Australia looks offshore with overseas students’ return uncertain – Times Higher Education (THE)

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Australia will put more focus on the remote and offshore teaching of international students, after a Canberra meeting failed to decide the key issue of when they would be allowed back into the country.

The Council for International Education has resolved to develop a new international education strategy highlighting opportunities in educational technology and online learning, while working towards the return of international students as a priority for 2021.

A federal governmentcommuniquissued after the 3 December meeting says that governments and the sector have advanced plans for the return of international students, when health conditions and quarantine capacity allow.

But the document does not speculate whether quarantine arrangements will be expanded to allow arrivals to isolate in purpose-built student accommodation a concession that could allow universities to fly in foreigners ahead of the 2021 academic year.

Quarantine capacity is a major limiting factor on international admissions, with prime minister Scott Morrison insisting that returning Australian citizens must be given priority over foreign students. The International Education Association of Australia (IEAA) has been lobbying for changed quarantine rules so that students can come as early as next month.

IEAA chief executive Phil Honeywood said the federal government had made it clear that any such changes would need to be approved individually by states and territories. But he said that the meeting had been upbeat, with the federal government members including the ministers for trade, foreign affairs, employment and industry and the acting minister for immigration expressing considerable support for the sector.

Were not going to get the critical mass we wanted, but the mood from the government is that they understand that the industry is in pain, he said, adding that the government had flagged public relations campaigns to assure students that they were welcome and to highlight the benefits of international education to the Australian public.

Education minister Dan Tehan, who chairs the council, said there were reasons for Australia to be optimistic about the future of international education. They included developments in Covid-19 vaccines and newly released economic data showing that the country is technically out of recession.

But he said that Australia must seize future opportunities by developing a new strategy to chart the industrys progress over the next decade. We must be prepared for more focus on offshore, online and blended learning, and a growth in new models of delivery such as microcredentials.

Mr Honeywood said that the councils focus on transnational education was sensible, given strong offshore enrolments at some institutions. Australias largest private school, for instance, had boosted student numbers at its Chinese establishments by one-quarter this year.

He also cited positive signs in this weeks arrival of 63 foreign students in Darwin. Most of them had been Chinese, demonstrating appetite for Australian education in the key source country.

The communiqu says council members will lead consultations on the new strategy between February and April, ahead of its expected finalisation in mid-2021.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com

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Australia looks offshore with overseas students' return uncertain - Times Higher Education (THE)

Construction of Les Alizs Begins – Offshore WIND

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Jan De Nul and China Merchant Heavy Industry (CMHI) have begun the construction of the 5,000-tonne floating installation crane vessel Les Alizs.

Les Alizs is specifically designed for loading, transporting, lifting, and installing offshore wind turbine foundations.

It will be capable of building the newest generation of offshore wind farms once delivered in April 2022, but is also suitable for decommissioning offshore oil & gas platforms.

Main features include a main crane of 5,000 tons, a deck loading capacity of 61,000 tons, a deck space of 9,300 m, as well as 6 MAN 12V32/44CR main engines.

SCHOTTELwill providea full propulsion package and Red Rockwill supplythree knuckle telescopic offshore cranes.

Les Alizs will be equipped with an exhaust gas filtering technology that complies with the EURO STAGE V guidelines for emissions on land and inland waterways.

Additionally, it will be fitted with an Energy Storage System (ESS), forming a hybrid setup with the main diesel engines, which will compensate power peaks on the main engines and recover energy from the heavy-lift crane, resulting in optimized engine operation and less fuel consumption and emissions, Jan De Nul said.

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Construction of Les Alizs Begins - Offshore WIND

Japan Launches First Fixed Bottom Offshore Wind Auction – Offshore WIND

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The government of Japan has launched its first-ever auction for fixed bottom offshore wind projects within the countrys General Common Sea Area.

The Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI), and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism (MLIT) opened the auction for applications on 27 November.

The tender will remain open until 27 May 2021.

The auction covers four offshore wind zones. Three zones are located off Akita Prefecture: Noshiro (Mitane Town and Oga City), Yurihonjo City North, and Yurihonjo City South.

The fourth zone, Choshi City, is situated off Chiba Prefecture.

Major Players Expected to Participate

A consortium of eight Japanese companies led by Sumitomo Corporation is expected to participate in the auction with a 480 MW Noshiro-Mitane-Oga project.

The Yurihonjo City zones will likely attract a joint bid submitted by RWE Renewables and Kyuden Mirai Energy.

The zones off Akita Prefecture are also of interest to the consortium comprising Equinor, Electric Power Development (J-Power), and JERA.

The Choshi City zone will most likely draw a bid from rsted and TEPCO which earlier this year established a joint venture company for the purpose of participating in offshore wind auctions in Japan.

This is Japans second offshore wind auction since the new Renewable Sea Area Utilization Law came into power in April 2019.

The first auction was launched in June for the development of a floating offshore wind farm off Goto City, Nagasaki Prefecture.

All of the areas in the two auctions were identified as potentially suitable for the development of offshore wind farms in the summer of 2019. The five zones soon after underwent wind and geological surveys.

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1400 GW of offshore wind achievable by 2050 | theenergyst.com – The Energyst

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The Ocean Renewable Energy Action Coalition (OREAC) is calling on governments to ramp up their offshore renewable energy ambition to achieve the coalitions vision of 1400 GW of offshore wind by 2050. To support the rapid, global scale-up of ocean-based clean energy, OREAC has published The Power of Our Ocean as a guiding document for countries to accelerate offshore wind development and reap the socioeconomic, environmental and health benefits it can offer.

OREAC is an initiative led by world-leading developers, technology suppliers, utilities and non-profit organisations in the offshore energy sector, formed after the 2019 call for urgent ocean-based climate action by the High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (Ocean Panel). OREAC has published this new report and an Offshore Wind Market Readiness Assessment Toolkit, and is engaging with governments worldwide to support their offshore wind development.

In its new report, OREAC outlines a roadmap to support the sustainable scale-up of ocean-based renewable energy and five fundamental building blocks to grow an offshore wind market: stable policies, pipeline visibility, resourced institutions, a supportive and engaged public, and a competitive environment.

Ocean-based solutions can deliver 21% of carbon emissions reductions needed by 2050 to keep global warming within 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, according to the Ocean Panel. Ocean-based renewable energy like offshore wind offers the most effective decarbonisation route and can provide half of these reductions; other forms of ocean energy can also play a part if brought to commercialisation.

In addition to reducing carbon emissions, offshore wind reduces air pollution and water consumption for energy use, providing compound value for investment in welfare and economic gains. The report finds that if the 1,400 GW vision is achieved, this could save $1.88 trillion in pollution-related public health costs an area currently strained by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Offshore wind is also an important industry to revitalise coastal communities and support the development of critical infrastructure. The report estimates that a 500 MW offshore wind project with an average 25-year lifetime creates about 10,000 years of full-time employment

Stephen Bull, Senior Vice President Offshore wind at Equinor, added: While 1,400 GW may seem like a daunting number compared to the 29 GW of offshore wind installed today, this is only a small fraction of the technical potential available worldwide. We want to ensure that governments around the world are well-equipped to effectively tap into this resource potential.

The full report is authored by BVG Associates and contains data, case studies, and guidelines to achieve OREACs vision of 1,400 GW of offshore wind by 2050. OREAC will continue engaging with governments to realise their ocean energy potential in the run-up to the UN Ocean Conference next year.

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Orange Targets Offshore Wind with New Cable Vessel – Offshore WIND

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French telecommunications corporation Orange has ordered a cable vessel specially designed for the maintenance of submarine cables, including the inter-array cables used on offshore wind farms.

Ordered by Orange Marine, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Orange, the new vessel will replace C/S Raymond Croze, launched in 1983.

The hybrid vessel will be constructed by the Colombo Dockyard shipyard with the assistance of the Norwegian company Vard. The launch of the ship is scheduled for the first half of 2023.

The decision to build this vessel is very good news for Orange Marine, its employees and its customers, Didier Dillard, CEO of Orange Marine, said.

We will have a new and high-performance tool, with a low environmental footprint, which will allow us to offer high-quality services for several decades to our customers, not only owners of submarine telecommunications cables but also operators of offshore wind farms.

Orange said that the investment in the new vessel is part of the companys strategy to develop its position as a leading player in the international networks market in general and submarine cables in particular.

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Douglas Todd: Offshore investor of $45 million in Vancouver housing claims fraud – Vancouver Sun

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Between 2015 and 2018, while Zhang was in China, the suit alleges, Mr. Yin developed a scheme to convert the plaintiffs funds in whole or in part to his own use the plaintiff entrusted Mr. Yin with the equivalent of approximately $45 million for the purpose of investment in real estate.

One venture involved buying five bungalows around West 41st Avenue and Alberta Street, near Oakridge. The suit says Yin accepted 60 million Chinese yuan (the equivalent of $11 million Canadian) from Zhang for the $20-million land assembly.

Three of the bungalows were later sold in 2017 for $25 million. The plaintiff received nothing from the sale, according to the lawsuit. The sold properties have since been developed into a six-storey apartment complex, which is under construction.

The lawsuit, filed in October, says the adjacent Vancouver dwellings, at 408 West 41st and 426 West 41st, remain under the control of Yin, his wife Yan Chun Liu, and daughter, Yu Yin.

In 2016, Zhang also transferred the equivalent of $29 million out of China so that Yin could buy a strata development in Richmond at 6840 and 6860 No. 3 Rd. The suit says Yin and his family were unjustly enriched by the plaintiffs contribution to the property.

Zhang also claims he funnelled the equivalent of more than $5 million through Yin to help buy a property at 3208 140th St. in Surrey, in a plan to turn it into an extended-living facility, plus a house at 4826 Buxton in Burnaby.

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Douglas Todd: Offshore investor of $45 million in Vancouver housing claims fraud - Vancouver Sun

What the Golden Rule can teach us about rightly-ordered love – denvercatholic.org

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The very first principle of the moral life is that we are to do good and avoid evil. Saintly minds have argued over the centuries that so long as a person understands the meaning of this statement, it is a self-evident truth with which no reasonable person can disagree. Of course, the challenge is, what is good and what is evil? This is a question that is increasingly difficult to answer today.

Jesus explains that the very first principle by which we begin to grasp the difference between good and evil is what we have conventionally come to know as the golden rule. We know this commandment in two forms: You shall love your neighbor as yourself or whatever you wish that men would do to you, do so to them (Mt 22:39; Mt 7:12). In either case the proper love of self is the foundation for knowing how to treat others.

The difficulty with the golden rule, however, is that if we do not have a proper sense of self-love, our determination of how we ought to treat others will be skewed. In other words, if self-love is self-seeking, our conscience will lead us to false judgments regarding love of neighbor. Thus, the more self-referential one becomes, the less able one can truly love their neighbor.

For this reason, the proper love of self depends upon the love of God and our obedience to his commandments. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment (Mt 22:37-38). The implication is that by loving God above all, a person will perceive how best to love their neighbor since self-love will be rooted in the love of God.

Because of the importance of the Golden Rule to moral integrity, Jesus clarifies its meaning in his Last Supper discourse: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another (Jn 13:34). What Jesus models throughout his life is a form of self-love whereby he offers himself as a gift and sacrifice to humanityto all of uson behalf of his love for his Father. In other words, the best way to love self is to offer oneself in service to neighbor, as illustrated in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

This is what Christians mean by charity, or in Greek, Agape. Jesus tells us that true love is not so much about what we desire or find attractive, but rather about offering our self to others in affirmation of human dignity.

Today, we often hear people speak about unconditional love. This is how Jesus teaching is interpreted. The argument basically states that God loves us unconditionally, no matter what. The implication here is that Jesuss love is entirely inclusive of everyone. After, all, Jesus associated with and called the social outcasts and marginalized to be his disciples. This is true and no one can dispute this. Divine love does not discriminate on the level of human dignity.

However, this does not mean that Jesus accepted every form of behavior or every human intention. While Jesus indeed loves every personhe died for allto remain in his love, He commands us to follow the narrow way, which he explains in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5-7). In other words, God does not withhold his love from anyone. However, He also does not reconcile himself with sin. He commands us to be perfect as His heavenly Father is perfect (Mt 5:48).

The greatest illustration of the point is the story of the woman caught in adultery (Jn 8:1-11). Jesus did not condemn her, but he also commanded her to sin no more. Jesus called the woman into covenant fellowship with him, but at the same time, called her to leave behind her sinful ways. Jesuss love was not legalistic or punitive, but neither was it an accommodation to sin. His love is best understood as a transformative call to conversion.

One of the biggest challenges to the Christian notion of love today is the idea that we are not to judge. Jesus clearly teaches us not to judge others, lest we ourselves be judged (Mt 7:1-3). We are also to forgive others that wrong us and be merciful (Mt 6:14-15; Lk 6:36). Somehow not judging others has come to mean that we are not allowed to make moral judgments, especially when it comes to human sexuality. It ought to be obvious, however, that we cannot forgive an offense or show mercy toward anothers faults if we are not allowed to make any moral judgments. How would we know to forgive if we do not know we have been wronged?

The proper way to understand Jesus teaching here is to distinguish between making a judgment about the moral character of an action and condemning others in our hearts because of their sin. Christian love must always affirm the dignity of a person, and so embrace him or herto love our enemies for examplebut Christian charity can never embrace sinful behavior as acceptable to God. It is simply false to suggest that if I make a moral judgment, I am therefore not loving the other person whose actions are morally wrong.

Today we can observe many efforts to pressure us to not merely tolerate but to accept behavior and lifestyles incompatible with Jesus teaching in the name of inclusivityeven among Christians who clearly relativize Jesus teaching, as though Christians need to get with the times. For example, the slogan love is love and the demand for non-discriminatory laws more inclusive of various expressions of sexuality are often defended by an appeal to inclusivity and unconditional love.

The problem is that this argument fails to distinguish between the person, whom we are commanded to love, and a set of behaviors that we cannot accept because they are incompatible with Jesus teaching about the dignity of the human person.

The love of neighbor is Gods command to affirm the dignity of others through a gift of self. Jesus offers himself to us from the cross, not to gloss over sin, but to call the sinner to repentance. The command to love is not a license to disregard the moral law on account of the dignity of the sinner. To the contrary, according to Jesus example, the love of neighbor demands that, for the sake of human dignity, we call others to conversion and help others live according to their true dignity.

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What the Golden Rule can teach us about rightly-ordered love - denvercatholic.org

Mind your business: Empathy is an unreliable tool for combatting larger social issues – Daily Free Press

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When we were kids, one universal maxim was hammered into our minds: the Golden Rule. Treat others how you would want to be treated.

In the simple world of playgrounds and snacktime, it was an effective starter pack for being a good person. Or, at the very least, it gave kids a reason to rethink their career as a bully.

The Golden Rule is often linked to empathy, but in a much more complicated, grown-up world, our reliance on empathy and the Golden Rule is limiting.

To begin, what exactly is empathy? Empathy is defined as being able to feel what another person feels and step into their shoes.

Essentially, its a mirror for emotions. However, having empathy doesnt necessarily mean youre good, kind or moral. You can care about people without empathy. You can love people without empathy. You can act without empathy.

For one, you dont have to feel the same emotions to logically understand what someone is going through.

People who have low empathy are still capable of sympathy rather than feeling how someone feels, they can see it and think it. We all have the intellectual capacity to make connections between our own experiences and others emotions. We all have the capacity to know when someone is upset and attempt to understand why.

Sometimes, sympathy is better than empathy. It would be presumptuous to say you can actually empathize with anyone who has been through a traumatic experience that you have not gone through. Plus, the way we process our emotions is very personal empathy only deals with reflecting perceived pain, and our perceptions are often not reality.

Sympathy is also more of an active response than empathy. Sympathy means seeking to understand how the other person is feeling. Empathy is automatic and passive, and its based on how your brain is wired rather than how you interact with others.

A misconception of empathy is that it automatically makes you a good person who does good deeds. Though the Golden Rule is conflated with empathy, empathy doesnt actually include any action or treatment of others. Compassion does.

Empathy means suffering with the affected the equivalent of seeing someone drowning and jumping into the ocean with them. Compassion, on the other hand, means taking a less immersive route and, more importantly, taking action. It means throwing the drowning person a lifesaver and pulling them up.

Like sympathy, compassion is active. It is a choice. Sympathy and compassion can exist without empathy. You choose the way you respond to a situation. For example, you can feel empathy and still be a jerk, or you can not feel it and still be compassionate and considerate.

So, now that weve established how you can care and act without empathy, lets discuss how emotional empathy can be limiting.

Our society tends to focus on the idea that the way we treat others is reliant on how we feel and are affected by it. Its an individualistic take.

You should care about other people simply because its right and it creates a healthy community. The basis of how you treat others should not be on your own feelings. In fact, focusing on yourself and empathizing with those close to you at an extreme can enable the dehumanization of and aggression toward outsiders.

Additionally, while empathy can be a motivator for helping friends and family, it doesnt work as well on a larger scale. Psychologist Paul Bloom argues in his book Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion that empathy is too individual-centric to the victim and not the empathizer.

Studies have shown there is an emotional plateau when it comes to empathizing. Hearing an individuals heart-wrenching story might compel you to act on your empathy, but we often dont have the capacity to fully process large-scale tragedies and abstract death tolls.

This leads to the prioritization of individuals you are familiar with over large groups of people you dont know or who are outside of your social bubble. Blow up the proportions, and youre left with an unfair distribution of resources and awareness.

Bloom also points out how empathy can amplify the effects of implicit bias. You can feel empathy in different ways about different people. There can thus be, say, a racial bias in how you empathize with and perceive someone elses pain.

Notably, in the medical field, doctors have long been documented for undertreating pain in patients of color and exhibiting more empathy for white patients.

Empathy can backfire in many situations because your immediate emotional response is not always correct or just. More often than not, it is informed by your experiences, opinions and prejudices. Reliance on empathy then translates into a flawed treatment of others. Not exactly the Golden Rule we expected, right?

We cannot and should not allow empathy to be key in our decision making. We cant let it dictate how we treat others. As we tackle larger social and human rights issues, its especially important to instead practice compassion, self-awareness and moral responsibility.

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Mind your business: Empathy is an unreliable tool for combatting larger social issues - Daily Free Press

OPINION | MASTERSON ONLINE: Yesteryear versus today – Arkansas Online

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It strikes me that many, perhaps most, of those today who were born to the Greatest Generation of Americans during the aftermath of World War II have a difficult time grasping the widespread apathy, disrespect and selfishness they're witnessing across the nation.

The differences between the perspectives of many youthful citizens and our aging generation seem obvious. I feel the disconnect can be explained in part by the markedly different ways in which we were raised.

During the late 1940s into the '60s, a nuclear family that provided a home for children was considered the norm. Homes were headed by a father and mother who instilled respect and manners as essential and expected traits in their offspring. Many of us baby boomers worked for weekly allowances (learning the value of money).

We ate dinners at a table together, often offering a blessing beforehand. Many were taught the importance of character, honesty and integrity. We recited the pledge in classrooms, sometimes even supplemented by a prayer. We were taught the role of government in our lives while also taking shop or home economics classes to learn how to cope as individually responsible adults.

So when we witness the widespread disrespect, self-absorption, irresponsible and often violent behaviors arising largely from thousands born into more recent generations, it's difficult for many folks raised in those decades past to understand why.

Look, while I'm a far cry from being a psychologist and trying to paint with too wide a brush, I can't help but believe the behavioral changes we witness today lie largely in expectations borne of our experiences placed on a nation of divided families resulting in stressed-out single parents, as well as dramatic changes in the role and focus of our schools and their curriculums.

The expanded drug culture also undoubtedly has taken its toll, along with violent video games and Hollywood films that devalue compassion and faith and try to desensitize reverence for a creator with needless "GDs" and the "f-word" littering their scripts.

By comparison, back in the day, I'd never think to talk back to Mom or Dad. That was a sure-fire way to feel the sting of a leather belt applied squarely to my exposed rump. Using curse words and those blaspheming God resulted in bar soap applied to the mouth or revisiting that belt.

I was expected to regularly perform chores around the house that ranged from taking out the trash to gathering laundry from the hamper. A love of freedom and country were regularly preached. It's clear today that my parents were doing their best to instill a sense of responsibility and commitment.

They always expected to see and sign my report cards. Both cared enough to attended parent/teacher conferences where a bad conduct report from the teachers meant yet another session with the belt back home. In those days, I was expected to be fully accountable for my actions, rather than trying to fault someone else. As with parents, most administrators sided with teachers.

While some among us boomers were spoiled in youth, as a whole we never expected to be coddled or given everything we asked for, which meant we carried a realistic view of existence into adulthood. To a large degree, the teachings of weekly church we attended with parents and Sunday School beforehand played a role in how we learned to treat each other. You know, that Golden Rule thing. I had friends in high school who carried rifles in the rear windows of their pickups. School shootings were unthinkable, as were rashes of mass murders.

In the 1950s and '60s we also found ways to occupy our time in off hours among friends, usually outdoors. As youths we occupied ourselves with diversions such as bowling, rink skating and Saturday matinees with cartoons and serial adventures at the Triple R ranch or with the Long Ranger at the local theater.

That lifestyle only benefited our socialization skills as we grew into adulthood rather than watching wall-sized TVs streaming 24/7 programming, cell phones, laptops or iPads to nullify human interaction and preoccupy our waking moments.

I certainly didn't set out to pick on any particular group today. We humans are complex animals, and so many from yesteryear have their decent and not-so-decent citizens. Yet I can' t help but notice the obvious differences between the early years for us boomers compared with what we are observing today. The differences have become too numerous to catalog here.

The columnist Walter E. Williams, who died this week expressed it well in what may be his final column about the abysmal failures of the Baltimore school system: "Years ago much of the behavior of young people that we see today would have never been tolerated." Couldn't agree more, Walter. Rest in peace.

License free-for-all

A U.S. district judge in California has determined residents there have a constitutional right to put pretty much whatever message they choose on vanity license tags, as long as it isn't obscene or profane or incite violence or hate.

Yep, the state's DMV bureaucrats' previous censorship of what citizens can say on their tags has been a federal violation of freedom of speech and expression.

The judge cited a 2017 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case involving a band called The Slants, which said that freedom of speech cannot be barred because it might offend some people. The grossly overreactive catering to someone's distress over words that might create discomfort is ludicrous. Life where I'm from means dressing daily in your big-boy or big-girl pants.

I, for one, also was pleasantly surprised to see the judge in that governmentally restricted state stand up for constitutional liberties. Wonder if "Setmefree" or "Abandnshp" are taken?

Highway double-takes

We could soon be glancing over the crowded interstate lane beside us at an enormous big rig buffeting past with no driver behind the wheel, especially in Texas and across the Southwest.

It's coming, valued readers. And won't such high-speed automation generate a warm sense of highway safety?

A news account the other day said the Texas company TuSimple already is using some self-driving trucks to make long-haul deliveries. And the trend is likely to grow rapidly.

Driverless cars were made legal on Texas roads in 2017. The law allows automated motor vehicles to use Texas highway as long as they are insured and equipped with video recording equipment.

TuSimple is running automated trucks from Arizona to west Texas. A new Fort Worth hub will help the company extend its network to Austin, San Antonio and Houston. The company says it plans to have its nationwide network in place by 2023.

Now go out into the world and treat everyone you meet exactly like you want them to treat you.

Mike Masterson is a longtime Arkansas journalist, was editor of three Arkansas dailies and headed the master's journalism program at Ohio State University. Email him at mmasterson@arkansasonline.com.

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The Ryan Beckwith judgment has protected the legal profession’s high ethical standards – The Global Legal Post

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The High Court

Integrity continues to underpin relations between junior and senior lawyers if it relates back to conduct rules, argues Graham Reid

Tribunal dubs top UK lawyer's sexual misconduct as spontaneous lack of judgement was The Global Legal Posts headline back in February.

Ryan Beckwiths case before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) attracted considerable attention at the time, sparking debate over the appropriateness of his actions during a drunken sexual encounter with a junior colleague.

Ten months later, the success of Beckwiths appeal to the Divisional Court has led to a ruling that will affect the approach of the SDT and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to similar allegations in the future.

One message that emerges clearly from the judgment is that allegations of acting without integrity and harming the reputation of the solicitors profession must now be tightly connected to the SRAs rules. The SDT does not have carte blanche to decide what integrity means. Its meaning must be drawn from the rules themselves. This reflects the fact that the obligation to act with integrity is a sort of meta-rule. Its the rule that says one must obey all the other rules.

In real terms, this means a solicitor accused of acting without integrity can expect to see such an allegation particularised in terms of some other rule in the SRA Handbook or, now, the SRA Standards and Regulations. That is why Beckwith succeeded on appeal the tribunal had found that he did not abuse his position of power and authority in relation to his colleague, Person A, and without such an abuse it could not be said that he took unfair advantage of her by reason of his professional status.

The Divisional Court adopted a similar approach to the alleged breach of Principle 6 (behave in a way that maintains the trust the public places in you and in the provision of legal services), noting that this principle is apt to become unruly unless it is closely informed by a careful and realistic consideration of the [SRAs rules].

The final argument raised by Beckwith failed. It concerned his Article 8 ECHR rights. He said that the conduct complained of took place in his private life and the SRAs rules were too broadly drafted for him to have the necessary degree of certainty whether or not they applied in a given situation (and therefore those rules infringed his Article 8 rights). The Divisional Court disagreed, concluding that the requisite certainty could be found as long as these somewhat fuzzily defined principles were informed as to content by the remainder of the rules.

The decision can therefore be seen as limiting the freedom of movement of the SRA and SDT when it comes to allegations of integrity and harm to the professions reputation. Indeed, there are some passages that even read as admonishment of the regulator and tribunal. For example, the judgment said: Regulators will do well to recognise that it is all too easy to be dogmatic without knowing it; popular outcry is not proof that a particular set of events gives rise to any matter falling within a regulator's remit.

But this would overlook the most important parts of the decision. In a legal context, it is not Beckwiths success that matters, or indeed the events that night in July 2016, but rather the courts comments concerning the kinds of behaviour that can amount to professional misconduct.

The court confirmed that the rules can be directed to a solicitors private life, but only when the conduct realistically touches on her practise of the profession. It added that the public had a legitimate expectation that junior members of the professional would be treated with respect by other members and that a failure to do so could harm the reputation of the profession, and it said that an abuse of a position of authority or power can amount to a breach of the duty of fair treatment. This is currently formulated as: You do not abuse your position by taking unfair advantage of clients or others.

The clearest message from Beckwiths case therefore is that the high ethical standards of the solicitors' profession remain intact. The golden rule still applies: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Integrity must underpin relations between junior and senior staff, it applies across hierarchies of power and authority and can even extend into a solicitors private life, provided the behaviour relevantly engages one of the other standards of behaviour necessarily implicit in the SRAs rules.

Graham Reid is a legal director, professional regulation at RPC

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The Ryan Beckwith judgment has protected the legal profession's high ethical standards - The Global Legal Post

Joyce H. Cooper, 86 – The Daily Record

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BRIDGEPORT Joyce H. Cooper, age 86, of Bridgeport, passed away on Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2020 at the United Methodist Village in Lawrenceville.

She was born on Jan. 20, 1934 in Lawrence County, the daughter of Roy Martin and Lorene E. (Russell) Goins.

Joyce worked at the Lawrence County Memorial Hospital, and retired from Lawrenceville Industries. After retirement, she worked part-time for Golden Rule Insurance Company. She attended Bethel and St. James AME Churches. Joyce was a hard-working, pleasant, caring person who enjoyed her family and friends, along with a quiet lifestyle.

Preceding her in death were: her parents; two brothers, Russell Goins and Kenneth Goins; and one sister, Kathleen Edwards.

Survivors include: her three children, Eldon L. (Bonnie) Cooper, Jr. of Robinson; Herman J. Joe (Bobbie) Cooper of Patoka, Indiana; and Marta J. (Larry) Curry of Bridgeport; two sisters, Sallee Walden of Princeton, Indiana; and Marva Green of Lawrenceville; one sister-in-law, Alvyna Goins of Lawrenceville; nine grandchildren, Jesse J. (Emily) Cooper of Terre Haute, Indiana; Whitney L. Curry of Lawrenceville; Shawn J. (Laura) Curry of Olympia, Washington; Stephanie (Craig) Weber of Robinson; Stacy Stevens of Oblong; Aleesha (Brandon) Hardiman of Princeton, Indiana; Joshua (Lindsay) Phelps of Princeton, Indiana; Amanda (Allen) Harris of Marion, Kentucky; and Bradley (Kara) Greenwell of Marion, Kentucky; 14 great-grandchildren; as well as several cousins, nieces and nephews.

Private services for the family will be conducted at the Emmons-Macey and Steffey Funeral Home in Lawrenceville. Everyone is welcome to view the service on Saturday, Dec. 5, 2020 at 11 a.m. with the following link:https://www.facebook.com/Emmons-Macey-Steffey-Funeral-Home-Burial-Cremation-Services-241234759332208/.

A public burial will be conducted following the service at the Portee Cemetery. Extended family and friends are invited to a drive through visitation on Saturday from 10 a.m. until 11 a.m. at the funeral home. Please approach the funeral home from south 12th Street, and you will be directed by staff to pass through under the awning.

Memorial donations may be made to the Bridgeport Senior Citizens or the United Methodist Village-Activity Department.

Please visit http://www.emmonsmaceysteffey.com to view the tribute and to send condolences.

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Joyce H. Cooper, 86 - The Daily Record

Who Will Decide Whether to Investigate Trump? – Lawfare

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As with other personnel decisions, there has been a steady stream of reporting about President-elect Joe Bidens search for a new attorney general. Names mentioned include former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez, outgoing Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, former Department of Justice official Lisa Monaco, former head of the Department of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

Besides traditional considerationssuch as the policy fit with the president, management experience, confirmability and demographicsBiden seems to have another, more singular requirement for his attorney general. The president-elect appears to want an attorney general who will decline to criminally investigate or prosecute Donald Trump and his close associates, and who will be credibly seen as having made that decision on his or her own, without direction from Biden. As the saying goes, personnel is policy.

The Department of Justice is an enormous organization with many and varied responsibilities, and the attorney generals role is correspondingly broad. But Bidens pick will confront one issue of surpassing importance: whether to criminally investigate and possibly charge Trump, members of his family, or close business or political associates. Relatedly, Biden must also decide who will be the ultimate decision-maker on any investigation or prosecution: the president himself or the attorney general.

Biden would be well within his legal rights, and within the norms of apolitical law enforcement, were he to directly instruct the attorney general not to investigate or prosecute Trump or close Trump associates. The Constitution vests the president with the executive power, and directs him or her to faithfully execute the Office of President and take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed. According to the Supreme Court, [t]he Constitution requires that a President chosen by the entire nation oversee the execution of the laws. As I have recently written in a co-authored historical study, the faithful execution duties requireamong other thingsthat the president execute the laws diligently, honestly, impartially, and in good faith for the public good, and avoid self-dealing or other purely privately self-interested actions. These duties have from the beginning coexisted with a good measure of prosecutorial discretion in the president and his subordinates. For instance, as Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes describe, both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson directed that federal prosecutions be dropped for public policy reasons.

Starting around the time of Watergate, and in response to the politicization of the Department of Justice, a set of norms crystallized about the proper roles of the president, the White House, the attorney general and other political leaders at the Justice Department, and career prosecutors and investigators. I attempted to summarize some of these norms as follows:

First, the politically-accountable head of the executive branchthe Presidentcan and indeed should set out the broad parameters of legal and enforcement policy for DOJ prosecutors and law enforcement agencies ... because ultimately the President is accountable for the faithful execution of the law. The Attorney Generals job involves such a large element of sensitive policyin areas ranging from civil litigation against the government to federal prison administration to immigration to law enforcement prioritiesthat he or she is properly an at-will employee of the President, and hence responsive to the public will as well....

Partisan political considerations, personal vendettas or favoritism, financial gain, or self-protection or self-dealing should play no role in investigating or prosecuting cases....

Decisions about specific investigatory or prosecutorial steps in particular criminal cases are almost always best left to career officials operating free from political intervention, and supervised by political appointees based only on law and merit rather than improper considerations including White House approval or influence.

Regarding the presidents role, Hennessey and Wittes describe the norm that presidents exercise policy control over the Justice Department, but they generally refrain from getting involved in specific investigative matters, which they leave to the appointees they select. Similarly, Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith describe a post-Watergate norm inhibit[ing] presidential involvement in ... pending investigations.

But sometimes it can be appropriate for presidents to weigh in on specific criminal investigations or prosecutions. For example, President Barack Obama directed that prosecutions of 10 deep-cover Russian sleeper agents be dropped in 2010 and the spies returned to Russia, as a part of a swap for four people detained by Russia whom the president wished to liberate. There the presidents constitutional and statutory prerogatives over national security and foreign affairs justified overriding the general norm against White House involvement in specific party enforcement decisions. Obamas action seems consistent with his faithful execution duties, because reasons of statenot corrupt, self-dealing or other self-interested motiveswere the apparent motivating factors. Hennessey and Wittes generalize this point, writing that occasionally broad issues of presidential or national policy hinge on investigative matters, and that White House involvement with Justice Department prosecution or investigation decisions can be appropriate in those instances.

Although somewhat different legal and prudential considerations are involved, the presidents pardon power also appropriately allows him or her to intervene in specific federal criminal matters to obviate or remit punishment. Perhaps most relevant to the Trump situation, President Gerald Ford issued a blanket pardon to his predecessor, Richard Nixon, for Watergate and any other federal crimes that Nixon may have committed. Although some charged then (and now) that Ford may have made a corrupt bargain with NixonNixon would resign and allow Ford, the vice president, to assume the presidency in exchange for a pardonthat does not appear to be true. To justify his actions, Ford cited, in the pardon document and a speech, his desire for national tranquility after the nightmare of Watergate; a wish to avoid prolonged and divisive debate over the propriety of exposing to further punishment and degradation a man who has already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest elective office of the United States; and concerns about whether Nixon could get a speedy and fair trial. In words that could apply to his forthcoming decision about Nixonfamous words that Biden is probably pondering todayFord proclaimed, in his speech upon taking the presidents oath of office:

My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. ... As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process ....

One of Trumps most flagrant and dangerous norm breaches was his repeated, publicly stated desire that the Justice Department prosecute his real and perceived political enemiesHillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, former FBI Director James Comey, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and many others. Avoiding any hint of perpetuating this kind of awfulness, so reminiscent of tyrannies and banana republics, is an entirely plausible reason why Biden could want to avert criminal enforcement action against Trump and his circle. In addition to restoring the golden rule of presidents not attempting to jail their political rivals, such a decision by Biden would plausibly serve the public interest by reducing partisan division and hate, and avoiding distraction from his positive agenda on the coronavirus pandemic, the economy and other fronts.

Thus it would be appropriate for President Biden to direct the Justice Department to drop any investigations of Trump or his family and close associates, assuming he were motivated by concerns in the public interest. But Biden has not indicated that he plans to take this path. Instead, insofar as he has announced his thinking on the matter, he seems to want the attorney general to be seen as having made the call to decline criminal enforcementto buttress the frayed norm of Justice Department independence from the White House on specific party matters, and probably to avoid taking political heat from his left.

Biden has not made an explicit statement on the matter, but he may have already publicly signaled his views on both of these issues. During a Democratic primary debate in November 2019, he was asked whether he would order an investigation of Trump, if elected. Biden responded:

Look, I would not direct my Justice Department like this president does. Id let them make their independent judgment. I would not dictate who should be prosecuted or who should be exonerated. Thats not the role of the president of the United States. ...

So I would, whatever was determined by the attorney general I supported that I appointed, let them make an independent judgment. If that was the judgment that he violated the law and he should be, in fact, criminally prosecuted, then so be it. But I would not direct it.

In August 2020, Biden told reporters, I will not interfere with the Justice Departments judgment of whether or not they think they should pursue the prosecution of anyone that they think has violated the law. Prosecuting a former president would be very unusual thing and probably not very ... good for democracy, he said. But if a criminal case arose, he went on, then in fact, that would be up to the attorney general to decide whether he or she wanted to proceed with it. I am not going to make that individual judgment.

And after Bidens election victory, NBC News reported, President-elect Joe Biden has privately told advisers that he doesnt want his presidency to be consumed by investigations of his predecessor. According to NBC, Biden has raised concerns that investigations would further divide a country he is trying to unite. He believes investigations would alienate the more than 73 million Americans who voted for Trump. An unnamed Biden adviser also told NBC: He can set a tone about what he thinks should be done [but] hes not going to be a president who directs the Justice Department one way or the other.

One plausible reading of these statements is that Biden does not want a criminal investigation of Trump or people close to him, but that he wants his attorney general to be seen as the one who made this decision. I havent seen this reported in so many wordsbut if my reading of Bidens public statements is right, it is surely also the case that Biden wants a decision on non-prosecution to be as acceptable as possible to the many people, including Democratic Party leaders and members, who believe that Trump and his associates deserve punishment for any crimes they may have committed.

These imperatives may be in some tension with each other. For instance, a more aggressively left-wing attorney general would have more credibility with the left in the event of declining to prosecute but could be more likely to want to prosecute in the first place. Similarly, the better Biden knows his nominee personally, the more confidence he could have that that person would reach the right decisionthat is, the decision that Biden wants. But personal closeness to Biden or his team might undermine the public impression that the attorney general made the decision without White House involvement.

Based on the public record, I dont know enough to speculate usefully about which of the people who have been floated would best fit Bidens needs. It is possible to say, however, that given Bidens laudable goal of reducing the appearance and reality of the politicization of the Justice Departmentone of the goals that surely influenced his announcement that he would delegate to the attorney general on Trump criminal issuespicking current DNC chair Perez does not seem like a good idea. Becerra, Jones and Patrick also have political backgrounds, though not on the level of a national party chair. Another consideration is that Yates, who was fired as acting attorney general by Trump for insubordination regarding the travel ban, might have to recuse herself from decision-making about Trump were she to get the nod from Biden.

Whomever Biden selects as attorney general, he or she will face a politically difficult situation if the time comes to decide how to handle investigations or prosecution of Trump and his circle. Say that the attorney general decides to forego any federal law enforcement action against Trump. He or she would almost certainly be asked by the press whether Biden or people speaking for him directed this decision. Thus Biden would presumably strive to avoid any overt conversations, much less commitments, on the issue when he is vetting nominees for the position. This is a delicate dance. It will be interesting to see who is chosen for attorney general and what that person has to say about this issue during confirmation hearings and press interviews.

Two caveats in closing. First, I may be overreading the tea leaves. It is possible that Biden thinks criminal enforcement against Trump and his circle would be a bad idea, but that he is genuinely open to the attorney general disagreeing with him and pursuing an investigation or prosecution. Second, Trump may use the pardon power in ways that change Bidens or his attorney generals thinking. For example, pardons of Trumps adult children and the key aides who have the most criminal exposure might make it clear that there is no point in pursuing federal criminal investigations, whatever Bidens or the attorney generals personal views might have been otherwise. Alternatively, a Trump self-pardon might increase the chances that Biden or the attorney general considers a criminal prosecution of Trump to be warranted, in order to test and hopefully quash the dangerous and corrupt idea that a president can commit federal crimes in office with impunity.

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Who Will Decide Whether to Investigate Trump? - Lawfare

Letters: Cancel-culture behavior needs to be eliminated; Incarcerated people should get vaccine; Maybe there is a God with a lesson to share -…

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There ought to be a law banning cancel-culture behavior. Social media has been weaponized to destroy the lives and livelihood of people who do not fit the narrative of the self-righteous people in our society. Left-leaning individuals have proposed establishing a hit list of those who have served in the Trump administration. The total destruction of the lives of these individuals appears to be their ultimate goal.

It is one thing to disagree with the policies embraced by others, but to advocate for the infliction of mental and physical pain on others who embrace a different ideology is offensive and should be outlawed. In a free society, we are entitled to have different ideas and beliefs. As long as we do not intrude on the rights and privileges of others, contrary ideas and actions should be allowed and protected.

It is time to stop being mean and spiteful. Embracing the golden rule of treating others as you would want to be treated would be a good start. Adding the silver rule of not doing harm to others would be ideal.

John Tamashiro

Pearl City

Appreciate those who are different from us

Audacity: a willingness to take bold risks. Hope: a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. President Barack Obama didnt get done as many of the things he had hoped, in large part due to an uncooperative Congress. He accomplished as much as he was able, often on his own.

Racism has been around for a long time. One well-meaning president cant end it by himself. It requires the cooperation of many. Being a person of color who has been able to advance himself doesnt prevent him from desiring better circumstances for others.

I am white but I too have hope that someday (before too long) more people will learn to live with and appreciate those who are different.

Kathie Young

Hawaii Kai

Incarcerated people should get vaccine

Health-care providers, front-line workers, and high-risk populations should be immunized during the first phase of COVID-19 vaccine distribution. Incarcerated people are high risk and also should be among the first immunized.

The American Medical Association supports incarcerated people being prioritized for COVID-19 vaccinations. The AMA also urges the compassionate release of incarcerated people who are older and suffer serious medical problems.

People re-entering the community from incarceration need housing for release, which is currently lacking. Instead of spending millions of dollars on planning, and millions more on new jail/prison construction, our state needs to work on developing housing for formerly incarcerated people. Re-entry support, including housing, helps prevent repeat crime, keeps our community safer and is far less costly than incarceration.

Lorenn Walker

Professor of practice, Public Policy Center, University of Hawaii

Quarantine policies defy common sense

I am planning to travel off-island and so am looking closely at COVID-19 travel restrictions.

To avoid quarantine when I return, I must be tested within 72 hours of arrival with negative results. It takes 48-72 hours to get results, so I need to get tested three days ahead. Then Im free to go anywhere over the next three days before leaving and potentially get infected before I arrive back in Hawaii to proudly display my COVID-free pass and no quarantine.

My sister recently returned from a mainland trip, didnt get the pre-test, has tested negative since arrival but must stay in quarantine. So it seems the current policy leaves a huge gap for the virus to walk through while restricting more sensible actions to keep ourselves and others safe.

Who is making these policies? Does no one proofread them to see if they really accomplish their intended purpose?

Ken Robertson

Kailua

Maybe there is a God with a lesson to share

I am not an atheist. But Im also not a member of any religion.

At 70 years old, I still wonder if there is an unknown entity responsible for life on this Earth. As for the many established religions in the world, why do they hold directly conflicting philosophies and beliefs?

Now with the constant turmoil of the past couple of years, Ive been wondering if this chaos will continue. Shouldnt this madness stop for the good of humanity?

Its as if a decision was made to force a change in leaders of some nations, thereby providing a lesson for humanity to stop the divisiveness, blatant lies and extreme selfishness. So is the current world pandemic, with an unimaginable cost of human lives, a path to that change? Will new leadership result in civil societies?

Rodney Sato

Mililani

Australian state shows how to cut infection rate

Your headline, State on right track with 76 new infections (Star-Advertiser, Nov. 29), should have been accompanied by an article pointing out that the state of Victoria, once Australias center of COVID-19 infections, has now passed 30 days with zero infections because its government was concerned with public health rather than the political advantages to awarding exemptions and waivers in a pandemic.

Rico Leffanta

Kakaako

EXPRESS YOURSELF

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>> Write us: We welcome letters up to 150 words, and guest columns of 500-600 words. We reserve the right to edit for clarity and length. Include your name, address and daytime phone number.

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COMFORT AND JOY

2020 has been a whopper of a year: the COVID-19 pandemic, economic hurt, politics and elections. But surely there is much to appreciate, much that brings joy.

In the spirit of the season, we are now accepting letters (150 words max) and essays (500-600 words) with uplifting messages to share during this holiday season.

Email to letters@staradvertiser.com; or send to 500 Ala Moana Blvd. #7-210, Honolulu 96813, c/o Letters.

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Letters: Cancel-culture behavior needs to be eliminated; Incarcerated people should get vaccine; Maybe there is a God with a lesson to share -...

Did Einstein Say He Believed in the Pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza? – Snopes.com

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Throughout the course of his life, physicist Albert Einstein, the publisher of the theory of relativity, affirmed his belief in pantheism, a theological doctrine based on the work of 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza.

When asked by the prominent American Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein if Einstein believed in God in a telegram dated April 25, 1929, he responded that he followed a different doctrine.

I believe in Spinozas God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind, Einstein replied.

Generally speaking, pantheism identifies God with the universe or regards the universe as a manifestation of God. The worship is founded on the belief that everything is one and, in essence, admits and tolerates all gods.

Just like the cells in our bodies, working together as a whole, everything is part of one infinite being. This eternal, single existence is The Living Universe, states the Living Universe Church, which abides by the doctrine of pantheism, on its official website.

Einsteins association with Spinoza and the pantheism went viral in December 2018 when the famed auction house Christies listed The God Letter as open for bidding on Dec. 4 and subsequently sold it for nearly $2.9 million. The celebrated letter was addressed to German Jewish philosopher Eric Gutkind in response to his third book, Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt, which is described by the auction house as having presented the Bible as a call to arms and argued that Judaism and Israel as incorruptible.

In the letter, written in 1954 shortly before Einsteins death the following year, the physicist outlined his thoughts on religion, his Jewish identity, and his own search for meaning in life, according to the auction page. In an abridged version of the letter, Einstein referenced Spinoza but did not refer to pantheism by name. He wrote:

The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilized interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me, the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise, I cannot see anything chosen about them.

In general, I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew the privilege of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision, probably as the first one. And the animistic interpretations of the religions of nature are in principle not annulled by monopolization. With such walls, we can only attain a certain self-deception, but our moral efforts are not furthered by them. On the contrary.

Einstein was known to contemplate the many facets of religion and the concept of God, sometimes as critically as he did science. In a commentary published on Nov. 9, 1940, in the journal Natureaptly titled Science and Religion, the man of Jewish descent posited that he could not easily define the concept of religion, but noted fundamental similarities and differences between it and science.

If one conceives of religion and science according to these definitions, then a conflict between them appears impossible. For science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be, and outside its domain value judgments of all kinds remain necessary, he wrote.

Religion, on the other hand, deals only with evaluations of human thought and action; it cannot justifiably speak of facts and relationships between facts.

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Did Einstein Say He Believed in the Pantheistic God of Baruch Spinoza? - Snopes.com

Censorship or conspiracy theory? Trump supporters say Facebook and Twitter censor them but conservatives still rule social media – USA TODAY

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President-elect Joe Biden says 'it's an embarrassment' that President Donald Trump is still refusing to concede the presidential race. USA TODAY

A former Democrat-turned-Trump supporter from Knightstown, Indiana, Gayla Baer-Taylor's blood pressure rose every time Facebook and Twitter fact-checked and restricted claims by President Donald Trump and other Republicans that the November election was rigged.

A couple weeks ago, Facebook put a notice referring users to official election results on one of her posts:"I'm going to need a MUCH bigger swear jar before President Trump completes his second term."

When did we get so stupid that we need social media to tell us what to think? she told USA TODAY.

A recent poll shows that majorities in both parties think political censorship is likely occurring on social media, but that belief is most prevalent on the political right. And,with the country in the throes of an unparalleled attempt by a sitting president to overturn the election and hold onto the White House, its growing.

Researchers say theyve found no evidence to support GOP grievances thatthe nations leading social media companies squelchconservative voices.

I know of no academic research that concludes there is a systemic bias liberal or conservative in either the content moderation policies or in the prioritization of content by algorithms by major social media platforms," said Steven Johnson, an information technology professor at the University of Virginia McIntire School of Commerce.

"If anything, Johnson said, there is evidence that content from highly conservative news sites is favored by Facebook algorithms.

Georgia Senate runoffs:With Senate on the line, Georgia activists are sliding into voters' DMs before election

Twitter to transfer @POTUS handle: Twitter to automatically transfer @POTUS handle from Trump to Biden on Inauguration Day

An analysis of millions of social media posts by Politico and the nonpartisan think tank Institute for Strategic Dialogue found that right-wing social media influencers, media outlets and other GOP supporters drove the online conversation about the Black Lives Matter movement and voter fraud, two of the most heated election issues.

According to research Johnson conducted with his University of Virginia colleagues Brent Kitchens and Peter Gray, typical conservative users, in months when they visited Facebook more than usual, read news that was about 30% more conservative than the online news they would typically read.Moreover, we found that Facebook usage is five times more polarizing for conservatives than for liberals, he said.

Facebook, Johnsonsaid, prioritizes content that is more engaging which is often more partisan content.

Facebook told Politico in September that right-wing personalities have a distinct advantage on the platform, not because thealgorithms favor conservatives, but because they connect with people on a visceral level.

Right-wing populism is always more engaging," a Facebook executive told Politico, when asked why Dan Bongino and Ben Shapiro drive such high engagement. The executive said the content speaks to "an incredibly strong, primitive emotion" by touching on such topics as "nation, protection, the other, anger, fear."

A supporter of President Trump yells at counterprotesters across the street during a rally to protest the election results outside the Georgia State Capitol on Nov. 14. President-elect Joe Biden has been declared the winner in Georgia, becoming the first Democratic nominee to win the state since 1992.(Photo: Elijah Nouvelage, Getty Images)

Researchers agree that algorithms dont have a political affiliation or party. Instead, algorithmsfavor content that elicits strong reactions from users, keeping them hooked so Facebook and Twitter can sell more advertising revenue.

A former Facebook employee, Adam Conner, now vice president of tech policy at the liberal Center for American Progress Action, told Politico that its absurd for Facebook to say this is just something thats playing out in a neutral way.

Facebook is not a mirror, he said. The news-feed algorithm is an accelerant.

The perception that social media is biasedhas been around for a long time but intensified in recent years asthe president made social media abuses a major plank of his administration and reelection campaign.

Nine in 10 Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party say its at least somewhat likely that social media platforms censor political viewpoints they find objectionable, up slightly from 85% in 2018, according to an August report from the Pew Research Center.

With 89 million followers on Twitter and nearly 35 million on Facebook, Trump wields one of social medias largest megaphoneswhich will help him shape the national conversation long after he leaves office.

Every year, countless Americans are banned, blacklisted, and silenced through arbitrary or malicious enforcement of ever-shifting rules, Trump said during a September appearance with Attorney General William Barr.

Francesca Tripodi, an assistant professor in the University of North Carolinas School of Information and Library Science, says the bias accusations grew out of similar allegations against the mainstream media.

Part of it definitely stems from a larger distrust in institutions and access to information, said Tripodi, a senior faculty researcher with UNCs Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life. Part of it is linked to the overall opaqueness of the platforms.

Underlying it all is growing discomfort with a small cabal of megacompanies controlling the nations online conversation.

Some right-wing personalities including radio host Mark Levin and Fox News host Sean Hannity have joinedsocial media alternatives like Parler where pro-Trump conspiracy theories and unfounded allegations of voter fraud trend unfettered.

I think there is definitely merit behind this question: Do we really want such a small number of corporations controlling such a wide swath of how we access information? Tripodisaid.

Fueling the current outrage are high-profile cases of platforms flagging content or banning accounts, Johnson said.

Trump has consistently pushed the boundaries of what is allowed by these platforms things that would cause other accounts to be banned have been allowed due to a different policy for national leaders, Johnsonsaid. Once the social media platforms started adding labels on misleading and false content from high-profile users like Trump, the complaints of bias have grown even louder.

Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, confronted Twitter's Jack Dorsey in a recent Senate hearing over Facebook and Twitter throttlingthe spread of a New York Post article which made uncorroborated claims about Hunter Bidens business dealings.

Who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear? Cruzsaid.

Researchers say many groups across the political spectrum feel their opinions and perspectives are under siege fromsocial media, but its difficult to make the casethat the platforms are biased against any group since they disclose so little about how they decide what content is allowed and what is not.

Dorsey and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg say their platforms strike a balance between promoting free expression and removing hate, abuse and misinformation fromtheir platforms. Theyacknowledge making some enforcement errors but say their policies are applied fairly to everyone.

Baer-Taylor, whose Twitter bio jokes she'sPresident Elect Gayla, doesn't buy it.In her MAGA-infusedworld, social media has always been unfair to conservatives. I see it and experience it a lot, she said.

According to Baer-Taylor, increased censorship of right-wing voices during the COVID-19 pandemic and the presidential election helped hijack the vote to tip the election to Joe Biden.

Also frustrated is Krishnan Seshasayee, 47, an IT architect and Trump supporter from Illinois who leans Republican but worked on Obamas campaign in 2008 and donated to Tulsi Gabbard's campaign this election cycle.

Seshasayee believes social media should be treated as a tool that gives people a voice, like a mic or a pen.

Would a megaphone suppress the speech of the speaker? Would a pen suppress the thought flow of a writer? he said. It will best serve the people and themselves when they just remain as a platform to express opinions without judging the content of posts.

Facebook and Twitter have held meetings with high-profile conservatives to fend off persistent accusations of liberal bias, fueling speculationthat Dorsey and Zuckerberg were trying to appease Trump and keep out of his crosshairs.

Twitters Dorsey told lawmakers in Novemberthat the platforms should be more open with users about how content moderation decisions are made and should offer a straightforward way to appeal moderation decisions. Hed also like to see users be able to opt out of algorithms that determine what content they see on the platform.

But conservative author Denise McAllister says greater transparency wont help.

The platforms are not capable of consistently or fairly moderating content, so the only way to restore public trust is to get out of the content moderation business except in the case of violent threats or other illegal activities, even during election cycles when partisan propaganda and misinformation spreads wildly, she argues.

This is a platform, right? You don't need to act like mama Twitter or mama Facebook. Just let people say what they are going to say, whether its true, false, whatever. You have to just trust the people as individuals and not to try to impose power because you are going to do it inconsistently, said McAllister, author of What Men Want to Say to Women (But Cant) and "Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump.

Knock off your good intentions and stop trying to do something you are not going to be able to accomplish and just deal with the fact that liberty is messy, free speech is going to offend everybody," she said. "One way or another, everyone needs to put their big girl panties on and their big boy panties on and just deal with it and stop trying to protect everyones feelings.

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Censorship or conspiracy theory? Trump supporters say Facebook and Twitter censor them but conservatives still rule social media - USA TODAY

OIF Seeks Information on 2020 Censorship Incidents | News and Press Center – ala.org

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, libraries and schools continue to face censorship attempts. The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom is seeking information on any ban or request to remove library or school materials, displays, and programs that happened in 2020.

OIF urges library workers and educators to report all censorship incidents, even if they dont need assistance or support to address the challenge. Those with information about bans and challenges that happened anytime this year are encouraged to submit OIFs online reporting form by December 31, 2020. All personal and institutional information submitted is kept confidential.

The information gathered from these reports helps OIF identify censorship trends, support library workers and compile the Top 10 Most Challenged Books list, published in April during National Library Week. OIF collects information on attempts to remove books, DVDs, online resources and displays. The office also documents attempts to cancel programs and disinvite speakers.

Recently, the office has noticed a rise in attempts to censor books that address racism and police brutality. LGBTQIA+ books and programs also continue to be targeted with censorship.

Reporting challenges not only provides essential data that allows OIF to identify and track censorship trends, said OIF Director Deborah Caldwell-Stone, it also helps OIF to improve support for the library workers and educators who are protecting users' right to access diverse books, displays, and programming.

Anyone can contact OIF throughout the year when they face a challenge, ban, or access or privacy issue. Staff provide various forms of support, including writing a letter, coaching on media relations and public statements, reviewing policies and researching laws and regulations.

About the Office for Intellectual Freedom

The American Library Associations Office for Intellectual Freedom is charged with implementing ALA policies concerning the concept of intellectual freedom as embodied in the Library Bill of Rights, the associations basic policy on free access to libraries and library materials. Established in 1967, the office provides guidance, informationand resources on a range of intellectual freedom subjects related to libraries and provides confidential support to anyone undergoing a material or service challenge.

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OIF Seeks Information on 2020 Censorship Incidents | News and Press Center - ala.org

Tissue chips and organoids: SpaceX is launching lots of science to space for NASA on Sunday – Space.com

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. The next SpaceX resupply launch to the International Space Station, scheduled for Sunday (Dec. 6), will carry a host of science gear to the astronauts living and working on the orbiting laboratory.

The robotic flight, called CRS-21, marks the 21st mission for SpaceX under its commercial cargo resupply services contract with NASA. Launch is scheduled for 11:17 a.m. EST (1617 GMT) on Sunday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and you can watch the action live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA. You can also watch directly via NASA TV or SpaceX.

SpaceX initially aimed to launch the CRS-21 cargo mission for NASA on Saturday (Dec. 5), but foul weather prompted a delay. "Due to poor weather in the recovery area for todays attempt, now targeting Sunday, December 6 at 11:17 a.m. EST for launch of CRS-21," SpaceX wrote in an update early Saturday morning. SpaceX plans to recover the mission's Falcon 9 booster for later reuse.

The upgraded Dragon cargo capsule that will launch atop a veteran SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is filled with 6,400 lbs. (2,903 kilograms) of supplies and science investigations. The research gear will support a variety of experiments in the life sciences, regenerative medicine and many other fields.

Related: How SpaceX's Dragon space capsule works (infographic)

Saturday's flight will mark the first time SpaceXs upgraded Dragon spacecraft will carry cargo. (Up until now, the advanced Dragon variant has solely carried astronauts.) The vehicle is a modified version of the Crew Dragon spacecraft that lacks the systems necessary for human missions, such as seats, cockpit controls and a life-support system, as well as the SuperDraco thrusters that provide a special emergency escape system that's only used if a problem occurs during launch.

This new Dragon allows more science to ride skyward. Costello explained that the interior of Dragon can now support more powered payloads, which is a huge benefit for the life sciences as it allows for more cold storage and other types of investigations. It also allows for the crew to store some of the powered payloads onboard Dragon while the craft is on orbit.

Several of the payloads on Dragon feature a unique piece of hardware called a tissue chip. Human cells and tissue grow on the chip scaffold, creating a 3D structure in microgravity that researchers can observe to learn more about how fundamental processes work in space, including aging and bone and muscle loss.

One such investigation, run by the University of Florida, will study how muscles atrophy in space. Sixteen samples of skeletal muscle will be sent to the space station, where the bundles of muscle tissue will be observed in microgravity. Half of the muscle samples were donated by younger, active individuals while the other half are from older, more sedentary volunteers.

Half of the samples in each group will be subjected to electric stimuli to see how the muscles contract in the absence of gravity. Researchers will use this experiment as a starting point for future research that will eventually test therapies to see if muscle degradation can be prevented.

Another payload will look at brain organoids created using stem cell technology. This investigation seeks to understand how microgravity affects the survival and function of brain cells, which could lead to advances in treatments for autism and Alzheimers disease, researchers said.

"Space travel mimics the effects of aging we see on Earth, only in a much shorter time span, making it easier to examine the processes that are taking place," Bill McLamb, chief scientist at Kentucky-based company Space Tango, told Space.com. "Its hard to study human brains in space, which is why these types of experiments are so beneficial."

The investigation will take stem cells and convert them into brain cells that will form three-dimensional structures called brain organoids. Stored in a special container called a well, these types of mini organs are able to mimic both the cellular variety and the function of the developing human brain.

This type of research could help NASA and its partners prepare for crewed missions to distant destinations such as Mars, which will expose astronauts to the rigors of space for long stretches, and also help combat degenerative brain disease here on Earth, researchers said.

A team of researchers from Stanford University will be looking at how engineered heart tissue behaves in microgravity. The Cardinal Heart investigation will send tissue samples that consist of cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells and cardiac fibroblasts to study how changes in gravity affect the heart at the cellular level.

Researchers know that microgravity causes changes in the workload and shape of the human heart, but it's still unknown if these changes could become permanent if a person lived for long periods of time in space.

The project's tissue bundles will be affixed to tissue chips. The experiment's results could help identify new treatments and support development of screening measures to predict cardiovascular risk prior to spaceflight, team members said. Follow-on investigations will include therapies that could treat heart disease.

The HemoCue investigation will look at how white blood cells react in space. Here on Earth, doctors use the total number of white blood cells, as well as the various types observed, to diagnose illness. HemoCue will debut a new type of technology that will allow users to do white blood cell counts on orbit.

The goal is to test how well the device works in microgravity. If effective, it could be a valuable tool in an astronauts medical kit, researchers said.

Another payload called Micro-14 looks at how yeast, in particular Candida albicans, responds to the space environment. C. albicans is an opportunistic pathogen, capable of causing severe and even life-threatening illness in immunocompromised hosts. Micro-14 will evaluate how the yeast responds to microgravity, looking for changes at the cellular and molecular levels.

Since astronauts can become immunocompromised during spaceflight, researchers are especially interested in how best to predict the health risks from this organism. Previous research has shown that many microbes exhibit increased virulence in a microgravity environment, but more research is needed on this particular pathogen.

NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California is spearheading a project that will take swab samples from various locations within the station to look at the relationship between bacteria and their metabolites (chemicals produced by bacterial growth). The project will help researchers better understand the distribution of microbes and metabolites within closed environments and how this distribution affects human health. The research could aid administrators of hospitals and nursing homes, where residents are often immunocompromised.

Related: SpaceX rocket launches for record 7th time, nails landing at sea

Sunday's launch marks the 101st flight overall for SpaceXs workhorse two-stage Falcon 9 rocket. The liftoff is expected to feature a veteran Falcon 9 first stage, designated B1058, that already has three flights under its belt. This frequent flyer previously launched SpaceX's Demo-2 mission, which sent two NASA astronauts to the space station this past summer, well as a communications satellite for the South Korean military and a batch of the companys own Starlink satellites.

Flying previously flown boosters has become commonplace for SpaceX, as the company continues to prove the Falcon 9's reliability. In fact, CRS-21 marks the 24th flight of 2020 for SpaceX, with the majority of those missions having flown on veteran rockets rather than brand-new ones.

To date, SpaceX has successfully landed its first-stage boosters 67 times. Now that the company has two fully operational drone-ship landing platforms "Of Course I Still Love You" and "Just Read the Instructions" in Florida, its able to launch (and land) more rockets. "Of Course I Still Love You" is already at the recovery zone waiting for its turn to catch B1058 when it returns to Earth shortly after liftoff.

Weather was a concern for SpaceX going into the weekend. Forecasts predicted iffy weather for a Saturday launch attempt, with the 45th Weather Squadron predicting a 50% chance of favorable conditions for liftoff. The primary concerns were thick clouds and cumulus clouds. The backup attempt on Sunday looks much better, with the forecast improving to 70% favorable on that day.

If all goes as planned, the Dragon will arrive at the station and dock at the Harmony modules space-facing port just over 24 hours after it blasts off.

Editor's note: This story was updated at 8:22 a.m. EST to include SpaceX's launch delay to Sunday, Dec. 6, due to bad weather.

Follow Amy Thompson on Twitter @astrogingersnap. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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The Voyagers Found a Small Surprise in Interstellar Space – The Atlantic

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Read: The Voyager mission made the solar system a real place

More than 40 years ago, Gurnett designed and built one of the instruments on the Voyager mission that can sense such things. Voyager 1 crossed into interstellar space in 2012, and Voyager 2 followed in 2018. But the spacecraft actually havent left the solar system, despite many headlines over the years claiming that they have. This might seem, at first glance, a little contradictoryhow can something exist in the space between stars and within the solar system at the same time? Arent those two different things?

From our perspective, interstellar space begins when sun particles cant go any farther. The sun releases a steady current of high-energy particles in all directions, all the time, and this solar wind encompasses the planets, their moons, and other celestial bodies in a protective bubble called the heliosphere. Scientists had predicted that the breeze would stop where it met the cold particles of the interstellar medium, which is sprinkled with material left behind by supernovas, the deaths of other stars. But they didnt know exactly where this sphere of the suns influence stopped until 2012, when Voyager 1 detected the beginning of a different cosmic environment. Its not impossible, but its very difficult for solar plasmas to cross that boundary, Bill Kurth, a research scientist at the University of Iowa and Gurnetts co-author on the new findings, told me.

Read: Its easier to leave the solar system than to reach the sun

This is where the Voyagers are, beyond the heliosphere. Kurth once published a commentary in a science journal that said leaving the heliosphere was more or less the same as leaving the solar system. I was soundly criticized, he said, laughing. Because while the solar wind blows quite far120 astronomical units, with a single unit equal to the distance between the Earth and the sunour stars influence extends even deeper. Not through warmth, but through gravity.

The suns gravity can keep objects in its orbit far beyond where the heliosphere ends. As the Voyagers continue on their journey, eventually they will enter the Oort cloud, a region of icy objects past Pluto. Because those objects are gravitationally bound to the sun, they still count as ours. This is where the solar system truly endspast the far edge of the Oort cloud, which is somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 astronomical units away. Even though Voyager 1s out and beyond 150 astronomical units, its got a long, long ways to go before it gets beyond the Oort cloud, Kurth says. It will be another few hundred years before the Voyagers reach this region, and tens of thousands more before they pass through to the other side.

Read: When will the Voyagers stop calling home?

When the Voyagers launched in 1977, the notion of doing science so far from our own planet, out in interstellar space, was a distant thought. NASA was focused on swinging by our neighboring planets and moons to collect valuable data and beautiful pictures. After the grand tour, the spacecraft just kept going. In the years since, mission managers at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory have turned off various components on the two spacecraft, from science instruments to heaters, rationing every watt of power to keep the machines going. Someday, engineers may be forced to turn off one of the elements that help the spacecraft communicate with Earth, a process that takes about 20 hours each way. Its a risky move. If it does work, then we gain two more watts, Suzanne Dodd, the Voyager project manager, told me last year. If it doesnt, then we lose the mission."

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NASA Launched a Rocket 54 Years Ago. Has It Finally Come Home? – The New York Times

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Dec. 2: This article has been updated with information about additional observations completed by astronomers after it was published.

It was after midnight on Sept. 19 and Paul Chodas, the manager of the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., was working late, studying an object called 2020 SO that other astronomers had spotted in the night skies just the day before. Something about its orbit was peculiar.

The computer program he was working with showed that 2020 SO followed a nearly circular path just slightly outside our planets orbit. And the plane of the objects orbit was just barely tilted relative to Earths.

I was suspicious immediately, he said.

Out of curiosity, Dr. Chodas ran his simulation in reverse. With time dialing backward, he watched 2020 SO pass very near Earth in September 1966. Close enough that it could have originated from the Earth, he said.

At 1:12 a.m., Dr. Chodas acted on his hunch, and sent an email to fellow astronomers with a subject line of 2020 SO = Surveyor 2 Centaur r/b? In the months that followed, amateur skywatchers and professional astronomers alike have been tracking this specter with their telescopes, following what many now believe is a rocket booster that flew toward the moon more than 50 years ago during a failed NASA mission.

On Tuesday, the object, now temporarily orbiting Earth, made its closest pass. AScientists around the world took advantage of that alignment, and the new observations have revealed conclusive evidence that the dot on their monitors really is a ghost of the Cold War moon race.

Hopes were high when Surveyor 2 lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. (then known as Cape Kennedy), on Sept. 20, 1966. NASA designed the roughly one-ton lunar lander to collect images of the moon in preparation for the Apollo missions. It was following close on the heels of its successful predecessor, Surveyor 1, launched just a few months earlier, which had landed on the moon and returned over 11,000 images.

Surveyor 1 performed flawlessly, said Mike Dinn, then the deputy station director of Australias Tidbinbilla Tracking Station, where giant radio antennas communicated with the spacecraft during its journey. We fully expected Surveyor 2 to be a complete success.

But it wasnt the spacecraft crashed into the moon. Its death knell came roughly 16 hours after launch, when one of the three small engines attached to the spacecrafts legs failed to fire. The imbalanced thrust sent Surveyor 2 into a spin, and after 38 unsuccessful attempts to revive the engine it became clear that the mission could not be salvaged. Mr. Dinn and his colleagues at Tidbinbilla were the last people to communicate with the spacecraft.

(Five more Surveyor missions followed, and four were successful before NASA switched its focus to human exploration of the moon.)

Fast-forward 54 years. On Sept. 17, one of the Pan-STARRS telescopes near the summit of Haleakala on Maui, which search for asteroids and other objects that may pose a risk to Earth, recorded something moving across the sky. It traced out a small arc, which caught the attention of astronomers reviewing the data the next morning.

Whenever you see an object that moves in a slightly curved path in the sky, it has to be close, said Richard Wainscoat, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and a Pan-STARRS team member.

Dr. Wainscoat and his colleagues reported their discovery to the Minor Planet Center, a clearinghouse for observations of asteroids, comets and other small bodies. On Sept. 18, the Minor Planet Center issued an announcement about the new object, naming it 2020 SO.

Within a few hours, Dr. Chodas was studying the object, and eventually poring over records of space launches in 1966 that aligned with the orbital path his computer program had mapped out. He quickly found Surveyor 2.

Although the robotic spacecraft was destroyed when it hit the moon, the second stage of the Atlas-Centaur rocket that carried it to space had been jettisoned a few minutes after launch. After flying by the moon, the roughly 25-foot-long cylindrical booster had disappeared into space.

In the email he sent to colleagues, Dr. Chodas explained his conclusion that 2020 SO was very likely the Centaur rocket booster from Surveyor 2.

Since September, scientists around the world have been investigating 2020 SO. Vishnu Reddy, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizonas Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, and Adam Battle, a graduate student there, compared observations of 2020 SO with a known Centaur rocket booster orbiting just a few hundred miles above Earth.

The optical colors matched, Dr. Reddy said, but sealing the deal would require infrared observations of 2020 SO. At those wavelengths, its a slam dunk to compare objects compositions.

Theres very little ambiguity in the infrared, Dr. Reddy said.

The orbit of 2020 SO is also ever so slightly anomalous, deviating from what is expected based on gravity alone, said Davide Farnocchia, an asteroid dynamicist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. That may shed light on its identity.

The cause of that irregularity is most likely the pressure exerted by solar radiation. Particles of sunlight photons have energy, and they exert a force when they collide with something, Dr. Farnocchia said. They cause a gentle push away from the sun.

The fact that 2020 SO is being shoved around by sunlight suggests that its something relatively large and low mass, like an empty rocket booster, as opposed to something small and massive, like a rocky asteroid.

Dr. Farnocchia compared the phenomenon with the wind.

If you have an empty soda can, youre going to move it much farther, he said. If you have a solid rock, its much harder to push it away.

In the last few weeks, scientists have been gearing up for a much closer look at 2020 SO. It was captured by Earths gravity in early November, and it made its closest approach to our planet on Tuesday. At that point, 2020 SO was about 27,400 miles away, or roughly one-tenth of the distance to the moon.

Dr. Reddy and his colleagues were waiting. Using the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on the island of Hawaii, they captured an infrared spectrum of 2020 SO and compared it with the other Centaur rocket body they had already observed. Everything matched.

It was the ultimate apples to apples comparison, Dr. Reddy said.

And confirming its identity felt exciting, he added: Its something different. We look at rocks all the time.

In a few months, 2020 SO will escape Earths gravity and once again start to orbit the sun. But its not gone forever, Dr. Chodas said.

In 2036, its coming back.

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NASA Launched a Rocket 54 Years Ago. Has It Finally Come Home? - The New York Times

A piece of vintage NASA space junk from a 1966 moon mission just whizzed by Earth – Space.com

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A misunderstood piece of space junk whizzed by Earth Tuesday (Dec. 1), but don't worry, it's just part of an old moon mission's rocket.

The object, nicknamed 2020 SO, was once thought to be an asteroid. But after its (re)discovery by the PAN-STARRS survey telescope, astronomers realized the mystery object's orbit didn't make sense for a rocky or icy world.

"We followed it quite a bit for the very first few days, once there was a possibility for it to be natural," Marco Michelli, an astronomer at the European Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre, said in a statement.

But after a couple of weeks measuring its position, Michelli and his team realized the object had to be artificial. It was showing a lot of changes in its orbit due to the ongoing pressure of the solar wind, which sends particles streaming across the solar system. "It was too light to have formed naturally."

Astronomers eventually concluded the orbit matched the upper stage of the rocket for NASA's failed Surveyor 2 lander that was supposed to land on the moon in 1966. However, the mission failed after the rocket overshot the moon, and the rocket drifted into orbit around the sun.

Related: The strange story of 2020 SO: How an asteroid turned into rocket junk and the NASA scientist who figured it out

So why did the rocket show up now? The theory is the rocket was temporarily caught in Earth's gravity and will soon fly away from our planet again.

In the ongoing search for near-Earth asteroids, the rocket shows a bit of a blind spot in the zones where telescope surveys typically search, another ESA official added.

"In some ways it has been and is hiding in the boundary between near-Earth object and space debris searches, a search region where there are very few objects distributed over a large volume of space" Tim Flohrer, head of ESA's space debris office, said in the same statement.

"The life of this rocket part so far has similarities to an object called WT1190F, a small temporary satellite of Earth thought to be debris from the 1998 Lunar Prospector mission, that impacted in 2015. It is still to be assessed if this newly rediscovered object could return and re-enter Earths atmosphere one day."

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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A piece of vintage NASA space junk from a 1966 moon mission just whizzed by Earth - Space.com