Select Page ::

Prospects bleak for recovery of US media presence in China – CPJ Press Freedom Online

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

The slugfest between China and the U.S. over the treatment of media workers in each country appears to have paused. Rather than expel each others journalists, as they did a few months ago, each side in early July imposed registration and reporting requirements on those remainingstill many more Chinese in the U.S. than Americans in China.

Many observers say the U.S. government has badly misplayed its hand, resulting in the decimation of American media operations in China while Chinese operations in the U.S. suffer much less impact. And, even though a group of experts is working on recommendations to repair the damage, prospects for recovery are dim.

I imagine China is pretty happy with the way things are now, said James McGregor, a business consultant, longtime China resident, and former Wall Street Journal reporter who chairs APCO Worldwides greater China operation.

The expulsion from China of prominent reporters from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal who had pioneered reporting on everything from COVID-19 to mass incarceration of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang was not the stated intent of the U.S. As Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in March, after the U.S. effectively expelled dozens of Chinese journalists: We expect Beijing to take a more fair approach towards American and other foreign press inside of China. Where the Chinese Communist Party has imposed increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment, and intimidation on our independent and world-class journalists, we will respond to achieve reciprocity.

Instead, The U.S., by taking on this issue the way they have, have played into the hands of all the bad actors in the Chinese system and given them carte blanche to get rid of American journalists, said Richard McGregor (no relation to James McGregor), senior fellow at Australias Lowy Institute, a private think tank. If the idea was to strengthen the leverage over a countrys nationals working in China, it has backfired spectacularly.

I think we fell into Chinas trap, said Minxin Pei, a Chinese politics specialist at Claremont McKenna College, arguing that China has long wanted to rid itself of the U.S. journalists.

As Richard McGregor, previously stationed in China and the U.S. for the Financial Times, said: The Chinese journalists in America, however many there are, add nothing to the greater universe of knowledge about America at all. If they stopped working tomorrow, I dont think anyone in China would be less wise about whats happening in the U.S. because the U.S. system is open, and well reported on by the locals.

By contrast, he said, restrictions on the local press in China are severe, leaving it to foreigners to dig into news and trends.

James McGregor agrees: Most of what you know about China that China doesnt want you to know comes out of those journalists [who are now expelled]. He adds that its a loss for the business community that needs to know what is happening in China.

The conflict has brewed for years, as China abused and oppressed foreign journalists, or those trying to gain entry. CPJ has documented repeated cases of China delaying or refusing to grant visas to those who wrote stories that China found embarrassing. On the ground in China, reporters frequently face harassment from security officials who do not accept rights of foreign correspondents to travel freely and interview anyone willing to talk to them. The number of Chinese willing to talk to a foreign journalist has also declined, as interviewees can face harassment or even arrest. Every year, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China documents the sad deterioration of the working environment for foreign correspondents in an annual report.

Meanwhile, as China blocked access to The New York Times and other news websites, the U.S. freely admitted hundreds, possibly thousands, of Chinese journalists and allowed them to roam the country and do what they wanted. (While the State Department apparently wasnt counting, the U.S. government should now have access to data on Chinese journalists, since forcing them to register as foreign missions.) China Global Television Network (CGTN) set up its own U.S. broadcast operation. Some Chinese outlets were openly propaganda controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.

Or worse: Some of them are spies; thats a fact, Pei told CPJ.

How to rectify the imbalance has long vexed journalists, China specialists and U.S. diplomats. Keith Richburg, head of the media program at Hong Kong University and a longtime foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, recalled a conversation with a U.S. diplomat in Beijing from 2011 where Richburg suggested casually that the U.S. go for reciprocity and get tough on issuing visas to Chinese. The diplomat responded that the U.S. could never win by going down that road. And, Richburg said, Whats happened so far was what all the people opposed to reciprocity always said would happen.

China described its retaliatory measures as entirely necessary and reciprocal countermeasures that China is compelled to take in response to the unreasonable oppression the Chinese media organizations experience in the U.S. It did not mention the history of its mistreatment of foreign correspondents in China.

Orville Schell, Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society, told CPJ that the rupture over media personnel was inevitable.

The Chinese had us in a stranglehold, Schell said. China was just flooding the place with journalists, executives, spies, you name it. We had limited numbers of journalists, constantly getting expelled and threatened. Its just total madness and total inequality and totally lacking in reciprocity.

The Trump administration said this was not sustainable, said John Pomfret, a former Washington Post Beijing bureau chief. And to that extent, I agree with them.

This isnt to say that either Schell or Pomfret applaud Trump administration tactics, which Schell calls inept and clumsy.

Whats next? Schell heads an Asia Society task force drawing up recommendations for the U.S. government. He suggests looking back to the Soviet era to see how the Soviet Union and the U.S. managed differences. Pomfret, part of the task force, suggested that each side cap media visas at a number, perhaps 100, and that under the cap each side would have total freedom to decide who gets the visas to send into the other country. If more U.S. journalists want China visas than allowed, a non-profit entity would decide who gets them. Pomfret then suggested that issues such as Chinese broadcasting in the U.S. and websites or broadcasts by U.S. outfits be negotiated as a trade issue.

Susan Shirk, chair of the 21st Century China Center at the University of California, San Diego, said a further round of expulsions that could reduce the headcount to zero in each country is a real possibility. At the same time, drawing on her experience in the State Department during the Clinton administration, she said the key is to start with something simple and achievable, such as a cap on visa numbers, on the assumption that China values the presence of its media operations in the U.S. enough to overcome its distaste of hosting foreign correspondents in China.

While Minxin Pei sees no prospect for movement under the Trump administration, he said a truce followed by agreement on stationing journalists in each country could be a relatively easy win for the two countries if they want to patch up relations, given the complexity of other issues of conflict.

Others are more skeptical, especially on the idea of reciprocal numbers. China probably would not go for it because they have far more journalists in the U.S. operating freely than they would allow in China, Richburg said.

James McGregor said Chinas media outlets can easily replace expelled reporters with experienced, out-of-work U.S. journalists.

What pressure point could you put on the Chinese to get them to treat American journalists better? Richburg asked, unable to provide an answer. It was better to have journalists working in China under those conditions rather than having them all kicked out.

No one knows how to roll back the clock, much less broadly improve the treatment of foreign correspondents in China.

The State Department declined to comment when CPJ asked whether it had proposed negotiations to China. The Chinese Foreign Ministrys International Press Center and the Department of Consular affairs did not respond to CPJs emailed requests for comment.

There are no good answers here, James McGregor said.

‘Still looking the past in the face’: Murray statue continues to draw protests – The Trib

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

MURRAY Though Robert E. Lee presided over the surrender of Confederate troops to effectively end the Civil War, Calloway County leaders signaled Wednesday they have no intention of surrendering in the fight over his likeness standing on the courthouse lawn.

In the face of a significant push over the last month and a half to remove the Confederate soldiers memorial thats stood for over 100 years at the courthouse, the Calloway County Fiscal Court voted unanimously Wednesday morning to leave the monument where it stands.

That evening, protestors again made their presence felt, with several dozen engaging in often heated exchanges with a small group of the statues supporters.

For hours, the two groups shouted back and forth about racism, history, crime, treason and the Civil War, with some interactions hostile enough that law enforcement officers removed participants from both camps at various times.

The only speaker at the fiscal court meeting, Murray State University Professor Kevin Elliott, told the governing body that the monument is bringing out the worst in our community.

In requesting the fiscal court to explore options for moving the statue, Elliott focused on its placement at the courthouse, lamenting that a statue honoring the Confederacy stands where everyone should feel their voice is heard.

The monument stands for the idea that the power of the government belongs exclusively to the white members of the community, Elliott said.

Throughout Elliotts time speaking, County Attorney Bryan Ernstberger routinely expressed skepticism at Elliotts estimation of the legal ease and simplicity of moving the monument.

After Elliotts presentation during which he also discussed the cost of the removal as likely less than people would expect, and potential placement at an abandoned cemetery that could easily be appropriated by the government, the fiscal court voted on a resolution that Elliott later said came as a surprise.

The resolution, which notes the negative connotations that the Monument may hold for some and unreservedly condemns slavery and racial oppression, also says the monument was erected simply to honor Calloway County residents who fought for the Confederacy and not as several have argued, for the purpose of promoting continued oppression.

Magistrate Paul Rister noted during the meeting that he took a survey of 280 people in his constituency, which he said he randomized by only approaching people who were outside during his survey. According to Risters calculations, 77% of his constituents supported leaving the monument where it stands.

Magistrate Don Cherry during the meeting said he believed the county was approaching the issue the right way, and lamented the idea of mob rule.

We cannot run our country that way. If we make decisions by mob rule then weve lost control of our government.

At that evenings protest, some urged supporters of the statue to consider racial disparities in the justice system and in health care.

Counter-protesters asserted that Black people commit violent crimes at significantly higher rates than white people, but said they werent claiming that Black people are naturally more violent or less civil than white people.

At times protesters brought up the prohibition on displaying Nazi symbols in Germany, but were not Germany came as a standard reply.

Counter-protesters, displaying an #alllifematters sign, routinely expressed concerns about erasing history and accused the protesters of not being Calloway residents that assertion drew guffaws and raised hands from many in the crowd proclaiming their local residency.

Though she was initially flanked by fellow protesters, as the night went on Murray resident Linda Arakelyan found herself surrounded by counter-protesters throwing rude hand gestures toward her TEAR IT DOWN sign and, she said, threatening her.

They tried intimidating me, Arakelyan said in a Thursday interview.

If anything, it kind of empowered me more, seeing how much they hated it.

Shawn Jackson, who moved to Murray from Mayfield, said that hes experienced a lot of racist stuff in the area, and said residents opposed to the statue have a right to have this taken down, the same right they have to keep it up.

People say put the past in the past, he said.

Were not putting the past in the past, because were still looking the past in the face.

Quintin Walls, who said he grew up in Murray before moving away then returning about a decade ago, said the statue doesnt represent anything good to me.

I ride by it, look at it and have bad thoughts about it, said Walls, who is Black.

It represents more dead American soldiers than any other war, and for a cause that wasnt good. It represents the losers and people who were really traitors to the United States of America.

Walls said that, if the statue remains up, the community could find potential business partners or residents less likely to move in.

People need to get involved, vote, protest peacefully and get this thing out of here, he said.

Im not saying destroy it. It just doesnt have to be on our court square.

Arakelyan said shes been involved in social justice movements before, but that she had never even known the statue topping the monument was an image of Robert E. Lee until Sherman Neal, a football coach at Murray State University, wrote a letter a month and a half ago that helped to spark the recent protests.

I definitely think its going to come down one day, whether its when were older or if its just right now through having meaningful conversations with those in opposition even continually pushing Judge (Kenneth) Imes and the magistrates to reconsider their opinion.

Arakelyan said near the beginning of the protest, two armed men stood atop a nearby building, which she perceived as intimidating, before police made them come down.

She called her experience protesting the statue eye opening in a good and bad way.

Im seeing people who, growing up, I would have never thought would be on the same side as me. Its also eye opening, the fact that theres still so many people who are so passionate and full of hate that they want something like that (statue) up.

View post:

'Still looking the past in the face': Murray statue continues to draw protests - The Trib

The road beyond McMindfulness – Open Democracy

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

The personal and political benefits of practices like meditation have been a staple of Transformations coverage since the site was launched eight years ago. These practices can help us to confront the fear, mental confusion and other limitations that weaken our potential to be agents of change on the broader stage of politics, economics and social struggle. But its clear that these effects arent automatic or uncomplicated.

Over the past few years theres been increasing interest in exploring one particular kind of practice called mindfulness - the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what were doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by whats going on around us. It seems clear that strengthening these capacities is a useful thing to do for individuals, but can mindfulness also play a role in promoting broader social change? What can the articles weve published tell us about the answers to that question?

A good place to start is Ron Pursers book McMindfulness, which exploded onto the scene in 2019 and sharpened the conversation enormously. In his piece about the book for Transformation, Purser argued that the mindfulness movement has degenerated into the new capitalist spirituality, a form of individualized stress relief that encourages practitioners to accommodate themselves more comfortably to the world as it is, packaged and sold by increasingly commercially-minded providers and gutted of any broader social utility.

Elements of this argument had already been circulating for a number of years - in critiques of the happiness industry and positive psychology, for example, and in exposs of corporations, consultants and entrepreneurs who were selling yoga and meditation as a cure-all. As one piece on mindfulness training in Silicon Valley put it as long ago as 2014, Take an ancient practice, remove it from its context, strip away its ethical imperatives and sell it for a profit. Is the goal of the corporate mindfulness movement to comfort the already comfortable?

The faux revolution of mindfulness, by Ronald Purser

The selective awareness of Wisdom 2.0, by Darrin Drda

The corruption of happiness, by William Davies

Why I choose Samuel Beckett over positive thinking any day, by Dionne Lew

The dangers of radical self-love, by Chloe King

Pursers book was harder-hitting and much more widely-circulated than these earlier critiques, and it stimulated a large number of responses on the site. By and large, these responses accepted the risks of commercial appropriation, but rejected the conclusion that this was inevitable, or that it applied to all forms of mindfulness. Once Pursers faux revolution has been exposed and rejected, these authors argued, the debate becomes much more interesting and fruitful, because were freed to get on with the task of promoting the real thing and learning as we go.

Purser himself contributed two of these pieces, arguing for a socially-engaged or civic mindfulness that moves the focus of training and practice from me to weWhen mindfulness is taught and practiced in ways that help people connect the dots between their personal troubles and public issues, it becomes potentially transformative.

Moving mindfulness from me to we, by Ronald Purser

The future of mindfulness, by Ronald Purser

Others used similar frames to show how this kind of mindfulness can generate concrete results in schools, local governments, political processes, the training of activists, the fight against climate justice, and responses to the coronavirus pandemic. For example, Welsh civil servants reported more openness to conflicting perspectives that had to be synthesized into an action plan very quickly as COVID-19 was spreading in the Spring of 2020, while counselors at a Brooklyn High School have introduced mindfulness into ninth grade English classes, not just to reduce stress but also to help students question the social conditions under which they feel pressured and get angry - conditions like under-resourcing of the school system and the effects of racial injustice.

Does mindfulness in politics make any difference? By Rachel Lilley and Mark Whitehead

The need for critical social mindfulness in schools, by David Forbes

Climate change and the attention economy, by Peter Doran

Can mindfulness help us in the midst of COVID-19 - and beyond? By Beth Berila, David Forbes, Mark Leonard, Rachel Lilley and Michael Edwards

Purposeful solitude: reading Thoreau in a lockdown, by Andreas Hess

These examples suggest that there are at least three factors which differentiate mindfulness as stress relief from mindfulness for social change. First, framing mindfulness in social or collective terms has to be a conscious choice - it doesnt happen automatically or by accident, and it takes careful preparation and particular kinds of training. That may seem like an obvious conclusion, but its extremely important in a world where meditation and other techniques are sometimes seen to have social consequences simply by virtue of their effects on the mind. They dont.

Instead, such broader and deeper effects depend on deliberate attempts to link the cultivation of personal and political awareness together - what the German activist-theologian Dorothee Soelle called the mysticism of wide-open eyes. This doesnt mean that every student of mindfulness has to vote for the Labour Party or the Democrats; just that they be mindful of everything around them, as well whats happening inside of them and the interplay between the two, since all aspects of reality are connected. In these circumstances there need be no conflict or contradiction between systems change and inner development (though mindfulness doesnt necessarily bring agreement on the details of what that change should be).

Time for new thinking about mindfulness and social change, by Jamie Bristow

No, you cant be the change alone, by Alessandra Pigni

Why positive thinking isnt neoliberal, by Sonja Aviljas

The mysticism of wide-open eyes, by Michael Edwards

Second, mindfulness alone isnt enough to make these links effectively. In successful cases, trainers and teachers use other tools to bring in the social and political dimensions of human experience. The Ulex Project in Spain, for example, adds anti-oppression pedagogy to its mindfulness programs for activists, while insights from a wide range of other behavioral and cognitive theories are used among local government workers in Wales.

Traditionally, calming the mind and developing greater self-awareness have been the building blocks of mindfulness practice, and a quick glance at whats unfolding in the US and the UK should be enough to convince the skeptics that these things provide a better foundation for decision-making than narcissism and personal insecurity: if you think mindfulness is suspect, then try mindless politics and economics instead. But adding other tools enriches the mix enormously, and makes it easier to see how our individual struggles are embedded in wider social structures.

Mindfulness and social change, by Paula Haddock and Luke Wreford

Dont wait for the future of mindfulness its already here, by Paul Haddock and Gee

Social mindfulness as a force for change, by Mark Leonard

Waking up in the time of Corona: four insights from psychology, by Willem Kuyken

The third distinguishing feature is that socially-engaged mindfulness doesnt shy away from the sharpest forms of injustice and our own role in perpetuating them, as some meditation training tends to do because this is seen as potentially divisive, upsetting or destabilizing. Instead, it embraces them and makes them part of the journey, encouraging us to be mindful of the social realities around us and how we internalize them.

Beth Berila contributed two pieces in this vein which show how mindfulness can help us to discern, interrupt and transform power differentials and biases, by asking how anxiety and stress are shaped by the wider world for people who occupy different positions in society. The ultimate goals of mindfulness may be peace, harmony, unity or oneness, but oneness isnt sameness as she puts it. Our own wellbeing is connected to that of everyone else, so we can never be at peace in a world where others suffer so much violence and oppression, however long we meditate.

Mindful social justice, by Beth Berila

White urgency to end racism: why now? By Beth Berila

All the articles in the series agree on one point: counterposing mindfulness against social action doesnt get us very far, even if its an accurate description of some mainstream or commercial training programs. The really interesting questions lie between these two supposed poles, in exploring how different facets of mindfulness connect with different elements of social change in different settings. Thats a hugely-creative process in which no-one has a monopoly of wisdom and were all learning as we go.

As Gee and Paula Haddock from the Ulex Project put it, unless activists are prepared to turn their attention inwards as well as outwards our struggles will continue to be undermined by our own mental habits, but if mindfulness isnt mindful of the realities in which its practiced then it won't fulfill its potential as a wellspring of social transformation.

Excerpt from:

The road beyond McMindfulness - Open Democracy

Help NASA Design a Toilet for Artemis Astronauts on the Moon – HamletHub

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

Artemis astronauts exploring the Moon will use the most advanced space systems of the 21stcentury including some of the most basic home comforts, like a toilet.NASA is calling on the global community to helpinnovate space toilet conceptsthrough theLunar Loo Challenge.

The evolution of the space toilet began with the space shuttle, so astronauts living aboardthe International Space Stationuse a toiletdesigned for long-duration missions in microgravity.Astronauts exploring on the Moon, however,will needa smaller,lighter,simpler toilet inside theirlunar lander, becauseevery ounce ofmasson the landeriscarefully allocated.For every kilogram(2.2 pounds)of mass,10 kilograms(22 pounds)of propellant is neededto descend to the lunar surface and launch back to lunar orbit.

The Lunar LooChallenge seeks novel design concepts forlow-mass,compact toilets that canreduce the current state-of-the art toilet mass bymore than half from54 kg to 31 kg andreduce the volume by 70%from 0.17 cubic meters to 0.12 cubic meters.For comparison, the standard toilet you might have in your house weighs 30-60 kg, but the complexity of operating in reduced gravity environments requiresmore components for a space toilet.

Our astronauts accomplish amazing feats of science and space exploration. But at the end of the day, theyre still human. We need to provide them with the same necessitiesashere on Earth so they can continue to do their job, said MikeInterbartolo,manager for the Lunar Loo Challengeout ofNASAsHuman Landing System(HLS) Crew Compartment Office at NASAs Johnson Space Centerin Houston.

Lunar toilet design conceptsmustallow astronauts to urinate and defecate in bothlunar gravityand microgravity.Gravity on the Moon is approximately one sixth of Earths gravity.Microgravity is what is generally considered zero-g and is experienced as weightlessness.

The Technical Prize is open to anyone age 18 or older participating as an individual or as a team.TheJunior Challenge is open to anyone under the age of 18, participating as an individual or as a team.Entrants12 years old or younger will need to have a parent or guardian registertosubmit ontheir behalf.

Submissions will be evaluated based on proposed capabilities, technical maturity, safety, and overall innovation. The Lunar Loo Challenge has a total prize purse of $35,000 that will be shared among the top three designs. The top three participants in the junior category will each receive public recognition andan item of official NASA merchandise.

Getting back to the Moon by 2024 is an ambitious goal and NASA is already working on approaches toimproveexisting space toilets. The agency is also aware of the value in inviting ideas from the general public, knowing that theyapproachproblemswith a mindset different from traditional aerospace engineering.

The global community of innovators provides valuable insight and expertise we might not have in-house, said Steve Rader, deputy manager of the NASA Tournament Lab (NTL). Challenges like this allow us to tap into that creative thinking and find unknown or undeveloped solutions.

For more information about the challenge, and how to enter, visit:

https://www.herox.com/LunarLoo

NTL, part oftheagencysPrizes and Challenges programwithin the Space Technology Mission Directorate, supports the use of public competitions and crowdsourcing as tools to advance NASA research and development and other mission needs.

Learn more about opportunities to participate in your space program through NASA prizes and challenges, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/solve

Artemisincludes sending a suite of new science instruments and technology demonstrations to study the Moon, landing the first woman and next man on the lunar surface by 2024, and establishing a sustained presence bythe end of the decade. The agency will leverage its Artemis experience and technologies to prepare for the next giant leap sending astronauts to Mars.

The rest is here:

Help NASA Design a Toilet for Artemis Astronauts on the Moon - HamletHub

Q&A: Brandon Soderberg and Baynard Woods discuss their GTTF book ‘I Got a Monster’ – Baltimore Fishbowl

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

I first heard the name Det. Daniel Hersl while working at City Paper, where my colleagues and friends Brandon Soderberg and Baynard Woods reported on his harassment of Kevron Evans, better known as rapper Young Moose.

Hersl cited Mooses lyrics and music videos in a warrant to raid the rappers home in July 2014, leading to the arrest of Mooses father, brother and mother. But he did not issue a warrant for the rappers arrest until weeks later. Mooses lawyer, Richard Woods, claimed Hersl was aware Moose was scheduled to open for Baton Rouge rapper Lil Boosie at Royal Farms Arenaa huge boost for the musicians careerjust days before police brought him in.

In March 2016, Moose and his family members were acquitted on drug charges stemming from the raid, one of several instances where Hersl locked up Moose or harassed the Evans family.

Only later did we learn that Hersl was part of the Gun Trace Task Force, a corrupt unit of the Baltimore Police Department whose members were federally prosecuted on racketeering, robbery, conspiracy and corruption charges.

Six of the officersringleader Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, Sgt. Thomas Allers, Momudo Gondo, Maurice Ward, Jemell Rayam and Evodio Hendrixpleaded guilty.

Two former detectives, Hersl and Marcus Taylor, took their cases to trial and were eventually convicted.

Today, Soderberg and Woods release I Got a Monster, a deeply reported account of the GTTFs corruption published by St. Martins Press. With each detailed entry on a robbery or piece of planted evidence from the rogue unit, Soderberg and Woods put the reader right into the car, the house or the interrogation room where it all went down, showing just how calculating and precise these sworn officers were in their crimes.

Even if you followed the trials and news stories on the GTTF closely, I Got a Monstermonster being the units code name for potential targetsis an engrossing read and a much-needed compendium of what they call the rise and fall of Americas most corrupt police squad.

Over emailunder ordinary circumstances, this conversation would have taken place over beers at Mick OSheas, our favorite post-deadline spot in our City Paper daysI talked with Soderberg and Woods about the importance of the details, what shocked even them as they reported more on the GTTF, and what they hope their book contributes to the ongoing national conversation about police reform.

Soderberg and Woods are taking part in a virtual book launch tonight with special guests Lisa Snowden of Real News Network and Baltimore Beat (full disclosure: another colleague and good friend of mine), Johns Hopkins professor Lester Spence, activist Ralikh Hayes of Organizing Black, former BPD officer and current defund the police advocate Larry Smith, Badges Without Borders author Stuart Schrader, and Baltimore Youth Public Defender Jenny Egan.

The event is hosted by Red Emmas and starts at 7 p.m.

Baltimore Fishbowl: I want to go back to City Paper in 2014, when you both reported on Det. Daniel Hersls campaign to harass and bring charges against Kevron Evans, better known as rapper Young Moose. Mooses case is mentioned in the book. Could you have imagined when you were reporting those stories that it would eventually lead to all this?

Brandon Soderberg: Not at all. Although that says as much about my relative naivete about police corruption as a fairly green white reporter at the time as it does about the extent of the Gun Trace Task Force scandal. As you know, that was a story about this rapper Young Moose being harassed by a cop (which was really something we knew about because of our friend D. Watkins) and courts being culpable by believing Hersls version of events and letting him use lyrics and music videos as evidence. That was something I already understood from my music journalism work: Cops mess with rappers because of envy and racism.

And there were the additional parts of what happened that Moose and his father told us, which included theft and accusations of planted evidence. And I believed them and they often provided evidence to back up their claims. From there, we heard more stories about Hersl but even that felt kind of contained, right? A dirty cop and his buddies. That Hersl turned out to be tied to this larger criminal conspiracy, I couldnt have predicted that. Moose is kind of an unsung hero of this story: You read his raps from 2014 about police harassment and they read like parts of the GTTF indictment from 2017.

Baynard Woods: It also happened that a month after that story, the city began to see massive protests in support of Ferguson following the shooting of Mike Brown by police officer Darren Wilson and the failure of the DA to prosecute the cop. As Brandon has said, the protests around Thanksgiving 2014 were, in many ways, the beginning of the Baltimore Uprising. And then, in 2015, that smoldering uprising really erupted in what was almost a revolution. I think at that moment, because revolution always breaks open the possibilities of imagination, we might have been able to get a slightly better sense that the story we had started writing about with Hersl and Young Moose would have very long legs and could be extended into something like a book. But it took the federal trial of GTTF members Hersl and Marcus Taylor to see what shape that would take.

BFB: To report and write the book you gathered wiretaps, body-worn camera footage, surveillance video, trial transcripts, and thousands of documents. And you conducted hundreds of interviews. What was your process for sorting through all that information?

BW: The first thing we had to realize is that we were telling a story, not just dumping out everything we knew about the GTTF. With seven cops originally indicted, with others to follow, and years and years of crime, the story was just too big. So we knew we had to find a lens that would make it clear why we chose certain cases and not others. That turned out to be defense attorney Ivan Bates, who had been battling Jenkins in court for yearsand also had a string of big cases against Jenkins during 2016, when most of the book is set. He was able to play the role that detectives play in a lot of stories like this, standing in for the reader, who can figure out things as he figures them out.

BS: At the same time, we had to be open to reading and obtaining anything and everything and talking to whoever because any character detail or anecdote might be useful somewhere and also because were trying to understand their world. Like, I spent a lot of time just chatting with people they arrested that didnt want to really go on the record (sometimes just through Instagram or Facebook Messenger for a few minutes) because they would have some small detail that might be illustrative or might connect to something bigger for us. But once we identified that this book would focus on these cops through 2016 and it would also follow Ivan Bates, it made it easier to sort through all of the information. Then it was about having to find specific pieces of information to flesh out the scenes that fit the part of this sprawling story that we wanted to tell.

BFB: Stylistically, the first two-thirds or so of the book offers vivid accounts of the crimes carried out by these cops, putting the reader right in the car as the officers approach their next victim. How important was that to show just how precise and calculated these corrupt acts really were?

BS: We wanted to really give readers a sense of what this all felt like. I thought of the book as more like a camera following them around. To make that feel visceral and real, you needed a lot of detail. And the detail is also where you saw just how terrible this was: Its not just that they robbed a couple on July 8, 2016 but that they followed this couple through a Home Depot and that when they drove to the couples home, it was in Westminster and thats a bit of a drive and each turn or exit taken made it worse as the couple slowly realized their house was going to be robbed. So the details build tension too. The robberies were also important to detail because each of them was a way to characterize the cops and their shifting dynamic. These robberies often created small alliances or mini-beefs between the cops and so you want the personal drama to resonate and that only hits when its a detailed scene.

BW: Yeah, writing in scenes was really important to both of us. And to go back to the previous question, it was also a way to narrow down some of the cases. If we could make a good scene, then it had a better chance of making it into the book. If we needed information, but didnt have a scene, we had to find another way to get that in. But it was also important to show all of the calculated ruses and wild improvisations that these rogue cops made because it can serve almost as a handbook for lawyers or other defendantsits laying out a compendium of the kinds of dirty tricks cops can play.

BFB: Did anything you learned in the course of reporting this book shock even you?

BW: The way that policing functions in white communities is so much different than in Black communities. So, for me, maybe the most shocking thing was how a lot of the things that seemed outrageous to me, werent surprising to Black people who had been telling stories about these things for years. And thats one reason we have such hypersegregated, redlined communities is to keep these things out of the view of white people. Only after cellphone cameras became widespread did white reporters start believing the things that Black residents had been telling us about policing for years. But it still shocks me that in 2016, you get this squad, the GTTF together, that had so many detectives who were engaged in their own criminal enterprises with their own drug dealersthat kind of criminality within the department is off-the-charts.

BS: Each person who told us about their experience either told us something that we connected to the cops typical M.O. (which was shocking because it showed me how premeditated and common this all was) and/or they told us some new ugly detail (which was shocking because there was seemingly no bottom to their cruelty). Sgt. Jenkins of the GTTF stealing a mans phone after he robbed and arrested him and texting the mans girlfriend pretending to be the man to get her to send naked pictures is a shocking one just because its so petty and cruel.

A lot of the things we learned from Donny Stepp, the bail bondsman and cocaine dealer, were really shocking. That he was able to use the fact that the Department of Justice was in BPD headquarters investigating BPD as a cover to go into BPD and scheme with Jenkins is pretty wild.

And the biggest shocker was just the sense of how much chaos these cops created. You cant fully quantify how much crime they created, how many people were hurt or even killed possibly because of their actions. Targeting violence interrupters, robbing people of drugs just about every nightthat is going to create more violence. No one has really reckoned with that side of corruption much.

BFB: There isnt much indication that top BPD brass had much oversight of the GTTF, or even offered direction on how the group should carry out its supposed mission of getting guns off the street. How were there no checks on this rogue unit?

BS: The checks, I think, were not there intentionally. A lot of it was about looking the other way. Not giving them oversight was part of the strategy. By not investigating them or even questioning the staggering number of gun arrests they were wracking up (which anybody who cared to notice would have realized were pretty much impossible to do constitutionally), higher-ups in BPD could take advantage of the GTTFs good results and play dumb and get publicly outraged when this was all exposed.

BW: Former BPD spokesperson Eric Kowalczyk wrote a book where he describes Kevin Davis first day as Commissioner and he and Deputy Commissioner Dean Palmere told them that the riot is over and to get back to doing what they knew how to do. Palmere had been a plainclothes cop and he knew how they operated. Beyond that, when BPD and the Feds started a new War Room to deal with the murder crisis, it was run by Sean Miller, another Jenkins mentortheres a great picture that Sean Hubbard took of Jenkins and Miller riding in a car together during the uprising. Now, it is true that there were very few checks on them. But that is by designwe hear people every day arguing that putting checks on officers causes crime.

BFB: Are you convinced the Baltimore Police Department has made enough reforms to prevent a different unit from acting in a similarly corrupt fashion?

BW: Clearly the answer is no. I dont know that theyve made any real reforms that would stop something like this from happening. I mean, just a couple weeks ago, a homicide detective was arrested by county cops for allegedly using his police powers and his squad, all of whom were on the clock, to force a contractor to write him a $3,000 check for private work he thought was unsatisfactory.

BFB: What did the victims tell you about the trauma they experienced from all this? You describe Ronald Hamilton testifying on the stand that the GTTF raid on his Carroll County home destroyed his family and led to divorce.

BW: Hamilton, who they abducted from a shopping center and robbed, was very clear about some of those impacts. He and his wife had just bought a new house. After the GTTF essentially held them hostage in it, she couldnt be there alone. Shed go to Wall-Mart to wait until he got home. She was terrified. But in many ways, they were luckier than a lot of others. When Jenkins chased Umar Burley and he crashed into a man named Elbert Davis and killed him, the cops planted an ounce of heroin on Burley. He was in prison between 2010 and 2017. The Davis family sued Burley and won a million dollar judgmentand he has the weight of Elbert Davis life on him. That kind of trauma becomes so compounded.

BS: Some people who talked to us for the book said it was cathartic though it also meant reliving it all which was certainly retraumatizing. But we also saw how there was so much work the people who were victimized by GTTF had been doing to keep going and wake up in the morning and deal with that trauma. Part of that was coming to terms with what happened to them and trying not to let it destroy them. Often that involved locating some sense of forgiveness or locating some kind of peace within themselves about what happened. I dont want to make too much of that because its a personal choice by the people traumatized but I want to mention the other side of that trauma too: trying to process it and live with it and not let these cops continue to loom over their lives.

BFB: At the same time, you also give the GTTF cops some depth. We learn, for example, that Wayne Jenkins and his wife lost a child, that Momodu Gondo was living kind of a double life as a sworn police officer and a Baltimore native with friends in the drug trade. Did you come out of this with a different understanding of a Jenkins or a Gondo than you had before?

BS: One of the things that made me very interested in this story were the cops because they were complicated people. The trick was showing their lives and being fair to them but not losing sight that there are victims and perpetrators in this story and the GTTF are the perpetrators. Theres a weird dialectic there, right? Theres too much media from the perspective of copscopagandaand yet to tell this story, to really show you how terrible they were, it meant really getting to know these cops.

Getting more information about their lives means you inevitably find some qualities you might relate to at least a little or understand if only because you have to understand them to write this. However, we wanted to avoid locating a single piece of personal info and blowing it up as simple motivation. Jenkins was undoubtedly deeply affected by the death of his child and we had evidence of that but we didnt want to use it to explain why he was who he was. Thats lazy storytelling and bad reporting, and its too simple.

BW: Just to add one little bit to thatJenkins and Gondo, for instance, are very different people not only in terms of character, but in terms of demographics. Jenkins is white and grew up in the county and Gondo is Black and grew up in the city. Their corruption was driven by very different factors. But for both of them, just like for the drug dealers they robbed, the drug war was the economy in post-industrial Baltimore. We kind of have this expectation as a society that cops should really believe in the mission theyre engaged in. So, when we get rid of that, were going to see a lot of complex motivations and complicated decisions made on the job every day. If were going to understand that, we cant pretend theyre all somehow the same person.

BFB: This book arrives in the middle of this national conversation about policing. What do you hope it adds to the discussionparticularly for people outside of Baltimore, who are possibly learning about a lot of these cases for the first time?

BW: As post-uprising cities around the country are dealing with crime spikes, it complicates the argumentwhich we saw recently in Bret Stephens risible piece about Baltimorethat asking police to follow the law leads to crime. It does, but not for the quasi-magical reasons that people like Stephens suggestmorale! Or whatever. In this case, it led to an increase in crime in part because the cops were causing the crime. This leads to a cyclethe more crime there is, the longer leashes and more overtime we give cops, giving them a chance to create more chaos and crime, ramping up the cycle.

BS: I think the story shows that while the GTTFs actions were exceptionalI mean, we call them Americas most corrupt police squadthey are also the logical extension of contemporary American policing and therefore, a strong argument against simple reform. If you dont radically change policing, you will keep seeing GTTF-like cops.

We wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post last month that argued that Baltimore Police sabotaged reform and the GTTF scandal is a great example of the limits of reform. During the period our book covers, body cameras were introduced, the Department of Justice was here investigating BPD, and you couldnt go a week in 2016 without some kind of panel about community relations and the cops. None of that stopped GTTF. If they got away with such brazen criminality amid a moment of reform, then you can assume more conventional corruption and brutality wasnt stopped either.

BFB: The book is dedicated to defense attorneys fighting for the Fourth Amendment and its protections against illegal searches and seizures. Following the killing of Breonna Taylor, activists have been pushing for an end to no-knock warrants. Are there other reforms you would like to see to uphold Fourth Amendment rights?

BS: The Fourth Amendment in particular goes out the window when we give police more leeway to police us. By dialing back what police can get away with and by taking away their responsibilities and power and giving that responsibility and power to people more equipped to handle a lot of societal problems (defunding the police pretty much), the right to a reasonable search and seizure might begin to be more easily exercised. Proactive policing where plainclothes cops like GTTF go around the city essentially hunting for people to arrest is straight-up an exercise in violating Fourth Amendment rights (and often Second Amendment rights too). Getting rid ofor if you want to be more moderate about it, at least reducingthe power plainclothes police have would protect the Fourth Amendment.

BW: Its astounding to me that we still refer to anyone on the Supreme Court over the last generation as a strict constitutionalist. We have, as a country, essentially done away with the Fourth Amendment for the sake of the drug war. Weve had plenty of fights over the First and Second Amendments, but then we fall silent about illegal searches and seizures as long as we arent the ones being illegally searched and detained.

Getting rid of no-knock warrants is really important and should be important for cops, too. They are extremely dangerous for everyone involved. But we need far higher standards for warrants in general. For instance, its not just that they shouldnt have been able to raid Taylors house with a no-knock warrantthey shouldnt have been able to get a warrant for it at all. There was no evidence presented to justify any kind of warrant. Part of the problem is with the cops, but a large part also lies with the judges who sign warrants. They should be held accountable.

Q&A: Brandon Soderberg and Baynard Woods discuss their GTTF book 'I Got a Monster' - Baltimore Fishbowl

Family of George Floyd files lawsuit against city of Minneapolis and 4 former police officers – CNBC

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

A protester wearing a mask holds a large black power raised fist in the middle of the crowd that gathered at Columbus Circle.

Ira L. Black | Getty Images

Members of George Floyd's family filed a lawsuit in federal court Wednesday against the city of Minneapolis and the four police officers involved in his fatal arrest in May.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, alleges that the officers violated Floyd's constitutional rights. It claims that the city "caused officers [to] act with impunity and without fear of retribution" and failed to properly train police.

The family is seeking unspecified financial damages in addition to the appointment of a "receiver or similar authority" to ensure that the city "properly trains and supervises its police officers."

Video of Floyd's Memorial Day arrest shows former Minneapolis police officerDerek Chauvin, who is white, kneeling on Floyd's neck while Floyd, who was Black, cries out that he cannot breathe. According to charging documents, Chauvinheld his knee on Floyd's neck for about eight minutes.

Floyd's death while in police custody sparked weeks of protests against police violence around the globe.

Ben Crump, an attorney for the family, said at a press conference announcing the lawsuit that the case was "unprecedented."

"With this lawsuit, we seek to set a precedent to make it financially prohibitive" for police to "wrongfully kill marginalized people, especially Black people, in the future," Crump said.

"The city of Minneapolis has a history of policies and procedures and deliberate indifference when it comes to the treatment of arrestees, especially Black men, that cries out for training and discipline," he said.

The four officers involved in Floyd's arrest are facing charges, and Minnesota is pursuing an investigation into the "policies, procedures, and practices" of the Minneapolis Police Department over the past decade.A separate federal investigation into the arrest is also underway.

The suit names Chauvin as well as the other former officers involved in the arrest, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng. The lawsuit claims that Chauvin's actions were unreasonable and that each of the other former officers had a duty to intervene to stop him.

"Every reasonable officer would have known that using force against a compliant, handcuffed individual who is not resisting arrest constitutes excessive force in violation of the Fourth Amendment," the suit says. The suit also alleges that each of the former officers "had a duty to intervene on behalf of a citizen whose constitutional rights were being violated in their presence by another officer."

Chauvin has been charged withsecond-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. The other former officers were charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. All four were fired from the police department.

The suit claims that Minneapolis "frequently fails to terminate or discipline officers who demonstrate patterns of misconduct." It alleges that the Minneapolis Police Department "has observed unlawful or otherwise improper conduct by Chauvin throughout his career but has tolerated it and refused to remedy or mitigate it."

The suit says that the Minneapolis Police Department characterized neck restraints as "non-deadly" force "and did not warn it can cause death" from 2012 until June.

"Training materials offered to officers in 2014, including Defendants Chauvin and Thao, depict an officer placing a knee on the neck of an arrestee who is handcuffed in a prone position," the suit says.

Attorneys for the former officers either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment. A judge last week imposed a gag order barring the attorneys from discussing the cases against the officers with the media.

Minneapolis interim City Attorney Erik Nilsson said in a statement that the city was reviewing the lawsuit and that Floyd's death was a "tragedy."

"Criminal charges are pending against four Minneapolis police officers and it's very important that the criminal case proceed without interference," Nilsson said.

Read the original:

Family of George Floyd files lawsuit against city of Minneapolis and 4 former police officers - CNBC

Judge considering whether deputies violated the rights of a Wellsville man arrested on drug dealing and other charges – Cache Valley Daily

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

Booking photo for Tanner J. Mitton (Courtesy: Cache County Jail).

LOGAN A judge is expected to rule in the next month whether local law enforcement authorities violated a 26-year-old Wellsville mans constitutional rights. Tanner J. Mitton has been in jail since February, when Cache County sheriffs deputies arrested him on multiple drug charges during a traffic stop.

Mitton was in 1st District Court Wednesday afternoon, participating in the hearing by web conference from jail. He was previously charged with 24 felonies and misdemeanors.

On February 8, a deputy spotted Mitton, driving a red Volkswagon Jetta in Smithfield. The deputy claimed he recognized that the suspect had a warrant for his arrest.

Mitton allegedly became verbally confrontational with the deputy. He also appeared to be under the influence of methamphetamine and heroine.

Deputies obtained a warrant and searched the Jetta. Inside they found needles, aluminum foil, plastic packages with residue and two electronic scales. They also located two bags of marijuana and a baggy of cocaine. Multiple cellphones, laptops, a hard-drive, financial card swiping device and a printer were also discovered in the car.

Mitton admitted to law enforcement that he had been using drugs. He later tested positive for multiple illegal substances and was booked into jail.

During a virtual court hearing last week, public defender Mike McGinnis asked Judge Angela Fonnesbeck to dismiss the charges, stating law enforcement had violated Mittons Fourth Amendment Constitutional Rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.

McGinnis argued that his client was targeted by deputies, who were waiting for Mitton to leave a home so they could pull him over. They also detained him for an abnormal length of time during the traffic stop, so they could search the vehicle.

Prosecutors claimed the traffic stop was conducted lawfully. They also said the length of time was reasonable, while a K-9 detected the presence of drugs in the vehicle.

During Wednesdays court hearing, Mitton read a letter, asking for the court to release him from jail. He said he was not a bad person but had made some wrong choices because of his addiction to drugs.

Judge Fonnesbeck told attorneys she was going to issue a written ruling on McGinnis motions. She said there were some real important constitutional issues raised by the charges. She anticipated having the ruling completed by next week and ordered Mitton to appear again in court August 3.

will@cvradio.com

Original post:

Judge considering whether deputies violated the rights of a Wellsville man arrested on drug dealing and other charges - Cache Valley Daily

Trump working with Bush torture lawyer to cut Congress out of lawmaking: report – Salon

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

President Donald Trump suggested in aFox News Sundayinterviewthat he planned to act beyond his legal authority to implement sweepingchanges to immigration and health care policiesbased onan interpretation of a recent Supreme Court rulinggrantinghim "powers that nobody thought the president had."

Axios reportedthat the legally precariousstrategy,which cuts Congressout of the lawmaking process, relies on a theory of executive power floated in June by John Yoo, the George W. Bush administration lawyer who drafted the memo justifying the use of torture as an interrogation technique.

The first of the controversialorders will coverimmigration, per Axios. Trump told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace that he would also invoke the authority to create "a full and complete health care plan."

You heard me yesterday. We're signing a health care plan within two weeksa full and complete health care plan that the Supreme Court decision on DACA gave me the right to do. So we're going to solve we're going to sign an immigration plan, a health care planand various other plans. And nobody will have done what I'm doing in the next four weeks.

The Supreme Court gave the president of the United States powers that nobody thought the president hadby approving, by doing what they did their decision on DACA. And DACA's going to be taken care of also. But we're getting rid of it, because we're going to replace it with something much better. What we got rid of already, which was most of Obamacare the individual mandate. And that I've already won on. And we won also on the Supreme Court. But the decision by the Supreme Court on DACA allows me to do things on immigration, on health care, on other things that we've never done before. And you're going to find it to be a very exciting two weeks.

Yoo argued in a National Reviewarticle that a recent Supreme Court decision upholding the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)programempoweredthe president to bypass Congress through prosecutorial discretion: choosing not to enforce federal laws.

While the orders may be illegal, Trump would likely be able to run out the clock in the courts until Election Day, according to Yoo. Itwould also create legacy headaches for any successor, who would have to enforce the lawsunless and until the courts overturn them,Yoo claimed.

"SupposePresident Donald Trump decided to create a nationwide right to carry guns openly," Yoo wrote. "He could declare that he would not enforce federal firearms laws, and that a new 'Trump permit' would free any holder of state and local gun-control restrictions."

"Even if Trump knew that his scheme lacked legal authority, he could get away with it for the length of his presidency," he added. "And, moreover, even if courts declared the permit illegal, his successor would have to keep enforcing the program for another year or two."

"According to Chief Justice Roberts, the Constitution makes it easy for presidents to violate the law, but reversing such violations difficult especially for their successors," he concluded.

Yoo is most famousfor what has become known as the "torture memo," which justified the Bush administration's use ofwaterboarding via a constitutional reading called "the unitary executive theory."

As thetheory goes, in wartime a president can exercise virtually unlimited authority, which can only be checked by Congress'spending power.Because the "war on terror" might nothave a definitive end, the president wouldhave nearly dictatorial power in this realmfor the foreseeable future, including deploying federal troops for police actions and suspending the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

Axios reported that Yoo's article has been spotted on Trump's desk, and the president had brought it up in meetings with aides.Yoo told the outletthat he had discussed the theory with White House aides in recent virtual meetings.

When Trump firstmentioned the plan, ina recent Telemundo interview, he drew fire from within the Republican tent.Not only would the orderinclude DACA, which the administrationjust spent years fighting to overturn,Trump claimed it would also createa path to citizenship, as well.

"I'm going to make DACA a part of it," said the president. "We're going to have a road to citizenship."

The White House immediately walked back that claim,which runs the risk of alienatingGOPimmigration hawks, as well asthe anti-immigrantbase which carried Trump through the 2016 primaries and general election.

"This does not include amnesty," White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement.

Fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas quickly tweeted that "it would be a HUGE mistake if Trump tries to illegally expand amnesty."

"There is ZERO constitutional authority for a President to create a 'road to citizenship"by executive fiat," hewrote.

At the same time, Trump saidhe would change over toa merit-basedimmigration system, as opposed to one based on family connections,something which anti-immigration hardliners like senior White House adviser StephenMillerhave wanted for years.

Under Trump's earlier "merit-based" proposal, immigrants would be selected through a point-based system, which scores for "extraordinary talent, professional and specialized vocations and exceptional academic track records." However, the Republican-led Senate was not on board.

In 2018, Trump offered apath to citizenship as a concession to get Congress to authorize $25 billion for hiswall along the Mexican border, but lawmakers balked. In 2019, the Democratic-ledHouse passed a bill which would allow Dreamers to apply for citizenship, but the Senate still has not voted on it. The White House said at the time that Trump would veto such a bill.

It was not immediately clear how Trump would craft such an executive order to create a health care plan. He made the "repeal and replace" of Obamacare a cornerstone of his 2016 campaign, but allefforts to secure enough Republican votes in Congress failed.

More here:

Trump working with Bush torture lawyer to cut Congress out of lawmaking: report - Salon

Is there life on Mars? – The Economist

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

Jul 21st 2020

AROUND 3.5BN years ago conditions on Earth and Mars were similar. Both had thick atmospheres and liquid water on their surfaces. Both, in other words, had the conditions required to sustain life. And on one of those planets life was, indeed, sustained. Precisely when biology began on Earth remains obscure. But by 3.5bn years ago, a billion years after the solar system formed, it was well established there and has since evolved into the lush abundance of complex forms seen today. Mars, meanwhile, became a freezing desert.

The question nevertheless remains: given that the conditions needed for life to emerge on Earth also seem to have pertained for a time on Mars, might life have evolved there, too? And, if it did, might it still survive in some form, even if only in vanishingly rare amounts?

On July 30th NASA, Americas space agency, hopes to launch its latest Mars rover, Perseverance, which will try to answer at least the first of those questions. It is aimed at a 45km-wide crater called Jezero that was, 3.5bn years ago, home to a lake. Its main goal is to look for signs of ancient life. But it is also the opening gambit in a decade-long plan to bring Martian rocks to Earth. Nor will Perseverance be alone in its quest. It will be accompanied either now or soon by European, Chinese and other robots intent on finding out just what it was that happened on Mars.

Once upon a time...One such mission is already on its way. On July 20th the United Arab Emirates (UAE) joined the list of countries that have launched probes towards extraterrestrial bodies. That was when Al Amal, meaning hope, rose from Japans spaceport on Tanegashima, off the southern tip of Kyushu. Al Amals purpose is to study Marss weather and also how the Martian atmosphere is leaking into space.

All being well, Perseverance will follow soon from Americas principal spaceport, at Cape Canaveral, in Florida. This one tonne, six-wheeler, which cost $2.4bn to build and launch and will take another $300m to operate during its mission, will be the most sophisticated vehicle yet sent by America to the Martian surface.

Jezero, the crater around which it will trundle, sits on the inner rim of Isidis Planitia, one of the largest impact basins on Mars, which was excavated 3.9bn years ago. One source of the water which formed the lake that once lay within Jezero seems to have been a river leading to a well-preserved delta (see picture). The layers of sediment in this feature are prime targets in the search for Martian biology.

On Earth, some of the oldest evidence for life comes in the form of stromatolites. These stratified structures form in shallow water when colonies of microbes grow layer upon layer, trapping minerals as they do so. The most ancient examples are thought to be those found in Greenland in 2016, which have been dated to 3.7bn years before the present day. If there was sufficient time for stromatolite-forming organisms to evolve on Earth by this date then there is no obvious reason why they might not also have evolved on Mars.

Spotting stromatolite-like layers in rocks will not, though, be enough on its own. Researchers will also need to consider the textures of the rocks concerned and the distribution within them of minerals and potentially telltale organic molecules. Confusingly, in chemistry-speak, an organic molecule is not necessarily of biological origin. The term just means that it is built around carbon atoms, so organic molecules can also originate inorganically, as it were. The biological nature of an organic molecule has thus to be justified by other evidence. As Kathryn Stack Morgan, a geologist who is the Perseverance missions deputy project scientist, observes, This is exactly the type of thing that we do here on Earth to make a case for biosignatures in our own rock record, and for the very first time using our instruments we can do that on the surface of Mars.

Rocks and hard placesPerseverance carries two instruments in particular that are intended to examine the surfaces of rocks which the rover encounters. Both will look for pertinent minerals and organic molecules. SHERLOC, situated at the end of the rovers robotic arm, will shine a laser onto tiny grains in rocks it comes across. By analysing the spectrum of the light that is scattered back, this instrument will be able to identify molecules in the grains under scrutiny. WATSON, a camera, will then take close-ups of rocks that SHERLOC deems worthy of further study.

Mapping SHERLOCs chemical analyses onto WATSONs high-resolution images will show how different mineral layers are arranged and textured. That will be a big improvement over the instruments on board NASAs current operational Mars rover, Curiosity, which arrived in 2012. These are capable only of grinding up rocks to work out whether or not organic molecules are present in the bulk material. If there are stromatolites (or even fossils of more complex creatures) Perseverance will be able to see them, both chemically and optically.

As did Curiosity, Perseverance will rely on an autopilot to guide it through the atmosphere to the planets surface, after arriving at a velocity, relative to its target, of 19,500km per hour. We refer to it as the seven minutes of terror, says Matt Wallace, an engineer who is the missions deputy project manager. The rovers autonomy will then carry over to its everyday operations. Because of the time it takes radio waves to travel from Earth to Mars, Perseverance will receive instructions from its controllers only once a day. On the ground in Mars it will need to find and avoid awkwardly placed rocks, and also more serious hazards, such as cliffs, by processing, in real time, pictures coming from its dozens of cameras. This autonomy, NASA is confident, will permit the new rover to cross the Martian surface routinely and safely at a speed of around 150 metres per hour, double that at which Curiosity is usually allowed to travel.

As well as eyes, Perseverance has ears. A pair of microphones on board will permit people to hear the winds of Mars for the first time. They will also be able listen to the whirr of the rovers gears, the crunch of its wheels as it moves across the regolith (the crushed rock that passes for soil on Mars) and the percussive sounds of the drill at the end of its arm as it chips out samples of rocks to study.

Not all of those samples will be discarded after investigation. Some will be packed for eventual dispatch to Earth by a project called the Mars Sample Return mission. This is a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, ESA, that involves launching five separate spacecraft over the course of a decade. Perseverance is the first, and its collaboration-related job is to seal samples of Martian rock that its operators think worthy of further investigation into one of around 30 titanium tubes which it carries. As the illustration overleaf presages, it will leave these on the surface to be picked up by an ESA-designed fetch rover that could arrive as early as 2028. Once collected, the tubes will be brought back to Earth by a system of relay craft, and their contents analysed.

Perhaps most intriguingly of all, Perseverance will also carry a 1.8kg helicopter, called Ingenuity. If this manages to fly in Marss thin atmosphere (which has about 1% of the density of Earths at the surface), it will represent the first controlled flight, beyond the landing and lift-off of a spacecraft, to take place on another heavenly body. And if that happens, it will pave the way for more sophisticated drones on future mission to act as scouts.

The life-seeking instruments on Perseverance are more advanced than anything that has come before them, but this was not the original plan for the next phase, after Curiosity, of NASAs attempt to find life on Mars. In February 2012, while Curiosity was still making its way there, Barack Obamas administration slashed NASAs planet-exploration budget by a fifth. At the time, American scientists had been developing a programme called ExoMars, in collaboration with ESA. This was to involve an orbiter and several rovers being launched from 2016 onwards, with a combination of tools intended to look for signs of life.

Mr Obamas cuts killed American involvement in ExoMars and, by the time Curiosity reached Mars in August 2012, NASA had no plans to send any future rovers. The overwhelmingly positive public reaction to Curiositys nail-biting landing, however, helped persuade the agencys chiefs to reconsider their priorities and put together a scaled-back version of previous plans that required no increase in the budget. The result, the mission now known as Perseverance, was announced a few months later.

Every contact leaves a traceMeanwhile, ESA had kept its part of the ExoMars programme alive, turning to Russia for help with launching and hardware. In 2016, the Europeans delivered the first part of the programme, the Trace Gas Orbiter, to its destination. Its goal is to measure the precise concentrations in Marss atmosphere of substances, including methane, water vapour, nitrogen oxides and acetylene, that each form less than 1% of the atmospheres total volume but which might be signs of biological activity.

Methane is of particular interest since its presence varies with both time and location on the planets surface. Methane does not live long in the Martian atmosphere, suggesting there is an active source of the gas. On Earth, living things emit methane as they digest nutrients. But purely geological processes can also liberate the stuff.

The next step in ESAs ExoMars programme is a rover, called Rosalind Franklin. This was also scheduled for launch about now, to take advantage, like the Perseverance and Al Amal missions, of the current alignment of Earth and Mars that allows for a quick, six-month journey between the two. However, a combination of technical delays and the effect of covid-19, which has meant the multinational team of engineers involved could not easily travel to complete the manufacture and testing of the rover, has pushed the launch date back to the next favourable alignment, in 2022.

When Rosalind Franklin eventually does arrive on Mars (which will be in 2023, if this timetable is adhered to), the craft will crawl over an area called Oxia Planum. This has clays that date back around 4bn years, which will make it the oldest site yet explored on Mars. Since clay minerals require water to form, there are high hopes that Oxia Planum may once have been a life-friendly region.

Rosalind Franklins scientific payload will be capable of much more sophisticated analyses than Perseverances. In particular, the Mars Organic Molecule Analyser (MOMA) will be able to extract organic molecules from rocks and regolith more effectively than before.

Previous attempts to study organic molecules on Mars have been plagued by the presence of chemicals called perchlorates. These were first seen in 2008, by NASAs Phoenix lander, and were confirmed by Curiosity half a decade later. Those missions baked their Martian samples in ovens, to release the organics. That also released chlorine and oxygen from the perchlorates, and these oxidised most of the organic molecules present. moma will circumvent this problem by using an ultraviolet laser that will knock organic molecules off rock samples so fast that any perchlorates present will not have time to decompose.

Rosalind Franklins most important tool, however, will be a drill that can collect samples from two metres below the surface. This is crucial for recovering material in which organic molecules can be found in a good state of preservation. The thin Martian atmosphere is easily penetrated by ionising radiation from space. This slams into the surface and even penetrates a little way beneath. As Jorge Vago, ExoMarss lead scientist, observes, Over many millions of years, this ionising radiation acts like gazillion little knives slowly cutting away the functional groups of the organic molecules you would like to hopefully discover. Use a drill to go deep enough, though, and any material collected will have been protected from radiation by several metres of rock. ESAs modelling suggests that samples from 1.5 metres down would be scientifically interesting. The deepest any mission has so far sampled under the surface of Mars is a few centimetres.

The jackpot of this treasure hunt would be to find things like sugars, phospholipids (constituents of the membranes of cells), nucleotides (the letters of genetic material) or amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) that are characteristic of life on Earth. But consolation prizes might be available in the form of less direct signals of biology within the chemistrytraces of the actions of enzymes, for example. As Dr Vago observes, the way fatty acids are synthesised biologically on Earth means that they usually have an even number of carbon atoms, although there is nothing in their underlying chemistry which favours that in abiotic syntheses. Finding a pattern like this, or something equally chemically striking, in Martian organic molecules would be encouraging to those who hope that Mars has or once had life.

Many handsAmerica and Europe have long histories of studying Mars. The uae is a newcomer. But it is not alone in that. Another country also wants to use the current launch window to join the Mars club: China.

Tianwen-1 (heavenly questions) is a combined mission consisting of an orbiter, a lander and a rover. It is built and operated by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and is also scheduled for imminent launch. Chinese officials have been tight-lipped about the exact timing and have also declined to release much detail about the missions scientific aims. This is not Chinas first attempt at Martian space flight, however. In 2011 a Chinese craft called Yinghuo-1 attempted to hitch a ride with Phobos-Grunt, a Russian probe. Unfortunately, the rockets intended to propel the combined mission on its way malfunctioned, and it never left Earth orbit.

The little that is known of Tianwen-1 suggests that it will study the distribution of ice on Mars and examine how the planets habitability has changed over time. The various craft involved will host around a dozen scientific instruments, including cameras, chemistry sets, magnetometers and radars. Officials from the CNSA have said that the mission would make detailed surveys of the Martian surface. A ground-penetrating radar, for example, will measure the thickness and composition of layers within the regolith and identify any ice that is within 100 metres of the surface.

It will be a sophisticated spacecraft, if the details revealed about the missions landing system are accurate. Zhang Rongqiao, the chief designer, told Chinese television-viewers in 2019 that the lander would separate from the crafts main body at an altitude of 70 metres and hover until it found a safe landing spot. Cameras and laser scanners will help this lander avoid obstacles as it makes its way to the surface.

Whether the lander will be capable of the sorts of biology-detecting activity planned for Perseverance and, after it, Rosalind Franklin, is unclear. But even if it is not, those other two vehicles, combined with the forthcoming ESA and NASA Mars sample-return mission, do now offer a realistic possibility of answering the question of whether there is, or was, life elsewhere than on Earth. A failure to find it would be a disappointment, although the search would no doubt go on, both on Mars and elsewhere. But an answer in the affirmative, even were that life only bacterial and extinct, would surely transform humanitys view of itself as profoundly as did the discoveries of Nicolaus Copernicus and Charles Darwin.

See the article here:

Is there life on Mars? - The Economist

Explained: What The Deployment Of Jaguar Fighters In Andaman And Nicobar Islands Means – Swarajya

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

In the middle of its most serious standoff with China in decades, India has deployed Jaguar fighters in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the eastern Indian Ocean.

The Indian Air Force (IAF), it is believed, has flown at least 10 Jaguar fighters to the Car Nicobar Air Base in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

This deployment of the fighters, which took place earlier this month, came in conjunction with at least three naval exercises in areas around Andaman and Nicobar Islands over the last few weeks, including two Passex or passage drills with the navies of Japan and the US.

In all probability, the fighters deployed at Car Nicobar are the maritime strike variant of Jaguar, called Jaguar IM. While there is no confirmation, the fighters could be from the Number 6 Squadron 'Dragons based at the Jamnagar Air Force Base in Gujarat.

The first Jaguars (not the maritime variant) of the IAF had landed at the Jamnagar airbase from the United Kingdom this month nearly 40 years ago. While India acquired Jaguars in large numbers, the maritime variant forms a small part of IAF's fleet of Jaguar fighters.

Over the years, the IAF has upgraded its Jaguars to squeeze in new capabilities. The most recent upgrade involved the installation of an active electronically-scanned array (AESA) radar manufactured by Israels Elta Systems as part of the Display Attack Ranging Inertial Navigation III (DARIN III) upgrade programme of the IAF. Jaguar was the first fighter in the IAF's fleet to get an AESA radar.

AESA radar gives the Jaguars a new lease of life with the capability to track multiple targets at greater distances, much more accurately than before, and resist jamming.

In other words, Jaguars of the IAF can now track multiple enemy targets in air and on the ground during an operation, and guide missiles towards them while resisting enemys attempt at jamming.

Another upgrade, which came in the form of the integration of the Harpoon missile, has added more lethality to the platform, which some said was fast becoming obsolete.

Equipped with these capabilities, and deployed in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the Jaguars of the IAF can prove to be a headache for China accentuate its Malacca Dilemma' if the conflict unfolding in the Himalayas escalates and expands to the maritime domain.

Along with assets of the Indian Navy, the Jaguars will play a vital role in the interdiction of Chinese shipping if India decided to do that in the event of war.

The Malacca Strait, a narrow stretch of water between the Malaya Peninsula in the north and the Indonesian island of Sumatra in the south, is crucial for China. It may not be the only shipping channel connecting the Indian Ocean with the South China Sea, but it is the most viable and widely used one. A large part of global seaborne trade (40 per cent by some accounts), including much of China's imports and exports, passes through the Malacca Strait.

Beijing's dependence on the Malacca Strait can be gauged from the fact that over 80 per cent of its crude oil requirement, a large part of which comes from the Middle East, passes through this narrow channel on its way to ports in China. Much of the ore and minerals it imports from Africa, which is critical for its industry, passes through the Malacca Strait.

In a long drawn out war with the US or India, a blocked Malacca Strait, if it lasts long enough, can starve China of resources critical for its industry.

Additionally, if China, in the event of war with India, decided to deploy its naval assets in the Indian Ocean region, maintaining supply lines through the Malacca Strait will prove difficult with the presence of Indian Navy warships and fighters of the IAF deployed in Andaman and Nicobar Islands. India can interdict these supply lines, forcing Chinese assets to depend on its limited bases in the Indian Ocean.

Equipped with the 124-km-range Harpoon anti-ship missiles, the Jaguars flying from Car Nicobar can target enemy ships exiting the Malacca Strait and moving towards Andaman and Nicobar Islands from standoff ranges.

This scenario, experts say, is unlikely unless the situation escalates drastically and an all out war breaks out. And in the current situation, the deployment of Jaguars in Andaman and Nicobar Islands is mostly aimed at deterring Chinese misadventures in the Indian Ocean region.

The Peoples Liberation Army Navy, over the last decade, has significantly increased its presence in the Indian Ocean. Chinese submarines make regular forays into the Indian Ocean, as do its research vessels studying submarine routes and mapping the ocean floor.

In September last year, the Indian Navy forced out a Chinese research vessel after it entered Indias exclusive economic zone in the Andaman Sea.

Explained: What The Deployment Of Jaguar Fighters In Andaman And Nicobar Islands Means - Swarajya

Thousand Islands July 4th parties linked to COVID-19 spike – North Country Public Radio

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

Jul 17, 2020 Contact tracers have linked 16 confirmed coronavirus cases in Jefferson County to parties along the St. Lawrence River July 4th weekend.

State and county health officials say theyve contacted more than a hundred people who may be at risk of having COVID-19. Theyre also actively working to identify additional individuals who may have been exposed.

Anyone who attended a large gathering in the Thousand Islands July 4th weekend should get tested immediately, especially if they may not have worn a mask or kept six feet social distance. The state set up a temporary testing center Friday afternoon at the Clayton fire department.

All New Yorkers are reminded that emergency orders banning large social gatherings remain in effect, and people should wear masks in public when they cant stay six feet away from others.

Overall, Jefferson County reported 26 new coronavirus cases in a week, bringing its total to 137 since the start of the pandemic.

View post:

Thousand Islands July 4th parties linked to COVID-19 spike - North Country Public Radio

Mauricio Shogun Rua excited to fight another Legend on UFC Fight Island – Yahoo Sports

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

Mauricio "Shogun" Rua and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira are names that are synonymous with mixed martial arts. Both men have been fighting in the sport for the better part of two decades.

On Saturday night on UFC Fight Island in Abu Dhabi, the two legends will meet for the third and final time as part of UFC on ESPN 14.

Shogun won both of their prior meetings. The first one took place under the Pride FC banner in 2005. The second bout happened in the Octagon at UFC 190 in 2015.

Now, 15 years after their first meeting, they step into the cage again, this being the final fight of Rogerio's illustrious career. Nogueira has announced that he will retire following the bout. But it will also be one of the final fights for the 38-year-old Shogun, who says he believes he has two or three fights left before he also walks away from the sport.

Hear everything Shogun Rua had to say at his UFC on ESPN 14 pre-fight Media Day scrum.

TRENDING > Video: What happened when Jorge Masvidal and Michael Bisping crossed up on UFC Fight Island?

(Subscribe toMMAWeekly.com on YouTube)

Visit link:

Mauricio Shogun Rua excited to fight another Legend on UFC Fight Island - Yahoo Sports

Potters Beach on Grindstone Island to remain closed – NNY360

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

The Thousand Islands Land Trust will be extending the temporary closure of Potters Beach Preserve due to the continued development of COVID-19 case in Clayton and surrounding communities.

The Land Trust did not say when the popular beach, on Grindstone Island, will reopen.

The preserve, which includes trails and a sand beach, is also a popular spot for boaters to moor and swim. Last week Jefferson County officials said multiple people were potentially exposed to coronavirus during a gathering of boats off nearby Picton Island. The beach has been closed since.

The Land Trust will continue to monitor cases.

TILT will be communicating directly with Jefferson County Public Health, along with state and local officials and authorities, the agency stated. TILT will continue to monitor this situation and provide an update once it is deemed safe to reopen. Please note, while this is an unprecedented situation, the health and safety of the River community is of the highest importance to TILT. Thank you in advance for your cooperation and understanding.

Read this article:

Potters Beach on Grindstone Island to remain closed - NNY360

Amazon to Grand Island: ‘Thanks but no thanks’ – WGRZ.com

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

Sources said the decision to pull Project Olive was based on significant pushback from town residents against the project.

Author: James Fink, Business First /Bizjournals.com, WGRZ Staff

Published: 6:10 PM EDT July 20, 2020

Updated: 11:24 PM EDT July 20, 2020

GRAND ISLAND, N.Y. Just hours before a Grand Island Town Board meeting to examine a proposed Amazon regional distribution center, developer Trammell Crow Co. pulled the project from the agenda at Amazon's request.

Sources said the decision to pull Project Olive was based on significant pushback from town residents against the project, which was planned for a 146-acre parcel on Long Road owned by Acquest Development of Amherst. The Grand Island Planning Board voted July 13 against the project 3-2.

Sources said Trammell Crow and Amazon are not interested in finding an alternate site in Erie County, and the sources focus might shift to Niagara and Genesee counties in the next few days.

When 2 On Your Side asked if "Project Olive" was pulling out, Grand Island Town Supervisor John Whitney said he was informed by developers the project is "on pause."

During Monday night's Grand Island Town Board meeting property owner Michael Huntress spoke to the board, hoping to encourage them to see the benefits the project would bring the area. Including, the estimated 1,000 jobs and increase in annual tax revenue.

2 On Your Side has reported on the controversial nature of the project. If you drive through neighborhoods near the Long Road property you will see lawn signs protesting the development.

Many neighbors have expressed concerns about the increase in traffic volume with the development.

"You are putting one of the biggest warehouses in the world on an island that you can only get on and off through a couple bridges" said Terry Hildebrandt of Grand Island. "Just because it's on pause right now, it may or may not go away and we should still let our voices be heard that we don't think it's appropriate for Grand Island."

See original here:

Amazon to Grand Island: 'Thanks but no thanks' - WGRZ.com

Two Staten Island women charged with defacing Black Lives Matter mural outside Trump Tower – SILive.com

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Two Staten Island women with ties to a pro-life religious organization were arrested after they allegedly defaced the Black Lives Matter mural outside the Trump Tower in Manhattan, only to be seen on video hours later dumping paint on two other murals in Brooklyn and Harlem.

Bevelyn Beatty, 29, and Edmee Chavannes, 39, both Black residents of Stapleton, were taken into custody after they allegedly smeared black paint across the bright yellow letters which read Black Lives Matter on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, police said.

During the act, which was posted by Beatty on Facebook, she can be heard saying: Black Lives Matter, right? ... For the Black people. This is for the Black people. Theyre destroying business for Black people. Theyre looting for Black people.

No, Beatty says as she dumps black paint onto the mural. No. Were not standing with Black Lives Matter. We want our police. Re-fund our police.

Beatty and Chavannes were both charged with criminal mischief, given desk appearance tickets and released shortly afterwards.

A statement from At the Well Ministries, an organization that has posted videos of Beatty denouncing abortion, said the two women were treated like royalty by cops after their arrests.

This was the BEST experience they have ever had with any police department, the statement read, adding that police expressed their HIGH APPRECIATION for what Bevelyn and Edmee stood up for today.

While responding to the incident, a cop slipped on the paint that was poured on the mural slamming his shoulder and head into the pavement. The statement said the officer is doing very well and fine.

More to come, the statement continued, But we are taking our country back NOW!

An NYPD officer falls during an attempt to detain a protester pouring black paint on the Black Lives Matter mural outside of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday, July 18, 2020. (Associated Press/Yuki Iwamura) AP

A short while later, in the late hours of Saturday night, Beatty posted another video on Facebook entitled, Harlem Drive-by Painting, in which she and others pour paint out of the back of a minivan as it rolls past the Black Lives Matter mural on 7th Avenue and West 125th Street.

Jesus matters, they can be heard saying, as other cars rolled along the Harlem street behind Beatty who was wearing the same outfit she was seen in outside the Trump Tower earlier on Saturday.

Before anything else can matter, Jesus got to matter, Beatty said as she poured the black paint onto the brightly-colored mural.

As the cars crept down the street, an onlooker began accosting the group.

Whats wrong with you? Youre a Black woman, the person can be heard saying. What the f--k is wrong with you? Youre a Black woman.

As the caravan of cars pulls away, empty paint cans can be seen being hurled towards the group.

The NYPD said an investigation into the incident remains ongoing.

However, less than two hours later, Beatty and others were on Fulton Street in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn early Sunday, video posted to her Facebook page showed.

Jesus matters, we are taking our country back, Beatty said during the video. The police need our help they cant stand alone. Dont just sit by idly and watch your country go to the ground. Stand with your police force, vote for Trump, vote Republican, vote for Christians.

Then, Beatty and another woman splashed paint across the Black Lives Matter mural and used paint rollers to spread it across the letters.

Several people are seen in the video approaching the two women to confront them about defacing the mural. Several verbal encounters quickly became terse.

The group then piled into nearby cars and drove off.

The NYPD said the department is aware of the incident and the investigation remains ongoing.

In a video following the incidents posted on Sunday, Beatty said: We did an all-nighter. Let me tell you something. Yesterday was epic, adding that President Donald Trump needs the American people behind him.

The Daily News reported Beatty and Chavannes were both arrested last month for protesting outside Planned Parenthoods New York headquarters, and were also charged with disorderly conduct in Fort Myers, Florida, when they disrupted a council meeting.

Were Black women, but we do not support Black Lives Matter because theyre hand-in-hand with Planned Parenthood that kills African-American babies, Beatty told Fox News last month. Theyre fraudulent hypocrites...

Black paint from a protester covers part of a Black Lives Matter mural outside of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on Saturday, July 18, 2020. (Associated Press/Yuki Iwamura)AP

This is not the first time the Black Lives Matter mural outside the Trump Tower has been defaced.

The NYPD said surveillance video revealed three individuals poured and smeared paint across the midtown-street art on Friday, July 17, just before 4 p.m.

Juliet Germanotta, 39, of Manhattan; Luis Martinez, 44, of Brooklyn; and Morgan DAnna, 25, a Queens resident, were arrested and charged with criminal mischief and released with a desk appearance ticket, the NYPD said in a written statement.

A fourth person, a 64-year-old female, was issued a criminal court summons for illegally posting fliers at the scene, the NYPD said.

Last week, the New York Post reported that a man walked up to the mural and poured red paint over it before fleeing the scene.

Read this article:

Two Staten Island women charged with defacing Black Lives Matter mural outside Trump Tower - SILive.com

Group Aims to Revive Mud Island Amphitheater – Memphis Flyer

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

Jerred Price was elected president of the Downtown Neighborhood Association (DNA) in February. He recently formed two new committees. One will focus on affordability: helping people with increases in land values and tax increases and keeping Downtown rents affordable. The other will focus on reviving Mud Island Amphitheater.

Price has been a vocal critic of the Mississippi River Parks Partnerships (MRPP) move to redo Tom Lee Park. Price is the administrator of a Facebook group called Save the River Parks and the Festivals.

Group members criticize the state of Mud Island River Park with its weeds, cracks, and holes. In a video that shows all of this (below), the group says its proof the the MRPP has failed our parks. The state of Mud Island in general has many critics calling for MRPP to fix the park first before embarking on the $60 million plan to completely renovate Tom Lee Park.

We caught up with Price recently about the Mud Island committee and his hopes for the one-of-a-kind, 5,000-seat theater. Toby Sells

Memphis Flyer: Why did you get interested in this issue?

Jerred Price: Im a musician. I play Almost Elton John (an Elton John tribute artist) with my band at Lafayettes every month. I started in 2014, playing almost only on Beale Street at Hard Rock Cafe.

Even up until, I think, three or four years ago, they did concerts there. I know Eric Clapton played up there in 2015. Fallout Boy was there recently. Theyve (recently) had about 15 or 16 different bands play there. Theyve had some big names roll in there.

Then, it stopped. I think it stopped because the focus on the rebranded (Riverfront Development Corp. now the MRPP) is not on Mud Island. Its not on promoting it. It's focused on Tom Lee Park. Youll see the timeline of when the concerts stopped and when the Tom Lee Park fundraising initiative began; it matches up.

Then, Mud Island kind of fell into despair. The maintenance out there is horrible and I think that's why the bands don't want to come out there. I understand the logistics trouble. I do. I want that to be very clear, that we understand it's a challenging venue, challenging location.

It is challenging, but it can still work and it did for years and years and years. It's just become not the focus. I think a lot of Downtowners are really disappointed in the condition of it.

I know that, per public record, the city signs a contract every year for MRPP, formerly RDC, to maintain, and manage, and oversee the river parks. I think they get $3 million to $4 million a year from the city of Memphis budget [it was $2.97 million in 2018], but where's the maintenance going? Where's the oversight in [the contract] because if you look at maintenance out there, it looks like the city's not giving them a dime. I mean, it's bad.

I created a post on Facebook a little while back and I threw up (images of amphitheater concepts) for Servicemaster, and AutoZone, and FedEx. What if they took over the naming rights like Renasant Bank with the new convention center? What if they put up the naming rights, and sold it to a corporation, and got investors, and got a new promotion marketing team, and did some upgrades out there? How much could that bring back that theater? Then, [the post] gets shared 1,500 times.

The hotel industry and the restaurant industry, theyd love to have concerts back. Thats 4,000 people coming Downtown. They're going to want to go eat. They're going to need places to stay. They're going to need restaurants and want to go to the bars to hang out.

It's a return on investment. Its more than just about the amphitheater. Its about Downtown. So, when I got elected president this past February of the DNA, I said I'm gonna make it a focus to restore and bring back this beloved amphitheater.

MF: Do you have a timeline for this?

JP: We are basing our timeline on the safety of Downtown and Memphis. We want to make sure that whatever we do is in a timely manner that is safe for everyone together.

But we are going to do the background work of putting it together so we can be able to pull the trigger when they do say we can have concerts. That way, all the legwork is done. Weve got the promotion companies. We've got the artists. We've got the money. We've got the investors to potentially do, maybe, a pop-up concert out there.

MF: To do that, would you have to get permission from the MRPP?

JP: Any event that takes place in a park that's managed by MRPP simply has to be submitted to them with the proper insurance if it's needed or plans for the event. You just kind of have to have an outline presented to them, and then get the permission to do it.

My hope and I hope this makes it into the way you write it, too we hope that we get the support and partnership of MRPP. If their their motto on their website is working ... let me read it for you.

It says, Memphis River Parks Partnerships works with and for the people of Memphis to trigger the transformative power of our river. So, we hope the MRPP will work with and for the people in health resurrecting this beloved amphitheater, and supporting our mission and our committee to do that.

MF: Did we leave anything out or is there anything you want to add?JP: I hope that MRPP will focus more on investing more maintenance dollars in this beloved park. I understand it has its challenges.

But so did many other projects that have recently been completed such as Crosstown Concourse. People said it was nearly impossible to do what they've done there. But it's been done and it's a success and people love it.

I think we need to make sure that we we keep this jewel that sits on the front porch of our city. We need to keep it alive and we need to keep going.

Link:

Group Aims to Revive Mud Island Amphitheater - Memphis Flyer

Private island with log cabin on edge of the BWCA can be yours for $399K – Minneapolis Star Tribune

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

Looking for the ultimate pandemic-era getaway home safe and secluded, with no need for masks or social distancing? Theres a private island with a rustic log cabin in northern Minnesota thats now on the market for $399,000.

The 2.5-acre island on Farm Lake is on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. Accessible only by boat, the island comes with a small parcel of land on the mainland, with a boat lift and dock, where you can park your vehicle, then boat to the island.

You can be from the car to the island in less than five minutes, said co-owner Marcus Andrusko.

The island, with 2,320 feet of shoreline and covered with towering pines, birches, maples and evergreens, is a natural playground for kids, said Andrusko, who, with his wife, Abby, has four.

The good thing about an island is you can release the kids and its safe theyre not going far, Marcus said. Theres also a second, smaller play island a wade away through a shallow channel.

Marcus has deep roots in Minnesotas northern wilderness. My family used to own a resort in that area, he said. I was taken to the BWCA as a 9-month-old baby, and I havent missed a summer yet.

After the resort was taken by the government under eminent domain and made part of the BWCA, the family learned to camp, Marcus said. He eventually started a camp for at-risk youth, taking them into the Boundary Waters, which he ran for 15 years.

We still wanted a place to go our own cabin, he said. He discovered the private island while snowshoeing, looked up the owner and asked if he was interested in selling. He was.

The 546-square-foot log cabin was originally built somewhere else, then reassembled on the island in 1983. It has a main living/dining area with a small kitchen and a wood-burning stove.

Its very cozy, said Abby. There are also two bedrooms. The lone bathroom is an outhouse but its a fancy one, with electricity and a bay window.

Theres also a sauna/bunkhouse on the island, as well as an outdoor shower with hot water. All together, the island can sleep up to eight indoors, plus theres a campsite for tents.

When theyre on the island, the Andruskos spend most of their time enjoying the outdoors kayaking, canoeing, swimming and fishing. Theyre only a short paddle into the BWCA, just minutes from two entry points.

Farm Lake is a good fishing lake, filled with walleye, northerns, crappies and other species, said Marcus. Its also a good swimming lake, with warm water, added Abby.

They also enjoy beautiful sunsets from their west-facing cabin.

The island is about 250 miles north of the Twin Cities, a four-to-five-hour drive. The town of Ely is a 10-minute drive away.

Since buying the property five years ago, the Andruskos have put a metal roof on the cabin and added tongue-and-groove siding inside.

Theyre selling the island and cabin, fully furnished, now only because they co-own it with another family that is relocating to Michigan and wants to sell, said Marcus. We love the place.

Abby Andrusko, 612-581-7787, Keller Williams, has the listing.

Excerpt from:

Private island with log cabin on edge of the BWCA can be yours for $399K - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Records: Man who crashed stolen car near Kings Island had abducted grandmother in 2018 – The Cincinnati Enquirer

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

Joshua Brackenridge after his arrest in 2018.(Photo: Provided/Hamilton County Sheriff's Office)

The man who crashed near Kings Island Monday had stolen his grandmother's car, police say.

It'sthesame grandmother he had previouslyabductedwhile streaminglive on Facebook in 2018, according to court records.

Joshua Brackenridge, 33, will be charged with domestic violence and robbery in Monday's incident, Green Township police said.

Investigators said Brackenridge was driving with his grandmother on Interstate 74 Monday when he began making concerning statements, so she pulled into Mercy West Hospital.

Officers reported that around 8:30 a.m. Brackenridge hit the woman and took her keys, purse and car.

Green Township officers pursued him, but the speeds quickly exceed 100 miles per hour and the chase was called off, officials said.

Police issued an alert to surrounding agencies to be on the lookout for the vehicle, but before anyone found him he crashed along Interstate 71, according to the Ohio State Highway Patrol who responded to the crash.

Officials said he fled from that there on foot toward Kings Island.

Mason police said Brackenridge attempted to enter the park, but was quickly apprehended by 11:30 a.m.Both Mason and Green Township police said they do not believe he was armed.

In November 2018, Brackenridge streamed the abduction of his grandmother live on Facebook.

In the video, Brackenridge quotesBible verses and claimedhis family was conspiring against him.

"My family... was trying to use my mental illnesses against me to try to get me to kidnap my grandma and kill her," he said. "But I don't have the heart to kill her."

After his arrest, the court case was delayed while his mental health was assessed, court documents state.

In March 2019, he pleaded guilty to abduction and was sentenced to nine months in prison, according to the documents.

[Sign up to get the top 5 stories from Cincinnati.com in your inbox each morning]

Read or Share this story: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2020/07/20/police-chase-ends-kings-island/5471884002/

The rest is here:

Records: Man who crashed stolen car near Kings Island had abducted grandmother in 2018 - The Cincinnati Enquirer

Thompson bill to transfer control of Mare Island Cemetery included in Defense Funding Legislation – Vallejo Times-Herald

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

Rep. Mike Thompson, D. St. Helena, announced this week that his legislation to transfer control of the Mare Island Naval Cemetery to the Department of Veterans Affairs was included in the National Defense Authorization Act.

This provision allows for the cemetery to be properly repaired and maintained as the final resting place for hundreds of our nations heroes.

Proud that today my legislation to repair and maintain the Mare Island Naval Cemetery was included in a bill funding our nations defense. This will ensure that this national sanctuary can be preserved for generations to come, said Thompson in a news release. This sacred space must be upheld to the highest standards to honor our service members buried there and I will continue working to find every possible solution to get this done for our veterans.

The Mare Island Naval Cemetery has gone through a major restoration over the past year. Many trees that used to surround the cemetery have been removed, as well as a portion of the white picket fence that surrounded it, although portions of the fence will be but back after the drainage system is repaired. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, repairs for the cemetery have been slowed down.

The cemetery is the oldest naval cemetery on the West Coast and has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.

It has three Congressional Medal of Honor recipients James Cooney, Alexander Parker and William Halford. Also, Halfords great grandson, Ralph, was on hand at the ceremony and brought a compass that was used by William.

Read the original post:

Thompson bill to transfer control of Mare Island Cemetery included in Defense Funding Legislation - Vallejo Times-Herald

Island cases at 48 – Martha’s Vineyard Times

Posted on July 22, 2020 by Danzig

Test MV/Drive-through siteMV HospitalOther/Boards of HealthAquinnahTotalsTotal tests performed50942416497559Total negatives48642326497239Total pending218550273Total confirmed positives12351048Percentage positive of total tests performed.24%1.45%.64%Antibody tests1717Off-Island testsSymptomatic positives33Total Cases (positive tests + antibody tests + symptomatic positives)68 Updated July 21

The Marthas Vineyard Hospital reported no new cases Tuesday morning holding the Islands total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases at 48.

As of Tuesday, the hospital has tested 2,416 patients. Of those, 2,326 have tested negative and 55 are pending results.

On Monday, two new cases at the hospital marked five confirmed cases in the past week for the hospital. The new cases are a departure from last month, a span of four weeks where the hospital had no new confirmed cases.

On Friday, the Marthas Vineyard boards of health confirmed that 38 of the 48 cases are no longer symptomatic and have been released from isolation. Four cases are still being followed by public health officials, and one case was unable to be contacted.

On Tuesday, Island Health Care set up as TestMV at the Marthas Vineyard Regional High School with the help of Quest Diagnostics and testing asymptomatic individuals confirmed it had tested 5,094 individuals, 12 of whom have tested positive, 4,864 negative, and 218 pending results.

The town of Aquinnah has tested 49 people. Of those, all 49 tests have come back negative and there are no pending results.

The Marthas Vineyard Boards of Health have separately confirmed another positive case, bringing the Islands total confirmed cases to 48.

The boards of health have linked 23 of the confirmed cases to several cases among eight different household groups.

The Marthas Vineyard Hospital, town of Aquinnah, boards of health, and TestMV, the testing site at the Marthas Vineyard Regional High School, each report their own testing numbers. Those numbers are then all compiled by the boards of health. The actual number of cases can be difficult to count due to lag time and overlaps in testing each day.

IHCs website, which compiles numbers reported by each organization, says each positive test does not necessarily represent a newly infected individual.

For example, a positive test reported on July 1, 2020 by Marthas Vineyard Hospital was a second test for an individual who had previously tested positive. The Total Cases number reflects the most current accounting of unique individuals with confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19 on Marthas Vineyard, the site reads.

Of 48 of the confirmed cases, 28 are female, and 20 are male. Of those, 13 of the cases are aged 50-59 years old, 11 are 20-29 years old, eight cases are 60-69 years old, six are 30-39 years old, five are 20 years old or younger, three are 40-49, and two are 70 years or older.

The boards of health are also reporting on probable cases. As of Monday, the Islands total number of presumed positives rose to 20 with one new probable case. Of those 17 were positive antibody tests, and three were symptomatically positive.

Of the probable cases, 12 are female and eight are male. Of the 19 presumed positive cases, seven are aged 60-69, four are aged 50-59, three are aged 40-49, three are aged 20-29, two are under 20 years old, and one is over the age of 70.

This all comes as Massachusetts is seeing a decline in confirmed cases, deaths, and hospitalizations, but also as the confirmed cases are increasing across the country.

At the state level Tuesday, there were 165 new confirmed cases, bringing the state total to 107,221. There were 17 new deaths which brought the total number of deaths to 8,231. There have been 1,052,369 tests conducted across Massachusetts.

See more here:

Island cases at 48 - Martha's Vineyard Times

Select Page ::

Futurist Transhuman News Blog

Monthly Archives: July 2020

Prospects bleak for recovery of US media presence in China – CPJ Press Freedom Online

‘Still looking the past in the face’: Murray statue continues to draw protests – The Trib

The road beyond McMindfulness – Open Democracy

Help NASA Design a Toilet for Artemis Astronauts on the Moon – HamletHub

Q&A: Brandon Soderberg and Baynard Woods discuss their GTTF book ‘I Got a Monster’ – Baltimore Fishbowl

Family of George Floyd files lawsuit against city of Minneapolis and 4 former police officers – CNBC

Judge considering whether deputies violated the rights of a Wellsville man arrested on drug dealing and other charges – Cache Valley Daily

Trump working with Bush torture lawyer to cut Congress out of lawmaking: report – Salon

Is there life on Mars? – The Economist

Explained: What The Deployment Of Jaguar Fighters In Andaman And Nicobar Islands Means – Swarajya

Thousand Islands July 4th parties linked to COVID-19 spike – North Country Public Radio

Mauricio Shogun Rua excited to fight another Legend on UFC Fight Island – Yahoo Sports

Potters Beach on Grindstone Island to remain closed – NNY360

Amazon to Grand Island: ‘Thanks but no thanks’ – WGRZ.com

Two Staten Island women charged with defacing Black Lives Matter mural outside Trump Tower – SILive.com

Group Aims to Revive Mud Island Amphitheater – Memphis Flyer

Private island with log cabin on edge of the BWCA can be yours for $399K – Minneapolis Star Tribune

Records: Man who crashed stolen car near Kings Island had abducted grandmother in 2018 – The Cincinnati Enquirer

Thompson bill to transfer control of Mare Island Cemetery included in Defense Funding Legislation – Vallejo Times-Herald

Island cases at 48 – Martha’s Vineyard Times