COP26: What do the poorest countries want from climate summit?

Daniel Kraemer - BBC News
Fri, October 29, 2021

People walking through a flooded area

Developing countries are the most vulnerable to the damage caused by climate change, such as floods, droughts and wildfires.

Addressing the needs of less wealthy and smaller countries is vital for the COP26 climate negotiations in Glasgow, where leaders are being asked to agree on new commitments to tackle climate change.

What do developing countries want?

The least developed countries have set out their priorities for negotiations. They want richer and developed countries to:

fulfil a pledge to provide $100bn (roughly equivalent to £73bn at current exchange rates) each year in finance to help reduce emissions and adapt to climate change

agree to net-zero targets on greenhouse gases well before 2050, with specific targets for major emitters such as the US, Australia and countries in the EU

acknowledge the loss and damage they have experienced, such as the effects of rising sea levels or frequent flooding

finalise rules on how countries will implement previous agreements

Which countries are most at risk from the effects of climate change?

Developing countries have historically contributed a very small proportion of the damaging emissions that drive climate change - and currently the richest 1% of the global population account for more than twice the combined emissions of the poorest 50%.

These poorer countries are also more vulnerable to the effects of extreme weather because they are generally more dependent on the natural environment for food and jobs, and have less money to spend on mitigation.

Over the last 50 years, more than two out of three deaths caused by extreme weather — including droughts, wildfire and floods — occurred in the 47 least developed countries.

What the COP26 climate summit could mean for us all

Countries such as Bangladesh have been on the front line of the effects of global warming
What are the richer countries doing to address the situation?

In 2009, richer countries committed to finding $100bn a year by 2020 from public and private sources, to address the needs of developing countries.

The money is to help pay for measures to reduce dangerous emissions and protect from the effects of extreme weather, such as better flood defence systems and investment in renewable energy sources

However, total commitments had only reached $80bn by 2019, and the $100bn target is now unlikely to be met before 2023.

Climate finance chart

Securing an agreement on how to meet the commitments - and potentially go further - is crucial if the world is going to achieve its aim to keep global temperature rises below 1.5C.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has put reaching $100bn as one of his four priorities for the negotiations in Glasgow.

He said that richer nations had "reaped the benefits of untrammelled pollution for generations, often at the expense of developing countries", and that they have a "duty" to support developing nations with technology, expertise and money.
What are the obstacles for smaller countries attending the summit?

"We are negotiating for our survival," says Tagaloa Cooper, of the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme - an organisation made of up members from Pacific island countries and territories.

Rising sea levels make some of these island nations the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, but Ms Cooper says a lack of resources means they don't have the "luxury" of sending large delegations.

"Some of our most vulnerable will struggle to have a voice, and be heard, in these negotiations."

More than 120 world leaders are expected to descend on Glasgow for climate negotiations

Navigating Covid-safe travel to the Glasgow conference has been an obstacle for many delegations, particularly the Pacific islands, where infection rates have remained low during the pandemic.

Only four Pacific island heads of state are reported to be travelling to the summit, with others being represented by smaller teams and ambassadors.

Negotiators staying behind and participating remotely may be disadvantaged by unreliable internet access and time differences. Samoa, for instance, is 13 hours ahead of the UK.
How do developing countries negotiate at climate conferences?

Developing countries usually have less of a voice on the international stage, so it helps to form groups or blocks to amplify their cause.

The Least Developed Countries group is a 46-nation bloc that includes Senegal, Bangladesh and Yemen and represents one billion people.

These countries can create stronger negotiating positions when "priorities and interests are aligned", says Sonam Wangdi, the current chairman, from Bhutan.

They have been working together throughout the year and will meet daily in Glasgow.

Bhutan has committed to keeping at least 60% of the country under forest cover

If there is to be a final agreement, all 197 UN member states that are signed up to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change have to sign.

That means the final agreement must be acceptable to both richer and developing countries.

World leaders failed to secure a legally binding agreement in Copenhagen in 2009, partly because a handful of developing countries including Sudan and Tuvalu opposed the final agreement.

Additional research by Esme Stallard

She-zam! Women Show Why Magic Has Been Missing A Trick

By Andrew MARSZAL
10/29/21 AT 10:09 PM

Sitting behind a card table in the secretive Magic Castle, Kayla Drescher widens her eyes and nods exasperatedly when asked about being called a "female magician."

"Yes, I am very, very sick of being asked what it's like to be a woman in this industry," she says.

"'Female magician' feels like I'm being placed in a subcategory of magic... I'm being placed in a metaphorical box, not just an illusion."

But while the label is "exhausting" and "annoying" for Drescher, "we still have such a small percentage of women in this industry -- I think it does still need to be talked about."

Magician Kayla Drescher has been performing since she was seven years old 

Photo: AFP / VALERIE MACON

The stereotype of a magician in a top hat sawing his glamorous, sequinned female assistant in half endures among the wider public, who can rarely name performers beyond Harry Houdini, David Copperfield and David Blaine.

While the outfits have changed, still just seven percent of magicians operating today are female -- roughly the same proportion as the membership of the elite "Academy of Magical Arts" that calls the Magic Castle home.

Drescher is one of two billed female headliners on the night of AFP's visit to the cavernous members-only institution on a hill above Hollywood which is devoted to the art of illusion.

As the reaction of a spellbound audience to Drescher's baffling card tricks and subtle sleights of hand later in the evening will show, women may be a minority in magic but are no less of a draw.

Drescher, 31, has been performing since she was seven, and has long found that audiences -- like the aficionados and rowdy wine-drinking Halloween parties filling the "Close Up Gallery" -- tend not to care about a performer's gender.

The Magic Castle, a cavernous members-only institution devoted to magic, 

is perched on a hill above Hollywood 

Photo: AFP / VALERIE MACON

Instead, it is the "shocking old-fashioned" mindset of magicians that is keeping the number of women in her trade low -- and that is something she feels is important to keep "yelling about."

Drescher has long dealt with male magicians excluding her, assuming she is someone's girlfriend, or even one time requesting she "do magic by a poolside in a bikini" in Las Vegas.

"Magic is very much written by men and for men, so suits, large trouser pockets, big hands, all these different elements, very masculine-style stuff," said Drescher, who hosts the "She-zam" podcast.

"You have to get through, jump over, a lot of hurdles in order to be respected in the community for being a magician and not just a woman. And that's always annoying."

Magician Mari Linn performs with her teenage daughters Hailee, 13, and Jasmyn 16

 Photo: AFP / VALERIE MACON

According to Drescher, if the assistant could just as easily be replaced with an inanimate object like a lamp or a table "she doesn't need to be there... she's a prop."

"The mutilation of women..." she sighs. "It just feels really gross in 2021. But luckily it is shifting."

The last few years and #MeToo have massively boosted demand for female magicians, says Drescher.

Magician Kayla Drescher believes attitudes toward gender are slowly shifting in her industry

 Photo: AFP / VALERIE MACON

But in-built obstacles remain, including the powerful status of reform-resistant, generally male-dominated magic "clubs."

The Academy of Magical Arts itself faced allegations of sexual harassment in a Los Angeles Times investigation last year.

Its general manager resigned, and his replacement Herve Levy told AFP that policies to improve "diversity and inclusion" have been put in place, including training for staff to prevent sexual harassment.

The group now has 36 women on its magicians' roster.

The other female headliner on the evening of AFP's visit is Mari Lynn, who performs with her husband John Shryock.

"We're more of an illusion team. I always call myself a co-star, rather than an assistant," she says.

The couple from Arizona used to perform a trick in which she would turn the tables by locking him up, known as "The Assistant's Revenge."

When she started out, Lynn found some audiences were "much more critical of the females trying to take the male roles."

"But I am really happy to see that things are changing. It's coming around slowly."

Tonight Lynn and Shryock are perfoming "The Great Escape," which sees them joined center-stage by their two daughters.

Sixteen-year-old Jasmine wants to be a solo magician herself one day, while 13-year-old Hailey has her heart setting on becoming a doctor.

"I'm really optimistic going forward that Jasmine will not have as hard of a time as I did," says her mother Lynn.

While Jasmine learnt by performing with her parents "in every magic show since I was born," she noticed early on that most of her friends who were also interested in magic were boys.

"There have been times where someone in the class will be like, 'oh girls can't do magic as good as boys do,'" she says.

"And then they're proven wrong."

UPDATED

REPEAT AD NASEUM

Origins of Covid-19 may never be known - US spy agencies

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US intelligence agencies say they may never be able to identify the origins of Covid-19, as they released a new, more detailed version of their review of whether the coronavirus came from animal-to-human transmission or leaked from a lab.

File photo. Photo: 123rf.com

The Office of the US Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in a declassified report that a natural origin and a lab leak are both plausible hypotheses for how SARS-COV-2 first infected humans. But it said analysts disagree on which is more likely or whether any definitive assessment can be made at all.

The report also dismissed suggestions that the coronavirus originated as a bioweapon, saying proponents of this theory "do not have direct access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology" and have been accused of spreading disinformation.

The report issued on Friday is an update of a 90-day review that President Joe Biden's administration released in August, amid intense political infighting over how much to blame China for the effects of the global pandemic rather than governments that may not have moved quickly enough to protect citizens.

China responded on Friday by criticising the report.

"The US moves of relying on its intelligence apparatus instead of scientists to trace the origins of Covid-19 is a complete political farce," Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese embassy in Washington, said in an emailed statement.

"... It will only undermine science-based origins study and hinder the global effort of finding the source of the virus," the statement said.

Former Republican President Donald Trump - who lost his bid for re-election as the deadly pandemic ravaged the US economy - and many of his supporters referred to Covid-19 as the "China virus."

Some US spy agencies had strongly favored the explanation that the virus originated in nature. But there has been little corroboration and over recent months the virus has spread widely and naturally among wild animals.

The ODNI report said four US spy agencies and a multi-agency body have "low confidence" that Covid-19 originated with an infected animal or a related virus.

But one agency said it had "moderate confidence" that the first human Covid-19 infection most likely was the result of a laboratory accident, probably involving experimentation or animal handling by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

US spy agencies believe they will not be able to produce a more definitive explanation for the origin of Covid-19 without new information demonstrating that the virus took a specific pathway from animals to humans or that a Wuhan laboratory was handling the virus or a related virus before Covid-19 surfaced.

The report said US agencies and the global scientific community lacked "clinical samples or a complete understanding of epidemiological data from the earliest Covid-19 cases" and said it could revisit this inconclusive finding if more evidence surfaces.

China has faced international criticism for failing to cooperate more fully in investigations of Covid's origins.

The embassy statement also dismissed that criticism.

"We have been supporting science-based efforts on origins tracing, and will continue to stay actively engaged. That said, we firmly oppose attempts to politicise this issue," it said.

- Reuters

US intel doesn’t expect to determine origins of COVID-19

By NOMAAN MERCHANT

FILe - Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines introduces President Joe Biden during a visit to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in McLean, Va., on July 27, 2021. U.S. intelligence agencies say they likely won't ever be able to conclude whether COVID-19 spread by animal-to-human transmission or leaked from a lab. The Director of National Intelligence issued a paper Friday, Oct. 29, that elaborates on findings released in August of a 90-day review ordered by Biden. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Barring an unforeseen breakthrough, intelligence agencies won’t be able to conclude whether COVID-19 spread by animal-to-human transmission or leaked from a lab, officials said Friday in releasing a fuller version of their review into the origins of the pandemic.

The paper issued by the Director of National Intelligence elaborates on findings released in August of a 90-day review ordered by President Joe Biden. That review said that U.S. intelligence agencies were divided on the origins of the virus but that analysts do not believe the virus was developed as a bioweapon and that most agencies believe the virus was not genetically engineered.

China has resisted global pressure to cooperate fully with investigations into the pandemic or provide access to genetic sequences of coronaviruses kept at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, which remains a subject of speculation for its research and reported safety problems. Biden launched the review amid growing momentum for the theory — initially broadly dismissed by experts — that the virus leaked from the Wuhan lab. Former President Donald Trump and his supporters long argued that a lab leak was possible as they sought to deflect criticism of his handling of the pandemic.

China remains an exceedingly difficult place for intelligence operations and has fought back against allegations that it mishandled the emergence of the pandemic, which has killed 5 million people worldwide. Senior officials involved in the full report’s drafting said they hoped it would better inform the public about the challenges of determining the virus’s origins.

“We don’t think we’re one or two reports away from being able to understand it,” said one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

The full report notes that the Wuhan Institute of Virology “previously created chimeras, or combinations, of SARS-like coronaviruses, but this information does not provide insight into whether SARS Cov-2 was genetically engineered by the WIV.”

Information that lab researchers sought medical treatment for a respiratory illness in November 2019 “is not diagnostic of the pandemic’s origins,” the report said.

And allegations that China launched the virus as a bioweapon were dismissed because their proponents “do not have direct access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology,” are making scientifically invalid claims or are accused of spreading disinformation, the report said

Four agencies within the intelligence community said with low confidence that the virus was initially transmitted from an animal to a human. A fifth intelligence agency believed with moderate confidence that the first human infection was linked to a lab.

Prior to writing the report, analysts conducted what the report describes as a “Team A/Team B” debate to try to strengthen or weaken each hypothesis.

The report identifies types of data that investigators still want China to provide access to, including records and tissue samples from several markets in Wuhan, including the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, Qiyimen Live Animal Market, Dijiao Outdoor Pet Market and others. Scientists originally believed the virus emerged from animals sold at the Huanan market, which has since been ruled out by some as the origin site.

Confirming with 100% certainty the origin of a virus is often not fast, easy or always even possible.

In the case of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS — a disease caused by a beta coronavirus, like the current coronavirus — researchers first identified the virus in February 2003. Later that year, scientists discovered the likely intermediary hosts: Himalayan palm civets found at live-animal markets in Guangdong, China. But it wasn’t until 2017 that researchers traced the likely original source of the virus to bat caves in China’s Yunnan province.

___

Associated Press writer Christina Larson in Washington contributed to this report.

Report: Intelligence community divided on whether COVID originated naturally or from

lab leak

Sharon Weinberger and Zach Dorfman

Fri, October 29, 2021, 

An unclassified version of an intelligence community assessment on the origins of COVID-19 released Friday afternoon shows that various agencies still don’t agree on whether the pandemic began from a laboratory incident in Wuhan, China, or was caused by a natural crossover from animals to humans.

In the spring, President Biden ordered the intelligence community to conduct a 90-day review looking at the pandemic’s origins in China, amid growing debate and questions on the issue. The virus has now killed some 5 million people around the world, and infected almost a quarter of a billion, while disrupting global economies.

The Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China. (Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images)

“After examining all available intelligence reporting and other information, though, the IC remains divided on the most likely origin of COVID-19,” states the report, released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. “All agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident.”

The report, however, appears to discount the idea that the virus was engineered in a laboratory as a weapon. “Most IC analysts assess with low confidence that SARS-CoV-2 was not genetically engineered,” the report states.

The intelligence community also appears largely skeptical that the virus, even if it did escape from a lab, was the result of what is known as “gain-of-function” research, in which scientists boost a virus’s capabilities in order to study its behavior. Yet even on this point, analysts at the various agencies appear uncertain.

“No IC analysts assess that SARS-CoV-2 was the result of laboratory adaptation, although some analysts do not have enough information to make this determination,” the report states.

In recent months, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s top scientific adviser on the coronavirus, has faced Republican criticism about the funding provided to the Chinese laboratory in Wuhan from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he heads. The claim made by Republicans like Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is that NIH helped enable gain-of-function research that could have started the pandemic. Fauci has argued that the work the lab conducted with those funds did not meet the criteria for gain-of-function research.

Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci. (J. Scott Applewhite/Pool/Getty Images)

While noting the lack of consensus among intelligence experts, the report is also likely to give new life to those who have long argued that a laboratory leak of the coronavirus should be considered as a possibility. That theory, once dismissed by some as fringe, appears to have some strong support among one unidentified part of the intelligence community.

“One IC element assesses with moderate confidence that the first human infection with SARS-CoV-2 most likely was the result of a laboratory-associated incident,” the report reads, “probably involving experimentation, animal handling, or sampling by the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”

Yahoo News first reported in April 2020 that the intelligence community was looking at the possibility that the virus had escaped from a Chinese laboratory.

The U.S. intelligence community analysts employ what’s known as “confidence assessments” to convey to policymakers and others within the national security bureaucracy how assured they are of their conclusions.

“High confidence” judgments are generally taken to be based on high-quality information or intelligence. “Moderate confidence” judgments “mean that the information is credibly sourced and plausible,” but not of high enough quality to warrant a high confidence judgement, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Finally, “low confidence” judgments are based on evidence that is “questionable,” “too fragmented or poorly corroborated,” according to the office.

The carefully couched language of the intelligence community is likely to settle few debates. And those who were hoping to have a more definitive statement on the virus’s origins are likely to be disappointed by the report, particularly since the intelligence community says it “will be unable to provide a more definitive explanation for the origin of COVID-19 unless new information” comes to light.

Declassified US intelligence report on COVID-19's origins says both natural transmission and lab leak theories remain 'plausible'

Kelly McLaughlin,Aylin Woodward

Fri, October 29, 2021, 

A researcher works in a lab that is developing coronavirus testing at Hackensack Meridian Health Center in Nutley, New Jersey. Kena Betancur/Getty Images

• President Biden ordered US intelligence agencies to investigate the origins of COVID-19 in May.

• The Director of National Intelligence released a report about the investigation's findings on Friday.

• It said the theories that the coronavirus accidentally leaked from a lab or jumped to people from animals both remain "plausible."

A declassified US intelligence report on the coronavirus' origin found that both the natural transmission and lab leak theories remain "plausible."

The report, released by the Director of National Intelligence on Friday, details the findings from an investigation that President Joe Biden ordered in May.

"All agencies assess that two hypotheses are plausible: natural exposure to an infected animal and a laboratory-associated incident," the report said.

Although the report did not favor one theory over the other, it did come to several other important conclusions. First, most of the authors said the coronavirus wasn't genetically engineered, nor developed as a bioweapon. Second, the analysts think Chinese officials were unaware of the virus' spread before the first cluster of COVID-19 cases were reported in Wuhan in December 2019.

Evidence for a lab accident

Security personnel stand guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology, February 3, 2021. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images

The report suggested, with moderate confidence, that the first human infection could have been the result of a laboratory-associated incident, probably involving experimentation, animal handling, or virus sampling at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

Proponents of the lab-leak theory often focus on that institute, since it's a high-level biosafety lab where scientists studied coronaviruses before the pandemic. Eighteen scientists published a letter in May saying they thought the lab-leak theory remained viable.

The analysts behind the new government report wrote that they consider biosafety conditions at the institute to be "inadequate." That makes the possibility of an accident more likely, especially given that research associated with the institute had involved handling animals that could be coronavirus carriers.

However, Jonna Mazet, an epidemiologist at the University of California, Davis, has worked directly with WIV researchers and previously told Insider an accident there would be "highly unlikely."

Mazet added that she and the WIV staff developed and implemented a "very stringent safety protocol."

Chinese virologist Dr. Shi Zhengli at work in a secure laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2017. Barcroft Media/Getty Images

The new report suggests that if the virus did emerge from a lab, the leak was accidental. Chinese scientists "probably were unaware in the initial months that such an incident had occurred," the report says.

Virologists at the institute were among the first to start studying the new coronavirus, and publicly shared its genetic code in early January. Such activities, the analysts add, "are a strong indicator that the WIV lacked foreknowledge of the virus."

Proponents of the lab-accident theory also often point to a report found by The Wall Street Journal that revealed three WIV staff members got sick and went to a hospital more than a month before experts identified the first COVID-19 cases in Wuhan. The report said the workers' symptoms were "consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness."

But the new report says that's insufficient evidence: "Even if confirmed, hospital admission alone would not be diagnostic of COVID-19 infection," it says.

Not a bioweapon

An aerial view of the campus of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China's Hubei province on May 27, 2020. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty

The reason the analysts behind the report don't think the coronavirus was purposefully engineered is that its genetic code has no tell-tale hallmarks of manipulation.

A March 2020 study analyzed the virus' DNA and concluded that it "is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus." And investigators from the World Health Organization found no evidence the WIV stored virus samples prior to the pandemic that, when combined, could have produced the new coronavirus.

The report also concluded that the virus is not a biological weapon, saying that theory is only "supported by scientifically invalid claims" from people who are "suspected of spreading disinformation."

Did the virus jump from bats?

The WHO investigators who traveled to Wuhan could not rule out a lab leak, either. But they concluded that the coronavirus most likely spilled over to people from animals - possibly at wildlife farms in southern China.

A farmer checks rabbits at his farm on January 29, 2021 in Chongqing, China. Qu Mingbin/VCG via Getty

The new report, similarly, says that a lab leak is "less likely than an infection occurring through numerous hunters, farmers, merchants, and others who have frequent, natural contact with animals."

That kind of spillover has been the leading theory throughout the pandemic, primarily because 75% of new infectious diseases come to us from animals. Plus, the coronavirus' genetic code is very similar to that of other coronaviruses found in bats.

Still, the WHO team examined 80,000 animals from 31 provinces across China and didn't find a single case of this coronavirus. China shut down the wildlife farms in question in February 2020, though, and researchers weren't given access to samples from them.

China's cooperation is needed

Members of the World Health Organization's team investigating the origins of the coronavirus pandemic attend a press conference in Wuhan, China, on February 9, 2021. Kyodo News/Getty

The authors of the new report said they can't determine the coronavirus' origin unless they get more information from China, which would require the country to be more cooperative and transparent than it has been.

Even the WHO investigators weren't given full access to the WIV's files, databases, freezer inventories, records, or safety logs. That led Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO, to say he did "not believe that this assessment was extensive enough."

NORTH AMERICA FIRST PEOPLES
Study details environmental impacts of early Chaco residents


Chaco Canyon Environment

In this August 2015 image provided by the University of Cincinnati, geography graduate Jon-Paul McCool, now a faculty member at Valparaiso University, takes soil samples from an excavation site at Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico. A team of researchers has published a study detailing the environmental impacts of Chaco's early residents. (Nicholas Dunning/University of Cincinnati via AP)

SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Fri, October 29, 2021

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Researchers at the University of Cincinnati say they have more evidence that Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico was more than just an ancient gathering spot for Indigenous ceremonies and rituals.

The researchers analyzed pollen content and the chemical composition of soils to help document environmental impacts of the early residents who called the area home, which is now a national park and UNESCO World Heritage site.

Their findings, published this week in the journal PLOS ONE, focus on changes resulting from tree harvesting that sustained daily life at Chaco.

The researchers reported a gradual degradation of the surrounding woodlands beginning around 600 B.C., much earlier than previously thought.

While some of the mysteries surrounding Chaco are still debated in academic circles, there’s agreement that the massive stone buildings, ceremonial structures called kivas and other features that dot the landscape offered a religious or ritualistic experience for the ancestors of today’s Native American pueblos. Many of Chaco's structures are aligned with celestial events, such as the summer solstice.

David Lentz, a biology professor and lead author of the study, said many researchers have the idea that Chaco was too arid to sustain day-to-day living and that the infrastructure built over many centuries at Chaco was used only as a periodic ceremonial center and storage facility.

Lentz said that explanation is too simplistic and that his team turned up evidence to support human management of the area's environment to support daily life.

Amid the shift from people hunting and gathering to underatking agriculture, the researchers noted measurable changes — such as juniper trees decimated for building needs, food resources and firewood for cooking.

“This is a very arid area,” he said. “In arid woodlands, the trees are essential for holding the soil in place. When the puebloan inhabitants removed those woodlands, the result was eventually severe erosion and the deterioration of croplands.”

Paul Reed, a preservation archaeologist with Archaeology Southwest, was not involved in the study and said the new research confirms what he has believed for years — that Chaco and some of its surrounding sites were residential and ritual centers. He estimates that Chaco had thousands of full-time residents.

Another Chaco scholar, Gwinn Vivian, came to the same conclusion while studying Chaco’s agricultural capacity decades ago.

Reed said the latest study provides helpful data on the nature and extent of Chaco’s agricultural processes and other uses of the natural environment by the people who lived there.

“It is a strong counterpoint to the mistaken idea that corn and other crops could not be grown in the quantities necessary to sustain a large, residential population in Chaco Canyon,” he said.

Scientists in recent years also have uncovered previously indiscernible sections of roads that connect sites throughout northwestern New Mexico to the heart of Chaco.

Earlier excavations also turned up everything from copper bells to marine shells and the skeletons of scarlet macaws, suggesting the inhabitants were trading with communities to the south either by making long treks or passing goods from village to village.

Many researchers have documented the shift of people moving away from Chaco due to various factors, including a changing climate in the late 11th century.

The study by the University of Cincinnati team noted that the landscape modifications by Chaco residents triggered serious environmental ramifications.

“At the cost of major reduction of tree density in the local woodlands, their activities ultimately contributed to a destabilizing environmental impact prior to their final exodus,” Lentz said.

___

This story has been corrected to show the organization name is Archaeology Southwest, not Southwest Archaeology.

THE RIGHT ACCUSES OTHERS OF THEIR OWN PERVERSIONS 
Top QAnon influencer unmasked as a convicted child molester
Brad Reed
October 29, 2021

A person wears a QAnon sweatshirt during a pro- Donald Trump rally on Oct. 3, 2020, in the borough of Staten Island in New York City. - Stephanie Keith/Getty Images North America/TNS

The QAnon conspiracy theory claims that the Democratic Party is run by a cabal of Satanist pedophiles who also harvest children for their adrenochrome.

Now, it turns out that a major online purveyor of this theory is himself a convicted child molester.

Vice News reports that QAnon promoter David Todeschini, who goes by the name "David Trent" on the internet, spent five years in prison two decades ago after he was found guilty of coercing an eight-year-old boy into sexual activity.

In an interview with Vice, Todeschini confirmed that he was the man behind QAnon influencer David Trent, and he threatened to sue Right Wing Watch, which originally ran the story about his past conviction for pedophilia.

Vice asked Todeschini what facts Right Wing Watch got wrong about him, however, and he refused to elaborate.

That said, he also claimed to be innocent of molesting an 8-year-old and told Vice that the "deep state" forced him to confess to a crime he didn't commit.

"I am an enemy of the deep state," he claimed. "And I did what General Flynn did, he pled guilty to a crime that he didn't commit."

This doesn't change the fact that Todeschini is listed on New York's sex offender registry as someone who is "high risk of repeat offense and a threat to public safety exists."

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M; THE GRIFTER
Trump’s $300 Million SPAC Deal May Have Skirted Securities Laws

The former president began discussing a deal with a ‘blank check’ company early this year. Investors weren’t told.

Former President Donald Trump began discussing a deal with special purpose acquisition companies shortly after leaving the White House.

Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times

LONG READ

By Matthew Goldstein, Lauren Hirsch and David Enrich
Oct. 29, 2021

Just days after Donald J. Trump left the White House, two former contestants on his reality show, “The Apprentice,” approached him with a pitch. Wes Moss and Andy Litinsky wanted to create a conservative media giant.

Mr. Trump was taken with the idea. But he had to figure out how to pay for it.

This month, the former president found a way. He agreed to merge his social media venture with what’s known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. The result is that Mr. Trump — largely shut out of the mainstream financial industry because of his history of bankruptcies and loan defaults — secured nearly $300 million in funding for his new business.

To get his deal done, Mr. Trump ventured into an unregulated and sometimes shadowy corner of Wall Street, working with an unlikely cast of characters: the former “Apprentice” contestants, a small Chinese investment firm and a little-known Miami banker named Patrick Orlando.

Mr. Orlando had been discussing a deal with Mr. Trump since at least March, according to people familiar with the talks and a confidential investor presentation reviewed by The New York Times. That was well before his SPAC, Digital World Acquisition, made its debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange last month. In doing so, Mr. Orlando’s SPAC may have skirted securities laws and stock exchange rules, lawyers said.

SPACs sell their shares to investors through an initial public offering and then find a private company with which to merge. Because SPACs are empty vessels, stock exchanges allow them to list their shares without disclosing much financial information. But that creates opportunities for SPACs to serve as backdoor vehicles for companies to go public without receiving the kind of investor scrutiny they would in a traditional listing. To prevent that, SPACs aren’t supposed to have a merger planned at the time of their I.P.O.

Lawyers and industry officials said that talks between Mr. Orlando and Mr. Trump or their associates consequently could draw scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Another issue is that Digital World’s securities filings repeatedly stated that the company and its executives had not engaged in any “substantive discussions, directly or indirectly,” with a target company — even though Mr. Orlando had been in discussions with Mr. Trump.

Given the politically fraught nature of a deal with Mr. Trump, securities lawyers said that Digital World’s lack of disclosure about those conversations could be considered an omission of “material information.”

“Financial markets are premised on trust,” said Mike Stegemoller, a finance professor at Baylor University who studies SPACs. “If these disclosures are not true, no one wants to participate in markets that aren’t fair.”

Lawyers for Trump Media and Technology Group didn’t respond to requests for comment. A spokeswoman for Mr. Trump referred questions to the company, whose representatives, including Mr. Litinsky and Mr. Moss, did not return requests for comment.

Andy Litinsky and Wes Moss, contestants on “The Apprentice,” pitched the idea of a media company to Mr. Trump earlier this year. Credit...Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage

In January 2021, Mr. Litinsky, better known as Andy Dean, and Mr. Moss — both appeared in the second season of “The Apprentice,” in 2004, and are now radio hosts — made their pitch to Mr. Trump to “create a conservative media powerhouse that will rival the liberal media and fight back against ‘Big Tech’ companies of Silicon Valley,” according to a description of their plan in a slide presentation reviewed by The Times.

SPACs were hot on Wall Street, having raised tens of billions of dollars from investors over the previous year. Mr. Trump and the former “Apprentice” contestants agreed to set up Trump Media and then find a SPAC to merge with, thus transforming their new business into a publicly traded company and getting access to its money.

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Mr. Orlando was part of a recent crop of SPAC entrepreneurs.

A former derivatives trader at Deutsche Bank and executive at a sugar merchant, he was better known for his role as a spokesman for his family in a grisly murder. In December 2010, his half sister, Sylvie Cachay, was found strangled and drowned in a bathtub in the Soho House club in Manhattan. Tabloids swarmed as her boyfriend, the son of an Oscar-winning songwriter, was accused, and later convicted, of the murder. Mr. Orlando, 38 at the time, spoke with prosecutors and the media on his family’s behalf.

It isn’t clear how Mr. Orlando initially connected with Mr. Trump, but the two Florida men enjoyed a strong personal rapport, according to a person who spent time with them. By the time they started working together in the winter of 2021, Mr. Orlando already had three SPACs trading on U.S. stock exchanges.

One of them, Benessere Capital Acquisition, had gone public on Jan. 7 — the day after Mr. Trump’s supporters rioted at the Capitol — and raised about $100 million. Mr. Orlando created Benessere with the help of a Shanghai-based firm called ARC Capital that specialized in helping Chinese companies list on U.S. stock exchanges. ARC kicked in funding for Benessere


On Feb. 8, Trump Media was incorporated in Delaware.

By March, Mr. Orlando and Mr. Trump were discussing a merger of Trump Media and Benessere, according to people with knowledge of the talks who were not authorized to discuss it publicly. The investor presentation about the planned deal envisioned the combined company, which would offer a social media app, films, events and eventually a variety of technology services, being worth $15 billion and rivaling tech giants like Netflix and the cloud divisions of Amazon and Google.

At some point, Benessere’s attractiveness as a financing vehicle for Mr. Trump’s venture faded, in part because its roughly $100 million war chest was considered inadequate, according to a person briefed on the matter. (Benessere is still looking for a company to buy.)

But Mr. Orlando had another, bigger SPAC that was preparing for liftoff. In May, Digital World announced plans for an I.P.O. Like Benessere, Digital World was created with the help of ARC.




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Mr. Orlando leaving a New York court in 2011 after the arraignment of the man who murdered his half sister.Credit...Mary Altaffer/AP

By the summer, people affiliated with Trump Media were signaling in conversations with Wall Street financiers that they were nearing a deal to merge with a SPAC, according to people with knowledge of those conversations.

In early July, Phillip Juhan, a former financial analyst who had also been an executive at a bankrupt fitness company, was introducing himself to people as Trump Media’s chief financial officer. He said the company was in an “exclusive agreement” with a SPAC, according to one of the people.

It isn’t clear if Mr. Juhan was referring to Digital World. (He declined to comment.) If Digital World and Trump Media had a deal in the works at that point, it would have contradicted the SPAC’s public statements and very likely violated regulations.

Soon after Mr. Juhan mentioned Trump Media’s agreement with a SPAC, Digital World said that it hoped to raise nearly $350 million from investors. In August, the SPAC disclosed that it had lined up 11 prominent hedge funds and other big investment firms like D.E. Shaw, JPMorgan Chase’s Highbridge Capital and Saba Capital to serve as “anchor,” or main, investors in the initial offering.

“We have not selected any specific business combination target and we have not, nor has anyone on our behalf, initiated any substantive discussions, directly or indirectly, with any business combination target,” Digital World said in prospectuses filed with the S.E.C. in May, July, August and September. Digital World said it would probably focus on companies in the technology or financial services fields.

Securities lawyers said that any conversations between Mr. Orlando’s and Mr. Trump’s teams anytime before the I.P.O. in September might constitute an indirect discussion of a potential deal and so would have needed to be disclosed.

“The prospectus broadly denies that any talks have taken place,” said Usha Rodrigues, a professor at the University of Georgia Law School and one of the leading academic experts on SPACs. “If they were in fact engaged in discussions at the time of the prospectus, that raises questions regarding a potential securities violation.”

Some bankers said they disagreed with that interpretation. They argued that Mr. Orlando having discussed a deal between Benessere and Trump Media wasn’t the same as him discussing a deal on behalf of Digital World. As a result, they said, Digital World wasn’t obligated to disclose Mr. Orlando’s prior talks.

The S.E.C. has begun paying closer attention to the timing of deal negotiations, and so have investors in SPACs.

This summer, investors filed a lawsuit in federal court against a SPAC and the company it acquired. The plaintiffs argued that it was “substantially likely that the transaction was prearranged or at least preconceived,” given how swiftly the SPAC, Netfin Acquisition, had entered into exclusive talks with the target company, Triterras Fintech. They also pointed to the longstanding relationship between executives at the two companies. The suit is pending.

Mr. Trump initially expected to announce his new social media company in August, according to a person briefed on the timing. But the plans were delayed after Mr. Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., voiced reservations about the Digital World deal, according to people familiar with the negotiations.

On Aug. 3, Mr. Orlando wrote to the S.E.C. asking for clearance to accelerate Digital World’s I.P.O. for that month, only to withdraw the request two days later. When the SPAC eventually went public on Sept. 8, raising $293 million, Digital World said it had still not identified a merger target.

Less than three weeks later, on Sept. 27, Mr. Orlando went to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club in Florida, to sign a “letter of intent” — an initial formal step toward a merger of Digital World and Trump Media, according to a person with knowledge of the event. For a new SPAC, it was an extraordinarily swift turnaround; most SPACs take at least a year to find and merge with a target.

On Oct. 20, Mr. Orlando returned to Mar-a-Lago, where he and Mr. Trump signed the final paperwork under chandeliers in a cavernous golden ballroom, according to an attendee. Donald Trump Jr. and the former “Apprentice” contestants, Mr. Moss and Mr. Litinsky, were among those in attendance.

After the deal was announced last week, Digital World’s shares rocketed higher. This week, they plummeted. At least two of the anchor investors, D.E. Shaw and Saba Capital, sold much of their stock after the Trump deal came to light. Another prominent investor, Iceberg Research, announced that it was betting against the stock.

Even so, Digital World’s shares remain about seven times higher than before the Trump deal. On paper, at least, the company is worth more than $2 billion.

On Tuesday, as he was boarding a plane, Mr. Orlando wouldn’t say much about how the deal came together. “It’s been wild,” he said.

Kenneth P. Vogel, Michael Schwirtz and Shane Goldmacher contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy contributed research.

Matthew Goldstein covers Wall Street and white collar crime and housing issues. @mattgoldstein26

Lauren Hirsch joined the New York Times from CNBC in 2020, covering business, policy and mergers and acquisitions. Ms. Hirsch studied comparative literature at Cornell University and has an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. @laurenshirsch

David Enrich is the business investigations editor. He is the author of “Dark Towers,” about Deutsche Bank and Donald Trump. @davidenrich • Facebook