Sunday, January 31, 2021

Anti-Vaxxers Temporarily Shut Down One Of The Largest COVID-19 Vaccination Sites In The US

Everyone who had an appointment for a vaccine on Saturday ultimately received one, the LA Fire Department said.

Last updated on January 31, 2021, at 2:16 p.m. ET

Posted on January 31, 2021

A group of anti-vax protesters temporarily shut down the COVID-19 vaccination site at LA's Dodger Stadium on Saturday, delaying appointments by nearly an hour.

About 50 protesters gathered at the stadium entrance, holding signs with anti-vaccine and anti-mask rhetoric and shouting at drivers who were lined up for their vaccination appointments. No vaccine appointments were canceled, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department told BuzzFeed News.

The LAFD closed the stadium entrance as a precaution for about 55 minutes beginning at 2 p.m., the Los Angeles Times reported. According to the Los Angeles Police Department, protesters remained peaceful.

Social media posts and a livestream from the protest showed participants wielding signs with false anti-vaccine claims and screeds against masks, lockdown measures, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. The protesters attempted to engage with people waiting in their cars.

Newsom tweeted Saturday that the state will "not be deterred or threatened" by protesters in providing COVID-19 vaccines.

Dodger Stadium is one of the largest vaccination sites in the country, serving a region currently grappling with a particularly deadly wave of COVID-19. As of Saturday, there were 5,669 people hospitalized with the coronavirus in Los Angeles County, with more than 1.1 million cases and 16,647 deaths recorded in the county since the pandemic began.

Earlier this month, anti-mask protesters calling COVID-19 a "con job" harassed shoppers at an LA mall and grocery store. It was not immediately clear whether the two protest groups were connected.

COVID-19 Daily Update:
January 30, 2021
New Cases: 6,918 (1,111,089 to date)
New Deaths: 316 (16,647 to date)
Current Hospitalizations: 5,669 — Twitter: @lapublichealth

The county is currently vaccinating residents 65 and older, as well as healthcare workers and nursing facility staff and residents, but COVID-19 cases have continued to increase. To date, one out of every nine residents in LA County has had COVID-19, and at least one COVID-19 death is recorded in the county every 10 minutes.

Los Angeles County has also suspended environmental limits on cremation due to a backlog of bodies at hospitals, funeral homes, and crematoriums as a result of COVID-19.

Musician and LA resident Mikel Jollett tweeted that his mother's vaccination appointment was delayed due to the protest. His 69-year-old mother, Bonnie, was eventually able to get the vaccine once the site reopened, said Jollett, who fronts rock band Airborne Toxic Event.

We’re at the mass vaccination site at Dodger Stadium to get my mom the vaccine. The anti–vax protestors have approached the entrance to the site. The LAPD have now closed the gate. We have been sitting here for about half an hour. Nobody is moving. — Twitter: @Mikel_Jollett

According to the Los Angeles Times, the protest was advertised as the “Scamdemic Protest/March" and asked participants to "refrain from wearing Trump/MAGA attire as we want our statement to resonate with the sheeple. No flags but informational signs only."

State and local officials denounced the protest, with Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez calling the demonstration "unbelievable," while others drew parallels to the far-right extremists responsible for the attempted coup at the US Capitol earlier this month.

Unbelievable. If you don't want the vaccine fine, but there are millions of Angelenos that do. 16,000 of your neighbors have died, so get out of the way. https://t.co/OTKL7ugJzL — Twitter: @CD6Nury

Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician and California state senator, described the protesters as extremists using intimidation and violence to further their false beliefs. Anti-vaxxers have regularly disrupted the California legislature in recent years, and Pan was assaulted by an anti-vax activist in 2019.

“These extremists have not yet been held accountable, so they continue to escalate violence against the body public," Pan said in a statement. "We must now summon the political will to demand that domestic terrorists must face consequences for their words and actions. Our democracy and our lives depend on it.”

Olivia Niland is a news reporter and curation editor for BuzzFeed News and is based in Los Angeles.
Contact Olivia Niland at olivia.niland@buzzfeed.com.
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This Woman Photographer Captured The Style Of The Roaring Twenties

The Roaring ‘20s through the eyes of Madame d’Ora.

Pia PetersonBuzzFeed News Photo Editor

Posted on January 31, 2021,

Dora Kallmus, who was professionally known as Madame d'Ora, was a Jewish society photographer born in Vienna at the end of the 19th century. At a time when most women did not own or know how to operate a camera, she became a highly sought-after woman photographer in a male-dominated field.

She photographed many great artists and dancers of the day, from all over the world — including Pablo Picasso and Josephine Baker. The first woman photographer to open her own studio in Vienna, she relocated to Paris and immersed herself in fashion photography until the Nazis seized the city 15 years later. When Kallmus was forced into hiding, she lost many close friends and family members in concentration camps.

Kallmus continued photographing after the war until her death in 1963, but her most compelling work is her glamorous and carefully composed photographs of friends and celebrities, which show us even today the decadence and splendor of a young generation of artists coming into their own after the First World War.

We look at one woman’s view of the Roaring ‘20s as we enter a new decade over a hundred years later, with global fascism on the rise once more.

Ullstein Bild Dtl. / Getty Images

Ullstein Bild Dtl. / Getty Images

Ullstein Bild Dtl. / Getty Images
SEE THE REST OF THE PHOTO ESSAY HERE https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/piapeterson/photographer-dora-kallmus-roaring-twenties-style

A New Photo Exhibit Looks At Decades Of FBI Surveillance On American Citizens

In Las Carpetas, Christopher Gregory-Rivera shares a cautionary tale of the American surveillance state.

Pia Peterson BuzzFeed News Photo Editor

Posted on January 29, 2021,

Christopher Gregory-Rivera
The carpeta of Providencia Pupa Trabal, a cofounder of the Pro-Independence Movement (MPI). She had surveillance outside her home in 8-hour shifts, 24 hours a day. It turned out a person who was like her second son had been informing on her to the cops. She found out when the files were declassified.

Growing up in Puerto Rico, Christopher Gregory-Rivera has always been deeply engaged with issues around colonialism, which he said has “unequivocally reshaped the island — and many parts of the globe.” Most of his work looks at the territory’s history as a way to understand the present and attempt to unravel the forces behind the injustices that colonized and marginalized communities face.

He began his photography career in Washington, DC. “I intimately experienced the way politics and power is crafted but grew increasingly disillusioned with the ability of political journalism to truly speak truth to that process,” he said. He kept this in mind for years before he saw his first “carpeta” (Spanish for “binder”), files on Puerto Rican residents compiled by a Puerto Rican secret police with the support of the FBI. The files targeted ordinary citizens who were suspected of aligning with the territory’s independence movement, whom authorities considered to be a political threat to US interests. Over the course of four decades, the FBI and the Puerto Rico Police Bureau maintained a secret network throughout the territory, “surveying, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting” any national movements for independence by instilling a culture of fear, violence, and intimidation. This movement threatened the lives of ordinary citizens and political activists and turned national folklore into a real and ugly story of American colonialism.

Las Carpetas, an exhibition now on view at the Abrons Arts Center in New York, was curated by Natalia Viera Salgado, the current curatorial resident at the Abrons Arts Center, and the assistant curator at the Americas Society.

Christopher Gregory-Rivera

READ THE REST HERE https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/piapeterson/puerto-rico-fbi-files-photos-carpetas

A surveillance image of a strike at the University of Puerto Rico Rio Piedras Campus. It was not uncommon for the police to photograph protests and identify those involved. The person identified with the number 14 was Arnaldo Darío Rosado, who was entrapped and murdered by police just three years after this image was taken. The individuals in the photograph are clearly numbered and identified

THEY VAX 6000 STAFF

Pentagon halts plan to vaccinate Guantanamo Bay detainees

A sign for Camp VI in Camp Delta where detainees are housed is seen at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba in this July 2010 photo. Roger L. Wollenberg/UPI | License Photo

Jan. 30 (UPI) -- The Pentagon is pausing a plan to vaccinate detainees at Guantánamo Bay against COVID-19 after a backlash over the Defense Department's priorities.

"No Guantanamo detainees have been vaccinated. We're pausing the plan to move forward, as we review force protection protocols," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby wrote on Twitter Saturday. "We remain committed to our obligations to keep our troops safe."

Forty wartime prisoners are detained at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as well as six men who have been cleared for release by an interagency government panel.

Earlier this week The New York Times reported that the Department of Defense had decided to offer the vaccine to prisoners starting next week.

Medical workers at the U.S. naval base began vaccinating its 6,000 residents, including 1,500 troops assigned to the detention center, on Jan. 8.

The announcement that terrorism suspects could receive the vaccine as well sparked a backlash among conservatives, with Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican, writing, "President Biden told us he would have a plan to defeat the virus on day 1," on Twitter. "He just never told us that it would be to give the vaccine to terrorists before most Americans."

The detention camp was opened by then-President George W. Bush in 2002 to detain enemy combatants in the War on Terror.

RELATED New COVID-19 variants found in Arizona, Maryland; U.S. surpasses 26M cases

The camp's existence has drawn criticism from human rights organizations for violations of due process, as some detainees have awaited trial.

The lack of vaccinations has been an obstacle to resuming pretrial hearings in the Sept. 11 case, because almost everyone involved in the hearings -- save the prisoners -- commutes to the court from elsewhere, and vaccinating the prisoners, lawyers, judge and court staff has not been a priority.

As recently as three weeks ago, when Amnesty International released a report describing Guantánamo as the center of "ongoing and historic" human rights abuses, critics have cited a lack of adequate medical care as an ongoing problem at the site.

President Barack Obama promised to close the detention center during his 2008 campaign, but was stymied by Congressional opposition, and in 2018 then-President Donald Trump signed an executive order saying it would stay open indefinitely.

But as recently as last March, Pentagon officials said they were considering "right-sizing" the number of staff at the facility, which at the time employed 1,800 troops -- 45 for each man held there -- with an operating cost of $13 million per prisoner.

Reindeer lichens reproduce sexually far more than scientists thought

While reindeer lichen can produce both sexually and asexually, researchers were surprised at the genetic diversity found in lichens in Northern Canada -- because it means they are more sexual than previously thought. Photo by Marta Alonso-García

Jan. 29 (UPI) -- Like most lichen, reindeer lichen can reproduce both sexually and asexually, by sending out spores or simply cloning themselves.

Previously, researchers assumed reindeer lichen, Cladonia stellaris, was primarily a clonal species, and would therefore feature relatively low levels of genetic diversity.

But according to a new genomic survey, published Friday in the American Journal of Botany, the reindeer lichen that blanket the forest floors of northern Canada have been doing a lot more gene-mixing than scientists thought.

In other words, reindeer lichen have been having plenty of sex.

RELATED Lichens are much younger than scientists thought

Lichen are composite organisms featuring fungi and algae. Algae provide energy via photosynthesis, while the fungi secure nutrients from organic matter in rocks, soil and bark.

When lichen reproduce sexually, neighboring lichen exchange genetic information through intertwined root-like structures. The lichen then release single-cell spores.

Dispersed by wind, the spores colonize new territory, sprouting genetically distinct lichen.

RELATED Heat, wildfires could alter Alaska's forest composition

During asexual reproduction, lichen pinch-off a bit of themselves. This bit of fungi and algae, called the thallus, establishes a separate lichen that is genetically identical to its parent.

Ubiquitous and often inconspicuous, lichen are vital -- and according researchers, under appreciated -- members of forest ecosystems.

"Services provided by lichens are countless," lead study author Marta Alonso-García, postdoctoral fellow at Laval University in Quebec, told UPI in an email. "For example, together with mosses, they are the first organisms to colonize the soil after a fire."

RELATED Lichens thrived, diversified after the dinosaurs died out

"In particular, reindeer lichens have adapted better than almost all other lichens to boreal biome, the largest biome in North America," said Alonso-García. "Cladonia lichens have become essential components of those ecosystems and, in winter, they represent the most important food source for reindeer and caribou. In addition, they contain about 20 percent of the total lichen woodland biomass and can contribute up to 97 percent of ground cover."

To better understand the relationships between the reindeer lichens growing in the forests of northern Canada, researchers extracted and sequenced the DNA from dozens of lichen samples. Researchers focused on the DNA of the lichen's fungi.

Researchers were surprised to find a significant amount of genetic variation among lichens growing in different parts of the forest.

Sexual reproduction can help organisms rid themselves of potentially harmful gene mutations and accumulate potentially useful genetic variations. But sexual reproduction requires more energy, making it a riskier strategy.

Sexual reproduction is also more difficult for symbionts like lichen.

"Asexual reproduction has the advantage that the fungus reproduces together with the algae -- lichen parts breaking apart," study co-author Felix Grewe told UPI in an email.

"In comparison, sexual reproduction by fungal spores requires a reacquisition of the algal/cyanobacterial symbiotic partner wherever the wind dispersed spore lands," said Grewe, co-director of the Field Museum's Grainger Bioinformatics Center.

Though reindeer lichen are apparently having more sex than expected, under certain circumstances the lichen are still opting for asexual cloning.

Researchers found that reindeer lichen were much more genetically homogenous across recently burned forest.

The discovery was another surprise. Scientists assumed the thallus pieces that enable asexual reproduction would be easily destroyed by fire.

In followup studies, researchers said they hope to directly observe the reproductive behaviors of reindeer lichen in order to confirm the conclusions of their genetic analysis.

ON THE EVE OF BLACK HISTORY MONTH
'Stat geeks' make Negro Leagues come alive again

Pitcher Satchel Paige, shown in 1948 while with the Cleveland Indians, will have 20 years of additional data credited to his career statistics after MLB designated the Negro Leagues as major leagues. Photo courtesy of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

MIAMI, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- Major League Baseball is leaning on tedious, decades-long work of self-proclaimed "stat geek" researchers as it adds Negro Leagues statistics to its official record book.

MLB announced the decision to include the statistics in December, reclassifying the seven leagues, which played from 1920 to 1948, as major leagues.

MLB and the Elias Sports Bureau have started the verification process for the findings of Gary Ashwill, Larry Lester and other researchers who are trying to piece together records that are largely a mystery.

Many Negro Leagues game accounts have been lost or distorted or never were recorded. But the researchers' statistical discoveries will meld into major league records, even though these players' list of achievements probably never will be complete.

RELATED MLB's inclusion of Negro Leagues stats reframes greatest-player debate

"There were no comprehensive publications that covered everything" for Negro Leagues, said Ashwill, the lead researcher for Negro Leagues database Seamheads.com.

"For White baseball, you had the Sporting News, which covered everything. Even mainstream newspapers had box scores for every game," Ashwill said. "If you had to reconstruct White baseball history, you could do it very easily because you have evidence and material all over the place."

Lester, chairman of the Society for American Baseball Research Negro Leagues Committee, began his research in 1970. Ashwill started two decades ago.

RELATED MLB classifies Negro Leagues as a major league, will count statistics

The researchers stare at microfilm for hours in libraries and comb the country for publications, baseball artifacts and unanticipated discoveries. In November, for example, Ashwill found two previously unreported home runs that "Mule" Suttles hit for the St. Louis Stars in 1926.

James "Cool Papa" Bell, shown in 1942 with the Chicago American Giants, will have his statistics added to the baseball record book after MLB designated the seven Negro Leagues as major leagues. Photo courtesy of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

The researchers have discovered that "Cool Papa" Bell holds the leagues' single-season stolen base record (49 in 1929 for the St. Louis Stars). They've counted 238 home runs for Josh Gibson, a Negro Leagues career record.

"It cost me a dime for every copy from the microfilm machine," Lester said. "I have roughly 14,000 box scores after 50 years of research."

RELATED MLB, players union donate $1M to Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

Ashwill and Lester, who also co-founded the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Mo., are among a group of some 10 primary researchers with an obsession for uncovering the hidden performances.

Ashwill's desk is covered in old newspapers. He owns a trove of copied box scores and microfilmed pages, constantly seeking to uncover forgotten stories.

Lester has 20 four-drawer file cabinets at home, each packed with newspaper clippings, box scores, biographies and other Negro Leagues data.

The quest has been inspirational, frustrating and emotional for the researchers. Lester has become teary-eyed looking into the microfilm viewer.

"You read about a great ballplayer like a 'Bullet' Rogan and see the games on the screen where he gets two or three hits every game," Lester said. "He's pitching, playing center field, leading his team in home runs and hitting over .400.

"And you are like: Why haven't I heard of this ballplayer? It shakes your faith in baseball Americana."

Negro Leagues star Oscar Charleston (C), shown in 1921 as a member of the St. Louis Giants, never appeared in MLB, but now will have his statistics added to the official major league record book. Photo courtesy of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum

Some tangible Negro Leagues records from newspapers and other publications weren't considered "valuable" and often were discarded after Jackie Robinson broke MLB's color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947, the researchers said.

The popularity of the leagues faded into oblivion as more Black players joined MLB in the 1950s and 1960s.

Newspapers that served Black communities -- like the Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier, Baltimore Afro-American and Kansas City Call -- are the main source for Negro Leagues statistics, but they only printed weekly until the 1930s and couldn't cram a week's worth of daily box scores into only two or three pages dedicated to sports. As a result, some box scores never were printed, creating a dead end for historians.

The available box scores often aren't of good quality and omit important statistics. Modern-day researchers have had to collect multiple newspapers from around the United State to verify performances.

"I have mined more than 400 newspapers for Negro Leagues data," Lester said.

The statistics detectives work on a game-by-game basis for a specific season with the ultimate goal of compiling a player's career statistics.

"For any one season, you have to use dozens and dozens of newspapers," Ashwill said. "There are plenty of Negro Leagues games that took place in small cities. You have to dig up and check newspapers from all those cities, and it takes forever."

The tedious work has provided enough statistics to form the Seamheads database, but the job may never be finished. Researchers say a "complete" database won't be possible because of the lost and incomplete information.

Lester, 71, had a closer connection to the Negro Leagues than most researchers. He lived in the same Kansas City neighborhood as some players and went to high school with the children of Satchel Paige, arguably the greatest player in league history.

He said he "can't wait" to share his findings with baseball fans.

"You just want to know, why has America kept a great ball player like Oscar Charleston from [us]?" Lester said. "I know about Ty Cobb, Cy Young, Babe Ruth, a lot of White ballplayers I've never seen play. But what about 'Rap' Dixon and 'Turkey' Stearnes?"

MLB's official historian, John Thorn, credited Lester, Ashwill and other researchers for the data expansion. He said Seamheads has extended the data collection beyond what "anyone imagined was possible" over the last decade.

"Everyone who has found an extra home run for 'Mule' Settles [who primarily played for the Newark Eagles] or an extra RBI for 'Chino' Smith [Brooklyn Royal Giants] stands on the shoulders of giants," Thorn said.

New record-holders will be announced as Elias and MLB verify statistics from Negro Leagues players. It's a process with no finish line.

"I don't know if this will take six months or six years," said John Labombarda, the director of research at Elias Sports Bureau.

"How missing information will be filled in is an ongoing process. As they find information, they will let us know and we will include that," he said.

Thorn expects some fans to object to the inclusion of Negro League stars on all-time statistical leaderboards, which likely will move MLB legends like Babe Ruth and Ted Williams down in the rankings.

"The really significant thing for fans to understand is that history is not product, it's process," Thorn said.

"History is not something you put on a bronze plaque and put in Cooperstown [at the Baseball Hall of Fame] and don't challenge that data. History is always subject to investigation, and in some cases, corrections."

upi.com/7071727

S.C. Senate passes controversial fetal heartbeat law

Jan. 28 (UPI) -- Lawmakers in the South Carolina state Senate on Thursday passed a bill to ban most abortions, sending it to the Republican-controlled House were it is expected to pass but its fate is in doubt as it will likely face lengthy litigation if it becomes law.

The state's Republican governor, Henry McMaster, said he intends to sign the controversial South Carolina Fetal Heartbeat Protection from Abortion Act "immediately" into effect if it lands on his desk.

"We're closer than we've ever been to passing into law the most comprehensive pro-life legislation our state has ever seen," McMaster tweeted after the bill passed the state's Senate. "It's off to the House of Representatives now, where we have great leaders who I know will fight for life."

The bill prohibits a doctor under threat of felony charges and a two-year prison sentence from performing an abortion after the heartbeat of a fetus has been detected, which generally occurs between six and eight weeks after conception and before most people know they are pregnant.

And on Thursday, it passed the state Senate 30-13 with three lawmakers in absence.

"Thank you S.C. Senate for finally passing the Fetal Heartbeat Bill!" tweeted Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor of South Carolina, who said she looks forward to standing by McMaster's side when he signs it into law. "This is truly a great day for life in South Carolina."

Several states have passed similar fetal heartbeat bills, which have been tied up in the courts. In February, an appeals court struck down Mississippi's heartbeat bill banning abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, stating that since cardiac activity can be detected before the fetus is viable, the law couldn't stand.

"The fight is not over," the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina said Thursday. "We won't stop until every pregnant person has the opportunity to make a real decision and the ability to get the care they need."

Susan Dunn, legal director with the ACLU of South Carolina, wrote earlier this month that not only does the law's threat of prosecution conflict with a doctor's responsibility to treat a patient for the care they need but it's unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment, which guarantees a right to privacy.

"The United States Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed that this right includes a person's ability to make decisions about their healthcare," she wrote Jan. 13 on the ACLU website in a post arguing against the South Carolina law. "Instead of pursuing this unconstitutional and dangerous legislation, legislators should be focused on increasing access to reproductive healthcare and reducing pregnancy-related mortality."

The South Carolina Senate Democratic Caucus said South Carolina state Republicans' passing of the law was political theater, done "to appease extremists."

"Forcing this blatantly unconstitutional bill through the legislative process to score political points, while 6,000 of our own have lost their lives to a pandemic that is still raging on, is hypocritical and deeply immoral," the caucus said in a statement. "We hope now, finally that they feel that have appeased their party leaders and extremist campaign donors, the South Carolina Senate Republicans will allow us to move on to real issues that need our attention, such as vaccine distribution, saving our small businesses and public education."

Shane Massey, the Republican Senate majority leader, said passing this bill has been a priority for his party.

"Passage of the heartbeat bill will save thousands of innocent pre-born lives in our state and strikes an appropriate balance that we feel will stand up to court scrutiny," he said.

upi.com/7071717

Botticelli painting sells for $92M shattering artist's previous record

"Young Man Holding a Roundel" is one of only three Sandro Botticelli paintings in private hands. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Jan. 28 (UPI) -- A rare portrait by Italian painter Sandro Botticelli sold for a record $92.2 million Thursday, about nine times the previous high price for the Old Master, Sotheby's said.

The 1480-era painting -- Young Man Holding a Roundel -- came up for sale as part of Sotheby's New York auction of Old Master artworks.

"This is not only an exceptional painting, it is also the epitome of beauty, and of a moment when so much of our Western civilization began. Today's result is a fitting tribute, both to the painting itself and all that it represents," said Christopher Apostle, the head of Sotheby's Old Masters painting department in New York.

Botticelli was mostly known for his large, mythological paintings, including The Birth of Venus and Primavera, both of which are housed at the Uffizi gallery in Florence, Italy. He also created dozens of religious paintings.

Secular portraits, though, were somewhat rare for the Italian Renaissance master. It's even rarer that one was in private hands and came up for auction. Sotheby's said the painting is one of only three Botticelli portraits held by a private owner.

The auction house didn't reveal the name of the buyer, describing them only as an "Asian collector." Institutional buyers also showed interest in the painting, and there were bids coming in from both sides of the Atlantic.

Sotheby's said Young Man Holding a Roundel has been in the hands of the same owner since 1982, though the owner has loaned it out for display at museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, London's National Gallery and the Staled Museum in Frankfurt, Germany.

The painting depicts a young man from the waist up holding a medallion depicting a saint. Historians believe it was painted in 1480 and features the likeness of a member of the Medici family.

"This is a painting that transcends the normal boundaries of the Old Master genre, one of the best-preserved, most exquisite, classical Renaissance portraits that anyone could ever wish to own," said George Wachter, Sotheby's co-chairman of Old Master paintings.

The previous high auction price for a Botticelli painting was $10.4 million, set in 2014 in the sale of Rockefeller Madonna.

Another marquee item in the still-in-session Old Masters auction was a painting titled Abraham and the Angels by Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn. The small, 1646 painting was expected to fetch between $20 million and $30 million.

The auction also included artworks by Albrecht Durer, Gian Lorenzo, Pietro Bernini, Luca della Robbia, Jacopo Tintoretto and Rachel Ruysch.

Moon rock on Joe Biden's desk raises hopes for lunar return

The moon rock known as Lunar Sample 76015,143, installed last week as an exhibit in the Oval Office by President Joe Biden, was retrieved in 1972 from a large boulder during the Apollo 17 mission. Photo courtesy of NASA

ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 26 (UPI) -- A moon rock that President Joe Biden has placed in the Oval Office came from the last Apollo mission in 1972, raising hopes that he will support a new lunar landing program already underway.

The White House said the moon rock was part of Biden's goal to have the office reflect the best of American accomplishments.

Astronauts chipped the rock from a large boulder at the base of the North Massif mountain in the Imbrium Impact Basin. The stone's official name is Lunar Sample 76015,143, which refers to NASA's generic numbering system for more than 840 pounds of rock retrieved during Apollo missions.

Scientists were pleased with the testament to science and space exploration. Ellen Stofan, director of the National Air and Space Museum, posted a message of gratitude on Twitter for Biden's choice of the moon rock.

RELATED Presidential transition, weak funding put 2024 moon landing goal in doubt

Thank you to ⁦@POTUS⁩ for putting a ⁦@NASA⁩ moon rock in the Oval Office - look at what we can do together as a country when we are united. A look inside Biden's oval office - The Washington Postm https://t.co/6dUK5Ey792— Dr. Ellen Stofan (@EllenStofan) January 20, 2021

"Look at what we can do together as a country when we are united," said Stofan, a former NASA chief scientist whom Washington insiders believe is a front-runner for the NASA administrator job.

The rock is nearly 4 billion years old -- older than the oldest intact rock on Earth, said Tim Swindle, a professor of lunar and planetary studies at the University of Arizona. It came from the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston.

RELATED NASA's moon rocket roars to life during shortened test-firing

Astronaut Harrison "Jack" Schmitt, the only geologist to visit the moon, chipped the sample during the Apollo 17 mission from an area on the near side in which the last major asteroid impact occurred.

"Science can't tell us what society should do, but can tell us how the world works and what will happen if we do certain things," Swindle, who is also director of the Tucson-based Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, said in an email.

"It's refreshing to see an appreciation of that," he added.

RELATED NASA prepares Orion simulator for lunar mission training

"Rocks like this provide a window into what was happening at a time when we have no record on Earth," Swindle said. "There were a lot of asteroids hitting the moon, and almost certainly its next-door neighbor the Earth, at that time."

Swindle has studied moon rocks, notably for the release of gases trapped in them that indicates what the lunar environment was like when they were collected.

"One of my favorite uses is applying techniques that didn't exist at the time we brought the samples back ... to ask questions [about the history of the moon] that were too audacious for 1972," Swindle said.

NASA said the rock on loan to the Oval Office is "in symbolic recognition of earlier generations' ambitions and accomplishments, and support for America's current moon to Mars exploration approach."

The Trump administration had charged NASA with returning astronauts to the moon by 2024 -- a goal that is unlikely because Congress hasn't fully funded NASA's requests for the lunar missions.

CAPITALI$M IN SPACE
Space firm plans first all-private crew for 2022 launch

The interior of SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule is black and white, with a modern design.

Photo courtesy of SpaceX HOW STANLEY KUBRIC

ORLANDO, Fla., Jan. 29 (UPI) -- The first private crew, consisting of four astronauts, plans to fly to the International Space Station in January 2022 on a SpaceX mission arranged by Houston-based firm Axiom Space.

Former NASA astronaut Michael López-Alegría, a vice president at Axiom, would be flight commander. Ohio real estate and financial technology entrepreneur Larry Connor, who has flown fighter jets, would be the mission pilot, Axiom said.

The company has booked the ride with Elon Musk's space company in a Crew Dragon capsule launched from Florida by a Falcon 9 rocket.

Connor and two businessmen, one from Canada and one from Israel, have agreed to pay Axoim $55 million for the experience. The company declined to say whether the tickets are fully paid already, or if the voyagers have made deposits. Axiom's financial arrangement with SpaceX also was not disclosed.

RELATED Elon Musk's SpaceX crewed launches led space events in 2020

The three men are lining up research projects and educational programs to beam back to Earth during their mission, according to Axiom communications manager Beau Holder.

Connor plans to collaborate with the Mayo Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic on medical research, while providing lessons to students at Dayton Early College Academy in his hometown of Dayton, Ohio.

Mark Pathy, chief executive of Mavrik, a Montreal investment firm, plans to collaborate with the Canadian Space Agency and the Montreal Children's Hospital on health-related projects.

Eytan Stibbe plans to conduct experiments for Israeli researchers and entrepreneurs coordinated by the Ramon Foundation and the Israel Space Agency, along with educational outreach to Israeli students.

RELATED Bridenstine leaves NASA, calls for unity in space, science efforts

Axiom has support from NASA as the company builds a successor to the International Space Station, but there are many unknowns about the flight.

Axiom has agreements with NASA to connect privately owned segments to the space station starting in 2024. After the orbiting platform reaches obsolescence -- around 2030 -- Axiom intends to separate its units from the station and fly independently.

Former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, who stepped down on Jan. 20, was a big supporter of such commercial space missions. The agency currently is led by acting administrator Steve Jurczyk, but a new appointment is expected soon.

"We see no reason NASA's strong commitment to fostering a commercial marketplace in low-Earth orbit will change," Axion's Holder said in a statement to UPI.

Axiom Space and NASA are working together on a formal arrangement to foster private astronaut missions, including the planned January 2022 trip, known as Ax-1, Holder said.

Many details must be hammered out before such a ground-breaking space mission can occur, said John Spencer, a space architect and president of the Los Angeles-based non-profit Space Tourism Society.

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"The mission will set many precedents, and nobody wants to set precedents you can't live with in the future," Spencer said.

An example of such details is the limited number of sleeping stations aboard the space station, Spencer noted.

"That's not a deal-breaker but they would have to work something out, even if they only sleep aboard SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule," Spencer said.

The space station has only six sleeping stations, not enough to accommodate the seven astronauts currently on board. NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins has been sleeping aboard the Dragon capsule Resilience, in which he flew to the station in November.

The space station has hosted private citizens before, but not in recent years, as crewed flights were limited after the space shuttle program ended in 2011. Businessman Charles Simonyi last visited in 2007 and 2009.

NASA has announced that actor Tom Cruise will be shooting a movie aboard the space station after a private flight, but a date for that mission hasn't been set.

The Axiom mission as planned would last for about eight days, Axiom said in a press release announcing the flight.

López-Alegría, who flew to space four times over a 20-year career at NASA, will become the first person to command both a civil and a commercial human spaceflight mission, Axiom noted.

Previous space tourists have flown to the space station aboard Russian Soyuz capsules, but only as seatmates on official NASA missions.

"Some of the previous private astronauts had assignments and did work up there. We haven't heard yet what this crew will do," Spencer said. "It will be a learning experience for everybody."

Retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, also a former chief scientist at NASA, is listed as a backup commander for the Axiom mission.

Passengers must spend 15 weeks in training after a physical, according to Axiom's mission description.

Many people in space-related research hope the Axiom mission kicks off a new era of expanded spaceflight for private citizens, said Nancy Vermeulen, an astrophysicist, pilot and founder of the Belgium-based Space Training Academy.

Private citizens flying on such a mission doesn't present a safety risk, Vermeulen said, especially since SpaceX has flown its Dragon capsules to the space station many times on autopilot.

"This is a short-duration mission, eight days versus six months that many astronauts spend in space," she said.

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https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2021/01/29/Space-firm-plans-first-all-private-crew-for-2022-launch/7191611697160/

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