Government must be transparent about science advice it receives


Analysis: inquiry into UK’s response to Covid crisis shows Sage guidance should be put in public domain as soon as possible

While releases of Sage documents have become regular, even in 2021 some documents have been published six weeks or more after being considered by Sage.

 Photograph: Justin Tallis/PA


Nicola Davis Science correspondent
@NicolaKSDavis
Tue 12 Oct 2021 

The parliamentary inquiry into the UK’s response to the Covid crisis raises the serious issue of transparency around scientific advice – and why this remains crucial even as the country moves beyond an emergency situation.

The 151-page Coronavirus: lessons learned to date report, led by two former Conservative ministers, has made it clear that advice from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) should be rapidly placed in the public domain.


Covid response ‘one of UK’s worst ever public health failures’

“In a pandemic, the scientific advice from the Sage co-chairs to the government should be published within 24 hours of it being given, or the policy being decided, whichever is the later, to ensure the opportunity for rapid scientific challenge and guard against the risk of ‘groupthink’. In addition, minutes and Sage papers should be published within 48 hours of the meeting taking place.”
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Compare this recommendation with the reality of what actually happened.

It took until late May last year, months after the crisis began, for the first minutes and advice from Sage to be publicly released.

As a report from the Institute for Government, published in December, noted, this created a climate of “suspicion about the government’s approach that it has struggled to shake off, even after much greater publication and openness”.

While releases of Sage documents have become regular, even in 2021 some documents have been published six weeks or more after being considered by Sage.

Criticisms have been made about the time it took to release the scientific advice given to ministers in September 2020 and ahead of Christmas last year.

The situation now is more complex than then.

According to the Government Office for Science, Sage continues to meet as needed but “at a reducing tempo” because there is less demand for advice. .

The Guardian understands that meetings of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (Nervtag) have also become less frequent.

Activity also appears to have reduced in Sage’s behavioural science subgroup, Spi-B, with participants told in June there would no longer be regular meetings due to an expansion of in-house expertise.

But Sage and its subcommittees have not been, and are still not, the only sources of advice or insight for ministers. Other sources include the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI)and the government’s chief scientific adviser, while the government set up the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC) in May last year which “provides evidence-based, objective analysis to inform local and national decision-making in response to Covid-19 outbreaks.”


Bereaved families call for acceleration of UK Covid inquiry after MPs’ report

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) was launched this month – a government agency formed from a merger of Public Health England (PHE). This will provide crucial insights into the spread of Covid variants, NHS test and trace, and the JBC.

The Guardian understands that the UKHSA, being a government body, will not be releasing minutes of every meeting. However, it stressed that it was committed to transparency, and has released a plethora of data and research.

So, questions remain around who provides the main sources of scientific advice for ministers, how much of this is independent, and how much of it should be shared with the public.

Tom Sasse, an associate director at the Institute for Government, said the main channel of scientific advice to the prime minister on Covid would be from the government’s chief scientific adviser – Sir Patrick Vallance – and chief medical officer for England – Prof Chris Whitty – supported by their respective departments.

“But this is not public and minutes/docs remain private,” Sasse said, adding that “even during the peak of the crisis they would still have been providing much advice we could not see outside of Sage process”.

What is clear is that with the pandemic far from over, transparency will remain crucial if mistakes of the past are not to be repeated.

 

UN says invest more to save nature

Source: Agencies | October 11, 2021 | 

The global community must invest much more and raise the scale and speed of its pledges to protect nature and prevent species loss, a senior UN official said yesterday on the eve of a new round of global biodiversity talks.

The first part of the twice-postponed “COP15” biodiversity negotiations begin in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming today, with the aim of generating momentum for an ambitious post-2020 agreement to reverse decades of habitat destruction caused by human encroachment and climate change.

David Cooper, deputy executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, told a briefing that ministers attending virtual meetings this week needed to show more ambition and give “clear political direction” to negotiators, who will thrash out a final deal in Kunming in May next year.

Environmental groups say there is no time to lose when it comes to protecting habitats and slowing extinction rates, especially after governments failed to complete any of the 2020 biodiversity targets agreed in Aichi, Japan, a decade earlier. However, Cooper said the level of urgency was still not enough. “Currently, most countries are spending orders of magnitude more funds subsidizing activities that destroy biodiversity than we are spending on conserving it — this will have to change,” he said.

The UN wants countries to commit to protecting 30 percent of their land by 2030. Cooper said that it was important all countries protected more of their ecosystems, but that would not be enough in itself to fix biodiversity loss, saying more commitments were required to manage the other 70 percent. He said the pandemic had injected new urgency into biodiversity protection, but warned that this was not yet reflected in “business-as-usual” post-COVID-19 stimulus measures.

Austin City Limits apologises to Phoebe Bridgers for cutting sound, donates to Texas Abortion Funds

By Cerys Kenneally / 12 OCTOBER 2021,


Austin City Limits festival has apologised to Phoebe Bridgers after they cut the sound during the finale of her performance, and has made a donation to Texas Abortion Funds to show their support.

Following Phoebe Bridgers' performance at Austin City Limits festival last weekend, she took to Twitter to express her frustration after the sound was cut off during her final song "I Know The End". Bridgers wrote, "lol fuck acl", and now the festival has responded, apologising for the problem.

In a statement published by Austin American Statesman, festival organisers wrote, "Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication on stage by ACL Festival personnel, the sound on the final song of (the) Phoebe Bridgers set was cut off during her ACL Fest weekend two performance. We wish this had not happened and extend our apologies to Phoebe. After positive conversations between festival organizers and the artist about the situation, ACL Fest has made a donation to Texas Abortion Funds to show our support for Phoebe and an organization close to her heart."

ACL donated to Texas Abortion Funds after Bridgers directed proceeds from her recent cover of Bo Burnham's "That Funny Feeling" to the same organisation.

Bridgers shared the apology from ACL on Twitter, writing, "Thank you."

Last week Phoebe Bridgers contributed backing vocals to Harrison Whitford's "Linoleum" single.

Cargo ships forced to divert from UK ports as lorry driver crisis causes container backlog

12 October 2021

Ships are being diverted away from Felixstowe because of a build-up of cargo. 

Picture: Alamy
 

By Daisy Stephens@daisysteph_

Shipping giant Maersk has said it is diverting vessels away from UK ports because of a build-up of cargo amid the UK's ongoing supply chain crisis.

It has started rerouting its container ships away from Felixstowe, the UK's largest commercial port, to unload elsewhere in Europe before using smaller vessels to finally get deliveries to the UK, the Financial Times reported.

The congestion is partly the result of the HGV driver shortage slowing down the time it takes for containers to be emptied and picked up.

"We had to stop operations on a ship because there was nowhere to discharge the containers," said Lars Mikael Jensen, head of global ocean network at Maersk.

"Felixstowe is among the top two or three worst-hit terminals.

"We are having to deviate some of the bigger ships away from Felixstowe and relay some of the smaller ships for the cargo.

"We did it for a little while over the summer and now we're starting to do it again."

The UK's port industry has also warned that some ports are managing access to storage space with "short-term restrictions" in a bid to ease congestion issues.

Caller wants loans for HGV driver courses

As a result the backlog there will add to concerns over how UK industry will cope with the key Christmas period.

Mr Jensen also warned that this may mean retailers are forced to prioritise what they ship to deal with the congestion.

A spokesman for the port said: "In common with other major ports in the UK and beyond, the Port of Felixstowe is experiencing impacts of the global supply chain crisis.

"The vast majority of import containers are cleared for collection within minutes of arriving and there are over 1,000 unused haulier bookings most days.

"The situation is improving and there is more spare space for import containers this week than at any time since the beginning of July when supply chain impacts first started to bite.

"Empty container levels remain high as import containers are returned and we are asking shipping lines to remove them as quickly as possible."

The Industry needs to improve HGV working conditions

The industry needs to improve working conditions and wages for HGV drivers, not the government, Cabinet Office Minister Steve Barclay tells LBC. @NickFerrariLBC

The lorry driver shortage has contributed to disruption at UK ports.

Tim Morris, chief executive officer of the UK Major Ports Group, said that trade ports had become "the jam in the sandwich between surging, volatile shipping and UK supply chains badly impacted by factors such as HGV driver shortages".

"Ports have taken significant action to respond to the challenges and build resilience," said Mr Morris.

"They have extended gate opening to 24/7, increased capacity for trucks at peak hours, sought to maximise rail freight usage within the significant constraints of the network, created additional storage space and recruited more people.

"But the pressures are being exacerbated by well-publicised issues impacting all UK supply chains, notably shortages of HGV drivers.

"Ports therefore have to manage access to storage space very dynamically in extreme situations. This can mean some very limited short-term restrictions.

He added that ports were "committed" to keeping goods moving through the supply chain.

Government need to do more to reassure public amid HGV driver shortage

On a visit to an HGV training centre near Oldham in Greater Manchester, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said the shortage of drivers was "absolutely foreseeable".

"We need to get drivers back on the road just as quickly as possible because we've seen already the impact on fuel in recent weeks," he told broadcasters.

"Now we're seeing the impact in deliveries and this is going to go on for weeks and months into Christmas.

"And I think everybody will be saying we need to do something about it, we need to get that training in place.

"But for heaven's sake, this was predicted, it was absolutely foreseeable, and the Government hasn't responded.

"We knew when we left the EU that we would need to have a plan B in relation to drivers, we knew because of the pandemic there would be an impact, and here we are in the middle of a crisis and we've got, what? A Prime Minister who's missing in action."

Sites elsewhere across the world have also suffered significant delays.

Retailers have highlighted particular issues in China and east Asia, where pandemic restrictions and poor weather conditions have affected shipping.

Hurricane Ida in Louisiana: Caskets, vaults still displaced

By REBECCA SANTANA

1 of 13

Caskets that floated from their tombs during flooding from Hurricane Ida sit along a roadside in Ironton, La., Monday, Sept. 27, 2021. Hurricane Ida swept through Louisiana with furious winds that ripped roofs off buildings and storm surge so powerful it moved homes. And what it wrought on the living it also wrought on the dead, moving vaults and caskets and adding another layer of trauma on families and communities recovering from the powerful storm. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)


LAFITTE, La. (AP) — Hurricane Ida swept through Louisiana with furious winds that ripped roofs off buildings and storm surge so powerful it moved homes. What it wrought on the living it also wrought on the dead, moving vaults and caskets and adding another layer of trauma for families and communities recovering from the powerful storm.

“Once you bury a relative, you expect that to be the permanent resting place,” said the Rev. Haywood Johnson Jr., who lives in the small community of Ironton, south of New Orleans along the Mississippi River. Ida’s surge destroyed nearly every home in the community and pushed heavy vaults — including those containing Johnson’s mother and other relatives — from their resting spots into the streets.

“Some of those tombs weigh a couple of tons. And the water just came and disrupted it like they were cardboard boxes. That was the force of the water,” Johnson said.

Louisiana’s location in a hurricane-prone region coupled with cultural burial practices that often lay the dead to rest above ground make the problem common in the aftermath of strong hurricanes or other flooding.



Ryan Seidemann chairs the state’s Cemetery Response Task Force, which was formed after the 2016 floods in Baton Rouge led to widespread problems at cemeteries across the flood-stricken region. Members of the task force start surveying cemeteries as soon as they can after a storm to assess damage.

In some cases, storm surge or flooding from heavy rain can move the vaults so far that it’s not immediately clear where they were buried. Often made of thousands of pounds of concrete or cinder block, vaults can have air pockets inside and the concrete itself can actually be more buoyant than people realize, Seidemann said.

“They float. They tend to go wherever the water goes. We’ve recovered them from yards, from levees, from underneath stairwells,” he said. “There’s no rhyme or reason, really, to where they come to rest, and then it’s kind of our logistical problem to figure out how to get them out of there.”

And recovery is just the first step. The team then has to identify the remains and often works with families to get Federal Emergency Management Agency aid for reburial costs. Even as they’re working on post-Ida recovery, Seidemann said the task force is still dealing with damage from hurricanes last year that sent remains into coastal marshes.

In the aftermath of a hurricane, having remains displaced is like “opening up old wounds” for families, Seidemann said: “They’re going to have to go through the whole grieving process again.”



It’s also upsetting for people struggling to rebuild their homes or their businesses who come across a vault or casket on their yard or road, although Seidemann said people are generally patient and just want the remains returned to provide closure for families.

Thomas Halko lives along Bayou Barataria where it intersects with Goose Bayou in southeastern Louisiana. In the middle of his property is a small family cemetery often referred to as the Lafitte Cemetery or the Perrin Family cemetery.

After the hurricane, Halko found thick layers of mud washed over the property, one of his houses pushed off its 4-foot-high pillars and two of the heavy stone vaults in the cemetery moved. One came to rest atop the levee that separates the property from the bayou. Across the road was another vault that Halko thinks was in the cemetery.

“It took quite a beating,” Halko said, speaking of the cemetery. Gesturing to the vault on top of the road, he said: “That’s one example.”

Edward Perrin has relatives buried there as well as in other cemeteries in the long ridge of land that stretches toward the Gulf of Mexico. He said at least one vault became dislodged after Rita and had to be recovered. The 87-year-old said he had thought he might want to be laid to rest at the family’s cemetery on Goose Bayou but the graves disturbances have made him reconsider.

“All of this water situation is causing problems with worshiping and burying and living,” he said.

Families sometimes strap down graves or use sandbags to keep them in place ahead of a storm, said Arbie Goings, a task force member who is also a retired funeral director. When they do get displaced, identifying remains can be challenging, especially in cases of long dead people with fewer, if any, ways to match things like dental records or DNA.

Some caskets have a little plastic tube — called a memory tube — screwed into its end where a funeral home can put identifying information, Goings said. In some cases, they’ve found the name at the foot of the casket or embroidered into a piece of cloth covering the bottom part of the person, he said.

Often family members can give key identifying details. He recalled one case where they identified a woman’s remains by the marbles her grandchildren put in her casket in honor of her love of the game.

In some cases, they exhaust all options. A handful of people who could not be identified after the 2016 floods are buried at Plainview Cemetery in Denham Springs. And sometimes, despite extensive searching, caskets go missing and are never found.

Seidemann estimated it could take as long as two years to return all the remains displaced by Ida to their rightful places. That’s about how long it took after the 2016 floods in the Baton Rouge area.

The team has been in Ironton and Lafitte gathering the vaults and caskets scattered by the water. When they are identified, they will be reburied. In Ironton, the Rev. Johnson said he hopes to have a ceremony at that time to honor the dead.

___

Follow Santana on Twitter @ruskygal

PRIVATIZATION OF THE SPACE RACE

As Shatner heads toward the stars, visions of space collide
By TED ANTHONY

FILE - In this 1988 file photo, William Shatner, who portrays Capt. James T. Kirk, attends a photo opportunity for the film "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier." The performer who breathed life into Kirk is, at age 90, heading toward the stars under dramatically different circumstances than his fictional counterpart when Shatner boards Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin NS-18. (AP Photo/Bob Galbraith, File)

“Risk is our business,” James T. Kirk once said. “That’s what this starship is all about. That’s why we’re aboard her.”

More than a half-century later, the performer who breathed life into the fabled Enterprise captain is, at age 90, making that kind of risk his own business and heading toward the stars under dramatically different circumstances than his fictional counterpart. And in doing so, William Shatner is causing worlds to collide, or at least permitting parallel universes to coexist — the utopian spacefaring vision of “Star Trek” and the evolving, increasingly commercial spot that “space” holds in the American psyche.

When Shatner boards Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin NS-18 in Texas at around dawn Wednesday, his one small step into the craft creates one of the ultimate crossover stories of our era.

It’s about space and exploration, sure, and certainly about capitalism and billionaires and questions of economic equity. But it’s also about popular culture and marketing and entertainment and nostalgia and hope and Manifest Destiny and, and, and … well, you get the idea.

“What will I see when I’m out there?” Shatner wondered last week, talking to Anderson Cooper on CNN. An equally valid question is this: What will WE see when he’s out there?

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket launches in July.

 (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez,)

It will be a complex blend of human dreams superimposed upon technology and hope, braggadocio and cash, and the notion that space travel elevates us — all orchestrated by a company under criticism for what some call the decidedly un-utopian, tech-bro ways that it operates.

Is all that and “Star Trek” a good fit?

THE WORLD OF `STAR TREK’

Since its 1966 premiere with one of the most diverse casts TV had ever seen, “Trek” has grown from Gene Roddenberry’s fever dream of a “‘Wagon Train’ to the stars” into an intricate transmedia universe full of subtleties and traditions and rules.

Among them: Human beings avoid killing each other. Money is generally outdated, as are hunger and poverty. Greed is aberrant. Noninterference in other cultures is the most sacred principle of all. And within the United Federation of Planets, the spacefaring United Nations of “Star Trek,” exploration, not domination, is the coin of the realm. In short, unlike a lot of humanity right now.

That 1966-69 original series used allegory to evade network censors and tell stories about racism and xenophobia and even the Vietnam War. How could they get away with all that? Because the adventures of Kirk’s Enterprise took place against a backdrop of 23rd-century space travel — something directly relevant to the world as well, given that humans first set foot on the moon 47 days after the original series’ final episode.

Over the next half century, backed by a vocal fan base, “Star Trek” roared back for more and, in the process, led the way in cementing space travel as an ideal canvas for relevant storytelling.

Shatner promoting "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" in 1988. 

(AP Photo/Bob Galbraith)

Even as NASA’s Apollo era ebbed into the space shuttle program (where an early craft was named “Enterprise”) and eventually into uncertainty, “Trek” remained one of the culture’s central vehicles for a spacefaring future.

Nichelle Nichols, who played Lt. Uhura on the show, was a particularly tireless advocate, working with NASA to recruit Americans of color and women and make sure they could occupy the center of such ambitions as the missions marched forward.

In the 1980s, movies about the original crew dealt with aging and regret. “Star Trek: The Next Generation” offered a more cerebral but still utopian vision. Another spinoff, “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” set at an outpost preserving a delicate detente, presented a darker take — but still one in which avarice was anomalous and worthy of scorn. And “Enterprise,” a 2001-2005 prequel, offered a season-long arc about the aftermath of a 9/11-style extraterrestrial attack on Earth.

Two of the latest iterations of the myth, “Star Trek: Discovery” and “Star Trek: Picard,” have dipped deeper into darkness than their predecessors and have toyed with the notion that not all humanity wants to be quite that utopian.

In all that varying storytelling, though, one constant remained: the notion that human space travel would become a vector of ethics and goodness that elevated the galaxy rather than plundered it.

THE PROFITABLE FRONTIER

Which brings us to companies like Blue Origin, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic — endeavors that build their brands not upon countries but corporations.

They offer the culture a late-stage capitalism variation on the theme — a narrative that space travel isn’t just for scientists and diplomats but for you and me, too. If, that is, you and me happen to have a few hundred thousand dollars or more of walking-around money on hand.

The Blue Origin launch site near Van Horn, Texas

(AP Photo/LM Otero)

“The United States always has had private people working for the public purpose,” says Ravi S. Rajan, president of the California Institute for the Arts and a “Trek” fan since childhood. “But how much is done privately and how much is done publicly, that changes.”

Many have impugned the billionaire space moguls’ actions, including the secretary-general of the United Nations, and the troubles of Blue Origin’s corporate culture are well-documented of late.

But the motives of the Amazon founder himself remain unclear. It is evident, though, that the popular culture of space travel has influenced him deeply.

Bezos, who tells a story of exploring space to help ensure Earth’s continued prosperity, is a longtime “Trek” fan. He made a cameo as an alien Starfleet official in the 2016 movie “Star Trek Beyond.” And according to biographer Brad Stone, Bezos even fleetingly considered calling Amazon “Makeitso.com,” after Capt. Jean-Luc Picard’s favorite command in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

“The whole ethos of `Star Trek’ showed people who were different-looking, with different skills, working together. We are in the opening moments of something like that,” says Richard B. Cooper, vice president of the Space Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for the global space industry. “People can look at this environment and say, `Hey — I belong there, too.’”

Bezos in July after his Blue Origins flight. 

(AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Prohibitive costs aside (and that’s a big aside), Cooper has a point. Though the likes of Shatner may not be “regular people,” the shift from the dominance of the test pilot and the scientist tracks with the populism of our era, where — it must be said — the exactitude of science is being called into question as never before. And as Cooper points out, “it gives people hope. And if there’s one thing the world’s in short supply of, it’s that essential payload.”

That kind of storyline — hope, heroism, competitive dominance and an unerring sense of competence that can at times overlap with testosterone — could be one key reason why the commercial space outfits are thriving. At a moment when NASA and nation-focused space travel lacks a compelling Hollywood narrative, the entrepreneurs and their marketers step right in.

“American dominance in space, nobody cares about it. It’s Bezos who says, `We can’t go on living like this. We have to save the planet,’” says Mary-Jane Rubenstein, a professor of religion and science in society at Wesleyan University. What results, she says, is “a kinder, gentler colonialism” in which humans take to orbit under premises that seem justifiable but require closer scrutiny.

“It’s the billionaires who have the utopian visions,” says Rubenstein, author of the upcoming book “Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race.”

“The states can’t muster them,” she says. “They have no story.”

(AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

LAUNCHING SHATNER

We live in an era where the fictional and the real have an intricate relationship, and sometimes it’s hard to separate them. Something like this, a collision of dreams and real-life ambition and achievement, couldn’t have a more effective ambassador than the outsized personality that is William Shatner.

“I was there last week rehearsing, whatever they call it,” Shatner told Anderson Cooper.

“Training I think is what they call it,” Cooper said, to which Shatner responded: “I think of it as rehearsal.”

Shatner in 2018. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

And there it is again — the storyline, compelling as ever, stealing oxygen from other important questions. Should we even be colonizing space? Don’t we have enough going on here at home to worry about? Aren’t there people with problems more pressing than this who could use the cash?

And what if we encounter life that’s not life as we know it, and harm it out of obliviousness or greed? It’s not as if that hasn’t happened countless times here on the ground, in the land that put a man on the moon but still grapples with a history brimming with horrors from slave markets to smallpox blankets. These are only some of the questions that will ascend and descend with Shatner on Wednesday.

Is it a stunt? Sure. Is it a genius marketing ploy? Absolutely. Is it cynical and self-aggrandizing and designed solely to make more money and grab more attention for the world’s richest man? You’re going to have to decide that one yourself.

In the meantime, consider the autobiographical song called “Real” that Shatner recorded in 2004 with country singer Brad Paisley.

“I’d love to help the world and all its problems. But I’m an entertainer, and that’s all,” he says in it. “So the next time there’s an asteroid or a natural disaster, I’m flattered that you thought of me — but I’m not the one to call.”

Turns out, he is — this time. But next time? In the future of the final frontier and the culture that has grown up around it — in this unusual realm where risk IS the business — that’s eventually going to have to be addressed.

___

Ted Anthony, director of new storytelling and newsroom innovation at The Associated Press, has been writing about American culture since 1990 and watching “Star Trek” since 1969. His younger son’s middle name is Kirk. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/anthonyted

California oil spill legal fight likely to last years

Surfers and swimmers return to the Huntington Beach pier waves since the crude oil spill at the California beach, Monday, Oct. 11, 2021. The reopening of Huntington Beach, dubbed "Surf City USA," came far sooner than many expected after a putrid smell blanketed the coast and blobs of crude began washing ashore. (AP Photo/Amy Taxin)


LOS ANGELES (AP) — It took little more than 48 hours from the moment a major oil spill was discovered off Southern California until the first lawsuit was filed against the Houston company that owns and operates the ruptured pipeline.

Finding the cause, who is to blame and if they will be held accountable will take much longer.

Several federal and state agencies are investigating in parallel as they seek the cause of the pipe rupture, how quickly pipeline operators responded and determine whether criminal charges are warranted.

Coast Guard Capt. Jason Neubauer said investigators are trying to find which ship among thousands of possibilities may have snagged the pipeline with its anchor in the past year, possibly during rough seas and high winds in January.

“We are not ruling out anybody at this time,” Neubauer said.

A possible leak off the Orange County coast south of Los Angeles was first reported Oct. 1. The spill was confirmed the next morning, and crude came ashore on Huntington Beach and then spread south to other beaches. Much of the coastline nearby was shut down more than a week, crippling businesses that cater to beachgoers and boaters.

The Coast Guard has estimated between about 25,000 gallons (94,635 liters) and 132,000 gallons (495,889 liters) spilled.

It could take a long time for investigators to comb through marine tracking data to see which ships passed over and anchored near the Amplify Energy pipeline running from platform Elly to the Long Beach port.

Investigations by federal prosecutors, the Coast Guard and several other federal agencies, including the National Transportation Safety Board, could lead to criminal charges, civil penalties and new laws or regulations.

“Criminal charges — when they’re warranted — you absolutely want to go after for all the reasons that you pursue criminal charges: accountability, deterrence, punishment,” said attorney Rohan Virginkar, a former assistant U.S. attorney who helped prosecute BP for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. “But really in these environmental cases, it’s about finding somebody who’s going to pay for the cleanup.”

Coast Guard investigators already have boarded two vessels and plan to track down others, many from overseas, Neubauer said. They will inspect anchors for damage and review all logs kept by the captain, deck officers and engineers, and the voyage data recorder — the equivalent of the so-called black box on airplanes. They will also interview crew.

Under some environmental laws, prosecutors only have to show negligence to win a conviction, Virginkar said. That could lead to a charge against a shipping company for anchoring outside an assigned anchorage or too close to a pipeline marked on nautical charts.

The accident occurred where huge cargo ships anchor waiting to unload at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port complex — the nation’s largest.

Other investigators, including federal pipeline regulators, will focus on Amplify Energy, which owns the three offshore oil platforms and the pipeline.

They will review pipeline inspections for evidence of corrosion that might show it was being operated negligently and seek any information that records were falsified, which is what they found in the BP case, said attorney William Carter, a former federal environmental crimes prosecutor. A forensic analysis will be performed after the cracked is retrieved from 100 feet (30 meters) of water.

The Amplify pipeline was required to have thorough inside and outside checks on alternating years. The most recent showed no issues requiring repairs, according to federal documents.

Prosecutors will also scrutinize control room data to see if there were pipeline pressure drops that would have indicated a possible leak and what was done to respond, Carter said.

The company could be prosecuted if it realized there was a leak and did not quickly call state and federal hotlines to alert the Coast Guard, fish and wildlife officials and multiple other agencies that respond to spills, Carter said.

Prosecution for an untimely response is fairly common in spills, he said.

“The elements necessary for that violation are: I knew there was a release, and I didn’t immediately report it — regardless of the cause,” Carter said. “I mean, it could have been lightning or an earthquake did it and you knew it, and you didn’t report it in a timely fashion.”

Plains All American Pipeline was convicted for that crime for a breach in a pipe on land that sent tens of thousands of gallons of crude pouring onto a Santa Barbara beach and into the ocean in 2015.

In the Amplify pipeline leak, federal regulators said a low-pressure alarm at 2:30 a.m. Oct. 2 alerted control room operators on platform Elly to a possible leak. The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said the line wasn’t shut down until 6:01 a.m. and the Coast Guard wasn’t notified until 9:07 a.m.

Amplify CEO Martyn Willsher has refused to answer questions about the reported pressure drop, including the fact that the first report to authorities made on behalf of the company listed the incident at 2:30 a.m. He has insisted the company didn’t know of the spill until a company inspection boat saw the sheen at 8:09 a.m.

Carter said lawyers probably told Willsher not to discuss the timeline because he could incriminate himself.

If charged with failure to report the spill quickly, the company could also face charges for allowing oil to harm endangered species and other wildlife that might have been saved by a more prompt response.

Federal prosecutors have five years to bring felony charges. Carter said they would likely wait until they know the cost of the damage to demand restitution.

Federal penalties for failing to notify authorities can be $500,000 or it could be as much as double the total damage. State penalties could run up to $10 per gallon spilled that wasn’t recovered.

Regardless of whether a ship is ultimately found to be the cause of the spill, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 requires whoever spills the oil to pay for the cleanup, said attorney James Mercante, a maritime lawyer. Amplify, however, can later seek to recover its losses from other liable parties.

Mercante said the law was passed in the wake of the Exxon Valdez tanker spill in Alaska in 1989 to speed the cleanup without finger-pointing.

“The spirit and purpose is to get the oil cleaned up and then fight it out,” Mercante said. “It will take years and years and years to be resolved.”

So far, two proposed class-action lawsuits have been filed on behalf of a disc jockey who runs beachfront events in Huntington Beach and a surf school that operates in the city known as “Surf City USA.”

Those cases will rely heavily on government investigations and will take years to play out.

Fewer in US turn to food banks, but millions still in need


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Volunteer Markel Lucas, center, takes a box of food to a patron of the food bank's car, at the Town Hall Education Arts & Recreation Campus (THEARC), Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hunger and food insecurity across the United States have dropped measurably over the past six months, but the need remains far above pre-pandemic levels. And specialists in hunger issues warn that the situation for millions of families remains extremely fragile.

An Associated Press review of bulk distribution numbers from hundreds of food banks across the country revealed a clear downward trend in the amount of food handed out across the country, starting in the spring as the COVID-19 vaccine rollout took hold and closed sectors of the economy began to reopen.

“It’s come down, but it’s still elevated,” said Katie Fitzgerald, COO of Feeding America, a nonprofit organization that coordinates the efforts of more than 200 food banks across the country and that provided the AP with the national distribution numbers. She warned that despite the recent decreases, the amount of food being distributed by Feeding America’s partner food banks remained more than 55% above pre-pandemic levels. “We’re worried (food insecurity) could increase all over again if too many shoes drop,” she said.

Those potential setbacks include the advance of the delta variant of the coronavirus, which has already delayed planned returns to the office for millions of employees and which could threaten school closures and other shutdowns as the nation enters the winter flu season. Other obstacles include the gradual expiration of several COVID-19-specific protections such as the eviction moratorium and expanded unemployment benefits.

All told, families facing food insecurity find themselves still dependent on outside assistance and extremely vulnerable to unforeseen difficulties.

“There are people going back to work, but it’s slow going and God forbid you should need a car repair or something,” said Carmen Cumberland, president of Community Harvest Food Bank in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Nationally, the food banks that work with Feeding America saw a 31% increase in the amount of food distributed in the first quarter of 2021 compared with the first quarter of 2020, just before the global pandemic reached America.

When the nationwide closures of offices and schools began in March 2020, the impact was immediate. Feeding America-affiliated food banks distributed 1.1 billion pounds of food in the first quarter on 2020; in the second quarter, the number jumped 42% to more than 1.6 billion pounds. The third quarter saw a smaller 5% increase up to nearly 1.7 billion pounds of food. While distributions declined from the end of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021, recent data suggests that the decline has leveled off.

The national data is mirrored in the experiences of individual food banks across the country. At the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Oakland, California, the level of community need spiked in winter and early spring of this year. In February 2021, the organization set a record with 5 million pounds of food distributed. That record stood for one month as March 2021 saw 6 million pounds distributed.

After the March peak, the numbers started dropping steadily — down to 4.6 million pounds in August 2021. But that’s still compared with 2.7 million pounds in June 2019.

“The recovery is going to be very, very long and steep for families who are typically reliant on food banks,” said Michael Altfest, the food bank’s director of community engagement. Altfest said the coronavirus pandemic was an additional trauma for families already suffering from food insecurity, and it introduced a whole new category of client who had never used food banks before but had been pushed over the financial edge by the pandemic. Both categories are projected to remain in need of assistance well into next year.

“Things are not getting any easier here for low- and moderate-income households, and we don’t expect it to for a while,” Altfest said.

Among those newcomers to the food bank system is Ranada James. The 47-year-old child care professional had received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits in the past but never dealt with a food bank before the pandemic. On a recent overcast Wednesday, James was one of a few dozen people lining up in their cars for a weekly drive-through food pantry operated by a local charity called The Arc in southeast Washington, D.C., the poorest and most virus-ravaged part of the city. Volunteers loaded her backseat with pre-prepared hot meals, lunch sacks, fresh vegetables from The Arc’s garden and sealed boxes of durable goods.

“I never thought I would need it,” she said. “It helped tremendously, and it still really helps.”

Even as the situation slowly improves, James finds herself in need. She has two grandchildren and two nieces living with her, and she’s keeping them from attending in-person school out of fear of the pandemic — which means she can’t go back to work.

“They really do eat,” she said with a laugh, adding that broccoli and fresh string beans were household favorites. “They’re growing, and they’re picky.”

Other food banks across the country are reporting similar trends: a gradual decrease this year, starting in about April, but still far higher than any pre-pandemic numbers. At the Central California Food Bank in Fresno, the numbers have “leveled off” in recent months but remain 25% higher than in 2019, said the food bank’s co-CEO, Kym Dildine.

“Many people are still out of work, particularly women, who are the primary caregivers in the home,” she said.

At the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington, D.C., the amount of food distributed in July 2021 was 64% higher than in the same month in 2019.

“COVID isn’t over by any means,” said the food bank’s president, Radha Muthiah. “We’re still seeing existing need.”

Just how long the elevated level of need will last is a matter of debate, with the most conservative estimates projecting it will last well into next summer. Some are predicting that the country’s food banks may never return to normal.

Parallel government food assistance programs like SNAP benefits, commonly known as food stamps, also saw a pandemic-fueled spike in usage. The Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP, reports that the number of SNAP users increased by 7 million between 2019 and 2021. In August, President Joe Biden instituted a permanent 25% boost in SNAP benefits, starting this month.

But the SNAP program doesn’t come close to covering every family in need. Muthiah said many of the clients who depend on food banks for their nutrition are either ineligible for SNAP benefits, intimidated by the bureaucratic paperwork or fearful of applying due to their immigration status. That leaves food banks as the primary source of aid for millions of hungry people.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack told the AP that at the peak of the pandemic, 14% of American adults were receiving SNAP benefits. That number is now down around 8%, but the need remains highly elevated, and nonprofit charitable options like food banks serve a vital role in papering over the remaining holes in millions of family budgets, he said.

“We just need to understand what this pandemic has done in terms of significant disruption of what was probably a pretty fragile system to begin with,” said Vilsack, who also filled the same Cabinet post under former President Barack Obama. ”It has exposed the fragility of the system, which makes programs like SNAP, programs like summer feeding programs, school feeding programs, food bank assistance ever more important.”

Vilsack said the Biden administration has moved to strengthen the national food bank infrastructure by devoting $1 billion in June to help fund refrigerated trucks and warehouses that will allow food banks to store and provide more fresh fruits, vegetables and dairy products.

Now the country’s food bank network is busy trying to project the level of need going forward, factoring in multiple influences — positive and negative. Theoretically, the boosted Child Tax Credit payments, which started in July, are meant to alleviate the monthly burden for lower-income and middle-class families by providing money to use as the families see fit. But food bank executives and researchers estimate that it could take six to 12 months to see a real impact on food security as families initially devote those funds to issues like rent or car repairs.

And the end of the nationwide eviction moratorium looms as a major pressure point that could push vulnerable families back into crisis.

The Biden administration allowed the federal moratorium to expire in late August, and Congress did not extend it. While the federal government now focuses on pumping money into rental assistance programs, the national moratorium has devolved into a patchwork of localized moratoriums, in places like Washington, D.C., Boston and New York state — all expiring on different schedules.

At the southeast Washington drive-through food pantry, volunteers there have developed friendships with some of the regulars, including Rob and Devereaux Simms. A retired bus driver and a school aide, both in their 70s, they consider themselves solidly middle class and had never used food stamps. But when the pandemic hit and two of their children were laid off, “things started running short,” Devereaux Simms said.

Now, with three grandchildren living at home, they’re fixtures at the Wednesday drive-through. They even make a point of taking home extra supply boxes to distribute to needy neighbors and recently took small gifts for the volunteers.

“God’s been good to us,” Devereaux Simms said, “and you should never be too proud to accept help.”

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Associated Press writer Michael Casey in Boston and data journalist Camille Fassett in Oakland, California, contributed to this report.

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This story has been corrected to fix Katie Fitzgerald’s job title from CEO to COO.

WHITE SUPREMACIST REVISIONISM

Florida city's first Black female firefighter sues over mural that depicted her as White

Oct. 12 (UPI) -- City attorneys and commissioners in a South Florida city will meet Tuesday to discuss a lawsuit filed by its first Black female firefighter over a controversial public mural -- on which she was depicted as being White.

The firefighter, Latosha Clemons, filed the suit against the city of Boyton Beach in April, which says the mural honoring her and others "reflected her as a White member of the city fire department."

A second amended complaint filed last month says the case is being brought on Clemons' behalf "to redress the defamatory statement [the City of Boyton Beach] made regarding her race and/or its negligence in failing to properly oversee an approved use of the likeness of Clemons."

The suit seeks $100,000 and claims that Clemons, 48, has faced damage to her personal and professional reputations, loss of income and has been subjected to "ridicule, contempt, disgrace and/or humiliation" since the mural was revealed.

City Manager Lori LaVerriere told CNN that the Boyton Beach City Commission will "meet in a closed-door session Tuesday to discuss the litigation."

The mural used a photograph of Clemons and two white female firefighters as a template but portrayed all three women as White and was removed a day after it was unveiled in June 2020.

The lawsuit says that representing Clemons as White on the mural "completely disrespected" all that she had accomplished and "demonstrated disrespect" to the Black population of Boyton Beach, a city in Palm Beach County, Fla., located about 55 miles north of Miami.

A 2019 project by the city's art commission to honor the fire department also depicted former city fire chief Glenn Joseph, a Black man, as White.

The city fired public arts manager Debby Coles-Dobay and fire chief Matthew Petty after the mural was unveiled.

Boyton City attorneys James Cherof and Gal Betesh said in a court filing that employees responsible for altering the mural "acted outside the scope of their employment and without the city's knowledge or consent.

Clemons' attorneys have requested a jury trial and they will discuss a range of options during Tuesday's closed-door session, which include seeking a settlement to litigating the case in court.

Groups sue U.S. government over failure to protect giraffes

"Recognizing that giraffe have a complex cooperative social system and live in matrilineal societies will further our understanding of their behavioral ecology and conservation needs,"


Two newborn South African giraffe calves (Giraffa camelopardalis giraffa) nurse from a female giraffe in the African section of the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem, Israel. 

File Photo by Debbie Hill/UPI | License Photo

Oct. 12 (UPI) -- The Humane Society's U.S. and international branches, along with a conservation group, sued Tuesday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to protect Africa's giraffes from extinction.

The Center for Biological Diversity, Humane Society International and Humane Society of the United States argued in the 24-page suit that the federal agency and Secretary of the Interior Debra Haaland missed a legal deadline to propose Endangered Species Act protections.

The Humane Society petitioned for the giraffe protections in April 2017, which triggered a 12-month statutory deadline, which the Service and Haaland failed to meet, according to the suit.

"As giraffes face a silent extinction, it's shocking and sad that federal officials are punting on protections for these desperately imperiled animals," Tanya Sanerib, international legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement. "The U.S. market is flooded with products made with giraffe bones and skins, from knife handles and saltshakers to rugs and pillows. It's past time we halt these gruesome imports to help save everyone's favorite long-necked mammal."

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The statement noted that the giraffe population has decreased nearly 40% due to habitat loss, civil unrest, poaching and human-caused habitat changes, exacerbated by international trade in bone carvings, skins and trophies, and fewer than 69,000 mature giraffes remain in the wild.

"It is tragic that the U.S. is a top importer and seller of giraffe parts--heads, legs, feet, tails, skin--and a leading contributor to the species' threat of extinction," Adam Peyman, wildlife programs director for Humane Society International, said in the statement. "It is the responsibility of the Fish and Wildlife Service to stop this horrific trade and provide the long overdue protection that these animals deserve, before it is too late."

In August, a study revealed that giraffes are socially complex, but have been misunderstood.

"Recognizing that giraffe have a complex cooperative social system and live in matrilineal societies will further our understanding of their behavioral ecology and conservation needs," researchers wrote in the study published in Wiley Online Library.