Undebatable: What Harris and Trump left unsaid indicts us all
Neither presidential candidate could speak the truth about Israel and Gaza

By Norman Solomon

Contributing Writer
SALON
Published September 11, 2024 5:45AM (EDT

Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris greet as they debate for the first time during the presidential election campaign at The National Constitution Center on September 10, 2024 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Kamala Harris won the debate.

The banner headline across the top of the New York Times home page — “Harris Puts Trump on Defensive in Fierce Debate” — was accurate enough. But despite the good news for people understandably eager for Trump to be defeated, the Harris debate performance was a moral and political tragedy.

"An estimated 40,000 Palestinians are dead,” ABC News moderator Linsey Davis said. “Nearly 100 hostages remain. . . . President Biden has not been able to break through the stalemate. How would you do it?”

Vice President Harris replied with her standard wording on the war: “Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters. Because it is also true far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Children, mothers. What we know is that this war must end. It must when, end immediately, and the way it will end is we need a ceasefire deal and we need the hostages out.”

“End immediately”? Anyone who isn’t in fantasyland knows that the only way to soon end the slaughter of Palestinian civilians would be for the U.S. government — the overwhelmingly biggest supplier of Israel’s armaments — to stop sending weapons to Israel.

Meanwhile, a pivot to advocating for a cutoff of weapons to Israel would help Harris win the presidency. After the debate, the Institute for Middle East Understanding pointed out that the need to halt the weapons is not only moral and legal — it’s also smart politics. Polls are clear that most Americans want to stop arming Israel. In swing states, polling has found that a large number of voters say they’d be more likely to cast a ballot for Harris if she would support a halt.

What Kamala Harris and Donald Trump said about Israel and Gaza in their debate was predictable. Even more certain was what they absolutely would not say — with silences speaking loudest of all. “Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth,” Aldous Huxley wrote, describing “the greatest triumphs of propaganda.”

By coincidence, the debate happened on the same date as the publication of a new afterword about the Gaza war in the paperback edition of my book War Made Invisible. To fill in for the debate’s abysmal silences, here are a few quotes from the afterword about the ongoing carnage:“After the atrocities that Hamas committed on Oct. 7, the U.S. government quickly stepped up military aid to Israel as it implemented atrocities on a much larger scale. In truth, as time went on, the entire Israeli war in Gaza amounted to one gigantic atrocity with uncountable aspects." As with the steady massacres with bombs and bullets in Gaza since early October, “the Israeli-U.S. alliance treated the increasing onset of starvation, dehydration, and fatal disease as a public-relations problem.“In the war zone, eyewitness reporting and photojournalism were severely hindered if not thwarted by the Israeli military, which has a long record of killing journalists.”

Although the credibility of Israel’s government tumbled as the Gaza war dragged on, the brawny arms of the Israel lobby — and the overall atmospheric pressure of media and politics — pushed legislators to approve new military aid. . . . Official pronouncements — and the policies they tried to justify — were deeply anchored in the unspoken premise that some lives really matter and some really don’t.”The United States persisted in “violating not only the U.S. Conventional Arms Transfer Policy but also numerous other legal requirements including the Foreign Assistance Act, the Arms Export Control Act, the U.S. War Crimes Act, the Leahy Law, the Genocide Convention Implementation Act, and several treaties. For U.S. power politics, the inconvenient precepts in those measures were as insignificant and invisible as the Palestinian people being slaughtered.”“What was sinister about proclaiming ‘Israel’s 9/11’ was what happened after America’s 9/11. Wearing the cloak of victim, the United States proceeded to use the horrible tragedy that occurred inside its borders as an open-ended reason to kill in the name of retaliation, self- protection, and, of course, the ‘war on terror.’ It was a playbook that the Israeli government adapted and implemented with vengeance.”Israel’s war on 2.2 million people in Gaza has been “a supercharged escalation of what Israel had been doing for 75 years, treating human beings as suitable for removal and even destruction.” As Israel’s war on Gaza has persisted, “the explanations often echoed the post-9/11 rationales for the ‘war on terror’ from the U.S. government: authorizing future crimes against humanity as necessary in the light of certain prior events.”

That and so much more — left unsaid from the debate stage, dodged in U.S. mass media and evaded from the podiums of power in Washington — indict not only the Israeli government but also the U.S. government as an accomplice to mass murder that has escalated into genocide.

Silence is a blanket that smothers genuine democratic discourse and the outcries of moral voices. Making those voices inaudible is a key goal for the functioning of the warfare state.

Norman Solomon is co-founder of RootsAction and founding director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. He is the author of many books, including "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." His latest book, "War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine," was published in June 2023 with a new afterword about the Gaza war in autumn 2024.

Fearing the worst, US schools deploy armed police to thwart gun violence

September 11, 2024
By Christine Spolar
NPR/PBS NEWS


Police maintain a presence following a school lockdown after 911 calls falsely reported a gunman in Oakland Catholic and Pittsburgh Central Catholic schools on March 29, 2023.Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

The risks of gun violence in schools were made tragically clear again in Georgia, where a teenager stands accused of shooting his way through his high school and killing two students and two teachers.

In Pittsburgh in March 2023, it was a false alarm that a gunman was roaming one Catholic high school and then another that touched off frightening evacuations and a robust police response in the city. It also prompted the diocese to rethink what constitutes a model learning environment.

So months after SWAT teams met hundreds of students, the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh began forming its own armed police force.
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Wendell Hissrich, a former safety director for the city and career FBI unit chief, was hired that year to form a department to safeguard 39 Catholic schools as well as dozens of churches in the region. Hissrich has since added 15 officers and four supervisors, including many formerly retired officers and state troopers, who now oversee school campuses fitted with Stop the Bleed kits, cameras, and defibrillators.



Wendell Hissrich, a former career FBI unit chief, was hired by the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh in 2023 to help thwart gun violence in schools. He has since hired many retired officers and state troopers, who oversee school campuses fitted with Stop the Bleed kits, cameras, and defibrillators.Christine Spolar for KFF Health

When religious leaders first asked for advice after what are known as “swatting” incidents occurred, the veteran lawman said he didn’t hesitate to deliver blunt advice: “You need to put armed officers in the schools.”

But he added that the officers had to view schools as a special assignment: “I want them to be role models. I want them to be good fits within the school. I’m looking for someone to know how to deal with kids and with parents — and, most importantly, knows how to de-escalate a situation.”

Gun violence is a leading cause of death for young people in America, and the possibility of shootings has influenced costly decision-making in school systems as administrators juggle fear, duty, and dizzying statistics in efforts to keep schools safe from gun harm.

Still, scant research supports the creation of school police forces to deter gun violence — and what data exists can raise as many questions as answers. Data shows over half of U.S. firearm deaths are, in fact, suicides — a sobering statistic from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that reflects a range of ills.
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Gun violence grew during the COVID-19 pandemic and studies found that Black children were 100 times as likely as white children to experience firearm assaults.

Research on racial bias in policing overall in the U.S. as well as studies on biased school discipline have prompted calls for caution. And an oft-cited U.S. Secret Service review of 67 thwarted plots at schools supports reasons to examine parental responsibility as well as police intervention as effective ways to stop firearm harm.

The Secret Service threat assessment, published in 2021, analyzed plots from 2006 to 2018 and found students who planned school violence had guns readily at home. It also found that school districts that contracted sworn law officers, who work as full or part time school resource officers, had some advantage. The officers proved pivotal in about a third of the 67 foiled plots by current or former students.

“Most schools are not going to face a mass shooting. Even though there are more of them — and that’s horrible — it is still a small number,” said Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers. “But administrators can’t really allow themselves to think that way. They have to think, ‘It could happen here, and how do I prevent it.'"



A student from Oakland Catholic High School receives comfort following the evacuation of the school after a call of an active shooter on March 29, 2023 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Many schools, including Oakland Catholic and Pittsburgh Central Catholic, were targeted as part of what authorities are calling "computer-generated swatting calls." Many agencies, including state and municipal police, are conducting investigations.Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

$1 million to station police in schools

About a 20-minute drive north of Pittsburgh, a top public school system in the region decided the risk was too great. North Allegheny Superintendent Brendan Hyland last year recommended retooling what had been a two-person school resource officer team — staffed since 2018 by local police — into a 13-person internal department with officers stationed at each of the district’s 12 buildings.

Several school district board members voiced unease about armed officers in the hallways. “I wish we were not in the position in our country where we have to even consider an armed police department,” board member Leslie Britton Dozier, a lawyer and a mother, said during a public planning meeting.

Within weeks, all voted for Hyland’s request, estimated to cost $1 million a year.

Hyland said the aim is to help 1,200 staff members and 8,500 students “with the right people who are the right fit to go into those buildings.” He oversaw the launch of a police unit in a smaller school district, just east of Pittsburgh, in 2018.

Hyland said North Allegheny had not focused on any single news report or threat in its decision, but he and others had thought through how to set a standard of vigilance. North Allegheny does not have or want metal detectors, devices that some districts have seen as necessary. But a trained police unit willing to learn every entrance, stairway, and cafeteria and who could develop trust among students and staffers seemed reasonable, he said.

“I’m not Edison. I’m not inventing something,” Hyland said. “We don’t want to be the district that has to be reactive. I don’t want to be that guy who is asked: ‘Why did you allow this to happen?’”



People visit memorials for victims of a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Nineteen children and two adults were killed after a man entered the school through an unlocked door and barricaded himself in a classroom where the victims were located. Law enforcement officers waited in the hallway for over an hour before entering the classroom and confronting the gunman.Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/Getty Images North America

A tragic failure in Uvalde

Since 2020, the role of police in educational settings has been hotly debated. The video-recorded death of George Floyd, a Black man in Minneapolis who was murdered by a white police officer during an arrest, prompted national outrage and demonstrations against police brutality and racial bias.

Some school districts, notably in large cities such as Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., reacted to concerns by reducing or removing their school resource officers. Examples of unfair or biased treatment by school resource officers drove some of the decisions. This year, however, there has been apparent rethinking of the risks in and near school property and, in some instances in California, Colorado, and Virginia, parents are calling for a return of officers.

The 1999 bombing plot and shooting attack of Columbine High School and a massacre in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School are often raised by school and police officials as reasons to prepare for the worst. But the value of having police in schools also came under sharp review after a blistering federal review of the mass shooting in 2022 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Justice Department report finds 'cascading failures' in response to Uvalde attack

The federal Department of Justice this year produced a 600-page report that laid out multiple failures by the school police chief, including his attempt to try to negotiate with the killer, who had already shot into a classroom, and waiting for his officers to search for keys to unlock the rooms. Besides the teenage shooter, 19 children and two teachers died. Seventeen other people were injured.

The DOJ report was based on hundreds of interviews and a review of 14,000 pieces of data and documentation. This summer, the former chief was indicted by a grand jury for his role in “abandoning and endangering” survivors and for failing to identify an active shooter attack. Another school police officer was charged for his role in placing the murdered students in “imminent danger” of death.


Pursuing accountability for gun violence

There have also been increased judicial efforts to pursue enforcement of firearm storage laws and to hold accountable adults who own firearms used by their children in shootings. For the first time this year, the parents of a teenager in Michigan who fatally shot four students in 2021 were convicted of involuntary manslaughter for not securing a newly purchased gun at home.

In recent days, Colin Gray, the father of the teenage shooting suspect at Apalachee High School in Georgia, was charged with second-degree murder — the most severe charges yet against a parent whose child had access to firearms at home. The 14-year-old, Colt Gray, who was apprehended by school resource officers on the scene, according to initial media reports, also faces murder charges.

Hissrich, the Pittsburgh diocese’s safety and security director, said he and his city have a hard-earned appreciation for the practice and preparation needed to contain, if not thwart, gun violence. In January 2018, Hissrich, then the city’s safety officer, met with Jewish groups to consider a deliberate approach to safeguarding facilities. Officers cooperated and were trained on lockdown and rescue exercises, he said.

Where gun violence is common, some students say physical safety is a top concern

Ten months later, on Oct. 27, 2018, a lone gunman entered the Tree of Life synagogue and within minutes killed 11 people who had been preparing for morning study and prayer. Law enforcement deployed quickly, trapping and capturing the shooter and rescuing others caught inside. The coordinated response was praised by witnesses at the trial where the killer was convicted in 2023 on federal charges and sentenced to die for the worst antisemitic attack in U.S. history.

“I knew what had been done for the Jewish community as far as safety training and what the officers knew. Officers practiced months before,” Hissrich said. He believes schools need the same kind of plans and precautions. “To put officers in the school without training,” he said, “would be a mistake.”


KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.

Cats and dogs both like to play fetch − it’s rooted in their hunting instincts

The Conversation
September 9, 2024 

Beagle dogs (Shutterstock)

Many people have seen dogs fetch, but cats like to get into the game too. Despite their very different hunting and play styles, fetching appears to combine elements of predatory and social behavior for both species.

Although their domestication histories and natural behaviors are very different, cats and dogs share many similarities. Both species are predators, live closely with humans and are capable of enjoying rich social experiences with us.

In our newly published study, we found that more than 40% of cats described in our survey data played fetch, compared with almost 80% of dogs. We also outlined several possible reasons for fetching, including play, selection during domestication, and learning effects.

Fetching reinforces the bonds that dogs and cats form with humans.

Scant research


Our research group sat up and took note when British researchers published a study in 2023 that explored some key characteristics of fetching in cats. The scientists surveyed 924 owners of cats that fetched, and they found that the cats would retrieve a wide variety of objects, from pet toys and balls of paper to pens, bottle caps and even shoes.

Perhaps most intriguing was the fact that the cats generally were not trained to fetch – they offered the behavior spontaneously. Cats also preferred to be the one to start the fetch game and were more likely to play when they brought a toy to their human, rather than the human tossing a toy.

Prior to this study, fetching behavior in cats hadn’t received much scientific attention. But because this review surveyed only owners of cats that fetched, there was no way to compare those animals with cats that didn’t. We wondered whether there was something about the cats themselves that made some more likely to fetch than others.

And what about dogs? Fetching is one of the most common forms of play between dogs and humans. Many dogs have been bred and selected specifically for assisting human hunts by retrieving prey. We expected to find abundant research about fetching behavior in dogs, but we learned that it was rarely addressed in dog behavior studies.
Fluffy, get the ball!

To help fill this gap, our group teamed with University of Pennsylvania researcher James Serpell, who developed two survey-based tools to assess dog and cat behavior. The surveys include basic questions about each animal’s breed, age and living environment, followed by dozens of questions about their behavior, including traits such as predatory behavior, sociability with humans, activity level and fearfulness. Both surveys also included questions about fetching.

Using these survey results, we analyzed data from thousands of cat and dog owners to explore just how common fetching is and what characteristics of a cat or dog and their environment are likely to predict fetching.

We found that fetching was much more common in cats than we anticipated. Over 40% of cat owners had a cat that “sometimes, usually, or always” fetched. For comparison, we also provided the first estimate of the prevalence of fetching behavior in dogs. Almost 78% of dogs represented in the data were reported to fetch.

Interestingly, being male was associated with increased fetching in both species. Being older and having health problems decreased the likelihood that either cats or dogs would be fetchers. And for both species, sharing a home with a dog also made the animal represented in the survey less likely to fetch.

There were breed differences too, especially among dogs. Breeds known for being responsive to human instructions and taking interest in toys, such as German shepherd dogs, golden retrievers and Labrador retrievers, were among the most likely breeds to fetch. In contrast, hounds and livestock guard dogs were among those least likely to fetch.

Fetching was correlated with trainability in dogs, regardless of breed, pointing to the potential importance of early selection of dogs to be human helpers, long before we started developing dog breeds.

There are far fewer breeds of cats than dogs, and fewer purebred cats were represented in our study compared with dogs. Still, we also found breed differences among cats. Siamese, Tonkinese, Burmese and Bengals were the most likely cats to fetch.


Fetching was correlated with activity level: Cats that were more likely to run, jump, engage with new items in the home and initiate play with their owners were also more likely to fetch.

From hunting to playing catch

The roots of fetching behavior lie in both species’ hunting practices. Cats are known as stalk-and-rush hunters, meaning that they sneak up on their prey and pounce at an opportune moment. Dogs are believed to be pursuit predators that chase prey over longer distances.

Development of breeds has altered dogs’ typical predatory behavior sequence, which goes like this: orient, eye, stalk, chase, grab-bite, kill-bite. Dog breeds that have been bred for exaggerated or increased “chase and/or grab-bite” behavior – such as pointers and retrievers – are more likely to fetch and less likely to complete the predatory sequence and “kill-bite.”

But both cats and dogs will carry prey items away from the kill site, which may also partially explain how a behavior such as fetch could arise.

Although cats often are viewed as independent and aloof, recent studies have found that cats can show attachment to humans, pick up social cues from humans and even recognize their owner’s voice. We hope that our study further encourages people to understand that cats are capable of loving relationships with humans, especially when these popular pets are well socialized and provided with an enriched and safe environment. Including fetching, if your cat is so inclined.

For all of the differences between dogs and cats, we think it’s charming that they have converged on a similar behavior – fetching. Fetching also highlights the effect of the human-animal relationship. Humans clearly play an important role in fetching behavior, even if dogs and cats simply perceive us as the thing that makes the toy move so they can chase it.

Mikel Delgado, Senior Research Scientist, College of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University and Judith Stella, Senior Research Scientist, College of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University

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

Crystals hold a secret history of volcanoes – and clues about future eruptions

The Conversation
September 11, 2024 

Night eruption at volcano (Shutterstock)

Imagine you had a crystal ball that revealed when a volcano would next erupt. For the hundreds of millions of people around the world who live near active volcanoes, it would be an extremely useful device.

As it turns out, certain crystals really can help us forecast volcanic eruptions. These crystals are produced in molten rock as it travels from deep inside Earth to the surface.

With increasingly sophisticated scientific methods, we can extract a secret history of volcanoes from these crystals – the why, where and when of past eruptions.

These historical records can help us interpret if signs of volcano unrest, such as earthquakes tracking the movement of magma towards the surface, may lead to an eruption. So, as I explain in a new column in Nature Geoscience, we are getting closer to having crystal balls (for volcanoes, at least).
Volcano crystal balls

Magma, the super-hot molten rock which feeds volcanic eruptions, is generated many tens of kilometres below the surface in Earth’s mantle.





Lava engulfing houses during the 2021 eruption at La Palma in the Canary Islands. R Balcells

On its journey up to the surface, magma may get stalled in different reservoirs along the way, and travel to its eventual eruption along a complex pathway. As the magma rises it also cools down, producing tiny crystals that can be brought to the surface during eruptions.


When the magma reaches the surface, it can flow – generating lavas – or explode, generating fragmented particles called pyroclasts. Once the lavas and pyroclasts cool down, they form volcanic rocks containing the crystals from great depths.



Volcanic rock from the Canary Islands, containing tiny sparkling crystals of black clinopyroxene and green olivine. Teresa Ubide


Our precious crystal balls have survived the hot and complex journey to the surface and the eruption, holding a memory of everything they “saw” inside the volcano.

The crystals look different depending on the mineral that makes them. For example, green olivine is very common in Hawaiian lavas, and white plagioclase can be as large as a square of chocolate in the lavas of Tweed volcano at the border between Queensland and New South Wales.

A very important mineral for understanding volcanoes is called clinopyroxene, which makes shiny black crystals holding particularly precious information.

What do clinopyroxene records look like?

Clinopyroxene crystals are often tiny, the size of a sand grain. But under the microscope, they can show spectacular growth features that record what happens inside the volcano before eruptions.

The crystals grow incrementally in concentric zones, much like tree rings. And just as tree rings contain a record of climate change, the chemistry of clinopyroxene zones changes if the magma environment inside the volcano changes.




A map of the element chromium in a clinopyroxene crystal from Mt Etna in Sicily, created at the Australian Synchrotron X-ray fluorescence microscopy beamline. High levels of chromium at the rim of the crystal rim indicate hot magma arrived beneath the volcano before the eruption. Teresa Ubide, Louise Schoneveld, Steve Barnes, David Paternson

The final growth zone at the rim of the crystal is particularly important, as it tells us if the eruption was triggered by new magma rising from the depths. We can even estimate the typical amount of time it takes the magma to reach the surface, for example by measuring the blurring of chemical changes in the crystals while they are inside the volcano.


This information is important for future volcano monitoring, because we can often tell when new magma is rising deep beneath a volcano from earthquakes or changes in the chemistry of the gases the volcano gives off. If we know new magma precedes an eruption, we would have an early warning.



Laser maps of chromium and zirconium in a clinopyroxene crystal. The zirconium shows ‘sector zoning’, which indicates the crystal grew in dynamic magma conditions. Teresa Ubide


Clinopyroxene crystals can also grow with different compositions in different directions, which gives us even more clues. This is called sector zoning and looks like an hourglass inside the crystal.

It is useful because it tells us the crystal grew relatively quickly, which suggests the magma underwent complex events such as mixing with other magma, convection, rising, or releasing gases before the eruption. When monitoring active volcanoes, we can then look for indirect signs of these processes from the surface to see if an eruption may occur.

It is also important to locate where eruption triggers take place inside the volcano. This can tell us if the depths of earthquakes or deformation are particularly indicative of an upcoming eruption.

How can we measure crystal chemistry to read volcano histories?

The chemistry of clinopyroxene helps with this as well, because it tells us about the pressure conditions at the time of crystallisation, which can be translated into the depth of magma storage below the surface.

Measuring chemical variations in these tiny crystals takes some fancy lab work. We use tools such as hair-thin lasers fired at the volcanic crystals, or synchrotron light from enormous particle accelerators like the one in Melbourne, which can be focused into a beam as small as a bacteria.




The laser and mass spectrometry lab at the University of Queensland, Radiogenic Isotope Facility. Teresa Ubide

This micro-scale analysis helps us extract the magma secrets from the volcanic crystals, to reconstruct the inner anatomy of a volcano as if we were opening a doll’s house.

So next time you hike a volcano, whether in Hawai'i or Iceland, or the Glass House Mountains or Mount Gambier in Australia, look for coloured specks in the rocks. You may be looking at the crystal balls containing the volcano’s history – and clues about its future.



A volcanic plug in Queensland’s Glass House Mountains. Teresa Ubide

Teresa Ubide, ARC Future Fellow and Associate Professor in Igneous Petrology/Volcanology, The University of Queensland

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

Was a lack of get-up-and-go the death of the Neanderthals?

Agence France-Presse
September 11, 2024 

Neanderthal models (Wikimedia Commons)

A new study posits a very surprising answer to one of history's great mysteries -- what killed off the Neanderthals?

Could it be that they were unadventurous, insular homebodies who never strayed far enough from home?

Scientists studying the remains of a Neanderthal found in France said Wednesday that these human relatives were socially isolated from each other for tens of thousands of years, which could have fatally reduced their genetic diversity.


Up to now, the main theories for their demise were climate change, a disease outbreak, and even violence -- or interbreeding -- with Homo Sapiens.

Neanderthals populated Europe and Asia for a long time -- including a decent stint living alongside early modern humans -- until they abruptly died off 40,000 years ago.

That was the last moment when more than one species of human coexisted on Earth, French archaeologist Ludovic Slimak told AFP.

It was a "profoundly enigmatic moment, because we do not know how an entire humanity, which existed from Spain to Siberia, could suddenly go extinct," he said.

Slimak is the lead author of a new study in the journal Cell Genomics, which looked at the fossilised remains of a Neanderthal discovered in France's Rhone Valley in 2015.

The remains were found in Mandrin cave, which is known to have been home to both Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens over time.


The Neanderthal, dubbed Thorin in reference to the dwarf in J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit", is a rare find.

Thorin is the first Neanderthal unearthed in France since 1978 -- and one of only roughly 40 discovered in all of Eurasia.

- 50,000 years alone -


The archaeologists had spent a decade unsuccessfully trying to recover DNA from Mandrin cave when they found Thorin, Slimak said.

"As soon as the body came out of the ground," they sent a piece of molar to geneticists in Copenhagen for analysis, he added.

When the results came back, the team was stunned. Archaeological data had suggested the body was 40,000 to 45,000 years old, but the genomic analysis found it was from 105,000 years ago.


"One of the teams must have gotten it wrong," Slimak said.

It took seven years to get the story straight.

Analysing isotopes from Thorin's bones and teeth showed that he lived in an extremely cold climate, which matched an ice age only experienced by later Neanderthals around 40,000 years ago.



But Thorin's genome did not match those of previously discovered European Neanderthals at that time. Instead it resembled the genome of Neanderthals some 100,000 years ago, which had caused the confusion.

It turned out that Thorin was a member of an isolated and previously unknown community that had descended from some of Europe's earliest Neanderthal populations, the researchers said.

"The lineage leading to Thorin would have separated from the lineage leading to the other late Neanderthals around 105,000 years ago," senior study author Martin Sikora of the University of Copenhagen said in a statement.


This other lineage then spent a massive 50,000 years "without any genetic exchange with classic European Neanderthals," including some that only lived a two-week walk away, Slimak said.

- Dangers of inbreeding -

This kind of extended social isolation is unimaginable for the Neanderthals' cousins, the Homo Sapiens, particularly because the Rhone Valley then was a great migration corridor between northern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea.


Archaeological finds have long suggested that Neanderthals lived in a small area, ranging just a few dozen kilometres from their home.

Homo Sapiens, in comparison, had "infinitely larger" social circles, spreading over tens of thousands of square kilometres, Slimak said.

Neanderthals were also known to have lived in small groups -- so not venturing far likely meant there were not many options for a mate outside of their own family.


This kind of inbreeding reduces the genetic diversity in a species, which can spell doom over the long term.

Rather than single-handedly killing off the Neanderthals, their lack of intermingling could have made them more vulnerable to some of the other popular theories for their demise.

"When you are isolated for a long time, you limit the genetic variation that you have, which means you have less ability to adapt to changing climates and pathogens," said study co-author Tharsika Vimala, a population geneticist at the University of Copenhagen.


"It also limits you socially because you're not sharing knowledge or evolving as a population," she said.

© Agence France-Presse

Washington’s Reaction to IDF Killing of Aysenur Eygi is Disgraceful and Hypocritical

by Abdelhalim Abdelrahman Posted onSeptember 12, 2024

Last week, 26-year-old Turkish-American activist Aysenur Eygi was brutally murdered by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).  She was killed as she protested, alongside several other activists with the International Solidarity Movement, against settlement expansion and settler terrorism against Palestinians in Beita; a village located in the illegally occupied Palestinian city of Nablus.

Multiple eyewitness accounts asserted that Eygi, along with the other demonstrators, posed no threat and were protesting in an area where no combatants were present. But that did not matter, as the IDF fired live rounds into the crowd of activists which struck Eygi in the head and killed her instantly.

The Joe Biden administration, including Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, has yet to issue a vindictive statement condemning the Israeli army for the cold-blooded murder of Ms.Eygi. Collectively, Washington’s reaction to the IDF murdering Aysenur Eygi has been disgraceful for a litany of reasons.

Firstly, the U.S. provides Israel with $3.8 billion annually in military aid and has given Israel over $300 billion worth of military and financial aid since 1948. This includes missiles, cluster bombs, and American-manufactured assault rifles often used by IDF battalions in the illegally occupied West Bank. It’s revolting that the United States, a global superpower, cannot muster the moral and political courage to end the flow of such weapons to Israel, which are actively being used to kill U.S. citizens like Aysneur Eygi. This same U.S.-funded military is using those weapons to facilitate genocide in Gaza and accelerate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, paving the way for more illegal settlements.

Beyond the U.S. unwillingness to impose an arms embargo, the incredibly weak and pathetic responses given by U.S. leaders in the wake of Eygi’s death must also be scrutinized. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken opined that Israel needed to make “some fundamental changes to the way they operate in the West Bank, including changes to their rules of engagement.” In saying that, Blinken fails to acknowledge the fact that the Israelis have no legal basis for being in the West Bank to begin with. Had there been no illegal occupation of Palestine, Eygi would still be alive today.

Blinken also stated that “no one should be killed for attending a protest.” His comments were weak, signaling a massive indifference towards Eygi’s murder. On the other hand, Biden issued a disgusting statement insisting that the Israeli killing of Eygi was “an accident, the bullet ricocheted off the ground, she got hit by accident.” Someone should tell Biden that a sniper rifle is a weapon that requires deliberate precision.

However, the embarrassment did not stop there. On Monday, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel was being pressed regarding Aysneur’s murder. However, Patel refused to publicly acknowledge that the IDF killed Ms. Eygi. When asked if he had any doubts that it was an Israeli soldier who killed Eygi, Patel told reporters, “I’m not going to get ahead of the process here.”

To add insult to injury, President Biden has reportedly not spoken with her family to grant them condolences for losing their daughter. It is inexcusable, and sheer cowardice, for the President of the United States to not even interact with the family of a slain American. Biden may eventually do so, but waiting several days to grant condolences is a major insult.

Speaking of Eygi’s family, they are rightfully demanding an independent investigation into her death. The State Department has made clear it will not be investigating her murder and is hoping instead that Israel investigates her demise. The IDF has reported that they have already looked into the matter and determined that Eygi was “unintentionally” and “highly likely” killed by an IDF soldier.

The United States should not accept their determination. Israel cannot be trusted to conduct an impartial investigation into its wrongdoings. After Rachel Corrie, Shireen Abu Akleh, Omar Assad, Mohammad Khdour, and Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, now Aysenur Eygi joins the long list of Americans whose murder Israel labels “an accident.” Thus, it makes no sense to believe that this army accused of a grave crime could fully hold themselves accountable. If anything, history has demonstrated it is more likely Israel will exonerate itself of any wrongdoing. It is abhorrent and disgraceful that the United States government could stand idly by, refusing to ensure that Aysenur Eygi’s family seek justice for this unholy crime.

Aside from the fact that the U.S. refuses to investigate Ms. Eygi’s murder, perhaps the most disturbing fact from this ordeal lies within the Biden administration’s gross hypocrisy. In February, when Iran-backed militias killed three U.S. soldiers during an attack on Jordan’s airbase, Biden proclaimed that ‘if you harm an American, we will respond.” Israel has just killed yet another American citizen, and the administration refuses to issue substantial consequences. This is hypocrisy at its finest. For the disgraceful response to Eygi’s killing essentially manufactures future consent for Israel, and possibly other nations, to kill American citizens with impunity.

Abdelhalim Abdelrahman is a Palestinian-American writer and analyst located in Michigan. His work focusing on Palestine has been featured in The Hill, New Arab, Foreign Policy, and Responsible Statecraft.

GENOCIDE JOE;  ENABLER

US urges Israel to reassess military rules after Turkish-American activist’s death

WASHINGTON

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Tuesday urged Israel to reassess its military rules of engagement following the death of Turkish-American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, who was killed by an Israeli sniper in the occupied West Bank.

Haberin Devamı

According to the Pentagon, Austin conveyed his concerns in a phone call with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, emphasizing the Israeli Defense Forces' responsibility for what he described as the "unprovoked and unjustified" death of the American citizen.

"The Secretary urged Minister Gallant to reexamine the IDF's rules of engagement while operating in the West Bank," the Pentagon's statement outlined.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday said that Israel's military needs to make "fundamental changes" when asked about the activist killing.

"Her killing was both unprovoked and unjustified," Blinken said of the death of 26-year-old Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi.

"In our judgement, Israeli security forces need to make some fundamental changes in the way that they operate in the West Bank, including changes to their rules of engagement," he told reporters in London.

The killing of Eygi by Israeli soldiers has shown Israel targets even those “who are in favor of peace,” Türkiye's foreign minister said on Tuesday.

Hakan Fidan, speaking to Anadolu in Cairo where he attended a session of the Arab League's Council of Foreign Ministers, vowed Türkiye will follow this “murder” from a legal perspective.

He expressed condolences to Eygi's family and emphasized the incident's significance in revealing Israel's approach towards peace advocates.

Eygi, 26, who held dual Turkish and U.S. citizenship, was killed by Israeli forces during a protest against illegal settlements in Beita. On Tuesday, the Israeli army stated it was "highly likely" that Eygi was hit "indirectly and unintentionally" by its fire.

U.S. President Joe Biden called the shooting of Eygi in the head by an Israeli sniper an "accident," adding that the bullet apparently "ricocheted off the ground, and she got hit.”

Biden has not spoken with the family of Eygi to offer his condolences, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Monday in response to a question.

In a separate statement, Eygi's family expressed outrage over any suggestion that her death at the hands of an Israeli sniper was unintentional, reiterating their calls for an independent investigation into her killing

In a separate statement, Eygi's family condemned the notion that her death was accidental, demanding an independent investigation.

"The Israeli military's preliminary inquiry into Aysenur's killing is wholly inadequate; we are deeply offended by the suggestion that her killing by a trained sniper was in any way unintentional," the family said in a statement.

"As we mourn the death of our beloved Aysenur, we reiterate our demand for U.S. government leaders - President Biden, Vice President (Kamala) Harris and Secretary of State (Antony) Blinken - to order an independent investigation into the Israeli military's deliberate targeting and killing of a US Citizen," the statement added.

THEY SHOULD MELLOW

Opium Replaces Meth As North Korea’s Drug Of Choice – Analysis

 September 12, 2024

By RFA

By Son Hyemin

Opium is replacing methamphetamine as the drug of choice in North Korea as the pandemic has disrupted Chinese supplies of the raw materials needed to make meth, residents in the country told Radio Free Asia.

Until a couple years ago, meth – known inside the country by its street name, “ice” – was widespread in North Korea to the point that people were giving it to each other as gifts for Lunar New Year. 

It is used recreationally as well as for various medicinal purposes in a country where the healthcare system faces a severe lack of resources. It’s illegal, but government officials are known to turn a blind eye because the state cannot provide the people with adequate medicine, sources told RFA.

But meth has become harder to obtain after trade shut down with China due to COVID-19. That’s prompting farmers to grow and sell poppies – used to make opium – on the black market, a resident of South Hamgyong province told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Although legitimate trade with China has resumed, smuggling has not yet picked up to the point that steady meth supplies are coming in, a resident of the eastern province of South Hamgyong told RFA Korean on condition of anonymity for security reasons..

Many farmers in that province’s Kowon county try to grow poppies, he said. “In the mountain village where I live, five out of ten households plant opium.”

Some poppy growers grow only enough for their personal use, but most grow it for sale. It’s illegal, but if cultivated in small quantities, the government looks the other way, he said.

“The amount of meth sold on the black market has been decreasing since last year,” he said. “It has become difficult to purchase it this year, which is also the background for the rapid increase in opium cultivation.” 

Cheaper than meth

Opium is also popular because it is cheaper than meth, a resident in the western province of South Pyongan said. 

A gram of meth can fetch 18,000 won (US$1.12) on the black market, whereas the same amount of opium liquid costs only 5,000 won (31 cents), she said.

Opium is said to heal a number of ailments and lift one’s mood,  the first resident said.

“Nowadays, the common rumor is that people who have been feeling resentful and suicidal feel better after taking an opium injection,” he said.

The second resident said that opium is replacing meth as a treatment for headaches and diarrhea. RFA could not independently verify if either meth or opium are effective treatments for either condition.

“In Pyongan province, in July and August, you cut opium flower buds with a knife to obtain the liquid, which is then dried and sold,” she said, adding that the flower stems are also dried and sold.

“There are many farms that grow opium, so you can buy it at any time,” she said. It’s proving very profitable, to the point that people are growing opium flowers instead of edible crops like corn, the South Pyongan resident said.

“It was rare for farmers to plant opium in their gardens for sale, but with the coronavirus lockdown blocking businesses, some farmers have started growing opium to make a living,” she said. “More farmers have followed suit.”

Poppy seed pods Photo Credit: Zyance, Wikipedia Commons

Radio Free Asia’s mission is to provide accurate and timely news and information to Asian countries whose governments prohibit access to a free press. Content used with the permission of Radio Free Asia, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036.

WATCH: Trump amplifies false racist rumor about Ohio’s Haitian immigrants in debate

By —Mike Catalini, Associated Press
By —Julie Carr Smyth, Associated Press
By —Bruce Shipkowski, Associated Press


COLUMBUS, Ohio — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were abducting and eating pets, repeating during a televised debate the type of inflammatory and anti-immigrant rhetoric he has promoted throughout his campaigns.

There is no evidence that Haitian immigrants in an Ohio community are doing that, officials say. But during the debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump specifically mentioned Springfield, Ohio, the town at the center of the claims, saying that immigrants were taking over the city.

“They’re eating the dogs. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” he said.

Harris called Trump “extreme” and laughed after his comment. Debate moderators pointed out that city officials have said the claims are not true.

Trump’s comments echoed claims made by his campaign, including his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, and other Republicans. The claims attracted attention this week when Vance posted on social media that his office has “received many inquiries” about Haitian migrants abducting pets. Vance acknowledged Tuesday it was possible “all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”

Officials have said there have been no credible or detailed reports about the claims, even as Trump and his allies use them to amplify racist stereotypes about Black and brown immigrants.

While president, Trump questioned why the U.S. would accept people from “s—-hole” countries such as Haiti and some in Africa. His 2024 campaign has focused heavily on illegal immigration, often referencing in his speeches crimes committed by migrants. He argues immigrants are responsible for driving up crime and drug abuse in the United States and taking resources from American citizens.

Here’s a closer look at how the false claims have spread.
How did this get started?

On Sept. 6, a post surfaced on X that shared what looked like a screengrab of a social media post apparently out of Springfield. The retweeted post talked about the person’s “neighbor’s daughter’s friend” seeing a cat hanging from a tree to be butchered and eaten, claiming without evidence that Haitians lived at the house. The accompanying photo showed a Black man carrying what appeared to be a Canada goose by its feet. That post continued to get shared on social media.

On Monday, Vance posted on X. “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?” he said. The next day, Vance posted again on X about Springfield, saying his office had received inquires from residents who said “their neighbors’ pets or local wildlife were abducted by Haitian migrants. It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false.”

Other Republicans shared similar posts. Among them was Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who posted a photo of kittens with a caption that said to vote for Trump “So Haitian immigrants don’t eat us.”

Hours before Trump’s debate with Harris, he posted two related photos on his social media site. One Truth Social post was a photo of Trump surrounded by cats and geese. Another featured armed cats wearing MAGA hats.

What do officials in Ohio say?

The office of the Springfield city manager, Bryan Heck, issued a statement knocking down the rumors.

“In response to recent rumors alleging criminal activity by the immigrant population in our city, we wish to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community,” Heck’s office said in an emailed statement.

Springfield police on Monday told the Springfield News-Sun that they had received no reports of stolen or eaten pets.

Gov. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, held a news conference Tuesday to address the influx of Haitian immigrants to Springfield. He said he will send state troopers to Springfield to help local law enforcement deal with traffic issues and is earmarking $2.5 million over two years to provide more primary health care to immigrant families.

DeWine declined to address the allegations, deferring comment to local officials. But he repeatedly spoke in support of the people of Haiti, where his family has long operated a charity.

What do we know about a separate case 175 miles (281 km) away?
An entirely unrelated incident that occurred last month in Canton, Ohio, quickly and erroneously conflated into the discussion.

On Aug. 26, Canton police charged a 27-year-old woman with animal cruelty and disorderly conduct after she “did torture, kill, and eat a cat in a residential area in front (of) multiple people,” according to a police report.

But Allexis Ferrell is not Haitian. She was born in Ohio and graduated from Canton’s McKinley High School in 2015, according to public records and newspaper reports. Court records show she has been in and out of trouble with the law since at least 2017. Messages seeking comment were not returned by several attorneys who have represented her.

She is being held in Stark County jail pending a competency hearing next month, according to the prosecutor’s office.
What do advocates for Haitian immigrants say?

The posts create a false narrative and could be dangerous for Haitians in the United States, according to Guerline Jozef, founder and executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, a group that supports and advocates for immigrants of African descent

“We are always at the receiving end of all kind of barbaric, inhumane narratives and treatments, specifically when it comes to immigration,” Jozef said in a phone interview.

Her comments echoed White House national security spokesman John Kirby.

“There will be people that believe it, no matter how ludicrous and stupid it is,” Kirby said. “And they might act on that kind of information, and act on it in a way where somebody could get hurt. So it needs to stop.”
What is the broader context of Haitians in Ohio and the United States?

Springfield, a city of roughly 60,000, has seen its Haitian population grow in recent years. It’s impossible to give an exact number, according to the city, but it estimates Springfield’s entire county has an overall immigrant population of 15,000.

The city also says that the Haitian immigrants are in the country legally under a federal program that allows for them to remain in the country temporarily. Last month the Biden administration granted eligibility for temporary legal status to about 300,000 Haitians already in the United States because conditions in Haiti are considered unsafe for them to return. Haiti’s government has extended a state of emergency to the entire country due to endemic gang violence.

Another matter cropping up and raised by Trump in an email Monday is the August 2023 death of an 11-year-old boy after a vehicle driven by an immigrant from Haiti hit the boy’s school bus. After that, residents demanding answers about the immigrant community spoke out at city council meetings.

Catalini reported from Trenton, New Jersey, and Shipkowski from Toms River, New Jersey.


RelatedLive updates: Trump and Harris debate in Philadelphia

By Associated Press
Live fact check: Trump and Harris meet for presidential debate

‘They’re Eating the Pets!’ Trump Shouts About Fake Pet-Eating Story at Debate and Gets Brutally Fact-Checked

Phillip Nieto

Sep 10th, 2024,

Former President Donald Trump went on a bizarre rant during the ABC News debate Tuesday night when he claimed that undocumented migrants are eating cats and dogs in Ohio – leading to a fact-check from moderator David Muir.

Over the last few days, the Trump campaign has promoted a false rumor that Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets. The former president even promoted the claim via social media by reposting AI images of him defending cats and ducks.

According to the Associated Press, there’s no evidence that Haitian immigrants in the Ohio community are harming or eating the animals in question.

During the debate, Trump brought up the topic after claiming that Vice President Kamala Harris would turn the U.S. into a third-world country:

TRUMP: In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame. As far as the rallies are concerned, as far as the reason they go, is they like what I say. They want to bring our country back. They want to make America great again. Very simple phrase, make America great again. She’s destroying this country. And if she becomes president, this country doesn’t have a chance of success. Not only success we’ll end up being Venezuela on steroids.

MUIR: I just want to clarify here. You bring up Springfield, Ohio. And ABC News did reach out to the city manager there. He told us there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.

The rumor about Haitian immigrants allegedly stealing pets and eating them seems to have originated with right-wing accounts spinning a Fox News report about an Ohio woman who was arrested in August for allegedly killing and eating a cat.

Watch above, via ABC.