Author Archives: Danzig

The Cold War Bunker That Became Home to a Dark-Web Empire – The New Yorker

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By various methods, the police came to believe that CyberBunker was the biggest hoster of illegal Web sites in Germany, and perhaps anywhere in the world. In 2014, it hosted Cannabis Road, the dark-Web marketplace. Between March, 2016, and February, 2018, it hosted the forum Fraudsters, through which counterfeit money, fake I.D.s, and prescription and illicit drugs were traded. Between 2015 and 2018, CyberBunker hosted Flugsvamp, a dark-Web market that accounted for roughly ninety per cent of the online illicit drug trade in Sweden. Xennts most significant dark-Web client was a site called Wall Street Market. Between 2016 and 2019, it sold more than thirty-six million euros worth of drugs. The sites administrators took a commission of three per cent on each transaction.

While the Mainz cybercrime unit was building its case against Xennt, a separate international investigationled by federal police in the United States, Germany, and the Netherlandstargeted Wall Street Market. Jrg Angerer, the Koblenz prosecutor, told me it was vital that the prosecution of Wall Street Market proceed before the German police moved against CyberBunker. There is a chain, Angerer said. The hosters are facilitating the real criminals.... But first you have to process the real criminals.

In April, 2019, the police arrested three German men accused of being Wall Street Markets administrators. On the dark Web, the defendants were known by pseudonyms: Tibo Lousee was coder420; Jonathan Kalla was Kronos; Klaus-Martin Frost was TheOne. Led by officers from Germanys federal cybercrime unit, which is based in Frankfurt, the police in the three countries worked together to decipher the identities of the administrators, through undercover chats and through clues left by the men online. In a complaint filed in the Central District of California, the three principals were charged not only with running the site but also with planning an exit scam, in which they intended to abscond with some eleven million dollars being held in users accounts. All three men are awaiting trial.

A week after Wall Street Market was broken up and its leaders arrested, several officers from the B.K.A., Germanys federal police force, arrived at the Traben-Trarbach bunker to seize evidence relating to the case. A manager at the bunker expressed surprise and readily complied, escorting the officers to the server bank on the third floor. The officers took away the servers used by Wall Street Market, and left the rest.

After Wall Street Market was taken down, Angerer fixed CyberBunker itself in his sights.

On September 26, 2019, everybody at the bunker complexnine people, including Xennt, his sons, and his girlfriend, Jacquelinewent out for an early dinner at the Historic Mill, leaving the bunker unguarded. It was unusual for all the residents to be gone at the same time, but Xennts gardener, Harry, had unexpectedly come into an inheritance, and wanted to celebrate. The leader of the Mainz cybercrime team told me his unit had gathered intelligence that made them pretty, pretty sure nobody would be in the bunker during the meal.

At the Historic Mill, antiquated cooking utensils and old guitars hang on the walls. Through a glass panel on the floor, diners can look at the stream that once powered the old mill. Xennts group had booked a private area on the mezzanine. It was a Thursday evening at the end of the summer season, and the main dining room, on the ground floor, was nearly full. At around 6 P.M., as the members of Xennts party were starting to eat, several patrons on the ground floor revealed themselves to be armed undercover police officers. The officers went upstairs to arrest Xennt and the others. Several armed units of police massed outside the front door. A helicopter buzzed nearby. A Belgian tourist was almost caught up in the arrest when he tried to visit the bathroom on the mezzanine just before Xennt was placed in handcuffs.

A few minutes later, about a hundred police officersincluding a contingent from Germanys federal paramilitary police unitraided the bunker. They seized four hundred and twelve hard drives, four hundred and three servers, sixty-five USB sticks, sixty-one laptops and computers, fifty-seven phones, piles of paper documents, and about a hundred thousand euros in cash. Some six hundred and fifty officers were involved in the arrests and the raid.

At a press conference the next day, German authorities were jubilant. Jrgen Brauer, the chief prosecutor, declared that it was the first time in German history that arrests were not directed against the operators of marketplaces but against those who make the crime possible. CyberBunker was a haven for the worlds worst dark-Web sites, established to help its clients exclusively for illegal purposes. Moreover, its operators were connected to people involved in organized crime. (Brauer didnt name the Penguinwhose current location remains unknownbut he was clearly in his thoughts.) Xennt had been arrested, alongside his two sons, Jacqueline, two Germans, and a Bulgarian. Six other suspects remained at large.

The prosecutors reported that, in November, 2016, the bunker had also provided the command-and-control servers for an attack against Deutsche Telekom, one of Germanys largest communications companies. The attack had deployed a new weapon called a Mirai-botnet, which harnesses smart appliances and other wireless devices. An attempt to capture the companys routers failed but caused the network to crash. More than a million Deutsche Telekom customers lost their Internet connection in the attack, costing the company at least two million euros. The incident occurred only a few weeks after an even larger Mirai-botnet attack in Europe and the United States, which disabled Amazon, Netflix, and Twitter, among other sites. Brauer, the prosecutor, said that the people from CyberBunker who had been arrested were accused of hundreds of thousands of offenses, ranging from drugs, counterfeit money, and forged documents to being accessories to the distribution of child pornography.

Sven Kamphuis, the Prince of CyberBunker, was not arrested in the raids of September 26th; nor is he one of the six suspects still at large. After the raid, he claimed that the German police had engaged in an act of waryet he had survived with barely a scratch. The police arrested almost everybody with a connection to the bunker. Given the comprehensiveness of the investigation, the prosecutors lack of interest in Kamphuis seemed strange.

Xennt insisted to me that Kamphuis was not involved in the data center in Germany. But Kamphuis told me that he had engineered much of the Traben-Trarbach bunkers infrastructure, and, according to several people, he had also been important in developing the encrypted-phone business for Xennt. Even if Kamphuiss work was not technically illegal, he was deeply knowledgeable about an organization that the German state believed to be criminal. When details of an indictment were published, in April, the mystery of Kamphuiss treatment deepened. In the document, prosecutors noted that a search engine had been hosted on the Traben-Trarbach servers: cb3rob.net/darknet. It listed more than sixty-five hundred dark-Web sites, including marketplaces for narcotics, weapons, counterfeit money, murder orders, and child pornography. I recalled that CB3ROB is Kamphuiss online handle.

When I asked Patrick Fata, a senior police officer who oversaw the CyberBunker investigation, why Kamphuis was not accused in the case, he said that Kamphuiss role in the organization had diminished since 2014, and that the police did not have enough evidence to link him to the administration of Wall Street Market or other illegal sites. I asked Fata if the police had spoken to Kamphuis during the exhaustive six-year investigation. No, Fata said, adding, We dont know where he is.

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The Cold War Bunker That Became Home to a Dark-Web Empire - The New Yorker

Astronomers Say Megaripples Are Moving Across the Surface of Mars – Futurism

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Researchers have found evidence of gigantic waves of sand, often referred to as megaripples, slowly moving around on the surface of Mars, as Science reports.

Megaripples arent unique to Mars; they can be found in deserts back here on Earth as well. But the Red Planets colossal sand dunes, believed to have formed hundreds of thousands of years ago, could be a sign that winds on Mars are even stronger than previously believed.

In a paper published last month in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, the team suggests that megaripples may be migrating thanks to small grains of sand knocking into larger grains, dragging them into motion.

The new research goes against current atmospheric models that largely suggest winds couldnt be strong on Mars enough to move these mega sand structures. In other words, a thin atmosphere may allow for surprisingly strong winds.

Using images taken by NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the international team of scientists had a closer look. By focusing on two sites near the Martian equator, they analyzed a total of 1,100 megaripples.

Scientists previously believed that these megaripples on the Red Planet were first formed a long time ago, when a thicker atmosphere allowed for much heavier winds, and were now stationary.

But to their astonishment, they found that the megaripples do in fact appear to move albeit at the slow paceof roughly 10 centimeters per Earth year. According to Science, thats about as fast as megaripples in the Lut Desert in Iran.

The surprising takeaway: Winds could be strong enough after all, despite the thin Martian atmosphere. A past climate with a denser atmosphere is not necessary to explain their accumulation and migration, the team concluded in their paper.

And thats bad news for future astronauts visiting the Red Planet, as windy conditions could end up messing with habitats and solar panels.

Nonetheless, its an astonishing new discovery about our planetary neighbor.

We can now measure processes on the surface of another planet that are just a couple times faster than our hair grows, Ralph Lorenz, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, who was not involved in the study, told Science.

READ MORE: Giant waves of sand are moving on Mars [Science]

More on Mars: NASAs Next Rover Will Bring First-Ever Microphone to Mars

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Astronomers Say Megaripples Are Moving Across the Surface of Mars - Futurism

The Pentagon’s UFO Task Force Is Finally Ready to Report Findings – Futurism

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UFO Task Force

The Pentagons Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon (UAP) Task Force, a program dedicated to investigating UFO sightings, is ready to start reporting some of its findings to the public, The New York Times reports.

The news comes after the Senate released a committee report last month outlining spending for the unusual task force.

Determining whether aliens exist is not the main objective, unfortunately. The main goal, as outlined in the report, is to investigate any links [UFOs] have to adversarial foreign governments, and the threat they pose to U.S. military assets and installations.

Just last week, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, suggested to local news station CBS Miami that another country like China or Russia could have made some technological leap, explaining previous sightings near US military bases.

News about the Pentagons efforts to collect and investigate UAP encounters first broke in a 2017 New York Times investigation, accompanied by several videos of mysterious encounters with still-unexplained flying objects.

The report also found that the Defense Department had been running investigations as part of its Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program since 2007.

Over the last few years, the Pentagon has started officially releasing the videos and previously classified reports about the encounters as well.

Congress has also recently turned up the pressure on the task force in an effort to have all data relating to the mysterious encounters released to the public.

It no longer has to hide in the shadows, Luis Elizondo, the former military intelligence official, who was in charge of a preceding program dedicated to UAPs, told the Times. It will have a new transparency.

READ MORE: No Longer in Shadows, Pentagons U.F.O. Unit Will Make Some Findings Public [The New York Times]

More on the program: Congress Is Trying to Force the Military to Release More UFO Info

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The Pentagon's UFO Task Force Is Finally Ready to Report Findings - Futurism

Thanks to COVID, the Earth’s Surface Is Shaking 50 Percent Less – Futurism

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The Big Quiet

The world has been both literally and figuratively standing still during the ongoing pandemic, scientists say. Lockdowns around the globe have drastically reduced human activity, and as a direct result, the ground is shaking far less a silver lining for those studying seismic signals.

In fact, an international team of researchers have found that seismic vibrations generated by humans have fallen by as much as 50 percent globally, according to a new paper published in the journal Science yesterday.

The 2020 seismic noise quiet period is the longest and most prominent global anthropogenic seismic noise reduction on record, the researchers noted in their paper.

Thanks to this quiet period, scientists were able to get an unprecedented listen to seismic signals from natural sources, including small earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

While the reduction is strongest at surface seismometers in populated areas, this seismic quiescence extends for many kilometers radially and hundreds of meters in depth, the researchers wrote. This provides an opportunity to detect subtle signals from subsurface seismic sources that would have been concealed in noisier times and to benchmark sources of anthropogenic noise.

The researchers collected data from 268 seismic stations in 117 countries, examining frequency ranges normally associated with human activity. The quiet period started in China in late January 2020, coinciding with the spread of the coronavirus and shelter-in-place orders, with Europe and the rest of the world following in March to April 2020.

The noise level we observe during lockdowns lasted longer and was often quieter than the Christmas to New Year period, the researchers noted in their paper, a period that normally is the most seismically quiet.

READ MORE: Coronavirus lockdowns hushed seismic noise around the world [Axios]

More on the research: The Earth is Standing Still During the Pandemic. Literally.

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Thanks to COVID, the Earth's Surface Is Shaking 50 Percent Less - Futurism

The Local Take: Black Futurists Re-Imagine The Police – WCLK

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Saturday at 8am on WCLK's The Local Take I talk with Devin Barrington-Ward about what "Defund The Police" actually means. Last month I moderated a panel discussion for the Center for Civil and Human Rights for the non-profit organization Equal Dignity.

The panel was made up of various activist from across the nation around to answer the question What doesDefund The Police Really Mean?One of the panelists was a young activist from right here in Atlanta. Devin Barrington-Ward is the founder and managing director for The Black Futurists Group. His organization is a social justice innovation firm that works on public policy, community organizing, the media and other tools to ensure an equitable and liberated future for Black people.

I asked Barrington-Ward to tell us exactly what his organization does, and why havent we had an organization concerned about our future before now.

He explained how he came to be involved with public policy after working with Stacy Abrams on her 2006 race for the Georgia House of Representatives. He thinks this is the best way to bring out change. In high school he participated on the debate team and while he was great at making his point, this didn't change anything. He began to look for ways to use those skills to make real change.

The Black Futurists Group was focusing on defunding the police even before it became a hashtag. He shared that police department budgets have waste that can be used to help citizens ratheer than locking them up. He suggests using technology to reduce unnecessary police interactions such as traffic stops. Funds from police departments could be used to provide more counselors in public schools. Instead of policing students, help them become better citizens.

Kiplyn Primus talks with Devin Barrington-Ward from The Black Futurists Group on WCLK's The Local Take.

For more information on The Black Futurists Group

To view the National Center for Civil and Human Rights Panel Discussion on Defund The Police

For more information on Devin Barrington-Ward

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The Local Take: Black Futurists Re-Imagine The Police - WCLK

Bringing Offshore Wind into California’s Future – Natural Resources Defense Council

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This is the second part in a two-blog series about offshore wind development in California. In Part 1, we explained why offshore wind might be the missing link in Californias zero-carbon electricity future. In this blog, we describe the barriers offshore wind development faces and trace a path to jump-start the industry in California.

The California Public Utilities Commission estimates that about 7 GW of offshore wind could be part of Californias ideal zero-carbon electricity mix by 2045. This is equal to around 9 % of the total electricity producing capacity in California. Any strategy to develop offshore wind in California needs to solve for offshore winds own three-body problem: avoiding local environmental impacts; figuring out how to meet stakeholder needs which includes state and federal regulatory requirements, the needs of the fishing industry, and the Department of Defense; and building enough offshore wind to make it profitable to developers while being a cost-effective investment for Californians.

To solve this problem in a timely manner, the state and stakeholders need to commit to getting the first 100 MW of offshore development commissioned within the next year. 100 MW is enough to meet the electric demand of approximately twenty five thousand average California homes and more than three times the amount of floating offshore wind that exists worldwide today.

This initial project is big enough to pique the industrys interest. It will also be a valuable source of data to (1) figure out the impacts these wind farms have on the environment, (2) balance stakeholder needs and figure out smooth regulatory processes to permit offshore wind build-outs, and (3) enable the industry to get going in California to bring down the cost of future offshore wind development.

The rest of the blog explains in detail the barriers offshore wind faces and why building the first 100 MW project is the way to go.

We must strive to make sure offshore wind development in California has minimal environmental impacts on its unique and diverse marine ecosystem. To accomplish this, we need to prioritize understanding how offshore wind farms could impact Californias marine ecosystem, and then figure out how to site and maintain these wind farms to minimize any ecological disruption.

Californias Pacific coastline is well known for its scenic beauty and biologically rich ecosystems. Iconic species such as the blue whale, the humpback whale, the fin whale, and the gray whale call its waters home. NRDCs report Harnessing the Wind: How to Advance Wind Power Offshore recommends measures to mitigate construction noise that can be harmful to these species. Solutions such as bubble curtains, ultraviolet lights and ultrasonic noise emitters can protect birds and bats from crashing into the turbines.

Untangling the regulatory complexities of offshore wind isnt an easy task. Offshore wind in California will most likely be built in federal waters beyond three nautical miles or around three and a half miles. This means that the electricity these turbines produce will travel via undersea transmission cables through federal and state waters to reach the electric grid. Federal and state agencies have separate regulatory processes that offshore wind companies must follow to get approval for construction and operation.

In addition to these permitting challenges, there are key stakeholder concerns that must be addressed if offshore wind development is to proceed smoothly.

First, on the Central Coast, offshore wind development needs to overcome the Department of Defenses concerns that offshore wind projects can interfere with long-range radars (air defense and homeland security radars), weather surveillance radars, and military operations. Second, the states commercial fisheries generate millions of dollars of revenue annually, and Californias fishermen are concerned that large scale offshore wind development could strip them of important fishing grounds and habitat. Finally, offshore wind farms would need to be sited so as not to conflict with intensively used shipping routes.

What scale and pace of offshore wind deployment are cost-effective for the states electricity sector, and to Californias economy at large? The California Public Utilities Commission estimates that approximately 7 GW of offshore wind may be needed to get to our 2045 zero-carbon goals. Of that 7 GW, 1.6 GW may be needed by 2030 if we set an aggressive 2030 carbon reduction milestone, and no out of state wind is available.

Creating an offshore wind industry in California will require building infrastructure, custom-built floating turbines, dedicated transmission lines, and port upgrades, to name a few. All this spending will have a positive impact on the state. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), through an unrelated study, estimated that if California builds 10 GW of offshore wind, it could bring in approximately $20 billion to Californias economy and create a total of 14,890 construction jobs by 2050.

Although offshore wind development needs to get started, building small pilot projects isnt attractive for developers or cost-effective for electricity consumers. This is because of the large amount of capital necessary to get these turbines built and to connect them to the grid. But, going too big, too soon, would mean overlooking environmental concerns, the needs of the fishing industry, and the Department of Defense.

Until the first wind farm floats, we wont know the impact these turbines will have on local ecosystems, the fishing industry, or the Department of Defenses activities. Moreover, to provide clean electricity in a timely manner to help California get to its clean electricity goals, environmentally responsible offshore wind deployment needs to start soon. A right sized near-term commitment will open the gate to unleash Californias offshore wind potential. Committing to developing the first 100 MW in the three call areas (Humboldt, Morro Bay, and Diablo Canyon, which combined can easily handle that) within the next year is the way to go.

Industry, environmental organizations, and regulators should work together through the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the California Energy Commissions existing processes to determine how to get this first 100 MW built. Then industry and stakeholders can begin collecting the data that we need to figure out how to scale up offshore wind to seventy times that size - 7 GW.

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Bringing Offshore Wind into California's Future - Natural Resources Defense Council

UK Offshore Production Reaches 80% Efficiency Years Ahead of Expectations – Oil and Gas Facilities

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In a new report, the UK Oil & Gas Authority (OGA) highlights that the countrys offshore sector improved its production efficiency for the seventh straight year.

In 2012, fixed-leg platforms and floating facilities in the UK continental shelf operated with a production efficiency rate of only 60%. In 2019, the figure jumped by 5% year-over-year to hit 80%a target the OGA hoped would be reached by 2022.

Based on best practice guidelines established in partnership with the SPE, the OGA calculates production efficiency by comparing actual wellhead production vs. the maximum economic production potentials. Production losses include reservoir degradation, plant shutdowns, and pipeline constraints. Under this equation, actual wellhead production improved by only 1% but factoring in reduction in economic production potential resulted in a 5% increase in efficiency.

The OGA said the recent gains are the result of a concerted effort by the industry to stem production losses and avoid plant shutdowns, which exceeded schedule by only 1% last year compared with a 15% overrun in 2018.

Improvements in operations resulted in higher efficiencies across every major offshore region except for West of Shetland, home to the UKs northernmost frontier exploration areas.

In the central North Sea region, production efficiency mirrored the aggregate with a wellhead output increase of 1% and an efficiency increase of 5%. The most efficient operations in the region were floating production hubs which boasted an 85% efficiency rate compared with 80% on large fixed-leg platforms.

Between operations in the Irish Sea and the southern region of the UKs North Sea, overall efficiency was 75% and 76%, respectively. Among the two regions, unmanned platforms improved efficiency by 14% but overall efficiency remained well below the regional average at 68%. Meanwhile, small manned platforms achieved 80% efficiency. The regions also combined for a planned shutdown overrun rate of 10%.

OGA estimated that the increasing production efficiency rates since 2014 have lowered the emission intensity of each produced barrel by 10%. To learn more, access the full report.

Source: UK Oil & Gas Authority

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UK Offshore Production Reaches 80% Efficiency Years Ahead of Expectations - Oil and Gas Facilities

Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Market Executive Summary, Introduction, Sizing, Analysis and Forecast To 2025 – Bulletin Line

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Up Market Research (UMR), one of the worlds prominent market research firms has released a new report on Global Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Market. The report contains crucial insights on the market which will support the clients to make the right business decisions. This research will help both existing and new aspirants for Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft market to figure out and study market needs, market size, and competition. The report talks about the supply and demand situation, the competitive scenario, and the challenges for market growth, market opportunities, and the threats faced by key players.

The report also includes the impact of ongoing global crisis i.e. COVID-19 on the Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft market and what the future holds for it. The published report is designed using a vigorous and thorough research methodology and Up Market Research (UMR) is also known for its data accuracy and granular market reports.

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Some of the prominent companies that are covered in this report:

AnCattApplied Thin FilmsFlightShieldGlonatechTripleCHOOSE NanoTechGeneral NanoHR ToughGuardSurfactis TechnologiesTesla NanoCoatings

*Note: Additional companies can be included on request

The industry looks to be fairly competitive. To analyze any market with simplicity the market is fragmented into segments, such as its product type, application, technology, end-use industry, etc. Segmenting the market into smaller components helps in understanding the dynamics of the market with more clarity. Data is represented with the help of tables and figures that consist of a graphical representation of the numbers in the form of histograms, bar graphs, pie charts, etc. Another key component that is included in the report is the regional analysis to assess the global presence of the Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft market.

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By Application:

Commercial aircraftMilitary aircraft

By Type:

Anti-corrosion abrasion and wear-resistant aircraft nanocoatingThermal barrier and flame retardant aircraft nanocoatingAnti-icing aircraft nanocoating

By Geographical Regions

Asia Pacific: China, Japan, India, and Rest of Asia PacificEurope: Germany, the UK, France, and Rest of EuropeNorth America: The US, Mexico, and CanadaLatin America: Brazil and Rest of Latin AmericaMiddle East & Africa: GCC Countries and Rest of Middle East & Africa

You can also go for a yearly subscription of all the updates on the Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft market.

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Below is the TOC of the report:

Executive Summary

Assumptions and Acronyms Used

Research Methodology

Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Market Overview

Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Supply Chain Analysis

Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Pricing Analysis

Global Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Market Analysis and Forecast by Type

Global Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Market Analysis and Forecast by Application

Global Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Market Analysis and Forecast by Sales Channel

Global Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Market Analysis and Forecast by Region

North America Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Market Analysis and Forecast

Latin America Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Market Analysis and Forecast

Europe Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Market Analysis and Forecast

Asia Pacific Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Market Analysis and Forecast

Middle East & Africa Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Market Analysis and Forecast

Competition Landscape

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About Up Market Research (UMR):

Up Market Research (UMR) has a vast experience in designing tailored market research reports in various industry verticals. We also have an urge to provide complete client satisfaction. We cover in-depth market analysis, which consists of producing lucrative business strategies for the new entrants and the emerging players of the market. We make sure that each report goes through intensive primary, secondary research, interviews, and consumer surveys before final dispatch. Our company provides market threat analysis, market opportunity analysis, and deep insights into the current market scenario.

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Nanotechnology Enabled Coatings for Aircraft Market Executive Summary, Introduction, Sizing, Analysis and Forecast To 2025 - Bulletin Line

Japan’s influence in European offshore wind starts to bear fruit back home – S&P Global

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Japanese investors have played a significant role in Europe's 22-GW offshore wind industry and now the experience accrued over the course of a decade in European projects is starting to pay off in their home market.

It has been nine years since Marubeni Corp., one of Japan's largest trading houses, became the first Japanese company to invest in offshore wind, acquiring a 49.9% stake in rsted A/S's Gunfleet Sands project in the U.K.

That deal paved the way for rivals like Sumitomo Corp. and Mitsubishi Corp. to make their own entries into offshore wind buying into projects led by experienced utilities like Engie SA and innogy SE, or independent developers like Parkwind NV and later opened the door for other kinds of Japanese companies, along with investors from elsewhere in Asia, to make their way to Europe.

At the time of Marubeni's entrance, Europe had about one-third of the offshore wind capacity it has now. And during the early 2010s, the cost of installing a turbine offshore was many times higher than it is today.

"In hindsight, it was a really astute decision for some of these Japanese trading houses to get involved [in offshore wind] so early on," said Ross Schloeffel, a partner at London-based law firm Linklaters, given the construction and technology risk involved in some of the early projects.

Fallout from Fukushima

Nearly a decade on from that first investment, construction of Japan's first large-scale offshore wind farms is underway in Akita prefecture, led, in an act of symmetry, by Marubeni. But the story could have been very different if not for the Fukushima nuclear disaster, which occurred just six months before Marubeni's Gunfleet Sands deal was announced.

The events of March 2011 had huge social and political ramifications for the country. "The Fukushima disaster was absolutely a wake-up call for the Japanese government ... It changed the political thinking about their future energy plan," said Feng Zhao, strategy director at the Global Wind Energy Council, or GWEC.

Most notably, it led to the decommissioning of most of the country's nuclear fleet and a search for alternative sources of power generation, including a rush for solar and a refocusing toward gas and coal. Offshore wind came into play more recently, with the government now aiming for 10 GW of capacity by 2030.

"If it wasn't for Fukushima, you may not have had offshore wind in Japan," said Marc Fevre, partner at law firm Baker McKenzie.

Gathering experience

Beginning with Marubeni, several of Japan's largest general trading houses sprawling conglomerates with interests in multiple business lines globally were among the earliest strategic investors in Europe's offshore wind market, which now attracts a broad range of capital, from oil majors to pension funds.

The first few transactions saw them buy stakes in operating projects. More recently, they have become comfortable with construction risk a microcosm of a wider market trend.

Against the backdrop of Fukushima, Japanese companies invested early in European offshore wind to eventually help build a market back home. "Generally speaking, the Japanese investors invest in these projects to learn about the contracting. That's the main reason: getting some operational experience," said Michael van der Heijden, managing director at Amsterdam Capital Partners, a financial advisory firm.

The Japanese corporation most active in offshore wind projects is Sumitomo, which in 2014 acquired a stake in the Belwind and Northwind wind farms in Belgium from developer Parkwind.

"[Offshore wind] was a new sector to many [investors at that time], and obviously for a big Japanese trading house to enter at an early stage and to have quite some ambition in the market ... We had not immediately predicted that. They were really very motivated," said Pieter Marinus, Parkwind's general counsel and investment relations director.

Sumitomo went on to invest in two other Parkwind projects this time taking on construction risk as well as projects in the U.K. and France with other partners. While its primary rationale for doing so may be to export the knowhow back to Japan, the company has a broader objective to invest in renewable energy globally, Marinus said: "[Sumitomo's intention was] not just to learn. They just saw it as an interesting investment opportunity."

"Trading houses invest because it's good business to be had," added Baker McKenzie's Fevre. "That's been their model in the power sector globally and they've become more sophisticated in their approach."

The trading houses, which did not respond to requests for interviews, have also invested across the energy value chain. Marubeni, for instance, is a shareholder in Seajacks International Ltd., which supplies offshore installation and maintenance vessels for wind farms and the oil and gas sector.

Meanwhile, Mitsubishi has an offshore wind turbine manufacturing joint venture, MHI Vestas Offshore Wind A/S, with Denmark's Vestas Wind Systems A/S, and also in March joined forces with Chubu Electric Power Co. Inc. to acquire Dutch energy company Eneco Groep NV with a view to expanding into offshore wind markets in the U.S. and Japan.

Crowding in capital

The presence of the trading houses in Europe's offshore wind sector has spurred multiple waves of capital from Japan. "The trading houses really paved the way for other Japanese capital to flow into Europe," said Marinus.

Marubeni has helped attract compatriots, selling its stake in Gunfleet Sands to the Development Bank of Japan Inc. and Japan's largest utility, JERA Co. Inc. a joint venture between Chubu Electric Power and Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc., or TEPCO. Meanwhile, Germany's innogy offloaded an interest in its Triton Knoll project in the U.K. to utilities Electric Power Development Co. Ltd., also known as J-Power, and The Kansai Electric Power Company Inc.

Floating wind, which has recently emerged as the next frontier for offshore renewables, is also attracting the attention of Japanese investors: Tokyo Gas Co. Ltd. invested in floating developer Principle Power Inc., while JERA formed a joint venture with France's Ideol SA to develop 2 GW of floating projects globally. The companies will be hoping to repeat the pioneering role that Japanese companies have played in Europe's fixed-bottom offshore wind market, and also perhaps have one eye on their home market, whose deep waters make it better suited to floating turbines.

Japan has about 66 MW of offshore wind in operation today but its nearly 30,000 kilometers of coastline make it ripe for development, according to GWEC. While floating turbines might be the end game, fixed turbines will account for most of the government's 10-GW capacity target by 2030. "We think Japan will predominantly be a bottom-fixed market over the next decade," Imogen Brown, wind energy analyst at BloombergNEF, said on a July 14 webinar hosted by Reuters Events.

Investment in European offshore wind projects comes from other parts of Asia, too. Chinese state-owned companies like China Three Gorges Corp., State Development & Investment Corp. Ltd. and China Resources (Holdings) Co. Ltd. have invested in European projects in recent years. Unlike Japan, China already has an established offshore wind market, with nearly 7 GW installed, according to GWEC.

"As many Asian governments continue to promote international investment in key strategic sectors, debt and equity providers and equipment manufacturers from Asian countries will likely be increasingly active in the European renewables and power sectors in the months and years ahead," Paul Doris, a partner at multinational law firm Dentons, said in an email.

With Asia set to overtake Europe as the world's largest offshore wind market, with as much as 613 GW of capacity by 2050, according to projections by the International Renewable Energy Agency, the cooperation between the two continents is working in the opposite direction, too.

rsted and Germany's wpd AG are already active in the nascent Taiwanese market, and rsted has a joint venture with TEPCO to work on offshore wind in Japan, whose power sector, like Taiwan's, is seen as open to foreign investors.

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Japan's influence in European offshore wind starts to bear fruit back home - S&P Global

New York Offshore Wind and Onshore Renewable Energy – The National Law Review

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On July 21, 2020, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced the largest combined clean energy solicitation ever issued in the United States, seeking up to 4 GW of renewable capacity. This capacity is broken up into 2500 MW of offshore wind and 1500 MW of onshore large-scale renewable energy projects.

The United States remains one of the most attractive jurisdictions for renewable energy investments. It is the worlds biggest consumer of electricity and is now increasingly transitioning to renewable energy sources. It is a growing market with a stable regulatory environment and a transparent legal system and access to low cost of capital. The size and diversity of the United States also create numerous opportunities for various types of renewable energy projects.

The United States is ranked first in theEYs 2020 Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index. According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a total of$55.5 billionwas spent in the US renewables sector in 2019 alone (setting new investment records), an increase of 28%, second only to China and beating Europe.

This is New Yorks second offshore wind solicitation; last years solicitation resulted in awards for projects of nearly 1700 MW in total capacity. The solicitation this year requires offshore wind generators to partner with any of the 11 prequalified New York ports to stage, construct key components, manufacture and coordinate operations and maintenance activities. New York is seeking at least 1000 MW of offshore capacity and will be accepting bids of between 400 MW and 2500 MW. New York will be providing $400 million in private and public funding to upgrade the states port infrastructure.

The timeline for the latest round of solicitations includes an online conference for bidders on August 12, 2020, followed by a September 23, 2020, deadline for notices of intent to propose and an October 20, 2020, deadline for the submission of proposals.

See more about the Offshore Wind solicitationhere.

Governor Cuomo also announced that the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the Power Authority of the State of New York (NYPA) will be running a coordinated solicitation to procure over 1500 MW of renewable energy. Projects selected in these solicitations will be fast-tracked to construction by seeking permitting through the new Office of Renewable Energy Siting.

NYSERDA is seeking Tier 1 renewable energy projects with combined generation of 1.6 million MWh annually. Eligible projects must have entered operation after January 1, 2015, and must enter commercial operation by November 30, 2022 (or November 30, 2025 with extensions). NYSERDA will also allow proposers to leverage renewable energy credits (REC) via the Index REC contract structure for the first time.

NYSERDA will open the Step One Eligibility Application on August 5, 2020.

See more about the NYSERDA solicitationhere.

NYPA is seeking solar photovoltaic and wind projects (with an option to combine with energy storage) with combined generation of 2 million MWh annually. Eligible projects will be required to interconnect into New York state and have generation capacities of between 20 and 25 MW or 100 MW or larger. NYPA will be purchasing energy, capacity and RECs from the selected projects, which are expected to come online between 2021 and 2024. Winning bidders are expected to be notified in late 2020.

See more about the NYPA solicitationhere.

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New York Offshore Wind and Onshore Renewable Energy - The National Law Review

Blue Offshore transports Hollandse Kust (zuid) offshore the Netherlands wind farm cables – Offshore Oil and Gas Magazine

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The barge CC Atlantique with 2 x 4,000 metric ton cable moored in Rotterdam.

(Courtesy Blue Offshore)

Offshore staff

THE HAGUE, the Netherlands Van Oord has contracted Blue Offshore to supply a full cable transport spread for both the Hollandse Kust (zuid) Alpha and Beta campaigns.

On Sunday July 19, the tug Kamarina and barge CC Atlantique carrying more than 8,000 metric tons of high voltage cable arrived in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The cables will form the connection of TenneTs Hollandse Kust (zuid) Alpha platform to the onshore grid.

For this transport Blue Offshore mobilized what is said to be the worlds first certified double basket carrousel barge, with each carrousel carrying about 4,000 metric tons of cable. The transport took place from Hellenic Cables in Greece to the port of Rotterdam.

Van Oord charted the 122-m (400-ft) long CC Atlantique. Besides two large carousels and the dedicated control systems, Blue Offshore provided all deck engineering, technical crew and complete mobilization service.

The cables will soon be loaded onto Van Oords cable lay vessel Nexus for installation offshore in the Dutch North Sea. A spare cable will be delivered to TenneT in Eemshaven.

The Hollandse Kust (zuid) Alpha grid connection is expected to be ready in 2021. Beta is scheduled for completion in 2022. The HKZ wind parks will supply 1,500 MW of renewable energy, sufficient to power 3 million households.

07/28/2020

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Blue Offshore transports Hollandse Kust (zuid) offshore the Netherlands wind farm cables - Offshore Oil and Gas Magazine

The Perseverance rover is on its way to Mars. What’s next? – CNN

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"The mission has 314 million miles of interplanetary space and seven minutes of terror to get safely onto the surface of Mars," said Lori Glaze, director of NASA's planetary science division, in a statement. "When we see the landscape at Jezero Crater for the first time and we truly begin to realize the scientific bounty before us, the fun really begins."

Perseverance and the Ingenuity helicopter are safely tucked inside a protective aeroshell capsule. The descent stage that will help land the rover is also located in this aeroshell, which is attached to the cruise stage, or the mission's spacecraft.

The cruise stage is shaped like a disk and solar powered. It will travel more than 300 million miles to reach Mars.

While it's cruising to Mars, engineers on Earth will tell the spacecraft when to execute correction maneuvers to keep it on the right path to Mars, as well as its landing target. The ground team will also perform checks on the instruments and subsystems in the spacecraft.

About 45 days before landing on Mars, the spacecraft will enter the approach phase, with more correction maneuvers to its trajectory.

During what is hopefully a quiet journey to Mars, Perseverance's teams will be preparing and training for when the rover lands on Mars. The science team will prepare the instructions it wants to send to the rover as it uses its instruments on Mars.

The rover's drivers will also work with a model of the rover on Earth to prepare for Perseverance's journey across the Martian surface.

This includes using a twin of Perseverance on Earth to test hardware, drive it through the Mars Yard at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and make sure the auto-navigation algorithms work, said Heather Justice, robotic operation downlink lead and one of the rover drivers at JPL.

'Seven minutes of terror'

The one-way light time it takes for radio signals to travel from Earth to Mars is about 10.5 minutes, which means the seven minutes it takes for the spacecraft to land on Mars will occur without any help or intervention from NASA teams on Earth.

NASA team members refer to this as the "seven minutes of terror." They tell the spacecraft when to begin EDL, (entry, descent and landing), and the spacecraft takes over from there.

The spacecraft hits the top of the Martian atmosphere moving at 12,000 miles per hour and has to slow down to zero miles per hour seven minutes later when the rover softly lands on the surface.

About 10 minutes before entering the thin Martian atmosphere, the cruise stage is shed and the spacecraft prepares for a guided entry, where small thrusters on the aeroshell help adjust its angle.

The spacecraft's heat shield will endure peak heating of 2,370 degrees Fahrenheit 75 seconds after entering the atmosphere.

Perseverance is targeting a 28-mile-wide ancient lake bed and river delta, the most challenging site yet for a NASA spacecraft landing on Mars. Rather than being flat and smooth, the small landing site is littered with sand dunes, steep cliffs, boulders and small craters.

The spacecraft has two upgrades -- called Range Trigger and Terrain-Relative Navigation -- to navigate this difficult and hazardous site.

Range Trigger will tell the 70.5-foot-wide parachute when to deploy based on the spacecraft's position 240 seconds after entering the atmosphere. After the parachute deploys, the heat shield will detach.

Terrain-Relative Navigation acts like a second brain for the rover, using cameras to take pictures of the ground as it rapidly approaches and determines the safest spot to land. It can shift the landing spot by up to 2,000 feet, according to NASA.

The back shell and parachute separate after the heat shield is discarded when the spacecraft is 1.3 miles above the Martian surface. The Mars landing engines, which include eight retrorockets, will fire to slow the descent from 190 miles per hour to about 1.7 miles per hour.

Then, the famed sky crane maneuver that landed the Curiosity rover will occur. Nylon cords will lower the rover 25 feet below the descent stage. After the rover touches down on the Martian surface, the cords will detach and the descent stage will fly away and land at a safe distance.

On the surface of Mars

Once the rover has landed, Perseverance's two-year mission will begin and it will go through a "checkout" period to make sure it's ready.

The rover will deploy its mast and antenna, image its landing sight, conduct a "health check" for its instruments, test movement and "flex" its arm and conduct a short test drive. Perseverance will also release its belly pan, which provided a safe haven for the Ingenuity helicopter stowed there during cruising and landing.

The rover will also find a nice, flat surface to drop the Ingenuity helicopter so it has a place to use as a helipad for its potential five test flights during a 30-day period. This will occur within the first 50 to 90 sols, or Martian days, of the mission.

Once Ingenuity is settled on the surface, Perseverance will drive to a safe spot at a distance and use its cameras to watch Ingenuity's flight.

After those flights, Perseverance will begin searching for evidence of ancient life, study Mars' climate and geology and collect samples that will eventually be returned to Earth via planned future missions.

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The Perseverance rover is on its way to Mars. What's next? - CNN

Join Space.com in our ‘Summer of Mars’ webinar today! Watch it here. – Space.com

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This summer, it seems like everyone wants to go to Mars.

With three missions launching to the Red Planet in 2020, we at Space.com thought it was time to take stock of humanity's drive to reach Mars. Join us for our "Summer of Mars" webinar today (July 29) as we look at the missions launching this year, how they'll advance the search for life and, possibly, help set the stage for astronauts on Mars.

Registration is closed to ask questions via chat (for the first 500 viewers), but we'll carry the event live on this page, as well as on YouTube and the Space.com homepage.

I'll moderate our discussion, which will begin at 12 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT) and last up to an hour. We'll start with NASA's Mars 2020 rover Perseverance, which is poised to launch July 30, and discuss the United Arab Emirates' Hope orbiter and China's ambitious Tianwen-1, a rover-lander-orbiter combo, both of which launched this week. And there's more missions headed to Mars, like the European-Russian ExoMars mission and Japan's Martian Moons eXploration project.

Our guests will be:

Jim Watzin: Director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program.NASA has invited the public to join its Perseverance Mars launch and "Be a Virtual Guest" of the launch here.

Jim Bell: President of The Planetary Society; principal investigator for Perseverance's MastCam-Z camera system. (For details on how to join the Planetary society, click here.)

I hope you'll join us as it looks to be an exciting discussion. If you miss our live webinar, we'll have a recording of the talk once it concludes.

Email Tariq Malik attmalik@space.comor follow him@tariqjmalik. Follow us@Spacedotcom, Facebook and Instagram.

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Join Space.com in our 'Summer of Mars' webinar today! Watch it here. - Space.com

mars 4k images show surface of the red planet in space as you’ve never seen it before – 7NEWS.com.au

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For the first time, the landscape of Mars has been captured in stunning 4K resolution.

That is the highest quality that has ever been recorded. And the results are simply breathtaking.

Watch the incredible video above.

The pictures were captured by NASAs three most successful Mars rovers: Spirit, Opportunity and Curiosity.

The cameras onboard each of the rovers were the height of technology when they were launched.

The stunning video above was made by British YouTubers ElderFox Documentaries.

The group stitched thousands of pictures together, converting them into ultra-high-definition of the Red Planet.

The 10-minute video is described by the team as the most lifelike experience of being on M

And its hard to disagree.

If youre wondering why we dont see live video from Mars, theres a simple explanation.

Curiosity can - generally speaking - only send data it captures on Mars back to earth at a rate of 32 kbps, which is nowhere near fast enough for video. Its basically super slow dial-up speed.

But thanks to these amateur space fans, we dont need to worry, these images top them all.

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mars 4k images show surface of the red planet in space as you've never seen it before - 7NEWS.com.au

New book documents the life of James Jesse Strang, self-professed Mormon monarch of Beaver Island – Michigan Radio

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Stateside conversation with author Miles Harvey

The United States faced growing turmoil in the mid-19th century as technological change, abolitionist and religious movements and westward expansion altered American society. Out of the fracture and fervor emerged an unexpected king: a lawyer named James Jesse Strang. He claimed he was a prophet and the new head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, moved his followers to Beaver Island and declared himself the monarch of a Mormon utopia in northern Lake Michigan.

Journalist and author Miles Harvey delves into Strangs story in his new book The King of Confidence: A Tale of Utopian Dreamers, Frontier Schemers, True Believers, False Prophets, and the Murder of an American Monarch.

After the death of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, in 1844, Strang was one of several figures who claimed they were his successors, Harvey said. Strang brought his followers to Beaver Island and established his monarchy there, though the island was already inhabited by Anishinaabe peoples and some European settlers. Strang used violence to force out those who opposed him, Harvey said.

Making a monarch

A couple hundred people attended Strangs coronation, which was enhanced with handmade costumes, a throne made of moss and stage props, Harvey said.

Its easy to take this stuff sort of like as a joke, but Ive got to say, the federal government didnt take it as a joke. President Millard Fillmore, about a year after Strang crowned himself king, was so worried about this quasi-independent kingdom on U.S. soil that he sent in the U.S. Navys first iron-hulled warship to invade the island and bring Strang to justice. Whats interesting is that although Strang was put on trial in Detroit in 1851, he and his people were found innocent on all charges, Harvey said.

Strang just had this incredible charisma, and he also had the ability to fool people, Harvey said. He said Strang basically ran a pirate colony out of Beaver Island.

Strangs contradictory kingdom

Harvey said Strang was a complicated character, known for violence, stealing from coastal towns and running a horse theft ring. But he held some progressive views on womens rights and was an abolitionist.

In the newspaper [Strang] ran off Beaver Island, I noticed an article one day by a guy named Fred Douglass, which was Frederick Douglass all about how sometimes, theft is okay when youre an oppressed person. And I just thought, this is just so Strang. Its both this kind of progressive abolitionist view--Im going to publish Douglasss piece--but for his people, it must have been so self-justifying: Yeah, were the oppressed. We get to steal that stuff, Harvey said.

Beyond Beaver Island

Harvey said the United States faced widespread economic, political and cultural turmoil during Strangs ascension to power, which took place a few years prior to the Civil War. It was an unstable environment that made persuasive leaders like Strang compelling, he explained.

Its a time when truth is just very malleable, and there arent a lot of firm things to hold onto, Harvey said. Strang came in and offered confidence, and people could trust him, although they couldnt trust him. So he absolutely thrived in that era, like a lot of people like him--swindlers, before and after. He was able to take advantage of this very unstable time and make people feel that he had simple answers to complex questions.

For more on Strang and Beaver Island, check out Michigan Radio reporter Sarah Huletts account of her journey to the island a few years ago.

Support for arts and culture coverage comes in part from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs.

This post was written by Stateside production assistant Nell Ovitt.

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New book documents the life of James Jesse Strang, self-professed Mormon monarch of Beaver Island - Michigan Radio

Reopened Art Institute Of Chicago Balances Needs Of Global Audience With Needs Of Local Community – Forbes

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"Entrance to the Art Institute of Chicago Museum, Chicago, Illinois"

Edward Hoppers Nighthawks. Grant Woods American Gothic. Georges Seurats A Sunday on the Grande Jatte.

All of them among the most recognizable images in art history.

All of them in the permanent collection at the Art Institute of Chicago.

All of them from the hand of a white male artist depicting white people.

As art museums nationwide commit to becoming more welcoming to black audiences, the Art Institute of Chicago faces a question: how does it best balance continuing to highlight its treasure trove of art historys greatest hits from white artists Monet, van Gogh, Chagall, Picasso, Pollack, Warholwith work from black artists, depicting subjects more relevant to the 30% African-American community it serves locally?

CHICAGO, IL - SEPTEMBER 17: Visitors look over paintings including Georges Seurat's A Sunday on La ... [+] Grande Jatte (R) at the Art Institute of Chicago on September 17, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. The museum, which draws around1.5 million visitors a year, has been named the best museum in the world by TripAdvisor. The museum has nearly 1 million square feet of exhibit space and 300,000 pieces of art in its permanent collection. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The awareness with which we consider what we're showing in our galleries and how we're interpreting artworks in the gallery has become more important, instead of being on the list of things to do it's, number one, Sarah Guernsey,Director and Senior Vice President, Curatorial Affairs at the Art Institute of Chicago told Forbes.com.

The museum reopened to the public following its coronavirus closure on July 30, several years into multi-faceted efforts to be more inclusive of black voices. Importantly to the Art Institute, that inclusion starts from within.

For us, it's not just an external approach to audiences, but it's also about our internal staff culture, Guernsey said. We want to make sure that our internal culture is supportive in the way we want to invite external guests.

One new initiative in that direction is the development of a department titled people and culture.

It is meant to work on having a better staff culture with equity, inclusion and anti-racism at the core, emphasizing the need for our staff culture and engagement to impact how we're presenting art in the galleries, Guernsey explained.

The museum, additionally, has an equity forum, employees who volunteer to take positions pushing the institutions anti-racism work forward. Within the equity forum is a group called narratives and content.

This is a group of people that as we hit on some of the issues of social identity in the exhibitions or in acquisitions, if we have questions we want to consider more broadly, they're willing to work through challenging topics without it just being one curator who thinks he or she knows what to do, Guernsey said.

The efforts continue with staff color affinity groups, providing employees of color a space to gather and talk, and we're working to create another place for dialogue where we're putting together meetings with the director and black staff to talk about their concerns because we realize that everyone is reacting to the brutal murders of George Floyd and others, but that it impacts our black staff more than anyone else, Guernsey noted, adding that, we are working really hard to center black voices inside the museum, to make it a welcoming place for staff where they feel supported really thinking about black staff and not speaking for black staff.

One of the museums longest running efforts toward inclusion is its leadership advisory committee dating back to the 1990s. This group of black supporters consult with curators and the learning and public engagement department on acquisitions, exhibitions and programming in an effort to decentralized decision making.

CHICAGO, IL - SEPTEMBER 17: A visitor looks over Vincent van Gogh's The Bedroom at the Art Institute ... [+] of Chicago on September 17, 2014 in Chicago, Illinois. The museum, which draws around1.5 million visitors a year, has been named the best museum in the world by TripAdvisor. The museum has nearly 1 million square feet of exhibit space and 300,000 pieces of art in its permanent collection. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Subtle, but significant, tweaks to guest services have also been undertaken to place black artists on a more equal footing with their celebrity white counterparts. One such example takes shape in the visitor guides highlighting what to see in an hour.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists annually stream into the museum. Many of them are looking primarily to breeze through for an in-person glimpse of the images theyve read about in books and seen on posters before moving on to the citys next attraction.

Years ago, youd look at the what to see in an hour (guide) and it was all 19th century masterpieces by Suerat, Monet, and we have very intentionally moved away from just listing those same 10 objects every time in the what to see in an hour suggested tour, Guernsey said. As much as it's our job to share with the world the famous artworks, we want also to educate people on artwork they may not have noticed or considered.

One such example is Archibald Motleys electric, jubilant, purple juke joint utopia Nightlife, a previously less-celebrated painting from a black artist now elevated to the stature of Monets haystacks or van Goghs bedroom.

There are ways that artwork becomes famous and part of it is putting it in the public eye and letting people learn about it, Guernsey said. We definitely take that seriously, we can't just share the most famous objects that everybody expects, we want to share more to broaden the cannon and broaden our visitors understanding of art history.

The Obama presidential portraits will be visiting the Art Institute of Chicago in 2021.

To that end, the Art Institute will be presenting a rich exhibition schedule of black artists through the remainder of 2020 and 2021. Richard Hunt, Joseph Yoakum, Bisa Butler and the Obama presidential portraitshis by Kehinde Wiley and hers by Amy Sheraldall take center stage. Hunt is a Chicago native, Yoakum was educated at the Art Institute, as was Hunt, and the Obamas, of course, arrived in Washington, D.C. from Illinois.

We are a major national art museum, but we are Chicago-centric, Guernsey said. It's our civic role, but it's also just a proud part of who we are to look to Chicago voices.

Malangatana Ngwenya. The Fountain of Blood (A fonte de sangue), 1961. The Cleveland Museum of Art, ... [+] Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Lloyd H. Ellis Jr.

While not a Chicagoan, a mostly-unknown black artist taking center stage as the museum opens with an exhibition alongside El Greco and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, two traditional art history stalwarts, is Malangatana Ngwenya (19362011).

Malangatana: Mozambique Modern brings together over 40 key paintings and drawings, serving as both the first survey of the artists early work since his death and the first solo exhibition of a modern African painter at the Art Institute.

The museum vividly describes his work as, an aesthetic defined by a dense assembly of figures; phantasmagoric depictions of animals, humans, and supernatural creatures; and a palette of both bright and dark colors.

Our exhibition is looking at the early part of his career alongside the backdrop of the social, cultural and political conditions in Mozambique that in some ways he was commentating on, Felicia Valentine Mings, Academic Curator, Department of Academic Engagement and Research, told Forbes.com. Its a tumultuous moment as it was the height of the anti-colonial struggle.

The exhibition covers the period 1959-1975, 1975 being the year Mozambique was finally granted independence from Portugal, one of the last African nations to realize its freedom from colonial rule.

Malangatanas unforgettably gruesome figures fall nicely into an art historical through line connecting him to Hieronymus Bosch, Goya and Dali.

He would have most likely absorbed some of that material while also really looking to his Ronga cultural background and bringing in the monstrous forms, the dense composition, the fantastic themes pulling from culture and folk lore and bringing that together, Mings said. Its really exciting to think about how we can see his work in dialogue with modern African artists who were practicing on the continent at that time as well as European artists who we see resonance with.

Malangatana Ngwenya. Do You Remember Those Who Entered Bleeding (Lembras-te daqueles que entravam a ... [+] sangrar), 1974/75.

Malangatana: Mozambique Modern is on view through November 16.

Richard Hunts exhibition is tentatively set for an opening date of September 18, 2020, followed by Bisa Butler on November 14th. In 2021, both the Joseph Yoakum and Obama portrait exhibits are scheduled to debut in June.

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Reopened Art Institute Of Chicago Balances Needs Of Global Audience With Needs Of Local Community - Forbes

Hot iGaming Investment Opportunities – NuWireInvestor – NuWire Investor

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In the past few years weve witnessed a massive growth in the iGaming industry. While other internet-based industries have faced major challenges, this industry, spurred on by technological advancements and internet operations mergers and acquisitions, has exploded.

Now, this growth has not come without any pains. As more countries have begun to legalize the industry, it has brought increased regulations, which is both good and bad for the industry. Its good, in that guidelines are being set for companies to follow. However, at the same time some of these regulations can be challenging, and costly, for companies to implement. There is no denying, though, that the igaming space is here to stay, and its growth will only continue from here. There may be no better time for investors on the hunt to jump in with both feet to this sector.

What is iGaming?

If you havent come across the term before, iGaming is a catch-all designation for all forms of online gambling. It stretches from online sports betting, esports, poker and bingo, to the more traditional slots and table games.

The businesses that are involved in the igaming industry include the casinos, of course, but also all the other businesses that service the casino operations. That includes affiliate companies who send players to the casinos, the companies who license the games to the online casinos and many other similar service providers.

iGaming locales

The most popular iGaming hubs in the world are Gibraltar, the United Kingdom and Malta. There are several other places as well that are becoming hubs in their own right, but these 3 locations stand out from the pack.

iGaming investment opportunities

The iGaming industry offers numerous opportunities for investors, depending on their risk profile and preferred investment vehicles. Here are some ideas for investors to explore:

Venture capital

With the growth of the igaming space, funds are beginning to show increased interest.

Vice Ventures, a New York City-based seed-stage venture capital firm in the USA, was recently launched to invest in good companies operating in what they call bad industries.

Angel investors with tech-specific skills and (typically) high-net-worth can decide to invest in iGaming startups and support them with capital and knowledge, helping them to grow, develop, and thrive in this massive sector.

The present and future of iGaming

Despite the big growth seen by the iGaming industry, current events have thrown a few recent roadblocks. The biggest online gambling companies have experienced mixed fortunes depending on which parts of their portfolio of products have been exposed to the pandemic.

Those companies who are heavily weighted on the online casino side of things, have exploded with record numbers. With more people stuck at home, and starving for entertainment, the online casino industry was positioned for huge gains.

One the other side, these companies who were weighted on sports better, have taken a huge hit to their business. Without any sporting events taking place, it was of course difficult for companies to handle the level of wagers they had become accustomed to. The good news is that most sports are now back, or on their way back, so it should hopefully be just a temporary setback for the industry.

According to recent predictions, the online gambling market may approach $1 trillion in less than a decade. The market valuations expect the global iGaming market to grow from $45.8 billion in 2017 to $94.4 billion by 2024.

No matter which way you slice it, this industry is poised for some incredible investment opportunities.

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Hot iGaming Investment Opportunities - NuWireInvestor - NuWire Investor

Las Vegas food banks brace for increase in need, $600 supplement to unemployment could expire – KTNV Las Vegas

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LAS VEGAS (KTNV) Thousands of valley families could be left in jeopardy if Congress does not extend the extra $600 unemployment benefit and some nonprofits are bracing for a large increase in demand if that happens.

Three Square food bank is already seeing people prepare for the worst. When the pandemic first started, it saw 60% more people needing food every day. In the last couple weeks, it says it has actually seen an increase in people needing food.

RELATED: Las Vegas residents speak out about missing $600 unemployment benefit

The COO of Three Square, Larry Scott, says he believes people on unemployment are preparing to lose that extra money.

"We're already starting to feel the impacts of that," Scott said. "I think people are trying to find food sources today, knowing that it's about to come upon them."

Scott says they've had enough food up until this point, but if that need increases, it could be a challenge.

And that's on top of other challenges, including closing their building to their volunteers to help prevent spreading COVID-19.

"So what we did was have our volunteers meet out at our drive-thru sites in the open air where we can social distance them," Scott said. "We still have some volunteers, but they're at our drive-thru."

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Individual donations don't normally make up a large portion of their food, but Scott says they need the public's help now more than ever.

Option to donate is available here.

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Las Vegas food banks brace for increase in need, $600 supplement to unemployment could expire - KTNV Las Vegas

Golden Knights strike early in exhibition win over Coyotes – Las Vegas Review-Journal

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Not since the Golden Knights inaugural season has there been an exhibition game more anticipated than Thursdays.

After more than four months away, the Knights picked up where they left off.

Reilly Smith scored twice in the first period as the Knights grabbed a 4-1 victory over Arizona at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta.

There was a flurry in the third where they grabbed some momentum, some power plays where we got on our heels a bit, coach Pete DeBoer said. But for sure through the first 40, 45 minutes of the game, I really liked how we put pressure on them offensively and didnt give up much defensively.

The Knights, who won 11 of their final 13 games before the season was paused March 12 because of the coronavirus pandemic, saw plenty to build on before they open round-robin play against Dallas on Monday.

Smith helped the Knights win the special teams battle, as he scored short-handed and converted on a power play later in the first period. The Knights finished 1-for-6 (11 shots) on the power play.

Nick Cousins added an empty-net goal and two assists, and Alex Tuch finished with a goal and an assist as part of a seven-point effort from the third line.

When we have all our lines going, and I think we did tonight, its really tough on teams, Smith said. I think (the fourth) line did a great job being able to change momentum. In every game, other teams are going to get different momentum swings, and they did a good job shutting them down and we were able to build off that and create offense.

Goalie Marc-Andre Fleury got the start and turned in a solid effort as he battles with Robin Lehner for the No. 1 job.

Fleury, who missed the first three practices during training camp, finished with 22 saves after a quiet first period when the Coyotes were held without a shot for more than 17 minutes.

Taylor Hall had Arizonas goal at 9:14 of the third period when he poked home a loose puck after a scramble in front.

Maybe at the start they brought it to us a bit, but we didnt take too long, Fleury said. Our guys found their legs and played very solid. They have a lot of speed on that team, but I thought we matched it, no problem. Like I said before, we controlled the puck a lot and created a lot offensively. It was fun to watch guys go.

The Knights played without left wing Max Pacioretty, who remains in Las Vegas to rehabilitate what DeBoer termed a minor injury.

Pacioretty, the teams leading scorer during the regular season with 32 goals and 66 points, was replaced by Chandler Stephenson on the first line against Arizona.

Smith notched a career-high 27 goals during the regular season and provided the offense for the Knights in the first period.

The winger forced a turnover and finished off a two-on-one with penalty kill partner William Karlsson at 8:42 and converted on a power play after Jonathan Marchessault drew a tripping penalty on Coyotes defenseman Jakob Chychrun.

Smith dragged the puck around Arizonas Alex Goligoski and snapped a shot from the left hashmark past goalie Darcy Kuempers glove at 16:23.

I think we were probably a little sloppy at the start, Smith said. It seemed like there was a lot of bodies running into each other at the start of the game. I thought we did a good job cleaning it up after that.

Physical winger Ryan Reaves created a talking point with about six minutes remaining in the second period when he decked Arizonas Nick Schmaltz with a check to the head.

Schmaltz was forced to leave the game, and the hit will put Reaves back in the spotlight entering the postseason.

Knights defenseman Nate Schmidt left with about eight minutes to play, but DeBoer said Schmidt cramped up and was removed as a precaution.

Ive said this before, Youre never as good as you think you are, and youre never as bad as you think you are after a game, DeBoer said. Im sure theres some areas we can clean up but, you know, overall, considering the circumstances, I thought we came in and did a real good job of carrying over a real good camp into the first exhibition game. We want to build on that.

Contact David Schoen at dschoen@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5203. Follow @DavidSchoenLVRJ on Twitter.

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Golden Knights strike early in exhibition win over Coyotes - Las Vegas Review-Journal

Near-record highs expected in Las Vegas for last days of July – Las Vegas Review-Journal

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Temperatures have a chance to reach record levels for the final days of July in the Las Vegas Valley.

Records are a possibility as temperatures have been trending upward, National Weather Service meteorologist Caleb Steele said.

The July 30 record is 114, July 31s top temperature is 115 and the Aug. 1 mark is 116 at McCarran International Airport.

As of Tuesday morning, the projected high is 112 on Thursday, 113 on Friday and 112 on Saturday.

Tuesday should see a high of 108 after 107 was recorded Monday.

Winds will be about 10 to 15 mph on Tuesday afternoon, well below the gusts recorded Monday.

Wednesdays conditions include a projected high near 108 with light breezes.

Heat warning begins Thursday

An excessive heat warning covering all but the higher elevations of the region runs from Thursday morning through Saturday evening, the weather service says.

The expected high temperatures in the Las Vegas Valley will range from 110 to 115, while the Colorado River Valley will see highs from 115 to 120. Death Valley will see daily highs around 125.

Residents are advised to drink plenty of fluids, stay in air-conditioned rooms, avoid or limit any strenuous activities to early morning or late evening and to stay indoors during the hottest portions of the day. Checking on friends and relatives is also advised.

Contact Marvin Clemons at mclemons@reviewjournal.com. Follow @Marv_in_Vegas on Twitter.

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Near-record highs expected in Las Vegas for last days of July - Las Vegas Review-Journal