1618: Fat Leonard

I’ve been a UPS driver in Alberta, Canada for 17 years. This is, without question, the slowest Christmas peak season I’ve ever worked. In fact, we've barely had a peak season at all.

For context, during peak, my centre (which is admittedly fairly small) typically delivers between 14-16,000 pieces per day. This year? 10,000 pieces on average. My route will typically accrue 275-300 individual stops per day. This year? 160-170. I’ve only cracked 200 stops a single time, on the Tuesday following Black Friday. I cannot express how unprecedented these numbers are.

What’s interesting is this volume seemingly flies in the face of corporate projections. Each October we recruit an army of on-car helpers and a lesser number of temporary drivers, who handle excess volume delivering out of rental vans. The number of hires is based on the previous year's volume and an estimated projection for this season. This year all of these hires have been sitting at home because there simply isn't enough volume to justify paying them. Where I would normally have a helper with me from the second week of November right through Christmas and occasionally into January, I've had one with me only twice. I had a discussion with my supervisor this morning, and according to him in certain parts of the US even full-time tenured drivers are being offered days off and having their routes cut altogether. Again, unprecedented.

I’ve talked to a few of the Amazon and Canada Post drivers on my route, same story. Very slow Christmas, historically low volume.

Typically package delivery companies and UPS specifically are bellwethers for the greater economy, and the last month has me worried. I hope it’s a blip, because if it’s not…

Merry Christmas,

Josh

SAN FRANCISCO – Kent Laird pleaded guilty in federal court today to two counts of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, announced United States Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey and FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert K. Tripp. The plea was accepted by the Honorable Jaqueline S. Corley, U.S. District Judge.

In pleading guilty, Laird, 50, of Bothell, Washington, admitted that as the Head of Content, Video & Studios for LinkedIn Media Productions (otherwise known as LMP) he became involved in two separate conspiracies and mail fraud schemes involving two independent contractors. Specifically, in June and then in October of 2018, Laird recommended that two independent contractors be hired by LinkedIn to assist him with producing various podcast projects despite knowing that neither person had any professional experience as a podcast producer. Over the course of the next eighteen months, Laird approved a total of 129 false invoices that the independent contractors submitted to LinkedIn. Laird submitted these invoices knowing that the two independent contractors had performed little to no podcast writing and producing work on behalf of LinkedIn. As a result of receiving these false invoices, LinkedIn paid a combined total of $689,210 to the two independent contractors. During the course of the conspiracy, Laird received kickbacks in the amount of $184,050 from the falsely obtained proceeds.

A federal grand jury indicted Laird on February 21, 2023, charging him with two counts of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1349, and eighteen counts of mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341. Under the plea agreement, Laird pleaded guilty to the two conspiracy counts. If he complies with the plea agreement, the remaining counts will be dismissed at sentencing.

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The Colorado Supreme Court has stayed its decision (i.e., put it on ice) because it knows Trump will seek certiorari. The stay lasts through January 4, 2024, but it automatically extends if Trump files a cert petition (which he’s already said he’ll do). Once the petition is on file, it remains in place until SCOTUS either denies cert or accepts the case and rules on the merits.

I think Trump is likely to persuade four Justices to grant cert, but who knows. If he does, then the stay will remain in place as long as the case remains pending. Meanwhile, the Colorado Secretary of State must keep Trump on the primary ballot. The primary happens on March 5, 2024—so if Trump can run the clock out for 2½ months (and if SCOTUS grants cert, that seems likely), he can render the whole thing moot. The Colorado Supreme Court Justices likely foresaw this, and just wanted to get their thoughts on paper anyway.

ITM Gentlemen,

I’m telling you this in anonymity. I am an Officer with TSA at San Diego International Airport. My background with TSA is with the behavior detection program and the insider threat teams. I have 10 years of experience with observing and conversing with the traveling public, and fought off the vaccine mandate so I feel like I have earned my stripes to speak on this with some authority.

There are hundreds of illegals/asylum seekers passing thru our airport daily for well over a year now, and recently I have been able to piece together who exactly is assisting with these people. Christian Family Services and Jewish Family Services have volunteers that guide large groups from the bus drop off, thru TSA Screening, and on to their departing flights.

Two young women that I assumed were volunteers caught my eye in the spring and thru the summer because of their flirtatious nature with the young male TSOs and the time they spent inside the sterile area without any asylum seekers in their care. I approached one of the girls that was speaking to a Jewish Family Services Volunteer and I was able to conclude these Two young women are paid contracted employees with an NGO called IEM. Based on what I read of this group they are well entrenched with assisting the government thru many avenues of disaster relief and even Covid vaccine roll out.

As for the asylum seeker angle, I trust you will come to your own conclusions but I think this IEM group (along with many others) take custody of these people when they cross the border and keep control of them with housing and all the way thru with even Judicial proceedings support (court dates have been confirmed to be well into 2027 and beyond).

I assume groups like this get funds from the federal government. Earlier this year, I was told by Volunteers with the Jewish family services that they will pay for asylum seeker flights and DHS will reimburse them. I assume this is still taking place considering the volume of illegals coming thru San Diego now.

https://iem.com

https://iem.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/IEM-Human-Services-for-Asylum-Seekers_Final.pdf

Adam—ITM. Got a good one for you today. And it relates to your comment Sunday that it’s not the border wall that matters, but the system.

Yesterday Gov. Abbott signed three state-law bills governing immigration. I’ve attached a 1½-page article describing it. Normally, I’d highlight things, but this one is so chock full of media goodness that you should just read the whole thing. Still, some highlights are in order:

It comprises three bills:

The first allows Texas LEOs to arrest suspected illegals, and judges to deport them summarily. Critics call this the “Show Me Your Papers” law. 😆

The second bill funds the wall, along with stepped-up patrols in places like Houston.

The third bill ups the penalty for being a coyote or running a “stash house” from two years’ imprisonment to 10.

Apparently, our “democracy” is even more doomed than it was last week.

Adam—As predicted, Texas’s new immigration laws are now the subject of a federal lawsuit. Yesterday—just 24 hours after the bill was signed—the ACLU filed a suit seeking to enjoin it. The ACLU represents Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, American Gateways, and El Paso County. I’ve attached two items: (1) a short article summarizing the case and (2) a copy of the plaintiffs’ complaint.

The suit alleges that the new immigration laws are preempted by federal law and violate the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. The plaintiffs want two things: (1) an injunction precluding Texas from enforcing the law and (2) a “declaratory judgment” decreeing that the law is unconstitutional.

The plaintiffs have stated that they will seek a temporary injunction to tide them over while the case proceeds. That will happen pretty soon. I think the odds are very good that this will be granted, just to preserve the status quo. Whether it’s granted or denied, the losing party will almost certainly file an immediate (“interlocutory”) appeal to the Fifth Circuit. And whatever the Fifth Circuit decides, the loser there will almost certainly file a cert petition with SCOTUS. From there, things get hazy because SCOTUS gets to pick and choose its cases.

All of this was foreseen by the Texas Legislature and Gov. Abbott. If I had to guess, their goal was never to implement this system on its effective date (March 5, 2024), but rather to spotlight the border crisis and (1) further expose Biden’s policies, (2) put political pressure on Washington, and (3) roll the dice at SCOTUS to see whether the high court will recognize a state’s concurrent right to protect its own borders.

The case is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division. As of this email, no judge has been assigned.

This story originated on Twitter and has been picked up in political media, but other Patrons have reported this to me as well that dedicated buses of migrants arrive at airports from border processing points in El Paso, Tucson, and Phoenix at airports like ELP, PHX, and TUS to be dispersed to the rest of the United States via air. This is likely paid for by tax dollars either through DHS or through Non-Governemntal Organizations (NGO) funded by tax funded grants.

These tickets are typically purchased within 72 hours of departure because whoever buys the tickets need a name to purchase tickets making the fares very high and these passengers very profitable for airlines. We have previously reported how border airports have as much as a 10% imbalance of local traffic out vs in which is highly unusual and likely caused by this one-way outflow.

It’s also been reported that these passengers do not have to meet normal TSA identification requirements (no-fly list verification, etc) and are typically in a separate holding area and then led to the gate which implies a security risk, although not one that apparently is a concern while on the plane.

Twitter posts show these passengers flying at times in Delta Comfort Plus. The flights documented on Twitter are redeyes and passengers seem bound to New York City which has seen a large number of immigrants arrive, although this program appears to be tied directly to DHS as opposed to most media coverage.

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"And then I have my daughter lecturing me about Palestine and told me that John and Adam can afford not to take sides because they’re old white men"

vast humanitarian crisis that by some estimates has claimed over six million lives, is now lurching into a volatile new phase.

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I was prescribed Ozempic in 2022 because I developed Type II Diabetes after proactively taking the statin Lipitor. Semaglutide and all other GLP-1 agonist are not generic. The Patent doesn’t expire until July 17th, 2026. The compounded GLP-1 agonists you spoke of are reverse-engineered formulas, that’s my guess anyway. There are no generics of Ozempic, Trulicity, or any other GLP-1 agonist because they are all still under patents. The different names of Novo Nordisk products are just branding for the same drug in different doses. Ozempic(up to 1 mg dose) is for Type II Diabetes, Wegovy(up to 2.4mg dose) is for Weight Loss, and Rybelsus(up to 14mg) is their oral treatment for Type II Diabetes. Semaglutide(pronounced sim-a-glue-tide not se-mag-glue-tide) will be the generic name once the patent expires. BTW, Ozempic for me was horrible. I only took it for two weeks. It caused extreme bloating and a constant feeling that I needed to vomit.

I didn’t have high cholesterol but have a family history, so my Cardiologist recommended I take Lipitor as a prophylactic. Within 3 months of starting my blood glucose levels became uncontrolled. I mention the Lipitor as a PSA to anyone who might be pressured to take a statin. Neither my cardiologist nor my Primary Care Physician told me the risks. Taking a statin increases the risk of Type II diabetes by 30%. Having Type II diabetes increases your MACE(Major Adverse Cardiac Event) score by 50%. A statin's ARR(absolute risk reduction) is 1.3% for Heart Attacks, 0.8% for Death, and 0.4% for Strokes. (Study: American College of Cardiology Sept 2021) Risk vs Reward calculus is a tad askew. I dropped Lipitor and within 3 months I was no longer a diabetic.

James

I have a client(she’s a nurse) who’s just started taking the compounded version of Semaglutide. They add Vitamin B12 to it, which qualifies as a new drug. My client is getting it from a compounding pharmacy in Pennsylvania. The compounded version comes in a vial and the patient must use a standard syringe to draw it that’s why people are overdosing. The compounded version was prescribed by her PCP and is only $250/mth instead of the typical $1000. The drug sells in every other country in the world for $30 - $100. The main reason for the increased price is PBMs.(Pharmacy Benefit Managers) All of those are owned by pharmacies for instance CVS owns OptumRX. They approve or disapprove the prescribed drug for coverage. Then the PBM jacks up the price to the patient while sharing the profits with the parent company. Ultimately it’s Congress that’s to blame and that’s not going to change because of all the lobbying, I mean bribes. Damn, greedy bastards.

She told me: "People's antibody levels against Covid are probably as low now as they have been since the vaccine was first introduced."

Antibodies are like microscopic missiles that stick to the surface of the virus and stop it from infecting our body's cells.

So, if you have lots of antibodies, they can mop up the virus quickly and any infection will hopefully be short and mild.

"Now, because antibodies are lower, a higher dose [of the virus] is getting through and causing a more severe bout of disease," Prof Riley says.

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Did Pfizer/BioNTech Fabricate Data to Hide This ‘Glitch’?

While these findings are disturbing enough, Elijah, an investigative reporter for Trial Site News and former BBC researcher, claims there’s evidence suggesting Pfizer and BioNTech fabricated data to hide this “glitch” from regulators.10 She writes:11

“Early this year, the ‘Blotgate’ scandal erupted ... My in-depth investigative report for Trial Site News (part 1 and part 2), revealed evidence strongly suggesting that BioNTech fabricated their Western Blot tests, which were used to prove the fidelity of their product to the regulators.

A Western Blot is used to identify certain proteins, in this case it was the vaccinal spike protein expressed by the modified mRNA in the Pfizer/BioNTech shots.

An anonymous source provided evidence revealing how BioNTech’s automated (computerized) Western Blots had appeared to be ‘copied and pasted’ across fou

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Archived Version

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 16:22

Sports commentator Stephen A. Smith slammed Texas's new immigration law in a Tuesday post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

''This is a disgrace. It is inhumane,'' the ESPN host said.

The post also featured a clip from Tuesday's ''The Stephen A. Smith Show'' in which Smith says the new Texas law ''opens the floodgate to further divide our nation.'' Smith also called the law ''racist.''

''It's a racist-ass thing to do,'' Smith said. ''Suspicion? Suspect? Suspected of entering the country illegally. How can you be suspected of entering the country illegally?''

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed the aforementioned law allowing any of the Lone Star State's law enforcement to arrest people suspected of coming into the U.S. illegally. After the person suspected of illegal entry is arrested, they will face misdemeanor charges or potentially be made to leave the country.

''The goal of Senate Bill 4 is to stop the tidal wave of illegal entry into Texas. It creates a criminal offense for illegal entry into Texas from a foreign nation for repeat offenders, that creates the events of illegal reentry with a potential prison sentence term of up to 20 years,'' Abbott said at the bill signing ceremony.

''The bill provides a mechanism to order an illegal immigrant to return to the foreign nation from which they entered,'' he added.

The law also followed an announcement by the Customs and Border Protection agency Sunday that international railway crossing bridges in El Paso and Eagle Pass in Texas will be closed starting Monday amid a recent uptick in migrant smuggling at the border.

Smith also recently knocked Abbott's Floridian counterpart, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), over his response to Florida State University's snub from the College Football Playoff.

''Will you stop? First of all sir, don't you have bigger priorities?'' Smith said Wednesday on an episode of the ''The Stephen A. Smith Show.'' ''I mean, you're down, you're trailing [former President Trump] by about 59 points in the polls. The man ain't even show up to debate you because he considers you that insignificant.''

The sport's commentator's remarks came after DeSantis said earlier this week that he plans to set aside $1 million from the Sunshine State's annual budget for possible litigation about Florida State not being included in the playoffs, calling the slight a ''really, really poor decision'' by the College Football Playoff committee.

Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Archived Version

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 16:16

Good morning.

The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, yesterday signed a bill giving all police in the state sweeping new powers to arrest migrants deemed to have entered the US illegally as well as empowering local judges to order their expulsion back across the US-Mexico border.

The hard-right Republican's actions represent a brazen challenge to the federal government's authority over the enforcement of US immigration law.

The law passed the Republican-dominated Texas legislature last month, over the angry objections of Democratic lawmakers.

Legal experts have previously said the legislation defies US law '' and Abbott can almost certainly expect a court challenge from the federal authorities. The law is due to take effect next March.

What do critics say about the new law? Critics say that apart from racial profiling, the law could prompt the wrongful arrest of US citizens and immigrants who are in the country legally. Democrats have also said it would make immigrants who are victims of crime afraid to contact police. Mexico's government had also criticized the measure when it was being debated in the Texas legislature, warning it would result in family separations and racial profiling.

UN delays vote calling for Gaza ceasefire as US objects to resolution wording The results of a draft resolution vote displayed on a screen as the UN general assembly held an emergency special session on the Israel-Hamas war on 12 December, in New York City. Photograph: Michael M Santiago/Getty ImagesThe UN security council has postponed a vote calling for a sustainable cessation of hostilities in Gaza to give more time for diplomats to meet US objections to the wording of the draft resolution.

The vote had been due yesterday in New York but the US said it could not support a reference to a ''cessation of hostilities'' but may accept a call for a ''suspension of hostilities''.

The Arab countries negotiating the text said they had been encouraged to see that the White House was apparently trying to find wording that it could support '' as opposed simply to vetoing resolutions, the position it adopted on the call for a humanitarian pause on 18 October and for an urgent humanitarian ceasefire on 9 December.

Divisions within the US administration have been growing, with some officials saying the US is misunderstanding the scale of disillusionment in the global south over its perceived hypocrisy in calling out Russian war crimes in Ukraine, but finding a multitude of reasons to justify the large-scale killing of Palestinians in Gaza.

What has the US been doing to help the situation? A range of US diplomats have visited Jerusalem to urge the Israeli government to adopt different military tactics, but with only limited success. US support for a suspension of hostilities at the UN, if it happened, would be a clear signal of its frustration with the Israeli government.

Help us raise $1.5m to fund independent journalism in 2024 Photograph: The GuardianAs we head into 2024, the Guardian's journalists are already hard at work preparing for one of the most consequential news cycles of our lifetimes. We need your support to raise $1.5m to fund our reporting on areas such as the 2024 election and the potential for another Trump presidency; war in the Middle East; the sweeping implications of artificial intelligence; the climate crisis, and investigations into high-stakes abuses of power. If you value our reporting, please make a year-end gift today. We're depending on you.

In other news '... The eruption of a volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula began after a series of small earthquakes. Photograph: Icelandic Department of Civil Protection and Emergency Management/AFP/Getty Images A volcano on the Reykjanes peninsula in south-west Iceland has erupted after weeks of intense earthquake activity, spewing glowing orange jets of lava surrounded by billowing clouds of red smoke. The eruption began at about 10.17pm local time after a series of small earthquakes, the met office said.

Marvel Studios and the Walt Disney corporation have ended their relationships with the actor Jonathan Majors shortly after he was convicted of assaulting and harassing Grace Jabbari, his then girlfriend. He was convicted yesterday of third degree assault and second degree aggravated assault.

At least 118 people have been killed and more than 500 injured in an earthquake in China's north-west Gansu and Qinghai provinces, state media have reported. The strong, shallow earthquake struck shortly before midnight yesterday, sending residents fleeing outside, into below-freezing temperatures.

Donald Trump's lawyer asked a judge yesterday to throw out the Georgia criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state, contending the indictment violated the former president's first amendment rights by charging him for so-called core political speech.

Stat of the day: Google agrees to pay $700m after antitrust settlement with consumers and US states The Google sign is displayed over an entrance to the company's building in New York. The tech firm has agreed to pay $700m according to the terms of an antitrust settlement. Photograph: Peter Morgan/APGoogle has agreed to pay $700m and to allow for greater competition in its Play app store, according to the terms of an antitrust settlement with US states and consumers disclosed in a San Francisco federal court. Google was accused of overcharging consumers through unlawful restrictions on the distribution of apps on Android devices and unnecessary fees for in-app transactions. It did not admit wrongdoing. The company will pay $630m into a settlement fund for consumers and $70m into a fund that will be used by states, according to the settlement, which still requires a judge's final approval.

Don't miss this: 'It's totally unhinged' '' is the book world turning against Goodreads? 'Everything's a tool and Goodreads, the way it is built and used now, can allow someone to use it in a very unhealthy way.' Photograph: Funky-data/Getty ImagesFor Bethany Baptiste, Molly X Chang, KM Enright, Thea Guanzon, Danielle L Jensen, Akure Ph(C)nix, RM Virtues and Frances White, it must have been brutal reading. All received scathing reviews on Goodreads, an online platform that reputedly has the power to make or break new authors. But the verdicts were not delivered by an esteemed literary critic. They were the work of Cait Corrain, a debut author who used fake accounts to ''review bomb'' her perceived rivals. The literary scandal led to Corrain posting an apology, being dropped by her agent and having her book deal cancelled. It also uncovered deeper questions about Goodreads, arguably the most popular site on which readers post book reviews, and its outsized impact on the publishing industry.

'... or this: 'I'm not a toy' '' how an antiquated tradition of forced marriage wrecked one girl's life A bride holding hands with her new sister-in-law in Pakistan. Photograph: Tauseef Mustafa/AFP/Getty ImagesDespite a ban on ghag forced marriages, a man laid claim to Inteha Bibi when she was 12 years old. Although Bibi and her family rejected his proposal when she was a child, she cannot marry anyone else, according to the custom. Now she lives in fear as her family fights for her right to marry the man of her choice.

''I have no life,'' says Bibi. ''I am traumatised, I have anxiety and can't sleep without medication. I am a human, and I have all rights to get engaged and married to whoever I want. I am a woman, not a toy, and I don't want to be married to someone forcibly.''

Last Thing: What does it mean to be likable '' and who has to abide by those rules? This trait is one society demands of some people '' women and people of color '' more than others. Illustration: Guardian DesignBeing liked is core to some of our most central fears. We want to feel like we belong and are accepted. But likability is hardly an objective measure. It's a vague idea at best, mired in all sorts of gendered, racialized and political connotations. In a society still full of myriad disparities, likability is a trait we demand of some people '' women and people of color '' more than others. And the effort to meet those expectations of likability can be taxing and unfruitful.

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Archived Version

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 15:53

Whether it's eating less meat or cycling instead of driving, humans can do many things to help prevent climate change.

Unfortunately, breathing less isn't one of them.

That might be a problem, as a new study claims the gases in air exhaled from human lungs is fueling global warming.

Methane and nitrous oxide in the air we exhale makes up to 0.1 per cent of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions, scientists say.

And that's not even accounting for the gas we release from burps and farts, or emissions that come from our skin without us noticing.

Whether it's eating less meat or cycling instead of driving, humans can do many things to help prevent climate change. Unfortunately, breathing less isn't one of them (stock image)

Composition of exhaled human breath - Nitrogen (N) - 78%

- Oxygen (O2) * - 17%

- Carbon dioxide (CO2) - 4%

- Other gases including methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) '' 1%

*Exhaled human breath contains oxygen, but just less oxygen than the air we inhaled

The new study was led by Dr Nicholas Cowan, an atmospheric physicist at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Edinburgh.

'Exhaled human breath can contain small, elevated concentrations of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), both of which contribute to global warming,' Dr Cowan and colleagues say.

'We would urge caution in the assumption that emissions from humans are negligible.'

As most of us remember from science classes at school, humans breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide.

When we inhale, air enters the lungs, and oxygen from that air moves to the blood, while carbon dioxide (CO2), a waste gas, moves from the blood to the lungs and is breathed out.

With plants, it is the other way round; plants use CO2 to create oxygen as a by-product (the process known as photosynthesis).

Every person breathes out CO2 when they exhale, but in their new study, the researchers focused on methane and nitrous oxide.

These two are both powerful greenhouse gases, but because they're breathed out in much smaller quantities, their contribution to global warming may have been overlooked.

When we inhale, air enters the lungs, and oxygen from that air moves to the blood, while CO2, a waste gas, moves from the blood to the lungs and is breathed out

What's more, plants essentially soak up all the CO2 that's emitted in human breath, so 'CO2 contribution in human breath to climate change is essentially zero,' Dr Cowan told MailOnline.

The same cannot be said for methane and nitrous oxide, as plants don't use these gases in photosynthesis.

For the study, the researchers investigated emissions of methane and nitrous oxide in human breath from 104 adult volunteers from the UK population.

Participants were required to take in a deep breath and hold it for five seconds, then exhale into a sealable plastic bag.

A total of 328 breath samples were collected and every participant had details recorded such as age, sex and dietary preference.

After analysing the samples, researchers found nitrous oxide was emitted by every participant, but methane was found in the breath of only 31 per cent of participants.

Researchers say those who do not exhale methane in their breath are still likely to 'release the gas in flatus' '' in other words, by farting.

Interestingly, people with methane in their exhaled breath were more likely to be female and above the age of 30, but researchers aren't sure why.

Concentrations of the two gases in the overall samples let the researchers estimate the proportion of the UK's emissions are from our breath '' 0.05 per cent for methane and 0.1 per cent for nitrous oxide.

Dr Cowan stresses that each of these percentages relate specifically to these respective gases, not all of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions as a whole.

Researchers didn't manage to find any link between gases in the breath and diets '' although meat eaters are known to fuel the climate crisis in other ways.

The experts stress that their study only looked at greenhouse gases in breath, and so it does not provide an overall estimate of a person's emissions footprint.

In experiments, all participants breathed out carbon dioxide (left). Nitrous oxide (right) was also emitted by every participant, but methane (centre) was found in the breath of only 31 per cent of participants

According to the authors, emissions of methane and nitrous oxide are 'generally ignored in most environmental monitoring' as they're considered negligible.

However, further study of human emissions of these gases - not just from our breath - could reveal more about 'the impacts of an ageing population and shifting diets,' the team say.

Inside the human body, methane gas is produced by microorganisms called methanogens, which colonise our digestive tract.

The methane crosses into the blood and is carried to the lungs where it can be exhaled in breath.

Meanwhile, bacteria in the gut and oral cavity turns nitrates in food and water to nitrous oxide, which also escapes in human breath.

The study has been published in the journal PLOS One.

How do greenhouse gases like methane and CO2 warm up the planet?Methane is a colourless, odourless flammable gas, and the main constituent of natural gas.

Methane is a greenhouse gas, and the second biggest cause of climate change after carbon dioxide.

Both gases trap heat in the atmosphere, similar to the glass roof of a greenhouse.

During the day, the sun shines through the atmosphere and Earth's surface warms up in the sunlight.

At night, the Earth's surface cools, releasing heat back into the air, but some of the heat is trapped by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Too much of these gases can cause Earth's atmosphere to trap more and more heat, causing the planet to warm up.

Methane has more than 80 times the heat-trapping potency of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere.

However this does decrease over time, as it breaks down over the course of about a decade.

It is emitted during the production and transport of coal, natural gas and oil, as well as from livestock and decaying organic waste at landfill sites.

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Archived Version

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 15:46

SAN FRANCISCO '' Kent Laird pleaded guilty in federal court today to two counts of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, announced United States Attorney Ismail J. Ramsey and FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert K. Tripp. The plea was accepted by the Honorable Jaqueline S. Corley, U.S. District Judge.

In pleading guilty, Laird, 50, of Bothell, Washington, admitted that as the Head of Content, Video & Studios for LinkedIn Media Productions (otherwise known as LMP) he became involved in two separate conspiracies and mail fraud schemes involving two independent contractors. Specifically, in June and then in October of 2018, Laird recommended that two independent contractors be hired by LinkedIn to assist him with producing various podcast projects despite knowing that neither person had any professional experience as a podcast producer. Over the course of the next eighteen months, Laird approved a total of 129 false invoices that the independent contractors submitted to LinkedIn. Laird submitted these invoices knowing that the two independent contractors had performed little to no podcast writing and producing work on behalf of LinkedIn. As a result of receiving these false invoices, LinkedIn paid a combined total of $689,210 to the two independent contractors. During the course of the conspiracy, Laird received kickbacks in the amount of $184,050 from the falsely obtained proceeds.

A federal grand jury indicted Laird on February 21, 2023, charging him with two counts of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1349, and eighteen counts of mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341. Under the plea agreement, Laird pleaded guilty to the two conspiracy counts. If he complies with the plea agreement, the remaining counts will be dismissed at sentencing.

Laird faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a fine of $250,000, plus restitution, if appropriate, for each violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1349. Any sentence will be imposed by the court only after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. § 3553.

Judge Corley scheduled Laird's sentencing hearing for March 27, 2024.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Barbara J. Valliere is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Kathy Tat. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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Archived Version

Thu, 21 Dec 2023 14:54

New York Democrats have renewed their push to bar former President Donald Trump from the state's presidential ballot in light of the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling earlier this week. REUTERSNew York Democrats have renewed their effort to bar former President Donald Trump from the state's presidential ballot in light of the Colorado Supreme Court's ruling earlier this week.

''New York is next,'' state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D-Manhattan) wrote on X after news broke that Colorado's highest court determined that Trump, 77, is not eligible to hold office again and will be disqualified from the state's primary ballot.

Earlier this month, Hoylman-Sigal, whose district runs from Greenwich Village to the Upper West Side, and four other Democratic state senators wrote a letter to the Empire State Board of Elections that claimed Trump should be barred from the state ballot due to his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

''The January 6 insurrection was a violent uprising against the United States that tragically resulted in loss of multiple lives,'' the Dec. 7 letter read.

Trump has vowed to appeal the Colorado decision to the US Supreme Court '' but has not yet done so. AFP via Getty Images''That dark day in our nation's history was led, facilitated, and encouraged by Trump. The Board must not allow those who participated to run again for office against the mandate of the Constitution.''

Hoylman-Sigal told The Post on Thursday that ''Trump is an insurrectionist and ineligible for the presidency because of his actions on January 6.

''It's incumbent on states to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution and ban Trump from the ballot,'' he said.

The 14th Amendment, which bans anyone who engaged in an insurrection from holding civil or military office, was at the heart of the Colorado ruling.

''I hope New York will be next,'' said Hoylman-Sigal.

Hoylman-Sigal and four other Democratic state senators wrote a letter to the Empire State Board of Elections that claimed Trump should be barred from the state ballot. AP Colorado determined that the former president was ineligible for the White House under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment '' which bans anyone who engaged in an insurrection from holding civil or military office. APShortly before the Colorado decision, New York Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-Bronx) introduced a suggested amendment to the state's own election law, which would have the Board of Elections ban anyone from the ballet who participated in an insurrection, the Post-Journal said.

''This legislation will ensure there is a process in place to preclude an individual who participated in an insurrection or rebellion against the United States from being able to serve in elective office,'' Dinowitz wrote of the proposal.

Trump, meanwhile, has vowed to appeal the Colorado decision to the US Supreme Court '-- but has not yet done so.

If the country's highest court upholds the Colorado ruling, it could result in other states issuing similar decisions.

Thus far, New York state courts have not been asked to rule on the issue '-- though Republican presidential hopeful John Anthony Castro did file a federal lawsuit asking to remove Trump from the state ballot.

The Board of Elections responded to the move on Nov. 3 and declined to take a position.

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Thu, 21 Dec 2023 14:24

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Wed, 20 Dec 2023 23:03

Taylor Swift is a global phenomenon. She is a generational talent as a singer-songwriter, extraordinary business owner, and cultural icon.

Miami Law's Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law LL.M. program is offering a seven-week intensive course titled "Intellectual Property Law Through the Lens of Taylor Swift." Taught by renowned intellectual property attorney and co-director of the Arts Law track, Vivek Jayaram, the course will discuss big topics related to copyright, trademark, and business affairs through an assessment and analysis of Swift's remarkable career.

"Taylor Swift is a musical and cultural phenomenon," said Jayaram. "She has also built an empire with some of the most valuable IP in the music business. This course will address and discuss some of the many IP issues the artist has encountered and navigated through the course of her career."

Re-recording of albums, thorny copyright disputes, privacy and the paparazzi, and contract dos and don'ts, Swift's career is a veritable IP 101 for anyone interested in the creative world.

The EASL Program has three tracks under one unified umbrella '' Entertainment, Arts, and Sports. Each track has industry leaders as track directors who work collaboratively with the EASL director to form the program leadership.

Along with the new Taylor Swift course taught by Jayaram, the EASL program is launching four additional classes this fall, bringing the total number of elective courses to over 35 with a focus on practical skills training.

One of the most exciting aspects of the EASL program is the agility of the leadership team to support the development and delivery of new courses that allow students to grapple with the most pressing issues facing these industries, said Associate Dean Greg Levy, director of EASL. With that, the program has a community of advisors and practitioners eager to help develop and deliver dynamic coursework.

Read more about Miami Law's Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law LL.M.

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Wed, 20 Dec 2023 14:27

The dead Internet theory is an online conspiracy theory that asserts that the Internet now consists mainly of bot activity and automatically generated content that is manipulated by algorithmic curation, marginalizing organic human activity.[1][2][3][4] Proponents of the theory believe these bots are created intentionally to help manipulate algorithms and boost search results in order to ultimately manipulate consumers.[5] Further, some proponents of the theory accuse government agencies of using bots to manipulate public perception, stating "The U.S. government is engaging in an artificial intelligence powered gaslighting of the entire world population".[1] The date given for this "death" was generally around 2016 or 2017.[1][4][6]

The theory has gained traction because much of the observed phenomena is grounded in quantifiable phenomena like increased bot traffic. However, the idea that it is a coordinated psyop has been described by Kaitlin Tiffany, staff writer at The Atlantic, as a "paranoid fantasy," even if there are legitimate criticisms involving bot traffic and the integrity of the internet.[1]

Origins and development edit While the exact origins of the theory are difficult to pinpoint, the dead Internet theory most likely emerged from 4chan or Wizardchan as a theoretical concept in the late 2010s or early 2020s.[1][7] In 2021, a thread titled "Dead Internet Theory: Most Of The Internet Is Fake" was published on the forum Agora Road's Macintosh Cafe, marking the spread of the term beyond these initial imageboards. [1][8] However, discussions and debates surrounding the theory have been prevalent in online forums, technology conferences, and academic circles, possibly since earlier.[1][7]

It was inspired by concerns about the Internet's increasing complexity, dependence on fragile infrastructure, potential cyberattack vulnerabilities, and most importantly, the exponential increase in artificial intelligence capabilities and use.[9] The theory gained traction in discussions among technology enthusiasts, researchers, and futurists who sought to explore the potential risks associated with our reliance on the Internet. The conspiracy theory has entered public culture through widespread coverage, and has been discussed on various high-profile YouTube channels.[1] It gained more mainstream attention with an article in The Atlantic titled "Maybe You Missed It, but the Internet 'Died' Five Years Ago".[1] This article has been widely cited by other articles on the topic.[3][7][8]

Claims and evidence edit Large language models edit Generative pre-trained transformers (GPTs) are a type of large language model (LLM) that employ artificial neural networks to produce human-like content.[10][11] The first of these models was developed by the company OpenAI.[12] These models have created a significant amount of controversy. In one example, Timothy Shoup of the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies stated that, "in the scenario where GPT-3 'gets loose', the internet would be completely unrecognizable."[13] He predicted that in such a scenario, 99% to 99.9% of content online might be AI generated by 2025 to 2030.[13] These predictions have been used as evidence for the dead internet theory.[3]

ChatGPT edit ChatGPT is an AI chatbot whose 2022 release to the general public led journalists to describing the dead internet theory as being potentially more realistic than before.[6][14] Before this, the dead internet theory mostly emphasized government organizations, corporations, and tech-savvy individuals, but ChatGPT put the power of AI in the hands of average internet users.[6][14] This technology caused concerns that the Internet would become filled with content created by people through the use of AI that would drown out organic human content.[6][14][15]

Imperva Bot Traffic Report 2016 edit In 2016, the security firm Imperva released a report on bot traffic and found that bots were responsible for 52% of web traffic, the first time it surpassed human traffic.[16] This report has been used as evidence in reports on the dead internet theory.[1]

Reddit edit In the past, the social media site Reddit allowed free access to its API and data, which allowed users to employ 3rd party moderation apps and train AI in human interaction.[15] In a controversial move, Reddit moved to charge for access to its user dataset. Companies training AI will likely continue to use this data for training future AI. As LLMs such as ChatGPT become available to the general public, they are increasingly being employed on Reddit by users and bot accounts.[15] Professor Toby Walsh of the University of New South Wales stated in an interview with Business Insider that training the next generation of AI on content created by previous generations, the content could suffer.[15] University of South Florida professor John Licato compared this situation of AI-generated web content flooding Reddit to the Dead Internet Theory.[15]

Twitter edit "I hate texting" tweets edit Several accounts on Twitter started posting tweets starting with the phrase "I hate texting" followed by an alternative activity, such as "i hate texting i just want to hold ur hand", or "i hate texting just come live with me".[1] These posts received tens of thousands of likes, and many suspected them to be bot accounts. These accounts have been used as an example by proponents of the dead internet theory.[1][8]

Acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk edit The percentage of user accounts run by bots became a major issue during Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter.[17][18][19][20] During this process, Musk disputed Twitter's claim that fewer than 5% of their monetizable daily active users (mDAU) were bots.[17][21] During this dispute, Musk commissioned the company Cybra to estimate what percentage of Twitter accounts were bots, with one study estimating 13.7% and the second estimating 11%.[17] These bot accounts are thought to be responsible for a disproportionate amount of the content generated.[7] This incident has been pointed to by believers in the dead internet theory as evidence.[7][22]

YouTube edit "The Inversion" edit There is a market online for fake YouTube views to boost a video's credibility and reach broader audiences.[23] At one point, fake views were so prevalent that some engineers were concerned YouTube's algorithm for detecting them would begin to treat the fake views as default and start misclassifying real ones.[23][1] YouTube engineers coined the term "the inversion" to describe this phenomenon.[23][24] YouTube bots and the fear of "the inversion" were cited as support for the dead internet theory in a thread on the internet forum Agora Road's Macintosh Cafe.[1]

Coverage on YouTube edit Numerous YouTube channels and online communities, including the Linus Tech Tips-forums, have covered the dead Internet theory, which has helped to advance the idea into mainstream discourse.[1]

See also edit References edit ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Tiffany, Kaitlyn (August 31, 2021). "Maybe You Missed It, but the Internet 'Died' Five Years Ago". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on March 6, 2023 . Retrieved March 6, 2023 . ^ "Is the internet secretly dead? Plus: bots and bye-byes on our final episode". The Guardian. June 15, 2022. Archived from the original on May 31, 2023 . Retrieved May 31, 2023 . ^ a b c Naraharisetty, Rohitha (October 31, 2022). "What the 'Dead Internet Theory' Predicted About the Future of Digital Life". The Swaddle. Archived from the original on March 6, 2023 . Retrieved March 6, 2023 . ^ a b "Une th(C)orie du complot affirme qu'internet est mort >> depuis 2016". Ouest France (in French). September 6, 2021. Archived from the original on March 6, 2023 . Retrieved March 6, 2023 . ^ Gonzales III, Vic (June 28, 2023). "THE INTERNET IS DEAD: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE DEAD INTERNET THEORY". Capiz News. Archived from the original on July 4, 2023 . Retrieved July 4, 2023 . ^ a b c d Hennessy, James (December 18, 2022). "Did A.I. just become a better storyteller than you?". The Story. Archived from the original on June 16, 2023 . Retrieved June 16, 2023 . ^ a b c d e McCall, Isaiah (September 24, 2022). " "The Dead Internet Theory" is New and Spreading Everywhere". Yard couch. Medium. Archived from the original on March 15, 2023 . Retrieved May 18, 2023 . ^ a b c Gopani, Avi (September 6, 2021). "Conspiracy Theorists Says The Internet Has Been Dead Since 2016". Analytics India Magazine. Archived from the original on June 16, 2023 . Retrieved June 16, 2023 . ^ Dow, Warren (January 9, 2023). "The Dead Internet Theory". Digs. Archived from the original on May 18, 2023 . Retrieved May 18, 2023 . ^ "Generative AI: a game-changer society needs to be ready for". World Economic Forum. January 9, 2023. Archived from the original on April 25, 2023 . Retrieved June 16, 2023 . ^ "The A to Z of Artificial Intelligence". Time. April 13, 2023. Archived from the original on June 16, 2023 . Retrieved June 16, 2023 . ^ "Improving language understanding with unsupervised learning". openai.com. Archived from the original on March 18, 2023 . Retrieved March 18, 2023 . ^ a b Hvitved, Sofie (February 24, 2022). "What if 98% of the Metaverse is made by AI?". Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies. Archived from the original on June 16, 2023 . Retrieved June 16, 2023 . ^ a b c Beres, Damon (January 27, 2023). "Death by a Thousand Personality Quizzes". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on June 21, 2023 . Retrieved June 20, 2023 . ^ a b c d e Agarwal, Shubham (August 8, 2023). "AI is ruining the internet". Business Insider . Retrieved September 30, 2023 . ^ LaFrance, Adrienne (January 31, 2017). "The Internet Is Mostly Bots". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on June 17, 2023 . Retrieved June 17, 2023 . ^ a b c Duffy, Clare; Fung, Brian (October 10, 2022). "Elon Musk commissioned this bot analysis in his fight with Twitter. Now it shows what he could face if he takes over the platform". CNN Business. Archived from the original on June 16, 2023 . Retrieved June 16, 2023 . ^ O'brien, Matt (October 31, 2022). "Musk now gets chance to defeat Twitter's many fake accounts". AP News. Archived from the original on May 5, 2023 . Retrieved June 16, 2023 . ^ "As Twitter's new owner, Musk gets his chance to defeat bots". CBS News. October 31, 2022. Archived from the original on June 16, 2023 . Retrieved June 16, 2023 . ^ Syme, Pete (June 13, 2023). "Elon Musk's war against Twitter bots isn't going very well. Next, you'll have to pay to DM those who don't follow you". Business Insider. Archived from the original on June 16, 2023 . Retrieved June 16, 2023 . ^ Picchi, Aimee (May 17, 2022). "What are Twitter bots, and why is Elon Musk obsessed with them?". CBS News. Archived from the original on June 16, 2023 . Retrieved June 16, 2023 . ^ Hughes, Neil C. (August 26, 2023). "Echoes of the dead internet theory: AI's silent takeover". Cybernews . Retrieved November 10, 2023 . ^ a b c Keller, Michael H. (August 11, 2018). "The Flourishing Business of Fake YouTube Views". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 19, 2023 . Retrieved June 19, 2023 . ^ Read, Max (December 26, 2018). "How Much of the Internet Is Fake? Turns Out, a Lot of It, Actually". New York:Intelligencer. Archived from the original on June 19, 2023 . Retrieved June 19, 2023 .

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Tue, 19 Dec 2023 23:02

Climate alarmists prone to hyperventilating over the weather might be a part of the supposed problem they otherwise seek to remedy with statist interventions, unreliable energy alternatives, and a healthy diet of bugs, according to a new government-funded study out of Britain.

Scientists at the U.K. Center for Ecology and Hydrology have raised the alarm that human breathing is contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, urging "caution in the assumption that emissions from humans are negligible."

While their conclusion might ultimately be seized upon by depopulationists, it appears the researchers may have instead been seeking an argument for a change in diet.

The peer-reviewed study published Wednesday in the Public Library of Science's journal PLOS One investigated greenhouse gas emissions of methane and nitrous oxide in human breath, which allegedly "contribute to global warming."

The study gave away the plot early on, taking up the potential impact of food choices on gastric exhaust.

The researchers, led by Nicholas Cowan, indicated the factors that affect the human emissions of these gases are not well understood, suggesting further that "the impacts of an aging population and shifting diets is still relatively uncertain."

"Converting from high meat and protein content diets to higher fibre vegetarian options to mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases from meat production potentially results in higher production of gases in the human gut, and an element of pollution swapping could occur," they wrote, likely to vegetarian climate alarmists' dismay.

Despite their interest in the link between diet and emissions, the researchers indicated they could not establish any trends or correlation on the basis of 328 breath samples collected from 104 human test subjects whose age, sex, dietary preference, and smoking habits were recorded.

In the way of conclusions, they did establish that women were slightly more orally methanic than their male counterparts and that older test subjects were gassier than their younger peers.

Methane was found in the breath of 31% of the test subjects, identified as "methane producers" or MPs. Methane production was higher in the older age cohorts. Whereas 40% of those in the 30 and older group were classified as MPs, only 25% of those under 30 were similarly classed methane producers. Women were found more likely (38%) to be MPs than men (25%).

The researchers contextualized their findings with a seeming international hierarchy of breathy emitters, noting that the "highest proportion of MPs was found in African populations with up to 84%. Proportions of MPs in Western populations vary from 25% to 62%, while in Asian populations (such as Japanese) it can be as low as 15%."

Despite their subjects' exhaust, the researchers conceded that emissions of methane and nitrous oxide "account for only 0.05% and 0.1% of the total emissions in the UK national greenhouse gas inventories, respectively."

Cowan clarified these percentages do not pertain to national emissions on the whole, but rather to these specific gases '-- meaning they are even more negligible in the grand scheme, reported the Daily Mail.

Apparently keen to shore up their concern in the face of these tiny numbers, the researchers stressed that they did not factor farts into their analysis, noting, "We represent only the lowest possible emission from humans, and the true value of our own bodily emissions are likely significantly higher as a species."

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Tue, 19 Dec 2023 23:00

Vice President Harris is planning to launch a nationwide tour in early 2024 focused on the fight over abortion access as it is set to become a pivotal issue in next year's general election.

The ''Fight for Reproductive Freedoms'' tour will begin in Wisconsin on Jan. 22, 2024, which marks the 51st anniversary since the original Roe v. Wade decision guaranteeing abortion access.

The Supreme Court in June 2022 struck down that precedent, leading to a series of restrictive abortion laws being passed in GOP-led states.

''Extremists across our country continue to wage a full-on attack against hard-won, hard-fought freedoms as they push their radical policies '' from banning abortion in all 50 states and criminalizing doctors, to forcing women to travel out of state in order to get the care they need,'' Harris said in a statement. ''I will continue to fight for our fundamental freedoms while bringing together those throughout America who agree that every woman should have the right to make decisions about her own body '' not the government.''

Harris will host events during the tour highlighting firsthand accounts of individuals who have been affected by abortion bans, and she will outline what steps the Biden administration has taken to protect abortion access.

The White House said additional dates and locations will be announced in the coming weeks, but the tour itself and its first planned stop in the swing state of Wisconsin underscore how Harris is poised to play a leading role in making abortion a major issue at the ballot box next year.

Harris has often been the face of the White House's response to the Supreme Court decision that ended Roe. She has frequently met with reproductive health care specialists, state legislators and advocates to discuss the topic of abortion access.

Abortion is expected to be one of the defining issues of the 2024 presidential campaign, with Democrats warning that a Republican president could sign off on a nationwide abortion ban.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed a six-week abortion ban in his state, and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) has said she would have done the same, even as she avoids specifics on what she would sign if elected president.

Former President Trump, the front-runner in the GOP primary, has said he supports exceptions in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at risk, but he has repeatedly taken credit for bringing about the end of Roe v. Wade through his appointment of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court.

The issue has proven to be a galvanizing force for Democrats, with the party retaining control of the Senate, winning the Kentucky gubernatorial election, winning both chambers in the Virginia legislative elections and passing pro-abortion ballot referendums in Kansas and Ohio in the aftermath of the 2022 Supreme Court decision.

Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Tue, 19 Dec 2023 23:00

Two former Georgia election workers who won a $148m defamation judgment against Rudy Giuliani asked on Monday for a court order barring him from continuing to repeat the lies he spread about them following the 2020 election.

The new lawsuit points to comments the former New York City mayor made during and after the damages trial last week, repeating the baseless conspiracy theories about Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ''Shaye'' Moss.

Those statements ''make clear that he intends to persist in his campaign of targeted defamation and harassment. It must stop,'' attorneys for the mother and daughter wrote in court documents.

Giuliani's political adviser Ted Goodman declined to comment on the lawsuit but pointed to the former mayor's other accomplishments, including his celebrated leadership after the 11 September terrorist attacks in 2001.

Giuliani has previously acknowledged in court documents that he made public comments falsely claiming Freeman and Moss committed ballot fraud as he fought to keep his fellow Republican Donald Trump in the White House after Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election.

Those claims led to racist threats and intense harassment that forced the mother and daughter to flee their homes and fear for their lives, they said in emotional testimony last week. The trial was held to determine the amount of damages after a judge found Giuliani was liable for defaming them.

Giuliani has vowed to appeal the verdict, and it is not clear whether he would be able to pay the staggering damages. He has shown signs of financial strain as he defends himself against costly lawsuits and investigations stemming from his representation of Trump.

Also, Giuliani is among 19 people charged in Georgia in the case accusing Trump and his Republican allies of working to subvert the state's 2020 election results. Giuliani has pleaded not guilty and has characterized the case as politically motivated.

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Tue, 19 Dec 2023 22:59

A descendant of the Herm¨s luxury handbag empire is engulfed in a public battle with the charitable foundation he founded after reports that he planned to cut its funding and instead adopt his 51-year-old former gardener and bequeath him billions.

Nicolas Puech, 80, a secretive fifth-generation descendant of Thierry Herm¨s, who founded Herm¨s in 1837, has begun the legal process of formally adopting the unnamed former gardener and plans to leave him half of his '‚¬12bn (£10.3bn) fortune, according to Swiss media reports.

Puech, who has no children, is attempting to cancel a ''succession agreement'' he agreed with a charity he established in 2011 to fund ''the protection and promotion of public debate''.

The Isocrates Foundation, which has a board of six including Puech as president, announced on Tuesday it has formally ''opposed'' its founder's decision to cancel the inheritance contract.

The foundation said it ''isn't in a position to judge the process or context'' of the reports that Puech wished to adopt his former employee.

''From a legal standpoint, the abrupt and unilateral annulment of a succession agreement appears void and unfounded,'' the foundation said in a statement. ''The foundation has opposed this move, while leaving the door open to discussion with its founder and president.''

The foundation said it was established to fund and support ''public interest journalism and media organisations committed to strengthening the field of investigative journalism'' and civil society organisations ''working towards responsible digitalisation and a healthy digital public space''.

It said that as a Switzerland-based charity, it is ''under the authority and surveillance of Swiss Federal supervisory board for foundations''.

Puech, who is estranged from most of his family, recently began the legal process of formally adopting his unnamed former gardener and handyman, according to Swiss newspaper Tribune de Gen¨ve.

The newspaper said the unnamed man of Moroccan origins is married with two children, and Puech refers to them as his ''children'' and ''adopted son''.

A lawyer for Puech did not respond to requests for comment. The lawyer told Bloomberg that his client may hold a press conference ''to separate the fact from the fiction and to dispel some of the nonsense that has been reported in the media''.

Puech is thought to own about 5.7% of Herm¨s' shares. The stock market value of Herm¨s has soared amid a boom in demand for luxury goods since the pandemic. Herm¨s shares have almost quadrupled since spring 2020 giving it a '‚¬209bn market value, making Puech's stake worth just under '‚¬12bn.

Herm¨s declined to comment.

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Tue, 19 Dec 2023 22:59

Thousands of migrants are to have their papers legalised in Greece as part of efforts to curb an acute labour shortage that is hitting key sectors of an otherwise resurgent economy.

In a move that has thrown his centre-right party into turmoil, the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, pushed through legislation on Tuesday regularising the status of about 30,000 unregistered labourers.

Critics of the bill, which was passed in a parliamentary vote with the endorsement of the leftwing opposition, have described it as dangerous. Mitsotakis's predecessor, Antonis Samaras, who voted against the law, had argued it risked turning Greece into ''a beacon of attraction for illegal migrants''.

Defending the one-off measure, the country's migration and asylum minister, Dimitris Kairidis, told the Guardian that the legislation would help with not only labour shortages but also social cohesion.

''This is a small step in meeting the acute needs of the tight labour market and a big step in enhancing public safety,'' he said. ''Greece is faced with an unprecedented problem of labour shortages '... because of the high growth, the big fall in unemployment and the declining number of Albanian [workers].''

Like other parts of Europe, Greece has struggled to contend with an exodus of workers prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Labour scarcity is felt especially in agriculture, tourism and construction.

Greece's migration and asylum minister, Dimitris Kairidis. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty ImagesAgricultural associations, which depend on immigrants to gather fruit and vegetables, have increasingly complained of their produce rotting, and MPs in rural areas have exhorted Mitsotakis to take action. Fears for this year's olive harvest have similarly grown, with farmers whose yields have fallen because of the climate crisis voicing alarm over the prospect of reduced pickings on account of the labour shortages.

Under the bill, migrants will be able to legalise their status more easily by acquiring residence permits in three years rather than seven if they can prove they are employed. Greek government officials have been quick to emphasise that by integrating ''invisible people'', the measure will help boost public revenue with employment taxes and contributions. Many of the jobs that people from abroad are willing to do are ones that unemployed Greeks will not touch, unions say.

At a time when anti-immigrant sentiment is fuelling far-right support across Europe, the law has been welcomed, with the left seeing it as overdue, if also opportune.

''Simply because it has proven incapable of confronting the big problem of labour shortages, the government has been forced to adopt [our] proposal and has moved ahead with the rapid legalisation of work and residence permits for undocumented migrants,'' said Theodora Tzakri, who heads the main opposition party Syriza's parliamentary group.

On Europe's south-eastern frontline, Greece has long been a gateway to the EU, and the centre-right administration has faced criticism for enforcing self-declared ''tough but fair'' migration policies that have sought to keep asylum seekers at bay through illegal ''pushbacks'' at land and sea borders, according to human rights groups.

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With ruling party MPs told they would face discipline if they failed to back the bill on Tuesday, cabinet ministers were at pains to stress that the measure in no way presaged a relaxation of the government's migration management agenda.

Insisting the measure would ease ''legal pathways of migration'' according to Greece's economic needs, Kairidis said: ''There is no loosening of our migration policy. Fighting illegal smuggling of migrants goes hand in hand with facilitating legal migration. For the latter to work we need to consolidate the sense of security in Greek society, and for the former to succeed we need to provide a legal alternative.''

He said the new policy had been drafted based on the experience and best practices of other EU member states. ''We believe that our middle-of-the-road approach, based on common sense and the law, is the most appropriate for Europe today.''

Athens is also in the process of signing bilateral agreements ''for labour mobility'' with other third countries including Vietnam, Bangladesh, Georgia and Moldova. ''This will provide the additional manpower our economy needs through a legal and well-regulated process,'' Kairidis said, adding that state bureaucracy would undoubtedly have to improve to be able to issue permits to facilitate legal migration.

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Archived Version

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 22:56

Why you've probably never heard of the most popular Netflix show in the world

Illustration by The Atlantic; Source: Getty.December 18, 2023, 1:11 PM ET

You are currently logged on to the largest version of the internet that has ever existed. By clicking and scrolling, you're one of the 5 billion''plus people contributing to an unfathomable array of networked information'--quintillions of bytes produced each day.

The sprawl has become disorienting. Some of my peers in the media have written about how the internet has started to feel ''placeless'' and more ephemeral, even like it is ''evaporating.'' Perhaps this is because, as my colleague Ian Bogost has argued, ''the age of social media is ending,'' and there is no clear replacement. Or maybe artificial intelligence is flooding the internet with synthetic information and killing the old web. Behind these theories is the same general perception: Understanding what is actually happening online has become harder than ever.

The internet destroyed any idea of a monoculture long ago, but new complications cloud the online ecosystem today: TikTok's opaque ''For You'' recommendation system, the ascension of paywalls that limit access to websites such as this one, the collapse of Twitter'--now X'--under Elon Musk, the waning relevance of news across most social-media sites. The broad effect is an online experience that feels unique to every individual, depending on their ideologies and browsing habits. The very idea of popularity is up for debate: Is that trend really viral? Did everyone see that post, or is it just my little corner of the internet? More than before, it feels like we're holding a fun-house mirror up to the internet and struggling to make sense of the distorted picture.

Read: The great social media-news collapse

''There's a real lack of understanding of what's going on across platforms,'' Ryan Broderick, who writes the newsletter Garbage Day, told me. For the past six months, Broderick has been partnering with NewsWhip and other online-analytics companies and independently building intelligence reports, tracking the most popular content and personalities across sites such as Facebook, X, Reddit, TikTok, Twitch, and YouTube. In the 2010s, he said, a curious person was better equipped to take the temperature of the web: ''The stuff going viral on Facebook was of a different flavor and demographic than, say, YouTube or Twitter, but it felt easier to look at it all, shuffle the decks together, and say, There's the internet.'' Sometime between mid-2021 and early 2022, Broderick noticed that information was moving differently. News stories blew up in corners of the internet and died out, completely bypassing his feeds, and fake ''viral'' trends popped up with increasing frequency, despite little evidence that anyone was participating in them.

Consider TikTok for a second'--arguably the most vibrant platform on the internet. Try to imagine which posts might have been most popular on the site this year. Perhaps a dispatch from the Middle East or incendiary commentary on the mass bombings in Gaza? Or maybe something lighter, like a Gen Z dance trend or gossip about Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce? Well, no: According to TikTok's year-end report, the most popular videos in the U.S.'--clips racking up as many as half a billion views each'--aren't topical at all. They include makeup tutorials, food ASMR, a woman showing off a huge house cat, and a guy spray-painting his ceiling to look like Iron Man. As a Verge headline noted earlier this month, ''TikTok's biggest hits are videos you've probably never seen.'' Other platforms have the same issue: Facebook's most recent ''Widely Viewed Content Report'' is full of vapid, pixelated, mostly repackaged memes and videos getting tens of millions of views.

The dynamic extends beyond social media too. Just last week, Netflix unexpectedly released an unusually comprehensive ''engagement report'' revealing audience-consumption numbers for most of the TV shows and movies in its library'--more than 18,000 titles in all. The attempt at transparency caused confusion among some viewers: Netflix's single most popular anything from January and June 2023 was a recent thriller series called The Night Agent, which was streamed for 812 million hours globally. ''I stay pretty plugged in with media, especially TV shows - legit have never heard of what's apparently the most watched scripted show in the world,'' one person posted on Threads.

This confusion is a feature of a fragmented internet, which can give the impression that two opposing phenomena are happening simultaneously: Popular content is being consumed at an astounding scale, yet popularity and even celebrity feel miniaturized, siloed. We live in a world where it's easier than ever to be blissfully unaware of things that other people are consuming. It's also easier than ever to assign outsize importance to information or trends that may feel popular but are actually contained.

Last month, a claim began to circulate online that TikTok was awash in viral videos of users reading from and praising Osama bin Laden's 2002 ''Letter to America.'' The trend was quickly cited by journalists as a worrying indicator of rising anti-Semitism. But a quick analysis of the platform offered more nuance. Although some videos did exist, The Washington Post found that the ''Letter to America'' hashtag was on only 274 of them during the two-day period in question. The videos received 1.8 million views'--far, far fewer than videos hashtagged with travel, skincare, and anime in another 24-hour stretch, according to examples named by the Post.

What followed was a messy postmortem, one that I fear might foreshadow the way 2024-election stories will play out: Internet-savvy reporters tried to offer important correctives to the notion that the letter had gone viral. But others rightly noted that the videos, at least one of which had more than 10,000 likes, were still troubling, even if they were not viral by TikTok standards. Politicians seized on the news to further their own long-standing grievances, namely that TikTok, which they fear is controlled by the Chinese government, is influencing and even radicalizing younger American users. TikTok did not respond to my request for comment.

As interested parties debated whether the trend was real, the coverage drew greater attention to the videos, causing them to go far more viral on secondary platforms; a video compilation of the TikToks has been viewed more than 41 million times on X. Should this cycle repeat in the same way next year, the 2024 presidential campaign will be an especially punishing affair: It will be the TikTok Shadowboxing Election, where virality becomes a meaningless descriptor that nevertheless justifies any number of conflicts.

After the ''Letter to America'' controversy, I reached out to Brandon Silverman, the founder of CrowdTangle, a platform that tracks the most popular posts across Facebook (which acquired it in 2016). Silverman quit Facebook in 2021, and he now says that big technology platforms are making it harder to verify trends and trace where they came from. Unlike Twitter before Musk, X is a black box, he told me, and TikTok only gives access to its research interface to academic researchers by application. ''We're mostly arguing over data that we don't have'' and ''chasing our own tails around the internet,'' Silverman said.

CrowdTangle itself paused new user sign-ups last year, arguably a major turning point in this entire conversation: Researchers and transparency groups argued that Meta defanged CrowdTangle's team as part of an internal reorganization, and reporters have speculated that the transparency tool caused too many headaches for Meta executives when it became clear that conspiracy theories, election-denial content, and far-right influencers were popular across the social network. In a statement, a Meta spokesperson told me that paid CrowdTangle accounts are still active and that, last month, the company rolled out a new series of tools to ''provide access to near real-time public content from Pages, Posts, Groups and Events'' on Facebook, as well as from professional accounts on Instagram.

Popularity and virality aren't the only metrics to determine what's important, but without an understanding of what is happening online, we're much more likely to let others take advantage of us or to waste precious time thinking about, debunking, and debating issues and controversies that are actually insignificant or have little impact on the world around us. Likewise, politicians can take trends out of context to fit their own political agenda. Last month on the Senate floor, Senator Marsha Blackburn cited ''the appalling popularity'' of the bin Laden letter on TikTok. ''This didn't happen on its own,'' Blackburn argued. ''You had TikTok pushing along on this.'' Some high-profile Democrats, including New York Governor Kathy Hochul, similarly called out TikTok. When we waste our time chasing shadows, Silverman argued, ''we miss the more important issues that actually do deserve our time and attention and tell us something truly meaningful about platforms, ourselves, or the world.''

Not that a more centralized social-media experience was perfect. ''What I saw at CrowdTangle is that, more often than not, it was actually just a few influential accounts that made something 'go viral,''' Silverman told me. He argued that, because the platform audiences were less fragmented, a few large accounts dictated virality way more often than an army of small ones did. Broderick agreed, noting that, especially on networks such as Twitter, media organizations could identify and amplify trends, thereby increasing their reach'--a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. ''One reason why there's so much consternation is that if you can't see what's going on, you can't rig the game anymore,'' he said.

A shift away from a knowable internet might feel like a return to something smaller and purer. An internet with no discernable monoculture may feel, especially to those who've been continuously plugged into trending topics and viral culture, like a relief. But this new era of the internet is also one that entrenches tech giants and any forthcoming emergent platforms as the sole gatekeepers when it comes to tracking the way that information travels. We already know them to be unreliable narrators and poor stewards, but on a fragmented internet, where recommendation algorithms beat out the older follower model, we rely on these corporations to give us a sense of scale. This might sound overdramatic, but without an innate sense of what other people are doing, we might be losing a way to measure and evaluate ourselves. We're left shadowboxing one another and arguing in the dark about problems, the size of which we can't identify.

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Tue, 19 Dec 2023 22:53

The COP28 Conference in Dubai has already unveiled several declarations that underscore the disastrous consequences of climate change and galvanize global initiatives to keep a resilient future within reach. Though laudable, these declarations are ultimately futile if countries fail to successfully implement them. If countries are serious about meeting their climate commitments, they should get serious about quantum computing, a potentially game-changing technology that could support implementation and drive breakthrough climate innovations.

COP28 participants aim to limit global warming to 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels by 2050. Green energy technologies '-- such as electric vehicles, carbon capture and storage, and climate resilient agriculture '-- are key to help countries remain on target and cut net emissions in half by 2030.

The problem is that many green energy technologies are too costly and cumbersome to be useful. Further, existing approaches to scientific research and discovery could take years or decades to produce needed improvements, and the world cannot afford to wait. Rising temperatures already cause environmental degradation, weather extremes, food and water insecurity and conflict. Thankfully, quantum computing can help.

Quantum computing uses the laws of quantum physics to store and process information, and rapidly solve complex problems. Quantum computers available today require additional maturation to deliver on their full potential, they are still error-prone and small in scale. But even in their current, limited state of development, quantum computers demonstrate significant computational advantages over conventional computers. They could solve problems in minutes that would take today's best performing conventional computers millions of years to crack.

Quantum computers are particularly good at solving the optimization and simulation problems underpinning many sustainability and energy-related challenges, and could overcome barriers to green technology innovation much faster than their conventional counterparts. Quantum computing, though an imperfect technology itself, could expedite critical breakthroughs and help achieve global climate objectives within desired timeframes.

Quantum computers could, for example, accelerate improvements in electric batteries, which are pivotal to the renewable energy transition. While conventional computers struggle to model chemical processes and illuminate molecular interactions, quantum computers can provide exact simulations of quantum-mechanical phenomenon, paving the way to better battery efficiency and performance. Quantum computers could help identify battery materials that are cheaper and more sustainable to source and produce, while also reducing the number of lab prototypes that require extensive testing. They could also help improve the energy density of batteries, allowing for increased range and greater flexibility.

Several automotive manufacturers are already exploring the use of quantum computers to augment battery research and design. In January 2022, Hyundai partnered with quantum computing startup IonQ to develop new quantum algorithms for studying lithium compounds and their chemical reactions involved in battery chemistry. Likewise, Daimler partnered with IBM to use quantum simulation to better understand lithium-sulfur batteries and explore how to boost batteries' charge capacity, diminish energy loss via heat, and lower production costs.

Separately, companies like BMW are investigating the use of quantum computers to identify optimal locations to install electric vehicle (''EV'') charging stations. Recent research suggests that quantum technology could even deliver new mechanisms to charge EV batteries at a faster rate. By leveraging the quantum phenomenon of entanglement, quantum charging stations could replenish all cells within a battery simultaneously, minimizing EVs' average charging time from 10 hours to approximately three minutes. Some researchers believe that such technology could be commercially available in as little as three to five years.

Aside from supporting battery research and development, quantum computing can unlock more eco-friendly fertilizer manufacturing processes and facilitate more affordable green ammonia. Quantum computers could help overcome the challenges associated with replicating nitrogen fixation artificially, for instance. Quantum simulation could illuminate ways to enhance enzyme stability and oxygen sensitivity and improve the rate of ammonia production by nitrogenase. These advances would result in a 67 percent cost reduction over green ammonia produced through today's methods and dramatically lessen the CO2 impacts of ammonia production for use in agriculture and shipping.

Other possible sustainability applications for quantum computing include identifying better materials for solar cells and wind turbines, or more absorbent catalysts for carbon capture technologies. Quantum computers could help solve grid optimization problems as well, leading to significant power and energy savings, or contribute to more accurate and timely weather forecasting, enabling proactive and effective climate adaptation strategies. Quantum simulations could also support earth system modeling or nuclear fusion research and development efforts.

In short, quantum technology is an often-overlooked tool that could unlock the potential of green technologies far faster than traditional approaches. Though quantum computers themselves must reach a higher level of performance to deliver on their full promise, today's flawed quantum systems have an important role to play in meeting the world's climate objectives.

As COP28 participants work to bring new urgency and ambition to the global fight against climate change, they should also support efforts to advance cooperation on quantum research and development. Quantum computing is not a silver bullet to the world's energy and sustainability challenges, but it could become a transformative tool that helps prevent the worst effects of climate change and reduce further global warming.

COP28 presents an excellent opportunity to encourage engagement between experts in the quantum and sustainability domains, harness the positive potential of quantum computers, and think creatively about technology's role in solving collective problems. It is time for COP28 participants to seize the quantum moment.

Sam Howell is a research associate with the Technology and National Security program at the Center for a New American Security. You can find her on Twitter @Sam_Howell15.

Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Tue, 19 Dec 2023 22:22

A federal judge in New York has ordered a vast unsealing of court documents in early 2024 that will make public the names of scores of Jeffrey Epstein's associates.

The documents are part of a settled civil lawsuit alleging Epstein's one-time paramour Ghislaine Maxwell facilitated the sexual abuse of Virginia Giuffre. Terms of the 2017 settlement were not disclosed.

Maxwell is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence after she was convicted of sex trafficking and procuring girls for Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 in a Manhattan jail while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges.

Jeffrey Epstein in a photo released by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice.

New York State Sex Offender Registry, FILE

Anyone who did not successfully fight to keep their name out of the civil case could see their name become public -- including Epstein's victims, co-conspirators and innocent associates.

Judge Loretta Preska set the release for Jan. 1, giving anyone who objects to their documents becoming public time to object. Her ruling, though, said that since some of the individuals have given media interviews their names should not stay private.

The documents may not make clear why a certain individual became associated with Giuffre's lawsuit, but more than 150 people are expected to be identified in hundreds of files that may expose more about Epstein's sex trafficking of women and girls in New York, New Mexico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and elsewhere. Some of the names may simply have been included in depositions, email or legal documents.

Jeffrey Epstein attends Launch of RADAR MAGAZINE at Hotel QT on May 18, 2005.

Patrick Mcmullan/Getty Images, FILE

Some of the people have already been publicly associated with Epstein. For instance, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz is publicly named in the judge's order. Certain minor victims will remain redacted.

Maxwell, a longtime associate of Epstein, was convicted in 2021 of conspiring with Epstein to recruit, groom and abuse minors. In February, she asked the court to overturn her conviction and 20-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors subsequently urged a federal appeals court in June to uphold the conviction.

From 1994 to 2004, Maxwell and Epstein worked together to identify girls, groom them and then entice them to travel and transport them to Epstein's properties in New York, Florida, New Mexico, and elsewhere, prosecutors said. The girls -- some of whom were as young as 14 years old -- were then sexually abused, often under the guise of a "massage," they said.

Giuffre alleged in her lawsuit against Maxwell that Maxwell recruited her at the age of 16 to years of sexual servitude to Epstein. She also accused Maxwell and Epstein of directing her, between 2000 to 2002, to have sex with a number of their prominent associates, most famously Britain's Prince Andrew. The lawsuit was settled in May 2017, just before a trial was to begin.

Prince Andrew had repeatedly denied the allegations and attacked Giuffre's credibility and motives. He agreed to settle a sexual assault lawsuit from Giuffre last year for an undisclosed sum.

"Prince Andrew has never intended to malign Ms. Giuffre's character, and he accepts that she has suffered both as an established victim of abuse and as a result of unfair public attacks," according to a letter filed from Giuffre's lawyer. "It is known that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked countless young girls over many years. Prince Andrew regrets his association with Epstein, and commends the bravery of Ms. Giuffre and other survivors in standing up for themselves and others."

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Tue, 19 Dec 2023 20:54

Open Access

Peer-reviewed

Research Article

Ben Dawson, Julia Drewer, Toby Roberts, Peter Levy, Mathew Heal, Nicholas Cowan x

Published: December 13, 2023 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295157 AbstractExhaled human breath can contain small, elevated concentrations of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), both of which contribute to global warming. These emissions from humans are not well understood and are rarely quantified in global greenhouse gas inventories. This study investigated emissions of CH4 and N2O in human breath from 104 volunteers in the UK population, to better understand what drives these emissions and to quantify national-scale estimates. A total of 328 breath samples were collected, and age, sex, dietary preference, and smoking habits were recorded for every participant. The percentage of methane producers (MPs) identified in this study was 31%. The percentage of MPs was higher in older age groups with 25% of people under the age of 30 classified as MPs compared to 40% in the 30+ age group. Females (38%) were more likely to be MPs than males (25%), though overall concentrations emitted from both MP groups were similar. All participants were found to emit N2O in breath, though none of the factors investigated explained the differences in emissions. Dietary preference was not found to affect CH4 or N2O emissions from breath in this study. We estimate a total emission of 1.04 (0.86''1.40) Gg of CH4 and 0.069 (0.066''0.072) Gg of N2O in human breath annually in the UK, the equivalent of 53.9 (47.8''60.0) Gg of CO2. In terms of magnitude, these values are approximately 0.05% and 0.1% of the total emissions of CH4 and N2O reported in the UK national greenhouse gas inventories.

Citation: Dawson B, Drewer J, Roberts T, Levy P, Heal M, Cowan N (2023) Measurements of methane and nitrous oxide in human breath and the development of UK scale emissions. PLoS ONE 18(12): e0295157. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295157

Editor: Dafeng Hui, Tennessee State University, UNITED STATES

Received: August 29, 2023; Accepted: November 15, 2023; Published: December 13, 2023

Copyright: (C) 2023 Dawson et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: The data that support the findings of this study can be found in the Supporting Information files.

Funding: The analysis was funded by the UK NERC grant E/S003614/2 'Detection and Attribution of Regional greenhouse gas Emissions in the UK (DAREUK)'. We acknowledge contribution from UKSCAPE Programme, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council as National Capability (award number NE/R016429/1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

IntroductionIt has been reported that exhaled human breath can contain the greenhouse gases methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) [1, 2], both of which have a much higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide (CO2) (34 and 265 for CH4 and N2O, respectively [3]). Where hydrocarbon chains (food types) are consumed by humans and turned into CH4 (and N2O from nitrogen intake), the global warming potential is no longer neutral, and human respiration has a net warming effect on the atmosphere. Due to their ruminant digestive system in which methanogenesis (biological production of CH4) occurs [4], herbivorous livestock (e.g., cattle) are known to emit large quantities of CH4 globally in the form of breath and flatus, accounting for approximately 20% of anthropogenic CH4 emissions [5, 6]. While the global biological mass of humans (390 Mt) is estimated to be similar in magnitude (~62%) to that of domesticated animals at the global scale [7], emissions of CH4 are assumed to be significantly smaller. However, few studies have been carried out to examine this explicitly, and no study to date has investigated emissions in breath of the UK population.

Methanogenic flora in the human gut produce CH4 that can be emitted via breath [1], flatus [8] and skin [9]. Humans are generally considered to be CH4 producers (MPs) if their breath concentration is more than 1 ppm above background concentration (~1.9 ppm [10]), and CH4 non-producers (MNPs) if not. However, there is evidence that all humans produce CH4 in breath to some extent [1] and those who do not exhale CH4 are still likely to release the gas in flatus [8]. Some studies have found that the propensity to produce CH4 in breath increases with age [11''13] and is higher among females [14''17], but there is contrary evidence for both these trends in the limited number of studies available. The highest reported proportion of MPs was found in African populations with up to 84% [15]. Proportions of MPs in Western populations vary from 25% [17] to 62% [18], while in Asian populations (such as Japanese) it can be as low as 15% [13]. The reasons for geographic, ethnic, diet, gender or age-based differences emissions of CH4 in human breath are not understood, and historical studies have likely suffered from issues such as poor detection limits of available analysers and limited sample populations (n < 100).

It is believed that N2O in human breath derives from the reduction of nitrates in food and water by denitrifying bacteria in the gut and oral cavity [2, 19, 20]. There is also evidence that endogenously produced nitric oxide (NO) is reduced to N2O by these bacteria [21]. Ingestion of nitrate-rich vegetables is reported to cause an increase in breath N2O concentration for up to 4 hours [19]; Petersen et al. (2015) [22] similarly highlighted that increasing nitrate in the diet of cattle can substantially increase N2O emissions in cattle breath. The number of studies on human N2O production is small, and thus there is no information on geographical or ethnic variation in breath concentrations, although an increase in concentration with age after childhood has been observed [20].

The predicted total emissions of these gases from humans is very small when compared to global emissions. Polag and Keppler (2019) [11] estimated that the global emission of CH4 from 7.5 billion people would be 0.41 ± 0.11 Tg CH4 yr''1. Mitsui (1997) [2] estimated that the global emission of N2O from 5.8 billion people would be up to 12 Gg N2O yr-1. This is the equivalent of approximately 0.11 and 0.16% of global anthropogenic emissions of CH4 and N2O, respectively (according to global estimates [6, 23]). Therefore, emissions of these gases are generally ignored in most environmental monitoring or inventory work as they are considered negligible. However, there are reasons to study these emissions further. The factors that affect human emissions of CH4 and N2O are not well understood and the impacts of an aging population and shifting diets is still relatively uncertain. Converting from high meat and protein content diets to higher fibre vegetarian options to mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases from meat production potentially results in higher production of gases in the human gut [24], and an element of pollution swapping could occur. In the UK, greenhouse gas measurements are carried out using top-down and bottom-up methods for validation purposes. Top-down measurements include the use of a ''tall-tower'' network where inverse modelling can be used to assess emissions of gases at a national scale [25]. The eddy covariance method is also used at tall urban tower sites to measure fluxes at large scales [26]. These measurement methods will observe emissions from a mixture of sources within their large footprints, and human breath is an unquantified factor that may add uncertainty to analysis, especially where human populations are dense. It is widely recognised that there is an offset between top-down and bottom-up emission inventories of greenhouse gases, believed to be as a result of missing or poorly quantified sources in bottom-up accounting methods [27]. Saunois et al. (2020) [6] report a difference greater than 20% between top-down and bottom-up estimates of global CH4 emissions.

The objectives of this study are (i) to quantify emissions of CH4 and N2O in human breath in the UK population, and (ii) to investigate factors that might affect the magnitude and variations in these concentrations. This study aims to identify patterns in emissions from individuals that may alter emission estimates in national scale accounting and provide a realistic national emission for the UK in particular.

MethodStudy participationA total of 328 breath samples were collected indoors in the city of Edinburgh from 104 volunteer participants between 12/12/2022 and 10/03/2023. All volunteers gave written consent to use the data and to publish the data in an anonymised format (Ethics approval was obtained from UKCEH Human Research Ethics Committee, HREC0009). Age, sex, dietary preference, and smoking habits were recorded for every participant (Table 1). The mean age of the participants across all samples collected was 30.2 and 35.8 years for males and females respectively. Information on the time of day, and whether participants had brushed their teeth, eaten, smoked, or exercised within 1 hour prior to measurement was available for 248 of the samples. Participants were asked if they had consumed meat, vegetables, fruit, salad, wheat, pulses, rice, egg, soya, oats, dairy, onion or garlic, potato and dried fruit. Details on the foods eaten within the 24 hours prior was collected for 170 samples. Forty-two participants gave more than one sample on different dates.

Breath analysisFor the collection of breath samples, 3 L Tedlar® gas-sampling bags were used. Participants were required to take in a deep breath and hold it for 5 s, then exhale approximately 80% of their lung capacity into the bag. Some participants needed to give a second breath to fill the sample bag. All bags were flushed with either 100% research grade nitrogen or with the participant's breath prior to each sample collection. The double needle technique [28] was used to flush a 20 mL glass vial with 100 mL of breath sample extracted from the gas-sampling bags within 24 h of collection. These samples were analysed on an Agilent 7890B gas chromatograph (GC) with a flame ionisation detector (FID) and a micro electron capture detector (μECD) with nitrogen carrier gas, using an Agilent 7697A Headspace Autosampler for sample loading (Agilent, Santa Clara, CA, United States). Twenty-four atmospheric background measurements were taken across all locations at which breath samples were collected. Background concentrations of CO2, CH4 and N2O were defined as 1050, 2.0 and 0.34 ppm, respectively. Breath MPs were defined as 1 ppm above background concentration (3 ppm), as consistent with previous literature [29, 30].

Statistical analysisData was analysed using the statistical software R, version 4.1.0 (R Core Team, 2021 [31]). Where data has a Gaussian distribution, uncertainties are reported as the 95% confidence interval around the mean. Where data are log-normally distributed, the method detailed by Zou et al. (2008) [32] is used to estimate the mean (Zou's mean) with asymmetric 95% upper and lower confidence intervals, as implemented in the R package EnvStats [33]. Analysis was conducted using the exhaled breath concentrations minus the mean background concentration (negative values kept so as not to systematically bias data). All data referred to in the text is this concentration enhancement unless quoted as emitted concentration.

Estimated annual emissions from humans were calculated using an average breathing rate of 16 breaths per minute [34], an average lung tidal volume of 0.5 L [35], the ideal gas law under standard conditions, and the approximate current populations of 68.2 million for the UK and 8 billion for global estimates.

Ethics statementThis study was reviewed by UKCEH's Ethical Review Committee an approval was granted. Research was conducted in accordance with the principles embodied in the Declaration of Helsinki and in accordance with local statutory requirements. All participants have given written consent to collect and use the data collected in the study to publish this manuscript. All participants were over the age of 18 and consent from parents or guardians was not required.

ResultsConcentration enhancement of CO2 in the breath of the participants ranged from 26.5 to 63.4 parts per thousand (2.65''6.34%) following a Gaussian distribution, with an arithmetic mean of 4.35 (4.29''4.43) % (Fig 1A). All participants exhaled CO2, and while the data distribution skewed slightly towards higher values, overall, the data was relatively symmetrical around the mean. Concentration enhancement of CH4 in breath varied from -0.56 to 49.6 ppm, following a log-normal distribution with an arithmetic mean concentration of 5.08 and Zou's mean of 4.26 (3.37''5.54) ppm (Fig 1B). While the lowest of these values is negative (emitted concentration below the 2 ppm background), the precision of the GC instrument is approximately 0.04 ppm (Drewer et al., 2021), thus the small number of negative values is likely to be instrumental noise as 55% of the concentration differences were less than the instrument precision. The distribution of concentration enhancement of CH4 are heavily skewed towards higher values, with a large number of concentrations near zero. A total of 32 (31%) of the participants were classed as MPs (single or mean concentrations in breath measurements exceeded the 3 ppm threshold). The arithmetic mean concentration enhancement of all samples measured from the MPs was 17.1 ppm and the Zou's mean was 15.0 (11.9''19.9) ppm. The arithmetic emitted mean of the concentration enhancement among NMPs was -0.1 ppm, with most samples reporting breath concentrations around the precision limit of the GC instrument (results from NMPs were essentially instrumental noise around zero). Therefore, it is approximated that 31% of people emitted a mean concentration of 15.0 (11.9''19.9) ppm CH4 in their breath, while the rest emit effectively none. Concentration enhancement of N2O in the breath of the participants also followed a log-normal distribution, ranging from 0.11 to 0.88 ppm with an arithmetic mean of 0.33 and a Zou's mean of 0.329 (0.315''0.342) ppm (Fig 1C). The skew in the distribution of N2O concentrations was more towards higher values than the CO2 distribution, but not as extreme as that of CH4 concentrations. No concentration enhancements of N2O in breath were below background levels, indicating that while there is a large variation in observed N2O concentrations, all participants emitted at least some N2O.

Fig 1.

Density plots of (a) CO2, (b) CH4 and (c) N2O concentration enhancement in the breath of all participants, with mean concentrations shown as a green dashed line. (e, f) Concentration enhancement of gases in breath vs age, with linear fit and statistics (g-i) Concentration enhancement of gases in breath of female and male groups, presented as box & whisker plots with median and 25th and 75th percentiles.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295157.g001

Impact of demographicsThe majority of the participants (62%) in the study were below the age of 30 (n = 64), though each decadal age grouping contained several participants (Fig 1D''1F). No strong relationships were observed between age and emission of CH4 and N2O in breath between age and gas concentrations, though due to a lack of participants in the later age groups, we cannot prove this definitively with this data set. Due to the potential bias of having a larger number of younger participants and the impact of the log-normal distribution of data, we split the data into groupings to clarify comparisons in age. When the participants were split into two groupings, either side of a 30-year-old threshold (arbitrary split to balance age groups with n = 64:40), a difference in CH4 emissions was observed between the groups. The relative ratio of MPs in the 30yr+ group (total n = 40) was 40%, larger than the number of the 25% observed in the <30yr group. The Zou's mean concentrations observed in the <30yr and 30yr+ age groups was 4.3 (3.1''5.5) ppm and 10.4 (5.9''14.8) ppm, respectively, and Zou's mean concentrations in the breath of the MPs only in these groupings was 10.7 (8.7''13.8) ppm and 19.14 (13.5''30.6) ppm, respectively. Emissions of N2O showed no correlation with age (p = 0.74).

There were no clear differences between mean emissions from male and females (Fig 1G''1I). The proportion of female and male participants classed as MPs was 38% and 25%, respectively. However, there was no obvious difference between the measured mean concentrations for each sex overall or among MPs. Only 9 of the participants were smokers which prevented meaningful statistical analysis with the other participants; however, no notable differences in emissions of the three GHGs investigated were observed in these samples.

Impact of dietSamples from participants in this study were separated into three dietary groupings: those who ate meat regularly (meat eater, sample n = 119), those who eat meat up to twice a week (flexitarian, sample n = 145) and those who ate no meat at all (vegetarian, sample n = 64). No trends were observed between the emissions of all 3 greenhouse gases with any of the three dietary groupings in this study (Fig 2). Further investigation into foods consumed 24 h prior to breath sampling also provided no trends with observed emissions (Fig 3). Many of these groups overlapped due to dietary variation over a 24 h period. When split into MP and NMP populations (Fig 3A), there is still no strong correlation between diet and observed CH4 emissions. A reduction of approximately 20% in N2O emissions was observed in the breath of participants who had provided breath samples prior-to and shortly after brushing teeth; however, reductions were inconsistent and dependent upon the magnitude of the emissions from the participant.

Fig 3. Concentrations of gases (above background) in the breath of participants who had consumed the listed food type in the 24 h prior to sampling.

Data is presented as box plots, with median and 25th and 75th percentiles. In (b), the emissions of methane are split into MP and NMP categories.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295157.g003

DiscussionAssessment of sampling methodAt rest, the normal CO2 concentration in human breath is around 4.0% [36], which is slightly lower than the concentration observed in this study of 4.4 (4.3''4.5) %. However, the breath collection method in this project was designed for measuring CH4 and N2O concentrations consistently, not for CO2 respiration rates. The likely cause for the skew in CO2 concentrations on the higher end of the scale is that some participants took slightly longer to blow into the bag than others, increasing the CO2 in breath which was held longer as a result. To test if the skew in N2O and CH4 concentration enhancement was due to the sampling method, a CO2 correction was applied as a check. Here, the CH4 and N2O concentrations were multiplied by the ratio of the mean measured CO2 concentration divided by the CO2 measured in individual samples. The skew in CH4 and N2O concentrations remained relatively unchanged by the correction, hence the concentrations were not correlated with longer breath holding and the skew in both data sets is real. There was also no correlation between the concentration enhancement of any of the gases with each other, suggesting that samples with highly skewed concentrations were independent of the method and representative of real differences between individuals.

Impact of demographicsEmissions of CH4 in breath from a given human population depends largely on the number of MPs present in the demographic. The percentage of MPs identified in this study (31%) is at the lower end of literature values for western populations (25''62% [8, 17, 18, 37]). One reason for this may be the lack of participants in older age groups in this study. The 25% of MPs in the <30 yr age group is consistent with percentages reported for similar age groups in the west [14, 38]. The higher percentage of MPs in the older age group is also consistent with the literature, with most previous studies finding an overall increase in the percentage of MPs with age [14, 38]. While previous studies have identified higher ratios of MPs in older age groups, most prior studies have either not reported concentration trends within MPs with age or have found no trend [12]. The finding of higher breath concentration of CH4 among MPs in the 30 yr+ grouping in this study has not been previously observed.

The results reported in this study are consistent with most previous studies that found a higher percentage of MPs in females (38%) when compared to males (25%) [12, 14, 16, 17]. It is also consistent in not finding any difference between the mean concentrations among MPs of both genders. It appears that females are more likely to be MPs, but those who are MPs do not exhale more CH4 than male MPs. We are unable to offer a reason for the difference in proportion of MPs between genders in this and other studies.

It has been reported in previous studies that region of birth or ethnicity is a strong indicator of the likelihood to be an MP, with African populations [15] much more likely to be MPs than Asian populations [13]. It was a limitation of this study that information on ethnicity or place of birth was not collected, but this data is the only reported from a population within the UK since McKay et al. (1985) [8]. There is evidence that MP status is determined in early childhood [16], and that the mother's MP status is a strong indicator [38], but that the familial link is not genetic [16]. MP status may be determined in early childhood through acquiring the methanogenic bacteria via diet or breast milk, but it appears that it takes time for the bacteria to reach a critical population and thus for the MP status to develop, which is the reason for an increase in the percentage of MPs with age [39]. Our finding of increased breath concentration in older MPs also fits this theory, because if methanogenic bacteria become more established in the digestive system throughout a lifetime, then breath CH4 concentration would also increase. It may be that this is limited by a number of other factors, such as food consumption, individual health and other impacts that affect breath CH4 concentration enhancement.

The mean breath N2O emission concentration enhancement of 0.33 ppm is consistent with some previous studies (Mitsui et al., 1997, Mitsui and Kondo, 1998). Some studies classified people as breath N2O producers and non-producers in the same way as is done for CH4, with a cut-off of 0.1 ppm above background concentration (Mitsui et al., 1997, Mitsui and Kondo, 1999). However, in this study none of the samples given were below this cut-off and thus every person would be an N2O producer. Given the evidence that humans endogenously produce NO (Palmer et al., 1987), it is plausible that all humans emit N2O through reduction of NO by denitrifying bacteria in their gut and oral cavity, but the concentration enhancement was too small to be detected by previous instruments.

There have been no previous reported differences in breath N2O concentration between sexes in previous studies, which is consistent with our findings. Higher concentration enhancements have been found in older people in Japan (Mitsui et al., 1997, Mitsui and Kondo, 1998, Mitsui and Kondo, 1999); however, the results of this study show no such trend.

Impact of dietThis study attempted to identify foods that affect breath CH4 and N2O concentration enhancement without interfering with typical dietary behaviour; however, no trends were identified. Breath CH4 concentration has been reported to increase on ingestion of lactulose [18] and have a positive correlation with total dietary fibre [38]. This study found no increase in breath CH4 concentration of those who had eaten dairy and did not collect information on dietary fibre intake. Mitsui and Kondo (1999) [19] reported increased breath N2O concentrations for 4 h after ingestion of nitrate-rich vegetables. In this study, difference in concentration of N2O related to any of the foods tested was found. Due to the magnitude of the random variance in emissions measured form the participants in this study, it is highly likely that a full investigation into whether particular diets have an impact on CH4 and N2O emissions requires a dedicated experiment on each food type with a large number of participants and strict diet regimes. Another limitation of the study design in this case is that measurements were taken during winter months only, and diet or other unforeseen seasonal environmental factors may alter human breath emissions to some extent. The purpose of this study was exploratory, to determine if certain generic diets had an overall impact on an individual's emissions of these gases, which does not seem to be the case. Concentration enhancement of both CH4 and N2O in the breath of vegetarians and meat consumers are similar in magnitude. Based on these results, we can state that, when estimating emissions from a population within the UK, diet or future diet changes are unlikely to be important when estimating emissions across the UK as a whole.

UK and global-scale emissionsThe results in this study suggest that when considering CH4 production in human breath in larger populations, only age and gender are relevant factors in determining the quantity of MPs, and thus the total CH4 emissions. The number of people below 30 years of age accounts for 35.5% of the UK population, which is currently 68.2 million. An estimated 51% of people below the age of 30 are male, and 49% of people above the age of 30 are male [40]. As no demographic or dietary factors were found to correlate with N2O emissions in breath, a single population factor was used to calculate N2O emissions. Based on estimates of approximately 4205 m3 of breath exhaled per person and using the ratio of MPs in each grouping in this study multiplied by demographics of the UK, we estimate emissions for the UK (Table 2). We estimate a total emission of 1.04 (0.86''1.40) Gg of CH4 and 0.069 (0.066''0.072) kt of N2O in human breath annually in the UK, the equivalent of 59.39 Gg of CO2. In terms of magnitude, these values are approximately 0.05% and 0.1% of the total emissions of CH4 and N2O reported in the UK national greenhouse gas inventories [41].

Table 2. Estimates of CH4 and N2O emissions from breath of all inhabitants of the UK.

Demographic data sourced from ONS, 2023. Global warming potential of 34 and 265 used to estimate CO2eq for CH4 and N2O, respectively; Sixth Assessment Report, IPCC 2022 [3].

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0295157.t002

Based on the mean concentrations of 15.0 (11.9''19.9) ppm in the breath of MPs, which accounted for 31% of participants in this study, a global total emission of 0.11 (0.09''0.15) Tg yr-1 of CH4 is very approximately estimated for breath emissions at a global scale (assuming a population of 8 billion). This is considerably lower than some previous estimates (e.g. 0.4 Tg yr-1 reported by Polag and Keppler, 2019) [11], which may be due to the relatively low number of MPs in the participant group in this study. The variation geographically and demographically of the ratio of MPs is still not understood, and there remain large areas of the world with no data. Polag and Keppler (2019) [11] predict 1.2 Tg yr-1 of CH4 in human emission by the year 2100 using a weighted estimation on age, sex, and geographical variance in population and MP percentage. If the finding here of an increase in breath concentration with age among MPs is also true, this value may be higher.

With a population of 8.9 million people, it could be assumed that CH4 emissions in human breath in the greater London area is approximately 0.14 Tg CH4 yr-1. With an area coverage of 1569 km2 we estimate an average annual flux of 0.09 tons CH4 km-2 yr-1, which is negligible compared to the 72 tons CH4 km-2 yr-1 reported by Helfter et al. (2016) [26] for the region. While there is an extremely high concentration of people in cities compared with more rural areas, the emissions of CH4 associated with fossil-fuel burning, gas leaks and wastewater leakage in cities are several orders of magnitude greater than that from breath. Natural soils can be a source or sink of CH4 in the UK, with typical grasslands emitting approximately 0.1 tons CH4 km-2 yr-1 (0.19 nmol m''2 s''1) on average [42]. For comparative purposes only, if the Greater London area were a managed grassland, the soil emissions of CH4 would be equivalent to that of human breath in the same area.

The estimated annual global emissions of N2O of approximately 0.01 Tg yr-1 is similar in value to the 0.012 Tg yr-1 estimated by Mitsui et al. (1997) [2]. While total emissions of N2O in breath are relatively negligible, the drivers behind the large spread in observed concentrations remains poorly studied and unexplained. Human flatus has been found with CH4 content of up to 29% [43], but very little is known about how this varies. Based on some opportunistic lab work that was carried out in this study, we know that flatus can contain extremely high concentration of N2O (greater than 30 ppm), but this has never been properly studied or reported in literature for humans. While flatus from livestock is commonly measured, there are barriers when performing experimentation on humans, primarily the embarrassment of participants and the inability to secure funds to carry out such research which carries with it some stigma due to the nature of the task. As the estimates of CH4 and N2O presented in this study do not account for flatus, we represent only the lowest possible emission from humans, and the true value of our own bodily emissions are likely significantly higher as a species.

Petersen et al. (2015) [22] reported that 2.7 mg hr-1 of N2O was emitted per head of cattle based on experimental evidence. Based on livestock unit (LSU) conversions of 0.1 for sheep and 0.8 for pigs, we can attribute a hypothetical N2O emission rate of 0.27 and 2.16 mg hr-1 for sheep and 0.8 for pigs, respectively. In the UK, a total of 9.6 million cattle, 22 million sheep and 5 million pigs are recorded [44], which using the previous estimates would generate approximately 0.37 Gg of N2O per year. Based on pet number estimates of 11 million dogs and 11 million cats [45] we can estimate more N2O in breath and flatus, though this has never been measured. Further wild mammal population such as deer, badgers, foxes and rodents would also add to this total, though these values are also unknown. While each of these individual sources is small, combined it is possible that emissions add up, and could exceed 1% of total N2O emissions in the UK (approximately 0.7 Gg N2O). Emissions of N2O in breath and flatus of mammals is not included in any greenhouse gas inventory or model as it is assumed to be negligible, but this may not be the case. The addition of nitrates to animal diets has been shown to reduce CH4 emissions, but these dietary changes could drastically increase N2O in the breath of livestock [22]. We recommend further exploratory work to quantify and understand N2O emissions from breath and flatus in the livestock sector, especially in regard to feeding nitrates to animals to reduce CH4 emissions, which is considered one option to reducing the carbon footprint of cattle in particular [46, 47].

ConclusionsThe measurements carried out in this study allow us to estimate UK-scale emissions of approximately 1.04 (0.86''1.40) Gg of CH4 and 0.069 (0.066''0.072) Gg of N2O emitted in the form of human breath. Based on a sample population of 104 volunteers, we estimate that the methane producing (MP) population in the UK is 25% for those aged less than 30 years, and 40% for those aged over 30 years of age. We have found no correlation between diet and emission of CH4 and N2O in breath and recommend if future studies wish to assess this in more detail, that rigid dietary regimes are implemented to reduce the effect of heterogeneity of emissions in a given population. While emissions of CH4 and N2O account for only 0.05% and 0.1% of the total emissions in the UK national greenhouse gas inventories, respectively, we would urge caution in the assumption that emissions from humans are negligible. We report only emissions in breath in this study, and flatus emissions are likely to increase these values significantly, though no literature characterises these emissions for people in the UK. Assuming that livestock and other wild animals also exhale emissions of N2O, there may still be a small but significant unaccounted for source of N2O emissions in the UK, which could account for more than 1% of national-scale emissions.

AcknowledgmentsThe authors thank all of the participants who volunteered to take part in this experiment.

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Tue, 19 Dec 2023 20:44

COVID-19 antigen home tests indicating a positive result are photographed in New York, April 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison)

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday classified the JN.1 variant of the coronavirus as a ''variant of interest'' but said there wasn't much of a threat to public health.

''Based on the available evidence, the additional global public health risk posed by JN.1 is currently evaluated as low,'' WHO said.

Still, the agency cautioned that with the onset of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, JN.1 ''could increase the burden of respiratory infections in many countries.''

JN.1 first emerged in the U.S. in September, and, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it now accounts for about 20 percent of all COVID-19 cases. It's currently the dominant variant in the Northeast, where it is estimated to cause about a third of new infections, the agency said.

The prevalence of JN.1 more than doubled between late November and mid-December, according to agency estimates, likely aided by holiday travel and gatherings. But it does not appear to be driving increases in hospitalizations.

Scientists and the CDC have said JN.1 is likely more transmissible or better at evading our immune systems than other circulating variants, but the public health risk overall is low, and it is unlikely that the subvariant will reach levels seen in the omicron or delta waves. There is also no indication of increased severity from JN.1, CDC said.

''At this time, there is no evidence that JN.1 presents an increased risk to public health relative to other currently circulating variants,'' the agency said in its most recent update on Dec. 8.

Like other previous variants of the coronavirus, it is not possible to know whether JN.1 produces different symptoms. Viruses are constantly changing over time, and JN.1 is just the latest variant to spread.

Experts and officials have said there will be other variants and urged more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 as well as flu and RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, if they're at risk.

Only 18 percent of adults have received the newest COVID-19 vaccine, and the CDC warned hospitalizations among all age groups are rising. Rates increased by 200 percent for influenza, 51 percent for COVID-19 and 60 percent for RSV over the past month, the agency said.

''Millions of people may get sick in the next month or two, and low vaccination rates means more people will get more severe disease,'' the agency said.

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The county said the sweeping new law, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, violated the Constitution and would result in thousands of arrests in El Paso alone.

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas signed three bills on Monday regarding border security, including Senate Bill 4. Credit... Jordan Vonderhaar for The New York Times Dec. 19, 2023, 1:11 p.m. ET

El Paso County and two immigrant rights groups sued Texas officials on Tuesday to challenge a sweeping new law that allows state and local police to arrest migrants who cross from Mexico, setting up a legal showdown over federal immigration policies.

The federal lawsuit came a day after Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill, which he called ''so extreme'' that he believed it would drive migrants away from Texas. Civil and immigrant rights groups and Democratic officials said the law violated the Constitution and invited racial profiling of Hispanic citizens in Texas.

In the suit, El Paso County and the two nonprofit groups argue that the state law should be struck down in its entirety because the federal government has exclusive authority over immigration matters.

The suit, filed in federal court in Austin, names as defendants the Texas Department of Public Safety, whose officers would be newly empowered to make arrests under the law, and the district attorney for El Paso, Bill Hicks, whose office would prosecute the offenses. The American Civil Liberties Union is representing the plaintiffs.

Mr. Abbott, a Republican, anticipated such a challenge. He has presented the law as a necessary reaction to what he has called the failure of President Biden to enforce existing federal law against crossing into the United States without authorization.

A spokesman for Mr. Abbott did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the lawsuit, nor did Mr. Hicks, who has said his office would not prioritize migrant arrests. A spokesman for the Department of Public Safety referred questions to Mr. Abbott's office.

Republicans have blamed President Biden for the surge of migrants who have entered the United States in record numbers the past three years, a trend that has become a political liability for him as he seeks re-election.

Over the last two years, Mr. Abbott, a third-term Republican, has steadily ratcheted up a strategy of state border enforcement, challenging the Biden administration to take Texas to court over it. The governor and the Republican-controlled state legislature have increasingly been at odds with the municipal governments of Texas cities, where Democrats are mostly in charge. Mr. Abbott has sparred publicly with mayors and urban district attorneys in Texas over a range of policies, including coronavirus restrictions, enforcement of abortion bans and police accountability.

The top officials in El Paso County, which includes the city of El Paso, are Democrats. Before the law was signed, the sheriff's office in El Paso, a county agency, said that it opposed the new law's approach and would not make arrests under the law.

Mr. Abbott has tried to put pressure on Democratic leaders in several of the nation's largest cities outside Texas by busing tens of thousands of migrants from the Texas border to destinations like New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The new state law, known as Senate Bill 4 and scheduled to take effect in March, makes it a misdemeanor to cross into Texas from Mexico without using an authorized port of entry. A person arrested under the law could be ordered by a court to return to Mexico or face prosecution if they did not agree to go. A second unauthorized crossing would be a felony.

A claim of asylum would not shield a migrant from arrest or prosecution for illegal entry under the new state law unless asylum had already been granted. But the process of reviewing an asylum claim often takes years.

''It's likely that it will create a dragnet that ensnares not only undocumented immigrants, but also Americans and legal permanent residents,'' said Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of San Antonio, who has asked the Justice Department to intervene to stop the law from taking effect.

According to the lawsuit, the Texas law is an attempt at ''grasping control over immigration from the federal government and depriving people subject to that system of all of the federal rights and due process that Congress provided to them.''

Mr. Abbott said on Monday that while he believed the law would withstand legal scrutiny, it presented an opportunity for the federal courts, and ultimately the Supreme Court, to reconsider a 2012 decision, Arizona v. United States, that narrowly ruled in favor of the federal government and against state efforts to enact their own immigration laws.

In the complaint, lawyers for El Paso County estimated that the law could result in 8,000 additional arrests each year, creating steep costs for county courts and jails and upending the relationship between the county government and its large immigrant community. The county, which has 869,000 residents, estimated that new jail facilities would cost more than $160 million, along with another $24 million each year to house the migrants arrested under the law.

The two nonprofit groups that have joined with the county in filing the suit '-- Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and American Gateways, both of which provide legal services to migrants '-- said the law would harm their ability to assist migrants, including those seeking asylum.

''Governor Abbott's efforts to circumvent the federal immigration system and deny people the right to due process is not only unconstitutional, but also dangerously prone to error,'' Anand Balakrishnan, senior staff attorney at the A.C.L.U.'s Immigrants' Rights Project, said in a statement.

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Islamist political and military organization in Yemen

This article is about the Yemen-based Islamist political and military organization. For the Arab tribe in northern Yemen, see

Houthi tribe. For the Tajik Islamist militant group, see

Jamaat Ansarullah.

Houthis اÙØ­ÙØيÙن 'Ž Ansar Allah أنصار اÙÙه 'Ž LeadersSpokesmanMohammed Abdul Salam[1] Dates of operation 1994''presentGroup(s)Houthi tribe and Zaidi ShiasHeadquartersSaada, Yemen (since 1994)Sanaa, Yemen (since 2014)Active regionsYemen (incl. Saudi Arabia''Yemen border)[2]IdeologySize100,000 (2011)[22][23]200,000 (2020)[24]AlliesState allies:Non-state allies:OpponentsState opponents:Non-state opponents:Battles and warsDesignated as a terrorist group byThe Houthi movement[a] (; Arabic: اÙØ­ÙØيÙن al-ḤÅthÄyÅn [al.ħuː.θiː.juːn] ), officially known as Ansar Allah (أنصار اÙÙه ʾAnṣār Allāh , lit. '‰ 'Supporters of God') is a Shia Islamist political and military organization that emerged from the Saada Governorate of Yemen in the 1990s. It is predominantly made up of Zaidi Shias,[8] with the namesake leadership being drawn largely from the Houthi tribe.[75]

Under the leadership of Zaidi religious leader Hussein al-Houthi, the Houthis emerged as an opposition movement to Yemen's then-president Ali Abdullah Saleh. They accused him of corruption and criticized him for being backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States.[57] Hussein accused Saleh of seeking to please the United States' interests at the expense of the Yemeni people[76] and Yemen's sovereignty.[77] In 2003, the Houthis' official slogan, following in the footsteps of Lebanese Shia political and military organization Hezbollah, became the group's trademark: "God is the Greatest, Death to America, Death to Israel, Cursed be the Jews, Victory to Islam."[78] Resisting Saleh's order for his arrest,[79] Hussein was killed by the Yemeni army in Saada in 2004, along with a number of his personal guards; his death sparked the Houthi insurgency.[80] Since then, except for a short intervening period, the movement has been led by his brother Abdul-Malik al-Houthi.[79]

The Houthi movement attracts followers in Yemen by portraying themselves as fighting for economic development, the end of political marginalization of Zaidi Shias,[81] and promoting regional political-religious issues in its media, fostering the rhetoric of an overarching Israeli and American conspiracy theory and widespread Arab "collusion" with those states.[82][78] The Houthis have a complex relationship with Yemen's Sunnis; the movement has discriminated against Sunnis, but also recruited and allied with them.[83][10][84][21] The Houthis took part in the Yemeni Revolution in 2011 by participating in street protests and by coordinating with other opposition groups. They joined Yemen's National Dialogue Conference as part of the initiative undertaken by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to broker peace following the unrest. However, the Houthis would later reject the November 2011 GCC deal's provisions stipulating the formation of six federal regions in Yemen, claiming that the deal did not fundamentally reform governance and that the proposed federalization "divided Yemen into poor and wealthy regions." The Houthis also feared the deal was a blatant attempt to weaken them by dividing areas under their control between separate regions.[21][81] In late 2014, Houthis repaired their relationship with Saleh, and with his help, they took control of the capital city and much of northern Yemen and announced the fall of the country's existing government, which was led by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.[85][86][87]

Since 2015, the Houthis have been fighting the Saudi intervention in Yemen, which seeks to establish full territorial control by the internationally recognized government within Yemen.[88] Additionally, the Islamic State has attacked all of the major parties to the conflict, including individual Houthis; Saleh's forces; the Yemeni government; and the Saudi-led military coalition.[89][90] The Houthis aim to govern all of Yemen and support external movements against the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia.[91] They have launched repeated missile and drone attacks against a number of Saudi cities. The fighting in Yemen is widely seen as part of the Iran''Saudi Arabia proxy war.[92] Following the outbreak of the 2023 Israel''Hamas war, the Houthis began to fire missiles at Israeli cities;[93][94][95] the attacks marked the first instance of space warfare in human history, as Israel began to actively intercept the Houthis' ballistic missiles in outer space.[96][97][98] The Houthis have stated that their intent is to continue attacking Israel until it is destroyed.[citation needed ]

Due to their tactics, the Houthi movement is considered to be the Yemeni mafia by opponents and researchers.[99][100][101][102]

History Current (October 2022) political and military control in ongoing Yemeni Civil War (2014''present)According to Ahmed Addaghashi, a professor at Sanaa University, the Houthis began as a moderate theological movement that preached tolerance and held a broad-minded view of all the Yemeni peoples.[103] Their first organization, "the Believing Youth" (BY), was founded in 1992 in Saada Governorate[104]:'Š1008'Š by either Mohammed al-Houthi,[105]:'Š98'Š or his brother Hussein al-Houthi.[106]

The Believing Youth established school clubs and summer camps[105]:'Š98'Š in order to "promote a Zaidi revival" in Saada.[106] By 1994''1995, 15''20,000 students had attended BY summer camps. The religious material included lectures by Mohammed Hussein Fadhlallah (a Lebanese Shia scholar) and Hassan Nasrallah (Secretary General of Lebanon's Hezbollah Party)."[105]:'Š99'Š [107]

The formation of the Houthi organisations has been described by Adam Baron of the European Council on Foreign Relations as a reaction to foreign intervention. Their views include shoring up Zaydi support against the perceived threat of Saudi-influenced ideologies in Yemen and a general condemnation of the former Yemeni government's alliance with the United States, which, along with complaints regarding the government's corruption and the marginalisation of much of the Houthis' home areas in Saada, constituted the group's key grievances.[108]

Although Hussein al-Houthi, who was killed in 2004, had no official relation with Believing Youth, according to Zaid, he contributed to the radicalisation of some Zaydis after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. BY-affiliated youth adopted anti-American and anti-Jewish slogans, which they chanted in the Saleh Mosque in Sanaa after Friday prayers.According to Zaid, the followers of Houthi's insistence on chanting the slogans attracted the authorities' attention, further increasing government worries over the extent of the Houthi movement's influence. "The security authorities thought that if today the Houthis chanted 'Death to America', tomorrow they could be chanting 'Death to the president [of Yemen]".800 BY supporters were arrested in Sanaa in 2004. President Ali Abdullah Saleh then invited Hussein al-Houthi to a meeting in Sanaa, but Hussein declined. On 18 June 2004 Saleh sent government forces to arrest Hussein.[79]

Hussein responded by launching an insurgency against the central government, but was killed on 10 September 2004.[76] The insurgency continued intermittently until a ceasefire agreement was reached in 2010.[103] During this prolonged conflict, the Yemeni army and air force was used to suppress the Houthi rebellion in northern Yemen. The Saudis joined these anti-Houthi campaigns, but the Houthis won against both Saleh and the Saudi army. According to the Brookings Institution, this particularly humiliated the Saudis, who spent tens of billions of dollars on their military.[57]

Later, the Houthis participated in the 2011 Yemeni Revolution, as well as the ensuing National Dialogue Conference (NDC).[109] However, they rejected the provisions of the November 2011 Gulf Cooperation Council deal on the ground that "it divide[d] Yemen into poor and wealthy regions" and also in response to assassination of their representative at NDC.[110][111]

As the revolution went on, Houthis gained control of greater territory. By 9 November 2011, Houthis were said to be in control of two Yemeni governorates (Saada and Al Jawf) and close to taking over a third governorate (Hajjah),[112] which would enable them to launch a direct assault on the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.[113] In May 2012, it was reported that the Houthis controlled a majority of Saada, Al Jawf, and Hajjah governorates; they had also gained access to the Red Sea and started erecting barricades north of Sanaa in preparation for more conflict.[114]

Yemen's former president Ali Abdullah Saleh was allied with Houthis from 2014 until his death in 2017. The Houthis assassinated him on charges of treason.By 21 September 2014, Houthis were said to control parts of the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, including government buildings and a radio station.[115] While Houthi control expanded to the rest of Sanaa, as well as other towns such as Rada', this control was strongly challenged by Al-Qaeda. The Gulf States believed that the Houthis had accepted aid from Iran while Saudi Arabia was aiding their Yemeni rivals.[116]

On 20 January 2015, Houthi rebels seized the presidential palace in the capital. President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi was in the presidential palace during the takeover, but was not harmed.[117] The movement officially took control of the Yemeni government on 6 February, dissolving parliament and declaring its Revolutionary Committee to be the acting authority in Yemen.[86] On 20 March 2015, The al-Badr and al-Hashoosh mosques came under suicide attack during midday prayers, and the Islamic State quickly claimed responsibility. The blasts killed 142 Houthi worshippers and wounded more than 351, making it the deadliest terrorist attack in Yemen's history.[118]

On 27 March 2015, in response to perceived Houthi threats to Sunni factions in the region, Saudi Arabia along with Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Sudan led a gulf coalition airstrike in Yemen.[119] The military coalition included the United States which helped in planning of airstrikes, as well as logistical and intelligence support.[120]

According to a 2015 September report by Esquire magazine, the Houthis, once the outliers, are now one of the most stable and organised social and political movements in Yemen. The power vacuum created by Yemen's uncertain transitional period has drawn more supporters to the Houthis. Many of the formerly powerful parties, now disorganised with an unclear vision, have fallen out of favour with the public, making the Houthis'--under their newly branded Ansar Allah name'--all the more attractive.[12]

Houthi spokesperson Mohamed Abdel Salam stated that his group had spotted messages between the UAE and Saleh three months before his death. He told Al-Jazeera that there was communication between Saleh, UAE and a number of other countries such as Russia and Jordan through encrypted messages.[121] The alliance between Saleh and the Houthi broke down in late 2017,[122] with armed clashes occurring in Sanaa from 28 November.[123]Saleh declared the split in a televised statement on 2 December, calling on his supporters to take back the country[124] and expressed openness to a dialogue with the Saudi-led coalition.[122] On 4 December 2017, Saleh's house in Sanaa was assaulted by fighters of the Houthi movement, according to residents.[125] Saleh was killed by the Houthis on the same day.[126][127]

In January 2021, the United States designated the Houthis a terrorist organization, creating fears of an aid shortage in Yemen,[128] but this stance was reversed a month later after Joe Biden became president.[129]

On 17 January 2022, Houthi missile and drone attacks on UAE industrial targets set fuel trucks on fire and killed three foreign workers. This was the first specific attack to which the Houthi admitted, and the first to result in deaths.[130] A response led by Saudi Arabia included a 21 January air strike on a detention centre in Yemen, resulting in at least 70 deaths.[131]

On 31 October 2023, during the Israel''Hamas War, Houthi forces launched ballistic missiles at Israel, which were shot down by Israel's Arrow missile defense system. Israeli officials claimed that this was the first ever combat to occur in space.[132]

Membership and ranks Ansar Allah fighters in Yemen, August 2009.There is a difference between the al-Houthi family[105]:'Š102'Š and the Houthi movement. The movement was called by their opponents and foreign media "Houthis". The name came from the surname of the early leader of the movement, Hussein al-Houthi, who died in 2004.[133]

The Houthis avoid assuming a singular tribal identity. Instead, the group strategically draws support from tribes of the northern Bakil federation, rival to the Hashid federation which had been a traditional ally of the central government. The Houthis' lack of centralised command structure allows them to generate immense support, as Yemenis from diverse backgrounds have joined their cause.[citation needed ]

Membership of the group had between 1,000 and 3,000 fighters as of 2005[134] and between 2,000 and 10,000 fighters as of 2009.[135] In 2010, the Yemen Post claimed that they had over 100,000 fighters.[136] According to Houthi expert Ahmed Al-Bahri, by 2010, the Houthis had a total of 100,000''120,000 followers, including both armed fighters and unarmed loyalists.[137]

As of 2015, the group is reported to have attracted new supporters from outside their traditional demographics.[108][138]

Ideology Yemen's ethnoreligious groups in 2002.The Houthi movement follows a mixed ideology with religious, Yemeni nationalist, and big tent populist tenets, imitating Hezbollah. Outsiders have argued that their political views are often vague, contradictory, and many of their slogans do not accurately reflect their aims.[10][11][139] According to researcher Bernard Haykel, the movement's founder Hussein al-Houthi was influenced by a variety of different religious traditions and political ideologies, making it difficult to fit him or his followers into existing categories. The Houthis have portrayed themselves as national resistance, defending all Yemenis from outside aggression and influences, as champions against corruption, chaos, and extremism, and as representative for the interests of marginalized tribal groups and the Zayidi sect.[10][11][139]

Haykel argued that the Houthi movement has two central religious-ideological tenets. The first is the "Quranic Way", and which encompasses the belief that the Quran does not allow for interpretation and contains everything needed to improve Muslim society. The second is the belief in the absolute, divine right of Ahl al-Bayt (Prophet's descendants) to rule, a belief attributed to Jaroudism, a fundamentalist offshoot of Zaydism.[142]

The group has also exploited the popular discontent over corruption and reduction of government subsidies.[21][25] According to a February 2015 Newsweek report, Houthis are fighting "for things that all Yemenis crave: government accountability, the end to corruption, regular utilities, fair fuel prices, job opportunities for ordinary Yemenis and the end of Western influence".[143] In forging alliances, the Houthi movement has been opportunistic, at times allying with countries it later declared its enemy such as the United States.[11]

Religion In general, the Houthi movement has centered its belief system on the Zaydi branch of Islam,[10][b] a sect of Islam almost exclusively present in Yemen.[144] Zaydis make up about 25 percent of the population, Sunnis make up 75 percent. Zaydi-led governments ruled Yemen for 1,000 years up until 1962.[79] Since its foundation, the Houthi movement has often acted as advocates for Zaydi revivalism in Yemen.[25][147]

A calligraphic logo of the Houthi movement reading "Oh ye who believe, be supporters of God" (Quran 61:14)[148][149] Religious motives play an important role in the Houthi movement, though to what extent is disputed.Although they have framed their struggle in religious terms and put great importance in their Zaydi roots, the Houthis are not an exclusively Zaydi group. In fact, they have outright rejected their portrayal by others as a faction which is purportedly only interested in Zaydi-related issues. They have not publicly advocated for the restoration of the old Zaydi imamate,[10] although analysts have argued that they might plan to restore it in the future.[21][142] Most Yemenis have a low opinion of the old imamate, and Hussein al-Houthi also did not advocate the imamate's restoration. Instead, he proposed a "Guiding Eminence" (alam al-huda), an individual descended from the Prophet who would act as a "universal leader for the world", though never defined this position's prerogatives or how they should be appointed.

The movement has also recruited and allied with Sunni Muslims;[151][10][83][21][139] according to researcher Ahmed Nagi, several themes of the Houthi ideology "such as Muslim unity, prophetic lineages, and opposition to corruption [...] allowed the Houthis to mobilize not only northern Zaydis, but also inhabitants of predominantly Shafi'i areas."[21] However, the group is known to have discriminated against Sunni Muslims as well, closing Sunni mosques and primarily placing Zaydis in leadership positions in Houthi-controlled areas.[10][83][84][21][139] The Houthis lost significant support among Sunni tribes after killing ex-President Saleh.[152]

Many Zaydis also oppose the Houthis, regarding them as Iranian proxies and the Houthis' form of Zaydi revivalism an attempt to "establish Shiite rule in the north of Yemen".[145] In addition, Haykel argued that the Houthis follow a "a highly politicised, revolutionary, and intentionally simplistic, even primitivist interpretation of [Zaydism]'s teachings". Their view of Islam is largely based on the teachings of Hussein al-Houthi, collected after his death in a book titled Malazim (Fascicles), a work treated by Houthis as more important than older Zaydi theological traditions, resulting in repeated disputes with established Zaydi religious leaders. The Malazim reflect a number of different religious and ideological influences, including by Khomeinism and revolutionary Sunni Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Hussein al-Houthi believed that the "last exemplary" Zaydi scholar and leader was Al-Hadi ila'l-Haqq Yahya; later Zaydi imams were regarded as having deviated from the original form of Islam. The Houthis' belief in the "Quranic Way" also includes the rejection of tafsir (Quranic interpretations) as being derivative and divisive, meaning that they have a low opinion of most existing Islamic theological and juridical schools, including Zaydi traditionalists based in Sanaa with whom they often clash.

The Houthis claim that their actions are to fight against the alleged expansion of Salafism in Yemen, and for the defence of their community from discrimination.[145][21][155] In the years before the rise of the Houthi movement, state-supported Salafis had harassed Zaydis and destroyed Zaydi sites in Yemen. After their rise to power in 2014, the Houthis consequently "crushed" the Salafi community in Saada Governorate and mostly eliminated the al-Qaeda presence in the areas under their control;[155] the Houthis view al-Qaeda as "Salafi jihadists" and thus "mortal enemies". On the other side, between 2014 and 2019, the Houthi leadership have signed multiple co-existence agreements with the Salafi community; pursuing Shia-Salafi reconciliation.[158] The Yemeni government has often accused the Houthis of collaborating with al-Qaeda to undermine its control of southern Yemen.[67][159]

Forms of government In general, the Houthis' political ideology has gradually shifted from "heavily-religious mobilisation and activism under Husayn to the more assertive and statesmanlike rhetoric under Abdulmalik", its current leader.[147] Due to strong support received by Houthis from the predominantly Zaydi northern tribes, the Houthi movement has often been described as tribalist or monarchist faction in opposition to republicanism.[11][142] Regardless, they have managed to rally many people outside of their traditional bases to their cause, and became a major nationalist force.[11]

When armed conflict for the first time erupted back in 2004 between the Yemeni government and Houthis, the President Ali Abdullah Saleh accused the Houthis and other Islamic opposition parties of trying to overthrow the government and the republican system. However, Houthi leaders, for their part, rejected the accusation by saying that they had never rejected the president or the republican system, but were only defending themselves against government attacks on their community.[160] After their takeover of northern Yemen in 2014, the Houthis remained committed to republicanism and continued to celebrate republican holidays. The Houthis have an ambivalent stance on the possible transformation of Yemen into a federation or the separation into two fully independent countries to solve the country's crisis. Though not opposed to these plans per se, they have declined any plans which would in their eyes marginalize the northern tribes politically.[10][21]

Meanwhile, their opponents have asserted that the Houthis desire to institute Zaydi religious law,[161] destabilising the government and stirring anti-American sentiment.[162][163] In contrast, Hassan al-Homran, a former Houthi spokesperson, has said that "Ansar Allah supports the establishment of a civil state in Yemen. We want to build a striving modern democracy. Our goals are to fulfil our people's democratic aspirations in keeping with the Arab Spring movement."[164] In an interview with Yemen Times, Hussein al-Bukhari, a Houthi insider, said that Houthis' preferable political system is a republic with elections where women can also hold political positions, and that they do not seek to form a cleric-led government after the model of Islamic Republic of Iran, for "we cannot apply this system in Yemen because the followers of the Shafi (Sunni) doctrine are bigger in number than the Zaydis".[165] In 2018, the Houthi leadership proposed the establishment of a non-partisan transitional government composed of technocrats.[166]

Ali Akbar Velayati, International Affairs Advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated in October 2014 that "We are hopeful that Ansar-Allah has the same role in Yemen as Hezbollah has in eradicating the terrorists in Lebanon".[167] Mohammed Ali al-Houthi criticized the Trump-brokered Abraham Accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates as "betrayal" against the Palestinians and the cause of pan-Arabism.[168]

Women's rights and freedom of expression The Houthis' treatment of women and their restrictions on the arts has also been subject of debate. On one side, the movement has stated that it defends women's rights to vote and take public offices,[165] and some feminists have fled from government-held areas into Houthi territories as the latter at least disempower more radical Jihadists.[155] The Houthis field their own women security force,[84] and have a Girl Scouts wing.[155] However, it has been also been reported that Houthis harass women and restrict their freedoms of movement and expression.[142][84]

In regards to culture, the Houthis try to spread their views through propaganda[155] using mainstream media, social media, and poetry as well as the "Houthification" of the education system to "instil Huthi values and mobilise the youth to join the fight against the coalition forces".[147] However, the Houthis have been inconsistent in regards how to deal with forms of artistic expression which they disapprove of. The movement has allowed radio stations to continue broadcast music and content which the Houthis view as too Western,[155] but also banned certain songs and harassed artists such as wedding musicians. In one instance which generated much publicity, the Houthi policemen conditioned that music could be played at a wedding party if it was not broadcast by loadspeakers; when the party guests did not conform to this demand, the main wedding singer was arrested.[169] Journalist Robert F. Worth stated that "many secular-minded Yemenis seem unsure whether to view the Houthis as oppressors or potential allies." In general, the Houthis' policies are often decided on a local basis, and high-ranking Houthi officials are often incapable of checking regional officers' powers, making the treatment of civilians dependent on the area.[155]

Slogan and controversies The group's slogan reads as following: "God Is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam".[170] This motto is partially modelled on the motto of revolutionary Iran, which reads "Death to U.S., and death to Israel".[171]

Some Houthi supporters stress that their ire for the U.S. and Israel is directed toward the governments of America and Israel. Ali al-Bukhayti, the spokesperson and official media face of the Houthis, rejected the literal interpretation of the slogan by stating in one of his interviews that "We do not really want death to anyone. The slogan is simply against the interference of those governments [i. e., U.S. and Israel]".[172] In the Arabic Houthi-affiliated TV and radio stations they use religious connotations associated with jihad against Israel and the US.[78]

The Houthis have been accused of expelling or restricting members of the rural Yemeni Jewish community, which had about 50 remaining members.[173] Reports of abuse include Houthi supporters bullying or attacking the country's Jews.[174][16] Houthi officials, however, have denied any involvement in the harassment, asserting that under Houthi control, Jews in Yemen would be able to live and operate freely as any other Yemeni citizen. "Our problems are with Zionism and the occupation of Palestine, but Jews here have nothing to fear", said Fadl Abu Taleb, a spokesman for the Houthis. But despite insistence by Houthi leaders that the movement is not sectarian, a Yemeni Jewish rabbi has reportedly said that many Jews remain terrified by the movement's slogan.[16] As a result, Yemeni Jews reportedly retain a negative sentiment towards the Houthis, who they allege have committed persecutions against them.[15] According to Israeli Druze politician Ayoob Kara, Houthi militants had given an ultimatum telling Jews to "convert to Islam or leave Yemen".[175]

In March 2016, a UAE-based newspaper reported that one of the Yemeni Jews, who emigrated to Israel in 2016, was fighting with the Houthis. In the same month a Kuwaiti newspaper, al-Watan, reported that a Yemeni Jew named Haroun al-Bouhi was killed in Najran while fighting with the Houthis against Saudi Arabia. The Kuwaiti newspaper added that the Yemeni Jews had a good relationship with Ali Abdullah Salah, who was at that time allied with the Houthis and were fighting in different fronts with the Houthis.[176][177]

Al-Houthi has said through his fascicles: ''Arab countries and all Islamic countries will not be safe from Jews except through their eradication and the elimination of their entity.''[178] A New York Times journalist reported being asked why they were speaking to a "dirty Jew" and that the Jews in the village were unable to communicate with their neighbors.[179]

The Houthis have been accused of detaining, torturing, arresting, and holding incommunicado Bahʼ­ Faith members on charges of espionage and apostasy, which are punishable by death.[180][181] Houthi leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi has targeted Bahʼ­s in public speeches, and accused the followers of Bahʼ­ Faith of being "satanic"[182] and agents for the western countries, citing a 2013 fatwa issued by Iran's supreme leader.[180]

Leaders Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi '' former leader (killed 2004)Abdul-Malik Badreddin al-Houthi '' leaderYahia Badreddin al-Houthi '' senior leaderAbdul-Karim Badreddin al-Houthi '' high-ranking commanderBadr Eddin al-Houthi '' spiritual leader (died 2010)Abdullah al-Ruzami '' former military commanderAbu Ali Abdullah al-Hakem al-Houthi '' military commanderSaleh Habra '' political leader[183]Fares Mana'a '' Houthi-appointed governor of Sa'dah,[184] and former head of Saleh's presidential committee[185]Activism and tactics Political During their campaigns against both the Saleh and Hadi governments, Houthis used civil disobedience. Following the Yemeni government's decision on 13 July 2014 to increase fuel prices, Houthi leaders succeeded in organising massive rallies in the capital Sanaa to protest the decision and to demand resignation of the incumbent government of Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi for "state-corruption".[186] These protests developed into the 2014''2015 phase of the insurgency. Similarly, following 2015 Saudi-led airstrikes against Houthis which claimed civilians lives, Yemenis responded to the Abdul-Malik al-Houthi's call and took to streets of the capital, Sanaa, in tens of thousands to voice their anger at the Saudi invasion.[187]

The movement's expressed goals include combating economic underdevelopment and political marginalization in Yemen while seeking greater autonomy for Houthi-majority regions of the country.[188] One of its spokesperson Mohammed al-Houthi claimed in 2018 that he supports a democratic republic in Yemen.[57][166] The Houthis have made fighting corruption the centerpiece of their political program.[57]

Cultural The Houthis have also held a number of mass gatherings since the revolution. On 24 January 2013, thousands gathered in Dahiyan, Sa'dah and Heziez, just outside Sanaa, to celebrate Mawlid al-Nabi, the birth of Mohammed. A similar event took place on 13 January 2014 at the main sports' stadium in Sanaa. On this occasion, men and women were completely segregated: men filled the open-air stadium and football field in the centre, guided by appointed Houthi safety officials wearing bright vests and matching hats; women poured into the adjacent indoor stadium, led inside by security women distinguishable only by their purple sashes and matching hats. The indoor stadium held at least five thousand women'--ten times as many attendees as the 2013 gathering.[12]

Media The Houthis are said to have "a huge and well-oiled propaganda machine". They have established "a formidable media arm" with the Lebanese Hezbollah's technical support. The format and content of the group's leader, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi's televised speeches are said to have been modeled after those of Hezbollah's Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah. Following the peaceful youth uprising in 2011, the group launched its official TV channel, Almasirah. "The most impressive part" of Houthi propaganda, though, is their media print which includes 25 print and electronic publications.[78]

Houthis also utilize radios as an effective means of spreading influence, storming radio stations and confiscating equipment of radio stations that do not adhere to what they're allowed to broadcast by the Houthis.[189] A Houthi fundraising campaign through a radio station affiliated with Iran-backed Houthi rebels has collected 73.5 million Yemeni rials ($132,000) for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.[190]

Another western-based media, "Uprising Today", is also known to be extensively pro-Houthi.[191]

Military In 2009, U.S. Embassy sources have reported that Houthis used increasingly more sophisticated tactics and strategies in their conflict with the government as they gained more experience, and that they fought with religious fervor.[192]

Armed strength Situation in March 2012Situation in March 2015Late in 2015, Houthis announced the local production of short-range ballistic missile Qaher-1 on Al-Masirah TV. On 19 May 2017 Saudi Arabia intercepted a Houthi-fired ballistic missile targeting a deserted area south of the Saudi capital and most populous city Riyadh. The Houthi militias have captured dozens of tanks and masses of heavy weaponry from the Yemeni Armed Forces.[193][194][195]

In June 2019, the Saudi-led coalition stated that the Houthis had launched 226 ballistic missiles during the insurgency so far.[196]

The 2019 Abqaiq''Khurais attack targeted the Saudi Aramco oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in eastern Saudi Arabia on 14 September 2019. The Houthi movement claimed responsibility, though the United States has asserted that Iran was behind the attack. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that "Yemeni people are exercising their legitimate right of defence ... the attacks were a reciprocal response to aggression against Yemen for years."[197]

Naval warfare capabilities In course of the Yemeni Civil War, the Houthis developed tactics to combat their opponents' navies. At first, their anti-ship operations were unsophisticated and limited to rocket-propelled grenades being shot at vessels close to the shore.[198] In the fight to secure the port city of Aden in 2015, the Yemeni Navy was largely destroyed, including all missile-carrying vessels. A number of smaller patrol craft, landing craft, and Mi-14 and Ka-28 ASW helicopters did survive. Their existence under Houthi control would be brief, as the majority of them were destroyed in air attacks during the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen in 2015. As a result, the Houthis were left with AShMs stored ashore (but no launchers) and a smattering of small patrol ships. These, along with a number of locally manufactured small craft and miscellaneous vessels, were to form the foundation of the new naval warfare capabilities.[198]

Already soon after the Houthis took over Yemen in 2015, Iran sought to strengthen the Houthis' naval capabilities, allowing the Houthis (and thus Iran) to intercept Coalition shipping off the Red Sea coast, by providing additional AShMs and constructing truck-based launchers that could easily be hidden after a launch. Iran also anchored the Saviz intelligence vessel (disguised as a regular cargo vessel) off the coast of Eritrea, from which it provided intelligence and updates on Coalition ship movements to the Houthis.[200] The Saviz served in this capacity until it was damaged in an Israeli limpet mine attack in April 2021, when it was replaced by the Behshad.[201] The Behshad, like the Saviz, is based on a cargo ship.[202]

Meanwhile, in Yemen, the Houthis (presumably with the assistance of Iranian engineers) converted a number of 10-meter-long patrol craft donated by the UAE to the Yemeni Coast Guard in the early 2010s into WBIEDs. In 2017, one of these was used to attack the Saudi frigate Al Madinah.[203] In the years since, three more WBIED designs have been built: the Tawfan-1, Tawfan-2, and Tawfan-3. 15 different types of naval mines were also produced.[204] These are being increasingly deployed in the Red Sea, but have yet to be successful (against naval vessels). The delivery of 120 km-ranged Noor and 200 km-ranged Qader AShMs, 300 km-ranged Khalij Fars ASBMs, and Fajr-4CL and "Al-Bahr Al-Ahmar" anti-ship rockets by Iran, which were unveiled during a 2022 Houthi parade, was arguably the most significant escalation in support. They combine long range, low cost, and high mobility with various types of guidance to create a weapon well-suited to the Houthi Navy.[206]

Though the Houthis' ASBM arsenal has yet to be tested, the Houthi Navy has had notable success with AShMs.[207] On October 1, 2016, it was able to hit the UAE Navy's HSV-2 Swift hybrid catamaran with a single C-801/C-802 AShM fired from a shore battery.[208] Although the ship managed to stay afloat, the damage was so severe that it had to be decommissioned.[208] The US Navy then sent two destroyers and an amphibious transport dock to the area to ensure that shipping could continue unabated. These vessels were then attacked with AShMs on three separate occasions, with no success.[209]

Though these attacks demonstrated the Houthis' limited ability to threaten vessels in Yemen's surrounding seas, the threat posed by them has since evolved significantly.[207] Armed with a variety of anti-ship ballistic missiles and rockets that can be notoriously difficult to intercept and cover large areas, the next round of maritime clashes with the navies of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and the United States could have a completely different outcome.[207] The Houthis have also hinted at using their extensive arsenal of loitering munitions against commercial shipping in the Red Sea, a tactic similar to recent Iranian tactics in the Persian Gulf.[210]

Patrol boats were fitted with anti-tank guided missiles, about 30 coast-watcher stations were set up, disguised "spy dhows" were constructed, and the maritime radar of docked ships used to create targeting solutions for attacks. One of the most notable features of the Houthis' naval arsenal became its remote-controlled drone boats which carry explosives and ram enemy warships.[198][207] Among these, the self-guiding Shark-33 explosive drone boats originated as patrol boats of the old Yemeni coast guard. In addition, the Houthis have begun to train combat divers on the Zuqar and Bawardi islands.

Alleged Iranian and North Korean support Former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh had accused the Houthis of having ties to external backers, in particular the Iranian government; Saleh stated in an interview with The New York Times,

The real reason they received unofficial support from Iran was because they repeat same slogan that is raised by Iran -- death to America, death to Israel. We have another source for such accusations. The Iranian media repeats statements of support for these [Houthi] elements. They are all trying to take revenge against the USA on Yemeni territories.[211]

Such backing has been reported by diplomatic correspondents of major news outlets (e.g., Patrick Wintour of The Guardian), and has been the reported perspective of Yemeni governmental leaders militarily and politically opposing Houthi efforts (e.g., as of 2017, the UN-recognized, deposed Yemeni President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who referred to the "Houthi rebels... as 'Iranian militias'".[212][213]

The Houthis in turn accused the Saleh government of being backed by Saudi Arabia and of using Al-Qaeda to repress them.[214] Under the next President Hadi, Gulf Arab states accused Iran of backing the Houthis financially and militarily, though Iran denied this, and they were themselves backers of President Hadi.[215] Despite confirming statements by Iranian and Yemeni officials in regards to Iranian support in the form of trainers, weaponry, and money, the Houthis denied reception of substantial financial or arm support from Iran.[25][216] Joost Hiltermann of Foreign Policy wrote that whatever little material support the Houthis may have received from Iran, the intelligence and military support by US and UK for the Saudi Arabian-led coalition exceed that by many factors.[217]

In April 2015, the United States National Security Council spokesperson Bernadette Meehan remarked that "It remains our assessment that Iran does not exert command and control over the Houthis in Yemen".[218] Joost Hiltermann wrote that Iran does not control the Houthis' decision-making as evidenced by Houthis' flat rejection of Iran's demand not to take over Sanaa in 2015.[217] Thomas Juneau, writing in the journal, International Affairs, states that even though Iran's support for Houthis has increased since 2014, it remains far too limited to have a significant impact in the balance of power in Yemen.[219] The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft argues that Teheran's influence over the movement has been "greatly exaggerated" by "the Saudis, their coalition partners (mainly the United Arab Emirates), and their [lobbyists] in Washington."[220]

A December 2009 cable between Sanaa and various intelligence agencies in the US diplomatic cables leak states that US State Dept. analysts believed the Houthis obtained weapons from the Yemeni black market and corrupt members of the Yemenis Republican Guard.[citation needed ] On the edition of 8 April 2015 of PBS Newshour, Secretary of State John Kerry stated that the US knew Iran was providing military support to the Houthi rebels in Yemen, adding that Washington "is not going to stand by while the region is destabilised".[221]

Phillip Smyth of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told Business Insider that Iran views Shia groups in the Middle East as "integral elements to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)". Smyth claimed that there is a strong bond between Iran and the Houthi uprising working to overthrow the government in Yemen. According to Smyth, in many cases Houthi leaders go to Iran for ideological and religious education, and Iranian and Hezbollah leaders have been spotted on the ground advising the Houthi troops, and these Iranian advisers are likely responsible for training the Houthis to use the type of sophisticated guided missiles fired at the US Navy.[222]

For Iran, supporting the revolt in Yemen is "a good way to bleed the Saudis", Iran's regional and ideological rival. Essentially, Iran is backing the Houthis to fight against a Saudi-led coalition of Gulf States fighting to maintain government control of Yemen.[223] The discord has led some publishers to fear that further confrontations may lead to an all-out Sunni-Shia war.[224]

In 2013, photographs released by the Yemeni government show the United States Navy and Yemen's security forces seized a class of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles not publicly known to have been out of state control.[225]

In April 2016, the U.S. Navy intercepted a large Iranian arms shipment, seizing thousands of weapons, AK-47 rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. The Pentagon stated that the shipment was likely headed to Yemen.[226]

In August 2018, the United Nations had found out the North Korean government had armed the Houthis via Syria after a meeting between a Houthi member and a North Korean government official.[227][30][31]

The Houthis have repeatedly used a drone that is nearly identical to Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company's Ababil-T drone in strikes against Saudi Arabia.[228]

In October 31 2023, Israel intercepted a surface-to-surface long-range ballistic missile and two cruise missiles that were fired by the Houthi rebels in Yemen. It was Israel's first-ever operational use of the Arrow (missile family) system for intercepting ballistic missiles since the war began.

Iranian IRGC involvement In 2013, an Iranian vessel was seized and discovered to be carrying Katyusha rockets, heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles, RPG-7s, Iranian-made night vision goggles and artillery systems that track land and navy targets 40 km away. That was en route to the Houthis.[229]

In March 2017, Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran's Quds Force, met with Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps to look for ways to what was described as "empowering" the Houthis. Soleimani was quoted as saying, "At this meeting, they agreed to increase the amount of help, through training, arms and financial support." Despite the Iranian government, and Houthis both officially denying Iranian support for the group. Brigadier General Ahmad Asiri, the spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition told Reuters that evidence of Iranian support was manifested in the Houthi use of Kornet anti-tank guided missiles which had never been in use with the Yemeni military or with the Houthis and that the arrival of Kornet missiles had only come at a later time.[230] In the same month the IRGC had altered the routes used in transporting equipment to the Houthis by spreading out shipments to smaller vessels in Kuwaiti territorial waters in order to avoid naval patrols in the Gulf of Oman due to sanctions imposed, shipments reportedly included parts of missiles, launchers, and drugs.[231]

In May 2018, the United States imposed sanctions on Iran's IRGC, which was also listed as a designated terrorist organization by the US over its role in providing support for the Houthis, including help with manufacturing ballistic missiles used in attacks targeting cities and oil fields in Saudi Arabia.[232]

In August 2018, despite previous Iranian denial of military support for the Houthis, IRGC commander Nasser Shabani was quoted by the Iranian Fars News Agency as saying, "We (IRGC) told Yemenis [Houthi rebels] to strike two Saudi oil tankers, and they did it," on 7 August 2018. In response to Shabani's account, the IRGC released a statement saying that the quote was a "Western lie" and that Shabani was a retired commander, despite no actual reports of his retirement after 37 years in the IRGC, and media linked to the Iranian government confirming he was still enlisted with the IRGC.[233] Furthermore, while the Houthis and the Iranian government have previously denied any military affiliation,[234] Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei openly announced his "spiritual" support of the movement in a personal meeting with the Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdul Salam in Tehran, in the midst of ongoing conflicts in Aden in 2019.[235][236]

Alleged human rights violations Child soldiers and human shields Houthis have been accused of violations of international humanitarian law such as using child soldiers,[237][238][239] shelling civilian areas,[240] forced evacuations and executions.[citation needed ] According to Human Right Watch, Houthis intensified their recruitment of children in 2015. The UNICEF mentioned that children with the Houthis and other armed groups in Yemen comprise up to a third of all fighters in Yemen.[241] Human Rights Watch has further accused Houthi forces of using landmines in Yemen's third-largest city of Taizz which has caused many civilian casualties and prevent the return of families displaced by the fighting.[242] HRW has also accused the Houthis of interfering with the work of Yemen's human rights advocates and organizations.[243]

An HRW researcher, quoted in a 2009 U.S. embassy report, has downplayed the allegations by the former government of Yemen accusing the Houthis of using civilians as human shields, by saying that they did not have enough evidence to conclude that the Houthis have been intentionally using civilians as human shields.[192]

Hostage-taking According to the Human Rights Watch, the Houthis also use hostage taking as a tactic to generate profit. Human Rights Watch documented 16 cases in which Houthi authorities held people unlawfully, in large part to extort money from relatives or to exchange them for people held by opposing forces.[244]

Diversion of international aid The United Nations World Food Programme has accused the Houthis of diverting food aid and illegally removing food lorries from distribution areas, with rations sold on the open market or given to those not entitled to it.[245] The WFP has also warned that aid could be suspended to areas of Yemen under the control of Houthi rebels due to "obstructive and uncooperative" Houthi leaders that have hampered the independent selection of beneficiaries.[246] WFP spokesman Herve Verhoosel stated "The continued blocking by some within the Houthi leadership of the biometric registration ... is undermining an essential process that would allow us to independently verify that food is reaching ... people on the brink of famine". The WFP has warned that "unless progress is made on previous agreements we will have to implement a phased suspension of aid". The Norwegian Refugee Council has stated that they share the WPF frustrations and reiterate to the Houthis to allow humanitarian agencies to distribute food.[247][248]

Abuse of women and girls UN-funded investigators have uncovered proof that Houthis conscripted tens of teenage girls as informants, nurses, and guards; an unusual phenomenon in a society as conservative as Yemen. Twelve girls suffered sexual violence, arranged marriages, and child marriages as a result of their recruitment. It alleged the Houthis recruited children as young as seven years old with monetary incentives. The report cited hundreds of accounts and took place between summer 2019 and summer 2020.[249]

Governance According to a 2009 leaked US Embassy cable, Houthis have reportedly established courts and prisons in areas they control. They impose their own laws on local residents, demand protection money, and dispense rough justice by ordering executions. AP's reporter, Ahmad al-Haj argued that the Houthis were winning hearts and minds by providing security in areas long neglected by the Yemeni government while limiting the arbitrary and abusive power of influential sheikhs. According to the Civic Democratic Foundation, Houthis help resolve conflicts between tribes and reduce the number of revenge killings in areas they control. The US ambassador believed that the reports that explain Houthi role as arbitrating local disputes were likely.[192]

Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen The Houthis exert de facto authority over the bulk of North Yemen.[250] As of 28 April 2020, they control all of North Yemen except for Marib Governorate.[251][252] The Houthis' direct administration includes the following territories:

Saada Governorate[184]Marib GovernorateSirwah'Amran Governorate[253]Al Jawf Governorate[251][252]Hajjah Governorate[254]Sanaa Governorate[255]Dhamar Governorate[256]Al Mahwit GovernorateRaymah Governorate[257]Ibb Governorate[258]Al Hudaydah Governorate[259]Al Bayda Governorate[260]Taiz GovernorateSee also Shia Islam portal Houthi involvement in the 2023 Israel''Hamas warOutline of the Yemeni Crisis, revolution, and civil war (2011-present)Timeline of the Yemeni Crisis (2011''present)Notes ^ The group rejects the term "Houthi"[74] ^ The Houthis have been accused, even by many fellow Zaydis, of secretly being converts or followers of the Twelver sect, which is the official religion of Iran.[144][145][146] References ^ "Mohammed Abdul Salam denies news in Saudi channel". Yemen Press. Archived from the original on 27 August 2018 . Retrieved 28 August 2018 . ^ "Infographic: Yemen's war explained in maps and charts". Al Jazeera . Retrieved 9 February 2022 . ^ "What is the Houthi Movement?". 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Yemen Times. Archived from the original on 26 March 2015 . Retrieved 21 February 2015 . ^ "More than 100 al Houthis killed in one week in Yemen". 10 September 2017. Archived from the original on 14 January 2018 . Retrieved 13 January 2018 . ^ "Yemen government recaptures Red Sea town from Houthi rebels". 7 December 2017. Archived from the original on 14 January 2018 . Retrieved 13 January 2018 . ^ "More than 20 Houthis killed in Yemen's al Bayda". 30 December 2017. Archived from the original on 14 January 2018 . Retrieved 13 January 2018 . Works cited Haykel, Bernard (2022). "The Huthi Movement's religious and political ideology and its relationship to Zaydism in Yemen". In Hamidaddin, Abdullah (ed.). The Huthi Movement in Yemen: Ideology, Ambition and Security in the Arab Gulf. London: I.B.Tauris. pp. 17''36. ISBN 978-0755644285. Knights, Michael (September 2018). "The Houthi War Machine: From Guerrilla War to State Capture" (PDF) . CTC Sentinel. West Point, New York: Combating Terrorism Center. 11 (8): 15''23. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 March 2020 . Retrieved 24 March 2020 . External links Brandt, Marieke (15 November 2017). Tribes and Politics in Yemen: A History of the Houthi Conflict. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190911454. "Interview with exiled Houthi". Counterpunch. 3 February 2015. Archived from the original on 18 July 2011 . Retrieved 26 March 2015 .

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Archived Version

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 19:08

A few years ago I went on a little

road-trip with my wife. Somewhere in Utah we stopped at this place called

Fort Bluff. It's a neat recreation of the old fort. In one of the huts there was the stove below. I'm pretty sure you can see what attracted my attention. My wife laughed at my radiation remark, and said that it was simply a window to monitor the fire. In other words it was just a coincidence. Well, I think there is no coincidence here, and below you will see why.

As a matter of fact, I think this stove window is the only reason for the radiation symbol we have today.I also think that this is a sort of mockery performed by the PTB.Proposed radioactive fuel usage: heating, cooling, lighting, powering... pre-20th century that is. Obviously I do not know how far back it goes.Yes, I do suggest that the below 19th century stove, in its original design, was meant to use radioactive fuel for heating. I also suggest that the stove pipe is a much later addition. In its original design, the below stove did not need any exhaust.

Radiation Symbol '‹

The

international radiation symbol first appeared in 1946, at the

Berkeley Radiation Laboratory. At the time, it was rendered as magenta, and was set on a blue background. The original version used in the United States is magenta against a yellow background, and it is drawn with a central circle of radius

R, an internal radius of 1.5

R and an external radius of 5

R for the blades, which are separated from each other by 60°. The trefoil is black in the international version, which is also used in the United States.

The sign is commonly referred to as a radioactivity warning sign, but it is actually a warning sign of ionizing radiation. Ionizing radiation is a much broader category than radioactivity alone, as many non-radioactive sources also emit potentially dangerous levels of ionizing radiation. This includes x-ray apparatus, radiotherapy linear accelerators, and particle accelerators. Non-ionizing radiation can also reach potentially dangerous levels, but this warning sign is different from the trefoil ionizing radiation warning symbol.

Radium '‹

This here is probably the most boring section, but I promise to go through it quickly. Radium, in the form of

radium chloride, was discovered by

Marie and

Pierre Curie in 1898. They extracted the radium compound from uraninite and published the discovery at the French Academy of Sciences five days later. Radium was isolated in its metallic state by Marie Curie and

Andr(C)-Louis Debierne through the electrolysis of radium chloride in 1911.

Radium is a chemical element with the symbol

Ra (right?) and atomic number

88. Pure radium is silvery-white, but it readily reacts with nitrogen on exposure to air, forming a black surface layer of radium nitride (Ra3N2). All isotopes of radium are highly radioactive, with the most stable isotope being

radium-226, which has a half-life of 1600 years and decays into radon gas

(specifically the isotope radon-222). When radium decays,

ionizing radiation is a product, which can excite

fluorescent chemicals and cause

radioluminescence.

Ionizing Radiation is radiation that carries sufficient energy to detach electrons from atoms or molecules, thereby ionizing them. Ionizing radiation is made up of energetic subatomic particles, ions or atoms moving at high speeds (usually greater than 1% of the speed of light), and electromagnetic waves on the high-energy end of the electromagnetic spectrum.'‹

Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation. '‹

Radioluminescence is the phenomenon by which light is produced in a material by bombardment with ionizing radiation such as alpha particles, beta particles, or gamma rays. Radioluminescence is used as a low level light source for night illumination of instruments or signage. Radioluminescent paint used to be used for clock hands and instrument dials, enabling them to be read in the dark. Radioluminescence is also sometimes seen around high-power radiation sources, such as nuclear reactors and radioisotopes.'‹

Radium is about a million times more radioactive (more then that) than uranium and, under the influence of the heat released, emits an attractive blue colour. '‹

Radiator '‹

Radiators are heat exchangers used to transfer thermal energy from one medium to another for the purpose of cooling and heating. The majority of radiators are constructed to function in automobiles, buildings, and electronics.

The radiator is always a source of heat to its environment, although this may be for either the purpose of heating this environment, or for cooling the fluid or coolant supplied to it, as for engine cooling.

Despite the name, most radiators transfer the bulk of their heat via convection instead of thermal radiation .'‹

KD: Funny they had to clarify this little issue with the name.'‹

Radium Madness '‹

With the discovery of Radium

(in my opinion rediscovery) , the society went bananas and started sticking radium into just about everything. We are talking about soap, toothpaste, male ED enhancements, chocolate, tea, coffee, food, cigarettes, cosmetics, bath salts etc.

And who knows, may be they were right in doing so. The narrative tells us that with time scientists understood the danger of radiation, and the madness stopped.

The

Radium Girls story appears to be the reason for the about-face on everything Radium related. These girls were painting dials. The Wiki article does not really mention that girls were

licking paintbrushes. I am no expert on radiation, but may be licking Radium was not the smartest of uneducated choices. On the other hand, may be licking paint for months or years was not the smartest thing either. One way, or the other, the narrative says that girls were dying from radiation.'‹

Could this be a "false flag" type verdict to rid the public of radium? I think it could, and may be poor girls died of some chemical poisoning not directly related to radiation.'‹

I do not know how many girls worked for the dial company, and how many of them eventually died of the alleged radiation exposure. This is not a part of this post of mine.

Those who want to find out are welcome to research on their own. I will just add a few things I ran into:

Dozens of women, known as "radium girls," later died of radium poisoning. It is estimated that by the 1920s as many as 4,000 workers were hired at companies across the United States and Canada to paint radium dials. Mae Keane , One Of The Last 'Radium Girls,' Dies At 107 Based on the amount of Radium containing products , there had to be way more dead people, and not only our Radium Girls. People had to be dropping left and right. Yet this "put Radium into everything" lasted well into 1930s. Than again, may be this is how they killed everyone off. Personally, I would like to know how much of this Radium they were producing in the first quarter of the 20th century to have enough for everything they had it in. Radium Heating '‹

I think it's fairly obvious that this entire Radium driven tech was scratched by the PTB. Some things are obviously out there, but any detailed info appears to be gone. To be honest, it reminds me of the fate suffered by them

Zeppelins.

Whatever we have left is rather circumstantial, and for the most part limited to images. Judge for yourself what conclusions we could make.

The

most interesting heater advertisement from the early 20th century came from the Novelty Manufacturing Company of Jackson, Michigan. Their advertisement offered something much better than the old coal standby. Novelty advertised its ''X-Radium'' heater as the best and latest heating technology. An advertisement boasted that ''one of its chief advantages is the fact that it requires no fuel. . . . the heating pad consists of a stamped steel receptacle filled with a substance which will attract itself heat rays and retain the heat attracted for several hours. The substance they used was radium. Radium was an intriguing new material to manufacturers, who found a spot for it in a number of products, even toothpaste! In the first years of the 20th century the deadly power of radium was not yet understood and the idea of resting one's feet on a container of radioactive material did not sound as terrifying as it does to today's consumers.

'‹

I believe this X-Radium foot heater is not to be confused with similar looking Clark and Lehman Coal Heaters.

Radium Heating '‹

The practical mind at once sees

radium in use as a new source of heat and light for mankind, a furnace that would never have to be fed or cleaned, a lamp that would glow perpetually - and the time may really come, the inventor having taken hold of the wonder that the scientist has produced, when many practical applications of the new element may be devised. At present, however, the scarcity and cost and danger of radium will keep it in the hands of the experimenter.

'‹

Illustration shows a vignette cartoon with at center a group of six men, among them John D. Rockefeller and E.B. Thomas, warming themselves by a stove labeled "Standard Oil"; the vignette at bottom left shows Andrew Carnegie burning "U.S. Steel Bonds" and Charles Schwab attempting to burn "Steel Common" stocks, on the right is Chauncey Depew burning speeches; on the middle left is a tramp resting against a haystack in the warm sun, on the right is William Jennings Bryan generating hot air while speaking to a group of farmers; and on the top left is a family burning the furniture in a fireplace, and on the right is E.B. Thomas sitting in front of a fireplace where a lump of "Radium" is warming the room.

I do understand that just about any stove, furnace, fireplace or oven can be adapted to burn wood, coal, gas or oil. At the same time I think that some of the below ones were originally designed for the Radium-type fuel. As in no ashes, and no smoke.

Once again, I do understand that officially these were for wood, coal, oil or gas. Additionally, I think that some of the below "heating" contraptions were not originally meant for heating.

1936: Flash Gordon serial '‹

The Sky City is the home of the Hawk Men, led by King Vultan. The city is kept aloft by gravity-defying rays, which are produced by

shoveling radium into the city's Atom Furnaces. KD: Anyways, I think there is a high probability that none of these stoves and fireplaces were originally designed to be vandalized by the burning wood or coal. They are too beautiful, and in my opinion compliment the buildings they were meant to be in. May be this is why we do not see any heating arrangements in the older buildings.

Also we need to remember that wigs use was revived in the 16th century. Why. Did they loose all their hair? '‹

I doubt that Radium is the same name the ancients would have used. That is if they ever used any radioactive substance. But if they did, I doubt we would be allowed to know the name.

As far as Marie and Pierre Curie go. I think they were in the same boat with Tesla, Mendeleev and many others. I think due to being talented chemists they were given some books containing the above mentioned tech. They were supposed to bring it back, and they did.

Well, these are just some thoughts of mine...

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Archived Version

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 19:02

The United States government has announced the expansion of lawful pathways to the United States for refugees and migrants in South and Central America.

Through the 'Safe Mobility' initiative, eligible refugees and migrants will be considered for humanitarian and other regular pathways to the United States or other countries that may offer such opportunities. Individuals seeking to go to the United States, or other countries participating in the program, should take advantage of these safe and lawful processes.

The United States is establishing Safe Mobility Offices in partner countries in South and Central America, which will serve to direct refugees and migrants to lawful pathways and help them avoid the risks associated with onward movement. The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and other partners are supporting this process.

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Archived Version

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 18:45

"Brilliant book. As gripping as a thriller. Terrific journalism. Appalling scandal. Occasionally made me laugh as the author can be very acerbic. But far more often made me cry." Amazon reviewer

''An extraordinary journalistic expos(C) of a huge miscarriage of justice.'' Ian Hislop, Editor, Private Eye

''The definitive account of the scandal - from the journalist who pursued every twist and turn.'' Mishal Husain, Broadcaster

''Beautifully written. Full of heart rending detail, clarity and insight.'' Patrick Spence, Creative Director, ITV Studios

''Nick has come to understand the ultimately destructive management culture which pervaded the Post Office from the top down.'' Tom Hedges, former Subpostmaster

''A tale brilliantly told by Nick Wallis, who has dedicated years of work to establishing what happened, why it happened and calling those responsible to account. I urge you to read it.'' Rev Richard Coles, Presenter

''Nick's narrative has the power of a great thriller as he lays bare the lies and deceit that has ruined so many lives.'' Dame Joan Bakewell, Journalist

"we can expect to see copies of The Great Post Office Scandal within easy reach of every lawyer and reporter at the hearing." Joshua Rozenberg, Legal Commentator

"the story of a long-running scandal told with empathy and compassion while deftly explaining the complex, technical issues." Sam Tobin, The Law Society Gazette

"Nick Wallis has written what feels like the most important book I have ever read."Paul Gilbert, LBC Wise Counsel

"the conversational style and the sense that a new revelation is just a few pages away will keep you from putting it down, and the many startling vignettes will make you exclaim in shock and horror." R"nn Kennedy, Computers & Law Magazine

"Couldn't put it down. Truly astonishing." Amazon Reader

"One of the books of the century." Lord Arbuthnot

"If there is one new book that everyone involved in running any kind of complicated organisation and everyone in politics should read, it is The Great Post Office Scandal by Nick Wallis" Stephen Bush, the i newspaper

"This book brilliantly examine and explains each aspect of this complicated saga, without ever forgetting the individual human beings who are the heart and soul of this tale."Goodreads Reader

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Archived Version

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 18:03

London CNN '--

Oil and natural gas prices rose sharply Monday after BP (BP) said it would pause all shipments through the Red Sea because of increased attacks on commercial vessels by Houthi militants from Yemen.

The decision by one of the world's biggest oil companies follows similar moves by major shipping firms, something analysts have warned could ripple through global supply chains and increase the costs of moving goods.

''In light of the deteriorating security situation for shipping in the Red Sea, BP has decided to temporarily pause all transits through the Red Sea,'' the company said in a statement. ''We will keep this precautionary pause under ongoing review, subject to circumstances as they evolve in the region.''

Oil posted steep gains on the news. Brent crude, the global benchmark, was up 2.7% at $78.64 a barrel by 11.15 a.m. ET. US oil rose 2.8% to $73.44 a barrel.

The news also affected the natural gas market. Europe's benchmark prices for the fuel surged 7.7% to above '‚¬35.75 ($39.04) per megawatt hour. That's just a fraction of the all-time high of '‚¬320 ($349.24) per megawatt hour seen in August 2022, at the height of the continent's energy crisis, but still the most concrete sign yet of disruption in commodity markets following the attacks.

Aerial assaults by the Iran-backed Houthis, who support Hamas and the Palestinian people, have become more frequent since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war. The militants have claimed the attacks as revenge against Israel. The United States and its allies are now considering whether to expand an existing maritime taskforce in the Red Sea to protect commercial vessels.

The world's biggest container shipping companies have paused transit through one of the world's trade arteries, which experts say could snarl supply chains and drive up freight costs.

MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd all said in recent days that they would avoid the Suez Canal over safety concerns. The canal connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, which both bound Israel. Evergreen Group's container shipping arm joined that list Monday, saying in a statement that it would suspend its Israel import and export service ''with immediate effect until further notice.''

In a further statement shared with CNN, the firm said its container ships would suspend all navigation through the Red Sea.

On Friday, Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for attacks on two MSC vessels.

''The situation is further deteriorating and concern of safety is increasing,'' French group CMA CGM said in a statement Saturday as it announced that ships due to pass through the Red Sea had been instructed to pause their journeys ''until further notice.''

''CMA CGM is taking all necessary steps to preserve its transportation services for its customers,'' the company added.

But analysts have cautioned that the disruption to a key trade route between East and West could have knock-on effects on supply chains.

''Global freight can expect to see rate increases, rerouting and longer transit times,'' said Judah Levine, head of research at logistics company Freightos.

Already, some ships are being rerouted via the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, adding up to three weeks to journey times and increasing fuel costs.

''This means that one week of meaningful capacity rerouting could have ripple effects for several months ahead, after a lag of a few weeks,'' UBS analysts wrote in a note Sunday, noting that around 30% of global container trade passes through the Suez Canal.

The analysts said that, if the disruptions persisted, shippers might be able to ''lock in higher-than-expected rates'' as they renegotiate long-term contacts in the coming days and weeks.

More than 80% of global goods trade is moved by sea, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. And seaborne traffic via the crucial Panama Canal is already restricted because of a severe drought.

Supply chain snafus and a surge in shipping costs during the Covid-19 pandemic were key drivers of inflation, as companies passed on the increased cost of moving their goods to consumers.

The latest disruption could hit consumer goods companies in Europe and North America. ''Consumer goods will face the largest impact, though current disruptions are occurring during the off-peak shipping season,'' said Chris Rogers, head of supply chain research at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

It's too early to tell, however, whether there will be any sustained rise in prices and a lot depends on how long the disruption lasts, said Rico Luman, a senior economist at Dutch bank ING.

''A big difference compared to the pandemic era is that the demand-supply balance is much more relaxed,'' he told CNN. ''Container shipping has excess capacity currently, which will probably prevent rates from spiking again.''

Levine of Freightos echoed this view. ''Shippers could expect longer lead times due to longer voyages, but operations should continue reasonably well.''

This story has been updated with additional context and developments.

Anna Cooban, Rob North and Olesya Dmitracova contributed reporting.

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Archived Version

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 15:56

As the fighting approaches its third year, Russia has the upper hand but there is no immediate conclusion on the horizon

The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) spent the summer trying to advance in Zaporozhye region. The offensive didn't lead to noticeable positional changes, but the Ukrainian side suffered significant casualties and lost a lot of equipment. As a result, Kiev's military command claimed that the maneuvers were merely preparations and that the main operation was still ahead.

However, the following months did not bring any success either, and Ukraine's military and political elites, '' as well as its Western backers '' have started looking for someone, or somewhere, to place the blame for the failure of the much-hyped counteroffensive. Meanwhile, Russian units have launched an assault on Avdeevka and have already made progress.

Vasily Kashin, a candidate of political science and director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the National Research University, Higher School of Economics, spoke about the results of the past year's military campaign and the conflict's future prospects.

''Ukraine still has certain resources'''' Throughout the fall, the AFU tried to continue its counteroffensive despite considerable losses and a lack of progress. Why did they decide to do that?

Vasily Kashin: The large-scale counteroffensive was curtailed, but the Ukrainian leadership could not completely stop all combat operations. Likewise, Russian units did not wholly abandon offensive tactics when they faced a crisis in the fall of 2022. Battles continued locally.

This happens because when an army completely abandons offensive tactics, the strategic initiative passes to the enemy, which then redistributes forces between various sections of the front and strikes where no one expects.

So even when it switches to strategic defense, an army will undertake localized offensive operations. That's the way it always has been.

'' Does this mean that for Ukraine's leadership, political considerations do not outweigh the military ones?

'' No, politics retreat into the background here; this is purely military logic. [Ukrainian President] Vladimir Zelensky has already clarified that there will be a transition to strategic defense. He said that a vast fortification system would be constructed along the entire line of contact.

He was supposed to demonstrate at least some achievements during the counteroffensive, but by now, it is evident that he failed at this.

'' Can this fortification line be constructed with Ukraine's current resources?

'' I'd say it's quite realistic because it does not require supplies of materials from Western partners, and local forces can carry out all the work. Of course, there are problems with the labor force '' most working-class representatives have already been mobilized. But Ukraine still has certain resources.

If Ukraine secures funding for its current expenses, it can construct the fortifications. The plan can only be disrupted by internal organizational issues.

In general, during the so-called anti-terrorist operation in Donbass, Kiev was able to build a powerful fortification system, which we now have to deal with in places like Avdeevka. And, at that time, the level of military spending in the country was much lower.

''The elites start to voice discontent'''' Meanwhile, the consequences of the counteroffensive are evident beyond the battlefield. Several Ukrainian politicians '' Ex''Zelensky aide Aleksey Arestovich, for example '' have mentioned possibly giving up some territories in return for a peace agreement with Russia. Does the unsuccessful counteroffensive have anything to do with it?

'' This is the result of the failed counteroffensive and, on top of it, the onset of the next political cycle in Ukraine. The unity demonstrated by various political forces in the first year and a half of the conflict was entirely unnatural for Ukraine's political system.

Vladimir Zelensky used the current conflict to amass a level of power that has been unprecedented in post-Soviet Ukraine: He established control over the media, distributed property, made significant personnel changes, and limited the power of the opposition.

But, as time passes, the elites are starting to voice discontent. The problem was hidden below the surface because they thought the war would soon end and its outcome would be positive for Ukraine. But now it has become clear that the war will not end quickly, and its outcome will be deplorable for the country.

A new round of intense political struggle is about to begin in these conditions. We've heard about these contradictions before '' since the beginning of last summer, in fact '' but the sources were rather isolated and unreliable. But now, everything has become evident.

'' What contradictions are we talking about?

'' We may recall that in June of last year, during the battle for Severodonetsk, there were rumors of a conflict between the commander-in-chief of the AFU, Valery Zaluzhny, and the president of Ukraine. The general wanted to withdraw troops from unfavorable positions, but Zelensky insisted on fighting to the end.

Moreover, there were reports that Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian Parliament] Deputy Mariana Bezuglaya, a critic of the Ukrainian leader, was sent by the president to Severodonetsk as a kind of political commissioner to sort out the situation. This was reported by nationalist-minded journalist Yury Butusov, who was close to [the fifth president of Ukraine] Pyotr Poroshenko.

Over time, these issues receded into the background because in the fall [of 2022], it seemed that Ukraine was doing well (though the situation turned out to be deceptive), but now all these conflicts have surfaced, and we can clearly see them.

Ukraine's elites were always divided. But at the time, optimism prevailed, and they could hush it up. But now, there are no grounds for optimism, leading to internal conflicts.

Of course, Western countries will try to keep the situation under control, but they are also trying to shift the responsibility onto each other.

''Ukraine is an important project for the US'''' Politicians with extensive connections in Western countries '' such as boxing legend Vitaly Klitschko '' have also spoken out against Zelensky. How can such internal opposition influence how the West views the Ukrainian president?

'' The West has always perceived Ukraine as a critical geopolitical project targeted against Russia. The US directly intervenes whenever there is an internal crisis in Ukraine, acting solely on the principles of political expediency. And they have always managed to stabilize the situation.

We may remember the very beginning of the conflict in Donbass. At that time, contradictions arose between former President Pyotr Poroshenko and the now-imprisoned oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, who considered Dnepropetrovsk Region to be his power base and was preparing to turn it into a separate 'principality'.

But then, US Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt met with Kolomoisky, set certain conditions that the oligarch (who had tons of money in the West) simply could not refuse, and the conflict quickly settled down. Before that, the US had settled conflicts between Euromaidan leaders, including Klitschko.

Ukraine is an essential project for the US, and the Americans cannot allow the Ukrainian authorities to get into a brawl, as is their habit. So, Washington will intervene directly when the current situation goes off course.

The US authorities know Ukraine's internal politics well; they have no illusions about the people they're dealing with.

'' Do you think the US will be able to keep the situation under control?

'' Surely, we cannot exclude 'black swan' events. There may be failures at the front, conflicts beyond the front lines, and internal issues in the US where the presidential elections are approaching and the attention the current president can devote to Kiev is limited. But I believe it is more likely that the US will keep the situation in Ukraine under control.

Regarding whether [Zelensky's] image will be affected '' in the eyes of the political decision-makers, there is no image. The US is fully aware that all political figures in Ukraine are either corrupt or have major business interests. They are divided into two categories: People who can achieve results despite their corrupt backgrounds, and those who cannot. As long as Ukraine can still function, the US will continue to work with those who can achieve certain results.

''The repressive regime in Ukraine is quite effective'''' American and European publications report that conflicts are raging not just between certain politicians but between the country's military and political leadership. What can these disagreements lead to?

'' Based on some reliable sources, we know that Zelensky has both loyal generals in the AFU (such as Aleksandr Sirsky) and those who he clearly doesn't like (such as Zaluzhny).

The president is trying to work directly with the military commanders that he sympathizes with, sometimes bypassing the commander-in-chief. Most likely, this harms the process of managing troops, and at some point, the US may have to intervene and resolve this conflict.

The row has been brewing for a long time. The intervention of Vladimir Zelensky and his entourage in military matters has always resulted in increased bloodshed and, above all, more casualties on the Ukrainian side (who suffered heavier losses than the Russian side).

The Ukrainian president gave the order to hold the defense of fortress cities even though the AFU was encircled and in a hopeless situation, and their lines of communication were under the control of the Russian Armed Forces. Such was the situation in Artyomovsk (also known as Bakhmut) for many weeks.

Apparently, Zelensky also intervened in other combat operations through which he wanted to achieve some political effect, resulting in huge losses.

If Zelensky continues interfering in military matters, the consequences can be twofold. Firstly, this will accelerate Ukraine's ultimate defeat on the battlefield, and secondly, there will be many casualties that could have been avoided.

Zelensky is the typical negative example of a political leader trying to interfere in military matters.

'' Not only Ukraine's elites but Ukrainian society, too, is divided. Recent opinion polls show that society is practically split in half over peace negotiations. Why is this happening?

'' First of all, I should say that I don't believe in polls conducted in a warring country '' especially in a country with growing repression against anyone who holds opposite views. Ukraine has a rather strict system of [social] control.

In the current situation, many people don't care about anything and want the conflict to end as soon as possible, which indicates a certain turn in public opinion and fatigue from the war. But it's hard to say whether this will impact the situation at the front.

The repressive regime in Ukraine is quite effective '' activity on social networks is monitored, people are often given prison sentences for 'improper' social media posts and even 'likes'. So these people don't really have a chance to form effective lobby groups. The relatives of mobilized soldiers sometimes speak out, demanding the rotation of troops, and so do the relatives of those who went missing, but these are isolated groups of people. So far, there is no reason to believe this will lead to significant public protests. However, we may expect a further decrease in the quality of the Ukrainian military's personnel and their level of motivation.

AFU officers often talk about this problem when being interviewed by local media. They say that there is no influx of skilled personnel, all volunteers have already joined the AFU, and many of them have died. Ukrainian military commissars from several regions admitted that each new wave of mobilization is worse than the previous one. Conscripts are almost good for nothing; the army can recruit only 10-13% of the people it needs, and there are practically no volunteers.

Soon, things will get to a point where the combat capability of the AFU sharply drops, but it is difficult to predict when this will happen.

''Military science currently offers no solution to this problem'''' Considering this, how may we characterize the situation at the front for Ukraine from a strategic point of view?

'' So far, we are in a positional warfare crisis. Neither side has been able to find a solution to the rapid development of military technologies, which is, in fact, responsible for this state-of-affairs. We're talking about the widespread use of modern reconnaissance technologies '' primarily drones '' which make the enemy's rear positions clearly visible and do not allow either side to amass a significant number of troops secretly. Moreover, there has been considerable progress in developing long-range precision artillery, various types of attack drones, and barrage ammunition.

As a result, neither side can concentrate significant forces in a single area, and they are forced to disperse their equipment stocks and supply routes. The fighting happens between small groups in several directions, and these small groups attempt to cut through the enemy's defensive lines slowly. Military science currently offers no solution to this problem.

The crisis may be resolved in two ways: Either a new solution will be found similar to what happened towards the end of World War I, when the Germans developed infantry assault tactics and the British and French armies began to make wide use of tanks. Or the balance of forces at the front will shift due to the AFU's heavy losses and the decrease in Western aid, and, at some point, Ukraine's defenses will begin to crumble even in the absence of radical tactical innovations.

Fearing this, the Ukrainian command plans to construct fortification structures actively, mobilizing a certain number of civilians who cannot be sent to the front (even considering the current difficult situation) and trying to compensate for the problems by utilizing defense equipment. But in any case, the situation will shift in an unfavorable direction for Ukraine.

'' Despite the deadlock of positional warfare, the Russian Armed Forces are demonstrating some positive results in the direction of Avdeevka. How will this operation progress?

'' Due to changes in the balance of forces, the Russian command considered moving toward Avdeevka; however, this was considered an unattainable goal throughout the war. Russia's attempt to capture the city at the earliest stage of the conflict ended in failure and heavy losses.

Now, we are seeing progress, and things are going faster than during the operation in Artyomovsk. However, Avdeevka has always been considered a much more challenging goal. This means there is already a shift in the balance of forces.

Avdeevka, of course, is very important in terms of improving the strategic positioning of the Russian Armed Forces, but it also has enormous political significance. If Avdeevka is captured, the internal political situation in Ukraine '' and the morale of Ukrainian troops (which is already low) '' will suffer a severe blow.

'' Why did the attempts to conduct an offensive near Kupiansk in August-September fail?

'' I'll repeat it: Modern military science has not yet found a solution to overcome all the negative factors. In such conditions, progress is gradual and can be easily halted by the enemy if it has the necessary resources.

''Russia's military-industrial complex started operating to the full extent'''' Which side is more likely to have benefited from the situation on the battlefield in the past year?

'' The Russian side, definitely. Territorial gains this year were insignificant for both sides. The AFU made some progress toward Zaporozhye, but it was an advance in open country. Meanwhile, Russian units captured some critical points, like the fortified towns of Soledar and Artyomovsk. Maryinka has almost been captured, and the army has made considerable progress in Avdeevka.

Even regarding territorial gains, the scale tips in favor of Russia. But territorial acquisitions are unimportant since we are talking about a war of attrition. We saw that the balance of forces between the two armies was shifting. Russia's military-industrial complex started operating to the full extent, which led to changes on the battlefield. We have seen the massive use of new types of weapons, such as gliding aviation bombs, which have altered the role of the Russian Air Force in the conflict. While earlier their use had been limited, now dozens of heavy aerial bombs are dropped per day.

The situation with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is also improving. Russia used to have a shortage of this necessary equipment, but now it surpasses the enemy in certain aspects. There has also been a major increase in the use of modern barrage ammunition and some other systems, including precision-guided munitions. We have also seen T-90M tanks and new types of light armored vehicles on the battlefield.

Management of the Russian Armed Forces has also become a lot more efficient. Serious incidents have been minimized, such as the ones that occurred last year. Generally, we can observe the transformation of the Russian army and the growth of the country's defense sector.

'' Has anything similar happened for Ukraine?

'' No, it hasn't. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are losing resources '' primarily human resources. Western military supplies have also passed their maximum and declined after Ukraine's partners couldn't quickly increase military production.

Moreover, the time is now over when there were no other major global crises, and all the aid could be given exclusively to Ukraine. Now, there is a conflict in Israel, and the situation around Taiwan is escalating, so Ukraine will no longer be able to receive the kind of assistance it used to get.

''Ukraine needs about $5 billion a month in order to avoid total collapse'''' Indeed, Ukrainian officials are increasingly saying that the Israeli-Hamas conflict has led to a decrease in arms supplies to Ukraine. What kind of military assistance can we expect from the West in the future?

'' There are several important aspects here. In Western countries, arms supplies are limited by production capacities and the defense production regulation system, which includes budget aspects. Any sudden increase in the production of military equipment (primarily shells) should occur at the expense of manufacturing companies. But to launch this process, the companies must be assured of long-term demand.

No one wants to invest vast amounts of money in expanding military production only to discover in a few years that the war in Ukraine is over, and you're left face-to-face with creditors. Long-term demand must be guaranteed to ensure sustainable production growth.

Moreover, Western countries have become 'deindustrialized' and, in recent decades, have focused on the service economy. There aren't that many production workers, new ones cannot be trained quickly, and it's not that easy to find people who want to work in this field today.

This problem will continue for a long time, and definitely throughout the following year. Efforts will be made to circumvent it by increasing military production in Eastern European countries and in Ukraine itself. But, most likely, Russia, relying on its excellent relations with China, North Korea, Iran, and some other countries, will be able to increase its own military production even faster.

'' And what about financial assistance to Ukraine?

'' Even after the outbreak of hostilities, the country could not function independently without external funding. Presently, Ukraine needs about $5 billion a month to avoid total collapse. Up to a certain point, Ukraine tried to plug its budget deficit with money creation, i.e., printing more currency, but these measures were limited due to the threat of hyperinflation.

Currently, Ukraine is being externally funded, like Afghanistan was under the rule of former President Ashraf Ghani, who was overthrown by the Taliban.

The stakes are high. I repeat '' Ukraine is an important geopolitical project for the West. Therefore, it will be funded. Indeed, we see that domestic political conflicts and political polarization in the US may disrupt some decisions and cause gaps in financing to occur. This may be very unpleasant, but it does not imply that the Ukrainian system will suffer a major collapse.

Moreover, the EU is still ready to provide funds (even though the opposition is also active there). Support for Ukraine is more expensive than, for example, the war in Iraq, but the financial burden is equally distributed among the allies. Therefore, the costs of funding Ukraine are not insurmountable.

''A new war would be very difficult and dangerous for Russia'''' What are the main goals for both sides on the front line?

'' The AFU's primary goal is to prepare for a major defensive fight, to inflict the maximum possible losses on Russia while losing minimum territory in the process. This would help Kiev and its Western backer reach their primary political goal: Forcing Russia to agree to a truce along the existing line of contact without any obligations on Ukraine's part, a situation that may lead to the rearmament of the Ukrainian army and Kiev's accession to NATO. This would allow the West to continue using Ukraine to pursue its anti-Russian policy and, if necessary, to start a new war in a few years, which would be very difficult and dangerous for Russia.

For Russia, the main task is to continue pushing Ukraine into a strategic dead-end, avoiding any risky and difficult steps that could change the current favorable course. Apparently, the goals of the Russian army will include tactically improving its positions at different sections of the front, undermining Ukraine's economic potential, inflicting losses, and increasing its own military production to tip the balance of forces in such a way as to end the conflict. We will likely reach such a balance of forces by the end of next year.

'' What can we expect from the winter campaign?

'' I think there will be no significant changes at the front. Russia will continue to gradually exert pressure on the AFU in key directions, primarily near Avdeevka. It remains a mystery whether Russia will strike Ukrainian infrastructure as it did last winter.

Russia has not used cruise missiles for over two months, and there is an assumption that the army is accumulating stocks of these weapons. We may see new developments in this regard; however, it is already December, the temperature dropped below freezing, and nothing has happened so far.

This interview was first published in Russian by Lenta.Ru, translated and edited by the RT team

By Dmitry Plotnikov, a political journalist exploring the history and current events of ex-Soviet states

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 23:07

By AFP - Agence France Presse

December 16, 2023 Order Reprints Print Article Text size

The new head of Turkey's central bank said she has been priced out of Istanbul's property market by rampant inflation, leaving no choice for the former finance executive but to move back in with her parents.

"We haven't found a home in Istanbul. It's terribly expensive. We've moved in with my parents," 44-year-old Hafize Gaye Erkan, who took up her post in June after two decades in the United States, told the Hurriyet newspaper.

Erkan previously worked at firms including Goldman Sachs and First Republic Bank -- and is now getting a crash course in the soaring prices that have seen many young people struggling to find lodgings.

"Is it possible that Istanbul has gotten more expensive than Manhattan?" she said.

Year-on-year inflation stood at 61 percent in November as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has allowed the lira currency to weaken while promising that a new team of economists with Wall Street experience would tackle years of economic crisis.

To quell growing anger, officials also capped rent increases at 25 percent -- though experts say that has only amplified the housing tensions, as owners try to push out occupants, sometimes fraudulently, in order to set new and higher rents.

The central bank last month pushed up benchmark lending rates to 40 percent in a bid to get inflation under control.

"We're nearing the end of our monetary tightening measures," Erkan told the paper.

rba/js/rox

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 22:19

Visit the News HubStudy shows patients hospitalized for flu or COVID-19 face increased risk of long-term health problems, death

Getty ImagesNew research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System comparing the viruses that cause the flu and COVID-19 shows that people hospitalized with seasonal influenza also can suffer long-term, negative health effects, especially involving their lungs and airways. The study also found that in the 18 months after infection, patients hospitalized for either COVID-19 or seasonal influenza faced an increased risk of death, hospital readmission, and other health problems.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, extensive research has emerged detailing the virus's ability to attack multiple organ systems, potentially resulting in a set of enduring and often disabling health problems known as long COVID. Now, new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System indicates that people hospitalized with seasonal influenza also can suffer long-term, negative health effects, especially involving their lungs and airways.

The new study comparing the viruses that cause COVID-19 and the flu also revealed that in the 18 months after infection, patients hospitalized for either COVID-19 or seasonal influenza faced an increased risk of death, hospital readmission, and health problems in many organ systems. Further, the time of highest risk was 30 days or later after initial infection.

''The study illustrates the high toll of death and loss of health following hospitalization with either COVID-19 or seasonal influenza,'' said senior author Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University. ''It's critical to note that the health risks were higher after the first 30 days of infection. Many people think they're over COVID-19 or the flu after being discharged from the hospital. That may be true for some people. But our research shows that both viruses can cause long-haul illness.''

The findings are published Dec. 14 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The statistical analysis spanned up to 18 months post-infection and included a comparative evaluation of risks of death, hospital admissions and 94 adverse health outcomes involving the body's major organ systems.

''A review of past studies on COVID-19 versus the flu focused on a short-term and narrow set of health outcomes,'' said Al-Aly, who treats patients within the VA St. Louis Health Care System and is an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University. ''Our novel approach compared the long-term health effects of a vast array of conditions. Five years ago, it wouldn't have occurred to me to examine the possibility of a 'long flu.' A major lesson we learned from SARS-CoV-2 is that an infection that initially was thought to only cause brief illness also can lead to chronic disease. This revelation motivated us to look at long-term outcomes of COVID-19 versus flu.

''We wanted to know whether and to what degree people with flu also experience long-term health effects,'' Al-Aly said. ''The big answer is that both COVID-19 and the flu led to long-term health problems, and the big aha moment was the realization that the magnitude of long-term health loss eclipsed the problems that these patients endured in the early phase of the infection. Long COVID is much more of a health problem than COVID, and long flu is much more of a health problem than the flu.''

However, the overall risk and occurrence of death, hospital admissions, and loss of health in many organ systems are substantially higher among COVID-19 patients than among those who have had seasonal influenza, Al-Aly said. ''The one notable exception is that the flu poses higher risks to the pulmonary system than COVID-19,'' he said. ''This tells us the flu is truly more of a respiratory virus, like we've all thought for the past 100 years. By comparison, COVID-19 is more aggressive and indiscriminate in that it can attack the pulmonary system, but it can also strike any organ system and is more likely to cause fatal or severe conditions involving the heart, brain, kidneys and other organs.''

The researchers analyzed de-identified medical records in a database maintained by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the nation's largest integrated health-care delivery system. They evaluated information involving 81,280 patients hospitalized for COVID-19 at some point from March 1, 2020, through June 30, 2022, as well as 10,985 patients hospitalized for seasonal influenza at some point from Oct. 1, 2015, through Feb. 28, 2019.

Patients represented multiple ages, races and sexes.

Regarding both viruses, patient vaccination status did not affect results. Those in the COVID-19 cohort were hospitalized during the pre-delta, delta and omicron eras.

During the overall 18-month study period, patients who had COVID-19 faced a 50% higher risk of death than those with seasonal influenza. This corresponded to about eight more deaths per 100 persons in the COVID-19 group than among those with the flu.

Although COVID-19 showed a greater risk of health loss than seasonal influenza, infection with either virus carried significant risk of disability and disease. The researchers found COVID-19 exhibited increased risk of 68% of health conditions examined across all organ systems (64 of the 94 adverse health outcomes studied), while the flu was associated with elevated risk of 6% of health conditions (six of the 94) '' mostly in the respiratory system.

Also, over 18 months, COVID-19 patients experienced an increased risk of hospital readmission as well as admission to an intensive care unit (ICU). For every 100 persons in each group, there were 20 more hospital admissions and nine more ICU admissions in COVID-19 than flu.

''Our findings highlight the continued need to reduce the risk of hospitalization for these two viruses as a way to alleviate the overall burden of health loss in populations,'' Al-Aly said. ''For both COVID-19 and seasonal influenza, vaccinations can help prevent severe disease and reduce the risk of hospitalizations and death. Optimizing vaccination uptake must remain a priority for governments and health systems everywhere. This is especially important for vulnerable populations such as the elderly and people who are immunocompromised.''

In both COVID-19 and the flu, more than half of death and disability occurred in the months after infection as opposed to the first 30 days, the latter of which is known as the acute phase.

''The idea that COVID-19 or flu are just acute illnesses overlooks their larger long-term effects on human health,'' Al-Aly said. ''Before the pandemic, we tended to belittle most viral infections by regarding them as somewhat inconsequential: 'You'll get sick and get over it in a few days.' But we're discovering that is not everyone's experience. Some people are ending up with serious long-term health issues. We need to wake up to this reality and stop trivializing viral infections and understand that they are major drivers of chronic diseases.''

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 22:08

Whether you've driven a new Volkswagen or not, there's a good chance you've heard about its interiors. People who care about the German everyman brand have been extremely opinionated about the cars' lack of physical buttons. Customers' cries have even reached VW CEO Thomas Sch¤fer's ears, as he said the "frustrating" touchscreen controls "definitely did a lot of damage." Now, VW interior designer Darius Watola is reported as saying that the brand is going back to buttons on all new cars.

The news comes from Autocar, which quotes Watola as saying the ID.2All concept and its buttons "showed a new approach for all models." Like Sch¤fer, he referenced the public's feedback. There are still touchscreens, to be sure'--the infotainment display is large and in charge, and there's also a digital gauge cluster. But instead of all the controls being hidden behind menus in these displays, they're toggled via switches on the center stack.

The ID.2All Concept still looks pretty sparse inside, but at least it has physical controls for the HVAC and all four windows. The production ID.4 can't even say that. VWThis is reassuring for the simple fact that actual buttons just work. The touch sliders and whatnot in the Mk8 Golf and ID.4 are finicky, only operating like they should some of the time. They also aren't backlit, making them difficult to find and use in the dark. Owners and professional critics alike have been tough on modern VWs for these exact reasons; my co-worker Jerry Perez went as far as saying the ID.4's tech "ruined" what was an otherwise practical and livable EV.

Speaking on the car's infotainment, Jerry said:

"It's awful, likely the worst I've ever come across. I was never able to find a channel list for the XM satellite radio because there isn't an option to do such a thing'--at least not one you can find in under 30 minutes of poking around. Then there's a climate system on/off icon on the screen that you must click to turn the AC or heater on. You can't just push the fan speed icon and expect it to turn on. No, you must tap the "on" button and then adjust the temperature or fan speed separately. This extra step makes no sense'--and to add insult to injury, I couldn't turn the heater on countless times because the climate portion of the OS was unresponsive. Other times, it would simply say that the function couldn't be performed at the time. Why? No idea."

As you can tell based on that blurb, actual buttons will be welcomed back with open arms.

Got a tip or question for the author? Contact them directly: caleb@thedrive.com

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 22:08

Greg NashMartin Gruenberg, Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, is seen during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, March 29, 2023. to discuss the recent bank failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank along the federal response.

Reports of the conduct at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) read like a screenplay for ''Animal House,'' the 1980s John Belushi movie about campus debauchery at the fictional Faber College. ''Animal House'' is funny as hell. What's not funny is finding out that some of the same behavior '-- and worse '-- may have been happening for years at one of the agencies charged with supervising America's banking system.

According to employees who spoke with the Wall Street Journal, the FDIC functioned as a real-life Faber College where excessive drinking, public urination and sexual harassment were common but professional consequences for this bad behavior were rare. Employees described booze-filled training conferences where trainees regularly ''puked off the roof'' or drank so much they wound up in the hospital. (There's no evidence of FDIC toga parties '-- yet.)

Agency road trips sound worse than the training sessions. One woman said a male co-worker brought her to a strip club during a work trip. Another received nude photos from her male colleague staying in the same hotel. Twenty other women reported similar stories of ''wild west'' misconduct on the road.

Since joining the FDIC's board in 2005, Chairman Martin Gruenberg has had a front-row seat to it all. He was chair or acting chair of the FDIC for nine of the past 18 years while his agency apparently tolerated a culture of debauchery and harassment. Gruenberg either knew about the abuse women faced at the FDIC and failed to address it or was negligently blind to it.

Either way, Gruenberg should resign.

New reports of misconduct add color to a problem that the FDIC knew existed for years. In 2020, the agency's inspector general published a report on sexual harassment that revealed that at least 191 FDIC employees experienced sexual harassment between January 2015 and April 2019. Thirty-eight percent of these employees who experienced sexual harassment did not report it for fear of retaliation. Those who did report the harassment waited upwards of six months for the FDIC to investigate their claims.

At a recent hearing, Gruenberg claimed he first heard of widespread sexual harassment at the FDIC from newspaper reports, seemingly implying that he somehow missed the inspector general's findings while he sat on the board. He told me it was, by the way, the chair's responsibility to address the problem in 2020 '-- not his.

If Gruenberg believes the chair bears responsibility, he should look in the mirror.

Gruenberg was chair in 2016 when law enforcement charged an examiner-in-training who was found passed out behind the wheel of his car. He was chair in 2014 when police arrested an examiner for public intoxication after he threw an FDIC conference party so wild that other employees told police they felt they were being held hostage. Gruenberg was also chair when the FDIC declined to fire these employees.

In contrast, Gruenberg admitted that his predecessor, Chair Jelena McWilliams, worked to implement the inspector general's 15 recommendations for improving the agency's response to sexual harassment. After her term was cut short and Gruenberg returned as chair, it became his job to restore professionalism at the FDIC. He didn't.

Instead, Gruenberg encouraged misconduct by promoting a manager whose abusive outbursts bled the agency of $100,000 in settlement costs. Thanks to Gruenberg, that manager is now the agency's general counsel.

The disturbing claims reach beyond rank-and-file employees. Gruenberg himself faced allegations of misconduct '-- something he conveniently forgot during his testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives. He eventually corrected the record after consulting with his staff.

The FDIC's employees deserve accountability, and I support a thorough investigation. I question whether the agency should be in charge of its own investigation. I'd feel better if the FBI investigated. Nonetheless, we don't need to wait for those investigations to conclude that the FDIC, America's banks and America's taxpayers would be on better footing without Gruenberg. He admitted before the Senate that he did little to rectify the harassment allegations as chair. Months of investigations won't change that.

If Gruenberg wants to show his employees and the American people'--for the first time in his nearly two decades of leadership'--that he is doing something to end abuse, he should resign and allow a real leader to restore professionalism to the FDIC. Right now, it's #MeToo'--except for the connected at the FDIC.

John Kennedy is the junior senator from Louisiana and is a member of the Senate Banking Committee.

Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 18:20

Israeli soldiers are seen in a tunnel that the military says Hamas militants used to attack the Erez crossing in the northern Gaza Strip, Friday, Dec. 15, 2023. The army is battling Palestinian militants across Gaza to retaliate for Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Monday he discussed with Israeli officials a transition to more targeted and ''surgical operations'' in Gaza, as the U.S. appears to be nudging its ally to begin a slowdown in the fighting against Palestinian militant group Hamas.

Austin, who met with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, along with the country's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said at a press conference the group discussed the ''status of the campaign'' and the objectives of the war during a Monday meeting in Tel Aviv.

''We also have some great thoughts about how to transition from high-intensity operations to lower intensity and more surgical operations,'' Austin said of the U.S. perspective. ''We had great discussions on all of those those issues.''

Gallant, who said last week that the war against Hamas could take ''several months,'' signaled that Israel was open to a new phase of the war that would slow down the fighting.

''The circumstances are changing, [so] you change your efforts and you do something different in a different phase,'' Gallant said.

Still, the Israeli defense chief cautioned there is no ''clock running'' that would force Israel to wind down operations at a certain point of time.

''We will find the proper time to do so,'' Gallant added.

Austin's trip comes just days after White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan traveled to Israel, where he also discussed with Israeli officials ways to lower the intensity of the conflict in the near future.

While there is no established timeframe to wind down the intensity of the military campaign, the Biden administration has pushed to move toward targeted efforts as soon as early January, The New York Times reported.

The discussions have centered on Israeli forces conducting more surgical, targeted attacks that would reduce civilian casualties while allowing Israel to continue its effort to dismantle Hamas.

The next phase could see Israeli soldiers focusing on the leadership of Hamas, Gallant said Monday.

More than 19,000 people have died in Gaza since the war began in early October, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry.

Israel is also facing renewed pressure to scale down the war effort after two deadly setbacks last week. Nine of its soldiers were killed in an ambush and three hostages held by Hamas were mistakenly killed by Israeli forces.

Austin said the U.S. will continue to stand by Israel, and Israeli officials will dictate when the war transitions to a new phase. But he said most wars tend to shift over time from higher-intensity phases to lower-intensity ones.

''As you transition from one phase to another, that doesn't signal an end to the operation,'' Austin said. ''You're being more precise, you're more focused on a specific target set.''

''In any operation like this, any campaign, there will be phases,'' he continued. ''The most difficult part is as you shift from one phase to the next, making sure that you have everything accounted for and you get it right. That requires detailed planning and very thoughtful planning.''

Copyright 2023 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 17:28

4.9 76 Men, ages 18-64

Your sex assigned at birth was male

If you're interested in treatment with SSRIs, you're at least 25 years old

You're not experiencing symptoms of erectile dysfunction (ED) without ejaculatory symptoms

During most sexual penetration, you ejaculate (climax) earlier than you'd like

What's included

Personalized treatment for premature ejaculation may include prescription medication that can delay early climax. Your clinician may also recommend over-the-counter treatments and behavioral or psychological therapies. They won't prescribe dapoxetine (which isn't FDA-approved for premature ejaculation treatment in the U.S.) or advise you on penis pumps or procedures. You can message your clinician with follow-up questions for 14 days after you get your treatment plan.

Concerned about more than premature ejaculation?

Commonly prescribed medications

Paroxetine (Paxil)Sertraline (Zoloft)Lidocaine-prilocaine (Lidopril)Compare clinics

This chart is for informational purposes only. Your clinician will determine treatment plans, prescriptions, and number of refills (if any) based on your symptoms and health history.

What you'll need

A photo ID, like a driver's license or passport, if we need additional identity verification

5 to 10 minutes to answer questions about your symptoms and health history

How it works

Connect with a clinician, no appointment needed

Get a personalized treatment plan

You can message your clinician with follow-up questions for 14 days after you get your treatment plan.

Based on your health information, your clinician may recommend that you see a healthcare provider in person. If that happens, you won't be charged for your visit. Amazon Clinic doesn't accept insurance at this time, and isn't intended for beneficiaries of government payor programs, including Medicare and Medicaid.

Frequently asked questions

What premature ejaculation medications can I get through Amazon Clinic?

Your clinician may prescribe a selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) like paroxetine (Paxil) or sertraline (Zoloft) to help prevent early climax. Though these medications are antidepressants, clinical studies show that they can help prevent premature ejaculation. Your clinician may also prescribe a topical anesthetic like lidocaine-prilocaine (Lidopril) to make the penis less sensitive.

Treatment with PDE5 inhibitors like sildenafil (Viagra) or tadalafil (Cialis) may be available to certain customers when medically appropriate.

Please note: This information is for general reference only. Your clinician will review your symptoms and health history to determine which (if any) premature ejaculation treatments are medically appropriate.

What causes premature ejaculation?

There are two kinds of premature ejaculation: 1) lifelong, when you've experienced symptoms since your sexual debut, and 2) acquired, when something has caused a change in your sexual function.

Many factors can cause changes in sexual function, including the following:

' Aging' Psychological or relationship issues' Underlying health issues

Our intake form can help your clinician determine what's going on, and why.

What's the difference between erectile dysfunction (ED) and premature ejaculation?

Erectile dysfunction (ED) is characterized by issues with getting or maintaining an erection, while premature ejaculation is characterized by ejaculating too quickly during most or all sexual penetration. What's too quickly? It's often defined as less than a minute into a sexual experience, but it can be longer, depending on how much control you feel when you climax.

Premature ejaculation is also characterized by negative personal consequences. In some cultures, early ejaculation can be a sign of masculinity, so it's not considered a problem. But if you feel distressed, worried, or annoyed by the speed of your climax, or if your relationship is suffering because of it, a clinician might be able to help.

What should I do if I have ED and premature ejaculation?

Erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation can occur at the same time. If you're experiencing both conditions, clinicians generally recommend that you seek treatment for ED first before adding premature ejaculation treatments. You can start an ED visit through Amazon Clinic's

erectile dysfunction treatment page.

How common is premature ejaculation?

Experts estimate that premature ejaculation affects up to 70% of men in the U.S. at some point in their lives.

What types of visit can I have?

Video visits are available in all 50 states and D.C. Message-only visits are available in 34 states. To see your visit options, first choose your state.

How does Amazon Clinic protect my health information?

Amazon Clinic protects your health information by strictly following the requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). HIPAA governs what Amazon Clinic and your healthcare providers can do with your medical information, as well as your contact and payment information. Amazon Clinic doesn't and will never sell your personal information. Learn more on our

privacy page.

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 17:26

Former President Donald Trump may have sold a binder with classified information to Russia, his estranged niece, Mary Trump, alleged on Friday.

The binder in question contained raw intelligence that the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies collected on Russia's alleged election interference in 2016, when Trump beat his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton for the presidency, among other documents, according to Reuters who spoke with a source familiar with the matter.

Russia has denied interfering in the election, while the former president has repeatedly called the FBI's investigation into the alleged election interference a hoax.

In January 2017, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released an assessment that found Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government disparaged Clinton through a disinformation and cyberattack campaign to better "Trump's election chances."

Former President Donald Trump arrives at a campaign event on December 13 in Coralville, Iowa. Trump may have sold a binder with classified information to Russia, his estranged niece, Mary Trump, alleged on Friday. Scott Olson/Getty ImagesThe whereabouts of the binder are currently unknown as it went missing during the last days of Trump's presidency, Reuters' source said. CNN was the first to report the missing binder and The New York Times has also reported on it.

Mary Trump, who has emerged as one of Trump's fiercest critics, wrote about what could have happened to the missing binder in a Friday blog post.

One of those possibilities was that the documents inside the binder "were sold or given to Russia," according to her blog post. Mary Trump warned that if this was the case, whoever sold the documents could receive life in prison under the Espionage Act if they were caught.

"Let me put it this way, if the government ever had evidence Donald Trump purposely handed classified info to a hostile power, he would never see the light of day again," she wrote, who also added that the documents could have also been destroyed, lost, or kept by someone.

There is no evidence showing that Trump sold anything to Russia. Trump's critics have long accused him of working with Russia, but various investigations have not confirmed that.

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung told Newsweek in a Saturday email that it is "unprofessional" to ask if the binder was sold to Russia. "What proof do you have?" he asked.

Cheung said Mary Trump has "shown explicit bias" and "has a vendetta against President Trump."

Trump, who is the GOP frontrunner for the 2024 presidential election, is already in a slew of legal trouble over his alleged mishandling of classified documents. In June, Trump was indicted by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on 37 counts, including 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information, in relation to the documents that were found at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida in August 2022. The former president, meanwhile, has maintained his innocence in the case.

Newsweek reached out to Mary Trump via email for comment.

Who Had the Binder Last?While it's unclear whose possession the binder was in when it disappeared, Trump had asked the CIA to send the binder to the White House just before he left the Oval Office in 2021, Reuters' source said. Trump wanted to declassify materials in the binder related to the FBI's investigation into Russia's alleged election interference, according to the source.

A federal court document filed in August by journalist John Solomon, who Trump appointed to be a representative authorized to access his presidential records in the National Archives, gives some insight into who had their hands on the missing binder.

According to the document, Mark Meadows, who served as Trump's White House chief of staff during the last nine months of his presidency, was involved in handling the binder and working with Solomon to release the materials that Trump wanted declassified.

On January 19, 2021, just one day before Trump left office, Meadows invited Solomon to the White House to review declassified pages and discuss its public release, according to the court document.

However, Solomon, who was provided copies of the declassified pages, later received a call from the White House asking for the copies back, so that additional redactions could be made.

"Meadows promised Solomon that he would receive the revised binder," according to the document. "This never happened."

Newsweek reached out to Conservative Partnership Institute, where Meadows is a senior partner, via email for comment. Newsweek also reached out to Just The News via email for comment from Solomon, who serves as the editor-in-chief for the news outlet.

Update 12/16/23, 11:27 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.

Update 12/16/23, 11:47 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with comment from Cheung.

Uncommon KnowledgeNewsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 17:20

An overwhelming 86% of Gen Zers have struggled with "menu anxiety" when ordering at a restaurant. This is according to a new survey by Prezzo Italian Restaurant which polled 2,000 people in the UK. The younger generation said they wouldn't go to a restaurant if they hadn't looked at a menu beforehand. Thanks for signing up!

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Gen Z's struggles with anxiety are affecting their dining habits with most admitting to dealing with "menu anxiety" in restaurants, a new survey finds.

British restaurant chain Prezzo, which serves Italian cuisine, surveyed over 2,000 people in the UK about how at ease they felt when they ate out and it found that 86% of Gen Z had been impacted by "menu anxiety" when dining in restaurants compared to 67% of all respondents.

Menu anxiety was largely trigged by the cost of the meal, not being able to find something they like on the menu, and regretting what they ordered. Over a third of millennials said having too many options on a menu was also a trigger.

38% of Gen Z and millennials said they wouldn't go to a restaurant if they hadn't looked at the menu beforehand. A third of Gen Zers also said they ask other people to order at restaurants because of this anxiety.

Another source of anxiety for almost half of 25 to 34 year olds is not being able to pronounce the options on the menu when ordering.

Young people are also largely influenced by their social media use. A third of 25 to 34 year-olds would choose items on a menu that would look best on social media.

The younger generation tend to have more hang ups about how they appear in public, and a recent Gallup poll even found that they're more likely to report experiencing negative emotions such as stress, anxiety, and loneliness.

NYU business professor Jonathon Haidt told the Wall Street Journal that a "performative" social media culture is partly to blame for the high rates of anxiety and depression amongst Gen Z.

"We have a whole generation that's doing terribly," he said. "You're not creative, you're not future-thinking, you're focused on threats in the present."

Social media is also playing a major role in Gen Z's dining options. Nearly 40% of Gen Z prefer searching for things on Instagram and TikTok rather than Google or Google Maps, internal Google data found in July.

Executives at fast food chains in the US previously told Business Insider that Gen Z tend to order a lot of takeaway, and when they do eat out, it's with a big group. They're also very likely to dine at restaurants that influencers have promoted on social media and want their food to look "Instagrammable."

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 17:12

An Emirati company wants to broker a nascent market in which nations trade emission reductions even before regulations are agreed upon.

A forest conservation project in Zimbabwe. Credit... Cynthia R. Matonhodze/Bloomberg First, the little-known Emirati company set its sights on a forest the size of Maine. Then, another one that was big as South Carolina. After that, it focused on a chunk of land the size of Puerto Rico.

As the oil-rich emirate of Dubai prepared to host this year's United Nations-sponsored climate summit, the company, named Blue Carbon and founded by a prince, was accumulating proposed deals on huge swaths of land across the developing world. It sought to position itself as a force for a purported solution to global warming: carbon credits.

Carbon credits are potentially one of the most important '-- but also most controversial '-- tools to speed up efforts to reduce global emissions of heat-trapping gases. The idea is simple: each credit is worth one ton of carbon dioxide emissions that was sequestered or avoided.

In theory, the carbon trade could increase the ambition of industrialized nations by letting them reduce emissions in other countries while figuring out how to do it home. It could also direct funds to developing countries that badly need them to grow their economies sustainably.

But counting greenhouse gas emissions is a complex endeavor.

Many conservationists worry the carbon market could be abused by countries looking to lower emissions without abandoning fossil fuels. Others hope the trade would channel money the developing world needs to keep forests standing and build renewable energy plants.

Blue Carbon is pushing into the business despite unresolved issues of how the market for credits like these should best be structured.

Within the span of a year, Blue Carbon announced agreements with nations in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean to develop huge conservation projects. Their goal was expansive, namely to stop forested land from being cut down and to plant forests in already-logged tracts, and then sell credits based off the expected emissions reductions from those projects to nations that are looking to reduce their carbon footprints.

One ton of carbon stored in trees equals one carbon credit that can be bought and sold.

But what government officials portrayed as a once in a lifetime opportunity for their nations was seen by many conservationists as an uncertain bet to curb carbon emissions with the potential to strip scores of local communities of their land rights.

Carbon markets are still largely unregulated. While they provide a way to marshal money to protect forests, much of the worry over deals like Blue Carbon's comes down to how little companies have to publicly divulge.

''We need all the financial levers we can get'' to protect forests, said Zoe Quiroz-Cullen, a director at Fauna & Flora, an international wildlife nonprofit. But, she added, ''I'm not seeing the level of detail that we would expect and for this number of announcements at this kind of scale.''

Most carbon-market activity until now happened between companies seeking to satisfy their voluntary pledges to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

But the trades Blue Carbon wants to broker have much higher stakes. They take advantage of a system created in the landmark Paris climate accord nearly a decade ago that allows nations to trade emission reductions that would count toward the buyer's own pledge to reach carbon neutrality.

Though countries and companies are starting to make deals, the rules that govern the trade remain unwritten. Negotiators at the recently concluded COP28 summit in Dubai failed once again to agree on a framework for regulating the trades, largely over questions of how they would report the emissions reductions of their projects.

''We want and need countries and their partners to be very clear and transparent about what it is they're doing,'' said Alexia Kelly, who was a lead negotiator for the United States on emissions trading and markets provisions of the Paris Agreement. ''But absent any kind of agreed rules, that may or may not be occurring.''

Image Participants at the United Nations COP28 climate summit in Dubai, which ended on Wednesday. Credit... Peter Dejong/Associated Press The terms of Blue Carbon's proposed deals were not released publicly. Its draft contract with Liberia's government, reviewed by the Times, shows the company wouldn't buy any land, but instead secure the right to sell carbon credits from areas that are currently occupied by communities, private farms and reserves.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe touted an agreement in September that could give control of almost a fifth of the country's territory to Blue Carbon. At a recent ceremony he said that the deal would close the country's ''financing gap to the tune of $200 million.''

Requests for information on the agreements went unanswered by Blue Carbon and the office of its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Dalmook Al Maktoum, as well as four of the five African nations with deals.

Reaching an agreement to regulate country-to-country trades has taken on increased urgency. Around 100 such deals have been announced since 2021, according to data from MSCI, a firm that researches carbon markets.

The United Arab Emirates announced nearly a half-billion dollars in commitments to carbon-credit deals at a recent climate summit in Kenya, and the country is counting on paying for emissions reductions in other countries to partly offset its own.

''The whole point was to use carbon trades, credits and markets to ease the energy transition both by reducing carbon emissions and by ensuring financial flows to poorer countries,'' said Rachel Kyte, a veteran climate diplomat and chairwoman of a group trying to make carbon markets more transparent. ''But that process has to have integrity and transparency, and right now it doesn't.''

When Loretta Alethea Pope Kai, chairwoman of National Civil Society Council of Liberia, an umbrella group of advocacy organizations, saw the draft contract between her government and Blue Carbon in August, she said she committed herself to blocking it.

For years, Ms. Pope Kai had worked with community leaders to help pass a law that protects the land rights of communities as well as their right to be consulted about projects that affect them. ''We said, 'Halt the negotiation,' because we need more consultation,'' she recalled in an interview. ''The deal was a bad deal.''

The draft document, which hasn't been signed by Liberian authorities, was dated July and said Blue Carbon would get 70 percent of the proceeds '-- tax free for a decade '-- from the sale of any carbon credits related to the land. The government would get the remaining 30 percent, plus a 10 percent royalty over the value of each credit, half of which would go to local communities.

Environmentalists complained that local communities and the government were getting too little. A commonly used protocol by Plan Vivo, a nonprofit based in Britain, says communities should get at least 60 percent of the revenue from carbon credit sales.

Wilson Tarpeh, the chief executive officer of Liberia's Environmental Protection Agency, said the government never intended for the deal to go forward before rules were in place.

''We are also very new to this issue, that's why we are taking our time to make sure that the rules are put in,'' he said in an interview. ''But carbon is a major asset and we want to make money out of it.''

Image Kenya's President William Ruto speaking at the climate summit this month. Credit... Giuseppe Cacace/Agence France-Presse '-- Getty Images The governments of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Kenya, which signed memorandums of understanding to negotiate deals over tens of thousands of square miles with Blue Carbon, did not respond to questions regarding the status of the deals. Kenya's president, William Ruto, told reporters at the climate summit in Dubai that his country had ''not sold one inch'' of its land as part of any carbon-market deal.

Neither carbon markets nor their credibility crisis is new.

The price for carbon credits in the voluntary market has repeatedly collapsed after academic and media investigations into large-scale projects found they overstated the amount of emissions they were supposed to offset and had negative effects on local communities.

Any abuse in the carbon trade between nations would have bigger consequences. Emission reductions pledged by countries are the base of calculations on how well the world is doing in the struggle against climate change, such as the recent United Nations Emissions Gap Report.

Ms. Kelly, the former U.S. negotiator, argued that while agreed-upon rules would help guard against the risk of abuse in the carbon market, the Paris Agreement was designed to give nations freedom to enact it as they saw fit. But, she said, it relies on nations acting in good faith, which so far most are.

''We don't want them to wait,'' she said, referring to the rules still under consideration. ''It's a climate emergency and we need people to act.''

Despite the frenetic deal making in the months ahead leading up to COP28, Blue Carbon did not have a discernible presence at the climate summit in Dubai. While negotiators there sparred over the carbon market's future, the company did, however, announce new agreements with Dominica and the Bahamas. No terms were made public.

Manuela Andreoni is a writer for the Climate Forward newsletter, currently based in Brazil. She was previously a fellow at the Rainforest Investigations Network, where she examined the forces that drive deforestation in the Amazon. More about Manuela Andreoni

Max Bearak is a Times reporter who writes about global energy and climate policies and new approaches to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. More about Max Bearak

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 17:12

Artillery boomed, shaking the ground, as a couple scurried through the streets of Sak(C), their possessions balanced on their heads, in the embattled east of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

At a crossroads, they passed a giant poster of Congo's president, Felix Tshisekedi, who is standing for re-election on Wednesday. ''Unity, Security, Prosperity,'' read the slogan. They hurried along.

''Our children were born in war. We live in war,'' Jean Bahati, his face beaded with sweat, said as he paused for breath. It was the fifth time that he and his wife had been forced to flee, he said. ''We're so sick of it.''

They joined 6.5 million people displaced by war in eastern Congo, where a conflict that has dragged on for nearly three decades, stoking a vast humanitarian crisis that by some estimates has claimed over six million lives, is now lurching into a volatile new phase.

Making sense of the mayhem is not easy. Over 100 armed groups and several national armies are vying for supremacy across a region of lakes, mountains and rainforests slightly bigger than Florida. Meddlesome foreign powers covet its vast reserves of gold, oil and coltan, a mineral used to make cellphones and electric vehicles. Corruption is endemic. Massacres and rape are common.

For all that, aid groups struggle to draw attention to the suffering in a country of about 100 million people, even when the numbers affected dwarf those of other crises.

''There's a sense of fatalism about Congo,'' said Cynthia Jones, the World Food Program head in eastern Congo. ''People seem to think, 'That's just the way it is'.''

However, this latest phase of the war, which began in earnest two years ago, is drawn in unusually clear lines.

On one side is the M23, a well-organized but ruthless rebel group that the United States and the United Nations say is backed by Rwanda, Congo's eastern neighbor, which is one-hundredth the size of Congo. (Rwanda denies any link.) Since October, the M23 has seized the main roads into Goma, the regional capital, as well as the hilltops overlooking Sak(C), 10 miles to the west.

Image People fleeing fighting this month passed an election poster for Congo's president, Felix Tshisekedi, in Sak(C). Parts of eastern Congo are so unstable that voting has been canceled there. Image An aerial view of the regional capital, Goma. Since October, the militia group known as M23 has seized the main roads into Goma.On the other side is Congo's army, whose troops are notoriously ill disciplined. Even as fighting raged near Sak(C) last week, drunken soldiers careened through its streets. But their strength is boosted by two new allies.

One is the Wazalendo, Swahili for patriots, a coalition of once-rival militias that the government cobbled together to repel M23, despite the fighters' reputation for factionalism and brutality.

The second is a force of about 1,000 Romanian mercenaries, many formerly with the French Foreign Legion, deployed around Goma and Sak(C). If M23 tries to seize the city '-- as it briefly did once, in 2012 '-- the Romanians are charged with defending it. ''They are the last line of defense,'' Romuald, a retired French officer advising the Congolese military, said at a lakeside restaurant in Goma. He asked to omit his surname to protect his security.

Amid all that, an election is taking place.

Map locates the Democratic Republic of Congo in Africa, and its eastern regional capital, Goma, in North Kivu, as well as the town of Sak(C), ten miles to the west of Goma. Goma is adjacent to the western border of Rwanda. It also locates Mt. Nyiragongo and the Nyamitwitwi base in Virunga National Park.

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Mr. Tshisekedi, who is favored to win the presidential race, initially pushed for peace after his election in 2019, following a disputed vote. But that effort failed, and now he is aggressively stoking public hostility toward Rwanda, including personal attacks on its leader, President Paul Kagame.

''Kagame must die!'' supporters chanted at a rain-soaked rally last Sunday in Goma, where Mr. Tshisekedi arrived by boat after crossing Lake Kivu. At an earlier rally, he likened Mr. Kagame to Adolf Hitler '-- a comparison that a Rwandan government spokeswoman called ''a clear and present threat.''

Image Supporters and allies of President Felix Tshisekedi attended a campaign rally at a stadium in Goma, on Dec. 10. He is running for re-election while stoking hostility to neighboring Rwanda. Image In Goma on Dec. 10. About 1,000 Romanian mercenaries, many formerly with the French Foreign Legion, are deployed around Goma to defend it if the M23 militia group tries to seize the city. Rwanda and Congo appeared on the verge of open war in January, after Rwanda fired missiles across the border at a Congolese fighter jet as it landed at Goma airport. Now, though, the greatest danger is faced by Congolese civilians plunged into yet another round of misery.

Over half a million people have fled their homes in just the past two months, mostly into the squalid camps that have sprung up around Goma. A sea of rough huts, fashioned from sticks and tarpaulins, is expanding across plains littered with sharp black lava rocks. Mount Nyiragongo, an active volcano that forms a dramatic backdrop to Goma, bubbles in the distance.

Foul-smelling sludge runs between shelters. Disease outbreaks threaten. Food is scarce. The World Food Program says it has enough to feed only 2.5 million of the estimated 6.3 million people who go to bed hungry every night in eastern Congo.

Image Over half a million people have fled their homes in just the past two months, mostly into camps that have sprung up in and around Goma. Image A nurse treating Zawadi Hibukabake, 40, for a bullet wound at a hospital in Sak(C).Even soldiers are struggling. At the dilapidated public hospital in Sak(C), a wounded soldier, Jules Amundala, dozed on a filthy mattress, nursing a bullet wound in one leg. Mr. Amundala, 26, said he had been shot in an ambush that killed his commander. But his main concern was food '-- the hospital hadn't been able to feed patients for several days, doctors said.

In a region where the gun trumps the law, women are especially vulnerable. From the camps around Goma, many trek to the nearby Virunga National Park, famed for its mountain gorillas, in search of firewood. What they often find, though, are gunmen.

''They gave me a choice,'' said Amani, 42, recalling an encounter with three armed men in the park on Dec. 8. ''They said, 'Either we attack you, or we kill you.'

''I said I prefer to be raped.''

The mother of seven stumbled back to her hut in a displaced camp afterward, bleeding heavily. A day later, she reached a clinic run by Doctors Without Borders, where she spoke, asking to be identified by only one name.

She said it was the second time she had been raped by gunmen in the war. The pile of wood she had gone to fetch, to help feed her children, was worth $2.

In October, Doctors Without Borders treated on average 70 sexual assault victims every day at its clinics in Goma, a spokeswoman said. In the broader North Kivu region, it has treated at least 18,000 cases this year.

Image Amani said she was raped by three soldiers as she gathered wood in the Virunga National Park, near a camp for displaced people outside Goma. She had gathered $2 worth of wood to help feed her family. Image A survivor of sexual violence talked with a psychologist at a health center run by Doctors Without Borders in North Kivu Province. The organization says it has treated 18,000 sexual assault victims this year in the wider region.Congo's agony started with the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. After the slaughter, which took 800,000 lives, a flood of refugees crossed into Congo, bringing turmoil that eventually toppled its kleptocratic leader, Mobutu Sese Seko, and led to a ruinous civil war.

Three decades on, the genocide's shadow lingers in Congo. Justifying his cross-border interventions, Mr. Kagame of Rwanda says he is still hunting the ethnic Hutu killers, hiding in Congo, who carried out the 1994 killings.

But economic and strategic interests matter too. Rwanda has long seen eastern Congo as its strategic backyard '-- the Rwandan capital, Kigali, is just 60 miles from Goma '-- and a source of income. Congo's finance minister says his country loses $1 billion a year from smuggling of gold and other precious minerals through Rwanda.

Amid such chaos, maintaining even a facade of democracy is hard: In the Rutshuru and Masisi districts north of Goma, 1.5 million people will not be able to vote in Wednesday's election because the M23 controls those areas.

Image People who fled their homes in the fighting received cooking oil during a distribution of food this month in Sak(C). Image A triage area at the Bulengo camp for displaced people, west of the Goma, where many sleep on ground made of rough lava rocks.Still, the M23 is hardly the only threat to the peace. In the Virunga National Park, rangers are trying to hold off groups pressing in from every side, poaching animals and seizing land. Over 200 rangers have been killed, often in clashes with armed groups.

''Where you see that fire burning, it's F.D.L.R.,'' the park director, Emmanuel de Merode, said recently as he piloted his Cessna plane over the park, referring to a notorious Hutu militia. ''In those hills, it's the Mai-Mai. And between here and the mountains, it's M23.''

Directly under the plane, elephants lounged by a lake.

At a fortified base in Nyamitwitwi, near the border with Uganda, rangers piloted a drone along the park's perimeter fence. Militants attacked here last month, tearing down five miles of fence, Elia Muvulia, the camp commander, said.

After a fight, the rangers got it back up.

Image Rangers on patrol this month in Virunga National Park, famed for its gorillas. More than 200 rangers have been killed, often in clashes with armed militia groups. Image A park ranger piloting a patrol drone in Virunga National Park. On the right is Elia Muvulia, base commander. When the M23 last mounted a major offensive, a decade ago, the United States led efforts to roll it back. President Barack Obama and other officials cut aid to Rwanda, and personally called Mr. Kagame, to apply pressure.

This time, the West is divided: The United States is openly critical of Rwandan intervention in Congo and recently cut some military aid to Rwanda. But Britain, whose government is trying to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda, has been largely silent.

A rare hope for peace emerged last Monday when the White House announced a 72-hour pause in the fighting around Goma. On Friday, the truce was extended until Dec. 28.

Romuald, the French military adviser, said the truce had been precipitated by the arrival of a powerful new weapon: Chinese drones, recently acquired by Congo, that he said had struck Rwandan troops near Goma last weekend.

Pulling out his cellphone, he played a video that showed a missile striking dozens of soldiers clustered on a hillside. The footage could not be independently verified, although a Congolese military spokesman confirmed his assertions.

A spokeswoman for the Rwandan government did not respond to questions about the strike.

The French adviser called it a new stage in Congo's long wars. If Rwandan troops do not withdraw, more attacks will follow, he said.

''We're going to strike, strike, strike, strike,'' he said.

Image Jules Amundala, 26, a wounded soldier, at a public hospital in Sak(C). He said he had been shot in an ambush that killed his commander. Declan Walsh is the chief Africa correspondent for The Times. He was previously based in Egypt, covering the Middle East, and in Pakistan. He previously worked at The Guardian and is the author of ''The Nine Lives of Pakistan.'' More about Declan Walsh

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 17:11

Photos Maps U.S. Aid to Ukraine Russia's Convict Soldiers Winter in a Decimated Village U.S. World Business Arts Lifestyle Opinion Audio Games Cooking Wirecutter The Athletic Photos Maps U.S. Aid to Ukraine Russia's Convict Soldiers Winter in a Decimated Village news analysis

Prime Minister Viktor Orban used E.U. rules on unanimous decisions to sink a $52 billion package strongly backed by larger countries.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary has embraced the veto as a disruptive weapon to shape European policy. Credit... Yves Herman/Reuters The European Union has a population of around 450 million and one of the world's biggest economies.

So how is it that Hungary, a small country with only 10 million people and a lackluster economy blighted by high inflation, this past week steamrollered Europe's plan to throw Ukraine a financial lifeline worth $52 billion?

The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, torpedoed the aid package, strongly supported by much bigger countries like Germany, France and Poland, by exploiting the power of veto held by each of 27 member states over key decisions relating to foreign and security policy and spending.

The requirement for unanimity on important matters, designed to ensure that small countries have a voice, but which many see as a grave design flaw, means that no decision gets taken unless everyone is on board.

Other European leaders have mostly shied away from threatening to use, never mind actually wielding, the veto. But Mr. Orban has embraced it as a disruptive weapon in his battles to shape policy and engage in what Daniel Freund, a German member of the European Parliament and critic of the Hungarian leader, described as a ''constant game of extortion and blackmail.''

On the eve of a summit meeting in Brussels on Thursday on Ukraine, the European Union's executive arm released 10 billion euros, about $11 billion, in funding for Hungary that had been frozen over its violation of various E.U. rules. Officials said the timing was coincidental, but many saw it as a payoff. A further '‚¬17.6 billion remains frozen.

After insisting in Brussels that he was not using his veto to extract money '-- ''it's not about a deal. We represent approaches and principles,'' he said '-- Mr. Orban told Hungarian radio, ''This is a great opportunity for Hungary to make clear that it must get all of what it is due.''

There are growing concerns, however, that Mr. Orban wants to paralyze decision-making in pursuit of a broader ambition: upending the European Union in its current form and remaking it in Hungary's image as a bastion against liberal values, immigrants and what he calls the ''woke movement and gender ideology.'' Hungary, he says, is a ''counter model'' that works.

''The fear is that he actually wants to create chaos and disorder and destroy the E.U. from within,'' said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, a research group in London. ''He used to be more transactional, but people I talk to in Brussels say he has become more unreasonable, more truculent, more self-confident and more destructive.''

At the same time, Mr. Orban has also become more isolated. The victory of centrist and liberal forces in a recent Polish general election ended the eight-year tenure of Law and Justice, a conservative nationalist party closely aligned with Mr. Orban in hostility to Brussels.

Since Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Hungary has worked consistently to water down European sanctions and, echoing a favorite Kremlin talking point, denounced them as hurting Europe, not Russia. But he still went along in the end, endorsing all sanctions applied on Russia by the European Union.

Last week, however, he broke ranks. He kept his veto weapon sheathed when fellow leaders voted to open negotiations with Ukraine over E.U. membership, something he had previously said he would never accept but in the end accepted by leaving the room during the vote. But he used his veto to block the funding package, moving beyond previous bluster to mount a frontal attack on Europe's core policy of helping Ukraine.

Membership talks usually drag on for many years and Mr. Orban signaled on Friday that he would do everything in his power to make sure they lead nowhere. ''Luckily we have time to correct the decision,'' he said in a post on social media.

Mr. Orban's one-against-all stand in Brussels showed that relations between Hungary and the European Union ''are likely broken beyond repair & ultimately heading towards breaking point,'' Mujtaba Rahman, the head of the Europe practice at Eurasia Group, said on social media on Saturday.

Mr. Orban was ''a structural problem for the EU,'' he added, because the survival of a Hungarian system increasingly adrift from the bloc's values ''is going to require ever more maverick and extreme behavior by him in future '-- on Ukraine & more.''

Mr. Orban, who has tight control of the Hungarian media through state conglomerates and loyal business cronies, is not going anywhere in Hungary. His governing Fidesz party last year won its third general election in a row.

Also seemingly immovable is the European Union's commitment to unanimity on the most important decisions.

There have been demands for many years that decisions be taken instead by a majority, with votes weighted to reflect the population of each country, but that would require changing treaties, something that virtually no leader wants to risk trying to do.

Image Poland's new prime minister, Donald Tusk, offered his Parliament a vision of Europe diametrically opposed to Mr. Orban's. Credit... Slawomir Kaminski/Agencja Wyborcza, via Reuters In a speech to Poland's Parliament on Tuesday, Donald Tusk, the new prime minister, outlined a vision of Europe diametrically opposed to that promoted by Mr. Orban. Europe, he said, was more than just a trade bloc but a guardian of what he described as ''European political values of democracy, the rule of law, media independence and freedom of speech.'' But he ruled out treaty changes.

Mr. Orban for his part has voiced growing contempt for the European Union. He in October derided it as a ''bad contemporary parody'' of the Soviet empire and mocked its impotence in face of his defiance of European rules requiring member states to protect press freedom, minority rights and judicial independence. ''We had to dance to the tune Moscow whistled. Even when Brussels whistles, we dance the way we want to,'' he said.

The agreement in Brussels on Thursday to at least start membership negotiations with Ukraine gave a symbolic boost to President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who had just returned empty-handed from a visit to the United States. Desperately needed money for his war effort is being held up by political divisions in Congress, and Ukraine hoped that money from Europe would fill the gap.

European leaders will meet in January to try to get Mr. Orban to relent. If he again uses his veto, as seems likely, Europe will still deliver money to Ukraine using various cumbersome alternative mechanisms that don't require Hungary's approval.

That would tide Ukraine over in the short term but cast a shadow over Europe's long-term ambitions as a reliable geopolitical player.

Ivan Krastev, co-author of ''The Light That Failed,'' a book that examined disenchantment with liberal democracy in Eastern Europe, warned in The Financial Times on Friday that if ''Europe cannot solve its Orban problem'' it risks paralysis and fragmentation.

The European Union, built on the ruins left by World War II, has defied repeated predictions of imminent doom, most recently after Britain voted to leave in 2016. That set off alarm in Brussels '-- and joy among E.U.-skeptics '-- that Brexit might trigger an avalanche of defections by other countries.

But nobody followed Britain's lead and even longtime critics of the bloc like Marine Le Pen in France and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, whose far-right party performed unexpectedly well in a general election last month, have shifted from advocating withdrawal from the union to demanding an overhaul of its priorities.

Mr. Orban, too, insists Hungary will not leave or be forced out, not least because it needs the money. It is the largest recipient per capita of European funds. His mission, he said in Budapest recently, is not to take Hungary out but to ''take over Brussels.''

An important step on that path are elections next summer for the European Parliament, an assembly whose 705 members are chosen by voters in all 27 member states. It has limited powers and is mostly ignored by the general public, but nonetheless serves as a barometer of Europe-wide sentiment.

Growing public unease across much of the continent over a surge in illegal immigration this year could tilt the European Parliament sharply to the right in the summer elections and end the current isolation of Mr. Orban's Fidesz party, which is now largely friendless and powerless in the European legislature.

And it could also spell more trouble for Ukraine.

Image President Volodymyr Zelensky with President Biden on Tuesday. The Ukrainian leader returned from his U.S. visit empty-handed. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times Mr. Orban, the E.U.'s most Kremlin-friendly leader, earned a shout-out from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday, the day European leaders gathered for their summit.

Breaking ranks with his European allies, Mr. Orban traveled to China in October for a meeting with Mr. Putin. He assured him that Hungary '-- heavily dependent on Russia for energy supplies and huge loans for a Russian-built nuclear power plant '-- ''never wanted to confront Russia'' and has ''always been eager to expand contacts.''

Mr. Putin lamented on Thursday that so far only Mr. Orban and the new prime minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, were calling for an end to aid for Ukraine. (Mr. Fico, while highly critical of Ukraine before a September election, declined to join Mr. Orban in using his veto.)

That could change, however, if, as Mr. Orban hopes, right-wing forces hostile to immigrants, minorities and Ukraine do well in Europe's summer elections.

In what amounted to a test run of the message he hopes will mobilize European votes to follow Hungary's lead, Mr. Orban told a Fidesz rally last month, ''The French, the Germans, the Italians, the Austrians would give half their lives if they could again have a country without migrants.'' He added: ''The Hungarian model works.''

Matina Stevis-Gridneff contributed reporting from Brussels.

Andrew Higgins is the East and Central Europe bureau chief for The Times based in Warsaw. He covers a region that stretches from the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to Kosovo, Serbia and other parts of former Yugoslavia. More about Andrew Higgins

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 17:10

Technology | Illicit Content on Elon Musk's X Draws E.U. Investigation https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/18/technology/x-twitter-european-union-investigation.htmlThe inquiry is perhaps the most substantial regulatory move to date against X, which has seen a rise in incendiary content on the platform, according to researchers.

The social media platform X has scaled back its content moderation policies since Elon Musk bought the service last year. Credit... Andreas Solaro/Agence France-Presse '-- Getty Images Dec. 18, 2023 Updated 11:27 a.m. ET

The European Union announced a formal investigation Monday into X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, accusing it of failing to counter illicit content and disinformation, a lack of transparency about advertising and ''deceptive'' design practices.

The inquiry is perhaps the most substantial regulatory move to date against X since it scaled back its content moderation policies after Mr. Musk bought the service, once known as Twitter, last year. The company's new policies have led to a rise in incendiary content on the platform, according to researchers, causing brands to scale back advertising.

In going after X, the European Union is for the first time using the authority gained after last year's passage of the Digital Services Act. The law gives regulators vast new powers to force social media companies to police their platforms for hate speech, misinformation and other divisive content. Other services covered by the new law include Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.

The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc's executive branch, had signaled its intention to look more closely at X's business practices. In October, regulators initiated a preliminary inquiry into the spread of ''terrorist and violent content and hate speech'' on X after the start of the Israel-Gaza conflict.

''The evidence we currently have is enough to formally open a proceeding against X,'' Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission's executive vice president overseeing digital policy, said in a statement. ''The Commission will carefully investigate X's compliance with the DSA, to ensure European citizens are safeguarded online.''

X said it ''remains committed to complying with the Digital Services Act and is cooperating with the regulatory process.''

''X is focused on creating a safe and inclusive environment for all users on our platform, while protecting freedom of expression, and we will continue to work tirelessly towards this goal,'' the company said.

The investigation highlights a major difference between the United States and Europe in policing the internet. While online posts are largely unregulated in the United States as a result of free speech protections, European governments, for historical and cultural reasons, have put more restrictions in place around hate speech, incitement to violence and other harmful material.

The Digital Services Act was an attempt by the E.U. to compel companies to establish procedures to comply more consistently with rules around such content online.

The announcement Monday is the beginning of an investigation without a specified deadline. The inquiry is expected to include interviews with outside groups and requests for more evidence from X. If found guilty of violating the Digital Services Act, the company could be fined up to 6 percent of global revenue.

When Mr. Musk took control of the platform, he dissolved its trust and safety council, overhauled its content moderation practices and welcomed scores of banned users back to the platform. Dozens of studies published since then have described a near-instantaneous rise in antisemitic content and hateful posts.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a nonprofit focused on monitoring extremism and disinformation, found that antisemitic posts in English more than doubled on X after Mr. Musk's takeover. The European Commission found that engagement with pro-Kremlin accounts grew 36 percent in the beginning of this year after Mr. Musk lifted mitigation measures.

As a rash of natural disasters took place around the world this summer, climate misinformation spread widely on X. A scorecard evaluating social media companies awarded X a single point out of a possible 21 for its work defending against climate-related falsehoods.

E.U. officials said X may not be in compliance with rules that require online platforms to respond quickly after being made aware of illicit and hateful content, such as antisemitism and incitement of violence and terrorism. The law also requires companies to conduct risk assessments about the spread of harmful content on their platforms and mitigate it.

Officials raised concerns about X's content moderation policies in languages other than English particularly as elections across the continent approach in 2024.

In addition, the investigation will examine X's efforts to address the spread of false information. The company relies on a feature, called Community Notes, that lets users add context to posts that they believe are misleading, an approach that E.U. officials said may not be sufficient. Regulators will also look into the ways in which posts by X users who pay to be authenticated, signified by a blue check mark, are given more visibility.

The investigation will test the E.U.'s ability to force large internet platforms to change their behavior. Mr. Musk has been an outspoken proponent for free speech rights and, in May, pulled X out of the E.U.'s voluntary code of practice intended to combat disinformation.

In October, after the E.U. initiated its preliminary inquiry, Mr. Musk challenged regulators to share evidence of illicit content on X. ''Please list the violations you allude to on X, so that the public can see them,'' he said.

Stuart A. Thompson contributed reporting.

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 16:12

Europe | Pope Francis Allows Priests to Bless Same-Sex Relationships https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/18/world/europe/pope-gay-lesbian-same-sex-blessing.htmlA church official said the blessings amounted to ''a real development'' that nevertheless did not amend ''the traditional doctrine of the Church about marriage.''

Pope Francis at the Vatican last year. The decision to allow blessings was based on his ''pastoral vision,'' officials said. Credit... Andreas Solaro/Agence France-Presse '-- Getty Images Dec. 18, 2023 Updated 10:05 a.m. ET

Pope Francis has taken one of the most concrete steps in his efforts to make the Roman Catholic Church more welcoming to L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics by allowing priests to bless couples in same-sex relationships, the Vatican announced on Monday.

Priests have long blessed a wide variety of people, offering a prayer asking for God's help and presence. The Vatican had long said it could not bless same-sex couples because it would undermine church doctrine that marriage is only between a man and a woman.

The new rule was issued in a declaration by the church's office on doctrine and introduced by its prefect, Cardinal V­ctor Manuel Fernndez, who said that the declaration did not amend ''the traditional doctrine of the church about marriage,'' because it allowed no liturgical rite that could be confused with the sacrament of marriage.

''It is precisely in this context,'' Cardinal Fernndez wrote, ''that one can understand the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church's perennial teaching on marriage.''

In his introduction to the declaration, which was signed and approved by Pope Francis, Cardinal Fernndez nevertheless acknowledged that the broadening of the scope of who could receive blessings amounted to ''a real development'' and a ''specific and innovative contribution to the pastoral meaning of blessings.'' He said the decision was ''based on the pastoral vision of Pope Francis.''

''This new declaration opens the door to nonliturgical blessings for same-sex couples, something that had been previously off-limits for bishops, priests and deacons,'' said the Rev. James Martin, a prominent advocate for L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics. ''Along with many priests, I will now be delighted to bless my friends in same-sex unions.''

There has been a burst of activity on the L.G.B.T.Q. issue in recent months from the office of the Doctrine of the Faith, run by Cardinal Fernndez, especially after many advocates for L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics were deeply frustrated by a lack of progress, or even recognition, during a major October meeting of bishops and lay people in October that could potentially lead to major changes in the church.

In October, the Vatican released Francis' private response over the summer to doubts from conservative cardinals about the possibility of blessing same-sex couples, a practice they absolutely opposed. Francis instead suggested the blessings were a possibility, seemingly reversing a 2021 Vatican ruling that came down hard against the blessing of gay unions, arguing that God ''cannot bless sin.''

While the pope then also clearly upheld the church position that marriage could exist only between a man and a woman, he said that priests should exercise ''pastoral charity'' when it came to requests for blessings. But Francis also made clear that he did not want the blessings to be reduced to protocols, as had been the case in parts of the liberal German church that support same-sex blessings '-- and urged priests to be open to ''channels beyond norms.''

On Oct. 31, Francis approved another document by Cardinal Fernndez's department, making clear that transgender people can be baptized, serve as godparents and be witnesses at church weddings, furthering his vision of a more inclusive church.

The issue of blessing same-sex couples has exploded in recent years, especially in Germany, where priests have regularly offered blessings despite resistance from the Vatican.

Father Martin called the declaration a ''major step forward in the church's ministry to L.G.B.T.Q. people and recognizes the deep desire in many Catholic same-sex couples for God's presence in their loving relationships.''

The Vatican document points out that blessings, which are intended to evoke God's presence in all facets of life, can be bestowed on people, objects of worship, places of work, and much else, and are aimed at giving glory and asking favor to God.

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 16:11

Who Is Running? Issues Tracker G.O.P. Primary Calendar Iowa Caucuses: What to Know Listen to 'The Run-Up' U.S. World Business Arts Lifestyle Opinion Audio Games Cooking Wirecutter The Athletic Who Is Running? Issues Tracker G.O.P. Primary Calendar Iowa Caucuses: What to Know Listen to 'The Run-Up' The former president cited comments by the Russian leader to argue the 91 felony charges he is facing undermine the United States' claim to be the world leader on democracy.

Former President Donald J. Trump said during a rally in Durham, N.H., on Saturday that the criminal charges against him were proof of a failing American democracy. Credit... Doug Mills/The New York Times By Maggie Haberman and Michael Gold

Maggie Haberman, who reported from New Hampshire, has covered Donald Trump since before his 2016 campaign. Michael Gold, who reported from Nevada, is covering his 2024 campaign.

Former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday invoked Vladimir V. Putin to support his case that the four criminal indictments he is facing are political payback, quoting the Russian president saying that the charges undercut the argument that the United States is an example of democracy for the world.

Mr. Trump made the comment during a campaign speech in Durham, N.H., in which he focused on pocketbook concerns of voters, hammered the state's Republican governor, who endorsed one of his rivals, mocked his lower-polling competitors for not performing better and painted a dystopian vision of a country in ''hell'' under his successor, President Biden.

''Even Vladimir Putin says that Biden's '-- and this is a quote '-- politically motivated persecution of his political rival is very good for Russia, because it shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy,'' Mr. Trump said as he railed against the 91 criminal charges he is facing, citing Mr. Putin speaking in September.

Mr. Trump added: ''So, you know, we talk about democracy, but the whole world is watching the persecution of a political opponent that's kicking his ass. It's an amazing thing. And they're all laughing at us.''

There is no evidence that Mr. Biden has meddled in the prosecutions of Mr. Trump, which are taking place in four different federal and state courts and cover a range of issues, including his possession of reams of classified material after he left office and his efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.

And Mr. Biden's Justice Department has twice indicted Mr. Biden's son, Hunter, on gun possession and tax charges. But Mr. Trump has continued to claim, without evidence, that all prosecutors '-- even the state prosecutors in New York and Georgia '-- are doing his successor's bidding.

Mr. Trump's citation of Mr. Putin, an authoritarian strongman, came as critics have raised alarms about his potentially radical plans for a second term, and as Mr. Trump's campaign has tried to muddy the waters over voter concerns about his efforts to thwart the peaceful transfer of power and the criminal charges he faces related to them.

Still, Mr. Trump has proved less than willing to pull back his own rhetoric, even as aides have tried to quell a crush of news stories about his second-term plans. Last week, Mr. Trump said he would be a dictator ''on day one'' of his presidency, a remark he called a joke but later doubled down on.

In bringing Mr. Putin's words to his defense, Mr. Trump referred to one of Mr. Biden's top adversaries as a credible observer of the U.S. political system. The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Russian officials interfered in the 2016 election and have repeatedly tried to destabilize U.S. elections.

But suggesting that the United States is not much better than authoritarian countries, and positively invoking Mr. Putin, has been a recurring theme for Mr. Trump since he took office in 2017.

At the rally on Saturday, a relatively new slogan for his campaign '-- ''Better Off With Trump'' '-- was displayed on a screen over Mr. Trump's head as he stood onstage before a packed crowd at the Whittemore Center at the University of New Hampshire. In his speech, Mr. Trump criticized Mr. Biden's economic policies, and then broadly said the president had contributed to the degradation of Americans' everyday lives.

''We're going to bring our country back from hell. It's in hell,'' Mr. Trump said. He cited statistics like mortgage rates and attacked Mr. Biden's energy policies. He also revived a widely condemned comment about immigrants ''poisoning the blood of our country,'' noting that immigrants are coming not just from South America but also Africa and Asia. He did not mention Europe.

Mr. Trump also cast his primary competitors, all of whom are trailing him significantly in state and national polls, as ''back-stabbing establishment losers and the sellouts lagging far behind us,'' and he called them ''insincere RINOs'' '-- Republicans in name only.

The former president spent considerable time ridiculing Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador, over a much-vaunted ''surge'' that he said only manifested in comparison with lower-polling candidates. Though she is currently the highest-polling alternative to Mr. Trump in New Hampshire, edging out Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, surveys have consistently shown Mr. Trump with a double-digit lead in the state.

Ms. Haley was endorsed this week by New Hampshire's popular Republican governor, Chris Sununu, a Trump critic whose support Ms. Haley's team hopes will help attract more moderate Republicans and independent voters, who are allowed to participate in New Hampshire's primary. Those voters are also being courted by other candidates, including former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.

Mr. Trump railed against those efforts, accusing his rivals of recruiting ''subversive'' outsiders like ''radical left Democrats'' to cut into his lead.

He also blasted Mr. Sununu, calling him a ''spoiled brat'' who was doing a ''bad job'' and who had been insufficiently appreciative of Mr. Trump's attention toward the state during his presidency.

''I gave New Hampshire everything they asked for and much more,'' said Mr. Trump, who has long displayed a transactional, tit-for-tat view of governing. ''And it's hard to do that when you can't stand the governor, right? But he's a selfish guy.''

Saturday's rally was Mr. Trump's first event in New Hampshire in more than a month. The former president, who has kept a lighter campaign schedule than most of his competitors, has spent more time recently in Iowa, where his campaign is seeking a dominant victory that could encourage his rivals to drop out of the race.

His advisers see his path in New Hampshire as more predictable. The state gave him a decisive first primary victory in his effort to become the Republican presidential nominee in 2016.

Mr. Trump was to travel to Nevada, the third nominating state, later on Saturday to watch a U.F.C. fight in Las Vegas, and then for a rally in Reno on Sunday. He returns to Iowa for an event on Tuesday.

Before Mr. Trump took the stage in New Hampshire, his two top political advisers, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, spoke briefly to reporters. Ms. Wiles said that Mr. Trump would increase the pace of his campaigning as January begins, and that their hope was to roll up successive victories in the first four states in order to be in a strong position accruing delegates by mid-March.

She said the criminal trials that Mr. Trump might be facing '-- including the federal case over his efforts to stay in power and the state case in Manhattan related to hush money payments to a porn star '-- present a ''nightmare'' for scheduling his campaign.

''I believe the goal is to take him off the field at a very critical time,'' she said.

Maggie Haberman is a senior political correspondent reporting on the 2024 presidential campaign, down ballot races across the country and the investigations into former President Donald J. Trump. More about Maggie Haberman

Michael Gold is a political correspondent for The Times covering the campaigns of Donald J. Trump and other candidates in the 2024 presidential elections. More about Michael Gold

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Echoing Putin, Trump Calls His Four Indictments 'Politically Motivated'

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:52

Warning: many of the numbers below are probably incorrect!Email me if you'd like to help make something morerigorous.

tl;dr: People pay $0.50-$2.00 for an hour of digital entertainment.

ad-free sub. avg. usage Xbox Live *$10/mo 40h/mo $0.25/h NY Times $3/mo 7h/mo $0.46/h Spotify $11/mo 5h/mo $0.47/h NFL+ $7/mo 12h/mo $0.50/h X $3/mo 6h/mo $0.50/h Netflix $23/mo 43h/mo $0.53/h Hulu $18/mo 33h/mo $0.54/h YouTube $13/mo 23h/mo $0.56/h est. price duration video game (v. long) $60 180h $0.33/h video game (long) $60 60h $1.00/h book $12 10h $1.20/h video game (short) $30 20h $1.50/h film (online) $4 2h $2.00/h audiobook $20 10h $2.00/h cinema $12 2h $6.00/h theme park $80 10h $8.00/h cruise $1500 168h $8.92/h

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:52

We're experiencing a major technology outage following a cyber-attack affecting our website, online systems and services, and some onsite services. However, our buildings are still open as usual. We anticipate restoring more services in the next few weeks, but disruption to certain services is now expected to persist for several months.

Last week the attackers released some of our data onto the dark web including some personal user information. We've contacted our users to alert them to this incident and to offer advice from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) on how to protect themselves, including updating their passwords on other systems.

Because our systems are still unavailable, you can't change the password for our services. However, if you use the same password for non-British Library services, we recommend that you change it as a precaution.

NCSC provides guidance on staying secure online, including how to create a strong password, and specific guidance for individuals who may have been impacted by a data breach.

Analysing the data is likely to take several months. Should we find specific information has been compromised, we will alert anyone affected as soon as we can. We are continuing to collaborate with the Metropolitan Police and professional cybersecurity advisors, and are receiving support from the NCSC.

We're really sorry for the ongoing disruption to our systems and services and we'll provide further updates when we can.

What is currently available?The Library's buildings are open, but some services are limited, including access to collection items. We're regularly updating our blog with the latest information on what's currently available online and onsite so please check this before you visit.

If you have purchased tickets for our exhibition, Fantasy: Realms of Imagination, you can still use them. Exhibition tickets can also be booked via See Tickets. Our free exhibition, Malorie Blackman: The Power of Stories, is open and no booking is required.

All upcoming public events are going ahead as planned and you can find more information on our events blogupdate. We're continuing to welcome schools and families too, as well asadult learners to our courses.

Business & IP Centre (BIPC) in St Pancras is open to support businesses as usual but digitalservices onsite are unavailable. You can also join BIPC events and webinars and access one-to-onesupport. Read our BIPC blog update to find out what help and advice we can offer during this time.

Contacting usWhile our systems are offline, you can contact us by emailing customer@bl.uk We'll do our best to answer your queries but please bear with us. This inbox is reviewed between 08.30 to 16.30 Monday to Friday. We're experiencing a high volume of enquiries so it may take us some time to respond. We'll get back to you as quickly as we can.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:46

The installation by a crane of a new golden rooster on Notre Dame, reimagined as a dramatic phoenix with licking, flamed feathers, goes beyond being just a weathervane atop the cathedral spire.

It symbolises resilience amid destruction after the devastating April 2019 fire '' as restoration officials also revealed an anti-fire misting system is being kitted out under the cathedral's roof.

Chief architect Philippe Villeneuve, who designed the new rooster, said that the original's survival signified a ray of light in the catastrophe.

''That there was hope, that not everything was lost. The beauty of the (old) battered rooster '... expressed the cry of the cathedral suffering in flames,'' Villeneuve said. He described the new work of art, approximately half a metre long and gleaming in the December sun behind Notre Dame Cathedral, as his ''phoenix''.

Villeneuve elaborated on the new rooster's significance, saying: ''Since [the fire] we have worked on this rooster [the] successor, which sees the flame carried to the top of the cathedral as it was before, more than 96 metres from the ground '... It is a fire of resurrection.''

In lighthearted comments, the architect said that the process of design was so intense he might have to speak to his therapist about it.

Before ascending to its perch, the rooster '' a French emblem of vigilance and Christ's resurrection '' was blessed by Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich in a square behind the monument. The rooster is an emotive national emblem for the French because of the word's semantics; the Latin word gallus means both Gaul and rooster.

The golden rooster, designed by architect Philippe Villeneuve, contains relics saved from the fire that struck the monument in 2019. Photograph: Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty ImagesUlrich placed sacred relics in a hole inside the rooster's breast, including fragments of Christ's Crown of Thorns and remains of St Denis and St Genevieve, infusing the sculpture with religious importance.

The Crown of Thorns, regarded as Notre Dame's most sacred relic, was among the treasures quickly removed after the fire broke out. Brought to Paris by King Louis IX in the 13th century, it is purported to have been pressed on to Christ's head during the crucifixion.

A sealed tube was also placed in the sculpture containing a list of the names of nearly 2,000 individuals who contributed to the cathedral's reconstruction, underscoring the collective effort behind the works.

Notre Dame's new restoration chief, Philippe Jost, detailed pioneering measures taken to safeguard the cathedral against future fires in comments to the press.

Paris Archbishop Laurent Ulrich placing the relics of a fragment of Christ's Crown of Thorns and remains of St Denis and St Genevieve into the new rooster. Photograph: Michel Euler/AP''We have deployed a range of fire protection devices, some of which are very innovative in a cathedral, including a misting system in the attics, where the oak frame and in the spire are located,'' Jost said. ''And this is a first for a cathedral in France.''

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, who last week visited the site to mark a one-year countdown to its reopening, announced that the original rooster will be displayed in a new museum at the H´tel-Dieu.

This move, along with plans to invite Pope Francis for the cathedral's reopening next year, highlights Notre Dame's significance in French history and culture.

The rooster's installation, crowning a spire reconstructed from Eug¨ne Viollet-le-Duc's 19th-century design, is a poignant reminder of its medieval origins as a symbol of hope and faith.

Its longstanding association with the French nation since the Renaissance further adds to its historical and cultural significance, marking a new chapter of renewal and hope for Notre Dame and the French people.

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:46

The London mayor said he does not have the legal powers to export Ulez non-compliant vehiclesVehicles eligible for scrappage as part of London's Ulez scheme cannot legally be sent to Ukraine, the mayor's office has said.

The Telegraph reported Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko had written to to his London counterpart to suggest the idea as part of the scrappage scheme.

However, Sadiq Khan's office said the Labour mayor was legally unable to alter it to allow vehicle exports.

Susan Hall, the Tory mayoral candidate, said the response was "absurd".

Under the Ulez scrappage scheme, which came into force in August, Londoners with vehicles that fall foul of emission standards can claim up to £2,000 when their non-compliant vehicles are taken to be destroyed.

In the letter obtained by The Telegraph, Mr Klitschko said some of the vehicles being scrapped, particularly 4x4s, had "enormous potential" to help the country in a "variety of life-saving and transport roles" to aid its war with Russia.

'Deeply frustrated'BBC News has not seen the full contents of the letter, reportedly sent in September, but a spokesperson for Mr Khan confirmed it had been received.

"Unfortunately, altering the Ulez scheme for the purpose of exporting vehicles to Ukraine is not possible within the current limits of the Greater London Authority Act," they said.

They said exporting the vehicles to Ukraine would "not meet the legal threshold of the benefit to Londoners from an economic, social, or environmental perspective" as set out within the act.

They added that Mr Khan was "deeply frustrated" and had instead set up a website which enabled Londoners with a "suitable non-compliant vehicle to donate their vehicles directly to Ukraine".

Owners of vehicles donated directly through a charity will not be entitled to claim £2,000 from the Ulez scrappage scheme.

Ms Hall said Londoners who choose to scrap their cars "should have the freedom to decide for themselves if they want their car sent to support Ukraine".

Follow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to hellobbclondon@bbc.co.uk

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:45

By Kevin Peachey Cost of living correspondent

Homeowners and buyers have spoken of their "serious stress" after a cyber-attack played havoc with property completions.

CTS, which provides IT services to law firms, said systems were still not back to normal after more than three weeks of disruption.

Conveyancers have found workarounds that have allowed many people to go ahead with purchases.

But the scale of the problems has still not been revealed by CTS.

The company said it was "working around the clock" to restore systems, and had made "significant progress".

"This is a very complex situation and, at this time, our focus remains on restoring those clients whose systems have been disrupted," it said.

"We are keeping our clients updated and are in contact with the regulators."

However, individuals whose home moves and mortgage completions have been affected by law firms' inability to access documents said they were frustrated at the lack of communication.

One 33-year-old, who is buying a first home with his partner, said there had been few updates, and the last few weeks had been "seriously stressful".

He said he was still concerned about whether all his personal details were safe.

Alice Fenton hopes to move on MondayGenerally, on property completion day, the buyer's solicitor arranges for money to be transferred to the seller's solicitor. A failure to complete is technically a breach of contract.

The problem at CTS is having a knock-on effect on the firms involved in property completions.

Alice Fenton and her family faced delays trying to complete the purchase of a property in south-east London.

The 35-year-old's mortgage offer was extended by the loan provider, and she is set to finally move on Monday. However, she described the experience as extremely stressful and chaotic.

Cyber-attack leaves home sales in limbo'We don't know if we can complete on our new home'Another homeowner affected, who did not want to be named, said he had been temporarily forced on to a more expensive variable rate mortgage because his new loan was unable to complete on time.

He and others have faced extra costs, but remain unclear about where to go for compensation.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), which regulates law firms that carry out conveyancing, said anyone with complaints should initially contact their law firm. It is likely that these firms, in turn, may seek their own compensation from CTS or its insurers.

A spokesman for the SRA said a growing number of firms had informed the regulator about having been affected.

But he said that law firms had regularly been advised to ensure alternative options were in place should cyber-incidents occur.

A spokesman for the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which regulates CTS, said: "People have the right to expect that organisations will handle their personal information securely and responsibly. If an individual has concerns about how their data has been handled, they should raise it with the organisation first, then report them to us if they are not satisfied with the response."

He said CTS had told the ICO about the incident and the regulator would be "making enquiries".

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:45

W ho says democracy is dying? A record-breaking 40-plus countries, representing more than 40% of the world's population and an outsized chunk of global GDP, are due to hold national elections in 2024. The outcomes, taken separately and together, will help determine who controls and directs the 21st-century world.

Casting lots in this multinational, multiparty democratic Super Bowl are some of the most powerful and wealthiest states (the US, India, the UK), some of the weakest (South Sudan), the most despotic (Russia, Iran) and the most stressed (Taiwan, Ukraine). Some elections will be open, free and fair, many less so. Some will not be free at all.

Paradoxically, this unprecedented vote-fest comes at a moment when classic forms of liberal democracy are under existential attack from authoritarians and dictators such as China's Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin, far-right nationalist-populist parties such as Fidesz in Hungary, and military coup plotters and Islamist militants from Venezuela to Chad.

Global freedom declined for the 17th consecutive year, Freedom House, the independent, US-based watchdog, concluded in its 2023 report: ''Moscow's war of aggression led to devastating human rights atrocities in Ukraine. New coups and other attempts to undermine representative government destabilised Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Peru, and Brazil '... Ongoing repression continued to diminish basic liberties in Guinea and constrain those in Turkey, Myanmar and Thailand, among others.''

Yet the report said while 35 countries experienced declines in political rights and civil liberties, 34 saw overall gains. Autocrats were neither infallible nor unbeatable: ''The effects of corruption and a focus on political control at the expense of competence exposed the limits of the authoritarian models offered by Beijing, Moscow, Caracas, or Tehran.''

The principle of free speech, essential to fully functioning democracy, is also under attack, rights campaigner Jacob Mchangama argued in Foreign Policy magazine. ''Even open democracies have imposed restrictive measures to combat a range of threats including hate speech, disinformation, extremism and public disturbances,'' he wrote, citing increased EU online regulation and curbs on pro-Palestinian protests.

Indian PM Narendra Modi's nationalist BJP has already won three crucial state elections '' strengthening his bid for a third term in office. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty ImagesThe geopolitical and economic impacts of so many ballot box battles, occurring more or less at once, may combine to further destabilise an unstable world '' for good or bad. It would be inspiring, for example, if voters kicked out Iran's murderously misogynistic clerical conservatives in March's parliamentary polls. But the fix is in. More than 25% of opposition candidates have already been disqualified.

Many Iranians are expected to boycott the vote. That's what happened last week in Egypt, where the former coup leader, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, barred his only credible opponent from standing against him for the presidency. Likewise, this month's gerrymandered ''patriots only'' district elections in Hong Kong left voters asking why bother? Turnout was 27%, compared to 71% before China made a nonsense of the process.

Yet the title of 2024's most bogus election must go to Russia, with Belarus a possible close second. Putin has jailed, exiled or eliminated rivals; his bid for a fifth presidential term will be more imperial coronation than contest. His personal approval rating remains high after nearly 25 years at the top because many Russians know no other leader. The serfs were emancipated by Tsar Alexander II in 1861. Tsar Putin I is reversing the process.

That said, some elections may produce genuine turning points. Unpredictable, volatile Pakistan and Bangladesh both go to the polls in 2024. And this spring's general election in India, the world's most populous democracy, is no foregone conclusion. Prime minister Narendra Modi's hopes of a third term could be frustrated by a new, 28-party opposition coalition called INDIA '' Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance.

Modi's Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party dominates in north and central India, while Modi himself is viewed as an electoral superstar, unlike Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party. Yet his unattractive, autocratic tendencies, reflected in curbs on independent journalism, mystery deaths of opponents abroad and the brutal army crackdown in Kashmir, will raise doubts about the poll's fairness. A surprise Modi defeat could have strategic ramifications, hurting US attempts to woo India as an ally and counterweight to China.

Support for the DPP's presidential candidate Lai Ching-te at a campaign rally in New Taipei City, Taiwan, which goes to the polls in January 2024. Photograph: Sam Yeh/AFP/Getty ImagesNext month's elections in self-ruling Taiwan, which China regards as a renegade province, will provide a valuable demonstration of how highly democracy is still valued '' when a determined people are allowed a real choice amid fierce external pressures. If Taipei's pro-independence Democratic Progressive party wins again, an infuriated Beijing could move beyond the usual military threats. This in turn could quickly draw in the US and regional allies.

Another seismic prospect, in terms of potential political earthquakes, is South Africa's general election. For the first time since Nelson Mandela walked to freedom and the apartheid era ended 30 years ago in 1994, the ANC could lose its overall majority, undercut by challengers such as the Democratic Alliance.

Odds are the ANC, in possible coalition with the leftist Economic Freedom Fighters, will cling to power. But the party looks set to be punished by voters for years of shameless corruption, leadership scandals, high rates of crime and unemployment, and its inability, literally, to keep the lights on '' daily power cuts of up to six hours have become routine. A low turnout could seal the ANC's fate.

Disillusion with democracy is a much-discussed issue across all of Africa, the world's fastest growing continent '' as it is elsewhere. Comfort Ero and Murithi Mutiga of the International Crisis Group noted this month that seven African leaders were toppled by their own militaries between August 2020 and November 2023. These were among 13 successful coups in Africa since 2000, mainly in a ''belt of instability'' stretching from Niger to Sudan. Not all the leaders overthrown were popularly elected.

While all coups are essentially anti-democratic in nature, they have multiple causes. These include abuse of power, economic woes, corruption, Islamist insurgencies, rigged elections and personal rivalries. But it is clear that, far from being unwelcome, some recent coups, such as that in Mali in 2021, enjoyed substantial public support. Violent regime change was better, it seems, than no regime change at all.

Most Africans ''still have faith in democracy [yet] they have been desperate to rid themselves of regimes that purport to be democratic but often fail to deliver on democracy's most basic promises'', Ero and Mutiga wrote. This conclusion surely has universal relevance. Meanwhile, the democracy show rolls on. Algeria, Tunisia, Ghana, Rwanda, Namibia, Mozambique, Senegal, Togo and South Sudan are among the African countries holding elections in 2024.

Wars and conflict demonstrably hamper ability to conduct and maintain democratic governance. Ukraine, for example, is due a presidential election by the spring. Volodymyr Zelenskiy's five-year term is up. Yet although, under martial law, elections are suspended, a vote that acts as a safety valve to release internal tensions and popular discontents would be a worthwhile exercise '' even if Putin tried to bomb it. It would show democracy refuses to be killed.

Israel may soon find itself in a similar predicament if, as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu hopes and expects, the war in Gaza continues well into next year. Polls suggest Israelis, probably a majority, want to jettison Netanyahu's hard-right coalition, which they blame for failing to prevent the 7 October attacks. No election is scheduled, but war or no war, grassroots pressure to hold one is likely to grow.

Surveys indicate dissatisfaction with the present-day workings of democracy is a sentiment common throughout the nations of the west '' meaning, principally, the US and Europe '' even though they see themselves as democracy's home ground. As in Africa, democracy itself is not the problem. It's the way it is applied and practised. A recent Ipsos opinion poll in western countries found a widespread belief that current democratic systems favour the rich and powerful and ignore everyone else.

Leftwing Morena party candidate Claudia Sheinbaum could become Mexico's first female presdient in 2024. Photograph: Felipe Gutierrez/EPAAround seven in 10 Americans said the state of democracy had declined in recent years, while 73% in France agreed. More than six in 10 people in the UK believed democracy was working less well than five years ago, according to the poll. Respondents in all but one of the countries surveyed, which also included Croatia, Italy, Poland and Sweden, agreed ''radical change'' was needed.

Changed or not, Europe will see elections in 2024 in Austria, Belgium, Croatia and Finland, as well as for the European parliament in June. The pervasive fear is that they will produce more advances by nationalist-populist, anti-migrant, xenophobic parties of the far right, matching those seen recently in Italy, the Netherlands and Slovakia.

In the UK, the problem is slightly different. Despite priding itself on a long democratic tradition, Britain has endured two unelected Conservative prime ministers in little more than a year. Bizarrely, it's not certain the next UK general election will be held in 2024 at all.

Mexico's presidential election in June is certain to catch the eye when, breaking glass ceilings, two women candidates will compete for the top job. But toward year's end, all eyes will turn to the US, whose presidential showdown between two old men, described as the most important of modern times, will be held in November.

President Joe Biden divides the world crudely into rival democratic and autocratic camps. He says this is the defining struggle of the age. So if he fails to beat his likely Republican challenger, Donald Trump '' a man who says he will not act as a dictator if elected but evidently cannot wait to do so '' then many around the world, starting with Putin and Xi, may conclude it's all up with democracy.

A Trump victory '' and the ensuing chaotic Jacobean-style revenge tragedy it will inevitably trigger ''could permanently upend the international order, tipping the balance towards authoritarianism and dictatorship. If the US, ''the city upon a hill'', ceases to fight for it, democracy will surely wither and die.

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:45

By James Gallagher Inside Health presenter, BBC Radio 4

Scientists say people's antibody levels against Covid are probably as low now as they have beenWhat is it like to catch Covid now? It is a question I have been pondering since a friend was surprised by how roughed up they were by it. Their third bout of Covid was significantly worse than the previous time they caught it.

"I thought every time you catch an illness it's supposed to be a bit better each time?" was the message from his sickbed.

That has certainly been said a lot during the pandemic. But I also know work colleagues and people I have interviewed or chatted to at the school gates, who have been hit hard by Covid in the past few months.

A familiar tale has been a week of coughing, headaches or fever followed by a lingering fatigue.

It is important to stress that Covid has always caused a wide range of symptoms. Even before vaccines, some lucky people barely got sick or did not even develop symptoms.

For some of us, Covid is just a sniffle - not even enough to make you go digging around in the bathroom cabinet to see if there is a lateral flow test hiding in there.

But scientists specialising in our immune system warn Covid is still causing stonking infections that may be worse than before and knock us out for weeks.

So what is going on?

How we fare after being exposed to Covid comes down to the battle between the virus itself and our body's defences.

The earliest stages are crucial as they dictate how much of a foothold the virus gets inside our body, and how severe it is going to be.

However, waning immunity and the virus evolving are tipping the scales.

'Feel pretty rough'Prof Eleanor Riley, an immunologist at the University of Edinburgh, has had her own "horrid" bout of Covid that was "much worse" than expected.

She told me: "People's antibody levels against Covid are probably as low now as they have been since the vaccine was first introduced."

Antibodies are like microscopic missiles that stick to the surface of the virus and stop it from infecting our body's cells.

So, if you have lots of antibodies, they can mop up the virus quickly and any infection will hopefully be short and mild.

"Now, because antibodies are lower, a higher dose [of the virus] is getting through and causing a more severe bout of disease," Prof Riley says.

Antibody levels are relatively low because it has been a long time since many of us were vaccinated (if you are young and healthy you were only ever offered two doses and a booster) or infected, which also tops up immunity.

Prof Peter Openshaw, from Imperial College London, told me: "The thing that made the huge difference before was the very wide and fast rollout of vaccines - even young adults managed to get vaccinated, and that made an absolutely huge difference."

Fewer people are being offered a booster vaccine this winterThis year even fewer people are being offered the vaccine. Last winter, all over-50s could have one. Now it is only the over-65s, unless you are in an at-risk group.

Prof Openshaw says he is not a "doomster", but thinks the result will be "a lot of people having a pretty nasty illness that is going to knock them out for several days or weeks".

"I'm also hearing of people having nasty bouts of Covid, who are otherwise young and fit. It's a surprisingly devious virus, sometimes making people quite ill and occasionally leading to having 'long Covid'," he says.

He thinks there is a "good chance" you are susceptible if you have not caught Covid in the past year.

The official government decision in the UK is to vaccinate those at risk of dying from Covid or needing hospital treatment. This relieves pressure on the National Health Service.

Prof Riley argues: "But that's not to say people who are under 65 are not going to get Covid, and are not going to feel pretty rough.

"I think the consequence of not boosting those people is we have more people who are off work for a week or two or three over winter."

Decisions on who gets vaccinated are not the only thing to have altered - the virus is also changing.

'Little immunity'Antibodies are highly precise as they rely on a close match between the antibody and the part of the virus to which they stick. The more a virus evolves to change its appearance, the less effective the antibodies become.

Prof Openshaw said: "The viruses circulating now are pretty distant immunologically from the original virus which was used to make the early vaccines, or which last infected them.

"A lot of people have very little immunity to the Omicron viruses and their variants."

It could be a grotty winter for many of usIf you are feeling rough with Covid - or rougher than you have done before - it could be this combination of waning antibodies and evolving viruses.

But this does not mean you are more likely to become critically ill or need hospital treatment.

A different part of our immune system - called T-cells - kick in once an infection is already under way and they have been trained by past infections and vaccines.

T-cells are less easily befuddled by mutating viruses as they spot cells that have been infected with Covid and kill them.

"They will stop you getting severely ill and ending up in hospital, but in that process of killing off the virus there's collateral damage that makes you feel pretty rough," says Prof Riley.

Relying on your T-cells to clear out Covid is what results in the muscle pain, fever and chills.

So where does this leave the thought that Covid is on a trajectory towards becoming a mild, innocuous infection?

There are four other human coronaviruses, related to Covid, that cause common cold symptoms. One of the reasons they are thought to be mild is we catch them in childhood and then throughout our lives.

Prof Openshaw is clear "we are not there yet" with Covid, but "with repeated infection we should build up natural immunity".

In the meantime will some of us have to suck up a grotty winter?

"I fear so," says Prof Riley.

Are you affected by the issues raised in this story? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:44

Germany's opposition conservatives are seeking to win back voters with a sweeping change to the country's immigration and asylum policy, including plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.

Jens Spahn, a leading member of the Christian Democrats (CDU), said at the weekend that his party was in favour of the transportation of future refugees to third countries for processing of asylum applications such Ghana and Rwanda in Africa, or to non-EU European countries such as Moldova and Georgia.

''If we did this and kept it up consequently for four, six, eight weeks, we would see the numbers [claiming asylum] reduce dramatically,'' said Spahn, who is vice parliamentary leader of the CDU.

The remarks suggest the concept of the UK's Rwanda policy is gaining traction internationally. The Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has proposed sending asylum seekers to Albania.

Austria has also expressed its interest in such a scheme.

Spahn was defending a 70-page position paper presented by the CDU last Monday, in which the party said if in government it would propose limiting the number of asylum seekers coming to Germany, and move those who entered the EU to ''safe third countries'' where their applications would be processed.

The CDU has made no secret of its aims to win back voters from the far-right nationalist AfD , which is running second in opinion polls, citing migration, alongside inflation, as the top issue for many Germans that are likely to dominate campaigns for regional elections next year and the federal election expected to take place in autumn 2025.

Spahn called third countries ''safe harbours'' that ''would fulfil the terms and conditions of the UN refugee convention''.

Speaking to the newspaper Neue Osnabr¼cker Zeitung, Spahn said the plan would act as a disincentive to refugees who chose ''irregular ways'' to reach Germany to claim asylum. ''If we are consequent about this '... many people wouldn't even set off on the journey in the first place, if it's clear to them that within 48 hours they will find themselves in a safe third country outside the EU,'' he said.

The proposal is a core item on the CDU's so-called ''basic principle'' programme, according to which the party, in government, would seek to forge contractual agreements with third-party countries that would be legally obliged to grant the new arrivals protection.

Countries such as Morocco and Senegal have also been put forward as possible third-party countries.

Spahn said: ''Rwanda has said it would be prepared to do this, probably also Ghana. We should also be in talks about this with eastern European countries like Georgia and Moldova.''

He said that nowhere in the Geneva refugee convention did it state that the protection of people from war should be vouchsafed in the EU. ''If we ensure that persecuted people have a place of protection where they'll be well looked after and can live without fear, then the goals of the Geneva convention will have been fulfilled,'' he added.

Spahn said Germany's weight in the EU would ensure that whether it was behind the concept, ''it will be capable of securing majority approval and with a coalition of the willing it would also be implementable''.

''Once this message has got through, people will no longer pay smugglers and traffickers, will no longer set out on these dangerous Mediterranean routes. Then these terrible deaths will cease, and then the rights of the strongest '' because it's almost only young men who are coming '' will stop,'' said Spahn, adding that he believed if a solution was found to the ''migration problems'', he was ''very certain that radical parties will lose their popularity''.

Legal and humanitarian experts have been vocal in expressing their concerns about the third-country strategy. Germany's Council of Experts on Integration and Migration issues has repeatedly called on advocates of the strategy to explain how it is possible to ensure that procedures are implemented in compliance with European asylum and human rights standards. No country has so far managed to implement the practice.

Irene Mihalic, of the Greens, accused Spahn of pandering to rightwing voters. ''Thankfully we find ourselves in a constitutional state and need legally viable solutions in order to deal with the large numbers of people seeking protection, not populism that violates human rights,'' said Mihilac, who recently lambasted Spahn's calls for ''physical violence'' to be used on the EU's outer borders against ''irregular migration''.

The CDU's position is viewed as the party's attempt to break away from the era of Angela Merkel, under whose leadership Germany registered about a million refugees in 2015.

Her slogan ''Wir schaffen das'' (''we'll manage'') now seems to stand in stark contrast to the CDU's current position.

Merkel's successor as chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has stressed the importance of reducing the record numbers of asylum applications '' which in the first seven months of this year had increased by 80% compared with last year '' by introducing caps on benefits, speedier processing of claims and tighter restrictions on the number accepted and their countries of origin.

Scholz has also toyed with the option of a third-country plan, despite widespread misgivings within his own party, but has not mentioned Rwanda explicitly, only showing himself to be open to discussion about its practical and legal feasibility. ''There is a whole range of legal questions,'' he said recently.

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:44

Russia and Ukraine launched drones on each other's territory for the second day running. The Russian Defence Ministry said 35 Ukraine drones were shot down overnight in three regions in south-western Russia. A Russian airbase hosting bomber aircraft used in Ukraine was among the targets, according to a Russian Telegram channel critical of the Kremlin.

Russian troops launched 20 Shahed drones in southern and western Ukraine, as well as one X-59 cruise missile from the country's occupied south. Ukraine's air force said it shot down the Iranian-made drones. A civilian was also killed overnight near Odesa, a key port on Ukraine's southern Black Sea coast, after the remnants of a destroyed drone fell on his house, Ukraine's military said.

Russian president, Vladimir Putin, vowed to make Russia a ''sovereign, self-sufficient'' power. In a campaign speech he accused the west of unsuccessfully trying to ''sow internal troubles'' in Russia.

Putin also warned of ''problems'' with neighbouring Finland after it joined Nato earlier this year. Russia plans to reorganise military divisions to station more troops in its north-west region, by the EU and Nato border.

But Putin dismissed claims from the US president, Joe Biden, that Russia could attack a Nato country as ''nonsense''. It came after Biden said Russia would not stop at Ukraine if it secures victory, as he pleaded with Republican lawmakers to authorise further aid to Kyiv.

The Freedom of Russia Legion, a Ukrainian-based paramilitary group of Russians who oppose Putin, claimed responsibility on Sunday for a cross-border attack a few kilometres into Russia's Belgorod region. The group said it had destroyed a platoon stronghold of Russian troops near Terebreno village. The Guardian could not verify their claims. Earlier on Sunday, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod region, which experiences frequent attacks by Ukrainian forces, said Terebreno was under fire from Ukraine's Armed Forces and that a ''shooting battle'' was under way on the village edge.

A 69-year-old was reported killed in a Ukrainian border village in the northern Sumy region, about 25 kilometers west of Terebreno. According to the Ukrainian regional prosecutor's office, the woman died after a Russian shell flew into her home. It wasn't immediately clear whether her death was linked to the reported clashes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine will ''officially launch'' an assessment with the European Commission. The country will begin assessing Ukrainian legislation for compliance with EU legislation, Zelenskiy said in his nightly address on Sunday. EU accession talks are expected in the spring.

Ukraine foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has won ''sincere and well-deserved admiration'' among Ukrainians for his role in the EU's recent decision to open membership talks for Kyiv, Ukraine.

Ukraine security services reported a bug found in one of the offices of the country's army command. The bug was not found in the direct office of Ukraine army chief, Valery Zaluzhvy, but a premises which could be used by the army official, according to a statement.

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:43

The social media platform X, formerly Twitter, is being investigated for allegedly breaking EU law on disinformation, illegal content and transparency, the European Commission has announced.

The decision to launch formal infringement proceedings against the company, owned by the US billionaire Elon Musk, comes weeks after X was asked to provide evidence of compliance with new laws designed to eliminate hate speech, racism and fake news from platforms in the EU.

Under the Digital Services Act, which came into force in August, a company can be fined 6% of its global income or be banned from operating across the EU if it is found to have breached the law.

Thierry Breton, the EU commissioner in charge of enforcing the DSA, confirmed the investigation in a post on Musk's platform.

''Today we open formal infringement proceedings against @X,'' he wrote, saying the move was on the grounds of ''suspected breach of obligations to counter illegal content and disinformation; suspected breach of transparency obligations and suspected deceptive design of user interface''.

The investigation into ''deceptive design'' concerns the use of ''blue check'' marks, which are now only available to those who pay. Before Musk, blue ticks were given by Twitter to verified users in the public eye, including ministers and celebrities.

In June, following a meeting with Breton in California, Musk insisted he would comply with the law. But critics of Musk's platform have condemned the alleged presence of fake news and hate speech on X, particularly since Hamas's attack on Israel on 7 October and Israel's subsequent bombardment of Gaza.

On 10 October, the EU sent a formal letter to X over ''indications'' that the platform was ''being used to disseminate illegal content and disinformation in the EU'' in the wake of Hamas's attack on Israel.

In response, Linda Yaccarino, the chief executive of X, wrote to Breton, saying the company was ''actively working to address the operational needs of this fast-moving and evolving conflict''.

''X is committed to serving the public conversation, especially in critical moments like this, and understands the importance of addressing any illegal content that may be disseminated through the platform. There is no place on X for terrorist organisations or violent extremist groups and we continue to remove such accounts in real time, including proactive efforts,'' she said.

In a statement, the European Commission said it had taken the decision to launch proceedings against X on the basis of its ''preliminary investigation'', which allegedly concerned the ''dissemination of illegal content in the context of Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel''.

''We have a suspicion that that these mitigations are collectively not effective,'' said an official. They added there had been a number of bilateral exchanges with Breton, Musk and Yaccarino and Monday's measures ''may not be totally surprising''.

The EU will investigate whether search on X boosts blue tick accounts and spreads content that users might mistake as from verified sources in the pre-Musk service.

It is also concerned that X has not invested enough in compliance in European languages, amid reports it has only one content moderator in the Netherlands.

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Officials say they are looking at issuing new guidance to all social platforms before next year's EU parliamentary elections.

The EU said there was no timeline on the proceedings and the investigation would take as long as it takes but it could apply unspecified'' interim measures before the investigation concluded if appropriate.

Asked what would happen if X withdrew services from the EU, officials insisted the legal action would still apply.

The European Commission said proceedings would focus on the functioning of the notice and action mechanism for illegal content, which involves legal orders from police or other authorities in the EU to take down content within one hour.

It will also look at the effectiveness of X's ''community notes'', which allow the public to comment on the veracity or legality of posts.

Earlier this year, Facebook, TikTok and the tech companies Google and Microsoft signed up to a code of conduct laid out by the EU to prepare for the new laws in the DSA.

However, in May Twitter quit the code of conduct, prompting a warning by Breton that ''you can run but you can't hide''.

''Beyond voluntary commitments, fighting disinformation will be legal obligation under DSA as of 25 August. Our teams will be ready for enforcement,'' he said.

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:39

M y GP and I have a friendly relationship. Once, during a telephone appointment, he asked me if I was a smoker. ''No,'' I replied, playfully. ''But maybe next year will be more eventful.'' That's because I am of the social smoking variety '' that cheeky, sneaky (and possibly most annoying) breed. We are the beggars at the barbecue, eyeing up your rolling papers and asking for a small one. The scrounger at the Christmas party, suggesting a twos.

You will know us by our ancient packet of Greek cigarettes found in a kitchen drawer '' so old they no longer light '' or our giveaways as we exit a wedding: ''Want the rest of these fags? Take them, I'm not going to smoke them.'' I can '' and have '' gone years without smoking, only to periodically step back into the smoking area and exclaim: ''Wow, it's so much emptier!''

Which, of course, is only a good thing: with tobacco control measures and public health action, smoking has been on a steady decline for decades. Until now. Last week, a new report found that in England the steady decline h as stalled, with the pandemic years (2020-2022) grinding it to a near halt. In the years before the pandemic, smoking was in decline by roughly 5% each year. During the pandemic, that number was just 0.3%.

So what happened? It's not that people weren't quitting. Overall, there was a 40% rise in people trying to quit, and a 120% rise in the proportion of people giving up. But these numbers were offset ''by a rise in people taking up smoking or an increase in late relapse'', said the report's lead author, Dr Sarah Jackson. Those people were, firstly, the middle classes, who were not giving up smoking to the same degree. And, secondly, young people, who despite decades of awareness on smoking harms, were picking up cigarettes in larger numbers. It's too early to say whether the smoking decline returned to usual levels this year.

Why the resurgence among young people? Part of the government's plan to make England smoke-free by 2030 involved promoting vapes as a smoking-cessation tool, but recent headlines about a possible ban on single-use vapes '' especially the fruity flavoured ones marketed at young people '' may have backfired. Whether they are healthy enough to be used as an aid for smoking cessation remains controversial, particularly in light of a recent Times investigation, which found: ''Tobacco firms have bankrolled scientific papers playing down the risks of children vaping as part of a secretive lobbying campaign to boost e-cigarette sales.''

Meanwhile, the middle classes stuck to their smoking habits during the pandemic. The report suggested this demographic was more likely to be working from home '' in clerical, managerial or professional roles '' and was perhaps not as spurred on to quit as working-class smokers, who were a) more likely to have faced job insecurity and therefore needed to cut back on the cost of cigarettes, and b) more likely to work in public-facing sectors with higher exposure to Covid (therefore ''making quitting a higher priority for health reasons'', the report says).

But what do I, a middle-aged manager and a first-year uni student, have in common when it comes to our smoking behaviours? It's a question I think matters, and is too rarely mentioned in our national conversation about drugs (legal or illegal) '' not just why we shouldn't, why it's bad for us and for others, but also why we do, what social function it serves, and what our society is failing to provide that is fulfilled by these unhealthy and dangerous options.

I have a theory. Many of us social smokers know it's not just the nicotine that has a calming effect, but the activities around it '' shared experience and the thrill of connection. And it is lack of people, lack of shared connection, I'd wager, that drives these other smoking behaviours too.

Young people disconnected from friends turn to the cigarette for comfort, while the home worker '' isolated from colleagues to decompress with '' sticks with smoking to relieve stress. Is it any wonder? Britain is in the grip of a loneliness ''epidemic''. Fittingly, another bit of drug-centric research this month has found magic mushroom use has increased, amid a boom in research into how the fungi can help tackle anxiety and depression, and into a context where mental health help from the NHS is impossible for most to access?

So here's my, ahem, back-of-a-fag-packet plan. This festive party season, I'm going to give social non-smoking a try. I'll talk to a stranger without asking for a lighter. I'll steal a quiet, intimate moment with a colleague, asking how it's really going, without the excuse of a cigarette. I'll find some other vice to hide from my mother. I even have the ''stop social smoking'' motto ready to go: ''Spark a conversation instead of a cigarette.'' If you're listening, Rishi, it's all yours.

Coco Khan is a commissioning editor for the Guardian and a writer. She is co-host of the politics podcast, Pod Save the UK

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:16

A Warning From the World Bank Mexico's Avocado Problem Disruption in the Panama Canal Oil Companies Double Down U.S. World Business Arts Lifestyle Opinion Audio Games Cooking Wirecutter The Athletic A Warning From the World Bank Mexico's Avocado Problem Disruption in the Panama Canal Oil Companies Double Down Economists offer alternatives to financial safeguards created when the U.S. was the pre-eminent superpower and climate change wasn't on the agenda.

Political posters in Argentina, speaking to voter worries about high inflation. Credit... Anita Pouchard Serra for The New York Times By Patricia Cohen

Reporting from London and Marrakesh, Morocco, and Accra, Ghana

Martin Guzman was a college freshman at La Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina, in 2001 when a debt crisis prompted default, riots and a devastating depression. A dazed middle class suffered ruin, as the International Monetary Fund insisted that the government make misery-inducing budget cuts in exchange for a bailout.

Watching Argentina unravel inspired Mr. Guzman to switch majors and study economics. Nearly two decades later, when the government was again bankrupt, it was Mr. Guzman as finance minister who negotiated with I.M.F. officials to restructure a $44 billion debt, the result of an earlier ill-conceived bailout.

Today he is one of a number of prominent economists and world leaders who argue that the ambitious framework created at the end of World War II to safeguard economic growth and stability, with the I.M.F. and World Bank as its pillars, is failing in its mission.

Image Martin Guzman, a former finance minister in Argentina, is among the economists and world leaders who argue that the framework created at the end of World War II to safeguard economic growth and stability is not working. Credit... Nathalia Angarita for The New York Times Image Javier Milei, the newly elected president of Argentina, at an election event in Salta, Argentina, in October. He has described himself as an ''anarcho-capitalist.'' Credit... Sarah Pabst for The New York Times The current system ''contributes to a more inequitable and unstable global economy,'' said Mr. Guzman, who resigned last year after a rift within the government.

The repayment that Mr. Guzman negotiated was the 22nd arrangement between Argentina and the I.M.F. Even so, the country's economic tailspin has only increased with an annual inflation rate of more than 140 percent, growing lines at soup kitchens and a new, self-proclaimed ''anarcho-capitalist'' president, Javier Milei, who this week devalued the currency by 50 percent.

The I.M.F. and World Bank have aroused complaints from the left and right ever since they were created. But the latest critiques pose a more profound question: Does the economic framework devised eight decades ago fit the economy that exists today, when new geopolitical conflicts collide with established economic relationships and climate change poses an imminent threat?

Image Volunteers serving free meals in Buenos Aires. Argentina's economy is in a tailspin, with growing lines at soup kitchens. Credit... Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press Image Protests in Buenos Aires in 2001. A debt crisis in Argentina led to default, riots and a devastating depression. Credit... Fabian Gredillas/Agence France-Presse '-- Getty Images This 21st-century clash of ideas about how to fix a system created for a 20th-century world is one of the most consequential facing the global economy.

The I.M.F. was set up in 1944 at a conference in Bretton Woods, N.H., to help rescue countries in financial distress, while the World Bank's focus was reducing poverty and investing in social development. The United States was the pre-eminent economic superpower, and scores of developing nations in Africa and Asia had not yet gained independence. The foundational ideology '-- later known as the ''Washington Consensus'' '-- held that prosperity depended on unhindered trade, deregulation and the primacy of private investment.

''Nearly 80 years later, the global financial architecture is outdated, dysfunctional and unjust,'' Ant"nio Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, said this summer at a summit in Paris. ''Even the most fundamental goals on hunger and poverty have gone into reverse after decades of progress.''

The world today is geopolitically fragmented. More than three-quarters of the current I.M.F. and World Bank countries were not at Bretton Woods. China's economy, in ruins at the end of World War II, is now the world's second-largest, an engine of global growth and a crucial hub in the world's industrial machine and supply chain. India, then still a British colony, is one of the top five economies in the world.

Image A session of the United Nations Monetary Conference in Bretton Woods, N.H., on July 4, 1944. Delegates from 44 countries are seated at the long tables. Credit... Abe Fox/Associated Press, via Associated Press Image Ant"nio Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, said this summer that ''the global financial architecture is outdated, dysfunctional, and unjust.'' Credit... Martin Divisek/EPA, via Shutterstock The once vaunted ''Washington Consensus'' has fallen into disrepute, with a greater recognition of how inequality and bias against women hamper growth, as well as the need for collective action on the climate.

The mismatch between institution and mission has sharpened in recent years. Pounded by the Covid-19 pandemic, spiking food and energy prices related to the war in Ukraine, and higher interest rates, low- and middle-income countries are swimming in debt and facing slow growth. The size of the global economy as well as the scope of the problems have grown immensely, but funding of the I.M.F. and World Bank has not kept pace.

Resolving debt crises is also vastly more complicated now that China and legions of private creditors are involved, instead of just a handful of Western banks.

The World's Bank's own analyses outline the extent of the economic problems. ''For the poorest countries, debt has become a nearly paralyzing burden,'' a report released Wednesday concluded. Countries are forced to spend money on interest payments instead of investing in public health, education and the environment.

Image An assembly line at the electric vehicle manufacturer Nio in Hefei, China. China's economy was in ruins at the end of World War II but is now the world's second largest and an engine of global growth. Credit... Qilai Shen for The New York Times Image Gita Gopinath, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said of the current financial system, ''We have countries strategically competing with amorphous rules and without an effective referee.'' Credit... Jalal Morchidi/EPA, via Shutterstock And that debt doesn't account for the trillions of dollars that developing countries will need to mitigate the ravages of climate change.

Then there are the tensions between the United States and China, and Russia and Europe and its allies. It is harder to resolve debt crises or finance major infrastructure without bumping up against security concerns '-- like when the World Bank awarded the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei a contract that turned out to violate U.S. sanctions policy, or when China has resisted debt restructuring agreements.

''The global rules-based system was not built to resolve national security-based trade conflicts,'' Gita Gopinath, first deputy managing director of the I.M.F., said Monday in a speech to the International Economic Association in Colombia. ''We have countries strategically competing with amorphous rules and without an effective referee.''

The World Bank and I.M.F. have made changes. The fund has moderated its approach to bailouts, replacing austerity with the idea of sustainable debt. The bank this year significantly increased the share of money going to climate-related projects. But critics maintain that the fixes so far are insufficient.

''The way in which they have evolved and adapted is much slower than the way the global economy evolved and adapted,'' Mr. Guzman said.

Image Argentina's new president devalued the currency by 50 percent this week. Credit... Sarah Pabst for The New York Times Image A vegetables shop in Almagro in Buenos Aires. Argentina's economy is South America's second largest. Credit... Anita Pouchard Serra for The New York Times 'Time to Revisit Bretton Woods'Argentina, South America's second-largest economy, may be the global economic system's most notorious repeat failure, but it was Barbados, a tiny island nation in the Caribbean, that can be credited with turbocharging momentum for change.

Mia Mottley, the prime minister, spoke out two years ago at the climate change summit in Glasgow and then followed up with the Bridgetown Initiative, a proposal to overhaul the way rich countries help poor countries adapt to climate change and avoid crippling debt.

''Yes, it is time for us to revisit Bretton Woods,'' she said in a speech at last year's climate summit in Egypt.

Ms. Mottley argues that there has been a ''fundamental breakdown'' in a longstanding covenant between poor countries and rich ones, many of which built their wealth by exploiting former colonies. The most advanced industrialized countries also produce most of the emissions that are heating the planet and causing extreme floods, wildfires and droughts in poor countries.

Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi, the executive vice president of the African Center for Economic Transformation, in Ghana, said that even recent agreements to deal with debt like the 2020 Common Framework were created without input from developing nations.

''We are calling for a voice and seat at the table,'' Ms. Owusu-Gyamfi said, from her office in Accra, as she discussed a $3 billion I.M.F. bailout of Ghana.

Yet if the fund and bank are focused on economic issues, they are essentially political creations that reflect the power of the countries that established, finance and manage them.

And those countries are reluctant to cede that power. The United States, the only member with veto power, has the largest share of votes in part because of the size of its economy and financial contributions. It does not want to see its influence shrink and others' '-- particularly China's '-- grow.

The impasse over reapportioning votes has hampered efforts to increase funding levels, which countries across the board agree need to be increased.

Image A vegetable market in Accra, Ghana. ''We are calling for a voice and seat at the table,'' said Mavis Owusu-Gyamfi, the executive vice president of the African Center for Economic Transformation in Ghana. Credit... Natalija Gormalova for The New York Times Image Customers at lunch in Buenos Aires. Mr. Guzman and others pushing for change argue that indebted countries need more grants and low-interest loans with long repayment timelines. Credit... Sarah Pabst for The New York Times 'Big Hole' in How to Deal With DebtStill, as Mr. Guzman said, ''even if there are no changes in governance, there could be changes in policies.''

Emerging nations need enormous amounts of money to invest in public health, education, transport and climate resilience. But they are saddled with high borrowing costs because of the market's often exaggerated perception of the risk they pose as borrowers.

And because they are usually compelled to borrow in dollars or euros, their payments soar if the Federal Reserve and other central banks raise interest rates to combat inflation as they did in the 1980s and after the Covid pandemic.

The proliferation of private lenders and variety of loan agreements have made debt negotiations impossibly complex, yet no international legal arbiter exists.

Zambia defaulted on its external debt three years ago, and there is still no agreement because the I.M.F., China and bondholders are at odds.

There's a ''big hole'' in international governance when it comes to sovereign debt, said Paola Subacchi, an economist at the Global Policy Institute at Queen Mary University in London, because the rules don't apply to private loans, whether from a hedge fund or China's central bank. Often these creditors have an interest in drawing out the process to hold out for a better deal.

Mr. Guzman and other economists have called for an international legal arbiter to adjudicate disputes related to sovereign debt.

''Every country has adopted a bankruptcy law,'' said Joseph Stiglitz, a former chief economist at the World Bank, ''but internationally we don't have one.''

The United States, though, has repeatedly opposed the idea, saying it is unnecessary.

Rescues, too, have proved to be problematic. Last-resort loans from the I.M.F. can end up adding to a country's budgetary woes and undermining the economic recovery because interest rates are so high now, and borrowers must also pay hefty fees.

Those like Mr. Guzman and Ms. Mottley pushing for change argue that indebted countries need significantly more grants and low-interest loans with long repayment timelines, along with a slate of other reforms.

''The challenges are different today,'' said Mr. Guzman. ''Policies need to be better aligned with the mission.''

Image Mia Mottley, the prime minister of Barbados, offered a proposal this year to overhaul the way rich countries help poor countries adapt to climate change and avoid crippling debt. Credit... Sean Gallup/Getty Images Image Flash flooding in Bangladesh last year. The global economic framework was devised long before climate change posed an imminent threat to poor nations. Credit... Mushfiqul Alam/NurPhoto A correction was made onDec. 16, 2023

:

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of an economist at the Global Policy Institute at Queen Mary University in London. She is Paola Subacchi, not Subacci.

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Mon, 18 Dec 2023 15:07

Imagine this. You need an image of a balloon for a work presentation and turn to a text-to-image generator, like Midjourney or DALL-E, to create a suitable image.

You enter the prompt: ''red balloon against a blue sky'' but the generator returns an image of an egg instead. You try again but this time, the generator shows an image of a watermelon.

What's going on?

The generator you're using may have been ''poisoned''.

What is 'data poisoning'?Text-to-image generators work by being trained on large datasets that include millions or billions of images. Some generators, like those offered by Adobe or Getty, are only trained with images the generator's maker owns or has a licence to use.

But other generators have been trained by indiscriminately scraping online images, many of which may be under copyright. This has led to a slew of copyright infringement cases where artists have accused big tech companies of stealing and profiting from their work.

This is also where the idea of ''poison'' comes in. Researchers who want to empower individual artists have recently created a tool named ''Nightshade'' to fight back against unauthorised image scraping.

The tool works by subtly altering an image's pixels in a way that wreaks havoc to computer vision but leaves the image unaltered to a human's eyes.

If an organisation then scrapes one of these images to train a future AI model, its data pool becomes ''poisoned''. This can result in the algorithm mistakenly learning to classify an image as something a human would visually know to be untrue. As a result, the generator can start returning unpredictable and unintended results.

Symptoms of poisoningAs in our earlier example, a balloon might become an egg. A request for an image in the style of Monet might instead return an image in the style of Picasso.

Some of the issues with earlier AI models, such as trouble accurately rendering hands, for example, could return. The models could also introduce other odd and illogical features to images '' think six-legged dogs or deformed couches.

The higher the number of ''poisoned'' images in the training data, the greater the disruption. Because of how generative AI works, the damage from ''poisoned'' images also affects related prompt keywords.

Read more: Do AI systems really have their own secret language?

For example, if a ''poisoned'' image of a Ferrari is used in training data, prompt results for other car brands and for other related terms, such as vehicle and automobile, can also be affected.

Nightshade's developer hopes the tool will make big tech companies more respectful of copyright, but it's also possible users could abuse the tool and intentionally upload ''poisoned'' images to generators to try and disrupt their services.

Is there an antidote?In response, stakeholders have proposed a range of technological and human solutions. The most obvious is paying greater attention to where input data are coming from and how they can be used. Doing so would result in less indiscriminate data harvesting.

This approach does challenge a common belief among computer scientists: that data found online can be used for any purpose they see fit.

Other technological fixes also include the use of ''ensemble modeling'' where different models are trained on many different subsets of data and compared to locate specific outliers. This approach can be used not only for training but also to detect and discard suspected ''poisoned'' images.

Audits are another option. One audit approach involves developing a ''test battery'' '' a small, highly curated, and well-labelled dataset '' using ''hold-out'' data that are never used for training. This dataset can then be used to examine the model's accuracy.

Strategies against technologySo-called ''adversarial approaches'' (those that degrade, deny, deceive, or manipulate AI systems), including data poisoning, are nothing new. They have also historically included using make-up and costumes to circumvent facial recognition systems.

Human rights activists, for example, have been concerned for some time about the indiscriminate use of machine vision in wider society. This concern is particularly acute concerning facial recognition.

Systems like Clearview AI, which hosts a massive searchable database of faces scraped from the internet, are used by law enforcement and government agencies worldwide. In 2021, Australia's government determined Clearview AI breached the privacy of Australians.

Read more: Australian police are using the Clearview AI facial recognition system with no accountability

In response to facial recognition systems being used to profile specific individuals, including legitimate protesters, artists devised adversarial make-up patterns of jagged lines and asymmetric curves that prevent surveillance systems from accurately identifying them.

There is a clear connection between these cases and the issue of data poisoning, as both relate to larger questions around technological governance.

Many technology vendors will consider data poisoning a pesky issue to be fixed with technological solutions. However, it may be better to see data poisoning as an innovative solution to an intrusion on the fundamental moral rights of artists and users.

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Thu, 21 Dec 2023 15:39

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If you're wondering what the future of fast food is, a Pasadena-based company says it's robots, and its installed several of them in a soon-to-open restaurant in Pasadena's Old Town.

KABC

PASADENA, Calif. (KABC) -- If you're wondering what the future of fast food is, a Pasadena-based company says it's robots, and its installed several of them in a soon-to-open restaurant in Pasadena's Old Town.

"It's not a Terminator, it's not Transformers. It's a very friendly, helpful robot," said Alana Abbitt, Vice President of Product Development at Miso Robotics, a restaurant automation company. "There's nice robotics, there's Roombas, there's things in your house that have become much more a part of daily life. That's what we're trying to do."

The CaliExpress restaurant is slated to open to the public before the end of the year at 561 East Green Street. The eatery features a hamburger-making robot, a French fry-making robot and uses artificial intelligence to keep the business churning along.

"To our knowledge, this is the world's first operating restaurant where both ordering and every single cooking process are fully automated," said John Miller, CEO of PopID and board member of Miso Robotics. "The marriage of these various technologies to create the most autonomous restaurant in the world is the culmination of years of research, development, and investment in a family of revolutionary companies."

The restaurant though will still feature human employees.

"There are still humans who will pack the food," Abbitt said. "We do want somebody to assemble, package (the food) and actually be the friendly face to the customer.

Copyright (C) 2023 KABC Television, LLC. All rights reserved.

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We believe the next major advancement in AI will come from systems that understand the visual world and its dynamics, which is why we're starting a new long-term research effort around what we call general world models.

Introducing General World Models (GWM)

A world model is an AI system that builds an internal representation of an environment, and uses it to simulate future events within that environment. Research in world models has so far been focused on very limited and controlled settings, either in toy simulated worlds (like those of video games) or narrow contexts (such as developing world models for driving). The aim of general world models will be to represent and simulate a wide range of situations and interactions, like those encountered in the real world.

You can think of video generative systems such as Gen-2 as very early and limited forms of general world models. In order for Gen-2 to generate realistic short videos, it has developed some understanding of physics and motion. However, it's still very limited in its capabilities, struggling with complex camera or object motions, among other things.

To build general world models, there are several open research challenges that we're working on. For one, those models will need to generate consistent maps of the environment, and the ability to navigate and interact in those environments. They need to capture not just the dynamics of the world, but the dynamics of its inhabitants, which involves also building realistic models of human behavior.

We are building a team to tackle those challenges. If you're interested in joining this research effort, we'd love to hear from you.

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Tue, 19 Dec 2023 20:56

That task force would compile recommendations and present them to the Washington State Attorney General's Office, the state legislature and the governor in 2025.

SEATTLE '-- There is a new, bipartisan effort by Washington lawmakers to study the potential impacts, good and bad, of artificial intelligence.

Amazon and Microsoft are just two of the many large tech companies investing heavily in AI '' technology applied to help computers appear as if they are making decisions like humans. ''What does it mean for racial profiling? What does it mean for who's making the decision for whether or not your kid gets into a certain college? The list goes on and making those hard choices and thinking about those issues now is going to be important for this task force,'' said Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson.

Ferguson introduced new legislation, Senate Bill 5838 and House Bill 1934, that, if passed, would establish the first artificial intelligence task force. This group would study the benefits and risks and propose potential changes to the governor's office and legislature.

''People's concerns are well founded. But I think our job as a society, our job as leaders, is to prepare for any new technology,'' Ferguson continued.

That task force would compile recommendations and present them to the AG's office, the state legislature and the governor in 2025. Any regulations or new laws would need to be introduced and voted on by lawmakers. A move to study the emerging tech has bipartisan support. The bill's partners include republican lawmaker Travis Couture.

''We didn't just let automobiles drive around. We paved roads, we painted stop signs and put up speed limits. I think by having a small and responsible step of creating a task force filled with experts to look at how we dust off state law to make sure that this works for everybody,'' Couture said.

While they hope to study the implications of the new tech '' It is widely accepted that there is now slowing down the development.

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Episode Summary Sir TJ is joined by his wife and children for an episode full of chaos and exciting news! Psalms 127:3-5 Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him. Children born to a young man are like arrows in a warrior's hands. How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them! He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates. https://www.doerfelverse.com/

... Show More

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At this point, one has to think that the Democrats don't want to fix the border and that they want people to flood across without any real check. They don't seem to care about resolving the problem.

But they seem to have some real doozies that are now coming out of the battle over funding security at the border.

First, there's Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX). She's an up-and-comer in the effort to make the "worst" lists. She's got a ways to go though to reach the level of folks like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), but she's a real star at the horrible and ill-informed comment:

Democrat Rep. Jasmine Crockett claims Republicans' demands for border security are "absolutely insane" pic.twitter.com/8CBe4b2JM7

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 17, 2023Republicans have never gotten immigration right, that's just the fact of it, Crockett claimed. No, it was far more secure under former President Donald Trump. It's Joe Biden who made it worse with his policies; he has a far worse record on immigration. So what is she really saying without realizing that she's saying it: She's bashing Biden. She seems to think dealing with border security is an "absolutely insane" prospect. Then she falsely accused Texas Gov. Greg Abbott of wanting to kill people and the Republicans of defunding border security.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) did something similar when she said that if Biden went along with Republicans on border security, he would get a backlash from the left.

CNN: How much backlash would Biden get from the left if he agreed to border security?Democrat Rep. Pramila Jayapal: "There's gonna be A LOT" pic.twitter.com/cIOX3plXMj

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 17, 2023So the left doesn't want border security. Does she understand what she just admitted?

But she did say one thing that's true, Joe Biden needs that coalition and he doesn't have it. As we've seen, Biden is bleeding out people he needs from those groups.

Then there was Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI), who is likely to have people from both sides of the aisle blasting her for her take.

"What is your response when he says the border is broken under President Biden?"Democrat Rep. Debbie Dingell: "We don't want illegals" pic.twitter.com/aBwt5PhRFl

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 17, 2023We need to let in people for small businesses and for caregiving, she rants. Then she proclaimed in almost the same breath, "We don't want illegals!" She hasn't gotten her leftist talking point straight and needs to go to "woke school" for reeducation on that one. Didn't she learn "no one is illegal?"

But now we're getting into the top two for the day, one from a newcomer and the other from a Democrat with a history of ridiculous comments.

Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) is in her first term and she terms herself a progressive, so you know that she has the capability to make some fun comments. She claims House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) "doesn't have seriousness of purpose."

Democrat Rep. Becca Balint says Speaker Johnson is "essentially doing Putin's bidding" by demanding the border be secured pic.twitter.com/Th1HGnWkQZ

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 17, 2023"When you pull out 40,000 feet, you see someone who is essentially doing Putin's bidding."

Oh my, not "Russia, Russia, Russia" again. How is securing our border doing Putin's bidding? That's what Johnson is calling for -- for Democrats to actually have some seriousness of purpose for their real job -- securing our own border. Our defense is their constitutional obligation, not Ukraine's.

That was pretty bad. But I think I have to give the award today to Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX). And it's worse because he's from Texas and should know the problem, but he truly doesn't give a darn. Castro won a prior "silliest take of the day" for his rant about "chainsaw devices" being deployed at the border. Hint: that wasn't even close to being true.

Democrat Rep. Joaquin Castro says passing border security measures would be "surrendering to right-wing racism" pic.twitter.com/M1jqdhZWtq

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 17, 2023Castro warned the Democrats in the Senate who were considering supporting the Republican proposal for the border, "You will be surrendering to right-wing racism. And more than that, you will be enabling it." Wow, so securing the border is now racist. Along with everything else. If you don't go along with unfettered illegal immigration, you're a racist. The problem here isn't just incompetence, it's a conscious choice to ignore their constitutional obligation. Castro doesn't seem to care about "surrendering" the border.

Biden has a border czar, but here's what she was doing on Saturday rather than addressing any of the problems with the border.

"Border czar" Kamala Harris has time for this, but not the southern border? 10K+ illegal immigrants crossed every single day this week and that doesn't even include the "gotaways." Her last trip there was 904 days ago. pic.twitter.com/W7dCxKVC6b

'-- RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 17, 2023