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Israel may uproot ancient Christian mosaic near Armageddon. Where it could go next sparks outcry

ILAN BEN ZION
Tue, August 15, 2023 



The Megiddo prison, where a nearly 1,800-year-old decorated floor from an early Christian prayer hall was discovered by Israeli archaeologists in 2005, is seen on Sunday, Aug. 13, 2023. Israeli officials are considering uprooting an early Christian mosaic and loaning it to the controversial Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C., a proposal that has upset archaeologists and underscores the hardline government's close ties with evangelical Christians in the U.S. 

(AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

TEL MEGIDDO, Israel (AP) — An ancient Christian mosaic bearing an early reference to Jesus as God is at the center of a controversy that has riled archaeologists: Should the centuries-old decorated floor, which is near what's believed to be the site of the prophesied Armageddon, be uprooted and loaned to a U.S. museum that has been criticized for past acquisition practices?

Israeli officials are considering just that. The proposed loan to the Museum of the Bible in Washington also underscores the deepening ties between Israel and evangelical Christians in the U.S, whom Israel has come to count on for political support, tourism dollars and other benefits.

The Megiddo Mosaic is from what is believed to be the world's earliest Christian prayer hall that was located in a Roman-era village in northern Israel. It was discovered by Israeli archaeologists in 2005 during a salvage excavation conducted as part of the planned expansion of an Israeli prison.

The prison sits at a historic crossroads a mile south of Tel Megiddo on the cusp of the wide, flat Jezreel Valley. The compound is ringed by a white steel fence topped with barbed wire and is used for the detention of Palestinian security inmates.

Across a field strewn with cow-dung and potsherds, the palm-crowned site of a Bronze and Iron Age city and ancient battles is where some Christians believe a conclusive battle between good and evil will transpire at the end of days: Armageddon.

For some Christians, particularly evangelicals, this will be the backdrop of the long-anticipated climax at the Second Coming, when divine wrath will obliterate those who oppose God's kingdom; it serves as the focus of their hopes for ultimate justice.

The Israel Antiquities Authority said that it will decide about the move in the coming weeks, following consultations with an advisory body.

“There’s an entire process that academics and archaeologists are involved with,” said IAA director Eli Eskozido. The organization said that moving the mosaic from its original location was the best way to protect it from upcoming construction at the prison.

Jeffrey Kloha, the Museum of the Bible’s chief curatorial officer, said a decision on the loan would be made solely by the IAA.

The museum “of course would welcome the opportunity to educate our thousands of visitors on important pieces of history such as this mosaic,” he told The Associated Press via email.

Several archaeologists and academics have voiced vociferous objections to the notion of removing the Megiddo Mosaic from where it was found — and all the more so to exhibit it at the Museum of the Bible.

Cavan Concannon, a religion professor at the University of Southern California, said the museum acts as a “right-wing Christian nationalist Bible machine” with links to “other institutions that promote white evangelical, Christian nationalism, Christian Zionist forms.”

“My worry is that this mosaic will lose its actual historical context and be given an ideological context that continues to help the museum tell its story,” he said.

Others balk at the thought of moving the mosaic at all before academic study is complete.

“It is seriously premature to move that mosaic," said Matthew Adams, director of the Center for the Mediterranean World, an non-profit archaeological research institute, who is involved in digs at Tel Megiddo and the abutting Roman legionary camp of Legio.

Asked about criticisms of the Washington museum’s practices, Kloha said, “Major museums and distinguished institutions committed to preserving history have had to grapple with cultural heritage issues, particularly in recent years.”

“To be clear: Museum of the Bible is proud to have proactively launched research and a thorough review of items in its collections,” he added. “The museum initiated returns where appropriate to countries of origin without obligation to do so and encourages other institutions to do the same.”

Based on other finds found in the dig and the style of the letters in the inscriptions, IAA archaeologists have dated the mosaic floor to the third century — before the Roman Empire officially converted to Christianity and when adherents were still persecuted. Nonetheless, one of the donors who paid to decorate the ancient house of worship was a centurion serving in the adjacent Roman legionary camp.

The mosaic bears Greek inscriptions, among them an offering “To God Jesus Christ.”

Since opening its doors in 2017, the Museum of the Bible has faced criticism over its collecting practices and for promoting an evangelical Christian political agenda. In 2018, it had to repatriate an ancient Mesopotamian tablet looted from Iraq and admit that several of the Dead Sea Scroll fragments in its collection were modern forgeries. American authorities also seized thousands of clay tablets and other looted antiquities from the museum’s founder, Hobby Lobby president and evangelical Christian Steve Green, and returned them to Iraq.

The mosaic loan would reinforce ties between Israel and the museum. The museum sponsors two archaeological digs in Israel, has a gallery curated by the IAA. Kloha said the museum also is planning a lecture series featuring IAA archaeologists.

Evangelical Christians, whose ranks have been growing worldwide, have become some of Israel's most fervent supporters, donating large sums of money and visiting the country as tourists and pilgrims. In the U.S., they also lobby politicians in Congress in support of Israel.

Evangelicals, who make up more than a third of the world's estimated 2 billion Christians, say their affinity for Israel stems from Christianity’s Jewish roots.

Some view the founding of Israel as fulfilling biblical prophecy, ushering in an anticipated Messianic age when Jesus will return and Jews will either accept Christianity or die. That tenet has generated unease among some Israelis, but politicians have embraced evangelical support for the state nonetheless.

Since its discovery, the mosaic has remained buried beneath the grounds of the Megiddo Prison. But in recent years the Israeli government has started advancing a multi-year plan to move the prison from its current location and develop a tourist site around the mosaic.

The Tel Megiddo archaeological site is already a major attraction for evangelical Christians visiting the Holy Land. Busloads of pilgrims stop on their way to or from the Galilee to see the ruins of a biblical city and pray at the site where they believe the apocalypse will take place.

Neither the IAA nor the museum would discuss the exact terms of the loan proposal, but Eskozido suggested something similar to the decade-long global tour of a Roman mosaic found in the central Israeli city of Lod until Israel had completed a museum to house it.

Experts remain skeptical of uprooting the mosaic.

“Once you take any artifact outside of its archaeological context, it loses something, it loses a sense of the space and the environment in which it was first excavated,” said Candida Moss, a theology professor at University of Birmingham who co-wrote a book about the Museum of the Bible.

Rafi Greenberg, a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, said the proposal smacked of colonialism, where historically dominant powers have extracted archaeological discoveries from colonies.

“Even if Israel doesn’t ever recognize itself as being a colony, it is actually behaving like one, which I find odd,” he said. Greenberg said that archaeological finds “should stay where they are and not be uprooted and taken abroad to a different country and basically appropriated by a foreign power.”

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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Should cities dismantle homeless camps?

Mike Bebernes
·Senior Editor
Mon, August 14, 2023
“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debates.

AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
What’s happening

Last month, a federal appeals court covering the western United States refused to hear a case seeking to knock down rules that bar cities from forcing homeless people off the streets if there aren’t enough shelter beds available.

In response to the decision, a group of powerful conservative judges accused the court of “paralyzing” local communities in their efforts to combat homelessness — particularly the large homeless encampments that have become increasingly common in recent years.

In many areas — including deep-blue cities like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco — city leaders have ordered police to break up “tent cities” and imposed camping bans that make it illegal to set up shelters such as tents in public spaces. The moves have sparked a series of lawsuits seeking to limit cities’ ability to dismantle encampments. At the same time, cities like Phoenix and Portland, Ore., have received court orders demanding that they break up large encampments within their jurisdictions.
Why there’s debate

Part of what makes the debate over encampments so contentious is that it pits groups that generally agree on the long-term solutions to homelessness against each other. Most Democratic mayors of major cities and homeless advocacy groups share a vision that includes major investments in affordable housing and mental health treatment as a way to solve the broader problem, but there are deep divisions over what to do about the acute and immediate issue of encampments.

Many advocates believe that tent cities should be left standing because they are often the safest, most secure option a lot of people have. They argue that knocking down tent cities does nothing to address the underlying causes of homelessness while also destabilizing people’s lives and making it harder for them to access the one-on-one care they often need to get themselves off the streets.

But others argue that allowing people to keep living in encampments that are often hotbeds of crime, violence and disease only makes it more likely that they’ll never escape homelessness. They point out that most cities conduct sweeps only after a lengthy and expensive effort to provide people with safer and more stable housing alternatives — including, in some cases, sanctioned encampments in areas chosen by city leaders — that can serve as a true platform toward rehabilitation.
What’s next

Critics of the appeals court’s ruling say they plan to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to take up their case and are hopeful that the conservative justices will ultimately strike down existing limits on when cities can force homeless people off the streets.
Perspectives

Tent cities are frequently the best place for the homeless to set themselves on a better path

“Encampments can provide people with physical and emotional security, especially as record numbers of homeless people die on America’s streets. They can also provide people with a sense of agency and stability. That stability is also helpful for the volunteers and resources who serve the unhoused, because they know where to find the people they are working with.” — Livia Albeck-Ripka, New York Times

Society should not tolerate the types of living conditions that exist in most encampments

“What should be clear is that conditions often associated with these encampments — rodent infestations, fetid surroundings, hazardous housing — are unacceptable. They don’t help the homeless, and they should have no place in America.” — Editorial, Washington Post

Raiding camps does nothing to solve homelessness

“Sweeping homeless camps was never going to be a solution to the crisis on our streets. … It has always been a veneer, an attempt to act like the city is responding to its residents’ concerns over the homelessness crisis on their doorsteps while never actually addressing its root cause or investing in a solution.” — Nuala Bishari, San Francisco Chronicle

It’s unfair to ask local residents to sacrifice their public spaces to filthy, dangerous tent cities

“You aren’t a bad person for wanting safe and clean public places. That’s something local governments are supposed to provide. That necessitates limits on their use. This is normal. Drivers are free to use the freeway but people aren’t allowed [to] walk down the middle of it. Public spaces require rules that will allow the public broadly to use and enjoy them.” — Victor Joecks, Las Vegas Review-Journal

Encampment sweeps create chaos for people who are already living on the brink

“A tent is a tent, but for many it’s the safest, most private space someone may have while experiencing homelessness. When encampments are removed, people lose more than their belongings or shelter, they lose stability and trust in their community.” — Amy Denhart, San Diego Union-Tribune

If encampments are going to exist, city leaders should at least choose the right location

“[A sanctioned camp is] a more stable landscape. It also dramatically improves the ability of social service providers to connect regularly with those in need, gain their trust and hopefully open the door to tailored social services. It is the option that can make a difference in a matter of months, not years.” — Editorial, Sacramento Bee

No camps should be allowed to stand when better options are available

“Many of those in encampments don’t want to go to shelters because of rules against pets, drug use, and intimate relations. But there is an upper limit to the increased violence and public health dangers city residents should tolerate just because homeless people feel that the available shelters cramp their preferred lifestyles.” — Editorial, Washington Examiner

If cities put enough resources into actual solutions, encampments would all disappear

“This is how we end encampments. Not by raiding tents or by criminalizing people at their most vulnerable. But by working, as a community, to ensure everyone has safe, warm homes where they can live independently and with dignity.” — Amy Denhart, San Diego Union Tribune

Cities break up tent cities to placate voters, not to help the homeless

“By now, it’s clear that elected officials are more interested in managing constituent ‘frustrations’ over witnessing poverty than they are in addressing the underlying conditions that have made cities uninhabitable for poor people.” — Jonny Coleman, Appeal

UK

Biggest rise in wages since records began


Matt Mathers
Tue, 15 August 2023

Wages grew at a record annual pace in the past three months as unemployment rose slightly, official figures show.

The Office for National Statistics said regular pay rose by 7.8 per cent between April and June.

Unemployment, meanwhile, rose to 4.2 per cent in the three months to June, up from 3.9 per cent in the previous three-month period.

The unemployment rate is the highest since the three months to October 2021, the ONS said, and brings the measure above pre-pandemic levels.

In real terms, regular pay rose 0.1 per cent for the year when adjusting for Consumer Prices Index including owner occupiers’ housing costs (CPIH) inflation.

It is the first time since October 2021 that real wages have increased, the ONS added.

Growth in wages comes against a backdrop of high inflation, or rising prices, which have begun to ease but remain at 7.9 per cent - well above the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target.

The inflation figures for July are published later this week and analysts expect the rate to fall by nearly a full percentage point.

The data is expected to show consumer prices index (CPI) inflation falling from 7.9 per cent to around 7 per cent.

However, The Independent understands that analysis by Treasury officials shows that inflation will rebound again in August – with the unwelcome reversal set to show up in figures released the following month.

The ONS data published on Tuesday also showed that inactivity in the labour market due to long-term sickness hit a new record high.

Job vacancies also fell by 66,000 though remain just above the million mark (1.02m).

Jack Kennedy, senior economist at the global hiring and matching platform, Indeed, said: “There are signs the cost of living could finally start to ease after record annual pay growth drove pay above inflation for the first time in over one-and-a-half years.

“Regular pay growth jumped to a record 7.8 per cent year on year in the second quarter of 2023, the highest it’s been since comparable data began in 2001.

“Including bonuses, the figure was 8.2 per cent year on year, driven by one-off NHS bonuses in June.”

He added: “While the wage growth figures will grab attention, the ONS data also showed the labour market continuing to rebalance.

“The unemployment rate jumped by a larger than expected 0.3 percentage points to 4.2 per cent, driven by an increase in long-term unemployment and more people moving out of inactivity. However, inactivity due to long-term sickness hit a new record high.”

The data also shows the number of payrolled employees increased by 97,000 to 30.2 million in July, although the ONS said this is a "provisional estimate and is likely to be revised when more data are received next month".

Responding to the figures, chancellor Jeremy Hunt said: "Thanks to the action we’ve taken in the jobs market, it’s great to see a record number of employees.

"Our ambitious reforms will make work pay and help even more people into work - including by expanding free childcare next year - helping to deliver on our priority to grow the economy."

ONS director of economic statistics Darren Morgan said: "The number of unemployed people has risen again while the number of people working has fallen back a little.

"This is mainly due to people taking slightly longer to find work than those who started job hunting in recent months.

"The drop in those neither working nor looking for work is mainly among those looking after their family or home.

"Meanwhile the number of people prevented from working by long-term sickness has risen again to a new record.

"Job vacancies have now fallen over a quarter of a million since this time last year. However, they remain significantly above pre-Covid levels.

"Earnings continue to grow in cash terms, with basic pay growing at its fastest since current records began.

"Coupled with lower inflation, this means the position on people’s real pay is recovering and now looks a bit better than a few months back."

Former FBI agent says he was not aware of interference in Hunter Biden probe

Reuters
Mon, August 14, 2023 

U.S. President Biden's son Hunter to face tax charges in federal court


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A former FBI agent who helped lead the probe of Hunter Biden told congressional investigators that he was not aware of any political interference in the case, though he said higher-ups blocked an interview with President Joe Biden's son weeks after the 2020 presidential election, transcripts show.

In transcripts from a July 17 interview with the Republican-controlled House of Representatives Oversight Committee, the unidentified FBI supervisory agent corroborated earlier testimony by an Internal Revenue Service whistleblower that investigators were not allowed to interview Hunter Biden on Dec. 8, 2020, after top Secret Service officials and the Biden transition team were notified of the plan.

The former agent, who retired last year after more than 20 years with the agency, told investigators that he was frustrated over the decision by more senior officials to block the interview but didn't consider the outcome problematic.

"I wasn't aware of political interference, personally," the former agent said.

Republicans pointed to the testimony as evidence that the Justice Department intervened to delay the Hunter Biden probe, even though the events took place while Republican President Donald Trump was in office.

"Tipping off the transition team and not being able to interview Hunter Biden as planned are just a couple of examples that reveal the Justice Department's misconduct in the Biden criminal investigation," House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said in a statement on Monday when the committee released the transcript.

Comer said the alleged misconduct occurred under U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump appointee who was named special counsel in the Hunter Biden investigation last week over the objections of many House Republicans including Comer.

Hunter Biden in July pleaded not guilty to charges of failing to pay taxes on more than $1.5 million in income in 2017 and 2018 despite owing more than $100,000. He did not enter a plea in a separate case where he is charged with unlawfully owning a firearm while using illegal drugs, which is a felony.

The former agent said investigators had planned to surprise Hunter Biden with their interview request, but first had to notify the Secret Service, which had begun protecting the son of the then-president-elect days earlier.

In the end, both FBI and Secret Service headquarters were notified about the interview plan, the interviewers' access to Hunter Biden was blocked and the former FBI agent heard from an attorney for Hunter Biden.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)

Border officers at Edmonton airport find tarantulas in plastic container, toy plane

The Canadian Press
Mon, August 14, 2023 a



EDMONTON — The Canada Border Services Agency says officers discovered two live tarantulas hidden inside plastic containers at the Edmonton International Airport earlier this year.

In May, officers saw irregularities in a small package from Hong Kong and found a male tarantula hidden inside a plastic container.

Weeks later, an inspection of another package from the same shipper found a female spider hidden inside a children’s toy plane.

It turns out the species of tarantula, which is native to Hong Kong, did not require permits to import into Canada.

But the agency says the spiders were seized because they weren't transported humanely.

They have since found a new home at the Royal Alberta Museum.

The agency says all living creatures, including pets, must be declared when importing them into Canada in order to avoid spreading disease and introducing foreign species.

"CBSA officers were able to find and rescue these two tarantulas from inhumane shipping methods. All living creatures need to be transported and imported properly to keep Canada’s ecosystem and biodiversity safe," said Lisa Laurencelle-Peace, the agency's regional director of the Prairie region.

"The CBSA works closely with its enforcement partners, including (Environment and Climate Change Canada) enforcement officers, to keep Canada’s border secure and stop the illegal wildlife trade."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Aug. 14, 2023.

The Canadian Press