Monthly Archives: July 2021

Every year, nearly half of all food produced in the U.S. ends up lost or wasted, even as millions of Americans go hungry. Just imagine the vast amounts of land, water, energy and human labor squandered, all to grow, process, transport, and dispose of food no one eats. And from a climate perspective, Americas food waste has a massive carbon footprint. Its not just a matter of emissions generated by the agricultural system that produces the food, its also emissions generated by the landfills and incinerators where that food ends up.

Now imagine a more resilient, circular system that ensures food ends up on plates instead of garbage cans, or compost piles instead of trash heaps, while also helping to reverse nature loss, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create more jobs. No single policy or program will make this vision a reality, but Congress has an opportunity to take a big step in the right direction by passing the Zero Food Waste Act.

The Zero Food Waste Act, introduced last week by Sen. Cory BookerCory BookerSenate Democrats press administration on human rights abuses in Philippines Juan Williams: Biden's child tax credit is a game-changer Congress can make progress on fighting emissions with Zero Food Waste Act MORE (D-N.J.) and Reps. Julia BrownleyJulia Andrews BrownleyCongress can make progress on fighting emissions with Zero Food Waste Act House passes veterans contraception, LGBTQ business bills previously blocked by GOP Overnight Defense: Tucker Carlson comments cause military rage | Capitol guard duty questioned | Vet who served in Marine One unit charged in insurrection MORE (D-Calif.), Ann McLane Kuster (D-N.H.) and Chellie PingreeRochelle (Chellie) PingreeCongress can make progress on fighting emissions with Zero Food Waste Act House Democrats include immigration priorities as they forward DHS funding bill Shakespeare gets a congressional hearing in this year's 'Will on the Hill' MORE (D-Maine), would establish an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program to finance efforts by state, local and Native nations to better measure and understand their food waste, plan for more a circular economy, and invest in the infrastructure, policies, and programs needed to reduce waste and keep food out of landfills.

The program would offer three types of grants. Planning grants could help determine what kind of food waste mitigation strategies would be most impactful for individual communities or locations. Reduction grants could finance a wide array of state and local efforts, including the prevention of food waste, reusing waste as feedstock for compost and other non-food products, redirecting surplus food to those who need it most, upcycling waste into new food using ingredients that would otherwise end up in landfills, and implementing restrictions on food waste going to landfill or incineration. And measurement grants could enable states and communities to better calculate their quantities of food waste, digging into its main sources and where its winding up because measuring and monitoring is critical to the success of any food waste reduction effort.

The program would prioritize low-income communities and communities of color, which we know are hardest hit by food insecurity and disproportionately located near landfills and incinerators. Whats more, many of these same communities bear the brunt of extreme weather events and other climate impacts and we know that by reducing our food waste we are also reducing the emissions that are driving climate disruption.

In terms of sheer weight, food waste is the largest single unit of refuse in our landfills, where it sits, rots, and releases methane gas a type of greenhouse gas even more harmful than carbon dioxide.

In 2015, the U.S. set a national goal of cutting food loss and waste in half by 2030. Six years later, the trendlines are not moving in the right direction. Landfills are now one of the leading sources of methane emissions in the nation. All told, Americas food waste generates more greenhouse gas emissions than the nations entire aviation industry.

That is why its so important for us to make food waste reduction a central pillar of our national climate strategy. If we succeed in reducing food waste by 50 percent by 2030, we will prevent 75 million metric tons of GHG per year, roughly equivalent to 16 million cars driven per year.

Some state governments, local communities, and Native nations have taken initiative already. For example, the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment, comprised of government agencies across California, Washington, and Oregon, is already working with companies and various stakeholders in civil society to reduce food waste in their region by at least 50 percent by 2030 and to show measured year-over-year results. California also directs $4 million from its cap-and-trade program to food waste prevention projects, with funds from 2018 alone resulting in 103 million pounds of food kept out of landfills, 345 local jobs, and 86 million meals recovered.

But if the U.S. wants to proceed with the speed and scope needed to meaningfully cut food waste and achieve our environmental and social goals, were going to need federal support. Because turning a profit in waste management and related industries will remain difficult without incentives to recycle or reuse resources.

To that end, World Wildlife Fund urges Congress to pass the Zero Food Waste Act. The bill represents a common-sense investment in the future of our country and our planet that has local government, civil society, and private sector support. When we squander food at any level, we undermine public health, economic prosperity, and the natural systems upon which thousands of years of human progress have been built. This is an issue we can make rapid progress on through investment. We can and must do better.

Pete Pearson is global food loss and waste lead at World Wildlife Fund.

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Congress can make progress on fighting emissions with Zero Food Waste Act | TheHill - The Hill

The fight against ransomware is happening on many different fronts and while some ransomware gangs are making rather large piles of money, law enforcement and security researchers have had their successes, as well. The takedowns of some ransomware-adjacent botnets and arrests of some ransomware operators have forced criminals to adjust their tactics and techniques, which in turn has made life more difficult for the researchers and investigators who track them.

The most disruptive change that ransomware gangs have made recently is the shift away from vertical integration and to specialization and diversification. In the early days of the ransomware epidemic, the people who developed ransomware were usually the same one who gained access to victim networks and then deployed the ransomware. That model works pretty well for criminals who have a broad skill set, but for those who just want to make some easy money without actually learning how to do the thing that produces that money, its a little daunting. Enter the ransomware-as-a-service model, a model that divides the various tasks in the ransomware creation, infection, deployment, and payment ecosystem among people with the specific skills necessary to accomplish them. In this system, ransomware developers write the malware and them farm it out to affiliates who then deploy it and split any resultant profits with the developers.

RaaS is now the dominant model among ransomware gangs and it has proven to be extremely profitable for many of them. It has also had the effect of giving law enforcement fits.

Specialization has made investigation more difficult because you're not just looking at one criminal group, youre looking for several. It has made investigations more complex, said Marijn Schuurbiers, deputy head of the Dutch High Tech Crime Unit, during a panel discussion on ransomware Monday sponsored by the No More Ransom initiative.

The market has gotten more efficient. People specialize in coding one thing really good and leave the rest to other people.

Perhaps the most prominent example of RaaS is the Russia-based REvil group, which is responsible for some of the nastier and more notorious ransomware infections in recent memory. The most recent ugliness attributed to REvil is the mass infection of more than 1,500 companies that use the Kaseya VSA platform earlier this month, an event that led President Joe Biden to tell Russian President Vladimir Putin that the United States will take any necessary action to defend its people and its critical infrastructure in the face of this continuing challenge.

Soon after the Kaseya incident, the REvil operation essentially dropped offline. But there are plenty of other RaaS operations still going strong and making considerable amounts of money.

The groups that are still operating, they did separate duties very well. They all use what works best, like exploit kits, phishing campaigns. Everybodys doing the thing theyre very good at, said Catalin Cosoi, senior security strategist at BitDefender.

Its unfortunately a very successful criminal business model. I dont think well see this disappear in the near future."

Disrupting RaaS operations has proven to be challenging, thanks to their decentralized nature and the ability these groups have shown to shift their infrastructure whenever necessary. One of the key methods that researchers have used to defeat RaaS operations is finding mistakes or weaknesses in the encryption schemes the ransomware employs. That works in some cases, but its by no means a panacea.

We constantly have to find the Achilles heel of criminals. They will improve and evolve but there will always be an Achilles heel. Is it the encryption algorithm? Thats always a great one but there will be others, said Schuurbiers.

On the defensive side, maintaining current, offsite backups of all key enterprise systems can be the key to recovering from a ransomware infection. But stopping the infection in the first place is just as important, and Schuurbiers said implementing two-factor authentication on high-value systems and services is quite valuable.

We have seen incidents where as soon as they hit 2FA, they drop it and go on to the next victim. They have so many potential victims, if they see 2FA they leave. Implement 2FA on your most important data, he said.

Ransomware began as a nuisance, evolved into an enterprise threat, and has now reached the point of being a national security concern. Given the amount of money to be made and volume of potential victims available, its unlikely that ransomware will drop off the map anytime soon.

Its unfortunately a very successful criminal business model. I dont think well see this disappear in the near future. It goes way beyond the financial damage. Theres a real risk to our lives, said Philipp Amann, head of strategy at Europols EC3 cybercrime unit.

More:

Officials Cite Progress on Ransomware, But Say Much More Work Ahead - Decipher

Jul. 26Columbia Metropolitan Airport is starting to look different.

Visitors have noticed the changes to the airport in Lexington County, about 7 miles outside of downtown Columbia.

Starting at the front of the building, visitors will see that the sliding doors at the entrance are being replaced, paving the way for a larger entrance area.

"The center vestibule will be expanded in height creating more of a grand entrance and helpful access point for any large format displays that we might have in the main lobby in the future," said marketing director Kim Jamieson.

In the coming weeks, the airport will begin installing a new in-line baggage system. Instead of passengers dropping their bags at the large screening machines near the ticket counters, the whole process will be moved behind the ticket desks. Flyers will no longer have to drop their checked luggage at the screens; instead, the agent will take passengers' checked luggage and all the screening will be done behind the scenes, Jamieson said. The new setup will also allow all the ticket desks to be replaced.

New escalators also have been installed throughout the terminal and the parking garage.

The latest expansion comes on top of a new parking guidance system the airport installed at the end of last year, which helps drivers find parking spaces with red or green light displays over each space in the garage. Flyers can also pre-book their parking and secure a space ahead of their flight.

The renovations are being funded locally, with the cost being recouped from operating revenue and charges. The Transportation Security Administration will partly fund the new baggage system, and the Federal Aviation Administration is partly funding the new ticket area.

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What's Going on at the Columbia Airport? Construction, Growth in Progress - AviationPros.com

With the closed beta for Amazons New World hitting insane heights of popularity, players are clamoring for the full release. That will involve waiting until August 31, but there are some concerns that we can deal with before them.

Many players are wondering if their beta progress will carry over to the finished game, and the answer is no. Just like when the players from the alpha moved into the beta, you cant bring it with you. No matter how far you make it into the beta, or what kind of wealth you may amass, Amazon will be performing a complete wipe of the game as they move into the full release.

This means that on launch day, every player will be starting on the same footing, although a lot of beta experience will certainly aid players when the game releases fully. All weapons, armor, wealth, and quest progress will be deleted, and you will also need to set up new characters.

This leads to players wondering about the best way to use the beta, and the answer there is by testing out as many classes, builds, and weapons as possible. Knowing which style you prefer playing when you start the full release will certainly allow you to build the perfect character right off the bat.

Read more from the original source:

Will New World beta progress carry over to the main game? - Gamepur

State officials announced Monday they have let a $46 million road project in St. Tammany Parish for the first segment of work voters approved 32 years ago.

The construction, in three phases, will erect a four-lane highway between La. 40/41 in Bush and Interstate 12.

The project was one of 16 voters approved in 1989 that were supposed to be paid for with a four-cent per gallon hike in the state gas tax.

Financial problems have kept this and one other project voters approved from being completed.

The list is known as TIMED, which stands for Transportation Infrastructure Model for Economic Development.

The winning bidder for the first phase is Brown Industrial Construction, LLC.

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It will consist of a four-lane highway between La. 40/41 and La. 435 in St. Tammany Parish.

The second section, set to be let later this year, and the third segment, set to be let in 2023, is fully funded.

"To finally move this long-awaited project is a momentous occasion for the people of St. Tammany Parish," Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a statement.

Shawn Wilson, secretary for the state Department of Transportation and Development, said the new corridor will provide better access between I-12 and the northeastern section of Louisiana and offer another hurricane evacuation route from New Orleans and the Northshore.

When the work is set to be done is unclear.

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More than three decades later, officials announce progress on road plan - The Advocate

Safe and effective vaccines offer hope for an end to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the possible emergence of vaccine-resistant SARS-CoV-2 variants, as well as novel coronaviruses, make finding treatments that work against all coronaviruses as important as ever. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Journal of Proteome Research have analyzed viral proteins across 27 coronavirus species and thousands of samples from COVID-19 patients, identifying highly conserved sequences that could make the best drug targets.

Drugs often bind inside pockets on proteins that hold the drug snugly, causing it to interfere with the proteins function. Scientists can identify potential drug-binding pockets from the 3D structures of viral proteins. Over time, however, viruses can mutate their protein pockets so that drugs no longer fit. But some drug-binding pockets are so essential to the proteins function that they cant be mutated, and these sequences are generally conserved over time in the same and related viruses. Matthieu Schapira and colleagues wanted to find the most highly conserved drug-binding pockets in viral proteins from COVID-19 patient samples and from other coronaviruses, revealing the most promising targets for pan-coronavirus drugs.

The team used a computer algorithm to identify drug-binding pockets in the 3D structures of 15 SARS-CoV-2 proteins. The researchers then found corresponding proteins in 27 coronavirus species and compared their sequences in the drug-binding pockets. The two most conserved druggable sites were a pocket overlapping the RNA binding site of the helicase nsp13, and a binding pocket containing the catalytic site of the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase nsp12. Both of these proteins are involved in viral RNA replication and transcription. The drug-binding pocket on nsp13 was also the most highly conserved across thousands of SARS-CoV-2 samples taken from COVID-19 patients, with not a single mutation.

The researchers say that novel antiviral drugs targeting the catalytic site of nsp12 are currently in phase II and III clinical trials for COVID-19, and that the RNA binding site of nsp13 is a previously underexplored target that should be a high priority for drug development.

Reference: Genetic Variability of the SARS-CoV-2 Pocketome by Setayesh Yazdani, Nicola De Maio, Yining Ding, Vijay Shahani, Nick Goldman and Matthieu Schapira, 28 June 2021, Journal of Proteome Research.DOI: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.1c00206

The authors acknowledge funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and the Structural Genomics Consortium.

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Ending the COVID-19 Pandemic: Progress Toward One Drug To Treat All Coronaviruses - SciTechDaily